driftfleet | ✮ TEXT;

Entry tags:

✮ TEXT;

Who: Steve 'tech genius' Rogers
Broadcast: accidentally fleetwide
Action: upon the starstruck unless shot by ( 1 ) agent carter.
When: current;

[ at first it might seem like a purely professional document ]

MOON;

Efforts are being made to fix the process that went wrong ( official term: terraforming )

Many years have passed since it did, however, the natives seem unsure if we can help.

They allow people into what they call the Cortex

the technology is unfamiliar.

[ the part that might hint towards this being a pure accident of a document uploaded onto the network rather than onto just one comm device will come next, just a bit more text and a few attached file ]

WAR GAMES MEMORIES; PEGGY; PAINTBALL; WOODS;

( 1 ) ; ( 2 ) ; ( 3 )

[ pray circle for captain america, assemble!

this will remain online for a little over half an hour before the pictures will be, thankfully, mercifully, edited out by one winn schott ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ whatever peggy might have expected, it certainly isn't this: flowers, made of paper, and gathered in a little cohort. indeed, before she says anything there is a bouquet hovering between them and it's all she can to do take ownership of those flowers while maintaining her hard-edged poise. why does she maintain it at all? who knows.

it isn't steve rogers's fault that she's made vulnerable by what transpired today. bested on the paintball field, and then the subject of too many conversations. professionally and personally she feels ever so slightly edged-out. (but not by steve -- she allows herself to be more horrified by the amount of people willing to pick up a thread and pull at it than she is by steve's simple and achingly human mistake.)

slowly, she twirls the bouquet between her fingers. ]

Steve Rogers. Giving flowers, to get himself out of the doghouse. [ a low whistle. ] Now, that's a move I didn't anticipate.

[ you know that's the thing with peggy cater.

she takes the flowers, holds then between her fingers, her voice curves nicely around what he suspects is teasing but he can't seem to tell if she's unhappy or the much, much worse option, upset.

he studies the lines of her face ( beautiful, you should tell her, Winn said and he wants to but - ) before smiling a bit ]

I did promise, the first time.

[ not that. he should be thinking about that time since 45 seconds later she was wrapped in his arms, pulled on his jacket and they were kissing and -

nope. ]

Am I - partly out of the doghouse?

Don't ask me, [ she counters -- quick, and with a signature huff. ] I'm not the one who put you there, am I?

[ she has a spy's curiousity. as much as she tries to respect the boundaries of those she cares for and who care for her in return, it's hard to resist a feast of information so inviting as that graveyard of comments left long after he'd managed to remove the -- videos? photographs? sketches? peggy can't be certain of the exact contents. but she read, without a doubt, the contrition and the guilt into steve's texts which followed.

she bends a paper leaf, smiling more with her eyes than with her mouth. it's starting to feel as though he might have won the paintball battle, but she's winning the larger-scale war. ]

[ if she asked him, he'd tell her he'd been at a complete loss to her since the moment she punched a man in front of him for making a pass at her. it's not even a war he wants to win, not against peggy. he's absolutely happy to be on the losing side of this. if he's happy with his paintball victory is because he had to chance to see here shed the coat of worries that seems to hang on her shoulders, see her covered with blue paint and a smile that was brighter, perhaps even younger.

they're so old souls, aren't they? ]

You didn't.

[ why didn't he ask winn what to do next, the man seems to understand these situations better than him but then, the complexity is not something steve can explain to him or anyone nor the way he feels about her. instead, ever practical, he shows her the little written guide to the comm he worked on during the afternoon. his handwriting curved around the instructions ]

won't happen again.

[ and then, awkwardly, he adds ]

I didn't want to lose them. the pictures; I saved them in a bit of a hurry.

[ the flowers aren't forgotten -- but she does set them aside as she advances a few feet farther into steve's quarters. old-fashioned though she may be, she doesn't stand on decorum half as much as he does. at least, she doesn't these days. the bouquet is invitation enough to approach, and to peer at the tidy writing he presents like a promise. won't happen again. ]

If you need any more help -- [ she doesn't know where he got his intel, but it does look solid. peggy reaches for her neck and (one presumes) taps her augment before she names it: ] Communications. Encryption is part of the package deal, fortunately.

But it's good you wrote this in hard copy. I'm trying to keep as much as possible off the networks themselves.

[ a little stiff. a little businesslike. somehow, talking about her work is an easier thing than appropriately broaching both his apology and his gesture. ]

I'll be sure to remember that.

[ the same augment as winn. though he thinks the man does this sort of work in his world, too. kara mentioned he had helped her in these sort of situations at home. Whatever these networks are made of, it's good to have people who make sense of them. especially when one of them is her. ]

Have to have it on me at all times, I know these comms can malfunction, too.

[ he takes a seat, gestures towards a chair, the movement just a tiny bit slower than usual. ]

Had a hand-to-hand combat training it was- efficient.

[ he should ask supergirl to do that again, really. ]

Efficient?

[ she queries this one word, because she finds it the most fascinating out of the whole lot. a lot can be read into the scant few syllables. clearly, it must have been a training session with someone capable of matching -- if not outright outpacing -- steve's power and instincts. there's no dearth of individuals within the fleet who belong to that class of being, although peggy likes to believe that very few could match steve on his other virtues. the ones that recommended him for project rebirth in the first place.

peggy smooths her pencil skirt with one gesture and takes the offered seat. ]

Kara's - good at it.

[ very much so and to think they were being easy on each other. it was a good match but the fact it left him with sore muscles is enough of a proof that supergirl really is a good opponent. she's as fast as pietro in her own right and strong as tony's suit, as steve is. ]

Very good, actually.

