The Runaways
by: muaaimoi
Summary- Basically a street kid au. There are issues and avengers but they all turn out okay anyway. Also, stony, Thorki, Phlint ,and Brutasha, because damn it, just because.
5.
Things can't stay the same after Loki's pronouncement. No matter how much they want it to. Loki has made himself a portend of things to come. A walking reminder of all the things that they can't change. Of the inevitability of their drifting apart, despite the strength with which they hold onto each other. Hold onto the few good things in life that they have managed to find.
Loki's presence now signifies how very fragile their happiness is.
Steve thinks that if they didn't love Thor the way they did, Loki would be a dead man walking. Sadly they do love Thor, so instead they freeze Loki out. If he wanders into the Lab, Tony and Bruce wander out. If he's using Clint's target boards, Clint is not present. Natasha can't be found in the same room as him unless they're sleeping. And while Steve isn't proud of it, he no longer addresses Loki, skims over him as if he doesn't see him. The only person not ignoring Loki is Thor, and even he seems shorter with his brother. Despite their now closer relationship.
Loki mostly responds by being equally frigid. By pretending that the treatment isn't bothering him. And bringing up their lack of a future at every turn, encouraging Thor to go back to his parents. Constantly making them think about the pasts and futures that they don't want to have.
It's for that reason in particular that Steve can't help but think that Loki deserves their behavior, childish though it might be.
Bringing up the future is cruel.
They are street kids after all. The apartment, the careful balance of odd and legitimate jobs might be the best they ever have. While Tony and Bruce may be brilliant, and there is no denying the sheer athletic ability of Natasha and Clint, that doesn't necessarily bode well for them. They aren't in any systems, have no official education. They basically just float along the regular people, careful not to catch attention lest the system attempts to suck them back in. Their age is their greatest enemy, and Steve hates the thought of being pulled apart.
They only function as well they do because they're together. Each a special, essential part of the whole. Like cogs in a well oiled machine. Steve hates the thought of not being together, can't wrap his mind around a future where they aren't all there. They need each other too much. He needs the others too much. He can't stand the thought of being alone again. He'd tried to make Loki understand this, at first.
Talked to him about belonging and how much he just needed to stop. Steve doesn't understand why he had even needed to explain it. Loki was a street kid too, he should have understood their positions instinctively, the way they all did.
But Loki keeps pushing, especially at night, when they're cuddled close, keeps mentioning Thor's past, reminds them of their own. It's only natural when one of them snaps. Steve isn't even surprised it's Clint, he's been twitchy for a while, resentful of Loki's use of his boards. What's surprising is that he doesn't freak out the way he usually does. Instead of reaching for his weapons Clint takes off, out the window.
Steve looks at Natasha, half expecting her to take after him. But she just pressed closer to Bruce. Steve understood, clutching Tony closer. He hasn't been able to sleep without Tony in his arms lately. Clint will come back. If he's still gone by morning then Steve will text him. He still glares at Loki though. Because he made Clint leave. Loki makes things difficult. Make's the one place in the world that they had carefully constructed to be theirs unsafe.
Steve hates the new tension in the house.
The way their hackles rise, the way they can't relax any longer with Loki around them. It still catches him off guard when he's the next to break.
It's-it's stupid. So stupid.
He gets off work, half dreading the next day, because he has it off and Tony is ridiculous. Half looking forward to it anyway because he likes Tony, no matter how ridiculous. Looks forward to spending time with him no matter what they do. Except that when he walks into their apartment their is no hyper genius clamoring for his attention. There's no one home. No one in the Lab, no one in the kitchen, no one spread out on a mattress in their livingroom.
The apartment is completely silent in a way Steve can't remember it being, he's never been alone inside of it before.
And he can't.
He just-he just can't. Can't rationalize the others absence. Can't deal with being alone. Can't unsee it as a reflection of his inevitable future. Left behind, left all alone. Because the others will be just fine without him. They don't need him. They are all too smart, too brilliant, too exceptional to stay. Most of the time he can forget, or maybe ignore it is a better word. Most of the time he can pretend that they don't mind his presence, that they actually want him around. Tony especially.
But presented with an empty apartment, Steve can't cope. And he has a moment of perfect understanding for Clint's actions the night before. He can't stand being home when it's not a home anymore either.
Steve runs away. He doesn't know how long, or where he's going. He just runs. Does the only thing that's ever seemed to get him anywhere. He runs past the pain in his legs and the burning in his lungs. Runs until he can pretend that everything will be okay.
It's dark by the time he comes to a walk, light by the time he comes to a stop. He has no idea where he is, or what time it is.
