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yumekuimono · 7 years

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[WinterFrost] Everyone But Yourself Pt. 4/5

A/N: warning for non-permanent injury & a little bit of 30/40s homophobia

if you remember the deleted scene I posted a while back, the new and improved version is in here

They went to the Met for their second date, Loki casting a slight glamour over them both so that nobody would be inclined to recognize them. New Yorkers being what they were, it was unlikely they’d have been bothered in any case, but Bucky was glad for the privacy anyhow. Neither did he argue when Loki informed him that for the spell to extend best to Bucky they should remain in physical contact. He just linked their fingers together with a smile and let Loki lead.

They wandered through various galleries, taking their time. Loki snickered at the statues of Greek deities, and Bucky had to admit that he’d absorbed enough of Steve’s nattering about art theory that he couldn’t really complain about not understanding any of the paintings, even if he’d never be enthusiastic about them. They both quickly grew bored of the endless Western European Christian art. Then it became a quest to find the most interesting and obscure artwork from around the world. They ate lunch in the museum and only left when it closed. Outside, they wandered arm in arm down Fifth Avenue, their breaths steaming in the streetlights as it started to snow.

“It’ll be Christmas soon,” Bucky observed. “Do you have a winter holiday?”

Loki turned his face up to watch the snow fall. “Asgard celebrates Yuletide. The whole city is lit through the night, and it is a time of much feasting and merriment.”

“Sounds about right. D’you want anything?”

“Mmm, new daggers maybe, to replace those confiscated from me. Do you?”

Bucky huffed, his breath pluming. “Dunno. We never had the money for anything fancy when I was a kid. I just want you.”

Loki tugged them to a stop and leaned in to kiss him, nose cold against his cheek, but smiling. “You have me.”

They had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, warming themselves on thick hot and sour soup and cups of tea. Then they went home and chased the last traces of cold from each other’s skin, falling asleep in a tangle of limbs.

By the time the Avengers returned and the next mission came around, Bucky felt much better.

Unfortunately, the next mission targeted an illegal arms dealer supplying HYDRA, and word had already gone around that the Winter Soldier was with the Avengers. The team got bogged down fighting a swarm of heavily armed combat drones, and no one but Loki noticed James being separated out from the group until it was too late. The Soldier ran lost through corridors of shipping containers filled with contraband, trying to gain some breathing room to turn on the drones on his tail. And then, just as he reached a dead end, an explosion on his heels drove him hard into the door of a container, the metal clanging with the impact of his head. James crumpled to the ground.

Loki dove. He shifted in midair, coming down hard on the leading drone, his jaws crushing rotors and metal plating. Landing, he shook his head violently, further crumpling the machine, then tossing it aside with a sneeze when his teeth pierced the fuel cell. He growled at the swarm hovering before him as they assessed his threat designation, fangs bared and hackles bristling. Before their rudimentary AI could decide how to proceed, Loki sprang forward again, jumping up the side of a container to bring down another drone. This time when he landed he left an illusion in his wake, bullets and lasers passing through it as half a dozen targeting systems locked on.

Loki killed drone after drone, pulling out all his tricks. He cast illusions, made himself invisible, changed his shape, and teleported, slipping their targeting and taking them down from above, where they were vulnerable. He fought tooth and claw, snarling his defiance. By the time there were none left to threaten James, Loki’s sides were heaving and his mouth and paws bled from multiple lacerations. A bullet had grazed his shoulder. He stood guard over James, waiting for the next wave to come.

Instead what came was Falcon, and Loki held off until he was sure Wilson had spotted them before shifting. Concealing himself from sight, he hid against James, watching as Falcon came to a landing, scanning the area before he knelt at James’ side.

“Hey, Barnes, you with me?”

James took a long moment to respond. “…Sam?”

“Yeah. Looks like you went down pretty hard. Can you tell me what hurts?”

James blinked a few times, frowning, then licked his lips. “Head. Arm. The…the regular one.”

