Chapter Text
When Annie was six years old her folks sat her down in their little living room and told her, choose.
Annie could remember chewing her lip and swinging her bare feet against the couch, thumping a steady rhythm into the quiet of the room.
“Its up t’you, a leanbh.” Her Da had said solemnly. “There’s no wrong answer.”
The walls in their house were painted a muted sort of yellow, but you couldn’t really tell unless you looked really closely. They were covered, almost every inch. Framed photographs, faded brown and grey, of people Da had always said were family but who Annie had never met. Paintings of their little flat top island, of boats in harbour, even a few pictures of her Da’s old Navy friends. Mostly, though, the walls were lined with her Mum’s instruments.
Annie’d learned her letters that way, sitting with Mum, repeating “A for Accordion, B for Banjo, C for Clarinet...” Mum had one of everything, and could play them all. Da said Mum was a genius.
Her Mum had smiled and reached to tuck a curl behind Annie’s ear. “You can always change your mind after, duckie.”
She’d nodded and sat very, very still for a moment, thinking. It was a big decision, not like when Gran had asked her to pick dessert for Easter supper. It felt big as the ocean. It meant that she was a big girl now, grown up in a way, and Annie wanted to get it right.
It took a few moments, a lifetime in her mind, but she finally came up with an answer.
“Both.” She’d said imperiously.
Her parents had shared a look that Annie was old enough to know meant something serious.
“Piano and Ballet?” her Mum had sat next to her on the couch.
Annie’d nodded. “And singing.” She added.
She could see Mum was trying not to smile. “You wont have time to play, if you want all those lessons. And you’ll keep up with your homework, else there’ll be none at all.”
Annie’s heart thumped wildly and she grabbed at her Mum’s arm, tilting to make sure that she was really really listening.
“Mum, I don’t want to play.” She tried to make it plain, to make it so that the feeling in her heart was coming out of her mouth in the right way. “I want to play.”
Her Dad had laughed, her Mum had smiled, all sunny, and Annie knew that she’d picked the right thing.
By the time Annie was eight, she was making to the trek across the Tickle to St John’s five nights a week. She’d had Ballet at Miss Laura’s and Step class with Miss Lisa, regular singing lessons with Deirdre (who’s office at the University was next to Mum’s) and their neighbour, Doctor Joe, liked her voice so much that he’d paid for opera lessons from a lady who’d retired to Paradise because she’d liked the name. Her favorite lessons, though, were with her Mum.
Her Mum taught her how to play, how to curl her fingers high and light over the piano keys and how to hold the bow of the fiddle, and how to make her Da’s guitar sound as honey-warm as their house felt when they played together. Annie learned all the songs her Mum knew, songs from St Johns and Gander and all the way from Ireland, Scotland even. Da taught her what all the Gaelic words meant, too, how to curl her tongue around them and make them skip along like a river.
The friends she made were few (They called her ‘Radio Ryan’ in school, raised their voices to drown her out, made her sit down shut up stop talking), but dear. Mostly other girls who had the same fire in their eyes, who didn’t flinch when their bodies creaked and cracked, who knew what it was like to want to see their name in lights as bright as the stars over the ocean. Friends who didn’t want to play, but wanted to play.
By Annie’s eleventh birthday, her Da would swear that she was more callous than girl and sometimes Annie believed him. The skin of her hands and feet were tough as rocks, and she could go running along the dunes midday in July barefoot. That year, Annie auditioned for (and won) a spot at the National Ballet School and she’d heard her Da talking with a man at one of the festivals she’d played that summer and heard the words Album and Contract.
So two roads diverged, and Annie, who was a stubborn little thing, took both.
Which, somehow, led to waiting in line at a Starbucks in the heart of Manhattan in the middle of the Monday morning rush.
Every now and then, Annie thought, living in New York City felt like drowning.
Annie had grown up with salt air in her lungs and the melody of gulls outside the window of her bedroom, but New York was the closest thing she’d ever seen to an ocean on land. It moved the same way. Breathed the same way her father had shown her the tide would breathe, in and out, high and low, day after day until Annie felt small as a pebble on the shore.
Her father, William, had been a decorated Captain in the Royal Canadian Navy who’d spent nearly all of his service in Search and Rescue.
“You have to want it, Annie.” He told her once. The memory of his eyes, serious beneath his brow, kept fresh in her mind. (Some days, it was all she could remember of him.) “If you’re out there in the water, you have to want to live more’n anything you’ve ever wanted in your life and you cant give up. Not ever. I’ve seen people, Olympic level swimmers, who couldn’t make it out of the water because they didn’t have it in ‘em.” She could remember his hand, broad on her skinny shoulder. “You’ve got to find something inside of you, and you don’t let go. That’s how you survive, a leanbh.”
Her Da had taught her how to swim, to hold her breath, to keep calm and tread water. He’d taught her how to build a fire, how to make a splint, even how to navigate using the stars. But he’d died long before Annie had packed up everything she owned and bet all her chips on a move to New York.
So far, the bet had been kind of a bust.
Annie made it to the counter and she smiled, spotting one of the regular Monday morning baristas waiting at the cash.
“Morning Jess!” she said.
Jess smiled in return, even as she moved to grab a stack of cups. “Good morning! The usual?” she prompted.
Annie nodded and fished out her wallet. She’d counted the change on the train down from Harlem this morning, because after six months Annie knew the total down to the penny. The Starbucks was located in the main lobby of Stark Tower (it had been affectionately been termed the Starkbucks long before Annie started working for SI) and every Monday without fail, Annie made it a point to grab coffee for a few people around the office.
