8387/Absence makes...

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Absence makes...
Date of Scene: 18 July 2019
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: Summary needed
Cast of Characters: Peggy Carter, Winter Soldier




Peggy Carter has posed:
A field mission. A long one. That had been the orders. Whether it was psychologist acknowledging that Peggy was still keeping too close to home and the few familiar things she knew, or they actually needed specifically Peggy for her skill set, who knew. Probably a bit of each. She hadn't protested, even if there was a bit of a stirring in her chest. The thought of actually going back into active work (other than the one mission) was tempting. Even if leaving the familiar was rough.

Therefore, Peggy is dragging her feet a bit on packing. She still hasn't procured a LOT of things, but more than she needs to take on a few week mission. She's got an old style suitcase she dug up somewhere, god knows where, open on her bed and the door to the bedroom open so it might be seen from the hallway. Some jazz plays lazily from her phone, ancient music compared to the very modern device. Somehow, the track she's playing still has scratches on it.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Buck's been helping her with the procuring.....trying to drag her out to do social things now and again, ostensibly for his (and Lili's) peace of mind. But now she's going for a bit....maybe it'll make Steve's relative lack of presence raw, rather than being in a city haunted by the ghosts of their respective youths. Exorcise some of her frustrations.

Buck didn't cook tonight....and now he's bringing back dinner from the cafeteria, balancing the trays neatly as he opens the door. Lili comes scooting in and heads directly for Peggy, as he sets the food down on the table used when they dine in the apartment. "Hey, Carter, come eat somethin'."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Food. Yes. That's still a thing she should do. Not that she ever much cooked back home, that was always something Daniel took care of, so it often slips her mind until Bucky reminds them both. "Is...it that time already?" Technically well after dinner, but she's been dithering too long. She does pause int he packing to reach for Lili and give a gentle, eager scritching to the girl's scruff before she follows the canine out into the front room.

"...When I get back, I'll... cook something for you. Try at least. It's the least I can bloody well do after all this. And if I burn it, I'll order in. I'm good with the take out boy." She is only half teasing.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Buck both likes to cook and is actually surprisingly good at it. Courtesy of stints as diner cook and soda jerk, before the war. "Past time," he says, amiably. "C'mon, give it a rest. You're only goin' to DC, and no matter what you hear about 'em being savages there, they got department stores, I promise."

Lili expresses her delight with a few ladylike licks of the hand, then heads back into the living/dining room, looking over her shoulder. Come human.

"Sounds good," he agrees, chuckling. Already setting the table - it may be an apartment in the depths of a secret government facility, but he at least makes nods towards making it home-like.

Peggy Carter has posed:
That's been a part of Peggy's hesitance to leave -- the fact that he's made it home. There is a slice of normal here, a slice of sanity in an incredibly busy, too fast moving, strange modern world. There is a crack of almost sadness in her smile as she comes out to settle down at the table. She was going to miss this. "Oh, I remember DC. It can't be much different than the old days. I used to have my own office inside the Pentagon. They'd hear my high heels coming down the hall and run." Whether she's jesting or not isn't all that clear.

She can help set the table, at least. Quick utensils out and some napkins. A few serving spoons for whatever he picked up tonight. At the scent of it, her stomach audible growls, probably a sign that she hasn't actually bothered to eat since breakfast.

Winter Soldier has posed:
"That's right, you knew it when," he agrees. He knows DC as the heart of the maze, the ultimate hunting ground in the Cold War.....or rather, Winter does, and all his memories of it are tinted cold and gray by that perspective. Stir-fry chicken and veggies, fried rice, noodles - the cafeteria makes attempts at Chinese that are actually fairly respectable. One of the ones that he doesn't try to cook as an alternative to. "I bet you were a holy terror."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Someone had to keep them on their toes. Besides...without you and Steve to lecture and keep out of trouble, well... I had to find less interesting bureacratic prey." Peggy offers with a bit more of a smile, the sadness not behind it this time. Those are good memories, terrorizing DC bureaucrats who did not think a woman should be in the halls of their institutions. She digs in a good helping of each selection, now that appetite is kindled she's not going to be shameful about it. She still ate like someone who remembers rations, probably because she does.

Winter Soldier has posed:
That makes him grin, and it's a fair approximation of the old one, also much less tinged by wistfulness. "I'll bet. Musta seemed like small potatoes, after Steve and the Commandos." Because Bucky - he was a perfect angel, right? Honestly, far less of a troublemaker post-Zola, too busy trying to ride herd on Steve and struggle with the changes the Doctor's experiments had wrought on him.....and even that a far cry from what remains after the Soldier. Buck's a positive homebody now, generally content to dwell within the sanctuary of the Triskelion, save for expeditions with Peggy and Lili, and visits to Steve.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Made me miss them, really. Like a man who fights back on occasion." Mainly so she could put them in their place, but there is some hint of flirtation behind it too. She shakes her head with a little chuff of a chuckle and finally settles into a few bites of food. Relaxing more, into the normalcy of sitting down to dinner with Bucky. Things were finally feeling half routine and she was dashing away from it all again. "... this might sound... well, it's a touch sappy, but I'm going to miss you. It's been nice having a home here."

