Fanfics I'll never write but god I wish I would

Loki and Bucky friendship but make it ✨ weird ✨

started writing this on tumblr thinking it would be like three or four paragraphs max and i was wrong so it goes here instead 💀 i swear this almost looks like i wrote it in fic form but if i wrote it in fic form it would be like five times longer so no i just wrote it in extended summary form apparently whoops

au where Loki never thought to steal the throne from Odin, so after TDW, he thinks his only two options are to go back to the dungeon or to flee and hope Heimdall doesn't catch him, and, naturally, he chooses the latter. so he ends up on Earth disguised as a little black cat, and though it's admittedly fairly humiliating that his life now consists of stealing scraps of food from dumpsters or unsuspecting passersby, he does what he has to do to survive.

but one day, someone starts to take an interest in him. it's not the first time someone's acknowledged him, and he doesn't think much of it at first. the stranger crouches down, trying to get him to come near, but he's not overly disappointed when it doesn't work out. he just tosses Loki a couple of blueberries from his small collection of fruit and walks on by.

and then the stranger comes by the next week, apparently grocery shopping again. after a moment of surprise, finding the same cat in roughly the same place days apart, he does the same thing, attempting to make contact and then leaving something to eat.

two days later, he comes by again, but this time, all he's holding is a small piece of meat. he's looking around like he wants to find Loki, so Loki crawls out from his little hiding spot, keeping a fair amount of distance between them. the stranger crouches down and holds out the meat, but Loki doesn't trust him enough to go near him. so the stranger just tosses it to him, and he watches as Loki grabs it and retreats into the shadows.

and this starts happening every day. the stranger usually comes at night when no one else is around, and the longer this goes on, the more comfortable they both feel. the stranger starts talking to him some nights. the first time he speaks, his does so in French. the next, German. it's a different language every day, but Loki knows them all, though the stranger's soft cooing is fairly nonsensical for the most part. as this goes on, Loki starts coming closer to him, always ready to take off running if he thinks he needs to, but he never does.

the first time he lets the stranger touch him, it's weird. no one's laid a hand on him in years; not since the fight in Svartalfheim. but it's kind of nice. there's a gentleness to him that Loki hadn't known he'd been longing for until he felt it. so Loki starts letting the stranger pet him at night, just for that comforting feeling of being acknowledged, trusted.

one night, a storm hits. that's nothing new -- he's been living in the streets long enough that dealing with storms is basically second nature -- so Loki decides to take shelter until it stops. except. it just. doesn't. it goes in for hours, flooding the streets. granted, he's, like, a foot tall, so it doesn't take much to feel like a flood, but his poor paws are soaked, and the only hope he has of possibly finding higher, dryer ground would involve running around in the pouring rain. so he sucks it up, as he always does, because he doesn't have much choice. at least it's not snow, right?

the stranger still comes that night, an umbrella in one hand and some food in the other. as hungry as Loki is, he really doesn't want to get more wet than he already is — do you know how long it takes for cat fur to dry completely? — so when the stranger crouches down, all Loki does is meow at him. the stranger comes to him instead and holds the food out for him, and Loki eats it from his hand, the umbrella sheltering them both from the rain.

"you know," he says sympathetically, "I'd take you home if I thought you'd let me pick you up."

Loki almost doesn't believe his ears. this stranger would take him home. his home. he would let this wet little street cat into his own house. it's unbelievable.