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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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Perhaps it's that memory that holds his tongue, or some pause provided by the drink, or even a spark of a better thought. But knows Peggy's admission won't be so simple as that easily offered you're right. She concedes in one step, tries to twirl in another, and Rip rolls his head back with a bitter grin even before that shall we? makes it past her lips.
He's angry still, but not stupid. Sometimes the wiser move is to lose the battle--and Peggy's clever enough to know that too.]
Bollocks. [His answer comes immediately, no hesitation or thought behind it. He lowers his head, shakes it (perhaps a bad move, with how it makes the room spin a bit), and now both his hands fall to his waist. He knows better than to fall into this ploy, this trap. Rip has had plenty of time tonight to go over their encounters, to pick through the words they've exchanged not only on Wednesdays, but the times outside of them.
And there's only one that Wonderland has made him forget.]
You said it yourself. You've enjoyed them, as much as I have. [Indeed, the first time she'd shown up at his door might have been when he'd needed it most. Certainly the same could be said of when she ventured into his hall, took a seat next to Rip as he watched over the door separating his memories from this world. Even if Peggy had somehow changed her mind about them, Rip refuses to see those times when she came to find him as poor or bad.
He will not do her that disservice, nor the one of following along with her dance.]
And if you mean to convince me otherwise, then you'll have to answer my question. [A different rhythm is set instead; another dare, and Rip eye's shift away, past her, towards the bottles of whiskey still neatly arranged on the table waiting to be shared.] What's changed to suddenly make this a bad idea?
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it's not often that she finds herself caught speechless. dooley, in fact, once voiced his very surprise that she ever learned how to keep her mouth shut. but for a little longer she holds her tongue while she watches him look aside, betraying (or is it revealing?) a yearning for his routine to be returned to him. whiskey bottles, criminally undrunk.
no one piece of truth alone would do it, she thinks, and she's unwilling to give up all of them. yes, she'd said it. yes, she'd enjoyed them. yes, it was damned difficult not to return earlier. no, she's not indifferent. no, she doesn't think he's like 'all the rest.' no, her opinions haven't changed. not at heart. she's only made a clumsy attempt to mask them.
clumsy because they'd both been very plain and honest with one another as they'd danced. if not in words, then at least in spirit. it's not simply these little visits -- she's enjoyed him. ]
That's just it, [ she finally opens her mouth -- and there's something nearly apologetic in how her red lips twist in their corners, ] it doesn't matter whether or not I convince you. It won't make a lick of difference.
[ measures must still be taken.
and she won't jump through that hoop simply because he's placed it before her. if he thinks less of her for that obstruction, then so be it. the same can be said for the way she shakes the stiffness out of her arms and turns back towards the door. she'd resolved to reject him before he ever got the chance, before getting tangled together only brought on a pain worse than this. ]
Goodbye, Mister Hunter. And good night.
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He can list them all by name. Leonard Snart, Mick Rory, Kara Zor-El, Sara Lance, Nate Heywood.
Carter Hall. Charles, and by his own hand.
Calvert.
Miranda Coburn.
Jonas Hunter.
And tonight, he'd worried that Peggy Carter would be added to that number. Her death would have been tragic, but at least also undone in the span of a day. Her vanishing, however, he can neither predict nor prevent. One moment she will be there; the next gone, as all who are brought to Wonderland will one day be.
His chest had grown tight at the thought. It does so again now, as she informs him with that unhappy grin that there's nothing to be done.
Nothing he can do to keep her from walking away.
Nothing.
But as time may indeed wish to happen, as this universe might well have some hidden agenda and flow, Rip will not merely let it occur. Not when there is something so final in the way she tells him goodbye, when she swears it won't make any difference at all.
He's the man who would stop at almost nothing to try and save his family. Over and over again.
Peggy isn't dead. She isn't gone--not yet. Rip can still reach out and touch her, so he does. Takes hurried steps when she turns towards his door, dizzied but determined, thrusts his hand forward to grip her arm and force Peggy back to face him. He's no more capable of defining it than she, this thing that's shifting, morphing between them. What has changed that she means to run away from, that perhaps he would as well if he weren't dizzy with anger and alcohol, and the unshakable thought that whatever it is, it's worth fighting for.
He doesn't bother to speak. She may hit him; lord knows he won't be able to much block it in the shape he's in. But he's not about to simply let her go.]
