Chapter Two
Bucky's exhausted and he hates reliving the things he did while at work, but Stevie ought to get out and get some fresh air sometimes and Bucky had promised him a walk every so often. So they're out, even that day, and Bucky takes them into the park. It's a big park at the center of the town, surrounded by shops and restaurants, and Bucky holds onto Stevie's stroller and pushes him around, trying to point out things like butterflies and clouds and flowers, but he's losing his focus. His thoughts keep drifting back to that day at the office and he tries not to think about it too hard because thinking too hard usually leaves him a shaky, blubbering mess, but it's hard to keep his thoughts on anything else. He's beginning to feel again the sickness of fear in his stomach when he's distracted by familiar sounds and stops.
"How do you not understand what I'm trying to say!" A woman's voice exclaims in accentless Russian and Bucky sucks in a breath, assaulted with memory. Then, in very accented English, she continues. "That! I want that!"
"Look, lady, unless you got a translator around here, I can't help you," a man says. American. English. Bucky watches from a yard or two away, recognizing a tall red-headed woman as the Russian speaker and a vendor on the street she is arguing with as the English speaker, and he quietly backs himself and Stevie up to hear clearer.
"I am speaking English," the woman says and she sounds angry.
"Is something the matter?" Bucky finally speaks up, pulling the stroller closer to the vendor. The woman looks at him and she looks stunned to hear him speak Russian. "I can help." The woman's face breaks into one of relief and she smiles at him hugely. It's Bucky's turn now to feel stunned and he thinks her smile is like the light of a thousand floodlights shown in his face. She's absolutely beautiful. He's never seen someone so gorgeous.
"This man can't understand me," she says, gesturing to the vendor and tucking a piece of curly red hair behind her ear. "I guess my English is just too bad."
"It's fine," Bucky says. "I'll tell him. What did you want?" She sighs exasperatedly.
"Just a hotdog," she says. "Just a plain, regular New York hotdog." Bucky grins at her and hopes against hope he sounds charming.
"No such thing as a plain New York hotdog, ma'am," he says, making her smile again, and then turns to the vendor and works between them as a translator.
"I'm Natalia," the woman says finally, once she'd paid for her meal and stepped aside. "Natalia Romanova. Thank you for helping me."
"It's no problem," Bucky reassures her. "I'm, um, James Barnes. But everyone calls me Bucky. And this here," he gestures into the stroller. "Is Stevie Rogers."
"Aww!" Natalia cooes and she kneels down to put her face into the stroller. Bucky expects this. It seems everyone likes to talk to babies, and he gets stopped often. "Hi, Stevie!" She says and Stevie giggles.
"Hey!" Bucky exclaims, surprised. "You made him laugh. That's not very common, you know. He must like you." Natalia straightens up and smiles and Bucky wants to beam looking at her.
"He's a beautiful baby," Natalia compliments him and Bucky leans over Stevie's stroller himself now, balancing the handle on his stomach and reaching in to tickle Stevie.
"Thanks," he said and he feels Stevie's fingers close around his, but pulls them away before they can reach his mouth. "He's really something."
"Is there a Mrs Barnes around?" Natalia asks, raising an eyebrow, and Bucky awkwardly shakes his head, unsure what she must think of him.
"I'm not married," he admits, and then tries to explain. "But, um, Stevie is my baby. He's adopted."
"Oh, I see," Natalia says and then continues with that stunning smile that Bucky almost lets himself interpret as flirtatious. "So, tell me, Mr Barnes. Where did an American man learn to speak Russian so beautifully?" Bucky's smile falters.
"Uh," he says, straightening back up, and suddenly he can't think of a convincing lie. He wants to scramble for the truth and swallow it down again as soon as it comes out of his mouth and he says, "as a prisoner of war." Natalia freezes, like she's waiting for him to yell 'sic!' and when he doesn't, her face goes white. She misses a beat.
"Oh," she finally says and Bucky tries to smile again, to lighten the mood. He wishes he knew what to say.
"It's fine," he finally says. "You didn't know." Natalia, starting to turn red, swallows a bite of her hotdog. Bucky wants to keep the conversation going because he's starting to like Natalia and her beautiful smile and because he can't stand the way she's refusing to look at him now, awkwardly training her eyes on the ground like he'd just grown a second head. He wishes he'd lied about how he'd learned Russian. He changes the subject hastily. "So, what are you doing in New York? Vacationing?"
"Oh, no," Natalia says. "I've got an apartment a few blocks from here. I moved in a week or so ago and I'm trying to get to know the city."
"Russia was just too cold?" Bucky asks teasingly and Natalia laughs and shakes her head.
"No, I'm here for work," she says. "I'm a dancer and I'm doing a run of a show for a few months here in New York."
"Oh, wow. That's really cool," Bucky says and he means it. But his heart sinks a little to hear that she'll only be here a few months. "What show is it?"
Natalia tells him the name of a few Russian ballets and smiles while she says them and Bucky decides right then and there that maybe he ought to start looking into dancing as a hobby. He asks her when she performs and she gives him a few dates a couple months in the future.
"We're doing some rehearsal now," she tells him. "And it opens in October."
"I'll have to go," he replies and smiles. "I bet it'll be great." She laughs and her eyes twinkle. He thinks he's never seen someone's eyes glitter like that before and he wonders what exactly has gotten into him that he's admiring every single aspect of her like she was made of gold, like she'd descended from heaven. He reminds himself for the millionth time not to come off as weird.
"I hope so!" She says. Then, "I'd love to see you there."
Bucky misses a beat because he's so distracted with her, and once he regains himself again, he starts to try to shuffle his phone out of his pocket.
Easy, Barnes, he tells himself. Play it cool.
"Here," he says. "Let me give you my number and if you ever need someone to show you around the city, I'll be there." Natalia looks up at him and he congratulates himself on what sounded like a job well done.
"You and Stevie?" She asks and he's suddenly and breathlessly one hundred percent aware of how undesirable he must look. A single dad, an amputee no less, with a baby. She must think he's strange after the slip about his being a POW and on top of it all, he hasn't even cut his hair in months. Bucky feels the blood rushing to his face.
"I could get a babysitter," he says weakly, and then reprimands himself for saying it. Stupid! Stupid, Barnes, what were you thinking?! Luckily, Natalia laughs and smiles at him and he loses himself again in that smile and she says, "No, bring him." She shifts her smile down to Stevie and makes kissy faces at him and Bucky hears him laugh again. "I like him." When she looks back up to him again, he's shocked to find she's handing him her smartphone. "Let's exchange numbers."
Bucky hands her his phone and takes hers, feeling a smile creep onto his face as he types the numbers in. They switch phones again and Bucky slips his into his pocket, feeling suddenly elated.
"I'll see you soon then, Bucky?" Natalia asks, using his first name for the first time, and he only nods before she waves goodbye and blows Stevie a kiss and Bucky watches her walk away.
"See you soon," he says too late, and then when she's gone, he takes his phone out of his pocket to examine the new contact. Next to a picture he hadn't noticed she'd taken of herself, she'd written: Natalia R 3 (call me)