I knew I was supposed to ask the man to leave - it was twenty minutes past closing time, after all. Instead, I left him to pulverise his problems away and decided I would start with cleaning the locker rooms first that night. I plugged my earphones in to drown out the rhythmic echoes of his fists and got to work.
Forty-five minutes later I was done in the back and the man was on his sixth sandbag, showing no signs of stopping or tiring out. At least I now knew where all that sand was coming from.
"Sir?" I called, "I'm sorry we're going to have to close soon."
The man stopped, holding the bag close to his chest and his head out of sight.
"I have an arrangement with Davis," he said simply, retaking his position.
"Right. It's just that, I've gotta sweep the floors now. Mr. Davis will have my hide if there's still sand across it in the morning."
The man finally turned around. Giving me a tight but polite smile, he said, "Of course, son. Don't want to get in your way. I'll be out in a bit."
He was about to strike the bag again when I interrupted, yet again, "You know, you're never going to get out of your funk if you don't move. How about we get in the ring and I'll hold the pads for you."
He hits the bag once, making it swing enough to fool any audience into thinking it was a toy.
"I wouldn't want to hurt you, kid," he replied with an amused smile.
I wasn't sure why I even bothered to involve myself with the guy but I could not help but taunt, "What, a big guy like you can't control his strength?"
The blonde smiled, looked down and shook his head like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "All right, kid. Hop in," he called with a wave toward the boxing ring.
I grinned and grabbed the padded mitts from the modest line of ringside seats in excitement. I pulled them on and said, "I'm Percy Jackson, by the way."
The man, now wearing bright blue boxing gloves put out a fist for me to bump. "Steve Rogers," he replied with a look of confused amusement.
He makes a show of hopping on his toes as if to demonstrate that he is, in fact, capable of footwork. Though when he aims his first two hits at the pads I'm forced to lift above usual to compensate for his height, I was left rather disappointed. He was not taking it seriously at all.
To show my annoyance, I smacked him on the top of his head with a quick jab after his third halfhearted strike. "I know you can do better than that, old man."
For a moment, I wondered if I had gone too far because Mr. Rogers seemed shocked by my actions. However, he quickly adapts and starts a more outboxing rhythm. Although his punches were no stronger than they were before, they were undoubtedly sharper as he hopped into and out of the range of my shorter arms.
"That's more like it!" I smiled and started to move around the floor myself, shepherding him around the ring. Every now and then I would move faster or in a direction out of pattern so as to keep the experienced soldier on his toes. He was always ready for it.
Losing myself in the dance a little, recalling the countless hours spent in the fields with Chiron and the other campers, I couldn't stop the urge to exert myself too. I never thought that I had enjoyed fighting but something about demigods just made us revel in chaos and I knew then, that I was missing a lot more than my friends and family. My entire way of life - what it meant to be me - had been taken away from me.
My frustration fuelled my movements as I pushed the tempo of our spar higher and higher. Until I was forcing Mr. Rogers to spin and duck, providing him targets on all sides and striking at him with the mitts from outside his field of view whenever I could. Somewhere along the line, Mr. Rogers had lost the ability to strike with the feather-like touches he had started with. For the first time that night, he was breathing deeply - if not hard.
I did not know how much fun I was having until I noticed the determined smile and fire in his eyes that undoubtedly reflected my own.
Then the cushions in my right pad gave away and the spell was broken.
My eyes widened in shock, "Mother Anne is going to kill me if I'm late!"
I jumped out of the ring, leaving the shocked and confused Mr. Rogers without another word and grabbed one of the brooms in the corner of the gym. Belatedly, I realised I still had the boxing pads on. I groaned and swung my arms to send them careening back into the steel chair I took them from with a thud.
"I'm sorry Mr. Rogers, you really have to get going now!" I called without looking back as I haphazardly attempted to collect all the sand and dust into a pile.
Rather than leave, Mr. Rogers appeared beside me with a broom. "Please, call me Steve. And like I said, I have an arrangement with Sergeant Davis," he said with an expression that held a million questions. Though he said nothing further as he helped me sweep the gym up.
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Between the two of us, we had the place tidy in no time. Somehow, despite my late start and hiatus to spar with the older soldier, I was only half an hour late. Still, that meant it was already 10 pm and the Matrons and the orphanage would have my hide for sure.
"It's late son, let me give you a ride home," said Steve as we locked up for the night. Not one to question any luck thrown my way by the fates, I quickly accepted.
He led me to a sleek-looking black Harley-Davidson. "Woah, sweet ride!"
"Thanks," he smiled, "a friend built it for me. I was pretty surprised when it still ran if I'm being honest. But maybe I shouldn't have been."
He had a look of nostalgia on his face that I couldn't get myself to ruin with further questions. Instead, I fingered my beaded bracelet and waited for him to mount the high-powered machine.
"Hop on."
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Gods bless whoever invented the weekend.
Despite it being the shortest week I had experienced since coming to this world, I was incredibly drained. High school will do that to you. If someone told me a requirement to be a teacher was to be an energy-draining vampire - I wouldn't be surprised. Especially having experienced my teachers turn into man-eating bat creatures before.
