Thank you lovely and loyal readers. Here is the next installment. Enjoy!

Finders Keepers: Chapter 3

Steve wasn't sure what he expected when Loki went to work on "Agent," as Stark liked to call him, but it sure wasn't this.

Loki had gone deathly still upon initiating whatever "ritual" he planned to use to heal Coulson. The room seemed to shrink for a moment before the air rippled with energy. Phil's chest began to glow, first with a sickly pallor that sent Steve's heart racing and then the light began to transform. The intensity quickly became too much for anyone but Loki to look at directly and Steve couldn't help but turn his head away from the otherworldly glare.

Steve was at least intellectually aware that the light was emanating from the now-healed scar that decorated the agent's chest. However, the sense of danger ringing through his veins and sending his hair on end made little sense to the super soldier.

"Umm, is this creeping out anyone else?"

Bless you Tony Stark.

"Silence! He's been gone too long. A distraction may cost him his life."

Loki's voice was quiet but clear and Steve was inclined to obey, for now.

"Fuck you Reindeer Games. You're the reason he's in this bed. Lose him and I will personally turn you into a lawn decoration for my Malibu house. Pepper will be thrilled that I finally brought home a real antique."

Clint punched Tony in the shoulder in a half hearted reprimand but his efforts were ruined by the smirk on his face.

"You know you love it, Katniss."

"Stark. Shut the fuck up."

The room was silent once again with Natasha's order and Steve wondered for a moment why he wasn't the one to demand order. The answer came to him just as quickly as the question.

They were acting like a team. Clint and Tony were practically twins with their mischief-making and banter, Natasha had become the patient but stern older sister, Banner the wise older brother. Steve supposed that would make him the Dad in the mix which didn't bother him as much as it should have. He may have been 70 plus years on ice but in his mind he was still barely half way through his 20's.

Loki reached out a hand to touch Phil's chest, snapping Steve's attention back to the ritual and making him itch once again for his shield. Despite his bravado, it would crush him like no block of ice ever could if the lost Phil because of Steve's decision to trust Loki with the man's life, such as it was.

The God of Mischief began chanting quietly. It was a beautiful, lyrical language that made Steve think of the elvish language in Lord of the Rings. He allowed himself a moment to be proud that he could make such a connection with modern culture at all.

"Brother," Thor whispered. "Is this wise? You speak the words of an ancient language that resists control as the winds resist a master. Is there no other way?"

"Silence! Truly, do you all wish him to perish? I need old words for old magic and I will explain no more."

Loki's irritation was clear and Thor's doubt opened the door for all of them to wonder what they'd agreed to. The light began to intensify as Loki's words became more earnest. Steve's sense of unease grew as the light began to take on a familiar glow.

"Fuck me," Clint gasped. "The Tesseract."

Terror ripped through the room as they realized just what Loki was doing. There must have been a residue of energy from the Tesseract when Loki stabbed Coulson in the chest with the scepter. The God of Lies was now using that energy, but for what no one was really sure. Would Loki really use the energy to heal Phil? The idea seemed ludicrous when considering the magic wielder. Still, what else could he do with it?

And that was the question that had everyone, including Thor, holding their breath in dreaded anticipation.

Phil's body began to take on the same glow of the blue light and as Loki raised his hands, drawing out the energy, Phil's body seemed to follow, arching up from the bed. His face was still slack, belaying no conscious awareness of what was happening to him. Still, he bent at that unnatural angle as if there were a string attached to his chest from where Loki was drawing out the power of the Tesseract.

All too soon, as if the string had been cut, Phil's body dropped back down to the bed without a sound. Loki remained seated above him, gazing into the blue orb of light. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, turning his eyes away from the sphere and toward Thor with an unspoken question in his eyes.

Just as quickly, he seemed to come to a decision and reached his right hand out toward Coulson once more, and resting a long-fingered pale hand on the agent's brow. Ancient words began flowing from his lips once more and, as his cadence quickened color began to flow back into Phil's gray-toned skin. The monitors began beeping and squawking in reaction to the patient's change in status and Banner jumped into action, evaluating read outs, making chart notes and mumbling calculations under his breath.

Finally, the words they'd all been waiting for…

"He's waking up."

Just as Banner delivered the news, Phil's eyes snapped open, crystal clear and focused directly on Loki. The agent's hand reached down, as if to grab at his ever-present sidearm. His face betrayed nothing when he found the holster missing but the heart rate monitor gave away his true feelings on seeing Loki so close to him.

"Didn't I shoot you with a giant gun?"

