[ She steps right out into the cold clammy mud and flings herself unthinking into his arms, where Bucky catches her with a small oof and a breath against the top of her head, his arms instinctively going around her and lifting her off that freezing ground— and the most disorienting thing, really, is how inexplicably taller Steph is. How much less distance there is for him to pick her up and spin her into a crushing hug. Her newfound height brings her closer to his face, buried in the crook of his neck rather than pressed low against his chest where she used to be, and so the center of balance is all off, unexpectedly different: her body is sturdy muscle beneath his hands rather than a mere slip of a thing, the skinny little mutt she'd been.
It looks like her, sounds like her, her blonde hair even smells like her, and yet. ]
And it's really you. What the hell. I thought you were smaller?
[ Bucky doesn't let go of her yet, where her arms are still wrapped around his neck and swept up in his embrace; he just frog-walks them both into the tent, and only then sets her back down once they're safely inside. He leans back and peers down as if she's somehow hiding invisible six-inch heels, but instead it's just her bare, muddy feet wiggling on the floor of the tent. Thankfully, the skirt and the bustier have been swapped out, so he's able to politely snap his gaze back to her face, his glacier-blue eyes poring over her features, mapping it to what he remembers of the friend he left behind in New York.
There's a little bit of kohl still smeared at the corner of Steph's eyes. His hand reaches up, absentmindedly wipes that small clump of it away— and then he realises how close they're standing and he takes a genteel step away, clears his throat. Bashful in a way he never had been, before. Hearing half a fieldful of men openly salivating over his best friend's calves had been a surreal experience. ]
I thought Liberty Belle was just a publicity thing. But you're really...
[ Healthy? Strong? Superpowered? He's not sure what word to fill in that blank. Marveling, he finally says: ]
You lifted that bench of girls like it was nothing.
[ If she's conscious that they're in the middle of an army camp and there are dozens of people going to-and-fro around them, people who might be witness to Miss Liberty Belle flinging herself at an enlisted man like she's his patiently-waiting bride reunited after a long separation — (wait, is that assumption really that far off?) — she doesn't seem to care at all; she lets Bucky sweep her up in his arms and whirl her around, lifting her feet and clinging to his shoulders probably a little too hard, but it's too difficult to remember to be careful when she's so goddamn relieved.
Basic packed on a bit more muscle on his frame than working at the docks was able to do, and even being in an active war zone living on Army rations hadn't been enough to erase all that breadth. He feels solid and real in her arms, and yet she's still half-convinced she's dreaming somehow. ]
You're here.
[ She laughs as he marches her back into her tent, his arms still snugly wrapped around her, and she obliges by clinging on a little bit longer and keeping her knees bent, her feet kicked up behind her like a careless child being hauled around.
She's put on a good six inches and seventy pounds of muscle since he's last seen her, her body still feeling alien to her, like a suit of armor she's shrugged into and not herself, but with Bucky here in front of her, she's felt the most like herself that she has in months. ]
I wasn't— I didn't know if— Where you'd be stationed. I hoped someone could tell me, but I didn't think that— You're alright. Oh, Bucky.
[ She lets him thumb at the corner of her eye, her lashes dipping as he strokes her cheek gently, her own hands settling on his chest because it just feels natural to let them land there. It's a much easier maneuver to pull now that she's almost as tall as he is.
Going a little bit pink when he steps away from her, she chews her lips, still faintly stained from her lipstick. ]
You're going to be cross as two sticks when I tell you...
The mail's been pretty unreliable for a while, like, they try to get messages through, but with everything the way it is—
[ The line slipping forward and back as they won and lost ground, temporary outposts being set up and then collapsing, taking refuge in little Italian towns and then moving onwards, mail carriers trying to get their deliveries through without losing them across hundreds of miles of mud and wire. There really wasn't much stability in their lives. Those little letters from home are a lifeline for these men, signed with a kiss or a photograph from sweethearts in hometowns. Bucky had gotten one from his sister in Indiana; had double-checked the envelope at the time, half-hoping but not expecting a second one from Stephanie. Having her inexplicably here in person, though, is a far better alternative.
