Getting ready to suit up
I woke up feeling really good and content. Then I remembered what had happened yesterday and groaned. I had to stretch really gingerly, but I felt less sore than I had yesterday. Those guys. Double-teaming me with emotional appeals and facts.
How the hell did I end up as a hero? Shaking my head, I rolled out of bed, not disturbing the dogs in the slightest.
Waiting for me in the shop on the end of the bench was a cashmere sweater similar to the one I'd been wearing in the incident that had been ruined by bullet holes and blood, and a new La Perla bra, the sheer Windflower in dark blue. There had been a bullet hole in the band in the back of the one I'd been wearing. I didn't want to think about how Tony knew my bra size. We were going to have a talk about that. Or not, I thought, thinking about how that conversation could go.
Functionally, my day was going to be a loss. My current projects were all the kind that required me to physically form the pieces, and that wasn't going to happen until my ribs were better. On the plus side, I had a doctor's note excusing me from the obstacle course and calisthenics, too.
I did a bit of unnecessary cleaning, then looked up as I was getting ready to go to the meeting. I'd hoped there wouldn't be a fuss. Steve opened the door and came in. "You didn't need to come get me," I said, faintly chiding. "I was getting ready."
"I was in the area," he said easily, smiling. What area? There was just me and the other geeks out here. I smiled at him, not fooled a bit. He looked at the sweater and touched it. "Tony?" he asked, and I rolled my eyes. He grinned. "Nice. Sorry about ruining yours." He blushed when he saw the bra. I picked up my coat to divert attention. He held my coat with his good hand, helping me put it on. I took the good arm lightly.
"How's the shoulder?" I asked as we started up toward the meeting.
"Still sore, amazingly," he said, teasing me. "Even I'll take a few days to bounce back from this. You get a reprieve from the obstacle course for a few days."
"I get the reprieve until the doctor clears me," I said. "I have a note and everything."
"Careful, Grandma, you'll fall and break a hip," Tony said, coming up on my other side. "Can't fight evil in a walker."
"You'll be awfully sorry if the joints in your suit happen to freeze all at once," I threatened, and we bickered all the way to the building. Steve didn't try to referee, walking on with a slight smile on his face.
We weren't the first ones in the conference room, but nobody batted an eye when they saw me. They knew me pretty well. All except Scott. He came around the table to give me a big, careful hug. Then Nick got the meeting started, treating me exactly the same. I settled in to hear about Wanda's progress in treatment. Then there was an update about Natasha; she'd run into 'a little trouble' tracking down the mysterious Smith and was going to be delayed in her return. There were other odds and ends and intelligence to be shared, but no missions on the horizon. About halfway through the meeting, Bucky showed up, surveyed the room, moved Tony briskly to the side, and wheeled a chair around to sit beside me. Nick quashed Tony's protests and I smiled at Bucky, patting his arm, then turning my attention back to the briefing. The attack at the center was next up. I recommended that Tony check in with the geeks to see if they could replace the skylights with the special glass or if they'd have a better suggestion.
"We want to avoid them breaking and cutting people below," I said. "But I also don't know if the prospect of a big slab of material falling through is the best answer. It seems possible that the bad guys might have engineered the earlier trouble with the skylights to see how the team would react."
"They're in custody, right?" Bruce asked, and Nick affirmed this. Bucky reported the results of the interrogations, which was mainly that they'd been hired to take out as many of the team as possible and that Captain America was a specific target. They were among the remnants of HYDRA, but that was the only useful information they seemed to have. Like Night Terror, they'd been contracted through a series of dead drops. We kicked this information around until the meeting ended when a team from Promotions showed up.
Son of a gun. "Meeting's adjourned," Nick said, "except for you, Harrington." He smirked at me and left with most of the others. Bucky, Tony, and Steve stayed, possibly for moral support, but probably to prevent me from fleeing or yelling at the people from Promotions.
"Thank god you're back," the man from PR said briskly. "It's been difficult to respond to inquiries about you. We couldn't very well say you were on vacation."
"Why not?" asked Bucky.
"Because heroes don't get to take vacations," he said crisply. "The public likes to think of you as ever-vigilant. We'll be hinting at a transformative experience."
"Mr Stark has informed us of your change of persona," Marketing said. I looked around Bucky to Tony, who shrugged. "I have to say it will make our job much easier. When people hear of an armorer, they think of blacksmiths, big burly men. It made selling you difficult. As the Paladin--"
"Paladin?" Steve, Bucky and I said in chorus, and she nodded.
