1501/Bronx Night Market Meandering

Bronx Night Market Meandering
Date of Scene:	04 May 2020
Location:	Bronx Night Market, The Bronx
Synopsis:	Janet and Steve sample the best of the Bronx Night Market, from tequila to fritters, and Steve's gift remains a secret yet.
Cast of Characters:	Steve Rogers, Janet van Dyne

---

Steve Rogers has posed:
The northernmost borough of New York is embracing the arrival of spring with a little bit of a night party. Up in the Bronx, one must be clever with parking and probably walk a ways to join the meandering delight that is the Bronx Night Market.

Or ride a motorcycle, which is what both Steve and Janet arrived on. Smaller, easier to park off to the side, it meant a shorter walk into the hustle and bustle of humanity. Just smell the grub! Elotes, tamales, latkes, ice cream...if it's battered and fried, you might see it alongside something vegetarian. And listen to the music! Someone's subwoofers are up and thumping the current DJ's mix-set, a modern Latin beat pitched only just loud enough to make one speak a little louder.

Of course there are stalls offering up homemade wares from local merchants, small and big alike, and the beer garden offers craft brews from nearby breweries. There are mixed drinks as well, of course, to be found at the many bars in the area.

Steve already has a small brown bag with something he'd purchased when Janet wasn't looking. So sneaky. He's in a plain white t-shirt beneath his fleece-lined motorcycle jacket and jeans, combat boots keeping a steady pace beside Janet. "I smell churros," the man notes, glancing over at her with a pleased little smile.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
For once, Janet's dressed to match the locale. But that doesn't mean she doesn't stand out! Her bolero style denim jacket is cut high enough to reveal the way her hips move beneath it. The gold miniskirt barely survived the ride over, and a cross-style halter top exposes most of her midsection. Her jewelry coordinates too, with bangles, earrings, and a plain but much-loved patriotic pendant in the hollow of her throat.

She walks hand in hand with Steve for the most part, but apparently Janet knows most of these people quite well. She chatters with them in fast, fluent Spanish, heavily inflected with multiple competing diasporas crammed into the Latino community.

"Isn't it lovely?" she agrees, and flashes a fawning smile up at him. Something catches her attention, and then Janet's darting into the crowd towards one of the vendors. A moment later: "Steve! Steve!" Janet jumps on her toes and beckons Steve over to her location, one of the drinking booths. "C'mon, you need to try this tequila. It'll blow your /mind/," she promises him.

"oye!" the proprietor protests. "Nada por los gringo gigante!"

"Ay-ya," Janet retorts, huffing and looking indignant. She tugs on Steve's forearm when he nears. "Esto me novio. La Capitan del Americana?"

"Oh shit, perdon," the bartender says, apologetically. "For Janet, I charge double, because she's cheeky," he tells Steve from under a thick moustache. "But for Captain America, I charge, only fifty dollars," he tells him.

"It's Asom Broso," Janet whispers up at Steve. "You can't even get it in America. Best tequila in the world." She offers him a shot and one for herself, grinning up at him. "Try it?"

Steve Rogers has posed:
"It's great. I remember market nights, but not like this," the super-soldier replies even as he gives her hand with fingers interlaced a gentle squeeze. But -- there she goes, ever quick to buzz off after the nearest item or gathering of interest. Steve finds himself vaguely envying her ability to insinuate herself into just about any situation and lifts his hand when he sees her head briefly appear in a jump from within the crowd.

"'m coming, <<Seillean>>, hold on." His voice carries easily enough. His is the ability to part the crowd with his steady, broad-shouldered presence and he arrives at the booth to catch the end of the familiar bantering between Janet and the liquor purveyor. His brows flick up at the commentary from the bartender and he then laughs as the tequila is offered up. "Of course, 's'an honor to try if if 's'so rare. Thank you, senor," nods Steve to the bartender as he pinches the shotglass in his fingers. A toss-back and he smacks his lips. Again, his brows lift. "'s'unique. Where's it from?" he asks the bartender.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"It comes from the only place for tequila, Capitan," the jovial fellow informs Steve. "From the city of Tequila, in Jalisco."

"Tequila's kind of like bourbon, honey," Janet explains to Steve. "You can only call it bourbon if it's from Kentucky, and you can only call it tequila if it's from Tequila."

