driftfleet | Calibration Post 1, "Daytime"

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Calibration Post 1, "Daytime"

[ Not long after the shuffle, there's a ripple of static over the network - loud, sudden, and seemingly with no origin. It's puzzling, but there's no indication that it's going to happen again...

Until a minute later. Another surge of static comes in over the speakers, and then a voice - one some may find familiar, though not necessarily welcome, after all of this time... It's Diamond. Long time no speak, hmm?

Clearly, not all is well. She sounds very far away, for one. For another, she sounds... skeptical, almost alarmed. There may actually be real concern in her voice. ]

Again? Twice in one c--

[ Her sentence is cut short with a strangled gasp, followed by a moment of silence. What follows may be the sound of metal dragged across metal, but it's hard to place. When she speaks again, it's uncharacteristically monotonous. ]

... Bring them in.

[ A blip of lost time passes right after those words, before every passenger mysteriously wakes alone in their own unfamiliar room. The style of decor resembles that of the Marsiva's Hospitality Deck, if any passengers should remember what that's like. It sounds and smells the same as the host ship as well, all clean and chrome, but this set of rooms has only been used once, and for the very same purpose that befalls the fleet contestants now.

As for their hosts, there is no immediate sign of them, though some may recall a series of hideous, half-electronic screams before their memories begin to blur upon arrival...

Welcome back to the Marsiva, dear passengers. It's time for round two of calibrations. ]

[ This mingle will cover all non-calibration room interactions. Please continue to come back to it for the duration of the plot! You are, of course, free to post any other mingles/posts/etc. that you'd like. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ her lips part. but -- as fate would have it -- another passenger breezes through the kitchen before she can begin to scold him for stonewalling even now. peggy's fingers choke high on the bottleneck. her temper has already been proven; betraying it now won't help her cause. or his, whatever it might be, though she's beginning to suspect he intends to smart-mouth his way through the conversation.

(it does occur to her that maybe if he's smarting off it's because she's employing no finesse in her approach. worse yet, she's proven herself capable of it; somehow, peggy's decided he no longer warrants that lighter conversational touch.)

she bides her time while the other person, only vaguely familiar, retires from their immediate vicinity and takes a seat at one of the long tables in the style of nearly every mess hall she's ever seen. pushing off the counter, peggy takes one step nearer to rip -- her voice drops in volume. ]

If you are willing to have this conversation, then we'd best do it 'round yours. [ not in her room; of that she is insistent. ] We'll take two bottles, [ peggy grabs for a second from the cupboard left ajar, ] if we must.

[That aborted comment has Rip glancing towards the other person briefly. Whoever they are, perhaps Rip should thank them. The look on Peggy's face had hardly been a pleasant one, though Rip cannot deny he likely deserved it to some degree. As stubborn and willful as she is, no doubt it's taken quite a bit of fortitude to lay down as much of an olive branch as she has.

And only to be met with his continued refusal to cooperate.

She steps closer, lowers her voice and suggests they go elsewhere--his room, once more. That, at least, is easy enough to agree to, right along with the notion that they might need more than just the one bottle before all this is done.

He would do her the favor of taking the first, at least. It'd be rather rude to leave her to carry both.]

After you.

[It's habit more than anything else; whatever else she's seen, Rip does have some measure of manners. He follows after, quickly catching up to walk at her side, until they once more reach the door with his name on it.

He doesn't speak again until they're inside, that door closed behind him--though when he does, it's without looking at her.]

I don't remember what goes on when other people are in my mind. [The answer to her earliest question maybe further serve to explain his continued reluctance, and the low bite of anger he feels near constantly now.] Only that they've been there, such as you were.

