The war on Svartálfaheimr had been ongoing for decades, albeit with years-long lulls that passed for peaces. The most recent cessation had been the longest, but it had been abruptly ended five months previous for reasons both indeterminable and ultimately unimportant. Blood soaked the ground where crops should have been sown and Thor had been sent to reap what had grown in their place.
The dark elves favored direct combat over trickery or cleverness, which was a sounder strategy in their internecine fighting than up against the host of Asgard. But that did not make enforcing Odin's will upon them easy and Thor and his army had been fighting for weeks. It was exhausting and there were losses on both sides. The dark elves could summon numbers when they could not find victory with strategy or cunning and, at times, it had been more a battle of attrition than any other kind. But in the last week or so -- the days ran together, as did the fighting -- Thor had felt the rhythm of the drumbeats of war changing, slowing down. They were closer to the ending than the beginning.
A fortnight later, he felt comfortable returning to Asgard to give his report in person instead of sending messengers back through the bifrost. Sif and Hogun had exhorted him to not return straightaway, to spend at least one night in a warm, dry bed and eat better than camp rations. Everyone else had already been granted such a respite, he'd seen to it, and now it was his turn.
Heimdall welcomed him with a warning.
"There is news from Midgard," he said. "It is grave, but it will keep."
Thor paused in his step, but Heimdall shook his head. "Jane Foster is well."
Which had been his fear and his heart unclenched with the assurance, but it did not rest easily. There were only so many on Midgard he knew well enough for Heimdall to have spoken up and most of them spent much of their time in as many perils as he did, often more.
"Out with the rest of it," he told Heimdall. "I can go to my father more easily with a heavy heart than a fearful one."
And so he heard news of Steve Rogers, felled by an assassin's bullet at the site of a memorial to the war dead of his nation. It had happened four days ago, by Midgard's timing, and while Steve clung to life, it was by a tenuous thread he'd already lost his grasp of thrice. His survival was not assured and Asgard's help had been sought in increasing the dismal odds.
"There's nothing we can do," he said a week later to Jane. He'd come to Midgard to attend Steve's funeral, an elaborate masque to hide the fact that a true one was not yet needed. Steve would be hidden from the world, safe from his enemies if not yet from Valhalla's call, which still sung to him so loudly that all could hear it. "Were his wounds of a different nature, then perhaps our healing arts would be more useful. But as it is, there is little we could do for him that he is not doing for himself. He is healing slowly. Possibly too slowly to save himself, but that is still nothing short of miraculous."
The secret of Steve's survival was closely kept, so closely that many who'd known him and cared for him were ignorant, but Thor had refused to make it a secret between himself and Jane. She, however, would have to bear the heavier part of that burden, the awkward phone conversation with Darcy Lewis being but the first time she'd have to lie to her own friends. He'd apologized for that and she'd forgiven him, understanding as he did that lies between them were of a magnitude more harmful than any other. But that did not make commiserating with her former assistant any easier.
The funeral was splendid, although he agreed with Bruce that Steve would have hated the pomp. He would have respected it; Steve understood very clearly his own place in his world's pantheon of heroes even as he was embarrassed by it. It had been, Thor thought, the reason Steve had been the first of the Avengers to treat him as an equal -- Steve had most quickly seen the man behind the legend. As Thor saw him apart from his own.
Afterward, he and Jane attended the private gathering at Tony and Pepper's home for the Avengers where they could mourn without compromising Steve's safety. It was no less grim an occasion for knowing that Steve had landed safely in Michigan, where he would stay until his new home in Wyoming was completed. The funeral and their reactions to it had been genuine and heartfelt. That the loss they had mourned had been Steve's friendships with them, not his life, had not ultimately mattered. Steve had had everything taken from him and he had been taken from them and there was no balm for that hurt.
Not even the promise of blood spilled in reprisal. Natasha and Clint were both absent, already dispatched on missions of revenge. Which, it turned out, also included a mission of a most complicated mercy.
"Nobody thinks Barnes did it," Hill sighed as they sat with their drinks and their pain. "Nobody who counts, at least. But we need to find him, if only to prove that he didn't do it so the idiots will let us find out who did."
Thor had long ago been told the story of James Barnes and his importance to Steve as friend and protector and brother-in-arms, of his presumed death and his captivity and torture, of the legacy of the Winter Soldier. Steve's pain and horror had been impossible to hide, nor his determination to end Barnes's prodigal wandering. The story had come to Thor in pieces, only partially because of his own absence from events and the all-encompassing diplomatic crisis that had resulted from Odin's choice to hide the Tesseract on Midgard. There was little in common between Loki and Barnes, all to Loki's disadvantage, and so while he could appreciate the others' sensitivity to his own feelings, the concern was unwarranted. Loki had reason to be angry at their father for hiding his true origins from him, but the rest of his rage was at wrongs of his own invention and thus his actions in response unjustified and, in many quarters, unforgivable.
