#on another note MAN do I love using smudging tools for blush in pencil sketches. it just works so well

[imaginetonyandbucky]

prompt #966 @novarain01

Imagine Bucky is a war vet, suffering from PTSD. Steve, as his artistic friend, encourages Bucky to join his art group as a therapeutic method of coping and minor re-socializing with people. Bucky reluctantly accepts the invitation and is dumbstruck by the beautiful nude model: Tony.

Seeing the Lines

“You see, class, this model is a living, breathing person. He is not a bowl of fruit, he has goals and dreams and--”

The model in question was lounging, that was really the only word for it, on a pile of cushions. “No, really, I don’t,” he interrupted. “I’m perfectly okay with being a pomegranate. They don’t worry about getting health insurance. Pomegranates are utterly unconcerned with post-grad school panic.”

The art instructor raised one eyebrow. How was it possible for a woman with green hair to look so utterly cold and imposing?

The class laughed anyway, an undertone and serious sort of laugh, like a whisper of good cheer that passed around the room. They’d been doing fruit bowls for the last few weeks, and Bucky had to admit that the model didn’t look anything like a fruit bowl, even if Bucky’s first impulse on seeing the man was for his mouth to water and to desperately want to take a bite.

Ophelia Sarkissian, the art teacher, continued on with her lecture, while the model lolled on the divan. He still wore a robe, and Bucky didn’t feel too self-conscious about sneaking peeks at him between Sarkissian’s instructions.

Steve had talked Bucky into this class weeks ago as a way to deal with his therapist’s instructions that Bucky get out of the damn house on more days than just therapy or PT. Which was great, Bucky’d been okay with that, yeah, art class. Woo. Also, it was something that Steve liked to do, which kept Bucky from feeling too guilty about doing it. (Bucky had so much guilt that he couldn’t freaking cope with it, and cutting every bit of it out that he could manage had become a life’s mission. His therapist suggested he might be taking it to extremes, sometimes.)

Of course, the first day of the new section, anatomy drawing, Steve had to go and get pneumonia. And then insist that Bucky go to class anyway. They’d already paid for it, was Steve’s logic. Also, he was pretty pissed off that Bucky was hovering and plying him with chicken soup.

Sarkissian was droning on about seeing the shapes inside the lines or something. Bucky’d not even managed to master drawing an apple; his fruit bowl had managed, somehow, to resemble a jar of spaghetti, something that not even Steve could find a nice thing to say about.

But it wasn’t about the art, it was about being outside the house, chasing something new, some hint of speaking to other people. Something. Bucky didn’t know. What he did know was that he was having trouble looking away from the man on the platform, his beautiful eyes gazing over the room as if he knew something they didn’t, a go-to-hell smirk on his full lips, and he was…

… jesus, he was taking off his robe, and it’s not like Bucky didn’t know that was going to happen, and really, there was nothing remotely sexy about it. There were thirty other people in the room, all of whom were entirely dressed, who wouldn’t even consider taking their clothes off in public.

The man folded up his bathrobe and posed; a simple lounge on his side, one hand draped over his hip in a not-quite-subtle gesture. Like, go ahead, look at my dick, here it is, it’s okay.

Bucky blinked.

(more below the cut)

The man had a mess of scars over his chest, his skin in the middle of his torso looked like it’d been melted at some point, leaving a mass about the size of a softball, with three surgical scars mapping the territory.

“Get started,” Sarkissian said, clapping her hands. The sound echoed uncomfortably in the huge room.

Bucky picked up one of his pencils. Steve had a whole list of pens and pencils and smudging tools and… not like Bucky knew anything about it. Even after six weeks of class, he could barely tell the difference between the soft and hard leads. Well, he could tell the difference once he drew the line, but he kept forgetting what, exactly, he was supposed to use each one for.

He twiddled the pencil between his fingers; becoming right handed, suddenly, had been traumatic, and he still didn’t really like the way the pencil felt in his hand. It felt… hard and cold and not like a thing that was supposed to be there, between his fingers, at all.

Bucky sighed.

There was something about the blank drawing paper in front of him that he always found intimidating as fuck. Like, he knew he was going to mes it up, there was nothing good about his technique. He didn’t even see, not the way Steve saw, the lines inside the shapes (He still didn’t know what that meant.).

