After that strange, surreal night when Loki had come to Steve to ask for help (or at least for a place to sleep), there was silence from Loki for months. Not even a whisper, or a murmur, and then Thor was called back to Asgard and when he returned was quiet and downcast. He told them, in spare words, that Asgard had been attacked, and nearly overrun.
"Loki?" Clint said, hand twitching like for a knife, and Steve thought he saw Thor flinch.
"No," he said, and then lowered his golden head and added, "In the end, Loki…my brother…proved his mettle. And his loyalty. He fell defending Asgard." They all blinked. It was Clint who said it first.
"Wait. He's – dead?" He sounded incredulous. Like he couldn't quite believe it. "He's actually…" For Clint, Steve thought, it must be like hearing that a nightmare had been killed. Impossible and yet…Steve held very still.
"Yes," Thor said, heavily. "He fought for us, and I can only hope it will be enough to send his spirit to Valhalla." And he would say no more about it. Seemed strangely quiet, subdued, thoughtful.
Steve told himself not to think about it. Not to wonder if there was some reason to feel a vague sting of regret. Not to think about that last night, Loki in his room with despair in his eyes, please. It could, he told himself, be so much worse.
Maybe this was for the best. He's not even a little bit yours to save.
He managed to convince himself of that. Mostly.
And then Loki found him alone in the kitchen, making eggs. Alone in the tower, actually, lost in thought, and Steve only realized that he had company when Loki said, "Have you any victuals to offer a weary traveler?"
He nearly dropped the egg he was cracking, and did end up with shell in the bowl. He wheeled, unable to keep from staring. Loki looked…much better than he had. Still thin, maybe, and slightly too pale, an air of exhaustion still around his shoulders, but his eyes were brighter and he seemed more…at ease. Maybe.
"It's you," he said, rather stupidly. Loki's smile was placid and thoroughly patronizing.
"Keenly observed."
"Weren't you…we heard you were dead."
"It would seem I am not." Loki plucked a pear from the basket of fruit on the counter and bit into it, some of the juice dribbling down his chin. "Though if I may say it of myself, it was a fine performance."
Steve felt almost a twinge of disappointment. "You faked it."
"Yes," Loki said easily. "I faked it." He took another few bites out of the pear. "It seemed…prudent…for me to vanish. For that I needed to be thought perished utterly. An opportunity presented itself, and I took it."
"Your b- Thor thinks you're dead." Steve remembered in time. Loki's mouth twisted crookedly.
"So much the better. He is happier for it, I daresay – I died the hero he always wanted me to be –and I am, needless to say, relieved that he will no longer dog my heels through every realm."
Steve crossed his arms. "He's not happier." If he hadn't been watching for it he likely would not have noticed the way Loki's eyes flicked briefly away and then back.
"Then let him mourn. I am sure he bears it well."
Steve couldn't help but bristle, but he swallowed down what he wanted to say about Thor. He needed to remember, still – especially now – how dangerous Loki was. "So that's it?" Steve couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice. "No more hunters, no more…you're in the clear?"
Loki's expression flickered with something not quite readable. "So it would seem. Fear not – I do not intend to immediately rain terror and mayhem upon your realm. I am…what's your phrase? On sabbatical, as it were." He stretched, nearly ostentatiously. "But I thought to take a moment to speak to my favorite mortal."
"Your favorite mortal," Steve echoed, faintly. Loki's smile at him was entirely too wide.
"I would hardly honor another so." Honor, Steve thought, was a funny word for it.
He planted his feet. "You realize I have to tell Thor that you're alive. I can hardly let him go on thinking-"
"Oh, by all means." Loki cut him off. "And then explain why I came to you, and not to him. Endure his worry and fretting as he tries – and fails – to find me. No. Let him go on thinking I died nobly in Asgard's service. All of us shall be happier for it."
This time Steve couldn't hold it in. "You don't know at all how much he cares about you. You don't have any idea-"
"Do not tell me what Thor feels as though I care." Loki's voice cracked like a whip, and he was suddenly tense. "I have had enough of his spouting of meaningless platitudes at me. I will not suffer it from you as well."
Steve gritted his teeth. He wanted to reach out and shake Loki until his head rattled or he finally understood what he refused to see. "You chose to come talk to me. You don't get to tell me what I can and can't talk about."
Loki's lips peeled back from his teeth in a silent snarl, but a moment later he turned his head away, profile sharp and mouth drawn to a thin line. "—of course. My courtesy is lacking." Loki's voice was icy. "May I…request…that you avoid speaking to me of the Thunderer, then? Or is that also too much to ask?"
Steve blinked. Maybe he wouldn't have noticed anything if it hadn't been for the other times, but he could hear a hint of something now under the thrum of anger. He looked down at his bowl of mixed egg and shell and turned to face Loki. "No," he said slowly. "That's…that's fine."
Pale eyes snapped back to him, faintly narrowed. "—don't patronize me," he said, sharp and quick, eyes scrutinizing his. Steve held up his hands.
"I'm not. Since you asked, we don't have to talk about Thor."
Loki's expression flickered. He looked, very briefly, uncertain, but a moment later it was gone and Steve wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "You are gracious," he said, perfectly formal and strangely toneless. Maybe almost wary. Steve tried to puzzle it out for a moment and then gave up.
"What have you been doing, then?" Steve asked, out of honest curiosity. "I mean…since."
Loki's eyes on him were sharp and thoughtful for a moment before they flicked away and he shrugged. "Sleeping," he said, voice only slightly dry. "By and large."
