In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Central Café had been turned into a make-shift refuge for the clean-up crews.
Beth had come down there first thing with a few of the regular staff and cleared the debris, moved the smashed furniture and swept up the broken glass. Then they'd got the lights on, the coffee brewing and started running hot drinks out to the people cleaning up the street. She had left her waitress uniform at home, opting for a more practical jeans and sweater look but she still pinned her name badge to her chest.
First it was the Emergency crews, cops and firemen thankful for a warm drink. Then the fire crew brought a building inspector over, he checked the place over and said that even though the building took a partial hit the lower floors were still sound and gave them the go ahead to keep going. More people turned up to help, others who were just lost or hurt sat around, huddled in blankets as the medics checked people over, getting aid for the worst hit first.
FEMA had set up a water tender on the street nearby, she and a few other helpers were constantly going back and forth with buckets to keep the kitchens running, giving out coffee and soup to people who needed it.
She's filling a boiler from a bucket when a new group of people arrive; a family huddled in shiny emergency blankets led in by a tall well-built man. The family accept paper cups of soup and sit down in a free corner.
The man looks round, spots her and heads over. With a start she recognises the guy she'd seen sketching a few days ago, before all the madness. He'd seemed nice, good looking but a little lost; the look she often saw on small town folk in the big city for the first time.
But now as he gets close he seems more confident, strangely at home in all this chaos and destruction. He's well wrapped up and looks like he's been helping the clean-up crews - in a baseball cap and dust mask, dark jeans and an old style dark leather jacket, work boots and gloves , all covered in grime from the wreckage.
He tugs down the dust mask revealing a tired but satisfied smile
"Hi. Didn't expect to see you open again"
"Well, I just felt like we had to do something to help out" She gives him a grin "you look like you could do with a cup of coffee"
"Yes please ma'am."
She rummages up an actual cup, only slightly broken and fills it with coffee.
"Here you go"
"Thanks
"So you've been clearing the wreckage?"
"Yeah, I had to come down and help out where I can. You need anything fixing round here?"
"Well the powers intermittent and water is by the bucket but they'll do, but more coffee would be good. The owner grabbed the register, took their expensive Blue Mountain and split, so we have gone through all the good stuff and are down to the catering packs of instant"
He nods "know where I can get you some more?"
"Well it you're feeling brave there's more in the cellar but its part flooded and full of rubble and rats."
He gives her an easy grin and flexes his gloved hands. "Just point the way"
A while later he reappears from the cellar, a struggling sack in one hand and a big bag of coffee over his shoulder. "Here's your coffee. I fixed the fuse box as best I can while I was down there"
"Thanks. These crews seem to run on grim humour, stubbornness and caffeine"
There's shouting outside, a running medic goes past "They're still pulling bodies from the rubble."
"I'm going to go help, but I'll drop back in later, ok?"
She gives him a smile "I'll see you later"
He hands her the struggling bag "careful, the rats are vicious" and jogs out into the mayhem
Hours later she's dead on her feet and ready to give up and go home. Other peoples have volunteered to take over and she's happy to leave it to them for now. But she's been holding on, just hoping he'd come back like he said. Several of the people helping have teased her about how she looks up whenever people come in.
It's almost midnight when he comes back, plastered in dust
As she fixes him a cup of coffee he takes off his baseball cap and nervously runs his fingers through his hair
"Looks like you've been busy. Here, drink this. Looks like you need it" She hands him the cup then sits next to him "I'm Beth, by the way"
"Steve" he smiled shyly "Steve Rogers"
"I kind of guessed. It's just you look so different out of costume, when you're not doing all that fighting and stuff"
He looks sheepish "I'm just trying to help out. The worlds got very strange over the last few years"
"I'll say. But you saved my life, saved a whole load of us. I just want to say thank you"
"It's ok" he looks at the cup in his hands "I was going to ask if you wanted to go grab a cup of coffee sometime but I guess that's a bit redundant now."
She laughs "yeah, and there's not many other places left in town"
"Maybe when things are straightened out a bit we could go someplace, maybe catch a movie?"
"That'd be good. Though I don't know what'd be good"
"I've a lot of catching up to do" he pulls a little red book from his back pocket "My friends were saying I need to see all 'the classics'. Next on the list is Star Wars, know anywhere that's showing that?"
