fossilised | For Steve

For Steve

The war had been raging for a long time now, and James Buchanan Barnes had been drafted some months ago to ship out to Europe and fight with all the others in the trenches and on the front lines. Telegrams came back daily with the news of more brothers, sons, fathers, and husbands killed. More friends who will never return, and still there was no end in sight.

But then something even stranger began happening on both sides of the timeline.

All the newsreels were reporting strange anomalies centred in New York City and Washington D.C. that could only be explained by time itself unravelling in places. Buildings that changed to vast monoliths of glass and steel for a few minutes and then back again, a faded billboard for asthma cigarettes becoming a full colour motion picture of a man eating soup. Some people had even said they had met men and women claiming to be from the future, though this was all hushed up.

It only lasted a few days, and then it was sorted. Sealed, the government official offices said, just a trick by the Nazis to confuse us. Forget it and go about your day.

But there were pieces of the future lost in the past for good.

The Winter Soldier-- Bucky-- whoever he was now, confused fragmented memories all he had to go on, had been thrown through time unceremoniously into a street that looked altogether familiar and confusing. He hid from the authorities who were collecting all the anomalies with ease, even though his manner of dress was out of place now with jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He didn't change it. He found his feet taking him somewhere only half remembered.

An apartment with a key hidden under an old brick. Why did he know it was there?

He didn't know. He just let himself in, quiet as a whisper, and made his way through to the bedroom where someone was asleep under the covers. Skinny, blond, somehow also familiar (the man on the bridge? The man in the Potomac? The man at the museum? No, that didn't make sense, that man had bulging muscles, but somehow he was sure they were the same). He didn't say anything, just stood there and watched impassively, waiting for the man to wake up.

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Thor wasn't going to get into it, but Rogers deserved an explanation. "Aye, Loki was adopted from the ruins of Jotunheim and raised as an Asgardian, as my brother, flesh and blood. We did not know until recently that he was not of Asgard. It had been a...sore subject."

Anthony was shocked at that too. But about Loki's natural born sisters? What about her mother, the Queen? Oh, he ha questions so he could report back to Loki, but he never managed to get there before Bucky appeared.

He took his time examining the body, the chest and the arm. The arm fascinated and repulsed him. We're these people still replacing limbs artificially? Why not just regrow them? He turned on the sofa, arm over the back, and found himself biting his lip. He was married, sure, but his work with Loki took him away from his family and-- Well, dalliance was not something that was minded much. He was sure his wife took lovers of her own and--

"Howardson, yes and hi there. I'm Anthony. You're... Flattering. Thanks. I'm... Actually I don't know how old I am. I started being given the Gift when I was twenty-one. I've celebrated three centennials since then." He was probably, physically, about twenty-five or six now. His aging had been slowed dramatically.

Tony but not Tony, very strange. Bucky stepped right up close, into his personal space, and reached out to touch his chest as if to make sure that he was real. He ignored Steve and Thor completely, although the tense set to his shoulders said that he would notice them if they actually made a move towards him.

"Does it make you stronger and faster too?"

Was this Gift like the serum? He was pretty sure that even he and Steve would be dead by the time three centuries had passed, but they definitely had slowed ageing and would live a hell of a lot longer than most people.

"Stand up, I want to look at you. You look so much like him, but he was older, a lot older. He's both in my head."

He didn't mean to be cryptic to poor Anthony, but he wasn't having the best evening inside his fractured head currently.

"Not really stronger or faster. I have my suits for that, if Queen Loki needs me to follow her into battle. I think that's only happened once. She's not like the Asgardian Princesses, she doesn't like to hunt as much as Thor or Baldur do," Anthony said as he stood up. "What's your name?"

The leather of his pants squeaked with the leather of the sofa, but he did stand up, and even moved round the edge of the sofa so that he and Bucky were standing near each other. Bucky was just a little bit taller but his eyes were so blue and perfect, his hair longer and lustrous, more like Asgardian men wore, but that wasn't unfashionable with those on Midgard. He looked strong too. It was just that arm--

Anthony didn't ask before he touched it. Or at least tried to. He was the personal slave of the Queen. He did what he wanted. That was another difficult thing to break him of.