[ she relinquishes one bottle with relative ease. and before they leave, she pinches a pair of dreadful plastic tumblers between her fingertips -- convinced the drink will taste worse if had out of anything but glass. but as she'd said: beggars can't be choosers.

striding a few steps ahead of him comes naturally to her. beyond that, she keeps him on her left. it isn't a question ego so much as habit -- there's something soothing found in old protocol. peggy might as well be back in her bottle-green uniform for that's the sort of armour she wraps around herself now. precise; practical; professional. it's just about the only thing that might manage to keep the worst of her temper at bay.

this is a step backward; she knows it. nearly two years in the fleet, and she's managed to mollify most of her reactions. but this dense and clustered series of events has flensed her raw. beyond what she'd seen of him and what he'd seen of her, she'd also seen enough of others to lift her hackles like a dog under threat.

and yet, once inside his room, she tries very hard to appear calm. peggy holds out a cup for rip and wastes no time in prying some space-age ersatz cork out of the bottle. ]

Twice, no less. [ and she's still surprised by it. ] I can say that the second time 'round saw your funny little AI self a touch troubled by your fall from grace.

[ -- if she speaks in wry, hyperbolic ways then it's only to protect the both of them from having to shuffle too close to the truth. its best blanketed in alternating layers of both over- and under-statement. ]

[His own bottle is set aside for the moment, safely in reach if it does turn out they drink their way through the first. And indeed they might, as unwise as it would likely be. Though Peggy outwardly shows little sign of being flustered, Rip has learned--has seen just how good she is at measuring what she shows.

Hardly any surprise, given that she had once been a spy.

He takes the cup offered, waits for Peggy to get the first bottle open, and cooperatively holds his out when she seems ready to pour. In the interim, she offers up something about his mindscape he's yet to learn, sparking a touch of surprise from him.]

My AI-self? [Well. That's rather unexpected--although perhaps not in the full scope of things. After all, he hardly imagines Peggy pictures herself as the little girl he'd met within her memories.

And if he had been the AI--then perhaps it makes sense, that concern of which she speaks. AIs, after all, are meant to serve and protect their captains.]

I think you'd have to agree that it wasn't a conversation that ended well. [Nor one that left Rip exactly optimistic for how his immediate future might play out.]

No, indeed.

[ she pours a generous measure into his cup. and then, taking a step back, pours an equal measure for herself. the bottle is (for the time being) left to stand alone on the metal chest at the foot of the bed. perhaps it's ill-advised to knock back drinks with a man whose very motives you question; however, she takes some small comfort in knowing rip never got to see the memory where peggy's brother praised her ability to hold her whiskey.

the drink itself is similar to every other almost-whiskey she's found in the fleet's travels: slightly unsatisfying and carrying an odd under-flavour of lime, of all things. but spirits are spirits and she's prepared to settle.

she raises her cup in a mock toast. ]

Arriving a second time might have been a coincidence, but you -- him -- made it quite clear the intention was to repair a bridge or two. [ ... ] Are you that upset about being punted off the Starstruck?

[ well, that accounts for one of the five versions. ]

[A mock toast he mirrors in short order. Though it may be far from preferable, Rip hasn't been able to indulge in much by the way of liquor since his arrival to the fleet.

And some situations simply call for it, besides.

Besides, the sip (and the accompanying frown--is that lime?) offers Rip a moment to mull over Peggy's question regarding the Starstruck and his potential place on it. Likely it's already been made clear to her that Rip is reluctant to reveal much of anything by way of personal detail. Moreso, perhaps, now that he's aware of an apparently chatty AI representation of himself lurking about in his head.

But his reticence won't get them anywhere in the end. So he takes a slow breath in, measuring his words while his gaze lingers on the amber liquid in his glass.]

There is little about the incident you viewed that doesn't upset me on some level, Miss Carter. [From origin to aftermath, and certainly all the things that came in between.] To be suddenly confronted with another consequence of those actions--ones which I will not pretend to justify or defend, for the record--

[He pauses. Rip doesn't and cannot know what she's seen--but Peggy's clever. She can likely guess.]

To have them cost me another place aboard a ship, even rightfully so? Yes. It bothers me.

