find me

46. bikers

The journey had taken around five hours. That was the first bus. The second was around six and a half. Bucky had not seemed interested in telling her where exactly they were going, and if she was being completely honest with herself she was too tired to care. After the last conversation they both had actually been so exhausted that they managed to doze off leaning on each other for multiple hours on both journeys. Of course that hadn't dulled the boredom or the ache she now felt in her back. It felt like they had been on a bus for days. For all Natalie knew they could have been in freaking Russia by now.

The small town they had finally stopped at looked more like a ghost town. Streets were so empty she wondered if they had been transported to the times of the great bubonic plague. Why was no one around? It couldn't have been later than eight or nine in the evening.

Bucky had told her there was no way to keep going at that time, all transports had stopped running for the day so they had to find somewhere to sleep in the town. She wasn't ecstatic about picking a random place to sleep in a town in the middle of nowhere, but on the other hand she was very much looking forward to lying down on an actual bed. Neither one of them had access to a map, so they agreed the quickest way was to find someone they could ask for directions to the nearest Hotel. Luckily not far into the high street there was an open pub.

They got in and Natalie told Bucky she was going to sit down at one of the empty tables. Bucky approached the bar and stood there, waiting for the barman to be done with some customers.

Natalie was so focused on the painful burning in her lower back that at first she didn't notice the two tall men who entered the pub, covered in black leathers, helmets at their sides. One seemed to be around the same age as Natalie, maybe only a few years older, very handsome and blonde with green piercing eyes. The second man was visibly older, less striking features but quite handsome nonetheless and much bigger in his size than his friend. The blonde quickly scanned the room as he stepped in and immediately caught Natalie sitting on her own at a small table in the corner. He elbowed the other man he came in with, to get his attention, and slowly but confidently approached Natalie. At that point Bucky had finally been able to start speaking to the bartender and was now having a very focused conversation with him, both of their gazes locked on the phone he was holding in one hand.

Natalie felt her spine lock up immediately as she saw the two men approach her table. Her heartbeat relaxed slightly when they both smiled, in a not particularly psychopathic way, and stopped at a respectful distance from her. She was still on alert, her eyes skirting around the room and specifically looking at Bucky to see if he had noticed them. He probably had registered someone coming into the pub, but he seemed too focus on the map on the bartender's phone to have noticed who they were about to approach.

The man who had started walking towards her, the one with light blonde hair, offered his hand and introduced himself. Natalie didn't take his hand but smiled politely and offered her fake name in return. The same man asked her wether she was visiting the town. Natalie nodded politely, not really knowing what was the best strategy here. Usually if random men in a pub approached her and she didn't want to talk to them she'd just tell them to leave her alone or brush them off to not-so-subtly make them understand she wasn't interested. But in this case there was a bit more at stake, she didn't want to cause a scene or God forbid make them angry. So she pretended to be okay with this absolutely random interaction and replied to his actually quite invasive question. She said she was on holiday with her husband, on their honeymoon. The man laughed, his friend next to him only offering an amused smile, and commented on the fact that no one really came to their town on holiday. Especially not for a honeymoon trip.