It was heartbreaking, watching Steve hover over Bucky during the plane ride back to New York. Not because of any false hope of lack of success. In fact, Bucky was doing extremely well for someone who didn't remember Steve at all. He'd already picked up on his name and why Steve was hovering over him, after all.
The heartbreaking part wasn't even that Bucky looked slightly stunned and mostly zoned out while Steve tried to talk to him. It was how jealous Loki felt, watching them.
Steve and Bucky had something to go on. They had shared memories together up until they were in their twenties, while Loki and Crystal didn't have any shared memories at all.
Bucky had a name he remembered being called. If Loki told Crystal that he'd named her Erika, there'd be little reason to accept that name unless she wanted to do him a favor for his own nostalgia's sake.
It's not that he wasn't happy for Steve, to have his best friend, the only one left who was living, back in his life. It's just that Bucky had more of a life to incorporate into his loved one's than Crystal did.
Most of the Avengers were gathered around the seat Bucky was in, each talking to him about a different topic.
No wonder the poor man looked so dazed. They were overcrowding him. He nodded or shook his head when asked questions, but for the most part he just stared out the window.
"Give him some room to breathe, guys, geez," Steve was insisting, shoving gently at Natasha's shoulder as she tried to figure out exactly how the memory loss worked so they could bypass the damage done. "I think he just wants some time to think."
The grateful look Bucky gave him was more than enough to let the other Avengers know Steve was right. Loki sunk a little deeper into his seat and took up the pretense of reading.
The words in his book wouldn't register in his head, no matter how hard he stared at them. The only thing his mind would offer him was the sleepy, frightened look on Crystal's face he'd seen when he'd checked in on her that morning, just after the explosion.
She was still so little; no longer in physical size, but in her mind. She was so vulnerable and worried, and he could tell she was trying her best not to look weak in front of him. She was afraid of him, but only to the extent that she was afraid of everyone. Hydra had stripped away all semblance of trust from her mind. She'd grown in her most formative years around someone who was willing to turn the cheerful, wry man from Steve's stories about 1930's Brooklynn into this quiet, mistrusting shadow of a shell.
When the quinjet 2.0 touched down on top of the Avengers' facility, Loki immediately got up, without even getting his belongings out, and headed straight down to the dungeon.
Crystal wasn't alone in her cell. She sat stiffly on her cot-bed, as Wanda sat cross-legged on the floor and spoke to her in Russian.
Loki didn't speak Russian beyond the rudimentary basics, and the cuss words Natasha had taught him, so he had no idea what she was speaking of. Gently, he knocked on the door, and Wanda called out for him to enter.
"Welcome back," she smiled up at him. Crystal only stared in silence. "We're talking about the Hunger Games. You've read that one, right?"
"Yes," he replied, his eyes landing on the stack of books by Crystal's bed. A hint of a smile revealed itself as he realized Crystal had read the entire stack in the two days he'd been gone. A child after his own heart, it seemed. "What's the verdict, Crystal? Did you enjoy the series?"
"She's only read the first book, so no spoilers," Wanda cut in.
"I think…" Crystal began, and glanced up at Loki for confirmation. "It was good that Rue died."
"What?!" Loki had never been more taken aback by literary analysis than in that moment.
"Right?!" Wanda agreed. "You want to explain yourself again, Chris?"
Chris did not explain herself. She sat and awkwardly fussed with her fingernails.
"No, look," Loki sat down on the floor in front of her, and laid a hand on her knee. "It's alright if you have a different opinion about a book than we do. It's not a true story, so you can think whatever you want about it. It's got no bearing on real life."
Crystal glanced up to study Loki's face for any hint of dishonesty. "It was… sad that she died," she went on, nervous all over. "But also good. She was a liability to Katniss."
Loki forced himself to control his face. "In what way?"
"The rules of the game said that only one tribute could survive the games. Rue and Katniss couldn't have both lived, so teaming up was acting in their own worst interests. Katniss should have killed Rue so she could win the game."
Loki and Wanda shared a look of bewilderment.
"But there was more than one winner anyway, wasn't there?" Wanda prompted.
"Yes," she admitted, "but two was already cheating. They couldn't have had three."
"I think I see what you mean," Loki agreed. "In the circumstances, it was better that Rue died than Katniss. But I felt that was the point, that these children were forced into a survival situation like that, where one must be glad that another child died and not yourself. The author was trying to illustrate that the whole situation was terrible, and she did that by detailing just the single death of someone who'd grown close to the protagonist."
Crystal was very quiet, and Loki could practically hear the thoughts pinging around in her head like a pinball machine.
"What do you think about my offer?" Loki changed the subject. "To allow you outside of your cell on the condition that you don't hurt anyone or run away?"
Crystal looked up at him again, and then to Wanda. "Why?"
