entrancelogs | It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you!

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It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you! | OPEN MINGLE

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Friday October 27th - Tuesday October 31st
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch all for the Horrible Memory Truth Event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, everyone's entire room will be replaced with a memory playing on loop. They will likely recognize the moment as soon as they see it – it is a moment they remember as the worst moment of their entire lives. It could be a memory from home or something that happened in Wonderland. Lengths of the memories will vary, but they will find that these are not memories they can merely watch – they can step into these memories and attempt to make changes to them, and the memories will be long enough that they have time to make changes (though no more than 24 hours). However, anyone who tries will find that it is futile. No matter what you do or how hard you try, the outcome is always exactly the same somehow. No changes you make will prevent that horrible outcome. It just happens over and over and over again no matter what you do.

On top of that, perhaps complicating any attempts to make changes, everyone will be forced to be honest for the duration of the event. No lies or half-truths are allowed, and filters will be gone for the entire five days. If something bothers someone then they will blurt it out, regardless of whether or not it hurts someone's feelings, and no one will be able to simply keep quiet when they have something to say. They must be truthful and honest with every word they say.

This is a catch-all log for all of your Worst Memory needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and Room Number + Floor for character rooms, or just location if you're making a top level for a public place in the mansion (like the tea rooms or the kitchen) so people can see if there's already a thread available. And here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ rip is responsible. but only in the starchiest of terms -- of responsibility born without purpose or agency, thrust upon him simply because he's here with his memories ripe for the harvest. at least, that's how peggy sees it -- something with no fault or absolution. something so painfully without choice that it's nearly worse.

her mouth opens and she's about to tell him so in curt dispassionate detail. but...but he keeps talking, keeps telling truths, and the one good thing about the damned opposite side of this event is that one honest answer seems able to quickly supplant another. she blurts what's left on the tip of her tongue, not swimming in the back of her thoughts. ]

As much as I'd rather wave it off -- the sentiment is entirely mutual.

[ peggy admits with a sharp pull of breath. as though this much of an overture is ordinarly more difficult to give than the circumstances allow. she's talking about more than just what's been forcefully shared in this conversation -- they've been stumbling across each others secrets for months now. and beyond that, their wednesday evenings have been replete with piecing together profiles, character studies, little scraps of theories and impressions.

all of it carries with it a certain protected status. partially because there's too much fertile ground for mutually assured destruction. partially because she's beginning to see rip hunter as a friend. or something like it. ]

[Perhaps this might be considered the one good thing to come out of this whole damnable event, in the end. That understanding and assessment Peggy so neatly sums up as mutual, even if the both of them would rather it have gone ultimately unsaid. Rip knows he is not an easy man to trust. Secrets and lies are necessities in his life, his profession. He plans and plots and sets a course, then only metes out what tidbits are necessary for those about him to follow its lead.

He'd like to think he's gotten a touch better at this whole truth thing on his own--at relying on others, keeping only the necessary secrets rather than all of them. But it's not exactly a familiar thing.

He finishes off the tea, and it says something that instead of merely setting aside the mug, Rip goes for the thermos that's still between them. It's not really like their Wednesday indulgences to be sure--the only burn the tea offers is far different from alcohol--yet if there is anything resembling peace to be found in the course of these days, perhaps it's here, in this moment.]

Ideally, this will be one of the shorter events, and done with in the next day or two. [Although Rip cannot be sure of the aspect that doesn't tie in with his memories or world, he can offer some measure of comfort.] And staying out of the rooms will prevent the worst of the impact.

[But they're already two days in, aren't they? Rip glances over at Peggy; he cannot help but ask the question.]

Unless you've already tried to alter the course of yours?

[ his second cup won't go unnoticed. it's such a simple thing when he refills his cup -- mirroring a month of similar gestures with whiskey bottles, so much so that she already knows what he's about to do when his arm lifts. she knows it before his fingers even touch the thermos. it's more than an indication of rip's mental state; the second cup is her signal to stay where she's seated. unspoken permission to hold guard with him. to keep talking.

no matter the risks posed. no matter that she didn't bring sugar along. ]

I did. [ it's easily said. and fora brief tick of time, peggy almost convinces herself it's a truth she'd given up willingly. not so, however, when the rest rushes out. ] I wasted the better part of my Friday on it.

