Chapter Text
Three days later.
Everything is soft. The brush of the sheets delicately covering their limbs, the warm light creeping across the walls, slowly climbing up their bodies as the minutes pass. Quiet breaths.
It’s the calm he needs after the storm that is so often his mind at night.
Bucky buries his face into Steve’s mess of hair, which is gradually giving the impression of literally becoming one with the sunshine as the morning progresses. That already beautiful shade is basically glowing right now, little sparkles glinting on individual strands. It’s kind of ridiculous.
“I always loved being able to do this,” he murmurs.
A puff of warm air brushes Bucky’s forearm as Steve scoffs. “What, suffocating me?”
“Asshole.” Bucky gives a little extra-tight squeeze with his arm until Steve laughs and swats vaguely at Bucky’s face.
“I missed it too.”
“See?” Bucky plants a kiss in the crook of Steve’s neck. It’s so much smaller, but just as warm. “Little spoon privileges. That’s not so bad, right?”
“I guess not.”
A gentle breeze flutters through the room, tickling at the edges of loose papers lying on the floor and table. All Steve’s work, little sketches scattered through the apartment. Mostly rough portraits or figures from his immaculate memory; they’re all gorgeous in Bucky’s opinion, whatever Steve says.
Bucky remembers how, back in their 20s, he would sit for hours while Steve lovingly rendered every inch of his body on paper. Always in pencil, there was no question of affording anything more fancy than graphite, but god, were they something.
He doesn’t mean to say it. They’re so peaceful and happy and he doesn’t want to spoil that but it spills from his lips anyway—
“Do you wish I could go back to how I was before?”
Steve stills. Bucky’s heart thumps. He knows Steve can feel it against his back. “Bucky.”
“I just. I was looking at all those old drawings you did, and... then I was in the shower. Guess I don’t look my best, huh— with the scars, and arm n’ shit.” He pauses. “And I’m kinda crazy these days.” A piss poor attempt at humour, and unsurprisingly it doesn’t seem to have Steve fooled.
“Bucky.” Steve twists out of Bucky’s embrace until he’s on all fours, looking down at him. “Look at me.” Steve nudges at Bucky’s chin and he forces himself to glance up. And what a familiar expression that is. There’s that little dent of determination between Steve’s eyes, which are glaring at him. “I wish you’d never gone through all the shit that you did. I wish you could’a seen Becca grow up, lived your life without a single minute of pain.” Steve’s eyelids flutter shut, and he leans his head down to rest on Bucky’s chest. “But pal, I loved you then and I love you just the same now. And there ain’t nothing that’s gonna put a stop to that.”
Bucky lets his eyes fall shut again, and tries to relax back into the pillows. Jesus, Rogers. What a sap.
“You sound, uh, pretty sure about that.”
“I do, don’t I?”
As Steve lifts his head, Bucky meets his eyes and murmurs, “no matter what?”
“You bet.”
“What if I go bald?”
“I’d buy you a hat to keep you warm.”
I love him. Bucky smiles. He can’t help it. He can feel it at the corners of his eyes, and his lips part as he reaches up to card his fingers through Steve’s bed head.
“What if I shave my eyebrows off?”
“Then you’d look fucking stupid, Buck.”
A laugh escapes him, and he pulls Steve gently down into a kiss. It’s tender and deep and soft. It smells of sleep and graphite dust and home.
His heart’s still beating. It keeps going. He feels Steve’s, too. Steady. Strong.
It gives him a little courage, so he lets out a whisper against Steve’s lips—
“Can you draw me?”
“You sure?”
“Like you see me. Please?”
“Yeah, Buck. As you are.”