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driftfleet2017-06-09 09:55 am
thespaceopera) wrote in driftfleet2017-06-09 09:55 am
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. ]
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
(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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.]
no subject
(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. ]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
Whom he might be again, given a particular and dreadful spark at the base of his brain.
He offers the possibility of reasoning not in an effort to save his own life, but rather, to mitigate what harm might be done. True enough, onboard the Waverider Rip had opted to destroy himself along with the ship if it meant he couldn't escape. But he believes—he hopes--that the manipulations that drove him to hold the Legends with such disregard might somehow not translate over to the Starstruck's crew.
And if it does—if he truly is beyond reason and logic and redemption—then the solution is clear. He's glad that Peggy seems to see it the same. Over the course of his time as a Time Master, and the past years especially, Rip has come to understand just how difficult the line between protecting lives can be to walk.
He refills her glass readily when she holds it up. Seems they're both drinking quicker now, already warmed by the whiskey. The lime almost doesn't taste weird any longer.
She makes mention of the first mate again, and Rip lets out a short, bitter laugh.] For all I know, he's already aware. [But even if he's not, Peggy's ultimately right. This can't be a secret he keeps any longer, unfortunately, so Rip merely nods his head.]
Do as you must.
no subject
[ she'd once made the suggestion that discretion is a virtue well-respected between herself and rogers. she'd meant it, too. so when peggy now suggests that she would have known had steve experienced that particular bit of someone else's mindscape, it's not to say that he would have rushed to reveal it to her by conversation. rather, she's convinced she would have read the experience into his body language, into his reticence, and into the way steve had come to hold himself within these halls.
for the time being, all she's seen of steve has reminded her of the week when the atroma had glitched romanoff into a dangerous child version of herself. he wears the weight of someone who knows things he wishes he never knew. had steve seen anything similar to what had taken place in rip's memories? well, she expects she'd have witnessed a different sort of tension: like old hardened threads of captain america come back to roost. she expects steve would have asked questions -- careful, but ultimately unsubtle.
maybe it's the whiskey -- maybe it's the damned bloody calibrations themselves -- but she clarifies with a very simple statement. ] His concerns have been elsewhere, certainly. I doubt you've so much as popped up on his radar.
[ it's not said cruelly. for once. a least, not with any criticism directed at rip. although it's possible her words allude to some blindspot of steve's. but peggy had caught an inkling of a quick and complex mind from the very first conversation. there are some threats, she thinks, he would never see coming. the subtle; the cerebral; the dishonest.
-- which makes it her responsibility to see them first. ]
no subject
And yet, she apparently hasn't. He gives her a long and careful look--his concerns have been elsewhere, she offers, and certainly it's likely true. They've all been enduring this unwanted invasion of privacy, after all, night after night of having unexpected guests riffle through their memories, of being forced to do the same to their fellows.
But Peggy's concerns seemed to include Rip regardless. A potential difference between the captain and the first mate, or something more? At first he treats it like another bit of information tucked neatly away, confirmed with nothing more than a nod on Rip's part. The calibrations, the whiskey, whatever it is--he measures out his next words carefully.
They could be dangerous ones, after all.]
Another burden you've taken on to protect him, then? [Because Rip hasn't just had Peggy muck about in his head; no, he's likewise taken the journey into hers, found himself hosted by a precocious little girl demanding they hunt down dragons. Perhaps she remembers it more than Rip does her ventures, or perhaps she's just as clueless.
But it only seems fair, either way, to let her in on the truth of what he can recall.]
no subject
for a long moment, it feels as though rip is watching her. it chiefly reminds her that however clever she thinks she's been in sniffing out the tail-ends of certain implications, he's quite possibly equal to that skill. her lip curls; she lets her disappointment be registered. although she harbours a great deal of good regard and respect for her crew and her allies within the fleet, very few of them outside of romanoff give her cause to speak too carefully. most, she's realized, barely glance below a surface meaning.
not so with him. under other circumstances -- when she'd first met him -- that observation had been a kind one. it's part of why she'd wanted him on her ship.
today, it's a bitterer pill to swallow. ]
Burden is an unkind word for it. [ especially since she didn't feel it like she bore duty or responsibility. no, this is a bone-deep ache. this is instinct. she might even call it love, given the appropriate audience.
rip hunter isn't that audience. ]
I remember it all. [ her answer is stiff -- rushed, almost as though she'd flirted with the notion of lying, instead. peggy pulls a slow sip from her glass. ] So there's no need to play coy about you saw. I'm certain it must appear banal -- all that fuss for a vial of blood.
[ and maybe she'll be happier letting people think that's all it was. fuss. ]
no subject
[And Rip has carried so many of them over the course of years. His one blessing had been that, as someone who nearly became a Time Master herself, Miranda already stood privy to Rip's true profession. He wonders if their marriage would have worked at all had she not known, had he been forbidden to tell her. Certainly he expects the Time Masters would have had such a rule; they never wanted their captains to fall in love anyway.
