Mugged

The morning began as a bit of a bust for Steve Rogers. Someone had changed his alarm clock song, his coffee machine broke when he attempted to turn it on, and his morning run route was more crowded than normal. As he walked into the kitchen his phone vibrated with a message, and he wasn't surprised to receive a text message with more bad news in it.

Ella: Hey! I got a subbing gig on the west side at the alternative school, so I can't make lunch.

Steve: could hardly help the huff of breath that left his body as he nodded his head and moved to respond. But just as he pulled up the keyboard, he got another message from the brunette.

Ella: Do you want to try for Dinner and a Movie around 6 at my place instead?

And just like that, he figured his day would be back on course. He responded with a quick affirmative and grabbed a banana off the counter, walking over to his gym bag and throwing it over his shoulder. With lunch pushed back to dinner, he had more time to train and read and to figure out what song he wanted to change his alarm to. Instead of taking the elevator, he opted for the door to the stairs, making his way down two floors to the 'Private' Avengers space. A boxing ring sat in the middle, weights on one side of the room, space for a re-enforced boxing pad space even had a small locker room with showers, and a room they dubbed 'the armory' with a series of different weapons for target practice.

Sitting on the edge of the ring, Steve rolled his shoulders and began the process of wrapping his knuckles. While he knew he didn't need the extra padding, it still was a relaxing habit he put in his workout routine. Glancing at himself in the mirror across from him, he threw a few punches to make sure they wouldn't slip.

"JARVIS, could you start my playlist please?" the Captain continued to use pleasantries when he spoke to the AI, even though Tony gave him strife whenever he was nearby.

As the music turned on Steve bounced on the balls of his feet tossing a few more punches before he contacted the pad. Once he gained his momentum, he switched back and forth between soft and hard punches, watching as the pad shifted back and forth. There was a monitor inside of it measuring the force he used, that he would probably check later. But at that moment, he let the rhythm of both the music and the sound of his hands hitting the pad lull him into a focused but relaxed state.

He had only been working at it for a few minutes before the sound of the music decreased, changing his attention to the door as Natasha walked in. She wore a tank top, and her left shoulder was a light purple from a rough landing she had taken in their fight earlier that week. He paused his workout to turn and say hello.

Rather than a greeting she stepped into the ring and stretched out her arms, "How does a spar sound?"

Due to the fact, Natasha was often on missions, Steve rarely got the chance to spar with her in a friendly sense. He'd gone to a few of the Shield Trainings in DC while Stark Tower was being rebuilt but working with Natasha was always educational for him. Her fighting style as a spy was very different from the straightforward boxing he had learned in the army. The first few times they fought had ended with him on the ground because he feared using too much of his strength. What he hadn't realized was the Widow's ability to shift his own strength against him. The last time they had worked in the ring, the match was much closer than he'd expected it would be.

"If your shoulder is up for it?"

The redhead gave him a light shrug and continued stretching as he wiped his forehead with a towel before walking over.

"Still running in the mornings?"

"Yeah, I hope I can keep it going through the winter if it doesn't snow too much."

The chit-chat ended as quickly as he fully stepped into the rink. There was a tilt to Natasha's head before she took the first few swings. Steve knew she was just getting warmed up. As they moved into a tentative pattern of attacks, blocks, and rolls, he began to focus one more on her fight strategy, just as he knew she always did when she fought him. In a previous conversation, she had told him that he was a very straightforward fighter, predictable, but he managed to get by on his strength and enhanced sensitivities. For this reason, he had begun to research other forms of martial arts that he was less familiar with, hoping that he could pick some of it up.

With a few new moves under his belt, he knew Natasha had many more to keep an eye on.

During the following half an hour both Avengers had gotten a few solid hits in, and he had gotten the chance to try a new move or two, only taking a few minutes to break in the middle to chat about technique before starting back up. It took a while for them to get serious, and the match swiftly ended in his victory again, but Natasha still seemed to be in pretty good spirits.

