When Jane was in high school, she did two summers interning with the State University's Astrophysical research department. At Culver, she worked with the Head of Physical Sciences three years in a row, in a job which consisted mainly of answering the phone and sending out group emails. It had been tedious, mind numbing work that afforded Jane more opportunities than one could shake a stick at. She looked back at it years later with a mixture of appreciation and disdain. She never wanted to be anyone's secretary again.

One week into working for Peggy, Jane's younger self had never seemed whinier.

When they arrived in New Jersey after a turbulent flight—during which Jane vowed never to complain about anal airport regulations again—a folder full of Jane Cinderhouse's credentials was waiting for them. Phillips read it carefully, his beady eyes flicking to Jane now and then. Each time felt like a giant invisible foot on her head.

"You come highly recommended from your previous post with Field Officer O'Connell," said Phillips.

Jane nodded along as Peggy had instructed. "Yes, I had a wonderful time working with Field Officer O'Connell. I was sad to leave, but such is life."

Phillips grunted and flipped the file closed. He placed it on his desk and fixed Jane with one final glare. "Welcome to Camp Lehigh, Ms. Cinderhouse. I trust you'll make yourself an asset to Agent Carter rather than a liability."

"Of course, Sir. I wouldn't dream of it, Sir."

Sir was a word she'd have to get used to. In her new bedroom, adjacent to Peggy's, she practiced her 'sir yes sirs' in front of the mirror for an hour before turning in at one in the morning. Four hours later, a blaring horn solo shocked her out of bed. Peggy had been watching by the door as Jane fought with her bedsheets, nearly suffocating herself as her sleep addled brain caught up with her body.

"Quite loud, isn't it?" Peggy said in her most normal tone as the siren roared on. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it."

"It's five in the morning," Jane slurred. She tried getting up but a lack of balance had her falling on her face instead. "What twisted soul wakes up at five in the morning?"

"The kind that fights for freedom from tyranny and dictatorship," said Peggy without a hint of sympathy. "Now come along. There is much to do."

Such became their morning routine. Peggy had procured five sets of clothes for Jane—after swearing up and down that nothing in short supply had been taken—as well as some properly fitting undergarments. The cone shaped bras would take some getting used to, but at least they fit. Jane steadfastly refused to cut her hair beyond three inches, and so Peggy showed her how to put it up in a respectable bun. Taken with grey and brown clothes, the effect was frumpy at best and downright ugly at worst, but it wasn't like Jane was out to get dates.

Then came the actual work. Peggy had a small desk ready in her office. It was pushed against Peggy's to provide adequate leg room. On it was a set of black pens and some blank sheets of paper in a wire basket. Everything was new aside from the desk itself. The chipped paint and splintered wood told a few stories.

"Your job will be fairly simple," Peggy said as she gave Jane the grand tour. "You'll do all the filing, transcribe letters, answer the phone, and keep track of my schedule."

She opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a book thicker than Jane's fist. Paper scraps stuck out in all directions, single letters exposed which told Jane nothing of its contents. Peggy placed it in her hands. It was surprisingly light. Flipping through the pages, Jane found hundreds of crossed out to do lists dating back to 1940.

"All of our daily activities are to be logged in this book. I've marked where the next blank page is and today's list has been pre-written for you. It will be your responsibility to write it from here on in."

"Do I get your coffee, too?" Jane asked.

"That's not an official task for a secretary," Peggy said as she spun her chair around and sat down, "but if you'd like, I take two cubes of sugar and one spoonful of milk. Thank you."

"You're welcome…" Jane flipped through the book until she was three quarters in. Only then did she spy a blank page. She picked up a pen, relieved to find it was ballpoint. "So, what's on the agenda for today?"

Peggy slid a stack of folders onto Jane's desk. "File these please."

Thus, Jane took her first step into the world of the wartime secretary.

Whatever credentials Peggy's guy in SSR had listed for Jane 'Cinderhouse' were convincing enough that Colonel Phillips ceased questioning her and moved on to treating her like a wall decoration. Unless he had a message for Peggy, Jane was as important to him as a dust mite. That was fine. Most entry level assistants couldn't expect better from a superior's superior. Plus, if she was non-existent to those at the head of the war effort, her chances of changing the past plummeted.

During the day, she stayed at her desk and took letters until her hand cramped. She got up only to use the bathroom, get food, and deliver memos as needed. She spoke to no one. Men and women in uniform wished her good morning or good afternoon, and Jane never responded but to smile and let her eyes drop.

"That there's Ms. Cinderhouse, Agent Carter's new assistant," she'd once overheard a cook from the mess hall whisper to a young cadet. "She's a pretty one for sure, but she's shy. Never says a word to anyone."

Jane couldn't have asked for a better cover. Not that 'secretly a time traveler' would be anyone's first guess, but if everyone at the camp wrote her off as a wallflower, she'd never be expected to participate in anything beyond the parameters of Peggy's office. No one would ask her to sit with them at lunch, no overconfident recruit would try to flirt with her, no seated officer would overanalyze her performance thinking of transferring her to Alaska. She'd remain a blip on the radar, a background player in a larger struggle. When she went home, no one would miss her. No one would even notice she was gone. It was perfect!

