(For disclaimer, etc. – see chapter 1)
Chapter 3
"How you holdin' up, Buck?"
He must have looked as tired and pained as he felt for Sam to ask him outright like that, but Bucky didn't really know how to answer. His fingers squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off a headache that seemed to have been pending for days, and he pushed away the papers in front of him on the table.
"This whole situation is just... I want it to be over, and at the same time, I don't. I mean, it's Nat. I get to be with her, spend time, talk, laugh. It feels good, it honestly does, but at the same time, she's... she's not her. She is but she's not. I mean, she has a husband. She has kids!"
"Step-kids," Sam cut in. "Remember, I told you, and she confirmed it on date two, they're only step-kids, not hers."
"Date two?" Bucky sighed and shook his head.
This was bad. It was just the biggest disaster of a situation that Bucky could imagine, which was really saying something, given some of the hellish things he had lived through in the past 100 plus years. He couldn't imagine anything hurting worse than losing Nat again, right when he remembered her and all she meant to him, but this might just be it.
It was something, he supposed, that what was happening to her, the lie she seemed to be living, wasn't actually having a negative impact on Nat, as far as they knew. She believed she was Helena Jones, that she loved her husband, that she had been raising two step-kids for years now. She thought that was her entire life and that it was a happy one. Not that she always seemed so happy talking about it during some of their meetings, or dates, as Sam was apparently calling them.
"What's wrong with the word 'date'?" his friend asked, shrugging his shoulders. "Two people who are attracted each other-"
"One of which is married," Bucky snapped. "And who's to say she's even..." he trailed off, making a dismissive gesture with his hand.
Sam inclined his head and stared her. "Seriously, man? You think that Nat - even some mind-altered, brain-washed, alterna-Nat - would have met up with you six different times inside of a month if she didn't even like you?"
"I didn't say she didn't like me." Bucky rolled his eyes. "We're friends. She said herself, she could use more friends. It's the same thing I told her. At least that part wasn't a lie."
He hated that he was telling her any lies at all, but Bucky knew he didn't have a choice. There was no way to explain the truth without freaking her out. Telling her she was a superhero would be strange enough. Telling her what she was before that... Bucky couldn't bear to break her heart that way. He wondered if he would ever be ready for that day, as and when it came.
"You know, sometimes I think I should just walk away, leave her to live her life," he said then, getting up from the table, almost as if walking out of the room was a good demonstration of his point. "Maybe this guy isn't after revenge anyway. He hasn't done anything so far."
Bucky didn't get further than two paces before Sam's words stopped him in his tracks.
"I thought you said you loved her. I mean, come on, man. If that were true-"
"It is true," Bucky ground out, both flesh and metal fists clenching.
"Then you need to stick with this. We both do," Sam insisted, having risen from his chair too, Bucky noticed, when he finally turned to look. "So far, Nat is living a decent life, no danger that we know of, and that's a positive thing, but Helena Jones ain't her and even if this Jones turned out to be a decent dude, this is not the ending she's supposed to have," he said definitely. "Now, I don't know if she's supposed to end up with you either, if we can undo what's been done, that ain't my area of expertise, but we have to keep at this, Bucky. Come on, you know we do."
He was right. There really was no part of what Sam said that Bucky could argue with. It might actually have been easier if there was, if they really could just walk away, if Bucky never had run across Nat in the grocery store a month ago. As it was, he knew that wasn't possible. Maybe if he thought she really was genuinely happy in her seemingly manufactured life, it would be different, but the guy she was with had to be up to something. Besides, she already mentioned, on more than one occasion, that she wasn't all that happy anyway.
"So, we agreed on this?" Sam checked then, gathering up the papers from the table. "You are going to see her again, keep on being her friend until we figure out the next move?"
"Yes," said Bucky, more of a sigh than a word as he pulled his cell from his back pocket. "I guess there's no time like the present, right?" he said, beginning a text message to Nat about meeting up later.
He was only about halfway done, thanks to deleting and starting over several times, when he realised Sam was humming a familiar tune. It was only a few days ago, having heard it from him several times in the past month, that he asked and was told what it was. Now he knew it was a song called 'Me and Mrs Jones', which made it ten times more annoying than before he knew.
