FF->PP: Post 3: FIC: Stars, Marvelverse, genderflip AU, gen
LOST LINE BREAKS WHEN COPY FROM TEXT EDITOR RUNNING LATE AHHHHHH.
*****
New York City, the Lower East Side, summer of 1973
"It doesn't look much different," says the taller woman. "Well. Except for the people with the flowers."
She's blonde, stands out above most of the men about, built like a wrestler and moving with easy power. Wearing what looks, for all the world, like an old, altered GI uniform, and carrying an oversized artist's portfolio. The milling crowd parts for her easily, moving a few steps away as if they aren't quite sure what to make of her; a few people stare. She doesn't seem to notice.
The shorter woman at her side, slim and angularly beautiful, with curling black hair, is dressed to the nines in last year's trendy menswear-for-girls, flaring trousers swinging as she walks, with a large bag hanging off one shoulder. "Are you sure about this, Stella?" she asks cautiously. "Your father--"
Stella shakes her head. "I know. He's dead by now. I just--" She pauses to read a street sign. "Almost there. I know there's nothing here for me. I just haven't been home since '43. Sometimes you have to, you know?"
The dark woman smiles wryly. "It's still trippy to hear that from somebody who looks my age, you know?"
"Stranger for me."
"Sorry."
"Heh. No worries, Andrea." Stella gives her shoulder an encouraging sort of squeeze, pauses at the steps of number 12. "Well, here it is."
"You grew up here?"
"Born and raised. We had a good landlady, we were lucky. Not that the depression wasn't hard for us, very hard, but we were able to hold onto the place." She squints up in the dusty sunlight to the third floor. "I knew some folks who were moving every few months, with kids my age or younger. Every time they couldn't scrounge up rent, they were back out in the cold. And some of them stayed. My best friend in high school slept in my room for half a year once, because her parents were living out of boxes on the street. Sometimes we had whole families living with us, packed in. Didn't need to pay much for heat then."
"How did you even hold on?"
"To this place? I--" Stella shakes her head with a little laugh. "I was a child. It was never quite clear. My father never brought in much money. My mother had some nursing, and she'd go out from dawn to dusk, we never quite knew where, and come back with food, sometimes money. I think she was helping people in the Hoovervilles, for whatever they could spare. All I knew was that I was safe."
"Christ," says Andrea. "Sounds rough."
"Not as rough as the war." There's a stiff silence; Stella's still looking up at the building. "Well," she says. There's a for-rent sign in the window. The ledge beneath it is still cracked where her dad had knocked a hammer against it, trying to put in a flower box.
Andrea just looks at her, then sits on the steps, nods over her shoulder for encouragement, pulls a quad-ruled notebook, pencil, and slide rule out of her bag.
Stella knocks, hesitant; it's still rather loud. She hears a shout, doors creaking, a cane thumping on the floor, and then the big old door with the stains round the bottom opens, and little Mrs. Benderskaya is peering up at her, thrice as withered and with a thinner headscarf.
"Oh, my," she says vaguely, taking in her height, or possibly something else. "Are you here about the apartment, miss?"
"Yes--well, I suppose. I'm not looking to rent, I'm sorry. I just used to have family here, and I wondered if I might...have a look around. For old time's sake."
"You--I suppose you could, yes--you must be a Rogers, then?"
"How did you know?"
"All blond and blue-eyed and heroic looking, all of them." The old landlady waves one shaking hand; the other's wrapped tightly round the head of her cane. "You must be a niece then, or some sort of cousin? It was old Joey Rogers, fightin' Joey, used to live up there. He had a daughter, lovely girl, but she'd be, oh, sixty by now. Ran off to do something, he never told me what. He died, oh, must be about ten years ago. Left the furniture for me in the apartment and all. I had a Black family renting up there for a few years. Nobody kept it long, after the Rogers were gone. But I thought old Joey had a sister or two, more lovely Rogers about. I'd see them come by for Christmas."
"A niece, yes." She feels herself at attention, turning off the part of herself that worries. She hates lying. She hates hearing about her family in the past tense. "I visited once or twice, when I was little."
"Well, I've been leaving it unlocked. You must be an athlete, then? You're in such fine shape. And I'm getting on." She points to the stairs behind her. "Go on up."
"Thank you." They shake hands. Stella is very, very gentle; the withered, bony old hand is so fragile in hers. It occurs to her that she's always thought of her landlady as ancient, but she couldn't have been more than twenty, maybe thirty, when she was a child. She keeps thinking about time, time and age and missing three decades, as she goes down the familiar narrow hall, up the stairs. Nobody's ever fixed the creak in the third step.
Up on the third floor, it's stifling hot, just like she remembers--she's eleven in the kitchen, cooking because her mother isn't there, with the sweat pouring down her spine. Smells different, though. More cars. The bakery around the corner must have closed--that used to waft up. Her portfolio bangs against the wall. The door's unlocked.
The living room is stick bare except for furniture shoved against the walls. Peeling paint. Still a few strips of her mother's old wallpaper in one corner. Dent in the plaster where her father had thrown an empty bottle of scotch at her, in '43.
