The room remained silent for what seemed like hours.

Tony stood, facing Steve, looking like a bull ready to charge.

Steve's face had hardened considerably; his 1940s nice-guy act had crumbled.

"Why do you say these things about my brother?" Thor asked.

Steve snapped first. "Because he's drunk, that's why. How much have you had to drink, Stark?" When Steve received no answer from the billionaire, he wheeled around to address Bruce, who was quietly shuffling towards the door. "I heard you two talking last night. How much has he had to drink?"

"I don't know," Bruce said, eyes cast down to the floor. "He was drinking when I got up there. He hasn't really, um, stopped. I don't think he's slept, either."

"You're a mess," Steve said, eyes trained on Tony again. "You've become the weak link. You've become the one person in the room who's unstable and might stab us in the back. It's not Loki anymore; it's you."

"Oh, my God!" Tony shouted. "What did he tell you last night that got you to swap sides so easily, Rogers? Huh? While you two were fucking in the panic room, did he tell you about all his daddy issues? How Thor was never a brother to him and Papa Smurf never cared enough? How he was always hidden in the shadows and never got his turn? What did he say that got you so twisted around?"

Bruce shifted uncomfortably and sidled closer to the door. The negative energy in the room was bringing an uncomfortable warmth to his skin.

"His daddy issues?" Steve shouted back. "You're one to talk. All you ever do is mope about Howard!"

"You didn't know my father like I knew him!" Tony screamed.

"I knew your father better than you ever did! He was a great man with a brilliant mind!"

"He was cruel and unloving and I'm glad he's dead!"

Surprisingly, it was Steve who acted first, swinging a fist out and catching Tony right in the jaw. Tony crumpled to the floor.

"You're nothing without your suit, Stark," Steve said, brows furrowed in frustration. "You forget what we are here. Either you can stop drinking and get your head screwed on right, or I'll lead this operation from my apartment."

Tony pushed himself up off the floor. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks, Captain. What do you think Loki's going to do once he has the necklace? Do you think he's just going to zoom back to Asgard and return it to Odin and spend the rest of his immortal life guarding the damn thing? No. He'll unleash its power on New York City and God knows where else." Tony's voice dropped to a menacing whisper. "Think of how easy it would be to take over the world if he could just suck the life right out of us."

"You're drunk," Steve insisted. "You're being cruel."

"What do you know about cruelty, Steve? Everything's been given to you. You haven't had to work for anything. All the power, all the glory, all the fame - it was handed to you by a scientist."

"The darkest place you've been is your own mind, Stark!" Steve stepped closer to Tony. Intimidated, Tony stepped backwards and tumbled over the steps leading up to the bar.

"Jarvis?" Tony called.

Steve took a few steps, advancing towards Tony. "You don't know what war is like."

"Yes, sir?" Jarvis responded.

"Anytime, Jarvis."

"You don't know what it's like to be in a world you don't understand. You don't know what it's like to have to fight for your sanity every day," Steve continued.

"Yes, sir."

"You've never been the cause of the death of someone you loved and cared about." Steve's jaw hardened as he spoke, so focused on making sure he drove his point home to a drunken Tony that he didn't notice the red suitcase that zoomed past him.

"Steve," Thor said, rising from his seat.

Steve ignored him. "I don't want to hear that I haven't had to work for anything. My entire life has been a stru - "

It seemed that the red metal of Tony's suit wrapped around his body more quickly than ever before. The cold metal connected with the side of Steve's face before he could finish the thought, sending the man across the room.

"I'm sick of hearing you talk, Rogers," Tony said. "Loki is a threat and threats have to be eliminated." A beam fired from one of the repulsors in Tony's palm, aimed right at Loki's chest.

Due to the proximity, there was no way Loki had time to move.

It was Bruce who took the hit, stumbling in front of Loki with a, "Stark, we need him!" He barely had time to finish before he was flying backwards, joining Steve on the tile floor. Steve was still groaning and trying to push himself to his feet.

