Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing related to Marvel, either the comics, movies, TV shows, etc. All of that belongs to the Disney Corporation (though I might try kidnapping Captain America and Hawkeye some day, just for fun).
AN: Here's chapter 2! Have fun reading, and please be kind and review. Thanks!
Chapter 2: Out and About with the Captain:
The first thing I did when Cap and I got back to the apartment was open the little box Phil had passed on to me, a gift courtesy of Natasha. Cap refused to go clean up until he saw whatever it was Natasha had sent me, so I humored him and opened it as he watched.
Inside was a lovely silver-and-gold bracelet. It was rather thick, with a flat cord of gold and another of silver, twisting together until the two connected at a nickel-sized disk that had a star elegantly engraved on it. I loved it instantly, and Cap helped me clasp it on.
As I looked it over, I wondered if the bracelet had any hidden capabilities. It looked like a regular bracelet, but given that Natasha was a spy, I wondered if it might have the ability to shoot laser beams or have hidden gadgets, a la James Bond. Okay, probably not, but it was still a cool thought!
"Very nice," Cap commented, admiring the craftsmanship. "It looks expensive."
That made me pause. "It must be," I replied, picking up the box and looking to see where it had come from. Of course, there was no clue as to where it had been made. Natasha, it seemed, didn't want anyone to know where she was, except perhaps Director Fury.
"Well, wherever it's from, I'm definitely going to have to give her a big hug when I next see her," I muttered. "I'll also have to ask Phil when her birthday is, so I can get her something nice."
A small breeze caught my nose, and reminded me of something very important. "Ew, Cap!" I said, pushing at his shoulder. "Go shower! You may be a hero and have magic serum in you, but you still stink after working out!"
He laughed and went off to his room. Given the hour, I knew that I wouldn't see him again tonight, so I decided to go and make a very important phone call, one that I'd been putting off for far too long.
After my move to New York, followed by the invasion of earth, I'd only had enough time to leave brief messages on my parents' answering machine, as well as send off the occasional e-mail. Since my parents had been on a special anniversary trip during that whole crisis, it gave me a lot of breathing time, as well as the opportunity to put together a bunch of reassuring things to say to them when I did manage to speak to them live over the phone.
I had created a story about Doctor Isaac Jacobs, our trusted next door neighbor, having found me a prominent job at a government-run hospital in New York, where, I was helping a war veteran try and reintegrate into the world he'd left behind. Since my folks both liked Doc Jacobs, I figured they wouldn't object to my sudden change in lifestyle.
Of course, that wasn't the case, because things didn't go well from the start of my phone call.
First of all, my mother thought I was crazy for leaving the job I already had in order to move to New York. In her mind, New York was a place full of crime, murder, and now, alien invasions; therefore, it was very stupid of me to go live there. She wanted me to come back home right now, but given that I'd already been living with Cap for some time, it was way too late for that.
Dad, however, wished me luck, told me to do my best and work hard, and that if whatever I was doing fell through, I was welcome to move back home. He said that this was a good opportunity for me, and that I really needed to travel and 'broaden my horizons' before I got too old to do stuff like that. And just like any devoted father, he said that if I needed money, I could call him and he'd help me out. I gave my word, and promised to keep both him and Mom up-to-date on how things were going with my new city and job.
Obviously, I did not tell them that I was living with a man who happened to be Captain America. That would have caused them both to freak out, and possibly ended in a lot of yelling, since my parents would not have approved of my living with any man, much less a stranger in a strange city. Such a revelation would probably end in a surprise visit from my father, who would then try to strangle Cap with his bare hands.
Given the choice, I decided to keep this a major secret from them, at least for a while longer.
After my phone call home, I hit the sack and woke up in time for breakfast, which Cap always cooked. We always ate together, and decided how to spend our day over our bacon, eggs, juice, toast, and milk.
Today, as I consumed my meal, I decided it was time to take Cap clothes shopping. He probably would insist that it wasn't necessary, but if he wanted to really function in the world, he had to learn how to shop for clothes in today's malls and shopping centers, and get comfortable doing it. And with stores opening up again, it was the perfect time for our lesson.