Phil's voice was gravely from misuse and it might have been the most beautiful sound Steve had ever heard.

"Unless you need to do anything else to heal Phil, I suggest you move away from the bed…Now."

Steve was gone and Captain America stood in his place, all business and with a clear mission firmly branded in his mind: Protect Phil Coulson at all costs.

Loki glanced back at his audience and the lazy satisfaction in his eyes made Cap want to punch him in the throat.

"Thor, please remove your brother from the room. He's done now."

"Of course. Loki let us retire in the common area. My comrades would prefer a moment to celebrate your success in healing the Son of Cole.

"Oh, yes. Of course, brother," Loki hissed, a manic gleam overtaking his previously clear eyes.

Had Cap not been so close, he might not have noticed the physical changes in the sorcerer. Those electric green eyes fogged over, before taking on a distinctly blue hue. Cap might have thought it was a reflecting from the glowing orb if he had not seen Loki's green eyes transform before his eyes.

"Thor, the Tesser…"

Too late.

Loki stood quickly from his seat on the bed, backing away from the group with a smile that would put a shark to shame. Just as Cap was about to complete his warning, the God of Mischief summoned another ball of energy and hurled it at Thor, knocking the thunderer back into the wall, through it and into the next room.

Cap jumped towards Phil, landing on the bed and covering the newly awakened man with his body in case Loki brought the ceiling down. Shouts and then gun fire echoed around him and Cap knew his team was doing everything in their power to protect the agent.

Eventually the chaos calmed, Loki was clearly gone along with the collected Tesseract energy and Phil's room was in ruins. Cap began to recede and Steve was left in his place blushing with embarrassment over his position on the bed. Just as he was about to apologize for his clearly overzealous move to shield the prone man, he heard Stark shout.

"Stay right there, Cap. We'll get that chunk of wall off you in no time."

So, apparently is flying leap to Phil's bed had practical purposes after all. That saved him from having to explain his impulses…for now.

Steve looked down for the first time, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light and Phil's face came into focus. The agent was staring at him, face as calm as ever and Steve realized that Phil had actually gripped his biceps at some point during the chaos. Coulson's glittering blue eyes were fixed on Steve's, curiosity plain to see and smile slowly growing on his thin lips.

"Captain," the man whispered, voice still gruff from disuse. But Cap was long gone, along with all possibility of composure, apparently.

"Phil," Steve whispered back, breathless with the rush of gratitude and relief that threatened to render him dizzy. "Uh, I mean, well…Welcome back?"

A grin finally broke free and Phil let out a quiet chuckle.

"Is that a question?"

"What? Why, no! Welcome back...really. I was…we, we were worried."

Phil's callused hands slid up Steve's biceps for a moment before traveling back down and making the small jump to the super soldier's sides.

"Aren't people typically naked in this position?"

The blush that rushed across Steve's cheeks was hot enough to heat the space between the two men. He ducked his head for a second before realizing how close the motion put his mouth to Phil's. Despite the impulse to pull his head back up, Steve couldn't help but appreciate the stale breath ghosting across his lips, quick and shallow but real…alive…awake. The wonder of the moment overtook him and Steve leaned down the rest of the way, pressing his lips ever-so-gently to the lips of the agent below him.

Coulson was still for a second or two before tilting up his chin and returning the dry, chaste and utterly reverent kiss. Just as Steve pulled away and the two shocked men opened their eyes, Ironman lifted the large chunk of sheet rock from Steve's back and tossed it to the side, effectively destroying their cocoon of privacy.

Steve made quick work of getting up off the bed and moving all the way to the other side of the now destroyed room. He wouldn't dare look Phil in the eye and was infinitely grateful that the team began fussing over the newly awakened handler, effectively preventing the man from calling Steve out on his impulsive behavior.

Get your head in the game, Rogers. What kind of man are you? Kissing him like that? He's been in a coma for months and the first thing you do is assault him. You're a real class act, buddy.

Steve snuck out of the room and into the common area. There was a, presumably, Thor-shaped hole in Stark's balcony window from where the Thunder God had exited to chase after his brother. Steve wished, and not for the first time, that the House of Odin would keep their family drama to their own realm.

He took a steadying breath before asking JARIVS to place a call to Fury so he could report in.

"Captain. Are we on speaking terms now?"

The sarcasm was not appreciated.

"Director Fury, we have had contact with the alien known as Loki. He arrived at the Avengers Tower approximately 30 minutes ago and healed Agent Coulson. He appeared to have harvested some kind of residual energy from the Tesseract during the ritual and made off with it after completing the process. He did some serious damage to the agent's room but there were no casualties."

