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Steve was just about to settle in to read when he heard Wanda’s voice coming directly from his phone: “Steve! Come quick, I think I did something to Loki-”
She cut off abruptly, and Steve, alarmed, jerked to his feet, dropping the book, and took off for the room he knew Wanda and Loki used for practice, thoughts racing through what could have gone wrong. Loki was physically stronger than Wanda, but if she’d used her psychic manipulation on him, somehow triggered him…
He burst through the closed door to see Loki kneeling, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose, the other batting at Wanda. “I am fine, Maximoff. Stop fluttering-”
“Wanda,” Steve said, and then, “Loki?”
Loki groaned. “You called Steve?”
“You were unconscious,” Wanda said, giving Steve a defensive look. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, walking over to drop down next to them both. “And then your eyes were open but I could only see the white-”
“What happened?” Steve asked, trying not to say what did you do.
“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “We were trying something new, and it went...sideways.” She looked at Loki. “Do you know what happened?”
“No,” Loki said, sounding decidedly grumpy about it. He squeezed his eyes closed. “But I am fine. Just a slight headache.”
“And what if there’s something else,” Wanda said. “Something that’ll come up later?”
“I am not a weakling, Maximoff,” Loki said snappishly. Her nostrils flared, and Steve reached out to touch his arm.
“No one’s saying that,” he tried to soothe.
“She is thinking it, though,” Loki said. “And I am not.” Loki unfolded himself from the floor, rolling his shoulders back. “In fact, I am perfectly capable of finishing this lesson. You are remarkably talented and your strength is, however raw, amazing.”
Steve and Wanda both blinked at Loki. Wanda turned a little pink. “Thank you?” She said, rather taken aback. Loki, Steve noticed, looked a little surprised too.
“You are welcome,” he said slowly. “One of the reasons I have not said so before is because I think you may be stronger than I am, and once that is realized I will be effectively redundant and useless.” There was an expression of dawning horror on Loki’s face, and Steve looked at Wanda, whose mouth opened in a small ‘o’.
“Oh, Norns,” Loki said, and vanished.
“Oh dear,” Wanda said faintly, and Steve winced.
Loki had not just left the room, but the compound, and quite possibly the entire planet, based on the automated response to Steve’s text message that read gone somewhere extradimensional. Will respond upon return. Steve stared at it, worry starting to knot in his chest.
“This is my fault,” Wanda said, sounding distressed. Steve shook his head distractedly.
“No,” he said, which might not be...strictly true, but he didn’t want Wanda blaming herself. “You couldn’t...find him, could you?”
“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “I don’t...know much about traveling like that. And my magic seems to work...oddly, there.” She looked uncomfortable. “But I could try, if-”
Steve’s phone dinged, and he looked at it quickly. At the apartment, it said simply, and Steve felt instant relief followed very closely by more anxiety. But maybe...maybe whatever had happened, it had worn off, whatever kind of...compulsive truth telling spell that had been cast…
“I’d better get home,” he said. Wanda nodded, her eyebrows knitted worriedly together.
“Go, go,” she said. “And...tell him I’m sorry?”
She paused like she wanted to say more, and Steve said quietly, “I’d leave the rest of it, if I were you. At least for now.”
Whatever Tony’s nebulous status, he at least still let them use his airfield, which made the trip back quite a bit faster than it would’ve been by either car or train. He slipped down through the Tower with a bit of a pang of guilt for not stopping to say hello, but...he didn’t know what kind of shape Loki might be in.
He let himself into their apartment, calling out as he opened the door: “Loki?”
“Here,” he said. Steve stepped inside and saw Loki sitting on the couch, looking thoroughly unhappy. “I meant to wait until this...whatever it is...wore off, but it seems to have mucked with my ability to maintain my focus. Which is dangerous, because whenever I am in between worlds I think a little about stepping off the paths and falling.” Loki clamped his lips together, looking stricken. Steve’s stomach dropped, but he tried to keep his face calm.
