Chapter 4: Trading Masks

Updated and edited by: PPMB

AN: Thank you so very much. 2015.

[RENT: ACT 1: SCENE: "Will You Light My Candle?"

MIMI: They say that I have the best ass below 14th Street. Is it true?

ROGER: What?

MIMI: You're staring again.

ROGER: Oh no, I mean you do have a nice-I mean, you look familiar...

MIMI: Like your dead girlfriend?

ROGER: Only when you smile...But I'm sure I've seen you somewhere else...]

The 33rd café north side of Fifth Street is a cab drive away from the center of Stark Tower, and the whole time Steve feels the icy buildings wide set eyes digging into him. He puts his back to it however, allowing himself only the faintest of self-conscious twitches from his thumbs as he walks. It takes him less than twenty minutes to decide if she's there or not between cafés—although, he could be lying optimistically to himself. There could be a thousand reasons for her to actually be at one of his dismissed cafés. She's sick, or maybe she's just not on schedule that day. Maybe she quit serving all together and fled the city like so many. But Steve presses on without a backwards glance, the doubts dissipating like the moisture of his breath on the air.

The throaty roar of his motorcycle raced through downtown, midtown, east, west, and twists across Time Square multiple times. Steve disregards the gentle layering cresting blue ice over the sidewalks, the bright sparkles of Christmas lights strewing across the already glowing behemoth of New York. He stared at them before, trying to prepare himself for the holidays, but it feels so fleeting compared to now.

The frosty morning that he'd forced himself into leaked slowly into the late afternoon chill of lunch time shoppers and soon Steve had to park and go about his search on foot. He had to keep himself from sprinting around the whole massive maze of a city, and pressed his patience walking with the normal pace of New York foot traffic as he studied café to café. Two more went by without any luck. Then a sixth. Soon a seventh—although one did have a young blonde server about it back in 44th street, but Steve knew in an instant she wasn't the woman he was looking for.

He closed his eyes briefly as he walked, keeping perfect pace and timing with the chatter and noise of the cars and people close around him. It could picture her so well he felt he might even be able to draw her sometime, if the nerve finally struck him.

She was slender with a kind face and light blue eyes. Her lips held an unsure, cute smile, and she was probably about 5'4 or so. She looked real nice in her pink blouse, and her nails were clear, no glitter, or paste applied to them. Her makeup was naturally demure, her hair long and golden, held by a few pins tossed into a half-ponytail. He could imagine and recreate—but always, always her name was blurred as it hung from the nametag. That he could never simply make up for himself.

Hours passed as he walked, blurring and fading nearly as fast as Steve's confidence. Eventually he stumbled onto a bench near Central Park and let his head fall into his hands. Even when he was a kid he just tried way too hard for things that weren't meant to be. Sure, sneaking into the army was a stupid death wish, but it was his stupid death wish, his purpose, his calling.

But that was all gone now. Or at least, it wasn't anything he could be permitted back into. But Steve figures it wouldn't be the same anyhow.

He strained his eyes into the wintery clouded sky and watched the wind stir the brittle branches above him, spinning towards the earth below.

What was calling him now?

Would finding this stranger of a girl really bring all that much into his life besides bitterness and frustration?

Steve finds himself standing near some damp café outside of China Town, not feeling the numbing push of the wind snaking up his jacket. He's lost count and location now. It's all the same.

Next he's standing outside a bar, but he turns away, jaded. You couldn't even pretend be to drunk if you wanted too, Steve chides himself. You're something awful of a liar, especially to yourself.

He sighs, his feet like led in his boots before he twists away again, letting the depression and delusions of grandeur fuel like a poison into his veins. Time and time again he'd do this to himself.

What can't he just give it up? Why can't he just quit like everyone else? He doesn't have to put on the show now. He doesn't have to be the perilous leader Captain America out of the suit. He's only leading himself into psychiatric help or a slight obsessive compulsive habit.

He hutches up his shoulders and just looks at the ground beneath him, seeing nothing, just letting his feet go where they'd like. A railing soon trails just to the side of his vision and he glances up to find himself outside the patio of a restaurant called Salto Della Fede. He swallows drily, and thinks about the irony of being thirsty from wondering from diner to diner before he stops and just watches the pairs of couples lunching outside.

Tinges of grey from the misty cooling sunshine flaking off into an old woman's hair as she smiles at her date. There's a kid on his cordless phone, free hand intertwining with his girlfriend that Steve wants to snort at. The whole diner is brighter than the lights of the city in festivity—warm sweaters, hands, hearts. Flashes of youth and colour. Steve's revulsion softens looking over them—soon the action is broken up by their waitress retrieving their bill. He starts to turn away but suddenly he can't move.

From the corner of his eye he sees wheat-yellow hair and his heart stops dead. His superb eyesight zeros in—but the woman turns away, her hair twirling behind her.

Give up? A quiet voice in Steve's head asks him.

