Steve saw the slap coming, but he was too shocked to stop it in time. Instead, he watched it happen with dawning horror, and then watched the calm, dangerous smile spread languorously across Loki's face.
Steve tried not to focus on that smile- there was plenty of other action going on every second- but he couldn't help remembering how long it had been since he'd seen the dark-haired man look this threatening. At least a full week, maybe more. And that tone of voice he'd used to introduce himself was equally distant.
But soon enough, the unfamiliar-yet-recognizable Dr. Jane Foster was pointing a finger in Loki's face and yelling. Her words echoed through the crowded room. "That was for New York!"
Loki just slowly turned his head to gaze down at her. He could have held still under the hit; Steve knew from experience how much that jaw could hurt a hand. But he had moved, turned to the side so he faced away from Steve, and so Dr. Foster hadn't broken any bones.
That was a good sign, right? Steve glanced up for Elle and found her staring from the reception desk halfway across the lobby, an unreadable expression (although he was pretty sure shock was a factor) frozen on her face. He wished she'd been right here, where he was, or on Loki's other side when Jane Foster had made her hasty approach. Elle would have noticed the mood, probably would have stopped the slap one way or another. And if she was here right now, she'd be reacting already. Steve kept looking from Loki to her, trying to break her out of whatever spell had her locked in place.
But she wasn't alone in the staring. Every agent in the room was still, suspended like sculptures. Some had their hands on their guns, some held files in white-knuckled fingers. Everyone was looking at Loki.
And Loki clearly noticed. Without taking his eyes from Dr. Foster, he straightened his shoulders and his attitude morphed from the almost-relaxed posture he'd had before when he'd been talking to Steve to the world-domination-capable, callous man who'd stolen an eye in Stuttgart. The unsettling smile grew until it pretty much looked like he was baring his teeth. "You should have Thor do your hitting for you. Although I'm sure you've had trouble reaching him since he left you behind."
This was the Loki Steve had tried to avoid all this time; the one who could bite with words alone. He'd sniffed out this woman's insecurities in a matter of seconds, and now he was bent on revenge.
And it was working. Jane Foster drew her other hand back in preparation for another slap. Her anger was growing far past the point of reason.
Steve knew what to do, finally. He stepped forward and caught her by the wrist in a gentle but firm grip. He maneuvered until he was partially in front of Loki, shielding him without a shield, and made sure Dr. Foster's focus shifted to him. Finally, he used what Elle had once called his 'leader' voice- the one that made people sit up and take notice of whatever he happened to say. "Don't hit my teammates, Dr. Foster."
Elle was finally coming over with abrupt strides, her hands clenched at her sides. She reached them and placed herself in front of Loki on his other side, so that Foster wouldn't have any access to him at all, even to glare.
But Elle left the scientist, who was looking confused, to Steve and instead rounded on Agent Hill. "Maria. What the hell?!"
Hill crossed her arms and appraised the group impassively. "Maybe you want to move this discussion somewhere more private before we get into the accusations."
Steve frowned, noting that some of the agents were starting to move along, albeit slowly. He caught Elle's eye and nodded his assent, letting go of Dr. Foster and keeping himself between her and Loki.
Hill led them down the memorial atrium hallway to a secluded, tiny conference room with six seats around a small black table. "I suppose we can hash this out in here," she said dryly, betraying no more tension than normal.
Elle and Steve glanced at Loki at the same time. Steve found the same mischievous attitude in those blue-green eyes, no sign of uncontrollable anger or embarrassment. Maybe Elle could see more below the surface, but if she did she kept it to herself.
A thought occurred, then. Steve switched his attention to Agent Hill, narrowing his eyes. "Is this a test?"
Loki snorted a humorless laugh. "Of course it's a test, Captain. One I'm afraid Dr. Foster has failed."
"It's not a test," Hill asserted, showing more of a reaction than ever before in this interaction. "You three were supposed to be getting started on lab work, having meetings. We obviously weren't going to introduce such a volatile…" she trailed off, giving both Loki and Foster a meaningful glance, "... situation in such a crowded place."
Steve felt his chest growing tighter. "But you were going to introduce it."
Foster spoke up, then. "You dragged me back here to work with him?" She pointed at Loki, although she was about ten feet away now so at least she wasn't in his face.
"Oh, the disgust is mutual," Loki assured her with a nasty grin.
Elle, who'd glared indiscriminately from Loki's side, chimed in with a surprising amount of bite. "How'd you get her here? Last I heard she was hiding at her mom's house, crying over that blond dumbass."
Steve tried not to act shocked at the venom in those words. Elle wasn't pulling any punches, and neither was Loki. Loki, Steve could understand. Elle was supposed to be better at this, though. But she was protective; he vaguely remembered seeing her blow up at the young agent who'd sent him to Turkey alone. He guessed she was nice until she wasn't, kind of like Peggy.
At any rate, Steve supposed, it was up to him to de-escalate the situation now, whether he was in the mood or not. He suppressed a sigh and shoved his anger down, saving it for something more useful. "What's the goal of bringing Dr. Foster here, Agent Hill?"
Agent Hill went back to being impassive. "We needed someone who's seen magic firsthand, who's categorically measured it with custom-made instruments. The Foster Theory? Could branch into finding this magician of yours."
Of ours? Steve thought. But he couldn't argue because Elle didn't give him a chance.
"Informing us would have been a good idea, Maria," she spat. "And you still haven't answered my question- did you kidnap Foster and bring her here?"
Dr. Foster took a step toward Elle, which was a step toward Loki as well. "They got me here by telling me I'd be helping track down a monster." She turned to Hill in disbelief. "You're saying he's not it?"
Steve looked at Loki as she spoke, and he saw that 'monster' comment hit home. The demigod set his jaw and withdrew even further until he gave the impression of looking down on everyone in the room. Instead of replying to Foster, though, he let his gaze slide over to Hill. "You don't need her for this hunt. She'll be useless; just something else that gets in the way like those children you've assigned us already."
Steve didn't miss the 'us' in the middle of the rant. It gave him hope that Loki knew they were a team. Hope that they could get through this as a team.
Foster began sputtering a protest to the insults, but Loki raised his voice ever-so-slightly and spoke over her. "I am far more reliable- Darren Stark is more reliable at hunting down this magician than any of your pitiful mortal machines. You'll deflect the search this way, and more of your people will die."
"Why do you care?" Dr. Foster demanded. "You killed plenty of humans already. And you!" she pointed at Steve, now, actually getting in his face this time, "You're supposed to help save the world, not the guy trying to end the world!"
Steve felt a flash of anger, but it came from Eleanore to his right. She spoke up again. "You talk about Loki being dangerous, but he's not the one who just walked up and slapped someone, is he? And he's not pointing fingers in Captain America's face! So why don't you stop making assumptions, Jane, and go back to being someone else's pain in the ass while we get some work done?"
She was practically vibrating with rage, and Steve saw the moment she realized how far gone she was. She looked up at him with a locked jaw. "We should go."
Steve nodded. That was the best solution to all this. They'd only keep yelling at each other while Dr. Foster and Loki were in the same room. Everyone needed a chance to cool down. He waited while Loki left the room first without a parting glance, and while Elle sent a fiery glare over her shoulder.
When they were gone, Steve took a second to speak to Agent Hill, ignoring the fuming scientist. "We're making progress," he pointed out. "Things like this… Just think about it before you try setting us back."
Hill scowled. "There are tests, and then there are mistakes. Your team needs to be strong enough to make it through both."
Steve grit his teeth and forced a breath through his nose, letting time pass as he felt that glare emerge that froze lesser people in their tracks. "We are."
He left on that note, before Foster or Hill could make another comment.
Elle and Loki were in the hall, both leaning against the wall like a couple of kids who'd been sent out of the classroom for misbehaving. Steve paused in front of them and crossed his arms. "Loki, you alright?"
Loki smirked at him, aloof as the night they'd brought him back to Earth. "Dr. Foster hurt my pride less than my face, and she hurt my face not at all."
That wasn't what Steve had been asking, but it was enough of an answer for now. He turned his attention to Elle, who was glowering more than he'd ever seen her. He couldn't blame her for getting angry; this was a shitty situation, and who knew what kind of damage this had done to Loki? Damage they'd have to carefully find, and that they had no idea how to really fix. She'd been working so hard on this relationship, and Steve had barely been around these past few days to help. He'd noticed Loki's progress, though. And now that was probably gone.
He raised an eyebrow at the mutant woman, trying to figure out what would help her in this situation. "You need a break?"
"A break from what?" she asked sullenly.
Steve remembered then that this was a nineteen year-old kid he was dealing with. One who'd been stuck with two very stressful charges for almost a month, and who hadn't complained about it or taken time off even once. Elle didn't get normal working hours with the Avengers, no nights off or weekends. They went with her to her farm for crying out loud. The longest she'd gone without either Loki or Steve was once when she'd gone to dinner with her father, and that had stressed her out more than usual. And she looked… tired. Underneath the stress and anger, she was worn out. No wonder she'd lost her temper so easily today.
She wouldn't appreciate it if he suggested she take time off now. Loki clearly needed her, and Steve probably did too, to be honest. But they needed her to be healthy and present, and she was neither of those things. She needed some time to herself, but Steve couldn't make it obvious that he was offering or she'd think it was pity and refuse. He'd have to wait until an opportunity presented itself to get Elle to leave them for a while.
It was probably a good idea to keep her around while Loki might be riled up, anyway.
"Nothing," he finally answered. "I just wondered if either of you want lunch before the lab work. We have about half an hour."
Eleanore and Loki looked at each other and shrugged. "We ate baklava at home," Elle supplied.
Steve hid a grin at their synchronization. "No time for a real meal, then?"
Loki spoke this time. "I don't think anything from that hovel below-ground could rationally be called a 'real meal'."
So, Steve was outnumbered. That was fine; he'd had a late breakfast after he got back from New York. He sized both of them up, trying to figure out if they could handle the insistently inquisitive scientists now or not. "You want to head upstairs, then?"
Loki, who'd been staring at the wall to Steve's right, uncrossed his arms and straightened until he was looking down on them again. "Anything is better than listening to Thor's woman berate Agent Hill."
Too late, Steve remembered that the other man could hear through human-soundproofed walls with ease. He mentally winced and held out his arm. "Come on, let's not be here when they come back out."
Elle and Loki followed his suggestion, thankfully, walking back toward the lobby as quickly as Steve hurried them. He ushered them into an elevator and breathed a sigh of relief; no more Dr. Foster for today.
