So it stands to reason I'm a bit surprised to hear you talk about it in the plural. [ hunch turns to suspicion. suspicion looks for evidence. ] But I understand if you're not prepared to shed any light on that matter. I can talk to her myself.
[ remarkably, they get along alright. peggy doesn't know whether that should change given these suspicions, however. ]
[ good heavens, if there is a link to be drawn--? then romanoff is remarkably sane, peggy thinks, given what she's witnessed. but instead of chasing that thought she takes another bite of her sandwich.
eventually: ] No matter. Even if I might hope for a change heart in the operative I broke out of jail, back home, I wouldn't know where to find her. I implied things went wrong, Fitz, and that's because she got away.
[ because of peggy carter, there's an unstable russian assassin at large in los angeles. ]
No more than we will later. [ she's read the report. She knows there might not be an Earth soon. She knows, and yet she hasn't judged. How could he not return that understanding? ]
It isn't your fault if others choose to become monsters.
[ it's so so hard to fault a future that's still in the middle of making its mistakes -- none of them yet proven to be as fatal as they might yet be. might not be an earth soon is different to someone let hyrda in.
besides, tony's further along than fitz is. isn't he? and despite his catastrophizing, there is still an earth there to worry about ruining. ]
It's good advice. I wonder, are you the sort who practices what he preaches?
Oh, yes, I suspect a great many of us want it. [ it's hard to discern whether she's speaking broadly about a human condition or more specifically about the hang-ups of working in intelligence. ] But how many of us achieve it, on the hand, is a completely separate question.
I seem to recall on New Years you tried take the fall, so to speak, for your mirror's bad behaviour.
That's a different matter entirely. It wouldn't be right to pretend I'd had nothing to do with the loss of life -- my marks are all over the project. His fingerprints might as well be mine.
Oh, come now, don't be reductive -- there are a great many shades between 'had nothing to do with' and 'entirely at fault.'
[ these boys and their fatal flaw of allowing themselves only one of two options -- penning themselves in place in a society that practically trips over itself to give them multitudes of opportunities.
the best and worst of all she's known have all fallen prey to that thinking on occasion. ]
They might do. [ she leans in -- just an inch -- and adds: ] Perhaps we ought to ask them.
[ it's no real suggestion that they should go polling the dead. rather, it's a commentary that his is no place to be feeding opinions into anyone's heart but his own. fitz, honey, there's some confronting that needs to happen in your own soul -- take it from a woman who's doing her level best to confront nothing in hers. ]
[It would be an interesting issue to consider, but Fitz is far more prone to taking people at face value.]
You don't think it would be too upsetting for them if we tried? At this point, it's digging up an old trouble... How many of them might have gone since then?
[He knew about Elena. She's gone. He knows what happened with Klaus as well, but he's gone too. How many others?]
[ oh good god he's taking her at face value. there's a brief stunned expression -- a hiking of one half of her upper lip -- before she replies. ]
Do you even know how many there were to begin with?
[ or is he simply carrying around a shifting value to his guilt, magnifying it as needed to make himself feel more miserable? christ! does no one besides her value a good satisfying debriefing?
it's so much easier to feel terrible about something when you know the firm and solid cost of your actions. it's why she'd snapped up his report on hydra's uprising, after all. ]
[He knows the cold fury on his best friend's face when he'd been discovered as the source of bloodshed. He knows what he read in the subsequent comments when that Mason woman released her report.]
Leave words like enough to the editorials. Such wishy-washy language has no place in a proper report.
[ which isn't to say that this one, nor even that she's expecting one, but it rings like a kind of challenge -- betray himself to be a subjective and unscientific creature or brass up and do the professional thing.
only...god, it's been an exhausting week hasn't it? peggy's conviction flickers. truth be told, she doesn't know what result she's hoping for. chasing this particular intel doesn't come with the same spark as it once did. no, now she's just worried about him. even so -- knowing her luck, her earlier comment about two extremes will bite her in the arse and fitz's protest will fall somewhere outside the false dichotomy. ]
[ yes, yes, a hundred times yes. but peggy clears her throat -- she nabs a fry and chews it fake-idly while she watches him and his slightly widened. ]
No. [ peg chases the answer with a drink of water. ] Frankly, I'm over it. But the point still stands: there's not a lot of hard science to the way you talk about it, now. You're still letting your emotions get the better of you.
[He ought to accept that. She isn't asking him to try anything unreasonable. Professional detachment. It's what the job is. And yet, that doesn't stop the sudden flood of emotion that follows rebelliously after he's been told to put it away.]
The people who got the worst of it were my friends, Peggy. My friends were hurt and killed because I prioritized hard science over all of them telling me to slow down and think twice. This isn't some list of anonymous casualties. Every one of them mattered.
