They called it depression, some fast progressing case of dysthymia. Steve only knew that he was just a little too sad.
There were cushions now, placed over every remotely sharp object in the apartment. They'd had to drug Loki for it, move him around to secure the place, as if he were some child, unassuming enough to hurt himself on the blunt end of a coffee table (and he and Nat had been pressured about it, surveillance showed signs of his getting worse, as if the reports weren't enough).
Steve had been the one to drug him, Nat wouldn't touch the stuff. Bad memories is what she'd told him, and he hadn't asked her anything further.
(Yet he'd ask Tony about it later on, and Tony would tell him it was the stuff they planned to use on Bruce, if he ever got to be too much to handle. Capable of taking down a dozen elephants, he'd say, stop their hearts and keep them that way. He asks Jarvis about it afterward, knowing the AI could only tell him the truth. The Hulk had been only an attempt to replicate the serum, the AI would say, and that was that).
"How is he?"
Loki sleeps in his room still, knocked out cold. The reparations— if one could call it that— had been over an hour now, and the room was empty, save him and Natasha.
"He should wake up soon,"
There's no smile to greet him, and her eyes stay elsewhere, fanning over the room as if the last year and a half had never happened and it was her first time here (and Steve finds that he doesn't quite like that look, but he tucks that particular thought away, pushing it to the corner of mind and memory alongside Bucky and the war and all the heartbreak that had followed. He'd never been one to directly confront his demons. He won't be one for a long time, and he's trying to be okay with that).
"They took all the knives— all the forks too. Thor said the last time they weren't careful and…"
She trails off, as if she hadn't been speaking to begin with. The silence rings like bombs on an open field, and he can only absorb it, afraid it'd break. It's always the fear with him, these days.
"I should go,"
She whispers, and maybe if he were any other person, he wouldn't have heard her at all.
He looks up then, watches as she gathers her coat in one hand and her carry-on in another. Without asking, he knows she'll be gone a couple days, like she's been inclined to do lately.
"Stay safe,"
He says, instead of goodbye.
She doesn't turn like she normally would, the quietness she leaves all the parting he would get. She's angry, he knows. She always seems so angry these days.
He doesn't think much of it, too much thought just leads to stress and stress, he finds, has never been his best companion. Instead, he draws the blinds of The Apartments lone window, darkening the room the way he knows Loki to prefer of late.
He doesn't quite check on Loki, merely opens the door and looks. He's younger when he sleeps. Like a boy, he thinks. Thor had always told them before, Loki was his little brother. Before The Apartments, he'd never truly believed it.
He looks quickly away when Loki turns, and he doesn't have to see to know the god was in the throes of another dream. It's been like this for weeks now, he'd seen it happen enough to know.
He doesn't quite sigh when he closes the door, doesn't allow himself the chance to. It's always a tumble for him. One sigh turns to a thought which turns into worry which turns into regret. But he just doesn't have that luxury anymore, now that they're in the final stages of their mission plan.
He can't help it though, the cold piercing through him when he's finally made it out the door.
The screaming. He will never get used to the screaming.
But he carries on, anyway.
It's for the best.
In a way, Loki reminds Steve of himself as a child.
It wasn't that Steve had been particularly curious, nor that he was as intelligent as Loki showed signs of being. But he was quiet like he used to be, and he was polite, always. He liked art and books and company. He respected Natasha, for all he knew of her manipulations (and it was obvious Loki knew, for a man who remembered nothing, he knew quite a lot, and was almost as observant as the spy herself—maybe even more so. Steve tries not to think of what those revelations would imply…), and he respected Steve, more than any person who didn't know him as The Captain America. For all that he was alone and left to himself most days, he was sane and sometimes kind. It was nice.
It was because of this, however, that Natasha would oftentimes warn him against his sentiment. Loki, for all that they knew him now, had still been— still is their enemy.
Yet it is so easy to forget….
"You've arrived,"
It was one of Loki's better days, earlier on in his occupancy of room 214. He hadn't been talkative that morning, but he never was truly talkative outside of his inquisitions, anyway. Steve hadn't thought much of it.
"I've got some bagels,"
Dusted with sugar, with a bottle of jam. Loki had such a sweet tooth, Steve could only guess that heritage had taken care of the worst of his cavities (Natasha had smiled, he recalls, that last time he'd mentioned it).
"On the counter,"
Loki tells him, walking off through the island-styled kitchenette and towards the opened window. It was something Steve observed of him, since the time Loki had been brought in. He loved the open air, loved to look at the skies, just the general outside.
