Steve Rogers / Captain America (
assembles) wrote in
entrancelogs2017-07-03 08:49 am
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Entry tags:
to the morning we're cast out [closed]
Who: Steve Rogers & Peggy Carter
Where: Room 515
When: 07/03
Rating: PG
Summary: Steve has some fessing up to do.
The Story:
[ Now that the shock of Peggy's arrival here has worn off and she's settled in as much as anyone can really settle into Wonderland, Steve knows that it's time. A mixture of guilt and obligation has settled over him ever since she got here, a reminder nagging at the back of his mind that he needed to clear something up with her as soon as possible.
Because they're from different times and places now. Peggy's only a couple of years out from the war, whereas for Steve it may as well be a lifetime ago. He's had four years in the future, three in Wonderland, and when he looks at her she's still how he remembers her, except that there's more grief in her now, and it's hard to reconcile that it's grief for him that's worn her down.
Steve knows what Peggy's life becomes, or at least the broad strokes of it. She'd moved on after his death, and he's had to do his own kind of moving on, but Wonderland complicates everything.
This is a conundrum he'd had to struggle with once before, when Peggy had been here a previous time, though he'd never had the chance to resolve it back then. Not before she'd vanished.
All it takes is a text message, though he hesitates for a few minutes on hitting send. Steve has no idea how Peggy might react to the news of him and Bucky, if she'll be shocked or upset or confused or a mix of all those things. He knows how it'll sound, but all he can do is stay calm and explain himself.
Once she gives him the okay to come to her room, Steve appears within minutes and knocks firmly on her door. ]
Peggy? It's me.
Where: Room 515
When: 07/03
Rating: PG
Summary: Steve has some fessing up to do.
The Story:
[ Now that the shock of Peggy's arrival here has worn off and she's settled in as much as anyone can really settle into Wonderland, Steve knows that it's time. A mixture of guilt and obligation has settled over him ever since she got here, a reminder nagging at the back of his mind that he needed to clear something up with her as soon as possible.
Because they're from different times and places now. Peggy's only a couple of years out from the war, whereas for Steve it may as well be a lifetime ago. He's had four years in the future, three in Wonderland, and when he looks at her she's still how he remembers her, except that there's more grief in her now, and it's hard to reconcile that it's grief for him that's worn her down.
Steve knows what Peggy's life becomes, or at least the broad strokes of it. She'd moved on after his death, and he's had to do his own kind of moving on, but Wonderland complicates everything.
This is a conundrum he'd had to struggle with once before, when Peggy had been here a previous time, though he'd never had the chance to resolve it back then. Not before she'd vanished.
All it takes is a text message, though he hesitates for a few minutes on hitting send. Steve has no idea how Peggy might react to the news of him and Bucky, if she'll be shocked or upset or confused or a mix of all those things. He knows how it'll sound, but all he can do is stay calm and explain himself.
Once she gives him the okay to come to her room, Steve appears within minutes and knocks firmly on her door. ]
Peggy? It's me.
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steve's message isn't alone in her disdain. every one she gets feels like that. she wonders if it's a discomfort she'll ever overcome. maybe she'll be lucky and she won't be stuck here in wonderland long enough to find out.
but if she is going to be stuck? well, at least the company continues to floor her. it's been well over a month and she has yet to properly digest the revelation that steve is alive. she hasn't spoken with him as often as she'd like but -- but she isn't the type to go throwing herself at moments which ought to sprout organically from the dirt and muck of this place. regardless, she carries herself with a silently harboured expectation.
for a dance, perhaps. or possibly more. when she thinks about it, she grows a heady mix of mournful and giddy. as such, peggy doesn't allow the thought to cross her mind too often.
except for now when she receives his message and the whole time between him sending it and him arriving causes her to be eaten away -- eroded -- by curiousity.
truth be told (embarrassing, really), she's within reach of the door when his knock arrives. peggy counts to ten, steels her heart against the sight of him, and eases the door open with an expression schooled perfectly as though she hadn't spent the last few minutes feeling like a schoolgirl again.
her face is inscrutable except for a distantly polite smile. peggy steps aside, jerking her head to indicate that he ought to enter. at the very least, she's moving better now; the wound she'd arrived with doesn't both her. ]
I rather doubted it'd be anyone else. [ wry. ] It's not as though I've been here long enough to make friends.
