4005/Holding Up The Bar

Holding Up The Bar
Date of Scene:	03 November 2020
Location:	McSorley's Bar
Synopsis:	Logan returns to the home ground and meets Peggy for some 'tea' and sympathy.
Cast of Characters:	Logan Howlett, Peggy Carter

---

Logan Howlett has posed:
Unlike the spies and soldiers he so often throws in with, Logan does not keep much of a schedule. Like that cat you leave food out for but never seems to be comfortable inside the house, he simply drifts in and out. Until recently he'd been in Southeast Asia on the trail of a former Weapon X superintendent who was now drinking himself to death in a Madripoor slum. Before that, he'd walked the Shikoku Henro as a means to clear his head - something he'd done dozens of times, or at least remembered doing.

Now, he holds up the bar at McSorley's. He's yet to adjust to the cooling weather, sporting a faded shirt in lumberjack plaid with the sleeves rolled up over broad forearms. His dark, coarse hair is a little longer and wilder than usual though as always it isn't easy to tell. There's a bottle of cheap rotgut on the alcohol-soaked countertop, and a clean glass turned over on its mouth that he's entirely forgotten is part of the usual transaction. Instead, he gulps down a draught directly from the bottle and turns his eyes to the flickering television screen that was due for a replacement two decades ago. In a dented metal ashtray nearby, the half-smoked stub of a La Gloria Cubana cigar has been deftly snuffed and left to sit until its needed again.

Peggy Carter has posed:
When he texted her about finally being back in the area, even if it was a little crude on his end, he got a single note in response: 'Welcome home.' There's a lot to be said for those words, especially for a man who generally hasn't had a home in a very long time, but it's Peggy. She probably knew well what she was sending. She didn't run exactly to his side, or ask him where he'd be. Their time together was never really like that. But she had a fairly good guess of where she could find him that evening so, following her spy instincts (or just the part of her that knows him so well), she walks into old of the oldest pubs in Manhattan just a little after the happy hour crowd dies down.

She looks different than the last time they met. He's never see her hair this short, a messy, slightly curly bob that well compliments her features but is strangely modern in compare to her usual vintage style. The curls slightly hide the burns along the left side of her face, mostly healed but it's going to take time. She's wrapped up in a vintage leather bomber jacket across her 1940s style navy and green tartan wrap dress. T-strap heels click on the floor, but are mostly lost in the juke box music at the back of the room. Still, it's him. He might catch her scent from the door alone. Vanilla and amber. A touch of lavender powder.

She steps straight up to the bar next to him, knowing those shoulders anywhere, and without looking at him she smiles to the bartender. "A Smithwicks. Put it on his tab." Her British voice clips out gently.

Logan Howlett has posed:
He hadn't even looked up. That familiar scent had met him and connected the dots in the animalistic quarters of his brain. He takes another swig of the bottle and it burns like Chicago all the way down.

"Gonna bleed me dry, Peg," Logan mutters over the mouth of the bottle in his hand, breath whistling across the opening, "What'm I gonna do when they come to collect on that tab, huh?"

A momentary glance is paid to the bartender who, to his credit, doesn't flinch. The Canuck offers a faint wink that creases the well-worn corner of his blue eyes before he sets the bottle down, turning on the stool to face Peggy more completely. A calloused hand reaches out to brush one of the short curls of her hair that frames her temple before retreating back to drum fingertips against the bar.

"Like the hair."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Oh, tosh. It's a Smithwicks. If that's what bleeds you dry then you really had a better time in Asia than I realized." Peggy dead pans at him, amusement lining the back of her voice and no apologies for ordering on his tab. Red matte lips pull into a slightly wider, warmer grin as she watches him wink at the bartender in turn. She knew it'd be no issue.

She then shifts a little, turning to fully face him instead of the man behind the bar. She rests an hourglass hip against the edge of the bar stool behind her, but now settles in to study his face. How much and how little changes. No new scars or injuries, but there never are. All the changes are behind the eyes. That's what she's looking for.

His touch against her hair doesn't get any protest, but a slight wrinkle of her pert nose, dark eyes flickering to the side, like she could see those slightly unruly curls. "I half don't recognize myself in the mirror every time I look. But it was this or shave half of it off like some of those kids do these days. Got on the wrong side of a bomb. Could have been worst."

