First
Chapter – Soulmate
When my hand touched his, some kind of energy sparkled in my fingers, travelled through my arm and spread in all my body with a tingling sensation. It was a strange feeling, but also a good one. Like a chain reaction, his eyes were immediately in mine and I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to.
I knew why I was feeling strange, I recognized the name because it was tattoed on my right shoulder’s skin since I was ten, but it was impossible for this guy to be HIM. He died in 1945 in a plane crash in the Artic and I’ve seen pictures of him and this little guy is too thin and too short to be the same man.
“What...” he stammered without breaking our eye contact: “What did you say your name was?”
“Maxime.” I took a deep breath before talking again, I knew what he wanted to hear: “Maxime Maria Stark.”
His eyes grew even more if it was possible when he heard my full name, they seemed baseballs and in that moment I knew that he was the Steve Rogers, my soulmate.
“I never thought I would meet you.” he murmured studing me from head to toe with wonder: “I never imagined you to be so...”
“Strange?” I supplied when he was struggling to find words. It wasn’t the first time a boy called me that and I wouldn’t fault him for it.
“Beautiful.” he finished blushing furiously.
I have to say I was surprised by his choice of word, but I couldn’t help myself and I started laughting without control. Nobody had ever said something like that to me and I was sure that his sight needed a check up. I stopped when I noticed that my reaction was misunderstood by Steve because he began to shift his weight nervously from one foot to the other.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be rude, but you are the first one to say something like that to me.” I said with tears caused by laughter escaping my eyes and I dryed them with the back of my left hand: “It’s hard for me to believe that you are serious.”
“Well, I think that a lot of people should have their sight checked by a good doctor.” Steve said with a stronger voice and determination, but his cheeks were always red and he tried to avoid my gaze.
A smile appeard on my lips at his words. If he really was my soulmare, I was lucky because he was a really sweet guy, but I had to be sure so I asked: “Can I see your mark?”
He stilled at my words and hesitated, but than he started to unbotton his shirt and to reveal his right shoulder: his soulmark was there, my name tatooed on his skin with my messy handwrite.
When he didn’t ask to see mine in return, I was confused because I believed him to be curious as much as me: “Do you want to see the one I have?”
His eyes grew in surprise, but he didn’t speak so I showed him anyway understanding that he was very shy and a gentleman at the same time. He would never ask a woman to undress herself in a public place like the one we were in.
Only in that momenti I realized that we were in the middle of Time Square, but its design was quite diffrent from the one I was familiar with because it came from a time period settled between the end of the 30’s and the beginning of the ‘40s, I wasn’t sure about the exact year I was in, but it was clear that I had somehow time travelled even if I never knew I could go so far back.
I felt his gaze burn on my skin when his eyes landed on my shoulder and slowly followed each letter. His hand hitched at his side as if he wanted to touch it, but than he probably changed his mind thinking that it was a inapropriate thing to do to a woman.
“Would you...” he took a deep breath and I think he was trying to find the courage to ask me something: “Would you like to go to a diner with me? We can eat somenthing and… get to know each other better.”
“Don’t you have something to do?” I asked perplexed.
“Nothing is more important than spend my time with my soul mate.”
“Than I would love to.” I said with a big smile and we started to walk on the sidewalk together in silence without touching each other.
We entered a little building that nearly disappeared between the tall skyscrapers that already existed, but it was cozy and we find a booth in the far left side of the room. It must have been early in the morning hours because there were a lot of people eating their breakfast.
Somehow, I really did travelled in the past, everything around me was clearly old fashined, and my gift must have spiraled out of control. It must have been my camera that took some of my power when I repaired it rewinding my present and channeled it throught its lens to get me here. But… why? Just to meet my soulmate?
“You are thinking really loud.” His voice broke throught my thoughts and I looked up from my hands folded together on the table to see him observing me with a curious look in his eyes.
“Really? Well, I have to say that just like you I never thought I would meet you.” I said with sincerety in my voice using the same words he used before.
