driftfleet | ᴛʜᴇʏ'ʟʟ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴄɪᴛʏ ᴀғᴛᴇʀ ᴜs ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

Entry tags:

ᴛʜᴇʏ'ʟʟ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴄɪᴛʏ ᴀғᴛᴇʀ ᴜs ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

Who: steve rogers circa civil war + you, yes you
Broadcast: nope
Action: various;
When: throughout january

[ new year, new memories and what begins as one monstrous headache.

it takes a couple of hours to sort through everything that's new, to make sense of a kaleidoscope of memories, images and sounds. at first, he starts writing it all down, lagos, the sokovia accords, the UN, black panther.

Only the dry details and nothing of what starts to weight down on his shoulders, faces and names that inspire a heavy, intimate, terrible sort of pain.

And so an avoidance of a sort begins that lasts through the two days the new year. Hours upon hours spend on the library aboard the Iskaulit, reading books and making nothing of them. It's an odd sight, Steve Rogers in one of the corners of the room, staring at a book and randomly picking up a notepad and writing something down ( another detail that comes up, scott lang or spiderman ) and then staring at the notepad only to go back and stare at the book.

He might also be found at odd hours at the gym; evidently, taking out his burdens on a punching bag, seemingly lost in thought even as takes out what seems to be a world of trouble on the thing.

It will take these two days of isolation before those of the fleet start seeing steve rogers off the Iskaulit. He'll make a return to the Starkstruck, though this return, too, will be a reclusive matter one will have to actively seek him to find him in the weaponry or otherwise, in his room. ]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[ at first, she gives him ample space. he tells her only what she needs to know -- the suggestion of change, of new intel, and of troubled waters ahead. perhaps she should have began by pushing harder: demanding that he talk, and share his burdens with her. but peggy doesn't so much as prod. she remembers what it's like to suddenly sort through raw memories and rawer feelings. less than eager to stifle him, she hangs back. lets him distract himself (or focus himself, hard to say which) on the iskaulit. but when they see each other in passing during that time she can note the changes on his face. it's not a terribly difficult code to break; sorrow is just another cipher.

but when he finally comes back 'home', she'll be waiting for him. peggy knew the shuttle was docking -- had picked it up on the array -- and so she waits for him in his quarters. she leans against the far wall, thumbing through a book he'd left out before he'd gone into isolation. ]

[Unfortunately for you, Steve Rogers, Natasha comes to the gym at odd hours all of the time to use this punching bag. It's a coincidence that she finds Steve here at all during his extended stay on the Iskaulit, but when she sees him... well, you don't have to be trained in reading micro expressions to tell something's bothering Steve.

Natasha approaches almost silently from one side, dressed for a workout and wrapping her own hands in tape.]

Hey. ...Want to take a turn with someone who can hit back?

[Steve isn't really the type to take out his frustrations on people, but who knows, maybe sparring with someone he knows would be comforting. He'd offer the same to her.]

[ she doesn't startle him but he does stare at her for a moment, realizes he neglected the use of tape when he sees her hands. Wiping blood off his knuckles, he shakes his head.

To think, she and Wanda have been carrying this burden for months now. ]

No, thank you.

[ he looks up at her for a moment. ]

I think we exchanged enough blows for a lifetime in that airport, don't you?

[ not he and her, specifically. he avoided that specific battle, maybe for the same reason she did, maybe for the same reason that made her let him go. ]

So that's what it is. [It fits. she can't say she's surprised. She's not surprised he turns down her offer if he's just remembered that fight, too.

Somehow the fact he knows too now doesn't lighten her burden.]

In that case... [She catches his wrist and pulls his hand to her gently, inspecting the back of his hand.] I could buy you a drink.

[Part of the burden of Wanda's powers means that, although she has to actively concentrate to read minds, she can at least sense the emotions of others in her proximity almost always. As such, she'd noticed when Captain Rogers' presence seemed to vacate the ship. At the time, she'd made little of it. Pietro had told her people could come and go amongst the various ships on the fleet. However, it was Steve returned to the ship that Wanda truly noticed that something was off. Something had changed even if she did not know the details of what.]

[For the most part, she felt it would be better to leave him well enough alone. However, the change she sensed in him was like a thorn in her mind. Something more than curiosity was enticing her to investigate. And so, eventually, Steve will hear the soft sound of knuckles tentatively rapping at his door.]

I can't really get drunk.

[ he reminds her but it's said with a wayward smile of a sort. Only two days ago he did indeed get drunk on the lab-induced alcohol Winn got him. It was an easy sort of feeling. A new year, good friends, a kiss at midnight.

he turns his hand, entwines his fingers in hers. ]

Hey.

[ he feels as if he's seeing her anew or else, that he finally understands. ]

Edited 2017-01-01 18:29 (UTC)

[ by the time of his return, his list of new things is quite long, though the order is a mess, events mixing themselves together into a blur of arguments and conversations. but the reality of it all is heavy and terribly clear. the UN summit that he was never going to go to, the sudden trip to London.

they're two very clear facts that he tries to make himself accept, Peggy is gone and Peggy is here.