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or, instead, she fears that it makes her something lesser. that little bit less capable of standing on her own. how on earth, she wonders, had steve ever managed it? stitching a whole nation's belief into his body. peggy can barely stomach one person's support without turning on them. it happened before, it happened again and again, and it happens now -- even when that support is couched in aggressive, invasive terms.
because unlike her, unlike what she's done, rip hasn't gone as far as reducing her to accusations and flak merely for flak's sake. that had been her chief weapon in this conversation, whereas everything he's said only casts a harder light on how much goodwill and grace they've found within their acquaintanceship--
--friendship, she so stubbornly labels it. and how much he dreads losing any of it.
and peggy steels herself. as lovely as it's all been, what have most of these wednesday nights been but a distraction? from work here, from work at home, from the reminder that these things always seem to end badly for her. friendships and all. with that in mind, she's nearly to the door when he comes stumbling after. his hand on her arm; it's more urgent than she'd first anticipated.
he doesn't need to turn her back around. she makes that maneuver willingly. and with a sigh and a twinge of regret, peggy strikes him hard in the middle of his chest with her open palm. as blows go, it's hardly the worst she could have done. just enough to shock him backward so she can watch him reel a little, wobble on his feet, and watch her with no surprise in his eyes.
rip doesn't let go. instead, they teeter together -- him like a sinker attached to a fishing hook -- and peggy has to haul back on his weight just to keep them both from crashing. momentum brings him nearer to her than when he'd started, and peggy grabs onto the front of his shirt just to steady them both.
for a heartbeat, it's as if they're dancing again. more sluggish, more messy, more ornery. but dancing all the same. and peggy knows how to put an end to it. what he wants, what he's set as the price of her flight, is to know what's made her so determined to regret him. and ordinarily she might accuse him of playing dumb, of already suspecting what's at stake, but the smell of rum on him and the inelegance of the evening make her believe otherwise. does he not realize the sentiment he'd voiced in front of her shadow had been devastatingly mutual? he, too, is important to her.
with another frown, she considers how that blindspot makes him just about as hopeless as steve rogers in that one regard and -- christ, the comparison does neither of them any favours. or maybe it does them too many. peggy can't rightly say while she's staring back at him, following the shifting focus in his drunk gaze. her attention sits stalwart for a moment, then slips down the bridge of his nose, hangs there -- precarious -- on the curve of his mouth.
she's got no words aside from a soft curse beneath her breath. this is exactly why she didn't want to come back here after everything that had transpired: this moment was always waiting in the wings, anxious to play out. building speed ever since they'd danced. and peggy has always preferred actions to words. alright, then, if he wants so sorely to know what's changed...
she kisses him. it's hard and just about as unforgiving as her earlier palm-strike, and about a dozen times more angrily done than the sweet and fleeting affection they'd been forced to share when an event turned him into a stagehand and her into a personal assistant. that, all of that, had been a lie. but this, right here, the way she twists her fingers in his collar and pulls him nearer -- it's honesty she had already decided would have been better left unsaid.
it doesn't last long. peggy decided when it begins; she equally decides when it ends. with a loud pull of breath and the lingering taste of rum, she breaks the kiss. she lets him go with another rough shove. and then she stares at him a moment -- bewildered by her own choices -- before stalking past him and slumping, defeated, into the chair that's long-since been considered hers.
her fingers tap on the chair's arm, electric and agitated. she won't meet his eye but instead busies herself by pouring a drink of (you guessed it) whiskey. friendship, she'd been trying to tell herself. not-bloody-likely. ]
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Not yet.
Stand together. Fall together--and hell if Rip knows just which it is when Peggy frowns and stares, when her eyes search his face for some spark of understanding, the certainty of that truth he will not let himself see because for all Rip has confessed, for all he understands, one step remains too far for him. It cannot be, it cannot be--
Until she kisses him. Angry and warm, with lips sweetly soft. She kisses him, and Rip's heart thuds heavy in his chest only once before he kisses back. It's not the first time someone has kissed him to shut him up, after all; some part of him must remember what should be done in a situation like this.
Some part must want to.
Yet there's no chance to move his arms about her, to remember that he can touch as well as taste, or let the kiss linger. Peggy's rules, start and stop, and Rip gasps out his surprise when she pulls back almost as unexpectedly as before. This time when she shoves he does step back, once, twice. Steps back and stares, unable to question if he isn't just drunkenly dreaming this all because he can still smell her perfume, and taste her lipstick on his tongue.
He doesn't move when she storms past him to finally do what Rip expected hours before: takes her chair, breaks the silence with the clinking of glass as bottle is raised, whiskey poured.
