Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 29

This chapter was originally planned to not happen until the end of the story, but sometimes your characters take on a life of their own and don't behave the way you –wish- they would behave. Perhaps it's because the –last- chapter featured Tony Stark and we all know the Iron Man rarely does as he's told. Or maybe it's because readers have expressed a desire to pull our heroine further into the action and that has sparked a whole –new- range of possibilities. Or maybe it's a little bit of both?

Thanks for reading!

X

Chapter 29

"He's an asshole," Jacquie said. "Don't tell me I didn't warn you! A guy like that can get any girl he wants."

"Steve's not like that." Bernice tipped her spoon upside-down and stuck it into her mouth. Not even the decadence of Chunky Monkey enough to make her feel better.

"Just give me the address of this gym of his you said he owns," Jacquie said, her black eyes fierce with righteous indignation. "I'll have a whole dump truck full of dead fish delivered to his doorstep."

That got a smirk out of Bernice, but only for a second. First she had made excuses for his late arrival, telling all her friends it wasn't like Steve to be late and he had a very important job. Then she'd gotten angry, silently fuming as her friends had given her that knowing look and told her she deserved better. When her friends had begun to leave the exhibit and she realized he wasn't coming, she had cried. Then she'd gotten angry again, leaving three messages on Steve's voicemail, the last one telling him what an asshole he was and informing him she was going home. Then she'd thought better of it, remembering that in his line of work sometimes you have to save the world, and called back, leaving a message apologizing. And then she had cried some more. Right now, her eyes were so red-rimmed from crying that she didn't have any tears left to shed. So now it was on to every jilted girlfriend's Plan B … Ben and Jerry's.

Bernice stuck the spoon back into the pint and half-heartedly scooped out another bite. She and Ben and Jerry had developed quite the friendly little ménage au trois back when Mike had dumped her for a new job at the biggest law firm in town. Although at least Mike had the decency to dump her in the privacy of their apartment. Not in front of fifty of her closest friends, art students, and former professors at a digital art exhibit which featured some of her concept art for video games.

"He wouldn't just not show up like that without a reason," Bernice said, her heart screaming 'please please please please' but the sick feeling in her gut calling her a loser.

"What?" Jacquie said in her usual blunt style. "What could have been so important that the guy couldn't at least pick up the phone and call you?"

"He's ….um…" Bernice trailed off.

How could she tell her best friend why she was so willing to give Steve the benefit of the doubt without spilling classified information? Not that Jacquie knew a lot, but she did know Steve Rogers was one of the soldiers who'd saved New York. She hadn't been working for Stark Industries the first time she'd bumped into him at her grandmother's nursing home. She'd told Jacquie all about hot guy who'd shown up to speak to her grandmother instead of the geriatric they'd been expecting. After that, Grandma Peggy had given her a stern lecture about protecting people's identities so the bad guys didn't show up at their doorstep. Bernice had been evasive about the mystery man ever since, not willing to lie to Jacquie, but not volunteering what little truth she knew, either.

What if Steve had deliberately blown her off? It wouldn't be the first time some guy she'd been seeing suddenly broke things off. As a matter of fact, right about now was usually when that sort of thing happened, although usually it didn't happen until after the third date. The curse of the third date. What was it with guys, always expecting to get laid on the third date? Not that Steve…