"How do you dad? Like from the movies about him?" Anthony frowned. This man seemed...mentally off too. Was that a trait of this Midgard? "You know what? It doesn't matter. How about you? I can fix you. I just need a few things. J, can you take a list?"

Bucky took a half step back when Tony got to his feet and came around, but he didn't move completely out of range or lash out when those fingers came to rest on his metal arm. The plates shifted with a small electronic clicking noise as they realigned under his fingertips, but other than that he didn't move.

"Yes, sir, I am ready to task a list."

"Fix me?" Bucky said at the same time that JARVIS replied, finally breaking eye contact to look over at Steve as though checking he was there. He wasn't about to let someone take him off and zap his brain again to 'fix him'.

His hand balled into a fist, eyes flicking back to Tony. "I know him because--" He killed him, but he didn't want to admit that to another Tony, maybe because it wasn't his Howard that had been killed. "--he worked with me a long time ago."

"Oh! Oh, he made this arm didn't he? Wow. That's amazing. I knew the old man was into cybernetics but...this is probably a museum piece!" Anthony said before he rambled off a list of approximates, both of metals and plastics and chemicals. Some of those chemicals had not yet been formulated yet and a few of the metals hadn't been smelted yet either. When JARVIS informed him that some items were impossible to get, Anthony crossed his arms over his chest and, glancing at Steve, shook his head.

Backwards, poor little reality.

"All right, so we will have to make the raw materials. I wish my wife was here. Particle physics and thermodynamics are her jam. Okay, barring-- oh! Oh wait, she might be! Some version of her at least. Is there a Roberta Rebeccasdottr here? Uh... Her last name might be different." Unfortunately, no one here knew that Bruce's given name was Robert or that his mother's name was Rebecca. There were blank looks all around. "Damn to Hel the fallen-- You know what, that's fine. But your name...? I don't want to call you Hey You for the rest of the trip until we get that arm regrown!"

Steve was actually a little bit surprised to hear that Tony had a wife, and one he seemed so content with. From what he knew about slavery, he thought that they probably wouldn't be allowed to choose their own partners, that it would be about breeding programs and all that distasteful stuff. It wasn't like that at all, mortals could still live and love as they chose, they were servants and slaves, not animals.

"Bucky-- James Barnes."

That name, at least the Bucky part once the James bit had been explained, would probably explain who he was. At least in Anthony's world. James Georgeson had been Thor's personal slave before Steve, had even trained Steve up, before he had died a hero during one of the battle campaigns. Captured by the enemy, tortured, and then killed without revealing any of his master's secrets.

This Bucky frowned at Anthony, wary. "What do you mean, regrown? You can't regrow a limb, it's gone."

It would probably come to him. Eventually. Anthony had been young still when James had been killed, he had been to the memorial service and the victory celebration once Thor brought his murderer's heads home to be mounted. Odin hadn't been pleased by the display but it was Thor's right to avenge her slaves any way she saw fit. They were hers. And oh, she had loved James. Perhaps a little too much. It was said the same of Steven. She had too much of a shine to him.

"Buckyjames Banres? How about we just go with Buck unless you have an odd nickname like the other me?" Anthony grinned. Tony. Honestly. So ridiculous.

"Of course we can regrow a... Oh Odin's beard, this place-- I'm going to help you out, my friend. I promise. I'm going to help your whole backward little planet out. Starting with you. One new left arm and then maybe I'll cure something if you still have diseases floating around." They probably did. "And then after that, I'm going to get myself and my Queen home to a place that makes so much more sense."

Steve finally managed to speak up, having been dumb founded. "I-- Tony-- ANTHONY. You can't just... That's going too far."

Anthony's mouth opened. "Too far? You want this beautiful man to have a robotic, museum quality arm? Are you guys all crazy here? What is going on? Are you brainwashed into thinking any of this at all is all right?"

