Steve Rogers tiptoed up the stairs, from one unhappy god to another. He hesitated in the hallway on the way to Loki's room. It seemed unfair to wake him after the ordeal today- Master Ulric had returned with his team and a surgeon from someplace called Vanaheim to implant the devices that would be the bases of his new mechanical hands, although the hands themselves would apparently only be presented once he returned to Asgard tomorrow. The master craftsman was still putting his finishing touches on them, he said. Thankfully, Thor had simply put Loki into another magical sleep for the actual surgery, but it clearly hurt like the dickens when he woke up and immediately had to work with Dr. Strange and the Vanaheim surgeon to force his mangled flesh to start growing into the graft. Steve would have thought the successful surgery would have been cause for celebration all around, but the dwarfs had quickly bowed out to return to their frantic work at home. Dr. Strange had left for drinks with the Vanaheim surgeon, their interests and arrogance clearly a perfect match for each other. Loki just seemed tired and ordered everyone else from the room, saying he needed to be alone to meditate for his "meeting with the Triumvirate." At this point, Thor, who had initially seemed very excited and hopeful, suddenly burst into tears and fled the room. The thunder god had spent the rest of the afternoon crying into the shoulder of his girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster, who had arrived just yesterday for a visit. Steve still had no idea what the Triumvirate was, but he very much wanted to find out. He had been politely keeping out of the brothers' argument for long enough. Thor was his friend. Loki was his...friend's brother. He had a duty to help them, if he could.

Decisively, he walked to Loki's door and knocked. Light dimly shone through the crack, he noticed. Maybe he wasn't asleep after all. But Loki did not answer the knock. Carefully, he eased the door open a hair. "Loki? It's Steve. Can I come in?" No answer. He pushed the door open a little further and peeked around it. The light was actually coming from an Iron Man nightlight quite close to the door. The rest of the room was rather dim. Loki appeared to be asleep on the bed, though he had apparently tossed away all the pillows and blankets. He shivered in his sleep. Steve bit his lip, feeling a rush of sympathy. Even besides the stumpy arms, Loki just looked unhealthy. He crept forward, thinking he would at least replace the blanket. Suddenly, Loki twitched violently, though the movement of his limbs arrested almost as soon as it began. His face drew into a grimace, and his lips moved soundlessly. He twitched again, as if he struggled against invisible bonds. His jaw clenched, and Steve could hear his teeth grinding dully. Loki's breathing became fast and heavy, but he made no other sound. Slowly, Steve reached out to touch his shoulder. He took one step forward, wincing as something plastic crunched under his foot in the low light. "Loki-" The god bolted upright in the bed eyes wide with fear and the memory of horrible pain. He looked ashen and ready to vomit, and Steve stumbled slightly as the broken plastic whatever-it-was suddenly yanked itself from under his foot to zoom up onto the bed. Loki stared at the useless fragments in miserable disbelief for a split second before Steve lunged for the trashcan near the bed, thrusting it into the god's lap a moment later. He pulled back Loki's hair as he emptied his stomach with shuddering heaves that went on for over a minute. Finally, he was still, resting his head on his elbow. Steve quietly moved to the bathroom, returning with a damp cloth and a cup of water.

"Thank you," Loki muttered, accepting Steve's ministrations. He looked up owlishly. "What are you doing here, besides breaking my bucket?"

Steve glanced down, finally recognizing the plastic thing he'd stepped on as a Halloween candy bucket in the shape of the Iron Man helmet. And the fitted sheet covering the mattress was printed with Iron Man in an action pose as well. Looking around, he saw that the room was almost entirely decorated with Avengers merchandise, mostly Iron Man-themed, both cheap stuff and high-quality collectibles. Tony was so...strange. And so was Pepper, for letting him have a guest room like this. And so was Loki, for putting up with it. But he was letting himself get distracted. "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but we need to talk."

"Do we?" Loki sighed.

"Yes."

