she fell in love in the first place

[triskeles]

	For the life of me, I cannot remember What made us think that we were wise And we'd never compromise For the life of me, I cannot believe We'd ever die for these sins We were merely freshmen

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[triskeles]

It was an unfortunate thing, that people had been so conditioned into turning a blind eye on things like this. Derek remembered a lot of it in New York, every time he went out. He'd tried not to fall prey to the mindset, and mostly succeeded, but it was more prevalent now in his thirties.

He watched his movements, looking to see what he favored most, before he reached out as if to steady him. In truth, that was only partially the reason. The primary reasoning was to dull some of the pain, using the darkness of the alley and a slight slip of his hand to find a small patch of skin to let his veins fill with black.

"Looks more like you wound up in a three-on-one than you being fine."

[neverdanced]

Steve was unable to see what Derek was doing, so there were no assumptions apart from figuring he was just trying to help him. Then again, Steve had no experience whatsoever with supernatural things. As far as he knew, life was as straight-laced as he was.

"I got a few punches in."

He would've been in worse shape if he'd been in a three-on-one. He knew that from experience. This was nothing. It was just a little unfortunate that the guy he took on had nearly a foot and a half on him.

"Really, I'm fine." He looked up and made eye contact when he said that. This stranger made a great first impression, but Steve wanted it to be clear that he didn't need coddling. This was a frequent enough occurence.

[triskeles]

There were some people who would just nod and walk away after that confirmation, but Derek looked back at Steve without hesitation and saw something there. Something that reminded him of his pack-- that spark of defiance, of strength that was contained in a way that it shouldn't have been-- and he couldn't help the quirk of faint amusement. But it was obviously not at Steve's expense, and he gave his shoulder a pat before he drew his hand away, black starting to recede.

"I'll take your word for it," he inclined his head just slightly, conceding to his obvious wish to stand on his own.

He'd seen it plenty of times, and had felt it just as often. So he could sympathize.

"You seem like someone who wouldn't go down without a fight, anyways."

[neverdanced]

The pain started to fade away, and that was strange enough to cause some alarm. Steve frowned, but didn't say anything about it. What could he say? Make some idle comment about how it didn't feel like he got with a semi anymore? That just wasn't his style. His posture wasn't so tense anymore, at the very least. Walking home wouldn't be a complete pain.

"Backing down isn't in my blood, especially not to bullies." He paused, then held his hand out. "Steve Rogers."