Loki knocks on Steve's door, then takes a step back, clasping his hands together in front of him.

"Yeah?" Steve answers.

"May I come in?"

"Sure."

Loki opens the door just as Steve's pushing himself up in bed, resting his back against the headboard. There's a notebook of some sort in his lap, a blue pen in the middle of it to hold the page. Loki gives it a curious look, but he doesn't ask about it. Not yet, at least. Maybe later.

He accepts the invitation to come in, though he doesn't come in far; no more than two or three steps into the room, lest he feel like he's intruding on a time when Steve seems to want to be alone. Steve gives him a smile, small but welcoming, and Loki returns it with one of his own.

"I just wanted to see how you're doing," Loki tells him. "I know it's been a rather chaotic week."

Steve huffs a halfhearted laugh. "That's one word for it," he says. He lets out a long breath. "I'm doing okay," he tells him. "It's a lot to adjust to, but..."

"But at least you get to see Bucky every day now?" It's more a question than anything. He's not sure it's as exciting as he wishes it could be.

Steve gives a small shrug. "It's good to know that he's okay," he says. "It's a lot different between us than it was eighty years ago, but, again, it's been eighty years, so that's not too surprising."

"He'll come around," Loki assures him.

"Yeah, I guess you'd know better than anyone," Steve remarks. "How long have you been keeping an eye on him?"

Loki shrugs sheepishly. "Since he tried to kill you in DC?"

Steve nods slowly. "Well, I guess I'm glad you were making sure he was safe, but..." He frowns. "I would've liked to have known that."

"But then you would have wanted to find him," Loki says, "and he wasn't ready to be found."

"I know, but..." Steve sighs. "Yeah, I know."

And then it's quiet.

So Loki – rather hesitantly – broaches another, more sensitive topic. "I'm sorry about Peggy Carter. I know she was very important to you." This is probably what he's most concerned about: that Steve may be having a hard time moving on from that. The explosion in Lagos? The Accords? Bucky? That's all water under the bridge, as the humans say. Losing the woman he once loved sounds a lot harder to cope with.

Steve takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly before he speaks. "I knew it was going to happen sooner or later," he says. "It makes it a little easier; I just..." He shakes his head solemnly. "I wish I'd gotten to say goodbye first."

Loki's not so sure what to say to that. He wouldn't consider himself an expert at dealing with others' emotions – Thor's excluded; he's dealt with those for centuries. Right now, he's at a loss. He clearly didn't think this through very well.

After a long pause, Loki just says, "It seems to me that she loved you very much. She was lucky to have you in her life for the time that she did."

Steve nods, silent. He doesn't seem convinced. If he is, it doesn't seem to help.

"I know it will not bring you the closure you deserve," Loki says, "but for what it may be worth, though you weren't there in her final moments, you were there when she truly needed you. Your presence wouldn't have helped as she breathed her last breath, but it certainly helped decades ago, when she was still here."

Steve gives him a sma, somewhat forced smile. "Yeah..." He sighs and opens up his notebook, picking up the pen between his two fingers only to flick it back and forth between them, gazing down at the paper in front of him.

Loki cranes his neck, but he can't make it out, so he asks, "Do you mind if I look?"

Steve shrugs halfheartedly. "If you want to. It's nothing too exciting."

So Loki crosses the room and stands beside him, peering down at the notebook in Steve's lap. It's a drawing of a woman – Peggy Carter; though it takes him a moment, he recognizes her from Steve's compass. She's young, probably the age she was when he knew her. Loki's eyes scan the bed, but he doesn't see a photo of her. Not even the compass sits in front of him as a reference. He's drawn all of this from memory? If there'd been any doubt in his mind that Steve loved this woman, it's certainly gone now.

"It's just Peggy," Steve says, brushing a finger against the blue pen strokes before him. "I was..." He sighs. "I don't know."

