Open | A Monthly Starstruck Mingle!!

[theroadwarrior]

Who: The SS Starstruck's crew and visitors...!
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Aboard the SS Starstruck
When: November 1st—31st!

Everyone get your mingle on for November! This is a quick post for the Starstruck, have at it.

Comments

[mucked]

They broke a few switches on me, of course -- [ nothing new, nothing private, and certainly nothing about which she feels any lingering trauma. it's a simple fact of her times, and peggy certainly feels no worse for wear because of it. ] But I was the school hero for months. Utterly worth it.

[ she smiles. ] The brandy wasn't so bad, either.

[outstandingbalance]

[Not a fact that Natasha is about to be shocked by, either. She understood the time. And she understood not having a gentle upbringing. There was no room for her to judge.]

I bet. You were probably quite the person to know back then.

[mucked]

[ a snort. in truth, her brother had been quite the person. and although he certainly didn't attend the girls' school, he'd had an indelible effect on peggy. but it's not the time to discuss michael, either. ]

I like to think so. [ a healthy ego, then. peggy has no regrets about her youth; all the regrets came later. ]

[outstandingbalance]

The coffee's respectable, considering you don't care for it. I've had a lot worse.

[It's a pivot to avoid talking more about herself or her own training. If Peggy had been someone to know in school, Natasha had been someone to fear. Not surprising in a school that routinely pitted its students against one another, even to the death.

She appreciates hearing about Peggy's youthful high jinks. It's just not a vein of story she can reciprocate.]

[mucked]

[ the pivot is expected. peggy had, of course, been painting broad strokes around her career like a litmus test. and clearly, natasha isn't yet willing (or prepared) to discuss those first few inroads to putting cards on the table. peggy smiles -- a wordless signal that she'll drop it. for now.

obligingly: ] The boys at the office drank a lot of coffee. [ then, reconsidering her tenses, she tries again: ] Drink.

[outstandingbalance]

[Who even knows when they are in relation to their own timelines at all. It might be "drank" for all of them. Or "will drink." Natasha shrugs it off.]

Maybe next planet, we can all go out together. Everyone else can have coffee, but you don't have to make it.

[Natasha leaves it intentionally vague who "we" is in this situation, but she imagines the implication is there. If Peggy wants to tease Steve again, that's an option. On the other hand, if she wants someone to mediate between her and Barnes... well, she can't promise that he'll like her any more than Peggy, but sometimes just having someone else there could change the dynamic, prevent them from falling into the same spirals.]

[mucked]

As offers go, it's awfully generous -- [ and peggy chooses to interpret it as the latter option: a mediator. ] I can't say there isn't a part of me tempted to accept it.

[ but... ]

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha shrugs.]

You can see how tempted you are when the next planet rolls around.

[mucked]

Maybe. We'll see. But -- some consequences have to be shouldered.

[ she doesn't need to ask natasha whether she understands. ]

[outstandingbalance]

Fair enough.

[Because Natasha does understand.]

[mucked]

[ stiffly -- almost unpleasantly -- she corrals the conversation back to a previous word: leviathan. but time time, it has nothing to do with painting uneasy lines between natasha and the soviet espionage fossil.

instead: ] Leviathan had the -- ability to control minds. Deep hypnosis. Rudimentary programming.

[ -- everyone blames hydra. and hydra has a lot to answer for -- but peggy can't shake the understanding that the winter soldier seems to have been, first and foremost, a soviet asset. ]

[outstandingbalance]

I see why you'd have suspicions.

[Natasha stays neutral on the subject, allowing it to exist separate from her and her history.]

They must have made a real impression on you.

[mucked]

As impressions go, this was an indelible one. [ peggy traces the curve of her mug's handle. trying to sort between the thoughts, the implications, and the memories. ] I feel in my gut that there's a connection between Leviathan''s capabilities, and what happened to Barnes.

[ it's a hunch, at worst. disparate strings of evidence at best. and that's why she brings these pieces to natasha, and no one else. it's not concrete enough to mention to steve, let alone barnes himself. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha sips her coffee thoughtfully.]

I can see why you'd draw that connection. Speaking Russian and using Soviet weaponry doesn't exactly point to HYDRA, does it?

At least not exclusively.

[mucked]

As it was told to me, HYDRA's involvement became painfully clear. Clear enough not to question, I imagine, and yet I can't help but stand from my own vantage point and question quite a lot. [ ... ] As if there's a puzzle piece -- a handshake, perhaps -- still missing from how the whole debacle has been understood.

[ cooperation, at the very least, between america's enemies throughout the years. ]

[outstandingbalance]

I can verify that he was definitely working for HYDRA in 2014. Probably in 1991 too.

[There's a lot that can happen between 1945 and 1991 though.]

Unfortunately, I don't think even he knows the whole story.

[That's been the problem all along, though.]

[mucked]

I suspect HYDRA had him the whole time -- [ the simplest solution is often the likeliest, after all. ] Only I suspect HYDRA had someone else, as well. Someone from Leviathan, likely. Someone who could jump-start their efforts.

[outstandingbalance]

Makes sense. SHIELD wasn't the only one interested in picking through HYDRA intelligence and personnel. If they'd infiltrated SHIELD and the US government no reason to think they didn't have people in the KGB too.

[Natasha's voice is flat. It's a thought that's occurred to her before.]

[mucked]

[ and here it comes -- the inconvenient truth. peggy's cheeks puff with a sigh and she mows forward. ]

I'm certain they did -- but it wouldn't have been necessary, in this instance. The man they would have needed could have been found in one of SSR's maximum security compounds. Which, I assume, was inherited by SHIELD.

[outstandingbalance]

You wonder if the two of them met on the inside.

[It would be an opportunity, certainly.]

[mucked]

It's conceivable they did. And depending on how early HYDRA infiltrated us--? [ a shake of her head. zola's existence lingers like a ghost in this conversation. it makes her uneasy. ] Their introduction might not even have been a coincidence.

[outstandingbalance]

There's a lot of ifs in there. And a lot of it that doesn't make a whole lot of difference at this point. It's already happened.

[mucked]

Not for me. Not yet. Not all of it.

[ as gentle as you like -- a careful reminder that she lags behind the rest of them, and therefore feels a very different kind of responsibility. what they call regret, she considers an opportunity. some nights, she thinks she's so close to fixing it all she can nearly taste it on the air. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha sighs. She knows it isn't that easy, but at the same time, she knows what's done.]

You and Steve.

[mucked]

...Me and Steve--?

[ peggy prompts more explanation. although, not far beneath the surface question, she can easily guess at the implication made. in some very hard-headed ways, peggy and steve outright deserve each other. difficult and unyielding. ]