@resinonao3 commissioned me for a scene from her fic series “something wild calls you home”. It was super interesting and challenging to draw, I’m happy I got to draw snow leopard!Bucky again! (I sure wasted a lot of time watching adorable snow leopard videos instead of being productive while I worked on this ahah.) Thank you so much for commissioning me! ❤
Incredible illustration from one of the defining moments of The Stars Are Hiding. I can’t believe how beautifully this was captured!
“Please don’t die,” he whispers. “You’re the best human I’ve ever met.”
“Not gonna die,” Captain Rogers mumbles, and Bucky catches his breath. “Just really, really tired.”
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Bucky says, chest filling with renewed determination. He lifts his head from the Captain’s lap, and sees that his eyes are still closed, and fresh sweat had sprung up on his forehead. “Are you warm enough?”
“So warm,” Steve says dreamily. “You’re so warm.”
“Yeah, captain, I know. I’m in heat,” he stupidly admits, but Rogers is drifting and Bucky figures it doesn’t matter now anyway.
Bucky sighs heavily through his nose and a strong scent catches his attention. He had been distracted before, inappropriately aroused and worrying a bit too much about his own body, but now he can focus on the thread of unfamiliar scent and his hackles shoot straight up. He leans further across Rogers’ lap, following it, and presses his face close to the wound on his thigh. “What is this?” Bucky whispers, as a chill unzips a sensitive nerve along his spine and he shivers.
“Mnnf,” Rogers mumbles, and Bucky startles when he feels the human’s hand stroke his ear. It’s awkward, being touched so intimately by a human, but not unpleasant. Either way, it keeps Rogers distracted, so Bucky pushes his head more squarely into the captain’s hand, then leans across his lap to get closer to the bandage. It’s a mess, torn and dirty from the captain’s crawl through the pipe, but still holding. Bucky can scent the antiseptic in the quikclot, the cotton and the plastic used in the field dressing, and the vague tang of the antibiotics Rogers must have used when he first woke up.
Underneath all of that is something putrid, and once Bucky’s nose catches a hold of it he has no idea how he missed it for so long.
“Oh no,” he whispers, and opens his mouth to take a full breath of the scent, to taste the air and know for sure that it was the same as earlier, when he had part of Arnim Zola in his mouth. Rogers groans when Bucky gently nudges the edges of the bandage, and his hand drops off into his lap. “Ah, Captain,” Bucky chides him gently. “It’s okay. Pet the kitty,” he picks up Rogers’s hand quickly and puts it back on his own head. Thankfully the human obliges, and he gently rubs Bucky’s left ear between his thumb and forefinger.
“So soft,” Rogers mutters and Bucky rolls his eyes. If Rogers doesn’t remember this, he would die before he told him what happened here. If they ever get out of this hole, of course.
Paper Panda 
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