entranceway » ic inbox

[mucked]

PEGGY CARTER | MCU | ENTRANCEWAY ( action, video, voice, or text )

Comments

[hypoxic]

[Most people tend to assume things about names without stopping to ask the opinion of the person they're naming. Or maybe he's just been surrounded by Americans too much and hasn't been exposed to proper manners.]

I suppose it's better than the previous event's accommodations, yes... [When they had their own rooms but also everyone was being murdered.]

[mucked]

-- You're right. [ a wan smile. it doesn't quite touch her eyes. peggy continues to make polite, easy conversation. she doesn't want to press anything too awkward, like the gap of decades found between them. she's learned enough about shield from daisy to be infinitely curious, but also has had enough warning from mister hunter that perhaps she shouldn't go looking for every answer.

still, simply getting to know the make and measure of shield's agents shouldn't be such a sin? yes? ]

I arrived quite in the thick of it. [ peggy tries to inject a bit of levity to the moment, ignorant of how challenging that might be with this particular individual and this particular subject. ] Stepped straight out of a man's closet. I don't know which one of us was more shocked.

[hypoxic]

[It's good that she's trying to appear pleasant for his sake, but he's still not looking at her face very closely. It's Peggy Carter. Where should he put his hands? Is he giving off the right impression? Jemma would probably yank his collar and demand that he stand straighter. He doesn't, though. Because it's Peggy Carter and a bit like trying to look into the sun.]

That sounds terribly disorienting. I'm sorry, I... That you had to deal with it, I mean.

[mucked]

[ a waggle of her fingers suggests he ought to dismiss his sympathy. certainly, she will. not for any failing on his part, but rather because it's now water below the bridge. suffice to say, she's been met with a great deal more that's been double the shock of that initial arrival. ]

What's a little disorientation between captives, hm? [ it's easier to pretend as though it'd been just another tuesday. that she hadn't been spooked near out of her skin and then thoroughly disturbed by the concept surrounding them, both in the mansion and here. ] Have you been here long?

[ the question isn't lightly asked, despite the lilt in her voice. peggy busies herself with inspecting a plush inn pillow. ]

[hypoxic]

[It's a scathing question, befitting history's greatest spy. All at once, she cuts to the quick, but with the ease and demeanor of a harmless chat.

He sees every but of what she's doing, and makes mental note to gush to Jemma about it later. He's being interrogated by Peggy Carter.]

Fourteen months, ma'am.

[mucked]

Fourteen months. [ she gives him a low whistle -- the kind of whistle one might exchange with a close personal friend upon learning just how much accidental credit card debt they've accrued while on a dangerously drunk shopping spree. she means to impart a slice of familiarity between them, although they're little more than strangers.

maybe, just maybe, she'll get him looking in her eyes by the end of this trip. ]

That's nothing to sneeze at. I suppose you've seen all the peaks and all the valleys this experience can offer a person.

[hypoxic]

[Her technique is solid. She's attempting to get him to relax, so that he'll say more. She's so good at this. It's the kind of work he's only ever read about.

Shame that her granddaughter hadn't picked up those same subtleties.]

M-mostly valleys, if I'm to be honest. Especially after... Well. Everyone saw it.

[mucked]

[ it's not the first time this conversation where he's started a sentence in one place only to shift it, mid-construction, to somewhere else. peggy wonders whether it's a nervous tic; alternatively, he may be the sort of person who edits his thoughts on the fly. what had daisy said? ah -- yes. the other past-colleagues of hers present in wonderland had been part of the science division.

well. for what's it's worth, agent fitz is already leagues less infuriating to speak with than samberly. and considerably less odious than howard. ]

I'm not certain 'everyone' did. [ at least, she doesn't yet draw a line to what this it might be, vaguely defined as it is. ] What are you talking about?

[ a little abrupt, maybe. but she sees an opening and introduces a wedge. ]

[hypoxic]

[It's a bit of both, actually. He's in a constant state of self-critique, especially now, and especially in the presence of SHIELD royalty. If Peggy Carter has questions, he wants to give the most productive answers he possibly can.]

The, ah -- the post on the network. About the portal.

[His head drops lower, and he fusses to reach behind him and pull his network device from his back pocket.]

It all spiraled out of control so quickly -- I'd lost access to the key components that could have stopped the process early enough.

[mucked]

[ it is so bloody rare to catch her quite so thoroughly off her guard. and yet here she is, left fighting to keep surprise off her face. ]

That was you. [ she'd heard someone had done something with a portal -- that it had triggered whatever mess was happening with the mirrors, at the time. she'd been so freshly arrived and trying to cope with a hundred other jarring revelations that she hadn't done her proper homework on that one.

frankly, once she'd learned steve rogers was alive? so many things flew straight out the window of whatever dank and musty mental office peggy carter kept her priorities. ]

Good God, you are clever. Aren't you. [ yes, it'd been a spectacular failure. but she's not blind to the fact that whoever had set that mess up must still harbour remarkable talent and capability. arguably, the only person she's witnessed muck something up quite so badly has been howard bloody stark.

so perhaps this isn't the reaction he was looking for. ]

[hypoxic]

[He shrinks back physically at that, shoulders creeping up near his ears. She hadn't known. She hadn't known and that was how he'd told her. And now Peggy Carter is disappointed in him. She's going to judge all of SHIELD's future on the basis of his actions and his failures and--

Wait, what was that last part? He opens one eye, glancing up to her face.]

I -- well. I wouldn't say that much, but -- I. um...

[He has no idea what to say, but syllables keep happening anyway.]

