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

[semi_stable]

"Better than needlepoint," Bucky offers, smirking softly as Loki's hands travel his body, including his left arm. It would be an easy thing to ignore it, to treat it as an extra piece of him, but Loki never does. He touches it like it's as much a part of Bucky as the rest of him, and he hadn't realized how much something like that could mean to him. He's struggled mentally with his prosthetic at times, even spending some time hating it for what it seemed to represent, but lately he's becoming more and more comfortable with it. He wouldn't attribute that all to Loki, but he certainly helped.

When Loki pulls him in, dragging him forward as if he weighs nothing at all, Bucky's breath hitches and he shifts a little, pressing himself up onto his hands as he stares at Loki's face, practically bent in half.

"Is that what I am? Your hobby?" Bucky asks, chuckling fondly and giving him a playful smirk.

[thewrongpath]

"Hm, that's not the word I'd use, no," Loki said, returning Bucky's smirk and leaning forward to nudge a kiss to his lips. It was almost chaste, at first, lips closed, eyes open to half mast, then he slowly pressed deeper, his tongue sweeping past Bucky's lips.

They hadn't discussed labels, and he saw no pressing need to now, but as someone who tended to assume people talked about him all the time when he wasn't around, he was curious how Bucky might refer to him to others.

[semi_stable]

“That’s not the word, huh?” Bucky drawls out as Loki leans in to kiss him, meeting him halfway and reaching up to put a hand on the side of his neck. He knows that what the three of them have together in unconventional, and he doesn’t feel a pressing urge to define it, but he can’t help being curious about some things. Is Loki his boyfriend, and Sylvie his girlfriend? That sounds so immature, so— fleeting.

Another small part of him is nervous to bring it up, because what if Loki and Sylvie have had this conversation, and they have something for each other but not him? It’s a silly worry, and he knows it’s probably not the case, but he’s so new to all of this. Being a little self-conscious at times is only human, he figures.

Or maybe he should just be honest.

“I don’t know what to call you,” he admits quietly, almost bashful as he presses his face into Loki’s neck, pressing a kiss to the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “I know we don’t— I know that you’re not mine, really, but you’re my something, right?”

[thewrongpath]

"But I am yours," Loki argued, and at any other moment, with just about any other person, he might've been simply an argument for the sake of it. A need to be contrary, because it was his nature.

But this came from an honest place, the words escaping before he could turn them into something prettier.

"Sylvie doesn't change that. I haven't given you the leftover pieces of myself she doesn't have use for," Loki said, gently pushing a strand of Bucky's hair back from his face. "I'm yours. Your lover and your friend. A partner of sorts, I think," he admitted, his mouth downturned in a thoughtful frown. "Paramour, perhaps? Special friend, if we want to get coyly old-fashioned."

[semi_stable]

The reassurance soothes him, and he’s grateful that Loki understands that he needs it and doesn’t take offense to Bucky’s insecurity. He’s patient in a way that would probably surprise a lot of people to learn.

Bucky’s eyes crinkle at the corners as Loki speaks, and maybe it’s a corny thing to think, but he’s so romantic. It feels like he’s swooning, and he knows his cheeks have gone pink.

“Yes, please refer to me as your paramour,” Bucky jokes with a soft smile, nudging his nose against Loki’s. “Not my boyfriend, then? My special guy?”

[thewrongpath]

"I am over a thousand years old. Does boyfriend really seem appropriate?" Loki asked, lips pressing against Bucky's visibly flushed cheek.

Chuckling, he framed Bucky's face in his hands, barely stifling an amused grin. "It is rather cute isn't it? I'll start doodling your name in the margins of my notebooks."

[semi_stable]

“Mrs. Loki Barnes,” Bucky replies with a matching grin, thinking of the heart-dotted i in his notebook. “And you can wear my letterman’s jacket.”

He grins and presses a line of kisses along Loki’s jaw, cradling the sides of his neck and biting his own lip to keep from chuckling. “Since we’re going steady now.”

[thewrongpath]

"Hm," Loki hummed thoughtfully, and with a flicker of magic, he was suddenly wearing what he approximated to be the general garb of a 1940s Midgardian teen— khakis and a plain white tee, trousers neatly belted at the waist, and a letterman cardigan thrown overtop. His hair was cut short in a look more befitting the era, tight on the sides and a bit longer on top, and gelled back neatly.

The letter appliqued to the front pocket of his sweater was a large B.

"You were imagining something like this?"

[semi_stable]

The green glimmer makes Bucky open his eyes and when he sees that Loki has altered his appearance, he pulls back to get a better look. What he finds in front of him is enough to make his jaw drop, and he lets out a delighted laugh, shifting back so he can get up onto his knees.

"Oh my God." Loki looks like someone he would have seen back home, someone that Bucky would have found attractive, and he would have felt a little ashamed of it. He would have looked away, fighting the urge to stare. Here and now, he doesn't need to do any such thing.

"Wow, look at you," he breathes out with a soft chuckle, reaching out to cup the side of Loki's face, fingertips brushing the short hair above his ears. "I'd be lying if I said this wasn't doing it for me, doll."

