legionworld | It's one of those Ginger Rogers things

Entry tags:

It's one of those Ginger Rogers things

Who| North, America, and anyone else who gets drawn into the madness
What| An Exploration of Tactical (and Less-Than-Tactical) Footwear
Where| Legion World
Warnings/Notes| none currently, not expected to change but will amend as needed

[closed to America]

North is, by his nature, curious - even beyond the burned-in need to know his team and his terrain and what he can expect of both based on past behavior. Still, he tries not to be intrusive, especially on a team this size. Especially, he's coming to realize, after his last team had several problems he really isn't eager to repeat.

The thing is, America is an open book. She goes beyond not hiding where she's been and what she's done, she bares it, and in the face of everything about her that's bewildering or offputting, he only needs more to see the context behind it that makes everything clearer.

He isn't surprised that there is. Most people basically make sense, when you know where they're coming from. But he does see something on one of his curiosity-driven peeks through the opened sim room records of her world that brings him strolling up to her while her applied violence class is still setting up, an incredulous smirk barely lingering around his features.

"So- let me make sure I was seeing things correctly. Did your old uniform have heels?"

[training gym, sim room > open]

After that? At first he just wants to see how difficult it actually is. At least, that's what he tells himself. He can vaguely remember a time before the military, South once or twice trying the things and delivering a verdict not fit for print, but by that point they weren't exactly fitting in the same shoe size and he hadn't been inclined to track down a pair he could wedge into to either agree or prove her wrong. Now, getting a pair isn't an issue: the Anthramites whip up something in dark purple and chrome that looks about as tactically sleek as impractically high heels can wear, and even though he leaves them telling them that he really doesn't need a variant uniform to go with them, it's with the sinking feeling that they won't take that to heart. He dimly hopes that, at the very least, it won't involve a codpiece.

When just walking in the damn things is almost impossible, that's when he knows (or finally admits to himself) that being unable to even walk in a shoe that America can sprint five blocks and spring into a knee-kick wearing is an unacceptable imbalance in the unending competition between them. It's an ability that she has thoroughly mastered while he fails at even the basics, and it's just, just athletic enough that this cannot stand. So it becomes a fixture in his free time. First walking in them, then shooting, jogging, plans to program the sim room with increasingly more difficult terrain and more hostile targets.

It's nothing he's ever going to do in the field. But even if he's never going to need this on a mission, there's something satisfying in knowing that he can.

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Further arguments for just getting the damn eye replaced- he wouldn't walk face first into North when just trying to get to his own space of the gym while embroiled in his thoughts. Normally a collision is forehead to shoulder and it's deliberate. This?

This is face to tit. Which is irregular given that he's ninety percent sure North's got both feet on the ground. North's tall, got some leg to him- but not that much leg. Not nearly that much leg so. Assessment time.

He hits (the tits) and take a half step back, scrubbing at his face with a muttered apology and a look up (further than usual and what the hell even) to North. "Bro?"

Given in the universal timbre of 'What the fuck'? though a bit more polite.

"Woah-" It's a cautioning 'woah,' thankfully. On day one it probably would have been the kind of 'woah' that ends crashing into the floor, but North has his feet enough under him now to only sway gently, hand going out to catch Taylor's shoulder as he bounces off of his chest.

In the first few seconds, he doesn't realize what that look is for, and combined with Taylor walking right into him, it sends a look of concern flitting across his features. "You okay there?"

"Told D to quit covering my left for the day so I can remind myself why I want a bionic eye- why are you taller?" This will not stand. It's half a thought to hover, floating until he's eye to SHOULDER with North as he ought to be, rather than eye to areola.

Seriously.

"What are you doing-" His eye flicks down and- "Oh damn."

North's eyes follow the same path in easy unison, and about the same time that Taylor answers his own question, North remembers that, yeah. This isn't normal, is it.

"America can run guys down in these," he explains, like that's all the evidence either of them needs, lifting and turning a foot to show off the height of the heel. "Just walking's more of a workout than I expected."

"Those are nice-" Solid construction, can't be crazy comfortable because no heel is but, nice. "I bet they make your ass look great."

