gotta get down for a mingle

[redactions]

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 ]

Comments

[mucked]

[ 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.

[reconstitution]

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. ]

[mucked]

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. ]

[reconstitution]

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.

[mucked]

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.

[reconstitution]

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. ]

[mucked]

[ -- 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.

[reconstitution]

..We were, sorry.

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

[mucked]

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. ]

[reconstitution]

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.

[mucked]

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.

[reconstitution]

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. ]

[mucked]

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. ]

[reconstitution]

I don't think so..

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

There's nothing.

[mucked]

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

[reconstitution]

..Was he here before, once?

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

[mucked]

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. ]

[reconstitution]

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.

[mucked]

You don't. [ disappoint. ] Only I thought I should ask before I went on to explain anything else. Howard, you see, is an awfully integral piece of all that's happened since...

Well, since after the war.

[reconstitution]

So he didn't turn into such a good person, then.

[ A pause. ]

Made some calls that weren't so great?

[mucked]

He made some calls that resulted in him being brought up in front of congress as a would-be traitor. He was innocent, mind. But it's not as though they didn't have a damned good reason for it.

[reconstitution]

What did he do?

[ It's raising his interest, and there's something that feels familiar. He doubts there is a correlation between the two, though. What are the odds? ]

[mucked]

He brought the wrong person into his confidence. Brought her to the wrong places. [ her attention becomes focused. careful. after all, 'dottie' had been a soviet operative. ] Let her get her hands on the wrong sort of merchandise.

[reconstitution]

It ended up with the sort of people that very well shouldn't have access to it. Right?

[ He crosses his arms, leaning back against the wall. ]

[mucked]

Horrid and imaginative weapons. Deployed on American soil.