fossilised | I come from a land of ice and snow

I come from a land of ice and snow

Asgard sat atop the branches of Yggdrasil since time began, and little had changed in their society in the years since. Each Asgardian was long-lived into the millennia, their lands were fertile, their people brave and strong. They had their vassals, their allies, and their enemies. Yet even those who opposed them respected the might of the Golden Dias, and the royalty who sat upon it. Currently that was Odin Borson, though he grew weary more easily now and had begun to consider passing the throne to his eldest son.

He had been blessed with many children, but only two that he considered worthy of his lineage and status. His firstborn, Thor, strong and honourable and everything an Asgardian warrior should be. His second son, Loki, was not natural born, though none knew that but his wife. He was different, a creature of magic and mayhem, of sharp intelligence. Both were worthy, but together they would take Asgard to a new prosperity, he was certain of it.

Midgard, where the mortals dwelt, was a land raided every few centuries for stock. It was seen as a breeding ground, much like a corral for cattle. Mortals were lesser, short-lived and weak, they were fit only as slaves. The last raid had taken place when Loki had been but a baby, nearly a thousand years ago, but the mortals that had been taken had been bred and cared for so that a healthy slave population still thrived. Slaves were given a weakened mixture of Idunn's crop with their food, to extend their natural lives to at least a few centuries in order to make them worth the effort to train. They had no rights, but they were taught well that this was their natural position.

All slave children were raised in a central pen and taught the same when small, those that then displayed talent at cooking, riding, hunting, housework, artisan skills, or singing were then measured off to be specially trained for higher masters. Every five years those who could afford to buy a slave, or those of high enough status to simply demand them, came to the corral and chose. Those who were chosen were special, were envied, and those who were not ended up working the fields out in the far reaches of Asgard, the most menial of work.

Anthony and Steven had been friends since they were little and being raised in the large pens together. Both had excelled, Anthony at crafting and Steven at warrior's skills, but neither were chosen when they were five, nor ten, nor even fifteen. Now, at twenty, it was their final chance to be chosen before they would be assigned to one of the meanest farmers beyond the borders of the great capital. Steven woke Anthony as the dawn rose, mingled excitement and nerves on his face.

"Anthony! Wake up, I've got news! I heard the overseer talking to one of the passing guards, and Princes Thor and Loki are coming to the corral today."

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"As much as I like to play doctor with you, Banner, it's always friend time. And my leg is falling off. So there's not a whole lot to tell." Minus the introduction of the fever of course. But that was to be expected. Tony Stark was not a lucky man and therefore, there obviously was an infection brewing under his skin.

And why not? He evidently deserved to be in pain and not to go to Vanaheim or have sexy times with Loki and instead have a guy he had feelings for dote on him relentlessly.

Yes. Yes he was a little bitter.

"Your leg is not falling off, I operated on the compound fracture and saved it, but if there's something happening like more pain or an unusual feeling of any kind then you need to let me know."

He wasn't a medical doctor first and foremost, though very few people would think it of him considering how well he patched people up and how much he had learned through osmosis. He supposed it really didn't matter that he didn't have a medical degree now, there were no official board to strip him of anything here, not even any real laws or jails.

"I'm serious, I want to hear about every twinge."

“Then let it be my honor to tell you first that I’m getting some twinges. A lot of them. All at once. Painfully.”

“Mr. Stark is right, Doc. His temperature has increased over the last few hours,” FRIDAY chipped in. “I could be of more help if the repairs to my system were completed, Boss.” She just wanted to remind him of that one.

Tony ignored her. It was remarkably easy too when he was having trouble focusing.

“Great. I love being sick. Favorite thing, no really. Some of my best friends are doctors, did you know that? I have a really great time with all of them. It’s amazing. No joke.” He was sweating. He could feel it. The fever would not be dangerous, it would just lessen his ability to recover as quickly as he wanted. Probably some cosmic AH-HA for Loki.

Bruce frowned, but it was concern behind the expression more than it was anger. Honestly, he could shake Tony right now and hug him all at once, that fear rising up inside him despite knowing that a fever wasn't necessarily a massive danger sign.

