#makes me think of that idiot on the bird app who peppered in the idea of 6 y/o owning and carrying guns in the US

[blindtaleteller]

...semi off topic (but also not,) but tags.

Absolutely bonkers that I'm now one of those weirdos you hear about on Twitter

[sian22redux]

Field of Dreams

Part 2 of 2.  Y/N has a surprise for Steve when he worries about the fallout from their spat.  Fury and the Avengers just might, might, also be involved. ^_^

A little baseball history, one huge surprise, and a spark that begins to flame.

Rating: G. Steve Rogers x Reader. 

@nomadicpixel‘s winning fic from my Cleveland’s loss to Boston.  As usual it isn’t short (what moi?) but was such fun to write.  I know waaaaay too much about the ‘Trolley Dodgers’ now.   Enjoy!

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“Still can’t talk to women.”

Bucky shakes his head, reaches across Natasha’s yogurt and Clint’s pancakes with his metal hand to snag the very last strawberry while Steve sits and glowers at the morning’s feed.

It’s humbling.  Frustrating and embarrassing all at once, but unfortunately the straight up truth.  He can’t talk to women and the evidence stares up from his Starkpad.  Y/N’s elegant brows crashed together, his own mouth set in a line below the blaring headline:  ‘Unfriendly Rivalry?’  

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he mumbles dejectedly, running a hand through his still-damp blond mop. The past three days of coverage have been appalling.  Blogs and pundits shredding Fleur and Y/N for speaking out.  Blaming her for the entire stupid mess.   Branding her as some sort of Feminazi for daring to argue with America’s Hero.

It’s so unfair.  Misogynistic and unbalanced and sticks in his craw because the truth is he is the one who is in the wrong.

He shifts awkwardly in his seat “How did we go south so fast? I apologized for the tweet. She was gracious and understanding and I just…”

“Couldn’t let go of something you see as wrong?”  

The whole table bursts out laughing. Sam’s throaty chuckle echoes.   Bucky’s head back guffaw trails up towards the ceiling.  Clint looks like he might pop the latest stitches in his gut while Bruce reaches for a napkin to wipe his streaming eyes.  

Thanks. Thanks guys.

Nat smothers her own knowing smirk in a dainty coffee cup while he groans and tries to hide his head in his hands.  Point to the assassin who always goes straight to the jugular.  He knows the whole thing is pointless but games at Ebbets Field with Bucky were some of his fondest memories from before the war.  It rubbed him wrong.  Got his back up and heck he should have known to back down from the edge but that doesn’t mean that he always can.

“I am an Idiot.”

”Confirm!!”  

“Tony!”  

“If the suit fits, Cap. Morning all.” Starks’s CEO saunters in and swipes a piece of toast from Bucky’s grip,  flips a chair back to front and casually sits astride.   Their chief needler is dressed for corporate battle in a Givenchy three piece suit.    He ignores the protest of ‘Hey!’ and wolfs his purloined breakfast down.

“Snooze you lose, Winter.  Head on a swivel.”  He grins in the face of Bucky’s glare as Bruce, ever the peace-maker, sets another piece on Bucky’s plate.  “Not that I think Miss Y/N will be too upset by the result.  There is no such thing as bad press in this biz.”  

“Not upset?!”  Steve’s jaw hits his knees.  “Even the Post and Times have carried it on page 3!”

“Exactly.”  Tony points with an absently filled coffee cup. “Headline coverage is headline coverage. The whole country is talking about it. The assholes who told her to get out of the boardroom will drive up her sales in sympathy.”    

Steve bites his lip.  “Really?”  

“Yup.  They’ll get a nice bounce out of this and probably a few million follows.  Wish I’d thought of it.”

From somewhere above Clint’s purple arrow mug there is a strangled snort. “You, publically picking an argument?  That’s not news, that’s an everyday occurrence.”

“Sure thing, Birdbrain. At least I….”  