Rip echoes Peggy's earlier curse as he touches his lips lightly with his fingertips. She need not struggle too hard not to meet his gaze; he has yet to turn around to look at her. Peggy's got plenty of time to down the first glass before he does, though Rip knows from habit she won't need it. He expects she'll take it so much like a shot, one heavy swallow after the next, the liquid burning hot as it goes down.
The first time someone had kissed him to shut him up, she walked away after. He'd had days to think it through. Now, his thudding pulse ticks away the seconds, one after the next.
Seconds, or days. Rip suspects he still wouldn't know just what to think--save one thing.]
I suppose that does answer my question.
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she does exactly as he suspects she'll do: she pours, she downs, she lets her head fall back against the chair -- eyes shut -- while warmth blooms on warmth in her chest. like pouring liquor on a fire. unhelpful, considering the effort she'd made to douse it. peggy's sigh is audible. soon after, she sits straight once more and pours herself a quick second. oh, hell, she is far far too sober for this. rip's got the right idea in keeping that leading edge dull.
before her next 'shot,' she presses the tips of her fingers against her lower lip -- drums them, briefly, as she considers her folly. peggy's no stranger to rash gestures of both temper and affection alike. this one had encompassed a bit of both. and she resents him, just a little, for having cornered her into it. it's a confession, albeit an unspoken one.
but she wasn't ever really cornered -- no matter how insistent he'd been that she should answer his question. she could have hit him again. she could have shaken him off and stormed away. she could have done and said nothing. she could have used words and simply told him how much she'd felt like kissing him.
but in the end he's right -- a realization that makes her laugh a hollow little laugh -- because his question has been answered. everything had changed. ]
Yes. [ her voice lifts strong and certain, only a little tarnished after a second measure of whiskey taken once again like a shot. she stares at his back, at a point between his shoulders, and can't decide whether she's willing him to turn around or crumple in place. ] Yes, I suppose it does. Satisfied?
[ she asks with bite, with vexation, with a scrape of annoyance. rip gets what he wants: an answer, and peggy sitting here where she's meant to sit. whiskey in her belly. ]
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The smudge that comes off onto his fingertips when he worries his mouth (not to rid himself of the lipstick, mind, but rather out of habit) is truly, genuinely her shade.
He's caught staring at it a moment longer before Peggy shoots her bitter question over his shoulder. She mad at him, again, and all for a choice she's made--except Rip knows it not so simple. Much the same way he's never asked her to come over on Wednesdays, but somehow expects it all the same.
His head lowers with a dull huff. She should recognize by now the sound of his unamused laughter.]
I'm truly not sure what I am just now--though satisfied is far from it. [At last he turns, even steps forward to reclaim both a place on the sofa, and the bottle of rum that's been his constant companion this evening. As he had at the start Rip forgoes a glass, merely lifts the bottle by it's neck and drinks straight from the source. Surely she'll understand why.
And if she doesn't--well. Rip is a bit past the point of caring.]
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but it all drains away the moment she thinks on how he'd returned her kiss. and peggy has to ask herself whether or not she already regrets ending it. rather than answer this silent internal investigation, she takes her lead from him and forgoes the crystal tumbler (hers, much like the chair) for the whiskey bottle. formalities are eroding by the heartbeat.
oh, but it had been good while it had lasted. the kiss, that is. she'd like to argue that she'd done it to prove a point -- because a point it had most certainly proven. but the uncomfortable truth is that she'd wanted to be roughly so bold for a short while now. there had been a moment, adjusting his lapel at the end of a dance...
peggy swallows a mouthful of whiskey, as if in a bid to catch up. by now she has managed to wash away the rum taste, but just watching him take his own swig reminds her of that sickly-sweet flavour. yes, the kiss had been good while it had lasted -- would it have been better without the tinge of fermented sugarcane? ]
That makes two of us. [ at odds, yet nevertheless on even footing in their uncertainty. she'd stayed away because she was convinced this would all peter out far more smoothly without something like genuine affection mucking it all up.
mock-idle (although she's anything but), peggy leans forward and snags his arthur conan doyle off the table. there's a willful incivility to the way she cards through the pages, losing his spot. ]
Holmes. I'm not surprised. [ she's derisive, sliding her attention onto his choice of mystery -- as though it could ever, ever, ever buy her a deflection from the real topic at hand. as if it could ever distract either of them from the plain fact of what'd just happened between the two of them. what she'd done. ]
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Distraction comes as an easy craving--particularly when the alternative is to question what now, what next?
