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Who: Peggy Carter and YOU
Broadcast: Audio + Text
Action: Aboard the Starstruck.
When: Evening

[ it's been a long day. long week. long bloody month. and tonight, in the rebuilt space of a bedroom now properly shared, peggy carter is reading a book. not just any book, really. but that's a story for another time. for now, she's prepared to proceed publicly as though nothing is amiss.

in the handful of hours before bed, she takes to the network with a brief puzzle. ]

VHOILVKQHVV PXVW DOZDBV EH IRUJLYHQ, BRX NQRZ, EHFDXVH WKHUH LV QR KRSH RI D FXUH

[ and attached to the text is an audio messsage. ]

I know it's been a little while since the last one -- and some of you lot who most enjoyed them have gone and left. So we'll ease back into it with something simple. Simple, but no less fundamental. Solving it is all well and good but, as always, there are bragging rights up for grabs for anyone who names the source. Fair warning -- English is the native tongue.

And while I've got your attention, I suppose I ought to do my due diligence [ however reluctantly ] and ask whether anyone else has purchased the upgrade which merges two rooms together. It may be worthwhile to swap notes on how those changes came into effect.

[ and that's that. although she'll be awake for a little while yet -- answering messages and putting on a brave face. truth is, things have gone pear-shaped and she's only just realizing how much recovery yet required. those aboard or visiting the starstruck can find her at her desk, hatch left open, in her and steve's newly merged room. ]

( ooc: and because not everyone has the out-of-character time or inclination for codebreaking, here is the quotation peggy's posted using a caesar shift. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ she cannot possibly be asking this. ]

I thought I could bake it into a pie, we're low on apples.

[ the sass feels natural and fitting. especially as he can't think what she expects to hear. ]

[ she is absolutely asking this. and, heaven help them both, she might have actually returned it to him had he not broken the glass on such savage back-talk. peggy's only seen him on the ropes quite like this in a handful of prior instances. back in the asteroid system, for one.

and in the bunker, for another. fondue, back then, and apple pie now. ]

Don't be childish.

[ yes. because he's the problem here. ]

I'm childish.

[ he takes out his communicator, opens the little message she published only two hours ago and points to it with a thumb. ]

This is how you chose to let me know. You still have that ring and I'm childish?

[ really? ]

[ and now he's chiding her. with exhibit a (her broadcast) included. there's a measure of truth to what he's accusing her of, of course. she's not being a stellar picture of maturity. and yet!

rather than engage in his argument directly, she tilts her head toward the device. ]

-- How long did it take you to solve it?

[ this is a nightmare. this is some weird, atroma-induced nightmare of the worst possible scenario of a woman finding her own engagement ring in her bedroom. steve shakes his head. ]

No.

[ he pockets his communicator, reaches to take his book and shakes his head. ]

You want to keep it? go ahead. Be the first woman in the galaxy to have an engagement ring without saying yes.

Steve.

[ and, all at once, she's back to brooking no nonsense. the fun has drained out of it, if there was ever any fun to begin with. he puts his hand on the book and that necessitates reaching past her so, with familial ease, she puts a hand on his elbow.

and holds out her palm to offer him his damned stupid ring back. ]

Go on, then. Take it.

[ it's his, after all. and the moment he'd invoked the question (without saying yes) she found she rather didn't want it in her possession any longer. ]

[ he scoffs. oh now she's giving it back, he thinks. the very moment when he finally admits to what it is. it's fitting and frustrating at all at the same time. he takes it back, of course he does and pockets it rather than placing it back in the book. ]

whatever it is you're angry with me for, we can work it out. you and me, the way we do. if this is some - way of punishing me for whatever it is I've done, it's -

[ cruel. that's what he wants to say and doesn't. ]

seeing you upset has been punishment enough without you putting me through this, you understand that, right?

Edited 2017-08-03 18:59 (UTC)

[ her attention follows the ring. follows his hand, follows it to his pocket, and she huffs a soft sad sound. it was never really about the ring, was it? but about the secret. about the idea that he might be curating this experience for her, withholding and imparting information according to how he sees fit.

it shouldn't bother her so much -- heaven knows, she commits the same sin -- but it does. and now steve invokes that bubbling-below-the-surface sorrow that she's been sweeping under every rug ever since he'd woken up.

her jaw works, soundless, for just a heartbeat while she watches him. he wants to work it out, does it? orright. ]

I know about Howard, Steve. [ peggy hauls it out into the open. bold, yes, but not without a quiver in her voice. ] I know about what happens to him. And I suspect you've been holding onto that for considerably longer than five months.

