Bucky kisses him on day one-hundred three. Though the walls are thin in that place and moment, the possibilities endless, it still comes as a surprise.
On the second day, Loki assumes, naturally, that it's an elaborate scheme. Thor's not clever enough to orchestrate such a trick, but Heimdall is another story. In any case, he doesn't truly believe it until the sixth day, which is when he comes to the conclusion that no person outside of himself could keep up such a charade for so long without a misstep.
On the seventh day, he hits Thor over the head, locks him in a little-used storeroom, takes on his form, and assumes the throne. He rules for approximately three hours before Thor makes an escape. On day eight, Loki hits him harder, and rules until mid-afternoon. By the twentieth day, he has it down to a science, and Thor never rises in time to ruin the evening.
Loki grows weary of ruling on day twenty-six. Though whacking Thor over the head never quite loses its charm, all of this was much more amusing before Asgard burned. In the end, he leaves his brother to it with less bitterness than relief.
Thus does he begin to aspire to other endeavors. Chiefly: Now that Thor and the Asgardians mean to settle here on Earth, then there's no reason Loki shouldn't take back the ship. He spends seventeen days learning all the ways that don't work to get him into the hangar where it sits in wait. On day forty-four, he finally manages it, and rises into the sky certain he's finally putting both Midgard and this tedious loop behind him...but when midnight strikes in Wakanda, he opens his eyes and finds himself in his quarters at six-thirty in the morning, just as he has forty-four times before.
He takes the ship fourteen more times, heading in fourteen vastly different directions. No matter how fast the ship goes, or how early or late he gets started, he always ends up back in that same bed in that same room.
On day fifty-nine, he flies the ship into the sun, just to see what will happen. It's a truer death than any of his others, but in the end no less false.
Then, on day sixty-two, everything changes.
"Excuse me," Loki asks the shadow inside the ship, the one that's never been there before. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"You the one who's been flying this thing out?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Sixty-two days," the shadow says. "That's how long it's been since this all started, but that ship didn't go anywhere until the past couple weeks."
Though Loki decided ages ago that this isn't an exercise orchestrated in order to drive him mad, it's never once occurred to him that anyone else might be stuck in the loop as well. Why should it have? He's long since memorized the routines of everyone it's possible for him to come into contact with over the course of the day; the only way any of them has ever acted differently has been when he's done so first, causing their responses to change.
"Who are you?" he asks again.
"Bucky Barnes," the shadow says, stepping away from the wall out into the light. He's human, or mostly, though Loki could have guessed that—he can hardly help knowing every living Asgardian's name, face, and voice by now. "You're Loki, right?"
"Perhaps," Loki says out of quite an old instinct: he's never liked it when someone knows more about him than he does about them. It's always seemed prudent to attempt to make them question whatever they do know, in such cases.
"Did you cause this? This time thing?" Bucky asks, not seeming concerned about the obfuscation.
"Did you?"
"Nah."
"Well, neither did I. What is it you're after, Bucky Barnes?"
Bucky shrugs. "Thought it might be nice to have a conversation with someone who'd remember it tomorrow."
It's not a thought Loki's given much consideration to before. It's not the most unpleasant prospect, either. "Perhaps it would be."
"Well, are you going to give me the tour?" Bucky asks.
"I suppose," Loki says, and for the first time has a companion as he leaves Midgard behind.
They sleep together for the first time on day one-hundred six. By then, Bucky has spent enough time kissing him that Loki can almost believe he merely wants to; besides, Loki's found he does want to, rather desperately. As much patience as he's capable of when it's necessary, he's never enjoyed delayed gratification for its own sake.
On day one-hundred seven, Loki wakes up without any of the soreness or stiffness he would normally have expected after a workout like that; and when they go to bed again, later in the day, his body thinks it's the first time even though his mind knows otherwise. Each time after that is the next time, and each time is still the first time; and each time, though he learned better long ago, Loki comes a little closer to trusting it.
On day sixty-three, Bucky talks about what he's spent the last sixty-three days doing. It's an exceptionally boring story, as he doesn't seem to have stolen anything, staged any coups, or done anything of note whatsoever at any point over the last two months. Loki wonders why not, then wonders the same thing aloud.
