Two days had passed since the Chitauri invasion and Steve Rogers found himself fighting a much different battle. Instead of fighting the hordes of aliens Steve was instead combating against the mountains of debris that covered the streets of Manhattan.

It had been a challenge joining in the cleanup effort, mainly because he was supposed to be lying low so his identity wouldn't accidentally be revealed to the public. However, as much as Steve would have loved a vacation he couldn't sit in his apartment doing nothing while he could be out cleaning up the mess he was partially responsible for.

He told Director Nick Fury as much when he had asked for permission to go out and help. Understandably Director Fury was not pleased with Steve. Fury reminded Steve that his mask had fallen off during the fight and that people had seen him in his Captain America costume; all it would take is one person to recognize him before the media started to hound him for information. The last thing any of them needed was for Steve to become the top story on every major news network. Steve tried to point out that people had also seen the faces of Agents Barton and Romanoff, though Fury countered with the facts: 1) Barton and Romanoff were actually doing as they were told and staying out of the public eye for the foreseeable future and 2) two nameless people fighting against aliens is not the same headline as the hero from World War II returning from the dead to save all of humanity.

And while Steve could see Fury's point he nevertheless did not agree with Fury's approach.

"You're just going to do it even if I tell you no, aren't you," Fury stated in a stern tone, his one good eye glaring at Steve.

"Yes sir," Steve replied back candidly. He didn't see a reason to lie; they both knew how this conversation would end.

Fury gave a sigh of defeat, looking away from Steve in order to roll his eye before giving Steve his most severe expression.

"You want to clean up? Fine, clean up; but first a couple of rules. You are not allowed to talk to anyone. You are just a nameless individual who is there to help out. You are not there to socialize. There will be SHIELD agents at the site – you will follow every command they give you. If they tell you to leave, you leave without question. Do I make myself clear?"

He had.

And so a little over an hour after the conversation Steve found himself in the same spot he had been fighting in just three days prior, cleaning up.

It was rather cathartic, picking up broken cement and chunks of buildings and depositing them in the giant bins that housed the rest of the debris. He and the other civilians helping with the effort were only responsible for actual city damage – anytime one of them stumbled upon anything alien they had to report it to a SHIELD agent immediately. The agents were easy to spot considering they were either wearing a hazmat suit or a just a plain suit and tie. The agents in hazmat suits dealt with the aliens, the ones in suits and ties were the ones in charge. Every time Steve saw an agent in a suit and tie he was reminded of Agent Phil Coulson, and guilt would hit him like a bullet to the chest.

He tried to avoid those agents at all cost.

He had been alone for the majority afternoon resigning himself to the rules Director Fury had set for him. It was odd working alone. Everyone else was working in groups, whether they were firemen, police officers, good Samaritans, or agents. Working alone was disconcerting.

He approached a gigantic block of solid cement, a piece from the street he was currently standing on. It should take at least three people to carry the wreckage. He approached the rubble with the intent to carry it by himself – after all, he was a super solider and he had carried much heavier things in his life.

He bent down to pick it up expecting some resistance from the weight, so he was surprised when he launched the concrete up into the air as though it was hollow and made from Styrofoam. He quickly caught it and looked around to see if anyone saw what happened. No one had, everyone was too busy with their own jobs. He turned his attention back to the impossible bit of cement.

It didn't feel like it was Styrofoam, and when he knocked on it he found that it was solid, not hollow. He stood there looking down at the object in his hands wondering if it qualified as alien. It was certainly weird but he wasn't sure if this was something of Chitauri origin or just a new type of building material that was invented during his years in ice.

"I was actually going to get that one."

Steve spun around to face the owner of the voice, clutching the chunk of concrete to his chest. A young woman stood before him who couldn't have been older than 20 years old. She was from Britain judging by her accent. She had black hair that she wore in a bun, or tried to since there were strands of hair that had fallen out of the bun that were standing up as though gravity didn't exist. She had the greenest eyes Steve had ever seen that were masked behind a pair of old black framed glasses. She wore a black knee-length overcoat over baggy jeans and a red t-shirt; her shoes were falling apart. And on her forehead was the weirdest looking scar Steve had ever seen.

