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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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[ Always so bossy, he swallows, and instead — ]

Reading you loud and clear, Carter.

[ -- well, bosh. it may be a scant year-or-so since she's heard that voice, but an agent with a cv as carefully redacted and classified as peggy's at least has the basic capability of...recognition. identification. memorization. all her fidgeting and worry-stricken severity seems to spill from her face for a brief moment.

and then it was back: ] What is this? [ tricks. illusions. grossly inappropriate uses of a dead man's voice. her fingers feel for where she thinks the sound is coming from -- but with technology like this, she can't yet be certain. ] I don't know what you think you're doing, sounding like that, but it won't work--

[ bluster and posture. it's all she has left at the moment. ]

[ — welp, that saves him from asking if he's dead or not, though the fact that she clearly misses him, enough to be angered by the supposed impersonation... ]

[ That way lie Feelings and he does not go there, and couldn't be less interested in a season ticket. Business first. ]

Walk down the corridor — it's just past the bunks — and look through the first window you find.

[ His tone carries a note of command it never did before, but brooks no argument. ]

Trust me.

[ trust him? oh, peggy very nearly laughs a dry unhappy sort of laugh. all that stops her is the sobering knowledge that there is (absolutely) one dead man to whom she'd pledge every last ounce of her trust. and remembering it makes the empty vial in her pocket feel as heavy as lead. ]

No. [ firm -- not defiant, per se, but growing more confident by the moment. ] Not until I hear you say it. Not until you tell me who you are. [ her head bows; her attention sharpens. ] And for Heaven's sake, be honest about it.

[ his tone might have brooked no argument, but hers goes and brooks no brooking in turn. ]

[ why does she have to be so damn contrary! It nearly slips out, in his irritation, but he supposes he'd be annoyed too if he showed up on the Marsiva and the disembodied voice of a dead friend started talking at him from the phone. He's never seen her head bowed, shouldering that heavy a weight, and, after a pause, he says, softer, ]

You know who this is. I promise there'll be time to explain. Right now, look around. You need to see it for yourself.

[ a half-dozen little caustic phrases leap to the tip of her tongue. she stamps down on that urge to hurl abuse -- perhaps on the narrow off-chance that this voice does belong to sergeant barnes. merely entertaining the notion brings a pang into her bones. thinking of barnes's death is like smelling wet ashes once again. burned out buildings and frost on the air.

for a brief time, she is right back there -- inhabiting that moment once again. berating another man for the lack of respect shown in honouring another soldier's choice. so when she turns around and takes bold steps down the corridor, she does it out of respect for who the voice once was. even if she can't be certain who it still is. ]

What am I looking for? [ peggy asks, well before she's walked far enough. ]

Outside, Pegs. [ his tone is a little distant, quietened by awe, he doesn't seem to have noticed the slip of familiarity ] We're in outer space.

[ The window shows an endless sea of stars, broken only by the ships around the Marsiva, and the shadow of the Iskaulit following her. A few are bright lights, racing around, blinking brightly. ]

[ all alone in front of the shoal of stars and little space-crafts, peggy grimaces. pegs, indeed. maybe she didn't believe him before -- but who else would slice so deft a wound into her dignity at such an otherwise dramatic moment? bloody james bleeding barnes. the broadcast picks up the quiet huff of air which constituted a sigh.

surrender, of sorts. ]

It's not possible. [ well. surrender on one front; protest on the other. she can accept who he is or she can accept where they are. it'll take a little bit longer to accept both in harmony. ]

Nobody here but us chickens. Buck buck buck.

[ a whirl on a sensible heel. a bounce of curls. and a sharp incredulous interjection as she stares (hard) at the man being broadcast: ]

-- Beg pardon?

[ He can't switch to private from here, no encryptions to and from his ship, so before anything else — ]

The button, the middle one, on the left side of the screen. It's an encryption. You might want to use it.

[ if she bleeds, he won't have it where everyone can see it. ]

[ somehow, she knows it's true. peggy hasn't 'discovered' the telling bump beneath she skin. not yet. she knows nothing of augments or invasive implants. but she (most inexplicably) knows that pressting the middle button on the left side of the screen will indeed kick-start a cipher complex enough to keep their conversation intimate. private. off-book.

she reaches for the toggle with revealing alacrity. old training shudders clumsily into place. there. her breathing comes a little easier. ]

Where are you? [ a far more pressing question, she decides, than where am i? ]

[ Where he is, he closes his eyes briefly. Same old Peggy, worrying about her friends immediately before the rest of the world fell into order. It feels like the air's breathable again, and he greedily inhales. ]

I'm on one of those ships you see following yours. Unfortunately, we can't dock there — so you won't see me in person until you're moved off onto one of your own.

[ The moment he says it he knows he wants that: to see her, to make sure she's as real as she is on the other end of the phone line. ]

It'll be a week at the latest.

Say I believed you -- [ and she believes him more with every moment that passes. word by word, she learns to trust him. ] Say it is true and say we're -- whevever we are. You in a tin-can of a glimmer out there and me in the belly of this beast. Say it's true, then why? Why are you there?