"Why didn't you tell me when this started coming on? Tony, I can sort these things out, but I have to know about them to do it, and if you keep them from me then you're going to be trapped in here a hell of a lot longer."

He kept up the steady flow of chiding as he went to get a thermometer and some fresh water so that he could wash under the bandages of the leg and then redo them to hopefully clear out some of the infection there.

"Oh gee, I don't know. Somewhere between the meeting and the meeting?" He shook his head in annoyance, which made him feel dizzy which caused Bruce to pamper him a little more. He had a great bedside manner, he really did. Tony could stand a little pampering too, he decided, and let his head fall back to the pillows as he was fussed over.

Banner was a good guy. He was useful to their community. And Tony hoped other people saw him the way that he did.

At least he was safe from Barnes stalking all around his room because Steve wasn't here. If the doctor demanded bed rest, not even the assassin would be allowed to disturb him.

But honestly, in Tony's opinion, all of the friction between the newly weds could be easily solved. They just needed to fuck already.

Tony wasn't as safe from Bucky as he might believe, there were very few places that could contain or keep out the ex-assassin if he wanted to get there, and definitely not one little building with no defences at all. It would be when Bruce had finally succumbed to sleep in the chair next to Tony's bed, head tilted back and small snores filling the air, that he would sneak in.

He could tell that Tony was awake by the glassiness of his feverish eyes being reflected by what small light shone in the room, but he kept his voice down all the same to avoid waking Bruce and being thrown out.

"You look like hell."

"Can't say I feel a lot better," Tony admitted, voice low as Barnes leaned in. Bruce gave a little half snore as he was briefly startled but then fell back to sleep. He'd been awake since the Hulk released him and was exhausted so at least it would take a little more than whispers to really disturb him.

Tony told him to go to bed but that obviously wasn't happening and he had to admit, he was glad about that.

"First night alone in awhile?" He knew the signs. It was hard to be alone after getting use to someone sleeping next to you. "You'll get used to it. Chin up, Missus Barnes. Your Mister will be home soon."

Bucky was used enough by now to Tony's manner that it didn't phase him at all to be called the missus in the relationship, he was just glad that even if he looked like hell, he still felt enough like himself to banter. Or perhaps that was so deeply ingrained that it would never have failed even if he were on death's doorstep.

"That's not the problem. The problem is that it is a problem, I can't be unable to function without Steve."

He doesn't want to become stifling or over-dependent, though he knows Steve would never tell him to back off, but allowing himself to cope that way isn't going to help him properly recover into a proper functioning human being again.

“That’s why people have friends,” Tony pointed out, his head pounding as he pushed himself up. Bruce seemed to be holding pretty steadily on from that point and it didn’t really matter because Tony wasn’t going to let him kick Bucky out. The guy had been all right to him, never expecting too much, and they’d been through so much together, even if Bucky hadn’t been in his right mind for most of it. “You can hang out with us when the hubby is away. You’ll feel better,” Tony promised.

He stretched his legs out, or rather, one leg out. The other didn’t seem to work.

“Push Banner gently into the hallway and come back here. I’ll gossip with you. That will make you feel a lot better. We can swap stories about how we each spent your wedding night.”

Tony was probably right, that Bucky needed other people and other interests to expand his world beyond Steve. It was hard, because a large part of him still didn't trust the world and still felt far less than human and so it was hard to make connections, but Tony was definitely the best choice for trying with because they had already become at least sort of comfortable with each other.

So he carefully lifted the chair that Bruce was in, not rocking him, and walked it outside the room to let him sleep in the hallway. He mumbled once, but he didn't wake up, just letting his head loll when Bucky put the chair back down.

"...if you're hoping for stories of sex, I can't help you."

Just putting that out there, since the wedding night had been mentioned.

"Please don't hit me but I knew that already," Tony said, nose wrinkling as if anticipating the hit. "You two aren't acting like you've had sex. Or even a handy."

But he knew why. Bucky had shared a little too much with Huk one night and that was something that didn't just leave you. He'd had his own hang ups about sex too.

"I kissed Banner and it got weird."

He wasn't offended by people knowing that he wasn't having sex, though he hoped that it didn't cause anyone to look at Steve in a different light, as someone to be pitied because his own spouse wouldn't even share a marital bed with him in the manner that it should be used.