"He'll be found," Peggy Carter assured from her place on the couch on the other side of Jane than he was. "He was running from Steve and he has no reason to do that anymore."
Peggy looked tired, understandably, exhausted by carrying the weight of her grief as much as from from the events of the day. She had mourned Steve before, of course, but this was not a situation where experience gave any advantage. She might have suspected she would outlive Steve in their youth at war, but now, in the present, she had fully expected him to survive her and the chance -- the likelihood -- that he would not had taken much from her.
Jane reached for his hand and he took it. She had always looked at Steve and Peggy with an eye toward their own relationship; they had discussed it over the years, sometimes directly and sometimes obliquely. The parallels weren't direct, weren't even close in many places, but he knew that she had drawn comfort from seeing Steve's unwavering devotion to Peggy long after the bloom of her youth had faded. It was one thing for Thor to tell Jane that he had been drawn to her for the beauty of her mind and heart as much for the beauty of her visage and their love would endure because of that; it was another for her to see it happen as a fact and not as a promise. He wasn't much like Steve in personality, he didn't think, although Jane disagreed. ("You're both stupidly noble and you both pretend that you're embarrassed that there are few things you like more than hitting things really hard.") But if Jane could see Steve's constancy and find a reflection in himself, Thor knew better than to disagree.
He stayed with Jane for a few days before returning to Asgard and then back to Svartálfaheimr to secure the peace that had cost so much blood and treasure. It was not a true peace any more than the previous ones had been, but if it were only another lull in a neverending conflict, then perhaps this would be one that would let the children grow old without exchanging plows for swords. It had happened before.
His role in the ordering of Asgard and the Nine Realms had grown much since his return from exile, first as a reward for having finally learned the lesson of humility and then again, after Loki's perniciousness on Midgard. The latter was less a reward for bringing his brother to justice than, Thor suspected, a bribe to keep him close to Asgard. He was the heir to the throne, but his father was hale and hearty still and conducted the business of the Nine Realms with a steady and practiced hand. Thor's apprenticeship in governance was less instructive for him than demonstrative for others, establishing him as his father's primary agent in the affairs of state. His first true test of his own capacity would come during the Odinsleep and while he looked forward to meeting the challenge, he did not wish it to come any sooner than it needed. To see his father so vulnerable, however restorative the purpose, never failed to remind him that there were always going to be things he feared.
But that was in the future still. The present saw him with but a brief time to spend with Jane before he had to travel to Vanaheimr to render aid after an earthquake had riven the south continent's countryside like logs. It was heavy work, the lifting away of what was destroyed and the recovery of remains. His mother came herself, bringing healers and carers to look after the survivors as well as the would-be rescuers. He returned to Asgard before the mission of mercy was complete to sit in on council sessions with his father. He had done so as a boy, along with Loki, but back then it had seemed more an exercise in learning to sit still than in learning good governance. Now, however, he was expected to be conversant in the issues and have opinions if not suggestions. He preferred the days when he could sit watching Loki draw caricatures of the councilors than to having to weigh the merits of a tax increase to cover the expenditures of a military deployed more frequently than anticipated.
A visit to Midgard was remarkable for the first assemblage of the Avengers without Captain America at the helm, a minor nuisance in Toronto made greater by their own directionless effort. They were like soldiers in their first battle, hesitant and over-exuberant both, and they were lucky nobody was killed by their incompetence. Steve had not been the heart of the Avengers, but he had been their head and, to a degree, their soul. They were not a group that took subordination well and while Steve had had the force of personality to request it of them and have them give it freely, anyone else's attempt to do the same was met with defiance and indignation and refusal. That would have to change, clearly, but who could step into that breach? The answer, Fury warned, might have to come from without.
Chastened, he returned to Jane, who listened to his fears and conclusions with sober consideration. And then laughed herself silly at his having been nearly defeated by a man who'd sewn mirrors on to his minions' clothes.
He brought her to Asgard in time for the festival season without seeking permission from his father beforehand. (His mother, however, had given her blessing.) Odin did not approve of Jane, which was different from disliking her. He found her clever and well-mannered and completely unsuited to be the royal consort to the heir of Asgard because she was from Midgard and thus her life was too short and her worldview too narrow. The former was of no consequence (and not immutable) and the latter was easily remedied. Jane soaked up knowledge like an ever-thirsty sponge and treated every visit to Asgardia as an adventure. Her delight sparked his own, her unfamiliarity and curiosity requiring explanations from him that gave him new perspectives on what he usually took for granted. Her first visits had been bashful and she'd stayed by his side and in his shadow, but now she was comfortable enough to shoo him away so she could take instruction from Eir without his interruptions. She was not at home here yet, but she was getting more so and, in return, the court gossip had shifted from stifled mockery of her provincialism to serious speculation of how best to curry favor with the woman who might well be the next Queen. (Jane was oblivious to it, by and large, and when it was pointed out to her, dismissed it. She would not be able to do so forever, not if they were to continue as they were. But right now, there was little chance he'd be able to convince her that the chattering of the minor nobles was of greater immediacy than the lessons of the library's sages.)
