Chapter Text
He’d been in this room for a long time.
There had been people here. He knew that, still, remembered their voices buzzing in his ears, fingers prodding, sharper things. Sometimes they asked him questions, or they had once, though rarely anymore. And not for a while. They’d been gone for a while.
He kept still, though. Waiting. Eventually they would be back. They always were.
The dark was a respite at first, from the light always blazing in his eyes, but now it was beginning to gnaw at him, eating away at his edges. He could barely move, limited by the heavy chains now chafing on his skin. Hunger had started to gnaw at his stomach, and the thirst was an old friend. He bit the inside of his mouth until blood trickled down his throat, but it didn’t ease either.
He wondered how long he’d been here. Maybe forever. He didn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been, when his world hadn’t been light and needles and pain. Sometimes he thought…but they were more dreams than anything else, and even those flashes were fading. Everything getting swallowed up in the thud of his own heart. Or maybe not his own. Maybe he’d been swallowed by some great beast and was listening to its heartbeat.
He’d been in this dark a long time and he was starting to wonder if he’d imagined all of it, and it was just him and that heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Not a beast, he realized. A tomb. They’ve buried me alive.
He didn’t remember starting to scream, but the noise was a relief, echoing, echoing, echoing.
The dark closed in.
The bunker was old, but not quite old enough, and looking closely at the door Steve could see signs that it had been opened relatively recently. “Sam,” he called over his shoulder. “Got one.”
Sam trudged over from where he’d been examining another building, eyed the door, and nodded. “Still occupied, you think?” He asked, grin a little crooked. Steve wasn’t sure whether he wanted to say I hope so or the less honest, smarter answer.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he said, pulling the shield off his back and targeting the lock with it, breaking it with a single strike.
Two weeks of searching, of following leads in the file Natasha had left him and information that SHIELD had left as well. Trying to find Bucky, trying to figure out what had been done to him, trying to make sure HYDRA was gone, and not just submerged again. Two weeks of dead ends. Steve was starting to feel a little frustrated.
The lights weren’t out and the air that blew out from the bunker was cold, but Steve was cautious edging inside anyway, keeping his head cocked. A few of these empty bunkers had been rigged, and it was only a few days ago that Sam had narrowly pulled him out of one before it exploded. The whole building was empty, though, and when Steve turned on the flickering lights, everything looked thoroughly abandoned.
“Must’ve bugged out,” Sam said, and if he didn’t sound disappointed Steve could hear the sympathy in his voice. His shoulders slumped.
“Looks like. Maybe they left something, though. Might as well look around.”
They poked around the inside, but HYDRA had been thorough. No scraps of paper, nothing, and Steve was almost ready to admit defeat and leave this place behind as another dead end when Sam called him over. “Hey, Steve. Come look at this.”
Sam was standing in front of another door, this one not just padlocked shut. It looked like someone had put cement around the sides of it, and not a while ago. Recently. Steve frowned.
“Looks like they were trying to hide something fast,” Sam said. “Another room, maybe?”
Like a room with a cryo-chamber, maybe. Or files that would tell him what HYDRA had done to his friend, and how Steve could get him back. “Maybe,” he said. And rolled his shoulders back. “Well, anything that HYDRA’s trying to bury…”
“Probably needs digging up,” Sam finished. “Go at it, Captain.”
Steve set to chipping at the cement with his shield, slamming it into the fresh layer until he suspected it was sufficiently weakened. Then he backed up, braced himself, and rammed into the door.
It burst inwards with the loud cracking of stone, and a wave of fetid air rolled out, stinking of old blood and death. Steve flinched physically back from it, and Sam’s face froze. “That don’t seem so good,” he said, under his breath. Steve peered into the dark, trying to pierce it with his eyes.
He thought he heard something, maybe, very faintly.
“Sam,” he said, simply, tensely, and reached in, groping for a light, shield up. He found the switch eventually, and flicked it up.
