Shortly after I arrived, there was an event -- I don't recall much about it. But I contracted an illness from another world. A doctor took mercy on me while I was otherwise unable to help myself. She's no longer here, and I never got to thank her. But I like to think we might've been friends.
[ oh, look! it's their food -- delivered promptly and politely and peggy nods her way through a wordless thanks before sliding her plate closer. she goes for a chip first, biting it in half before managing to chew and swallow before saying anything. ]
Why is that?
[ a nosy question, surely. but she's curious. was there something naturally friendly about the doctor? was there some common ground? or is fitz merely expressing some sort of regret? ]
I think -- it was to be a terminal ailment. There were offers to kill the infected and prevent... Something. I'm not certain. But she she stayed with me, even though there was no reason to do so. At risk to herself, most likely. It was an act of impossible kindness.
[He fusses with the plate of food, touching one fry, then the next, while picking up neither.]
Possible. [ peggy corrects him, albeit far more gently than her usual corrections go. ] Possible kindness. Because it did indeed happen. And I can see it's left an impression on you.
[ those early formative moments! how different would their respective stays be, she wonders, without them. would peggy have ever bothered to know mister hunter better if he hadn't made himself a reliable source from the very outset? would she never have ended up in this situation, a day out of an awkward interrogation, if she'd showed up in someone else's closet? ]
[ she wants to stop him right there. she wants to assure him, somehow, that it's not a bad thing to bear witness to someone else's kindness and let it leave its mark on him. after all, the same thing happened to her the day he'd grabbed her into an awkward hug. that care and that compassion hasn't been forgotten. peggy's not sure she could forget it even if she wanted to.
but it's fitz, this time, to reins them back in. ]
I suppose it isn't. [ relevant. peggy proceeds to crack open her club sandwich and starts adding a few fries to the contents -- editing her meal on the fly. ] But nor is it strictly his hang-ups regarding how history should or shouldn't proceed that's got me asking you out to lunch today.
[ ah! the main thrust. peggy normally wouldn't put things in such plain terms, but she feels a bit of plainness is due this situation. ] Ordinarily, I try not to care too much what other people think of me. That's a conversation you and I have already had, Fitz. But I find myself wondering whether you feel you can still trust me after what happened.
[ she wanted to prove, she supposes, that she'd known exactly what she'd been doing when she'd courted rip's outburst. it's not enough for her to think she might keep his goodwill simply because she's peggy carter. no, peggy wants to earn that trust and keep that trust based on something more than a name. ]
[It seems like such a nonstarter that he's not sure why she'd think it's worth addressing in the first place. How could she not be trustworthy?? She's everything he'd ever hoped Peggy Carter could possibly be.]
What part of the issues from yesterday could possibly hurt that? It was a clean operation, all things considered. Reminded me of home.
[It's left him feeling useful again, as if he has something to contribute.]
Until just now, [ when he'd put the concern to rest, ] I could imagine how it might look. How a person might ask himself whether someone who treated a close ally like that, in an interrogation, might show him equal aggression one day.
[ the answer is (of course) that she would. she would hope to. but it's hard to imagine fitz compromised in the way she'd feared rip might be. ]
I wanted to explain that what I did was done out of a sense of -- loyalty, I suppose.
[ not that it matters. as fitz said -- it reminded him of home. and it's funny how that makes her smile just a little bit. it means more to her than she can say. ]
[There's something in what she says that pierces and sparks a return of his deflective grimace, a wince that presents itself as a ghost of a smile.]
If that was the concern, then please be assured that you were more gentle than I've been.
[He's already told her everything he cares to mention of Ward. He's sure that the connective tissue between the things she's seen and heard must be obvious by now. His lack of experience in interrogations was admittedly only an issue in an on-the-record basis.]
[ peggy nearly explains that compared to what had happened -- compared to what she did -- bruising the man up a bit might have been considered far gentler. but she holds that thought when fitz skims the surface of his own inconsistency.
no, she can't quite marry those two dots of intel -- but she can tell, at least, that there's something there to learn. ]
[Of course she understands what he means. He hadn't killed Ward and Ward was free to kidnap Jemma and himself and now he's going to help Hydra end everything.]
Sometimes we come closer to their methods than we ought.
[Should he have killed Ward when it was so easy? What would Coulson have said?]
[ a turn has been taken. perhaps it's for the best -- she can spool down that part of her mind that had stayed busy frantically defending itself from admitting feelings. with this, at least, she can slip back some semblance of what's official. ]
I take it you're not talking about the sort of thing happens merely in the line of duty.