They returned to Oslo together, although Thor headed on to New York once she was lost to him in favor of her research. Steve's recovery had continued, in defiance of the odds, and he'd regained consciousness, but that was where the good fortune had run out. His mind was greatly impaired, Thor had been warned, so that Steve was as a simpleton, unable to care for himself or speak or recognize his friends. The only familiar face to him was that of James Barnes, who had indeed stopped running and returned to his brother's side. Natasha and Clint had been to see him several times and now Tony and Pepper were partaking in an elaborate ruse to allow them to visit as well. And, hopefully, Thor would join them.
He could fly there under his own power, of course, but the secrecy of Steve's residence were such that that had been forbidden. Pepper and Tony were not even allowed to fly to the nearest airport lest they draw attention and so he would travel as inconspicuously as possible as well. The trip required an escort, at least the first time, and he was going to New York to meet Natasha so that they could travel together by plane and car.
"Give him my best," Jane told him as he prepared to depart from the tiny balcony of their Oslo apartment.
Natasha was an easy traveling companion and the long stretches where they were alone together with nothing but unchanging scenery around them in air or on land passed amicably. It was less of a surprise than it might once have been -- Natasha early on had been comfortable only with Clint and kept apart from the others, watching them as prey instead of as prospective friends. But time and alliance had softened her suspicion and, he thought but knew better than to say, her reconnection with James Barnes had further sanded down her sharpest edges. She seemed less lonely now and he was glad for her.
The safehouse was not what he'd expected, inside or out. His experience with SHIELD had led him to believe that sleek, utilitarian spareness was their sole aesthetic, grays and metals and bland neutrals to convey their dedication to their mission by banishing every hint of beauty or softness, as if sumptuousness were incompatible with war. But the house was not along those lines. It sat on a large parcel of land surrounded by forest and lawn and there was no indication that it was anything but the residence of a solitude-seeking individual. Inside it was as cluttered and casual as any place he'd lived with Jane, nothing at all like a barracks or a hospital or the Helicarrier. It was a home and he was glad for Steve's sake that he might be in such a comforting environment, however little or much he might appreciate the details.
When he got upstairs to see Steve himself, however, his estimation of what he'd seen rose even as his heart fell. Steve would have no appreciation for any details because he lacked the capacity to notice them. Thor had imagined Steve as a kind of village idiot, capable of limited independent action within a circumscribed area of familiarity. But Steve was not a man-child, wandering harmlessly and guilelessly around the house accepting affection or treats as he got underfoot; he was as an infant, helpless in the extreme and unable to be left unattended because he could not walk or talk or feed himself. He was sitting in his bed playing with a soft toy under Tony's loose supervision when Thor entered the room and he smiled easily in response to Thor's own greeting, but the smile was vacant of meaning and, combined with the lack of recognition, it affected him more deeply than he'd imagined it would.
Tony had a tenuous grasp on his own feelings and when Thor looked over at him, he grimaced tightly in understanding before turning away. Natasha, who'd already seen Steve like this, put up a brave front that fooled no one. And Steve continued blithely on, oblivious to the pain surrounding him. A blessing indeed, under the circumstance, to not understand what he'd lost and how others registered that loss. Especially when Pepper and Peggy entered the room and, between all of then, the sadness hung in the air like a fog.
Over the course of the afternoon and evening, he got to see the working of the house, the security provisions inside and out and the routines of the agents on the detail as well as the caretaking of Steve and, to an extent, Peggy. She had been the director of SHIELD before Fury (there had been holders of the post between them, but he'd been assured they had been of no consequence) and a heroine in her own right and the agents of the detail treated her with no small amount of awe and respect. She had regained much of the vigor she'd lost in the wake of Steve's wounding and was a part of the household in an essential way, to everyone's betterment. She had forbidden the detail to call her Madam Director, but, as Commander Yondo, the detail commander, freely admitted, she was still the head of the household, no matter what his own rank and authority said.
The agents of the detail were a little awed by the presence of so many Avengers, but not as much as most of their ilk. They lived with Captain America and Director Carter, after all, and had had the Winter Soldier and Black Widow as extended guests before. It was just as well. Tony would normally be quick to rise to the challenge of thrilling a new audience, but he did not drift far from Steve's side until his grief overwhelmed him and, during those times, his enthusiasm for performance was muted.
The first day concluded by watching films in the living room, Avengers and agents in equal standing (or sitting on the floor, as the case might be). The following morning, after sparring with a couple of the agents, he spent time with Steve alongside Tony and Pepper, who were leaving in a few hours. Steve was still entranced by the blocks and Tony was playing some nonsense game with them and him.
"From New York, every gain was a cause for celebration," Pepper said quietly to Thor as she smiled and nodded in exaggerated appreciation as Steve held the yellow block up to her so that the face with the shiny red circle displayed. "He'd gone two weeks without a cardiac incident, he'd started breathing on his own, he'd opened his eyes. Every single bit of news was so positive. He'd come so far. But from here, all I can see is how far he still has to go."