She looked at him, her eyebrows raised like a parent waiting for their child to admit to wrong-doing. Steve faltered under the gaze, not knowing what he should do. On the one hand she had wanted to take care of the debris, and Steve had no objection to her doing so especially since it wouldn't require three people to carry it like he originally expected. On the other hand he was already carrying the thing and it wouldn't be polite if he just handed it over to her – it just wasn't chivalrous to do so. Then again she would probably think it rude that he didn't give her the piece after she stated her intent to take care of it.

But then again he also wasn't supposed to interact with anyone who wasn't a SHIELD agent.

"Oh, uh," he stammered out, trying to get his bearings in order. He felt the back of his neck heat up and he had the urge to put his hand on the spot; however he refrained from doing so, keeping his hands where they were.

The girl smiled at him sardonically.

"That's fine," she said, "I'll just bring this instead."

She picked up another piece of concrete that was down by her feet, and while the piece wasn't as large as the one Steve was carrying, it was still big enough to require two people to lift it.

Steve watched as she was able to lift it up as though it was a bag of cotton candy and began to walk towards the bin. She was a few steps away when she turned back around to look at him.

"Are you coming or are you just going to stand there?" she asked.

Steve nodded once and began to walk towards the woman. They walked side-by-side, the garbage bins for the area a couple yards away. Steve looked around at the other groups of workers to see if they were having any difficulty lifting the wreckage – they were. He looked back down at the concrete he and the woman carried with his mind deep in thought.

"I think these are alien in origin," Steve told her as he inspected the bulky wreckage once more, "they are way too light to be human."

The woman looked over at him, before looking down at her own piece of debris and inspecting it like Steve was doing to his own. She let out a hum of contemplation.

"I'm not sure these are alien. The material doesn't look like the metal they were wearing or look anything like the material they used for whatever the flying things were," she said, her right hand waving in the air as though she was gesturing to where the flying things had been. Her movement had caused the sleeve on her overcoat to fall down her arm just a bit, allowing Steve to see that she was wearing a light-colored wooden bracelet on her wrist.

"Besides," she continued, her right hand grasping her object once more, "we're obviously carrying concrete." She looked at him waiting for him to agree with her.

Steve was still in doubt about it being concrete, but he felt like he had already talked to her more than he should. Besides, Steve knew that he could always just tell a SHIELD agent later on about the mysteriously light-weight concrete.

He nodded in agreement.

"Right, we're carrying concrete," he said as they finally reached the bins. He tossed his in without further question, the woman doing the same. Steve looked at her, giving her a tight smile. He was surprised that instead of smiling back the woman looked guilty, like a dog that had their tail between their legs.

He gave a nod in her direction before getting back to working. He didn't understand why she would feel guilty.

After all, it was just concrete.

The next day found Steve in the same spot, rubble still coating the streets as though the previous day had never happened. It hadn't occurred to him as he fought against the Chitauri just how much damage resulted from the fight – granted he had been a bit preoccupied at the time.

He had arrived at the site earlier than the previous day, deciding to devote as much time to cleaning up as he possibly could. Fury still wanted him to lie low until Steve started full time at SHIELD, and while Fury's definition of lying low did not include being part of the cleanup crew, the previous day had shown that Steve was capable of not being noticed while in a public setting.

So Fury granted Steve permission to continue his crusade of cleaning up the ruins of New York City as long as he kept to himself. It was an easy request to fulfill; Steve still wasn't used to the future yet and interacting with normal civilians would only illuminate how out of time he was.

Steve had to admit, he had had difficulties keeping up with the rest of the Avengers during the few times when they had talked together; the only one who had been remotely on his level had been Thor, and though Thor also didn't understand any of the cultural references the others where spewing he did know more about what had been occurring than Steve had.

Luckily neither fighting ability nor people's motivations had changed much since the '40s. And Steve did start to feel comfortable around SHIELD and the other Avengers once he had gotten past the cultural references and technological terminology.

