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It started on a beach.
It was one of the last beach days of their summer, on a Friday after school, and Steve was enjoying lying on his chair and catching up on his personal reading, while Sharon and Tony were splashing around in the ocean. He occasionally checked his phone to text Sam and Bucky about going to the movies next week. He nodded at Tony and Sharon when they came back to where he was and started drying off.
Once he put down his phone and looked up, Sharon shoved Tony to the ground and ran to the left. Steve jumped as Tony landed on his feet, while Sharon was laughing, phone in hand. Tony brushed the sand off him, grabbed his own phone, and took off after Sharon.
“What the hell?” Steve asked himself quietly. It wasn’t unexpected of them, since they could be quite immature together, but there was usually some kind of warning before they did something so… erratic.
He went back to his book and waited patiently for them to return. He finished the last page as they came slinking back, Sharon pouting and Tony taunting her.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Sharon answered.
“Just me kicking her ass,” Tony said with a grin. Sharon elbowed him in the side and started packing her bag.
Now Steve was more lost than before. “Believe it or not, that makes zero sense to me.”
Tony held out his phone. “There was a gym begging for me to take over it. And I did.”
“Fuck you and your Exeggutor!” Sharon snapped.
“Oh, and she thought she could take me on with a Vaporeon.” Tony moved the phone into Sharon’s face, which she shoved away. He began singing We Are the Champions. Steve noticed that he replaced the word losers with mystic.
“And I had it too! I fucking had it! I beat out Instinct, then this asshole comes and takes it from me! Right before I got my reward! Fucking Valor…” Sharon swears. Steve furrows his brow together. Why was she so mad? She usually only swore when she was raging. And what kind of gym was on a beach? He had no idea what the hell was going on.
“TEAM VALOR FOR LIFE!” Tony shouted with his arms spread out. Three other beachgoers around them put their fists up and cheered, while another shouted back, “VALOR, RIDE OR DIE!”
Sharon threw her bag over her shoulder. “I’m putting my shit in the car,” she muttered as she stormed off.
“Oh, stop being such a sore loser, Sharon! It’s not my fault that my team is better than yours in every way!”
“Dude, you mind laying off of her?” Steve asked.
“What? Nah, she’ll be fine. She’ll get over it. She just needs to upgrade her Magikarp and she’ll stop being moody,” Tony replied with a shrug.
“What’s a Magikarp?”
“What’s a…? Dude, how can we be friends and you not know what a Magikarp is? They’re everywhere!” Tony’s phone buzzed, and he looked at it. “There’s one right next to us!” Steve looked around. He saw nothing different or new.
“Tony, if I had a clue what you were talking about, do you think I would ask?” Steve was getting annoyed. He hated not understanding what was happening, especially something Tony claimed was right next to them.
“It’s from Pokémon Go! You can’t tell me you aren’t playing it.” Steve gave him a look. “Okay, that makes sense, but there’s no way you haven’t at least heard of it.” Steve’s expression didn’t change. “So are you also living in the middle of nowhere and communicating with people by sending notes on pigeons? Everyone and their grandmas are playing Pokémon Go!”
“Well I’m not.”
Tony sighed in disappointment. “I’m just really sad for you, Steve. I’m not angry. Just really, really, really sad,” he said.
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
“What the fuck is this shit?” Tony demanded as he got back to the car. Sharon was sitting on the trunk, the epitome of smugness.
“Is something the matter, Tony?” she asked innocently.
“Uh, yeah, some asshole named Sharon Carter stole my damn gym from me, and now a bunch of Mystics are invading it.”
“Oh, well if you ask me, she just severely upgraded her Arcanine and swooped in at the perfect moment to claim what rightfully belonged to her.” Sharon hopped off the car, blew Tony a kiss, and climbing into the front seat. Steve had to scratch his head. He was still hopelessly lost.
Now it was Tony’s turn to mutter swears and kick at the ground like a toddler. Steve really needed more mature friends.