The model wasn’t made of lines, he was made of soft, beautiful circles. There was a line there, Bucky noted, across his collarbone, from shoulder to shoulder, that caught the light, that Bucky wanted to taste.

He put the pencil down and picked up a piece of chalk instead. He hadn’t worked with the chalks at all, but Steve could do some lovely work with chalk.

“You remind me of a young man I knew, oh, way back when,” the woman said, patting Tony’s hand.

It was possible, Tony thought, roughing her age out at maybe ten years older than Howard had been when he died. She’d have been quite a bit younger than his dad, but stranger things had happened. “Well, I hope they’re good memories, at least,” Tony said. It was as neutral as he could get. Strange how most of the class was made up of retirees. Or maybe it wasn’t. The class was three hours long, in the fucking middle of the day.

The problem with that was Tony’s schedule didn’t lend itself out for grabbing lunch before showing up and his stomach was usually growling by the time he was done. He was lucky he could grab coffee.

“Nah, he was a cheating bastard,” the woman said, and Tony was hard pressed not to ask if it was Howard, because that would have just been his luck. Ending up posing naked for one of Howard’s old love-lights.

Tony took a swig of water from the bottle; he supposed he should be grateful that Sarkissian provided that much. Break was almost over.

“Lemme see those elbows, boy,” one of the other students said, grabbing his wrist and turning the arm. He pushed up the sleeve until Tony’s arm was bare, looking close at the veins inside the crook of Tony’s elbow. “Can’t get these right.”

“He’s not a fruit bowl,” another student said, tapping the first man’s hand until he turned Tony loose.

The first student went away, muttering under his breath, and Tony glanced up to say thanks. Lost himself in those stormcloud eyes. Oh. This guy. The one armed artist who wore at least three layers of shirts all the time, the left sleeve neatly pinned up. The one who struggled to hold a pencil, who scowled and frowned by turns at his own incompetence.

The one who stared at Tony, not like an art student, or even like the come-hither expressions Tony sometimes got while bar hopping, but stared at Tony like he was some sort of rare and precious treasure.

“Hey,” the man said. Tony gave him a quick flash of teeth. “I know you only got… like what, five minutes left on your break, but I erm… happen to be sittin’ up front, and last time I noticed…” The man was blushing furiously, and Tony was left thinking about the last session -- he’d actually come close to falling asleep. Had he gotten an erection and not noticed, and this guy was going to call him out on it, or something? “Here.” He held out a paper bag to Tony.

There was an instant of sickening dread. Tony hated being handed things; he’d had pictures and flowers and phone numbers shoved at him since he was a child. “Just, erm… sit it down?” Tony gestured toward the divan.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

The guy didn’t even wait for Tony to look, he retreated in a blushing mess back behind his easel and all Tony could see of him was the bright red tips of his ears.

Tony carefully unfolded the bag. Peered inside. Blinked. There was a bottle of juice -- apple -- and a peeled and segmented orange in a bag. A cheese sandwich. A hardboiled egg, sliced, with a pinch of salt twisted up in an end bit of plastic wrap. A handful of Hershey kisses, their silver foil like a scattering of stars inside the bag.

How thoughtful.

How much… work. Tony eyed the pinned sleeve for a moment, then decided that the man probably fixed his lunch at home with an eye to convenience for when he was out. A one-armed man could probably peel an egg, given enough time, but why make other people watch him -- or worse, end up offering to help -- when he was out of the house.

Tony unwrapped the sandwich and made no pains about eating quickly and noisily. It wasn’t the best lunch he’d ever had, but someone had thought to do it, and that made it better than the nicest sit-down, chef’s tasting menu that Tony’d ever tasted.

He didn’t have time to say thanks, finishing the last gulp of juice just in time to climb back and assume his pose before break was over.

Guy-with-the-pretty-eyes disappeared as soon as class ended, out the door before Tony even belted his robe.

Well, damn.

“No, really, this is good, Bucky,” Steve said, unrolling the paper.

It really wasn’t. Bucky knew good art, and this was nothing like that. He just glared at Steve. The punk was still wrapped up in blankets, sweating when he wasn’t shivering, panting for breath, and falling asleep without warning.