“Okay. Can you follow my finger?” Wilson held up his index finger, waving it slowly before James’ eyes. Then he felt gently at James’ right arm. “Alright, well it looks like you might be concussed, and your arm has a fracture. Hold on, and I’ll be back with a med kit.” He took off, relaying the information into his comm.

When he returned, Wilson efficiently strapped a splint onto James’ forearm. He confirmed the concussion, and dressed the wound on James’ head. Then he wrestled him into a carry, grumbling, “Jesus, you supersoldiers are heavy.” Loki dug his claws into the leather and Kevlar of James’ uniform, clinging on as they took off.

On the quinjet, Sam laid James down flat on a bench. Loki moved silently out of the way for JARVIS’ medical scans as Sam found a heavy orange shock blanket to tuck around him.

“Battle’s almost done, looks like. I can stay to monitor you or JARVIS can do it.”

“’M fine. You can go.”

As soon as Falcon had left, Loki jumped up on the bench, sitting at the uninjured side of James’ head. He was still invisible, but James turned towards him anyway, his eyes closed and face creased with pain.

“Loki kotyenok?” he whispered, his voice heavy and slurred.

Loki rubbed his jaw gently over James’ forehead above one eyebrow, then turned his face back in to nuzzle the spot. James sighed, and Loki laid down to take his weight off of his front paws, letting James lean his head on his back as he settled in to let his healing take care of his own injuries.

Bucky’s head was throbbing, and the bench underneath him was spinning. His arm hurt, and when the team finally clambered onboard, the noise and the bright lights of the ‘jet powering up felt like they were stabbing into his brain. Loki was there though, Loki had defended him. Bucky had watched through swimming vision as a wolf he thought seemed larger than usual had torn through the swarm of HYDRA drones. He wasn’t sure if the part where the wolf kept disappearing and sometimes there were two of them was real or not, but it was Loki, so it probably was. He didn’t want to think about it too hard though, because his head hurt, and he was tired.

Sam got the team to quiet down and the lights around him to dim after a while, which was nice, but he wouldn’t let Bucky sleep. He kept waking him up. Sam explained it was necessary to monitor the concussion, but it still made him irritable. The first time, he opened his eyes expecting to see the black fur he could feel pressed against his face and instead found himself looking at the bulkhead of the ‘jet. He frowned, and made the mistake of asking, “Loki?” out loud.

“Your cat’s not here,” Sam reminded him. Fortunately he seemed to take it as confusion from the concussion.

When Sam had gone, Bucky glanced over to make sure no one was looking and then shifted onto his left side to further shield their view. Loki flicked into sight, blinked at him, and disappeared again. A raspy tongue licked his nose. Bucky smiled and leaned his forehead back against Loki’s side.

At the Tower he still wasn’t allowed to sleep. Sam said he had to be monitored for at least twenty-four hours, but at least he agreed to let JARVIS do it. In reality what this meant was that Loki took over as soon as they were back in their apartment, actually voluntarily interacting with JARVIS to do so. Even after he was off concussion watch, though, his sleep was restless, broken up and never feeling deep enough. He dreamed of being chased, running from HYDRA only for them to catch Loki instead, and Bucky would wake in a terror. When he was lucky, he would need to make sure that Loki was still in bed with him whole and unharmed, and Loki would let him cling without complaint. On multiple occasions though, he wasn’t so fortunate, and he nearly hit Loki, striking out on instinct while still half-asleep.

The second time Loki deflected a fist and folded him into an embrace, gently pinning his arms and murmuring “James” in his ear until he was awake, Bucky couldn’t hold back the tears. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. He wanted to say, “You’re not safe with me,” but instead he found himself curling his hands around Loki’s bare hips.

“I am never in danger from you,” Loki whispered, and Bucky cried harder because it wasn’t true. Even if Loki only meant he wasn’t in danger of Bucky hurting him, just by staying he was in danger from HYDRA, and the Avengers, and Thor finding out who he was and taking him back to Asgard.

He wanted so desperately to say, “Don’t leave me,” but the words stuck in his throat behind all the others he couldn’t say. Eventually, Bucky cried himself into exhaustion.

