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I never wanted the throne. I only wanted to be your equal.
He could have run anywhere, he supposed. The entire cosmos was full of starry corridors and dark corners he had slipped in and out of over the centuries; there were places out there, between worlds, where he was almost sure no other feet had ever set down. It was lordly in its way, standing upon a planet without any other intelligent life, knowing millions of years might go by before eyes such as his own touched upon it again. He had spent many years wandering thus, always back at the palace before anyone truly noticed his absence…not that there were many who would.
In the end, what defeated him…what began the chain of events that led him to that world, that cage, those blue eyes…that bed…wasn’t the Allfather’s magic or an almighty hammer. It wasn’t the wrath of the Chitauri. It was simple exhaustion.
A few years on the throne of Asgard wearing Odin’s face and Loki was almost, almost ready to admit it had been a terrible idea.
First of all, using that much power day in and day out was draining. He had to keep up the illusion almost continuously, as the King of Asgard had many servants and cronies who looked after his welfare especially now that the Queen had returned to stardust. He had resources beyond all other Asgardian sorcerers, except of course for the woman who had taught him…but she was gone now.
And he had sat in his cell listening to the chaos in the palace, enjoying the thought of Odin’s warriors caught off guard, not realizing one of those screams was probably hers, one of those shouts of rage and grief Thor’s.
The second problem was that of Odin himself – the real Odin, currently under the strongest sleep spell Loki knew, safely locked in an empty section of the Weapons Vault. However long he was under, Odin would not be hurt, but using such a spell – as opposed to killing the Allfather outright, which he should have done – was also leeching power from him. Between the two spells he had precious little left for anything else.
Not that there was anything else.
After seeing Odin in the mirror for months it began to feel like he no longer had a face of his own.
Had he ever? From the day the Allfather picked him up in the ruins of Jotunheim his true identity had been covered in a veil of lies. Finding out the truth had destroyed him, yes, but it had also been a tremendous relief. His entire life he had known there was something wrong with him, and Odin had known it too – he had in fact planned to barter Loki’s future for some sort of alliance with Laufey. All the years of preparation supposedly to get Loki ready to rule had in fact been to make him a fitting political sacrifice.
Pragmatic, cold. Heartless.
There were things a boy could only learn from his father.
Sitting there in the great golden hall, the silence vibrating with its depth, Loki wondered, in spite of himself, what Thor was doing on Midgard, if he was happier there with his hero friends and his human woman than he would have been as king.
A stupid question. He’d known when he saw the way Thor looked at the woman that no crown would ever elicit such devotion. Years of training, boasting, swaggering like a peacock all over the palace, and all Thor’s ambition was undone by a pair of big eyes and a bright-burning mind.
Fool, blind fool…he had tried to warn Thor, even though it was couched in his accustomed spite. Jane Foster would not walk the worlds with him more than a few decades. She was decaying already, born dying, the way all mortals were. Even the ones with flying metal suits, or strength ten times that of an ordinary man, or a beast lurking inside just waiting to strike, would all wither away, and Thor would be alone again, only this time far from the comfort of Asgard. Mortals did not comprehend immortality. They would never understand how howlingly lonely it was without companionship.
There…that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it?
The golden hall had always been cold, sterile, even with thousands packed into it. Now, with just the King and his guards, it was a tomb.
He had relished his power at first – an insatiable lust for power was one thing he shared with Midgardians. There was also a delicious wicked delight in fooling everyone, even Heimdall, who stared right at him and saw only what he wanted to see. His ego was satisfied knowing he had hoodwinked every last person in the realm.
But that same ego began to whisper in his ear: You are not King of Asgard. You are a pretender, a false god. You would never rule wearing your own face. If they knew you were alive they would imprison you. Odin would have you executed this time. This is not victory…it is cowardice.
What is it exactly you hope to accomplish?
Odd how the voice in his head, the one that was at turns condescending and mocking, took on the timbre of Odin’s. What few whispers he heard of kindness and love were always in the voice of Frigga.
His allies were Odin’s allies. His friends were all Odin’s friends. None of them knew to whom they truly spoke. He thought about trying to seduce Sif, whose lithe warrior’s body he had always wanted to lay hands on, but as Odin? The mere thought made him queasy.
So did the fact that were he to bed Sif, once again he would be picking up Thor’s castoffs. Sif had loved Thor for decades and Thor had been completely oblivious, as was his nature. There was no real pleasure in lying down with someone who was thinking of another.
Illusion upon illusion, trick after trick, the cruelest being the one he played upon himself.
Not long after that the nightmares returned. He had thought them gone once he had made it known through all the realms that Loki, younger Prince of Asgard and enemy to a dozen worlds, was dead. He had at last found a way to shake Thanos from his trail. There was no use in seeking revenge upon the dead. He was, for now, free.
I will give you power, Asgardian. I will give you a world to rule. But you will obey. If you even think of straying from our bargain, this will see that you feel an agony worse than any death. Allow me to demonstrate.
Chains…the blue glow of magic not his own…screaming that was definitely his own.
Laughter. Hands in the dark, covetous…
You asked for this, came that mocking voice again. You made a blood oath. There is no going back.
Beg me…beg for your release, little Prince. Give yourself over and your reward will be power beyond imagining. Refuse me…or fail me…
You think you know pain…
The problem with dreams – even those had so many times that they were as familiar as a favorite robe – was that they could worm their way into one’s mind and interrupt even a well established enchantment. Keeping a spell going while asleep was not difficult, once learned, but there were certain images and memories that could short out the circuit and, if strong enough, break a spell entirely.
“LOKI!”
His eyes snapped open.
The royal suite was dark and cool, gauzy curtains caught by a summer night’s breeze like a lifted bridal veil. So peaceful…if one ignored the thundering feet and the Allfather shouting.
Loki sat up, automatically feeling out along the line of magic that was supposed to keep Odin comatose…and found it broken.
Damn.
Loki tried to summon any real distress at having been found out or fear of what Odin would do to him if caught. All he felt was resignation.
“So much for that,” he muttered.
Sighing, he climbed out of bed and with a wave of his hand severed the spell of concealment, the glamour he had worn so long collapsing and dissolving into nothing. Another gesture and he was dressed and armed as himself again.
That much, at least, felt right.
It was with great consternation that the swarm of warriors and their Allfather splintered the doors to the room and poured in to find it empty, the electric hum and faint scent of magic all that remained of the man who would be king.
Most of the time it was no big deal, but there were some days when Steve Rogers fervently wished he could get drunk.
Not the day of the Battle of New York, not during the fall of SHIELD, and not even the entire time Ultron had terrorized the planet – those were days of war, and war he knew what to do with.
It was nights like this, coming home after a long day of barking at the second generation of Avengers to his empty, silent quarters where he had nothing but his own thoughts for company…when memories were too close to the surface…too many small sadnesses piling up at his feet…those were the nights that climbing into a whisky bottle would have been the kindest thing he could do for himself. Usually he dragged himself back to the training rooms and beat something for a few hours until the ghosts went back to sleep and let him do the same.
Sometimes, though, that wasn’t an option. Tonight he was injured – not seriously, just a dislocated shoulder from hitting the ground too hard and losing his footing, but bad enough that it would take until morning to completely heal. Anything physical he did would interfere with the process. Everyone, from Tash to Sam and even Scarlet Witch, who had been partly responsible for the injury in the first place, told him in no uncertain terms to rest or they’d send Vision to babysit him.
Being under those kind but too-perceptive eyes wasn’t Steve’s idea of restful, so he promised he’d behave himself. Vision had a way of asking exactly the wrong questions…well, they were the right ones, just not the ones he wanted to answer.
His apartment decor was a mix of two decades with a seventy-year gap between. Modern tech, 40s nostalgia, plus a hanging rack for his shield. It was always immaculate – he was still a soldier after all – but never felt as much like home as the barracks had. This room belonged to a leader in 2015 – a superhero, they called him.
His eyes took in the room slowly, from left to right, both checking for anomalies and trying to figure out who exactly lived here. When he was outside that door he had a purpose. He could shelf any inconvenient or uncomfortable questions, longings, or grief. He didn’t have to think about Bucky, out there somewhere suffering in God knew how many ways when at the very least he could be living here, outside the city, in a quiet room with at least one person who knew him for him, not for his “supervillain” name.
Steve knew what that was like. America needed its Captain; even when someone was interviewing him, if they asked what life was like for Steve Rogers, they didn’t really want to know. They didn’t want to hear about alienation or long nights with a punching bag. They wanted to hear about his heroic exploits – or, in some cases, his romantic ones. A superhero wasn’t nearly as fun without a love interest.
He didn’t usually mind. He understood – had always understood – what the Senator had told him back in the 40s; that wars were fought on two fronts, and the one at home was just as important. People needed symbols, needed something pure and good to hold onto. He had thought the idea was outdated now, but it turned out to be even more important now that it was so hard to tell who the bad guys were and where they were coming from. Aliens were easy enough…but when dozens of their own political leaders were suddenly arrested for association with Hydra, what kind of faith could survive?
He flopped down on the couch – a bit carefully given his shoulder – and looked over at the small canvas hanging on the wall. It was a painting of a man and woman dancing; mostly done in silhouette in sepia tones, the era was obvious. At the very bottom in shaky but determined letters was painted, “Yours always…Peggy.”
In a way he was glad he hadn’t seen her again before…she had passed during the Hydra takeover, the world tearing itself apart outside her windows. Angela, the nurse, had said that Peggy wouldn’t have known him anymore; by the end, she had lost everything, including the memories of her own heroism. She had been a force of nature, saved countless lives and stood up for what was right again and again…and she didn’t even get to look back on her life and feel any satisfaction. Bad enough that any chance they’d had had been taken from her – everything else had been too. She deserved better. She deserved to die at least knowing how amazing she was.
He pushed himself up again, eyes burning, and took the hottest shower he could stand, letting bullets of water pummel his back until it stopped feeling anything.
One good thing about the modern age – mattresses were way more comfortable. He crawled into boxers and a t-shirt and then into the sheets, not expecting to be able to sleep at all.
In fact he didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until the alarm blared all around him and blasted him violently awake. Disoriented, he reached for the pistol in the bedside table, moving without thinking; but before he could get the drawer open he heard a female voice:
“Steve. Steve!”
“I’m here, I’m here,” he responded irritably. “Can you shut off the alarm, please?”
He heard a faint scuffle, and the noise cut off so suddenly that his ears kept ringing for a full minute.
“Sorry,” Natasha said. “That wasn’t my call – it went off all over the base. Fury’s calling for all hands on deck.”
“What happened?” A hundred possibilities, each nastier than the last, flicked through his mind like a slideshow. The top of the list was of course another terrorist attack, or another Enhanced causing havoc.
“Looks like we’re getting a new inmate downstairs.”
