Slowly, almost painfully, Lynn opened her eyes and let consciousness wash back over her. She was facing the dying embers of Loki's fire, and Loki himself stood further off, washing his feet in the cooled morning shore.
She gathered herself up from the ground and circled the embers to follow him, sand clinging in odd places both under and over her clothing. She stood back, away from the active currents, only allowing her toes to feel the damp wet soaked into the silt. Loki was silent for a time, and she watched as he calmly brushed himself clean.
"It's not cold?" she finally ventured, her voice quiet from sleep and exhaustion.
"Not to me," he said. "I would not recommend washing yourself here, Amma Lynn. It is too chilly for your mortal body to withstand."
"That might've been true a year ago," she said. His hands paused at the reminder, and then he glanced back her way. She knew she looked disheveled, and hardly appealing, but she saw only fondness there.
"True," he said after a moment. "I would rather not test your shortcomings."
"I think I'm staying," Lynn said. Loki stood, brushing the final particles from his cleaned hands, and shook his head slightly.
"That is not a decision to be made lightly, and I think that now is not the time," he said.
"Are you trying to talk me out of it?"
"I am trying to make sure that the decision is wholly yours, with no outside factors," he said. He glanced at her. "You would never forgive me, if you thought I had persuaded you quietly. Or in any way at all."
"That's true." Lynn crouched and hovered her hands over the dead fire; the heat was long gone, and she shivered. "It's almost like you know me."
Loki chuckled and offered her a hand. "I'll take you home, so that you may clean yourself in familiar surroundings."
"And with warm water," she said with a smile.
"Of course," Loki said, and stepped them across Yggdrasil's child.
Coming home always ended in a moment of disorientation, as Lynn oriented herself to whatever spot Loki had brought them to. Now she stepped out into the light of her living room to find herself face-to-face with Tony and Steve, who appeared to have been in the middle of an intense conversation when she blipped into existence.
She froze upon seeing them, hands tightening on the cloak she was still wearing. Tony narrowed his eyes while Steve raised his eyebrows, and she shuffled her feet nervously.
"What the hell," Tony said.
"Stark," Loki said from behind her. "Captain."
"Hello, Loki," Steve said. "May I have a word?"
Loki's hand brushed across her shoulder; they were being separated, and she was getting the raw end of the deal. She sighed and jerked her head towards her own room, silently beckoning Tony to follow her as she walked inside. She closed the door behind him, took a deep breath, and turned around.
"Looks like we interrupted something serious," she said carefully.
"You don't get to disappear for an entire day without checking in, kid," Tony said. His voice was tight with concern. "Vanishing, bad."
Lynn hated to delay the inevitable, and she knew what the real issue was. She leaned against the door and watched him pace, irritable and disapproving.
"I was safe," she said, and he laughed.
"Safe. Right. I don't think you know what that actually means anymore. We've broken your safety meter."
"Go on," Lynn said. "Say it. I know you want to."
Tony grimaced. "I was trying to work my way up to it."
Lynn waited.
"Look, kid," he said. His ears were slowly turning red. "I worry that one day you'll wake up and realize you're next to a mass murderer."
"You don't know what happened," she said. Tony looked at her until she sighed, rubbing a hand across her forehead.
"I'll talk to Pepper about it," Lynn said. Tony paused in his pacing, shooting her a sharp glance. She shrugged, saying nothing because he knew what she meant.
"Point," he said after a few moments.
"You're not going to ask, are you?" she said.
"The answer's plain enough," he said. "I'm great at context."
"That isn't even sort of true," she said, pushing away from the door. She unwrapped the cloak and folded it into a tight square, laying it against the bed. Tony picked it up and set it on her dresser instead. She watched him, and he shook his head once, silently begging her to keep quiet.
"Cap should be done," he said instead. "Awkward conversations all around."
"Steve wouldn't do that," Lynn said as she opened the door. Tony made a strange noise behind her, a sort of wheezed cough that morphed into a sigh.
"Right," he muttered. "He's the hero."
The scene waiting for her in the main den gave her pause. Instead of an annoyed Loki scowling at Steve, she found the two men bent together. Their conspiratorial mutters halted when she entered, and Loki's eyebrows rose when Stark nodded slightly
"What is going on?" she asked. Too late, she realized that both Steve and Loki were blocking the door.
"The good Captain is expressing concern," Loki said. He didn't look the least bit chagrined or apologetic, and Lynn was too exhausted to feel betrayed. She turned to the kitchen instead, and opened the refrigerator to decide what was available.