It finally occurs to him to check his phone. He has sixteen messages. Inquiries for his location from most of the others, and a barrage of annoyed admonitions from Tony. Something in his chest. Something heavy and cold that had been constricting his lungs, something he couldn't run from, no matter how hard he tried, released. He felt like he could breathe again, like it might be okay if he just went back. Got them all together in one place again.
It's why he could never give them up. No matter how selfish it was to keep them close the way he did. He needed them too much. Needed them in order to be Steve, or to at least pretend he could function like a normal person. He wouldn't be okay without them.
It was eleven by the time he makes it back and he's exhausted. But everyone is home by the time he walks in. Eyes subtly checking him over for damage even as they pretend it's business as usual. Tony leaves the Lab like he usually doesn't need to be coaxed out when he's been there for a while. Flops right over Steve's back where he'd collapsed face first into the mattress. He made a big production of yawning, plastering himself along Steve's body.
"I need a nap," Tony declares, decidedly decisive.
"What a coincidence," Steve manages to mutter, sleep greying out the edges of his vision."So do I."
"We should nap together then." Tony says, and it's the last thing Steve remembers before he's asleep.
Waking up, bonelessly relaxed with a softly snoring Tony tucked into his shoulder, surrounded by the people most important in the world to him is like a balm against his soul. He decides he'll have to try napping with Tony again, it's one of the better days off he's had, and he knows that Tony sleeps pretty badly, with his constant tossing and turning, and probably not enough. Judging by the smudges under his eyes that seem to have taken up permanent residence.
Besides, he likes the feeling he gets taking care of him, of all of them. It's why he works as hard as he does, and why he's constantly going out of his way to do things for all of them. Keeping Natasha company when she runs, providing an ear for Thor when he's feeling lonely. Feeding Clint, Bruce, and Tony. It makes him feel good, makes him feel needed. He knows it's an illusion. Especially nowadays, when he can't quite avoid catching sight of Loki. But it's one he'll gladly embrace every time. Because if he doesn't have them, then he has nothing at all.
So Steve gets up and takes a shower, he has no idea how Tony all but slept on him, considering the way he smelled. Slips on a pair of sweats that are a little too big to belong to him and starts dinner, humming absently as he went through the soothing familiar motions. It's late, he usually wouldn't eat at this time, but he's starving, and the others will gladly eat whenever, especially if it's something they don't have to prepare themselves.
The sounds in the kitchen rouse Natasha before anyone else. She always sleeps the lightest. Once the meat gets cooking the smell wake Thor. Then Clint and possibly Bruce. He's going to have to nudge Tony awake because he's fairly sure Tony hadn't eaten anything before he'd joined Steve for his minor coma.
"I'm sorry." Natasha says, startling him.
Steve blinks, having no idea what she could possibly be apologizing for.
"It was my fault we were all gone." She says, and Steve has to take a moment to remember how to breathe. He tries to focus his attention to the stove, but the memory of coming home to the empty apartment makes his hands tremble, throat going tight like it used to when he had asthma attacks. He wants her to stop, he'd rather forget. Pretend it had never happened no matter how much it hurt.
But he can't speak past the knife in his throat and she keeps going.
"It was stupid. But I couldn't find Clint, I just wanted to check up on him. I wasn't going to make him come back or anything, I know better. I know he needed time, but he's-he's Clint. So I always make sure he's okay. He wasn't where he usually is. I mean, it's not like he has specific places he goes. But I've never had trouble finding him before. I was worried, he wouldn't pick up his phone. So I asked the others to help. Even Loki did his part. I-I didn't think that it would take so long. That you'd come home to find us gone."
Steve's grip on the pan in his hand is so tight it hurts. But Natasha has finally stopped, so he can focus on breathing, on being okay. They are all here, all under the same roof. All as fine as they ever manage to be. He looks at her, she's worried, and he can tell.
It had taken him months to figure out her tells, to understand that she was a woman of few words and fewer facial expressions. Natasha doesn't speak unnecessarily. She can wield words with the same deadly skill she can wield her body, and she's always careful with both around those she cares about. For Natasha, that explanation had been a speech, one that every instinct he has is telling him she didn't want to give. Just as much as he hadn't wanted to hear it. But she
had given it because she felt she owed him, because she worried. Worried that she'd hurt him irreparably.
"It's fine." Steve lies, and barely manages to save dinner from burning.
Natasha nods slowly. He's lying and they both know it. But she takes his words for the forgiveness that it is. It's not her fault he needs them the way he does. Not her fault that he's as broken as he is.
By the time the others are serving themselves and he's shaking Tony awake he can finally go back to pretending that he's okay.
x
One year later and I still suck. But to be fair this fic is fighting really hard against my ability to write it.
