+ The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to You +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Saturday, May 19th - Wednesday, May 23rd.
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch-all for the Kyln / Sierra Madre event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, the entire mansion will be part space jail, part apocalyptic wasteland desert with an abandoned hotel/casino. On the third day an escape route not previously discovered in the Kyln appears and breakouts can be planned...

...Only for everyone to find themselves walking through a large glass prison toward the toxic gas filled wasteland of a desert, the Sierra Madre. Does the prison look better than the toxic cloud outside? If you're stuck in the prison after dark beyond day 3, you'll be forced into and locked in your cell for the night. But at least locked away, nothing from the outside can hurt you. If you try to brave the actual elements in the desert it might be a little hard to breathe. The air has pockets of toxic gas and even a few seconds of exposure could prove deadly. And watch out for the Ghost People.

Inside the abandoned hotel/casino you'll find shelter from the gas and ghosts, but beware the holograms that are 50/50 with their attitude. Prison beatings, a beating from the holograms, which one Would You Rather? And whatever you do, don't try on the collars lying around unless you like to explode. Literally.

[ This is a catch-all for all your prison/desert needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and either a cell number or just a location if you didn't feel like randomizing it or you're making a top level for a public place (like the dining hall or wandering the hotel/casino). Here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun! ]

Comments

[hypoxic]

They're quite like cockroaches at times. Always seem to find a new bit of wall to crawl into.

[There's no reason for her to blame herself over an escaped hydra agent. There always seems to be a new disturbance wearing an old face.]

[mucked]

-- That's an insult to cockroaches.

[ she shifts, hissing through the hurt spiking through her torso. this conversation started in a place where fitz was trying to explain away alien fingerprints all over this particular event. does he not know?

she's surprised. she didn't realize the information was so poorly dispersed. ]

But this hasn't got anything to do with the Kree. [ easy, then, to fit that word into her vocabulary. she'd better learn and use it because, god knows, one day she might lose it. ] At least I don't believe it does.

[ LITTLE DOES SHE KNOW. ]

[hypoxic]

Why wouldn't it? I'm almost sure we're due another visit from them soon, given what we know about where things are heading.

[Peggy vocalizes some pain, and Fitz tenses with worry. He should bring her back to her quarters. She'll need help.]

[mucked]

Because. [ she rushes through her explanation -- keen to dangle information in place of him fussing any further over her injuries. ] I know who we've got to thank for this event. And it's not me. It's not anyone in SHIELD. No one from Earth, really.

[ it's a gambit, but not a new one. espionage sleight of hand -- when she wants him to stop paying attention to one thing, she teases another. ]

[hypoxic]

[As usual, it works exactly as intended. Fitz's eyes grow wide.]

You've met one of the extraterrestrials from our dimension? They're here?

[mucked]

You have met Rocket. Haven't you?

[ -- she could have sworn she's heard a derisive remark or three lobbed from either side of that particular scientific divide. ]

[hypoxic]

[Derisive, frequently. But though Fitz and Rocket have massive ideological differences, Rocket's stopped short of actually offering his name when they've interacted.]

I don't believe so. Tell me about him.

[mucked]

[ oh, this is easily done. ]

He's the chap who looks like a raccoon.

[ it took her ages to come to terms with this. there might be a little bit of satisfaction, now, in foisting that task onto someone else. ]

[hypoxic]

[He pauses then, stuck in an attempt to process that.]

I. Sorry, I don't think I heard you quite well enough.

[mucked]

Rocket. He's a raccoon.

[ maybe? peggy actually has never asked, but she rather doubts there are raccoons in outer space. still, it was steve who first described him as that particular animal and so it's that descriptor that she adheres to. ]

One with a proclivity for blowing things up. As I understand it. [ ... ] He's one of us.

[hypoxic]

Not quite the sort that the Asgardians would have us believe the universe is like, but one supposes it takes all kinds. Should I meet him, I'll be sure to be respectful of his cultures.

[His. Racoon cultures. He imagines there might be some foraging.]

[mucked]

You can try to be. [ but peggy can see the conflict, the escalation, the break-down from a mile off. ] But he's got a rather dismissive view on Earth and its denizens.

[ by now (unfortunately) peggy is altogether too used to being seen as primitive, backwater, antiquated because of her era. rocket's attitude, therefore, was a bit easier to navigate with experience. she doesn't know how it'll go with fitz. ]

[hypoxic]

[ they're already oil and vinegar. Fitz finds his candor counterproductive. But in theory, it sounds like there are only possibilities. Opportunities to learn. ]

If they're advanced by a large measure, I can only imagine what the disparity might be. But there might be an incredible share of knowledge nonetheless.

