Dining Out

A waitress delivered two glasses of water and two menus to their booth. "Can I get you something to drink?" she asked.

"I'll have an ice tea, no lemon," Leslie said. "Do you want a beer, Steve? I see Budweiser on the shelf."

She nodded at the display of beer bottles, knowing the Budweiser brand was older than Steve.

"Sounds good," Steve agreed.

"I'll be right back with your drinks," the girl promised and flitted away.

Steve studied the menu, fighting down his shock at the prices. He had been warned. "I'm losing my appetite because of the prices," he muttered.

"This is modest," Leslie assured him. "Suck it up, soldier."

Steve debated internally. Protein and carbs both pulled at him. He confessed to Leslie he couldn't decide between the fettuccine Alfredo and the steak.

"Have both," Leslie instructed him. "You need the calories."

"But …"

"And the cost doesn't matter," Leslie said firmly.

"Yes, Aunt Leslie," he said humbly, as the waitress arrived with their drinks and a basket of sourdough bread.

"I'll have the 6-ounce rib-eye and my nephew will have the fettuccine and the 12-ounce steak," Leslie said firmly.

"That's a lot," the girl warned, even as she wrote it down.

"If we have leftovers we'll take them home," Leslie said. "But he's an exercise maniac. He needs fattening up."

"No, he doesn't," the waitress said, smiling at Steve with admiration and making him blush. "What sides would you like?"

"Um," Steve scanned the menu frantically.

"I want the loaded baked potato, no chives," Leslie said, to give Steve a minute. "And the garden salad."

"You get two sides with the steak and one with the fettuccine," the waitress prompted Steve.

"Um, I'll have the same as Aunt Leslie for the steak and …"

"How about the broccoli, or the asparagus," Leslie suggested.

"The steamed broccoli," Steve decided, when he finally found the section listed "sides."

"You've got it," the waitress said with a smile for both of them.

"Not used to picking side dishes?" Leslie asked.

Steve shook his head. "No, if you picked meatloaf, you got mashed potatoes. If you got pot roast, it came with potatoes and carrots and maybe green beans on the side. It was all one meal, no substitutions."

"Now you get more choice," Leslie said. "And even if a dish says it comes with fries — French fried potatoes — you can still ask for a substitute."

"Why would I want to substitute? I love potatoes. I am Irish!"

"You know all about me. Tell me about yourself," Steve said when the waitress was out of earshot.

"I want to start by saying that I know things that I'm sure you will want to know, but I'm not at liberty to tell you yet. I'm a secret keeper, that's part of my job." Steve wouldn't recognize that as a pop culture reference, but the meaning was still plain.

"Need to know." He nodded.

"Some of this, I think you need to know," she said honestly. "But I have orders, and I think some of the information would be too much, too soon."

"I trust you," he said simply.

He'd known her for four hours! She was touched, but exasperated. And she was very, very glad she'd bulled her way into this assignment. She wouldn't have trusted anyone else with Steve.

"OK," was all she said. "I'm from California and am still a Californian at heart, despite spending 35 years in New York. I've been with SHIELD longer than anyone else, longer than Fury. After I graduated from college, I had a hard time finding a job. The economy wasn't great. So I joined the army and trained as a records specialist — aka a file clerk. I didn't really like all the army BS, so I didn't re-up. As my enlistment neared its end, my captain told me about a small government security force called SHIELD. He'd worked with them on an op and made friends with one of the higher ups. I went to New York for an interview with his recommendation."

Boy, she wished she could tell him that Peggy Carter personally hired her. Eventually she would, she promised herself.

"SHIELD was really small then, focused on the strange, science-related cases that the SSR had handled. I was Number 2 out of two in the records department. When my superior left to become a field agent, I moved up to Number 1 — of one. But soon I had a staff of two and we kept growing, moved into the computer age eventually, but I still have all my filing cabinets. All the really secret stuff is on paper hidden among 60 years of files."

"So you work for Fury?"

Leslie nodded. "Fury and his top agents, Maria Hill and Phil Coulson. They're the only ones who really understand my value. The other senior agents just send their files over the computer. They don't appreciate the privacy of paper — or they do and don't trust me with it," she added thoughtfully. "I also handle things for a few of Fury's specialists, the ones who didn't follow a traditional path to SHIELD."

"What's a traditional path?"

"Serving in the military or the police, maybe the FBI, then transferring to SHIELD."

"What's a non-traditional path?" Steve asked.

"Growing up in a circus and defecting from the KGB, to name two," she answered with a smile.

"Circus, really?"

"Really. He has amazing weapons skills and acrobatics. He could literally shoot a bull's-eye from the back of a galloping horse, and did it at every show. But he had very little formal schooling, so I gave him personal coaching on spelling and filling out reports."

Leslie was one of the few who knew about Clint Barton's secret family. Records had to be kept in order for pay to be distributed, but these records were never in the computer. They were listed under Laura's maiden name in a deliberately dusty filing cabinet in the middle of personnel records of agents long past.

"And a KGB defector?" Steve asked.

