[Open] Life doesn't discriminate Between the sinners and the saints

[captain_america]

Who: Steve Rogers and YOU
Where: Starting on the beach and then around the mansion
When: Saturday 10/20
Rating: PG13?
Summary: Steve is back from home, slightly beat up and looking a little worse for the wear
The Story:

[ One minute he's fighting in Wakanda, over run by Thanos' army, literally. He's on his back on the ground and he's got at least five on top of him that he's struggling to shrug off. The next thing he knows the weight is off him and thats the Bifrost and lightening raining down on the plains of Wakanda. Thor is alive, and thats the biggest relief Steve has felt in two days.

He doesn't even have time for that to sink in before he's blinking and he's definitely not in Wakanda anymore. He's on a beach, sitting on the sand just out of the reach of the water laping at the shore. It all comes back in an instant. Wonderland. He lets out a frustrated noise as he lifts himself up. It had to pull him back right then? In the middle of everything? Right when everything is hanging in the balance? When he doesn't have answers for the questions he knows he'll face.

He sighs and making his way back up to the mansion, theres nothing he can do about it now. But he could use a shower, and a change of clothes. And then there's some people he needs to talk to. He looks like he's been through a war, and he'll probably turn some heads as he heads up to the ninth floor. It might take him a little longer than anticipated. ]

Comments

[mucked]

It makes no difference; you still look like yourself.

[ beard or no beard -- he is unmistakable. although peg won't put it to words...the way the line of his shoulders telegraphs who is just as much as the planes of his face did. the brightness of his eyes. the way his brow settles. although perhaps it's an unfair accusation. after all, just because peggy could pick him out of a crowd of one thousand, it doesn't mean that everyone else could do the same. it's not steve's fault that his very statue is burned into her memory.

well. maybe it's a little bit steve's fault.

peg clears her throat and crosses to the little bar cart that doubles as a tea trolley and serves herself a tumbler of something dark and amber. bourbon, likely. and although she knows the drink does nothing for him she holds up an empty glass with a bit of a wiggle. want some? ]

Still trying to untangle what to do about Agent Fitz. [ she confesses -- but moves quickly past it because there is intel, now, she needs. especially since she last spoke to rocket. ] You've been missed, Steve.

[ i've missed you. ]

[captain_america]

That’s what I thought but... [ He shrugs. People who don’t know him can’t tell. He’s not going to question it as it’s kept him free the last two years. Or as free as someone could be when hiding.

He nods at the unspoken question, he can’t get drunk, but he’s found the comfort in sharing a drink with a person. He’s even developed a taste for it over the years. ]

Nothing new on that front then? [ He hasn’t asked anyone yet- he figures it would have been brought up to him. ]

I’ve missed you too. [ Because while it was a week for her recently it was two years for him again. Even not remembering this place, missing Peggy is a part of him. ]

I’m pretty much caught up to Tony now. [ He’s not sure how much she knows, or wants to know. ]

[mucked]

[ being caught up to tony is one thing. being caught up to rocket, peggy already knows, would be quite another. she's been made aware of one casualty, in particular, that she would rather not discuss with steve unless necessary. nevermind the sheer insanity of people turning to dust and ash before one's very eyes. learning of it through rocket's gruff delivery had been miserable enough...

peggy pours him his drink -- as bourbons go, it's a good one, and the reality is that she didn't conjure it from the closet herself -- and presses the glass into his hand. ]

I've been warned -- scolded, really -- that learning too much about the future is a dangerous thing. [ she returns to where she'd been sitting on the sofa and leaves steve to pick his own position. ] But I know a little of what's to come. It has to do with the stones, doesn't it?

[captain_america]

[ Steve takes the drink that’s pressed into his hands, taking a sip as Peggy’s words settle around him. He takes a seat across from her on the couch. ]

I would probably agree with that, except if you learn it here it doesn’t matter. We really don’t remember. [ He wasn’t sure about that until he had gone home and come back. ] I wish we did, maybe I could have made a difference earlier. Contacted Tony...

[ There’s no use dwelling on that, he can’t change it. At this point in time they still haven’t spoken in years and he’s off in space now. ]

Yeah, the stones, which apparently have the power to break the entire universe. We were trying to stop it and then suddenly I was back here on the beach, mid battle. [ It was jarring to say the least. ]

[mucked]

...Steve.

