The mission
A few days later we had a meeting to discuss the reliability of intelligence we'd collected and that was unofficially provided to us by the CIA and SHIELD (apparently back in business, who knew?) regarding Smith and the baddies who'd escaped us on the Yucatan mission. As we sifted data and debated, Marketing tapped on the door and came in. As the words dried up, she smiled at Natasha, Wanda, and me and gushed a bit about the shoot for the Costume Institute and reminded us that we were going down to California next week to do the shoot for the Gemological Institute of America.
"Is this the other thing we agreed to do?" Wanda asked in confusion as Natasha and I looked at each other, puzzled.
"Yes, I wanted to fill in the details a little more," Marketing said cheerfully, avoiding looking at Steve. "And there's also another inquiry that I wanted to present to you all. Vanity Fair contacted me. They're doing a story on the Avengers, with or without your input."
"So they want us to cooperate," Tony guessed, and Marketing nodded.
"It would be beneficial to let them have your side of the story, whatever their angle is," she said. "If you agree, they will also want photos, so please factor this into your deliberations."
So we deliberated. Tony is all about control, so he was in favor of cooperating, and I knew he'd get the lawyers on the contract immediately. Bucky, Wanda and Vision were not all that excited about the prospect, and the rest of us were on the fence. I think some of the guys were a little intrigued by the photo shoot that we women had done, and eventually we agreed to do it. It would have to be fit in around the op we were planning, though. Marketing nodded and Tony stepped outside with her to call the lawyers.
The rest of us called a break and went to the caf for snacks. I was feeling much more cheerful as we returned to divide the tasks for the op. Natasha left on a fact-finding mission and got back just in time for the GIA assignment, again we donated the fee they'd proposed back to the institution, this time for educational purposes.
Once we got down there, we were given simple black dresses to wear, and Costuming had come up with one of the polymer masks that exposed my eyes, so I had to sit for makeup as well as hair. They put us against a black backdrop and the first thing was parures; we wore the tiara, necklace, and earrings from each set. Wanda was given a glorious pink topaz set, Natasha the Queen of Sheba set, and I had a peridot set, thrilled to get away from blue sapphires. Then there were necklaces; Natasha had an unusual Lalique piece, Wanda wore amethysts and turquoise from Cartier, and I was assigned a diamond, sapphire, and pearl necklace from Van Cleef and Arpels. And that was that; it had made me nervous to wear such valuable things. But they were so very beautiful and it had been fun to wear a tiara, if I'm honest. I kept that to myself, though, didn't want any teasing about thinking that I'm royalty. The pictures turned out fantastic; there were some candids as well as the composed shots. The photographs from the Met shoot appeared on promotional materials for the exhibition and were generating some good buzz. Social media was largely approving.
The op took place in early October near Vienna. This op went a lot more smoothly than the one in Yucatan. No hurricanes, for one thing. The police weren't as nice to work with, though, and we had a jurisdictional wrangle over who got to keep Ballista. We had time to copy the drives of several computers before they arrived, so we had a lot of data to work with. Nobody was seriously hurt, on either side, so we were in a celebratory mood when we walked up the ramp of the quinjet.
We'd alerted Nick about our success right when we took care of the computers, so it was a surprise to find we had a message waiting. Vanity Fair hoped that we could divert to France before we left Europe so that we could do the photos in a different setting. We agreed; we were in good moods from our success and also kind of wanted to get it over with. We had orders, expressly stated by PR and reinforced by Nick, since it was in the contract, that we were to behave ourselves and do everything that the photographer wanted. We flew to Paris, spent the night at the Georges Cinq, and were picked up bright and early. They drove us out to Versailles.
Versailles, for real. And it wasn't open to the public. Holy cow!! I'd never been, and now I was going to be able to see it--or at least some of it--in an extraordinary way.
They split the three of us women off and took us to a side room where we were given our costumes and sat for hair and makeup. My hair was curled and put up in a loose, messy style that looked vaguely historic, and because I was wearing what was becoming my usual mask with the eyes showing, the artist really went to town on them; aggressively shimmery shadow, some tiny crystals at the ends of the lash line over the false eyelashes and eyeliner. I had the violet contacts I'd worn on the mission, and the makeup artist cooed over the shade. Our outfits were simple for this shoot and had no jewelry, which made it easier. On both of the other shoots, we'd had two security men each to make sure nothing happened to the treasures we were wearing. I was not so thrilled by the costume--a fluffy skirt that looked like a petticoat for the costumes we'd posed in and another damned corset. But mercifully, there was no tight lacing here and I relaxed. It had been embarrassing enough to pass out just in front of a few people; I really didn't want to do it in front of the entire team.
