Being Girly for a Man (Steve)

[aa_valkyrie]

=NYC= Great Room - Ground Floor - Avengers Mansion
The Great Room at Avengers Mansion earns its place namely by its size: the dining facilities are rather expansive, and consolidate several different purposes in one area. Apart from the large dining area, there is also a sizable kitchen off one end, stock full of buffed metal and shiny appliances. An entertainment room is on the other, with a television that is almost /too/ big, and just about every entertainment and video game console known to man.

It's a nice, sunny day in the city, like most summer days. Steve has already spent several hours training and working out, and is now fresh from a shower and on a break of sorts in the Great Room. He's in a rare moment of casualness -- in actual /jeans/ with his button-down -- on the sofa, stretched out lengthwise and working his way thoughtfully through a worn paperback of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. (Looks like he finished Slaughterhouse-Five.)

Valkyrie has been, not uncommonly, absent for the morning and found in none of those places. A stack of beauty magazines, she must look her best, and broken implements of beauty clutter the floor of her room. Her make up is imperfect but attractive, lips coated with shiny gloss, and hair brushed till it shines. Clutching a back issue of Captain America: THE COMIC, she saunters into the Great Room showing more leg than an Olympic runner under her short, PINK mini-dress and silk scarf. Those gams are covered in thin scars from many a battle that seem incongruous with the stupidly tall sandals on her feet. "Captain," she...growls/croons.

Steve glances over, does a double-take, and promptly trains his gaze to Valkyrie's face and nothing else. "Valkyrie," he says, his voice a bit faint with -- well. Shock and confusion. "Um. Hi."

Pink, leather mini-dress at that. "What are you reading?" Valkryie simpers, striding over the couch with a swing of hips and perching on the edge of it. She bats her lashes, leaning close and offering a sweet smile.

"Um." Continuing in the same, baffled vein, Steve's voice is oddly questioning when he says, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater? Bruce got me a bunch of books by this author. Vonnegut."

"What's it about?" Leaning closer, Valkryie draws her fingers along the edge of the book and then retracts them. "It can't possibly be as interesting as this portrait of you that I have been reading."

"A rich man who gives up his life to go around spending his family's money on helping people," Steve says, still eyeing her a bit nervously. "So the family lawyer's trying to get him declared legally insane to get the money back." His gaze drops down to the comic book in her hand. "Oh, I never read those. Too strange."

"How noble." What could he possibly be nervous about? Valkyrie perches on the edge of the couch, sliding closer so that their hips touch. Those blonde lashes flutter, blunt fingered hands delicately opening the comic with a prim flick and turning to a -- admittedly rather charming portrait of CAPTAIN AMERICA. It takes up half the page, he is saying something about patriotism. "It is a good likeness," she purrs, complimentary-like.

Steve freezes up a bit when she starts touching. His gaze barely drops to the picture. "I'll take your word for it," he tells her, counter-complimentary? "Are those -- new clothes?"

"You have a very nice face. Strong. Admirable." It makes for good likenesses. She is terrifically good at compliments. "It is impressive it bears no scars for all the battle you've seen," Val adds with a smile, twirling a lock of hair around her fingers. "Do you like them, Captain?"

"Um." Steve edges away just slightly. "They're very -- different."

"Amora helped me pick them out," Val whispers with a hint of a growl. She edges closer. "Good different?" She places a hand against his shoulder, smiling as sweetly as a hawk might if it was inviting a doormouse to tea.

"Amora?" Steve's muscles coil with new attentiveness. "I didn't know you were -- friends with her."

"Mhmm." Valkyrie decides this is a good time to be sitting in Steve's lap and deposits herself there without preamble. Hello, Steve. "Oh, I would not say we are friends. I just met her on the street yesterday," she murmurs lazily, running her fingers along his shoulder. "You're so stiff."

"Uhm." Steve's nerves increase tenfold when he's actually presented with a Valkyrie in his /lap/. His hands lift in that awkward way of not knowing where to put them. "I'm just -- uhm -- you know -- maybe you should sit on the sofa. I can move."