"You're going to try to convince me life's worth living?"

"Well...yes."

Loki sighed again. "Can you at least get rid of this first?"

"What? Oh, right." He picked up the noxious trashcan and removed it to the far side of the room. Then he paused, thinking. "You know, I've never seen you so...viscerally distraught by all of this before." Loki raised his eyebrows. "You were thrashing around before you woke up," Steve explained. "And, you know..." he gestured to the can.

Loki stared at him bleakly. "I can't control my thoughts in sleep," he said.

"Bad dreams?" Steve asked hesitantly.

"Every night."

Ah. That explained the bucket. "How long?"

Loki snorted. "Since our first encounter."

"Oh. Our first encounter?"

"Technically a little later, since Thor magicked me to sleep after my defeat, I suppose." At Steve's questioning look, he grinned darkly. "Nightmares are only nightmares once they become worse than waking."

This wasn't getting them anywhere. "What's the Triumvirate?" he asked.

"I'm surprised at you, Captain. You went to school. I'm from another planet, yet even I know the Triumvirate was the political alliance of Julius Ceasar, Pompey, and Crassus." Steve glared at him. "Fine, the Triumvirate I was referring to is the Thrihyrningur of thul, volva, and seidman, holy designees of Odin tasked with conducting rituals of death for magic users in Asgard."

"I see. Look, Loki, the reason I came tonight is because of Thor." Loki said nothing. "He literally spent all afternoon crying his eyes out."

Loki looked away. "He'll get over it," he said softly.

"No, he won't. He is going to spend the rest of his very long life feeling horribly guilty, not only over what happened to you in the first place but over his inability to keep you from killing yourself. He is never going to let this go. He is always going to remember you and try to imagine what he could have done differently in this moment to change your mind and give you every chance to heal. He is going to lie awake and weep for you for centuries, millennia, however long you people live. He may drive himself insane for you. And the same thing is going to happen to you parents."

Loki looked at him sadly. "And you think this would be different if I remained here with them, human? Thor does not wish for me to not die. He wishes for me to get better. He would have been sad but not broken if I had died on the battlefield from Thanos' last curse. But I am not going to 'get better' in the way he wishes me to. Some wounds go too deep for that. Do you truly think his guilt, Odin's guilt, Frigga's guilt will be any different watching me exist as I am, for centuries, or millennia, or however long I might live? It will be a long time, you know. They will be too guilt-ridden and protective of me to send me on dangerous missions that could get me killed prematurely, and I will not have the energy or eventually the interest to demand such of them. What they will do, blessed little fools that they are, is try to restore my former status, and at least the ceremonial and political roles that go along with that. They will be disappointed when I fail to deliver my former capacity, when I forget my duties or simply neglect them out of indifference. I will become a cringe-worthy embarrassment to them, due to my inability to contribute, yet one they are still too guilt-ridden to set aside. And that will happen, I assure you. Right now, as you observed, I am functioning relatively well. That is for two reasons. One, little is asked of me. Two, I have a purpose: to die by Odin's hand. I have held out almost a year. All I have to do is breathe for two more weeks. I can even forego sleep for that long, if necessary. And then it will be over, and I won't have to fear the night, or feel the past, or the future. Now, what would happen if this last hope was taken from me? You weren't in Asgard with us this last year, Captain. Thor was just as despairing as you see him now for the months before Heimdall located Thanos. I was exhausted and wanted to die. When you lot first rescued me, I was frustrated and lashed out, but that could not last. I became utterly apathetic, and Thor fears my apathy. He would rather I hate him than not care at all, it seems."

"The opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy," Steve interrupted softly, sinking down onto the bed beside Loki. Elie Wiesel was right. "That's what Thor is most afraid of in you, Loki. But you do still love him, don't you? And your parents?"

