1934

Alice plucked at the men's trousers she wore as she looked around the empty boxing gym, with its wooden floors and three faded punching bags hanging from the high ceiling. Posters advertising long-fought boxing matches hung on the walls, and the yellow lights flickered every half hour or so. She sat on the edge of the gym's boxing ring – which, very confusingly, was actually square – with her shoulders against the rope.

Bucky and Steve wore plain white shirts, like her, and were pulling on boxing gloves. They'd put Alice's on for her like a child. She looked down and knocked her padded knuckles together.

"Alright," Bucky said as he closed the laces with his teeth. "On your feet, pupil."

Alice got to her feet.

Bucky gestured to Steve. "Steve, go on and show her how to throw a punch."

Steve blinked, started, and then cautiously approached Alice as if worried she might start punching him first. Alice just stood with her gloved hands hanging by her sides.

"Okay, so…" Steve held up his hands in a fighting stance, and Alice copied him. "Scoot your feet a bit further apart. Keep your knees bent a bit. Yeah, that's right." Steve turned and faced off against the hanging punching bag, and Alice came over to mirror him. "Then you point your chest at what you want to punch, push off your back foot and then punch through the bag."

"I think you might be underestimating my strength," Alice said wryly, even as she slowly mimicked Steve's slow movements.

"It's more a visualization thing." Steve showed the slow technique once more, then looked over his shoulder at Bucky. Bucky nodded and held up his bulky boxing glove in a thumbs up. Steve turned back to Alice, who frowned slightly at the bag as she slowly pushed her hand out, then drew it back.

"Alright, give it a go," Steve said.

Alice drew her fists back to their original position, eyed the bag, then threw a surprisingly quick punch that made the bag shiver. She drew her hand back then looked over to Steve and Bucky.

"That was good," Steve said. He glanced at Bucky again, then back. "You need to protect your face with your other fist though."

"Oh right, like a boxer." She'd seen Bucky's boxing matches from time to time.

She practiced a few more punches, once making the bag actually sway a little, before Bucky came in closer and clapped a glove on her shoulder.

"That was good," he said. "Now, Steve, what did I say was more important than learning how to throw a punch?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Learning how to dodge one."

"Great!" Bucky said brightly. He gestured to the ring. "Let's get started. Alice, just stay down here for a minute."

Alice watched the two of them climb onto the raised ring (square) and duck under the ropes, and came over to rest her elbows on the rope and watch them. They faced off in the center with raised fists. Steve had a wary, resigned look on his face.

Bucky turned to Alice. "You just watch for now." Then he turned back to Steve, shouted "Begin!" and dove after the smaller blonde boy. Steve leaped away.

Alice watched with her chin propped on a boxing glove as Bucky chased Steve around the ring for a few minutes, swinging and trying to clip him. Steve ducked and fell gracelessly and went red, and it was very clear that his every instinct told him to stop running and fight back, but they'd clearly done this before and he stuck to the rules. The sounds of skin skidding on the boxing ring floor, Steve's panting and the swish of Bucky's fists filled the air.

Bucky kept hollering "know your enemy!" and "anticipate!", and Steve looked like he wanted to sock him in the jaw.

Finally Bucky held up his hand, his chest heaving, and nodded at Steve. "Good job, punk. You almost got away from me that time."

"Jerk," Steve replied sourly. But when he ducked under the ropes Alice saw him looking pleased.

Bucky waved to Alice. "Your turn."

She climbed up, and Steve held the ropes for her. He was red and breathless and avoided her gaze. Once she'd risen to her feet in the ring, she faced Bucky.

"You ready?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She held up her fists.

His eyes glinted. "Begin!"

Bucky rushed for her. Alice dodged aside, eyes on his face, and then he whirled around and swung at her.

Alice didn't move an inch.

The punch stopped an inch away from her head. Alice didn't flinch.

For a moment Alice and Bucky just stared at each other, one looking chagrined and the other with slow smile creeping up her face.

"Do I win?" she asked.

He pulled his fist away and wiped his forehead. "There's no winning, you're meant to dodge."

"Why?"

"So you don't get punched."

Steve watched them with his elbows on the rope.

"I didn't get punched," Alice pointed out. "I knew you wouldn't hit me."

