100.
Brooklyn, New York City
December 6th, 2011
Steve can never sleep after a bad dream. Some of them he isn't sure he'll ever sleep again.
So, nearly every morning as the birds are starting to chirp in the darkness outside, he gets himself up and dresses himself and leaves the apartment with a small sketchbook in hand. The sun still isn't up fully in the morning sky, just loitering below the horizon. Steve shoves his hands in his pockets to fight off the cold air and walks. He walks and walks without really any direction. The cold air helps to clear his mind and he soon manages to forget about the sick feeling in his stomach and the image of Bucky's corpse crawling out of his grave.
Eventually, Steve finds himself at the edge of the East River, having walked across half of Brooklyn. He stands at the edge of the footpath for a while, watching as the sun rises ahead of him past the Lower Manhattan skyline.
Steve finds a park bench along the riverfront and sits down, sketching out the scene in front of him in as much detail as he can before the page is full of lines and shading and highlights and he can't add anything else.
By the time he looks up, the waterfront paths are full of dog-walkers, runners, exercisers, a few tourists out and about early to see the city. Steve watches them for a while. People-watching is something they used to do in his childhood to pass the time. He flips to a new page in his sketchbook and attempts to sketch some of the people, but he finds he can never quite get the shape of their clothes right, or the flick of their hair, or the way they wear their makeup. It was so much easier to draw the styles from the forties.
In the distance, Steve can see Brooklyn Bridge stretching out across the river to Manhattan on the other side. He gets up and walks toward it, hoping to find a good spot to sketch it out, but he finds himself climbing the ramp, past the street that leads cars onto the bridge, and then he himself is walking across the bridge.
It's relatively empty at this time of the morning on such a cold day. He takes his time walking across, strolling, walking against the wind. It's like a slap in his face, cold and stinging against his cheeks. He realises rather belatedly that the jacket he's wearing maybe isn't warm enough. But the air is fresh and smells like salt with a bit of fuel mixed in. The bridge is loud with the rush of the cars beneath him. He watches a pack of pigeons fly overhead. He stands on one of the lookout points and scans his eyes over the Manhattan skyline as far as he can see, all the way up to Midtown.
Steve makes it to the other end of the bridge, walking through the streets of the Financial District and admiring the buildings, many of which were around in his day. He sketches a few streets amidst the hustle and bustle of the businessmen and then hightails it out of there to uptown.
He catches the subway, because at least the lines haven't changed much since he used to ride around on them. He gets off at the station on the outskirts of Times Square – he doesn't want to go back into that intersection after the last time he was there. Instead, he walks toward the Rockefeller Centre on sixth.
On the footpath, he walks with a mass of people past the shops and sale stores on fifth avenue. He passes a small stall set up by the road selling phones and cases for them, a hungry bunch of people standing around it bargaining with the seller for a price. Another man yells out to the passers by about their 'great deals'. Steve looks away to the shop window next to him, a large and sleek silver car sitting on display inside. A scrolling list rolls up the window beside it boasting about the car's abilities past it being able to drive and steer. Steve doesn't read about it.
He keeps walking until he gets to Grand Central Terminal. A small café sits on the road across from the building. Steve stops at the smell of coffee and his stomach grumbles. Steve walks over, taking a seat at one of the vacant tables outside in a small terrace between the buildings. The waitress comes over and takes his order, and he orders coffee and eggs, unable to shake the military diet.
When she walks off, he takes out his sketchbook and starts a fresh page, capturing the terminal in front of him, the angels encircling the clock at the top of the building, and the black and white monstrosity behind the terminal stretching up into the overcast sky. He frowns as he draws, not really able to understand why such a thing would be built. The name "Stark" is written across the top of the building one-hundred or so stories up in neon letters that light up at night.
The waitress comes back with his eggs as he's drawing, and she smiles down at it, eyebrows rising with admiration. She's blonde with her hair tucked up in a vintage updo that's like a throwback to Steve. The peach colour of her dress perfectly compliments the undertone to her cheeks and brings out the blue of her eyes.
"Waiting on the big guy?" She asks, putting Steve's eggs and toast down in front of him. She places a mug down as well and fills it with boiling coffee, the steam rising into the cold air.
Steve looks up, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Ma'am?"
"Iron Man," she explains. She nods awkwardly when Steve continues to frown, not understanding. "A lot of people come and wait here just to see him fly by," she goes on to explain, pointing to Stark Tower stretching up behind them.
Steve looks up at the building unimpressed. "Right," he says. He digs into his pocket for his wallet. "Maybe another time," he says, dropping the right number of bills onto the table and dragging his eggs closer.
The waitress, "Beth" as the nametag reads, pulls a few creamer tubs from the pocket of her apron, along with a few sugar sachets. "The table is yours as long as you want it," she reassures. "Nobody is waiting on it." She turns to walk away then to her other tables. "Plus, we've got free wireless," she adds as an afterthought.
Steve pauses. "Radio?" He asks, putting his wallet away.
