ready to comply

[semi_stable]

[cw: descriptions of a panic attack, mentions of PTSD]


Things have been going very well for Bucky as of late, so it's no real surprise when he's suddenly knocked on his ass again. That's how it goes, after all. That's his story. That's how it always goes.

This time, all he's doing is walking down the street. He's smiling, almost even laughing, sipping at an iced coffee. He's talking with a friend, gesturing with his prosthetic hand, ungloved and visible to anyone who looks at him, and anyone who did wouldn't even be able to tell how broken he is.

Because he is broken. He always will be in some way or another. His brain was taken apart and put back together over and over again, scrambled and reformed, and he'll never be healed from that, not completely. Not to mention all the trauma and abuse, decades of it, and he can have a few good months but he'll never be totally free.

This is proven to him as he's walking past some sort of street fair out in front of his building. It's noisy, with people milling about and several different radios tuned to different stations drowning each other out. They suddenly all go quiet, music and talking replaced with an eerie, quiet static.

Longing.

The word makes Bucky go still, face draining of color. It's a low, commanding male voice speaking in Russian, and Bucky feels a little like he might throw up.

Rusted.

It's coming from every radio, even one from a car passing by, windows rolled down to take advantage of the nice day. It's coming from everywhere and Bucky's coffee falls from his hand, plastic cracking as it breaks against the pavement. "No."

Furnace.

"No, no, no, please," Bucky pleads in Russian, reaching up to put his hands over his ears. It's so unexpected to hear his trigger words that he forgets for a moment that he's supposed to have been cured of them, rewired during his time in Wakanda. But then he remembers, and it doesn't help. Whoever is behind this place has proven how powerful they are, and who's to say that they didn't undo that, too?

Daybreak.

It's getting louder now, more forceful, and Bucky lets out a panicked shout as he stumbles backwards, breathing heavily and shaking his head. He's flooded so suddenly with adrenaline, like ice water being dumped over his head, and he can hear his heart beating. Air gets stuck in his chest and he can't breathe, and while he recognizes the signs of a panic attack, he can't seem to make it stop. He's too terrified of what might be about to happen to do anything but panic.

Seventeen.

"No, no, not again," he chokes out, turning to run into the lobby of his building to try and get away from it, only to find that they're playing in there too, pumping tinnily out of a speaker in the corner. He chokes out a sob and sinks to the floor, pushing himself back into a corner and covering his ears. Someone follows after him and Bucky holds out his hand. "Stop! Stay back."

Benign.

There are four more. Only four more words until Bucky finds out of the switch in his brain will be flipped, if he'll climb to his feet and stand at attention. Four more words until this city finds out if the Winter Soldier is ready to comply.





[Help him. Have your pup be the person he was walking with and/or the one who finds him in the lobby. Despite his fears, the trigger words will not do anything because he's still cured, but he's still going through one hell of a PTSD episode.]

Comments

[thewrongpath]

"It's an account that never runs dry. As long as I don't go too mad with it, the bank will be none the wiser, and won't go belly up in the process. Everyone I patronize gets their money," Loki said, anticipating Bucky's misgivings.

"I've used the account for other things, as well. A donation or two to the theater, that sort of thing," he said offhandedly, "Mother found it important to support the arts."

[semi_stable]

The answer is good enough for Bucky, because it maybe isn’t ethical, he’s okay with a big bank losing some money. Lord knows they take enough from other people. As long as honest, hardworking folk are getting their share, he’ll sleep just fine at night (so to speak).

“That’s a nice way to honor her,” he says quietly, twisting to look up at Loki’s face with a soft smile, because he doesn’t quite know what to say but he knows how important Loki’s mother was to him, knows about the guilt he feels, so he wants to say something.

“We should go see a play sometime,” he suggests, smiling a little. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen any live theater.”

[thewrongpath]

"I'd like that," Loki admitted, returning Bucky's smile. "I hear the ballet isn't terrible."

Being in no hurry to get dressed, Loki slipped an arm around Bucky's waist, the fingertips of his other hand drifting idly over Bucky's forearm.

"Their principle dancer was killed a few years ago. Struck by the train. All very sad," he said, though he spoke of it with the kind of interest one gave to gossip or facts pertaining to local crime.

[semi_stable]

"My mom loved the ballet," Bucky offers, shrugging a little and looking away because it's hard to talk about her. "Not that she hardly ever got to go. Maybe she did later on."

It pains him that he missed out on so many years with his family but at least in their eyes, he died a hero. If anything, he's relieved that his mother had no idea just how much he was suffering somewhere across the world.