No voices. Somebody moving about downstairs, maybe. She peeks in the kitchen; that's bare as a bone, and she wonders what happened to all the cookware. The bowl that her mother had from her grandmother, that her great-grandfather had carved, that had come over with them from Ireland--that's gone, and she feels a jolt of irrational disappointment. She treads carefully, back through the living room, down a path she'd worn in the floorboards for twenty childhood years, and opens the door to her room.
She hadn't quite believed Mrs. Benderskaya, about the furniture, until now. It's even the same bed. Whitewashed wood and rusty iron, narrow to fit the narrow room, creaky. The mattress is gone; it's bare springs in the frame.
Last time she'd been home, on leave in '43, she hadn't even been in here. Left after the bottle-throwing started. Last time she'd been in this room was before she'd joined the Army, before she'd been--transformed. What did they call it? Project Rebirth. 1941. Thirty-two years.
She sits, carefully. She's pretty sure that if she laid down, her toes would hang off under the footboard. She props her portfolio between her knees, listens to the ominous creaks, feels outsized. Shrugs off her men's uniform jacket--just a white half-sleeved undershirt beneath it. Two chains spill clattering out of her shirt--dogtag, and a white tin star, chunky and five-pointed, old and well-loved.
It's very quiet, with the noises of the city a few stories away, at least until somebody downstairs switches on a radio. Or one of those new tape decks. She can't quite tell. She feels very quiet, feels as if she's watching the world through glass, might go to pieces if that glass breaks.
On impulse, she reaches down and thumbs the catches of the portfolio. Pages past sheets of newsprint to a wide hidden pocket. and slowly, with practiced ease, slides out a great, shining shield.
She lays it across her lap, almost a yard across, perfectly round, perfectly balanced, red and white circles and a white star, chunky and five-pointed, old and well-loved.
She looks up to the mirror at the foot of the bed. Looks at herself in profile--the uniform, the dogtags. The sheer bulk of muscle in her arms and shoulders, the sinewy lines of it. The faint scars--blades, bullets, worse. The shield across her knees--that had turned every kind of flak, flame, curses, even lightning, the shield spinning on a hundred newsreels, the shield that a thousand good soldiers would have followed into Hell itself. The faint lines and dings where it had met something almost its match. The thick calluses it's built in the crooks of her thumbs.
It isn't often that she stops to think. That she realizes the immensity of what has happened to her, what she has become. But the last time she'd looked in that mirror--
The last time she'd looked in that mirror, Stella Rogers had been a little girl.
*****
This post is part of the Fanfiction Frenzy for Planned Parenthood, which is wired_lizard's outing for Day of Blogs, and has raised $190 so far. Like what you see? Please consider donating!
*****
New York City, the Lower East Side, summer of 1973
"It doesn't look much different," says the taller woman. "Well. Except for the people with the flowers."
She's blonde, stands out above most of the men about, built like a wrestler and moving with easy power. Wearing what looks, for all the world, like an old, altered GI uniform, and carrying an oversized artist's portfolio. The milling crowd parts for her easily, moving a few steps away as if they aren't quite sure what to make of her; a few people stare. She doesn't seem to notice.
The shorter woman at her side, slim and angularly beautiful, with curling black hair, is dressed to the nines in last year's trendy menswear-for-girls, flaring trousers swinging as she walks, with a large bag hanging off one shoulder. "Are you sure about this, Stella?" she asks cautiously. "Your father--"
Stella shakes her head. "I know. He's dead by now. I just--" She pauses to read a street sign. "Almost there. I know there's nothing here for me. I just haven't been home since '43. Sometimes you have to, you know?"
The dark woman smiles wryly. "It's still trippy to hear that from somebody who looks my age, you know?"
"Stranger for me."
"Sorry."
"Heh. No worries, Andrea." Stella gives her shoulder an encouraging sort of squeeze, pauses at the steps of number 12. "Well, here it is."
"You grew up here?"
"Born and raised. We had a good landlady, we were lucky. Not that the depression wasn't hard for us, very hard, but we were able to hold onto the place." She squints up in the dusty sunlight to the third floor. "I knew some folks who were moving every few months, with kids my age or younger. Every time they couldn't scrounge up rent, they were back out in the cold. And some of them stayed. My best friend in high school slept in my room for half a year once, because her parents were living out of boxes on the street. Sometimes we had whole families living with us, packed in. Didn't need to pay much for heat then."
"How did you even hold on?"
"To this place? I--" Stella shakes her head with a little laugh. "I was a child. It was never quite clear. My father never brought in much money. My mother had some nursing, and she'd go out from dawn to dusk, we never quite knew where, and come back with food, sometimes money. I think she was helping people in the Hoovervilles, for whatever they could spare. All I knew was that I was safe."
"Christ," says Andrea. "Sounds rough."
"Not as rough as the war." There's a stiff silence; Stella's still looking up at the building. "Well," she says. There's a for-rent sign in the window. The ledge beneath it is still cracked where her dad had knocked a hammer against it, trying to put in a flower box.
Andrea just looks at her, then sits on the steps, nods over her shoulder for encouragement, pulls a quad-ruled notebook, pencil, and slide rule out of her bag.
