directed | IC Inbox - Entranceway

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IC Inbox - Entranceway

Obviously I'm not here right now, but leave a message and I'll--listen to it. Eventually.

Oh, you still are. [Of the two of them, a thought unsaid but still just as readily shared. And perhaps it's not the most charitable reply—certainly he expects it might earn a touch of ire from Peggy—but then again, what's another drop or two in the lake that Rip already seems to be mucking about in?] I was simply displaced a bit before I could tarnish.

[Taken at ten years old to a time and place utterly beyond his imagination. But before then, Michael had sought to survive; Peggy's absolutely right to assume he'd been after pity with the lie, paired with the idea that maybe she might underestimate the strength of a six-year-old who was really eight. Perhaps from an adult perspective those two years didn't so much matter, but at that point in Rip's life?

Two extra years of survival were practically worth bragging about.

Rip's left to watch while Peggy crosses her legs, and indeed, he does rather appreciate the way it causes her skirt to fall while she idly flips through the book. Yet he's not so naïve as to think he's suddenly been forgiven. No, not when she paints such a fine picture sitting as she does, proper and prim and above it all, ever so casually pointing out at which point Rip—then Michael—had truly begun to lose any charm he might have possessed due to his age.

And really, Rip had known on some level that this was coming. The only problem is, his first words aren't actually an apology.]

Oi, now; I didn't mean it as an insult. [Some wiser part of him knows that if there had been a possibility for one of their more typical Wednesday night pursuits, he's quickly snuffing it out just now. Still, the point stands—and never let it be said that Rip isn't stubborn about even his phenomenally bad decisions.] Simply as an indication of what your role in the house hierarchy might have been. It's certainly not as if cutpurses and street urchins were given lessons on proper terms of address.

It doesn't make a lick of difference how you meant it.

[ there's something -- something -- in what he's just said that gets her hackles up. and it might be the word tarnish and it might be the word hierarchy or might be both of them rolled into one imperfect sphere of dismay. the reality is that peggy isn't even looking for an apology. if, by some impossible magic, their places had been reversed and an equal slight had occurred? she, in his shoes, wouldn't see fit to say sorry either.

but no matter what way the circumstances cut, they both of them know she reserves some narrow right to kick up a fuss. ]

God knows, it doesn't even matter that I've certainly been called worse by people who knew better.

[ a fact she knows he doesn't need telling but which she announces all the same, as though it was only fitting to remind him that he wasn't the only one acting within context and experience. ]

But I'll be damned if it isn't still deeply unsettling to field such accusations from the de-aged version of the man you're -- [ oh, great, she's talked herself into a frustrating little corner ] -- spending your Wednesday evenings with.

[ a sulky little nod. no, indeed, this won't be one of their more typical wednesdays. peggy stares at him a moment longer -- eyes more imperious than her words had been -- before dropping her attention to the non-fiction book in her lap. ]

[Right, well, Rip clearly shouldn't have expected his dry cut logic to smooth things over just like that—and in truth even he does know better, at least to some degree. It's not an accusation most would take kindly to even under the best of circumstances, words uttered from the lips of precocious little children who absolutely do not know better or—well. Rip supposes "best" might be a relative term in this instance.

All the same, he recognizes all the clear signs that's he's still in quite a bit of hot water for the actions taken by his younger self. It's why whatever corner Peggy's talked herself into will go without being commented on. There's arguably a time and place to dig his grave deeper, but not just now.

Although arguably, Peggy might appreciate the excuse to be all the more cross with him on Valentine's.]

Yes, I'd, ah, imagine so. [Rip briefly rubs his hands across his face, finding the course of the conversation a bit draining—all the moreso given that he hasn't exactly much indulged in his own glass of whiskey just yet.] I've got nothing to offer up in my defense, I'm afraid. I was a rather mean bastard at that age—as you now well know.

[But even as he says it, Rip doesn't feel the words are quite enough. Rip reaches out for his glass once more, quickly swallows back the last of it.]