Her voice wavered a little on the last words and Tony glanced over before returning his attention to Steve.
"It is early in his journey," Thor said, since he was supposed to say something and because this was one of the times when his age gave him insight. He was not, by the metric of his own people, old at all. By percentages, as Jane had put it, he was probably younger than all of the others save for perhaps Steve. He was younger than Jane, which made her laugh. But life was not lived in percentages, which did not make Jane laugh at all, and however callow he might be amongst the Aesir, he had lived hundreds of years and those years bore weight and, occasionally, wisdom. "And even if this is as far as he travels, we shall be able to find that our gratitude overcomes our sorrow. He is here with us."
"Is he?" Tony asked from beside the bed, so quietly Thor wasn't sure it was a question meant to be overheard.
The man in the bed wasn't the Steve they'd known and that, more than his physical impairment, was what distressed them. But there was perhaps enough of the Steve whom James Barnes ("call me Bucky") had known to matter. Steve certainly seemed to think so, lighting up with happiness whenever Bucky came into the room. And maybe that glimmer would be enough. The other year, when Steve had found out that Bucky was alive, even if he wasn't in possession of his memories, his joy had been unfettered. "It doesn't matter," Steve had confessed to him. "I want him to be himself again, obviously, and not a cruel parody of the man he'd been. But that he's alive, that he's out there somewhere alive... that's enough for me right now. And I feel guilty as hell about it, but it's true."
"He is alive," Thor said, echoing Steve's words. "And that is necessary, if not quite sufficient, for anything else."
After Felicity, the nurse, came in to attend to Steve's needs, he went outside to call Jane. The house was full of people and while he wasn't planning on saying anything shameful, that didn't mean he wanted an audience.
"It is heartbreaking to see Steve's diminishment," he admitted to her after reporting on his travel. "At least he is spared the awareness of it. None of the rest of us are and we are shattering from the impact."
He did not exclude himself from the company of mourners; he might more easily recognize Tony's or Pepper's suffering than his own, but that did not mean it wasn't there. He was sure the others could see it just fine.
Jane guided him carefully from his grief, asking him about what James Barnes was like and how Peggy was doing and telling him about how one of the mathematicians in the lab had apparently proven the existence of a planet populated by dogs. "This is why we only want applied mathematicians in the lab," she sighed. "The pure ones reduce everything to a spherical cow and, because they don't realize anything's wrong with that, that's how we end up with a planet of space poodles. Space corgies. Whatever it was."
Tony and Pepper left reluctantly after a quick lunch. "He shouldn't be out here," Tony said as he put his and Pepper's things in their car. "I know why they went with it, but it's not what's best for him anymore. These are great kids, don't get me wrong, but he needs to be around his people. Barnes can't stay out here forever -- Fury already wants him back in New York -- and it's too much to put on Peggy alone. You don't dump Captain America in a nursing home, however nice it is, when he's got family willing to take him in."
Thor agreed. He had grown up accustomed to nursemaids and servants and retainers and the other living accouterments of princely life, so the idea of having a retinue of paid attendants to look after Steve did not strike him as discordantly as it did the others. But he did not see why they had to be so far away, especially when the presence of Steve's 'people' so obviously pleased him and Steve's absence so greatly affected those he'd left behind. He did not believe this place impermeable or unfindable; Heimdall was not the only one blessed with sight. Which made Steve's exile less meaningful, perhaps to the point of being counterproductive if he were too far away for his own Avengers to either comfort or protect him.
In the meanwhile, however, Steve would stay here and he would be fine. The agents who'd traveled to Cheyenne in the morning to go shopping had brought back more toys for Steve along with an array of food and sundries that he could only mostly identify. Peggy had gone with them, a rare and welcome departure from the house, and seemed lighter for it. He did not think Steve would be the only one to benefit from being relocated closer to all that he'd left behind.
Pepper and Tony had eaten before they'd left, but Thor had not and so he went into the kitchen to see what was available. The agents of the detail cooked for themselves, by choice, and there was apparently some competition to it with fresh breads and cakes and soups and sauces being prepared at all hours for consideration and acclamation by the others.
"Did you leave any potato chips for the rest of the population of Wyoming and Nebraska?" Bucky asked Agent Diaz as he came into the kitchen. "And how did you get them all into the trunk?"
A veritable wall of pillowy bags stood lined the hallway en route to the pantry, along with other foodstuffs not yet put away. The bags, like everything else they'd brought back from Cheyenne, were oversized and if Thor hadn't previously been taken to a Costco, he'd have thought that there was a market that catered to giants.
"Miz Carter said we should tie strings to the end and make balloon bouquets out of them," Diaz replied, filling his bottle with water from the sink. "My suggestion was that we just stuff them in the back seat and make Claes run home because he takes up the most space. Sadly, nobody went with that one."