“Not that--” Steve hesitated, then touched the lines. They were clumsy; Bucky’d seen cave paintings that were better than his sketches. “I don’t mean, hang it in the museum, Buck, you know that. I ain’t…” Steve paused to cough, coughed until his face was plummy and his every breath rattled on the inhale. Finally, he finished, spitting a wad into some kleenex and dropped it over the side of the bed. The whole side of the bed was littered with similar twists. Bucky’d sweep them up later when Steve was asleep and wouldn’t fuss about it.

“Don’t try to flatter me, punk, that never works,” Bucky said.

“Jerk,” Steve said. He coughed again, then patted his chest, as if to check that it was still there. “I mean, I c’n see in the lines… you’re looking. Seeing.”

The lines were… well, Bucky knew what he was looking at, when he saw them. Not a human body, his drawings were too crude, even for that, but Tony, model and occasional lunch partner. The smile wasn’t detailed, just a smudge of chalk, but… Bucky could look at it. And see the person there, on the page.

Maybe that’s what Steve meant.

“Yeah, I guess.” Bucky let a smirk cross his lips. “If you’d seen this guy, you’d be seein’ a lot, too.”

Steve chuckled, weak. “You’ve found a passion, Buck,” he said. “That’s good. That’s… that’s real good.”

Bucky scowled. It wasn’t good, he thought. He was gaping at a man doing a job. That was like… flirting with the barista. Someone who had to be nice to you because it was their fucking job, and Bucky wasn’t… he didn’t want to be like that.

Tony was a dream.

He wasn’t someone that Bucky could ask out.

Tony sighed.

Bucky wasn’t going to ask.

He’d spent the entire life model packet of the class giving Tony his best bedroom eyes, flirted a little during Tony’s breaks. Brought him lunch. Helped him with his robe a few times when Tony was so cold that his fingers weren’t working (seriously, Sarkissian’s studio was a fucking meat locker and there were never enough space heaters.)

Tony wasn’t allowed; there were like fifty clauses in Sarkissian’s stupid contract, and at least half of them had to do with models and students were not allowed to date. Sexual harassment, yaddah yaddah, and that was probably a good thing most of the time. With some models and some art students, having something in the contract as a way to bypass the more pushy people. Some of the students had flirted with Tony, and at least one woman had tried to give him her number -- his robe had no pockets, which was a thing that Tony found himself appreciating at odd moments -- so, obviously it was a thing.

But class was ending, and Tony wasn’t ever going to do this again. His academic suspension was up this semester, and he could go back to work on his engineering doctorate. So, theoretically, Tony could ask Bucky if he wanted to… continue doing lunch together, or something.

Tony hadn’t seen any of Bucky’s art -- that was rude, he’d decided early on. If the artist invited Tony behind the easel, he’d go, take a look, but otherwise, no -- but the way Bucky had watched him, it didn’t even matter. Bucky’d been writing poetry with his eyes, sculpting a masterpiece with his expressions, singing an aria with the twist of his mouth. For Tony.

And each class period, Tony had trouble maintaining his pose, because what he wanted to do was stare back, to let Bucky see all the interest there. The best he’d been able to do was a few longing looks during their little lunch break, let his fingers linger on Bucky’s one arm.

Maybe Bucky wasn’t interested. Maybe Tony was just the equivalent of a really great bowl of fruit.

Oh well, Tony decided. He’d catch up at the end of class and ask. What was the worst that could happen?

… the worst that could happen was that Bucky would get away. Tony couldn’t dress fast enough. Had no idea which way the love of his life (maybe, possibly, if he could at least ask…) had gone.

Fuck.

Five months, fourteen days, two hours, and nineteen minutes later

“There, you got everything, mister?” the take-out clerk had been uncharacteristically slow and solicitous to the person in line in front of Tony.

Which was just annoying, because if Tony didn’t get coffee, immediately and right now, he was going to have some sort of genius meltdown and it wasn’t going to be pretty. He’d been working all night, was just on the verge of figuring out the most efficient placement of those ultrasonic sensors for object-avoidance when his brain had decided that sleep was a thing.

It wasn’t.