"What was she saying?" Elle asked into the quiet, coming out of her dour shell a bit.
"A great deal," Loki hedged. Then he looked down at Elle and smirked. "She didn't seem to recognize you, so her abuse was mainly confined to Steve and I."
Elle scowled again. "I can make sure she recognizes me next time."
Steve was having trouble believing the opposite temperaments his team was displaying. Where was Elle's calm in the face of peril? Where was Loki's eager sarcasm and smoldering anger? "We're not having a 'next time'," he asserted, trying to get some control over the situation. "At least not anytime soon." He gave Elle a stern look, which felt strange itself, trying to silently tell her to get it together.
She just looked back, one eyebrow raised, until the elevator door opened on their floor and all three of them disembarked.
They entered the lab to a cacophony of questions from the 'children', all directed at Loki. Loki dodged each scientist, somehow, and cordoned himself behind a desk where Dr. Salfield was working on a sensor. They began discussing palladium and other metals almost immediately, and the other scientists died down and disbanded, ignoring Steve and Eleanore entirely.
That was fine; Steve just stuck close to Elle's side as she walked over to a desk and started researching artifacts again on a spare computer. Steve pulled a chair over instead of starting on his own machine. Tried to figure out how to approach this weirdly-angry Eleanore he'd only ever seen a hint of when he was half-dead from blood loss and poisoning.
"I'm not apologizing," Elle informed him after a couple of seconds of scrolling through the computer.
Steve almost sighed in relief. "I won't ask you to. Foster was out of line."
She scoffed, a derisory, bitter expression crossing her face as her eyes slid to the floor. "Understatement of the week."
"Maybe," Steve said carefully. He needed to talk about Eleanore's behavior too, though. It was pretty unacceptable for her to lash out like that in a professional setting. Even if she was defending someone. Loki could take care of himself, after all, with the quick words and the magic and the smile that looked like he could destroy you without a thought. But he'd never ever had a talk like this with Elle, the calming influence on the team. What if her anger was redirected to him? He wasn't sure how he'd go about proving his authority to someone who'd never shown him anything but respect. And it was a terrible situation, no doubt about it. So she was in the right. And a fight with her would divide the team more than, say, Tony Stark.
But didn't Steve owe her the benefit of the doubt? Elle was reasonable. She'd admitted when she was wrong before. Really, the line Steve had to walk was making her aware of the blunder while making sure she didn't make herself feel too guilty about it. He decided honesty was best with her, even if it meant a fight in the short-term. "But you overreacted, too. And Hill was right. We might need her help."
Elle met his gaze, surprised verging on shocked at the statement. Then she grinned, and it was like the past twenty minutes had never even happened. "You've never gotten mad at me before."
Steve shook his head, reeling from the weirdness of the day. "I'm not mad now. In fact, I think you were right to defend Loki in front of Hill and Foster. Just not so… angrily."
Elle quirked her mouth sideways and shrugged at him. "I really can't promise not to do that again. But I'll work on it."
That was all Steve could ask for. "Good. Thanks," he added, because that could have gone so much worse. "You alright?"
"I'm fine," Elle promised. And smiled, and Steve felt like he was basking in sunlight and humor. "And not your version of 'fine,' either. Well, maybe a little bit of it."
Steve looked her over and understood what she meant. "You're tired." He was partially responsible for that. He really hadn't been around as much as he should have been, these past few days. Yesterday's flights made up the longest amount of time he'd spent with his team that week. He was supposed to be half of the Loki support system, and he hadn't been doing his part.
"No," Elle corrected him. "I meant, yes, but ignore that. It's more than tired." She turned slightly to whisper at him. "Jane Foster is here. Do you know where she was before?"
Steve raised one shoulder and let it drop. "New Mexico?"
"Norway. SHIELD shipped her there as soon as Dr. Selvig was taken from the Tesseract facility. Phil Coulson did it, actually, because he knew Thor would be worried about Loki seeking her out. That's why I called her someone else's pain in the ass. And now SHIELD has her right here in D.C., so actually she's our pain now."
Steve eyed the clouds scuttling past outside the window. The brief patch of sunlight from right before this whole problem was gone, replaced by scattered showers again. "And Thor won't like that she's here."
"And he's the kind to come and confront us about it." Confront Loki about it, her expression said.
Steve considered their options. They could leave the Triskelion to avoid the potential confrontation. They could stay and keep a constant eye on the sky and on Loki until they'd fulfilled their goal for the day (whatever that was). If they left, they'd have to come up with an excuse for SHIELD. If they stayed and Thor showed up, they would only have tentative control over half a situation- one third of the situation if Steve counted Jane Foster as a player, which he probably should. Thor could attack or provoke Loki easily, and there was basically nothing Steve could do to stop him. And he had no idea what that surly version of Eleanore would do in response to something like that.
"We'll go home at three," Steve decided aloud. "Earlier, if we can. Alright? And I'll stick with you, just in case." He'd run interference between his team and any SHIELD officials who might also try to test them.
Elle considered that, looking out the window. Finally, she sighed. "Yeah, I guess."
Since honesty had worked out so well before, Steve decided to try it again. "When we get out of here, I think you should take the rest of the day off."
The wrinkle-nosed squint Elle gave him was pretty funny. She looked at him like he'd presented her with a rotten vegetable, not a break. "Why?"
"You never get time away from us. When it was just you and me, you'd have your apartment, but now…"
"I don't mind Loki at all," she cut in when Steve trailed off. "Also, he can probably hear us. And Steve, pot calling the kettle black here. You never take time off either."
"I go for runs by myself," Steve insisted. "And I have my own apartment." Which I'm barely in because I also basically live at your place.
"I won't get angry again… today. Unless Thor shows up, then no promises."
"It's not punishment," Steve clarified. "Elle, it's not about this morning. Alright? It's about the team, and the team needs to stay healthy. You're part of the team, you need some time off." If he was talking to someone else, like Clint or Darren, he'd have added, 'That's an order.' But Elle had already handled one confrontation from him today; he knew another one wouldn't help. Instead, he had to convince her with logic and reassurance. He glanced over at Loki, who'd moved further across the room and was currently examining a bunch of tiny electrical components spread out on a large white table. "I'll stay around, alright? We'll be at home."
She crossed her arms and gave yet another look, this one scrutinizing and dubious. "Yeah, because you two get along so well." But the next instant, she shrugged and turned back to her desk. "Fine. I'll go to the meadow with Jet and fly around if the weather allows it. We need to do that anyway."
Steve accepted that. 'Time off' meant about the same thing to Elle as it did to him: time wasted when things could have been accomplished. She was doing the same thing he'd do (if he didn't fight with whoever was making him take a break in the first place). He resolved to make sure they could leave long before three; Loki probably needed some time back at home as much as Elle did. This morning, when she'd initially come into the lab, Elle had mentioned giving their demigod charge the entire day off, saying he had been tired enough to sleep through her getting ready and leaving the apartment. Now Steve wished he'd listened and kept her here instead of sending her back home to check on Loki and bring him in for more consultation. How differently would a meeting with Foster have gone without that first mistake?
But it was useless to dwell on the past. Steve gave himself a mental shake and focused on the here and now. He noticed more writing than usual on Elle's notes on their collaborative document. Bolded, underlined, highlighted words jumped out at him. 'Religion, centers, maps, collaborative, communication hub. He pulled his chair closer, which she didn't seem to mind, and pointed at the screen. "Can you tell me about this?"
That sent Elle straight into information mode. She started talking about different relics, and how she'd had trouble finding specific information about them until she'd started running one of SHIELD's hacking programs at the same time as her searches. This had led… nowhere. Until she noticed that the relics weren't nearly as revered as the sites they were taken from.
From there, Elle had started research into archaeological sites, and she'd started having Jarvis map exact locations to try to find connections between sites that were near each other. So far, she was only on Europe, specifically focusing on Norse history to try to find more things like the Scepter and the Tesseract. She hoped to move on to Africa, where most people "... don't even think about the cultural significance of the local myths because white historians discounted their importance, Steve, even though everything started in Africa anyway…"
So Steve absorbed her lessons on sociology and history and mythology and how it was all connected. Elle talked for a long time; something that usually didn't happen because she a) had nothing to add, or b) they got interrupted in the middle of a conversation. He liked listening to her, all excited about her work. It was good to know she hadn't been bored following Loki around all this time. And even though Steve already knew that Elle was smart, he couldn't help but be impressed by how much she'd accomplished on her own here, with no backup.
"Can we get a team on this?" he asked when she paused long enough for him to speak.
"Mmm… maybe one or two additions? But I don't want to crowd things in here."
Steve looked at the five empty desks on their side of the room alone. "Two or three extra hands wouldn't hurt anything." He glanced up and noted three scientists just standing around, talking about something to do with sports. They could spend their work hours working, and they should know how to help with this research if they followed Eleanore's lead. "Assign some of your leads to this team, see where we go."
"Okay. I'll do that now." Elle started typing some key instructions into a new document, outlining what she had already covered and the ideas she'd had for continuing the search. She also added parameters for searches that might be helpful to the scientists, and ideas for centering their research around gathering places where ancient civilizations might have traveled to instead of portable relics. That only took her about five minutes, and then she sent it to their small team.
"What's a BCC?" Steve asked, noting his name in that bar just before Elle pressed send. Loki's address was there as well, and Maria Hill's.
"It's like… a notification. Showing you what I sent, but not requiring you to respond to it. CC stands for 'Carbon Copy,' and BCC is 'Blind Carbon Copy'. I used BCC because I don't like to look like I'm reporting to you and Loki."
Steve nodded, stood, and wheeled his chair back to his own desk so he could get started using this new information. He didn't mind the informality of the Avengers; in fact, he would encourage it. The team could make a lot of the high-level decisions on their own just fine without him. Sometimes that made Steve a figurehead, but sometimes it let him focus on other things as well.
Like how the trio of scientists stopped talking about sports to check their phones when the email notification came through. They all three glanced over at Eleanore and started whispering quickly.
"I'll go talk to her," Dr. John Jacobsen, volunteered after a minute. He peeled away and started over to lean his long arms on Elle's desk. "Agent Engman?"
"Yeah, what's up?" Elle asked with a friendly smile. Not the smile she used around people like Steve and Loki and Darren, but pleasant enough for someone she didn't know well. She also leaned back in her seat as Dr. Jacobsen got into the unconscious bubble of personal space she liked to keep around herself.