Once the dishes were cleared and tucked into the sink (Cap still liked doing dishes by hand, as it gave him time to think), I cleared my throat. "Uh, Cap?" I tentatively said, getting his attention. "I think today's lesson will be taking place out in the city –namely at the mall."
He immediately saw where I was going with this, and frowned. "Adena-" he began, only for me to cut him off.
"I know, you don't want me to fuss around with your personal style choices," I said, stopping his protests. "But unless you plan on wearing the same shirts every day for the rest of your life, you need to know how to go out and shop for new ones. You also need a few necessities that every modern man has to have, and you need to be able to change fashions with the times."
Walking over to him, I put a hand on his shoulder. "This really is necessary, Cap," I gently told him. "Every man needs to shop for clothes at some point, and the experience has gotten a bit more complicated since your day. I'll be there to help you, and we can pick up some things I'm sure you want or need."
I fully expected him to argue, but after only a minute of hesitating, he sighed. "All right," he grudgingly muttered. "Let's go, before I change my mind."
So, after grabbing my purse and calling the CAR number on my phone to arrange a driver from SHIELD to take us (mercifully, the driver was now available), we were off.
Our driver was the same fellow from before Loki's attempted invasion, and he looked pretty happy to be back. It seemed that most SHIELD agents had been pulled back from their 'less important' jobs to help out after Loki left the planet in a mess, but now that things were calming down, it was back to work for them.
"Believe me, this is better than the paperwork they had me doing," our agent-driver told us on the ride to the mall. "And with the danger over with, I was getting antsy from being bored." Cap and I had to smile at that one.
Our first stop was the infamous New York Macy's. I'd always dreamed of shopping in two major stores in the world: Harrod's and Macy's. Since Harrod's was clearly out of the question, this was more than enough to keep me happy and help with today's lesson.
Since Macy's had been around since before Cap's time, he was vaguely familiar with it, but given all the changes to the world, he probably should have expected things to be different from what he remembered. And since this was my first visit to the infamous store, I was prepared to be surprised, awed, and excited about the whole trip. I'd heard that there were eight or ten floors to the building, and couldn't wait to see them all!
As soon as we got out of the car and stepped into the store, I was in shopping heaven. I adored shopping, and now I was here to teach my hero about it, all on the government's dime. It was basically a dream come true.
But even in my dream-filled daze, I let the cold splash of reality sink in. Men didn't normally like shopping (or at least my father and brother didn't), and Cap was already resistant to the whole thing. This reminded me that this trip wasn't all fun and games, but rather a serious business that needed to be done. And it was time to get started.
Looking up at Cap's face, I noted the expressions that lingered there. He was clearly overwhelmed, surprised, and apparently even a little intimidated. Seriously, the fact that he could take on alien invaders, but be scared of a shopping center, was rather funny. Still, I felt rather sorry for him, and reached out to take his hand in mine.
"It'll be okay," I told him. "I'll be right here, so don't worry. We'll get through it."
Cap nodded and allowed me to lead him to one of the store directories, so that we could find out where the men's department was. I located it on the map, and led him straight for the escalators, so that he could look at the different floors as we passed through them.
On our way to the escalators, it was clear that he didn't like the fragrance counters; the smells wafting through the air from them made me sneeze, and Cap hadn't like how the sales clerks kept offering to spray him with their sample bottles. One of the ladies was nice enough to offer one of the samples sprayed on a slip of paper, which Cap accepted out of politeness. He didn't like the scent, though, and tossed it into the nearest trash can.
The trip up to the men's department was shorter than I expected, probably because Cap dragged me all the way there as fast as he could. I guessed that he wanted this trip to end as quickly as possible, but I knew that shopping for clothes (for men or women) tended to take a while. Even my quickest trip took an hour, at least, depending on what I was looking for.
When we arrived, my poor charge was impressed and awed at the variety available. He recognized none of the brands, so as we started walking around, I pointed out the more expensive ones and told him that they sold the most luxurious and fine items. Cap took one look at a shirt from one of those brands and almost had his eyes fall out.
"How could this cost so much?" he complained, dropping the price tag as though it were on fire.
