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deepspaceniner · 9 years ago

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Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Farewell, friends, Romans, countrymen! This is a general fic I wanted to write about the nature and weirdness of any scale of fame. One very specific part of it is dedicated, totally unironically, to this post. You’ll know when you see it. Thank you, radialarch, from the bottom of my heart, for being fanatical enough in your hatred to give me the inspiration to have the last word. Literally.

It reads:

CAP WANTS YOU — and that dumb photo of him pointing — TO GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY.

—

Captain Steve Rogers @SGR Take this down. My mother was an immigrant.

—

“You mean I— what?” Steve asked, baffled. “I don’t understand.”

“You have to take it down.”

“I’m not f— Miss Potts,” Steve said, and forced himself to sit back down again, very abruptly. “I’m not taking it down. And pardon me, but you’re not my manager. Or my agent. Or my secretary.”

“No, you’re right,” said Miss Potts. “I am none of those. But as a favor — as a friend, Steve, I’m asking you to take it down.”

“Miss Potts, please do not take this the wrong way—”

“I feel, somehow, that what you’re about to say to me is going to be offensive.“

“Miss Potts, ma’am, you’re a lovely woman, and I mean that.”

“Well, thank you,” she said.

“But I’ve known you for less than a week. We’re not friends, though I’d very much like us to be. And I’m not going to let prejudiced bigots put my face on their racist horseshit, pardon me, because it’ll make your life in this tower above the clouds easier.”

Miss Potts looked at him for so long that Steve was reminded in a visceral way of Colonel Phillips. He noticed after a moment the incredibly fine smile lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and where her deep red lipstick had bled just a bit into her foundation. “Captain Rogers,” she said, and sighed. She waved her hand. “Okay, fine,” she muttered, and sat down across him in the plush office, and kicked her heels off. Her toes were painted a deeply undignified neon pink.

“Steve,” Miss Potts said. “It’s not to make my life easier. It’s because they’re ready to go to court.”

“What?”

“Tony caught whispers. The rights to that image are protected under a common copyright law. Technically, legally, they can use your face wherever they want.”

“It’s my face!”

“No, it’s Captain America’s face. Steve,” said Miss Potts, gently: “Captain America doesn’t belong to you.”

Steve sat staring at her in mute, blank hurt; stricken, childishly, by the undiluted unfairness of his life.

“Oh,” said Steve. He looked at his hands for a moment, and appreciated that Miss Potts didn’t say anything. Then he said, “It’s been awfully nice of you two to let me stay while I was a little down and out. I’ll be moved out tonight.”

“Where will you go?” asked Miss Potts.

Steve shrugged. It was something Buck used to say to him, very grandly, out on the front: What do you want for dinner tonight? And Steve would sprawl in their tent, and in the same grand voice he would suggest the restaurant at— “The Plaza Hotel. They’re still here, aren’t they?”

“That’s one of the most expensive places in Manhattan.”

“Well, I’m one of the most expensive men in Manhattan.”

Miss Potts’ burgundy mouth tipped up. “Tony might have something to say to that.”

Steve stood. He held out his hand, and Miss Potts shook it with a strong grip that had nothing to prove. “Please at least think about removing it.”

“They’re not the first motherfuckers who have ever been after me,” Steve told her. “And they sure as shit won’t be the last. You start running…”

“A lawsuit of that magnitude could drain your accounts.”

Steve shrugged. “Wasn’t doing much with them anyway.”

Miss Potts smiled at him. Then, with her small hand still in his, she reached up and squeezed the roll of his shoulder.

—

“It’s catastrophizing the tiniest issue —“

Sitting in the middle of an unreasonably huge white bed, Steve frowned at his own picture on the television. He craned his neck to see his reflection in the mirror above the desk across the room. “My nose doesn’t look like that,” he muttered.

“That image is protected under common copyright law. Steve Rogers cannot force anyone to recall it.”