It's an awful contradiction. He barely had time to grieve for her at home, he'll never do it here.

It used to be a bit of a comforting thought of a sort, that if he ever goes back he'll still have something. their conversation in her bright room, a chance to see her again.

It's gone, now. His return will be to a world where she is longer alive and the hours away are spent working out through that, through that sudden sense of grief and loneliness.

He thinks he's quite ready to face her, when he finally comes back.

And he's wrong.

It's as sudden as that, he pauses at her door and continues towards his, buys himself another moment before he sees her - to wipe reminders of blood from bruised knuckles that spent far too many hours hitting things without tape and maybe change his clothes.

She's already there and he stops short, stares at her and then turns to close the door behind him. ]

Hey.

[ some might argue these are the times in which gentleness ought to reign. that she should collect him into a warm, supple hug and seek a path through with kindness. such solutions do no come easily to peggy -- not when she's faced with puzzles unsolved and messages not yet decoded. all she knows for certain is that he can't quite bring himself to look at her without appearing so damned sad. it makes her breath catch -- unhappily, this time. ]

You've been busy. [ she doesn't glance at his hands. they are the elephants in the room. or, at least, the current loudest of the elephantine lot. peggy shuts the book with a gentle thump and lays it back upon his bedside table. ] I thought...

[ she doesn't know what she thought. only what she feared. peggy swallows one confession and angles for another. ] I've been worried about you.

[ all is stiff. she might be speaking more as his captain, now, than as his friend -- or anything else. ]

[ the bracelet she gave him is a greater comfort that she knows.

She can't remember it yet and it makes him unreasonably angry. Not at her, not nearly. At the Atroma, mostly, at them making this into a game, taking away memories that might otherwise make her happy.

we'll make new ones, he decided, as soon as he understood what had occurred.

still, when he opens the room to let her in, it all rushes back, her grief, the soft-spoken conversation in he room, finding out Tony had her quarantined and worse of all, seeing her in that prison, the shock collar, the way they treated her.

he almost draws her in, almost locks her in an embrace and then he remembers and simply moves aside, let's her in. ]

Wanda. Everything ok?

[ it's all a mixture. A terrible sadness coupled with an overwhelming amount of gratitude and both are processed at once. Until now, he could barely look at her, now, he doesn't feel as if he can stop. He doesn't answer her, outright; he looks at her and sorts it all, once again, in his mind. Seeing her like this almost makes accepting she is gone impossible, how could she be? she's young and vivid and beautiful and worried. ]

Sorry.

[ it's an instinct and he continues before the apology can be dismissed. ]

I'm back now.

[ he wants to say, I'm better but that still feels like a bit of a lie. ]

You can still try. [She knows he can't, but the real offer is for moral support. Such as she's ever been good for that.

But she can do that other ways too. She squeezes his hand gently. If there was ever any doubt that she's still got his back, that they're still friends, she wants to expel it.]

You remember all of it?

[ back now.

she tastes the words in the rear of her throat. she can't tell if he meant them to be bitter, but she fabricates a bitterness for him. peggy had found herself at such high heights leading up to the new years celebration: a sweet christmas with him, followed by the sudden arrival of an old friend. she ought to have known something was bound to take them out at the ankles. somehow, she hadn't expected it would be this.

his stare is palpable. he gives himself away in how he studies her -- she knows that look because she's felt it form on her face, too, when she first saw him again. partially, she wants to come out and demand he tell her what she already knows. like relocating a shoulder, it must be done quickly no matter the pain.

but she hesitates. worse yet, she realizes she's hesitating for his sake. ]

It's disorienting, at first. [ she breathes out. reminds him that she's been here, once before. not long before he arrived, in point of fact. ] Your mind starts to feel like a canteen you're letting brim over. Nothing seems to fit where it's supposed to.

[ Hermione spends more time in the library than she'd care to admit - it's a comfort, really, after years in the Drabwurld and just as long in her own home. Libraries are home to her, even away from everything she had ever known, a source of knowledge and comfort and happiness, and that's what brings her here now. Nothing matters except finding something to bury her head into for a few hours, and she moves through the shelves with a soft expression.

She's surprised when she spots someone familiar, blinking for a moment before she steps over, settling down beside Steve before she offers a small smile. ]

Steve?

It's weird.

[ he admits as he moves to sit, still keeping her eyes focused on her. ]

It was less of an ordeal when I woke up in 2012. I remembered everything and it was all- so sharp, almost as if it were only yesterday. The war, the ice, our date.

[ he smiles a bit, bittersweet. ]

Now it barely makes sense.

[ she doesn't move. at least, not by much. peggy does settle her palms against her hips. it makes her look stern, possibly, to the untrained eye. ]

I liked to think of it like two different decks of cards. [ she approaches the conversation with an almost aseptic indifference. feigning a lack of investment because she fears how she might allow them both to fall apart if she's anything but pragmatic. ] And just now, you're shuffling them together. By all rights, they shouldn't be compatible. [ ... ] But some card games need two decks. They'll learn to coexist.