Silence except for the hum of the lights. The room was small, just big enough for something like a dentist’s chair with added restraints. There was a refrigerator in the corner, no longer running, and a complicated apparatus above the chair that Steve didn’t want to look at too closely. But nothing living. Sam went over to the refrigerator and opened it, then shut it.
“About ten pints of blood,” Sam said, his voice grim. “Too much for one person to give and be alive. Looks like there was some other stuff, but it’s gone now.”
Steve nodded, slowly. Off to one side there was a second door, this one just locked shut, not sealed. He broke the lock with one sharp strike of his shield, not daring to think, to hypothesize, and pulled the door open. Light flooded into the otherwise unilluminated room.
The thing – the person – huddled in the corner let out an awful, inhuman shriek, curling into itself, hands going up to cover its face – its eyes. The fingers on those hands were ragged and bloody, the knuckles torn down to the bone. Not Bucky, Steve thought, with awful relief, at the lack of a metal hand, and then felt sick, both at himself and at what he was looking at. This room was smaller than the first, not even a cell. It was dark and it smelled like blood and piss and misery, and Steve managed not to rear back through an effort of will. “Holy shit,” Sam said, over his shoulder. “Steve, if someone’s been down here – it’s been at least five, six days since HYDRA took off…”
They shouldn’t be alive, Steve filled in, but then he remembered HYDRA experiments and stepped into the room, making himself move slowly. “Hey,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m Steve Rogers, Captain America, you’re…”
The person in the cell clawed their way to their feet and tried to press back into the wall, letting out a feral snarl as Steve crossed the threshold, and he froze again as the meager light fell on the angles of the prisoner’s face.
It had been two years, and he looked nothing like he had then, but even with raggedly shorn hair and snarling like a wild dog, Steve could see Loki in that face, no matter how wasted and gaunt. His whole body tensed and he braced for an attack, but Loki stayed where he was, pressed back against the wall, eyes flickering wildly from point to point.
“Steve?” Sam asked, trying to peer past him. “Maybe I should…”
SHIELD had taken custody of Loki after the battle of New York, Steve remembered. Which meant that HYDRA had, apparently. Which meant…
How long has he been down here?
“Stay where you are, Sam,” Steve said, when Loki shifted his weight slightly.
“No offense, Cap,” Sam said, “but I am the pararescue here and I’m telling you if we don’t get this guy medical attention-”
Steve didn’t move. “It’s Loki.”
Sam was silent. “That Loki?” he said, after a moment.
He expected some reaction to his name, but Loki stayed where he was. Steve could see him eyeing the gap at the door like he was trying to figure out if he could slip through it, and he kept noticing – Loki looked starved. The thin rags he was wearing hung off him like drapes, skin waxy and yellowish. His eyes were deeply sunken and looked bruised, and a glance at his wrists showed heavy manacles with raw, weeping skin around the edges.
A glance at his eyes themselves showed…nothing. No recognition. Animal terror and nothing else, and Steve was thinking two weeks since we took HYDRA down publically. Two years since Loki’s invasion…
“I’m going to try to approach him,” Steve said, after a moment. “He’s chained up, and I don’t think…I don’t think he’s all…there.”
“Hate to question your judgment, but that sounds like a terrible idea,” Sam said, but Steve was already edging forward again. The terror in Loki’s eyes spiked and he snarled again, hands rising and curled into claws but though Steve tensed there was no burst of magic, no knives. Chains clanked loudly and he thought he saw Loki flinch.
“Loki,” Steve tried, carefully. “Listen to me. Um…” He trailed off. What was he supposed to do? SHIELD was gone, he didn’t know how to get in touch with Thor, and he couldn’t just leave Loki here. Taking him to a hospital sounded like a recipe for disaster, not to mention he wasn’t sure if they would even know what to do with him.
