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Mack's Diner, Shield County
Now
Bobbi absent-mindedly rested a hand on the slight curve of her belly as she half-bent down, checking on the pie in the oven. It was just beginning to brown on top - half a minute more, and it'd be crispy, golden and perfect.
Allowing a satisfied smile to tug up the corners of her lips, Bobbi leaned back, feeling a little blossom of pride bloom in her heart.
Mack's Diner was known throughout all of Shield County for its unique, spectacular pies - and that was entirely thanks to Bobbi's special talent. Her knack, if you would. She just instinctively knew which ingredients would go together, and which wouldn't, and whenever she experimented with something new, it always ended up absolutely amazing, if she did say so herself.
"You always were a quick study, Barbara, but this is something else," Mack had told her with open wonder when she had brought him her first experiment pie - chopped cooked ham, chopped green onions, cream, Brie cheese and parmesan.
It had turned out to be the biggest hit of the diner's year, and even notorious food critic Melinda May had pronounced it "excellent."
Today's pie, though, probably wouldn't be quite as spectacular as that - it was a simpler, homey thing, made by pie-ing her favourite comfort food to suit the cozy, warm mood she found herself in lately.
Her hand brushed over her stomach again, and she couldn't help her smile. Your fault, she thought, fondly.
As though in reply, the pie in the oven started giving off that delicious crust-crisped-to-perfection smell. There weren't many smells that Bobbi would describe in colours - she was just a little too scientific-minded for that - but this smell was definitely a solid golden.
"Wonderful," she breathed, pulling her oven gloves on and taking out the pie in one smooth, practiced movement.
Her mouth watered, and she bit her lip as a wave of intense nostalgia overtook her at the sight of the warm, rich spaghetti pie.
Spaghetti was her comfort food because it reminded her of her first date with Hunter - reminded her of their first kiss over a string of tomato-streaked spaghetti.
(There had been an argument involved, naturally, about how ridiculously cliché it was to eat spaghetti out of the same bowl, and how it was basically guaranteed that they would end up making out at some point - but in the end, the secret romantics in them both had won out, and with a couple more grumbles for good measure, they had shared the pasta.)
To her utter surprise, Bobbi felt tears - happy tears - pickling against her eyelids. She just loved him so much.
"This is also your fault," she told her stomach, sniffling as she reached for a serving tray for her pies.
Pulling up one corner of her blue-and-white checked apron, she dabbed her eyes dry, then grabbed the tray and made for the main diner, pushing open the kitchen door with her foot.
Hunter was wiping down the display counter in front of her, but he turned around immediately at the familiar creak of the kitchen door. "Bobbi," he breathed, and it sounded like love incarnate on his lips, short as those two syllables were. "I missed you. I missed you so, so much."
Barely giving her time to set down her pie tray, he strode forward and wrapped his arms around her, carefully avoiding her small baby bump and burying his face in her hair.
"I was gone for half an hour," Bobbi reminded him, simultaneously trying not to laugh and trying not to well up again.
Hunter pulled away slightly so that she could see his mock-betrayed look. "Yes, half an hour," he agreed, and the affront in his tone was so great that Bobbi had to snort.
"Half an hour, Bob! Half a whole hour without you!" he continued, his eyes comically wide with dismay.
"Oh dear, whatever will you do with yourself?" Bobbi deadpanned, nudging his hip lightly with hers.
Ignoring her, Hunter knelt down in front of her, resting his hands gently on her waist and bringing his face close to her stomach. "And how is my favourite baby bird doing?" he asked, his voice so impossibly tender that she actually did start tearing up again.
"She's good," she said, her voice choked with emotion.
Gently, Hunter reached for her hand, turning it over and pressing a long, tender kiss against her palm. "You," he said, holding her gaze directly, "are going to be the best mother this little bird could ever have dreamed of."
"And you're going to be the best father," she replied instantly, turning her hand over again so that she was gripping his fingers.