Bucky scowled at her. "But anyone else would."

"Guess I just know my enemy," she smiled.

Steve snorted, and Bucky scowled again. After a few moments of glowering he looked down to tighten his gloves. "Alright, now I'm really going to hit you."

Alice believed him.

They went through the rigmarole of ducking and chasing and catching punches, and after five minutes sweat poured down Alice's face and her breath came sharp. She finally held up her arms in defeat, and Bucky jabbed her lightly in the ribs as revenge. She doubled over in a burst of surprise and laughter as Steve smiled on.

"You're not half bad, troublemaker," Bucky said. "I'll keep teaching you both once per week if you make me a promise."

Alice glanced up, still doubled over. "What's that?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Promise me you won't use these new skills for evil."

Steve snorted again, and Alice just rolled her eyes. "I promise, Bucky."

"Swell. Now let's get out of here, I stink and I'm worried you're about to keel over."

[Translated] Excerpt from 'A History of the Roman Empire', Sallust (c. 40BC)

Lentorius served as a musician in Spain when T. Didius was governor there. He composed and performed his own music, and received many accolades. His fame spread across the region, and he performed in front of weeping and amazed crowds, but this has not been well recorded, firstly because of his humble birth and secondly because historians were ill-disposed towards him. In his middle age a high-born woman spurned Lentorius and he leaped to his death from the cliffs of Ronda, where his body was lost to the sea. Such is the tragedy of Lentorius, and the wickedness of women.

In addition to her now weekly avoiding-a-punch lessons, the priest at their church started teaching Alice and Steve how to shoot a gun. He was a veteran and something of an enthusiast, despite the strange contradiction, and on Saturdays before choir practice they'd set up in the church yard with his old 1910 Browning and a target. He'd teach them how to hold it safely, what each part was and how it worked, how to aim, and how to keep their eyes open as they fired.

Brooklyn wasn't the safest of neighborhoods, and anyone who did come asking about the gunshots just said 'oh, good', and wandered off again.

Bucky came to their shooting practice a couple of times. The priest cocked an eyebrow at him once he'd fired all his rounds, and said "Keep it up, son. You're a fair hand at that."

The cut under Alice's chin began to fade into a scar. You couldn't usually see it in the shadow of her chin. But she knew it was there.

A few weeks before the end of the year, a radio producer called Alice at the tenement building's shared phone and invited her to sing on air as part of their Christmas programming. It was a step up from amateur hour, he explained, an exhibit of local rising talent to showcase the city.

Alice said yes so fast she'd barely had time to form the word in her mind before it was out her mouth.

Matthias couldn't go with her. They all knew why, though none of them voiced it, they just made arrangements for her mom to accompany her to the studio. Her heart panged when she walked out of the house leaving Matthias on the couch with Tom, already tuned into the radio.

The radio station itself was a grand imposing building with marble floors and impeccably dressed secretaries, and Alice tried not to seem too wide-eyed as she and her mom were escorted into an elevator, through busy halls, and toward the studio. The people around them were busy but kind enough, pressing glasses of water into their hands.

Then, very quickly, Alice was whisked away from her mom and into the studio itself. It was a low-ceilinged room that felt close, and quiet. Like the world had been told to hush. A single microphone stand stood on thick carpet in the center of the room, with wires trailing to a desk manned by two operators wearing headsets.

The radio host sat with another microphone at the other end of the room, and he glanced up as a producer ushered Alice towards the microphone in the center. His hair was slicked back and he wore a very fine suit – Alice wondered why he bothered, given no one would know. He noticed her gaze and flashed a quick smile.

One of the operators pointed to the host and he came to life: "Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to 2XG's 'Christmastime in New York' talent hour!" His eyes skimmed across his notes. "Next up we have a lovely young lady by the name of Alice Moser, who's been gracing Brooklyn's microphones. How are you this afternoon, Alice?" His eyes rose to her.

Alice, who had been standing dumbly in front of the microphone with her hands limp by her sides, tried not to let the sick twisting of her guts show in her voice: "I'm well, thank you Mr Weller. Excited to be here."

"And we're excited to have you! Now how old are you?"

"Sixteen," Alice said, truthful for once.

"Only sixteen, and already so talented," the host said congenially. "Why don't you give us a song or two?"