Winter Soldier has posed:
"You still do," he points out, very gently. "I'm not gonna clean your room out the minute you leave. You've always been a globe-trotter, that's nothin' new....but you'll be back." Buck's tone is easy, confident, and he smiles at her across the table, between bites of chicken. "But 'll miss you, too. So will Lili - right, girl?" The dog in question looks up from her bowl of chow, wags her tail.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Not going to be relieved to have your peace back instead of this lay about Brit who can't cook mucking up your place?" Peggy is only half teasing as she asks that, a few fingers of worry behind the words. The fear she'd overstayed her welcome already, that Bucky had never planned for her to move in and then she hadn't planned to stay but leaving had never felt... Right. She pauses in the consumption of dinner for dark eyes to actually fully rest on him with one of those serious, heart's open looks that she so rarely gives. She's still generally so guarded, even these days.

Winter Soldier has posed:
"But you're so decorative!" Buck retorts, grinning at her again. "Classing the place up and everything." She can slap him for that one.

Then the smile turns fond. "C'mon, Peggy, you practically won the war your own self - like I said, you can abandon the Ancient Code of Englishwomen for a little bit, now and again. I'll be waiting for you - this place'll be too quiet without'cha, just me and Lili. I mean, she's great, but she can't beat me at chess or tell me to get a haircut." Which he has still staunchly refused to do - it's still past his shoulders, the hippy.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A slight wrinkle comes to her nose and that familiar pursing of lips with a slight tilt away of her eyes, that look she gets when someone has told her something accurate, for her own good, that she doesn't like hearing. Namely the abandoning that ancient code. "...There's still decorum to keep." She quips back quietly, but it's only a half hearted argument because she knows he's won this one. Instead, she bandies back a firm, "And you DO need your hair cut. You look like a beatnik." The term is said with nothing but love these days.

The teasing falls quiet, though, as Peggy lets out a slow breath and drags one hand down her face, abandoning that ancient code. Maybe she could open up a bit. Maybe they wouldn't be sending her away if she'd dealt with her shit already. "...Part of me doesn't want to see how much it's changed. If it's day and night different... then it'll just be another thing which is nothing like home. And if it's the same, then it'll be all the harder to realize when I come home from this work trip... it won't be to our house. It was always that rush train, or plane in the later days. Thirty minutes on a puddle jumper. Make it home by midnight... Miss tucking the kids in but they were used to it..."

Winter Soldier has posed:
"That's the hardest thing. You look for something you know should be there, but isn't now. I wonder, sometimes, if I shoulda gunned harder to be stationed elsewhere. But....I couldn't. This is where Steve is, for one. And for all the changes, it's still my city. The unicorn tapestries are still in the Cloisters. The Brooklyn Bridge is still there. Central Park...."

He trails off, sighs. It's strange, at times, to see the changes - the ghost of the smiling boy he was, the somber man wih old eyes, even if his face is still unlined. "I know." And he reaches across the table to take her hand, squeeze it.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Her fingertips stretch over the table to his, not shying away or blocking it all up again. The temptation is there but she forces herself to actually listen to him for once. To open up enough that he knows she wants to be here, wants to come back... She squeezes his hand tightly, wordlessly. Sometimes a touch says a hell of a lot more than any she could stumble out in language. A mute nod comes a heartbeat later and she finally echoes, "I know..." She really did. They were some of the only people in the world who did.

But, it's not worth crying in noodles all night. She gives another squeeze to his hand and forces herself to let go, unless he hangs on. A smile plastering back into place. More food poked at.

Winter Soldier has posed:
He's been stubbornly persistent about it, in that low-key way - keeping at her. "It's gonna be okay, Peggy," he tells her, voice soft. "I'll be here. And you can call me, you know. They've pretty much done away with long-distance rates." Then that grin curls his lip. "Just be sure you do it before my early bedtime."

Another squeeze of the hand, and he lets go.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Oh, I know. Lili would lecture me if I called you too late. Can't dare cross the marm of the house." Peggy mutters, tossing a grin in Lili's direction as if to wordlessly say that yes, yes, Lili was absolutely a good girl! She returns that squeeze but does let go, dinner needing to at least be finished before she emotioned away all of her appetite. "And I will call. And... it shouldn't be *overly* long. Even if I end up on a jaunt to Europe, it's nothing like the weeks or months we'd be assigned back then. I'll be back and in your hair before you know it." She pauses a moment, as if something just hit her. "...if...I don't see Steve... tell him I said... good bye? And that I'd be back?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
"That's why I keep it so long," he says, smoothly. "To keep you in it." He's being ridiculous and he knows it, by the way he waggles his brows at her. His own appetite remains undented - he's eating with his usual neat dispatch.

And the smile again softens at the mention of Steve. "I will."

Peggy Carter has posed:
A roll of her eyes. "When I get back, we're going to a barber. That's it." She winks to him and then stands up, finishing one last bite of her dinner before starting to clear plates. "But...if I don't finish packing, I never will. I'll make certain to say good by before I head to the train tomorrow." She leans over for a brief, warm, one armed hug and then a ruffle to Lili's ears before she disappears back into her room. Packing waited for no one.