Work Text:
Thinking back, you weren’t even sure how you ended up at this exact moment. It was ridiculous. This must be a dream, a pretty nice one… but still. Maybe you were in a coma and your family waited for you to wake up. But now the question was if you would even want to wake up?
But let’s just start with the beginning of the story. There isn’t really one, but the easiest way would be to start the moment you got promoted to this one job.
You were a broke ass student, literally working your ass off to get yourself through law school while working to not start life with too many debts you could only pay off by marrying a millionaire.
The first job you got when you started your second year was in a coffee shop, it was very cliché and pretty boring, so you stopped after a short while.
It took you a lot of courage to walk up to your professors, asking or rather begging them for a job. You did that with four before getting one. You called yourself the girl for everything, and it really was just that. Copying files, bringing coffee, running around in the 55th floor of that god damn building to give information to one lawyer to the other, bringing them the forms needed.
It wasn’t the prettiest job but you made it through six months only with the thought on mind that one day you would sit on the other side and treat the people better than they did with you. You reasoned your quitting with the offer of another job with higher pay range. It wasn’t a lie. You earned about half a dollar more per hour to do nearly the same job for a movie producing company.
The real reason for switching was of course that it was way more interesting, and that you would at least get a glance at famous people that were just cooler than lawyers of about 65 years old that just didn’t want to retire but neither wanted to make some efforts.
The real big deal was that you landed that job at the Marvel Studios. You sold yourself goddamn well on the interview, there was no other reason why they would hire a law student.
And serving coffee to Kevin Feige was probably the best job you had so far. Your little brother was even a little jealous, until he had understood that you usually just brought the coffee, exchanged some words and disappeared again. Not that it happened a lot, he wasn’t always around. Still, it was because of him you found yourself on this point now. But first back to the starting point.
“Hey! Miss Y/L/N, right?” He called after you in the hallway.
You directly turned around and walked back to him. “Yes! What can I do for you Mr. Feige?” You asked having the most warming and comforting smile on your lips.
He smiled back. “People are pretty impressed by you.” He simply said.
“I hope to do to my work to reach your expectations.” You answered. “Is there anything I could improve?”
“Oh no! My people tell me that you’re pretty fast, while still being correct and good, but most importantly, you certainly heard a lot of rumors while running around here, right? And I think nothing of that left the building.”
You didn’t know what he wanted from you by saying this, so you stayed rather cautious with your answer. “Well, that happens everywhere, right? I try to not listen to much. That’s no concern of mine.”
He nodded once. “Come up to my office. I’ve got to talk to you.”
You sighed silently when he turned around and you followed him into his office. You didn’t think he would fire you. You were a hard worker. They were honestly lucky to have you, but maybe something happened, or you overheard something you shouldn’t have. They were really all about secrets in here.
“This may seem a little straight forward but I need an assistant for the next two weeks.” He spilled the tea just after you had sat down in front of him. “I thought about you. I need to go to Atlanta, they’re shooting Civil War. I’m sure you’ve heard about that.”
You could only nod once. You blinked a few times and realized he wanted an answer from you. “I’m sorry, but…” You shook your head in confusing. “Why me? Why now? You’ve got a lot of people sitting here waiting for this…”
“Well, my assistant had an accident yesterday. She can’t come and for the other people working here, they’ve got other stuff to do. Usually, I would have other options, but it’s pretty urgent since my flight goes tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, tomorrow?”
“Yes… I just saw you and thought, you’re just the person for this. They can get their coffee two weeks without you, and walking their papers themselves won’t hurt them either. I need someone that’s organized and can remember all of my appointments, and of course knowing some things, and maybe now and then drinking a coffee with me.”
“Wow, this is huge. I mean, really, but I don’t know. This is a lot of information in one night, even for me. And I’ve got classes…”
“People say, you’ve got a good working memory, and I will excuse you from your classes, of course.”
You blinked a few times and wondered if you might have overslept in the morning and this was just all a dream and in reality, you would get fired for coming to late. But the blinking didn’t help. This was really happening than? “I do have a good memory.” You just answered.