I think so. Unless they left something out.

[ and how can they know, really? Some things might be missing; though it doesn't feel like it can get any worse than it already is. ]

The Accords, the airport, Tony - we're all criminals.

[ her, too, he assumes. ]

You, too, helping me like you did.

[ and no, there's no helping it, he steps closer, wraps her in his arms, a tight, long embrace. ]

I remember London.

[ quiet, whispered into her hair. ]

Thank you.

Will they?

[ it seems to the only thing that remains constant in his life, these changes. times and places and times memories, nothing stays stable for too long. It'd be easier if he could look at those memories as one would a film, a series of happenings in someone else's story. Instead, he felt them as if they were his own without having lived them.

It's not a scene from someone else's life, he remembers all too well the chorus and the church, the click of Natasha's heels on the floor and how tight her hug had been.

Sometime in 2016, he bid goodbye to a woman he loved and now he can still, somehow, miraculously, love her.

It doesn't chase away the grief but it softens it, at the very least, helps him to keep the tightness in his throat under control. ]

I guess it's all a matter of time, isn't it?

[ and that's really the heart of the matter, they have time, still. ]

[In that moment, Wanda can sense his desire to hug. It's palpable enough that it makes her involuntarily take a half-step back. That level of affection -- considering the small span of time she's come to know Steve Rogers for, or at least currently believes she's only known him for -- just felt too out of place all of a sudden. Immediately though, she regrets the reaction. How it likely comes across to Captain Rogers. She stands silent for a moment outside his door, looking sidelong back down the ship's hall at nothing. The moment lasts just long enough to be awkward before she does enter his room. This time, she's willing to take a seat at the edge of his cot. She gives him a small, apologetic smile, trying in some way to make up for that half-step backwards.]

I could ask you the same.

[Oh, Steve. Natasha returns the hug after a hesitation. She remembers that too. And she knows that was a grief was something he carried with him through the fight.]

You okay? I didn't want to tell you when you didn't remember, and with Peggy here...

All things take time.

[ her teeth grit. she'd like to take a seat at his side and slide her palm against his -- show compassion, because she's not made of stone. but peggy doesn't know how to go from standing steely straight to settling next to him. that kind of fluid motion takes a certain emotional vulnerability that she's not willing to show. she isn't like him; she isn't so graceful in the face of her own mortality, no matter how full a life it might have been. she's on edge until it's said. aired. dispensed with. ]

And some things take more time than others. Waking up here, again, robs us of that time. When it happened to me -- [ extra memories; fresh experiences ] -- I woke up certain that I'd just a day earlier been stuck through the gut with a bit of rebar. The pain was still there -- but there wasn't any blood. No wound, either. Just a scar. [ she lays a hand on her stomach, indicating the place. but she doesn't try to show him the mark in question. ]

Didn't matter. It was like my mind refused to believe I was anything but what it thought I was. [ ... ] Have you spoken with the others?

[ the ones who remember. ]

You did - just what I needed you to do.

[ he knows that, understands that, now. she had shielded him for as long as she could have and it means a lot. it means the world, really. ]

I'll be okay.

[ maybe in a few weeks. ]

I'm keeping busy.

[ at once, he feels terrible. he forgets, sometimes, how clearly she can sense other people's thoughts. he worries, terribly, of putting more distance between them, scaring her away. it was all that much easier before these new memories rolled in. ]

Seems like the Atroma are playing with all our memories lately.

Just Natasha, last night.

[ and that has been a turmoil of emotions. This, here, will be even harder, once he finally processes it all. Everything else will have to wait. he wipes his knuckles clean with a thumb. ]

Should have known she spends some of her nights in that gym.

[ especially after the trick the Atroma played on her. ]

[Rubbing his back gently, she does her best to be solid for him. Project strength.]

She's still here, Steve. Just remember that.

[She sighs.]

And so am I. If you ever need anyone to listen, or for company. Whatever happened, that's not changing.

Edited 2017-01-01 19:38 (UTC)

[ -- it's his ineffective swipe at his knuckles that does her in. there's a flicker of pain hidden beneath impatience, and she helps herself to a standard-issue terry cloth from his locker. she doesn't know how long a half-finished cup of water has been sitting next to his bed, but she commandeers it to wet the rag. peggy sinks down onto the bed, crossing an ankle behind her knee as she sits to face him side-on. ]

Here, [ firmly, ] let me see to it.

[ her touch is ginger when she draws her fingertips across his palm and pulls his hand into her lap. it's an odd moment, considering how rarely he needs such basic care. she brushes a curl out of her eyes before bending to her work. lightly, she dabs the cloth against his knuckles.

she works in silence -- allowing him to elaborate on speaking with natasha, if he wants. ]

Edited 2017-01-01 19:43 (UTC)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 9

ᴛʜᴇʏ'ʟʟ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴄɪᴛʏ ᴀғᴛᴇʀ ᴜs ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Action; after Steve's return to the Starstruck

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject