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A week after The Great Exploding Potomac Incident—Natasha, as it turns out, will never call it “the time HYDRA took over SHIELD”, or anything similar; sometimes it’s “that time everyone tried to kill us” or “Sam Wilson: Exit, pursued by a helicarrier,” but usually it’s The Great Exploding Potomac Incident—Nat appears in his living room. Not at his door, but in his living room, curled up in a chair across from the one that Fury had sat in the week previous.
He is so tired of people he knows entering his apartment without asking. (To be fair, he’s actually just tired; but the fact that it is apparently impossible to secure a goddamn apartment is not helping his state of mind.)
“You’ve got a lot of mugs and plates for a guy who lives alone and never entertains,” she says, nodding her head toward the open shelves at the other end of the apartment; she doesn’t look up from her phone.
“Maybe you’re just not invited to my dinner parties,” he replies, and she rolls her eyes. She stands up, limbs unfolding from the chair. He just lifts his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to mention why she’s in his apartment. She lifts her brows back, waiting for him to ask. They stare at each other for about three seconds before he gets tired of it. I am eighty years too old for staring matches, he thinks, and then says it aloud. He thinks he’s starting to get Nat’s sense of humor, or at least the part of it that likes to make fun of his age.
That gets him a laugh, a laugh that he thinks might be one of Natasha’s real laughs, soft and a bit of a snort. “Shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“We just saved several million peoples’ lives and exposed a global government takeover attempt, and I get to testify before Congress in three days. We are goddamned going shoe-shopping.”
Before Steve knows it, and before he can say anything about why the hell do you want me shoe-shopping with you, Nat, this is so not what I’m good at, he’s in Natasha’s car and they’re zipping along the highway at a highly illegal speed. He doesn’t look at the dash because the part of him that cares about the law doesn’t want to know, and then curiosity wins over; he glances. It’s a digital dash. He dislikes the precision of it.
“97?” he says in his best Righteously Disapproving Captain America Voice.
“In honor of your upcoming birthday,” she quips. “And don’t pretend that you don’t love it. You’re the only one who sits back with his hands in his lap, happy as a clam.”
To be honest, he’s always liked fast cars.
“Is that miles per hour or kilometers? I was just thinking that some pigeons might have passed us.”
She snorts, and then grins and speeds up. He looks out the window, watching trees and other cars fly by, and leans back into the seat; in a strange way, the speed calms him down.
*****
“Don’t you want something a bit more… practical?” Natasha is holding a very high, very spiky shoe in her hands and looking at it as if evaluating whether or not it will be able to slice through a tomato without wrinkling the skin. He has to admit: The shoe is intimidating.
“I’m not here for perfunctory shoes. I’m here because we cancelled SHIELD and I have a retirement bonus to use up.”
"Wait, what, are we getting retirement bonuses?” That piques his interest.
“No.”
He sighs. “Cruel joke, Natasha. Very cruel.”
She shrugs. “A girl has to have her fun.”
He picks up a pair of gold gladiator sandals with a high stiletto heel; he guesses it at five inches. The open leather scrollwork goes to what must be knee height on most women. (He tries to ignore the fact that he guesses this primarily based on what he remembers of his leg length before the serum, back when he was the height of the average modern American woman.)
“Your taste is improving, Rogers,” Natasha says. She picks up the other half of the pair and gives it an exacting once-over; he almost expects the shoe to cringe under her gaze and start telling whatever secrets a shoe could have. She sets it back down.
“I grew up when the heels on women’s shoes where a bit less… knife-like,” he responds. He picks up a pair of leather oxfords with a Cuban heel. “Like this.”
“They’re thoroughly adorable,” she says. “I’m not looking for adorable. I’m looking for slaying shoes.”
“Slaying shoes? Can you actually turn these into knives?” He picks the gladiator sandal back up and scrutinizes it. Rumlow, back before The Great Exploding Potomac Incident, had told him to watch some of the Bond movies; he thinks that the Q Branch scenes may have affected him more than he thought.
"It was a metaphor. Although…” She joins him in scrutinizing the sandal. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“If you could pull the heel off and maybe have a little shank at the end…”
“They’d have to be platforms, good thick soles, so the metal doesn't stab through."
“Mmm. And how would you keep the heels from falling off?”
“Spring release clip, maybe? Easy to get off and on, but only if you press?”
They both stare at the shoe for another thirty seconds, and then Steve shakes his head and puts the shoe down.
“There’s no way that was healthy,” he says. “That was actually serious contemplation.”
"You’re in the wrong business for healthy,” she replies; she starts to wander off to another little island of shoes.
“You know,” he says, “I’m not sure I’m in business at all right now.” She pauses, looks up at the ceiling, contemplates; then she nods, as if to say fair enough.
He’s about to say something serious, something about What Are We Doing In This Job and What The Hell Happens Next and Jesus Christ My Best Friend Is Still Alive, when Nat gasps and then actually pounces, leaning over a stand to pick up a shoe. It’s a stiletto sandal again, very thin, black snakeskin; the heel strap is made of actual gold, heavy and solid, and is in the shape of a snake. It’s a ridiculous shoe, he thinks.
“It’s perfect,” she says, looking down at it in awe. She looks up at him, and bursts out laughing when she sees his face. This time, he knows it’s actual laughter.
He can’t help but join in, chuckling and shaking his head; he has to admit, he’s glad he’s been dragged out shopping for heels. It’s better than sitting in his apartment.
"I think that’s the least perfunctory shoe I’ve ever seen,” he says.
“Oh, Steve,” Natasha replies. “I need to introduce you to Alexander McQueen.”