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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[ there's just something about that face -- those eyes, that bizarre choice in facial hair, and all else. oh, peggy doesn't yet know enough to properly recognize the man for what he is. but instinct is piqued, even if she can't suss out why. ]

And one would expect space travel would pin its very hopes upon physics. [ droll. soft. a mild retort while she tries to get the measure of him. ]

One would expect, and one would be sorely disappointed. [ not that he's unfamiliar with psuedo-science, thanks to luceti's "shifting". but it's still grating. would it kill one of these alternate dimensions to take their universe's rules into consideration for once? ]

I mean - I guess some of the same rules apply. I haven't fallen through any walls yet, so Newton still seems at play, here. [ his own mild retort, because while he might like to see her reaction to him revealing his identity outright, he also wants to see how far she can get by puzzling it out. ]

Thank heavens for small mercies. I suppose. [ dry. wry. unhappy. ]

But which rules have you witnessed being broken, Mister...? [ it's a childish question, really. barely important. but uses it to fish. to dangle the question there in hopes that he might more easily give up his name.

god, something about the look of him bothers her. ]

Stark. But you can call me Tony.

[ he just lets that sink in for a moment. ]

There's the abrupt kidnapping from one dimension to another, for starters. But apparently that's not altogether uncommon about in the cosmos. [ it's the second place that's kidnapped him, and apparently there were other worlds out there that did the same thing. ]

...Bollocks.

[ except she believes him. one word -- stark -- and she believes him. why not? he has some of the same looks as howard. and all that confidence, bursting out at the seams. but even still: ]

Stark. As in -- [ huff ] -- Stark Industries?

The one and only. [ stark industries, that is - and he may as well be the only stark, too. he's the only one that matters right now, anyway. ]

[ terse and -- dare she admit it? -- unhappy: ] What about Howard?

[ barnes and his stories stick in her mind. alternate worlds and far-flung years. the bottom drops out of peggy's stomach. ]

My old man? Gone for some twenty years. [ he's at least not so callous as to say how. howard had been old at time of death, but a car crash is still a striking event. ]

I mean - from my perspective. The idiot might still pop up here, young and spry. Time is another thing that tends to ignore the usual rules around here.

[ old man?

oh, her gaze narrows. ] Howard has a son. [ a named son. part of the family. presumably within wedlock. more disbelief. ] Bloody hell. Now I've seen it all.

Hey, you're not the only one who's surprised. [ howard himself hardly believed the truth when he found out about it. ] Let it be said that a Stark always keeps people on their toes.

-- It's only that I spoke with Howard Stark a mere few days ago. And he certainly had no son. Not then. [ none that peggy knows of, at least. but she won't add that qualifier on. ]

Perhaps you're from one of those -- [ bloody hell how did barnes say it? alternate worlds? universes? ] From one of those queer sort of places where things are all...wrong.

[ wait a moment. that's rude. she huffs and tries again. ] Look, are you quite certain you're his son?

[ he makes a face at the notion of his existence being 'all wrong'. ]

Well, that's not very polite. [ he sounds so, so very incensed. ] For all you know, I'm from your future - and his future. Suffice it to say his parenting urges bloomed a bit late.

[ no, really, suffice it! he doesn't want to go into more than that, and it's thanks to the memory of the kindness of another peggy carter that he even explains as much as he does. his old man is hardly his favorite topic of conversation. ]

[ a lecture on courtesy from a stark? her brows rise up. hell, she almost smiles. but the situation is far too bizarre to commit to it.

tersely: ] For all I know, you are from the future. But one of those strange and different futures Barnes described.

[ she doesn't mean to be rude but -- heavens, she's had to swallow a lot today. ]

Oh, I'm not from that future. [ at least, assuming she means the barnes that talks. he couldn't be sure on the other one. ]

I'm from the - um, future of the Steve Rogers variety. You know, in which he was the capsicle. [ maybe old buckleberry explained this, too. otherwise, this could get a bit awkward. ]

Steve--?

[ her question is strangled. strained. as if she hadn't quite allowed herself to believe the possibility that, in bucky's stead, steve might one day be what the barnes she met here has since become. it sends her heart into a flurried beat. she has to turn her head -- ashamed, perhaps, of the video picking up her raw reaction. ]

You...you know him? [ a little hopeful. a lot desperate. ]

[ oh, so he does get the lucky job of explaining this (no thanks to buckleberry). he adopts a tone somewhere between good-news and bad-news, because it's probably going to be both to her. ]

- See, this is normally the sort of thing someone would tell you to 'sit down' for, but you've already been kidnapped into space and had a crash course in time relativity - so, yeah. I know him. Team captain, so to speak. He's still alive and well, as of 2013.

[ peggy can't quite discern whether she's happy -- relieved -- or torn asunder. the more selfish-bearing winds cut her to the bone and remind her (in one instant) of all she must have missed. in a rare display of lost composure, she covered her frowning mouth with a hand. palm cupped, and fingertips trembling.

peggy breathes in. out. she bides her time before she answers and her hand falls away. ]

Thank you. [ because it bears being said. and there's a frond -- a branch -- of her personality that will always harbour a bit of sympathy for a stark. ] I can't imagine you very much wanted to be the messenger for any of this. But thank you.

[ she's right, he didn't. but he's perceptive enough to know - plus the added benefit of their now one-sided luceti relationship - that this sure as hell isn't easy for her to hear, either. stories from his old man aside, it doesn't take a genius to figure just how peggy and steve feel - or felt - about each other.

and it's a raw knowledge, because as well as he he's handling his transition to being here so far, there's someone he's been torn away from that's making him ache. he gets it. ]

I can't imagine you very much wanted to hear it from me, either. Look - I'm not really all touchy-feely optimism, so I probably shouldn't even say this, but - he might make an appearance here. We seem to travel in packs.

-- And I've had the...uncertain pleasure of exchanging words with the other Captain. [ the one who isn't steve. the one who claims steve's trajectory.

so who is to say he wouldn't be all wrong if he did come? ] I can't say I'd necessarily wish him here, Mister Stark.

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