Chapter Eight

Steve

We are walking down the street back to the Regency, the hotel we are all staying at, eating hotdogs we just bought from a vendor down the street. The party's ridiculously small appetizers having left us both starving.

"It's not the same," I say, shaking my head.

She stops and looks up at me, cheeks stretched from her last gigantic, unladylike mouthful. Her brows furrow and she shakes her head, struggling to swallow.

"What?" I chuckle, shrugging my shoulders.

She final swallows and looks up at me, "How is it any different!? It's a hot dog. Geography has nothing to do with it."

I shake my head, "Nope, can't compare. New York's are better."

She rolls her eyes, "You are just being stubborn."

"No, it's true."

"Hot dogs are hot dogs."

I glance at her as she wipes her hands on the paper napkin. "Naw, if you had a real hot dog in New York you wouldn't say that."

She looks at me, "Oh yeah?"

I nod. I don't know what it is. Whether it's because we are alone, or maybe because she just looks like a regular girl in an evening gown or simply because we are outside but I feel a rush of confidence. I skip ahead of her and walk backwards in front of her, smiling down at Nat, "Tell you what. After we deal with what Tony mentioned, I'll take you out to Coney Island. Get you a real New York hot dog."

She laughs and glances at me from the corner of her eye, "You would do that for me?"

I smile at her, "I take hot dogs very seriously."

"Evidently," She laughs stopping on the sidewalk. She glances across the street and I notice we are already across from the hotel. Huh, seemed further in the limo.

I look at the sidewalk, smoothing my tie down. "So, Coney Island, huh?" She asks, I glance up and notice she is smiling at me, from under her lashes.

"Yeah?" I say raising an eyebrow.

"With the amusement park rides?" I see a park bench out of the corner of my eye and take a chance. I wander over casually and sit down. She glances over at hotel before smiling, and following me over to the bench to sit down beside me.

I smile at her, "Yeah," I shrug.

She nods, hands grasping the edge of the bench rather tightly. She seems a little tense. My brow furrows a little. I don't know why she is so on edge. "I've never been there." She says raising her eyebrows, bashfully.

I do a double take and look at her, "What?" I say shocked. She shrugs, the slightest blush on her cheekbones. Is she blushing? A chink in the armour? Caused by me?! "You mean, that in all this time, you've been stateside, Barton or Fury or Stark, no one ever took you out to Coney Island?"

She giggled, shaking her head, "No, I don't think it was high on their priority lists." She said.

I shake my head looking up at the stars, "They have some odd priorities."

"I've never been to an amusement park at all really,"

I look at her again, "Oh my lord," I can't help but let it slip out.

She looks over her shoulder at me, eyes huge, "What?!"

I lean forward so my elbows rest on my knees. I nudge her shoulder with my own, "What's the point in getting 'out' if you aren't ever gonna live?" I ask quietly.

She meets my eyes, and nudges me back, "Could ask the same thing of you, Steve," I am surprised by her use of my name. It seems, intimate in this setting.

She catches me off guard. I shake my head, looking back at the street. "I guess you got me there." I can feel her eyes on me, watching me, gauging my reaction. Sitting back, I look back at her, her big green eyes dazzling in the streetlight, I shrug, "You know, maybe we could start on Coney-"

Suddenly, her phone rings in her purse on the bench beside her. She blinks at the sudden noise, glances at her purse and then looks back at me, "You were saying?" She asks as if she really doesn't want to be distracted.

I open my mouth, and the phone rings again, "Why don't you get that." I smile at her. What I was saying can wait. Maybe it was stupid. It was probably stupid. She wouldn't be that interested. Although she seemed interested….

She takes a breath, gives a quick nod, and has her phone out of her purse before the third ring, her movements almost a blur. She holds the phone up, her brow furrows. I look out at the street, leaning forward I let my elbows rest on my knees, rubbing my hands together, "Huh, it's….it's Bru- Banner." I glance over my shoulder at her correction and notice the blush on her cheekbones again, I feel my brows pull together slightly. "I better get this."

She stands up and wanders back onto the sidewalk to answer the call. I focus on listening to the street noise instead of her voice. Consciously trying not to listen to her.

I sit back taking a deep breath. What was I about to ask her? Really? I didn't even know. I never felt like I knew what I was doing. Not any more. Not really, ever since Washington. My eyes drifted over to her standing on the curb. I just know that whenever I felt lost, she would just float through my mind. I couldn't even really pinpoint why. But just something in the way she looked at me, like she trusted me to know what to do. She always looked at me like that.

My attention goes back to her when she turned back to me putting the phone down. She was watching her phone very carefully, I smirk at her, "What's up?"

She looks up at me suddenly, her mouth slightly open, like she was caught off guard. Her eyes meet mine. She smiled at me, quickly just a small one. "Bruce was trying to get in touch with Tony, about the staff. Wants me to ask Tony to call the Tower when he gets back to the hotel." I nod standing up again. It would seem my moment passed me by, "Steve?" I amble up to stand beside her.

I look down at her and smile, "Yeah?"

She opens her mouth to say something, stepping up to me, her hand reaches up and rests on my arm. Her eyes fall onto her hand on my arm and she stops, freezes, like a deer in the headlights. Like she is surprised by her own movement.

"Nat?" I turn to face her full on. My other hand comes up to her shoulder, "What's up?"

Her eyes dance from her hand to my hand on her shoulder, then up to my face. She looks confused, my brow furrows and suddenly her face is wiped clean and she smiles at me taking a deep breath, "Thank you for walking me back to the hotel."

I look into her eye and I find myself wanting to just kiss her but something stops me. A nagging negative voice deep in my chest, coming from a younger, smaller, weaker version of myself. I smile at her, "Anytime," She doesn't want me. A fossil from another age. I have nothing she is interested in. And just like that Coney Island is forgotten.