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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.
Obviously I'm not here right now, but leave a message and I'll--listen to it. Eventually.
Obviously I'm not here right now, but leave a message and I'll--listen to it. Eventually.
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He doesn't think that these are leftover feelings, however. Merely amusement at the moment, something he's sorely missed. After all, Rip knows well that even he can only wallow for so long. The worst of days only last for awhile, and then, as with all people, he feels the urge to move forward.
To get better, as he once told a dear friend.]
Quite well, from what I've been able to gather. [Half-truth or not, Peggy has still left an impression on Rip. He's seen her bite back heartbreak to look him square in the eye while he'd been his worst self, come from a closet dressed in little more than a gown and smartly take control of the situation, even when learning of its numerous impossibilities. There's a fighter in her to be sure, and equally a strength forged in loss and hardship—be it during war or otherwise, untold.
So proven by how she continues their tit-for-tat, after having shown up at his door in the first place.]
How merciful of you, Miss Carter. [Especially since, at the moment, Rip himself isn't sure what that first word would be. But he does see a string to tug in mischievous fun.] I wouldn't necessarily prescribe that as your first attribute either.
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-- which is all a very complicated justification for something more accurately described as self-sabotage. ]
Oh, I can be plenty merciful. [ she schools away the majority of her smile, now -- clearing her throat as though trying to cough away any other impression but that of the same stone-faced woman who'd knocked on his door not long ago. it's not a perfect exorcism, but it will do. ] We've already talked about how I could have shot you, that day, but didn't.
[ it's not playing fair to conjure up that version of him. paradoxically, nor does it offer much in the way of mercy. but it does offer protection, she hopes. a way to sidestep the way two words pushed together like quite well sound like resounding praise when one knows how to read understatement.
peggy doesn't intend to outright shut down either of their capacities for mischief within the conversation. but she want to swing the spotlight once more onto him. all this talk about her attributes, first or otherwise, makes her itchy. ]
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Not that it ever strays far, even if it's not foremost.
But it does raise an interesting point in context of the prior conversation—for in the end, what Peggy has not so slyly accomplished is to turn that spotlight away from herself completely. Rip can wallow and mope with the best of them, to be sure, but he's also one of a curious mind.
Questioning still, just what that first word might be.]
Yet I doubt it was mercy that stayed your hand. [She'd offered up the evidence; Rip in turn feels it fair to call her bluff. He can make his guesses as to why she might have opted for what she had, but what better answer than what Peggy says, or doesn't say, when confronted directly?] We never did discuss why you chose to lower your gun that day rather than use it.
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here's a path they keep taking. one sitting across from the other. talking, testing, tugging at straws. it happened when they first met and it's happened every time since -- barring the too-easy affection struck up between whitechapel and lambeth. and maybe that's another reason to be so caustic tonight. guilt touches the pair of them. she's not so stony that she doesn't feel the cut of what she's just done. of course, she doesn't much regret it either -- it had to be done, she tells herself, in order to stave off that strange rosy warmth that was both too much and nothing like what they'd shared during the event.
and as for the day on the firing range? well. ]
You're right. We never did discuss it.
[ and peggy isn't so desperate to vindicate herself that she will rush to explain her actions. or inactions, as the case may be. more importantly, she's been taught better than to answer questions that haven't even been asked.
that, along with making inroads to friendship, is one of the fastest ways to say more than what's intended. ]
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She's smarter than that. Rip knows it, and when he looks once more at Peggy there's a tightness in his lips that hadn't been there prior. If she'd rather not answer then she can say as much, but honestly. To act as if there's nothing written between the lines, as if what he's said it merely an observation and nothing beyond.
It's not exactly a pleasant sort of dance.]
So let's discuss it now. [It may work against her in the end, however. Avoidance tells its own story, and Rip leans forward, elbows rested on his knees as he spells out what he would like to have answered.] Why didn't you shoot me that day? Turn me over to the Legends; you've already mentioned that Dr. Palmer had addressed the issue with you. Certainly it would've been the safer call.
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that she's sought it out in favour of what had actually been a rather pleasant smile, not so long ago.
peggy hears his question. but far more interesting is the commentary what follows. there are two competing answers to this line of inquiry. there's the reason peggy herself had balked at the very gesture of leveling a gun at him on that day -- and then there's the reason why she'd not bothered to follow through with any of the due diligence he goes on to suggest.
there's no hesitation now that the seal's been broken on the topic. and peggy gives blunt honesty a good college try. ]
It certainly would have been the safer call. Even before our paths crossed on the 4th, [ the date is notable, ] I'd told Dr. Palmer as much. Argued, really, over whether you shouldn't simply be apprehended from the outset. If the change was truly so serious.
[ had nearly offered to do it herself, actually, as a decently impartial third party. but it hadn't come to that. obviously. after all, peggy did say they'd argued over it. ]
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He'd never drawn his weapon, point of fact.]
Somehow I doubt that the words of Dr. Palmer alone would have been enough to sway you. [Not if Peggy truly wished to act. She's shown her stubbornness more than once now, continues to do so through this very conversation. He rubs a hand lightly over his lips; for a few moments, his gaze goes distant as he considers.