"You shouldn't have picked Claes," Bucky replied, putting his mug in the dishwasher. "He's too nice to be sacrificed to the altar of Frito-Lay."
Diaz grinned. "If we were gonna go by niceness, Mister Barnes, I was going to be the one tied to the bumper running home."
Bucky laughed and, in that moment, Thor was reminded of how young he was, how he, like Steve, was Thor's contemporary by Jane's percentages. In their quite limited interaction so far, Thor didn't think Bucky was much like Steve, but he could see how the two had once been complementary parts of a whole. He also got the impression that the Bucky here in Wyoming was not identical to the one in New York, let alone the one who'd wandered in violent self-imposed exile after he'd been freed of his imprisonment. He didn't know any version of the man well, but he saw how the others interacted with him: how Peggy ordered him about with the ease of familiarity, how Tony and Pepper had been pleasantly surprised by his demeanor, and how affectionate he was with Natasha when neither thought anyone was looking. But most of all, he saw Bucky with Steve and knew that that gentleness and devotion was a surer sign of a man's quality than the long list of savage cruelties he'd inflicted as the Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes would heal and they could only hope that Steve would as well so that he could appreciate it.
They were nothing alike, as he'd tell anyone who'd dare to ask, but watching Bucky Barnes learning to accept the grace of forgiveness, of himself and of others, made him miss his brother with a ferocity that staggered him.
Loki had embraced his rage like a lover, had built himself a kingdom of lies over which he ruled with no mercy, had turned against everything he'd once believed in -- and Thor knew that Loki had believed in righteousness and goodness and benevolence once upon a time. It was common in Asgard to rewrite Loki's past to paint him a villain long in the making, but he hadn't been. He'd been too sharp with his tongue and his wit, too heedless of others' feelings when a great joke was at stake, and too smart for everyone else and unwilling to hide it. He'd been resented for it then and that resentment had been transmogrified into hindsight now that Loki had become what he'd become.
But once upon a time, he'd been generous and kind and prone to moments of astonishing sweetness that he would use his barbs to hide lest he seem too soft. He'd been a faithful and devoted friend and brother and son and lover and Thor missed that man with every breath he took. He still believed that that man existed somewhere in Loki, somewhere hidden and buried and battered, but he could not meet his brother now and expect to see anything but the monster who'd taken that man's place.
He's heard the stories of Steve kneeling down before the Winter Soldier and begging for the kernel of Bucky Barnes to reappear; Natasha told the story with horrified awe, Clint with a more complicated tone that he didn't know the provenance of. The Winter Soldier would have killed Steve had there not been interference because Bucky's mind had been truly gone until the Tesseract had restored it. If Thor were to kneel before Loki now and beg for peace between them, the outcome might be the same and Thor honestly didn't know how much blame for that ultimately resided with Loki.
Once upon a time, Loki would have made a poor king, which his father had recognized, but so would Thor have and that Loki had recognized. And they had both been banished for their shortcomings. Thor had been fortunate in his exile, more fortunate than he'd had a right to expect or even hope. His love for Jane had been the largest part of how he'd earned back the right to wield Mjolnir and regain his royalty even as he continued to learn humility. Loki's exile had been brutal and that had not been of his own making and Thor could not blame him for not emerging unscathed.
(The temptation to use the Tesseract to restore Loki to who he'd been was there, but not strong. As much as it hurt to admit, there was too much of the Loki he'd known in the Loki who was now. It would not be a restoration the way Bucky had been brought back to his true self. It would be a transformation and that would be the worst sort of villainy.)
"Thor?" Bucky was looking at him with an expression that said that this was not the first time he'd been queried.
Thor shook his head to free himself from his thoughts and apologized.
"I am going to go for a run with a couple of the guys," Bucky said. "Do you want to join us?"
Thor hated running, especially as it was practiced on Midgard as an exercise for its own sake instead of as a preface to a more exciting regime. Jane ran on a treadmill, which had been a new nadir as far as that went.
But then he had an idea. "How would you like spar?"
Bucky didn't react right away, but Diaz did. "Oh, please Mister Barnes. Pretty please?"
Bucky did make a face then, turning to Diaz. "You want to watch me get my ass kicked by a god or do you just want a break from me knocking you around the backyard?"
Diaz shrugged. "Both are good."
Fifteen minutes later, Thor and Bucky were running a lap around the yard before picking up quarterstaves with which they'd do combat. It wasn't a weapon either would use except by necessity and it had been chosen by the agents for that reason, to give neither of them an advantage.
They waited for Peggy to be escorted outside and ensconced in a deck chair, blanket settled over her lap, before taking their positions on the lawn. The other agents not on duty had started to arrive, a couple carrying one of the pillow-sized bags of potato chips, which got passed around the growing crowd.
"Shall we begin?" Thor asked and Bucky nodded. And so they did.