Peering around the tent, he surveys the relative luxury that they've set her up in, better than what the other girls have had to share and make do with. There's the trove of makeup, tubes of lipstick scattered like bullets across the tabletop, stacks of signed Liberty Belle prints, some stockings draped over the back of the chair—
Blushing slightly, Bucky's gaze snaps back to hers. There's still open curiosity on his face, and a bit of confusion. Because now, standing so much closer to her than when he'd seen her on stage, there's really no hiding it. Out there, maybe he could've convinced himself that it was makeup and heels and wires, stagecraft like an elaborate magic trick. But. He'd felt Steph's body under his hands when she'd hugged him. You couldn't fake that. ]
[ She nods along as he talks, words bubbling up inside her the way they haven't in so long; chatting with the other dancers has a different quality to it than conversations with Bucky ever did. With the other girls, she's much more aware of the fact that she's different than them, that while they've all seen each other naked and helped each other dress and checked to make sure nothing was showing where it shouldn't, they still hold her apart from them just a little, just enough that she's always aware that she should probably hold her tongue and not let loose with the sharp truth of her opinions. ]
I guess you didn't get the one I sent last month? [ She hadn't really expected a response, but she figures he would have made an effort. Bucky was always good about that sort of thing. ] I was gonna write you another tonight, but I guess now I don't have to.
[ Her tent really isn't much to write home about, but she's got her own cot and a little folding desk and chair, squeezed in beside her trunk with all her clothes and costumes stuffed inside. It seems whatever she went through to get her body to change so drastically, it didn't change the fact that she's far messier than she'd like to be, distracted so often by her thoughts and everything she has to do that she forgets to tidy up unless she has to. Or unless someone's around to nag her into doing it.
Ever since Bucky left her, her life's been lacking in many different ways.
Chewing on her lip for a little bit longer, she stares up at him like she's memorizing his face before taking a breath and letting it out with a little huff of a sigh, no hitch or rattle or any of the other symptoms in that breath like she used to battle every day. ]
[ The surprise cuts through him, ripping loose that burst of profanity before he can pull it back — but then again, neither of them had ever really reined themselves in with each other. A childhood running loose on the streets together had eroded boundaries and propriety between them until he'd always just treated her as another one of the boys, the pair of them thick as thieves. His mouth's only become more worthy of being scrubbed out with soap after joining the army.
This was exactly the sort of thing he'd told her not to do. Cross as two sticks, indeed. Bucky paces to the other side of the tent, scrubs at his face with a hand, running it through his hair — which is shorter than usual, cut brutally short to military specification, although his stubble's been growing in rougher than it ever did back stateside.
When Bucky wheels around and paces back and faces her again, he's biting down on that anger, which really just masks his concern. He reaches thoughtlessly outward, his fingertips grazing against Steph's bicep. Muscle. Clear-cut muscle, the kind that she'd never managed to put on even when he was training her in boxing. For self-defense, he'd said at the time. You gotta be able to protect yourself from these lowlifes when I'm not around. ]
So the things they say about Liberty Belle— the program actually worked? It really did... all this to you? Turned you into some kind of, of superwoman?
[ Honestly, at this point in their lives, Bucky swearing doesn't even make her blink; he'd always been pretty good at holding his tongue around her poor sainted Catholic ma, but Stephanie's been stuck to his side like a burr since they were little, and he's always treated her just like anyone else, so it stands to reason she's pretty damn used to how he talks. The only reason she'd startle at this outburst is from the vehemence of it, not the words themselves.
Though, truth be told, she was sort of expecting it.
He all but flings himself away from her, stalking across her tent in a few long strides, and she finds herself standing barefoot where he left her, her hands settling on her hips as she grits her jaw and tries not to snap back at him. Bucky's temper has always been a bit of a spark for her own, the two of them like flint and tinder, always mere seconds from setting each other off. She needs to bite back that impulse right now.
She's had months to get used to the new direction her life has taken. Bucky's only had a few minutes. She can give him some time. ]
It ain't like that, Buck, jeez. [ It's exactly like that, actually. Bucky used to be able to wrap his hand around her arm and have his fingertips all but overlap. Now, she's pretty sure if he tried to grab her biceps like that, it would be a whole 'nother story, and it has nothing to do with the thickness of her blouse. ] It worked, but... [ She waves her hand around her tent, encompassing the stockings and her sequined bustier and the stupid little shield she carries where it lies tossed aside against her chest. ] This has nothing to do with why I did it. I didn't want this.