"Because it's boring in here," Wanda pointed out. "And we could give you a better room with an actual bed that you're not locked into."
Loki nodded in agreement. "And because we've got a friend for you out there."
"You said you were my friend." She narrowed her eyes.
"Well, you have also got a friend in here," he admitted. "But while we were in Vienna, we picked up someone you might know."
For the first time since Loki had known her, a flicker of hope sparked in her eyes, and she straightened up in excitement. It only lasted a moment, before she stuffed it down into carefully-masked caution. "The Winter Soldier?"
"The very same." Loki smiled. "Would you like to go say hello?"
"He's not being prepped, is he?" She looked a little nervous. "I wouldn't want to interfere…"
"Prepped for what?" Wanda asked.
"Wiping," she answered, as if that was the obvious answer.
"No, he's not," Loki replied. "But if you two knew each other, I'm sure he'd be glad to see you. He's a little discombobulated."
"Discombobulated," Crystal echoed under her breath with a tiny smile. "What is discombobulated?" She said a little louder.
"Out of sorts? Not in his best element?"
"Radium?"
"Not that kind of element," he laughed, and Crystal's smile grew just a little bit. If she'd done that on purpose, that was the first actual joke Loki'd heard her make. "Although I'm sure radium is even less his element than Surrounded-By-People-Trying-To-Help-Him. Would you like to join the ranks of helpful people by being a familiar face?"
Crystal only stared at him, almost expectant, but more resigned than anything else. She didn't answer.
Loki didn't understand this one. It was obviously a response that was trained into her, but why? She'd been asked a direct question. Wouldn't Hydra have taught her to answer quickly? Why would they teach her to stare blankly when asked a question? Maybe she didn't want to, but knew Loki was hoping she might, and she didn't want to disappoint him?
He looked over at Wanda in confusion, hoping her time with Hydra had taught her what Crystal's blank look was supposed to mean. She could only give a confused shrug back at him.
"Crystal, I don't want to make assumptions about what you'd like," he ventured. "If you wouldn't like to leave your room, that's quite alright. But I'd appreciate it if you told me so, so I wouldn't worry that you did want to go see Bucky after all."
Crystal squirmed uncomfortably, and dropped her eyes, one knee curling up towards her chest. She still didn't say anything.
"Would you be upset if you didn't get to go?" Loki suggested, hoping she was just having trouble deciding what she wanted.
Crystal glanced up at him with a solemn, fearful expression. She gave a quick, tiny nod, then froze as if he was about to hit her.
Obviously, she wasn't the one he wanted to punch for that. What was even the purpose? Surely they'd punish her just as sorely for not answering questions. Why did they feel the need to instill in her a deep terror of people asking her things in the first place?
"Alright," he said, his voice far calmer than he felt. "Then it wouldn't hurt to go, then, yes?"
Crystal stood up this time, fingers flexing at her side like she was used to holding a weapon at this point. Loki got to his feet as well, and held the door open for her.
"No violence, remember?" He meant that mainly in jest, but she nodded so solemnly, he couldn't help but feel she'd taken it as an order.
Most of the Avengers had gone about their business, but Steve and Bucky were in the kitchen, chatting with little to no awkwardness while Steve cooked something up on the stove. Crystal silently followed behind Loki, nearly hiding behind him as she stared round at the fancy and expensive décor of the Avengers facility. That is, until she saw Bucky at the bar.
"Soldyat," she said, and immediately, Bucky's eyes flew wide, and he whirled to face the newcomers. His eyes barely skimmed over Loki, before they landed on Crystal's face and completely lit up.
"Crystal! I didn't think you'd make it out!"
"I got kidnapped," she corrected. Her hands were shaking as she gestured to Loki. "He stabbed me."
Bucky and Loki locked eyes, and for a moment, Loki was very aware of his own mortality. "She was going to stab me first," he blurted out. "And she's fine, now."
Bucky got up from the bar and within two steps, he was already squishing Crystal in a hug.
Steve, like the polite creature he was, was trying not to stare. "You two know each other?"
"We're the right and left hand of Hydra," Crystal explained, rather stiffly as Bucky offered her one of the bar stools, and sat down beside her.
"She's my best Hydra buddy," Bucky corrected. "I don't want to be one of them anymore."
Crystal looked down at her hands, unsure what to say. "But… The Mission," she protested, after a moment of deliberation. "You're just going to abandon it? What about the new era of Hydra? The new world? All the work we've done together, it's all a waste if you give up, now."
It was the most Loki had ever heard her say at once. He'd known no one would've joined Hydra if there wasn't some sort of motivation, and no one would've stayed without some sort of purpose. But to hear Crystal defend it like Hydra was worth fighting for was just… He didn't know how to explain the cognitive disconnect that seemed to be boldly obvious.
