Chapter Text
It’s pink. A bright, purplish pink called “fuschia.” Bucky can see that one time, someone put a sticker on it and the sticker peeled off, but it used to be shiny, with sparkles. It has a button, and when Bucky presses the button, a shiny white card spits out. Bucky turns it over, but it is just white on both sides. He glances at Steve, who just brought this thing home. Steve is acting very nonchalant. And he’s not a good actor. Only for vaudeville and punching fake Hitler.
Bucky looks at the pink box thing. It looks like a future gadget. It has a little window like a scope. It has a lense like a camera. Bucky tests the button again and a shiny white card spits out. He thinks Steve got him a broken thing that does nothing.
But Steve doesn’t say anything like “Oh, it must be broken.” So Bucky is perplexed. And he’s a little annoyed. Steve is acting extra normal, which is not normal. So Bucky feels frustrated because he doesn’t know what’s so special about the thing!
He looks at his white cards again. Maybe Steve thought he would like them because they’re smooth and shiny, but Bucky doesn’t need a thing to make smooth, shiny paper. This is the weirdest, dumbest gadget. It makes Bucky’s face go into a scowl at Steve. And Steve looks at his phone and one side of his mouth is trying not to smile.
What a jerk! Bucky looks at him through the scope. He flicks the little switch for lightning. His finger hovers over the button. He’s going to get Steve with lightning.
But if something happens, he doesn’t really want to get Steve with lightning. So he lowers the thing, and he doesn’t press the button.
Then.
He sees something.
There is something!
A ghost is coming on the paper! Bucky’s heart beats so hard it’s in his throat and his eyeballs. A picture is slowly, slowly coming, on the shiny side of the card. Bucky stares at the card as colors come on and appear. It is a blurry picture of his knee. The other is a blurry sideways picture of the table.
This great thing made pictures right here! Not even his fancy phone can do that, with pictures coming out, they have to stay in the phone.
“There’s only about ten left in there,” Steve says. Bucky stops and stares. Only ten precious pictures can happen. But then Steve sees Bucky’s face and says “I already ordered more film.”
Oh, ten left right now. Bucky looks down at his cool pink thing that had a sticker. It’s a camera, like on his phone but better. It makes real pictures that you can hold in your hand. And Bucky has ten left that he can do right now. He used to have twelve but Steve let him waste two because he knew more were coming. And he was having a joke on Bucky thinking it was boring paper.
Bucky’s face goes into a small smile that he hides against his camera. Steve was having a joke on him.
*
“Oh my goodness, of course!” Pepper says and she smooths her hair down and comes to stand very close next to Bucky. Bucky doesn’t know how he is supposed to get a picture of Pepper when she is standing so close, he doesn’t even have room to put the camera.
Pepper puts her hair behind her shoulders and she leans in right beside Bucky and puts her face next to his and then she looks at him like she is waiting but not in a mean way. Suddenly Bucky understands that she wants them to be in the picture together. He feels a feeling that is “overwhelmed.” He is getting good at identifying his feelings with his therapist Ms. Borsao, that’s how he knows right away he feels overwhelmed. He didn’t know Pepper would want to be in the same picture as Bucky, he thought the picture would just be Pepper.
She says with her eyebrows crinkled like he might say no, “Can you take one for me to keep, too?”
Bucky has to look away from Pepper at the floor not in her direction. He didn’t think Pepper would want to keep a picture with someone like him.
“It’s okay if not,” she says quickly. Now she is misunderstanding Bucky! This has been happening really bad, worse than ever, ever since some stuff happened with SHIELD. His words get stuck and don’t come out and people misunderstand. That’s why Bucky is working with his therapist, Ms. Borsao even though she makes him feel really bad, horrible things. But then after, he feels better. Because the horrible feelings were there already. And she helps him take them out. It hurts like taking out a bullet. And Bucky is full of bullets. He thought Pepper wouldn’t want a picture with someone like him but obviously he was wrong because she does and just said so.
“It’s okay,” Bucky says, and holds the camera out so the lens is facing them. He’s seen people do this with their camera phones. But they don’t make a picture come out right here, like Bucky’s.
Bucky takes two pictures. Two blank, shiny papers come out. He holds one and Pepper holds the other. They wait and wait, standing close together even though they don’t have to because they each have their own picture.
Slowly slowly, the pictures come. It shows Pepper smiling big and bright next to Bucky. She is as tall as him when she’s wearing high heel shoes, but she’s leaning in, so she looks shorter. And she looks happy. Bucky doesn’t look happy, he looks scared. His eyes are open wide and his eyebrows are pinched like Steve’s get sometimes when he’s worried.
Bucky glances at Pepper but she’s smiling as her picture comes through, and she doesn’t care that Bucky doesn’t look happy like her.
“Thank you,” she says and hugs Bucky for a long hug. She smells nice and is nice. Bucky puts his arm around her a little bit, but not both arms and he doesn’t squeeze like she does. He’s not used to giving hugs, but he likes to get them. Especially from Pepper.
Then as she’s pulling away she gives him a kiss on the cheek and he gets a kiss from Pepper today is the best day! Bucky hides behind his camera and his picture of him and Pepper and he goes downstairs.
*
Tony Stark is in his lab. He working with robots. Bucky lines up his shot but then Jarvis spoils it at the last minute and Tony turns and gives a big smile and holds up a peace sign so in Bucky’s picture Tony is smiling, which, he was afraid to ask for so he got lucky because of Jarvis.
