Chapter 11
Battle had always been a funny thing in Steve’s mind. Some moments he could remember with perfect clarity, even after his decades in the ice, while others blurred in a haze of movement and sound, vague images of flames, destruction, and death that he pushed to the back of his mind and tried not to think about too hard. Today had been no different, he supposed, for all that he had been fighting alien creatures who were the product of someone’s horrific nightmare. Some things struck him with perfect clarity - the moment Romanoff had vaulted off his shield in a perfect spring to catch and mount one of the Chitauri flying chariots, graceful a dancer, Hulk walking up to one of those space whales, as Barton had dubbed them, punching it right in its head, Thor at his back, his great hammer swinging in a perfect circle of death as Chitauri fell around him, Barton banking impossible shots without even looking in a way that would have left the best snipers Steve knew reeling in jealousy. The one image he thought he would carry with him forever, however, was the sight of Stark flying directly overhead in his crimson and gold armor, up the glass plating of Stark Tower, directly into a portal to the other side of the universe. Over his shoulder, he carried a bomb that could cause untold destruction if it detonated. He did it knowing that it was the sort of trip that he may not come back from, but doing it anyway because that’s what heroes do.
This was his team, now, and Steve couldn’t be more proud.
“You should eat.” Romanoff tapped a cracked nail against the plastic basket his food had been served in. As it turned out, despite the evacuation order, one restaurant had indeed been open, noticed by Stark in all the fighting and turmoil. As far as Steve could tell shawarma was layers of marinated meat spit-roasted and shaved off into thick flatbread, served with a tangy, garlic sauce he’d never had before. It wasn’t unpleasant. Given that he’d devoured one already, he wasn’t particularly sure what Romanoff was getting at, but she spoke with the quiet authority of a fussing mother, so he did as she said and took a bite.
“Amount of calories you burned through, Cap, I’m surprised you aren’t eating everything in the house.” Stark eyed him critically from the other side of the table, before flicking a gaze to Banner, who hunched over a basket of fries, mechanically shoving them into his mouth. “That serum takes a lot out of you guys.”
He could say that again. Steve felt as if he could crawl back into the ice and sleep for another seventy years and wouldn’t even be sorry about it. Peggy would kill him, though. His skin itched where his various cuts, burns, and bruises were healing. He had a nasty gash on one shoulder from where he’d been blasted out of the bank window and tossed onto the car below, and a particularly awful concussive bruise on his side, left behind by a Chitarui weapon that had punched through the armor of his suit and the nylon that surrounded it and left him bleeding and gasping afterward. Thor had helped him to his feet, but for a moment there he had seriously wondered if he’d broken a rib or two. He was going to feel this for days.
“This food, it is good!” Thor had powered through his own meal, but like Steve, had slowed down considerably, now thoughtfully chewing at his flatbread. “Midgard always surprises me with its cuisine! Jane’s friend, Darcy, introduced me to coffee! It was amazing!”
“God, I’d kill for coffee,” Barton muttered, looking as if he would fall over where he sat, his left leg propped up behind where Romanoff perched. “You think there’s a coffee shop open? Maybe a Starbucks?”
“Nah, Peggy tried to have the place cleared. I’m surprised this place was still open.” Stark eyed the people who ran it, a Middle Eastern couple who were cleaning up the mess around them with the sort of diligence that said they weren’t going to let alien invasions stop them from keeping their shop open as usual. Stark had, of course, not only paid for their food but told the couple he’d cover the cost of repairs for their business apparently because saving the city from a nuclear explosion wasn’t enough heroics from him for the day. Despite himself, Steve smiled at that. He didn’t think he could be happier to be wrong about someone.
“Not to bring the discussion down to earth now that we are full of food,” Romanoff intoned, chewing thoughtfully on a fry. “But now what? Loki’s in custody, we have the Tesseract, but what happens next?”
That was a discussion Steve had hoped could wait till he’d slept for a week. Instead, he glanced at Thor, who was still chewing dolefully. “Loki’s your brother. What does your father want?”
Thor’s expression darkened, stormily, as he carefully set down his bread pocket of shawarma. “While Loki has broken many of your mortal laws, I’m sure, Odin sent me here to have my brother face his crimes against all of the Nine Realms, including yours. He wants Loki taken back to Asgard.”
“And so what, we don’t get a say in that?” Barton did not like the sound of that, and Steve could hardly blame him. The poor man had been mind-controlled for days by Loki and was responsible for deaths he would forever carry on his conscience. “Nah, I don’t like that. He broke the law in at least two countries and is responsible for any number of deaths between New Mexico, Germany, and here. That alone is enough to send him to prison for a long, long time.”