At first it had just been for her new boss, Ms Potts. There must have been some small miracle at work for Annie to have landed a job as one of her personal assistants, and Annie wanted to make sure that Ms Potts knew just how much the opportunity meant to her. So, she’d found out her coffee order from one of the other assistants (grande non-fat earl grey tea latte) and had had it waiting on her desk on her first day. The next week, Annie thought it would be nice to get something for the other two assistants Jim and Tanya (grande Americano, grande green tea one honey) and they’d been pleasantly surprised. Her Mum had always taught her that a little act of kindness could go a long way, and Annie would freely admit that she was banking on that kindness working its way back to her one day. Plus, Monday mornings sucked and if a hot drink helped to make them better? Well, it wasn’t exactly hard.
Six months in to the weekly pilgrimage, Annie’s list had doubled, but the orders never changed.
“The usual.” Annie confirmed, thankful that ‘the usual’ took eight times less to say than the big list of drinks. Some days, if she got to the Starkbucks early enough, half the drinks would be ready by the time she was finished paying.
An uncomfortable look flitted across Jess’ face, just for a moment. “Uh... oh gosh. Sorry, but, can I have a name for the cups?”
Oh. Annie blinked, but kept the frown from her face and plastered on an unbothered smile and laughed a little. “Sure thing. No worries! It’s Annie.”
She handed the over the 37.46 and tried not to feel too silly while she waited on her order. Sure, she was a regular, but then again the 20 other people waiting in line probably were as well. Still, when all eight cups had “Tammy” written on the side, Annie couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of cosmic sign.
Annie had come to New York with her life in a U-Haul, an offer for an internship that would guarantee a working VISA and three auditions for shows on Broadway. Not off-off or even just off-Broadway. ON.
And after six months of busting her ass, she couldn’t even get the barista to get her name right.
There wasn’t time for an existential crisis, though, so Annie juggled her purse and two stacked trays of drinks into her arms and made her way across the wide main lobby to the security check in front of the long bank of elevators. There were already two large tour groups huddled together, high school kids if Annie had to guess. God but they looked young. When did they start letting babies go to high school? And, she scowled, why couldn’t they get the babies to stick together? There were kids screeching and taking poorly lit selfies all over the lobby.
Annie skirted around the hoard with a quick prayer to the Gods of Blouses and Coffee stains, and managed to slip into her usual security line unscathed. She knew it was silly to have a ‘usual’ line, but between her parents and the years she’d spent in various theatres, superstition was bred into her. So, yes, she walked alllll the way to the far east wall even though there were three other open lines, and waited for her turn.
Annie was honestly surprised that SI still had a physical security check. When she’d been given the official HR briefing, they’d been very proud and eager to tell her that Stark Tower had nothing but the newest security technology. There were a series of scanners hidden at all points of entry to the Tower that could run facial and biometric scans to detect if anyone who’d been flagged was trying to get in. They’d made it very clear that being flagged was a Very Bad Thing and Annie had nodded dutifully, really wanting to ask if there were lasers, but also really not wanting to know the answer. She’d always figured that the scanners would have also doubled as a personnel check, but the gossip around the office was that Stark’s head of security had a soft spot for the tried and true methods.
It was all very James Bond. Some mornings Annie let her mind wander to fantasies of being a corporate spy, maybe having to disarm and disable a few security guards without a word... moving like a shadow, racing against the clock to retrieve the information that would dismantle the Evil Corporation’s operations. (She’d play the hero, of course. An interpretation of the Black Widow, maybe. Veronica Rothman, trained as a spy since the untimely death of her father... always ethically ambiguous, but trying to redeem a shadowy past. Something meaty. A part to sink her teeth into.)
Not that Stark Industries was an Evil Corporation. They were like, the patron saint of capitalist ventures, and Annie really appreciated the work they did. She just had an overactive imagination.
Today wasn’t a day for daydreams, though. So, when Annie got to the head of the line, she set the tray of coffee on the security desk and fished her pass out of her purse.
“Good morning Carl!” Annie handed over her pass and a tall Americano with two sugars. Carl was her favorite security guard, a serious looking man of middling age with hair as grey as his eyes and a Tom Selleck moustache.
“Mornin’ sugar, well now aren’t you sweet!” he crowed his usual greeting, taking both with a wink and a smile that brightened his whole face.
Annie had never seen such a bad case of Resting Bitch Face, and she loved it. Carl was like that meme on Tumblr. He looked like he would kill you, but was a total cinnamon roll.
“Did you have a good weekend?” Annie asked, shifting the trays back into her arms while Carl did whatever he had to with her pass.
Carl grinned “Well if you count Joe surprising me with tickets to Beyonce tomorrow night good, then yes.” He took a slow sip of his coffee and sighed happily. “My weekend was absolutely splendid.”
Annie laughed “Lucky! That’s one hell of a husband you have. Watch out,” she winked, “I might just try to steal him.” Annie knew of at least 3 people in the PR department alone who would give a kidney to get tickets to that show.
“Don’t I know it!” Carl tapped away at his keyboard and a green light lit up above his desk, signaling that she was clear to go. “Tickets to Madison Square Garden? I’m going to have to marry that man again.”
“Well, you’ll have to tell me all about it.” Annie smiled. She hadn’t even tried to see about a ticket. There was a workshop she’d signed up for weeks ago, a class that, if the rumours were right, was going to be visited by Bernadette Peters. Sigh, swoon and flutter! She’d managed to snag one of the last spots, and had spent most of her savings doing so, but even if Lady Bernadette didn’t show the class was going to be a great networking opportunity.
