[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 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."

[from_the_outside]

"Hmm."

She sounds amused as she runs the fingers of her left hand through his hair. "Yeah. But I really think it was the cute thing that made it irresistible."

[nerves_of_ice]

This time the look he gives her is unquestionably skeptical.

[from_the_outside]

"What?" she laughs. "I had working eyes back then, too."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh." He sounds skeptical, too. "Whatever you say."

[from_the_outside]

She just laughs at him and his skepticism. "Boy, you do not like it when I call you cute, do you?"

This is the second time he's made faces at her about it.

(It's cute.)

She lifts her hands from his head and chest, respectively, and holds them up in surrender. "Fine, next time I'll keep it to myself."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Mostly because I'm not," he points out. "I mean - kittens are cute. Puppies. Things like that."

[from_the_outside]

"You're entitled to your opinion," she says, airily, in a tone that adds but your opinion is wrong.

"But don't worry. I also think you're handsome. And a whole lot of other things."

Occasionally still a gigantic pain in the ass. But hardly for the same reasons. "And only sometimes puppy- or kitten-adjacent."

[nerves_of_ice]

He slides his hand up her back and tugs at a lock of her hair.

Almost as an afterthought, he adds,

"Cat, if I had to pick."

[from_the_outside]

She runs her fingers through his hair from his forehead all the way along the curve of his skull, smiling.

"Don't you mean 'wolf'?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Sure," he agrees, as he tips his head slightly back into her touch. "Obviously."

"But cats are okay, too."

[from_the_outside]

"I could see you with a cat."

A little furry thing to keep him company, to sleep at his feet and annoy him into paying attention to it? It might be just what he needs. "It'd plague the hell out of the goats, though, probably."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Probably," he agrees. "Better not."

He tugs her hair again, then tightens his arm around her to steady her as he starts to get to his feet. "And speaking of those goats, I better go check on them before they run wild and I have to spend the rest of the day looking for them."

[from_the_outside]

"You never know. It might be good for them."

She balances herself on his shoulders as her feet come back to the floor and she steps away. "Want me to come by later?"

He's feeling the same crunch for time as she is, she thinks. The same unwillingness to let go of the few hours and minutes they have before he goes back under.

But it's polite to ask.

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky leans down and kisses her.

"Yes," he says, simply, when it breaks.

[from_the_outside]

Her hand goes to his jaw, and she's smiling when she pulls back.

"Okay."

She leans in and kisses him, lightly, once more. "See you later, then."

[nerves_of_ice]

"See you later."

He slips out the door and down the hall, heading back to the lake, nodding to the guards on duty as he goes. It's possible that T'Challa will want to talk to him, he knows, and if so the guards will inform him of Bucky's whereabouts.

[from_the_outside]

It's not until late afternoon, after some time going over the intel and talking with Nakia and Okoye, that she makes her way along the now-familiar path to the little hut by the lake. She has a little more stuff with her, too: the tote now contains an extra change of clothes and her toothbrush, and she's got the little wicker backpack basket that she and Nakia had used before on her back.

The goats, she's pleased to see as she strolls up, did not manage to escape after all.

[nerves_of_ice]

He'd been right. It had taken just about an hour for T'Challa to make his way to the hut by the lake after he'd gotten back. He'd accepted the silent invitation to join the king of Wakanda for a long walk, during which the guard remained at a discreet distance, and had told him everything he knew about Nick Fury - both reported and observed.

By the time he'd reached the end of the report, the two of them were standing on the top of a hill, looking out toward the distant city. "Do you trust him?" T'Challa had asked, slanting a look in his direction.

It had taken him a while to find an answer. "I trust that we're after the same goals. And that he'll always try to do the right thing," Bucky had said, finally. "Even if it means breaking the rules." It's praise, not condemnation, and T'Challa seems to take it as such.

"Thank you." He turns to face Bucky. "I will see you tomorrow, then, and we will deal with this man."

He stays on the hilltop for a while after T'Challa leaves, but eventually he goes back down to the hut to take care of a few things. When Sharon shows up, he's in the middle of breaking up old branches for firewood.

"Hi."

[from_the_outside]

"Hi, yourself."

She dumps her bag and the little pack by the hut and heads over to him, hands in her pockets, the breeze tugging at a few wayward strands of hair as they escape from her ponytail. "I see you managed to foil any escape plans the goats might have come up with. Good job."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It was hard work," he says, solemnly. "They're quick."

[from_the_outside]

"But you're smarter," she points out, and doesn't even add probably. She nods towards the branches.

"Want any help?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"No, that's okay. I'm just keeping busy with this." He levers the hand axe out of the log he'd been using as a brace and walks over to store it away.

"Did you have a good rest of your day?"