(no subject)

[semi_stable]

When Loki suggests that they grab dinner, Bucky doesn't think much of it, really. It wouldn't be the first meal they've gotten together, not even the first at this particular restaurant. Honestly, once he thought about getting another one of those steaks, he stopped asking questions.

After spending the afternoon lounging around with Bopp and reading a book, he takes her for an evening walk and then showers. Since he has time, he trims the scruff on his face and cleans up the edges, and then pulls out the one black suit that he has in his closet. He bought it early on, first to blend in while he was spying on people, and then to do the same at the few parties he's been to.

It's too hot for a button down so he just puts on a dark blue v-neck tee underneath and finishes it off with his one black belt, and his one pair of dress shoes. As he pulls his watch off of the dresser, his eyes linger on the black leather gloves sitting in the top drawer. Normally, he'd wear then to cover his hand if he was dressing up and he pauses for a moment, looking down at his prosthetic and flexing his black and gold fingers. He swallows hard and then shuts the drawer, turning to look at himself in the mirror and smoothing his hair back with his hand.

"Ah, ah. Don't touch me. You'll get fur everywhere," he says as he hops out of Bopp's reach, turning to rub her behind the ears. "I'll be back."

It isn't too far to the steakhouse and the heat of the day is starting to burn away, so Bucky walks. He even whistles to himself a little on the way until someone looks at him and he realizes what he's doing. It makes him chuckle and he shakes his head, pulling his phone out of his pocket to compose a text.

I'm outside.

Comments

[semi_stable]

"Mm, we'll have to see," Bucky drawls out as if it were actually up in the air, nodding at the question before moving to stand, wiping his mouth with his napkin and dropping it onto the table. Bucky makes a point not to look at the bill, because honestly he'd rather just not know.

They make their way out of the restaurant, Bucky following close behind Loki. It's obvious why they were here together and he finds it freeing just how little he cares.

"That really was amazing," Bucky says once they're outside, sounding more sincere and looking over at Loki with a smile. "Thank you."

[thewrongpath]

"It was rather nice, wasn't it?" Loki agreed, pausing just outside the restaurant and breathing in the muggy, late summer air. The sky was clear, and while the stars weren't particularly visible in the city, it was still a lovely night.

They stood side by side, and with a faintly arched brow, Loki offered his hand. They had a few blocks to walk, and while it was relatively late on a week night, the streets were far from deserted. Perhaps it was another boundary he wanted to push, simply to see if he could.

More likely, and perhaps more embarrassingly, he simply wanted to hold Bucky's hand.

[semi_stable]

Loki holds out his hand and Bucky looks down at it consideringly for a moment. It's a warm night and they're already both in suit jackets. There are people all around them, either waiting for the valet or walking up to the door, but that's fine. He doesn't have to worry because he's nobody here, and he's so glad for that.

"Sap," Bucky says as he puts his good hand into Loki's, but he shoots him a smile as he threads their fingers together, jerking his chin a little to gesture for them to start walking before tugging him by the hand.

"I like your suit," he says once they're on the next block, letting Loki walk ahead so Bucky can slow and let their arms stretch out between them to get a better look. "I don't think I told you that earlier."

[thewrongpath]

Turning on his heel and simultaneously flipping his hair out of his face in a practiced move, Loki walked confidently backward, facing Bucky with a pleased smile curling the corners of his lips. "Thank you," he said, smoothing his free hand down the lapel of his jacket. "I was hoping you would."

He supposed it wouldn't hurt to admit that he'd had Bucky in mind when he'd chosen it, having clearly already given himself away through the course of the evening.

[semi_stable]

The admission makes Bucky smile, and also makes him feel a little silly for misunderstanding Loki’s intentions when he’d invited Bucky to dinner. It just hadn’t really occurred to him, but that isn’t Loki’s fault. It rarely occurs to Bucky that good things could happen to him. Especially nice things, romantic things.

He uses his grip on Loki’s hand to tug him forward, reaching out to grab Loki’s hip with his metal hand and tug him in closer, staring at him with a soft smile. As much as he wants to finally kiss Loki, he also kind of likes the anticipation. Also, once he starts, he might not be able to stop, so for now he plants a soft kiss high on his cheek before starting to walk again, still holding onto Loki’s hand.