“I’m glad you came back,” he said carefully. “Can you...is it just...when you talk? And you can’t help but…”
“It is like being drunk, a bit,” Loki said. “I feel perfectly normal, but suddenly I am - saying things that I know I do not want to say, but I cannot stop myself. Honestly, I would rather be drunk. That would be more fun. Possibly, except the last time I tried it I ended up running my mouth at Agent Romanova about how we are all doomed.” Loki squeezed his eyes closed and swore violently in a language Steve didn’t recognize.
He sat down slowly. For Loki, who treasured his privacy above almost everything else, and always kept such close control on everything he said...this had to be like a nightmare. Hell, if their places were switched it’d be a nightmare for Steve. Though he was still trying not to feel nauseous about the things Loki was saying. “Would you rather I...wasn’t here?” He asked.
“Yes. No,” Loki said. “I am worried if I am alone I will try something utterly mad, like, oh, I don’t know, cutting out my own tongue.” Steve flinched. “Probably I will not,” Loki said. “But it’s hard to tell sometimes, what is nothing but a harmless thought and what is dangerous. But I understand if you need to leave. I would not want to hear myself talk, if I could avoid it.”
This might be a nightmare for him, Steve thought, stomach churning. But he couldn’t just...leave. “I can manage,” he said with a weak smile.
“Somehow I am not surprised you should say that,” Loki said conversationally. “You would probably throw yourself in front of a bullet for me. Which would be pointless, because it wouldn’t do me any harm, but you would probably be dead. Which is such a waste, because you are a good man and I am very patently not. Under some definitions perhaps not technically a man at all-”
Loki managed to shut his mouth, finally, giving Steve a near panicked look. Steve wondered if he should see about finding some kind of sedative; maybe Loki could sleep through this. Or maybe that would make it worse?
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, not sure what else he could say. He didn’t want to leave Loki alone, but god-
“Don’t be sorry,” Loki said. “It always feels wrong when you apologize to me.” Steve almost apologized again, but he caught himself.
“Maybe we should try to talk about something...not serious,” Steve said, a little plaintively.
“Oh, Steve,” Loki said. “I can probably ruin any subject.”
As far as Steve could tell, whatever had happened had basically...tapped a direct line from Loki’s inner monologue to his mouth that he couldn’t shut off. Naturally, Loki had a very...active inner monologue. Steve supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that it was mostly...fairly awful. It was like being trapped in some kind of bizarre confessional, except neither of them had decided to be there.
Highlights included: Loki’s conversational remark that he’d stuck a knife through his hand at some point (“it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Loki said, almost apologetic); his description of himself as a monstrous aberration, and his confession that he sometimes fantasized about Steve hurting him. (“I know you would not,” Loki assured him. “I still don’t know if it is something I need or just do not know how to live without.”)
It wasn’t all bad. In between Steve got discourses on various classes of magic, a long, involved, and somewhat confusing story about a unicorn and a kelpie that might or might not be a fairytale, and a lot of rather effusive compliments.
“You shine,” he said. “With something - something. I wonder if your Dr. Erskine saw it in you.” Or, “I still cannot quite believe that I wake up every morning in the same bed as you. That you chose me. You wonderful, glorious man.”
Or, “I thought about you so much, for so long. I couldn’t work out why. I thought if I could only just solve your puzzle - but it was me all along, falling madly in love with you. You don’t know how much that frightened me.”
Steve’s chest hurt. He wanted to go hold Loki, but he was still pacing like he couldn’t hold still. “I might,” he said quietly. “I was scared. That you were never going to stop. That you’d keep running away. From me.”
Loki turned, finally, and looked at him. Frowning. “But you didn’t want me, then,” he said. “That was why - when I was here, at first, for such a long time you scarcely even touched me.”
