Sylvie sipped on her chocolate shake as she sat with Nat on a Saturday afternoon. It was a sunny day, with light streaming through the large windows onto the restaurant's black and white tiled floor. Nat couldn't believe Sylvie had never tried Steak n Shake before, insisting they had the best fries in the world. Sylvie was excited to try them, though the two hadn't ordered more than milkshakes as they waited for one of Nat's other friends to join them. Apparently the girl was chronically late, with Nat even telling her they were going to meet at the restaurant half an hour before they did, and they'd still been sitting for about ten minutes before she showed up.

Finally, the girl plopped down in the booth beside Nat with a well practiced, "Sorry I'm late."

Sylvie almost choked on her milkshake. This girl had to be the most stunning woman she'd seen in her entire life. Long black hair, dark chocolate eyes, and full, kissable, lips.

"You're always late," Nat rolled her eyes. "Sylvie, this is Val. Val, Sylvie."

"So you're the girl who punched Loki! Nice to meet you," Val grinned.

If it was a TV show, Sylvie would have swooned. Since when was she the girl who hung out with the hot cheerleaders? "Yeah, I am," Sylvie agreed a bit awkwardly, feeling stupid for the response. She really couldn't think with this woman that close.

Still, for some reason it made Val laugh. "It's about damn time someone did!"

Nat finished a long sip of her milkshake and leaned forward, lowering her voice slightly, "Val's his ex."

"I'm not his ex!" Val protested. "I got drunk and made out with him at a party!"

"Twice," Nat countered.

Val crossed her arms with a huff. "He was a good kisser the first time."

"That's good to know, I guess," Sylvie mused, "since I have to kiss him in the play."

"You do?" Nat raised an eyebrow.

Sylvie nodded. "Yeah, I finally finished the script. "

"At least you've already shown him who's boss," Val said. "Loki does like a strong woman."

I do too? Sylvie tried not to let all the places her mind was wandering show on her face, but she was pretty sure she was blushing. Luckily, that was when their waiter showed up to take their orders. Burgers and fries all around.

"The fries better be good or I'm going to be devastated," Sylvie teased Nat once the waiter left, changing the topic.

"The best," Nat insisted.

When the food arrived, Sylvie conceded Natasha was correct about the french fries, and the afternoon was spent talking and laughing and maybe occasionally throwing a french fry at each other. One landed in Nat's hair, causing all three of them to erupt with laughter at the fact that, "They love me back!"

It was one of the best Saturday's Sylvie had had in a while. She'd managed to calm down a little bit around Val, though she was still completely heart eyed over the girl. And apparently she wasn't subtle about it, because when Nat gave her a ride home she just happened to pointedly mention, "Val is single by the way."

"Was it that obvious?" Sylvie groaned.

"Nah, I'm just good at reading people. Val was clueless," Nat answered as she parked in Sylvie's driveway.

Sylvie unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door before turning back slightly to say, "Good. I'll give it some more time then. Thanks for the ride."

"See you Monday," Nat waved.

"Bye," Sylvie waved back, then headed up to the big empty house.

Loki knew if his plan to woo Sylvie was going to work, he'd have to be tactful about it. He couldn't do any grand romantic gestures. It would be too quick of a 180 and she'd figure it out. No, he had to play this subtle. Still, that Monday he put a little more effort into his appearance than normal. He wasn't Thor by any means, but he could still look good. He wore a black button up with the top couple buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, with a pair of jeans. Maybe he'd picked it because Val had said he looked 'suuuuper hot' in it one time. Then again, she'd been drinking a lot that night, so maybe it wasn't as great of a compliment as he'd thought. Still, it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot.

Though he may as well have worn a bath robe with all the attention Sylvie paid him during rehearsal. She talked to him, sure, but she didn't seem to be particularly interested. If anything, she was slightly distracted. Something on her mind that apparently was not him. Nice clothes were not the way to get her attention, noted.

Like usual, she sat down in the chair next to him before rehearsal started, but it seemed to be more because of habit than wanting to be next to him. She didn't even say a word, no hello, nothing.

Loki gently cleared his throat. "Did you finish the script?"

"Of course I did," Sylvie answered, sounding almost offended he would ask.

"What'd you think?" he asked.

"Of what? Having to kiss you? Can't say I'm looking forward to it."

Loki gave a tight lipped smile for half a beat before answering. Of course that would be her reaction. Who would ever want to kiss him? "I meant about Kate's monologue. The thing we were talking about on Friday? If your memory is that bad you're going to have a difficult time learning lines."

"Oh, I think it's super sexist," she answered without hesitation.

Something in Loki was disappointed at the answer. Not because she disagreed with him, that was fine, just that it was so...surface level. He'd expected more from her for some reason. "Why's that?" he prompted, trying to get something more.

"Well, mainly because of this line," she said as she flipped through her script to find the page. "Here, 'And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks and true obedience—Too little payment for so great a debt.' Like a woman owes her husband for being a good husband? That should be the basic expectation. He's good to her, she's good to him, it's not a special debt a woman has to pay. Especially the repeated part about her owing him beauty? It's bullshit."

