Frozen in Time

by: Shadow Chaser

Disclaimer:

All Marvel characters do not belong to me, they belong to Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Comics.

Story:

Epilogue

A week had passed since the Avengers came back from the Alps. Most of them were still recovering from their injuries, but they had already begun their search for Thor and for the man known as Vasily Karpov. To the Avengers who had worked with Loki two years previous, had fought Thanos a year before that, they knew that Karpov had the ability to walk the shadows. To the newer Avengers who did not know of that, they were brought up to speed on the developments and given the mission files from previous interactions with Loki and his use of magic, or magick as Steve pronounced it.

Steve had been cleared from any and all influence the sceptre had on his mind for their brief moment Karpov had turned him, but even he was still quiet and contemplative; sometimes with a haunted look on his face that he tried hard to hide whenever others were around. But Bucky could see it, especially the times that he was around, could see the guilt eating away at Steve, at what he had been forced to do in that brief moment; the ruthlessness, the knowledge that he could easily have killed them all – that he had been holding back his full strength; that he had badly injured his friends. Bucky suspected that, similar to what he had gone through in the past few weeks, Steve had fought hard within, fought against whatever influence Karpov had on him to stop himself from outright killing his friends until one of them could deal the counter blow. He wondered if Steve took solace in that fact or like the still slowly returning memories in his head, perhaps wallowed more in the guilt than the actuality of the situation.

He watched now, sitting in the corner of the patio, half shadowed by the angle of the sun as Steve and Sam played a relatively quiet game of chess on the opposite side, all but oblivious to his presence. Bandages still covered a swath of Steve's left arm, held in a sling to stabilize the bullet wound he had received. The wound itself was healing, but it was the internal injuries that Dr. Banner had been more concerned about, Natalia's Widow's Bite doing some significant damage in their efforts to knock Steve out. Bucky noted that Steve still sat gingerly in the chair, his left hip and thigh wound also healing, though again with Natalia's efforts had a lot of internal damage.

Sam Wilson himself looked physically healthy, but from his vantage point, his sharp eyes picked out the dark circles underneath his eyes, the lines of fatigue and knew that the VA counselor was still battling his own demons. He did not know what Wilson had gone through, but had overheard a random comment by Stark when the two had been near each other about false memories. He supposed that instead of physical injuries, Sam had suffered mental ones intead that left scars that would not be healed so easily.

Bucky took a quick mental assessment of his own capabilities and found himself lacking a little. His arm had been severely damaged by Mjolnir's lightning, and while Stark had offered to repair it, he still found it uncomfortable to let the mechanical genius touch his arm – triggering random horrific images in his mind each time Stark touched it. It was slow going, but it was something he knew would take a while to repair. He considered having himself placed under sedation to speed it up, but surprisingly it was Stark who had flat out refused that option, stating that it would not do anyone any good. His ribs had already mended and the minor gashes and cuts received during the fight had all but healed. His mind though...it was hard to describe what it felt like. The sensation, the pain, the kill order was certainly still there as he stared at Steve and Sam, jabbing right in between his eyes, but somehow it did not overpower him as it had before.

He blinked once as he saw Sam gesture with a random piece that had been already taken off of the board, Steve's jaw stubbornly set against whatever he was saying and the corners of Bucky's lips twitched at the familiar – blessedly familiar memory – of such an expression. It was one he distinctly remembered Steve having in almost all of the scattered memories in his mind. Sam had been urging Steve to talk to Clint Barton about his experience under the sceptre's influence, but Steve had stubbornly refused every suggestion. Bucky thought it was a good idea, but he also was hesitant to speak up, afraid that his newfound freedom from the pressure of his programming was going to reverse itself and make him attack Steve again. So he had kept himself relatively far away from Steve, but close enough to still feel the pain in between his eyes, a self applied test of sorts. The irony of such a...test...was not lost on him.

The wind from the patio suddenly shifted, bringing their quiet murmuring conversation towards him even though he had been able to read their lips easily from where he was.

"...-wonder if Karpov, or Baldr, if Thor's to be believed-"

"Seriously? Baldr, like in the Norse myths that you and I, and probably every single English high school class read as a kid, that Baldr?"

"Thor exists and he wields Mjolnir," Steve pointed out, making a move with bishop, "and check..."

"...Dammit," Sam growled quietly before moving another piece, "so what's this about Karpov, Baldr, whatever the hell his name is?"

"I'm just wondering if maybe he walked the shadows into another realm?"

"A wha-? Come again?"

"It's something Loki could do, walking the shadows of Yggdrasil; like hidden portals of that sort, bypassing the Bifrost transportation Asgard has. Based on what the others said they felt in that moment, it seems like to me Karpov walked the shadows. Maybe he went to another realm and the searches JARVIS's running is a moot point."