"I guess you needed it." Steve kept his hands on the table. He didn't, he realized, feel scared, or threatened. Tense, yes, but he wasn't expecting Loki to attack him and that, more than anything, made him suddenly nervous. "And now?"
Loki's mouth tugged at one corner like it was considering a smile and decided against it. "A good question. Who knows? Even had I definite plans, I do not think I would be inclined to tell you." He glanced down at the pear and took another bite of it, eyes drifting closed in what looked like blissful delight. "Mmm," he said, head tilted slightly back, and Steve felt the inexplicable urge to look away.
"—why are you here, though?" he asked, instead. "And don't say just to visit me, because if you don't want Thor to know you're alive – you'd have to know I'd tell him." Which – he'd just brought up Thor, and caught a flicker of tightness on Loki's face, but then it was gone.
"Clever Captain," he murmured, and dropped his head, just a sliver of his eyes visible under half closed lids. "Yes, that is so. Though I could always ensure that you not speak of me to anyone." He half raised a hand, head cocked to the side as though he were considering the prospect, faint green flickering around his fingers. Steve drew back instinctively from the counter, ready to yell for help, when Loki dropped the hand and laughed. Quietly, but with a strange kind of unexpected mirth. "Could, I said. Not will. I owe you a debt."
He said it lightly, almost carelessly, but Steve thought he caught a hint of wariness to the way Loki was watching him. He wondered what he expected Steve to ask. Turn yourself in, he thought, first, followed by, leave Earth alone. But it suddenly all seemed…too straightforward. He hesitated.
"I just…ask for something?" A strange expression twitched up one corner of Loki's mouth.
"Mm. Within reason, of course; were you to propose that I do something I would be unlikely to survive, I would be inclined to refuse."
Steve blinked, unsure if that was a joke or not. "I wouldn't," he said, finally, and the smile Loki gave him was thin and slightly patronizing.
"I am aware. That is why I owe you a debt to begin with, is it not? Twice over now, it would seem." Loki took the last bite of pear and frowned. "I do not enjoy accruing debts."
"What would you ask for?" Steve asked, after a moment more's silence. Loki's eyes cut to him, narrowed, and then he laughed, a short, harsh bark.
"I think you would rather not know my answer." His smile was sharp and unkind. "And hardly relevant, besides."
Steve swallowed and tried not to wonder. "Can I think about it?" he asked, finally, and Loki's expression turned faintly amused.
"Certainly. And when you know what you desire you may summon me by clicking your heels." Loki snorted, but shrugged. "You may take all the time you wish. I am hardly lacking in it." He ate the core of the pear in three bites and then began delicately licking his fingers clean, something slow and deliberate about the gesture. Steve shifted slightly.
"—I'm glad," he said, finally. "That you're not…"
Loki's expression did that strange, quick flicker through several emotions too quick to follow, and his shoulders twitched nearly imperceptibly. He didn't answer at once, instead sucking one long finger into his mouth and raising his eyebrows at Steve in a way that made him want to look away again. He drew it back out a moment later with a small pop, but left it resting against his lips. "Glad that I'm not dead?" he said, lightly. "Why yes, so am I. I wonder about you, though."
"I'm serious," Steve said, leaning forward a little and putting his elbows on the table. "Not just because of – for my friend's sake, but because of what I said. Last time."
"You say a great deal," Loki said, and his voice was just slightly too airy to be genuine. "I tend to forget much of it within moments."
"You didn't forget this," Steve said, with certainty. Loki's shoulders drew up very slightly and he dropped his hand back down.
"Do you speak of your absurd notion of redemption?" He said it in much the way someone might have spoken of a false but treasured childhood belief. Steve held his gaze steady.
"Tell me why it's so absurd."
"So many reasons. The very notion that I am in the least interested, for one. Or, even if I were, that I would be willing to submit myself to the pain and humiliation that would be my payment for past misdeeds. Or that, did I desire to turn my back on my past, begin anew, draw out my better nature-" Loki almost sneered. "-who is to say that I am even capable? You will find no shortage of witnesses to tell you that I was rotten from birth." He said that last with a peculiar kind of relish, but something else, too. Steve wished he was better at this.
"I don't believe that," he said stoutly. Loki's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Don't believe what? That I do not care to bend myself to your little notions of morality?"
"That you were born bad," Steve said. "I don't believe that about anyone."
Loki's laughter was harsh and grating. "You would not. You will find, Captain, that believing a thing, no matter how passionately, does not make it so."
Steve's feet set hip-width apart and planted there, like he was about to start a physical stand off. "If you're evil, what are you doing here, talking to me?"
"Everyone needs hobbies," said Loki easily, and flashed that glib, sharp smile. Steve thought, suddenly and strangely, of Tony. That smile was practically a challenge, an assault. Daring him to rise to it. Steve took a deep breath and resisted the urge to snap.
"I don't believe you."
"I don't need you to believe me. I only hope that you do not cling to some foolish hope of – ah, how might I put it? Fixing me." Loki's fingers spread out on the counter, his index finger tapping once, twice. "As entertaining as I might find watching you try, I think it likely to rapidly become tiresome for us both."
His first instinct was to argue, but Steve held it back. He sighed. He hadn't really expected to get anywhere, but he still…felt vaguely disappointed. It's not your job, he reminded himself. You shouldn't even be talking to him like this, like he's just…another person. When he refocused, Loki was watching him, head tilted slightly to the side.
"I confess," he said after a moment, "You have managed to surprise me again."
Steve blinked, surprised. "—I have?" He didn't think he'd done much at all.