Bucky's mind?

[ how else would she find out, really? it makes sense with everything that happened on the marsiva, after all. it's the first thing he needs to understand. how on earth did the knowledge come to her when steve had, admittedly, tried to make sure she'll never know the details of it all. ]

The Marsiva?

[ god help him, he can't consider someone telling her. ]

Yes -- precisely.

[ well. precisely enough. at the very least, the intel got to her via someone who'd seen the event in bucky's mind. aboard the marsiva. and in that knee-jerk of a moment, peggy chooses to protect jarvis. because she can read the sharpish way in which steve interrogates the point. no good will come of telling him the whole truth.

truth is, she'd been nowhere near bucky's memories. what a bloody hypocrite. ]

I'm not naive. I never thought -- never thought he'd live forever. [ or that any of them would. ] But an assassination, Steve.

[ peggy has been grieving him for weeks. it shows, now, in her haunted eyes. ]

Edited 2017-08-03 19:15 (UTC)

I know what it feels like to be there.

[ that's the truth, really. he looks at her, doesn't dare to look away, not now. the reasons he didn't tell her are wholly different than those that were at work with tony, mostly because - ]

when I woke up it was 2012 and I could - learn all about how people died and how they've lived.

[ both have been painful, though he was so very grateful for their lives. especially hers. he still is. ]

And I had to realize I had no place in those lives and no way to change all the wrong things that happened.

[ because of me, he doesn't say. he's far too worried now, to touch this subject. letting bucky go, letting zola live. ]

Howard was one of them. The Winter Soldier - that was one of them. And it felt -

[ he doesn't say. he doesn't need to anymore. she knows it now. ]

There isn't anyone I'd want to feel like that. I thought - I never wanted you to know what that felt like.

[ he tries to connect with her on an experiential level. how it felt; how it appeared. peggy hasn't got that intel -- not honestly -- but her gaze doesn't falter as her eyes meet his.

(does she even remember the ring, right now? likely not.)

peggy swallows hard. there's a lump in her throat. ]

I don't need protecting, Steve. [ ... ] What I need is to be on the same page as you. About all of it. God, do you realize how often I must have stuck my foot in my own month -- talking to Howard's son while he was here?

[ she'd been playing without a full and proper hand of cards.

let alone her sorrow. it twitches along her jaw. ]

I couldn't - Peggy.

[ he tries, he almost pleads with her. ]

I couldn't live with myself if I caused you all of this. Telling you things that you can't even change, making you feel this helpless. Maybe you don't need protecting.

[ maybe not even from him. lord knows he was never there to help her through any of that. he wasn't there until the point he sat by her side at a well-lit room and watched her heart break when she saw him for first time after all those years. one reunion after another as she remembered and then she forgot. ]

But I love you enough to try anyway. I couldn't do that to you. I'm sorry, I am. You should never have found out that way.

[ she should have found out from him. of this, she's convinced. he ought to have taken her aside and spelled it out for her so that she could have braced her grief against him: awake and lively instead of comatose and silent. she'd cried herself raw behind the closed hatch of his quarters (when he'd still had separate quarters) but he'd not been there to help, to explain, or to offer anything.

so rarely did she need him with as much ferocity as she'd needed him on that day. even now, despite her dissatisfaction and her anger, she holds out a hand for one of his. she can't spiral through these emotions once again. not without him. ]

-- In hindsight, I don't know how I didn't figure it out on my own.

[ which isn't the most genuine reply just now, but she's trying to keep a grip on her self-control. ]

don't. this isn't on you. no one who wants to understand these things.

[ he takes her hand between both of his, takes a step nearer. steve searches her eyes and worries for what he finds there. ]

I should have known they'd do this. they always do this. there's been a lot of things I wish I could keep you safe from that I couldn't.

[ he would never have let her see her funeral. he's only grateful that he could spare her the memories that came with that flower vase. even now, he's not that different from his shade. clutching trinkets in his hands to keep her safe. to spare her pain. ]

don't do this to yourself. this is my fault, you were right. Maybe in trying to protect you, I ended up doing the opposite.

-- I could have done with someone to lean on.

[ and it's not fair, perhaps, to blame him for being asleep. but if he'd told her under his own steam, and earlier, then perhaps they would have had the opportunity to grieve together.

she leans into him now. unhappy, but willing to stay near. she'd needed him. his support. she'll take it now. ]

Hey.