Steve knew that it was Tony that was brainwashed and it was honestly more and more uncomfortable to be around him, but he wasn't going to stop. He had helped one friend out of slavery, he would help another. Maybe Tony didn't know that he needed to be helped yet, but he did and Steve would be the one to help him.

"I don't want you to regrow my arm."

Bucky felt his metal fingers contract into a fist and then relax again a few times, and he took a step back and away from this strange hybrid of Howard and Tony that he couldn't decide what he felt about.

"This arm is a mark of what I did. I don't want to forget that, not ever."

He didn't deserve to forget that.

"Steve," his gaze flicked up, suddenly a little more pleading. "Nobody is brainwashed here, right?"

"Why won't you let me help-- You know what? That's fine. You guys can be all weird and twisted and backwards and-- Prince Thor, I'm really sorry. I don't mean you any disrespect and on behalf of my Realm and my species, I'm really sorry." He had a lot to tell Loki and he knew his Queen was not going to like it. Not at all.

But first, he did stop to lean into Buck and whisper that he found him really, incredibly attractive and if he wanted a partner while he was here, he was more than willing.

That probably wouldn't go over too well. But then again, Steve's reaction to the look on Thor's.confused face and the half terrified one on Bucky's face didn't go over too well either. "You're not-- None of us-- Anthony, wait!"

"I'm out!" Anthony called, stalking right into the doors. He had seen Steve open the doors outward for him but in his tizzy, he'd neglected to remember that, and for his trouble, he managed to knock himself out cold when the glass didn't allow him to just pass through.

There was a frozen moment of silence after Anthony knocked himself out, before Steve groaned and rubbed at his face. This was all a hell of a lot more of a mess than it had been when Grant had come back from another reality, and he had a feeling it was going to get worse before it got better.

"Thor, could you take Tony to a bed and watch him, make sure to let one of us know when he wakes up. And Buck-- Bucky?"

But it was too late, Bucky had slipped out of the door that Anthony had failed to open and into the darkness before Steve had finished giving orders to Thor. He hadn't liked the look of that face, so like Howard's, unconscious-- dead-- He made his way to the garage where Grant and Tony were working.

He slipped inside and up behind Tony on his usual silent feet, resting his metal fingers very lightly on his spine to get his attention.

An inch away from slicing up his palm with the tool in his hand, Tony glanced over his shoulder and exhaled. He should have known that would have been Barnes. Did he ever just do anything normally like knock? Or clear his throat? Or get in his line of sight so he didn't startle him? No.

Grant was flat on his back, holding something in place as Tony crouched over him making sure it stayed when Bucky's presence caused both to forget what they were doing. Grant had to bite his lip so he didn't ask if Bucky was all right. He knew he wasn't. He could see thst look on his face. He sat up, pulling himself from any dangerous falling objects. His eyes searched the dark face several feet above him.

It was Tony that addressed the man though. "What now?"

He wasn't directly thst towards Bucky. He figured thst Loki and Thor were starting another world war or Steve was being intolerant of cultures he didn't like again.

"There's another you."

Bucky moved a bit closer to Grant, putting himself equidistant between the two men, though his attention stayed focused on Tony. It was a blank sort of gaze with a mixture of discomfort and fear muddled behind it.

"He looks like Howard, like Howard used to look. He's young, he asked me to sleep with him, said he could regrow my arm."

Even though two of those things could conceivably be seen as a good thing, being propositioned and offered a new arm, it was obvious that both had really put Bucky on edge and not in a good place.

Oh, Tony was not pleased. Not at all. Loki had brought her version of him after all and not only was he younger but evidently he was also smart enough to know how to regrow limbs. That rubbed Tony really wrong, and though he should probably be focused on poor Bucky right now, he was much to selfish to do that.

"Don't sleep with him and don't let him regrow your arm," he said simply, though Grant looked equal parts horrified and hopeful. "If you're worried if I want to sleep with you, don't be. I don't want to. My days of playing that game are over."

Minus his dreams about Banner. But those were just dreams. He'd never act on them.

