driftfleet | ( video )

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Who: Peggy Carter and YOU.
Broadcast: Fleet-wide, from inside the Marsiva.
Action: Y, for any other newcomers between now and the Shuffle.
When: This Week.

[ let us not dwell too long upon the awkward silences and humiliating nascent moments of agent carter's awakening. let it only be said that she woke with a start (despite the afforded comfort) and the broadcast didn't quite zoom in close enough to adequately witness the depth of her horror when she first raised a tentative hand to her forehead only to find an empty glass vial still sitting there. steve's blood had been poured away: returned to his native lands by way of the east river. both guilty and triumphant, she pockets the vial in her blazer and tells herself it's a problem for another time. after all--- ]

Bollocks. [ mistaking herself for a person alone, she swears. loudly and colourfully as she crosses the bay and knocks her knuckles against the too-intact viewing window separating herself from the rest of creation -- and no familiar blue-and-green marble in sight. peggy swears again: bollocks, damnit, and hell. unable to peer into the void for much longer, she turns her back on oblivion and is confronted once more with the too-sterile hospitality deck. she may be a tidy and precise sort of woman, but this much tidiness and precision makes her stomach turn. where is the stink of new york? the heat? the mess? the humanity?

feeling charged with purpose, she springs into (moderate) action. feeling alarmingly comfortable with technology she swears she's never seen before, she plays her fingers across a panel she doesn't know will connect her to the rest of a whol damned fleet -- but she's left with the burning certainty that it'll connect her with someone. imperiously: ]

I would speak with the individual -- or individuals -- in charge of this operation. Believe me when I stress there is a whole bloody cavalcade of laws, both domestic and international, you're breaking by holding me here. I demand to...

[ some of the fire floods from her belly. a little desperate, she changes tactics: ] Is anyone there? Hello?

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[ At this, he does laugh, and bitterly. ]

The War's never over. It just changes hands.

[ after a beat, ]

Germany surrendered on May 8th, 1945. Japan followed on September 2nd of the same year.

[ Quietly avoiding being yelled at for doing something as phenomenally stupid as crashing the Valkyrie? You bet. ]

-- It didn't all change, then. Only him. [ she pauses. ] Only you.

Only us, [ he affirms. ] I suppose you could say that.

And me. [ she adds -- sad and soft and uncertain. vulnerable. ] Because if Steve wasn't...

[ oh, bloody hell. ]

How strange it all is.

[ He takes that sliver of vulnerability and he locks it away, where no one can get to it — where it'd need to be burnt out of him. ]

You're tellin' me. I've been here three months, ain't close to getting the hang of what this place is or where we're all goin'. We stop at planets sometimes, but otherwise you can get protein bars from the kitchen, or the waystations. They're all empty so far. Makes you wonder where the people went.

[ only at the mention of protein bars does she feel an uncomfortable rumble in her gut. hungry? a little. but she doesn't need to scratch that itch just yet. she lets it simmer on the back-burner: hunger fueling her fire by paradox. ]

And you said I'd be in this sad empty place for -- what, a week? [ ... ] I think I'm alone.

[ at least, she hasn't met anyone else yet. ]

Calling each other on the phones don't cost a dime. I can stay here.

[ He's aware she can manage, but that doesn't mean he won't offer just so she has someone to talk to. ]

[ hmm. she hears the kind offer beneath it all. he'll keep talking to her, if she likes. part of her wonders why should want to keep speaking to a man who now represents such a fundamental break with the history she knows -- and knows intimately. but there's something to be said for familiar faces, even under unfamiliar circumstances.

slowly, peggy nods. ] Do you really have enough time at your leisure to spend it babysitting me?

[ might as well call it what it is. ]

Is that what we're calling it?

[ 'I thought we were friends'. He lets that sink in; well they always had sharp edges that sparked as they met. ]

Don't mistake me: it's appreciated.

[ -- but it's hard to be friends with a man who might not even resemble the one she'd known. actually, on that front: ] This contraption does visuals, doesn't it? Don't ask me how I know it does. I can't quite explain it.

[ but her gut tells her. ]

[ He makes a soft, darkly amused noise. ]

Yeah. Tap the screen for that, I think, it's in the settings menu.

[ And he switches over. The background is the cargo hold, where Peggy might distantly hear the distinct sound of a volleyball bouncing off the walls, courtesy of Hinata. Bucky is dressed simply in the ship's black jumpsuit. There are the ghosts of lines on his face, but his hair is neat and he's clean-shaven, physically hardly different from the man she might remember. Except: the left arm glints in the light. ]

Hey.