[ because peggy does compartmentalize these things. many might disagree with her, but she doesn't count the enemy combatants she's killed in the field as people she's murdered. ]
We had him detained. He was helpless. So I cut off his oxygen supply.
[It is official, in a lot of ways. This is a confession, one that he'll never be able to admit to others. He's never been court martialed. Given the way Coulson's been behaving at home, he probably never will be.
This is a confession.]
I wanted him to feel what he'd done to me. I wanted to make him suffer.
[ -- now it's her turn to struggle with doing much more than picking at her food. christ alive. no wonder, then, that he should look on what happened yesterday as though it was more of a success than a slight.
peggy reaches for a drink of water. her next question needs to be a careful one, she thinks, or she'll send him running off in shame. she thinks about the sorts of things dottie underwood was trained to endure. she thinks about thompson and dooley. she thinks about their tag-team act -- the carrot and the stick.
she swallows a mouthful. then, in an even tone: ] Did it do you any good?
[ given his condition, she suspects there was no way in hell he should have been anywhere near an interrogation -- let alone one to whom he had a personal reason to resent. ]
You didn't quite answer my question, Agent Fitz.
[ sharpish, yes. but in times like these an agency man often requires something sharpish to prod him back into shape. ]
You know, it's rather odd. We're sitting on opposite ends of the same problem. [ it would be worth a laugh if it wasn't so sad. ] I find myself wondering, quite often, whether it did me any good to spring an enemy mole out of prison.
A Russian operative. The girl who lived next to me in a rather strict little lodging house. [ peggy takes a good hearty bite of her club sandwich. much as his words had been a confession, so are hers. she's told no one this story. it's been locked up in her head ever since she arrived -- hard upon the heels of that failure. ]
And I never once suspected her. Not until it was too late -- and then, knowing every bit of her wickedness first-hand -- hubris had me breaking her out of an SSR prison. Oh...just about twenty-four hours before I turned up here.
Injuries make us behave quite unlike ourselves. [ like reminders of one's own mortality. ] You'll recall the gut wound from which I was recovering from when we first met?
Perhaps. [ peggy chews through another bite. ] But, after nearly a year here, I do believe I regret taking that particular option.
I was too wounded to go into the field. The SSR's resources weren't available to me. At the time, I thought coercing her, turning her into an asset, was my best shot. I was wrong.
[ and now she wonders whether fitz, too, believes he was wrong -- over on his opposite end of the problem. ]
[He chews on his bottom lip. What would Mum say? How would she handle the cards they've both been dealt?]
I don't believe that anyone is born evil. We make choices. There are choices to confront every day. We choose to give chances to others. We choose how to respond to the chances we're given.
She chose to be a monster. You gave her the option to change.
[That's the sort of thing his mum would want him to believe. It doesn't feel as genuine as he wants it to.]
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Shortly after I arrived, there was an event -- I don't recall much about it. But I contracted an illness from another world. A doctor took mercy on me while I was otherwise unable to help myself. She's no longer here, and I never got to thank her. But I like to think we might've been friends.
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Why is that?
[ a nosy question, surely. but she's curious. was there something naturally friendly about the doctor? was there some common ground? or is fitz merely expressing some sort of regret? ]
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[He fusses with the plate of food, touching one fry, then the next, while picking up neither.]
I think she and Jemma would've gotten on.
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Possible. [ peggy corrects him, albeit far more gently than her usual corrections go. ] Possible kindness. Because it did indeed happen. And I can see it's left an impression on you.
[ those early formative moments! how different would their respective stays be, she wonders, without them. would peggy have ever bothered to know mister hunter better if he hadn't made himself a reliable source from the very outset? would she never have ended up in this situation, a day out of an awkward interrogation, if she'd showed up in someone else's closet? ]
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Most things do. Probably too many of them.
[It's a sign of weakness.]
But none of that seems particularly relevant to your friend's concerns regarding spacetime.
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but it's fitz, this time, to reins them back in. ]
I suppose it isn't. [ relevant. peggy proceeds to crack open her club sandwich and starts adding a few fries to the contents -- editing her meal on the fly. ] But nor is it strictly his hang-ups regarding how history should or shouldn't proceed that's got me asking you out to lunch today.
[ ah! the main thrust. peggy normally wouldn't put things in such plain terms, but she feels a bit of plainness is due this situation. ] Ordinarily, I try not to care too much what other people think of me. That's a conversation you and I have already had, Fitz. But I find myself wondering whether you feel you can still trust me after what happened.