"I'd love to." The confident part of her, the one that took over when she was lying or trying to get something, had been speaking so far. But then the music started up and she had to change once more.

She'd practiced her two songs (a carol and a jazzy blues song) non stop these past two weeks, so often that Steve and Bucky knew all the words as well. And the room she found herself in wasn't too imposing – just a handful of men she didn't know, thick carpet under her feet, and a little sunlight filtering through a well-glazed window.

But then her eyes zeroed in on the microphone in front of her. The receiver itself was a small metal circle surrounded by a larger one, a little brassy from use. She'd sung into dozens of microphones like it before. But her eyes followed the thin wire down from the metal circle, down the stand, and across the carpet to the operator's desk. That wire would carry her voice away and send it out on invisible waves through the air, to be snatched up by hundreds, thousands of radio sets across the city. It would be her voice in peoples' kitchens and dining rooms, her voice turned down low in someone's bedroom. She'd never see their faces, but they would hear her.

Alice's heart beat so loud she was sure it would be picked up by the microphone. She saw the host share an uneasy glance with the producer out of the corner of her eye.

She swallowed.

Steve, who'd only ever heard her over the radio through crackly dots and dashes, would now hear her as clearly as if she were singing into his ear.

The music was a bar away from where she was supposed to come in.

Ulysses.

Alice drew in a breath and sang.

Time flowed strangely over the next seven minutes – it dripped and gurgled, then raced along as if the world would start blurring before Alice's eyes. As the words poured out of her, Alice felt a rush of warmth flow through her. It was heady, like the time she'd tried the Paris Side Cars at the speakeasy.

She looked away from the microphone only once, to see the host watching her with a smile.

When her last song came to an end she turned around, thinking the producer had come up behind her, but there was no one there. She turned back around to see him. He smiled and nodded at her.

"Alice Moser, thank you very much!" cried the host. "Just spectacular, we hope to hear more from you in the future."

"Thank you for having me," she said quietly. Then her feet were moving over the thick carpet, the door was opening, and she was out in the hall again.

Her mom was waiting for her with tears in her eyes. "You were fantastic, Liebling," she breathed as she reeled Alice in for a tight hug. "What a wonderful Christmas present."

"Danke, mama."

"That was just wonderful!" came a voice from behind them. Alice turned to smile at the producer just as he followed her out of the studio. "Just spectacular." He reached into his back pocket, took out a card and pressed it into her still-tingling hands. "I'd like to get you on the air more often, Ms Moser. Give me a call after the New Year, I'll see if we can't slot you in somewhere. Sound good?"

"That sounds great," Alice breathed. Her mom squeezed her shoulder in silent excitement.

Clipping from The Daily Register, 'Radio Programming', December 1934:

… 2XG's Christmas 'Christmastime in New York' was a vibrant success, showcasing talent from the 73 year old opera singer Carla Marley, to upcoming voices like sixteen year old Brooklyn resident Alice Moser. There's been an excess of positive feedback from listeners about that one. Next listeners tuned into the new radio drama…

When Alice trudged up the tenement stairs and back to the apartment behind her mom, she was already preparing to get changed and then run straight to Steve's house. After a big performance she always felt somehow more present in her body, as if the world made sense, and she wanted to share that with him.

But then her mom opened the door for her and a wall of sound flooded out of it. Alice flinched back, but then the sounds resolved themselves into… applause. And cheers.

A veritable crowd of people stood just inside, squashed into the small apartment: Matthias with Tom sitting on his shoulders, most of Matthias's family from Harlem, their very best friends from church, Edith and Finn, and right up the front: Steve, Bucky, and their families.

They all beamed and cheered and exclaimed that she'd been brilliant. Alice's hands flew to her mouth to cover her sudden, cheek-splitting smile.

"Come on in, superstar!" Matthias called. "You gotta be hungry after singing to all of New York City."

"We already ate a lot of the food, but we'll scrounge something up for you," Bucky added. Steve rolled his eyes at him and then turned to face Alice with that silent, half-smile that he rarely showed the world.

Still beaming, Alice let her mom gently push her into the jam-packed apartment and into the arms of the people who loved her.

