ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪɴᴅᴏᴡ, sᴡᴇᴇᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ-ᴀɪʀ ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

[partialities]

Who: Margaery Tyrell, Cisco Ramon & Steve Rogers
Broadcast: nope
Action: yes, all over the planet and on the Windrose, Blameless & Starstruck
When: catch-all log for the duration of June & July, starters can be found in the comments! feel free to add one of your own or ask me for one/contact me at ladylike

also: cw for gif-use at the comments! all of them are sfw, however :>

Comments

[mucked]

[ when their hands brush, it's like signing a covenant: putting stones in a jar is like saving up goodwill for the future. one that cannot exist at home, but which might dog them in the shadows of the fleet. happiness they can bask as it shines just out of step, a few yards ahead of them. together, but not. happy, but only because of an absence of grief. ]

I like it, in spite of itself. Here -- [ she reaches forward and deposits both in separate pile -- nearer his knee. ]

[uprightness]

[ for a moment he thinks this could have been it. If fate hadn't robbed them of a dance and a future, they could have been sitting at some beach collecting stones and shells to take home. Rather then allowing the pang of sadness in, however, he expels it. For all that has happened, there is here, there is him and her and a growing pile of stones and not being happy with the chance of having it is a mistake he refuses to make.

His eyes scan the shore and he rises only to return with a large seashell shaped like a spiral. ]

There. That should do the trick.

[mucked]

Our makeshift jar? For the time being? [ there are moments when she doesn't need to be touching his hand to understand his intentions -- or to read the subtle flickers in his eyes, in his lips. peggy adds a bright blue and emptied mussel shell to the collection. ]

[uprightness]

Mmhmm.

[ a hum. It has been his theory for quite some time that he's an open book to her, regardless of the planet. He looks at the shell she chose, the striking color of it and smiles ]

That's the nicest one yet.

[mucked]

All it lacks is a star. [ it is vaguely shield-like, isn't it? a little shield-shaped shell. the sensitive sentiment of it all almost makes her sick to her stomach, and yet it feels a lot less puerile when its shared between the pair of them. ]

[uprightness]

[ he looks it, reaches to take it and turn it between his fingers before placing it down again ]

Doesn't seem like they'll need Captain America, here.

[ it's so quiet, after all. He used to imagine what the world would look like after the war, the measure of peace it might find. he may have never seen the world end but the after didn't quite meet the expectations. ]

It's quiet.

[ and it's welcomed as well as it can be unsettling. ]

[mucked]

Maybe less so the man, [ she admits -- a shady borderless they of the fleet who don't need him like she needs him. but then again, it was never captain america she needed. it was always steve rogers. ]

But the idea never goes amiss. And your Avengers are here -- some of them. They need you, I suspect. Wherever we are.

[uprightness]

[ he sighs a bit. this, talking like this with her, with peggy it always seems easier to voice thoughts out, uncertainties that he won't easily bring up with many others. maybe it all started with their conversation in the rainy military camp after his less than successful performance and carried through to him voicing his thoughts to her 70 years later. ]

you know, it'd be a lot easier if all we needed to do here is fight invading aliens on planets. At least then, I'd had a plan.

[mucked]

Spoiling for a fight? [ -- but she understood the feeling. when she'd been here about as long as he had, all she'd wanted was a reason to throw a punch. and it happened on the dusty moon, over poker. and afterwards, she'd felt a little better.

but the feeling just came back. ] Afraid I can't help you with that one. I'm tapped out for the time being, Rogers.

[ a slow, humourless smile. ]

[uprightness]

Not something I should wish for.

[ he tries to put aside ultron's words, of captain america who can't live without war. They're not entirely false but they're not a hard truth either. Instead, he reaches a hand to place near hers, the sidelines of their palms touching but only barely so. ]

You're doing good. In a few weeks you could try for a few rounds yourself.

[mucked]

'Gainst a wet paper bag, maybe. [ she breathes out. ] I underestimated his strength, you know.

[ which means she's likely also underestimated steve's, as well. and that's a strange concept. ]

It makes me balk a little at the future. At least your garden variety Soviet agent and general mafioso thugs go down when I punch them -- but it the sort of forces you must face? [ a low whistle. ]

[uprightness]

When we first met, I did too. I thought he was highly trained, like Natasha and when the mask was off, I thought he will know me, that he'll remember.

[ suddenly, against all odds given the subject of the conversation, he smiles a little ]

You punch a lot of those mafioso people?

