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While Sylvie has given up trying to find a source of power for the TemPad, she hasn't given up trying to get out of this place. Everyone tells her it's impossible, but she has to believe they just aren't smart enough to manage it, that they've become complacent, comfortable, and don't bother trying. She isn't going to stop, though. She can't stop. The rest of these people don't understand just how important it is that she get back to the TVA.

Her current plan, besides anything she might be able to manage with Walter's help, is to find a thin spot in Darrow. They have to exist. If she can find one, she'll be able to leave, slip between worlds, find herself a proper source of power for the TemPad she has tucked in her jacket, and make the bloody thing work again so she can have some hope of undoing what she's done in the first place.

Although, no multiversal war has come to Darrow just yet, which she has to assume is a good thing.

Still, she's trying. Dressed in a pair of stretchy black jeans, black boots, and a deep green shirt beneath her black jacket, Sylvie has traced a source of power to downtown Darrow and realized a little too late that she's sensing some other powered person in this place rather than something that can actually help her get out of here.

Too late because she's inside a dance club. Too late because she's already in the crowd, the music pumping, bass pounding, drunken idiots stumbling around, feeling each other up in dark corners and on the dance floor. Some big guy is nearly humping some poor girl who looks like she's barely able to stand and Sylvie steps hard on his foot and puts herself between them, then shuffles the girl back off toward her friends. This isn't why she's here. She isn't some do-gooder hero like Loki tries to believe himself to be. She needs to get out.

The big guy looks confused, but simply turns to find someone else to dance with. Which is when he sidles up next to Sylvie. He's smaller than the other man, his hair is dark, pushed back from his face, which is pale, with sharp angles, hollowed cheekbones, and for just a second Sylvie's heart skips in her chest.

But then the features resolve. Become someone else. Attractive enough, but not the man she was hoping for in that moment. Her gaze flicks over him, unimpressed, and then she pushes past.

"Hey, wait," he says, grabbing her wrist. "That was really cool of you, helping that girl."

"Let go of me," Sylvie says, wrenching her wrist from his grasp. He backs off a few steps, holding his hands up, then disappears into the crowd. And that's when someone grabs her from behind. Big hands on her hips, a warm body pressed against her back. It's all under the guise of dancing, but Sylvie's not an idiot, and she can feel every bit of the intention in the move. Without thinking, she throws an elbow back and it slams hard into a man's nose. Then she turns and a green blast of energy flies from her hand to his chest, plowing him back through the crowd on the dance floor.

A few people protest, but even then, almost no one has even noticed what's happened.

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Well, that's interesting. Sylvie has just told him a lot with very few words, and the look she gives him tells him that she knows it. Bucky, while cautious in a way that he thinks will always linger, has no desire to exploit any of her weaknesses.

"Thor is a good man. I fought with him. Well, near him," Bucky amends with a small shrug, smiling a little. Still, he knew enough to admire the man, and enough to get chills when Steve called his hammer. "I heard his brother was a real piece of work. Didn't know he had a sister, though."

Bucky curls one hand loosely around Sylvie's waist and lifts her hand with his prosthetic, straightening up a bit as he does his best to recall the steps. Things like foxtrots and lindy hops are kind of buried under weaponry and combat skills, but he's happy to drag them back up. "Okay, follow my feet."

"Your version probably didn't," she answers. "Or... perhaps he did, there was Hela in some variations of Asgard, so it depends on which timeline you knew Thor in."

The metal of his hand is cool within hers and Sylvie glances down at Bucky's feet, then up again, content enough for now to simply follow the steps. It's utterly foolish, dancing in the street with some man whose presence she's just barely tolerating, but it's distracting, too. And she needs a distraction these days.

"My Thor has been gone for a very long time," she tells him as she follows the steps. "Erased, along with the rest of my reality."

"Uh, the one where he was an Avenger," Bucky tells her with a crooked smile. "Though I don't know if that narrows it down."

It's a bizarre conversation in an even more bizarre situation, but that's sort of who they are now. So far beyond normal, so why pretend?

"I'm sorry," he tells her sincerely, because he knows a little how she feels. His reality wasn't erased, no, but he was taken from it so suddenly, and had it taken from him as scientists played around with his brain.

Bucky lifts their joined hands and slowly turns Sylvie around underneath them before pulling her back in with a hand on her hip. "I know there's no good thing to say."