"Hey, stop doin' my job for me, avispa, man I get no tips if you tell the story for me!" the vendor protests. Janet coos soothingly and reaches over to hug his shoulders. "No, no si robarte," she promises him. Janet digs in her little clutch, glances around, and discreetly passes a few Benjamins into his apron pocket. "But send two bottles up to my place, si?"

"You're lucky you're cute," the vendor grumbles, but hugs her back before propelling her back at Steve. "Ey! You take care of her, huh, Capitan?" he says. It's as much statement as polite request. "Yanet, she's okay. Even if she needs a spankin' once in a while, spoiled brat she is."

Janet titters and blows a kiss at the man, and clings to Steve's arm to head back into the crowd again.

"God. I used to *live* down here," Janet tells Steve, with a happy sigh. "Tuesdays, I'd come for authentic tacos. Weekends it was just one party to the next. Met my first boyfriend here. Daddy had to come bail me out of jail, /twice/." She looks up at Steve, and makes a flippant dismissive gesture. "I was seventeen, we got caught tagging once, once for minors in possession. Nothing serious, I promise."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"Huh." Steve files away that tidbit of information as he sets the used shotglass on the small metal tray tucked off to one side on the booth's surface. He proceeds to observe the banter with a grin slowly spreading a little wider with each passing second of watching his gal and the bartender interact.

Finally free of the interaction, pinked at his ears for Roberte's insinuation, he anchors Janet's hand on his arm and drifts back into the natural flow of the attendees. Looking to her again, he smirks. "I believe you. If I wanted to check, it's all on record anyways," teases the man. "'m glad to see you so happy though. You get this...twinkle in your eyes and you glow." His curve of lips goes softer and quieter at her. "Alright, where next, darlin'?"

There are, after all, so very many more booths to peruse.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"We've got to get off the main strip," Janet tells Steve. "This is mostly commercial vendors. The enchilada stand?" She points, illustratively. "'Selma's Griddle' is owned by some soccer mom. From /Waukeegan/," she says, derisively.

"C'mon, down this alley. It's a shortcut," she says. Down they go, winding between several buildings, and emerge at a less heavily populated part of the fair. Here the food looks and smells more authentic, and there is less advertising and more home-style cooking. Whole families are manning the grills, handling cash, and the evening swells with scents, warm air, and babbling Spanish in dozens of accents and dialects.

"The Bronx is mostly Dominicans and Puerto Ricans," Janet explains to Steve as they walk. "They mostly get along, but sometimes there are street fights. The abuelitos-- the grandparents, they keep it tamped down pretty well though." She queues up with Steve and beams at the vendor when they get close enough. The proprietor is a wizened old woman with a face like an old apple and white, wispy hair; age doesn't stop her from deftly handling a heavy frying pan and rolling confections back and forth across the oil. There's some rapid jabbering back and forth between them; the old woman seems huffy and displeased at first, but eventually relents under the weight of Janet's personality and with a laugh, embraces the younger woman. Money and food exchanges hands, and Janet hands a fritter to Steve.

"Hey, doesn't Brooklyn do a street fair on St. Patty's day?" Janet asks Steve. "You could take me there sometime. I wanna see what it's like there, with all the Irish families that settled in the area."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve does glance over at this 'Selma's Griddle' booth with a far more mild reaction than the flap of hand. "Hmm." A thoughtful little sound even as he turns and continues in step with Janet. The populace does lessen as they go and he finds himself looking up and around the buildings, wondering now and then if he'd recognize them better under the light of day or if time too had changed them for better or worse. They arrive at the street dominated by the true locals and already, it smells...richer, somehow, more true to what his nose knows of the cooking. He's a silent, friendly personage while Janet again works her social magics and the earnings are a hot fritter only barely kept from burning his hands by a thick wrapping of wax papers.

"They do," confirms the Captain of Brooklyn's own street fair. "'nd 'm happy to take you, sure. Just been busy every single year, it seems, on that weekend. Something about even the folks who get up to bad news getting drunk as skunks 'nd thinking their plans're better'n ever."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"It's a date," Janet promises Steve. "I'll put it in the calendar, send a memo out to the troublemakers: 'we're off duty that night, please no cause problems," she says. And illustrates it with a graceful imaginary pen scribbling under her fingertips.

