Diner Food

November 25, 2015:

After the mission in Greenland, Peggy and Johnny discuss their not so shared past.

A Diner

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: None.


Fade In…

The diner is not exactly retro, but it's not exactly posh, either. It's a little hole in the wall in Queens - in a residential area near a park. It's one of those places of New York where you can pretend you're not in one of the world's biggest cities for awhile. Not long, mind - but long enough.
Johnny is sitting in a booth, eating a bowl of stew and flipping through the newspaper. He's looking a bit less lumberjack-y. The plaid has been exchanged for a long sleeved tee. The denim looks new, rather than lived-in and from the 70s. His leather bomber hangs on a hook attached to the booth. Some things are hard to let go of.

Peggy Carter keeps tabs on people. Especially those who seem as that seem as though they may have secrets. And, more so, when those secrets may have to do with her. The time displaced Agent hasn't exactly had a detail on Johnny, but she certainly knows where he is when she's decided to try and discuss certain things with him.

Pushing through the doors to the small restaurant in Queens, Peggy looks both completely as if she belongs here and slightly out of place. Her lipstick is a very bright red. She wears a skirt and a collared shirt tucked into it. She almost expects Johnny to know that she's approaching, so she gives him a smile and slides into the seat opposite. "I've heard the food here is quite good," she greets him.

If his tail was following him in the woods, Johnny would have seen it a mile away. But with this many people? He's out of practice in the urban jungle. But he's been around the block enough to know that he would be followed. It's fine, really. He understands.
So he's not at all surprised when Peggy slides into the booth across from him. "It's all right. Stick to the classics. Don't order anything that sounds at all exotic. You'll be disappointed." He takes a bite, then sets his spoon down. "I was wondering how long it would be til you paid me a visit."

Tails in the city are really not that much different than those of the forest. The buildings turn to trees. The people passing along random creatures and grass. By now, Peggy has read quite a bit of her own file - or at least the Peggy Carter that lived through the 50s until now. Despite being the same person, they are now leading very different lives.

At his response, Peggy can't help but give him a smirk. Perhaps she expected him to know that she was going to show up at some point. Maybe even now. "Exotic? At times I wonder what is exotic these days. I am sure a hamburger would be safe?" she asks, raising an eyebrow as if this is the most normal conversation and they were expected to meet here today.

"And how did I match up to your timeline?" she asks Johnny. She's truly amused. "I tend to enjoy knowing my over and under."

"It took just a bit of digging to figure out what's up with you." Johnny picks up his spoon again and takes a bite. "Time travel, huh? I gotta say, I'm relieved. I was worried you'd be a clone or a robot or something. Though I still don't understand how there can be two of you. Temporal mechanics isn't exactly a useful skill for a frontiersman."
He picks up a cup of coffee, sips it, then regards her for a moment. "Surely you know. Or did they lock you out of your own file?"

"From what I could tell, I could assume that you may have known," Peggy tells Johnny. It's almost a relief. Leaning back against the plastic 'cushions' of the diner, she studies the Canadian across from her. "It's, honestly, a bit of a relief. Too many people need explanations. I am, technically, however, a clone, I guess. I'm a temporal anomaly. I'm not the same Peggy Carter you worked with before. We are the same woman up until 1948."

A helpful server arrives and Peggy asks for both water and tea. No need for food at the moment. Once she's left, the time displaced woman turns her attention back to Johnny. "I saw that the two of you worked quite a few missions together. I was wondering why you were attempting to place me a few days ago. It wasn't just because we knew each other in the war. We worked together. Often."

"Well, what can I say?" says Johnny, spreading hands out. "I'm a useful guy. SHIELD and Department H were allies back in the day. We share a border with Russia, and they were the big bads at the time." He lifts a shoulder, then pushes his stew away to indicate he's done with it. "We probably worked together nearly a dozen times before I resigned my commission - and once or twice after that. You called in a few favours," he grins. "But from your perspective, we…what, met twice, worked together once? Is that right?"