It's not often that Rip lacks an answer to those questions, thanks to his trade.
But he does agree: the kiss had been good. This would be easier if it hadn't been, if something deep and hungry hadn't felt a release when she pressed her lips to his. But opening the gates merely lets air in. Fires burn hotter when they're given fuel, and if their mouths were so occupied, then there'd be no futile need to search for words.
Until there was. They cannot succumb to distraction forever.
Yet he still doesn't know what to say when Peggy reaches over, picks up his book and so childishly shuffles through it's pages. As if she couldn't see the detective's name on the cover; as if she didn't know damn well before she picked it up and decided to inch her way under Rip's skin that much more.
And oh, but it no surprise that she speaks the words with that haughty air.]
You disapprove. [In that Rip finds himself unsurprised. Given her era and her personality alike, Rip expects Peggy might cut her teeth on Dorothy L Sayers or Agatha Christie. But he can summon barbs of his own, especially if they mean to travel down this route. He shifts in his seat, one leg crossed over the other, and does his utter best to look every bit as comfortable as he doesn't feel in this moment.]
Yet it seems you're out to prove yourself every bit as frustrating as Irene Adler herself.
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no, this hour feels much more like their verbal spar by the firing range. he'd been far and away from his better self. and there's a bit of her, a fraction, which is made sad by the comparison. it's that narrow bit which understands how she still cares for him. it's the bit that doesn't want to see him hurt. their weekly sessions had been all about bringing out the best in each other, not the worst.
but it's not wednesday any longer; she's a day late and a dollar short for being the best at anything. except, perhaps, the best at being a massive pain for the pair of them. so peggy carter goes looking for bruises to press.
yes, yes, she disapproves. and in her private thoughts she aligns herself exactly as rip predicts: vane, marple, wimsey, poirot -- each to differing degrees, of course. in a gentler moment she might have forwarded these alternatives while she was bright-eyed and smiling and teasing. as she's behaved, with him, on a half-dozen prior instances. but peggy's armour is up, her hackles raised, and rip as good as scalds her with the comparison he subsequently lays at her feet.
adler! the way in which she snaps the book shut is all the suggestion needed that she understands the insinuation. ]
Does that mean you're casting yourself as our eponymous detective? [ one hand chokes the whiskey bottle's neck while the other uses his book like a prop. she points at him with one of its corners. ] You've got the arrogance for it. I'll give you that much, Mister Hunter.
[ mister hunter. as though taking a kiss from him leaves that particular habit unaltered. so maybe not everything's changed. ]
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Rip knows he's hit a mark when Peggy closes the book with force, her eyes hot with whatever insult she finds in the comparison. Worse is the fact that he doesn't bother to temper his grin; why should he on this night when they've apparently decides to tear the lid off Pandora's box, let secrets fly out free into the open.
It's all so ridiculous, he knows. They get nowhere with such jabs, certainly no place of significance. And yet in the moment, he can't deny that it's all so immensely satisfying--
Especially when her counter opens such a tempting door.]
Oh, I should think not, Miss Carter. [Though Rip does indeed carry that similar brand of arrogance, and often. Certain of his choices, determined his judgement would find the right path, for whatever definition of right is being quantified at the time. She cannot know it, but he's even engaged in illicit drug use, though without the benefit of his memories to teach him better.
And certainly it isn't humility at all that guides his next remark, one delayed only as he takes another drink of the rum.]
After all--Irene Adler managed to outfox Sherlock Holmes in the end.
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this time, she looks for satisfaction in knocking the damned thing off his face. even before he finishes the sentence, midway through outfox, she's throwing his own damned book at his head. it's not as gratifying as throwing a punch, perhaps, but it'll have to suffice for now.
so, so, so uncharitably: ] So you agree, then. This is the end.
[ you know, she doubts adler ever had to cope with holmes kicking out the legs from underneath her just-patched-up relationship with her not-quite-nephew. from the future. lucky her. ]
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But perhaps Peggy had been right in her earlier accusations. Just as Rip expects he's got an upper hand in the midst of all this madness, Peggy presents a sharp and sobering proposal.
It does wonders for wiping the grin off his face. Bravo, Peggy Carter.
Rip doesn't answer until after he's sat back up, nor does he quite manage to look at her again. He's not so wasted, even now, to childishly suggest that they simply attempt to go back to Wednesdays at they were, when Wednesdays and whiskey and dances at weddings all led them to this moment.
