fossilised | It's AU time

It didn't take a genius or a spy to read Bucky right now and Steve felt his stomach sink. He didn't want to choose between people he cared about but Nat wasn't giving him a choice. Loyalty was profoundly important to Steve but so was following his heart.

Steve paused for just a moment before he strode over to his boyfriend and half collapsed on his lap, arm around Bucky's neck.

"You gotta promise me something," Steve said, mumbled and low enough for only Bucky to hear. "You've got to trust the things I tell you and not the things you hear other people say. I want you here. It was my idea. I love you. This is right, Buck."

"I know that, you numbskull."

Bucky's voice was low and warm with affection, even if he still looked unhappy. His arm wound around Steve in return, feeling how right that weight was against him, like they had been created just to hold one another like this.

"I trust you, I know this is right, I just don't want to come between you and your friends. I kinda wanted them to like me, y'know, because they're so important to you."

He sighed and looked up to where Nat was stood a short distance away. "Listen, Nat, I get it. You're not happy about this, you want to protect Steve. I can get behind that, he's amazing enough to want to protect. So if I hurt him, I'll personally deliver myself to you for an ass kicking, deal?"

The redhead mulled this over for a moment, figure exaggerated by her hand on her hip and that hip jutting way out. Steve wanted to grab something to draw with. Her stand was incredibly superhero like! That wouldn't be appropriate for that conversation and what's more, he was happily in Bucky's lap, acting more five than twenty-three. He just liked the closeness. "Yes. You shall do that. And Thor will provide the backup for when I am tired of hurting you until I recover enough to hurt you again."

"Nat," Steve warned, because that was extreme and the look on her face? Well that told him that she was serious. It was worrying sometimes how brutal she could be and it made him wonder if the things she sometimes let slip about her life in Russia were true or if they were actually more exaggeration as he tried to maintain was the truth.

"It is my only real. He will either take it or he will leave it." And then she cracked her knuckles, which actually had Steve blanching because well-- Jesus!

Bucky wasn't intimidated. He had spent literal months being tortured in the worst ways that human beings could do to one another, by men who wanted him dead a lot more than Natalia Romanov, he could take a beating or two. Especially if he did something as unforgivable as hurt Steve.

"You've got it, deal. If I hurt him, you and Thor can beat on my ass as much as you want to. But you've got it all wrong, I'm no freeloader and if Steve never wanted me to live with him then I'd still love him. I'm gonna get a job and contribute, wait and see."

Nat considered for a moment, before spitting on her hand and holding it out seriously to shake. When Bucky did the same and they had sealed the deal, she flopped next to them as if everything was right with the world now.

"Is there not supposed to be things on the television now? Every year, there is a celebration and a countdown to the New Year beginning. There should be alcohol too, what kind of girl party is this with no cookie dough and no alcohol? You should be ashamed of yourself, Steven."

Steve tilted his head back, trying not to think of the spit all over the hands of the people next to him, and frowned. “Probably won’t do anything in New York,” he said, “but maybe they’re going to broadcast one of the other cities—“ Boston and Philadelphia both had New Years broadcasts and they flipped between one annoying music act after another until Steve was forced to vacate Bucky’s lap to get out some wine for a toast.

He didn’t have any champagne—he didn’t have that sort of money or the tastebuds for it – and was just about to pop open a nice pinot when there was a knock at the door. Well, it was more like a kick. “I request entry!” that would be Thor. “My hands are too full to open the door on my own!”

At least no one could ever misunderstand Thor. He was always a very literal person.

Steve stepped out of the kitchen to the front door to yank it open, the firefire standing in the doorway with a grin on his face and a bottle of bubbly. “Am I too late?”

Nat jumped off of the couch and opened the bottle immediately. “Three minutes, perfect timing!”

Thor grinned. “I have as well your cookie dough.” It was a good thing he’d been out of the dead zone of Manhattan when she texted!

"Thor, you understand the way to a girl's heart. Steven calls himself an American and he does not even eat his cookie dough as it should be eaten." She kissed him briefly on the lips and then stole the cookie dough to rip the lid off and immediately dig into the raw and gooey mixture. Perfect. Salmonella be damned. "How is Loren?"

Bucky took a glass of the wine rather than the champagne, but he did dig into the raw cookie dough as well when Nat left it unattended for a moment, giving Steve a slightly guilty and slightly challenging sort of smirk.

When the countdown began for the New Year, Bucky casually rose to his feet and stretched, heading for the bathroom. "Just gonna take a leak," he muttered. He knew fireworks were going to be an issue, so he planned to spend the few minutes right after midnight in the bathroom with his hands over his ears and the water running to try and avoid being triggered and spoiling the evening for everyone else. "Save me a New Year kiss, Steve, okay?"

