[oom] take it easy

[from_the_outside]

By the week after Bucky had found Alpine caught in a soaking downpour and brought him home, Sharon can hardly remember a time when she woke up and didn't feel the little white cat curled somewhere nearby.

Today's no different, although it seems like he's decided to set up camp on her chest instead of by their feet as usual. Sharon mumbles, tired, and pushes at the sheets to get the cat to move, in the process realizing two things:

First, she's lying on her side, not her back.

And second, when Alpine's small miaow? comes, it comes from the floor, not the blanket. 

Sharon takes a breath to respond to him and instantly breaks into a series of wet coughs that she does her best to stifle.

Well, crap.

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[nerves_of_ice]

He goes from asleep to awake in an instant at that sound - that all-too-familiar sound, a sound that's graven deep in his bones from years of keeping an ear out when Steve was sick.

Bucky's sitting bolt upright in bed before he realizes it's now, not then. When he does, he turns to stare at Sharon in surprise and reaches to lay a hand against her forehead.

"Baby?"

[from_the_outside]

"I'm fine," she says.

Or tries to say; it comes out all stuffed and muted: I'b fime. She coughs again to clear her chest and bats loosely at his hand, unaware of how warm and flushed her cheeks and forehead are or of the glazed look to her eyes. "Just a little congested."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'll say." He studies her complexion and her glassy stare as he lowers his hand. "You've got a fever. Stay put. I'm getting you some aspirin."

[from_the_outside]

"I'b fime," she retorts, stubborn, and swallows against a throat that seems filled with jagged glass.

Dammit. Couldn't this have stayed a pounding headache and lightly sore throat? Did it have to turn into a full-blown cold?

Regardless, she has shit to do today, so she pushes back the sheets, sitting up to get out of bed and start the day, in flagrant disobedience to what Bucky had told her to do. "Will you make some coffee?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"You don't need coffee right now, baby." He fastens his right hand around her arm, and uses his left to put the sheets right back over her.

"You're staying right here in bed. If you'd rather have juice instead of water, I can bring you some."

[from_the_outside]

"Come on," Sharon protests, though through her congestion it sounds more like cobe omb.

"It's just a cold. I have stuff to do today."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It can wait. You're staying in bed." There's no give in his tone.

"Colds can turn into pneumonia. You need to rest."

[from_the_outside]

There's no flexibility either in his voice or in the gentle-but-still-firm hand he has keeping her in bed, and Sharon sulkily settles back down again into her pillow.

"Then I'll take the aspirin," she says, sullen. "And juice."

A few seconds later she turns to cough again, almost butting facefirst into Alpine, who has padded up along the length of her body to see what's happening here at the head of the bed.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Coming right up," he tells her. Bucky pauses for a second to stroke a hand down Alpine's back.

"You're on duty until I get back, buddy," he tells the cat. "Sit on her if you have to."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon shuffles her pillow slightly up the headboard, then sinks back against it to watch Alpine, who has indeed decided to come sit on her stomach.

"Narc," she tells the cat, who only stares back at her with placid yellow eyes, then lies comfortably down along her sternum, purring complacently.

[nerves_of_ice]

He takes a moment in the kitchen to breathe, reminding himself that it's not like when Steve was sick, and even if it were they've got a lot more options now. After a few deep breaths, Bucky pours a large glass of orange juice, snags the aspirin from its shelf, and heads back down the hall to the bedroom.

Almost as an afterthought, he picks up a blanket from the linen closet and brings that with him.

"Here you go." He hands her the aspirin and juice before starting to spread the blanket over her. Alpine watches with interest as Bucky makes a nest around him.

"Do you have a sore throat?"

[from_the_outside]

She thinks about lying, but the orange juice stings her tender throat enough that she flinches, and he's on such a hair-trigger she knows it won't fly under the radar.

