(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 6 - 10th March 2012
"Happy birthday, Buck."
The words came with a genuine smile and a small wrapped gift from his best buddy. Bucky thanked Steve as he tore into the paper, laughter escaping his lips when he saw what he had received - 'The Super Book of Useless Information.' Though he hadn't been sure whether to expect something serious or a gag gift, he figured it was probably the best of both worlds and at least it made him smile, albeit only for a minute.
"You know, the weirdest part is I'm not even sure which birthday I'm celebrating." Bucky shook his head. "I mean, counting from the year I was born..."
"You'd be ninety-five," Steve said knowingly, "but if we go with how old we were when we went under..."
"Still not as simple as you'd think."
It took a moment's consideration before Steve clearly realised what he meant. They had crashed in February, Bucky's birthday was in March. Technically, this was the twenty-six birthday he had celebrated, but he had been conscious to the world almost twenty-seven years in total.
"I saw a magazine at the newsstand last week, it said that age is only a number," said Steve then, his hand on Bucky's shoulder. "What's important is that it's your birthday and we should celebrate."
"I guess we should," he agreed, though quite honestly, his heart wasn't really in it.
It was strange, he knew he was so lucky to be alive, to even see another birthday. Between the war and the ice, it was nothing less than a miracle that he and Steve had lived to tell the tale. If they didn't celebrate, it would just seem wrong, but God only knew how they were supposed to go about it, in the circumstances.
They had no family, no real friends but each other. There had been Natalie for a while, but that was a whole other mess that Bucky wasn't sure he wanted to think about too much. Not on what ought to be a happy occasion.
"Come on, whatever you want to do, it's on me," said Steve insistently. "We could go see a movie, get lunch at that restaurant you love, or sit outside at the cafe on the corner and people watch for a while. Of course, if you really don't want to go out, we have those comedy shows saved on the, uh... recording machine."
"DVR," said Bucky with a smile. "How come the great Captain America has so much trouble with the new world lingo?"
"I was never all that great with anything modern, even before modern became very old-fashioned," said Steve with a wry small. "You were the one who was always looking to the future. I still remember that exhibition Howard Stark put on at the fair, the night before you shipped off to Europe."
"The flying car." Bucky grinned at the memory. "Funny how that never took off," he said on purpose, making a flying kind of a hand gesture.
Steve rolled his eyes. "The future isn't everything they promised back then, that's for sure. The war may be long over, at least the one we knew, but there have been plenty more since then, and so much poverty, pain, and destruction..."
"Happy birthday to me." Bucky took a turn at rolling his eyes then.
"I'm sorry, Buck. I'm just... Milestones make me think too much, I guess. You know, about all the others that we missed."
"I know."
"You know, I came to a decision yesterday, about Peggy. I think... No, I know, it's best if I stop seeing her. As much as it hurts to say it, I know it's the right decision, for both of us."
"What brought this on?" asked Bucky curiously.
"My last visit," Steve admitted, rubbing at his forehead as if it ached, though his friend suspected it had more to do with trying not to let the emotion overcome him. "When I'm there, most of the time, she doesn't even know me. When she does... it breaks my heart to see her cry like that. I can't keep doing it to her. I can't... I can't keep doing it myself. You think I'm less of a man now?" he asked Bucky, looking a little too serious in the question.
"I think you're the best man," he assured him with a look. "You're in a situation nobody else in the world could understand, not even me. There's nobody special that I left behind back then, not in the same way. You do whatever you need to do, Steve. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong on this, you know that."
"Thanks, Buck." Steve managed a half smile then. "Anyway, how are you holding up, you know, without Natalie?"
"That's hardly the same thing," he insisted, getting up from his chair and moving to walk away.
"Maybe not, but I know you liked her, I mean really liked her," Steve insisted, following Bucky to the living room.
He opened his mouth to deny all charges, but in the end, there was no way that he could. There really was something about Natalie Rush that caught his attention. More than just her wide green eyes or flame red hair or pin-up body, though he certainly didn't object to any of those things. She had what the old movies used to call gumption and moxy. Sure, she was a challenge in a lot of ways, and that always appealed, but it was something else too. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Of course, she was gone now and there was no point in dwelling on her loss.
"I've never seen you like that about a girl before," Steve insisted, joining Bucky on the couch.
"Yeah, well, she was the first modern girl I really got to know." He shrugged easily, reaching for the remote. "But she's not the only woman in the world. Tonight, I'll prove it to you," he insisted, eyes fixed to the TV screen as it came to life at the touch of a button. "It's my birthday, so here's what I want to do with it. We watch some more of this comedy show, get lunch at the cafe on the corner later, and tonight, we go out for dinner and hit a couple of bars after. It's about time we showed this place that two of New York's most eligible bachelors are back in town and they mean business."