"It's an excellent image. A brave, chivalrous knight. It fits in with a generic Western European image and will enable you to continue to wear armor, which the public will expect. We've got a preliminary costume made up to start with; perhaps Mr Rogers will help design more costumes, both for appearances and for the field." She handed me a sketch; a wrap jacket, padded over the shoulders, that was secured with a wide belt like an obi, from the top of the hip to just under the breast, long sleeves, leather gloves, snug leather pants, knee-high leather boots with a modest two inch heel. The leather was dark gray and the fabric bright cobalt blue, continuing the association with The Armorer but morphing it. "Of course, we expect that gamers and LARPers will respond very favorably to this shift, and there will be lots of room for cosplay opportunities. What are your weapons? I understand you don't want them to be identified until they start showing up on YouTube, so we won't release them until then, but we need to plan ahead."
"I have a poleaxe and a couple of war fans."
She noted this down. "Send me pictures, please. Think about a sword. That would really fit your aesthetic. Weekend medievalists seem to pick it up easily enough. Have you named your weapons? That's a good branding opportunity, make them sound like legendary weapons."
I cleared my throat. "Uh, the poleaxe is Mr Pointy and the fans are Martha and DB."
The boys began to laugh as Marketing gave me an incredulous look and shook her head. "Their names lost in the mist of time..." she murmured as she wrote.
Costuming jumped in. "We were thinking about a fantasy-skewed look for you, that way you're not tied into a specific look and you can borrow elements from all over. However, the driving image will be elegant. And lethal. Elegantly lethal," he decided, nodding. I had nothing bad to say about that.
Marketing looked around. "I wish everybody hadn't left. We've also got to prepare for your ComicCon appearance. I don't think you all understand just how big this will be for you. Your main event will be a panel in Hall H, but there are also requests for individual Avengers to show up at other events and I would like to arrange a meet and greet venue for fans where you could just interact." She looked at Steve. "If individual Avengers don't want to be bothered with crafting their own images, we'll do it for them." It sounded like a threat. "But we need a cohesive look. I want you all to show up for Hall H in twists on your usual costumes. Something new and fresh, all in the same theme. Another costume for the meet and greet, and at least one costume apiece for the individual appearances. We'd like your assistance in crafting these images. We need to do it soon so that the costumes and any metal parts can be fabricated correctly." Steve dithered a bit, but when I whispered that this way he'd be able to control his costume better, he agreed to provide preliminary sketches. Tony started humming the theme to "Mr Rogers Neighborhood," and I cracked up. Steve and Bucky looked confused, and PR smirked a little.
We got to run away not long after that. Steve invited me to work with him on some costume ideas, and the other boys had other duties. We went to his room to get his sketch pad; he pulled it out of the bookcase and flipped through to an empty page, then flushed and put it back. "That one's full," he said, and produced a new one. Since the direction was for a mostly Western look that borrowed heavily from fantasy, the looks with the mail shirt and the white armor were in; the Spartan look was out although I planned to keep the helmet with the crest. For inspiration, we Googled women's fantasy armor, since that had been a specific direction.
"Um," I said.
"That doesn't look like.... uh....," he said hastily, and we moved on quickly from the image of mail panties, shoulder pads, and a couple of chains over the bare breasts.
We found a lot of inspiration that provided more coverage, and I set Steve up with a private Pinterest board that he could use to collect images for reference. After a leisurely lunch, we parted ways; I stopped by the shop to collect the replacement bra and sweater and the dogs, and we went home.
After a couple of days, I got the ok to resume training, and Steve ran the obstacle course with me, although he avoided the obstacles and I skipped the ones that required the most upper body effort. A little more time, and I was back to running the full course and Steve was working obstacles back in. I stalled halfway up the wall the first time back, and he went to give my leg a boost, but his hand slipped as I struggled. After that, he went over the wall first, prepared to give me a hand if needed.
One morning, we came in and I found a folder with new drawings in it. The first had the basic tight pants and boots in a dark blue gray, but for the top I had a modern or perhaps fantasy take on a fitted surcoat that wasn't worn over a shirt or armor and was sleeveless. It laced up the front, showing a good inch of skin all the way along, and a collar that showed when the hood was down. The fabric was the same blue gray of the pants but heavily embroidered in silver. The mask was a simple rectangle of fabric with an eyeslit and tied in the back. It was fiendishly stylish but also very dignified.
The second look was a more traditional suit of interesting, beautifully tooled leather armor, with gauntlets, a helmet with an intricate pierced visor to cover the face, my Asgard cape, trousers of some sort, boots, and a heavy blue cloth panel over the front and back of my legs, embroidered with a highly stylized iris. Steve had left a note about how it was impossible to make a pansy look appropriately martial.
I scanned them into the computer and sent them right off to Costuming and Marketing. Then I went back to the white armor. The box with the costumes had, conveniently, never been picked up.