open » i've got an atlas in my hands

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter + YOU
Where: Library, Rabbit Hole Diner, and other locations.
When: Early Feb
Rating: PG-13; will warn for changes in individual threads.
Summary: A catch-all for the first half of the month. There are some open prompts under the cut, but I'm also posting some closed starters in the comments. Hit me up if you'd like something other than the options below.
The Story:
[ DURING february's first few days, peggy pays a few productive visits to the »LIBRARY. she arrives armed with a scrap pressed into her palm. the paper is thin and torn, jagged, from a puzzle book -- folded in threes with precision and hard corners forced onto its asymmetrical shape. while she walks from stack to stack she traces the list's edge with the pad of her thumb. in reality, she doesn't need it. she'd long-since memorizes the book titles recommended to her in order to bring her loosely up to speed with popular science. so the list is a flimsy talisman, maybe, but during these visits it represents purpose. forward momentum.

her reading list is accumulated over multiple days, as though some reflexive defense mechanism convinces peggy to take her time. patience is rarely her strongest suit but she nevertheless makes an effort, knowing that a rush will only leave her rudderless and once again without distraction. to that end, she allows herself to wander off-path. maybe she's come for non-fiction, but she detours through a shelf of thrillers and mysteries and adventure stories.

she touches the spines as she passes them by -- her little list peeking between her knuckles like an ace at the ready. peggy never intends to appear lost but catch her at an odd moment and she might want some help. after all, stark never gave her author names to go with the titles.

LATER, with her coursework assembled, she goes elsewhere to conduct her reading. a great deal of it happens behind her bedroom door as she readjusts to a solitary life now that jane has returned to her husband. but some of it happens at the »DINER. with a whole booth claimed for herself, she sits with the dust jacket removed so bystanders can't easily discern what she's reading stephen hawking's a brief history of time, incidentally. it takes some two or three chapters to really dig into work she couldn't already recognize in passing -- and, on occasion, she offers up an audible scoff when she finds herself confronted with a colourful explanation of scientific discovery which nevertheless somehow manages to neglect howard stark's contribution.

she orders a plate of chips (hot; crispy; salted) and implores the wait-staff to keep them coming. instead of tea, she asks for a milkshake. not a quarter of an hour passes before she's cracked open a journal and uncapped a pen. her annotations are, for the time being, made in pitman shorthand -- and so appear as a series of near shapeless scribbles to those who aren't fluent. even so, there's no secrecy behind that choice. merely a swell of impatience after she'd worked so hard to contain it earlier.

and yet peggy's not averse to interruptions. not exactly. she may not be the most welcoming conversation partner, nor is she particularly fond of idle chatter, but she doesn't chase off interruptions or inquiries.

OTHERWISE, known associates and strangers alike are free to run into her »OUT & ABOUT. whether she's 'commuting' from quarters to library or grabbing a quick breakfast in the dining room early in the morning. she doesn't have a precise schedule (on most days) but she's not impossible to chance upon. she's nearly always immaculate -- from heel to hair-pins. having a project in hand puts her in a better mood. ]

Comments

[mucked]

And, doubtless, the people best equipped to decipher it are either the ones who'd rather keep it encrypted -- or certainly wouldn't want to dilute its value by releasing it wholesale.

[ which is to say: bollocks. ]

[redheadpepper]

That would be my assumption, yes. If someone has decrypted anything of note, they weren't sharing it - at least not yet.

[ She pauses, glancing around. ]

Unless this place has periodicals, because I can tell you, every major publication in the world had to offer up an opinion. The New York Times, Newsweek, TIME magazine... The Washington Post had a decent spread on it, as I recall.

And there have been a couple of books about - the Battle of New York. Some of them pretty pulpy and outlandish, even for what happened, but one or two that I think were all right.

[mucked]

...There's nothing wrong with the occasional but of pulp. [ it's less an argument and more an idle thought -- time bought while she considers whether this is a lever she wants to pull, and whether she wants to pull it right now. ] But -- point taken. For this sort of thing, 'all right' means a helluva lot more.

[ ... ] I don't suppose you'd mind trying to track one of them down.

[redheadpepper]

I like a little pulp as much as the next girl. It's different when it's something you sort of went through that was really scary, though.