"Lynn, you know what we're worried about," Steve said from the den. He and Tony had followed her while Loki remained behind, the only man in the room not crowding her with unsolicited opinions. She felt a headache brewing, and pulled a cantaloupe out.
"I have some thoughts," she said as she set the melon against the counter. It rolled a few inches toward the edge, and she stopped it with a finger while drawing a cutting blade from the knife rack. Tony watched the edge of the blade slice the melon cleanly in two while Steve plunged onward, oblivious to any current undertones.
"You need to take better care of yourself," Steve said, ignoring any semblance of easing into the topic. Lynn paused and raised her eyebrows, looking at the two men. Steve at least had the decency to look sheepish.
"Have you had this talk with Tony?" she asked, spooning out the seeds into a wet paper towel. "Or Bruce?"
"Tony has someone else to watch out for him," Steve said. "Bruce has Tony to nag him; it's you who stands alone here."
"I'm never alone," Lynn said. She chopped half of the melon in two and offered each half to one of the men. Both accepted without comment, knowing better than to refuse food in Lynn's kitchen.
"Look at all the company I have," she said. "Even when I'm alone, I'm not alone, and Loki -"
"Stark has been monitoring your vitals through the computer system," Loki said, now leaning against the wall across from her. She raised her eyebrows and looked at Tony, who rolled his eyes.
"Don't look so violated, it's standard," he said.
"I thought JARVIS was on my side," she said.
"You forgot who made him," Tony said. "Look kid, we're trying to not require anything here, but you're making this hard."
"You can't make me do anything," Lynn said tightly.
"I can and I will," Tony said. "I'm not above rationing."
"Rationing?" Steve asked. His eyebrows were nearly touching the tip of his hairline.
"He's the boss," Lynn said. She sat at her table and folded her arms, gripping either elbow. She would wait them out on this, if they were so determined.
"It's been four years," Tony said. He sat across from her, assuming his usual sprawl backward. Even chagrined and eating a melon, he took up the entire space.
"It has," she said carefully.
"And your bloodwork –"
"Is the same," she finished more quietly. Tony glanced at Steve, who was leaning against the refrigerator.
"Bruce told us, Lynn," Steve said. Lynn flinched and looked down at the table. She let go of her one elbow and scratched at the woodgrain with her fingernail. "Loki confirmed it."
"I bet he did," she said.
"It is better that they know, Amma Lynn," Loki said. "They need not treat you as spun glass."
Lynn thought quietly, and all that she felt was anger. She was tired of all of them making decisions for her; she thought they'd learned better.
"You can all leave now," she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Get out."
Steve looked pained. "Lynn, we –"
"Please get out," she said, and Steve couldn't say no to that. Loki folded his arms, on the cusp is respecting her wishes. It was Tony who leaned forward, narrowed his eyes, and said, "no."
Lynn looked up and met his eyes, anger burning through her. "What?"
"I said no," Tony said. "And I'll say it until you stop trying. Four years, kid. We gave you your space, and even Loki knew, but you –"
"He knew because he was there," she said angrily. "He was there when it happened. Bruce, he – he guessed, but he promised he wouldn't tell –"
"Well, I asked him about your bloodwork and it came up," Tony said.
"What does it matter?" Lynn asked. "It doesn't change anything. I'm going to, to live a normal life, and –"
"And everyone you love will grow old around you," Steve said. "We'll all be gone one day, and it'll be sooner than you think."
"Not all of you," Lynn said, glancing at Loki.
"Thor knows?" Steve asked.
"Thor is aware of many things," Loki said, with some irritation. "He is more observant in recent times."
"Anyone else?" Tony asked.
"Not unless you count Thanos," Lynn said.
"Fuck's sake, kid," Tony said, "we just want to take care of you."
She wanted to say she could take care of herself, but she was living off of his dime and everyone here knew it. She sighed.
"Maybe I need more time," she said. "Maybe I just want some time to think."
Loki was watching her closely, his eyes boring into her. She looked down.
"It's reversible," she said quietly.
"How?" Steve asked, while Tony said, "What?"
"Loki can fix me," she said, and Tony scoffed. "Thor can too, if needed. I have a way out if…"
If it became too much. If watching them all die was too hard. If if if. Lynn wanted to rest.
"Thor can fix you," Steve said slowly, carefully, as though testing the knowledge out.
"Amma Lynn is too wise to trust me alone with her fate," Loki said. Tony snorted.
"Then I guess we got no problems," he said with a scowl.
"No," Lynn said. "We don't."