Coulson does not wake up dead. This is something of a surprise, since he was alone, standing against the horde, the cloud of gas approaching, with an incapacitated Loki as his only companion, and half a wall as their only defense. But now he's sitting up, and Loki next to him, chest on to a broken crate, propping himself up enough to see out the crumbling wall. They're in a completely different building, Loki is blue, and panting, and seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes from rolling back, as he looks out.
Coulson gets up, crouches beside the god, and looks where he's staring. Black shapes on the scorched ground, ice slowly turning the dust to mud as it melts on still-warm bodies.
"I think they're done."
Loki lets his head drop, and slides off the crate, struggling onto his back, and staring up at the cracked ceiling, "that was difficult."
"I told you to stay back."
"I excel at misbehaving."
"Were you trying to get yourself killed?"
"No. I was trying to keep you alive."
"Why didn't you just run?"
"You matter."
"For whatever you're planning?"
"To Bruce."
Coulson kneels on the ground, helping Natasha lift their naked teammate. Bruce moaned, kicked, Natasha and Coulson set him back down.
Eyes opened, still green, "what happened?"
"The wind changed."
He had been trying to get a sample of the gas. Tony could analyze it with his suit, maybe find a way to neutralize it. But they can't get a sample. It affects all of them, Thor included. Bruce almost died, would have, if the Hulk weren't the only one immune. That thought makes Coulson really, really angry, as he again lifts Bruce, this time onto his feet, and the irony of that reaction does not escape him.
"Why did they keep hurting Tony, if they already had what they wanted as soon as he thought i?"
Loki looks up, apparently surprised by the question, "sport."
"There was another human prisoner. They killed her in front of him. Why would they do that?"
"They wouldn't. They don't kill their prisoners. They get too much pleasure out of hurting them. Killing would be a waste. They probably put on a show to scare him."
"Then the woman?"
"Was probably in on it. Or just another prisoner, hard to say."
They're losing. They've lost.
Rogers fell, the day before. The Iron Man suit is so badly damaged it can barely fly, and there's no way to fix it here. Natasha and Clint are still okay, though Clint's out of arrows, and Natasha's just plain tired by battle after battle. Bruce almost died again collecting samples. Even Thor is struggling.
All of that, though, they could fight on through.
But the people they're fighting to save, have stopped.
It's like they've already given up.
They laid down arms, and that's what Coulson means, when he thinks that they've lost.
Tony is kneeling, Steve's upper body in his lap, head against his belly, Tony's arms across his chest, the packing on his wound barely holding. Rogers is starting to stir, just a little.
"Tony?" Steve coughs.
"Here."
Tony reaches, taking Steve's hand, pulling it up to his face, and pressing his nose to the backs of the fingers.
Steve swallows, voice weak and trembling, "hurts."
"I know. I'm suh..sorry."
Steve closes his eyes.
Tony pulls him up, a little more, and resettles, holding his friend tight.
Natasha and Clint are in the corner, huddled together in restless sleep. Bruce is resting, pale and drawn, still barely able to sit on his own, after getting hit by the gas, the Hulk the only thing that saved him. Loki is sitting beside him, watching, no longer bothering to hide his worry.
Steve whimpers, not quite awake anymore, but still not asleep, and still in pain.
Tony strokes his hair, and sings, quietly. It isn't the first time, he's hummed to himself, in the dark, or whispered a few bars of something, when Steve fretted in his sleep, nightmares depriving him of even that small reprieve. But it's the first time that Coulson has listened.
"Hello darkness, my old friend...I've come to talk with you again."
Coulson shifts, a little, and tries to continue not thinking about the fact that Loki is leaning on his shoulder, as he watches Bruce sleep.
"Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
Within the sound of silence"
Loki reaches across, just a little, gripping Coulson's jacket, his other hand still holding Bruce's shirt.
"In restless dreams I walked alone, narrow streets of cobblestone
Neath the halo of a streetlamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, split the night
And touched the sound of silence"
Bruce shakily turns over, holding on to both of them.
"And in the naked light I saw, ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared, and no one dared
To stir the sound of silence"
Thor ducks inside, abandoning his duty of staring out into the frozen night, to listen.
"Fool, said I, you do not know, silence, like a cancer, grows
Hear my words and I might teach you, take my arms then I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence."
"And the people bowed and prayed to the–"
"We can't give up."
Coulson looks at Loki, the god having lifted his head from Coulson's shoulder, "that the point. That's the difference between you and them. You're stupid, you never give up. They will. They have. Somebody has to give them hope, for them to fight. If they don't have hope, why should they? For a lost cause...we don't have to win. We just have to give them something to fight for."
He's breathing fast, upset. Bruce pulls himself up, enough to sit against the wall, Loki squeezing his hand, hard. .
Tony looks over at them, "like what?
"I don't know. Something. A show. Something flashy."
"Well that's Tony's area," quips Clint, sitting up a little, off Natasha.
"What about the prisoner camps?" Steve is awake, apparently.
"The people there are safer if we don't attack them," sighs Natasha, "that's why we haven't gone after them before, remember?"
"Safer, yeah. Not safe. And they were fighting back, that's why they were captured in the first place. If the people who are brave enough to speak up aren't doing it, nobody else ever will."
"So we're just going to march in to one of the most heavily fortified places in this realm, and let everyone out. Just us. That sounds like a great idea," sighs Bruce.
Tony shakes his head, "Steve, you're an idiot. Just coming close to that area, it's plain stupid. And what, you're just going to walk in? My suit won't fly, Thor isn't exactly subtle.."
"Yes. Yes, we are. We're going to walk."
"Half of us can't, including you."
"If you can't walk, you crawl. If you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you."
"...your TV privileges are suspended, when we get back."
But he leans down, and kisses Steve on the mouth, anyway.