He didn’t mean to be a good muse. That was the funny part. Bucky didn’t pose. He didn’t model. He didn’t like being looked at too long, and when someone tried, he usually shifted or ducked or found a shadow to disappear into. He carried himself like someone who was never quite sure whether they were allowed to take up space.

But for some reason, maybe it was the quiet in your apartment, or the way you never pushed him, he didn’t mind sitting for you.

You didn’t start with him. You’d painted other things. Faces you invented, alley cats, broken chairs in dusty sunlight. Things that didn’t move. Things that didn’t remember war or guilt or winter. But then Bucky had come by one night and sat down on your windowsill while the sun was dying behind him, and without meaning to, you’d picked up your brush.

He hadn’t noticed at first. Too busy staring out across the rooftops, face lit in gold and smoke and something unreadable.

You sketched. Quietly.

By the time he realized, the outline was already there.

“Is that me?” he asked, glancing over, but not getting up.

“Yeah,” you said simply, and kept going.

He didn’t say anything else after that. Just stayed there. Let the light move over his face and shoulders like he’d finally stopped running.

Tonight, he’s in your old armchair, legs stretched out, fingers loosely folded in his lap. One hand is flesh. The other, metal. You’ve painted both.

He has this stillness to him that surprises you. Not stiffness, stillness. Like a statue carved from something living. He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t try to look cool or intense or heroic. He just is.

It’s strange. You’ve painted beautiful things before. But this? This is real. Unvarnished.

“You always look like you’re seeing more than what’s in front of you,” he says suddenly, not moving.

“You’re not making me look like a tragic war ghost or something, right?” He asked.