The next day, Steve sat up on the sofa and stretched. The sizzles and pops of bacon as well as the accompanying enticing aroma wafted into the living room from the kitchen and encouraged him off the soft cushions. He hadn't slept well, having stayed awake most of the night to prevent another nightmare.
Yawning, he shuffled to the kitchen and was greeted with a mug of steaming coffee and plate of bacon and crepes. "Oh wow," he said. "Thank you." Antoinette smiled and joined him at the table with a pot of blueberry reduction of some sort. They ate with the usual small chatter and shared the task of dish washing.
After breakfast, he took what would have been a quick shower if he had remembered how to use the knobs and plugs correctly. Eventually, he finished and changed before heading back to the living room.
When they sat in the living room, Steve wondered why something hadn't occurred to him earlier. "The other day, at the café, when the man grabbed you, why didn't you try to fight back?"
"I wasn't taught to," she answered easily.
"But I thought you were an agent?"
"I am- or I was," she said, turning to face him.
"But then-" he started before she interrupted him.
"I wasn't ever taught because Directeur Fury wanted me as a solo undercover agent. As little suspicion as possible. I was never supposed to be found out and even if I was found out, the danger wasn't that real of a threat. My enemies weren't exactly hands-on forces," she explained.
"He never taught you just in case?"
She shook her head, curling a lock of blonde hair around her finger.
"Well, now the danger is real. You need to know how to protect yourself." He stood in front of where she sat on the couch and watched her expression change ever so slightly as she thought.
"D'accord. And you are willing to teach me?" she asked, standing and taking a step toward him.
"Of course," he replied.
"One condition." She held up a finger with a smirk. "If I let you teach me, then you will learn to speak French."
He blinked in surprise. That was probably the last thing he had expected her to say. "Oh, um, sure," he agreed.
"If you intend to stay in our country, you must be able to speak some of our language. Do you know anything in French already?" she continued.
"Um, merci, bonjour, maintenant, soleil, français." His knowledge was extremely limited in this area but he was glad he at least knew something.
"Is that all you know?" she asked.
He nodded. He grew up in old-time Brooklyn where the best educations were gained in alleys. They didn't teach French in fist-fights. And his schooling had focused on other topics.
"Oh. It is something at least." She sat on the edge of the couch cushion and laced her fingers together, stretching each one in a sort of absent minded way.
"I'll start simple," he told her. "Stand up." She stood and he motioned for her to stand in front of him, gently turning her shoulders so her back was to him. "Just try to get away, alright?" He held his finger to her forehead in place of a gun and wrapped an arm around both of hers to hold her the way the assassins had two days previously.
She was still for a moment before going entirely limp and slipping right to the floor, rolling away. She popped up with a grin. " 'ow was that?"
"Good. Someone who is trying to hurt you would hold you tighter, so that trick might not always work," he explained, grabbing her again the same way. "Try again."
This time, she stomped on his foot. He gritted his teeth but kept his hold. She squirmed for a bit before taking the side of her foot to his shin and scraping downward. Normally, this would have hurt but she was only sock-footed so it had no effect. Her next tactic was to go limp again but he held her up until she got her feet under herself.
He could tell she was frustrated but he let her try. She struggled uselessly trying get an elbow in his ribs until she let out a huff of irritation and bit him in the shoulder. Hard. Immediately, he dropped her and stepped back. She stumbled out of his grasp, smiling triumphantly.
"Better. Could use some...refinement," he said, gritting his teeth.
"Battle is not refined," she retorted.
"Okay, let's try again."
"Non," she stated firmly.
"What?" He'd understood well enough but why was she telling him no? If she was held hostage again, she might be killed.
"Non," Antoinette repeated. "It means no."
"I know what it means," he said.
"Then why did you-"
"If you get caught again and your attacker doesn't hesitate, you'll die."
"No, I will not," she said, stretching her arms in front of her and curling her back gracefully.
