Neighbors
A few weeks after the Baseball game, Steve made his way down the street on foot. Eleanor had mentioned something about a local diner she'd wanted to try that Thursday for brunch, and while the cloud cover almost promised rain, he figured he could just catch a Taxi back downtown when they finished. As he got closer to her apartment, he noticed the men sitting on the corner of the street smoking something that did not smell like cigarettes. There were three of them, and they each stopped talking as he got closer.
The Captain checked himself to make sure that he was showing his confidence, and he slipped his hands out of his pockets and let them rest by his side, just to make himself feel better.
When he was about five feet away, the blond-haired man took a step toward him. "Hey man, what you doing in this neighborhood?" the man's pants seemed to sag halfway down his waste and Steve wondered how he could possibly manage to walk in those.
He managed the shortest response, recognizing when someone was sizing him up. "Visiting."
"Yeah. The hot girl in 214, right?" the man in front of him smirked as his jaw tightened. He could see the two guys behind him also chuckling. Something in his rational mind told him this was a strategy to gather his attention.
So Steve bit, however tentatively, pausing his movements. He adjusted the glasses he kept on when he didn't want to be recognized. "What do you want?"
"A piece of her ass," this time the man sitting on the curb chuckled underneath his breath. If Steve's hearing wasn't as sensitive, he's sure he would have missed it.
The man closest to him chuckled as well. His shoulders fell back making him seem a bit taller, and his fingers wrapped into the loops of his sagging pants. He had an air of cockiness that Steve wasn't sure what to do with. "You seem like a rule follower, we just wanna make sure you stay out of our business we got goin'" The man took a few steps closer to him, and Steve could smell whatever they had been smoking. Still. He didn't say anything and held his ground. "You military?"
A fourth voice entered the conversation from next to the stairs of the complex building. "Veteran," Eleanor approached the group of men with a straight face, tougher and more serious than he had ever seen before. "Leave him alone Vic."
Vic, as the man was named, took steps toward her, and it took all of Steve's will not to grab him and pull him away. Eleanor stood her ground though, not breaking eye contact with the man. "What you going to do babe?" he tilted his head and showed his rotting teeth.
"Call your mom and have her whoop your ass into shape." Steve felt his eyebrows raise. Eleanor's deposition seemed to have changed, and he couldn't suss out why he hadn't seen this version of her before. The men on the corner that seemed to be friends with Vic cracked up, their laughter was loud and unruly.
"Keep an eye on your Labrador Retriever then." Vic didn't flinch at her insult but rather turned around to walk back to his friends, snatching the not-cigarette out of one of their hands and taking a puff from it.
Steve watched them but walked closer to Eleanor, who made eye contact with him and nodded her head toward her apartment building. As they walked away together, he couldn't help but feel irrational anger again when Vic called out. "And if you need a real man, sexy, you know where to find me!"
Eleanor let out a deep breath but didn't say anything. She took her keys out of her pocket and looked at them before letting him into her apartment. The moment he shut the door she spun around with her big brown eyes and ran a hand through her hair. "I am so sorry. He is the worst, I was glancing out my window and saw his attention on you down the street" She walked backward toward the kitchen.
"Who exactly is he?" Steve followed her footsteps and she turned around. She was collecting her things and putting them into her purse.
"Just a thug. He runs with this gang that operates on this side of town. Mostly running around selling drugs getting arrested and doing other stupid things." She rolled her eyes when she noticed Steve's concerned look. "I'm fine. As long as you don't do anything to them they leave you alone."
"But they live nearby?"
"Sort of." She motioned out her window. "You've passed them before, maybe not Vic, but they're usually on the street in the evenings. There are three or four that live in this building, Vic's brother." This time she checked her hair in the mirror and then gave him a smile when she turned back to him. "It's okay. Aside from the occasional cat-call, they leave me alone."
Steve just nodded his head. "Are we still going to this brunch place?"
Ella gave him a huge grin and nodded, slipping on her shoes. Steve stood near the balcony and looked down at the three guys on the street. This time they were talking to someone in a car that had pulled over. His brunette friend gave him a nudge when the door was secured before she leads them down the stairs and in the opposite direction. Her hair blew in the wind a little bit, forcing her to throw it over one shoulder. She slipped her sunglasses down too when they turned a corner.
"You were so confident with them. I don't think I've ever seen that side of you." He smiled when she smirked and glanced up at him.
She raised a single eyebrow toward him and winked an extra twinkle seemed to glimmer in her eye. "Are you saying I'm normally meek?"