Alice spent Christmas and New Years with her family, with a small break in between to travel up to Harlem to get more tea for Steve, who had come down with sinusitis around Boxing Day. Steve's mom let her in to see him for a bit this time: he did his best to sit up in bed and talk to her, but she could see how tired he was.

For all that Steve had the strongest will she knew, she too easily forgot how hard it was for his body to keep going. His small chest rose and fell shallowly under the bedsheets and when he coughed it seemed to shake his very core. Alice left disturbed and scared, and stayed that way until three days later when a familiar crackle came over the radio: Ulysses.

While Steve was sick, Bucky and Alice visited him when his mom reckoned he was strong enough, and when he wasn't they escaped from the cold into soda fountains and traded jokes and insults over cups of coffee. They stole newspapers off adjoining tables, and Bucky would read aloud the articles and make sarcastic commentary about them as Alice filled out the crosswords. Bucky was as easy as breathing for Alice - he had a natural charm for getting others to let down their guard, and he didn't make Alice nervous sometimes in the way that Steve did. Bucky, for his part (though he would never admit it) enjoyed Alice's blank-faced jokes and the strange, hopeful and cynical take she had on the world.

Alice got called in to the radio station a few more times after that Christmastime special – usually for their amateur hour, but once for another showcase of local talent. The microphone stand in the studio still gave her the jitters. Sometimes singing into it felt like speaking to another universe.

One morning, Alice walked out from the bathroom into the living room just as Matthias got up with a huff to change the radio station. Alice caught the presenter's voice just before the station changed and recognized it as Charles Coughlin.

"What's the matter?" she asked Matthias as she went to go get some water. "I thought you liked his program."

"I did like him," Matthias replied as he returned to the couch and his paper. "But recently he's been going on about the Zionists." He made air quotes with a knowing look, then rolled his eyes and flipped his paper open again. "Knew there had to be a catch."

Alice cast a look at the radio over her shoulder. "Huh."

Excerpt from "Nazis on the Radio" by Edward O'Loughlin, p. 73

Roman Catholic Charles Coughlin, one of the decade's most prominent radio presenters, had an incredibly wide-spread and significant audience, with some historians estimating that his show reached as many as thirty million people a week. Coughlin became explicitly anti-semitic in the latter half of the 1930s. Following Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938, Coughlin stated "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted." This lead to the cancellation of his radio show in New York, which prompted an anti-semitic rally by his followers. It has since been uncovered that at the time of broadcast, Coughlin was being indirectly funded by Nazi Germany.

1935

As if they'd passed some milestone by making it another year, Alice, Edith, and some of their other girlfriends started going out to dance halls. Alice had been to a few to sing or to stand on the side while Matthias's band performed, but she'd never been to one just to dance before. Dancing didn't come naturally to her, but Edith danced like she'd been doing it since she was born, and quickly taught Alice the steps. Alice learned the lindy hop, the foxtrot, and the jive, and danced them with her friends or with particularly bold teenage boys who moseyed up to her with a smile. She was always home by her 9pm curfew.

Bucky was there sometimes, and even more rarely Steve – it was strange seeing them at the dance hall, especially since they'd come in different groups, and the air was always strange when they spoke under the glittering lights. Maybe it was because Alice felt like she was playing the part of a young woman dancing out on the town, rather than being that young woman. Still, it was fun to dress up at Edith's; they listened to the radio as they ironed their hair into curls and tried to apply lipstick.

Bucky, meanwhile, was going through a transformation of his own. He was nearly eighteen, tall and broad shouldered with a bright smile and charm that would win over a nun. He was a young man who'd recently figured out the effect he had on young women, and wielded his powers wherever he could.

And Alice was a young woman now, with a brassiere and heeled shoes and even lipstick when she liked, and all of a sudden Bucky realized that.

One Friday night at the dance hall, he turned his powers on Alice while she got a drink during the samba. She had a blue dress with a bow on the back, and her short-cut hair was twisted fashionably against the side of her head. Bucky slid up beside her, batted his eyelashes and drawled "Hey, Al, d'you want to go to the pictures with me?"

Alice turned wide eyes on him. This wasn't his normal 'hey, wanna see a film?' It had intent.

"Alright," she agreed. "Tomorrow?"

"Sounds good to me," he said with a sweet smile, then melted away again.

