Duty (An Armorer/Paladin Story)

I was right. Marketing adored it and practically swooned when they found out that Steve had created it. PR's first inclination was to drool and use it in a press release, but then cooler heads prevailed as it was wondered if it might sound like Steve and I were a couple, and they weren't sure if that would be good or bad.

"Part of Captain America's appeal is that the public has never seen him with a woman not in a costume," one of the PR men told me. "He's kind of sexless, which makes him 'safe' for teen crushes and kind of above normal people. He functions much more as a symbol than the rest of the team, more of a symbol than a person, really. Besides, we have Stark as the sexy one. He can get away with screwing anything that moves because he's a billionaire and a man. We could never spin that for Romanov."

One of the Marketing women disagreed. "It could be a really good story if we gave him a girlfriend." She looked at me and flushed. "If he found himself a steady girlfriend," she corrected herself.

The man shook his head. "He's never going to have the white picket fence, 2.5 kids," he objected. "And no offense, Emma, we'd need somebody age appropriate."

The woman bristled. "He's almost a hundred years old. How's that going to work out?"

"You know what I mean," he said, scowling. "He looks young. We'd need something young and sexy, in a wholesome way. Why don't they start recruiting more women?" He studied me. "Well, her face is never seen, so we could probably work with that. Pad her costume in the butt and thighs; she's too androgynous. Get her one of those corset-type breastplates, she'd have the illusion of decent cleavage."

I left as they started to argue. The guy had one good point, though, and I hunted down Nick. When I asked why we didn't have more women on the team, he blinked and asked me to explain. "It is kind of a sausage fest," I said. "I met with Marketing and PR today"--he laughed--"and one of them pointed out that we should recruit some women."

Nick frowned and called up footage of the meeting. He laughed again, but he was serious when he told me that he had his eye out for likely candidates, but for some reason there were more men than women with mutations, and not all the qualified candidates wanted to superhero. Or supervillain, for that matter. I nodded; it wasn't my first career choice either.

I went back to work feeling decidedly disgruntled. There's nothing like a rabid marketing/PR team to make you feel like nothing more than a piece of meat. Later that day I had to fend off the costumers, who had been told I could use some help with my image.

"No, "I finally said. "I will not go out looking like a blow-up doll. I'm not going to have one of those stupid breastplates, and I'm sure as hell not going to pad anything!"

"But Emma, we pad Captain America's shoulders," Paul, our head costumer, complained.

"It's up to him to object to that, but my boobs won't be seen behind the breastplate, and I work hard to keep my figure. I'm not going to stuff my pants to look sexier." Paul followed me out of my workshop as I walked briskly toward the caf, hoping to shake him off. It didn't work, and he kept badgering me.

"You're not giving us anything to work with!" he wailed just outside the doors. He grabbed my arm to keep me in place, embarrassing me as a crowd from those entering and leaving the building stopped to listen. "Just look at you! Nobody can see your face, your costume is safe and boring, your figure is slight. Look at Widow! She's got a perfect sexy figure and isn't afraid to show it off! You should be more like her." I was torn between wanting to rip his face off and bursting into tears. I hadn't felt this bad about my body since I was a teenager, and I kind of hated him for it.

"You listen to me," I said as quietly as I could manage, my cheeks burning red. "I don't work in this circus so that some guy can look at a picture of me in a costume and jerk off. I do work that matters. You will make me the items I specify, exactly as I specify, or I will find somebody who will." I wanted to get Mr Pointy so bad. Instead, I pushed through the crowd and took a walk in the woods, Sigurd and Torburn hurrying to catch up. I'd lost my appetite.

I came back after dark, calmer, and made myself a sandwich in the kitchen before going down to hang out with Loki. He may be kind of evil, but he's no fool and he's a pretty keen observer, and I ended up telling him about the whole mess. It was kind of nice to talk to somebody about it how didn't have a stake in the game.

"I could talk to this Paul," he offered, and I laughed a little.

"Thanks, but no," I said. "If people don't stop bugging me, I'm just not going to play along anymore. I've taken direction. I had to scrap the comfortable chain mail because they didn't like it. It didn't 'fit my image.' Well, my image is what I say it is. If they won't take what I'm willing to give, I could call a press conference and have a public dialog about all this fuckery. I'm really tired of hearing that I'm not good enough. It's not just this afternoon, although this was the most I've heard this stuff at one time."

Loki smiled. "My dear Emma, you have the soul of an anarchist. You are lovely and much more than your appearance would suggest. Wear what you want." I wasn't sure it was a good idea to take image or career counseling from a god of chaos and trickery, but it helped to feel that somebody was on my side.

