The alternate title to this is Steve Rogers' Very Bad No-Good Day.
Fair warning: there is unfairness on both sides. Really, what a nasty stressful situation.
Steve sits for a few minutes after the debriefing, watching the others file out. His head is empty, quiet, vacated as the adrenaline wears off. He tries to call Loki, but he can't say he's surprised when all he gets is a busy signal—the whole city is like that right now, and Steve won't command use of emergency lines just for a personal call. Their apartment was nowhere near the fighting yet...
"Go home," Coulson tells him.
XXX
Loki isn't at home.
Steve pauses just inside the door, eyeing where Loki's shoes should be, the empty space on the entry table where his keys and wallet go, and reaches for his phone again, mouth dry.
XXX
He goes back to the rest of the team. Thor is already working to help clear away debris for rescues, and Steve works with him.
(That Loki's phone goes straight to voicemail when Steve manages to get through means nothing, nothing at all. Off. Battery dead. He starts trying to call Olek, tries not to hate himself for not having Lethe's number.)
Thor tells him about where the others are, eventually moving on to talking about a circus show that Clint took him to. Steve lets the words wash over him, checking idly every few minutes, and tries to be grateful for Thor's attempts to distract him.
He'll call, he thinks. He'll call, he's okay, he's with Lethe or Olek, he's fine.
XXX
Steve's phone rings just as he and Thor are walking back into the tower; Steve nearly drops his phone in his haste to answer it.
"Steve Rogers," he says, mouth dry, ignoring Thor who is now slightly ahead of him, paused to wait.
"Steve? Steve, oh my gods, I finally got through, this—Steve, it's Lethe, I'm at the hospital right now with Olek, I've been trying to call you—"
"Lethe," Steve says, keeping his voice steady, grip going tight."What hospital? What happened?"
"—and he just, he went into a burning half-collapsed building, they found him about an hour ago, he promised he would be back and he—"
"Lethe," Steve repeats, voice shaking.
"I"m sorry," she says, and he can hear tears in her voice, "I'm sorry. I don't know the name of it. The one closest to where the attacks started, we were trying a new restaurant over there when—Olek—" and she pulls the phone away for a moment, but Steve is already looking up at Thor, Thor who is still waiting.
"I have to go," Steve tells him.
"Where?" Thor asks.
XXX
"Steve!"
"Olek," Steve says, resisting the urge to sprint the last distance, "Olek, where is he—"
"Slow down." Olek puts a hand to Steve's arm and Steve has to push back against the urge to shove Olek out of the way. "Steve. Lethe told me how he reacted when they found him and he woke. Slow a little—you rushing in may startle him awake."
Steve blinks at Olek.
"What do you mean how he reacted?"
Olek frowns, and Steve falls into step with him, itching to move faster, to see Loki, touch him, be sure he is real, know how badly he is hurt and how.
"He lashed out. Lethe says he kept screaming until they put him under, trying to push away from them." Olek is watching Steve, as if Steve should know why Loki would react that way, and Steve doesn't know even if it echos Loki flailing out of bed some mornings with a sharp cry, or how quickly he snaps awake when disturbed from nap.
"I… how is he?"
They go in the room and Lethe glances up at them.
Steve's eyes only skim over the rest before landing on Loki, IV dripping and the steady beep of the heart monitor becoming a sudden sharp comfort. Loki is asleep, breath shallow, black bruises peeking from the edges of bandages, faintest hint of a cut on the bridge of his nose. He moves closer, not even realizing that Lethe has moved aside as he sits down on the edge of the bed. One hand hovers for a moment before he hesitantly touches the back of Loki's hand, fingers tracing over bones that feel more fragile than even the thinnest paper.
Steve shudders.
"What happened?" he breathes, voice cracking. "You said he—what did he do?"
"We were—he wanted to help. He was guiding people to the subway, giving directions. He's said he'd be back, but he hadn't so I went to check. He went back in, after a little girl, and the building collapsed before he came back out."
