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]

And I was one of the agents assigned to squashing that cockroach in its last few bastions in Europe once the war had started its ending. [ a thin grimace. ] Since coming here, I've learned that simply wasn't good enough.

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[Wanda had learned as much from her time in Peggy's calibration room; however, to hear her talk about it like this openly with her was certainly more refreshing and engaging.]

As I understand it, they formed around one leader, did they not? But... he died, didn't he? Steve- Captain Rogers saw to that. Yet, they continued even after he was gone. You could not have predicted that they would thrive in his absence.

[mucked]

I suppose I couldn't, no. [ what she doesn't say -- what she harbours, darkly -- is that jim barnes explained to her how in later years someone manages to bend her ear or blind her eye. and zola is released. zola, who twists barnes into whatever winter's become.

back then, she'd never have thought to put the man to death. but it's what's been asked of her now. kill zola. no matter how hydra gets its fangs into shield, the rat (and the organization's other prisons) are like a shopping catalogue of hydra's worst hits. and peggy's the one who put them away. ]

But I know, now.

[notmutantbutmiracle]

We always know better only after something has gone wrong.

[Wanda says it softly, even sounding a bit like she's talking to herself. She gives a small, gentle grin at the end. Letting Peggy know she can fully empathize with how she's feeling.]

[mucked]

To think they were lurking inside the SSR the entire time. [ she exhales -- feels her thoughts hitch upon reality, and tries again: ] Sorry. Sometimes I forget it's gone obsolete by your year. I meant to say SHIELD.

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[Wanda smiles softly, grateful for the extra bit of context.]

Yes, I have only ever known them as SHIELD. Even then, it was only after New York that they and the Avengers became known world wide. Though, some of them have big enough personalities to have been known even before that.

[That was definitely a dig at a certainly iron-suited someone.]

[mucked]

Jim let slip that -- well, apparently I'm rather intended to have some hand in its creation. [ she fidgets. uncomfortable, perhaps, with that truth. ]

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[Wanda smiles at that. To her, Peggy has no reason to be embarrassed. After Wanda saw what SHIELD was truly meant to be, from their efforts to help save Sokovian civilians, it seemed to her that Peggy had reason enough to be proud.]

That in no way binds you to being responsible for every wrong that may have happened under SHIELD's name. Whatever SHIELD became, I am sure it was founded with the best intentions.

[mucked]

A great many terrible things begin with good intentions. [ -- though, she is heartened by wanda's support. objectively, she understands how true those words could be. but peggy can't help but feel as though this place has offered her a second opportunity to steer everything onto the best path. now, if only she could remember... ]

But I digress. You had run-ins with HYDRA?

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[Wanda visibly stiffens at the question, and her expression becoming notably more somber. However, she had opened herself to this line of questioning, so she is ready to walk down it.]

Yes, I have. Regrettably.

[mucked]

-- May I ask what they did to you?

[ peggy assumes something was done. she doesn't for a moment think of the alternatives. ]

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[Wanda looks at the cup of tea in front of her. Her eyes seem to shimmer for a moment, as she lifts a hand into the air over the cup. She swirls her fingers a little, and the liquid sitting in her cup actually lifts itself out of the container. It seems to be levitating inside a scarlet red field of energy. It swirls in the air a little, before it is softly returned to the cup. Wanda's eyes and hand lose their crimson semi-luminescence, and she takes a sip of her drink.]

These things that I can do, they did not come to me naturally.

[mucked]

-- Hell's bells. [ a modest oath, but there is genuine strain in her expression as she considers what wanda now admits. is she another victim like the winter soldier? taken, and bent to new purpose? peggy's jaw works soundlessly for a moment. ]

I'm truly sorry.

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[Wanda shakes her head, a small sad, but appreciative smile flashes on her face for a moment, but it is quickly replaced with the somber look from before.]

It was my choice. I... I volunteered for "this."

[She half-heartedly waves her hands slightly above the table.]

[mucked]

Volunteered? [ peggy echoes. at first, she's flummoxed. why should anyone thing to volunteer for hydra? certainly, steve had been a volunteer in his own transformation -- but that had been different. right?

(except not everyone can see the difference from their particular perspective, peggy surmises.) ]

Would you change it, now? If given the opportunity?

[ she has a hundred questions. but this is the only one that matters in the end. ]

[notmutantbutmiracle]

[The question actually throws Wanda for a bit of a loop. Despite the horrors that she and Pietro went through, as part of Hydra's "experiments," neither of them ever once questioned their resolve in the decision they made. But then again... perhaps context was everything in that regard. There's certainly a noticeable pause before Wanda answers Peggy's question. Though, when she does, her voice carries a strong sense of conviction that implies there's a story behind it.]

No, I would not.

[mucked]

That's all the answer we need, then. If some good came of it -- if you're at peace with what it gave you, and you use it to good effect? Then we shan't burden ourselves with regret.

[notmutantbutmiracle]

Were it so easy.

[Wanda offers a small, somber smile.]

I cannot say that I am completely without regrets over my decision. In fact, I am still trying to make the good of it. Yet, even still, if I were to go back... I could not make a different decision.

[She stresses the last line in a certain way that implies there's weight to it. A significance behind why she choose to "submit" to Hydra. A story to be shared, perhaps?]

[mucked]

[ normally, peggy loves to chase down an unknown -- but she respects wanda an awful lot. and so she's inclined to resist too much of an interrogation.

instead, she leads gently: ] You felt hemmed in?

[notmutantbutmiracle]

Hemmed in?

[The meaning of the phrase escapes her, but she can guess from the context what the question likely implies.]

I suppose that is one way of putting it.

[mucked]

-- How did they make you feel as though you had no other choice?

[notmutantbutmiracle]

Sokovia, my home city... it was being bombed. Hydra asked for Volunteers, saying that they could make the bombings stop if some offered to go with them. They said, the volunteers would be granted the power to fight back, to end the violence that seemed to plague our city. My brother and I, we both stepped forward. It was only after their tests began that we came to learn that they were the ones behind the bombings in the first place.

[mucked]

Bombed by who?

[ a very direct question, perhaps. but peggy is not a gentle lady. ]

[notmutantbutmiracle]

We knew not who they were exactly. Armed militants were never an uncommon sight in Sokovia. Our city has known conflict since I was a child. It claimed the lives of my parents, and so many others... The only thing we knew of them was that they used Stark weapons.

[Her expression becomes more grim as she continues.]

As I said, it was only after Hydra had conducted their experiments on us that we learned they were the ones truly behind the attacks on our city. They had used our hatred to play us for fools.

[mucked]

[ oh, she looks markedly crestfallen when that particular name passes wanda's lips. peggy's teeth seem to grind for a moment -- and all she can hear, in the back of her mind, is howard discussing his bad babies. ]

-- Stark weapons? In HYDRA's hands?

[ not so difficult to believe, she supposes -- if the child of the ssr, shield, suffers a hydra takeover. ]