thehometree | ( open )

| characters | Bucky and you.
| date/time | Thursday afternoon.
| location | Around
| rating | G.
| summary | The best way to greet your neighbours is to feed them.
| note | I wrote in prose but feel free to use brackets.

He falls asleep instantly on the moss bed, the smell of it familiar and steadying. Combat lends sleep of no restful kind but he barely dreams at all, waking up as soon as the first ray of light peers through the window. There's a moment of bewilderment, and then reality introduces itself to him all over again as he notices the wings are still there when he picks up his gem. He flattens them self-consciously, before finally deciding they take up too much space and leaves the gem carefully tucked under his pillow.

Breakfast, however, is the immediate problem. He saved some water from the rains and an edible mushroom, and it's boiling away merrily on the stove. The glow worm is unusually cooperative, but Bucky supposes that if he's now the size of a dragonfly it's not the weirdest thing in the world.

It's actually nice. He could get used to it.

Once the worm's been sent off with an appreciative scratch on the head, he picks up the large bowl of stew and starts knocking on a few doors.

'Hello?'

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[ She gets a equally amused but exasperated look. ]

Seriously?

Seriously.

[Don't make her come over there.]

[ SIGH ]

The Dodgers.

Now was that hard?

[Annnnd she's back to being gently teasing in his general direction.]

No, ma'am.

[ fine he will just tease you back see how you like it!! ]

Favourite piece of art?

[Without hesitation,]

Led proshel by Abram Arkhipov. Done in 1895. I saw it in person once, in Russia.

[True. She's always loved his work, and picking a favourite-- it fits.]

It sounds nice. Wish I could've seen it.

[ He smiles, without self-pity. ]

[Maybe one day you will. Natasha's words, meant for the Winter Soldier. Instead,]

It's thirteen people standing on the shoreline of a river, mostly children but a few adults, and one elderly man holding a child tucked into his jacket. Everyone is still heavily dressed, but the light is soft and bright, conveying the hope of a new season. Most people think it was a depiction of a river near his village, Yegorovo. It's not his most famous piece, but it's always stayed with me.

[ Winter to spring. So she's a bit of a dreamer, seems odd considering all she's been so far is careful, and practical. ]

The good ones always do.

So what's yours?

[She could guess, of course. There are six distinct possibilities, based on what she knows of him now. Half of her almost wants to put money on him saying something that Rogers drew or painted once upon a time.]

I'm looking at her.

[ He winks, mischievously. ]

[That. Actually catches her off-guard enough to make her laugh, genuinely laugh. Somewhere, she thinks, Rogers is having kittens.]

At least buy me dinner first, James.

[ He beams. ]

I'll do ya one better. I can cook.

Well that makes exactly one of us.

[Tiny murdermachines raised, pretty enough to be arm-candy, deadly enough to take out a room full of armed combatants. Cooking was never on their curriculum, unless it involved poison.]

Then it's your lucky day.

[ He stands only so he can bow flamboyantly and takes her hand gently to kiss the back of it. ]

We've got soup, and more soup.

I might swoon.

[She's angry, she realizes, as his lips brush her skin. The Winter Soldier, to her, was only ever a man that shot her, an enemy, a silk-spun thread she couldn't follow. It's the first time she realizes with perfect clarity what Rogers - what the world - lost.

She curls her fingers against his, and uses his grip on her hand to stand with due elegance.]

Teach me?

[ Lightly, ] I'll catch you.

[ Ballet indeed; she's graceful. He casts a quick but very appreciative glance at her calves, and gently guides her to the kitchen with a light pressure on her waist. ]

[ Teasing, soft, ] Though lessons might cost ya.

[ He doesn't want to give the impression he's extracting this only because he wants something from her - she's been kind enough and it ain't right to ask a price. At the same time, nothing's free, it's the reality of life. ]

I think I'll decide that, Sergeant Barnes.

[She gives him a look over her shoulder, as she goes to haunt a quiet corner of the kitchen to watch him work.]

[ Ouch, but it doesn't dent his good spirits. ]

"James" was better.

[ It's solely good-natured grumbling, as he moves away and starts coaxing a glow worm to heat up the stove. ]

[Thoughtfully,]

How do you feel about 'Jim'?

[ He raises his eyebrows. ]

Long as it ain't Jimmy. [ pensively, ] Folks back then used to call me Bucky.

[ But that's Steve's name for him more than it was anyone else's, and Steve's (moved on) not here. Besides. He doesn't feel like that man anymore, not with the ice that's taken root. ]

[What does a man have left, when he thinks all that's left waiting for him is an empty Arlington grave? Call me whatever you want, he says, and what she hears is, it doesn't matter anyway.

Gentle but firm, she answers,]

What I want is to call you by the name you'd like to hear.

[ Death has a way of severing some things. He shrugs. ]

You can call me whatever you want.

[ There's just enough flair for the statement to be read as a tease, before he goes back to working on the glow worm. ]

Then I'll call you James.

[A gesture to where he's working.]

All right, what's first?

[ She's awfully insistent for just the matter of a name, but he likes how she says it, with just a slight emphasis on the J. ]

C'mere. I think we might be able to train it.

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