And then Howard Stark came.

It was a week since Jane's arrival. The moon was out, Peggy's last meeting of the day was over, and Jane was awake only to brainstorm methods of fixing her transmitter. Five pages spread across her desk were sent to the floor as the door swung open, and a man Jane had never seen before entered.

"Evening, Agent Carter!" He was a dapper fellow, good looking in a finely tailored suit and matching hat. He had his hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed like this was his living room. "Did you miss me?"

Peggy glanced at Jane, who was on her knees gathering papers, holding them flat to her chest. One landed algorithms up. Jane grabbed it as fast as she could, but their guest had a sharp eye.

"Are those numbers?"

"No," Jane said, resting the pages face down on her desk. "Just notes. For Agent Carter. I'm her new assistant."

The way he studied her was like a reversal of Colonel Phillips' interrogation. With a single onceover and no questions asked, he made his final judgment and shook her hand vigorously. "You must be Ms. Cinderhouse. Phillips told me about you."

"He did?" Jane asked. That didn't sound like the colonel she'd come to know.

"He said if Peggy wasn't around, I should leave a message with you. Also said you make good coffee."

Ah, now it made sense.

"Howard, while I'm thrilled to see you again," Peggy said, bringing the exchange to a merciful end, "you know better than to barge in unannounced."

He shrugged. "Couldn't resist. It's been far too long. Howard Stark, by the way," he directed that last part to Jane. "You might've heard of me."

Of course she had, though not at all in the way he thought. She put on her best smile for Tony Stark's dad and stepped back to let Peggy take the reigns.

"Was there something important you needed to discuss?" she asked.

He put on a serious face. "We're in a war, Peg. Everything's important…. By the way, I'm doing a presentation at the Expo next month and I could use a date. Feel like taking a night off?"

"But how could I in good conscience, Howard?" she walked around him, winking at Jane, who snickered. "We're in a war!"

Howard nodded with a self-depreciating smile. "Walked into that one, didn't I?"

Peggy nudged Jane, walking her back to her desk. Leaning in close, she whispered: "Don't mind Howard. He lives to ruffle feathers, but he's all talk in the end."

"By the way, Ms. Cinderhouse?" Jane turned, her face and stomach falling as Howard held up a single page covered in quantum equations. "You missed one."

Jane waited for Peggy to perform her magic and make the problem disappear with her powers of persuasion. How this could possibly be explained away, Jane didn't know. To her dismay, one look at Peggy told her neither did she.

"Uh…" Jane stammered. "That was just… I was just…"

"This math is highly advanced," Howard said. He read down the page, his brow furrowed. "I can't even understand half of it. Are you sure you're not a scientist?"

"I'm uh…" Jane glanced at Peggy one more time out of habit. "I dabble here and there. It's a hobby."

"This is a hobby?" Howard shook his head in disbelief. "I'm scared to find out what happens when you get serious. You know, my company's scientific research division is always looking for new members. How would you feel about a change of scenery?"

"No!" Jane and Peggy shouted, making Howard jump. As Jane's body relaxed and the spike of adrenaline passed, a burning heat spread over her cheeks and she cleared her throat audibly. "That is to say, thank you kindly for the offer, but I've already situated myself here and I'm not looking to leave Agent Carter's employment at this time."

Howard pursed his lips. "You sure? No offense meant to Agent Carter, but I doubt office work is all that stimulating for you."

Jane had a game she liked to play while working. Every time she completed twenty minutes' worth of filing, she crumpled up the remaining scrap paper into balls and tossed them into the garbage can across the room. If she made more baskets than she missed, a good omen would be placed on her which would make time move faster. She never made more than she missed.

"I find my job quite stimulating, thank you," she said. Howard might've believed it, but as he wasn't a brain dead monkey, she suspected he'd see right through her façade.

"You should at least come see what we're working on," he said. "Secretaries are still entitled to one day off a week, right?"

"We are?" Jane's head snapped to Peggy, then back again. "I mean, yes! We are. We are…"

"Jane is allowed time off if she so wishes, it's true," Peggy said. "Though I'm not sure-"

"Hey, didn't know you were her boss and her mom," Howard grinned. He clapped Jane on the shoulder. "Let me know when you're free. I'll take you on a tour of a lifetime. See if I can't convince you."

"But-"

"Because someone like you? Should really have 'doctor' before her name."

"I-"

"Anyway, I have to go talk to Phillips about weapons and stuff, but I'll stop by tomorrow so we can talk more. See you around, Doc!" Howard tossed the paper back at Jane and marched out the door, closing it behind him without another word.

A clock ticked over the window. Jane had no idea what time it was. Her and Peggy wore the same gobsmacked expression, most likely sharing the exact same thought as well.

Jane voiced it. "Did that just happen?"

"Unfortunately, while Howard Stark is many things, predictable isn't one of them." Peggy returned to her desk, vanishing behind another mountain of paperwork. "One never knows what he'll do. And once he gets an idea, it would take someone stronger than I to talk him down."