Bucky was not enhanced in the way Steve was, had no obvious advantages beyond his prosthetic arm, now armored up and looking more dangerous for it. But he was an exquisitely trained warrior with the benefits of long experience and the fight was more evenly matched than perhaps either of them had anticipated. Bucky was quicker than he was and more agile, but Thor had the advantage of strength and endurance and they both understood where that would lead. As such, Bucky was forced to go for the quick kill, knowing that he would eventually be worn down into submission if he stayed on the defensive for too long. Bucky's attacks were inventive and he scored real hits that Thor would feel tomorrow, but Thor still managed to withstand the barrage and once it settled into a battle of attrition, all he had to do was hold on and wait for Bucky to slow enough to become vulnerable. It took longer than it could have and Thor was forced to goad Bucky into expenditures of energy he could ill afford, making him jump and twist until finally he stumbled and Thor could pin him.
They saluted their audience, now including Natasha, and went off to clean up before celebratory toasts over a dinner during which the story of their fight grew from legend to myth before plates were cleared. The off-duty agents were interested in playing a game that seemed to award points for bawdiness and bad taste and Thor was invited to play, but it required too much knowledge of popular culture for him to really appreciate the humor and so he withdrew after a few rounds. Returning his dishware to the kitchen, he encountered Natasha, who was bringing the remains of Steve's dinner down -- the plates were clean and he had eaten well. At her invitation, he followed her back upstairs to join Steve and Bucky and herself in watching a film on one of the iPads, a charming exhibit of puppetry that Thor made note to ask Jane about because it seemed the type of entertainment she'd adore.
In the middle of the night, he was woken by shrieks of anguish and fear that his sleep-fogged mind needed a moment to recognize as coming from Steve's room. Steve had been silent since he'd woken, neither capable of speech nor interested in attempting non-verbal communication. To hear a noise from him was meaningful, but this terrified screaming harbingered no welcome advance.
He wasn't the only one to run toward the sound; that Steve might have broken his silence out of fear of an imminent danger had been everyone's first thought and the detail agents held their service weapons as they loitered outside the open doorway. Inside, Bucky was trying to soothe Steve, who'd stopped screaming but was still whimpering and crying. Thor pushed through gently, coming into the room and drawing Natasha's attention as well as Steve's. Steve returned his attention to Bucky, seeking comfort, but Natasha looked both haunted and angry. She wasn't angry at Steve, obviously, but angry for him. She took a deep breath and then steeled herself and was the Black Widow once more.
She thanked the assembled for their prompt reaction with heart and humor and sent them on their way, back to bed or to their posts. Thor met her eyes and nodded; he would see how Peggy was faring, the one member of the household who'd most want to be present and had not been. Could not be as she could not have moved quickly enough to offer succor to the man she still loved. He stopped off at his own bedroom to retrieve a sweatshirt to be more presentable for the call-paying.
Peggy called for him to enter when he knocked gently on the door to her bedroom. It was on the first floor, almost directly below Steve's and of commensurate size with a pair of chairs and small table by the windows in the corner. Peggy was in her dressing gown, a robe of red cloth trimmed with white fur-like material to emulate ermine, and unsurprised at the visit.
"A gag gift from the children," Peggy explained, fingering the robe's sleeves as she settled into one of the chairs by the window and gestured for him to take the other. "How is he?"
"Frightened but fine," Thor answered as he sat. "A nightmare, it would seem. Bucky has soothed the worst of it already."
Peggy nodded, not quite at ease and he understood why.
"Would you like to go up to him?" he asked.
"Would I?" she repeated wryly, a sad smile on her face. "Yes. Will I? No. There is no feeling as useless as that of the cavalry rider who shows up after the villain has fled the scene."
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the voices in the hallway, before she spoke again.
"Of all of the things I cannot be to him, this hurts the most," she said softly. "Time knows no bounds in its cruelty."
Thor had a millennium on her, but knew better than to speak in empathy. Time was not his enemy in the same fashion, had not sewn the book of his life as a narrow volume, and he had never been victim to its ravages. He had been too wounded in more prosaic battles to aid his friends, but he had never been in a position where the very act of living shackled him so thoroughly that he could not offer succor to those in need. Peggy could not get to Steve quickly without assistance and there were no villains to blame.
"He would not hold it against you," he said instead.
Peggy chortled, a little bitterly. "He forgave me long ago," she agreed. "He has never forgiven time, not for bringing him here nor for taking from me its due."
This was not the first time Thor had heard mention of Steve's unhappiness with being out of his native time. Steve had always had an edge of sorrow to his demeanor, but Thor had thought it had dimmed as time had passed and Steve had grown comfortable with his new present. But Peggy would know better and perhaps he never had.
He watched her hands, restless in her lap, before deciding what to do next.
"I think you should go upstairs to him," he said. "There is no reason for you not to be soothed, too."
He didn't mean by Bucky and he thought she understood that.
