Completely dreading it, the following day, Stephen decided to "go for a walk" where he had last seen the God of Mischief. He kept mulling over what he'd done last night: he'd performed the spell to tell whether catastrophe was happening in the other dimension. The result?

Strange was now 110% certain – the spell hadn't so much as shown him as further amplified the feeling he'd already felt, but he now had a vague idea what the danger included, and he believed it now to be even more imperative to find a team, and yet more important for Loki to be in it. He'd have come find him last night straight after he had performed the spell, but it had left him drained and completely empty of energy, and Stephen had collapsed straight onto the sofa again, at only 8 o'clock.

So, that following morning, Strange was to be found strolling down the rain-washed streets, soaked within the time it had taken to lock the front door with a spell. It had been a month ago that he had gone for a walk to get away from the pressures of wizardry and Kamar-Taj-er-y. Stephen had taken a route he didn't usually, and so happened to pass a dark, dank, totally unpleasant side-street. He'd glanced down it, not having the best of experiences in empty side-streets and muggers, and, well, he at least thought it was Loki. Thinking back on it, he was only about 50% sure... OK, 30%.

But the thing he was 300% sure on was that he knew Loki was alive. It was the same sort of way Stephen knew there was danger – he just knew. It didn't make sense, but not everything did; not everything had to.

Quoting the Ancient One at a time like this, he chided himself. Honestly Stephen Strange, focus on where you're going; you nearly walked into a lamppost.

And nearly walked into a lamppost he did. Strange knew he should have had some coffee before he came out. Or tea. He was partial to a good cup of tea.

After taking approximately 17 wrong turns, which Strange thought was pretty good seeing as he didn't particularly know the area, (why would he?) he finally arrived at the side-street. Stephen peered around the corner cautiously. Someone was down there, though their facial features couldn't be seen clearly in the lack of light.

OK Stephen, what's the plan? He asked himself in his head. Walk past and check whether it is Loki or not? If they aren't, walk past like you normally would.

But Stephen, don't you think the locals would get suspicious of a random man wearing wizard clothing and a magic cloak walked down a dark alleyway with a dead end and back again?

Well, I guess that would be suspicious, so with hindsight, no. Are you sure you can't see who it is from here? That would prevent that problem.

No, Stephen, I can't see, and squinting isn't going to help one bit, everyone knows that. Why are you still looking around the corner of the building?

Strange suddenly realised, while his brain had been having an argument with itself, (like all academically-advanced brains did, of course) that he had indeed been staring around the corner of the building for an inappropriate duration of time. That was actually starting to make his neck ache, and his cloak was actually trying to drag him back. He murmured to it to knock it off, before finally realising why his cloak was trying to drag him back.

The figure in the alleyway was looking directly at him. With an audible sigh, they beckoned for Strange to come over.

And it was Loki.

Stephen stepped forward into the alleyway cautiously, as though expecting something, but as soon as he did, he felt the presence of magic; he could sense someone had cast a charm to protect the area, though while anyone would expend the energy to protect somewhere as dingy as this was beyond him. The alley was between two houses, or maybe flats, and their upstairs windows faced them, otherwise, it was almost completely hidden from view. The alley was about 5 feet wide, but quite long, with a brick wall at the end. There was something strange though, (and no, that wasn't a pun) about the side-street. Most would have been full of litter, would have smelt like drugs, especially in such a bad area, but this one was spotless, and Stephen could even detect a light minty scent. Huh. It wasn't even raining in here.

"So, you found me then," Loki said, as Strange sat on the strangely clean, dry ground opposite him. He sounded completely unsurprised at Stephen's sudden appearance, as though he'd been expecting it. For a man who'd been in hiding for 5 years, he looked pretty good; whilst he appeared a lot skinnier than he had the last time they'd met, he wasn't covered in grime, he didn't look unwell: in fact you'd think Loki had spent all those 5 years in a 5 star hotel rather than a side-street. "Didn't think it would be long."

