Chapter Three: Rendezvous Girl
" I feel the sea inside me too big, too never-ending to speak ." -Xiaolu Guo
September 4, 2012
As Audrey Carter-Rogers fitted herself into a caterer's uniform and applied her SHIELD-specialty mask, on the other side of the Atlantic, Steve Rogers prepared for a very different mission.
"Uno," Darcy announced from across from him. Steve glanced down at his own combination of cards, four still remaining.
He still struggled to recall how, exactly, he'd been roped into this. One moment, he'd been eating scrambled eggs in his apartment; the next, Darcy was knocking on his door; and the next, he was being seated down across from the brunette at a table in the labs and handed a pile of cards.
While Steve was puzzled by how this series of events had come to fruition he did admit it was helping distract him from his stressing about Audrey. He had no reason to be worried-she was completely qualified, and he hadn't heard of anything going wrong. But distance from her for the first time was triggering a paternal protectiveness in him.
So in that sense, getting his ass kicked in this strange card game was sort of a positive experience.
"Can I fold?" he asked. "Is that allowed in this game?"
Darcy rolled her eyes. "No way, Captain. You have to suffer the humiliation of losing."
Steve blew out a breath, putting a card down. Darcy frowned, and drew another. "You really don't need to call me Captain," he assured her once again. "Steve is fine."
"I like Captain," she insisted, then shot him a wicked smile that he didn't quite understand. He put down another card. "Uno," she said again, throwing her card down on top of his.
"It sounds very formal, though," he said. "It's really not necessary."
"Eh," Darcy shrugged. Steve drew a card, and then set one down in the pile. Darcy threw down her last card. "Ha! I win."
"Very unexpected," he drawled, raising a brow at her antics. He liked Darcy-she was warm and inviting, and never tried to coddle him when it came to the unfamiliar. She just jumped into the deep in and pulled him in with her.
She gasped. "Was that sarcasm?" Darcy splayed a hand over her heart, seemingly scandalized. "Captain Rogers!" she cried. "That is not the American way."
Steve rolled his eyes at her playfully. "Yeah, yeah. Alright. Next time, I'll win."
"Who said there would be a next time?" Darcy challenged.
This gave Steve pause. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume."
Darcy shook her head and laughed. "I'm joking, Cap. Of course there'll be a next time. We can play Twister," she said with a wink.
"Twister?" he asked. "What's Twister?"
Darcy shrugged coquettishly. "I guess you'll have to find out."
Something about her words made Steve flush red.
An ocean away, Audrey did not recognize herself. The mask had altered her face entirely, and the caterer's uniform wasn't exactly what she had expected-nor was it anything she would willingly wear.
Every caterer Audrey had seen in her life had dressed in some variation of black pants and a white shirt. Julian Bardot, however, was not a fan of the typical . The outfits that had been sent over to her and Delphine were absurd-bright lavender jumpsuits. Sleeveless, yet collared. To be paired with the equally-ridiculous four-inch-heeled holographic boots sent over with the uniforms.
Audrey stared at herself in the mirror, pulling and pinching at the costume where it was too loose around her chest and too tight around her neck. She would've hated the entire getup-and she did hate most of it-but the jumpsuit was made from soft material, so at least it didn't rub against her skin uncomfortably.
Whatever her thoughts were on the ensemble, there was nothing to be done about it now. She and Delphine were already pouring champagne into flutes in the kitchen, where chefs rushed around, hurriedly preparing hors d'oeuvres. Audrey envied the male caterers, who had not been made to wear the jumpsuits, but were instead wearing monotone lavender tuxedos, which were the slightest bit less ridiculous.
Bardot had yet to make an appearance, although the party had begun a half-hour ago. Clint and Natasha had already scanned in outside, and Kate was in position to arrive at any minute.
"You two!" one of the managers snapped at them in French. Audrey jumped, nearly knocking over the precarious line of crystal champagne glasses. "It's busy out there, you need to be helping out!"
"Yes, sir," Delphine responded dutifully.
Audrey followed suit. "Yes, sir," she said.
She hoisted up her enormous tray of champagne glasses, balancing it against her palm and praying she wouldn't trip over her shoes.
Deep breath, Carter. Undercover had been Peggy's specialty. Audrey knew it could be done. She'd practiced and watched her mother do this constantly while growing up. How hard could it be?
It wasn't like she needed to spend much time talking, either. Her job was to walk around and offer champagne, looking pleasant but remaining untouchable.
Beyond the kitchen doors, people in expensive gowns and tuxedos mingled and laughed. A ten-piece string section was stationed to one side of the room, and a large, C-shaped couch at the other. Audrey smiled and nodded as the minutes passed and her tray grew lighter. Everything was in place for the mission to start, but their two key features were nowhere to be seen: their target and their arrow.