He's just gonna drift around North for a second to confirm- "Yep. Looks great. So this is part of your totally not flirting by competing thing you've got going on? Learning how to do shit in heels?"

Every now and then, America debates not laying out mats on the floor. She always does, though, because she'd probably lose her few students if she removed the minimum safety measures. Except for one member of the staff who, she suspects, enjoys the pain a little too much.

She pauses, glancing up at North. She's not one to wave, most Judges don't, but actually looking at him is as close to a greeting as she usually gives people. "North." And just what's that smirk abou-oh. Well.

Thankfully, her helmet hides the scrunching of her eyebrows, but the way her lips thin slightly is all too obvious. This is definitely teasing. Gentle mockery or something heavier? Either way, her tone is defensive. "Every now and then someone in Accounting forgets that heels are something our uniform suppliers like to slip in." Thankfully it hasn't happened for a few years. Someone must have gotten their ears pinned back after last time. "It happens on and off. Common wisdom for female Street Judges is that it's easier to learn to deal with it than learn the paperwork."

She shrugs. So, that's a yes. She cocks her head slightly, letting her small class trickle in and go through the usual pre-session routine. "Enjoying your time in the sim rooms, then?"

". . . thanks."

Not that unasked-for observations on his appearance have ever been off-limits, but there's a certain amount of straight man deadpan the observation demands, and that he would be personally remiss as a friend not to provide.

"It's more a matter of- you know." He lifts both hands, miming a scale listing one way and then the other, just barely off balance. "We're not going to be dead even on everything. But when she's that much better at something . . ."

And when he knows. And when she knows that he knows. That's when it becomes a point of leverage that can't be allowed to continue.

"What can I say. Sometimes after training I just want to see some high-octane crime fighting." And sometimes - even more often than that - he keeps being drawn back to this world that's absolutely nothing like his, and that he knows he would never want to step foot in, and that minute by minute of observation paints a clearer path to both America-as-she-is and her jackoff colleague who nearly started a brawl in the canteen not too long ago.

The teasing, bemused look fades out then, because even if she'd put it all out there, he knows that circumstances change. And as much as she might be unable to read his ribbing, he's not always sure about her prickliness. "You don't mind, do you?"

She snorts. What, their average Legion life wasn't high-octane enough? "I should start charging you for drinks and snacks, is what I'm hearing." 'High-octane', really. Like she was some kind of action vid star.

She pauses, turning to her class and reminding them to go back if they've forgotten their cups. Proper applications of daysticks today, and there had already been one unfortunate incident where someone hadn't taken her seriously. When she turns back to North, it's with a shrug. "Honestly, if you're getting something out of it and as long as you're not just watching me shower, I don't see a reason to mind."

America hesitates a beat. No, North isn't Tucker. She doubts she needs to preempt his programming steamy scenarios and that kind of teasing would be over the line.

"Besides, I've got nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not like wearing heels slowed me down any. Just meant my feet hurt at the end of the day." And, really, what part of her didn't hurt at the end of the day?

[Claire doesn't do training, really. Once was enough and she preferred to focus on the business side of things anyway.

It is, however, not a bad place for a little bit of Pilates. She arrives in her usual business attire with a gym bag and yoga mat over her shoulder. Normally, she wouldn't pay much attention from anyone else, but between North's garish color scheme and baby-giraffe-on-ice movements, she can't help but stop and stare.

And then sigh and shake her head.]

You need help.

It would be inaccurate to say the Chief knows North well, but he does know this is highly irregular. He pauses when the freelancer walks by, and looks pointedly from is face to his feet and back again.

There may be an expressionless mirrored visor between them, but the cant of his head is as clear as any raised eyebrow.

"You know, and she knows you know. And you know she knows that you know and it just itches under your skin a little till you feel it every time she walks by, huh?" God, if there were a clearer parallel to his flirtation with Carolina to make? He'd do it. At least the Law keeps anything too serious from going wrong here and they can actually be adults enough to be friends.

Otherwise, sheesh.

"You up to sprinting in those yet?"

