(Chuck/Big Bang Theory) Secrets, Spying, and Shopping for linear_flower
Title: Secrets, Spying, and Shopping
Author: pie_is_good
Fandoms: Chuck, Big Bang Theory
Characters: Chuck, Casey; Penny
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Word count: 1638
Spoilers: Very generic, S1/2ish of Chuck, and for BBT, at least up to S4, but no real spoilers for either show beyond the basic premise.
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Chuck and the Big Bang Theory belong to their respective creators
Summary: Chuck finds Penny in a bar.
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Penny glanced up from her beer at the man who’d interrupted her mindless stare towards the television behind her bar. He looked normal enough - a little geeky, maybe, but it’s not like that was anything she hadn’t dealt with before.
“Nope,” she said, turning back towards the television. Nebraska basketball wasn’t really holding her attention, but she didn’t really have anything else to do while she waited for Amy and Bernadette.
“So,” the man started as he lowered himself into the bar stool. Penny turned towards him, realizing he’d wanted more than a seat.
“Look.” Penny put her hand down on the edge of the bar in front of him. “I’m just going to make this easy for you. I have a boyfriend.”
“What?” the man said, his eyes going wide. “No! No, I have a girlfriend! That’s not what I meant. I, uh, I just. Well, I need you.”
“Excuse me?” Penny said, a little louder than she’d intended, but not enough that the bartender even bothered to glance over at them. “You need me?”
“Again, not like that.” He took a deep breath. “I just need someone who looks like my girlfriend, and…well, this isn’t coming out very well, is it?”
“Nope.” Penny glanced down towards the bartender, considering ordering another beer to deal with this guy.
“Can I start over?”
“Sure,” Penny said with a laugh. “Why not?”
“Hi, I’m Chuck.” He stuck his hand out awkwardly, his eyes glancing towards hers but quickly looking away as soon as she tried to make eye contact.
“Penny,” she said, shaking his hand firmly. “I didn’t know people still named their kids Chuck.”
Chuck looked up at her, his head tilted to the side. “That’s exactly what she…”
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Chuck sighed, waving off the bartender. “Look, I need you. For an hour, maybe less, and I know that this is just sounding worse and worse and that I might as well just be digging myself into a hole in the ground outside, but will you just come with me?”
Penny glared at him for a second, but he looked straight at her this time, his eyes not wavering and his hand still on the bar.
“Where?” she said.
“To a secret base.” This time Penny looked at him for any sign of a joke, but he looked dead serious, even with the curly hair a little in his face.
“Alright, fine,” Penny said, pulling out her phone to cancel her girl’s afternoon.“On one condition.”
“What’s that?” Chuck asked.
“You let me drive.”
***
Penny pulled into a parking lot in Burbank about ten minutes away. She wasn’t really sure what the guy was getting at, taking her to a Buy More parking lot, but at least it was somewhere public.
And she was the one driving.
“Follow me,” Chuck said as he climbed out of Penny’s car and headed towards the doors of the Buy More.
“Into the Buy More?” Penny didn’t move from next to her car, folding her arms across her chest as she stared at the back of his head until he turned around. “You have a secret base in a Buy More?”
“Yes.”
Once again, Penny searched his expression for any sign of a joke, of a mental illness, anything, but he seemed dead serious.
“Then lead the way.”
After all, what trouble could she get into in a Buy More?
***
“Hey man, who’s the chick?” a man with a beard yelled across the store, completely disregarding the customer he’d been speaking to moments before.
“No one, Morgan,” Chuck said, holding his hand out before Morgan got any closer. “Just a customer I met in the parking lot.”
“A girl?” Penny heard another voice behind her. She turned around to actually recoil in horror at the looks the two weirdos were giving her, and she was a girl who regularly ended up in a comic book store.
“Down, Lester,” Chuck said. In a lower voice, he whispered, “Just keep following me. Ignore them.”
“I know how to deal with nerds.”
“Not these ones, trust me.”
The two walked through the store in silence until they were in the break room.
“Do you work here?”
“Sort of,” Chuck said as he rifled through a locker. “But I really work for the CIA now.”
“The CIA?” Penny laughed. Maybe this guy was crazy, after all. She didn’t really know why she’d followed him. Probably because he reminded her of her friends.
“Yes,” Chuck said, and the lockers turned into a door. “The CIA. Well, and the NSA.”