“Guys.  Guys.” Steve puts up his hands.  The morning’s habitual serving of trash talk is giving him a headache.  He rubs his temple and tries to think this through.  Should he make some sort of statement?  Tweet out an apology? Would flowers and a note be more personal or should he assume she wants nothing to do with him in this universe or next?

That last thought makes the bright sunny day feel like a wall of cloud’s rolled in, but who is he kidding?  

Expressing himself had gotten him into this mess.  The last thing he wants is to make it even worse.  

“What should I do?”

The table falls uncharacteristically quiet.  Sam claps him on the shoulder as he rises and takes his dirty dishes to the sink. Bruce mumbles something about ‘relays’, following Clint’s retreating back.  Bucky, the traitor, puts his metal hand out as if to say, ‘don’t look at me. you’re on your own pal.’  

The only two left in support are pointedly ignoring him.  Tony and Natasha hover over their Starkphones, avoiding his pleading gaze until, suddenly, Natasha’s ‘pulls’ up a page to float, glowing blue, above the jam.      

“I think it’s been decided for you.”

Steve blinks, quickly scans the hologram of the New York Times fifth page while Tony whistles low. “Brilliant. They’re freaking brilliant. I’d like to poach their PR rep.”  

Natasha thumps him on the arm. “Tony. Focus.”

“Just kidding.  Ah, not actually.  But I will send a few tens of million their way.  Jarvis?”

<Sir, it is already done>

“Excellent.”

While Tony texts Pepper excitedly with this news, Steve, slack-jawed, reads the page size Invitation in detail.  

It is blue on white, stamped with the Dodgers official logo and signed with the sort of flourish gained only from practicing calligraphy.

Natasha’s smiling so wide he can see her pointy teeth.   Tony is grinning from ear to ear.  And Bucky, Bucky is trying to hide a tear.  

“Every boy’s goddam dream Stevie,” he says, “She’s got class.  Class and guts.”

That she does.  But holy hell.  Him play in a game? He’s so rusty a swimming pool of oil couldn’t help. Besides, when the Avengers have some downtime they more often kick a soccer ball around.  Sure he’s thrown out ceremonial first pitches since coming out of the ice, but the last time he’d hit he could barely connect the ball and bat.  Now?  Serum’d up?  Would he explode the ball like Randy Johnson did a bird?  Would it leave orbit and be a danger to traffic on Elysian Ave?  He’d have to dial it down.  Check his swing somehow.  It’s worrying, but the sweet reality of jogging freely around the bases without wheezing or coughing up a lung hits home.  

Wow.  It would be fun.  You never forget the smell of popcorn and hotdogs and chalk and…..

A little anxiety starts to set in. “I haven’t played in seventy-seven years.”  

“Seventy-nine,” quips Buck. “High school gym class.  You bunted and Mickey Ryan got to pinch run.” His best friend shakes his head and reaches for his phone, pulls up the Dodgers’ message app.   “You’re going man.  And we are going with you.”

Steve blushes.  Gives in to reality.  Yes he’s going.   And inside--in his heart of hearts--- he’s looking forward to seeing Y/N too.

----------------------

July 1st..

“Good morning Captain Rogers. Welcome to Dodger Stadium.”  

“Good morning Miss Archer,” Steve shakes hands with Fleur’s Press Secretary, stands uncertainly on the pavement outside the Player’s entrance.  It’s warm and not too windy, perfect playing weather, but already he has a little trickle of sweat down his back.  Astride the doors is the welcoming committee: the team’s Clubhouse manager, assorted assistants and one extremely starry-eyed ball boy.  He shakes hands and greets them all, tryies not to notice the crescendo of clicking automatic flash.  

The press hounds gathered in a less welcome contingent are making him nervous to say anything.

“Please call me Stephanie,” says the fresh-faced young woman in Dodger blue holding the days jam packed schedule. “I am helping LA today.  And don’t mind them Captain.  They aren’t allowed in the locker room.” She points a stylus toward to the blue tinted glass doors. “Come into the club house and we can get you suited up.”

