- Mr. Rogers, I remind you that the town library is open until eleven o'clock at night," a metallic voice said. - It's also the last day, because it's closing for a three-month restoration.
Captain America caught the shield that bounced off another dummy and wiped away the sweat with his other hand. Today's training had gone without any surprises, which pleased the soldier immensely. Rogers walked over to the bench and sat down on it and grabbed a towel to dry himself off. A bottle of water also stood invitingly nearby
- Thank you for reminding Jarvis. What time is it now? - Relaxed, Steve asked, bringing the neck of the life-giving water to his mouth.
- It's fifteen to eleven o'clock, sir," the Artificial Intelligence immediately reported. A muffled cough was heard in the hall. - Are you all right, sir?
The supersoldier hadn't expected so much time to pass: he was so caught up in the training. And now he was late. Really, really late.
- Jarvis! I told you to tell me ahead of time! - Rogers stormed out of the gym, ripping off his sweat-soaked training clothes as he went.
- Mr. Stark said you should jog after your strength and speed training. Jogging consolidates the effect of the workout. At least that was his reasoning for telling you later, sir," the Artificial Intelligence replied with some irony (or so he thought).
- Stark..." Steve growled through gritted teeth as he flew into the room.
Dirty things flew in a clump in the corner, which in a normal situation a disciplined soldier could not afford. Right now, however, he had little interest in such things. Pulling on his sweatshirt and pants as he went, he grabbed his bag and threw in his books "A Modern American History," "Warfare Through the Ages," and "The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain.
Steve was in a big hurry. He was in as much of a hurry as he was cursing one overly smart billionaire. But even with all his speed, getting around an infinite number of passersby without slowing down the aforementioned physical quantity was simply unrealistic. That's why Steve accelerated when he saw the library doors, which were empty at the approach. Every three seconds he glanced at the dial on the telephone clock, Rogers had no hope of the library being open.
But, by sheer luck or coincidence, as it turned out later, when he flew to the door and touched the knob the door was already opening on its own. "Oh, the force of gravity," Captain America would have thought, had he been a physics nut and not so dumbfounded that he tripped over some curve in the rug and, in an attempt to keep his balance, ran into someone, knocking him to the floor. "Don't overdo it in your training," a phrase jokingly thrown by Natalia came to mind. "And I didn't feel any pain..." - Rogers was surprised, and the next second almost nailed himself, as he heard a muffled curse he'd never heard from anyone before:
- "Fenrir, you foul...
He was nervous and blushing - it's a good thing none of the Avengers (it was an experimental unit of superheroes, which assembled S.I.T. to protect the Earth, though so far in this brave unit everyone was by himself) do not see this, or jokes about this case long haunted the Captain - Steve got down from the man and stood up, not knowing what to do. It seemed to be no big deal: he just fell, that's all. But on the other hand he knew he weighed a lot himself, and he knew more about bad falls that could lead to death than anyone else. The black-haired boy lay sprawled on the floor. No significant wounds or bruises were detected, but the kid's glasses were in complete disrepair-the lenses were cracked, the frames had sagged slightly forward and to the right, the temples were hanging on by their word of honor. "Gotta say something... Gotta... how's he doing anyway? Maybe I broke something and he can't get up!" - the thoughts raced through his head on the first space. Steve tried to calm down and do something for quite a long time; finally the thoughts, scattering like chickens, gave out a more or less normal formulation:
- Excuse me, mister, are you all right?
It wasn't until he voiced these words that Rogers realized how silly it sounded. Could everything be all right with someone who found himself literally squeezed into the floor! Only the propriety and stupidity of the gesture kept the Avenger from slamming his head against the nearest wall.
- Don't ask the squashed sandwich man how he's doing," came a husky voice.
The boy turned heavily and tried to stand up. It took him a while to get up. Looking at all this and even more so hearing the characterization of health as a "squashed sandwich," the Captain felt like an impenetrable idiot. Only he, being a super-soldier, could not only accidentally knock down, but also cripple an ordinary civilian. I immediately felt so disgusted...
