I'm Here | ✓

25 - Living

The air smells like chlorine. I can hear the faint lapping of the pool behind me entwining with the chirping of the crickets. The sky is a beautiful indigo color now, and hundreds, if not thousands of stars twinkle across the atmosphere. Some are red or orange, others are blue or white, reminding me that we're all different but all beautiful. I stare at the small sliver of the moon, dangling just over the trees.

"I bet this feels a bit different, doesn't it?" Steve says it more like a statement than a question, his mouth quirked up in a smile.

"I'm not normally the short one, I'll admit." I thought back to the one time Steve and I danced. It should've been more than that, but I guess we ended up right where we were supposed to in the end.

We made our own beat like a whispered agreement between the two of us. Just a gentle sway in the cool night breeze, small circles, savoring the moment. I twisted my fingers between his, pulling our bodies closer together in the moonlight, grinning up that extra inch or two at him. He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, gently brushing my cheek. I never thought we'd get here. 80 years ago, my heart would've been pounding, but for some reason, this feels so right that I'm not even nervous. I tilt my head forward and he responds, our noses brushing.

"Why did this take so long?" I whisper.

"I couldn't reach your face," he murmurs back. I laugh at that, thinking about how Steve could barely touch the top of my head, even when he stood on his tiptoes. I blinked away how I used to fantasize about picking him up, spinning him around, kissing him, reminding him that I did everything for him.

We dance for almost an hour, feeling the night get warmer and the crickets get louder. We barely talk. The moment speaks for itself.

I rub my thumb across his hand, breathing into his ear. "Wanna start a rumor?"

"Mm." He knows what I'm talking about. We pull apart, but the moment doesn't break. I realize too late that we're still holding hands and Steve is on my left, but he doesn't seem to mind that he's holding my lifeless metal appendage. Something inside tells me that it's not lifeless because it's attached to me, and that maybe it's not such a bad thing. The gold inlay glitters in the darkness, reminding me that I'm free from Hydra. I regain the moment as we walk back inside the motel. The same woman at the front counter glances at us, our hands locked together.

She smiles, just a little. "If you guys need any champagne or anything like that, feel free to call down here. I'll ask room service to stay up for a little bit." She gives me a wink, and I blush. I was just hoping for another quiet night. Steve laughs, wrapping his hand around my waist.

"We'll take a bottle, please." That's not what I had in mind. He tilts over to whisper in my ear. "Don't worry. I'll just play a little music, we can drink, and then we'll go to bed. Nothing else." As much as I would love to pound him into a mattress, I'm not ready for that. I don't know if I ever will be. I give him a tiny grin, glad that we're on the same page with what is going to happen once we get back to the room.

Room service delivers within minutes with one bottle and two crystal glasses. Steve joins me on the bed, leaning back into the massive stack of pillows. He pours two glasses and I clink mine with Steve's, sipping delicately.

I look down at my glass, swirling the liquid around and watching how the dim light makes it glitter.

"This doesn't feel right."

I look back up at Steve, who is already pouring himself another glass. He cocks his eyebrow at me, but says nothing.

"This... this was never who we were. We never could afford this, I remember that much." I set the glass down, confused. "We can't even get drunk. What's going on?"

Steve looks at the bottle of champagne in his other hand. I wait patiently for an explanation, eyebrows furrowed.

"I don't know. I really don't know." That's not an explanation. I keep waiting. "I guess I just thought that we deserved a little something extra. I have no idea."

I tilt my head. "Did I make you feel like this? Because if I did, I'm sorry. Everything we have here is perfect, and I'm sorry if I made you feel like it wasn't enough - "

Steve waves his hand, downing the rest of his drink. "No, no, that's not it. I don't know. I just felt kind of bad that I couldn't give you more. I've always felt like that, and now that I have the money, kind of, to get you stuff like this, I feel obligated to."

I took the glass out of his hand, setting it on the nightstand right near mine. This is my fault. "You don't have to impress me now, Steve. What we had in the '30s and '40s, that was enough for me." I shifted a bit closer to him, brushing my hand against his neck. "What we have now, that's all I could ask for. I don't need more than this, because this is all I've been dreaming about."

He has no idea how many nights I laid alone in bed, fantasizing about kissing the breath out of Steve, taking him to the top of a Ferris wheel to watch the sunrise, drinking warm soda from glass bottles that shimmer. He doesn't know about how I leaned my head on the side of his bed when he was sick, praying that he got better so I could admit my feelings to him and just put it out there. He never knew about how I wanted to sing along to songs on the radio with him, messing up the words and laughing, all scrunched noses and brushing eyelashes in the privacy of my bedroom.

God, if only he knew how my whole fucking world orbited around him.

"Here's what I want." I turned around, grabbing a pillow and slamming it directly into his face. When I took it back, grinning, he was smiling back up at me. "I don't want to pretend either of us are okay. I don't want to pretend that what happened, didn't. We're here now. Our relationship was never champagne and fancy tuxes; it was back alleys and bloody knuckles, okay?" I slam the pillow on him again, but this time he's ready. He takes it from my hands and I'm already grabbing another from behind me, poised to hit him. "Whatever you want, I want, and I have a feeling that we're on the same page with where we want this to go."

"I think it starts with me winning this pillow fight." He takes a swing at me and I leap backward off the bed, chucking my pillow at him. He uses his like a shield, and I act shocked.

"Nuh-uh, no fair! A shield is your weapon!" I take a patterned pillow off the couch and hold it in front of me, mocking his stance.

"Ya should've thought about that before you challenged me!" He flings the pillow at me and I catch it, spinning in a full circle before chucking it back at him. We go back and forth until I finally run out of pillows and Steve's on top of me, hitting me gently with a pillow of his own.

"Forfeit."

"No." I stick out my tongue at him jokingly and he hits me again.

"Forfeit!"

"No!"

"Forfeit!"

"Fine! I forfeit!" Steve stands and raises his hands like he just won a wrestling match, whooping gently. "You want a trophy? Help me up, punk." I lift a hand and he pulls me to my feet, tossing the pillow back on the bed. Neither of us are even out of breath despite the impressive acrobatics we just performed in the small hotel room. Nothing is even broken. That's unusual.

Laughing, we get changed for bed, our backs to each other until we're both wearing comfortable sweatpants and hoodies. I stretch and tuck myself deep into the blankets, enjoying the fluffiness. I can feel Steve's body heat and I snuggle up next to him just because I'm cold no matter what. He runs his hand through my hair gently and my breathing starts to slow.

"G'night, Buck," he whispers, tilting his head towards mine.

"Night, Stevie," I mumble back. There's a mysterious organization trying to kill me, I've almost died multiple times in the past few months, and I have very little idea of where we are right now, but for some reason, I drift off to sleep, feeling safe in Steve's arms.