[ she twirls the glass. its contents spin. it's hard to say what drives her to wait and take her sip after he takes his. nevertheless, she offers a grimace of her own. there's little pleasant about this pale imitation. it burns on the way down but it doesn't come with all the other sly perks of a good whiskey. barring, perhaps, the inevitable inebriation.

but that's still a ways off yet for peggy carter. ]

Again and again, I've been thinking about that day we met on the asteroid. [ they'd spoken before, but they'd not met. ] I told you pieces of a story about a colleague who'd had his very mind stolen from him. Locked away. Silly me, I'd thought your curiousity had been just that: curiousity, maudlin and morbid.

[ peggy shakes her head. ]

You were worried. Possibly even frightened.

[ it's not an accusation -- or rather, it's not offered as one. not when she can remember what his fear feels like spreading through her veins. peggy clears her throat and takes another drink. ]

Rather than justify or defend those actions, Mister Hunter, you could try explaining them.

[ in his own words, now, instead of his own feelings. ]

[Worry is easy enough to acquiesce to, but frightened? Perhaps that's a touch too honest of an admission, and Rip is careful to give no visible reply after she suggests it. He has felt the sharp spikes of fear over the course of the past year, driven into him while his mind languished as Phil Gasmer, the innocent victim who knew nothing of true fear or pain except as they existed within the framework of imagination.

Until he'd fallen into the hands of a very real evil.

She presses on, and it's for the best. Though he still would much rather not, Rip realizes there's no choice. Perhaps Peggy is not owed the explanation, but—it's necessary. There's a framework for what he had done; without it, she's merely left with that impression of Rip at his absolute worst, reveling in it like it was some moment of glory.]

In my universe, there exists a relic called the Spear of Destiny; it was the lance used to pierce the side of Christ at his Crucifixion. [He speaks this as fact; whatever religion Peggy may ascribe to, in Rip's world, these events happened.] And because it was soaked in that blood, the Spear in turn could be used to rewrite reality itself. To violate every law of natural order, and recreate the world as the wielder wished to see it.

[He pauses then, and drinks. Though he means not to tell her as much, that very thing had apparently happened in one timeline—one that had, thankfully, been rewritten, though at high cost.]

[ story time, is it?

perhaps she ought to have anticipated something nearer a meticulous retelling. or otherwise she ought to appreciate the distancing technique inherent to rip beginning his explanation with something so legendary that it beggars belief. if this is to be one of those conversations, then peggy sees fit to take a seat on the metal chest -- crossing her legs and leaning back against the foot of the bed. this seems like the sort of conversation one has while seated, no matter how little she cares for the imbalance created by him still on his feet.

once, peggy had been passably dutiful in her faith. st-martin-in-the-fields had been a proper anglican school. its cramped and private chapel is the setting best associated with the act and ritual of religion. but after she'd left middle-sixth and after she'd enlisted and after michael had died...? her faith wasn't so much abandoned as it became an old habit to be conceded. gradually and incrementally to the point where she'd never be able to mark the moment she'd stopped believing.

but that had been back home. since then, she's met men claiming to be gods. steve's regaled her with slivers of stories about asgard as first recited by thor. what was once laughable has since become swallowed fact.

what's more important, now, is that peggy picks up on the difference he didn't have to spell out: ] Rewrite reality? That's a touch heavier than merely mucking with the sanctity of history.

[ rip's words; not hers. but she feels compelled to signal to him that she's at least trying to understand the difference between the two: reality and history. better to touch on that to even approach the question of christ's blood. ]

Oh, indeed.

[Although Rip doesn't sit, he leans back against one of the sparse walls provided in the room. Seems he's just as comfortable like that, his weight divided between his back and his feet. It allows him to tuck a hand into his pocket, the other, of course, still holding his glass, and moving through the air with small gestures as he continues on. She seems to have picked up on the important point, and that's good enough for Rip.]

It's why, when I and a particular group of operatives came into possession of it, we attempted to destroy it. Through great effort we managed to break it into four pieces--and as there were four of us, it was decided we each would become a protector of one fragment.

