A Marvellous Christmas | mcu actors

December 5ᵗʰ

n.b.: Elizabeth's character is not related to anything Marvel. She's not Elizabeth Henstridge. She just has the same name because I really like that name. That said, I hope you're having a great December so far!

❅

The weather was quite chilly on that Saturday afternoon, the wind was creeping between the skyscrapers and buildings, howling like a sad wolf and refreshing the whole city. It was nice to be able to sit down in this city and sometimes, Elizabeth felt like maybe, she could do it more, but with her job and all, she already spent all of her free time there, on the small steps in front of the New York City Center, her nose stuck in a book and her face hidden behind her brown hair. Sometimes, a pair of glasses would keep it from coming in her sight, sometimes, she'd tie it in a ponytail, a braid or a messy bun, just so she could keep reading in peace. In all the years she had spent in this giant city, there was no place like the small steps in front of the New York City Center, where the colors on the wall would dance like flames and where the columns would provide fantastic backrests for when she'd be so into a book she'd forget the rest.

Elizabeth had moved to the Big Apple ten years before, when she had picked NYU as the best option for college. She had fallen in love with the city years ago, when her dad took her to a show on Broadway. At that time, life was easy and she remembered the feeling of getting into the train for the two-hours-long journey to New York. Living in Middletown wasn't a pain, she actually liked the small city but she was meant for bigger things and she knew it. So as soon as she could, she took the train for the big city and spent the day there with her dad, first, then on her own when she turned 17 and it was time to move into a dorm. For as long as she knew, taking the train felt like the first step into a big adventure. It was thrilling, she always had jitters and couldn't stop dancing on her feet like the ground would swallow her whole if she stopped. Her dad found it endearing, really, her mom never really understood her excitement whenever New York was mentioned. So most often than else, it was just her and her dad, taking the train to the big city. Their first trip was back when she was six, when she was big enough to go to a show in Broadway and he had brought her to a representation of Cats that clearly started her obsession with Broadway musicals. Since then, her dad had taken her to Wicked, to Beauty and the Beast, to The Lion King, Hairspray, Cats again (and again, and again, it was her favorite as it was her first ever), The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables, that she insisted to go see when she was fifteen, after she had read the whole book by Victor Hugo. She had fallen in love with Marius and couldn't wait to see him live his love story with Cosette, though she imagined herself as Eponine, more than anything. She just felt like the ignored lover was a bit more like she would be, if she ever lived in the fictious world of Victor Hugo's figment of imagination. Her dad pretended to be Jean Valjean the whole evening and Elizabeth fell in love even more with Marius that night. Les Misérables became one of her favorite book ever and she would read it every time she had nothing else on her to be read list.

When she moved to her crappy dorm room at NYU, she brought her copy with her. Her roommate didn't get the obsession she had with that damn book, who would even want to read that massive thing for fun? And even worse, enjoy it?! But Elizabeth didn't care. She had Marius, she had Cosette, she had the streets of Paris and all of this magical thing that was reading. So she often took her copy to different places in the city, to read in peace, until she realized there was no better place than the small steps in front of the theater. There, she was let alone all day long and she would be able to read without any complaint. The bosses inside couldn't throw her out (though they tried), she was already outside, and she was sheltered from the rain. It happened sometimes: she would run all the way across the streets to get to her little safe haven, only to get drenched in the pouring rain and when she'd finally see the familiar set of columns in the distance, she'd sigh with relief, slow down her pace and finally crash down on the dry pavement underneath the concrete ceiling that would usually shelter the audience members from the rain while waiting to enter the theater. The space wasn't private, it was a piece of street that belonged to everyone and while the security staff often tried to get her to leave, Elizabeth loved that spot more than any other to read in peace.