Loki breaks through his introspection with his fun fact, and Bucky turns his head to give Loki a vaguely bewildered look, fighting back a laugh. "Why do you sound so pleased about it?"

[thewrongpath]

Loki watched the way Bucky seemed to shrink a bit, at the mention of his mother, and decided not to push it further, for now. Loki wanted to hear about her, just as Bucky had wanted to know about Loki's mother, but it seemed important to let him get there on his own time.

"I'm not!" Loki laughed, resting a hand on Bucky's cheek. "It's interesting, that's all. When we first arrived, I spent some time trying to make sense of this place. To find an escape, or any clue who brought us here, or why. Which was, of course, mind-numbingly futile, but what I could find was full of all sorts of curious bits."

[semi_stable]

Bucky smiles at the sound of Loki’s laugh, watching him with a fondly amused expression as Loki’s hand comes to rest on his cheek. He’d done something similar when he first arrived, blending in with government employees to try and find something useful.

“You’re probably one of those people who watch murder shows,” he says with a chuckle, twisting again until he’s back on his belly, draped over Loki’s chest. “Serial killer documentaries.”

[thewrongpath]

"There's nothing wrong with being informed," Loki said with playful haughtiness, a hand rubbing gentle circles along Bucky's spine as they settled together, legs tangled atop the sheets.

"I thought I might find some trace of the TVA when I first arrived. Sylvie was so desperate to get back, to see what came of what we'd done..."

He refused to say what she'd done. Yes, she'd thrown him out of the void, and the decision had ultimately been her own, but he'd been with her up until that point. He refused to let her shoulder the burden alone.

[semi_stable]

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Bucky jokes, staring up at Loki and humming his approval at the way Loki touches him. He used to flinch off every touch because he associated touch with something bad, something painful, so he’d back away and bare his teeth like an abused animal.

But now, with them, he craves it. Their hands on his body soothes something in him, something he long thought broken.

“I don’t think we’ll know until someone from after shows up here,” Bucky admits, but the thought worries him, too. “But from what we’ve heard, the two of you are still back home fighting. Maybe I’m there, too.”

[thewrongpath]

"Yes, so they say," Loki agreed, his big toe trailing along the inside of Bucky's ankle. He seemed incapable of not touching him everywhere he was able, and luckily, Bucky certainly didn't seem to mind.

"Oh, if that's the case, I'm sure we're getting on splendidly," Loki said, eyes alight with amusement.

[semi_stable]

"Stranger things have happened," Bucky says dryly, lifting a brow as he raises his hand to drag it through Loki's hair, tousling the dark curls. Before Loki can retaliate, Bopp lets out one sharp bark from the living room and it's followed almost immediately by a knock at the the door. "I'll get it."

He rolls off of the bed and ends up on his feet, stepping into a pair of sweats on his way down the hall. As soon as he's away from Loki, walking past the spot where he collapsed on the floor and cried, he feels a little uneasy. Memories from earlier creep in and he reminds himself that the words are useless. They only have power over him now if he lets them.

After collecting food from the delivery guy, who seemed vaguely flustered by his naked chest and robot arm, Bucky grabs two bottles off water from the fridge and is followed back down the hall by Bopp. Once back in the bedroom, she puts her head on the bed to sniff at Loki's knee and then goes to flop into her bed under the window.

"Here you go, your majesty," Bucky teases as he steps up onto the bed, settling down into a cross-legged position as he starts to unload the boxes. "I need to change the sheets anyway."

[thewrongpath]

Chuckling softly, Loki propped himself against the headboard, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it, though he left it otherwise mussed, even as he donned a pair of soft, black sleep pants.

"Hello, madam," he murmured, reaching out to scratch behind Bopp's ears before she drifted away to her place beneath the window.

"How indulgent," Loki teased, crossing his own legs so that they could spread their food between them. Cracking open one of the sushi trays, he popped a piece into his mouth, humming his approval.

[semi_stable]

It's only once all the food is spread out in front of him that Bucky realizes just how hungry he is, and he's halfway through one of his rolls before he pauses for a drink of water. The place he usually orders from is fine, but this one, he must admit, is better. But that's how it always goes. The people with the most money get all the best stuff.

"What's that smell? He asks suddenly, sniffing the air in a way that's vaguely reminiscent of Bopp. It's earthy and kind of funky, and he looks suspiciously at a box still sitting closed near Loki's thigh. "Is that the truffle stuff?"

[thewrongpath]

Laughing, Loki picked up the box and opened the lid, waving the tray enticingly in front of Bucky's face.