But still, he wasn't sure how much he would have in common with actual civilians. He knew that basic human nature was still the same – people were still good at heart while there were a few who would end up doing bad things – but he also could tell that communication among friends and acquaintances had gone through a change in the past 70 years.

He only felt comfortable interacting with others when they needed help with heavy lifting. He found that if there was already a large group struggling with a heavy bit of the wreckage then he could go over and help them without needing to actually interact with them. Those tended to be quick interactions, barely anything was said to him, and he was gone as soon as the job was done off to his own little secluded spot to continue his work.

After helping a group of local fireman with a particularly heavy bit of fallen building support, he walked back over to his area only to be met with the woman from the day before, who was sweeping up some of the smaller debris with a contractors broom.

She looked up as he approached and she gave a nod in greeting before turning back to her work. Steve saw that she was adept with the broom as she added to her growing pile of glass, dirt, and concrete. Steve noticed as he looked at her that she was wearing the exact same outfit he had seen her in the previous day, her hair still up in a messy bun.

She must have known he was still staring at her because she looked back up at him.

"What?" she asked him, part annoyed and part confused. Steve looked her in the face, realizing too late that his eyes were focused on a place they shouldn't have been.

"Oh, sorry," he apologized sincerely, keeping his eyes trained on her face. She cocked her eyebrows up in disbelief and he could see her tighten the grip of her hands on the broomstick. He felt his face and neck heat up and this time he could not resist the urge to grab the back of his neck.

"Are you wearing the same outfit as yesterday?" Steve asked, trying to change the subject. The woman looked down at her attire, shrugged her shoulders, and then looked back up at him.

"Yeah, this is the outfit I normally wear when I'm cleaning up after a giant battle," she said nonchalantly, as if such an activity was a regular occurrence. She turned back to her sweeping after looking at him as though he was the weird one.

Steve shook his head like it would get rid of how awkward he felt and went back to work.

It was actually nice working within the vicinity of someone else. The woman kept to herself as much as Steve did and she was always willing to lend a hand with the heavy lifting even if Steve didn't actually need it. Of course he was just as willing to help her out, and more often than not he was the one helping her carry the heavier debris to the bins.

Steve realized early on in their silent partnership that there was a bit of a learning curve when trying to figure out when she needed help versus when she wanted help. At first when Steve would help her she would look at him with an annoyed expression on her face that would cause Steve to question why he wanted to help her in the first place. However, after she had accidentally dropped what had been a piece of the corner of a building onto her foot, Steve learned to ignore her silent objection and help her with the lifting. Not that she objected much to his help after the mishap.

They worked together for an hour, stopping when lunch time rolled around. Pizzas had been donated to the volunteers from the local pizza shops, and once they had arrived everyone rushed to be the first to get a slice. Steve and the woman continued to work until the lines thinned, whereupon they got pizza and water for themselves before sitting down on the curb in their work area to eat.

Steve let out a sigh of relief as he sat on the curb, setting his water down by his feet and keeping a tight grip on his plate of vegetarian pizza (the only pizza left after the crowd had thinned). The woman sat down next to him, placing the water right next to her while putting her plate on her lap.

Steve glanced around the street and smiled at the progress everyone had made in the cleanup. By the end of the day the group of volunteers will be done with the area and would be able to move onto another section of the city that needed help.

He watched other groups of volunteers as they ate; he saw how animated some were getting as they talked, how others were laughing, how many looked tired as they ate but satisfied at the same time. He smiled realizing that he still had reasons to fight and to do good in the world despite his displacement in time.

The two ate quickly, both wanting to get back to work as soon as possible. They had a particularly large heap of debris that had fallen from the building behind them that they had to clean up before the end of the day.

They went back to work the minute they were finished eating, the grease from the pizza still on their lips and finger tips, the taste of cheese and tomato sauce still on their tongues. The two fell back into the grove they had had before they broke for lunch – Steve taking care of the heavier lifting while the woman swept away the smaller bits of debris.

Steve realized by mid-afternoon that he had met the woman a little more than 24 hours ago and he still didn't know her name. He thought about rectifying it until he realized that would mean introducing himself which was strictly against Fury's wishes. Not to mention the woman herself seemed lost in thought and looked as though she didn't want to be disturbed by inane chatter.