“My compliments to your magical tailor,” he says with a smirk, raising their joined hands to urge Loki to do a little spin beneath them, gaze dropping briefly to his ass. “He does stunning work.”

[thewrongpath]

Loki wasn't one to blush, but his smile softened as Bucky leaned in to kiss his cheek, a hand lifting to rest briefly against Bucky's cheek.

They parted, and Loki laughed softly as Bucky urged him to turned, their hands clasped over Loki's head. "I wanted to leave just enough to the imagination," he said, eyes playfully bright.

[semi_stable]

"Yes, what could possibly be under there. I wouldn't have any idea," Bucky replies with a soft smirk, smoothly drawing Loki's arm around his shoulders before letting go of his hand to wrap his arm loosely around Loki's waist instead. His hand slips under the jacket to rest against his hip, thumbing just above his waistband as they start walking again.

"I was serious about the nightcap," he says as they cross the street to the next block. "Believe it or not, I still have that bottle of paint thinner you gave me."

[thewrongpath]

"Good," Loki said, settling his arm comfortably around Bucky's shoulders. "I wasn't quite ready to go home, yet."

Hiding a smile, he feigned indignation as he said, "I'll have you know, that is very rare and sought after paint thinner."

[semi_stable]

"Good," Bucky echoes, hooking his metal thumb in the pocket of his slacks as they walk together. He chuckles at the comment, tipping his head back a little with it and squeezing gently at Loki's hip. "Hey, I never said I didn't cherish it."

He says it like a joke, but he does mean it. It was a thoughtful gift, one from a home that no longer exists, picked out with Bucky specifically in mind. Just because it tastes awful doesn't mean it isn't special.

It isn't a very long walk to Bucky's building, and he lets go of Loki's hip only to step forward and open the door to the lobby for him, following in after him and pressing the button for the elevator.

"I took Bopp out before I left, but I'll need to walk her at some point later on tonight," Bucky tells him as they wait, perhaps warning him well in advance that they'll need to take a break from whatever inevitably happens once they're upstairs.

[thewrongpath]

"Of course," Loki said, his hand brushing the small of Bucky's back as he came to stand at his side. "I can always be out of your hair by then," he offered politely, assuming Bucky might prefer to walk him out, as he had before.

Whatever Loki might have wished for, they'd never spent the entire night together, only hours stolen, here or there. With their earlier activities, this was already more time than they'd ever spent together in one day.

[semi_stable]

"Or you could come with us, or wait. We'll play it by ear," Bucky replies, deliberately casual, because had hadn't realized that it might have sounded as if he was preemptively kicking Loki out. Asking Loki to spend the night feels big and kind of scary, but he already knows that sleeping next to him is far from impossible.

He has to be relaxed enough for it to happen, but he can't imagine that being a problem. They don't have to plan anything out, and he'd understand if Loki wanted to go home at some point, whether to be with Sylvie or simply to be on his own, but he definitely doesn't think that he'd mind if Loki wanted to stay. He might even like it.

The elevator doors open and they have to step aside to allow a group of attractive young women to spill out of it in a cloud of perfume, obviously dressed up for a night out. He recognizes one of them as a loud younger woman from up the hall, one that flirts with him from time to time, but it feels more playful than deliberate and Bucky has no plans to try and take her up on it. He's retained enough good sense from his pre-war bachelor days to not start something up with a girl who lives two doors down from him.

"Hi, Bucky," she says as she turns to walk backwards away from them, snapping her gum as she lifts her hand in a wave. "Hi, Bucky's hot friend."

"Hello, Emmy," Bucky replies with a bemused chuckle, turning to smile at her as steps backwards onto the elevator and reaches out to grab Loki by the elbow. "This is Loki."

[thewrongpath]

Loki's brow arched faintly. "We'll see," he agreed, affecting the same air of casual indifference. They, from time to time, were capable of startling honesty with one another, but still tended to fall into the trap of carefully skirting around anything that might reveal too much.

When the elevator doors opened, they both stepped aside, Loki's hand falling away from Bucky's back as a pack of young girls spilled out into the lobby.

He smiled at them, charmingly polite, and said, "Lovely to meet you, Emmy," just as Loki tugged him into the waiting elevator car.

