[NYE Party] happy new year and lots of fun

[nascensibility]

Who: EVERYONE, but especially you!
Where: Wonderland Ballroom
When: New Year's Eve
Rating: PG - PG13 (will change if applicable)
Summary: New Year's Eve Party
The Story:

[ Previously in the month all residents received an invitation to a formal event: a black tie affair to ring in the New Year. The ballroom and adjacent areas are decked out for the party starting at eight o'clock sharp, meticulously planned and executed, glittering décor to match the no doubt glittering attire as music pours into the halls from the dance floor.

Bars flank each side, service for all manner of alcohol unless a minor requests something, and the primary setting stage features an enormous clock for the countdown. ]




[ Where will you be when the clock strikes midnight? ]

Comments

[hypoxic]

[She's making a particular sort of face. He's not sure he's seen it before. It looks troublesome. He should say more.]

Can't do anything about the mirrors anyway.

[That seems like a plausible stand-in. They were out quite recently, and aren't as likely to drag Peggy Carter screaming into the shadows.]

[mucked]

[ you know what? for a moment, she nearly believes it. the mirrors are at least vaguely defined enough that a great many of them are certain dangers or likely dangers or even just possible dangers. and they are, indeed, watching the rest of them -- observing them all in a way that could lead to all sorts of opportunities to pull strings from the other side. pluck nerves.

and yet she knows that if it was only about the mirrors, he wouldn't have been so cagey in the first place. they're hardly representative of the dark and unknown the way he'd suggested -- they are, if anything, as known as an unknown variable could possibly get. ]

Nothing beyond getting creative in our decorating or keeping on top of a regular smashing schedule.

[ cool as you like. ]

[hypoxic]

It's remarkable how many vantage points they can have. [So much tech is coated in chrome.]

They watch some of us rather closely.

[mucked]

-- Do you feel as though you're one of them? One of the 'closely watched?'

[hypoxic]

I don't know if I still am. But they've been quite keen to make commentary on my projects in the past.

[mucked]

What kind of commentary?

[ peggy surges onward with a bit of confidence. see! this is an interesting predicament. she doesn't believe the mirrors are really what fitz nearly warned her against, but so long as he's adhering to that lie then (she hopes) he paints himself into a conversation he mightn't ordinarily entertain. ]

[hypoxic]

[It's masterfully done, really. And as usual, he doesn't imagine that this could possibly be anything more than idle chatter between two friends.]

After he murdered me, Doctor Banner's mirror was quite generous with his insults.

[There's something wry to his tone; he's not ashamed of the information anymore, but he knows what it sounds like.]

[mucked]

[ a flicker of sorrow. a glimmer of guilt for even pushing it. but...

banner, banner, banner. why is that familiar? there's a momentary pause in peggy's expression while she runs through a whole storage facility of information hiding in the nooks and crannies of her mind. she hasn't got her notebooks on her, so she's got to do this the old fashioned way. and -- oh! tony said something about a doctor banner, once. gamma radiation. the hulk.

he was here? good god. ]

Salt in the wound. [ peggy won't dwell on the villainy for too long. to dissect it too much might verge on the voyeuristic. ] Insult to injury. Do you think it might have been because his mirror was trying to spur you onward or deter you?

[ or maybe it was simply torment. peggy doesn't ignore that possibility. ]

[hypoxic]

He wanted to remind me that I'd been abandoned. [It's a measured admission, but his grip tightens around his bottle nonetheless.] One imagines it was amusing for him.

There've been smatterings here and there since, but I wasn't the one they targeted when they were manipulating portal data.

[mucked]

[ ah, yes. the other scientist: the one from mister hunter's notes. the very reason, as well, why both she and mister hunter believe this avenue worth pursuing. albeit by different means. because if the data or one of its handlers was being manipulated -- targeted, as fitz puts it -- then there's no real way to know whether the endeavor could have been a genuine success had it been pursued without tampering. ]

I'm terribly sorry. [ a flush of sympathy. what's more, it's entirely honest. she is sorry. peggy is no scientist, but she knows that strange sideways pain of watching someone you work with become someone else's tool. ] It's almost harder, isn't it? To see that happen to someone close to us. To realize what's happening ourselves far too late for us to stop it.

[ her breath catches and she appears as though she's about to shake her head and change the subject when: ] I lost three colleagues -- three good men -- because our whole office being manipulated by Soviet operatives. Myself included. Sometimes, you're left feeling as though you're the one who brought the wolves to your doorstep. I know I did.

[hypoxic]

[And at that, Fitz shrinks down altogether. His voice trembles, lowering to a scant whisper. He's not had enough to drink at the pint's almost empty. Maybe he's already had too much and that's why he's still talking in the first place.]

He didn't want to get involved. I forced him. Nobody ought to have known about what we did together. Everything that happened to him came after I saw something I oughtn't have seen.