Stephen swallowed. "Were you expecting me?"

Loki leant back against the wall and crossed his arms, shrugging. "Not you specifically. I knew someone would eventually find me; the spell's not that strong."

Strange's mind was suddenly swimming with approximately 26 questions. What spell? Why have you been in hiding for 5 years? How did you survive Thanos? Why is this alleyway so clean? But the first question that came to his lips was, "Does anyone else know you're alive?"

"Nope," Loki said simply and straightforwardly. "I didn't even know you knew until a month ago. I mean, I know last time we met I tried to kill you but I really can't be bothered so as long as you don't send me hurtling through inter-dimensional space for half an hour, I won't kill you, capiche?"

"Er, sure," Stephen said, wondering how the conversation had turned to his untimely death so quickly. Then again, he guessed Loki hadn't spoken to anyone in 5 years, with everyone thinking he was dead and everything, so he could cut him some slack. He settled on his next question. "How come no-one's found you then, since you've been in hiding? Follow-up question: why are you in hiding?"

Loki gave him a sad smile. He shifted so he was facing Stephen better. "After 5 years you'd hope you'd get to talk small talk rather than have a quiz."

"Oh," Strange mumbled. He felt a bit guilty all of a sudden: he'd been so obsessed about his own plan he hadn't considered that Loki might just want to talk to someone after so many years alone.

As though reading his mind (which, incidentally, he was, Stephen just didn't know it) Loki waved him away and said, "It's fine, Strange. I'm sure you wouldn't be the only one. Oh, I'd offer you a drink but I haven't had anything to drink in..." He screwed up his face and thought hard. "When was the last time I had anything to drink? Probably about... 3 days ago?"

Strange widened his eyes in a way he hoped clearly conveyed surprise. "3 days? Can't you just conjure something?"

"Yeah but I don't bother," Loki said casually, as though it was a matter of little concern. "Not that it really affects Asgardians, of course, we can survive about a month without anything to drink."

"I can try conjure a drink if you want," Strange offered.

"No, no, it's fine," Loki said hastily, though he looked like he wanted nothing more than to accept Stephen's offer. "You're in my humble abode so I should be making you a drink." He gestured to the alleyway, and, for a moment, Strange actually thought he was calling the side-street itself an abode. Wait...

"You live in this dingy side-street?" Stephen asked, and Loki looked a little offended.

"It's not that bad is it?" Loki asked, looking around. "I set up a security charm, magically cleaned the place and cast a weather-protection spell, couldn't you tell?"

Oh... so that's what it was, thought Stephen. "So, no one can come down here at all? No one can tell if there's a god living in a side-street?"

Loki gave him a scowl and crossed his arms. "There aren't that many choices for places to live you know. But yeah, the spell works so the mortals can't accidentally come in, that's how no one knows I'm still alive."

Strange nodded, thinking it as quite smart. If he ever had to go into hiding he supposed he knew who to ask now. "But why are you in hiding?"

Loki sighed and ran his hand through his hair, as though that was one question he didn't want to answer. "Well, I don't know much about Midgardian sorcerers, but Asgardians get warnings from now and again. I've been getting the feeling that something's up in another dimension."

Stephen looked up so quickly he felt his neck crack painfully. "Oh God, that's literally what I've come to find you for!"

He was about to say more, but Loki held up a hand. "Don't overreact, one question at a time. I've not just been having a feeling, but these visions."

Strange was listening so hard, he thought his eyes were going to pop out his head. But then...

"OK, I feel guilty asking this, but what were you saying about that drink?" Loki asked. "All this talking hurts."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure," Stephen said. He prepared to cast a conjuring charm but... where was his magic? It was as though he couldn't do a simple spell all of a sudden. He'd done the incantation but where was the result? Suddenly he broke down into a sweat of shock and fear. Where was his magic? "Where did my magic go?" he asked desperately.

