[ she catches herself before she answers that it wasn't a slumber party. she knows this game by now -- the one where tony gets under her skin by dismissing, belittling, deflecting. it takes more good will than she'd like to admit but she manages not to lose her patience with him.
she's learned to pick and choose the moments when she twists his ear. metaphorically or otherwise. ]
I keep busy.
[ there's a half-completed book of sudoku puzzles on her nightstand. a pile of other books, too: a couple creased-spine agatha christies and a textbook with a little leather bookmark peeking out between the pages. she'd sooner own up to these pastimes than her obsessive and all-encompassing notes stowed away in her desk. ]
What about you? [ she starts pulling at a shoelace -- skipping the part where she tells him off for flopping onto her bed while still wearing them. ] Why are you here? Perhaps you're the one who's feeling bored.
[ talking with tony is (sometimes) like looking at a crime scene -- or a logic problem -- wherein first she's got to take the measure of what he says and second she's got to cross out whatever is most likely irrelevant. peggy's no stranger to speaking in red herrings but hers have always been calculated and careful. his, she worries, are reflexive. they spring off his tongue the way a sleeping soldier springs into action when something spooks him awake.
he's looking for the rabbit hole. she should ask about that, soon, but first: ]
Dense. [ she tells the truth. as much as she hates owning her ignorance, this isn't the sort of knowledge she can fake. ] It might actually not be 101 enough, I'm afraid.
[ and it pains her to admit it. but if there's anyone who can help her on that front, she knows it's him. ]
That's the thing with theory. You know, I graduated college at seventeen and I was younger than everyone there and I skipped most of my courses but I can tell you one thing I learned.
[ he sounds so serious about and yet. ]
okay two things - never drink alcohol out of plastic cups, it sucks so bad. and secondly, you'll never understand the book if you don't start experimenting on your own. theory never breeds action, action breeds theory.
[ that's the stark way of innovating, really. ]
what you have to do is to start your own thing. get the circuit boards and the wires, think of some way to put them together and build something small.
[ boast, boast, boast. peggy might be paying perfect attention to what he's telling her, but she's also rolling her eyes. right up until he finally marches himself 'round to the point of it all. and what a alright point it is.
she's surrounded by capable technological-types. she could go to any of them for help, for a bit of work, for all of it. but what happens when they leave and she's got no one left to trust? she's got a few gadgets, already, from fitz. and that pretty little gun from mister hunter. what if something happens and those items need repairs and all her people are gone?
so she swallows her pride and reaches for the book. beneath it, there's a simpler introductory engineering text. maybe her eyes were a bit too big for her stomach -- or maybe she's been losing sleep over tony's iron legion. ]
Until I read about them in these books, Tony, then there's no 'getting' the circuit boards and the wires. I don't know it well enough to make the closet generate the stuff.
[ she lets the textbook fall open on her lap. his shoes are forgotten. she pages through a section on forward kinematics, waiting for tony to make his offer -- because although peggy didn't ask for a favour, there's certainly the expectation of one hanging in the air between them. ]
[ tony knows a masked request when he sees one. she's all but laid the ground for it but then, so has he. the truth is, he wants to help and though he's absolutely sure he may not be the best of instructors, he wants to be the one helping her.
he already knows the company she keeps, okay. nerds and geeks. one can't have that. ]
that's a real problem. if only you knew someone who had them already you could go into their workshop and start from there. but then, who could fit the job? FRIDAY? suggestions?
[ I would really prefer to stay neutral on this, boss. ]
-- You know, you'd keep a hell of a lot more credibility if you stopped asking your programme to weigh in on your behalf.
[ even if friday is evidently 'intelligent' enough to know when to stay switzerland. peggy flicks through a few more pages of tightly packed jargon, not bothering to look up and meet him and his equally veiled offer.
she's pretending like she's thinking about it. like she didn't have an outcome in mind the moment he stepped into her room. ]
[ every now and then, tony is willing to face that fact that he's older than her. it's odd, it's unsettling. this is the woman who used to pry him off of his experiments and make him settle down in her lap but it is what it is and sometimes, tony can roll with it.
he sits up, he places two fingers at the very spine of the book and peers at her over the pages. ]
seriously. you know I have everything. just go wild. I don't know what's stopping you.