[thewrongpath]

"I'd be lying if I said that wasn't the point," Loki said, affecting a passable American accent.

His neck felt strangely naked without the fall of his hair, and he certainly wouldn't be making it a regular thing, but with the way Bucky looked at him in that moment, he wasn't in much of a hurry to change back.

He turned to press a kiss to Bucky's palm, then leaned back against the headboard, smirking playfully. "It seems we've found another button for me to push," he said, still in that accent— not quite Brooklyn, but something more generic.

[semi_stable]

Loki speaks and Bucky's brows lift in slight surprise, mouth still hanging open as he stares at Loki, flushing a bit as Loki kisses his palm. It should go without saying that Bucky greatly prefers how Loki normally looks, and he certainly wouldn't want this change to be permanent, but he's sure Loki knows that. This is just a game, Loki pushing another one of Bucky's buttons, as he's said, and he wants to damn well enjoy it.

"I think you've figured out most the switchboard by now," Bucky says, finally closing his mouth and swallowing hard, laughing huskily as he slide his hands down Loki's chest, straightening the lines of his sweater. Seeing that B makes him feel all warm and mushy inside, which is ridiculously sentimental, and he lays his hand flat over the letter as he looks up at Loki's face.

"Touching you while you look like this feels like it should be off limits," he admits almost shyly, dropping his gaze briefly to Loki's mouth. "I always had to pretend I didn't want to."

[thewrongpath]

"There's nothing stopping you now," he pointed out, his smile softening, his hand wrapping loosely around Bucky's wrist.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," he said, pausing briefly for affect. "I want you to touch me."

It was true, but for the moment, he was speaking as any number of those boys Bucky might've encountered in his youth. The boys he'd been afraid to pursue. Many of those boys most likely had secret desires of their own.

[semi_stable]

"That's a very poorly kept secret," Bucky jokes, but he's smiling, staring at Loki with a soft expression, because while this is all very sexy, it's also kind of sweet. Whether it was his intention or not, he's giving Bucky something of a gift in letting him resolve something from his youth, turning a forbidden desire into something real.

With one of Loki's hands around his metal wrist, Bucky lifts his other hand to Loki's face again, sliding it around to the back of his neck, fingers sliding through the short hair there as he leans in to press a soft kiss to Loki's mouth.

"It's mutual," he murmurs between kisses, nipping at his bottom lip and pressing a line of soft, open-mouthed kisses to his jaw. "I always want you to be touching me, but you knew that already."

[thewrongpath]

"I did have my suspicions," Loki said, continuing on in that accent, though the smile creasing the corners of his eyes was wholly Loki.

"I'll take you to the boardwalk and we'll hold hands on the ferris wheel. How's that?"

[semi_stable]

"And here I thought that I was playing it close to the vest." He's teasing, because while he is usually quite reserved, he's sure that Loki can see right through him. Sometimes, Bucky even hopes that he can.

"Oh, no, no," he adds with a chuckle, eyes darkening a little as he stares at Loki's mouth. He loves Loki's voice, loves his accent, and routinely finds himself turned on by it, and this new accent is no exception. He's glad that it's temporary, but right now it's almost like a balm for his homesickness. Not just for New York, but his New York. "Nothing that I want to do with you right now involves leaving this apartment."

[thewrongpath]

"Later, then," Loki said, curling a hand along the back of Bucky's neck and pulling him into an achingly thorough kiss.

He could've done away with the silly clothes in an instant, but he preferred the idea of Bucky peeling them off of him, bit by bit.

"Hm, yes. I haven't a clue what your intentions are, right now. Perhaps you ought to be a bit more demonstrative."

[semi_stable]

Loki kisses him deeply, kisses him so good that Bucky gets lost in it a little, feeling slightly dazed by the time Loki finally releases him. His eyes open and he sees Loki staring back at him with a clean cut look and open desire in his eyes, looking like something that Bucky might have daydreamed up in his twenties.

"You'd prefer it if I were forward?" Bucky asks, breathlessly polite, smirking as he reaches down between Loki's thighs to palm at the bulge in his trousers, thumb circling the head through the fabric. "Like this?"

[thewrongpath]

Loki laughed, a genuine, almost nasal giggle and a bright, wicked smile stretched across his face. Despite the clothes, he was entirely Loki, in that moment. Though, he was the Loki completely, utterly besotted with this infuriating man.

"Yes, that's rather difficult to misinterpret," he said breathlessly, his hand having found its way under the elastic of Bucky's sweats, his palm curving over the length of Bucky's cock almost casually.

"Tell me what you want, and you'll have it."

[semi_stable]

“Oh, boy,” Bucky groans out, feeling a bit like a kid in a candy store at the offer. Or actually, that saying isn’t quite accurate for the situation. Bucky’s been a kid in a candy store, and it was often frustrating. He didn’t have the pocket money for the sweets that he wanted most of the time, so he would settle for something safer, something more acceptable.

But now he’s been given free reign. He can touch and take whatever he’d like, and he has no idea where to begin. When Loki palms at his cock, Bucky groans, mouth falling open, and it’s stupid really, just how much Loki gets him going.