An Avenger. It does, actually, narrow it down a fair bit and Sylvie finds herself wondering if Bucky knows Loki. The Loki she knows, the one who's wormed his way under her skin in the infuriating way he has.

If he does, it's probably best she doesn't tell him who she really is. From what she knows, her Loki wasn't exactly well-loved.

"Well, thrust Thor to focus on saving Midgard after letting Asgard fall to pieces," she says in a dry tone, turning under Bucky's arm and scowling at him halfheartedly for the move. "There's nothing to say, really. Terrible things have happened and my way of dealing was revenge. Everyone has their own."

The comment feels very pointed, and Bucky doesn't know enough about the situation to have anything to say in return, so he doesn't. Instead, he just smirks at her and twirls her again, just to tease her.

"I don't know what my way is," Bucky admits as his hand returns to her hip, perhaps just a tiny bit lower than he initially dared, but still respectful. "I wasn't in control of myself for a very long time. Then I spent time making amends for things I did under that control. Now-- I'm not sure."

It's a big admission, and Bucky swallows hard and averts his gaze a bit, jaw working as he draws her in a bit closer. He hasn't been this close to a woman who wasn't trying to kill him in decades, but he knows that isn't off of the table with Sylvie, either. Perhaps that is part of the allure. They're both damaged, both unable to let their guards down and somehow, in that regard, they are safe with one another. Safe in that they both know that they aren't safe and probably never will be, not after the lives they've led.

It's that mutual understanding that makes Bucky's hand tighten a little around her hip as he looks down at her face, brow quirked curiously. "What do you do when revenge isn't an option?"

"Plan," she answers. "For revenge."

Thirteen hundred years and that's all she's ever done. Right up until she met Loki, from the moment she had escaped the TVA, Sylvie had planned for her revenge and it had been the only thing that occupied her thoughts. It had been the thing she lived for.

"After that, I'm not sure," she admits, which isn't something she likes to say. "I thought I'd gotten my revenge. I killed the man responsible for erasing my entire reality and it... it did nothing."

Except break the sacred timeline. She feels like she ought to carry some sort of guilt over that, but she doesn't. The sacred timeline was a joke, just as everything with the TVA had been a joke.

"So, your advice is to plan for a revenge that I can't carry out, and won't make me feel better anyway," Bucky says flatly, chuckling a bit as he turns them in a circle. They're doing the dance at a glacial pace, but it isn't like they're being graded on it.

"Sounds like maybe we both need to find new ways to pass the time," he tells her, breathing in as his arm slides more securely around Sylvie's waist, tugging her in more closely and looking down at her face, just inches from his.

"This is where I'd flip you back over my arm," he tells her, smirking a little as he wrinkles his nose. "But I figure that isn't something that I should try to do without warning."

"It's all I've done for thirteen hundred years, so you'll forgive me if my ideas for having a normal life beyond revenge are a bit slow to develop," Sylvie answers in a snappish tone, though her head tilts and she lifts her gaze, meeting Bucky's.

He could be entertaining for a night. Probably not much more than that, Sylvie has no interest in getting too attached to anything or anyone when she's determined to get out of this place, but a night? She can certainly find value in that.

"You could try," she answers sweetly. "If you want me to punch you in the dick."

“And I thought I was old,” Bucky says with a click of his tongue. He feels exhausted after a century of life. He can’t even imagine a millennium of one.

She doesn’t pull away, despite her tone, and Bucky wonders if maybe he’s imagining the way that she’s looking at him, like she’s sizing him up. Like maybe she’s considering something.

It makes Bucky’s mouth go a little dry, because he isn’t sure that he’d mind being, well, considered. Even if it’s been so long that he isn’t even sure that he’d know what to do with her.

“Duly noted. No flips,” Bucky tells her, chuckling a little as he looks down at her face, one hand spanning the curve of her hip. He lets go and brings Slyvie’s other hand down between them, keeping it cradled in the cool metal of his prosthetic as he makes a show of leaning over to kiss the back of her hand.

“I’ll just thank you for the dance then,” he says as he straightens up and lets her go. “Because somehow I’ve managed not to get punched since I got here. It’s kind of a record for me and I’d hate to break it. Especially with my dick.”