[ pleading; promising she would find him; confessing a love she'd like to pretend is gone but in truth it still sits lodged in her heart like an arrowhead. still, steve's plane crashed. peggy, this is my choice -- and oh, how she wished she could rob him of it.

equally, she wished she wasn't forced to confront the selfishness lurking toe-to-toe with love. ]

Nothing changed. [ he doesn't need her to say it; her tongue wags anyway. this particular line of conversation is just merciful enough that she doesn't go blurting her memory out in frantic, unhappy syllables. instead, she keeps her voice calm. ] After I saw your broadcast, I locked the door. I haven't been back since.

[ peggy hadn't said a word over the network. but, it seems, she'd been watching all the same. monitoring, really. ]

Edited 2017-10-29 23:41 (UTC)

[Simple, yet significant; and yes, even without the sugar he seems willing enough to drink again, rather than claim that he's had a few bites, a few sips to match, so Peggy's due diligence is done and she can be on her way. Few in this mansion could receive such an offer should they show up as she had. Peggy, perhaps, might be the only one whom he has not known outside of Wonderland.

She speaks of how she spent her first day, the hours that passed before Rip had gathered the will to transmit his broadcast for those of Wonderland, and he's reminded of one particularly angry man who berated him for too little effort offered too late in the day. It seems such very well might be the case with Peggy--or she might have stubbornly gone on anyway, decided to prove Rip and the universe itself wrong, that she could make a change.

The tea's still warm when he sips it; still bitter, without anything to sweeten it.]

I told you when we first met that I worked for an organization called the Time Masters. That was true for a time. [But not when she first limped out of his closet, or even when Rip himself dropped into the fountain outside during the winter prior.] I betrayed them and stole one of their ships in order to attempt to save my family. Went back in time over and over to try and rescue them from--this.

[Not Wonderland, obviously. Rip need only look at the door for Peggy to understand.]

I failed. The only thing that changed was that I was forced to watch my family die, rather than finding their bodies in the aftermath.

[ what peggy had done on friday -- on that first day -- had been to take what she couldn't change and seal it away. her first instinct upon reviewing rip's broadcast had been to find something she could change. take all her nervous energy and channel it into something better, if such a thing even existed. so she remembered the glimpse of red and gold at her window mid-plea (sixth, eighth, tenth attempt to talk steve down from his choice) and she'd gone to check on tony. she feels...responsible for him in that same starched fashion: he's not even a blood relative and lord knows she doesn't owe howard any favours, but he is who he is. and for that alone peggy had seemed intent to see him through this.

and for her efforts she got another shock to her heart. the rest of her friday had been spent in mourning. the fact of the matter is...she feels more prepared to hear out rip's story, now, because at least she knows it'll have no bearing on her own life. she can be supportive without being subjective. it's a role she's sorely missed.

peggy claims another pastry. they're sirens, sitting there untouched. something to do with her free hand. something to chew and swallow and engage her mouth so that she doesn't go bursting between his sentences and interrupting him with things she'd ordinarily know better than to say.

and at the given gap in rip's words, she also glances back to the door. still, it looms. ]

...So. This event is less figurative and far more literal than I first suspected. [ time wants to happen, he'd said. the words stick in her thoughts and cycle around all her others. this isn't some ghoulish analogy trapped in their rooms. for rip, it was ghoulish reality.

all the pastry in the world can't stop her next question: ] How many attempts did you make?

Edited 2017-10-30 00:18 (UTC)

I don't know.

[More than a dozen, less than an eternity. Until Rip had no more energy to try and had screamed until exhaustion claimed him. Until after that fitful time that could neither be called rest nor sleep, not truly, but close enough to allow him to formulate a different plan than repeatedly pushing the same boulder up the mountain, only for it to come crashing down on a trail of destruction and blood.

He shifts where he sits, one leg bent while the other remains straight in front of him. The cup gets momentarily set aside; he leans his arm against his bent knee.]

Enough to take a different course, eventually, than trying to escape with Miranda and Jonas directly. I formed the Legends to try and destroy the man responsible for their murders before he could get to them. Before he could conquer the entire world and install himself as the vicious and cruel dictator of the planet.

