She's visibly startled by the question, the answer already there on her face, clear as day. Then she gets defensive and skittish, sinking into her pillows while she makes a vain attempt to hide her face by pulling the covers up to her chin. "Yeah, so what? I bet you get that all the time. And it's not like I'm asking you to like me back." She already knows he doesn't, because nobody who does will call her Miss Rogers, and besides, rich boys like him don't hang around girls like her.
And then he says he... does?
She gives him an incredulous, disbelieving look. "Really?" But her distrust quickly disappears because he keeps looking at her with that earnestness he says he's not sure how she sees — because it's right there.
Then another thing occurs to her. "Oh shit. Are you in trouble? Did my sketches get you in trouble?"
Edited (need more coffee lmao) 2025-06-19 06:26 (UTC)
"In trouble? Absolutely not," Bucky says. "No one would care about those except me and I care a lot about them. Besides, I brought you a sketchbook and pencils to further your art."
He pulls them out and puts them on her lap. This is much easier to talk about than feelings.
"You wanted me to sit for another portrait, right? You're already great at drawing me but I thought you might want a live model. And yes, really. I am drawn to you even if I shouldn't be. You're amazing. I've never met a woman quite like you before."
She was relieved that he wasn't in any trouble, but that relief quickly turned into shock when he placed the art supplies on her lap. She straightened up and ran a hand over them, fingertips gingerly touching the surface. "I..." She was stunned. "These are new." When she'd requested some supplies she'd expected pieces of scrap paper and equally used pencils, not brand new, expensive items. "They're beautiful. No one's ever given me... I can't accept—"
He knows just how to make her agree though, because when he offers to sit for her, how could she say no to that? She couldn't even resist bringing her hand up to lightly touch his cheek, especially when he compliments her. Thankfully she's seated because her head might be spinning a little.
"I'm sorry I'm not..." Rich. The kind of girl his parents would want him to bring home, who he should be with. And yet she can't pull away either. "But I really like you." She then adds, in a whisper, because it feels too intimate and somewhat forbidden, "James." Of course she knows his name, has taken note of it off his nameplate and prescriptions and paperwork.
"Sorry you're not what?" he asks, just as softly. He's said his name and it feels so good that he wants to beg her to say it again and again. It's inappropriate, however, and he doesn't. What he does do next is highly inappropriate and he covers her hand on his cheek.
"Stephanie, I like you too. I shouldn't, you're my patient, but I do. I want to be the one to go home and take care of you so you don't have to work and get sick again. It tears my heart out to know you're going to leave this hospital and wind right back up here because you need to work. You deserve a chance to rest and heal."
He closes his eyes for a moment and savors the touch. "Do you still want me to sit for you?"
"I'm dirt poor and an orphan, James. My Ma managed to send me through nursing school but I've been too sick to actually work as one." Too sick for a regular job, basically, so she cleaned and waitressed and did laundry and repaired people's clothes and whatever odd job was available whenever she was feeling well enough for it. "You deserve better than that."
And yet she knows she can make him happy in other ways. Which is why she doesn't pull away, and even says, "I won't always be your patient." Maybe she can try what he'd suggested and sketch for rich people. That would be work she'll love, and pretty easy too, unless the clients were mean and she'd get into fights with them.
"Yeah, I do. You wanna do it now, or..." She pauses for a moment, biting her lower lip. "Wait until after I'm discharged? I can go to your house. You'll be more comfortable there."
"Who says you can't do more than one sitting?" Bucky says, giving her a little bit of a smile. "Because I don't really want to leave, necessarily, even though I'm off-shift right now."
Normally he would be standing while examining her but right now, he sits on the edge of her hospital bed; Stephanie is so thin that he has plenty of room to do so.
"Unless you don't want to draw me tonight? As to you being poor and an orphan, do you think I care about that? I don't."
He has a really nice smile that she can't help smiling back. And he smells really nice, too. "Have you eaten your dinner? I can wait until after you have." He might've gotten too engrossed with his work that he'd forgotten to eat. They still have a bit of time before visiting hours end anyway.
At his insistence that he didn't care about her social status, she ducks her head and releases him to fidget with the supplies he'd brought her. "I'm glad you don't," she admits quietly. "I'll work hard. I'll make you happy."
"I had something," he assures her. "I grabbed a sandwich from the cart before they were all out. Trust me, I listen to my stomach even if I don't listen to anything else."
Bucky hears her say she'll work hard and he shakes his head. "Only if you want to, Stephanie. I don't require you to have a job or work yourself half to death. It's not something you have to do to prove yourself to me."