“I am sorry to not be what you would have liked me to be.”
I stared him confused leaning back on the couch and crossing my arms before my chest: “And how do you think I have imagined you?”
“Well, I am sure not like me.” he replied shrugging without meeting my inquiring eyes.
“What’s wrong about you?”
He looked at me as if I was crazy, but I waited for his explenation that arrived shortly after: “Well, I am not exactly what most women would call... attractive.”
“I am not most women.” I said resolutely.
“No.” he granted observing my figure with a strange glint in his eyes: “You certainlly are not.”
“So, why do you belittle yourself so much in front of your soulmate?”
“Because...”
“Listen.” I stopped him, leaning forward and laying my arms crossed on the table without interrupting our eye contact: “It seems that women don’t have a lot of brain in the ‘40s. From where I come, women usually try to know someone without judging their look first or I hope so for the future of humankind because otherwise we are doomed. I always hoped to meet you and now that you are in front of me I want to know you better.”
“I want to know you too.” he said with a giant smile and I could finally see how handsome he really was even if he wasnt’t the same Steve Rogers I grew up studing about. Maybe he was short and thin, but inside there was a whole world to discover and I didn’t need or want anything more.
We started to chat about frivolous things like our favourite food, drink, our hobbies and I discovered that he was an artist. He was studing at an art school, that was the place where he was going before meeting me, and in the meanwhile he worked part time to pay the bills with the help of his best friend.
We were interrupted twice by a waitress. The first time she asked what we would have liked to eat, we ordered hot chocolate with a slice of apple pie that Steve said to be his favourite dessert and the second time was when the girl brought our orders to us.
“So you live with Bucky?” I asked before taking the first bite of my pie and humming in pleasure at the amazing taste.
“Yes, we share a little appartment in Brooklyn since my mother death.” he replied eating his cake with a slow pace.
“Oh.” I murmured feeling sorry to have broguht up a sensitive subject: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“It’s ok, don’t worry. It has been two years already.” he said with a said look in his eyes: “She was a nurse and worked in the infectious department. She fell ill one day and her health deteriorated rapidly. We did not have much money at that time… Well, it's not like Bucky and I have a lot more now... But I couldn’t afford to buy the necessary medicines and she died in a week.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. At least, I still have Bucky and even if he is a punk that try to set me up on a date with a dame that don’t want to spend the evening with a man short like me nearly every day, I love him like a brother.”
“I am happy for you, Bucky seems a good guy.”
“He is and I am sure that when you will meet him, you wouldn’t look at me a second time.”
“I have already said it that you belittle yourself too much for my taste and do you really think I am so superficial? I could be offended.” I said with a serious tone.
“No, I didn’t mean to...” he started to apologize, but my laughter stopped him and he looked at me with a confused expression.
“I was kidding, don’t worry.” I reassured him before starting my own sad story: “I’m an only child. I was born from a one night stand between my parents and my mother left me on the door step of my father’s home with just a letter to explain that I was a burden and that she didn’t aborted because of her parents, but she didn’ want to be involved in my life.”
“I am sorry.”
“Just like you said, you don’t have to be. You have Bucky, I have my dad and I love him so much. He works a lot, but he is always there for me when I need him.” I said with a soft smile on my lips.
“Where do you live?” he asked suddenly, our dishes alreay empty.
“Malibù.” I answered without thinking.
“It’s a long journey from the west coast. Is that why you fell from the sky?”
I froze at his words. That was a conversation that I was not ready to have and a diner was not the right place.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I tried to lie, but his eyes were serious and I immediatly knew that it would have been impossible to change the subject.
“You know exactly what I am talking about. I was walking alone on the street when you fell from the sky at my feet and I was the only one that saw you doing it. I won’t tell, I promise, but I need to undestand.” he explained taking my hand in his with a quick movement and smiling at me.
I took a deep breath and decided that I had to be sincere with my soulmate. If he didn’t believe me, nobody would.
