Child of War
Chapter 1:
Steve stands from the fountain, swiping the back of his hand against his chin to wipe the excess water away.
It's hot today, and as he tilts his face towards the sky, his eyes squint against the harsh glare of the mid-noon sun.
Normally, he would have already gotten his morning run out of the way, but Fury had called an emergency meeting with him and the rest of the team earlier, another HYDRA cell located underground the bureau of Queens this time. A little too close for comfort, for Steve's tastes.
It had been a relatively simple mission. In the end, all it had taken was him and Nat going in and wiping the pocket clean. There'd been only ten HYDRA agents involved, and they'd all been taken into custody, no real fuss.
All pretty standard and boring.
Steve sighs, bringing his gaze back down from the sky and glancing around.
Human traffic is pretty thick now, and he's glad he got his run over with. It's always a hassle having to navigate through the crowds on the streets.
He almost wishes something would happen, though he scolds himself a moment later, knowing the foolery behind such a sentiment.
It's better when it's quiet.
He should be thankful things have been going so smoothly, and the Avengers haven't been all that needed lately.
It's just… boring.
Steve knows what it is.
He feels directionless lately.
No, not lately.
Since he woke up, really.
Like whatever purpose… whatever meaninghad been driving him before is gone.
Like now he's just waiting for someone to tell him what to do, and something about it just doesn't sit right.
Steve hasn't ever taken to receiving orders and following them blindly.
He isn't what anyone would call a good solider.
This latest fiasco with SHIELD has only driven home to him further the wisdom of his own attitude.
Only a fool acts without thinking.
He turns from the water fountain, ready to head home to his small apartment, trying to brush away the lately increasing glumness of his thoughts.
His eyes go wide in momentary shock when something comes crashing into his legs, hard and solid and swift.
He steps back, blinking, looking down.
The last thing he expects to see is a child, a tiny child, sprawled unceremoniously upon his back, staring up at him, wide eyed and frightened.
The boy can't be older than five or six, if even, Steve thinks. He's so small.
Though if this is the first thing he notices, what next catches his eye is just how very unusual the child looks.
Skin so pale white, it seems almost glowing, and short, cropped hair, so black it might as well be blue.
Eyes a verdant, bright green, bleeding out almost pale round the rims of his irises, shining and wet with thick tears, streaming down flushed cheeks. All of this set against a thin, gaunt face, cheek bones sharper than one would normally ever see in someone so young, long nose and thin lips and…
Steve's eyes go wider still, his breathe catching in his throat, because suddenly he knowsthis kid. Suddenly he recognizes him.
Would anywhere.
Even if it's the same face something like 18 or 19 years younger.
"Loki?" He stutters out, hardly believing his own voice.
It only registers to him a moment after that the boy is naked, and filthy, and trembling like a leaf in a hurricane.
The kid doesn't say anything, just staring up at him with the same, terrified expression.
And a second later, the boy is back up on his feet, and hurtling past him so fast, Steve can barely follow the movement.
He turns, calling after him.
He's just about to take off in a run to follow.
The boy is fast, but Steve knows he's faster, and if he's right, if that really isLoki, however impossible or improbable as that may be, he can't just…
He's stopped when he hears a loud ruckus behind him, the whoops and hollers of a group of what sounds like teenagers, and turning back around, he sees five of them, probably between fifteen and seventeen, running from the same direction the little boy had come from.
He picks up on their words an instant later. They're taunting, screaming threats and laughing wildly, and it dawns quick and hard on Steve that it's the boy, that it's Loki they're after.
He remembers the terrified expression across the kid's face.
And Steve doesn't even think, turning back around, eyes searching frantically for him.
He feels his heart stutter to a lurching halt in his chest when he spots him, and sees him running straight for the heavily trafficked street.
"NO!" He cries, lungs seeming to burst with the effort.
And then he's off, sprinting after the boy like it's his own life that depends upon it.
But it's too late. He can already see that before he's covered even half the distance between them.
The child rushes into the street without even looking, and it's like watching a nightmare unfold before his very eyes, Steve freezing, his hands coming to his head, fingers twisting into his short hair.
He can feel his face contort in horror and dismay as, moments later, the inevitable happens, and the boy is struck head on by a rushing vehicle going what must have been at least 40 mph.
There is the deafening sound of screeching tires on pavement, and terrified screams, but all Steve can see, all he is aware of in those eternal seconds is the fragile, tiny body which goes sailing through the air.
Watching as it descends slowly with gravity, and comes crashing against the blacktop of the road, skidding and rolling seeming unendingly before, at last, coming to a stop what must be fifteen or twenty feet away.
