Chapter 1: Return

"I can't believe the quality of this arm," Stark grumbles.

Bucky would say it's a fairly normal night in Stark Tower, and Stark was insisting repeatedly that he could have a look at his arm so he agreed. He tries not to twitch away from the proximity of having him so close, though.

No one's ever checked him over before without it being painful.

Stark's keeping a reasonable distance though and that's... helping. "I can make you a new one, if you want."

Want.

He hasn't heard that word used in – a long time.

A sudden loud thump from the roof jars his brain out of that line of thought instantly. His body jerks and his hand flies for one of his knives.

Stark whistles. "Whoa. Reindeer Games trying to break my tower down?"

"It appears Prince Loki has returned," Jarvis confirms.

Tony gets up, grumbling something about going to greet him, and inviting himself out, leaving Bucky alone with Steve. He's had a couple of days here, and that's been it. Only days since HYDRA, weeks since he was frozen. He's not ready to so much as think living. Bucky doesn't know how to live. He doesn't know what to do.

"Are you ready?" Steve asks. "To talk to someone about it?"

Bucky sighs exhaustedly. "We don't have much choice, do we?" It's a rhetorical question. They have to – they need help, and Loki is their only chance at getting any. He's the only one they can trust.

"You're lucky I'm generous enough to invite you inside," Tony sasses, reentering the room, Loki trailing him. "After you dented my roof."

"I told you I slipped," Loki's voice is crisp. His appearance is far more... ruffled than he was before, even through the battle. His hair is messy, and his leathers look messy despite being the same. His green eyes are dark, and he looks angry. Something happened. There's a change in him. Bucky doesn't see the hammer he was carrying around with him everywhere anymore, either.

"I'm surprised you're back so soon," Steve tells him.

Loki sighs. "Odin banished Thor."

Everyone stares.

He – what?

"Uh, sorry," Tony interrupts, "What was that?"

"I'm here to find Thor," he replies, "Odin stripped him of his powers and banished him to Midgard. I followed against our Father's wishes, but my brother was not there when I arrived."

"Great!" Tony exclaims, throwing his hands up, "We're back where we started."

"Not entirely," Loki responds, "We have no leads, and Thor has no powers."

"I'm sure Fury will be happy to hear that," Steve mutters.

Bucky knows Thor. He worked with him for a short time, and he knows some of how the Asgardian is. HYDRA had wanted to use him. He was easy to sow chaos. To install fear. They were going to dispose of him. But Thor was no mastermind – he's no threat. But Bucky doesn't know how to step forward with what he knows, or... how to.

He knows he wants HYDRA gone. He knows they need to go, but he doesn't know how to be one to come out to fight it. He knows it was brainwashing, knows right from wrong, but it's...

His brain is a mess.

Steve keeps looking at him. Waiting for him to come forward, but it's not that simple, and Bucky doesn't know what to tell him.

"I thought perhaps if I could not find Thor, he might." Loki's eyes slide to Bucky. "Also, I believe I missed dinner."

"You were hopelessly late for dinner," Tony agrees, "You know what? I'll call the others here, and we can throw a party right here."

"Fine with me," Steve agrees.

"Splendid, truthfully," Loki concurs, "It's been a while since I've been at one."

"Ouch. What about you?"

Bucky doesn't register being spoken to until Tony snaps his fingers in front of his face, and Bucky flinches backwards, body tensing and reaching for one of his knives. He's fully expecting someone to hit him, but no one moves. No one twitches, actually, until Tony jumps backwards. "Whoa, whoa. Ease up," he protests.

"He'll go if I do," Steve replies, his hand coming down on Bucky's shoulder, gentle and grounding. It's been... so long. It doesn't feel real, and still sometimes when he looks at Steve, he thinks he's dreaming, that all of this is a dream and his brain's broken down so much from lack of processing that he's hallucinating all of this - Steve, Loki, Tony, Clint – everyone. That they're a dream he'll wake up form, and he'll be back with Hydra and with – Just back there. Keeps waiting for it.

But that can't be right, because there was a time he didn't have to live like that, a time he was something other than the Winter Soldier, a time he mattered and he was... something. Someone. That he was a person.

