Despite the hard metal floor, the room was warm and dark. Bruce was nestled against the Valkyrie's side, his cheek on her collarbone, her arm around his shoulders. He dozed as the soothing hum of the starship's engine —
An awful noise split the air, tearing into his brain from inches behind his skull.
"No," Bruce whispered. He nuzzled the Valkyrie's chest and willed it to stop.
The sound came again.
"Stop," he wailed, he reached behind him, flailing desperately. "Thor, please —"
Again.
It was a nightmare. What should he do? What could he do? He cracked his eyes open and searched for something, anything, that could help him. There. A mess of dark hair not far away. Bruce reached for him, found his shoulder, and shook.
"Loki."
Loki was asleep on the Valkyrie's other side, face against her ribs, arms around her waist. Absolutely still and silent, his long body curled up as if to take up as little space as possible.
"Loki. Loki. Are you dead? Jesus, Thor."
Bruce was desperate now. His hand found Loki's cheek.
"Mmfph," Loki protested to the Valkyrie's shirt.
"Loki."
"Hmmf-stop touching my face. What. What?"
"Please kill your brother," Bruce said hoarsely.
"What." Loki blinked across at him in the darkness. "Is he snoring?"
"Jesus Christ, are you deaf? It's like sleeping next to a chainsaw."
Loki fumbled in Thor's direction and hit Bruce in the ribs, eliciting a yelp. He didn't apologize.
"Just. Just roll him over. Gods, Thor, breathe through your nose."
"I can't, he's bigger than me."
Loki's fumbling hand found what it was searching for and Thor's snore cut off abruptly.
"Thank you," said Bruce, muffled slightly by the arm now draped over his face.
Peace.
The vague concern that Loki may have actually suffocated his brother was swiftly overshadowed by the exhaustion that pulled at Bruce's consciousness. A comfortable floating sensation—
Was rudely interrupted as Loki's entire body jerked away with such force that he nearly pulled the Valkyrie out from under Bruce.
"Erghh!"
"What?!"
Loki rubbed his hand frantically across his shirt.
"What?!" Bruce repeated.
"Hm?" the Valkyrie intoned.
"He licked me," howled Loki.
"Kinky," she mumbled, without waking.
Thor snored.
Loki dragged himself into a sitting position, pulling his arm out from under the Valkyrie and shaking the sleep out of it. He arched his back until it popped, then rubbed at his face with his hands.
"How long have we been asleep?" Bruce asked him.
Loki looked around, located something (a shoe?) of reasonable throwing size and pitched it at a dark computer terminal across the room, jostling something that made the screen turn back on. He squinted at it.
"An hour and a half."
"Ugh."
Thor snored.
Loki gave a sigh, crawled carefully over the Valkyrie, and heaved his lean body into the space between Bruce's back and Thor. Or, more like on top of them, really, then he squirmed between them like a wedge.
The snoring sputtered to a stop as Loki pulled Thor onto his side and slid an arm around him to stop him from moving again.
For a long, cautious moment, there was perfect silence. Bruce blew a sigh of relief. From somewhere across the room, Heimdall's voice, heavy with sleep, said, "Savior of Asgard."
"I need a drink," said the Valkyrie, stretching. "Sorry, little guy," she said to Bruce, who groaned as she slipped out from underneath him.
Loki grabbed half-heartedly at her ankle as she passed him.
"Yeah, yeah, one for you too, party boy."
"It's gonna be like this all the way back to Earth, isn't it?" Bruce grumbled to no one. He turned over onto his back, his head on the hard metal floor, and shut his eyes, uncomfortable but too tired to care.
A tug at the front of his shirt pulled Bruce back to consciousness. He seriously considered the value of just letting the Hulk deal with this shit.
Bruce rolled over onto his side.
"I swear to god," he whispered, as Thor pulled him over to rest his head on Loki's shoulder, "I will get the Hulk."
Loki made a little noise of distress. Thor chuckled and shut his eye. He breathed in a deep breath and let it out again in a sigh of contentment that his brother unconsciously echoed. Bruce shook his head at the absurdity of them.
He dozed, listening to the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping Asgardians, until a pair of bare feet padded back toward them.
Bruce heard a soft clink of glass on metal as the Valkyrie carefully set down a bottle next to Loki's temple. She ruffled Thor's hair, then Bruce's, then sat back down behind him. He heard her take a swig from whatever it was she'd found to drink.
"You boys are all right," she said, settling down with her head on Bruce's waist.
The rest was dreams.
_Author's Note_
As this has no plot, it was intended to be consigned to story limbo forever, but a nice reader on AO3 convinced me to dredge it up. I'm so sorry to have inflicted it upon you. It's not too long, so if it makes a few people laugh, I'll call it worth it. Sweet dreams, everyone.