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In America, things move slowly, but purposefully. Everyone has a schedule to follow, but there is still time to wave at a neighbor, pick up a newspaper, give a kid a dime to grab a comic book and sip at a bottle of Cola. Even at wartime, there was time to look out your window at the kids playing stickball in the alley, sketch out the way a building looks in the half-light of dusk, turn on the radio.
This, seventy years later, is not the America Steve was looking for. It’s a land of gods and monsters, a land where cities can be destroyed by aliens on floating motorcycles and giant, sinuous fake serpents can only be stopped by giant, green abominations.
There’s too much to be wary of, too much to fear and to quail away from for Steve to be afraid. There’s not time for fear when he’s too busy defending ideals that nobody believes in anymore, fighting for everything old-fashioned that is no longer relevant. So he joins up with a team to save the world, and then, when that’s done, joins up with smaller teams to help clean up rebuild New York, because then, at least, he can see things come together—he can see progress, from the pavement up, street after street cleared of debris and glass. It feels like an accomplishment. It’s slow, but purposeful. It feels like coming home.
Steve is sweeping up another street corner, a block away from the bulk of this section’s crew, when a shadow falls across him. He straightens up, turns towards the source of the darkness. They’re backlit too starkly; all he can see is a flare of dark hair and the deep grooves of a sharp smile. “Do you need any help?” he asks.
And Steve is on the defensive immediately, the broom held in his hands like a ready weapon, but Loki takes a step back, raising his hands with a brittle laugh. “I’m unarmed, Captain. I’m not hear to cause any… problems.”
“Not likely,” Steve spits, but he doesn’t start forward. If there’s a way to resolve this peacefully, he’ll have to. There are civilians in the building behind him; he doesn’t want this to escalate. “Why are you here?”
“I was curious.”
“You should be locked up."
Loki shrugs. “They tried.”
“Leave.”
Loki takes a step closer, and Steve flicks the broom handle out, pressing it against his sternum. Loki’s hands stay raised, and he takes a step to the side. Steve can see him clearly, now; his hands are still raisied, and he looks at him calmly, smile gone, but no scowl in place. Steve, naturally, doesn’t trust him.
“I could help,” Loki says smoothly. “You’re cleaning all of this…” He glances around at his surroundings in distaste. “Debris?"
“What’s it to you?” Steve demands, handle still raised.
Loki cocks one eyebrow and raises his opposite hand. It has Steve’s attention; he can’t fight magic, not in his civvies and not without his shield. Loki waves his hand.
Steve’s street corner is clear. The hunk of granite missing from the side of the building is repaired, one smooth, unbroken surface. The crushed glass is gone. The sidewalk is, if anything, cleaner than its been since Steve was… since before the war.
It’s amazing.
Steve looks back at Loki. His eyes are blazing, a heady, liquid green, and Steve doesn’t quite know what to say, because thank you sounds like forgiveness and you shouldn’t have sounds like forgiveness and that’s unbelievable sounds like forgiveness and idolatry, so he settles with a slow, painful nod.
Loki’s lips quirk up into a smile. “You’re welcome,” he says, slightly snide. He pulls the broom from Steve’s grasp and Steve doesn’t stop him, lets him lean it up against the granite wall behind them.
Steve makes a mistake: he lets his guard down. He lets a momentary relief cloud his judgment. He doesn’t spring into action when Loki spins around and presses a tight-lipped kiss against his mouth. Doesn’t even move when it softens, slightly, Loki’s hands curling over his arms.
And then the god is gone and Steve realizes something important. He realizes, perhaps for the first time, that there are different kinds of war.
Steve has never liked bullies; this is worse. This is every Hitler he punched out on stage; this is every HYDRA agents’ smart mouth in the face of right. Loki isn’t just a bully—he’s a monster.
That’s why Steve picks up the broom and goes back to his clean up unit and debriefs and goes home to Stark Tower and goes to bed and tries to smother himself in his pillow, because he’s never been this confused and Loki is a monster.
Loki isn’t just a monster—he’s a god. Fickle, capricious, volatile. Evil. Steve has to get out of bed to scrub his mouth with the bar of soap at the side of his sink, running the bar across his skin over and over and over until he can’t feel much besides a cool, slick slide over his mouth, and it’s much easier to process than the soft slash of thin lips.
