Jaundice (yellow)
Bucky was trapped in some sort of maze-like abandoned building, and had a suspicion that his leg was about to break, because of the bad fall from when whoever it was had thrown him in there. He felt he needed to keep moving, because he had to get out of there, he needed to find some help, know if Steve and Sam and the others were okay or if they'd been taken too...Maybe they were hurt too, maybe even worse than him.
Priority number one was finding out where he was and then getting out. He'd been in bad situations before, although he didn't remember feeling so light headed in any of them. When he was about to fall he felt somebody come behind him, and suddenly he was leaning on somebody, and the world didn't weigh so much.
It was someone with long-ish dark hair, not too different from his own, although they leaner, and had something of magical in their presence... Almost majestic.
“Loki.”
It was good to see a friendly face. Loki may not be the oldest or most trustworthy Avenger, but neither was he, and together they could talk about how much they didn't understand that reference or how excessive loud this place and time could be.
And fruit. Loki was Bucky's to-go guy to get good fruit: where and when to get it, how to prepare it, nice dishes with fruit. He had a suspicion that some of the others (specially Stark and Peter Quill) wanted to make fun of their love for fruit, where we a bit scared of them to do so. Good.
Loki was also a very resourceful person, which was a good quality when you are trapped in what seemed like an inescapable maze.
“I know a way out. Allow me to help you.”
Loki always delivered.
“How... what is this place?”
“Magically warded maze. Very convoluted, changes every day. I don't know who is behind it, but they are powerful.”
“And why... why are we here?”
“Apparently to atone for past crimes. There is a voice that is broadcast every two or three days that says we are criminals who were not punished properly for our crimes and this is our comeuppance.” Loki said, mimicking the tone of the voice in the recording perfectly.
“Which is stupid, because Mr. Barnes here is not a criminal, he was a victim of true masters of crime. It is them you should be punishing, Mr Recording, the people who programmed him to do those things, not the man himself. Stupid, really.”
And then there was the message again, completely ignoring what he'd said.
He had been there so long, he knew it by heart. He could recall every little detail of the recording, every turn of the voice, every word that it was said. For many days, that recording was his only company.
“Is there anyone else?” Bucky asked.
“Not today, no.”
“Not today? But other days there have been more people.”
“Yes, there have. I actually found the exit with the Lady Romanoff. Stark has also been here, because of the arms business, we assume, and there was another fellow whose name I never got, but who was quite friendly, too.”
“Why haven't you left with any of them if you know where the exit is?” There was something wrong about this. Maybe it was Loki the cause of everything, to make himself look heroic.
“I would if I could. They magically warder the place, which means that nobody with magic can leave. Your Avenging friends had no issue, but I am stuck in here.”
“Can't you turn off your magic?”
“I don't know, Barnes, can you turn off your blood?” Loki said with his usual venom. Bucky half smiled, happy to see something of the old Loki he knew even in this situation. When Loki was behaving “good” normally it meant that shit was serious and that there was no time for jokes. He didn't like those times.
“So... why hasn't anybody come for you?”
Because nobody cares enough, Loki figured. Because maybe they thought that he belonged there, perpetually being reminded of his wrongs and in a maze he could never escape, but everybody else could. Because he was “different”. Not too Asgardian, barely Jotun, not at all human, way too magical. Just plain wrong. This was a classy to get rid of him without having to kill him, just letting him die on his own.
Somebody that was probably not far, taking into account how poorly he felt. It wasn't just the fact that he hadn't eaten in days, probably weeks, or that he could hardly sleep. Not the fact that when he fell to the floor he broke something he shouldn't have and now his bruises wouldn't clear up,he felt faint and dizzy and nausaeted and generally weak. Oh, and there was something else.
“Dude, you're.... yellow.”
Bucky had practically forgotten his own boo-boos just by looking at Loki and how terrible he looked. I mean, the guy had always been thin but now he looked simply emaciated. There were bruised patches of skin of what wasn't covered in his suit and the whole of him had a... yellowish tinge. And he knew this was not a magicky thing, this was a symptom of something bad, Bucky remembered from his time that babies going yellow was a very bad sign.
“You know why you're yellow?”
“No, I do not. If I did I would have tried to stop it, although I don't know with what – not a lot of things here... to fix oneself. “
Loki continued walking towards the exit and talking with Barnes about this place, their crimes or not-crimes and trying to atone for a dark past. Barnes didn't judge a lot, both he and Rogers and himself had done plenty of sketchy stuff, in two different centuries. It was nice to have a chat, and nice of Barnes to be concerned and ask about him (Natasha had been all strategy, all getting out, we'll figure the details later. She also said that she would be back for him. Loki was trying not to be bitter about that).