"A sandwich? You need to eat better." Not nagging, just concerned. He works so hard. "I can cook for you once I get discharged," she offers with a blush. He'd said she doesn't have to work too hard to prove herself, but taking care of someone you like isn't work at all.
She scoots a bit more to the side so he has more room on her bed, then picks out a pencil from the set he'd brought her. "These are so nice," she comments, before finally selecting one and opening the sketchpad to its first page. She scrawls Stephanie Grace Rogers on the bottom right corner in a neat cursive, then flips to the next page to begin her first sketch.
She peers up at him. "You don't gotta stay still or anything, we can keep talking." She does reach up with her free hand to tuck a stray strand of his hair back so his face is clear, then takes a long, good look before starting to sketch the outline of his profile.
“You are doing no such thing. My housekeeper is going to cook for you when you get discharged. You need to rest before you’re on your feet doing anything approaching labor. Afterward, sure, you can cook for me some night if you want to but if I have to park you in my bedroom so you don’t go and get yourself sick again, I will.”
Bucky says it fairly sternly; he isn’t kidding when it comes to her health and he’s gotten the sense that Stephanie is more reckless with it than she should be out of necessity. Not anymore. Not when he can help alleviate that.
All the fire drops out of him when she says the art supplies are nice and reaches her hand out to brush a lock of his hair off his forehead. He touches people all day but none of those are intimate touches and he’s suddenly reminded of how much he’s missed touches like these.
She blinks owlishly at him, not quite believing what she's hearing. "You want me to stay with you?" she asks in a whisper, because she's sure this kind of thing isn't allowed and would get him in trouble.
Despite that, however, she doesn't actually protest. Especially since he's so casually dropped that he's letting her stay in his bedroom and she's not about to turn that down. Well, as long as she's careful if she visits him at work, maybe they can get away with it? It's not like they're having sex right here and now, that would be after she's discharged—
OH GOD STEPHANIE WHY ARE YOU THINKING THAT
She pauses in her sketching. It wouldn't do if she's distracted, and she's definitely already distracted. Maybe even mildly panicking. "We should... probably get to know each other a little more, if I'm staying with you."
"Oh, well, I didn't mean for it to rush you," Bucky says, shaking his head quickly. "Just that I have the sense you won't rest and take care of yourself when you get discharged if you're not actually forced to and if you're in my house, I can make sure that actually happens."
Bucky thinks he might be coloring a little and he coughs to cover it up. When was the last time he got shy around a woman? 1932?
"I just want you feeling your best so you can do more of the things you love and spend less time in the hospital and I feel like you're very stubborn Miss...Stephanie."
First the art supplies, now this? God, she could kiss him — if it wasn't unappropriate. "You're too kind," she says, a bit more bashful now too. "But thank you. I've never... had anyone take care of me before. Or even want to. Other than my Ma anyway, but she caught TB from the ward and died."
She rests the tip of the pencil on the pad but doesn't really resume sketching, smiling to herself when she hears him use her name again. "Just Stephanie is fine," she offers, but again in a whisper, because he has to be professional and everything. "And I am very stubborn. I'm glad you never gave up on me." She'd been purposely difficult on occasion, that's for sure, but he'd been so patient and kind, she promises herself that she'll make it up to him.
"Well, I've always loved a lost cause," Bucky says. "But you're too fiery to give up even if your body wants to. That's one of the things that attracts me to you, you know?"
Bucky takes care not to move very much so she can sketch him with ease.
"That doesn't mean you can keep pushing yourself every time and expect to come out all right, though. Your body does need the rest and I'm going to make sure you get it."
"Sometimes I think dying would be easier," she admits. It's a thought she's had plenty, especially during cold winter nights when she has to fight a fever alone. Death would've meant rest, at long last. "But I'd like to live first. See the world, maybe even fall in love, while I still got time."
Blushing at her admission, she ducks her head to focus on her sketching. The modeling is just an excuse, really; she's watched him closely and long enough that she can draw him from memory. But it's nice to be able to see the finer details without having to be furtive about it.
She starts shading his eyes. "I wish I could see blue. I bet your eyes are even prettier in the right color," she compliments, her tone unabashed despite the flush on her cheeks.
"No, you're too young to die. You're going to live and you're going to have all the things you want while you do it," Bucky says. He doesn't say love even though that's something he's seeking too because it's too early and too fragile for something like that but he's thinking it.
She says that she wishes she could see blue and he tries not to move too much when he frames his next question even though he can feel the frown lines forming on his brow in spite of himself.