"Mmm. You have not made even a token gesture at attacking me." Loki's mouth turned up at the corners. "I was half prepared to have to do battle, or at least to spirit you away again, lest I otherwise be forced to confront the entirety of your band."
"That won't work again," Steve said, not sure why he said it. "I've got some sort of – tracker thing." He grimaced. He didn't like it, but between Tony and a very strongly worded suggestion from Fury, he'd been cornered into it. Loki flipped a hand.
"Child's play." Then he appeared to notice Steve's expression, and tensed. "Against your will?" he said, and there was something strange in that question that it took Steve a moment to grasp. Not – he couldn't say worry. But definitely disgruntled.
"No," he said, hastily. "No, no, not like that," if Loki went after Tony, or worse, Fury, out of some…some what? This was, Steve thought, getting out of hand, and he didn't know what this was or if it'd ever been in hand. "I just…don't like it. But they're probably right. I know Agent Romanov has one, pretty sure Agent Barton too. Just in case."
"Hm." Loki was eying him distinctly narrowly.
"Really," Steve repeated, a little more forcefully. "It's fine."
Finally, just as Steve was starting to feel a distinctly nervous itch between his shoulder blades, Loki shrugged. "If you say," he said, and if it sounded distinctly unconvinced Steve let himself be a little relieved. "Well. I am pleased to have reached the point in our relationship where we may converse more comfortably." He threw out one of those toothy, sharp smiles again. Steve rubbed a hand through his hair.
"So you're still…" he wasn't sure how to end that sentence. Loki looked faintly amused.
"I am easily bored, Captain. When I find something that entertains me, I do not allow it to slip away so easily." Steve shifted slightly, vaguely uncomfortable with that.
"And I entertain you," he said finally, a little stiffly. Loki smiled that patient, indulgent, and condescending smile.
"Yes. You do."
Steve squared his shoulders and faced Loki head-on. "I'm not your toy," he said. "Don't treat me like I am. If you're going to…do this, it's going to be because you want to talk to me, not play with me."
Loki leaned back slightly from the counter, expression strangely…satisfied? Steve blinked. That didn't make any sense, and he almost wished he were Natasha and could read was going on in Loki's head. He didn't like feeling constantly three steps behind. "Ah," he said, "So you haven't lost your fangs. I was beginning to wonder."
"I haven't lost anything," Steve said flatly. Loki cocked his head slightly to the side.
"You've lost your fear of me."
Steve scowled. "I was never afraid of you." Loki snickered, and Steve tensed. "I wasn't."
"Truly? Mmm. The more fool you." He didn't sound threatening, though, voice still light, almost friendly. That made Steve nervous too. He preferred, he thought sometimes, the battlefield, where even if everything else was falling apart at least you knew what was going on and who your enemy was. "But no matter."
Steve tried not to fidget. "Well?" he said. Loki gave him a convincingly innocent look.
"Beg pardon?"
"Are you just playing games with me or are you here because you want to be?" Steve wasn't sure why the answer was so important to him. It might well be, after all, just a lie. Loki's head tilted to the other side, and he 'hmm'ed, softly.
"Do you want me to tell you I savor the pleasure of your company?" Loki said, with undeniable mockery and an almost sweet smile. Steve forced himself not to bristle, and stood firm.
"I'm not anybody's dancing monkey." Loki leaned in like he smelled blood.
"Oh, but I'm sure you'd make such a good one." Steve's fists clenched. He turned, after a moment, and began to walk away. He didn't hear Loki move, but his voice was low and suddenly hard close to Steve's ear, long fingers wrapped around his arm. "Don't turn your back on me."
Steve didn't turn round. "I told you. If you're just here to play games with me, I'm not interested." He kept his voice cool, flat, every muscle perfectly still. Loki, he was too aware, could probably kill him with ease and without ever striking a physical blow. He was counting on the imbalance between them, Loki's memory of Steve's help before, and an unwillingness to jeopardize his secrecy to prevent it. It seemed, for a moment, very thin.
And maybe something else, but Steve wasn't even certain that was there to begin with.
Loki released him with a sharp movement. He said nothing for a moment, and then, stiffly, "I would…ask your pardon. I will not say I did not intend offense, but it was…highly churlish of me. It is…easier, sometimes, for me to be cruel."
Steve let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and turned, slowly. "All right. I accept your apology."
Loki looked briefly, faintly startled, but he wiped it away admirably quickly, inclining his head a fraction. "You are gracious," he said, and this time it sounded perhaps a fraction more sincere. Steve stepped back toward the kitchen and his abandoned eggs.
"Do you want anything?" he asked, and then added, "Well, other than the pear," and again there was that odd flash of strange, quizzical puzzlement across Loki's face. There, then gone.
"No, thank you," he said after a moment. "I think I will be…" Loki tipped his head slightly to the side. Steve couldn't hear anything, but a moment later Loki refocused with a faint smile. "Your friends return. Or at least one of them does, which would make it time for me to take my leave."
Steve hesitated to say it again, but ultimately couldn't help himself. "You could-"
"No," Loki said, but almost gently. "I do not think so. A good day, Captain Rogers. I trust you will inform me when you have made a decision on the matter of my debt."
Steve blinked. He had a strong sense of surreality, that he might, in fact, be dreaming all of this. "Yeah," he said, carefully. "I will."
"Farewell, then," Loki said silkily, and rose gracefully from the counter to move away, though he paused a moment to add, "Ah, and if you should mention my presence here to anyone, rest assured that your friends shall find their rest a great deal less pleasant."
