Last I checked, robots and zombies were tied for more popular guesses.
Who: Shepard, Peggy Carter, and Kitty Pryde What: Kitty drags them drinking as promised When: 8/4 Where: A pub! Rating: PG
As promised, once Kitty got to fly the Normandy around (which was a great deal of fun), she dragged Shepard back to the Agency and then kidnapped the Director for a bit of a girl’s night out. Natasha had been no where to be seen, so it ended up just being the three of them, and Kitty opened a tab at a pub while Shepard got them a booth.
Shepard made a note to take Garrus here sometime for some good old fashioned bonding time. She felt like she hadn’t gotten to do much with him lately, but he was busy with wedding stuff and she was busy having an existential crisis, so she probably owed him an apology. Still, maybe for a night she could relax again and when she woke up with a hangover maybe she’d feel a lot better about things.
It wasn’t often lately that Peggy got to go out and just have fun with the girls. She was certainly open to it, but it had taken a bit of time for her to get a good group of work friends going. It was a little intimidating to go out with the Director, but Kitty, Natasha, and Shepard were amongst the few that knew Peggy wasn’t as scary as she looked, thankfully. Which lead her to currently hanging out at a bar with two of those three.
Things seemed better now that Kitty had spent time with Shepard and she was happy they were able to let down their hair. She was currently finishing up her second drink of the evening when she spoke, “Alright, when are you going to let me drive the Normandy? I’m ready for a lesson when I haven’t been drinking.”
Well, Peggy could be scary but Kitty liked to joke about that. She once told a new intern that Peggy ate nails, and then went to painstaking lengths to make it look like that was happening once.
Shepard knocked back her drink. “We could do that next week. It’s pretty easy to pick up the basics.” Flying well on the other hand...well no one could fly the ship the way Joker could. He had a magic touch.
If Kitty had mentioned that to her she probably would have played along and put a box of nails on her desk or something. She had a wicked sense of dry humor, but it was greatly amusing when it needed to be. But for now Peggy was more concentrated on making sure Shepard was happy and the mention of getting to fly a spaceship next week made her smile around the rim of her glass, “Seriously? That would be brilliant!”
“What’s the worse that could happen.” Shepard signaled for a refill, then pointed at Kitty. “Don’t you even start.”
Kitty just smiled teasingly. “Never ask what’s the worse that could happen. Not in Orange County, and not around a mutant. That’s just asking for trouble.”
Peggy let out a very un-ladylike snort of laughter at their banter and nodded her head, “she’s got a point, Shepard, you should never ever let the powers that be hear that kind of talk. However, I think we are looking towards smooth sailing for that lesson.” There really wasn’t much that could go completely wrong as long as Shepard was on board with her. If things started to go south she would easily give up the reigns.
Worse Case Scenarios (™) ran through Shepard’s mind, but she dismissed them. It would all probably be all right. She looked down at her drink, and for one brief moment considered asking them if they knew they weren’t real - but she didn’t want to sound like she was crazy, so she ignored the impulse. “How’s the office pool on the next shenanigans?”
Kitty tapped her chin. “Last I checked, robots and zombies were tied for more popular guesses.”
“Put me down for aliens.”
Kitty laughed. “You’ll have to talk to Nat about that.”
“There’s an office pool? You guys need to stop keeping things from me like that. I’m not sure if I would rather deal with robots or zombies. Depends on what kind of robots they are, but zombies may be easy to deal with if you can contain them quickly,” so, maybe Peggy watched a lot of Walking Dead, “But you should put me down for a supernatural weather event like a massive volcano.”
“We’ve dealt with robots before.” Kitty sobered up a little. “Before you were director. Sentinels from my dreams trashed San Francisco. Still have pieces of it and some of its smaller siblings locked away. I’m still afraid that Cerberus got ahold of some, and if they got ahold of some, than Hydra would have it now.”
“No business.” Jane shoved another drink into Kitty’s face. “Drink. Worry about that shit later.”
“Right, got Peggy down for a volcano!”
Shepard had the right idea. It was supposed to be a fun evening and not one worrying about what could possibly go wrong in their town, “That does sound awful. There is a lot that could go wrong with that, but Shepard is right. We should worry about it a different time. We can schedule a meeting or something and discuss it properly.”
The comment earned a laugh, “Yes, volcanoes. I should go on a vacation somewhere with a volcano that won’t blow up. That would be nice.”
“Too bad we can’t do like an agency vacation,” Kitty suggested. “Like a group thing. I mean we’d have to have some people stay behind so they’d miss out.”
“Or we could do a second one a week later and switch off.” It would be expensive, but Shepard liked the idea.
“That could be a lot of fun. I mean, we may not even have to spend money since we do have people that could possibly assist with travel. The alternate vacations would work out nicely. Everyone can pick a group that they want to go with,” Peggy actually enjoyed that idea a lot. She wondered if she could possibly get something like that to work. It would have to be timed perfectly as to not happen during something crazy.
“Maybe Nat will have some ideas. Or Jemma. Jemma is still new and less affected by the crazy.” At least for now. Kitty was still worried about all of that.
“Spaceship is offlimits,” Shepard warned.
“Why do you have to be such a wanker, Jane?” Peggy made sure her tone was teasing as she grinned at the woman over her cup, “Your spaceship is pretty much amazing and I would only allow special people on it. But yes, will make sure to talk to Nat and Jemma. Maybe we should do some kind of company retreat, that’s a thing here, yes?”
“That’s what I’m told.” The only company Shepard had ever been a part of was a Marine company. And they tended to not retreat unless they had to.
“I think that’s what this should be,” Kitty agreed. She lifted her glass. “One week you know? I want just one week where everything is normal.”
“I think we can certainly try to make that happen. It’s a bit of a pipe dream, but I’m willing to go with it. I’ll talk to Nat and see what we can cook up. The natives are getting restless,” Peggy grinned before draining the rest of her drink.
The ‘natives’ included Shepard, who was about ready to up and cause trouble somewhere if only to feel alive again. And Kitty was a stale cinnamon roll, been in this world too long, too cynical. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Lets do a toast to things being normal.”
Shepard lifted her glass. “Sounds good to me.”
“I am certainly in agreement with that,” Peggy lifted her glass as well and clinked it against the others. She could hope as much as she wanted, but she was at the mercy of this place. At least she had good friends to help her get through it all.