Penny gasped, running over to the opening and peering into it.“What’s down there?”
“Exactly what I told you,” Chuck said, grinning. “A secret base.”
***
“She doesn’t look anything like Walker,” Casey said as he looked her up and down. “Is this really the best you could do?”
“You could do a hell of a lot worse,” Penny said before Chuck had a chance to defend himself. She wasn’t really paying much attention to the conversation - too distracted by everything around her - but she knew an insult when she heard one.
“Well, Casey, she’s going to have to do, okay? We have,” Chuck trailed off, checking his watching nervously, “a half hour. 29 minutes, actually.”
Casey just grunted in response.
“Okay, Penny…” Chuck trailed off. “What’s your last name?”
“Penny is enough,” she said, though looking around she assumed they’d probably be able to figure out exactly who she was, where she lived, and her entire family tree in about twenty seconds. She had to admit, this base was pretty cool. “You know, my friends are going to be so jealous when they hear about this. My boyfriend, especially.”
“You can’t tell them,” Chuck said quickly, and Penny just stared. She knew why, of course, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. “Look, I know it’s hard. I’ve been lying to my best friend and sister for over a year; you can have just one secret, right?”
“Sure,” Penny said, though she knew full well she was horrible about keeping secrets, and she certainly held no responsibility for what came out of her mouth the next time she had a little too much to drink. But she could at least try to stay quiet. “So what do I have to do?”
“Well,” Chuck said, glancing over at Casey whose death stare said all too well that that Chuck had better not say too much. Penny wondered, and not for the first time, just exactly what these two were into and just how much danger she’d gotten herself into. “We need you to go shopping.”
“Shopping?” Penny laughed. “Well, you picked the right girl. I can try on shoes with the best of them.”
“I thought I might have,” Chuck said with a grin. “I chose you because of the bags from three different stores under you stool at the bar, after all.”
“You’re getting better at this spy stuff, Bartowski,” Casey said. “Now just get this over with. Explain the mission to her so we can get this girl the hell out of here. I don’t need to babysit anyone else.”
“You don’t babysit me.” Chuck stopped himself, holding up his palms and taking a deep breath. “Fine, whatever. Okay, here’s the deal. Sarah, the other agent who works with Casey and I, was kidnapped.”
“Oh my god!” Penny gasped. “That stuff actually happens to spies? Right here in Burbank? I thought it was only movies!”
“That’s what I thought,” Chuck said with a laugh. “But unfortunately, this is very, very real. Now, the thing is, Casey and I can’t rescue her until we complete another mission, and the….people that we’re up against are very afraid of Sarah.”
“Is she scary?”
“Not scary like Casey.” Casey grunted again, impatiently polishing the same gun handle he’d been cleaning since Chuck had brought Penny down into Castle. “But scary enough. Maybe even scarier, when she wants to be. We need them to think that she’s on this mission. So we’re going to dress you like her, put you in plain view, and hope that Casey can sneak past and retrieve what we need while they’re focused on you.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“My job is to protect you,” Chuck said proudly.
“So in other words, you’re dead.” Casey said. Penny looked up with alarm.
“Do I get a gun?”
“Bartowski doesn’t even get a gun. We’re certainly not giving you one.”
“Is that true?” Penny turned back towards Chuck. “You’re a spy, and you don’t even carry a gun. Even I know how to handle a gun.”
“Is that so?” Casey said, showing interest in Penny for the first time.
“Sure, I used to go hunting with my brother and dad all the time,” Penny said. “Not to mention the drunk nights in high school shooting stuff in the fields.”
“Maybe you didn’t choose so poorly after all.”
“Thanks for the high praise, Casey.” Chuck sighed. “Come on, Penny. Let’s get you dressed. That is, assuming you’re still in?”
“Oh I’m in all right,” Penny jumped up. “It’s not every day you get to do something like this. Lead the way!”
***
Twenty minutes later, it was all over.
She’d been a spy for about an hour. She didn’t know what Casey had done in those twenty minutes, and frankly, she probably didn’t want to know. But being a spy didn’t seem like it was all bad.
After all, she only had to spend twenty minutes looking at shoes. and try hard not to give Chuck too many nervous looks.
When she met up with Casey and Chuck to say goodbye before they rushed off to save Sarah, Chuck thanked her.
And Casey?
“Maybe next time we’ll let you have a gun.”