"That's great." Jane slid down the wall to the floor. Her dress would be covered in stains, but she didn't care. "Just great…"

Howard didn't come back the next day, and for a precious moment, Jane was at ease. Maybe he'd forgotten about her. The day after that, he surprised her at breakfast. Jane found herself being dragged to the front gates where a shiny red car awaited. With no one around who cared to stop him, he drove with Jane out of Jersey and into midtown Manhattan, talking the whole way about weapons development and something called 'Project Rebirth'. Jane spent the drive staring at her feet not making a sound, which impeded her hearing just enough that most of what he said was drowned out by the engine.

"…and that's how we're going to win the war." He winked as they pulled up to a brown brick building on a street of identical brown brick buildings. "Here we are!"

They got out of the car. The city was ten shades of brown and five of white. There were no billboards, there was no hot dog kiosk, no performance artists with hats full of pennies. Nothing but a fish seller up the street and a hat seller on the corner.

"I know," Howard said, appearing in her side vision, "the city's an intimidating place if you're not a local."

'Give it a few years,' Jane thought.

"Don't worry, I won't leave you alone for one second," Howard said like some great chivalrous hero. "You ready to see what's inside?"

"Sure," Jane said, her enthusiasm only slightly fake. What little of Howard's speech on the ride over had penetrated her ears intrigued the scientist in her. Something about a hover car unless she'd heard wrong. Such things would remain a distant dream of the future in her time, but the thought of seeing one first hand came with a temptation too great to ignore.

'If interacting with people in the past was going to alter the future, it would've happened by now,' she told herself. 'And you can still minimize your impact. Just smile and nod, don't say anything, and speed things up as much as possible. Tell him you have paperwork to finish so he'll cut it short.'

"What do you want to show me first?" she asked, following him up the stairs.

Howard threw open the doors to a laboratory which had to be three times bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Lights of every color flashed, but mainly bright blue. Men in lab coats huddled over chalkboards and work desks, and unless Jane was mistaken that was a foot long model car flying ten feet off the ground.

"Everything!" Howard cried.

Jane didn't get back to the base until six in the morning.

Now she had two friends in the past. One who knew better than to get her involved, and one who probably wouldn't care even if he did. Jane's late night excursion was beneficial in one regard. It gave Peggy an excuse to 'forbid' her from going with Howard again. "If you wish to keep your job, Ms. Cinderhouse, I must insist you remain on base at all time," she had 'sternly' declared.

It would've worked like a charm if Howard Stark wasn't genetically incapable of accepting a 'no'. If he couldn't bring Jane to his experiments, he'd bring his experiments to Jane. Which he did in increasing volume over the next few weeks. Every other day he kicked the door in, his arms full of schematics and figures for her to examine.

Exactly what Howard thought she could give him when as far as he knew, she was no more than an exceptionally knowledgeable hobbyist, she couldn't say. He might not have known himself. No two visits were the same; he always brought her something new.

"I'm thinking the flight stabilizers are mostly ready to go, but I have a few alternative fuel sources my guys at the lab are testing out," he rambled in the middle of a particularly busy day as Jane's inbox piled up to the ceiling. She was surprised Peggy hadn't stepped in by now. That phone call she'd been on for the last hour and a half must have been serious.

"Your math is sound," Jane said, re-reading the numbers and doing a quick calculation in her head. "I'd estimate a sixty to seventy percent chance of lift as long as the car is empty."

"The legal team won't let me have a driver anyway," Howard grumbled. "Some political nonsense about potential for injury and workman compensation. Anyway, let's talk sustainable energy and then we'll go back to improving thrust."

A woman in similar garb to Jane tiptoed into the room and left a five inch thick file on Jane's desk next to fifty just like it. She gave Jane a look of apology and scurried out.

Two days later, he was back again with something stranger.

"There are all these rumors from overseas of the Germans using alien technology," Howard said as he lined up a series of black and white photos on Jane's desk. "Like man in the moon stuff."

"Sounds like something out of a movie," Jane said, scanning the photos of singed battlefields and glowing white lights.

"Georges Melies couldn't have come up with this." Howard withdrew one final photo from his inner pocket and dropped it on top of the rest. "This right here was taken by one of our allies on the ground. A double agent we haven't heard from since he sent these."

"When was that?"

"About a month ago," Howard straightened the shot of a masked man wielding what looked like a mutated machine gun. Whatever it was, it was nearly his height and glowed with pulsing energy, not unlike Tony Stark's arc reactor. "Whatever this is, it's unlike anything I've ever seen. It could be rarer than vibranium. It could turn the tides of the war in our favor."

"I'm certain we'll win with or without it," Jane said, smiling to cover the miserable sinking of her stomach. 'We will win the war,' she reminded herself. 'We will because I know we will. Because I'm from the future.'

"Your confidence is admirable, if slightly naïve," Howard said, gathering the photos. "Once Project Rebirth is complete, Phillips will talk to the brass about getting another covert operation going. Much as I'd rather not kowtow to a bunch of gray haired government patsies, it looks like I have no choice if I want to find out what this is."