[ Did she want to be strong? In an abstract sort of way. Did she want to be beautiful? Yeah, even if that wish made her feel shallow and silly. But more than all that, all Stephanie really wanted was to be healthy. She didn't think the pendulum would swing from one extreme all the way to the other, but here she is. Star of her very own vaudeville show, painted on the noses of fighter planes, flashing her knickers to hundreds of strangers every night. ]
[ She's used to waiting him out, and they're both used to navigating each others' moods, so Bucky finally pauses in the middle of the room and looks up to the ceiling of the tent, re-gathering himself. Deep breaths. He was supposed to be her rock, and vice versa; they'd always been there for each other, and even moreso after her mother had died and Steph had become an increasingly common sight at the Barnes residence, Bucky's ma constantly shoving food in front of the girl in the hopes that she'd put some meat on those bones. Not look so sickly-thin all the time.
That's changed now, but not exactly in the way he expected. ]
Then why did you do it?
[ His voice is softer now, calmer, as his gaze drops and he looks at her again. ]
And don't worry, I know it wasn't to be plastered on posters. You're not some glory hound. [ He waves a dismissive hand, as if the idea isn't even worth considering. Even in all their childish dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up, showbiz hadn't exactly been on the list. While he's mulling it over and trying to come to terms with this impossibility standing in front of him, another thought suddenly occurs to him: ]
[ Just as they tend to set each other off at the drop of a hat, their tempers tend to cool just as quickly, so the sudden change from angry-upset-betrayed to something a lot calmer doesn't surprise her much, though she'd be lying if she said she wasn't relieved to watch his hackles lower.
He looks back at her just in time to watch her cross her arms over her chest, except that she's forgotten yet again that her chest has a lot more to it than it used to, and she can't fold her arms like that any more. Awkwardly untangling them, she tries to fold them under her chest instead, but that just serves to push things up even more than her brassiere does, so she lets her arms drop to her sides to dangle instead, her fingers curling into her palms. ]
I— [ Whatever she'd been about to say gets cut off by him flapping his hand at her dismissively, and while she knows Bucky isn't the type of man who'd think that of her, who'd think that her one goal in life is to be famous and adored, having him say it aloud lifts a burden from her shoulders she wasn't even really aware of carrying.
Hopefully the way her knees wobble with relief is hidden by her trousers, though she's pretty sure there's no hiding the soft noise trapped in her throat, something pitifully close to a whimper that she tries to turn into a sigh. ]
I wanted to help, [ is what she says in the end, instead of saying anything about not being able to stomach accepting the Barnes' charity any longer, about nights spent curled up in her lumpy little bed under a threadbare blanket half-hoping she'd fall asleep and never wake up again, just so she wouldn't have to keep surviving in the useless frail body she'd been saddled with.
She shakes her head at his question, opening her mouth to explain, but finding that the words just won't come. Rolling her lips between her teeth, she bites them hard enough to hurt, trying to keep her chin from wobbling. ] Just me.
[ His gaze accidentally drifts down when her movement shoves her bosom forward in her shirt, and then something just flat-out glitches in the back of his head. Cleavage. His best friend has cleavage, and holy shit, something just doesn't parse about that; she'd never had the sort of figure that men could sneak a peek at, before, but now—
Suddenly self-conscious, Bucky drags his attention back to her face. Again. He exhales. ]
Okay. Shit. I'm glad to see you here, Steph. Even if it's the last place I actually expected to see you show up—
[ This place. This place, with its misery, hollow-eyed soldiers and limping convalescents and mud and the knowledge that, sooner or later, they all get fed back into the machine again, and not all of them will be back a few months from now for the next high-kicking entertainment revue.
There's still something stunned in his demeanour, as he tries to wrap his mind around it. She wanted to help. Of course she did. It had driven her crazy when he'd enlisted, going to the place where she couldn't follow, even as a nurse. Knowing how inevitable her choice would've been, once it was offered, doesn't make him any less shocked by the transformation. ]
Are you... The the asthma, and your heart murmurs, and everything. How do you feel?
[ Peggy had taken her shopping, after the dust settled. There was no way she'd be able to fit in any of her old clothes, and borrowing some kit from the men would only take her so far.
She'd hated it, the shopping. Trying on clothes, letting other women stare at her and make considering noises, being pushed and prodded until she was standing on a little pedestal feeling like some sort of doll or fancy little dog, stiff and uncomfortable swaddled up in ways she wasn't used to.
Of course Bucky wouldn't be used to the things she's wearing either. All their lives, she'd made do with hand-me-downs or dresses she or her ma sewed herself. Plain, simple, sturdy. She'd never worn blouses with wide collars and gathered sleeves. She'd never worn trousers with cuffed hems and pleated waists. She'd certainly never worn dresses with artful darts to help the fabric cling in all the right places, or blazers with pads in the shoulders and shining brass buttons.