In the morning, he forced himself to bring it up again. Loki looked straight at him and said, “Yes.” Then he reached out and took Bucky’s hand. “But I take those risks knowledgably and willingly to be here.”

“Oh.”

They lounged around on the common floor for a few days, Bucky idly chatting with anyone who happened to be free, but everyone else was soon consumed with tracking down whoever had ordered the reclamation of the Winter Soldier. Ordinarily, Bucky wouldn’t have minded, but he was supposed to limit his mental exertion while he was recovering, which apparently included reading, and both computer screens and anything more than the lightest of workouts painfully exacerbated his symptoms. All of which severely diminished his options for how to pass the time. The boredom and forced physical idleness threatened to drive him crazy. Bucky suddenly realized what it must have felt like for Steve all those years ago. And while he wasn’t going to be getting into any fistfights he couldn’t win, he did sometimes feel like stabbing something.

Loki was the one who finally got him to rest as he was supposed to, persuading him into lying down on the couch with his head in Loki’s lap and his broken arm propped on his knees. Then Loki would card his long fingers through Bucky’s hair and tell stories. Some days he would simply read aloud, and Bucky would fall asleep to the soothing rhythm of his voice. Other days Loki would spin his own tales, long, fantastic things only parts of which were true, and Bucky would keep himself awake to hear every word. He loved listening to Loki’s stories, and especially to Loki telling them. After one day in which a well-meaning trickster had his lips sewn shut as punishment for his clever words, Bucky made sure to say so.

Loki had a face for when Bucky did things like this, praised things he used to be mistrusted for. Surprised, and quietly pleased, and a little vulnerable. As it turned out, making out with Loki was also allowed, and a very enjoyable use of his time.

In all, James’ injuries kept him off duty for three weeks, and with not much else for him to do apart from occasional therapy appointments, Loki ended up keeping him near constant company. The time that James was usually away that Loki had begun using to search for the Casket of Ancient Winters was now taken up by telling tales to keep James entertained while he rested. Where once he would have resented the interruption of his work, Loki found he didn’t mind. Being with James made him happy. It scared him sometimes, just how much.

He’d never had something like this before, and he knew with growing certainty that he wanted desperately to keep it. And James would notice, in the hours they spent lying in each other’s arms on the couch with their feet tangled together, when too many teeth slipped in, and he would pull back to ask what Loki needed. Sometimes it was to pull James’ shirt off and suck bruises into his shoulder and collarbones. They would fade in a few hours, but he was always careful to leave them where they wouldn’t be noticeable, as much as he might want to the contrary. Sometimes it was just to stop, and be held, and let James stroke his hair. Sometimes he hardly knew what he needed, but that was alright because James was there.

By the time the Avengers had completed their latest mission in all of its drawn-out complexity, Loki had nearly forgotten that he was in hiding. It was strange to be a cat again when they joined the post-mission meal, which this time was large quantities of Thai food. He found himself repeatedly remembering that he couldn’t speak in this form, and having to remind himself of appropriate feline behavior. At least James seemed to be having the same problem, judging from the amount of times he appeared about to say something to Loki only to change his mind.

“Terminator, have you been talking to your cat?” Stark asked.

“I ain’t had much else to do lately since I got exploded into a wall,” James replied.

“You mean getting exploded into a wall was what finally sent you over the edge?” Barton asked faux-dramatically, eyes wide and mouth half full.

“No, I think that’s just what all cat people do,” Sam said, but James sat up.

“Are you questioning my sanity, Clint?”

That prompted a minor food fight, which was ended when Loki batted a spring roll out of the air and ate the shrimp out of it.

Barton turned to Natasha, flinging a hand at him. “The hell do you mean he’s not a birder?”

She just rolled her eyes. Internally, Loki agreed.