Loki looked confused at first, then seemed to remember something. "Oh, of course, stupid me. Sorry Strange, I completely forgot that another spell I cast was a bit of runic magic so only I can use my magic in here. Hang on, I'll just correct that." He made a gesture towards Stephen and, slowly, Strange felt the magic return to his fingers.

Another thing that corresponded with the return of his magic was the sudden animation of his cloak (which had, until now, been uncharacteristically limp and unmoving). The sudden animation was the way it immediately flew over to Loki and made strangely human gestures as though telling him off for taking Stephen's magic.

Loki must have seen his fair share of strange things, because he simply raised an eyebrow at Stephen as though to say, please explain. Strange just shrugged; this cape truly had a mind of its own when it came to doing weird things.

"Oh, what do you want to drink?" asked Stephen, forgetting for a moment he was going to make them both a beverage. "Tea? I'm having tea."

Loki debated for a moment. "Hm... I don't drink tea."

Strange couldn't help thinking of the time he'd first met Thor and he had said the same thing. He smiled a bit at the memory. "What do you drink?" he asked, magicking a cup of tea for himself out of nowhere.

Loki thought for a moment, drumming his fingers together as though it was an incredibly serious debate. "I'll have hot chocolate if that's OK." Strange passed him a cup. "Cheers."

Stephen took a sip of his tea thoughtfully. He was quite impressed with Loki's spell that prevented him using his magic, despite that it entailed just that. He'd certainly never heard of any magic that could do that, and it could come in really useful one day. Once he had put his plan into fruition maybe he could ask how to do it, if he could. He lowered his cup and said, "So, what were you saying about visions?"

Loki swallowed his drink and put his mug on the floor. It was already empty. "Right! Visions." Then he heard a creaking sound, like a window being opened. He leant back against the wall and looked up. "Oh, great."

Stephen looked up to where Loki was looking. One of the windows of the houses was open, and a figure was sticking out of it, staring straight at Strange. "Oi!" ...he?...shouted. "Who the hell are you talking to?! You're gonna wake up the whole neighbourhood!"

Strange wanted to point out they'd only been talking at normal volume and they were the one shouting, but decided against it. He gestured towards Loki like it was obvious.

The person in the window looked at Stephen like he was crazy. "There's no one there, stupid!" They disappeared inside, muttering about crazy homeless delinquents.

Next to him, Loki made a flicking gesture towards the window and it miraculously closed and the curtains were drew without anyone touching them. "Sorry about the neighbours. No patience for sound at all."

"How come they couldn't see you?" asked Strange, taking a sip of tea. "But they could me?"

"The magic protection only hides the sorcerer who cast it from view," Loki explained. "Same with the sounds. They can't hear or see me, but they can you. Clever, right? Anyway, these visions. Not long ago, I had a vision about Midgard under threat, but it... wasn't this Midgard. Does that make sense?"

Stephen nodded, listening so hard his eyes were popping out their sockets. "My theory is it's the new dimension in time the Avengers made when they got the Infinity Stones from the past when they travelled through time using the Quantum Realm to defeat Thanos. Cap went back to replace the stones but I feel like something went wrong because of this feeling I keep getting, and apparently you and I are the only ones in the world who are getting these warnings."

Loki blinked. "Wait, wait, wait. The Avengers did what?"

It took Strange a while to catch him up on what had been happening recently – Loki didn't know anything about what had happened to Thanos or the other Avengers, or even about his brother, Thor. When Strange told him that; he was so uncharacteristically silent and his face so lacking emotion that Strange wanted to ask one or two things: what was he plotting and where did he learn such a good poker face on Asgard? Loki, thankfully, understood everything he was talking about; any 99% of people he knew would have asked questions and for more explanations and generally acted dumbstruck.

"So, this Blip," Loki started, once Stephen was finished, "it wiped out half the universe? At a snap of Thanos's fingers? Then it took them 5 years to decide to do anything about it?"