- I apologize, mister, I was just in a hurry and didn't expect the door to open on its own..." The excuse looked pathetic, but it was all Steve had to offer as an apology at the moment.
The guy squeezed his temples irritably with his fingers and rubbed them, trying to calm down. He was probably angry about the fall...
- I may seem harsh, after all, it's the end of the day," the soldier mentally prepared to listen to some foul language, though he didn't welcome foul language in his speech, "but maybe that's enough? - Rogers watched in surprise as the green-eyed man moved his shoulder irritably, then smiled. - One apology and that was it, wasn't it? - The guy in the dark overcoat adjusted his poor glasses, and they fell apart comically. With a stunningly nonchalant look he took out the other ones and put them on, gathering the remains of the construction of the former ones into his pocket, as if this happens often! It wouldn't be such a tense situation right now, Steve would have laughed. The guy thought about something, closed his eyes and took a few breaths, and then gave out. - All the more reason no one would die from it...
Steve had heard phrases about death many times since his return from the ice. Barton was constantly forgetting some promise he had made to Romanoff, and then rushing off somewhere saying, "Oh, shit, she's going to kill me!" Or from the villains, "Here comes your death, Avengers!" Or from Fury, "I'll bury you all!!! What have you done again?!" But no one, not even the most ardent Agents Romanoff or Clint, put into those words the very meaning they carried.
Back from the war, Rogers sometimes didn't understand those who discussed death so calmly...those who had never been in the middle of the meat grinder of a bloody wild war. Ahead of you is not just danger, mortal danger; behind you is death; famine is rampant in your rear, and betrayal among your comrades. This is the cacophony of war. It's been years since he heard that chilling melody in the voices, and here it is again. This "will not die" is not a simple phrase, not some beautiful turn of phrase, it is... a statement of fact, heavy and steely. An unpleasant chill ran down my spine. Where in this young lad's voice did the trace of war come from?
The man was plucked from his unpleasant memories by the young man's voice. He sounded a little irritated, but it was probably just the embers of a flame that had been snuffed out in a moment.
- So why are you here at this late hour? - The fellow squinted unequivocally at the wall clock.
Captain America suddenly remembered the books he'd forgotten, humbly awaiting their fate in his bag.
- Here, please tell me, am I not too late for closing time?
- Well, if it hadn't been for the War of the Roses, you wouldn't have been here for months," was the tired but titillating reply. And then the librarian suddenly got serious. - 'We had already closed, and the staff had almost all already left...
"It was inevitable..." - The soldier thought sadly, about to leave, when he noticed that his companion was not moving towards the exit. Glasses-eyed man somehow doomed to weave behind ... reception?!
- Come on, let's go. You want to pass the book, don't you?
The mood immediately jumped up a few points. At an easy walk the superhero made his way to the front desk, where a guy was rummaging around looking for something. And then came the strangest question of the whole hectic evening.
- Can you tell me your name, please? - The black-haired man asked without raising his head.
"Is he kidding?" - Captain America wondered, looking at the librarian, and then he remembered that all this time not a spark of recognition had flashed in the guy's eyes. - "Maybe he's not from around here?"
- Um, Steve Rogers," the soldier braced himself for anything that might happen now, just in case. Up to the point where some galactic monster with tentacles, or worse, a fan, was about to show up instead of this guy.
But the guy just nodded, and then he pulled the tabletop apart and started rummaging through it. In a coherent motion, he pulled one out of the many paper books and opened it, apparently to write something in it. "Why not electronically?" - A thought flashed through the mind of Steve, long accustomed in the Stark Tower to all this newfangled electronics. But here... though it was more familiar, more familiar, more familiar... Rogers had become so self-absorbed that when the very book with the librarian's harping inscription appeared before his eyes, he stared at the boy in bewilderment.
