Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 56

Chapter 56

"WHAT on Earth do you think you're doing, Steve Rogers!?"

Uh-oh…

Three dozen heads, most of them under the age of seventeen, snapped in the direction of the doorway. Bernice stood, arms crossed, one finger tapping on the opposite forearm. Dark eyes bored into them like two dark stars, a look of displeasure that made even Vasco, leader of the Dominicans, wither.

"Busted," Lupe whispered.

Steve shot her his most fetching grin. A look he was learning turned her into putty no matter how angry she was with him. The dark stars faltered, then regained their disapproving intensity. For a woman who claimed she was timid and shy, Bernice was turning out to be one heck of a formidable woman. At least that was what General Dempsy had said after she'd run him out of sick bay like a chastised lance corporal busted down to latrine duty.

The fight they'd been watching in the boxing rink stopped, the two glove-laden gladiators from opposing gangs frozen, their eyes glued to Bernice and not each other. Every man in this gym knew Steve wasn't supposed to be out of bed.

"I tell him he no supposed to get out of bed," Rodriguez said. "But the minute the nurse go home, he ask boys to bring him downstairs."

"You're so screwed," Hak-Kun whispered, a member of the rival Azian Boyz gang.

Hak-Kun was one of the kids that came here after school instead of hanging out on the street with the gang kids. He, and around a dozen of his Azian Boyz friends, had stopped by when they'd heard Steve was finally out of the hospital. That, of course, had drawn the Dominicans, Vasco not one to let a rival gang trespass on his 'turf,' which these days had an invisible demarcation that ran right down the middle of Pankration's front door. Neutral territory. After a week of bed rest, Steve was feeling antsy. Going downstairs, where there was enough room for the kids to spread out and focus on neutral activities such as punching each other's lights out in the boxing ring, was a welcome distraction.

Not that Bernice saw it that way! She accepted his mentorship of the gang kids, but in his current physical condition he was too banged up to play referee. Teaching kids to focus their hostility into a boxing match was a skill the man he thought of as 'skinny Steve' brought to the table. But if things flared up, 'machine Steve' needed to grab the kids by the scruff of the neck and tell them to knock it off.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. One slender finger silently tapped a kind of spousal Morse code, her message clear.

"We'll help him back upstairs right away, Mrs. Rogers," Vasco called, making a gesture to the Dominicans.

There was a tense moment when the Azian Boyz did not wish to be excluded. Steve grabbed Hak-Kun under one arm, a Dominican named Tercero under the other, and allowed them to help him off the stool they'd propped in front of the boxing rink so he could alleviate his boredom by watching the kids spar. Wincing in pain the entire way up to the second floor, he groaned as he was forced to bend to sit down on the bed. Vasco signaled the others to exit the room, leaving them alone.

"You going to tell me how you really got so banged up?" Vasco asked.

"You know I'm not allowed to talk about that," Steve said.

Vasco was quiet.

"If you're in trouble or anything," Vasco said. "You can come to me. The Dominicans take care of their own." He shot a look at Bernice.

Bernice seemed unperturbed by Vasco's territorialism. She'd told him the gang kids had introduced themselves, but refused to discuss the matter further other than to voice support of his pet project. By the way she wasn't intimidated by having this many rival gang members piled into the gym, it seemed their interaction in his absence had been agreeable.