Ascendancy

Chapter 14

        I gently put my peach colored dress into the suitcase. So many colors, fabrics, and textures explode from the case. Already I have two stuffed full. That's without my necessities. Well, as they say, when in Rome...

        Bucky and Steve are boxing downstairs. I told Bucky I would pack for him. As much as possible he needs to train with Steve. Although Wanda will be able to protect us, it wouldn't hurt to have a buff and fully functioning super soldier around to help. Not to mention the therapy and closure it will bring for Bucky.

        I think back to the first time they fought. Bucky had left, angry with his disability. Now, I saw them laughing as they headed to the gym. Bucky was saying he was losing his abs. Steve said he was getting a little chunky.

         One of the things I love about doing mundane things, is the opportunity to think. Now, all my thoughts are absorbed in Bucky. I try to stop, think of other important things, but my mind just goes back to him one way or another. Even when we are apart, our synapses fire and connect, sending shocks to remind us that the other is still there and in love.

        I seem to float around the room. Air is just another floor, one that touches my lover as well, caresses his face when I cannot.

        I zip my suitcase close. Now for Bucky's.

        It seems silly, but seeing as I'm wearing socks, I take the opportunity to 'ice skate' across the floor. Scott is coming out of his room near Bucky's. He stares at me wide eyed. Then suddenly he does a little tap dance past me, and slides out of the hallway, smile plastered loosely on his jolly face.

        Gosh, I'm going to miss him.

        It shoots me in the heart. I hadn't realized it until now. What will my future be? If Bucky and I remain a couple, once we come back from our Europe tour, will I live here? Will I help the Avengers?

        It's possible I'll forever live with Scott. If we forever live here, on this compound. But Steve doesn't seem to think so. I can smell the anxiety in the air: anxiety to go and help. To fight for their love ones and return home to them, victorious.

        I slip into Bucky's room. His suitcase sits open at the end of his bed. A lone blue shirt lays in it, hastily folded.

       Soon I'm snuggling colors next to each other again. Bucky only needs one suitcase for clothes though, so I move on to necessities. The drawer slips out of the dresser. Papers fly around me, souring like airplanes.

         Surprised, I lean down and pick one up. From the back I can see pencil scribbles. When I flip it around, a gasp fills my cheeks.

        It's me. Drawn in gentle pencil flutters across the whole page, there I sit in my white leather chair. Gazing out of a window as it pours down rain outside. A solemn look is portrayed on my face.

        My heart bobbles around in my chest, butterflies roll in my stomach. He drew me. And not a stick figure either, an amazing pencil sketch. I fly to the ground and gather up all the ones that fell. There are dozens more.

        Ones of me eating, talking to him in my chair, laying in my bed listening to music, watching a movie and laughing, sitting at a table and quietly grinning. Small moments trickled into lines of memory which were woven across the page.

        When did he do all of these....

        I dig through the drawer, taking the drawings, and bringing them into a plain of introspection before me; they become movies, which beacon thoughts, which beckon emotions. A warm hand wrap around my waist.