Loki shifted back into the wall and Steve realized that his feet were bare. For some reason, that struck him almost more than the rest. He could see the self-proclaimed god shaking, thin chest rising and falling quickly.
“I’m going to try to help you,” Steve said, taking another slow step forward, after a moment placing the shield on his back so he could extend both hands, palms up. This wasn’t his mission, but he couldn’t… “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“Steve,” said Sam, not quite tightly, but he stopped, and Steve suspected his train of thought followed the same lines. Loki snarled at them both, eyes flickering wildly, head swinging from side to side. Steve was beginning to think just knocking him out would be merciful, but he didn’t even know if he could. He remembered punching Loki with all his force in Germany, and it had barely made him step back.
Steve took a step closer and panic surged in Loki’s eyes, his head coming up and his breathing starting to come ragged and too fast. Steve froze, suddenly worried he was going to pass out, but maybe that would be better, maybe…
“Steve,” Sam said, his voice quiet, “I think maybe I should take this. I may not know a lot about alien supervillains, but I do know a fair amount about trauma victims.”
Steve took a step back and the panic eased slightly. “All right,” he said. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”
It was almost a half an hour before Steve managed to get close enough, with Sam’s permission, to break the chains holding Loki to the wall. The minute the last one snapped, he tried to make a run for it, and made it maybe two steps before his legs gave out and that finally, finally, seemed to be enough to put him out like a light.
Steve took charge of carrying his limp and too angular body out. It was late afternoon, still light enough out to get a sickeningly good look at the needle marks on the underside of Loki’s arms, collapsed veins from too much use, and Steve felt a little sick even as he was grateful that whatever HYDRA had been looking for, they didn’t seem to have found it. Sam took a look at him and then went back into the bunker and re-emerged with six bags of blood that he set down before kneeling next to Loki and starting the triage Steve probably should have been doing. “I’m guessing it’s his,” he said simply. “It’s probably been in there too long without refrigeration to be useful, but…I don't know. Seems like we shouldn't just leave it there.”
Steve nodded, feeling a little numb as he looked down at Loki, his eyelids the color of bruises. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting to find, and it just left him with more questions, new questions. Had Fury known about this or had this been solely HYDRA’s move? If it was just HYDRA, how had they managed to slip Loki out from under Fury’s nose? He didn’t think Fury would condone this kind of…this. Or didn’t want to think, anyway.
“What’re we going to do,” Sam asked, and that was the question, wasn’t it? “He’s not doing so well.” SHIELD was gone, and Steve could try yelling at the sky but he didn’t know if that would summon Thor. Which – that was another question, did Thor know about this? He couldn’t, Steve decided. He might not know Thor very well, but he thought he knew him well enough for that.
Steve swallowed. “How bad is he? Can you and me handle it without a hospital?”
Sam grimaced. “How am I supposed to know? He’s an alien, right? I don’t even know what’s normal. But I guess – no, I don’t want to guess. Should’ve known getting mixed up with superheroes was going to get weird.”
Steve took a deep breath. “We can’t take him to a civilian hospital,” he said. “It’s too risky.” He supposed maybe he could call Stark…but that would be risky too, and Steve had no idea if Stark would even be willing to help.
“Military?” Sam asked, but Steve shook his head.
“Can you pull medical supplies together?” He said, closing his eyes for a moment, resigned. “I think I’m just going to have to take this one.”
“Whatever you’re deciding on,” Sam said, “we should probably move. At a vague guess that I have next to no way to substantiate, your alien is going into something that looks a lot like shock.”
“Right,” Steve said. He glanced back at the bunker. “There’s nothing else here. Let’s go.”
Loki was still out when they got back to Steve’s apartment, but he was still breathing, too, although Sam looked far from happy. Though then again, that might have to do with the situation as much as Loki’s condition. Steve just thanked God none of his neighbors had been out in the halls.
“Do you have a bath?” Sam asked, briskly, almost as soon as the door was closed behind them. “He needs cleaning up or he’s going to make a mess of your couch.”