And for what it is worth, the older, more knowing version of the man you're spending your Wednesday evenings with thinks nothing of the sort.

[That's—that's better, isn't it?]

[ her nails tap a whisper of a tattoo against the open book, the sound soft against the pages. it's just -- it's just that he isn't giving her what she wants: a proper reason to bottle him, chide him, blacken tonight's eye. because rip doesn't need to apologize in order to express his contrition, and he articulates his way to being shriven with far more grace (she realizes) than she herself is ever likely to muster.

all while soundly putting her in her place: yes, yes, of course she knows he thinks nothing of the sort. and suddenly peggy is left feeling a flush of foolishness. as feelings go, this one has no place in this moment. she swallows it down almost as quick as it rises.

and when she glances back in his direction, she at least appears prepared to shift her tactic. ]

Yes. Well. [ here are her signals, clear as day, rising like flags in advance of her half-surrender. ] All the more reason for you to make it up to me.

[ she taps the book. the penance she suggests isn't really penance at all, seeing as he's already agreed to it: helping her pick apart the finer points of of this particular chapter. ]

A handful of decades to go from a half-ton computer to things as small as -- [ her tapping hand gestures, instead, at his idle wonderland-supplied device. discarded, but near. ] That. It reads like fantasy.

[Yes, clearly Rip must be the worst at this for refusing to simply hand over more fuel for the fire of Peggy's anger. But if Peggy feels foolish then she's not alone in it; Rip finds it far easier to handle her frustrations when they aren't accompanied by the notion that he's actually offended her somehow—that he's managed to land a blow that would have never been thrown had he been of his right mind.

But that's hardly an excuse, is it?

Peggy's the one who manages to offer them both a touch of grace at the end of it. If she considers it surrender Rip cannot see it as a victory; rather, it's a relief when she once more turns to the books, never mind that Rip's already consented to guiding her through them. He leans forward, rather quickly refilling his own glass, going so far to top off hers before he settles back to get a better look at the page.]

It is rather extraordinary, isn't it? The whole of human history leads up to a certain point, and yet in a blink we manage to take things further. [He glances towards the book then, gestures with a hand and a quiet "may I?" before taking it from her hands. He won't be long in this newest endeavor; Rip flips back a few pages, just enough to allow him to get a better idea of just what Peggy's been reading specifically, the text that's led up to enough confusion that she's seen fit to employ Rip as translator.]

Rather depends on who is doing the blinking, I suppose.

[ peggy pipes up. as commentary goes, this rather spits in the eye of what she's just said, stressing the deficit of time between conception and innovation. then again, how long had it taken howard stark to take the decades-old design of a car and make it fly?

well, hover.

rip asks for the book and -- after a momentary delay -- she surrenders it with a false feeling of magnanimity. truth be told, the part where she's hung up isn't all that distant in its description from her own time and place: '52, los alamos, and the 'mathematical analyzer, numerical integrator, and computer,' or maniac. she's caught up in the pages surrounding these leaps and bounds whose origins were happening even now, back home, while she's chasing down mad scientists and dimensional rifts. ias machines, turing completeness, and von neumann architecture.

god, if this is but a blink to him -- then what does this say about the rate at which she herself is moving? it's an uncomfortable question; peggy chooses to dodge it by leaning in, shoulder to shoulder, so she should be able to see the same pages as he's seeing.

her whole posture shifts and although she's no less standoffish, she somehow manages to be so while curling a hand expectantly around his upper arm. peggy tugs, just once, to telegraph the fact that his elbow is blocking her view. ]

Fair enough, I suppose. [He is, after all, someone who has equally travelled through time at impossible speeds, seen the differences in era after era except for Rip, only a few minutes have passed between. So even if it is a contradiction, it's apt enough—and more to the point, Rip doesn't quite feel like making the argument just then. Not when he's got book in hand and the warmth of Peggy pressed just against him, and while it's all different from what they so often share Rip finds that it's not at all bad for the oddity.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

So he obligingly moves his elbow and begins the lesson. At first, there's a bit of disconnect between them: when a page should be turned, when he starts to explain a concept but she's not to that paragraph yet, stop skipping ahead Mister Hunter, she'll tug on his arm when she's ready. Eventually it morphs into Rip reading the passages aloud, the otherwise quiet of the room filled with the steady cadence of his voice, broken only sometimes when he steals a sip of whiskey or as Peggy has a question.