Peggy tilts her head, studying Johnny. "You're not, really." Peggy is a thorough woman when she is researching. Her accusation is really not meant to be anything other than an observation. "After your retirement you only worked on jobs where my elder self works. The files showed quite clearly that you refused multiple other requests."

As for the pair of them, she smiles and shrugs her shoulders. "Yes, if that. I do remember you from the War. We met once or twice before missions." The woman sighs, now getting the crux of the matter. "I just thought…I wished to speak with you. It seemed as if you knew me. And, well, it's a strange situation that I find myself in."

"We-ell, that's not exactly true," says Johnny. "There are a couple of other jobs I worked that your records wouldn't show, because, surprise surprise, Dep H doesn't share everything, just like SHIELD doesn't. But you were one of the few Americans I came out of the woods for, yes." He nods once in acceptance of that.
He listens to what she has to say and is quiet for a moment. "Look, I'm not going to make anything awkward if you won't. That was another lifetime for me, and you have no memory of it. As far as I'm concerned, you and I are a blank slate. The difference being, if you're really the same person, I already trust you. I know the reverse isn't true."

Peggy smirks. "That is the organization I know you know I started," she tells him. With a sigh, she debates her words. Luckily, at this point a waitress comes by with a glass of water and her mug of diner tea. For a few moments, she focuses her attention on that rather than the man opposite her.

"I'm not here to make things awkward," Peggy tells Johnny firmly. "I've.." she frowns, picking up a spoon and stirring in both milk and sugar into her tea. "I have had to deal with quite a few people expecting me to be a woman who I am not because what they either remember or know of me. Or a form of me that I am not." She sighs and lets her spoon rest to help cool the scalding hot liquid. "I just dislike surprises."

Looking up, she meets Johnny's eyes. "I am Agent Peggy Carter. Perhaps I am not the same woman who grew old and is now in Virginia, but I am who I am." She plucks her spoon from her tea. "I may not trust you now, but if I did in the past, that speaks well of the future."

Johnny exhales slowly. "Look, cards on the table," he flexes his fingers outwards. "I'm not going to hold anything back from you. Well, uh, there's some mission details I can't reveal. But anything personal, you have a right to know. But I don't want to tell you anything you don't want to know. So ask, and I'll spill. I'm not a fan of the in-between. I like things to be clear. Games aren't my thing. I'd say life's too short, but for me, that'd be a lie." He cracks a smile.

At that honesty, Peggy's eyebrows raise quite considerably. She listens to him and then gives a laugh at his final quip. "I would tell you to get off of my lawn, but I am apparently too young, despite my years," she tells Johnny.

After a moment of silence where she takes a long drink from her tea, she debates for a moment. "I must have truly garnered your trust," she tells Johnny. It's not a fishing experiment, she's observing and trying to make some sense of a past that she now shares but does not remember. "I appreciate the honesty. I would not worry about embarrassing me. I was a secret agent during the French Liberation. But, of course, I'm sure you knew that."

Johnny chuckles softly. "Yeah, I know that. I also know how you take your tea," he nods to her cup. "That you have a surprisingly potent left hook. That you never go anywhere, not even on a remote mission, without your lipstick and hair rollers. And…" he pats the outside of the mug. "That you really like my pancakes."
He lets that sit for a moment, then clears his throat. "I want to be clear. You and me, we were…we weren't in love or anything. Nothing like that. And it would sometimes be years between seeing each other. But before you got married, well…" he lifts a shoulder. "It uh, it was the sixties?"

As Johnny tells her more about her, Peggy's eyes widen just slightly. The more he tells her of her personal life, the more she starts to debate what exactly the nature of their relationship was. But, then, he spells it out for her. Agent Carter is rarely flustered and is not in the nature of blushing, however the reveal of the nature of her other self and him is met with a slight snort of her tea and a very red flush across her face.

Peggy sets the cup down as gently as she can against the table and then looks at Johnny, wondering if he is attempting a joke. He is not and then she blinks a few times. "I…I see." Gathering herself, she puts her hands on the table. "You are saying we were lovers. Or, you and my other self." Though, truly that is her. Technically, that means he has seen her naked. At the thought, she blushes harder.

"H-how do I like my pancakes, then?"

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