"Asgardians age well," she answers, even though she technically isn't Asgardian, not the way most would mean. Odin and Frig didn't create her. Laufey did, this tiny Frost Giant he'd had no interest in raising and had abandoned in the midst of a war.

But Frost Giants live long, too, and age well. And so long as she's careful when it comes to the cold, she looks more Asgardian than she ever does Frost Giant.

"So is that what passed for seduction eighty years ago?" she asks when he kisses her hand. Bucky steps away, but Sylvie follows, stepping forward, back into his space. Her index finger taps his chest. "People didn't just tell one another they had a need? They danced and kissed the back of a woman's hand? How did anyone possibly get laid during that time?"

For a moment, Bucky is stunned. He’s usually quick on his feet, but that’s in battle. This is something else, something he hasn’t had any part of in almost a century.

“Uh, not usually, no,” Bucky says with a huff of laughter, grinning as he reaches up to cover Sylvie’s hand with his own. He’s met his fair share of bold women, and he’s been propositioned more than once since he’s regained control over himself, but he never took anyone up on it.

Until now, perhaps? Bucky Barnes, flustered at the prospect of sex. Steve would be laughing his ass off if he were here.

But he isn’t.

“People were more repressed back in my dancing days,” Bucky tells her as he lifts her hand back to his shoulder and moves in closer to her. “Getting laid took a lot of time and effort, usually.”

He rests his prosthetic hand on her hip again, tipping his head and biting his lip as he looks at her face. He used to be so good at this. Maybe he can be again.

“Do you have a need?” He asks in a low voice, feeling a little overwhelmed but in a good way, he thinks. This whole sex thing has been hanging over his head and maybe this would be the best way to take care of it. Sylvie wouldn’t expect anything from him after, and he wouldn’t have to be quite so careful.

“Because I’m more than willing to take you to the picture show and buy you dinner. Lend you my coat if you get cold and whisper in your ear,” Bucky assures her, laughing a little as his hand spans the width of her lower back. “But I gotta say, I think I like your way better.”

"Save the romance for someone else, I've got a postman waiting for me," Sylvie answers, knowing he won't understand the joke and telling herself she doesn't care. Loki would have understood, but perhaps that's why she's here, head tilted, gaze drawn to his mouth when he bites his lower lip. Bucky is nothing like Loki; shorter by some, broad where Loki is slim, hair short where Loki's is long, rough stubble on his jaw where Loki had always been perfectly smooth.

All of that makes it easier to lay one palm flat on his chest, the other on his lower abdomen, and shove him backward until he's pressed to the wall of a building. There, Sylvie lifts herself onto her toes, nudges her nose against his, and grins.

"I have a need," she says in a low voice and purposely does not think of Loki. The man in front of her is beautiful and willing and she can't hurt him, all of which is everything she's looking for.

That’s another clue to the mystery of Sylvie, one that Bucky files away as not urgent. She had someone, maybe. Bucky has no interest in trying to find out more, but he’s glad to know that maybe she wasn’t completely alone, all that time.

Bucky never had anyone who mattered, not like that. He’s been with women and also some men, and he thinks that maybe he might have been a little in love with Steve in ways that stayed unexamined until it was too late, but that’s it.

He had a lot of fun in his youth, whenever and wherever he can, and then went almost a century with no real fun at all.

Maybe that’s why his breath hitches when she pushes him back against the wall, because it’s been so long since anyone touched him like this at all. For a split second he tenses on instinct, because when people are this close to him, it usually isn’t for any good reason, but he relaxes as she presses up onto her toes, lips parting as her face comes to close to his.

He doesn’t trust Sylvie, not really, but that’s okay because he assumes that it’s mutual. Trust doesn’t come easily to either of them, but this doesn’t have to be about anything other than what it is. Satisfying a need.

“I can take care of it,” Bucky assures her in a gravelly voice, because he might be a bit rusty, but he was good at this. Good at dancing, good at fighting, good at fucking. When it comes to moving his body, he knows what to do.

He slides his good hand down the length of Sylvie’s slim back, down to just above the curve of her backside, and tugs her in against him, staring at her as their mouths brush.

This is what he was hoping for when he accepted the date tonight. He wanted a release, something that would temporarily ease the pain of being alive and aware, and maybe it didn’t go down like he thought it would, but this is better.