[A secret which could be told to no one; even the Time Masters hadn't known where the fragments could be found in history. Just what Rip reported: that the Spear itself had been destroyed.

And Eobard Thawne used that report to ask questions even the protectors of time had not.]

Merely separating them in terms of location wasn't sufficient, however; not for an object of that much power. So I took each of the other three to a different period in history--and because none of them knew where the other two had gone, I was the only one who knew when the fragments could be found, across thousands of years of time.

[ for all the fight yet remaining inside her, peggy doesn't make a show of it. the crossed legs and the canted chin are a thin veil pulled across an alert mind. every word is taken in stride, turned, and examined. rip says 'fragment' and she remembers a piece of wood that went untouched within his mental minefield.

rip says he was the only one who knew and she remembers the tied-down tension and terror felt at a knife tip. thoughtful, and in the wake of another swig, her tongue digs into the back of her own mouth -- feeling through the landscape of her molars.

only -- only! ]

But the American didn't. [ know. ] The you who wasn't you.

[ two of five, then. they grow like checkpoints from the conversation's ground. the context of that interrogation had been suspiciously absent -- and it may very well have been an entirely unrelated trauma. but peggy would rather grasp for connections than stare at otherwise disparate nodes. ]

[He nods slowly, pulls a long drink from his glass a beat later. He's prepared, at least, for this--Peggy has asked him already about a missing tooth, and he can only presume the memory she saw in the wake of such a question.

It's one he can recall keenly, even now.]

As I mentioned before, I lost my true memories. My identity was essentially rewritten to fit within a certain period of time. [Some combination of directly touching the time drive and using it as a means of travel. In truth, Rip had been damn lucky to even survive the experience at all.

Regardless of what came out of it.]

A group of men were after the Spear, and they knew that I, as I properly existed, could lead them to the fragments. They managed to kidnap me, only--it wasn't me. It was Phil Gasmer.

[A film student with only the barest traces of those truths still lingering in his mind. He can recall, even now, the hours spent pouring over pages of a script, refining every detail so it would match what he saw in his own imagination.

Rip huffs softly to himself; looking back, it all feels rather surreal--except it isn't. It happened, and the problems of a young man looking to graduate were hardly the worst of what he faced.]

No matter how much he pleaded, they would not believe him ignorant of the information they were after. Removing that tooth was only the last of their efforts.

[ and here is where the details begin to bleed in earnest. for all peggy knows 'a group of men' might as well be synonymous with the council alluded to in rip's memory of the oculus. it could all be one problem wrapped around the same chestnut. or, alternatively, it could be a brace of problems with rip being the only real string tying them together.

it doesn't matter. rip is the only conundrum she needs to solve. he can keep the rest of his life to himself -- her goal try, hard and earnest, to scrounge up a fraction of that tolerance and patience she'd cultivated for bucky barnes. if she can access just a bit then maybe, maybe, she can find a way to see rip something other than a threat.

and in the interest of continuing to cultivate that patience, peggy just about manages not to inform him that phil gasmer is a laughable name. but, at least, she can proceed under the possible belief that his reaction under interrogation had been (paradoxically) both genuine and ersatz. there's a comfort in that, considering she'd begun to question which accent was the real one. ]

I don't need every detail. [ she gives her glass a shake -- it's got about a mouthful remaining, now. might as well absolve him from saying too much. ] It's the bit about shooting the woman -- Sara Lance, was it? That's what concerns me. Was that you getting your identity 'rewritten' again?

[ she thinks not. but she aims to drive to the heart of her worries. ]

[Well. Even if she had, in a way, at least Rip could say it isn't his name.

Still, he glances up when she points out he need not say so much. Perhaps he has gotten a bit lost in the telling, yet this all leads to a point. Each piece is part of a greater whole, and if she wants to know the full span of why--

Then there's no avoiding the truth of so many of his mistakes.

The question she asks only to press forward gets a nod Peggy doesn't expect. Rip's muscles tense in way they had not before, even as they hinted at all Phil had gone through. Perhaps that loss of memory allows Rip to separate himself from the identity somehow.