“A small one, yeah,” Steve said, jerking out of his reverie. “Sorry, I-”
“Set him down in the bathroom and change into something you don’t mind getting dirty. Run a shallow bath - warm but not hot, use the skin on the underside of your wrist to check temperature.” Sam’s voice was all business, and Steve blinked at him a little before nodding.
Steve changed into an old shirt and some pants he’d spilled coffee on. When he emerged from the bedroom Sam had Loki out of the flimsy clothes he had been wearing. Underneath, Thor’s brother was hideously emaciated, livid, ugly scar lines running over his torso. Steve tried not to look too closely, but it was hard not to stare at the almost concave, stretched skin between jutting hipbones, the filth smeared on his skin. He looked like he should have been dead.
Sam looked up at Steve, his expression a little grim. “Put him in the bath and start washing him off. I don’t want to have to deal with an infection on top of everything else.” He stood up. “I’m going to make a list of stuff we’re going to need to deal with the malnutrition and go grab a few other things.”
Steve picked Loki up carefully and deposited him in the tub, half expecting Thor’s brother to wake up and attack at any moment. He felt like a sack of bones inside skin, terrifyingly light for all his limbs. He held Loki’s torso up with one arm as he started running the water, checking the temperature carefully as Sam had instructed, and once he was satisfied leaned Loki back against the wall and looked at his hands, smeared with brown and red.
Just do what Sam said, Steve reminded himself, and reached for a washcloth, wetting it under the faucet, and began working on getting Loki clean.
What had been bad covered by dirt and blood only got worse revealed by careful washing. The scars down his front were red and inflamed, and overlapped new over older. Layers of skin sloughed off with the filth, so before Steve finished Loki’s chest and shoulders he had to drain the tub and refill it, the water turning almost black. There were scratches on his neck and face that looked like they’d come from fingernails, but the ends of Loki’s fingers were a bloody ruin, what nails were left dropping off mangled fingertips. Bone jutted out everywhere, and washing the matted, unevenly cropped black hair resulted in several clumps coming loose. With his arms clean, the track marks stood out more starkly.
Steve drained and refilled the tub twice more, trying to ignore the small whimpering noise Loki made when Steve tried to wash his face, lips clamping shut and head turning away.
By the time he was more or less satisfied, Steve could feel his limbs shaking and felt like he was going to throw up. The bathroom stank, but the water Loki was sitting in was a pale grey rather than black.
Sam returned shortly thereafter and helped Steve wrap Loki in a towel and bring him out to the living room. He was a little too long for the couch, so his legs dangled a little over one of the arms.
“Do you have another blanket?” Sam said. “Maybe some socks? He doesn’t have the means to stay warm right now and it’s important he does. I’m going to work on setting up an IV. Oh, and - if I get in trouble for borrowing this stuff I’m going to blame you.”
Steve retreated into the bathroom to wash his hands and splash water on his face. What the hell are you doing, Steve Rogers, he thought, staring at his reflection, and then returned to the main room, pulling an extra wool blanket out of the closet and a pair of socks from his dresser. There was something horrifically surreal about putting his own socks on the Loki’s feet, but there was something horrifically surreal about all of this.
Then there was the bandaging – hands first, and Steve followed Sam’s instructions and wrapped both of them until they were puffy white bulges at the end of Loki’s arms. He dabbed antibiotic ointment on the fingernail scratches and held one of Loki’s stick thin arms while Sam found a vein that wasn’t too used to slide the IV needle into. By the time they were done, Steve’s couch looked like a miniature field hospital and Sam looked like he wanted to punch something. “Well,” he said, stepping back and standing up. “It looks like he’s going to stay alive for the moment, anyway.”
Steve wanted to collapse. His stomach was still churning. “Sorry,” he said weakly. “For dragging you into this.”