“And here we are. You go through that ventilation shaft, two lefts one right, and then it's freedom – some street somewhere. I can look but not get out. Now, good luck to you, friend Barnes.”
And part of him really wanted to get out of that place. He'd only been there about an hour and his leg still hurt, and it felt as if the air had gotten thinner and scarce, the walls oppressing them, everything getting smaller. He couldn't shake off why, but it felt as if the building was trying to eat him somehow, devour him.
“It's the air.” Loki said, seemingly reading his mind. “There are some things in it that make you feel... off.... But of course, you can not stop breathing...”
Loki wanted to Barnes to stay, because he liked having people to talk to, but he also wanted him to leave, because he was tired of pretending he was okay. Or as relatively okay as he could look like with that odd skin. But the truth was that the whole building was circling around him, his hands were trembling slightly and he had trouble keeping his eyes open. Everything hurt, and he was beyond exhausted just from walking and helping Barnes to the exit. He wanted to go back to throwing himself in a tiny corner and using his cape as a blanket while he complained about how poorly he felt and how everyone had left him there to rot.
“You will feel better in the vents, you'll see, and afterwards. Well, it was nice seeing you, but I fear this is good bye.”
“No! I'm not leaving you here!”
That went against everything he believed in! Bucky may not have known Loki for a very long time and he knew that he had done some very bad stuff, but he liked the guy. They were always written off as sidekicks of some sort to Thor and Steve, but those who knew them knew that they were the real danger of the team, often the planners of strategies.
They had been disliked, deeply, and there were probably one or two Avengers that would never forgive them for their pasts... But they were tolerated, because they appreciated their blonder counterparts too much. Bucky remembered the days when he was better liked than Steve, and bigger. It felt like a million years ago. And he could talk about anything with Loki and he always had tricks and ways to make everything easier, without the moral doubts Steve sometimes had, or the technological convolutedness of some of the others.
There was no way he was leaving him there, in that maze that ate you and told you mean things about how you needed to be punished further.
“You must leave me.”
“No! What if those magical wards erase your memory and that's why nobody has come back! My memory is already pretty shitty, I would forget it instantly.And you would be trapped here for who knows how long, without food, whitout anybody but that voice... I can not do that to you!”
“But you must.”
“I need to write myself a note, so that I know to come back...”
“There nothing to writ it with, and nothing to write it on. And we don't even know if there really is a memory wipe in the wards.”
Bucky broke a piece of Loki's cloth, to the Asgardian's utmost indignation.
“I will be back sooner than you think.”
Bucky said, determined. He had an idea to write the message, but he'd do it alone in the vents. It was a bit...strange.
But it would work. He would get Loki out of there.
-
Everyone was really glad to have him back, concerned about an anit-crime extremist group that had been threatening them. His leg was fixed in no time with some Stark gadget and everyone was simply happy that nothing serious seemed to have happened.
Bucky was glad too, although losing the memory of an entire day was not pleasant, specially when he thought those days were finally over. What if he had done something terribly during that day? What if he had ruined everything?
“What's that?”
There was a piece of bright green clothing on the pocket of his jeans. Something like silk but softer, with words written in... was that blood? Oh my god, had he killed somebody? And then he saw that there was a cut on his hand... Maybe.
“Go back for Loki.” Steve read. “This ringing any bells?”
“No... I haven't seen Loki in a while. Why would I write myself that?”
It made no sense, although he did feel like he was forgetting something major.
“Oh, wait Bucky, there's another word here. Yellow.”
And suddenly it all came back to him. A half smile supporting his bad self, a sarcastic remark telling him if he could turn off his blood, and yellowish skin, even yellow eye sockets.
“I remember”
With some work, Bucky managed to make Natasha and Stark remember, and the three of them put together what they knew and set out to get Loki back. It was a couple of days of almost no sleep and a lot of frustration, but they managed to find the maze that was trying to eat you, that turned out to be an abandoned lab the hate group was using for a “lesson”. They turned off the wards and looked for the sole inhabitant of the maze.
Loki was even yellower, and at some place in the middle of consciousness and oblivion. Later they would find out that the yellowness (jaundice was the actual word) came from something called hemolytic anemia, that was messing with all his blood cells and consequently all the organs that blood went to. According to Bruce, it was nothing short of a miracle that he'd stayed awake all that time.
But in that moment, they knew nothing, only that they were reunited.
“I came back for you.”
“Bucky...” Loki half smiled through the fog in his eyes. “you remembered.”