Steve paused in the middle of doing up his uniform. Downstairs – the Zoo, they called it – were the maximum security cells where dangerous Enhanced were kept while SHIELD decided their fate. Usually that fate involved vanishing in the middle of the night and another file stamped CLOSED and locked away. Right now only two cells were occupied, with longterm tenants who weren’t safe to move anywhere else. Stark had put enough tech into those cells that Steve couldn’t imagine anyone strong enough to break out. Maybe Thor. But just maybe.
“Did they hurt anybody? Are we doing damage control or just containment?”
Now, Tash’s voice took on that amused undertone that could mean a lot of things, or nothing. “Neither, really – he surrendered. Walked right into Stark Tower and gave himself up, then passed out cold.”
“Who the hell would do that?”
“You’re not going to believe it…I don’t think I do yet.”
“Tash, who is it?”
The levity faded. “Public Enemy Number One.”
*****
Steve didn’t curse often – as his teammates loved to point out – but this time, he couldn’t help himself. “Holy shit.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Tony muttered. He was standing in front of the containment room still in his armor, though his head was exposed. He looked genuinely shocked, which Steve hadn’t thought possible.
Although now was a good time to prove him wrong.
Steve hadn’t believed Tash at first either. Even when she swore she was being completely honest, he still couldn’t wrap his mind around it until he was standing in Stark Tower in front of the cell.
“Does the press know about this?” Steve asked.
Tony shook his head. “Don’t think so. I only called HQ and Fury. Figured you should make the call on what happens next.”
Steve crossed his arms. “Well, the human authorities won’t be able to hold him. And SHIELD…with all that’s going on with them right now I think handing him over would be a bad idea. Even the part of SHIELD that hasn’t gone completely insane would want to try and use him as a weapon somehow. I think Tash was right – HQ is the best place. Then at least we can find out what the hell is going on.”
Stark looked less than thrilled at the idea, but nodded. “Yeah…like if the Chitauri did that to him, and are on their way here. Them or any other aliens he might’ve pissed off. If they show up and the FBI has him they’ll probably think we’re harboring a fugitive and blow the shit out of us. You know, again.”
Steve was never entirely comfortable agreeing with Tony, but this time, he was kind of relieved; he wanted as many people backing his play as possible. “Okay. I’ll deal with Fury – you call for transport. Has he moved since you brought him in here?”
“Nope.” Tony took a step forward, his suit making that whizz-clunk-whine noise that nowadays all the Iron Man kids’ toys made. The Captain America toys usually said something like, This is Captain America, reporting for duty. He still hadn’t seen any Black Widow toys. “You should’ve seen it, Cap…waltzed right in like he owned the place, just like always, but then…well, I was about to go Midgardian Cyborg on his ass, but then he just said, ‘I surrender,’ and fell over. That’s when I saw…all of that.”
They both stared down at their quarry, probably with an unusually unified set of emotions. He wondered if Tony was reliving his trip to the far side of space. Sometimes it showed, sometimes not.
But whatever had happened to the prisoner definitely showed. Something had clearly gotten the best of him, which was more than a little disquieting. In a normal situation Steve might have believed it was a pack of wild dogs, but with the size of the gashes and the amount of blood, that would be dogs the size of a thoroughbreds.
“We have to call Thor,” Steve said after a moment. “Even if he wouldn’t care what we did with him, which of course he will, it might be good to know how they’d treat this kind of injury. We’ve assumed mostly that Asgardians are indestructible, but…apparently not.”
“I’m on it,” Tony said. “Pretty sure he’s in New Mexico.”
As Stark walked away, pulling on his helmet to use its comm, Steve continued staring at the figure on the floor: curled up in a ball and barely breathing, covered in blood and torn open in more places than anyone should be able to survive, thin as a wraith and shivering every few minutes…Loki was a dreadful sight, and it was difficult to feel any real satisfaction knowing that whatever had done this had been terrible enough that it drove Loki here, to Earth, and right to the Avengers. Either he was leading his enemies here and hoping they’d attack the Earth…or he was that scared.
Steve knew which one he believed. But even the remote possibility of the latter made him feel cold inside. He knew that Loki was scared of Thor, but how many things were there out there that would drive him toward Thor?
“Stop.”
Steve froze, recognizing the voice instantly…though it was blurry with pain, and hoarse, almost certainly from screaming. He moved closer.
One long-fingered, pale hand slid out along the concrete floor, fingers clenching. The nails were broken and bloody, and Steve saw the telltale raw stripes of flesh from straining against shackles. In fact, when he got a better look at the other arm, there was still a metal cuff around it, though the chain had broken off.
“I won’t…just kill me. Kill me now…I will not be your plaything any longer.”
The words, whomever they’d been spoken to, were anguished, afraid, despite their veneer of bravado.
Loki whimpered and curled up on himself again, silent, though the shaking had intensified. Steve wondered if there was any of that concentrated sedative Banner had been working on around here – if not, getting Loki to HQ was going to be an adventure.
They couldn’t wait for Thor, though. There was always a chance he would simply grab his brother and teleport or whatever back to Asgard. And if SHIELD didn’t need their hands on something like Loki, Asgard sure as hell didn’t either.
Not before they had some answers.
*****
An hour later found him standing just as before but back at HQ, staring, impassive and cross-armed, while the medical staff made an attempt at patching Loki up. His clothes were pretty much a lost cause; they were as filthy and bloodstained as their wearer. For the moment Public Enemy Number One was unconscious and shirtless in dark blue scrubs. The rest of him was covered in bandages. Only a few square inches of ivory skin showed through, almost glowing in the overhead light.
No one else from the team was present, so the doctor talked to him. “We’ve got him stable for now…I think. It’s hard to say. We’ll just have to play it by ear – there are enough alarms and cameras on the cell that if anything changes we’ll know upstairs.”
“Good,” Steve said curtly. He wasn’t sure he liked the attitude he was observing among the medics. They seemed to think actually helping the prisoner was unimportant, and that if he were to, say, die of a massive infection, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Maybe it wouldn’t. But that shouldn’t stop them from doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. He wanted to say something to them, but settled for leveling a stern look on any who caught his eye. To a one, they turned pink and scurried away, until he was left alone with the newest inhabitant of the Zoo.
He didn’t intend to linger, but there were too many questions and possibilities running around in his head, and before he knew it he’d been standing there for most of an hour, thinking in circles. He wouldn’t have noticed then, either, except for a faint voice coming from the cell:
“The soldier…the man out of time.”
Steve moved around to where he could see Loki’s battered face. No reason to mince words: “What are you doing here?”
A ragged laugh, or something like a laugh, that turned into a cough. “Throwing myself upon your tender mercies,” came the reply.
“Are you leading something here? Whatever did that to you, maybe?”
Strange…for a second he was sure Loki was surprised, but the expression was covered up immediately. Even in this state Loki stayed in control. “No. Those who…those who had me will not come for me. They cannot.”
“Meaning you killed them all.”
A vague noise of confirmation. “Their master will not think to come here. Not unless word of my whereabouts leaks out. Then he might decide to…intervene.”
Now, Steve shook his head, understanding. “So you came here knowing that we’d hide you if the alternative was invasion.”
A slight quirk of his lips. “Bravo, Captain. You are far more clever than you seem.”
“That doesn’t really give us a reason to keep you alive, though, does it?”
“Perhaps not. But…” Another cough, this one hard and wet-sounding, and Steve saw blood at the corner of his mouth. A new bout of shivers came over Loki, and Steve wondered if an Asgardian could catch cold.
Without really thinking Steve picked up the extra blanket on the nearby chair and draped it over him. The look that earned was somewhere near the corner of amused and incredulous.
“Thanos wants to kill me,” Loki finally went on. “He will want the pleasure for himself. He has…particular torments in store, and a long list of them. He would not be kindly disposed toward anyone who denied him his right to vengeance.”
“So it wasn’t this Thanos who did…all this?”
“No…he is far more sophisticated with his tortures. He knows every pressure point, every vein…it would take years before he ran out of ideas that wouldn’t leave a mark. This…this was a gift from the bounty hunters he sent out to bring me back to him.”
“But you got away.”
A vague nod. Those cold green eyes were glazing over with pain and exhaustion…but, Steve noticed, the shivering had stopped. “I will be honest with you, Captain…”
Steve snorted.
Another almost-not-quite-a-smile. “At the time I sought only to escape. There was no forethought involved in coming here…this realm was closest to the location of my capture. And it was one I knew these particular hunters would not set foot upon.”
“Why not?” But after a beat, Steve got it. “Thanos sent Chitauri after you. They were his minions to begin with.”
“Most are dead, but…a few…always remain. Rogue factions, fringe groups no longer connected to the hive. They endure.”
“And why wouldn’t they come here?”
Now, Steve was sure it was a smile. “They are terrified of you,” Loki replied. “Your metal-festooned friend destroyed the hive. You thwarted their conquest of Earth. No world has ever done that before. I only wish I had seen Thanos’s face when he got the news.”
“Thanos is after you because you didn’t win – because you didn’t bring back the Tesseract. That was the deal? He gives you the Earth, you bring him the Cube?”
“Indeed. But now the Tesseract is on Asgard, where it was to begin with, and Thanos is no fool – he will not risk declaring war on Odin without exhausting any other avenues. I suspect that…” He fell silent for a moment, and Steve almost started to leave, but a violent shudder ran through Loki and he finished the sentence almost dreamily. “…that is another reason he wants me back…I know ways in and out of all the realms, the hidden paths…once he is done using me for his pleasure he will no doubt strip my mind of all its knowledge. By then I will be past caring. But only if your people hand me over to him.”
Steve clamped down on an involuntary shudder at the fatalistic tone as well as all possible meanings behind using me for his pleasure. “Well, I think you’re probably safe for the moment. And as long as you’re here the human race is probably safe from you.”
“Do you truly think so?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. But prove me wrong – go ahead. Attack me. In fact just try sitting up.”
A long, world-weary sigh. “You are correct, once again, Captain. At the moment I could not…what is the human phrase? Magic my way out of a paper bag, let alone fight. But as long as I have asylum here, no one will know but those you tell yourself.”
“And once you’re well? I don’t think you can get out of here. It’s pretty secure.”
“Oh, Captain.” Loki managed a look of pure condescension, even around obvious pain. “You cannot begin to fathom the places I have escaped from in my long years. No binding can hold me for long.”
Steve started to tell him where he could shove his asylum, but Loki saw the rising anger in his expression and said quickly, “My word, then, that I will tell no one I found refuge here, either now or in the future. Would that satisfy you?
“You don’t honestly think I’d believe anything you say.”
“You should.”
“Why’s that? Because you’ve always been such a straight shooter?”
Another smile, but this one was not sincere. There was ice beneath it, and Steve wondered for just a second if the words had stung him. “I am a liar,” Loki replied. “Deception is my art and my craft. But I have not, to my memory, ever lied to you.”
“This is the first actual conversation we’ve ever had.”