Steve watched Bucky leave but didn’t stop him from going. The water would run for a long time and Steve would do his best to keep the volume low on the television. It wasn’t exactly quiet outside, though, for even if Manhattan was still partially dark and there were no festivities going on in the city, people in Brooklyn didn’t stop themselves from enjoying their holiday.

Shouts and cheers and firecrackers went off for half an hour, not that Nat and Thor were paying any attention, far too into each other now that Thor was able to gloss over his brother’s troubles. He did not want to give Loren away, though his brother was going to need to look for someone to help him in his bookshop.

If only to reach the high up places.

Steve eventually ushered the pair out of his apartment. Natalia didn’t have to be alone with Thor here now and Steve knew that Bucky was going to need some quiet to mellow back out again. Only after they had gone and the streets seemed dark again without the frequency of fireworks going off in the air did Steve lightly knock on the bathroom door.

“All right…?”

Bucky at least knew enough to know that the fireworks would have been a bad idea, and that was pretty much the first time that he had removed himself from a situation knowing it would trigger him rather than pretend that he didn't have any PTSD to contend with. It felt like a big step, even as he sat on the bathroom floor listening to the water through the muffled protection of his hands over his ears.

The knock on the door surprised him and he uncurled slowly, stiff and slightly pale, but still present and in the moment. He looked tired when he unlocked the door and opened it, but he had a small smile too, proud that he had got through it without ruining the night for any of them.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just thought I'd wash up while I was in there, you know how it is. So... I guess I missed midnight, huh? Does that mean I don't get a midnight fuck?"

Because it's definitely a midnight fuck and not a midnight kiss that's traditional.

Steve wasn’t swayed by Bucky’s sudden need to not only change topics but also to move onto something pleasurable. It was closer to midnight in the central part of the country, but it was still New Years somewhere and Steve took advantage of that as he leaned in to Bucky. “Let’s start with a kiss, soldier, and see where that takes us?”

Of course, neither were surprised just where that took them.

Across town in a hospital room, with Tony Stark on a pull out cot beside Loren’s bed because the nurses had had enough of trying to explain to him that it was a terrible idea to sleep in the same bed with their patient no matter how much Stark hated to nap on the non-reclining chair, an hour or so after New Years’ well wishes amid a haze of half dosed painkillers, a dream of a brother that was so different from the Thor that Loren actually knew returned. It had been about a week of peace by that point, no fuzzing, out of focused voice with the wrong accent, no bright blue eyes waivering as if underwater.

“Loki, listen,” Thor implored, sounding more like a posh-bastardized Brit than a Norwegian. “You are not focusing as I know you are capable. Pull yourself deeper to sleep.”

Despite still being on heavy painkillers and knowing he would be in hospital for a long time, perhaps over a month before they could let him go with a wheelchair, Loren had rapidly regained his acerbic wit in the week past. He had grown more volatile, more liable to lash out at people trying to help him with hurtful words, but at least the people who knew him best had expected this.

He did not want to be helpless, useless, deformed. He did not want to have to hire help, or rely on Anthony for assistance at home. He did not want to be seen as pitiable or lesser by ignorant people in the street, and all of that made him angry.

Loren rolled his eyes as his dream morphed into his brother, somehow weirdly aware that this was a dream, why would he see him as this strange braided and bearded man, why would he change his voice.

"What do you know of focus, my brother?" He hissed back, irritable even in dreams. "You have never once been capable of focus beyond the surface, cease plaguing me."

"I know a great deal of focus. It has not been easy coming here to you in this manner," Thor said, flickering and voice choppy, but far better than he had been seen the last time that Loki had dreamed of this particular version of his brother. "Nor is it without danger. Will you listen and take care?"

Thor loomed in more closely, the ends of his hair brushing Loren's cheeks as he leaned over him.

"You must find friends from other Realms. Locate Stark, Rogers, Romanoff, Banner, Barnes, Barton, Maximoff--". Thor frowned and looked over his shoulder. "Surely The Vision has a differing name-- Ah." His attention returned to Loren in the darkness. "Jarvis, Wilson and Rhodes. All are important to set things right."

There was something much more intense about this version of his brother, one that looked as though he had lived through more trials and heartaches than Loren could ever imagine. He frowned, but he did not argue the instruction, merely questioned it.

"I know some of these people. Anthony and I are to be wed, you are dating Natalia Romanoff and she is friends with Steven and James. I do not know those others you have named."

Why was he humouring a dream?

"Why do I need to find these people? What has gone wrong that needs to be set right?"