When he knows that he cannot say with any truth that he wouldn't kiss her again.]
I suppose it's as you said. [The rum gets moved from one hand to the other, Rip's eyes focused on the bottle itself. He leans forward then; stretches just enough to set it back down at it's place on the table.]
It doesn't make a lick of difference what I think. You've gone and made the choice for both of us.
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perhaps she'd made the choice for the both of them, but as far as she's concerned he was the one who empowered her to make it. peggy can still remember the hitch in her heart moments after she'd pulled her trigger, not yet certain whether her shot had missed him or not. she's chosen not to feel that hitch a second, third, forth time. how many would it take before she got him hurt in earnest?
the whiskey's hit her blood and warmed her body but she's still not so drunk that she doesn't recognize the complete folly in telling him the truth. it's for your own good is never an argument any competent individual wants to hear -- so she'll forgo making it, even if she believes in it utterly. ]
I have. And I did. And I would have expected you to make the same one. [ choice. ] I merely made it first.
[ there's no mistaking her tone. peggy is suggesting she would have found herself disappointed if he'd done anything but. ]
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Steve returning, untethered to anyone. Miranda, showing up alive and well and eager to see her husband.
But he has not been forced to think it through, nor to decide for himself just what he might do with the knowledge that she's developed feelings for him--and likewise, he must admit, he for her. Instead Rip is given an odd position on the high ground when Peggy so cavalierly spells out her expectations. And suddenly it doesn't matter so much if she's right.
Not when Rip is feeling far more contrary than charitable.
Besides, with the decision made, what harm is there in hypotheticals?]
And why exactly would you expect me to reject you? [Oh, but this sparks a memory for him. A voice sounding out from a broken porcelain face, marred with lipstick too deep a shade of red. They use her, they die--
Or they reject her.]
Bloody hell! [Rip rises to his feet, hand lifted in the air as this revelation crashes in his mind. Perhaps it's not the brightest move, but placing his other palm on the couch ensures his balance is kept.] This is about the bloody shadow, isn't it?
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but there are no good footings found in the conversation once he's sniffed out the cause-and-effect, the first domino, the catalyst. peggy's annoyance swims alongside her pride, and she can't figure out which to curse first -- his wits or her sentiment. the latter has always been rarer than the former.
she could lie, peggy thinks. and if she lied she also thinks she could fool him -- should she put her best shoulder to the stone and treat him more and more like the opposition instead of the ally he'd started out as. but instead of lie, she tilts back the whiskey bottle. another shot's worth, maybe a shot and a half, before the leans farther forward and places the alcohol just out of reach when she's once more sitting comfortably.
two fingers touch just above her brow in a mock salute. blasphemous, almost. ]
Well deduced, Sherlock.
[ but peggy reassures herself that her choice isn't any less rational simply because he's traced it back to its source. her chin lifts, letting her look at him as he stands. ]
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So to be sure I understand this clearly. [After all, they've both imbibed a decent amount of alcohol; Peggy's left a fair gap in the bottle she'd claimed for herself during their discussion, and Rip started off drunk, so they really should take the time to be sure they understand each other--especially as Rip is about to be right.] We started this little Wednesday tradition of ours because you refused to let Wonderland dictate our--relationship.
[He nearly spits out the word; even now, it feels too personal, too close to the heart. But if it does for him, then certainly, Rip thinks, it will for her too.
He points a finger in the air now, moving it about as he continues on.] And now, after another event, you've decide to call the whole thing off, and why? Because you think I'm going to turn my nose up at you.
[He shakes his head then, and oh, if she's expected his disappointment, then job well done Peggy Carter. She's earned it.]
You're a hell of a lot better than that, Miss Carter.
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and worse yet, this whole altercation underlines for peggy just how unusual it is for her to reach an incipient moment like this in any (any) of her would-be relationships since she'd been the one to break her engagement at nineteen. by this point, in any other relationship, the other someone would be gone already. dead, fled across whole bloody country, or turned intangible. or shacking up with his best friend. but she's got no comfortable way to tell him so.
the same can be said for their unsteady status as colleagues, as they'd taken to calling each other only recently. because look how poorly that's turned out back at the ssr! the destruction comes full circle, it seems, when her mere presence torpedoes another engagement.