"What it is," Bucky explains, "is I've gotten to have all these days, one after the other, where I know what's not going to happen. No one's going to come after me today, try to make me do anything I don't want to do."
"I can see the appeal," Loki says. He's started the last sixty-three days by tucking the Tesseract into one of the hidden places in his sphere. At first, he spent every day certain that this would be the day Heimdall would catch him at it. Before the loop started, he spent the entire journey from Asgard to Midgard wondering when it would happen. Heimdall's eyes have turned from the nine realms in favor of what's left of Asgard; surely he won't be able to help but see, one of these days. But he didn't see it over the months-long journey, and he hasn't seen it today, or any other today, and it's been weeks since Loki's been as keenly aware of its presence as he was before the loop began.
Bucky takes his contemplation as an invitation to keep speaking: "It gave me time to catch up on a lot of what I've missed, too. The internet is incredible. I'd probably still be looking things up if you hadn't gone and made a commotion."
"Is there some reason it took you two weeks to come, once I did?" Loki asks.
"Well, I'd have been here sooner, but I figured I had plenty of time."
On day one-hundred sixteen, Loki finally brings up Thor, dropping his brother's name as casually as he's able. He should have done it before; he's always done it as soon as possible when it comes to sexual partners who know (or know of) both of them. If there's a preference—and there always has been before, and never for him—then it's better for him to know about it.
"That's the big blond guy, right? Thinks he can take on the world? I've already got one of those. Don't really need another one."
"I'm not certain that qualifies as an answer."
"Was there a question?"
"I suppose there wasn't," Loki admits, because of this conversation continues, Bucky might come to realize how very pleasing he finds that particular non-answer.
On day one-hundred two, it occurs to Loki that there's something he could try that could help him determine the cause of the loop—and perhaps how to break through it, as well.
"It's nothing I could have done on my own," he tells Bucky, as they both stand on the viewing deck and watch the stars pass by, as slowly as clouds pass over green fields. "Without an anchor, there's every possibility I'd be pulled into another time—or lose myself going sideways, which would be worse."
When Bucky turns to Loki, he looks and sounds perplexed. "Why wouldn't you want to go back in time?"
"To start with, I'd be a spirit. Incorporeal, unable to affect my surroundings. Then, when the connection to my body had dissipated—as it would nearly instantly, without an anchor—I would die."
"So?"
"So there's every chance it could be permanent, despite our current circumstance."
"Oh."
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Will you do it?"
"Sure," Bucky says, which is the way he responds to all of Loki's suggestions. "Why not?"
There are numerous answers to this particular question. Loki chooses not to enlighten him.
On day one-hundred thirty-one, something else happens. Loki must have tucked the Tesseract someplace less secure than usual, or more carelessly; either way, he doesn't notice the precariousness of its position until it tumbles out of its hiding place and lands right next to Bucky, who's currently shucking off his clothing with an eagerness Loki was watching for inconsistencies a moment before.
"What's this?" he asks, reaching down for it.
No time for Loki to say it's nothing; no time to say anything but "Don't—"
But he's not quick enough, his tone not sharp enough to keep Bucky from touching it. Bucky makes contact as Loki speaks, and maybe it's a lucky thing he only manages to graze it, or maybe it's unfortunate indeed. There's no time to stop it, in any case, though Loki's up and reaching for him (for it? he'll never be certain which of them he was reaching for, nor why the question plagues him), all too late.
By the time Loki reaches his side, Bucky has fallen to the floor. He's curled up in a fetal position, clutching the Tesseract. When Loki takes it from him, his limbs are stiffer than death, though he is still breathing; since Loki doesn't actually want to harm him, it takes longer than he would have expected to remove it from Bucky' grasp.
Once he has it, Loki secrets it away again, and says, "That spell wasn't meant for you. I've been concerned about...thieves. It didn't occurred to me that I could remove its protection for the time being." Bucky remains stiff and still on the floor, capable of nothing more than breathing and, perhaps, listening. "If you'd touched it with both hands, you'd have been killed; as it is, the effects will last for the remainder of the day." After another minute or two, it occurs to Loki to add: "It's non-reversable, or I would."