So he kept silent.

It was approaching 4 o'clock when it happened. The two had cleared the mountain of debris down to a small pile of junk, at the center of which were several Chitauri corpses.

"I was wondering when I was going to see this lot," the woman said nodding towards the corpses. They looked just like Steve remembered them, with their golden helmets and their grayish armor and weird looking faces, except instead of looking threatening they just looked broken.

Steve waved over the SHIELD agents in the hazmat suits and gestured to the bodies on the ground. Three agents hurried over, two in hazmat suits, one in a regular suit and tie. The woman and Steve watched as the three assessed the situation before the two in the hazmat suits left to get their supplies. The one is a suit and tie, a tall man in his forties with thick shoulders and short brown hair, turned to address Steve and the woman.

"My name is Agent Geoffrey Travers, I'll just need to get your name and fingerprints before you can get back to work," the agent said, his voice commanding. Agent Travers pulled out a computerized tablet and started to type something into it.

The nice thing about being around SHIELD and Tony Stark is that Steve received a crash course in the technology of the modern era – the tablets were one of the first things he himself learned how to use.

Agent Travers looked at Steve and then back down at the tablet where he started to type once more. Steve had no doubt in his mind that Agent Travers was making a note that Steve was at the discovery site.

"Why do you need our name and fingerprints?" the woman asked in a suspicious tone. Agent Travers turned his full gaze onto her, only to see her face masked with suspicion.

"Standard procedure; it helps us keep track of those who have encountered alien tech and it helps us protect you against any potential harm exposure to aliens may cause," Agent Travers responded, his voice and face portraying a man who has had to make the same speech at least a dozen times within the past hour alone.

"Right," the woman said, drawing out the word to exaggerate her disbelief. "And who will be the ones keeping tabs on us?" she asked pointing to Steve and then herself.

Steve noticed that both Agent Travers and the woman drew themselves up to their full height with their shoulders back and their legs apart; and, while Agent Travers was certainly taller than the woman by at least half a foot, Steve had to give the woman credit for the fact that she was not backing down – if anything she was the one who actually looked more intimidating with her eyes bright and narrowed looking straight into Agent Travers's own.

"SHIELD will be keeping the database of all volunteers who have encountered alien remnants," Travers stated, placing his arms down at his side, the tablet gripped in his right hand.

Steve felt himself subconsciously mirror Agent Travers's posture, falling into a soldier's stance.

"And what's Shield?" the woman asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"SHIELD stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Travers rattled off, getting annoyed by the woman's constant questioning.

Steve watched as surprise washed over her face before it descended into controlled rage.

"And what does a spy agency want with that kind of a database? Actually, better question, what is a spy agency doing with a bunch of alien remains?" she asked, tone scathing, as she pointed to the two agents in hazmat suits dealing with the Chitauri corpses. They looked up for a second, hearing her question, before returning to their work.

Agent Travers, on the other hand, looked as though he was about to knock the woman out and place her into custody. Steve felt he better step in soon before that could happen.

"Spy agency?" Steve asked, his tone conveying his question of how she even came up with such an idea. He watched as she rolled her eyes at his question before she turned her attention onto him.

"This isn't the first time I've encountered an organization that uses stupid acronyms to hide its true intent. Seriously though, 'Strategic Homeland Intervention?' 'Enforcement and Logistics Division?' What part of those two phrases doesn't scream spy agency to you?" she explained, looking Steve in the face, her expression displaying her incredulity.

Steve, trying to contain a smile, looked over at Agent Travers who looked livid. Steve realized immediately that his plan had failed and he quickly readied himself for the off chance that Travers would tackle the woman to the ground.

Instead, Travers brought the tablet back up to chest level and started to type into it once more. The woman and Steve watched as he slowly contained his anger as his fingers punched the tablet with audible taps.

"Your name," Agent Travers barked at Steve, his eyes glaring.

"Steve Rogers," Steve replied still wanting to diffuse the situation before it hit critical. Agent Travers held out the tablet parallel to the ground and pushed it toward Steve's chest.