“I want to suck you off,” he finally decides, fisting his hands in Loki’s sweater and kissing him again, deep and longing, and then shifts to slide down onto his knees at the side of the bed, patting the mattress. “While you look just like that. Come here.”

[thewrongpath]

They seemed to be spinning through the rolodex of Bucky's fantasies that morning, and Loki could hardly complain. Urged willingly towards the edge of the bed, Loki leaned back on his hands, knees falling open, one draping itself over Bucky's shoulder.

Eyes sparkling brightly, Loki buried a hand in Bucky's hair and said, "Is this what you thought about at night, in your bed? Your mouth around the cock of some clean-cut, pretty boy in the balcony of the picture show?"

[semi_stable]

Loki moves fluidly, positioning himself where Bucky wants him and burying his fingers in Bucky’s thick hair, tipping his head back so Bucky has to look up at him. As if there’s anywhere else he’d rather look.

The words make him blush and shiver at the same time, but Loki knows by now that Bucky likes that feeling. He loves it when Loki talks to him like this, dirty and confident, so aware of Bucky’s desires. It makes him feel not only seen, but met head on. And it makes him desperately hard.

“At the movies? God, I don’t even think my imagination was that brave,” Bucky admits with a chuckle, but he doesn’t deny the rest of it, because he thought about it all the time, how it would feel to stretch his mouth around a cock, to have it on his tongue, down his throat. It wasn’t until he was eighteen that he got to try it, and it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t at a picture show, either. It was rushed and illicit and Bucky had spit on the ground when it was over, feeling used, and the guy was gone before Bucky even finished wiping his mouth.

“That sounds like your fantasy,” Bucky says in a husky voice, reaching up to undo Loki’s belt and open his trousers, chuckling at the standard white briefs underneath. Instead of pulling his pants down, Bucky tugs down the elastic and hooks it under Loki’s balls, thumbing at the swell of them as he presses an almost chaste kiss to the head of Loki’s cock, making sure he’s watching before he opens his mouth to take a lick. He spends a moment playing dumb, looking up at Loki with wide blue eyes, and then he realizes what it is that he really wants, expression sobering a little.

“My first time doing this was not a good experience,” he admits, swallowing hard and looking away for a moment before making eye contact again, hesitating briefly. “Do you think— maybe we could pretend it was this instead.”

It’s probably silly, and he bites his bottom lip and swallows hard, shaking his head a little as he reaches up to curl his fingers around the shaft. “Forget it. What’s done is done.”

No one knows that better than him.

[thewrongpath]

"Perhaps it is. We could buy out a box at the ballet and see how much we could get away with," Loki suggested, his own accent slipping through, for a moment.

Bucky's eyes were wide, a bit coy, playing up the game of inexperience and illicit desire. Loki's own first experiences were long ago, pleasurable but fleeting, and memorable only for the feeling of accomplishment and power he'd felt in the moments afterward.

But then Bucky spoke, his insecurities breaking through the facade, and Loki framed Bucky's face in his hands, fingers curling up into his hair.

"Maybe I'm not your first," Loki said, slipping back into the American accent, "But I'll be damned if I'm not the one that counts."

[semi_stable]

It's the perfect response, Bucky realizes. Loki doesn't claim to try and erase the past, doesn't make flowery promises about being his last or only, just tells the truth. He's the one that matters. Bucky grins, reassured and also amused by the American accent, bold and patriotic.

"You've made sure of that," he says with a soft laugh, stroking his hand up Loki's cock as he leans up to press a lingering kiss to his mouth, playfully nudging their noses together before sinking down again, smirking a little. "We can circle back to that ballet idea."

Bucky takes a breath and looks down at Loki's cock, thumbing at the foreskin and dragging it back a little, licking at the rim of it. With Loki, he has more time to explore. It isn't a rush to the finish, so he digs the tip of his tongue into Loki's slit, tasting the salty tang of him and replacing his thumb with the tip of his tongue, working it under the foreskin a little before swirling it around the head and pulling it into his mouth, humming as he keeps his eyes on Loki's face.

[thewrongpath]

Chuckling against Bucky's mouth, Loki found himself smiling foolishly, infinitely charmed by the easy affection they seemed able to give to one another. "I'm holding you to that," he murmured, his breath hitching at the first touch of Bucky's tongue to his cock.

"Are you really going to make me keep this ridiculous sweater on?" He teased, thumbing at the corner of Bucky's mouth, his touch gentle and affectionate, despite his almost comically raging erection.

[semi_stable]

"You're ruining it," Bucky murmurs against Loki's shaft, eyes sparkling with amusement as Loki touches him. He teases a bit longer, fingers stroking over his balls as he gives little kitten licks to the sensitive spot just under the head of his cock, and then opens his mouth and pulls Loki into it, groaning as he slides along Bucky's tongue, nudging the back of his throat.

He's too eager at first, even chokes a little, and he pulls off with a spluttering sort of laugh, cheeks burning as he gives Loki a look like he's daring him to comment. And then he tries again, sucking Loki down and breathing through his nose as he swallows around the head of his cock, seemingly determined to get it all the way down his throat. He's never done that before, and what better time for a first?