[ her resolve flickers only briefly -- only enough to realize that if she can say this to anyone then she can say this to fitz. the use of her christian name, it's diminutive form at that, rakes over her like an alarm. it tugs at her heart in exactly the same way she'd intended for it to do yesterday when she'd used rip's name. but peg doesn't know whether fitz's slip is intentional or otherwise.
her whisper is harsh, self-protective: ] For Heaven's sake, man, who do you think wrote the official report after we lost radio contact with Captain Rogers? Who do you think submitted that he must indeed have been killed in action? No list of casualties is ever anonymous. Whether they are our friends or otherwise. But the lists must be written all the same.
[None of this is intentional for Fitz. They shouldn't even be talking about this. How did they get here?
He ought to show compassion at her sudden vulnerability when she reminds him that the lists must be written. Isn't that what Father would've wanted him to do? Isn't that what all the people who do well for themselves manage?
He's not good at managing. He sinks back quietly instead, blinking back telltale water from his eyes. No. He is not going to cry in front of Peggy Carter. If there was ever a line, that is the line.]
[ on another day, peggy might have retreated. she might have more capably read the landscape of their conversation -- she might have taken some of those fabled interrogation skills she'd displayed just a glimpse of, yesterday, and used them to see how too far she's been pushing him. but she is tired. and she is worn thin trying to behave like a leader when all she'd ever really aspired to was field agent, soldier, fighter. and there is a concern in the back of her thoughts getting less and less quiet as time passes, telling her that she simply can't comprehend this level of loss and guilt and self-flagellation. to her, it's like an alien language.
so she sees him sink back. she sees water gather in his eyes. she witnesses his silence and instead of stopping, instead of processing what these signals mean and acting on that instinctive intelligence, peggy pushes forward. damn the consequences. ]
The lists are never merely lists. There's no looking at a file, at a butcher's bill, and forgetting that these are real lives. Real deaths. [ steve taught her that. once upon a time, she truly did try to keep herself more detached than invested. sometimes, when she's not at her best, that old habit rears its head.
it would be easier to think back on the casualty lists and not feel a sick sense of ownership for those numbers. after all, once enigma was broken it was only ever a case of picking and choosing which decoded german messages they should act on -- just enough to win the war as quick as possible, but never enough to tip their hand to the enemy. oh yes you can be damned sure they did their math on that one. not peggy, perhaps, but the intel certainly filtered through her. ]
Keeping the hard numbers out of your focus won't spare anyone. Least of all yourself. Not in the long run.
[She's telling him to swallow it back, to move forward, to be a man. He's supposed to be a professional, a capable agent. He should have gotten them all out of here years ago.
It'll be two years in a week, and the only real thing he's done is get people murdered.
He still can't bring himself to reply to her, can't possibly trust what sounds he'll make when he tries. A tear brazenly drops down one cheek, and his only movement is to wipe it away with an aggressive scrub, furious at it for betraying his weakness.]
[ it isn't so odd, really, to see a man cry. for the same reason peggy claims an atrocious familiarity to casualty lists, she could say the same for tears -- quiet ones and big old sobbing ones alike. lots of people cry in a war: civilians by the roadside, widows back home, the girls in the nursing pinafores just trying to hold themselves together while they also try to hold together the guts and building blocks of soldiers on stretchers. but the lads cried too -- for their mothers, for their sweethearts, for their own lives. for the bombs and the snack-crack of rifle shots and the cold oppressive impatience.
she wonders, sometimes, whether daniel sousa cried when he lost his leg.
but here she is watching leo fitz stave off his tears as best he can while they sit across from one another, club sandwich and burger between them and a while diner surrounding. it's awkward. she clears her throat -- and feels some of the fire dampen in her belly.
peggy isn't a soft touch. far bloody from it. but she's also not the sort of person who kicks a man when he's down just to prove a point. still, she can't quite bring herself to rise to any graceful supportive heights. she doesn't offer him words or a kind touch, but instead reaches for a napkin -- creasing it in her grip before she reaches across the table so he might take it. ]
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[ remarkably, they get along alright. peggy doesn't know whether that should change given these suspicions, however. ]
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[ he'll need to reach ahead beforehand and let her know someone'll be asking questions she might not want to answer. ]
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eventually: ] No matter. Even if I might hope for a change heart in the operative I broke out of jail, back home, I wouldn't know where to find her. I implied things went wrong, Fitz, and that's because she got away.
[ because of peggy carter, there's an unstable russian assassin at large in los angeles. ]
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They tend to be a slimy lot, don't they? Hard to pin down and hold accountable for the things they've done. Hard to know how many chances are enough.
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It isn't your fault if others choose to become monsters.
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besides, tony's further along than fitz is. isn't he? and despite his catastrophizing, there is still an earth there to worry about ruining. ]
It's good advice. I wonder, are you the sort who practices what he preaches?
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W-well. I'd certainly hope to be. Doesn't everyone want that?
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I seem to recall on New Years you tried take the fall, so to speak, for your mirror's bad behaviour.
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That's a different matter entirely. It wouldn't be right to pretend I'd had nothing to do with the loss of life -- my marks are all over the project. His fingerprints might as well be mine.