Unbeknownst to Alice, Bucky informed Steve about the scheduled date when he saw him after the dance that evening. Steve tensed up, surprised and a little… he didn't know how he felt, but when Bucky asked if it was alright, he just nodded.

He barely slept that night. He kept getting out of bed, intending to go to the radio in the living room and… he'd get back into bed again. He didn't understand.

The next evening Bucky fetched Alice from out the front of the tailor shop and they walked to the theater, talking about the weather. They'd both dressed up. Bucky bought Alice her ticket, her popcorn, and her drink; the perfect gentleman. They saw Anna Karenina.

Halfway through the film Bucky reached his arm up and over, behind Alice's shoulders.

"No thank you," she said clearly.

The arm retracted. Alice offered him popcorn, and he ate it meekly.

They walked outside the cinema at the end of the film, and in the crisp late-winter air Alice turned to look Bucky in the eye.

"Bucky," she said. "If you ever try to make a move on me again, I will poison your popcorn."

He believed her. "Yeah, alright."

After that, Bucky figured there were plenty enough girls in Brooklyn for him to charm without worrying about Alice and her tricks. She was a troublemaker, after all. And he'd mostly asked her on the date to test a long-standing theory of his.

When Bucky told Steve, Steve wondered at the rush of relief he felt. But not for long – that was a dangerous road. Bucky watched Steve's face with an amused quirk to his brow. Theory: confirmed.

Steve wondered if Alice would poison his popcorn.

He thought, against his own better judgement, that it'd probably be worth it.

Excerpt of interview with Rosemary Bridges, Brooklyn Senior High Alumnus (1994):

Mrs Bridges: "To be honest, I mostly remember Bucky Barnes – Sergeant Bucky Barnes, he became later, god rest his soul. He was the flirt of the neighborhood, dated my cousin for a couple of weeks. They went through school a few years before I did, so I only knew them through, you know… people I knew. I remember that Bucky Barnes, though.

Though don't mistake me! He wasn't ever cruel, was he. Just couldn't fix on one girl for long before he decided he liked the look of someone else. And I figure he wasn't a disloyal person, what with following Captain Rogers into the war."

Interviewer: "And what do you remember of Steve Rogers?"

Mrs Bridges: "Oh! Not much, not much at all. I knew there was some talk about the neighborhood when his mother died, but I never met him. He didn't have the way of charming and making friends that Barnes did. Never even saw him. No one talked about him really, save for the occasional mention of him being beat up somewhere. I never… I never thought about him once until we all found out that Captain America was none other than little Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, and he'd died to save us all."

[Pause]

Interviewer: "Perhaps we'll take a break there."

In March, the simmering tensions in Harlem boiled over into outright rioting after the police arrested a shoplifter. Alice stayed glued to the radio along with the rest of her family, worried about Matthias's relatives who lived and worked in Harlem. It turned out that even though they lived right in the middle of the neighborhood, their business was spared.

That afternoon in the comic book store, Alice talked about it with Bucky and Steve as they leafed through comics with no intention of buying them.

"You ain't scared to go back?" Bucky asked. "Three people died, Al."

Alice shook her head. "They just did what Steve would've done in their position." Steve looked over, his eyebrows raised. "They saw something that wasn't right, and they acted. I'm not saying it was right, but I get it."

Steve's brows furrowed. "I wouldn't have thrown a rock."

Bucky and Alice turned to stare flatly at him, and his shoulders bunched around his ears.

"Yeah, alright."

Alice's singing slowly crept toward something tangible. She was called back to the radio station for a fifteen minute section a week before school cut out for the summer break, and it got mentioned in the paper. She'd never been formally trained save for choir so she focused harder than ever on control, pitch, volume. She was still very much an amateur, but one of the station producers said that by building up a portfolio like this she had a shot of getting a scholarship to one of the New York music schools.

The very idea of it made Alice's guts twist so hard that she thought she would be sick, she wanted it so much. Part of her privately hoped she'd be able to go to a general college so she could study math and languages as well, but she knew that was an even unlikelier dream than singing.

That summer was a hot, dry one – out in the Midwest, the dust bowl storms sent families fleeing to the coast for better lives. New Yorkers trudged down baking streets that stunk of hot trash, seeking out cool shade. Alice, Steve, and Bucky hid from the sun in the back of the tailor shop, or at soda fountains when they could afford it. Steve and Alice were busy studying – the last year of high school was no joke.