"Yes," she mutters, and eyes the blanket he drapes over her... and over the comforter she's already beneath. "You know I'm already under a blanket, right? And a cat?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I don't want you to get a chill," he insists. "I'll bring you some toast and tea with honey. We'll start with that."

[from_the_outside]

"We have tea?" she says, surprised.

[nerves_of_ice]

"We will." Bucky gives her a stern look. "Don't you get out of bed while I'm gone. Is there anything that sounds good?"

[from_the_outside]

"How could I?" she pouts. "You've sicced your jailer on me."

She gives Alpine an exasperated glance; the cat only purrs and stretches out his toes, making biscuits on her chest. "Maybe some soup," Sharon says, after she's wrestled for a moment with I don't need it and the certainty that Bucky's going to get stuff for her anyway.

"You can probably get a can of chicken noodle at the bodega."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky gives her a look of absolute disbelief. "You're definitely getting soup. And not from the bodega. From Frankel's deli."

It's obvious that making sure she has what she needs is going to be in his hands. Maybe soup? From a can? What the hell.

"I'll be back in half an hour at most. Call me if you need anything."

[from_the_outside]

She wishes that her sigh didn't send her into a coughing fit; it takes a little away from the point she was trying to get across.

"Fine," she says, with poor grace, and looks at Alpine. "We'll be right here."

[nerves_of_ice]

The cat purrs. Bucky could swear he looks smug, and he takes it as a good sign.

"Good." He leans down to kiss her. "Nap if you can. Back soon."

By the time he gets down the hallway he's already calculating the shortest route to pick up everything he's going to need. He doesn't even have to think twice about it - this particular kind of shopping list's very, very familiar to him.

[from_the_outside]

She doesn't nap.

Instead, she grabs her phone from the bedside table and unlocks it, then starts sifting through all the information she'd been sent on Xu Shang-Chi, his sister, and his friend.

Alpine gives her a judgmental look, but only crawls a little further up onto her chest and stretches out, putting his head down on his paws as his eyes slit shut. Not even Sharon's coughing fits disturb him; he flicks an ear at her and goes back to sleep once they've subsided.

[nerves_of_ice]

He's back in just about the promised half-hour, having picked up everything and arranged for a delivery or two later in the day. Bucky pours the large container of chicken soup into a pot on the back of the stove and sets it to warm, then makes a cup of chamomile tea with lemon and honey and carries it along with a plate of toast and fruit back down the hall.

He moves as quietly as a ghost, as he has since getting back, not wanting to wake her if she's sleeping.

[from_the_outside]

As he comes further down the hall, he's likely to hear two things:

First, Sharon's sneeze, followed by a series of coughs.

And second, the tinny but unmistakable sound of her phone speakers as she watches a replay of the Facebook Live video showing Xu Shang-Chi taking out a series of attackers on a San Francisco public bus.

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky sighs, long and slow, and stops trying to be silent. He's curious whether or not she'll try to hide that phone.

"Hey," he says, as he reaches the door. "Got your tea and breakfast." True to his promise, there's toast - with butter and honey - and mixed fresh fruit, cool and soothing.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon pauses the video and sets the phone aside, well within reach, then pushes herself up on annoyingly weak-feeling arms to prop herself against the headboard. Alpine complains as he tumbles from his spot on her chest, but curls up again almost immediately in a puddle of blanket at her hip.

"Thank you, baby," she says, reaching for the plate and cup. Her voice is still a little murky; she clears her throat a few times before taking a determined bite of the toast.

She's not hungry at all, but she knows better than to not eat when he's watching her like a hawk. "You know, this Shang-Chi guy? Did you watch that fight on the bus? He's got some pretty good moves."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh." It's a martial arts style he's seen before, and it's clear the young man's expert in it. Something about that's tickling the back of his mind, and he lets it. If it doesn't come, he can try to tease it out with meditation later.

"Yeah, it was pretty impressive." Bucky reaches to pick up her phone, studying the paused video, then looks up at her. "I'll keep this safe for you," he says, as he locks the screen.