[ manners. a dash of doubt. questions as to whether she should even be pursuing this knowledge. all sorts of things have stopped her -- but now that he's spelled out her right to access, her right to 'go wild,' she has to wonder why she she allowed herself to be stopped in the first place. it's not that she's afraid...
rather, it's a challenge to figure out what kind of liberties she can expect to take as aunt peggy. she's never hesitated to help herself to any of howard's cars or homes or inventions. but that's different -- she always knows where she stands with howard stark.
with tony? well, with tony she at least knows where she wants to stand with him. but it's unsteady and unsure. living living on esteem that someone else earned. ]
Perhaps I simply assumed you'd be rubbish at sharing. [ she jokes, deflecting her heartfelt feelings much as he would. ]
[ as if, somehow, she wasn't the one who'd gone on this fishing expedition -- looking for an offer of help and instruction. peggy closes the textbook and tosses it aside, on the bed, and goes searching within for a softer reaction. ]
I'm only looking for a new hobby. Not signing up to be anyone's apprentice.
I mean. You could always try knitting. some people collect stamps, that's seriously cool. oh - I have it you could collect recipes, that's it. here's your hobby. it's perfect. you could do a whole recipe scrapbook, it fits you like a glove.
[ there he is, doing it again: dismissing. and this time peggy thinks she knows why. having met his enthusiasm with her own brand of standoffishness, she's not forced to endure tony stark's retaliation. his disappointment.
when the reality is that she's just as keen to spend time together.
peggy twists her upper body, looking over at him where he's flopped on the bed. ]
No. [ she sighs, so put upon! ] Appealing or not, I'll take you up on that offer. For a trial run, at least. Because it's rather ridiculous to collect recipes when you don't cook.
[ he smiles. it's broad and pleased. in some odd way, he's gotten what he wanted. he doesn't say that he knows she can't cook, that he knows it'll never be her forte. it doesn't have to be said. ]
besides. I'm not looking for an apprentice but if they ever send me away, someone will have to take over the space. Pepper hates the robots. Romanoff is an option. I don't trust many other people.
[ he shrugs. it's the simple truth. ]
I know what my technology can do in the wrong hands. if I'm gone, use it or destroy it. seriously. torch the place if you have to. the robot, the suit, the whole thing.
[ what he's describing sounds a little too close to a last will and testament. except he's not talking about death. him leaving the mansion might actually account for the last time she sees him in what'll amount to decades. if (when) peggy leaves too, she'll go back to a life of not knowing about any nephews-by-choice on the distant horizon.
peggy nods. jokes and dismissals and hard times aside, she knows when it's time to steel herself and be serious. ]
You've got my word, Tony, that things'll be looked after. Should it come to that.
[ -- no, wait. she didn't mean to make it sound as though his leaving would be a bad thing. peggy grits her teeth and hides her fluster. she should be arguing that it's a problem she hopes to encounter soon. for his sake. ]
[ there's a plan in action fir the day he gets sent away. The first part is this, get his technology out of the way, all of it. The second part is working on a list of people that can't be trusted. Just in case they ever show up.
He's still working on that one. Theoretically, he's fine with going back home to his own workshop and his own problems. But some things can't be helped. Tony wants to solve Wonderland riddles, he wants to help people go home.
On a selfish level, he's never been to her funeral. He hasn't really been dealing with her passing. He misses her. He misses Jarvis. He misses his mother.
He got one of them back. That's been good. That's the one thing he is reluctant to give up so quickly. ]
A Brief History of Time. That's what you should read.
[ it takes her a moment. she has to decide, in her own time, whether his suggestion is a real one or yet another red herring. in the end, she errs on the side of sincerity. although she's got no idea what it is he's recommending to her.