I was up early the next morning and got some work in before I had to report to Cap at the obstacle course. He let me go over the course in peace, but took me to task over my confrontation with Paul. "He's just trying to do his job," he said sternly. "It's not pleasant to have your body critiqued, I know, but you shouldn't have argued with him in public."

I wiped the sweat off my face with a towel and stared at him. "He made it public. His job is to provide me with clothing that will enable me to do my job. Functional clothing. It is not his place to comment on my appearance or how the clothing makes me look. And with all due respect, Captain America, when the doctors were classifying you as 4F, it was because your health problems and frail body didn't quality you to be enlisted. It had nothing to do with making you look like something that some guy wants to bang. And while your costumes are padded and give you an exaggerated masculine effect, there is the argument that the padding provides protection. The alterations to the costuming suggested for me have no practical purpose. Padding my boobs is strictly cosmetic." He looked frustrated. "All this came about because Marketing and PR were trying to decide whether to let it be known that you did the little drawing for me. They thought it might look like we were a couple and weren't sure if that was something they wanted to encourage. Then it was said that a big part of your appeal is that you're functionally sexless as Captain America."

I heard Tony laugh behind me. Steve looked pissed. "They like that," I say. "It makes you more a symbol than a person. Plus they have Tony for sex appeal."

"Did they really say that?" Steve wanted to know, his blue eyes glacial, as Tony said the same thing almost in unison but in a different tone.

"Yes," I said to Steve, then to Tony, "Actually, they said it was ok that you were a slut because you're rich and a man." Both of them looked pissed then, which was fine by me. Misery loves company. When Steve curtly told me to go up the rope to hit the bell at the top, I shinnied up most of the way, then inverted, kicking the bell (I'd seen it on an obstacle course race on TV), went hand over hand down the rope a little way, then dropped ten or twelve feet to the floor. Steve looked cross.

"That's not how you're supposed to do it," he lectured me.

"Then you should have been more specific. You told me to climb up and hit the bell."

Tony came in on my side, and then it degenerated into squabbling. I threw up my hands. "This isn't productive," I said, and stomped out to shower and go to work.

I took a late dinner, hoping that everybody would have cleared out, and was surprised when Natasha joined me. "Well, the boys are certainly in an uproar," she observed as she took a bite of salmon. I shrugged. "Cap and Stark went to Fury, so he had to pacify them, then the other boys wanted to know what was being said about them, so Fury had his hands full. He called the heads of Promotion into his office and told them that we weren't storylines to be manipulated and to stop objectifying us."

I snorted. "But that's kind of what they're being paid for. All that will have done is to make them mad and embarrassed, and they'll yell at their departments, and they'll be mad at me because I got this whole thing started. All that will change is that they won't be so up front around me."

Natasha shrugged. "It really doesn't bother me," she said frankly. "I was trained as a spy and assassin and how to use T&A for my own ends. But you're different, and it shouldn't matter what you look like."

"They should be grateful I don't wear a tent," I said testily. She laughed. "It's a sensitive topic for me. I was a beanpole through most of high school. It must come from my father's genes because my mom and grandma were both curvy. I hate feeling like I'm deficient." Natasha nodded. I changed the subject. "Actually, if they weren't being such jerks, I was going to ask about pants options. The leather was a bit much this summer. It wasn't pleasant to be sauteed in my own clothes."

"Linen would be nice," she agreed and I smiled. "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. If you need an alternative, let them know what you need. You still have veto power. They're not going to be able to make you go out in a swimsuit and boots." We both made faces at the thought. "Do your own designs. You could go full-on Spartan for the summer, with one of those war skirts. With an underskirt, of course. No point in flashing your panties. Maybe something more medieval-inspired for winter. Make them distinctive and unique and you'll find Promotions more willing to compromise, after Fury's talking-to." She had some good points, and I thought that if I struck while Promotions was chastened I would get more of what I wanted than if I waited until they regrouped.

That night I hit the internet. I'd thought about what Natasha had said, and she was right. It wouldn't hurt to bend a little, make everybody happy. On my terms. So I Googled armor and found some looks I liked, thinking a little outside the box, but I didn't want to make copies, and I'm no artist. I took a big gulp of pride and went to the rec room. No Steve, so with a certain amount of trepidation, went to his room. He came to the door at my knock, in jeans and (oh, this was priceless) a Hulk t-shirt. He casually crossed his arms over the image.