“Will do!” Carl chirped and held out her pass. Annie managed to sneak a hand out to take it. “Have a good day Miss-“ and Annie wanted to, really really wanted to be able to ignore the fact that she saw his eyes flick down to read her name off the pass, but she’d never been good at lying to herself. “Miss Ryan.”
Six months.
Annie smiled like she was taking headshots.
“Bye Carl.” she said. Feeling acutely embarrassed she turned, scurried to the elevators and twisted her wrist to press her thumb to the sensor. And because she was being punished for something, she was left waiting, staring at the doors and fighting her blush for what seemed like years.
Eventually a few people in slick suits (Legal, probably) joined her and they all boarded the elevator. There was another sensor there, with a keypad, and Annie jockeyed for position to punch in level 97.
Stark Tower wasn’t the tallest office tower in the world, Annie’s HR packet had informed her, but it was the tallest office tower in New York City, and in the Western Hemisphere. It stood at 110 floors. The first 70 were for general operations of Stark Industries. Offices for Legal, Public Relations, Advertising... a couple of floors were dedication to recreation with an office gym, a pool and even a daycare. After floor 70, access began to get restricted to those with Research and Development permissions. 70-100 were all floors for engineering, IT, medical technologies, arc reactor technology...
The 101st floor belonged to Ms Potts. She had her own office there and other smaller offices for peons like Annie, Jim and Tanya. Board meetings all happened on the 101st floor, and part of Annie’s job was to make sure the boardrooms were all well stocked and prepared for any and all meetings that might crop up. Which meant that there were at least 3 different varieties of imported bottled water, 6 types of fresh roasted coffee and daily fresh fruit and pastries always on hand.
Annie wasn’t sure what was on floors 102-110, only that that was Avengers Territory and was Strictly Verboten.
Which was fine by her. She was more than happy to give the superheroes their space to be... super.
The slick suits all got off somewhere around the fortieth floor, and Annie was thankful that Stark Tower had the fastest elevator in the world because even with it being powered by Arc technology it still took 2 and half minutes to get from the lobby to the 97th floor.
It was one of the more impressive R&D levels, and looked a bit like a children’s science centre and a junkyard had a torrid affair and popped out a scrap-metal filled playground for scientists to frolic in. The whole floor was mostly open-concept, with a few load bearing pillars to hold the ceiling up. There were scientific instruments in every corner, whirring and beeping and taking readings and taking readings of the readings. Or so Annie supposed. She left University with a couple of credits in Performance Arts, not even a degree, so what did she know? There were video displays and holographic displays, and even a large rolling chalkboard that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the old schoolhouse back home, most with math splashed about. Though, on the chalkboard, Annie could see a caricature of the Hulk using Iron Man like some sort of magic carpet.
Annie tried not to pay much attention to The Intimidating Machines, though, and headed straight for the desks arranged in the middle of the room.
She’d met Darcy on her first day at the tower. Part of her HR walkthrough was to visit each of the floors that Ms Potts would be sending most of her correspondence to, should Annie ever need to deliver papers or fetch a signature or two. So Rachel, the HR rep, had brought her to what they’d assumed would be an empty 97th floor.
Well, Darcy, in a pair of Winnie the Pooh flannel pj pants and a shirt with a cartoon Hulk face, had fallen of her chair with a shriek when she noticed them come in. She’d been monitoring some data for Dr Foster all night, she said once she’d recovered, and hadn’t expected anyone to come by. Once she learned that Annie was Pepper’s new assistant, though, she was nothing but welcoming. All smiles and jokes, cracking wise about having another lackey to shoot the shit with.
And oh, but did Annie want to be her friend. (Okay, maybe at first Annie felt a little more smitten than friendly, but her crush never really manifested beyond the occasional yowza when Darcy wore a particularly low cut top) So, Annie tried her best to find her in the cafeteria at lunch, or to volunteer to take papers down to the labs when she could, just to swing by and say hi. Nothing weird, nothing stalkerish, but for whatever reason her timing was always just... off. Darcy and her boss, Dr Foster were tied at the hip most days, and rarely left their floor. And whenever Annie swung by, they were always hard at work and Annie knew it’d be rude to interrupt.
So, Annie resorted to bribery. She managed to get Darcy to reveal her usual Starbucks order, and when she couldn’t figure out which of the two drinks was Darcy’s specifically, she decided to get one for Dr Foster as well.
Annie switched it up sometimes, but today she put the venti no whip iced white mocha on the desk with the tiny cactus, and the grande blackeye with four raw sugar on the one with the stuffed toy goat. Annie grinned at the goat and leant it up against the starbucks cup before she went back to the elevator.
She might not have gotten much of a response from Darcy or Dr Foster (or any response, if she were honest) but it wasn’t a hardship. She didn’t eat out during the week so that she could afford the treat on Mondays and her little caffeine pilgrimage was actually the best part of her Monday morning.
It was a quick hop from the 97th floor to the 101st, where Annie had no trouble crossing the familiar waiting area and down the hall to her office door.
She was the first one in, which was par for the course. Jim and Tanya had started dating recently, and tended to stroll into work at nine o clock on the dot after what Annie was sure was a lovely gluten free vegan breakfast at some trendy cafe. Annie liked them, really she did, she thought as she put their cups on their desks for them to find, but sometimes they were a bit too New York for her tastes.
Which was funny, because Jim was from Kansas, and Tanya from Florida.
But still.
Annie put her own hot chocolate on her desk and stashed her purse underneath before she headed down the hall with the last two drinks.
“Three,” she muttered, walking closer and closer to Ms Pott’s office door. “Two... One.”