It was written by one of the most famous astrophysics alive. If I had to choose ten books every person who cares about science should real, it would be in the top five.
[ every now and then, tony stark can be serious about science. ]
Besides, it has a lot of interesting theories about space and time, the expending universe - all the fun stuff that could explain this farce we're stuck in. if we wanna get out, we have to understand where we're at. that book is a good place to start.
[ peggy thinks about her notes. better yet, she thinks about mister hunter's -- dotted as they are with formulas and equations in a math that looks to be leagues beyond her. it was a humbling experience, and it took a while to make her peace with reality that it was her decade holding her back and not her intellect. the former won't ever change; the latter is always always a work in progress.
so although she knows enough, back home, to have recognized jane scott's symptoms as those of someone who'd been around a particle accelerator -- that impressive deduction doesn't feel quite so impressive here. but she can learn, she can add to her tool box, she can at least begin to start speaking pieces of the same language tony speaks. all the more important, as he says, if they want to get out.
peggy reaches for the book of sudoku puzzles (a present from him!) and snaps up her pen, as well. it's a minor note of recklessness, perhaps, that she does her puzzles in pen. ]
Write it down, would you? Title an author. Along with the other four. [ from his top five. ] I've got rather a lot to catch up on, don't I?
You write it down. I'm comfortable. get a note - here we go. write the titles.
[ he dictates five titles. cosmos, he says, is the best-selling science book ever published in the English language. then there's In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World as well as The Particle at the End of the Universe and Turing’s Cathedral ]
-- you know that guy. The universal machine, those fun stuff?
[ if it wasn't for the fact that he was actively helping her, peggy knows she wouldn't have played ball with his tone, his imperiousness, his orders -- even though they just about matched the same style in which she first spoke to him.
she makes a quick and jotted list. and at the final title, she nods. ]
Doctor Turing? Yes. [ actually, she's been reading up on his later achievements. it's strange to read about a colleague whose work had been (at the time) as secret as her own. their paths crossed often enough in hut 8. ] I'm -- familiar with his work.
[ she's not ready to outright talk about bletchley, but now she must wonder whether tony knows about that particularly confidential part of her career. peggy glances at him, hesitating, before: ]
[ it's not strange to think that she brushed shoulders with individuals who went on to change the very shape of the world -- after all, she'd known even before project rebirth that people like stark and erskine were going to shake the very foundations of the earth. never mind steve rogers.
but her quiet reminiscence is interrupted by tony's final suggestion. fifty shades of grey -- sounds like some sort of lofty philosophical treatise. dull, dull, dull -- oh? groundbreaking, he says. and our intrepid agent carter doesn't have her guard up; she trusts his recommendation entirely, even underlining the title twice as a kind of firm reminder. ]
Better, I hope, than dry robotics textbooks. [ she tears the page out of her sudoku book and folds the page and its book list into thirds. ] Cheers, Tony.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
( action. )
[ but not drunk enough to forget, it would seem. ]
are you bored? you're saying you're bored? I mean, it's been boring. the psychedelic colors event was a Thing but other than that.
( action. )
she's learned to pick and choose the moments when she twists his ear. metaphorically or otherwise. ]
I keep busy.
[ there's a half-completed book of sudoku puzzles on her nightstand. a pile of other books, too: a couple creased-spine agatha christies and a textbook with a little leather bookmark peeking out between the pages. she'd sooner own up to these pastimes than her obsessive and all-encompassing notes stowed away in her desk. ]
What about you? [ she starts pulling at a shoelace -- skipping the part where she tells him off for flopping onto her bed while still wearing them. ] Why are you here? Perhaps you're the one who's feeling bored.
( action. )
[ what a thing to say when they all live in the same mansion. ]
all quiet outside. still looking for that rabbit hole.
[ the one that leads to the mirror side, or so he heard. ]
flying gets me thinking. thinking gets me working. how's the robotics 101 book?
( action. )
he's looking for the rabbit hole. she should ask about that, soon, but first: ]
Dense. [ she tells the truth. as much as she hates owning her ignorance, this isn't the sort of knowledge she can fake. ] It might actually not be 101 enough, I'm afraid.