"It's just this email we got," Dr. Jacobsen began in a soft voice Steve had never heard him use. "See, if you're going to have this kind of research, you probably want to ask for specialists in the anthropology and history fields."
"I know-" Elle began.
"- Because, see," the taller man continued over her, increasing his volume slightly, "SHIELD doesn't hire all scientists to do all research jobs. Stuff like this falls into a different division than, like, engineering or chemistry. Because it's totally different, you know?"
"Yeah, I get that," Elle said, her smile now more of a mask.
"Okay, because this email you sent…" Dr. Jacobsen showed Elle the email on his phone. "It's asking us to look through this data on locations and artifacts, and that's not our division. But if you get someone here from SHIELD's other research divisions, like anthropology, or maybe even archaeology, then they could take a look at it. Okay?" He grinned down at Elle like he was finishing up a lesson with a child.
Elle gave him a disbelieving version of the look. "So what you're saying is that you can't understand this line of inquiry well enough to conduct viable research."
Dr. Jacobsen's grin faded. "Well, no, not exactly. It's just… this isn't my job."
Eleanore raised the one eyebrow even further. "What is your job, exactly?"
"To help find this… but by doing scientific research." Dr. Jacobsen scowled.
"This is scientific research. It's necessary to helping us find the magician, too. And I know you were accepted for a position at the Triskelion because of your flexibility when it comes to intelligence. And I approved you for this team because I thought you could give us help in any area. So what exactly is your problem with this?"
Steve saw the lanky redhead's hands ball into fists on the desk. His ire rose. He wanted to step in and make this kid stop taking such a condescending tone with Eleanore, but he knew that if he approached, then everyone would see him as an authority figure instead of her. Exactly what she'd been trying to avoid in the email. Exactly what she had just not-so-subtly hinted against when mentioning that she'd been the one to approve Dr. Jacobsen for the team. So he pretended not to watch the interaction, glimpsing carefully out of his peripheral vision. With the rest of his time, he powered up his computer and signed in. And he checked in on Loki visually. The other man seemed like he was ignoring the discussion across the room, but he could definitely hear it.
"I don't have a problem," Dr. Jacobsen grumbled.
"Good." Elle did a frosty version of a grin. "So you can go ahead and get started on this now. I'll let you know about any updates."
Dr. Jacobsen glared at her, but he brandished his phone, turned around, and walked away to an unoccupied side of the room. He hunched over his device and began tapping away at the screen with his thumbs.
Steve checked the shared document. He was gratified to find the other two doctors already claiming regions of Europe to research. They must have listened to the over-explanation and the confident response and decided they'd rather not tangle with Eleanore. However, Dr. Jacobsen didn't show up on the list of users. He figured the kid was reporting Elle for ordering him around, not actually doing the work he was assigned.
That would get Dr. Jacobsen in trouble, most likely, but it could get Eleanore reprimanded, too. Steve's pointer was hovering over her name for a private chat when a window popped up on its own.
"I'm technically equal to you on the chain of command in the lab; I checked with Maria when we started this project, and Darren and I approved the kids for this research team. So if John's complaining about me to someone, they'll redirect him to either you or me."
Steve let himself grin at that. Elle should be an equal authority in the lab; she'd proven that time and again in the past few weeks. Steve and Loki both deferred to her for simpler explanations of lofty ideas when Darren, Tony, or Bruce moved too quickly. And Darren mostly explained his ideas to her, anyway, because the young man wasn't comfortable talking to many other people, especially large groups.
Steve responded. "Let me know if you need backup." Then he thought about their discussion of her reactions and added, "I thought you handled that well."
Elle sent him a yellow 'emoticon' that animated into a smile. "I channeled my inner Peggy-voice. Going to talk to Loki about his goals for today." She logged off and walked across the lab to where Dr. Salfield and Loki were talking.
Steve went back to perusing the document. Quite a bit had been added since he'd last checked on it a few days prior. Short, bulleted notes outlined each search site. Color-coded titles with a legend at the bottom of each page explained whether a lead worth following, not researched enough yet, or a total bust. The other doctors were adding sections under these with their new sources and findings as well.
He chose one that had no one looking into it yet: points very close to the Middle East where intersecting religions and wars had built up and decimated so many holy sites. And while he started looking, he listened to Elle talking to Loki across the room.
"Hey," she greeted the demigod familiarly. "So what time-"
Steve's attention was pulled away by a beep from his computer. Darren's helmet popped up in an image, which was then replaced by a chat. "Is Elle in a fight?"
Steve replied, "No, why?"
"One of the kids just texted me and complained she was dragging him away from research?"
Steve tried not to glare at the 'kid' responsible for this. "I know what you're talking about. Elle isn't pulling anyone away from anything important. "
The icon appeared that meant Darren was typing a long message. Steve waited, but he didn't have to wait long. "Ok, thanks. I figured she wasn't. I told him to do whatever she says." Then Darren's image turned a lighter shade of gray, indicating he'd logged off.
"... the tests will take at least a day," Dr. Cecil Salfield was saying when Steve tuned back in. "I can run those, email you the results?"
"As long as you're off the clock by six," Eleanore clarified.
"And as long as you keep the light test for tomorrow," Loki added.
"Okay, I can work with that." Cecil nodded gravely, taking both orders seriously. "Oh, Miss Engman, what's the time frame on this file you sent?"
"No real time frame. If you'd look it over today, maybe get started where you can while the longer tests are running? We can't do a lot of sensing at these sites without the sensors. Well, I can't, anyway," she amended when Loki gave her am 'Oh, really?' look. "But it would be nice to have some ideas for places to look once the tech is done."
"Okay, I can work on it. Thanks." Cecil sat down at the computer nearest him and started tapping away at the keys as Elle and Loki walked away from him.
Steve logged off the computer completely and stood as his team approached. "So, you two done for the day?"
"At your behest," Loki replied.
"It looks like the clouds are breaking up, so I'll take off from the roof here," Elle informed them. "We'll fly back here when we're done. I want to check in on that one," she gestured at Salfield over her shoulder, "to make sure he gets off work on time. He's been pulling way too many all-nighters lately."
"Ah yes, and only you are allowed such a liberty," Loki teased.
Teased.
Steve could barely believe his ears. The same guy who kicked him across the gym on a regular basis, who could summon a storm of anger on a whim, who'd been slapped about an hour and a half beforehand… was teasing Eleanore. Who he hated, supposedly. Although he hadn't acted truly hateful in a while, as far as Steve knew.
But Elle was grinning up at them both and walking out the nearby hall door. "Yep, exactly. You have fun today. See you tonight."
The door closed before Steve could reply. He turned to Loki instead. "That baklava still tiding you over?"
"I'm not eating this place's food," Loki informed him steadily.
Steve grinned. "Let's go out. I have my car. I bet Jarvis could find us someplace we'd both like."
Loki acquiesced with the barest shrug, following Steve out into the hall and into the elevator. He said nothing on the way to the parking garage or as they got into the car.
Steve chose to drive, instead of having Jarvis navigate them out of the building. "So what are you hungry for?"
"Out of all the foods I've tried on this realm?" Loki drawled caustically.
"You've had quite a bit," Steve pointed out. "I'll go traditional if you don't decide."
"What traditions will you be following?"
"America's. Burger and fries. And I'm sure they'll have salads if you don't see anything else you like," Steve added as an afterthought. "You have a burger yet?"
"I have been deprived that honor."
Jarvis pulled up a nearby cafe without them having to ask. Steve maneuvered down the side streets until they pulled up to a nice-looking storefront with umbrella-covered tables outside. A waiter eagerly seated them at an indoor booth in the second-floor loft area, which looked out on the sidewalk below. They ordered drinks, water for both of them, and then started looking over the extensive menu.
Steve decided on the classic burger and fries right away, but he kept a hold on his menu to have an excuse to watch Loki from the corner of his eye. He wished he'd gotten a signal jammer from Darren or Tony last night when he was still in New York. Although, by eight o'clock at night, Darren had been winding down in front of a Japanese cartoon (in actual Japanese, without subtitles) and Tony was too drunk to see straight. Bruce had retreated to his room then, so Steve had done the same. And this morning he'd shot those PSAs at five and booked it to D.C. as quickly as he could, long before either of the Starks were up and about.
So, he couldn't really talk to Loki about what had just happened. But they could still speak about other things.
"So," Steve began, "what have you been up to these last few days?"
Loki eyed him and folded his menu closed. "Eleanore texts you every time I sneeze. I hardly think your question is necessary."
"You sneeze?" Steve asked, mostly joking. He'd never seen or heard Loki sneeze before. Thor either, but he wouldn't be pointing that out. And Elle really didn't update him, unless there was something significant.
"No more than… than usual," Loki answered with a slight hesitation at the end as his eyes skimmed over the menu again. He also looked more uncomfortable for a moment. More open.
Steve decided to switch the subject to something safer. "Anything look good?"
"What is a hamburger?" Loki asked cautiously.
Steve explained what a hamburger was, why he liked steak fries, what additional condiments Loki could order. He made sure to dwell on the difference between 'rare, medium-rare, medium-well, and well done' when the other man seemed confused at the terminology. He also read off the different types of buns, since this cafe had three different options, and he described the side-order options other than fries, dwelling on the vegetable options.
Loki listened to all that with an interested expression, then ordered a house salad with vinaigrette when the waiter came back around. He smirked as soon as the apron-clad man's back was turned.
Steve tried not to roll his eyes at the clear enjoyment Loki took from flaunting just how little he cared for Steve's advice. The fact that the other man was enjoying something was a good sign in itself.
SHIELD was probably listening in, but Steve decided to start the conversation, keeping it light enough that the listeners wouldn't get any new information. "So. You seem… pretty calm after being slapped across the face."
Loki raised an eyebrow. "As I said, that pitiful woman couldn't hurt me if she tried."
Steve nodded, skimming over the 'pitiful woman' part of the statement. "I know. I can barely knock you down. But you're… if you want to…" he couldn't find the right way to say this. Elle was so much better- she just blurted things out as they occurred, and she was so honest about it that it was tough to find her offensive.
"I don't want to 'talk about it'." Loki answered his struggling, unspoken question.
"Okay," Steve agreed easily. Then he thought of something important. "But I'm here if you ever do. About anything, not just this."
Loki raised an eyebrow at him. "Yes, you're here every three days or so, just long enough to lead Eleanore and I on a mission. Truly, you are a paragon of understanding leadership."
Steve felt his face slackening at the accusation. Did Loki want him around? Did Loki even care who was with him? Other than Elle and Bruce, the demigod seemed indifferent to everyone. But he did seem to enjoy knocking Steve across the sparring ring. They'd done that the past few nights, before Steve had stayed in New York.
Loki's eyes crinkled at the corners and he started chuckling. "You panic so easily."
Steve frowned and sat back. They were on familiar ground again. Unfortunately, this ground was only familiar because Steve never knew where he stood. Sometimes he was 'Steven,' and Loki acted like he was the most annoying person on this planet. Sometimes he was 'Captain," which was the worst- Loki hated the Captain. But, rarely, he was 'Steve'- either directly or indirectly, when Loki was casual and open and clearly jovial. These moods could switch without warning in the blink of an eye. Elle was good at noticing the changes, but Steve often stumbled over them.
But now, he would take what he could get. "Can't say I hear that a lot."
"Well. You mostly speak with people who worship you. Don't raise your hackles. I should have said they 'adore' you."
Steve leaned his elbows on the table- he had 'raised his hackles' at the mention of people worshipping him, and there was no call for it. Loki liked to press buttons; it was part of the 'jovial' mood. "I don't know about that. Elle would be the one to ask."
Loki's smile deepened even further. "I wouldn't count her as an unbiased observer."
Their food arrived then. Steve dug into his burger with gusto. It was good, and he really had been hungry. The Tower had surprisingly little in the way of real food or ingredients to make real food. Steve had pulled a browning banana off the fruit bowl in the kitchen and then enjoyed the bagel layout that the PSA set offered at 5AM. Loki was more refined and probably less hungry, sitting up straight and eating like a prince must at royal feasts.
Steve searched for another topic of conversation as a backup to this comfortable silence between them. He'd never been very good at small-talk, especially not with people who he couldn't read very well. He decided asking about Loki's food would serve if he needed an opener, and then planned to ask about the other man's morning alone in the apartment if that petered out.
But Loki spoke before there was a real necessity, looking out the window to watch passers-by. "You spent the beginning of this day instructing this nation's youth, mm?"
Steve swallowed his next-to-last bite of burger and nodded. "Yeah, they recorded me." And what a nightmare that had nearly been. Steve wouldn't have known half the words for all the types of infections one could get from sex, and the current terms for consent and health were so different from the "Venereal Disease" talks the soldiers got during the War. Thankfully, Elle had had the screenwriter send her a copy of the script a few days before, and she'd sent Steve an annotated copy last night so he could be sure of what he was saying, the pronunciations, the real meanings behind the words, and suggestions for things to add if he felt like it.
This had been followed by another email with links, the subject of which was "This will make you angry, but here you go." The links had taken Steve to data on teen pregnancy, the rate of reported rape cases in high school and college, and the STI rate by state. The rape links had been the worst- Elle had included comments about how experts estimated only one in five women reported their assaults for fear of the personal repercussions. It had made Steve angry, in a useless kind of way. But then Elle had included more hopeful links at the end- resources for survivors to use on each campus where they were far more likely to get the help and support they needed than if they went to the police or university alone. "So there's some hope, at least," she'd concluded, "Just want you to be aware of the whole situation."
And now they were faced with another situation. Jane Foster was still at SHIELD, and they had no idea how long she'd be there or when she'd show up to deal out more useless aggression. They couldn't go back today, not without Eleanore. But Steve hadn't been in charge of Loki's entertainment before. He recalled that last double date he'd gone on with Bucky. That dame had not been amused.
But what to do with an impassive alien? They could always spar, Steve supposed, but that took three hours at the most since he tried to save some strength for emergencies. What did Elle do with Loki when Steve wasn't around? They visited Lydia together sometimes. They worked, and… that was all Steve knew. He had no idea what kinds of things Loki would like to do on a cloudy afternoon in D.C. Who knew if his anger would resurface, anyway?
He couldn't tell anything from the man's blank expression as he speared the last bite of his salad, still looking out the window. The demigod must have noticed Steve's scrutiny, because he put the fork down, swallowed, and sat back. "Well?"
Steve decided to do the 'Elle' thing and just spit his apprehension out. "You alright, really?"
Loki nodded curtly. "I hardly have a choice, do I?"
"Of course you have a choice," Steve protested. "It's not like I'll force you to be 'fine'. Elle wouldn't either."
"Mm, she did offer me the day to myself," Loki acknowledged, looking like he wished he'd have taken it. Then he shook his head and clarified, "No, I meant I have no choice but to maintain my composure in such a public place. Especially if you want SHIELD to continue to allow my presence on this planet."
Steve nodded along with the logical (detached, cynical, resigned) explanation. He fully approved of this Loki, the one who accepted things that were out of their control instead of fighting them. But there was still one potential problem. "What if Dr. Foster ends up working with us? Do you want me to veto that?"
"I don't want your protection," Loki informed him coldly.
"Well, you have it," Steve rebutted calmly. He let the simple statement hang in the air, daring Loki to fight him on it. If that was what it took to get him to talk, so be it.
But Loki just regarded him behind another inscrutable mask. He sat there, still as a statue, for almost a minute while cars and people meandered past. Finally, he drew a breath and spoke. "Well, you can do nothing about it at the moment. And I tire of this place."
Steve paid their check at the counter and followed Loki out the door to the car.
This time, instead of getting into the vehicle, the other man stopped. "I presume you think you need to watch me closely until Eleanore comes back."
Steve shrugged. He did think that, but… Loki was acting so calm. "What's your alternative?"
"I am going to return to the apartment for that 'day off' your medic suggested. I do not care what you do."
It didn't take much thought for Steve to agree to that. "Sure. I'm going over to the SHIELD home, then. Let me know if you need anything?"
Loki raised an eyebrow and disappeared without a trace.
Steve could easily imagine the sarcastic comment Loki had left unspoken. "As if I would ever need anything from you." But it wasn't offensive anymore; a lot of things Loki said were pure bluster, just to get a reaction. Sometimes they were even funny.
At any rate, now Steve was free to visit Peggy on his own. He hadn't been there in a few days. He settled into the car, hoping she would be having a 'good' day. He'd like to talk to her about this new team of his and their polar opposite reactions.
He was proud of Loki, Steve supposed, now that he was traveling down busy streets with time to think on his own. Proud of Loki, and proud of Eleanore as well, but in a different way. Loki had taken control of himself more than Steve had known he could. Elle had defended him. It was all… good. Just confusing.
He pulled into home's parking lot and disembarked from the car, still considering.
Marcy was at the front desk again. She greeted him with regret. "Captain, I'm sorry, but she had… an episode this afternoon."
Steve's heart froze up, all thoughts of Elle and Loki vacating his mind. Was Peggy alive? Was she in pain? "Episode?"
"Just a flare up," Marcy assured him. "She's resting comfortably, but we don't expect her to wake up until after supper."
"Oh." Panic deflated into disappointment. But he plastered a polite smile in place. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll come back tomorrow, then."
"Well," Marcy said, "actually, Lydia asked me to let her know if you or Elle or Loki showed up today. I think she wants to ask about this morning."
So everyone's already heard about that. Because this place was owned and controlled by SHIELD, word would have traveled quickly. Steve knew from an offhand comment from Elle that Marcy had once been a field agent, leader of a small team herself for about fifteen years. She must still have countless connections with the active agents.
Trying to minimize the severity of the rumors, Steve just nodded and kept his smile in place. "Great. I'll head through to say hi."
Marcy let him go without any pressing questions. She probably had all the details already in some inconspicuous phone call or email or text.
Steve tried to ignore the other stares he got from the other retired agents as he made his way into the large communal spaces for dining and entertainment. He didn't know the other residents well enough yet for them to approach him like they did Eleanore. Thankfully. So, he took long strides and avoided eye contact until he was standing in front of Lydia's open door.
"Come in, Steve," she called from the kitchen area.
Steve obeyed and found her in front of the little countertop, filling two mugs with water. Marcy must have informed her he was coming.
"Want some tea?" Lydia offered brightly.
Steve considered that. He rarely spoke with Elle's mother at length, often greeting and saying goodbye to her in passing as he went to and from Peggy's room. But that didn't mean he didn't like the woman or her company. "Sure."
Lydia had him sit in the chair Elle usually used. "The other one is Loki's seat, and I'm never sure when he'll show up."
"That bother you?" Steve asked in response to the wry humor and resignation in her tone.
"Oh, no," Lydia assured him. "No, I'm a mom. Kids come and go, you know? Whether they're mine or someone else's."
"Guess I never thought about it." And Steve hadn't. He only considered children as a far-distant possibility back in the War. Now, that possibility was pretty much gone.
"Well, you're young," Lydia conceded, setting the mug of tea (plain, black, English-smelling) in his hands. "But how have you been? Everyone on the team behaving? I heard about that thing this morning; is everyone alright?"
'That thing' was a subtle way to describe the Jane Foster Encounter, as Elle put it. "Everyone seems to be fine," Steve hedged. "You'd probably be a better judge of that for some, though."
"Loki? I'm sure you can read him just fine."
Steve shook his head. "Actually, I was thinking of Elle. I've never seen her get that angry."
"Well, Loki got slapped," Lydia said, as though that were the most obvious explanation.
Steve accepted it. The explanation lined up with his thoughts about Elle being protective, anyway. And more importantly... "So what can I do to help? If something like this happens again?"
Lydia shrugged. "Honestly, I'd just tell you not to get in her way. It'll just stress her out more. She has a temper; you've seen that now. Sooner it flares up, sooner it's over."
"I'll take everything with a grain of salt," Steve promised with a grin.
"Oh no, she means what she says when she's mad." Lydia took a sip of her tea and grinned back. "She might regret making you feel bad, but usually what Elle says is what she's been thinking for a while. No, Loki's the one who regrets a lot of his words when he loses control."
Steve raised his eyebrows, wondering what Lydia would think of Elle's venomous words to Dr. Foster. He wasn't sure how accurate Lydia's assessment was, though. "Loki didn't get angry at all this morning. Not that I could tell, anyway."
"He didn't need to. Elle did that for him."
That was true. It made a weird sort of sense, along with Loki's apparent amusement (bordering on delight) at Eleanore's attitude. By the time she'd really calmed down, the situation had been far behind and below them and Loki had moved on to metals and Dr. Salfield and research.
