Avengers: Legacies

Pointe Taken

Romanov-Rogers Residence, Brooklyn, NY

Rosalie Romanoff-Rogers hated that she was going to be late for her ballet lessons because her stupid brother decided that today was the day he wanted to be dramatic and get into a rip-roaring fight with their parents at five in the morning. Or maybe it was more her parents' fault than her brother's since they were the ones who started yelling. But it was also James's because he got caught sneaking back into the apartment. Bottom line, it was everyone's fault but hers. She had to be mediator, and that always took up an unbelievable amount of time. For three hours, it sucked the soul right out of her. Neither side was in the right, if she was being honest, but she felt there was still some hope left for James, even if their parents failed to see it. She ran after him in the hopes she could get him to see that. But even that failed.

She stomped back to the apartment now after that confrontation didn't work out the way she had planned. Her mind still reeled over what James said, about Dom, about being in love with him, about her and Bobby, who she had been doing fine in not thinking about until James brought him up again. She balled her hands into fists at her side, and any onlooking passersby steered out of the way of the dark scowl on her face.

She reached the stoop of her family's apartment building and buzzed the button next to her hyphenated last name slotted on the intercom system. She waited, the front door remaining locked. She scowled, cursing herself for not having taken her keys with her, but she'd been in such a rush to get to James. Again, she cursed him too. And by the looks of it, her parents had already left for their workplaces. Her father, his art studio and gallery. Her mother, the ballet studio. The very same studio Rosalie needed to get to for her morning ballet lessons. The star of The Nutcracker couldn't be late for rehearsals, especially not if her rival, Annette, was the understudy. Not to mention her mother would have her doing pirouettes on pointe until her toes bled or something. Not that her mother would be so cruel, but that was where Rosalie's imagination went.

She sighed, obnoxious and loud, and then she decided that Mr. Moriano wouldn't mind a wake up call from his morning nap. She almost pressed his apartment's buzzer when the solid door swung open, and out walked a young man she had only spotted in the building a couple of times. A college student most likely by his appearance of baggy jeans, scuffed sneakers, and the simple black puffer jacket that he slung his backpack over. He managed to live by himself in one of the smaller apartments down the hall from her family's, his coming-and-goings noticed closely by Rosalie, usually from afar. She would watch him leave and return as she studied at her desk, hours in between the glimpses, but always like clockwork, granting her short reprieves from her obscene amounts of homework. But she had never been this close.

Rosalie blinked, and like always was struck at his handsomeness, his height and broad shoulders. The smoothness of his dark skin and the swirl of color in his hazel eyes.

He smiled, almost knowingly as he saw her finger hovering over Mr. Moriano's name. "Locked out, are you?"

"Yeah," she chuckled, breathless. He searched her face, and his full lips quirked to the side in a smirk, a dimple deepening in his cheek. The planes of his face were regal, like a prince's, his cheekbones high, his heavy brows as expressive as his mouth.

He lifted his hand higher on the open door and used his free hand to lift his hood over his short natural curls. "Well, are you going in, or do I have to hold this all day? I mean, I wouldn't mind holding the door for you if it means we get to be like this. Beats heading to class."

Rosalie's cheeks heated against the cold. "Right, I'm late. Thank you . . ." She ducked beneath his arm and turned back on the threshold. To peer back into his warm, colorful eyes. They danced with laughter and amusement.