Oof, daysticks. Even on the off chance he was going to quip about spying on anyone in the showers, the knowledge that America's about to walk them through the finer points of a good blunt-force beatdown tamps that urge down nicely. He gives a shake of his head, both rebuttal of the idea that he'd be spending his post-training hours peeping (and with Theta right there, no less) and disappointment in the entire situation.

"With the job you're doing, you'd think the supplier could keep footwear orders straight." That might be some bias showing through - so much as a manufacturing flaw in the undersuits of the armor that he and the other Freelancers wore, and things could go very wrong, very quickly. He can't imagine what kind of operational liability it is not to even be able to rely on having a decent pair of boots. "So what, do you just . . . train in them and everything?"

[Color-coding is a tough habit to break, and North's casually unselfconscious enough to not really care that he's walking a slow back-and-forth in his usual green-on-purple gym attire and the newly-crafted high-heeled battle boots. He's aware when he gains a spectator, but they usually either move on or make color commentary, and he doesn't really need to stop for them unless they decide on the latter. He glances over at the assessment, huffing a low laugh. She's blunt, and that at least he can appreciate.]

It's pretty obvious I'm a first-timer, huh?

There's something about getting looked up and down by a guy in armor that has to be taken either utterly seriously or without a shred of genuine giving a damn. And maybe it's the days of pointed looks and questions, or maybe it's just having a sense of the guy outside of the armor, but North just pauses with an amicable smile, tilting his head right back.

"What? Don't you know that variety's the key to a good fitness regimen?"

Got it in one, and North gives a nod of assent, huffing a non-laugh at the next question.

"Heck no. I'm up to walking at a fast clip and throwing a solid punch. Pretty sure I'm at least a week away from any kind of speed work."

Which is annoying, but not nearly as annoying as being sidelined with a sprain.

"Gimme like, fifteen minutes to get my own pair and we can work on vaulting." Yes, we, because he's got to get in on this action. Heels aren't as unfamiliar to him as they are to North but it A) has been awhile and B) he hasn't tried to fight in them yet.

At the shake of North's head, she just replies with a vicious little smile, like the shark that ate the canary.

"Someone always wants to make tweaks. Sometimes it's just zipper placement, but I heard tell of one 'sample' uniform with a built in AI. Supposedly tore itself off of the Judge wearing it and went on a killing spree to cut down on crimes against fashion." It was... probably just a rumor. Then again, it was Mega-City One. "But, you're right. Once we got to the point where heels were in stock, we just picked them up and started training in them. I knew a few who just requisitioned men's boots until the heels were phased out again, but then you got boot shortages." And, oh, Judges weren't supposed to let emotion creep in, but a little irritation was always good for your arrest numbers. Especially when you were dealing with a smug bitch who kept flaunting her nice, sensible flats.

Drokkers.

Still. Unimportant now. "I don't necessarily like them, but I could probably put on heels now and I wouldn't have a drop in performance." Flying could save on the pains, too. She pauses, waiting for a reply, then glances at the mats for a second. "Was there anything else?"

"Careful, there," he warns, voice an easy drawl. "If you let the Anthramites put heels on you, they start thinking a little bit further outside the box." He's learned that the difficult way, and is currently trying to dodge appointments for a fitting for a costume that, he has been assured, will be a bold and perfect new direction for his image.

[She scoffs lightly and gives him a look.] Obviously.

[He's like a baby deer. An antelope as fresh among the plains. She's seen tranquilized galimimus with more grace and stability.]

Listen, if you want, I could give you some pointers. I've been wearing heels since I was two. [Slight exaggeration, since back then it was simply the antics of a curious toddler, but she was a career business woman. She knew how to handle heels.]

A fashion police AI. If it weren't for Theta's automatic little ripple of discomfort at the thought of an AI going rogue and starting to mow down humans autonomously, he would probably laugh at that outright. It still gets a crooked grin, anyway, exactly because it is so slightly possible given when he knows of the place.

And then they're back to business. Which is fine - America takes her class seriously, which is honestly for the best given the subject material. And he guesses that, while he does have some serious color commentary on the entire subject, it's exactly the kind of chatter that falls flat when someone's in Job-To-Do mode.