She assumes Bucky's staring is because of her clothes. ]
I wasn't gonna let you go off to war without me, [ she teases with a little laugh, sticking her hands in her pockets so they don't have to dangle at her sides any longer. ]
I feel... Bucky, I feel good. It's all gone. I'm... [ She takes a deep breath as if to demonstrate, her ribs expanding smoothly, and lets it out in a slow sigh. No hitching, no burbling, no coughing. Smooth as silk. ] Cured.
[ He can't help it, then: his paranoid suspicion and reservations and worries start to ebb and melt away in the face of Steph's laughter, her clear breath, that satisfied contentment to her voice. The fact that there's no unhealthy weedy rattle in the back of her throat, no thin reedy gasp to each breath as she struggled to get enough oxygen to her frail body. ]
Then it was worth it.
[ Bucky says it like an official conclusion, a firm and unwavering proclamation. Anything would be worth it compared to her being healthy again, in full fighting form, and no longer fretting that the next wave of flu might be the one that finally takes her out. ]
Flashing some knee is probably a pretty easy price, then, compared to kicking all those sicknesses. I just don't like seeing you here, this place is hell, but—
[ But there never was any stopping her once she set her mind on something. And just as quickly, Bucky makes a decision, too: ]
How long are you here? Can we grab a drink, catch up? The Brits have rum rations, I scored a small bottle by beating this one kid at poker— I was saving it for a special occasion, but if this ain't a special occasion, I don't know what is.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It looks like her, sounds like her, her blonde hair even smells like her, and yet. ]
And it's really you. What the hell. I thought you were smaller?
[ Bucky doesn't let go of her yet, where her arms are still wrapped around his neck and swept up in his embrace; he just frog-walks them both into the tent, and only then sets her back down once they're safely inside. He leans back and peers down as if she's somehow hiding invisible six-inch heels, but instead it's just her bare, muddy feet wiggling on the floor of the tent. Thankfully, the skirt and the bustier have been swapped out, so he's able to politely snap his gaze back to her face, his glacier-blue eyes poring over her features, mapping it to what he remembers of the friend he left behind in New York.
There's a little bit of kohl still smeared at the corner of Steph's eyes. His hand reaches up, absentmindedly wipes that small clump of it away— and then he realises how close they're standing and he takes a genteel step away, clears his throat. Bashful in a way he never had been, before. Hearing half a fieldful of men openly salivating over his best friend's calves had been a surreal experience. ]
I thought Liberty Belle was just a publicity thing. But you're really...
[ Healthy? Strong? Superpowered? He's not sure what word to fill in that blank. Marveling, he finally says: ]
You lifted that bench of girls like it was nothing.
no subject
Basic packed on a bit more muscle on his frame than working at the docks was able to do, and even being in an active war zone living on Army rations hadn't been enough to erase all that breadth. He feels solid and real in her arms, and yet she's still half-convinced she's dreaming somehow. ]
You're here.
[ She laughs as he marches her back into her tent, his arms still snugly wrapped around her, and she obliges by clinging on a little bit longer and keeping her knees bent, her feet kicked up behind her like a careless child being hauled around.
She's put on a good six inches and seventy pounds of muscle since he's last seen her, her body still feeling alien to her, like a suit of armor she's shrugged into and not herself, but with Bucky here in front of her, she's felt the most like herself that she has in months. ]
I wasn't— I didn't know if— Where you'd be stationed. I hoped someone could tell me, but I didn't think that— You're alright. Oh, Bucky.
[ She lets him thumb at the corner of her eye, her lashes dipping as he strokes her cheek gently, her own hands settling on his chest because it just feels natural to let them land there. It's a much easier maneuver to pull now that she's almost as tall as he is.
Going a little bit pink when he steps away from her, she chews her lips, still faintly stained from her lipstick. ]
You're going to be cross as two sticks when I tell you...
no subject
[ The line slipping forward and back as they won and lost ground, temporary outposts being set up and then collapsing, taking refuge in little Italian towns and then moving onwards, mail carriers trying to get their deliveries through without losing them across hundreds of miles of mud and wire. There really wasn't much stability in their lives. Those little letters from home are a lifeline for these men, signed with a kiss or a photograph from sweethearts in hometowns. Bucky had gotten one from his sister in Indiana; had double-checked the envelope at the time, half-hoping but not expecting a second one from Stephanie. Having her inexplicably here in person, though, is a far better alternative.
