bakerstreet | Little steps to an open heart

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Little steps to an open heart

little steps

No matter how much they care for the other person and want to be with them, some people simply can't dive head first into relationships. Little things that form intimacy and romance, little acts we take for granted - being close, holding hands, kissing, showing affection in public - they won't or can't do...at least not right off the bat. Something in their past, their experiences, their trauma, or even their personality holds them back. For both them and the person they're "dating," as it were, this can lead to a frustrating experience.

Still, steps can be taken towards letting the walls fall down. Little, tiny steps, but those can mean the world all the same.

The People
One With the help of a partner, one person warms up.
Two Both sides of this couple are learning how to be in a relationship and to be open.

The Actions
Talking → A relationship can't exist if there's not some communication, so either learn to use your words or become so close you can speak without them.
Spending Time → Even such mundane occurrences as watching TV or cooking together is new ground.
Touching → You might just find you enjoy reaching out and touching them.
Kissing → Another kind of touch, when you think about it.
Cuddling → ...at least they're warm and, hopefully, soft.
Sleeping → You're at your absolute weakest when you're asleep. It shows trust to doze off around this person.
Public Display → It's one thing to be in love in private, but showing you care in public is a different story.
Kind Words → Three little words (more or less) are all it takes. Why, then, are they so hard to get out?
Sex The ultimate stumbling block to some. To be laid blissfully bare is to truly let your guard down.

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[ or the untamed i'm just lazy, haven't made icons yet!! ]

[ m/f ]

The mission had gone well, for the most part. Except when the exit he'd planned on utilizing had unexpectedly been swarmed with security guards. Other than that, it had been basic. Something literally a first year SHIELD agent could have done, no problem. It was almost insulting, but at least it didn't require him to kill anyone, so there was that. He'd handed over the flash drive to Natasha without a word on the drive back to HQ and met up with Steve, who'd offered to buy dinner, and he supposed they could just continue glossing over the fact that every dinner was on Steve considering he wasn't exactly getting paid for this.

Conditional discharge mandated a lot of how things went. In this case when Fury said jump, he was to ask how high. It was a song and dance that was eerily familiar but so far no one in SHIELD had attempted to physically torture him or put him on ice. If he wasn't on a mission or with Steve, or at one of his weekly therapy appointments, he was to stay in the apartment building at all times. The ankle bracelet would let them know if he fucked up and he assumed if and when that happened, he was looking at the inside of a cell for the rest of his life, or something much, much worse.

Being out and on the streets of New York these days made him a little twitchy anyway because his face had been all over the news for months, and he rarely stepped outside that someone wasn't staring at him. He worried more about how all of this was impacting Steve, and his reputation at Captain America -- the country seemed to be deeply divided on whether Cap was just being Cap and trying to rehabilitate one of the world's greatest assassins/terrorists who happened to be his long-lost best friend, or whether he'd committed treason and somehow gotten away with it.

Truthfully he wasn't sure that going out for dinner, mission successful or not, was the best idea, but Steve seemed so excited about it. He kept his head down, face partially hidden by the hat he wore pulled low, and followed him into the restaurant for dinner, gaze flickering around and assessing the safety level of the situation. He was relieved when the hostess put them in a corner booth where Bucky could keep an eye on everyone in the room. He wasn't allowed go carry a weapon when he was off duty, but he had more than a few tricks up his sleeve should they be necessary.

Steve was so cheerful that he was having trouble containing himself. HIs lips kept twitching into a quiet smile, every time he caught a glimpse of Bucky. Bucky. Bucky in New York, with his memories and his mind returned to him, on his team once again. He had the best person he'd ever known at his back once more. He was overwhelmed with gratitude toward the universe, that things had worked out like he had and Fury had helped so much in getting Bucky pardoned and back in the States. Wakanda was great and T'Challa had been so welcoming--but Birnin Zana was no New York City. He'd missed pizza, if nothing else.

He could tell Bucky was on edge, but he figured it was just part of the adjustment process. It was a big change, to go from anonymity and harmless notoriety in Wakanda, back to a place where people knew who he was and weren't all a fan. Steve didn't much care about people who judged Bucky. Everyone who mattered knew Bucky was a hero. That's all Steve cared about.

When they sat down, Steve smiled at Bucky.

"What have you been missing? I could eat an obscene number of dumplings right now and I didn't even do anything on the mission today."

Edited 2019-09-21 02:39 (UTC)

Bucky had been on edge since he'd stepped foot back in the country because he'd known, even before actually meeting face to face with Fury, what the conditions of this little arrangement were going to be. There had never been a doubt in his mind. If it hadn't involved a full pardon for everyone who'd helped protect him months ago, he would have told the man to go fuck himself and he would have stayed in Wakanda as long as T'Challa would have allowed.

But that wasn't how things had gone down and for better or worse, he was now property of SHIELD. The two and a half years of freedom had been nice while they'd lasted. But only to a certain degree. He'd been utterly alone, and after decades of imprisonment going from one extreme to the other had been...difficult. None of it really mattered now anyway. You play the hand you're dealt and that's just the way it goes. He'd known that since he'd been drafted into a war he'd never wanted to fight in to begin with.

