Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis (Hp x Mcu) by Enigmaris

Chapter 10: Painting with Bob Ross

Summary:

Steve's trying to make a new life from whatever remains in the future and he realizes that there's someone else in the tower who's trying to move on too.

Steve looked up at the sound of the service elevator. They'd only learnt about Holly's true identity just earlier that week, but he couldn't help but still be surprised that someone like Holly was their cleaning lady. He tried to imagine Peggy willingly, even happily, working as a cleaning lady and couldn't. Holly bustled into the room with her cleaning cart, chattering away at Jarvis about someone named Hermione.

"Hello Holly." Steve said.

"Steve!" She greeted. "You're not normally in here in the morning, don't you go on runs?"

"I got back early. I had...an idea I wanted to work on." In front of Steve was a drawing easel that he was attempting to fill with a painting. He'd always been interested in being an artist, it was his dream job as a kid. But...well things had gotten in the way of that. Now he had the time to work on his art but he found that things weren't coming together.

"It looks...colorful." She said walking over to look at the messy paints on the thick paper Tony had gotten him.

"It's rough." He defended. "I'll work out the kinks."

"Have you taken any classes?" She asked.

"No. There weren't things like that back in my time." Well there were just not for poor people. "I taught myself. I'm just out of practice."

He had been considering signing up for a class but hadn't gotten around to it. Missions as an Avenger kept him busy and beyond that wouldn't it be weird to have Captain America in an art class?

"I'm sure you'll get back into the swing of things." She said. "I assume things like that come back to you."

Steve was reminded that Holly probably never got the chance to doodle in class and find that she was good or bad at it. As a young girl she'd been bullied by her cousin and anything she enjoyed was destroyed and then her magically schooling had essentially been one life threatening adventure after another. It seemed deeply unfair.

"You ever do anything like this?" He asked.

"Mmm. No." Her voice was thoughtful. "Wasn't much of a doodler as a kid and the older I got the less time I had."

Just as Steve had suspected. Something squirmed in his stomach at the truth of it.

"Well..." Steve swallowed. "I was thinking, since I'm so out of practice that it might be nice to take a class or something."

"That sounds like a great idea, Steve." Holly gave him a smile before moving around to start cleaning the mostly clean apartment. He watched her for a moment before trying again. It was weird. He wasn't even trying to ask her on a date, and he was still way too nervous. He ignored the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Bucky telling him he'd never be good with a dame.

"Yeah, well...maybe, if you're not busy you could come with me?" Holly froze in the middle of putting the bag of trash from the beneath his kitchen sink into her large garbage can. She slowly stood up to look at him.

"You mean...to an art class?"

"As friends!"

"A friendly art class." She deadpanned causing Steve to frown at her.

"I just thought that you might have the time now to learn and that it might be easier with a friend. You don't have to make..."

"When is it?" She asked.