"What color does it look like, then? Describe it to me?"
She gestures to the potted plant on her windowsill with the hand holding the pencil. "Something like that, but the nurse I asked said that's green." That was the best way for her to describe her colorblindness. She then looks down at her sketch. "But you're handsome even in just black and white, so it doesn't really matter."
Her eyes are blue too, but she hasn't particularly cared. In fact she's never actually drawn herself.
"I like to go to the movies, when I can," she says after a moment. You know, since they're getting to know each other. "Or the dancehalls, sometimes, but just to watch. I'm not a good dancer. I can't keep up."
“I’m a hell of a dancer,” Bucky says, grinning at her. “Have a sister, which means I had to learn so she could learn. Turns out that the best way to get all the girls is to know how to dance with them so I think it worked out in the end.”
Steph talks about going to the movies and it reminds him that he hasn’t been in forever. His smile softens a bit.
“I should take you to the movies then. There’s at least a hundred of them I haven’t seen because I’m too busy so anything we see will be brand new to me even if it’s old news to you. I manage to keep up with the war on the radio and in the papers. Luckily, it’s still in Europe and we are an entire ocean away.”
She gives him a disbelieving look for a moment. Not because he claims to be a hell of a dancer, but because she believes him and that he can dance his way to a girl's heart — yet here he is, hanging out with one who isn't made for dancing in a place furthest from a dancehall. So she says, "I gotta see it to believe it," because she wants to know how that might feel. She'll find a way to keep up.
Her expression brightens when he mentions taking her to the movies. She doesn't even think about it being a proper date or how being seen with him would look like to other people. "You should. You're doing the Lord's work here, Doc, but even God rested and so should you," she teases.
She doesn't comment on the war. She tries to avoid any talk of it, as much as possible. Her father had died in the last one and she'd seen for herself how miserable it had made her mother.
"Well, if you don't want to go dancing, the movies have plenty to occupy us. I wish someone would invent a way to get a reel you could use at home. That would be swell, wouldn't it? Watching a movie with someone right at home? Don't know how you'd fit it in your house, though, unless you've got one bigger than mine."
Bucky has a large brownstone, honestly, but not large enough for an entire room to screen films in. He wishes he did because it'd be nice to curl up with Stephanie and watch one right at home.
"So if you can't tell which color is which, how do you know what paint to use? Do you just trust what's on the tube or do you only ever use pencils?"
"I would love to go dancing with you. But you gotta promise not to laugh, and maybe we just dance real slow." Besides, it's the slow dancing she really wants anyway. Though even her Sunday's best might not be good enough to go out with someone like him... but didn't he say he doesn't care? She can still show him a fun time. She knows she's plenty interesting, if people would just give her the time of day.
She likes the idea of a movie you can watch at home though. What a marvel! "Maybe that Stark guy can invent one," she muses. She's been to one of the man's shows. Lots of pomp, but also promise. "He can already make a car fly."
She doesn't look up at him at the question about her tools, though she slows down with her shading to answer him. "Can't afford paints anyway," she admits in a quiet tone. "Pencils and charcoal are cheaper." She's never done a true colored piece, but she'll give it a try sometime now that he's procured her some supplies. "I'm gonna have to just follow what I see. It will look wrong to you, but, maybe... you can help me with it?"
"Well, maybe I can just tell you the right colors to use," Bucky says, giving her a sheepish grin. "Just call me an artistic consultant at this point, right?"
It means more time spent with her, which he wants desperately.
"Too bad there's not really a way to correct for color blindness. Ordinary vision problems, yes, but we're a ways off from correcting for that condition."
"I'm gonna be bothering you so often you're gonna get sick of me." Because why would she not take advantage of his offer to be her eyes? It's a great excuse to talk to him. "But I would really like that." She might not even mind being color blind for the rest of her life.
She finishes the piece and holds it out to him with both hands, her smile sheepish and nervous. Technically she hadn't had to do anything really different, but him being right there to use as a model and to watch her just feels... more. "I love sketching you," she admits despite her nerves. "You're very nice to look at and think about."
"You do a really good job of it," Bucky says, fascinated as he looks down at what she's drawn. She seems to catch the little movements of his face that he doesn't realize that he's doing and there's a light in his eyes when she sketches him that makes the picture look like it's going to jump right off the page.
"You definitely need to sell these," he says. "I know plenty of people who would buy portraits like this. It's more intimate than a photograph. I know it's the most intimate present I've ever received and I've been engaged before."
