[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.

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[from_the_outside]

She rolls her eyes at him and sits up, blanket falling briefly from her shoulders as she reaches for the green throw and wraps it securely around him. She tugs the purple throw back up and leans back against his side, idly sipping her coffee as the horizon begins, slowly, slowly, to lighten.

[nerves_of_ice]

"The birds'll start singing soon," he murmurs, softly. "Keep an eye out over to the south. The light goes through the trees there."

[from_the_outside]

"Okay."

She obediently turns her eyes southwards as around them the air lightens and mist begins to rise, swirling, from the surface of the lake.

It's not long before he's right: one bird calls and another answers, and after a few moments the air is full of birdsong.

[nerves_of_ice]

It's peaceful here, like this, and as he listens to the birds and watches the light shift, he can feel the last vestiges of the dream loosen and fall away.

Bucky takes a deep breath, then another, the tension draining out of his body.

[from_the_outside]

She can count the number of sunrises she's seen on one hand, and she probably would have willingly missed this one, too, but now that she's here she can appreciate the slow rosy fade in the horizon, the sound of the birds, the peaceful lightening of the sky.

And, best of all, Bucky slowly relaxing next to her. She slips her left hand out from underneath the throw to loosely take his as the false dawn grows and the sun finally begins the edge its way above the horizon.

[nerves_of_ice]

He threads his fingers through hers without moving his arm from around her, and squeezes gently.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

[from_the_outside]

"Very," she agrees, settling her head against his shoulder. The sky is all blush and palest blue now and she's beginning to feel the day's warmth seep through the air.

It's lovely.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Although you can go back to sleep if you want to," he murmurs, and oh, but his tone is fond. "I won't mind."

[from_the_outside]

She smiles and runs her thumb over the back of his.

"I like sitting here with you," she tells him, even as the warmth in his voice cracks something in her chest wide open.

Besides, she can always nap later.

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm glad," he murmurs. "Because I like it, too."

[from_the_outside]

It's all extremely peaceful and romantic, which is why Sharon dissolves into helpless laughter when the morning calm is shattered by the bleating of a newly awake and clearly starving goat.

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky just sighs.

"That's what I get for letting them get used to an early morning feeding schedule," he grouses. "Wait here. I'll go take care of them and come right back."

[from_the_outside]

"You better," she grins, "before they break out and come for you." One of the goats bleats more loudly, aggrieved, and that sends her into a cascade of giggles again.

She's still grinning as he gets up and heads to take care of the goats, and as she tips her mug to drink the last of her now lukewarm coffee.

Maybe being up this early isn't so bad after all.

[nerves_of_ice]

He distributes grain and a flake of hay, fills the water trough, washes up again, and ducks into the hut to retrieve clean clothes, all in short order. When he comes back to rejoin Sharon, he also brings the press with him.

"Refill your coffee, ma'am?"

[from_the_outside]

"Why, thank you, kind sir," she laughs, holding up her mug.

"You know, I think I like staying over here. Look at this service!"

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky smiles, and pours her mug full, then splashes a bit more coffee into his own mug where it still rests on the ground.

"Give me a second and I'll bring the milk and sugar," he promises.

[from_the_outside]

"You're the best," she says, and she absolutely means it, her smile flashing bright and warm in the new morning sun.

"I'll be right here."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Good," he says, quietly, and vanishes back inside the hut.

When he comes back out, he's repurposed the dish bin again, and has everything she needs to doctor her coffee the way she likes it.

He sets it down in front of her, then resumes his seat beside her and reclaims his own coffee.

[from_the_outside]

She goes through the little ritual of perfecting her coffee – pouring the milk, adding the sugar – and sits back again with him once she's finished.

The air is so fresh; it smells like morning dew and lakewater and crushed grass. She takes a deep, slow breath of it and lets her gaze drift across the slowly-waking world.

"Thanks for letting me stay," she says, after a long, peaceful moment and a few sips of coffee. She rolls her head against the hut wall to look at him, her mouth ticking towards a faintly rueful smile. "I didn't want to give up that much time."

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't answer her at first, instead paying an abnormal amount of attention to his own coffee.

"Don't thank me," he murmurs, finally. "I just ... before." He glances at her. "It's not that I didn't want you here, Sharon. Don't think that. I just... didn't want you to know how bad it was."

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky," she says, gently, cupping her mug in her hands and meeting that flicked glance with her own steady gaze, "it's only been a week. You wouldn't need to explain yourself even if you didn't want me here. And I'd rather know."

I think of you as a partner, he'd said. Partners back each other up, no matter what. "I don't want you to be alone in the middle of the night with those dreams."

[nerves_of_ice]

She's right, he knows. It hasn't been very long at all, for what's growing between them. It just feels longer, and he can't explain why. But that's not what matters to him right now.

He shakes his head. "Don't thank me," he says again.

[from_the_outside]

She watches him for a moment longer, considering her options.

"If it helps," she says, finally, "I slept better last night than I did the night before without you."

Interruptions notwithstanding.

[nerves_of_ice]

His smile is small and wry.

"That's probably because you didn't spend the entire night poring over intel."

[from_the_outside]

"I spent the night poring over intel because I couldn't sleep, not the other way around."

The op doesn't worry her. Not really; she's done a million just like it, and last night she had no idea Fury would be involved. She trusts her own abilities to analyze the intel and she trusts his, too.