Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 180

"You guys have all lost your goddamn minds," Bruce declares.

Steve looks up at him from the table he sits at, arms crossed like a child upset at their mother. "Loki's got the cat?"

"Cat's at the compound," Bruce says. "I put out some food and water and told FRIDAY to let Loki know whenever he leaves his room."

Steve raises a brow. "You didn't tell him?"

Bruce sighs. "Look, I love Loki," he says, "but I talked to Tony, and we decided we're going to try to keep him out of this."

"You realize that never works, right?" Steve asks. "He always shows up, and he usually ends up saving the day. You might as well let him in on this now."

"Sorry, Cap," Tony says – and god only knows where he came from, because he was not here ten seconds ago. "We're keeping Loki out of this as long as possible."

"Why?" Steve asks, and it's almost like a challenge.

Tony's undeterred. "Because he's going to want to help," he answers, "and his idea of 'help' is going to be doing whatever stupid thing you want to do, and I think we just established that what you want to do is a bad idea."

Steve clenches his jaw, but he doesn't argue.

Admittedly, Bruce finds it kind of weird that Steve's letting this slide, but he doesn't have it in him to question it. These last few days have been such a shitshow. He doesn't want to open the door to adding any more shit to this already shitty week.

"Twins are doing fine," Tony tells the Captain, "not that you care. They're very happy to be reunited. I don't expect to ever be able to pull them off of each other."

"That's good to hear," Steve says.

"And Bucky?" Bruce asks, because that's what he really wants to know. "What're they doing with him?"

"Psychological evaluation," Tony answers. "Not sure what kind of information you can glean from a psych eval that you can't from watching a guy blow up the UN, but..."

Steve shoots him a look. "He didn't do it."

Tony scoffs. "There is video evidence of him at the crime scene!"

"I don't care; he didn't do it!"

Tony throws his hands up, exasperated. "I can't do this right now," he says. "I'm going to strangle someone, I swear to god."

Bruce frowns, watching as the man walks out of the room. This is going to be a great day, isn't it?

Steve is also growing noticeably frustrated, but Bruce is fairly confident in his ability to not strangle anybody, so he pulls up a chair next to the captain. Steve looks at him, a brow raised, and when Bruce gives him a small smile, Steve reluctantly returns it with one of his own. That's a good start.

"You really think he didn't do it?" Bruce asks.

"He says he didn't," Steve says. "I believe him."

Bruce just stares at him for a few seconds.

Did he just...?

Is he really...?

"Your argument is that he said he didn't do it?" Bruce repeats, and he tries to keep his incredulity out of his voice, but with a sentence like that, it's really not easy.

"I know him, Bruce," Steve says. "He didn't do this."

"You knew him," Bruce corrects him. "Decades ago. I don't know if that really..."