"I guess that's handy," Steve conceded, finally drinking his own tea. "I gave Elle the rest of the day to herself. Sort of."
"Yeah, she said she was going to the meadow alone." Lydia nodded approval. "That's good. I've been worried she's pushing herself too hard for the two of you. You need to watch for that, too."
"I will," Steve promised. He liked Lydia's no-nonsense way of talking when it came to her daughter. He also liked her daughter. "She's helped us a lot. Me, anyway." Steve knew he'd have been lost in this time without Elle. Left to his own devices as he had been that first week. He wondered if he'd even have known about Peggy by now, and what he'd have done after the Battle for New York. And he wouldn't be living in his apartment. Knowing himself, Steve knew he'd have found some hole in the wall in a worse part of town to save on rent while he gathered himself for… for each day. Alone. No 'Welcome home!' when he got back from some mission, no offers of coffee, no long afternoons spent in the sunny, safe place Elle made of her home. No one coming to check on him after nightmares. No one tying him to the Starks with an easy, invisible thread of secondhand communication. He'd be even more lost when it came to scientific jargon, and he still probably wouldn't know what a single-serve coffee pot was or how to use the Internet well or where to find good groceries.
Elle made a huge difference in his life, but she'd done it so naturally that Steve seldom noticed it until moments like this. And now that he knew, he wanted to
Lydia's face softened into a real smile that made her look like Elle. "You're a nice boy, Steve. And not just because you're letting me boss you around."
"I appreciate the advice," Steve replied honestly. "Elle handles herself so well, I never know if something's wrong. It's good to get some feedback."
"The nice thing about her is that she'll tell you if something is really wrong. And she'll be specific, and she'll make sure you know whether or not she wants help. You're doing fine. I never knew most of her problems past when she was around four years old, you know. She didn't show me her healing powers until two months after she'd discovered them. And then she only told me because I noticed the empath thing."
Steve frowned. Elle had been… seven years-old when she'd discovered that. "Why didn't she tell you?"
Lydia's fond expression hardened. "You haven't been awake long enough to notice, but the media goes through cycles sometimes. When there's not enough juicy stories, they debate other things, like mutant right. One time was right when she found out. I never asked, but I bet she saw that, and decided to keep it all a secret." And then the older woman's face grew bitter.
Steve imagined a bunch of reporters, like the ones gathered around the base of Tony's Tower, shoving microphones in Elle's face and asking why she thought she had the right to live as a mutant. He'd be bitter, too, if it was his kid facing that. He was bitter now. "I'll try to help with that."
Lydia switched gears as quickly as Elle had before in the lab, beaming at him. "I know you will. You're a nice boy, Steve."
Steve took that for the compliment it was. "Thank you, ma'am."
Lydia yawned. "And, not to tell you to leave, but I've been awake since one this morning. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold a coherent conversation."
Steve stood. "Thanks for having me. And for the tea." It had been well over an hour since he'd arrived. He felt a lot more confident in his knowledge of Eleanore now. Hopefully that would hold.
"Stay safe," Lydia said as he left.
Steve drove home as leisurely as the late-afternoon traffic would allow. Mist coalesced on the windshield, blown on a sixty-seven degree breeze. Elle was probably home already as well, sent back by the inclement weather.
He decided not to drop in uninvited as he parked the car in its designated space right beside his covered motorcycle. Elle should be home now, driven away from the meadow by the inclement weather. She could handle Loki well enough alone, and they probably didn't need him sitting on the couch like a silent reminder of work they weren't getting done.
So, Steve quietly made his way up the stairs and into his own apartment. Loki had had the right idea earlier; it was the perfect kind of day to sit at home and read. He picked up a book on computer-building Darren had given him. He needed to keep pushing himself to get caught up with this time and its people. A day (or part of an afternoon) off was a good place to start.
He read for an hour, half-listening for any noises from across the hall. He'd never yet met his next-door neighbor, in what Elle called the 'fancy studio' apartment on his side of the building. She'd said the young man, Denver Westerfield, who lived there mostly worked nights at a club, when he wasn't taking classes at another local university. A psychology major, he was using his job as a bartender to study the entertainment industry. He used to have a cat, but it had died of old-age about seven months before. Sometimes his mother would visit, and the hall smelled like cleaning chemicals for a few days afterward. Other than that, he was a conveniently inconspicuous neighbor. Steve never heard his door slam, and he hardly noticed his steps coming or going.
For having never met the guy, Steve knew a lot about him.
But his reading was disturbed by real rain hitting the window behind his head. The wind had picked up. A storm was coming; Steve could already hear the thunder way off in the distance. He wondered, idly, if Thor was on his way, or just stomping around up on Asgard's golden palace.
But that errant thought turned into a worry. What if Thor paid them all a visit, angry about the Foster confrontation this morning? Would SHIELD let them know if he showed up? Or would he be sent straight to their apartment building?
Steve stood up, pulled his phone from his pocket and noticed it was dead… again. It had been on 'silent' during his meetings this morning and he'd forgotten to turn that off, so he wouldn't have heard any calls anyway. At least it lasts more than two days now, he thought, plugging it into the charger on the end table next to the couch. The screen lit up as the device turned on, going through the animated startup scenes that showcased the Stark logo in flashy gold and red.
He turned away while it was doing that, going to the kitchen for a glass of water.
"Captain Rogers," Jarvis said from the phone, making Steve' spine snap straight in surprise,"you have ten missed called from Miss Engman, all sent within the last hour."
Steve spun and snatched up the device, his heart leaping into his throat. Sure enough, there was the list of calls.
"Is Elle okay, Jarvis?" he asked, trying to figure out how to call her back from this screen.
"According to my most recent data, yes," Jarvis answered. "Miss Engman spoke with me when she failed to reach both you and Mr. Loki. I placed her call through to Mr. Stark, the younger."
Thank God. Steve heaved a sigh of relief, quelling all the images of Elle lying in the meadow, injured and unable to reach anyone who could help. "Can you connect me to her, please?"
"Right away, sir." Jarvis took over the phone, and the screen changed to the in-call one: blue with Elle's picture at the top and her phone number underneath.
Steve held the phone to his ear as it rang once, twice, three times. Then static or something took over, so loud he had to hold the phone away from his head.
"Elle?" he called, listening to the roar of… something constant.
"Ste- fine! Can't land! I'm fi- you hear me?"
"I can't hear you!" Steve put the bottom of the phone toward his mouth.
The static lessened, and some muffled cursing came through. "Stupid damn- There! Can you hear me?"
"Yeah." He put the phone back to his ear. "You flying?"
"Yeah. You need to keep your phone where you can hear it."
"I know." Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. "What happened? Are you alright? Are you flying home?"
"I'm okay. I'm going to the Tower," Elle reported. "I'm only about fifteen minutes away from there. I don't have my suit, so that's the problem with the wind."
"Why are you going to the Tower?" Why wasn't she coming home? Did something happen? Was the rest of the team okay?
"I didn't think you guys were home, so- oh, and Darren's flying near me in the suit, but- well, here's the thing. Steve? You hear me?"
The wind was picking up again. "Barely."
"We're running into rain- gotta go higher. Bad reception. Just come to the Tower with Loki. Meet- ten minutes- maybe- I'm okay, though. Okay?"
"Okay." Steve held onto that. His heart still felt like it was sitting in his lower intestines. "We'll meet you at the Tower. Fly safe."
"Don't panic Loki." Elle hung up then, or the phone lost its signal. Either way, Steve was left standing in his lamp-lit living room, staring at the screen, pondering how close they might have come to losing her without being aware of it.
Because something big would have to have happened to send her to New York in such weather with no suit and no plane. And no car. She'd had her car at the meadow, and she'd decided not to take it. And she hadn't come home, instead calling Darren as soon as she realized Steve and Loki couldn't give her backup.
He felt awful about that. They'd been… well, with Loki's magic they'd been seconds away from Eleanore. She was supposed to be able to count on them.
He had to get to the Tower. He'd ask Loki to transport them, and if he wouldn't do it then Steve would fly that quinjet hidden on top of the gym.
He started for the front door with firm resolve. Then he passed the mirror he and Elle had found at a flea market that first week of their acquaintance, which hung next to the door above some hooks that held keys, jackets, sometimes Elle's purse. He looked… angry. Resolved. Deadly. Like Captain America facing an enemy instead of Steve Rogers going to ask his teammate for help.
"Don't panic Loki." That had been her last comment. And before that, Elle had reiterated that she was fine, and she'd mentioned that Darren was flying with her. She was safe, now. No good overreacting because of a mistake.
Steve took two seconds to breathe. He rearranged his face into a calmer, more reasonable expression. Felt his emotions follow. Then, he steadily walked out of his apartment, locked the door, and let himself in across the hall.
The bathroom door was closed and Loki's bedroom door was open, showcasing an empty room. Charlie trilled across the floor and wound around Steve's ankles.
Steve knocked, but didn't really expect an answer. Loki had soundproofed this room weeks ago, and hadn't removed it as far as Steve was aware. But he had heard Steve leave his apartment that day he'd gone to the gym by himself before he was ready. So the outer walls were permeable.
Steve went back into the hallway and knocked on that wall, right where he knew the shower was. Now that he was listening for it, he could hear the splashing of water. That splashing stopped, and a growl issued from within the room, along with hasty shuffling.
Satisfied he'd been noticed, Steve ventured back into the apartment and waited in front of the closed bathroom door. He couldn't hear anything from there now, but he saw Loki's shadow moving in the light that shone under the door. After about thirty seconds, the other man emerged with a scowl, no shirt, and a pair of Asgardian pants.
"Are you looking for a sparring partner at this hour?" he asked, shaking his towel through his short hair. "Perhaps it would be more interesting here, if I focused on only breaking you instead of the thousand other things in this hovel."
Steve ignored the grumpy tone. This Loki would still call him 'Steve'. "You have your cell phone on you?"
Loki frowned at him, held out his hand, and grabbed the device from the air. "Why?"
"How many missed calls do you have?"
Loki examined the screen. "Eight. From Eleanore…" He looked up and set his jaw. "What's happened?"
Steve began with the most important information. "She's safe. I don't know what happened, but I know she's safe. I just talked to her. She's flying to New York with Jet, to the Tower. She should be there in a few minutes."
Loki tossed his towel aside, somehow donned his full armor in the blink of an eye, and grabbed Steve's wrist in a flash. Then they were standing in the Tower, in the living room, next to the hole in the floor where Hulk had smashed Loki.