Sleep was not a thing, and Tony didn’t have time for it.

“I’m fine,” said a dark, rumbly voice. The man in front of him in line was tall, built, and wearing several layers of clothing. Tony knew it was actually the end of October and it was getting cold, but a coat, a hoodie and at least two long-sleeve shirts seemed to be excessive, even for New York.

“I can help you out to a taxi or--”

The man scoffed. “Been carryin’ my own groceries with one hand for quite a while now. I can handle it, thank you.”

Tony looked up at that, blinking.

“Oh, god,” he said, his voice coming out in the faintest whisper. His one-armed artist…

The man kept turning, his eyes doing that seeing-without-noticing thing, and Tony’s brain… still needed coffee… and there was Bucky, walking out of Tony’s life a second time and…

“Welcome to Daily Grind, can I--”

Tony could visualize it like a cartoon; he left a little smoke-cloud behind and a confused cashier. The customer behind him did not hesitate to take Tony’s place in line.

“Bucky?” Tony got to the door, stared in one direction, then the other. Where the fuck… what was the man, a goddamn ghost or something?

Tony took a few steps outside the door. No, no, no, no!

“Tony?”

Oh, thank god. Tony heaved a sigh of relief and looked over. Bucky hadn’t gone far, just to the curb where he hesitated just long enough that an enterprising business woman ducked into his cab and slammed the door behind her.

“Oh, god, it is you,” Tony said, not even sure how to start. “I thought --”

“Tony!” Bucky’s face broke into a helplessly happy smile. “It’s… it’s good to see you. I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.” Bucky blushed, furious and pink, and stammererd. “Oh, god, that did not come out right, not at all, I just meant… I…”

“No, that’s okay, I know what you meant,” Tony said. Not that he’d particularly mind refreshing Bucky’s memory, if that was a thing. “Look, I was… you know, you walk really fast, and I tried to catch up with you after that last class but… would you. I mean, not now, because obviously you’re probably busy and going places, and I just cost you your cab, but… dinner? Maybe?”

Bucky smiled. “Coffee? I mean, I was just--” He jerked his chin toward the street. “Can I? Buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Oh, absolutely, you could,” Tony said, suppressing an offer of marriage on the spot because coffee. “I mean, I need a coffee. And… then I was walking back to my lab, I’ve got some stuff going on there, but… if you’re willing to sit around for forty minutes and watch me tinker, I could take us to dinner after?”

“Tony, standing around watching you sit still was entertainment for me, I think I can manage to hang out while you work,” Bucky said. He grinned, then fumbled a bit with his coffee and his phone, “Just let me text my roommate so he doesn’t--”

Bucky’s phone fell to the pavement; he had one of those thick, athletic shock cases around it, so Tony guessed that wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for a man with one arm. He twisted into a squat and recovered the phone, glancing down to check the screen wasn’t broken and--

“Holy shit, is that me?”

Bucky blushed again, harder, averting his eyes.

Tony stared at the screen-lock picture; a simple black and white charcoal. Tony found himself staring at himself, looking long way up his body, toes to the tip of his chin, sprawled backward like a martyr, or someone who was stretching after some good love. “This is amazing.”

“I’ve been keeping up with the classes,” Bucky said, still not looking at Tony. “That’s like my sixth revision of that piece.”

“But… I haven’t modeled for you for months, surely you have other--”

“I only ever wanted to draw you,” Bucky said with a shrug.

“Oh.” Tony wasn’t sure what to say about that. Surely there were things to say about something like that, but he was too busy being enraptured. He’d seen the works other students had done of him, and several had been much better, in terms of technique, but… there was something flawless about that version of Tony. An unholy temptation, and suddenly Tony wanted nothing more than to be worthy of that particular muse.

“If it’s weird, I… I’m sorry,” Bucky said. “I… we don’t have to--”

“Oh, no, absolutely not,” Tony said. “I’ve been kicking myself for not asking you out earlier. There’s no way you’re getting away from me now.”

That shy smile flickered over Bucky’s mouth again. “I thought you were a pomegranate. How are you gonna chase me?”

Tony flicked his tongue over his lower lip. “If I’m a pomegranate, I just have to tempt you to stay for the winter, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “That sounds good.”