[ ...flipping hell.

fortunate for the pair of them, perhaps, is the fact that peggy doesn't quite manage to articulate the thought in her own head that rip's actions -- his motivations -- put her own hypothetical selfishness into sharp contrast. there's some itchy inkling there somewhere in her brain, but it's quashed by sympathy long before it takes shape. instead, her focus pivots to the second name. jonas. that's three, now, that she's heard and filed away in her mental dossier. and all from this same conversation.

the gears might slow in sympathy, yes, but they never stall completely. peggy also shifts where she sits, turning her upper body so that she's angled toward him rather than parallel to. some of the things said out at the firing range -- while rip had been altered, brainwashed, whatever the most appropriate term might be -- spring back to her with a touch more clarity. like reverse-engineering details into those hard, hurtful memories. ]

And your organization, [ the time masters, ] didn't approve.

[ hence the betrayal, hence the stolen ship, hence a whole bloody lot. peggy doesn't know what box she's opening when her 'interrogation' continues. ]

...Why not?

[ what she betrays now is utter disbelief on his behalf. personal stakes aside -- even knowing what she knows from the crumbs rip's let fall about the time masters and their mandate -- nothing sits right in her bones about allowing a despot to rule. blame the so-called greatest generation. ]

[She's not wrong in her summation. Rip remembers well the day he stood before them, his last ditch effort to persuade those protectors of history to defeat Savage before he destroyed the very world itself. He'd predicted they would say no, stood ready to enact his own plans when they did--oh, but Rip had no idea just how deep their plotting went.]

Because they wanted Savage to rule the world. They possessed a device that would allow them to see the future--the actual future, as it would unfold, rather than a projection or prediction. And they saw an invasion of an alien force only a few short years after the conquest I wanted to stop.

So they set in motion their own plan. The device allowed them to not just see all of time, but to manipulate it; to guide the actions of those whom they chose to suit their purposes.

I could not save my family because they ensured I would not. [His fingers tighten; he knows Peggy has turned to face him, but Rip's gaze is not on her, nor the door.] They were the ones who sent Vandal Savage to kill them. To make use of my rage and grief to "spur me on," as they told me.

Edited 2017-10-30 01:25 (UTC)

Bastards.

[ it's out before she can even think to stop it. raw, upset, riled. what rip describes is precisely the same variety of bollocks that's been draining her faith in the ssr, back home. although his debacle is human indecency writ large -- power, control, a totalitarianism that spans time rather than spanning a government. she wrestles with a council manipulating headlines and rigging industry. what rip describes, instead...

it makes her sick. sick in the same way that everyone else's stories about hydra's resurgence makes her sick. in the pit of her stomach she's got that twisting knotting certainty that something is wrong. it's the sort of thing you can't forgive.

...it's the sort of thing you can't even understand. and that's without accounting for the science of it all, which still remains dramatically outside her ken. no, it's the horror of rip's circumstances that feel incomprehensible: the price he has had to pay because someone else decided to shake hands with a devil. vandal savage: another name; another note. ]

There's only one thing you can do with that sort of rot. You cut it out. You burn it down. [ which is what she already wishes she could do to shield -- but that conversation loops back on itself and starts to eat its own tail, doesn't it? peggy's own personal urge to change the future. ]

-- I fear things are speeding in that direction back home.

[She speaks with the same rage that Rip felt in those first moments of learning the truth, too hot and wild for anything more than clipped words and decisive action. But Rip had been broken minutes later; the truth of the Time Master's methods had been too much, and seeing Raymond's death, knowing that he had been the puppet of the people who had raised and taught and trained him, who gave him purpose--

His anger hadn't been able to endure that breaking. Not without the Legends.

But they had been there that day. As defiant as always, and when Peggy talks about carving out the rot, destroying it utterly, his answer comes with quiet certainty.]

We did.

[They had destroyed it all, in the end. Left the Vanishing Point no more than a wreckage, and taken up the mantle of protectors of time themselves.

For how that has turned out.

But Peggy doesn't stop there. She speaks not of his home then, but her own, what she dreads may be waiting in her future. What she must know, Rip thinks, given just how many people are here from so far ahead in her time, and how willing they've all reportedly been to share.]

What have you learned? [Now his gaze falls to her, with far less judgment than one might expect from a man obsessed with the preservation of time. In light of all that's been revealed, how can Rip not feel a measure of sympathy for what might be to come in Peggy's future--or for her desire to try and change it?

No matter what lessons this event might try to teach.]

