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Steve scrubs at his beard while considering the safehouse. It’s simple, decorated in a bland, inoffensive style straight from a Sears catalogue circa 1993 -- nowhere near the worst safehouse you've stumbled into. There was one in Burbank that barely had walls, and another in Saigon that you shared with a nest of feral cats. This one has electricity and working plumbing, so a lack of beds is hardly the end of the world.
“There’s only three rooms,” he sighs.
“Sharp as ever, Captain,” Loki grumbles. He’s already shucked his tactical vest off and disposed of it over a dusty kitchen chair. It’s a bizarre departure from when you first met him, dressed all in leather and gold, but he manages to make cargo pants and kevlar elegant where the rest of you look grungy. The buckles of his knife holsters click against the tabletop when he sets them down, lined up in a neat row.
"You keep your mouth shut, Mischief." Evading custody has made Steve colder, quicker to frustration, and you can see it weighing on his shoulders. He looks at Loki ruefully, jaw rolling under a beard that's seen one-too-many days without a razor. In moments like these, you can see the man he must have been a century ago; some punk from Brooklyn curled up in foxholes and trenches, biting at his buddies' ankles because there was nothing else to do besides go mad.
"Fellas." Sam groans as Natasha sets him down on an uneasy chair. "Don't make me come over there and separate you two."
Part of Steve's especially sour mood is a result of Sam's injury (something between a sprain and a hairline fracture; to know more, you would have to venture into town and present government ID, so your diagnosis is mostly based on dandelion fluff). Natasha mentioned having a friend-of-a-friend in the area who could help, which usually translates to an ex-enemy who you might be able to strong-arm into helping. Regardless, it’s a sore reminder of Sam’s human-ness and one more rusted nail nagging in Steve's brain.
Loki dumps even more knives onto the table, some wicked, some curled, all of them polished to a glare.
“Sam’s getting one of the beds to himself.” Steve leaves no room for debate.
“Whatever,” Loki says flippantly. He pulls his thermal undershirt over his head, exposing the flat plane of his stomach. Even though Steve seems itching to fight, he doesn't make any effort to stop Loki as he slinks toward the bathroom. “I need to wash this grime out of my hair.”
Natasha starts on dinner while you and Steve do a quick debrief. Even though the guilt eats Steve alive some days, and he seems convinced that he's stolen all of you away from some better life, you don't think that Natasha would choose anywhere else on Earth over her evenings cooking for you all.
By the time Loki returns from the shower and announces that there is, by some miracle, reasonably warm water, his mood is considerably brighter. He puts his hand on your back when he squeezes past you in the kitchenette. “We can share a room, can’t we?”
“I guess.”
“I promise I won’t bite,” he says, with a leer that shows off every single pointed tooth. A few beads of water cling to his neck, shown off by the stretched collar of a too-large t-shirt he’s swiped from Steve. His hand is still on your spine. “Unless you want me to.”
Bastard.
The two of you sit shoulder-to-shoulder around the dinner table -- now divested of weapons, tucked away in your go-bags in case of an emergency -- and pick at your dinner. There’s an old box TV in the corner with a built-in VCR but the selection of tapes is limited. You eventually settled on Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, which Steve seems to particularly enjoy. (He's something of a romantic.)
Loki smells like cheap soap and water, like human warmth in a way that you’re not sure is entirely natural. He hasn’t used his seidr to dry his hair, so it’s still damp at the roots, which strikes you as odd. But then, you’ve only known him for so long, and only been friendly enough to talk for half that time.
Two months ago, it had been raining – raining in a way that left your skin aching, like you’d been sliced to ribbons to let water soak to your bones. The waves tossed rubble and aircraft parts up like they weighed nothing, narrowly avoided by Loki as he hauled Asgardians out of the wreckage.
You, Steve, Natasha and Sam spent hours helping the Asgardian princes – now kings – pull survivors to shore. Deliberately working around the gaping maw of a wound that stood six feet-and-three inches tall, wearing black leather and an askew helmet.
“He can’t… can’t stay here,” Thor had said, very quietly, once the last of the bodies was recovered. You were all soaked, heavy with salt and rain, but Loki was immaculate after only the barest wave of his hand.
No one knew he was among the refugees yet. If they had, he would not have made it off the ship alive. By your estimate, you had another half hour, forty-five minutes at most, before the shore was crawling with Avengers.
Luckily for Thor, Steve had a dark-haired hole in his heart that needed filling. “As long as he plays nice, he can come along.”
Loki is a survivor. It makes him good at this – being on the run. Good at poring over stolen maps and pointing out the most advantageous spots for Hydra bases. At fighting dirty, swinging knives and teeth with murderous intent. At playing pretend.
Loki could dry himself in seconds, but he chooses not to, and has chosen so ever since he joined your ragtag group of nomads. He sits through the mundane annoyance of wet hair and a cold shirt collar because it puts the rest of you at ease. Hides, if shoddily, the fact that he is an atomic bomb wearing a human-looking face.
