*in a magical timeless au that has no definite setting within the mcu storyline...

Stephen Strange was a doctor, he had a photographic memory and was borderline genius. He was sorcerer supreme, keeper of the time stone, master of the mystic arts. And so yes, he was counted as an intelligent man. That was, until he met Dr. Bruce Banner. The two men, each brilliant in their own right, when brought together created chaos in the dumbest way possible: they went experimenting with Infinity Stones.

Yes Bruce should have known, this was what created Ultron wasn't it? Yes Stephen should have known, how many times had Wong told him of the dangers of messing with the time stone? And yet somehow it still happened. Together these two geniuses-turned-idiots combined science with a fair bit of magic and time stone power and created a great, big, dangerous rift in spacetime. And who to come tumbling out of it but...Loki. Teenage Loki straight from Asgard a few centuries ago.

<~>

"Tony?" The voice that came through Tony's earpiece belonged to Bruce Banner and he sounded upset or worried about something or other.

"Yup," the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist answered, tossing a file into a trash can that materialized off to the left. He didn't leave his work; he was currently fiddling with some new tech to advance Rhodey's suit. Not to mention the ten other projects he had half started and scattered in varying degrees of disarray around his workshop.

"Do you have Thor's number?"

Tony's eyebrow raised then furrowed and he made a confused sort of sound. "No I'm sad to say I don't know how to reach point break. Uhh, why? He miss bowling night or something?"

"Uh, um no reason," Bruce spluttered. "Just, just trying to get in touch..."

Tony frowned, turning his swivel chair and propping his legs up on the desk. "You okay there Banner?" He asked, half teasing, half concerned and completely intrigued. The doctor had something going on, that was for sure.

"No, no, we're all good over here - hey!"

Tony raised his eyebrows at a loud crash he heard over the receiver and faintly heard Bruce shouting, the phone presumably forgotten in his hand for a moment. He caught faint laughter from Bruce's end; it sounded like a child. "Hey, uh, Bruce?" Tony asked, raising his voice.

"What--what?" Bruce's voice grew clearer as he brought the phone back to his ear.

"Yeah," Tony said, spreading his hands and spinning in his chair. "What is going on over there?"

"Nothing, we just-- uh what?"

Tony raised an eyebrow as Bruce addressed someone else. He waited in silence, only able to hear indistinct voices of Bruce and someone he couldn't place and several more distant crashes.

"I found him!" said the other voice, his cry audible to the very, very confused inventor on the other end of the line.

"Oh, oh good!" Bruce said. There was a considerable amount of fumbling sounds as Bruce hastily picked up the phone again and all but yelled into Tony's ear, "ok thanks Tony we're all good over here, nothing...nothing to worry about bye!" And hung up, leaving his friend befuddled and bewildered.

<~>

Thor had been having a good day believe it or not. He and Loki were on good terms, he had gotten lunch with him just last week and yesterday he'd gotten a raven from Odin. Asgard was prospering, and there was peace in the nine realms. That morning he'd had a great cup of coffee from a strange little store filled with teenagers with laptops and he'd gone for a run. The sun was bright, the air was cool and it had been a good day. Until they showed up. With such terrible, idiotic news.

"You did what?" The Norse god of thunder said in disbelief, staring at Bruce and Strange. They two of them had dropped in on his lovely afternoon, stepping through a sparking portal right into his path he had been taking on his quite enjoyable hike and ruining the whole of it.

"It was an accident," Bruce said sheepishly. "Will you help us control him?"

Thor just stared at them for a moment. "How?"

"It was a combination of things," Strange said curtly. "But he's wreaked havoc. We need your help in containing him."

Thor did not stop staring. He was, in all honesty, having considerable difficulty wrapping his head around it. "You opened a portal in spacetime after experimenting on an infinity stone and brought my brother, a teenage Loki into this world???"

Bruce covered his face with his hands and nodded. Strange looked uncomfortably off into the distance and nodded once. "Yes, will you be helpful soon?"

Thor's gaze darkened and sparks burst from his fingertips. "How-" he cut off, unable to form words. He stopped, took visible effort calming down then nodded. "Fine, we must go find Loki."

