So. The missing extra novel I wrote last December, or ok ¾ novel. It was MCU fic, and featured Angie Martinelli as the main character, and Bucky Barnes as the secondary character. The plot was that she’d washed out of her acting career and come upstate to take care of her dying grandmother, and then gotten stuck with the now-dead grandmother’s hoarder house full of junk in this small town. And if she could get the house cleaned up and sold, she’d have enough money to get back down to New York, maybe survive long enough to get a job down there again. But in the meantime, she was stuck in this little town, which I lazily based off the town where I grew up. And so she’s working as a waitress in the 24-hour diner that I stole from a different but similar little town. And this weird guy shows up in town and it’s Bucky and they become friends; he’s brain-damaged and can’t really talk and Angie is enchanted by trying to get him to smile at her, he’s the most interesting thing to happen all year. But SHIELD is looking for Bucky, who escaped them and is just trying to live quietly on his own and not have to kill anymore. (Hey, I wrote this before Civil War even had trailers out, I feel kind of good about that characterization.) And they send Peggy, and it’s all Angie’s POV, but Peggy has twigged that Angie knows something, clearly.
Sort of coincidentally, I not only set the fic in my hometown, I also set it during the time I was growing up. So it’s the late 90s, in this fic; there are flip phones that can text, but if you want Internet you probably have to go to the library.
And everyone’s really homophobic. And Angie’s a lesbian.
So here’s an excerpt, because I’m remembering now how it came from a pretty vivid place for me, and maybe I’m in despair because I remember how fucking terrifying this shit was and we’re barely starting to come out of that and now everything is politically and culturally horrible and we’re sliding backward as a society etcetera.
(And oh yeah the novel switches tenses to present about halfway through, so.)
Angie’s so wound up in thinking what she’ll do that she isn’t paying any attention as she walks to her car. (It’s a small lot. To keep from crowding customers out the employees all park around the corner in a graveled-over little spot under some trees, it’s dark and it’s isolated and at night Jorge walks everybody out but it’s not quite full dark yet so she didn’t ask.) She puts her hand on the door handle, and someone very close says, “Angie,” and she jumps out of her skin oh God they’re not even going to come back to her house this time they’re just going to fucking jump her in the parking lot this time–
It’s Peggy. “Jesus Christ,” Angie says, stumbling against her car.
“Sorry!” Peggy says. “Oh, my god, sorry! I thought you’d see me!”
Angie flattens her hand against her chest as if she can stop her heart from beating so damn fast. Fuck fuck fuck fuck what is she going to do?
She bursts into tears. “Oh my God I thought you– sorry! Sorry–” She puts her face in her hands, Christ, she actually didn’t mean to do this, but it’s all coming back, they came to her house, they tried to break into her house, they weren’t going to kill her right away.
“Angie,” Peggy says, horrified, “Angie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Angie’s crying too hard to talk. It’s mortifying. And fuck, it’s suspicious, Peggy’s going to assume she’s got a guilty conscience. Angie shoves her face in her apron and pulls herself together, deep breath in, you’re gonna get James killed. “It’s not you,” she manages to say. “Christ, I’m sorry, it’s not you– I’m the only goddamn queer in this entire town and sometimes people take exception and I don’t– like it– when people– startle me, I take it bad, I’m sorry.”
“Oh my God,” Peggy says, soft and horrified.
“They came to my house,” Angie says, shaky, “they tried to break in, they weren’t gonna kill me they were just gonna teach me a lesson, I gotta get out of this fuckin’ town.” She wipes her face. Her hands are shaking. “I shouldn’t’a been cute with you before, I shouldn’t’a done that, I know people saw it, they’re okay with the rumors but– you gotta be careful, you can’t be obvious like that, and that was stupid, and I’m sorry I just unloaded all that on you but don’t sneak up on me, okay, don’t sneak up on me, I wasn’t built for this ninja shit.” She starts crying again. Fuck. Well, fuck, fine; she’s good at talking about herself, it’s a good distraction. Not hard to be honest about this.
“I am– so, so sorry,” Peggy says, “oh my God, Angie, I didn’t mean to put you in danger like that. You poor thing!”
“I ain’t here for your goddamn pity,” Angie sobs. She can’t stop shaking.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Peggy says.
“Nobody ever–” Angie shuts her mouth, tries again to pull herself together. “Christ on a fuckin’ crucifix, lady.” She breathes, in, hold, out, repeat. It’s hard to get the air out, her lungs want to hold onto it, like they might not get more. Out. In. Hold. Okay. “I called a friend,” she says. “Cops take a half-hour, and you know, they might not take your side, when they finally show up. I called a friend. He said, get a baseball bat or somethin’ and hide behind the dining room door. That way there’s two exits so they can’t corner you. He said, you just gotta live through it, and kill time, and stay alive as long as you can. That’s what I learned from that: what they leave you, in the end, you gotta try to make a life outta that.” She breathes in, holds, breathes out, makes herself push it out, breathes in again. “He got there before they got the door open. Scared ‘em off. That time. That’s all I got, lady. That’s the space where I live.”
Fuck, she should get a fucking Oscar, except that really wasn’t where she wanted this conversation to go. Too bad.
Peggy doesn’t say anything. Angie breathes a little more. “So that’s the shit you mess with,” she said, “when you come in people’s lives and push shit around, that’s the space you’re takin’ up. You scare people enough, they kill each other. You ask everybody in town about this kid yet? If you found him you wouldn’t be here still talkin’ to me. You wanna see if you can get me to give you somethin’ else, stir up some more shit, maybe next time they’ll just jump me in the fuckin’ parking lot, like I figured you were gonna just now.” Her hands are still shaking. “And then you drive away, back to somewhere you belong, and I gotta live with whatever they leave me.”
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