Strange nodded. "I personally would've thought they'd have acted earlier. You didn't get taken out did you?"

Loki shook his head. "Thankfully, no. I did wonder why it seems to be a lot busier lately, actually. So they went back, got the Stones, bought everyone, including you, back to life, you faced down 2014 Thanos in an epic battle, killed a ton of people, Tony managed to get the Stones, snapped, Thanos: splat, army: splat, but unfortunately also Tony: splat. Damn... I feel really bad for not coming to help."

Strange nodded slowly, not saying anything. When no one said anything for a while, he prompted, "So, you were going to explain how your visions link to why you've been in hiding?"

Loki sighed. "Right. This is going to take some explaining." He magically refilled his mug and took a sip. "Right, you know how I said-"

He was suddenly cut off by a distraction. Stephen's cloak, which had flew off to do cloak stuff, had returned, and dropped a stick next to Loki and was – looking? – at him as though expecting him to throw it. Loki blinked and looked at Strange.

"I don't know why it keeps acting like this," Strange shrugged. "It likes playing fetch at the moment. Oh, and waking you up at about 5 in the morning. Don't ask."

Loki nodded slowly, but he'd heard worse in his 1070 years of existence, so obliged to the cape's preferred game and threw the stick. Then he turned back to Strange. "OK, so you know how these visions were to do with danger on Midgard? Do you know what the other dimensional Midgard is in danger from?"

Strange remembered when he'd done the spell the previous night – he'd had some gut feelings what the danger could be, though how accurate, he didn't know. "I have some suspicions."

"What suspicions?"

"No... it's quite farfetched. I don't think it's right."

"Just tell me. I'm a Frost Giant from Jotunheim turned Asgardian God adopted by Odin able to do advanced sorcery who's died 4 times in various ways and is currently talking to a Midgardian sorcerer about danger in another dimension that could tip the multiverse into eternal chaos whilst drinking hot chocolate in a dingy side-street. I consider myself an expert in farfetched."

Stephen laughed at this, thinking that, for sorcerers, life was far more farfetched on a daily basis than his suspicions could ever be. "OK. When I first became a sorcerer, I was friends with this other sorcerer called Mordo, who felt we'd been betrayed by our teacher, the Ancient One. At the time, these evil rogue wizards were finding a way to open the Dark Dimension so this evil being called Dormammu could destroy Earth. Also at the time, I had the time stone, so I managed to make time freeze so I could bargain with Dormammu to leave Earth and never return. When everyone was safe, I went back down, exiled the rogue wizards and rewound time so all destruction was reversed, but Mordo turned against our wizardry... group, I guess, and I haven't seen him since. My suspicion is that he's found a way to travel through dimensions, gone into this other one the Avengers created and is assembling a group of powerful beings to put his ideas of a new world into reality. And his idea of a new, better world is to decrease the population of wizards. However I also suspect the Infinity Stones tie into this somewhere, possibly the time stone, and that is a big worry because if it's been stolen then all sorts of damage can be done, but also possibly the Tesseract, which is more unlikely, so I'm not worried about that."

Loki looked at him, eyebrows raised. "You're right, that is pretty farfetched. Unfortunately, that's almost a summary of what I myself believe to be the case, though I wasn't sure who it was." The cloak bought him back another stick, evidently enjoying the game as it had been searching for an even bigger stick during the entire duration of Stephen's suspicions. He threw it again and the cloak delightedly went to fetch another stick. Loki turned his attention back on Strange. "I assume you don't know who these powerful beings he's assembling are?"

Strange shook his head. "I didn't actually get any visions, just a feeling."

"Hm, I guess Midgardian magic isn't as advanced as Asgardian magic," Loki said, sipping his drink thoughtfully. "No offence obviously," he added hastily at seeing Stephen's reaction. "I saw this guy, Mordo, as you call him, assembling an army of magic users from other dimensions, and they're wizards like you who also felt betrayed by the Ancient lady, whatever you called her, and they're joining forces with themselves in other dimensions so they can affect the whole multiverse. Every dimension but this one, apparently. And they're after anyone who is a threat, so that's why I'm in hiding. That and everyone already thinks I'm dead."

Strange's eyes nearly fell out their sockets. "So, I've got to find a way to go to every different dimension separately to eliminate the threats one by one?"

Loki gave a non-committal jerk of the head and a shrug. "In simple terms, yeah, but a few points. If my vision's anything to go by, they're all going to attack at the same time, so you'll need a way of reversing or freezing time unless you want to tip the multiverse into chaos. Another thing: they don't know that operating through different dimensions will tip the multiverse into eternal chaos, so they're as dangerous to themselves as they are to everyone in the vicinity. Another thing: there's no way at all you'd be able to do it alone. I get you're the Sorcerer Supreme and everything but even I need help every now and again. Another thing: you're going to have to time it perfectly each time or you might be doing the multiverse more harm. Another thing: you need to eliminate the danger in every dimension because if even one is left it'll cause a chain reaction throughout the whole multiverse, but that means you need to find a way to get into every dimension at the same time which could potentially destroy the multiverse too. Another thing: I think the time stone has been stolen too, and I think this guy Mordo's stolen it, so that's gonna be... problematic. Another thing: your tea's going to get cold if you don't drink it."

Stephen raised his eyebrows. "A few points?" was all he could think of to say. He took a sip from his tea, which had, in fact, gone cold. He set it down on the floor and thought hard. "OK, so... basically I need to make a plan that enables me to eliminate the danger without any time passing in every dimensional timeline they're planning this to happen, without any casualties, and I need to find other people who aren't wizards like me to help because I can't possibly do it by myself. And this is all based on a gut feeling from me and some visions from you that my friend-turned-enemy wants to decrease the population of wizards in as many dimensions as possible." No-one said anything. "OK then. This is turning out pretty farfetched now."

"Welcome to the wonderful world of magic," Loki said, finishing his drink. "What I don't get is how all these alternate realities popped up. The Avengers created one, but to me it seems like someone is going around the timestream and creating new dimensions left right and centre. Otherwise where would they all be coming from?"

"Huh. That's a good point," Strange said, rewarming his tea magically and taking a gulp. "It's hardly the biggest of our problems though."

Loki looked at him quizzically. "Our? Who else are you counting in that our?"

"Oh, er," Strange said, realising he shouldn't have said that. "Erm, I don't know yet, still working on the... intricacies of, um, who I'm going to include. In my team," he waffled hesitantly, completely messing it up. He took a sip of tea for something to do while he judged Loki's reaction. As it was, Loki raised one eyebrow, clearly not impressed with his hesitant waffle. Stephen gave in. "I was going to ask you if you would help me out."

"Well I got that already," Loki said, rolling his eyes subtly. "Why else would you be here?"

"Um..."

"I mean, seriously, I'm honoured and everything, but there was no need to act like you were trying to deny it," Loki continued. "No offence, but you seriously need to work on your acting skills; you were obvious."

"Er..."

"I'm not joking; acting skills can save your life when you're up against someone and you're desperate. How do you think I've gone so long and not died yet? They even saved me from Thanos twice."

"So..."

"Am I in?" Loki guessed. Stephen nodded. "Magic, mischief, maybe death, sounds like fun. Gotta be better than half-starving to death in a dank alleyway I suppose, even if it means teaming up with you. Sure, I'm in, but only because you look so desperate and I'm bored."

"Thanks, Loki, I guess," Strange said. He debated whether to offer a handshake or not, but he didn't know how things were done in Asgard. Was there a special handshake you had to do?

He must have been showing his emotion on his face, because Loki rolled his eyes, smiled, grabbed Stephen's hand and shook it. "Honestly though, work on those acting skills."