Squeezing lightly, she told him as best she could without words that, yeah, neither of them really knew what they were doing, but they could do this, together.
And when he pressed a second kiss against her hand - a feather-light brush of his lips over her knuckles - she knew that he understood, and agreed.
A soft, happy-sounding sigh from somewhere to their left interrupted them, and Bobbi turned her head to see Mack himself watching them, a funny expression on his face.
"What is it?" she asked, carding her free hand absent-mindedly through Hunter's short hair. (For his part, he remained crouched in front of her stomach, murmuring tender nonsense to her baby bump.)
Mack's gaze softened into something that was entirely affection, and he gestured simply up at her, then down at Hunter. "Looking at the two of you now, you'd hardly believe where you started off," he said, smile fond as he watched them.
Bobbi couldn't help her surprised, snorting laugh, and she heard Hunter make a similar sound, immediately apologising to their baby bird for the noise.
When things down there had been appropriately soothed, he glanced up, catching Bobbi's eye with a twinkle of amusement, affection and nostalgia in his gaze.
They managed to keep their faces straight for all of three seconds before breaking into matching grins.
"Yeah," Bobbi agreed, laughingly smoothing her apron over her baby bump. "Yeah, that was quite something."
Mack's Diner, Shield County
3 years ago
"I call this the Spanish Dancer pie," Bobbi announced, slapping the tray down on the counter with a flourish. "Chorizo, cheese, sweetcorn, cilantro, and chilli tomatoes."
Mack paused what he was doing - taking inventory, which it had to be admitted, he'd pause for any reason whatsoever - to shoot her his most withering glare. "Really, Barbara?"
"Really, Alphonso," she agreed, shooting him her most dazzling, angelic smile.
"Just ask her out already, big man," Daisy, their most popular waitress, trilled as she passed Mack, bumping him playfully with the corner of her serving tray.
"Yeah, mate, everyone can see that you're absolutely head-over-heels for her," Fitz, Daisy's foster brother and their other waiter, put in with a smirk.
"Oh, you're a fine one to talk about being head-over-heels, Mr I-Lose-All-Capability-Of-Speech-As-Soon-As-Jemma-Simmons-Walks-Through-The-Door," Daisy snarked, shooting him a mercilessly teasing smile.
Fitz shifted his tray to one arm so that he could clench the other into a fist, brandishing it pretend-threateningly at his sister. "I am going to murder you," he warned, about as dangerously as Jemma Simmons' smile.
"Then you'll have to do my half of the dishes," Daisy returned cheekily, throwing him a two-finger salute.
Shaking her head in amusement, Bobbi reached for her pie tray and started to round the counter, still half-listening to the siblings' affectionate banter -
… only to collide heavily with someone coming the same way from the other direction.
Crash.
Pie, tray, chorizo, and eating utensils went flying in all directions, a sticky, flavourful mixture of melted cheese and chilli tomato managed to land right on her face.
Spluttering, Bobbi swiped the offending filling off, blinking incredulously a couple of times before regaining her voice. "What the hell?!!"
At the exact same time, the person she had smashed into found his voice, weighing in with an affronted "What the bloody hell?"
"You need to watch where you're going!" she burst out, pulling her hand away and glaring at the sticky, cheesy mess on her fingers.
"Excuse me, I need to watch where I'm going?" her mystery crashee asked, up on his feet at once and with outrage flashing in his eyes. His British accent becoming more pronounced in his obvious vexation, he continued, "You're the one who crashed into me; you bloody well need to watch where you're going."
"I -" Bobbi sputtered, momentarily lost for words as she gaped at him, melted cheese dribbling down the sides of her face. The impertinence of this man!
"I work here, you ass, and I was carrying a tray of pies, how was I supposed to see you storming through like a maniac?"
"Storming? Storming? I was storming? Sweetheart, when was the last time you watched yourself get from place to place?" He folded his arms, his glare as fierce as hers despite the matching adornment of cheese and chorizo on his shirt. "Not a butterfly flitting through the roses, I can assure you."