His mouth meets hers and suddenly he feels so hungry, nearly overwhelmed with desire now that he’s had the smallest taste of pleasure after so very long. He kisses her harder and wraps his good arm around her waist, tugging her in closer as he licks into her mouth.

Yeah, this is better.

The flutter of guilt disgusts her.

One kiss. It was only one kiss and a kiss she's determined to think didn't mean anything regardless. She can't love someone, she isn't capable of it, not since the TVA took her heart and erased it along with everyone she had once cared for. So what she felt for Loki, what she still feels, it isn't love. What had he so stupidly said? Love is a dagger. How could she possibly love someone prone to such ridiculous metaphors on the very subject?

But that guilt flares up in her and Sylvie shoves it down, shoves it deep, refuses to feel it. She had promised Loki nothing and he isn't even here. She shoves him from her mind, too, and reaches up, one hand on Bucky's chest, the other on his face, her lips parting as she welcomes the deepening of the kiss.

His tongue is in her mouth and she moans, opening for it, for him, fingers curling in the front of his shirt. This is far better than dancing, far better than pining or whatever other foolish things she's been doing. Her vengeance had been pointless, which means her entire existence is, too, and she can't stomach the thought, so she gets lost in this. In the heat of Bucky's body pressed against hers.

"My place," she says when the kiss breaks. "I don't trust yours."

It’s a hungry kiss, and that’s good. Bucky doesn’t know if he has the capacity within him to be gentle, not right now. Not this time.

He laughs breathlessly at her demand, only because he was about to say the same. It’s then that he realizes just how much his distrust of others held him back in New York. He scrolled through the apps, found willing partners, but he could never go through with it. Too many what ifs.

What if they knew who he really was? What if they held a grudge?

But hardly anyone here knows who he was, or what he did. Sylvie has no reason to harbor resentment toward him, that he knows of at least, and if she wanted to hurt him, there would be easier ways to do it.

She doesn’t seem the type to kill for fun, and Bucky has no plans to try and stand in her way.

“Fine,” he says before giving her another biting kiss, nipping lightly at her bottom lip before taking her hand and leading her away from the brick wall, extending his hand up to hail a cab. “But I want to get there fast.”

"Do I strike you as someone looking to take their time?" Sylvie asks in return, letting Bucky hail the cab. Once the car pulls up alongside them, she opens the door and gives Bucky a bit of a shove, pushing him inside with a smirk before she climbs in after him.

"High Gate Terrace," she tells the driver once the door is closed, then promptly forgets he exists. The driver's only purpose is to get them where they need to be and beyond that, he's essentially forgettable as far as Sylvie is concerned. Instead, her attention to drawn again to Bucky, to the strength of his thigh pressed against hers, the metal of his arm she can see glinting in the low light.

The arm is still fascinating to her, made moreso by the fact that he doesn't always seem entirely comfortable with it.

"Wakanda tech is the very best, isn't it?" she asks, taking the metal hand between hers and tapping her index finger in the centre of his palm. "How much can you feel with this?"

When she takes his prosthetic hand between her own, it surprises Bucky a little. No one has ever touched it with any sort of intimacy, and he’s surprised to feel a tiny shiver of pleasure as her fingertip taps at the inside of his hand.

“Yeah, Shuri’s incredible,” Bucky says a bit dazedly, staring down at their hands as he curls his fingers experimentally. “Uh, a little. Enough to know how hard I need to grip or pull. Comes in handy in a fight.”

Because that’s all he used it for, really. But he is aware of sensations, vaguely. He isn’t sure how it works, but he can feel the difference between hold and cold, between rough concrete and a dog’s fur. And now this, fingers tapping delicately at his palm.

Yeah, Shuri is amazing. He feels the need to thank her all over again.

“I haven’t—- not since.” He curls his metal fingers over her hand instead of finishing the sentence, and perhaps to prove to them both that there isn’t anything to worry about when it comes to his hand. Yes, he could lift a car with it and his serum-enhanced strength combined, but he knows how to be gentle with it if he needs. He can touch a flower without bruising the petals, and he can do the same to a woman.

Almost out curiosity more than anything else, Bucky pulls his hand away to rest it against the inside of Sylvie’s thigh, slowly dragging it up and down and feeling the heat of her through the metal, which must feel cool to her, far cooler than a human hand.

