[oom] I'm right here beside you

[from_the_outside]

 Sleep is a joke.

It's not just the intel that she stays up sifting through, blue light straining her eyes; it's not just the coffee she drinks, trying to keep her brain sharp and her thoughts on track. 

It's time.

Minutes that slip away, that she can't get back. Hours that tick ponderously past. She lies alone in her bed and can't close her eyes because if she does, if she sleeps, it's another night gone, another night closer to the day Bucky goes back under and –

So she stays up and works. 

It means that when she waits for him in the morning to come find her before they meet with T'Challa and the others, her skin is pale and translucent and she has that sick feeling of an all-nighter, fatigue poisons running rampant through her bloodstream – but she has a list of observations from her analysis, and two mugs of coffee kept warm on the credenza: one pale with milk and sugar, the other black and as strong as her little coffee maker could handle.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"Like I said," he drawls, apparently untroubled by the extent of the manhunt. He's had time to get used to it. "It paints a different kind of target on your back."

"Some people would think you had me under your control - most, probably. That'd impress some of them, scare others. But some would try to use it against you, threatening to turn me in. And yeah, some would try to cut a deal. No matter what, you end up with too many people looking your way for someone who's trying to stay off the radar and infiltrate a setup like this. Too high profile. Too visible."

He lets that hang in the air between them for a second.

"So I know it's a bad idea. It can't be me. No matter how much I want it to be. But it's got to be someone. Someone good."

[from_the_outside]

"Everyone I know who'd be willing is too high profile."

Steve, Sam, Nat, Clint – the whole world knows their faces.

She leans her head on one hand and toys with her mug with the other. "Everyone I used to work with would be dutybound to turn me in. I've got nothing."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Maybe Nakia has someone. We'll figure it out."

He nods to her mug. "Is that helping?"

[from_the_outside]

"Not as much as I'd like," she says, smiling faintly. "It's probably just going to make me jittery."

She watches him for a moment, then lifts her hand to smooth a fallen lock of hair back behind his ear. "How about you? You looked pretty unhappy during that call. You doing okay?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Want to try a nap instead? I can stick around, go over more of our notes while you sleep," he suggests.

"I'm okay."

[from_the_outside]

"Maybe later."

For now, she's tired, but not so tired she can't give him a skeptical look. "You didn't look okay."

He looked tense enough to snap in half, like a twig. "Was it just Fury being a manipulative bastard? Or something else?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Isn't Fury reason enough?" It's a little dry, but then he shakes his head. "Threat assessment and readiness for response. I'm still... a little high-tuned."

That's putting it mildly.

[from_the_outside]

She huffs a breath that's not quite a laugh. "I worked for him for a long time. It's definitely reason enough."

Her hand moves down his neck to his shoulder, and she rubs her thumb into the line of muscle that she'd watched bunch and tense earlier. "I get it."

It's been a stressful twenty-four hours. Not the worst they've dealt with, not by a long shot, but still...

A lot.

[nerves_of_ice]

He smiles a little as she presses her hand against his shoulder. "Trying to help me relax?"

[from_the_outside]

"You bet I am."

Her eyes are warm as she looks at him. "Is it working?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh. Here, I've got an idea."

He wraps his hand around her upper arm and tugs lightly as he stands up, trying to coax her to follow him.

[from_the_outside]

"Okay."

One word, but it's full of simple trust. She gets up and follows without question as he leads her over to the armchair.

[nerves_of_ice]

He takes a seat, and pulls at her arm to encourage her to sit on his lap.

"Just take a moment to breathe," he murmurs. "My shoulder's not the softest pillow, but it's something. I'll wake you in a little while if you fall asleep."

[from_the_outside]

She doesn't need much encouragement, just toes off her sandals and sits, curling up in his lap, against his shoulder, and tucking her head where it fits best, in the crook of his neck. His arm goes around her, and she settles her right hand on the other side of his neck, stroking her thumb lightly over his skin as her mouth presses towards a small smile.

"You spend a lot of time trying to get me to sleep, you know that?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I wonder why that could be," he says, dryly.

[from_the_outside]

"Because you're a mother hen," she tells him, amused.

But she's not going to complain about this. It's better, sitting here, surrounded by him, breathing him in. He's warm and soft and firm all at the same time, and she can nudge her head into the curve of his shoulder and neck and just breathe, following the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest.

It's a long, quiet while later before she speaks again, and when she does, her voice is so soft it's nearly a whisper. "I want to stay with you tonight."

[nerves_of_ice]

"No, I'm not," he protests, but then goes quiet as well, just sitting with her sheltered in the curve of his arm.

He's silent for a moment longer after she speaks, and then--

"Okay."

He can't tell her no. Not today. Not after everything. He'll just have to find a way to manage the nightmares.

[from_the_outside]

"Okay," she repeats, and lapses into silence again. She sets her hand in the hollow of his left shoulder, runs her thumb back and forth over the line his collarbone makes in his shirt.

No one's going to take this. Not Fury. Not anyone.

[nerves_of_ice]

"More than okay," he murmurs, after a moment or two. "Just so there's no confusion."

[from_the_outside]

"Mm."

Her thumb taps lightly against his collarbone. "I want to stay with you tonight," she says, again, but this time she lifts her head to look at him. "But not if it means you won't sleep."

The way he hasn't slept around her since that first night, a week ago. She lifts her hand and smooths her thumb over the line of his eyebrow, over his temple. "Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He goes absolutely still, and knows as he does that he's given himself away. Bucky sighs, long and low.

"I'd hoped you wouldn't," he admits.

[from_the_outside]

"I admit I bought the excuses longer than I'm proud of," she says, and drops her hand back to his shoulder. "But I usually get there in the end."

And it wasn't just nights. Even if she fell asleep, wrung out and exhausted in the mid-afternoon warmth of his bed, he was awake when she drifted off and awake when she opened her eyes again. But the rest he kept telling her she needed was a thin excuse when she was up and swimming, running, climbing only a few days after the mission that went awry.

She leans her elbow on the back of the chair and props her head up to look at him. "Why haven't you wanted me to stay nights? Or to come here?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He sighs again, and is silent for a few moments.

"Because of the nightmares," he says, finally.

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky," she says, very gently, after another moment of silence, "don't you think I'd rather be there so you don't have to be alone with them in the middle of the night?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head, and says nothing.