Slap Me

Summary:
November 05, 2014: Lance Hunter is on a stakeout in an unfamiliar bar. He meets Mack. Mack has a good afternoon.

Shucky's Bar

A seedy, cheap bar exempt from the smoking ban thanks to some bribes and a loose label of cigar bar.


Characters

NPCs

  • Shucky

Mood Music:
None


Evening is a nice time to go to a bar, but lunchtime? Hunter looks as though he has settled in for the duration, the newspaper opened in his lap, several empty beer bottles at his side, and his feet resting on a chair opposite him. The man looks comfortable, his fingers playing lightly with the bottle, his gaze sometimes on the paper, something on a building opposite the bar. He can see it well from his position, and his chair hits the wall behind him as he rises to his feet, heading for the bar. "Another please, mate." English accent, obvious, unsubtle, and the words are delivered with a grin as he leans against it.

The door to Shucky's swings open, and a petite blonde woman enters, looking at first very out of place in a rough room full of smoke, sticky floors, and dockworkers. Second glance, however, shows she'd dressed much as they are in layers of cotton, canvas, denim, and flannel, there is no makeup decorating her face, and she has that faint smell of the sea about her. Mack Linden nods to the bartender, clearly someone he knows, as she steps up and slides onto a stool.

"Not trawling today, Captain Mack?" the weasley, balding owner asks curiously. She shakes her head. "Waiting on a part for the winch to come in, Shucky. so just a beer for me today." Because no trawling means no paycheck at the end of the day. She glances over at the stranger among them, and gives Hunter a slight nod.

The receipt of his beer, as he is returning that nod with a grin and one of his own, gives Hunter the chance to add, "Put hers on my tab, Shucky." The grin he sends her is warm, his eyebrows lifting as he adds, "Nice to hear that accent here. Care to join me?" He jerks his head towards the table, clearly intending to return there. First though, he offers his hand, "Hunter. Lance Hunter…"

Mack seems to be having a small run of luck with free drinks in the bar the last couple of days. She gives the guy a faint smile. "Sure, why the hell not?" she asks rhetorically. Her hand is calloused and not at all soft and smooth like a nice lady's. "Mack Linden. And what accent is that?" she asks. Hers is sort of a mix of those common among fisherman, long island, New York proper, with a smattering of Maine, Bostonian, and Newfoundlander. She accepts the bottle from the tender and follows Hunter to his table.

He leads the way to the table, drawing out a chair for her, an old fashioned piece of courtesy done with a less than old-fashioned grin. He takes his seat, clearing the bottles out of the way, with a brief glance out of the window. "That nice mix you have going there…" The flirting is obvious and he tilts his chair back, giving her the lopsided grin that some find charming. "My luck that you are waiting on a part…" A movement of his eyebrows is faintly suggestive.

Mack gives Hunter a snort of disbelief. "How long did you work on that line?" she asks with faint amusement. "And unless your part can lift a net full of Atlantic cod, I'm pretty sure it's not going to work for me," she quips back, a faint flirting in her own tone as she sips her beer.

"Long enough that it was worth it to watch you smile, Mack." His eyebrows arch and his grin spreads, as he tilts the chair back. "You know, I've never tried that but I'm willing to try anything once, luv." The amused cockiness is still there, his eyes glinting as he takes a swig of the beer.

Short hair with stubble across his jawline, and blue eyes that twinkle at times, Lance Hunter is a tall, athletic man, dressed casually in a white t-shirt and khaki pants, frequently wearing a leather jacket over the top. Not classically handsome, his angular face hints at strength of character, even as the blue eyes offer a more lighthearted suggestion.

"What is it with cocky Brits in my favorite bar lately?" Mack asks with an eye roll and a sip of her beer. "There was another one just like you in here last night. You're a bit more appropriately dressed, though." Because Chauncey, aka John Constantine was wearing a tie. A TIE! In Shucky's. No matter how loosened it was it was still a tie. "What brings you dockside, Hunter, Lance Hunter?" she asks.

"Oh? Someone else been in here pestering you?" The eyes narrow slightly and he considers her, his head tilted, "The need for a pint, the rumour that someone needed a part…" He spreads his hands, grinning at her. "Mostly the pint though, luv." He folds the paper, glancing out of the window, his chair shifted to put her between him and the view. "Nothing like a good pint."

Mack has few of what people would call special skills, but one of the few she does have is a perceptiveness bordering on spy level. Likely because her retired spy grandpa taught her some of his craft. "Or the view?" she asks, not looking over her shoulder, but clearly not referring to herself. She leans back comfortably in her chair and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, tapping one out and setting it between her lips. "You're way too clean to be in here for a beer, Hunter." The last is said with about the same tone as You know nothing Jon Snow.

