"Steeeeeeve!" I knock soundly on his door. He's been gone off and on for the last two months on the occasional mission for SHIELD, but mostly looking for Bucky. The last time he was gone for over a week. "I know you're back. I can hear your old people music," I call through his door.
Nothing.
"It's important! I know I said that I would try to get the next one but I swear this one is a science experiment gone wrong or something! It's like if Shelob and Aragog decided to get together and make a giant, terrifying, demon spawn! It was too big for a mug, I had to put a flipping bowl over it and, Steve- I'm not making this up, okay?- but I swear, it moved the bowl! And have I mentioned how creepy its eyes are? I mean, why do spiders have to have so many eyes? What could they possibly need to see so well that two eyes just won't cut it? Same question for their legs; why so many? Answer: they are nightmares incarnate – spending their days watching you from the shadows, picking up every detail of your life, waiting until you fall asleep and then latching onto your face with all of those legs to suck out your juices through your eyeballs!"
I pause to pant.
"Steeeeve! I mean it, I can't go back to my apartment with that, that fell beast waiting for me– great term, by the way. Both perfectly descriptive enough to be threatening while also being perfectly vague enough to be ominous! –Besides, you owe me! I introduced you to 'The Lord of the Rings'; remember? And even if you try to hide it, I know you're totally a closet fangirl! Plea-" My ranting is cut short by his door swinging open.
"Finally! Steve- ...you're not Steve."
The man in front of me merely stands there, silent and unmoving. His dark hair is pulled back into a short ponytail and his icy blue eyes stare unflinchingly into my own. Surprisingly, he's nearly on par with Steve as far as the "hulking mass of muscled man" thing goes; almost as tall and just a bit leaner. Friend from work, maybe?
'Steve also mentioned a friend outside of SHIELD, is this him?'
His black tshirt and dark wash jeans are well fitted and add to his intimidation factor. The door is only open halfway, his right hand holding it steady while the left half of his body remains behind the wall; like he can't be bothered to exert the energy it would take to swing the door open the rest of the way.
I am uncomfortable.
"Um, is Steve home?" My voice is about 87% less confident than it was ten seconds ago.
He still stands there. The only noise is my still slightly panting breathing.
"D-do you know when he'll be back?" I'm almost positive that my voice has all the timidity of a church mouse.
He's so still, I'm not even sure he's breathing. I'd be tempted to think he's some sort of advanced, full sized puppet but his eyes, while just as still as the rest of him, are too electrifying to be glass.
'Why is he being so quiet? Is this normal? Is he an avox? Does he have a tongue? Don't think about his tongue. Why are you thinking about his tongue? Ew.'
"Okay. Well..." I'm so uncomfortable that I'm pretty sure my skin has crawled down the three flights of stairs and made it a few blocks down the street by now. I literally cannot break eye contact. It's the same feeling I'd imagine having whilst staring down a wolf in some frozen forest.
'Look away and he'll pounce. Or shut the door in your face.'
It isn't even that he's directly menacing. I don't think he's trying to freak me out. I don't think he'd hurt me. Besides, if he's a friend of Steve's then he must be a decent guy. It's just, I don't know, something about expecting my best friend only to be met by a cold stranger is severely upsetting for me. Although, he does seem familiar the more I look at him. And it's like I can feel some serious power behind his statuesque exterior.
'Like Gandalf before he revealed that he was no longer Gandalf the Grey but he'd actually leveled up to Gandalf the White.'
Anyway.
"If-" I have to stop and dry-swallow in an anxious attempt at stopping my voice from cracking. Surprise strangers are the worst. "If you could m-maybe tell Steve when he gets home that..." my words trail off as I realize how pathetically distressed I sound.
I still can't look away.
My fingers twist and wring each other and I can feel my face fall slightly into a look of desperation. I really wasn't kidding when I said I couldn't go back into my apartment. No way could I even make it through the door before I collapse in a trembling puddle of tears.
Something flashes across this stranger's eyes so quickly that I thought I imagined it.
But then he slams the door shut.
At least I'm no longer stuck in his tractor beam gaze now.
'Obviously he decided you weren't worth dealing with anymore. Can't say I blame him. That was kind of a spectacle you just made of yourself.'
With a deep breath and an equally deep sigh, I wring my hands once more for good measure and turn halfway to my door. My feet don't seem to want to turn the rest of the way.