He smiled once. “So, you’re in?” You nodded once. You weren’t capable of saying lots of word right now. In the end that was an opportunity you would never get again. “Great, I will make sure to get you a new contract and of course you have to sign some more confidential clauses… And I will get you my schedule and all information you need for the next weeks. If you don’t know everything by heart, it’s not the end of the world.”
“No worries. My memory is probably the easiest part.”
“Great, I’ll send you the details to the flight. It departs at around 7 o’clock.”
“Okay, where is that stuff I need to know?”
And after a night full of learning the two-weeks schedule of Kevin Feige, some benchmark data of the actors, producers and directors, and pretty much everything he sent you, you were finally falling down on your seat in the plane. First class of course.
“You seem a bit tired, you want a coffee?” He asked you.
Your lips curled up. “That’s my part, but actually I really would love to sleep during the flight, except you’ve got something to do for me? I can do a day without sleep, happens a lot during exams.”
“You really pulled an all-nighter?” He laughed.
“Yes. I’m pretty confident I know everything I need to know. And if ever I don’t find it in my memory palace, I’ve made cheating cards.”
He laughed once again. “Organized and liable. Tell me if you need a job after law school. I’ll hire you. I pay whatever you want.”
“I won’t forget that part. But thanks, I will take that as a compliment.”
“You absolutely should.”
And if that wouldn’t have been the best thing happening to you, people asking you if Mr. Feige was available for this, and if Kevin might want to join RDJ’s lunch with the others, or if he could delay the meeting with Stan Lee himself. No, it got better. You met him. Although the meeting itself wasn’t your most shiny moment.
You weren’t really crushing on one of the actors, really not. Sure, you know what people said, Marvel men were the finest, and as a straight woman you totally agreed. Although when one day Scarlett Johansson passed your way, you doubted your sexuality for a night or two… Honestly, you still did.
Anyways. Seeing – no, meeting him – kind of topped Scarlett. Not by far, but yes. Marvel men were fine as hell. The problem was just, that most of them were totally too old, too married, too many kids… and you were too normal, boring probably. In the end you were a law student.
You weren’t ugly, nobody was. You weren’t bad yourself, but most importantly you were confident as hell. As you should be! Rather good-looking, smart as a whip, funny (a sarcastic shit to be precisely) and just pretty great. But when it came to talking, you could be a little shy, when you were in front of someone that’s this handsome.
Another problem was that you didn’t really just talk to him. When he saw you for the first time, you felt down on the floor, getting everyone’s attention and cracking a rib in the process.
You usually were not around on the set, well, not when they were shooting a scene, because Kevin (that’s what you were calling him by now) wasn’t there all the time, and those were actually your breaks in the day and you totally didn’t want to bother.
This time, you got an urgent call for Kevin, so you stopped eating the sandwich and probably ran half a mile from the place where you had been eating to the set where he was at that time.
You were pretty fast and you made it until about six feet away from his seat, falling over a massive cable. Honestly, how couldn’t you have seen this coming? And you fell right on a massive metal box on your right side. Something had definitely sounded wrong inside of you.
“Worst movie fall, ever.” You murmured to yourself, before trying to get off the floor. If you didn’t act as if it was awkward, it just wasn’t. That’s what you told yourself at least. With some pain on your side, you waved to the actors in the scene and the crew. “If that lands on YouTube and goes viral, credits to Y/F/N Y/L/N. I want that money.”
“So, that you don’t have to work for me?” Kevin asked you, walking up to you. “You’re good?”
“Not sure.” You whispered, although everybody was still pretty much watching you and probably heard you. In the end, you destroyed their scene.
“Ah, guys. Just let just take a break. Y/N is getting embarrassed.” Kevin told into the direction of the Russo brothers.
“You’ve got a call from the office. It’s about a deal with a ‘non-disclosure’d actor.” You told your boss.
“Sit down on my seat. I will take that call pretty fast and I will make sure you see a doctor.” You took the offer of the seat, while he walked some steps away to talk on the phone.
