Hello, all! Once again, thank you so much for your support! I wasn't sure whether this story would be well-received, but your reviews and favorites are encouraging. To everybody who commented on Fluffy: yes, just as you had always secretly suspected, Clint really is just a big impressionable teddy bear. ;) Fear not, Fluffy will be included in upcoming chapters.
As you know, the entire team will eventually come together, but until then I'm going to keep in touch with each Avenger. This next entry is for any and all fans of Captain America (myself included)...
Entry #11: SHIELD [In Which Captain America Goes to Walmart]
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I said, 'Didn't Hill give you a list?'"
"No, actually… she just shoved me out the door and demanded that I be back by noon."
There was some grumbling and several naughty words on the other end of the line, and Steve cringed, holding the cell phone away from his ear slightly. He would have a talk to the director about morality and preserving the English language later. Now was obviously not a good time. "Well, I have a list on my desk," Nick finally grunted. "Try to remember everything. I'll read it off to you: eggs, rice milk—because I'm lactose intolerant—some Earth Balance butter-spread—the soy-free stuff, I'm allergic to that too; make sure you pay attention, or I'll have the sniffles for a week—iceberg lettuce, whole-grain bread, angel hair pasta—make sure it's angel hair—low sodium tomato sauce, Golden Delicious apples—don't get Fuji apples, those things taste like wet cardboard—cheerios, GoLean Crunch for Hill—I detest GoLean Crunch—some bacon—any brand will do—apples, bananas, artichoke hearts, Smucker's Strawberry Jam, organic peanut-butter—"
Nick rambled on, attaching his personal opinions to every other food item, and Captain Steve Rogers listened with growing dismay as the list grew. He ended with, "And please buy everything in mass quantities. As in, walk out with as much as you can reasonably carry. We have an entire government agency to feed."
"Yes Sir, Director Fury," Steve said weakly. "I'll be back in an hour."
"Good."
Flipping his cell phone shut, Steve pocketed the device and grabbed a cart, pushing it through the sliding doors and walking into Walmart. He took a deep breath and ran through his mental list once again. "Okay. Milk. At least I know what that is…" He had no idea what Nick had meant by "Earth Balance" or "GoLean Crunch", but he figured he would find everything else reasonably quickly.
The cereal aisle was easiest to find, and he scanned the list of names for anything that sounded remotely like what Nick had mentioned. Aha! GoLean Crunch. Into the basket went seven boxes of cereal. And the Cheerios. Those looked extra good, so he added two extra boxes of that.
He was about to leave the aisle when he noticed some bold letters out of the corner of his eye: FROOT LOOPS.
Blinking, he stopped the cart and stared for a moment.
Alright. Nick Fury had said nothing about "fruit loops," but he just had to get some of those.
One box landed in the shopping cart, and Steve continued perusing the various aisles. He had to ask employees for advice several different times, but finally found almost everything on his mental list. Except the Earth Balance butter-spread. There was none of that left, so he got some Earth Balance coconut-spread instead. Hopefully it would suffice.
By the end of his little adventure, he was lugging around four shopping carts and a basket, which earned him some priceless looks from the other shoppers.
It took over half an hour to check out, what with all the food Steve had in tow, and by the time he had loaded everything into SHIELD's enormous van, it was already 11:30.
He had half an hour to get back to headquarters.
Hope you enjoyed this entry! Review... ;)
~Alassiel