"Well...we'll know in another few days after the searches are finished-"

Bucky suddenly leap to his feet, tensing for an attack as he felt that same whisper-god-awful feeling again, like when Karpov had drawn a thin blue line, opening a portal into the shadows. At the same time Steve turned around in his chair, Sam half rising from his; only to see a tall angular-looking man with black hair, a sharp nose and cheekbones, and green-blue eyes step out from the shadows. He was dressed in black-green-gold colors, the exact opposite coloration of Thor's red-silver-blues. A haughty look highlighted his aristocratic features as he seemingly sneered at the sight of them.

"Loki..." for a second Steve looked surprised before his brow furrowed. Bucky realized that this was Loki, the self-proclaimed Trickster God in the files he had read since their return to New York.

It seemed though, Loki was not in a trickster mood, his voice hard and angry as he demanded, "Where is Thor?"

~END~

Author's Final Notes:

Thank you for taking the time to read this story and leave comments and kudos on it. I've really appreciated the support and criticism, especially since I had not exactly intended on writing any wholly Avengers-centric stories.

The idea came to me when I was plotting out Ragnarok and realized I needed a catalyst to put the whole of that story into motion. It really did not hit him until after I watched of CA:TWS back in April when I realized, Loki's Chitauri sceptre could easily be the catalyst and thus I planned a story around it. I also wanted the chance to write Bucky Barnes since the Winter Soldier is one of my favorite Marvel comic book characters (hilariously enough, I don't prefer comic!Cap, and I much prefer movie!Cap – less stick up his ass) – and plus the relationship between comic!Cap and comic!Bucky is more of a mentorship than the brotherhood/best friends like in the movies. I also wanted, like many other authors, to plot out Bucky's eventual recovery and meeting with Cap post-CA:TWS and thus became the central plotline to this story with the Thor elements sprinkled in to tie it ultimately to the Trickster Universe.

I also wanted to explore the fallout of the dissolution of SHIELD, especially with Coulson now as the head without running headlong into the eventual Season 2 of Agents of SHIELD, so I set this story as one year after the events of CA:TWS where everyone would be in a certain place in their lives. There was also the element of Bucky's recovery that I knew I could not do justice in the immediate aftermath of the movie without actually being a psychologist and doctor, hence the minor time skip. I figured, Bucky would have had a year of sorting out jumbling and returning memories and it was where I would start off my story and add in the more sinister elements of mind control and programming (partially because, I freely admit, I'm a sadist to my favorite characters – don't judge...).

Another element I wanted to explore was the whole BlackWinter/WinterWidow relationship – I was/still am a huge fan of the pairing in the comics (Ed Brubaker, you broke my heart). I had a lot of fun plotting out what I would have thought the MCU's version of the Red Room would have been like and tying it in with Ward, Strucker, Karpov, and everything in between. Another comic influence that was excised late in the writing process was that Bucky was supposed to get all of his memories back (ala what happened in the comics with the Cosmic Cube), via the Chitauri sceptre instead, but writing the last few chapters at that time just did not make sense from a story flow point of view and was rather jarring.

I had the most fun writing the combat scenes, a nice break from writing magick and spell slinging for the past two stories I've written as Loki-centric, so it was nice to stretch out and use my martial arts training again as well as write a little more realism into a story than more fantastical elements. I've also had a lot of fun writing Steve and Bucky's relationship, seeing it not as slash as some would think, but rather as a familial and brotherly, a twist similar, yet so dissimilar to what Thor and Loki have gone through in the stories previous to this one.

The one thing I want to emphasize is that while this chapter of Bucky and Steve's lives has been completed, their story is far from finished, as are the other Avengers, but the next story is going to be putting the focus back on Loki. I do have at least a one-shot planned regarding Bucky, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Coulson, Ward, and the whole Red Room thing – but that will be written after Ragnarok is finished.

Again, thank you for reading and I want to take the time to thank the following reviewers as of 10/27/2014: Akayuki Novak, Qweb, beverlie4055, JuliaE.k5, Lamarquise, jwill21, Red Paradise Lost, gingerrogers12345, Agent Ruby Red, writer314, jeps, RollingUpHigh, heartdraconis19361, bronze andromeda shun, NattiDino, Ara Goddess of the Broken, the many unnamed "guests" that left reviews, Hieiko, delikizzz, bedb, Tera_Earth, EnsignWhispy, dragonfly, IsaacGirl14.

For those who have just found this fic, have just finished it (thank you for your patience in finishing a very long fic), or have even just left a review on it, thank you for your comments and support! Most of all, I want to thank my beta reader Legume Shadow for once again, taking the time to nitpick and edit the chapters. Please move your bookmarks to either an author alert or to my next story in this series The Trickster: Ragnarok.