Steve

[aa_natasha]

http://aa.mudmagic.com/w/index.php/2012-08-15_Equipment_Testing
=NYC= Training Facilities - SHIELD HQ - Midtown

As gleaming and new as the rest of the headquarters, the training facilities are stocked with the latest in gym equipment, for both employee fitness and the odd scientific study of member health that might require some exercise.


The gym hasn't quite emptied out as much as -- set up in a safe area. The handful of SHIELD agents who might be utilizing the gym are instead ducked back towards the entrance to watch with interest as a certain supersoldier Captain attempts to work out the kinks in handling his new shield. He's managed not to /break/ anything, as he's being awfully careful, but there's no doubt that the shield doesn't move quite the way his old one did: attempting to ricochet it off anything usually ends up with it across the room and distinctly /not/ flying back home. Which is where it is right now, being frowned at from a distance by one Steve Rogers.

"You don't look happy," Natasha observes from the sidelines. She steps forward into his line of sight, arms folded over her tee and footsteps, as usual, silent. Her brows quirk. "You should tell Stark he's not quite the engineer his dad was. Just let me know so I can watch when you do."

"It's not his fault," Steve says with an automatic sense of loyalty. Tony did, after all, build him a shield. "It's the material, I guess. They don't really have any. When Howard gave me my shield, he said it was all the vibranium they had." He strides over to where his new shield has fallen and hoists it back onto his arm, frowning. "I'm just trying to get used to how it handles, and what I can do with it. Or can't." After a beat, he tells her, "I can't really throw it."

"Noticed," Natasha answers, matter-of-fact. She tracks Steve's steps, fixing on the shield for a moment, then adds, "Probably wouldn't expect it to handle the impact your other could, either."

"No," Steve agrees. "Tony said to be careful of it. It should handle handguns, he said, but probably not much beyond that." He doesn't look annoyed so much as forlorn. Look his old shield was really good.

"We'll get it back," Natasha says, and there is not a single millimeter of doubt in her voice. It's not hope; it's fact.

Steve looks back over at her with a faint smile that may hold a touch of gratitude in it for her conviction. "We will," he agrees. He cants his head. "How's Clint? You brought him back, right?"

Natasha doesn't hesitate often. Now, she does. It's a bare half second, but it's present, and it shows in the tilt of her head away from Steve's gaze and back toward that poor excuse for a replacement shield. "He's back," she confirms.

Steve nods, quiet and somehow comprehending of at least some small part of this hesitation. "It'll be good to have him," he says instead of asking any more questions about his well-being.

Natasha glances back at Steve, sharp and fast, and for a moment she studies him. Whatever she finds in his face must be acceptable, because her expression eases and her eyes light a touch as she nods. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, it will."

Steve glides a thumb along the edge of his shield, quiet and thoughtful. "Tony suggested I just hop over to Latveria and ask for my stuff back," he finally says, voice a bit wry. "We haven't gotten anything more specific, have we?"

Natasha shakes her head slightly, and her frown returns. "No," she says. "We don't have nearly enough intel on these guys. We thought Doom was a bit player until he walked into our labs with /robots/ and started manipulating our Chitauri collection."

"It's not that I'd never heard of Latveria," Steve says, somewhat baffled, "it's just that it -- you know, it was so small. Then again, they kept the Nazis out. But I guess this -- Doom -- wasn't involved back then." Come on that is a silly name.

"It /is/ so small," Natasha says, tone Romanov-dry. "Though." She tilts her head at him, considering. "Kept the Nazis /out/? As in, they wanted to get in?" Her fingers tap against her opposite elbow.

"The Nazis wanted to get everywhere, ma'am," Steve informs her soberly.

Natasha's expression turns the sort of patient that isn't, really. "Yes, but they were more forceful about it in certain directions."

"I suppose so," Steve says, brow furrowing slightly by her sudden focus. "But it wasn't particularly strange. Just in the midst of everywhere else they were invading."

"Mmm," Natasha says, and nothing more.

"But I guess this guy has made a lot of changes," Steve says, recircling back on subjects. "I've been trying to read up." On the glories of DOCTOR DOOM.

"Yeah?" Natasha twists a little, swinging her arms free and then back to catch her wrist in the circle of her fingers behind her back in a stretch. "Notice anything useful?"

"He sounds a bit crazy," Steve admits. This may or may not be useful.

"Most of them do, on paper," Natasha answers. Her lips quirk wryly as she adjusts her stretch, tugging at the opposite arm. "So do we, really."

With a faint smile, Steve says, "I don't usually feel very crazy."

"Super-soldier science experiment defeats Nazi alien technology, crash lands in the Arctic, hangs out frozen for a few decades," Natasha says, swinging her arms free and rolling her neck slowly before she pushes forward, hands finding the floor to balance as she points one toe toward the ceiling, then another. "Thaws out, joins a rag-tag team of superheroes just in time to stop another alien invasion." Her words still come easy. Maybe she's used to being upside down. She kicks her feet over, moving from handstand to walkover with ease. "Not crazy at all."

"The /situation/ is crazy," Steve agrees, watching her with professional appreciation for her acrobatic form. "But /I'm/ not."

"Your pysch profiles don't say so," Natasha agrees, wiping her hands and giving her shoulders a backwards roll.

Steve frowns a bit uneasily at the reminder, but he does not chafe so much at the idea as some. "We didn't really have those before," he says. "Not the way you do now, anyways. It all seems so -- thorough."

"Does it?" Natasha looks briefly, mildly amused for a moment. "SHIELD does like its paperwork." She sinks downward this time, working into a slow split with casual focus before she adds, "You're not in the army anymore. It's different."

"Yeah," Steve says, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, I know. I guess even if I were, it'd still be different."

"Everyone likes their paperwork these days." Natasha sounds disgruntled as she says it. She swings a leg around and flips upward with flair before finishing, "The world got more complicated, in a lot of ways. It's not always a good thing. Anyway. Who cares if we're crazy? We get the job done."

"That we do," Steve agrees with a hint of pride. He lifts a hand to run it through his hair, already slightly mussed with the workout. "Anyways. I should get going."

"See you around, Captain," Natasha answers with a nod, and then, as if she was just waiting for the freedom, she backflips across the floor toward a set of bars and falls into a gymnastics routine that makes good use of her flexibility and speed.
Steve tips his shield up just slightly in something of a quasi-salute, smiling faintly, and then heads out.
Slandering Doom. And Stark. So basically Tez.