"Rob from the rich, give to...our poor selves." Loki sang fingering a couple of jackets. Steven Grant Rogers rolled his eyes, testing the material of some trousers a few racks away.
"Really?"
Loki grinned, blue highlights dancing around his eyes. "What?" The frost giant liberated a black leather jacket from the rack, and pulled it over his ratty shirt. "What do you think?"
Steve sighed; turning around to look at his, actually Steve didn't know how to quantify it anymore. Ally? Friend? Loki wasn't just the former anymore, but Steve didn't trust him remotely enough to call him the latter. "We're not just getting the stuff for ourselves you know."
"Oh, I know!" Loki announced with a grin, walking over to check his appearance in a mirror. He winced, visibly pulling back slightly. Steve wasn't surprised. He didn't know how old Loki was, but he did know how long Loki had had to get used to his true form, and he hadn't spent a lot of that time around mirrors. Loki pulled back, and looked at himself properly.
Steve came over, and, putting a hand on Loki's shoulder, said "The colour and material suit you. You'll need a better shirt though."
Loki shrugged, "I'm not overly keen actually. Why don't you try it on?"
Steve passed over the trousers he was holding. "Fine, we need to be quick though. While I'll give you that for a high end department store, this place has appalling security, the police will be on their way."
"So we can't afford to linger too long. I know." Loki finished for him, then suddenly shut his mouth firmly jabbing his thumb towards the front doors, and then the fire exit. Steve nodded, understanding the signal.
Loki picked up the trousers, grabbed a couple of other jackets, and began edging towards the fire exit. Steve shrugged the jacket over his shoulder, and grabbing a couple of larger sizes. There was no way anything that fit Loki was going to fit him.
They rushed out of the fire exit, separating at the first bend. Steve ran, not flat out, but certainly at a minimum of 70%. By the time the police would notice where the intruders had left, they would both be far away.
Steve stopped running after a few streets, in the end he would only be more conspicuous, and the posh shopping district, whatever they called in these days, was not exactly close to the warehouse. Still, it wasn't bad for a first trip into 'being Robin Hood', Steve thought. Not that he was overly happy about it, but the company had Civil Right violations as long as his arm, and it wasn't like they'd hurt anyone. The Robbing that was, not the Civil Rights violations. Those were hurting someone, and while that wasn't exactly the point, it kind of was...
He consulted the jackets in the not so dim light of the advertisements, putting one of the bigger ones on, and zipping it up. Oh well, he thought as he headed back, maybe Loki would be sensible and go straight back to the warehouse. It was an amusing thought, he was just as lightly to agree that SHIELD had been right to order the extermination of those kids. Steve didn't care if they were trained by the Russian Intelligence, the oldest of them had been fourteen, and the youngest nine. There was no way he was ever, ever, going to agree with that order, or even regret his following actions, even given the consequences.
There was no way Loki would avoid getting into trouble, the only actual question was would he handle it without killing anyone, or would he not.
Chances are, due to a wish to keep a low profile, he wouldn't. The sort of Asguardian was more than capable of taking care of himself as long as he was well fed, and there weren't too many opponents. So when he decided to break into a store, he should be able to handle the guards without killing them.
Steve unlocked the door to the warehouse. Loki had decided to pinch a large padlock a day or so previously,and it had come with a couple of keys. It wouldn't keep anyone determined out, but the lock did sort of signify that the warehouse was theirs. It also showed that Steve wished that Loki would stop stealing, but then after tonight that was a little hypocritical. It's not like they'd keep most of the stuff anyway.
The padlock, or at least the subsequent claiming, also meant Steve felt like he could actually start to clean the warehouse out, at least when Loki was out. Steve got the distinct impression that if Steve tried to clean up while Loki was there he'd make some sort of comment about the pettiness of mortals, or lesser life forms.
Steve did find it slightly depressing that his first home in five years was essentially squatting in an abandoned building, with one of the world's most wanted. Still, it wasn't part of his personality to focus on the negative aspects of life. The warehouse was, Steve admitted, a very good size. In fact, despite the old bits of loading machinery in it, it was larger than most people's homes. In fact Steve didn't even know the full layout of the warehouse, a fact which just occurred to him.
Loki swaggered, for want of a better word, in at that moment, dressed in a long dark green frock coat. "This is much more my style, don't you think?"
"Suits you like the summers day." Steve replied absent mindedly, not really looking up from where he was investigating.
"So that would be ill then." Loki pointed out, "Or am I missing a joke here?" Steve didn't reply, disappearing around the side of one of the old rigs. "What are you doing?"
"Did it occur to you, at some point, that we don't actually know the layout of this place." Steve explained distractedly, spotting a door at the far end of the warehouse, "I felt like exploring."
Loki rolled his eyes "Have fun then, Dora the Explorer." He shrugged his coat off, hanging it off one of the bits of machinery.
