~*~chapter nine~*~

"M-me?" Steve sputtered, blue eyes as wide as dinner plates, thoroughly confused by the utterance of Maxie's friend and how her body was shaking in his presence.

"Y-you were there... Y-you and..." Lulu's head began to spin; hunter green eyes gleaming flirtatiously came to the forefront, her stomach churning as a rough voice with just the hint of Brooklyn inside filled her ears.

"Just doin' what we're ordered to do." The one dressed like a solider said. "Though," His lips curled rakishly as he raked his fingers through his dark messy hair. "Savin' pretty dames like the two of you makes this mess easier to get through."

"Bucky..." His name left her lips on a shaky exhale, making Steve's brows furrow together. "What about Bucky?" He couldn't keep the anxious note out of his voice.

"He was there too. You both were. Except..." The flash of a solid metal hand came next, gleaming in the bright sun. "His hand..." Her eyebrows pinched together, her head still spinning as she tried to make sense of everything.

"We were where?"

"There." She emphasized the word. "You were the men who saved me and Maxie before this, this... alien thing made us his breakfast. It was advancing on us, gun-shaped weapon ready to aim and then all of the sudden, we weren't dead and there you were with Bucky... Dressed like you are now, except... Different. And you had a shield with you and Bucky had guns and... a metal hand. Maxie," She whirled around to face her friend. "Don't you remember?"

The alien thing Maxie remembered, she also remembered as she and Lulu clung to each other in that alley way how she had confessed about Brooklyn's plan to pass off her skank baby as Lulu's, but this – what Lulu was talking about – was fuzzy, like she wasn't quite seeing the whole picture.

Looking back at Steve, she scrutinized him, eyes narrowing and taking in every inch. The thick hay colored hair spilling over his forehead, his bluer than blue eyes, that chiseled jaw, those plush pink lips... But... No, she thought. Something about him now; clean and uniform without a blemish wasn't right.

Her own voice suddenly filled her head. It was teasing and flirtatious. "And, um, just so you know you can be as forward with me as you want."

She could see herself wink at the end, and then there was Steve, crystal clear in her mind's eye. His face was covered in dirt, but through the caked on grime his bright blush was still visible, making his chiseled jaw even more criminally handsome. His uniform – different than the one he was wearing now, like Lulu said – was tighter, showing off more of his impressive muscle, like he was wearing spandex and not wool or cotton, and it was torn in several places.

"Oh. My. God." She breathed, eyes going wide. "You were there! You and Lulu's solider boy! You stopped us from becoming alien food! And then that creepy Marilyn Manson wannabe showed up with his blue glow stick thingy, and that's how Lulu and I got here! He grabbed us, like, we were some sort of human shield or whatever, and yeah... I might have said some stuff that got him all mad... Well, mad-er than he was already, and bam! That thingy started glowing, and poof, we're here! But how the hell are you here?"

Steve's head was swimming. Following Maxie's train of thought wasn't easy for him as is, but trying to understand how she and Lulu – who had traveled through time – were saved by him and Bucky seventy years in the future was damned near impossible.

"Oh, great," Through the figurative cotton that was clouding his head, he could vaguely hear Maxie's sarcastic tone. "I totally broke him."

"N-no, n-no," He managed to blink himself out of his daze. "I'm okay... I think."

Before he could say anything else Senator Brandt, his assistant and the two familiar dark haired men of his security came barreling through the door. "That's her, sir." One of the two, in his gruff voice announced, pointing at Maxie. "She's the one who flashed the theater's security to get backstage."

Maxie turned around and rolled her eyes, her voice coming out flat and bored, "Will you seriously relax? Because I didn't actually flash that security guard. I just hiked up my skirt, like, an inch. Jeez. And, ugh, I'm not some groupie, okay? Me and," She reached out, grabbing Steve's hand to pull him close to her, which wasn't exactly easy considering he was, like, five times the size he was when she first met him. "Steve," She made sure to emphasize his name. "Are friends," She turned in his direction, batting her thick lashes and smiling brightly at him. "Aren't we, Steve?"

Lying was not Steve's forte, but with those diamond eyes staring at him, the way she batted her thick lashes and how bright her smile was, he would've done or said anything.