[ she does as she's told (gasp!) and taps the...screen. and, immediately, her face softens. whatever grudges she holds against this captain barnes, it's impossible not to see an old comrade. her nose crinkles with a successful attempt to quash her emotions.

gently (almost affectionately) her fingertips brush the screen once more. and when it accidentally cuts the visual feed, the microphone picks up a sudden hard curse. she fumbles for a moment before the video returns. looking sheepish, she announces: ] Goodness. It truly is you.

[ His own expression warms when he sees her. Oh, he'd gotten so used to sitting at her bedside, sometimes almost preferring when she saw a stranger, but this is Peggy, clear and fresh like it was yesterday they were in the European Theatre. It's not home, but it's a lot closer than the world he's in now. ]

Wish I could say the one and only.

[ He smiles at her, worn. ]

It's good to see you, Pegs.

[ is it? -- god, she's been spending so much time picking apart her complex feelings on the matter that she's quite neglected to realize he might appreciate seeing her once more. peggy breathes deep and tries to remind herself that had this been new york and had sergeant barnes never died, she'd be quite pleased to be reunited with the soldier. they had so much in common. a lot more in difference, perhaps, but the commonalities remain. ]

I wish the circumstances had been a little less...bewildering.

You and me both.

[ He runs a hand through his hair, breathing deeply. The questions start racing. Is she director of SHIELD yet? Should he even warn her, after pouring so much on her shoulders? She should be looking for the Winter Soldier, at least — there's no way she wouldn't try to save the other Barnes from his fate. And yet, he can't help but see the silver hair, the lines of years worth of work on her face, and vastly prefer the crisp image in front of him. ]

How long has it been?

[ since the end of the war. he doesn't need to clarify -- she knows precisely what he means to ask, even if it still rubs against the grain to hear it from a man dead before its end.

as casual as she could muster: ] A year since VE.

[ an important clarification. a year since the war had ended for her, even if victory in the pacific had been a different sort of toil. ]

[ 1946. He purses his lips. ]

Are you — [ a pause ] happy?

[ A+ Barnes. He can't take it back, though. ]

Happy?

[ she nearly retorts. what does her happiness matter to him? but she swallows her venom -- lets it fade from her eyes. ] I keep busy, which is itself a sort of happiness.

[ answer enough. ]

[ The flash of venom says enough, but Buck's no stranger to rebuilding — it's tedious, messy, but he's (bitterly) learnt he has the patience. ]

All right. [ Soft, ] Well, I s'pose it's your turn to ask me whatever you want.

[ she's aware how her precision can be cruel. but she must know -- because barnes has shown his hand (or, at least, a portion of it) when he asked about the end of the war. peggy makes one mistake, however: she assumes he asks because he saw its end. survived it.

so she asks: ] One year, for me. How long has it been for you?

[ she suspects much the same. a year. maybe a little less or maybe a little more. she doesn't realize there's worse in store for her sense of stability. ]

[ It's here he looks away, pinches the bridge of his nose, and sets his jaw, stubbornly. She'll find out if she asks Natasha, or she'll find out eventually, just, ]

I've put a lot on you. Are you sure you want the answer?

[ well, that's alarming. but when she draws a deep breath (an exasperated sort of sound) it's clear enough that learning from him will still be her best option. with him, she can be frustrated instead of fractured. she can channel those taken-aback feelings into something a little less constructive but a lot more comfortable. ]

We've dug the hole this deep already. Might as well keep at it.

I crashed the Valkyrie.

[ He says it very softly, like it's far away. That was the last he'd heard of her voice, saying he didn't have to — nobody had to. That's the thing about grief, it clouds over the world and it draws out the worst kind of pain, never comes in single spies but tramples in legions. ]

They found me in 2012, I was still alive. Somethin' to do with bein' flash-frozen.

[ It opens up too many questions. How did he survive? Her mind will go straight to Zola's formidable scientific mind. Perhaps then, to the serum. And onwards, to a secret he could've been put in front of the firing squad for keeping. But he breathes, and lets her ask. ]

Bloody hell.

[ she doesn't say much. not at first. what is there to say? first, she must process the idea that it isn't merely the shield he's taken -- but the whole damned history, however brief it had been. but then...

2012. her swallow is hard and painful. and she has to wonder: did steve...? ]

Flash-frozen my arse. [ hard. brittle, while she tries to figure it out. ] ...Project Rebirth? Perhaps its applications prove more diverse than first anticipated.

[ again, her pocket feels heavy. ]

[ He laughs softly, though there's nothing to be amused by when she curses. ]

Perhaps they do.

[ She's looking at the world's second supersoldier, and if she meets the Winter Soldier, the effects on him are undeniable. Still, he doesn't give it voice. ]

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