“I didn’t want to take advantage,” Steve said. “But I - god.” He huffed a little laugh. “I think at least a part of me wanted you as far back as when you did that - thing. With the pear, or apple, or whatever it was…”
“Oh,” Loki said, a small smile curving his lips. “When I licked my fingers?” Steve felt his face go a little pink, but this seemed better than...painfully detailed discussion of Loki’s desire to hurt himself. “Well. We do know how much you like my tongue,” Loki said, cheerfully obscene. Steve glanced over his shoulder like someone might overhear them.
“You have the most endearing blush,” Loki went on. “Though now I am thinking about how it spreads down over your chest and I can chase its warmth under your skin with my mouth…” Steve felt his face heat up further and couldn’t decide if he should stop Loki to save himself or let him keep going. In the end he just made a kind of “uh huh,” noise.
“You like the sound of my voice, don’t you,” Loki said, smirking. “You don’t need to answer that. I know you do. Unlike most. I think most people would rather I talk less, not more.”
“Loki,” Steve said, the brief warm feeling evaporating as Loki’s smirk bled away.
“That was something he used to say. Not - not him, his lackey, I don’t know if he had a name. That I didn’t know the value of silence. He stitched my lips together once, I don’t, I don’t remember what I’d done wrong.” Loki’s inhale stuttered and panic bled back into his expression. “Most of the time I didn’t know. It was always so. Always arbitrary.”
Steve felt like he’d swallowed a rock, even if part of him was surprised that it had taken this long for them to get here. And part of him wanted to...let Loki talk, like he probably never would otherwise, maybe purge some of the poison floating around in his head. But at the same time - not like this. Not against his will, and not-
Steve wasn’t ready.
Loki licked his lips, his shoulders visibly tensing. “And I - I never knew what was coming. Or when. He would leave me alone for hours, or maybe days, I had no sense of time. And I could - could never decide whether it was worse to be alone in the quiet or to have him peeling the skin off my back-” His voice broke, taking a thin, ragged breath, and Steve took a step toward him, stomach turning over. He thought of the thin, silvery scars on Loki’s back, the raised lines across his chest, and some part of him wondered dazedly how long it had taken for the marks from his captivity with Thanos to fade.
“I knew,” Loki went on. “I - knew what they - what he was doing to me. On some level. I understood that I was being - shaped. But it almost didn’t matter, because I thought - I thought I would take anything rather than remain myself, I accepted being broken down and remade because it was a better alternative.” Loki’s teeth started chattering. “And I didn’t understand why - no one came, no one ever came. All-seeing Heimdall, I thought, but nothing, and that was worse - I could endure pain, but knowing that I was worthless, that I was expendable - I would have let the Chitauri leader rip my heart out if it promised to end that pain.”
“Hey,” Steve said, keeping his voice soft even if his chest felt tight, like he couldn’t breathe. Loki’s eyes flicked to him and then away, body tensing like he wanted to bolt. “It’s fine,” Steve said quickly. “It’s fine-”
“No,” Loki said, voice ragged. “It isn’t. I am - I am so tired of being this, of being weak. I know you will say it isn’t weak but it certainly feels it, like I might collapse and fall to pieces. And the look on your face - it hurts you. I am hurting you. All my pretty words about helping you bear your burdens and this is what it comes to, too much truth is cruelty, this is why-”
“You aren’t,” Steve insisted. “It’s not you that - no, listen,” he said, when Loki started to shake his head. “It’s an important difference. Between you and what happened to you.”
“Is there?” Loki’s body was so tense he was shaking. “Either way, it - hurts you, poisons you. Which is what I do, isn’t it, I ruin, I-” Loki’s hands rose, gripping his arms, the loose carelessness turning into agitation. Steve jerked forward and grabbed his arms, worried that Loki might start clawing at his skin.
“Stop it,” he said harshly, then tried to moderate it. “Stop. I know you can’t - can’t help what you’re saying, but it’s what you believe, not the truth.” Miraculously, Loki stared at him, lips parted, breathing like he’d been running hard. “You’re not going to scare me off. Or - break me.” Steve squeezed Loki’s arms when he shivered. “I’m hurting for you. Not because of you.”