- Sign," short and to the point. - Yes, I know it's now marked electronically, but remember what time it is? The computer at the library gets shut off at 9 p.m. And our computer often crashes - our IT guys can't write a normal program, so we have to keep a paper record in parallel. And this way, in my humble opinion, is easier.
The yawning boy returned ten minutes later, apparently looking for a long time to put his books in. And Rogers only now wondered how old he was. Steve didn't look more than eighteen. At first the boy walked briskly and cheerfully, but as soon as Moore noticed him his eye began to twitch, and his walking gave away his disappointment far better than his face, which had a smile on it from Carnegie. He walked over to Steve and asked in a huff:
- Did you want something?
Steve looked at the time and realized that it would be midnight in a few minutes. He'd already kept the guy at work for more than half an hour, and now he was staying. The librarian must have thought Rogers had something else he wanted to clarify or borrow a book. The soldier thoughtfully regarded the man's face and noted certain details: the bags under his eyes poorly concealed by his glasses, the disheveled not just black but some kind of tarry hair, and the simply witch-like eyes hiding behind the thick glasses. Suddenly, Steve looked up at the boy. And it was... dangerous. For the first few moments Rogers couldn't even believe his eyes, but time passed and nothing changed. "Why is there such a clear mark of death in his gaze?" - Inwardly the super-soldier grew cold. - "As if he'd been through a war..."
- Oh, no... no. I just wanted to thank you for taking my books, despite the late hour.
"What if he's like me? No, there can be no such thing," the soldier shook off the silly thought that had suddenly come into his head, but did not give it up completely: it was too plausible. The lad, meanwhile, when he heard the answer, exhaled so childishly that Rogers himself could not suppress a warm smile, a cheeky cat slipping on his lips.
- And I have two questions for you," Steve began, but immediately pulled himself away: he's not under interrogation, he's a civilian, not a criminal.
The employee, not taking his eyes off his case, gave the sign to ask. Steve silently sucked in air and in the same breath asked:
- How old are you?
The librarian, having finished locking the lockers, turned his gaze to Rogers, smiled, and stepped out from behind the counter, answering:
- I'm twenty-four, Mr. Rogers.
Doubt reverberated on the soldier's face, "That can't be right. Twenty-four? No way."
- I can show you my passport if you need it," was the reply to his thoughts, which must have been on his face, as usual.
Steve felt like hitting himself with something heavy again. No, of course you could get a lot more information from a passport, but he would look like a man with no sense of tact at all. He and the librarian headed for the exit.
- Don't... it's just, you look so young," Steve began to make excuses for the boy.
Somehow the soldier felt guilty that so young a man had seen the horrors of war, but he was interrupted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
- Yeah, yeah, that's what a lot of people tell me.
As the door swung open, the super-soldier noticed that it was already too dark outside. And his interlocutor didn't look like someone who, if anything, could stand up for himself...
- It's dark ... do you live far away? -Worried, Steve asked.
His shoulders slumped after a few seconds, and he shook his head in denial.
- You don't have to be nice to me. I'm a stranger. It's obviously not worth it. And... what if I'm not a nice person? - I heard an ambiguous answer, with some vague emotion. - Yes, it is dark now. Can you get there without any trouble yourself? I hear there are some thieves on the rampage in the alleys around here. They don't make the news, and the police don't seem to care... Anyway, it was nice talking to you. Goodbye. And I don't think we'll see each other again soon.
"Thieves"? Yeah, well, they don't usually get reported. As for the police..." - Steve thought about it, and so he said goodbye on automatic:
- See you later," he stood in the square, illuminated by the light of the many lanterns and signs, seeing off the young guy as he walked away into some gloomy alley.
With a shrug, Rogers made his way toward Stark Tower, whistling an uncomplicated tune. Still, he made it, made it, despite a nice prank from Stark. And yet this kid... He's strange. "Dark alley... thieves..." - suddenly flashed through Captain America's mind, and he sprang from his seat, hoping to catch up with the frail-looking librarian.
- Wait a minute, Mr. Moore... - but as he ran into the alley, he saw no one.