Captain America: Professional Best Friend

The Prank War

A few more months pass and spring arrives at the lodge. One evening when everyone is sitting outside enjoying the weather and eating sandwiches, Nat speaks up and asks, "You guys know what would be a lot of fun?"

"Not having to be stuck here?" Sam asks. "No offense Emma, this place is great, but we've  been here almost a year and I've only left the property a handful of times."

"Don't be such a sourpuss," Nat tells him. "Besides, what I have in mind is a lot better than sitting around here and training."

"And what may that be?"

"A prank war," she replies with a smirk.

"A prank war?" Steve asks curiously.

"That's what I said. You know, where everyone pulls pranks on one another? Oh that's right they probably didn't have stuff like this in the forties," Natasha says to Steve teasingly.

"Well considering I grew up in the Great Depression and then the actual war, Buck and I didn't have too much time for these so-called prank wars," he counters.

"And I grew up in the Red Room, we both have things to learn."

"Well, what did you have in mind for this prank war?" Emma asks. "Did you have any ideas, rules, and whatnot?"

Sam takes the opportunity to smart off, saying, "Well if she told you her idea it wouldn't be much of a prank now would it?"

"Oh shut up," Emma laughs.

After Sam and Emma finish their laughing, Nat speaks again, saying, "I mean some things to establish for this war could be that anything goes but no long-term harm can be inflicted, we'll all get a week to plan our prank, and everyone gets one trip into town with twenty bucks to get supplies if they need it."

"With the identity protecting tech of course," Steve says sternly.

"Of course," Nat nods. "Now, if no one has any more questions, prank war starts in a week. Good luck to you all, but I plan on winning."

"Oh those are fighting words, Romanoff," Sam laughs.

"You bet your ass they are," she says as she heads into the lodge for the night to start formulating a plan.

A few days later, Emma still hasn't come up with an idea for her prank and is going through the storage shed looking for something that would spark an idea. "Grammie used to craft all the time, there has got to be something I can use in here..." Emma mumbles to herself as she goes through a box.

Looking up at a shelving unit that holds more dust-covered boxes, Emma reaches up to try and get one down from a high-up shelf to start searching through it. When she does this though, a slightly smaller box that had been sitting on toit falls down in a flourish of dust. When Emma looks at the box that had fallen, she sees her great aunt's name scribbled on the top along with a rough drawing of the American flag.

The lid to the box had come slightly off and inside Emma can see some royal blue fabric. Curiosity gets the better of her and she opens the box to reveal a USO dancer's uniform from World War II. The same dancer's uniform that was worn in the Captain America stage show. Emma's jaw drops at the contents of the box and she whispers, "There's no freaking way..." While looking at the uniform though, a plan for a prank starts to make its way into her mind and she hopes the outfit will fit her.

After the initial shock wears off, Emma sits back and leans against the wall, remembering all those years back and one of her last conversations with Grammie. She had been telling her about Steve and some loose details of their work and Grammie told her she had a story about Steve but never got the chance to tell Emma before she passed. Maybe that was the story she was wanting to tell her... She smiles at the memory though and whispers, "Man I miss you Grammie..."