Free Falling

Chapter 4

Time passed exceedingly fast for Dani. She didn’t see Steve every day. It seemed that she jumped around to whenever he would need help, either emotionally or against somebody with whom he’d picked a fight. Sometimes that would be in two consecutive days, and once the gap between was nearly a month. But the two grew closer with every event. Bucky’s suspicion lingered, of what, Dani didn’t know. But he seemed to trust he for the most part, regardless. The fact that she regularly beat up Steve’s assailants or helped him escape them made her wonderful in his eyes. He eventually opened up to her as Steve had.
His family was significantly richer than Steve’s, which bothered Bucky significantly. What really frustrated him was that the smaller blond wouldn’t take help unless he really needed it. Dani knew firsthand how that was. Every time she wanted to take them to go eat something, it was an ordeal to convince Steve. She had eventually told him that she was homeless by choice and that she had enough money to support herself, which made matters a bit easier. She didn’t want to live with anyone because she never knew when she would wake up and find she had missed days, and figured it would be easier to hide it if she just lived in the park in the crate.
Bucky’s other main trouble was that he couldn’t get a girl. Dani thought this was hilarious, given how he was in the first Captain America movie, but decided to help him out. She directed him to learn to dance, what to say to a girl and what not to say, and very quickly he had a new girl on his arm every other week. Dani wasn’t sure whether she thought that it was funny or not. She’d created a monster.
Four years had passed for the boys since she had met them, making them both fourteen. For her it had been four months. More often in recent weeks, she had started jumping through time during the day while she was awake. It felt exactly like it did the first time she had jumped, and it was terrifying, but she had about a one minute warning now before it happened. It was funny some of the time, trying to end a conversation with Steve so she could leave and time-jump where he couldn’t see. This was unsurprisingly stressful.
The constant state of alert made her lose weight, which helped to create the illusion of aging as it made her face more gaunt. She had pretended to be thirteen when she met them and pulled it off, which meant that she would be about seventeen now. She had to use makeup, found in her bag, to make it look like she had stubble. Lowering her voice proved to be a difficult but necessary and effective way of creating the impression that she was older. She only hoped that they wouldn’t think to question why she never grew vertically.
XXX
The years zipped by. Her time with them became more infrequent, going as long as six months once. Steve’s mom died. Steve got a job drawing on commission, which really didn’t pay well, but his physical health wouldn’t allow for a better job. Bucky lived off his parent’s money, going to college for a business degree. Both were just entering their early twenties. Dani, according to her app, had only been in this dimension for ten months, making her just over nineteen. The two believed her to be twenty-three, which was difficult to portray, given her physicality. Steve was only an inch shorter than her, and even he had broader shoulders than she did. Everywhere they went, Bucky was teased for hanging around two weaklings. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind. There was also the fact that Dani was pretty good at beating people up when it was really necessary.
She had discovered that whenever Steve’s life was in danger, that initial extra strength she had gotten while swinging the punch that first day returned. An increased level of agility accompanied that strength, making it ridiculously easy for her to take down Steve’s attackers. Unfortunately, Dani only got those boosts if Steve’s life actually was in danger. The remainder of the time, if she stepped in she was pounded into gravy alongside him. In spite of this, she seemed to have gotten along mostly unscathed until the present.
Life before her dimension-jump seemed ever increasingly like a distant bad dream. She missed her family, that much was true, but never had she felt this happy, wanted, included and independent, even if all her necessities did come out of a temperamental and unreliable bag. She found herself wishing that she wouldn’t be done with her assignment in this dimension anytime soon.
XXX
This had to be the end.
Dani found Steve being whaled on in a very familiar alleyway. This should be right before he became Captain America, at the beginning of the first movie. She didn’t want this to end.
Sighing, she ran in and rammed her shoulder into the small of the attacker’s back. He was barely effected. Dani prepared to get her butt handed to her yet again as he turned around.
Steve whacked a garbage can lid on the back of the man’s head as the taller attacker hauled back a fist, undoubtedly preparing to smash her face in.
As he turned around to face Steve again, Dani kicked him between the legs in a moment of stupidity. The man froze, huffing out of his nose in pain. Then, slowly, he turned to face Dani.
Suddenly, she was being held off her feet by a strong hand at her throat. Her vision blurred as she pulled and beat at the unyielding arm and Steve panickily showered the man’s back with punches. A quick backhand knocked the tenacious blonde to the ground. Bucky, where the hell are you!? Dani mentally screamed as she felt herself slipping unconscious. Right on cue, Bucky heroically stalked into the alley and pulled the brute off of her. As he ran the attacker off, Dani gasped for air and grabbed at her sore throat.
“You know, Danny, it’s hilarious how you can beat up guys four times your size one day and then get completely pounded the next,” Bucky chuckled. Dani couldn’t help a wheezy laugh at that comment. “Are you ok?” She hoarsely replied in the affirmative. The two hauled Steve to his feet.
Dani tuned out during the whole conversation. She already knew that Bucky was going to be deployed the next day and that they were going to the expo. I’m not ready for this to end… I can’t even warn them about what’s gonna come. She glanced guiltily at Bucky, knowing what his fate would be.
“Come on, Dan, you’re upset that I’m getting deployed too? I’m gonna save America!” Bucky joked, seeing her sad face and misinterpreting its cause. Dani pulled herself out of it and walked with them down the alley, wordless.
XXX
“You two are about to be the last eligible men in New York,” Bucky grinned at the two as they walked through the expo. “You know, there’s three and a half million women here.” Dani snorted.
“Hell, I’d settle for just one,” Steve retorted, only half joking.
“Good thing I took care of that,” Bucky casually commented as he waved a group of girls over.
There were THREE girls, not two like in the movie.
With dawning horror, Dani realized that one was for her. They didn’t know that she was a girl herself, as straight one at that… she leaned over to Bucky.
“…I have a girlfriend,” she whispered in wide-eyed panic, not knowing what else to say to get her out of this. Bucky jumped, clearly startled.
“And you never told me this?”
“I… uh…”
“Holy cow, Danny!” was all he could say. “…Just… hang out with her for tonight, ok?” he requested. “You don’t have to do anything with her, just be friendly.” Finally, Dani nodded. This was going to be a long night.
XXX
It was all over. Bucky had gone home to get some rest, Steve had gone off to try to enlist… she would cry if it wasn’t for Victoria.
Victoria was the girl Dani had been stuck with. She was the clingiest person Dani had ever known or could ever hope to know. She was currently hanging on to Dani’s hand with a death grip and talking her ear off. This wouldn’t do at all, Dani needed time to mourn the loss of her friends.
“Victoria.” The girl continued to chatter incessantly. “…Victoria.” She said, a little more forcefully. “Hey!” Finally, her tormenter stopped to breathe, and Dani cut in. “Look, you wanna go back to my place? It’s just a crate in an alley, but it’s really homey.” That did the trick. I should have thought of that sooner, Dani thought as she watched Victoria sputter and then run off. Sighing, she reached into her bag to check the time with her phone. Her hand brushed against a bundle of papers that hadn’t been there earlier.
The light of the streetlamp revealed them to be… enlistment papers. Approved enlistment papers, with her name on them. The division was the 107th… That was Bucky’s division!
Her heart simultaneously soared and dropped as she realized that her time with her friends was not over… but she would have to go to war. Tomorrow, bright and early. Hallelujah…

Notes