driftfleet | gotta get down for a mingle

Entry tags:

gotta get down for a mingle

Who: The crew of the SS Heron and visitors.
Broadcast: nope.
Action: Aboard the SS Heron.
When: After returning to the ship.

[ finally back on the right ship, except the corridors are all mysteriously cold and the ship seems smaller. Thanks, Atroma. New crew, visitors, starters in comments ]

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Yes, ma'am. Worse things have been weathered.

[ He nods, motioning for her to sit in the space and offers her a blanket from his stash. ]

[ she wraps the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. or, else, a cloak. she wraps it tightly, and thinks of cold french forests. she wraps it tightly and thinks of home: frosted london mornings and the walk to school. wool socks and skirts. ]

How long have you been with the fleet? [ it suddenly occurs to her that she's never asked. ]

[ He waits for her to be seated and comfortable with the blanket before he takes up his spot on the floor. ]

Five months, now. It's been... interesting.

And -- can I ask about its best parts? [ a moment's hesitation, before she hazards a guess: ] Other than Jim, of course.

[ the two men have a connection; she needn't pry more about it. ]

Having freedom? ...Making friends, I guess.

[ The second one has been a little easier now than it had been at the start. ]

It's good, then, that so many among this fleet are so kind. So -- friendly.

[ making friends is hard enough for a spy. how much more difficult must it be for a patsy -- a weapon, turned blank by evil men? not that she would call him such to his face.

chiefly because she doesn't believe he's that weapon any longer. she never knew the weapon -- and she only sees traces of its existence. ]

..This is the first time I remember feeling like a person and not a thing.

[ Needless to say, he's not in any hurry to give that up. ]

[ and there he goes, putting so fine a point upon her thoughts. she almost smiles, but the subject matter makes it a mere twitch of her lips instead. ]

Funny, isn't it? What grace and opportunity is given to us under hard times. Conscription, potential experimentation, imprisonment -- all awful things, but it still bears benefits.

You don't get to have something good without an equal bad following it.

[ Unfortunately, the reverse isn't always true. Thankfully, the scales are even this time. ]

No, I suppose you're right. We eke out what goodness we may. Find what opportunities we can. I suppose that the mere fact of the Atroma's surveillance shouldn't stop us from...improving our lot, as we see fit.

[ it's a personal sort of verdict, though she gives no indication of talking about herself. steve's arrival has set her on a great many questions like this one. ]

No, it shouldn't. Doesn't stop it from being invasive, though.

[ Sometimes, he can almost forget that the Atroma are watching before he gets reminded again. ]

Nothing is personal.

Nothing, indeed. [ ... ] You know, I never much minded it at first. But now?

[ well, her involvement here had been teetering upon the impersonal -- except for her fraught reunions with these branching versions of bucky. ] Now, it's complicated.

This place makes things complicated.

[ Not that everything wasn't vastly complicated before the fleet.. Now, things are simply coming to light that he hadn't acknowledged. It makes his head spin, sometimes. ]

[ -- paradoxically, there are things she can tell winter that she can't tell jim. perhaps it's the nature of timelines...or else that odd caution in his speech. she'd sat down on the prospect of telling him a little story, and she finally loops back to that thought. ]

We were talking about bad calls. How much worse it must be to realize who-knows-how-many are watching every misstep we might make.

..We were, sorry.

[ He dwells on that thought for some time, then nods. ]

And I think I ought to be feeling more guilt over a few of mine. The war was better to me than it had any right to be, Winter. Agent Carter was somebody. After the war, I didn't want to be stuck back behind a desk. [ ... ] Who bloody well ever would?

Recapturing that independence was a sloppy affair. An innocent girl got killed.

[ my fault. ]

You were still somebody after.. people just overlooked it. You survived it.

[ He should feel something for the girl who lost her life to it, but he can't find the sympathy. He'd much rather it were Peggy that remained the victor. ]

You're doing what you can with what you've been given.

Many of them did, too. [ because their service can't be denied. ] But 'Peggy knows best', don't I? [ sarcasm, now. ] They wouldn't let me play ball, so I went off-book. They had me in cuffs -- and in some ways, they had the right of it. I'd betrayed the whole S.S.R., regardless of whether they were right or wrong.

You did what you thought you had to?

[ He doesn't really know what to say to that. He gets the feeling, but she's had a bit more power than he has in terms of being able to do something about it. She's one of the strongest people he knows, Winter thinks. ]

That I did, I suppose.

[ a rueful smile. ] Do you remember Howard? Howard Stark?

[ coolly -- after all, even if he had his memories intact is isn't as though barnes had possessed ample opportunity to know the man as she had. ]

I don't think so..

[ He runs through the foggier memories that are hard to piece together, shaking his head. ]

There's nothing.

-- How about Tony? He's here. He's been here. Does he strike any bells?

..Was he here before, once?

[ Other than that, there's nothing that he can recall about him. ]

He was, indeed. I mention him only as an anchor of sorts -- for it's his father, Howard, who was instrumental in the project that brought Captain America into focus. [ not 'into being', but 'into focus' -- for captain america had always lurked under steve's skin, she's certain. ]

I don't think so.

[ He does try once more to consult his memory, but as the last time, there is nothing concerning Howard Stark. ]

Sorry to disappoint.

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