And in the end, they'd never told their son. Jonas lived and died too young a life, knowing his father had to spend long gaps of time away at work, and when he would come back it would always be with some gift--and too little time to spend with his boy. Yet his enthusiasm never once faltered; Rip cannot think of a single time that his face didn't radiate joy and light when he showed up at his own doorstep.
She calls it an unkind word, and it's true enough--but that doesn't change what it is.
She's quick to point out that, unlike Rip, she can recall the full time he's spent among her memories. Of course there's a pang of envy at that convenience he apparently cannot share, but--it does make things easier, in a way. To grin wryly when she calls her own efforts banal, as if he might not understand the reasoning behind them.]
I lost this once. [He reaches for that chain, produces a pocketwatch with little more than a tug. Peggy might recognize it; if his own space bore any resemblance to hers, filled with objects of significance, then he expects the watch would have been prominent among them.] From my perspective it was only a matter of days, although in the natural unfolding of time, it had been eleven years. And in the middle of a mission to rescue teammates being held prisoner in a gulag by the most vile dictator the world would ever know, one whom sought to create something of a supersoldier of his own--
I made sure to get this back from him. [He moves his fingers over the cover. It's a familiar path, one he's worried over many times before. And at the end lies a clasp, easily opened with the slightest touch of a button.
The watch still ticks steadily on, sharing the passage of time. In contrast, the woman and child smile, forever frozen within that moment.
He doesn't smile any longer. All this time, and he still can't when he looks at their faces.]
I lost them. [Perhaps it's the alcohol, or the prospect of possibly sharing a memory of his own, on his own, without someone stumbling about whatever images have been conjured by the Atroma to represent his mind. Or perhaps he simply wants her to know, that in spite of all things, he does in some ways understand.] It's one of the few things I have here from home, and the only thing I think I would keep if I were given the choice. So I suppose in the end, you are correct, Miss Carter.
There is no need to play coy about it.
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but maybe she won't have to head him off at the pass because rip seems inclined to divert himself, sparing her his questions and his curiousity and detailing something else instead.
through all of this, she'd not forgotten the woeful flood of feelings she'd felt after touching the console screen. the core structure of those feelings had felt intimately familiar to her -- even as the surface wasn't. it's not so large a leap to hear i lost them and remember immediately the names that had echoed through his head during that memory. peggy's posture stays as it is and she makes no effort to lean in and look at the contents. her guess is enough.
how many times had he tried? how often had he failed? and is the watch, carried with him even here, a source of comfort or one of guilt? because although she's tucked it tenderly away back on the starstruck, there was a time when she'd carried an empty glass vial with her nearly everywhere she went. peggy had arrived with it -- snatched by the fleet just moments after having dumped its contents into the east river.
she'd seen the watch on the 'ship', both nights. and she knows he'd touched the vial in her 'house'. it's an uncomfortable commonality and one she wishes she wouldn't have to feel so near to all her suspicions and misgivings. ]
-- How long has it been? [ and then, with an unhappy twist of her mouth, she adds: ] From your perspective?
[ since he'd lost them. what a dreadful euphemism. and not for the first time since they'd all been brought onto the marsiva, she thinks about the gps coordinates she's got memorized. committed.
her tone is gentler than it was earlier -- but no less distant. peggy isn't above using his grief to shadow and shelter a bit of her own, force him (maybe) to be so caught up in what he's lost to forget to comment on hers. no matter what he'd seen. ]
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But he hasn't opened up to her about this to garner sympathy or because he needs her to know more. It's Rip's attempt to say that he does understand, that she need not make excuses at least about him. Perhaps it's a bit contrary given the topics of before, but in the end, Rip knows how damn exhausting all those secrets can be. How often will she be given opportunity to talk to them, not only with another captain but with someone else who has suffered the same pain of loss?
Should she wish it, of course. Vulnerabilities are rarely easy to reveal; less so now, thanks to the madness going on in all of their heads.]
I could ask the same--but it seems you managed to find him again anyway. [He tucks the watch safely away once more, his focus again returning to the glass.] In a way you won't back in your own world, because somehow, impossibly, he manages to live--but decades after you thought him gone.
[Yes, he's managed to piece that much of it together. Between the memories he'd seen in Natasha's mind, and realizing that the Sam who now also crews on the Starstruck is from an era far past Peggy's, Rip knows what must have resulted, even as he cannot define the causes.]
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part of her continues to resent the common ground. she doesn't want to nurture any more sympathy for him than she already has. it'd been easier to feel angry. easier to feel threatened, worried, and responsible. ]
Seven. Seven decades spent frozen in the ice where he crashed -- but we all thought him dead. Arguably one of the greatest scientific feats of the 20th century. [ jarvis's words, not hers. ] And now of the 21st century, as well. He survived.
[ and she'd had no idea that he'd survived until she'd been brought here. it's a detail she decides she doesn't need to say. either rip will infer it, or he'll never have to. it's hardly his business. ]
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