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It might be unexpected, but Loki did value his sleep— seeing as he always seemed to get so little of it. So for him to willingly wake up at four am was an oddity in itself even if you cast aside the fact there was pin drop silence in his assigned room of Avengers Tower.
He turns on his side, and stares at weird contraption Stark informed him was a ‘digital’ clock. Ridiculous, Loki grumbles in his mind— mostly narked because of how early it was— the things mortals would do to unburden themselves.
The neon 3:04 am glare into his eyes and he covers it with a glittering handkerchief. It was useless trying to go to sleep again, Loki decided, his mind would never shut up until he figured out what eldritch horror was quiet enough to disturb his brainwaves. He slips out of the covers and stretches his stiff arms above his head with a jaw-cracking yawn.
A green tunic drapes down his shoulders as soon as he snaps his fingers, and with a flourish of green, a jerkin sweeps in from the wardrobe and its strings intertwine into each other around him. Loki’s feet— now clad in leather— take him to the door and he opens it, looking out into the deserted— or what he believed to be— hallways.
Then he hears it.
A faint tapping against.. the walls? No, it was footsteps.
They were too quiet for Stark’s whose feet could wake up the dead and the dying, and too measured for Rogers who walked just as carefully as he breathed. If it had been Romanoff, Loki wouldn’t have heard them, and Barton wouldn’t dare to pass by his room this late at night.
Loki’s two fingers press against the mahogany as he tilts his head further out the door. A ghost of something passes by his face— not quite a smirk, not yet. That was for when he caught the intruder.
With that in mind, the trickster closed the door behind himself with as much subtlety as he could manage this late at night. Steel-blue shadows passed over his form as he walked towards the sound, and green fabric brushed against his boots. Loki stills like a cat ready to pounce, because right in front of him— standing facing the glass walls overlooking the city skyline— was a shadow too short to be his brother, and too tall to be Stark.
”If you’re going to haunt these halls, I suggest you do so with more subtlety.” Loki calls, but the man barely flinches. Taking this as a cue that he wouldn’t have to fight just yet, Loki struts closer until the grey streaks painting the man’s temple were visible and Stephen Strange cold grey eyes were glinting in their reflection.
“Whoever do I owe the misfortune, Second-rate?” Loki asks with a frown. Pity, the mage thought, he was actually looking forward to having the chance of killing someone without supervision.
“Nothing but your own luck, Odinson.” Strange answers back without looking. He sounded tired which was completely stupid as he was the one waking everyone— read: Loki— this late at night. The trickster really wanted to go back to his room now, but as gracious as he was with his time, the mage asks:
“Do you realise it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning?”
“I do.” Strange’s eyes fix on a far away tower illuminated still by lights, but anyone looking close enough would see that he was observing Loki’s image next to his own.
Coward, Loki muses as he crosses his arms behind his back and waits for further elaboration.
A minute passes in silence only broken by the clock ticking somewhere in the background. A minute too long, in Loki’s humble opinion. He exhales slowly to make it known to his mind that any further pondering would lead to naught, and Stephen Strange would stand silently tonight. The mage turns around to head back, and one, two, three—
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Works every time.
”And you came here?” Loki questions, leaning close to Strange’s personal space purely to try and annoy him into talking. “Did Wong finally tire of your pacing?”
His back was still turned, but his neck was twisted so he could judge Strange from the corner of his eye.
”What do you know about my pacing?” Strange asks, and Loki might’ve imagined it, but there was a smile in his voice.
”Well enough to know it woke me up.” He shoots back, refusing to let that affect him.
“What a tragedy.” Strange sighs, and this time his shoulders slumped with an invisible burden.
Loki was not concerned. His questions were purely based on the objective of easing his curiosity and procuring information which could be useful from Stephen.
”Why can’t you sleep?” Loki says against his own will, and he could almost taste the moment Strange registered the question. At that moment, the mischief maker wanted nothing more than to shave off Stephen’s eyebrows.
“Why do you think I’ll tell you?” Strange turns around to face Loki with a tilted head and crossed arms.
Loki purses his lips, and contemplates storming away. Reaching a decision that was somewhat in favour of himself, he smiles sweetly.
“If you do not wish to tell me, brood quieter.” And with that Loki turns around once more. One, two, three—
“Nightmare.”
Loki stills, and then blinks. The Sorcerer Supreme.. running away from nightmares? And moreover, telling him about it and expecting Loki not to remember every detail of this interaction to torture him in the future?
Now that was interesting.
“About?” He asks. Could the man be afraid of the dark? Midgardians seemed to despise that particular aspect of the night— Loki would know, he’s locked Stark in a cabinet more times than he can count on the fingers of his dead enemies. The billionaire was just too easy to fool when it came to these.. pranks.
“Stuff.” Strange says as if that was elaboration enough. It wasn’t, not even for a therapist, and Loki was the last one you’d ask therapy from.
“I..” Was it embarrassing perhaps? “I won’t tell anyone?”
”Liar.”
Loki nods without hesitation, and the action echoes between them, toeing between honesty and dishonesty. Strange exhales out a laugh— at himself most probably.