"Pretty good view." He agrees, letting his gaze linger on her, deliberately. "I shower. So shoot me." His lips twitch and he tilts the chair back, letting it lean against the wall. "Can't a man enjoy the ambiance of a place without everyone assuming he is up to something?" He studies her, giving her a slow smile, his blue eyes twinkling, "I could prove I shower, if you want? I even put clean boxers on…"

Mack flicks a zippo to life and lights her cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke above the table. "Dockworkers are a suspicious and superstitious lot," she points out, swapping smoke out for another sip of beer. "Took me most of a decade to get accepted in here. Next time, I dunno, get some dirt on you before you park your showered backside in one of Shucky's chair," she advises with a quirk of a grin.

He watches her, his grin in place still, the blue eyes holding a level of amusement. "And if all I wanted was the beer, not to be accepted?" The question is amused, and he shakes his head, "I'm not trying to infiltrate them, luv, just have a beer in a place quieter than the city." The beer is lifted, a silent toast, his gaze on her face, "With a view."

"Across the pond, or whatever you call it, if you walk into a pub wearing the jersey of a rival football team, what happens?" Mack asks, as if to illustrate her point. "Small bar like this is less of a place to get a drink, and more of a community. Just giving you a piece of advice, Hunter." She shrugs a little and lets it go.

Hunter leans forward, resting his cheek on his hand, the other cradling the bottle. "Britain. Home. I call it home, luv." The grin is brief and he speaks more softly, "Not sure I would wear a football shirt but I take your meaning. Will it make it less problematic if I kissed you, making it obvious I was just waiting for you?" A dare in his eyes.

That gets a laugh from Mack. "Half the guys in here have worked on my boat, or for my granddad before me. They know you're not here to meet me. Just relax, and act like you're here to talk to me about buying some fish for your restaurant or something." She leans her elbows on the table and pulls some papers out of her coat pocket. They're the receipt for her winch part, but that's not discernible in the dark bar to anyone not at the table. It looks like any other contract. "So what are you really looking for, Hunter?" she asks curiously.

Her laugh gets a grin and his eyes twinkle, before he looks at the papers, a shake of his head designed for the others in the room. "If I told you, luv, I'd have to kill you. Then I'd never get that kiss." The reply is a carefully crafted brush off and flirt in one. "Mack Linden." He considers her name, considering the woman in front of him.

"Not NYPD then," Mack surmises. "FBI, CIA. SHIELD?" she whispers conspiratorially with a grin. "Is someone illegally selling flounder and claiming it's Chilean seabass?" she jokes. There's something underlying the humor though, she is actually digging. Frank Linden is a Linden he may have heard of. He was a SHIELD agent for two and a half decades, then retired to an informant's life as…a fisherman. And his granddaughter carried on after he passed a few years back.

Hunter widens his eyes at her, his lack of willingness to answer shown in the absolutely blankness, "Don't know what you mean, luv, I'm none of those." A technicality, but he lies well, and leans back in the chair, reaching for his beer. "Tax evasion, see." A nod, and a glance at the building across the street. "They are smuggling mackerel… " Now he is just teasing.

Mack chuckles and rests her weight to one side, giving him a better view out the window while looking casual. "I get it, all hush hush. You know, the view might be better up on the roof? Shucky lives upstairs, but there's two more apartments above that, and then a stairwell to the roof that the lock is broken on." How she knows all this is anyone's guess. Truth is, her granddad used to come in here to leave messages for his SHIELD buddies, and while they were chatting, a teenaged Mackenzie would go exploring.

"Sure, but I'm afraid of heights." Another lie, and his gaze flickers from her, to the window, and back. "So, what do you do when you aren't sailing your boat, and accusing innocent men of being something else?" A casual flirt, easily done, his mouth quirking up at the side.

"That's pretty much my life," Mack admits with a shrug. "Long days that start before some New Yorkers go to bed, after that you tend to still smell like you've been on a boat for 14 hours. Doesn't leave much room for a social life. But I have Shucky's. Oh, and Rufus." She neglects to mention that Rufus isn't a boyfriend or husband or the like, but a 170 pound Leonberger, her water rescue dog for the boat.

He is listening, that much is obvious, despite being on whatever clock he is on. "Rufus, huh? Not with you today?" The question suggests he took it to be exactly as she intended, his chair shifting under his weight. Then his gaze flickers to the doorway, his mouth quirks up at the corner and he leans forward, reaching for her, clearly about to plant a kiss on her lips. "Slap me, luv." The request has humour to it.

"Shucky doesn't have too many rules, but even he isn't going to let Rufus in he—-," she trails off at both the leaning in and the request. There's just a tiny moment of confusion, followed by a spark of jubilation as she hauls back and cracks her palm across Lance's face. She doesn't pull it either, and puts on her best angry look. She might be enjoying that too much.

A broad grin that only she can see and he pushes his chair back, "Thanks luv." His reason to leave at the right moment, apparently, and he storms towards the door, "Women! They are all she-devils!" An assertion made to a group of men he passes, and he is gone, through the door, and only she - with the view he selected - can see him running to a bike, to follow a van leaving the other building.

Mack tucks her receipt away, and lets him go, leaning back to finish her free beer, and scooping up the newpaper he left behind and read that too. Not a bad afternoon.


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