driftfleet | enter if you dare (i'm kidding we're 80% approachable)

[He must've been preeeetty tired, to not hear those click-clacking shoes. When she nudges him a bit roughly with her shoe he startles awake, hands making fists and raised in front of him. Glancing up quickly provides him with a shot of Peggy looming (dangerously) over him, and his alarmed expression melts into an exasperated one as he collapses back against the wall again with a grunt.

Rock's ears perk and he stares up at Peggy from Max's lap, one paw lounging over the thigh of Max's bad leg.

Welp.]

Hrmph.

[A legitimate reply. Hello, Peggy, the most begrudging acknowledgement.

He's tired, you interrupted his nap.]

Finished with your strop, then?

[ -- no mercy. no quarter. perhaps peggy had expected him to be made of sterner stuff -- or perhaps she was simply piqued and pained that he should abandon them in any capacity, even if only for a few days.

her hands stay on her hips. and she stays looming. ]

[He rubs his eyes, then stares for a long moment, brow furrowed yet again.]

... Did you need me to leave longer?

[He doesn't sound bitter or sarcastic. He genuinely wants to know. She seems to be angry still, and he doesn't really want to bring about any of Peggy's wrath right now. It's not that he isn't... upset still. Not at all. As far as he's concerned, his words are still utterly accurate. It was a mistake to go to the doctor, a mistake to get any closer to this crew and have them... tend to him in any way to help him.

But Max, he's cooled down and he's too wiped out right now to fight it. This was perhaps the hardest week -- well, second hardest -- he's had outside of his world, in ways he isn't sure he knows how to articulate right now.]

[ and with a simple sentence, agent carter's frosty facade splits into pieces. her cheeks puff with a long, suffering sort of sigh. and (tell no one!) she slides down the wall so she might sit with max. it's a choice she most certainly would not have made were she not wearing wide-legged trousers. ]

I never needed you to leave in the first place. You left for you. Not for me.

[ she folds her arms over her knees. ]

[He nods in agreement. He did leave for himself.]

This place... it's... exhausting. All these faces. Voices.

[He thumbs a spot on the dog's scalp, old raggedy bracelet flicking left and right. He tucks his chin a bit, into the imperator's scarf he'd been given, before Furiosa and the girls drove off into the salt flats.]

So you sought out solitude. [ but why did it have to come at the expense of our concern? peggy swallows the sharper retort. seconds ago, she'd watched how poorly he'd reacted to her aggression. her disappointment. perhaps she could keep it in check for a day or two, before she inadvertently chases him off once again. ] Only...I wish you didn't feel as though you needed to run so far to find it.

[...........

He blinks, is quiet for a moment. Quirks his brow.

Points toward her, turning slightly. Sounds coolly confused.]

You were worried.

[ she doesn't much care for the ease with which he reads her. deceiving others has always been a skill she's possessed, but it's hard to lie to a man who understands social cues in an entirely different dialect. he reads the smaller indications, and lays her true concerns bare.

stiffening, peggy must accept his assumption. but she doesn't let it go without her own particular spin: ] I am the first mate aboard this vessel. It's my duty to worry about absent crew.

[He still looks utterly confused, scratching at the dog's ear still.]

Ran further than this before, in this ship. You didn't seem to mind.

[Yes Peggy, please do answer, he's interested.]

[ for a moment, her jaw works without a sound. and peggy begins to feel the particular heat of being in the very same position she so often thrust upon him -- the limelight, with questions lurking behind full-stops.

she does him the courtesy of looking into his eyes when she answers. ] Ordinarily, that's not after parting on such...tense terms.

[ not exactly an apology. ]

[Lucky Peggy, he never expects one.

He considers what she says, tries to think of a way to say what's in mind.]

... Shouldn't waste so much worry on what our parting terms are.

You'll go gray.

[ thoughtful, she touches a curl. ]

There's product for that, you know. [ peggy doesn't smile. but then again, she's not hostile either. ] Besides. Some -- people are worth a few silver strands.

[ she nearly said some things. but all she could hear, still, is the echo of him proclaiming himself a person and not a thing. far be it from her to bulldoze that opinion. ]

[Can you make him anymore confused? Because... really.]