"What's that?" Steve asked after a moment, half ignoring him in favour of trying to get the door open without kicking it in.
"No idea, heard a couple of kids talking about it last time we were in the park." Loki explained away, "What are you doing?"
"Dancing the ca-can, what does it look like I'm doing?" Steve nearly added 'you moron' to the end, but stopped himself just in time.
"No need to get snarky Captain, it was a mere enquiry. May I ask why you haven't picked the lock, or will I get my head bitten off, chewed and spat out again."
"Nah, I'll swallow it." Steve muttered under his breath, and then sighed "Because unbelievably, I can't do everything."
"What ho, something I can do in this state that you can't." Loki smirked. It looked decidedly sinister, particularly as it actually denoted a slightly self-deprecating amusement.
"Loki, with all due respect, shut-up and come and pick this lock."
"Touchy, touchy."
Steve looked at him.
Loki mirrored the look.
Eventually, Steve conceded the staring contest, but largely because he actually wanted that door opened at some point this century. Sometimes working with Loki reminded Steve of working with a seven year old child. Sometimes Steve thought that working with a seven year old child would be easier.
Loki picked the lock in about twenty seconds, leaving Steve feeling slightly anti-climactic. "What do you think, office, secret underground lair, SHIELD listening to every word we say?"
Loki smiled slightly "The first or the last."
Steve opened the door. It was an office, which was slightly disappointing, although not at all surprising. The office did, however, have an old desk, with a very dusty computer sitting on top of it. Steve blew heavily, sending the dust lying into Loki's eyes.
"Hey," Loki objected.
"Sorry," Steve half meant it, but was far more pre-occupied with the logo onto of the bulky PC. "Huh, Hammer Industries, from the way Tony talks this thing wouldn't start up when it was new. Certainly explains why it was left behind."
"Hmm," Loki grunted non-committedly.
Steve realised the tense he'd used "Sorry, I didn't…"
"It's fine." Loki cut him off, really not wanting any more discussions on either of their pasts. "Do you want to turn it on?" He asked, sounding far more sarcastic than Steve had heard in a couple of days. It was kind of nice to see the return.
"Well, I can try…" Steve was unconvinced "but even if this thing works, and that is a big if, I severely doubt that this place has mainline electricity."
"So primitive." Loki sniffed. "Whatever happened to the arc reactors, or whatever they were called?"
"Stark tech, and after this time by a few years, as far as I know anyway. I wasn't exactly around for most of this." Steve looked around for an on switch.
"I know," Loki remarked with a mischievous smile.
"Shut-up," Steve's words held no heat. He found the on switch and pressed it. To both of their surprise, the computer actually turned on. It didn't get very far before crashing and failing and crashing, but it did turn on. "Well that confirms one hypothesis, and tells us something else."
"And what might that be?" Loki asked dryly.
"It confirms that Hammer tech is rubbish, and it tells us that this place is either still connected to the main power grid, or it has its own generators." Steve said "Given that their using Hammer tech, I'd bet that their still connected to the national grid."
"What does that mean?"
"Well to start with, we can see if any of the lights work."
They didn't, but a couple of spare bulbs Loki found in a supply cupboard did. The discovery of working electricity also allowed Steve to move some of the lifting rigs. Out of the three rigs, two were now pointed upright, almost like pillars, and the third formed a walkway to an upper balcony area above where the office was. The balcony area Steve and Loki were currently exploring.
"Just another empty room here, that makes four of them, right?"
"Five including this one and the office." Loki called through from an adjoining room. "Although, I think I can see the toilets."
"Ah," Steve said with a grin, there was an extremely grimy disabled toilet off the main body of the warehouse they'd been using, but it was good to know that the unlockable cubicle wasn't their only option. "Any chance of showers?"
"Indeed, there is indeed a probability of finding that mysterious item in the bathroom. As of yet I have not explored that place, so it is still in a state of flux. There are both showers, and no showers." Loki snarked.
There was a long pause of silence as Steve tried to find the right phrasing. Eventually he blurted out "I'm not sure what you just said, but you sounded like Tony Stark." The surname was an afterthought. Steve wasn't sure why he still felt some connection to the inventor that he'd spent most of the time he'd known him sniping at, but there was some little thing that tugged at the back of his brain sometimes, just something…
Maybe it was because in the end Tony had been so right on SHIELD that it hurt.
"Steve?" Loki called through, "Steve!"
Steve shook his head and looked at the man waving his hand in front of his face. "Sorry, did I zone out for a bit."
"Yeah, you could say that. I've been trying to get your attention for the past few minutes." Loki shook his head, "What the hell happened?"
"It's nothing…"
"Shush!" Loki urged suddenly pulling Steve down. "Do you hear what I hear?" He continued almost under his breath, counting on the super-serum hearing picking it up.
It did. Steve was hearing a lot more than just Loki's murmured question. There were footsteps, and shouting, and machinery. Someone was in the warehouse.