Loki rests a hand on Steve's shoulder and offers him a sympathetic smile. "She was a lucky woman."

"I was a lucky man," Steve says simply.

It grows quiet again, and this time, Loki's really not sure what to say. He's not sure he should say anything at all. Maybe Steve needs the quiet. It's hard to mourn when somebody's talking at you, he's sure.

It's Steve who breaks the silence this time. He looks up at the god and asks, "Has anyone heard from Nat and Clint lately?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Loki replies. "They certainly haven't contacted me, though that's no surprise."

"Hmm." Steve grabs his phone from his bedside table and clicks the screen on. "No messages."

"I'm sure they're fine," Loki assures him.

"I know they are," Steve says. "They're good at what they do. I just..." He gives a small shrug. "I don't know. I wish we were all here and we could order a pizza and have a game night or something."

"You all have most certainly earned it," Loki agrees.

Steve raises a brow, a slight smile on his face. "'Earned it' for what? You were so mad, you refused to talk to anyone for hours when we got back – and kidnapped Bucky's cat, too."

"I did not kidnap his cat," Loki says with playful indignation. "Alpine simply decided she would rather stay with me, and I did not object."

Steve shakes his head to himself, and he looks at least somewhat amused, which is nice to see.

Back to the matter at hand, Loki says, "You've 'earned it' because it's been a difficult week for everyone, and if we were all back under one roof, it would have been nice to celebrate that – and to celebrate that you all survived your own stupidity."

Steve huffs. "I knew you were going to throw in a jab like that."

"Oh, of course," Loki says playfully. "I can't be too nice to you all. People would be suspicious."

Steve's shoulders shake with silent laughter, and Loki feels a pang of pride at that. He's not the best at cheering people up when they're upset, but he really tried today, and it looks like it's paying off, a least a little bit.

"Do you want me to text Romanoff and Barton that you're expecting them back for our team-wide Avengers pizza party?" Steve says jokingly.

"I think I'd rather pop in and complain about their absence myself," Loki replies.

Steve gestures for him to go ahead.

Loki shakes his head. "Later," he says. "If no one's heard from them before I go to bed, whenever that is." He slept so much while everyone was gone that he may have permanently ruined his already-almost-nonexistent sleep schedule.

"What, I don't get to see what it looks like when you're spying on us?" Steve teases him.

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Do you want to?"

Steve shrugs. "I'm kind of curious."

Loki hesitates, but he really has no reason not to. He wouldn't do it in front of, say, Tony, only because he's sure Tony would do something obnoxious while Loki was only minutely conscious of his surroundings, but he trusts Steve. He trusts that this will go fine.

So he lowers himself to the floor, crossing his legs in front of him.

"Do you want to sit on my bed?" Steve offers.

Loki waves that off. "The floor works just as well." He's a thousand years old. He's sat on the floor more times than he can count. He's probably sat on more floors than he has beds, even.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and projects himself to the other two Avengers.

He finds himself in the back seat of a car, and he thanks the Norns that he's not physically here, because he would truly be fearing for his life in a vehicle driven like this. Swerving in and out of lanes; speeding past the other cars on the road. He's never seen such a mess.

He's invisible right now, and he uses that to his advantage, peering over to see who's in the front seat. It's Natasha at the wheel – rather disappointing; he'd thought she was better than this – with Clint sitting shotgun, holding onto the sides of the car for dear life.

Perhaps more interesting is the woman with him in the back seat. She's not one he recognizes – not from a party; not from projecting into the Avengers's missions; not even from a photo or video. There's nothing noticeably special about her. She's not like the Maximoffs, whose power shines bright upon first glance. She's just... a woman. A pretty woman, he'll admit, with her bright blonde hair and her pocket-filled green vest, but she's just a woman.

Huh.

Well, he should find out who she is, then.

He allows himself to be seen, and immediately, the woman beside him yelps, whipping out her handgun and shooting off four shots right through him.