[ good -- the word is breathed more than said. and it's more a look than a sound. mild, still-queasy approval that there should be some comeuppance for a power grown so unwieldy and corrupt.

less good, of course, is the trap-door now opening up beneath her within this conversation. peggy and rip have been dancing around this question for some time now -- as she tries to veer just about clear of confessing how much digging, learning, asking she's been doing in every interaction with people from her home. from her future. and he's always allowed her to dodge just barely out f the way, revealing little to nothing.

but that safety isn't allowed to either of them just now. she can't hold his inquiry against him -- not after how many questions she's asked and how detailed his answers have been. ]

I've learned my own agency, back home, doesn't have much mileage left in it. [ she could have concluded that already -- she's been digging at its decaying roots for some time now. ] And I've learned it'll be me who fashions its replacement. I've learned it'll be called SHIELD. And I've learned that over the decades it'll be overcome and compromised by an enemy that should have perished at the end of the war. [ a beat; peggy's expression sours further as she realizes she's going to have to tell details she'd rather keep to herself. ] HYDRA -- a Nazi deep science division. I put the last of their commanders behind bars in '45.

[ it's her turn to lose her appetite. ]

Perhaps bars were not enough. Of course, according to you, it won't change a damned thing. Knowing all of this. I'm just as likely to go back home and found the very foothold HYDRA will use to fester and grow for God knows how long.

[ too many words. she doesn't usually talk this much. peggy drains the last of her lukewarm tea before it's her turn to pour herself anther cup. ]

I have learned will get themselves assassin. An old comrade. Programmed. Brainwashed. [ her brows rise -- the word is said pointedly. ] He was here in Wonderland. Told me all about it himself.

Edited 2017-10-30 02:23 (UTC)

[Strange, how easy it is to speak of a situation that so mirrors the one he wishes to keep from Wonderland at large. Yet when Peggy spills out the truth of that future, sews in her frustration over what Rip has told her must be, what truths are generally believed about Wonderland, he finds it all too simple to find words in his sympathy. Oh, he knows well that desire that no doubt burns within her now. She'd said it of the Time Masters with such easy determination, and now the source of that wisdom stands painfully clear.

Cut it out. Burn it down. Build something better—only now she's learned that the seeds she plants are poisoned even before they've been buried in the soil.]

That is exactly what you'll do. [He doesn't speak until she mentions the futility Rip has often warned her of, ever since their first meeting.] Everyone who has been returned to their home dimensions only to be pulled back has confirmed the same, myself included: we remember nothing of Wonderland beyond Wonderland itself. [There is no hope for the future, as things stand. No chance to correct the wrongs that will happen, the lives that will be lost.

He means to offer a different brand of comfort, however. Surely there has been good done with the horrors; even if her legacy has been ruined in the end, she herself said it took decades. But Peggy continues on, calling on another measure of sympathy and like experience with Rip. Someone she once knew, who had their mind warped, and Rip naturally frowns as Peggy's attentions turn to her tea.]

If that programming has been undone, he might have meant it as a confession. [Rip has, each time it's come up. Not an apology, nor a call for forgiveness—and never, never a justification. He doubts there will ever be true absolution found for what he has done. Considering the forces at play for this "old comrade," perhaps he felt the same.] But without knowing them, or the context, there's not much way to be sure.

[ she's not deaf to why he might take that particular tack in his reply. a confession, rip suggests, and peggy raises her eyes to watch him directly. tea steams in her cup, kept blessedly hot thanks to the thermos. without looking, she screws the lid back into place.

had it been a confession? at the time, peggy had felt too blindsided to even consider the motives behind what barnes had revealed to her. in many ways, since then, she'd simply assumed it had been an attempt to get ahead of the story -- to tell her before someone else did. a selfish but ultimately very human motivation. ]

The context is something I only know in fits and starts. Haven't had much opportunity to peel away the intel on that particular chestnut. Even if I wanted to, they're gone now. Barnes and Rogers both. No one else involved wants to talk about it. And I can't blame them.

[ she blows on her cup of tea -- old, fruitless habit. a good analogy (perhaps) for all the changes she wishes she could make but likely never will. ] I don't want to talk about it either. I don't suppose we can't find a safer topic.