Steve's stomach lurched a little. Every time he thought maybe…but this was Loki. And he needed to remember that, and keep remembering it.
Steve chewed his lip, the urge in him to find something to ask for before he left. A request. Well, two requests that he could make. Within reason. Rotten from birth flitted into his mind, and he took a sharp breath.
"I've got an idea," Steve said, suddenly, and Loki turned, one eyebrow raised. "—I mean. For something you can do. You said you owed me two debts. So here's one: do something to help someone. Someone ordinary. It doesn't need to be…big. Just something."
Loki blinked. He looked, for just a moment, slightly surprised. And then one corner of his mouth curled upwards. "I might have known. Not for yourself."
Steve held his gaze, half waiting for a refusal, or a laugh, mockery that he'd thought Loki was serious. But Loki only looked at him, seeming thoughtful, considering as the smile dropped away.
"Done," he said finally. "I will see to it, and ensure that you…know when I have done as you ask." He paused a moment longer as though he might say something more, and then simply turned and disappeared. Only moments later, Clint stepped through the door.
"Hey, Steve, want to order a pizza with me tonight? Or three, I guess, Tony's supposed to be out and I am not getting a vegetarian pizza…" he trailed off, and seemed to get a proper look at Steve. Whatever was on his face made Clint frown.
"Hey, something up?"
"No," said Steve hastily, "Nothing." He felt immediately, hideously guilty. Clint seemed lighter, since Thor had given them the news. More relaxed, like a weight had dropped off his shoulders.
Next time, Steve resolved. Next time he'd do his duty and call the others, and they'd bring Loki in. He'd made it abundantly clear he had no intentions of changing, or reforming. No promises that he wouldn't go out there and kill. (Deaths, Steve thought grimly, that might as well be on his head.) Bringing him to face justice would be for the best.
It couldn't be betrayal when there was nothing to betray. And he'd keep telling himself that until it stuck, and the uncomfortable, squirming feeling in his stomach went away.
~.~
Steve received a text from an unknown number a week to the day after Loki's visit. This was especially impressive given that his phone was out of battery, and had been for the last two days. A state which was hardly unusual, considering how often he tended to forget he had one. Channel four, it read. I believe you may find it of interest. –L
He'd gone over immediately and changed the channel, to the vehement protest of both Clint and Thor. "I just want to see something," he said, and flipped with a little bit of difficulty (and finally help from Clint) to channel four.
"—reporting from the site of a chemical fire where, miraculously, no one was injured, despite the fact that all workers were inside when the fire started with an explosion of toxic materials. This plant has been the subject of a number or recent worker complaints about safety and working conditions. One worker claims that an 'angel' protected him from the flames. Further news on this story to come…"
Steve blinked. "Well," Tony drawled, over his shoulder. "That's…unusually cheerful, for news. Was that what you were looking for, Steve?"
"Yeah," Steve said after a moment. "I think it was."
He retreated to his room and tried to call the number that had texted him, but it simply rang interminably, and no one picked up. Steve rubbed at his temple, frowning.
If it was Loki, he thought, if it really had been Loki to save those people…that was good, wasn't it? Even if he only did it to pay off a debt? But Steve had said one person, help one person. And then he thought of Thor downstairs, still quiet, still subdued, because Steve couldn't work out how to tell him that his brother had never been dead after all and was now and had been visiting Steve for some unknown reason, which would maybe mean going all the way back and admitting to the thing that had started this to begin with, and…
…and of course, there was Loki's tacit threat to consider. None of them slept soundly. None of them – especially not Clint – needed worse to contend with.
He'd do it, he would, just not now.
Steve started violently when he turned with a heavy sigh and saw Loki lounging on his bed. He looked quite at ease, even in his leathers and metal, and nodded at the phone in Steve's hand. "You saw."
"I did," Steve said, still trying to collect himself and he ought to shout for the others, get JARVIS to – if JARVIS could even hear him, with whatever Loki was doing to interfere…
His comm was right there. He could probably use that, somehow. Turn it on, something.
He didn't.
Loki's eyebrows lifted a little at his silence. "Well? Does it suit? May I consider your terms fulfilled and one account of two settled?"
For a moment, the wild idea flashed through Steve's mind to say no. He had Loki bound, on a thin leash if nothing else, and if he kept Thor's brother on that tether by not letting him clear the debt between them then maybe…
But he already knew that was hopeless, even as he started to think it. Not just because Loki would undoubtedly break his word rather than submit to such endless servitude, but because for Steve himself, it wasn't right. Wasn't fair.
"Yes," he said, and then, because he needed to, added, "More than." He watched Loki's expression as he said it, and that so carefully maintained mask cracked again, just for a moment, and Steve saw surprised pleasure mingled with a kind of disbelief. It was the expression, Steve realized, he'd seen on the faces of those starving offered food. Desperate, wary need.
He blinked and it was gone, but even the glimpse lingered in his memory. In its place was a smug little grin. "Your realm has so much misery I could not choose just one. Truly you do a poor job of its maintenance."
Steve deliberately did not rise to the bait. He crossed the room and sat down at the chair by his desk. "It was a good thing," he said. Loki shifted, slightly.
"And if I admitted to setting the fire in the first place so that I might perform my heroic deed?" he said, after a quiet moment, voice quietly sardonic. Steve sat bolt upright.
"Did you?" he asked, but Loki just regarded him with a smirk. Steve leaned forward, keeping his face calm even as his stomach started to drop horribly. "Loki. Did you?"
His eyes flicked away, to Steve's window, to the ceiling. After a long, nearly interminable moment, "No. But I might have."
