entrancelogs | I would break the laws of gravity

Entry tags:

I would break the laws of gravity

Who: Leo Fitz and OPEN (log is for all, some closed starters in comments)
Where: Checkerboard Hills
When: August 9th, just past midnight
Rating: PG+
Summary: Man returns to Wonderland after two months at home under heavy stress. Man throws toddler-level tantrum in public space. As adults are wont to do.
The Story:

[Apparently, the stories are true. When one leaves Wonderland, one is thrust back home without memory. There's nothing to prevent the mistakes he should know to avoid, no way to apply the emotional developments he's earned. It's just the harsh progression of time, doing what time wishes. And there's no way to stop it from bringing them back before they're ready to come back.

When Fitz arrives, it's facedown into a patch of eternally-manicured grass. The memories hit all at once, but they're not memories he wants. He doesn't need to know about a ridiculous fantasy dimension holding people hostage. He was kind of in the middle of something a little life-or-death...!

It's too much to hold, and far more than he can process. Instead of wandering back to the mansion and settling back into his personal space, he stays where he is, pulling himself up to his hands and knees and tearing at the grass in open distress, shouting out at nothing and everything all at once.]

Not now! There's no time for this!

[Some people hit pillows. Right now, he's technically landscaping. And he's definitely not tearing up. That's probably all the dirt he's dislodging.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He nods to the mug, interpreting it as permission to begin prepping a cup of his own.]

It hasn't happened specifically to me, but I'm aware of the phenomena. There doesn't appear to be much consistency regarding whether one will returned here remembering that Wonderland exists, though everything from here appears to be inaccessible once we've left this space. I've had some theories about the process, but they'll require extensive revision now that I've gone through it.

[ she gestures with the cup -- implying, easily, that he should go ahead and pour himself one. ]

Yes. I've had a bit of a chat with someone who had described the process similarly. [ inaccessible. just as well. peggy can foresee, now, the challenges that might arise if she managed to leave this place with any of her memories intact.

painful though they are, it doesn't mean she's keen to give them up. ]

But I think I'd quite like to hear those theories. Revisions and all.

[He'll do just that then, fussing with cupboards and taking the smaller steps to preparation even though he could very well just produce one.]

Well frankly, I'd thought that it was just more mind games. It seems terribly convenient for a place like this to keep us in some kind of compartmentalized event space while it takes something more personal from us, and then construct a false "home" narrative over our ability to remember what's been done. And I'm sure that could still be the case, but the experience seems substantially more legitimate than that.

I had the opportunity to learn quite a lot more about wormhole-based travel, for instance. Wonderland's been actively trying to prevent me from gathering exactly that skillset.

[ fitz should already know this face: hers, tilted just slightly as she listens with care and rapt interest. it's more attention than she gives to other matters, certainly. there's more investment going spare in the ideological architecture of this place than in most other topics.

and it's a damn shot better than talking about her feelings. ]

Alas, the question grows a touch more moot if that knowledge and skillset can't then be applied now that you're back. [ a beat. ] How long have you been back?

[ perhaps not long enough to try, not that she's certain he even would after what happened the last time. ]

Six... Seven hours? I've not looked at the time recently.

[He pours his tea, dilutes it with heavy cream, and drops several heaping scoops of sugar into it.]

Application is questionable at best, but not entirely outside of the realm of possibility. The trouble is in how particular it's turned out to be. I don't think that a desert planet flooded with ancient monsters and HYDRA agents is exactly an upgrade from here.

-- Good Lord, man.

[ six? seven hours? only? but it's hard to know whether that's what raises her ire as opposed to this adulteration of tea he's concocting in his mug. she's a staunch fan of the plain cuppa. anything else is polluted, surely.

but it all falls away when fitz continues. hydra agents. peggy's expression sours all the more. somehow, that bugs her more than ancient monsters. ]

Certainly not. [ but beg pardon... ] Did you say a planet?

[His tea is superlative, thanks much. But he'll assume her outburst is tea-based. He hears about it from Jemma enough to ignore the commentary altogether.]

I did, yes. There's been some trouble with -- well, I'm certain you wouldn't want to be bored with things that won't happen for half a century.

Bored isn't the word I'd use.

[ and yet fitz isn't wrong. peggy does tend to dread learning more about a world that's both eerily different and eerily the same. and given his mention of hydra? well.

she hides her frown behind another mouthful of tea. blissfully, bitterly black. ]

But you're right to remind me against asking. [ praise, albeit of the thin variety. ]

I'm certain you've got enough to worry about without splintering your focus.

[He smiles, but it's forced and weary.]

It never ends, does it? There's always something.

[ bless him. force and weariness and all. peggy might have smiled back, perhaps, but she's far from a mood which allows it. instead, it's merely her scowl which softens. ]

Occupational hazard, I'm afraid. [ which is more wryly said than it ought to be, given their differing acronyms. she understands that he doesn't need her tell him so. ] Here or home. I can't speak about wormholes -- [ look, she's not even certain she knows what one is. ] But before I was dragged here? We were contending with a nasty bit of something. Some new transdimensional element. Purportedly.