Loki shrugged. "I don't even know any more. I don't hate them as I did when I fell from the Bifrost. Thor annoys me sometimes, but that has always been true. But all I really feel when I think of them is exhaustion. He grinned wryly. "Exhaustion, fear, frustration, and hopelessness. That about sums up my emotional repertoire at the moment."

Steve thought. "Exhaustion and frustration I can definitely understand from what I know. Maybe the hopelessness, since it's hard to feel hopeful when things have gone so wrong, even when everyone else is telling you it's got to improve. But what are you afraid of, now, Loki? Thanos and his armies are gone..."

Loki barked a laugh. "You...simpleton! I haven't been afraid of Thanos in ages. We reached the point very early on where he couldn't really hurt me anymore. I was already suicidal when he caught me. Every ploy the Other, his pet sadist, tried merely reduced my capacity to care about the next one- what does a leg matter when you want to die? Why does flogging matter when you've lost a leg? Why should I care about castration or evisceration when I'm dead anyways? It hurt, yes, but cooperating was not going to take all the pain away. Death would. That was my only thought, and I ignored all else with my intent contemplation of it. No...my fear is not of death or physical pain, but of having to go on like this..."

"Handicapped?"

"As I've said before, no, the physical injuries don't really matter..."

"That's not what I meant. You feel handicapped by your mind." Loki looked at him. "You've always been an intellectual, sly and skilled with magic. Now, although you can still be all those things if you try, there's something else looming huge in your mind that's just overwhelming, and you feel like you can't cope with it. Every time you try to do something else, it's there waiting to pounce, like a viper wrapped around your leg when you're wanting to concentrate. You can't ignore it. You can only distract yourself. It's a mountain you feel you can't climb, so you might as well be buried under it."

Loki drew in a shaky breath. "That's it. That's it exactly. During the day I can only control it with tricks. Counting. Repeating spells in my head. Talking to people. Watching or reading. But no matter what I try, nothing lasts for long. I lose count quickly or lose my train of thought because I can't concentrate. I have to read the same sentences over and over because I'm not actually paying attention. I don't easily recall what passed in conversation or what I've observed out the window." He shook his head. "It's not like there's one particular memory or experience I can blame. There's just...too...much!" He glared into space and abruptly yawned. "And it all clamors for my attention, all the time."

They sat in despondent silence for a moment, but Steve eventually spoke again, softly. "What do you know about my story, Loki?"

"Very little," he said tiredly. "You fought in a war using a serum that permanently altered your physiology and were frozen for seventy years afterwards."

Steve smiled. "That's basically right, yes. What do you know about the war, though?"

"Practically nothing. Asgard had no interest at the time."

"That figures. It was called World War II. It was the worst war this planet has ever seen. It went on for years. Your little invasion and the fight with Thanos were picnics by comparison. Cities were leveled. Millions and millions died. I found out later the war only ended when the Americans used nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities."

Loki made a small noise of surprise. "And you're the heroes?"

"Well, the nukes are still a huge ethical debate, but WWII is still widely considered the most justifiable war in modern history, from the defenders' standpoint, obviously. It's hard for most people now to imagine what it was like. I was raised in the shadow of the First World War." He laughed bitterly. "They called that one 'the war to end all wars,' boy were they wrong. But I know why they thought that. WWI was so different from what came before, and so catastrophic, brutal, and senseless, there was no romanticizing it. War as it had been was over. But just twenty years later, we were at it again. It seemed impossible at the time, but almost inevitable in retrospect. And it was so much worse than... anyways, the reason I bring it up is something that I learned about only briefly before I was frozen. You see, one of my last missions towards the end of the war as we were getting into Germany was leading a group liberating an internment camp. Now, just so we're clear, this wasn't a prisoner-of-war camp. Hitler, the leader of the Germans, was genocidal. Throughout the war, he was rounding up people, innocent civilians that came from different ethnic groups he didn't like, and imprisoning, enslaving, torturing, starving, and massacring them. To this day, I've never seen anything else like it. Everyone in that camp, men, women, and children, looked pretty much just as bad as you did last year. Living skeletons. There were mass graves, and random bodies rotting everywhere. The Germans had just abandoned it days before, but none of the prisoners were strong enough to leave..."

