ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Catching Up

Vignette - Catching Up
Dramatis Personae Steve
In Absentia	1942-12-01 "What just happened, Captain?"
Location French Resistance Safehouse - Kriegsheim, France
Most of the furniture in the cold, dingy basement has been pushed up against the walls, and heavy curtains nailed up over the tiny windows at eye level. Two men circle each other in the center of the room. The younger man is tall and exceptionally muscular, with touseled blond hair and dressed in a white t-shirt over dirty blue trousers. Steve's opponent is small and wirey, wearing long-sleeve fatigues of olive drab, his mustache neatly trimmed and his dark brown hair impeccably combed. Steve strikes first, moving improbably fast and aiming a solid punch at his opponent's jaw. The older man actually steps /toward/ him and not away, one arm lifting up almost casually into the path of the blow as he drops his stance lower and the other pushing out with an open palm at his opponent's solar plexus. Steve's fist never finds its mark -- his attack is pushed off-track when his wrist collides with the older man's. A split second later, the heel of his opponent's hand hits him below the sternum. He stumbles back, coughing and gasping for air while the older man settles back into his previous loose stance. "What just happened, Captain?" the older man asks, his words crisp and precise in received pronounciation. "{Revenge for the revolution, no?}" from the other side of the room, the quiet quip is in French, with a distinctive Provence accent. The speaker, a scrawny, scruffy, black-haired man, is sitting on top a wooden crate, cleaning a partially disassembled rifle. "The hell did he say?" asks a stocky redhead, also cleaning a gun. "Something about revolution?" a young Japanese man offers helpfully without opening his eyes or removing his helmet where it shades his face from the uncertain lamplight. "He says you need to learn some French if you ever want a chance with those Resistance girls," the reply comes from a young black man, who does not even look up from his incessant scribbling in a notebook. "I cannot help that the Colonies have a propensity for leaving a job half done," the Englishman says evenly. Steve finally gets his wind back, just in time to manage a rough laugh. "Well, they didn't think I needed too much additional training for a USO show. I'm afraid I'm not sure what I did wrong, Lord Falsworth." "You did nothing /wrong/, per se." His sparring partner straightens up. "Do have a sip of water, though. Now, you are larger, faster, stronger -- compared to me, yes, and most men, but more importantly, compared to your previous self. What just happened was you swung at me as though you were a foot shorter and ten stones lighter." Pausing in the act of drinking from a canteen, Steve lifts one blond eyebrow at this. "The procedure was months ago, you'd think I would have gotten used to...this." He looks down at his admittedly impressive physique. "Oh, but you have, Captain." Falsworth reaches for the canteen, allows a very tight smile. "I have seen improvement. You have wrapped your /mind/ around your new body, but the body /itself/ still needs to catch up." "I told him," the voice that pipes up now comes from the other side of the low wall of crates. "He needs to go pitch some woo. Better start polishing that French..." "Lord Falsworth, I think Bucky's trying to say he wants in on this lesson," Steve suggests, grinning through his blush. "Perhaps later," Falsworth says equably. "For now, let us have another go at it and see if we might teach your body just how much it can do."