Don't understand why so many people —

[He huffs, biting his tongue. He wants to be invisible. And that's impossible. And for some reason, people talk to him. Ask if he's okay. Offer to patch him up, or offer him booze, or offer their services as a doctor. Snap him out of his episodes, are willing to cook with him, work with him, pilot next to him —

Why?

What did Furiosa see in him, to offer him refuge with her people?

What does anyone see, when they look at him? Why doesn't it match up with what he sees?

The ghosts always knew better.]

We invest our energy wherever we want to. Perhaps it doesn't require your understanding -- only your respect for someone else's choice.

[ for whatever reason, she's latched upon him as someone worth fussing over. worrying about. hell, even her inclination to argue raw with him carries with it an ounce of affection. she's a spy, after all; she could always deflect if she wanted to. ]

[He shakes his head, a smile ghosting his mouth.]

Can't tell who's crazier.

[How's that for respect, you rattling nuts.]

[ a snort. a laugh. ]

I assure you, I've passed every psych eval they've ever thrown at me. Flying colours, even. [ ... ] They don't let just any old regular lunatic into the S.S.R.

[ a slip of the tongue, perhaps. or a rare gesture of honesty for which she requires no return. no quid pro quo. ]

[And fortunately for Peggy and any and all concern for privacy, Max doesn't bat an eye -- he doesn't care what people did. What they do. Nothing really holds any weight anymore, once you live in a society where so little exists in the way of occupations. She's not a slaver, or a cannibal, or a dictator, and for that he rests easy and accepts the rest.

Of course, he does file it away. But that's that.]

Mm.

[His mildly pleasant expression relaxes.]

If I leave -- f'I vanish for a while. It's not anybody.

Just need to clear everything out.

...Even this time?

[ cagey, and her guilty conscience surfaces. peggy does have one of those. but she doesn't trot it out except for on special occasions. ]

[He shrugs.]

Left because I was — [He stumbles on the word, bites it back, clears his throat.] worried.

Staying places like this, um. I know m'not... right.

[You know. Not of sound mind. To put it nicely, as far as he's concerned.]

... I mean, I was mad at you, too.

But I'm usually mad at someone for something. Everyone makes it easy.

[ well! then! so long as he was mad at her too, she supposes that makes it all alright. :|

peggy tilts her head back against the wall. her nod comes slow, and she takes her sweet time considering his earlier statement. ]

There's a man on the Heron I'd like you to meet. [ but then, in the wake of what he'd said... ] Not to befriend. And he's no doctor or guru or what have you. I think sometimes he needs to clear everything out, as well.

[Are you trying to set me up on a date.

No, but Max quirks his eyebrow.]

.... M'not very good with people.

Nor is he, if I'm honest. [ but winter had just lost the three most valuable anchors he'd had to this fleet -- and she could sense the way he'd spiraled away. he draws back from peggy more, now, than he ever did before.

it had taken until now for her to realize precisely what had been happening. winter was treating her like a gamble -- uncertain whether it was worth staying close to her, given how quickly they could be torn apart like the others. an associate lost.

perhaps she'd been going about this all wrong. instead of trying to force either monosyllabic man into a friendship they didn't well suit, maybe they needed to start with a hesitation and suspicion they both recognized. ]

But he wouldn't push you like I push you. It might be better.

[He looks away toward the rest of the cargo hold, itching the dog's head like it gives his hand something to do. He isn't sure he wants to... meet someone who's like him in that way. If that's what she's implying, anyway. He doesn't exactly figure himself to be a good person in the least. Looking into a mirror is hard enough without it becoming a metaphor when he looks at someone else.

But Peggy clearly cares about this person, or she wouldn't have asked him.

He licks his lips, pursing them.]

Don't know. Maybe. [he huffs, looking exasperated] Feels like I know too many people already. But I'll — consider this.

Thank you. [ for the consideration, if nothing else. ] If you do choose to do so -- he, ah, calls himself Winter. Metal arm. As I said, he's over on the Heron. And he's a hard man to miss when he's not trying to be stealthy.

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