So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.

You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.

Don't forget to check out the Photobucket album listed on my profile page too.

DAY TWO

CHAPTER SIX

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2ND 2012

0500 HOURS

210 STANHOPE ST 11237

BROOKLYN NEW YORK

STEVE ROGERS

CITIZEN OF SENIORITY

I woke up late, missing the last vestige of the dawn is the red faded into the gray that would claim the sky for the rest of the day, or what passes for dawn in a city like Brooklyn. which is more along the lines of a brief window of time to see red strips peek through the cracks of tall buildings and cramped alleys.

But it wasn't the red of the sky I was hoping to see when I woke up anyways. It was the red on my answering machine.

When I got up I didn't bother to do any of my normal morning routine of washing up, getting dressed and making the bed before I even left the room. Instead I just let the sheets pool where they wanted to on the mattress and padded across the floor still in my pajamas is I looked into the living room.

Only to find myself disappointed by what I didn't see. The block like neon red digits on the machine still read 00. Nora didn't call me.

I really have no right to feel this way. If I stopped to think about it logically I should actually be glad that she didn't call, because I would hate the idea that she went out of her way to get special permission to call me and only got as far as my answering machine. A message she helped me figure out how to program at that.

Still, emotions don't always find themselves in agreement with logic, and mine are no exception. The fact that she hasn't called yet stings a little, spreading its small poisonous barbs like a cancer and making me feel betrayed by the lack of a red number.

I know she hasn't betrayed me though. In fact, she can't because she never made a promise of a particular day, she simply swore she would try to call me if she could, because she knew May was a really hard month for me. Just because she hasn't called yet doesn't mean she won't.

My doubt really does her a great disservice. I've never known her to not do exactly what she says she will. She is a very determined young lady.

Calling her something is simple is determined is probably a disservice to her is well. I didn't know it right away, it took me almost a month to truly grasp it, but Nora just might be one of the strongest people I know.

You can't see it by just looking at her five foot three slight frames, but she has so much courage in her. I can't imagine doing what she's been able to do, and still come out of it smiling and with sanity. To spend every second of everyday just trying to make it through the day without an incident.

And yet when I met her she took one look at the blood dripping from my knuckles and didn't hesitate to take the time out of her own day to take care of me, a man she never met, and bandage my wounds.

I only thought she was unusual then, and perhaps an illusion thought up in a bout of insanity, because why else would there be a young woman walking around a government facility in bare feet with holes in her jeans?

She didn't even really speak to me in that encounter, which later I figured out was because she was too busy concentrating on keeping herself calm and her hands steady.

It was April 24th and it had been a week since I woke up in that fake hospital room and ran out into an impossible version of Time Square. A week since I found out I slept through time.

I'd been beating I don't know how many sandbags into oblivion at that point, each one adding to the sand dune I was trying to make on the gym floor. I didn't really care about it until someone else could see it too, I just wanted to beat the ability to think out of me one punch at a time.

"You're a hero Captain. It will get better with time. So how are you adjusting sir? If you need any help figuring it out let me know sir. Good to have you back Captain, the world could use a man like you. Give it time Captain, you'll get used to it." Everybody knew just what to say, and none of it meant anything to me!

I thought I was giving up my life for my country, for every country, and I was okay with that decision. I made it, understanding and accepting the consequences. I was at peace with dying for the sake of freedom. Only I didn't die, and my sacrifice was all but made meaningless by that fact, and now it just seems like everybody expects me to get right back into the boots of Captain America and start serving and sacrificing for a country I don't even recognize anymore!

And I punched another hole in another sandbag right then. Only I no longer cared about the leaking bag because is it swayed pathetically on its chain with half the canvas dragging on the floor. All I was concerned with was the woman standing in the half-open door way, looking at me.

I heard her gasp softly right is my fist defeated the structural integrity of the canvas, again, and I suddenly felt like a fool.

She had probably been standing there for a minute, just watching Captain America acting rather unheroic and destroying government property instead of being the shining figure she came to see, so assuming that was what she was there about I promised to clean it up, and that was when she did the strangest thing. She shook her head and smiled softly.

That's when I really looked at her, and realized how out-of-place she was in that doorway. Everyone here was either dressed in a suit, or combat gear but she was wearing a striped purple poncho on her shoulders despite it being May and carrying a pair of fur-lined moccasins in her hands as she walked into that supply closet, with the sort of purposefulness that suggested she knew right where she was going, and then came back out with a first aid kit in her glove covered hands.

When I understood her intentions I told her she didn't have to, assuming she felt some sort of obligation to help an old war hero, but she just smiled as she sat down and said "I know", then she removed and folded up her poncho on the seat beside her and held out her hand to me.

She was gentle and meticulous and so unbelievably steady as she removed the bloodstained cotton from my knuckles and cleaned out the blood thickened sand. She even set my dislocated pinky back in place, and she did all of this with those purple opera gloves on. When I asked she'd whether take them off to keep them from getting bloody she just smiled once more like she didn't care they were being ruined.