He smirked as he glanced sideways at Steve, knowing he was unimpressed at the prospect, but trying desperately not to show it. Bucky didn't care. In the end, he figured an evening on the town might be good for the both of them. It certainly didn't seem like it could make either one feel any worse!
His heart wasn't really in it. Truth be told, Steve couldn't exactly say Bucky was alone in not being the life and soul of the party, though he tried his best. They both did. It just wasn't really working out.
The larger part of the day had been fine. Watching television, a nice lunch and a little people watching, good conversation, and nothing to really complain about. It was going out to bars in the evening that wasn't exactly Steve's idea of fun, and even though Bucky used to be good at making fast friends and charming women, the spark was missing out of him lately. Though he would try to deny it, Steve knew that the biggest reason for that was Miss Natalie Rush.
He wasn't sure what it was about her, but there was definitely something. Steve may not be attracted to her in quite the same way as Bucky, but he could see she was special. It was a shame she was gone, that they didn't know where or why. Mostly, he just hoped she was someplace good and safe. After their suspicions about her possibly suffering abuse at the hands of somebody who ought to treat her better, it was hard to think too much about what might be going on with her now.
"I know this was my idea," said Bucky then, returning from the bathroom and re-taking the stool next to Steve, "but you think we could call it a night soon?"
"You're done celebrating already?" asked his friend with a wry smile. "You said a couple of bars. This is still our first stop."
"I know." Bucky sighed. "It's just not... I don't know, it doesn't feel the same. Not to sound like an old man-"
"Said the ninety-five-year-old." Steve kept his voice low, but couldn't quite contain the smirk, especially when he saw Bucky's wide eyes at that remark.
"Wow, Stevie found his edge tonight," he said, giving him a shove in the shoulder, even as he laughed. "Yeah, well, the music in here is too loud, these lights are making my head ache, and I honestly thought the girl behind the bar was going to sock me when I called her 'doll'."
"She did look kind of mad about that." Steve nodded his agreement. "Apparently, that kind of thing doesn't go over as well as it used to."
"I guess not." Bucky sighed one more time, drinking down the last of his beer. "So, I'm done. It's been a very weird birthday, but I am done celebrating it. You coming?" he asked, standing to go.
"Right behind you," Steve assured him, finishing up his own drink before following Bucky to the door.
Across the room, a pair of sharp eyes kept watch in the mirror as the two super soldiers made their way out. He was about to follow, at a discrete distance, when a woman sat down on the other side of his table for two, leaning right over to give him a real good view of her assets.
"Hey, handsome," she said, fluttering her eyelashes, so much a cliche, in was almost painful. "Buy me a drink?"
"Sorry, gotta go," he told her, smiling politely. "Besides, I don't think my wife would approve."
Without a backward glance, he got up and left, taking the side exit and feeling relieved when he realised Barnes and Rogers were actually heading home. For a while, he thought he might be tracking their bar hopping activities all night, when frankly, he would much rather catch up on some admin back at the apartment.
Taking a shortcut, up and over the buildings, rather than pounding the pavement like his neighbours, he was back in the comfort of his armchair a good five minutes before he heard their footsteps and voices echoing in the stairwell. Not for the first time, they mentioned Natalie Rush and wondered how she was doing.
Shaking his head, Clint Barton reached for the burner phone and dialled the only number stored in its memory. The moment he heard it connect, he spoke before she could say a word.
"Barnes really misses you."
Natasha sighed too deeply before she answered him, doubtless trying to keep every shred of emotion out of her voice, but not doing it quite as well as she could with other people. "There are plenty of other fish in the sea. The kind that haven't done the things I've done. He'll meet a nice girl, eventually. He'll move on."
"Maybe," Clint considered, before daring to ask, "but will you?"
He half-expected her to hang up or curse him out, maybe both simultaneously, but she didn't. Her silence spoke volumes enough.
"Come on, Nat, I know you too well. The guy got under your skin. I've never known you get stir crazy so easy before. He's why you wanted out of babysitting, right?"
Another too-long pause was all the answer he needed.
"Aside from that, how are my two favourite fossils?"
Clint smirked at the way she phrased it but didn't even try to correct her. "Celebrating, sort of. Barnes' birthday. How's it feel to be pining for a ninety-five-year-old man, anyway?"
"You're an asshole, Barton," she told him crossly, but there was a smile on her face - he didn't have to see her to know that for sure - and it made him smile too.
"I love you too, Romanov."
To Be Continued...
