The elevator doors closed behind me. I dumped my laptop bag to the floor and wrapped my hands around the rail, staring through the glass at the long shadows of the landscape below. 6:30 pm. Just enough time, if I sped.
"Garage." The elevator pinged in response and began to descend. I let out the sigh I'd been holding in all day and pressed my forehead to the elevator wall, watching the plaza rise to meet me. Some security staffer somewhere was no doubt watching me loosen my metaphorical tie and chuckling about it, but I was too exhausted to care. In ten minutes I'd be out the door, tasting my first free Friday night in months, and it was gonna taste like a ballpark hot dog. I shook my ass in a little happy dance for the security staffer's benefit.
Two tickets to the Cubs-Nationals game were tucked inside the scorebook in my laptop bag. This was supposed to be my buddy's first baseball game, but he had begged off, and I was actually pretty relieved - now I could focus on the game. I'd be able to keep score, maybe chat with the fans nearby during a pitching change. I breathed another sigh, this one full of the memory of fresh-cut grass and popcorn.
The elevator slowed a little too soon. Someone else was getting on. I should probably move, turn around, pick up the laptop bag, but stepping back into my professionalism-suit just seemed a little too impossible at the moment. So I stayed, forehead pressed against the glass, hoping fervently that whoever it was didn't feel like making conversation.
"Long day?"
Recognition jolted through me like an electric shock, and each of my limbs decided on a different course of action from its compatriots. I managed to turn around - don't stare don't stare don't stare - and found the elevator doors sliding closed behind the owner of that voice I had hoped I was wrong about. Smiling at me kindly, and looking a touch bemused, was Steve "Captain America" Rogers.
Crap. Where do I look? Don't stare at his chin. He has to be an alien, the only other guy that looks this freakishly perfect is from Asgard. Where'd he get that leather jacket? Shit, he's going to tell Fury how awkward I am -
"I think you dropped something." Rogers bent down, picking up my scorebook from where it had fallen out of the laptop bag. It was spiral-bound, hardcover, a little indulgence gifted to me by a friend. The two tickets jutted from the top, marking the next free page for tonight's game.
Rogers examined it for a moment. "May I?"
I nodded. The adrenaline rush of finding myself on an elevator with someone insanely famous and superhumanly powerful was beginning to die down. I suppose I'd always known it was possible - plenty of my friends had stories about winding up in the elevator with Romanov or Stark - but in my three years at S.H.I.E.L.D., I hadn't yet met any of the big guns in person. Cap - Captain Rogers, I reminded myself - was huge, a tall and well-built figure in his pleated slacks and military-style leather jacket, but something made me stop short of the word "intimidating." Watching him flip through my scorebook with a smile of recognition, he just seemed so damn earnest.
Somewhere underneath the diminishing heart palpitations, I found my voice. "You a baseball fan?" I managed. "Uh... sir?"
He laughed. "At ease, soldier. Steve." He shook my hand, passing the scorebook back to me.
"Karen," I offered, as our hands met.
"I used to keep score at ballgames too," he said. "It's nice to see that some things haven't changed."
He turned away. I surreptitiously scrubbed at the smear my forehead had left on the glass. I just ended up making it bigger.
The silence hung a little heavier than was comfortable. "What floor?" I prompted. Rogers turned back and raised his eyebrows politely. I gestured vaguely at the unmoving elevator.
"What floor?"
"Oh. Right." He cleared his throat. "Uh, Garage." The elevator slid smoothly back into its descent, and Rogers gave me a wry smile. "Other things have changed quite a bit."
It was an offhand comment, but I felt a flash of heartache for the Captain - a quick and selfish impulse to offer him a thread of his old life. Something to let me feel a little less homesick on his behalf. And besides - I wanted to talk baseball.
"New York, right? You grew up in New York?" I asked. He nodded. "Were you a Yankees fan?"
"Dodgers," he corrected. "The Yankees broke my heart in 1941. I think I spent every spare penny I had on tickets that season. We were so good..." He grinned, and I could see him seeing Ebbets Field. "First pennant in twenty years."
"Have you been to see them yet?"
"Haven't had the chance. It's a longer trip than it used to be."
"The Giants moved out west in 1957, too. They're still pretty big rivals."
Rogers chuckled. "I remember when we ruined their shot at the Pennant. Best part of a miserable season."
"I know that feeling," I said, as the elevator doors slid open to the parking garage. "I'm a Cubs fan. We've had a lot of miserable seasons."
We stepped out together and paused in front of the elevator. "I remember the Cubs being pretty respectable," Rogers said. "Couldn't quite seem to win a championship, though."
I laughed, probably a little too loudly.
He lifted an eyebrow. "Don't tell me."
I stared at Rogers for a moment, then pulled a grimace and hung my head. Peals of laughter echoed off the concrete walls. "Oh, Karen, I am so sorry." He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "But it's nice to know there's something out there older than me."
"Sure, rub it in, jerk." I rolled my eyes. "You know, speaking of things that are older than you - if you get the chance, you should take in a game at Wrigley Field."
"They still play there?"
"They do, and I'm guessing it'll feel pretty familiar. Hand-turned scoreboard, live organ, none of the big flashing lights."
The thought seemed to take Rogers slightly aback. He lifted his gaze somewhere behind and to the right of me, across the garage. He said nothing, and I couldn't read his expression.
"Yeah." The moment passed, and he nodded, turning back with a smile. "That sounds pretty good. Though I'm hoping it won't take a trip to Chicago for me to see another baseball game."
"Then I guess it's your lucky night." I pulled the spare ticket from my scorebook and held it out to him. I saw polite refusal forming on his face before I'd even finished my sentence. But when his eyes caught the ticket in front of him, his excuse died in a reluctant smile.
"What, like you've got something better to do?"
His eyes flicked up to mine, and the smile became a lopsided grin. "I guess I don't." He took the ticket and turned it over in his hand, before looking up at me. "I'll meet you there."