And technically he wasn't lying at all. They were friends. Though, he desperately wished they were something more.

"It's true, Senator." 'Captain America' was all over his voice. He almost sounded like he did when he would announce, "All right, who out there wants to see me sock ol' Adolf in the jaw?" "Miss Jones and I are friends, and I would prefer it if your security didn't harass her or her guest. It was just a little prank gone awry. Nothing to worry about."

The Senator's beady eyes flickered between the blue of his cash cow and the diamond of the blonde beauty by his side, triumphant grin on her bright red lips. Deciding the story was satisfactory, he dismissed his security and told Maxie, "Don't go distracting my boy now, missy. He can't be focused on driving up the sale of bonds and getting another bullet in our boy's guns overseas if he's slinking around with you."

Steve knew what the older man was implying, and his jaw became set. Maxie didn't deserve to be talked to like a common hussy, and while he knew she could take care of herself, he could see her start to move toward the Senator, her eyes beginning to narrow and her lips becoming pursed, but he stepped in before she could.

"Don't talk to her like that, Sir. Miss Jones is a friend of mine and deserves your respect, not to be talked down to, like a red light district hussy. Apologize to her."

The Senator balked, but could tell just how serious Steve was, and though it was far from sincere, he apologized and then took his leave, and once again it was just Maxie, Lulu and Steve alone in the room.

"I thought I told you, you know after that gross Jersey Shore wannabe tried to interrupt our dance," Maxie glowered at Steve, crossing her arms over her chest. "That I can take care of myself? When you got all your new pumped up muscles, did they forget your brain?"

Steve flushed, but somehow he was still able to reach for her hand, amazed at how small and delicate it felt in his own, which were like paws to him. His thumb smoothed over her skin, little jolts of electricity coursing through his veins from the touch.

"The Senator wouldn't have hesitated to throw you in jail – Italian jail, no less – if you had given him the tongue lashing I could see you were about to. I couldn't let that happen."

"Tongue lashing?" The giggle that bubbled from her throat was beautiful, like champagne being popped, and his stomach swooped. "I can't believe you just said that."

Lulu watched from the side, feeling like some kind of voyeur. Like, she was intruding on a private moment. Seeing Maxie peer up at Steve who towered over her, but not in a menacing way, with her lips titled in a blinding smile and his in a matching tilt while his blue eyes shimmered with awe and amazement, made her stomach flutter. It was a long time since someone – a male someone – had looked at her best friend that way.

And an even longer time since Maxie had looked at someone that same way. Probably since Cooper. Or maybe Jesse.

Either way it was too long.

She wanted to slip from the room, the urge to give them privacy strong, but the urge to see Bucky even stronger. She bit down on her lip, the memory surging to the forefront of her mind once more. There were his hunter green eyes gleaming flirtatiously, those lush lips curled rakishly, that perfectly messy mop of dark hair, thick and just begging to have fingers coursing through it, clinging desperately to the richness.

Heat flooded her veins, and all she could think was why did it take so damn long to invent cell phones?

If this was 2013, she could just reach into her pocket and call him, leaving Maxie and Steve alone while she teased him; whispering in a breathless tone, "What are you wearing, Solider?"

Her thighs clenched underneath the skirt of her dress, knowing that he would be receptive to the game, most likely taking it further than she ever intended. A flash of metal curling around her right breast appeared, palming its weight and feeling cool but not harsh. Then the metal slid between the valley of her breasts, tracing the slants of her hips before finally disappearing in between her thighs.

Whoa...

Her heart was pounding rapidly and there was a pulse of need throbbing between her thighs, which felt more exciting than it should.

There was a swell of pride inside her chest and a happiness that washed over her. She was finally moving on. But... It was all gone in an instant, the reality of being stuck [for the foreseeable future] in 1942 crashing down all around her. Her heart sunk and she felt tears stinging behind her eyes.

She wasn't imagining Bucky as he was now, but him as she remembered him when he and Steve had saved her and Maxie... Seventy years from now.

Now she really wanted to leave the room, but for an entirely different reason. Her stomach churned and she had to turn away from the pair inside the room, knowing they were facing the same hard truth she had just acknowledged.