“Miss!” An alarmingly short man with a pink frock coat and pointy ears appeared out of nowhere spoke to her. “OH MISS!” his high pitch voice sounded. “You must come with me! You’ve won these fabulous tickets and it would be so rude for them to go to waste!” His tiny hand wrapped around her wrist dragging her towards the columned building.
“Are you sure you-” She started to ask.
“The seats are just lovely, lovely I tell you, with everything to make this the best experience of your life!” He hopped as he spoke.
Before Riley knew it she was being shoved through a door into a private balcony seat. It only had two seats and a small bar was set up where it appeared other seats used to be. There was a program sitting on both seats reading Don Carlos composed by Giuseppe Verdi performed in both French & Italian and there was a man already standing there.
“Oh! Goodie! My colleague got you here too!” The tiny man spun around with a jump leaving Riley standing there with someone she was pretty sure she hadn’t seen yet.
“So, is this one of those weird Atlantis things I keep hearing? Or did I just wake up in the Twilight Zone?” Riley asked.
“Could be both,” Sam commented with a shrug. “With Atlantis… you never really know.”
He hadn’t known what to think when he found himself whisked off to the opera house. He’d tried to protest at first -- he didn’t have a suit, or at least he wasn’t wearing one; he had other plans -- but every time he spoke up, there was an answer for each of his excuses. Eventually, he decided to just go along for the ride. What was the worst that could happen? The voices drew his attention, allowing him to get a look at his company before the strange little man left.
He cleared his throat and smiled, holding out a hand. “I’m Sam. Sam Wilson.”
“Like the dude from the Avengers movie?” She asked before she thought about what the words out of her mouth actually meant her.
“Sorry, this whole people from movies and freaking books being well real, it’s a lot to get used to.” She shrugged. “And I’m not saying you aren’t real, you’re very real, you’re standing there, and you look good, it’s just, well not that you look good, well not that you don’t look good, you look real.” This wasn’t going well.
“Riley.” She offered taking his hand finally and shaking it.
Sam couldn’t help the laugh that broke free. He’d heard people mention the Falcon in awe, and he knew in vague terms that there was some sort of media out there about him and his friends, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to find it yet. “Yeah, that’s me. The dude from the Avengers movie. I’ll also take, ‘like Captain America’s sidekick?’ for what it’s worth.” The amusement didn’t leave his eyes as she rambled. He’d been speechless himself the first time he realized Lando Calrissian was lurking somewhere.
“Hey, at least I look good and real. I’ll take it,” he commented. “I guess it’s just us, huh?”
With a slightly embarrassed smile, she shrugged after shaking his hand and nodded a few times. “I guess according to looking stuff up, I’m fictional too, so at least I’m in good company.” Or something like that she thought. She did laugh slightly at the sidekick comment.
“It’s a high compliment,” she added looking around them. “Yeah, and I don’t really have that much experience with,” she looked down at the program again. “Opera?”
The fact that everyone was fictional in one world or another was probably the least strange thing about Atlantis, now that Sam had some time to settle in and see what else Atlantis had going for it. It’d been off-putting and awkward at first, and it’d forced Sam to put aside what preconceptions he might’ve had, and in the end, it was more fascinating than anything else.
“I can count the number of times I’ve been to the opera on one hand.” He held up a hand with no fingers up and grinned. “But there’s a first time for everything. At least we have a good view. We could’ve been stuffed in the back of the orchestra section, right behind someone who’s way too tall to see around.”
There was so much about Atlantis that didn’t make sense to Riley yet, but she was doing her best to get a hold of it. She had a feeling there was a lot about this place that was going to take time to truly get to know and understand.
“I’ve been to, well I guess I was at an opera but I wasn’t really there to watch it, so not really sure if that one counts,” she shrugged. “Or someone who farts a lot.” Riley added. She opened her mouth to say something again but the man with pink frock coat appeared again.
“Take your seats! Take your seats!” He chirped jumping up with the words. “This is a date and you two can’t miss the opening act,” he put his the back of his gloved right hand to his forehead. “So romantic!” Spinning he poured two drinks and shoved them at Riley and Sam.
“Are people always this, uh, pushy?” Riley asked as she felt no other option but to take a seat.
A blind date, Sam thought, that I didn’t even known I was going on. He could handle that. Right? He’d faced down a lot of things before, violent situations, end-of-the-world scenarios. One date should be a piece of cake in comparison.
Taken aback, he followed suit and sat down in the other seat. He wouldn’t have picked an opera for a first date. How were they supposed to get to know each other this way? He was pretty sure it was still frowned upon to talk during an opera in Atlantis. “This is a first for me. Don’t know how they think they can force romance, but, uh. Cheers?” The theatre’s lights began to dim, and Sam leaned over. “Any guesses how long this one is?”