Eventually, she doesn't just bump shoulders with him; eventually, Peggy sees fit to draw his arm about her shoulders (so she can see better, naturally), and Rip carefully doesn't voice either victory or complaint.

No, he's quite happy to linger there, to spend his time turning the pages and savoring the warmth of the woman curled into his side, the annoyances of earlier forgotten it would seem as the night draws on. It isn't until he nears the end of the next chapter that a new and unexpected interruption comes: a small sound from the woman whose face he can't quite see from this angle, although he can feel the steady cadence of her breathing.]

If I'm not mistaken, Miss Carter, I believe I just heard you snore. [Rip speaks softly, however; it might be enough to nudge Peggy awake, and that would do if so. If not, however, Rip would have to figure out just how to settle them both on the couch. It's not often that he's seen Peggy let herself relax enough to drift off as she apparently has—and Rip grins faintly for it. No doubt it's not the way she expected the evening to go when she stormed into his room, but it's far from the worst way things could have turned out for them.

Particularly when it comes to a day as sentimental as this one.]

[ he brings a surprising amount of newness into her life. so do a lot of people, peggy supposes, but most of then can hardly help it -- they exude what's new and unknown in almost every conversation. she'd endured a lot of it, spending the previous evening at wynonna's little party, and she hadn't realized how exhausted it had left her until just now. because what happens when she commits herself to rip's company is a whole different kind of new. no longer is she abrading against the hard edges of what's to come. instead, what's new becomes oddly participatory. and she's beginning to see -- or is it feel? -- the guiding hand through all of it. half a year ago, it would have angered her. even now, it doesn't settle peaceably. but she can trust it.

she can trust him. whether it's when he sinks to his knees or when he decides what concepts could use a sidebar explanation. that's not to say it goes perfectly -- she does, on occasion, need to interject and assure him that one explanation or another isn't required. but, for the most part, she benefits from his annotations.

and if she trusts him that much, well, then, it's not too harrowing to relinquish reading the paragraphs for herself. peggy wouldn't describe his narrating voice as warm and promising; after all, he's never struck her as an obvious idealist. but the words are easy and precise in his mouth. and, like so much about the man, rip's narration boasts a comfortable formality.

-- and his body is warm, even if his reading isn't. of course sleep steals over her. she practically arrived here tired; her eyes were doomed to close once she'd worked her way under his arm, lulled asleep by the gentle assault of both his voice and his heartbeat nudged snug under her cheek.

peggy carter sleeps easy, yes, but she also sleeps light. the nature of her work made it a near-imperative that she should be able to steal a kip whenever possible, no matter the circumstances. she could drift off to the sound of jet engines provided their noise and thrum were constant. predictable. a sputter or an unhealthy clank would always wake her up. it's change that rouses her: the way rip's voice shifts from performative to personal. and when he says her name it's like a hook, tugging her up up up and out of slumber.

but it takes her a moment longer to piece together the phrase that woke her up. something, something, something, heard you snore. she squeezes her eyes shut before they open. peggy makes an attempt to grapple her way back to sitting up; it's lazy and half-hearted and soon aborted in favour of sinking back in place. but her chin does lift and she looks for him. blearily. ]

Yes, and?

[ sometime before she'd fallen asleep, peggy had kicked off her shoes and tucked her knees up on the sofa. she curls nearer -- feeling too comfortable to fall prey to indignation. besides! she already knows she snores from time to time. dugan reminds her whenever the chance arises. ]

Is that a problem?