There's not much point in staying—Bucky won't be doing anything until the next day—but although Loki intends to leave, he ends up lingering for the seven hours remaining to the day. Sometimes he speaks, telling stories from his boyhood, or of the places he's been, both subjects Bucky has always seemed fascinated by on better days; more often, he sits silent, unable to come up with the reasoning for why Bucky shouldn't hold this against him. He keeps remembering, too, how hard he hit Thor on day twenty-five—harder than he meant to; hard enough that he wasn't quite breathing, when Loki left him—and how that had worked out perfectly well in the end, chiefly because even Thor couldn't hold a grudge for something he didn't remember.
Thor didn't remember, but Bucky will. For the first time in a long time, Loki's apprehensive about tomorrow.
They try for their answers on day one-hundred three. Bucky sits across from Loki, visibly unsure, just another warrior outside of his element; Loki's not entirely sure either, but the chances really are better with an anchor. He'd never had a suitable one. He tried Thor, when they were boys together, but for this he was truly useless: Not one for sitting still, Thor, but to both of their surprise, Bucky turns out to be a natural. He's nothing if not control, wrapped tightly around every part of his person lest it be wrested from him again (and by now, Loki knows why, and has long since stopped having to wonder how it is that Bucky isn't quite human). Bucky' part is to sit there and meditate, and Loki's is to hold onto him and look—
Back in time—not forward, never forward; forward is too many branches to pursue without the help of an infinity stone other than the one he carries—and Loki looks, and looks, and looks some more. At himself, at Bucky, at Heimdall, at Thor; at every person involved and every person he's suspected, which comes down to every person he's seen, talked to, or thought about since they fled Asgard. (He could go earlier than that, of course—his enemies are not limited to those currently on Midgard—and they left no calling card during their flight, and knowing a person's location is generally required when cursing them.)
Loki looks, and he looks, and he finds nothing to explain it.
By the time the past is exhausted, the other walls have grown thin. If the future is made of endless branches, the present gives up its other possibilities only reluctantly. Alternate presents are no more than dreams, might-have-beens that will dissipate when tomorrow's might-have-beens supplant them. There is no way to go there, but although Loki knows he should leave it alone, that there's no point, there's never any chance that he will: He leaves the past behind and goes sideways, into all the presents that could have been, if the past were written in some other way.
Some of the differences are small, but appalling: it's Thor trapped in the time loop with him instead of Bucky; it's Thor and Bucky together, and Loki is the one who's clueless, the one reacting as if he's reading off a script. Other differences are huge, and appealing: Loki as Asgard's true ruler, Thor by his side or absent entirely. Still others ache, presents where Asgard still stands, Odin yet lives, or both. Others are dark, brutal, the worst of all possible worlds: presents where they didn't make it off Asgard, or failed to make it to Earth, a civilization blotted out. Even in the versions where Loki outlives them all, it's not the consolation it once would have been, to think of himself outlasting all the rest.
He doesn't even feel it when he starts to grow thinner. He's too far in by then, too willing to be pulled in this direction or that one, looking for the version of his life he's always wished for, the one that would satisfy him, the one that might have been if this had happened instead, or that, or this—
He doesn't even feel it, too far gone until he's yanked out of it. One moment, he's contemplating a life where it's Thor who's the magician, and himself the warrior—
And in the next moment, he's back on the ship, in the room he's come to think of as his and Bucky' even though it never holds any piece of either of them they haven't created that day. He's back in the real, true present, and Bucky isn't sitting opposite him the way he's supposed to be. Instead, he's leaning forward instead, his mouth pressed against Loki's, and it's one of the few things Loki didn't see in any of the presents-that-aren't. Perhaps it's something that can only happen here, in the present-that-is; perhaps it's something there never has been a branch for, not until now.
Bucky senses it the moment Loki comes to, and pulls away. Loki looks at him, blinks, looks around the room. He would have thought there'd be more of a transition period, some span of time during which the real world doesn't seem real—but there's none of that. There's merely him, and Bucky, and the room they borrow, day after day.
"What was that?" Loki asks.
"You were gone for a few hours. Seemed like too long to me. I tried to get you out of it. Shouted first, then shook you pretty good, and nothing."
"So then you decided your best bet would be to kiss me."
Bucky grins. "I was going to hit you if that didn't work."
"You might as well have. It's not as if I'll have a bruise tomorrow."
