Charlie whistled lowly as he locked the doors to the museum once the last straggler had left. Of course, the last straggler was the same man who was always last. Evelyn left her office, hearing Charlie whistling to himself as he juggled her black bag in the crook of her arm. Her red coat flowed behind her, the buttons open and revealing a long black skirt with a black blouse tucked into it. She kept her lanyard around her neck and tugged her hair from her collar.
"Hey, Charlie," she spoke to him, noticing him locking the doors. "Can you hold one of those?"
"Be still my beating heart, Evie is leaving almost on time," he commented and she rolled her eyes as her heels clicked on the floor that she was crossing.
"Haha," she drawled out to him, "if you must know I have finished all my work for the day. Besides, did our friend leave on time?"
"Your plan to time the projector to stop at closing time worked perfectly well," Charlie said to her. "So well done."
"Don't say I never have good ideas," she commented.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he told her.
She laughed and passed through the barrier to the door. Charlie held it open for her, ever the gentleman. She pressed a hand to his arm as she stepped into the cool evening air and smiled to him. "See you tomorrow, Charlie. Have a good shift."
"Goodnight, Evie," he said and closed the door once she was walking down the stairs towards the National Mall. She had contemplated catching a cab home, but she figured that it was a pleasant enough evening to walk. She was about to head onto 7th Street South West before she saw him. He was sat on a bench by the grass, hands clasped together as he looked straight ahead.
Evelyn bit down on her lip and contemplated going to speak to him, but she thought against it. As she passed him by, she kept her eyes down and fished around in her bag, trying to appear distracted and nonchalant. She looked for her phone and pulled it out with her earphones. Just as she was about to pop a bud into her ear when she heard his rich voice as she passed him by.
"I see you fixed it."
She looked over to him and tried to act startled, as if she hadn't already seen him there. Standing still, she kept her phone in her hand, her earphone wire dangling over it and she nodded.
"Did it that very same night," she said to him. "Thanks again for your help."
"You were the one who changed it," he shrugged nonchalantly.
"Either way," she responded, trying to keep her tone light. "You were the one who still pointed it out."
He simply nodded once at that and then a silence fell between them. Evelyn juggled the ear-bud in her hand and smiled to him. She would make the first move. She got the feeling that he would rather be alone anyway. "I'll see you around," she said to him.
Bucky was about to let her go before he spoke, uncertain of what he was doing as he once again stopped her from walking by him.
"Do you have any idea how to work this thing to find girls who aren't interested in me simply because of my looks?" he asked her and she wondered what he was on about before she saw the phone in his hands. He was looking down to it and Evelyn dropped her own phone into her bag along with her earphones, sensing that she was not walking off anywhere anytime soon.
Advancing closer to the bench, she folded an arm around herself, her heels slowly clicking on the ground.
"Are you online dating?"
"For my sins," he replied to her. "Have you ever done it?"
"Never," she admitted and cautiously sat down on the bench next to him, careful to keep her distance. He continued to stare down at his screen as she spoke, dropping her bag in the space between them, sensing that would be a good barrier. "I'm not big on online dating. My friends kept trying to get me onto it."
"Any reason why you never bothered?" he asked her and she managed to look at his screen, seeing that he had been matched with a girl with long, blonde hair and a pretty blinding smile.
"Guess I have always been an old romantic," she admitted to him. "I like the idea of meeting someone naturally…and those apps are good, I am not saying they're not. One of my best friends found her husband on it, but it isn't for me."
"I can see why," Bucky muttered and swiped off the girl's profile.
"How many online dates have you been on?" Rosalie dared to ask from him.
"Five," he said.
"Five?" she echoed back to him, her voice slightly aghast and Bucky couldn't help but let a small smirk form on his face. She sounded so shocked and taken back by that. He couldn't help but push it further, wondering what was wrong with that.
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"No," she said with a shake of her head, feeling her cheeks redden. "I mean…well…I haven't had one date in two years so to me five in, what? A few weeks? Well, that sounds like quite a lot and quite a lot of hard work too."
"Proved to be," Bucky admitted to her. "None of them really knew who I was. I preferred to keep it that way. It lets you live a quiet life."
Evelyn's brows knitted together. "Did you not want to tell them who you were?" she wondered from him and he shook his head, closing the app down and putting the phone into his leather jacket pocket.
"They'd either run away in fear or spend the date asking me questions that I don't want to ask. I'd prefer not to complicate things," Bucky said to her and she kind of understood where he was coming from. She folded one leg over the other and leant forwards, looking over the Mall as people left work from different places, most of them wearing trainers instead of work shoes so that they could complete the commute quicker.
"I get that," she said to him. "I suppose it just takes a while to try and match with someone who is on the same wave length as you."
Bucky chuckled. "Trouble is that can be hard when you're 105," he said to her.
"Yeah," she agreed, "I guess not many girls have things in common with someone old enough to be their great grandfather." Her voice had a teasing edge to it and Bucky looked to her to ensure that she was indeed winding him up. The small smile on her lips as she turned to look to him told him that she was. Nodding his head once, he continued to smile meekly at hearing her.
