Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, any of its content or characters. I am not making money off of, nor do I intend to, this story or any of its chapters.
Warning: There is some foul language in this story. Much like anything else I've written, I tend not to censor much. Proceed with caution.
Chapter 1: Register 001
New York City, for whatever ungodly reason, was unbearably hot that day, much to the aggravation of all those living and working there. For the employees at a local grocery store near Brooklyn, it was a nightmare. Anyone working in Customer Service that day would likely die of either a heat stroke or an aneurysm by the end of their shift, whichever happened to come first.
The usually-kind lady at register 001, Bryn, was banking on an aneurysm. Because, Odin-forbid, if one more customer came in to return a half-eaten item, she might just lose it completely. She smiled at the cranky elderly woman glaring at her from across the Customer Service counter and did her best to keep hostility from seeping into the words she spoke.
"Ma'am, I am terribly sorry that you had a bad experience with your produce. I really, honestly am, but I cannot give you a refund on an item that you do not have and do not have the receipt for. It's against company policy." Bryn said, her voice soft, but unwavering.
"That tomato was rotten! You could tell just by looking at it! I was sick for three days! Couldn't get off the damn toilet!" The crotchety senior citizen yelled.
Bryn cringed and looked helplessly at her co-worker, Jeff, who was giggling behind the magazine rack off to the right. After 8 days straight of work and some serious overtime, the would-be patient woman "lost her shit", so to speak.
"Well, if it looked rotten, then why did you eat the tomato?!"
"I was hungry. And too tired to come back to the store. If you were an older woman, you'd understand how hard it is for someone like me to make such a trip!"
"No refunds for eaten merchandise, ma'am. If you don't have your receipt, I can't give you any money back. I'm terribly sorry." Bryn was shaking at this point.
"You ungrateful little-" The grouchy woman began.
Bryn took both hands, formed them into fists, and slammed them down onto the counter. She leaned over, closer to the now silent, slightly terrified old woman and let out a menacing, animalistic growl.
"No. Refunds. Get. Out."
The old lady half-ran, half-hobbled out of the store. Jeff sighed and shook his head, walking over to his co-worker.
"You know, I think you should take a day off…" Jeff began, wringing his hands. "You could, well, unwind a bit."
"Yeah. I think I'll do that. Tell one of the ding-dong summer workers to take my shift tomorrow, before I do something drastic. I'll stay on for the rest of the night, but I'm gone at 10:00, and no later."
"There, that's more like it!" Jeff smiled and patted Bryn on the arm.
"You are entirely too cheerful today. And get your hand off my arm before I stick it up your ass."
It had been several months since Fury had insisted upon having the Avengers life in Stark's tower. All things considered, it was a logical idea in case of an emergency. Putting said idea into practice, however, was a little more difficult with so many strong personalities all under one roof. Granted, it was a very large building and a very large roof, but it was still one building and one roof.
Tony and Steve didn't get along very well. Well, maybe that was an understatement. Steve and Tony disliked each other...a lot. The arguments between the two sometimes escalated to the point where one would leave the tower for hours at a time. Usually Steve, because, as Stark so eloquently put it, it was his tower and he wasn't fucking leaving his own tower because Spangles had a gigantic bug up his star-spangled ass.
The other team members seemed to get along okay. Natasha and Clint kept to themselves, with Clint being the more social of the two. Both were fairly friendly to everyone else, provided that their personal space was not invaded. Bruce would tinker in his lab for hours on end, use the gym, and occasionally the control room in an extreme bout of anger. Luckily for everyone, that rarely happened. Thor, the thunder God, would stop in from Asgard periodically; he got along with everyone and wasn't a problem at all. As long as plenty of PopTarts were kept in the tower's kitchen, he wouldn't have to put the hammer down.
There had been an incident in the kitchen this morning. Not a huge incident or anything resulting in injury, but an incident nonetheless. And this conflict was why Steve Rogers was sort of walking, sort of storming down the streets of Brooklyn, going to the only store he was familiar with. Being new to an area was one thing. Being new to an entire way of life after about 70 years of being frozen? Well, that took some adjusting to.
John's Grocery and Deli had been one of the first stores Steve shopped at. He had familiarized himself with the area when he lived in his S.H.I.E.L.D issued apartment in Brooklyn before moving to Stark's Swanky-Fricken'-Tower. And yes, those were Tony's words, not his. Getting back to the matter at hand, Steve was comfortable with the layout of the grocery store and was able to find what he needed without much trouble. Thanks to the incident, he had to go get more of the items he preferred to eat. Tony, being the huge dick that he was, threw most of them away. Something about them being damned awful for human consumption. The iron-clad man often forgot about the Captain's accelerated metabolism. The man, simply put, had to eat a shitload of food very often. Walking through the doors of the grocery store, he grabbed a cart and made his way through the aisles, sporadically grabbing whatever he thought looked appetizing.