“What do you mean you haven’t heard of it?” Arnie asked, sounding shocked.
Steve rolled over on his bed and sighed. “Arnie, you know how I am with pop culture. I just don’t pay attention!” he exclaimed.
“But I’ve played it with you right next to me! You didn’t wonder why we were always gathered during breaks at rehearsals?”
“People always do that!”
“Or why I had you drive that weird path and randomly pull over last week?”
“Well, we were also doing… you know, other things!”
“Steve, I was literally playing it on our last date.”
“Okay, okay, so I’m a completely ignorant idiot then! What do you expect from me?”
“I’m not mad at you or blaming you. I just think that when it comes to fads and games that sometimes you should pay them some attention. There has been some good coming out of playing this. It’s a great chance to make new friends, too,” Arnie explained. “Look, how about tomorrow, I come to your house after school and help you set it up.”
“I can’t. Sam, Bucky, and I are going to the gym. Maybe afterwards.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow in class.”
In gym class on running day, Steve noticed Sharon toying with her phone before sticking it in her fanny pack. Then he noticed that she was actually wearing a fanny pack, something he’d never seen her use before.
“I’m hatching an egg,” Sharon explained, then added, “In Pokémon Go!”
“Oh, come on, Sharon!”
“Steve, we agreed that when we’re playing, you just accept it and try not to lecture us about having fun! Don’t make us start adding penalty payments for when you break that agreement!”
Sam jogged up to them and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Steve’s pissed that Tony and I play Pokémon Go! and decided to be Captain Killjoy about it,” Sharon answered.
“I’m not being a killjoy! I just think the two of you are obsessively competitive over the game, that’s all,” Steve defended.
“And you’re surprised?” Sam asked.
“No, I guess not… Can I at least complain about the fanny pack?”
“Excuse me, but Aunt Peggy got me this for our hiking trips, and they’re very convenient! See if I share the Starbursts in here later if you stop being so sassy!” Sharon stuck out her tongue and began to jog as the teachers instructed them to.
Steve shook his head as he and Sam followed after her. And he was not being sassy, thank you, Sharon!
Tony tried to play in the car while they were driving, one of Steve’s biggest pet peeves about him, and decided that enough was enough after the third rough brake that almost led to them rear-ending the car in front of them. He took Tony’s phone and placed it under him, sitting squarely on it and keeping it somewhat out of Tony’s reach.
“What the hell was that for?” Tony whined.
“You can make reckless decisions when I’m not in the passenger seat,” he said.
“Steve, you’re one act away from being penalized for taking our phones away,” Sharon said from the backseat.
“You know, one of us could drive for you if you wanna play so bad,” Bucky suggested.
“Excuse me, but no one drives Virginia but me,” Tony stated. “And Steve, don’t think I won’t hesitate to reach between your legs to get my phone back.”
“Same goes for if you try to pull that stunt on me,” Sharon added.
“You can get the phone back when the car is in park and not running,” Steve said. Tony huffed and stared out the windshield. Sharon and Bucky went back to quietly leaning against each other.
Steve didn’t want to wait for Arnie to show him, and after two weeks of watching Tony and Sharon play (as well as a majority of the marching band), he decided it was time to join the game. This one time, he was going to learn about this all by himself, no matter how wonderfully or horribly this could go.
He downloaded the app and waited patiently for it to load up, then made his account and changed his phone settings accordingly. It took him about five minutes to find himself a username. Then he had to Google how to play the game the best way. He changed into his jogging clothes and shouted to his parents that he would be back within the hour.
He got the gist of it after a few tries, and kept on catching little purple mice-like things and some birds. Then there were so many creatures to catch, but there wasn’t much variety. In fact, he hadn’t realized just how far from home he had wondered from home. He stopped playing to call his parents and explain that he was with Tony for the night and would come home in the morning. At least they wouldn’t wonder where he was.