"If you really believe I can do it," she relents, her blush returning at his compliments. The embarrassment aside, it's a good idea. By selling her work, she'll be able to save up to pay him back eventually. It's a comfort even if he'll ultimately refuse to accept being repaid for taking care of her. And isn't that the dream anyway? Getting to do what you love for a living?
She runs her fingers over the pencils. "Thanks again for these. I'm really touched." Not just the pencils, but for everything they've talked about. Though there's a part of her that still thinks he'll change his mind eventually, so she doesn't keep her hopes up too much. She at least got tonight.
"It's getting late. You ought to get some rest." She doesn't actually want him to go, but he's had a long day. It's not like she's going anywhere for a couple more days, anyway. Unless she dies from some complication, which would be such a shame.
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And then he says he... does?
She gives him an incredulous, disbelieving look. "Really?" But her distrust quickly disappears because he keeps looking at her with that earnestness he says he's not sure how she sees — because it's right there.
Then another thing occurs to her. "Oh shit. Are you in trouble? Did my sketches get you in trouble?"
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He pulls them out and puts them on her lap. This is much easier to talk about than feelings.
"You wanted me to sit for another portrait, right? You're already great at drawing me but I thought you might want a live model. And yes, really. I am drawn to you even if I shouldn't be. You're amazing. I've never met a woman quite like you before."
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He knows just how to make her agree though, because when he offers to sit for her, how could she say no to that? She couldn't even resist bringing her hand up to lightly touch his cheek, especially when he compliments her. Thankfully she's seated because her head might be spinning a little.
"I'm sorry I'm not..." Rich. The kind of girl his parents would want him to bring home, who he should be with. And yet she can't pull away either. "But I really like you." She then adds, in a whisper, because it feels too intimate and somewhat forbidden, "James." Of course she knows his name, has taken note of it off his nameplate and prescriptions and paperwork.
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"Stephanie, I like you too. I shouldn't, you're my patient, but I do. I want to be the one to go home and take care of you so you don't have to work and get sick again. It tears my heart out to know you're going to leave this hospital and wind right back up here because you need to work. You deserve a chance to rest and heal."
He closes his eyes for a moment and savors the touch. "Do you still want me to sit for you?"
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And yet she knows she can make him happy in other ways. Which is why she doesn't pull away, and even says, "I won't always be your patient." Maybe she can try what he'd suggested and sketch for rich people. That would be work she'll love, and pretty easy too, unless the clients were mean and she'd get into fights with them.
"Yeah, I do. You wanna do it now, or..." She pauses for a moment, biting her lower lip. "Wait until after I'm discharged? I can go to your house. You'll be more comfortable there."
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Normally he would be standing while examining her but right now, he sits on the edge of her hospital bed; Stephanie is so thin that he has plenty of room to do so.
"Unless you don't want to draw me tonight? As to you being poor and an orphan, do you think I care about that? I don't."
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At his insistence that he didn't care about her social status, she ducks her head and releases him to fidget with the supplies he'd brought her. "I'm glad you don't," she admits quietly. "I'll work hard. I'll make you happy."
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Bucky hears her say she'll work hard and he shakes his head. "Only if you want to, Stephanie. I don't require you to have a job or work yourself half to death. It's not something you have to do to prove yourself to me."
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She scoots a bit more to the side so he has more room on her bed, then picks out a pencil from the set he'd brought her. "These are so nice," she comments, before finally selecting one and opening the sketchpad to its first page. She scrawls Stephanie Grace Rogers on the bottom right corner in a neat cursive, then flips to the next page to begin her first sketch.
She peers up at him. "You don't gotta stay still or anything, we can keep talking." She does reach up with her free hand to tuck a stray strand of his hair back so his face is clear, then takes a long, good look before starting to sketch the outline of his profile.
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Bucky says it fairly sternly; he isn’t kidding when it comes to her health and he’s gotten the sense that Stephanie is more reckless with it than she should be out of necessity. Not anymore. Not when he can help alleviate that.
All the fire drops out of him when she says the art supplies are nice and reaches her hand out to brush a lock of his hair off his forehead. He touches people all day but none of those are intimate touches and he’s suddenly reminded of how much he’s missed touches like these.
“Good. I didn’t want to have to be quiet.”
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Despite that, however, she doesn't actually protest. Especially since he's so casually dropped that he's letting her stay in his bedroom and she's not about to turn that down. Well, as long as she's careful if she visits him at work, maybe they can get away with it? It's not like they're having sex right here and now, that would be after she's discharged—
OH GOD STEPHANIE WHY ARE YOU THINKING THAT
She pauses in her sketching. It wouldn't do if she's distracted, and she's definitely already distracted. Maybe even mildly panicking. "We should... probably get to know each other a little more, if I'm staying with you."
