1964-04-26 - Greener Pastures
Summary: Bucky gets another visit from Wanda Maximoff, and both aren't prepared for an unexpected visitor with plans on his own.
Related: N/A
Theme Song: None
loki bucky wanda kai 


It's not exactly a padded room. No pads, for one. But….a bare cell's as close as one can come. Which is good, because there are times when the mental mesh between conditioning and the increasingly more present actual James Barnes frays and snaps and he's erratic and violent. Fighting foes long gone, responding as if in a waking nightmare. It's easier, sometimes, to let him exhaust himself than to try and wrestle him down and sedate him.

One of those fits has just passed, and he's flopped on the floor, head lolled, back propped against the wall, one leg stretched out, the other drawn up, panting. No harm done, beyond a set of bloody knuckles and some little dents in the paintjob on the wall. But he seems lucid enough, as he sucks on the worst wounds, rather than smear blood on the walls.

*

A bare cell chased in concrete, glass, and the faint whispers of poisoned smoke the trace of a memory, an old photograph of a kiss in Moscova between conflicted friends. SHIELD's holding cells do not a fine place make for atmosphere, and that's part of the point. Observation points allow for few vestiges of privacy beyond the unblinking round glass eye of a camera or a bored agent. They watch violence with methodical notes taken on typewriters or handwritten dossiers, typed up by the secretaries, passed right on.

"You are a monster," says a brunette in a deviously fitted claret coat, watching one of the impassive drones in a succession of them. "This SHIELD stops. Not does. Your enemies, yes, but the organization?"

A shrug from the drone. Someone on medical furlough will get the interesting details in the morning and another RN on staff is no doubt watching the footage to make an assessment. The phone will ring any moment. He starts when she walks away. "Where are you going? Not down there. Wait, you…. Who do you think you are?"

She doesn't look back as she traverses a path back to the cell. The answer hangs on stone and concrete, damning in its bluntness: "Human."

*

He doesn't rise when she comes into view, but blinks at her dully. His shoulders are still heaving, as much from remembered fear as exertion. The Winter Soldier, calm and focussed, is very nearly a match for Steve. Bucky, half-finished and half-there…..well, you lose a fight with your demons, you have to step back and recoup. Though there's a hint of that old insouciant tilt to his head, as he rasps, "…..got another cigarette for me?"

*

Let them eat cake upstairs and choke on the chocolate when they realize who stands before the glass but another exile, one secreted out of Berlin. No point in asking if her brother is around; there simply isn't the technology to detect him when he chooses to outrun all but the photons and waves of light. A man far beyond her weight class in combat, and dangerous to nearly everyone in the organization but a certain Ms. Danvers.

Wanda Maximoff is a fool, but one mindful at that. She gazes through the glass smeared in blood. "This," she points to the gash of rust, "makes you too easy to track."

*

That's a 'no', then. "It wasn't," he drawls, in that low rasp, "intentional," Then he pauses, and asks, "…..track where? I'm here. I'm not going anywhere until they take me somewhere." His expression is….almost nonexistent, close to the Soldier's habitual impassivity. But there's a tinge of bitter sarcasm, in the way he looks at her.

*

Nothing is ever a know with the bundle of potential walking around in human form. Her very existence predicates upon what can happen and might happen meeting in a bar, having a drink, and then rewriting fundamental rules of physics now and then. Time isn't known to particularly behave, either, though he has no way to know to what extent Wanda sometimes reshapes the world. Or people. He sits in his prison and she folds her arms across her chest. "I have seen it otherwise," she says simply.

*

Kai would be dismayed, to see his lost bad doggie in such a pound. For Bucky's in a cell, there's no other word for it. A heavy transparent panel divides it from the hall, with a door off to one side. Otherwise, it's essentially bare. Buck himself is sitting on the floor, back propped against the wall, one leg drawn up, the other stretched out. He's clad in what appears to be a t-shirt and scrub bottoms, not a true prisoner's jumpsuit, not yet. At first glance, he seems healthy enough - the burns from his last encounter with Ava faded into nothingness. The exception is the bloody knuckles on his right hand, and the streaks of blood on the 'glass' and on some of the walls, still fresh. But he's lucid now, enough so to converse with the Witch standing beyond that transparent wall. "Yeah?" he asks Wanda, in response to some statement, all skepticism.

