this name on the tip of your tongue (English)

 

Steve/Bucky, AU, in contrast to the Hun version, this one has 2494 words
Fluffy, and that's that 
Trigger warning: Steve is... small? sickly?... no tw I guess

{ surely Steve created better drawings – I tried my best nonetheless }

Disrupting his usual routine, he went to the park earlier that day, and he had exactly two reasons for doing so. Okay, three. The first being that he’d agreed to a meetup with Peggy later today (or, rather, Peggy had talked him into it), and since she was a generally busy person ‒ busier than him ‒, he’d agreed to the time she’d suggested. Not that he made a habit of disagreeing with Peggy, of course. The second reason was the charmingly nice weather that could, potentially, turn into a less charmingly nice weather in a blink of an eye. And finally: that guy.

He’d spotted him a few days ago, already packing up to leave. SInce then he’d been spending each day scanning the park as a second thought, but never succeeding. He was hoping the guy would show up now that it wasn’t so late in the day.

Oh, plans? He didn’t have any. Nor any kind of expectations. He hadn’t even thought of such things.

Going to the park served only one purpose, after all: the opportunity to watch people. Or, less weirdly put: he was watching people to draw them. And that specific guy had been in the training section of the park when he’d last (only once) seen him, resulting in pretty drawable positions. So the only reason Steve wanted to see the guy again was to create as many quick sketches of his movements as possible.

Slinging his bag on his shoulder, he rushed down the stairs. Then he stopped, panting-wheezing, and fished his inhalator out of his pocket. An old lady peeked out from her apartment closeby, with a worried expression on her face, but Steve was just waving at her dismissively. He’d be better soon.

The park was only a few minutes’ walk from his apartment. (Peggy wouldn’t have let him go, had it been further away, which Steve would’ve proudly resented because for the love of God, he wasn’t a child anymore in need to be pampered and nursed, to which Peggy, with resignation but also with a significantly arched eyebrow, would’ve corrected herself, saying that she “strongly disapproved” of him going there, then.)

Although he’d already had a nice little spot from where all the social hotspots were perfectly visible, now, abandoning it, he chose a bench close to the training section. Even if the guy won’t show up, he thought, he’d still be able to draw some people from here. Less opportunities, but still. But if he did show up, he’d see all the perfect angles.

For looong time, nothing happened. There wasn’t anybody around, not a soul. Just as he started seriously considering switching places, going back to the good spot, The Guy walked past him.

Steve quickly sat up straight, similarly to a child when caught doing something naughty.

The guy marched right to the pull-up bar, threw his duffel bag at its leg with a swing, and jumped up to reach the bar as if it was a reunion with his long lost love. The scene was on the verge of being obscene.

Steve’s hand began wandering on the paper in the same moment as the guy started doing pull-ups ‒ and as such, his eyes also began wandering on the moving body in front of him.

He was great at disregarding a body’s… body-ness. His eyes would easily concentrate on the shapes and tones, so he’d never found it hard to avoid being a jerk (not that he would ever be, really) when they’d draw nude models in school, for example. There’d been times when he’d snap at a classmate for being disrespectful towards the lady, too. They’d call him a ‘faggot’ because of it. At that moment Steve had learned that not over-sexualizing women equaled homosexuality. So going to college was worth it, after all.

Now, however, it wasn’t the case for some reason. Sure, he got the shapes and tones, and the sketches were obediently piling up on the paper ‒ he’ll have to turn the page soon ‒, but his eyes conspired with his brain, both of them determined to focus on the guy’s ohgodsobeautifulness. After some time, he caught himself drawing only the details instead of whole bodies: the strong muscles in his arms, the arch of his marble-like back, the scar on his thigh, the roundness of his butt.

Then the model went to another piece of equipment, now facing towards Steve, so the next mission of Steve’s hand was to recreate that face on paper. Because he found an irresistible dimple on the guy’s chin, so there was no stopping him from then on; he couldn’t have resisted drawing that even if he wanted to.