Steve thinks hard but his eyes can't leave her. No. No. No. This…isn't…

His blue eyes trace across the crowd, desperate for more, but it's no use. He'd have to get in closer. He slows down, turning on his heel as he moves against the flow of shoppers gushing from 49th, nearly knocking down a large woman with six full Macy's shopping bags before he makes it to the outdoor sitting area of the café. He stops, narrowly avoiding more people as he leans himself against the patio's railing, turning his head to just barely glance the girl again.

Her eyes are blue—light blue, and her eyebrows and lipstick is just the same. Her complexion is perhaps a little paler, and she looks more rundown than the last time he had seen her, but then again, everyone had been more carefree before the Battle—but Oh God, Steve's chest tightens painfully, his heart running wild as he finds himself turned fully around just staring at her.

Because it's her. Dear Lord, it's her.

Steve Rogers ignores the nibbling of doubt in the back of his mind as he forces himself to calmly walk the rest of the rail way like any other normal American male and not bound over the knee high perimeter of the outdoors dining area. The breeze flourishes up the hanging cloth drapery of the café sign as he enters, walking straight for her. But she's moving away quickly, dashing inwards and 'neath the shadow of the doorway—disappearing with empty dishes and teacups.

"Wait!" He spurs his lungs to expand harder, and suddenly he's loping over the ground faster than most short distance Olympic sprinters. "I've been looking for you everywhere." He feels like he's screaming the words, but he's actually just muttering them to himself in fervor—two full tables turn to stare at him.

Steve digs his heels in and discreetly strides into a fast paced walk as he avoids the eyes and he ducks around the patio area of the Salto Della Fede café. He barely aware of practically anyone else in the lunch time rush as he chooses a wicker seat at random and sits down, knees still humming with anticipation. Discreetly he folds up a menu and chides himself for acting like he honestly has the outrageous nerve to gander at her from table to table. His fingers leave prints on the plastic casing of the listings and the letters jumble around before his eyes.

I can't believe I'm doing this. This is—illegal, or completely nuts. There's something wrong with me. A loud voice in Steve's head sets him straight. Get up and walk away right now. You're goin' look like some creep—you're going to—

Steve freezes as the waitress comes near for the first time. Steve turns his head slowly, trying for a smooth sweep at catching her name—his eyes gandering as discreetly over her blouse as he can before she dips the cloth over the small round tables, clearing the dishes and glasses with a satisfying clink. Steve continues to follow her—but she's moving far too quickly that even with his enhanced vision he can barely make out the wobble of one letter at a time as the flimsy pen holds her memory in place in his mind. He's completely captivated for her name—on the other hand, however, the waitress takes consideration out of the corner of her eye, and how she can't seem to escape the explicit stare of a young patron at a table just a way from her. She glances at him quickly—he's young, possibly even handsome—but never the less, her face scrunches in hidden frustration.

Since moving to New York, and since the Battle Of New York, she's gotten use to the unexpected, and the expected—like the other, not-so-young regulars that hang around the café and stare at her friends' chests. She coils her hands hard around the silverware in her aprons pouch, steadying her nerves.

She turns, knowing that regardless she has to serve him. The waitress bites the side of her cheek when she notices that the young man in front of her is still squinting at her chest, and decides to leave it alone and do her job—telling herself to maybe take it as a compliment, but she finds she only wants to laugh at the idea. That makes her smile. She shifts her hair from her shoulder and the tips of her nails make contact with the sharp edge of her nametag the pinned cloth there out of habit as she approaches quickly; she's so ready to get this over with. "Can I… help you?"

Steve reels at her response as if he wasn't aware of just how hard he was staring at her blouse this whole time. "Sorry!" He snaps to attention again, red lining the bridge of his nose. "Yes—I'm sorry. That was…that wasn't very polite of me. I—I was looking for your—ah," name"—attention."

A second inches by as her yellow eyebrows rise, and the soldier realises she waiting for more. More? Steve cringes, sweat forming on the back of his neck. He forces himself to choose the first item off the menu in front of him.

"May I have the—" He pales as he realizes that the word is completely foreign to his tongue. "Shake'a-er-toe?"

Her lips part slightly at him, her blue eyes alertly suspicious. "Is that a question, or do you actually want it?"

Steve nods as if he wasn't shrinking to the size of an ant inside. "Yes. Yes, I'll have that."

"Right," She says carefully, still keeping the pleasantry to her tone. The scratching of her pencil against the yellow paper is loud in Steve's ears. "Would you like a meal to go with that?"

Steve's mind goes blank. "That wasn't a meal?"

Her lips widen into a smile, and she laughs. "No, shakerato is a specialty drink—you know, coffee. Starbucks kind of quality except it's real, and served in a cocktail glass. I'd recommend it. Ever since that new James Bond film has come out it's been a local favourite."

Steve shifts in his seat, feeling suddenly too out of place. He quickly flips through his recent memory of pop-culture that he's been trying to pick up from Clint, but he draws a complete blank over whoever James Bond is. He sets his teeth into a smile and prays that she doesn't notice how clueless he feels.

