text & video » open

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter, some rumours, and you!
Broadcast: text, then video.
Action: y, aboard the starstruck.
When: today!

[ a message materializes on the network around midday: ]

Peggy Carter's got a veritable guy-pile of suitors: Edwin Jarvis, Max Rockatansky, Jason Wilkes, Jack Thompson, Howard Stark, Stefan Salvatore, Steve Rogers, Sam Winchester, James Barnes, Clint Barton, Daniel Sousa, and counting! How many more can you name?

[ and not long after (in a state of utter pique and dismay), that same network registers a rather heartfelt reaction -- but this time with accompanying wide-eyed video. ] Jack -- Jack Thompson? Un-bloody-likely. The only thing he's ever got his eyes on is the next greasy rung on the ladder. [ peggy scoffs, disgusted. ] As pranks go, this one's been truly shambolic. The first of April was days ago.

[ in a few hours, she'll enjoy her meltdown all over again when she finds a box of sponsor gifts in the cargo bay filled with stickers, each with a different so-called suitor's name scribbled into the blank space. all of them are filled in except for an ominous pile with an attached note: in case there's so many you start to forget their names. blanks included for any others that we might have missed. ]

Comments

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Who is he?

video

[mucked]

-- Sousa? [ her expression doesn't slip for a moment. ] A colleague. Or -- a little more than that, I suppose, because he's taken over the Los Angeles branch of our...[ hm, she hasn't explicitly discussed her career with kara. ] Business. I suppose that makes him less a colleague and more of a supervisor.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Oh, a coworker.

That gets awkward quickly.

video

[mucked]

Hardly. We've got a wonderful working relationship. [ or they do now. there was that time sousa investigated her, put her in cuffs, and perp-walked her out of her own apartment. but that's water under the bridge. ]

And his fiancée is a lovely woman. A nurse, by trade.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Well, good. I'm glad.

video

[mucked]

Of course, whoever it was included Jarvis as well. [ snort. ] So, clearly, the bonds of matrimony mean little to their list.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

[ she smiles ]

He's mortified, isn't he?

video

[mucked]

Thoroughly. Which alone might justify the list in the first place. [ its prankish intent, if not its legitimacy. ] He's a fun creature when he's flustered.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

He's a good guy.

video

[mucked]

He's wonderful. [ she's got no better word for him. ] Utterly wonderful. I'd have been dead a few times over by now were it not for Edwin Jarvis.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Really? When?

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[mucked]

Back home. [ oh, though it now occurs to her that perhaps kara doesn't know... ] Mister Jarvis and I met long before either of us arrived here. He works for Howard Stark.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

He might have mentioned that.

video

[mucked]

[ a sharp laugh. jarvis is, indeed, quite fond of his employer. ]

And I, in turn, find my path crosses often enough with Howard's that I've come to know his butler quite well. [ ... ] He's kind enough to give me a hand whenever Howard's out of town.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Why do you cross paths?

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[mucked]

We worked very closely together during the war. [ tricky, tricky. but at least she knows a (relatively) clear path through this thicket. ] Howard was one of the leading scientists on Project Rebirth. [ ... ] Which is, if you didn't already know, the program that resulted in Captain America.

[ not steve rogers. she sees the two as quite separate, at times. ]

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Oh, yes, that makes sense.

video

[mucked]

Might have been his one decent invention, frankly.

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Not that good of one?

video

[mucked]

He's got a knack for building dangerous things.

[ that is, weapons. ]

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[takingkarabusiness]

That's a big responsibility.

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[mucked]

A point of which I repeatedly try and remind him.

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[takingkarabusiness]

I guess I'm a little surprised you work with him so closely.

video

[mucked]

Paradoxical as it might sound, Howard's only ever believed in me. Respected me, even. [ he, too, had to work hard to where he got. but that's not her story to tell. as frustrating as the man was, he had his charms in friendship. ]

You can't look a gift-horse like that in its mouth, no matter how much of a rake or a cad or a wanker he might be.

[ not in 1947. ]

video

[takingkarabusiness]

Well, I'm glad to hear that. I think we all have those people in our lives.