"Yeah, well, a butterfly couldn't have ruined my pies, could it?" she shot back instantly, not bothering to hide the dismay in her eyes and voice as she nodded down at what used to be five beautiful Spanish Dancer pies.
For the first time, she saw something contrite enter the Brit's gaze, and… yeah, whoa. That was a pretty good look on him.
"I'm really sorry about that, love," he said, with a sincerity that caught her completely by surprise.
Trying to ignore the way it made her heart do this peculiar fluttery skipping thing, she dropped her gaze, muttering, "Yeah, well, no use crying over spilled pies."
She made to turn away, but the guy, whoever he was, caught her shoulder, his hand warm even through the thick material of her Mack's Diner T-shirt.
"Can I help you make another round?" he asked when she had turned back around, the genuine contrition??? in his warm brown eyes sending a flutter of that same peculiar, giddy feeling shooting through her body.
She got the feeling firmly in hand, though - she was Bobbi Morse - and narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, no, I don't think so," she said archly. "You've already proved how good you are at completely destroying pies; you must be crazy if you think I'll let you into my kitchen."
His eyes narrowed, too. "I didn't -"
But then he seemed to think better of it, giving a rueful laugh and a quick shake of his head. "Alright, yeah, that's fair," he agreed, dipping his head and lingering for just a second on her name tag pinned to her chest. "But, uh, Bobbi… I still want to make it up to you. I mean, you're kind of a wazzock, but it's an unforgivable crime to let good pies go to waste like that with no compensation."
He added under his breath, so quietly that she barely caught it, "Even if they are dodgy American open pies."
And, okay, Bobbi had three things to say to that. One - what the hell did the Brits do to pies?! Two, what the hell was a wazzock? And three, "wasting pies is such a shame" seemed like a pretty shoddy excuse, what was his actual point here?
He couldn't seriously be asking her out, could he?
… If he was, was he blind? She was currently covered in about five varieties of cheese and chilli tomatoes, in various stages of melting and dripping off her.
But, apparently, pie fillings didn't faze this man.
"Are you free at six thirty this Friday? That romantic little Italian place down the road?" he asked directly.
No way in hell, you're a pie-destroying asshole! she wanted to shout. Why would I go on a date with that?
"I think I'd like that," her treacherous mouth blurted, complete with a tiny smile and the most ridiculous giddy flutter in her heart when he smiled back.
"I'm not always a pie-destroyer," he promised, holding her gaze with just a touch of amused irony. "And if you'll let me, I'd be happy to prove that on Friday, love."
And despite herself, Bobbi had to smile, that warm, fluttery tingle expanding, oh-so-tentatively but oh-so-surely, till it was filling up her entire chest. "Okay," she agreed, feeling her eyes crinkle with the rare smile lines she usually only got when she was talking to Mack.
She added, because despite his assholery, despite his Britishness, despite the pies, it was true - "I'm looking forward to it."
Mack's Diner, Shield County
Now
"Alright, maybe we didn't have the, ah, smoothest first meeting," Hunter laughed, tightening his arms around Bobbi's waist. "But you have to admit - everything turned out pretty perfectly."
And looking around her at the little diner with its classic, retro decor, at the vintage-style photographs of motorbikes (courtesy of Mack's brother Reuben) on the walls, at the neat row of her pies in the display case, at the customers milling around and settling down with contented smiles, at Fitz and Daisy bickering playfully in their corner, at Jemma watching them with fond exasperation, at Elena sketching out a new logo for them, at their local nerdy writer Phil Coulson typing away on his honest-to-goodness typewriter and making gooey eyes at Melinda May, at Mack himself smiling at the whole setup with fatherly pride, and, of course, at Hunter, looking up at her with such utter adoration that her heart swelled to twice its usual size…
… Bobbi had to agree.
Everything had turned out pretty perfectly.