"Sam!" he said in his most threatening Winter Soldier voice.
"Oops, my bad!" his friend replied, quitting his humming, but continuing to grin like an idiot.
They were both well aware that he knew exactly what he was doing and Bucky was about to say something about it when suddenly his phone chirped. He looked down to see that 'Helena' had text him back already, her answer to his suggestion of a date surprising him.
'Let me get back to you.'
She never said that before. Just once she had to say no because she had someplace else to be, but even then she suggested an alternative time right away. On all other occasions, she had seemed almost as eager to see him as he was to see her. Bucky wished it didn't bother him so much, because he was sure there could be nothing to worry about. Unless there was.
'No problem. Let me know when you know.'
Helena smiled at the reply she had received from James. He was such a good guy, such a good friend. Unfortunately, she seemed incapable of keeping him in that category. Every time he contacted her, she meant to tell him no, that she couldn't see him again. At every meet-up, she intended to tell him they shouldn't see each other anymore. None of it ever happened. She just couldn't bring herself to cut him out of her life completely. Staying just friends was agony, but she was sure it was the only thing she could do.
Turning her phone screen-down, she refocused her eyes on the framed photograph in the corner of the desk. The woman who stared back at her, in the centre of a family portrait, looked so happy at first glance. Helena knew better. That expression was a mask she wore, much of the time. Never more so than when she first ran into James in that grocery store.
There was just something about him. She really didn't know what it was exactly. Of course, he was attractive. She would have to be blind not to see he had the kind of face and body to make all the girls fall at his feet, plus the charm and winning personality didn't hurt at all. He could be adorably sweet sometimes, just a little flirtatious at other moments, and when she talked, he listened. He really took notice and seemed to care so much about everything she told him, and she told him a lot.
She could never talk to Damien the way she talked to James. Her husband was a good guy, she was sure on that, and she supposed she did love him. After all, she wouldn't have married him and agreed to help raise his children if she didn't. Still, she wondered sometimes, where the spark was. She used to wonder, even before James, but it was worse now, because when she was with him, rightly or wrongly, the spark was most definitely there.
For a while, she had told herself it was nothing but lust. Nothing worth ruining a good marriage or breaking up a family for. What kind of person would she be if she did that? The problem was, it was so much more than that. She didn't have words for the feeling, for the intuitive kind of pull she felt whenever she was around James.
If she didn't know better, she would say she knew him before. After all, she never did get all of her memories back. She only had a few vague recollections, based on things Damien and the kids had told her. There was nothing concrete in her memory bank that belonged to her alone, not a thing about her past before her marriage, nothing at all.
Of course, it was stupid to think that she ever knew James. Even if she didn't remember, he would. He was just some random stranger who had fast become a friend. Just another good-looking guy with eyes fit to hypnotise a person and a smile that made her knees go weak.
"Stop it!" Helena told herself, moving to get up from the desk and walk away.
She stopped short of actually going, turning back to retrieve her cell. Turning it over in her hand, her eyes skimmed the short thread of messages sent so far today between her and James.
'Hey, just wondered if you're free later. Thought maybe we could meet up?'
'Let me get back to you.'
'No problem. Let me know when you know.'
It was all so easy, so simple. Just two friends meeting for coffee or a walk in the park. Normal, regular things that friends did all the time. Friends. That was all.
"Who am I kidding?"
Helena glanced once again at the family picture on the desk, then reached forward to put it face down, before she started a text back to James.
'Three o'clock at the park, same place as before?'
The moment she pressed send, she wondered if she was being a fool. After all, just because she was attracted to James, there was nothing to say he felt the same about her. He came off a little flirty sometimes, but that could happen between friends too. It didn't have to mean anything. That look in his eyes when he was listening to her talk, the way he put his hand on her own and spoke softly to her sometimes, being kind, being helpful. It was just a friend thing.
Her phone chirped a message alert and Helena looked down at the screen again to read James' reply.
'Can't wait.'
Those two simple words, followed by two wide-smiling emojis looked friendly enough, but Helena had to wonder if they meant more. She hoped not, and yet, at the same time, she absolutely hoped the complete opposite. Dropping back down into the chair, she let her head fall forward onto the desk with a thud. "Ugh, I need help!"
To Be Continued...