Sam shook his head a little. “Rolling with you, Steve, gotta say – it’s always full of surprises. Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking?”
Steve rubbed his face and sat down on the chair in the corner. “I didn’t see a whole lot of other options. Or do you think I should’ve just left him there?”
“No,” Sam said. “Not really. But what now?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not just…it’s not just him. The Chitauri weapons technology, that spear thing that he had…those could all be with HYDRA. They’ve still got bases out there.”
Sam gestured at the couch. “You think he’s going to help with that?”
Steve sighed. “I don’t really know. I don’t know what he’ll do. He might wake up pissed off and ready for another go at conquering the world, for all I know. I just couldn’t…” Steve shook his head. “I hope I’m not being stupid.”
“Maybe just a little,” Sam said, deadpan, though he smiled a little when Steve looked at him. “I guess we’ll find out. I’ll back you up, Steve.”
Steve sighed and cast a look at Loki where he was lying limply on Steve’s couch. He didn’t look much like he’d be doing any world-conquering in the near future. “For now…I guess we wait. Who knows – maybe he knows something.”
“About Bucky, you mean,” Sam said, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Yeah,” Steve said after a moment. “About Bucky.”
This was probably the worst idea he’d ever had.
Steve stayed in the living room, not particularly interested in leaving Loki unattended. Sam refused to leave, so Steve gave him the bedroom.
Loki slept for just over twenty-four hours, breathing so quietly and shallowly that a few times Steve had to check his pulse to be sure he was still alive.
Steve had expected Loki to come around violently, angry or trying to attack. He’d pictured total coherence and clarity, the return of something…at least a little closer to the Loki he remembered. What he got was not even noticing that Loki was awake until he stood up to get a glass of water and realized that his eyes were open. Steve froze, but Loki was just…staring, expression eerily blank.
“Loki?” Steve said, cautiously. There was maybe a faint twitch around the corner of his eye, but no more. Unnerved, Steve reached out to wave a hand in front of his face, but the minute his hand got anywhere close Loki flinched and Steve froze again, though he was still staring blankly up at nothing.
Steve’s stomach turned a little and he drew his hand slowly back. “I can’t tell if you can hear me. Can you…indicate if you can?” He hadn’t spoken, Steve realized, not once. Steve wondered with a sudden jolt if he couldn’t anymore.
Loki’s head turned slowly, very slightly, in Steve’s direction, perhaps a flicker showing through the blank mask. Steve restrained himself from leaping after it.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, carefully. No response, and Loki seemed to be looking straight through him. “Do you…remember me?” Steve asked, even more carefully, but that didn’t get anything either. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and had to look away from Loki’s face, his eyes dropping down to his arms, the IV that Sam had struggled to coax into overtaxed veins. He cleared his throat and said more firmly, “No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”
Loki’s shoulders and body started shaking, and it took Steve a moment to realize that it wasn’t tears or terror, but silent laughter. Loki’s blank eyes closed and he said nothing. Steve’s skin crawled.
This was all wrong. Everything about this was wrong.
“You’re going to be safe,” Steve insisted with vehemence, and the shaking stopped. He could hear the shallow rasp of Loki’s breathing, but nothing else. Loki’s head turned away from him again, and that was the end of that conversation.
Steve got up and knocked on the bedroom door, then let himself in. “He’s awake,” he said, when Sam sat up from where he was reading on his back, paperback held open over his face. “Or…sort of. I think.” Steve felt very much out of his depth.
That got Sam’s attention. He dropped the book over the side of the bed and jumped up. “Already? Should’ve been…” After a moment Sam shook his head. “Never mind, I think I’m just going to stop there.”
“Some point I’ll introduce you to Thor,” Steve said, nearly tempted to smile. “As far as I can tell he’s nearly indestructible.”
