for loki and sylvie

[semi_stable]

The first time that Bucky sees Steve, he drops his coffee.

That's a very unlikely thing for Bucky Barnes to do. He has the reflexes of a cat, after all. Even before the serum, before all the brainwashing and forced training, that was true. Even back when he was just the world's best sniper, second in command of the Howling Commandos, and Captain America's best friend.

It's that Steve that's standing on the street corner now-- the Steve he came to know during the war, after the serum had changed almost everything on the outside but left his heart unaltered. It's Steve staring at him with terror in his eyes, reaching out for him desperately.

This Steve is the last thing Bucky saw as he fell from that train and was presumed dead.


The coffee hits the ground and splashes against the cuffs of his jeans, and it's only the sudden and loud complaints from other people in line that makes Bucky tear his gaze away. He apologizes, gives the barista enough cash to cover the next few orders, and then looks back again, but Steve is gone. That's the first time.

It keeps happening and Bucky would think that he was finally going insane, but then Loki and Sylvie mention seeing things, too. Not Steve, though. They see Thor, each their own version, and Bucky takes in the information but doesn't share his own. He doesn't know why. It's not like he wants to hide anything from them. He just can't seem to find the words.

And then the phone calls start. The first time, Bucky hangs up before it gets too far. The next time, there's an eerie, oddly compelling voice telling him that he could fix things, that he could fix everything, if he only gets on a train at the end of the month.

"You could see Steve again," the voice promises. "You could see your sisters again. You could go back and never fall from that train. You could do everything over."

Bucky doesn't want to go back. He wants to be here, with Loki and Sylvie and his animals. This is where he wants to be, but the person keeps calling, and Steve keeps showing up looking so upset, so devastated, reaching out for him with his mouth open in a silent scream, and Bucky doesn't know anymore.

He's not sleeping, and he's having nightmares. These things aren't unusual for him, not really, but it's getting worse. He feels like a zombie, with dark circles under his eyes and skin gone pale, drinking too much coffee like that will help rather than make everything worse.

That day, he sees Steve three times and gets two more phone calls. He'll catch you this time, the voice says. He'll save you. Just get on the train.

Exhausted, he goes over to Loki and Sylvie's townhouse that night with Bopp in tow. He's quiet through dinner, and then goes upstairs to crawl into Loki's bed because it's the biggest and he wants them there. It's only when he's bracketed by them both that he falls asleep, but it's light and restless.

A few hours in, he has a nightmare. He's looking down at himself on an operating table, watching as they cut away skin and shove metal parts into his flesh, all the while speaking in Russian while Bucky screams and writhes. You won't have to go through any of it, that same voice says. Not if you get on the train.

"No," Bucky yells in his sleep, turning his sweat-drenched face into the pillow. "No, no, no."

Comments

[thewrongpath]

Something was wrong.

While Loki had a few intermittent sightings of his own, the shape of his brother haunting him through crowds, a smug look of pride on his ridiculous face, Loki had been able to dismiss it as a silly trick.

The type of trick he might've played himself, in another life.

The dreams had passed him by, however, and his phone had always been largely ignored. There were a handful of numbers he answered. Otherwise, the phone might as well have been a very sleek piece of garbage often forgotten on his nightstand.

Still, despite the testimony of countless, Loki was not an entirely selfish creature, and he had noticed the haunted look in both Sylvie and Bucky's eyes lately.

Bucky yelling his way through a dream wasn't particularly unusual, but it had been quite some time. Loki sat upright, an alarmed shout dying in his throat, peering through the darkness at the shape of Sylvie in the bed, and the thrashing man between them. "James, it's all right," Loki said, placing a hand on the other man's shoulder.

[the_variant]

Sylvie hasn't been sleeping.

She goes to bed with them, she lies in the dark, hears the steadying of Bucky's breath when he drifts off, then Loki's when he joins. Still, she lies awake, staring up at the ceiling, her gaze occasionally drifting toward the window. Once, she had seen Thor out her own bedroom window and she wonders, if she goes now, she'll see him out Loki's, too.

She lies awake, thinking of the calls. The validity of them is highly questionable, clearly, she doesn't believe there's some magical force that will allow her to have back the brother the TVA erased. Then, she'd never believed in a place that could keep her against her will either, and here she is. So she doesn't sleep, she just thinks of what could be.

When Bucky shouts, she doesn't respond as quickly as she'd like, too caught up in the what ifs and it takes her a moment to sit up, catching Loki's gaze across Bucky's form. "Stop," she says in a soft voice, touching him as well, her palm coming to rest on Bucky's chest. "It's alright, you're here with us. Wake up."

[semi_stable]

As Bucky is pulled out of sleep, the first thing he registers are strong hands on him, one on his chest and one on his shoulder where metal meets flesh. He tenses and bares his teeth as he rolls onto his back, ready to let out a snarling cry, but then he remembers where he is. It's not in a lab somewhere in Russia, but in a bed with two gods who love him, both of them curving in around him like parenthesis. Bucky takes a deep breath and opens his eyes, rubbing a trembling hand down over his clammy face, and then lets out an embarrassed sort of chuckle.

