video + text + action

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter & YOU
Broadcast: Y, fleetwide.
Action: Aboard the Starstruck, if you like.
When: Today.

[ a video feed flickers to life, and fights for a moment to adequately focus on its subject. peggy carter sits in the kitchen aboard the starstruck, cup of tea and her elbow and half a biscuit in her hand. dabbing at crumbs, she sets her food aside and offers the network a bright smile. ]

That message -- the ominous one, in the bizarre language? It put me in mind of the sort of cryptograms and puzzles you might see in the Sunday paper. [ her expression is cheery enough, although she's not being wholly honest about her interest in such games. she won't be the one to say the words bletchley and park.] I loved them. Them, and crosswords. I thought maybe some of you might like them, too. [ ... ] We could do a few together. I'm not saying we all join a club, exactly, but back home they were always better solved in good company.

Let's start you off with one that's easy enough. But there's no shame in needing a hint, if needed. For what it's worth, the text I'm attaching is, in its deciphered form, English -- not yet certain how the augments' translation will handle it. We'll see.

BLSTKBC YLBSFKGISRX XL QIYT SL SFVBWIKAKJR STR QKBZ VX V XSRVZU EIFELXR — V ELKBS LB OTKYT STR XLIA QVU NKM KSX KBSRAARYSIVA RUR.

[ -- and then an afterthought: ]

...By chance, has anyone been brewing their own beer?

Comments

[mucked]

If I shut my eyes -- [ and she does so ] -- I could almost imagine myself back in Britain.

[ the code-work had primed her for it; the tea has pulled the trigger. another sip, and she can nearly hear the chatter of the girls at their desks. bletchley. type-writers clacking and pens scribbling and that acrid drifting cigarette smoke. not the best year of her life, but she hardly regrets it. ]

[uprightness]

[ he knows this well; there are memories right there behind her eyelids. he's not sure of what and who but they are all connected to the simple scent and taste of tea. ]

Why only almost?

[mucked]

Doesn't smell the same. [ she taps the side of her nose, and only then opens her eyes -- goodwill lingers here, and her expression says thank you far quicker than her words ever will. ]

[uprightness]

Makes sense.

[ this world doesn't have that much in common with any sort of home. if there is one thing most people he knows have in common, it's how foreign this place seems to be to them. all aside of jim kirk, who, so far, seems to be mostly at ease with this sort of scenery. ]

You gotta admit, it was nice of them to at least hand out two of these.

[ the boxes, that is. ]

[mucked]

Even so. After today, I'll have to start rationing the bags. [ already, she feels a little too indulgent. peggy drinks, again, and savours the flavour in the back of her mouth. ] Tell me off if I start going through them too quickly, won't you?

[uprightness]

That depends.

[ he picks the box, counts the number of the remaining tea bags ]

define too quickly.

[ picking one up, he frowns ]

now that we have those, maybe once we land again, we can try and create something similar.

[mucked]

No more than one a day -- at least that little. Let the other cups be filler, I suppose, but leave me unchecked and I'll have the lot of it drunk by Christmas.

[uprightness]

[ this is a serious conversation isn't it? but he doesn't bite back the laughter that slips out exactly because of this seriousness. ]

Maybe I should just keep the boxes? I'll give you a bag every morning for breakfast.

[mucked]

[ she looks up at him, suddenly all-temper. ] What? And have you doling out tea-bags like some kind of allowance? As if I'm a -- [ overspending housewife.

mouth snaps shut. she buries her attention in another lengthy drink of good, strong tea. and when she's done, she seems to collapse back into her chair. ] You're not my quartermaster. You're...

[ ah, there's the problem. ] I don't know what to call you.

[uprightness]

Is it much worse than me trying to keep count on them while they're out here?

[ he doesn't smile but it's present in his tone. he learned to simply live with those changes in her temper. he arches an eyebrow, however. ]

--- Are you looking for an insult or a definition?

[ ah but there's that smile; though it's crooked, more of a grin, really. ]

[mucked]

[ oh, it's like she can sniff out indignity. it's hiding, there, under the sound of his voice. back on that way-station, he'd as much as said it: her anger becomes endearing. well, then!

peggy sees fit to rope him into the same embarrassment heaped upon her not too long ago: ] Max called you my lover.

[ after she'd called him her mother hen. somehow, though, this is what sticks with her.

she waits -- eager, perhaps, to see him half-so-flustered as she'd been. ]

[uprightness]

[ the eyebrow remains arched, though he at least bothers to put the tea cup down. so this is what this is about, then. for once, the fumbling seems to be kept under control, maybe to balance her own indignation. ]

it tops me being your colleague.

[ stands to reason, after all. ]

you'd rather them calling us sweethearts?