It wasn’t even a quick sketch that began forming under the pencil now; first he was shading the paper ‒ setting up a base ‒, then making it darker, lighter where it was needed, and started putting up the details as well.

Doing the final touches ‒ literally; the side of his palm shining black was outstanding evidence ‒, he suddenly heard a voice.

“Want me to model for you?”

Steve jerked his head up, and stared right into the eyes of the grinning guy. “Oh, uhm, sorry, I didn’t mean to invade your space or distract you from training, I was just‒”

“Don’t be stupid,” said the guy as he approached Steve. “Come on, show me. Am I any good at this modeling thing?”

Steve handed over his sketchbook shyly.

The guy took it from him to examine the drawings more closely. The big grin disappeared from his face. “Wow,” he said finally, giving the sketchbook back to Steve. “You’re very talented.”

Steve’s cheeks went slightly pink. “Thank you. And you’re a talented model.”

“Tell me you’re not only using your verytalentedness to draw people training in the park! Are you?”

“I went to art school, if that’s what you mean,” said Steve, smiling.

“It was definitely worth it,” nodded the guy. “Well, in case you’d ever need more inspiration,” he said, slowly backing away to return to training, “I’m here every day, around this time.”

Steve turned back to his paper with a big smile on his face. A detailed, concentrating face beamed back at him.

———

But then life got in the way; he hadn’t been able to go back to the park until the next week.

He’d had an asthma attack ‒ it really hadn’t been that bad, Peggy had definitely overreacted, but as a result, she’d not let him go anywhere, and she, too, had moved into his apartment for a few days to keep an eye on him. Then he’d heard back from the job he’d applied to the week before, so that got him to sit on his ass for several days. When he’d handed over the finished illustration, he wasn’t paid the full amount he’d been promised ‒ the employer had kept mentioning this and that flaw in it, but it had become very apparent then that he’d never intended to pay the original amount. Steve, of course, had stood up for himself, but to no avail. There was nothing for it; he’d pocketed the money (it’d be enough for about a month) with anger still brewing inside him. He’d learned this lesson the hard way. Getting home, the first thing he’d done was putting together a document vaguely resembling some kind of a contract.

So now, about a week later, he was sitting with an open sketchbook in his lap, in the park, quite specifically on a bench near the training section, having abandoned his usual spot without so much as a second thought. There’d been a pregnant lady strolling past him a few minutes ago ‒ slowly, deep in thought, so there would’ve been a lot of time for Steve to make a sketch of her ‒, but as his hand had started moving, he’d paid little attention to both the paper and the subject, so the result, now mockingly laughing at him from the paper, was a few uncoordinated lines. Maybe it’d pass as an abstract piece.

Someone walking past him didn’t even reach his mind ‒ he only realized that the guy was already in front of him.

“Seems like you didn’t need inspiration, huh?” he noted, grinning, then moved on to the training equipment, and threw his duffel bag down from his shoulder.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No worries,” said the guy, waving dismissively. “Not that it was a date or something,” he joked, adding a wink to it as well. Then he grabbed a pole and started doing push-ups.

Steve watched the muscles of his arms work. He couldn’t decide if he liked what he saw (of course he did) or just envied it. Maybe both. But one thing was sure: the guy was definitely putting up a show for him. There was an unmistakable expression on his face, and he was keeping all his body parts in unnatural angles, just to make them look as perfect as possible. Steve almost chuckled when he realized, but he successfully managed to hold it in (because how stupid that would be!).

“Hey, are you even looking?” yelled the guy. Steve twitched. “I’m making an effort here and you’re not even drawing!”

Steve let a smile onto his face. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that.” The guy straightened up and went closer. Well, he was basically bouncing, really. “Something’s wrong, I can see it. Can I help?”

“It’s just… it’s about a job I just finished,” admitted Steve with a sigh. “That’s why I didn’t show up here for a while. Well, partly.”

The guy looked nothing but curious and patient, so Steve provided him with some more details, alongside with another resignant sigh. He strictly stayed at covering the job situation only ‒ however charming and admittedly sexy an ill man is, he was planning on keeping that part to himself. At least for now. No, he still didn’t have any kind of plans or expectations… officially. Subconsciously he was already engaged.