"Please place your hands on the screen so we can copy your fingerprints," Travers bit out. Steve complied and he watched as a light scanned his hands, copying his fingerprints.

Even after his crash course in technology it still amazed Steve that humanity had progressed this far. It made Howard Stark's invention seem like child's play.

"Name" Travers snapped at the woman, turning his full attention onto her. Steve was expecting her to refuse, so he was surprised when she complied.

"Harry Peverell," she stated in a bored tone.

Steve and Agent Travers looked at her with their eyebrows raised in question. Harry rolled her eyes.

"It's short for Harriet," she explained, "but I prefer to be called Harry."

Travers made a note on the tablet before holding it out for her as he did for Steve.

"Fingerprints" was all he said to her.

Harry went to put her hands on the tablet but before she could she had a violent coughing attack, her hands quickly covering her mouth as her body convulsed with the force of each cough. Travers pulled the tablet back towards his chest, as though it would prevent the tablet from succumbing to the same fate.

Steve placed a hand on the middle of Harry's back, patting lightly in an effort to help her stop coughing. She slowly got her coughing under control and flicked her hand around in a gesture for Steve to stop, at which point he stepped back to give her space to breathe.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked, watching as Harry got her breathing under control.

"I'm fine," she said, though she didn't sound it. "Must be all the dust," she explained waving her hand around in the air before bending over and placing her hands on her knees.

"Maybe you should stop for the day," Steve suggested, at which point Harry nodded in agreement.

Steve looked over at Agent Travers, waiting for him to announce his disagreement over the suggestion but instead was met with a very confused looking agent who was staring helplessly at the tablet.

"You did that already," Harry said, her voice still raw from all the coughing.

"Excuse me?" Travers asked, looking at Harry as a confused child would look to his parent for answers.

"You scanned my fingerprints earlier today, don't you remember?" Harry asked, looking at Agent Travers expectantly.

"Yes, you're right," Agent Travers conceded, much to Steve's surprise, "I did document your…sorry Miss Peverell, I'll let you leave now. Get better soon."

And with that Agent Travers left Harry and Steve, walking away with the biggest look of confusion on his face Steve had ever seen.

"Well, that was weird," Harry stated plainly, looking over at the now vacant area that used to house alien corpses.

"Yeah, that was really weird," Steve agreed, looking intently at Harry. This was the second weird experience Steve had encountered while in Harry's presence and he really hoped it wouldn't become a recurring motif to their partnership – otherwise he might have to report the incidents to Director Fury.

"Must be all the stress," Harry said, watching Steve for his reaction, "after all, can't be easy being in charge of the cleanup."

"Yeah, must be stress," Steve agreed once again, though his tone conveyed his distrust.

And for the second time in less than 36 hours Steve saw a look of utmost guilt come across Harry's face.

Steve knew something happened to Agent Travers but he highly doubted that it was stress.

"So what made you want to help with the cleanup?"

Steve and Harry sat outside Grand Central Station the next day, eating their lunch. SHIELD had finally removed the last of the Leviathan out of Grand Central making it clear for the cleanup crews to come in. Steve and Harry paired up once again earlier that day, helping the other groups sweep up the station.

Steve looked at Harry waiting for her to answer his question. She chewed thoughtfully as she looked out on the rest of the street.

"I was in the neighborhood, felt like you lot needed my help," she explained, shrugging her left shoulder.

"What about you?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"Brooklyn born and raised. This attack hit pretty close to home," Steve answered, and while it wasn't the main reason why he was helping out it was still the truth. Harry nodded her head in understanding.

"So where's home for you?" Steve asked, taking another bite out of his cheeseburger. Harry's face fell into grief, her hand resting an inch above her fries.

"London," she said her lips quirking up in a self-deprecating manner. "England, that is. I know you Yanks like to name your cities after ours, what with London, Texas and Surrey, North Dakota – I can keep going if you want."

Steve smiled in amusement while Harry went back to eating her fries.

"How do you even know that?" Steve asked after a minute. Harry turned to him with a mouth full of fries, her question displayed on her face.