[ She wasn't physically there for the battle but by God, was she there emotionally. It was awful. ]

But I'd be happy to try and track down a couple of things for you. The Triskelion, there might be something about that. Sokovia was still pretty recent, but...

[mucked]

Hold on. What's this to do with a triskelion?

[ -- sokovia, at least, she knows the broader strokes of. but this other word is nothing more than a shape to her. ]

[redheadpepper]

Ah. That was the SHIELD building in DC. It - got damaged pretty badly when that... whole thing with HYDRA happened.

[ Pepper keeps track of this stuff - she has to, for a lot of reasons, though she doesn't necessarily know all the intimate details of who and how. ]

[mucked]

[ -- peggy holds more blanks than facts. but this, at least, she can own up to. ]

I know all about the HYDRA uprising, I'm afraid. You don't need to walk softly with that one.

[ she's internalized so much of that disappointment. ]

[redheadpepper]

You might know more about it than I do, then. I know what was discussed at the Congressional hearings afterwards. While it was happening, it was pretty confusing.

[ Pepper sighs. ]

I was worried about Steve there for a while.

[mucked]

[ meanwhile, peggy's got a whole report sitting back in her room which covers (at least to some degree) the details of that particular twist of fate. enough of them, at least, that she can begin to imagine her unwitting role within all of it. but that's a secret for the time being and she's far more interested in these congressional hearings except...

except, well, she feels something sour in the pit of her stomach when pepper mentions steve rogers. it's difficult enough encountering that name like a landmine when it comes up in conversation with people she considers confidants. when it comes up now, with pepper, peggy's expression turns distant. polite, but distant. ]

Yes. Well. He's made of stern stuff. [ even before the serum. ] I wouldn't worry too much about Captain Rogers.

[ although, in truth, she does. nearly every day since she'd arrived in wonderland and learned he'd survived the crash. ]

[redheadpepper]

[ An interesting reaction from a person Pepper knows to have been intimately connected with Cap. She won't pry - she's far too polite for that, especially with someone who is effectively a stranger. But the information is filed away mentally, along with everything else she's learning about this Peggy Carter. ]

They all are, and yet, I still do. Occupational hazard, maybe.

[ She worries about Tony constantly, of course, but the others aren't safe from her concern, by any means. She cares, and therefore, she worries. But she keeps her voice light - not too serious, not too deep. The kind of confession she might make to a journalist interviewing her for a puff piece, rather than something she would say to a close friend. Her smile is a little wry, a little self-deprecating, as if to say I know, little old me, fretting about the big strong superheroes. ]

If there's anything else you want to know about, I'm happy to help. The Avengers have an amazing way of causing stock market fluctuations so I have to keep an eye on things.

[mucked]

[ pepper isn't to know, of course, but shortly after she'd come to wonderland steve broke peggy's heart. he broke it gently and he broke it politely and he broke it in the most earnest and darling way possible -- befitting, she supposes, the man who claimed so much of her faith and affection. that break hasn't healed; it may never heal.

at least, back home, it was only her coworkers who knew about her connection with steve. here in wonderland it seems all these future figures have been made aware. did they read it in a book? a tell-all? it worries her. not for a second does she think about the newsreels that might have survived to the 21st century, showing her picture in steve's compass.

not for a second does she think she ever would give an interview of her own. ]

Spoken like a true CEO. [ it is, in fact, a compliment. albeit hesitantly delivered. although maybe it's just a touch cruel of her to retaliate with a touch of her own knowledge -- to show that, yes, she also knows details she shouldn't know. ]

[redheadpepper]

[ In Pepper's case, it's just Tony. She knows what Tony tells her, really, though of course she does her best to filter out his various biases. She's relatively good at deciphering Tony-speak.

And, she suspects, he's the reason why Peggy knows what her job is. Not that it bothers her in the slightest. She knows Tony. If anything, he probably inflated Peggy's expectations far beyond the reality. ]

Six years now. It's never boring.

[mucked]

For some, perhaps. Those who have the stomach for that sort of thing.