[ he knows what all of this means. a year ago, when steve only just arrived, she had defaulted to a stiff upper lip and a can-do attitude most of the times. the closest he's gotten to seeing her vulnerable was when he told her they will meet again in her future. now, she says it ( someone to lean on ) so very openly, just as it is and steve is both relieved at her honesty and heartbroken that he had failed her when she needed him.

she leans closer and his response is immediate; he wraps her in a quiet embrace, warm and solid and as unmovable as a house. for a moment or two he does just that, holds her without saying anything. ]

I'm sorry I didn't tell you.

[ and just as important: ]

I'm sorry about Howard, Peggy.

[ he was his friend, certainly. but he was one of her best. ]

[ it's exactly what she'd denied herself with jarvis -- he'd been crumbling, but hiding it well, and peggy had stuck to that can-do attitude in order to keep him centered. she'd brought out the whiskey; she'd pretended as though they could change the world. but when she'd crawled into steve's bed and cried out her sorrow next to his unconscious figure, peggy'd known better. short of a miracle -- short of remembering this place once she returns home.

peggy grounds her cheek against his chest. nor is it strictly just, she knows, to expect (or want) his apologies. but they do feel like a balm on her soul just now. doubly so when coupled with his steady heartbeat.

but it doesn't stop her shoulders from lifting in a truncated sob -- dry, maybe, but heartfelt. nothing she's learned (nothing) has ever hit her quite like this has. the pain lingers on. ]

-- Why did they do it?

[ they, not him.

hydra, not bucky. ]

When history didn't cooperate, it was changed. That's what Zola said. They wanted him out so they could get stronger. The plan was to make the world so dangerous that people would willingly prefer order over freedom.

[ he hates this. How much hydra had taken from them all. How it still manages to hurt them all. He tightens his hold of her, his chin resting at the crown of her hair. ]

They failed. But we've lost people back then, too.

[ it's not the answer she's after. what steve explains is the broad strokes -- the details she already know, although she's never let him be privy to that information either. so peggy shakes her head against his chest.

she argues even as she hugs him close. ]

No. Why'd they do it to him? [ what had howard gotten himself tangled into? why did they wait so long? why did they go after him, and not her? ]

I never got the full details of it, not entirely. Bucky doesn't remember it all but he said hydra had made ten more soldiers like him to take over the world with. They were held in a sort of coma in Siberia. I think he must have had something they needed for that.

[ always the serum, it would seem. ]

They were violent. Unstable. Whatever it was they took from him, it didn't work.

[ howard, you bastard. of course it would be about the serum. had he not already learned his lesson? stupid question; certainly, he hadn't. peggy offers up a dismayed snarl against the cotton of his shirt. it's a welcome change to the near-tears and almost-crying.

well. welcome to her.

she holds on all the tighter. ]

-- And all of this. [ she draws her head back and looks him dead in his eyes. ] This is the real reason for all that tension between you and Tony Stark.

[ the accords are one thing. but this is quite another. peggy knows so because she can feel it tumbling behind her ribs just now, threatening to make her angry with steve all over again. ]

Yeah.

[ and lord, steve would have been glad to have tony back. this would all be so different if he had stark here. but tony left without them being able to talk about any of it, maybe this is the biggest horrible irony of it all. ]

Tony has the Avengers now, that's how it should be. They'll make for a good team.

[ that's how it should be. and she could argue, yes, but she doesn't. it seems futile. instead, she anchors her arms around his waist and decides (quite sensibly) to stay tethered to him.

she's got questions. she wants to know whether she learns about it all. properly, in her old age, and with steve once again in her life. does he dare to tell her then? or does he hide it in her future (his past) as well? ]

I haven't spoken to Barnes since. [ since she learned. ] Perhaps it's unfair of me, Steve, but I don't know how to look him in the eye.

What they did to Bucky -

[ he doesn't know the full details of it. but he knows enough. enough to make him throw his title and his position and everything else for the man. ]

There's so much he didn't remember, even when he finally was able to get himself free. The time they sent him after me, it took me a while to realize I couldn't fight him, couldn't bring myself to. He was angry. I wouldn't fight him. I could see him trying to gain some sort of control but in his mind, I was the mission. I was willing to let him to through with it, I think that's what made him remember. I think somehow they kept making him forget.

[ he draws a breath. ]

HYDRA killed Howard. In a way I feel they've been killing Bucky for seventy years while they had him.

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