"Then we'll have to see what it's capable of," she answers with a smirk in the dim light of the cab as Bucky drags the hand up the inside of her thigh. She shifts her hips, pressing them up a little, heat and pleasure already throbbing within her. If this is a transaction, which is it, Sylvie plans on getting the most out of it, but she plans on giving plenty, too. It's a transaction for them both, after all, and she'll not leave Bucky wanting.

A woman well aware of what she wants, Sylvie covers Bucky's hand again and pushes it higher, between her thighs, pressing herself against him. The metal is cool and she can feel it even through her trousers, a counterpoint to just how warm she already is.

"Hmm," she says softly. "Seems as if you can do all the same things. How very useful."

Sylvie’s boldness shouldn’t surprise him, given what he’s come to know about her, but he still feels a bit of a shock when she drags his hand up between her legs right there in the back of the cab. For a moment, it makes Bucky feel like a teenager again, bright eyed and excited by the barest flash of inner thigh.

Or maybe it’s because he never expected the first time he touched a woman again to be with this hand, but here he is, pressing his metal fingers up between her legs, rubbing at her through the thin material of her pants. She’s so warm, and he wants to touch her with the fingers that contain actual nerve endings, wants to put his face there and taste.

It’s been so long and he feels like some primal part of him is waking back up, and she is the perfect partner to direct all of this energy towards, he thinks. No feelings, no emotion, just a need. An itch to be scratched. And no need for either of them to hold back.

“If only they vibrated,” he says lowly, surprising himself with the joke. He’s come to terms with his prosthetic, mostly, but this is new and Sylvie doesn’t make him feel self-conscious about it in the slightest.

He keeps rubbing at her with firm presses of his fingertips, noting every tiny reaction she gives in return. His own cock is twitching to life in his jeans and it’s all so thrilling that he has to take a breath as he looks over at her, watching her nipples tighten beneath her shirt.

“We’re here,” the driver declares, perhaps louder than necessary, and Bucky pulls his hand away smoothly and gets out of the cab, paying the driver and tipping him well before sending him off with a lazy salute.

They’re relatively calm as they enter the building, but once they’re in the elevator, Bucky turns to press her against the side of it, perhaps a little harder than he would any other woman, and kisses her again as he reaches down with his good hand to press it between her legs, feeling how hot and damp she is. He almost forgot how good it feels to have a woman react to him, and he cups her tightly between her legs as he slides his lips along her jaw, letting her feel the scrape of stubble against her skin before he kisses her neck.

Truly, she had forgotten about the driver. Used to technology and worlds in which people aren't quite so necessary, she'd ignored him from the start and had simply forgotten he was there at all, though even if she'd remembered, that wouldn't have stopped her from doing what she had done.

She's not ashamed. Of anything really. She's an Asgardian princess, there's no reason for her to be ashamed.

"As if he didn't enjoy the show," she says in a smug tone as they step out of the vehicle. They're both attractive people, she imagines they must be attractive together as well, though the thoughts of the driver once again leave Sylvie's mind when Bucky has her suddenly pressed against the wall of the elevator that brings them up to her floor. Her head tilts with a soft moan as he drags his mouth over her skin and a slow lick of warmth drags through her body.

She wants to push him around. She wants to make him remember, strong as he may be, that she's a god, and she grabs him by the front of his jacket and turns then, pushing him against the wall inside. Then she presses her knee between his thighs, feeling the heat of him, the heavy outline of his cock through his jeans.

Sylvie makes it clear that she will not tolerate being treated as if she were soft and breakable, but Bucky had no intention of doing so anyway. Still, he lets himself be pushed and ignores the split second of his hindbrain yelling at him to fight back, because that isn’t what this is.

Her knee comes up between his legs and Bucky lets out a strangled sound because it’s been so long that it feels nearly unfamiliar, and he stares down at her with a heated, hungry gaze, eyes dark and chest heaving.

When the elevator opens, Bucky bends his knees to put his prosthetic arm under her ass and lift her, urging her legs around his waist as he leads them down the hall. He remembers which door is hers and resists the urge to plow through it, instead holding her up easily with one arm as he pats at her pockets with his free hand.

“Keys,” he growls out, giving up on his search to lean in and kiss at her neck again, letting his teeth scrape lightly against her skin, biting just above her collarbone as he squeezes at her ass with metal fingers.