Bryn was losing her mind. It was hot, people were shouting at her every time they walked up to her counter, and every muscle in her body had tensed up to the point of concrete-hardness. She was not in the mood for anyone's shit. Anyone's! She didn't care who walked through that door or what kind of crap they gave her. She wasn't taking it. So when the lovely college student at Register 003 waved her over with some sort of issue, her eye twitched as she locked her terminal and strolled over.
It seemed that some asshole was giving Lily some trouble. Sweet, redheaded little Lily at 5'1, who wouldn't even dream of hurting a fly. She was attempting to smile reassuringly at the fuming middle-aged man when Bryn walked over.
"Bryn, the terminal isn't accepting this man's card. It keeps displaying an error message. Can you look at it?"
"Sure. Sir, could you swipe that one more time for me?"
The man gave Bryn an ugly look, which wasn't hard seeing as his entire face was kind of ugly, and swiped his card. She ran it as credit and waited for it to process, which was the standard procedure with every card. When the error window popped up on the screen it simply read I.S: Insufficient Funds. Lily, being new, had never run into that before, but Bryn certainly had many times.
"Alright, sir. I apologize for the inconvenience, but our terminal is displaying that you have an insufficient amount in your account to cover this transaction. It won't let the transaction go through without enough in there to cover it. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about this particular issue." Bryn calmly stated.
"Well, your terminal is fuckin' wrong, lady!" The man shouted. "I want to see a manager!"
"Sir, I am a manager. And our Point of Sale system is very accurate. It is hardly ever wrong. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do. Do you have any other means of payment?"
"Up yours, bitch! You people don't know what the hell you're talking about! I've got plenty of money on this! It's a credit card! It doesn't run out!"
Lily took a step back to hide behind her co-worker's shoulder, which was a wise move on her part. At 5'8, Bryn was not a petite woman. Her dark brown, almost charcoal colored eyes glared down at the raging man she easily towered over and her smile turned into a cold frown. She pushed Lily back behind her a little further so she could step closer to the guy.
"Sir, we can't help you here and the problem is not on our end. Should you make a spectacle of yourself, you will be asked to leave."
"Fuck you! What kind of customer service is this?!"
Steve Rogers, having gotten all of his groceries, was waiting patiently in line behind this...asshole. He was about to say something to help the two gals out when the tall, dark haired one did something unexpected.
Bryn reached out and grabbed ahold of the card-reader. Lily backed up another foot, unsure of what her co-worker was doing. She watched in fascinated horror as her manager picked up the card reader, ripped it off its mount with a grunt, and slammed it to the floor, shattering the casing and sending sparks flying.
"Oh...that's a shame. I'm terribly, terribly sorry sir. Our card reader appears to be...broken." Bryn touched her fingers to the screen in front of her and tapped a couple of buttons. "And our other terminals are undergoing maintenance, which will take about an hour. Unless you'd like to wait the full hour, you may want to go to a nearby store for your groceries. Again, I'm awfully sorry we've inconvenienced you."
The enraged customer stormed out after flipping his cart over, spewing curses that would make a sailor blush with shame the entire time. Bryn smiled and picked up the horribly mangled card-reader from the floor.
"Okay Lily, just accept cash and checks for now until I get this replaced. It should be here by tomorrow. You can send anyone with a credit card over to me, or to Register 006. For the record, I don't think that dick will be bothering you again." Bryn smiled.
"Um...yes. Thanks…"
"You are most welcome, my dear."
With that small issue out of the way, Bryn went back to the Customer Service desk to await new customers. Strangely enough, everyone else seemed to be acting very pleasant to her after that. On the downside, her boss would have a coronary when he heard about the damaged equipment and disorderly conduct, but she'd deal with that later. Maybe she'd finally get fired so she could go on vacation for a while…
Steve was dumbfounded as he unloaded his groceries onto the conveyer belt.
"How are you today, sir?" Lily smiled at him.
"Um, I'm good. How are you?"
"Great! Did you find everything okay?"
"Yeah, I did. Thank you, miss."
After paying for his groceries and loading his stuff back into the cart, the Captain made his way out of the store, taking one last glance back at the attractive, but possibly insane Customer Service Rep. At least he'd have something interesting to talk about at dinner tonight.