“I am not from here.” I said with a sigh.
“Yeah, I got that. You said you live in Malibù.”
“It’s not what I meant.”
“Has it something to do with your strange clothes?” he asked pointing at me with a light gesture.
I looked down to my blue jeans, light pink t-shirt and grey sweatshirt with my brows furrowed: “Do you think that my clothes are strange? For me, yours are.”
“But why?”
I looked around to be sure that nobody was listening to us than I whisperered: “I am from another time.”
He stilled at my word and simply stared at me lost in his thought.
That was it. He was going to laught at me, to say that I was crazy than he was going to leave me and nevere come back.
“You are...”
“From the future.” I supplied: “Novembre 2nd 2011.”
“Wow.” was all he said and I started to squirm under his gaze.
“Say something, please.” I pleaded, I couldn’t stand another second in that silence.
“It’s incredible.”
“But it’s true, you have to believe me.”
“I do.” he said surprising me: “I never thought it was possible to travel throught time, but I don’t see why my soulmate should lie to me.”
Too happy to think clearly, I jumped from my seat and hugged him across the table with all my might thanking him again and again.
“Max, please, I can’t breath.” he laughted amused.
“Oh! I am sorry!” I cried releasing him from my grip and blushing furiously seating again.
“I suppose there is a great story about this time travel thing.”
“Yes, but a diner is not the right place to talk about it.”
“Maybe a walk in the park is a better option?” he asked and both of us stood up from our seats. He left the money for our food on the table and we left the building together.
We had just started to walk towards the park when a strange sensation started to burn inside of me, I felt light headed like everytime I used my power for too long and I immediately knew that my time was up.
“I have to go.” I murmured staring at the tiles of the sidewalk. I didn’t want to.
“Why?” he asked unhappy alting our walk and grasping my hand.
“I don’t know, but I can feel that is time for me to return home.”
“Will I see you again?”
I looked up in his pleading eyes: “I hope so. I have just find you and...”
“It’s the same for me, Max.” he said and boldly kissed me on the corner of my lips making both of us blush furiously.
That was the last thing I experienced in the past because the next moment I was lying on the grass in the same park where I went with Chloe and Rachel after school. My best friends were standing over me and they had a worried expression on their faces.
“Max! Are you alright?” asked my blue-headed friend helping me to my feet.
“Yeah, what happened?” I inquired. What happend while I was with Steve? I disappeard?
“We don’t know. After you looked throught the lens, you collapsed on the floor and were unconcious for nearly fifteen minutes.” Rachel esplained to me: “We were about to call your father when you regained conciousness.”
What?! Fifteen minutes? But I was gone for at least two hours!
“Are you alright? You hit you head or something in the other timeline?” Chloe asked worried studing my appearence.
“No, I am alright. It’s… complicated.” I replied checking my camera and looking throught the lens just like I did before hoping to get back to my Steve in a time where he was still alive.
“Complicated how?”
“And what’s this?” asked Rachel bending down to pick something from the grass. Chloe and I turned to look at her and at what she was holding.
It was a polaroid picture, but I was sure that I didn’t took it before my journey. She handed it to me and I studied it surprised.
“Who is he?” asked Chloe looking at the picture over my shoulder.
In the photo, there was Steve seated in the booth of the diner laughting and the perspective of the picture was the same of mine of when I was seated in front of him.
“He’s Steve.”
“He’s cute.” Rachel said with a small smile: “Did you met him at school.”
“No, we would remember someone like hime.” Chloe told her shaking her head: “And look, his clothes are strange.”
“They aren’t strange, they are old fashioned.” I replied putting the photo away. It was a real treasure for me.
“Why would he dress like that?” asked my blue-headed friend perplexed and her girlfriend tried to hit her with her elbow in the side to make her shut up, but the girl was faster and dodge it.
“Because he live in another time.” I simply said: “He is Steve Rogers, my soulmate.”