"I didn't know you liked him like that."

That definitely was awkward, especially if he hadn't reciprocated which is sounded like he hadn't. He doesn't know what he would have done if it had been entirely one sided forever with Steve.

"What happened?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Do you need a diagram? No? You know what kissing is?" He was just being his usual abrasive self was all. "I thought I'd have trouble with women again. After all of that. Banner shared some personal things with me after his childhood and he's listened to me whine and told me to stop being an asshole to you and Mr. Barnes. And the whole party thing-- just one of those times where I wasn't thinking."

Tony smirked. He hoped that this whole sharing thing would help him out in the long run. Being able to talk about it was supposed to help.

Right?

"It's fine. We're better. I told him it didn't mean anything. Probably didn't. I just know that I wanted to."

Bucky wasn't like most people who, having heard something had happened in Banner's past, would be curious and want to know what happened. He knew better than anyone that some things were better left buried and, if Tony hadn't told him, then he wasn't going to even bring it up again.

"Sounds like it did mean something."

Tony had been the one to make Bucky face up to his feelings, the least he could do was the same the other way. Perhaps Bruce might have felt something and been put off by Tony's immediate knee-jerk reaction of covering it up? Hard to tell.

"People don't just kiss someone they don't like."

"Um. Actually. Yeah. That happens a lot. And they fuck people they don't like too," he wanted to point out, but that wasn't what had happened. "He's a good friend. Feelings can get mixed up. Sometimes they're real. Like you and Cap. Sometimes they're just a lot of loneliness and jealousy." He was willing to admit that. He'd clung to the physical pleasure Loki offered too. He'd been doing that all his life. This was really not a whole lot different.

He told Bucky that he slept with a lot of people he didn't much like but had been attracted to physically. He wasn't above telling the other that. It happened. It was what it was. He'd grown out of it with Pepper, of course, but there was no shame in going back to it. Or do he told himself. It was a means to an end. A way to shut his brain off.

"I just want him to still be my friend. Luckily, I almost died and now he likes me again."

Even though he didn't outwardly condemn Tony's actions, the tiniest shift in his expression said that he didn't understand casual sex. That really was a hangup from his time, when people waited until they got married (or at least pretended to in some cases) and sex was supposed to be something reserved for people in love. He could understand going to bed with someone before marriage, but not going to bed with someone you didn't even like.

"He'd be a pretty crappy friend if he didn't like you any more just because you kissed him. Hell, I know that even if Steve hadn't like-- loved me too, he never would've let one kiss get between us as friends."

And Tony deserved to have friends as loyal as that too.

"They don't make people like you guys anymore. Actually I don't think they ever have. My dad wasn't like you two," he pointed out, though he knew that Bucky didn't have a whole lot of experience with his father. Just as well. Everyone was better off with as little contact with that man as possible. Nevermind the strides he made in technology, which most of Tony's contributions piggy backed off of.

His eyes drifted towards where he could still hear Banner snore and he snorted in fond amusement.

"I'm going to tell you something else. In confidence. So that I can cement our best friend-ness outside of Banner and Cap." He wanted to tell someone. Bucky seemed less apt to judge. "I slept with Loki. Not kid Loki. Adult Loki. She can shapeshift, right? It was good. Really good. Better than good. It made me feel like myself again and-- don't scowl."

Don't scowl wasn't really an option right now, because something about that seemed pretty wrong. Even if she could shapeshift, surely that didn't change her actual age, did it? Like a kid playing dress-up. He folded his arms and glared down at Tony, not about to go and tell all of the others or fully condemn him yet, but obviously not impressed.

"Isn't she still a kid under an adult costume?"

He asked it bluntly, baldly. Tony needed to face up to what he had done if he had taken a teenage girl to bed with him. Then again, how was he to know that Loki might not be several thousand, an adult, and that was just the way Jotuns looked?

"She's about ten times my age," Tony said, leaning back against the pillows. "But that's exactly why i wanted her to look a little older." He didn't mind confessing these things to Bucky, strangely enough, and it felt good to get it off his chest. "But that said.... It's weird. I get that. Seeing her walk around looking ten is getting to me."