"Come on, I know you can be adventurous," he goaded, stealing a piece for himself and popping it into his mouth. It really was quite good, the truffle oil complimenting the taste of the fish without overpowering it.

[semi_stable]

When Loki opens the lid, Bucky's nose wrinkles at the strong smell, which isn't particularly good or bad, and narrows his eyes a little as he looks at the roll suspiciously. Loki seems to enjoy it, so Bucky reaches up with his chopsticks to carefully take a piece of it for himself.

"You have to remember that I have a Depression era palate," he jokes, lifting a hand under his chin as he puts the roll in his mouth. It's a burst of flavor and his eyes widen a bit, then narrow once again when he realizes that Loki was right.

"It's fine," he says with his mouth full, hoping the lack of manners might distract him from being smug about it.

[thewrongpath]

"Hm, yes. Mediocre," Loki agreed with a smirk, stealing another bite for himself and leaving the tray within reach between them. Thor and his cohorts weren't known for their table manners, and Asgardians in general were less ridged about them than most, so, Bucky's lapse in propriety hardly phased him.

"I've never had one of these," he admitted, reaching to pluck one of the potstickers out of its container with his fingers. "The food in Asgard seems rather limited, compared to all the choices here."

And he'd traveled, of course. He'd even spent a fair bit of time on Earth, in the past, but what was available now was a global melting pot unlike what he'd experienced before.

[semi_stable]

"Mm, dip it in the sauce," Bucky says excitedly, because food is something that will always get him going, even if he doesn't know too much about it. He pops off the lid of the potsticker sauce with his own fingers and gives it a quick dip. "We didn't have sushi but there was a Chinese family in our building when I was growing up. The Changs, I think. My mom and them would swap food sometimes, and man, it was good."

The Changs packed up and moved away at the start of the war, and Bucky hadn't realized why at the time. Now he does.

"What did you eat back home?" Bucky asks around his potsticker, scooping up his chopsticks and grabbing another piece of sushi. "I'm imagining a lot of meats and fruit." He watches Loki grab another piece of fish with his fingers and smirks fondly. "Stuff you could eat with your hands."

[thewrongpath]

Bucky seemed so excited by the prospect of showing him something new, Loki couldn't help but be charmed. Dipping the little dumpling in the sauce, he cupped his free hand beneath it as he brought it to his mouth. It was savory, salty, the sauce just a bit sweet. "Delicious," he agreed, sucking a bit of grease from the pad of his thumb.

At the little, lighthearted jab, Loki smirked in return. "That's not terribly far off. Smoked meats, a bit of fish, cheese, fruit, nuts. Some breads. Spicy food has been a bit of an adventure," he admitted, stealing another piece of the truffle roll.

[semi_stable]

“That sounds a lot like how I eat now,” Bucky admits with a laugh. Grocery stores tend to overwhelm him, so he usually just gets the same things each time he goes, sticking to a routine. Lots of protein and good fats, eggs and fruit, nuts to snack on. “Maybe I would have done well in Asgard.”

He takes another piece of the truffle roll for himself and then pulls his tuna roll into his lap, extracting a piece of fish with no sauce and wrapping it around a small ball of sticky rice. He lets out a short, quiet whistle and Bopp immediately trots over as if she’d been waiting for it, tail swishing back and forth as she looks up at Bucky hopefully.

“Here,” he says, holding out the small treat for her, watching as she takes it gently from his fingers. “Now go lay down.”

[thewrongpath]

"Oh, you would. I have no doubt of that," Loki agreed, allowing himself to think upon Asgard with a bit of fondness, and how well Bucky might have fit in there.

Watching Bucky carefully dissect his tuna roll with a surprising surge of fondness, Loki smiled as Bopp delicately accepted the offering, before returning obediently to her bed.

"Spoiled," he observed warmly, amused by how the two of them seemed to have settled into such a gentle symbiosis. He'd observed her on her first day with Bucky, during only Loki's second meeting with the latter, and it was difficult now for him to imagine one without the other.

[semi_stable]

The sentiment means a great deal to Bucky. It’s all hypothetical, of course. Asgard no longer exists and they would have no way to get there even if it did, but he likes that Loki can think of his home and imagine Bucky there.

“You’re one to talk,” Bucky replies with a smirk, wiping his hands on a napkin before finishing off the rest of his tuna roll. He nudges the rest of the truffle roll toward Loki, because while he enjoyed it, Loki seemed to enjoy it more. He snags two more potstickers and then a few pieces of another roll, both of them polishing off the food in a way that only a god and a super soldier with enhanced metabolism could.