"I can only imagine," Literally."But, no thank you, I'm fine. I'll just have the drink."

"Okay," She breathes an internal sigh of relief at the strange man before her. "It'll be out in a jiffy."

The off-white of her apron turns as she trails away, but suddenly the young man twitches—and his next few words seem like a knee-jerk reaction, like an invisible person had kicked him from under the table.

"I'm Steve, ma'am," Steve's mouth turns into a near grin but it feels funny, like it is stuck for some reason, or rather like he's never tried it before. The waitress, only a few steps away, turns back towards him. Steve sticks out his hand for a handshake to which the woman before him seems all the more confused by. Slowly, she reaches out and grasps his large hand in the space between her fingers and awkwardly pulls it downward for a moment before letting go.

Hm, She thinks to herself, lips pursing thoughtfully. Maybe he's just wants some company? She freezes again. She's seen this happen before. Oh. Oh no. Maybe…maybe he's lost someone in the attack. She'd seen the lost and the desperate linger around the area, chatting up local retailers for the sake of hearing someone else's voice, someone else to acknowledge them. She flexes her smile a bit wider.

She knows that feeling.

She knows what it's like to awake in the dead of night in a cold sweat. To clutch your pillow so hard that you want it to both suffocate and protect you, but you know it can't. Nothing can protect you now—except for the Avengers, maybe. Except for maybe Captain America. She thanked him—she was so grateful in her shock. She was still grateful after. But everything was so different now. People were different. The whole city shook in sudden dependency for something greater to hold it together. She could sense it. But she was just one person, and she had to go on like everyone else. It didn't stop her from listening to the roar of the winds through the hurting city—to grasp hope in crawling to find the remote, but find you can't turn the T.V. on. You're overwhelmed at the silence. Your head spins, but no sickness can make this feeling leave you. You're crying out just like everyone else—and in the morning, you'll put on makeup, or fix up your hair and you'll pretend like your anxiety attack didn't happen.

She blinked, smiled back at Steve.

The attack has left her just as lost as the people she tries to serve.

"Beth—just in case the name on my shirt isn't what I hope it is." The waitress reaches up to tug at the thin plate as if she wanted to check herself, but didn't have the nerve to look down. Now it was Rogers chance to return a bemused look. Noticing, the blonde continued: "Last week I accidentally took my friend Ronda's tag—and let me tell you, it was the weirdest feeling to be called by a different name all day long."

Steve chuckled softly, glancing down at the small round table before him, and Beth found herself taking just one step closer than she normally did to her usual orders. She had made him laugh—which, frankly, after everything that had been happening to her lately, she was glad to find a piece of herself again. She prided herself in letting her self-deprecating humor make other peoples' day. It certainly made her's. Besides, her shift had been slow today, and most conversation was as stale as the doughnuts inside the shop.

Beth's hand flexed nervously over her pen as she held up the notepad for the gentlemen's order, already feeling as if she'd said too much nonsense, but, as if the universe just wanted to spite her, the curious blue eyes of the man before her humored her further. He asks a question that almost allowed Beth to feel like he was actually interested. "Couldn't you have just traded it back?"

"I could have—but where's the fun in that?" She wipes her hands in the folds of her apron and the drizzles from her wheat-shimmering hair fall in the process. "Besides—I just take orders from strangers all day. What does it matter if my name is right or not? Sometimes it's thrilling. " Her light blue eyes switched to stare into Steve's before dropping themselves back to her notepad, and she feels as if she couldn't have said anything more petty.

Right, Beth regrets internally. And this is why you stopped trying to do small talk. Your talk isn't small. It's just stupid. What does this poor man care about any of that? He's probably…probably…

Steve's mouth twitched briefly. "Is that so?"

"Completely! It's the little things, I guess, that get us through the day here." Beth's pink smile tugged at the side of her mouth. "Just kind of routine."

Steve's fingers fiddle with the edge of the menu before they come to a still over the way she said routine—a little soft and sad. "Routine?"

"Ah—I suppose I mean that it's just something light to look forward too. I mean, it's just one of those things that comes with the job." She flicks the nametag again, her blue eyes joking. "Our own version of trading secret identities."

Steve pauses, his eyes tight on her, wondering.

Internally cringing, Beth brings the conversation to a close before she rushes off to another table.

"Trying to cheer up customers with a smile."

Steve leans forward and shifts the menu into her palm before he decides to smile himself. It's a small smile, one that's kind of twisted and confused, because frankly he's feels so uncomfortable he could leap up and bound the length of Fifth Avenue before anyone could know otherwise, but still he stays. He notices how her eyes widen as he smiles at her, and he wonders for a second if his grin isn't Steve Rogers grin. He closes his lips into a frown, and Beth just continues to eye him timidly before she turns away, rushing to another table.

Finally, when she enters into the café with the rest of her orders, Steve allows himself to rest his head on the edge of the table, grateful that he doesn't have the will to bonk his forehead against it, lest it snap in two. He's already in trouble enough.