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"C'mon, Stevie,"
"Just a second…"
Bucky sighs and shifts his weight onto his right leg, watching the shorter boy with a look of deep boredom, rolling his eyes dramatically.
Steve has been stood outside the small art gallery for a good ten minutes now, not inside, no, just standing on the sidewalk and staring through the window. The thing that has captured his interest so intensely? A small painting, half hidden in the left side of the window display of easels and prints and prices.
This is one of Steve's favourite places in Brooklyn – the small gallery that houses only local artwork and is standing room only due to the miniscule amount of space inside.
The walls and floorboards are covered with framed pieces of art, leaving only a small strip of space to walk through, but, luckily for Steve, he's tiny enough to flit around with ease, even in his clunky black boots, hovering around as he takes in his surroundings.
It's no wonder that Bucky always stays outside; he usually ends up tripping over something when he ventures into the gallery. He usually waits by the door for his friend, leaning against the doorway and picking off the chipped black paint until he's bored enough to yank Steve out from within the depths of the shop.
He's just flicking his lighter on and off for a sixth time when Steve rocks back on his heels and speaks up.
"Right, c'mon then." Steve announces, finally, grabbing Bucky's non-prosthetic arm and pulling him away with him – as though it was Bucky who had insisted that they stand there in the September chill for almost twenty minutes.
Bucky pulls his arm away, although he doesn't really want to lose Steve's warm grip on his elbow, and stuffs his lighter back into his pocket, falling into step next to his friend.
"What was so interestin' about that painting?" He asks, tilting his head towards Steve, who just stuffs his hands into the pockets of his ridiculously oversized leather jacket. One he'd borrowed from Bucky years ago, when they'd just started getting into wearing all black and sneaking out of school to get piercings.
He never asked for it back and Steve stopped offering after a while. Bucky thinks he looks both adorable and hot as fuck in it.
Steve is now leaning his head to the side and looking up at Bucky with a raised eyebrow. "You didn't have a look at it?"
"Thought I'd leave it to you; you were doin' enough starin' for the both of us," Bucky teases with a shrug. He'd not been at the right angle to see the small painting and Steve spends a lot of his time after school mooning over the gallery's window display; Bucky stopped really paying attention a while ago.
Truth be told, he much prefers watching Steve instead: the way his eyes light up and slowly rove over every part of whatever artwork he's spied, how he hovers on the toes of his boots as he cranes his skinny neck to look at it from as close to the glass as possible, like a kid looking longingly into a candy store.
Steve is still looking at him a little incredulously, as though Bucky has done something ridiculous and hasn't fully realised it yet. Then Steve laughs, loud and clear and wonderful, and looks back at the sidewalk ahead of them.
"Not my fault that there's so much talent in Brooklyn," Steve counters, digging a sharp elbow into Bucky's side, and Bucky jostles him back. They spend the next few minutes prodding and pushing each other before Bucky ends their play fighting in the way he always does – wrapping an arm around Steve's tiny shoulders and pulling him to his side.
Effectively stopped, at least for the time being, Steve leans into him and wraps an arm around his waist in return. "You don't have to hang around there with me if you don't even care about the artwork," Steve says after a moment of comfortable silence, too hunched over for Bucky to properly see his expression.
Shaking his head, Bucky squeezes him closer to his side. "Don't mind at all, Cap," he replies, fondly using the nickname that their friend Sam had dubbed Steve as soon as he'd realised who was really the leader of their very small gang.
Steve is wriggling against his tightening grip, though Bucky knows he'd just push his arm off him if he was really uncomfortable, so he must be messing around again. Bucky smiles in relief and prods the fingers of his prosthetic arm against Steve's hipbone. He knows Steve sometimes feels as though he's dragging Bucky around to places like the gallery and museums against his own will, and he doesn't like Steve thinking that he doesn't enjoy his company (or the museums, which he gets very excited about, though he does so internally as he feels it's more punk rock).
Which he does. Like hell he'd leave Steve to peruse galleries on his own - he'd follow after Steve to the most boring places on earth and wouldn't complain once.
They spend that afternoon at Steve's place, both telling Mrs Rogers how their day went before squeezing onto Steve's tiny bed. Bucky does some half-hearted research for a French project while playing what Steve dubs as 'obnoxiously shitty music' in the background.
Steve chats with him about YouTube videos and French verbs and tells him not to get the dirt from his boots on his bedcovers, but he seems distracted. Probably still mooning over the art from the gallery, Bucky guesses, as Steve stares into space, idly doodling half formed jawlines and necks below his forgotten essay plan.