"I guess not," Bucky responded.
A sudden chill took hold of the air and Evelyn realised that she had to get home before it got too late. Moving to her feet, she took hold of her bag and dropped it onto her arm once more. "I should get going," she said to him. "Why were you sat here anyway?"
"Force of habit," Bucky shrugged to her. "I prefer not to spend as much time at home as possible."
"Why?" she asked him.
"Leaves you alone with your thoughts," he said and she wondered just what was going on in his mind. And why was he telling her this? This man had been on five dates since the blip and none of them knew who he was. She was simply a museum curator who he had bumped into a couple of times and she felt like he was the one who wanted to talk to her. He was the one who had initiated this entire conversation.
"You should get home," Bucky said to her, sensing that she had no idea how to respond to him. It had been stupid of him to stop her. But he had seen her leave the museum, a wide smile on her face as she bid goodnight to the security guard. He had intended to leave her alone but when he saw her walk by with her eyes set on her bag, he just wanted to say something. He just wanted to talk to her.
Evelyn watched him go back to staring out into the distance and she bit down on her lip. She had no idea what she was doing. This was so foolish. And he would probably think her weird, but a part of her felt sympathy for the man stood next to her. And so she made the suggestion anyway.
"I live round the corner from this quiet little pizza place," she said. "It sells individual slices and honestly I eat more from there than I really should. It's nothing fancy, but if you want some internet dating advice from a complete novice who probably can't help you then I have no plans."
Bucky watched her with intrigue. His faced remained impassive as he looked to her, noticing her nervously pushing her hair behind her ear. Before he could stop himself, he was nodding his head. "Pizza sounds good," he said to her.
He stood up and walked by her side towards the main road, letting her guide the way. He slowed his pace to match hers, amazed that she was walking so confidently in those heels. He swore that heels had never been that tall when he was a young man in the '40s.
"So," she began, unable to take the silence, "tell me what was wrong with those dates you went on."
"Where do I begin?"
"That bad, huh?" she asked him, stopping at the crossing as cars drove by. She looked over to him as he kept his hands stuffed into his leather jacket.
"That bad," he confirmed. "I don't get it, really. I mean, I haven't exactly dated in a lot of years, but not one of them asked me what I did or anything like that. It was almost as though they wanted to show themselves off…trying to impress me…telling me how handsome I was."
"Oh no," she said, sarcasm in her voice as they went to cross the road. "How terrible."
Bucky chuckled again and she laughed once before nodding her head.
"I know what you mean," she assured him. "Well, I mean, no I don't because I have never had anyone focus on how good looking I am."
Bucky was about to comment and say objectively how stupid that would be. He looked at her profile and couldn't help but think how pretty she was. But what he first noticed about her was her devotion to work. When he had been at the museum he would always walk past her at night and she would be so focused on her work. She would have this determined glint in her eye. He never saw her look distracted or bored. If anything, he wondered what a girl like her did in her free time or if she just lived at work.
"It isn't as flattering as you would think," he chose to say to her and she shrugged.
"I guess not," she said to him as they walked down another street and the commuting crowd thinned out as many of them headed for the subway. "So, what brings you to D.C.? I would have thought that you would have gone back to New York? That was where you lived, right? When you were younger?"
"No hiding my past from you, is there?"
"Hey, I only know what is written in textbooks," she defended herself.
"And a lot of that has stuff omitted from it," he said in a low drawl. "But New York…one day I'll probably go back but I just fancied a change. Steve told me how he had lived in D.C. for a while and he enjoyed it. I thought that I would give it a try."
"And how do you find it?" she wondered.
He took a moment, choosing to decide on what words to use. "Busy," he settled on. "Like people are so focused on getting to where they have to go and do what they have to do that they don't have time for anything else…to see anything else."
Evelyn nodded. "I guess we all just get swept up in our own lives," she responded to him. "I mean, we get set in a routine and deviating from that routine seems odd."
"Routines aren't always what they are cracked up to be," Bucky said to her earnestly.
"I don't know," she responded with a shrug of her shoulders. "I quite like the structure of everything. I know that might sound boring, but I have always been one for structure. I just think…it lets you keep yourself grounded. You know what you are doing."
"So you've never done anything spontaneous?" he wondered from her.
"I once tried oysters," she said and Bucky wondered if she was being serious. He chuckled at her and she smiled, looking back at him and shrugging. "What?"
Shaking his own head, he looked to the sky for a moment and then back to her. "If that is the most spontaneous thing that you have done then I worry," he replied.
"Hey, I get on just fine on my own, thank you," she said haughtily. "Anyway, we're almost here."
Bucky nodded and held the door to the restaurant open for her. She stepped in and he got a whisk of her perfume. She smelled like flowers. A soft floral smell came from her neck. It was a mixture of what he thought was violet and berries with a hint of jasmine. It was nice, he couldn't deny it. She asked for a table for two and the manager of the restaurant clearly recognised her. She made sure to introduce Bucky as a friend of hers before he could jump to any conclusions. Bucky nodded at him and followed her to the table at the back of the room. She ordered a glass of wine and Bucky ordered a beer.