"And how do you figure that when you can't escape?" he persisted.
"Because you will be there," she stated simply, letting her arms drop to her sides.
That caught him by surprise, and he hesitated in his answer. "I won't always be there. Try again."
She rolled her eyes and allowed herself to be held again. After a whole minute of absolutely no movement from her, he said, "Do something. An assassin won't wait. You'll be dead."
"I told you I will not do it," she retorted.
He waited another minute for her to try anything at all before saying "bang" with exasperated impatience and applying the smallest amount of pressure to her temple with his finger. He let her go and she twirled to sink onto the couch cushion.
"Has anyone ever told you you're extremely stubborn?" he snapped.
"Almost every day," she spat back.
He clenched his jaw. Difficult! That's all this girl could be! He'd tried playing nice, he'd tried being firm, he'd even tried ignoring her. Nothing worked! Insults just rolled off her or were returned with witty remarks. Questions were diverted, instructions were refused, demands were disobeyed. How could anyone possibly put up with her? She was a living, breathing nightmare!
He released a pent up breath and sank onto the other end of the sofa. "Alright then. You said I should learn French. We might as well start now."
A satisfied smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. "I will say a word and you repeat it back to me." She pointed at him. "Un homme."
"Un homme," he repeated. "What's it mean?"
"Man," she replied. She then pointed to herself. "Une femme."
He repeated after her each time, asking afterward what it meant. At the end of an hour, he had learned a handful of useful words including the colors, numbers, different foods and the time. When she announced that they were finished, he thought his head would burst. His thoughts swirled dangerously in a muddled puddle of foreign words.
He stood and stretched, avoiding hitting Antoinette in the head as she ducked under his arms.
"I was thinking I could go to the thêatre early to warm up before the others got there. There's no time afterward to practice so I would 'ave to go before." She called to him from the kitchen. He could hear her pouring a glass of water at the sink.
"That's fine. What time do you want to be there?"
"Um, around-" her voice was interrupted by a gasp and the sound of shattering glass on tile.
He rushed into the kitchen and found her on her knees beside a spreading pool of water and broken glass. She was trying to pick out some of the larger pieces but the sharp edges prevented much from being accomplished. He bent to his knees beside her and began clearing up the glass. "I'll get the glass, can you find a towel or something to wipe up the water?"
She nodded and tried to dump the shards from her hands to his. He wasn't watching what he was doing until she left the kitchen and he noticed that one of the larger shards was dripping scarlet into his palm. He didn't feel any pain so why was there blood? He realized it must be Antoinette's.
When she returned with the towel, he carefully threw away the glass he'd collected off the floor. Before she could bend to mop the water from the tile, he caught her wrist and turned her palm upward. In the center, a thin slice ran diagonally across her skin.
She ripped her hand away from him and bent, using her good hand to mop up the mess. Steve let her but left the kitchen and searched the bathroom closet for something he'd seen just earlier that morning. When he found it, he returned to the kitchen and offered to help her off the floor.
She refused his help, preferring instead to stand on her own. Why so stubborn? He was just trying to help, and she had to give him a hard time about it. He handed her the bandaid and left the kitchen, knowing she wouldn't want his help with anything more.
When she finally came back into the living room, this time with a plastic cup of water, she leaned against the wall near the window. "So what time did you want to be at the theatre?" he asked.
"One o'clock?" she answered softly without looking around at him.
"And practice starts at two?" he continued, standing to check the clock.
She nodded. "Now say it en Français."
"Um," he faltered, "Commence á deux?"
She giggled a little before stepping away from the window to face him. "Pratique commence á quatorze heures." She set her water on the endtable and stepped close to Steve.
He felt uncomfortable with her so close, but there was no room behind him to back up. He swallowed uneasily. The scent of lilacs and sweet peas reached his nose, an odd combination but it smelled pleasant. It must be her perfume, he thought. Something else...cinnamon?