Steve follows the ticking of her high heels into a hushed and new smelling corridor and then through one-way glass doors to arrive in a brightly lit but utterly unmodern room.

“What the?”

He stands speechless; stock still in the open central space, and his mouth is open and catching flies.

The LA locker room has been transformed.  Instead of high tech monitors and computer feeds and OLED TVs, the room is hung with old style Dodger pennants.  Pictures of 40’s Brooklyn.  Advertisements for the ‘Subway Series’; the  ’41 and ’47 World Series played by two New York teams: the Yankees and his ‘Dem Bums’. The lockers are mostly empty, a few hung with wooden hangers and old-style jerseys, baggy knickers and long blue socks.  Before each cubbie is a wooden stool.  And on the few laden shelves are blue caps and helmets with the familiar ‘B’.

Exactly as the Brooklyn clubhouse would have been almost 80 years ago.  

“We thought this might be your size,” says Stephanie, leading him by the elbow to a spot with pride of place beside the onfield door.  The white cotton of the home uniform is soft, stitched with exactly the swooping letters of yesteryear and about two size larger any other that he’s seen.  

“You did this…?”  

She nods and smiles as he gingerly takes the deep blue helmet down. “The whole team and management. I know Brooklyn didn’t used to wear helmets back in your day but the League insisted.  This is a regulation game and the bats are rather stronger now.”  

And so am I, Steve thinks, settling the heavy plastic down over his head.  It’s snug, fits so exactly he suspects Tony has been involved.  Only the cheek-guard feels odd.  He rolls his neck a little, trying to get a feel of the slightly lop-sided weight.

“Miss Y/N figured you are used to wearing helmets.”

“Yeah,“ he blushes, looking down and amazed to find a familiar pair of dark all leather cleats.  “Do you do this every year?”

Stephanie’s lips twitch as she barely conceals a grin. “No sir.  Just this one.”

All this for him?   Incredible.  Steve’s throat closes up.  “Uh.. uhm.  Thank you.”  

“Don’t thank me,” the blond ponytail gives a shake, “thank Miss Y/N. It was her idea.   I’ll leave you to dress and then you can exit through that door and meet her at the gate.”

Soon enough, Steve is left to dress all by himself.  He shrugs out of his shirt and chinos, pulls on the kit and fumbles with the knickers’ blue belt and loops.  What a time for butterflies.  He’s nervous, he really is, caught between wanting to help a team and just take in the wonder of it.  There’s a number 41 on the jersey’s back--Harry Taylor’s number musn’t be retired.   Will they play him in left field like the big Irish slugger?  If he was coach he would.  Steve doesn’t know the plays, the cutoff points, or the signs.  

He finishes tying the (perfectly fitting) cleats and stuffs white batting gloves into his back pocket feeling mostly set.  A quick few strides takes him through the home team tunnel.  It’s weird-there’s no one hanging round, no one snapping pics or asking for photographs.  He hustles a little more and then stops short just where the sunny square of outside light blinds him momentarily.

The clubhouse was a dream but this is something else.

Dodger stadium is dressed up like Ebbets Field.  Low swagged banners for advertisements on the bleachers.  Vendors in vintage dress.   Pennants for a World Series win in1955 and six for National League championships.  An organ’s live music is playing over the speakers and not a recording system.     

And on the first and third base lines the ‘home’ and ‘visiting’ teams are all lined up.  Twenty-five guys in Brooklyn white and blue, twenty-five in LA grey.  Some of the current team and veterans of many ages.

They stand at attention with caps over their hearts.

Wow.  

“Number 41, playing for Brooklyn, Steve Rogers!!”

The announcer’s words are drowned by the roar of the swelling crowd.   Steve starts forward, intending to take his place at the end of the home team line, but he makes it only to near home plate before his feet become glued again.  The audience is on its feet.  Stamping.  Shouting. Cheering on not Captain America but a man who’s had this dream.