"Shit, sorry," he says in a voice like broken glass, clearing his throat a little and then pulling his hand away. They're both looking at him and even though he's embarrassed, he reaches up to cover Sylvie's hand with his own, squeezing as he looks between their concerned faces, trying not to feel weak. It's not a productive feeling, and he's sure they aren't judging him anyway. "That was a rough one, I guess."

[thewrongpath]

"I should say so," Loki observed, his hand leaving Bucky's shoulder until he was certain the man had gathered a bit more of his bearings.

"No apologies necessary," he assured him, his eyes meeting Sylvie's in the dark and seeing a mirror of the concern he felt reflected back at him. Smiling softly, he rested his hand atop the two of theirs.

[the_variant]

"Speak for yourself, I was clearly deeply asleep and have been yanked cruelly from my slumber," Sylvie replies, her voice utterly deadpan. She's sure Loki knows already she wasn't sleeping and if Bucky wasn't dealing with his own troubles, he'd be able to catch on as well.

It doesn't matter. Loki is right, the apologies aren't necessary.

"You're having more nightmares than usual," she points out, something as unnecessary as the apology, she imagines.

[semi_stable]

Bucky huffs out an amused breath and shakes his head a little, looking at them both for a long moment. It's hard to be seen like this, but greater than that is the relief that they're here.

He blinks and then shifts back a little, nodding as he realizes that he needs to tell them what's happening. There's no one he trusts more than than them, so he wants to to them, but when he finally looks up, Steve is standing at the end of the bed. Bucky lets out a startled yelp and scrambles back against the headboard, reaching out to grab at Sylvie and Loki's arms.

"Shit," he breathes out shakily, feeling a cold flush run down his spine as his anxiety spikes. Steve has caught him in bed with a man that tried to kill him, and he knows that it's more complicated than that. All of it is so complicated, and maybe the worst thing of all is that Steve's face looks completely passive. He doesn't look shocked, or angry, or disappointed. He looks bored, completely disinterested like it doesn't even matter, and that hurts someplace deep.

But it's not Steve, he knows that. It's some trick, and he lets out a frustrated huff as he stares at Steve's face, feeling his expression morph into one of irritation. "Shit."

[thewrongpath]

Startled, Loki drew back, his hands held out between them, as if calming a skittish horse. He looked to the foot of the bed and saw nothing, but considering the strange visions both he and Sylvie had confessed to one another, he didn't doubt something was there.

"What is it? What do you see?" Loki asked, as calmly as he could, his eyes looking past Bucky to worriedly meet Sylvie's gaze.

[the_variant]

When Bucky jerks back, Sylvie whirls toward the end of the bed, dagger materializing in her hand before she realizes there's nothing there. Nothing she can fight, anyway, and the dagger melts away as she meets Loki's gaze. Even after all this time in Darrow, her instinct is still to fight, to kill. That urge may even be stronger now that she has people she cares about.

"I've been seeing Thor," she blurts out, wanting to make it easier for Bucky to tell them whatever it is he's been seeing. "So has Loki. Different Thors, though. I see my brother."

[semi_stable]

Bucky stares at Steve and feels a little like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, because he knows what it would look like to Steve to see him like this, sandwiched between two gods, one of which personally tried to end Steve’s life.

But he shouldn’t care, because Steve has no say over his life. He has no right to stand there, silently looking down his nose at Bucky, because he left.

He knows that he has to explain what’s happening to Loki and Sylvie, both of whom look so ready to fight for him. Bucky is awash in so many emotions that it feels like he’s on overload, stunned into silence like a deer in headlights, and it isn’t until Sylvie’s blurted admission that Bucky can even blink.

Bucky looks over at Sylvie, and then at Loki, who nods to confirm it. He can’t even be upset that they didn’t tell him, because he did the exact same thing.

“I—“ His voice comes out shaky and cracked so he clears his throat and waits a beat, reaching up almost unconsciously to clutch at his dog tags. He stares at Steve, who is suddenly staring back at him with a betrayed expression, puppy dog eyes in full effect, and Bucky is embarrassed by how much it gets under his skin.

“It’s Steve,” he finally says, not daring to look at either one of them. “I’m looking at Steve. You don’t see him?”

[thewrongpath]

Bristling, Loki peered into the darkness at the foot of the bed, ready to draw his own sword, if need be.

"Well, now I see why you woke up screaming. That is a nightmare," he drawled. Not exactly the most tactful thing to say in the moment, but he couldn't help himself. The last person he wanted to see anywhere near their bed was Captain America.

More than ever, he was convinced this was some sort of trick of the mind. There was no visible magic, no projection. Loki could see nothing, but he had no doubt that what Bucky saw was real enough to him.