This was freaking awkward and it had nothing to do with Sam Wilson.
Riley gave him a worried expression and nodded at his cheers muttering the same. At his question, she actually opened the program and cringed.
“Five acts, any idea how long an act is supposed to last?” She asked already knowing the answer so she kept speaking. “Suppose they forgot the idea of bar games and get to know you questions and thought throwing people together in awkward silence would be better?”
Five acts?! Sam did his best to hide the cringe he felt at the thought of spending hours on end at an opera he hadn’t chosen himself.
“Maybe they figure throwing us off the deep end right off the bat is a good test,” Sam commented, trying to keep his voice low even though no one else was in their suite. Something told him the little man might come back if he didn’t exercise proper opera etiquette. His eyes scanned the program he’d picked up before sitting down. “Do you know either French or Italian?”
Riley didn’t hide her groan her eye roll, wasn’t directed at Sam, just the whole, hey, here is an opera you’re stuck at watching.
“If you count all the same words we all know, Caio, Si, Oui.” Riley shrugged. “I could probably pull out one or two more, but the words are so drawn out in opera, at least the little I know... “ She paused. “I could see if this device thing,” she pulled her’s out. “I can hack and figure out translations.”
A good song should be able to get the right emotions across even without an understanding of the language used, as far as Sam was concerned, but that was probably too much to ask for in an hours-long opera. That wasn’t why he asked, however. There was a mischievous glint in his eye -- or maybe that was just the reflection in the dim lighting.
“I have an idea. No hard feelings if you think this is lame as hell, but … what if we make up the translation ourselves?” If they had to sit through it, they might as well make it fun. “It’s that or we try to break out of here, but I don’t have my wings with me, so we’d have trouble flying outta here.”
Riley snorted and kicked her feet up on the balcony.
“I think we are going to need some more drinks if we are going to do this idea of yours justice,” she shrugged. “And probably some food.” She added looking back actually hoping the guy with the pink coat would show up but he didn’t.
“Do we need to decide on our own theme first?”
Sam followed her gaze, wondering if it’d be out of line to serve their own drinks or if they could get food delivered to the opera. Well, they could decide if it was worth the risk later. The opera was starting, and they still hadn’t decided on the ground rules.
“I don’t know. Rom com? Tragedy? Might be fun to just wing it, though.”
The first blast of music Riley from getting her thought out, she blinked a few times glancing over at Sam shaking her head amused. As her ears adjusted she leaned over towards him to speak.
“Wing it, besides, it might be a mystery, tragedy action filled rom-com,” she suggested. She leaned back again as the first singing really started.
“It was a beautiful day, and all the dandelions were blooming,” she translated with a mock serious expression.
Sam muffled his snort of laughter behind his hand. While it’d been his idea, Sam hadn’t given much thought to what it would really feel like to be in the moment, and about how hard it might be to not burst into laughter. All he’d been trying to do was come up with a fun way to pass the time. It was a good thing their suite was private, he thought.
“... there goes the baker with his tray like always.”
Riley glanced over at Sam as she shook with silent laughter. She was trying to stay somewhat quiet, but Riley had no idea how long it might last.
“Searching for his favorite Rhino,” she whispered. “Hoping not to trip in the babbling brook.”
“Man, that’d really suck. Wet shoes. That’ll take hours to dry out.”
The singing actually wasn’t terrible, Sam thought. The plot might not even be bad either, if he paid attention.
The first act continued -- with quite a lot of melodrama surrounding the search and rescue of a rhinoceros -- until the strange little man returned to refresh their drinks and shush them for talking. Sam waited until he left again before leaning over, “guess not everyone appreciates our writing.”
Riley waved an arm towards the door as she looked over to Sam. “They’re just missing out on this epic adventure of Rooney the Rhino.” She said.
“I mean, really, who wouldn’t want to go searching in a mason jar while singing about oats?” She kept a very mock serious expression as the short break between Act 1 and Act 2 started.
Leaning forward she pretended to listen carefully. “Did you hear that?”
Sam turned towards her, a smile on his face. “What did you hear?”
“What did you hear?” She countered leaning back playing it as if it were something massively important.
“You go first!”
When Sam figured out that her question was still part of the game, he had to laugh at himself. At least there wasn’t too much of a concern about making an ass of himself, he thought, or it might’ve been embarrassing.
“An echo,” he joked. “It’s really uncanny. Apparently there’s a canyon or a cave nearby.”
Riley laughed, a little louder than she probably should have but she didn’t really worry about it.
“A crayon of canyon,” she nodded. “It makes sense, those places can be colorfully dangerous, hear they like echos and-”
“SHHHHHHHH,” came the voice of the little man from behind them. Riley looked behind them before looking at Sam.
“Think we are trouble?”
