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Bucky sleeps better with Stevie in her bed. Even though Stevie's feet are freezing and she breathes too loud and every time her breath rattles Bucky's heart skips a beat, somehow Bucky feels more relaxed with her in the bed than out of it. (Like a mother bear, Stevie teases, and Bucky doesn't mind the simile at all.)
In the morning Stevie sits in front of their cracked mirror and paints her face: first powder, then eyeliner and mascara. She draws on her eyebrows with a brown pencil before turning her lips deep red. Bucky watches lazily from their bed as Stevie starts pinning her hair.
“How do I look?” Stevie asks, then giggles because she already knows.
“Beautiful,” Bucky replies; it's what she always replies.
Bucky Barnes wears boy's slacks and a boy's name and boys chase after her anyway. Stevie Rogers does her hair and make up with an artist's hand and boys – well, boys chase after her when Bucky tells them to. “Isn't she a doll?” Bucky will ask them, and the boys will nod with their eyes still on Bucky, Bucky's hips, Bucky's chest.
“Don't forget your pills,” Bucky sings out. Stevie raises a middle finger over her shoulder and can hear Bucky start to laugh.
♥ ♥ ♥
Are you a girl with a Star-Spangled heart? the poster asks, and Stevie is.
“Take a deep breath,” the WAC physician says, her stethoscope on Stevie's chest. She listens to Stevie breathe a couple of times, then frowns.
“Miss Rogers, has a doctor ever listened to your chest before?”
Stevie almost laughs at that one. Doctors have been listening to her chest since she was six years old. She knows, though, that laughing will make her lungs rattle, so she shakes her head mutely instead. Might as well get hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
“I'm going to write a note for you,” the physician says kindly, adding, “and if you can't afford to see someone, there are clinics around Brooklyn that take parish funding for your sort of case.”
There's a lot more after that. There's 'nervous disorder' and 'irregular rhythm' and 'in good conscience' and 'thank you but' and 'your country cares' and 'if you have any friends...' and 'no'. There's always no.
Bucky's waiting outside with a face that says she's heard.
“Tough luck, toots,” she says, slinging an arm round Stevie's shoulder. “You want to head into town? The girls at the factory were saying Macy's just got a shipment of that red you like, the one you and Ruth both wear–”
“Max Factor Rose Red,” Stevie fills in, running on automatic.
“Something something something red.” Bucky grins and entwines a finger in Stevie's careful curls before Stevie shrugs her arm loose.
“They said no again,” says Stevie.
“I know,” says Bucky.
“They said I couldn't,” and Bucky doesn't know if that statement's meant to continue with specifics or is a general platitude on Stevie's life so far.
“Max Factor Rose Red,” says Bucky. “C'mon, I'll buy you some.”
♥ ♥ ♥
When Bucky gets home from work, she throws a packet of cigarettes at Stevie, who fails to catch them. Bucky smokes Luckies, Camels and Chesterfields; she claims to have no preference and will take whatever the boys at the docks offer her. (“Lucky rhymes with Bucky,” she'll say sometimes with a coy smile. Or: “You ever ridden a camel before?”. Or: “Go on then, boys, who's gonna light my Chesterfield?”. Bucky is a one-woman ad campaign for any brand she can get her yellow-stained fingers on.) Stevie doesn't have that sort of choice. She smokes Joys for her asthma or she doesn't smoke at all. There are twice as many butts on their fire escape without red smudges as with, because nobody at the docks smokes Joys and they're more expensive than free.
Bucky bought her Joys.
“Thanks,” Stevie says once she's picked up the pack. She looks up at Bucky.
“What, I can't treat my best girl?” Bucky protests. “It's been too long since you smoked, I can hear you wheezing at night. Keeps me up half the damn time.”
“So pay for heating,” Stevie says. It's a low blow and she regrets throwing it. Extra hours on Bucky's timesheet can buy cigarettes a lot easier than gas.
“Just take the cigarettes, punk,” Bucky drawls, crashing onto her bed. She starts to pull off her shoes. “You know I'd spend it on liquor and candy otherwise.”
“Extra shift?” Stevie pulls a cigarette from the pack.
“Nah,” says Bucky and props herself up on her elbows. “Enlistment bonus. Turns out even the WAC gives them.”
