Steve limps off the battlefield for the third time that day, his entire body aching. He's so focused on the thought of a cold bath or a nap to get his serum to kick in faster that he nearly bumps into Loki, who doesn’t step back or apologize, just stares at him with his arms folded. (Loki’s looking a little worse for wear too, with a split lip and a black eye, but his injuries already look a bit older than Steve’s feel. Not for the first time, Steve finds himself wishing his serum could match what Asgardian constitutions can do naturally.)

“Can I help you?” he asks finally.

“You’re an idiot, Rogers,” Loki informs him, his scowl deepening.

Steve starts to raise one eyebrow and winces. Bath first, then a nap. Getting hit enough to get knocked out of the action this many times can’t be good for him, even with the serum. “Thanks,” he says. “Is that it?”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Please don’t tell me you’ve become as impervious to insults as my ridiculous brother.” He pauses. “Are you even going to ask why you’re an idiot?”

“I have better things to do, so I really don’t care what today’s reason to insult me is.” Loki doesn’t move, so Steve sighs and steps around him. Instead of taking the hint, Loki falls into step beside him (already moving less stiffly than he was a minute ago, the lucky bastard).

“Maybe it’s not just that you’re an idiot,” Loki says. “Maybe you’re a glutton for punishment too. Is that it? Do you enjoy concussions?”

“Nobody enjoys concussions.”

“Well, how should I know, Midgardian tastes are strange enough.”

Steve sighs again. That hurts too. God, these Jabari warriors hit hard. What he wouldn’t give for some leisurely Hydra-punching right now. Well, not now, but after he’s recovered a little. “What’s your point, Loki?”

“You assume I have one.”

“Yeah, well, if the point was just to insult me, you’d have gotten more creative by now, unless you’re off your game from getting knocked around too.”

Loki looks offended at that, which isn’t very surprising. “Perhaps you’re so dull I don’t need to be creative.”

“What’s your point,” Steve says again. The walk back to the dorm has never felt longer.

“You’re an idiot,” Loki says with exaggerated patience, “because it’s not enough for you to be taken out repeatedly in battles with our recent enemies, when at least Stark is there to be a second tank; no, you have to put yourself in front for every fight against these Jabari, and then you get up and let them knock you around again. Did you lose your sense of self-preservation after too many blows to the head, or have you always been this foolhardy?”

Well, that’s...not quite what Steve expected to hear. “I can take a hit. I’m the guy with the shield; it’s kind of what I do.”

Loki snorts, clearly unimpressed. “Plenty of others on this campus can ‘take a hit.’ Some of them even have shields as well. Some of them are made of rock.”

“Yeah, and Fury didn’t think any of them were ready for these guys yet, and I agreed with him,” Steve says, “and Tony’s better spending time with T’challa to improve our tech. So that leaves me.”

“You could have said no.” Steve gives him an incredulous look, and Loki huffs. “Yes, yes, I’m aware you wouldn’t, you have too large a sense of honor and responsibility to consider sitting out a single fight if the thought even occurred to you in the first place. But it would be the sensible thing.”

“Right, because you’re always so sensible,” Steve says dryly.

Loki sniffs. “I am, at least, not pointlessly self-sacrificing. You might want those brain cells someday, you know.”

“The serum takes care of that,” Steve says, which might or might not be true—Pym’s been a little unclear on that point, as he is with anything that can’t be boiled down to “that’s science!”—but it’s also not that relevant, all things considered. “This is what I do. I take hits so people like you and Jan have time to get in some harder hits yourself. I’m a tank, a...what did Kamala say, meat shield? It’s in the job description.” It isn’t fun, certainly, and it’s been harder lately with some of the changes Fury’s been making, but that’s not really relevant either. He eyes Loki. “What I don’t get is why this suddenly bothers you.”

Loki sputters for a second like it’s an outrageous thing to ask, which is one of his strongest tells, according to Natasha. “It doesn’t. I am—simply perplexed you would do this willingly and repeatedly. And—and more importantly, I happen to be positioned behind you, so when you go down every time, I start taking all those hits you’re supposed to be taking.”

“You don’t actually get knocked out very often, though,” Steve points out, “which means I’m still doing my job.” As explanations go, it makes sense and it fits everything he knows about Loki, but the fact that it wasn’t his first response is...sort of interesting.

“Well, you could be doing it better,” Loki says, snippy as ever. “Now if you’ll excuse me—” He disappears into Maverick Dorm without glancing back or saying what Steve’s supposed to excuse him for.

Steve shakes his head, winces again, and continues toward his own dorm. The bath is awful as usual, but it helps; the nap is way too short before he’s woken by another alert from Fury, but at least it’s better than nothing.

The next week, Thor and Valkyrie beam down from Asgard to help fight off the increasingly strong attacks from warriors allied with Klaw. Steve’s met them before, especially Thor, but it’s been a bit—unlike Loki and Amora, the rest of the Asgardian contingent tends to spend a fair amount of time back home—and he wasn’t expecting either of them. Thor, of course, is his usual exuberant self, waxing enthusiastic to Steve about the glorious battles they’ll fight together and catching Loki in an enormous bear hug that the trickster isn’t quite fast enough to avoid.

“Brother!” he says, beaming as Loki tries to squirm away. “This is a glad day—I have long anticipated the chance to fight at your side again!”

“Unhand me, you oaf,” Loki snarls, and finally extricates himself with a burst of magic that leaves Thor embracing an illusion. “In case you’ve already forgotten, you’re here to break our enemies’ ribs, not mine. Now go make yourself useful and train so you don’t give me more reasons to wish you gone again.”

Thor laughs and slings one arm around Loki’s shoulders. “Come, brother, let us spar together—I hear your form is somewhat improved!” He takes off for the arena, inexorably hauling his complaining brother behind him.

“Well,” Steve says to Valkyrie, a little awkwardly. “I’m sure glad to have another tank to back me up. I bet that wasn’t a fun conversation, though, when Odin told Loki his brother was coming back to campus.”

Valkyrie snorts without looking up from examining her sword for apparently microscopic imperfections. “It was Loki’s idea.”

Steve blinks at her. “Wait, what?”

“Well, he’ll never admit it, and don’t get me wrong, he’s not gonna quit bitching about Thor being here, probably ever.” She looks up finally, her expression somewhere between annoyed and amused. “But when he just happens to mention to the Allfather, basically out of nowhere, now nice and quiet it’s been on campus without Thor, and how incredibly annoyed he’d be if Thor showed up to help? That boy’s a lot less subtle than he thinks he is.” She frowns down at her blade. “This needs sharpening. I’ll see you later, Rogers.” She leaves while Steve is still too startled to reply.

“Huh,” he says after a moment. He shakes his head, but he can feel himself starting to smile. “You’re a weird kid, Loki, but I don’t think you’re actually a bad one.”