They were alone in the room. The lights turned on in response to their presence. Outside, rain was pouring like someone had dumped a bucket from the heavens.
"Captain Rogers, Mr. Loki. Welcome back." Jarvis greeted them with the same cordiality as always. "Mr. Stark and Miss Engman should be arriving in about seven minutes. I have informed Mr. Stark the elder of your presence. He will be with you shortly."
"Does Tony know what happened?" Steve asked the AI.
"Not to my knowledge. Miss Engman was only connected to Mr. Darren Stark, not to the speaker system."
At least Darren answered, Steve thought to himself with another pang of guilt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Loki clenching his fists.
"Did she tell him?" the demigod asked quietly.
"Yes," Jarvis answered, "I have the call recorded. From what I can gather, Miss Engman is unharmed. However, she reported a sighting of something strange in the meadow; a robot much like the ones from the FDR Memorial battle. "
Steve felt his shoulders tense with anxiety. "Did it attack?"
"No. Miss Engman asked Jet to fly closer to examine it, but the robot turned and began flying away. They followed it, but it flew into the clouds. At this point, I have no further information, as Mr. Stark transferred the call to his suit where protocol dictates I not reveal anything that was said."
Loki was visibly grinding his teeth. Steve shifted to draw his attention. "But Elle's safe."
"Yes, she is," Jarvis promised.
"Then we'll figure out the rest when they get here." That was an easy enough decision; there was no other option. But sometimes it helped other people if Steve (or Captain America) presented a certainty they didn't feel.
"When who get here?" Tony asked, disembarking from the elevator. "You guys invite the gang? Avengers party?"
Loki closed his eyes, looking like he was on the edge of his control.
Steve decided it was time for him to live up to that earlier promise to run interference for his teammate. He placed himself between Tony and Loki and started filling the older man in. "Elle and Darren are on their way here. Elle saw something in the meadow."
"Like grass? Flowers? A rainbow?" Tony quipped.
Steve was saved from answering that by the whirr of repulsors over the sound of the rain. Darren landed on the platform and let the machines take his suit off, then he moved aside so Jet could alight as well.
A robot moved into the room from the bedroom hallway just off the living room. It carried a folded purple bathrobe with a large pair of slippers set on top.
"Dummy, good job," Tony congratulated it. "If you keep messing up in the lab, I'll move you up to serving full time."
The robot made a disgruntled noise, lowering its one arm and dropping everything on the floor.
Elle, Darren, and Jet entered the Tower through the sliding door. Darren and Jet- in dog form- shook rain onto the cement floor and walls. Elle pulled the water off herself with jerky movements. Her hands didn't seem to be working correctly, her teeth were chattering, and her lips were turning purple.
Steve remembered her saying they'd had to fly higher to escape the rain. It must have been near-freezing up there, and even worse with the wind. He picked the robe up off the floor and threw it around her shoulders as the trio made their way over.
"What happened?" He, Loki, and Tony demanded at the same time.
Elle chuckled up at them. "Jinx."
"I'll get you a soda," Tony volunteered. He raced to the kitchen started rustling around in the fridge.
"I'd… take a coffee," Elle said around her clacking teeth. She put her arms through the sleeves of the robe and pulled it close around herself.
"What happened?" Loki insisted in a low voice.
Steve had been about to suggest they all sit down, but Elle started speaking before he could. "I was- we were flying. Landed for a break, and I saw one of those robots- well, it looked different, I think. Smaller? And it moved more like a person? But still, the head was shaped the same way. It was over in the trees, next to the log that looks like a dog if you squint. Jet saw it, too, and we started walking over there, but it took off with- Darren, I told you, it looked like your flying things."
"Our repulsors?" Tony asked, coming back with a steaming mug of coffee, which he gave to Elle. "What asshole can replicate our repulsors?"
"No asshole yet," Eleanore told him, shifting her weight to one hip. "Because Jet and I took off to chase it, and it was so slow. We caught it, and you know how much time it takes us to get up to even sixty miles an hour."
"Ten-point-five-one seconds," Darren confirmed.
"Yep. That. So we caught up with it, and Jet was going to bite it, but then there was like this explosion or something and it was gone. No pieces, no smoke. It looked like that thing. That thing, Loki." Elle opened and closed her hands to emphasize her point. "The thing you did that one time."
All eyes turned to Loki, then.
The dark-haired man raised an eyebrow at them. "You expect me to know what she means?"
Darren held up his hand. A blue light flashed into rivulets that faded to nothing.
Elle nodded excitedly. Her lips were normal-colored now, and her teeth had just about stopped chattering. "That. The energy thing. And then everything was green-gold for a second, too. That was you."
"The spell I placed on you for protection," Loki confirmed. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Hm. It seems to have deflected what sounds like a magic-fueled vaporization. And the dragon's magic must have protected it again."
Steve's stomach, which had returned to its normal place upon seeing Eleanore land safely, dropped. A vaporization?! That's what we missed calls about? They could have gone the entire afternoon without knowing, if she'd been caught in it. They wouldn't have missed her for hours. And by the time they got to the meadow, that magic probably would have dispersed in the air. They might never have known.
And Loki should be more upset about this than he was. Steve found interest, acceptance, calm in the other man's demeanor. No concern. But if Elle had died, so would Loki. Was he that… that willing to go? Or was he so confident in whatever spell he had on Eleanore that this was something he could shrug off?
"You okay?" Darren asked for all of them, putting an arm around Elle's shoulders and hugging her close, looking like someone had just killed his puppy.
"Yeah, just cold from flying." Elle leaned into his embrace and took a sip of her coffee. Grimaced. "Jesus Christ, what's in here?"
"Brandy, you lightweight," Tony teased. "Helps you warm up."
"She's nineteen," Steve reprimanded him.
"I put in the child-sized portion."
"And no sugar," Elle complained, pushing the mug at the older Stark. "And alcohol doesn't actually help warm you up, it just makes you think you're warmer by pushing the blood closer to the surface of your skin, lowering your core temperature, which actually makes you colder.
"So we've established that you're fine," Tony quipped, taking the coffee back.
"Let's sit down," Steve finally managed to suggest. Watching the still-shivering mutant woman was making him antsy. At least if they were seated on those large-cushioned, blanket-laden sofas, she could curl in on herself and hunker down in a lot of material.
Thankfully, the team followed his suggestion. Loki positioned himself on one of the loveseats with his back to the windows. Darren sat at one end of the longer black leather couch that faced the television and wrapped his arm around Eleanore, who shed her tennis shoes and slid into the slippers Dummy brought over. Steve sat on the same couch, trying to look her over to make sure she really was okay and not just pretending at it. Tony paced around until he finally came to rest with his hip against a gray-fabric easy chair.
"Tell it again, Princess," the older Stark invited.
"What did the repulsors look like?" Darren added, giving Elle's shoulder a squeeze.
Elle chuckled to herself. "Repulsive. No, they looked dimmer than yours, though. So, I'm wondering what kind of power source that bot had, because it was obviously better than the ones we fought."
"And it didn't try to fight you?" Steve clarified. "It just… ran away?"
"It was clearly trying to draw her into the air. To kill her, and to maim the dragon," Loki said flatly.
"Clearly," Tony agreed easily. He fixed Eleanore with an intense stare. "So, Princess, how do those trackers sound now?"
Trackers? Steve was lost, still stuck on the fact that Elle had survived an assassination attempt from a magic robot controlled by who-knew-who.
And she was giving Tony a look. "Still terrible. I said no, I meant no."
"You know we wouldn't be tracking you, Jarvis would," Darren pointed out. "He'd just let the team know…"
"... if we're in danger." Elle finished his sentence. "I know. But I still don't like the idea." She looked at Steve. "Tony was just texting me this afternoon about putting, like tracking bracelets on us to monitor our vitals and locations."
Steve nodded in appreciation of the explanation. Elle always tried to bring everyone into the loop. "I don't know that bracelets would help, if we're ambushed."
"But Jarvis can alert us to the fight, so we can come and help you," Darren pointed out.
Loki scoffed and crossed his arms. "By the time you'd arrive, we would be victorious or dead."
That was unnecessarily mean, Steve thought, but also true. "I think it'd be more useful if we just kept in contact. I should have been watching my phone this afternoon, so we could have given Elle backup." He frowned as guilt gave his heart a final squeeze. "I won't let that happen again."
Elle crooked a sympathetic smile at him. "Steve, my mom doesn't always answer when I call. My whole family's bad at it. And I didn't phone you until after the robot was gone, so it's fine."
"I suspect you'd have a different opinion, if you weren't here and safe," Loki retorted. "You shouldn't have given chase at all. It was a rash decision. You were lucky to live through it."
Elle's smile turned into an ironic grin. "I think that could be our team slogan."
Steve shook his head at them both. "The important thing is, she's safe. We can learn from this."
"We're trying to learn," Tony pointed out. "Our guest lecturer here keeps getting sidetracked. You said that bot was smaller- smaller how?"
So Elle launched into a more detailed description of what she'd seen and done. How the robot was completely still, and how the metal was dulled so it wouldn't shine in the random sunlight. How it moved more 'like a person,' jumping to aid its takeoff once it reached a clearing in the trees. How the repulsors seemed louder than the Iron Man suits, and how it had aimed straight for the tail-end of the clouds for cover as Jet caught up to it.
Dummy brought a tray of drinks- hot chocolate this time- and then it handed Elle a tablet that displayed a projection of one of the robots from the FDR Memorial. Elle scaled it bit by bit and added repulsors to the image until she said it looked pretty much the same as the one she'd seen.
When she ran out of observations, Tony and Darren started asking her questions. Did the robot look back at Jet as they approached? Yes. Did it look like it had a weapon on it? No. What was stabilizing the flight? Only a couple tiny thrusters and the hand repulsors.
"What sort of noise accompanied the explosion?" Loki asked during a lull.
"Not much," Elle replied. "It was windy already, but mostly I felt it rather than heard it. Like a weird shockwave."
Loki set one elbow on the arm of his chair and drew his finger over his lips, visibly considering her words.
"Is that normal?" Elle asked, when no one spoke for a moment.
Loki raised an eyebrow at her. "Nothing on this powerless rock is normal."
Steve hastily spoke up before Tony could start a fight about that. "Why did you ask about it, then?"
"It sounds… unfamiliar."
"Something unfamiliar from this powerless rock?" Tony jibed.