[ peggy takes a risk when she tries to conjure up any earnest question. ]

Why, exactly, does your revolver glow? [ she's been dying to know, really, since that first day when she stepped out of his closet and found the gun aimed her way. ]

Edited 2017-11-01 17:27 (UTC)

[She watches him, and for a moment their eyes meet before Rip lowers his gaze. The slow movement of her hand makes a find staring point, and one might think Rip fascinated in how Peggy closes the thermos once her next cup of tea has been poured.

In truth what she's doing barely registers at all.

She points out the futility of speculation in the next breath; fitting, given the overall theme of these days. It's almost ironic that neither Steve Rogers nor this Barnes are no longer around, during the event which would see them sharing the truth whether they want to or not. Perhaps that would have them reliving it, behind the doors of their own rooms.

But Peggy makes it clear why she isn't hunting down answers. Whether those others wanted to or not, Peggy's clever. She could take advantage, should she opt for that measure of selfishness. Instead it manifests itself in other ways, in not wanting to know when the truth would be impossible to keep secret.

And that's well enough. She's been kind to him during this brief encounter; not asked certain things she could, not attempted to go into his room. A safer topic is almost welcome.]

The power generated and stored within the gun that allows it to rapidly fire emits a light that shows due to the weapon's design. [As a revolver, though it is, in fact, only that in appearance. Rip unholsters the gun in question, holds it up for her inspection.] So in other words, because I wanted it to.

[Not the stealthiest of things at times, but it's served him well. And to demonstrate—and perhaps take some of the edge off his frustrations—Rip points it at the wall next to his door and fires a blast. There's scorching left behind to be sure, but not enough to blast through the wall itself. Just a touch of target practice, as it were.]

[ the form does not follow the function, then -- although peggy isn't snide enough to suggest that it might be described as the aesthetic trumping the pragmatic. after all, if she lived a purely pragmatic life then she wouldn't be wearing heels. she wouldn't be missing her pin-curls. she wouldn't have gone out of her way to at least have lipstick on despite having essentially shut herself out of her own room.

-- and when he fires she winces as though she's expecting a different caliber of noise. but it's not a bullet; there's no powder. no brief familiar ringing of tinnitus after the trigger's pulled. ]

I've seen it's like. [ she explains all too easily. ] Not in style, maybe, but certainly in its lack of bullets. Although -- the ones I saw would have disintegrated the wall. [ ... ] Probably.

[ peggy hums out her curiosity as she holds out a hand. eager, perhaps, to inspect it for herself. if he'll allow it. ]

They were powered by something called a Tesseract. [ one of many artifacts, according to steve, that need to be better kept out of bad hands. ] What powers yours?

Edited 2017-11-01 23:04 (UTC)

Well to be fair, I wasn't trying to blow a hole in the wall. [His gun is on a lower setting at the moment; though the event is undeniably a horrible one, he doubts he'll need anything more than the ability to stun someone should they attempt to cross the threshold of his room or take out their frustrations on him. Yet he can't help but be amused by her reactions, in spite of everything going on around them. A safer topic indeed, and Rip has always enjoyed the look in a person's eye when they get to experience some new bit of technology.

Even if Peggy has apparently seen something similar before.]

You do realize I'll be expecting this back. [He turns the gun with practiced ease before offering to Peggy, handle first.] It's got a miniature photonic device in it. Maybe not enough to disintegrate entire walls in one blast, but it will get the job done when I need it to.

You do realize, [ she echoes his wording, ] I haven't the foggiest notion of what a photonic device is. Or does. Or why one might miniaturize it.

[ thanks to the event, she rather avidly owns up to her own ignorance on the topic. something she might ordinarily have swept under the rug, or at least tried to immediately rectify with a half-dozen carefully posed questions.

but it doesn't stop her from leaving her cup of tea on the ground and sitting up taller before she takes his 'revolver' into hand. it's got a familiar feel to it despite the glow in its guts. a bit more unwieldy than her ppk, but isn't as though she hasn't handled a grip like this one before now. ]

But I take your meaning to be that the gun's power varies. [ and that his bold shot moments earlier was considerably less bold (maybe) than her muscle memory tried to convince her it was. it's tough not to see a gun leveled and feel a prickle along the back of her neck. had it been similarly adjusted the day she'd stepped out of his closet?

peggy raises the muzzle and sets her sight on the same scorch mark his earlier shot left behind. but old habits still slink into her posture, even as they stay seated, and when peggy squeezes the trigger she's still accounting for a force she knows intimately: recoil. it's a minute element of human compensation, maybe, and expressed only through those thousands of a second as a bullet normally travels down a barrel. but there's no bullet, no kickback, and peggy's hand dips low with the force of that compensation, force which doesn't meet any force from the gun in turn -- and it drives her shot beneath rip's original target. and not by an insignificant distance. ]

-- Shit.

