( IC INBOX )

[mucked]

PEGGY CARTER | MCU | DRIFT FLEET ( action ) or ( text ) or ( video )

Comments

[outstandingbalance]

That is a very British way to put that. I'm impressed.

I doubt you'll have to worry about too much exposure too soon, but that'd be something to talk to Steve about.

[mucked]

And I figured it would take more than simply being myself to impress you. [ wry, still. ] I'm afraid it can't be helped. Hampstead, born and raised.

[ of course, she can shake the british off when she needs to. one day she might slip into russian for natasha's benefit; she already does so with bucky. ]

[outstandingbalance]

Nothing wrong with that. I appreciate your tact. [Which begs the actual question, but Natasha will let it go. She's probably stuck her nose more than far enough into she and Steve's business far enough for one day.]

So tell me about this firing range plan. What did you two have in mind? How did you even end up working on it together?

[mucked]

[ -- it's just as well, as peggy isn't inclined to explain much further. likely, enough can be inferred from between the lines.

instead: ] Truthfully? It was Jim who tied me and -- [ a tilt of her head ] you together on it. Jim...the Barnes from an alternate timeline where he became Captain America in Steve's stead.

[ oh, boy, was that man soft as lights on natasha. ]

[outstandingbalance]

That's... strange.

[Natasha's brows draw together a little at that, forming a slight frown.]

She wasn't from his timeline, was she?

[mucked]

She wasn't. But -- she was in the Fleet before I was, and so spent a great deal of time adjusting to the peculiarities of his timeline. Long before any familiar version of Steve himself arrived.

[outstandingbalance]

That would do it. On the other hand, I've only heard of them.

[She shakes her head a little.]

I have a hard time picturing it. Somehow it's easier to for me to imagine the other way around—Steve as he Winter Soldier.

[Easier to picture someone whole broken than someone you've only known damaged how he might have been if things had been different, she means.

Both options make her a little uneasy, but one is somehow stranger than the other.]

[mucked]

[ peggy possesses the benefit of having met james barnes before the fall -- when he was part of the howling commandos, at that. the transition from commando to captain america had been understandable. expected. and that man -- jim, although hollowed out in his own way, had a spark of the barnes she'd once known in the war. it's harder to see that spark in the winter soldier. harder, still, these days.

peggy offers a stiff shake of her head. ] Now, that was a delicate situation. Steve as the Winter Soldier. He called himself Orion. I won't deny I was unnerved.

[outstandingbalance]

Orion, huh. [Natasha does have some trouble picturing that somehow. The details that get to you, huh?] Unnerved seems like a healthy, rational reaction.

[Natasha almost leaves it there. These aren't her people, and she very likely won't ever meet them, or if she does yet another different version of them. But curiosity wins out.]

Do you know if he eventually got out?

[mucked]

Of his programming? Of his captor's grip? [ peggy shakes her head. ] He wasn't exactly forthcoming. Less so, it seems, with me.

[ she doesn't hide her disappointment in that fact. ]

[outstandingbalance]

The latter. The former's a lot harder. [She knows that better than most; she's not sure if Barnes has managed that yet either, at least not in their timelines.]

[mucked]

I couldn't say for certain. He never acted on any HYDRA orders while here -- but that doesn't mean they weren't harboured there, dormant.

[outstandingbalance]

That's the danger. If the wrong person shows up here—one of his HYDRA handlers?— [She trails off, shaking her head. She would feel genuinely bad for Barnes if it came to that.

She didn't have any sympathy for the HYDRA agent who found himself facing Barnes' friends here.]