The Misadventures of Loki and Strange

Chapter 16

The two stood in front of their new doors.

Strange bracing to deal with the Reaper.

Loki bracing to deal with teenagers.

"Are you ready?" Strange asked, resisting an amused smirk that wanted to rise at the thought of Loki's imminent suffering.

"Do I have a choice but to be?"

"I see, answering my question with another question, not defensive at all."

Loki raised an eyebrow then chuckled, "Is that sass I hear coming through?"

"It only comes out when I'm around something of particular annoyance."

Loki snorted a laugh then turned back to the master room door, letting the glittering runes around the doorframe fade away to open the barricade.

"Best of luck," he said, then opened the door to step into the bedroom.

"You may need it more than me," Strange replied, waiting for the last of the runes to fade before placing his hand on the door handle.

Loki wasn't too pleased that his own plan got him stuck in a room with bickering Midgardian adolescences, but it was a better plan than having his ass handed to him by the Reaper because he was too stubborn to admit defeat.

It had taken him a while to accept that he'd have to let someone else deal with them, but even his arrogance wouldn't blind him to the fact that he was getting nowhere fast.

They had already been bickering between themselves as he stood outside the door, which had acted as a pleasant barricade to the noise, noise that he was now being confronted with full force as his wonderful wooden protector was now gone.

"I can't believe you'd be so selfish!" The girl yelled, her face red with tears pricking at her eyes.

"For once! You always get your way so this is my turn!" A teen he'd never seen before replied, looking just as angry but not as red.

"Your turn could literally make me die!"

Loki looked between the two, already feeling a headache building.

From what he had caught from behind the door, it sounded like their argument was stuck on this loop and neither was willing to give up just yet.

Though it was annoying, it was ideal.

Their argument was blinding them to him without his need to put in much effort and thus, made it easier for him to focus on the illusion he needed to create.

The perfect distraction to get that damn object the boy was clutching to his chest for dear life.

Loki glanced over his shoulder then stepped further inside to close the door, just as Strange entered the haunted nursery.

"Loki, we truly have no ti-" the Reaper cut themselves off as Strange stepped inside, their unimpressed tone trailing off as they tilted their skull.

Strange could only assume that they were giving him a once over, though the lack of facial features made it impossible to say for definite.

He wasn't surprised to find that the room was trashed considering the fighting that had been going on inside, anything that could have been broken was and it seemed that the only thing, by some form of miracle, still partially standing was the crib.

What did come as a shock was the fact that in the centre of the room was the Reaper, who was wrapped in what he could only describe as ethereal black strips of ribbon with green runes identical to the ones that had been on the doorframe, although the restraints were slowly becoming tattered and broken, the runes losing their glow the more they broke.

It seemed that Loki still had plenty of tricks up his sleeve, ones that Strange would be sure to keep an eye out for but for the time being, he would simply be thankful that he'd even bothered to tether up Death for him.

In an ironic way, it was like the exact kind of gift that Loki would give.

"I see, so he has tagged you in."

"I'm afraid so," Strange replied, stepping over a broken white stool leg to give him enough space to close the door.

"You two are quite a pair," the Reaper said, their voice sounding amused.

More runes cracked and faded, giving them more room to wriggle and snap more of the magic ribbons.

"It wasn't exactly by choice," Strange mumbled distractedly, taking a look at the broken items of the room, which also seemed to include some of the wallpaper.

He wouldn't linger too long on how they had managed to fight hard enough to bring wallpaper to tatters while not creating enough sound to disturb next door, perhaps that was also Loki's doing.

"I am disappointed that Loki gave up so soon," they continued, one of the ribbon-like tethers falling away to the floor and disintegrating into soot, "but you shall be just as challenging."

"Oh, I don't plan to fight you," Strange said, stopping his inspection to face them, "I'm merely here as a distraction."

"And Loki wasn't?"

"He was," Strange gave a one-sided shrug, "but he's not me."

"I see, you're in competition."

"A little," he said, the Reaper watching his hands as he moved them, holding one in front of his chest as the other circled in the air, "though we both have our strengths."

The Reaper watched as a portal with an orange and gold border formed between the two, revealing a nothingness inside of swirling blacks, blues and whites, as though Strange intended to dump them into space.

It would be nothing more than a mild inconvenience of a being like them, but an inconvenience all the same.

"I do feel quite ganged up on," they chuckled, bony fingers flexing towards the scythe that had fallen to the floor.

A little while longer and they would be free.

"It's nothing personal," Strange said as another restraint broke away, "I hope you understand, I'd rather being doing anything else."

"A job is a job, I completely understand."

Strange gave a polite dip of his head and then, as the last securing restraint fell away and turned to nothingness, he pulled a ready to charge Reaper towards the portal.