Chapter Text
"You've got that look on your face again," Bucky said.
"What look? I don't have a look."
Bucky rolled his eyes. "Uh-uh."
Sam crossed his arms and leaned against the door. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"It's nothing I haven't done before." Bucky shoveled more clothes into his bag, not really paying attention to what he was packing. Something in the back of his mind told him he should.
"Yeah, but it's a bit different this time, isn't it?" Sam said knowingly. "Can't you just say no?"
"Now that would be too obvious, wouldn't it?" Bucky asked dryly.
"The King of Wakanda still in the dark?"
"About what?" Bucky asked casually. Sam could accuse him of playing dumb all he wanted; Bucky was not going to get his own hopes up by expecting more out of this trip than what it promised: a diplomatic visit.
"Don't let him mess with your head, Barnes."
Bucky sniffed. "Everyone's had a go."
Asgardian state dinners were nothing like the formal affairs of their Midgardian counterparts. For one, there was no specific dress code, for which Bucky thanked his lucky stars, seeing how he had brought not so much as a tie, let alone a suit. With his all-leather ensemble, he fit right in.
He certainly was not going to tell Sam how he was repeatedly mistaken for a servant; after the third time someone stopped him to ask for a refill, Bucky made the wise decision to retreat to one of the quieter corners of the hall.
“Wolf.”
Very wise, Barnes.
Bucky rose to his feet slowly.
He had pictured this moment many times before, when they would finally meet again. In his daydreams, he was always the one to speak first, or steal the words right out of Loki’s smirking mouth with a kiss…but fantasies seldom translated into reality.
He did not count on being dumbstruck, now that they were standing face to face once more.
“Your Highness.”
The Prince returned the greeting with a slow smile that managed to look both wolfish and elegant.
“I can’t say I was expecting to see you," Loki purred, his voice even more silken than Bucky remembered. "Certainly not after our last conversation."
Last…conversation?
Ah, that conversation. The painfully awkward exchange of words in the wake of what was possibly the most memorable, if not magical, one night stand of Bucky’s life all those months ago. Sam even had a witty name for it: The London Affair.
It was what Bucky had come to call it in his head too.
A cruder way of putting it sounded like a tabloid headline: a World War II-era super soldier and a Norse deity, going at it like bunnies. It was one of those things so morally ambiguous, Bucky had no idea if it should be kept proudly or shamefully: the secret.
Loki had clothed himself instantaneously, all evidence of debauchery eliminated, all dignity preserved, his words practiced and polished like they had been said a thousand times before.
This never happened. You understand, don't you?
Bucky had played along, as was expected of him; just as it was expected of him now.
"What conversation?"
Eyes glinting in amusement, Loki gestured at Bucky's empty hands.
"Are you not hungry? Does our food not entice you?"
Bucky chose to keep to himself the fact that the smell of roasting meat did not tantalise him in the least. It reminded him of the hard times growing up in a household full of growing children with never enough to eat, of his mother and her tear-stricken smile as she tried to stretch each meal as far as it would go.
"I'm fine," Bucky declined, shaking his head. "The food's fine."
"Perhaps a drink of mead would do well to warm you up? The night is chilly here and you don't appear to be dressed for it."
"Thanks, but I don't drink mead."
Could that be dissatisfaction he was seeing in Loki’s eyes?
"Oh?”
Bucky refrained from making a face. "It's too sweet for my taste."
"Oh dear," Loki lamented with a dramatic sigh. "I am not being a very good host, am I?"
Before Bucky realised what was happening, Loki’s fingers danced in the air, and something cold materialised in Bucky's hand. Nearly dropping it in utter surprise, he glared and pointedly placed the ice-cold beer down on the window sill.
"Thanks, but I don't drink when I'm on duty."
The triumphant gleam in Loki’s eyes vanished.
"Are you ever not on duty?" he asked waspishly. "Don't worry, Wolf. It is non-alcoholic, but the taste should be to your liking."
Bucky snorted but said nothing. The Prince seemed to like the sound of his own voice enough for the both of them, so Bucky did what he knew best. He waited.
