driftfleet | did somebody say mingle

[ And like that, the pieces slide into place. Peggy Carter, who once commanded their strategy room as easily as Phillips himself, now not even a voice in something she goes on to build a mountain out of. Quiet, and out away, sent to know her place when the war's got no use for her. ]

Oh for fuck's sake.

[ Not even a pardon my French at the end of that. ]

They think you're like Betty Carver?

[ his indignation ignites a whirlwind within her: relief, hesitation, and a mild triumph to hear someone else express such deep disappointment in a world that could ever sideline her so easily. it's like dust kicked up in the soul, and if she wasn't so already displeased with the topic at hand she might have mustered a smile. ]

Not everyone. Only -- [ she shuts her eyes and presses a finger against the bridge of her nose ] only most, if I'm honest. Not the public, of course. They don't know a fig about me and rightly so. But the agency...

[ her expression is rueful. it feels self-indulgent, this: to decry what she can't change with words alone. she isn't proud to share the truth with barnes, but she supposes he might be the only one to truly appreciate the absurdity. ] It's been said a few times that my appointment with the New York office was little more than a courtesy given to a fallen hero's sweetheart.

[ ridiculous for so many reasons, and not least of all because she's not certain she could ever be called steve's anything. not with any certainty. everything was over long before it could properly begin. ]

[ Not everyone. Only the people that should know better, should have watched her to know better. Who thought she was a widow when she'd not been anything other than herself. He mirrors her gesture: pinches the bridge of his nose. ]

It's bullshit, [ he says, eventually, when the anger's gone out of him and replaced with utter, absolute weariness. ] I'm sorry.

[ bullshit is precisely the word. and yet still, her nose crinkles at the sound of it. somehow, it's as dirty a word as ever. it didn't matter how long she'd spent bumping her elbows (metaphorically, of course) with rough-edged shoulders. the language remains a sticking point. ]

Among other things. [ bullshit. bollocks. whatever-have-you. but-- ] It isn't my story alone. It's the story of anyone who found their utility yanked out from under them by so many returning GIs. Not that anyone can blame them.

[ soldiers have no easier time of it than anyone else. but she holds a particular disdain for those who merely wanted a return to a life that could never exist again. the world has changed. war has changed it. ]

Doesn't make it right.

[ Alas, the world isn't predicated on what's right or what's fair. He finishes his not-scotch. It's not easy to lose the whole world and back then they lost it perhaps not as violently as he did, but as suddenly. ]

No. No it doesn't. You're quite correct.

[ behaviour has loosened under the influence of her drink. gently, she taps the back of her thumbnail against her bottom lip. lost (briefly) in her own thoughts. peggy doesn't want to admit it, but she can feel the weight of the world's disadvantage in losing this man to the ice and to time.

funny how she'd never felt it before now. not for barnes, at least. not beyond the sorrow for a friend. ]

Heavens, you're...different. [ or not different at all, just boasting the same strong personality within a different context. she's quick to add: ] Not in a bad way, mind you.

[ His mouth twitches, on its way to a smile, but it ends stillborn. ]

Why Agent Carter. Was that a compliment?

[ They don't sit so easy with him — not that they ever did. Kindness or goodness should be kept in the smallest places -- he always hid Steve's new pencils where the supplies were and pretended not to know about it. But hers.. this doesn't sting, or prod in the wrong places. It just seems nice, to be sharing it with her. ]

[ Everyone can use a little nice. ]

God, no. [ her hand drops to the cup, where that same thumbnail curls against curved glass. he's teasing her (she thinks) but she rather likes to hear her proper title toppling out in his native accent. ] Little more than a keen observation, Captain Barnes.

[ but a keen observation cuts as well as a compliment, in the end. ]

Wouldn't want you goin' soft on me.

[ The smile reaches his eyes, as he says it. He values that about her, that she won't treat him (or anyone) like glass and never has, though she no doubt has ways of being gentle, they aren't for him. She only knew him after everything changed. That's the man she's always known, and he's closer to Jim than the carefree and reckless Bucky before war came for them. ]

So, ah — you've read Time Machine, right? I don't know how much I should tell you about the future.

[ This — is perhaps a chance to build anew on something old, and he'd rather it be a foundation of trust. ]

-- It's likely you ought not to tell me anything. [ her words are arch and distant. stiffened, again, but not with any hard feelings for him. moment by moment, she feels more at ease with the man who isn't the one she once had known. ] But I'm going to ask you to tell it all the same. This is something that feel well beyond Wells.

Start with you. [ ... ] Howard's son has said a little, and I would hear you say more. What happened to you?

[ because she's been clever enough to work out (from tony's implication) that learning what happened to barnes might give her an inkling of what happens to steve. and she needs must know. ]

[ The kind of change that might affect. He wouldn't know what a world like that would be. Steve pulled out of the ice and the Winter Soldier discovered much sooner assuming they all retain their memories... A few hundred people could be saved. Thousands more could die. ]

[ Once upon a time, he didn't care that if world burned when the Chitauri came. Even if the care and weight of the balance was once her job, and now Fury's — it can't just be disregarded. ]

[ And then he looks at the Winter Soldier. HYDRA should burn. Peggy should know the house she builts gets eaten from the inside out by parasites. She should end Zola, for good. ]

I crashed the Valkyrie, like I said. The water was freezing; I don't remember much of what happened [ after I drowned ] — but I read the report. My body was encased in ice and my heartbeat was slow, but there.