He trailed off. Loki was looking rather green and was shivering again. Steve picked up an Iron Man blanket and tucked it around his shoulders. "Sorry. Anyways, these people were so, so happy to see us coming. It was incredible. I've never seen such happiness, before or since, because we brought hope to them. It was over." He paused. "I went on my last mission just a week later and ended up getting frozen, as you know. What you don't know, what I've never told anyone, actually, was what happened when I finally woke up again. I was in my twenties in the war. Almost everyone I knew was dead and gone seventy years later. But there were several survivors of that camp, kids really, who were still around. When the news went public that I was back, theirs were the first letters I received. They remembered me. Oh, did they remember. I was Captain America delivering them from the mouth of Hell. What struck me reading those letters, though, was not the effusive thanks. It was what they told me about their lives. These were children and teenagers who grew up in utter terror, who were hurt and scarred and abused in unimaginable ways. But seventy years later, they were grand parents and great-grandparents with loving families and relaxing retirements, sending me pictures of their descendants, their houses, their pets... They healed, Loki. They got better. They thrived. Not everyone did, I'll grant you. Not everyone lived, and many were hurt, but I know that it is possible to come back from the brink. I have seen it myself."

Tentatively, he reached an arm around Loki's narrow shoulders. It felt weird, but also necessary to make his point. Loki did not object. "I think I understand you. I don't know everything you need to heal, but the first thing is just faith. You need to believe that it's possible to get better. That's the hope you're lacking. That's what's driving your fear. Once you have a hope to live on, maybe you'll find a reason to live..."

"People come back from the brink, Captain," Loki interrupted softly. "Not the dead. I am dead."

"You are not."

"Everything that makes me me is."

"Oh? And what is that? Your body? No, you yourself said so. Your intelligence? Still got it. Your magic? Same. Your-"

"Shut. Up. You hear, but you do not listen. It is passion that is gone, human. I have no will, no drive, beyond yearning for death. I didn't even care about killing Thanos except as another barrier between me and my end. What do you want in life? Love? Honor? Fame? Gratitude? That's what I used to want. Now, what do I care? I have all of those. Thor loves me. He says so every day. I am honored by many, apparently famous across the worlds. Many of Thanos' former foes are 'grateful for my sacrifice.' I don't care. I want nothing."

"Yes, you do. You want to stop feeling this way, and you want to be left alone."

Loki snorted. "That's not much to live on."

"No, it's not. But it's a start. There are people who care so little they don't even care if things change...I've heard they're hard to treat, but doctors do it." Loki did not respond to this, so Steve pressed on. "I don't know, well, anything about Asgardian medicine, but down here people with depression are treated with all kinds of medicines and therapy, even something called 'electroconvulsive therapy,' which I was assured sounds way worse than it actually is... Apathy doesn't have to last forever, either. It just feels like it will."

"You think the healers in Asgard didn't try everything they could think of?" Loki asked.

"No, I'm sure they did, but I also think it's still too early to say with any certainty that you won't get better. It takes a long time to get over trauma." He paused, as Loki seemed to somehow get even more despondent. "You don't like the uncertainty, do you? You keep saying you're sure you won't get better, but you're lying, aren't you? You're not sure you won't get better. You're just sure it will be hard, and you'll have a long road of misery before you do, and you still won't be everything you were before, and it will be easier to just give up and die." With that, Loki dissolved into silent tears, leaning shamelessly on Steve's shoulder. Steve patted his back awkwardly. He was right. Now that he'd had something of a breakthrough, though, he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. He just sat thinking for a few minutes, while Loki cried. Finally, he asked, "What's the hardest thing right now, Loki?"

"I don't know," Loki gulped. "Everything. Nothing. Sleeping, waking, eating, thinking, breathing...it's all hard."

