imaginebucky:

Appreciating Steve’s
art was weird because sometimes it felt like it was an exercise in appreciating
Steve himself. It was easy to love Steve despite his temper or righteousness
but sometimes it was harder to look at his paintings and say “Yeah, I get
it.”

In fact, nine times out of ten, Steve’s paintings
didn’t make any sense to Bucky at all. Sometimes he’d paint people, faces of
loved ones from this life and the last, and for a while Bucky loved those best.
Most other times, though, he’d cover canvas after canvas in big explosions of nonsensical
color. Sure they were pretty, sometimes, but what kind of sense did a blur of
blue and ochre make.

Once, Bucky asked him, “What is it s’pposed to be?”
Maybe the sky or the ocean? But why all the yellow?

Steve just stared at the canvas, looked back at Bucky,
then back to the canvas. He shrugged.

Maybe Bucky just wasn’t cultured enough? Sometimes
he’d flip through Steve’s glossy, expensive art books, but really Bucky was
just in it for the tragic backstories. Sure, Francis Bacon was kinda cool
carrying on with a boyfriend who was hands down bad news, but he didn’t really
see why that made his blobby, half-baked paintings art, let alone worth writing
a book about.

Seemed that he and Francis Bacon’s boyfriend were on
the same page there.

Hell, sometimes Steve made it just plain tough to take
it seriously. He had a box of latex gloves now and occasionally he’d prep the
canvas, set things up, pull on some gloves, squeeze out some paint and just
smear it all over the canvas with his hands. No pallet, no brushes, no finesse.

“No clean up, neither,” Steve told him cheekily,
snapping off the soiled gloves and tossing them into the trash.

Bucky’s feelings aside, he liked watching Steve work.
Especially now that he didn’t get all finicky and nervous like he did when he
was still learning. Sometimes he’d just forget Bucky was even there. Other
times, he’d drag Bucky to where the light was best, set him up sans shirt, and
paint some part of him. The slope of his back as he sat hunched over. The cut
of his jaw and the curve of his ear – the one with that bump on it that Bucky
hated. The uneven tilt of his shoulders. The blinding glint of his metal arm,
painted in thick cords of white as it caught the sun.

Each time Steve paints him, he blows Bucky’s mind a
little more. And that’s a testament to Steve’s artistic prowess, not just
Bucky’s vanity, thanks very much. That’s what mirrors are for.

One day, he’s lurking over Steve’s shoulder, watching
him contemplate making the purple blob on the yellow canvas bigger or more
purple or whatever when he blurts out “Can you paint me?”

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