Abandoned

Bucky wasn't sure whether Loki wanted company or not, but he certainly didn't want to leave him alone if he needed someone, so he decided to risk knocking on Loki's door. If Loki kicked his ass, it wouldn't be the first time he'd gotten beaten up by someone much stronger than he was. 

When Loki opened the door, he looked like hell. His skin was paler than usual, and his eyes were sunken in like big dark pits. Bucky didn't know when he'd eaten last, but he wasn't sure if Asgardians even had to eat every day. It looked like he had been neglecting a need somewhere though. 

"Dude...what's going on? We've been back for three days, and no one has laid eyes on you. Now, you may beat the shit out of me for even thinking about bothering you, but I don't care. I'm the only one who had the balls to come down here and check to make sure you're still alive." 

Loki hadn't been in any state of mind to face the rest of the people in the tower since their return. Seeing Jor had been wonderful, but leaving him had broken his heart. He knew his son. Jor would put on a happy façade even if he was more miserable than any other creature in the Nine Realms. Loki would have never known if he was truly content with life in the Loch, and that was eating at him. It was comforting to know that Jor didn't hate him, but he still hated himself for the way he'd allowed things to happen back on Asgard. He should have been a better father. He should have stopped Odin at any cost. And by the gods, he should have allowed Jor to eat those blasted cats if he wanted them so badly...

"Relax James. I'm not going to fight you. Come in, please," Loki said, his voice a little strained. 

"Did I ever tell you about the time I had to stop Jor from eating Freya's cats?" 

Bucky laughed, and Loki's lips curved into a smile for the first time in several days. Perhaps he did need the company. 

"When Jor was just a small child- well relatively small- Thor went on a fishing trip." 

Loki saw the look on Bucky's face, and he laughed. 

"Yes, of course this story starts with Thor. How could it not?" 

"Thor wasn't always the dreamy hero," Loki paused to roll his eyes dramatically, "you all know and love. He was incredibly hot-headed and easily angered."

Bucky could tell that Loki was coming alive telling this story, so he didn't interrupt him to say that he didn't love Thor. He thought Thor was still hot-headed, and he hated the way Thor treated Loki. 

"Thor was sitting on the riverbank trying to catch the most fish ever caught in all the Nine Realms because Thor has always been like that...when he heard a noise. He described it as 'the worst noise he'd ever heard.'" 

Loki rolled his eyes once again, and Bucky laughed. Watching Loki tell a story about his brother was quite entertaining. 

"So Thor, in his endless wisdom, goes to investigate this noise and he finds a male cat who is singing to his two kittens. How my brother could think that was an awful sound is beyond me." 

He looked down at Fennie and smiled, and Bucky's heart clenched in his chest. Loki was a good father. He just didn't realize it. 

"The male cat tells Thor that his mate gave birth and left him with the kittens, and being a single father is too difficult. So Thor offers to help him. He takes the kittens to Freya. Have you heard of her?" 

Bucky had heard of her. She was the goddess of love and fertility, and was supposedly so beautiful that men and women became infatuated with her just by gazing at her. He didn't know anything else about her though. He certainly had no idea she had an affinity for cats. 

"This is where our little tale gets interesting. Jörmungandr, as you could see, is just as rebellious as I am. And when I told him that he absolutely could not eat Freya's kittens no matter how tempting they looked, it was like I had issued a challenge. The bigger they grew, the more he tried to catch them. He was sneaky. He used tricks even I wouldn't have thought of using."

"I brought him field mice to snack on, and he hid them so he could use them to lure the cats away from Freya's dwelling. Cats do love mice, you know," Loki mused. 

"Well, the mice were so relieved to be away from Jor, that they scurried away. That drew the attention of Freya's prized pussycats. Then Jor snuck out from behind something and waited for his opportunity to snatch one of them up. It took weeks for me to figure out why Freya's cats were swarming around my home, and even longer for me to realize his entire devious plan." 