(christ, daniel is the last person she wants to think about just now.)
she's poison, and not only with the men for whom she might carry a torch. but platonic, romantic, fledgling -- she mucks it all up. what few exceptions there are only prove the rule, and perhaps it's howard stark's place on that short short list that makes her so cripplingly afraid to lose tony's esteem in turn. peggy had steeled herself to never come back to this room, on a wednesday or otherwise, but one squabble with tony and her plan lost its legs. ]
I'm not, actually. [ better than that. ] But evidently I have done a bang up job of convincing you otherwise.
[ her fingers bite into the chair-arm, anchoring her as she resists the urge to stand up only so she can exist on the same plane as him. if finds her feet, if she removes so much as one of the hurdles between them by doing so? then peggy can't make herself any promises on staying put. the jury's still out as to whether she'd close the distance to hit him or hold him. ]
And even if it that wasn't the case? Good God, man, this truly isn't the place for it.
[ for relationships. no matter how fondly she still remembers the rousing wedding speech he'd given standing before ray and sarah both. ]
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[Because they could always compare their lists of mucked up relationships. Certainly Rip has any number of his own, and the fact that he doesn't so much as flinch when someone speaks of punching him speaks to that fact. He's gotten plenty of people killed, directly or otherwise. He's been rejected, betrayed, used as a pawn--and even those whom he associates most closely with now likely wouldn't say they trusted him, not truly. And those few good relationships he's maintained? Well. Perhaps they can be traced back to the fact that he'd been there and gone in the blink of an eye, or so history might show it to be.
Hell, even with his own family, his wife, his son. Rip had constantly been pulled away to the mission, the protection of time. What does it say about a father when his son says he misses him first, and that he loves him only after he's been reminded?
She tries to speak to better reason, but Rip is quick to shake his head.]
Come off it. You're only saying that now to try and distract me from the rest. [Even if she's right, and there's a damn good argument to be made for the fact that she is, Rip won't hear it now. This has gone beyond whatever desires they somehow have sparked in each other. He looks down--not at her, but the bottle she's put aside. Whiskey he'd plucked from the closet, hoping she might find the taste pleasant.
It's the same goal he had when picking out records too.]
You're afraid. Of being hurt, of hurting me, hell if I know. [Hell if it matters, really, just which it is. He swallows; the only shadows in the room now are the ones cast by the lights above, ones dimmed so they only shine enough to allow him to read. Yet it seems that once more Rip must profess what he thinks--what he knows to be true of her.]
But what I am sure of, absolutely certain, is that the Peggy Carter I've come to know wouldn't back away from something because she's afraid. Though you getting pissed of at it? Now that. [He nods to himself.] That I can see.
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the truth is that even if she has misjudged the quality his person, that doesn't mean he hasn't also misjudged the quality of hers. it's far more likely that they've both just about managed a pleasant(ish) fiction on their wednesday evenings.
peggy very nearly signals for him to take a ruddy seat, already, but some lines perhaps can't be crossed in his quarters. not now -- not when he's already courting her anger with a kind of precise familiarity she'd not realized she'd allowed him to gain. it's working, and as such it's difficult to say whether the colour in her cheeks is due to her temper or her lack of temperance.
against her better angels and finer judgement, she rises to her feet. if she's going to be heard, if she's going to be seen, then it had damned well better be on equal footing. as equal as it can be when he still has a few inches on her, even after the heels are accounted for. ]
You said something at the bathhouse. [ she steams forward with her irritation still foregrounded in her tone -- as though it's a true aggravation to be put into a position where she has to speak even this much plain truth. ] You said I was important to you. Well, you're important to me, too, you know.
[ one hand on her hip, the other loose and useless as her side. she should have said it then, perhaps. if so, that's on her. ]
And it's why I'm not trying to distract you when I insist once more that, for Heaven's sake, Wonderland isn't the place for it.
[ romance, love songs, dancing, getting her fingers once again twisted up in the collar of his shirt. none of it. ]
Because -- [ oh, bloody hell. her mouth settles into an earnest frown when she realizes, in a flash, how the best explanation is among the cruelest. at the very least, she has the good sense to appear apologetic before she speaks. ] Liability reasons, Mister Hunter.
[ theirs isn't the endearing love story. it belongs to some other rip hunter and some other peggy carter -- mayflies who were never meant to exist beyond the walls of their event. ]
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He's seen more than her façade; he's sure of it. As sure as he is that Peggy's gotten a glimpse past his—more than, when he thinks to the day she found him outside this room, when he found her shooting not at targets, but at her own heartache on July 4th.