He looks ridiculous, Bucky thinks with a wide smile: Steve, clad in the skinniest black jeans known to man, his giant studded jacket and heavy boots, lying on a Superman duvet cover.
Bucky still isn't entirely sure how Steve fits into his fashion choices so easily. Steve, who loves his mum and lives in a small apartment swamped in bright yellow fabrics and his own paintings of flowers and who has more posters of Disney characters in his room than punk bands.
It makes him even more endearing, if anything; the fact that this small blonde boy with asthma and a visible ribcage also has a proclivity for getting into fights and getting out of lessons with white lies and getting nose piercings. Bucky doesn't know how it works, how Steve can be so well behaved yet have such a foul mouth when he wants to, how he can walk around in scuffed Doc Martens that have been double knotted, just in case.
But if he's being honest, Steve is the one who got Bucky into this whole punk aesthetic in the first place. The smaller boy has the better attitude for it, after all.
Steve, unknowingly ironic as always, swats Bucky's hands away from his laptop and changes the loud rock music to some slow Louis Armstrong number, nodding his head appreciatively as he returns to his essay-slash-doodling.
Bucky spends another hour subtly watching his friend before he packs up his school bag (which he always manages to empty all over Steve's bedroom floor within three minutes of entering it) and heads home.
When he beds down for the night, his thoughts are full of schoolwork and alarm clocks and smudged eyeliner, but there, at the forefront of his mind, as always, is Steve.
He falls asleep with a smile.
-x-
The next day, Bucky is more than a little distracted.
He's distracted as he thinks about how Steve had looked the previous day – eyes bright as he talked passionately about his lessons, hair shining in the autumn sunshine – though he finds himself fixated on the unreadable look that Steve had on his face just after they'd walked away from the gallery.
He's distracted as he showers and dresses, ties his hair up into a rushed bun and lets his sister shove a slice of toast into his mouth as he leaves the house.
He's distracted and he's going to sort it out.
It's ten minutes before he's due to walk over to where Steve lives and wait for him outside the block of flats, inevitably telling his friend off for almost giving himself an asthma attack by rushing down the flights of steps to meet him on time.
He's stomping his way down the sidewalk to the small gallery. It's past Steve's apartment, past his favourite Chinese takeaway and past the tattoo parlour where their older friend Natasha gives them discounts on piercings as long as they stick some flyers for the place into people's lockers at school.
He stops outside it and grins to himself, thinking that it'll be so great to surprise Steve, to tell him that he actually has seen the piece of art in the window and thought it looked cool. That'll stop him from thinking that Bucky doesn't enjoy wandering over there most afternoons with him.
His eyes scan the prints in the window, noting a black and white photograph of one of the local churches, a canvas with oil paints layered on thickly to replicate the grey waters of the river, and then he spots it.
The painting that Steve must've been staring at.
He stands stock still, arms hanging by his sides as he stares through the glass in much the same way that Steve had the previous day.
It's him.
The painting is of him, of Bucky.
What the hell? He takes it in; the soft brush strokes that define his features, the little details of the freckles at side of his cheeks, the stray strand of hair dangling over his forehead, the light reflected in his grey-blue eyes.
It's perfect. It's weird.
He knows that there are often paintings of strangers in the gallery, sitting on benches and feeding pigeons and similar scenes, but he's pretty sure you're supposed to get permission before drawing somebody's face to the last detail and hanging it in the front window of a gallery.
Bucky scratches his neck self-consciously. He can't stop staring at the portrait but he forces his eyes away from it and pulls open the door to the gallery, clomping inside; his footsteps sounding loud against the quiet sound of jazz music playing faintly in the background. He feels like he has to squeeze himself into the small space and awkwardly keeps his fake arm tucked into his side, wary of the artwork surrounding him.
"Hey, 'scuse me," He taps his fingers against the counter, feeling like a big ball of confused energy.
The woman sat behind the desk looks up from the pretty watercolour painting she's studying, pencil tucked behind her ear along with neat curls. Her neatly handmade nametag says 'Peggy'. Bucky thinks he's heard Steve mention her a few times, though at that moment he can't recall the particular conversations.
"Can I help you?" Peggy asks in a clear, upper-class British accent, a bright smile on her face as though he's an old friend coming to visit her.
Bucky nods, not sure how to phrase the many questions whirling around his head. "That painting, in the window, the portrait…"
The woman smiles and surprises him by jumping agilely over the counter, soon fetching the painting of Bucky and returning with it. "I'm assuming you mean this one?" Bucky can hear faint amusement in her voice.
"Yeah." Bucky is blown away by it again, a replica of his own face staring up at him, so detailed and painted with care. It unnerves him a little, how exact it is, and then the next moment it doesn't.