"His ribs are broken," Olek adds, crossing arms, frowning. "But that seems the worst so far."
"I'm sorry," Lethe says, a hint of anger in her voice. "I should have stopped him, or gone with him to keep—"
"No," Steve says without looking up, slipping his hand around Loki's, thumb rubbing half-circles into the flesh of Loki's palm. "No. This isn't your fault."
"Do you wish us to stay?" Olek asks.
Steve hesitates to answer, even as selfishly all he wants is to close out the rest of the world and curl around Loki. To keep him safe, and whole.
"It's okay," Lethe says. "I want to go home."
"Then I shall take you," Olek says, and Steve breathes a sigh that the choice is out of his hands. "Steve, my friend, call if you need anything at all. We all know he will be insufferable while he heals." He offers a smile, restrained and worried, and Steve forces one back.
"Thank you," Steve repeats.
XXX
Steve isn't sure how long it is before Loki wakes, only knows that it feels like an eternity. He stays sitting on the edge of the bed and holds Loki's hand as a reminder and tries to think. Tries to think anything that isn't he nearly died, anything but a hundred scenarios where Loki wakes and he is paralyzed.
(It doesn't matter that Loki fought before he was brought to the hospital, even as Steve tries to reason with himself.)
He bites his thumb and he shakes and watches Loki as Loki sleeps, fear slowly morphing to anger—that Loki would risk his life so recklessly, that Loki nearly died, that Steve wasn't there to help him. He tries to push it away, because it's irrational, it's irrational and stupid and he's held his tongue before when this need to protect conflicted with the fact it wasn't Steve's choice to make.
(Quieter, quieter, underneath the fear and anger, he's proud. Sick and proud, but proud.)
It's hard, though, seeing how shallowly Loki breathes. Waiting, Steve suddenly has nothing but time to pick out the cuts and bruises on Loki's skin he missed when he first came in.
XXX
Loki's hand spasms, then tightens around Steve's own. Steve lets out a sigh of relief even as he distantly notes how tight Loki's grip is—like he's slipped, and reached out to catch himself.
"Loki," Steve says as Loki's eyes dart over the room, dazed, grip still desperately tight around Steve's hand. "Loki, you're okay," Steve repeats, using his other hand to rub Loki's wrist, and slowly, slowly, Loki's grip relaxes. "You're okay."
Loki doesn't acknowledge him, eyes still roaming over the room, breathing short, and Steve can hear his heart rate climbing. Sour taste in his mouth, Steve reaches forward, resting a hand on Loki's neck, thumb brushing against his jaw, and Loki finally looks at Steve.
"Loki," Steve says, "Love. You're okay. You're safe."
For a moment, Loki only stares without recognition before he lets out a rush of air, pressing his face against Steve's hand.
"Safe," Loki breathes, whisper that Steve would never have heard if not for the super serum. "Steve. Here." Loki's grip tightens around Steve's again for a moment before relaxing.
"Yes," Steve says. He hesitates a moment, then asks, "How do you feel?"
Loki goes to shrug and hisses, eyes closing.
"Apparently a building falling on you breaks your ribs," Steve says, but he smiles, forces dry humour into it. He isn't going to get angry at Loki. "You should be more careful."
Loki frowns, eyes opening again, sharp and Perylene Green stained with gold; it is all the warning Steve gets.
"I am not some maiden who must be coddled from a stiff breeze!" Loki snarls—tries to snarl, voice rasping—and struggling to sit up, yanking his hand away from Steve's.
"What?" Steve asks, startled. "I didn't say that, Loki—"
"Oh, of course not. I am entirely incapable of keeping myself safe, have never encountered strife before."
"Except for the fact you're human now. Look, that isn't wh—"
"As if you do not do the same! As if you would survive a building falling on you anymore than I!"
"Loki. Listen to me. Can't you just be reasonable for once?"
Green eyes widen, mouth opening, before Loki hisses.