Steve half opened his mouth, and shut it. Then he said, "But you didn't." Both his eyes were fixed on Loki, still not looking at him.
"If you are going to become maudlin over this I will leave," he said, voice nearly clipped. "It was a debt repaid and an irresistible urge to be extravagant. Nothing more." Steve almost felt a little nudge of relief.
"Are you always this bad at accepting thank-yous?" Steve said, and didn't even think about the teasing tone that slipped into his voice, as it might have with Tony. Didn't think and suddenly Loki was on his feet and leaning over Steve, his face inches away and arms bracketing either side of him, pinning him back against the desk.
"Do not laugh at me. Don't you dare-"
Steve's throat tightened and he very nearly quailed. Loki's eyes were blazing and wild but now, now he thought he could see underneath to the fear that he didn't understand. He swallowed hard and forced his voice out. "I'm not. Laughing at you." Loki's eyes bored into his. Then as suddenly as he had attacked, he withdrew, took two steps back. Steve took a deep breath. "You don't want me to tell you how much you just sounded like Tony, or Clint, or…me."
Loki's expression flickered. "Don't be absurd."
"I'm serious," Steve said. "You did something good. It's okay to accept thanks for that."
"I have no trouble accepting credit where it is due." Loki's voice was impressively haughty. Steve sat up a little straighter.
"Do you?"
"Of course." He sounded nearly affronted at the suggestion. Steve didn't think he believed that, and he knew too personally the why. He leaned back a little, thinking about that. It was Tony that came to mind again, and Steve had to wonder- "I hope," Loki cut in, his voice not quite sharp, "You are not getting the wrong idea. If you intend to take this as some sort of sign of my – ah – rehabilitation-"
"I wouldn't think of it," said Steve, and perhaps there was something in his tone that he didn't entirely mean to be there, because Loki threw him a sharp look.
"Good," he said, not quite curtly. "I wouldn't want you to be disappointed." He turned and went back to the bed, stretched out on it again, this time propped up against the pillows with his hands folded on his stomach.
"I'm just thinking," Steve said, and probably this was a bad idea but he just couldn't – not. "If you were really as bad as you say, would you have saved those people?" He didn't look directly at Loki, letting his gaze stray. "You could have done a lot less."
He caught the tension out of the corner of his eye. "I have an unfortunate tendency to enjoy extravagance."
"Huh," Steve said. "So you say." He could almost hear Loki's eyes narrow, and changed the subject abruptly. "So. What have you been doing other than…that?"
"Perhaps I am quietly hatching my next evil plan," Loki said, voice almost a drawl. Steve pressed his lips together.
"Are you?"
Loki's head turned sideways to give Steve a patient smile. "Would I tell you if I were? Hardly. I can tell you that I've been traveling. Here and there. Time was I was quite the wanderer."
"Traveling where?" Steve asked, honestly curious, and Loki gave him a faintly incredulous look.
"You have remarkable confidence. Portugal. The moon. The interior of the earth. Perhaps another day I shall tell you all the details of my movements, my Captain, but not this one."
That casual expression of…almost ownership, made Steve blush. He didn't think it was meant that way, but nonetheless it still... "You know," he said, though, "We're not actually tracking you right now. Not…actively, anyway."
"Of course not," Loki agreed, "You believe me dead." He sounded faintly amused. Steve grimaced a little and wondered how Loki was so sure he hadn't told anyone, but then, this was Loki. He probably had ways.
Steve frowned. "So…why worry? If it's not us and it's not the Chitauri," he clarified. Loki smiled like a knife, but Steve thought it might cut both ways.
"I make friends wherever I go." There was something brutally sardonic about that last. Steve wanted to wince but held himself steady. Loki shrugged one shoulder. "You and they are not my only enemies. And should news of my…ah, resurrection…get out, I would like the head start."
"Who?" Steve asked, and Loki gave him a slightly sharp look.
"Is it of import? They are not hunting you, nor any of your own. If it should come to that, I will manage that…problem…on my own."
He wasn't getting anywhere with that. Of course. Steve wasn't even sure where he was trying to get, or that he even should be trying. Or why he was. "Okay," he said, finally, slowly. "It just seemed like a good thing to know."
"Why," Loki said, not quite cutting, "Seeking alliances?"
No, Steve thought, but something about Loki's tone irked him, so he said, "Not necessarily." Those sharp, slightly narrowed green eyes lingered on him a moment, but he glanced away a moment later. Steve waited, thinking quietly, then added, "Can I ask you a question?"
"I'm inclined to think you will ask even if I answer in the negative," Loki said dryly. "Ask away. An answer, on the other hand, is something else."
"That's fair," Steve agreed. "I was just wondering. Is there anything you miss about Asgard?"
The moment's silence was fractional, and Steve might have thought he'd imagined it, if he hadn't listened so carefully. "Is there anything you miss about your time?" Loki asked sharply. "How is it, to feel so distant from the world you live in? To know that all you knew is gone?"
Steve wanted to flinch, but he knew that was what Loki was looking for, knew the question was just a way of striking back. He took a deep breath. Take a risk, he told himself, and tried to ignore the little voice that said he was taking too many. "It's hard," he said slowly. "And…confusing. I'm adjusting, and it's getting easier, but sometimes there are little things that just…" he shrugged. "There's a lot of new things, and most people…don't even realize how different it is, for me, that stuff they take for granted I'm still working out. It's a different world, but in a lot of ways it's the same, too. Where it matters. Sometimes I just focus on that, and on doing what I can do to make it a better one, and that…helps." There. Not too much. He hoped. Steve looked up from his hands to see Loki just…looking at him.