*

The need for a nod is practically wasteful. The silence speaks volumes for itslf, and Wanda raises her shoulders a tick to relieve the stress and the pinch of the coat wrapped around her. There may be all sorts of observation, though no one is going to find cause for an agent discussing matters with a prisoner. Her thumb rubs her middle finger in simple circles. "A cigarette, then."

*

He doesn't exactly stick the landing. Its been too long since he did this and he can barely remember how. Thankfully…Kai's little healing tricks on him jostled loose a few other things. There is a golden glow that preambles his arrival, in case there's some sort of magical dampening field. If not, though, Bucky suddenly has another person in the cell with him. Dark hair. Pale skin. He grins wolfishly.

*

Buck's on his feet in a heartbeat, eyes going wide, back against the wall. "I've never hallucinated you before!" he blurts, before looking past Loki to Wanda for a moment. Is she seeing this guy? He sure is. Then he's staring at Loki, lips parted. Too startled to attack….and why would he attack Kai's sweetheart, anyhow? Then, tentatively, he's putting out his wounded hand to touch Loki with trembling fingertips. Are you real?

*

Somewhere, damage protocols are being thrown into action too late.

But before the first synapse fires to push a button, and the first phone is pulled from its cradle, something else transpires. Presaging magic is enough to bring the sorceress's head up, those cold leonine eyes narrowing. Gilded incandescence vanishes underneath a crackling of deepening heliotrope frost over her pupils, a seizure of power almost reflexive on her part. Demon-hunting for a lifetime has dividends; so does viewing the world through mystic Sight. Wanda perceives magic the way Bucky probably calculates trajectories and notices exits when he enters a room. Her sensitivity gives no adequate chance to throw up a banishment, but one doesn't hold court with the Sorcerer Supreme without having a trigger reflex for casting. "«Sticla in zefir»."

By the time the last syllable leaves her lips, she twists space on its axis, opening a Wanda-sized hole. The sheet of glass separating her from the Winter Soldier becomes a flimsy soap bubble barrier, one spreading in iridescence around her as she approaches the grinning man and Bucky beyond.

*

Loki does not know Wanda other than having seen her on some…afternoon in the park. But, seeing as she just opened a hole in the cell, he bares his teeth and hunches his shoulders. His left arm shakes, trembling with the use of magic that has been absent from those veins. Something is wrong, but he doesn't care. His right hand snaps out and grabs hold of Bucky by the shoulder while the man tries to touch him, and tries to twist him a bit violently behind him, protective. "Thisssss does not /belong/ to /you/." Verdant eyes narrow, and spark, posturing like a cornered honey badger.

*

It was weird, and man, it just got weirder. The surrealism meter hasn't pegged quite yet, clearly. For a wonder, Bucky doesn't fight back. He actually whimpers in confusion - every *other* time his brain has done this, he's woken up either strapped to a gurney or just in his cell. But his hallucination just shoved him back. "No," he says, very nearly incoherent. And then Wanda just…ignores the wall, and now he's staring at her with equal horror.

*

Cornered honey badger, assassin, and a willow of a girl. Something in the equation is not quite right. Wanda may be the variable too difficult to add in. Those violet eyes lose their pupils entirely, glowing trails burned closer to blood-red where sparks of magic flood around her wrist. They're visible, now, clearly present to the naked eye in faint misty spills. "No man is owned." A reply as cold as an arctic gale teasing over the white ramparts of Svalbard strikes back, her fingers spread out and curled. The wall gives to admit her passage and snaps right back into place, a solid sheet inviolate to things like bullets or grumpy super-soldiers punching it. "Who are you?"

A spell lies charged on her lips, another spiral of possibility following her will. Not quite released, but that damn silver fox likes to talk too much and occasionally shows her asking questions before hurling mana bolts is a good idea. Damn you, Doctor.

