[ yelena's matter-of-fact normalcy is comforting, almost. if he can seize it with both hands and not let go, maybe he can recapture some of that casual ease and not let on exactly how much he's losing it, or exactly how much eighty years (oh, shit, he did the math after all, it's been eighty fucking years) has left him adrift at sea. ]

I do, yeah. Sorry about the lack of curtains. I like waking up with the sun.

[ it meant bucky didn't even need a phone alarm, instead keeping a circadian rhythm mostly attuned to daytime, automatically drifting awake when the light came streaming into the apartment. that was probably old-fashioned too, he realised: old habits from an entire wartime in the field when the soldiers woke up with the light, and didn't often get to sleep in bedrooms with curtains and tidy civilised alarm clocks to rouse them. ]

And sorry about, uh. [ he'd cracked open an eye and oh, shit, she was looking at him. his mouth had gone dry. he shouldn't have broached this part. that whole act cool and be so totally normal thing was falling apart between his hands. ] Spooning you. It wasn't on purpose.

[ he might've politely asked beforehand, if it was on purpose. as things stand, his sleeping body had already betrayed him; had already automatically drifted closer to warmth, to another human body, to someone that he did, actually, very much, want to snuggle up to in the morning.

this was torture. ]