Jane coughed. "What do you need from me, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Your opinion," he replied, "and your assistance if and when we get ahold of this thing, assuming Peggy loosens up in the meantime."

"Oh, I'm not sure I can-"

"You should know by now I won't take no for an answer," Howard interjected. "You figured out the problem with my jet propulsion formula, and I'm not giving up on that Harvard scholarship by the way. You're wasting your potential pushing pencils in this office."

"I'm serving my country, Howard," Jane said, typing up a memo regarding the faulty heating in the library. "Nothing brings me more pleasure."

Howard snorted. "You Brits are so uptight it's making me itch. What about Princeton or Yale? They'd be crazy about you."

"How about Culver?" Jane asked playfully. She remembered the swell of joy in her chest when she got her acceptance letter. The way she jumped for joy and squealed so loud she scared her mom's cat out of the room. Getting into her dream school had her on cloud nine for weeks. She didn't dare set foot on campus in 1943, but she indulged in her fantasies of seeing her alma mater as it once was until Howard's deep belly laughs pulled her back to earth.

"Those hacks? They wouldn't know a quadratic equation from a hole in the ground. Trust me, Jane, Culver's the last place you want to go. You'd be better off enrolling in clown school."

"I see," Jane deflated, wondering how she might throw her pen at the back of Howard's head and make it look like an accident.

"I'd better get back to New York before they start to miss me… oh who am I kidding? They always miss me." Howard threw his coat over his shoulder like a runway model. He strutted away, only to turn back around at the last second. "By the way, remind me to get Dr. Erskine's okay to let you in on Project Rebirth. If you think my work is amazing, oh boy… you will be mildly impressed with his."

He chuckled and left for real this time. Jane had the office to herself and two hours of quiet time now that Peggy had finished her call and left for her conference with Colonel Phillips. Something about funding and a couple of senators who weren't shelling out as much cash as they promised. Jane set aside her typewriter with the half-finished letter sticking out and retrieved her notes. They were stored semi-neatly in an old leather journal Peggy had bought and never used. Not wanting a repeat the Howard incident, Jane kept all her time travel related musings in there now.

The first ten pages were packed with scribbled out numbers and letters. From far away they'd look black. On the eleventh page, Jane commenced her usual brainstorming process. One paragraph of incomprehensible gibberish soon turned into three paragraphs of barely coherent gibberish. At some point, Peggy returned. Bits of hair stuck out at odd angles and there were pronounced bags under her eyes.

"Senators not cooperating?" Jane completed a flawless recreation of the original schematic for her handheld transmitter, only to scratch it out upon noticing a button on the wrong side.

"A better question is, why are you still here?" Peggy tapped the wall clock. It read eleven minutes past one in the morning. "You have to be awake in four hours."

"So do you," Jane said, moving her notes aside to make way for the typewriter. "I've pulled a ton of all-nighters before. It'll be fine."

Peggy wasn't so sure. "All-nighters at war are in no way synonymous with all-nighters at home. Unless you want to spend tomorrow half asleep, I suggest you turn in."

Jane sighed. It was like Darcy all over again, except British and as the boss instead of the employee. "Let me just finish this letter- "

"I'll finish it," Peggy snatched the page out of the typewriter before Jane had a chance to strike a key. "You go to bed. That's an order, soldier."

"Since when is a secretary a soldier?"

"War Secretary," she corrected. "It's right there in the title. Now I'll hear no further arguments. To your barracks."

"Sir, yes sir!" Jane pulled her spine straight and saluted. She marched out of the office all the way to her room. Jane bumped her legs against the nightstand, but crawled into her moth-eaten mattress from there with no trouble, and found she was exactly as exhausted as Peggy said. She was asleep in seconds, and awake what felt like seconds later thanks to that sadistic trumpet.

The following day was total hell.

"No more all-nighters," Jane moaned at two in the afternoon, after falling asleep at her desk five times in an hour. "Never again…"

"I certainly hope so," said Peggy as she went about her morning tasks despite getting a fraction of a minute more sleep than Jane had. "If nothing else, I hope you understand what you've gotten yourself into working with me."

"I promise, next time I have an idea late at night, I'll save it for tomorrow."

ONE WEEK LATER

"Jane…" Peggy nudged her head with her foot. This was an impressive feat while Jane was still groggy and half asleep. Then she opened her eyes and the hard surface pressing against her cheek was not her desk.

She rolled around on the floor, from her side to her back. The single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling cast a shadow over Peggy's face. Her outline boasted crossed arms and straight shoulders. Jane got to her knees, gathering her notes into a messy pile. She'd have to sort through them later and see if anything was worth keeping. Her caffeine induced late night musings had a fifty percent shot of producing something useful. The rest of the time, they look like an undergrad's half-baked thesis paper exploded.

"I'm good," Jane groaned, standing tall on wobbly legs and dropping her papers in a heap over the typewriter. "Only dozed off for a minute."