"Well, it can't be all equally hard...but my money's on sleeping. I had some insomnia as a teenager, and that alone made everything else seem impossible on bad days. Is it just the dreams that make sleeping hard?

"Just?"

"You know what I mean."

"...no."

"Well, are there sleeping medicines that work on you? Or spells or something? Since you obviously need something." Loki didn't reply, but Steve answered his own question with a chuckle. "Duh, of course there is! Thor's spell thing certainly knocks you out. Is that kind of sleep restful though?"

Slowly, Loki nodded.

"Okay, good... Do you still have dreams?" Another nod. "Okay, not as good, but still, something to think about. Maybe someone else knows a way to manage both. But sleep is the first thing. Alright, now what's the hardest thing about going back to Asgard to live?"

"Duty," Loki said immediately.

"High expectations," Steve nodded. "So tell Odin you can't have any duties for awhile."

"He'll never agree to that," came Loki's whispered protest.

"Did he make you do, um, official things this last year?"

"...no..."

"There you go, then. Now... do you have anyone you can talk to in Asgard?" Silence. "Like we're talking?" Silence. "You need someone who you can talk to, who is there to support you and advocate for you. Not Thor, I'm guessing. Not Odin, obviously. Your mother? An old friend? A healer?" Silence. Steve sighed. "Okay, listen, I'm not saying I would be able to just be on Asgard for you, but would it help if I, or anyone here, would come along for a couple weeks to see you settled at least? Help set up boundaries?" Silence. "And you could always come back here, if you needed to get away... I'm sure your family wouldn't object if you said you needed it."

Green eyes met his. "Do you know what Thanos' secondary plan for me was?" Loki asked carefully. Steve shifted. That was not a question he was expecting. He shook his head. "If he had decided not to use the stone, and I continued to refuse to yield, or I'm sure he had the same plan in mind for my triumphant return as well, then he was going to continue hold me prisoner, biding his time. Once he was ready to strike at Asgard, I would be killed, my carcass stripped of flesh and returned to the Allfather. Disgraced though I was, Thanos knew such a deed would still enrage Odin. Odin's strength is in his wisdom and foresight. If he plans ahead and thinks things through, he is inevitably victorious. But enraged, his wrath becomes rashness. Worse than Thor. Thanos would have easily destroyed Asgard." He stopped.

Steve was... confused. That was horrible, but he had no idea why it was relevant. "Why-"

"Am I telling you this? I don't know." They lapsed into silence for another moment, both trying to puzzle it out.

"Are you afraid of someone else using you in that way? That you'll be a liability as long as you're alive, especially if you're free to roam?" Steve finally asked. It was the only thing that sort of made sense.

"No. Why should I be?" Then after a moment, "yes... I don't know why."

Steve shrugged. "Fears don't have to make sense. In fact, they often don't, which makes them more frightening, often. There's no real reason for me to be afraid of spiders. But I am."

Loki grinned suddenly. "You are not."

"Am too."

"Who'd have thought."

Steve cleared his throat. "Anyways, do you think that's another reason why you want to do this whole death ritual thing? To protect Odin from...the risk of someone hurting you again?"

"That sounds very convoluted."

"It's okay to be convoluted."

"...Don't tell Thor," he whispered.

"I won't. These are your secrets to tell, Loki... You do still love them. All of them." It wasn't a question. He wouldn't be afraid of such an unlikely scenario if he didn't. "Do you want me to come to Asgard with you?"

"No."

"...Are you going to tell your parents about anything we've talked about?"

"I don't know."

"...Are you sure you want to go through with the... ritual?"

"...I don't know."