The kid doesn't move, and Steve thinks he's never felt this kind of fear in his life.
Not through the war. Not through infiltrating HYDRA's base of operations. Not through facing off against the Red Skull, or crashing that plane into the frozen waters.
Not through an alien invasion, or waking up in a world completely changed.
Time seems not to move for a moment, suspended there and horrible.
And then Steve's brain catches up with him, and he's running.
No, he's flying, shoving past people and screaming at them to move.
People are just standing there, staring, he knows, in shock. But something about it makes rage boil up in him in a way he can't even begin to find the words to express, and he has no time or care at this point for niceties or playing the good, all American boy.
He moves as fast as he can, and still it isn't nearly fast enough.
"Out of the way!" He shouts at the circle of people which has begun to form around the prone body of the child, and the command in his voice brooks no argument, the onlookers parting to let him through without question.
He doesn't know if they recognize who he is or not.
Right now, he doesn't care.
He comes skidding to a halt at the boy's side, and without thought, he drops to his knees, his hands reaching out, trembling, he notices, as they hover uncertainly above the motionless frame.
Loki… he, he thinks it's Loki, he's almost sure, is scrapped and bruised, though nothing near as bad as what Steve had imagined would be the case after taking such a severe blow. The worst of it, it seems, is a long gash running along the edge of his hairline, bleeding sluggishly, and some nasty looking abrasions along his face and, of course, the palms of his hands, as well as his elbows and knees.
But Steve can see his chest rising and falling with breath, and he hears himself exhale loudly in almost painful relief.
Slowly, he reaches down, pressing his fingers to the boy's pulse point just to be sure, and is rewarded with a steady, if faint, beat.
And so he slips his hand carefully and as gently as he can managed beneath the child's head, feeling for fractures along the way before slipping his palm to cradle the boy's neck.
Nothing feels broken.
Steve can hardly believe it.
From the hit the kid took, he should be dead.
And then he remembers how basically indestructible Thor is.
And if Loki's his brother…
Glancing down the road where the accident happened, Steve sees the car that hit the boy, sitting there, its front fender completely smashed in, steam rising from under the hood.
"Oh God, is he dead?" He hears someone stammer.
"I called an ambulance." Another person announces.
"Where'd he come from? Where are his parents?"
Steve barely hears them.
He looks back down at the boy, naked and dirty and skin torn up.
If Fury hears about this…
If the rest of his team does…
What are they going to do?
He's just a kid, no matter who he is, or what he's done, he… he's just a kid.
Steve remembers the terrified look on his face when he'd crashed into him, staring up with wide, lost eyes.
He doesn't think he's ever seen such raw, consuming panic. Such awful confusion.
None of that's going to matter to Fury. All he's going to know is this is Loki, an alien war criminal who's supposed to be locked away on another planet.
He'll want to shove him into a cell, Steve knows. Want to know how he escaped. What he's doing here, back on Earth. What he's planning.
He knows Fury is far from being incapable of grim tactics in acquiring desired information.
That's a fancy way of knowing if he has to, child or not, Fury will torture Loki to get what he wants.
Steve can't let that happen.
Without further thought, checking him over quickly but thoroughly, making sure nothing on the boy is broken, he gets an arm underneath the kid's knobby knees, his other arm slipping across the backs of his shoulders, and in one smooth motion, he stands up with him.
He's heavier than he looks. Steve has to guess he must be 80 or 90 pounds, but he looks like he can't weight more than 30 or 40. But then he remembers Thor mentioning something about the Aesir having higher density tissue than a normal human, and he guesses that must play a part in why they're so tough.
He thanks whatever powers may be out there now for that fact.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" Someone cries indignantly. "You shouldn't be moving him like that!"
Steve turns, holding Loki to his chest, letting the back of his small head rest on his bicep.
The teenager's who'd been chasing him are gone. Obviously scared off when they saw what had resulted from their cruelty.
"Official Avengers business ma'me." He states, applying his best, authoritative voice. "I'm Captain America. I'll get this boy the help he needs."
And that's all it takes.
Everyone backs off, not even questioning as he carries the unconscious form from the scene.
He has no idea what he's going to do. Fears he may even regret it.
Right now, all he knows is he's got to get Loki off of the streets, and his apartment is the nearest and fastest option he has available to him to do that.
All the rest of it, he'll work out when the times comes.
/
AN: So, I basically wrote this little thing a few months back and never posted it. Thought I'd do so now, since I've had some ideas swirling in my head about it. I know it's been done a zillion times, this particular trope. But, then, all my stories use overdone tropes, lol.
Let me know what you think! If people like it, I'll continue it, along with my other thousand projects.