[mucked]

Los Angeles was lousy with them. Hired muscle, mostly, for crooked corporations.

[ her smallest finger brushes his. flashes of tussles and fights flicker across the mind. nothing concrete; mostly mixed, and not all of them mobsters at all. ]

[uprightness]

[ it's a unique way to have a conversation. what steve knows about peggy carter's life after he went beneath a thick layer of ice, he knows from files, newspapers and video interviews and from what she told him herself, years and years after her adventures have ended. this is different in the way that it allows him a glimpse into what her life was like in a vivid, deeper way and he smiles both from being allowed and from the images themselves. he never got to see her quite like this and jesus christ, he hasn't got the slightest idea how she manages to do these things in dresses and high heels. ladies dancing in those always made him flinch, not to mention the heat of battle. ]

you're -

[ it's a weird thing. most chaps would fall for a gal who would whisper silly nonsense in their ear and hold onto their arm as they walk down the street, for steve rogers, seeing peggy carter as she fights, well.

beats the hell out of the more usual lady antics ]

Peggy -

[ it's said with a smile that's half amusement and half awe, no he has to ask. ]

How did you manage all of that in those shoes?

[mucked]

[ heavens above, he's endearing. her smile grows crooked while she watches his particular kind of awe steal across his face. as if he should ever be in awe of anyone else, hero that he was. is. would be. gently, she nudges her knuckles against his shoulder -- like a little push could banish that admiration straight out of his body. ]

Practise. [ she drawls, half sarcastic. ]

[uprightness]

[ it's a funny thing. for all the serum and the Captain America glory, Steve admires this woman as she does him. What he has now, he worked for, no doubt but Peggy, she has worked as hard if not more. A little man, he has come to realize, still had an easier time in the world than a woman, at times ( more lunch orders than missions, he remembers she said and if it frustrates him he doesn't want to know what it made her feel ). it's her, after all, that believed in him after Erskine, he carried that faith with him long after they parted ways.

he's a hero, certainly but in his time, Peggy Carter is a legend, an acknowledgment he wishes she had earned straight after the war. ]

Practice.

[ a smile ]

Training in heels and evening dresses?

[mucked]

And wigs. Often, there are wigs involved.

[ is she teasing him? likely. but it's a loving sort of tease, because these are details she'd never had the time to share with him before he'd been lost. so many conversations had been wrapped up in the war. perfunctory, and professional.

she can be a lot less guarded, here. ]

Field operatives are trained for all manner of undercover missions. You never know who or what you might need to pretend to be.

[uprightness]

-- Would have been horrible at it.

[ he has to smile. dear god, seems like her acting skills are top notch while Steve, well . ]

Not very good at pretending.

[ captain obvious. ]

[mucked]

We all have our strengths, [ darling. she doesn't say it, but the affection hangs there in the air. pregnant with possibility. ] And honesty is a rather fine one to have.

[ does she feel bad about all her lies? no. not really. but they do weigh a person down, in the long run. so many friends with whom she hasn't been honest. ]

[uprightness]

When push comes to shove, you've never been anything but honest.

[ this line of work, the one they devoted themselves to demands more than what people would guess. being the ones to protect others, it has its price. still, Steve brought down SHIELD, the very organization she had founded only because he thought she would have done the same had she knows the magnitude of secrets and hidden truths, project insight. the trust he lost in SHIELD, he has in her and it's unshakable.

a beat and ]

wouldn't mind seeing you in a wig, though.

[mucked]

[ a chuckle, then: ] Remember how I talked about that dance they held on the poisoned moon? Shortly before you arrived? The culture required us to appear in disguise. [ ... ] So I was blonde for the evening.

[ implying that there was a wig knocking 'round somewhere, though that's about as close as she gets to admitting to steve that it still exists. ]

[uprightness]

[ he gives her a long look, obviously trying to picture it before deciding - ]

You're trying to pull my leg, aren't you?

[ he's not buying. ]

[mucked]

Ask Barnes. [ her smirk is wry, given the latest development in that friendship. ] He was my date, after all.

[uprightness]

Blonde.

[ he gives her another look, trying a little harder this time to imagine her hair golden rather than dark and he mostly manages this time but it still begs the question: ]

Where did you get a wig on that moon to begin with?

[mucked]

[ calmly, but with a mischievous gleam: ] Who's to say I waited until the moon to get the wig, hm?

[ maybe she already had it! at least, that's what she wants him to think. ]