Steve let his shoulders rise and fall, trying not to look uncertain. "That's it, I guess."
"You realize," Loki said slowly, "That you have just as good as handed me a weapon. A vulnerability at which to strike."
"You already knew it was there," Steve said pragmatically. "And I asked you a personal question. It's fair that you get to ask one too." And it'd hurt, but then…his probably had too.
Loki's expression was nearly quizzical. "You truly are exactly what you seem to be," he murmured, after a moment, and then shook his head. "Strange. I don't think you even know how…strange that is."
"It's not that strange."
Loki's eyes cut to him, slightly narrowed. "The whole world lies. With every breath and every moment. Little things, larger things – it is all a deceit. Seamless. Elegant. Sometimes sweet, but a lie nonetheless. So very few things are truly what they show to the world."
Steve wondered what a world like that would look like. Wondered what it would be like, constantly thinking that everything hid something else, that…he made a face. "That seems…I don't believe that. And even if I did…you have to trust that people are going to be honest sometimes."
Loki coughed that strange, mirthless laugh. "A fool's trust."
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Steve said, honestly. Loki's expression went angrily taut. "I mean it," Steve pushed on. "I am sorry. That seems…lonely."
"I value my solitude."
"That doesn't make it not lonely." Enough that I'm the only person you think you can come to, Steve thought, and only when it was death on all sides anyway. Loki's teeth flashed.
"I have told you before what I think of your pity. Keep it for yourself; undoubtedly you need it more."
Steve looked down at his hands. "Undoubtedly." He wasn't going to get an answer. He regretted asking; regretted answering Loki's own question. It'd been stupid, silly…
"Yes," Loki said, suddenly, the tone of his voice changed. It was quieter, nearly inaudible. Steve turned his head to look at him, but Loki was looking away, his profile visible, long fingers toying with the bedspread.
"I'm sorry, I don't-"
"Yes," Loki said again. "There are…things I miss. At times."
Steve swallowed hard, not daring to speak. Nearly holding his breath. But Loki didn't say another word, and a moment later he was gone with little more than a faint whisper of air, Steve's bed empty, hardly even an indent to show he'd been there.
~.~
Every time they were called out, something clenched a little in Steve's stomach, half sure that it would be Loki, that innocent men and women would be dead and he would know that he could have stopped it. That he should have.
Whatever Loki was doing, though, that he seemed so disinclined to tell Steve, it was apparently not wreaking havoc. Or at least not the visible kind.
Thor went back to Asgard, a routine visit home, and came back frowning. "It was a strange thing," he confided to Steve, one afternoon after they'd been sparring. "Nothing great, just…there was a flower on mother's pillow, bloomed out of season. It was…" he trailed off, frowning.
Steve went walking in Central Park, trying to keep his head empty and clear.
"Deep in thought?"
Steve managed to keep himself from jumping. "Do you have to do that?" he said mildly. Loki's laugh was barely audible, just a soft chuffing of breath.
"It is one of my few joys. Would you deprive me of it?"
"You could find a new one," Steve said.
"Could. I think I am disinclined." It occurred to Steve all over again how strange this was. Carrying on a conversation like this, like this was anyone else and…he thought of Clint again, and Coulson, and all the names on the new memorial in the middle of New York.
If you can, he told himself, and it could be worse, if this is even part of, if talking to you is something that keeps him from getting bored enough to, and knew it was all excuses, somewhere guilty and not quite well hidden enough. He enjoyed this, somehow; liked Loki when he wasn't…posturing or threatening or what-have-you. He was charming and smart and it was a fine afternoon.
Steve tried not to look too closely at that.
"Considering the strangeness of the world?" Loki said, something faintly ironic to his tone, and Steve almost stared at the almost eerie echo of his thoughts.
"No," he said, a little too quickly, and then added even as Loki's eyes sharpened, "Thinking about something Thor said."
Loki scoffed, quietly. "Undoubtedly foolish. I have told you I mislike-"
"Did it mean something to your mother?" Steve blurted out. "The flower. I mean."
Silence, so complete that Steve glanced to see if Loki was still walking with him. He was, but his face had lost its faintly good humored expression. "You grow bold, Captain," he said, finally, and there was something decidedly cool about his voice, a sense of the low hum of power that made Steve instinctively want to back down. "You take great licenses in the way you speak to me. I do not find it altogether to my taste. Too familiar. Altogether too liberal. Perhaps you require a reminder of who I am."
Steve was suddenly too aware of their surroundings, the children, the couples walking through, tourists trying to find their way from maps. People, innocents, everywhere. He tensed, the good feeling of a moment before, brought on by a pleasant afternoon walk and the hope of a good conversation, evaporating.
He needed to try to manage this. "If you don't want to answer a question," Steve said, slowly, trying to sound nonchalant, "You don't have to."
Loki's voice was decidedly cool. "That simple, hm?"
"Yeah," Steve said. "It is, actually."
He almost held his breath, waiting, and then the low hum was gone and Steve almost went limp with relief. Loki's voice remained cool, however. "If anyone in Asgard was kind to me, it was her. I thought she deserved some small comfort." There was no feeling at all in the words. "And I notice you have still not informed Thor of my continued existence. Ashamed of the company you're keeping?"
"You asked me not to," Steve said, which wasn't quite the reason, but he didn't like that snide note in Loki's voice, so sure what Steve was thinking. "And don't put words in my mouth."
