![]() |
Laurel watched for a few moments as he beat up the punching bag.
"Is everything alright?" she asked softly. |
Steve looked over at her, stilling the punching bag.
"Yeah, everything's fine," he said, looking at her. "You look pretty calm considering all that mess outside with the press." |
"I got to hide in the back of the room," Laurel said. "Nobody was paying attention to Doreen and I back there." She looked at him. "You seem a bit... tense."
|
Steve shrugged. "It just bothers me sometimes," he said. "How these reporters are. Before they knew about personal space and privacy, and now..."
|
"Now it's practically open season, yeah," Laurel agreed. She sat down on one of the benches. "I've heard it never used to be this bad. Doreen and I get a lot of our information from people like them, though, the ones who get every scrap that they can."
|
"When I was a kid, the press was never this bad," Steve confirmed. "But now... I mean, they don't need to hound people."
|
"No, they don't," Laurel agreed. "They shouldn't. And some don't, some are respectful. But most are bad like that."
|
Steve nodded. "That bothers me," he said quietly. "But I can't do much about it." He shrugged.
|
"No, neither can I," Laurel said. She was quiet for a moment. "People did like that thing I put up a little while back, though. The thing about helping clean up the city after the last attack. The general public reacted favorably to it."
|
"Good." Steve smiled. "I mean, I know Tony does the press conferences, but I prefer to go talk to people myself. I usually stop a few times while I'm out running."
|
"I know," Laurel said, grinning. "I've got pictures to prove it."
|
Steve blinked. He hadn't realized she had pictures of that. Then he shrugged.
"Where did you get those? Tony?" |
"Surprisingly, no," Laurel said. "Crowd sourcing. Someone must have just happened to see you while you were out and about, grabbed a picture, and submitted it to the blog. I keep a folder of everything we collect through that channel."
|
"Huh." Steve blinked again. "I didn't realize so many people took pictures of us." Of course he knew that without his uniform on people still recognized him, but he was still surprised.
|
"I'm surprised more didn't stop you and try to take a picture with you," Laurel said frankly. "Try to take a selfie or something with you in the picture."
|
"Some people try," Steve said with a bit of a smile. "But most people just let me run in peace and don't try to stop me."
|
"You probably intimidate them," Laurel mused. "They might be too afraid to ask." She grinned. "Not that it's a bad thing, it means they leave you be."
|
Steve nodded. He didn't mind people asking, really, but it was hard to go for a run when he was getting stopped every few hundred feet.
|
Laurel settled back on the bench, just watching him.
"So, how many of those do you usually go through?" she asked, gesturing to the punching bags. |
"These ones? Not as many. They're specially reinforced, so I can't get through them as quickly." Steve quirked a grin. "Depending on the week, maybe five or six?"
|
"Wow," Laurel said. "That's still impressive. You can really dish out a beating."
|
"When it's necessary," Steve said with a shrug. "Not that I would, you know, not with normal people, but Doombots are fine, I'll hit those."
|
"No, I wouldn't think you would hit normal people like that," Laurel agreed. "But it's got to be fun watching you take on robots."
|
"Next time there's Doombots around, you'll be the first to know," Steve said with a chuckle.
|
Laurel grinned.
"I'll hold you to that, then," she said. "Until then, I'll just be here... admiring the view." |
| All times are GMT. The time now is 10:51 PM. |