Chapter 1
In hindsight, it was his fault. He wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings, let alone what was right in front of him. He was too wrapped up in his thought of what occurred an hour and a half ago.
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Walking along the street, Steve was mentally going over the list of supplies he needed to purchase. He was pretty low on pencils and charcoal. Now that he thought about it, he could also do with a new sketch book or two. It was at this moment that he was brought out of his musing by a loud bang coming from the alley up ahead. Steve would have probably dismissed the sound as a cat knocking over a trash can if not for the sound of muffled voices followed by another clank. It was the faint ‘Help’ he heard that caused him to quicken his pace. Arriving at the entrance of the alley, it took Steve less than a minute to understand what was happening. There next to a knocked over trash can, Steve could make out a man towering over a woman. He couldn’t get a good look at the woman, she was hidden from view by the man standing threateningly in front of her, but that did not mean he couldn’t hear her shuddering sobs.
“Please, no” the woman shakily said as she backed up more towards the brick wall behind her. The man continued to stalk menacingly towards her. “Give me your purse,” the man spat. Now, having the woman completely pressed up against the wall, it was the man’s following words that brought Steve’s blood to a boil. “That was me asking you nicely. Look at you, you’re shivering. There’s no need to be frightened, no need to cry, a pretty girl like you. How about we forget about the purse hmmm? Start over? Let’s be friends shall we? Want to be my friend? Yeah, I can be real friendly darling. Can you? How about I show you how just friendly I can be.” The man sneered while bringing up his left thumb to the corner of his mouth.
Steve quickly scanned his surroundings and spotted a trash lid by his feet. Without any hesitation, he picked it up and rushed forward. Just as the man reached out his left arm to grab the woman, Steve ran at him from behind. Of course it didn’t do much, but it did cause the man to stumble a bit, not having expected the contact. Regaining his footing the man turned and saw Steve for the first time.
Getting an up close look at the man, Steve noted that the assailant was of a somewhat muscular build and about a good foot taller than him. Now Steve has never been athletic or muscular in any way, his asthma and other health problems always having been a factor. He is a small, skinny guy who couldn’t possibly weigh more than 100 pounds. Scrawny, as the boys in school would always say. They would also say that he just never knew when to give up, which was true. Steve has never let the fact that someone was bigger or stronger than him stop him from getting into fights before. Not that he’s always looking for fights, he isn’t, but if he witnesses any form of injustice, he steps in and does what he thinks is the right thing to do. Something that he knows drives Bucky crazy. Steve’s brought out of his musing when he hears the assailant start “What the . . . who the hell are you?! Can’t you see we’re a little busy here? Get lost!”
Hearing a shaky cry, Steve glances to his right and finally gets a glimpse of the woman in the ally. She couldn’t have been older than 18. Clutching a white purse to her chest, he could see she was wearing a green colored dress with a white polka dot pattern, white collar and green belt around her waist. A strand or two of her red curls had come loose around her neck. What Steve really takes note of however, is the fear and tears shinning in her blue eyes. Assessing that she seems physically unharmed for the most part, he quickly brings is focus back to the assailant in front of him.
“When a lady says No, it means NO,” Steve states with as much conviction in his voice and hard edge in his eyes.
“This doesn’t concern you boy! I’m not going to tell you again. GET. LOST.” The last bit sneered out. Staying his ground, Steve stared into the man’s cold dark gaze and defiantly said “I don’t think so. It seems to me that the only one needing to get lost is you.” With the man’s attention fully on Steve, the woman had taken the opportunity to slowly start backing away from the man and sought her chance to make a run for it. It was the sound of her knocking over another trash can in her haste to get away that alerted both men of her escape. At the same time, two pair of eyes turned her way. Taking a moment to look back, she met the eyes of her would be hero, an apology of sorts in hers and quick understanding in his. She took one last look at her assailant and whatever silent apology she displayed with Steve was replaced by fear once again, and she quickly ran out the alley, turned right and disappeared from sight. Steve couldn’t fault her for her departure. On fact, at the first chance he’d had, he would have told her to run.
A disgruntled shout brought his attention back to the man who was now angrily starring daggers at Steve. “You ruined my playtime! You’re going to pay for that!” It was at that moment that he caught a glimmer of something silver and Steve realized that not only was this man staring daggers at him, but he was quite literally holding a knife in his clenched right hand as well. Yep, this is most defiantly the kind of situation that would drive Bucky crazy if he knew what Steve had gotten himself into. Holding out the trash lid in front of him to act as a sort of shield, he braced himself for a fight.