[mucked]

[ unhelpfully, perhaps, peggy says nothing. it's not that she's got nothing to say. quite the opposite; however, he's dangling on the end of an unfinished sentence once more, and she's not inclined to prop him up by filling his blanks in for him.

curious and polite she may be, but her praise hadn't intended to coddle him.

so she waits -- one hand settled on her hip -- and watches him fish around for the rest of his words. ]

[hypoxic]

[That in itself is something unique. Usually Jemma will pick up here and explain his concepts in a more approachable way.

There's nothing now, and it makes his bad hand go a little twitchy.]

-- it. was a project I've been working on since I'd arrived here. And -- it's been. The lab's -- it's gone now.

[mucked]

Wrecked, yes. I'd gathered as much. [ but fourteen months of work, shattered and bent beyond use -- worse yet, tainted in the eyes of the 'public'. a pr nightmare and a great deal of effort blowing in the wind. peggy's no scientist, despite knowing enough to get by in her line of work, but she can appreciate the weight of such failure.

poor fitz; you've rather gone and mucked it up, haven't you? ]

Do you intend to start it back up again? Your project?

[ she doubts he does. and if he did, she doubts he'd admit it to her. a clever clog would set that urge aside immediately -- but the smartest are not always the cleverest. either way, peggy suspects the optics alone would make him abandon that mission. ]

[hypoxic]

[He shakes his head, but doesn't even attempt speech this time. The question rubs salt in a very open wound, and he's not yet up to trying to talk around it. He chews on the edge of his bottom lip instead.

Not now. Not even for Peggy Carter.]

[mucked]

Good.

[ and with that, she begins poking around the inn -- pulling open drawers and checking cabinets. what are the chances they might find themselves a decent little mini-bar in this establishment? one can only hope. ]

We make our mistakes, Agent Fitz. And we take our lumps. And we learn from them. [ isn't that science, boiled down to its abjectly common denominator? ] I suppose I ought to be angrier about what happened but -- let's be honest. That right rests with the people who've been here longer. I've no doubt they've given you a hard enough time already.

[ it's their status quo which had been shaken. for peggy, she'd known nothing else of wonderland but the chaos into which she'd stepped. ]

[hypoxic]

Is... That what you tell your students at SHIELD?

[Even in the grips of his humiliating defeat, there's a secret little thrill that comes alongside hearing his title in Peggy Carter's voice. She's not immediately disowning him.]

[mucked]

Heavens, no. [ she doesn't mean to laugh; nevertheless, she chuckles a sharp and percussive sound. more breath than laughter. ] I haven't got any students. Not a one.

[ -- which, as far as she's concerned, is for the best. peggy can't stomach the idea of rearing little would-be spies underfoot. who has the time? who has the patience? ]

Not yet. [ a beat. ] I hear that changes. In time.

[hypoxic]

[He nods in confirmation.]

SHIELD's done quite a lot of good over the years. It's been threatened a few times recently, but we're all proud to keep it going. We've no intention of letting your legacy die, Ma'am.

[It flows naturally, without a single stutter. Of this much, he's certain.]

[mucked]

[ -- much more confidently done. she can't help but feel a curl of warmth under her ribs when he describes it so simply but so favourably. she only knows a little of what's to come. as harrowing and sickening as the word 'legacy' sounds in her ears (what intelligence operative ever wants to leave behind so indelible a print on the world?) peggy can't help but feel a fraction of the goodwill he intends. ]

I've been warned I shouldn't learn too much about what that entails -- seventy years, isn't it? That's a damn long time. [ nothing to sneeze at. ] But...thank you. All the same.

[ maybe she needed to hear that. broad strokes, without details. just some mild assurance that maybe, just maybe, she'd left the world a bit better than she'd found it. ]

[hypoxic]

Well that's bloody rubbish, isn't it. Spacetime won't change if someone becomes aware of it. For all we know, knowing about the future is what inspires you to start working with young spies in the first place.

[Disproving the theories of lesser scientists might be another point of comfort for him.]

[mucked]

[ she holds up a hand. just one, and just to forestall fitz's tirade. under other circumstances, the jutting and curt disagreement might have been downright endearing. when pressed, she rather appreciates the stubborn sort. but when it's her future on the docket? ]

Hold on, hold on. [ a quiet request for forbearance. ] Imagine, please, that you're the one who's been informed you've got a blood relative from some seven decades later running around. An impossible one, at that. Everything I've learned since arriving requires considerable adjustment.

[ it's not always about the science, agent fitz. sometimes it's about just how many heartaches a person can suffer in one conversation -- and all of them leaving her helpless in the face of what's preordained. ]

[hypoxic]

[He falls silent at her signal, and pauses to consider things as they're said. His left arm reaches over to cup the elbow of his right.]

I'd be proud to hear that we lived long enough to start families at all, really. That any of us did. There aren't many guarantees in the sort of work we do.

[mucked]

[ -- perhaps he's right. perhaps she should be proud. but the circumstances still keep her up at night. sharon's not her direct descendant, but rather the granddaughter of a brother she'd assumed dead. a brother who therefore must be alive somewhere back home. where? why hasn't he come to her?

peggy shakes her head; now isn't the time to wrestle with those demons. ]

There aren't, no. [ no guarantees at all, in fact. ] But if I understand SHIELD correctly [ intelligence work; spycraft ] then our work also doesn't lend much patience for listening to near-strangers tell you about your own life.

[ you know, he's been so forthcoming all on his own. peggy didn't think she'd tell this much -- but maybe he deserves a bit of quid pro quo for how readily he'd answered her interrogation earlier. ]

I don't much care for being recognized. Rather feels a bit like failure.

[ like a cover being blown. ]

[hypoxic]

[His attention snaps to her, wide blue eyes locking on her face. What was that? He must have heard it wrong.]

But. You're Peggy Carter.