“And what prison do you have in Midgard, pray tell, that you think will hold my brother?” Thor’s repost wasn’t unfriendly, but it was pointed. “You had a formidable one on your flying ship. I know as I had to escape it! He still managed to find a way to free himself.”
“He’s got a point, Clint,” Banner sighed, grimacing. “That thing was built to keep me inside of it and contained, and Loki slipped out of there as if it was nothing. He’s too clever by half, and we can’t guarantee that we could keep the kind of eyes and ears on him that we’d need to keep him in line. Best to let his father handle the matter, after all, the Asgardians at least would be able to contain him.”
Barton didn’t look mollified, but he at least conceded the matter. “You going to keep him chained up forever?”
Thor winced but nodded. “I doubt my brother will be granted the privilege of breathing free ever again, not if Father has anything to say about it. He’s caused mayhem across the universe, not just here. For all the love I may hold for my brother, despite it all, he is too dangerous to let loose, and as king Odin has to set an example, even with his son.”
It was a pained admission, one that struck Steve as poignant. It was easy to forget that Loki, for all of the horrors he had wrought that day, was still someone’s son and brother. It had to hurt his family as much as it horrified them to see him go down this path. It took a great deal of strength to do what Thor did that day.
“Thank you,” Steve found himself offering to the other man. “For helping us, for bringing him in.”
Thor looked surprised that he’d been offered that. “I only did what I had to. I should be thanking all of you for working with me to capture him. It was an honor, fighting alongside all of you.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you, big guy,” Stark raised his paper cup in salute, the blue light of his reactor glowing from under his well-worn t-shirt bathing it in an ethereal aura. “Seriously, you up on top of the Chrysler Building blasting those fuckers out of the sky was a thing of beauty.”
Thor seemed pleased with the praise, though he merely shrugged it off. “I had not expected to find such noble and capable warriors here on Midgard, at least not those with your abilities. My father will be pleased to know that Midgard has finally evolved its own champions.”
“Make sure to tell him that,” Barton grunted, massaging his sore left leg. “Make sure to tell everyone that.”
“Never fear! I believe that the loss of an entire Chitauri army at the hands of the likes of you all might just catch some attention.”
Steve wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but he was too tired to care. His side hurt, whether he liked to admit it or not, he was covered in soot, dirt, and whatever ichor passed for Chitauri blood. He didn’t want to think too deeply about that. He’d grappled with an alien god, survived an explosion, been shot at by brainwashed soldiers, and had just helped to fend off an army from outer space. All he wanted was to go home.
Home…when had Peggy’s apartment become home? Certainly, he’d not had a proper home in so long, not since Bucky had shipped out and Steve had shipped off to Camp Lehigh. The old bachelor pad they had in Brooklyn was now refurbished into an apartment that cost nearly three times his salary before the war. The Barnes’ old home had been turned into a specialty food store. The place he and his mother had shared through his childhood was gone now, turned into medical buildings. Everything that made those places special, the people he’d lived there with, were now dead for years. But Peggy remained, alive and vibrant, still the same stubborn, idealistic woman he’d known years ago. Even if she had figured out this strange new world and could operate computers and cellular phones far better than he could at the moment, she was still the same girl he’d fallen for the minute she’d punched Gilmore Hodge in the face. She was still warm, dryly funny, compassionate, fierce, loyal to her friends, and unflinching in the face of doing whatever it took to do what was right. And he was an idiot for thinking that anything else possibly mattered but that.
“Rogers!”
Stark’s voice jerked him to liveliness again, blinking at the table as they all stared at him in varying degrees of expectation and mild understanding. It was clear that they had been trying to get his attention for a while now, but he’d been too out of it to pay attention. “Yeah, sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“Tell me about it, Cap!” Stark waved it off. “We were saying we should get back to SHIELD headquarters, make sure Loki and the Tesseract are secure, and that Alexander Pierce hasn’t decided to try and impound either of them.”
“Sure,” he returned, pulling from some well of energy somewhere.
Romanoff shot him a sympathetic look, glancing down at his injured torso. “You doing okay, Steve?”
“Yeah, I’ve had worse.” He couldn’t remember at the moment if he had been injured worse in the war or not, but he was in no mood for being fussed over. “Let’s head out, let the owners clean up and finish this, shall we?”