Forever.  

It can’t be real.  It can’t, but he looks up to the owner’s box and there are the Avengers assembled in Brooklyn Blue.  Whistling and clapping.  Waving flags of oldtime Dodger blue just like the crowd.  As thrilled for him as he is.

He doffs his cap and turns around, slowly, carefully; waving it to acknowledge the entire park.      

“Captain? Steve?”

He shakes himself out of a daze and turns to look down at Miss Y/N who stands just at his elbow. She is smiling, pretty and perfect in a Brooklyn ball cap and summery light dress.  Her long dark hair is glossy and flowing down her back and incongruously he wants to tuck away a stray strand that floats in the wind.  

“Fine Miss.  Just shocked.  Amazed.”  His tongue can’t manage anymore.  His heart is pounding and his chest is tight and he know it isn’t asthma but isn’t sure quite what. A hearattack? Impossible?  Anxiety? No, he’s happy not upset.  Happiness?!  Most likely. It seems to be that her hand is warm on his. 

She’s moving to pull him over to the teams, set to introduce him but they stop a moment.   He’s having trouble not tearing up.  Her brow furrows worriedly.  “Are you ok?”

Not really but then none of this seems real.  “Fine, fine Miss Y/N.” 

“Call me Y/N, please.” 

“Thank you. Y/N.  Tell me..” he asks quietly.

Her cap tilts up and she has to shield her eyes from the sun. “What?”

“Why?  Why did you do all this?  You didn’t have to. You….”  could have hated my guts forever, he wants to say but manages to keep it in.    

Y/N gives a quiet sigh. “I thought about it. What I said and what you said and I realize that I was wrong.  Our situations are totally different.  When my team was traded I was furious for months.. years honestly, but I had that last game at Olympic Stadium.  I got Gary Carter’s autograph and Pedro Martinez’ too.  Said goodbye.  Kept a souvenir ball.   You didn’t have that time to grieve.  When you woke up they were gone and that was a cruel surprise.  I can’t turn back time, but I can take you a little of the way there.  Let America’s hero have the chance to play.  And give your Dodgers’ the proper send-off you deserve.”

Steve is gobsmacked. This incredible, amazing, baseball crazy woman has changed this game just for him.  He stands staring down at her, wondering how he got so lucky.  He ticked her off and she’s still coming back.

Like Peggy.  

He stands a moment, stunned by his own realization and watching her rummage in her purse.   She shoves a scoresheet and binoculars aside and pulls out something that looks suspiciously like a ball.  

“Steve I wanted to apologize.  And the game is that, but also I got you this.”  She puts the scuffed up, flaky old leather of a Brooklyn ball into his upturned palm.  

“It’s…”

The home run ball he caught on May 26, 1941.  

The game that Shield played on the oldtime radio as he was waking up in another world.

The blue ink of the date and name were faded but unmistakeable. The poor agent greeting him could have never known.  Of all the games to pick..one burned into his memory.  The Brooklyn Eagle had run a picture of him and Pete Reiser on the center of the sports page: the skinny ‘local kid’ giving back to the Rookie of the Year his very first home run ball.  That dinger had tied the game, launched Pistol Pete onto a year of league-leading runs.  

Of course Steve could never forget it.  It was, he’d once assumed, his fifteen minutes of fame.  

“How?”  Did you know?

Y’N laughs.  It wrinkles her freckled nose adorably. “If you thought baseball was good for stats, just see the MLB now! It wasn’t hard to find.  A Steve Rogers in the forties catching Pete Reiser’s first home run ball.”

He supposes not. But… he scans her face.  She can’t know that that was the game he woke up too?  Or can she?  Did Fury get involved?  Was this another way for him to apologize for his little trick?  