[mucked]

[ hmph. peggy can just about barely meet his eyes -- but it's an important conversation, really, and so she forces herself to look at him squarely. ]

Sweethearts. Makes us sound like we're writing love-letters with silly little acronyms written on the envelopes. [ s.w.a.l.k.

she crosses her arms. ] I'm not asking what they should call us. To hell with them, [ whoever they are. ] I want to know what you'd like to be called.

[ because, it's true, calling him merely her 'security officer' is starting to stretch credulity. ]

[uprightness]

Truthfully?

[ what a conversation to have in the kitchen, of all places. he sighs and gets up, moves the chair so he could at least sit beside her without the table between them. ]

does it matter what I'm called?

[ his hand finds hers, thumb tracing the outline of her finger. ]

would a definition matter that much?

[mucked]

Not one bit. Not to me -- trust me, Steve, if it were only you and I and no one else to explain it to? [ a shrug of her shoulders. she wouldn't need a thing. but she knows, deep down, that she's doing him a disservice when she has no adequate word for him -- and therefore chickens out, calls him a crew-member or a security officer or a soldier she once knew.

peggy skips the unsaid words. ] I'm not used to caring what other people think.

[ so what's changed? what's different? she can't quite find the seam. ]

[uprightness]

Do we really to explain this to anyone?

[ he was under the impression that most everyone knew already. What's with the unfortunate incident with her pictures and the halloween party. ]

You and me, we're us. I'm not sure there's a term for what we have. Calling you my girlfriend feels like we're sixteen and I'm buying you sodas every Friday. You're more than that.

[ there is a term, in all honesty. But steve doesn't rush into talking of right partners and love over tea in the starstruck's kitchen. ]

[mucked]

[ of course they don't need to explain it to anyone -- and yet, there's this strange new part of her which wants the words best suited in articulating how she feels for him. all they can really do is agree on what they're not. and agree that they're together. so maybe that's enough.

she traces the rim of her cup. caught between a smile and a frown. ] Captain America's girlfriend? [ good lord. ] No, that wouldn't do. Not at all. I got enough of that after the war, [ she admits. ]

[uprightness]

Seems like none of the traditional words fit.

[ he feels as if he had skipped over a whole era of the world's take on captain america. waking up in the 21st century, Cap was an important historical figure but still, history made into something more modern. After the attack on New York, they all got their names and pictures stamped on everything from cereal to birthday balloons but it's steve's infamous distance from any personal relationship that kept him from seeing this side of things. it irks him more than a bit that it turned out to be peggy's burden. ]

I think we're maybe a bit past that.

[ or entirely past that. none of them seem to excel at the entire traditional thing, put them together and well. semantics don't seem to work here. ]

[mucked]

Past it, and stuck in some sort of in-between. [ she grimaces. ] Only, I don't want you to feel like you're spinning your wheels -- missing out, once more.

[ she can't tell him how she'd started to fall for someone else. how daniel had been patient, and interesting. but peggy had wore out his patience all the same, had taken too long to mend a bridge, and hadn't reached out to him until it had been too late. he'd moved on. good for him, but it cemented a lesson in spinning her wheels.

even so, she can't bring herself to say i love you despite having already said it. tapped it out. expressed it, whole-heartedly. she isn't a creature of excess, and it shows even now. ]

[uprightness]

Missing out?

[ he shakes his head and takes her hand more firmly in his. ]

If that's what this is about, there isn't any chance of that happening. If I ever felt I was missing out it was in the time I spent without you. That never happened here and it won't happen just because we can't find an exact definition for what we are.

[mucked]

[ she likes his hand in his, certainly, though it's a kind of tether that still makes her feel a little uncomfortable. she caresses her thumb across his palm. ]

Aye aye, Captain, [ she answers with a crooked smile. the question isn't put to bed, exactly, but it's shored up enough that she needn't worry. instead: ] I suppose that means that -- whatever we are -- it's fair game to ask you for a...possibly awkward favour.

[uprightness]

Possibly awkward?

[ well, that does sound promising. he ducks his head, smiles up at her. ]

gotta say I'm curious now.

[mucked]

I'm going to need you to kiss me -- [ she announces. a little primly, and a lot like she's conducting business. now, it's not like the kiss itself is a source of discomfort.

but: ] I'm afraid it's not going to be very pleasant.

[uprightness]

[ there are so many ways in which he doesn't follow. ]

-- it won't be?

[ the confusion couldn't be greater at this point. ]

[mucked]

One of the clever clogs in the fleet managed to replicate the knock-out lipstick -- that brand I described. Only he went and improved a second formula with enough punch in the pigment, so to speak, to knock even a super-powered someone back on their arse.

[ her smile is edged -- because he must realize, now, what the hitch is. ] But I need to be certain.