I would break the laws of gravity

[hypoxic]

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.]

Comments

[mucked]

[ 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. ]

[hypoxic]

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.

[mucked]

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. ]

[hypoxic]

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.

[mucked]

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.

[hypoxic]

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?

[mucked]

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.

[hypoxic]

[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?

[mucked]

[ 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.

[hypoxic]

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.

[mucked]

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. ]

[hypoxic]

[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.

[mucked]

You have a point. [ peggy concedes again. ] These events are tied to other worlds. Our worlds. Something must somehow be drawing on those elements.

[ psychologically, perhaps, rather than physically. but it's worth the question -- even though she's certain it's one asked by veterans before her. she's still finding her feet in this madness. ]

[hypoxic]

The general lore seems to be that the events themselves are tied to memory. How our memories are interpreted appears to be developed on a case-by-case basis. I believe we've already had some discussions about what's become of the Captain, for instance.

[mucked]

[ something sharp and unhappy flickers through her eyes. it coincides with the miliseconds following fitz saying that one word. captain. but she quickly chases the feeling under a rug, sucking on her teeth with a soft and played-up hiss.

as if she's more bothered by the memory issue than anything to do with steve. ]

Arguably, the very grey matter housing our memories might be equally tied to the phenomenon. Something altered, perhaps, in our coming and going. [ like so many whitney frosts, slowly driven mad. ]

[hypoxic]

That certainly might be something to look into, especially given the way memory retention upon returning is such a variable. One of my friends has been here several times and not remembered Wonderland any of them. If she's come from the same universe each time, then that could cause terrible stress...

[That's a problem he hadn't been considering, actually. There always seems to be more problems than solutions lately.]

[mucked]

Like a well-used jacket. Going threadbare.

[ it's an unpleasant prospect. ]

By the one account I could trust, Zero Matter did inflict a kind of stress. [ ... ] The physicist that had been rendered intangible -- he struggled to even maintain a visual presence. He described it as though he was being dragged somewhere. Compelled.

[hypoxic]

...Which all opens up the possibility that the longest residents might actually account for some of the safest.

Perhaps we'll need to sit down with that librarian for an interview.

[mucked]

The librarian. [ a beat, before peggy cottons on. ] The one who's been here the longest, you mean?

[ yes. especially if the woman hasn't since gone home, though she hasn't the foggiest as to whether that's true or not. ]

Annoyingly, someone might have already plumbed this avenue and come up dry. We'll not know unless we ask.

[hypoxic]

[He nods.] I don't believe I've met her specifically... I thought I had, but she was the other one. [The mirrorside version.] She'd most likely be privy to any of the avenues residents have explored.

You'd probably need to lure her out of the library first, though. She's a bit of a stickler about volume.

[mucked]

[ -- a moment passes. peggy's chin lifts. ]

I'm not that loud, am I?

[ tread careful, dear fitz. ]

[hypoxic]

[His eyes snap open wider. Oh dear. He knows that look. That's the look he gets from Jemma when he agrees with something her Dad's said.]

N-no! Not at all! She's just hypersensitive, is all.

[mucked]

Is that really the cleverest way to talk about someone who is, as you suggest, hypersensitive?

[ -- she might be teasing him. it's admittedly hard to tell. ]

[hypoxic]

Well -- she's not here, you see, and...

[He trails off into sputters, flushing at the base of his neck.]

[mucked]

And you're trusting me not to rat you out.

[ she won't, of course. but there's always a thin interest found in watching how a person copes with being eased into a corner -- doubly so, really, when that person is an agent of the very thing the ssr one day becomes. ]