“Exactly. And you, odd creature that you are, have offered me shelter after I tried to scrape the scab of your race from the skin of the Earth. It is in my best interest to speak the truth to you. But here…” He held out his hand, palm up, and Steve watched, morbidly fascinated, as a cut appeared out of nowhere, drawing blood that was a lot darker than a human’s. A few drops fell on the floor and dried almost instantly. “You have my word and my blood – name your terms.”
He should probably consult with Fury, or at least the other Avengers, but Steve didn’t want to lose the chance when, as near to delirious as Loki was, he was being strangely open. Instinct told Steve he was telling the truth, and staring at the blood on the ground, Steve wanted badly to believe him, because…well, he didn’t know why. He just wanted to think that even something as twisted as Loki of Asgard could make the decent choice once in a while.
“All right. You won’t divulge to anyone, on this planet or any other, that you are or will be here. In fact…” Was it too much? Pushing too far? He had to try. “You give me your word – your blood – that you won’t ever do anything to harm this planet or its inhabitants again. Ever. If you do, I’ll make personally sure this Thanos gets his revenge, even if he destroys us to do it. There won’t be a single rock in the universe where you can hide.”
Something passed through Loki’s eyes, and Steve was shocked: it was fear. Not the kind he felt toward Thor, but a primal terror deeper than anything but screaming.
Their eyes locked, green on blue, and despite the danger he knew he was courting, he held his ground.
Finally, Loki averted his gaze. “Very well. My word, my blood, binding as long as the Nine Realms turn round the Tree.”
“Good.”
Loki gave him another odd look, this time one of appraisal, his eyes sweeping slowly from Steve’s face down to his feet and back up again. Whatever he saw brought a small, appreciative smile to his face, and again Steve found himself taken aback – it was the most genuine expression Loki had shown him yet.
Even under the surprise, though, Steve couldn’t help but feel…unsettled. Something…that look had something under it that he didn’t know how to define. Loki was half-dead and on the run, living in constant terror of capture and now of recapture, yet he’d taken a moment to look at Steve like…
Suddenly feeling exposed, Steve said, “You should rest. I don’t know how long it takes you guys to come back from being ripped open, but I’m guessing a good night’s sleep would help.”
Appraisal had turned into tired but perceptible amusement. Of course Loki would like watching him squirm. In fact that was probably the whole reason he’d given Steve the look in the first place, to make him uncomfortable, to regain the upper hand.
He turned to go, and had almost reached the door when he heard, “Oh, and Captain…”
Steve paused but didn’t turn around. “What?”
“I think the phrase you’re looking for is ‘undressing you with my eyes.’”
It felt like someone had poured lava down his back – Steve knew he was turning bright red, and took off without looking back, not stopping until he was at the training rooms and could find something to hit.
My associate here has been telling me how pretty he thinks you are…
Blue light, filling his vision, banishing everything but the driving need to work his will upon the Earth, to strike back at those his brother loved, to bathe the planet’s curvaceous landscape with blood and scour it naked with fire.
Dire consequences awaited whether he won or lost. Wherever the Tesseract landed it would be the end of him, he knew. But that changed nothing. He had chosen this path and he could not turn back.
There was nowhere else to go.
Pain. Pain so bound up with pleasure there was no end or beginning to either. Shame, rage. Provoked and tormented until blue ice erupted from his skin and they stood over him laughing. Laughing at the pretense, the lie. Laughing that he could even claim Asgard as his homeworld when he was not, had never been, Asgardian.
Which time was this? So many nights in one form of bondage or another had run together in his memory, it was as though he existed in one interminable darkness, falling, always falling, through that dark and toward…nothing. There was never anything waiting for him but more dark.
But then something changed. Warmth surrounded him, the strength of an embrace that would stand between him and the universe, unflinching even at the breaking of time.
“Shhh…it’s all right. It’s just a dream. I’m here…”
What in…
Lips covered his, so soft and welcoming that the nightmare popped like a soap bubble and only a quiet dark remained…a restful dark, like the long cool twilight on Asgard when he and Thor would fall asleep leaning against each other watching the stars come out, and Frigga would carry one son slung over one shoulder, the other on the other shoulder, off to bed with a tousle of their still-sun-warmed hair.
He reached up and caught the neck of the one kissing him, returned the favor almost desperately. Wake me up. Take me out of this place. Stay.
Stay with me.
His eyes opened, and confusion set in. Where was this? The ceiling he stared up at was not the palace, or the fetid cave where the Chitauri mercenaries had dragged him. It was industrial, with the mineral-heavy tang of an underground room. There were machines whirring and chirping softly to themselves up near his head.
He lacked the energy to strike out even if anyone had attacked, but did manage to sit up this time, pushing up on his hands with great effort to see the wreckage of his body and, beyond that, a pane of glass separating his cell from the hallway.
Ah, yes. Midgard. The Avengers’ lair, where he was now a captive, and likely to remain so for…however long. He hadn’t thought much past getting here and convincing Rogers to let him stay. Acting out of fear almost always led to bad decisions.
He reached back into the dream for that last moment and tried to figure out what had happened. Nightmares never ended that way. They ended when agony or terror broke through into the waking world and he sat bolt upright and stabbed whomever was closest. Not once could he ever recall being…
Kissed awake? By whom?
Clearly there was no one here for real, but –
“Hello, brother.”
His heart sank.
Thor stepped into his line of vision, still beyond the glass but filling up the hallway with the sheer weight of his presence.
“Well I know you didn’t kiss me,” Loki said, trying to sound sarcastic but mostly just hitting “tired.”
Thor’s brow knitted. Perhaps he thought it was some sort of Earth euphemism he hadn’t caught onto yet.
“No flowers?” Loki asked.
For a long moment Thor just stood there, watching him. He seemed to have aged imperceptibly since their last meeting. Loki imagined he had too – he had avoided mirrors for a while.
Finally Thor said, almost to himself, “You let me think you dead…again.”
“I did.”
“I mourned you…again. And this time not as a foe, but as someone who had saved my life, helped save Jane’s…and by extension all of Asgard.”
“So I’m a hero now?”
“Absolutely not.” Thor crossed his arms, a touch defensive. “Not to the thousands who died at the hands of the Chitauri, or those who died directly by your hand. Not to Phil, son of Coul.”
“Who?”
Thor just made a dismissive gesture. “I would rattle off a list of all the dead if I thought it would matter to you. But I would ask you this, and in memory of all we have been through together and all our years as brothers, perhaps you might answer honestly.”
“Ask, and we’ll see.”
“Did you plan it from the beginning? Faking your death, imprisoning Father?”
Loki looked at him for a moment, considering. “Which answer have you come for? If I say I did – that all of it was a careful machination, from the moment you walked into the dungeon to bargain with me until you left me for dead in the wastelands – would you feel righteous, knowing I was the villain all along? And if I say I didn’t, that I saw an opportunity to free myself from a life being hunted across the galaxy and I took it, would you think perhaps there was hope?”
“It does not matter what I want to hear. Tell me the truth.”
He was used to Thor getting angry, thundering a bit, even taking a swing. He wasn’t used to this Thor – an older Thor, a quieter one, aged by grief and the toll of war, gentled by love, burdened with responsibility but happy to bear it all the same. The naïve warrior who charged into battle whooping with joy had been and gone, long ago. This was, perhaps, the Thor that Odin had seen in his elder…his son…and hoped to see emerge to take the throne.
Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself, came Frigga’s voice, in that soft tone she reserved for the boy born of their sworn enemy, a boy she had loved anyway, the way only a mother could.
“I did not plan it,” Loki finally said, unable to summon the fire to burn Thor. He had a momentary reprieve here in the Avengers’ prison, and he had to conserve his strength. “I was hunted. I thought, when you led me out of the dungeon, that I could find a way to fix that, at least for a while.”
“Then why trap Father? Why take his place?”
“Why not? It was what I wanted. I wanted to rule. And I did. Then I got bored.”
Thor completely ignored the ire in his tone, apparently hearing something in the words that Loki did not intend. “But you did not kill him. You could have. It would have been easier – you would not have used as much magic, and could have maintained the illusion much longer. So why?”
Loki started to snap back, but Thor went on. “And why rule so quietly? You had all of Asgard at your disposal. You could have sent the entire army out after those who chased you, spent their ranks in a sea of blood. But by all accounts – even Father’s – the two years of your rule were peaceful, and nothing in your behavior set off the slightest alarm.”
“I never said I wanted to subjugate Asgard. I wanted what was mine, what would have been mine if Odin had not snatched me—“
“But when Father found you the Jotuns had left you to die—“
“And he should have let me!”
Loki froze, heart pounding. He wanted so badly to pretend he hadn’t just said that, but the grief on Thor’s face was too deep to deny. Damn him. Damn him for always knowing how to pull the truth from anyone just by being such a gullible, lovable fool.
“Damn it, why aren’t you angry?” Loki demanded. “Where is that rage that split the sky? All my lies and manipulation, all the death and destruction, all of that, and you still grow teary-eyed over my brokenness.”
Thor smiled, just a little, nearly laughed. “Brother,” he said quietly, “I have lost the ability to rage at you. I have seen more than you think you have shown, and I have learned much since those days. If we cannot be friends, or even allies, at least know this: you have been, and still are, loved, whether you feel it or not. And I hope one day that you will feel it – you claim to have a black heart, but I know what lies within that blackness. I hope someone will see it, someday, and make you understand you are not what you hate yourself for.”
He had no idea how to respond to that, but luckily he didn’t have to. Footsteps headed down the stairs into the dungeon – he’d heard one of the medical staff call it the Zoo, which seemed fitting enough – and Captain Steve Rogers appeared, in his red white and blue uniform without the hood, holding his enchanted shield, the very picture of a hero looking for a damsel to save.
“Thor – is everything okay? JARVIS sent up an alert that his vitals were spiking and said there was a lot of loud noise in here.”
Thor didn’t look away from Loki. “We are fine, Steve Rogers. Thank you for coming to help.”
Rogers turned to face the glass. “Causing trouble already?”
Again, Loki started to say something cutting, but the words died before they left his brain…because he was staring, unable to stop…
“What?” Rogers asked.
That lower lip. That mouth.
That voice. Imagining it night-dark and whispering. Shhh…it’s just a dream.
“Get out,” Loki managed. “Both of you. Leave me be.”
“Loki—“
“Out!”
Thor sighed. “Very well. We would not want you to injure yourself. But I will return.”
Promise or threat? No real way to tell.
Rogers was frowning at him. “Is there anything you need?”
The answer almost, almost got past his defenses, but he managed to hold it back and avoid shaming himself again today. “No. I just want to be left alone.”
“All right.” He seemed to fight with himself about something, and stopped. “Look, I…I don’t want to make things worse, but…I just have to know…”
“What?” Loki asked, suddenly unable to stay upright any longer. He sagged back into the pillows of what was, he had to admit, a rather comfortable bed, especially for a prison.
The Captain continued to look torn, but now there was a slight flush over his ears – embarrassment. Interest piqued, Loki shifted so that he could see Rogers better without having to sit up. “Speak, human.”