[ she would prefer to ask him how: how is he alive? how did he survive? how did he get here? how did she get here, too? but all of these seem far too indecorous to begin with.

best start smoothly. ]

[ smoothly indeed!! asking the big questions. Say she believes him. (And trusts him.) ]

[ He really doesn't want to have to explain reality television. ]

Your guess is as good as mine. The folks behind this are called the Atroma. No one's seen 'em or spoken to one personally. There's broadcasts on the phones now and then.

People come in from different points in time, sometimes different universes altogether. Y'know, places like where Roosevelt didn't get elected for four terms, things like that.

[ piece by piece, he lets her think about how he might be alive. ]

Edited (missed a word) 2015-09-02 14:43 (UTC)

So that's how it works.

[Standing in the doorway adjacent is a man with his fedora dipped low and with his hand resting on the holster by his belt. There is no gun there, but the denizens of this metal behemoth didn't need to know that. All that mattered was that he had ascertained that there existed a radio on this barge and that was going to be his ticket back to the mainland. He might not have heard her entire message, but he had picked up enough that she wasn't precisely looking for anyone in the same room.]

How convenient an absence for these...Atroma. [ impatience slips into her tone. always a good sign. her frustration is normalizing.

that is, straight until she starts to pick apart precisely what barnes is trying to tell her. oh, the widening gap between his lines becomes terribly obvious. bugger presidents and election terms, she's much more concerned about another difference: ] And places, one presumes, where men don't always fall from such terrible heights. Don't get lost. Places like that?

[ The smile that was creeping on his face at her tone vanishes instantly. ]

Places like that, [ he says, softly. Oh, Peggy, the only person in the world who can match him for straight shots to the heart, and would outstrip him entirely if not for the serum. ] Steve.

[ He's gone. He can't say it. The words don't form around the deep chasm of grief that's torn him open, and does so every time he remembers. Breath catches, and he waits. ]

[ she turns quickly. and one a heel. demure-dyed fabric is tossed about her knees as the skirt's hem whirls with her sudden momentum. she stares at him and wishes (quite fervently) for a holster of her own. but strangers can be allies as easily as they're enemies, and so she tries to remain calm.

pleasant, even. peggy's mouth curves upwards with a ghost of a smile. ] Works? Perhaps. I rather think I made it work by accident. [ she doesn't understand how she knows its buttons and interface. their use comes naturally to her. ] Sorry, but you are--?

[ well, now she rather loses the plot in its entirety. is barnes just so intuitive that he could hunt out her silent secondary wonders? in an odd space where the rules of history didn't matter, and where a dead man could be alive, then she supposed she could hope for the impossible. and so peggy misunderstands why he should even name steve -- not for once thinking the captain could have fallen in his place.

no, his fall is fated to be a different one. she frowns. she wishes she could dare ask whether steve is... no. a hard swallow. a shake of her head. scratch that. ] Set Captain Rogers aside for a moment, Sergeant. [ brusque. god knows she hasn't reduced herself to pulling rank since the war finished. and yet. ]

I read the report. You died -- on the train, or shortly after. Are you telling me now that you [ this you, a different you ] survived that terrible tragedy?

[ Almost apologetic, perhaps the only person he'd apologise to about having the rank, ]

Captain. I got promoted.

[ She can probably feel him wince. ]

It happened in reverse, for me. Steve fell. I lived.

[ They are such small cohesions, these sentences, and the world within them shudders with its force. All of a sudden, fiercely, he wishes he could fall to the floor. ]

I wouldn't let anyone else take his shield.

[ 'Please understand.' ]

I just couldn't, Pegs.

Indy. [Within certain academical circles, his name was sometimes enough to gain recognition. But he wasn't looking for accolades or to be recognized. This woman seemed harmless enough, but the charade wasn't for her benefit. The moment his hand was removed from the holster, anyone would be able to see he was unarmed.

Who were you talking to?

What are you trying to -- [ say. so much spoken and so little understood. peggy's well-clung-to poise finally evaporates. she feels her throat become thick with an oddly passive sort of anger. how dare he claim such things. blasphemy, almost, to how she knows her history. his history.

got promoted, indeed. to ascend to high on the back of a man like steve. on back of his death. his fall. pinpricks enter her eyes. and peggy promises herself she will not cry. a smaller and less volatile voice tries to remind her that whatever the truth is, james "bucky" barnes isn't the sort of man to rejoice in his friend's demise. she ought not to paint him with an unfair brush.

and yet, she's angry. resentful. it locks her jaw and hardens her posture. ] No one had to take it. [ churlish. childish. a war had to be won. ] You ought to have left well enough alone.

[ her words shook. ]

No one. [ an insouciant shrug. by now, she's quite recovered from the emotional overload that was her conversation with so-called captain barnes. ] And everyone. It's a feed that broadcasts straight to those pretty little ships out there.

[ a stiff point over her shoulder at the viewing bay. ]

[ No one had to. It burrows in some empty place, deep, unlit. Where grief lived, resignation replaces it. It's war. There are barely any good choices, and never any simple ones, save doing what one has to. ]

Yes.

[ But he's offered enough apologies, taken enough reckless missions that the debt now sits along with the shield, enough of it should have been me. He will not give one to her now, not yet. A soldier's mask wanders in, to finish his train of thought: — ]

Now if you don't mind, Agent Carter, I haven't finished my report.

Edited 2015-09-02 15:29 (UTC)

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