Working Title : Loki & Annie

Chapter Nine

It had taken Strange nearly four hours to complete his work on Loki to his satisfaction. Since he was the only one qualified to be in the room Strange did everything, at least he knew it was done perfectly. He had taken a visual assessment of Loki's injuries to determine if there were any obvious external injuries that needed to be attended to first. There weren't and he had J.A.R.V.I.S. do a scan for internal injuries, as far as the AI could determine there was only bruising, no hemorrhaging.

Once he was ready to begin he spoke, "J.A.R.V.I.S. play my music selection number three."

"Yes sir."

Classic rock began playing from a hidden speaker and Strange began nodding to the beat. It was a station he had made up that had more upbeat songs, he knew he would need them.

After sterilizing the area Strange began examining the stitches which appeared to be made out of a very heavy duty thread. He took a scalpel and, not sensing any magical properties to the thread, sliced one of them. With little resistance he then cut every single thread, his hands steady as he had carefully fit the blade between Loki's lips. That was the easy part. The difficult part came next.

He had to pull each individual thread through the tender skin. Once more steady hands and a detached manner carried him through until he had a pile of black, bloody strings piled on a piece of gauze. He cleaned the ragged holes left behind then moved on to the next injury.

Cuts that needed to be cleaned and stitched. Pus filled injuries lanced and drained then covered with bandages. He worked methodically from Loki's face downward. Cleaning wounds but otherwise leaving the filth behind. Strange's concern was to clean the wounds, the rest of the body was someone else's worry. As long as the bandages were kept dry Loki could be given a sponge bath.

He stitched cuts and puncture wounds. Cleaned scrapes and abrasions. Applied thick pasty, cream and covered with gauze and bandages. Soon there was more skin covered than showing.

His hands didn't pause as they cleaned the runes that had been carved into Loki's abdomen. These wounds were scabbed over, Strange simply rubbed in a cream, he didn't cover them. They would scar but were nearly healed at this point. He had no reaction to the damage.

This changed when Strange got to Loki's genitals. Here he actually took a moment to stare off to the side, into the distance. Not because of the injuries themselves but because of the intent of those who had inflicted the damage. It was only a handful of seconds but it entered Strange enough so that when he went back to work he was once more professionally dispassionate. He thoroughly cleaned everywhere then applied burn creams and light, loose cloths. He even added a very small amount of healing magic to this area even though he had no idea how it would react with Loki's own magic. The collar couldn't cut off his own internal magic, hopefully the two magics wouldn't compete with each other.

Once he reached Loki's feet he gently rolled the boy using Thor's cape. He prepared to work from Loki's feet back to his head. Strange cleaned the burns and cuts to the bottom of the little feet, applied burn cream then wrapped them with gentle hands that moved without conscious thought. He moved up the back of Loki's legs, tending those injuries. Reaching his buttocks he once more carefully did a complete cleaning and applied cream. It was when he got to Loki's back that Strange's mask nearly slipped off completely.

Here the flesh was still weeping blood. It was filthy, the smell of infection was nearly overpowering. Deep slices were in the flesh, crisscrossing. There were burns. All with dirt and pieces of grit impacted deep inside.

Strange grabbed several bottles of sterile solution and began to clean the wounds then suddenly slammed the bottle back on the small table hard enough to slosh the solution out of the top. He couldn't see behind him but everyone had focused their attention on him.