Once or twice they made the trip to Coney Island beach, which Bucky strutted like a man straight out of the fashion newspapers. The beach thronged with people; sand sticking to bare flesh and the air thick with sea salt and oil. Seagulls cawed over the babble of chattering adults and squealing kids.

Steve crossed his arms over his rattly birdcage of a chest and very pointedly did not look at Alice, whose polka-dotted swimsuit extended just over the tops of her pale thighs and left little to the imagination. Alice was content to sit beside him on the sand and watch people through half-slitted eyes under her wide-brimmed hat. She watched Steve push his toes into the sand with fascination that surprised her.

They all got sunburnt and spent the next day laying cold, wet cloths on their bare skin as they complained.

Toward the end of the summer break, Alice spent every penny in her savings on three tickets to see a performance at the Roseland Ballroom. She'd grown up on the performer, thanks to Matthias's avid interest, and he'd just returned from a tour of Europe to record an album in New York.

When she gave the other two tickets to Steve and Bucky they both insisted on paying her back, which she wouldn't hear of. But she wouldn't hear of them not coming with her either.

So on Friday night the three of them dressed up as best they could (Alice borrowed a dress from her mom), took the train into Manhattan and walked into the tall brick building with ROSELAND writ large in lights on the outside.

The ballroom was packed by the time they got there, and the band was already on stage. It was a grand room with sweeping ceilings draped in shimmering fabric, neatly-dressed hostesses circulating with trays of drinks, and the whole crowd tapping their heels to the music. There were plenty of other teenagers around, so Alice, Steve, and Bucky easily melted into the crowd.

Alice loved seeing bands perform – it felt so different to the scratchy, distant stuff on the radio. She loved seeing a drummer bring down his hand and hearing the resulting beat ripple across the room. She loved the way the tunes always changed slightly, loved the crowd watching and singing along.

What she didn't love, she realized after getting elbowed in the head, was dancing.

She and Steve ended up sitting together at the side of the ballroom on a wooden bench, watching the band. Alice rested her already sore feet and Steve caught his breath.

Alice liked watching the crowd dance in tune to the music, but after a few moments she ended up listening with her eyes closed – she knew she wasn't likely to hear this band again in real life, so she wanted to savor each clear note and warbling lyric. Trumpets sang out clear and brassy.

When Alice opened her eyes again, Steve was looking at her. He blushed and glanced away.

Alice looked out at the bobbing heads and partners twisting in and out from each other in the crowd. The band stood above them all on the stage, wearing bowties and laughing as they played.

"Do you think you'll draw this?" she asked Steve.

He followed her gaze, then looked back to her. "I think I'll have to." He leaned back against the wall. "What about you? Feeling inspired?"

She looked up at the singer. "A little jealous, actually. I want to be up there."

"You will, one day."

Alice glanced at him. "You're very certain."

"Call it a gut feeling."

She laughed.

Steve jerked his chin at the stage, where the singer had just picked up a trumpet and began to play. "So who is this guy again?"

Alice cast him an askance glance. "Steve. You know who Louis Armstrong is."

He shrugged. "I mean, kinda." He did. He wanted to hear her tell him.

Alice pushed her hair behind her ears. "Wow, alright. He started out in New Orleans, he basically started the soloist trend in trumpeting – but he's also a singer, and a composer, and I've wanted to see him forever because I keep hearing he's got this incredible presence on stage…" Steve nodded seriously as she explained each stage of Armstrong's career so far to him, occasionally glancing to the stage as if to confirm what she said. She was right, of course – the man was magnetic up there, all charisma and charm. Reminded him of Bucky.

"People say he's reaching the end of his career now, but Matthias reckons he's going to make a comeback. He's one of the most talented trumpeters out there and nobody can solo like him. But that's not why I like him."

On stage, Armstrong lowered his trumpet and turned to the microphone again to sing the lyrics to Stardust.

Steve turned to Alice with a knowing look. She smiled.

He understood why she liked this fella so much – Steve had heard countless versions of this song but this guy made it anew; his voice was low, smoky, an unusual sound that made you want to close your eyes and listen.