Sam cringed and cast an apologetic look over his shoulder at their escort, who was scowling and glaring at them. “I think so,” he whispered. “We should probably be good if we don’t want to get kicked out.” Getting outright banned from the opera wasn’t high on Sam’s list of things to do that day. “Or we could bail and find something else to do?”
"Think we even can bail?" She whispered, giving the man a small smile. "Because if that's an option, I'm not sure I want to see that guy get any more angry than he already is."
Riley looked back up at Sam with a questioning look.
“Well…” Sam started. “They can’t stop us from going to the bathroom.” It was a several hour long piece of art; they couldn’t trap them in their seats the entire time. “And we can slip out of here from there.”
Riley nodded. “At least we can really hope they don’t try and stop that,” she looked around. “Probably should stagger going though, want to go first?”
Even though they’d just made a plan and he was far too old to be worrying about getting stood up, a small voice in the back of his head questioned whether or not she’d actually follow through. He pushed the thought from his mind; he thought it would be actually boring to sit through an opera alone.
“See you soon. I’ll find you,” he whispered before pushing himself up and tip-toeing towards the door, murmuring apologies and excuses to the man who’d escorted Riley in. Whatever else the night had in store, they could at least find something fun to do. He hadn’t been out with anyone in years; he deserved the break, as far as he was concerned.
He hoped she wouldn’t bail on him.
Riley waited a little over three minutes before she jumped up and muttered she really couldn’t wait any longer. She made sure to actually find the bathroom and waited another couple of minutes before sneaking out the side.
She had to duck behind a curtain when the man who had brought her in popped into the hallway looking around. She looked behind her at the window, slowly and carefully she opened it to see how high up she was. “Damn,” she whispered, it was a little too high for her to jump and she sure as hell wasn’t going to pull something Mac would do. Peaking out again she saw her opening and darted for the stairs, she nodded at a passing patron and slipped out a side door. Now all she had to do was hope Sam actually did find her.
Finding her was supposed to be more straight-forward. Sam had expected to see her outside the bathroom, or by the bar, in the lobby, but that had gotten complicated rather quickly. Eventually, he wandered on downstairs, feigning illness to an inquiring employee, and stepped out into the cool night air.
It was quiet. Sam frowned and called up Redwing to scan the area -- which might have been a bit creepy, a bit over the top, but just in case something had gone wrong… Sam wanted to know. When he spotted her, he let Redwing lead the way first. “Wasn’t sure if you made it out,” he said. “I was starting to get a little worried.”
Biting her lower lip she was starting to debate how long she should wait, what was the right amount of time to wait for you blind date after sneaking out of the opera? 10 minutes? An act? How freaking long would the act go anyways? Those thoughts were running around her mind when she saw Redwing first and Sam second, she wasn’t totally sure what to make of all of it but her posture did soften a little bit.
“Who knew getting out of an opera was such an ordeal, a lot harder than just walking out the door.” She smirked. “So, you know Atlantis better than I do, where to next?”
“Depends,” Sam started, narrowing his eyes a little bit as he thought about what they could do. He was itching to do something active. Something where they could talk and have fun at the same time, because what was the point of a date otherwise? But he didn’t want to make assumptions, either. He continued, “on what you’re in the mood for. Drinks in old timey France? A retro arcade with more games than you’ve ever seen in your life?”
Riley didn’t know what to expect but his two options were so polar opposite she didn’t even know what to go for, well, she knew, it was just there were a lot of questions that popped up along the way. “Why can’t we do both?” She asked. “I’ve never seen old timey France, but I’m pretty sure retro arcade games and more games than I can I guess imagine sounds like more fun, but I feel like I’d be offending someone if I don’t at least want to see the old timey France thing.”
“Por que no los dos?” The joke came out easily, without any regard to whether or not she’d catch the reference. He was used to his jokes going right over Steve’s head, and there’d once been a time where he would catch himself and rephrase -- but those days were over.
“I don’t think we have anyone from that time period,” he continued, “but we’ve got a bar. My favorite’s the Star Wars cantina, personally. But I’ve been trying to test out as much as I can. We only get one shot at this, you know?” He didn’t just mean Atlantis, though he assumed his time in Atlantis would be short-lived as well. Changing worlds didn’t mean that they lived with less risk than he had in his own world. Life was still just as fragile and short as ever.
Maybe moreso, now that he’d disappeared and come back. Maybe moreso now that he knew he’d be going back to a world without someone he considered one of his closest friends, and a world without someone who was influential in ways he probably didn’t even realize.
The thought choked him up a little, so he cleared his throat before gesturing in the direction of the main road. “C’mon. I’ll show the way.”
There was a lot Riley wanted to ask from the joke, to the star wars to the look he got on his face but she let them all drop and smiled instead. “Can’t wait,” and she let him lead the way.