Loki heaves a dramatic sigh. "Somehow, I feel safer at the barrel of your gun than the backseat of a car while Romanoff is at the wheel."

"Ha ha," Natasha says sarcastically. "Very funny."

The woman stares at him, wide-eyed. She glances at Natasha, who doesn't notice; fortunately, her eyes are still on the road where they most certainly belong if she's going to drive as recklessly as she is.

"You have amazing timing," Clint tells him.

Loki raises his eyebrows. So he gets to help? He's going to be asked to help? That's exciting. He could use something to do.

Clint jerks his thumb toward the rear window. "You see that chick on the bike?"

Loki glances behind himself, and, sure enough, there's a leather-clad woman on a motorcycle.

"I do," Loki says. "I assume she's not a friend."

"Not quite," Natasha says.

"Okay, hold on," the blonde woman says, speaking with a thick Russian accent that only leaves him more intrigued. "How did he get here? And why does nobody else care?"

"Don't even ask," Natasha says.

Loki scoffs, playfully offended. "Agent Romanoff, you don't seem all too thrilled to see me. I'm hurt."

"Take care of the biker first, talk later?" Natasha asks impatiently.

"Oh, certainly." Loki flicks his hand, and the woman is thrown off her bike, flying backward at least a few hundred feet and straight into a wall. Her motorcycle floats into the air, then explodes, the pieces raining back down on the roof of the adjacent building.

The woman beside him gapes at him. "How did you...?"

He flashes her a smile. "I'm Loki. It's nice to meet you," he says. "I would shake your hand, but unfortunately, that's not an option at the moment." He sticks a hand through her to prove his point, and she yelps once more, pressing herself into the door beside her as though she could get away from him.

She gapes at him, visibly very uncomfortable, and he revels in that. If this is all the mischief he can cause these days, he will gladly take advantage of it.

"That's Yelena," Natasha says. "Ignore her."

Loki just looks at the woman for a few moments; then, "Well, I suppose that would make sense, given the situation." Really, he should have been able to guess it, but he's a little distracted by Natasha's reckless driving to think entirely straight right now.

"Okay, I am very confused and I am going to need an explanation for all of this in a minute," Yelena declares, "but shouldn't we maybe focus on the fact that the Taskmaster is trying to kill us?"

Loki raises his brows. "The Taskmaster?" Not the woman on the motorcycle, he has to assume. She won't be catching up to them any time soon.

"Yeah, who the hell is that guy?" Natasha asks.

"Dreykov's special project," Yelena says. "He can mimic–"

Another car slams into them from behind, and instinctively, Loki ducks his head as though to shield himself from the shattering glass that goes right through him.

"Is everyone okay?" Loki asks quickly, eyes scanning the three other passengers for any sign of injury.

"We're good," Clint says breathlessly.

"I don't suppose you can do anything about him, can you?" Natasha asks.

Loki looks over his shoulder, and he uses his magic to flip the car that hit them back onto its wheels, off to the side of the road and out of harm's way. It's then that he sees the true culprit.

With his very limited knowledge of Midgardian military vehicles, he'd probably label the vehicle behind them some sort of tank. It's far bigger than any other car on the road – certainly bigger than the one they're in now – and it's coming straight for them.

A man climbs out the top, clad head to toe in blues and blacks and orange, his armor covering every inch of him.

Loki flicks his hand, and the man falls back into his tank.

Another flick of the wrist, and the tank drives straight into the wall of a nearby building, "causing it" to flip entirely upside-down and trapping that man inside. (The crash did not cause that. Loki caused that. The crash had nothing to do with it.) It's a bit more subtle than what he did to the motorcyclist, just in case somebody has a camera out.

"It won't stop him forever," Loki says, "but I would think it will buy you time to escape – and find a new car; this one is falling apart and much too easy to spot."

"Sounds like a plan," Natasha says. "Everyone, buckle up. It's gonna be a rocky exit."