“A bleed over. A rip, of sorts. It has been our fault and we wish to rectify this before there is bleed over too deeply into your Realm. Brother, once all of the warriors have gathered, we will be able to set it all right again. We will heal the breaches between your Realm and those that neighbour it so that you may exist without fear of such again.” Thor looked sincere behind all of that facial hair, even if it was very difficult to tell.

There was a rumble and again, like a poorly connected television to an old fashioned satellite, Thor flickered blue and grainy.

“I shall return to speak with you in one week’s time. Sam Wilson, James Rhodes, Clint Barton, Edwin Jarvis, Wanda Maximoff-- Find them. Quickly.”

Loren would wake to see a tired looking mechanic looking down at him in Thor’s place, dark bags under his eyes. “Lor-- You were talking in your sleep—“

Loren jerked away and stared up into Anthony's beautiful brown eyes for a moment, trying to dispel the dream as nonsense. It was a dream, after all. But then-- the events of what had led to him being here were so unknown, who was to say that it had not been some bizarre 'rip', whatever that was?

"I need you to note these names, Anthony. I do not know if they mean anything. Sam Wilson, James Rhodes, Clint Barton, Edwin Jarvis, and Wanda Maximoff."

If he could find even one of these people, let alone all of them, then he would know there was more to this than just being a dream. After all, his subconscious could not supply him with names of people that he had never heard of before, could it?

"I dreamed of my brother, he told me that I must find these people and it seemed so real."

Squinting, Tony jotted down notes to appease his fiancé. Loren wasn’t making any sense but Tony was trying to be accommodating because he knew the man. Any earlier in their relationship and it was very likely that Tony would have left by now because Loren was being insufferable. He just knew that if they could get away from this bad time, they could make it better again, they could be happy again. He wasn’t a man of faith so this wasn’t blind hope, nor was it belief exactly. He just knew it like it was part of his biology.

“Uh. So Rhodey and J work for me,” Tony said, frowning. It was possible that Loren had met both at one point or another, though Loren didn’t really come to the shop that often. Not sure who the other three are-- You might have better luck looking for their social media.”

He wasn’t trying to fuel a psychosis here. But if it kept Loren occupied, he was all for it.

Loren's eyes widened in surprise, he had expected Anthony to tell him that he could not trust his dreams. He had been gearing up for a retort, ready to fight it, but to have Anthony already know two of those men...

"I have not met those men, I have only spoken with Ms. Potts when I visited your work, I do not know what this means but I fear it may be related to the events in Manhattan."

He knew he was being insufferable, Loren could see his own behaviour and yet he couldn't seem to stop. He was just so afraid of being useless, and it was easier to be angry than it was to be scared.

"Perhaps I would do better looking for the remaining people if you would pass me my laptop. In case you had forgotten, I cannot move to fetch it myself."

There were no such thing as prophetic dreams. Loren was in a drug, pain and psychological induced psychosis. It was actually something that Banner had told him about, something he said to look out for because while it would not cause any long lasting harm, he was told that it would be all right to indulge little flights of fancy because it would actually help Loren’s brain repair itself from the blood loss by problem solving…so long as it didn’t become an obsession.

Tony wasn’t sure how long he could manage something like this, how far into the rabbithole that he could go. His mind worked logically. He wasn’t the creative type that his fiancé was. And yet…if this would help…

He didn’t want to fight.

And that was why, wisely, he didn’t even smirk when Loren mentioned the laptop or how it was impossible for him to reach. Tony swallowed a sigh and just fetched it, plugging the device into the landline from the phone so that Loren could work. “So… Okay. Say we find these people…?”

He glanced at the list he was given. Edwin Jarvis… Not Edward, as his employee’s name was. Slip of the tongue? Accent issue? Or was Loren losing it? Tony might mention the discrepancy later.

“I mean, are these the only names you remember?”

Loren would be spitting mad if he thought that Anthony was indulging what he imagined to be a psychosis. His mind was what he valued and trusted above all things, his intelligence his primary weapon and worth in life, to think that one he loved so much would assume it would not be working perfectly would be a keen betrayal in his eyes, no matter that there was good reason for thinking so.

"All of our names were also mentioned. Stark, Rogers, Romanoff, and Barnes."

He booted up the laptop and was into the web browser in record time, deciding to go for Clint Barton first. The name typed into google brought up a wikipedia page for an American olympian, someone who had competed for the last three games in archery and won gold in each one. Apparently he taught archery in his spare time.

"Do you see, Anthony? These people exist!"

Never mind that the odds of someone with that name existing somewhere were almost sure, with the amount of people and names in the world. There were probably multiple Clint Bartons and Anthony Starks.

"I feel he must be somehow connected to me or my brother in a way I do not yet know, all of the others have been."