Loki's smile was clean and wide, and strangely brittle. "I find that most only say that when I am right."
"I decided who I have my conversations with is my business," Steve said, a little more firmly.
"I doubt most of your acquaintances would agree in my case," Loki said, but something barely perceptible slipped out of his smile. It still wasn't easy, but maybe a little easier. "Such curiosity is vulgar, Captain. I indulge you this once, but do not press the issue again."
Sometimes the way Loki talked…Steve remembered that he was – or had been, he wasn't wholly clear on that – a prince, like Thor. He wondered what they would have been like, next to each other, and could only think that it must have been a sight. Thor's boisterous and straightforward nature to Loki's quiet, continually twisting conversation. Light to dark, broad and muscular to slender and subtle. He understood a little, then, why Thor refused to give up on his brother.
Had refused. Now he thought he was dead.
Steve felt a little twist of guilt added to his slowly growing pile.
"Now," Loki said, voice haughty, "I was observing your last public appearance-"
Steve started. "You – what?"
Loki made that quiet coughing snicker that was his version of a laugh, and the most Steve had ever heard from him that wasn't bitter or derisive. "Not present, you fool. On the television. I do avail myself of mortal conveniences once in a while."
Steve tried to picture Loki watching TV like Clint or Tony and couldn't quite do it. "Oh," he said, though. And, "and?"
"You have very little talent for public speaking," Loki said bluntly. "Passably well, perhaps, to the untrained eye, but…"
Steve shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm not great at the publicity things." He hadn't liked it in the war, and he almost thought he liked it less now. Loki looked faintly amused.
"Such is obvious."
Steve frowned and tried not to bristle. "Is there any point to you bringing this up other than to make fun of me?"
"An observation," Loki said, voice cool if perhaps very faintly amused. "No more. I am collecting observations about you. Researching, one might say. You had a very lovely obituary in the newspapers."
Steve tried not to flinch, and wondered if this was revenge for his question last time or this time. Last time, he thought. "Dead soldiers sell papers," he muttered.
"Mm." Loki's bearing didn't shift a jot, as though he were entirely unaware of Steve's discomfort. "And your friend, did his death sell papers?"
Steve went rigid. How had he known, was his first thought, followed almost immediately by, definitely revenge. His temper flared up and he didn't bother to try to bite it back. "No," he said, sharply, his fists clenching, and stopped walking. Loki half turned to look at him, the picture of innocence, eyebrows raised.
"No, it did not, or…?"
"No," Steve repeated, and tried to keep his voice from trembling. "You don't get to do that. I told you if you played games with me I wasn't going to stick around. The same goes for trying to upset me."
Loki's smile was sharp and faintly unpleasant. "I don't think it's trying when it works."
"That's petty," Steve said, "And childish. I hurt you so you're trying to hurt me back."
"You hurt me? You greatly overestimate-"
"Don't try to tell me that," Steve interrupted. "You don't like something I say, say so. Don't just – don't just take off and then come back determined to have some kind of revenge. You can't – go around hurting people just because they hurt you."
"Why not," Loki said, his voice lofty, but there was something low and vicious underneath. "That is the world, is it not? Give and take. Action and reaction. Strike and retaliation."
"Vengeance doesn't get anyone anywhere," Steve said, stubbornly. "And that's not true."
"Come now," Loki said, his voice sleek and deadly. "Admit it. When your friend – when James Barnes fell, it hurt. You wanted nothing more than to wash away that pain in blood. To take the price for his life from every one of your enemies-" He stopped, suddenly, and Steve realized that he'd taken a step closer, his body tensed for a fight. The look in Loki's eyes was strange. Half-wild, almost hungry. His tongue crept out and touched his lower lip, something anticipatory in the expression, as though he was waiting for Steve to lash out.
He felt a strange, sick lurch, and forced himself to step back.
"Maybe I wanted to," Steve said, "but that doesn't mean I did. And it doesn't mean I will." He took a deliberate step back. "We're done."
"We've hardly spoken," Loki said, too lightly.
"We're done," Steve said, and turned away. He could still feel himself trying to shake and wasn't sure if it was grief or rage. He tried to get both under control.
He didn't look back, stomach churning in his throat. What had he thought, he berated himself, really, what had he thought would happen?
Not this, he thought, a little bitterly. Not that.
~.~
Steve blinked back to consciousness feeling as though an unspeakably high fever had just broken, disoriented and confused. Drained, but in a clean, relieved kind of way. He realized gradually that he was not in the medical bay as he would have expected given how he felt, and started to frown.
"I would not try to move just yet. I doubt very much that it would end well."
Steve made a sharp motion to sit up, and regretted it at once. His heart was jumping, and he craned his head around, searching for the owner of that voice. He felt a twist of simultaneous anger and fear in his stomach, their last meeting still fresh in his mind. "What did you-"
He found Loki sitting, to his surprise, only a few feet away, fingers laced between his knees and gaze level and calm. Steve fought the urge to recoil. If he had begun to fill out somewhat, now Loki was back to gaunt, dark shadows stark around his eyes. He looked exhausted, brutally so, and Steve couldn't help his reaction. His mouth tipped in a crooked smile, apparently recognizing the horror in Steve's face. "Do not look so alarmed. It looks far worse than it is. What do you remember?"
Steve thought back. He did not, oddly enough, feel in immediate danger. "There was a fight," he said, slowly. And then started, and asked sharply, "Was it-"
"Me? No." Loki did not sound offended by the assumption; if anything, his voice was strangely bland, inexpressive. "And before you begin to fret, your companions are well. Considerably, I might note," he added with some asperity, "better off than yourself."
