Chapter Thirteen
A few days later, Natalia invites Bucky to one of her dance rehearsals.
"The show isn't completely finished yet," she explains to him. "But I thought if you were free, maybe you'd like to sit in and see some of the dances." He does, he very much wants to, and so he agrees and he and Stevie sit in the very back of the gigantic New York dance studio and watch one day.
It's Stevie's naptime and Bucky brings a warm bottle of milk with him as insurance to keep Stevie quiet and the baby lays in Bucky's lap the whole time with his tiny hands around the bottle. Natalia's out there on the floor in a black leotard and ballet flats and Bucky watches her and the other dancers begin.
She's brilliant, he thinks, and the best dancer out there. She spins and he watches her stand on the very tips of her toes and when she leaps with the rest of the group, toes pointed and arms outstretched, she very nearly takes his breath away. He only tears his eyes away when Stevie grabs a handful of his hair and pulls.
But eventually, Stevie drifts off into sleep and Bucky puts the forgotten bottle away and watches a few more of Natalia's dances. Eventually, her numbers are over and she exits the room, downing a water bottle and Bucky's not quite sure where she is, so he stays put and watches a few more non-Natalia-centered dances until a voice behind his ear makes him jump.
"Hey, Bucky," Natalia says and Bucky whirls around to see her sitting down into the seat next to him. Her hair is pulled back and her face is still a little flushed from the exertion. He can see sweat on her neck when she leans over to pat Stevie's head. Then, her eyes travel up to him and she grins at him. "What did you think?"
"You're amazing," he breathes and she just laughs quietly and starts dabbing at her skin with a towel he hadn't noticed she had in her hand.
"Thank you," she says. "I'm glad you liked it."
"You looked like you were enjoying it, too," Bucky comments to her and she nods.
"I do," she says. "I love it." They sit there for a second as she wipes her face and neck off and then starts to pull her hair out from where it's tied up on top of her head. "I started young," she tells him, speaking now like she's living memories and he's not sure if she means to tell him or if she's simply speaking aloud. He listens intently anyway. "But probably not young enough. It's hard to want to be a ballerina when you're a dime a dozen little kid in an orphanage." She makes eye contact with him now and he knows she means to talk to him. "No one's there to support you or buy you little pink tutus or clap at your shows. But the orphan's home was right across the street from a dance studio and I got up and walked there every day after classes." She smiles a little and shrugs. "The teachers there let me participate out of pity, but it was there that I decided I wanted to be a ballerina."
"How old were you?" Bucky asks and Natalia thinks.
"Seven," she says.
"And you already knew what you wanted?" Bucky says. "That early?" She nods and then gestures to the dance floor where a few men were lifting women over their heads by their waists.
"You find something you love that much," she says. "Something that just fills you up inside, you stick with it. Some of the happiest memories I have from my childhood are in a dance studio."
Bucky's not sure what to say. He doesn't think he knows this feeling.
Natalia continues and her face is difficult to read now, but the corners of her mouth start to pull downwards.
"I wanted to teach dance to my children," she says in a whisper. "Even just silly things, when you put on music and take their little hands and spin them around."
"I'm sure Stevie would love to dance with you, Nat," Bucky offers, glancing down at the sleeping baby in his lap and taking a towel from the diaper bag at his feet to mop up the drool around his mouth. Natalia watches Bucky and smiles a little, but her eyes are still shining. He thinks about what she told him once, that miscarriages had ruined her marriage a while ago, and he wonders about the story behind it.
He doesn't have to wonder about everything though, because the heartbreak is spelled more and more clearly in Natalia's eyes the longer she gazes at Stevie and Bucky watches her face and wishes he could fix it for her.
Their quiet moment is ruined when Stevie wakes up and starts to cry loudly and Bucky realizes he's probably had another bout of diarrhea and he runs the baby out of the studio in a haste.