[ 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.]
[ all very adult. all very thoughtful. and if he's wrong, he's still wrong in the right direction -- the one that offers an olive branch to someone who likely never had many ever extended to her.
peggy's expression crinkles. ]
I'm afraid choice was likely never a ruling factor in this operative's life. [ and perhaps that's why peggy thought she could turn the situation around, no matter how little she trusted dottie underwood. ] Her handlers made certain of it. She was trained up from a terribly young age. I saw the facility, or one like it, with my own eyes.
[ that said! ]
You're still right to say it's difficult. And, indeed, to remind us both that no one is born evil.
The Russians were fond of facilities like that. Still are, really. We don't know if there are any other victims of the Winter Soldier program, or the Black Widows. Seems like there's always some new facility after we think we've done them all in.
[Is there ever going to be an end to it? What's the point?]
We have no way of knowing how many are left. Or -- if there are ways, I've not had access to the details. There's much mystery remaining, even considering what we've learned from a defector.
[ but she's doing it again -- asking question in that way she's got, a way that might possibly have become familiar, wherein peggy's only asking for details to confirm some other faint and half-conceived hypothesis. a look in her eye when she think she's got the scent of something.
it's just -- she ran into romanoff as a child, didn't she? and something had struck her then but never deep enough to make her dwell on it. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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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peggy's expression crinkles. ]
I'm afraid choice was likely never a ruling factor in this operative's life. [ and perhaps that's why peggy thought she could turn the situation around, no matter how little she trusted dottie underwood. ] Her handlers made certain of it. She was trained up from a terribly young age. I saw the facility, or one like it, with my own eyes.
[ that said! ]
You're still right to say it's difficult. And, indeed, to remind us both that no one is born evil.
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[Is there ever going to be an end to it? What's the point?]
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[ this is news to peggy; she rather thought it was a singular code name. ]
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We have no way of knowing how many are left. Or -- if there are ways, I've not had access to the details. There's much mystery remaining, even considering what we've learned from a defector.
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[ but she's doing it again -- asking question in that way she's got, a way that might possibly have become familiar, wherein peggy's only asking for details to confirm some other faint and half-conceived hypothesis. a look in her eye when she think she's got the scent of something.
it's just -- she ran into romanoff as a child, didn't she? and something had struck her then but never deep enough to make her dwell on it. ]
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