“You are too kind to me,” Loki said. His throat bobbed, a ragged sound that wasn’t quite a sob escaping him. “I do not deserve you.”
“I say you do.”
“And what if you’re wrong?” Loki asked.
“I’m not.”
“Steve,” Loki said raggedly. Steve held his breath, hoping it was over, and after a moment Loki swayed, something ebbing out of him. He slumped, nearly falling, and Steve moved quickly to catch him.
“Hey,” he said, softly. Loki shivered slightly against him.
“I think it’s gone,” he murmured, nearly inaudible.
Steve exhaled in naked relief. “You’re all right,” he soothed.
“I am...very tired,” Loki said. His words slurred a little.
Steve gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze. “You can take a rest. It’s okay. We can talk after.” Steve’s heart clenched a little, tempted to think, or never. But he knew none of the stuff Loki had talked about would just go away. It was always there. Just unspoken. Things Loki didn’t want to or couldn’t or thought he shouldn’t say.
How did you talk about that?
For now, he escorted Loki to bed, where he curled up into a ball and seemed to drop straight into sleep. Steve looked down at him for several moments, his heart hurting. He ran his fingers gently through Loki’s hair, and then turned away.
Maybe he’d think of something before Loki woke up.
Steve called Wanda out in the living room, keeping one eye on the door to the bedroom in case anything...happened. She answered on the second ring and he wondered a little guiltily how long she’d been waiting for him to call. “Steve?” She said, and he could hear the dread in her voice.
“Hey,” he said, trying to muster up a little cheer. “He’s fine, the spell seems to have worn off.” Wanda said something that by the tone of her voice must be something like thank God in Sokovian.
“You don’t think...he’s going to avoid me forever, now.” She sounded miserable. “This was my fault…”
“From what it sounded like to me, it seemed like it was just as much his,” Steve said carefully. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Wanda. Accidents happen. Loki...Loki’ll understand, I think.” He hoped. Maybe he could talk with him about that.
After everything else. He held in a groan.
“Are you all right?” Wanda asked.
“Yeah,” Steve said quickly. “Yes, of course. Just tired.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding so young. Steve felt a pang.
“You don’t need to apologize,” he said. “It’s all right. I’m glad you weren’t hurt.” He paused. “I’d better…I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Yes, of course,” Wanda said. “I...take care of yourself, too, Steve.”
He mustered up a smile, hoping it would help him sound better. “I will.” Hanging up, he glanced over toward the bedroom door and poked his head in again. Loki was still sleeping, curled up tight in the way Steve associated with his worse nights, when Loki would lock down in his head and stop responding. But maybe he just needed to feel safe. However frustrating Loki’s defenses were, Steve knew they were important to him. Having all of that ripped away at once, exposing the wounds Loki went to such trouble to keep hidden, must feel like it was making them bleed all over again.
I thought I would take anything rather than remain myself, I accepted being broken down and remade because it was a better alternative.
Steve sat down and dropped his head into his hands, squeezing his eyes closed, a lump in his throat. At least, he told himself, at least he could be here when Loki came around. Make sure he knew that Steve wasn’t running away, that he couldn’t bear the truth. Even if part of him wasn’t sure he could.
He’d find a way. He’d have to.
Steve pulled a chair into the bedroom and sat down to read, keeping half an eye on Loki, listening for any change in the sound of his breathing, a sign of distress. He seemed to be almost unconscious, though, like the spell had sucked all the energy out of him. Steve let him sleep until it was almost dinnertime, and then got up and walked over to give his shoulder a squeeze.
“Loki?” He said quietly, and his eyes opened quickly enough that Steve thought maybe he’d been awake for a while and just pretending to sleep. He met Steve’s eyes briefly and then looked away. “It’s six o’clock. I think you should eat something.”
“Most likely,” Loki said dully.
“Loki…” Steve chewed on his lip, searching for the right words. “Do you want to...talk about anything?”
