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

[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. ]

[uprightness]

Why would -

[ puzzled, terribly so before realization strikes and he shakes his head ]

You're teasing me.

[ how rude. ]

[mucked]

[ she laughs, and decides to put him out of his misery: ] It was an abyssmal sponsor gift that I'd managed at long last to put to decent use. No more and no less.

[ presumably some 'sponsor' caught wind of her spycraft past and thought the wig would be a delicious sort of gift. ]

[uprightness]

They gave you a wig.

[ he'd have frown down at the fella since that to be somewhat inappropriate even if he can't exactly explain why. ]

Well, space seems not to have chocolates.

[ not that he'd want her to get those from any anonymous sponsor, either but still. ]

[mucked]

-- Who knows, it may yet come in handy. You never know when you might need a disguise. [ gently, she steers the conversation away from chocolates. from gifts. from wooing. ]

[uprightness]

[ a hum.]

Maybe. If the need arises, I'd know where I can burrow one.

[ cheeky. But he does like to see her smile. ]

[mucked]

Now, that I would pay good credits to see.

[uprightness]

I don't doubt it.

[ ah and there it is, the smile, it was a sure bet, after all. But then again, after the days they've had, they almost earned this, didn't they? this rare measure of peace that the planet provides. Winter is still healing, Peggy is still healing, Steve is more than a little concerned for both of them.

A morning spent like this, lazying on the shoreline, was sorely needed. ]

How's LA aside of its choice of thugs?

[mucked]

Hot. [ she fans herself with a hand. nostalgic empathy. ] And they try to say it's a dry heat, as though that mitigates it -- but it doesn't. The sun is merciless. And the stars are everywhere.

Have you ever been? [ in the future -- in his present. ]

[uprightness]

You know, it's funny. Work has taken me to some pretty weird locations but never all the way there.

[ he smiles ]

Sounds like you had a hell of a time there.

[mucked]

Still am. I've not left. California still holds unfinished business, I'm afraid. [ and carefully, she extricates her hand from his. it's a telling gesture -- because there's something there, hidden in her thoughts of that state, which she doesn't want him to know. there are horrors and hurts she can't show him.

stiffly, she folds her hands in her lap. ] Some trouble with a corporation, there. Some more science gone wrong.

[ and the last thing she remembers is being stabbed through the gut by a bit of old rebar -- an injury far worse than her current ones. ]

[uprightness]

[ he may have gone back through history, reading her files, listening to some of the tales she remembered clearly enough to talk about, but never the little details, mostly enough to simply be proud of her. Peggy is tough as nails, he knows that, but he would have liked it more if she had a team of good agents to help her rather than the bunch that gave her more lunch orders than missions. ]

I'm sorry.

[ he says and is entirely honest in that. He used to think the world will be that much simpler after the war, only to find out it's growing to be more complicated with every year that passes. ]

It sounds -- hard, leaving in the middle of things.

[ he, at least, got to see the Ultron mess through and while he has yet to find Bucky again -- Winter's presence made it easier. ]

[mucked]

Things had gotten fairly dire -- [ she admits. and admits it in a way she's not done with anyone else, because she doesn't know how to put words to her vulnerability. her attention shifts to the ocean; she can't look him in the face. ]

Objectively, I know they can't stay that way. You're proof of that: a whole future that exists, and so I must eventually succeed in something. Because failing to stop what's happening back in California...Steve -- it would swallow the world.

[uprightness]

[ he fights the urge to reach for her hand again. There is something there she wants to keep to herself and it must be respected. Instead he turns his eyes to the ocean as well. He could tell her she'll change the world, he could tell her the truth behind SHIELD but he's not sure it'll help in this matter, especially not with how it all ended. ]

Somehow these things are never a minor threat, are they?

[ always the world in stake ]

I'll tell you that, I don't know what's going on but - the world is in good hands, Peg. You're one of the best professionals out there, I watched you on the field. Whatever the world is facing - I believe in you. I only hope you're not facing all of this alone.