Breathing started to hurt a little, and the way you heard it crack while getting up, you were about 85% sure a rib was broken, a 100% sure something was not right.
“Took you long enough to show up on the set. We already wondered who Kevin’s new power assistant was.” And there he was. You looked up. Directly into those baby blue eyes. Were you drooling? Yes, you were. No, not yet. You closed your mouth. Goodness, was it allowed to be so handsome? It probably wasn’t, there should be a law against it.
“I’m all about spectacular appearances.” You answered and he laughed, loudly. You made Chris fucking Evans laugh about your stupid comment. Yes, you could die in peace now.
“Could you do that again, on camera. It would totally make to bloopers cut.” RDJ himself walked up to you to. “You good, kid? That was a mean fall.”
You tried to shrug, to show it wasn’t that bad. But you couldn’t even do that anymore. The range of embarrassment was climbing more and more up. “When I get back to LA, my doc can have a look.”
“I’m pretty sure everybody heard your ribs crack.” Chris answered with a doubtful look in his eyes.
“You know what, you and Kevin are invited to lunch. You come with us, and I get you a doctor ASAP.” Downey decided. He looked into the direction of Kevin, still on the phone. “That will take some time, I think I know who that is about.”
And that’s how you found yourself in the middle of a lunch with the Avengers. Okay, fair enough, they weren’t the real Avengers. You had yet to decide what was cooler, meeting them or hanging around with the actors. You were tending into the latter option.
“So, Y/N tell us a little about you.” Anthony Mackie said, sitting opposite from you. “I don’t know if you realize it, girl, but being Kevin’s assistant for two weeks out of nothing is a pretty big deal.”
“I’m pretty sure, I’m fired after that miserably stunt.” You laughed. “I’m just going back to my normal life. I just need to find a new job.”
“Not fired at all.” Kevin told you, coming back from his call. “But remind me to give you some extra cash, so you won’t sue me.”
You grinned after taking a bit from your sandwich. “No suing.”
“Doctor’s on his way.” Downey told you looking at his phone.
“I’m doing something wrong that all my assistants are having accidents.” Kevin sighed, sitting down at the table.
“Shut your mouth, she’s going to sue you.”
“I could, my Dad would definitely, Mom maybe. But eh, no not my thing.”
“So, what do you do?” Sebastian asked again.
“I’m in Law School.”
Chris laughed hard. “And she tells you, she’s not going to sue you.”
Kevin smiled, shaking his head. “In that case it is probably her father, I should be more afraid of.”
“Let me guess, lawyer?” Robert laughed.
“Yep. My whole family, basically. Dad, mom, my older brother, my grand-father was one. I’m sitting in law school and if my sister can even make it through High-School, I’m pretty sure she will try it too. Maybe my little brother is bailing out.”
“Boring.” Sebastian commented.
“Ah, I would say competitive.” You corrected him.
“That means?” Tom Holland got himself into the conversation.
“Me trying to be better than the others, and to be honest, I’m beating everybody’s asses. My father is even afraid I could go to the concurrence.”
“So, we have a little genius here?” Chris asked.
You shrugged. “No, I wouldn’t say that.” You tapped your head. “It’s my memory palace, keeping everything stocked.”
“A what?” Mackie asked.
“Basically, it’s a place you remember by heart. In my case, it’s my old high-school. In my head I walk around and stock the information into different places. For example, when Kevin tells me about his meeting with you guys, I go into the room of my old history teacher, where I remember all important appointments. It’s stock as a comic book, and the title is the date and the time he needs to be there.”
“And you do that for everything you need to remember?” Chris wondered. “Sounds like an awful lot of work.”
You shrugged, which still wasn’t a motion you should do without having a ton of pain killers inside of you. “At the beginning, yes but now it’s an automatism.”
Robert looked up from his phone. “Doc has arrived, come on kid. I’ll take you to another trailer.” The both of you got up, and even that hurt like a bitch. At least nobody would forget you, the new kid that made the worst stunt in the MCU history.