But I would get to hang out with Peter and his family that weekend, and I was really excited about that. There were only three things that Peter would break out of his shy countenance for; Science, his Aunt and Uncle, and to a lesser extent, Photography. Getting him to talk about most other topics was like trying to pull teeth with tweezers but I felt like I had known his family all my life.
To the point where I started to feel incredibly guilty about my reluctance to talk about my own. However, the wounds still felt very fresh. I'm sure that at some level Peter even recognised that because by the end of the week, he started to abruptly switch the conversation up with all the skill of a camel attempting to figure skate.
So, it was with nervous trepidation that I found myself at the entrance to their apartment building at 20 Ingram Street, in the quaint neighbourhood of Forest Hills, Queens. Adjusting the straps of my backpack, I pushed the buzzer labelled 'Parker' and waited.
A couple of floors above, a window opened and the head of my friend peeked out, "Hey, Perce! I'll be right down!" called Peter excitedly.
A few minutes later Peter opened the door, gasping for breath, "How's your week been? I guess I was with you for most of it. How was work? Did you find the place alright? Hope it wasn't too much trouble. Come on in! Everyone's been waiting for you!" he chattered on despite his imitation of a marathon runner.
I laughed at his antics, "Good. Good. Yes. No…I think."
His cheeks tinted red, "Oh shut up and follow me."
My nervousness built in as I followed him to his apartment door. It opened to a cosy-looking living room just large enough for a grey couch, matching armchair and a rocking chair that stood out significantly from the otherwise muted aesthetic. The seating was across a sizeable flat-screen TV that sat atop a dark brown console. On both sides stood cabinets of the same colour, filled with family photos and various prizes commemorating Peter's scientific achievements. There were even some gymnastics awards from when he was younger.
"Those are from when Peter was convinced he wanted to join the circus when he grew up," teased a feminine voice from behind. I spun to face a middle-aged woman with auburn hair wearing large cat's-eye framed glasses.
"Aunt Maay," whined Peter, "Next thing you know she'll be showing you my baby photos."
The woman smirked mischievously and lifted a huge book that was unmistakably a photo album.
I laughed as Peter's eyes went wide, "Aw, hell no!" he yelled and practically flew to yank the hefty thing out of her hands.
"Ooh," cooed Mrs. Parker, "Is lil' Petey embarrassed?" she taunted as she tickled his sides. He could do nothing but take the torture as he tried his best to keep the book out of her reach.
Unable to help myself, I grinned and snatched the album from his hands. I made a big show of opening the cover but before I could so much as peek at the first page, Peter knocked me over like a veteran football player.
"Oof," we both grunted with the impact.
"Jesus Christ, man, what are you made of?" Peter complained from beside me as he rolled on the ground in pain.
"I think you hit the table," I replied.
With a mix of amusement and concern Mrs. Parker threatened, "Well Peter knows that if he so much as scrapes the paint off that table, Uncle Ben will have his hide."
"Puh-lease. Uncle Ben is a big teddy bear. Besides, that thing is unbreakable. Do you remember when you-"
"Ah! Na, na, na, na. We don't talk about the headstand incident in this house," she interrupted.
He laughed, "Technically you only said I can't tell Uncle Ben about it."
She huffed in response and countered, "Well now that your little world includes a third person, they both can never know, capiche?"
His face went red at the implied friendlessness. "Yes Aunt May," he replied dutifully, likely in an attempt to curb any further embarrassment.
"Now. Get out of my hair while I prepare lunch," she said with finality. Then turning to me she added, "It was lovely to meet you, sweetheart, Peter's told us all about you. Ben is at work, but he'll be joining us for lunch."
Peter then led me to his room as Mrs. Parker returned to the kitchen. Instead of just opening his door, he gave it a musical knock.
Thud. Thud, thud, thud, thud. Thud. Thud.
Before I could ask him why he was knocking on his own bedroom door I heard a mechanical whirring and a click.
Peter grinned at my confused expression and finally opened the door. "Just a bit of fun, really. Fairly sure both Aunt May and Uncle Ben know how to unlock my door by now," he explained. With a wink, he added, "Doesn't mean I can't set it to ignore that though."
Peter's room was everything I expected it to be, just more. More everything. He had a computer with more screens than he had limbs - all of them different sizes and thicknesses. One was even an honest to gods CRT monitor. Pieces of tech in various degrees of disrepair littered the room - whether intentionally taken apart or broken, I could not tell which. One wall was dedicated entirely to a haphazard collage of photographs that he probably took himself. He even seemed to be running some sort of Chemistry experiment or three. It was a good thing he was not into any sports because if anyone kicked a ball in his room, the resulting explosion would likely take out the city block.
"Don't touch anything," he said as we navigated the aftermath of whatever tornado hit his room.
"You don't have to tell me twice," I replied, actually a bit scared of what might happen. His room almost reminded me of the Junkyard of the Gods and that was definitely not a fun place. Shaking off the pang of regret and loss that accompanied thoughts of Bianca di Angelo I asked lamely, "So, did you finish our Chemistry homework?"