→ Post Captain America Civil War.
→ Eleanor Collier is the definition of "starving artist." Ever since her art studio was demolished by the Chitauri four years ago, she just couldn't seem to get back on her feet. That is, until Tony Stark himself s...
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03
Stark
Eleanor started walking shortly after the team of policemen finished taking their reports. Cal was waiting for her at his house but at the moment, all she wanted to do was walk.
Night had fallen, but the hot, murkiness of summer still clung to the air and the sea of sweaty workers trudged beneath the yellow pool of lights from the buildings, making them look gray and shadowed. A warm wind blew discarded papers against her legs and they stuck to the sheet of sweat dripping from her body. Eleanor should have felt afraid - a forty-two-year-old woman, clearly wearing pajamas, wandering the streets in the small hours. But she felt safer out here than she did in her own flat. Out here, someone would hear you cry.
She had no plan, no route beyond walking the streets until she was too exhausted to stand. Somewhere between tired and punch-drunk, she realized that it had begun to rain, and it must've started sometime back, because she was soaked through. So, she started walking faster in her soggy shoes, but instead of going homeward, she went west towards Broome street.
She didn't realize where she was going until she was there. Until she was basking in the glowing light of the porch light, staring dazedly at the sign that hung on the dirty, red brink. Charlie's.
She wasn't due to work until Saturday, and a drink was the last thing her hazy, punch-drunk brain needed. But she knew sleep wouldn't come easy tonight, no matter how exhausted she felt, and the further she walked, the more she was dreading the walk to Cal's flat.
You could always get a cab, a tiny, ugly voice sniped in the back of her brain, it's not the walk you can't face, it's sleep. Coward.
She shook her head, sending raindrops splattering onto the tinted glass doors, and she pulled the hood of her jacket over her face, hopefully shadowing some of her exhausted appearance – made even more horrifying with soggy, smeared makeup and ten-pound eye bags – before she opened the door and slipped inside. She was instantly overwhelmed by the smell of gin and tonic and sweat. The place wasn't empty, but other than the clinking of glass glasses as Matilda wiped them down with a dirty, cotton rag, and the slight stutter of the jukebox in the back corner, it was silent – almost oppressively so.
Eleanor took a deep breath, tugged at her hoodie strings, and slid into one of the bar stools. She thought about leaving, but in the end, she may as well have been glued to her seat as soon as Matilda spotted her.
"Ellie, thank God! Someone to make this dreadful shift a little more entertaining," Matilda gushed, rushing to her with a bottle of whiskey faster than Eleanor could even think. "The usual? On the house."
"Actually, can I just have a soda water?"
Matilda stopped pouring the drink, a slightly disappointed look in her eyes when she realized Eleanor didn't stop by to get plastered or have a nice chat. "Hungover? Because I've got a perfect remedy."