Of course, the scenery was the same everyday of every week, The Apartments weren't anything magical like in Asgard; they were just a collection of heavily fortified apartments in somewhere-New York. Close to civilization to be sure, but the greatest protected by any earthly means. But Loki didn't care. He didn't care the way kid-Steve had cared, kid-Steve a head and a half shorter than boys two years younger than him, kid-Steve with asthma and an immune system so fragile a walk through the children's' ward in the nearby hospital could probably kill him.
He simply looked out, all day every day, smelt the same air, counted the same cracks in the sidewalk, the same cars in their lanes and stayed content (and he smiled so often, especially when the leaves blew off from the trees as the winds started up. He'd smiled particularly widely at an oncoming storm, a happiness there that Steve hadn't truly seen before the war. It would be disconcerting, if Steve knew nothing about him. But Steve did, and he wished he didn't. He'd prefer the discomfort to the sadness tugging at his heart with every new realization).
"So what's on the itinerary today?"
It was more of a Natasha question, but Steve had been feeling out of it since he'd woken up that morning. He let it slip anyway.
"Nothing much,"
Loki says it like he means it, like it wouldn't matter either way. Steve takes it as his cue to leave.
It has been a short few weeks, and he was stressed as is. Autumn was in full swing outside, shedding leaves like animal hairs, one after the other, leaving them in clumpy piles against the soggy dirt between the cement walkways. If he left quickly, he could maybe squeeze in an hours run before being called back to base by one of the other Avengers. Maybe.
Clint had been twitchy lately.
It's as he's turning, farewell on the tip of his tongue, that Loki finally properly acknowledges him.
"Actually,"
Loki turns, and it's perhaps the first time Steve had stared directly into those piercing green eyes.
"Could you stay a while?"
Earnest green eyes, expectant and hesitant.
Loki reminded Steve so much of himself sometimes, and in all those times, it'd always hurt to breathe.
A downturn of his lips.
Loki does not back down, but he expects rejection. He always does, Steve realizes.
"Okay"
He settles quietly into the seat beside Loki, and Loki smiles so boyishly than (and he'd have to ask Thor about it later on, how far back his memories had been stripped. He didn't know the system as much as he was a part of it, he'd never cared too much to learn. But this?)
"Well, I'd been meaning to ask…"
Loki is over a thousand years old, very much older than Steve by a long shot. Seeing him now, though, it's so hard to believe.
It's always so hard to believe.
Sentiment, Natasha had warned.
In another lifetime, perhaps he'd heeded that warning. As it stands now, to this day, he does not regret it.
"Hello, Steven"
He's there when Loki wakes up.
"Hey there, you got any good shut eye?"
Loki merely blinks, rubs the sleep from his eyes. He looks young still, but his temperament is older. Thor says it's only a matter of time.
"I am not familiar with the term,"
Loki says tersely, walking by him to the cushioned bench beneath the covered window. They'd installed it only today. He doesn't seem to notice any difference.
"Just asking if you slept well,"
Steve smiles at that, the small smile he usually reserves for placating the god. It would work, normally. The god does not look his way.
"Where's Natalie?"
Loki asks instead, sniffling. He'd been warm last Steve checked. He's not supposed to be warm. Steve would have to ask Natasha about it.
"Out, you know how busy she's been lately,"
Loki doesn't respond. Steve doesn't expect him to.
"I left some food on the counter, and a couple books Natalie asked for me to deliver, if that's okay,"
Loki doesn't quite nod, merely rest his head against the covered windows.
"I'll replace them for you?"
A dainty wave of his hand. Steve doesn't quite cringe, but he finds it very hard to not react in any way.
"I had a dream, Steven. I wished Natalie were here, I would not say it twice,"
He sounds wrecked, like he'd been on the wrong end of the Hulk's fury and gotten pummeled for his effort (and the imagery doesn't quite stick like it should, and Steve finds himself unable to conjure up any scenario where Loki's hurt and the villain again. After all that's happened, the secrets shared between them, it's not right).
Steve doesn't make any outward show of worry. In the last month, Loki'd shown to truly despise any supposed form of pity. Though Steve would never mention it aloud, he hated to see Loki so furious at simple, friendly affection, and he hated more the idea behind why that was, the reminder that that part of him was there to begin with.
"What happened?"
Steve asks, tucking away the weekly stipend as Loki seemed to mull over his words. He doesn't look at him, not the way he would have a year ago. Loki, for all his dramatics, grew uncomfortable easily. He'd stop talking if he were distressed, and Steve didn't think the dreams were anything worth bottling up so long.
He'd been told already, at least the more relevant tales of Loki's past. He knew why, more than most would, why Loki was the way he was. Even for New York… even for that, Steve couldn't blame him.
He'd be mad, too. Anyone else certainly would have.
"I have a mother, I think"
It's not how Steve expects him to start off, but he doesn't make any move to stop him.