Loki stuttered a weak laugh, his gaze still directed toward the ceiling. “You do not think I have done enough talking?”
He stitched my lips together once. Steve felt nausea rise up the back of his throat and swallowed hard. “I think you might have...some of the wrong idea about things. And...and some of what you said...worries me.”
“You would hold me to account for honesty I was compelled to give?” Loki said, closing his eyes. “The things I do not speak I do not speak for a reason. Because not every thought is...deserves to be heard.”
“Maybe not,” Steve said slowly. “But I think a lot of what you think doesn’t, really does. The things you think about yourself…”
“I know,” Loki started to say, and Steve leaned forward, frowning.
“Don’t say I know what I am, because you don’t. Clearly. If you think you’re that awful, you don’t have any idea who you are. You have - some kind of picture that someone, somewhere, put in your head, and it has about as much in common with reality as I do with that statue in Prospect Park.
Loki’s eyebrows pulled together. “You are biased, Captain. You are inclined to see the good in me-”
“Or maybe I’m biased because I see the good in you,” Steve interrupted. “So just…” he trailed off. “And I’m not. I’m not upset with you. For you. On your behalf. But not with.”
Loki rolled over, unfolding a little. “Does it make a difference?”
“It does.” Steve summoned a weak smile. “Isn’t it...it’s hard for you when I’m hurting, isn’t it?” A flicker of Loki’s expression, and he reached out to brush his fingers against Loki’s cheekbone, which still felt a little overwarm. “But you won’t let me shut you out because of it.”
“No,” Loki said softly. “No, I will not.” He reached up, fingers wrapping around Steve’s wrist. Steve shifted so he could run the fingers of his other hand through Loki’s hair.
“Do you,” he paused. “Do you still...hurt yourself?”
Loki swallowed. “Not often.”
Steve’s heart squeezed. “Can you...don’t? Please? Or, or find something else to do, if, if I need to-”
“No,” Loki said vehemently. “I will not do that to you.”
“I’d rather that than you - stab yourself through the hand! Or whatever else-” Steve’s throat closed and he had to stop. “Maybe there are - other things, smaller things, that could still...whatever you need, might still…” He trailed off, at a loss. Loki made a noise in the back of his throat.
“Steve,” he said, and then stopped, slumping. “I know I am - wrong. In a thousand small ways. None of those are yours to fix.”
“You’re not wrong,” Steve said, not quite snapped. “And I’m not trying to fix you. I just want to help. So please - let me at least try.”
“I can’t stop you,” Loki said quietly, after a long silence. It wasn’t an endorsement. But it was something, maybe. Steve bowed forward, resting his forehead against Loki’s.
“What - he did to you, or the Chitauri,” he said slowly, “that doesn’t define you. That’s not...you’re more than that. I know you feel like it makes you...weak, pathetic. But that’s not true. You survived, and kept going, and look at you now. What happened...whatever happened, there, that’s not all you are.”
Loki was quiet for several long seconds. “I do not know if my soul was broken before he found me, or if he broke it, or if it was some of both,” he said. “But I know that - I was reforged, there. Those pieces soldered together with his words and my own...hate and anger. The Loki I was before died in the Void. What rose from the portal the Tesseract opened...that was something else. Something stamped with his mark.”
Steve shook his head. “That’s what you were supposed to believe. But it’s not true. He wouldn’t have - kept such a close watch on you if it were. Right? If he didn’t know that you were still free. Because nobody - nobody can hold you for long.”
“You can,” Loki said, eyes turning slowly to Steve. It should have come with a smile, but Loki looked perfectly serious.
“Against your will,” Steve amended, after a moment. Loki sighed out.
“I love you,” he said finally, “but I do not know how to believe you.”
Steve’s heart ached. “I guess you’ll have to try to let me believe enough for both of us until you figure it out. And I love you too.”
“Even still?” Loki said, and if it was spoken ironically Steve thought he heard a thread of sincerity underneath. He caught Loki’s gaze and held it.
“Even still,” he said softly.