"You mean seven hours," Peggy waved her ticking pocket watch in Jane's face. The hour hand resting happily on six seemed to mock her. "You even slept through Reville. I didn't think that was possible."

Jane shrugged helplessly. "I've done the impossible before. You know, with the time travel thing…"

Peggy was not amused. "Jane, I understand you're in a… shall we say unusual situation."

'That's a word for it,' Jane thought.

"I'm committed to assisting you however I can, but I need you to have the same commitment to me. That's the only way we can keep this charade going, and it's never going to work if one of my superiors walks into this office and catches you snoring. If that happens, I won't have to pretend to write you up. They will fire you for real."

"But I don't actually work for you.." Jane was suddenly wide awake. In fact, she didn't think she'd ever be tired again. "Of course, they don't know that…"

"No they don't," Peggy said. She righted Jane's upturned chair, just in time for her legs to give out. "They would have no issue dismissing you and escorting you from the premises today, and there'd be nothing I could do to stop them."

Images of Colonel Phillips surrounded by identical angry general types flashed through Jane's mind. They looked down their noses at her, pointing her towards the exit. What if they didn't let her take her stuff when she left? Without her remote transmitter, she'd be in her nineties before she got back to her time. Assuming she lived that long.

"Okay, I am officially terrified into submission," Jane wrapped her arms around herself. Outside, the temperature reached the mid-eighties, but Jane shivered like it was the middle of January.

Peggy sighed and walk to her desk. "I'm not trying to scare you, Jane. But I think it might be time you had a day off."

Jane blinked. "A day off? From what?"

"Everything," Peggy replied. "My work and yours. It's been some time since your last day out. Why don't you go into the city tomorrow? The train station is only a mile away. I'll give you some money for a ticket and you can-"

"Are you crazy?" Jane shouted. "Did you forget everything we've talked about? I can't go walking around in 1943. I could change the future just by breathing in the wrong direction. I could start a conversation with someone and prevent them from meeting the person they're supposed to marry. I could get hurt and go to the hospital and the doctor who treats me won't be able to help someone he was supposed to save. I could be attacked in an alleyway and killed. Anything could happen!"

Jane was a hair's breadth away from taking Peggy by the lapels and shaking her for all she was worth. A cadet with some papers tucked under his arm stopped short of announcing his presence and moved slowly out of view, muttering awkwardly that he'd come back later. Jane's arms fell back to her sides. Peggy remained cool and unaffected.

"I'm not trying to belittle your fears, but you've already come into contact with several people. Myself, Howard, Colonel Phillips, various personnel around the base… the fact is, you can't hide in a bubble and hope no one finds you. It's not realistic."

"Says who?" Jane huffed like a big baby.

Peggy pursed her lips and laced her fingers together. "Ms. Cinderhouse, as your commanding officer, I am ordering you to take the day off tomorrow. I want you to get on the train, go to the city, and do whatever it is you find most enjoyable. The World's Fair starts in the evening and Howard will be giving a presentation. You assisted him in making it happen, so you deserve to witness your hard work in action."

"All I did was adjust some algorithms. A monkey could've done it."

"Jane. Go."

Everything from Peggy's tone to her general disposition left no room for arguments. If she had to, she'd put Jane over her shoulder and carry her to the train station. Possibly hogtied. Yesterday, she watched Peggy give some special agents a quick lesson in knot tying. It took them an hour to free her volunteer.

"Think of it this way," Peggy continued, "it's twenty-four hours of no writing letters and no sorting through mail.

When she put it that way, Jane could almost forget the potential for massive cosmic disturbances. "It's not like you're giving me a choice here."

Peggy smiled. "You have two choices. One is simply right while the other is wrong." Her phone rang and she spun her chair around to answer it, and to get the last word. "Get some rest and have a lovely time tomorrow. I believe the train leaves at seven sharp."

If Jane went home and found everyone with pig snouts, she'd know who to blame.

Jane had been to New York exactly once in her time. That was for a connection flight to Vermont routed through JFK airport, and she'd spent the whole time arguing with staff about a bag she didn't want to check. As a child with wanderlust, it had been near the top of her ten page list of preferred vacation spots. Then her sixth grade science teacher showed the class an hour long documentary about the negative effects of light pollution. She went to Hawaii that summer and never looked back.

Even on her day out with Howard last month, it never occurred to her to take in the sights beyond a single block out of hundreds. Arriving at Grand Central Station on the eight o'clock train and exiting the terminal to the main lobby, Jane wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. She stepped into the early summer air tinged with soot and oil. She moved to the side, out of the path of commuters locked in their own personal bubbles.

As she'd already seen, Manhattan in 1943 was not as she knew it from colorful postcards and big budget action films. More like a gritty independent film going for 'realism' by painting everything in shades of brown. A grey car drove down the street, followed by six bright yellow cabs and a man with a wagon peddling flowers. Every car on the road looked like it belonged in a museum. The dented fenders and layer of grime on the body would've made most collectors faint, but that's just what happens when you drive a modern ca in the city.