[ and it pains her to admit it. but if there's anyone who can help her on that front, she knows it's him. ]
( action. )
[ he sounds so serious about and yet. ]
okay two things - never drink alcohol out of plastic cups, it sucks so bad. and secondly, you'll never understand the book if you don't start experimenting on your own. theory never breeds action, action breeds theory.
[ that's the stark way of innovating, really. ]
what you have to do is to start your own thing. get the circuit boards and the wires, think of some way to put them together and build something small.
( action. )
she's surrounded by capable technological-types. she could go to any of them for help, for a bit of work, for all of it. but what happens when they leave and she's got no one left to trust? she's got a few gadgets, already, from fitz. and that pretty little gun from mister hunter. what if something happens and those items need repairs and all her people are gone?
so she swallows her pride and reaches for the book. beneath it, there's a simpler introductory engineering text. maybe her eyes were a bit too big for her stomach -- or maybe she's been losing sleep over tony's iron legion. ]
Until I read about them in these books, Tony, then there's no 'getting' the circuit boards and the wires. I don't know it well enough to make the closet generate the stuff.
[ she lets the textbook fall open on her lap. his shoes are forgotten. she pages through a section on forward kinematics, waiting for tony to make his offer -- because although peggy didn't ask for a favour, there's certainly the expectation of one hanging in the air between them. ]
( action. )
he already knows the company she keeps, okay. nerds and geeks. one can't have that. ]
that's a real problem. if only you knew someone who had them already you could go into their workshop and start from there. but then, who could fit the job? FRIDAY? suggestions?
[ I would really prefer to stay neutral on this, boss. ]
( action. )
[ even if friday is evidently 'intelligent' enough to know when to stay switzerland. peggy flicks through a few more pages of tightly packed jargon, not bothering to look up and meet him and his equally veiled offer.
she's pretending like she's thinking about it. like she didn't have an outcome in mind the moment he stepped into her room. ]
( action. )
he sits up, he places two fingers at the very spine of the book and peers at her over the pages. ]
seriously. you know I have everything. just go wild. I don't know what's stopping you.
( action. )
rather, it's a challenge to figure out what kind of liberties she can expect to take as aunt peggy. she's never hesitated to help herself to any of howard's cars or homes or inventions. but that's different -- she always knows where she stands with howard stark.
with tony? well, with tony she at least knows where she wants to stand with him. but it's unsteady and unsure. living living on esteem that someone else earned. ]
Perhaps I simply assumed you'd be rubbish at sharing. [ she jokes, deflecting her heartfelt feelings much as he would. ]
( action. )
[ as if he doesn't already. ]
but we'll make it work. come on, it'll be fun. you'll get to meet the new team. they're mostly efficient.
[ dum-e 2.0 has become dum-e 3.0 and tony still misses his original model. ]
( action. )
[ as if, somehow, she wasn't the one who'd gone on this fishing expedition -- looking for an offer of help and instruction. peggy closes the textbook and tosses it aside, on the bed, and goes searching within for a softer reaction. ]
I'm only looking for a new hobby. Not signing up to be anyone's apprentice.
[ -- that search for softness rather failed. ]
( action. )
[ he flops back, arms behind his head. ]
I mean. You could always try knitting. some people collect stamps, that's seriously cool. oh - I have it you could collect recipes, that's it. here's your hobby. it's perfect. you could do a whole recipe scrapbook, it fits you like a glove.
( action. )
when the reality is that she's just as keen to spend time together.
peggy twists her upper body, looking over at him where he's flopped on the bed. ]
No. [ she sighs, so put upon! ] Appealing or not, I'll take you up on that offer. For a trial run, at least. Because it's rather ridiculous to collect recipes when you don't cook.
[ can't cook, more like. but shh. ]
( action. )
besides. I'm not looking for an apprentice but if they ever send me away, someone will have to take over the space. Pepper hates the robots. Romanoff is an option. I don't trust many other people.