Stella knocks, hesitant; it's still rather loud. She hears a shout, doors creaking, a cane thumping on the floor, and then the big old door with the stains round the bottom opens, and little Mrs. Benderskaya is peering up at her, thrice as withered and with a thinner headscarf.
"Oh, my," she says vaguely, taking in her height, or possibly something else. "Are you here about the apartment, miss?"
"Yes--well, I suppose. I'm not looking to rent, I'm sorry. I just used to have family here, and I wondered if I might...have a look around. For old time's sake."
"You--I suppose you could, yes--you must be a Rogers, then?"
"How did you know?"
"All blond and blue-eyed and heroic looking, all of them." The old landlady waves one shaking hand; the other's wrapped tightly round the head of her cane. "You must be a niece then, or some sort of cousin? It was old Joey Rogers, fightin' Joey, used to live up there. He had a daughter, lovely girl, but she'd be, oh, sixty by now. Ran off to do something, he never told me what. He died, oh, must be about ten years ago. Left the furniture for me in the apartment and all. I had a Black family renting up there for a few years. Nobody kept it long, after the Rogers were gone. But I thought old Joey had a sister or two, more lovely Rogers about. I'd see them come by for Christmas."
"A niece, yes." She feels herself at attention, turning off the part of herself that worries. She hates lying. She hates hearing about her family in the past tense. "I visited once or twice, when I was little."
"Well, I've been leaving it unlocked. You must be an athlete, then? You're in such fine shape. And I'm getting on." She points to the stairs behind her. "Go on up."
"Thank you." They shake hands. Stella is very, very gentle; the withered, bony old hand is so fragile in hers. It occurs to her that she's always thought of her landlady as ancient, but she couldn't have been more than twenty, maybe thirty, when she was a child. She keeps thinking about time, time and age and missing three decades, as she goes down the familiar narrow hall, up the stairs. Nobody's ever fixed the creak in the third step.
Up on the third floor, it's stifling hot, just like she remembers--she's eleven in the kitchen, cooking because her mother isn't there, with the sweat pouring down her spine. Smells different, though. More cars. The bakery around the corner must have closed--that used to waft up. Her portfolio bangs against the wall. The door's unlocked.
The living room is stick bare except for furniture shoved against the walls. Peeling paint. Still a few strips of her mother's old wallpaper in one corner. Dent in the plaster where her father had thrown an empty bottle of scotch at her, in '43.
No voices. Somebody moving about downstairs, maybe. She peeks in the kitchen; that's bare as a bone, and she wonders what happened to all the cookware. The bowl that her mother had from her grandmother, that her great-grandfather had carved, that had come over with them from Ireland--that's gone, and she feels a jolt of irrational disappointment. She treads carefully, back through the living room, down a path she'd worn in the floorboards for twenty childhood years, and opens the door to her room.
She hadn't quite believed Mrs. Benderskaya, about the furniture, until now. It's even the same bed. Whitewashed wood and rusty iron, narrow to fit the narrow room, creaky. The mattress is gone; it's bare springs in the frame.
Last time she'd been home, on leave in '43, she hadn't even been in here. Left after the bottle-throwing started. Last time she'd been in this room was before she'd joined the Army, before she'd been--transformed. What did they call it? Project Rebirth. 1941. Thirty-two years.
She sits, carefully. She's pretty sure that if she laid down, her toes would hang off under the footboard. She props her portfolio between her knees, listens to the ominous creaks, feels outsized. Shrugs off her men's uniform jacket--just a white half-sleeved undershirt beneath it. Two chains spill clattering out of her shirt--dogtag, and a white tin star, chunky and five-pointed, old and well-loved.
It's very quiet, with the noises of the city a few stories away, at least until somebody downstairs switches on a radio. Or one of those new tape decks. She can't quite tell. She feels very quiet, feels as if she's watching the world through glass, might go to pieces if that glass breaks.
On impulse, she reaches down and thumbs the catches of the portfolio. Pages past sheets of newsprint to a wide hidden pocket. and slowly, with practiced ease, slides out a great, shining shield.
She lays it across her lap, almost a yard across, perfectly round, perfectly balanced, red and white circles and a white star, chunky and five-pointed, old and well-loved.
She looks up to the mirror at the foot of the bed. Looks at herself in profile--the uniform, the dogtags. The sheer bulk of muscle in her arms and shoulders, the sinewy lines of it. The faint scars--blades, bullets, worse. The shield across her knees--that had turned every kind of flak, flame, curses, even lightning, the shield spinning on a hundred newsreels, the shield that a thousand good soldiers would have followed into Hell itself. The faint lines and dings where it had met something almost its match. The thick calluses it's built in the crooks of her thumbs.
It isn't often that she stops to think. That she realizes the immensity of what has happened to her, what she has become. But the last time she'd looked in that mirror--
The last time she'd looked in that mirror, Stella Rogers had been a little girl.
*****
This post is part of the Fanfiction Frenzy for Planned Parenthood, which is wired_lizard's outing for Day of Blogs, and has raised $190 so far. Like what you see? Please consider donating!