"Tony, you have to stop!" Thor called, but Tony wasted no time in firing off more beams, most of them missing his intended target. Loki had moved, darting across the room to near the large picture windows that served as a wall. If he had to throw Tony out of one again . . . well, so be it.

A rumbling came from behind one of the couches in the living room and Steve scrambled to his feet, backing so quickly into the back of the couch that he flipped over it and crashed into the coffee table. Thor rushed to help him up but was thrown back by the fist of a very angry Bruce Banner.

All large and green, Bruce charged at Tony, the painful beams from the repulsors acting as a mere irritation. One of his hands was practically half of Tony and he scooped the drunken playboy up, easily crushing the metal beneath his fingers. Tony let out a yell, doing his best to fly away, but Bruce reached down and ripped the bottom part of the armor off.

It scraped at Tony's skin, causing a small trail of blood to follow as Bruce ran for the window.

Loki sidestepped, although Bruce hadn't been aiming for him, anyway.

Glass shattered in every direction, embedding into Loki's bare torso. Steve took cover near the base of the couch. Thor simply put his arm over his eyes.

A silence enveloped the room, broken only by small bits of debris falling from the walls and the broken window.

Slowly, Steve pushed himself onto his feet, a trickle of blood slipping from his nose and down his chin. Tony had hit him hard.

"Maybe it's best you take my brother elsewhere," Thor said, his gaze traveling to Loki, who was picking small bits of glass from his side with sharp gasps. "Clean him up. I will find Bruce and Tony."

#

Steve's keys jangled as he unlocked his apartment door, opening it to reveal darkness and silence. Both of these were quickly diminished by the living room light and a soft thump as a cat jumped from the couch to the floor to greet Steve and the stranger he'd brought with him.

"He is quite large," Loki commented, not making any move to reach down and greet the thing. "What do you feed it?"

"Asgardians," Steve said, grinning and then grimacing due to the bruise rapidly overtaking the left side of his face. "We should take care of your chest."

"It's fine." Loki had picked out the glass in Tony's living room; by the time the cab back to Steve's apartment had cut through the busy New York City traffic, the bleeding had stopped, even though the pain hadn't.

"At least put some ice on it." Steve turned to go into the kitchen, but then stopped in the doorway. "And make yourself at home. I promise Oz doesn't bite."

"Oz?" Loki asked.

"Oh, yeah. The cat. His name is Oz."

"Right," Loki said, as Steve disappeared into the kitchen. Oz curled himself around Loki's feet and legs, purring contentedly. Loki was skeptical of the creature, unsure as to why it was so welcoming to a complete stranger. What if he'd meant harm to the cat's owner? Loki accepted the bag of ice when Steve returned, raising his eyebrows at the cartoon depiction of the Avengers on the front.

Steve shrugged, grinning behind his own bag of ice, which was pressed to his face. "It was all they had at the store."

#

"Tell me, little one. Where is the diamond?"

Anthony Russo was a large, tan expanse of a man, with hair that was graying around the edges and teeth that were yellowing faster than old paper. A frontmost tooth had been replaced by a sharp, silver fang. It was rumored that this particular tooth was removable and held a miniscule, but fatal, amount of poison.

"Why won't you answer me?"

Anthony was getting frustrated. His already thick Italian accent was becoming garbled with unintelligible, angry muttering.

"Someone get an answer out of this cunt." He gestured to the redhead tied to a large, wooden beam in the center of the room.

Natasha wasn't supposed to get caught; that wasn't part of the plan. And normally, she didn't. She was one of SHIELD's top agents. Her mind had been elsewhere, though. She'd been . . . distracted.

Actually, her being there wasn't a part of the plan, either. It hadn't been her intention to go after Russo alone, but Fury was unwilling to move in on him until he had definitive proof of nuclear weaponry. Natasha had been skeptical of the whole thing. Nuclear weaponry in Rome? That was preposterous - but the council had its suspicions and were waiting for the intelligence that would confirm the existence of such things.

But the intelligence got blown up in a bomb blast shortly before it was set to depart from Sicily . . . and its carrier was found drowned in the Platani River. If anything, that was an admission of guilt. They had something to hide.

