"Look! Look! Isn't it beautiful?!"
Another warm, dry, clear night in paradise.
The differences between Brooklyn and Wakanda, date stamps aside, were innumerable. Even in the 1930s and 1940s, light pollution from the city obscured the true beauty of the night sky but out in the remoteness of Wakanda, on a small goat (and very recent chicken) farm, such pollution did not exist. Without it, the vast expanse of diamond-studded blackness and all its cosmic glory could be seen unhindered, no squinting, no telescopes, swirls of blues, blacks, purples, greys…; much to the excited awe of James Buchanan Barnes.
It also made for a spectacular (and free) date night.
"Did you make a wish?"
Bucky's head rolled to the right on the lukewarm metal of the jeep's hood, to the sweetly expectant eyes of the little vet also lying on the bonnet. Of all the magnificent things the ex-Winter Soldier witnessed in the sky that night, the most breath-taking one lay beside him; their fingers linked in an exceptionally affectionate gesture to compliment the utterly enamoured gaze they shared.
The most beautiful thing here is you. If I never looked at the sky tonight, I'd still be lost for words. Adoration aside, James managed to part with the response she sought; even if he did so with the crooked grin Elsa had become so fond of.
"Yeah, I did. Did you?"
"Mmmhmmm."
"Gonna tell me what it is?"
"That would defeat the purpose of making it."
Just you wait. The snide voice in Bucky's head had a knack for piping up when it was least wanted; when the new White Wolf would much rather spend his attention on the darling brunette instead. When you tell her everything, if you have the balls to tell her everything, she'll run. She'll run and she'll want nothing to do with you. What else would any sensible person do? You have the blood of dozens on your hands, who's to say she wouldn't be next? Stargazing like a pair of teenagers… Wait until she finds out how old you really are.
Science… Technology… Space… All that made for a fascinating evening. But the beautiful veterinarian lying placidly at his side, close and content? It could have come straight from a dream.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Of course…?"
"I dunno how much time you spend lookin' up but… you ever seen anythin'… weird?"
As if amused but opting to coyly tease out his interest, Elsa's fixated gaze became rippled with a soft smirk that edged into playful interrogation. Like she wanted to hear it. Or… simply ensure they were on the same page.
"Weird? Weird how?" Did he feel silly? Bucky could only mean one thing by weird, and if all the other crap he knew to exist existed, why not those? Still, he smacked his lips and searched within his befuddled brain (its usual mess as a direct symptom of her presence) for the wording that might spare him sounding like an absolute lunatic and brace him for the possible jibing to go with it.
"Like… Unexplained…?"
"You mean like… UFOs?"
Instead of unnerved, sceptical, wary or uncomfortable, Elsa proved to be very much the opposite. Keen and enlivened by the mere mention and spurred on by Bucky's surprised exuberance, the little vet inched herself closer to her friend; unable to restrain the delight dancing in her eyes.
"Out here? All the time. I try not to drive at night-"
"Because of predators."
"Yes. But when I find myself out late after a call or an emergency… You see all sorts. They're possibly attracted by the Vibranium. It came down in a meteor, you see; thousands of years ago…" Bemused by Bucky's gape of deepened reverence, the smaller brunette flashed the beam that had become synonymous with several skipped heartbeats. "You seemed surprised."
"Yeah, I am. In the best way, I mean. I just… You're so rational and logical, I thought it'd be so somethin' you'd dismiss right outta the gate." Hell, if aliens and flying saucers are on her radar already, she might believe me after all… Might.
"Oh please." She tutted, their inches apart could be counted on one hand and Bucky found himself doing the math on how much closer he would have to scoot to capture her lips with his. "Fox Mulder was my first love." A joint jolt of jealousy and despondency suddenly collided with his core; plenty familiar with despondency, it was the jealousy that left the bitterest tang, unaccustomed to the taste after so long. Is… Is she talking about an ex? She doesn't look angry or sad… Does she still love him? Shit…
Yet, he played along. Just in case.
"Fox Mulder?"
"You know… From The X-Files?"
No, Bucky didn't know the X-Files. That particular nugget of popular culture had evaded him thus far but he sensed that would change if the little vet had anything to do with it. Eyes of greyish blue narrowed and seemed to bounce every which way while he tried in vain to place either of those things. Fox… Mulder… X… Files… No… Eventually, after too long of the trademark contortion in his features that characterized his confusion (that Elsa found to be positively adorable), the White Wolf resigned himself to ignorance.
"I… I dunno who or what that is."
"You're asking me about UFOs, but you don't know who Fox Mulder is or what The X-Files are?" How someone could have missed that, especially someone in his (perceived) age group and supposed interest, Elsa couldn't really be sure. Well, he couldn't really admit his fascination spawned from comic books and early sci-films of the '30s and early '40s now, could he? Nor could he divulge his (or rather, the Winter Soldier's) posting at Groom Lake at random intervals in the late 1970s with the release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, right into the '80s and '90s when UFOs exploded once more into the public consciousness via movies and TV shows; the X-Files, incidentally, included. To be fair, if she pressed the issue, he could always tell her the truth: He did not get much time for television in Siberia.
"When did you say your birthday was?" Elsa, unwittingly, saved her friend from being dragged into the rabbit hole that any prolonged thought of his past usually hauled him down with a benevolent question; with the purest of intentions.
"March 10th. Why?" Don't say the year, don't say the Goddamn year.
"I think I know what I'm getting you."
Then, like most of his dreams, it came to a painful end. Crashing down like Howard Stark's hovercar.
"Bugger, is that the time?" Assuming to have caught sight of her phone, the late hour blazed on the screen demandingly and assaulted her eyes. Clear and genuine disappointment threaded through her tone before the back of her head met the metal below with despondency, Elsa's eyes briefly closed to shutter her from the display above and Bucky's similar disappointment but recentred just as quickly to fix him with an apologetic grimace. "I have to go…"
"'Kay…" He accepted with a strained wince that continued to leak disappointment; he didn't want her to go, he never wanted her to go. However, she did her best to placate the mutual pining that would begin to grow from the second she left the driveway with the first of many, long, lasting, wholeheartedly reciprocated pecks. "I'll see you tomorrow…?" He managed in between innumerable parting kisses; each one should have been the last.
"Mmm… We have an appointment just after lunchtime…" The second the words left Elsa's lips, they were all but vacuumed to Bucky's; and that became a precedent for the rest of the conversation.
"Do we?"
"We do."
"Uhh… Alice."
"Queenie."
"Her… tail."
"Her hoof. Back left."
"Right… I knew that."
"No, I said left."
"Shut up."
Despite the impending separation that Bucky dreaded, he couldn't help the flutter in his stomach and the pull of a beam in his cheeks as her unique titter permeated the air around them and her forehead found his collarbone. He had already learned that restraint was futile and so, thought nothing of pressing another cherishing kiss to the top of her head. No sooner had he done it, he became the focal point for the most remarkable pair of eyes he could never recall seeing anywhere else; boring into his very heart and soul with such adoring intensity he would be happy to drop dead there and then.
"Only you know how."