Which made Loki’s state, Steve realized as he was saying it, that much more concerning. He’d been stiff and uncomfortable after getting smashed into concrete by the Hulk, but he’d still been…lucid. Talking. Steve shut down that train of thought before it could get too far, but then he just found himself wondering if Bucky had been kept in…places like that…between missions.
HYDRA was still out there. If they’d found him…
Sam had stopped moving and was looking at him. “Hey, Steve,” he said. “You okay?”
Steve gave him a slightly tight smile. “I’ll be fine. Anyway, Loki – he…wasn’t really responding to me. I think he could tell what I was saying, but he didn’t talk and he wasn’t really looking…at me.”
Sam didn’t really look surprised. “But he was awake,” Sam confirmed. Steve hesitated, but he had to nod. “That’s good,” Sam said. “I mean. For a given metric of good, considering we still don’t know if your adopted supervillain is going to blow up half the block within the week, but…”
Steve rubbed his forehead. “I know. I know it’s…I really don’t see another option, though. Going to a hospital would be even worse.”
“And you can’t just pretend you never found him. Yeah, I know.” Sam made a face. “You said he went with SHIELD after New York? Better explain everything fast once he wakes up properly. Seems like the kind of guy to hold a grudge.”
“I wish I knew how to get in touch with Thor,” Steve said, expressing the thought for the umpteenth time.
“Aw, come on,” Sam said. “You don’t think we two can handle this by ourselves?” He grinned, a little, and Steve shook his head with a faint laugh. “Come on. Lemme go check on your new friend.”
Loki appeared to have gone back to sleep in the interval, or maybe passed out again. Sam checked a few things on the equipment he’d set up and whistled lowly. “You weren’t kidding. Based on the way things are heading…your boy might be back on his feet in as little as three days, maybe four.” He paused, and then added, “Back on his feet. His head, though…that’s a whole nother ballgame. If he comes around again, though…try to get some food into him. I got some stuff, but milk is probably best to start with.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, thinking of the feral, animal look that had been in Loki’s eyes, and the blankness just ten minutes ago. “I’m getting that impression.” He took a deep breath. “Any advice?”
“If I were you I’d hide my knives,” Sam said, frank and matter of fact. Steve blinked, and Sam gave him a crooked smile. “What’s the first thing you’d look for coming out of being held captive, Steve? A weapon. No one likes being helpless, and by the looks of it, your friend here was helpless for a while.”
Steve glanced at Loki’s face, his head turned sideways on the pillow and mouth set in a small frown, eyes moving rapidly under the lids. Loki wouldn’t need a weapon, Steve thought. If he had his magic, that would be weapon enough. But he just nodded, feeling vaguely guilty for the way his thoughts strayed to Bucky, wondering if he would be like this, when they got him back.
Sam was looking at him again. “Go take a nap, Rogers,” he said. “I can hold down the fort for a few hours. Just come running if you hear explosions, right?”
He didn’t hear explosions.
It was the screams that woke him up.
It was loud and horrible, the kind of sound someone might make having their lungs ripped out of their chest, and Steve was on his feet and stumbling down the hallway before he could think. “Sam!” he yelled, cursing himself for sleeping while Loki was in his house. “Falcon-”
“Over here,” Sam called, and if he didn’t sound happy at least he wasn’t the one howling like a banshee which meant-
“Is that Loki?” Steve asked, and then the wailing rose to a fever pitch and just – stopped.
Steve turned on the light and found Sam crouched next to the couch beside Loki, whose body had fallen eerily still though his lips were peeled back from his teeth. There was blood all over the couch and for a moment Steve felt panic but it was just from where he’d ripped out the IV line. Sam was cursing under his breath and Steve hurried over to crouch next to him.
“What…”
“I don’t know,” Sam interrupted. “Everything was quiet, and then…like a switch flipped. Dumbass, not like you’ve got a lot of blood to lose…” That last, Steve took it, was directed at Loki. “What do I know, though…your neighbors are going to be pissed.”