Moving down the street, she stopped in front of a dress shop, studying the fine dresses displayed on headless mannequins. She'd seen pictures of her grandmother wearing clothes like this. She always said they'd fit Jane like a glove.

'Come to think about it, she'd be my age right now. So would Grandpa…' A shudder went through Jane. She hadn't forgotten the prospect of an accidental paradox.

The best place a woman out of time could go in New York was the future, but the world fair didn't open until late afternoon. To pass the time, Jane window shopped, browsed a few bookstores, bought a bag of roasted peanuts, and saw a golden oldie at the movie theater with cartoons and newsreels in place of trailers.

"How are you doing your part to help the war effort," an authoritative voice demanded over footage of soldiers marching in straight lines.

"By making coffee and trying not to distort the timeline," Jane muttered, louder than she'd intended as the woman in the next seat shushed her.

The movie was a double feature, as Jane discovered when Above Suspicion ended and Shadow of a Doubt began. The fair was in full swing by the time she found the convention center. Twice she'd gotten lost, almost walking through Central Park at sundown before a helpful shoe shiner pointed her in the right direction.

There was no line to buy a ticket. Lucky her. Jane hated lines.

"One please," she said to the old man behind the bars smoking a cigarette.

"Sorry, hon. Just sold out."

Jane ceased digging through her bag. Her fingers, wrapped around a coin purse, slackened.

"Sold out?" she repeated. "Are you sure?"

The man shrugged. "Better luck next year."

He took a long drag of his cigarette, forgetting Jane immediately as the nicotine dulled his senses. Jane moved away, picking up speed as he and the fair fell out of her line of sight. They were still within earshot for at least three blocks, impressive given the symphony of traffic it had to compete with.

"This is why cell phones were invented," Jane muttered, trudging up the block towards Times Square. "I could've just called Howard and gotten all this straightened out."

In fact, why didn't she just go back and inform the doorman that she was a close personal friend of their keynote speaker? They'd have to let her in then. Assuming they believed her, which they probably wouldn't. How many women would kill to spend a night with Howard Stark, much less lie?

The New Jersey train arrived at seven, leaving her with three hours to kill and nothing to do. She wandered through a street lined with restaurants. Had she not eaten before, the aroma of cooking food might have pulled her in. Especially after weeks of what the army had the nerve to call food.

(Seriously, did they have to boil everything?)

After the restaurants came the bars. Those Jane avoided like the plague. Puente Antiguo had only one bar, and so all the drunks, pervs, and reprobates flocked to it. Jane's alcohol intake, while never huge to begin with, had taken a nosedive since she moved her research out there. One could only be drunkenly hit on so many times before losing their taste for beer.

That was in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, New Mexico. How would a bar in one of the most crime ridden cities in the world compare?

'This isn't the 21st century anymore,' she thought.

'Yeah, it's World War II. Not exactly sunshine and roses,' her voice of reason said.

Passing the bar, Jane followed the rousing blare of a trumpet to a square brick building across the street. Light poured through the windows and the glowing neon signs overhead. Looping blue letters formed two words: The Lily. A crowd of well-dressed patrons lined up outside for the doorman to let them in. Inside, the same swinging Jazz music her grandmother used to call 'the only real music left in this world' played for those looking to forget reality and enjoy themselves. The lack of pounding bass drums and dubstep didn't fully hit Jane until she got to the back of the line and her chest failed to vibrate. One more thing to like about the forties.

The line moved quickly as some people left and more were let in. The doorman took one look at Jane and moved aside, granting her entrance. Jane stepped into a room the likes of which she'd seen in movies. She was surprised to find Hollywood had mostly got it right. There was a bar on one side with tables and chairs scattered around. A dance floor took up sixty percent of the room and the band had a full stage. There were trumpeters, saxophone players, trombone players, and more instruments she couldn't name, all played expertly to create a mood of boundless energy.

She swerved past the dancers on her way to the bar. Women in knee high skirts and men in zoot suits drank and mingled. Jane found three empty seats and took the middle one. She ordered a dry martini, the only 'fancy' alcoholic beverage she could think of. A man with a handlebar mustache raised his drink to her. She nodded at him without smiling and took to memorizing the cocktail menu until he got bored and left. He would go on to live his life the way the universe intended, with no one to disrupt the natural order of his existence.

'And how many lives has your presence disrupted since you got here?' she couldn't help but ask herself. 'Let's start with Peggy and work our way down.'

"Let's not," Jane murmured, taking a drink.

"Can I top you off?" the bartender asked. Jane swirled the paper umbrella around the empty glass and didn't realize he was speaking to her until he coughed.

"What? Oh no, thank you." Her purse was significantly lighter and she needed her remaining cash for the ride home. It was too bad, she would've loved another glass. The flavor was good and the alcohol silenced the frequent buzzing in the back of her mind of this is wrong you shouldn't be here you can't be here what are you doing out here in the open destroying the future why-

"I got it." A masculine hand slid two bills to the bartender. The stranger took a seat next to Jane and though the lights were low, he was clear as day.