“If I had to be seen speaking to anyone tonight, I’d much rather it be someone with a drink in his hand."
Now that took Bucky by surprise. "Why are you talking to me?"
"Why? Do you think yourself undeserving of my attention?"
The dangerous edge to Loki’s voice left Bucky in no doubt where he stood.
“Do you want me to leave?” Bucky asked bluntly.
Loki twiddled the stem of his goblet in contemplation. “And where will you go?”
"That's not what I asked," Bucky said, the epitome of complete calm.
“I can’t dismiss you without slighting your King, not to mention mine,” Loki teased. “That would be a diplomatic disaster, wouldn’t it?”
Bruce stole a glance at the high table where T’challa was engaged in deep conversation with Loki’s brother, the King of Asgard.
“But it would be entertaining as hell,” he said, smirking.
A hearty chuckle lightened Loki's demeanour. "Oh, it would. But you would be putting me in a tight spot."
"And what spot is that?"
"Our rule of hospitality begs you to reconsider. You are not a prisoner, nor a servant,” Loki said. "You are our guest. And you will be treated as one.”
“If you insist,” Bucky conceded, finally lifting the bottle of ice-cold beer to take a calculative sip.
“How do you like it?”
Bucky licked his lips. “A bit dry but it’s not bad. I have to say I’m more used to the real thing.”
“Well. We all have to settle for less in life sometimes,” Loki said cheerily.
Bucky could not resist slipping a jibe in. “You, settling? That’s a bit hard to believe.”
“I have been called many things over the centuries, Wolf. Predictable isn’t one of them.”
A boisterous laugh pulled Bucky's attention toward the high table.
His Majesty King T’challa looked to be having a good time. His close confidantes had their suspicions that the burden of kingship was beginning to wear down on him; yet tonight, there was little sign of that.
Not even Okoye could resist the God of Thunder's charms. The General’s eyes may appear as vacant as always, but her lips were twitching with the itch of a grin.
Displaying yet another one of his superpowers Bucky had come to appreciate, Thor Odinson sure knew how to put anyone at ease, man or immortal.
Unlike his brother.
“Is there something you would like to say?”
Oops. Either Bucky had said it out loud or Loki was secretly a mind-reader. Probably the latter, judging by the poisonous look the prince was shooting at him.
“It’s none of my business.”
“Say it,” Loki commanded softly.
Bucky hoped against hope Loki’s preternatural hearing would not pick up the sudden stampeding of his heart. “See, when you say things like that, I can't tell if you’re going to kiss me or execute me if I don’t do what you say.”
“You and I both know I am capable of exercising restraint, Wolf,” Loki said coolly, frost on his lips. “Very capable.”
In the blink of an eye, the Rogue Prince of Asgard vanished from where he stood, reappearing so close he was but a hair's breadth from Bucky's ear.
"I can kiss you first," Loki whispered, "...and execute you later."
Bucky's lips hardly moved, but he made sure the God of Mischief heard him just the same. "You know better than to underestimate me, Prince."
"Oh, I do," Loki said. "But you are not a man of many words, are you, Sergeant Barnes? Are you any different from the others, I wonder?"
"The others?"
"The people of your kind. Do you see me as an invader, a conqueror of your lands?"
Before he could stop himself, Bucky looked around the unadorned wooden walls and beams of the sparsely furnished Great Hall of New Asgard and mentally compared it to the great palaces of Wakanda.
"Conquerors usually have nicer digs," Bucky said. "No offense."
Loki's eyes gleamed like jewels in the moonlight. "You have a gift for insulting and appeasing at the same time."
"Nice places don't mean shit. Bricks and mortar, that's all they are," Bucky said. He then gestured at the view outside the stained glass windows. "This however…is extraordinary."
"It is, isn't it?"
"Is it real?"
"Real enough," Loki murmured. "When you have lived as long as I, you will find that every corner of the universe retains a part of you. Your footprints. Your magic. Your memories."
“You conjured this from memory?”