A pair of headlights turned the nearby corner towards Steve, then stopped next to him. The passenger window rolled down to reveal Jessica Drew from gym class, with Carol Danvers from history in the driver’s seat. “You look lost,” Jessica said with a smile.
“Kind of,” Steve answered. Jessica nodded her head to the back seat, and Steve got inside the car. There was one problem solved.
“You finally joined the game?” Jessica asked. Steve didn’t know how she knew he was playing until she added, “Sharon said you were being a bit of an old man about it.”
“I’m not being an old man about it. It’s just that she and everyone else are obsessed with this, and I’m trying to figure out what the big deal is,” he explained.
Jessica unbuckled her seatbelt at the stop sign and crawled into the backseat next to Steve. “Alright, let me help you out, you noob.” She took one look at all the creatures he caught and shook her head. “Okay, you’re going to fill your storage with Rattatas and Pidgeys by tomorrow at this rate. You need to transfer them for their candies. Then you can evolve some of the stronger ones. How have you only caught five different Pokémon? That’s so sad. Oh, and you need to go by some stops to replenish your items. Here, we’re passing one right now. See? Now you have extra Pokeballs and other things that you won’t have to worry about until later. Any questions?”
Steve needed a translation of everything Jessica said, because none of it made sense. “How many other kinds are there?” was the one he started with.
“Oh, god – Carol, let’s go to the park. He needs a lot of training,” Jessica ordered. Carol nodded, grinned, and made a sharp left turn. Jessica took out her phone, loaded the app, and showed Steve all of what she had. “You want their CP and XP to be higher so when you go to gyms, you stand a chance. A Pidgeot with a 572 CP would get massacred out there. See my Nidoqueen? 2174 CP. She has a bite to her bark. She would tear yours apart, if we weren’t on the same team.”
“Team?”
“Yeah, teams. There’s three: Valor, Mystic, and Instinct. I’m Valor, and Carol is Mystic. You’re gonna wanna be on Instinct. They’re basically the Hufflepuffs of the game – they just wanna have fun, nothing too serious compared to the other teams. And it’s perfect for Pokémon noobs like you.”
Now Steve had thirty more questions, and he had a feeling that he wouldn’t understand any of the answers, but he would try his best.
On the way to their weekly workout, Bucky leaned over to see Steve playing in the backseat.
“When did you start playing?” he asked.
“Since your girlfriend is extremely immature and competitive,” Steve replied without looking up. “Ever since her and Tony were fighting about it at the beach, I’ve been wondering what the hype was about.”
“And do you get it yet?”
“No. This means nothing to me still.”
Bucky jolted as Sam parked the car. “’Cause you didn’t grow up on the game. We all did, so we’re thrilled about it. If they made a Doug game, you’d probably be all over it,” Bucky explained.
“I don’t think that watching three reruns at midnight makes me the ultimate fan,” Steve said. His phone was suddenly taken from his hand. “Hey!”
“Sorry, but I promised Sharon to give you shit about playing when you started. You should’ve seen this coming,” Sam said casually as he threw the phone into his gym bag. “By the way, if you want this back, it fell into my boxers, so go nuts.”
Steve rolled his eyes and turned to Bucky. “Buck?”
“As thrilled as I would be to put my hand in Sam’s boxers, I’m not helping you. It’s revenge for being the grandpa of the group,” Bucky answered.
“Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done that,” Sam muttered as he got out of the car. Steve was about to ask what that meant when Bucky’s face turned red and he ran into the building. He needed more mature friends.
“A-ha! I knew it! I fucking knew you would start playing!” Tony shouted in his face.
“I’ll go home,” Steve threatened.
“What? No! Stay! I need to you to help me!”
“Help you with what?”
“Drive by some gyms and win them?”
“Tony, we’re not on the same team.”
“We’re not?” Tony’s nose scrunched. “Oh, you better not be a Mystic.”
“Nope. Instinct.”
Steve rolled his eyes when Tony dramatically fainted onto the bed. Unbelievably immature.