It was nearing Christmas, so the Avengers put their activity on hold for the holiday. Stark bought a ridiculously large tree for the common floor, and everyone spent an afternoon decorating it. Loki entertained himself by climbing into the branches and refusing to move, watching haughtily from on high as they were forced to go around him and leave a spot bare of lights and tinsel. Of course he got down as soon as a picture was about to be taken. Rogers insisted on stringing popcorn and cranberries to hang on the tree, although he ended up having to make a second and third bowl of popcorn because the others kept eating it. Loki stole a spool of his string, chasing it across the floor until he could hide it when no one was looking. When Rogers finally noticed, Loki was across the room, casually lying on top of the Hulk ornament that was part of a handmade set of the whole team a fan had sent in, once again refusing to move.

Banner blinked down at him. “You know, Bucky, I don’t think I’ve known a cat that was as non-active as yours yet still made as much trouble.”

James laughed when he saw Loki squishing the Hulk-ornament’s head, but then Thor came over, reaching for him and declaring, “Not to worry, I shall soon solve the problem and free your tiny likeness.”

Loki fled into James’ arms.

On Christmas morning, Rogers dragged James out to a church service and then to volunteer with the homeless. James had complained bitterly about having to get up early on a holiday the night before, but ultimately went willingly. Still, Loki watched amused from the back of the couch as James wheedled extra coffee out of his best friend despite the fact that both he and Loki had been awake before Rogers had arrived so that Loki could transform. Loki used the time they were gone to prepare his own gift for James. The strength of his magic as he crafted the spell took him by surprise, another reminder of the depth of his feelings. He also took the time to surreptitiously rearrange some of the mistletoe Stark had positioned across the Tower.

James noticed immediately when he returned, stopping underneath the sprig that now hung in their entranceway. “Huh.”

“Clint, probably,” Rogers said, smacking a kiss to his cheek.

“Gross,” James complained, laughing. He danced out of the way of Rogers whacking his arm, and started pulling his scarf and coat off.

“I’m not the one that makes the rules.”

“Oh, yeah? Y’know this obviously means you hafta kiss Sharon today, too.” James waggled his eyebrows. “I know she’s invited to the party.”

Rogers blushed bright red, and stammered something about needing to go.

“No excuses!” James called after him as he fled into the elevator.

Loki waited until he was gone before he shifted, coming forward to place a hand in the center of James’ chest, pushing him back the two steps until he was once again underneath the mistletoe. James’ grin mirrored his own as he leaned in for a kiss.

“You were the one who moved that here,” he mumbled against Loki’s mouth.

“It’s possibe.”

After they’d spent longer than was strictly necessary beneath a plant on their ceiling, Loki showed James his present. James ran his thumb over the sigils sewn in black thread into the collar of his uniform jacket, then looked up at him.

“It is a protection spell. It will help keep you safe from injury or harm.”

“Oh. Thank you.” James kissed him again.

James’ present for him was a set of four knives, two small push daggers and two longer ones. All of them had his snake and wolf motifs worked into the hilt and crossguard, the patterns picked out with the help of JARVIS. They were beautiful, and, James assured him, of the highest quality. Loki loved them.

That evening the Avengers and assorted friends and partners gathered for dinner and then to drink bourbon-spiked eggnog while opening presents. Multiple people had thought it would be funny to get Loki catnip, so as a consequence he was happily flopped over James’ chest, purring loudly and getting fur all over the ugly seasonal sweater that Natasha had given variations of to everybody. Thor had a flask of Asgardian liquor, which meant that everyone was at least slightly inebriated by the time all of the presents had been opened, and the suggestion was made for dancing. Which led to a discussion of whether they all could dance.

“Shit no, Steve still can’t dance,” James snorted, scratching behind Loki’s ears.

“That can’t be true,” Sam argued. “I’ve seen him in the field. He’s got twinkle toes.”

“Yeah, but he ain’t got any rhythm. Seriously, Stevie, did those showgirls teach you nothing?”

“Bucky...” Rogers complained, his ears going red. Next to him, Sharon Carter giggled into her drink.

“What? It’s true.”

“Yeah, and you already make my dancing look bad enough. You don’t gotta go pointing it out.”