Three times. Steve keeps a tally.
The supervisor calls, Steve Rogers, and he picks up his tools, and he turns the corner, and Loki takes the paint and the brushes from him and waves his hand and it’s done. Steve tries to ask why and what are you doing and stop messing around, but then Loki kisses him, his hands settling tentatively at Steve’s waist.
He disappears, but Steve can still feel him there, for a moment, a ghost of an echo.
Second—Steve has a broom and a mop, and it’s the inside of a building this time, and Loki walks out from farther inside because he’s impossible, and everything is squeaky-clean when he snaps his fingers, and when he tugs Steve towards him, they both slip on it, and Steve hears Loki laugh. It’s not what he’s expected. It’s happy. Normal. Human. It makes Steve smile, before he remembers himself.
The kiss is shorter; Steve can feel Loki smiling against his lips.
The third time, Steve’s boss compliments him on an incredible work ethic, and before he can deny it, he’s pulled aside, fingers folded over his elbow. He turns around, ready to berate, but it’s Loki, in a green shirt and black jeans, borrowed (stolen, Steve corrects, because Loki is bad) hardhat on his head, and he winks when Steve glares at him, tugs him around a corner. There’s nothing before the kiss, only Loki’s hand around Steve’s wrist, and Loki’s tongue brushing across his lip. This time, Loki pulls away, but he stays to stare at Steve, to look him in the eyes and swipe a thumb across his swollen bottom lip.
Loki stays for Steve’s location assignment. He walks with him down the blocks, listening to Steve reel off what’s expected in that position. This is the first time he says goodbye, Captain before he takes off.
Steve doesn’t say anything about the first three. When the fourth, fifth, tenth come around, he doesn’t see the point anymore. It’s his own fault. He thinks he might have been lost when pulled a god onto a spaceship.
It’s twelve,—Loki presses against him in an alley, one leg sliding up between Steve’s, and Steve gasps into his mouth, fists finding purchase in Loki’s hair and a slight yank making Loki cry out in return, both of them so close, fitting so tight, so close to— twelve when Steve bumps into Tony, and he has a mouth-shaped bruise on his neck and Tony, because it’s Tony, and Steve really shouldn’t have expected anything different, corners him in the elevator and demands an admission.
Tony stops the elevator when “I’ve been seeing someone” turns into “Loki’s out of god-jail.”
“Out,” Tony repeats carefully, “of god-jail? As in you’ve been making out with Loki—oh my god. Oh, my god—oh my god. You. You just.”
Steve’s not sure if Tony’s going to pass out or hit him or both, so he braces for the worst, hands loose at his side. Tony holds up a hand.
“Why?”
Steve opens his mouth to answer him, and stops. There is no good reason—there is no reason.
“Well, great. That’s healthy.”
“Tony—”
“No. Stop it. Think about this, Steve. His motive, maybe, if you don’t know what yours is.” Tony’s nose wrinkles at the thought of them, and Steve feels his face burn. “No offense. I mean, I get the attraction. You’re both beautiful people. It’s just, he’s beautiful and psychotic, and you’re America’s beacon.”
When Tony starts the elevator again, it goes down, but Steve presses a different button when the doors open. Tony looks back at him, but he doesn’t say anything when the doors close between them. Steve goes up the gym, wraps his hands, and settles in for a nice long (few) hour(s) of breaking something.
He’s two weight bags down when a rush of air sweeps through the room. He doesn’t turn around. He can guess. He gets in eight jabs at the bag before Loki speaks.
“I was… concerned, when you weren’t there for duty.” Steve can hear the smirk in his voice. He’s not sure if it’s over concerned or duty, but whichever it is, he can hear Tony in the back of his head going, Bad. Baaad. Steve! Super villain! It’s obnoxious. He hits the bag harder.
“I didn’t—feel up—for it—today,” Steve puffs, throwing in a spinning back-kick for good measure. It’s the kick that has the bag spinning off its axis and to the floor, sand spilling out. Well. That didn’t last long.