I knew why I was feeling strange, I recognized the name because it was tattoed on my right shoulder’s skin since I was ten, but it was impossible for this guy to be HIM. He died in 1945 in a plane crash in the Artic and I’ve seen pictures of him and this little guy is too thin and too short to be the same man.
“What...” he stammered without breaking our eye contact: “What did you say your name was?”
“Maxime.” I took a deep breath before talking again, I knew what he wanted to hear: “Maxime Maria Stark.”
His eyes grew even more if it was possible when he heard my full name, they seemed baseballs and in that moment I knew that he was the Steve Rogers, my soulmate.
“I never thought I would meet you.” he murmured studing me from head to toe with wonder: “I never imagined you to be so...”
“Strange?” I supplied when he was struggling to find words. It wasn’t the first time a boy called me that and I wouldn’t fault him for it.
“Beautiful.” he finished blushing furiously.
I have to say I was surprised by his choice of word, but I couldn’t help myself and I started laughting without control. Nobody had ever said something like that to me and I was sure that his sight needed a check up. I stopped when I noticed that my reaction was misunderstood by Steve because he began to shift his weight nervously from one foot to the other.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be rude, but you are the first one to say something like that to me.” I said with tears caused by laughter escaping my eyes and I dryed them with the back of my left hand: “It’s hard for me to believe that you are serious.”
“Well, I think that a lot of people should have their sight checked by a good doctor.” Steve said with a stronger voice and determination, but his cheeks were always red and he tried to avoid my gaze.
A smile appeard on my lips at his words. If he really was my soulmare, I was lucky because he was a really sweet guy, but I had to be sure so I asked: “Can I see your mark?”
He stilled at my words and hesitated, but than he started to unbotton his shirt and to reveal his right shoulder: his soulmark was there, my name tatooed on his skin with my messy handwrite.
When he didn’t ask to see mine in return, I was confused because I believed him to be curious as much as me: “Do you want to see the one I have?”
His eyes grew in surprise, but he didn’t speak so I showed him anyway understanding that he was very shy and a gentleman at the same time. He would never ask a woman to undress herself in a public place like the one we were in.
Only in that momenti I realized that we were in the middle of Time Square, but its design was quite diffrent from the one I was familiar with because it came from a time period settled between the end of the 30’s and the beginning of the ‘40s, I wasn’t sure about the exact year I was in, but it was clear that I had somehow time travelled even if I never knew I could go so far back.
I felt his gaze burn on my skin when his eyes landed on my shoulder and slowly followed each letter. His hand hitched at his side as if he wanted to touch it, but than he probably changed his mind thinking that it was a inapropriate thing to do to a woman.
“Would you...” he took a deep breath and I think he was trying to find the courage to ask me something: “Would you like to go to a diner with me? We can eat somenthing and… get to know each other better.”
“Don’t you have something to do?” I asked perplexed.
“Nothing is more important than spend my time with my soul mate.”
“Than I would love to.” I said with a big smile and we started to walk on the sidewalk together in silence without touching each other.
We entered a little building that nearly disappeared between the tall skyscrapers that already existed, but it was cozy and we find a booth in the far left side of the room. It must have been early in the morning hours because there were a lot of people eating their breakfast.
Somehow, I really did travelled in the past, everything around me was clearly old fashined, and my gift must have spiraled out of control. It must have been my camera that took some of my power when I repaired it rewinding my present and channeled it throught its lens to get me here. But… why? Just to meet my soulmate?
“You are thinking really loud.” His voice broke throught my thoughts and I looked up from my hands folded together on the table to see him observing me with a curious look in his eyes.
“Really? Well, I have to say that just like you I never thought I would meet you.” I said with sincerety in my voice using the same words he used before.
“I am sorry to not be what you would have liked me to be.”
I stared him confused leaning back on the couch and crossing my arms before my chest: “And how do you think I have imagined you?”
“Well, I am sure not like me.” he replied shrugging without meeting my inquiring eyes.
“What’s wrong about you?”