Tony had had the lawyers draw up the strictest contracts that were humanly possible; the photographer had a reputation for being suitably cutting edge and was known to be ambitious. Any breach of the contract would probably keep him insolvent for life and also maybe obligate him to donate several organs, including both testicles, a few inches of penis, a kidney or two, and possibly both corneas. I was a little nervous, because if Tony was uneasy, the rest of us should be squirming.
First one of the women out of the styling, I was led to the Hall of Mirrors, where most of the boys were. We were all in different shades of white, interesting. People were arranging a huge pile of silk and velvet cushions, and we were introduced to the photographer. I didn't like him. He seemed even more egocentric than Tony on his worst days, and made one of his assistants remove the modesty panel that lay under the lacings of the corset and also cinch it up tighter. When he tried to fluff my boobs a little, I thought Bucky was going to punch him out. I retreated and the assistant took me over to a corner to try to get maximum volume. I heard the photographer muttering about prudish Americans and had to beat down the urge to flip him off. Then the rest of the party filed in, and there were more readjustments. Bucky stood just in the photographer's peripheral vision and loomed as he had the other women similarly adjusted. The men were all in tight breeches like you see in historic paintings and had a variety of shirts and/or waistcoats, all en deshabille; cravats undone, shirts unbuttoned, everything cut for maximum effect. They were a great looking group.
Once everybody had been scrutinized, the photographer began arranging us to lounge on the pillows, making us look fairly decadent. He hated my mask, but once he was reminded of the penalties, stopped badgering me to take it off. Finally, he had us arranged to his liking; Tony stood in one corner, and the rest of us sort of descended in height to the opposite corner of the cushion, where Natasha lounged. After the first set of photographs, he tried a second grouping, then we were taken out to le Grand Trianon for shots of one or two of us at a time. It was a warm fall, and a few flowers still clung to their stems. Thor was photographed in the peristyle, Bucky, Sam, Hawkeye, Jim, Tony and Natasha inside, and Wanda, Vision, Steve, Scott, and me outside in the gardens. Tony and Bucky were shot together in the family room, Sam in the round room, Jim in the cool room, Hawkeye in the hall, looking like he was sizing up the gallery as a potential archery range, Natasha in the soft light in front of windows with beautiful draperies in the Emperor's bedroom, very seductive. Scott clowned around in front of the buffet d'eau, Wanda wandered in the garden room, and Vision looked engagingly alien pacing the exterior of the building. The photographer wanted to shoot Steve and me together in response to the gossip about us. We weren't really wild about it, explaining that we weren't together, but he didn't care, and reminded us pointedly about the contract. Everybody on the team was watching, as we all had watched the others' photographs, and Tony came over as we were talking and said that if we hated it, not to do it, we had lawyers-- It was the last thing that did it. It would be a big deal for us to be fighting a breach of contract suit, especially since we were the ones who had insisted on the most stringent terms.
"No, we can do this," I said, moving my head to stretch the muscles in my neck and shoulders. Steve smiled, and we let the photographer position us on the grass; he wanted to shoot us over low shrubs and the remains of the flowers with us in front of a pool of water. After a stern warning from Tony about not showing my face, our teammates stood back and watched as the photographer positioned us so that my back wasn't square to the photographer's lens; I was slightly at an angle; my jaw would be exposed, but nobody thought that would be a problem. The photographer and his assistants did a check for the lighting, then we were up. I took a deep breath, let it out when the corset wouldn't let me finish, and reluctantly took off my mask. I winked at Steve, making him smile, and his hand found the small of my back as he tipped my chin up.
Ummm. It was an excellent, dreamy kiss. At some point I dropped my mask and put my hand up to where his neck met his shoulder, his skin warm under my fingers. His hand moved to my hip, the other one sliding down my neck to my shoulder. When the kiss ended, I opened my eyes languidly, caught in the fathomless blue of his eyes. He took my hand, the back of my hand in his palm, his thumb caressing my palm, then brought it to his lips and kissed it. "Careful," I murmured, the filter between speech center, judgment, and mouth completely disengaged. "I'll fall in love with you." His eyes were intense and he drew me to him as he bent his head to breathe in my ear, "Maybe I want you to."
The photographer shouted that he had the shots, and Steve released me to pick up my mask, which I put back on quickly before turning around. Tony was reviewing the photos to make sure my identity wasn't compromised. I was grateful for the mask hiding my face.