driftfleet | » we're all starstruck in september

[Natasha stayed away, mostly, until Peggy went under. At that point, concern for Steve overcame discomfort and Natasha got over her pride enough to start visiting again.

Her MO is changed up, though. Now instead of the kitchen, she lingers near the punching bag, waiting for Steve to come by for a spar, or maybe just a chat. Either way.]

[ -- well.

peggy supposes she shouldn't be surprised. steve had mentioned in passing, since she'd woken up, that natasha has been around. she even finds room within to be grateful, although much of that evaporates when she also sets her sights on the punching bag.

with a cluck of her tongue, the recently awoken captain strides across the cargo bay. all too quickly she finds the bag's patched portion, and her fingertips pluck at a loose thread. peggy sighs. ]

Look at that. Shambolic. [ she gives the bag a nudge. ] That man has never met a rule he doesn't instinctively want to break.

[ if there's beef between the two of them then it seems to fall to the wayside in the face of this fresh hell. ]

[Beef might be a strong word. More like... awkwardness. Natasha is good at ignoring that, though.]

Was there a rule against him busting your punching bag? [Seems a little unnecessary, for most people, but in Steve's case Natasha can almost see why they would need one.]

[ she's still frowning as she traces the patch's edge. and when she gives the bag a squeeze, she can swear a difference can be felt between the sands. it doesn't much matter that she's just been asleep for a week; peggy's striding through life as though nothing's changed. ]

Against him laying so much as a knuckle on it, yes. Precisely for this reason.

[ candid, yes. but not in a way that should betray anything too bizarre. and if peggy knows she shouldn't be anywhere near natasha given her current compromised state, she seems intent to ignore it. she's not keen to turn tail and run and hide in their room the way steve seemed to suggest she should.

avoid one-on-ones? pah. ]

Ah. That explains it. [Natasha could leave, but Steve's insistence on talking to Peggy is in the back of her mind, and while this probably isn't the time for a heart to heart, beating a hasty retreat wouldn't exactly be setting up future conversations for success. So she stays where she is, and plays it normal.

Maybe a little distant. But normal.] He followed the rule right up until the moment there was a reason not to.

[Sounds like Steve.]

[ she knocks a knuckle of her own against the equipment. ]

And he's nothing if not terribly efficient at finding reasons to break them. That's the second in as many months.

[ rules broken. bags. who's counting?

(peggy. peggy is counting.) ]

What? Two punching bags, or are there other rules he's flouting around here?

[In her defense, Natasha wouldn't have asked it if she knew Peggy had to answer, and she fully expects any other rules to be mundane for Peggy to discuss them so casually.

She imagines the problem is something along the lines of drinking coffee out of Peggy's tea cup.]

Good God, where to begin? No. This is the first bag he's wrecked -- all the better for him.

[ maybe steve is at the top of her shit-list right now. but even so, there's a thin vein of affection beneath every complaint. or rather it seems unlike that she'd complain at all if it were an honest-to-goodness conflict. if there was disharmony in the captain's room, then surely she would keep it better hidden. even under the weight of this glitch, she'd have found a reason to get the hell out of dodge before she said too much.

doesn't matter; she's going to say too much anyway. ]

There are only two rules. This one, [ she taps the punching bag, ] and the one about keeping our 'private lives' as far off the bloody ship as can be managed.

[ well, there's a bit of euphemism for you. and the moment it's out of her mouth she scowls. good lord. steve was right; she really shouldn't be risking any of these one-on-ones. ]

[Natasha doesn't have any problem following the euphemism—what else could she mean?

But just because she understands it, that doesn't mean she understands it. There are at least two other levels she disconnects on. She doesn't see why they would, for one thing.what does she think people figure the two of them are doing moving into a shared room? If people are going to assume anyway why punish themselves that way...

But mostly, Natasha doesn't understand why Peggy would be telling her that.

Peggy has the rare honor of seeing Natasha caught flatfooted, her lips parted and her head tilted in abject confusion for a second and a half before the outside corners of her eyes tilt up and her brow pinches and she puts it together.]

Peggy...?

[ indeed, all things being equal, it's the sort of thing she'd rather not have spoken aloud at all. so obviously so that she can watch natasha as she's taken off-guard, and peggy manages to remark (silently) how strange it is to witness sincere confusion on the other woman's face.

peggy retreats a step -- mostly to show she's done fixating on the punching bag, but also so she can reach under her curls and tap the augment. ]

Things aren't quite right. Not since I woke up. [ and she's being honest about this, too. ]

Edited 2017-09-03 03:51 (UTC)

That—that explains one of my questions, at least.

[The other one hangs in the air between them, Natasha doing her best not to ask it even though she can't help but want to.]

Seems like adding insult to injury, if you ask me. [That too isn't framed as a question.] I can leave, if you want me to.