“Up for the work, or up for me?” Loki asks quietly, and Steve can’t turn around. He has sweat in his eyes, a bitter taste in his mouth, and he knows that he’s supposed to say something to deter this, to make it stop, but…
“How are you even here?” he asks. It’s too sharp. He squeezes his eyes shut.
“Here as in earth,” Loki clarifies. Steve nods. “I got… bored.”
“Bored enough to try and takeover again?” Steve turns around and smiles as he asks, but he already knows that the answer wouldn’t be the truth if he did mean to do anything dangerous, and if he didn’t… how would Steve know?
But that thought takes backseat to an eyeful of Loki—civilian clothes still on, covered in dust from head to toe, and Steve has to bite down on his lips to stop himself from laughing inappropriately. He’s filthy.
Loki shrugs. “I don’t intend on a takeover, no. Nor destruction. I’ve found something far more interesting.” He grins at Steve, his smile the only clean thing about him.
“What happened?” Steve asks brusquely; he can see himself blushing at the comment, and he shouldn’t be, it makes absolutely no sense. “You look awful.”
Loki waves his hand. “It’s nothing. The corner of a building collapsed on me.” He shrugs. “Faulty construction. There will, I’ve no doubt, be a fine. More importantly, though…” He takes a step forward and Steve rolls his eyes.
“If I end up covered in that mess, it’ll be more than just Tony asking questions.”
Loki hums, careful about where he’s touching him, his fingertips running down the sides of Steve’s neck, barely grazing his hair. “You’re going to have to give them good answers.”
“Perhaps offer them my… assistance, in exchange for you.”
“So I’m a trophy,” Steve says, and the eyebrow that Loki raises makes him smile.
“Would they believe anything more?”
“Probably not.” Steve isn’t sure that he believes anything more, but he lets Loki kiss him, anyways, and, god, what does that say about him?
“You taste like copper,” Steve tells him; there’s blood at the corner of Loki’s mouth; Steve wonders how hard the building hit him. And, of course, how hard Loki hit back.
“You taste like freedom,” Loki retorts, and Steve has to laugh at that, even (especially) when Loki’s eyes narrow and he twines his arms tightly around Steve, covering him in ash and powdered plaster.
“You’re a terrible person,” Steve gasps out, but he’s grinning and Loki’s eyes are sparkling and everything is a mess.
“Yes,” Loki agrees. “But terrible can be purposeful.” And he kisses Steve so hard that the two of them fall to the mat below them, twisted together in something awful and wonderful.
“You do not have to self-sacrifice here,” Natasha says roughly, and Steve thinks he’s probably phrased this very, very badly, because all of the Avengers are staring at him from around the table, and even Thor looks horrified at his brother’s actions. Steve would very much like to melt through his chair and disappear.
“It’s not like that,” Steve assures her. “It’s… um, I’ve seen him a few times. Around. And it seemed like it would be a good idea to—”
“To lay yourself down for his viewing pleasure?” Tony blurts out, appalled, and, oh god, Steve’s face is burning.
“No. We’re… I’m… Tony!” Steve points at him in some sort of desperate plea. “Remember what you assumed in the elevator? That was right!”
Tony blinks at him. “I have no idea what’s happening here.”
“You’re saying that you and… and my brother have a relationship?” Thor asks carefully, and Steve covers his face with his hands.
“I’m not saying anything. I’m not saying anything anymore. Just that Loki is not going to be destroying or overtaking or vandalizing anything in the foreseeable future.”
Steve stands up from the table to leave, and he can still feel all of their eyes on him when he goes, straight for the elevator. He needs to do something manual, something constructive to get his mind off of whatever this is.
He’s still three blocks away from the meeting point when someone tugs him into an alley, and he’s surprised enough to swipe his arm out of their grasp, swinging out his leg to catch their ankle and flip them to the ground.
And then he’s looking at Loki, on his back, not quite winded but surprised enough to look entirely dazed.
“Loki? What are you doing, I—” Steve takes him by the arms to drag him up to his feet, and Loki stares at him, hands on his shoulders after he’s set down.
“That was… unexpected,” he says slowly, and Steve is set to apologize when he catches Loki’s slow drag of tongue across lips and his hyper focus on Steve’s own mouth.