"The city names," Steve elaborated, "how did you know about that?"

"I was bored and on the internet. Wikipedia is a fantastic site. Hermione would love it," Harry said, her voice dropping low at the end as though she didn't mean to say it at all.

"So what are you doing in New York?" Steve asked as he crumpled up his empty cheeseburger wrapper.

Her face contorted at his question as though she was in physical pain before she shrugged her shoulders like she tried to convince herself that she didn't care.

"I was on a job that required me to travel to New York. When I was done with the job I was hit by a car, was holed up in a hospital during the alien attack, and now I'm here helping you lot clean it up," was her honest answer, though Steve could tell it wasn't the entire story. After all, according to Harry she was hit by a car no less than five days ago and yet she seemed to be in perfect health, if just a bit underweight.

Steve's eyebrows rose in disbelief.

"You were hit by a car," he said, saying it as though he was a teacher whose student had just claimed her dog had eaten her homework.

"It wasn't going that fast," she explained, waving off his inquiry as though it was nothing. "It was just a gentle tap. Stepped off the curb without looking and got hit by a guy who was trying to turn the corner. Nothing too serious, but that didn't stop the guy from calling an ambulance to take me to the hospital."

Harry wouldn't look at Steve as she talked; instead she focused intently on the bag that had once contained her fries. That was probably the biggest lie Harry had told Steve so far.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked, going along with the lie anyway.

"I'm fine," Harry replied, looking Steve in the face.

Never mind. That was the biggest lie Steve had heard from Harry. She was about as fine as Steve was.

Steve had learned a lot about Harry that day. He learned that she was twenty years old and was expecting to turn twenty-one by the end of July. She was an orphan and an only child. She had attended a boarding school in Scotland and she had gotten a job at a detective agency right out of school; however after working there for a little over two years she was put on indefinite suspension due to arguing with and disobeying her superiors.

"They didn't respect me, and I certainly didn't respect them; so of course there were going to be arguments. Besides, they were a bunch of bloody wankers to be perfectly honest," she had explained when Steve had asked her about her suspension.

And, in turn, she had learned a bit about Steve. He told her that he was going to be 27 on July 4th, that he was also an orphan and an only child. He confessed that he enjoyed drawing and that as a child he suffered from asthma. He also told her how he enrolled in the army in his early twenties where he rose quickly through the ranks and became a captain; however he was discharged from the army after he sustained an injury that put him into a coma for a month, waking up just weeks before the Chitauri attack occurred.

Steve knew that he was supposed to be lying low; however, he found it was easy to talk to Harry, primarily because he knew they were both hiding personal information from the each other. She obviously knew it too but thankfully she never called him out on it.

Their knowledge of each other was turning out to be a case of mutually assured destruction – if one of them called the other out on a lie their conversation would then descend into a whirlpool of accusations and demands for the truth, a situation Steve was trying to avoid.

Luckily for Steve, Harry was also the type of person who wanted to avoid all of her skeletons coming out of the closet.

So Steve and Harry spent the rest of the day cleaning up and actively lying to each other.

Sometimes they told outright lies.

("Are you okay?" "I'm fine. You?" "Yeah, I'm okay.")

Sometimes they told partial-truths.

("My mom died in childbirth and my dad was killed by a madman 15 months later." – "My father died while he was on tour with the military before I was born, while my mother died of an incurable disease when I was just a kid.")

And sometimes they just told the truth.

("What's treacle tart?" "It's delicious is what it is." "I've always loved apple pie." "Merlin you're a walking stereotype.")

By the end of the day Steve really didn't care whether or not everything said between him and Harry was a truth or a lie; all he cared about was the fact that talking with Harry made the day go by a lot faster than the previous days.

Time always passes when one is having fun.

Author's Note:

Wow, I was not expecting such a response to my story. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and followed/favorited my story - it means a lot to me.

Just a bit of business: I go back to school on January 21, so I expect the updates will slow down once the semester picks up. The good news is that I already have chapters 2 and 3 written, so I plan on updating those soon.

Thanks again for the love.