"Unfamiliar in that I am not certain of the magic's intent any longer," Loki clarified with a scowl.
"What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"Usually, one can tell the intent behind a spell by its effects." Loki was speaking to Eleanore, which reminded Steve of Darren. "But since my magic protected you, there is nothing to observe."
"Could you use your special eyes to scope it out if we went back to the spot?" Tony asked.
"By now, in the open air, and with the energy from the storms, the magic wouldn't be noticeable any longer."
Steve was glad they wouldn't have to galivant around in the bands of storms that were slowly moving along the East Coast. He was doubly glad Elle would get a chance to sit here and rest while they talked through their options. He sipped his hot chocolate and saw her eyes blinking rapidly. She must be tired, after this morning's confrontation and now this hasty, freezing flight.
But she grinned at Steve over her own mug and turned to lean her back against Darren so she could face him. "So how was your afternoon?"
"It was… good," Steve supplied. It had been good, and some of the good had happened at the same time Eleanore had been in danger.
She must have sensed some of his discomfort. "I'm seriously fine, Steve. Anyway, I was texting Maria in between flights, and she says Jane Foster is going to leave D.C. within a couple of days."
"That's good news." Steve knew he was overreacting to the past now, so he welcomed the change in subject. It stopped his mind from reeling back to earlier that day, when that rare sullen moment made him remember that Elle was a teenager. She's still herself, he thought sternly. What would Peggy say if she saw you judging by age? And thinking of Peggy made him think of the care center, and of his visit with Lydia. "I talked to your mom today."
"What'd she have to say?"
"She talked about you."
Elle grinned. "Predictable." She settled back to listen to the other men debate the magician's robot's intent.
The debate lasted a while. Steve hadn't been around many scientists, only Howard, and he wasn't used to the way they talked in circles, airing ideas and until they didn't even seem relevant anymore.
"We could set up some observational equipment in the meadow to catch any other robots," Darren suggested about ten minutes in, having discussed and discarded the idea of using satellite imagery to find footage of the explosion in the clouds.
Elle shifted. "This is interesting and all, but I'm more worried about how this thing found us. I had the projectors turned on as soon as I parked the car."
"Maybe this guy's got tracking on you already," Tony said.
"Hardly," Loki countered. "I would have seen any foreign magic attached to Eleanore or the dragon. No, more likely is that they followed your car, seeing you were alone."
"Jet didn't notice it until we landed after flying for like half an hour," Elle objected. "He would have noticed something like that in the air, following us."
"You put a great deal of faith in a creature that never speaks to you."
"She puts a lot of faith in a lot of creatures," Tony pointed out. "But Princess, I'm gonna have to go with Nosferatu here on this one. They must have followed you."
Elle shrugged. "Whatever you say."
Steve could tell she didn't think they were correct. Steve himself had no idea what to believe. All he knew was that Eleanore had been caught in a dangerous explosion, and no one had been there to help her.
The other three men devolved into a discussion again. Lofty magical theory started flying back and forth between Loki and Darren, and Tony started to get confrontational because he didn't understand them anymore.
"We could try for something different, if we had any images of the fight."
"We don't have any images; how often must you be reminded of that? No, you should set up observational equipment as you said. It will give you an idea of danger, if nothing else. In the meantime, I will continue developing tracking spells. Where have you gotten with palladium?"
"About as far as we can throw you, Bill Nye. You say it works, but I haven't had any luck with the sensors so far."
"Well, if you would have treated it the way I told you…"
"I did treat a sample, but it still won't pick anything up, other than the usual heat and whatever. I've started examining its fundamental properties, too, and I see what you mean about acceptance. But it's not seeking out magical energy the way we'd want it to."
"God, you two, write a paper together. Then we could finally understand your not-so-scientific terms."
"I think we need to work on protective armor," Darren continued, ignoring his father.
"Protecting who from what? I am your best chance of that," Loki scoffed.
"If Elle could fly away from threats? Or Steve could have an arm cannon?"
Elle finally chimed in. "Again. No. Darren, I hate clunky suits. And no one wants to be Samus from Metroid."
Steve blinked. Elle sounded pretty annoyed at her boyfriend. This topic must still come up a lot.
Still, he didn't want an arm cannon. And it seemed like these arguments were getting them nowhere. It was time to go.
Steve stood up.
No one stopped talking. Darren continued his postulation about new repulsor tech experiments, Loki kept rolling his eyes at Tony, who was starting fidget and looked like he'd start a real fight any second.
So Steve turned to Eleanore, who was the only person looking at him. "You want to go home?"
She nodded eagerly. "Oh yeah. We could take a jet, if they want to…" she glanced at Loki. "Actually, Loki, would you mind taking us ho— back to the apartment?"
Steve noticed how she skirted around the word 'home', which she usually used to refer to her apartment. Loki wouldn't call it home, and he'd be offended if she pushed that label on him.
Loki finally stopped jibing Tony and Darren and stood as well. "Perhaps a quieter venue will give me the room I need to solve this problem of yours." He walked over and held out his hand.
"Hey, you can't just say we're completely wrong and leave," Tony protested.
"I'm tired," Elle complained. "Mostly, tired of listening to you guys bicker. We'll come back. Email us your ideas, okay?"
Darren stood and kissed her on the forehead. "Okay. Stay safe. Love you." He looked over at the elevator, obviously eager to get to his lab again.
"Bye, love you too," Elle said. "Bye, Tony."
"Try not to get blown up for real, Princess." Tony gruffly crossed his arms and glared at the three of them.
Steve figured he was having a small tantrum, so he placed his hand on Loki's and ignored Tony's glare. "Thanks for the hot chocolate."
"And the brandy," Elle added with one of those warm smiles.
Tony shook his head. "Come back when you don't have Carrie Nation watching your ID."
Steve actually understood that reference. He'd seen news reels with Carrie Nation's hatchet when he was a kid. "Good one," he called, feeling Loki's magic pull his stomach.
They were back in the apartment in another instant. Like before, Steve's stomach stayed in place as his feet found the creaky floorboards again.
"Thanks," Elle said to Loki, backing off and flopping onto the couch. She pulled the yellow quilt from where it was folded on a shelf under the end table and wrapped herself in it. "I hope you guys don't mind if I just sit here and don't move for a while."
Loki withdrew his hand and sank into his own chair, picking up a thick book. "As you please."
"What one is that?" Eleanore asked him with a grin.
"The third, if you must know."
Steve figured Loki was reading a series she'd recommended. He glanced around the apartment, wondering if he'd be out of place if he stayed.
"Want to watch the news?" Elle invited, shuffling over so half the couch was free.
"Sure." Steve sat down and turned on the local news channel. They sat through a couple of commercials, but they were just in time to catch the six o'clock broadcast.
It opened with the typical instrumental jingle, and then a stone-faced reporter started speaking. "In the headlines tonight, a mass shooting in Seattle, Washington. Three people dead, and four more in the hospital after this afternoon's shooting spree. Local man Sinclair Cargil opened fire just inside the entrance of a coffee shop, hitting the patrons before taking his own life."
Steve's stomach, which had stayed quiet through both Loki's transportations, twisted in revulsion. How could someone just… do that?
"We go now to Douglas Fletcher, live at the scene."
A blue-clad young man showed up on the screen, talking loudly into his microphone. "Wanda, I'm about half a block away from 'Seattle's Joe,' where this tragedy unfolded."
The camera panned over the shop, showcasing emergency responders, mostly police, moving about the scene.
"Witnesses report walking by the shop and noticing the sounds of gunfire. One woman told us she would have run, but she didn't recognize the noise right away."
Steve clenched his fists, feeling completely useless. A woman showed up on the screen, describing everything she'd seen. "Mostly, I just heard the shots. But then I saw this man running at me, and he fell down… with a lot of blood. And this other man had a gun, but he started turning it around to his head. And then he shot it."
Good, Steve thought viciously. That kind of monster deserved to die. Although suicide was probably the easiest way out, after all he'd done. The real victims had been left defenseless, bleeding out, terrified. And three of them were dead.
Elle laid a hand on his arm. "Should we gear up?"
Steve tore his eyes from the screen, back to the warm-lit room. The exhausted-looking young woman beside him. "No," he decided aloud, automatically. "It would take too long for us to get there. The rescue teams have it handled." He stood up, trying to get his anger away from her.
She nodded and curled back into her blankets with a sigh. "I shouldn't be this glad about staying home."
"You should save your energy for something more worthwhile," Loki commented, not looking up from his book.
That remark rankled, like an itch under Steve's skin. "This is worthwhile."
Loki's expression blanked from snide confidence to unreadability. "Of course."
Steve took that for what it was: a concession to avoid an argument. He wouldn't take the issue any further, not tonight. He was still aware of how grateful he should be that their little team was still whole and safe.
"It's not as though there will be another attack tomorrow," Loki continued with a bitter bite to his voice. "Of course, humans are so peaceful and evolved, you don't lend your hand to unnecessary violence. So this instance, this random carnage, would be well worth your attention. You should drag us across the globe for every such occurrence."
Steve stood stock-still, shocked by that venom. "It's worth our effort, if we can help people."
Loki finally glanced up, but his eyes were directed at the TV. "Those who are dead are dead, and you can't help the injured ones. The killer is beyond your reach as well. Where is the advantage to our presence?"
Anger coiled in Steve's chest. "You'd have us stay on the sidelines until… until someone 'worthy' comes along?"
"Someone your mortals can't deal with, yes. Why waste your time chasing a hundred tiny occurrences, when there is a more threatening foe at large?"
"Because people will die if we don't help."
"Mortals do very little, other than dying and reproducing to fill this planet with refuse. What's one more or less? What's fifty more? A hundred?" Loki sat back with a scowl and glared down at his book again. "They will be replaced as quickly as they are killed."
"People aren't replaceable." Steve's chest gave a squeeze as he thought of those seven men and women. The effect was larger than that. How did Loki not see this? Children had lost their parents. Friends and family were probably just processing the news that their loved one would never come home.
Elle stirred out of her nest again. "Well, we don't really need to fight about it, since we're staying here." Her voice was reasonable and a little flat, very quiet, as though she was trying not to emulate the emotions of the other two men.
Steve set his jaw. How could she be so callous about this? "Some fights are too important to walk away from."
"Spoken like a true warrior," Loki said sourly.
His hateful tone bit deeper than Steve liked to admit. "What's wrong with that?" he challenged.
"Nothing, you're a warrior," Eleanore cut in again with a pointed look at Loki that clearly asked, 'what's with you?'
