𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 • 𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜

08 • My Girl

Millie made her way into the kitchen slowly, shielding her eyes as the sun glared through during the early morning, she must've forgotten to shut the curtains last night.

She'd told her parents she was staying at Sylvia's again, the girl from the party who was kind enough to help her in the bathroom. She felt kind of bad using this girls name so much, despite having only met her once, but she needed an excuse to stay with Steve and nurse him back to health.

It had been two weeks since that first night Millie came over, and slowly it seemed that Steve was finally starting to improve. He was still sickly, and very weak, but he was improving.

Of course there were a few scares, one in particular, not long after Millie first found out about his illness, that Steve's fever reached 106°f (41°c). Millie had shown up one night after work to a very frantic Bucky, who was desperately trying to get a doctor to come over. Millie had argued that they should just take him to a hospital, but Steve refused. He claimed to not like hospitals very much, and after much bickering, they agreed to keep Steve home.

In the end, however, it seemed Steve may have preferred the hospital over the humiliation he felt when Bucky and Millie had to strip him down and dip him into his bathtub, desperate to cool him off. It worked–thank god, but Millie noticed Steve could barely look her in the eye for a few days after that.

Millie let it be for some time, realising that if it were her and steve had to strip her down, she'd probably feel quite embarrassed as well. But once the third day passed, and his fever had improved, Millie put her stern voice back on and stood at the end of his bed with her hands on her hips, calling him out. He tried to be stubborn and claim he wasn't treating her any differently, but when Millie walked to him and planted a rather sensual kiss on his lips, he gave in and apologised. He had been fine ever since.

Millie reached into the overhead cupboard, pulling out two mugs along with some tea. It was still early in the morning, only around seven o'clock. Bucky would be at work all day and come over later on so that Millie could go home. They've been alternating as much as they can, with Bucky taking most of the night time watches apart from a few here and there, so as to avoid suspicion from Millie's parents.

As she prepared the tea tray for the two of them, she rubbed her sore neck. Steve didn't want Millie sleeping next to him in case she got sick, even though they'd kissed a couple of times and Millie still felt perfectly fine. And she didn't feel comfortable sleeping in Steve's mothers room, wanting to be close to Steve if anything were to happen, so she settled for the floor, much to Steve's dismay.

It wasn't so bad the first few nights, but of course the more she stayed over, the more the hardwood floor gave her a hard time. Millie felt it was worth it though, especially when Steve would lazily hang his arm over the side of his bed, down for her to hold onto as they fell asleep.

Millie grabbed the full tray and slowly made her way to Steve's room, attempting to balance the tray on one hand while knocking politely with the other before entering, as she always did.

"You don't need to knock, I keep telling you that." Steve's morning voice croaked out.

Millie smiled as she pushed the door open, eyes having to adjust to the darkness. "What if you were changing?" Millie placed the tray on the end of Steve's bed and felt her way to the curtains, opening them just slightly so some light could come in but not blind them.

"I can barely stand on my own, why would I be changing?" Despite it being early morning, Steve was still as playfully sarcastic as ever. "Besides, it's not like you haven't seen me naked already." He grumbled.

"That is not the same thing, I had to help you, Stevie." Millie said softly as she moved to Steve, helping lift him forward so she could fluff his pillows and prop him up to a sitting position.