”Decisions.” He says, barely audible if it hadn’t been for the silence that was aching to be broken. “What could’ve been changed— should’ve..”
Loki furrows his brow into a frown, and moves closer as if drawn to Strange’s orbit.
“Do you think all your choices are wrong?” He questions. What an oddity. The most powerful being on Midgard, and he wasn’t even content with what he had. It made Loki feel strangely known.
”I don’t make decisions.” Strange counters. “Fate seems to make a joke of me by pretending otherwise.”
”You believe destiny controls us all.” Loki states more than asks. He looks away, this time with a deeper frown. One that travels all the way to his stomach and twists. “How.. boring.”
Strange laughs without a smile. Loki didn’t need to look to see; he knew he did. “Did I not meet your expectations, Odinson?”
“My expectations for you have always been low, Second Rate.” Loki drawls out the sorcerer’s name without a beat missed. “Yet you’ve always managed to disappoint me.”
”Oh? How so?” Strange bends his neck to catch his gaze with a crinkle around his eyes as though he were both confused and amused.
Loki raises an eyebrow, and gives Strange a once-over— ostensibly to adjudicate him. The man was wearing his usual hideous deep-blue tunic, though the cloak was missing. Loki wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or otherwise to his sartorial considerations.
”You opine all of your accomplishments are.. not your own— as if you were some… puppet.”
”It’s called being humble, sweetheart.”
”It’s idiotic.” Loki snaps to dodge the flutter in his chest.
Strange holds his smirk for a moment longer than Loki would’ve liked, but when he sobers up, it’s thorough— thank Norns.
“If I believe everything I’ve done is my fault alone, I’ll have to believe every mistake could’ve been avoided too if I had been.. better.
“You live a pitiful life.” Loki notes, almost smiling when it gets a laugh out of Strange. He was more tired than he initially assumed.
”Sit with me?” Strange asks quietly. The lack of snark in his tone threw Loki off, and silenced him more effectively than any insult ever could in the past. The mage was about to ask to sit where, to his horror, Strange bends down and sits on the floor.
”What?” Strange interrogates, obviously having seen Loki’s face faster than he could hide it.
”Nothing, nothing at all..” Loki cringes, crossing his legs carefully as he descends down next to Strange. He smoothens the front of his jerkins, making sure to kill off every wrinkle where it began. He’d had just enough of sitting on floors.
When the mage finally looks up, it’s Strange’s eyes that welcome him. Trying to understand Stephen Strange was, to Loki, like studying honesty and it was not for the lack of trying. No matter how many times Loki had thought he finally understood how Strange’s mind worked, he’d find a way to throw him off.
“You’re staring.” Loki says finally when he himself is done with staring. He didn’t like how the first thing he noticed apart from the eyes observing was how close their knees were.
“I know.” Strange inhales, and turns his head to look back to the glass. What was that supposed to mean?
Loki rolls his eyes so hard that his head lolls to the side. “And what now? Are you going to stay here all night?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” Strange tilts his head.
“Of course I do. You don’t even know the last time this floor was cleaned.” Loki grumbles, running a finger over the surface and rubbing his thumb over it.
”I’m not forcing you to stay.”
Was he actually mad? Because Loki had the sense to point out hygienical concerns… because he was concerned— mostly. Not really.
”I can stay wherever I wish.” The mage retorts, folding his arms over his lap. “I’m asking where you’re going.”
Loki watches Strange glance over his shoulder to where the trickster assumes the last normal clock was standing. So he was going to leave.
“No idea.”
Loki takes his previous thought back, and nods outwardly. That wasn’t a straight enough answer for him to determine if continuing his line of thought would be worth it, so he takes the time the both of them are using to think to look up at the ceiling.
“Do you think the same for me?” He finds his mouth working out.
“About?” Stephen encourages, completely unfazed.
“That perhaps if the fates had favoured me, I wouldn’t be here?”
”Your current lodgings not up to standards?” Strange huffs.
Loki frowns, but smoothens it by staring at the floor. Of course that’s how the man would answer. That’s how he always answered. Why would Loki care? Why did he care?
”I don’t know,” Strange says at last, poking Loki’s arm— very rudely, the trickster adds— to get his attention. Loki, however, could not find it in himself to push the Sorcerer’s hand away; he actually wanted it to remain in place. “You don’t exactly go by the rules.”
Loki nods in agreement— to what? He couldn’t remember as he stared at Strange’s hand. The sorcerer must’ve assumed Loki was offended by his impulsive move, and he folds his fingers together on his lap.
”Why let it fester in your mind? If you think you do not carry the burden of choice?” Loki asks quietly, still not looking away from the scarred fingers. How easy would it be to wrap his own around them? To feel if those scars ran just as deep as they looked..
”I don’t.. know. It’s like a.. just a thought. Never shuts up.” Strange tries explaining, but from the man’s tone, Loki knew he didn’t understand his mind anymore than Loki did.
“You Midgardians have these.. sleep pills, do you not?” Loki says slowly. He did remember Banner mentioning them once to Tony while Loki was eavesdropping as a mouse. What were their names..?
