semi_stable | ready to comply

[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

semi_stable

The words serve a little like a balm to Bucky's insecurities. Loki and Sylvie live together, and they share this incredible bond, and it's hard not to sometimes feel like he's on the outside of it all. It's no one's fault. How could he not be? But reassurances like this help, and Bucky smiles wide, laughing a little.

"I'm pretty sure that I'll follow you guys wherever you'd let me," he says quietly, expression softening. "So yeah, count me in."

From:

thewrongpath

"You make yourself sound like a lost puppy," Loki pointed out, propping his head up on the heel of his hand and looking down at Bucky with a softening smile of his own.

"If there was somewhere you needed to go, I'd like to hope you'd want me there with you. Though, I can't imagine I'd be particularly welcome in your circles."

From:

semi_stable

"I feel like one sometimes," he admits with a low chuckle, and then shakes his head a little at the comment, expression sobering.

"I don't really have circles these days." He shrugs and then stretches his arms over his head. "Just Sam, I guess. He's who Steve picked to take on the mantle before he left."

From:

thewrongpath

Loki's eyes narrowed.

"Never heard of him," he said, pointedly dismissive. He thought the whole affair was ridiculous, but realized in the moment that he would've assumed Bucky to be the logical successor of Captain America. Of course, he was selfishly glad not to have to come to terms with being in love with someone carrying the mantle, but it was strange, nonetheless.

"Is he as insufferable as his predecessor?" Loki said, as charitably as possible.

From:

semi_stable

"More so," Bucky replies, giving Loki a vague look. It's a hard thing to talk about in general, but especially with someone with such a complicated connection to Steve. "After we beat Thanos, immediately after, Steve gave the shield to Sam and left. Then Sam left, and everybody else left, and I got swept up in court dates and mandatory therapy sessions while the government stuck me in an apartment in Brooklyn and waited to see if I'd try to kill everyone again."

He smiles sadly and then shrugs a little, looking away. "I was Captain America's right hand man for a long time, but after everything that happened-- it wasn't ever gonna be me. My reputation was destroyed."

From:

thewrongpath

"Hm," Loki hummed noncommittally, though the expression on his face made his feelings on the matter clear enough.

"Unfortunately, I'm not sure that being with me will be much of a boost," Loki admitted, frowning a bit as the other man looked pointedly away.

"Whatever happens, I think we can safely say that we're stuck with one another."

From:

semi_stable

"Yeah, well," Bucky says as he turns his head to look up at Loki again, reaching up to cradle the side of his face. "Fuck 'em."

The words make Bucky smile a little, and he hesitates before speaking again. He tries not to talk about Steve too much with Loki, not for any particular reason. Or perhaps for several reasons. But in moments like this, when he's dazed and worn out and feeling safe, held in the cradle of Loki's arms, bracketed by his strong thighs, he feels like he can say anything.

"Steve and I had this thing we'd say to each other. 'I'm with you 'til the end of the line'," he says to Loki, repeating the words with a sort of wistfulness. "It was sort of like my touchstone, y'know? No matter what, I had him." His eyes glass over and he laughs a little, sad and bitter. "I guess I just never imagined the line would actually end."

There has to be a point to why he's saying all this, but Bucky isn't quite sure what it is. He huffs out another bemused breath and turns his head when a tear slips from his eye, feeling faintly embarrassed. "It just fucked me up in ways that I never anticipated. I just-- I never thought he'd leave me behind. And if he did, anyone could."

Bucky hopes that Loki won't take offense to this. He just feels like he needs to explain why he's so insecure in all of this, so convinced that they'll get sick of him, even though it isn't the same.

From:

thewrongpath

"Most people would say that you'd be a fool to trust anything I tell you," Loki said, and it wasn't an admission so much as an acknowledgement of what they both knew to be true. "There's only so many times that I can say I've changed before it begins to sound rather desperate, I know that. But the fact of you trusting me at all, despite your aforementioned scars, seems rather momentous, to me. "

Cupping Bucky's cheek, he brushed away the tear before it slipped down his temple. "We're all rather broken, in our own ways, I think." He smiled ruefully, "So, fuck 'em."

From:

semi_stable

"Like catching lightning in a bottle," Bucky replies with a chuckle, and then wrinkles his nose on contrition. "Perhaps not the best analogy. Maybe that wasn't so rare where you're from."

Loki curses and it makes him laugh, nodding as he smirks ruefully and pats Loki's cheek. His expression sobers a little and he thumbs at the corner of Loki's eye, sliding his fingers back to curl around the base of his skull.

"But I do trust you. I believe you," Bucky says sincerely, smiling as he lifts his head to press a soft kiss to the corner of Loki's mouth, biting playfully at his chin to try and lighten the mood. "Because trying to take over a planet would hurt my feelings, and you'd never do that, would you?"

From:

thewrongpath

"That was Thor's area, not mine," Loki said offhandedly, his hand curled loosely around Bucky's wrist.

"Right, to hell with all those innocent lives with their precious free will and all that nonsense. We mustn't hurt Bucky Barnes feelings," he teased, tipping his chin down to catch Bucky's lips in a kiss.

From:

semi_stable

"Exactly," Bucky replies, and his amused chuckle is cut off by the press of Loki's mouth. He hums into it, lazily wrapping his legs around Loki's thighs, stroking the ball of his heel slowly up and down the back of his calf.