But what comes next--that had undeniably been him.]

There's a bit of technology in my time that allows ones memories to be preserved, much like you would a computer file. [Much like the files they'd stolen from Dreadhorse, in fact.] I don't know if you saw, but the markings on the tooth indicated where one such drive could be found with my memories--my true ones.

[Of Rip Hunter, Time Master, Captain of the Waverider.

Like Peggy, he finishes off the last of his drink--too fast, perhaps. He swallows thickly, then leans his head back against the wall behind him while he feels the burn make it's way down his throat.]

They altered them. Not just my memories, but my personality. The man you saw, the man who nearly murdered one of the people he respects most throughout all of time.

Me.

That--was me. Without any of the grounding morality or principles or belief that humanity and time are both worth protecting.

[ even only a year ago, still within the fleet, this explanation would have strained credulity. but peggy's dug her fingers into bits of code, now. she's altered and tweaked and changed and perhaps it's been nothing even fractionally so complex as a person but the understanding stays the same.

(it's an understanding crutched along by the memory of one doctor fenhoff. he would slide his ring on his fingers and demand focus from his victims, editing their dreams and desires off-cuff. the power he'd possessed should have been dispensed with more carefully. but that's another problem for another time. and today isn't about peggy's guilt.)

rip lauds the woman as someone he respects. one of the second set of memories speaks better to it -- crumpled and uncertain, he'd put his trust in her. it's why she'd been willing to open these 'negotiations' of a sort. it's why she'd decided something didn't add up. ]

That was you. [ she nods. she's not in the game of plying people with false comfort. she's not the person who will ever turn around and suggest it wasn't him. that gasmer fellow, maybe, but -- then again, peggy can't be certain of any of it. it's all so foreign except for the thin parallels she manages to draw. ] But it wasn't all of you. Am I getting that right?

[The silence drags on for longer than it perhaps should: nearly a minute with Rip looking upwards at the cold and impersonal ceiling, rather than the person seeking to understand what he had been in the moment she envisioned--felt, as she had said, before she dismissed Rip from service of her ship.

It would be simpler--not easier, but simpler--to give her an affirmative answer. But as he considers it, lets the possibility of that response roll on his tongue, he knows it to be false.]

I knew who she was when I shot her. [He pushes off the wall. That he approaches Peggy is merely a coincidence; what Rip is after is the bottle she sits beside. It gives him something to do with his hands, a promise of whatever relief might be found in its contents--and always, a place to draw his focus that isn't Peggy's expectant gaze.] And what she represented. Out of all the Legends, Sara Lance embodies the strength to overcome any adversity, to do what is right even at great personal costs--but she also has remained compassionate, and even kind, in spite of a rather terrible personal history.

[A story that is not his to tell, in the end, but perhaps his praise might be enough.]

There is perhaps no one I'd come to trust more--and in turn, killing her, as I thought I had done, was the ultimate proof of being free of every sense of duty or restriction. Of being a puppet to some cause, even when it meant losing everything I loved in the world.

[ -- if she suspects rip of assassinating too much of its own characters, then it's a suspicion born not of compassion but of experience. she watches him fill his drunk and then, after downing the last of hers, she tilts the cup toward him. expectant, all the same.

a poetic streak urges her to ask whether sara lance also fought dragons. peggy's better angels stomp the question down and bury it below her ribs. she's here to put him on the docket and not explain away her own vulnerabilities. ]

Cheers to your failure, then.

[ she leans forward just long enough to touch the edge of her cup against his -- though this toast is no less flippant. what she means, of course, is that the attempt to prove himself free had clearly failed. the woman lived. and rip? well -- somehow or somewhy he got those bits of himself squashed back into his personality. he must have, peggy thinks, to wear his culpability so heavy in his shoulders just now. ]

And cheers to her.

