The Absent Prayer (Comics Canon: The Past)

[he_that_stands_it_now]

It's been a bad day.

Honestly, it's been a bad week.

Between the mess on the beach the other day and the hulking monstrosity of Nazi engineering making it's way towards him with massive flailing flaming limbs, Bucky Barnes has started to wonder if his bad temper, his foul mouth, and his flippant treatment of authority hasn't gone all the way up the line to the Big Guy Himself and gotten him attention he really didn't want.

Nonetheless, if He got him into this mess than maybe He can get him out, so he spends a couple of precious seconds in between when he lands and when he jumps again to get off a silent prayer.

Dear Whoever Is Listening, I promise I'll never talk at the movies again if you just get my backside out of the frying pan here!

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[he_that_stands_it_now]

"Including for me? Or was that just a matter of me takin' it for my country?"

[godofbadideas]

"A lot of times you end up messily dead," Loki stated matter-of-factly.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"And the times when you chose to step in?"

Because he can't imagine a world where he didn't have his god of breakfast foods.

[godofbadideas]

"Interstellar shenanigans, and then you end up messily dead," Loki replied. "And the people here in Midgard were the worse for it. In the few universes where we've met, anyway."

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"Few? What, you left me hangin' on the other ones? I'd pout if I didn't know you better."

But he seems satisfied by the response.

[godofbadideas]

"You didn't always ask for help," Loki said. "Or... Well, there are a lot of factors."

He swiped the last two fries, and shrugged.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"Then those other mes didn't have the sense you gave a couch cushion," he observed as he sipped on the remainder of his shake.

[godofbadideas]

"No, they didn't," he agreed. "...are you ready?" he asked, when the milkshakes and fries were all gone.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"If you can get us someplace a little more private, sure."

He leaned back in his seat.

[godofbadideas]

"Then take my hand," Loki said, holding it out over the table.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

He slipped his hand into the gods and gave him a rakish grin.

"You takin' me to the spring social?"

[godofbadideas]

Loki curled his fingers (cooler than a human's, noticeably so) around Bucky's, and returned the grin, eyes glittering playfully.

"Would you go if I asked?"

Before Bucky could reply though, he transported them away from the diner, to someplace safe, and private.

His very ordinary-looking apartment.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"...why do you have a massive picture of Thor thwacking someone?" was the first question.

[godofbadideas]

"Because he's my brother, and it is an excellent thwacking, and he made the most marvelous face when he saw it."

[he_that_stands_it_now]

...which was when things started filtering into place.

"Wait a minute. You're that--"

He had literally never put that together. Literally. THAT Loki. His god, the one who'd given him his knife, was THAT LOKI.

"...well shit."

[godofbadideas]

Out came the phone, and he was so taking your picture Bucky before dissolving into a very godly gigglefit.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

That got a very flat look from James.

"God, you are five."

[godofbadideas]

There was a very undignified gigglesnort, and Loki grinned at him.

"You expected something else?"

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"You just seemed a whole lot more..." there was a handwave, "when I was seventeen is all."

[godofbadideas]

"Mysterious and otherworldly? I suppose so," he replied. "But then, you never had that look on your face back then."

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"Which look?" because he hadn't exactly thought a lot about what he'd done back then. He'd been an explosive bundle of anger and sarcasm and occasional violence at that age. It hadn't changed much, but it'd changed some.

[godofbadideas]

Loki turned the camera to show him the flabbergasted look of realisation he'd just captured.

"The one when you realised that I'm that Loki."

[he_that_stands_it_now]

"Cause from what I remember, you hadn't gone and caused a lot of trouble by then. Back then, you left that to me and the lady."

He lifted his hand, the dagger spinning lightly on one finger.

[godofbadideas]

"Oh, I'd caused plenty of trouble, it had just been about a thousand years since I'd done any mischief on Midgard," Loki said. "And then, well..." He shrugged a little, and then grinned again.

"Didn't I say you'd never lose her?"

[he_that_stands_it_now]

He looked down at the dagger. It was the only constant, the only thing he'd never entirely forgotten. The only thing that had never abandoned him.

He nodded slowly.