"I— you know of the sea. I've told you before,"
A nod from Steve, but Loki still isn't looking.
"This was after. I..."
He pauses, his breaths coming in short gasps. Steve is on his way to him when Loki raises a hand, thin fingers impossibly long, leaking a green he hasn't seen since the invasion.
Steve doesn't quite panic, but a part of his heart settles itself with the knowledge.
It was coming soon, sooner than any of them could have predicted.
He'll have to talk to Fury about this… the Aesir if they don't already know.
He's not looking forward to any of those meetings.
"Hey, hey it's okay,"
He tries to reassure him, but he's never been a good liar, and the serum had only helped so much. Loki, sharp as ever, catches on before he's even finished.
He doesn't call him out on it, though. He never does.
"I saw gold in the stream, and the plants in her garden"
He says slowly, as if this were some big revelation. Maybe it was.
"I waited for her,"
Loki says, whispering out the last few words. There's a sadness to his expression that Steve's seen too much of the last several days, ever since the fire. He doesn't question it, never had any way of questioning why. But the hope that this would all turnaround is beginning to wither away.
"She never did come, she never did…"
Steve watches, hands beside him. In his periphery, he sees a flash beyond the dark of the curtain, thick enough to block most lights, but not to catch all. Loki doesn't notice it.
And secretly, Steve hopes he never does.
"What did you do?"
Steve had never been much of a liar, but both he had been trained to bait the truth. And Loki— Loki trusts him. Had trusted him since the first morning he'd sat with him, simply listening to him as he spoke of things he couldn't truly remember now.
It hurt, though it wasn't a lie. It hurt.
That was, perhaps, the hardest part about this.
"…I never left."
Steve wasn't the smartest of the Avengers, and beyond his skill on the battlefield, wasn't too good of a SHIELD agent either. Considering what he knew though, from the little he's heard from Natalie, and Thor and now Loki himself, he thinks he understands quite enough.
If it didn't hurt so much, Steve thinks that maybe he would be angry.
"You're late,"
His apartment is dark when he arrives, but he'd know that voice anywhere. He doesn't jump, not like he would have before the war.
Everything's so different now….
"You're in my apartment."
It's not a question, and they both know it. After all this time, it still drains him, talking of those dreams with Loki. Maybe it's because of that that he doesn't kick her out. He's not in the mood for more bad news.
"You look like the dead rolled over,"
He smiles, and it's maybe a little crazed (and Natasha always gives as well as she gets so they both find themselves quickly trapped at an impasse).
"Here,"
The tome hits his small dining table with a loud thwack, sending the scrap paper hastily slid between the pages flying. He tries to read them when he picks them back up, but the notes are written in a language he's never quite seen before, and that, above all, leaves him stumped.
"What is this?"
Steve isn't accusatory in tone, but Natasha's smile is sharp enough to break to any misconception he may have of her feelings towards him right now.
Not particularly impressed.
At least she wasn't pissed.
"He's manipulating us,"
Natasha tells him frankly, and Steven finds that hard to believe.
She must have seen it in his expression. The pull of his lips, maybe. The crease in his brow? He'd been a soldier, not a spy. He didn't know tells the way Natasha did.
"We just finished cushioning his apartment this morning, Nat"
And maybe he's exasperated, but Natasha isn't being particularly outwards with whatever it is she's figured out, and what she has said, isn't something that sits well with Steve.
"I know you don't trust him…"
She scoffs at that. For the first time in a while, he completely ignores that.
"But what you're implying is kinda ridiculous. Have you even seen him lately?"
He's being overprotective, maybe even a little possessive. But Loki… Loki was just a kid. Despite his temperament, the long years he's had stacked against Steve's very meager 95— he'd worked out the calculations himself, from what he knew of the 'Gods' aging.
Loki was just a kid.
By every standard, he was just a kid.
(A kid who damn nearly leveled New York, and if the Asgardian's are to be believed, destroyed an entire realm as well.)
Sentiment, Natasha had warned him about it.
But he's in so deep now….
"Look at these notes. The translations are on the scrap paper, I had Frigga work them for me"
She gives him a long look, a dark glower against the harsh lighting of his kitchen.
And it's a long while afterward, when the skies had darkened beyond visibility, and the city smog had caught up enough of the suburbs to block off any natural light. Natasha stayed standing before him the entirety of the time, much more stubborn than he'd ever been, war or otherwise.
Maybe it's the way her eyes soften, as if she understands. Maybe it's the way he knows she won't back down until he decides to use his strength to get the better of her. Maybe it's the fact that she can clearly think of those as possibilities and still look him in the eye throughout it, like she trusts him.
Maybe it's all of that combined.
Either way, the answer comes almost too-easy afterward.
"Okay."