"I wanted to apologize for earlier," I said.

"I shouldn't have been so quick to judge," he said, sighing, then opened his door. It was the first time I'd been in his room. It was comfortable in a masculine way, with distressed leather upholstery on the Morris chairs, books, a record player with plenty of jazz albums as well as a more modern sound system. "Sometimes I'm not very good about putting myself in somebody else's shoes."

"I have an ulterior motive," I confessed, and he smiled.

"I thought you might," he said, gesturing to the papers I was carrying. I handed them over and explained what I was after. He pulled out a sketchbook and box of colored pencils. We worked together as he sketched and made changes, and by the end, he had some really great looks.

The next morning, I went to Marketing, to the woman I disliked least, and showed her the sketches.

The first was a summer look, with bronze armor that covered my torso, but the armor was flattened over my upper chest, providing some additional contouring. It covered essentially what a tank top would and left my shoulders and arms bare. Because of my work and the physical training, I had good muscle definition. The cape attached to the armor still, and I kept the helmet with the stiff horsehair crest. There was a linen skirt in a cobalt that matched the cape with a war skirt over top and plated boots that looked like greaves. I wasn't a field agent, so the armor was mostly for decoration. The lady cooed over the design and went on to the next, which was a look based on the look of the White Knight in Alice in Wonderland and had a helmet similar to the first one, only without a crest and with a triangular shape to the part that covered the forehead. There were tight pants underneath the intricate, chain mail skirt, and the cape was to be worn with it as well. The third was a long sleeved chain mail shirt with a hood that came down to my thighs almost like a minidress; it was to be worn with a bodysuit since you could see through it. The woman was so excited and called for a meeting immediately. I got up at once.

"Um, I'll want the drawings back," I said, and she nodded, smiling, then scanned them into her computer.

"The digital images will be more useful anyway," she said, handing them back.

That afternoon was the annual Halloween party in the lab complex; I was welcome, and wandered in and out like everybody else. There was a team meeting that I had to attend, so I took a break from the "Mad Scientist" themed extravaganza with reluctance.

"A few things to attend to," Nick said, smiling slightly. "Then you can all get back to what you were doing. First of all, Promotions wanted to apologize for yesterday's uproar. They will be working to change their culture."

"I feel a little left out," Bruce said mildly. "A little objectification would be good for my ego."

I grinned at him. "Be sure to let them know," I said. "I'm sure they'd be happy to outfit the Other Guy in a G-string." He blanched, and Natasha laughed in delight.

Nick got everybody calmed down again, and reported that there was a potential line on Night Terror down on the Yucatan peninsula; he was working on getting eyes and ears on them and we should be prepared to go on short notice.

"Finally, we have a rather...unusual request. Promotions would very much like us to do this, but it's up to you. The team has received an invitation to appear at Comic Con next summer," he said, and I felt my eyes go big.

"San Diego?" Peter said over Skype breathlessly, and Nick nodded.

"A panel appearance, autographs if you'd like to do it," he said. "And you'd be given passes for the rest of the event if you'd like to stay and explore."

"Oh, geeze, I'm dying," I said, fanning myself. "I'm so in." Peter was right behind me, and Scott thought it sounded like fun too. The others were more neutral, but the idea that there would be a whole lot of people in costumes more outlandish than ours was a big selling point, and everybody ended up agreeing to go, although Bruce just wanted to go and check it out. Nobody really wanted the Hulk to show up, so that was fine with everybody.

"Then I should also tell you that Promotions wants you all to have new costumes, specifically for the event," Nick said evilly, looking at me, and I shot him a look. I bet one of my new ones would work just fine. Then he dismissed us, and I went back to the party for awhile. Toward the end of the work day, somebody brought out a karoke machine and some hard cider that had been made in one of the labs. I was a little foggy when the party broke up and I ambled back to the caf for dinner. The dogs had had a good time too, lots of people to admire and play with them; they ate fast and headed home while I was still eating. Tony, Sam, and Steve joined me and Tony noticed immediately that I was tipsy. Sam teased me, and then it was time for the team party.

It was a lot like how we usually hung out, just with some decorations and streamers, and there were treats laid out, including caramel apples and gourmet chocolates from the pastry chef. It was fun and relaxing, and I went home feeling pretty mellow and happy.

On my door was another envelope labeled "Trick or Treat." The first page was a note, explaining that there were a couple of ideas for a ComicCon outfit based on more of a fantasy aesthetic. I looked at the designs, and I thought my eyes were going to pop out.