"Yeah," Bucky agreed, quiet and remorseful. He, too, didn't look completely convinced. "I thought so, too. This is Steve, Crystal. He was my friend from… before."
Crystal looked to the Captain, who was stirring the food on the stove with a look of accepting confusion plastered over his face. It was the same look he gave people when they made pop culture references around him that he didn't understand yet: the look of I Have No Idea What's Going On But I Promise I'm Not Mad About It. He smiled at Crystal, who nodded back at him.
"I don't remember him, but I read about him," Bucky went on. "And he's alright. I trust him." Crystal relaxed immediately at these words, and seemed to take a breath for the first time since she'd left her cell. "He was my target for a while, but he recognized me. And then… he told me he wasn't going to fight me. Have you ever had a target do that? Not fight back?"
Crystal shook her head, hanging on every word.
"It was… I didn't understand it. But I didn't kill him."
"Apparently not," Steve chipped in.
"Why not?" Crystal asked.
"Because… This is going to sound stupid. It's because I never really liked how violent Hydra is. I thought it was the only way to get people to understand the worth of our work. But why would someone lay down their weapon and refuse to fight me and say he was with me until the end of the line, even if that meant he died? While I was trying to kill him? He's either really stupid, or he's got something bigger going on."
Crystal solemnly nodded.
"One of those things is true," Loki remarked, and perched on the end of the counter. Steve grinned over his frying pan, which upon closer inspection, looked suspiciously like it contained sauteed vegetables with chunks of chicken therein. Of course Steve would cook lunch for Bucky the moment he got his hands on him.
"And since then, I've been reading," Bucky went on, "about people who changed the world without hurting other people. And also about the history of Hydra and the Third Reich in the first place. Did you know the Germans killed over twelve million people? Just over the course of the war?"
Crystal shrugged. "I'd heard about the death camps. I assumed it was a pretty high number."
"Me too. But half of those were for being Jewish," Bucky told her, eyes wide. "Not enemies of the state, like we were told."
"What's Jewish?"
"It's a religion. Or an ethnicity. Depending on who you are" Steve told them. "Hitler was going after the ethnicity, for the most part."
Crystal's eyebrows squished into each other. "I thought they were dissenters. People who didn't approve of the mission."
"In many ways, getting rid of them was the mission," Bucky said, voice grim. "Isn't that awful?"
"They told us…" Crystal began, very slowly. "They told us we were bringing global peace to all people. And the ones we eliminated were…" She stopped. "But they must have had a reason. They must've."
"I don't want to work under someone who's gong to kill people just for existing," Bucky decided.
"But what option is there?" Crystal cried out. "We can't help people without getting rid of the ones who hurt people."
"I think we were the ones who hurt people, Crystal."
The kitchen was silent, except for the hum of the refrigerator and the sizzle of oil on the stove.
"Steve says the Avengers want to help all the people, even the ones who hurt people," Bucky ventured. "So… I want to stay with them,"
"I don't want to hurt people, anymore," Crystal said, her voice shaking. "Can I…" She looked up at Loki, her eyes bright and wet. "Can I stay with you too?"
"I already promised we wouldn't turn you back over to Hydra," he told her as gently as he could manage. "You're safe with us if you choose to remain here."
"Okay," She said, sniffling a little.
"Who's he to you?" Bucky asked her, as he nodded at Loki.
"My father," she answered with a shuddering sigh. "We didn't know each other, but he… he keeps talking to me. Why?"
"He probably feels responsible for you," Bucky answered, glancing at Loki for confirmation. "Fathers typically do. It's part of the expectation of having kids, that you'll take care of them and instruct them about what's right and wrong. That kind of thing."
"Like a handler?"
"Sort of?" Bucky seemed reluctant to make this comparison. Loki wasn't sure what a handler meant to the two of them, but it didn't sound good. The way she said it made it seem like someone who kept charge of animals. "But they're sort of… nicer?"
"He is nicer," Crystal agreed. When she looked up at Loki this time, there was something in her eyes, maybe the way she held herself, that hadn't been there before. She seemed just a little more open, a little more relaxed around him.
It wasn't until the confusion and tension started to drain away that Loki could see how tightly woven into the fabric of her being they'd been in the first place. It was like she'd been living her entire life with sunglasses on, and had just discovered the world was so much brighter than she'd been led to believe.
She was now soaking in the full sunlight of having more options ahead of her than she'd ever had before. She seemed a bit overwhelmed, but there's no denying this decision was a good thing. For the first time since she was two years old, she was taking root in a place that would allow her to grow.
I had a bit of a problem with chapter six, too much weird copy-pasted urls everywhere. That's what happens when I forget to paste as plain text, by the way, it copies the font into the urls and makes it super hard to read XD
Anyway, that should be fixed, now. Happy Pride month!
TheOnlyHuman.