[ and the one earnest connection she'd made is apparently evil now, so that's a whole other kettle of drama. ]
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Especially with her. Every moment he gets to spend in her presence, seeing her face cycle through its range of emotions, hearing her laugh or scoff or verbally brush something off, is yet another gift. He isn't sure there's any way he could put into words how much it means to him.
Which is in stark contrast to what he's here to tell her about, but he doesn't know how to explain that either. That he cares for both of them so much, that his heart is large enough to accommodate that.
Well, better to get it over with quickly, like yanking off a band-aid.
She doesn't greet him with enthusiasm, not that Steve would expect that. Peggy's always known how to keep herself buttoned up when the situation calls for it; he just needs to show her that she doesn't need to bother with any of that anymore. They can be themselves around each other. ]
A month isn't long enough? [ Teasing, with a crooked smile to match. He tilts his head at her questioningly before he steps inside and takes a look around. ] You'll get there. The majority of the people here are worth knowing. [ People with good hearts, with strong morals. People like them.
After taking in the room, Steve shifts to look at Peggy with a closer eye. ] How's your wound? [ It's been long enough for her to have healed now, maybe, but he still wants to ask after her.
He needs to ease into this conversation, anyway. ]
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peggy flattens a hand against the place on her lower stomach where she'd incurred the injury. the fabric of her blouse crinkles under the touch. ] It'll scar. But it's coming along nicely. I barely notice it. These days.
[ but she doesn't want to talk about her wound. not even with him -- even now, she's remained particularly coy about its details, aside from the obvious cause-and-effect. for now, she tries to adjust the conversation around that obstacle and prove how much of a recovery she's made when she lifts a chair from where it's snug against the wall and carries it into the middle of the room. a place for him to sit.
evidently, she doesn't have company over often. ]
-- You said a majority of the people here are worth knowing. What about the minority?
[ see, she's been thinking about this a lot lately... ]
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[ The future is sometimes a difficult place, sometimes cold, sometimes confusing. But there's plenty of good about it too. Steve had made a habit of composing a mental list in his head, of all the good things. The medical advances, the technology, the movement toward accepting women as equals, all the stuff that made him proud. It made it a little easier to deal with the bad.
Of course he wants to know more about how Peggy got hurt in the first place, but she's quick to change the subject and he knows how that is, and how frustrating it is to be called out on it.
He eyes the chair for a few seconds before he sits, watching her to make sure she does the same, even if it's on her bed for lack of a better place.
Her question draws a sigh out of him. It's fair of her to ask, but he didn't come here for this kind of conversation. It's not like he's going to shy away from answering, though, but it does make the wait to confess to her that much more excruciating. ]
There's always some bad apples. He isn't here anymore, but there was someone who presented himself as a good guy, a doctor and a therapist who wanted to help people. Had everyone fooled, and it turned out that he was... well. [ There's no way to sugarcoat this, and Steve rubs at his eyes for a moment as he finishes the sentence in a half-hushed tone. ] Killing and eating people.
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peggy also eventually sits. she holds onto the edge of her bed with both hands, and crosses her feet at the ankles. it's a remarkably relaxed posture. for her. and it stays relaxed even as he brings up the example of a sly cannibal.
although she certainly does frown. ]
Sounds like something a bit more than a bad apple. [ her gut twists at the prospect. ] How long had he been at it?
[ she keeps a division between her questions and her emotions. her reaction is as clinical as she can manage. ]
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The two of them would have made a great team in the long-term. Maybe here in Wonderland they could do some good together. He doesn't have to be Captain America to fight alongside her.
He's getting ahead of himself, though, and he expels a protracted breath as he tries to think back. ] Months. At least half a year. He'd, uhh, invite people to dinner parties. I'm not sure there's anyone that twisted here now. I hope not, anyway. And you've already gotten a taste of what the Mirrors are like.