[ he shrugs. it's the simple truth. ]
I know what my technology can do in the wrong hands. if I'm gone, use it or destroy it. seriously. torch the place if you have to. the robot, the suit, the whole thing.
( action. )
peggy nods. jokes and dismissals and hard times aside, she knows when it's time to steel herself and be serious. ]
You've got my word, Tony, that things'll be looked after. Should it come to that.
[ -- no, wait. she didn't mean to make it sound as though his leaving would be a bad thing. peggy grits her teeth and hides her fluster. she should be arguing that it's a problem she hopes to encounter soon. for his sake. ]
( action. )
He's still working on that one. Theoretically, he's fine with going back home to his own workshop and his own problems. But some things can't be helped. Tony wants to solve Wonderland riddles, he wants to help people go home.
On a selfish level, he's never been to her funeral. He hasn't really been dealing with her passing. He misses her. He misses Jarvis. He misses his mother.
He got one of them back. That's been good. That's the one thing he is reluctant to give up so quickly. ]
A Brief History of Time. That's what you should read.
( action. )
[ it takes her a moment. she has to decide, in her own time, whether his suggestion is a real one or yet another red herring. in the end, she errs on the side of sincerity. although she's got no idea what it is he's recommending to her.
it doesn't sound like a book on robotics. ]
Tell me why.
( action. )
[ every now and then, tony stark can be serious about science. ]
Besides, it has a lot of interesting theories about space and time, the expending universe - all the fun stuff that could explain this farce we're stuck in. if we wanna get out, we have to understand where we're at. that book is a good place to start.
( action. )
so although she knows enough, back home, to have recognized jane scott's symptoms as those of someone who'd been around a particle accelerator -- that impressive deduction doesn't feel quite so impressive here. but she can learn, she can add to her tool box, she can at least begin to start speaking pieces of the same language tony speaks. all the more important, as he says, if they want to get out.
peggy reaches for the book of sudoku puzzles (a present from him!) and snaps up her pen, as well. it's a minor note of recklessness, perhaps, that she does her puzzles in pen. ]
Write it down, would you? Title an author. Along with the other four. [ from his top five. ] I've got rather a lot to catch up on, don't I?
( action. )
[ he dictates five titles. cosmos, he says, is the best-selling science book ever published in the English language. then there's In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World as well as The Particle at the End of the Universe and Turing’s Cathedral ]
-- you know that guy. The universal machine, those fun stuff?
( action. )
she makes a quick and jotted list. and at the final title, she nods. ]
Doctor Turing? Yes. [ actually, she's been reading up on his later achievements. it's strange to read about a colleague whose work had been (at the time) as secret as her own. their paths crossed often enough in hut 8. ] I'm -- familiar with his work.
[ she's not ready to outright talk about bletchley, but now she must wonder whether tony knows about that particularly confidential part of her career. peggy glances at him, hesitating, before: ]
Anything else?
( action. )
[ he has about hundreds of other recommendations to go with. but tony, being tony, hums and ends up saying - ]
you know Fifty Shades of Grey is very important as well. it was written by a British woman, too. groundbreaking.
( action. )
but her quiet reminiscence is interrupted by tony's final suggestion. fifty shades of grey -- sounds like some sort of lofty philosophical treatise. dull, dull, dull -- oh? groundbreaking, he says. and our intrepid agent carter doesn't have her guard up; she trusts his recommendation entirely, even underlining the title twice as a kind of firm reminder. ]
Better, I hope, than dry robotics textbooks. [ she tears the page out of her sudoku book and folds the page and its book list into thirds. ] Cheers, Tony.
[ oh someday there will be a reckoning. ]
( action. )
[ oh so serious, as one has to be when working on a really good prank. tony looks at her shelf and shakes his head. ]
all of them are better than that book over there. just saying.
[ he pushes himself up, grunting as he goes. ]
you really know how to treat your elders.
[ he reaches for the kettle. he never got his - oh wait. ]
please tell me you have coffee. any kind at all.
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