It took them longer to get out of the place than he’d expected, in part because Stark had wanted to ensure they knew he was serious about paying for the repairs to their restaurant, in part because they had wanted pictures. They had posed for the couple to take photos on their cellular phones - which came with cameras, Steve supposed, which all of these phones did multiple things on top of making actual phone calls - and with promises of future business and a return, they stumbled out into the wasteland of midtown, filled with dust, crumbling buildings, and fallen Chitarui bodies. In the distance, SHIELD, the National Guard, US Army, and New York fire and police all tried to manage the fallout.
“I wonder what the rest of the world is making of this,” Romanoff muttered as they stumbled along, Barton limping beside her.
“I guess there is no denying alien life out here now, Agent Scully,” Stark quipped, though the joke was lost on Steve. Romanoff got it, as she outright chuckled, the first laugh he’d heard out of her, while Barton and Banner snickered. Maybe Peggy would understand the humor.
“It is about time your people began learning about other cultures in the universe!” As the only alien in their group, Thor of course would have a different perspective on this. “How else will you know how to protect yourselves?”
“Man’s got a point,” Banner agreed, already looking intrigued at the possibilities. “I mean, there are whole civilizations out there. This is just the beginning of our knowledge!”
“Yeah,” Stark intoned, something dark and worried threading through his forced good nature. “That is just what I am afraid of.”
It caught Steve’s attention, that hint of worry, but he was too exhausted to examine it too much at the moment. They’d won. He could go home. That was all that mattered now.
But first…
They’d ended up requesting a SHIELD vehicle to take them to the offices on the other side of town from the main part of the battle. Despite their further distance out, however, there was clear evidence of damage all through the theater district. Several of the bright, shining digital signs were broken and destroyed, with one marquee sporting the remains of a Chitauri chariot still dangling from the middle of it. The fire department sprayed it down as it smoked and sparked, as loud voices wondered how the hell they were going to get it out of there. It was a sober reminder of how much damage the city had seen. Never in Steve’s lifetime had Manhattan known something like this. He’d heard, of course, of another attack a decade ago while he’d lain frozen in ice, but he’d not witnessed anything like this himself. One couldn’t help but feel deeply rattled by it, knowing his home was so vulnerable to attack. It sobered everyone else in the car as well. Banner had winced looking at the carnage, while Stark had studied it with hard eyes and more than a little regret.
They arrived in the SHIELD offices with little fanfare and were completely unexpected. The agents on duty, most of whom were shell-shocked by the day's events, didn’t even bother to question them or stop them as they made their way to the elevators and the lower levels, where the detention areas lay. It was only when they reached there that anyone on duty balked, and it was only long enough for Steve to hold up a reassuring hand. “We’re here just to check on the security of the prisoner, Loki. His brother, Thor, would like to speak to whoever is in charge to ensure the security around him.”
Steve left Thor to it, conferring with SHIELD and Chief Braxton on how to best keep his brother secure. Thor suggested shackles and removing any items from the room that Loki could use as weapons, an idea that had not occurred to SHIELD personnel and which left most of them wide-eyed and vaguely terrified. Dr. Selvig, released from medical, had made his way down to greet Bruce as an old friend. As for the rest, they settled in exhaustion, checking bumps and bruises. Banner, with his medical experiences, interrogated Stark to ensure he was recovering adequately from his lack of oxygen and exposure to deep space, which Stark waved away with noticeable irritability. At the same time, Romanoff pestered Barton on his sore leg, checking out a back injury that would likely lay him up for weeks, if not months. As for Steve…
“How’s the side, Cap?” Banner studied it with a practiced gaze, reminding Steve in the moment of Abraham Erskine.
“Hurts like hell,” he admitted. “But I’ll survive.”
“Hmmm,” Banner hummed, looking dubious. “May I?”
Steve shrugged, leaning his shield against the wall and holding his arm up as Banner leaned in, gently prodding the melted suit and broken armor. “Well, whatever got you did a number. It’s a wonder you aren’t killed.”
Steve winced, glancing briefly at the others who eyed him sympathetically. “If I had a dime for the number of times I’ve heard that in my lifetime.”
“Yeah, well, anyone else without the serum would be dead.” Banner grimaced with the knowledge of just how much that serum managed to protect. “You’ll be sore for a few days, so don’t do anything too strenuous while it heals up.”
Had he been more alert, he’d have had a snappy reply, but as it was the elevator doors opened, and a flurry of long, dark hair and vague sobs broke loose, throwing itself at Banner. He only just had enough presence of mind to catch her as Betty Ross wrapped herself around him.
“Look who finally decided to show up!” Stark grinned, holding up his paper cup in salute. “If we had known, we would have brought shawarma for you!”
