Steve might as well be snuggling with a nuclear bomb right now, as far as power and danger in potentia are concerned. He's dimly aware of this, on some level. Of course, the same could easily be said of most of the other people he knows. It's too much to think about what they might do or could do. And as far as what they have done...objectively he can see the argument that some of them should be locked away, but you can't redeem yourself from inside a cell.

Whatever Loki's done or might still do, it can't be made better, or balanced, or countered, by cruelty or self-destruction.

"Well...I have a little bit of an idea what it's like to fight people's expectations of you," he says. "They told my mother I'd never walk, or read, or finish school. I guess that's not the same thing, but it's something. I wanna see you be better than anyone ever thought you could be."

He runs his fingers through Loki's hair gently, content despite the gnawing feeling that he's in way over his head with this one. He's still going to try to help. "Do the stories people tell about you really affect who you are, or what you do? Literally?"