[semi_stable]

Emmy looks delighted by the accent, eyes and smile both going wide, but the doors shut before she can say anything. Bucky smirks and turns toward Loki, slowly pressing him back against the wall and resting his hands against it on either side of his waist.

"That voice of yours is dangerous," he admits, leaning in nearly close enough to kiss him. The anticipation of it happening is arousing enough that Bucky pulls away again, grabbing Loki's hand to pull him out into the hallway once the doors open. He pulls his keys out of his pocket and twirls them around his metal index finger, looking at Loki over his shoulder as he unlocks the door and opens it.

"Yes, yes, hello," he says once Bopp is unsurprisingly right there to greet them, sniffing eagerly at their hands. "Shoot, I should have brought her back that bone."

[thewrongpath]

Loki's back his the far wall of the elevator, his hands slipping into Bucky's open suit jacket to rest on his hips. "So I've been told," he drawled, practically purring as he leaned in close, a low rumble of laughter escaping him when Bucky once again pulled away.

Slipping into the now familiar apartment, Loki shut the door behind them. At Bucky's regretful admission, Loki arched a brow. "Unfortunately, I don't have that hidden anywhere, but." With a glow of magic, he produced a bag of dog treats he'd picked up from the store the other day. "I meant to leave these at the house, for when the two of you visit, but I suppose there's no harm in letting her have one now." They were some sort of fancy, organic lamb flavored treat, which he'd picked up without much thought, but the fact that the two of them had been on his mind at all was more than a little notable.

[semi_stable]

Bucky spends a moment wholly focused on Bopp, crouching down to greet her and scratch her behind the ears as she nuzzles at him. She gets fur all over his clothes but he's in for the night and he's discovered those sticky roller things, so it doesn't bother him much.

Loki speaking draws his attention away a little and Bucky twists to look up at him, staring at the bag in his hand. After everything tonight, it's this gesture that rocks him in the most. When he found out that Loki and Sylvie were moving in together, he was very happy for them but there was a very small, deeply human part of him that was just a little insecure. It wasn't something that ate at him, but it was there, and Sylvie and Loki have both unknowingly freed him of the small worry that he might become irrelevant.

It means so much to him that Loki was out somewhere and thought not only of Bucky, but of his dog, too. There will be a place for them both in that house and Bucky finds himself suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. Bopp nudges her nose against his jaw and it's then Bucky realizes that he's just been staring at a bag of dog treats for God knows how long, and Bopp would like to eat one of them.

"Wow, Bopp. Look at that," Bucky says in a low voice, smiling as he stands back up and takes the bag from Loki's hand. He rips it open and tosses her one, huffing in amusement when she jumps up to snap it out of the air. He tosses another and swallows hard, bumping his shoulder against Loki's as he hands the bag over so he can give her a treat, too. "Thanks for thinkin' of us."

[thewrongpath]

"I tend to do that, whether I'm trying to or not," Loki admitted offhandedly, smiling softly at Bopp as she looked up at him with those big, expressive brown eyes, her tail wiggling excitedly. Digging into the bag, he plucked out a treat and tossed it to her, surprised at how much pleasure he received from such a simple act.

Zipping the bag closed, he made it vanish back into the place where he kept things. "You can have another when you come for a visit, Your Highness."

[semi_stable]

"No sad eyes," Bucky tells her as he takes a chew bone from a jar he keeps on the table near the door. After removing his keys, phone, and wallet from his pockets, he turns and holds it out to her so she has something to keep her busy. "Go lay down."

She gently takes the bone from him and then darts off to her bed, which is some ridiculous thing with memory foam and little legs to keep it up off of the floor. Bucky turns to Loki with a dopey smile and then shakes himself, chuckling as he takes off his suit jacket and tosses it over one arm, stepping up behind Loki.

"Let me take your coat," he says quietly, helping pull it down his long arms. After hanging them in the closet, he gestures for Loki to take a seat on the sofa and then ducks into his kitchen to grab the bottle of liquor and two small glasses. Holding all three items in his metal hand, he plants the other onto the back of the sofa and vaults himself over it, landing smoothly next to Loki and handing over a glass.

"As promised," he says, pouring them each a brave two fingers and then leaning forward to set the bottle of the coffee table. He twists to better face Loki as he pulls back, resting his elbow on the back of the sofa as he holds his glass out for a clink. "Our very rare, very special gasoline."

