Work Text:
When the photos go up online, Bucky tries to not to immediately run to his computer and check Steve Rogers’ Twitter.
He makes it twenty minutes before he does and he considers that a victory.
sgrogers1917
I didn’t think these could get any better but they do
<Image>
Bucky grins, looking at Steve’s tweet, which links to his latest set of stock photos. He took them last month in the studio, just him in a black turtleneck standing with an artist’s palate that held stacks of sliced vegetables on it instead of paints. It was one of the weirdest assignments he’s ever had to do, but he got a secret kick out of the whole thing, thinking about what Steve would decide to do with the photos once he saw them.
A few seconds later, he refreshes Twitter and sees another tweet from Steve.
sgrogers1917
ok, I know I should stop obsessing over the photos this guy takes but I CAN’T. he’s so dreamy and ridiculous. expect something new later this week.
Bucky shuts his laptop and sighs with a mix of excitement and relief. Since he started as a stock image model, he’s always been a little embarrassed but too in need of cash to keep himself from accepting assignments. Being a stock image model has kept him from taking out student loans and has paid for his Brooklyn apartment while he goes to school.
He found Steve Rogers a few weeks after his first images went online. A friend messaged him saying ‘buck you gotta look at this!!!’ with a link to one of Steve’s digital paintings. For some art school project, he started taking bizarre stock photos and recreating them as ridiculous baroque-style paintings, full of angst and movement and beauty. This first image he did of Bucky was from a series of photos where Bucky folded towel animals. He’d put Bucky in a monk’s garb, set against a backdrop of other monks doing laundry in a field. Bucky stood in the middle, looking near-heretical with his folded up towel monkey. It’s hard to describe, the joy that Bucky felt looking at the painting. Steve’s work simultaneously embraced the whackiness of the stock photos and elevated it. Suddenly, Bucky was not only okay with his new money-making scheme, but was excited to take more pictures, just to see if Steve would notice them and keep making his paintings.
So far, Steve’s made Bucky the star of a half dozen works, far more than any other stock image model. Bucky tries not to feel cocky about it. (But he does.)
— —
sgrogers1917
new painting based on my fave stock image model. took inspiration from giuseppe arcimboldo for this one.
<Image>
blackwidowww
@sgrogers1917 Eggplant penis? I expect a little more creativity from someone in my MFA cohort.
sgrogers1917
@blackwidoww \o/ I do what I want
spoodermanz
@sgrogers1917 yoooooooooo I sit behind that guy in class and he’s got one of your paintings as the background of his computer
sgrogers1917
@spoodermanz WHAT. for real? can you get me his number?!?!?!?
blackwidowww
@sgrogers1917 @spoodermanz ooooh somebody has a crush.
spoodermanz
@sgrogers1917 I don’t have his number but his twitter handle is @buckylovesplums (dude lives in brooklyn too so youre not far apart). enjoy.
— —
Bucky’s eyes go wide as he watches in real time as @sgrogers1917 follows him on Twitter. He feels physically ill as a new direct message pops up in his inbox.
He clicks on it with a shaking finger knowing full well who the message is probably from.
Hi! I’m Steve. I’ve been making images using your stock photos as references for the past eight months or so. I guess you’ve seen them? I hope you like them. I’m sorry if this comes off as creepy, but if you’d like to get coffee sometime, I’d really like that. It’s the least I can do for my number one muse.
While Bucky figures out what he’d like to say, another message pops up.
Do you really have one of my paintings as the background of your computer???? Sorry, I just have to know!
A part of Bucky thinks that he’d like to just ignore these messages forever and pretend that he never got them, but then he realizes that if he does, he’ll never be able to go on Twitter again (which wouldn’t be such a bad thing since Twitter is such a depressing hellhole) but also that Steve would probably stop making his paintings of Bucky, which would be terrible. Bucky loves Steve’s work. So Bucky screws his courage to the sticking place and writes back:
Yeah, I have the bees one as the background of my computer. Is that okay? I promise that I’m not some creepy narcissist. Your work just makes me smile. I like being your muse. And I’d really, really like to get coffee sometime.
Steve writes back almost immediately.
Then it’s a date! \o/
Bucky blushes, but suggests a time and place. What he doesn’t do is suggest that their meet up is anything but a date.
Because he really, really wants it to be.
Sometime around the third painting, Bucky had developed a bit of a crush on the amazing artist who made him feel like even the silly thing he was doing for cash could become important art.
— —
Three months later, Bucky opens his laptop and refreshes Twitter.
sgrogers1917
turns out doing these things is a lot easier when you’ve got a real model to boss around.
<Image>
Bucky grins, looking at the finished product. Steve had made him put on a domino mask and make a lot of weird facial expressions against a white backdrop the other day while he and his photographer friend — Sam — took photos. It had taken the whole afternoon, but it was a riot. Today, Steve posted his own painted version, where Bucky is a harlequin in the streets of Venice, pantomining as people walk by unimpressed.
Bucky loves it.
He starts composing a tweet right away.
buckylovesplums
@sgrogers1917 still waiting for my compensation for being your model………
sgrogers1917
@buckylovesplums thought I gave u enough compensation last night………………… \o/
blackwidowww
@sgrogers1917 @buckyloves plums *eggplant emoji* *eggplant emoji* *eggplant emoji*
Fin