'I wonder how inconvenient it would be for Steve to come home right now...maybe I could call him...'
This is a slap in the face. I refuse to be this pitiful.
Blinking hard, I try to remind myself of all the reasons I shouldn't be scared, all the reasons I can deal with this myself, all the reasons I can go back inside without crying.
I can't think of a thing.
A pull of air turns me back to face Steve's apartment. There the stranger is again. But he's changed- no, literally. He's now wearing a navy blue, long sleeve shirt and black gloves. Without looking at me, he brushes past me to my door before disappearing into my apartment.
'He must've gone and changed into clothes that would protect him better from the spider. Maybe he hates them like I do but he's going to take care of the problem for me anyway.
Is "flabbergastment" a word? No? Well it describes my current mental state perfectly.'
Remembering how much I don't want to know what he's going to do to the hell spawn, I quickly shut my eyes and plug my ears like usual.
'What is with that apartment? Is it like the machine in "The Fly" but instead of disgusting fly-man mutants, men come out super buff and unbelievably chivalrous?
And also very attractive.
Shush. That's irrelevant.
Oh, really? Try telling that to Hollywood, or, you know, all of mankind.'
After several long minutes I realize that it's been too long. I had assumed that he was getting rid of my overly leggy roommate.
'What if he put on gloves because he's robbing me or- or setting up my apartment for the future crime scene of my macabre torture and ultimate murder that he has planned?'
My eyes snap open from the fright of the images produced by my crime drama saturated brain.
The stranger is again before me, not too close, but still staring straight into my eyes with his piercing gaze.
It's at this moment I remember that my fingers are still plugging my ears.
Working under the assumption that he's just never going to speak to me, I drop my hands and tear my eyes from his stare and say with as much bravado as I can muster, "did you, um, get rid of the spider?" I sound like an idiot. What else would he be doing in there? Keeping my line of sight over his right shoulder, I move on to say, "I'm so sorry for my spazzy rant earlier and I'll totally understand if you are legitimately now concerned for Steve's safety and your own while here. Not that I could ever actually hurt either of you."
'Yes, because that's the thing to say to a stranger who could easily overpower you while you're both just outside your door.'
I clear my throat.
"Anyway, I know that you probably just did that to make me be quiet and leave you in peace, but I honestly can't tell you 'thank you' enough; mostly because I'm terrible at articulating my thoughts to strangers. This rambling right here is just the curds skimmed from the surface of my mind and trust me when I say that you don't want to dive any deeper. But back to the point, do you like cookies?"
My eyes glance over to meet his. I see a flash of confusion before I look back over his shoulder.
"Because I don't know if Steve's told you, but I can bake some pretty fly cookies."
'Fly? Really?'
"And they're kind of my go-to method for communicating good will and gratitude. Anyway, do you have a favorite kind? Of cookie, that is." I glance back to see his reaction and I find something other than stark stoicism.
His features soften and pain, I think, flashes across his eyes. Cookies are not supposed to be a sore subject with anyone...that's, well, really sad. I make myself look away again to give him some 'privacy'. Something tells me that he wouldn't be comfortable sharing his feelings with me.
We stand there in silence for a little while longer. I guess I shouldn't have expected any sort of answer from him. I mean, I've practically drowned him in audible alphabet soup and he hasn't even made a sound, let alone a word.
The levels of awkward in this hallway have yet to find a unit of measurement capable of defining their bounds.
"Weeell, thank you again for your help. Now I can actually leave the hallway." Insert a breathy laugh of awkwardness here.
Mine, not his.
Obviously.
How weird would that be?
"I'm sorry, human interaction isn't my strong suit and I'm doing this all backwards." I haven't even introduced myself. I clear my throat and offer him my hand. "Hello Steve's friend, I am Steve's neighbor, Anne. I have an overpowering, all consuming fear of spiders and I bake cookies sometimes for the people I like."
I don't expect him to shake my hand. I don't expect him to tell me his name. I don't expect him to say, 'glad to meet you'. I expect to only further the one sided conversation I've been having with this silent movie of a man.
He surprises me.
Gently taking my hand in his- and I do mean gently, it's like he thinks he'll break it -he says, "James. Nice to finally meet you, Anne." His voice is rough but as gentle as his grip on my hand.
I release a sigh of relief I hadn't realized I was holding in. Before he had introduced himself, I had started thinking that he might be Bucky.