Steve bites his lip and Loki’s mouth falls open slightly. Well. Okay.
Steve pushes him up against the alley wall, keeping his wrists pinned at his side, and Loki lets him press slow, open mouthed kisses against his jaw, down his neck, and he gasps when Steve sucks against the space where his neck meets his shoulder, and Steve can feel Loki’s arms straining against his hands, so he tightens his grip and Loki rocks up with a gasp, rubbing against him and this? This is bad. Steve should be ashamed of himself, but he’s too busy grinding back, abandoning sucking patterns into Loki’s skin in favor of taking over his mouth, pulling one of Loki’s legs up around his waist to hear him panting at the friction, at too many sensations in one go.
When they’re close, Loki pulls back from Steve’s mouth to drift his lips over his ear. “I can’t wait,” he says, breathless, “To ruin you.”
One more roll of Loki’s hips against his and Steve is gone, jerking up against the god, filthy and wild and a rush of pleasure that feels close to dying. He keep his eyes on Loki, and the god’s own are wide, startled, cheeks gone feverish with spots of color, and he freezes, swears, and disappears.
Steve heads back home instead of walking on. Thankfully, he doesn’t see anybody on the way to his room. His shower lasts longer than usual, but even taking himself into his hands doesn’t feel nearly as powerful as Loki, there, rubbing against him, mouth wide and eyes so green they hurt.
Steve comes against the tile and thinks that he is definitely, definitely going to hell.
“On your left, Cap,” Tony says, and Steve twists just in time to catch a Doombot by the shoulder, swinging it around to whack it into its partner, both bursting in a light show that would but Iron Man’s repulsors to shame.
“How are we looking from the sky, Iron Man?” Steve—Captain America—asks. “The ground is almost clear.” It’s Captain America who is clear headed enough to jump up onto the hood of a taxi and bark out orders, easy and fluid and in his element. “Hawkeye, take the north corner of the building. Widow, I want you down the east alley. Thor—where’s Thor?”
“Distracted,” Natasha says through his receiver, dry and amused. “Or at least he will be. Doombots are all taken care of. Thor’s got a visitor.”
“Captain,” a slow, drawling voice cuts through his receiver, and while Captain America should be able to brush it off, order him off the comms, the fight is over and Steve is back and Steve has no idea how to react to this.
“L-Loki? What—”
“Brother?!” Thor answers, surprised, and Steve turns around, trying to spot them. Thor was supposed to be stationed south end… As he is now, hammer resting on the roof next to him, staring up at where Loki appears to be levitating, swimming in the air above him.
Steve sees Loki wave at him, and then disappear, gone in an instant.
“I’m not sure what to make of that,” Clint says slowly, “but I don’t think it was a good thing. Hey, Cap, your boyfriend here to help or harm?"
There’s a bitter note there that Steve ignores in favor of commanding, “Alright, we’re done here. Take off.”
“Want a lift, Cap?”
“That’s alright, Iron Man. I’m going to go ahead and walk.”
“Suit yourself.”
Steve watches the team leave and leans up against a parked car, letting his head fall forward. God, he’s tired. Stupid future with its stupid robots. Stupid Doom with his stupid magic robots. He is so tired of his… of his bullshit.
“You look exhausted.” Steve is too tired to jump when Loki ends up beside him; he pulls the communicator out of his ear and fumbles at the off switch, sliding it into his suit.
“Yeah, well.” He sighs. “I hate those things.” He points to one burned out husk on the sidewalk, still smoking in the sunshine. “I hate them. So much.”
“Hm.” Loki twists his hand in the air and the metal corpse in question vanishes in a flurry of disintegrating dust. Steve smiles. “Better?”
“Slightly.”
“Good,” Loki says brusquely. “Now. Let’s get you home.” Steve looks over at him just in time to see a fleeting smile pass across his face, and then the sun is gone, the sky is gone, everything is gone—there’s a moment when all there is around him is a cold, still, empty nothingness—and then they’re landing in his bedroom and he’s stumbling forward, and Loki’s holding him up with a snort.
“Thought you’d have better legs than that, Captain.”
