Chapter Text
There's about a 10 minute window before morning skate where Sid can quickly stop by his local for a takeaway cup and still make it to the rink early enough by his standards.
Having been in Pittsburgh for nearly two decades now and going to the same corner coffee shop for just as long, the excitement of his regular presence has died down. It's a nice moment of peace that he can schedule into his otherwise hockey dominated routine.
He orders the largest size of their strongest roast before he doctors the shit out of it with a heinous amount of sugar and creamer. It's too much for his tastes but it works as a very desirable treat to lure Geno out on to the ice on time. The barista is just putting the lid on his own small cup when someone screams, sending both Sid and Brad swivelling their heads to check outside.
"My bag!"
By the time Sid leaps his way past the outdoor stools it's too late - the thief has already sprinted past the cafe. He swears, looks back to see someone already on their phone, either recording or dialling the police, or both, and the poor kid who can't be anymore older than 14 sobbing and clutching their chest, and a nearby security guard rushing out from the storefront.
He spins around, sees the siloutte of the thief rushing past others on the sidewalk, hears the Brad from the shop yell out for someone to grab the guy, and Sid takes off, just about to launch into a sprint when he sees a small figure strolling down the opposite way.
In less than a split second he watches the figure almost walk past the thief infuriatingly nonchalantly before they smoothly kick out their foot at the right moment to trip the runner, sending the thief hurtling into the concrete. It's a brutal fall - the thief definitely scraping his face against the ashphalt. The woman doesn't look back at all and carries on walking, hands stuffed into the pockets of her athletic tracksuit.
Sid pushes past his astonishment and rushes over, yanking the bag from the groaning man as the security guard reaches them and jumps on the thief, keeping him pinned to the ground. There's a bit of yelling, a bit of blood from a broken nose, a bit of crying when the girl gets her bag back.
By the time Sid looks up again, the figure is already far down the sidewalk, dark ponytail bouncing with an obvious skip in her step. All he remembers is curiously bright eyes and a smirk.
That's the story he recounts to Geno later at practice when he starts bitching about his cold coffee, sipping it with an exaggerated pout.
"Sorry for cold coffee Geno, I too busy being hero, need save Pittsburgh from thief, like Superman," Geno cackles, bumping him into the boards. "You need come save bag from bag thief, like come save the day, yes?"
Sid rolls his eyes fondly even as Tanger swishes past yelling "Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Super Sidman!" in falsetto, like the dick he is.
"Do you reckon it'll be in tomorrow's paper?"
Sidney grimaces, scratching at a piece of tape stuck on the ice with his stick. It's not as if he was the one who caught the guy, or tripped him - he just got there first, and also just happened to be the most famous guy there, so that's where the attention went.
"I hope not," Sid sighs in response, but Tanger's grin means he probably won't get his wish. It probably won't be in the paper but it'll definitely be on social media, if it isn't on there already. Maybe Jen's already waiting for him to step off the ice to address it.
God, Taylor's going to give him so much shit about it.
Practise finishes with no further incident and Sid muddles out a few interviews to keep up with his media obligations. By the time Sully brings Steve and a gaggle of staff around to the locker room, Sid's scrolling idly on his phone, waiting for the rest of the guys to finish up their showers.
The Penguins have a constant roster of interns across the organisation - marketing, security, legal… So it's no surprise for Sidney and the rest of the team when Steve makes to introduce the three new interns working with him in the trainers room. He's not so caught up in the whole professional athlete and all that so called fame to assume everyone automatically knows who he is. Besides, it's good manners.
What is surprising is that when they get to Sid, he finds himself looking straight down at an incredibly familiar face - a face doing her best to appear as nonchalant as possible.
The pony tailed girl from this morning smiles genially at Sid before giving a deceptively strong handshake.
"Nice to meet you, Mr Crosby. I'm Eimear, but call me Mirmir."
Sidney gives a firm squeeze back and barely tries to hide the amusement from his face. Just two hours ago this tiny whisp of a woman had sent a grown man careening to the ground with total disinterest, and now she was standing right in front of him, pretending as if she didn't know that he saw everything.
"Sid," he replies, tracking the twitch of her fingers. "I'm not quite old enough to be mistaken for my dad just yet."
"Nice to meet you then, Sid," she says politely, pulling her hand back. Sidney watches with fascination as her face remains guileless, large dark eyes carefully and intentionally wide and soft - the picture of innocence.
From across the room, Fleury's eyebrows start to rise.
"Alright fucker, spill the beans."
Sid's meticulously shredding the paper coaster, his fingers carefully peeling one continuous strip around and around the four edges. Kris left lunch early and Geno didn't bother, waving away the promise of lackluster Canadian beer. That means he's all alone and without protection when Fleury turns his full attention on him.
"I'm allergic to beans," he replies, refusing to look up. He's already on his second coaster.
Fleury rolls his eyes so far back at the half-hearted comeback Sid almost worries they'll pop out.
"You knew that intern from this morning," Fleury says. "How do you know her? Where do you know her? You don't know any girls."
Sid throws his coaster scraps at Fleury.
"Stop being condescending; that's a grown woman."
"You don't know any women either."
"I do too," Sid fires back and hoping he's keeping the whine out of his voice well enough.
"Women that aren't already associated with the Penguins, hockey, or Penguins hockey."
Sidney groans, yanks the cap of his hat down further. Fleury chews on his straw, the plastic creaking between his teeth. He stares at Sid over the top of his sunglasses.
"It's not what you think," Sid finally says.
"Oh, so you do know what I'm talking about."
"I'm not having some kind of solicitous romance with a woman a whole fucking decade younger than me, dumbass," he grunts. "I recognised her from this morning and got surprised."
"That's the girl who kicked the guy over?"
"She didn't kick him, she tripped him."
"Are you mad that she stole your thunder, fame, and glory?"
"What? No!"
"I'm just kidding, mon cher."
They fall into a weighted silence where Sidney busy's himself with brushing his coaster scraps ttogether. He takes his time to stack his finished plate and cuterly as well, attempting to stall as much as possible. The silence may be awkward, but goddamn if Sid says anything first.
"So…are you going to go say hi?" Flower asks with all the patience of a mother coaxing her child to join the rest of their kindergarden class at recess time.
"I already did."
Fleury gives him a look that has none of the previous patience. Sidney throws his hands up. He ends up scattering his neat, square pile of paper of coaster remains.
Goddamnit.
"Their intership is only a month-"
"Twelve games across four weeks with all the travel! You know we practically live in each other's pockets, all of us-"
"I only see Stu, you know that-"
"God forbid you make a friend with someone that may or may not end up being with us for a significant amount of time," Fleury snarks, exasperated fondness bleeding through. "It'll be good practise for you. Now wipe that pout from your face before there's another tweet about your bee stung lips and giant ass."
It doesn't matter that Sidney's well into his 30s now, none of his friends will pass up an opportunity to make a dig at his very male, very hockey biased friendship circle.
"Shut the fuck up," Sid's pout scrunches into a frown as he jabs his elbow into Fleury's ribs. "I know how to make friends. I have so many friends." It's true - he has a lot of contact details on his phone! And he's part of several group chats.
He doesn't want to know why Fleury's getting so into him about this new intern just because of a strange, straight out of fiction coincidence, but it doesn't matter because nothing about this is different to any other time they've had interns or new staff or whatever working with them, and nothing about Sidney's very carefully constructed, very routine life is going to change.
Absolutely nothing.