[mucked]

[ at first blush it appears as though there are a few disparate threads at which she might pull. and, like all delicate wire-work, pulling the wrong one might prompt it all to blow up in her face.

and that would be terrible. not merely because of the setback but because there is a real and present part of her that dreads jeopardizing the rapport she's built with agent fitz. and not because of his usefulness or his gadgets or anything like that -- not even because in a very real way he is her legacy -- but because she likes the fellow. he's quick and clever and maybe a touch morose but he still manages to display kindness in a career that so often discourages it.

so -- with a smallest tremor in her tone: ]

Fitz. What did you see?

[hypoxic]

[He leans forward, head crashing against a palm.]

He had powers. Could jump between dimensions. But he was skittish about it. Didn't want anyone to know. There was a stigma where he was from. I -- couldn't protect him well enough.

[mucked]

[ christ alive.

peggy straightens even as fitz bows. her instinct is to check her shoulders -- and she does, indulging in that old paranoia that makes her make certain that no one is paying any attention to the two people sitting and drinking and talking. but if she draws this out too long and too far that tide of attention might change.

so what she does do is reach for one of fitz's hands. it's a light touch -- just pads of fingers on the back of his knuckles. it's nothing like a hug. but she has to acknowledge in some way what fitz is trying to tell her: he feels he forced his colleague (his friend, possibly) into a caper that ended poorly for more than just them. is it any wonder he's trying so hard to discourage anyone else from attempting the same? ]

You saw something spectacular in him and you wanted to celebrate it. [ she doesn't absolve him of his guilt -- that kind of lip service rarely sinks in, after all. ] But other forces saw that same ability -- saw the work the both of your pursued -- and only recognized what they could ruin and weaponize.

[ sounds like a typical work day, unfortunately. ]

Is that what happened?

[hypoxic]

[He'd been saying it since the start. It's his fault. That Cisco's name should never have been part of the fallout. That Cisco was manipulated shouldn't be part of the story. There wouldn't have been a project to sabotage if it hadn't been for him. People are always too busy trying to console him that they ignore the very real part he played in the tragedy. They made it about him when he never should have been.

He accepts her touch when it comes, but doesn't encourage it further.]

He said it was my mirror who tortured him after he was abducted. He couldn't look at me for weeks after. I still don't know what they did to him.

[mucked]

I've met your mirror. He's a cold bastard, that's for certain.

[ you know what? this is worth the diversion. a detour, perhaps, towards reminding fitz that there should be no sin in optimism and determination. if there was, good lord, steve rogers would never have gotten further than his collection of 4f rejections. ]

Which says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about him.

[ yes, the portal and its attempt it important. yes, she's never been closer to getting more intel about it than she is right now. but what good is intel if it -- like all bad evidence -- is merely fruit from a poisoned tree? no -- this sort of thing takes a bit of proper cultivation. ]

[hypoxic]

[He straightens when she mentions that, quickly clasping her hand in both of his.]

You met with him?? Are you all right? He didn't harm you, did he?

[mucked]

-- I look alright, don't I?

[ she deflects his concern with raised eyebrows and a shake of her head. she'd love to suggest that if harm had come to her she would have let him know far far sooner. but in reality, that would have been precisely the sort of thing she'd keep to herself. ]

It was hardly pleasant but there was no cause for fisticuffs.

[hypoxic]

You're sure. No -- odd chemicals, or anything of the sort?

[He's not sure his heart would be able to bear it if someone else was taken in.]

[mucked]

We passed each other in the hall. I realized he wasn't you straight away -- it was a chance meeting. [ it must have been. surely. ]

Nothing happened. [ and fitz is so concerned! her fingers stay where they are. ] I'm fine. Honest.

[hypoxic]

[ he lets out a breath, but doesn't release her hand just yet. ]

I want you to know that I take full responsibility over what he does. If he even scratches on your window, I want to know about it. All right?

[mucked]

[ you know, she should be more bothered about the way he presumes to tell her to report back about anything -- even that -- but she's far too thrown by the first half of what fitz has to say. ]

Why on earth would you take full responsibility for him?

[hypoxic]

Because he wouldn't be here if it weren't for me.

[It seems like such a simple conclusion. Why doesn't everyone come to it?]

[mucked]

[ you know what? she's been TERRIBLY supportive. almost to the point of feeling worried about her own sentimentality breaking through. but there's only so much that peggy carter can stomach before she can't help herself: ]

That's bollocks.

[ so eloquent! so charming! ]

Self-flagellation on that level really requires you to have had a dash of agency in being here. And unless you're hiding a much more interesting secret, Fitz, I can't imagine you've had any more choice in the matter than I have.

[hypoxic]

I...I'm.. sorry?

[He releases her hand then, momentarily stunned.]

Are you... Could. You perhaps rephrase that?