Slipping from her coat, Bucky watched her pull her lanyard from her neck and toss it into her bag by her feet. She began asking him about what it was he was getting up to while he was in D.C. and he answered her by honestly saying that he wasn't doing much. She never pushed anything. Instead she asked him light questions, seemingly knowing that he had boundaries. In turn he asked her about what it was she had done before she worked at the museum. Turned out that she had always worked at the Smithsonian, moving between museums since she graduated college after majoring in History. She had parents who lived in Florida, but she rarely saw them. She had no siblings and lived in a one bed apartment in a complex just off 17th Street North West.
He worked out that she had two best friends who had moved away from D.C. One had gotten married and was expecting a baby and the other was currently on secondment at a law firm in London. He watched her eat her slice of pizza delicately and she insisted on paying for the bill once they were done, despite Bucky's insistence. In his day he would have insisted on paying, but he had to remember that they were no longer in his day.
"Let me walk you home," he said to her once they were back on the sidewalk, the sun now completely set and the night dark over them.
"I only live a couple of blocks away. I've done this walk so many times. I'll be fine."
"You probably would be, but I think that I would feel better," Bucky admitted to her.
"If you insist," she shrugged.
Bucky walked by her side as they remained in silence. She had her arms wrapped around herself and Bucky realised that this was not who he was. He had been a confident young man when he had been in New York in the '40s. He had been able to talk to women. He had been overly confident. But since he had gotten back, he had no interest in dating, not seriously anyway. He had tried online dating to feel normal, but if anything it had made him feel anything but normal. Maybe he didn't need to move on like that. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to and after spending an evening with Evelyn he wondered if she was lonely as he was.
"Would you like to do this again?" he asked, blurting it out without even really thinking. Instead he watched her move into her bag and find her keys out. She looked to him as soon as he had finished asking her the question. She nodded once at him.
"You're sure?" she asked from him. "I mean, you don't have to hang out with me if you don't want to."
"And if I want to?"
"Then I would question why," she replied to him earnestly. "I mean, I don't think I am anything like the usual crowd you hang out with."
Bucky snorted. "You say that like it is a bad thing," he said to her. "But you're…well…you're nice, Evelyn. You're…" he trailed off for a moment and turned around, looking down the street. Evelyn's brows arched on her forehead and she wondered what was wrong.
"Are you okay?" she asked him.
Bucky kept his gaze down the street and he swore that he saw something. But he couldn't be certain. His imagination did get away with him. It was like his dreams. He had spent so long in his life being paranoid that sometimes he didn't know what he was seeing.
"Hey," Evelyn said in a soft voice, daring to move a hand to his normal arm. He could feel the heat of her touch as he turned his gaze back to her, seeing that he was unnerving her.
"Yeah," Bucky said with a nod. "Sorry, force of habit."
"It's alright," she responded. "But you're sure that you're okay?"
"Fine," he said, trying to sound certain. "Is this you?"
"Yeah," she said, looking up to her apartment block and holding her keys in her hands. "Are you going to be fine getting home? Do you want me to call you a cab or anything?"
"I'll walk. I'll be fine," Bucky promised her and she moved her hand from his arm. "What are you doing tomorrow night?"
"Oh," she said and he swore he saw her face fall with disappointment. "I have an event at the museum tomorrow night that I said I would help out with. We have this new part of a space shuttle being sent from NASA and it is the unveiling. It should be done by like ten."
"Another time then," Bucky said.
"Unless you're not doing anything later in the evening?" she asked, unable to stop herself. "It's Friday so, you know, I don't have to be in bed by ten," she joked.
"I'll wait for you outside the museum at ten," he said to her.
"You're sure?"
"I'll be there," he responded. "Goodnight, Evelyn."
"Goodnight…Mr Barnes," she said and she realised how formal that sounded and Bucky chuckled at hearing her.
"I think you can call me Bucky," he said with a teasing tone.
"Bucky," she repeated his name and he remained stood where he was. She didn't exactly know how to say goodbye to him and she chose to wave softly in his direction before turning to her building. Bucky watched her unlock the main door to the block and head inside. She gave him a soft smile once she was inside and then disappeared to the elevator.
Bucky was about to leave before he got that familiar feeling once again. He swore that there was someone watching. He looked to Evelyn's apartment block and knew that she would be safe. Why would anyone be after her? Why would anyone really be after him? He had no idea, but instead of going home he moved to the building across the road and climbed the fire escape until he came to the roof. He looked across at her building and down to the street before seeing a light suddenly turn on in a room. He looked across and saw her moving around the room. She reached behind herself to toss her heels off, holding onto her kitchen worktop to steady herself.
She pulled her hair into her hands and draped it over a shoulder, yawning into her hand before tugging her coat off and hanging it up, her bag following it. Moving to the curtains, she closed the night out and Bucky remained where he was, making sure for certain that no one had followed her or him. He had only intended to stay for a few minutes, but as he watched Evelyn move into her bedroom and close those curtains, the lights turning off afterwards, he found himself staying a lot longer than that.
….
A/N: Do let me know what you think!