"Reasonable?! You would have me sit idly by, keep myself safe when there are things that I can do to help, while you throw yourself into danger at the slightest notice?! Reasonable you hypo—"
"You nearly died!" Steve grabs Loki's shoulders, barely managing to not shake Loki. He draws in a shaky breath, tries to swallow his tears. "You nearly died. I nearly lost you."
"Sentiment," Loki sneers. "I was helping. Besides, I would only be reborn again, it's not as if—"
"No," Steve snaps, bitter, rage making his voice calm and quiet.
(That Loki thinks being reborn makes everything better, that he's trying to use it as an option, when everything about their life—about Loki's life—the friends—everything lost, like that's acceptable—)
"What?" Loki asks, frozen in the hospital bed, eyes wide.
"Thor told us. What exactly your punishment means." Loki does not remove his gaze, ashen beneath his already sickly pallor. "This is it. Second life away from your family, away from Asgard. Entirely. There isn't a going back or a rebirth or someone stepping in. This is it."
"But…"
"It's what you wanted, isn't it?" Steve says, petty and cruel, knowing even as he says it.
(And for a moment, he does not care.)
Pthalo Blue-green eyes focus; Steve flinches.
"Get out."
"Loki, I'm so—"
"Get out!"
Loki fumbles for something to break or throw and lands on the IV in his arm. Snarling, he tears it out, reaches for Steve to try to reach to break; blood blooms scarlet on his arm as his skin tears against his stitches. Steve tries to push Loki back down, a hand pressing the nurse call button as Loki's nails tear into his skin, shaking and eyes vibrant with rage and pain. Nurses rush into the room, pushing Steve out of the way and grabbing Loki, trying to keep him from getting out of bed, and Loki fights them until someone injects him with a tranquilizer before he can hurt himself more.
His eyes meet Steve's, dazed and aching and terrified, just before he slips under.
"I think it be best if you go for now," one of the nurses says firmly. Steve nods, watching as the nurses check Loki over, clean and bandage his arm, make sure his ribs haven't been jostled back out of alignment. He swallows bile as the conversation replays in his head, trying to understand what went wrong and when (because it couldn't have been as soon as Loki woke, could it?)(except…). He watches Loki's chest move and the heart monitor eases to a steady rhythm again. The nurse gives him a firm but gentle push; Steve walks out the door.
Thor stands there, his face white, staring past Steve into the room, and Steve has no idea why Thor is here when he left him hours ago at the tower (except, when he looks at his phone and its missed calls, he does—someone who knew where he was, and came to get him).
"Yes, it's him," Steve says, collapsing on a chair outside the door. "I'd appreciate if you don't mention it to anyone."
Thor returns to looking at his brother.
"He's who you have been seeing then. Why you wished to tell us that you sometimes take male lovers."
"Yeah." Steve leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. (Any other time he'd be worried how Thor would react to his being with Loki.)
A few long minutes of silence.
"This is why you asked about him. Why you cared when you found out how long he would live." He can hear the rustle of fabric as Thor leans against the door frame, but he keeps his eyes closed, heart sick.
"I'd rather not think about his lifespan right now, if it's all the same to you. There's been enough of that today."
Silence returns.
"I should leave."
Steve opens his eyes to look at Thor. He has no idea what to call the expression on Thor's face. Hurt. Longing. Confusion. Love and loss. A face should not be capable of holding so much on it at once. Thor does not look human, looks more than; it only emphasizes Loki's change more, that Loki is fragile, a bird when once he was a giant.
Thor does not move to leave.
"Is he happy?"
"Sometimes." And sometimes he locks himself in the bathroom under the shower water, trying not to destroy the apartment with hands that won't be still and a mind that won't go quiet. Steve leaves that unsaid; Thor knows all the ways Loki destroys things when upset.
"I see. That is good to hear."
"You could stay."
Thor's smile is all too knowing.
"No. This is what he wanted in any case, is it not? To be away from me. Out of my shadow."