“Of course. They may not be part of your solar system, these constellations, but they exist.” Loki’s pale irises gazed into the distance. “Somewhere out there.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Space?” A quizzical tilt of the head, a thoughtful frown. “Not really.”
Bucky studied the prince’s carefully schooled expression. “I was going to say home.”
“Earth is my home now," came Loki's carefully practiced answer.
“How does Earth compare? To all the places you’ve seen out there?”
Loki's answer came in the form of a gentle smile. "One shouldn't compare apples with oranges. Having said that, your world is as temperamental as any other."
The walls shimmered with magic. It fell away from the windows to reveal a different scene.
"When the noise became too much, I would take myself to the highlands."
The droplets of water turned into snow, the raging sea into mountains, forming a landscape lifted right out of a nightmare.
“Do you not like the Alps?”
Bucky watched the falling snow with smarting eyes. His metal arm tingled with a phantom pain. “Can’t say they’re my favourite.”
"When you fell…who came to your rescue?"
Bucky chose to answer simply, for Loki always had an ulterior motive for asking questions he already knew the answers to. "The wrong people."
"They are everywhere, aren't they? The wrong people," Loki mumbled into his cup of wine. "When I fell, I did not ask to be found either."
Bucky straightened his spine, trying his damndest to appear nonchalant. Comparing traumas was better done in bed, not in a crowded room surrounded by strangers. "Is this all you've got to show me?"
"What would you like to see?"
"Not this."
“As you wish.” When Loki waved his hand again, surprised gasps rose above the crowd, heralding the sounds of waves crashing against the glass.
"The Sargasso Sea. A sea bound by no land, where the sky is angry and the wind shrieks like the howling beasts of Niflheim."
Loki stepped closer toward the window pane to peer outside, marveling at the product of his own imagination.
"Some things are beautiful, but deadly. The same can be said for men."
Bucky found himself more captivated by Loki's reflection in the glass. Beautiful, indeed.
Loki saw, (of course he saw), and he smiled.
Something was coming. Nobody smiled like that without an agenda, not Loki.
The waves surged into heaving swells. The waters broke and from beneath the surface, a familiar skyline emerged.
Loki scrutinised Bucky's demeanour, determined to catch every minute muscle twitch, every microexpression. "Are you still upset about London?"
Bucky's frosty silence persisted.
"You are upset about London."
Don't let him mess with your head, Barnes.
"You think too highly of yourself," Bucky said. He would not give Loki the satisfaction of seeing him so unhinged.
"Hardly. I am simply offering you a glimpse into my soul."
Loki reached out a hand and placed his palm flat against the stained glass. The moonlight over London pierced his flesh, illuminating the arcade of his veins.
"Be it by ice, or water, or the deadness of space…" he whispered, "We suffocate just the same."
That was it. Bucky was going to just come right out and say it. There were only so many smiles Loki could hide behind before the pain of the past corroded through them like venom.
“Are you always this miserable?” he blurted.
"Happiness is overrated," Loki glowered. “Aristoteles had done a great job convincing the human race that a happy life must include pleasure.”
Aris-who?
One of the quirks Bucky had come to appreciate about Loki was his habit of casually name-dropping one of his divine acquaintances in conversation. Those, and famous dead people.
“Is that another god friend of yours?” Bucky asked dryly.
"The Greek philosopher," Loki clarified, sounding offended. "Surely you've heard of him?"
Yup. Famous dead person alright.
“Oh, you mean Aristotle!" Bucky deadpanned. "Sure, sure, I’ve heard of him. Charming guy.”
Loki gave him a dirty look. "As I was saying…you mortals see happiness as this…exclusive, elusive state of euphoria that everyone deserves, a birthright. Well, it isn't."
"How do you see it?" Bucky queried. "From the perspective of a god who's seen and had it all?"
“What I see is hardly important. We are not of the same species, after all.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Bucky argued. “Pleasure is important to all life forms. By nature, it isn't bad and everyone has the right to it, no matter what species you are. And while we’re on that subject, can you please stop talking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re a botanist and I’m the green mulch on your boots you’re having trouble identifying.”