"Eh, nothing important." He gives an easy shrug, nodding back toward the ranks. "See you after class?"

"A bit unconventional."

Not that unconventional is a bad thing, the Chief knows a lot about going unconventional. But...

"Why?"

Ridiculous heels as additional resistance (...or whatever it is someone's going to get out of that) just don't strike him as an idea someone gets on their own.

"They've already designed me a light up gown in shades of green, man. The heels will probably match them." He gives North a little wave before jogging out to get the shoes made. In roughly five minutes he's flying back, glowing green heels in hand. "Okay so I guess they'd already made the shoes. Sweet."

I guess it'd be pretty stupid to turn down a lesson from an expert.

[Standing still, he manages to fix his posture into something deceptively steady and upright, looking at his volunteer tutor properly for the first time. He's not usually too much of a stickler for their Legion names, but he remembers seeing her on the network, and some names just stick after they've made an impression in a different context.]

You're the Director, right?

"And here you just left them holding onto them. Tsk tsk." He steps closer, not very quickly but not exactly trying, either, huffing a half-laugh at the shoes in question. "Am I going to get the story behind the dress?"

"I told you why. Balance and lower body fine muscle control," he replies, still affably and transparently bullshitting, though he knows already that the man isn't a gullible rookie who'll buy any cheerfully-spun parcel of complete nonsense. Still, he gives it a second before shrugging and adding, like it's an afterthought, "-and I wanted to see how difficult it actually is."

"I asked a friend to go out dancing with me after a really rough mission, just to try and grab some normalcy. She didn't have anything to wear so I told them I needed a dress- and they made one for me without waiting for the details." It's not a bad dress either. "I still have to wear it sometime- it's not half bad."

"Blow everyone away at the next movie night," he suggests wryly, not entirely sure that York wouldn't. Sometimes it's still hard to anticipate how much or how little of a damn he is going to give about any particular thing on any particular day.

"Sure, if you come in your heels." He'll do it too, dress, heels, and everything. Sombra did say she wanted to see him all dressed up and he does owe her that much- if she shows up, she'll see him. So. Incentive for her to come out of her habitat.

Also it makes his legs look amazing.

"We gonna have a brisk footrace or what?"

"If that's where you want to start, sure." He leans on a weight rack, waiting patiently for York to gets his shoes on. He's not about to turn down a challenge, though he does look doubtfully at the shoes in question, then back up to York's face for confirmation. "When's the last time you wore shoes like that, anyway?"

Not since before Freelancer., he's almost entirely sure of that much. Almost.

"Casbah." Without missing a beat. "I can't remember where I got them but I had them for a few sets on the pole."

Ah, that leave is such a blur. And such a massive....blur. There'd been fun from what snippets he can remember but it's all a little mushed together save for a handful of details. Still. Shoes go on, he rolls his shoulders and adjusts to the shift of his center of gravity. "Okay. I'm good."

"We're doing a warm-up lap." No arguments, no questions - and off he goes, his usual ground-eating stride that much longer with a few more inches to traverse the distance. And when Taylor doesn't immediately fall flat on his face, he gets a sidelong, wry look.

"All right, you've lost all grounds for complaining about never hearing about my childhood." Germany feels normal, compared to this. "Where the heck did you learn to walk in these?"

York falls in step easily enough, keeping up at a fast clip. Jogging he ain't, but it's a solid start considering how long it's been since he had a few extra inches and no stability to show for it between him and the ground. "College."

A beat.

"Same time I learned pole dancing."

A longer, slightly more drawn out beat.

"...It was good for beer money and a solid core workout."

"Tch." He grins crookedly, looking back ahead of them. "Yeah, there's that quality college education."

It's nothing he's ever been jealous of; he's known since the day he enlisted that university never led to a path he wanted as much as the alternative that he and his sister carved out for themselves well over a decade ago. But ribbing York about it is always good for a grin at least.