Peering around the tent, he surveys the relative luxury that they've set her up in, better than what the other girls have had to share and make do with. There's the trove of makeup, tubes of lipstick scattered like bullets across the tabletop, stacks of signed Liberty Belle prints, some stockings draped over the back of the chair—
Blushing slightly, Bucky's gaze snaps back to hers. There's still open curiosity on his face, and a bit of confusion. Because now, standing so much closer to her than when he'd seen her on stage, there's really no hiding it. Out there, maybe he could've convinced himself that it was makeup and heels and wires, stagecraft like an elaborate magic trick. But. He'd felt Steph's body under his hands when she'd hugged him. You couldn't fake that. ]
C'mon, Steph. Whatever it is, you can tell me.
no subject
I guess you didn't get the one I sent last month? [ She hadn't really expected a response, but she figures he would have made an effort. Bucky was always good about that sort of thing. ] I was gonna write you another tonight, but I guess now I don't have to.
[ Her tent really isn't much to write home about, but she's got her own cot and a little folding desk and chair, squeezed in beside her trunk with all her clothes and costumes stuffed inside. It seems whatever she went through to get her body to change so drastically, it didn't change the fact that she's far messier than she'd like to be, distracted so often by her thoughts and everything she has to do that she forgets to tidy up unless she has to. Or unless someone's around to nag her into doing it.
Ever since Bucky left her, her life's been lacking in many different ways.
Chewing on her lip for a little bit longer, she stares up at him like she's memorizing his face before taking a breath and letting it out with a little huff of a sigh, no hitch or rattle or any of the other symptoms in that breath like she used to battle every day. ]
I volunteered.
no subject
[ The surprise cuts through him, ripping loose that burst of profanity before he can pull it back — but then again, neither of them had ever really reined themselves in with each other. A childhood running loose on the streets together had eroded boundaries and propriety between them until he'd always just treated her as another one of the boys, the pair of them thick as thieves. His mouth's only become more worthy of being scrubbed out with soap after joining the army.
This was exactly the sort of thing he'd told her not to do. Cross as two sticks, indeed. Bucky paces to the other side of the tent, scrubs at his face with a hand, running it through his hair — which is shorter than usual, cut brutally short to military specification, although his stubble's been growing in rougher than it ever did back stateside.
When Bucky wheels around and paces back and faces her again, he's biting down on that anger, which really just masks his concern. He reaches thoughtlessly outward, his fingertips grazing against Steph's bicep. Muscle. Clear-cut muscle, the kind that she'd never managed to put on even when he was training her in boxing. For self-defense, he'd said at the time. You gotta be able to protect yourself from these lowlifes when I'm not around. ]
So the things they say about Liberty Belle— the program actually worked? It really did... all this to you? Turned you into some kind of, of superwoman?
[ God, those words sound weird. ]
no subject
Though, truth be told, she was sort of expecting it.
He all but flings himself away from her, stalking across her tent in a few long strides, and she finds herself standing barefoot where he left her, her hands settling on her hips as she grits her jaw and tries not to snap back at him. Bucky's temper has always been a bit of a spark for her own, the two of them like flint and tinder, always mere seconds from setting each other off. She needs to bite back that impulse right now.
She's had months to get used to the new direction her life has taken. Bucky's only had a few minutes. She can give him some time. ]
It ain't like that, Buck, jeez. [ It's exactly like that, actually. Bucky used to be able to wrap his hand around her arm and have his fingertips all but overlap. Now, she's pretty sure if he tried to grab her biceps like that, it would be a whole 'nother story, and it has nothing to do with the thickness of her blouse. ] It worked, but... [ She waves her hand around her tent, encompassing the stockings and her sequined bustier and the stupid little shield she carries where it lies tossed aside against her chest. ] This has nothing to do with why I did it. I didn't want this.
[ Did she want to be strong? In an abstract sort of way. Did she want to be beautiful? Yeah, even if that wish made her feel shallow and silly. But more than all that, all Stephanie really wanted was to be healthy. She didn't think the pendulum would swing from one extreme all the way to the other, but here she is. Star of her very own vaudeville show, painted on the noses of fighter planes, flashing her knickers to hundreds of strangers every night. ]
ugh sorry i fell back into being slow af
That's changed now, but not exactly in the way he expected. ]
Then why did you do it?