"It is," Loki agreed. "That's why I said there's some really outdated ideas about marriage in it. Like the wife is supposed to be beautiful and obedient because the husband is working to provide for her. Very standard gender expectations, but because of the time period I think that's to be expected, and the fact that the argument Kate is making is based on mutual love and support, a give and take, is what I think makes it not sexist."

Sylvie bit her lip as she looked over to the empty stage, the wheels in her head spinning. "So your argument is that it's not sexist because at the time it was written it argued for more equality than women were typically expected to have at the time?"

"Yes, I think the context of when and where a work was written should absolutely be accounted for, especially when it comes to social issues. I mean, there's a line of course. If the core message was 'women are inferior' then that would be despicable, but I don't think that's the core message. It's just a different time period's thinking on the matter, and how can we expect people of the past to live up to our modern standards?" Loki nodded.

Sylvie perked up, "Like how The Rocky Horror Picture Show is sometimes called transphobic because of the language it uses, even though those were the terms commonly used by trans people at the time."

"Exactly!" Loki grinned.

Sylvie leaned back in her chair, as much as the hard plastic thing would allow. "I see your point," she nodded. "If this was written today it'd be horribly sexist-"

"For sure," Loki interjected.

"But we can't really hold it to modern standards, especially because the core of the message is still 'a relationship should be give and take'," she finished.

"Sounds like a fascinating conversation," Vis said as he sat next to Loki.

"I give it two weeks before he proposes," Wanda muttered as she sat next to Vis, too quietly for Loki to hear. Vis couldn't help but laugh though. If they were having these kinds of conversations already, at this rate she was right.

Loki gave them both a suspicious look. "What'd she say?"

"Nothing," they both answered quickly, biting back their grins.

Sylvie bit her lip absentmindedly as she reread Kate's monologue with Loki's thoughts on it in mind, ignoring as Loki and Wanda laughed and threw erasers at each other. Loki insisting she'd said something rude and she better share what it was. It painted a very different picture of him than Sylvie's first impression on her first day, but instead of thinking about that, she was focused on Taming of the Shrew. Sure, she wasn't playing Kate, but her character was in love with Kate, and it was Sylvie's job to figure out why.

Sylvie found she was really enjoying the textual analysis side of acting, learning all she could about the character, and mentally filling in the gaps for herself. Pertruchio was a particularly fascinating character. He agreed to marry a woman no one else wanted just for the money, but also because of his ego. He was convinced he could tame her like no man before him had been able to, and then he'd fallen right in love with her because of her strength, wit, and fight. All the things the other men thought made her a bad wife. When in reality, Kate just needed someone who could match her and saw her as a match, an equal partner. It really was a romantic play after all.

Which, of course, got her thinking about Val. Picturing Val as the co-star she would spend three months bantering with, sharing a stage kiss, that would maybe turn into a real kiss…

Mobius' voice pulled her out of the daydream, loudly announcing, "Alright, let's get started! Loki, Sylvie, up on stage, I want to pick up where we left off on Friday."

Right. It wasn't Val playing her Kate, it was Loki. Which maybe wasn't as bad as she'd thought, but it still wasn't a good thing. Still wasn't who she wanted it to be, but it was no use thinking about the 'what if' of the situation.

Sylvie's stage fright had shown up again the first day of rehearsals, with nerves making her trip up several times on her lines that day. However, it had quickly calmed down. The only other people in the room were the cast, who were also doing the whole acting thing, and when they weren't on stage rehearsing themselves, they were mostly doing homework or on their phones, not paying any attention to her. It was fine, nothing to be nervous about. Now she didn't even have the slightest pang of anxiety when she hopped up on stage again.

Mobius let them run the scene a couple times, telling them to, "Just do what feels natural with the blocking, play with it a bit," like he had with the other scenes so far. After watching their natural impulses with it, he'd keep some things, tell them to try something else, do it in a silly way to break any habits that were forming, until he was happy with how it looked. That's when they'd mark it down in their script, with a pencil so they could always change it later since Mobius was apparently known for changing his mind several times during rehearsals.

This time he had them keep running it more times than any scene before. They tried different things, so many different things. He made them try it in silly accents, and then as if they were cats, and then serious, and then no, why don't you enter from the other side? on and on and he still wasn't happy with it.

"Come on guys, what happened to that amazing chemistry you had last week?" he asked them after what must have been the sixteenth run of the scene. "You're just not clicking today. Is something wrong?"

Sylvie and Loki glanced at each other, then back at Mobius with a shrug. "Not that I know of," Loki said.

"I don't think so," Sylvie shrugged.

Mobius watched them for a moment, wiggling his nose slightly as he thought. "Alright, okay. Well, Sylvie's new, so why don't you two go out in the hallway for a little bit and talk? Just get to know each other, build a real rapport between you."

"You want us to...hang out?" Sylvie asked, a little incredulously.

"Yeah, come on, it looked like you two were having a nice conversation before rehearsal started. Why don't you keep that up for a little bit while we work on a different scene? Go on," he tilted his head towards the hallway door.

"O-kay…" Sylvie said, starting to walk in that direction, Loki following after. Was this a thing actors did? Just go hang out in the middle of rehearsal? It didn't seem very productive. Was suddenly not having stage chemistry a common problem? This theater thing was so weird.