Duty (An Armorer/Paladin Story)

I want to beat up everybody in Promotion

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. 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 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.