And does it really matter anymore. He scuffs a cleat against the astroturf.  “Look I’ve been an…”

“Ass?”  Y/N grins as she can’t help but tease.  “I am not the one known as ‘America’s Ass.’”

He laughs.  “Not in these baggy things.”

“I don’t know they aren’t so bad.”  

Are they flirting?!  Oh god they are and he hasn’t blundered yet.

He throws the ball nervously from hand to hand.  “It’s too much..it’s….”

“Just what you deserve.”

After that they go down the lines; shaking hands with every coach and player new and old.   The day is to honour old timers and Steve is delighted to find it includes six players still alive from before the team was moved: Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Cody Bellinger,  Branch Rickey who he remembers enlisted in the Army in ’42, and Tommy Lasorda, player and then winning coach.  They are wrinkled and grey-haired but still hold their gloves with ease, josh with him about being the perfect designated hitter for a team, cat call the ‘vistors’ who are mostly LA alumni.  

Soon it will be time to take the field.  One last handshake to go.  Y/N directs him along to the next in line and he looks over to find the young LA short stop who had been there is gone.  

Replaced by a white-haired, thin bearded man in uniform and wheelchair.  

“Would you like me to autograph that for you son?”

This time Steve’s jaw hits the floor.  “Pete…?”

“Reiser..yup.”  The old man taps his head.  “So lucky to be here.  96 years young. 1 year younger than you are.. though I’ll allow it you look a little better.”

Steve laughs and shakes his head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah, well somedays neither can I,” Pete chuckles.  “Got all my faculties if not my legs. Dodgers in LA. Who would have credited it, but sometimes change is good.  These bums keep winning championships.” 

Steve smiles. Perhaps he’s right, but Pete was the guy that won them a pennant after twenty years of drought. “You almost turned them round, Sir.”

“Now quite how I remember it. But I do remember a scrawny kid who volunteered to give me my ball back.”

Of course he had.  It was what a good fan does.  Steve flushes.  “I am so honoured.”

“That makes two of us, son.”

Steve looks up to cheering friends and then back at Y/N.  She’s held her official boardroom style composure for an hour under the sun; introduced with pride every player new and old, but this time it’s she that can’t speak.  Wipes tears from off her cheeks; smiling freely and quite unconcerned that Fox Sports is televising this live.  

No way she doesn’t understand how important this moment is.  And Reiser. Who’s had to give up his ball.

Fury’s so going to hear from him.  Later.

There’s a faintly impatient ‘Cap’ and Steve turns quickly back.  Pete’s gesturing, beckoning him down and so he drops down on his haunches. The old Dodger leans forward and taps a gnarled finger on the ball.

“Super serum or whatever, lad let me give you some advice.  You see that one?”  He points over Steve’s shoulder to Y/N who is distracted, joking with A.J. Ellis who will the catch the game.  The sun is bringing out red highlights in her hair. 

 “Take it from me, I can tell.  She’s sweet on you.” A pair of watery blue eyes twinkle.  “And Lordy she’s a keeper.”

“Yes sir.”

Steve rises and on Tommy Lasorda’s signal jogs out into centre-field.  Once there he punches his hand in his glove, plays a few rounds of long toss, and stands, not quite able to take it in.

The noise.  The smell.  The sheer huge expanse of field.  

I am so lucky to be here.  So blessed.  So hoping I don’t drop the ball.  

He doesn’t realize he murmurs the last out loud until Bucky’s voice breaks into his earpiece.

It is the one concession to Stark’s vigilance.  “Of course you will.”  

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”  

Steve laughs.  His and Bucky’s friendship, unlike the Dodgers, will never change.  As he waits, nervous and excited, for Clayton Kershaw’s windup,  he looks up to the owner’s box and reflects that, after all, Pete Reiser may be right.  

Sometimes change is good.  

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@nomadicpixel; @theycallmebecca; @pegasusdragontiger; @mycapt-ohcapt; @patzammit; @neutralchaos1; @arizonapoppy; @weirdlet;