Rogers almost smiled. “Last night I had this weird dream, and you were in it. I’d say it was nothing, but…it felt different from a regular dream. More real. I just have to ask…”
“If I put it in your head.”
“Yeah. Did you?”
Had he? Probably not, at least not intentionally. He wanted to ask what the dream had been, but he was afraid he might already know, and having that confirmed would be a little too much to process immediately after his conversation with Thor. “I do not believe so, no.”
Rogers held his gaze for a moment, looking for something. Then he nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”
“My ability to influence minds directly is very weak without the Scepter,” Loki confessed, not sure why he was doing so. “Its power enabled me to crack open and use the minds of others. Without it that power is denied me. Most of my illusions are visual, not subconscious. Smoke and mirrors, as they say. If I were to crawl into your head at night, I would need…”
“Need what?” the Captain asked warily.
“An invitation,” Loki replied, slipping just a little silk into the words, just to see if he could make Rogers blush as furiously as he had the night before.
Steve looked away, and sure enough, there went his ears. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned to leave again, this time actually reaching the stairs, and said as he departed, “I guess it’s comforting to know there are some things even you can’t do, at least not without an Infinity Stone.”
That time Loki did sit bolt upright.
Days passed in their usual rhythm. Wake, eat, train, train, train, eat, sleep, repeat. He hadn’t been on a real mission in weeks, which should have been a relief – he was a little weary of being in mortal jeopardy every other day, or having to snatch his friends from its jaws.
But being at the base was a little odd right now. It was difficult to walk around just acting like everything was normal when he was constantly aware of who was living beneath his feet.
It seemed like everyone else had gotten used to having Loki in the Zoo pretty quickly. Only Barton had a bad reaction; he refused to set foot in the Zoo again as long as Loki was there. That was easy enough to accommodate. Steve would never have forced him to go down there. It was bad enough having to make the doctors go, even though they hadn’t complained about the hazard pay.
Everyone said basically the same thing: Loki was a model prisoner. He was imperious, of course, and as much of a jackass as ever except without all the murder, but he made few demands, and almost no noise. At first that wasn’t so hard to believe; Loki had been in sorry shape, and even Thor had agreed that a few more hours and it would have been too late to save him.
By now he should have been getting bored. Steve hated to imagine what the consequences of Loki’s boredom would be if he were at full strength. The only request he’d made was for books – any kind, any age, any language. There was something of a library on base, made up of part of Fury’s old collection and the combined shelves of a few other staffers who didn’t have enough room in their quarters. It was pretty diverse, but it didn’t take two weeks for Loki to finish all of them – the ones he hadn’t already read.
Steve wanted to ask how he did that. Several of them were in pretty obscure dialects. But something kept him from going into the Zoo. The thought of taking those steps left him uneasy.
So he asked Thor.
The Asgardian smiled. He seemed awfully happy these days; apparently something in his conversation with Loki had made him hopeful that they might work things out somehow. Steve didn’t argue with him. Hadn’t he made the same arguments about Bucky? Didn’t he believe in redemption? He couldn’t just apply it to his own friends and not to his enemies.
Besides, he’d seen…
And that dream…
Stop thinking about the dream, damn it.
Such an absurd dream to have, too. He didn’t remember the beginning, but he remembered hearing screams of fear and pain and running to help. Hardly the first time that had happened. Usually when he dreamed that, it ended badly – the person he was trying to reach was already dead, or turned out to be Bucky, or Natasha, or even Tony.
This time, though, he was running to Loki.
He remembered bursting into the Zoo, where a cluster of medics and a few Avengers were gathered in a tense knot, too afraid to go closer but morbidly fascinated at seeing their enemy fall apart. Steve had snarled at them to leave – enemy or not, he wasn’t a sideshow freak. Even the worst person should have some dignity left to them, not because that person was good, but because they were good, and sometimes the line between good and evil was just a tiny spark of compassion.
Everything was blurry and misty, but he remembered finding Loki in the corner, and…
…he was blue.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or just the weirdness of dreams, but for a second Loki’s skin appeared deep, cold blue, like the Arctic Ocean. There were irregular ridges up and down his arms that looked almost like ice crystals.
When Steve laid a hand on his shoulder, he was cold. Between one heartbeat and the next it all changed though, and his bare skin was pale again, snow instead of sea.
“Hey,” Steve said, drawing Loki close. “Shh…it’s all right. It’s just a dream. I’m here…you’re safe.”
Steve woke just after the kissing started…and he couldn’t help feeling cheated.
Okay, so, maybe the mystery as to why he didn’t want to go into the Zoo wasn’t so much a mystery as it was denial.
Denial of what, exactly?
“…languages,” Thor was saying, and he jolted out of his reverie…if he could call it that…and snapped back to attention.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Thor gave him an odd, sidelong sort of smile, but merely repeated himself without further commentary: “It is not an Asgardian trait. It is just Loki, as far as I know. Ever since he could pick up a book he has had one nearby – usually five or six all at once. Our mother taught him how to decipher other tongues, treating them like puzzles, games. She was…brilliant, our mother.”
“Sounds like he’s pretty brilliant too.”
Again, that look. “Yes. I think it was that restless mind, that yearning for knowledge, that got him into so much trouble. I wasn’t clever enough to be truly mischievous, only brash and thick-headed.”
Steve had to smile at that. He liked thinking about the two brothers, one big and brawny and the other small and graceful, getting into trouble like any other boys. He could still sometimes see that kid in Thor. Could Thor see it in Loki? Was that why he couldn’t give up?
“Oh, come on, you’re not thick-headed – well you are, but…in a very literal way.”
Thor laughed outright, a hearty sound that was difficult not to answer in kind. “Perhaps not. I like to think I have grown…more perceptive…as time has passed.”
Steve very nearly asked what he was talking about – three times, that look, three times in as many sentences – but it occurred to him that, given who they were talking about, he probably didn’t want to know.
He realized, though, as he was heading back to the building thinking vaguely of dinner, that he was being a coward. He had absolutely nothing to fear from Loki; everyone else on the entire property would have argued with him on that, but he felt in his bones that it was true. They’d made a bargain. Doing anything to harm Steve would count as harming Earth. Maybe Thor was right about vows being so important to their people and maybe he wasn’t, but Steve knew that plain old self-preservation would make Loki abide by the deal at least until he was recovered enough to go back on the run.
So he had nothing to fear, but he was still afraid.
That was just ridiculous.
The first thing he noticed, upon reaching the stairway down to the Zoo, was that he could hear music.
Thankfully it wasn’t opera, just classical – a waltz, he thought. He never had learned how to dance, but he recognized the beat.
He peered into the cell expecting to see its inhabitant in bed, but no, Loki was up and dressed in remarkably Asgardian-looking casual clothes, sitting cross-legged in the single armchair, a gigantic leather-bound book open on his lap, one arm draped elegantly over the arm and holding what turned out, on closer approach, to be something from Starbucks.
“Where did you get that?”
Loki lifted his head, expression betraying no surprise. “Captain,” he said smoothly. “I wasn’t sure I would see you again. You seemed….discomfited…by your last visit.”
“Answer the question.”
A lifted eyebrow, and he regarded the cup in his hand. “I didn’t break out and back in, if that’s what you are asking. One of the nurses brought it to me. We had engaged in conversation about how dreadful the coffee is here on the base. Surely you do not think I would jeopardize my position here for a latte.”
Steve knew he was overreacting, but honestly, he didn’t know how not to overreact with Loki around. “All right. Just don’t start extorting favors from people – if you want something ask for it.”
Their eyes met, and a hot stone of anxiety dropped into Steve stomach that Loki was about to ask for exactly what he did want, and whatever it was it would make Steve’s head explode.
Possibly literally.
“Aside from an interrogation about my beverage, was there something you wanted?”
Steve had no idea how to answer that. If he were to confess that he’d only come down here to prove to himself he wasn’t afraid…yet he was standing here scared witless, only not of Loki himself, but of…no, there was no way.
“I just…wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m not causing any trouble, Captain, you needn’t worry that lovely head of yours.”
“That’s not what I mean. I wanted to see how you were. You.”
A frown, a touch of surprise. “Why?”
“Is it really that strange for someone to ask after your welfare?”
Loki didn’t hesitate. “Yes, it is.”
He couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Everyone should be important to someone.”
Now he lowered his eyes, looking up at Steve through silvery lashes while ostensibly paging through the book. “So I am important to you.”
“That’s not what I—“
“Have you had the dream again?”
“The one with you in it? Um…no.”
That was not a lie, but it wasn’t entirely true either. He hadn’t had that same exact dream, but he’d had others, and they were…worse. Far worse. He’d woken up sweating and disoriented twice this week alone, his entire body taut as a bowstring, hands tangled up in the blankets looking for…something.
Good God.
“Are you sure you’re not doing it?” Steve blurted. “Sending the dreams.”
Loki snapped the book shut and deposited it on the top of the pile by his chair, then leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I give you my word, Captain Rogers. I am not causing…wait, you’ve had more than one?”
A half-dozen curses flew through Steve’s mind. “Um…I…okay, yeah. I have. Five, including the first one. But the first one was the only one that seemed…real. The rest I knew were just dreams as soon as I woke up.”
He could see Loki deciding something before he said, “Tell me, then, if this sounds familiar: you hear or otherwise detect me having a nightmare down here, and come to my aid, waking me with…affection.”
“I knew it,” Steve said, anger boiling hot up his spine. Lucky for the prisoner he didn’t have any weapons at the moment. “I knew this was your doing.”
“It is not. Or at least, if it is, I don’t know how it is.”
“And I should believe that because…”
For once, there was no artifice in Loki’s face or his voice, only quiet sincerity as he said, “I had the same dream, on the same night.”
That was a possibility he hadn’t considered. “Do you think someone else caused both?”
“I have no idea. The only theory I have depends upon a question: Where is the Infinity Stone you mentioned weeks ago?”
“You know what they are.”
“Of course I do. Your planet is the backwater, not mine. I confess, however…I did not know there was one inside the Scepter.”
“How could you not know?”
“I never asked, never wanted to know. I assumed it was tethered to the Tesseract as Thanos said – and he spoke truly, to a point. All of the Stones are linked to one another; they will always, always seek each other out. I believe, now that I have had time to consider it, that Thanos was counting on that – he wanted the Tesseract, but to be sure it was found he sent the only other Stone he had to search for it. The two drew each other through space and time to meet here on Midgard.”
“But he didn’t tell you he was sending you off to war with something that important.”
“If he had, do you think I would have taken it back to him? An Infinity Stone in my grasp…had I known, I would have vanished with it. His lunatic obsession had already cost me dearly. Now I wonder…”
Something hollow and haunted moved through Loki’s eyes, and Steve had a flash of memory – that day at Stark Tower, the things Loki had murmured as he lay bleeding on the floor. Your plaything.
“This Thanos…did he torture you?”
“Ah, we come to it, then. I can see it in your eyes, Captain – that need to prove to yourself that there is something redeemable in me, just as Thor would do. Perhaps you think that Thanos compelled me to act. Forced me to take up the Scepter and lead his army to your world. I would hate to disillusion you…I do so enjoy your innocence.”