A memory flashed through Steve's mind and he grabbed for it. "You may not die," Loki's voice snarled in his ear. His whole body was on fire. "Certainly not until you release me from your debt. I will not have-"
He blinked. Loki's expression, here and now, was decidedly cool. Bizarrely, it made him want to squirm. He cleared his throat.
"What happened?"
"It would seem you took others' accusations of a tendency to martyrdom too much to heart." His tone was short, clipped. Steve frowned.
"That doesn't actually explain-"
"Have you no sense of self preservation?" Loki said over him. "When a mage casts something you don't get in its way. You are lucky that-" Loki snapped his mouth shut and looked away. Steve tried to focus.
"You were there," he said slowly. "…why?"
Loki said nothing, gaze directed stubbornly away. Steve felt his frown deepen.
"You said it wasn't you, but-" Oddly, he felt his heart sank, but he wasn't sure why it had risen in the first place. He was suddenly acutely aware of how much trouble he might be in. This was Loki and he needed to remember what that meant, now more than ever. "—did you organize it?" he asked, voice hardening. Loki's eyes snapped to Steve's face and he pressed on. "To – to what? Get the credit for-"
He stopped himself too late, catching the truth in the flash of hurt through Loki's eyes before they shuttered completely. Loki barked a harsh, awful sounding laugh.
"To get the credit for saving you? My dear Captain, my actions were fully pragmatic and I was solely concerned with my dislike of unpaid debts. This does, I believe, fulfill that obligation, and far be it from me to force my company further upon you. You made our standing quite clear previously, and with my debt discharged…"
Steve almost winced at the way Loki bit off the end of every word. "Wait," he said. "Loki-"
Loki's gaze was scathing, his voice acidly polite. "Have you found further accusations that appeal to your limited mind?"
"I needed to be sure," he said lamely, even as part of him wondered why he bothered to defend himself at all. "You have to admit…" It was the wrong thing to say again. He'd thought Loki's expression closed before.
"Yes," Loki said coolly. "Of course. I understand." Steve wanted to beat his head against a wall. No, you don't.
"I didn't mean it like," Steve started to protest, and Loki wheeled on him.
"Like that?" His voice bit like winter wind. "Yes, you did. You are not a complete fool, after all, and what else to think of Loki who lies as he breathes, whose very name is treachery, deceit?" Loki's arms flung wide, palms out, as though inviting a blow, and Steve remembered that look on his face again, like he'd been trying to goad Steve into starting a fight. "Always a trap, a trick, what can you expect-"
Steve was too tired for this. He let his head drop back down, a little twinge of resentment in his belly, how is this my fault, last time we talked you… "Stop."
Loki's laugh was grating and awful. "Stop what? I only fill in what you are too polite to say."
"Stop," Steve said, forcing the words out, "Twisting my words around to fit what you expect me to say."
"Why? Am I wrong?"
Steve squeezed his eyes shut and breathed out slowly. "No."
"Aha-" Loki's voice was sharp with triumph and something else. Steve cut him off.
"No, and I was wrong." He needed to salvage this, and wasn't sure why it was so important, only that it was. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed the worst." Loki jerked and blinked like he'd been slapped. His mouth snapped closed, expression gratifyingly stunned. Steve wondered how many times someone had apologized to Loki for thinking the worst. He was inclined to think not many. Steve held his gaze evenly.
"You should not," Loki said finally, voice strangely quiet. "I am not…I have never been…trustworthy. You should know that." His eyebrows were pulled together, a thin line between them.
"Call me naïve," Steve said, "but since you turned up a bloody mess, you haven't actually played me false. Been cruel, sure, but…and you just saved my life." He could feel Loki's gaze on him and let his eyes turn toward the ceiling. "So thanks."
Silence, deep and heavy. Steve waited, uncertain and uneasy, and unsure why he was either. Finally, Loki's voice, a low murmur, said, "I keep my word. When I give it. Letting you perish would make that difficult." Another long moment, and he heard Loki sit back down. Steve was not quite able to hold in a quiet sigh of relief and turned his head to look at him again.
"I wasn't expecting to see you again," Steve said slowly, after a few moments of silence. Loki shifted, slightly. He did not look, precisely, uncomfortable, but the nearest thing to it Steve thought he had seen on that face.
"I did not think I would be welcomed, and kept my distance." His tone was convincingly cool, and Steve almost felt a twinge of disappointment. Then, even more reluctantly, he added, "I…acted poorly. Childishly. I should not have required your chiding to recall my etiquette."
Steve swallowed, then said, "Next time, just…tell me to back off."
"Next time," Loki said, something strange in his voice, and then, "You…did not ask it of me, that I aid you in this matter. I will consider my second debt still unmet."
Steve pushed himself to a sitting position. "You don't have-"
"I think," Loki said, and there was something strange to his expression, "it is time I returned you. Your friends will be fretting."
"Wait," said Steve, and just caught a twitch around Loki's eye before he was gone, and Steve was lying on the couch in the midst of what looked like a team meeting in progress. Their faces were drawn and worried and, indeed, fretting. Although mostly now just surprised.
"Well," said Tony. "I guess that answers that question."
"What the shit," said Clint, eyes a little too wide, and Thor began to look heartbreakingly hopeful.
Steve sighed. It was going to be a long explanation.
Still. He couldn't help but feel a little twinge of something like hope. Maybe just a little. Four steps forward, three steps back.
Even if he still didn't know where they were going, or if, or why. It was still something.