As Loki told his tale, Bucky pictured the mayhem and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. As it turned out, Loki was quite a storyteller, and Bucky was riveted. 

"That was not the end, though. His plots became more and more ingenious as time went on. When the cats were old enough to begin hunting further away from Freya's home, Jor took advantage. He found out their favorite kinds of prey and chased them down to the riverbank. Then he would lie in wait until the cats tracked their prey down to the edge of the water. One day, he swept his tail across the sand and knocked one of the cats into the water and dove in after it under the guise of saving its life. The cat was inside his mouth when I found him, smiling like the unruly beast he was." 

Loki was smiling as he told his tale, and Bucky couldn't help laughing at the pride in his voice. 

"Did Jor ever actually eat one of them?" 

"Well, one of them has a bobtail now...and it wasn't born with a bobtail." 

Bucky gasped, and Loki laughed, taking an almost perverse sort of pleasure in his horror. 

"Freya was not pleased. She threatened to tell the All-Father of my son's disobedience, which would have meant he'd suffer harsh punishment that he didn't deserve. He is a serpent, after all. It's not his fault he craves red meat. And being my son, he was very mischievous. That's my fault, not his." 

"Luckily, I had a few baubles in my collection that Freya had her eye on for some time. Of course, I didn't want to give any of them up. To this day, she thinks she has the real ones, but they're merely copies. Jor got some cat meat, and I got to keep my jewels." 

When Loki finished telling his story, Bucky sat with his mouth gaping open.

"She never realized you gave her fakes?" 

"Honestly, she's not that bright. Just beautiful. It's a shame, really." 

Loki sat there staring at Fennie's sleeping form. She'd grown so much since he had found her in that box all alone. Her once tiny body was now long enough to stretch all the way across his lap.

Every time Loki thought about her getting bigger, he began to panic. He knew she didn't have a long life- not like he did- and he didn't know what he would do when she grew old and weary. Chances were, he would still be exactly as he was now; young, virile, and completely miserable. He knew it was selfish and silly to think about trying to extend the life of a common house cat, but that's where he was at the moment. That's exactly what would make him feel better. 

Rather than bring up the subject to Bucky, he asked the question he'd been torturing himself with for days. 

"Do you think Jor is happy?" 

Loki loved that his son had so many of his characteristics; his intelligence, his wit, and his mischievousness. But he was terrified at the thought of Jörmungandr carrying the indescribable melancholy he'd had for as long as he could remember. 

Bucky examined Loki's face for a moment. He could see that the god was distressed, and he felt bad that he hadn't come to talk with him sooner. Clearly, this was why Loki was suffering. 

"I think you're torturing yourself for nothing. What happened with Jor wasn't your fault." 

Loki started to interrupt him, but Bucky shot him a look and he quickly closed his mouth. 

"No matter how much you blame yourself, you can't go back in time and fix it. Going to see him, telling him you love him, telling him you're sorry it happened- that's all you can do, man. He looked very happy to me, especially when he was wrapped around his dad. Who wouldn't be happy living there? It's beautiful. And he has plenty of people to prank... and now he has enough fish to feed ten of him. Please stop tormenting my friend Loki. He doesn't deserve it." 

When Bucky left Loki's room, Loki replayed Bucky's words over and over in his head. Stop tormenting my friend Loki. He doesn't deserve it. My friend Loki. Friend.  He had a friend. Not a 'friend.' Not like Thor's friends- friends who mocked him.

A real friend. 

Loki used that thought to help him find the strength to leave his room for the first time in three days. When he walked into the common room, he found everyone discussing their next "mission." 

"Hey reindeer games! I think I've managed to locate one of your other kids...he's a really big wolf, right? Like, really fucking big." 

Loki laughed at Tony and took a seat next to where he was searching through hundreds of entries on Shield's database. He couldn't understand much of the information on the screen, but he recognized the name of the country- Norway.