"I know you wouldn't hurt me on purpose," he murmurs against Loki's mouth, because he knows that Loki worries about that sometimes. No one can reasonably promise to never hurt anyone at all, because they're human (well, mostly), but Bucky, who trusts very few people, trusts this man. Lord help him, he does. "I know that you love me. And that's just--"

He lets his head fall back to the bed and swallows hard, giving Loki a vulnerable smile. "I never thought that I'd get to know what this felt like."

From:

thewrongpath

"I've always been rather snide about love," he admitted, his hand drifting to Bucky's chest, where he rubbed soothing circled, though which one of them he was providing comfort for, he couldn't say.

"If I ever do see my brother again, perhaps I'll swallow my pride and tell him he was right."

From:

semi_stable

"Now I can't imagine that," he teases dryly, smirking warmly and sighing contentedly as Loki rubs slow patterns into his skin. He tucks his metal arm back under his head, exposing his flank and underarm, and reaches up with his other to touch Loki's cheek.

"Did he tell you to let yourself be loved?" Bucky guesses, thumbing at the dip just below Loki's lower lip before touching his mouth, lightly dragging the pad of his thumb over it. "I do hope you get to tell him."

From:

thewrongpath

"Not that, no. No, he only argued that humanity was worth protecting. He was... taken with a woman, whom he'd met during his exile on Earth," he said, perhaps calling it that, instead of Midgard, for one of the first times.

"When I saw the change in him, I mocked it for weakness."

From:

semi_stable

"Ah, I see," Bucky replies with a quiet laugh, but it's fond, not cruel. If Loki hadn't spent time around humans, Bucky can see why he might have thought of them as lesser beings, not as powerful or smart. Maybe he looked at them like humans look at house cats.

"It is a weakness, in a way," he says after a moment, because they both know that's true. To love anything is to have a weakness, a button to press and cause pain. He frowns thoughtfully and cards his fingers through Loki's hair again, tucking his fingertips behind his ear.

"What do you think you'd say to him if he were here?" He asks in a low voice, studying Loki's face with a curious gaze.

From:

thewrongpath

"It is, but it's a strength as well, I think," Loki admitted, smiling a bit wistfully, his palm resting just between Bucky's collarbones, fingers curved loosely along the base of his throat.

"I don't know," he admitted softly, a thumb brushing gently over Bucky's thrumming pulse. "I'm not sure there's much to be said."

From:

semi_stable

"It definitely takes strength to put up with you," Bucky teases, smiling warmly up at him, but there's a certain sort of truth to it. Even now, Loki's hand so near his throat makes a part of him afraid, but his feelings are strong enough to quiet that fearful part of him. He's safe here, every part of him, and he proves it to himself by lifting his chin a little to give Loki better access to his neck.

This, too, is a declaration of love. They share these small gestures every day, declaring themselves in their own ways, and it would be easier to give into the fear and stay away, to protect themselves, but he doesn't want to do that, not anymore. To love someone is to rip your heart out and let it walk around outside your body, and that takes strength.

"I'm sure he'd be amused that you've fallen for a human," he says in a fond voice, sliding his hands up Loki's flanks. "An Avengers adjacent one, at that."

From:

thewrongpath

"Rude," Loki teased right back, his hand tightening fractionally before slipping away, fingers cradling the other man's jaw almost delicately.

"Oh, I have no doubt, he'd find it uproarious," Loki agreed, bending to kiss the corner of Bucky's lips.

"It seems he and I were on better terms. In one timeline, at least."

From:

semi_stable

Loki's hand tightens and Bucky barely has time to swallow hard before it's moving away, touching his face, fingertips dragging through his beard. His mouth touches Bucky's and he curls his metal hand around the back of Loki's neck, squeezing reassuringly.

"Thor killed Thanos in our timeline," Bucky tells him suddenly, voice quiet against Loki's jaw. "I don't know if you knew that. "I didn't know him well but I know that he loved you."

From:

thewrongpath

"Yes, I do recall hearing something about that," Loki said, though whether through Bucky's admission or elsewhere, Loki was unsure.

"I suppose my death was the catalyst that brought it about. As was my purpose," Loki said wryly, a kind of tired annoyance replacing the hurt he'd first felt after being told of his role in the timeline.

"It's probably foolish of me to hope that you'll have the chance to know him better, someday."

From:

semi_stable

"Hey, we're making our own stories now," Bucky tells him, reaching up to take Loki's chin gently between his metal thumb and forefinger. It strikes him again just how similar they are in such specific ways. They both had to die to further the story of someone else, both of them expendable. Both of them came back.

"Yeah, well. Sometimes I hope the same for you and Steve," Bucky admits, not quite meeting Loki's eye as his fingers stroke along his jaw. "So, if you're foolish, I don't even want to know what that makes me."

From:

thewrongpath

"Insane comes to mind," he teased, turning to press his lips to Bucky's palm. "For what it's worth, I'd make the effort not to try and kill him," he promised, smiling against the heel of Bucky's hand. "But only for you."

Stroking his hand through Bucky's hair, Loki said after a moment of thoughtful quiet, "Shall we leave the bed today?"

From:

semi_stable

"An attempt, huh? That's actually very sweet of you," Bucky admits with a quiet chuckle, smiling as he watches Loki kiss his hand. It's also a reminder that he couldn't have it all, his family and his friends and the man he loves. It's like his life has been broken into pieces and none of them fit together just right.

Loki's voice draws him out of his thoughts and he sighs at the question, sliding his other hand slowly up and down Loki's side. "I guess we have to eventually, huh? Pity."

Everything seems so much better in this bed.