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Bucky thinks he might be coloring a little and he coughs to cover it up. When was the last time he got shy around a woman? 1932?
"I just want you feeling your best so you can do more of the things you love and spend less time in the hospital and I feel like you're very stubborn Miss...Stephanie."
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She rests the tip of the pencil on the pad but doesn't really resume sketching, smiling to herself when she hears him use her name again. "Just Stephanie is fine," she offers, but again in a whisper, because he has to be professional and everything. "And I am very stubborn. I'm glad you never gave up on me." She'd been purposely difficult on occasion, that's for sure, but he'd been so patient and kind, she promises herself that she'll make it up to him.
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Bucky takes care not to move very much so she can sketch him with ease.
"That doesn't mean you can keep pushing yourself every time and expect to come out all right, though. Your body does need the rest and I'm going to make sure you get it."
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Blushing at her admission, she ducks her head to focus on her sketching. The modeling is just an excuse, really; she's watched him closely and long enough that she can draw him from memory. But it's nice to be able to see the finer details without having to be furtive about it.
She starts shading his eyes. "I wish I could see blue. I bet your eyes are even prettier in the right color," she compliments, her tone unabashed despite the flush on her cheeks.
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She says that she wishes she could see blue and he tries not to move too much when he frames his next question even though he can feel the frown lines forming on his brow in spite of himself.
"What color does it look like, then? Describe it to me?"
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Her eyes are blue too, but she hasn't particularly cared. In fact she's never actually drawn herself.
"I like to go to the movies, when I can," she says after a moment. You know, since they're getting to know each other. "Or the dancehalls, sometimes, but just to watch. I'm not a good dancer. I can't keep up."
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Steph talks about going to the movies and it reminds him that he hasn’t been in forever. His smile softens a bit.
“I should take you to the movies then. There’s at least a hundred of them I haven’t seen because I’m too busy so anything we see will be brand new to me even if it’s old news to you. I manage to keep up with the war on the radio and in the papers. Luckily, it’s still in Europe and we are an entire ocean away.”
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Her expression brightens when he mentions taking her to the movies. She doesn't even think about it being a proper date or how being seen with him would look like to other people. "You should. You're doing the Lord's work here, Doc, but even God rested and so should you," she teases.
She doesn't comment on the war. She tries to avoid any talk of it, as much as possible. Her father had died in the last one and she'd seen for herself how miserable it had made her mother.
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Bucky has a large brownstone, honestly, but not large enough for an entire room to screen films in. He wishes he did because it'd be nice to curl up with Stephanie and watch one right at home.
"So if you can't tell which color is which, how do you know what paint to use? Do you just trust what's on the tube or do you only ever use pencils?"
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She likes the idea of a movie you can watch at home though. What a marvel! "Maybe that Stark guy can invent one," she muses. She's been to one of the man's shows. Lots of pomp, but also promise. "He can already make a car fly."
She doesn't look up at him at the question about her tools, though she slows down with her shading to answer him. "Can't afford paints anyway," she admits in a quiet tone. "Pencils and charcoal are cheaper." She's never done a true colored piece, but she'll give it a try sometime now that he's procured her some supplies. "I'm gonna have to just follow what I see. It will look wrong to you, but, maybe... you can help me with it?"
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It means more time spent with her, which he wants desperately.
"Too bad there's not really a way to correct for color blindness. Ordinary vision problems, yes, but we're a ways off from correcting for that condition."
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She finishes the piece and holds it out to him with both hands, her smile sheepish and nervous. Technically she hadn't had to do anything really different, but him being right there to use as a model and to watch her just feels... more. "I love sketching you," she admits despite her nerves. "You're very nice to look at and think about."
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"You definitely need to sell these," he says. "I know plenty of people who would buy portraits like this. It's more intimate than a photograph. I know it's the most intimate present I've ever received and I've been engaged before."
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She runs her fingers over the pencils. "Thanks again for these. I'm really touched." Not just the pencils, but for everything they've talked about. Though there's a part of her that still thinks he'll change his mind eventually, so she doesn't keep her hopes up too much. She at least got tonight.
"It's getting late. You ought to get some rest." She doesn't actually want him to go, but he's had a long day. It's not like she's going anywhere for a couple more days, anyway. Unless she dies from some complication, which would be such a shame.
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