Gross.

He pulled off his gloves and set his tool aside, hands on his hips.

"He's also not my dad. And he's not me. How about you stay here with us? I'll put you to work and no inferior slave version of me will bother any of us." But Tony wanted to meet him in that same awful way that people wanted to see wrecks and taste terrible things even knowing that they won't like them.

He wasn't worried that his Tony wanted to sleep with him, he knew what it looked like when someone looked at another with interest, and Tony had never looked at him as anything other than a friend. At least in here, with Grant and Tony, he was starting to relax a little. Two people he trusted deeply, completely, with only Steve missing to complete the trifecta.

"Yeah-- okay. Just give me orders and I'll follow them."

He didn't often ask to be given orders, preferring now to protect his own autonomy deeply, but sometimes he needed them. They were familiar, soothing almost, and they didn't require him to think.

On a whim, Bucky bent down and pressed a fierce and brief kiss to Grant's lips, the first time he had kissed either one of them in front of someone else, but he needed the contact.

"He looked so like Howard," he said in a murmur.

Tony could handle the orders a lot better than Grant or Steve. He never looked or felt guilty about it and he put those orders to good use. There wasn't any 'sit on the sofa and eat popcorn with us' sort of wishy washy half ordering going to happen here. Bucky was incredibly strong and he could actually tighten bolts better than Tony could with his tools.

Putting the idea of a younger him hanging around and pouring a female Loki wine and feeding her grapes right out of his head for later alone time, he was just gesturing for Bucky to follow him back to his work station when he caught the loss. Damn.

Grant sort of looked the same way, like Miss Scarlet at the plantation, eyes closed and cheeks pink when Bucky pulled away. Tony might have gawked, but Grant looked embarrassed and pleased, licking his lower lip.

So evidently Bucky didn't break up with them. Or maybe he just went for Grant like Tony had suggested? Either way, he mouthed a 'we can talk about that later' to Bucky before the former soldier dropped the bombshell on him.

Tony opened and closed his mouth. "You don't have to be insulting. I bet you look like your dad a little too."

Grant swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah he does--"

"I don't remember."

At least admitting when he didn't remember things had become a little less awkward now, he didn't feel like each lost part of him was a failure, but it was no less sad. To know that he had a father once, but that he couldn't recall anything of what he looked like or even that his name had been George.

"You don't look like Howard so much."

He did, but Bucky had never seen Howard at the age that Tony was now. He was either young, as the other Tony was now, or an old man being killed by the Soldier and nothing in between. It was why the other Tony got to him more than his Tony, and hopefully by the time he got to be old enough to remind Bucky of Howard again then he would be long past being bothered by it.

Bucky moved to do as he was ordered, using his metal arm to tighten bolts of lift heavy bits of machinery wherever he was told, losing himself in the work for as long as they would let him do so.

It took an hour before anyone realized that no one was actually with Loki. She could have gone or gotten anywhere. It was enough time that even Thor suddenly became worried, for it took only a moment before his brother could get into trouble and he did not doubt that this counterpart was indeed the very same. He left with no word to Steve as he watched over Anthony, consulting with Sam who had to be rapidly caught up and was still muttering under his breath about all of these young versions of his teammates just showing up.

It wasn't as if Loki would go far (or perhaps distance really didn't matter to her considering her ability to teleport herself with enough effort), not with Anthony supposedly gathering information. But Thor did not know that.

Inside the work shop, despite following plans he and Banner had manufactured together, Tony was still having problems. He needed to scrap most of the workroom to produce the right resonance inside the walls but it wasn't all lining up. He was good with finesse and better than most people might think with fine tuning anything, but the truth of the matter was that this was just a little bit beyond him.

And Bruce hadn't left any notes to follow this time.

Tony sat down, wearing just a black tank top and jeans, after he had crawled out of a hole he made in the wall. He flopped backwards and stared up at the ceiling. "Okay. I need the room guys. I have some theorizing to do." And that would time some time and some quiet.

