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

[endingpoint]

Some things never change, huh?

[ Jane says that affectionately, smiling fondly at Peggy. ]

[mucked]

I suppose not -- considering I remain just as reluctant to fetch anyone's coffee as I did before the event. Perhaps even more so.

[ it's a fickle sort of protest, perhaps, but there's a reason why peggy serves only tea in her room. she isn't trying to force it's status as the superior hot beverage down anyone's throat -- not literally, at any rate -- but rather it's a point of pride. a reminder that here, at least, she'll never have to fill that role.

until the event made her, that is. ]

So I hid in back corridors and storage areas. And that's how I ran into Mister Hunter's alter-ego for that particular weekend. We'd met before, of course, but that time -- meeting like strangers...

[ she had a point she was trying to make, didn't she? ]

It sounds silly to say it out loud but there was kiss. Afterwards, I avoided him. Perhaps we avoided each other; in truth I've never asked him. It was as though I didn't want to know him if knowing him came with all the baggage that Wonderland pushed upon us.

[ that event, the cruel twists and turns revealed while rip had been brainwashed, all of it -- it had taken a lot of courage for peggy to take a second stab at simply knowing the man, let alone everything else that followed. as she'd said a scant few minutes earlier: it's important to build your own context. personal, private lore. in time, that's what made her try a second time. ]

[endingpoint]

You were afraid?

[ Jane asks that gently. There are a lot of words you can put in front of things to make a situation seem different than what it is. ]

Connecting with people...I know it's not something everyone can do and it's not even something everyone likes to do. Not everyone needs other people. But that's the only thing that kept my head above water for a few weeks. You. Other people. I've always been afraid to open up and let people in because of who I was and what I'd have to face if anyone knew. But I took a chance. With you and a couple of other people, and I needed that. Maybe you'll leave tomorrow, I don't know. But I do know you were here when I needed you.

[ She lets out a breath. That was a lot. ]

Being with Rip, if it's right and good, could be something worth focusing more time on.

[mucked]

[ she almost laughs -- and not the pleasant, warm sort. jane suggests that she might have been afraid and, as true as it might be, peggy is far from admitting it. luckily, on account of jane's continued conversation, she doesn't have to.

...although peggy thinks it's a particularly low blow on jane's part to so cleverly refashion her own experiences as an argument. she's got a way of getting in behind peggy's guard and finding those tender places. and she doesn't want to dismiss out of hand what her friend is telling her. even if the final note inspires a bit of bluster. ]

One day a week -- [ one night ] -- is focus enough.

[ -- just as well, really. the dance on new year's eve proved how easily her attention could be eaten up by him. and if peggy was in the mood to confess vulnerabilities, she might have described a kind of fatal mutual fixation. she worries, she cares, she wants. but in the end, she still balks the barest inclination towards something more. what they've got is certainly good; the jury's still out on whether it's right. knocking on his door again, as good as a stranger, after everything that happened -- it was an attempt to reestablish control of her own relationships. for want of a better term. ]

This place too often forces us into such unenviable corners. Like you said: we need people to be there when we need them. A bit of reliability. Someone who will always answer his -- their -- door. Regardless of what's tossed our way.

[ implying, unquestionably, she relies on rip hunter for at least a piece of that reliability. but she similarly relies on jane, and to that end: ]

I thought perhaps now that you've moved back into your room, we could arrange a day for ourselves. It needn't be something set in stone. [ peggy grows oddly sheepish -- afraid, maybe. ] A little bit more of what's 'reliable' wouldn't be so bad.

[endingpoint]

[ The second Jane sees Peggy's face once she's done talking, she's afraid she over-stepped, that now she's going to be asked to leave and that was the end of a friendship. So, when the exact opposite happens she relaxes a little and smiles softly. ]

I'd like that. I've never-- [ Jane pauses, wishing she had something in her hands suddenly, to occupy them. ] Go figure I've never had that. Someone outside of Kurt who actually wants my company on a regular basis. I mean, I have friends here who I run into and we talk but nothing pre-planned.

[ What she's trying to say is she has no real connections other than Kurt, and that's always been fine but right now she needs others too, like a sheltered kid experiencing life outside of the only thing she's ever known for the first time. But how to put that into words without sounding pathetic is beyond her. Or, well, too late. ]

[mucked]

[ peggy carter doesn't make friends easily. back home, the closest she's got to either is a man who used her for corporate espionage and that man's butler who, even now, she can't bring herself to call by his christian name. here, in wonderland, she's made a few sturdy acquaintances...some, like rip, are dreadful important to her.

and then there's tony who feels as good as family. the shield agents, who feel like her precious little charges.

but none, really, who are good friends. without complications. if there's anything pathetic in how jane phrases her circumstances, then peggy doesn't hear it like that because she feels quite similarly. ]

Something regular, then. Perhaps. [ if she smiles, it's more in her eyes than in her mouth. ] I suppose I miss our chats. It would be nice to have something between 'flatmates' and 'occasional passers-by.'

[endingpoint]

What about Thursday nights? It seems like when the mansion changes or we're forced to go through things, it always starts at the end of the week, at the start of the weekends.

[ She's been here long enough now to recognize the pattern, and she's sure Peggy has, too. ]

I miss having someone to talk to candidly. Even getting past, or trying to work through the lie with Kurt, I can't talk to him about Avery. Not that she's all I want to talk about or dwell on. But it's nice to have an option.

[mucked]

Precisely.

[ and while peggy hasn't divulged quite as much to jane, there are still things that the other woman has learned -- things she knows -- that make it that little bit easier for peggy to be herself. she can be, just as jane said, candid. and the lovely thing about it all, of course, is that peggy's natural inclination is to be a terrible candid person.

it's her work that had undone a lot of that instinct. and it's taken hard work to recover it, now. ]

Thursdays should do alright. Obviously, we're both free to reschedule as needed. [ a safety net, a bit of fine print, a suggestion that they needn't be strict with one another. she gets enough of that elsewhere. ] God knows what the mansion could throw at us even in the middle of a week.

[endingpoint]

[ Jane needs this, more than she can say, and she nods along in agreement. ]

I probably shouldn't depend on the schedule being so set, either. Who knows when something will happen out of nowhere. I feel like getting used to any sort of pattern, even if it lasts a while, is a trick.

[ Picking up her device, Jane does a few things and then Peggy's phone will make it's appropriate vibration or noise. ]

I just sent you the file with all my tattoos. Maybe you'll see something no one else has.

[ Not that it matters because what can they do with it here, but still. ]

[mucked]

Oh, cheers -- [ again, she probably shouldn't be quite so excited at the prospect. but here she is, leaning forward and grabbing the device and flicking idly through as though she barely believes that it should be so easy. files, duplicated and transferred in moments. no typing; no secretarial pool.

something lingers in the corner of her smile. but, after a moment, the old protocol slides calmly back into place: ] It goes without saying that they'll stay 'my eyes only' -- don't worry, I'd like to think I know how to handle sensitive information.

[endingpoint]

If I didn't trust you, I never would have bothered.

[ She trusts Peggy, with a hell of a lot. More than she's ever trusted anyone else, save Kurt. ]

Plan for next Thursday, then? Unless something brings us together before that.

[mucked]

-- Absolutely.

[ she resists the urge to over-plan. to suggest something, an activity, or anything of the like. they can sort that out on the day. over-scheduling doesn't come naturally to either of them.

for now? baby steps. ]

You know, I'm actually looking forward to it. [ she admits with a bit of relief, knowing jane won't take that the wrong way. ]