Tony leaves, grumbling something about the mood falling and how he has to go make some calls.

Bucky hates how much he relaxes when he's gone.

He doesn't belong here. Shouldn't be here.

Every time he looks at Tony, all he can remember is Howard's limp form and Maria's throat under his hand.

Bucky killed them. Tony's parents. He's an orphan, because Bucky –

They can trust Tony.

He doesn't know how to tell Steve that, though.

Howard was their friend.

"What happened to your hammer?" Bucky asks, eyeing him. It was a strange weapon for him to carry, but why doesn't he have it now? Bucky would never willingly put down any of his knives. He would never feel anything even close to safe if he did.

Loki's expression shadows. "Odin took it."

Took it? Like – the way his handlers take his weapons whenever he's done with a mission? It couldn't be the same at all for Loki, but it just seems odd. Familiar.

"Why?" Steve asks, a little confused.

"It once belonged to Thor. He views neither of us as worthy of it now."

"But... you had it before. And you brought Thor back to Asgard for justice."

Bucky doesn't understand this Odin either, but he's liking him less and less. Felt the same about Thor. Not that his likes matter.

Loki's smile looks completely fake. "Thor is back now. Odin wants the weapon returned to its rightful owner or whoever proves himself worthy of Thor's powers."

"...What does that mean?" Bucky asks because he's just confused now.

"It was spelled so that whoever can lift Mjolnir next will have what Thor's powers were. I don't know if I could still lift it. I don't intend to try." The way he says it is bitter. Bucky thinks he's missing much about Loki's family.

The rest is... clearly something magic related that still doesn't fully make sense to him. It probably doesn't matter much so long as Hydra isn't able to find some way to exploit it.

"Loki," Steve speaks up, shifting forwards, "There's something else we know that we don't know if we can trust anyone else with. About the people who were helping Thor."

"The humans who were aiding this conquest?" he asks, leaning forwards.

Steve nods. "They're Hydra," he explains, "We thought they were destroyed in World War II, but somehow, they made it. They – they made Bucky into an assassin." He swallows thickly, "But they're everywhere, and we don't know who to trust."

"You want my help to know if you can trust your team?" Loki guesses.

"We could use it," Bucky speaks up finally. "If you can."

"Well, of course I can," he answers flippantly with a borderline feral smile. It would be unnerving if Bucky weren't relatively certain they can trust him. "It's my specialty."

**w**

Dreams don't stop. He swears they never stop – constant whispering companions in the darkness, faces in the shadows, voices in his head – He hasn't remembered for so long; he curses how fast it came back. There's been nothing for so long, now there's everything and too much and instead of a void there's a flood and his head is burning in a way of it's own and Bucky hates that he wishes he didn't remember, because that he remembers means he has Steve and he should care more about that than anything in the world, but he just – can't. Doesn't. He should. Should.

And that's where he is, seeing faces in the darkness when he hears a sound and rips a knife off his belt, stabbing it upwards when an inhumanely strong hand grabs his wrist.

He looks up, half expecting to see Steve, but a way-too-pale face is in his view, and tangled messy black curls.

"Loki?"

"I thought you were dreaming," he says, carefully shoving the blade away from his neck, "I was going to wake you."

"I don't have nightmares," he mutters automatically, sheathing his knife to his belt, looking away. Loki's an ally and he nearly stabbed him. He nearly took his throat out and that's really what Hydra's made him into, isn't it?

Someone who will stab someone's throat out without even looking at their face?

He thinks about Howard again and his gut churns.

And he doesn't have nightmares.

He just gets malfunctions because he's a weapon and when it misfires or jams, it needs to be picked apart and reprogrammed.

"You and Steve are perfectly safe." Loki materializes a dagger, twirling the blade between his fingers. "I warded the place. If someone tries to harm you or your friend, I will pick it up before the bewitched ceiling."

"Its name is JARVIS."

He looks upwards. "Is that what Stark calls it?"

"That's not why you came." Does he sound too confrontational? Steve won't let someone hurt him and he trusts Loki, but it's –

It's been too long. Way too long since Bucky had a non-painful interaction with anyone.

A few days won't fix that, as hard as Steve's tried.

"My spell picked up your heartbeat."

