Bruce was shocked how long it took for the riding lessons to come out. Tony was not his usual talkative self about it. Which, when he thought about it, probably had something to do with the fact that Tony was used to being the best. And he wasn't, not by a long shot, not even in his own lessons. Because Loki would be brilliant, wouldn't he? Asgard was a civilization where horses were a part of daily life, and as a prince, Loki would do more riding and less walking and have horses at his disposal for pleasure riding any time that he liked. In fact, Loki and Thor had probably been given their very own ponies as soon as they could walk. Even recovering from a broken ankle, Loki would be an incredible rider. Tony didn't stand a chance.
The only reason he had found out was that Tony was moving stiffly. He'd done a good job of hiding it, but Bruce had still picked up enough subtle winces and slight hesitations in movement to confront him about it. Faced with the threat of an exam, Tony had confessed to being saddlesore.
Well, at least it seemed to be doing Loki's ankle no harm. If anything, it was good physical therapy. They had to have been riding a week or two by then, and Loki had a spring in his step that suggested he was in minimal if any pain, and good spirits.
They also weren't pranking him as much anymore, which Bruce greatly appreciated. The productive outlet for their energy seemed to be helping balance out the chaos generated by being together. Or they'd taken him semi-seriously when he'd threatened to treat them like children if they insisted on acting the part. Bruce wasn't even sure what he'd meant when he said it, which he suspected they knew. What would he do, put them in time out for pranking him? Spank them? Take away privileges? Withhold dessert? He didn't have the power to do any of those things, especially not in Tony's house.
Bruce shook himself and tried to focus back on the papers that he was grading. The first test was starting to loom, so he wanted to get these handed back quickly. His stomach growled, and he gave it up for the moment. He'd go grab a snack from the kitchen and come back.
Bruce's mind started wandering again as he pulled a container of shrimp and a jar of dip out of the fridge. He hadn't heard much from the rest of the team lately. That was good, wasn't it? There'd been no new crises that warranted their involvement. Still, he didn't have many friends, and they were his friends. Perhaps he should call someone or shoot someone an email, just to catch up and-Ow!
He looked at the container of shrimp properly. Someone had replaced the ready to eat supermarket variety with live ones, and his finger had been either bitten or pinched when he'd put his hand in. Luckily it was nothing more than a small surprising pinch, being shrimp rather than a species with more substantial claws, but a surprise all the same. He wondered for whom the joke had been intended. He rolled his eyes, replaced the containers in the fridge, and fixed himself some cheese and crackers instead.
Steve allowed himself to slide down the door to sit against it, heart racing. He could hear the voices coming up the stairs and thanked Director Fury's good judgement that his name wasn't on his apartment door. Still, they knew what building he lived in now.
He couldn't believe it. Here he was, Captain America, defender of the free world, an Avenger, and he was hiding from a horde of fans. Ordinary humans.
Okay, there were a lot of them. And they were vicious. Wincing, he tried to roll his shoulder and immediately decided that that was a bad idea. He couldn't be certain with the noise of the screaming fans torturing his sensitive ears, but he thought he might have heard something pop as he struggled to free himself and he wasn't sure if it was his shoulder or his favorite jacket tearing. Or both; that was also possible.
God, that was pathetic. After everything he'd done, a crowd of screaming fans, of all things, had succeeded in injuring him.
Of course, in his defense, he hadn't seen it coming. He was happy and prepared to shake hands and take pictures and sign autographs, even if it meant his ice cream would melt before he got it home. A mob tackling him, fighting to touch him, trying to tear his clothes off him for souvenirs, though, that he had not seen coming.
The mob was going up and down the hall, rattling doorknobs and screaming for him to come out. He craned his neck to double-check that he'd locked and deadbolted his door, wincing again as the movement tweaked his shoulder. He had. Not wanting to risk making noise and revealing that his apartment was occupied by getting up to put his groceries away, he leaned back against the door and held the carton of ice cream against his shoulder as he waited for them to give up and move to the next floor.
This was going to be make things very complicated. They might not know where in the building he was, but they knew he was in the building. They would be staking it out, trying to out-wait him, and they had plenty of manpower to do it. Steve wasn't sure what to do now.
Maybe he should give up on trying to live like a normal person. The rest of the team seemed to be doing better with staying out of these sort of scrapes than he was. Tasha and Clint lived on base. Thor lived in Asgard and only came for visits. Tony had his high-security mansion for living in and his tower for business. Bruce had moved in with Tony.
Where should he go, though? Fury would love for him to move onto base, he was sure. But Steve had reservations about that. He wanted an escape when SHIELD got to be overwhelming. He still worked for SHIELD, as did they all, but after Fury's trickery surrounding Agent Coulson's not-death he preferred to not allow himself to be immersed in SHIELD. Thor would love the opportunity to bring a friend home with him, but Steve didn't want to stray so far from home.
He should probably accept Tony's invitation to come live with him. The idea of joining in on the billionaire's lavish lifestyle and tendency to chaos was a little daunting, but it couldn't be too bad. Bruce seemed to be surviving it alright. The more Steve thought about it, the better an idea it seemed. The Stark mansion was well-protected and quiet, except for the things originating within. There were miles of beaches stretching out around it, where he could go for long runs undisturbed if he went out early enough to avoid the beach-goers. He could amuse himself for weeks, months even, just going out on the grounds or up on the roof and drawing or painting things that he could see.
And he'd be with other people who didn't worship him. That decided it. Once the mob in the hallway went away, he was placing a long-distance call to the west coast.
...Oh boy. How's Steve going to handle moving in?
I think you got this update faster than usual from me. Suffice to say, I'm going stir-crazy. My life is in transition, and it's all hurry up and wait. This was supposed to be a period of very light workload, just paperwork and stuff, so that I could focus on moving. Instead, renovations on my new apartment are behind schedule, so I can't move in yet and I'm living out of a suitcase. Which means I have a ton of time now but may still be trying to get moved when my workload picks up. Crud. But for now, you get extra updates.