[ earnest, raw, upset. she lifts the barrel with a cluck of her tongue, obviously disappointed in herself. she doesn't need to wonder what's gone wrong; she'd felt the recoil's absence in her very bones. it was eerie. uncomfortable. ]

Edited 2017-11-02 01:32 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. But given that we are under the effects of an event where we're forced to tell the truth, and you asked me how it works, I couldn't not answer the question.

[So in the end it's entirely Peggy's own fault that Rip's explanation defies her understanding--which he might even be able to tell her should she ask.

But instead the moment is consumed by watching Peggy take her aim, confident and sure in how she holds the gun even if, unknown to Rip, the revolver's size doesn't match her preference. He expects that certainty with how she handles the weapon. After all, he'd watched her practice out at the shooting range, then strip apart her own gun with practiced ease.

What neither of them can predict, however, is just how badly her shot would turn out to be. Even Rip frowns as the shot goes low--extremely low, a second scorch mark appearing quite a distance from the first.]

That was--terrible. [A statement he could perhaps blame on the event, but equally, they both know Rip couldn't say it if he didn't believe it true.] I'd have thought you'd at least get a little closer than that.

[ it's bad enough that she's disappointed in her own showing. now, she must face his unadorned judgment for how wide and how low her aim had fallen. peggy isn't embarrassed and she isn't humiliated -- but she certainly feels frustration for the disparity between what she knows she can accomplish and what the circumstances have allowed her. it puts a snarl in her lip.

she turns the revolver in her hand and grips its barrel -- surprised to find the metal cooler to the touch than she'd expected. another development from the future that defies what she knows should be true. there must be something to the technology that offsets the heat of each shot. certainly, otherwise, firing in succession would prove a dangerous endeavor. ]

It's the damned recoil. Yours doesn't have any. And, hell, a gun with a nose like that-- [ she swears again beneath her breath while passing him back his blaster. but peggy is quick to tug her skirt hem up to mid-thigh, just level with the tops of her stockings. she bends her knee and loosens a slim walther ppk from a rather fashionable holster fastened with garter clips. if she's shy about the reveal, it doesn't show in her face -- it seems a spirit of competition reigns instead.

peggy wastes no time sitting up and raising her arm and firing off three consecutive shots which bury themselves in a tight cluster in and around the first scorch mark. she compensates for the kickback each and every time, perhaps proving her preference for this particular firearm. the shots are loud, ringing through the hallway and leaving the smell of gunsmoke on the air. it's not the safest challenge, but it damn well beats hanging 'round feeling sorry for oneself.

calmer, now, she flips the ppk around in her hand and offers him the petite pistol. only now does she see fit to tug her skirt back down her knees. ] Go on. Fair is fair, Mister Hunter.

[She practically pushes the revolver back into his hands, sniping the whole while about how his gun being easier to fire thanks to future technology apparently is entirely to blame for her bad shot. And while it may well prove true--though Rip has no idea yet of how soon--there's no hiding that hint of amusement in his eyes at her marked frustration. Perhaps not the kindness of reactions, but honestly, what else does one expect when their fellow gets so huffy?

...As it turns out, Rip should expect a great deal more from her. Not the least of which is a suddenly tugged up skirt, showing an ample portion of Peggy's thigh that Rip can't quite help but take in before he realizes just what's happening.]

Bloody hell. [She may not be feeling particularly shy, but Rip knows better than to gawk. He turns his head back towards the wall, just in time to see three bulletholes where previously there had been none. As is true of so many "traditional" guns, the noise of the rapid shots fills the hall. He winces at the noise, but doesn't move to cover his ears; after all, he's used to all manner of battlefields.

Something settles in Peggy, it would seem, now that she's proven her marksmanship. Her skirt gets set back into place (something Rip sees on the edges of his vision), and then her gun is presented to him. Not surprising, really. No doubt with her complaints of recoil and the lack thereof, she expects Rip to fumble much as she had with his weapon.