Jane had seen blue eyes before. Donald had them—ocean blue and mesmerizing, but always covered by sunglasses. He thought they made him look cool. Jane begged to differ.

Thor had them, too, brighter than Don's and sparkling with magic. In hindsight, Jane didn't know why she ever believed he was just a homeless guy. Only a god could have eyes like that.

This man's eyes were objectively not much different. They were more human than Thor's and a lighter color than Don's. The latter wasn't an inherent flaw, just an observation. If Jane was honest, she preferred a lighter shade. A shade exactly like the ones drawing her in at this very moment.

"Thank you," she said. Her phony accent slipped and she coughed to cover it up. "Pardon me. I have something in my throat."

He smiled. It was infectious and made his already handsome face shine. "If you need to wash it down, I can spot you a few more bucks."

"No that's fine," Jane said. She held out a hand, looking the man over. His uniform stuck out to her first. He was a ranking officer. A sergeant or higher. She was still learning all the insignias and what they meant. All this before she noticed how the jacket accentuated his broad chest and shoulders. "I shouldn't be drinking anyway. Today's my day off but I have an early start tomorrow."

"In that case, you should absolutely be drinking," the soldier said. He ordered one for himself when the bartender returned. Some kind of beer probably. Jane sipped her martini as a mug slid his way. "I'm getting one last drink before I ship out. I'd get more, but I don't think shipping out hungover will win me points with my staff sergeant."

"Certainly not," Jane said. "I don't have quite the same responsibilities as you, but I know I'd get an earful if I showed up at the office drunk."

The soldier raised his mug. "To working hard and partying harder, but only on the weekends."

They clinked their glasses together and drank. The bitter liquid rushed down Jane's throat chipping away her nerves and the voice of reason reminding her that this man had interrupted his pre-determined path for her. She should be running fast in the other direction, not staying to look into his eyes some more.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes at your service," he winked, making Jane's stomach flip. "Folks around here call me Bucky."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Jane Fo- er, pardon me again." Jane giggled at nothing. "I'm Jane Cinderhouse. It's nice to meet you."

"It must be for you to say it twice," said Bucky. He didn't laugh when Jane flushed red but his grin was intact. "Ms. Cinderhouse, it is very nice to meet you, too."

All he needed now was to bow and kiss her hand, and Jane would be a pool of fangirly mush all over the floor. It wasn't fair that good looking men had such a powerful effect on her. Whatever happened to the recently dumped Ph.D. candidate who swore off men until her research was finished?

'She met a hot Norse God, then blasted herself into seven decades ago and met a hot soldier, that's what.'

"So, Sergeant Barnes, are you flying solo tonight?" She sounded much more at ease than she felt, at least to her own ears. "Seems to me a man like you should have a girl on each arm."

"I did when I came in," he said, glancing at the packed dance floor. "Then my date happened upon an ex-boyfriend of hers and it turns out neither of them is as over it as they thought."

"That's a shame," said Jane. She peeked at the crowd, but of course she had no way of knowing which one was Bucky's erstwhile partner. It could be that brunette in the pink dress or the blonde one in red. Whoever it was, this ex of hers had to be another Norse god if she left Bucky for him.

"I'll say," Bucky sighed. "My last night of freedom and I don't have anyone to dance with."

"That's a bigger shame." Jane played with a lock of her hair which had come loose from her bun. "If only someone would come along to fix that."

'What the hell are you doing? What is the matter with you? Stop talking to him! Stop flirting with him! You're disrupting the natural order! ABORT! ABORT!'

"There is this one gorgeous dame I've had my eye on since she walked in," he said, leaning against the bar top. "You think she'd want to dance with me?"

'ABOOOOOORT!'

"Maybe," Jane took a sip for the third time in twenty seconds and played with her hair for the fifth time in ten. "But she might want to get to know you better first."

"Works for me," he said, drawing in closer. "I'd like to know more about her, too. Whatever she wants to tell."

Jane blushed. "Well, I was going to the fair but I made the mistake of not getting a ticket in advance."

"You didn't miss anything," Bucky said. "Just a flying car that didn't fly. It just kinda floated for a second."

"I hate when that happens," Jane said, relieved her contributions to Howard's work wouldn't result in a world straight out of Back to the Future II.

"Nothing like a little scientific advancement to spice up a night," he said, and unlike most people who would speak aloud a sentence like that, he didn't sound at all sarcastic.

"I would say so," Jane replied. "I've dedicated most of my life to the study of wormholes and astrophysical research."

He blinked. "You might need to repeat that for me."

"Why's that?" Jane batted her eyelashes because she'd already done everything else short of jumping him, so why not? "Here I thought you were smart."

"Oh, I'm plenty smart. I like the way you talk is all."

He had a thick Brooklyn drawl. The kind she'd normally associate with tough guys, grizzly old men, and mobsters. That was before she met Bucky. Now she'd forever equate New York accents to bright blue eyes and disarming smiles.

"If you want, I can keep you awake all night with science talk." Jane scooted closer. "I'll whisper sweet equations in your ear until dawn."

"Only if we get a dance in first," he said.