[ so perhaps she falls prey to a little bit of indignation. ]

Edited 2018-03-16 02:55 (UTC)

[Sweet is no doubt one of the last words that most would think when they looked at Peggy Carter--but then again, how many have gotten the privilege of seeing her thus? Still half-asleep, more unwilling to move than stubborn, putting up a tired defense that yes, she does snore, and what would he dare make of it, hmm? Except there's nothing at all that Rip finds himself wishing to complain about in that moment. Rather, he breathes out in a huff, one that comes from deep in his chest, amused and quiet and almost happy in its sound.]

Not a problem at all. [Quite the opposite, although Rip suspects Peggy might protest if he goes on to describe it as a rather cute snore, so far as such things go. Instead he carefully closes the book, in her line of sight and with a finger tucked in to hold his place--proof of intention, necessary, he suspects, for what he means to do next.]

Brace yourself. [With that softly issued warning, Rip shifts on the couch. While he suspects there might be too much effort involved in making their way to the bed, it's easier to simply adjust their bodies so they're laying together rather than sitting up. Peggy's already got her legs on the sofa anyway; it's a matter then of arranging his legs, shifting their weight about a bit, and keeping Peggy's head pillowed against him so she doesn't wake up too much in the jostle. And if he does it all right, at the end of it they'll still be pressed beside each other, with Rip hanging perhaps an inch or so off the side of the cushions, but really, he's not unused to making sacrifices.

Particularly not when they prove to be worth it--as this one would be, provided she offers no protests and he can resume reading as he had been.]

[ -- remarkable, really, how he says just enough to placate the first few temperamental rumbles of one sore spot while also managing not to poke another. once, she might have done him the disservice of thinking such a feat was achieved by accident. not so now, no matter how stuck she might be in that liminal space between awake and asleep.

peggy takes his warning to heart. to brace herself, however, she chooses to simply trust in his movement. she fixes a grip in his shirt and opts not to work against the tide of his plan. she is in a rare space: far from dependent, but willing and cooperative. the only real regret comes from forgetting her injured hand (briefly) and drawing in a sharp breath of pain when she presses it too firmly against him for support.

beyond that, she settles smoothly enough. she curls an arm fondly around his midsection as one final adjustment to anchor herself in place. perhaps she's doomed to drift off again; for now, she at least gives her spine a brief stretch and makes an attempt to stay awake.

so! before he can continue reading: ] So much progress. I change my mind near-daily as to whether it's thrilling or terrifying. [ three, two, one. ] Apparently, rogue artificial intelligence made a hell of an attempt to end the world. [ a beat before she reconsiders her tenses. ] Will make.

[Settled in as comfortable as he's likely to be, Rip is indeed about to crack open the book once more when Peggy speaks up. For a moment, Rip almost mistakenly attributes what she says to a carelessness brought about by fatigue and comfort both; that Peggy is simply too tired to realize what she's saying, and to whom, and just where it might lead.

But that hardly sounds like her at all, doesn't it? So Rip stops himself short before he offers up unnecessary charity, a quiet suggestion that she might want to wait until she's awake again dying on his lips before it has a chance to take shape--though ironically, he suspects the notion would manage to rouse her, if by no other means than Peggy's indignation at the thought Rip might see her as needing mercy in the moment.

Heaven forbid.

Instead he lets the silence stretch, a beat too long perhaps, as he quietly skims over the next paragraph in the text. There's a response coming; the tension now present in his muscles promises it to be sure. Yet it would be a careful one, measured out, ideally straddling the line between maintaining what they've found in this evening, and the now-obvious way Peggy seeks to provoke him with the implication that she's been doing exactly the opposite of what he'd told her so early on.

(A tactic that might have proven more effective, he thinks, if he hadn't already discovered as much for himself while Wonderland saw fit to disguise him as a fox.)]