“How else ‘m I supposed to poke fun at you, oh Star-Spangled American icon?”

“Alright so Capsicle can’t dance, but I’ve heard you were a smooth one, Buckaroo,” Stark put in, lounging against Sam and already assembling the pieces of the kit Sam had gifted to him sans its instructions.

James grinned. “Four time Brooklyn Swing Champ.”

“You gonna prove it to us?”

“Last I checked you need two people for swing.”

“I can swing,” Natasha put in, holding out her hand. “Let’s see your moves, Barnes.”

Barton started a chant of, “Dance, dance, dance,” that Darcy Lewis quickly joined in on, elbowing Jane next to her.

James rolled his eyes, displacing Loki to stand. “Fine, fine, I’ll dance.”

A space was cleared and JARVIS started playing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” Loki watched as James pulled Natasha up and spun her gracefully around the floor and into several lifts to hoots of encouragement from their audience. James was comfortable with her, and Loki couldn’t stop his tail twitching. It didn’t help that the catnip was wearing off. Both of them were grinning when James pulled Natasha up from the final dip. There were claps and whistles all around.

“Well, that was fun,” Natasha commented, falling back into her spot on the couch.

“We should do that again,” James agreed. “I haven’t danced in too long.”

Loki climbed into his lap, demanding attention and rubbing all along his front until James started scratching his jaw again.

Pepper smiled, watching. “I think you’ve made your cat jealous.”

James scooped him up and cuddled him, nuzzling Loki’s head. “Aw, he knows he’s the only cat for me.”

Stark burst out cackling when it turned out that the sole function of his completed machine was to turn itself back off once turned on.

Much later, after there had been more dancing, and some of the guests had fallen asleep in the common lounge, prompting the rest of them to seek their own beds, James stopped him in their living room. “Were you really jealous of me dancing with Tasha, kotyenok?”

Loki huffed and avoided his eyes.

James pulled him close with one arm around the small of his back. “It’s only some fun between friends.” Lacing the fingers of his other hand together with Loki’s between them, he nudged Loki’s free hand up to his shoulder so that they were leaning into each other. It was much more intimate than the position James had held Natasha in, no space left in between their bodies. James brought his head close to murmur low into Loki’s ear, their temples brushing, “But this is all for you.”

He started dancing slowly, swaying them to imaginary music. Loki could feel the warmth of him all along his front. His eyes closed, and he turned to catch James’ lips, the shuffle of their feet stilling as they kissed. Leaning their foreheads together, Loki could feel James’ eyelashes and the fan of his breath across his cheek, the slight curve of James’ lips that still barely brushed his own.

“I love you, kotyenok.”

Loki smiled. “I love you, too.”

Their third date was dinner. On a day between missions, they took an afternoon to cook together, something fancy that they wouldn’t otherwise make. As with most things, their experiences were vastly different, but somehow they balanced each other out and made it work. Bucky remembered various bowls of soupe à l’oignon from across France during the war, but this one was by far his favorite.

Loki returned from setting the table just as Bucky finished pulling the soup out of the oven where the cheese had been browning, slipping his hands around Bucky’s waist to embrace him from behind. When Bucky turned his head, intending to say something, Loki captured his mouth instead in a kiss. Bucky returned it, leaning back into him. Tilting his head against Loki’s, he sighed.

“James?” Loki murmured, kissing his jaw.

“Dunno, it’s just…” He searched for words. Finally he sighed again and twisted in Loki’s arms, looping his own around Loki’s waist and tucking his face into his boyfriend’s neck. He couldn’t help but smile at that, and Loki rubbed his cheek over Bucky’s hair, a vaguely feline gesture both affectionate and soothing.

“Times have changed, I guess. We didn’t ever talk about this kinda thing when I was a kid. It was… Well, a fella could get sent to jail for liking other men. I always figured I’d have to deny that part of me and just go with girls ‘cause I was lucky enough to like them too. But now I’m here and it don’t really matter. I can kiss you right in public if I want, an’ the Supreme Court says anyone can get married, and I just…never thought I’d get to see anything like this.”