*

Loki gives nothing away in regards to his power levels, while she hums with threat and potential. He keeps himself a necessary mystery. A pale head juts forwards, exposing an expanse of neck from his otherwise rather normal clothing. "I am his rescuer." A slight cock of his head and his eyes dart briefly over his shoulder, addressing the confused Bucky, "I am taking you home." Then he curls his lips, practically snarling in more posturing, "If you try to stop me, I will destroy everyone in this building with my bare hands. I will rend the spines right out of their bodies while you /watch/!"

*

"Don't do that," Bucky says, hastily, before Wanda can unleash all kinds of arcane hell. The stare he turns on the Witch is desperate. "Don't…" His voice cracks, breaks. "I don't have a home," It's another flat statement, "Just….it's…I'll go, but I don't need rescuing," he tells Loki. "I'm safe here. I'm getting help. I don't …I can't be responsible for anyone else's death."

*

Motes of light weave across her wrists and trickle around her fingers, suspended in mist almost too fine to see. Wanda doesn't reach for the leyline thrumming somewhere nearby, but the visual spectacle is enough. For Loki to see and the agents, if any, peering in alarm through the camera trained in the corner. "Will you?" A pointy inquiry bereft of much emotion or perhaps even care dusts away, leaves on the wind. Her attention shifts to Bucky, eyebrows arched a fraction.

*

The magic hissing around Loki is less controlled. He's like a 16 year old with a ferrari. "Do you want to stay where they are torturing you?!" Loki asks Bucky emphatically, shifting his eyes back and forth as he keeps an eye on Wanda during the standoff.

*

It's to Wanda he addresses himself, next. "Let me go," he tells her, softly. "I'll be back. It'll be …it'll be okay." Though it'll be anything but, by the look in his eyes. "He's uh…a friend of a friend. He means well," And thus does the Winter Soldier attempt to excuse Loki Sky-treader. "It's not like you think," he asides to Loki, "But if we're going, let's go. They'll come in like a ton a' bricks."

*

Hard to put a vehicle to what Wanda's art is, though the collusion of lineages in her training shows itself not a little in waiting. Her grave, unnatural expression lands upon Bucky for a moment. Just one, taking whatever measure she feels like assessing from a man with an unparalleled poker face absent a bit of runny eyeliner or non-waterproof mascara. "We will see." Her fingers flex slightly, the force seething around her, awaiting the chance to buck and break free. That would likely not be a good thing.

*

It isn't pretty. Loki keeps the Winter Soldier close, not understanding the whole story, certainly, but he doesn't have a lot of time to learn it, either. He does make the attempt to teleport back out, with the other man in tow.

*

Buck's heartbeat is a furious racket against Loki, and he smells like fear sweat and warm metal. Mortals, they are just so gross. He doesn't push Loki away, even puts an arm around him tentatively, as if suspecting physical contact might help. "Don't do it," he urges the witch. "If you fight….it'll go badly." Like letting the Winter Soldier loose again isn't bad enough.

*

A mirthless smile touches her lips. Ugly as the teleportation is, it serves a purpose to yank the Winter Soldier and the god of mischief from one place to another. Wanda grits her teeth slightly, but the die is cast. No turning back now. Spatial threads twist and widen to allow the two men through unchallenged. She isn't bending them out of true. Oh no.

*

Loki doesn't judge things quite right on the landing on the other side, and both men end up 15 feet above the roof of the bookshop. Thankfully, OVER the roof though. So they will both fall that distance to the gravel.

*

He's used to taking falls…and fifteen feet is enough of a drop for Bucky to release Loki, gather himself in, roll - his metal shoulder makes a *bizarre* ripply screeching noise as the gravel against it, and come to his feet smoothly. And then he's up on his feet and running for where the fire escape must be. NEvermind that it's bare feet on gravel, he's surprisingly fleet. Well, surprising for someone who hasn't seen Steve Rogers going somewhere in a hustle.

