Together Tomorrow

Chapter Six: I'm Fine

Later that week, Lea sat out on the fire escape eating her dinner as the sun sunk below the rooftops. It was still a little brisk as the heat of the day began ebbing away, but she was wearing a thick purple scarf and eating hot soup with homemade bread. She had just stuffed a massive bite of bread into her mouth, when her neighbors window slid open. Lea mumbled to herself as Steve climbed out his window.

"Oh, Hi Lea." He looked a somewhat surprised to see her.

She waved and made an indistinct sound in her throat, her cheeks slightly puffed out with all the bread in them.

"What have you got there?" He asked, climbing out the window to join her.

Lea gave him a slightly pathetic look, chewed a few more times and then swallowed. She screwed up her right eye as the wad of bread was still to large and hurt on the way down. "Lentil soup and some of my bread." She pressed her hand to her chest where the way to big of bite was on its way to her stomach.

Steve chuckled. "You didn't have to answer right away."

"Naw it's all good. My brothers and I used to have contests of how much we could swallow without chewing. It's been a while though."

"Did you ever win?" Steve asked, laughter still in his voice

"I used to bet them all the time, until they both hit puberty. I bowed out after Jake swallowed an entire fingerling potato." Lea shook her heat and then regretted it, as stabbing pain shot through the side of her skull. Oh how she hated migraines.

"What's a fingerling potato?" There was bemused disbelief in his expression as he shifted to look directly at her.

"Oh. They are mini potatoes about the size of a fat mans thumb. About the size of a third of a regular potato." Lea picked up her spoon and gingerly put more soup in her mouth. The heat felt good, but her head hurt badly enough she wasn't to hungry, especially after swallowing all that bread all at once.

"That sounds painful." Steve almost grimaced.

"Uh-hu. I never tried to bet him at that again." Lea nodded slowly. "You were probably to sensible of a kid to do something that stupid." She grinned wryly.

"Well, not reallllly." He folded his hands and smirked.

"Oh? Do tell." Her curiosity was stronger then the headache, she had to know what mischief Captain America had gotten up to as a boy.

"There was this one time." Steve laughed. "This one time when a traveling show was in town, and my friend and I wanted to go see it, but we couldn't get out of school. I would always pretend to have an asthma attack when I wanted to get us out, but the teacher got wise. It was right near the Fourth of July, so buck set off enough fire crackers to get the class dismissed."

Lea couldn't help but laugh. It was fitting that they used Fourth of July fireworks. "Did you guys get in trouble?"

"Thankfully not. They could never figure out who did it." Steve grinned, that distant gaze starting to return to his eyes.

"It would have been interesting to have known you back then." She mused and took another bite, again trying not to wince, but clearly didn't succeed.

"Hey, you okay?" Steve looked at her carefully, trying to see if there was something wrong with her.

"Uhhhhh...." Lea squinted her eyes and tilted her head, her hair falling across part of her face. "I've got the beginning of a migraine. I get then on occasion."

"That's why you are eating soup?" Steve gestured.

"Maybe." She frowned. "I hadn't really through about it. I've just been trying to get through the day a few steps at a time."