The music prickled over Steve – it made him feel bold, a different person. A person who might lean in closer to Alice to share the space between them.

"Hey!" Steve opened his eyes at the sound of Bucky's voice to see his friend standing with his hands on his hips as he looked down at him. "Thought this was a ballroom, not a lounge. Come and dance, you humbugs."

He turned around before they could disagree, and with a resigned glance at each other Alice and Steve stood to follow him into the crowd. Bucky had made himself at home in a large group of teenagers. None of them were dancing as pairs, just stepping and turning in a group in time to the music.

Steve tried to copy them. He uncomfortably stepped from side to side, shoulders moving in time with the beat (he hoped), then shied back when he accidentally elbowed Alice. She flashed him a forgiving smile and then rolled her eyes as Bucky whirled her in a spin before letting her go. Bucky had no issues navigating the flowing, twisting bodies in the crowd – every time Steve spotted him he was dancing with someone new.

Steve sighed. This really wasn't his scene.

On stage, Louis Armstrong sang Oh my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away, and I never see my darling anymore, oh babe.

Alice felt Steve elbow her twice more until she finally let out a small laugh, took his elbow in her hand and began to guide him. Her fingers brushed his bare skin, warm and soft with fine blonde hair, and an electric prickle went down her spine.

She didn't look at him for another three minutes. But she didn't let go of his arm.

Towards the end of the night, Steve was once again sitting on the wooden bench by the wall when Bucky fell into the seat beside him. Alice had weaved her way to the front of the audience – he could just see her pale blonde head, tilted backward so she looked up into the band's faces.

Bucky wiped his forehead. "I dunno if I can give you any good advice here, pal."

Steve glanced at him. "What?"

Bucky waved a hand. "Well, I always kinda thought I'd be able to give you a few pointers when the time came for you to start chasing ladies. But then," he said significantly, "you went and picked the most complicated one of the lot."

Steve colored. "I-"

"Oh are you going to try to deny it?" Bucky's eyebrows rose in an amused look. "This I'd like to hear."

Steve fell silent, chagrined.

After a few moments of silence between them as Armstrong's trumpet pealed out brightly, Bucky reached over to clap Steve's skinny shoulder. "For what it's worth, I think she likes ya too."

His head jerked up. "You think?"

Bucky shrugged. "I mean, as much as anyone can tell what's going on in that head." They both looked over at Alice again as she swayed, almost on her tiptoes.

"I don't want anything to change," Steve said carefully. He'd seen it happen at school: old friends who discovered new parts of themselves and came together, then it all ended in flames.

Bucky eyed him. "Yeah, you do."

The song ended and Alice slipped out of the crowd again, making her way toward the wooden bench. Her fine hair played around her face and her green eyes focused right on him, and Steve's heart shot into his mouth. Yes, I do.

"What're you two talking about?" she asked as she dropped into the seat on Steve's other side. She was alive and vibrant from the music.

"Steve's love life," Bucky said casually. Steve's ears burned and he turned to glare at Bucky. He missed the look on Alice's face when she said:

"Oh? Any prospects?"

"Some," Bucky half-smiled. "He's an eligible bachelor, our man here."

Alice just nodded, unreadable.

Bucky continued: "I was thinking about setting him up with your friend Edith."

Steve scowled and tried to elbow Bucky, but the taller boy dodged it without glancing away from Alice.

Alice cocked her head. "She's actually hoping Finn Neri will ask her out."

"Oh really?"

She nodded with a quick smile. Bucky leaned back and tapped a finger to his chin.

"Well how about Holly Barker? She's in your art class, right Steve?"

Furious, Steve nodded silently.

Alice just looked on with cool green eyes. "Holly Barker's nice." Someone in the crowd called her name, one of her many acquaintances no doubt, and she rose to her feet again. When she'd walked out of hearing range again Steve turned on Bucky.

"What are you doing?"

"Making her jealous!" Bucky said, as if it was obvious. "It'll work like a charm, trust me."

"No it won't," he said. "And no way Holly Barker wants to go on a date with me."

Bucky raised his eyebrows. "I think you'd be surprised, Steve."