“I’m not innocent. I’ve fought in wars, I’ve had blood on my hands.”
“But that sense of right and wrong…you are a noble creature, and a rare thing in any realm, let alone this one. A believer in justice and fairness – otherwise I would not be alive right now, would I?”
“What’s your point, Loki?”
The haunted shadow moved through again. He averted his eyes this time, and said after a silent pause, “I speak not of innocence of bloodshed. I speak of that golden light you carry beneath your skin – a magic of its own, though most would not call it that. You have seen and done things that would leave most men jaded, bereft of any faith. Yet faith you keep, and you inspire it in others. You are in pain. You hardly ever smile. There is a deep well of grief in you that threatens to drown you at any moment. And yet…”
Steve could barely breathe. He had without meaning to moved closer to the glass and was gripping the frame of one of its panels, fortunately not hard enough to crack it. He didn’t have a clue how to react to those words, but every inch of his skin seemed to have decided its own course already. That strange liquid heat returned and redoubled.
“You still…still haven’t gotten to the point, or I don’t think I heard one.” He barely managed to get that out without stammering like a teenager with a crush.
That thought was so accurate he almost choked on it.
“The point? I suppose it is just that I have dealt with mortals often, and none of them have been like you. Oh, they may start off with noble intent, but inch by inch it is bled dry. You have bled, yet still you fight, not because of obligation, but because of compassion. In my view of humanity, of life in general, that should not be possible. Even you should be corruptible, that nobility breakable. I should want to crush you beneath my heel and prove you cannot possibly be what you seem to be…but I find that you are, undoubtedly, the last mortal I could imagine hurting now, and moreover…you are, in a word…beautiful.”
He has to be hypnotizing me. That voice…God, anyone would fall for that. He doesn’t mean any of it – this is Loki, for God’s sake. He’s messing with your mind.
“I told you I cannot do that without the Scepter,” Loki said mildly. “Though I can see what you are thinking well enough without any magic at all.”
“I don’t…I should go. Am going.”
His shaky words earned him a slow, almost wicked smile, but not one relishing violence or death, just…teasing him. A wolf on the scent, reveling in the chase.
“You should know, Captain…” Their eyes met one more time, and Steve saw that the smile was completely genuine and, even more astonishing, held a kind of amused vulnerability in it, as if acknowledging the sheer absurdity of the situation.
Don’t ask don’t ask don’t ask oh hell why not we’re down the damn rabbit hole already- “I should know what?”
Mirth, impishness, coupled with something he fought not to name, though Steve knew exactly what it was because, damn it all, he was feeling it too:
“I enjoy making you blush,” Loki told him, “almost as much as I enjoy dreaming about your mouth.”
It turned out that was all Steve could take.
Cowardice, courage, to hell with it all.
He fled.
*****
If anyone noticed his lousy mood the rest of the week, they didn’t comment on it, though he did catch a couple of people looking at him worriedly. Him being all business was normal, but he usually communicated in more than one syllable at a time.
Still, they all had their black clouds. No one on the team had gotten through life without scars.
Sam, however, wasn’t the kind of guy to let things be, especially if it might affect the team.
“Hey, man…need some help with that?”
Steve shot him a look over the stack of gym mats he was moving from one side of the room to the other with one arm. “Seriously? That’s how you’re going to come at me, Sam?”
“Not coming at you, just making sure you’re okay. Short-red-and-weird is acting all skittish like she’s afraid she pissed you off, and you know how things tend to blow up when she’s freaking out.”
Steve sighed, dropped the mats with a satisfying thump. “I’ll talk to her. She didn’t do anything. None of you did, I’m just…”
He had to say something. There had to be someone who knew at least part of it. Keeping stuff bottled was bad news in their line of work, and they’d had enough bad news already.
“Okay, let me ask you a question. Hypothetically and off the record.”
“This is gonna be good. Go for it.”
“You know how…” Steve groped after words for a minute, but Sam showed no sign of impatience. He was like that, able and willing to wait completely motionless for hours for the right moment to strike. He almost never lost his cool or even raised his voice. Everyone around HQ seemed to like him, and he liked most everyone unless they forced him not to. Asking him to join in while they continued their fruitless search for the Winter Soldier had been a good call…not just for the team, but for Steve.
“You know how sometimes you meet someone, and you have this…electricity hit you, almost like being hit by lightning?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “You got the hots for Thor? Can’t say I blame you. Dude got abs you could climb up and plant a flag in.”
“No, no…” Steve knew he was turning pink again – why did that keep happening? He wasn’t the blushing type. But Sam was close enough to the mark that it knocked his brain off kilter for a second. “No, I told you, hypothetical.”
“All right, we’ll go with that. But for the sake of full disclosure…right after we met, I did some reading up on you – I wanted to know who I was getting to be friends with apart from all the alien fighting drama. I had this feeling like I was gonna wind up on some crazy-ass quest with you so I wanted to know how nervous to be. And there was some stuff I read, mostly rumors, but more than one source, that got me wondering.”
Steve took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “You mean people talking about Bucky. How I had to be sleeping with him to be willing to sneak over enemy lines and bust him out.”
“That part I figured was crap. You didn’t just go there after him, after all, and I don’t think even you have the stamina to get down with 400 guys.”
“But something makes you wonder if there was more to it, all the same.”
“Yeah. It’s not a problem,” Sam said firmly. “I just don’t want you to think it would be. Letting someone have my back has nothing to do with where they’re sleeping.”
“Okay.”
Steve’s stomach clenched with fear at the knowing look Sam gave him, but all Sam said was, “All I mean is, if we’re actually talking about a guy, you don’t have to do the pronoun dance.”
“Um…thanks, Sam. I…appreciate that. Let’s…let’s just be generic for now.”
A shrug. “Whatever gets you there, man. So: lightning. Basically we’re talking hardcore chemistry. Lust. Right?”
“Yeah. But have you ever…gotten hit by lightning from someone that’s…just…a really, really bad idea?”
Did he imagine Sam’s eyebrow quirking slightly? “Well sure – that’s why it’s lightning. It sets shit on fire – even shit that shouldn’t burn. Once in a while you find somebody and there’s something that hits you along with the lightning, something that lasts. But usually anything that hot is gonna burn out quickly.”
“So in that situation you’d just wait it out? Keep your distance?”
A laugh. “You don’t know a damn thing about this stuff, do you. You sure you’re not a virgin?”
This time, at least, he didn’t blush. “Pretty sure, Sam. I just didn’t get much practice as I would’ve liked.”
“The thing about the thunderbolt is, it’s like any kind of ignition. As long as it’s got fuel it’ll keep burning. Don’t try to starve it; repressed feelings just make it worse. But everybody deserves to get caught up in something really hot once in a while. Even you, Cap. If you walk away from the fire it’ll burn out of control. You have to face it, deal with it up front. Know what you’re looking at, where it’s coming from, what it wants from you. Then you can indulge or not. Your head will say stuff, your heart will say the opposite, but go with your gut on this.”
A bit dazed from the long spate of words – Sam was a fantastic listener but usually tended toward fewer sentences in his replies – Steve thanked him.
Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, Cap. People go for it every day and the world doesn’t end. It won’t if you do.”
Steve wished he could say that Sam might be wrong this time, but he couldn’t get the words out. That was all right, though. Sam gave his shoulder a brotherly squeeze and then headed off to whatever his next task was for the day.
Steve wanted time alone to just sit and think, but to his dismay, he arrived at his quarters to find a familiar black-leather-clad redhead sitting with her feet up on his desk.
“Tash,” he said. “Didn’t we have a deal about you breaking into my room?”
She didn’t say anything at first, just watched him. He wished he’d had the opportunity to act on those flirty moments during the fall of SHIELD; surely sleeping with an international spy would be less complicated than…other things. But by the time he’d realized he liked the idea, and might actually be in a place to at least ask her out, he’d seen her casting her web around Banner…and seen, reluctantly, that the feeling was mutual. He’d never seen her put herself in such a vulnerable position. It had to be serious. Since Ultron, since the Hulk had vanished, she’d been subdued in ways most people wouldn’t notice.
He shrugged and sat down on the couch to pull off his boots. “Are you here to talk to me, or…?”
Another short pause before she said, “You know why I’m here.”
He avoided her eyes. “Look, I know I’ve been in a bad mood all week – Sam already told me that I need to talk to Wanda. I’ve got it handled, Tash.”
“I really don’t think you do, Steve. If you did you wouldn’t be acting like you don’t know what this is about.”
“I don’t—“
“One of the tasks Fury assigned me was to review the security footage of the Zoo.”
Steve went very still, waiting.
“Care to imagine what caught my eye Tuesday night?”
“Tash…it was nothing. Just…flirting. That’s all.”
She actually snorted.
“Steve,” she said, sitting forward, “the guy had you practically gagging for it and there was six inches of solid glass between you. The look on your face – it reminded me of Clint. Of Selvig.”
“You think I’ve been compromised. That Loki has me under a spell. He can’t do that stuff without the Scepter, Tash, or at least without the Stone inside it. That Stone is planted in the middle of Vision’s forehead. There’s no chance he could lay a hand on it.”
“No,” Natasha said calmly. “I don’t think you’re under a spell. Not that kind, anyway. But there’s more than one way to mesmerize someone. They don’t call him Silvertongue for nothing.”
The mental image that epithet brought up unfortunately had nothing to do with talking, and he had to look anywhere but at Tash, shifting uncomfortably on the couch.
“You think I’m gullible.”
“No, Steve…I think you’re falling for our archenemy.”
“Falling – Tash, it’s not like that. It’s just a chemistry thing. No physics involved.”
She took another moment to just watch him. Then she said, “Did you ever hear that fable about the guy who found a snake about to drown in a flood, and he was going to just walk away, but the snake begged for his help and promised not to bite him? He gave in and picked up the snake, and just as he set it down on safe ground, it bit him anyway. He said to the snake, how could you, you promised, and the snake said—“
“You knew I was a snake when you picked me up,” Steve finished. “You don’t think people can change.”
“People? Maybe. Everybody’s got something good in them – no, don’t smirk, I really do believe that. Even terrorists love their grandmothers. And you might be able to tap into that, and he might let you. It might even be real. But you can’t ever trust him. A snake is a snake.”
Tash rolled the desk chair back and got up, straightening her leather jacket, her sidearm reassuringly in its usual place. “Look – this is you we’re talking about. You’re one of the most stable people in the hemisphere. Only a couple of us know you’ve lost your damn mind, and even we still trust your judgment. Just…don’t give me a reason to have to change my mind, okay? We need our Captain.”
He had to smile. “Thanks, Tash. Thank you for not completely freaking out on me.”
“I’m still in wait-and-see mode. If the time comes for freakout mode, tell your boy he’d better watch his back.”
My boy. Again, he got a chill at the words, but this time Tash noticed. She sighed, shook her head, and left, muttering something about spaying and neutering one’s pets.