"I guess you were a good kid, weren't you," she says, chattering on happily. The food takes two hands to eat, so she contents herself by walking with her shoulder pressed against Steve's arm. "You weren't running around with the gangs, getting in trouble with everyone. I went through a pretty wild phase until I met Hank." Janet makes a face. "Boy, did I get the short end in *that* deal. Still, it was a fun few years here. It took me a while to make friends. I had to learn the language. But it was a big boost when I started JVD, being able to tap right into the Latino market. I made most of my money from sales in the Southwest, and down in the Caribbean. Once it hit Milan, that was all she wrote. Took the company public, the IPO blew up way beyond what everyone expected, and next thing I know, I'm an international fashion designed."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve laughs despite himself at the idea of an anti-villainry memo. "Send it with the little exclamation mark of importance next to it. They won't be able to miss it," he agrees.

He then nods as they walk; sure, let the world think he was a good kid and not the one picking the fistfights because he had something to prove or wanted the biggest, baddiest bullies to fall the hardest. His bite of fritter is absolutely delicious. The crescent left steams in the comfortably cool spring air as he walks, his attention all for the petite brunette at his side. "Amazing how that works, a little effort 'nd some luck 'nd being in the right place at the right time. Makes you wonder about fate. Know what you mean about the language though, 'nd how 's'the easiest way to get folks to trust you. Dernier had to teach me rudimentary French. Didn't know a lick of it before I got out to the front lines." His is a wry smirk as if remembering some usual pitfalls of a newly-learned language.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"God, I need to work on my French," Janet mutters. "I just know that bitch Vanessa Bruno is talking shit about me behind my back, and I can't call her on it." She looks up at Steve. "You know. Talking out the side of the mouth, whisper whispers, sidelong look at you, then a polite smile-- like she hasn't just spent twenty minutes telling some stupid Eurotrash celebrity that my designs are prosaic."

The hypothetical scenario is pumping Janet's heart rate up. "We can't *all* be Emannuele Khan's daughter," she says with bitter irritation. "I had to suck up two years of Edna screaming at me and hitting me with rolled up magazines. But at least she was honest about it! I-- oogh!" Janet stamps a heel on the ground, eyes her fritter, and bites into it with savage anger.

Chew, chew, swallow. She glares up at Steve. "Now look, you've got me all worked up and grumpy," she declares, and tosses her head back with a feigned nonchalance.

Steve Rogers has posed:
When Janet glances up after her tirade, she'll find her other half very patiently standing there, apparently waiting for her to find a moment of clarity in the fritter she eats. He gives her an understanding smile nonetheless, not an ounce of mockery to be found anywhere in his expression.

"Next time you have to deal with her, have me around. I know enough to catch her at it. Can use my Disappointed Face...or whatever the team calls it," he says with a shrug. "Mean, Dernier did his best. He started with the important stuff first, actually."

Now Steve outright laughs, his ears turning a fetching shade of pink. "So..." Tucking his chin briefly, he then gives Janet an absolutely cheeky little smile. He then leans in and whispers something into her ear, his accent of Marseille rather than Paris itself.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet squirms and giggles, pushing at Steve's chest with zero real intention of pushing him away. After all, his words tickle like silk in her ear-- and if she can't understand them, she can certainly understand the intent. She turns in place, stepping in front of Steve and stopping him by leaning against his chest. Her neck cranes upwards and darkly worshipful eyes glitter up at him. "That sounded absolutely raunchy and lascivious, so whatever you just said, I'm in." Eyes flicker around, then back up to Steve. "You know. After we're done here," she says, and teasingly withdraws from how she's plastered up against him. She pirouettes on her toe and sashays away, hands clasped loosely behind her back, and hums the tune from 'La Vie En Rose' with a sweetly dulcet voice.

Steve Rogers has posed:
And as Janet hums 'La Vie En Rose' in her upper register, here comes the gentle baritone harmony as Steve picks up the melody in his easy way. His is an equally nonchalant presence behind her and if anybody side-eyes the way those hips don't lie? Well.

They get an even, blue-eyed look full of patient reprimand. Tsk. Your abuelitos would be ashamed of you.

Needless to say, the deviation from the main strip for the fritters panned out delightfully. Now all that's left is to get home again, home again, jiggty-jog.