Coming home from work, Rory trudged up the six flights of stairs with tired feet. The sexist policy that women wear high heels was getting old, so she held her shoes in her hands and walked barefoot up the grubby stairs, keeping a sharp eye out for thumb tacks, needles and other things that would suck to step on.

At the top of the stairs she ran into Mike, the other tenant on the floor; she averted her gaze so that she wasn't looking at him as she walked around him. He stood stoic and burly in her way, but she managed to squeeze by him with a muttered "excuse me", remaining polite despite the fact she wanted to tell him to "get the fuck out of the way".

It was better to be polite and meek than assertive.

"Not even a 'hello'?" he asked with a sardonic tone.

Rory's shoulders tensed, she was holding her keys and turned towards her apartment. She glanced over her shoulder at Mike, who still stood at the top of the stairs -was he waiting for her, or did he see her coming up the stairs and decided to be a creep? She offered a small, forced smile and said, "Hello, Mike."

"That's better," he grunted, then trampled down the stairs.

Rory let out a breath of relief.

Half an hour later, she heard a knock on the door. Her hair was wet from a shower and she was wearing sweat pants and a baggy t-shirt that definitely belonged to a one-night stand. Disgruntled to say the least, she trudged over to the door and opened it.

"Oh shit," she said as she faced Eddie. In his hands was a bottle of wine and her coffee mug.

"You forgot," he noted.

"I forgot," she admitted, and apologetic cringe upon her face.

"Well, you look dashing," he said, a grin on his tired face.

She cracked a smile. "Freshly showered, ready for bed."

"You know it's seven, right?"

"Come on in," she replied with a laugh, stepping out of the way so he could enter. As she closed the door, she could hear Ziggy across the hall cranking up his music. "Well at least we have some gentle music to set the mood. Take a seat, I'll whip something up to eat."

Eddie put her mug away, remembering where she grabbed it from that morning, and then looked around at her apartment. It was exactly the same as his, only a bit nicer with more personality because she had paintings up, a few decorative things here and there, but nothing that exacted much about who she was. The artwork was vague, abstract, but none of it matched just right, the colours were slightly different. A string of paper lantern lights hung over the window that overlooked the next apartment building over.

Rory threw together a quick salad with what she had in her fridge, fresh greens, crisp apples, pecans with maple syrup drizzled on them and quickly baked. She topped it off with a homemade dressing that she shook up in a martini shaker she rarely used for its actual purpose. Within fifteen minutes, she prepared a fine meal, slicing some bread fresh from the bakery two blocks down, and filling up a small dish with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

"Make yourself at home," Rory told him, and Eddie took this to heart, opening up her cupboards, standing quite close to her. They could feel each other's body heat as he grabbed two wine glasses.

Rory grabbed the plates and bowls of food and brought it to the coffee table in the quaint living room. The thrum of the heavy guitar from the music across the hall made the wine and oil ripple. Eddie followed Rory with two wine glasses filled with red wine; not the choice Rory expected from someone like Eddie, but then she realized she didn't know anything about Eddie.

"Wow, this looks amazing, are you a chef or something?" Eddie asked as he sat down on the couch next to Rory, a meter between them.

She laughed. "A salad and some bread hardly counts as amazing."

"Better than what's in my fridge," Eddie mumbled.

Rory grabbed the remote and turned on the stereo to play some light music, though it was hardly audible over the guitar solo playing just across the hall. As she forked out some of the salad into her own bowl, she lifted her glass of red wine -courtesy of Eddie's thoughtfulness- and raised it to cheers.

"To good neighbours amongst the assholes," she said, making eye contact with Eddie.

He raised his own glass. "You might be the only reason I haven't moved out already."

She blushed, and quickly brought her drink to her lips to hide it after clinking it against Eddie's. The wine was woody and bold, just the way she liked it. Expensive wine, so she deduced that Eddie once had rich tastes, and that his fall from grace was much harder than it appeared.

She decided to pry, hoping that by downing her glass of wine and pouring her second she could blame the reddened cheeks on the alcohol. "This is excellent wine. I didn't peg you as the red wine type."

"What did you peg me as?" he inquired.

"Hmm." She leaned back, studying his profile. "You work out, that much is clear-"

Eddie smirked, an eyebrow was raised.

"Oh, don't give me that look," she said with a casual eye roll. "You're flaunting off your muscles in that shirt, and don't tell me you didn't plan that."

His smirk softened into a humble smile.

"So, tell me your story," she said, leaning in and swirling the wine in her glass. Her arm was propped up on the back on the couch. Eddie still sat facing the coffee table, and he dipped a piece of bread into the oil as if to delay answering the question.

"Ah, you don't want to hear it."

"What did you do to her?" she asked. "I can see in your eyes that you're feeling sorry for yourself. It wasn't you who ended the relationship, no..."

"It was my fault," he said, slightly sourly. He drank a bit more wine, topped it off -the bottle was half empty now. "How are you so good at that?"

She smirked. "I dabbled in a few courses in university. Did half a psychology degree, then went the route of art. And look where it got me."

She gestured to the simple apartment around her.

"That's not your whole story," he said, this time he leaned in. It was his turn to try and dig up dirt, to figure out where Rory fit in her own story. "You're hiding from someone, aren't you? An ex boyfriend?"

She leaned back to hide her recoil, eyelashes lowering as she stared into her wine glass. Debating what was important and what wasn't, she finished off her second glass with a semi-satisfied sigh. Placing her glass down while cocking her head to the side in a half-committed nod, she flickered her brown eyes to meet Eddie's blue ones.

"You're good too," she complimented. "But I gave you that one."

He looked more serious now than before. "Who is it?"

"Oh, I have not had enough wine to start down that rabbit hole." She leaned back again, arm on the back of the couch, her hand close to Eddie's now. "Let's just say I don't go by my full name and I live here for a very valid reason."

"What's your full name?"

"Aurora," she replied, then regretted it. She had been going by Rory for eighteen months now that her real name felt weird upon her tongue. "But please don't call me that. He called me that, ugh, his patronizing voice..." She shuddered.

"I'm sorry," he replied, not apologizing for getting that much out of her, but for what she went through.

"So, I went from being a freelance artist, to not being able to put my name out there, to working as a secretary with a false name," she said bitterly. "But this conversation is very last year, if we could move on to something... Nicer..."

"I could find him, you know," Eddie said. "Out him for whatever he did to you."

She smiled, his offer was authentic. "What do you do for work again?"

"I was a reporter."

"Wait," Rory jerked to an upright position, "you're that guy! Eddie... Uhm, Eddie Brock!"

"Uh." He ran his hand over the back of his head, messing up his hair. "Yeah, that's me."

"Wow, you went big when you probably should have stayed home." She blew out air in a shocked gesture. "Carlton Drake. I mean, that was ballsy – you'll never find work again!"

"Thanks for the encouragement," he said.

"I'm sorry," she replied, placing her hand on his knee. "Really, it sucks what happened, the guy is a total dick. You're... you're really brave, Eddie."

"And look where it got me."

She leaned in and whispered lightly, "Same place it got me."

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Comment your thoughts! This story hit over 300 reads last night, thank you to every one of you who flipped through! I've got a list of people who are getting dedications, it'll take a while to get through them all though!