And did you learn of that from your nephew, or from the agents who will one day carry your legacy? [He keeps his voice rather deliberately mild despite all implications of the question. Somehow he doubts such truths have been volunteered at random, sputtered out like bits of trivia unconnected to any other conversation. What he's truly asking, even as he rereads the same page he's looked over twice now, is just what source has provided this insight into the future of her world.]

[ remarkably, she remembers to breath. although a dose of exhaustion and relaxation likely both have something to do with what she reveals, it was still calculated all the same. a way to dig under the surface sweetness of this moment. a way to draw out something a little harder, a little challenging, from rip so that she doesn't need to fit her body against his and stew (humbled) in how gentle he's being, how comforting, how lovely.

which means that she feels a victory in what could very well be his disappointment. she reads the tension though his body -- exhales a beat sooner than he does -- and seems to brace herself for a dressing-down. as though...as though this upswell of affection and physical (but not sexual) intimacy might somehow be mitigated if it's braided into a lecture.

as though she can't let things get too good. not tonight, of all nights.

but then rip's question presents a new problem of its own. any other moment, any other position, any other day, she would feel only the usual prickle of regret in speaking steve's name out loud. in fact, the man's lingering effect on her life is considerably less of a bogeyman while in rip's company than it could be in the company of others. but this isn't the sort of misery she'd wanted to invite into what was otherwise a tender moment.

instead of speaking the name, she counters thusly: ] Does it really matter who I learned it from?

[ so, neither option he presented make for an adequate answer. it must have been someone else -- someone she's not up to naming. ]

What I'm saying, [ inelegantly, she wrestles the conversation back to where she wants it to be, ] is that it's difficult to give the future-history of computing its due admiration when I know where it ends up.

[ there. she practically gift-wraps him his own argument: and that's precisely why it's so ill-advised to go learning about what's to come, miss carter. better to lose this one and sulk than let anything else -- anyone's ghost -- thread its way between their pressed bodies. ]

Edited 2018-03-18 15:45 (UTC)

[He wonders for a moment at the meaning of her non-answer; the truth is that is doesn't matter, certainly not so far as Peggy should know. Were the knowledge gained from the agents then they would be off-limits to Rip's reprimands thanks to his and Peggy's prior arrangements—and Tony Stark is as likely to listen to him as Mick Rory had been on most days. So why hide the truth then, if there's nothing Rip can do beyond know it?

The answer becomes obvious in a matter of beats: because knowing it is the danger, the spark of vulnerability for her. He breathes out slowly when it dawns on him why, his own mistaken premise the key to the answer she doesn't speak.

The one he won't ask after again.

Which, given the way Peggy forces the conversation back towards a different track, no doubt suits her just as well. And yes, the words she's expecting him to thread together to indeed sit on the tip of his tongue: her wonder wouldn't be spoiled if she didn't continue to dig ever onward, to find out more truths about what the future of her world and her legacy and her life all hold. It's instinctive to fall back on his concerns as a Time Master.

But Rip knows the woman beside him, struggling now to float between awareness and slumber, pressed tightly against his body as they share space on the couch. He knows his words would fall on deaf ears even if this were the middle of the day, and the pair of them were wide-awake in the midst of heated debate. It would be easier to caution her, even pointlessly, that too much knowledge does indeed take away the joy of the advancement of man. But knowing her as he does—knowing the future as he does—Rip instead offers what might prove to be more prudent advice.]

All the more reason to hold to your humanity, Miss Carter. [That had been the failing of the Time Masters, after all. Rip remembers well standing in the Time Council chambers, demanding to know what universe they would be custodians of should they let it crumble. Even sharper is his memory of the moment he realized what Druce and the rest had all conspired to do with Savage, with the Legends—with Rip himself.

How easily they set up his family as a sacrifice. How many times Rip had let others die, to ensure the future.]

Whatever evils you have been told, I promise—there is an equal amount of good to be done for the world.

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IC Inbox - Entranceway

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