But before she was out in the hall, she looked back and said, “Just be careful, Cap. Like I said – we need you. I’d like it if we could have you happy. I’d really like that. But I’ll do whatever’s necessary to at least have you alive.”
He grinned. “You’re something else, Agent Romanov.”
She shot him a salute, rolled her eyes, blew a kiss, and vanished.
*****
Steve wanted to think he would be spared anyone else’s opinion on the matter, but he’d never been lucky.
The next day the Avengers were called out to deal with a possible terrorist cell working on a duplicate Ultron. Tony promised everyone it would be impossible for them to succeed without the schematics and algorithms in his own personal system – he’d destroyed much of his research willingly, but there were a few parts he said could be used in much less psychotic endeavors. His success with AI, however close it had come to blowing up the planet, was enough to encourage researchers all over the globe…and some of those researchers were trying not to avoid another Ultron, but to bring back the one they were sure was still alive out there somewhere.
Now they had to raid a small base in Ontario where a group of suspected Hydra castoffs was getting farther, faster, than they’d anticipated.
“What do we do with any tech we find?” Steve asked at the briefing. “Stark?”
Tony was looking thoughtful, had been all afternoon. “Huh? Oh, the tech. Right. Well, if we’re right about what they’re up to, we need to destroy it all. But don’t blow anything until I have a look at it – I don’t just want to see what they’re doing, I want to see how they approached the concept and hopefully how they managed to get his close to a working prototype.”
“You think they might have a piece of one of Ultron’s hench-bots,” Tash said.
“The thought did keep me up last night. Cause if there’s one out there, there’s more. We blew up a crapload of the bastards, but there might have been defective models, models with injuries that they planned to refit, that kind of thing. One or two might’ve hit the ground in good enough shape to work from – like the Chitauri weapons SHIELD kept confiscating.”
For once, luck was with them – the group hoarding the various cyborg bits wasn’t much on military tactics, and looked more like a high school chess club than a terrorist cell. They’d found pieces of one of the bots after the battle, and were trying to put them back together to see if they could make the thing come alive again.
Steve had to smile a little at their earnestness; they might be lying, sure, but at least on the surface they were just geeky kids who’d had a huge gift from the Robot Fairy.
Natasha ran background on all of them and came up with exactly what it looked like. Steve had seen plenty of scientists get so into the idea of discovery that they ignored the outside world and all possible consequences. It was kind of a hallmark of the breed…but since Hydra, and Ultron, it made him uneasy.
They confiscated the tech and Steve watched as Tony dropped it from height and incinerated it with one of his palm repulsors. That was a relief, as much as taking the twisted metal and circuitry from the kids; he didn’t like questioning Tony’s honesty, and he wanted to believe that Stark was satisfied with Vision’s existence and didn’t want to try again…but that doubt remained.
“Hey Cap.” Tony dropped down next to him in the QuinJet. He’d hitched a ride rather than flying to check on something involving his armor, but would most likely jump out when they got close to Manhattan. “How’s it going?”
Steve looked at him with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on, Tony?”
“Oh, I just wondered if you were fucking crazy.”
Even with all his training and discipline, Steve’s temper flared up. “I’m not fucking anybody, Tony, and I’d appreciate it if all of you would—“
“Whoa!” Tony was genuinely taken aback, but barked a laugh after a second. “Language, Cap! And I meant, are you fucking crazy not taking those kids in for interrogation. They were awfully cagey about where they got that bot.”
Steve let out a breath. “I’m not an idiot, Tony. Natasha ran them through the system and got nothing. There was a satellite image of one of the Ultra-minions falling in this area, and it didn’t register any power signs until they started messing with it. There are trackers on all their vehicles and I’m almost 100% sure Tash planted a bug in their garage – right Tash?”
From the cockpit, he heard, “Second we got there.”
“So no, I’m not crazy. I genuinely don’t think they’re a threat – not like those guys in Warsaw, or that biomedical engineering think tank in LA. We can’t treat everyone like the enemy.”
“Huh.” Tony nodded and produced a foil bag of cashews – honey roasted, based on the smell. He never seemed to stop snacking. “Cashew?”
“No thanks.”
There was a moment of silence before Tony said, “You know I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say ‘fuck’.”
“Well I hope you enjoyed it.”
“Something’s got your spangles in a bunch, Cap…and it’s not dumb kids with robots.”
“You’re not about to give me advice, are you? Because no offense, Tony – you’re a good guy, and I know I can count on you by now, but when it comes to lifestyle decisions you’re not exactly my idol.”
A grin. “God I hope not. Nobody’s lucky enough to have been as stupid as me and still come out this awesome. All I’m saying is, the worst I usually get out of you is ‘gosh darn it,’ so whatever’s up must be pretty serious. Girl trouble?”
Steve couldn’t help it; he actually laughed. “I wish.” He gave Tony a smile. “I’d like to have problems like normal people for once.”
“Well if it’s a lifestyle thing I can give you one piece of advice: if it feels right, go for it.”
“Like I said, you’re—“
“Not if it feels good, Captain. Screwing my way down the Playboy Top 20 felt good, but moving in with Pepper felt right. See the difference?”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”
Stark jumped shortly thereafter; Steve didn’t really notice exactly when. Steve’s mind was chewing on all the advice, both solicited and not, he’d been handed lately, trying to work it all into something cohesive.
No such luck. One thing was sure, though: if he went by Tony’s advice, he’d never set foot in the Zoo again. The thought felt good, but it sure as hell didn’t feel right.
He had to ask himself if that might be part of the appeal.
Late that night, after hours of staring at the ceiling, Steve finally drifted off…but not into rest. He drifted directly to where he didn’t want to go again.
Image after image, sensation after sensation, clamoring to be seen and felt and understood:
Teeth scraping lightly along his neck, biting down on one earlobe…he gasped, and there was a soft, low chuckle at his ear. “Surrender to me, Captain…just for an hour, let yourself feel…let yourself desire…you don’t have to be a hero for me."
Wrists pinned above his head…whisper-light touches gliding down his sides…slowly shifting inward, over one hip…”Do you want this?”
“Yes…Oh God, yes…harder…”
He sat up in bed panting, chest heaving over a thundering heartbeat, so painfully aroused he was light-headed. He half expected to look over and see he wasn’t alone in bed – to see that indolent smile, cool green eyes touched with something otherworldly as well as something…something very, very worldly.
What the hell was going on? If Loki wasn’t doing this – and Steve remained sure he wasn’t, purely going by his gut – how could it be happening? Like the first, this dream didn’t feel like forbidden attraction seeking an outlet in his sleep. Both dreams had a weight to them, so much more texture and so many more layers. Normally he remembered dreams by what he saw, or heard; any other information was incidental. But these…these had scent, the air was warm, he could taste skin under his tongue.
He was up and dressed before he could stop himself, and took the stairs two at a time, intending to burst in demanding to know what was going on.
At the landing, he froze.
The three occupied cells were all dark, except for the low-level lights that never went out. The hallway running from one end of the Zoo to the other was slightly brighter, but there were controls that made the glass let in less light during the nighttime hours. That change in illumination was really the only way the inmates knew the passage of time unless they requested a clock.
The nearest cell was dark, too, and as he moved closer he could see an inert form in bed exactly where it should be. What made him draw up, though, was who he saw outside the cell, standing there watching Loki with an unreadable expression.
Or rather, floating.
And really, Vision’s expression was always unreadable.
“Good evening, Captain Rogers.”
Steve came to stand next to him, leaving a few feet of space. “Sir.”
“Are you having difficulty sleeping, Captain?”
“I guess. What brings you down here? Do you even sleep?”
“I have tried it a few times, to learn its appeal. As far as I can tell it is not a necessity for me as it is for you.”
“So why come here?”
Vision was quiet for a moment. Conversations with him tended to be full of long pauses. “I find myself drawn to this prisoner.”
“You do?” Steve felt a stab of mindless hope – if it wasn’t just him, then –
“I believe it is the MindStone. It seeks out those who have been under its sway – I have, how did he put it, given Agent Barton the creeps, showing up at his location without intending to several times.”
“Under its sway. Are you telling me that Loki was being controlled by it just like they were?”
“Not controlled, Captain, no. He has spoken of a creature who desires to possess all of the Infinity Stones – I believe that this creature used the Stone to amplify thoughts of betrayal and vengeance, as well as to instill a deep fear reinforced by other forms of persuasion. Not control…influence, perhaps. He made his own choices, but from a heightened state of rage and pain.”
It was such a huge thought Steve had to sit down on one of the metal benches. “God.”
“Are you not well?”
Steve looked at him again, and whatever was on his face, Vision actually floated back a few inches in surprise. “If the Stone looks for people it’s influenced, does that mean it could affect them now? Or others, without you knowing it?”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
“Loki….we both had the same dream, and tonight I had another one. They don’t feel like regular dreams, though, but like visions – pardon the reference – or premonitions. Except they’re of things that can’t…won’t…shouldn’t happen.”
“What sort of things?”
If anyone on the base could keep a secret, it was this guy, so Steve just laid it out, and getting the words out was a phenomenal weight off his chest. “I dream about me, and Loki…in the first I comforted him after a nightmare. In the second, we were…in bed…together.” At the odd look, Steve asked, “You do know about sex, right?”
“Ah. Of course, Captain, forgive me. To my knowledge the Stone is not currently putting out any energy, merely seeking that which it already recognizes. I do not think unless it was being directed by something like the Scepter that it would cause dreams like you describe. That must be something else.”
“Then what could be doing it?”
“Dreamfasting,” came a quiet voice that made Steve start violently. Vision turned around, unperturbed but curious, and bowed politely as he did to most people.
Loki was out of bed, wearing a long black and green robe whose origin Steve could only guess at – maybe Thor had snuck him some clothes from home. He looked a thousand times better than he had last time, and the regal bearing had returned; slightly sleepy, but elegant and proud, raven-black hair falling in waves down to his shoulders.
In that one second, before rational thought had a chance to kick in, he was the most breathtaking thing Steve had ever seen.
Steve’s heart rate immediately flew into orbit, and he had to force himself to look away before he got caught in those eyes.
“My apologies,” Vision said. “I did not check the communication equipment before the Captain and I began speaking. It was not our intention to wake you.”
“No matter.” Loki was watching Steve, he could feel it, feel the Asgardian’s eyes traveling down over his neck, all the way down to the floor and back up. It wasn’t a particularly lecherous feeling – more like it might feel to be a piece of fine art…or maybe a dessert.
Steve found his voice, mostly. “What…what did you say? Dreamfasting? What is that?”
“Something my mother told us as children. It was an origin myth from a world long forgotten – that souls were made touching one another, and when they were parted to move into their bodies, those that had once touched were always looking for one another, in the dreamtime. As huge as the cosmos is, they find each other every day, for they will never be truly at peace apart.”
Steve stood back up, incredulous. “You think we’re soul mates? Because of a couple of dirty dreams?”