"You spelled me?" He doesn't know if he's more incredulous or incensed.

"If you and Captain Rogers are the only two we are certain we can –"

Bucky's glaring at him now, and Loki sighs, lowering his hands. "Take it off."

"You two are the only chance at stopping Hydra."

"Take it off."

"Is it that difficult to understand someone may not be trying to hurt you?"

His jaw clenches so hard it aches – a familiar sensation. Yes. Yes, it is, but Bucky's not going to tell him that, not going to add more fuel to this fire or to the raw, never ending rage clawing in his chest that he doesn't know what to do with or who to aim it at. "I don't need you watching me."

"That's not –"

"That's what you're doing!" He's on his feet now, body fully tense and braced for action, though what's he gonna do against Loki? He's basically a god. There are people on Earth who actually worship him.

"You don't want me to keep the spell on you because you think if someone had done it to them you could've been stopped a long time ago." Loki's angry now, too.

He freezes. Blood is ice in his veins. He tries to find words. He doesn't talk. Isn't so good at that anymore.

The Asgardian exhales sharply. "What they had you do wasn't you. You were just the weapon. You think I don't know," he says, "But I do. I remember my first kill." He sinks onto the end of the couch. "If we speak in Midgard terms, I would say I was eight. The royal family was on a mission to Alfheim. A diplomatic mission, I imagine – I was young and not attentive or privy to the details. But Thor was bored out of his mind, Anyway, a rogue group of sorcerers came after us. I was corned and it was instinctive. I had one of the daggers Mother gave me. I stabbed him. It hit his neck. It bled... a lot. It was, I would say, a rather sloppy kill. I cut his airway. His lungs filled with blood. I just stood there watching. I was still there when they found me. Father just looked at him and left." Loki sighs. "But they weren't there. When he died. I saw his light fade. Thor told me I did good. Said it didn't that all that matters was if I was safe."

"I don't blame him," Bucky says, "I would've said the same if it was Steve." But he understands that, because he killed, too. That's what he can never stop thinking about, and Loki's not wrong, even if he would never say so, and hardly even understood it. Nothing makes sense to him anymore.

He's a weapon

And he doesn't want to be but weapons can't have wants and he used to be something more than that, too.

But his heart aches for Loki, because he understands how gutting it is to kill someone, to see their life fade away when all he could do was watch.

"I told my mother about the dreams. How I... I wasn't afraid of being hurt. I hadn't meant to do it. Thor would have. We're Asgardian. We're warriors. We fight. We kill. That's what we do. My first kill as a warrior was an accident."

"Here, on Earth, we'd say that makes you a good person."

"Good is point of view. Nothing good is ever truly good, and nothing bad is every truly bad."

Alright, maybe, Bucky has to grudgingly admit, he isn't the most messed up person around. Loki's a wreck, too. Not that judging his people are fair. "Killing isn't a thing to be proud of."

"It is on Asgard. That's why I never fit in. The killing. The war. It's my people, but I didn't want it. But I did it. I fought when Odin had me. I killed when he told me too. My brother tried to wipe out an entire species. He fought me for trying to stop him."

"I'm glad I'm not your brother."

Loki laughs. "I as well. You would not be hailed highly for remorse of killing a mortal. Well, unless Odin deemed it so."

Steve had, well, had issues, too. Bad ones, but he did when he was little, so it hadn't mattered. But to hear this from a prince? Bucky would have thought a prince would be treated better, but what does he know about royalty?

"But," Loki says, "None of this was about Odin. Or me. And why are you sleeping on a couch?"

"I can't sleep on a bed."

"Why?"

"I can't."

"I'm assuming you're kicking me out before you go back to sleep?"

"I don't sleep when someone's in the room."

Loki blinks disbelievingly. "Alright, I'm going."

That sounds... Suspicious.

He watches the Asgardian until he disappears before lying back down and closing his eyes.

Bucky still thinks he can safely say he's the only one he knows who was programmed like – this – but he thinks it does ease on him a little that there are...

Well, that Loki Gets It even if no one else does, and he should not be relieved by something like that.

Maybe this stupid party idea will offer something useful, because even knowing Loki is watching makes it hard to sleep.

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