"Painted by Steven Rogers, if you were wondering," Peggy tells him, placing it gently on the counter and sitting back on her stool. She taps a finger to the neat signature in the corner which Bucky hadn't noticed before, and he merely blinks in reply.
"It's called 'Until The End of the Line'. Sweet, really," The woman continues, watching him as though she's waiting for something.
Bucky blinks again, thanks her, and walks out of the shop without another word, somehow navigating his way around a stack of framed photos without knocking them over like dominoes. He sees Peggy applying some lipstick in the corner of his eye as he steps out of the gallery, inhaling deeply and feeling like he now has room to properly think.
Steve painted that.
By God he's talented, not like Bucky didn't already know that, but it's astounding. He has a lot of questions. When did Steve paint it? How long has it been in the gallery for? Why is it for sale? He wants to buy it before it is taken away from him, thinking that it kind of belongs to him as it's his own face, but his feet are busy pounding the pavement over to Steve's.
Bucky thinks it must be some sort of joke. It was damn cheeky of Steve to keep it from him that there was a painting of his own face on show for anyone to see.
Before he's had time to think it all through as much as he'd like to, Steve's voice is interrupting his internal monologue.
"There you are, Buck! Where've you been?" Steve is sat on the low wall, feet swinging and boots hitting the bricks beneath him. God, Bucky loves him.
"You've been to get some more gum, haven't you? Wish you'd waited for me; I wanted to have a look at—Bucky? Why're you lookin' at me like that?"
Steve hops off the wall and frowns, looking at Bucky expectantly.
"That painting," Bucky begins, stopping in front of his friend and looking down at him, probably with a baffled expression. "It's of me."
He sees the pieces slot together in Steve's mind as he realises why Bucky is a couple of minutes late to meet him, and then his expression changes to sheepish and slightly unsure, a bold smile on his face nevertheless. "Yeah, yeah it is."
"And it's yours. You did it."
Steve nods, folding his arms defiantly, as if waiting for Bucky to tell him he shouldn't have painted it.
"You're so talented, Steve, seriously. I'm still a lil' shocked by it all." Bucky admits.
"You like it?" The smaller boy asks.
Bucky can't grin wide enough. "I love it. I can't believe—You did that—Why?"
Steve's expression changes instantly. He looks, well, he looks downright incredulous.
"Are you kiddin' me?"
"Uh…" Bucky steps back, overwhelmed by the force in Steve's tone. He may be scrawny, but he can often pack a punch if he needs to, and if his voice hasn't already made his target quake in their boots.
"Bucky," Steve begins, sounding as though he's forcing the words out before he forgets them or something. "I wanted to start a project, to find somethin' to paint that I might just be able to put in the gallery, or at least in the art showcase at school," He runs a hand through his hair, eyes never moving from Bucky's face.
"There was only one thing I could think of. You. There's nothing more important to me in life than you." Steve is staring at him meaningfully. Bucky's mouth falls open a little.
"I was hopin' you'd have seen it yesterday," Steve continues, now looking kind of smug with himself. Jerk, Bucky muses fondly. "But of course you were too busy daydreamin' or whatever to notice. I wanted to do it right, you know. I thought that showing you the painting would be the right way to do it. To tell you, you know."
Steve makes a vague gesture, but Bucky understands what he means. The other boy looks unsure again now, so Bucky pulls him into a tight, bone-crushing (almost literally in Steve's case) one-armed hug.
"I've never loved anything more," Bucky tells him earnestly, resting his chin on top of Steve's head. "I've never loved anyone more." He adds, making sure Steve knows that he reciprocates his feelings.
"I had my suspicions." Steve comments, sounding ridiculously sure of himself while Bucky feels as though he's not certain what on earth is happening with the world any more.
A second later he's being pushed away and then pulled down into a forceful kiss and he thinks that he doesn't really care about what's happening, as long as it continues this way for as long as possible.
"Don't sell it," Bucky gasps out once they pull apart. "I wanna keep it, if that's okay."
Steve grins, arms still wrapped around the taller boy. "It's not for sale. I organized it with Peggy; it's just there for you to see. And so passers-by will know who's captured my heart." He drawls out the last few words, slapping one of his hands over his chest dramatically. "You can have it, Buck."
"I'm gonna hang it up in my room, pride of place by my desk." He tells Steve happily as they start to walk to school, side by side as always, though this time their hands are clasped together.
"Self-obessed jerk," Steve mutters, earning him a prod in the ribs in retaliation.
He grins up at Bucky instead of poking him back, looking so pleased with a big dorky smile on his face.
Steve's still a nerd at heart, Bucky thinks. And it suits him so well.