*

Loki lands a lot less gracefully, because he's weak, worn out from all that, and…did not expect that result. He lands on the gravel on his side, and groans, just laying there a moment. When Bucky starts running, he yells, "You better talk to him before you go back! He's been worried sick all this time!" Pack your bags…we're going on a guilt trip.

*

On the other side, trapped in a cage to contain the Winter Soldier and not a charming little Transian, Wanda waits until they vanish. And when they do, she turns immediately and presses her light-enveloped hand into the blood left on the glass interior. Magic bites into that tightest of signatures formed between any living creature. Blood to blood. It surges through her senses, magic bound into a tracer already taking shape in a sparkling gleam. Oh, a man can run as long as he wants.

But hiding is a whole other matter when it comes to the Scarlet Witch or Doctor Strange.

*

He's got his hands on the wall's little parapet, body tensed to hurl himself right over. But there's a funny little shudder, and he doesn't complete the move. In fact, he goes still, as if this were some unreal game of Simon Says, and stays there in that posture for a moment. Then he turns back, and pads towards Loki, not flinching at the dig of the gravel. "Kai sent you," he says. It's not really a question.

*

Loki slowly picks himself up to stand, dusting himself off. He stands with his legs wide set though, for balance against his…woozy feelings. "Kai didn't send me. Kai /healed/ me, and while he was resting, I found you. Rescuing you is a gift. This is my roof..just…come down and see him and explain what you're doing before you go."

*

"What *are* you?" asks the Soldier, still tensed for flight. "You just…how did you find me?" But he's not running. Not yet. GAzing at Loki, still wide-eyed.

*

That's a complicated question, and Loki looks out to the rest of the city a second, then back to the soldier, trying to flee. "I used a pool of water to find you…and magic to come to you. I will be honest with you…that's about all I have in me at the moment. I could never have made good on those threats to that woman. I only made them so that she would think I could. Just talk to him…/please/…" Loki puts his hand on his stomach and sways a bit.

*

His brow furrows. Bucky glances out, takes in a survey of the city. And then, hesitantly, he comes over to drape Loki's arm over his shoulder, shifting him into one of those army carries - the metal arm feels very strange, as if he were half an animate suit of armor. "I see," he says, simply.

*

Loki is heavier than he looks, but he does use the mortal for support and gestures to the roof's door. "We are a lot alike." he says quietly. "Except for the…wanting to be in prison…part."

*

"You're a crazy amnesiac soldier, too?" he deadpans, as he carries the Asgardian towards the door. "Man, Kai sure knows how to pick 'em, doesn't he?" …..surely he doesn't mean that how it came out.

*

That actually makes Loki smile. "I am a crazy amnesiac prince-villain that everyone hates, but…/close enough/." When they get to the door, he opens it up and then…ugh…stairs. He calls down, "Kaaaaai…" The setting is Loki's apartment, and Bucky and Loki are coming in from the roof access.

*

"I gotcha," Bucky says, without hesitation. And he flips Loki up into a proper fireman's carry. Nevermind that he's barefoot, and clad in what looks like nothing more than pajama pants and a t-shirt…..and the knuckles on his flesh hand are bloodied and swollen. Who exactly rescued whom, here?

*

Kai lies in Loki's bed, sleeping off his last healing. When he hears people coming in, he stirs and calls out, "Hello? Who's there?" He yawns and runs a hand through his hair. The clothes he fell asleep in are rumpled, and he grimaces. Chinos twisted out of place. He gets up and slowly creeps to the door, peering into the living room as he adds, "I'm armed."

*

"Kai…its me…and I have a surprise for you." Loki allows the carrying, but only to the main floor before he drops himself back to his feet. "Quick, before he runs away…"

*

"Kai," calls the voice the elf hasn't heard in a while. Bucky's clean, at least, if a little sweaty. Did Loki rescue him from a cell cot? He steps away from Loki, after making sure the Asgardian's steady on his pins.

