NOTES: 30 Days of OTP challenge - Day 7 - cosplaying. Some of these are a little difficult, because they tend to involve greater-than-usual levels of fannish involvement. I had a horrible time with Day 10 'wearing animal ears'...
Second Place
So, you're basically cosplaying cosplayers, Stark noted when he heard about the mission.
Steve didn't know what that meant then.
He still not entirely sure he knows now, although he certainly has a better idea.
Try to stalk, Natasha advised as she helped him with the finer details of his outfit. Think of Fury in a bad mood.
Steve isn't sure he wants to think about Fury in a bad mood, but he stalks – or thinks he does. He's not very good at it.
"People do this for fun?" He mutters between poses with giggling girls in ridiculously short skirts and ridiculously colourful wigs, and guys who look too thin and skinny to be legal adults.
"As evidenced by your surroundings," says Natasha smoothly, her hair dyed dark brown and pulled back from her face. The mask hides her features, and the contacts colour her eyes. She's still distinctive, though. Steve doubts Natasha Romanoff could be anything but distinctive, no matter her disguise.
Certainly people are noticing her - she fills out her costume very well.
"We're sure Dixon's going to be here?"
She grins at his doubtful tones, her expressions more open in this persona, her accents broader and flatter."You're not doing this in vain," she assures him, and for a moment the mix of operational Black Widow, and her disguise of 'Leah Carrigy' is disorienting. "Maria says we've got a bead on him."
"I haven't seen her yet."
"She's in costume, too. You wouldn't recognise her."
Steve's a little miffed at that. He's still annoyed that Maria refused to issue him an earbud on the official channels. There'll be a lot of chatter; I need you focused.
"Attention at four o'clock," Natasha murmurs between photos. "Dixon's on the floor, talking to Maria."
Steve glances around, trying to look casual. It probably fails when he sees Maria. Dressed as Wonder Woman, in a red leather bodice embossed with gold and blue leather lappets that form a skirt, her hair loose and held back by a tiara, her wrists encased in wide silver cuffs.
Natasha chooses that moment to press against him, kittenish, her lips near his ear. "Eyes front, soldier." And her voice is the Black Widow's husky cool. "Trust Maria to deal with him; if she needs help, she'll signal and we'll move in."
He doesn't like it, but 'liking' was never in the mission directive, and this is work, even if it does involve dressing up.
Glowering is well within his character profile, so Steve crosses his arms and scowls for the cameras, while Natasha slinks like a good Catwoman should, and Maria chats up a guy who looks anything but a financier for international terrorism.
"Mission accomplished?" He asks later as Maria falls into step alongside him on their way to the elevator lobby.
"We got what we needed," she says with a distinctly dangerous smile and a sideways glance. "He's under observation now. If he makes contact, we'll know."
Then she grins, openly, broadly, at something that's more than merely the pleasure in a successful mission.
"What is it?"
"Apparently Stark decided that he'd enter the Iron Man look-alike contest in the main ballroom."
Stark's here as well? Or possibly just turned up on his own, out of boredom, curiousity, or the desire to make trouble. Through the annoyance, Steve figures he should just be glad that Stark didn't see him walking around in a Batman costume. "So he wiped the floor with the competition?"
Maria's eyes dance with laughter as she shakes her head. "He got second place."
fin