Loki's nod was one of acknowledgement, not necessarily agreement. "No, no trouble at all.”
If someone asked Bucky to name one thing that was delicious but only palatable in small doses, Loki would be his answer.
Bucky was contemplating plausible excuses to take his leave before he embarrassed himself any further when a chorus of excitement surged through the crowd once more.
"It's a meteor shower!" Someone exclaimed.
“What a magnificent show, Loki!” Thor gave the high table a thunderous thump. “My brother, whose spectacles never fail to disappoint!”
Loki marched toward the largest of the windows and gripped the frames with both hands.
"What is this?" He muttered. "This isn't me."
Taken aback by the sudden change in Loki's demeanour, Bucky slowly rose to his feet.
"What is it?"
Bucky watched in growing confusion as the prince's tall, lanky frame almost bent double as he tried to peer out and up.
Loki abruptly peeled himself away from the walls. "You need to leave."
Sensing the man’s hesitation, Loki grabbed Bucky by the arm and hauled him up. "Go. Take cover, now!"
Loki practically flew toward the middle of the hall, barking orders left, right and centre. "Everybody out!"
"Thor! Valkyrie!" He bellowed. "Get T'challa out of here!"
Thor rose slowly from his chair, his smile fading. "Brother?"
"We're under atta - " Before Loki could finish, the first thunderbolt crashed through the skylight and slammed into the floor, catapulting pieces of marble into the air.
Debris the size of boulders started to rain down on them.
A bright, green light shot out of Loki's outstretched hands, and an energy field domed upward from the ground pushing the debris off to hover in the air.
The hall descended into pandemonium as people rushed for the doors.
"Everyone out!" Thor's voice boomed. "Protect the children! Men, follow me!"
There were only two exits out of the hall, both too far away and too small for all the guests to evacuate en masse.
Bucky drove a fist through the wall, breaking it down after one try. People rushed past him, some frightened and seeking cover, many brandishing weapons of their own.
What were they up against? Militants? Giants, trolls? Other gods?
Something bright and very, very hot shot past Bucky’s cheek, the heat burning his skin like nothing he had ever experienced before.
What the hell-?
The rain of thunderbolts was unrelenting inside the hall and out of it; soon, the atmosphere was filled with clanging sounds as metal clashed with metal where Loki's magic barrier could not reach.
The window nearest to him exploded, sending shards of glass raining everywhere.
Bucky raised his arm just in time to deflect the first thunderbolt, but a second one, a third, were heading straight for him.
Should he move out of the way, they would certainly hit some of the guests still trapped inside the tiny hall.
“Barnes!” He heard Loki call out in panic.
Instinctively, Bucky dropped into a crouching position, bracing himself for the piercing pain of a hundred spears.
He lifted his head a second later to face a swarm of deadly thunderbolts, suspended in the air by an invisible forcefield.
Bucky scrambled out from under the death trap with a split-second to spare, before the thunderbolts slammed into the ground just as Loki let out a cry of pain.
Bucky watched in horror as Loki pulled the thunderbolt embedded in his side with one hard tug and threw it onto the floor, the jagged sides glistening with what could only be blood.
Pressing one hand to his waist to stem the bleeding, Loki kept his other hand in the air, holding the roof up to allow the last of them to escape -
It sagged as Loki's magic gave.
A beam plummeted to the floor, splintering upon impact with a resounding crash.
The buckling of Loki's knees jolted Bucky into action. He lunged to cover the Prince's body with his own as the entire structure of the ceiling collapsed.
Loki thumped bloodied fists against his chest, but his struggles were feeble. "Get…off - "
"Lo…ki…" Bucky tried not to look at the red fast blossoming across Loki's midriff, focusing only on the sheer effort of holding up ten tonnes of debris off of his…
What was Loki again?
A peculiar wetness seeped through Bucky's clothes, warm and sticky.
Dying.
"Somebody, help!" Bucky hollered, bellowing from the deepest pit of his gut. "The Prince needs help!"