Stevie's hands start to shake. She can't light the cigarette, the matches aren't striking, the first one breaks, the second won't catch, Bucky's enlisted – and then Bucky's there with a light. She's always had the magic touch.
♥ ♥ ♥
When Stevie finishes her life-drawing class, there's a pretty girl in a blue dress waiting outside for her. She's wearing her short hair in waves and a familiar red around her mouth. A boy Stevie half-recognises from landscape class is chatting her up.
“Stevie,” she says, and stands up straight.
“Bucky,” Stevie says, wrapping her arms round her, resting her head on her chest. “You got dressed up.”
“What, you thought I was gonna wear slacks to take you out for ice cream? C'mon, I'm a better pal than that.”
She takes her to a little Italian joint where men in smart suits lounge like jaguars. There's a French song playing on the radio. The waitress speaks some English and Bucky speaks enough Italian to order raspberry gelato in a terrible accent.
“You look beautiful,” says Stevie.
“I know,” says Bucky.
Stevie can't hear much of the conversation after that. She keeps turning her good ear to Bucky, except that means turning it towards the radio as well. They try switching places and Bucky tries yelling louder, until Bucky says something that might be 'fuck it' and pulls Stevie to her feet.
The evening air outside is cold and dry. Stevie lights a cigarette; the walk isn't too long, but cold always gets to her. Bucky steals it from her hand, laughs and takes a drag.
“You're not supposed to smoke mine,” Stevie warns, “remember?”
Then Bucky gets this look about her. With only a little warning, she puts her mouth on Stevie's and blows smoke into her lungs. Stevie hovers like a hummingbird, breathing in raspberry-scented smoke and Bucky (always Bucky). Their lips are soft and Rose Red together and Stevie thinks this kiss might be the exact equilibrium between perfect and dangerous.
Bucky's lipstick is smeared when she pulls away laughing and it's all Stevie can do to hit her on the arm and tell her “Not outside, you're gonna get us killed,” which just seems to make Bucky laugh harder.
“Inside, then,” Bucky teases, and lifts her up.
“You can't carry me all the way home,” Stevie says, although she's already settled in Bucky's arms.
“Watch me,” Bucky says. “Stevie, you weigh less than one of the palettes at work, I can manage.”
Bucky manages.
They make it inside, and Bucky drops to her knees, lifts Stevie's skirts and starts mumbling profanities against her slender thighs. They make it to the bed, and Stevie helps Buck to undo her dress, helps her when she gets her bra caught in Stevie's hair. They make it to nudity, and Bucky kisses her again, murmurs “I love you” against Stevie's neck. They make it to red-stained kisses and soft lips and confessions that would make a priest blush. They make it to the stars. They make it.
♥ ♥ ♥
Stevie doesn't know why she starts fights except that sometimes it's the right thing to do.
“Hey, you wanna shut up?” There are women here whose husbands are fighting overseas, men whose wives are or will be, mothers and fathers with daughters and sons.
The woman stands up. She's taller and broader than Stevie. “Make me,” she says, which is enough.
Stevie puts her purse down behind one of the bins. The other woman slaps her hard before she's even finished turning around. The stranger fights like Brooklyn, like Bucky would fight if she ever fought someone slighter than her, all hard knocks and dirty blows. When Stevie picks up a bin lid to hold as a shield, she laughs and pulls Stevie's hair forward. When Stevie says “I could do this all day,” she kicks her hard and Stevie thinks for a moment that she's going to die in an alleyway behind a picture house and it'll serve her right.
“Sometimes I think you like getting slapped,” Bucky is saying when Stevie gets up again. Her nose is bleeding and her good ear is ringing so hard she can barely hear.
Bucky is wearing white gloves, a knee-length skirt, a jacket and a cap. It takes a while for Stevie to put it all together. “You get your orders?”
“Sergeant Jane Barnes,” says Bucky, puffing out her chest, “shipping out for England the first thing tomorrow.”
“I should be going,” Stevie says quietly. Bucky reaches forward and tucks a curl behind her ear. Stevie thinks she can feel her eyeing her up.
“C'mon,” she finally says, pulling Stevie up and tucking her under her arm, “let's get you all made up again. It's my last night.”
“Where are we going?” Stevie asks, leaning into Bucky's chest and holding her waist for support.
Bucky kisses the top of her head and hands her a paper. “The future.”