I explained about brand names, and how certain companies used only the best and most expensive materials to make their products. "People also pay a lot of money simply because of the brand," I told him, motioning from one section of the store to the other. "The more widely-known, fashionable, and respected the brand is, the more expensive it is. These also have famous people who love them, so that not only makes regular people respect them even more, but also drives their desire to buy even one single thing from that particular maker."
As with all men, Cap didn't hold much with fashion, so I decided to save the details of that lesson for later. Instead, I took his hand and pulled him towards the section that held casual clothes, my wallet and brain ready to do some serious retail battles.
Steve hated shopping –end of story.
Even in his own era, he'd disliked spending more than an hour in stores, buying clothes and shoes. Now, things were infinitely more complicated, and if Adena hadn't been with him, it could have been much worse.
He could hardly believe what was being charged for a simple shirt! Adena tried explaining brands and how people paid dearly just for the sake of wearing a certain brand of clothes, but it still confused him to no end. Why pay so much money just to say you had something made by a certain company? He could understand it with cars, but not clothes –certain car makers were renowned for their quality of vehicle, and people paid dearly for it. But with clothes, a shirt was a shirt, and shoes were shoes –that's all there was to it.
'Maybe if I think of clothes and their brands like I do cars, it'll make sense,' he reasoned as Adena led him away from the expensive, fancy clothing and towards the more casual ones.
Here, Steve found himself relaxing significantly. The shirts looked comfortable, looser in cut, and some seemed to be in a decent price range he could afford. Adena released the hold she had on his hand and told him to find whatever it was he wanted to try on.
It didn't take long for him to choose a few things off of the sales racks, but not long after they were in his hands, Adena was going through them, picking up shirts and holding them against him. "Checking to see which size you are," she explained, though he didn't understand why she bothered –they were his clothes, after all, and he generally knew what size he was.
In the end, though, Adena's insight proved useful. When Steve went to try on his selections, only about half of them fit, while the others were too small or too loose in areas he didn't like. He couldn't understand why this was so, but perhaps that was because, until now, a few SHIELD agents had been the ones to procure his clothing for him. He didn't know how they could have guessed his size, but given how long he had been unconscious after he'd been pulled from the ice, it was possible that they'd measured him so that they could clothe him.
That was before Adena had come into his life, however. With her to help guide him, Steve felt that it was probably time for him to find his own clothes.
And from now on, he would try and listen to her whenever she said she felt a shirt wouldn't look "right" on him.
It took a while, but Cap and I finally managed to find a good dozen shirts that looked good on him, and fit right.
Normally, I'd guess that he was a large or extra-large size, given his muscular form, but it was harder than I thought. Cap was broader in the shoulders, with a narrow waist, and that made shopping for shirts a bit more difficult. I finally managed to convince Cap that the addition of a belt would help with shirts that were only a little wide, and that a good seamstress or tailor could deal with the shirts that needed a bit more help.
When the last item had been purchased, I had to drag Cap all the way to the suit section. When he saw where we were heading, he tried to pull me away, saying that he didn't need it and that it would be a waste of money. I finally had to put my foot down, saying that every man needed a suit for when he had to go out to a party or nice restaurant, and that he was no exception.
"You are getting a suit, Cap," I told him firmly. "Every man has an outfit to wear to special occasions, and you're no exception. Now stop arguing and let's see what they can do for you."
He actually had the nerve to glare at me, but in the end, he did as I asked. The sales clerk took one look at Cap and got a very happy smile on his face –I figured he was either gay and thrilled at having a fine specimen like Cap at his disposal, or he was glad to have someone to fit a suit to. I didn't bother to guess which, because the clerk was very professional, and quickly had Cap measured out, without making things uncomfortable for anyone.
"Given his physical form, there are a limited number of suits we have on hand that he could try on and take home today, if he chose," the clerk informed us. "Those are of middle to slightly lower quality, a business-casual sort of thing. For something dressier and to impress others at social functions, we can do a custom suit specific to his form, as well as his hair and eye color."
Both the clerk and I studied Cap closely. "I think he should have one of each," I said, tapping my forefinger against my chin in thought. "Dark blue or black would look great on him, I think."
The clerk agreed, and pulled out a dark blue suit that was already made. "This is one of our better pieces," he said, holding out the material for me to touch. "Light, durable, and it breathes, so he'll be comfortable no matter what."
