Finkle

Frankly the idea of Nick Fury meeting my mom was slightly terrifying. This was going waaay too fast, and knowing my mother, was liable to speed up. Mom, see, wants me to be settled and happy. She has no concept of people staying single, and I guess it's a generational thing. I know she had a hard childhood herself back in Israel and she doesn't like to talk about her time in the military or her life before she met my dad.

And yes, they were a love match. They met in a dentist's waiting room, doing that smile and drool thing through three coinciding appointments before my mom asked dad out. They got engaged a few months later, all hearts and flowers tra-la-la. To be fair they were a good match, and I can't fault mom for wanting the same for me, but not everyone is as terrific as my dad was.

Certainly not my ex, Harold B. Heine. Yes, yes, you can go ahead and laugh—I was Mrs. Harry Heine for two excruciating years of my life. Harold is an actuary, and lives up to the stereotype: dependable, but dull. He wasn't interested in anything except baseball and collecting the cards associated with it. I'd married him out of a desire to escape my parent's house and start my own life. I'd divorced him because if I hadn't, I would have killed him in the next year.

He wasn't a bad man—didn't call me names, or beat me or cheat on me—but he was such an emotionally closed circuit that I felt as if I was slowly smothering in our relationship. As it is, I can close my eyes and still see all those damned shoeboxes of cards, thousands of them . . . oy!

Anyway, Fury potentially meeting my mother had me in a tizzy, and I was tempted to call her and cancel on the session. I could lie and say things were running long with Hildy—mom would believe me—but I'm just not keen on deceiving anyone. Goes against my nature. So I figured I could keep whatever contact brief and hope for the best.

Hildy of course wanted to know all about my life as a secret agent obstetrician since she'd been there when Phil and Thor had shown up and recruited me. S.H.I.E.L.D. had given her the very brief briefing and compensated her for having to manage the practice alone, but she was curious and I couldn't blame her, especially after Thor marched in, making all the preggos out in the waiting room either swoon or clutch their bellies warily.

I told her I was monitoring an exclusive pregnancy and gave her what details I could. She picked at her salad and offered a few test suggestions I hadn't thought of, then wanted to know if Thor was the papa. I told her I hadn't yet met the papa and then she wanted to know if Thor was in the market for a baby mama. I told her she was welcome to try, but that he was out of town a lot and had some daddy issues, as well as a potential sweetheart out in the Southwest.

She told me to pass her phone number to him anyway and I told her I'd try. After that we just giggled and caught up on all the important things.

Consequently when I finally made it to the Roll-a-Rama I was in a better mood than I thought I would be. Inside I saw most of mom's team warming up, doing lazy turns around the rink and calling each other vile names—the usual. Your education hasn't been complete if you haven't heard post-menopause bubbes talking smack in Yiddish.

I made my way down to the rink, looking around to see if a certain tall, dark, and handsome spectator was around but didn't see anybody out of place. Mom was on one of the benches, pulling on her elbow pads and when she spotted me she grinned, offering up her cheek for a kiss. "Josie sweetheart! Come sit down, sit down!"

I kissed her and started fishing in my bag for the sports cream I knew she was going to need. She actually let a couple of seconds go by before asking, "So? How was the date?"

"Good." I made it a point to start rubbing the cream into her knuckles, not looking at her. "I'll be seeing him again, I think."

"Oh good, good," Mom replied in a light little voice that made warning bells go off in the back of my mind. I looked up and saw her huge grin, which was frankly, unnerving.

"What?" My suspicion levels were on red alert now.

"So, is he about six foot two, with a goatee and one eye, maybe?" Mom chirruped, flexing her fingers. "Very imposing?"

I glared at her. "Where is he?"

"Standing right behind you."

I looked up; Fury's fuzzy chin was over my head so I got up. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't frowning either. His polite and neutral look. I glared at him, and gave a sigh before announcing, "Mom, this is Colonel Nick Fury; Colonel this is my mother Miriam Finkle."

"How nice to meet you; Josie's told me nothing about you," My mother murmured wryly.

"On the other hand, I know that you make the best chicken soup on the East Coast," Fury returned smoothly. "Quite a skill in your collection, Mrs. Finkle."

My mother blushed, and this was so bizarre that I was tempted to take her pulse.

"Oh it's nothing, nothing—I'm glad you liked it," Mom told him and shot one of her meaningful looks at me; the one that said You shared my soup with him; this is pretty serious, Josephine.

Just then one of mom's team rolled up—Ettie Farber, better known as Schtick-It out on the rink. They all have names like that and my mother, who usually plays blocker position, is known as Bad-Bushka. They've got a Yid Vicious and Bubbe Von Doom and Oy-Rage just to name a few.

I'm not telling anyone my rink name, especially not Fury. Anyway, Mom got up and held out her sport-cream scented hand to Fury. "Good to meet you, Colonel. Staying to watch, maybe?"

"Yes," he replied, and said nothing more until after my mom was in the rink, warming up. I did my best not to look at him even though I knew every yenta on Mom's team was eyeballing us right now.

"Pissed-off is a very good look on you," Fury muttered in a low voice. "Just so you know."

"Get used to it. Why are you here? I could have met up with you in any one of a hundred different places, Nick. You're putting yourself—us—in jeopardy."

He was quiet for a long time, and I wondered if he was having second thoughts. God knows I was at the moment, since my assumption had been that we were a short-term deal without any of the baggage of social conventions. That we were a limited lease, not a rent-to-own.

"I finished early; figured I'd see how the other half lives," Fury sighed. "Figured if I played my cards right I might get more soup out of it."

Fury

When a soldier fucks up, retribution is swift and pre-determined; there's a court-martial and then sentencing. When a man fucks up, particularly in matters relating to women, there's still retribution, but the form is unpredictable, and the degree uncertain. Maybe that's why soldiers have so damned much trouble with their personal lives.

They only know one set of rules, and those they do know aren't the ones women lay down.

Trying to get a read on Finkle was nearly impossible. I couldn't tell if she was genuinely pissed, just embarrassed, or putting on a show for the rolling gang of blue-haired grannies whizzing past us around the rink. I figured I'd better play it by ear until I got my bearings.

In the meantime it was nice to glance at her and know what she looked like naked. No apologies for that basic response.

"We have two choices here," Finkle told me in a whisper. "We can leave in the next few minutes and everyone will think we're headed for hot and heavy schtupping, OR we can stay for the whole thing and make nice, opening ourselves for all sorts of embarrassing questions that will potentially ruin whatever we have going between us, Colonel."

"And you want my input on this?" I asked, stalling for time.

"Given that you've put us IN this position, yes."

"Me, I'd vote for the schtupping, but I'm selfish that way."

That got a smile. Finally.

"Good. That was my choice too, even though I'll have to face the music eventually." She turned and faced me. "Thanks for telling my mom her soup is good. That's the best thing you could have said."

Right then a pair of grannies collided and went down in a pile of swearing that would have taken paint off the helicarrier. Finkle headed over to check someone's elbow and I noticed Mama Finkle gliding over in the meantime.

She leaned against the rail, looking over at me, and this time it wasn't a mother looking at me. Skin on the back of my neck prickled.

"Cooking is an art, not a skill, Colonel. Something I'm sure you know. Shooting is a skill. Something I think you know very well," she told me in an undertone.

"I do."

"Good." Then she laid her hand on my sleeve.

Must be a Finkle woman thing.

"My Josie's heart is not a trinket, Colonel. Please don't treat it like one, ever."

I nodded. Mama Finkle relaxed a little, but not enough to smile. Instead, she flexed the fingers of her right hand. To anybody else that would have been an innocent gesture. To me, it was a direct warning.

"Shalom, Colonel Nick Fury; I'm glad we won't have to speak of this little matter again, nu?"

She pushed off of the rail and glided off, leaving me well-aware of the message. Any level-headed cautious man would have taken the hint.

And I am a level-headed cautious man, but I've been threatened before; so many times in my life I've lost count. On top of that, I'd gone into this with Finkle on her initiative—something I didn't think Mama Finkle realized.

Josie came back a few minutes later, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "Okay, I think we can go now without too much scandal. You know you were crazy to come down here, right?"

"I have been known to do crazy things now and then," I told her.

-oo00oo-

I'd planned to take Finkle to Gambella's for dinner-they do a damned good veal parmesan—but when we stopped at her place and the door closed behind us, let's just say there was a change of plans.

This time I let her do what she wanted. Normally that's not my thing, but I was learning that Josephine Finkle is a force of nature, terrifying and glorious in her own bossy way. I don't often let someone else take charge, but since it was her house, and it involved both of us losing clothing I was willing to go along with it.

I did not beg for mercy, but it was a close thing for a while there. Afterwards I let her curl up against me and asked if she was all right.

"I'm better," she told me quietly. "A lot better. I love my mother, but having the two of you in the same room is like trying to take a statistics exam while performing surgery. One slip either way could be disastrous."

"That wasn't my intent," I clarified.

She rolled and rested her chin on my chest, looking at me suspiciously. I looked back at her, although my focus was more on the curve of her hip, and that sweet little padding along her ribcage.

I sighed. "Josie, do you know why your mother suggested we go see a movie about a big game hunter?"

"I dunno-She likes art house films, I guess. So what was your intent?"

The woman was clueless about her mother's past. Wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"Curiosity. Maybe some envy," I admitted, and pulled her closer. "Every now and then I feel the need to see something beyond the flight decks and offices and firing ranges, Jo-seph-ine. Seeing you does me good."

Must have made some sense to her because she settled down against me and fell asleep while I stroked her spine and watched the shadows get longer against the bedroom wall.