Part I
[This is after Stark's request to go for shawarma following the Avenger's battle in New York but before the events of the Civil War.]
"I hope this cuisine is better than shawarma," Thor grumbled, shouldering his way through the restaurant door.
Steve smiled. "It is. I can promise. It was recommended to me by a friend and it's good. Apparently sushi is all the rage now."
Thor nodded, unconvinced.
A waitress appeared, dressed in a smart black dress, with a red sash around her waist and hair swept up into a messy bun.
"Good evening gentlemen. I'm Ash and I'll be your waitress for this evening."
"Evening ma'am. A table for seven, please." Steve gestured. "It should be booked under Stark." The waitress looks at him, a smile tugging at her lips. "Sorry, we're a little late," he said.
"Not to worry, sir. The booking for 'best Avengers team ever' is still available." Steve sighed and rolled his eyes at Stark's cheek while Thor chuckled.
"And the others have already arrived. If you'd like to follow me, I'll take you to meet them."
They follow Ash through the restaurant, not noticing the stares or quick intakes of breath from the other customers. She stopped beside an empty table. "This is your table. If you would like to leave anything here, you're most welcome to."
Thor grunted and swung his hammer onto the table, cracking the black wooden varnish. Ash winced slightly.
She grimaces. "The others are out on the patio enjoying some drinks. Would you like to join them or wait here?"
Steve looked guiltily at the crack, "Uh, outside thank you ma'am."
"Of course sir."
As she moved to lead them onto the balcony, the Captain grabbed her arm. "We'll sort out the damage. Just add it to the bill," he said.
She nodded, smiling gratefully and moves on. He watched her leave and take orders from a group of three young, ever so slightly inebriated men. Smiling, he moved to join the others.
Back in the restaurant, Ash was setting the table. After leaning over and around Thor's hammer, almost knocking the cutlery off of the table for the third time, she sighed, frustrated. She glanced at the balcony where all are happily engaged in conversation and quickly, grasps the hammer. A shock of electricity zaps her finger. She sucked on her finger quickly, shook it remove the tingling and them heaved the hammer off the table onto the floor. She rubbed the crack in the table, sadly, knowing that it would probably come out of her wages, no matter what the Captain said. They would never charge customers as prestigious as the Avengers.
With another glance at the silhouettes on the balcony, she deftly laid down the final piece in the elaborate napkin display and then carefully pushed the hammer to sit neatly by the side of the booth.
On her way back to the table to lay out the menus, she was intercepted by Renee, a tall, willowy waitress, who deftly slid the menus out from Ash's arms.
"I'll take care of this" she said smugly. "We need to ensure that these clients receive the very best treatment," and pursing her glossed lips and twining her hair into chunky curls. The dark cherry lipstick was definitely not part of the regulation uniform.
"We see we've got your handles full with table 45," Renee said, pointedly looking over at the three men in the opposite aisle, now trying to volley wasabi peas into each other's drinks and mouths.
"But I've already set the table." Even to her ears, it sounded like a whine. "Fine," Ash sighed. It wasn't worth picking the fight. Ash swept up her wiping cloth and turned away.
She was more annoyed at Renee's presumptions than actually being deprived of the opportunity to talk to the Avengers. Yes, that was it. She tried very hard not to think of the posters pinned on her bedroom wall.
Watching Ash's retreating back, Renee smiled and moves out the patio. "If you'd like to please follow me, your table is ready," she said, her best service smile plastered to her face.
They followed her in, as she swept before them as if she, Renee, was responsible for their very presence. They were rowdy, laughing at Thor recounting, in a booming voice, the time he had bested a two-horned bison.
He turns in front of the rest of the group, enacting the sequence before them, hands gestured wide and face alight. Each Avenger rolled their eyes and smirked with good-natured scepticism.
They are a few steps from the table and Thor is was regaling them of his adventures. "And then I took up my hammer and-"
He stops. The smile, frozen on his face, flattened into a look of concern.
"What is it?" Captain is there. He could sense a sudden tension in his friend. He looked to Thor's line of sight, where his hammer sits, squared neatly beside one side of the booth.
"My hammer."
"Yes, we know Thor, you hit it with your hammer," Tony remarked, ghosting past them and snatching a delicate black bamboo menu from an empty table nearby. "That's all you ever do," he mumbled in a slightly lower voice, finger thumbing through the menu.
Thor, ignoring him strode over to inspect.
"What's up with the big boy?" Tony said, peering over his menu at Thor, who was crouching in front of the hammer and cautiously poking it.
Captain said quietly, "Someone moved his hammer."
"His hammer? But isn't that impossible? All that, 'Only someone worthy…' Oh." Stark fell silent, fingering his goatee thoughtfully.
"WHO has moved my hammer?" Thor boomed.
A sudden hush descended on the restaurant. Renee jogged over, her short black heels rapping smartly on the tiles as she strode.
"I'm sorry sir," she simpered. "What seems to be the issue?"
"Did you move this hammer?"
"Why, I,' she said, deflating slightly, "no, sir."
"Who set this table?"
Bemused at his change of tact, Renee said, "I'm sorry sir, is there an issue with the setting?"
"No issue," Thor said simply and slowly. "I just want to know who set this table." He stooped to pick up his hammer.
The manager, a tall woman with bouncing brown waves of hair, reached Renee's shoulder. "Marion," she said, extending a hand and gracious smile to Thor. "What seems to be the issue here?"