She wrapped my knuckles back up, and when the strength of the tape didn't seem to satisfy her she pulled the bobby pins out of her short hair and wove those through the weave of the cloth like it was no big deal! Then she simply stood up, and collecting her stuff started to walk out the door.

If it wasn't for my bewildered question of 'why' she probably would have kept going. Instead when she heard me she turned back, offering me one more of those genuinely glowing smiles of hers and said "sometimes the words aren't good enough."

she wasn't there to tell me every thing would be okay, or to thank me for saving the world, or for any reason at all I realized. She hadn't even been looking for me, just found me by accident and decided to bandage my knuckles, because having someone else do it meant it would be done better.

In fact when I realized she didn't put away the first kit I also realized she didn't just think I might, she knew I would and she wanted me to go right back to beating my knuckles bloody and ruin her good work if that's what it took to make me feel better.

That revelation left me so stunned for a second that by the time I realized I had no idea who she was, or what her name was she was already gone and all my searching to thank her couldn't find her.

It took me nine days to find her again, and in that time I half convinced myself I had really imagined her, this strangely dressed pixie like woman on a government base with perfect timing and insight into exactly what I needed. If if wasn't for the bobby-pins is solid proof in my hand and the roundabout response I got every time I asked about the woman with the purple gloves I might have believed it too. But nobody tries to avoid talking about someone who doesn't exist.

I found her by accident too, because I wasn't looking at the time. I'd actually given up for a while, and went to the cafeteria to eat in between the lunch and dinner rushes so I could have a little privacy from my fans. So naturally there she was, just sitting on a bench Indian style with her moccasins beneath her chair where her feet should be, and that poncho on her shoulders as she twirled a pencil absently.

Our friendship started over blood and bobby-pins, and well that sounds like an odd and a bit disturbing basis for a friendship, she always made it look so effortless, and has become such a fixture in my life.

There were times I didn't see her, but I knew she was there anyway. A bad day would come up and another kit would just appear, set inside the door of the gym waiting for me with a roll extra bandages on top, and sterile medical bag for the blood-soaked ones. She did that because she knew I needed that outlet but I felt ashamed of letting her see me like that.

Even not being here she is still here. Her presence lingers in possessions and memories around my apartment.

It exists in the smell of fresh coffee brewing even now in the kitchen of my apartment, and the machine still has the yellowing tape I never took off it, bearing her handwriting telling me which buttons do what. She made sure I had that, after a night at the base when we both couldn't sleep and found ourselves in the cafeteria together. She made a cup for herself and asked me if I wanted some. At first I said no because coffee was always too weak to do anything for me since I received the serum, turns out she had a similar metabolism problem, and even knew how to overcome that bitter taste like a professional. She put salt in it and somehow that actually worked! Somewhere in my desk I still have a sticky note with directions for the perfect cup of coffee written on it.

It exists in my toaster which is also here because of her influence, and my preference for cream cheese on bagels. When I spent a while living in her apartment to help take care of the orphaned kitten I unintentionally gave her for Christmas, that hadn't been weaned yet and need round the clock feeding and care. I agreed to help her with that so we could take shifts and she would be able to get enough sleep. Her love of bagels and there nearly endless flavor possibility became my love of bagels, and her toaster sort of found its way here, cleverly buried in my box of things when I stopped sleeping in her guest room.

In fact all the items in my kitchen but for one frying pan and some of my silverware are here because of her. When she came over to cook one day and found out I only owned a frying pan, a set of set of silverware and dishes large enough for four people, and some steak knives. When she also realized with horror that I didn't even have a saucepan she started putting her shoes back on and told me to call a cab because we were going shopping and there would be no arguing either.

Not that I planned too, her skills in the kitchen gave me a reason to put food in my fridge and throw away my take out menu's. She made sure I wouldn't fall back into that habit too when she was reassigned to a different base, writing down some of my favorite recipes and putting a sticky note on my TV with the different cooking channels. Not that I'm anywhere near as skilled a cook is her, and I still haven't figured out how to make them taste the same is when she makes them.

And those are just object, the memory's are just is substantial.

She's never asked me to talk about my problems if I didn't want to, but it was always just is clear that if I wanted to I'd find no better listener than her. She always knew who I was, but she really didn't seem care that I was Captain America, and when I asked her about it she told me that I wasn't Captain America to her, and I should never define myself is just that. She actually seemed upset about it.

Then she asked me what kind of cake I liked, and told me yes it was because she was going to make me one since she heard my birthday was the next day. That's just the kind of person Nora is, and is it turns out German chocolate cake is very good.

She is even responsible for my favorite coffee mug. She gave it to me before she left. It has a tan eagle in its brown lacquered side, and the words 'world's best smile' written on the bottom of it. Words I didn't realize were there until after I washed it and put it upside down in my drying rack the first time.

I'm holding it know, standing in the kitchen and just looking at it, silly thing that it is. No, I have nothing to worry about, I tell myself again.

She always makes time for her friends, and somehow I'm lucky enough to be one called of those by her. I just worry that one day she will think I don't need her so much anymore, that she will move on, because sometime, while I don't like to admit this, I need a person like that around. I need her around to remind me that I don't have to be just Captain America to serve my country, maybe I can be both.