Chapter Text
They were sitting on the beach, watching the waves go in and out.
Loki was asleep, peacefully, blessedly. Steve's mind was a pleasant blank, absent of his renewed remembrances of his previous life. He wasn't back at Coney Island with Bucky, he was just here. Now. There were no omnipresent feelings of guilt and shame that accompanied his memories as the Winter Solider. There were only the waves, coming in and coming in and coming in, the tide gradually creeping up the abandoned beach where the only other life forms were the gulls playing in the wind currents overhead.
His mind was blank for the first time in a very long time. As long as he could remember. Which, by incremental measures, was a surprising amount.
The sand was warm under his legs, and the sun was hot on top of his head. A mist of sweat gathered under his long hair at the nape of his neck. He sat there and just felt.
Eventually, the soft breathing of the body next to him entered the periphery of his awareness. Loki remained fast asleep. His breathing was getting better gradually, but it was still raspy from injury. He resolutely refused to talk about the healing progress of his internal organs, but it wasn't a stretch to imagine they were getting better, bit by bit. Maybe more slowly than the bones in his fingers, which were now straighter, stronger. He could grip objects with increasing strength. The hand on the far side of Loki's body was palm up on his lap, curling inwards but relaxed. The hand nearest Steve was flat on the sand between them, palm down, fingers splayed, grounding himself unconsciously in his slumber.
An unwanted and intrusive thought pierced the cloud of peace in Steve's brain. The two men were still mentally linked, but the connection was starting to fade. When it was new, he'd felt how alone Loki had been, all his life. From infancy as an abandoned creature, to being the overlooked second son, to the villain in his culture's own stories of monsters, to a broken thing, carved open in HYDRA's uncaring abattoir. He felt that loneliness even now, as they traveled together, healing, uncovering more about the shadowy organization that had so violently changed each of their lives.
That link was dwindling, and while Steve was relived to be at home, mostly alone, in his head again, he wondered if the same was true for Loki.
Without a real conscious thought, he shuffled his own hand over on the sand, lining his pinky finger up with Loki's, letting the two small digits rest together on the soft surface. It wasn't much, but it was a connection, and if he felt his heart tightening with the action, he ascribed it to pity for the other man who had been through so much, even before he had fallen to Earth.
But the contact warmed his own chest, too. It was a strange thing, to be both human and inhuman at the same time. The man who he had been, and was becoming again, in a perpetual dance with the thoughts and actions of the Asset.
Touching hands was the most human he'd felt in a long time and he couldn't pull his gaze away from their fingers, back to the horizon. He was so focused he didn't hear it when Loki's quiet breathing stopped and the man next to him broke out of his shallow sleep. What he saw, what he felt, was Loki's pinky finger move slowly against his own, the tip of it stroking over his skin, back and forth in the most halting, tentative way. He stopped breathing.
After a few moments, the motion ceased, and Loki's digit lay still again in the sand next to his. His skin tingled where they touched. He remembered to breathe again, sucking in a great lungful of breath and tearing his gaze away to return to the horizon.
Something was tight in his ribcage, but it was a nameless anticipation, an excitement that lit up his veins. A recognition that this contact was okay, that they were both alive, that they were both here now and that there was nothing imminent to worry about, to run from, to fight against. He stared firmly at the horizon, even though he really wanted to look down at their aligned hands, or better yet, to look at Loki's face, see what expression might be clouded in his eyes. Something there and not there at the same time.
But instead, he stared at the horizon and he lifted his pinky, palm still flat on the sand, and curled it over Loki's, hooking their fingers together in the most delicate of embraces. It said 'I'm here' and 'this is okay' and probably several other things that Steve's heart was racing too fast to identify.
He heard Loki's breath stutter next to him. There was no exhalation for a long, breathless moment. When it passed, he could sense the other man relaxing again next to him. Loki sighed, deepening the peace they both felt. The small broken finger, nearly healed, tugged against Steve's own, curling it against Loki's ring finger and holding fast.
The furious beating of Steve's own heart did not slow until he heard Loki's breathing return to the soft rasp of sleep. His heart was steady now, and full, and the gulls swooped overhead. The waves came in and came in and came in.