[mucked]

Look around us. [ she twirls a finger, lazy-like. ] Is this advanced?

[ it's not sarcasm. the question is genuine -- peggy's yardstick is so thoroughly outdated and she hasn't had the chance to measure this prison against anything of its like in 21st cenry earth standards. all she knows is that it was her ignorance that netted her these injuries. all because she couldn't recognize a ruddy camera. ]

[hypoxic]

[He casts a glance to the setting at her behest.]

Highly. I could build something that looks like this, but the security system isn't anything I've seen before. I'd have to take it apart and study it before I could replicate any of this functionality.

[There's more to advancement than appearances.]

[mucked]

[ she's unwilling to admit it was the prison's security system that did her in. but there comes a kind of relief (or vindication?) to hear fitz describe it as highly advanced, even by his standards. it makes her feel a little less foolish for her folly. ]

-- Is that why you've stuck 'round?

[ instead of escaping. maybe he's got a good idea there -- taking what inspiration he can from this technology before it disappears at the end of the event. ]

[hypoxic]

[Oh, but everything was so much better before when they weren't talking about this.]

Truthfully? No, ma'am.

[And thus ends eye contact. Has this been a new record?]

[mucked]

[ it's oddly reminiscent of their first conversation -- held while sitting on separate snow resort beds. peggy, at that time, making excuses around another injury. it's a blessing she's gone this long in wonderland before being rendered so vulnerable once again.

If it wasn't for this, [ she makes a point of gingerly patting her side -- alluding to an injury beyond what's visible on her face, ] I would have been out of here already. Like a shot. So -- I ask again. Why the devil are you still here?

[hypoxic]

[It's a reasonable question. The only trouble is that the answer involves truths he doesn't want to confront out loud. He sinks back into a slouch.]

Serving my time, ma'am.

[He wasn't being facetious earlier.]

[mucked]

[ oh for chrissakes. ]

Time served counts for sod all in the absence of due process. Wouldn't you agree?

[ she won't make the argument pivot over whether he's guilty or not -- she hasn't the grey cells lively enough or the constitution, just now, to pursue that avenue once again. but peggy carter will point out a faulty premise until the space cows come home.

and then some. ]

[hypoxic]

Wonderland does a rubbish job of enabling due process to occur, Ma'am.

[He's needed to be punished for a lot of things for quite a long time now.]

[mucked]

True as that may be, [ and she won't argue that it isn't, ] you won't find an ounce of relief in choosing your punishments for yourself. Or, worse, waiting for them to be meted out as if by karma.

[ they've talked about this before, of course. that ill-fated conversation -- where she'd tried to push him into asking the people he'd wronged what they thought of the whole mess rather than simply sitting in a puddle of his own foregone conclusions like a puppy who hasn't been housebroken. ]

It's not penance, Fitz. It's arrogance.

[ although (wordlessly) she can't blame him for mistaking the two. ]

[hypoxic]

If that's what you'd like to consider it.

[He'd leave at just that, to arrogantly wallow in his own cell again. But she's injured. She'll need help getting back when she's ready.

He stays.]

[mucked]

[ there is no getting this lesson through his skull, is there? that how she considers it doesn't matter a whit compared to his own cracked and fractured version of things -- that regardless of how she might see him as guilty or not guilty (never innocent) it's not him and it's not her who can hold him to any verdict. in the absence of any legal structure, it's only those who were wronged who can damn him or absolve him.

and he won't even try to approach him, as peggy understands it, and perhaps it's because he doesn't want real penance at all. just like he avoids her eyes now, he avoids making direct and earnest contact with what it might really mean to be serving his time.

peggy draws a palm down her face. she looks odd enough without her usual cosmetic touches: no rouge, no lipstick, no mascara. the swollen lip and ashy complexion only serves to accentuate those differences. ]

You've got the capacity in you to do so much good. [ she sounds tired. exasperated, really, with the circular nature of these conversations. it's as though the part of her brain which carefully filters out sentimentality and warmth has been busted. try as she might, the frustration of her lecture is immediately tempered by her belief in him. ] And you achieve some. You help. Heaven knows, you've answered every call I've made.

[ and then there was that mission, the one he went radio silent for, that jemma couldn't shed any light upon. who was he helping then? ]

But so long as you're too busy looking for ways to clap yourself in irons? All you'll ever do is fall short of where you want to be.

[hypoxic]

[It's this that he hears, genuinely, without the struggle of tears or protests. When she stops accusing, there's less reason to be so defensive. And when he listens, he starts to take in what she has to say.

His eyes shift back to her, though they don't make it much higher than the swelling at her mouth.]

I'm responsible for the suffering of so many people. They all want to excuse it away, but I can't.