"Where's Kate?" Audrey mumbled into her comms unit.
"I've got eyes on her," Clint responded. "She's exiting the car now and coming inside."
"Sorry I took so long," Kate said through their comms. "I was trying to figure out how to hide arrows in this dress. Where's Bardot?"
Audrey scanned the room again for the billionaire, but saw nothing new. Beautiful women and handsome men filled the ballroom, but their host was still absent.
"He's not here," Audrey said through her teeth, smiling as she offered her tray to an elderly woman in elbow-length gloves. "At least, not yet."
"I see him," Natasha muttered. There was a hint of disgust in her voice. "He's currently yelling at one of his housekeepers."
"Aw, fuck that guy," Clint responded.
They continued to chatter as Audrey made her rounds through the ballroom, trying her best to ignore the way the boots pinched her toes. She caught sight of Kate chatting with an older man on the couch. He had his hand on her knee and she was laughing at whatever he was saying.
Delphine passed behind them on the couch, looking ridiculously good in her uniform. Her wavy hair was pulled back into a high ponytail. The uniform showed off her toned arms and it suited her petite frame. While the blonde was too long and awkward for the jumpsuit, Delphine managed to make it work.
"Excuse me, Darling," a man asked. Audrey jumped, swivelling around and nearly knocking all the champagne glasses off her tray. Before her was Bardot. He was tall, handsome, and well built with dark hair and dark eyes. While everyone at the party was dressed to the nines in colorful outfits, he was clad in a classic black suit with a white shirt and a bow tie. "Do you mind if I grab a glass?"
"Of course," Audrey responded. She held the tray out to him.
Bardot grabbed a flute of champagne, offering her an expression somewhere between a sneer and a smirk. There was something undoubtedly smarmy about him. Almost greasy. The intensity of his gaze almost made Audrey want to shower.
Audrey watched him disappear into the crowd, greeting people as he went. When her tray was empty, she returned to the kitchen to refill. Delphine followed her, pulling her aside.
"He's about to give a toast," she murmured, voice low. "After, food will be moving. I'll grab his keys and pass them to you."
"Got it," she responded. After replacing her empty tray with a full one, she swept back out of the kitchen. Bardot was already stepping up onto an expensive looking coffee table and raising a glass of champagne.
"Excuse me, everyone," he said. "I'd like to make a toast, if you would all raise your glasses. Or if you don't have one, there's a pretty blonde with a tray of champagne," he said, pointing straight at Audrey. She froze for a minute, certain that it was bad news if he had not only noticed her, but brought the entire party's focus to her.
Keep it together. She offered a charming smile and made her way through the room as Bardot continued with his speech.
"The launch of the DotPhone has been a long and difficult process. It's involved collaboration, creativity, and a lot of late nights trying to tweak the minute details of the device to make the best possible product. I have faith that…" he went on, and Audrey zoned out as he offered empty gratitude to the guests.
There was a faint thud from above them that shook the chandelier the slightest bit. Audrey surveyed the room, but everyone else seemed enraptured by Bardot's words.
A few seconds after the thud, a Natasha's voice came through the comms set. "We've cleared the path to the lab," she announced.
Audrey turned away from the crowd and mumbled, "I could hear that."
"I told you we should've used the darts," Clint announced. "I was right."
"Shut up, Barton, and help me move him," Natasha replied, and then the audio cut off. As Bardot finished his speech and waiters rushed out of the kitchen with food, Audrey stepped back, trying to hide behind the large cactus in the ballroom as inconspicuously as possible. She caught sight of Kate across the room, hugging Bardot and grinning sweetly. She chattered on, leaning close to him, and grabbing something from inside his coat.
"Shit," Clint swore through the comms. "Carter, minor update. There's a fingerprint lock on the door."
Audrey tensed. They'd prepared for audio recognition, facial recognition, picking the lock, and hacking the system remotely. But they'd ignored the possibility of a fingerprint detector. Why did we do that? she asked herself. But then, the answer: fingerprint technology had been mostly phased out of security systems for being too vulnerable. Fingerprints were too easy to fake because they could be found anywhere.
Okay. Okay, Audrey could work with that. She sped across the ballroom, doing her best not to send the glasses on her tray shattering.
"Monsieur," she asked quietly. "Would you like me to take that glass for you?"
"Thank you, beautiful," he said, smiling in a way that made Audrey's stomach churn. Gross. She took his glass and smiled sweetly in return, before sweeping back into the kitchen.
With the food mostly prepared and the kitchen empty of servers, it was harder to hide in the chaos. Audrey abandoned the champagne tray on the counter, save for Bardot's glass. With the flute in her left hand, she began throwing drawers and cabinets open in search of tape. Every kitchen had a junk drawer, in Audrey's experience. Even billionaires who didn't cook for themselves had junk drawers.