“-Pep, they’ve been pulling this same bullshit move since Juarez started slashing throats in 98. If we let them outsource, you know quality’s going to go down the tubes and I simply do not have the patience to deal with that level of fuckuppery-“
Every Monday morning, Ms Potts met with Mr Stark in her office to discuss his department’s contributions to SI. It was never a scheduled meeting. It wasn’t in Ms Pott’s calendar, or any of the other schedules that Annie was privy to, and personally Annie thought that was the reason why Mr Stark actually showed up. So, when Annie started bringing Ms Potts her coffee and found her Boss’s boyfriend fiddling with the things on her desk, Annie had thought it best to give him something to hold onto instead.
“Tony, the cost of keeping production in Rio is over 20% above the estimated cost. I’m hardly letting Mr Juarez slash our throats by saving us millions.” Ms Potts said, cleanly and calmly interrupting Mr Stark’s tirade. “Good morning, Annie.” She said, without looking up from her computer.
Thank you God and also Jesus for acting classes, because Annie swallowed her nerves (like she did every day) and smiled.
“Good morning Ms Potts, Mr Stark.” She said smoothly.
Annie liked to tell herself that she was only this nervous because of how Ms Potts looked in her office. Her desk was sat directly in front of a wall made completely of windows, and the million dollar view made it look as if the whole of Manhattan was bowing before her. The desk was made of something that looked like glass, but which Annie knew could double as a computer with a holographic and touch-sensitive keyboard. Everything was a shade of white that made everything look bright, but never cold. There was nothing out of place, no dying leaves on her peace-lily in the corner, no dust on the small shelf of untitled books. The whole room screamed ‘Ms Potts, Head Bitch In Charge’.
But Annie knew it was more than just the office that made her twitchy.
Mr Stark turned in his chair and squinted at her as she walked into the room.
“This is a private meeting.” He said pointedly. Annie marveled yet again at just how precise his goatee was. “You didn’t even knock. I could have been naked.”
“You wouldn’t have been naked.” Ms Potts said, still typing. Annie was gratified to know that she wasn’t the only one Ms Potts talked to without looking at.
Annie took Ms Potts’ tea out of the tray and put it within reach.
“Pepper and I are dating.” Mr Stark said. He jabbed a finger in Annie’s direction. “Which means that yes, there is at least 67% chance that I could have been naked. You could have caught us in flagrante delicto.” He waggled his eyebrows and Annie breathed through her nose and kept a straight face.
“Of course, Mr Stark.” She said absently, putting the last of her cups on the desk in front of him, next to a mini zen sand garden that he’d written “TS <3 PP” in. She’d been told about his ‘item related eccentricities’ on her first day and had always tried to be respectful. She saw him eye the cup. “I’m so sorry, I’ll knock next time.”
“Please, Annie, you don’t have to humour him.” Ms Potts sighed.
It’d taken a few tries to get Mr Stark’s drink right, but she’d run into one of the baristas from the Starkbucks at her Saturday morning hip-hop class once, and Steph had let her know the secret of The Bossman.
It was a grande espresso frappuccino, made with four shots, heavy cream and with the cup lined with caramel. It was, Annie learned, the drink that Mr Stark ordered whenever he was coming off of a bender. Or, when he was hungover. Or, generally, whenever he went to the Starkbucks.
It always took a second or two for Mr Stark to register that Annie had brought him a drink as well, but by the time Ms Potts had reached for hers, Mr Stark was already a few sips in.
“I pay her; of course she has to humour me.” Mr Stark said absently. Annie fought the urge to point out that no, no one was paying her, as this was an unpaid internship, but she just smiled and gripped the empty cardboard tray a little tighter. “And on that endlessly boring note, I’m out.” He stood and straightened his clothes, what were probably Armani slacks, a pair of blue chucks and a faded grey Nirvana t-shirt underneath some kind of smoking jacket, and gave Ms Potts a genuine and loving smile.
It always knocked Annie back a bit to see Ms Potts return those looks with just as much tenderness.
“I presume that will be all, Mr Stark?”
“Yes.” He said, somewhat imperiously, and took a noisy suck on his straw. “That’ll be all Ms Potts.”
As she watched him leave the room, Annie fell back on her usual debate. She could never be sure if their little coded ‘I love you’s’ were more Princess Bride or The King and I, but either way Annie was always left feeling a little breathless.
“Can I get you anything else Ms Potts?” she asked after Mr Stark had left. She was already thinking of the pile of requisition forms she’d left on her desk on Friday. Ms Potts was slated for at least a dozen public appearances between now and Christmas, and Annie was in charge of making sure that the venues were all prepared to her as a guest. That meant proper facilities, proper security, transportation... the whole shebang.
“Yes, actually.” Ms Potts said, with a slight frown. “Something’s popped up with the Avengers and Tony won’t be able to make the appearance at the Keystone Scientific Symposium tomorrow. I’d still like for someone from SI to give the prize to Dr Foster, so find a way to clear my schedule, please. Sorry for the short notice, but I’ll need you to come with us and liaise with the venue staff tomorrow.”
Annie’s heart stuttered.
No, she wanted to say. No, tomorrow did not work for her, because she had a workshop and was going to meet Bernadette Peters and maybe actually land a part in a show that didn’t have the words “Community Theatre” attached to the title, and she’d spent the last six months as a vegetarian so that she could afford to do shit like that because meat was so damned expensive in the city...
But all that Annie could think of, frozen in that moment, was the email she’d gotten when she’d been offered the internship. It had been one of hundreds she’d applied for one night of drunken heartbreak (so many that she had no recollection of even trying), and had been the only one to reply.
There’d been the standard congratulations, the details of what information to send back to SI should she accept, where to go and what to do on her first day... but at the end of the email, underneath the polite salutation and digital signature was a brief postscript.