Strange laughs loud enough to scatter Loki’s thoughts like sand. His voice was choked, like it had been gathering in his throat like mucus and begging to be coughed out. “Is the God of Mischief actually deigning himself low enough to prescribe sleeping pills?”
Loki rolls his eyes. The one time he tries to aid his rival, and this is what he receives in return; petty mocking from a weary man. He then realises he was fighting a smile.
That struggle ends quickly.
”If I am not the one it affects, why should I refrain from handing out poison?”
“Bold,” Strange nods, nudging Loki’s shoulder. He was getting too sure Loki wouldn’t commit bodily harm this late at night. “Very bold, but I’m not taking those pills.”
”Why not?”
Strange shrugs. “I’m— I was a doctor. You don’t just give out those things like candy. My best bet is to sit here until I get bored of your presence.
”Then, my dear doctor, we shall be here for a long time.” Loki quips, his own version of a friendly tease, and he braces himself back on his hands, looking around the room. It must be five already— four if Loki was lucky— yet he didn’t feel the ache of hollows around his eyes. He wondered if Strange felt sluggish; he certainly didn’t look like he did.
”Loki?”
”Mhm?”
“You know you don’t have to stay, right?”
”And miss the chance of seeing you drool on yourself?” Loki tches. “I would not miss that for the world and more.”
He thinks he sees Strange nod like the man wasn’t sure what to do with that information. Loki himself wasn’t sure either, but then the mage hears it, quiet and insufferably so, but there:
”Thank you.”
Loki is thankful to himself that he had enough sense to keep his jaw clenched so it didn’t fall off. He manages a quick nod without meeting Strange’s gaze.
”Do not get accustomed to it.”
His traitorous eyes strayed back to Strange’s hands, and like a foolish moth drawn to flame that would inevitably be its doom, his hand drew closer. The mage hears a sharp exhale from above, and freezes— not like a predator before pouncing, but like a snake hoping if it played dead, it might not face the consequences of its greed to consume.
Strange’s hand turned carefully— palm facing upwards— and he flexes his fingers in silent invitation. Loki’s fingers weave through his like a forbidden incantation— wrong but so right.
Loki was right to some extent about the scars; they were deep, cutting into skin unforgivably. What he didn’t anticipate was the cold, and sure Loki was used to biting temperatures. He was basically made of ice if the mage thinks about it, but from a man whose hands always held one spell after another, Loki expected warmth.
“Are you cold?” He asks, sliding closer on the floor and only half intending to do so. The sky outside had already begun to brighten and illuminate Strange’s tired features.
”A bit.” Strange admits. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Loki hums, tracing the man’s face with his eyes only though he wished he could do so with more. His other hand— previously stationary— covers Strange’s. My fingers were numbing, he lies to himself.
”You should get some rest.” Strange advises, even if he tugs Loki closer.
“Funny.. does that only apply to me?” Loki tilts his head judgementally, letting himself be dragged forward without protest.
”I do remember you calling me a hypocrite. Once,” Stephen’s lips curl upwards. “Twice.”
”And do you still doubt you are one?”
Stephen doesn’t grace that with a response, and for once Loki has never felt so ecstatic at being ignored. The sorcerer’s lips had the warmth his hands lacked, and Loki leeched off of it like a mere mortal after decades of fatal frost. He lets go of Stephen’s hands to twine around the back of his neck, underneath strands of dark unkept hair. The mage lets out an embarrassingly squeaky sound when Stephen’s hands invite him up onto his awaiting lap.
If it were up to Loki, he’d never pull away, but even gods cannot betray air for love. He exhales shakily once they part, but none of them had the strength to leave each other's arms.
“Well that was..” Stephen swallows, an unreadable look on his face. Not unreadable as Loki had seen it before and couldn’t label it, but unreadable as Loki had never, in any of their encounters, seen this face. If he had, he would’ve memorised every inch.
”..different?” He helps.
Stephen hums, tilting his head to nose up at Loki’s jaw. “That works, actually.”
Loki breathes, closing his eyes. “We are sitting on the floor.”
”I know, but I can’t find it in myself to care.” Stephen grins, making a wounded sound when Loki pushes himself off of the man’s lap.
”Hush, you are tired, and being stupid,” The trickster states unapologetically. “And I need my sleep.”
”oh so now you’re leaving me?” Stephen scoffs half-heartedly as he watches Loki get up. “After all that caring?”
”You are fine now, are you not?”
”No, you’re condemning me to more thinking.”
“You kissed me.”
”You were holding my hand!”
Loki snorts, and then catches himself with a sniff of indifference.
“It isn’t my fault you lack social cues so direly that you assumed I’d want to kiss you just because I held your hand.”
Stephen blanches— actually blanches. “You didn’t?”
The mage stays silent as he walks towards the hallway— still brushing non-existent dust off of his clothes— if only to torture the sorcerer a bit more, but takes whatever mercy is left in his rotting bones.
“I have.. wanted to,” he stops and looks back. “for a long while.”
Loki shrugs his shoulders when Stephen only stares with something too bright to be calculating brewing behind his eyes.
”That is your cue, Sorcerer. You are supposed to follow me now.”
And then disappears before Stephen can— and he would— see the demonic creatures fluttering in his stomach to escape.