Bucky fell silent, just breathing for a while.

“Dr. Nabavi told me it’s not considered an illness anymore, being gay. Or whatever. But sometimes I can’t help still worrying I’ll come off wrong or something, and people’ll know that I’m sick. An’ then I do something so stupidly domestic like kiss you when we’re cooking dinner and I don’t know how I’m not shouting it all over the rooftops because I can.”

Loki’s arms tightened around him. “Do you want to reveal our relationship?”

Bucky huffed. “You’re still hiding, though.”

“Even I cannot hide forever. And I do rather want to claim you as my own.” Loki’s voice carried amusement, and Bucky hid a smile in his shoulder. Loki turned to press his lips to Bucky’s hair. “We can begin to discuss ways to reveal my presence safely, if you would like.”

“Mmm. Later, though. For now let’s just eat dinner.”

Loki woke on the morning of February 15th to thin winter sunlight and James’ skin sleep-warm against his own. They’d stopped bothering to count their dates by this time since living together blurred the line anyway, but last night would definitely have qualified, after James had quit teasing Rogers long enough to send him off to his dinner with Sharon Carter and they had declined to join Natasha’s action movie marathon. James shifted against him, his left arm settling cool at Loki’s lower back and his fingers starting to tease gently through his hair. Loki smiled.

“Good morning.”

“Morning.” James’ voice was scratchy from the night and still mostly-asleep. His fingers moved to rubbing circles just behind Loki’s ear.

Perhaps it was a side effect of spending so long as a cat, but that felt heavenly. Loki let out a quietly contented moan and settled closer, relaxing completely. If he had not already been disinclined to move, this would have convinced him.

“You really are my kotyenok,” James murmured, amused.

“I like when you pet me.”

James ran the pads of his fingers down Loki’s spine, and he kicked the sheet further down his back for better access to do it again. If he could get the transformation just right…

“Are you purring?”

“Mmm yes.”

James huffed a laugh, and tucked his nose into Loki’s hair, continuing to pet him. Neither of them noted the passage of time, content to stay as they were. Things felt soft around the edges, as though part of a dream, but one that Loki wanted to be completely awake for. After a while, though, James’ hand stilled at his shoulder.

“Loki?”

He cracked one eye open, peering up at James’ frown. “Yes?”

“How long will you live for?”

Loki sighed and shifted onto his side, facing James across the pillow. “I do not know truly. Why do you ask?”

“They did a bunch of tests, when they found Steve and they were defrosting him, to see if they could find out how he survived. They think with the serum, if he doesn’t get himself killed first, he might live for a few hundred years. What I’ve got isn’t so good as his, an’ I didn’t let them do anything so I don’t know for sure, but the best guess is I’ll live about the same. Maybe less by a century or so.” James chewed his lip. “You mentioned once you’re over a thousand.”

“Yes.” He stroked his palm briefly up James’ back and down. “The average lifespan for an Asgardian is five thousand years, but that is dependent upon regular consumption of the golden apples from the Yggdrasil tree which connects the Nine Realms. When a person has become old and no longer wishes to prolong their life, they may cease eating the apples each year and die a natural death in a century or so. There are, however, no accounts of anyone giving them up when they were as young as I am, and my own physiology is…complicated. It may be that my lifespan will be similar to yours.”

James blinked at him. “…You’re giving them up?”

“Yes. I went without them after I fell, and it is doubtful whether I would have received any while in prison. They are very closely guarded.”

“Are you… Is this because of me?” James whispered.

“No. It is for myself. I am done with Asgard.” He couldn’t help smiling then, reaching up to brush James’ hair back. “But I will not deny that it has benefit for our relationship.”

James pulled him into a kiss, heedless of the state of their breath. “I just… I really want this.”

Loki kissed him again. “As do I.”

#fanfic #winterfrost #bucky x loki #loki laufeyson #bucky barnes #sam wilson #Steve Rogers #natasha romanoff #shapeshifter!loki #lokitty #injury #dating #everyone but yourself

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