“Wolf,” said the young woman on the screen, “This country has spent the last sixty years putting Captain Rogers’ face on its legislation, its foreign and domestic policy, its anti-drug campaigns, you name it. Then — what I think happened is that then the man came back, and suddenly America has had to grapple with Captain Rogers being an actual individual. This shouldn’t be a legal issue. This should be an issue of treating a human being with basic respect and dignity.”

A banging on the door: Steve stood and crossed the white and gold suite and opened it to the bellboy, who rolled in the rest of Steve’s luggage. It wasn’t very much. “Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?” he asked.

Steve pulled a few hundreds out of his wallet and gave them to the man. “No,” he said, and then — “Actually, wait. There is something.”

The man stood for a moment, expectant.

“Two steaks, medium rare, and a bottle of — of something that goes good with two steaks, medium rare.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Do you have french fries?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fries. Two orders of fries.”

“I’ll have that up as soon as I can.”

“One more thing, sorry,” Steve said.

“Of course,” replied the man, but Steve didn’t know what else to ask for. He realized that by ordering two of everything it would seem as though he was waiting on someone, when really he wasn’t, and couldn’t be. “No, never mind,” he said, and added, “Thanks again.”

He shut and chained the door after the bellhop left. He turned back to CNN, but Wolf Blitzer had already moved on.

—

“Who’s that?”

“Wow,” said Stark, which was somewhere in the vicinity of the exact opposite of what Steve wanted to hear.

“I should know her,” Steve surmised, and mumbled: “Well, great.”

“Didn’t Pep give you a binder with names and faces? Did you not get prepped?”

“I got prepped, but it was — no, thank you —“ the waiter stared when Steve waved away the champagne, so he corrected, “Never mind, yeah, I’ll — thank you. Sorry.”

Stark looked at Steve very intently. Fuck it, Steve thought, and downed the drink in one gulp; then he put it back on the befuddled waiter’s tray, tipping an imaginary hat.

“Wow,” Stark repeated.

“You going to tell me her name or am I getting thrown to the wolves?” Steve asked.

“Look, I don’t ask this very often of — well, anyone, but I need to know; Cap,” Stark said, and tipped his red sunglasses down with one finger, squinting: “Are you okay?”

Steve almost laughed out loud. “Hey, Stark,” he said instead, “What’s the year?”

With epic slowness, Stark replied, “2011.”

Steve smiled.

“Stupid question gets a stupid answer,” Stark agreed, tipping his glasses back up. “Alright. I get it. Kim Kardashian.”

“What?”

“The girl. Kim Kardashian.”

“She’s awful pretty,” Steve said. Steve didn’t feel an particular lust for her, not even in that plunging gown: in light the last six months alone Steve felt like he had seen so many impossible things that nothing could surprise him anymore. The only real surprise he ever had was waking up each morning to an empty, luscious hotel room, and no Barnes to bother him. That would never stop being a surprise, Steve thought, for however long he happened to live.

Stark was scandalized, anyway.

“Is she an actress?” Steve asked.

“Hah, sort of,” Stark said. “Didn’t know you had it in you,” he added, in a way he probably thought was sly. But Steve knew that tone; Howard had one just like it.

Stark was starting to bore Steve now. Surprising himself, he wished for Romanoff to show up and steal the show in some low-backed dress to divert eyes off of Steve. Romanoff didn’t do those sorts of things outside of work, though, and she only saved him from press conferences, not benefits. And it was only once, anyway. Only once for Steve’s only almost-friend.

“See you, Stark,” Steve said.

“Well, if you’re going to insist,” Stark replied, but Steve had already pushed away from the wall.

There were photographers at the benefit tonight, paps dressed up in monkey suits, and Steve felt a couple zoom in and track him with their eyes while he made his way across the spacious hall to Kim Kardashian, who was probably some kind of movie star. Everyone here was a movie star. Hell, Steve thought — Aren’t I a movie star too?

“Hello, ma’am,” he said, and Kim Kardashian turned to face him, her mouth dropping open briefly in surprise. “Could I get you a drink?”