She stands, and by instinct Rip leans forward just that touch to meet her at her level. For better or for worse, because it gives Peggy a damn fine view when his eyes widen at her words, the return of confession that she finds him important too. Something unspoken can be known but still somehow unreal; this, now, is given shape and weight by the cadence of her words, and Rip presses his mouth into a tight line, takes in one breath and then another.
Peggy can craft her lies well—but she isn't cruel enough to lie about this.
He swipes a hand across his lips, fingers outstretched, slow as they drag over his mouth. She goes on, insists on her logic, calls out to his with two simple words and yes, oh yes—
Rip does remember well just what they mean.]
Liability reasons. [He repeats them softly, his head dropping down, sagging as once more hands return to his hips. Some other Rip Hunter, some other Peggy Carter, who had met and kissed and maybe even fallen in love with the possibilities of each other. But she's right; that's not who they are, and Rip lets out a soft huff before he turns his head to look at her once more.]
I'm not some schoolboy gone head over heels, you realize. [God, what is he even saying? She's right, she's right, he knows she's right, and yet he still argues all the same. It's not just the desire to be contrary anymore; Rip knows it at his core. No, it's something more profound and more selfish all at once, and he could kick himself when he figures it out, just what he's fighting for then. After all, it's hardly fitting of a Time Master to be so moved for such a reason as not wanting to lose someone they care for.
He's never been meant to have such attachments.]
Where we are is a tragedy waiting to happen. [In time and place, in circumstances that exist only between them and as part of the world they've been forced to live in. Rip takes a step closer, as if he might somehow need to. As if in the quiet and dim of the room, she might not be able to hear him somehow.] I warned you when we met that there were nothing but bad barters in this world, and no doubt you know it just as well.
Yet even so.
[Even so.]
There's no ending this without regrets, regardless of what we choose.
[A knowledge shared between them. This path only promises agony at it's end, be it here in this room, or when the inevitable future comes. He reaches up then, brushes a lock of Peggy's hair back if she lets him, despite knowing damn well that he shouldn't.
He shouldn't. They shouldn't.]
Are you so sure that these are the regrets you wish to carry?
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just as well. whatever it is, peggy's not ready to call it what it is. what it might be.
and perhaps rip is correct to call her on her cowardice. she is afraid -- unwilling to put either him or herself on the line once more for what will only ever be a transient arrangement. he calls it a tragedy waiting to happen, but the cynic in her suspects the tragedy has already transpired. it was birthed in a moment much like this one, because the way he touches her cheek is hauntingly alike to the way she'd adjusted his collar pin once they'd finished dancing.
a liberty taken; a detail fixed. and peggy's eyes harden because while he protests that he's no schoolboy -- and not least of all because it's never occurred to her to think so little of his feelings. after all, they'd shored her up through the altercation with her shadow. without him and his support, she might have succumbed to fighting the thing. it wouldn't have ended well. then again, neither will this.
even so. she allows him the brush of his fingers. her mouth twitches into an uneasy line even as her head turns toward rip's touch. the motion isn't dramatic -- barely more than a minor correction, maybe, but it nevertheless measures as momentum in his direction. and that's why she frowns, as if she's disappointed in her own constitution.
it's become staggeringly obvious to peggy that she has allowed him too deep behind her walls. too often, she's let him see the toll taken by her regrets. it's a note he's often heard in her voice and it's that note he plucks right now. she's being called upon to weigh one regret against the other, choose the one she can better live with, and thereby make her bad barter. ]
No. [ peggy lays two fingers against his wrist, gently redirecting rip's hand before the warmth of his touch proves too diverting. as it had already had about, oh, seven minutes prior. ] But only because, just now, there's very little I find I'm sure of.
[ except she's sure of her instinct -- even when she doesn't like what her instinct is telling her. but she remembers once asking someone, someone who also rated the word important, whether it was imperative he settle for only two options. have, or have not. zeroes, or ones.
peggy doesn't let his wrist go. instead, her grip settles like a buffer between them. something to inoculate them both against any escalation. fingers turned inward against the architecture of his wrist, far enough along the arm so that she can't be accused of holding his hand. ]
I am sorry. [ has she apologized for anything, thus far? surely not in earnest. but it happens now -- although it feels like pulling teeth and it makes her stomach knot. ] Not for not showing up, mind you. [ implying, perhaps, that she still stands by that call. ] But...for the radio silence.
[ i'm sorry. ]
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That one alteration in course. The thudding in his own chest, steady. Constant.