[ she'd brought him back. peggy's beginning to piece that part together, now -- the last memory before she'd left. sara lance holding out a hand and urging him to remember himself. ]

[He obliges the silent request made when Peggy holds out her glass. The pour is perhaps more generous than it strictly should be, but the circumstances equally call for it. Though the story ultimately ends with the hero overcoming evil, and in turn rescuing the one who had gotten lost in the deep darkness, that hardly makes it a happy one to tell.

Yet even with the details laid out so plainly, Rip can't help but look surprised when Peggy shifts in her seat to tap her glass against his. His lips part slightly so, as if he wishes to say something but lacks the words—and indeed he does, until she follows up that first flippant salute with one Rip, at least, means in all earnestness.]

Cheers to her.

[Sara Lance. While Rip will not go so far as to hope he might see her one day aboard this crew, he cannot say that he wouldn't find a measure of comfort in her presence.

He drinks, as one should after a toast, then returns to the topic at hand. He still doesn't know what she's seen, after all; for Rip, Peggy remains unaware of how the story ends.]

She and the others managed to restore my true memories. It was through a, ah, method somewhat similar to what we're all experiencing now. [And in turn how Rip has been able to approach each new mind he's found himself in with care and caution. The parallels have granted him awareness enough, at least, to work with minimal intrusion upon those rooms he's been forced to escape.

Or so he hopes.]

I cannot claim to be the person I was before all of that happened—but neither am I the man who pulled the trigger, as you saw. That much I can say with confidence, at least.

[ she drinks. deeper, maybe, than is necessary for the marking of a toast. peggy's eyes shut (for only a moment) while she swallows the mouthful. and what follows is a simple enough in action, although dreadfully complicated in spirit. peggy slides an inch or two down the metal chest and makes space for him to join her and take the place recently vacated by the bottle itself. whatever misgivings she still might harbour, she doesn't think there's much risk inviting him to sit alongside.

and if she's mistaken? well, she's taken down men larger than him. size isn't everything; however, peggy's confident enough in her own skills to assume a brawl would turn in her favour. all the same, she doesn't expect violence. ]

Yes. I saw a bit of that. Also. [ a twirl of her finger in the air, perhaps to indicate the mental space to which he alludes. ] It was the last thing I saw before I left for good.

[ which communicates (she hopes) that it was the catalyzing reveal that spurred her towards this clumsy attempt at settlement, if not outright reconciliation. ]

[The motion of her body leaves a clear implication, although understanding why Peggy makes room doesn't temper Rip's surprise. She means to have him sit beside her, as close as she might expect a friend to, and it's perhaps the last thing Rip expects even after such a lengthy explanation, no matter what promise he's just made about who he is and is no longer.

He swallows, but he doesn't refuse her. Rip moves to sit on the same trunk, though he's careful to leave a handspan of gap between them. Certain things were simply proper, regardless of the circumstance.

He's just leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs, when she admits to apparently having seen a bit of another memory too. As specific as her gesture is, Rip does get what she's trying to say after a beat. His memory of Sara and Jax entering his mind, of working with Gideon to save him. The temptation is there to explain the technicalities of what she'd seen. Cognitive Intrusion, the creation of a subconscious landscape, the manifestation of thoughts and memories, of his personality as a prisoner of the alterations Thawne inflicted on his mind.

It would be easier than what he offers.]

She forgave me after. [Much in the same way Peggy seems to have deemed fit to offer another chance to him. Rip knows he doesn't need to offer up a name for his now Captain to know who he means.] Said that it wasn't me.

[Made it seem so easy to just trust him again. Rip couldn't say he understood how, or that he ever would—but he would always be thankful of that undeserved grace.]

[ sara lance may harbour a deeper capacity for forgiveness than peggy carter does. at least, that's the linchpin around which her thoughts currently twirl. because by contrast it had taken her months to make peace with a man whose sin had been much the same -- grey matter twisted against his will to a purpose beyond his comfort. barnes, of course, had never made that forgiveness easy; they'd fought nearly every corner turned in an attempt to reconcile.