-- Was there pain? Coming to, from the ice...did it hurt you?

[ she is being disingenuous. no, her concern is genuine. but the lion's share of it is felt for another person. she swallows hard (pushes her drink aside) and wants to know if barnes experienced pain in the ice and it's aftermath because she fears steve felt those things. ]

[ He scraped uselessly against the glass of the Valkyrie when the water rushed in, entertaining only the peace of knowing he was going with Steve. ]

No, there wasn't any pain. It was quick.

When he went down, I -- [ no. peggy shakes her head with some force. she isn't here to dish out her own sorrow and lay it on someone else's shoulders. she's here to learn what she can, and offer all the support she can muster.

so: ] Waking up, then. What was that like?

Peggy, [ he says, softly, and he reaches across for her hand, if she'll let him. ] I know; I loved him too.

[ her chin lifts. he speaks a kind of truth, and she doesn't find herself beaten down because it. instead, peggy feels strangely buoyed. love is a word she's never used when talking about steve. not for lack of love itself, but because the appropriate opportunity had never arrived. it isn't for anyone else to hear, but inside her own thoughts she could ascribe nothing less than love for the man whose mission still haunts her. love for him energizes her career at every turn.

so peggy allows him her hand. she wraps her fingers firmly around his. her emotions appear stark upon her face. ] What an unbearably sweet thing to hear said. [ i loved him too. ] I know it's uncharitable of me, James, But -- at times I'm left feeling like no one else understands. His country mourned their hero.

[ we lost the man. regardless of when and how. by plane crash or by lethal fall, they'd both lost steve. ]

[ She's the only person who gets to have it. Not because he's ashamed of his emotions, the breadth or the depth of them — he's never cared what people will say and he's not about to start now — but because no one else gets to have the real Steve. ]

His country mourned a thing it made.

[ Maybe that is uncharitable. But Captain America was only ever a weapon of war. ]

I don't think they ever knew him. Not like we did.

[ Her. The Commandos. Everyone else who couldn't ignore the bright, enduring person Steve became in those dark hours. ]

[ -- christ almighty, but he inspires a hitch in her breath. the barest suggestion of a compromised heart, having too long born the grief alone. she'd allowed howard a glimpse of it from time to time but...no, this is different. this is a raw nerve soaked in scotch and dashed with the sting of lime juice. ]

Most didn't, at least. [ but peggy wouldn't write off the whole lot. she's seen inklings of his legacy. and although she can sense james's equally raw nerve on display, she hasn't yet lost so much of her own sensibility as to paint the matter in terms of us vs. them.

even though she wants to. the vial in her pocket demands it, but she keeps that secret still. better not fan his flames for fear of her own catching fire once again. ]

[ His fingers twine with hers and squeeze gently. ]

Everyone who did is either dead or dying.

[ Even her — and he'll keep his mouth sealed on her fate. It's a cruel way to go. ]

I take it the future is a lonely place -- [ she inhales, sharp-like. if it's lonely for barnes, then it's lonely for steve as well. ]

I get by. There's [ he inhales ] good people. Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanoff.

[ There's a lightness to both those names, a levity in breath that says, I love them. ]

[ the affection doesn't go unnoticed, but peggy leaves it to the wayside for a moment to ask: ] Romanoff? Bloody hell.

[ the name is familiar, if only because the woman had introduced herself upon peggy's arrival. and yet had given no indication of...anything. well, perhaps she had no reason to do so. peggy doesn't anticipate having any legacy of her own. but coincidence is a funny thing. ]

Name like that, I'd thought -- well, it was uncharitable what I thought. But she's someone from home?

[ your home. ]

[ — oh, right. The Cold War. The Russians are the enemy, when honestly it was a war and both sides should've gotten the hell over themselves, in his honest (sergeant's) opinion. ]

The one here? No. I know a different woman by the same name.

[ They have a lot in common, but he doesn't have the right to judge, not when both Natashas haven't let him see it all. ]

She's on our team.

[ His opinion might not count for anything, but he feels oddly — defensive? Protective? Of her. She's fought so hard to go straight after joining SHIELD. To be the protector she is at her core instead of things that're tactically sound, or will exclusively value her survival over others. ]

[ He can't not speak up on behalf of a dear friend. ]

[ our team. he can't have meant it to include herself, she thinks. but the word-choice sticks there like a dart in the bullseye. she won't forget it quickly. ]

More differences across the aether. [ she sighs. ] You trust her?

[ because a 'yes' is all peggy needs to consider romanoff in a new light. ]

Yes.

[ The answer is without hesitation. Near-absolute. Nat — his Nat — would say it's dangerous, he doesn't know everything, only what's been calculated. But Jim would rather die trusting Natasha than not. ]

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