Chapter 3
Carmen’s POV
Once we’ve calmed ourselves down at the park, we go back to my house so I can clean myself up before we go out to find Steve. I wash my face and put a bit of makeup on to both make me look a bit less like I’ve just cried my soul out, and because there’s a certain handsome man sitting in my living room talking with my mother.
I walk downstairs and finally get a good look at him. I couldn’t really tell that he was wearing his new uniform through all the tears, but he looks good, like really good.
“Ready to go Buck?”
“Sure.”
“C’mon. Bye Mamá.” We walk out the door and then towards town. “So have you seen him at all today?” I ask, trying to keep my breathing steady, as my emotions are still kind of all over the place.
“No, I thought about looking through his usual spots before I came to you, but I just wanted to ‘rip the Band-Aid off’ as quickly as possible.” He replies and I speed up my pace to match his large steps.
“I didn’t hear him mention about planning on doing anything yesterday… Oh shit!” I stop in my tracks and Bucky turns around to face me,
“What?! What is it?!” he asks with urgent fear in his voice.
“No, no, it’s not bad, I just forgot, I was going to meet him at the cinema, we were going to watch a movie to distract me from you. Actually, he’d probably be there now, if he made it through the whole movie without pissing someone off.” Steve was a great guy, but he had a habit of standing up for others and then biting off more than he could chew, meaning he would always get beat up. I know what he’s doing is good, and you shouldn’t let bullies do what-ever they want, but with Steve’s small size, and multiple health conditions, he never wins.
We make our way over to the movies but before we reach there, we hear grunting and banging around. Hoping it’s Steve, Bucky marches in front of me, grabs the idiot that’s beating Steve, while saying,
“Hey! Pick on someone your own size!” He pushes him away from Steve and then punches him and kicks him away. The boy runs away as I help Steve up and check that he’s okay. “Sometimes I think you like getting punched.” Bucky chuckles at Steve’s grunted reply of,
“I had him on the ropes.”
“Right, totally. So how many times is this?” I say, grabbing his forged enlistment form from the ground.
“Oh, so you’re from Paramus now,” Bucky says after taking the paper from my hands.
“Steve, you do know it’s illegal to lie on your enlistment forms, right?” I ask.
“And seriously, Jersey?” Bucky finishes for me, but then Steve takes in Bucky’s uniform.
“You get your orders?” He asks Bucky in a sad tone with a shed of jealousy in it.
“The 107th, Sergeant James Barnes, shipping off for England first thing tomorrow.” The tears fill my eyes with no warning and my throat feels like something climbed down there and is trying to break free, much like the tears trying to escape from my eyes.
“I should be going.” Steve replies with a grave sense of bitterness. Bucky and I look at each other before each grabbing one of Steve’s arms and looping our own between them.
“C’mon” Bucky chuckles. “It’s my last night, we’ve got to get you cleaned up.”
“Why? Where are we going?” Steve asks me.
“Don’t look at me, I have nothing to do with this!” We both know we need to distract our friend tonight, but what Bucky suggests next comes out of nowhere.
“The Future. I was thinking a double date.” My stomach drops.