"Look, if you want to complain about the order I do things in, maybe don't put me in charge of rescuing your ass," Bucky says, seemingly unconcerned. It's the most maddening thing about him: how blase he always sounds about literally all possibilities. "So you didn't find us a way out?"
"I found no cause. Without knowing that, I can't know the solution."
"So no, then."
"No, then."
Bucky shrugs. "Oh, well."
Next, he does the last thing Loki expected him to do, despite it having already happened less than two minutes ago: he leans forward, and kisses Loki again.
If Bucky kissing him couldn't have been imagined before, then surely Loki's response also could not have been foreseen, in the real world or any false one.
On day one-hundred thirty-two, Loki remains in his quarters. It's the only day during which he's done so, so perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise when a knock comes, one that never has before. The knocker probably considers it commanding; in reality, it is only loud.
"Brother," Thor says from the other side of the door; for a moment, Loki tries to remember the last day they spoke. Was it day ninety-three? Day one-hundred twelve? It's been weeks, at least, since last he sought his brother out, since they'd come into any contact Loki himself did not choose. But these wonderings are only fleeting, for then Thor says, "You have a visitor."
There's no one else who would come to visit him here, or at least no one else who ever has. Loki is astonished and at the same time unsurprised to find Bucky also standing outside his door.
Once Thor has taken his leave—it doesn't take long, and it's been months since Loki envied him the troubles that will be brought before the throne, for more than the hundredth time—Loki and Bucky are left alone together, for the first time since yesterday.
"You're looking more flexible today," Loki says.
"What was that thing?" Bucky asks, in a tone that's either simple or deceptively so, with no way to be sure which it is. "You had a lot to say, but you never got around to saying that."
If things had gone differently at any point, on either of their branches, maybe Loki would have obfuscated, or even refused to answer. As it is, it doesn't seem there's anything for it; or even if there is, Bucky could always come back with the same question tomorrow, and then again on day one-hundred thirty-four, and again on day one-hundred thirty-five, wearing Loki down day by day by day. Even if one of them could avoid the other for a time, it's not going to be possible for that to go on forever.
So Loki reaches into his current hiding place, and brings it out, letting Bucky see this, the one thing he's kept hidden from everyone else for so long. Somehow, the motion makes it seem smaller than it ever has before.
"This," he says, "is the Tesseract."
A little while later, he says, "I didn't intend for it to happen."
At this, Bucky shrugs. "Well, it did."
What this is meant to impart, Loki's not exactly sure. Bucky hasn't said they're through, which is practical enough on his part; it would be foolish to cut ties with the only other person who remembers. That he's lost faith in Loki seems evident in the way he holds himself, a new caution that's never been there before.
Loki's seen that look before a hundred times, a thousand. Before now, he considered himself immune to it.
"I regret it," he says, an admission that also seems remarkably small, when placed between them.
Bucky comes back on day one-hundred thirty-three, on day one-hundred thirty-four, and again on day one-hundred thirty-five. It's not a result Loki expects; it's one he welcomes more than he would have admitted to himself previously.
They don't sleep together. At first, Bucky makes no overtures, and Loki doesn't either. Then, when Bucky appears to be considering it—when he seems to be maneuvering them toward a bed, or gets a certain look in his eye—Loki finds a reason to change the subject, or to put space between them. It's not that he doesn't want to, and it's not that he's newly skeptical of Bucky' true intentions; every time he considers letting Bucky touch him, he can't help but think of him lying rigid on the floor. He dreams of it, most nights. He thought he didn't dream anymore, but he dreams of this. Even if it's not a true dream—even if there is, as he's always thought, no time for dreaming between midnight and the morning when he wakes—it's still the image that comes into his mind as the day ends, and the first thing that comes into his mind in the morning.
Disabling the spell he cast around the Tesseract does nothing to rid him of the dreams, or of the certainty he will harm Bucky again, should he come any closer. Loki manages to keep distance between them for all of a week.
On day one-hundred forty-three, Bucky finally breaks. This time, there's no sidling away, nor changing the subject; Bucky doesn't come at it sideways, certainly doesn't attempt to segue casually into it. Instead, he catches Loki coming through a doorway, and kisses him soundly. Loki's never been particularly skilled at delayed gratification, and this...this, he's delayed for days. He double-checks the location and status of the Tesseract, and kisses Bucky back.