*

Kai's eyes widen, and he comes out of the room, unarmed, and he lunges for Bucky, wrapping him up in a hug. "James!" He clings. "James, we were so worried! I missed you so much!' He draws back to study Bucky's face. "Are you all right? Are you in any danger? We can protect you."

*

Loki moves to the couch and lays down. He seems…very spent. He does lift a hand to indicate that he's fine enough, "I need to rest…in case they come…be careful, both of you."

*

He didn't expect the hug….but he braces for it at the last second, just enough that Kai's enthusiasm doesn't knock him off his feet. His own return hug is tentative, careful. Kai can feel his heart pounding with residual adrenaline and the effort of toting Loki down from the roof. He even pats Kai on the back lightly. To Loki, he says, softly, "Thank you." But his expression isn't the relief or pleasure of a freed prisoner. He's uncertain, almost sick. "I'm….well, in some ways I'm better. But in others, I'm worse. It was brave of Serrure to…to do whatever he did, to bring me out." And there's a moment where he goes blank and still, some little chip of memory thrown up out of the maelstrom of the past. Steve. Steve saved him, long ago, from HYDRA. There's one of those shudders, and then he focusses back on Kai again. "I….but it'sgonna be bad. Where I was, it was a prison, but it was the best place for me. I'm sick, Kai, and they were helping me."

*

Kai draws James toward the kitchen chairs, giving Loki some space and quiet to rest. "I don't understand," he says. "Who was helping you?" He looks toward Loki, soulful and worried. "He's brave," he says, and he sighs, smiling faintly. "And handsome, and talented." Not always the wisest, but Kai would never say it.

*

"I can't tell you," he says, quietly. "It's….it is one of those agencies. But there were people who knew me, from back when. And someone who can help reconstruct memories….but I've still got this conditioning, up here." HE doesn't tap his temple, but presses the heel of his metal palm to it, as if to fend off a headache. "Where I'm not me, I'm someone else, and that's the killer. It's like there are two people in my head…or like I'm possessed. He doesn't really have a name, but he's called the Winter Soldier." A pun off Thomas Paine, insult added to injury, the epithet of a patriot made into a traitor. "I need to go back to them, before the Soldier wakes up again. He's not gone…."

*

Kai lays a hand on Bucky's flesh and blood arm. "We'll get you back where you need to be," he says. "I've just been so worried, and I didn't know Serrure would do this, but he's been so good to me, he doesn't deny me anything." At all, apparently. But just look at those huge blue eyes, so soulful. What chance does the bookseller have, really? "If they can fix you, then let's just take you back. I wish I'd gotten your friend Steve's number. I told him to call me if he heard from you."

*

Bucky nods at that. He looks rather hangdog - still long-haired, tired, eyes sunken. But he's not starving or filthy, and he's even cleanshaven. He smells like sweat and warm metal, but….well, that's adrenaline's aftermath. "Your boy's got guts, if not a lot of brains," is his assessment. "Yeah. I….don't have Steve's number, I don't think. But I have a feeling I'll see him soon." Not, perhaps, the right thing to say, as things turn over in the back of his mind.

He will see Steve again, soon. Through a reticle. "But I do need to go back, before the other guys get me. Or I do something stupid, or hurt someone."

*

"He's not lacking brains," Kai says primly, and he gives Bucky a hard look. "Just context." After all, who cares about piffling Midgardian rules? It's a discussion to have with Loki (sorry, Serrure) another time. Kai gets to his feet and goes poking around until he finds a rather nice whiskey and two glasses. "I get it," he says. "But let's have a drink first, hep cat. I don't know when I'll see you again, and it's been a major drag not having you around, dig me?"

*

Bucky purses his lips in that way he has, but doesn't argue the point. "You really missed me, huh?" The idea seems to both please and bemuse him. "You don't have enough assholes in your life?" He's eyeing Kai from underneath his brows, amused.

*

Kai laughs at that, shaking his head as he says, "Not nearly, no." He grins almost sheepishly. "Come on, now, you've been a good friend. I've met you, and I've met the soldier. Who's got more damage than I can help him with." He looks toward the sleeping Loki. What on earth did the fallen prince do that should leave him so exhausted? "I got all your stuff from the rooftop," he mentions. "It's in a bag between the TV and the window. On the off chance you'd ever stop through."

