I'm Here | ✓

54 - Peace

✨Huge thanks to robinbeechwood02 for helping me out with this chapter!✨

I woke up Christmas morning to the sound of crying.

Steve wasn't in bed, so I stretched and stood up from the chair, testing my toes on the frigid floor. Carefully, I tiptoed in the direction of the sound, down the hall. My hand brushed the door to Steve's mother's old room and slowly I pushed it open. Steve was curled in a ball next to the bed, his head hanging in between his knees, shivering horribly. He looked so small and thin, knuckles still bloody from yesterday's fight. He wavered between righteous anger and a crippling sadness that was practically infectious.

I crept inside and closed the door silently behind myself, pacing to sit next to him. I rested a warm hand on his back and he leaned into me. It was his first Christmas without his mom, and the pain came back up fresh. It had been ten months, but to be an orphan on a day normally spent with family... it hit me hard. I'm the only thing he has left.

"Hey." I lick my lips. "I got you a present."

He doesn't answer.

"I'll be right back," I whisper in his ear before retreating to the living room. I had set up a Christmas tree a few days ago, but the poor thing was scraggly and already shedding pine needles all over the presents resting on the floor. I run my fingers through my hair. I kept seeing advertisements posted everywhere of mountains of gifts wrapped in fancy paper, mothers and fathers handing boxes to their ecstatic children, little kids surrounded by dollhouses and rocking horses and baseball mitts. All happy, healthy, and not surrounded by towering folders with their various medical problems and bottles of medications that don't work.

I try to think about what I got and which box I put each gift in. Finally, I give up, realizing I left Steve too long. I pick a random box and walk back to his mother's room, where he's still shivering on the ground. I get on my knees in front of him, plastering a smile on my face. "Hey," I murmur again, pausing for a moment to look him over. "Open it."

He looks up, his eyes bloodshot. With quivering hands, he reaches out to take the messy package, the paper wrinkled and taped haphazardly. The corners of Steve's mouth twitch like he's thinking about smiling, and he wipes the tears off his cheeks with his forearm. "There ya go," I whisper, and our eyes meet. I give him a tiny grin of reassurance, and his fingers start to pluck delicately at the wrapping.

He takes it apart carefully so we can use the paper for next year, opening it just enough that he can slip out the gift. It falls into his lap and he holds it up. His red-rimmed eyes ignite with excitement as he sees what it is. It's a small leather sketchbook, all I could afford, but at least he won't have to draw on the back of receipts anymore.

"Oh my God, Bucky!" He marvels at the notebook for a moment, flipping through the pristine white pages. I can see the wheels in his mind turning, his imagination already overflowing with ideas, and personally, I can't wait to see what he'll draw next.

"Sorry I couldn't get you any of those pens you were looking at. I was saving up, I really was - " Steve cuts me off abruptly as he launches forward, wrapping his arms around my neck.

"Thank you!" he exclaims, nestling his head into my shoulder. After a moment, I hug him back with a smile he can't see.

The moment is too short when he draws back, wringing his hands in his lap. "Sorry I couldn't get you anything." His eyes drop down to his feet, and I feel horrible that he feels obligated to get me something in return.

"Don't worry about it." I know he feels guilty, so I rustle his hair, a motion he says he hates but is secretly comforted by. "It's not about the presents, anyway. It's about little moments like these."