You were back about half an hour later, the doctor even had a portable x-ray with him and confirmed what you already knew, a broken rib. Now you would be running around with a support bandage for at least four weeks, probably longer since ribs didn’t heal well, that’s what Downey’s doc told you at least.
“I should send you home.” Kevin told you. “I will get you a flight.”
“What? No. I can still do my job. I stop running around the place. I’m still good enough for the rest. Just need some pills and everything’s great.”
Kevin scrunched his face but decided not to convince you otherwise, probably only because he really needed you and wasn’t in the mood to discuss with the class best law student.
The job only got more interesting after this. Most of the time you were directly with Kevin on the set, either working for him or learning for your courses, while just a few steps in front of you, people were going at each other’s throats. That movie was going to be fun.
The cast was amazing, and you could truly believe what they always said about each other in interviews, they were like a family, and it was growing, that much you had put together already. Kevin had to give you a job after your graduation cause by now, you knew way too many secrets.
But two weeks weren’t an infinity. You were having a last lunch with Kevin and some of the people of the cast and production before your take-off back at home.
“So, Kev, are we going to see Y/N again?” Anthony asked grinning.
“She may be a little overqualified for the job as my assistant, and I’m glad Lisa is doing better after her accident and will be back in no time, but I think I could find you a job at Marvel Studios when you’re done studying.”
You cracked a smile at him. “I hope I get invited for the premier, if not I may think about this suing Marvel Studios thing again, it would at least give me a lot of publicity.”
“’Course you’re invited.” Robert answered before Kevin. “You can bring your boyfriend along, or girlfriend. Brother, sister, whatever you want.”
“Wow.” You said with a snarky tone in your voice. “My first premier, and my date is going to be my brother. I probably have to bail out, ‘cause this is embarrassing.”
The whole table started laughing, which frankly you didn’t understand at all, since your comment wasn’t really that funny. But then you saw one single person that wasn’t laughing, just maybe grinning a little, but mostly looking pretty ashamed.
Chris face turned a sweet shade of rosé, and you fell a bit more for him, even if you just realized that he was going to hate you for the rest of his life. “Oh man.” Sebastian clapped his shoulder. “Chris, you’re the sweetest for bringing along your mom, and sisters and your brother.”
“Sorry.” You murmured somehow ashamed. “But there’s a difference, you know. You could ask any girl, and she would definitely go with you. Me, on the other hand… meh. I’m fun to hang out, super funny and all, but no girlfriend material. I’m a nerd, class best, that doesn’t make me people’s favorite.” You defended yourself and shrugged, which was now finally possible thanks to pain meds. “So, no worry for you Chris.”
He grinned into your direction and raised his glass. “I will be pleased to meet your little brother. We will see who’s better off at the end.”
Gosh, you completely fell for Chris fucking Evans within two weeks and he had made it awfully easy for you. Smiling all the time, being generous and funny, always asking about your well-beings, trying to cheer you up, hell he even studied with you during one of his longer breaks. He was a good damn sweetheart and it was unfair that you couldn’t help yourself but crushing on him.
The weeks till the premier passed rather quickly. Your parents had forbidden that you took your little brother along, which earned them the silent treatment for two weeks by him, which was well deserved in your opinion. You would at least get him some autographs.
You were already thinking of inviting one of your friends, but you honestly didn’t want to choose. Everybody wanted to go, even the ones that didn’t even know a single Marvel movie. It still was a movie premier. Mostly, you just didn’t want the screech in your ear all night long. You could have lived with your little brother passing out because Iron Man was in front of him… You couldn’t do it with either your male nor female friends that were all around 25 years old.
Four days before the premier you had decided to just randomly draw a name out of a pile of slips, and when you were just declaring that decision to your friends, you got that call from a blocked number.
Before your job at Marvel Studios, you wouldn’t have picked up, but now you got used to it, most people you worked with doing just that. Funny enough, Kevin had been the first to just give you his number, the people you worked with before certainly only wanted to seem important. So now, you were used to just pick those up.
