Who: Sam & Veronica What: they were planning to have a weekend away. But the best laid plans... When: Friday afternoon/evening Where: around/near NYU Warnings: TBD
Veronica's class ended later than his, so Sam had agreed to meet up with her after. He'd stopped for coffee, and since it wasn't snowing, he waited outside rather than standing around awkwardly in the hallway. It was cold, but his clothes were warm, and the coffee warmed him from the inside.
After a while, when his coffee was gone, he started to worry that Veronica's would be cold before she could drink it, and headed inside anyway. He leaned against the wall and took out his phone, checking the time. She was running a little late, but she hadn't called, so he figured she was on her way.
Twenty minutes later, when a crowd of students had been through the hallway and Veronica wasn't among them (and she still hadn't called), he started to worry. He called her phone, and got her voice mail. He hung up and stared at his phone for a moment, and then put it back in his pocket, then started down the hallway.
It wasn't more than a half hour before he'd covered the whole building, talked to her professor-- who said she'd been in class, and then left with the others-- but it had been nearly an hour now since she should have found him, or called, or something. It wasn't reassuring that he also hadn't found any sign of her belongings, which would have dropped if she'd been stolen away by the tesseract. Those could have been stolen away, too, either with her or separately. It also wasn't reassuring that he hadn't gotten a notification from SHIELD, because those hadn't been coming for anyone.
Sam dialed her number again, and this time, he left a message. "Hey, cricket. I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope you're alright. Give me a call when you get this, okay?"
He hung up, and stared down at his phone, as if he could will it to ring and have Veronica on the other end. She couldn't be gone. She couldn't.