Loki’s expression darkened, and he snapped, “Don’t be an idiot, Captain – it’s a children’s story. But legends are based in truth – the lore speaks of dreamfasting a number of times, usually in the context of some great romantic nonsense. But the basic theory is sound: something causes two people’s minds to form a variation of quantum entanglement. Your Einstein called it ‘spooky action at a distance.’ A combination of factors, perhaps – proximity, attraction, who knows? But it isn’t some grand lovelorn destiny, just a magical curiosity.”
“But why me? Why us? We’d never even spoken more than five sentences and all of those were related to killing each other.”
“Why should I know any more than you?”
“Perhaps this is something we should investigate,” Vision said. “I am sure Mr. Stark—“
“No.” Steve heard the anger in his voice and added, more gently, “Sorry, I just don’t want anyone to know about this who doesn’t need to. Not yet. I don’t want anyone making more of it than it is.”
“And what is it, Captain?” Loki asked quietly, fixing him with a cold stare. “I should think you would be adamant about discerning the cause and eliminating any tie you might have to your archenemy…wouldn’t you?”
Vision looked from one of them to the other and came to some sort of conclusion. “I believe I shall allow the two of you to discuss this in semi-private,” he said. “I feel my presence may be worsening things.”
He had vanished before Steve could beg him not to.
He took a long, deep breath before returning his attention to the cell. Loki was still standing there, watching him as if Steve were the one being kept under glass, to be studied, examined…or toyed with, like a cat with a mouse. And while there was amusement in Loki’s face, watching his mouse wriggle and try to escape, there was something like apprehension as well.
“Do you think I am any happier about this than you are?” Loki demanded. “To be haunted in my sleep by the very emblem of my defeat on this planet, to crave the flesh of a weak, fragile little human the way my brother simpers after his scientist pet?”
The rancor in the words didn’t really touch Steve; it was about what he expected, after all. “Weak, fragile, and little. I haven’t been called any of those in a while.”
“It’s true – you are all weak children. You live and die in the space of a breath. To grasp any one of you thinking of a lifetime together is the ultimate self-deception.”
“Oh?” Steve moved closer to the glass, feeling suddenly defiant. When the only thing separating them was the pane, he asked, “If it’s so stupid, then why are you getting so defensive? And moreover why are you staring at me like you’re terrified I’ll open the door?”
Loki’s gaze lowered to the security panel just a few inches from Steve’s hand, then rose back up, a dare in their depths. “Do it.”
Steve knew he should back away. He knew that if he did anything, it would be on video and audio, and at the very least Tash would see.
He reached slowly toward the panel, pressing in his access code one careful, determined number at a time.
The glass pane slid sideways, and that feeling of being drowned in molten rock hit him again.
Neither spoke. Both lifted a hand, very slowly holding it up so their palms met where the glass had been.
Oh God.
He’d never felt anything like it. Oh, he’d felt fire with Peggy, and with a handful of others over the years when he wasn’t frozen, but never anything like this. They held each other’s eyes for a long, torturous moment, and he could actually hear Loki’s heart beating in his own ears as he pressed his hand more firmly forward, reveling in that moment of heat and pressure.
He wanted to say something. He wanted to say a hundred things. But there was no way – he could no more speak than he could walk out of the room without doing what he knew he had come here to do.
To avoid setting off any alarms Steve nudged his way into the cell, one step and then two, letting the pane of glass close behind him…just in case. He might have gone crazy but he hadn’t been struck stupid.
There, in the cell, there was no reason to deny it any longer. It was too late for that, too late for anything but his hands sliding up to grip Loki’s hips, Loki’s hand around his neck, the dizzying heat and limitless darkness as one mouth met the other…tentatively, at first, seeking permission…then, permission attained, falling into the fathomless depths of hunger.
Loki’s tongue slipped between his lips, and he groaned, sucking on it hard. The suction earned a gasp from the Asgardian, who clearly wasn’t expecting the Captain to be the aggressor; that just made Steve’s blood run hotter, and he shoved Loki up against the glass wall, pinning and kissing him simultaneously, with equal force and something verging on violence.
The fire was stealing his breath away. They ground into each other against the wall, neither able to stop clawing at the other. He felt his fingertips digging hard into Loki’s shoulders and the answering nails drawing blood from his upper arms. There was no stopping, no turning aside…before he knew what was happening it was his back slammed into the glass, a knee shoving hard between his thighs, the evidence of their mutual arousal too obvious for either to ignore.
Good…it felt so good. His eyes fluttered shut, and for just a few minutes he let himself have this, relaxing into it, as if nothing else – history, politics, good or evil, anything – existed beyond the silken skin beneath his hands or the faintly metallic sweetness in his mouth. Light, playful nips at his throat…maybe the cameras wouldn’t matter. Surely by the time anyone reached the Zoo he’d have turned to ash and collapsed into a pile on the floor.
“We can’t do this,” Steve managed. The words were hollow, of course, but for the sake of his own pride – not to mention his career – he had to at least put it out there.
“I regret to inform you, Captain…we already are.” Loki’s voice was a purr at his ear, and combined with a gentle bite to his earlobe nearly made Steve’s knees buckle. “But if you’d rather find someplace more private, I’m sure that can be arranged.”
He almost laughed. “Really? You think anyone’s going to let you out of this cell?”
A grin – one of sincere amusement, not a sneer or sarcasm. “Do you really think this cell ever had a chance of holding me?”
“Stark said it has—“
“No particular disrespect to your Mr. Stark – no more than usual, anyway. But he is a scientist in a world where scientists deny the reality of magic. Even a man with such a perceptive mind cannot out-spell a true sorcerer any more than I could build a metal man to take over the Earth.”
“Did you just say there’s something you can’t do?”
He chuckled, the vibration sending a shiver through Steve’s entire body. “Perhaps. Would you like to see what I can do?”
Their eyes met. “God, yes,” Steve exhaled just before Loki took his mouth again.
“CAPTAIN ROGERS, REPORT TO ROOM SEVEN. NOW.”
Steve cringed and drew back.
Wry amusement was sparkling in Loki’s eyes – possibly at the situation, more likely because of the barely-restrained anger in Fury’s voice. Steve couldn’t hold back a helpless laugh of his own. In the next few minutes he might wind up thrown out of the Avengers on his ass, arrested for treason, who knew? He might as well—
He wrapped one hand around Loki’s chin and kissed him again, this time lightly – an observer might have thought it was affectionate, but it was in fact a combination of desperation and gallows humor.
“Don’t worry,” Loki said. “We can finish this later.”
“Somehow I kind of doubt that.”
“If nothing else, my darling, keep an eye on your dreams.”
If someone had told him a year ago he’d have to pry himself away from Loki, of all people, he’d have laughed in his or her face. Now here he was, having a damned difficult time taking his hands off him, especially with my darling echoing in his mind.
He couldn’t stall any longer, though. Next thing there would be armed SHIELD agents pouring into the Zoo and the last thing he wanted was to have twenty people staring at him in this particular setting. He moved back, groped for the security panel, and opened it, shaking his head.
Loki said nothing as Steve took the stairs, but Steve could feel eyes on his back the whole way, and much to his chagrin his face still felt like it was burning when he knocked on Fury’s office door.
When the door slid open and he walked in, his heart sank at the expression on Fury’s face – not that he’d expected a genial laugh or a pat on the back, but still, there was really no way to get out of this gracefully.
He might as well not waste his breath.
“You wanted to see me, Sir?”
Fury stared at him. The look on his face was almost funny. It was rare to see him lost for words.
Finally he said, “Captain Rogers, of all the people in this organization you’re the last one whose loyalty I’d ever doubt. You’ve given more to this country – given up more – than any 100 men, and time and again I’ve felt genuinely grateful that we found you and thawed you out.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Having said that…and I mean this with respect, Captain: what the fuck are you doing?”
Steve managed not to laugh. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing, Sir, and the only answer I can give you is: I have no idea.”
“Our scans indicate that there’s no energy field affecting you – nothing like the Infinity Stone, not even the regular sort of magic we’ve managed to detect in other situations. The security equipment is calibrated to pick up a whole laundry list of signatures, but as far as we can tell there’s nothing compelling you to…do what you’re doing.”
“I know, Sir. I would be incredibly relieved if there were. I’d love to tell you I’m being forced or coerced, but I honestly don’t think so.”
“What about this dreamfasting thing?”
He felt his face heat up. “I don’t understand it any more than you do. All I know is I’ve had several hyper-realistic dreams and apparently we’ve both had exactly the same ones. I don’t suppose the scanners picked up anything unusual from the cell while the prisoner was asleep?”
“Not that raised any eyebrows. But I think it might be a good idea to start monitoring for vital sign spikes, theta waves, whatever.”
“I think that’s a good idea, Sir. I’d really like to find whatever is causing this and switch it off.”
“Would you?” Fury laced his fingers together and leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “That’s not what it sounded like. If this were anybody but Loki, and you were anyone but you, I’d say it sounds like you’re just horny.”
Steve couldn’t come up with a reply that wouldn’t make things worse.
After a moment Fury said, “You do realize that the fact that one of the biggest enemies of the entire planet making Captain America blush like a schoolgirl is just about as terrifying as an army of aliens flying out of a big space hole.”
“I agree.”
Fury sat back, his eye narrowed critically as he looked the Captain over. Funny how different that look felt than the last gaze that had swept over him. “Captain, is this an emotional attachment or just a physical one?”
He blinked. “You mean am I in love with Loki? No Sir. God, not ever. It’s just chemistry, I’m 100% sure of it. Whatever’s causing it…maybe you have some sort of assignment for me off base for a few weeks, until the hormones or whatever calm down? I understand how all of this looks, and I’m willing to submit to any sort of tests or transfers you think necessary. I don’t want this, Sir. I really don’t think either of us does. It’s…it’s like we’re caught in each other’s gravity.”
“One of the most powerful forces in the universe.”
“No, I…I just meant…”
A raised eyebrow. “Blushing and stammering. God help us all. All right, Captain, here’s what we’re going to do. For the next 72 hours we’ll hook you both up to monitoring instruments and see if we can catch some of this dream crap and figure out what it is. Then I’m going to send you off somewhere just as you suggested, and set about finding a new secure location for our resident genocidal maniac. In the meantime you are not to set foot in the Zoo for any reason. Is that clear?”
He had orders. He could obey orders. “Yes Sir.”
“I’m going down there in the morning to ask a few questions of my own. You, go back to bed and stay there. We’ll start the experiment tomorrow night.”
“Yes Sir.”
As soon as he left the office, though, he felt something genuinely alarming: an overwhelming sense of loss, even grief. Let me say goodbye. Just let me…
Are you out of your damn mind, Rogers? You got one hell of a reprieve back there. Take it, get out of this, and don’t look back. BED. NOW.
He passed the door that headed down to the Zoo, and it was all he could do not to go through it – almost physically painful to keep walking. He had to focus his willpower on one step at a time until he’d reached his quarters.