As she put a shirt on over her sports bra, she watched him take another drink of his water and unwrap his hands. With a nonchalant look on her face, she started a new train of conversation, "Clint and I were planning on starting the series Quantico tonight over pizza, it's a spy show or something. What are your plans?"

Steve thought of his plans to meet Eleanor and shrugged in response, still not ready to introduce her to the rest of his superhero-rag-tag team. He knew better than just about anyone that she would be intimidated. She seemed to be a bit on the shy side, and while friendly he feared the team would interrogate her into running away. He refused to lose his only 'normal' friend. "I was thinking about going for a ride into Brooklyn for dinner, but if I change my mind tonight I'll let you know." He made sure to make eye contact with Natasha, and she didn't seem to react to his admission of the full truth. Instead, she turned on her heel and began to head over toward the locker room labeled ladies, a hand in the air to let him know it 'sounded good'.

In terms of personal relationships, Steve felt closest to Natasha and Clint, but he figured it was a testament to their tendency not to talk too much. Natasha was straight to the point, and she was quick to leave people alone if she got bored or didn't like the conversation. Honestly, she was still really difficult to figure out. Clint was a bit more of a tease, but he also had a very good sense of when enough was enough. Clint was also most likely to be helpful explaining pop-culture that Steve couldn't comprehend. Bruce was seemingly shy, and while Steve knew his passion was in Science, half the time Steve couldn't understand a word he or Tony said in conversation. And while Thor was around occasionally, he ranked a bit on the eccentric side.

Perhaps that is also why he got along with Eleanor so well. She seemed to match his personality in very gentle ways. In disagreements, a flame lit in her eye and she became a tad competitive. She was creative and understanding and her wit was never too sharp. There was always an effort she put in to make sure he understood her jokes, and she didn't mind talking when he fell into a moment of silence. Somehow, she knew what questions to ask. Perhaps it was his improved memory, but he couldn't remember a time when chatting with someone came so easily as it did when he was with her.

Along with his arrival to Eleanor's apartment building came the clouds, and the evening was much darker than usual. Steve walked his motorcycle to a space under the stairs to keep it covered and made sure to grab everything valuable—just to make it less likely to be stolen. He kept his head down and his hat on as he climbed the stairs, despite the looks he got from two of the men on the ground floor smoking.

Checking his watch, he noted he was still a few minutes early, but the lights to the apartment were on and he could see movement behind the blinds of her entryway. His light knock on the door was still loud enough to echo in the unit, and he could hear Eleanor's footsteps in the kitchen. She paused in front of the door for a minute or so before actually swinging it open.

The first thing Steve noticed was that her hair was down, partially covering the left side of her face in a style he hadn't seen her wear it before. She also wore sweatpants and a t-shirt and was definitely comfy for a night in. She seemed to be a bit more hesitant than normal as she moved out of the way, gesturing for him to come in. Rather than the normal grin and eye contact that she made with him when they saw each other, she shuffled out of the way and kept her head tilted down. Her immediate abnormal behavior to his arrival forced his senses on high alert.

Despite the slightly awkward entrance, Steve lifted the bag he had in his hands. "I brought a bottle of wine," he stated.

"Perfect!" Eleanor tried to keep her head down but flipped her hair to the side unconsciously as she reached forward to take the bag from him, and Steve automatically noticed the dark red shade of her upper cheek, a slight swelling under her eye and darkening by the second. For a moment, his heart stopped. Making eye contact, Eleanor quickly noticed his change and realized her error, reaching up and running a hand through her hair to cover the darkening bruise once more. She was still too late.

"What happened?" He moved his hand to touch her face and move the hair away to get a better look, but she instantly flinched away in the opposite direction, already headed further into the unit.

"I got hit by a baseball at school." Her voice rose to a higher pitch in an obvious lie. Actually, she was worse than him at lying, which was almost hard to do.