[ and, once again, it's a compliment. peggy knows she wouldn't be cut out for that kind of position. then again, how different must running a company like stark industries to running an outfit like shield? she thinks about it with a crinkle of her nose -- that would-be legacy still doesn't sit well with her.

peggy still considers herself a field agent through and through. ]

[redheadpepper]

[ Peggy is certainly tough to get a read on - but then, she's not the first spy Pepper has dealt with. Sussing out other people's agendas is kind of part of her job - whether they align with her interests, with the interests of SI, that sort of thing, and most people are pretty easy to read. They want money, they want fame, etc. The SHIELD agents Pepper has dealt with, though, they're always tough.

So she just keeps that faint smile on her lips, shaking her head a little. ]

I guess we all have our strengths. I could never do the whole... secret agent thing. I'm a bad liar, for starters. Terrible poker face. Sometimes I wish I was better at it.

[ Which is true - there have been a few times when being able to lie would've helped her out a lot. ]

[mucked]

[ -- there's another moment of discomfort. one where peggy nearly tries to suggest she hasn't the faintest idea what pepper is talking about. but, then again, pepper wouldn't be the first person to casually allude to peggy's profession.

damned hard to be a 'secret agent' when everyone keeps talking, out loud, about the fact that you are one. ]

Having a talent for telling the truth is no terrible thing. [ ... ] The world needs honest people as well as liars.

[redheadpepper]

[ Proof positive that Pepper would make a terrible one... ]

Probably. More honest business executives couldn't hurt, anyway. Sometimes I think I'm the only one. Moral integrity is in short supply when millions of dollars are at stake. [ They all learned a hard lesson with Stane. ]

[mucked]

The more things change.

[ the more things stay the same. peggy isn't surprised, really. ]

I'm beginning to believe that moral integrity is most often incompatible with many of our esteemed capitalists. [ howard included, some days. ]

[redheadpepper]

Enough of them have tried to kill me that I've stopped being surprised.

[ Somehow, Pepper manages to be jaded and yet retain her own moral compass. ]

I just don't see the point of having so much if you don't use it to try and make the world better. God knows I'll never need it all.

[ But that's why she's stuck with Tony for so long - because he's the same way. He really always has been, he's just changed his tactics over the years. This is what they fundamentally agree on. Improving the world. ]

[mucked]

Insecurity, I suppose. [ it's an off-the-cuff verdict -- and one she makes with no mercy in her tone for the men she describes. ] Moguls and captains of industry so uncertain of their own value that they barter away their integrity just to feel that much more important in the world.

To their minds, they likely think they're making the world better just by being in it.

[redheadpepper]

There's definitely a lot of overcompensation in the world of business. Everyone's always trying to one-up each other. If you know how those people operate, sometimes you can use it to your advantage.

[ And then she smiles faintly. ]

When the largest tech conglomerate in the world gives x amount of money to charity someone is always going to try and match or exceed it. You know, for the optics.

[ Pepper doesn't care about the optics if it helps people. ]

[mucked]

-- Philanthropy via pissing contests. [ it's clever, actually. peggy can only approve. ] What a novel strategy.

[redheadpepper]

You have to get creative when dealing with big egos.

[ She's had a lot of experience with it, given that Tony in some ways has the biggest ego of them all. But it's translated well to her current position. She keeps her own in check, or tries to, as much as she can, and she plays the board and other businesspeople and scientists and politicians and all the others with a charming smile and batting her eyelashes and making them think it's their idea. ]

One of the unfortunate things about the future is that some men still have trouble taking a woman in a position of power seriously.

[ Which, Pepper suspects, might be something she and Peggy have in common, to a certain extent. ]

[mucked]

[ again: the more things change... ]

I can't say I'm not disappointed. [ although, equally, it's not as though she'd been eyeing that much progress on the horizon. ] Here, however. [ she continues -- tentative. ] Attitudes aren't so bad, here.

[ in wonderland. remarkably. one actually decent silver lining. ]

[redheadpepper]

If it weren't for this place trying to steal my memories and my sanity, I'd almost be tempted to consider it a vacation.

[ Probably a lame joke, but she smiles all the same, wan. ]

A break from the scrutiny, anyway. The 24 hour news cycle is not one of the better things about the future, either.

[mucked]

Resist that near-temptation for as long as you can, Ms. Potts.

[ please, she'd said, call her pepper. but the formality slips with a frisson of something chilly. reflexive; knee-jerk. ]

Some will say there's virtue in taking what we can from this place. But I worry, at times, that such an opinion is only the lofty sentimental peak of a very slippery slope.