To his and everyone else's surprise, Steve did end up asking Holly Barker if she wanted to go on a date. She was a tall, willowy girl with auburn hair and a gap-toothed smile, who drew sketches of all the birds she saw in Brooklyn's streets and quietly complimented Steve's sketches when she walked past.

He'd had Bucky coach him through what to say and he still stumbled on every second word. When he fell silent, his cheeks burning and feeling smaller than an ant, Holly Barker smiled.

"I'd love to."

"What?"

"I said sure. It sounds fun."

Steve had not really planned for a yes but he managed to school his utter amazement just long enough to organize a time, and then walked away scratching his neck.

Bucky cheered like the Dodgers had won the World Series when he found out. Alice showed up at that moment and asked what all the fuss was about. Steve could not seem to bring himself to speak, so Bucky said:

"Steve here has scored himself a date with Holly Barker."

"Oh," Alice said. "Congratulations, Steve. She's nice."

An inkling of suspicion entered Steve's head at that. He knew Alice, and he knew that this impassive façade meant nothing. She could be feeling anything under that guileless expression: happiness, frustration, true neutrality. Maybe even jealousy.

He rolled his eyes at himself and hunkered down to listen to Bucky crow. Trying to figure out what was going on in Alice's head was a losing battle.

Come Saturday, Steve and Holly Barker went to the soda fountain with the best jukebox. They each had a coke, and aside from Steve's stumbling they got along pretty well. He didn't remember stammering like this around Alice back when they'd met. Maybe he'd just forgotten. Or maybe things were different now, since they were older.

Stop thinking about Alice. He knew enough about girls to know that they probably didn't like it if you didn't pay attention to them.

At the end of the date Steve didn't know what to do so he just waved, like an idiot, said "bye" and scurried away.

He trudged back home with his hands in his pockets and a furrow on his brow.

He looked up a few buildings away to see –

Alice. She sat on the stoop of his tenement building in a brown tartan dress and sweater, her chin-length hair shining in the sun as she read a book on her lap.

Steve's heart swelled in his chest – was she here because of the date? Did Bucky's plan work?

He strode a bit quicker once he'd seen her, and soon she was looking up from her book and smiling at his approach.

"Hey!" she said. "I found a new book of ciphers at the library and I there's one I wanted to show you for the radio. Want to see?"

Oh. Normal stuff. It wasn't unusual for them to wait outside each other's houses, he should have known. Steve schooled his look of disappointment and nodded. "Sure."

They climbed the creaky stairs up to his and his mom's apartment, and Alice kicked off her shoes by habit just inside the door and put them in their usual place. His mom was out at the hospital. They moved to the kitchen table and began poring over the new book.

The book was complicated; it focused on asymmetric key algorithms, which used a 'public' key for any sender to encrypt a message, and a 'private' key for only the intended receiver to decrypt it.

While they were in the middle of it, as Steve's brow was twisted in confusion and he mouthed letters and numbers while scribbling on notepaper, Alice half-turned her head toward him and said:

"How was your date, by the way?"

It almost didn't startle him. "You remembered that was today?"

She shrugged by way of an answer.

He still remembered when she went on those dates with Finn Neri, and with Bucky. He'd been acutely aware of when those dates had been. He'd sat, restless, unable to do anything. Not even draw.

"It went okay," Steve said as he tried out the 'private' key Alice had given him. "I was weird at the end."

"Weird how?"

"I just waved at her. Like she was another friend or something. I bet Bucky doesn't wave at the end of his dates."

"Well Bucky never ends up dating the same person for long. Maybe friends first is the way to go." Alice leaned forward, her fringe obscuring her face as she turned a page in the book. "Do you think you'll see her again?"

"We didn't talk about it," Steve realized. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Hm."

After a few moments Steve turned back to the code as well, because that was making his brain hurt less than this conversation.

~ Your music lilts on the breeze to me,
you're a distant spark, a memory. ~

Who's excited for the holidays? I sure am, despite the fact that I've planned a Christmas lesson for my students that involves me having to listen to All I Want For Christmas Is You approximately a million times over the next week. I'm heading back to the Siren playlist to wash that song out of my eardrums.

Reviews

Guest: Hello and thank you so much! I'm very glad you're enjoying the Siren, especially the historical facts. I enjoy research, so it's good to hear it's appreciated. Try to get some sleep!