(she looks at him, still, and she sees a preset path of failures and shortcomings. she sees zola's face. and she sees fenhoff's.)

perhaps finding some room in her thoughts for offering rip hunter a second chance isn't merely smoothed over by what's happened before with the winter soldier, but also because she feels no personal involvement in what was done to him. her responsibility begins and ends with his existence on her ship -- she has no stewardship of any history surrounding him. what happened to him can be someone else's failure and someone else's shortcoming.

she swirls her glass. ]

It's instinctive. It's defensive. [ she works her jaw around a break in her words. ] To lie there, hurting, and tell yourself the one who did it can't be the person you thought they were.

[ she doesn't pad it out with details. after all, she'd told him plenty when they'd met on the asteroid near the fancy clothing shop. she'd told him too much, she now realizes, considering the parallels now drawn. ]

And it's true enough in the end -- that it could be a version of you, perhaps, but not you-you. But between between that first absolution and the eventual acceptance, everything's a bit shit in the middle. For everyone involved.

[ and she's just now realizing rip's still in the middle. ]

Edited 2017-06-24 13:35 (UTC)

Is it?

[He asks this as more of a reflection of his own thoughts than out of want of an answer. Perhaps it is true that Sara had lied to herself, to him, for the purpose of moving forward. But Rip knows her past, far better than Peggy. He knows that once, Sara also had something unspeakable done to her, death then resurrection, and after, a hunger for murder she struggled to control.

Rip had chosen to believe in the humanity he could still see in her. To push her to believe herself something more than a monster, because he knew it to be true.

Has she simply returned that belief, in the end? Or pushed ahead, because they still had to get the Spear and stop the Legion from completing their grim task.

He cannot know. Would not, even outside this universe, because he'd left Sara behind.

He closes his eyes, knocks back a bit more of his drink. The burn takes him away from his thoughts for one blessed moment, one step back until he can remember that Peggy speaks from her own experiences. She'd seen it happen before too; a friend of a friend, driven by manipulations to go after the man she loved most.

Rip isn't after forgiveness. He's long known himself undeserving of that. But understanding? That, maybe, he can tolerate.]

Even those unfortunately pulled in by circumstances such as these. [If he's in the shit, then Peggy's there too. She's captain to a crew she's got to protect. While his memories have been restored, his proper personality now in control--he could still glitch. He could look upon this new crew with all the apathy he'd felt towards his old one.]

I do understand if you don't want to risk anyone else getting dragged into it. [He presses his lips together; there's nowhere he can go where he won't be a danger, but somewhere among their conversations and their memories, and the visions of a little girl desperately clinging to her doll, respect for Peggy Carter had been sparked within him. He's willing enough to not be her burden if she doesn't wish it.]

[ what an unenviable position wherein she's found herself. burdened -- burdened, maybe -- with the understanding that as much as she wants to safeguard the other members of the starstruck's crew, she can't simply let him loose on the rest of the fleet. someone will have to recognize that look in his eye for what it was.

inevitably, it falls to her. she pulls the palm of her hand down her face, pawing at the back of her neck when she drains her glass for a second time.

(hell -- she realizes -- she'll have to tell steve. she doesn't want to tell steve, she doubts rip wants her to tell steve. but, nevertheless, steve is her best bit of muscle against the sort of scenario they're both imagining: a glitch.)

peggy watches rip. silent, weighing his words, unhappy with all of them. and yet there is a kind of cold comforting familiarity to be found in bad choices. they settle more easily in her gullet than the good ones do. ]

So we do what we can to keep that risk low. Mitigated. [ nothing too stringent because there's only so much preparation one can take in the face of what the atroma can do to them. ] The Starstruck might be the safest place for you to stay.