“Y/F/N Y/L/N here, what can I help you with?” You picked up and directly heard a well-known laugh from the other side. You recognized it so fast that you pretty much ran a few feet away from your friends.
“It’s Chris, Chris Evans.” The man himself answered.
“As if it would have been necessary to explain which Chris. How are you doing? Exited for the Premier?”
“Absolutely.” He answered. “I’m doing good… great.” He sounded a little nervous but if rumors were true this wasn’t a rare thing with him especially not just before a Premier.
“A little bird told me you forgot a certain birthday.” You laughed trying to ease his mood.
“With little bird you mean Twitter?” He asked.
“No, Downey actually did. I wrote him a message on Instagram, wasn’t even sure he would read it.”
“’Course he told you…” You could nearly hear a little eye roll. “He’s not going to drop this anytime soon.”
“Chris, I honestly would love to talk with you about pretty much anything, but my break is over in a couple of minutes and I can’t miss this class, so was there anything you wanted or needed from me?”
“Oh, yeah… Yes, sorry. I didn’t want to bother.”
“You’re not, Chris. You can call me back in three hours if you want.”
“No, no… I mean, I would, but it’s not necessary.” He took a deep breath, which sounded incredibly sexy over the phone. The thought made you roll your eyes to yourself.
“Y/N, you said back in Atlanta something about me asking any girl to the premier, and she saying yes, right?” Before you had the chance to confirm and to explain to him that he definitely didn’t need any advice in that department, he posed the real question. “So, I ask a girl, you. Y/N, would you like to go with me? And to prevent any miscommunication, I mean that as a date.”
“Chris…” You could only answer silently. You were shocked that you for once in your life hadn’t an answer at all.
“I mean, you don’t have to go in front of the cameras, the red carpet and all. I get you in without all that and your brother, but of course if you want you can come with me on the red carpet and I get someone to look after your brother… Actually, just say yes or no to whatever conditions you want.”
You needed another good couple of seconds before you could answer. “My brother won’t come with me; my parents were not at all a fan of that idea… but Chris I would love to go with you.” You gave the only possible answer.
“Really?” He asked excited. “Wow, great, wow… I’m looking forward to it. I’ll send you the details per message. I don’t want you to miss your classes.” He took another breath. “I’m really happy about that.”
“Have a great day, Chris. Can’t wait for Tuesday.”
“Yeah, me neither. Have fun in classes.” You hung up the call and looked back to your friends watching you with excitement. Well, you certainly would be the most hated person in this group for a while, but you had a date with Chris Evans, so you could live with the slander for some weeks.
And all this had brought you to this exact moment. You were leaning against a pier in an underground garage and staring into the baby blue eyes of Chris. You had no idea for how long you two had been here. It didn’t really matter.
You two had been on the party after the premier and one moment he just grabbed your hand and leaded the way down here. Next thing you know, you were making out like teenagers with the hottest bachelor available right now. Hopefully, he wasn’t available anymore in the future.
And now you were just looking at each other, intensely. Way too intensely, given that you were still in a way out in public and you really hoped the cameras down here wouldn’t catch you.
“Well, I sure hope you liked your evening.” He grinned.
“The movie not so much, but the end here. Ten out of ten.”
He crossed his arm, tilting his head a little up, still with that intense look but now it was more like playful anger. “What are you saying there? You didn’t like the movie?”
“Well, I’m Team Iron Man all the way. You broke that man’s heart. You’re lucky you’re good looking.”
He snorted once. “You’re not Team Tony.” He declared with a self-confident tone.
“You’ll never know.” You copied his posture by crossing his arms. “The question now is, does it interfere with whatever you planned to do next?”
He looked over his right shoulder. “I told my assistant to park a car down here, so if you’re interested?” He glanced back to you. “Night is still young.”
“Whatever it is, I’m in, but I still need to ask, what are you looking for?”
His left hand that had been laying on your shoulder the whole time, now softly caressed your cheek and his thumb traced along your lips. And there was his intense stare again. “Whatever it turns out to be.”
“Lead the way, Cap.”
