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fleetwide video + action »

Who: a newly canon-updated peggy carter and YOU.
Broadcast: fleetwide video
Action: ss starstruck for crewmate and any visitors.
When: beginning today, but feel free to forward date something if you like.
VIDEO (FLEETWIDE)

[ stern-faced, peggy appears upon the network. ] Does 'zero matter' mean anything to anyone? Pointed, I know, and a bit a long shot...but -- if there's anywhere I might find some resource or knowledge about such matters, then the fleet is my best hope. Otherworldly mysteries are not well within my wheelhouse.

[ there are other questions she could ask -- but no, zero matter might be the safest inquiry out of a great many others. and even then, it's barely safe at all. but it must be asked, for now she feels most preoccupied with the work conducted back home. the fleet is almost a secondary thought -- a distant, archaic priority. ]

Alternatively -- [ she sighs. until now, she hasn't been agent cater within the fleet, much preferring to be the more social and civilian version of herself. ] -- I wouldn't mind hearing a bit more about worlds. Different worlds, universes, what have you. I know none have been successful in creating a rift between this place and any other but -- surely, such rifts must exist elsewhere.

ACTION (STARSTRUCK)

[ long story short: peggy carter took a nasty spill inside one of the sr shuttles, and is now back on her feet after being out cold for nearly a day. on the surface, it seems like nothing's the matter. not seriously so, at least. but as she goes about her ship duties, there's a glassy-eyed quality to her gaze. it takes her a little too long to remember someone's name -- as though she's reaching back by weeks or maybe months to recall details she'd been living every day.

find her in the kitchen, where she's preparing one of her two or three or sometimes four daily cups of tea. or find her in the cargo bay where she's trying to use the recreational equipment. she quickly gives up on the punching bag because although she no longer has stitches holding her guts together, there persists a tight ache in the flesh. she settles for the treadmill.

wherever else she might be encountered, her crankiness is persistent. ordinarily patient with her crew, peggy's kindness has been thinning out all week. she appears tightly wound and disengaged. ]

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By now, I'm hesitant to say that anything is impossible. It's more a question of probability than possibility.

The probability doesn't really seem stacked all that much in our favor though, does it?

Not at all. But if anyone can achieve it, it may well be some of the fine minds brought here.

I hope so. I wish I could offer more than just gumption.

Never undervalue gumption. Often, it is our finest sword.

[He grins slowly, but it's a broad and bright one. It's certainly very boyish.]

Yeah, I guess you're right. [It's not like that hasn't carried Joseph pretty far all on its own.] Well, as far as my world's concerned, I think most of the other people from Earth consider it to be the past.

Where I came from, it was the early hours of February 28th, 1939. Word has it there's like going to be a war soon, but that's not really on my list of concerns right now.

[ peggy is so rarely caught off-guard, but this! well -- she hasn't met many (if any) so near her own year. ]

There was -- a war, soon. A rather big one, I'm afraid. [ ... ] You see, where I come from, it's already 1947.

[With the exception of people from Joseph's world, he's likewise not run into anyone from such a close year. If it weren't for the topic of war coming into the conversation, he'd probably be a little elated.]

You said "was" though. So it's over for you.

[The only way it could really be better is if there was no war whatsoever. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. But there's an end to it. So that's close to a godo thing. He considers it though, that there really is a war right on the cusp of breaking out again. He hadn't really intended on hanging around in Europe for very long once everything was settled with Kars, but that's even more incentive to get everyone back to New York.]

Guess it's a good thing I was planning on heading back across the pond as soon as possible, anyway, [he says abruptly, almost like he was snapping out of a daydream except the thought of the alternative of what he's saying is far from a dream.]

Done two years, now. Although it hardly finished in...isolation. [ her grimace is thin, but evident. ] The war years changed much of the world. Irreparably, perhaps.

I'm pretty sure that's what they said about the last one. [So, it's probably to be expected.] As awful as it sounds though, the outcome could have been a lot worse for my world than just another war.

The bloody Germans woke something they shouldn't have and set events that I'm having to clean up after. I'm told it will work itself out and I'll win in the end, but honestly even if I had been told I lost in the end, I'd still have to try.