Cap tried it on, and when we found that it fit perfectly, I ordered the more expensive one to be made. While Cap was busy looking at his reflection in the three-way mirror, I had to glare at more than a few passing women, all of whom were checking out Cap behind his back. Some of them even looked like they wanted to come over and 'introduce themselves,' but after giving them death glares, they got the hint and stayed back –though several threw me glares of their own. Given how incredibly good he looked in the outfit, was it any wonder Cap was getting so much female attention? Seriously, if he decided to give up working for the government, he could easily go into the model industry, if he wanted to (which he wouldn't, given how humble he was).
For the fitted suit, we went with black, since everyone looked good in it, and settled on a date for it to be delivered to the apartment. Like with Cap's shirts, I paid with the pre-paid credit card provided by Director Fury, which still had a decent amount on it. The clerk thanked us for our business, and pointed us in the direction of dress shirts, which he knew Cap would need to wear under his suit.
"More shirts?" Cap asked in disbelief. "Don't I have enough?"
"Not dress shirts," I pointed out. He merely sighed and (grudgingly) went along with it.
Luckily, I had Cap's measurements written down, courtesy of the suit sales clerk, so all we had to do was pick up some pre-packaged shirts and a few ties. Cap picked out a few neutral colors (like white, black, and steel grey), while I handed him a few shirts in various shades of blue, to match his eyes. Yes, it's cheesy of me to say, but Cap had some very nice blue eyes, and he needed some shirts to make them stand out.
As for ties, I let him choose whatever he wanted, and was pleased with the black, grey, and blue ones he'd come up with. Once those were in the bag, I decided it was time for lunch, which we were both eager to get to.
You'd think that, after accepting and liking shawarma, Cap would be a bit more open to ethnic foods. Sadly, that wasn't so.
I finally decided to treat him like a child who was exploring their food options, and started with one of the most common foreign foods: Italian.
Today, it was pizza, since we were in New York, and everyone knows that, outside of Italy, New York has the best pizza places in the world. I asked our driver to take us to one of the most popular pizza places in the city, and ended up taking two different pies; one for me and Cap to share, and one for the driver, who had been kind enough to drive us everywhere.
After we had unloaded our purchases, Cap and I managed to lug our numerous bags up to the apartment with the help of one of the security guards in the lobby. To thank him, I let him have a slice of pizza, which he was very thankful for.
"I've got work until the evening shift, and it's a long while until my dinner time," the guard teased as he gulped down his slice. "Thanks, Miss."
Cap and I immediately set aside the bags to sort through later, and sat down to tuck into the pizza. It was plain, with only sauce and cheese, but boy was it good! Cap was an instant fan, and on that note, I mentioned noodles and pasta, which would be our next food lesson.
"The Chinese invented noodles; later on, the Italians brought it home and put their own spin on it," I said, grabbing another slice. "They used whatever was native to their lands, and made pasta."
Over the remainder of the pizza, I described the differences between noodles and pasta, and Chinese and Italian cooking. Almost against his will, Cap found himself interested in both types of food, and agreed to try them both.
Between the two of us, we demolished the pie and immediately opted for a break. Cap went to put away his new stuff while I went to compose an e-mail to my folks, and check my phone messages (I had turned it off so that I wouldn't be distracted while helping Cap). To my surprise, I had one new message, and it was from, of all people, Tony Stark.
"Hey, Adena," he cheerfully said on the message. "Sorry I haven't been in touch. Stuff has been kind of crazy, what with the city getting attacked and all, so I hope you'll forgive me."
I rolled my eyes as he continued. "Anyway, I talked it over with Pepper, and she decided that it would be a good thing for you to bring the Captain over for dinner tomorrow night. Bruce will be there, too, so it'll be a good gathering. Nothing fancy, just a casual meal and drinks with friends. Call me back and let me know if you guys can make it."
As the message ended with a click, I had to smile. Tomorrow, Cap would finally be able to get out and socialize with friends! It'd be a good experience for him, and could be a lot of fun.
But what was I going to get him to wear?
AN: Okay, so I have no experience with taking guys suit shopping –hopefully it was accurate, at least to a point. Thanks for reading, and please review?