He glanced at the clock as he flopped down onto the bed: 4:00 am. Steve wished that drugs were any more useful to him than alcohol; one of those sleeping pills Barton mentioned taking sometimes would have been fantastic…or maybe not. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go to sleep, and he was definitely too wired to drift off, not even if…
“Captain.”
He froze. “What—“
“Don’t worry…no one can hear. You’re asleep. They’ll have us hooked up to machines tomorrow night, but tonight…I thought perhaps we might talk.”
“How can we do that? It’s a dream, you can’t control dreams.”
“Of course you can. Even humans can do it. Where I come from it’s quite common. Now that I know we’re dreamfasted, I can work with it fairly easily.”
“Sounds like you were listening in with Fury earlier.”
“You’ll find there are few things in this building of which I am not aware.”
The voice moved, growing closer until it was next to him, as if Loki were lying at his side. In fact the tone – intimate, quiet, a little sardonic and a little seductive – was one he’d expect waking up in the middle of the night with a lover.
Thinking the word made him shiver.
He heard a low chuckle – no, felt it, more like, all the way from his ear through his chest and down until it settled in his dick. He hoped the ache building there was only in the dream.
“Remember our bargain,” Loki said, snapping Steve’s attention back up. “I gave my word that I would not cause your planet harm again.”
“I remember. Why?”
“Because you will be tempted, in the next few days, to fear I will break that word. I will not. I know I can’t erase history and suddenly appear trustworthy to you, but in this case…I meant it, and still do.”
“Why were you so eager? You could have offered something else to ensure we’d protect you. Information about Thanos, something. Why do a complete 180 after trying to destroy the planet?”
Now he felt eyes on his face, and after a moment the dream began to shift and blur; he felt energy of some sort pouring in front of him, the air solidifying until it took on a human shape. A long, lean body, draped in silk or something similar, curled up on one side facing him, one hand becoming visible. The fingers sought Steve’s hand where it lay on the bed between them, and twined them together, warm and solid.
“I am tired, my Captain. Tired of running. Tired of petty deception that brings me nothing but more reasons to run. It is one thing to trick and deceive for real gain, but…I no longer feel any real sense of triumph from it. I have been tortured and tormented and left alone in the cold for so much of the last few years...peace will be forever denied a creature as hateful as I…but quiet, at least a quiet place to sleep without looking over my shoulder for a while…it has been a relief like no other. There is nowhere left in the universe where I would be welcomed as myself, as a guest or anything but as an enemy. I have made sure of it. But even a prison can be a haven.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, squeezing his fingers. “I’m not saying you haven’t been a complete bastard or that you don’t deserve justice, and I’m not saying any of it’s okay, but…I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong anywhere. And I know what it’s like to feel dragged down and held underwater by just being alive.”
“I know you do.” Loki sighed, drawing their joined hands close and kissing each of Steve’s knuckles, then the back of his hand. “I could offer you excuses – daddy issues, as they say, or a dozen other kinds of pain I have suffered. But I have made my own choices, and I have no delusions about my redeemability..”
“Are you looking for forgiveness, Loki?”
“No. I am not a fool. I do not expect or deserve such a thing. I would just like if, from here, we could continue to meet each other where we are, not trying to explain it or rationalize, but to simply enjoy one another’s company for a little while. I want…”
Blue eyes on green. “What do you want?”
A pause, and Steve could see his uncertainty, practically feel it. Then, very quietly, Loki said, “You.”
Steve sighed. He leaned forward and touched his lips very lightly to Loki’s forehead. “I’m here,” he murmured. “It might only be a dream, but I’m here.”
Loki took hold of his shoulders and pulled him into a deeper kiss; dizzy with the sudden surge of heat, Steve pushed him onto his back, pressing his hips down and letting Loki feel the need that was currently draining all the blood from his brain. He reached down, grabbed Loki’s hand, and put it between them, murmuring, “That’s what you do to me.”
A noise of appreciation. “Well then I’m quite proud of myself.”
The hand took the time to bestow a single slow, upward stroke, then slide around Steve’s hip to grab hold and reverse their positions. Steve was used to being the strongest no matter what the situation, but despite Loki’s slender build, he was still an alien – and as with Thor, there was a reason he’d been considered a god.
An alien. I’m in bed with an alien. And that’s not even the weirdest part of this.
Loki slid his hands up under Steve’s t-shirt. “Utterly magnificent,” he murmured. “Every inch a work of art. And…” He leaned down and flicked his tongue over a nipple, earning a gasp – coherent thought temporarily dissolved, and as that clever mouth continued moving over his chest, pausing to bite lightly here and there, tongue dipping into his navel, Steve’s vocabulary was reduced to vowel sounds and hitched breaths.
“I imagine you grow weary of being gawked at,” Loki observed. “Perhaps thinking that people see what was made of you, rather than seeing you.”
That surprised him. “Sometimes,” Steve said. “Sometimes I’m not sure what else there is.”
“A pity.” He once again pressed a hand against Steve’s cock, feeling its contours through the cotton pants he’d worn to bed. “I hope I have a chance to show you.”
Steve suddenly felt they were both wearing way too many clothes – he needed skin, needed to dig his nails and teeth into bare flesh and feel muscle against muscle. He tried to act on that, but with Loki’s palm stroking him he had lost both coherent speech and coordinated movement.
A chuckle. “This is a dream, remember? It’s not that complicated.”
Just like that, the pants were gone, and he lay completely bare and turning red at the sudden vulnerability of it. Loki was giving him that head-to-toe look again, a smile playing at his lips, and Steve had to shut his eyes.
“Feeling exposed, Captain? I suppose I could put them back – but then it would be substantially more difficult to do this.” In one fluid motion, Loki moved further down the bed and drew his tongue slowly up along the length of Steve’s cock.
“Oh God...”
“You flatter me.”
Steve opened his eyes again just in time to see Loki’s lips part and then close around him…and slide down…hot and wet and taking him all the way down without hesitation. Loki drew back up again, applying more intense pressure, and Steve felt the universe collapsing, all matter and energy condensing to a fixed point that just happened to be the tongue on his cock. Slow, delirious spirals…the light scratch of fingernails over his hip…he’d read once that dying in a dream meant dying in real life. If that was so…it might not be the worst death he could earn after years of war.
Loki was in his element, clearly, giving Steve a dangerous smile. He brought one hand up to replace his mouth for a moment as he said, “Lost for words, Captain?”
Steve’s answer, a strangled groan, pretty much summed it up.
“Shift up a little, then…I’m about to fall off the bed.”
Luckily Steve remembered to moderate his strength – he grabbed the headboard and pulled himself up into the pillows without snapping the wood in half. He’d managed to slide nearly halfway down the mattress just in the last few minutes.
“Much better. Now…lay back and watch if you like…allow me to show you one of the benefits of bedding with a sorcerer.”
Loki rearranged himself in a less precarious position and returned his attention to devouring Steve’s body both with his hands and mouth; he flicked his tongue over the head of Steve’s dick as quick as a snake, and the contact was like tiny shocks. Then he flashed Steve another of those smiles – the kind that were quickly becoming less teasing and more erotic – and sucked Steve all the way down his throat, a sound like a sigh escaping and sending a low vibration along the shaft.
Each slide up and down felt more and more intense, spreading through his whole body like an electrical fire. When he managed to lift his head enough to look down again, he saw faint sparks of green light over his skin, originating in the pale hands wrapped around his thighs. Magic and motion both were slow, unhurried, turning like a corkscrew.
One hand gently nudged his legs a little farther apart, and even if he’d wanted to object he wasn’t sure he could move. He felt the light, bare touch of a fingertip over his ass, drawing the same spirals, gradually increasing pressure there too.
That finger dipped shallowly into him, then a tiny bit deeper. He started to bring up the obvious, but heard a chuckle and, in the next moment, felt a change: the finger opening him up was now slick, as apparently the God of Mischief could conjure lube out of thin air.
Loki’s index finger slid deeper inside him, this time all the way, and Steve groaned aloud at the heat and pressure, then again when a second finger joined in. All the while, those lips kept traveling along his cock, and Steve had to fight not to grab Loki’s head and ram his hips in hard. Need, pure and black and near to screaming, was building in every square inch of Steve’s body, and he knew he couldn’t take much more.
Fingers and tongue echoed each other’s motions, spirals and curved lines up and down, in and out, pressing forward and back…magic, too, was amping up the sensations, pushing them higher and higher, deeper and deeper…his skin became so hypersensitive that he was sure one more lick and—
Stars exploded through Steve’s entire body, and if he was screaming he didn’t hear it, but by all rights he should have been. He came harder than he ever remembered doing before, his back arching hard enough that a normal man’s spine might have sustained permanent injury.
Loki weathered the tide without difficulty, throat tightening to swallow with each rhythmic lift of Steve’s hips. He drew his fingers carefully out and, eventually, released Steve’s cock from his mouth, letting it rest along his thigh.
Steve’s vision was blurry and his head rushing in circles, but he had to smile at Loki, who licked his lips and smiled back.
“Lovely,” Loki said to him softly, stretching out alongside him. His still-slick hand rose up over Steve’s stomach and around his waist. “Watching you undone, Captain, makes all of this worthwhile.”
At last Steve found a few words. “But you haven’t…”
“Shh…no need. I’ll have my turn. It’s too close to dawn for what I intend for you.”
“And…what’s that?”
“Well…” Loki nuzzled his ear, that insanely seductive voice working its own magic even on Steve’s spent body. “What I’m hoping is to bare your body to mine once more…only this time, part your thighs and take you for my own…to fill you up and drive into you over and over, for hours, to fuck you relentlessly until you have forgotten everything but the slick, wet heat of my cock inside you…forgotten every name you have ever pledged your loyalty to, even your own, and only mine is on your lips…all night…”
Lips covered his, and Steve’s hands slid up around Loki’s back, luxuriating in the scent and silken feel of his skin. They lay like that for a while, kissing lazily but deeply, and it occurred to Steve that he was comfortable right now – moreso than he could ever remember feeling, anywhere, ever.
But even then, he could feel a painful lightness around the edges of his thoughts.
No…
“Dawn,” Loki said into his neck. “Time to go.”
“Not yet. Don’t leave yet.”
“Oh, my Captain…I could not leave you if I tried, not now. Fear not…you’ll see me again soon…and remember what I promised.”
“Wait…Loki…I need to…”
“Shhh…get some rest, my darling. You’ll have enough to deal with in about twenty minutes.”
Steve drifted back into the dark sea of normal dreams just long enough that when the alarms blared out all over the building, he cried out and rolled off the bed.
“Steve!”
He grunted. He’d hit his head on a book and stars were flying around his eyes. “What?”
“Fury wants you down at the Zoo. Now.”
Natasha’s voice, even through its professionalism, was tense. “What the hell?”
Before she even answered, however, Loki's words came back to him, and he knew exactly what he was about to hear.
“Cell 1 is empty,” she said. “Loki is gone.”