-END-
Prompt: Characters meet in a bar
Author: pie_is_good
Fandoms: Chuck, Big Bang Theory
Characters: Chuck, Casey; Penny
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Word count: 1638
Spoilers: Very generic, S1/2ish of Chuck, and for BBT, at least up to S4, but no real spoilers for either show beyond the basic premise.
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Chuck and the Big Bang Theory belong to their respective creators
Summary: Chuck finds Penny in a bar.
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Penny glanced up from her beer at the man who’d interrupted her mindless stare towards the television behind her bar. He looked normal enough - a little geeky, maybe, but it’s not like that was anything she hadn’t dealt with before.
“Nope,” she said, turning back towards the television. Nebraska basketball wasn’t really holding her attention, but she didn’t really have anything else to do while she waited for Amy and Bernadette.
“So,” the man started as he lowered himself into the bar stool. Penny turned towards him, realizing he’d wanted more than a seat.
“Look.” Penny put her hand down on the edge of the bar in front of him. “I’m just going to make this easy for you. I have a boyfriend.”
“What?” the man said, his eyes going wide. “No! No, I have a girlfriend! That’s not what I meant. I, uh, I just. Well, I need you.”
“Excuse me?” Penny said, a little louder than she’d intended, but not enough that the bartender even bothered to glance over at them. “You need me?”
“Again, not like that.” He took a deep breath. “I just need someone who looks like my girlfriend, and…well, this isn’t coming out very well, is it?”
“Nope.” Penny glanced down towards the bartender, considering ordering another beer to deal with this guy.
“Can I start over?”
“Sure,” Penny said with a laugh. “Why not?”
“Hi, I’m Chuck.” He stuck his hand out awkwardly, his eyes glancing towards hers but quickly looking away as soon as she tried to make eye contact.
“Penny,” she said, shaking his hand firmly. “I didn’t know people still named their kids Chuck.”
Chuck looked up at her, his head tilted to the side. “That’s exactly what she…”
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Chuck sighed, waving off the bartender. “Look, I need you. For an hour, maybe less, and I know that this is just sounding worse and worse and that I might as well just be digging myself into a hole in the ground outside, but will you just come with me?”
Penny glared at him for a second, but he looked straight at her this time, his eyes not wavering and his hand still on the bar.
“Where?” she said.
“To a secret base.” This time Penny looked at him for any sign of a joke, but he looked dead serious, even with the curly hair a little in his face.
“Alright, fine,” Penny said, pulling out her phone to cancel her girl’s afternoon.“On one condition.”
“What’s that?” Chuck asked.
“You let me drive.”
***
Penny pulled into a parking lot in Burbank about ten minutes away. She wasn’t really sure what the guy was getting at, taking her to a Buy More parking lot, but at least it was somewhere public.
And she was the one driving.
“Follow me,” Chuck said as he climbed out of Penny’s car and headed towards the doors of the Buy More.
“Into the Buy More?” Penny didn’t move from next to her car, folding her arms across her chest as she stared at the back of his head until he turned around. “You have a secret base in a Buy More?”
“Yes.”
Once again, Penny searched his expression for any sign of a joke, of a mental illness, anything, but he seemed dead serious.
“Then lead the way.”
After all, what trouble could she get into in a Buy More?
***
“Hey man, who’s the chick?” a man with a beard yelled across the store, completely disregarding the customer he’d been speaking to moments before.
“No one, Morgan,” Chuck said, holding his hand out before Morgan got any closer. “Just a customer I met in the parking lot.”
“A girl?” Penny heard another voice behind her. She turned around to actually recoil in horror at the looks the two weirdos were giving her, and she was a girl who regularly ended up in a comic book store.
“Down, Lester,” Chuck said. In a lower voice, he whispered, “Just keep following me. Ignore them.”
“I know how to deal with nerds.”
“Not these ones, trust me.”
The two walked through the store in silence until they were in the break room.
“Do you work here?”
“Sort of,” Chuck said as he rifled through a locker. “But I really work for the CIA now.”
“The CIA?” Penny laughed. Maybe this guy was crazy, after all. She didn’t really know why she’d followed him. Probably because he reminded her of her friends.
“Yes,” Chuck said, and the lockers turned into a door. “The CIA. Well, and the NSA.”
Penny gasped, running over to the opening and peering into it.“What’s down there?”
