[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]

"Yes," she says, absolutely straight-faced. "That's me. Always taking the easy route."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh." He brushes his fingers through her hair again, then smiles at her. "Okay. I'll leave it alone for now."

[from_the_outside]

"Good."

Not that he's likely to be out of reach anytime soon. Leaving Wakanda isn't a good idea for her, but it's damn near impossible for him.

But that's not what she wants to think about right now; she leans up to kiss him lightly instead.

"Nothing wrong with having a back-up plan," she points out, smiling back. "Or two."

[nerves_of_ice]

"At least," he agrees, and pulls the throw over her shoulder.

[from_the_outside]

She huffs a laugh and settles against him, resting her head on his chest and basking in his warmth and the slow up and down of his breath beneath her.

[nerves_of_ice]

He's quiet for some time, listening to her breathe, running his hand over lightly over her hair.

Eventually, he murmurs, "Let me take you inside."

[from_the_outside]

She hums a contented sound and takes a breath like she's surfacing from underwater, then lifts her head to look at him.

"Okay."

Even with the agreement she's reluctant to actually roll off him, but she does after a moment, collecting the purple throw into a loose bundle in her hands and shivering slightly as the cool night air hits her skin.

[nerves_of_ice]

She shivers, and he reaches to grab the edge of the throw and fling it back around her shoulders before picking up the battery-powered candles and putting them away.

(First things first, after all.)

It doesn't take long before everything's collected. Bucky gets to his feet and holds a hand out to her.

[from_the_outside]

She takes his hand and stands up, wrapped in one throw and holding the other, and she lets him take the wicker pack of leftover food and the candles. It saves her free hand for the tote that she picks up before they go inside, though she sets it right back down again near the chest at the end of his bed, along with the two throws.

"Here," she says, holding out her hands for the pack. "I'll put the food away."

Not that there's much left, but there will be a few leftovers for him to supplement his usual beans and rice.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay," he agrees, and passes it over. While she's doing that, he digs out the candles again, switches them back on and sets them on a couple of shelves. It's a nicer light than the lantern he's been using.

[from_the_outside]

She closes the little fridge and comes to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle and setting her chin on his shoulder.

"That's nice," she comments. "Very cozy."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Your idea," he points out, turning to look down at her with a small, warm smile. "So thanks."

[from_the_outside]

"Another good idea," she says, and presses a kiss to his neck. "Maybe I will start keeping track."

[nerves_of_ice]

A slight shiver runs through him. "Maybe you should," he agrees.

[from_the_outside]

Maybe she should. It would be a good defense down the line against all the Sharon, how could you think that was a good idea? and Sharon, that was reckless and extremely poorly-thought out! arguments that are bound to come back up sooner or later.

For now, she just smiles into the curve of his neck. "Want to play a game?" she asks. "Or are you tired?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm definitely not tired," he says, and turns a little to get a better look at her. "What game did you have in mind?"

[from_the_outside]

"I found two," she says, detaching herself from his back and heading to her tote. "Thank the marketplace stall that specializes in used board games."

She pulls out two boxes: one long and flat, with a photo of a battleship on the top, the other squatter and narrower, rattling as she moves it. "Battleship and Jenga. Both strategy, but different kinds."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay, it seems obvious what Battleship's about," he says, dryly. "The other's the one you mentioned before. Why don't we try that?"

[from_the_outside]

"Jenga it is."

She grabs the box and brings it over to the table to dump it out, covering the small table top with a few dozen wooden blocks. "It's easy. First, we build the tower."

She demonstrates setting the blocks up correctly, building the tower in sets of three.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Seems easy enough," he agrees, starting to help her stack the blocks. "What's the catch?"

[from_the_outside]

"The catch is, we keep building the tower even when we run out of blocks," she says, a smile tucking into the corners of her mouth.

"Like this." When the tower is complete, she carefully taps a block out of the middle of the stack and adds it to the top. "Take one, put it on top. The game ends when the tower collapses."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh." He eyes the tower, then eyes her. "Okay, you're on," Bucky says, and reaches for a block.

[from_the_outside]

The first few moves are easy, but as the tower gets higher and the middle looks patchier and patchier, she's got to think about her choices a little more, doing her best to trick him into removing a load-bearing block or rolling the dice with one of the side blocks.

She does, however, sit on her left hand, her mouth twitching. "To be fair," she says, and plays with her right hand only.

[nerves_of_ice]

He looks wry at that, but doesn't argue. Instead, he focuses on lightly poking the center of one block after another, looking for one that's not going to bring the whole thing crashing down.

With painstaking care, he starts to tap one of them out from the side, holding his breath to keep from disturbing the air.

[from_the_outside]

She watches in silence as the tension grows and the block begins to edge its way out of the stack, and times it just right before –

"Careful!" she says, sudden and sharp, the way a particularly annoying golfing buddy might cough on someone's backswing.