✔𝚮𝐞𝐥𝐥𝛐 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 ➳ 𝚩𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝚩𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 46: 𝐈𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝛐 𝐛𝐚𝐤𝐞

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐉𝛐 𝐰𝛐𝐤𝐞 up the next morning, Bucky was already gone, but he had told the previous night he truly did need to get work done. Nonetheless, she didn't sleep long. At first, she thought it might be the lack of his body heat. But noise reached her ears and she realised Steve and Peggy were busy painting the side of the house right below her window. The noise, mixed with the humid weather of the day, could just as easily have stirred her from the unconscious depths.

The humidity was a true mood killer. There were plenty of grey clouds in the sky as she sat out on the porch and ate her breakfast. Wanda, Pietro, and Tony were still sleeping, but they had probably gotten home way later than she had. She and Bucky had driven around for a while and taken another walk by the river, and after a couple more rounds of fun, they had fallen asleep in her bed.

Her mood in general was okay. After the acid yesterday, she was having a slight afterglow, but that was sort of evened out with the weather. From the smell in the air, it would undoubtedly rain later in the afternoon, so going anywhere wasn't an option. The rain always hit hard, and it wasn't the sort of weather she wanted to be caught out in.

"Can you work with me next to you?" Jo asked as she was cleaning off the plate she had used to eat from. There were plenty of pancakes and waffles left from yesterday.

"You doing okay?" Bucky, somewhat mindlessly, asked as he looked through his work papers.

"The weather sucks," she mumbled and threw her sketchbook down on the kitchen island next to him. She got fully onto it, crossing her legs, and then she started sketching him. The marks on his neck shone clear as day, and she couldn't hide her smirk.

"What does the weather have to do with you feeling blue?"

"I never said I was feeling blue," Jo shot back, glancing towards the open windows where she could hear Peggy and Steve talking while the sound of brushstrokes came as white noise.

"You're not good at hiding that stuff," he muttered, glancing up at her with a small smile before continuing.

"I'm great at hiding everything," she huffed and studied his face to get his chiselled jawline just right. 

"Not from me," he smirked, but he kept his eyes on the papers.

"Whatever..." she mumbled and focused more on the sketch.

Sketching him might be one of her best ideas yet. It was a great excuse to keep looking at him, and she could tell his eyes kept being drawn to her as well. After half an hour, she couldn't hide the smirk on her face. Every time his crystal eyes landed on her, she felt her stomach fluttering. When the clock chimed 9 am, Peggy walked back in. She looked a little suspicious, but decided to not say anything about it yet.

"Steve and I are going to the store. We need more paint already," she breathed out.

Jo grinned widely. For once, it was her sister who had smears of paint on her face and not her. Little did Jo know how her hands were covered in grey pencil residue as she smeared it carelessly over the page.

"You got enough money?" Bucky asked, looking up with furrowed eyebrows.

"Yes, Bucky, it'll be fine," Peggy enunciated.

He kept smiling.

"Just wanted to make sure," he chuckled, and picked up a pen to write something down. "You hate asking for stuff."

"Because I don't need it," Peggy said and walked back out of the kitchen. Only a few minutes later, the sound of wheels rolling over gravel could be heard, and the engine's growling slowly faded.