*

"He's not damaged," is Buck's calm assessment. "He's exactly what he was made to be." Made out of the wreckage of Sergeant Barnes. "That's good," He takes a slug of whiskey, and then raises a dusty foot and waggles the toes at Kai. "'cause man, I got nothin'."

*

"Maybe he is damage," Kai says. "Either way, it's out of my league, man. He's not my friend, 'Bucky' is." He winks at James. "I'll still call you James if you like, but that's what Steve called you and I was like 'who the hell is Bucky?'" He pours out three fingers of whiskey into each glass and offers one over to Bucky. Then he eyes his own glass and pours another splash in. "Are they treating you well there? Can I trust these people?"

*

Bucky agrees, without hesitating, "He's no one's friend, that one." That name….that's an old one, and he pauses, expression turned wistful. "Bucky. Sure. I think you've earned it. So has Serrure. Yeah. I've been imprisoned, and ….some of the stuff I've been through hurts. But it's made me more sane. I was in there to keep from hurting myself…" Honesty compels him to add, after a beat, "Much. And to keep from hurting other people. Like, more an asylum than a prison."

*

"I don't like the idea of you being all alone in a place like that," Kai says with a small, fretty frown. "Especially if I don't get to visit, but if it makes you better, then I'll walk you to the front door myself." He raises his glass and nudges Bucky to do the same. "To healing and better tomorrows."

*

He spreads his hands. "I don't like it at all. But….yeah. See, here's the thing - I don't know where I was. I'm afraid that if I coat trail too much, someone else's gonna get me." But he does tap his glass against Kai's, carefully. "To healing. And to a better future."

*

Kai clinks his glass, then he takes a hearty swallow. That's the stuff, right here. Alcohol borrowed from the boyfriend. "We'll get you back where you need to be. Do you want me to come with you? Make sure get there all right? I can walk you back to my place, we can pick up your things. Be careful in the park. There's walking undead. It's horrific." Though there's not much of horror in his demeanor. Just the weather report. Bring a baseball bat, there's a twenty percent chance of zombies.

*

THat has him pausing, eyeing KAi over the rim of his glass, as if the elf might be taking the piss. "I bet I can take us over the rooftops, if you're comfortable that way. Should we wait until morning?"

*

Kai admits, "I don't want to leave him when he's this tired." Another look spared his sleeping paramour. "He really ran himself ragged just to bring my friend back to me." He smiles like a dope. He's got it bad, this guy. "Why don't we all see what's what in the morning? I'll try to wrangle that one to his bed and you can have the couch."

*

"Works for me," he says, easily. "I'm tired, too. 's a bad day in terms of flashbacks. I can carry him, if you want?" Because Loki totally needs to be put to bed like a kid by a crazed assassin

*

Kai looks at Loki for a moment. Then he says, "Yeah, help me with him. I don't think he's waking up any time soon." He knocks back his whiskey, and he gets to his feet. "Serrure," he calls. "We're going to put you to bed. Don't snap anyone's neck or anything." Then he gives Bucky a thumb's up. All safe. Suuure it is.

*

Buck does help, carefully. He'll let Kai undress him, if that's where that goes. He's got just enough whiskey in him to make him flush…but not enough to make him stagger.

*

Kai just loosens Loki's clothing and takes off his shoes. He doesn't want to risk waking the prince any more than necessary He's rather sappy about every movement he makes, every soft murmurs. Has it been mentioned before that Kai's got it bad? Because this is ridiculous. Once Loki's been kissed on the brow and tucked in, Kai claims a blanket and brings it to the couch. "Tomorrow there will be breakfast meats, then we'll go do the right thing."

*

…..tomorrow, when poor Kai wakes, there will be no Bucky on the couch. Just a note of thanks, a promise to keep in touch, and a request to not be followed. And when Kai gets to his own flat, Bucky's things will be gone. The apple, however, will be right where it was left.

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