“If you call us any version of ‘immature’ one more time, I’m going to take the first bite of every apple you ever eat,” Sharon warned. “And I’ll give you Snapple bottles that have already been opened so you don’t get the satisfaction of hearing the click.”
“Okay, Sharon,” Steve said.
“No, not okay. You talk shit about us being childish, and then when we give you a taste of your own medicine after a month of your shit, you have the gall to say anything?” She waved her middle finger in his face. “Take it like the old man you are!”
“No more coffee for you,” Bucky said as he moved her hand from Steve’s face and her mug to his end of the table.
Steve didn’t understand. He was trying to play and catch up to his friends so he could join in on their conversations about the game. And it was completely immature for Bucky to confiscate his phone while he was trying to catch a Slowbro. Wow, he really did use that word too much. He needed a new one.
“In her defense, we didn’t come to a double breakfast date for only three of us to contribute to the conversation while you stare at your phone,” Arnie said.
“I blame Tony for insisting and you,” Steve said, pointing at Sharon, “for encouraging.”
“For what? Playing a game we all play so we can all hang out and do something new too?” Sharon countered. “It’s not my fault that you can’t put it down.”
“I wouldn’t have downloaded it in the first place if you hadn’t gotten me involved!”
“Then delete it!”
Steve couldn’t rebut that. She had a point. If the game was taking up this much of his time, why was he still playing it? He could go back to reading, or art, or anything but play this game. He motioned for Bucky to hand his phone back over and deleted the app with everyone watching.
“We happy?” Steve asked. He got three nods, and a kiss on the hand from Arnie.
No matter what non-existent rumor was going around, Steve most certainly did not download the app again two nights later. That would be absurd and go against his beliefs. He also most certainly didn’t go on a ten-mile jog to hatch three eggs at eleven at night versus studying. Anyone who says otherwise is an outlier and cannot be trusted. Especially Jessica Drew, who definitely didn’t see him when he and her bike met at the same intersection.
His parents stopped questioning why he was running so much, and started encouraging it. They didn’t mind that he spent his weekday afternoons running to the park that was four miles away, lapping it twice, and running back. They told him that it would be great for his health, and just to make sure he packs his inhaler just in case, then share whatever dinner that night was.
Halfway through his run, Steve sat on a bench and paused from the game to text Arnie about carpooling to a band party when he heard his name being shouted. He looked up to see Thor heading his way, with his brother in tow.
“What brings you here on such a fine day?” Thor asked.
“Nothing much. Just running and playing a game, is all,” Steve answered. He liked Thor. They ran track together in middle school before Steve started band and Thor moved on to baseball. He didn’t, however, like Loki, whose only expression was a hard glare. Steve wasn’t convinced the kid wasn’t trying to place a curse on him.
“Is it the Pokemon game?” Thor asked. Before Steve could answer, Thor’s phone was in his face. “We’re all playing it in my family! We’re all Valor!”
“I’m Mystic,” Loki said bluntly.
“Yes, he is, because he likes to give us a run for our money, but it only makes the game much more entertaining! Isn’t that right, brother?” Thor threw his arm around Loki and grinned. Steve was confused on how those were the teams they chose, because Thor, who was made of the same ingredients as the Powerpuff Girls, seemed too happy and noncompetitive to be on Valor, while Loki was the opposite.
“Well, it’s getting a bit too cold for me, so I should head home,” Steve said.
“Want me to drive you?” Thor offered.
“There’s always room in the back of the hearse,” Loki commented.
“Um, no thanks, but thanks. I’ll see you around!” Steve all but sprinted to get away from Thor and his brother. Now he remembered why they didn’t hang out all that often: those two were always together, and Loki weirded the hell out of him.
Just to make sure, he checked the nearby gym to see Loki had control of it (the family dog’s name was part of his username), so he knew not to mess with whichever gym Loki had, just in case he would be hexed for it.
“Told you he wouldn’t last,” Sam said.