What would have happened—or not happened—had Peggy won the argument that day?]
It all makes the original question all the more pressing: why converse rather than shoot?
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it would make for a good reason. valid, level-headed, pragmatic. but it still wouldn't have been the truth. merely a fractal piece of a larger one -- the proceeding logic used to talk herself down once she'd made the knee-jerk decision not to fire.
(not that she wouldn't have done something, of course, had rip proved himself a danger that day.)
peggy's sigh is audible. when she grabs for her glass next, she goes so far as to drain it completely. tilting it back, lifting her chin, swallowing the last three or four mouthfuls in one uneasy run. and afterward, she deposits the glass on the table -- staying bent forward with her fingers on the rim. ]
I have a temper. [ she admits -- well aware that for most of the people in her life, this is no big epiphany. had she taken a shot, it should have been to take him down. to incapacitate. not to light her own damnably short fuse. ] And I was trying not to lose it.
[ peggy nudges her emptied cup along the table and nods her head in a wordless request that he should pour her another finger. or two. ]
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Rip's never really seen Peggy's temper for himself, but sparks of it? Sure. When the conversation had turned in ways she hadn't liked. As someone also able to claim a touch of the same for himself, he does understand how it strains, to keep anger in check.
He even goes so far as to guess what set it aflame that day--and quite fittingly, puts aside his half-finished glass in favor of playing a proper host and refilling hers.]
Because of the American. [The man who had seemingly broken her heart, not through ill-intentions but merely circumstance. So it hadn't been mercy after all, but restraint on Peggy's part that kept her gun aimed elsewhere that day. Fair enough, and a credit to Peggy that she had kept things in check.
Broken hearts are hardly easy storms to quell.]
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yes. she deserves this. ]
Mmhm. [ she hums her reluctant acknowledgement. ] Because of him.
[ she once thought that the farther she got from the epicentre of that pain, the more ridiculous it would feel. but just now she feels herself toying with the same old hair trigger -- the one that inspired her to leave bullet burns on captain america's shield, and the one that brought her to the brink of treason charges just to protect a vial of blood.
pulling the glass back to her side of the table, she catches herself breaking poise just to rub a temple with the knuckle of her thumb. it's not often that peggy carter feels shame -- and maybe it's the whiskey facilitating the feeling -- but there is a kind of self-consciousness that creeps up her spine. to best master it, she lowers her arm and grips her glass with both hands. ]
It was all so terribly melodramatic. [ she makes excuses. she minimizes where she can -- squashing that pain into as small and compact a ball as is humanly possible. ] Steve Rogers. We might as well give the man the dignity of his name.
[ it's just a little white lie. peggy doesn't much care whether it's familiar to rip or not only -- only that if they keep calling him the american she's worried it'll start to sound a little too much like captain america. and, oh, she always did dislike the moniker. no matter how much she hurts, she'd much rather call him steve if she must call him anything at all. ]
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I met him once. Seemed a decent fellow. [Certainly he'd been willing enough to give up precious food to monsters, all for the sake of a stranger. Decent indeed, but Rip doesn't mean to give him compliment beyond that. Not when Peggy tries to leash not her temper now, but her ache.
He knows that agony. Not in the exact terms, perhaps, but similar ones. For love to die, then hope to plant it's seed--only for the ground to be poisoned.
It's his turn then to drain the drink. His turn, then, to decide how far to open the wound.
His, along with hers.]
I am sorry, for whatever that's worth. [For what she's been through, shouldering the blame of seeing death where there had been something far different at play. For having that second chance come just that bit too late. He remembers asking Gideon to check on the reports of his family.
She'd hesitated. Over and over. At the end, she had been the one to say she was sorry.]
I'm also quite willing to fetch another bottle, since it looks like we'll be needing it.
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and had rip left it at that, peggy might even have felt compelled to endorse the verdict. to her (even now) steve stood like a pinnacle of decency. perhaps he never quite learned how to talk to her, how to make the words as smooth and as painless as he might have liked, but even on the day he broke her heart she was left with the vexing impression that steve never wanted to see her hurt. even as she'd banished him from her room, he'd hopped to with that old earnest nature.
it's how she knows she would go to bat for him again and again and again, even though she couldn't make her peace with what's transpired. the ground is poisoned, yes, but her professional regard for captain rogers is as intact as the day she saw him dive on that grenade.
god, it'd be so much simpler if she could hate him. ]
So am I. [ sorry. although it's up to interpretation whether she's still talking about steve or has expanded her sympathies to that wider circle -- after all, it had been something of a two-way street of shared information out by the firing range. but peggy draws a line before outright mentioning rip's dead family.
she eyes the bottle. any worries peggy might have harboured that she'd been wearing out her welcome soon dissipate with rip's offer to fetch another. ] What can you bring to memory in the way of a good bourbon?
[ -- she's not picky about her blends. far from it. but the question seems like an ideal springboard to move them abruptly away from the topic. although the geography, it seems, remains distinctly american. ]