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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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[ each thud of her shoes on the treadmill echoes the hard beat of her heart. peggy isn't her usual polished self -- in a tank and sweatpants. but even so, she's remarkably put together. plaited hair and lipstick. but when fdr approaches, she jabs her finger against the console until the speed slows.

she dabs at her forehead with a towel. ] I'm not yet near pushing it. [ bravado. it makes her stand a little taller -- of course, the treadmill helps with that as well. ] Honestly, I have energy to burn.

[He gives her a tired smile, because he can't honestly say anything. It's what they're trained to do, isn't it? Push even when there's nothing left to give. To get physical rather than emotional when something is bothering them.

Alright then. He'll just move on.]

What happened?

[ her eyes are not on him. she looks elsewhere -- the towel, or the console, or anything that isn't fdr. this is (perhaps) the most telling sign of her distress. ordinarily, peggy doesn't shrink away from eye contact. ]

That is a wonderful question. [ she rolls her shoulders. ] A whole year happened. But it happened inside eight hours. Twist your head around that one for a moment.

A whole year. How? Like...a year here? Or back home? [He's trying. And honestly, it's not strange anymore. Just because this whole thing is weird stacked on weird.]

Home. [ she confesses. ] While I was busy being...knocked out. Or whatever happened.

Did something happen? [Something must have happened, why else bother letting someone go back to see their lives unfolded if nothing went down.]

Plenty happened. [ peggy hooks her fingers around the treadmill's side-bar before stepping off. ] Most of it involving a temporary reassignment to Los Angeles.

LA? Really? You know that's where I'm from. [Not the point, but he's been so long gone from anything at home that he can't help but be a little excited even hearing something familiar.

And then he tries to remember what the hell was happening there in Peggy's time period. But nothing big is coming up.] Why?

A colleague recently took over the LA office. [ it's a little silly, perhaps, how she speaks so clearly with him on these matters. just because he's a future agent within a semi-similar organization, it doesn't mean she ought to bandy about with what ought to be classified. but she enjoyed a sympathetic ear that didn't originate within her own timeline. ] He ran into a spot of trouble a-and called New York for reinforcements. New York sent me.

Oh? [He's curious to ask names, to see if there's any other way in which their worlds correlate, names that he might recognize. They did have the same presidents, after all. But then Peggy stutters. Peggy, and while he's full of his own speaking eccentricities, Peggy has always delivered her words with a smooth conviction.

And that's enough to have him narrowing his eyes in concern.] You get into some trouble?

Of course I did. [ she clears her throat. ] But my trouble came later. At first, my particular transfer had been nothing but a...prank between co-workers. I wasn't asked for by name, although the Chief made it seem as though I had been.

[ there are details she's leaving out, but perhaps that's for the best. ] So LA was stuck with me.

A prank? [A brow arches. A transfer just as a prank seems like a serious dickish move. And his expression says as much.]

You manage okay? What happened?

I managed, thank you. [ her grimace doesn't do the truth its proper service. ] My superior in New York can be a right ass, but -- I was still keen to help LA in whatever capacity I could. Hottest bloody weather I'd ever seen, but a local lake had frozen solid. Unconventional sort of case.

[He catches that grimace, but has no idea where to even start prying at it, so, he'll just have to follow the clues in her words for some idea on what the hell happened to her.]

...That definitely does not sound like LA. Figure it out? What made it freeze? I hope you didn't have to fight Iceman. [At one point in time that would have entirely been a joke. But...she comes from a world with Captain America. Anything is possible.]

[ the humour goes over her head. ]

Not a man, I'm afraid. Just a very pesky substance. [ and a dead body. and a mad genius of a woman, but those are details. ]

...Right. [And he inhales a breath as his hands slide into his pockets. All of this kind of sounds...routine.]

So what's eating at you?

FDR, [ she exhales. ] I couldn't remember any of this. I was home, but it was as if all of this had never happened.

...So. [And he frowns as he tries to make sense of that.] Your body stayed here, in a coma, but somehow you played out future events from your home, totally oblivious to all of this, that I'm guessing took longer than a day, right? And then woke up here and...well obviously you remember now.

[Just. Yeah. It helps for him to talk things out for them to make sense, so don't bother responding to any of that.]

Do you think it was real? What happened to you while you were unconscious? Do you believe it?

I have to. Because I wasn't the only one who remembered -- there's a man, you see. From home, and with whom I share at least some aspects of my work. A civilian contractor throughout the war, and a leading industrialist afterwards. I don't suppose your history holds any record of Howard Stark?

Shared memories could be a thing. [Not that he's trying to poke holes in Peggy's logic, but...it's worth considering that Atroma can fuck with their minds, isn't it? They certainly have no qualms about sticking implants in their head.

Howard Stark. Yeah. Like Tony Stark. Yeaaah. In the comics. But that kind of went over Peggy's head the first time he mentioned it so he just shakes his head instead.]

Doesn't exist.

He remembers much the same as what I do, only -- only less of it. And, of course, more his own recollections than mine. It isn't as though we spent the last year in constant company.

[He nods.] Well, either way that's kind of disturbing. Sorry you ever had to come back. I mean...not that I want you in a coma. Or don't want you here. But, it's all so pointless that...

[He sighs and shrugs.] You know what I mean.

-- I fear you may be right, even as I try and tell myself there's no good in considering anything pointless. That way lies madness.

[He tries to break the bad mood with a comforting smile and he brings a hand out to squeeze her shoulder. Sorry, Peggy. He's a tactile guy, but he drops it back to his side immediately.]

You gonna be okay?

Yes. Certainly. [ a gulp of air and then she's all steel again. one might doubt she'd ever been rattled at all. ] But thank you, FDR, all the same. Your concern is heartening.

(no subject)

bigvessel - 2016-04-09 03:14 (UTC) - Expand

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