“What did we just… where did you…”
“Teleportation—isn’t that what you call it, here?”
“I…” Steve looks up at him. Loki looks genuinely curious, like he can’t understand why Steve looks so discomfited. “Nobody actually teleports here.“
“Ah.” Loki smirks. “Perhaps you should sit.”
Steve sits down on the corner of his bed and breathes for a moment. This is all a bit much. “So,” he says after a second. “That’s the assistance you were talking about?”
Loki shrugs. “You all looked exhausted.”
“Thank you,” Steve says, looking up at him. “That definitely helped.”
“Did it.” Loki’s mouth twists to the side. “And what, I wonder, would my reward be, for that sort of… help?”
“I…” Steve is suddenly very, very aware that they are in his bedroom, that Loki’s taken a step to stand between his knees, and that it’s hotter than it should be. “What kind of… of reward did you have in mind?”
Loki clucks in annoyance. “You, of course. What else have I wanted?” His fingers play at the edge of the top of Steve’s suit, and Steve swallows.
“Then, then you should probably—” Loki cuts him off with a quick kiss, and Steve thinks that this is a reward that he won’t be able to handle, but he can try. Loki plunders his mouth with a quick, dirty tongue, and Steve doesn’t even notice his hands moving, but his suit is gone, Loki’s clothes are gone, and Loki has him higher up on the bed, and he’s kneeling above him, Steve’s thighs spread to accommodate the position.
Steve is going to die, and he can’t even be bothered to care, not with the way Loki’s eyes rake down his body, invasive and dark, and god, he wants. He wants.
“What do you want, Captain?” Loki asks softly, running his fingers along the inside of his thigh to see him shiver. It’s a full body thing, that strength dissolved into little shudders.
“A-Anything,” Steve says, but he can’t quite bring himself to match Loki’s eye, and it makes Loki feel absolutely wicked. Loki presses a hand flat against Steve’s chest until he glances at him, notes the way his blush travels down his body.
“Anything,” he repeats, dragging his hand down until it’s curled around his hip. He digs his nails in, slightly. Steve gasps.
“Yes, yes,” he mutters, squirming against him, and Loki grins, pulling his hand lower.
“If you’re sure,” he purrs, pressing lightly against his entrance. Steve bites his lip. Loki didn’t think the man could surprise him, but this does; he’s not worried, not shocked, not dismayed. Perhaps he does want something different.
“I—I wanted to—“ His groan is muffled against Loki’s hand as Loki nips against his throat, pressing against him. “I didn’t meant to—this—I shouldn’t—but you—“ Loki quiets him with a kiss too filthy to be gentle and two fingers slipped inside him that make Loki bless practical magic, because Steve bucks up at the speed of the sensation, crying out.
Loki doesn’t want to hurt him—not now, not yet. It’s so much more satisfying to watch him fall apart out of an enjoyment he knows he should ban himself, so Loki pulls back to watch how dark his eyes get, pupils blown, letting Loki fuck him on his fingers, a villain bringing a hero to devastation.
When Loki pulls his fingers out, Steve is far gone enough that he’s leaking out against himself, and when Loki slides his tongue across his mess, he whimpers, eyes shutting against it. Loki laughs, low and breathless.
“Look at me.” Steve takes too long to answer. Loki licks his way up his chest and clamps his teeth around a nipple, sucking hard, and Steve cries out, his eyes flying open. “That’s better.”
Steve’s eyes stay on him when he settles back between his legs—his breath catches when Loki starts the long slide into him, but his legs fall open wider, a wanton moan creeping out from between his lips, and Loki stops breathing, for a moment, glancing down at where they’re joined. Good versus evil. Two sides of a war.
He thrusts into him, hard and fast, and Steve is in no way quiet, little half-oaths falling from his lips every time Loki moves in, clutching at the headboard, folding his legs around Loki’s hips, pulling him closer, deeper, angling his hips towards him to get the angle exactly where he wants it.
Steve cries out when Loki rakes his nails down his back, a slow, lingering burn that has Steve arching up into it, and Loki fucks him like the world is ending, pistoning his hips in a way that should have a mortal quailing but has the super-soldier twisting against him in rapture.