I'm not about to go shooing you off the ship. [ which, she realizes, is hardly a glowing endorsement of natasha remaining. so she hurries to clarify: ] You're here to see Steve, aren't you? I can send him back your way.

[ she's under no illusions; she can't imagine natasha was here to see her. serendipity's to blame for this lovely fresh tension shared between the pair of them. ]

If you're awake again, I don't have much of a reason left to wait around on him. We had a standing date to spar in the morning until you woke up. Looks like the date's broken.

[Said without rancor.]

I'll see him around.

Morning spars, was it?

[ peggy glances at the punching bag. and then back to natasha. ]

Don't tell me I'd find sewn patches on you, too, if I went looking.

I'm quicker than the bag. [Said with a snort, wry.] And I guess there's no rule against breaking me; he remembers to pull his punches.

[That sounds more awkward than Natasha intended, the joke strange given the context.

Natasha winces a little.

She needs to get her footing back.]

I thought he could use the distraction, and the company.

[ miraculously, she can forgive how it sounds. she's had to forgive a lot these last few hours. and riding in on the back of what she'd remembered from home? well, christ, at least they aren't talking about that. ]

He probably needed both. [ she admits, less so for any knowledge of steve but the memory of her own time in his shoes. as nasty as she'd been, she knows she could have been nastier still. ] Which means I suppose I've got you to thank for the lack of dents and patches in any other part of my ship.

Edited 2017-09-03 04:14 (UTC)

You have Steve to thank for it, really. He was the one not punching your ship.

[And Natasha's not sure how she feels about gratitude, however backhanded.

She doesn't ask any of the questions she wants to, though it slows down her works as she pauses to consider what to say next.]

Besides, it was good for both of us.

Why? [ the unanticipated upside to uncompromising honesty is that she can ask things as sincerely as she answers them. ] Find yourself acclimatized once again now that you're back to visiting us here on the Starstruck?

[ she might have been out for a week, she might have remembered more, but she doesn't forget the state of things before she'd passed out. natasha had been conspicuously (and understandably) absent. ]

Not sure I'd go that far. But talking to Steve puts some things in perspective.

[Not because his point of view on things or suggestions are right, but because they do force Natasha to question her own.]

Besides, it gives me something to do.

[ some things.

it's not hard to guess what those things might be. but peggy can't help herself (literally!) so she asks: ]

The two of you spoke, did you? And what did Steve have to say about our -- [ is there a generous way of putting this? ] -- oh, let's call them our strained relations.

[ she is going to regret her candor in a week's time, oh yes she is. somehow, she's become a creature even less subtle in her driving point. ]

We talked. We didn't talk about that specifically. [That's twisting the truth a little, though not outright lying. Natasha never gave Steve all of the story.] He did notice the strained relationship, though. He thought I should talk to you.

[A brief beat, then she adds:]

Honestly.

[It's like he doesn't know her at all.]

Oh, of bloody course he did.

[ think that. notice. one or the other. but it's obvious enough that peggy and natasha can at least be on this same page for a heartbeat or three.

peggy scrubs at the side of her neck with her palm -- thoughtlessly mirroring a very steve-like stance in the first place. ]

When he talks honestly, it serves him well. He doesn't understand how it might do the very opposite for -- someone else.

[ for them. for nat, perhaps, especially. ]

Edited 2017-09-03 05:00 (UTC)

He meant well. [Natasha nods slightly, as though confirming it to herself.] He just... misunderstood the core problem. He thinks there's tension between us for the same reason there was tension between him and me early on.

So he thinks we can fix it the same way. But there's not really anything to fix, is there?

[That might be unkind, but Natasha says it neutrally, the way she might report a mission detail.]

Fix? Perhaps not. I suppose it depends.

[ peggy is in no place to be hurt by this. remarkably, she might have endured just the right amount of pain before waking up to have figured this part out above and beyond any augment glitches. her argument with jarvis, under the desert sun, had left her with a great deal to think about. that critical eye turns inward; she's forced to confront the way in which she abrades every bridge she's got just to keep from gaining something she might someday fear to lose.

it's pathetic, really. and she'd felt the weight of just how pathetic it must be when she saw the insult and agony in jarvis's face.

she shifts on her feet -- a brief moment of unbalance in heart and in posture. ]

You know, you're not the only one I chased off. [ a clearing of her throat. ] Max didn't step a foot on the ship for just about the same stint of time. It's been brought to my attention that I've got a talent for it.

[ chasing people off. so maybe there mightn't be anything to fix, but there could be something to build in its stead. ]

I'm not upset about it. Not really. I know it's not personal.

[Which isn't the same as not taking it personally. The space between what she knows rationally and just how far she can control her feelings is just enough for that distinction to fit through.]

It was bad timing, mostly. Bad timing and different needs. It happens.

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