The dreams don't stop. If anything, they're worse now than they were before.
Loki thinks of a solution on day one-hundred fifty-one, but doesn't put it into motion until day one-hundred fifty-five...and then only because that's the day he wakes up from a dream much more unpleasant than usual (in this one, the day where Bucky was rigid on the floor went on and on and on, not ending at the usual time, not ending at all, threatening to go on forever as if the rules for the loop they're in weren't established months ago), and, without thinking of it any further than that, goes straight to Heimdall's—not Thor's; it could never have been Thor's—quarters.
Once Heimdall appears the door, Loki takes the Tesseract from its hiding place, and says, "I've had this, all this time. You can have it, on one condition: Neither you, nor anyone else, is to attempt to discuss it with me today."
"And tomorrow?" Heimdall asks.
"Tomorrow, I'll discuss it as much as you—or Thor—please," says Loki, secure in the knowledge that he will never have to submit to such an interrogation.
He's not certain this particular strategy will work, but there will be other chances to get it right. As it is, he goes through the rest of the day lighter than he's been for any of the last twenty-four; and today, he's the one who initiates, luring Bucky into bed and keeping him there, secure in the knowledge that nothing terrible will happen, that nothing (other than Heimdall going back on his word, perhaps; but as the alarm's not been raised yet, it seems unlikely) can.
"What's gotten into you?" Bucky asks much later, as they lay in bed together, on a ship they haven't bothered to launch for days now.
"Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow," Loki says, suspecting he most likely will.
Midnight comes as they sleep; perhaps that's where the dreams come from, those few nights when they do.
Loki wakes up, and there's something wrong, something different. The morning light is coming through the window at a strange angle—not so much wrong as it is different. The window itself is too large, too curved. Loki aches, the way he never aches in the morning anymore—almost as if he spent the day before having enthusiastic sex without a moment's concern about the consequences.
And when he looks over to his left, Bucky is lying beside him, his back turned to Loki, still wholly asleep. Loki reached for his shoulder; he's no more than touched him before Bucky turns over. Of the two of them, Bucky seems immediately alert, and takes in at once the sights that had Loki blinking for several minutes.
"What time is it?" he asks.
"Morning," Loki says.
"...You sure?"
Loki looks pointedly at the window above, the narrow band of light filtered through both the ship's window and the hangar's. "Not at all."
"Good point," Bucky says, after following his gaze. "What happened, do you think?"
Loki thinks back to the day before, and immediately remembers what he did, the change he made. "...I may have broken it."
"Huh. Well, it had to happen sometime."
"I suppose." With a dawning sense of horror, Loki means to tell Bucky he must help him retrieve the Tesseract—either that, or launch the ship at once, before Thor can come looking for him—but what comes out instead is, "I don't imagine you'll be staying."
"Here? Probably not. I'm starving. It's just too bad we didn't bring anything for breakfast."
For some reason, it's a less pleasing non-answer than the one Loki last received from him. "I mean, I don't suppose you'll be staying now that you don't have to."
Admitting it is like stabbing himself in the stomach, or pulling out his own fingernails. It comes out labored enough that it sounds sincere, when Loki's always made a point of sounding sincere only when he most isn't.
"I never had to do anything," Bucky says.
He's always had to. Loki's sure of it. Perhaps that's why he keeps pushing: "I literally tortured you."
"Not on purpose," Bucky says easily, which is even more maddening than it's ever been before. "Besides, you said you were sorry."
Before Loki can argue this point, lightning strikes somewhere very near. He says, "I believe my absence has been uncovered."
"What do you want to do?"
"Retrieve the Tesseract, then flee," Loki says immediately.
"What do you mean, retrieve it? I thought you still had it."
"Well, I don't."
"Okay, then," Bucky says. Then, when they're on their way out of the ship: "Didn't you try to kill me with that thing?"
"Not successfully," Loki answers.
It's been quite some time since he's given any real thought as to what he might do or where he might go, if they ever did manage to break the loop; still, as they try to ascertain the best strategy for getting by the new set of guards, the possibilities seem as if they just might be endless.