"The Soviets had … well, they called it the Machine when talking about Olympic athletes. They would take children who showed promise at gymnastics or ice skating or swimming and take them from their families to train them all their lives to compete. The Soviets had a more secret program for spies, taking little girls and training them to seduce and spy and kill."

"That's terrible," Steve said.

"Yes, but when she grew up Natasha escaped and was offered a chance to defect to SHIELD." Leslie didn't hesitate to use Natasha's name because her story was well known in SHIELD. "She was very good with her reports, but only knew how to fake a normal life. Her only friend was the field agent who turned her and his handler, but they were out in the field, so I offered to show her around."

"Like you're showing me around," Steve said.

"Yes, so you see, I have experience at this," Leslie teased. "I volunteered because everyone was afraid of her. She had such a reputation. She was surprised that I wasn't. I told her I was, but pointed out if she wanted to escape, she didn't even have to disable me to do it, because I was over 50 with arthritic knees. She could run circles around me and laugh. I didn't see any upside in her hurting me. And she never did."

"So you're friends with these agents?"

Leslie shrugged. "We don't hang out together all the time. I'm 40 years older than Natasha. We're just work friends. She drops by my office once in awhile with a cup of tea and Russian teacakes. I give the class to new agents about writing reports and filing them, so I meet just about every agent when they start and a lot of them ply me with baked goods when they need help with paperwork or advice on how normal people would react in a situation. Some of them need old records for current cases and a lot try to get gossip about Fury's baby agent days, but I only tell the two stories that Fury's given me permission to tell."

"Secret keeper," Steve said with a smile.

The conversation lagged when the food arrived, salads first, then the main courses.

Steve tucked in with a will, eating neatly and politely, but quickly. His eyes closed in pleasure when he savored the first bite of pasta.

"That's so good. I haven't had anything that good since we left Italy," he said.

Leslie realized Steve had been living on Army rations for most of the last two years, from his point of view.

Steve switched plates. "The steak is excellent, too."

With her mouth full, Leslie agreed, "mmm," then she swallowed and said, "The owner was a chef at a top restaurant, but he wanted his own place." She sighed regretfully. "It will get really crowded here when it's 'discovered,' but for now we benefit."

"How'd you find it?"

"An agent named Sitwell. He follows the food scene. Always tells Maria about the best places and she tells me."

They talked mostly about food while they ate. Steve liked Irish stew and meatloaf and chicken soup. Leslie liked steak and salmon and roasted chicken.

"We couldn't afford young, tender chickens," Steve said. "We had older birds and tougher cuts of meat for stew and soup. We boiled everything."

"Stewing and boiling aren't the same thing," Leslie pointed out.

"Hm, maybe that's why my cooking was never as good as my Ma's," Steve said. There was a twinkle in his eye that might have meant he was teasing, but Leslie couldn't be sure.

When the waitress brought the check to the table, she offered to-go boxes.

"Ill take one, but I don't think Steve will need one," she said.

The Super Soldier had two bites of pasta left on his plate and was twirling his fork in one of them.

"You were hungry!" the girl said with a smile.

"I was," Steve agreed. He handed her his credit card as if he'd grown up using them.

"He's been overseas. Hasn't had a good meal in ages," Leslie said.

"Thank you for your service," the waitress said, as she walked away.

The waitress must have told the owner about the big eater, because he brought back the credit card himself.

Steve stood to shake his hand. "I first had fettuccine Alfredo in a small place in Italy. This is just as good as I remembered."

The chef thanked him for the compliments and for his service. "How long have you been back?"

"Just got in today," Steve said.

"So I had to bring him straight here," Leslie put in.

"I'm honored," the chef said. The waitress came with a container that had a full helping of fettuccine. "Please take some fettuccine with you, as my thanks for your service."

Steve didn't want to take advantage, but Leslie accepted on his behalf. "My nephew is modest, but I have no shame," she said. "And he eats like a horse, so this will be handy later."

As they left the restaurant, with Steve carrying a bag with both sets of leftovers, they passed through the bar area, which had gotten much livelier in the hour they'd been in the dining room.

The big screen TV was showing a baseball game. Steve's eye was caught by the bright colors and familiar sports action.

He stopped dead. "What's that?" he asked loudly.

A/N: This is as special as Leslie is going to get. She knows Natasha and Clint, because Fury wanted them to have special handling. She must know Melinda May, since May seems to be working in some sort of clerical function at this time period. They don't hang out all the time, but they might chat in the lunchroom or ask her advice about how normal people live. Natasha might make an appearance in this story before she heads off to her mission in Russia. She wants to, and she's hard to say no to. Clint and Phil are in New Mexico, so not them.
Apart from Leslie's military specialty, her life story is semibiographical. I didn't get the job in New York and came home to California where I did get a job and I've worked for that company for more than 30 years.
Work has been stressful this week, so I don't have the next chapter written yet. I'll try, but it may be 2 weeks before the next post. Don't get anxious. There's more to come. And I haven't forgotten Reconstruction, either. RL just gets in the way sometimes.