“You may have ruined my fun with her, but now you and I are going to have our own fun. I’m going to enjoy teaching you a lesson boy.” With that said, he charged at Steve. Taking a quick step back and to the side, Steve dodged the first swipe of the blade. Too occupied following the knife in the man’s right hand, he wasn’t quick enough to see the surprise left handed punch to his face. The blow was strong enough to knock him down. Lying on the ground and already tasting the coppery taste of his blood in his mouth, Steve did not let that deter him and tried to get up as fast as possible. Looking up he could see the man advancing on him again. With some effort he stood back up, just in time to avoid the kick to his ribs that was coming his way.
An angry shout let him know that his attacker was none too pleased to have missed. Steve used the slight distraction to his advantage; he curled his fist and threw a punch of his own. It landed on his opponent, but because of their height difference, rather than hitting his nose, like he meant, Steve clipped the man jaw instead. This just served to anger the attacker more. Reaching his arm out, this time he did catch Steve, causing him to drop his hold on his makeshift shield. Clutching him from the front of his shirt and lifting him off the ground, the man tossed Steve face first into the brick wall. Blinking his eyes to try and shake the dizziness away, Steve cleared his vision enough to see the man slowly stalking towards him. Finally, standing menacing above him with his knife in hand, he sneered down at Steve, “any last words kid?”
With effort, Steve is able to lift himself up off the ground. “I’m not a kid,” he begins. Then, bending his knees just so and raising his fists, assuming a fighting stance, he follows with firm resolve, “I can do this all day.”
His attacker chuckles and just as he is about to strike his knife out, they hear sirens coming up the way. Both men turn and see police officers running in heading their way. He can hear the under breath curse the other man lets out before he grabs him once more and pushes Steve down, then he turns tail and begins to run towards the exit on the opposite end of the alley. One of the officers makes to stop and help Steve, but he just waves him away and tells him to go after the other guy.
As he makes to rise up once again, a pale hand is offered to him. Steve looks to the hand then follows it up to see none other than the woman whose cries caused him to investigate this alley in the first place. Seeing him eye her hand questioningly, she says in a clearer voice than from before, “it’s the least I can do. I’m sorry I ran off.” After a moment Steve takes her hand and she helps him up.
“Don’t be sorry. The first chance I got, I was going to tell you to run anyways. I’m glad you got away, you did the right thing. Though, I do appreciate you coming back with reinforcement’s ma’am.”
“I only got away because of you. If it wasn’t for you . . . I don’t want to imagine what he would have done. I’m sorry you’re hurt, but thank you for helping me.”
Though he was starting to feel dull throbs of pain and a headache was beginning to develop, he told the woman and the other officer that appeared next to her that he was ok. The woman and officer both tried to convince him to go to the hospital to be looked over, but again he shrugged it off. Hospitals were not his favorite place, and he’d avoid them if possible. “Sir, ma’am, it really is not necessary. I’m fine.”
“If you insist you are ok and not being checked out by medical professionals, then fine. We’ll drop it, but can you at least please drop the ma’am. You saved me. I think that gives you the right to call me by my name. It’s Samantha. Samantha Collins, and may I know the name of my hero?”
“It’s Steve Rogers ma’am.”
The officers who had taken off in pursuit of their attacker retuned sans attacker in tow. He’d gotten away they’d said. The four police officers questioned Steve and Samantha about what happened, and what the attacker looked like. Having a photographic memory, Steve was able to give an accurate description of the man. The police told them that they would keep an eye out for him during their patrols, but Steve knew that the chances of them finding him were unfortunately low. They did live New York after all.
After that, they offered to drive Steve and Miss. Collins home. She accepted. He declined. He still had things he had to do, errands to complete before he was sidetracked. Before parting ways, the officers each took turns telling the smaller man to be careful on his way home. Miss. Collins also asked him to be careful as well as thanked him once again. With that, they said their goodbyes.
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So there he was, walking along another street not paying attention to his surroundings, for the second time that day. He was thinking about how close he’d had been to possibly being seriously injured, or worse, and how Bucky would definitely be upset later when he found out, that he didn’t see the person walking straight towards him until they were both already on the floor. Steve thought about how many times in the course of just this one day, he’d found himself on the floor and contemplated just staying there. He brushed that thought aside, sat up and took note of the grocery bag on the floor, a few of the items having spilled out. Then he heard a slight groan from the other figure on the floor. Turning his attention back he saw the other person begin to slowly sit up. A woman, Steve took quick note. He saw as she began to shake her head, gathering her bearings he supposed. Then she turned her head, lifted her eyes and meets his gaze. Blue eyes locked on green. In that minuet the whole world seemed to freeze.