[ whatever world supergirl is protecting, it's a very fortunate one. ]

Gave you a run for your stars, did she?

[ a lesser person might be jealous. petty. possessive. not so peggy carter -- who needn't feel a fraction of doubt in the face of steve's public filter fiasco just earlier in the day. ]

Every last one of them.

[ he's not the sort to shy away from admitting someone is his better. wherever kara comes from, super strength has a whole other meaning and even to steve rogers, he is a surprising force. ]

it's good. I needed that.

[ better her than another, more hostile alien ]

You needed it. [ that might be a little more worrisome -- not that peggy couldn't understand the itch. sometimes (often!) all she wants is to throw a punch, and the fleet offers so few opportunities to tuck into an honest dust-up. ] I suppose I can understand the sentiment. It's an oddly peaceful life, living within the Atroma's programme.

[ comparatively speaking, at least. ]

Speaking of the programme, your little error on the network ought to net the pair of us a bump in ratings. Silver lining.

I did.

[ the punching bags were usually his outlet. Not that Kara is in any way a punching bag, not with how highly Steve regards her nor with how good she is at what she does but it did allow him up unload some of what's been building underneath his skin, at the corners he couldn't seem to get to any other way.

he sighs and rubs a hand over his face. ]

That is somehow worse. I'm sorry, Peggy.

No. [ she shakes her head -- there's no reason to dwell on what's already happened, and sour the pot any further. what's done is done and (much as he predicted) she is dismissive of his apology. ] It happened. It cannot be undone. So we'd best be mercenary about it and accept the narrow benefit of putting credits in our pockets.

Alright?

[ hurried, and perhaps just a little too tough. she's hiding some sort of vulnerability, but she doesn't want him to suffer for it. ]

Yes ma'am.

[ if he sees it, he says nothing, doesn't give in that he sees or knows or feels, she doesn't need that and he doesn't know how he knows it except that it seems to come as an instinct.

well, at least something does. ]

I think I can do that.

[ she knuckles her temple. why should this be so difficult? she could announce to the whole bloody fleet that she loved captain steve rogers, and it wouldn't be a lie. it would be the sterling truth. so why does it leave her with so much unease to even consider how fondly he spoke of her -- and so publicly -- to those who answered his mistaken broadcast?

because, back home, she hid that love as much as she could. the rare few knew; sod the rest. she didn't need their assumptions, nor their judgments. and she certainly could not swallow the association with betty carver, the vapid-sounding damsel-in-distress cropping up every week in the captain america radio programme.

aha, so that's it -- being sensationalized now is a lot like listening to her maligned fictional self, back home. peggy works her jaw right-to-left. ]

Did the photographs turn out, at least? I didn't have the chance to see them. [ she plays a card; she cuts him loose. ]

Edited 2016-05-26 22:04 (UTC)

[ and he answers his kind, if only because that might dissolve the clouds behind her eyes, the heaps of worries that he knows she keeps close to heart. he never knows the amount, not really but he can see them just behind her eyelids.

he can't chase them away, he knows better. this dance he actually does know well, if he can help her through without speaking of it, he'll do it. ]

They did.

[ they're the first thing that comes up when he opens the comm to show her and if that suggests he had been looking at them, well.

he has no secrets from her, never had and never will. ]

[ she leans forward in her chair -- elbows perched on her knees. now and then, the formal rigidity of her posture breaks, and she exists at more casual angles than she's accustomed to displaying. the young woman whose career had been forged in the intelligence trenches of the war has grown up a little. hardened a lot, certainly, but her recalcitrance has ebbed.

there's a hint of a smile when she looks at the device -- not because of the photos, but because of how happy he is with the product. ]

Maybe I ought to have taken some in return.

You could. Wherever it is we're going next.

[ he shouldn't be watching her, he tries not to notice the promise of a smile on the edges of her lips nor the way her eyes wander over the photos. ]

Hopefully it'll have fresh air.

[ he could do with a proper jog. ]

Mmhm. [ a hum of agreement. she can feel his eyes on her -- and in truth, she doesn't much mind. there's no room for self-consciousness between them. besides, how often has she watched him in return? ]

I could've done without the gas masks. But I imagine so too could the locals

Well, with any luck we might be able to fix it for them. Allen told me about the - gumball theory.

[ you know what, this will never make any sense to him. ]

If he's right and it'll work, it might give them fresh air and water.

Allen Walker? Over on the Blue Fish? [ hmm. peggy allows the sweet softness of kinder conversation melt away, and business takes its place. ] We all of us had gumballs aboard not long ago. What's his theory about how they could help?

He thinks the substance of the gumballs is pretty similar to something he found in the cortex.

[ which is 50 shades of weird but ]

His ship sold them all, he's looking to see if anyone else kept any. Told him I'd ask.

Ours did as well. [ she may have possessed the grace to look a little guilty. only it isn't worth the burden of culpability. they had no notion what the balls were, besides (perhaps) some means of condensing and transporting data. the technology had certainly been beyond her scope. not only that, it was never their cargo to begin with. it appeared mysteriously. at worst, they were mules.

and peggy could not sanction the financial ruin of the rest of the crew merely to satisfy her own agenda. ]

But there are other ships who might have been more...independent in their handling of that tense situation. It doesn't hurt to ask around.

I'll ask Tony, Vision and Winter. Their ships might have a few left on board.

[ ... ]

A little more and those of our world will run the entire fleet.

[ she nods her agreement -- despite how little she knows of these people. they are spectres of the future, and tiding of things to come. ]

Would that be such a terrible thing? [ admittedly, she'd see the tactical advantage of a fleet dotted with individuals who could only be considered allies in one sense or another. ] Might be easier to find a consensus between the ships.

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