“You're staring," he stage whispers.
“You promise to stay on your side of the bed?”
On the screen, Kenneth Branagh’s Benedick tears his hair out over Beatrice. He’s shadowed by tall, tall bushes, lit by the occasional peek of sun through the slits where people walk. Loki shovels a spoonful of stir-fry in his mouth. “Of course. I'm a gentleman.”
There are no ‘sides’ to the bed– it’s a twin, maybe a double, and Loki is so tall that his feet hang off the end even with his head stuffed all the way to the top. There isn't a living room or couch to escape to, so you have to swallow your pride and try to ignore how his breath ruffles the fine hair on your temple.
You stare up at the shapes cast by the blinds, pale blue stripes carved out of shadow, made bright white when headlights pass by. It’s a temperate night, just warm enough to crack the window, and the wind carries the smell of the ocean through the room.
Whenever you and Loki brush knees, his body is a little too hot. (You imagine that’s what you feel like to him. Warm-blooded, built to survive the cold but not to thrive.)
“You’re giving me a cramp just looking at you,” you grumble.
It’s less than ideal. Loki shies away like your skin is agonizing, his back bowed to leave a dearth of space between the two of you. It forces you to curl up in that space, which is neither comfortable nor productive.
“Look, we can–” Loki shifts again to get his knees away from your side, which throws your argument off course. “Stop moving so much. We’re sharing a bed. We can touch.”
“Why, dearest, are you propositioning me?”
“You’re a pig.”
“I should have your head for that.”
“Just– relax.”
Loki stays frozen before eventually, with a groan that sounds more like a growl, he slides over onto his back and bullies his shoulder under your arm. Once he’s situated, you try to fold yourself into his side in the least invasive way possible.
You hear the bathroom light click from outside your room, then a sleepy pair of footsteps fading down the hall. It’s Steve; Natasha doesn’t make any sound when she walks, even in the company of friends.
You need the silence between you and Loki to break, before your brain melts from the stress. “What was Asgard like?”
Loki shifts under you. He hooks an ankle around yours, folding his knee up into your thigh. “Beautiful. More beautiful than anything this planet has to offer.”
“How?”
“I grew up on the edge of a waterfall so tall that it seemed to pour straight down into the galaxy.” He offers the information petulantly, almost as if he’s unwilling to give it up. You turn your cheek to steal a glance at him and find him scowling. “That’s impossible, of course. But as a child, I believed Asgard to be the source of all the water in the universe.”
“You must be good at swimming, then.”
“Terrible.” Loki raises one hand to trace a line up and down his cheek, some self-soothing tick you’re sure he’s not aware of. Just a light trail down his temple to his jaw, then back up. “Thor would have to fish me out when we were children.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You can add ‘drowning’ to your list of ways to subdue me.”
You don't give him the benefit of a rolled eye. “I meant so I can help. If you’re ever– drowning.”
If he’s surprised by your plainness, he doesn’t let on. He only smears his fingers against the grain of his stubble, ruining whatever soothing path he had been tracing. “My home was built out of solid gold.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“You have no idea.”
The two of you lapse into silence. Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable – just silence, as simple as still water.
“What will you do when you run out of Hydra cells to exterminate?”
You shrug. His t-shirt is soft under your cheek, slightly pilled with wear. It belonged to Steve once upon a time, but on the run everything has become communal. You’re pretty sure that you and Natasha were sharing each other's mismatched socks this morning.
“You can’t keep running,” Loki continues. “Once this mission is over, the four of you will have to invent some new reason for existing.”
“Four of us? Five. Or do you think you’re exempt from this whole fugitive thing?” You cast him a glance through your eyelashes and find that thoughtfulness has made him more handsome. “Don’t tell me being on the lam is a lowly mortal activity.”
“I’m a realist. I understand that my being here is only delaying the inevitable.”
One of Loki’s hands has picked that self-soothing tick back up, tracing a line down your bicep. Up, then down... Up, down...
“Inevitable?”
“Do I have to spell it out for your dull, mortal brain?” His fingers climb an inch higher. “I made my peace a long time ago. I’ve been living on borrowed time my entire life. Might as well wreak some havoc in my final days.”
“Loki–”
The space between your bodies is eaten up without either of you really noticing. In such narrow quarters, even breathing pushes you into the other's arms. “You should sleep.”
His heartbeat is different than yours – lub dub thud, lub dub thud – but steady under your cheek. You'll only notice as your eyes slide shut, after the weight and heat of his hand pulls you toward sleep. Your thoughts end up all smushed, sinking into the tenderness of Loki’s chest. Worry mixes with arousal, mixes with exhaustion
You sleep hard. When you wake, Loki is already up and making coffee. He never makes more than one cup, but today the kettle is still boiled, with just enough water left for you.