*
Jarvis is a bunch of glowing blue circles and that’s not even his body because he doesn’t have a body.
“If it were possible for me to smile, I certainly would be, sir, I assure you.”
Jarvis doesn’t lie, so Bucky believes him.
*
He’ll have to wait to get some other pictures. Natasha only comes by to the tower some days, and Steve’s friend Sam lives in D.C. but Steve says he’s thinking about moving to New York but needs a job. Sometimes Bucky feels jealous of Sam because he is Steve’s good friend and not a wreck like Bucky. But Bucky is not supposed to call himself a wreck even if it’s true. Ms. Borsao says it isn’t true. But she doesn’t know everything. But she has seen Bucky behaving like a big wreck, so maybe she does know. Bucky isn’t a big wreck all the time. He’s not a big wreck right now. He has lots of film coming for his camera, so he can use this up and have more later for Arrow Man, and Nat, and Sam, who is nice and Nat likes him.
Bucky thinks Nat is sweet on Sam but she won’t admit it and tries to act like she’s not. Bucky knows Sam is sweet on Nat because it’s obvious. But Sam “gives her space” which she needs a lot of like Bucky “needs his space” a lot too, that’s why he has his own bedroom with all his private stuff and Steve can’t go in unless he asks Bucky. And no one else can go in ever. Except Pepper.
Bucky has the lightning on which is the “flash” and he takes a picture of Tiny Steve against the window where it’s getting dark out. He has a picture of his knee and the table and him and Pepper, and Tony, and Jarvis, and two of Tiny Steve and one of Tiny Steve and Papa Smurf with Nobody, and one of Nobody’s tongue and nose that didn’t come out so good and one of everybody with candy under the bed. There’s just one picture left, now.
Bucky crawls on his elbows to the bedroom door, which is open just a crack. He sees Steve sitting on the couch reading. He spies on Steve through the scope.
It’s his last picture, until more film comes from Amazon. Who knows when that will be. Bucky spies on Steve through the scope with his finger hovering over the button. Then he misses Steve, from being so far away. He doesn’t want a secret picture, he wants one with Steve smiling. But he has to ask. Jarvis isn’t here to do the asking for him.
Steve turns a page in his book. It’s not a real page, it’s an electronic page. Steve likes to read biographies on his “e-reader.” He only likes to read things that are true. Or purport to be true, Bucky thinks, because plenty of biographies have been written on Steve now plus a whole exhibit that goes to museums, and not all of it is strictly facts. Not all that it says about Bucky is strictly facts. For instance: he didn’t die! That was a good fact to get wrong at least, because he’s here now. He gets up and he spies out the door at Steve.
Steve went somewhere this week and he saw this cool thing and he thought “Bucky will like that.” He was right and Bucky does like it and he likes that it’s from Steve. And Steve was thinking about him even when he wasn’t there, even when he wasn’t there for Steve’s speech he was giving, which, Steve has been giving some speeches lately and gets money. He says it’s important to do what he can to keep people informed. Bucky guesses that is important but he misses Steve when he goes away.
Bucky fits his fingernail around the button for lightning. He would like to have a picture of Steve for when Steve goes away sometimes, so he can look at it if he wants. So he goes into the living room where Steve is reading.
Steve stops reading and he smiles at Bucky. It’s the perfect opportunity to use his last picture. Steve is smiling the small smile that crinkles his eyes. But Bucky doesn’t use his last picture. He holds his camera in both hands. Then he holds his camera in one hand and he takes his pictures out of his pocket. He’s going to show them to Steve. But the feeling he is feeling is “shy.”
Bucky climbs onto the couch and sits down next to Steve. He sits down close to both see the pictures. And he only has his socks on so it’s okay if his feet are on the couch, it won’t get messy.
Bucky shows his pictures to Steve. He shows Tony, and Jarvis, and Bucky with Pepper, and Nobody and Tiny Steve and Papa Smurf who is the last of smurfs. Steve leans his head close. Then he puts his arm around Bucky and they look at pictures. Steve says, “One left?”
Bucky nods.
“Here,” Steve says, and holds his hand out for the camera. Bucky gives it to him. Steve holds it out pointed at them so they both will be in the picture. “Okay?” he asks. Bucky nods. Steve tilts so the side of his head touches Bucky’s. Bucky looks at the camera and waits for the click. Steve squeezes his shoulder and then he turns his head quickly and presses a big strong kiss on Bucky’s cheek. Then he turns back to the camera, grinning, and he clicks the picture.
The paper spits out. Steve sets the camera aside and they both hold one hand on the picture, waiting. They wait and wait. It takes longer the more you wait. If you don’t wait and forget for a minute, it goes quicker. But Bucky doesn’t want it to go quick.
He watches the ghost shape come in. First it’s mostly red and shadows. Then his eyes are coming in and Steve’s eyes. They watch the ghosts get darker and darker until they become people. It shows Steve leaning in against Bucky, smiling his big, happiest smile with his eyes crinkled. And Bucky’s eyes are crinkled too and his shoulders are up looking shy but he’s smiling a small little smile. It’s right there in the picture.
Then Steve hugs him close and kisses his head again, and Buck cuddles in, still watching the picture.
A feeling comes up, like pink and with bubbles. He feels happy.
Bucky smiles as Steve hugs him. He feels happy he’s with Steve.
THE END.