He chuckled. "I used to think that. But then I got to know you." He took a step and lightly ran into her side.
"You just have to be straight forward with men like them." She was serious for a moment when she answered his question.
"Where'd you learn that?"
Her response was out before he even finished his question, "Foster Home." Steve stared at her as they walked, she didn't say any words beyond what she thought was necessary on the topic.
Just as she had told him, the place she wanted to eat brunch at was hardly 5 minutes away.
They ordered and sat down in comfortable silence before she giggled to herself and looked up at Steve. "You know, You are sort of like a golden retriever" She mentioned when he raised his eyebrow.
Steve chuckled himself. "I think that might be more of Thor's thing. I'd be more of a lab." Elanor snorted and had to put her hand to her mouth so she didn't spit out her drink. She could only nod her head in agreement with his assessment. "Natasha would be a cat though."
"What about the others? From what you've told me, Doctor Banner sounds like a big Saint Bernard."
"I could see that. Clint would be a terrier. I think Tony would be a terrier too."
"I always saw Tony as a bit of a pug?"
This time Steve nearly choked, "a pug?" the small smushed face of one he'd seen in Europe caused even more confusion.
Ella took a moment to seriously think about her response, "Yeah. Supposedly he's sort of short and he has an attitude, right?" Steve laughed and nodded his head.
"I guess if you think pugs have an attitude?"
"Oh, they do." She started a story about working in the Humane Society and the time a woman's five pugs were brought in because she was too old to take care of them any longer. The discussed more dog breeds and their experiences with them before their food came.
"How's work?" Ella asked lightly, giving Steve a wink and causing him to respond with a bit of a groan.
"Aside from the occasional training, there's not much for us to do. Tony and Bruce have their science floor and Natasha and Clint are in and out on missions for SHIELD. Usually, I'm just around. I can only work out so often I think I might be going stir crazy without some real action."
Eleanor just nodded her head in response, giving him a small smile. "Maybe you need to find a day job?" She suggested. They both laughed and Steve just looked out the window.
"I don't know what I'd do."
"You could be a personal trainer? Art Teacher?" Steve let one eyebrow raise and she giggled. Then she gave him an answer that was a little more real. "You could work for the government still. Maybe ask SHIELD to send you on some missions? Or train you in intelligence gathering? I'm sure they wouldn't say no." Her words struck a cord in Steve and he thought about it for a moment or two, taking a sip of his drink before nodding his head.
"That's a good idea." He kept rolling it around in his mind.
The woman sitting across from him leaned back. "I'm known to have them every once in a while. I can't stand not doing anything. Hence the volunteering and the substituting and the shop job." She also pointed outside. "You could go on vacation? Like, take a tour of the 21st century United States or Post-Reformation Europe."
Again, Steve considered that as a viable option. "Have you been to Europe?"
"Nope! Maybe one day. It's on my bucket list next to Japan and New Zealand."
"New Zealand?" That was a location that Steve hadn't thought of since his geometry class in the 1930s.
Ella nodded. "There's this book series to add to your list, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, they turned it into movies and filmed all in New Zealand. It just looks so beautiful there. The mountains and the lakes and the green fields." She got a dreamy look before shaking her head and taking another bite of her meal. Steve laughed at her description and proceeded to do just that—add the Hobbit to his little book of things he needed to do, in parenthesis he added 'books and movies'. The two of them finished their meal and made their way back toward Ella's apartment. Rather than stay, he dropped her off this time and began to head back toward the tower, walking past those men again on the sidewalk. The group seemed a bit bigger, and almost more nefarious as they watched him walk by.
Eleanor was sure she could deal with them, and Steve hoped that was true. She was just too kind and so small. He also felt more concerned as winter was approaching. Soon it'd be getting dark earlier and she'd have to walk half a mile from the train station. While he was sure his concern was unfounded, he still found it something to possibly look out for. Maybe at some point, he could have Pepper make an alert for crimes in the area or something.
Hello friends and potential reviewers! Reviews really do keep me going, I think I've finally got a bit better of a plot handle on this story now, and I'm excited for summer and the chance I'll get to really just sit and write in the countryside of Middle of Nowhere Asia.
The more you review the sooner I'll update.
Also- Endgame? It destroyed me. So this is also me trying to pick up the pieces of what's left of my heart and put them together again. Marvel has always been a place for me to go during hard times and just the thought of the first arc is over and the characters that have been a part of my formative years are not returning to screen- it kills me. At least I have fanfiction still.
Lots of love~