He looked at me as if I was crazy, but I waited for his explenation that arrived shortly after: “Well, I am not exactly what most women would call... attractive.”
“I am not most women.” I said resolutely.
“No.” he granted observing my figure with a strange glint in his eyes: “You certainlly are not.”
“So, why do you belittle yourself so much in front of your soulmate?”
“Because...”
“Listen.” I stopped him, leaning forward and laying my arms crossed on the table without interrupting our eye contact: “It seems that women don’t have a lot of brain in the ‘40s. From where I come, women usually try to know someone without judging their look first or I hope so for the future of humankind because otherwise we are doomed. I always hoped to meet you and now that you are in front of me I want to know you better.”
“I want to know you too.” he said with a giant smile and I could finally see how handsome he really was even if he wasnt’t the same Steve Rogers I grew up studing about. Maybe he was short and thin, but inside there was a whole world to discover and I didn’t need or want anything more.
We started to chat about frivolous things like our favourite food, drink, our hobbies and I discovered that he was an artist. He was studing at an art school, that was the place where he was going before meeting me, and in the meanwhile he worked part time to pay the bills with the help of his best friend.
We were interrupted twice by a waitress. The first time she asked what we would have liked to eat, we ordered hot chocolate with a slice of apple pie that Steve said to be his favourite dessert and the second time was when the girl brought our orders to us.
“So you live with Bucky?” I asked before taking the first bite of my pie and humming in pleasure at the amazing taste.
“Yes, we share a little appartment in Brooklyn since my mother death.” he replied eating his cake with a slow pace.
“Oh.” I murmured feeling sorry to have broguht up a sensitive subject: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“It’s ok, don’t worry. It has been two years already.” he said with a said look in his eyes: “She was a nurse and worked in the infectious department. She fell ill one day and her health deteriorated rapidly. We did not have much money at that time… Well, it's not like Bucky and I have a lot more now... But I couldn’t afford to buy the necessary medicines and she died in a week.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. At least, I still have Bucky and even if he is a punk that try to set me up on a date with a dame that don’t want to spend the evening with a man short like me nearly every day, I love him like a brother.”
“I am happy for you, Bucky seems a good guy.”
“He is and I am sure that when you will meet him, you wouldn’t look at me a second time.”
“I have already said it that you belittle yourself too much for my taste and do you really think I am so superficial? I could be offended.” I said with a serious tone.
“No, I didn’t mean to...” he started to apologize, but my laughter stopped him and he looked at me with a confused expression.
“I was kidding, don’t worry.” I reassured him before starting my own sad story: “I’m an only child. I was born from a one night stand between my parents and my mother left me on the door step of my father’s home with just a letter to explain that I was a burden and that she didn’t aborted because of her parents, but she didn’ want to be involved in my life.”
“I am sorry.”
“Just like you said, you don’t have to be. You have Bucky, I have my dad and I love him so much. He works a lot, but he is always there for me when I need him.” I said with a soft smile on my lips.
“Where do you live?” he asked suddenly, our dishes alreay empty.
“Malibù.” I answered without thinking.
“It’s a long journey from the west coast. Is that why you fell from the sky?”
I froze at his words. That was a conversation that I was not ready to have and a diner was not the right place.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I tried to lie, but his eyes were serious and I immediatly knew that it would have been impossible to change the subject.
“You know exactly what I am talking about. I was walking alone on the street when you fell from the sky at my feet and I was the only one that saw you doing it. I won’t tell, I promise, but I need to undestand.” he explained taking my hand in his with a quick movement and smiling at me.
I took a deep breath and decided that I had to be sincere with my soulmate. If he didn’t believe me, nobody would.
“I am not from here.” I said with a sigh.
“Yeah, I got that. You said you live in Malibù.”
“It’s not what I meant.”
“Has it something to do with your strange clothes?” he asked pointing at me with a light gesture.