Unfortunately, being from the future as he is, Rip has certain advantages in his favor.]

As you wish, Miss Carter. [He takes the gun, and as Peggy had, straightens his spine before taking aim. The first shot is a touch wide, though not nearly so much as Peggy's had been, and by the second and third it would seem as if Rip knows precisely how to adjust for the recoil or anything else.

His bullets land nearly as close to the center as hers had.]

[ she blinks with each of his shots. it can't be helped -- not under the press of close quarters and the exhausting last few days. but in reality, peggy's gesture is more charitably made than he might suspect. although she'd felt compelled to prove her own deft hand with her own traditional gun, she doesn't actually want to set rip up for failure. not least of all because she can make an educated guess that he's held and used guns like this one before. after all, not so long ago he'd alluded to blending in with a given time period.

even when he succeeds, her point is proven: ] See? You knew what to expect. I damn well didn't. It's a miracle I hit where I did.

[ and, of course, had she taken a second and third shot with the 'revolver' then she might have closed the distance all the better. ]

At least mine doesn't glow. [ a sniff, a shake of her head. imagine if you will the sort of trouble that would cause hidden beneath a skirt. ] Not terribly subtle, your piece.

[ peggy leans back against the wall and reclaims her tea -- drinking deep. truth be told, she could just about do with something a touch stronger now that they've mussed up the wall and probably startled folks on the floors below and above. ]

--You're coming dangerously close to sulking, you realize. [Everything from her assessment of his experience to the opinion on his gun, all of it seems to come less from a place of critical analysis and more a child's pouting fit. Yet he seems amused even as he calls her on it, a glint in his eye that speaks to teasing more than judgement this time.

…Although make no mistake; there is still some judgement there. An appropriate amount, he would think.]

I don't need this gun to be subtle. On the occasions where I needed to go unnoticed in any given era, I ensure my weaponry matches the time I'm in. [So it's exactly as she's assumed, right down to his experience with a variety of guns and their recoils.]

I think I can be forgiven a bit of a sulk. Given the weekend.

[ a refreshingly earnest opinion, really. it's one she'd ordinarily defer and detour and decline to admit. it's not that peggy is self-effacing, exactly, but she would normally have made an attempt to rise above such petty bait. to prove (as she so often tries) that her shortcomings don't matter.

(when, of course, they do.)

she meets his teasing look with another impatient shake of her head. ] But! All I'd need is a couple days -- three, tops -- with your gun and then I imagine I could outshoot you with it.

[ maybe only barely. but if she had a chance to adjust, to drill, to learn how not to correct for its lack of kick? well, peggy's got a healthy confidence in her own skills. not least of all because she can see where his shots with the ppk were just a little off her own. ]

You might be surprised. I'm the source of all this misery, and yet nearly everyone has seen fit to tell me how I shouldn't blame myself. One person was particularly adamant that I do something other than dwell in my own misery for the duration.

[What a silly person who clearly doesn't know Rip at all.

But her challenge remains. Three days, she claims, and it might well be true. Rip knows just the same as Peggy that his shots hadn't quite hit with the same level of accuracy. He turns his head to look at her for a moment, as if considering the offer.]

You do understand that putting futuristic technology in the hands of someone from the past is literally a crime when I'm from? And one that I specifically work to both prevent and correct.

[Never mind that he'd done just that a few moments before. He simply has to give Peggy a hard time. It seems appropriate, with the way things are headed.]

[ it's her turn to take back what belongs to her. in this case, it involves leaning leftward just enough to coax her ppk back out of his hands. but with her mug in one grip and the gun in her other, she isn't quick to reveal her holster all over again. ]

Worked. [ peggy isn't correcting him -- rather, the word nearly carries an interrogative. the barest hint of a question mark. she's rising to his defiance with a bit of her own. gladly, almost. ] Your Time Masters are finished, aren't they? Which leads me to think you're not much of a lawman any longer.

And it's not a crime here -- [ doubtless he'll confirm or deny whether that's true soon enough; it's not as though wonderland hasn't already crossed that line when it comes to peggy and technology. ] -- and besides, if you refuse I can always try my luck with the closets. See if I can't replicate it from memory.

[ peggy smirks. ] Which option do you think might result in the bigger disaster, hm? Mister Hunter?

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