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Not good in the way you're thinkin'," Logan replies, "Did the pilgrimage on Shikoku again. Those coin offerings gotta come from somewhere, huh?"

Logan cants his head to one side, fishing the half-smoked Cuban from the ashtray and turning it over in his fingers. A flash of sleight-of-hand produces a match from his sleeve, the kind that strikes on any surface and surely aren't made in any country with modern health and safety regulations. He lights the stubbed-out end, tendrils of aromatic smoke creeping up around his face as he does.

"If a new haircuts the worst thing that came of bein' blown up, then you're doin' well. Take it from someone who hasn't been able to cut their damn hair since ... "

His brows furrow, the disjointed memories rearing their ugly head and prompting a flash of anger before he brushes it aside with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

"A while. Anyway. What's say we get soused and tear up the town?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
"It's me. I promise you, the other side of that bomb looked far worse." Peggy states flatly, an edge of pride behind her voice, teasing reassurance that, even if she's not near so durable as he is, nothing's managed to kill her yet. It certainly isn't going to any time soon either. Her expression is warm and confident, something meant to chase away those echoes of burns along the side of her face. Some of it was going to scar.

She always scars. A reminder that, no, she's not immortal. And how few scars he has, in compare.

She bumps her hip a touch more gently against his, as he offers they both get soused. "...Diving into the sauce already? Shikoku was that bad, hmm? You could just...talk about it, you know. I didn't come just to drink on your tab." That's actual concern behind her voice. Still trying to keep it light enough that he can maybe write it off, but she's worried about him. "...let's fine a booth for you and your vice, somewhere we can talk." She nods for him to bring the potent cigar. They never bothered her.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Shikoku's a pilgrimage. Lots of washing and chanting. Leaves precious little time for indulgin' the baser things."

Blue eyes that carry the weight of two lifetimes flick down for a moment to her hip as it bumps lightly against him, and the offer is met with a faint nod. He scoops up the bottle, amber remnants swishing about inside, and clenches the cigar at the corner of his mouth. The corner booth is occupied tonight but vacated at the sight of their approach. With a loud exhale and an uncharacteristically heavy thump he tosses himself onto the bench seat, sliding along until he props his left arm against the wall.

"Went down to Madripoor, too," he begins suddenly, staring down at the table and some diagonal chips in the woodwork that he'd carved there with his claws on a dare some months ago, "Bastard by the name of Clayhill. Ran shop for the Program. Thought he'd know, I don't know, somethin' about me. Somethin' to connect the dots. Turns out all he knew was how to curl up and die in the bottom of a pint of lao khao."

Peggy Carter has posed:
While Peggy gives good chat and isn't exactly known to be a shy or quiet person, she is very effective at using silence. Leaving just enough dead air in the room to give someone time to think. To open up. It's something she's done with him a hundred times before, back when she just knew him as James but, even now, thirty years after the last time they worked together. This is one of those moments. If it's not the pilgimage that's plaguing the back of his mind, it's something else. So, she follows him silently to that booth. A smirk of appreciation crosses her lips at his look alone clearing it. It *was* their booth.

She sets her pint down so she can shrug out of her jacket and then slips down into the spot across from him. To any room onlookers, they'd seem like old work friends talking. However, beneath the table, on the inside edge of the booth, her legs have kicked up to rest against the outside of his thigh. It's a quiet show of affection, that she's missed him, but also something meant only for them to know.

She listens in respectful silence, lips pulling into a slightly deeper frown as he describes hitting another wall about the program. She's still angry on his behalf, over it all, even if she knows it's not half the anger *he's* feeling. "...I know I have much to do here, but I really do wish you'd take me on some of these hunts. On occasion. I am a *touch* talented at information gathering, you know. Only been doing it sixty years."

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Always figured you got your hands full with those Nazis hiding out in SHIELD," Logan offers, surreptitiously shifting his hand beneath the table to rest against her leg beneath the table where it brushes his thigh, "More important things to do saving democracy than chasing down old vendettas."

It's as though he's laid himself bare for a moment. There's a sort of inter-social armor that he wears most of the time, that bristly exterior that keeps people from prying and the lack of memory that prevents him from speaking too much about it. But sometimes the stars align, and he speaks candidly. It's in those moments that animal instinct compels him to shield himself once more, as though his throat were unwittingly exposed for the kill.