Steve shook his head quickly to clear it. What was he thinking? He needed to focus on keeping her safe and he couldn't do that if he got distracted so easily by such flippant things. She gave him a curious look before backing off with a little twirl and heading for the bedroom to get her backpack.
He followed her down the hall, leaving several strides between them. Her invasion of his personal space had been awkward enough without having to repeat the scene. He stood at the doorway while she grabbed her bag and filled it with everything she would need.
For a tense moment, he couldn't remember where he had hidden his shield, but relaxed when it returned to his memory. The previous night, while Antoinette showered, he had hidden the shield behind the shelves in the closet. It was one of the last places she would purposefully look for something if she became suspicious, and not a spot to happen upon something accidentally. She couldn't know he was an avenger. The entire mission would fall apart.
They arrived at the theater and Steve cleared the building while Antoinette changed. She had said there was a room behind the stage she could use, so he waited for her when he'd finished. She left the room with her bag over one shoulder and led him down the center aisle of the auditorium. To the left was a door Steve hadn't seen before on any visit he'd made previously. The door was set away in the shadows, inconspicuous if you weren't looking for it.
They entered the back room and Antoinette set her bag on a chair. The room was spacious and relatively empty with the entire far wall covered in mirrors. He leaned in the doorway and watched as she set up what Tony had taught him was a portable Bluetooth speaker. It played music from what he could figure out, but other than that, it just emitted radio static whenever he tried to work it.
As she continued, he let his eyes rove over the room again. Rectangular with one doorway at each narrow end, one of which he stood by. The ceiling was low enough to feel sheltered but high enough to allow leaps and lifts and all that from the dancers.
He jumped when music began to play. It wasn't the music he expected to hear- classical or instrumental- instead, what he heard surprised him- some sort of modern rock or whatever it was called now. There was a strong beat keeping the tempo and some sort of wailing sound as the melody. He hid his cringe and tried to block out the noise.
A line of windows to his left set high in the wall shed bright sunshine into the room and made the dark hardwood floor appear to glow. Antoinette was stretching at the wall, eyes closed and expression focused, with one leg straight up and her forehead pressed to her knee. Was that even supposed to be possible?
The song changed to one that Steve had heard playing in Clint's room before. What was it called? Hey James, hey John, hey Jacob... It was something like that. When the chorus started, he remembered. "Hey Jude!" He hadn't meant to say it aloud but it sort of slipped out.
Antoinette uncoiled herself from her position on the floor and nodded with a slight laugh. "Oui, it is one of my favorites. Do you like The Beatles?"
"The what?" he asked. Beetles? Like the bugs?
"The Beatles? The band that wrote the song?" she continued, standing and rolling her shoulders.
"Oh, I'm not sure. I haven't really heard a lot of their songs I guess," he answered.
She tipped her head curiously before pulling her hair into a tight French braid and beginning to warm up. When the song ended, she changed the- what had Tony called it? A playing list? -to something more suited for dancing but still with a heavy, fast beat.
Steve watched her twirl and leap her way around the room to various songs. When a particular song came on, Antoinette froze and her face lit up. "J'adore cette chanson!" He tried to decipher what she'd said and came to the rocky conclusion that she liked the song. He wasn't sure; she could have said that she liked the chair, but he thought that was a little too off. She turned the volume up several intervals before doing a little circle of small but energetic jumps.
When the playlist ended, the majority of an hour had gone by and Antoinette was satisfied. He watched her pack away her music and end by stretching again. She stood and grabbed her bag before breezing past him and out the door. He followed closely, keeping an eye out for anything that might be suspicious in or near the building.
He endured another seven hours of classical music and giggling girls in tutus before he and Antoinette began their walk back to the apartment. She was silent most of the way and dropped immediately onto the couch when they were safely inside. Exhausted, she was out cold in seconds and snored lightly until she rolled onto her side. Steve draped a blanket over her before pulling up his chair and taking his usual post at the window. Before he knew it, he too was sound asleep.