This offer is being extended to you, Miss Ryan, under a probationary standpoint due to your lack of experience. Ms Potts is placing a great deal of faith in your ability to adapt to the workload, but it should be mentioned with all transparency that if this faith is misplaced that the internship, and the HB-1 VISA that accompanies it, will be rescinded without prejudice.
Hope in her chest started to fall, slowly as a feather on a breeze.
Annie needed this internship. This was it, her last shot. She was 24 years old, ancient in terms of a dance career and way too late for an ingénue break-through role. If she couldn’t make it in New York, now, with a working VISA to back her up? She might as well fly home and work in the BINGO hall that Martin McClellan’s mother said she’d end up in anyway.
“Sure.” Annie heard herself say, feeling a thousand miles away. It was a small consolation to see Ms Potts smile widen a fraction and know that she had kept her happy, and kept her job.
“Oh, and see if you can arrange for Dr Foster’s plus one to be changed to Darcy. Unfortunately Thor is also part of the mission, and won’t be able to attend.”
Annie nodded, because she wasn’t sure what else to do. Proper reactions to being asked to do your job didn’t usually include bursting into tears.
“Thor is heartbroken over missing Jane’s award ceremony.” Ms Potts added with a soft smile. “Though she had to break it to him that the Kertiev prize was a statue, not the stuffed and mounted head of a Kertiev.”
“I’ll get it done.” Annie promised, twisting the cardboard tray in her hands.
Ms Potts stood and started gathering a few things, her tablet, a folder and a few thin binders.
“I’m sure you will.” She said. “Send me conformation of the details when they come in. I’ll agree to an hour long meet and greet, if it’ll sweeten the pot any, but nothing more than that. It’s Tony they want, but I swear they’ll have me listening to grant proposals for days if we don’t rein it in. Oh!” Annie felt the tray crumple and tear under her fingers. Ms Potts didn’t notice. She stopped halfway to the door. “And if you could, get Tanya to reserve a table at Nocce for after the awards. I’d like to celebrate with Jane and Darcy properly. They’ve worked so hard.” She smiled. Annie made another tear. “They deserve a night off, you know?”
Annie deliberately thought of the low popcorn ceiling and parquet floor in Wabana’s bingo hall. Waiting there. Waiting for her.
So she smiled.
“Exactly.” Annie said placidly. “Leave it with me, Ms Potts.”
Ms Potts exited the room gracefully, already texting someone, and Annie stared at the white cup still sitting on her desk. Steaming.
Eight hours later Annie had been put on hold 5 times for a total of 134 minutes, had spoken to 26 different people on the phone, sold her place in the workshop and recouped half the ticket cost, had debated the pros and cons of premeditated murder, but had finally managed to arrange for Ms Potts to give the award, and for Darcy Lewis (L-E-W-I-S not L-O-U-I-S) to be added to the security clearance.
And the cherry on top of her shitstorm of a day? The headache that had plagued her on and off for the past two weeks reared its ugly head. Again.
Annie didn’t have time for headaches, though. So she’d popped a couple of advil that she now kept in her bag, had taken five minutes to breathe through the pain that shot from the base of her skull to behind her right eye, and had gotten back to it.
She’d worked non-stop, shoving her pathetic lunch of carrot sticks, hummus and a nearly expired yogurt into her mouth and simmered with quiet fury. It wasn’t fair, she told herself, but she couldn’t change it now. There were going to be other opportunities, other workshops, other chances to get out of a dead-end no-pay internship and into the life she’d dreamed for herself.
Soon, she promised herself. Soon.
Annie rode the crest of her slowly boiling anger and even managed to get a head start on her other work, dismantling appearance riders and requirements left and right.
Jim and Tanya must have sensed something, because they’d given her a wide berth all day, kept the noise in their office (and their heads) down. Annie was almost disappointed, because by the time she’d finished arranging everything for the Symposium she felt tight as a bowstring, ready to snap.
The clock hit 4:56 and that was it. Annie couldn’t take it anymore.
She grabbed her things and was in the elevator before it hit 4:57.
All Annie wanted, all she tried to think about... was the bottle of rum waiting for her at home. It was the good stuff. A mickey of it nearly twice her age, dark and spicy and strong enough to hopefully knock the memory of today out of her brain. As the elevator descended to the lobby, only stopping to pick up a mousy girl from advertising, Annie clenched her hands around her purse and breathed deeply.
So, it was a bad day. So what. Okay, maybe a bad month- year, whatever. Shit happened, and yeah, sometimes life piled it on so thick that Annie thought she might be drowning.
But, she thought resolutely as the elevator doors opened to the lobby, there was a limit. Life wasn’t all shit, and for every day like today... every day when Annie felt as small and as invisible as conceivably possible, for the days when going home to her empty shoebox of an apartment felt like a jail sentence... there had to be something better on the horizon. There had to be a limit.
Annie stepped out of the elevator and strode determinedly through the security gate, jaw clenched.
Turns out there wasn’t a limit, because when Annie started to cross the wide expanse of marble to get to the door closest to her subway stop, she was unable to miss the sound of the douchey-ist laughter she’d heard since high school.
Which, seeing as the two guys laughing looked like they had never managed to graduate, wasn’t actually that surprising? They were the kind of guys that were far too old to be called boys, but who Annie would hesitate to call men. They looked like tourists, and maybe they were. Their clothes certainly screamed “bought for status symbol”. Their Nike’s were gleaming, but their slouchy board shorts and minimalist graphic tees were threadbare. Personally Annie thought it was weirder that their sunglasses were obviously from the dollar store, but their snapbacks had probably run them over a hundred bucks.
