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open » youth is wasted on the young

Who: Peggy Carter + OPEN
Where: Various spots
When: From July 3rd to mid-month.
Rating: PG, most likely.
Summary: Peggy digests some unexpected developments, fires away her disappointments, and throws herself into more productive endeavours. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.
The Story:

FIRING RANGE (backdated to july 4th)--

[ steve's confession, of sorts, scatters her emotions and sends peggy's fledgling optimism deep underground. perhaps it'd been the sort of thing she should never have nurtured: hope; expectation; excitement for the few decent possibilities wonderland might have offered to offset so much horror and disappointment. but she'd made a mistake when she'd allowed herself to put the cart in front of the horse. to put it mildly. it's a mistake she won't make again. of all those involved, she blames herself most -- for courting distraction when she ought to be focused on survival. just as it had been during the war, she should brook no time for love nor distractions. it only gets people hurt.

so the day after her conversation with steve sees her at the firing range. she's got one of those modern firearms, given to her by sharon, and she decides she'd better grow comfortable with it. and quick. now that her wound is feeling much better, there's no excuse to hang back and wait out disasters when she could wade into them instead. it's a cold comfort to squeeze out a few whole clips on a muggy 'independence day,' knowing that others might yet be celebrating elsewhere on the grounds.

afterwards, while field-stripping the gun and giving it a good cleaning, she sits well-back of the range itself. her expression is stony, and when she fumbles with the unfamiliar barrel and utters a sharp curse. it's said with far more vehemence than the error merits. ]

THE VENDORS (july 9th)--

[ curiousity (paired with an appetite for diversion) eventually gets the better of her and she ventures into the orchards. she'd like to tell herself she'd only been walking, without intention, and meandered in their direction. truth is, she wants to see these wares with her own eyes. touch them, perhaps, with her own fingertips. peggy goes from stall to stall with her notebook tucked protectively under one arm.

she'd heard about the prices the vendors might place on their goods. the concept intrigues her a little more than it ought to, especially considering she'd arrived with very little currency of her own, but she manages to resist the urge to make a purchase. after all, she'd never been one for ownership; it'd never meshed well with her chosen career.

but she does try to snag the attention of another resident as he or she walks by, asking: ] Pardon, but...have you bought anything from these fellows?

[ is it worth it? ]

AROUND THE GROUNDS (all month)--

[ the mansion was already beginning to feel oppressive. but now, understanding the true cost of opportunity the building might represent, peggy feels driven to spend as little time under its roof as possible. she begs a thermos from her bedroom closet and fills it to the brim with hot black tea -- making do with ordering cup after cup in the dining hall and pouring each one in succession into the vessel. this becomes a mid-morning ritual, with a square of toast smeared in jam taken for a quick breakfast. on any given day, she might be found sitting with her back against an outer wall at the stables, or on the edge of the fountain, or perhaps on a blanket by the lakeshore.

although the place changes, the scene is otherwise always the same: peggy, her gone-lukewarm thermos sitting open beside her, and a notebook canted against her knees while she writes slowly and deliberately. either because this is a new undertaking, or because she herself is so recently arrived, only a handful of pages have thus far been filled. some of the sentences appear legible (intended in english) but others, should anyone peer over her shoulder, are gibberish. coded, most likely.

when strangers or rare familiar faces walk by, she'll at least do the decent thing and give a cordial nod. despite her sour mood, it doesn't register all that much differently from her customary distance and chill. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When we did it at home, it seemed like it was more like helping Rip remember what's real. Getting the noise out of the way and giving him a chance to see clearly.

[ he pauses to let her savor her next cupcake, let his words sink in. as far as he could figure, it had been as barbaric as rip himself had said. ray takes the moment to dip his hand into the water of the fountain and splash it around a little. ]

I don't think it'll be the same, here. But we don't have much choice.

[ getting the noise out of the way. now, doesn't that sound familiar? peggy swallows another bite of cupcake and appears to be waffling on the edge of something. not a confession, exactly.

but ever since the last event, and what transpired with the sudden rising of the dead, she'd realized that her discretion might not be quite so valorous. it isn't easy to cop to her experience or her profession. however. ]

It's not the first case of 'brainwashing' I've come across. [ her attention drops down to the cupcake. ] But what I witnessed back home was decidedly not technological in nature. More akin to a very potent hypnosis. And it was exactly as you said -- cutting through the noise. Helping the afflicted see the woods for the trees. So to speak.

[ ray's nose crinkles at that, and he stops splashing. he's on the fence about his feelings, here. ]

Is it too hypocritical for me to say that sounds creepy?

[ it's also the first time he hasn't been prompted to infodump on peggy. the first time he feels like she's voluntarily shared something. he chances a guess: ]

Was it a friend of yours?

-- Oh, it is. Exceedingly creepy.