He’s doing this to see the great Captain America writhing beneath him, to bring something so confoundedly pure to ruin, and leaving marks against back and chest is bringing him pretty damn close.
Loki brings a hand between them to wrap it around Steve, jerking him hard and fast. It’s Steve who comes first, freezing against Loki, his hands on his shoulders, spilling between them in a hot rush of everything he’s denied himself, with Loki buried inside him and his mouth open in a scream that doesn’t quite make its way out.
Loki pauses, letting Steve settle for a moment, feeling the speed of his pulse. He says, “You’re beautiful when you’re ruined.” He doesn’t mean to say it out loud.
Steve stares up at him, hair disheveled and mouth swollen, and says, “Then what was your first excuse?”
Loki blinks. “What?”
“I wasn’t ruined before you.” And it’s that, that sharp streak of honesty, wide eyed and too-innocent, even after all of this, and has Loki over the edge, thrusting up once to close his teeth over Steve’s shoulder and coming into him with a cry, muffled against his skin.
And Steve cries out along with him, because somehow, impossibly, he’s suddenly hard and coming again, when he shouldn’t even be able to and there’s too much, too much everywhere and it’s half pain, half pleasure, all bliss, and he rides it out with spots sparking up behind his eyes.
Loki pulls out of him and collapses beside him, eyes blinking too fast. “The reward was… acceptable.”
Steve can only make a noise in return that he hopes sounds like agreement. Words, right now, are not a thing that is happening.
And so, naturally, the rest of the Avengers decide to burst into the room, in full battle gear, weapons swinging. Steve whispers a quick thanks when Loki’s magic at least has them covered in a blanket in a moment, and it’s Loki who has it together enough to sit up and glare out at all of them, vindictive even when his hair’s a tangled mess and everything smells like sex.
“How did you even know he was here?” Steve asks, after a silent moment. He wonders if he sounds as addled as he feels.
“We—” Steve has never seen Clint blush before, but he supposes there’s a first time for everything. “We all were downstairs when… Thor figured it out.”
“Ah,” Loki says, and he looks away, slightly sheepish. “I see.”
“You see?” Steve repeats, glancing between a mortified Thor and an awkward Loki. “What do you see? Because I don’t see it.”
“I forgot myself,” Loki says quietly. “Were we in my own chambers, it would not have mattered, but in yours… Anyways, I thought that they were all otherwise occupied,” he says curtly. “It would have remained in the building.”
“What would?” Steve demands, his post-orgasm high dropping to irritation very, very rapidly.
“My… magic. There’s a certain degree of amplification of…” Loki can’t seem to figure out how to finish.
Fortunately for Steve, he can see Clint fidgeting, and Thor looking away and Tony’s faceplate is raised, so he can see how baffled he looks, and Steve’s own double whammy of…
“Oh my god,” Steve says miserably, ducking below the blanket. “Please. All of you. Leave. Out. Please.”
“It was accidental, I assure you,” Loki says quickly, but Steve wants to disappear, because he was not a part of the whole building’s orgasms.
“Well, now you all know,” Steve babbles, “feel free to go clean yourselves up.”
Steve can hear them trail out of the room, more quietly that they had come (oh god), now that they know that the danger isn’t danger, so much as…
“Usually I’m more prepared,” Loki says quietly, after the door has closed behind them. He flips the blanket back from Steve’s face and smiles slightly. “There are wards that can be put in place for that.”
“Can we never talk about it?” Steve pleads. “This never has to be brought up again.”
Loki’s grin glints something impish. “There are other things that can be brought up,” he assures him, and Steve’s not sure whether to laugh or hit him.
He settles for neither when Loki flips him over and buries himself between his legs. “Wards!” he gasps into his pillow, before all upper brain activity deserts him. “Don’t you dare—”
Loki mutters something that sounds a lot like what have I got myself into, but a blue light pulses from around them, gone in a flash.
Steve settles onto his elbows and thinks about what he’s done. Think about how, in a land of gods and monsters, he’s managed to find both.
Thinks about nothing else, because if Loki’s tongue is silver, his hands are gold, and Steve tries to concentrate on breathing while Loki does his best to destroy him.