[the_variant]

"Can you imagine the colours he'd turn if he were really there?" Sylvie asks, appraising the shadows with a look of disdain, her lip nearly curled. She doesn't know the same Captain America they do, she'd only run into him a handful of times in all her timelines and once he'd been a woman, though Sylvie hadn't liked that version any better than the others.

"He's not real," she promises Bucky, voice softening when she speaks to him. "No more than Loki's Thor or my own. It's some sort of trick played by this bloody place."

It infuriates her that she can't work it out. She can't even feel the magic used to make it possible.

[semi_stable]

Their withered comments make Bucky laugh, half crazed and half genuine, and cover his face with his hands. He shakes his head a little and then slides his hands back into his hair as he looks up again, meeting Steve's eyes. The eyes of whatever it is pretending to be Steve.

"He's not real," Bucky repeats, reaching up and stretching his arms out so he can lay them across Bucky and Sylvie's shoulders. It's the safest place that he could possibly be-- pressed between the two of them. Safe in every meaning of the word.

"And I wouldn't owe him any explanation even if he were," he says to them, squeezing each of their shoulders and drawing them in closer. Bucky closes his eyes and swallows hard, waiting a few moments before opening them again. When he does, the room is empty. Bucky huffs out through his nose and looks around to confirm it, then slumps back against the headboard, letting his fingers slide down to the middle of their backs. "He's gone. Christ."

[thewrongpath]

At Bucky's assertion that he would owe the Captain no explanation, Loki met Sylvie's eyes, his brow arched subtly, but he said nothing. While he might not have owed the man anything, Loki knew how such things were. There was a bond between them, and while different than his bond with Thor, and while he couldn't imagine his brother being anything but awkwardly supportive of his current situation, there were certain things they would need to speak of to clear the air between them.

With a sigh of his own, Loki settled against Bucky's side, a hand moving soothingly through Bucky's hair.

"Let's hope he takes the hint and stays away for now."

A frown creasing his brow, he observed, "It's strange. I didn't sense any magic." Looking to Sylvie, he asked, "Did you?"

[the_variant]

Sylvie, on the other hand, would gleefully inform Captain America of every glorious detail of their relationship, just to mess with him on behalf of Bucky and because she's never met a version of him she liked. He doesn't deserve an explanation, Bucky owes him nothing, but she catches the look Loki gives her and she understands what he's saying without any words at all.

It would never be quite so easy. And her propensity for chaos wouldn't help matters at all.

She slides back down into the bed, then turns on her side, her head propped up in her hand. "No," she says to Loki. "Nothing. It's nothing like what we can do at all and it doesn't leave anything behind."

[semi_stable]

Even as firmly as he said it, Bucky knows that it wouldn't be so simple. Of course he would feel the need to explain himself. Maybe it would be more correct to say that he wouldn't need Steve's blessing. He'd like it, obviously, but he doesn't need it. There's nothing that could tear him from Loki and Sylvie now. They're a part of him and he wouldn't give them up for anything. Not even Steve.

Bucky lowers his hands as Sylvie settles at his side and Loki's fingers card soothingly through his hair. They're bracketing him on both sides, curling in around him like parentheses, and Bucky focuses on their attentive faces rather than what he's just seen. He reaches down to find their free hands, taking their fingers so he can lift both of their hands up to his face and press slow, grateful kisses to their knuckles.

"Do you generally feel Darrow's magic?" He asks once he pulls away, looking between them curiously and placing their hands on his chest, which isn't heaving quite so much anymore. "On a daily basis? It must take a lot of power to sustain something like this."

[thewrongpath]

"Not generally, no. You learn to see signs of it, but it's not like I have a nose for it," Loki shrugged, and while he couldn't speak for Sylvie, he might assume she was the same.

"Something like this, though. You're right. It's a lot of power. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect one of us," he said, cutting Sylvie a look, one corner of his mouth twitching faintly.

[the_variant]

"It does seem like the sort of trick one of us might play," she agrees with a faint smirk. "But I can feel it some of the time. Some... interference, almost. Not every day, not all the time, but when something big is happening."

She shrugs, shoulders rising and falling smoothly as she turns onto her back and looks at the ceiling.

"I should feel something for this. I don't." Maybe she's ignoring the obvious just for another chance to see Thor. She's as sentimental as that, even if one might really have to look for that side of.

[semi_stable]

"Yeah, Loki tried that once," Bucky says, smirking a little at the memory. What a strange, strange day that had been. "It didn't end so well for him."

He looks up at Loki with a fond smile, squeezing both of their hands as he rests them on his chest. Sylvie lays back down and Bucky turns his head to look at her, twisting a bit so he can press a lingering kiss to her bare shoulder.

For them, seeing their own version of Thor must be painful in its own way. But for Sylvie, who lost her brother so young, he wonders if perhaps it's comforting in a way, seeing him now.