[ Steve wishes for the lull in the conversation that he needs to get to the real point of his visit, but he doesn't want to force it either. He's already nervous enough as it is, he doesn't need to make it any worse. Instead he remains patient, hands clasped in front of him as he tries not to fidget too much. ]
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but although it's been some two years since she's seen him, she can read between his nerves. she can't read them exactly, of course, but peggy's made a career of watching for these tells and tics. of listening for when a thrust of a conversation is evident, or when it seems to be missing.
and this one is missing.
so peggy makes it easy on him, for once in her life. she folds her hands in her lap and leans forward by degrees. ]
But I rather doubt you came here to discuss cannibals, Steve.
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Granted, he doubts he'll ever run out of warnings to give Peggy. Wonderland changes around so often that there's always going to be some new threat. Peggy can take care of herself, but it takes a few months to adjust to the mansion's particular brand of danger.
Right now, though, it's just the two of them, and everything he's failed to catch her up on so far. His thumb drags over the back of his opposite hand as he braces himself. One step at a time.
He glances up, meets her eyes. ]
How much have you talked to Bucky since you got here?
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the moment he names sergeant barnes, peggy thinks she knows what this is about. after all, the man had tried to tell her himself back at the ski lodge. hadn't he? something about hydra, and something else about having hurt people. worse, likely. and she'd been flinty from the outset. it's not information that's easily digested. but, then again, she's yet to come across anything new and relevant to this place that hasn't turned her stomach in one fashion or another.
(sometimes, she feels so left behind by the changes that have so outpaced her.)
peggy huffs a breath, steels herself for one story, and sees no foreshadowing of another. ]
We've talked. Once. Twice, technically, but it turns out the first conversation was with the mirrored one.
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Steve frowns when Peggy mentions Bucky's Mirror. He hasn't interacted with the new "version" that must have been created when Bucky returned, but that's probably for the best, and it seems that Peggy came out of the encounter unscathed. Good.
Again, though, he isn't here to talk about Mirrors. There's a lot to say about Bucky, though, and he'd rather not rush this. ]
Well, what did he tell you about himself? Bucky, not the Mirror. I'm sure you noticed that he's... different.
[ Not just the longer hair and the metal arm, but his demeanor too. He's not the cocksure flirty guy who deflects anything that bothers him with a smooth joke. He's not the sort of person who'll slide into your personal space and sling an arm over your shoulder anymore. ]
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[ he's told her a great deal. all in one hard, honest rush. peggy hadn't taken it with grace; but, then again, how could she? it hadn't been the easiest truth to swallow: to consider first that one's life work hasn't been half so successful as one had thought, and then the sub-realization that such a failure had impacted the lives of those she'd once served beside. what would the commandos have felt, she'd wondered, to learn that their efforts in swabbing up hydra after the war hadn't done near enough good?
peggy's mouth goes dry. her careful mask doesn't fall apart, but it certainly doe shift. ]
He told me about HYDRA. Hinted at what happened to him. I confess, it came as something of a surprise.
[ peggy doesn't outright say it. you should have told me. but the rebuke is there, hidden under her brown eyes. ]
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Yeah, it blindsided me too. [ He lifts a hand to rub at his eyes, the memory still a difficult one. ] We were hunting him as this shadowy figure, the 'Winter Soldier.' I had no idea, not until we were in the middle of a fight and his mask came off. And even then, he didn't have a clue who I was.
[ It had been just as difficult for Steve to swallow, finding out that HYDRA had never gone away, that all of their hard work had been for nothing. This is something they can commiserate on.
His hand drops as he draws in a breath. ] He managed to break his programming, but then he disappeared. I didn't find him again until two years later, and it wasn't under the best circumstances.
[ There, that's the groundwork laid out. For back home, anyway. Within Wonderland it becomes even more complicated. ]
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like a shadow-edged puzzle piece she can't quite force into place. it bothers her, gets under her skin, and turns her cranky even when she doesn't mean to be. but (for now and for his sake) she swallows that urge to snarl her way through a fresh tirade. ]
Programming of any sort is a tricky thing. [ peggy owns up to a passing familiarity, but not much else. ] It's remarkable he managed to break it -- although the way he tells it, you were instrumental in that.
[ that part peggy believes. utterly. ]
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When Peggy calls out his part in it, Steve shrugs -- humble as always, it's a reaction he almost can't seem to help. ]
Not before he beat me within an inch of my life, but... yeah, I was able to get through to him.