[thewrongpath]

There was something oddly comforting and welcoming in having the other man remove his jacket, despite both of them knowing he could've done away with it in a literal flash. Opening the cuffs at his wrists, Loki pushed the sleeves of his shirt up over his elbows. Stepping out of his shoes, he tucked them neatly beneath the coffee table and sat himself down on the sofa, laughing as Bucky vaulted over the back and landed on the seat at his side.

"Let's hope your esophagus can take it," Loki teased, clinking the edge of his glass against Bucky's and then throwing back the whole thing in one go. He shuddered and let out a huff, but otherwise, came out the other side unscathed.

[semi_stable]

"It'll heal." Bucky also drinks the whole thing, hissing at the burn and shuddering violently. He makes a face and then laughs, wiping his mouth from the back of his hand as he leans forward to set his glass down. "God, I thought I was prepared."

He takes off his shoes and socks and then stares at the bottle again for a moment before pouring them each another finger. It might be enough to get him a little buzzed for a bit, and he finds that the thought doesn't scare him like it usually would. It's been too good of a day, maybe the best one he's had in a long time.

"Come on, we got this," he says as he clinks their glasses together again and knocks back the alcohol. His nose wrinkles as he slams the glass down and then he falls back against Loki's side, laughing as their thighs press together. "It's truly awful."

[thewrongpath]

With an enthralled grin, Loki watched Bucky's dramatics as he downed the liquor and laughed heartily as Bucky hesitated only a moment before pouring them another.

Downing it with another shuddering cough, Loki croaked, "It's growing on me," his eyes watering as he wheezed out a laugh.

"I don't know how Thor was always drinking this stuff," he said, leaning forward to set his glass down on the coffee table. "I ought to stay on the lookout for some proper ale."

[semi_stable]

"Believe it or not, I've had worse," Bucky says with a laugh, lifting his legs to rest his feet on the table, legs crossed at the ankles as he leans against Loki's side. "When I was a kid, the outlawed liquor for about a decade. I drank a lot of bathtub hooch in my teens. They called it Prohibition, so the fact that's what that club is called is pretty funny."

Loki doesn't mention Thor much, and Bucky isn't sure if he should let the moment pass of acknowledge it. After a moment, he decides to go for the latter.

"I met Thor only briefly, at Stark's funeral just after everything with Thanos," he says quietly, putting his hand over Loki's where it rests on his thigh. "From what I could gather, he missed you a lot."

[thewrongpath]

"Humans do always find new and creative ways to make themselves suffer," Loki observed, grimacing at the thought of a prohibition on alcohol. What sanctimonious nonsense.

At Bucky's admission, Loki frowned, remaining motionless for a beat before turning his hand over in Bucky's grasp. "He would. He's a dreadful sap," Loki said, thinking of their last encounter at Stark Tower, and how he'd lied to him about his desire to stop the invasion.

Had it been a lie? He couldn't even be sure anymore.

"He was here. At least once before, but only briefly. I saw his name in an old directory."

[semi_stable]

This isn't news to Bucky. He'd also gone through old directories while he was trying to learn all that he could about Darrow. All of the original Avengers were here at some point, including Steve. But that isn't really the most worrying part.

"I've been here before, apparently. Some version of me, at least," Bucky admits, biting his lip and squeezing Loki's hand, finding himself relieved that Loki will understand exactly why that specific scenario would bother him. "Just another thing I don't remember doing."

[thewrongpath]

"If what I saw at the TVA is to be believed, there are an infinite number of other versions of ourselves, doing things we have no control over," Loki said, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on the back of Bucky's hand.

"There's a version of me, who's an alligator," he said casually, as if it weren't one of the strangest things he'd ever encountered, in a very long line of strange things.

[semi_stable]

“Comforting,” Bucky says dryly, he smiles a little as he looks down at Loki’s hand in his own, thumb stroking across his skin. It’s such a nice thing, holding hands. He had no idea just how much he liked it.

What Loki says is so out of left field that Bucky stares at the side of his head with wide eyes, waiting to see if he’s kidding. He doesn’t seem to be, so Bucky lets out a sharp bark of laughter.

“How did you know he was a Loki?” Bucky asks through his chuckling. “Did he have—“ He lifts his free hand up towards his head to mime the horned helmet that Bucky has only seen in photos.