[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]

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.

[nerves_of_ice]

Instead of jerking at the sudden sound, everything about him becomes unnaturally still in an instant, including his hand in the air, a mere centimeter's width from the block. After a few frozen seconds, he cuts a sharp look her way, without otherwise moving.

"Really?" Absolutely dry.

[from_the_outside]

She does nothing but laugh to herself, shoulders shaking, like she's the funniest person alive.

Cheating is a time-honored board game tradition, after all.

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head, finishes easing that piece out and manages to stack it on top, then gives her a very amused look.

"Your turn."

[from_the_outside]

She gives him a wary glance, then leans forward to start gently edging out one of the side blocks in the middle of the stack.

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't say a single word. In fact, he's careful to stay perfectly quiet, and very still, except for leaning forward himself to watch as she manipulates the little block.

Only once it's two-thirds of the way out does he blow a warm breath over the side of her neck.

[from_the_outside]

She shivers but her hand remains steady, though it takes her a moment to focus enough to tap the block the rest of the way out. The tower sways, but doesn't fall, and she turns to him with laughing eyes.

"Now you're getting it."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm a quick study," he says, visibly amused. Bucky eyes the tower, which is still swaying, and sighs.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," he mutters, and picks his target.

[from_the_outside]

She waits until he's nudged the block about halfway out and the tower is swaying precariously but not yet about to collapse before she makes her attack; leaning over, she brushes the hair off the back of his neck and presses her mouth to the nape.

[nerves_of_ice]

He manages to pull his hand back before the shiver runs through him, barely.

Leaning back from the tower, he turns and threads his fingers through her hair, drawing her into a kiss.

[from_the_outside]

Her laugh gets muffled into his mouth and she kisses him back with a will, lightly running her fingers over the spot she'd just attacked and doing her best not to nudge the table with her knee as she shifts in her seat.

[nerves_of_ice]

He tips his forehead against hers when the kiss breaks.

"You're a menace," he tells her, amused. "And a competitive one."

[from_the_outside]

"You've known that about me from the beginning," she says, smiling.

"And yet you like me anyway."

[nerves_of_ice]

"All true," he admits, and kisses her again before turning back to the tower. He blows out his breath, and reaches for the half-shifted block.

[from_the_outside]

She sits back and this time doesn't make a sound or try in any way to distract him.

If he gets this one, honestly, he deserves the win.