And Annie could have forgiven them for looking like dicks. She could have forgiven them their horrible laughs, and their awful spatial sense, and their truly heinous hipster haircuts. She could have.
But the two meatheads had obviously singled out one of the towers Janitors, and Annie watched the one in blue toss the wrapper for his gum onto the ground directly in front of the poor man.
“Nice onesie, bro.” The one in blue said, smirking. The lobby’s acoustics made it so his voice carried, even over the sounds of the emptying lobby. There were 20, maybe 25 people milling around now. “Does it come in men’s?”
On any other day, Annie could have ignored it. Security, she knew, was somewhere nearby. She could walk on by. Keep her head down. Let them do their jobs.
Yeah... no.
“Oh, I think you come in men enough for all of us.” Annie said, striding forward, chin lifted. It was a hateful sort of thing to say, but damnit if she didn’t feel hateful. She’d have time to regret it later.
The guy in blue and the guy in orange traded stupid looks. The janitor, whose name badge Annie could now see read ‘Dwayne’, just looked uncomfortable.
The guy in blue, who had a dweebie smushed in kind of face, scowled at her. “I think you better come in my-“ he faltered, obviously thrown by the fact that she had interrupted his afternoon hobby. “I mean- I think you better come up-“
Orange guy, who’s hair was fucking greasy enough to start a chip fat fryer, scowled even harder. “I think you better say that to his face, you fucking bitch.”
“Nice execution.” Annie drawled. She felt her jaw tick. “You’re doing terrific. Now, I’d be thankful if you and tweedle dum over there would apologize to Dwayne, and kindly get the hell out of here.”
A few people in the lobby looked over, and Annie saw a few others stop. Her heart sped up.
Ah, an audience. This? This she could work with.
Bro’s 1 and 2 couldn’t seem to find a collective brain cell to give a shit that they were collecting a crowd, and chose instead to smirk at her.
“Hey, why don’t keep on walking, honey. Keep your nose out of it.” Annie could almost taste the smarm coming out of Orange bro’s mouth.
“Didn’t think you’d need a girl to fight your battles, buddy.” Blue bro laughed cruelly. He stepped into Dwayne’s space and poked him in the chest. “Gone soft cleaning up after Stark’s bitches, right?”
Dwayne kept his head down, his eyes trained on the floor, but Annie could see his hands flexing around the handle of his cart. Annie saw red. She didn’t know Dwayne from Adam, had probably seen the man around the tower but never paid attention, had probably ignored his face because she was too busy, maybe more important than a janitor. And these fucking skidmarks were making Dwayne feel- Annie felt her own hands clench into fists. She knew exactly how-
“Son,” a voice, smooth baritone, said from behind her, “Maybe if you’d ever been in a real fight, you might not be so keen for another.”
Annie turned her head and Lord Thundering Jesus, there was Captain America.
He was in civvies, blue jeans and a black leather jacket that stretched across his shoulders, staring down the Bro’s with a look that Annie was pretty sure could melt steel. There was another guy with him in civvies too, a black guy who was maybe half a head shorter and a little leaner, but obviously one of the superhero set. The black guy was carrying a big blue duffle bag, and neither of them looked impressed with the situation.
The guy in blue laughed incredulously. “What’d you say, buddy?”
Captain America (Steve Rogers, Annie corrected in her head, remembering the name she’d been told) raised an eyebrow.
“You heard me.” He said simply. The crowd had gathered fully now, but everyone was staying well away from the action. With Captain America as a distraction, Dwayne took a few uneasy steps back and Annie saw him fade into the crowd blushing and looking on with unconcealed interest.
This time it was the guy in orange who laughed. Annie’s mouth almost dropped when she saw him actually strip his shirt off of his head and hand it to his friend.
“I don’t care who the fuck you are, if you want to go, let’s go!” he crowed and Annie was astounded when he pounded a fist against his chest. Like an ape.
But that was when she noticed it.
“Whoa, pump the brakes!” Annie snapped and rounded on the two guys. She gestured to the shirtless one. “You take your shirt off but leave your sunglasses on? What kind of backward fucking pageantry is that?” he stared at her, jaw wagging, sunglasses still perched on the bridge of his nose. Annie cocked her head. “What are you going to do? Fight, or play poker stars dot com?”
The guy with Captain Rogers laughed with the crowd, and Annie saw the faintest twitch of the Captains mouth.
Pug-face, not to be outdone by his friend, stripped his own shirt off and carefully replaced his snapback just-so before grunting “Go time!”
The whole thing would have been stressful, and maybe Annie would have been worried about just how aggressive the two of them were getting, but Annie could only see the golden opportunity that it presented. With Captain America here, she was safe as houses, and could give the two idiots what they deserved.
“Look at those fucking treasure trails.” She drawled, giving the two brutes an obvious once over. It felt like letting the air out of a balloon, easing the pressure building behind her eyes with every catty word. “What’s up with your fucking body hair big chutes, did your aesthetician coif that for you?”
Annie expected the gasping laughter from the crowd.
“You both can kiss my aesthetician.”
She didn’t expect that, though. Annie’s head spun only to find Captain Rogers openly smirking now, mischief making his blue eyes shine. Annie grinned, delightfully scandalized that he’d said anything, never mind anything funny.
Steady on, heart.
Oh, but then he raised another eyebrow (he could do both sides, damn him), and looked at the two dumbstruck idiots disdainfully.
“What, do you guys do cross fit?” he asked patronizingly.
Annie’s heart spun. She knew a cue when she heard one. “You can cross fuck off.” She said, not missing a beat. “How many times have you pulled your horn today?” she questioned meanly, not really caring who answered.
The Shirtless Wonders both squinted, confused. “What?” the one in orange managed to get out.