"This is comfortable," Valkyrie assures, rubbing her fingers into his shoulders in a slow massage. "Captain, you really need to relax. All this tension will only hamper you in battle," she murmurs.

"I'm not this tense in battle," Steve says with wheezy, thin humor.

"Maybe I can help -- alleviate your tension," Val suggests, all bright eyes and warm intent. Her fingers dig in lightly, attempting that massage.

His shoulders are like rocks beneath her fingers. Tense rocks. "That's a -- very kind offer, ma'am, but it's really unnecessary," he tries to demur.

Val has strong hands. Rock squeezing strong hands. Grope-grope. "I only want to be of service to you, Captain."

"No, really," Steve insists in a rising voice. "There's no need. I'd really feel more comfortable if you sat on the sofa."

"I would like to do something for you, Captain," Valkyrie offers, looking at him with big blue eyes that are -- a little unfocused. She does shift off his lap, but not out of his personal space, still half-way draped across him.

There /is/ a certain response from his body, independent of his nerves and anxiety, that suggests her attentions are not /wholly/ unwelcome. "That's a very flattering offer," Steve says, "but I don't think it's wholly appropriate."

Hello Steve's body. Valkyrie gets -- a little more drapey, taking some advantages with their closeness without pushing things too far. She draws her face closer, just a slight dive and they might be kissing. "What would be appropriate?"

"Uhm," Steve says again. "You know. Not -- this." Edge edge. "It's just -- you know -- you're very beautiful and everything, ma'am, I just don't feel romantically about you."

"Oh, I /see,/" Valkyrie says with a breathy sigh, pouting a bit. "Is it because I am scarred from battle?" She does withdraw, folding her hands over her comic book.

"What?" Steve's brow furrows. "No, of course not. It's nothing--" He fidgets, now doubly uncomfortable to have hurt her feelings. "It's just that -- I'm still in love with someone. From back home."

While Valkyrie's features do portray a sort of hurt offense, it doesn't make it to her eyes which are flat and hazy. "Is she fair? Your love."

"Yeah," Steve says, voice a little quieter. "Yeah, she's beautiful." He finally starts to notice the strange haziness of her eyes, now that he's not being actively groped. His brow furrows as he studies them. "Valkyrie, are you all right?"

"You deserve a woman of such beauty," Valkyrie says softly and when her hand comes to rest on his shoulder this time, it is purely a sympathetic pat. There and gone. Canting her head to the side, she giggles softly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Steve reaches out to her face, but to still it for his inspection. "How long did you spend with Amora?" he questions next, a little more urgently.

Oh, Steve. How sweet. Valkyrie tips her face into his touch, smiling airily. "We...went shopping."

"Valkyrie," Steve says, all gentle reasonableness. "I think Amora's done something to you."

"I know. Don't I look pretty?" Tell Val she's pretty, Steve. "She said she would do no harm."

"Sometimes people lie," Steve says. "It sounds like Amora is one of those people." Frowning uncertainly, he says, "Who would know how to undo it? If she did something?"

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Steve?" Valkyrie flutters her lashes at him, smiling as sweetly as one of the girls in the old films. He isn't one of those people. "Mhm. I do not know, her magic is strange to me."

"Of course not," Steve says, entirely earnest through her continued attempts to flirt. Still frowning, he says, "Maybe we should talk to Thor."

"You are an estimable man." SIGH. Valkyrie smiles vacantly and nods her head. "Oh, Thor. He may know things."

"I'm going to go -- find him," Steve says, edging away from her once more to stand from the sofa. "Or -- contact him."

"Okay," Valkyrie agrees pleasantly, regarding him with a big smile. She opens her comic book to read.

Steve runs away. Without the actual running.

RUN AWAAAAY. Or walk briskly.

Valkyrie levels the weight of her new found charms on Steve. Poor Steve.