Huh. Barton wasn't that strange of a name but to find a Barton in the New York area who happened to have a photo on Facebook with a certain redhead who happened to be currently dating Loren's brother-- Tony felt a little queasy as he pulled up a chair and thought for a moment about putting his glasses on before vanity won out.

"That picture. Make it bigger." The caption mentioned a night out with a dancer. The picture was posted two years ago but Natalia hadnt taken her name off of the tag. There were other pictures of them too.

Tony frowned. Friends or were they dating? The page was semi private so he couldn't tell.

"Your brother's girlfriend might be a good one to ask on this." And that name might also have been thrown around before... Even if Loren had just met Nat two weeks ago.

Loren lit up when he found Natalia's picture with the mystery archer, blowing up the pictures happily to set them all out as proof of a connection. He was already composing a message to send to Barton, a simple greeting as a 'friend' of Romanoff who had been told to get in touch with him by a mutual acquaintance. Not exactly a lie.

"Yes, it does look that way."

He hesitated a moment, and then picked another name on the list. Wanda Maximoff. Again, the first page that came up linked to a girl arm in arm with someone that Tony would recognise as Jarvis. The caption underneath read: "J and me on a weekend in Sokovia".

Loren looked up at Anthony with an almost predatory smile, heart thudding faster in excitement. "You see? This is connected to whatever happened over Manhattan."

This was uncomfortable. Tony didn’t know J outside of work – though he did used to call him all the time when he was drunk before Loren came into his life. He didn’t know at all about this woman he was obviously dating. How had Loren come up with that name, then? It was easier to focus on that than to focus on anything else at the moment…like the weird jealousy this made him feel.

“What about Wilson?”

Thankfully, Sam Wilson didn’t seem to be connected to anyone. There were no photos of him with any of the other people that they knew. His LinkedIn profile suggested that he worked at the Brooklyn VA and was former military. He was also the man who would be assigned to Bucky’s case, not that any of them knew that yet.

“Oh…kay… So why don’t we try not to stalk this guy and we focus only on the people we already know?”

Loren's eyes shone with fervour. He might not be so quick to believe this if he did not have the aching need to prove that he was still of worth to this world without working legs, or on so many painkillers, but he was convinced. The world had seen aliens over Manhattan that day, and another version of Thor had called on him to help set things right.

Perhaps if he did this, perhaps if they fixed the rift, it would return everything to how it had been before. A foolish hope, perhaps, but one he clung to nonetheless.

"No, we must have them all."

Loren passed the laptop over to Anthony.

"You may message Wilson and Maximoff, you are generally a more personable introduction to our little group than I."

Tony’s expression dead panned. “And you want me to say…what? Or am I just supposed to randomly solicit peope to come and hang out? Lor, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but maybe we should try the people that we know first….?” Maybe he was indulging his fiancé too much. He needed to get himself focused on leaving the hospital. The wound on his abdomen was slow to close and there were complications due to the way that the world was still reacting to the way that the Manhattan situation had been handled. North Korea was spouting about war. The UN was threatening to break apart—

Then again, they almost always were. The world was hell or always on the edge of crossing the line anyway.

Tony put his hand on Loren’s thigh though he realized that the other man couldn’t feel it. The gesture was mostly for himself, a sort of grounding.

“I can throw a party or something for when you’re out of here and get everyone over-- If you want me to get Wilson there too-- Well fine. I’ll flirt or offer him a free oil change or something. But until then-- Lore, I just don’t know what you want to accomplish here.”

It was a dream. Aliens had appeared over Manhattan, yeah, but this? This was a dream.

"That may be too late, how long before I get out of this wretched place? Or are you planning to assist me in springing for freedom before they decide I am fit to be unleashed once more on the world?"

Thor had impressed upon him how urgent it was to find these people, and he had said that he would return to talk to Loren shortly and that he should have them all assembled by then. That would not happen if he had to wait for a month or two before they deemed him sufficiently healed to leave.

"Perhaps now? Fetch a chair, I am certain we could make the exit before we were stopped."

“No.” He was putting his foot down here. “Loren, you’re staying in the hospital until you’re safe to move. You still can’t get anywhere in Manhattan. It’s a disaster area. Remember what it was like after Katrina? Well, that’s what is happening here.” The annoyance was hard to keep from his voice even if he was trying very, very hard not to let it seep in there with the exhaustion. “Let me see what I can dig up before we start stalking people.”

But to what end? Telling people his fiancé was having dreams about thor trying to gather people together-- It sounded like some straight to Netflix TV show!

Maybe getting Loren the laptop wasn’t the smartest thing.

Hopefully J’s girlfriend was down with the crazy. Tony was running out of options. “You just have to promise me that you’ll stay here and stay safe, all right?”

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