"Oh, you've not seen Star Wars?!" she squeaked in fan-girlish astonishment, then took a chance and said "You have got to see it. Look, I've the whole original trilogy on DVD; want to come over to mine this weekend? You bring pizza, I'll fix popcorn and I'll treat you to a movie marathon"
He grins, over his nerves "That sounds great. What pizza and what time?" He opens the little notebook to a clean page and produces a pen.
She gestures and he hands her the book. She carefully writes in her name, address, email and phone number and says "Pepperoni and black olives, say 6 o'clock?"
"Sounds good to me. Is it true they put pineapple on pizza these days?"
"You've never had a Hawaiian pizza?"
"Something else I missed out on"
"You should try it, its great!"
"Ok, if you say so. I'll see you at six!"
"ok, It's a date"
Six o'clock sharp, Beth hears a knock on her apartment door. She frantically checks round, straightens the cushions on the couch, checks her hair in the mirror by the door then checks the spyhole.
Outside she can see Steve's face over a mountain of pizza boxes.
She double checks herself in the mirror – she'd decided to dress casual, jeans and her favourite vintage star wars t-shirt, with the "long time ago in a galaxy far away" Poster art on it. Not to nerdy, not too girly, but her chest filled it out nicely and her jeans fit her hips and… She starts to hyperventilate as the realisation hits that OMG Captain America is here at her door and he brought pizza… She takes a deep breath and opens the door.
"Hi, come on in"
He manoeuvres the unwieldy pile of boxes in and sets them on the table
"Here you go, one Pepperoni and Black olives for you, two classic mozzarella for me and one Hawaiian as an adventure. I found out Totonno's is still there in Brooklyn. I used to go past there when I was a boy, never could afford to get pizza but it always smelt so good. They gave us some chicken wings and garlic bread as well."
Beth produces paper plates and a couple of cold beers from the kitchen, hands one to him and settles on the sofa.
"Great, I'll get the film set up"
On the Rooftop opposite the Black Widow crouches, watching. The laser microphone she had was tuned out of the spectrum she knows Cap could see, so they don't know she could hear as clearly as if she had an ear pressed to the window glass. She stays perfectly still for over an hour, watching as the two of them chatted and laughed, ate pizza and watched movies. The smiles and nervous glances, the way he touches her hair, careful of his own strength.
Watched as Steve put his arm around Beth's shoulders and she leaned into him as they watched the movie.
She'd seen enough. Lucky girl. Fighting down a pang of jealousy she shut off the laser and toggled her radio.
"Captain Rogers is logging off now; only contact him for Priority 1 emergencies. I'm putting a five block no fly zone around my location, duration 24 hours, copy?"
"Copy Agent Romanov. Cap is priority 1 only, No Fly zone in effect"
"Ok, I'll need transport back to base from five blocks east of my location"
"On its way"
She heads down off the roof, fixing her trademark look of amused detachment as she starts her five block walk to the pick-up zone.
Notes
Ashley Johnson plays the waitress from Central Cafe in Avengers, she's not named Beth in the credits but that's what her uniform name tag says. There's a scene that was cut where she talks to Steve in the cafe and Stan Lee tells him he should ask for her number.
The History of Pizza in America
Lombardi's (32 Spring Street NYC) opened in 1905 and is not only the oldest pizzeria in New York but has the honour of being the very first pizzeria in America.
The second oldest is Totonno's Pizzeria Napolitano (1524 Neptune Avenue, Coney Island, Brooklyn), which was opened in 1924 by Anthony (Totonno) Pero, who previously worked at Lombardi's.
Hawaiian pizza
The origin of a Ham / bacon, cheese and pineapple pizza is open to debate but Sam Panopoulos claims that he created the first true Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada in 1962.
There are mentions of "Hawaiian" foods being anything topped with pineapple before that in the 50s but as Captain Rogers got frozen in 1945 he'd have never seen a Hawaiian Pizza
Sam Wilson = "You must miss the good old days."
Steve Rogers ="Well, things aren't so bad. The food's a lot better, we used to boil everything. No polio, good. Internet, so helpful."
— The Winter Soldier.