Was he a predator? If he happened to have sex with someone who looked like an adult at the time but looked clearly like a child every other time, was he a pedophile? It worried him.

"She said she's about Helblindi's age. And he looks old enough, doesn't he? Shit. I like her. Loki with boobs I mean. She's pretty great."

Being about ten times his age was comforting in a way, but he didn't know enough about the people of Jotunheim to know if she was a child in their culture or not. He hadn't got the memo that she was already engaged and about to be married very shortly, or else this would be an entirely different sort of disapproval.

"Have you asked her if she is a child in her culture?"

He wasn't ruling out the idea of Tony being a predator but, unlike anyone else who would have discussed this with him, he remained calm and wasn't immediately jumping to conclusions or fierce anger. He knew what it was to be a criminal, after all, and do abhorrent things.

Affecting Loki's accent, and not too poorly either, Tony shrugged. "She's several years past her majority," he said, though the smug amusement of his own depravity fell from his face a moment later. "That other me. Was with his Loki. Probably sexually. It worries me. It worries me that I'm acting out because of Banner, or because of what we went through."

Bucky never asked to be a confidant and tony hadn't meant to make him one but here it was, just all tumbling out in the worst of all possible ways. It made him want to slap some tape over his mouth before he carried on with being dumb and giving everything away.

"Guess it's not a problem now that my whole leg is falling off," he covered, falsely lamenting.

That she was in her majority in her culture made this better, it took out the worrying aspect of if Tony was sexually attracted to children. It still wasn't an ideal situation considering how she looked, but he hadn't agreed to touch her while she was in that appearance so-- Bucky could get past it, even if he knew most people never would be able to.

"Maybe it was because of what you went through, maybe you wanted to have power over someone you've seen have sexual power over you. Or maybe it was just to stave off the pain of rejection, I don't know."

He wasn't going to bullshit Tony, all of these seemed like potential legitimate reasons why he would sleep with Loki.

"Or maybe you just liked her. It doesn't matter, does it? As long as you don't regret what you did. Besides," he said, lifting his metal arm up. "Losing a limb isn't the end of the world."

"Losing an arm and having an awesome replacement arm is different from losing a leg. I can't just wear cut off shorts to show off," Tony said, though Bucky almost always wore sleeves to cover it up. "And we don't have a good amount of vibranium handy, so..." He didn't have any answers for their initial conversation. Neither did Bucky. So it was the best to move on.

He couldn't spend his life repeating similar opinions of himself that others had of the situation. And besides, he was certain that the answer was d) all of the above, anyway.

"But enough about me. What's going on with your not so marital bliss? I think Cap might be the most visually appealing person left alive."

Bucky didn't think that Tony was going to lose the leg. If it had been so desperately injured that it couldn't have been saved, then it would have been amputated already to keep the risks down. It must be at least somewhat likely that he would keep it, even if he ended up with a permanent limp or in need of crutches, or else it wouldn't be there.

He shrugged, brows drawing together in a way that made him look much less like a fierce assassin and much more like a guilty and slightly lost man.

"I want to-- I just don't know if I can." Now it was his turn for confessions that nobody else knew, not even Steve. "I can't even sleep next to him. I wait for him to sleep and then get out of bed, I sleep in the closet and wake up early enough to get back in again."

"Yeah so you know he probably is aware of that, right?" He couldn't imagine that Steve didn't, the guy was by far the most observant guy he knew. Even over Barton and bring observant was his whole job. "It's not like we have the best furniture. He probably feels you leave and come back. Why the closet? If I was caged up for decades that's the last place I'd want to be."

Tony was picturing how this whole thing worked. If Pepper stopped sleeping next to him and refused to have sex with him, he was sure that their relationship wouldn't have lasted. But Steve was a better guy than he was. He'd probably be all right with hand holding and little pecks on the cheek for the rest of their lives.

Bucky had found and roped up the best guy in the world in all ways. Tony didn't doubt that he knew he was lucky but man. You can't own a luxury car and let it stay in the garage.

That was cruel to everyone.

"Might want to talk about it. I know you guys don't do that but you're still Besties right?"

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