“I’ll – think of something to explain it to them.” Steve’s heart was still pounding with the adrenaline rush. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Get me a half glass of milk from the kitchen,” Sam said. “And the five years this bastard scared off my life, too, while you’re at it…” Steve nodded and stood up slowly. He started to move over toward the kitchen, vaguely listening to Sam’s mutterings, until he stopped dead at, “oh, shit, did he stop breathing?”
Steve turned around as Sam reached out to touch Loki’s neck to check his pulse.
The second his fingers touched skin Loki’s hand snapped out, his fingers locking around Sam’s neck. Steve jerked forward with a cry of alarm, but Sam didn’t yell or struggle or grab Loki’s wrist, and the way he said “Steve,” in warning halted him in his tracks, even if his voice was strained.
“Hey,” Sam said, his hands down at his side and his voice calm, level. “Loki. Can you let go of me?” His voice wasn’t cut off, which Steve supposed might be a good sign. “If you do, I’m just going to take a step back. No one else is going to touch you.”
Steve took his cue from Sam and held very still. He could hear Loki’s breathing again, ragged and a little uneven. He said nothing, and his eyes flicked around the room, not blank now but wild again, afraid, and, Steve had a feeling, twice as dangerous for it.
“You were dreaming,” Sam said, though the strain in his voice was getting more pronounced. “But now you’re awake. No one’s going to do anything except I’m going to give you some space. Okay?”
Steve braced himself to move. If Loki attacked…he might not be fast enough.
Loki’s hand dropped and Sam took a step back, rubbing his throat. “Thank you,” he said, giving Steve another quelling look when he tried to move forward. “See? Nothing’s happening. It’s just you and me and Cap. Do you have enough space or do you want more?”
Loki said nothing, still halfway upright. Steve could see his arms trembling to hold him there. He licked his lips and for a moment Steve thought he was going to say something, but the silence continued.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I’m going to sit down.” Loki tensed, eyes going back to Sam, who did, indeed, sit down. On the floor. “And so is Cap,” he added, after a moment, and Steve hesitated but Sam did seem to know what he was doing, so he lowered himself slowly to the floor. “Need anything? A glass of milk, maybe?”
Still no answer, but Sam just nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Sounds good.”
It took almost ten minutes for Loki to start to relax. Steve was surprised he didn’t try to bolt for the door, but maybe he could just tell how that would end and didn’t want the humiliation. Eventually, Loki started to slump, his arms giving out first.
“You ripped out a line while you were dreaming,” Sam said, when the exhaustion started to slow. “It’s supposed to help you. Get some fluids back in your system. Can I put it back?”
That got a reaction. Loki’s eyes snapped to Sam, wary again, and he shook his head. The silence was starting to make Steve nervous, but he wasn’t about to interrupt. He expected Sam to try to bargain, but he just nodded.
“All right,” he said. “That’s fine. Maybe later. But if you don’t want the IV, would you take a glass of milk from Steve?” Loki’s eyes flicked back to him, wary and watchful. Wild animal eyes. “You’ll be pretty miserable in the morning without it.”
Steve expected another refusal, but to his surprise Loki nodded. Sam glanced toward him. “Microwave it for about twenty seconds,” he said, voice firm and certain. “Just a half a glass should be fine. Then come back here and give it to me.”
Steve went. He kept a careful distance from Loki as he handed off the glass, and then backed off again. Sam took a sip of the milk himself and then held it out to Loki, who took it in two hands and gulped the whole thing in a few swallows. He was careful, Steve noticed when he gave it back, not to touch Sam at all. Sam took the glass and sat back again. Steve could see Loki fading fast.
“If you want to sleep again, that’s cool,” Sam said. “I’ll be here. Keeping my distance, see? Unless you have any more dreams and then I’ll wake you up. Sound good?”