[ it's not true. there are other ship with other people equally as skilled or strong as those boasted by their ship. but peggy is proud and peggy is relentless. she's decided she isn't letting this little mess drag anyone else into it. in the end, isn't he a part of the crew, now, too? new, but nevertheless one of them. she owes him some measure of protection, too.

except it was a promise like this one that had doomed her on the iskaulit when the winter soldier got activated. long before the glitch had happened, peggy had made bucky a promise -- that if it came to it, she would do what needed to be done. but when the day came, peggy raised her gun and (although ordinarily a crack shot) she fired wide. sentiment got in the way. it didn't matter that she'd been unlikely to take the winter soldier down; she knows she didn't try hard enough. not as hard as she promised she would.

and her ribs had paid for her faithlessness. ]

For everyone else's sake, if not for yours.

[He huffs out an unamused breath, though the faint hints of a grin grace his lips anyway. Risk management, because lurking there in his memories is the cruelest version of himself, one with no loyalty to ally or friend, no duty to history, no hesitation when it comes to doing the most terrible of things all for the sake of his goal.

She isn't wrong to think of it as she does. How to best stop the worst if it should come to pass. Rip scrubs a hand across his mouth, and considers her offer. Seems she's willing to take the responsibility for his burden on her shoulders, should that happen. It's not the easiest thing to ask of a person, captain or otherwise.

He won't tell her how he dreads the possibility. How he fears feeling the snap of a neck under his palm a second time, or the heated rush of blood as it pours out of a still breathing body.

She hasn't asked about those instances. Rip can only hope that means she hasn't seen them.]

All evidence to the contrary, I wasn't killing strictly for the sake of killing. [He offers it not to somehow lessen the potential danger, to make Peggy think he somehow might be safe should the wrong glitch take hold of him.] Every move I made had a purpose behind it. Miss Lance was not only the leader of the team, but a highly skilled and thoroughly trained fighter besides. I shot her to take her out of play. All the rest of it--

[A happy accident. The kind that makes his stomach knot to think about now.

Like Peggy, he empties his glass again. But Rip's barely gotten it swallowed before he's reaching for the bottle another time, half-wondering if the moment hasn't come to forgo the tumblers completely.]

It might not be impossible to reason with me in that, ah, state. But you shouldn't hesitate to do what is necessary. I certainly won't. [For the first time since he's sat, Rip brings himself to look at her. At the same time, he reaches over to once more refill her cup.] So consider this my permission, if you somehow think you need it.

[ her stomach churns at the sound of 'his logic' -- such as it was and such as it might be. her disgust is layered as she listens, disliking both the content of his explanation and the fact that he needs to explain it at all. there is a sliver of comfort found in how frankly, how clinically, rip discusses what drove that version of himself. it helps, certainly. not to ease her concerns but to contextualize them. in the end, every scrap shared could be turned into ammunition.

he talks about being reasoned with and (none too proudly) still finds herself wanting to crumple his nose with a fist. as the conversation moves onward and as the whiskey settles in, she's realizing that isn't the fairest reaction. not any longer. nevertheless, it's difficult to shake. so she buries it in the act of holding up her glass and inviting him to pour another measure inside. ]

Your permission isn't needed, no -- [ she tells him plainly between mouthfuls. peggy wants to be seen as the captain who would not hesitate to end a threat if a threat got dumped on her doorstep. whatever else she's done or failed to do, she knows what she strives to be. ] But it is appreciated.

[ and in the ensuing silence she takes grim stock of her responsibilities. a pilot, max, who has told her time and time again that she needs to be more ruthless with him in his more serious episodes. a cook, rip, who now gives her carte blanche to take necessary steps if he is once again stripped of those gloriously human restraints.

and a fellow captain, barnes, who'd asked for much the same and she had failed him spectacularly.

god, peggy might be the one to dodge his eye now when she broaches the next inevitable stumbling block of this conversation. ]

Just as I hope you will appreciate that, this time, I'll need to tell the first mate. [ her voice hesitates on the rank -- as though she'd stopped herself at the last moment from saying 'steve' instead. ]

If you do want to stay aboard the Starstruck, [ and she thinks he does, ] then that's my one condition. Non-negotiable.

Edited 2017-06-25 15:09 (UTC)

Calibration Post 1, "Daytime"

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