Peggy, grim and exhausted, had trailed after Ross, looking surprised to see all of them, but her eyes rested on Steve, finally, relief bleeding out of her. Confused, she turned to the rest, frowning. “So…”
There was a world of questions in that drawn-out syllable, and it was Chief Braxton who stepped in to fill in what was going on. “We will be housing Loki for now until Thor returns to Asgard, under quadruple security and added shackles provided by Thor.”
“He has a nifty gag,” Barton interjected with understandable grim pleasure. “That will at least shut him up for a while.”
If they could also turn off his illusion magic while they were at it, Steve would be happy. It was discomforting and unsettling to see Loki mockingly put on his face and take on his voice. Why he’d targeted Steve rather than anyone else, he didn’t know, but such as it was with all bullies, he supposed. Find the most petty thing to pick on someone about because you feel it gives you power. He would be so happy to see the back of Loki.
Patiently, he watched as Peggy marched first to Stark, throwing her arms around him as he flailed awkwardly under her fierce concern. It was amusing to see Stark’s infamous swagger melt under Peggy’s worry, and had he been any less secure of a man, he might have been jealous. But Peggy had always been close with Howard as well, and despite the elder Stark’s womanizing ways, he’d never managed to seduce her. Steve had long suspected it was mostly out of fear, but also respect for Peggy for who she was rather than what she wanted out of him. It seemed that she’d kindled a similar relationship with the younger Stark, and it oddly made him feel pleased. Despite Tony being a very different man than Howard, there was that thread of continuity with the past, a piece of the familiar. Maybe there was more for him to hold onto in this strange new world after all.
When she finally made her way to Steve, he could see her gaze fix itself to his side, fear and worry spiking immediately. Steve cut it off with a shrug. “It’s fine, nothing more than a nasty bruise.”
Banner glared at him from over the top of Betty Ross’s head, but Steve ignored him as Peggy began picking at the charred bits of nylon fretfully. “Or it could be internal bleeding! Have you had someone look at it?”
“It’s fine,” he insisted, gently, pulling her fingers away.
She looked as if she might argue, but blessedly, Stark swooped in to run interference. “I don’t know, Aunt Peggy, should take him home. He may need you to play doctor.”
It was coarse and suggestive, and the sort of thing that the Howling Commandos would have thrown at them out in the field. A day ago, hearing that from Stark’s lips might have offended him with its familiarity and crudeness, especially towards Peggy, but instead, it made him laugh. It was the sort of camaraderie he’d had once before, in a different time and different war. Perhaps, here, even with the likes of Stark, he could find it again.
“You did good out there, Tony.” It was a simple statement of fact as far as Steve was concerned. Stark had saved the day, thinking on the fly. He’d assumed that Stark was all show and no substance, and today he’d been more than happy to be proved wrong.
To his surprise, his words hit true with Stark. Shock, vulnerability, and gratitude rose all at once in his expression, fleeting and leaving the other man for once without words. It took him a long moment before he could speak again, his voice rough. “You too, Cap. I’m not used to doing this whole team thing, it’s not my MO, but you were right, there’s no way I could have figured this out on my own. You put up with my bullshit and did a capital job of managing this bunch. I don’t know if we would have gotten our heads together otherwise.”
For Stark, that was a big admission, and Steve took his praise gratefully, simply holding out his hand to the other man. Stark studied it, before taking it, firmly.
“Does this mean we can sing kumbaya now and roast marshmallows?” Romanoff watched it all with dry amusement and a raised eyebrow, likely considering them both idiots. She wouldn’t be wrong.
“Not the worst idea,” Stark offered, “I mean, my apartment is a bit drafty at the moment, but we could turn on the fireplace.”
“I think I would prefer to find a place to crash and sleep for…forever,” Barton yawned.
It was on the tip of Steve’s tongue to jest that Banner would not like to crash and sleep forever, but the bit of self-deprecation fled as he watched Peggy, who turned to him with the sort of determination he had seen a hundred times over during the war. He was looking towards her lead. Whatever she wanted, he would do, whatever steps she wanted to take next, he’d go along with it. All he wanted now was to finally go home, and home was wherever she was. Without saying a word, she merely reached down, grabbed his blessedly cleaned shield, and slipped it onto her left arm, before taking his hand in hers. With gentle insistence, she tugged him with her, leading him towards the elevators, and guiding him past the others to the elevators beyond.
“Come on, soldier,” she breathed as they waited for the doors to open. “Let’s go home.”
Steve had never felt more relief or happiness at a single statement in his life.