By the time that they’re done and Bucky has drained his bottle of water, he feels full and content and, at least for the time being, isn’t even thinking about the awful thing that happened earlier. He’s thinking about what came after, and he gives Loki an almost shy smile. “Thanks for dinner.”

[thewrongpath]

"Of course," Loki said, carefully leaning across the scatter of empty containers to kiss the corner of Bucky's smiling mouth.

Draining his own water and setting the bottle aside on the bedside table, Loki stretched his arms overhead, letting out a low hum of contentment. Reaching for the empty bag, he crammed all their discarded containers into it, all of it seeming to vanish with a faint glow of orange light. Out of sight, it reappeared in the kitchen, where he left it sitting atop the garbage can.

[semi_stable]

Bucky finds himself distracted by the stretch of Loki’s long body, the lean lines of muscle and unexpected freckles and beauty marks dusted across his skin. He truly is a beautiful man and he knows it, but Bucky can’t help but to stare at him anyway.

It’s only the light that makes him look away, and he chuckles a little. He doesn’t want to get used to this, not doing things himself. He doesn’t want to get lazy and rely on magic, but he can’t deny that it’s nice sometimes. Maybe he’s a little spoiled, too. Maybe that’s okay.

With an exaggerated groan, Bucky falls sideways between Loki’s legs, resting his head on one of his thighs. He feels unusually tired, but he supposes that isn’t much of a surprise given the day he’s had.

“I need to take Bopp out,” he murmurs into the luxurious fabric stretched over Loki’s thigh. “Do you wanna come? Or you could stay here and do a magic trick on these dirty sheets.”

[thewrongpath]

"I'll stay," Loki decided, slipping his hands through Bucky's hair, reluctant to leave him but also reluctant to leave this bed.

"I'll tidy up, don't you worry," he teased, feeling pleasantly exhausted himself. If not for the dog, he imagined they might have curled up and gone to sleep right there, Bucky's head in his lap, bellies full and hearts content. It was the type of moment he might've once sneered at himself for, but now, he honestly couldn't remember why. The vulnerability of opening himself up to the possibility of this was terrifying, but had been worth it so far.

Perhaps that would all change. It might all come crashing down around them. But for now, Loki simply didn't care.

[semi_stable]

"Solid plan," Bucky sighs out, but he doesn't move. For a long moment, he just lays there, relaxing with his head in Loki's lap. He feels warm and safe and full, and he doesn't want to leave this spot. But Bopp is more important than his comfort, so he gets up with a groan and rolls off of the bed, leaning over to press a kiss to Loki's cheek.

"Time for a walk," Bucky calls out, and Bopp pops up onto her feet and dances in a few excited circles before taking off down the hallway. Bucky chuckles and pulls on a t-shirt and some sneakers before looking over at Loki. It all seems ridiculously domestic, and he likes it. More surprisingly, Loki seems to like it, too. "Be right back, honey."

He winks and leaves the room, gathering Bopp's leash and hooking it to her collar before leaving the apartment. As much as he wants to rush back, he spends some time with her in the park, tossing a ball across the length of it a few times to burn off some of her energy. Things with Loki and Sylvie are exciting and new, taking up a lot of his time, but he doesn't ever want to neglect Bopp.

Once she seems drained, they head back home and Bucky lets her off the leash once they're back inside. He locks the door behind him and smiles at their trash from dinner before shoving it down into the can and washing his hands. He gives Bopp a treat and she crunches on it as they walk down the hallway, turning off the lights.

"We're back," Bucky says as he enters the bedroom, leaving the door open for Bopp. As he strips back down to his sweats, Bopp goes over to Loki to demand some pets. "Did you miss us terribly?"

[thewrongpath]

As promised, Loki did a bit of tidying. Aided by magic, of course. Still, he searched out a set of clean sheets, because surprisingly, using magic to switch one for the other was a simpler, more efficient spell than trying to clean the others.

Most assumed that the magic cost him nothing, but it did require quite a lot of energy, along with the skill and will to wield it. He would admit fully that it wasn't the same type of labor as doing it all by hand, but he expended more to take care of himself now than he ever had in the palace, with its endless parade of staff.

By the time Bucky and Bopp returned, he was sitting atop clean sheets, flipping idly through a book he'd found on the shelf in Bucky's living room. "Oh, you know me. I soldiered on," Loki drawled, scratching behind Bopp's ears as she'd commanded.

"How did the two of you fair? Were you bereft without me?"