Retrograde▸bucky barnes

4. Transit

"How do you do, coffee shop girl?"

Lena grasped it, finding it slightly warmer than she expected, "I'm well, army officer, thank you." she said, grinning at the joke.

"Would you care to join me on the subway?" he said, offering out his right arm.

Confused, Lena raised an eyebrow.

"There's another level of 'the vintage fleet,'" he said, pointing to another descending staircase.

"I would in fact be delighted to join you," Lena said, accepting his arm as he led the way toward the stairs. She was acutely aware of the bulk of his arm, his bicep flexing slightly as their weight shifted as they descended.

Hand around his arm felt reminiscent of her youth, in the days of recent marriage and wandering Berlin under the shadow of Nazi control, a lull of false security. Except this time she felt perfectly safe, despite barely knowing the man beside her.

"And why did you choose this particular museum as today's adventure?" Lena asked.

"It's one of my favorite museums," he said, "It preserves the past, but not in the pretentious way that some of the high end museums do. It feels like a more truthful depiction of what New York was once like. And it's comforting to be away from the rest of the world and exist in the past for a few hours."

Lena nodded as they passed through the lower platform and began to weave through the cars. Instead of the wordless jazz that had been playing in the main museum above, aged sounds of subway traffic played through the speakers, jumbled voices and screeching of trolley brakes. It felt as if they were jumping through decades as they wandered through the various streetcars and subway cars housed there.

"This one is probably my favorite," Bucky said as they neared the last car, "it's the oldest in the collection."

"Oh?" Lena said as they entered from what likely would have been an open air space to ride on the end of the car.

"They were some of the earlier electric self-propelled cars. All this old wood, although probably not original," Bucky said, running a hand across the surface, "is on a steel frame. This particular one would have likely carried people to and from the 1939 World's Fair."

"Is there a story there?" Lena said, feeling that he had something more to say.

He briefly considered how best to tell the story, for it was he who was twenty-two at the time and living the life that had been promised him, the American Dream.

"My grandfather was in his twenties at the time, and he would always tell us stories about going with his best friend and the people they met and the things they did," he said, trying to keep the splay of reminiscence from his face. So concentrated on rearranging his own features however that he failed to notice Lena's gazing into the past.

The streetcar reminded Lena of the summer of '39 and the days spent touring Berlin's streets newly married. It reminded her of a time she'd felt happy. She shook her head, clearing her mind of thoughts of so long ago, days that she had no proof of ever occurring.

Both Bucky and Lena returned to the present at similar moments - Bucky suddenly remembering the croissants he'd brought - and Lena remembering that she was supposed to be on a fun adventure with a stranger she had met only two weeks before.

"Croissant?" Bucky asked, reaching into an interior coat pocket, "these are from my favorite bakery."

Lena accepted the pastry, pulling it apart neatly as they sat down on the aging seats, shoulder to shoulder. "I think these are better than the grocery store ones that I get."

"Yes, but those ones are still good."

"These taste like my grandmother made them on a weekend afternoon on a cold winter day and I've just come in from playing outside in the snow."

Bucky chuckled, "I would bring a counterpoint and say they taste more like random meetings in a random coffee shop that feels like coming across a long lost friend."

"Or like the coffee shop girl and army officer on the beginnings of their covert mission to save the subway system from collapse."

"I don't think the subway system is going anywhere. It's the most reliable thing around here. Even after whatever that alien invasion was and everything else in the past decade, it's the only thing that's been the same."

"If it can withstand an alien invasion it must be the real deal," Lena laughed.

They wandered their way back through the museum and up to the street level where they found the nearest coffee shop and got drinks to go. Finding that they lived both in the same general direction they walked several blocks together before parting ways.

"What are you doing next Tuesday?" Bucky asked just as Lena was turning to go.

"Nothing much..."

"Can I interest you in a more pretentious museum tour?"

"How pretentious are we speaking?"

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art?"

"I have never been to the MET you know," Lena said, wondering why on earth this man had such interest in New York's historical and artistic places.

"It's settled then."

"I'll look forward to part two of 'Tuesday Museum Trips with Coffee Shop Girl and Army Officer,'" Lena said.

Bucky grinned sheepishly as he turned and walked down an opposing street. She watched after him wondering why this man felt so familiar, like a piece of the world in which she had grown up, yet was barely more than a stranger.

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a/n:  apologies for switching from single to omniscient third person, i love the idea that anyone reading this is following along with a lot of details about bucky that lena doesn't know, but i want to include some of them to make sure it's making sense in comparison with the sprinklings of telling lena's story. thanks for reading! let me know what you think

xx