Avengers x Reader

Years Gone By | Fluff

Summary- An Immortal!Reader revisits a bar where they performed decades ago. Little do they know—a familiar face will resurface. james

Warnings- Mentions of Homophobia, some addiction(...?), and terribly cringe dialogue with 1940s slang

Gender- Male! Reader

A/n- I feel like this is lowkey a songfic, but for context: Leslie Gore made a song and Melanie Martinez used that song as inspiration for one of her songs decades later. I know the song Leslie made was in the 60s but... I felt like it fit the fic?

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Small chatter and the clinking of glasses replaced what would've been silence that loomed over the bar. A voice was supposed to break that silence and establish an ambiance that matched the many other bars across the east coast—but nothing had filled the space. No one was there to stand on the stage and accompany the pianist's skilled fingers with an equally skilled vocal range—until you.

While you weren't on shift at the bar that night, you lingered around the indoors of the business as you waited for someone. You were scared to put it into words considering the time period, but he was your date. Though the clock kept ticking and soon it felt that he wasn't yours. You had been stood up for reasons that were kind of obvious—he was afraid.

You bit your bottom lip, trying to ward away any bad thoughts that would inevitably fill your head. Once they started to, you thought it'd be best to distract yourself from those thoughts by doing something sporadic.

Heading over to the bar, you confronted your manager about the lack of any music playing in the back. He only apologized until he realized what you were getting at by confronting him—you wanted to sing. Your manager reluctantly led you up onto the stage and everyone turned away from their evening chats with friends to watch you. You dressed yourself up for your date, so why not perform while looking good?

Before the lights could brighten, you scanned the crowd in the scattered seats. One person stood out to you—a sergeant. He sat in the far back corner of the bar at a small table.

The lights for the small stage had brightened in a way similar to joy as if someone was helping fulfill their purpose. Although, their lucent was a drastic contrast from that joy as they blocked your view of the crowd's eyes that could've knocked you out cold. It was almost beneficial.

Your boss moved in closer to you and whispered something, "The person who was supposed to come only had one song to sing per our agreement, good luck!" He had a near snarky tone in his voice that made you shudder as the pianist started gliding his fingers across the keys. You grabbed the microphone that was offered by your boss's hand, watching as he left the stage.

A few minutes had passed, and you did fairly well considering the song wasn't in your key. Though, one pair of eyes distracted you as they pierced through the bright lucent of the lights throughout the song. Both of you made eye contact multiple times, and it was clear that there was something more to him. Something hid behind the sergeant's uniform and hopeful eyes that worked with each other. It's ironic, someone hopefully going into war only to have a high chance of meeting their end.

The lights dimmed as the last lyrics of the song came up, "...it's my party, and I'll cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you..." The pianist hit the few last notes, and a majority of the bar had started to clap—including the sergeant. The upturn of the corners of his mouth expressed that he had enjoyed your singing.

Being bold, you removed yourself from the stage and going into step as you approached the sergeant. "Hey! You enjoy the show?"

"Honestly? You're better than the chrome dome that performs here every night, he's quite a sad-sam." He said.