“Captain Rogers,” said Kim Kardashian. She had maybe the strangest voice Steve had ever heard, a nasally, sickish drawl. She offered out a hand. Her palm felt smooth and almost powdered. “Oh my God, it’s literally such an honor to meet you.”

“You as well, ma’am,” Steve said, though he had no idea who she was.

The photographers were snapping their photos while Kim Kardashian said, “You know what, I would love to get a drink with you and sit and talk? But,” she continued, in a way where each word was a question, “First, I have to ask — I ask everyone this — can I get a selfie?”

Cap And Kim K Take A Selfie In NYC, Steve imagined a headline tomorrow would read, and another one something like Kim K And SGR Getting Personal! “Why not?” he said, and Miss Kardashian pulled out her phone and swiped to the front facing camera and pouted her mouth in a confusing way. Steve grinned at his own image, annoyed as usual about the way the light hit his nose.

“That is amaaaaa-aazing,” said Miss Kardashian, her voice utterly flat. She saved the photo and slipped her phone away. “I’m having a cosmo.”

“She’s having a cosmo,” Steve told the bartender a moment later, and watched him mix something red and pink in a martini glass. It looked delicious and smelled like it could knock him on his ass. He carried it back with his second glass of champagne and handed it off to her. She was a baffling thing with all that makeup on: it took Steve a second to realize, but then he knew that her eyelashes just could not be real.

“Miss Kardashian —“

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” she told him, in her flat, drawly, nasally tone. “Call me Kim.”

“Kim, I have to be honest with you,” Steve said, and coughed, and spit it out: “I don’t know what it is you’re famous for, and Mr. Stark isn’t telling me.”

Kim Kardashian’s gaze went sharp and calculating. Steve knew there was a human being under there. “You really don’t know,” she said after a minute.

“Nope,” said Steve, apologetic.

“You’re not being mean?”

Steve felt like someone had dumped him in a bucket of ice, which was saying a lot for him. “What? Ma’am, of course not. I think I’m just —“ he laughed, shrugging. “I think I’m being punished for not really looking through the binder with the names and faces that Miss Potts gave me this morning.”

Kim Kardashian took pity on him. “Come with me,” she said.

She looped her hand through his elbow and steered him through the crowd with serious professionalism, still using that same voice she did before, and then suddenly the were at two doors, and then she pushed them open, and they stood on an empty balcony in the balmy summer night air.

“So you really don’t know what I’m famous for,” Kim Kardashian said, and she said it in a deeper voice with real inflection. In the moonlight she pushed her long straight black hair behind one shoulder, leaning on the rail and looking at him.

“You’re a movie star?” Steve hazarded. “You look like a movie star. I don’t know. Everyone here seems to be a movie star.”

Kim laughed. “You’re for real?” she said, disbelieving.

Steve shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kim looked out across the big green lawn for a moment, her drink in her hand. Then she looked back to him, her shoulders squared. “When I was twenty-six I made a sex tape with my boyfriend and when I dumped him he put it on the internet. My dad raised me to do business, so I turned it into a reality show and a retail store.” She looked at him. “You do know what a reality show is, right?”

“Know what it is?” Steve asked. “E! offered me three.”

Kim laughed out loud. “No fucking way,” she said.

“Yeah fuckin’ way,” Steve told her, and it made Kim laugh again.

“You’re a lot, I don’t know…” said Kim, sipping her drink, “Cooler than I thought you’d be.”

“Thanks,” said Steve dryly.

“So what’s your sob story?” Kim asked. Her brow was drawn in sympathy. “I heard about the poster thing.”

Steve looked at her for a moment and then shrugged. “My face doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

Kim’s mouth quirked up. “Sounds familiar.”

“You just — let people do this?” Steve asked. “Take your photos and put them on magazines and photoshop whatever they want onto them?”

“They already did the worst possible thing they could have done to me. Nothing will ever, ever, ever be worse than waking up to a call from my manager to hear about the sex tape, knowing that my whole family would see it, my mom, my little sisters…” she shrugged, but there was pain in her voice. “I know who I am. That’s all that matters.”

“One of my favorite people used to say that,” Steve managed.