“Exactly what I told you,” Chuck said, grinning. “A secret base.”
***
“She doesn’t look anything like Walker,” Casey said as he looked her up and down. “Is this really the best you could do?”
“You could do a hell of a lot worse,” Penny said before Chuck had a chance to defend himself. She wasn’t really paying much attention to the conversation - too distracted by everything around her - but she knew an insult when she heard one.
“Well, Casey, she’s going to have to do, okay? We have,” Chuck trailed off, checking his watching nervously, “a half hour. 29 minutes, actually.”
Casey just grunted in response.
“Okay, Penny…” Chuck trailed off. “What’s your last name?”
“Penny is enough,” she said, though looking around she assumed they’d probably be able to figure out exactly who she was, where she lived, and her entire family tree in about twenty seconds. She had to admit, this base was pretty cool. “You know, my friends are going to be so jealous when they hear about this. My boyfriend, especially.”
“You can’t tell them,” Chuck said quickly, and Penny just stared. She knew why, of course, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. “Look, I know it’s hard. I’ve been lying to my best friend and sister for over a year; you can have just one secret, right?”
“Sure,” Penny said, though she knew full well she was horrible about keeping secrets, and she certainly held no responsibility for what came out of her mouth the next time she had a little too much to drink. But she could at least try to stay quiet. “So what do I have to do?”
“Well,” Chuck said, glancing over at Casey whose death stare said all too well that that Chuck had better not say too much. Penny wondered, and not for the first time, just exactly what these two were into and just how much danger she’d gotten herself into. “We need you to go shopping.”
“Shopping?” Penny laughed. “Well, you picked the right girl. I can try on shoes with the best of them.”
“I thought I might have,” Chuck said with a grin. “I chose you because of the bags from three different stores under you stool at the bar, after all.”
“You’re getting better at this spy stuff, Bartowski,” Casey said. “Now just get this over with. Explain the mission to her so we can get this girl the hell out of here. I don’t need to babysit anyone else.”
“You don’t babysit me.” Chuck stopped himself, holding up his palms and taking a deep breath. “Fine, whatever. Okay, here’s the deal. Sarah, the other agent who works with Casey and I, was kidnapped.”
“Oh my god!” Penny gasped. “That stuff actually happens to spies? Right here in Burbank? I thought it was only movies!”
“That’s what I thought,” Chuck said with a laugh. “But unfortunately, this is very, very real. Now, the thing is, Casey and I can’t rescue her until we complete another mission, and the….people that we’re up against are very afraid of Sarah.”
“Is she scary?”
“Not scary like Casey.” Casey grunted again, impatiently polishing the same gun handle he’d been cleaning since Chuck had brought Penny down into Castle. “But scary enough. Maybe even scarier, when she wants to be. We need them to think that she’s on this mission. So we’re going to dress you like her, put you in plain view, and hope that Casey can sneak past and retrieve what we need while they’re focused on you.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“My job is to protect you,” Chuck said proudly.
“So in other words, you’re dead.” Casey said. Penny looked up with alarm.
“Do I get a gun?”
“Bartowski doesn’t even get a gun. We’re certainly not giving you one.”
“Is that true?” Penny turned back towards Chuck. “You’re a spy, and you don’t even carry a gun. Even I know how to handle a gun.”
“Is that so?” Casey said, showing interest in Penny for the first time.
“Sure, I used to go hunting with my brother and dad all the time,” Penny said. “Not to mention the drunk nights in high school shooting stuff in the fields.”
“Maybe you didn’t choose so poorly after all.”
“Thanks for the high praise, Casey.” Chuck sighed. “Come on, Penny. Let’s get you dressed. That is, assuming you’re still in?”
“Oh I’m in all right,” Penny jumped up. “It’s not every day you get to do something like this. Lead the way!”
***
Twenty minutes later, it was all over.
She’d been a spy for about an hour. She didn’t know what Casey had done in those twenty minutes, and frankly, she probably didn’t want to know. But being a spy didn’t seem like it was all bad.
After all, she only had to spend twenty minutes looking at shoes. and try hard not to give Chuck too many nervous looks.
When she met up with Casey and Chuck to say goodbye before they rushed off to save Sarah, Chuck thanked her.
And Casey?
“Maybe next time we’ll let you have a gun.”
-END-
Prompt: Characters meet in a bar