She nodded and he stood. "I shall return for you in a few moments," he said, assuming she'd want to change. He left her, went upstairs to check in to Steve's room, found Bucky and Natasha still with Steve and, by the time he returned downstairs, Peggy had the door open and her cane to hand and was ready to go. They took the elevator upstairs.
"When you speak of this to Jane," she said as the door closed, "leave this part out. Not for my own dignity, but for her peace of mind."
He didn't hide his confusion, nor did he deny that he would relay events to Jane.
"She doesn't need to understand all the ways her capacity to ease your pain will be taken from her," she said. "It's not something that foreknowledge can make easier."
He rather thought Jane already understood that, at least on some level, after having watched him in combat. But Peggy had watched Steve in combat, too, and had still been blindsided, so perhaps it was not the same comprehension. He nodded in agreement.
Steve was still in Bucky's arms when they arrived, although he picked his head up to see who had entered. Natasha had gone, probably back to bed. Peggy approached Steve and Bucky slowly, Steve watching her over Bucky's shoulder. She placed one hand on Steve's head and the other on Bucky's arm, keeping them there for a long moment before going over to her recliner and settling herself. She looked relieved and her eyes were a little moist and Thor looked away because he didn't think she wanted that acknowledged.
"Why don't you turn around so you can be more comfortable," Peggy suggested to Bucky, folding a sweatshirt that had been left on the recliner's arm. Bucky was sitting with his back to the door and it was clearly bothering him, even within the safety of the house. He was also sitting awkwardly with one foot on the ground and leaning halfway over the bed, so they could pretend that it was merely physical comfort Peggy was addressing.
Thor helped Bucky untangle himself from Steve, who started to whimper as Bucky pulled away.
"I'm not going anywhere, jeez," Bucky told Steve, cupping Steve's face in his right hand so he could meet Steve's eyes. He made a face and Steve stopped whimpering and smiled. Then he looked up at Thor. "Can you help me shift him over?"
The two of them mostly lifted and partially cajoled Steve over to one side of the bed and Bucky climbed up into the vacated space. Steve turned to him without prompting and started making himself comfortable.
"Watch the paws, you octopus," Bucky chided as Steve pushed and patted at Bucky's belly. "Natasha's not half as handsy as you."
Thor found a blanket and spread it over both of them, earning a bemused chuckle from Bucky and a smile from Steve.
He stayed for a few moments, to make sure everything was fine, but then Joanne, the night nurse, returned and he looked over to Peggy, who nodded. They'd be fine, she'd be fine, and so Thor left and returned to his bedroom. He slept for a while and then woke up knowing he would not sleep again and so got on with his day. Steve, Bucky, and Peggy were all sleeping when he checked in, Joanne smiling as she knitted what looked to be tiny booties shaped like duck feet. He went back later and even got to feed breakfast to Steve to allow Bucky to take care of himself and the SHIELD business that had been going on in the background.
Steve was in good spirits, eating his breakfast eagerly, and did not seem overly troubled by his nightmare. Perhaps he didn't remember he'd had it. Feeding Steve was... he might have said nourishing, but the pun would have diminished it. To be able to do something for his friend, truly do something essential and enjoyable for Steve, filled a hole in his heart he hadn't known was there.
When he spoke to Jane, he told her of this and heeded Peggy's advice to keep her own role in events unmentioned.
Later in the day, he found out what had preoccupied Natasha and then Bucky: Steve's putative assassin had been positively identified. Bucky was clearly unhappy with the idea of leaving Steve, but he was also as clearly eager to pursue vengeance against an attacker he'd known and worked alongside as the Winter Soldier. Fury was requiring them to return to New York for that preparation, which seemed to be the point of contention with SHIELD and there was little hope of getting a reprieve.
It was with both Tony's and Peggy's words in his mind that Thor offered to stay in Wyoming until their return, ever if it could be weeks from now. Let him be a friend to Steve and, he hoped, a friend to Peggy. Jane would be disappointed, but not overly so -- she had a paper due for a conference and her attention would be with it more than with him should he return to Oslo as scheduled.
With Bucky gone, Steve's care routine was altered, not entirely to his approval. He missed Bucky, looking at the open doorway every time he heard footfalls and sinking back in disappointment when it turned out to be someone else. He was more difficult in general, making his personal care more of an effort for Joanne and Felicity -- Thor had been summoned more than once to keep Steve's super-soldier strength from causing either personal or material damage during those vulnerable times. Steve was still mostly sweet-natured, however, and had started to smile on his own when he saw someone he knew, even if it wasn't Bucky.
A week after Bucky and Natasha's departure, Steve spoke.
The doctors and nurses had decided that Steve should try sitting in a chair, both to see if he'd walk and to exercise different muscles in his upper body as he'd have to balance in a chair instead of leaning propped up against his bed. Steve did not like the activity, starting to fight from the moment his blankets were taken away, and Thor had been required to cajole and maneuver Steve until he was, in fact, sitting in a chair across from the bed and glowering. Four days of struggling, during which Steve whined and whimpered, but on the fifth day, when Felicity reached for the blanket and Thor prepared to keep Steve from swatting her away, there was a change.
