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

[mucked]

Well. [ -- of those, of course, she could at least stomach being called a liar. and the others? they'd haunted her at other points in her career. but peggy could sense they'd cut winn to the quick, and so offered a mild: ] Now we know they're utter hogwash. Mine was almost believable, [ she jokes, ] but those claims are bollocks. Nothing but bollocks.

[winn]

[ and then she wonders why he thinks she's nice. he smiles, there's no helping it. ]

Yeah, I clearly can't be both incompetent and lazy - if I couldn't program I'd be going to a lot of trouble here to make these fake lessons. [ he shrugs. ]

[mucked]

And -- try not to take this the wrong way -- but I rather suspect you make a piss poor liar.

[ it's alright. so does steve. she can see through his fibs each and every time. ]

[winn]

No, I think that's uh, that's actually kind.

[ he's the worst peggy, for someone so imaginative he has such a hard time coming up with believable lies on the spot, and he gets anxious and it's just a mess. ]

[mucked]

Not in my line of work.

[ -- grim? yes. and just a little combative. but only as much as she usually is, and only to cover for the kindness expressed just moments ago. she can't be too sweet, lest he start getting it into his head once again that she's some sort of warm-hearted creature.

but ultimately these prickles and sharps are more performative than painful. lately, she deflects more often than she attacks. character growth. ]

[winn]

I haven't really needed to lie for my work so far, mostly... [ there's been a little bit of covering up for james but that fell apart pretty instantly before alex because, as mentioned, he's terrible at it, hates it, has no interest in doing it. ] though, I didn't used to think it'd involve fieldwork either, you live and learn. So maybe I should work on that.

[ he still thinks she's incredibly nice, sorry, peggy. ]

[mucked]

-- Do they give you much training for fieldwork?

[ huff, might as well just hop-skip off anything that remotely could be connected back to any accusations of kindness. ]

[winn]

It's...more on the job kinda training -

[ as in no, not really. no training, no one watching his back, no weaponry. it's hard not to feel expendable at times. ]

[mucked]

[ sorry not sorry, but: ]

Winn. Do you even know how to fire a gun?

[ -- a bit extreme in the asking, perhaps. but there's nothing intrinsically better about having firearms experience. by all reports, she'd never have pinned him for someone who's had to fire one before. ]

[winn]

Point and shoot?

[ he has a lot of experience! in video games. and carnival games. he's never actually held a real gun. ]

[mucked]

[ dry as you like: ] I'm talking about stance, trigger discipline, how to solve a jammed mechanism, stripping a field rifle, that sort of thing...?

[winn]

I'm pretty sure I can figure out the jammed mechanism part -

[mucked]

[ an impatient waggle of her fingers, tinged with a curious kind of concern. ]

But the rest?

[winn]

Not really. The whole being on the field thing is a new development. But I manage! Turns out even before the workouts I pack a mean punch.

[mucked]

Punches are all well and good, of course, but -- [ she goes as far as to mime a gun with her fingers. ] Not much replaces lead.

[ ... ] Have you ever considered coming out to the shooting range on the Iskaulit?

[winn]

[ that particular phrasing just makes the thought of a gun more horrifying. mon-el is allergic to lead. ]

I never really liked the idea of using something that kills people. [ the fact that the only time he had the real thing in his hand his father put it in there doesn't help much, either. but maybe he could make a non-lethal version... ]

[mucked]

Killing someone with a gun is even more likely when you're untrained, you realize. [ you hit all kinds of things you don't meant to -- although, certainly, peggy's done a fair bit of killing her career. that's neither here nor there. ]

[winn]

Yeah, yeah, can't argue with that.

[ he realizes it a little too well, he was such a nervous wreck that day with his dad, so terrified, so terrible at it, that he could have easily hit an innocent bystander. ]

[mucked]

Perhaps you should come to the range, then -- get yourself feeling a little more accustomed to the action. [ ... ] Not with a conventional gun, necessarily. The ships offer those blasting alternatives.

[winn]

[ he's not totally comfortable with this idea, but he does agree both with her and with kitty that it's necessary, so he nods. ]

I'll need a teacher. You know, so I don't shoot myself.

[mucked]

-- If you're toeing your way around a question, Winn, then you might as well get on and ask it.

[ she'll say yes. ]

[winn]

Agent Carter, will you train me?

[ he really hopes that next time he goes home it's with all this knowledge he's gathering, because training and then completely losing all that training when he actually needs it? sucks. ]

[mucked]

I think I will, Agent Schott. [ a tilt of her head. a spark of warmth. ] Provided you'll agree to be about as attentive a student as I've been.

[winn]

[ there's something almost precious about this little exchange of theirs, about being seen as a professional by someone he respects so damn much. ]

Easiest promise ever, I'm a great student.

[mucked]

[ it's a funny feeling! this odd little swell of pride -- of purpose. peggy's worked in intelligence for years, now. but either in the field or in the office. distinguished, outspoken, forceful, but ultimately part of the rank and file. she might have been able to boss around any given private during the war, but there was always brass above her. brass outflanking her. never, not once, would she have considered herself a mentor.

and so when news reached her ears of shield, of its formulation, and of her position as its first director-in-chief? she'd felt an icy horror. peggy carter? leading, but in a capacity beyond barking orders in the middle of the gunfire? it seemed like a poor fit. worst of all, it seemed like it would be safe. dull. exhaustingly dull.

but she sees the look on winn's face and finds herself truly warming up to the prospect of teaching him something -- something any enterprising federal agent deployed in the field ought to know. and, finally, she can feel the appeal in a flock of newly minted ssr agents -- no, shield agents -- reared in opposition to what the ssr had become. quite apart from hydra's infiltration, she's starting to understand why her life meander down such a path. ]

We can use my pistol. At first. [ she irons all sentiment out of her voice -- hesitant to reveal her emotions on the matter. ] The first box of ammunition is on me, but I expect you to buy your own when you can find it. Or make it if you must. The revolver's antique even by my standards.