At first Loki couldn't be entirely sure he'd teleported into the right place. For one thing he didn't appear to be standing on anything, before he realised he'd teleported about a foot from the ground. By the time he'd hit the floor, darkness enveloped him suddenly as though someone had dropped a blanket on his head. Then he felt himself fall down what felt like a very small staircase.

It didn't hurt much at all, but it certainly surprised him.

While Loki tried to get the – blanket? – off himself, he heard something break and a startled voice exclaim something.

Oh great, Loki thought to himself. I'm in the wrong place aren't I?

Then someone pulled the blanket off him and he realised he wasn't actually in the wrong place.

Two figures were standing next to him. One of them was Doctor Strange himself, wearing his usual wizarding getup, a look of shock on his face. The other was his magical cloak, levitating next to Strange, and Loki then realised who the blanket that had attacked him was.

"Loki?" Strange said disbelievingly, staring down at him like they'd never met before. Loki scowled back at him. So much for the warm welcome. Hi Loki, how are you? Sorry for my stupid cloak attacking you.

"Strange," Loki said, getting back up to his feet. He kept one eye on the cloak in case it randomly decided to attack the nearest god with a hug again. "It's been a while."

Strange recovered his senses quite quickly to be fair to him. "Sure has," he agreed, smiling, somewhat awkwardly. "It's great to see you again."

Loki nodded, trying not to let on that, he too, was actually pretty pleased to see Strange again. He had the feeling Strange could see straight through him. His eyes instinctively slid towards the cloak, which seemed (though he wasn't a cloak expert) like it was quivering with excitement.

Strange noticed him looking and scratched his head awkwardly. "Um, sorry for my cloak's behaviour. I didn't expect you to appear right next to me."

"I did?" Loki asked. He resisted the urge to rub his forehead to relieve the headache that had just appeared, probably as a combined result of falling down the stairs and teleporting from space.

"Yeah, I was sitting there drinking tea one second, then the next you were falling down my staircase," Strange said, pointing at the staircase where it happened. Then he seemed to remember something important. "Oh, um, you're OK, right?"

Loki considered this for a moment, taking a deep breath. "Except for being chased down by a bunch of space jerks who want to arrest me, falling down a staircase and getting assaulted by an enchanted red blanket, brilliant. Thanks for asking."

Strange blinked. "You're a fugitive of space?"

Loki clapped sarcastically. "Yep. The whole of space is trying to arrest me."

Strange sighed exasperatedly. He'd been around Loki too much already. "You know what I mean."

Loki wasn't going to back down this early. "You know, the last time I checked, space itself can't actually arrest anyone. In fact, I don't think space is a being capable of thinking for itself, much less arresting someone."

Strange stared at him, and Loki couldn't help laughing.

Loki looked around the Sanctum hallway, ignoring the look he knew full well Strange was giving him. He'd only just noticed the décor was much more different than the last time he'd been there... what was with all the twinkly lights?

"Strange, did your house get attacked with glitter?" he asked seriously, regarding all the sparkly decorations that seemed to be everywhere he looked. How hadn't he noticed the second he'd come in? (Oh wait, he was being attacked with a hug from what, at the time, he believed to be a blanket. That was why.)

"No, it's Christmas," Strange told him, as though Loki might know what that was. "Do you like my decorations?"

"You have a tree in your house," Loki said in reply, utterly bewildered by the fact there was, in fact, a tree in Strange's house.

"I do have a tree in my house," agreed Strange, clearly enjoying watching Loki looking so bemused.

"Why?"

"Because it's Christmas," Strange repeated, frowning. "Don't you have... of course you don't have Christmas on Asgard. You don't even have the same gods. Of course you wouldn't have Christmas. You aren't Christians. Well, neither am I really I guess. Nor are you even humans. And a lot of you would've actually been born Before Christ..."

Loki rolled his eyes subtly. Strange really had a habit of waffling about meaningless nonsense when he was trying to say something. "Strange..." he said, to snap Strange's attention back to what they were supposed to be doing. It worked.

"Right!" Strange said, looking like he'd already forgotten what they were doing. "How are we doing this again?" he asked.

Loki smacked his head before he could help himself from doing so. "Did I not mention it earlier? I'm going to teleport you up first, then I'll teleport up afterwards."

Strange scratched his head. "We can't go at the same time? Like side-along Apparition in Harry Potter?"

Wow, Loki thought to himself. He's in a "speaking crap" mood today. "I literally have no idea what that means, but no, we can't go at the same time." He took the borrowed watch from his pocket and looked at it. As Strange opened his mouth to say something, he cut across him, "We should get going. I don't like to leave my ship unattended for long."

"Is that my-"

"OK, I'm going to give you a warning here, Strange," Loki said, putting the watch back in his pocket and preparing to summon up some magic. "Teleportation for the first time is certainly not for the weak."

"Hey-"

"So you're going to feel absolutely crap afterwards," Loki concluded.

Strange took a deep breath and Loki could tell he was thinking about his options. "I don't suppose I can really back out now?"

Loki dropped his hands into his pockets and raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to go on a galactic, cosmic adventure in space and-" he quickly scanned Strange's mind for something he could use "-take photos? You'd rather stay here and be bored to death and feel guilty that your friend is out in the middle of nowhere probably in danger and getting up to all sorts of magical mischief without you?"

"When aren't you getting up to all sorts of magical mischief?" Strange pointed out, which was fair. He shook his head and took a breath as though readying himself for the mission. "OK. I'm ready."

Loki grinned. He bought his hands back out his pockets and bought his signature green magic to them. Strange's cloak attached itself to Strange's shoulders over his rucksack. Strange himself was looking apprehensively at Loki's hands.

"Brace yourself," Loki warned him, then released the spell.

Strange vanished in a flash of green.

Immediately Loki felt a slight wave of tiredness wash over him, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the whole telepathy thing. Teleporting someone else was a hard task, but at least teleporting himself was different and much, much easier.

Loki took one last look at his surroundings, then vanished.