[ peggy considers the silence that slides easily, now, between them. it doesn't escape her notice how ray isn't rushing to fill it. which means (she now realizes) that the burden of conversation falls on her shoulders.

well. it isn't as though she didn't invite this by alluding to what she's lived and what she's seen. ]

Friends, actually. More than one. [ a beat. it's not the most accurate statement. she's quick to amend it: ] Or perhaps I should say colleagues.

[ he nods, too big to be a simple agreement but not so smug as mockery would require. he's merely recognizing the way she pulls back. sometimes it's jarring, how alike to rip her behavior can be. ]

Oh. I'm sorry. That must've been ... horrifying. But you were spared?

[ spared. that's a funny way of describing it, although he doesn't know so. has no reason to know so. however, it's accurate enough -- fenhoff never managed to catch peggy under his influence. he may have issued the order to kill her, but peggy's altercations had been with dottie underwood. not fenhoff himself.

except peggy is the agent who walked fenhoff straight into the ssr's new york branch. he'd fooled her, outright, with no hypnosis required. the thought still makes her burn. ]

I was, yes. Lucky me. [ a little too stilted. sharp. peggy shakes her head, rueful, but she doesn't apologize for her curt reply. ] Not least of all because most of the individuals targeted never survived what they'd been compelled to do.

It's hard to be the one that's left.

[ the water draws his interest again, but he stops splashing incessantly. his words come with a weight that was once piled on him by chance, but that he seems to take on with too much eagerness these days.

it's both experience and guilt he bears, often too narrow-minded to look left and right before charging headlong into it. ]

[ peggy manages to suppress a bitter sound. had it made it past her careful filter, it might have been something akin to laughter. harder, however, than laughter should ever be. but instead she keeps her response well-schooled.

curated, almost. ]

Something like that. [ peggy turns her head. as recalcitrant as she can be on the subject of her own pain, she doesn't shy away from asking after someone else's. ] Although I can't shake the impression that you're no longer talking about brainwashing.

[ and the causalities it occasionally accrues. ]

[ ray nods, but he doesn't jump to fill in the blanks. if she presses, he might. but he thinks he recognizes her move as one he uses on a regular basis. ]

Look, I can tell you're a private person and it seems like you've got some really good reasons for that. But-- if you ever want to talk...actually talk? [ he shrugs. ] Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm an OK listener.

[ -- peggy doesn't anticipate this offer. in fact, it startles her. perhaps it shouldn't, really, on account of ray's overtures thus far. after all, he's the one who'd brought cupcakes. he's the one who'd apologized.

even so, she doesn't make it easy. she arches a brow. ]

Only an 'okay' listener, Doctor Palmer? [ a beat. oh, bloody hell. ] Sorry. Ray.

[ her shift and catch makes him chuckle, unable to hold back his amusement. ]

Well, I had to sacrifice something in order to get that fourth PhD.

[ peggy looks at him. and it's clear, in that moment, that she's considering the youthfulness of his looks compared to the work she must know goes into even just one doctorate. ]

Four. [ she indulges in a low whistle. ] May I ask in what fields?

[ she might not be a scientist herself, but it's mighty difficult to work at the strategic scientific reserve without rubbing elbows with eggheads aplenty. ]

Oh, uhh-- materials science, atomic and molecular physics, chemical physics, and condensed matter physics.

[ he shrugs and then chuckles again. to someone like peggy, who seems to pluck information out of every movement, it might be obvious that he's actually trying to downplay it a little. ]

There's a lot of intersection among them anyway, and it seemed silly not to just go for the Yahtzee. There was a major trend in technology I wanted to jump into, of making things faster which meant making them smaller.

[ another recipe, to ray. while he loves the work and the science, it's always been a means to some end for him. ]

[ he's a physicist. now, that is interesting. and it shows by the fresh gleam in her look -- something hungry, maybe, for even a hint of familiar. she's been rubbing shoulders with a great many physicists, of late.

(and there's always howard.)

but before she can tackle exactly what it means to make something smaller, there's another question which simply begs asking. ]

Beg pardon, but, 'go for Yahtzee?'

[ she never took the academic track, but she's fairly certain that's not part of the usual jargon. ]

I mean yeah, it's not the actual Yahtzee cause it's only four, but I've been working on a fifth while in Wonderland...

[ at first he answers off the cuff because everyone's as pedantic as he is of course. then his brain catches up with his mouth. ]

Which is not what you meant. [ wince. ] I was talking about the dice game. Five of a kind?

[ dice games, she knows. and with a passing familiarity to probabilities aside. but she doubts that's quite what he means. no, doctor palmer's words speak to something akin to collection. achievement.

the exact explanation might still escape her (what sort of dice game? what are the rules?) but those details are moot, in the end, when she can deduce his meaning from what's already been said. so peggy nods. ]

I've never met anyone with four doctorate degrees. Let alone five. [ well, that she knows of. there's no accounting for who she might have met and spoken to in wonderland who hadn't bothered to broadcast that information -- it's curious, of course, that he'd been so quick to assert it. ] So. Tell me. What'll the fifth be?