He doesn't fight when she tugs at his wrist, draws his hand downward and away. Hers are not the only notes he's plucked with his words, because regret is so much of what forms their commonality. They have both made difficult, impossible choices. They have both risked so much, and felt the bitter pain of that loss.
They've both been the one to survive in the wake of death, to find themselves crumbled in a moment, torn and bleeding but still left to wonder when the new day comes, just how do they carry on.
She admits that she's not certain, and Rip only lets out a breathy huff because it makes him understand just how equally unsure he is as well. And that, that is the funny part, because he's normally the one who always can plan out the next step. To think and predict, to analyze situations and people and history itself, until the best of all the horrible choices stands out as the path he's meant to take.
But right now, just then, damned if he doesn't know where the next handful of seconds might lead as he stands there, head tilted forward, Peggy trapping his hand between them because as unwilling as she is to have him touch, equally she's unable to let him go.]
An apology from you. [One she means, a single grievance she laments and gives voice to. Not for her earlier failure to show up at his door, nor the kiss she pressed upon his lips, the one they shared once the spark of shock ended. He means to finish the joke, to cite how the world truly must be ending, because Peggy Carter has just apologized to him, of all people.
He cannot. The words die in his throat, supplanted by another set, another urge because if everything changes after this, then damn if he's not going to make this matter.]
I'm sorry too. [Not for transgressions already done, but ones yet to come. She holds his wrist between them, but Rip has height on his side. He tugs his arm down just that fraction, knows she'll understand what he means to do even before he leans his head forward. The best worst path, and he means to stand just as guilty as she, moreso perhaps, because if Peggy's kiss came in the heat of an argument's blaze, then Rip's would fall in the slow steady rise of incoming tides, the push and pull of an ocean that drags him out helpless into their depths.]
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she wishes she had the right words to say. she wishes she could apologize both for more or less. she wishes the book she'd tossed had hit him squarely in his lovely face. maybe, then, she might have felt that little bit better about how she now holds her place and raises her chin and exhales -- impatient -- in a way that dares him onward. yes, yes, go on -- give yourself something to be sorry for, peggy thinks.
rip frets over his ability to trace the broader picture. peggy, meanwhile, frets over hers to absorb the smallest specifics. hers is an intellect both immediate and instinctive, and there's something just a little too quiet and inexorable in what's soon-to-be another kiss. the lean-in is slow enough to let the bottom drop out of her stomach, to let her stew in the span of heartbeats
his pull on her hand is an early-warning sign, and peggy finds herself resenting the position in which it leaves her: with time on her hands! so much of it, brimming over, that there's no hope for blaming immediacy and instinct for what happens when she pushes upward -- heels leaving the floor to give her height, letting her mouth meet his. in this way, she's kissing him back even before the kiss begins. peggy is an equal partner in it.
it's a novel place to be. ordinarily, as earlier indicated, she's the aggressor. that role has always served her best. shoot first, cut first, kiss first.
her fingers travel from his wrist to his elbow, digging in just above the joint in a sudden hungry bid to keep her balance in favour of crashing against him. and maybe there are a handful of comments she could make, but there's no air going spare for any of them. she spends her lung capacity on him -- and only towards the end does she grab at the back of his neck with her other hand, dragging him that one, maybe two, inches lower. ]
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But he knows better. Head swimming from alcohol and the late hour and the heat of her mouth once more against his, Rip still knows that there is nothing promised in the moment after this one, or the next. So he doesn't waste his time with comfortable barbs of their normal Wednesday tete-a-tete; it's long past Wednesday, and the morning would no doubt see them less compromised.
So he lets abandon guide him, seeks out the taste of her under rum and whiskey, and the lingering traces of her lipstick. Once her hands shift so do his, each finding a place at her waist and drawing her closer, until there's little more than a whisper left between them. Words are left forgotten, unspoken, even in the moments when one or both of them must break away, forgo the pleasure of their indulgence to answer the greedy demands of lungs starved of air. But on those breaths he can still catch her scent, perfume and alcohol and this isn't Wednesday, but already it all feels familiar.
They've been there minutes, longer, before he finally does speak. His eyes still closed, his forehead resting against hers.] We should move. [A necessary note of caution, because the longer they stand there the more the room seems to spin, and while Rip is quite content to lose himself in her for however long this night allows, he'd rather not sway too far in one way or another, and find himself tumbling down in ridiculous fashion.
The problem is, caution isn't so much a thing being indulged tonight. Even after he advises, Rip is quick to press his mouth to the corner of hers and lower, to tilt his head so he can trace out a path along the line of her jaw.]
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