[ she wanted to prove, she supposes, that she'd known exactly what she'd been doing when she'd courted rip's outburst. it's not enough for her to think she might keep his goodwill simply because she's peggy carter. no, peggy wants to earn that trust and keep that trust based on something more than a name. ]
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[It seems like such a nonstarter that he's not sure why she'd think it's worth addressing in the first place. How could she not be trustworthy?? She's everything he'd ever hoped Peggy Carter could possibly be.]
What part of the issues from yesterday could possibly hurt that? It was a clean operation, all things considered. Reminded me of home.
[It's left him feeling useful again, as if he has something to contribute.]
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[ the answer is (of course) that she would. she would hope to. but it's hard to imagine fitz compromised in the way she'd feared rip might be. ]
I wanted to explain that what I did was done out of a sense of -- loyalty, I suppose.
[ not that it matters. as fitz said -- it reminded him of home. and it's funny how that makes her smile just a little bit. it means more to her than she can say. ]
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If that was the concern, then please be assured that you were more gentle than I've been.
[He's already told her everything he cares to mention of Ward. He's sure that the connective tissue between the things she's seen and heard must be obvious by now. His lack of experience in interrogations was admittedly only an issue in an on-the-record basis.]
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no, she can't quite marry those two dots of intel -- but she can tell, at least, that there's something there to learn. ]
Is that so?
[ a nudge, at first. ]
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[Of course she understands what he means. He hadn't killed Ward and Ward was free to kidnap Jemma and himself and now he's going to help Hydra end everything.]
Sometimes we come closer to their methods than we ought.
[Should he have killed Ward when it was so easy? What would Coulson have said?]
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[ on that front she is adamant. ]
It's one thing to let the other side think you'll stoop to their level -- quite another to start stooping.
[ which isn't to say she hasn't taken the moral low road on more than one occasion. just that...there are places she won't go. shouldn't go. ]
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Jemma knows about it. She knows more than he does. He's the farthest one back, he thinks.
Should she know? Can she know? Is it even relevant?]
I nearly murdered Grant Ward.
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I take it you're not talking about the sort of thing happens merely in the line of duty.
[ because peggy does compartmentalize these things. many might disagree with her, but she doesn't count the enemy combatants she's killed in the field as people she's murdered. ]
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[It is official, in a lot of ways. This is a confession, one that he'll never be able to admit to others. He's never been court martialed. Given the way Coulson's been behaving at home, he probably never will be.
This is a confession.]
I wanted him to feel what he'd done to me. I wanted to make him suffer.
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peggy reaches for a drink of water. her next question needs to be a careful one, she thinks, or she'll send him running off in shame. she thinks about the sorts of things dottie underwood was trained to endure. she thinks about thompson and dooley. she thinks about their tag-team act -- the carrot and the stick.
she swallows a mouthful. then, in an even tone: ] Did it do you any good?
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[He wasn't strong enough to commit.]
He gave us some information we didn't have before. But I'm not sure -- they weren't telling me much in those days. I wasn't. I couldn't.
[He slouches down.]
You saw.
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You didn't quite answer my question, Agent Fitz.
[ sharpish, yes. but in times like these an agency man often requires something sharpish to prod him back into shape. ]
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I don't know, ma'am. Maybe. Used to spend a lot of time thinking about what I might've done for revenge before that.
[It's a lot easier to fantasize about a murder than it is to commit one.]
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[He blinks up at her, startled out of his self-pity by her sudden admission. That one didn't make the biographies.]
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And I never once suspected her. Not until it was too late -- and then, knowing every bit of her wickedness first-hand -- hubris had me breaking her out of an SSR prison. Oh...just about twenty-four hours before I turned up here.
Injuries make us behave quite unlike ourselves. [ like reminders of one's own mortality. ] You'll recall the gut wound from which I was recovering from when we first met?
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[He stops short of saying that he understands. He doesn't understand. He'll never understand the logic in trusting a monster.]
Our director made a similar call, not very long ago. There may be options which I simply don't always see.
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I was too wounded to go into the field. The SSR's resources weren't available to me. At the time, I thought coercing her, turning her into an asset, was my best shot. I was wrong.
[ and now she wonders whether fitz, too, believes he was wrong -- over on his opposite end of the problem. ]
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[He chews on his bottom lip. What would Mum say? How would she handle the cards they've both been dealt?]
I don't believe that anyone is born evil. We make choices. There are choices to confront every day. We choose to give chances to others. We choose how to respond to the chances we're given.
She chose to be a monster. You gave her the option to change.
[That's the sort of thing his mum would want him to believe. It doesn't feel as genuine as he wants it to.]
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