The war is over. Finally. Not without it's fair share of casualities. It's not fair for anyone. That's why it's war. It's not meant to be pretty. If It was certainly it would be something else entirely, not war. He finds himself separated from the guys that had become like family to him, by choice of his own. Jack's not exactly proud of some of his actions back there. He suspects none of the guy's are, but that doesn't stop him from taking a seat by himself. Bourbon fills the glass, half of it gone in a single sip. The rest gone a few moments after the burning in his throat ceases. He calls for another one right when the seat next to him is no longer empty.
"And something fruity for the little lady." He requests without even bothering to look at her or to ask her if she had wanted a drink.
"I'll take that he's having." The voice cuts just as his own words finish, causing him to take a moment and look over at her. She's defiant and he kind of likes that. Easy on the eyes, too, reminding him of most of the girls he had seen through. There's something else though. Something he can't really pinpoint. He'll blame it on the liquor flowing through his veins with the way he is unable to determine where he had seen her.
"Don't have anything to prove with me, sweetheart." The words come out in a slight slur, shrugging his shoulders, before the glass find it's way to his hand again. This time he only sips it.
She smiles, not that he sees it, but it's still there. "I don't have anything to prove. Certainly not to you."
They dance after that. He had to sweet talk her some, barely managing to get her to agree. She's not like any girl he's ever met before. He likes that. Not that he admits such a thing. It takes a couple of dances to realize that she is Peggy Carter, the very girl he's been chasing to the ends of the Earth and back for what felt like months. Too many months. They'd been chasing one another. Only to end up there with one another.
Their bodies are close. He's careful to avoid her lips. He knows the stories of men taken down by a simple kiss. This is not what he's going to lose.
"Agent Thompson." She whispers directly in to his ear, something that sends unwanted shivers down his spine. Everything about is unwanted, really. The demons from the war still haunt him. It's his first mission back, all connected to Howard Stark. A name that if he never heard again he would be perfectly fine with that.
"Agent Carter." The first moment he reveals he knows exactly who she is and she smiles. A smile that could take down the entire bar. He'd gravely underestimated her and all that she could do. A mistake that he will not make again. No, he is quite certain of that.
The music stops and the two of them pull apart. Nothing is ever so simple, however. Not as he hears a beep, looking down and seeing the way the device is attached to his chest, slipping through the opened button of his
"Come with me."
He hates the way he feels like a little lost puppy when he follows her with the expression of curiosity. The truth is he is now at her mercy, as he suspects the device does something about as bad as he had done to a few too many guys during the war.
They exit the bar and he finds himself in some shady hotel right along with her. She points to where he's supposed to sit. He stands. Out of the multiple scenarios running throughout his head he never thought that this would happen.
"You have twenty minutes before that stops your heart." Her voice was calm, digging through her bag, only to put out a remote of some sort. "Unless I deactivate it. Your skin's going to burn afterwards."
"What do you want?" He knew just how this game was to be played.
She's quiet and she smiles, if he didn't know better it's not a smile of victory like he would have believed to be on the winning agents face. "I already have what I want."
In a move that he may come to regret later he reaches for his firearm at his side, lifting and cocking it. She doesn't move. "I don't want to do this." And he didn't. In the game of cat and mouse he learned a lot about the woman known as Peggy Carter, whether or not it's all true is a master of circumstance, he suspects. Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer.
"But I will."
The second his fingers finds it way to the trigger, pressure added he hears a man's voice, one he recognizes to be that of Sousa.
Jack doesn't see it but the feeling flowing through his body was enough to tell him a different kind of button was pushed, one that made the device prove how deadly it could be.
& maybe it's a sweet release, releasing himself from the demons that plagued him from the war. All of the tales untold, the ones he could never manage to speak of, even with liquid courage coursing through his veins, no longer able to consume him as they did. The only kind of release he gets.
It overwhelms him.
Only when he wakes next does he hear the familiar sounds of the machines beeping, the medication heavy, barely able to open his eyes. Just for that moment does he see Peggy standing there. Maybe they weren't complete enemies.
His eyes fall shut, allowing himself to be taken by the medicine, later waking to an empty room. A note from the chief left, telling him to get better, buzzing the nurse as he convinces himself it was his mind playing tricks on him. She was never there, and he lost the battle. Another thing to plague the heavy thoughts that felt like the weight of the world on his shoulders.