Drawing Lessons

Monkey Wrench

"Oh, and who's this?" The young woman asked, her gaze moving to Bucky's muscular form which had now entered the small space of the doorway.

"Oh, that's uh, that's... Bucky." Steve said, as if that would explain anything, "Bucky Barnes."

"Hey," Bucky said, reaching forward to shake the British girl's hand, his usual careless charm melding with his flustered confusion to form something entirely new and altogether not unattractive. Inexplicably, Steve found his mind thinking that this version of Bucky was more like the one he had first met than the one he had been holding moments before.

"Nice hair," The girl smirked her red lips as she gave him a firm, sturdy handshake.

Bucky, flushing a wild red, shook his head and smiling sheepishly, saying, "It's not normally like that."

"Oh, I'll bet," The young woman said. Bucky turned toward the nearby mirror and started trying to smooth his beyond-messy hair with his fingers. Peggy was smirking. Steve wanted to push her onto the stoop and close the door in her face with a muttered "no offence," full offense meant. This was not how he had wanted this morning to go. At all.

"Peggy, what are you doing here?" Steve asked, hearing it come out of his mouth more bluntly than he had really intended.

"Didn't you read my letters?" Peggy frowned at Steve, "You're a terrible pen pal, you know. I shudder to think what your mother would go through if you ever went oversees."

"Okay, fine, I'm a bad pen pal. Why are you here?" Steve said, frustrated.

"If you had read my letters-" Peggy started.

"Well, I didn't." Steve cut her off.

"Well, I know that, now, given the evidence in front of me. But I maintain that you should have read my letters."

"Either way, you're here now." Steve gestured with his hand at her.

"I should think so, since I'll be living here." Peggy stated very matter-of-factly.

"You'll be what?" Steve asked flatly, looking at her with a deadpan expression, waiting for her to explain what she was actually doing in America.

"I'll be living here. In the States. In Brooklyn, as a matter of fact. Specifically, in this house that you're standing in. With you and your mother." She said all this like he was being obtuse, as though she weren't saying anything earth-shattering at all.

"You're actually serious? Why live with us-- you don't have a perfectly good home on that little island of yours?" Steve's tone betrayed his irritation.

"My parents' home in England is well and good, but not super convenient to me at the moment. I'm attending college at Barnard in Manhattan and have nowhere else to stay."

"Not staying in a dormitory?" Steve asked, frowning.

"Can't afford it, I'm afraid to say. Could barely afford the plane ride over here on top of tuition, even with the academic scholarship."

"Barnard," Bucky muttered, turning away from the mirror and back toward the conversation, "Think I've heard of that. It's affiliated with Columbia, right?"

"Indeed," Peggy responded, "It's the women's college."

"Ah, I was thinking of applying to Columbia." Bucky said.

"In Manhattan? Isn't that a bit of a trip from here?" Steve asked, frowning, "Wouldn't it be better for you to stay somewhere closer?"

Peggy rolled her eyes, "I'm sure I can handle the trip, Rogers, the trains here aren't really that complex. It's not like I just travelled solo from England or anything."

"I didn't mean-" Steve started.

Peggy cut him off: "I think it's best I stay here, with people I already know and trust, at least until I'm established in the city. If you want me out of your hair so bad I can get a job, then in a few months or so I can rent a room closer to the school. Regardless of all that, for now, I'm here."

So it was decided.

"Alright." Steve said, looking at his feet and shuffling a little where he stood.

Peggy smiled primly and turned on her heel, stepping out the door and down the steps to the street, where a yellow cab was waiting. She grabbed a purse and a small duffel from the front seat and thanked the driver before she popped open the trunk and turned back to the two boys in the house.

"Are you going to help me with my bags or what?"

*          *          *

"Who is she?" Bucky asked Steve, taking a cool sip of water.

"Who?" Steve looked up from his sketchbook. His legs were draped over Bucky's lap.

"That girl who moved in with you. Peggy? The one with the accent. She a family friend or something? How'd you meet her?" Bucky prodded.

"Yeah, she's... a family friend," Steve responded, looking off to the side, "In a way."

"I'm maybe gonna need a little bit more explanation than that." Bucky shifted, settling Steve's legs down on the sofa and turning his broad shoulders so that his full body was facing Steve's.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Steve set his sketchbook to the side. After a moment, he turned to face Bucky, still avoiding his big brown eyes.

"When my pops was in the army, ya know, before..." Steve paused, thinking of how to formulate that sentence before eventually giving up, "Well, there wasn't a war on, and money was tight around here-- tighter than it is now. They were letting a lot of people go back then, in the army. We were all a bit nervous, so when he was offered a job in London, off he went.

"Ma kept working, and I wrote letters back and forth with my pa. He would visit us at Christmastime, and we'd go over there as soon as school let out for the summer. That's how I got to know Margaret Carter - Peggy. We frequented the same little corner of the city and we got along like two peas in a pod."

"You sure about that last part?" There was more than a hint of sarcasm in Bucky's tone.

"Yes, we did." Steve said defensively, "It was... good. It was really good. One of the first real friendships I've ever had to tell you the truth. One of the only ones."

"I get it." Bucky said, and he did.

There was a pause in conversation that stretched longer than it should have. Steve wasn't looking at Bucky - he couldn't, not when he was remembering the last summer he'd spent abroad in London:

His parents had been distracted, talk of tensions rising and a risk of war. He and Peggy were just barely old enough to go out in the evenings, and so they'd snuck away just about every night. There had been dancing. He had never danced with anyone before, but it wasn't scary. He only stepped on her toes once. There had been-

"So what's her deal, then?" Bucky's voice broke Steve out of his memories, "Obviously she's pretty intense. What do girls even study at college?"

"She's... yeah," Steve muttered, still flustered, "Definitely intense. Listen," he suddenly gave Bucky his full attention as a thought occurred to him, "We ought to be careful when we're around her. In terms of, you know, the extent of our friendship," The word seemed wholly inadequate, "I trust her, I do. But I just, I don't know for sure, what she'd say."

"Better just not to risk it?" Bucky asked, soft and delicate.

There was something there, something in the air between them, that set the hairs on the back of Steve's neck to rising. He shivered, looking away again.

"I think so." Steve replied.