Captain Rogers clapped a hand to his heart. “Aw, she’s bashful.” He simpered.
“C’mon kitten,” Annie leered “I won’t tell anyone.”
There were a few sniggers through the crowd and Captain Roger’s friend stared with wide, wondering eyes and a thousand watt grin.
Annie felt like some strange breeze had blown through and buffeted her high in the air. She couldn’t remember ever.... It was like a script. Enter man, stage left, who knew his mark and all his lines and kept pace with her without pause. It almost made her wish that security would take their good sweet time getting here, but she could already see two guards walking from the elevators.
“Hey,” the one in blue squawked, obviously he’d caught on to what they were talking about. “Ladies love the flow, bro.”
“We’ve got sick flow, bro.” The other one chimed in and they fistbumped. Un-ironically. Jesus.
“Buddy,” The Captain sighed, crossing his arms again. “The only thing ladies love is when you quit talking.”
Annie nodded. Damned straight. “And quit talking the same. What,” she bit out “Do you two share a set of testicles and a tongue?”
That seemed to be the last straw. Blue growled and surged toward her, but before Annie could flinch she was hauled to the side by a pair of strong arms. The Captain’s friend lifted her off her feet and dragged her a few feet away from the action.
The Captain moved quick as a blink and caught Blue before he could make a full step, tripped him up and let him fall face-first to the ground. He lay there, stunned, and Captain Rogers made quick work of getting Orange into some sort of submission hold. The guards ran past Annie and she gave another tug against the hand holding her still.
“You’re fucking ten ply, bud.” She spat at Blue (who at least seemed to know better than to struggle against the guard cuffing him). The arms that held her tightened each time she tried to twist and Annie could barely hear anything but the sound of her own voice for the sound of ringing in her ears. “Such a big man! You wanna beat on a girl? Fuck, you’re dumb as a post!”
Her Da had been in the Navy. Annie was more than happy to demonstrate how he’d taught her to throw a punch.
“Hey, easy tiger.” The man, the Captain’s friend, said with a laugh. His hands were tight on her arms, but his grip didn’t hurt. “Cap’s got it covered. Just relax.”
The Captain did seem to have it covered. He’d handed over the guy in orange to the second guard via headlock, only letting go once the cuffs were safely secured behind his back. The guy in blue was still on the ground, but he lifted his head enough to see that when he’d smashed his face against the marble he had maybe (Annie hoped) broken his nose.
When he caught her eye, he glared at her and spat a glob of blood on the floor before he was hauled to his feet.
“That was well brought up,” Annie called out as they had a quick and quiet word with the Captain before hauling the guys away. She relaxed, and the man’s grip did too. “Too bad you weren’t!”
Dwayne pushed his cart over and the Captain’s friend let go of her arm as the man himself walked back over to them. It felt like watching a small, graceful mountain walk, but Annie tried to put the weirdness away for a second and focus on Dwayne.
“Thank you.” He mumbled, quick and quiet, staring at his shoes. “I- well, that’s it. Thanks.” Then he was wheeling his cart away and left Annie blinking uselessly.
“No problem.” She said to the empty air. She wished he would have stayed. She wanted- wanted to assure him that he was worth notice even when he wasn’t surrounded by dickheads. “My pleasure.”
The crowd dispersed, happy to move along now that the show was over, though Annie didn’t miss the few looks that were thrown her way as they left. She was sure that many of them knew that she worked with Ms Potts, and they had to be wondering if she’d have a job in the morning.
Which was... well, fair enough. Annie’s heartbeat was slowing, adrenaline fading, and that left her only with the sinking realization that she’d verbally assaulted visitors to the Tower. In public. On camera.
Annie brought a weary hand to cover her eyes. “Oh fuck me.” She said. She was so so fired.
“Let me at least buy you dinner first.”
Annie peeked out from under her hand to find Captain Rogers standing next to her. His mouth was tight, fighting a grin, and Annie could see an actual goddamned blush blooming on his cheeks. Like he couldn’t quite manage to deliver that utterly sexy line with a straight face.
His friend was just behind him, and he was staring at Captain Rogers with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. It wasn’t so much a look of ‘did you do that?” but rather ‘I didn’t know you could do that’.
Annie hadn’t known that Captain America could be that smooth either, buddy.
“Or,” he said, when Annie couldn’t figure out how to make her mouth work again, and he looked sheepish and apologetic and too damned cute. “We could start with your name, and go from there?”
Jesus his eyes were blue. Like, so fucking blue.
She wet her lips, which (along with her mouth) had become inexplicably dry. “Annie,” she swallowed, “Annie Ryan.”
“I’m Steve Rogers,” he said, casually, though the look in his eye had her convinced that he knew she’d know his name. “And this is my friend, Sam Wilson.”
Sam gave a little wave. “Steve here was trying to sell me on the fact that the Tower was a quiet place to live.” He said wryly. “I’d like to thank you for proving him wrong.”
Annie felt her face get warm as she blushed. “It’s not-“ she stumbled over her words. “I mean, I’m not usually-“ She sighed heavily and suddenly the weight of the day, of her life, was back on her shoulders. “It’s just been a really, really long day.”
“I totally get it.” Sam said. Annie didn’t miss the weird shifty-eyed look that he threw in Steve’s direction. “I mean, moving to New York? Definitely something I’m only doing once. Really takes it out of you, you know?” Before Annie could commiserate, Sam was doing an awful impression of a yawn with outstretched arms and everything. “I mean, I am just beat. Dead tired. Sorry Steve, I know we had plans but I’m asleep on my feet. So I’m just going to grab this,” he snatched up his duffle and shouldered it, already walking to the elevators. “and go upstairs and get settled. Nice to meet you, Annie! Steve,” he called over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, man.”