Beth turns and looks at him, not providing an answer. But by the strange, confused smile she gives him, Steve's question had not been the right one. Steve sighs and picks up his knife and fork, digging into the eggs to calm his grumbling stomach.
At the table next to him, an elderly, greying man leans backward to face Steve, looking at him with eyes of wisdom. "Ask her for number, you moron," the man demands, his voice laced with an air that Steve is awfully stupid.
Steve frowns, but the man looks back to his own meal. Steve's eyes flick to Beth as she pours coffee for another customer. Then, he looks away.
Steve catches the train back over to Brooklyn. It clanks and whines and groans along the track as it passes back over the bridge. He rocks around in his seat. He avoids his eyes to stop himself from staring at the people on the train, some of whom he finds strange and… too different for him to understand just yet. Instead, he stares out the window at the rush of the cables and at the river passing as they leave Manhattan behind.
Steve gets off at the stop closest to his apartment and strolls through the streets, stopping at the local grocery store to stock up. He told Shield to stop sending him groceries a few days ago and the time has finally come when he's got to buy his own stuff.
The person who brought him clothing did quite a remarkable job choosing and managed to get things Steve would actually wear – mainly slacks, button ups, knitted jumpers and leather jackets. Steve knows he can handle clothes shopping when the time comes, considering he can buy things that are familiar, but he knows grocery shopping is going to be very different.
He stops outside the grocery store for a moment and just looks at the immensity of it. From the outside he can see how many aisles there are and how they stretch all the way back into the shop some hundred yards, and how stocked the shelves are. It's a far cry from the markets of his time, when in the Depression they were sad and bare and only stocked the necessities to save money.
Steve goes inside, takes a trolley from the stack in the corner, and walks slowly down each aisle. Very quickly he gets a little overwhelmed. He learns quickly that while he would have loved more options in the thirties for food shopping, there's such a thing as too much variety.
He stares at the wall of bread for almost ten minutes looking at all the types and colours and sizes and how much bread could one possibly need? He goes a little gobsmacked at the milk fridges because milk came on a horse and cart and was dropped at the doorstep in the morning when he was a kid, and most certainly wasn't stored in massive fridges in plastic containers. The freezer section stumps him too, and he picks up nearly every box of microwave meals, reading the back of them. Two minutes in the microwave and he can have steak and potatoes, or lasagna, or fish and chips, or curry. Steve didn't even know curry was a thing until he went to Europe and heard someone talking about it. And now he can buy it in a box to heat up in the microwave. Steve puts a few of them in the trolley with a shrug.
The chip and confectionary aisle is astounding to Steve, at how many types of lollies and candies and biscuits and treats he can buy. When he was a kid, they got a sole toffee once a week if they were good, and now he can buy a whole packet of them for ninety-nine cents, or a bucket-full for ten dollars. A lot of money in his day, but not so much now, as he's learning. Bucky always had a sweet tooth, he thinks. Bucky would love this aisle.
Steve likes the cracker aisle. He's fond of the crackers in the shape of the little goldfish, he isn't going to lie, even if he needs to eat thousands to actually feel satisfied with the snack. Clint had a zip-lock bag of them in his pocket one day when he came around, God knows why, and got Steve to try them. Steve puts a packet in his bag after debating for five minutes about which flavour to get. Then he puts three more packets in with all different flavours. It's all a little excessive.
When Steve gets to the aisle of fridges housing the butter and cream, he actually takes a look at the prices of things and does a double take, his heart skipping a beat. He opens the fridge and pulls out the block of butter wrapped in paper, holding it in his hand and eyeing it as though it were a bomb. Not only are there about thirty different brands and types of butter, which Steve never thought possible, the single stick is four dollars. He looks at it and there's nothing special about it to justify it being that much.
Steve gets out his mobile and calls Clint. "Butter is four dollars?" Steve says immediately once Clint answers.
"Well good afternoon to you as well, Steve," Clint deadpans.
"Seriously, four dollars? It used to be thirty cents. I might as well buy a whole damn cow for that!"
"Minimum wage has gone up, Cap. People earn more than they used to," Clint reasons. "Prices go up to accommodate that. Four dollars really ain't that much today, Cap."
"Yeah, but we struggled majorly on our old wages. That means it's just the same today as it was then. I–"
"But you can't do nothing about it. So, you either deal with it and pay for the butter with your military backpay stash you got goin' on, or you go without the butter. Up to you," Clint says, and though the words feel a little harsh, Steve can hear the smile in his voice.
"Y-you're right," Steve admits, dropping the butter into his trolley. "You're right, I'm getting worked up about nothing. Money ain't an issue for me now so I don't need to be so worried. You're right."
"'Course I am," Clint smirks. "Glad I could sort it out for you. Listen, do you need a hand? I could meet you at the store–"
"I'm okay," Steve reassures. "I'll be fine."
"Alright, if you're sure. I'll see you 'round, Steve."
"Thanks, Clint," Steve says, hanging up the phone. "I'll be fine," he reassures himself. Then, he pushes his trolley down the aisle toward the checkout.