It was a pity that nobody had been with Loki, for she had indeed been getting herself into trouble. The more she saw and heard of this realm, the more she knew that it was not as it should be. She felt the way that seidr felt out of balance here, the way that Yggdrasil seemed to be sickening even beneath her feet. In her reality, all the realms were as one, some more so than others, and they prospered for it.

She would bring that prosperity here.

But first she needed more people, she could not conquer a realm alone. And they would need to be conquered, for they did not understand that she had their best interests at heart. Mortals could not rule themselves, it was just a fact of life that they were too short lived and therefore not highly evolved enough to truly understand themselves.

She could not build a machine akin to that which 'Tony' was trying to recreate, or that which Anthony and her wife could so easily bring together, but she was the most powerful sorceress in the Nine Realms. If anyone could work out a way to puncture the membrane between realities, it would be her. Easier now that she had brought Anthony here, for she had felt the path once and intended to do it again.

Whenever Thor would come upon her, he would find her surrounded by a maelstrom of magical energy, almost akin to that of the Bifrost itself.

"Sister, what are you doing?!" Thor wasn't that dumb. He could see (and feel, for though he did not have the ability to manipulate the magical force that held the Realms as one, he could feel it just the same) just what she was doing, but this was literal insanity. "You can not-- You must stop!" If their mother was alive, she'd be able to talk sense into Loki, but perhaps not even then, for once they both set their minds to something, it tended to be done regardless.

That she was summoning was obvious. That she was trying to puncture the fabric of space through the interconnected void was obvious too, but Thor was not going to have it.

He'd gotten good at battling his sibling of late and so it took little effort to spin the hammer by it's handle and send Mjolnir into that growing force cloud to try and disrupt the spell and knock the caster to the ground.

Thor and she battled often, for they were well matched to keep one another sharp. Loki respected her sister's raw strength and skill with weapons, while Thor admired Loki's spellcasting and illusion, but rarely did they battle each other when not in the training ring for they were close. To have Mjolnir thrown at her so suddenly and with such intent took her by surprise.

It did not stop her from darting sideways and immediately throwing up several illusions of herself all around Thor so that he may find it difficult to know which the correct one was to hit.

"Can you not feel how diseased your realm is, brother?" She asked, voice pitying as she continued to weave her magic. "Why do you cling to that which is broken, when you should be helping to fix it?"

Mjolnir would return to him through two of the illusions and learn their taste. The hammer was not exactly alive, but Thor had come to see it as ally and friend in battle, not exactly as the weapon it truly was. He learned from it when it came back into his hand the timbre of Loki's Magic, so far above what his own brother had ever shown him. That did put him on edge. He had defeated Loki's construct and Loki himself in combat before, but he had never truly won against him alone and the Hulk was not here to share that victory.

There was not likely a more pressing battle than this, nor a more singularly important in all of Thor's long campaigns.

"What works well for you in your Realm can not be transposed into this. The reason for the disease within Yggdrasil is not the doing of those upon Midgard. It is the doing of my youngest brother and his anger!" Jotunheim barely existed. The planet had been torn asunder and life there was all but wiped out.

"Do not think to blame me, in any incarnation, you only make yourself look the fool." Loki was incensed. No matter what other crimes or idiocies her counterpart had committed, he must still be a sorcerer and therefore he would do nothing to damage Yggdrasil. But then, he had not been raised on Jotunheim where being a sorcerer was highly prized, and where the magic within his blood had been allowed to grow and develop with teaching both from Laufey and Frigga.

She was far more powerful than her male self could ever be, for both her sides worked within her equally rather than warring with one another.

More and more copies appeared, but some of these were solid and wielded weapons of their own, staves and knives that lashed out for Thor as Loki continued her casting. She intended to pull her sister and her slave through, and leave a connection for Helblindi to pick up so that she could muster the armies of Jotunheim and Asgard for a campaign.