James' face has softened and he doesn't exactly smile, but at the hint of it about his mouth I find myself genuinely grinning back at him.
As I shake his hand I tell him honestly, "it's nice to meet you too."
≈o≈
It turns out that James didn't tell me what kind of cookie he likes because he doesn't know. He literally has never had a cookie. My eyes may or may not have watered when I heard that. But I plan on changing it.
I've spent a couple of days in my kitchen, baking and cleaning alternately. I don't think I've ever made this much at one time before. Once everything's cooled, I place them neatly on a tray that I bought specifically for this occasion.
It may sound like I'm going through a lot of trouble for this, and maybe I am, but for some reason this feels important to me.
I make my way through my apartment and into the hall before knocking confidently on Steve's door. James is staying with him for a while. They're apparently very good friends. And yes, I wondered again if he's Bucky, but Steve would've told me if he found him, right?
"Hey there Anne!" Steve answers the door.
I had kind of hoped to not have to do this while he was home. I hadn't told him that I'd met James and as little as James had talked to me, I doubt he's said anything to Steve about meeting me. Also, my embarrassment knows nothing of logic. But I'll just have to suck it up.
"Hi Steve," I answer brightly.
He glances down to the tray. "More cookies? What's the occasion?"
"Actually," I hesitate, clearing my throat.
'Why does this feel so weird?'
"I was wondering if James is home?"
To say that Steve looks surprised would be like saying that I only kind of like to read.
"Oh. Um, yeah he is. Hold on just a second." He leaves me at the door for a few minutes before he comes back pulling James along with him.
James is wearing a long sleeve shirt and gloves again- 'Does he get cold easily?' -and a look of surprise at seeing me standing in the doorway. Steve gives him a small shove to close the distance to the door before he slips back into the living room; but not before giving James and me one last look of confusion.
I get the feeling that it took a little convincing on his part to get James to come to the door. That knocks my confidence down a couple of pegs. But I've already spent so much time in the kitchen for this that I'm not going to turn around now just because he's feeling antisocial.
"Hi James." I hazard a look into his eyes.
Guarded.
He doesn't answer, he just sort of nods in reaction to my greeting. I swallow my nerves; at least, I try to.
"I made you some cookies." I push the tray towards him.
James breaks eye contact to glance down at what I'm offering. "Some?" he asks as he eyes the massive number of cookies before him.
"Well, you had said that you didn't know what your favorite was, so I made some of every kind that I know how to make. I even included index cards with the names of the cookies on them so you would know which ones are which. There's a few of each kind; I figured that you might want to share with Steve."
His cool blue eyes dart up to mine. His brow furrows slightly in confusion and his eyes have softened and become almost unguarded. Almost. "Why?" James asks.
I shrug a shoulder and give him a small smile before dropping my gaze to the doorframe beside him. "When I was little, my mom always kept cookies nearby. She said that 'a house without cookies isn't a home'. I think she just liked to snack. But it sort of stuck with me, I guess, that feeling of happiness and comfort I would get while eating a treat that she had made just for our family. Now it doesn't matter where the cookie comes from, it reminds me of her and how safe and happy I felt as a kid. Everyone should have that."
I chuckle softly. "I sound like a sap. Maybe you don't want to be reminded of your childhood, but I can at least guarantee you that these will be better than anything Steve makes for you."
I look up to see him smiling a very small, crooked grin. It looks so fragile, like a puff of air could make it fall from his face. I smile back at him, unable to stop myself, because I know I'm the reason for that grin. To my delight, his smile doesn't fall away; it grows. Maybe only a little, but it grows.
-------------------------------
A/N: Gee, who could this handsome, guarded stranger be? Shucks, I just don't know. The suspense is totally killing me.
Also, look at lil Steve! What a cutie-pie!
SPOILER THAT ISN'T A SPOILER AT ALL IF YOU'VE SEEN ANY CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE:
Does it make sense to you that Anne doesn't know who James is? If it wasn't clear, it's because that picture she gave Steve was the only time she saw James' full name, after that Steve only ever called him 'Bucky' and that was over a year ago for her. Also, it isn't like she has a copy of the picture to memorize what he looked like and I'm positive that his experiences would, at this point, effect his personality and expression enough to make him very unfamiliar to Anne. Besides, she genuinely (and with good cause) believes that Steve would tell her immediately that he found Bucky.
So. Yeah. There's the answer to the question no one asked. You're so welcome.