Loki scoffed at her and Steve at the same time. "So quick to punch a problem. You can't survive without a war to fight, can you?"
Steve ground his teeth. "Last time I checked, only one person in this room starts battles..." ...and you can't finish them, he mentally added with the barest restraint. This was already getting more intense than he liked, in such a confined space.
As if to emphasize that point, Loki bolted from his chair to tower over everyone, looking down his nose at them- mostly Steve- with disgust. But instead of saying anything more, he bared his teeth in a soundless growl and disappeared.
Steve was left with the impression of clenched fists and sparking, cold power that raised goosebumps along his arms. He stared at Loki's chair, where the abandoned book flapped closed with whispering pages and a soft thunk.
Elle inhaled and flopped over on the couch so her face was buried in one of the throw pillows. From there, she started making noise- actually, it sounded like she was borderline shouting- into the cushion in a long string of inaudibility. It was impossible to tell if she was talking, or if it was all one long, sustained groan.
Steve stood there and listened. He knew he should probably leave and get his head on straight, but he needed to understand just where this teammate disagreed with him so he knew where he stood on both sides. And he couldn't help feeling bitter disappointment at Elle's flippant attitude toward the problem. It mattered. It mattered a lot.
Elle's muffled words quieted after a couple minutes, and she sat up with a tired sigh and reached for her phone. "Where do you think he went?"
Steve shrugged. "He'll come back." He couldn't bring himself to care about Loki's location right now. The man wouldn't cause mayhem because he simply couldn't, and anywhere he went away from Steve was great for the moment.
Elle's thumbs paused their tapping on the phone's screen. "Well, we have to find him."
Steve shook his head. "I don't know that we can, unless you want to order him back." Let's go for as much damage as possible tonight. See how that works out.
"I'm not going to order him, and neither are you." This was said with the calm authority of someone who knows they will be obeyed.
"We might not have a choice." I might not have a choice. He said it before he really thought about it. If he'd considered a moment longer, Steve probably wouldn't have spoken at all. He was horribly disappointed in his team tonight, if they could even be called 'his'. Would this little experiment even work out? Could such a differently-minded group work together for more than a few days at a time without fighting like this? How could everything have gone so wrong in just a few minutes?
And, now that he was facing the third member of their band, he found an unfamiliar, blank-but-dangerous expression on her face.
"We always have a choice," Elle said, her voice as harsh as it was low.
One fight at a time, Steve figured. "And if the choice comes down to saving people or-"
"- It won't come to it," Elle interrupted him.
"But what if it does?" Steve insisted.
"It won't."
"Elle…" Steve understood her unwillingness to choose. But she needed to be prepared for it, if Loki's attitude was anything to go by.
"Steve." This was as belligerent as she'd ever been with him. And she seemed to realize that as soon as Steve did. Elle drew in a long breath and closed her eyes while doing so. Then she let that breath out, still not opening her eyes. "Will you please hand me a glass of water?"
Steve complied silently. He didn't know where he stood with her, but he knew she was exhausted because he hadn't been available earlier. Water was the least he could do. And the request was a good sign that they might be able to salvage something from this fight.
"Thanks," Elle said, taking the glass, draining it in a couple gulps, and refilling it from the air. Then she grinned up at him, cautiously. "I guess you really didn't need to fill it from the sink."
"I don't mind." Steve sat on the other end of the couch with the glass he'd gotten for himself, feeling a lot calmer as he downed its contents. And when Elle refilled it for him, he gave an easy nod of thanks. After all, the fight wasn't her fault. And she must be… really frustrated by it, now that Steve was calm enough to consider her point of view. "Are you alright?" he asked, recalling then that she'd probably felt- been forced to feel- every wave of emotion in the room, from anger to resentment to whatever Loki had been embroiled in. She'd said once that stronger emotions were harder to ignore.
Charlie took the opportunity to jump into Steve's lap then. The cat curled up and claimed his left arm to hug, grunting and rolling over for a belly rub with all the carefree assumption of belonging a happy cat should feel.
"I'm okay," Elle said, watching as Steve obeyed the cat's silent command. "I'm glad you didn't yell."
That seemed like a strange statement, seeing as Steve had done enough damage without yelling at all. But if she chose to find a good point somewhere, he wouldn't take it away. Still, Steve had no idea how to reply to that.
But Elle continued speaking after a second, anyway. "I didn't mean that you were wrong, you know. When I said it didn't matter."
Coulda fooled me, Steve thought with a very quiet snort. "So what did you mean?"
"I meant that you were basically fighting about nothing. Like… like Loki didn't mean what you thought he meant, and you were reacting to something that was a non-issue."
"Oh, that's so much better," Steve drawled. Wow, I'm the one who sounds like Loki now.
"Now you sound like Loki," Elle chuckled. Then that chuckle turned into a sigh. "Also because neither of you can back away from an argument."
"Which you say was a non-argument."
"Non-issue," she corrected. "Because you weren't listening. You got kind of hurt when he said we should save our strength for something worthwhile, but he was really agreeing with you and… he might have been trying to make me feel better."
Steve thought back over every instant. How Elle had been relieved to stay home and rest. How she'd felt guilty about that. And how that was when Loki had told her to save her strength. "He did say it wasn't worthwhile," Steve pointed out, feeling like a sore loser even as he said it.
"Yeah, he and Darren are a little bit harsh about things like that," Elle agreed comfortably.
"Darren is?" Steve asked, incredulous. The younger Stark was one of the quietest, most driven people he'd ever met. Steve assumed the quiet came from his unknown mother, because it did not run on his father's side. And Darren rarely spoke to Steve (or Elle, or anyone) about anything except science and work.
"Oh yeah," Elle said with an 'isn't that obvious?' expression. "You don't know him very well yet. He tries to be comforting, like, when I'm feeling bad about not getting everything done- oh, once I forgot a college assignment and I felt terrible about it, and Darren said, 'Who cares about school,' and, 'If that professor doesn't understand how busy you are, then they're the idiot'."
Steve tried to picture that and almost got there. He remembered how decidedly not-quiet the younger man had been about the World Council shooting a nuke at Manhattan. Still. "You're saying Loki is like Darren."
"Quite a bit." Elle held up a hand and ticked off her points on her fingers. "Super-geniuses. Not appreciated, especially about magic. Both could probably go into Slytherin or Ravenclaw. Weird childhoods. Callous, sometimes weird, sense of humor. "At that point, she ran out of fingers on one hand, so she started over, staring at the ceiling as she thought and started over. "Kinda rude if you don't know them very well. Protective, but not like you. Helpful, also not like you… or me. They like people to think they don't give a shit, but they actually give a lot of shits. Probably too many." List completed, Elle put her arms back in her blankets and burrowed again until only her face was visible.
Steve wasn't convinced she was completely right. "You know Loki that well after less than a month?"
"Well, I've known Darren for three years, so I have a head start."
That was a discussion for another day. "Whatever you say… but that still doesn't mean he was right to say those people don't matter."
"He wasn't saying that. Not at first, anyway."
"What was he saying at first? Between the words 'more' and 'worthwhile'."
Elle scrunched up her face. "I told you already, I think he was trying to make me feel better about not wanting to go out again tonight."
"You think?" Steve challenged.
"Yeah, I can't be sure of his intentions, but he didn't feel like he was teasing us. He got antsy when you responded."
Steve frowned. So this is my fault.
"It's not your fault," Elle said, like the mind-reader Loki used to think she was. "We've all had a tough day. And you are right; those people do matter. It's sad that they died."
"So what-" Steve started to ask.
"I meant the argument didn't matter. Like, it wasn't worth fighting about it because a) neither of you were going to change your mind, and b) it's a moot point."
"It's not 'moot' if one of our teammates doesn't value human lives, Elle," Steve insisted. How was this not obvious to her?
"Steve, that's not the problem, though." She was just as earnest. Trying to make him understand something. "I'm not explaining this right. Just… I need a second to think about what I'm saying."
Steve could give her that. He could give more than that, actually. "You can go to bed, too, if you want. We can talk about this in the morning. I'll stay up and wait for Loki to come home."
"Um, no. I don't want you to fight without me around, and I'm too stressed out to sleep." Elle pressed the heel of one hand into her forehead, like she was trying to suffocate a headache. "Ugh. Okay. So. The argument doesn't matter because the point isn't whether or not Loki thinks that any humans are worth our time. The point is that he would have come with us, even if he thought it was stupid."
Steve saw what she was saying, then. The idea broke over his head like a bucket of ice water, drenching him in uncomfortable understanding.
"And it's the same for me, you know?" Elle continued, just as earnestly as before. "I'd have gone with you if you thought we should. I didn't think we needed to- I've grown up with that kind of violence hanging over my head- but I would have followed you onto a plane. So you don't have to worry about our values, Steve. Okay? Because we'll follow you pretty much no matter what."
Steve's chest felt tight again, but this time it was from the weight of the responsibility he carried. His team was… his. Really his. Elle was right about that.
He glanced at the ceiling. "Can you tell if he's up there?"
Elle stared upward as well, brow knit in concentration. "No, I don't think he is."
Steven nodded. It was time for him to go, now. So Loki could come back. "I'll see you both tomorrow then."
Elle's thoughtful gaze softened as she met his eyes. "You don't have to leave right away," she assured him.
"You get some sleep," Steve said. "I think I'll go… punch my cares away."
She sighed at him, and that sigh was resigned. "Watch out for robots."
"You too." He left, closing the apartment door gently, and quickly gathering his gym bag from his bedroom. It would be good to clear his head after today. He'd take his own advice as have some real time off, too.
When he came back, he and his team would work on saving the world.
A/N: Sorry for the wait! A bit shorter than last time, though! I've been working on this in spare minutes at work, and when I get home at night. Unfortunately, I have such a nice, loving family that my weekends typically don't allow me to spend as much time as I'd like on this story (sarcasm about my family; I like them). But I do have 3,000 words written for the next chapter already!
Vendetta: Thanks! I'm imagining that Loki and Elle do have a lot more in common than Loki will ever admit. It's fun to make him realize he's not the only person in the universe who's had some experiences, too.
Lily Noir: Thank you! Loki truly isn't the type to ask anyone for help, poor guy. It's one of those grown-up things they didn't teach in Asgardian prince-school.
Everyone else: Thanks for reading and sticking with this story! It's always a pleasure to read your thoughts! Please rate and review!
~PettyWhiteRose