"So, that wily fucker actually managed to draw out the energy?"

Rage boiled in Steve's veins in an instant.

"You knew…Of course you knew. You know everything but apparently you are incapable or unwilling to exact any good from what you know."

"Yes, we knew but we didn't know how to get it out. It was obvious after a few days that the energy from the Tesseract was both keeping Agent Coulson alive and keeping him in a coma. We'd just made the decision to let him off life support when you kidnapped him."

"I know that. I read it in the file. But, here's what I'm betting. I'm betting that taking Phil off life support didn't have anything to do with his supposed quality of life. I think you were going to let him die to see if you could harvest the Tesseract energy from his dead body and use it to continue your research on 'Plan B."

"You don't have much faith in me, do you Cap?"

"No we do not."

That was Stark. Barton was following juts behind him with Phil propped up between him and Natasha.

"I have to agree with Capsicle here. I think you'd sink us all if you thought it'd give you an edge. I think it's safe to say that the Avengers Initiative is no longer under the jurisdiction of SHIELD or the WSC. If you want to talk to us, like ever, have your people call my people. And by people I mean Pepper, who fucking hates you, by the way. So, good luck with that Eye Patch. Now get off my fucking screen. You're visage is ruining my decor."

The Director made no more effort to argue and promptly shut down the link, not even taking a moment to welcome Phil back the waking world. Steve's chest tightened in anger once more. Did Fury really care so little for the other man's life? While would Phil have worked for a man who didn't seem to give two shits for the people that worked for him. Why did Fury warrant such loyalty?

"It's not as bad as it sounds, Steve."

Phil's voice was full of concern and warmth, pulling Steve's attention from the now blank screen and to the couch that Barton and Natasha had settled him on.

"It sounds like he doesn't deserve the loyalty of the men that serve him. It sounds like he'd rather let you die to advance his mission than take a risk to bring you back. It sounds like he's willing to lie to us whenever he wants in order to manipulate us into doing what he wants and feels no remorse for the fallout."

"Okay, so maybe it is what it sounds like. Just remember. Director Fury is personally responsible for the safety of an entire planet. He's just found out that we are hilariously outgunned and in his mind, one man's life does not hold precedence over those lives he protects."

"Phil…you are one of those lives. He shouldn't get to decide who lives and who dies. You're life isn't worth less just because you work for SHIELD. You don't deserve to be thrown away."

Steve's voice was intense and full of all the passion, frustration and fury that he'd been holding on to since finding Phil in that obscure hospital room.

"Maybe he didn't think there was any other way."

"Maybe he didn't look hard enough! He lied to us, Phil. He told us you were dead. We believed him. We mourned you. Not having you here was destroying all of us. What could he have possibly gained from letting you go? A gun that didn't do more than singe Loki's eyebrows? Seems to me that Fury was trashing the only defense this planet has. The Avengers work, but we weren't making it without you, Phil. I wasn't enough. None of us were okay without you. Without you, we wouldn't have made it two more months as a team."

There it was; the proverbial elephant in the room. The secret they'd all been thinking and no one was willing to say it out loud. They needed Phil, needed him to hold the team together. His death may have brought them together in one battle, but that trick only works once.

Phil looked around the room in contemplation and only shook his head when none of them would meet his eyes. How could this be true?

"I'd just like to point out that I'm the only one in her without some kind of superpower or incredible talent."

"Uh, I call bullshit. You're superpower is working with us. We've gone through 5 handlers and 4 'ambassadors' since you went down. Seriously, Cap even made one of the guys cry. It's you Phil. You're the magic touch here. You're what makes this psycho-circus work."

The quiet laughter finally broke the tension in the room. Unfortunately, the blaring alarm calling the Avengers to action interrupted their bonding moment.

"Suit Up!" Stark called out.

Steve took off for his room after sparing a worried glance at the vulnerable agent seated in their living room.

"Give me a gun and a couple of clips. I'll be fine."

Natasha tossed him the requested weaponry and Coulson caught it with nimble fingers. Apparently, some skills aren't about muscle.

Moments later, they were suited up and ready to go, Hulk's roar a soundtrack in the background.

"Come back to me, Cap. You owe me another kiss."

Steve's blush intensified at Barton's catcall.

"You go Cap!" - Barton

"Tap dat, Agent!" - Stark

"Shut the fuck up and get your asses in the jet." - Widow.

But, just as Steve passed the couch in the way out to the landing pad, he couldn't help but whisper just loud enough so Phil could hear (and Phil alone):

"As you wish…"