[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

[from_the_outside]

"Well, that's a relief. You play it very cool."

Which is a straight lie, but she can't care, because it is a beautiful evening and the sun is just starting to edge along the horizon, and it's been too long since she's gotten a chance to sit and sip wine with him over a good meal.

[nerves_of_ice]

Without missing a beat, he says, "Maybe I'm ... just out of practice."

His tone, his inflection, is as near a match as he can make it to the one he was using in a cottage in France, some time ago.

[from_the_outside]

There's a curve to her mouth that says she hears it. "Maybe you are a little rusty," she says, and leans back over to him. "So let's try this again."

This time, though, she ends it with a kiss instead of a question that's nearly an accusation.

[nerves_of_ice]

He kisses her back, slow and gentle, as color begins to streak across the sky above them, here together in this moment of calm.

[from_the_outside]

When this kiss breaks, she leans her forehead against his and smiles, her hand still at his jaw. "Better."

How has it only been a week?

(How do they only have a week?)

She runs her fingers through his hair and sits up, nodding to the food. "Eat up, you handsome devil, before you distract me right out of dinner."

[nerves_of_ice]

"We can't have that," he concedes. "Not when you went to so much trouble."

He sits up as well, sets the cup aside carefully so that it won't spill, and reaches for another helping.

[from_the_outside]

"It wasn't much trouble," she says, watching him more than getting her own food. "I just thought it might be nice."

The last time they had a picnic like this, sipped wine like this, was the last time she had a good night until she came here, almost two months later.

...And it hadn't even been that good of a night. Her mouth ticks towards a rueful curve as she remembers the empty wine bottle and headache she'd woken up to the next morning.

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky looks up at her, studying the curve of her smile.

"It is nice," he says, quietly. "Really nice."

[from_the_outside]

She blinks out of her reverie, her eyes turning warm and pleased. "Good."

The light's beginning to fade; she reaches into the pack and pulls out a series of battery-powered column candles; she switches them on and sets them on the blanket, where they throw their warm, flickering light over the wine, the food, his hand and arm and face.

"I didn't think real ones would be a good idea," she says, when she looks back at him, that half-curve still tucked into the corner of her mouth. "It's pretty dry. So far I haven't had any dates that end in a massive wildfire; figured I should try to keep that record going."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Neat trick," he murmurs, watching the candles flicker, then studying the play of their glow across her skin. After a moment, he reaches out to spread her hair over her shoulder, looking at the way the light warms its soft gold.

[from_the_outside]

She watches him, all aglow in the dying sunlight and the warm electric candlelight, and doesn't move as he arranges her hair over her shoulder.

"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve," she says, her eyes and voice both soft. "I wouldn't want to run out of surprises."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I doubt you ever could," Bucky says, open and honest, as he gently draws his fingers through her hair. "You're a constant mystery, Sharon. You're amazing."

[from_the_outside]

"They're just candles," she says, amused and more than a little touched.

(When was the last time someone said she was amazing?)

She tips her head, lets a few more waves of her hair fall over her shoulder for his fingers to brush through. "Not even real ones."

[nerves_of_ice]

"They look real enough to me."

He coils a lock of hair around his index finger, lets it untwist, and does it again.

[from_the_outside]

She watches as he twirls her hair around his finger, something warm and fond playing around her mouth.

"You like it in curls?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Yes. And without them, too," he adds. "But yes."

[from_the_outside]

"Good to know."

She files that information away, like she does every time she discovers a new like or dislike of his. The white suit? Like. A red dress?

Well. "Do you want some music?"

The quiet is nice, too, but she came prepared, just in case.

[nerves_of_ice]

He finishes coiling another lock of hair around his finger and looks up at her.

"Do you?"

[from_the_outside]

"I asked you first," she says, amused. "I can take it or leave it."

She has a lot of options, tonight. Small ones. Choices he can make, if he wants to, or that she can make if that's what he prefers. All of them just a little more she gets to know about him.

For now, she just watches his fingers in her hair, the way he gently coils it and lets the resulting ringlet go.

[nerves_of_ice]

"In a while then, maybe," he says, after a moment's careful consideration -- and an equally careful sideways look at her, one he doesn't even realize he's giving, as he keeps coiling lock after lock of her hair. "It's nice like this, right now."

[from_the_outside]

"Okay."

She brushes her hair off her other shoulder and lets it slip down towards his hand. The sky is turning dusky purple and the sunset is just a thin red line along the horizon; soon they'll only have the starlight and these little battery-powered candles to see by.

But the stars in Wakanda are so bright, it's not going to be a problem. "It is nice."

It's funny how two city mice like them can find peace and contentment out here in the middle of nowhere. It must be the company.

[nerves_of_ice]

He finishes twisting every lock he can reach, and stretches up to brush his fingers over her cheekbone, studying her face.

[from_the_outside]

She tips her head into his touch, watching him with warm eyes.

Who knows what he sees when he looks at her like this. Something good, she thinks. Hopes.

(Sometimes she thinks about Tirana, and wonders what would have happened if they'd actually made it there. Would this? Would any of it?)

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't say anything, not yet. Instead, he cups her cheek in his hand and studies her for a few moments longer before he leans over to kiss her.

[from_the_outside]

She leans into his kiss, her free hand going to his cheek, and returns it soft and sweet and lingering.

Every one of these kisses is a treasure. She's lost count of how many there have been, but that doesn't mean she doesn't hoard each one like coins in a piggy bank for safekeeping.