Loki and the Bouncy House

Chapter Six

Loki had his eyes tightly shut, sitting on a wobbly wooden stool. What have the plums done this time? he wondered. He was annoyed, and decided to keep his eyes shut.

He felt someone poking his arm. "Loki. Loki. We have to go."

It was Bucky. Loki shook his head. "No. Go away."

"Come on. You have to hide the tesseract."

"Leave me alone."

"The plums left."

"I hate you."

Bucky pushed Loki off the stool. He opened his eyes.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Bucky pointed at a mirror leaning against the wall. Loki got up from the floor and dragged himself over to the mirror.

"We're leaving. Like I said, you need to hide that tesseract thing. And the sooner you're out of here, the less problems you'll cause to the bouncy houses."

"Why?"

"What?" said Bucky.

"Why this?" asked Loki, still standing in front of the mirror. He couldn't believe his eyes. His face was covered with multi-color glitter that sparkled in the dim lighting of the room they were in. He had two fishtail braid pigtails in his hair, with more glitter. On Loki's head, a flower crown lay.

"Oh. That."

"Yes, that," Loki said, shooting an angry look at Bucky. "There's glitter everywhere."

"Believe me. I know. I'm still trying to get some out of my hair." Bucky paused and went to pick something off his shoulder. "The plums have a small obsession with glitter and fixing hair."

Small? You call this small?

"Well, anyways, the sun's going to set soon, I think. If you still want to leave America tonight, we'll have to get going," continued Bucky, getting something up from the ground.

"I hate you so much right now," muttered Loki. He went with the man, though, after taking out the braids and wiping his face.

Loki found out they had been in an old bouncy dance studio that closed a couple years prior. The dance studio was only a few blocks away from the entryway to the alley, so they made it there in a couple minutes.

"Here," Bucky pointed out.

It was a bouncy house building that rose up four stories. There was a manhole nearby, which puzzled Loki, because he knew bouncy houses didn't need manholes.

Loki took out the tesseract and set it on the ground.

"It's... tiny," said Bucky, sounding disappointed.

"What did you expect? It's not a box," replied Loki.

He opened up the manhole, kneeling on the ground. The cover was pushed aside with a loud creak. Loki looked up, making sure no one had heard.

"Are you sure that's the best place to hide it?" Bucky asked.

Loki ignored him, and instead shoved the tesseract into the manhole. He placed it down on a small ledge, covering it with a cloth he found in his pocket.

"There," Loki simply said. It was done. At last, Loki accomplished what he had planned to do. The tesseract was finally hidden, away from meddling mortals and his stupid brother. Both the tesseract and Loki were safe. He could return to Asgard now. No one would suspect a thing. No one knew of the tesseracts hiding spot.

Oh, wait.

Loki looked up to see Bucky leaning against the bouncy house's wall, a puzzled look on his face. He could ruin everything. He could blab about all this to someone, and eventually word would get to one of the pathetic Avengers, which would mean his brother would find out, and would get Loki into some very serious trouble, unless he faked his death again, but would it really work this time? And, anyways, what would Loki do in the meantime, if the only thing he could really do was make his brother's life miserable by playing cat and mouse... what would happen if Loki got rid of Bucky? He was the only witness, the only accomplice. By getting rid of Bucky, there would be no way of anyone knowing what Loki had been up to in the past couple of days.

No, he couldn't kill Bucky. Not after all that Bucky had done for him. And, he would get in even more trouble. More trouble than the last time he got involved with the tesseract.

Instead, Loki decided to just leave everything as it was. Loki could tell that Bucky wasn't one to spread stories. He just hoped this time Bucky would also stay quiet.

Loki didn't say anything to Bucky as he stood up, brushing dust off his black trenchcoat. He expected Bucky to know what was asked of him.

"You're leaving now, aren't you?" Bucky inquired.

"Yes," confirmed Loki. "I must head back to Asgard."

Bucky nodded, understanding. He hesitated before answering. "Nice meeting you, though. The plums are waiting for me."

Right, of course. The plums.

"Farewell."

With that, Loki was on his way back home in the palace on Asgard.