fleetwide video + action »

[mucked]

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. ]

Comments

[mucked]

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. ]

[nextlineis]

[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.

[mucked]

[ 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?

[nextlineis]

[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.]

[mucked]

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

[ ...and california. ]

[nextlineis]

Yeah? What sort of work do you do?

[mucked]

[ 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.

[nextlineis]

[Joseph shakes his head a little.]

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

[mucked]

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

[nextlineis]

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.]

[mucked]

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.

[nextlineis]

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.

[mucked]

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.

[nextlineis]

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.]

[mucked]

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.

[nextlineis]

I hope you show them what's what then.