He ignored her proffered hand. "I need to know who set this table," he said, gesturing.
Marion's face, sculpted from years of working in hospitality, only belied an instant of incredulity at the question. Unruffled, she dropped her hand.
"Of course. Well it's our policy that the waitress who serves the table stays with the table the entire night, to ensure a thorough service experience. As Renee here," she said gesturing to the cowed waitress, "has been attending to you, she will have been the one to set it, yes?"
The question was directed to Renee for confirmation, and was met with a slow, reluctant nod.
"Well then. What is the issue with the setting? Would you prefer another table?"
"No, I need to know who moved this hammer!" Thor struck the wooden surface of the table with his hammer. The single table leg splintered under the weight. Black dishes slid with a clatter to the floor, the thin white ceramic crescents that had been holding the chopsticks sliding after them. They smashed in a fine spray of china against the storm grey tiles.
"Sir!" Against herself, Marion took a step back.
Tony moved in beside Thor, grabbing his arm with a warning aside, "Thor. Now is not the time for a temper tantrum."
Shaking him off, Thor growled, "This hammer can only be moved by one worthy of Odin. If she didn't move it-" he gestured his hammer in Renee's direction, "then who did?"
He turned to face the restaurant at large which, in true fashion of a curious crowd, were sneaking glances over the rims of wine glasses and around napkins, all the while determinedly paying no attention at all. Waitresses flowed around the restaurant, swiftly replacing half-eaten cooling dishes with their streaming successors, each with their eyes fixed securely on their clients alone. In the opposite aisle, Ash discreetly moved to block the inquisitive stares of its occupants, as she laid out a tenderly smoked trout.
"Who here has moved this hammer?" Thor cried.
On the opposite table, there was a clang as a fork fell to the floor. The sound reverberated in the silence that followed. Ash scrambled to pick it up, muttering apologies to the elderly couple she had been serving.
"Thor," Tony said exasperated. "It could have been anyone in this restaurant. Whoever did it isn't going to own up with you bristling like a thunder cloud. Let's sit."
A pause. "Now."
Thor nodded. Marion, ever the hostess re-activated. "Well, we'll be needing a new table then won't we gentlemen? And er, lady," she said eyeing Natasha's raised eyebrows. "Until Renee can arrange a new one for you, how about another round of drinks on our deck?"
As they retreated to the deck, now bathed in an orange and pink fresco from the sunset, general hubbub from the restaurant swelled to fill the silence, people talking excitedly about the scene they had witnessed.
Quietly, in the doorway, Steve gently pulled Marion aside. "We'll pay for the damage ma'am, just as we did before."
"Before, Captain?"
They both turned to look at the table, where Ash was sweeping shattered shards from the floor, while Renee carefully tiptoed around her to set another. The table's leg was as bowed as before, but the earlier indent from Thor's hammer was smooth, untraceable amongst the lazily circling grains of wood.
"Ah, never mind," he said hastily. "Just give me the quote and I'll see to it."
"Of course." Marion nodded her head and retreated.
"Oh and Marion?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"The waitress, Ash, has she worked with you for long?" Marion looked at Ash, a quizzical look on her face.
"Well… yes, sir, she has been with us for quite some time. Do… do you need her, sir?"
"No, thank you. That's all." She smiled briefly and left.
The Captain shook his head, deep in thought.
As she sidestepped Ash, Renee leant down, on the premise of picking up a stray ceramic corner.
"Did you move that thing?" she hissed.
"What thing?" Ash said, deliberately not looking up from the floor.
"The hammer, you idiot. Don't mess with me."
"Oh that," Ash stood, above Renee, full dustpan in hand. "Well, I wouldn't know. I didn't set the table," she said coolly.
Renee rose to meet her. "You know I would have been in big trouble if I'd told Marion you set it. Now did you move the damn thing or not?"
Ash glanced at the silhouettes on the deck, now accepting drinks from the drinks waiter. She could see Thor's silhouette, casually swinging his hammer in his right hand. She certainly didn't want to be the brunt of that anger.
"No. No I didn't."
"If you're lying…"
"I'd be in almost as much trouble as you would be, if Marion knew that you betrayed our so called 'gold service' standard."
Renee glared, her lips thinning but said nothing, and stalked away. She crunched another china piece into dust as she went, a small, savage smile of satisfaction. Sighing, Ash bent to clean it up.
As Renee ushered the Avengers back into a new booth, Ash pushed down a strangling tendril of alarm, worming its way through her chest. She passed the rest of her shift behind a determined façade of courteousness, while anxiety pulsed beneath her skin. She wasn't even offended when one of the men from table 45 loudly informed her that their sashimi was uncooked or spilt drink everywhere trying to crack open a bottle of Ramune.
The whole time she tried to avoid looking at the table where the Avengers were sitting, all chattering happily, except for Thor and the Captain. Steve merely looked thoughtful but Thor continued to scan the restaurant, as if hoping the offender would give him a sign. She would not give him that sign.
Finally, it was just them and table 45 left. Then they paid their bill and left the restaurant. Even Renee, sashaying past Ash, fanning herself with Stark's generous tip couldn't whitewash the feeling of relief inside. It was over.
She was relieved, she thought, as she stacked the clean cutlery and straightened out the mats. And yet, another part of her felt very small inside. Just once, she was so close to being seen and yet-. No. She reminded herself sternly, that it was good that she had not been noticed. She might have lost her job for moving the hammer.
"It wouldn't have made a difference anyway," she says quietly to herself.