The slightly bigger problem with this plan was the sheer enormity of the kitchen. Which was to say, it was bigger than her apartment. She would not have time to go through every single drawer and cabinet in search of scotch tape.
After a quick survey of the room, she found it: a landline. It would make sense for a notepad to be by the phone to take messages, and a notepad would usually be stored with-
Tape.
"Gotcha," she mumbled to herself.
There was a loud crash as something shattered on the other side of the kitchen. " Who put a tray here?" a chef shouted.
Audrey grimaced and slipped out through the service entrance, which spat her straight out into a kitchen. She tore a piece of tape off the dispenser with her teeth, being careful not to let her own fingers touch the piece of tape. Carefully, she pressed it to the glass, where three of Bardot's fingers were imprinted.
When she had the tape set, Audrey pressed the button on her earpiece. "Delphine, can you meet me outside the kitchen?"
"Got it," she replied.
The thirty seconds she spent waiting felt like an absolute eternity. Audrey started tearing off the hangnail on her thumb to keep from getting too anxious. Deep breath. You're almost done. All she needed to do was get into the lab, and then she would be ready.
"Hey," Delphine greeted quietly. The blonde jumped, shaking herself back into reality. "You okay?" Delphine asked, passing a keycard into Audrey's hand. Her thumb brushed the knuckle of Audrey's pinkie, and the blonde did her best not to jump at that, too.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm okay," she said.
There was another large crash in the kitchen. " Who keeps leaving trays here?" someone shouted.
"I should go back and handle that," Delphine said. "Good luck, Carter." She winked, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Audrey took a deep breath, pushing all thoughts of Delphine's hands or the anxiety of failing aside, and focusing on the mission ahead: get into the lab.
She climbed up the service stairway to the mansion's third floor, which was desolate compared to the rest of the house. Without the pressure of being watched by so many people, she was able to more fully appreciate how gorgeous the house was. The hallway she landed in was framed by clay, Roman busts. The windows opened out into an extravagant garden. The walls were adorned with Baroque paintings.
"Finally," Clint called at her from down the hall. "You say you got something?"
Audrey nodded, holding up her piece of tape. "I hope so."
"We'll see," Natasha said, her arms folded across her chest and her face blank. Audrey swiped the keycard through the lock and then pressed the piece of tape against the screen when prompted.
A beat. Audrey held her breath. Please work.
The door clicked, and the glass slid open.
"Thank god," she mumbled. "Are you going back downstairs?"
"I am. He's staying," Natasha said. "He'll be stationed by the elevator in case anyone comes up."
With that, Natasha let the door slide shut. Audrey pulled out a pair of gloves that she'd kept stashed in her boot and started looking through the lab. Unlike Tony or Jane, it was kept completely pristine. Several large notebooks were stacked neatly atop the large wooden table. Audrey skimmed through them, but found nothing but business plans.
She started rifling through the desk, finding, to her delight, that Bardot's files were arranged alphabetically. Audrey thumbed through them until she reached the C s. Chitauri.
Pulling the file out, Audrey started skimming through its contents. Product plans, transactional records, contact information. The transactional sheets were all watermarked with something called DIVUS Industries. Pulling out her screener, she scanned and saved the contents of each document, before carefully replacing the folder.
Audrey kicked the drawer shut and exhaled. She had the intel. All she needed to do was get out.
"Got it, Clint," she said. "What now?"
Nothing.
"Barton? Do you copy?"
Nothing.
Audrey's pulse picked up speed as she raced through the possible explanations. They'd been caught. Their mission had been compromised. Clint had been knocked out and Bardot's actual security guards were headed towards her and bound to arrive at any second.
There was a crackle of audio. "Bardot's ex-wife showed up," Clint grunted. "She's throwing things at his new wife. All security got called downstairs."
"Oh. Okay," Audrey said. She sucked in a breath, surveying the lab to make sure it didn't look as if it had been messed with. Bardot was a terrible person, she knew, but she loved the feel of the lab: the books on the shelves were arranged by height. All the furniture had right angles and fit together nicely. Not the time , she reminded herself. She started to head for the door of the lab, but stopped in her tracks when she realized someone was waiting for her at the threshold. He looked like he was still in his teens, with neatly combed dark hair. He stared straight at her.
"You're not supposed to be up here."
A/N: Thank you for reading! Please leave a review :)
REVIEW REPLIES:
Purplestan: thank you!
Emilia Christine: thank you! I love writing audrey and delphine and there's even more of them coming up! i'm so glad that you're excited about the original mission because i'm having such a good time writing it
Estel Ashlee Snape: thank you so much !