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

[outstandingbalance]

Yeah? What kind of things did he come up with?

[Father and son have a lot in common, but not everything.]

I'm sure he put his own spin on things.

[mucked]

There was always a bit of dramatic flair. Knock-out lipstick, a pretty little watch face which could double as a safe-cracker, a heated garrote that could be hidden in a belt. The sort of stuff the fellows at the SSR never really thought of considering they rarely kitted out female agents.

[ but howard -- howard knows his audience, so to speak. ]

[outstandingbalance]

A heated garrote, hm? Sounds like a fun trick. [Natasha has a soft spot for a good garrote, insofar as one can have a soft spot for clandestine murder weapons.]

It's almost too bad. No one has time for seduction and drugged lipstick anymore.

[mucked]

Not my favourite kind of work but -- [ she exhales, stepping up to the firing lane ] -- I'll be damned if it doesn't get the job done, sometimes.

[ she's not above a bit of seduction in the line of duty. it's almost predictably easy, sometimes. all sugar and coy smiles and barely-veiled intention. is it any surprise, then, that she should take a different approach in her authentic personal life? ]

[outstandingbalance]

I wouldn't say I enjoy it exactly, but there's something to be said for it. Tends to leave fewer bodies. If you do it right, people don't even know they've been had.

Not until it's too late, anyway.

[The other way tends to leave more bodies.]

[mucked]

[ a hum of agreement. peg checks the firing mechanism before she lines up a shot. ]

There was a lot more of that sort of thing during the war. [ her breath puffs in her cheeks. ] These days, I try and avoid it. I'd rather not be the agent the lads only bother to put in the field when someone's...ego needs a stroke.

[ AHEM. ]

[outstandingbalance]

It's never them who has to be the honeypot, is it?

[Natasha knows that feeling. And while she enjoys he discretion that comes with that sort of play, but the ego stroking part... not Natasha's favorite.]

Still, beats pulling out toenails.

[That's probably a joke.

Maybe a joke?]

[mucked]

[ she breathes out and fires. a zip of red traces across the field before scorching a target in the distance. comfortably on mark. yes, she's had some practice.

peg turns back. ]

Depends on whose toenails, I imagine.

[ look, so long as they're staying in the realm of unclear jokes. ]

[outstandingbalance]

There's not someone who's toenails you have in mind, is there?

[She keeps it light, still joking. There's no real pressure to answer—but it opens the opportunity for more conversation if Peggy wants to go there.

Who better to complain about the men in the office than someone from seventy years or so in the future?]

[mucked]

There's a particularly ruthless bastard at the War Department who could use a taste of his own medicine.

[ a torturer in his own right. now, if it came down to it, peggy's unlikely to inflict that kind of persuasion -- her means are blunter, less patient. but make no mistake: vernon masters is a rotten apple. ]

[outstandingbalance]

Those are usually the ones you end up feeling like deserve it most.

[Natasha could come up with a few names like that, though she wouldn't name them here. Or anywhere.

But the understanding is there.]

Neither skillset looks like it'll be relevant here though. Wonderland seems to keep things straightforward that way.

Not that it doesn't have secrets, but...

[She spreads her hands.]

[mucked]

[ a hum of agreement. ]

But I doubt peeling off the baseboards and the crown molding will get us any sort of answers. [ she leans against the firing lane's divider. ]

It's about scrounging the details, here. Waiting for them and collecting them and piecing them together as you can. There'll be no milking it.

[outstandingbalance]

Some of the old tricks still work. If we knew whose office to bug, that might actually go somewhere. Get the right sources...

[Natasha shakes her head. That was the real spy work, the things her trainers had perfected during the Cold War.]

No quick answers, just biding your time and pumping information. But that's a long con.

[mucked]

And the longer it goes, the higher the death count rises.

[ it's tough: that balance between waiting for the right moment and feeling as though the right moment was always three minutes earlier. ]

[outstandingbalance]

Could say that was the case in the Cold War too.

[You could say it because it was true. People kept holding patterns for months, sometimes years, bleeding each other for information while people died.]

Not that it makes it any better.

And at the same time people come and go, so you have no idea which allies and resources you'll still have when the other shoe drops.

[mucked]

-- What a thing to look forward to.

[ she answers with a scowl. not for natasha, of course, but for the barrel of the future. during the war, things changed so quickly. networks rose and fell within months of each other -- there was no time to spare waiting and watching. not like there apparently will be. ]

It's staring, of course. That aforementioned chap at the war department recently tried to frame a civilian scientist as a Soviet spy. Posthumously, I might add. Dirty stuff.

[outstandingbalance]

I'm sure it's been going for a while already. Things like that don't just appear overnight. There's years of preparing, building up behind the scenes.

[More of the same that way. Natasha shrugs it off. It's in the past, for her, and for Peggy... it didn't seem fair to tell her too much about the future before. It still doesn't.]

Don't think we'll run into anything quite like that. No doubt the folks behind this are in for a long con, but... It doesn't feel that subtle.

[mucked]

It could happen with our mirrors. [ peggy points out, a little dourly. ] Seems awful easy to frame a person for something when you've got their doppelganger in hand. Just another pitfall we've got to watch for.

[outstandingbalance]

I've seen a couple of them trying to pass as the real thing. That said, harder to make a frame job stick if everyone knows there's someone else running around with ever face.

Which isn't even touching on the way the real versions of any of us could be compromised.

[They have plenty to watch out for.]

Of course, they don't have to make it stick to undermine the trust.

[mucked]

Mmhm. [ she offers up a thin hum of agreement. ] Injecting this side's population with a bit of doubt has likely always been part of their modus operandi. Something I experienced on my very first day here, where a mirror version of someone -- someone from back home? He came through and got his hands on his counterpart's device.

It was some time before I learned the difference in hindsight.

[outstandingbalance]

Anyone I know? [If it was someone from back home, it seems likely. Not necessarily confirmed, but... likely.] I've run into a little of that. So far, none I identified in hindsight, but I can't rule out the possibility.

Harder to say with people you don't know.

[mucked]

[ something hardens in her expression. it isn't resentment, exactly, but a kind of uncomfortable confusion over the whole affair. ]

It was Barnes. [ she knows enough to know the woman can recognize the name. ] But as I knew him -- during the war. Considering I hadn't yet learned what had happened to him afterwards, he seemed very much as his real self should be.

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha isn't the most sympathetic person. Whatever can be said of her, she's rarely been called warm. However, there is an understanding in her expression.]

Worst case scenario. It would be complicated enough catching up there even without doppelgangers running around complicating things.

[mucked]

Yes. [ she concedes. ] It was a month before I met the real fellow -- monosyllabic and metal-armed. No one had seen fit to warn me.

[ and it's not that she felt she needed warning but -- look, if the unspeakable had happened to one of your brothers-in-arms...? it might have been nice to have a bit of a heads up. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[Oh, there are reasons to want a warning on something like that. More than one reason. Natasha's not bitter, but she's well aware of how dangerous Barnes could be.]

Seems scattershot, how people get information around here. Especially information from home.