[ They're getting off-track, though. Steve straightens in his seat and takes a look around the room before continuing his explanation. ]
The last I remembered of him was that moment, and then I came to Wonderland. As it turned out, Bucky was here too, but he was taken from the moment of falling from the train. He didn't know what was ahead of him, and I didn't know how to tell him. [ He heaves out a breath, looks down at his hands in his lap, and shakes his head. ] I guess a selfish part of me didn't want to. I didn't him to be bogged down with that.
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her stomach turns at the thought. the old possessiveness rears again. but peggy does the good thing (the right thing) and stamps it out. ]
But I assume you did. [ tell him. it would likely be the proper thing to do. ] In the end.
[ truth be told, she's not certain why they're having this conversation of all conversations. perhaps it's something steve needs to hear -- although as yet she hasn't figured out why she needs to, also. ]
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[ Steve's gaze shifts to the side when he says that, because in the end it had been Bucky who had confronted him about it, when he'd received enough clues through the events here to put some of it together on his own.
Again, though, that's not really the point of Steve being here. He heaves out a sigh, still looking anywhere but at Peggy as he continues. ]
Eventually he got sent home and came back with all the trauma of what HYDRA did on his shoulders, but we had a while before that. It was a chance I knew I'd never get outside of Wonderland, having him here the way he was back in '45.
[ And Bucky had known it too. That's why he'd thrown caution to the wind and expressed all those feelings he'd been holding back, all that time. ]
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it's small. and, in truth, it's more a twitch than a smile. a quirk of her lips not dissimilar to the way she'd meet his victories and triumphs in camp lehigh: a funny mixture of pride and aloofness that went dormant for so long but which finds itself alive and well again of late. it's the one good thing (she thinks) that's been bundled into being here.
a prickle along her spine prompts her to tell him how she has been thinking about just that -- about opportunity. but even before she'd met steve rogers, she'd been a reticent creature. so peggy swallows down her hope and finds herself once more putting other priorities in its place.
for one, she's not yet convince steve has reached his point. the brief spark of something pleasant dies on her face. she replaces it with the old professionalism. ]
Must have been quite an ordeal. For both of you. [ she proceeds with compassion. after all, she remembers steve's grief in the wake of what happened on the train line. she remembers finding him with a useless bottle. to retread so much ground, and then break soil on new trauma?
quite an ordeal indeed. ]
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Peggy's presence here has been much more sporadic, even if this is her third time here. But there had never been that same opportunity to build something they'd never been allowed back home, and so it's turned out this way.
That doesn't make it any easier to explain now. Peggy seems glad for the chances he's had, but it's difficult to read much more than that in her shifting expression. ]
Yeah, especially since...
[ He draws in a breath, lets it out. Here goes. ]
Before he went back, but when he knew what was coming in his future, I guess he figured that he needed to make the most of the time he had with him. [ Time untainted by HYDRA's influence on his mind. ] So he took a leap and admitted he felt things for me, you know... something deeper than friendship.
[ The silence rings in Steve's ears after he speaks that last word, as he braces himself for Peggy's reaction. ]
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here it is -- the moment where a funny kind of dread starts to winnow into her bones. it's nothing like the icy grip of a fight, of an infiltration gone bad, of a miserable realization where lives hang in the balance. it's a softer dread, but it's dread all the same.
nothing in what steve says spells anything concrete, but good god she can tell when she's being let down easy. and so something constricts in her throat. something turns hazy in her head. the final piece doesn't fall into place, but she understands that it won't be what she longs to here.
sergeant james barnes took a leap. huzzah, it seems, for sergeant james barnes. ]
And?
[ peggy urges him onward with a single word. she sits a little straighter, demeanor twisting a little more distant. get on with it, she wants to tell him, stop dawdling.
piss or get off the pot, she thinks. she's getting the story piecemeal; it's beginning to fray her nerves. ]
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While Steve may not have regrets for how things turned out between him and Bucky, he does feel guilt all the same. He knows he can't have it both ways, but it could have just as easily been the other way around, if Peggy had been the one stuck here with him for months and months, back at the start. His heart belongs to both of them in equal measures.