He was gone before Annie could really make sense of it all, leaving her standing in the middle of the lobby with Steve. The end of day traffic was at its peak, but the two of them stayed where they were, still in the eye of the hurricane.
“Subtle.” Annie murmured, still staring at the space that Sam had taken up.
“Sorry about him.” Steve’s blush had spread, and Annie tried to squash the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach when she saw the pink tips of his ears. He looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
Annie’s brain had something to say about swallowing, but she ignored it. Down girl.
“I really would like to ask you.” Steve said, interrupting her thoughts. He shoved his hands in his pockets and he stood, almost bashful. His eyes were hungry, though, too predatory to be shy. “To dinner, I mean. If you’d like. It doesn’t have to be tonight, if you’ve already got plans. But, maybe Wednesday?” he asked.
He wanted to have dinner with her? Now? In her schlubby second hand Macy’s clearance workwear, after watching her go off on two perfect strangers because they were teasing a janitor, after possibly the worst day she’d ever had at Stark Industries? She was rumpled and wrinkled, still frustrated and angry, and this, like... literal superhero still seemed to see something that he liked enough to ask her out.
This was never going to work out, Annie thought to herself, because obviously Captain America was insane.
It probably said something about Annie that that only seemed to make her butterflies flutter even harder.
It’s not like she ever claimed to be sane herself.
“I’m busy Wednesday,” she said, truthfully. She gave lessons after work Tuesday through till Friday; singing, ballet, piano, whatever she knew that would get her some money, and right now she was booked solid. Weekends she saved for taking her own lessons; more singing and ballet, plus hip-hop and an improv class she’d found. Mondays, tonight, was her only free night.
Steve’s face crumpled like a house of cards, and Annie’s heart did a sad little twist and stutter.
“But,” she said, a little desperately, and a lot eager “What about right now?” Carpe Diem, right? If she was going to be out of a job tomorrow, she might as well make the best of tonight. She watched his face and felt a rush of fondness when he smiled. “There’s Charlie’s, on the 20th floor?” she suggested. “It should be pretty quiet, and I’ve heard the food is great.”
Well, Annie had picked up enough take-out orders for Ms Potts to infer that the food was good.
“Great!” Steve said eagerly. It took a second for Annie to realize that he’d actually said yes. “I- uh, well, shall we?” He then, to the detriment of Annie’s working brain, offered her his arm. It took another second for Annie to remember that this wasn’t him making fun of her somehow, and that he wasn’t exactly from around here.
“Let’s.” She said, feeling a soft sort of expression come across her face. She slipped her hand over the crook of his elbow, and oh hello forearm.
Nearly everyone was heading out of the building, rather than up, so the trip up to Charlie’s seemed quick as a blink. It didn’t hurt that Steve didn’t make any move to shake her off of his arm, and Annie was more than happy to keep herself tucked close to his side. He took up her senses, big as he was. She could smell the leather of his jacket, the faint hint of whatever cologne he had on, felt the strength of the arm under her hand. Everything about him seemed to radiate outward, and distracted her to the point that she didn’t really notice when the elevator doors opened and Steve led them to the maitre’d stand.
Annie left him to sort out a table and quickly excused herself to the washroom to go freshen up. She did not miss the odd hesitant look that flitted over Steve’s face, but it disappeared as quickly as it came and Annie made her exit.
She ploughed into the washroom and made a beeline for the mirror, nearly throwing her purse on the counter between sinks. She dove in with both hands shaking and prayed to God, Jesus and All the Drag Queens that it wasn’t just stage makeup lying in the bottom of her bag.
Somehow, rainbow glitter eye shadow and blush that was three shades too dark didn’t seem appropriate for a first date.
Though, looking at herself in the mirror, Annie thought that maybe glitter would be the only thing that could distract Steve from seeing just how haggard she looked.
Annie frowned and made a few faces in the mirror, judging her expressions. Well, okay, maybe not haggard. Her skin was clear, and aside from the dark circles under her eyes the only thing that gave her exhaustion away was how thin she’d gotten. Not that he’d know she’d dropped ten pounds since she’d landed in New York. She was back to what she weighed back at school, when she was dancing 6 hours a day. So, Annie did her best to fluff her pixie-cut curls back into shape, slapped on new layer of lip gloss and mascara and pinched her cheeks a few times until she was convinced that the blue eyes in the mirror had some life behind them.
Annie took two Advil from the bottle in her bag and took two more, downed them with tap water, forced herself to take one last deep breath and stared into the mirror.
“You’re cute.” She affirmed to her reflection, staring deep into her own eyes. “You’re funny. You’re nice and you’re talented. He is just a man.” What a man, sang the chorus in her head, what a man, what a mighty good man. Annie swallowed down a hopeful sigh. “And he asked you out. Just be yourself. It’s like an audition!” she felt another sigh, deep in her lungs. An anxiousness, deep in her soul. “Like any other audition.”
Except there wasn’t a panel of seven men, usually all gay, sitting on the opposite side of a long table not paying attention as she barred her soul to them. Just one man, hopefully not completely gay, sitting on the other side of a dinner table.
She groaned and hung her head low between her shoulders. How the fuck. How the actual fuck.
With a breath, Annie lifted her head stared at her reflection again. She stood straight, rolled her shoulders back, fluffed her hair again and brought her smile up to her eyes.
“I’m Annie,” she said with a winning tilt to her head. She was confidence. She was poise. She was whatever she needed to be. “Auditioning for the part of Steve Rogers’ girlfriend. Thank you for your consideration.”