[ she might as well have said oh my darling considering all the tender force and caution lurking behind his name. her fingers grip the glass as she leans in, elbows on her knees, and looks him straight in his lively blue eyes. they're as familiar to her now as they ever were. peg could stare at them and equally see the scrawny kid, pre-serum, and all the altruistic ambition he had welling up inside of him. ]

If there's one thing I've come to realize with absolute certainty, [ she sighs, ] is that it does matter. Learning it here -- learning any of it here -- still affects us. Here. And even if we could remember...

[ her shoulders shrug. are these her words or are they rip's? there are days where she can't tell the difference. because her experiences and his dogged dedication to this line of thought have (in time) won her over. ]

I no longer believe time should work that way. If I did? I think I'd go mad thinking about all the things that need changing.

[ shield. hydra. the winter soldier. steve himself -- she watches him with a pang in her heart. ]

[captain_america]

[ It’s the way she says his name with all the love and affection he had always imagined- if they had been able to have a future together, that is his undoing. He’d been holding it together so well up until then and he can feel it as he crumbles.

His shoulders slump and he buries his face in his free hand which had been resting against his knee. He’s just so tired. ]

Knowing here feels so useless. I feel so useless knowing I can’t do anything to fix something- to change an outcome.

[mucked]

[ she takes a leap.

reaching over, she intercepts the hand he'd tuck against his face. and instead she holds it -- curling her fingers into his palm and forgetting (for a moment) that she's got whiskey to drink. the moment feels so pivotal, so familiar, that she might as well be able to smell the mud and the rain on the air. she knows his face when he runs up against what's impossible. it cracks her heart to see it now.

but peggy has grown so much since that day. her faith in him hasn't wavered, but she's learned how to express it differently. she can take hold of him, his hand, and mean it without any promise of anything else. without any dreadful pit-of-the-stomach angst over missed opportunities. ]

Some outcomes shouldn't be fixed. [ she tells him -- frowning a little while she does. ] Imagine all the havoc I'd wreak if I remembered this place after I went home. Someone far cleverer about this sort of thing than I am once told me that time wants to happen.

[ she swallows hard. ]

There was an event torn from his memories. All of us were caught in our worst recollections, on a loop, unable to change them no matter what we did. No matter what we said. It's a rather painful lesson to learn.

[captain_america]

[ His fingers curl around hers and he looks up at her. It’s a familiar position, metaphorically at least. Peggy giving him strength and hope when he feels like he doesn’t know where to go from here. It aches in his heart how much he’s missed her. ]

Logical I know that. Things happen the way they are supposed to, I just- [ He looks down, it’s hard to admit this, even to himself. ] I signed up to fight in a war seventy years ago, I’m not sure I signed up for the rest of this.

[ He’s tired. But he also knows himself- he will do this until he physically no longer can. Because if the world needs saving he will never sit back and let it end. ]

[mucked]

[ her lesson has been a particularly painful one -- during that event, the one she'd just referenced, peggy relived over and over the memory of trying to talk him down from the skies. the words changed but the outcome never did. each time, she lost him. and each time she felt the full weight of what it meant to respect him and his choices. his principles.

she can see them on display again right now -- she knows him just as well as he knows himself, she thinks. he's an intractable sort. she loves him for it. ]

Someone else signed you up for it. They did the moment they thawed you out of the ice. [ peg answers. ] That doesn't stop it from still being your fight. I understand that much. Hell, I empathise with it.

[ shield isn't hers -- not yet -- but she feels an ownership for it. ]

[captain_america]

What if this is the fight I can’t win? What if we lose?

[ They were losing- he knew that. Until Thor showed up they were over run. But even if the odds had been evened he has no idea what the outcome will be. He doesn’t know where Tony is, he doesn’t know if hes fighting Thanos or lost in space somewhere. He doesn’t know if Thanos has gotten other stones. Everything is a big question.

He’s lost- but in the times he’s lost they have also won. He defeated Red Skull, but spent 70 years on ice, they pitted Hydra but toppled Shield, defeated Ultron but caused the Accords. His actions have always had consequences, but he’s always pulled through to win when the world needed it most. He isn’t sure they are going to win this one. ]

[mucked]

[ then we lose.

the words catch in her throat. she can't say them; they won't come out. it's one cynical leap too far. sod the odds; sod the obstacles. overcoming both is how steve rogers has staked his claim on history, and peggy can't imagine that'll change anytime soon. her fingers tighten around his; her expression softens. ]

I've got faith. [ she's always had faith. ] Too much of it to go wallowing, now, in the what-ifs and the might-bes. Don't go around living a defeat that hasn't even happened.

[ not yet. perhaps not ever. ]