[ His voice is softer now, calmer, as his gaze drops and he looks at her again. ]
And don't worry, I know it wasn't to be plastered on posters. You're not some glory hound. [ He waves a dismissive hand, as if the idea isn't even worth considering. Even in all their childish dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up, showbiz hadn't exactly been on the list. While he's mulling it over and trying to come to terms with this impossibility standing in front of him, another thought suddenly occurs to him: ]
Are there any others like you?
you're fine!!
He looks back at her just in time to watch her cross her arms over her chest, except that she's forgotten yet again that her chest has a lot more to it than it used to, and she can't fold her arms like that any more. Awkwardly untangling them, she tries to fold them under her chest instead, but that just serves to push things up even more than her brassiere does, so she lets her arms drop to her sides to dangle instead, her fingers curling into her palms. ]
I— [ Whatever she'd been about to say gets cut off by him flapping his hand at her dismissively, and while she knows Bucky isn't the type of man who'd think that of her, who'd think that her one goal in life is to be famous and adored, having him say it aloud lifts a burden from her shoulders she wasn't even really aware of carrying.
Hopefully the way her knees wobble with relief is hidden by her trousers, though she's pretty sure there's no hiding the soft noise trapped in her throat, something pitifully close to a whimper that she tries to turn into a sigh. ]
I wanted to help, [ is what she says in the end, instead of saying anything about not being able to stomach accepting the Barnes' charity any longer, about nights spent curled up in her lumpy little bed under a threadbare blanket half-hoping she'd fall asleep and never wake up again, just so she wouldn't have to keep surviving in the useless frail body she'd been saddled with.
She shakes her head at his question, opening her mouth to explain, but finding that the words just won't come. Rolling her lips between her teeth, she bites them hard enough to hurt, trying to keep her chin from wobbling. ] Just me.
no subject
Suddenly self-conscious, Bucky drags his attention back to her face. Again. He exhales. ]
Okay. Shit. I'm glad to see you here, Steph. Even if it's the last place I actually expected to see you show up—
[ This place. This place, with its misery, hollow-eyed soldiers and limping convalescents and mud and the knowledge that, sooner or later, they all get fed back into the machine again, and not all of them will be back a few months from now for the next high-kicking entertainment revue.
There's still something stunned in his demeanour, as he tries to wrap his mind around it. She wanted to help. Of course she did. It had driven her crazy when he'd enlisted, going to the place where she couldn't follow, even as a nurse. Knowing how inevitable her choice would've been, once it was offered, doesn't make him any less shocked by the transformation. ]
Are you... The the asthma, and your heart murmurs, and everything. How do you feel?
no subject
She'd hated it, the shopping. Trying on clothes, letting other women stare at her and make considering noises, being pushed and prodded until she was standing on a little pedestal feeling like some sort of doll or fancy little dog, stiff and uncomfortable swaddled up in ways she wasn't used to.
Of course Bucky wouldn't be used to the things she's wearing either. All their lives, she'd made do with hand-me-downs or dresses she or her ma sewed herself. Plain, simple, sturdy. She'd never worn blouses with wide collars and gathered sleeves. She'd never worn trousers with cuffed hems and pleated waists. She'd certainly never worn dresses with artful darts to help the fabric cling in all the right places, or blazers with pads in the shoulders and shining brass buttons.
She assumes Bucky's staring is because of her clothes. ]
I wasn't gonna let you go off to war without me, [ she teases with a little laugh, sticking her hands in her pockets so they don't have to dangle at her sides any longer. ]
I feel... Bucky, I feel good. It's all gone. I'm... [ She takes a deep breath as if to demonstrate, her ribs expanding smoothly, and lets it out in a slow sigh. No hitching, no burbling, no coughing. Smooth as silk. ] Cured.
no subject
Then it was worth it.
[ Bucky says it like an official conclusion, a firm and unwavering proclamation. Anything would be worth it compared to her being healthy again, in full fighting form, and no longer fretting that the next wave of flu might be the one that finally takes her out. ]
Flashing some knee is probably a pretty easy price, then, compared to kicking all those sicknesses. I just don't like seeing you here, this place is hell, but—
[ But there never was any stopping her once she set her mind on something. And just as quickly, Bucky makes a decision, too: ]
How long are you here? Can we grab a drink, catch up? The Brits have rum rations, I scored a small bottle by beating this one kid at poker— I was saving it for a special occasion, but if this ain't a special occasion, I don't know what is.