So, here we are, back again. It was entirely too long between updates, I know. Hopefully after this it should even out some and be a bit more frequent. We own nothing that you vaguely recognize from outside this story, unfortunately. Thank you so much to our first reviewer, Aileen Autarkeia, for her amazing support! Well, as a heads up, this chapter is in present time, but I'm actually going to repeat that in about two lines or so, so yeah, that's it. Not a lot of Rosie and Jo in this chapter, though.
"All the ones you used to know,
Don't drop in and say hello,
but you ask yourself,
I know you ask yourself,
Where do they go?
They come here…"
Steve Rogers was not a heavy drinker. There was just no point to it for him.
Tony Stark, however, drank alcohol like it was V8 fruit juice and someone was slapping him upside the head. And so, he had a tendency to drag the others out barhopping with him. Which explained why the Avengers, plus Pepper Potts, were walking down a crowded New York street, all wearing sunglasses and hats or wigs. Steve had to wonder if he was the only one who couldn't see through the sunglasses because it was night time. He had been practically force-fed multiple drinks that night, but still wasn't the slightest bit inebriated. Clint and Tony were both definitely exceptionally drunk, and Bruce was actually a bit tipsy, a fact that was worrying Steve. Natasha was Russian; they were going to have to find better bars than they had been to, bars with much stronger drinks, for them to have any effect. Pepper had suspiciously turned down any drink offers, claiming to be the designated driver, and no one pointed out that they were walking. By the time he decided to argue the point, Tony had already had several shots and could not seem to remember the fact that they hadn't taken a car. Thor had effectively disappeared around an hour ago, but Steve wasn't very worried. Sure, he kept an eye out, but the Asgardian was adapting easily to the culture of Earth and was in the same boat as Natasha as far as being drunk went; he was used to much stronger alcohol. Still, he wondered where the giant of a man(ish) had run off to.
Steve's thoughts were interrupted when Tony slammed into his side, then kept running past him, following Clint to the next bar. He could swear that he heard one of them yelling something about blue hedgehogs attacking ducks, which was all but lost on him. As annoying as it was, he knew it had probably only happened because Tony was a bit slap-happy. A laugh behind him made him turn to the team's two resident redheads, who were walking arm-in-arm behind him.
"What are we going to do with them?" Pepper asked, shaking her head at her boyfriend's antics.
Natasha pursed her lips in mild annoyance at Clint's behavior. "At least yours isn't the one screaming about Sonic the hedgehog eating his waterfowl," she said flatly.
Steve shook his head, taking a moment to look around. The area seemed familiar to him somehow, but he just chalked it up to having been a place he had been beat up once or twice. A small storefront window, lined with American flag pennants, caught his eye, for it too had a distinct familiarity to it. It was almost as if he had been here before. But it was the man sitting at a bar inside the window drew his attention more so than the bar itself. He stared in disbelief, because there sat Thor, sitting at a bar and laughing as if someone had told him the best joke in the world. "Would you look at that," he said, pointing.
"Well I'll be," Bruce said, standing next to him. "Looks like our wayward Asgardian had found us again. You'd better go get him, we'll follow the other two and make sure they don't burn down the city."
"Alright," Steve said. He started across the street, but stopped short when he saw the neon sign in the front window, advertising the words "Yesterday's Adventure." A broad grin spread across his face. So that was why the place seemed familiar. He honestly couldn't believe that it had lasted this long. "Hey Bruce!" he shouted. "When you catch up to them, go ahead and bring them back here. I have to show you guys something!"
Bruce waved a hand over his head, but didn't look back at Steve. The good captain shook his head in amusement and kept walking. He pushed open the door, hearing the same jingle of bells that he had heard over 70 years ago. Looking around, he was surprised to see that almost everything in the room was exactly the same as it was when he last entered. The same black teak bar dominated one wall, surrounded by barstools that looked exactly the same as the wooden ones from the past. Even the pictures on the walls were the same, but if he had paid them a bit more attention, he would have realized that photographs that were once black and white or sepia toned were now in full color. But that wasn't what caught his eye.
What caught his eye were the two young women talking to Thor. All three were laughing gleefully. When they heard the door open, all three turned to him.
"Friend Steve! There you are!" Thor boomed, but he wasn't paying attention. He was staring between the two wide-eyed girls behind the bar. The blond, though almost a head shorter than her companion, stepped in front of the other woman, taking a defensive stance.
"You need to go," she said, eyes hard. "Now."