Steve hugged him fiercely. "Please don't do it, Loki. I know I don't have any say in the matter, but please don't. You can get better. I can feel it. You will get better. You will prosper, and make Master Ulric delirious with pride. You'll visit again with Thor, and we'll have a huge party with the Wakandans and Dr. Strange and maybe Stark's friends, except the party only goes on as long as you feel like it, and you get to veto any and all of Thor's and Stark's ideas. Or the party is just sitting in a quiet room listening to music, or just eating icecream, or doing puzzles, or you and Strange doing magic tricks, whatever you like... Don't die yet, Loki."

"I can't promise you that, Captain of America."

"But you can promise you won't die tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. You don't have to decide now what's going to happen years in the future. You can just decide what's going to happen today."

Loki shook his head. "You misunderstand, then, Captain. If I miss this opportunity, then the window closes. I can request to die from my injuries, but only while they are fresh. I have to make the request as soon as I return home, though certain delays are inevitable along the way." His expression turned wry. "Suicide is not lawful in Asgard at any other time."

"Even though you're not going to die from this without help anyways?"

"Even so."

"That's bizarre."

"That is the law."

"If it comes to that, though, do you really care about breaking the law a year from now?"

"I don't, but though you might not have noticed, it is incredibly difficult to kill a magic user. It is almost impossible for one to kill himself."

"Ah." He recalled the last battle with Thanos, and Loki's apparently involuntarily defense. "I guess that makes sense, in a way. But, honestly, Loki, I don't think your family would care about breaking the law a year from now either if it meant you'd be alive for another year."

"Perhaps, but how do you suggest I hold Thor to such a promise, let alone Odin?"

"Ah...I have no idea. But it's got to be worth considering. I think I understand. You don't want to be boxed in. You don't want there to be no way out. That's something you should be able to get them to understand and work out a solution." Loki made a noncommittal sound that Steve chose to take as assent. He looked at the clock, the little Hawkeye's arrows pointing to one o'clock in the morning. He reached down for the pillows and other blankets and started reconstructing the bed. "Thanks for talking with me, Loki. It's really late now, though. Is it alright if I grab Thor and have him help you to sleep?" Loki reached out an arm even as Steve stood to tuck in the ends of the bedspread.

Loki licked his lips, looking nervous for the first time since they had met. "What do you think happens when you die, Captain?" he asked at last.

Steve froze a moment, then made himself kneel back down. He had asked for this, after all, coming in and wearing the put-upon god down with his questioning. "I was raised Presbyterian," he finally said. "If you believe in Jesus and try to live righteously and ask Him for forgiveness for your failures, you'll go to heaven."

"Is that what you believe?" Loki asked shrewdly.

"Yes," Steve replied, hating the quaver of uncertainty coloring his voice. "Yes," he repeated more forcefully. Honestly, though, the knowledge of aliens like Thor and Loki had really tried his war-battered faith recently.

Loki smiled softly. "Asgard is essentially a theocracy, and the Allfather is our god, our intercessor with the Norns, the three Goddesses of Fate. The Allfather chooses those whom he sees as worthy of saving from the uncertain judgment of the Norns to journey to Valhalla and paradise. Or so we are taught."

Steve attempted a smile, but it felt off. "What do you have to worry about then? The Allfather is your father."

"Adopted."

"Doesn't matter."

"No, it doesn't... but I don't believe it."

"What do you believe then?" Steve asked slowly.

"I don't know," he said, curling up on his side.

"...You don't have to die." Loki didn't say anything. "I'm going to get Thor." He eased from the stifling room and just breathed for a moment in the hall. Talking with Loki was really, really hard. But he was glad he had. He glanced in Thor's room, but it was still empty. He was probably still moping in the breakfast room. Steve left in search of the Thunderer with a brisk, purposeful stride. He had definitely made progress with Loki. Giving a Thor a way to help, even if it was just sleeping spells, would help them both. He would talk with Loki again in the morning before the Asgardians finally left. And the he would hope and pray for the next few weeks, until they heard news, one way or the other.

Author's Note: so, this probably isn't actually the last chapter, as you might have guessed, but it will be the last for a while, because my new job is starting. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Reviews?