Jane couldn't help but roll her eyes even as another giggle left her throat. "Now what is it with you and dancing?"

He shrugged. "My father always taught me the way to a girl's heart is to sweep her off her feet on the dance floor. That's how he got my mom to fall for him."

"I see where you got your charm from, Sergeant Barnes."

"Please, call me Bucky."

The band switched from a high tempo swing dance to a slow ballad. Some couples left the dance floor, others stayed, content in the arms of the person they loved. Jane's heart tugged. She hadn't danced like that since senior prom. Bucky's hand found hers, warm and inviting. He gestured with his chin at the crowd. There was room for one more pair.

"Just one dance," Jane said, driving the final nail in the coffin of her common sense and letting this man from history take the lead.

One dance became two dances, which became three dances, which became a leisurely stroll under the moonlight. Bucky showed her his favorite hangouts. The diner on the corner of fifth street; the movie theater that served soda flavored popcorn; the old grade school he attended before it closed down amid concerns of mold and shoddy architecture. They traded stories of their youth, Jane selective about how much she revealed.

"That's when I rode my bike straight into a tree," she said, the tree in question being an old stereo system her neighbor had thrown out.

"I know a few people who would've done the same thing," Bucky laughed. They rounded a corner and he pointed at a dark, flat building with a single porch light shining in the dark. "There it is, Goldie's Gym. My favorite place in the world."

There was dust and grime on the windows and rusty cans taking root in the weeds springing out of cracks in the porch. A stray cat slept on one of the window sills. Garbage overflowed from a trash bin set out next to a telephone pole, the smell strong enough to reach Jane's nostrils from twenty feet away. The sign was sun bleached, the big G in Goldie's all that remained distinguishable.

"This place is," Jane said dubiously. "Are you sure?"

"Hey now, I know she ain't pretty to look at, but I learned everything I know about fighting in there." Bucky puffed out his chest. "Did I tell you I'm a three time welterweight boxing champion?"

"No, you didn't," Jane giggled, resting her head on his shoulder and feeling his taut muscles flex.

"To this day, I'm undefeated," he said, swelling with pride. "I tell you, if it were up to me, I'd be at that punching bag right now getting ready for my next bout."

"If only the war hadn't happened," Jane replied, "now you're stuck with me instead."

"Well, when you put it that way..." Bucky smiled down at her. He wasn't as obscenely tall as Thor, but the height difference was still pronounced. They walked along the sidewalk, coming closer to the locked double doors and sturdy brick structure. "The last time I was here, I was helping a buddy of mine get ready to enlist."

"You showed him your great left hook?"

"Nah, I'm no southpaw. My right hook is deadly, though. Remind me to tell you about my first win next time."

Jane nodded, ignoring the bitter remains of her common sense weakly crying out that there would never and could never be a next time.

"So what division is your friend in?" she asked

"That would be the highly prestigious 4F division."

"Oh dear," said Jane, "was there a problem?"

"Problem?" Bucky shook his head. "Problems. He never should've enlisted to begin with. He's no bigger than you and he has so many health issues, it'd be easier to tell you what isn't wrong."

"And yet he still tried to enlist?"

"That's the thing. His most debilitating condition has always been his lack of self-preservation. He wants to fight everyone all the time. Knowing him, he's out there trying to sneak his way into the army again as we speak."

'Again?' Jane's mouth twitched. She couldn't help but notice a parallel between herself and Bucky's friend. Erik would've loved talking to him. "If I ever happen upon him, I'll let him know to go home and stop worrying you."

"Thank you," he said, squeezing her hand. "I hope you do meet him. Make him jealous that I found the prettiest girl in New York before he did."

They walked to the train station, getting there five minutes before the New Jersey train was set to arrive. Standing on the platform, Jane was stunned the night had passed so quickly. Three hours come and gone like a wisp of smoke, all because of this one man, who looked sinfully good in uniform and danced like a pro.

He waited with her, their conversation moving on to lighter topics like family and the weather. Jane continued giving brief responses and revealing little, while Bucky told hilarious, heartwarming stories about his younger sisters and that crazy headstrong friend of his who'd break his back for the chance to go to war.

"It's been wonderful meeting you, Sergeant Barnes," Jane said when the train arrived. He gave her a look. "Sorry, Bucky."

He smiled and Jane did her best to commit it to memory. "You too, Ms. Cinderhouse. Thanks for giving me a great last night."

With a final bold disregard for the future and the consequences of her continued influence, Jane brushed her lips across his cheek to his ear. "Call me Jane."

This was how she left him. She boarded the train and grabbed an empty seat by the window. She peered out at him. He wasn't gone. He rubbed his cheek, his eyes never leaving her. Jane waved as the train pulled out of the station until she could no longer see him.

'You'll never see him again,' said her voice of reason. It was alive and well after all, just on mute for a while.

"It's okay," Jane muttered out loud. "Tonight was wonderful."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. For the next hour as the train chugged along the tracks, Jane enjoyed her memories of Bucky. Of his arms and his scent and those perfect blue eyes.