The Seventh Avenger

Chapter 53: Hoult Massacres

The sound of shoes squeaking against the clean and polished floor from behind me has me halting in my tracks and turning around so that I was facing the way in which I had just come from. Much to my surprise, I am greeted with the sight of none other than Stephen Strange surging down the corridor towards me, his face mask hanging loosely from around his neck as he moved.

"Is there a reason why you're following me?" I ask him as politely as I could as he finally comes to a halt in front of me. "Or is it just coincidental that you're heading down the same corridor as me?"

The corners of his mouth flicker up ever so slightly in what I'm assuming is amusement at this. "I told you that I wasn't going to tell you where Barkley was until you tell me what you want to talk to him about."

"Well, lucky for the both of us, you don't have to," I reply before turning around and taking off down the corridor once more, knowing perfectly well that he was following behind me. "Your doctor friend already told me where he is. I don't think that she likes you very much, by the way."

A glance out of the corner of my eyes provides me with the sight of him rolling his own green ones. "Oh really: what gave that away?" He retorts, his words dripping with sarcasm. Despite the fact that he was making it rather difficult for me to like him, I can't help but snort in amusement at this. "It doesn't matter: I didn't become a doctor to have people like me."

"You became a doctor to save lives, right?" I ask though something in his face at his words suggests otherwise. I knew that generally, if people didn't become doctors for the greater good and saving lives, then they chose to undertake medial careers simply because of the money. And something told me that this was the case for Stephen Strange beside me, his silence all but giving it away.

"Ah-so I'm going to take a guess and say that you're not an ER doctor then?"

He clenches his jaw at this, clearly deducing that I had figured out his true intentions for becoming a doctor in the first place. "I'm a neurosurgeon," He informs me stiffly. "And a good one at that. My talents are wasted on that butcher-shop."

I can't contain the chuckle that escapes past my lips at his defensive tone, though at the same time, I can't help but feel slightly appalled. What kind of doctor would describe the ER as a butcher shop? I don't voice my surprise out loud to him, however. Instead, I decide to go with a lighter response: "And I never said you weren't. There's no need to be so prickly, Strange. I'm not here to question your credibility of being a Doctor."

"So why are you here then?"

He was stubborn, I'll give him that. I was sure that he could tell that his constant questioning was beginning to get on my nerves and he probably thought that I was mere seconds away from giving in and telling him what my intentions were for Doctor Connor Barkley. But unluckily for him, I was just as stubborn. So putting on the best, innocent smile that I could, I ask him sweetly as we round a corner, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

He mutters something unintelligible under his breath, quiet enough so that I can't hear what it is that he said even though I was standing beside him. Judging from the brief look of annoyance that filtered across his face, I had a feeling that it wasn't exactly what you would call a compliment. Eventually, he lets out a weary sigh and concedes, "Look, if you're here for some sort of vigilante business that you can't tell me then that's fine. But I still want to know how and why it involves Barkley."

The smile on my face is quickly replaced with a look of curiosity, discerning a hint of an underlying warmth in his tone as he spoke. This revealed to me that he didn't simply want to know what I was doing just for the hell of it, but because a part of him genuinely cared about the Doctor and wanted to look out for him.