Steve shut and locked the door behind him and followed her to the kitchen, where he could already see pasta simmering on the stove. He glanced around the counter table and tried to get another look at her face, but she kept her back to him and her head tilted to the side to keep her hair in her face.

"All of my movies are on the bookshelf if you want to pick one out now, dinner will be ready in just a few more minutes," While he hadn't known her long, Eleanor was almost as stubborn as him growing up.

"I want to know what happened to your face? That bruise is not baseball inflicted." He knew his attitude was a bit more pushy than normal, but just seeing her small form physically injured caused an uneasy sensation to wash over him. He couldn't see her fighting anyone, she was petite and too kind to even consider throwing a punch.

"I ran into someone on my way to the subway from the school. It's fine."

"You ran into someone? And they hit you?"

"I was in the Bronx. It happens." She huffed continuing not to look at him.

"The school was in the Bronx?"

"Yeah. That's what I said," Exasperated and with a bit of attitude, she tried to change the subject once more, "classes were great. The kids were great, I mean it's a rough area, but the kids were good for school happening in the summer, over half of them are on free-or-reduced lunches, but they understand the content of the work they do." She stirred the sauce in the pan a bit more, still not looking at him.

Steve let her comment sit in the air for a few moments before returning to the issue at hand, "But then you ran into someone's fist on your way out of the neighborhood? Did they say anything to you? Did you talk to the police?"

"That area has enough police." She shrugged again, she moved to the larger pan and picked it up, walking it over to the sink where he could see the top of the strainer. As she poured she continued, falling into a ramble of words as she spoke quicker, "It's honestly not that big of a deal. I didn't have anything that can't be replaced. And my phone was on the inside pocket of my jacket so they-"

"They?" Steve couldn't help but feel sick to his stomach knowing she was trying to speak quicker so he wouldn't ask any questions. "How many were there?"

She grimaced and realized her mistake, "'They' is a gender-neutral pronoun," she argued. When he gave her a look she just sighed. "There were three—" She stopped him before he could comment further, "but they all looked very young, high school age even. They were probably trying to find something to do before the local schools start, or get money for supplies." She flipped off the burners on the stove and walked back over to make eye contact, this time biting at her lip. She had tried to square up her shoulders and kept her face straight staring at the food in the pan with the determination not to let her emotions falter.

His head shook. Eleanor was good she was strong. There were no other words for her, but her heart was too big and too forgiving. "I don't care how old they looked, Eleanor. Did they have a weapon, was it just the hit?"

"A… they had a gun, but the one with it, his hands shook, and they didn't want to hurt anyone." He could see the tears welling up in her eyes and she ran her hand through her hair, her attitude faltering. "But Steve, I'm fine now, I swear, I can take care of myself. It's over and I'd just like—I'd just like to forget it happened." Her voice had a slight tremor as she tried to pull herself together.

Realizing how traumatic it probably was he reached out for her, not actually touching her until she took another step forward. Once she did, he let his hand rest just above her elbow and pulled her closer wrapping her smaller frame into his own and resting his cheek on the side of her head. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "I know you can protect yourself, but I've seen a lot of young people do terrible things, and it scares me to think of you getting hurt." She returned his hug, and seemed to laugh, despite the tears that escaped her eyes.

"You're the one who's always getting shot at." She patted his chest.

"I'd prefer we keep it that way." Steve couldn't help but laugh back. "I'm just glad that you're safe." Again, he pulled away and looked at the bruise forming on her cheek. "But we should get some frozen peas on that, it's not going to look pretty in the morning."

She nodded. "We should eat dinner first. Ice after. Deal?"

"Deal. What's for dinner?"

"Spaghetti?"

Steve laughed. "You say that like it's a question."

When someone asked me how often I'd update this, I originally said weekly, but honestly, I have no idea. It's more like when I feel like it. Sorry for the irregularities. But I blame my characters for being spontaneous and changing the plot when I'm least expecting it.

Reviews are greatly appreciated!