[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]

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.

[from_the_outside]

"I would," she says, when it's clear he won't answer. "You wouldn't want me alone with my nightmares, would you?"

They aren't as bad as his, maybe, but she's done her fair share of waking up, gasping and covered in sweat, over the last week. Over the last month. "Let me help."

[nerves_of_ice]

Very, very quietly, he tells her, "You don't deserve yours."

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky."

There isn't any pity in her eyes as she watches him, as she lifts her hand to gently stroke it over his hair, just a deep well of sympathetic understanding. "You don't deserve them, either."

It's quiet but firm, her eyes steady on his like she could will him into believing her. "You're a good man. I know you don't see it that way, but you are. You deserve to be able to sleep."

[nerves_of_ice]

He meets her eyes, not trying to evade her gaze, and shakes his head, but doesn't argue beyond that.

[from_the_outside]

Her mouth twists at that shake of his head, but she just spreads her fingers into his hair and leans forward to press her mouth to his temple before sitting back again.

"Will you be able to sleep, if I stay with you tonight?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I guess we'll find out." One corner of his mouth quirks up in a rueful hint of a smile. "I'll try. Is that good enough?"

[from_the_outside]

She palms his jaw and touches her thumb to that ticked-up corner of his mouth, smiling slightly herself. "It's a start."

Archly: "I'll just have to make it a little easier and do my best to tire you out."

[nerves_of_ice]

He chuckles, very slightly, then turns his head and kisses her palm.

[from_the_outside]

Her smile presses dimples into her cheeks, and she leans forward to kiss him, lightly.

"You know, I kept track of every time I made you laugh for real in Greece," she says, when she leans back again. "And after you sent me on that museum run in Berlin. It felt like winning the damn lottery whenever I managed it."

[nerves_of_ice]

He blinks at her, eyes wide and startled.

"You did?"

[from_the_outside]

"Sure. It was a good way to gauge if you were relaxing around me. Also, it seemed like a pretty specialized skill: getting the Winter Soldier to lighten up and laugh."

She tips her head at him, pert and more than a little pleased with herself. "And you know I like to pick up new skills. Plus, it was cute."

Okay. So maybe that last one was the main reason.

[nerves_of_ice]

"I guess it would be pretty specialized, at that." He tightens his arm around her in a slight hug.

"All things considered."