[ her chin lifts. she's veering back towards herself, her characteristic behaviour, and to a good solid wall of iron between what she presents and what she feels. the mild interrogation helps. ]

[ the shift in peggy's demeanor is obvious, but she's struck the sweet spot for defeating ray palmer: ask him to talk about himself after demonstrating that a particular subject is a little too sensitive for his big dumb feet to tromp all over. ]

Particle physics! A friend of mine has a frankly overwhelming set of data on Wonderland that's just sitting there. I never really found it interesting back home, but I never really had a reason to, either.

[ he grins, excited to be interested in it now. ]

I'm actually writing my dissertation on the projected normalcy of Wonderland and the implications it has on the fundamental physics of this world.

[ too often, she's had to distill the more jargon-heavy bits and bobs that float through the ssr and try and make sense of them. all the more often, lately, while tussling with isodyne energy, with whitney frost, and with the troubling question of zero matter. two of the most brilliant physicists she's ever met haven't quite been able to contend with that particular phenomenon.

and doctor palmer! well -- his enthusiasm, now, makes her wish most devoutly that she had either one of them here at her side now. stark, certainly, although she wouldn't say no to the charming doctor wilkes, either... ]

Projected normalcy. [ peggy leans forward where she sits. she has her suspicions (her hunches!) but she's too careful to put an assumption on the line and risk being caught ignorant. ] And what, precisely, do you mean by that?

[ ray points up at the sky. more specifically, at the sun. ]

Did you know that we can determine the properties of bodies in space from earth using the color of the light they reflect or emit? And when I apply that exercise to the sun, I can say that it's a sun.

[ astoundingly reductive, but ray prefers the teaching in these moments to the accuracy, surprisingly. ]

I can take a closer look at the light particles emitted by the sun and determine that they behave typically. Except they shouldn't behave typically.

[ ray please stop sounding so excited about the breakdown of physics ]

[ and her nostalgia (is it appropriately called nostalgia?) ebbs and flows again. there is a sweet kind of familiar frustration found in being the layman while a scientist chatters. talking circles, maybe, and laying foundation rather than thrusting to a point. for all her impatience in other matters, peggy takes this in remarkable stride.

comfortable enough, indeed, to go reaching for a third cupcake while she listens. ]

How should they behave? [ besides, well, atypically. that would be the simplest answer, albeit also an unhelpful one. peggy approaches the conversation just now with a shred more humility than she'd betrayed in either of their earlier conversations.

the reasoning is easy: information is strength, and part of her job is to glean that information from other sources. doctor palmer just turned himself into a source. a proper one, at that. god bless the physicists. ]

Honestly, any deviation from normal behavior would've been helpful.

[ an answer which is in itself not very helpful, probably. he takes a different tactic-- shifting his posture against the stiffness in his muscles as he shifts subjects. ]

The first few months of my time in Wonderland I spent all my time building a machine I needed. Everything was perfect, down to the micrometer. I ran test after test after test-- everything was fine. It should have performed exactly as designed, but it didn't. [ he sighs, the memory of other scientists chastising him for it grinding his nerves again. ] And then I realized, it never required tweaking. That was the anomaly.

[ he'd called himself an 'okay' listener. but peggy carter is a wonderful one -- not with sympathy, nor necessarily with compassion, but she sits and listens as though she's absorbing every word. each one is committed to memory; each one, she hopes, capable of being repeated by rote should someone like stark or wilkes arrive and it falls to her to play telephone with what's she's learned thus far.

but that doesn't stop her from trying to understand: ]

The sum of your machine was never greater than its perfected parts. Is that what you're trying to say? The pieces, however ideal and carefully assembled, never added up to what they should have been.

[ if so, and if she isn't misunderstanding him, then the paradox makes her a little nauseous. shifting hallways and optical illusions and yet fundamental building blocks that belie those abnormalities? ]

Or Wonderland really is a place of opposites, and fundamentally works to make us see normalcy where it doesn't actually exist.

[ which one is more concerning is up to every person to decide for themselves. ray struggles in the realm of finding it fascinating and bad. were stein here, he'd at least have someone else with the same outlook (then again they'd probably cause more trouble together that way, too).

ray offers a little more clarity to his embarrassing mishap: ]

The machine was operational. It just didn't do what it should have.

And what should it have done?

[ the question comes quickly. perhaps she's curious to learn what the man had prioritized in those early days. heaven knows, she wishes she could harness at least half of what she's seen order to try something (anything) to break out of this prison.

and that's just one reason why she finds herself sympathetic to agent fitz's earlier misdeed, so freshly committed upon her arrival in wonderland. ]

I was trying to fix my suit. Not all of its capabilities were operational at the time.

[ and he was sick of all the currant cake jokes... ]

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