"Call it an after hours phys ed credit." It's how he tried to spin it on his resume till he hopped over into the army. Things...fit better, there, once he got his head on straight. Of course it does get him thinking about a lot that came after. The squad. The Ambush. The Project.

And he wouldn't change much of anything leading up to meeting north. Not even the Ambush. "What, you never got a degree in Passive Aggressive Judgement?"

"Nah. No one really checks your credentials on that one as far as I can tell." He'd kept reading, and in the absence of the traditional uni education there had been digital courses here or there, compliments of the military of course. He still doesn't put it on par with whatever York studied that let him figure out how to pull apart whole security systems inside his brain. "I've been practicing without a license for awhile now and never been cited."

"I should get you a certificate. Or a badge- I think you're definitely up to a badge." No one really lands a 'you sure about that' quite like North. Makes a guy stop and think before jumping into the dumb thing and sometimes? Even keeps him from jumping. ON rare occasions he doesn't mention the dumb idea in the first place and leaves it to the recesses of his mind, the rest of the world safe from stupidity. It's kind of beautiful, actually.

"If Freelancer wasn't enough of a credentialing exam, I don't know what would be," he snorts, nothing but agreement. Sure, the Legion might have its share of nonsense, too, but he's sure that in a strict operatives-to-bullshit ratio, his last job wins hands-down.

Yes, I am. [She finds a place to set her bag and mat, since she's equipped enough right now to show him a few beginning tips. As she gets close, she holds her hand out in greeting.]

Claire Dearing. I don't believe we've officially met ... ?

Friends call me North.

[He meets the handshake firmly, with all the confidence he definitely doesn't have in these shoes.]

Nice to meet you.

"Shit, you're head Judge on that count. Maybe enough to have a fancy uniform like America." And isn't that just one more thing to be competative about- who looks better in the catsuit/gigantic shoulderpads department?

Nice to meet you too.

[Her handshake is firm as well, but not overly so, and then she gives just the slightest pushback to test his footing.]

North's spinning meets with a flat (albeit visor-obscured stare), which breaks (with a slight tilt of the Spartan's head) when he gives it up.

"Lifelong curiosity?" he asks, though it's clear he finds that unlikely. It's possible, but without provocation it seems like a weird experiment to do out of the blue. They're decorative things humanity invented centuries ago for reasons the Chief doesn't quite understand. They're obviously well within a person's capability to get around in, if ridiculous and detrimental to the effort. What is there to wonder about difficulty?

...It's also just a slow day on Legion World, if exceptional honesty comes into play here.

Edited 2017-08-02 05:06 (UTC)

"After class is fine with me." That's part of what she appreciates about him. He doesn't waste her time with an infinite amount of small talk when there's things to do.

As America nods and turns, it's like North ceases to exist. Her tone clips into something even more professional and commanding than her earlier words, and she starts up with a promise of pain for her trainees.

Fun times.

"Well, that's something that you don't see every day."

He supposes that he should get back into training. It's not that he's been avoiding anything like a gym since getting here, but he has absolutely been avoiding gyms. They are poor reminders of a different life. But, since he's here, and they're expecting him to do things like fight crime, he should probably do at least a little exercise, a tiny bit of training. See if this body holds up as well as the last one.

Of course that thought is derailed immediately when he arrives in the gym and there's a rather bulky looking man there wearing high heels and attempting to workout in them.

"Not that I'm one to complain but I'm fairly sure those aren't sanctioned workout clothing."

Getting asked the same question over and over - directly or indirectly - can get tedious. Unless, that is, you make your own fun. North steadies the punching bag he's been going at with one hand, looking back at the vaguely-familiar-by-way-of-the-network face. One of the newer guys, he's pretty sure.

He can't resist the temptation.

"Oh, you didn't hear?" He has a good poker face - brow furrowing just a touch in concern. "Legion-wide costume overhaul. PR wants us all in something a little sleeker, I guess."

Peter blinks at him, expression entirely nonplussed. "Well, that's stupid. What are we going to do if the zombie apocalypse happens? High heels are not great for running, although they do make my already excellent calves look fabulous."

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It's one of those Ginger Rogers things

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