[Of course, losing and dying in this situation are one and the same for Joseph. Either he kills Kars or Kars kills him first. There's really no alternative solution. So although Joseph says it with confidence that he'd still try—because he knows himself and he knows he would—it's not as easy for him as he makes it sound either. Hell, even knowing that he wins doesn't necessarily fill him with courage that's easy to come by. He's a Joestar. That means accepting responsibilities that others can't, but it also means death is constantly walking at his side, waiting and liable to take him at a young age. Winning just isn't a guarantee that he survives now that he's answered the call as his forefathers had. But he has to try and believe in the way the others do in him that he'll find a way to cheat death with one last trick up his sleeve.]

[He somewhat redirects the subject away from all of that, however.]

It ended in 1945 though, right? When did it start?

1939.

[ her answer is curt -- but mostly, she's confused by his choice of words. how he says that he's been told he wins in the end. not a we. not an us. ]

[He notices the curtness of her response. It's an abrupt shift and he doesn't know where it's coming from. Slowly, he replies,]

Guess I don't have much time hanging around in Europe then if I'm going to make it back to Granny back in New York safe...

[With Suzie, and Caesar, and Caesar's brothers and sisters, and Lisa Lisa. They're all going to go home. But he realizes how that likely sounds.]

It's a little bit of a long story, but I lied to her about what I'm doing in Italy. She thinks I'm just sightseeing, but I've been training for the past month to fight creatures we call Pillar Men. I don't like lying to her, but I didn't want to worry her that there was such a good chance I might... You know. [You know.] I just didn't want her to think I was following in my father's and grandfather's footsteps like that.

[ she is a little surprised by how candid he's being -- but soldiers are soldiers, and she can't imagine he's anything but precisely that. although who knows what the hell a pillar man is. ]

New York...[ hmm. ] A native son, I presume?

[Joseph shakes his head a little.]

No, I was born and raised just outside of London by my grandmother. We were visiting Uncle Speedwagon. He left England long before I was born and made a fortune. Sometimes we go to him and sometimes he visits us. It's been harder lately though on Granny, I think.

[Unfortunately, she is getting older. Much older.]

Hampstead, myself. [ indicating she also hails from just outside london. ] But I work in New York, these days.

[ ...and california. ]

Yeah? What sort of work do you do?

[ once upon a time, she used to lie. it had been as easy as breathing. even now -- she could lie about what she did, and barely bat a lash. but peggy's come to learn that the truth about her work is more helpful in this situation than all the other alibis combined.

so, as casually as she can: ] I work with the SSR. Although I take it not everyone who shares the time period recognizes the agency's name.

[Joseph shakes his head a little.]

No, the name doesn't ring a bell. I take it's some kind of government thing? American?

It's a multilateral Allied agency, actually. Predominantly Britain and American. Established during the war.

So what do you do in it?

[Surprisingly, Joseph doesn't assume she's the equivalent of a secretary or assistant. Despite his vague-ish sexism, Joseph's been told about himself enough times by women around here on the Fleet and has his own mother as an example that women can do just about anything damn thing they please. So, it's a genuine question without any assumptions behind it.]

I am -- [ she sucks on the back of her teeth for a moment. lately, she's been a lot more free and open about her role in a war that (for most) has been long finished. her career has become a matter of public record some seventy years in the future. that (among other reasons) makes it easier to be honest. ] I'm a field agent. I was one during the war and I'm one now.

They let you do that?

[A beat before there's a look of horrified realization about what he just implied. INO, PLEASE DO NOT SUDDENLY APPEAR TO HIT HIM.]

Wait, that's not what I meant! I just meant— . . . Well, I mean, you know how it is in the time period we're from. It's not the way it is for a lot of other people.

Women are no strangers to -- to tradecraft, truly. [ she doesn't outright say the word spying, but the implication hovers in place. ] Sometimes it's an advantage to be overlooked. I clocked my hours first at Bletchley and then SOE. The SSR followed naturally upon that.

[ and admittedly after the war she'd encountered far more obstacles when trying to retain her status as a field agent. but: ] I've taken my fair share of lunch orders but -- let's say I've been persistent.

You must get along with a lot of the women here then.

[Persistent is one way of putting it for a lot of them. While not wrong, it's also not completely accurate either.]

I do. And back home, if you'll believe. There are all sorts of persistent women who shoulder their way into responsibility. Rightly, so -- I've meet so many remarkable people.

And a great many asses, as well.

(no subject)

nextlineis - 2016-04-24 05:50 (UTC) - Expand

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