He lifts a hand and runs it over his mouth, a nervous action. ]
I was surprised at first. Wasn't really expecting it. Bucky was always so good at sweet talking, but... well, I knew it was the only chance I had, so we decided to make it official.
[ It's hard not to feel like he's just pulled the rug out right from under Peggy, and he wishes there was some way to soften the fall. ]
He's been home and back a few times since then, but that much has stayed the same between us. With some work.
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but she forces herself to listen -- hoping that maybe the the brunt of it will shock her system like an ice bath and teach her to know better than to pin her heart on half-made promises. grief-stricken daydreams. steve speaks about surprise, about an 'us,' about work.
peggy feels her stomach turn. and it's got nothing to do with the prospect of best friends becoming more. it's got everything to do with the meager hope she'd nursed for years after his voice had crackled into little more than static over the radio. ]
Is that all? The long and short of it? [ to protect herself, her voice runs chilly. hard and impersonal, although the sudden glimmer of something wet in her eyes suggests there's nothing impersonal about it. with grace, she rises to her feet and makes for the door -- prepared to open it for him and see him out of her room.
her voice quivers. ] Honestly, Steve, I don't see what the fuss is -- your personal life never was and still won't be any of my ruddy business.
[ already, and with a lie, she tries to distance herself. already, she tries to shrug it off as though it means nothing. but in the process she betrays precisely how deep she's been hurt. enough to make her skip the part where she gets angry and makes a scene. this isn't private lorraine and four fired shots. this is something different.
different enough (aching enough) to snap up her walls and her armour as though he were anyone other than himself -- someone less privy to her inner-workings, exiled from any vantage point from which he might see a scrap of vulnerability. ]
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She isn't doing a very good job of keeping up that act, not with the wetness at the corners of her eyes that makes Steve want to draw her close and wrap his arms around her once more. Not that he suspects she would take that well at all.
For all that Peggy might claim that this is none of her business, they both know better. They both know what they'd promised to each other. Maybe it had just been a dance, but it had meant so much more, a promise of something beyond that. Once all the fighting was over, once they could be themselves with each other.
But it was not to be. Not when Steve went into the ice for almost seventy years, leaving Peggy to tough things out on her own. Of course she'd moved on; it's only what he would have wanted for her.
That doesn't make the thought of what could have been that settles between them any easier to bear.
Insisting on staying here when she's upset wouldn't do any good, but simply leaving without another word doesn't feel right either. Steve stands and moves toward Peggy, dipping his head to look in her eyes. His hand twitches with the urge to touch her, but there may as well be a solid wall between, even where there's only a few inches of space there. ]
I'm sorry. [ The words are out of his mouth before he can think better of them. ] I know... none of this turned out the way that we thought it would.
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that's it. that's all of it. as close as they'll ever come to 'what we wanted' -- a bad radio soap opera and the dreams she'll never cop to having dreamed. while steve thinks about how she might have moved on, peggy is left adrift under understanding that she'd not yet managed it. she'd poured his blood into the east river, yes, and she'd taken a chance on a man who'd not returned her calls and...
and however much she might move on in future, she feels very stuck in this moment. stuck, and humiliated, and hurt. even so, she meets his eyes as readily as ever. she's never had a hard time staring him down. ]
You should go. [ peggy tells him tersely. she doesn't miss the flicker of his hand and before he can do something stupidly noble -- anything gentle or sweet or tide-turning at all -- she sees fit to banish him from that duty. if his personal life isn't to be her business, then she'll equally make hers none of his. this is a mess he's got no obligation to help clean up. ] Please, [ she exhales the word more than speaks it, ] go.
[ she'd much rather be alone with her sore feelings. ]
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Well, it doesn't seem that likely right now, not when she's asking, practically pleading with him to leave her be. When she asks something of him, like that, there's no way that he could deny her. As much as he'd like to somehow make things right here and now, he knows that isn't possible. She at least needs some time to let this all sink in, and to grieve.
He swallows heavily and nods. ] All right, I will. [ He turns to the door, still half-open, and lets out a breath. This still feels wrong, but staying any longer, saying anything more, would be directly against Peggy's wishes, and he's already done enough damage here.
So with one last look at her, his brow pinched and his eyes full of guilt, he steps out of the room and closes the door behind him. ]