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[ these boys and their fatal flaw of allowing themselves only one of two options -- penning themselves in place in a society that practically trips over itself to give them multitudes of opportunities.
the best and worst of all she's known have all fallen prey to that thinking on occasion. ]
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[Hypothetically. If they're really going to open this back up.]
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[ it's no real suggestion that they should go polling the dead. rather, it's a commentary that his is no place to be feeding opinions into anyone's heart but his own. fitz, honey, there's some confronting that needs to happen in your own soul -- take it from a woman who's doing her level best to confront nothing in hers. ]
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You don't think it would be too upsetting for them if we tried? At this point, it's digging up an old trouble... How many of them might have gone since then?
[He knew about Elena. She's gone. He knows what happened with Klaus as well, but he's gone too. How many others?]
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Do you even know how many there were to begin with?
[ or is he simply carrying around a shifting value to his guilt, magnifying it as needed to make himself feel more miserable? christ! does no one besides her value a good satisfying debriefing?
it's so much easier to feel terrible about something when you know the firm and solid cost of your actions. it's why she'd snapped up his report on hydra's uprising, after all. ]
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[He knows the cold fury on his best friend's face when he'd been discovered as the source of bloodshed. He knows what he read in the subsequent comments when that Mason woman released her report.]
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[ which isn't to say that this one, nor even that she's expecting one, but it rings like a kind of challenge -- betray himself to be a subjective and unscientific creature or brass up and do the professional thing.
only...god, it's been an exhausting week hasn't it? peggy's conviction flickers. truth be told, she doesn't know what result she's hoping for. chasing this particular intel doesn't come with the same spark as it once did. no, now she's just worried about him. even so -- knowing her luck, her earlier comment about two extremes will bite her in the arse and fitz's protest will fall somewhere outside the false dichotomy. ]
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You want a report of the incident?
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No. [ peg chases the answer with a drink of water. ] Frankly, I'm over it. But the point still stands: there's not a lot of hard science to the way you talk about it, now. You're still letting your emotions get the better of you.
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The people who got the worst of it were my friends, Peggy. My friends were hurt and killed because I prioritized hard science over all of them telling me to slow down and think twice. This isn't some list of anonymous casualties. Every one of them mattered.
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[ her resolve flickers only briefly -- only enough to realize that if she can say this to anyone then she can say this to fitz. the use of her christian name, it's diminutive form at that, rakes over her like an alarm. it tugs at her heart in exactly the same way she'd intended for it to do yesterday when she'd used rip's name. but peg doesn't know whether fitz's slip is intentional or otherwise.
her whisper is harsh, self-protective: ] For Heaven's sake, man, who do you think wrote the official report after we lost radio contact with Captain Rogers? Who do you think submitted that he must indeed have been killed in action? No list of casualties is ever anonymous. Whether they are our friends or otherwise. But the lists must be written all the same.
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He ought to show compassion at her sudden vulnerability when she reminds him that the lists must be written. Isn't that what Father would've wanted him to do? Isn't that what all the people who do well for themselves manage?
He's not good at managing. He sinks back quietly instead, blinking back telltale water from his eyes. No. He is not going to cry in front of Peggy Carter. If there was ever a line, that is the line.]
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so she sees him sink back. she sees water gather in his eyes. she witnesses his silence and instead of stopping, instead of processing what these signals mean and acting on that instinctive intelligence, peggy pushes forward. damn the consequences. ]
The lists are never merely lists. There's no looking at a file, at a butcher's bill, and forgetting that these are real lives. Real deaths. [ steve taught her that. once upon a time, she truly did try to keep herself more detached than invested. sometimes, when she's not at her best, that old habit rears its head.
it would be easier to think back on the casualty lists and not feel a sick sense of ownership for those numbers. after all, once enigma was broken it was only ever a case of picking and choosing which decoded german messages they should act on -- just enough to win the war as quick as possible, but never enough to tip their hand to the enemy. oh yes you can be damned sure they did their math on that one. not peggy, perhaps, but the intel certainly filtered through her. ]
Keeping the hard numbers out of your focus won't spare anyone. Least of all yourself. Not in the long run.
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It'll be two years in a week, and the only real thing he's done is get people murdered.
He still can't bring himself to reply to her, can't possibly trust what sounds he'll make when he tries. A tear brazenly drops down one cheek, and his only movement is to wipe it away with an aggressive scrub, furious at it for betraying his weakness.]
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she wonders, sometimes, whether daniel sousa cried when he lost his leg.
but here she is watching leo fitz stave off his tears as best he can while they sit across from one another, club sandwich and burger between them and a while diner surrounding. it's awkward. she clears her throat -- and feels some of the fire dampen in her belly.
peggy isn't a soft touch. far bloody from it. but she's also not the sort of person who kicks a man when he's down just to prove a point. still, she can't quite bring herself to rise to any graceful supportive heights. she doesn't offer him words or a kind touch, but instead reaches for a napkin -- creasing it in her grip before she reaches across the table so he might take it. ]
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