"No."
Everyone froze.
"What was that, Steve?" Felicity prompted cautiously.
"No."
Thor looked over at Peggy, who'd put her iPad on the table and was moving to stand. She came over to the bed, drawing Steve's attention as soon as she was in his field of vision. She smiled as she looked down at him and reached out to touch his face and he turned into her hand like a cat. Behind Thor, Felicity was heading out of the room to summon the doctors.
"Of course that's your first word, you contrary man," Peggy murmured at Steve, who smiled. Whether it was in response to her words or to her touch, Thor didn't know, but it made Peggy choke back a sob.
The doctors arrived and Thor and Peggy were asked to leave so that they could do an objective exam, although Peggy was asked not to wander too far as they suspected Steve's responses might be different when he could see her.
Hochimura, the agent on upstairs hallway guard duty, gave over his chair to Peggy and Thor sat down on the floor next to her. She was crying quietly and Hochimura went to find a tissue box, which he handed to Thor and then took up a position as far as possible to give them space without compromising his duties.
Thor sat next to Peggy, offering nothing but silent support and the tissue box, which she held in her lap.
By evening, they understood that Steve's progress was very limited -- he had spoken no other words, to either the doctors or Peggy -- but was promising nonetheless. He'd been asked to find Peggy and had turned his head to look at her. He'd done the same with his shield, which had been retrieved from over his bed, and for Felicity.
There was a festive air at the dinner table that night and Thor did what he could to sustain it. The agents of the security detail weren't directly responsible for Steve's care and did not necessarily even see him on a daily basis, but they had grown up with the legend of Captain America and, over the last several months, had developed a connection to the enfeebled man who lay upstairs. They could take no more credit for Steve's progress than Peggy or even the doctors, but they could celebrate it nonetheless. Today had been a good day.
The next days were better. Steve's awareness was obviously expanding even as his speech lagged. He smiled when Peggy played the internet radio for him and, while he still didn't like sitting up in the chair, he stopped fighting the move when Felicity explained to him why it was necessary. He turned toward speakers instead of just looking at whatever had attracted his eye as conversations went on around him.
On the fourth day, Thor came into his room to feed him lunch and Steve greeted him with his name. He did not hide his tears of joy.
It was not a conscious effort to keep the details from Bucky and Natasha, simply a matter of accident and coincidence. The two of them were deep in what were apparently contentious and frustrating negotiations with Fury over the mission to Latveria and communications were limited. When he could, Bucky used a video connection to talk to Steve, but Steve would not speak for him any more than for anyone else, although Bucky did notice the more sophisticated expressions Steve made in response to what he'd heard. And by the time Steve did start to speak, Bucky and Natasha were already operating under an order of silence.
Steve's speech continued to trail behind his other accomplishments. His coordination was still extremely poor, but he could move to the chair now with only Thor providing weight-bearing support on one side. (He liked it no more than he ever had, but suffered it with moderate grace.) His understanding of his environment was near-complete, the doctors assured, but his memory was badly marred still. He forgot what he was told, although he remembered his past easily; he knew Peggy and Thor and Felicity and Joanne, but forgot the names of the detail agents who were introduced to him. He was frustrated constantly, ill-tempered frequently, and cried seemingly without impetus. But the change from where he'd been was so profound that everyone endured the ill humor.
The first time he spoke to Tony over video, that Thor would remember for as long as he lived.
By the time they had word of Bucky and Natasha's success in Latveria (none of them were sure what defined that success, just that it had been earned), Steve was capable of limited conversation. His utterances were short and did not always use the correct words, which he recognized and which frustrated him deeply, but he could answer questions and would occasionally speak without prompting. It was Peggy's idea to surprise Bucky by having Steve speak to him over the phone. Thor was not present when it happened, but afterward, when he saw Steve and asked how it had gone, he got a smile and "good."
Not good, however, was the news from Nidavellir, where unrest was growing and intercession seemed imminent. The news was sent from Asgard through Jane, who was more worried that he'd have to leave Steve before he was ready to. "The dwarves will keep," he told her, although he did not know if that truly were the case. "Bucky and Natasha are due to return tomorrow and I can stay that long."
He did, but left as quickly as he could afterward because Asgard had already readied her army to march to Nidavellir and they needed their leader. He got to see Bucky and Steve's true reunion, which he was grateful for, but also the first reaction of Bucky to a Steve who was aware of the Winter Soldier's deeds and that, it seemed assured, would go less well. Natasha promised that she would tend to the situation as best she could, protecting her lover and her friend both, and he had no choice but to leave her to it. His own responsibilities awaited him.
His time with Jane before his transit to Asgard was necessarily brief, but he promised her he would return to her as soon as his duties were met and she would have the fullness of his attentions.
"I look forward to it," she told him with a smile. "Go kick dwarf ass. I have another paper to write."