[ -- although it sounds laughable to tell fitz so. she can't imagine that zero matter didn't go down in someone's record books as a massive bloody headache. ]

[Except that some things didn't. Or they did, but not with the level of importance they ought to have.]

Did you say transdimensional? Can -- would you be willing to say more about that?

[ -- now, there's a bit of something curious. peggy pauses, sets her mug aside, and crosses her arms over her chest. ]

Alright. [ but before she delves into anything too detailed: ] But not before reminding you that I've got no degrees next to my name. I may not be the best suited to explaining what happened. Let alone why it happened. For that, you'd need Howard Stark.

[ or jason wilkes. or, heaven forbid, whitney frost. ]

Given a lack of their presence, we'll have to make do. Shall we sit and chat?

[This is the sort of Fitz embroiled in work rather than the one who regretted looking at his job. There's even occasional eye contact even, as he pulls up a chair and snatches a napkin for note-taking.]

[ where to begin?

peggy chews over that question as she slips into a chair. it might be just a touch daunting to see him grab for the napkin, but at least it doesn't feel like an interrogation. ]

Whatever it is -- wherever it came from -- it's made up of pure negative energy. And it's horridly unstable. A body laced with the stuff was dumped in Echo Lake during a Los Angeles heat wave and the whole thing froze solid. [ ... ] Its discoverers took to calling it Zero Matter.

[ actually, this is a touch alarming. ] It's not ringing any bells?

[ she doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. ]

It might not be called that anymore...

[But he's been taking down keywords from what she's saying and doodling chemical compositions beside them.]

What you're describing matches something we know as Darkforce. It's a known cause of certain superhuman abilities, usually transferred through accidental exposure. Though I'd need to know more about your Zero Matter to tell if it's a synonym or simply a related genus. Could have also been an evolution over time.

I saw a bit of that. Superhuman abilities. Although not all of them useful. Or, I dare say, welcome. [ she taps the table with the tips of her fingernails. ] A particularly brilliant physicist has found himself rendered utterly intangible thanks to the stuff.

[ a beat. ]

Another's gone mad. From the Zero Matter or some preexisting condition.

[ darkforce. it's something she won't be forgetting any time soon. ]

There's a lot of them out there, whether or not we're ready for them. [He looks up from his notes.] Your men won't be the last good people lost to our attempts to understand the forces at work.

Oh -- goodness. No. They're not mine. [ there is the slightest near-hint of egregious protest. ] Or rather neither of them work for the SSR. One is putting his career and his life at risk by cooperating with us. And the other...

[ a puff of her cheeks. ] She's what some might cavalierly refer to as the 'villain' of the circumstance. Box clever, perhaps, but certainly not on the side of the angels.

Ah. One of those. [He nods then, but his frown deepens.] I'm familiar with the type. Thinks the ends justify means. Doesn't care who gets hurt in the process?

Indeed. [ peggy offers a nod. she's not certain whether fitz needs to know that it's the whitney frost, of all people, who harbours such malicious tendencies. perhaps that detail has also been lost to time.

instead, she twists her reply around a different knot. ] I've felt it. [ her fist clenches. unclenches. ] Zero Matter -- the Darkforce, if it really is the same thing. The pain was indescribable. If you'll recall the injury I had when we first met, Agent Fitz, I'll admit now that it was sustained while avoiding the aforementioned villain. She seems to have figured out how to weaponize the substance in her bloodstream.

[Wait okay Peggy Carter you can't just come along and say that without expecting a reaction. He drops his pen altogether and stares at her, wide-eyed.]

Someone ought to be treating you for exposure. Have you been experiencing any adverse reactions since the incident? Anything abnormal, still lingering? Discoloration of skin, a change in eye color, anything of the sort?

[ oh, hell. more of this. she gives her head a quick shake. ]

I'm perfectly alright. [ even the gut wound sustained while avoiding whitney frost's zero matter abilities has healed up quite nicely. ] It wasn't for long enough to make any difference. I've been thoroughly checked out and cleared back home.

[ sort of. by an er nurse and by the ssr's least popular scientist. and wilkes did lend his expertise, if not his touch. ]

The only adverse reaction, Agent Fitz, has been arriving here. So unless that's a direct result of exposure? [ and peggy shrugs as though she hasn't exactly ruled that out. ] I'm fine.

It's something I've considered. Both of the times I was sent here, it was in tandem with some attempts at interplanetary travel.Engaging with the fabric of spacetime might disrupt a field enough to trigger ambient particles that involve the mechanics of Wonderland in itself... But that's still just conjecture on my part.

Conjecture, yes, [ she allows, ] and I can't imagine it accounts for the lion's share of our fellow residents.

[ but it bears considering, doesn't it? ever since her arrival, peggy has been considering the potential role of the zero matter in this entire affair. she craves a linear explanation. or else she craves something she can hit.

but knowing she's unlikely to be granted either, she's taken to stewing instead. ]

[Linear explanations all seem to involve some sort of nonlinear shortcut. "Magic" or some rot.]

Most of them wouldn't know string theory from a shoelace, so probably not. We'll simply have to continue studying events and hoping that something will present itself more plainly soon.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject