La Petite Fleur

Set

Steve pulled his bomber jacket closer around his torso and crossed his arms. His eyes drooped from lack of sleep, but try as he might, his brain wouldn't rest. It revolved and writhed over the file resting beside him- the file he'd read three times already. Every detail from every page swirled across his mind's eye as he stared at a point on the floor, not really seeing it, but seeing through it.

He rested his head back against the smooth metal of the Quinjet interior. The flight had been lengthy and turbulent but nothing he hadn't experienced before. The war had prepared him for things much worse than unpleasant flights. The image of Bucky falling from the train and down into the icy crevasse replayed itself over again as it had so many times before. The event he'd been least prepared for. The event that had unsettled him the most. Steve shook his head to clear the image of Bucky's terrified face. Not now, he told himself. He needed to focus.

"Captain Rogers?" The pilot's voice snapped him out of the nightmare and back to a nightmare of a different kind. "We're preparing for descent."

Steve nodded and stood, replacing the file into a backpack. He felt the Quinjet land and slung the backpack over his shoulder. As the pilot lowered the ramp, Steve reached under his seat to retrieve the duffel he'd stowed there for the flight. Walking off the ramp, he slung the duffel over his shoulder as well and set foot to the lush turf.

The sky above was covered by a blanket of charcoal grey clouds, hiding any stars that might have been seen above Paris. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower grazed the sky and stood watch over the quaint city. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair and brought with it the aroma of freshly baked bread. As the Quinjet took off again, Steve glanced at his watch; he'd already set it to Paris time so he was confused for a second when it read 4am.

He took a deep inhale of the night air before starting towards the address Fury had given him the previous day. The Director had told him that he would be staying in a small apartment in the city, walking distance from everywhere he might need to go. It wasn't far and Steve soon reached the front door. Classical music and voices conversing in rapid French seeped out a partially open window across the street. He stepped inside and locked the door behind himself.

A kitchen to his left was equipped with a stove, microwave, other essentials, and a small table that could comfortably fit two. No door separated the kitchen from the entryway in which he now stood. The entryway extended to a small hallway straight in front of him. Two doors to the right and one to the left that he assumed would be a bathroom and two bedrooms. To his right, the entryway opened to a living room with a sofa, coffee table, and radio and two windows facing the street, one facing the side.

He smiled; it was cozy. Just large enough for living in with no wasted space. He slid one of the living room windows open a couple inches and let the cool breeze swirl through the stale air of the apartment. He stepped down the hallway and opened the first door on the right. It revealed a bathroom just as he'd expected, but he didn't see a sink, just a shower and toilet. The next door on the right revealed a closet already housing a broom, mop, towels and linens, and cleaning supplies.

That leaves this door, he thought as he turned the knob to the door on the left. And sure enough, the door swung aside to reveal a bedroom. Two windows across from the door allowed the orange glow of streetlights to fall onto a plain mattress. There was no dresser, only a closet with shelves and a simple rod to hang from.

It was already so late that he didn't bother to sleep in the bedroom tonight and instead collapsed on the couch in the living room after getting a pillow out of the linen closet. He laid his bomber jacket over the back of the sofa and stretched out. He kicked off his shoes and pulled out the file again. Not that he needed to read it a fourth time, just that he felt more comfortable doing so. As an afterthought, he also unzipped his duffel and slid the shield out of its confines.

The brightly painted vibranium was a familiar sight, comforting and unsettling at the same time. It was one of the only things that had survived the crash into the frozen sea with him. After the battle of New York, it had been repainted so the scorch marks and nicks were erased. It looked new, fresh, like a hopeful rookie soldier having no idea what he was walking into. Steve's tired mind was sent reeling back to when he'd first acquired the shield in '43. Those five shots of anger Peggy had loosed on him when he'd asked what she thought.

Peggy.

Not a day went by without something that brought back a torrent of memories like a river swollen by spring floods. Most of those memories centered on Peggy. He sighed deeply, feeling all over again the pain he'd felt when the time he'd spent in the ice was finally explained to him. When it sank in that Peggy would have thought he was dead, his first reaction was to try to find her. And he did. With SHIELD's resources, he'd found her address and phone number, but he'd chickened out. He couldn't do it. After all these years, she must have learned to live without him in peace and if she found out he was alive... He didn't want to do that to her.

Steve read through the folder a fourth time without really reading it. His mind was absorbed in memories. Come on, Rogers, he told himself, Get with it; you have a mission to complete. He read through the file a fifth time, starting a sixth time but his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.