Steve doesn't know what to say to that, echo of the spiteful words he'd said to Loki minutes before. He swallows back bile again. He can't tell Thor that sometimes Loki misses Thor even as he denies it, that sometimes Loki weeps after he thinks Steve asleep for the golden halls he can no longer return to. For all his missing, Loki will lash out and find fault if Steve does.
Besides, it's not Steve's call to make.
"I'll talk to him. Or at least ask him to talk to his therapist. Maybe things can change."
Thor looks away from Loki, eyebrows inching up.
"He has a therapist?"
"I, uh, kind of bullied him. Yeah." Steve runs a hand through his hair awkwardly. It sounds so much worse when he puts it that way; essentially true, though.
Thor's eyebrows manage to inch higher.
"And he agreed?"
"Well. Yeah. I mean, we're together, aren't we? Well now we are." Steve pauses. "I'm sorry," he says.
Thor does not say anything, looking away to Loki again.
XXX
By the time Loki wakes again, Thor has left and Steve has walked down to the grounds to give himself something to do while he waits. Steve comes back to find Loki, eyes still fogged and dull from medication, fumbling through a magazine a nurse must have given him. Steve pauses at the doorway, just watching for a few minutes.
"Do you plan to simply stare at me?" Loki does not look up.
Steve comes in and sits down on the edge of the bed. Loki keeps... pretend-reading (it's a car magazine, Steve knows Loki isn't actually reading it), but one hand leaves the page to slip into Steve's with a faint squeeze.
"I didn't mean to yell. I'm sorry I called you unreasonable. And I'm sorry I lost my temper—I shouldn't have said what I did. I should have—it could have waited. A different time, and better." And he is.
He wonders how much pain Loki is in (and hopes it enough to keep Loki from doing this again, no matter how ugly a thought it is).
Loki keeps looking at the magazine though his fingers struggle through numbness with the pages. He stirs slightly before he speaks.
"I thought you would be proud."
"Please tell me that is not the only reason you went into a building both clearly on fire and about to collapse."
Loki swallows. Steve moves closer, so he is sitting next to Loki; Loki leans his head against Steve's shoulder. Resting one hand on the back of Loki's neck, he gets an eyeful of black and purple skin, scrapes and bandages through the hospital gown. Once upon a time, a building falling on him wouldn't have even phased Loki.
"Loki," he whispers. He does not want to be the reason Loki is hurt.
"No."
The word is almost too faint to hear. Gripping Steve's hand more tightly, Loki goes on. "I don't know what I was thinking. There was a girl who was stuck; I could help. That's all. It… it was only a burning building. You would think I had tried to assault Jotunheim alone by how you are reacting."
Steve forces a chuckle.
"I am not sorry."
Steve blinks back tears and presses a quick kiss to the side of Loki's head.
"You shouldn't be. I'll try not to be such a mother hen," he promises. Loki nods slightly. "And I am proud. Still shakey and terrified, but I'm definitely proud. Just… don't do that again. Ever."
"I'll take it into consideration."
"About before—"
"Not now. I… later, Steve. Later."
Steve bites his tongue and looks for something else to say.
"I love you." It seems safe and it's true.
"And I you."
Eventually a nurse comes by and glares at them both before forcing Loki to lay back once more. Steve offers her his best apologetic smile (Loki stifles a snort to see it used on someone else, quickly stilling his face to innocence when both look at him) and then a doctor stops by to do one final check-up. Steve can already see Loki deciding which bits of the advice to ignore and mentally notes it all down, as well as deciding how best to make sure someone will be with Loki when he can't be.
"So how much do you hurt?" Steve asks once they are both in the car. Loki blinks at him.
"You didn't complain about the wheelchair, you're sitting up straight even though we're in the car, and you haven't said a single word about how I'm trying to get us killed with my driving. Also smoothing your pants down."
"I am a terrible influence on you," Loki mutters, face sour.
"No, that's Natasha."
Loki snorts and goes back to staring out the window. Steve remembers conversations about how much more things feel as a human and lets it go.