He shifted his gaze to Steve when he spoke. "Eggrolls," he admitted with a slight shrug as he reached for the menu. He was hungry, too, which was nothing new. He was almost always hungry these days. Once he'd escaped from HYDRA and what had laughingly passed as nutritional meal replacements -- chalky and disgusting -- he'd been sick for weeks. When his digestive track had gotten back with the program it felt like he couldn't get enough to eat.

"We will get so many eggrolls," Steve promised. He understood the constant, gnawing hunger of the serum and even more than that, he was still pretty pleased by how he could continually afford enough to eat. In the short time Bucky had been back, Steve had found himself watching Bucky eat with quiet and sincere delight. They'd spent a lot of time, back in the day, both pretending to the other that they weren't hungry. Bucky'd push food on Steve claiming he'd eaten at work and Steve would give Bucky the bigger helping because he needed the energy for his far more physical labor.

He knocked his ankle against Bucky's casually.

"How's it feel to be back?"

Admittedly, food was one of the very few things that Bucky did truly enjoy these days. He didn't eat for the sake of eating, but he did derive genuine pleasure from something he'd been denied for decades. And he'd read on the internet that this was one of the best places in Brooklyn for eggrolls, so he was looking forward to a pile of them. He glanced around the place quickly, gaze locking momentarily on the door when a new couple entered the restaurant, and once he'd studied them for a few seconds, he dismissed them as low level threats at best.

The light nudge startled him a little, mostly because he hadn't been expecting it. He rarely expected any kind of contact with someone, even Steve. His memory was still shaky in places, but he was pretty sure he used to be a tactile kind of guy. He'd drape an arm around Steve's shoulders or sit just a little closer than necessary so their arms would touch, but HYDRA had successfully scraped that instinct out of him. Even when he got the urge to touch, he held back.

Right. Back to the reason they were having dinner out in the first place. Celebration. He was supposed to be happy. "A little rusty," he admitted but he managed a smile just for Steve.

Steve noticed Bucky startle a little at his touch and a furrow built between his eyes, for just a moment. It quickly smoothed out. He was on edge, it made sense. This was new to him. It was too much to expect them to fall back into old patterns immediately. He'd have to be careful not to put too much pressure on him, as hungry as he was for their old intimacies.

His brain also tallied up the alert way Bucky looked around the room, the way his eyes caught on new entrants, the hesitance of the smile. Steve would just have to work hard to make him feel welcome and comfortable. He could do that. Steve was willing to work hard for far less important things than Bucky.

"You were perfect," Steve said. "But I more meant just being in New York. How long has it been since you've been home?"

The exit hadn't been so perfect. He'd improvised, gotten what he'd come for and gotten out without getting caught and he knew that was what mattered. But it wasn't perfect. Steve was just trying to make him feel at ease.

And that made his chest tighten in a way that made it difficult to breathe for a moment. It had been decades. "Since November 1963," he responded, voice hushed. He glanced to his left when he caught sight of the waitress approaching with a couple of glasses of water. He thanked her quietly and looked at Steve to see if he was ready to order, Bucky's stomach grumbling because it had been nearly six hours since he'd last eaten.

His breath caught in his throat and he stared at Bucky for a second. The hushed quality of Bucky's voice settled in his own bones and he felt overwhelmed, for a second, by the years Bucky had spent in captivity. Normally the thought of it made him overwhelmed with rage--but right now, there was just sadness and the persistent sense of awe that Bucky survived. Bucky was a miracle, he thought, and he thought it without a hint of irony.

The waitress surprised him.

"Uh," he said and cleared his throat. "Four orders of dumplings, egg foo young, and General Tso's for me. What do you want, Buck?"

He didn't take his eyes off of Bucky when he ordered--it was rude, but he couldn't bring himself to stop looking at him.

Bucky normally made an effort not to bring up much about anything involving HYDRA in front of Steve, mostly because there just wasn't a need for it. The past couldn't be changed, and it wasn't like Steve hadn't been through plenty of horrors of his own. He didn't see any reason to add to it. But the question had caught him off guard enough that he'd answered honestly, even if it was without any real context. In November 1963, he'd spent a week and a half in Dallas, Texas, and after he'd carried out his mission, he simply hadn't shown up to the extraction point. He'd started having fuzzy memories of Brooklyn, of a skinny blond haired kid and he'd grown anxious, worried that he'd left him on his own too long.

It had taken his handlers nearly two weeks to catch up with him, and after that he'd never been allowed on a solo mission again. And the punishment had been severe.

The memory of it left his heart beating a little faster in his chest, but his brain caught up with Steve's question and he quickly glanced at the menu again, unaware of Steve's staring. "Sweet and sour chicken and an order of eggrolls," he said after a few seconds.

The waitress jotted down their orders and collected the menus before heading away and leaving them alone once more.

Bucky glanced up and found Steve watching him, shifting a little in the booth. "So what'd you do all day while the rest of us worked?" He smiled, wanting to lighten the mood even as his gaze flickered around again, making sure nothing was out of the norm.

Steve was distracted from his musing by Bucky's order. He frowned.

"That can't be enough food for you," he said. "Are you sure you don't want to call her back?"

He smiled, trying to make a joke of it. "Like you said, I didn't even do anything today and I'm going to need to eat way more than that."

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