"Being together is more important than how we're together."
"You really mean that?" she whispered and reached up to push a strand of hair out of his face, letting her fingertips linger on his cheek.
He leaned down to place a gentle kiss against he...
During his time with Kyla - a full two weeks by this point - Bucky gradually came out of his shell. Overall his personality was on the reserved side, which was just fine with his roommate - she was rather introverted as well. They didn't talk all the time, but there were occasions Bucky became more chatty, talking openly about things he remembered from his past, both with Hydra and before. The one topic he and Kyla avoided was his PTSD. Thanks to Hydra, his flashbacks and nightmares were brutal. Mornings after his nightmares were quiet ones - both he and Kyla avoiding the fact that he'd woken her up in the middle of the night. Upon his request, Kyla only went down to check on him after she heard him head into the kitchen - he didn't want to hurt her on accident in a half-asleep, panicked state.
Bucky was glad to find someone who didn't judge him for what he'd done. He found himself smiling more naturally, and managed to put on a few extra pounds of muscle thanks to his generous host who provided more than enough food for his metabolism. Once in a while he even worked up the courage to go for a run at night, the exercise something his body sorely missed. Kyla couldn't help but treasure her time with her unlikely roommate. Sharing her living space with a man she didn't know that well had the potential to end disastrously, but not with Bucky. He told her to her face one evening over dinner that what she'd done - letting him temporarily live with her - was stupid and dangerous, and that she was lucky he held tightly to his morals and respected women. Other men didn't. This conversation sparked a thought in Bucky's mind that nagged at him for a few days before he decided to broach the topic with Kyla.
The only thing was... He was having a hard time locating her that afternoon.
"C'mon, Ky, this isn't a big house, so I know you ain't lost!" Bucky called into the void of her narrow, two level apartment. "Where'd ya go?" He was getting mildly annoyed with himself - he knew how to find people in the most extreme circumstances but somehow this was impossible. Footsteps came running up behind him, causing him to tense and whirl around with one fist raised.
"Woah! Hey!" Kyla danced to the side and held her hands up, showing she meant no harm. "Just me!"
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Bucky tensed up and flinched - his metal knuckles mere inches from her jaw. "S-sorry. It's a habit," he muttered, shakily lowering his arm.
"Did ya need somethin', Buck?" Kyla inquired, seeming very unbothered by nearly getting decked as she rubbed her hands on her jeans. "Sounded like you were about to tear this place apart."
"I've b..." Bucky trailed off once he really looked at the state Kyla was in, and his eyes widened, sparking with amusement. "What on earth happened to you?!"
Pursing her lips in a pout, Kyla joined him in staring at her clothes and arms - they were covered in large spatters of mostly dried pale turquoise paint. "I got in a fight with a paintbrush," she huffed sarcastically while trying to scrape some paint off her hands with a fingernail.
Bucky snorted a laugh. "You lost?"
Kyla glared up at his stupid, smirking face. "Obviously. It's not my fault I'm too short to reach all the way to the ceiling. I was trying to balance my stuff of the dryer, and kinda...sorta...made a mess."