"It was not I that destroyed Jotunheim!" Thor snarled, for he felt so angry and bitter in his heart about that now. The royal family was all dead. Those that did survive the sundering were nomads on Vanaheim. Asgard had done it's best to relocate the last surviving thousand or so denizens of the Realm. Most had refused to leave. Most refused any aid at all. It was still Thor's deepest regret, other than losing Loki to his madness. It showed upon his face even now as he swung the hammer again, making each step as thunderous as his name required.

He was nearly there when a blast of power caused the green swirling sphere around his sister to explode outward. Loki would be knocked to the ground, as would Thor and the two others she hand managed to pull from the feast of the youngest sister, both wrapped in a long red cape

Steve was certainly capable of protecting himself, but Thor saw little need for such things when she was more capable than he of protecting him. They rolled together on grass softer than that grown upon Asgard, her breastplate taking most of the beating as they came to a stop. She was on her feet at once, angry, hand lifting for Mjolnir. "Sister! How dare you use your--". Thor stopped just short of being accusatory when she glanced around, the only person on her feet with a black sky over her head and a strange smell in the air. This looked like no place she had been before, though it felt, in some part, like Midgard.

She was about to say something more when Mjolnir flew out of her hand and to the hand of a massive blond haired man getting to his feet now in front of her. Her lips quirked, confusion on her face.

"I dislike your games, Sister," Thor warned under her breath before there was a snap behind her as Loki's Magic collapsed upon itself. She might be powerful but that required more strength than Yggdrassil had to offer her here. The connection to the void was disrupted. Loki would need to rest a real deal before she could try that again.

Edited 2017-03-14 13:07 (UTC)

It was something truly saddening to know that Yggdrasil, that greatest of trees with power beyond all, could not even support this sort of spell for long. It made Loki's heart ache and her desire to fix the wrongs here more prevalent. Whoever was to blame, there was much to be fixed. But at least she had the start of it now. She got to her feet swiftly, as Mjolnir was pulled from one to another.

"This is no game, my sister, this is the fate of a realm. Can you not feel the wrongness that pervades here? The sickness in the world tree? This is Midgard, that is Thor, and the Loki of this realm is named traitor with Midgard under no rule."

Steven pushed himself up to his feet and revealed that he had been laying atop someone else, a woman with brown curls and glasses, dressed in a purple shirt. She was not technically owned by Loki, though she stood under the Queen's protection as her slave's wife. She inclined her head respectfully, though her gaze turned in astonishment back to the hulking brute named as Thor.

"My princess," said Steven, standing proud in his colours of red and gold, inclining his head to the new Thor. "And... my prince."

Princess Thor put her arm out across Steven to stop him from moving forward or going to her other self. She would never admit any jealousy, but she guarded Steven carefully as hers. Yes, that was her right to do so, but it was also his right as a living creature to do as he wished outside of her service. Slavery, perhaps, was not exactly the right word for what had occurred with those of Midgardian descent, but the term was still used exclusively as was ownership, mistress and master. Truly, it was more akin to what might be termed a PA here, for personal assistants were always on call and traveled with their bosses whenever their fancy struck.

That said, Thor had a small issue with attachment to her slaves. And, perhaps, they to her. Steven did not have a wife nor a husband. She was not interested in a dynastic line of personal servants like Loki might be. She'd given part of her heart to the mortal, a very dangerous thing, since she was expected to marry and produce children. And the warrior Sif, head of her guards, had thrown his sword in the ring for her hand many, many times.

But none of those things quiet mattered and Steven did not seem willing to leave her side for servitude to another...

No. Not another. To a version of herself.

Thor could not help but let out a clear, lofty laugh. "This absolutely is a game! And a magnificent one! Is this how you would see me were I born Prince?" Loki, this is impossible. An obvious illusion as anything this large would surely collapse under his own weight!" Thor strode forward towards her supposed double and punched him in the jaw. His head turned from the force, which ought to not e possible. Loki's illusions were never solid. The male Thor hit her in return and both moved bright blue eyes towards each other before embracing. "You are ridiculous!"

"You are as strong as I!"

"Stronger, brother!"

"Ha! Let us battle to dear mine the true winner!"

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