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]

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.

[godofbadideas]

Loki stepped closer, closed his hand over Bucky's again, and the knife.

"And so long as she is with you," he said softly. "So too am I. Do you want me to fix your mind?"

[he_that_stands_it_now]

He glanced at the hand over his, then up at Loki before nodding his head. Yes, he wanted his head fixed. He wanted his memories back. Some pieces had filtered back and his personality seemed... right. Fitting. But he wanted all of it, no matter how much it hurt.

[godofbadideas]

"Then close your eyes, and trust me."

His hand tightened a little on Bucky's, enough to let the still-sharper-than-razor edge on the knife cut his skin a little.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

He doesn't flinch at the cut.

"Go for it, Milkshake."

[godofbadideas]

Loki raised his other hand to the side of Bucky's head, a gentle touch. He brushed his thumb over Bucky's forehead, breathed a few words, and let warm magic wash over his devotee.

They say that in the moments before you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. If there was any truth to that, then Bucky could be forgiven for thinking that he was dying.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

That would also explain the screaming.

[godofbadideas]

Loki was expecting that. Nobody outside the apartment could hear it, thanks to the enchantments he had written into the walls.

He held onto his devotee; it was all that he could do, now that the spell had taken effect.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

Death, death death DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH cold warmth Natalia DEATH ANGER DEATH mission DEATH Natalia no English? DEATH a job to do DEATH DEATH never again--

His voice gave out five minutes in, but he was screaming well after that.

[godofbadideas]

It was... Well, completely horrible, exactly as Loki had promised. Part of him hated that he didn't feel guilty about causing such pain to someone he liked. It was a very small part, but it was there, and he would continue to hold Bucky until it was over.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

Eventually, he dropped, muscles giving out, his throat working sore over raw vocal cords as his muscles shook. He couldn't speak, but his eyes looked up at Loki, as clear as they could be.

[godofbadideas]

"Welcome back," Loki said softly, smiling a little as he caught Bucky, and more or less carried him over to the couch.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

He didn't move, didn't seem to be able to move, caught in a suspended animation of a sort in that his muscles were utterly locked in place.

His eyes, however, said he wasn't that funny.

[godofbadideas]

Loki smoothed the hair back from Bucky's face.

"I'm going to get you something to drink," he said. When he stood, finally pulling his hand away from Bucky's, and the knife, he was bleeding too.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

His hand flashed out to snatch the god's hand in his, the knife shifted to the other hand. There's something in his eyes, something... mad and wild and made of fire, parts of him set aflame.

[godofbadideas]

Loki shifted his hand automatically to let his devotee get a firmer grip, and looked back down at him, a question in his eyes, and the thought that damn, he's beautiful like this.

[he_that_stands_it_now]

His hand grips tighter, the edges of the wounds pressed against each other, each from either side of the knife that binds them. James doesn't know, can't know, hardly knows how any of this works, but there is old magic here, in the moment of a man with his god, blood between them spilled by the same blade, fire in his eyes as everything he thought was a part of him burns to be remade.

He doesn't know what this is, but he knows he needs it more than water.