<~>

Loki...had not been having a good day. He had argued with his idiotic landlord for a quarter of an hour before losing his temper and transforming the man into a rat, now he had would have to move again to avoid suspicion, and laying low was just so boring. He'd promised Thor he'd try not to cause trouble, and evading SHIELD detection was easy but tedious. Speaking of his brother, the insufferable jock hadn't visited him in a week and a half, and the little boy from across the hall had stopped playing with him. Loki suspected the boy's mother prohibited it. To add insult to injury it was hot. Unbearably so, at least for the Frost giant Loki was. He expended small amount of magic to cool the air around him, and had to be extra careful not to draw any attention. This did not help his already sour mood. So no, Loki was not having a good day, and it only got worse.

"What?" Loki snapped, materializing in front of Thor. A few moments ago he had received a frantic text from Thor telling him to 'come now please'. Naturally, Loki transported himself, or an illusion of himself, to Thor's location.

"You're here!" Thor's excited voice was momentarily disregarded as Loki caught sight of his brother's companions. There was the so called wizard Dr. Strange, who was regarding Loki with a condescending and somewhat exasperated look, while Dr. Banner was eyeing him warily and standing a bit behind the sorcerer supreme.

"Thor," Loki said dangerously. "What is this?" green eyes flicked quickly up to bright blue then settled back on Strange. The Doctor took on a slightly defensive stance and Loki tensed.

"Stop!" Thor said quickly, holding up a hand. "Loki we need your help."

An elegant eyebrow rose. "My help? For what?"

"Help in containing an experiment." Strange stepped forward, folding his hands behind his back, but sharp eyes never leaving Loki's.

"And why," Loki drawled, adopting a practiced swagger, "would you need my help?"

"The circumstances are...unique," Strange replied, his voice as smooth as Loki's.

"How 'unique'?" He probed, apprehension tinting his voice as he narrowed his eyes at the doctor.

"We opened a rift in spacetime," Banner said, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as if that would make the whole situation just disappear.

Loki stared at them a moment. "You did what?"

"Opened a rift," Banner said again, raising his eyes. "In spacetime."

"And something came out of it," Dr. Strange said.

"Someone, actually," Thor interjected, drawing Loki's attention. Loki searched those blue eyes, growing more and more disconcerted by the second. "In fact it was you, Loki."

Loki blinked. "What?"

"You, or a child version of yourself." Strange said. "We don't know how it happened. Somehow, the you from the past fell through the rift and ended up here and now..." Loki blinked again, trying very hard to wrap his head around it, and only half succeeding. "He's caused an unprecedented amount of trouble, and terrorized us and the people in close proximity to us an for the last 24 hours. We've only just now managed to find you and..."

"And you want me to capture him. Me." Loki smirked. It was all too surreal but it sounded like immense fun and he was secretly proud of himself, or the past version of himself, for making the sorcerer and the scientist so frazzled that they would go to any lengths to somehow get in contact with Thor in hopes of reaching him. 'Unprecedented', Loki inwardly scoffed. He was the god of mischief for a reason. He grinned and raised an eyebrow at them. "Why would you think that I can control him?"

Banner, Strange, and Thor were taken aback.

"Because he's you!" Bruce spluttered eventually, to which Loki only coldy smiled.

"Thor, you knew me when I was a child," Loki began conversationally, thoroughly enjoying this. Thor nodded in confusion, his brow furrowed. "Tell me, do you think that, at the time, my conscience was an important factor that went into my decision making process?" Loki watched as realization dawned on his brother's face.

"So what do we do?" Thor asked, is expression grim.

"It's simple." Loki spread his hands with a shrug. "You need to find the one and only person who can command him."

Thor looked at him, disbelief in his eyes. "Frigga?"

Loki grinned. "Frigga."

"Um, sorry, who's Frigga?" Banner interjected meekly, raising his hand halfway as if he were in school.

Strange sighed a long suffering sigh. "Don't you read Norse mythology doctor? Frigga Queen of Asgard, Loki's mother."