“Let me live,” Steve said.
Sharon crossed her arms and huffed. “Not only have you become unbelievably obsessed, but you refuse to play with us. What’s the fun in doing it by yourself?” she asked.
“I like that it gives me an excuse to exercise.”
“And the other major success of this game is that it brought people closer together! We had fun playing with each other!”
“You shoved people just to best them.”
“It’s part of the fun!” Sharon exclaimed. She turned to Sam. “Can you explain this to him?”
“Sorry, Sharon, but you and I both know that he’s a stubborn son-of-a-bitch that does what he wants,” Sam explained. He then added, “And we love you.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” Steve grumbled.
“They make a good point,” Arnie said.
“Huh?” Steve asked.
“Sharon and Sam. That playing the game was meant for you to join us, not isolate yourself. We were talking about it before you decided to change the topic.”
Steve reached over and grabbed Arnie’s hand and squeezed it. By change the topic, Arnie meant doing dirty things on the twin bed and nearly falling off four times.
“I try not to think about my friends while I’m naked,” Steve said.
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
“Well, because I’m not sleeping with them now. I’m sleeping with you.”
“I’m touched, truly.”
Steve laughed and rolled over onto his side. He felt Arnie move the blanket over them and slowly fall asleep on his half of the bed.
His friends did have a good point. Steve had read articles about people making new friends and growing closer after starting the game. He didn’t have to play this alone. He could go riding around town with Tony (and with someone else driving while they played). He could play with the others in marching band on the bus instead of spending that rides making out with Arnie when the directors weren’t looking. Sam could come along for his jogs. Sharon can stroll with him downtown where there were Pokestops out the wazoo. Maybe even join Thor at the park and pretend Loki isn’t muttering curses to branch out of his normal social circle.
He would start playing with his friends, he decided.
Of course, they all stopped playing now.
“We redownloaded Neko Atsume and restarted our kitty collections,” Tony explained. “I’m naming all of mine after Batman characters.”
“And mine are all named after Greek gods,” Sharon added.
“So what you’re telling me is that after hounding me for nearly three months, you just up and quit the game?” Steve asked. He was dumbfounded that they did this out of the blue.
“You mean two fickle teenagers got bored with a game they’d been playing for months and moved on to another game?” Sharon countered. “What an outrage.”
“Make sure the press knows. It can headline Thursday’s paper,” Tony remarked.
Steve tried his hardest not to throw a small tantrum, and failed when he groaned and stomped his foot.
He sat dejected in the center of the park feeling hopeless. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself get so sucked in to a game that started out by meaning nothing to him, whereas his friends had said this was part of something that was in their lives since childhood. It was unbelievable.
Jessica Drew plopped onto the bench next to him and squeezed his shoulder. “So, you finally reached it? You’re done with the game?” she asked.
Steve nodded. “I guess everyone moved on,” he said quietly.
“Of course we did. Neko Atsume is back in anyway.”
“I don’t get it!” Steve finally admitted. “I was perfectly fine staying out of the loop for pop culture references and shit, and the second I get into it, I’m still three steps behind! All my friends, my boyfriend, even people like Loki were playing this damn game and acting like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread! Now it’s worthless.”
Jessica shrugged. “That’s how things work. And it’s not like we expected you to catch on to this game. Your meme game is shit. I mean, just because you play with the big dogs doesn’t mean you need to be one to stay with us, you know?”
“In a way, that does make sense.” Steve smiled and put his hand over Jessica’s. “Thanks.”
Jessica smiled back. “No problem, you helpless noob.”
“So, did you download Neko Atsume?” Sharon asked.
Steve smiled and shook his head. “I’ve decided that I like being out of the loop when it comes to the games you guys play. I like it better that way,” he answered proudly.
Except that was a load of shit, and everyone at the lunch table saw right through him. “How many cats do you have now?” Bucky asked.
“I can’t tell! I always think I saw them, but this one cat eats all the damn food!”