Natasha had suffered some emotional trauma after the attack on New York City. Fury had recommended - no, insisted - that she take an extended vacation. She'd returned to SHIELD roughly three months ago and although Fury didn't have her pushing paper, he may as well have. He kept sending her on easy missions with Clint, ones that kept her within the parameters of the United States. She was fed up and their intelligence was lost.

She was going in.

Russo hadn't been expecting her and she had killed six of his men, but there were plenty more where they came from. They came storming through the doors by the dozen and without any backup, Natasha was a sitting duck. She should have known they would figure out who she was, even though she lied about her name. Face recognition wasn't a foreign concept to Italians, especially ones who may have been sitting on nuclear weapons. They hacked into SHIELD databases easily enough, which is what tipped off Clint.

"Maybe we should just shoot her boss," came the suggestion of a gangly, tall Italian with a gross scar across his cheek.

"She's no use to me if she's dead," Russo argued. "I need to know where the diamond is."

"I don't know anything about a diamond," Natasha said, struggling against the ropes that bound her. There was no way she was getting undone. She had no weapons and her feet were bound as firmly as her hands; her wrists were bleeding from the friction as she struggled. "Please, I'm just a tourist! I just wanted to see Sicily."

"Ms. Romanoff, don't think you can fool us so easily. We know about your government work. We know about the Avengers Initiative. And the man you answer to knows about my diamond."

"Just because Fury knows about the diamond doesn't mean that I do," Natasha grumbled through gritted teeth, pulling at the ropes once more.

Russo scoffed. "Peter, get her some water. We leave her for the night. It is storming out, yes?"

"Yes, sir." The man with the scar stood. "Supposed to storm until early tomorrow morning."

"Good." Russo nodded. "Open the roof and raise the beam. We'll see if she talks after the storm has its way with her."

#

"May I ask you a question?"

"I suppose," Steve said, lifting a mug of coffee to his lips and taking a slow drink. He made a face, which caused Loki to chuckle. The hours had passed into evening. New York was busy outside Steve's apartment; rain pattered against the window. "Do you think they're okay?"

Loki laughed. "I asked if I could ask the question."

"I know," Steve smiled, but it was slight and sad.

"I don't know to whom you are referring," Loki responded, after a short pause. "Some clarification may be necessary."

"Bruce, Tony, Thor, Clint, Natasha - everyone." Steve looked concerned.

Loki shrugged, his bony shoulders covered by the blue-and-white checked print of one of the many button-ups that Steve owned. "Thor is fine. I'm sure Bruce and Tony are, as well, as Thor hasn't come knocking down your door to form a government search party."

"What about the others?"

Loki scoffed. "I don't know. I don't care." He paused, seeing the sadness in Steve's eyes. "But I'm sure they're fine. If they weren't, you would know. This I am sure of. Now, may I ask you a question?"

"Yes, sorry." Steve set aside his mug of coffee, which had grown grossly cold, and directed his attention to Loki.

"What do they know of you? You know, all of your Avengers. Do they know anything about you at all?"

Steve looked surprised by the question, caught off-guard by the sincerity of it. "Uh, well . . . I don't really like to talk about the past. That's the best way to forget about it."

"Would you let me in?"

"I don't understand."

Loki moved closer, to close the gap between the two of them, his pale fingers threading through Steve's hair. "Let me in."

A nervous chuckle escaped Steve's lips. "No . . . I - Loki - What are you doing?"

"Shh," Loki whispered, leaning closer, his nose nudging Steve's. "Let me in."

Their lips connected in a kiss. Steve froze but didn't stop Loki from sidling gracefully into Steve's lap as if he did this every day. Their tongues met and Steve reacted, tilting his head to add depth to their kiss.

Loki's fingers twisted harshly in Steve's hair and a jolt of pain rushed through Steve's head, causing him to cry out and pull away.

Loki jerked him back forward. Before roughly smashing their lips together, he whispered, "Just trust me."