“Nooo,” the guy summed up the story. He’d been listening with wide eyes and an angry face.

“Well, yes,” mumbled Steve intelligently.

“Okay, look, you just tell me his name, and I’ll go take care of it.”

Steve laughed because he thought the guy was joking.

“He can’t do that! I bet you did a great job. Especially since you spent all that time with it and all…”

“That’s just how it is,” shrugged Steve with the intention of not getting worked up about it again. “Art’s not the best paying job in the world.”

“And that isn’t fair either,” nodded the guy. “But he’d promised an amount, which then he didn’t pay,” he said, reminding Steve of the situation he was, in fact, very much aware of. The weightless shelves of the fridge were going to be more than happy to testify at the end of the month. “Hey, I have an idea.”

“If you’re about to propose beating the money out of him again…”

The guy laughed, and Steve couldn’t fight down a grin at hearing that. “I haven’t ruled out that one yet,” he said finally, “but let’s start with this one.”

So that was how Steve ended up getting his rightful payment, with the assistance of the guy and a Howard Stark, J.D.

Steve felt fairly awkward standing silently at the door of his employer while the other two were aggressively talking to the man ‒ one of them was present as mere intimidation, and as such, he was staring angrily, cracking his fingers, and the other one was throwing all kinds of fancy-sounding legal terms at the man. It wasn’t long until he gave in, handed over the remaining money, and waved the strange team off nervously.

Once on the street, the Stark person told them, laughing: “Oh, how much I love stupid people! Half of my sentences didn’t even make sense, I just put a bunch of Latin words together. Oh, by the way, there’d be nothing to be done about this case in a real legal setting.”

Both of them thanked him plenty before saying goodbye (but only after the guy had promised to have some drinks with Stark next week).

After Stark’s taxi had rolled away, the guy said with a chuckle: “Having drinks with Howard usually means that I gotta listen to his latest adventures in woman-land. And then get home alone from the end of the world ‒ because of course we’re always meeting somewhere close to his place ‒ because he obviously ends up with a girl by the end of the night.”

“And you don’t?” asked Steve, raising an eyebrow because he found this option pretty unlikely. This guy must be a magnet for women, he was sure of it.

“That’s… not really my area,” shrugged the guy.

“Ah,” said Steve, smiling knowingly. “So that’s why you’re this kind to me?”

“Can’t a guy stand up for what’s right?” He tried his best to act offended, then knocked his shoulder to Steve’s. “But, I gotta admit, I wouldn’t say no if you were to ask me out…”

“I thought you were going to do that,” grins Steve, looking up at him.

The guy grinned back at him. “In that case… would you like to grab a coffee with me?”

“I have money now,” said Steve. The guy was waiting, examining Steve’s face. Steve laughed. “That was a yes.”

The guy let out a breath. “Hah, I almost started to panic.”

They walked alongside each other for a while. Was it towards something ‒ like a café ‒ or just aimlessly to the nothingness? Steve didn’t know, and honestly didn’t care either. It didn’t matter as long as they were together, the huge smile on his face told the world.

Then, after a few thought waves, he realized he didn’t even know the name of his date. Some kind of a nickname fit him ‒ something that ends with ie, maybe. No, no, that’s too cute. There was something deeper to this guy that was both endearing and ominous at the same time. No, his nickname ends with y, Steve decided.

He looked up to the nameless, yet not unknown guy walking next to him, and he extended his hand. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Steve.”

In return he got a smile, a handshake, and a name: “James.”

James, Steve silently rolled it between the fingers of his mind a few times. The usual nickname for that is Jimmy. He quickly looked the guy over again; James ‒ maybe. But Jimmy? No, this guy was as far from a Jimmy as one could ever be.

“But to you, I’m Bucky,” he smiled; and yes, this name sounded entirely different, perfectly suiting him right away. Perfectly fitting the image Steve had linked to him in his mind.

Yes. He’s Bucky. To Steve, he’s just Bucky.