Chapter 13
Loki swims upwards through the fog clouding his brain. When he opens his eyes, the lights are far too bright. He winces and tries to pull himself up by his elbows. His arms follow his instructions — he’s not chained down, then — but his side burns and he collapses back down.
“I see you’re deciding to rejoin the land of the living,” Tony says, arms crossed. “You gave Thor quite a scare.”
“Good to know,” Loki mutters, prompting a coughing fit. Tony hands him a glass of water, which takes altogether too much strength for Loki to hold up. Distantly, Loki considers his options for fighting his way out, if it proves necessary. With no weapons — neither of his daggers are in sight — and not enough seidr to do anything, he is relatively defenseless.
He is, however, neither chained down nor wearing those terrible cuffs. Either the Avengers have had a change of heart, which he considers unlikely, or his near-death caused them to cut him a little slack. And near-death is not an exaggeration: healing is difficult work, not to be done when one is already running dry. And Loki was so far past dry — with the overuse of the cuffs and the wound in his side, Loki should have been under strict bedrest. He should not have been stopping empty soldiers from killing the people imprisoning him.
Speaking of imprisonment… Stark is not wearing his armor. Loki knows that Stark’s armor does not take long to manifest — but still, he always makes sure to a least have a repulser around Loki. While Loki mulls this over, Thor runs into the room.
“Loki!” He yells.
Loki winces. “Would it kill you to speak quietly?” He tries to snap, but his voice comes out paper thin.
“Sorry,” Thor whispers. (Which is relatively similar to a normal speaking voice.) “I am overjoyed that you’re awake.”
Loki’s entire body hurts. He can feel his seidr — but it’s all focusing inward on healing himself. He’s not cold anymore, not like when the cuffs were on, but he’s still tired. “That makes one of us.”
“Brother,” Thor starts, before looking away. “I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”
“Oh,” Loki says. Neither brother says anything for a long time.
“I shall let you rest!” Thor says, turning to go. He misses the tear that streaks down Loki’s cheek.
“It was the Winter Soldier,” Natasha says, pausing the surveillance footage on a frame covered in shadows, the soldier looking more monster than man. “He trained me. Shot me, once.”
“I thought we cleared out HYDRA,” Steve sighs. “I died to stop the Nazis. But they keep coming back.”
“Fascists have a way of doing that,” Bruce says. “There will always be someone who cares more about power than people.”
“What I want to know,” Clint stabs one of Loki’s knives into the table. “Is why the Winter Soldier had the exact same plan as Loki did during the Battle of New York.”
“Not quite the same plan,” Steve sighs.
“You have to acknowledge that it’s suspicious, though!” Clint says.
“I’m not sure about that,” Steve says. “If Loki was in on the plan, he could have gone with the soldier. And he ripped his wounds back open — I don’t think that he’d do that on purpose.”
“You underestimate my brother,” Thor says.
“Maybe,” Steve admits. “But the logs show that the first thing Loki did was asking FRIDAY about Thor. And he wouldn’t have needed to convince FRIDAY to let him go if the Winter Soldier could have come and freed him minutes later.”
Natasha sighs. “I hate to agree with Steve on this, but I think this doesn’t fit Loki’s MO. How would he know the Winter Soldier in the first place? And the conversation between them didn’t seem planned.”
“I think,” Bruce says slowly. “That when we cleared HYDRA out of SHIELD, we missed a few bases. The people who are left are probably desperate to reclaim the glory they think they deserve, or whatever people like that care about. Thus, copying an invasion that failed. And giving the Winter Soldier bad information.”
“You might be right about that,” Natasha says, an odd look on her face. “I’ll see if I can find any more information about the Winter Soldier or any remaining HYDRA bases.”
“You know how long it’ll take for you to feel better?” Steve asks.
Loki still doesn’t trust him — he’s too kind, too sincere. Nobody has treated Loki kindly in a long time. But Loki knows that Steve’s one of the main reasons that he’s not currently in those cuffs, so he plays the few cards he has. And he isn’t even lying.
“I don’t know,” Loki says. “Seidr is like a muscle. Without having used it for a month, it’s already atrophied.” Loki coughs a little. “Seidr is woven into my very being. So when I healed Thor, I accidentally gave him more than I could do safely. It’s probably going to take a while.”
By this, Loki means please by the Norns don’t put me in those cuffs again. I think I’d die. I’d rather die.
Steve looks sympathetic. “Anything we can do to help you heal faster?”
“Giving me back my knives,” Loki half-jokes. “Really, I’d have to ask moth—” Loki freezes, face falling.
“Never mind.” He shakes his head desperately, his voice too small. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“You miss her,” Steve says softly. “That’s perfectly normal.”
“Normal?” Loki laughs that laugh of his, the one with an edge so sharp it could take the place of his knives. “Nothing about learning that everyone I’ve ever known is dead is normal. That mother is…”
Loki trails off. He knows it’s true, he just can’t say it. He’s known for a month. He feels like a terrible son.
“I suppose there was a funeral,” Loki says, picking at his palm. “Thor got to grieve. But for me, they’re just gone. I didn’t love Asgard. But I never wanted this.”
Steve sighs. He hadn’t planned on baring his soul to Loki — but he has never been able to ignore injustice, even when he was 5’3” and asthmatic.
“I know what you’re going through,” Steve tells Loki. At Loki’s raised eyebrow, he continues: “Not with the magic, of course. But with grief.”
Loki hunches in a little at the word “grief.” There’s something powerful about giving it a name.
“Do you know about Captain America?” Steve asks. It’s a long story, and he’s not quite sure where to start.
“Talking about yourself in the third person, now?” Loki jokes weakly.
“I guess.” Steve shrugs. “Cap was always more mindset than person. We were at war, you see, and morale was low.”
Loki nods, like war is something he understands. Steve hurts for him.
“I was a dancing monkey — I pretended to punch Hitler and gave rousing speeches.” Steve shrugs.
“What does this have to do with me?” Loki asks, and Steve can see him putting his walls back up.
“Just listen,” Steve says. “You like stories, right?”
Loki nods begrudgingly.
“I’m not actually a Captain — I mean, I think I was given an honorary title after I died, but we’re not there yet. I was a glorified propaganda poster. Then they finally let me fight.” Steve smiles wistfully, caught up in the memories. “We were called the Howling Commandos. They were my men and we were damn good at what we did.” Steve’s voice breaks. He can feel Loki’s eyes on him, but he’s too lost in his thoughts to meet his gaze. “My best friend, Bucky, was with me. We grew up together. He died. A mission later, I crashed my plane into the Atlantic.”
Loki interjects, because of course this is the part that confuses him. “But Midgardians aren’t able to survive something like that.”
“The experiments changed me. I didn’t think I would survive, but I did. They pulled me out of the ice decades later.” Steve sighs heavily. He’s only in his mid twenties but he feels so very old. “When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost.”
“Oh,” Loki says, looking down. “Was there anyone from your old life left?” Loki sounds like he’s pleading. Steve knows Loki’s asking as much for himself as for Steve’s benefit.
“Sort of,” Steve says. “The few who were still around had kids and grandkids. They had full lives, without me, and I don’t begrudge them that happiness. I wish I could have been there, but I’m glad they thrived.”
Loki twists the sheets in his hands. “I don’t know what to do,” he says, sounding as young as Steve has ever heard him.
“We have to keep living,” Steve says. “That’s what they’d want.”
“Does it ever stop hurting?” Loki’s voice breaks.
Steve smiles sadly. “I’ll let you know when I figure out the answer myself.”