✮ video.

[uprightness]

Who: Steve Rogers + you.
Broadcast: yep.
Action: on the starstruck, if you're inclined!
When: current.

[ It has been a long time since Steve Rogers has done one of these little network announcements, seven months, if you want to be specific about it. Some things have changed, others haven't. He still looks awkward about addressing a whole lot of people at once for something that isn't an emergency. The uniform is gone, however, replaced by a simple blue t-shirt and jeans and the shield is nowhere in sight.

He seems to have spread many sheets of paper all over the Starstruck's kitchen. Some feature tables of dates - undoubtedly a calendar in the making and others feature, well, drawings; each sheet contains one scenery. They would strike some people as rather familiar, a hand-holding tree, a sandy beach, the market of the tri-fraction system with people wearing clothes in various colors, the woods of the Lagan system, the Nebula lights and lastly, the mountains of Siourew and the Co’kal. ]

I meant to finish a few calendars by New Year's Eve but it seems I'm behind on my deadline.

[ To say the very least. He rubs his chin, there's a beginning of a stubble there. How many days has he devoted to this as of late? it's hard to tell. ]

I'm not going to write years on 'em, since it's different for all of us but I thought it might be a nice way to keep up with dates and holidays.

[ He frowns and confesses, ]

I feel like I've left some things out - and some of you have seen planets I haven't been around to see for myself. I figured I'd ask - if you have the time, you can describe some of them to me and I'll add them to the calendar. It can be anything you liked on any of the planets we've been to.

[ and, okay, fine - ]

I could use a description of where we're currently docked, too.

[ How can a person so big can seem so awkward? ]

Thanks you.

Comments

[mucked]

[ wait. wait.

her mouth goes dry. ]

-- Steve, are you trying to say I've proposed? To you? With little pictures?

[ somehow. ]

[uprightness]

Coded pictures.

[ which is that much more sensible. he doesn't bite back a smile anymore. ]

Don't look at me, I've been trying to figure this out for a while now. It was there in the unread messages.

[mucked]

[ gears turn in the back of her head. peggy frowns, as though puzzling over a problem that's giving her more pause than she'd first anticipated. ]

Steve, [ she starts -- watching him (and his smile) with mild indignation. ] When I ever ask you to marry me, it won't be with coded pictures. There'll be no mistaking it. That much I can promise.

[ ok, you old grammarian. pick that part. when. not if. ]

[uprightness]

There wasn't a lot of room for mistakes with the pictures, either.

[ just saying. ]

Are you saying Winn is asking me to marry him?

[mucked]

[ an indignant snort. not laughter -- not really. ]

What exactly were the pictures? In what order?

[ a big ask for some, perhaps, but she knows steve's memory is precise enough to recall it exactly. not least of all because if he truly did think it was some secret message about their (hypothetical) impending marriage, he'd doubtless have scrutinized it often. ]

[uprightness]

Like I said - bride, groom, heart, wedding ring, applause, I think one of them included another heart - and then confetti, house, car.

[ and then he chuckles, perhaps because the very memory makes this look even more silly. ]

[mucked]

Jarvis! [ it hits her all at once, and peggy offers a snap of her fingers as she unravels the mystery. ] Mister bloody Jarvis -- New Year's Eve, he came over to the Starstruck. Not long after he'd joined the fleet.

[ peggy shakes her head. ] I used your phone to show him a few 'wonders' of the modern world. He's the one who made those selections, Steve, and not me.

[ but only now does it hit home how he might have built that code up in his thoughts -- how he might have gotten himself excited for what they could have meant. ]

I'm terribly sorry.

[uprightness]

--- You want to tell me Jarvis knew how to use emojis and send a message on New Year's Eve? just after he arrived here?

[ .... ]

well, he picks things up quickly. and then there's the food. I think I might say yes.

[ a hand at her shoulder, grim, serious. ]

You'll understand.

[mucked]

It's my fault. I was trying to ruffle his feathers a bit by showing him the aubergine and telling tall tales about how people in the future age communicate with one another. [ she sighs. ] He took it alarmingly well -- and I thought I'd erased them from your phone.

[ she clearly has a lot to learn. ]

Would have been a ridiculous way to plan a proposal, if you ask me.

[ even for someone who likes puzzles. ]

[uprightness]

Dunno.

[ ... ]

I mean, yeah, if you were going to use the eggplant. That would be weird.

[mucked]

It's weird even without it. [ a huff. ] So -- all this time? You'd been thinking...?

[uprightness]

That you have the weirdest sense of humor.

[ ... ]

Peggy. I don't think you'd even use one of those hearts. I thought you were kidding.

[mucked]

It would be an awfully bitter sort of joke, don't you think?

[uprightness]

Once, I would have.

[ he shakes his head. ]

Not anymore.

[ there are lots of things he finds he can look at more lightly these days. ]

[mucked]

No? [ her eyes narrow -- now that the worst of it is passed, it's time to be shrewd. ] What's it now, then? Amusing?

[uprightness]

Maybe a bit.

[ especially now. ]

[mucked]

Amusing. [ she repeats. ] To imagine a cupcake dress and rice thick in the air? [ peggy gives her head another shake. ]

[uprightness]

-- Can't really imagine the cupcake dress.

[ not on her, anyway. ]

[mucked]

Thank God. [ this conversation is moving both too slow and too fast all at once. a huff. ] I am going to murder Mister Jarvis all the same.

[uprightness]

For something that happened in New Year's Eve?

[ so amused. ]

Pity the man. He probably just meant to practice.

[mucked]

He's Howard Stark's butler -- he ought to know a thing or three about discretion.

[uprightness]

Sending it from my phone to my phone is pretty discreet.

[ you gotta admit!! ]

[mucked]

How is that even possible. It seems like a terrible feature.

[uprightness]

Seems like Mr. Jarvis managed it. I don't think many people do that.

[ and still. ]

You can't be first to text someone a marriage proposal.

[ she didn't. but this is hilarious nonetheless. ]

[mucked]

[ huffily. ]

It wasn't any sort of proposal.