Drawing Lessons

Strange Things

Strange things were happening.

Strange things were happening to Steve. He kept seeing Bucky at school. Bucky seemed to be going out of his way to walk past Steve and was always smiling that charming smile of his. Stranger, still, Steve walked around blushing all day. His locker began to fill with drawings from Bucky, as his sketchbook began to fill with drawings of Bucky. For the first time, he began looking forward to going to school. He didn't know why, he just did.

Strange things were happening to Bucky. He'd started taking new routes to all his classes, just to pass Steve at his locker. Every time he saw Steve, he couldn't help but smile. They drew various things together after school almost every day, and when they weren't drawing, they were just hanging out for the sake of it. Bucky stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria, and always joined Steve by the loading dock. There was no logical reason for it, he just did.

Strange things were happening.

* * *

Bucky glanced at his watch. Again. He paced around the flagpole, a little nervous. He liked walking home with Steve, so he always waited, but, strangely, today Steve was late. The kid had a bit of a habit of being late for one reason or another, but he wasn't usually late to leave the school. The only time he had been late to the flagpole was that first afternoon when...

Suddenly Bucky's feet stopped moving as he connected a couple dots.

* * *

"Give it back." Steve's voice was not weak. It was forceful and commanding, as if he should be leading an army instead of lying on the ground outside the back of his school. Steve's voice was not weak. If only his body matched it.

As of that moment, he was being held against the ground by someone's steel toed boot, as that same someone, looming above him, casually flipped through his sketchbook. Of all the things, why did it have to be his most treasured possession?

"Oh, this one's pretty good," The booted kid sneered, roughly ripping out a page from the sketchbook, letting it flutter to the ground, ready to be blown away. Steve cringed, not even knowing which drawing it was but hoping desperately it wasn't one of the good ones.

"Hey, asshole, I said give it back." Steve tried again, never losing his will though he couldn't possibly get up. He tried hitting the dude's booted foot, but it was pretty useless, especially with how much his wrist hurt after trying to brace himself when he had been knocked to the ground. There was really only one thing left to do to get out of this, though it kind of disgusted Steve. He leaned forward a few inches and took a breath, sinking his teeth into the guy's ankle.

"Hey, watch it you little-" The guy couldn't come up with a sufficient insult, so he just kicked Steve in the face. Hard. Steve could taste blood and knew his lip had been split open. "When are you gonna give up?" the dude taunted, holding Steve's sketchbook by its spiral binding, letting the pages flutter about in disarray.

"I could do this all day." Steve gasped as he swung his leg up and managed to kick the bully in the back of the knee. The guy lost his balance for only a moment, not even coming close to falling over before he kicked Steve again. He had a considerable advantage, not only because he was much stronger than Steve, but also due to Steve being sprawled out on the ground near his feet. Steve's head throbbed from being kicked twice by those heavy boots, and the taste of blood filled his mind. This was not going well. Nothing about that day had gone well, and likely it would go down in history as just another day with nothing good in it.

Then a strange thing happened:

"Hey," Came a voice from a few yards away. Steve couldn't see who it was, but he could hear athletic shoes landing on the ground in a brisk rhythm. Steve smiled as he thought he knew who that voice belonged to, "Pick on somebody your own size."