Loki folded back down and it was perhaps another ten minutes before his breathing slowed and resumed the normal rhythms of sleep. Sam slumped, as did Steve. “Well,” Sam said, after a few moments, and blew out a breath. “That went well.”
“Is that what it went?” Steve asked, a little incredulous.
“He didn’t kill me, anyway,” Sam said, and Steve wished he could laugh at that, but he didn’t think Sam was exactly joking. “Could’ve gone a lot worse.”
Steve wiped a hand over his face. “Yeah…I guess it could.” He hesitated, and then asked, “what you just did…”
“People come back with a lot of different kinds of issues,” Sam said. “It’s my job to try to help.”
“It’s pretty incredible,” Steve said, honestly.
“Yeah,” said Sam, and then let out a shaky laugh. “Jesus. I’m just glad it worked.”
“You didn’t know if-”
“Steve, guy’s an alien. I don’t know anything.” Sam shook his head. “I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping. Can you get me a glass of something to drink now? Maybe a little stronger than milk.”
Loki slept through the rest of the night. Steve didn’t.
Doubts kept circling around in his head. He was putting everyone here in danger by having Loki here. He was putting Sam in danger. He was out of his depth and had no idea what to do. There was no one he could turn to for help.
And he was supposed to be looking for Bucky. How was he going to do that now?
If only we hadn’t seen that door, Steve half thought, but was immediately ashamed of himself. And left Loki to die, slowly and horribly? Nobody deserved that kind of a fate. Not even Loki.
But what was he supposed to do? Assuming Loki got better, what then? And even while he did recover…
For the first time, Steve thought he missed SHIELD. And Natasha and Fury and an entire network of people who might actually know how to handle this kind of thing. He wondered what Natasha would say, if he knew how to get in touch with her. What kind of advice she would give. They might not always agree with each other, but she had a good head on her shoulders.
“Not sleeping, huh?”
There was that, Steve thought, looking up from the floor at Sam, who was leaning against the doorframe to his bedroom. He did have Sam. He felt a surge of gratitude for that.
“No,” he said, “I’ll take up watch if you want to sleep for a few hours.”
“Nah. I’m good.” Sam stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “Want to talk?”
Steve groaned. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m just rehashing the same thoughts over. What I’m going to do next, how I’m going to manage this…”
“We,” Sam said. Steve looked up at him. “What we’re going to do next, you mean.”
“I can’t ask you to-”
“Stop right there,” Sam interrupted. “And don’t even start down that road. You might’ve gotten me into this but I’m making the choice for myself to stay in it, and that’s that.”
Steve’s first instinct was to argue, but one look at Sam’s face told him that wouldn’t be any good at all, so he just smiled, ruefully. A little relieved, to tell the truth. “All right, all right. If you’re sure.” He hesitated, and then added, “but on the practical side…if we’re going to keep this quiet, and I think we need to – how?”
“You mean, how do we keep the news crews from finding out that Captain America is stashing an alien war criminal at his D.C. apartment?” Sam asked. Steve gave him a baleful look, and he shrugged. “You got me there. You can’t get in touch with that friend of yours, Natasha?”
“I’m not sure how I would. She didn’t really leave a business card.”
“Trouble with spies,” Sam said, sounding a little wistful. Steve sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. If only there was someone else he could hand this over to. But there wasn’t, and he knew it. This – Loki – was his responsibility now.
Steve put his face in his hands and groaned again. “This really was a terrible idea, wasn’t it.”
Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “Little bit, yeah,” he said, with what Steve thought was inappropriate cheer. He hesitated, then, and sobered. “But I don’t know that there was a better option, all things considered. Not one that I would have felt okay about, anyway. We’ll muddle through.”
“Yeah.” Steve rubbed his eyes one more time and then raised his head, rolling his shoulders back. “I guess we’d better.” After all, if – when – Loki healed, it was going to be up to them to figure out how to keep him from making a reprise of what he’d tried before.
Nice going, Rogers. You’ve really stepped in it this time.