Kim looked at him, and smiled. The summer breeze blew her hair across her face and she pushed it away with manicured hands. Then she said, in a joking way, “Do you want my official legal advice? My dad was a lawyer.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t take them to court. When you see things like that, just…tweet about it if you want, make sure people know that isn’t you, but don’t get involved in a legal battle and squander your money away. The stress just isn’t worth it.”

“I don’t think I was really going to take them to court anyway,” Steve confessed. “I know enough to know that libel and slander cases don’t usually get that far. And I’m…”

“Tired?”

“That obvious, huh?”

“You want some other advice? Totally not related to legal issues.”

“Go for it.”

“Fuck,” said Kim, “Everyone. Fuck everyone.”

“Fuck everyone,” said Steve. He laughed. “Yeah, okay.”

“Fuck what those haters say,” Kim added. “Fuck whatever bullshit they put your face on. They don’t know you. They’ve never even met you. You won’t ever know their names if you don’t want to. You,” said Kim, and gestured, “Are up here. They,” she gestured again, “Are way down there. They don’t matter. Tell people what you believe in, use your platform to do it, but if they don’t want to hear it —“

“Fuck ‘em.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Kim agreed, with a saccharine smile, and raised her glass and clinked it to his.

“Can I try your drink?” Steve asked.

“Swap,” Kim agreed, and they did.

“Jesus fuck.”

“It’s like, basically rubbing alcohol,” Kim admitted. “I think it might be an acquired taste.”

Steve wrinkled his nose and they traded back. “Can I ask you something?”

“Maybe.”

“Why do you talk in that godawful voice?”

Kim Kardashian shrugged. “Because that’s what they like to hear. Oh my God,” she said, in her nasally, affected drawl: “I’m just a dumb valley girl, right? I’m, like, so over it.”

Steve was laughing.

“Why do you talk in that godawful voice?” Kim asked him.

“What?” Steve said.

Kim said, in a deep and jingoistic tone, “One bond is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun.”

“How do you know that?” Steve didn’t think anyone watched those dumb films anymore.

 “I took a drama class in high school and it was one of the tongue-twister warm-ups. But seriously,” she said, “You don’t know when you’re doing it?”

Steve thought about that for a moment. “Not really,” he said. “When I’m — you know, the cameras, and people start asking me questions…it’s kind of just what comes out of my mouth.”

“Here’s a secret,” Kim said. She leaned close. Here eyes glittered under her heavy false lashes. “We’re all faking it. Every single person here. We’re all just putting on a show. But the trick is knowing when it’s fake. The trick is knowing the difference between who you are in that room and who you are when nobody’s looking.”

Steve was looking at his hands. He said, “I don’t think I know who I am when nobody’s looking. Or at least I don’t anymore.”

“You’ll figure it out,” said Kim, with a surety Steve himself didn’t even possess. “Promise.” Then she tilted a smile at him. “Come on,” she said, and looped her arm through his. “You need another drink. Let’s stick together all night and then see what the headlines say tomorrow.”

They strolled back into the main hall to the sound of the jazz band, likely looking terribly handsome together. Kim caught Stark staring from across the room and winked at him; Stark made a surprised face and turned away.

“Excuse me,” said a voice, and Kim and Steve turned to see a photographer. “Can I grab just one official portrait of the two of you?”

Steve looked at Kim; she was already pulling her hair over her should and looping Steve’s arm around her waist.

“Well, sure, son,” said Steve, aware now, at least, of the voice he was using. Kim smelled sugary and false, and Steve tried not to laugh out of sheer relief: finally he knew someone who was in on the joke, too.

“Just be sure you get our good sides,” Kim tittered.

The man snapped away. Kim tilted her body into Steve’s, and Steve clenched his jaw in a heroic fashion.

“Hey,” he said lowly. “That son of a bitch who did that, your ex. He isn’t here tonight, right?”

“Here?” Kim asked, and laughed. “No. God. Nobody even remembers his name.”

—

Kim and Cap: Steamy Manhattan Nights!

(People Magazine. 2011.)

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