When Bucky pats at her pocket, Sylvie slaps his hand away, partly on instinct, partly just because she can. She squeezes her legs around his waist, strong thighs pressing against his hips, then grins, a flash of teeth that looks almost predatory. Somehow she doesn't think he minds.

The flimsy locks on these apartments hardly seem secure enough, especially with these little metal keys, so easy to break and probably just as easy to duplicate. But it's all they have and Sylvie pulls the keys from her pocket, reaching behind her back to shove it into the lock and twist so the door swings open.

Her hand flings out to the side, the keys go flying, and she notes where they fall, but has no interest in retrieving them now. Instead she cups Bucky's face in both her hands so she can kiss him again, biting at his lower lip, tugging it between her teeth.

Sylvie shows her teeth and for some strange reason, it puts Bucky at ease. They’re both so fucked up, displaced after decades of nothing but violence, and Bucky knows that he doesn’t have to worry about being gentlemanly, doesn’t have to hold himself back in fear of hurting her.

He doesn’t have to think, and it’s a very particular kind of relief.

She’s wild against him, squeezing his hips between strong thighs, and when she bites his lip, the pain sends a spark of adrenaline through him. Sex was never like this for him before, but he’s realizing that he likes it. Perhaps he’s so used to fighting that he likes it a little bit in this, too.

A sound like a growl spills out of him and he turns to press Sylvie back against the door, kissing her deeply, licking into her mouth as he reaches between them to tug open the button on her pants. Without preamble, without having to stop and check, he slides his good hand into her pants, down into her underwear, pressing them against the hot, wet core of her.

It shouldn't be so bloody difficult to not think about someone, especially when that someone isn't even here, has never been here, but for a second it's still all that fills Sylvie's mind. Her eyes are closed and rather than Bucky's hand, she can feel Loki's long fingers, and the thought jolts her, her eyes flying open to remind herself of who she's here with.

Were she another woman, one less selfish, she'd feel that she was being unfair to Bucky, but she's still a Loki at her core. Selfish is everything she is.

Holding herself to Bucky with her legs, with her back against the door, Sylvie shrugs out of her coat, then shoves Bucky's down his shoulders. Her fingers drag down both his arms as she pushes herself against him, his fingers warm and thick, touching her in ways she hasn't been touched in a long time. She doesn't remember the last one. Doesn't even really care. What matters is the moment and she leans forward again, pressing her teeth to his throat, biting sharply enough for it to sting as she grabs the hem of his t-shirt and pulls it up.

The bite sends another jolt of pleasure through him, and maybe later he’ll have to sit down and mull over what that means, but for now he just rolls with it. He knows that he means nothing to Sylvie, and that’s fine. It’s good, even. He can’t disappoint someone that he means nothing to, can’t be in debt to them. Can’t hurt them.

His jacket stays trapped around his wrist as he rubs at her clit, pinching it gently between his fingers just to see what kind of noise she’ll make.

Sylvie’s nails rake across his skin as she tries to drag his shirt off, and he pulls his hand from her pants only long enough to shed his jacket and shirt. It’s only then that he realizes that he hasn’t let anyone not involved with making his prosthetic see him without a shirt, and he’s self-conscious for a moment before he remembers. She doesn’t care.

So, Bucky pulls his hands away from her, letting her prop herself up with those strong thighs around his waist as he pulls her shirt over her head. He tosses it aside as he wraps his arms around her and kisses her again, nipping more sharply at her lip as he carries her across the room to the sofa. On the way, he unhooks her bra in a way that feels smooth and practiced, even though it’s been decades since he’s done it.

As he tips her back onto the sofa, he pulls the bra away and flings it aside, letting his eyes trail over her body hungrily. She’s beautiful, but he doesn’t say it because surely she knows that already, and she isn’t here for compliments.

So instead, Bucky undoes her pants and tugs them down along with her underwear, working the garments off of her feet until she’s naked and he can lean over her, kissing her again as he returns his fingers between her legs. She’s wet and hot and Bucky rubs at the slick lips of her cunt before pressing his middle finger into her, working it in and out a few times before adding a second and crooking them up and pressing in hard against the spongey spot one of his earlier, less demure girlfriends taught him about.

If he’s only here for one thing, he might as well make it as good as he can.