I looked down to my blue jeans, light pink t-shirt and grey sweatshirt with my brows furrowed: “Do you think that my clothes are strange? For me, yours are.”
“But why?”
I looked around to be sure that nobody was listening to us than I whisperered: “I am from another time.”
He stilled at my word and simply stared at me lost in his thought.
That was it. He was going to laught at me, to say that I was crazy than he was going to leave me and nevere come back.
“You are...”
“From the future.” I supplied: “Novembre 2nd 2011.”
“Wow.” was all he said and I started to squirm under his gaze.
“Say something, please.” I pleaded, I couldn’t stand another second in that silence.
“It’s incredible.”
“But it’s true, you have to believe me.”
“I do.” he said surprising me: “I never thought it was possible to travel throught time, but I don’t see why my soulmate should lie to me.”
Too happy to think clearly, I jumped from my seat and hugged him across the table with all my might thanking him again and again.
“Max, please, I can’t breath.” he laughted amused.
“Oh! I am sorry!” I cried releasing him from my grip and blushing furiously seating again.
“I suppose there is a great story about this time travel thing.”
“Yes, but a diner is not the right place to talk about it.”
“Maybe a walk in the park is a better option?” he asked and both of us stood up from our seats. He left the money for our food on the table and we left the building together.
We had just started to walk towards the park when a strange sensation started to burn inside of me, I felt light headed like everytime I used my power for too long and I immediately knew that my time was up.
“I have to go.” I murmured staring at the tiles of the sidewalk. I didn’t want to.
“Why?” he asked unhappy alting our walk and grasping my hand.
“I don’t know, but I can feel that is time for me to return home.”
“Will I see you again?”
I looked up in his pleading eyes: “I hope so. I have just find you and...”
“It’s the same for me, Max.” he said and boldly kissed me on the corner of my lips making both of us blush furiously.
That was the last thing I experienced in the past because the next moment I was lying on the grass in the same park where I went with Chloe and Rachel after school. My best friends were standing over me and they had a worried expression on their faces.
“Max! Are you alright?” asked my blue-headed friend helping me to my feet.
“Yeah, what happened?” I inquired. What happend while I was with Steve? I disappeard?
“We don’t know. After you looked throught the lens, you collapsed on the floor and were unconcious for nearly fifteen minutes.” Rachel esplained to me: “We were about to call your father when you regained conciousness.”
What?! Fifteen minutes? But I was gone for at least two hours!
“Are you alright? You hit you head or something in the other timeline?” Chloe asked worried studing my appearence.
“No, I am alright. It’s… complicated.” I replied checking my camera and looking throught the lens just like I did before hoping to get back to my Steve in a time where he was still alive.
“Complicated how?”
“And what’s this?” asked Rachel bending down to pick something from the grass. Chloe and I turned to look at her and at what she was holding.
It was a polaroid picture, but I was sure that I didn’t took it before my journey. She handed it to me and I studied it surprised.
“Who is he?” asked Chloe looking at the picture over my shoulder.
In the photo, there was Steve seated in the booth of the diner laughting and the perspective of the picture was the same of mine of when I was seated in front of him.
“He’s Steve.”
“He’s cute.” Rachel said with a small smile: “Did you met him at school.”
“No, we would remember someone like hime.” Chloe told her shaking her head: “And look, his clothes are strange.”
“They aren’t strange, they are old fashioned.” I replied putting the photo away. It was a real treasure for me.
“Why would he dress like that?” asked my blue-headed friend perplexed and her girlfriend tried to hit her with her elbow in the side to make her shut up, but the girl was faster and dodge it.
“Because he live in another time.” I simply said: “He is Steve Rogers, my soulmate.”
***
AN: Hi! Here I am with the first chapter and I hope you liked the prologue.
I want to say that my schedule for updates won’t be regular because I wrote the chapters day by day. This is the first story I post written in english from scratch (ok, this is the first one I wrote in english period) and it takes a lot more of time because I check it five times more than the italian fanfictions I write. So, please be patient with me!
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