So, he covers it up with that same level of crudity that found its way into his text message.

"'Sides. Two of us on vacation? Think we'd get much further than the 'Do Not Disturb' sign hangin' on the doorknob?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
The dark haired woman knows the pattern. Peggy's eyes narrow on him, just a bit, as he steers back away from the subject and into that crude flirting. The side of her heel presses into his thigh, a reminder that she's there, even if she's halfway across the booth. That she's not going to let him hide away quite so easily. "Two of us on vacation *working*? We'd be lucky if we made it *back* to the hotel room. Consider it a prize for a good job done, some actual motivation to not over work ourselves. For once." She smirks to him, but the levelling of her eyes says she's not quite letting him get away with it.

Peg leans a bit closer, slender hands wrapped around her pint, red fingernails glossy against the slightly cloudy bar glass, but she's holding onto it instead of touching him where anyone could see and get the wrong, or right, idea. "Leads have dried up for now. Maybe... maybe we're lucky. Caught it all before it got bad. Besides, they still don't know what to do with me. No longer director, but not just one of the boys. I'm...stuck between, again. Might be nice to get some work to take my mind off things.."

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Ain't that the way?" Logan asks, "They act like they've got no use for the dinosaurs, right up until they realize they need someone to savage a problem in ways they can't."

Beneath the table, his hand finds her ankle and wraps about it. He gives it a squeeze, not overly gentle and very telling of the indestructible metal that lines his bones. For all that, though, he does not try to push her away but rather holds her there. His free hand plucks the cigar from his mouth as his head thuds heavily against the wooden clapboard of the booth, a fount of aromatic smoke billowing upwards to join the gathering gloom of the ceiling.

"My leads've dried up, too. Clayhill was meant to be a steppin' stone and he wasn't. Only got the one lead left and ... "

There's silence, but she knows him well enough to fill in the blanks. That last lead is the Facility itself. He knows his way back there in that strange, instinctive way of animals. But he's not ready for what such a visit might invoke. Not yet.

"I just wanna get sauced, Peg. You an' me. Like it's VE day. Worry about the other shit tomorrow."

Peggy Carter has posed:
There's a slight smile across her lips that isn't about work, or old memories, or a smile she even gives much of anyone else. It comes with the meat of his hand pressing against her ankles in a way that isn't exactly gentle, but is very much him. The appreciation that he's there. He came back home. She presses against his palm a bit deeper, a silent acknowledgement. Gratitude.

"...I missed you." There, she says it. Maybe a bit more affection than they normally dare show, but she's downed 3/4ths a pint on an empty stomach in less than 20 minutes. And, just maybe, it's true. "We can get sauced, if you like. I'll even foot the rest of the tab, for old time's sake." But that tone isn't so much teasing as it is worried. She knows enough to read behind that silence. The lack of leads.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"I missed you, too," Logan offers, his voice quiet as his eyes fix on the table, "They don't make 'em like you. Haven't for a long, long time - and even then, I think it was a fluke."

He can be sweet when he wants to be. There's always that sense of crudity, like a cabin built from scratch. Sure, the edges are rough, and you can see where the joinery doesn't quite come together as smoothly as it might. But there's genuine affection and passion there.

"How 'bout you finish that drink and we go for a walk? Head on down to the water. Pretend we're walkin' on tickertape again."

That first VE Day is one memory that never left him. The tickertape raining from above, the scattered newspapers that almost blanketed the streets declaring the War in Europe to be over. The sheer sense of unrestrained joy and relief that filled the air.

And her.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Keep this up and I'll think you're turning sweet on me." Peggy teases him gently, a slightly wry smile pulling across those red lips. But she is clearly not complaining. In fact, she lifts her pint glass in his direction, giving a single, little toast, and then she's knocking it back with expert smoothness. Not a pause as she gulps that last third, Smithwicks was an easy drink anyway. She sets down the empty glass smoothly, withdrawing her legs from the booth across from him.

"Shall we walk, Howlett? Before it gets even colder out there and I'm using you as a bear skin rug for warmth." She winks to him, easily slipping up and out of the booth. She's still only in that autumn leather jacket, so she might end up using him for warmth either way, but she doesn't much seem to mind.