Text/Action.

[theroadwarrior]

Who: Max and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Starstruck
When: Now-ish! Potential talk of mental health, but who knows! PTSD always, anyway.

[Max is not really social, in the days that follow the calibrations. In fact, he's downright hard to find — even for the Starstruck crew. Not mysteriously so, as there's always a shuttle missing and one can assume Max is marooning himself nearby in space itself, but he's still even more out of sigh than usual. He mainly just checks in to make sure nothing much has changed. Finally, after so much avoidance, he wanders back in and appears to seem... semi-manageable as company.

Or maybe he just got sick of space. Feel free to find him around the Starstruck; he's not leaving it much, if at all. He likes napping on the lounge chair, leaving the record to spin without the needle or a tune. If your character is really quiet they can sneak around him and play something. Or maybe try to stir him. But — wait. What's that? Written in Max's handwriting, there's a little note on the spot beside him.

Such a pleasant note. He's apparently learning after the last few punches or near-punches he's given people.

Or, you might find him with his rather nicely-crafted knee brace off; it's sitting beside him as he sits at his desk, and he's carefully working on a busted part to the shuttle with a melding gun. His bum leg is stretched out, relaxed, with a little TLC — one of those nice icy hot packs to quell the ache. Is that a single solitary beer bottle on the desk? Shucks, he's just having a nice cold one while he works. Or, you know, maybe a cuppa tea he took from the kitchen. Maybe. Maybe you find him in the bathroom, trimming his beard, because he hasn't been cutting it and it's getting way too out of hand. Like his hair, which is currently trying to go down his forehead and eat his eyes.

Anyway. He's had some things on his mind. What better way to ask than a text, so he can possibly ignore replies or disconnect early or take his time building his social gauge again?]


medication.

how far has it advanced for you
back home.

doesn't really exist anymore in my world. not a lot other than some natural remedies.

no pharmacies to visit.



anyone need to take them here?


[Just... wondering. He's got a bad knee, after all.

And, well. A bad brain. But he's not about to go into detail about that being a reason he's asking.]



if you were in my head




leave it alone. don't want to talk.

Comments

[mucked]

[ peggy's glance cuts, knife-like, when she finds max's eyes once again. it's on the very tip of her tongue: what makes you so certain you know what he wants and doesn't want?

and she just about barely manages to swallow the retort.

another one, perhaps just as barbed, fills the vacuum: ] Oh, yes, and let him be met with dog breath should he wake up in the interim.

[ and she doesn't necessarily mean rock's. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Better that than a captain who isn't sure what to do with herself.

[He taps his nail against the cup of emptied tea.]

.......

I prefer dogs, anyway.

[mucked]

-- Steady. [ she warns him.

before he speaks (even more) out of turn. ]

I'm only doing what he'd do if our fates were reversed. [ which is a more accurate statement than she knows, really. ]

[theroadwarrior]

What he'd do and what's actually good for everyone involved are two different things.

[He shakes his head, rolling an old pen across his knuckles, before tapping the pen to his temple.]

The crazy one's telling you this. Makes it more legitimate.

[mucked]

[ she'd lost him, once.

and then she'd lost him again and again during calibrations. his blood, taken from her night after night. if she's touchy about it now, then there's likely some part of her that recognizes how vain it all is.

that's not the part at her helm just now. ]

Forgive me if I'm not rushing to heed your advice. [ actually, to that end-- ] Did you leave the ship when I was knocked out?

[ it seemed a long time ago, now. the last time she'd been hit by a coma. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[He scowls at her.]

Recall a time you fell down and hit your head for a day, and I played nurse.

[He scoots back his chair, looking up at her, unfazed.]

You trying to 'win' this conversation, Peggy?

Jab at someone else, find a wound to wriggle your finger in, so they don't notice yours?

[mucked]

Max. [ max. she wields his name like a weapon. perhaps he's acclimatized to hearing it, but she can too easily recall a time when saying it would get under his skin. ]

If I wanted to find a wound and -- as you so charmingly put it -- wriggle a finger in, [ but oh god that's exactly what she wants to do, ] then believe you me there are better and deeper wounds I could be poking.

[ -- she can barely hear the tension in her own voice above the klaxons warning her out of this conversation. ]

[theroadwarrior]

... Is there, now?

[His fingers curl on the back of the chair, as he stares with some seriousness.

Perhaps the faintest appalled niggling, in the back of his mind.

Oh, Peggy. You may know way too much about him — but he knows plenty of your flaws, too. And let it be known, he's been screwed up enough from the calibrations to not just drop this and turn away, leave her to her little victory. He can be pretty damn stubborn, too; they have that in common.]

Would Peggy Carter pull skeletons out of closets to come out clean, then?

What other 'wounds' d'you wanna mention, so you can use 'em to ignore my advice?

[mucked]

For one, [ she nearly hisses, ] I'm not so certain I should be entertaining advice from a man who's already given up.

[ -- oh, it's unkindly said. whatever she'd learned of him, of his expectations once he returns home, she'd learned it in confidence and in compassion. peggy had held him in her arms and choked back her own grief at the very thought that he should die by default.

and now, maybe, something rises in her throat. peggy's nowhere near tears -- but something's been tripped. she changes it, alchemy-like, into aggression. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[His brow wrinkles, and — yeah, alright, he looks a little betrayed. He stands up, hand on the table, frowning at her from close in his disappointment. Nearly chest to chest, really, and he scowls to try and ignore the fact that he'd just wore that look of disappointment.]

I've never given up on any of this. If I'd already given up, I would've flown myself into a damn sun the first chance I got. [He holds up a finger, prodding the air; a Max sign, really, the language of frustration.] I've been trying to help this crew. That includes you.

[mucked]

[ it's as though there are two peggys spectating this entire debacle. there's the one who's carved out a whole corner of her heart for max, and she sees every little twitch and tell. she reads his hurt and his dismay and she feels sickened by it. even as she hears the confessional nature of his argument, of his care and concern not only for her but for the whole damn crew.

(and to think she once asked him, however obliquely, to be the starstruck's first mate. in this moment, that first version of herself could almost entertain asking him again -- should the need arise.)

but the peggy who's at the wheel, so to speak, is a fickle and self-defensive creature. she'd learned to sever these tethers for her own sake. for his, too. ]

I don't need your help. [ lies, lies, lies. she needs him more than most. ] I never needed your help.

1/2

[theroadwarrior]

[... Ah.

That was — really just unfair, Peggy.

After all the times he's needed yours.]

[theroadwarrior]

[But there it was. The Carter method. Jabbing the wound.

Fine. Fine then.

This is only gonna end in more sharp, pointed words. He's not gonna do this right now. There's no reason to fight it, to argue shit he's never been good at explaining (being needed, being useful, it's been one of the most important things on this ship—) He grabs his jacket off the table and slaps the chair with the back of his good leg, letting it topple over as he starts away.]

I'm going planet-side.

Maybe someone needs a pilot there.

[Into the shuttle area he goes.

Enjoy your solitude.