[ close would be an apt way of describing it. outwardly, however, peggy doesn't much react to the word. regardless of her regret, she steams forward with a business-like energy behind her eyes. ]
We work well together. [ peg explains. ] Well enough and often enough that I've become familiar with his doctrines. His philosophies. And it was that familiarity that allowed me to anticipate his outburst.
[ she glances over her shoulder -- not to check for eavesdroppers, exactly, but to be certain she had enough time to explain herself before someone came by to take their order. ]
What I didn't tell you when I first approached you with my concerns, [ what she perhaps should have told him -- although at the time it hadn't seemed perfectly relevant, ] was how those doctrines might change if he was indeed returned as the 'edited' version of himself.
Whatever else had happened to him, whatever else went wrong, I knew one man would be provoked by the question. The other man would have been equally cutting, I suspect, but for rather different reasons. Horrible as it sounds -- I had hoped to see him panic.
[ a breath puffs past her lips. with the last bit of data still held out of reach, she supposes it must look like that -- and peggy, too caught up in the logic of it all, doesn't stop to think for a moment that fitz could be right. that, on some level, rip hunter's protests had been all about sparing her a disappointment he knew all to well.
goodness, no, it couldn't be that. the possibility doesn't cross her mind. perhaps because in that particular instance she didn't want to think about how much he might or mightn't have cared for her. ]
Not at all. [ she leans back in the booth but her voice stays low. ] It was a test, yes. But of his professional boundaries. Not his personal ones.
[That seems less likely, somehow. What could Rip's profession possibly have to do with the affairs of some people a century behind and dimension removed from Rip Hunter?]
[ she acknowledges, in silence, a kind of irony involved in this conversations. she intends to outline a circumstance that no longer exists. after all, rip hunter is no longer a time master. he's barely a legend, from what she's gleaned. what he's become is a man wallowing in his defeat -- history and chronology and the laws of the universe violated and outside of his reach. peggy would rather paint a picture of a different person. the one she first met, here, and who'd enchanted her despite his arrogance.
she delays her explanation just long enough to order a club sandwich and a mountain of fries -- her words. and longer enough, still, to let fitz place his order as well. once they're alone again, she resumes their conversation. ]
He suffers from a sense of stewardship over time itself. According to those doctrines I mentioned earlier, he genuinely believes -- for example -- that someone from '47 shouldn't go poking around her future.
[ not that it's done much to stop her. if it's a professional boundary for rip, then peggy has made it her personal mission to see just how many incremental incursions she could get away with. ]
I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to compare his caution to, say, you and I believing we know what's best for national and international security.
[ he'll order a hamburger, trusting the place only with the most rudimentary of American basics. The closets tend to be better with his more specialized favorites. Under different circumstances, he'd say so, and derail the conversation into Americanized atrocities on the world food market. But instead, he stays quiet to encourage Peggy to continue on. ]
He also deals in espionage, then? [ why not just say so? If he was worried about an international incident...? ]
I wouldn't call it espionage by any conventional yardstick. But it's close to it. Certainly, it involves a great deal of secrecy.
[ she does believe he'd make an awfully good spy. there is a harmony there between their two professions, she thinks, that helps them better understand one another. helps them better respect one another, even when they're both at their most arrogant. ]
To hear him tell it, it's been his responsibility to make certain that history follows its proper course. A responsibility he would not have felt so keenly if he'd come back wrong. So I rattled that cage just a little with the idea of me perhaps wanting to rescue Captain Rogers a few decades too early.
It never mattered whether it was possible or not. It only mattered whether he cared.
[ -- peggy so rarely gets defensive. certainly not of other people. but rip is so beaten down, so disillusioned, so broken by his own circumstances. she can't help a bit of knee-jerk protectiveness. a quiet little glimpse of something not unlike how she tried to shield fitz himself during the actual interrogation. ]
[The eye-rolling persists until he looks to Peggy for agreement and finds none.]
....Because it doesn't. It's a limitation of third-dimensional perception.
[Is this something he'll have to explain to her? Who doesn't understand spacetime??? Ugh, where's Jemma when he doesn't want to have to explain things...]
[ certainly, he'll find no agreement -- but not for any bullheaded belief in time, its travel, or its curation. rather, peggy sighs. ]
That is a conversation you would need to have with him. I don't understand it -- but there are a lot of things, since arriving here, that I've learned I don't understand.
small>[ she folds her arms on the table. the point remains: what she does understand is how rip hunter thinks (or so she imagines) and she acted on that knowledge yesterday afternoon. ]
His is a strange world. With strange possibilities. [ she breathes in -- but at least recognizes there's nothing amiss in sharing what she's about to share. rip himself had shared it, after all. ] That event that had us all talking truths to one another. [ they promised not to talk about it, but peggy holds up a finger as if to buy his patience. ] The stuff that was happening in our rooms? The horrible moments looped forever? That was courtesy of his world.
[When she brings up the truth event, Fitz takes a breath to protest. His sound is muted only by the presence of her finger, but it leaves his eyes wide, cheeks puffing with unreleased air.
That event had been humiliating. They'd been in an abhorrent space, blurting out things that should never have been uttered. It shouldn't --
He deflates when she mentions the other half, the part that sent them all scrambling together in the first place. And for the second time in two days, he's reminded of his father's voice, the smell of sweat and stale liquor.]
[ she doesn't need much to remember the chill of the hydra base. or the sound of static on the airwaves. ]
Our worst moments on repeat no matter what we did to divert them. I imagine it's how he sees any given timeline: not to be changed or fixed or ameliorated, no matter how much pain it brings us.
[ nevermind that she knows he tried. but it's as he'd said as he apologized to the mansion's population shortly after the event had begun: time wants to happen. ]
So you're saying that he watches, as a historian might?
[It still seems like a useless task to Fitz. But perhaps in the future, enough people become aware of the fourth dimension to attempt to impact its integrity somehow -- as if that's even possible. At least he'll hold back the dismissive gesturing this time, for Peggy's sake.]
Something like that. It's odd to try and explain it. And not my explanation to give.
[ there's no need to court fitz's disbelief further, she supposes, by suggesting the lengths and breadths first the time masters and then the legends might have gone to in order to keep history on its proper track. peggy only knows what she can piece together from rip's careful allusions and ray palmer's much looser tongue.
nevermind that it's all very much in the past tense, now.
all she really wants is to impress upon fitz the reasons why he was called upon to answer that question. and, perhaps, why it was important that he lie to her while doing so. from day one of describing the shield agent to mister hunter, she'd been adamant that she wanted to see him as a resource and not a tool. the difference means so much to her, now, that she's unwilling to leave him in the dark. ]
But I do want to thank you for answering with a lie. [ she takes a beat while she considers asking fitz whether he knows the accurate coordinates, too. ] When I asked him whether I could share this much with you it was contingent on my telling him whether or not you'd answered honestly. As I said, these things matter a great deal to him.
You mean to say that you discuss these matters with him fairly frequently.
[Because Rip Hunter appears to know things. And he doesn't just know that Fitz is one of the SHIELD agents here. He knows seemingly everything that Peggy thinks about them as well.
He knows Fitz is the favorite, apparently. She hasn't disputed that part. Does that confirm that it's true??]
We meet regularly. [ oh, there's a hint of hesitation in her voice. ] It's why I was so certain he was gone. He would never miss one of our appointments.
[ maybe it's enough to stick firmly to the language of business. honestly, it seemed like such a simple pretext right up until she had to try and explain it to someone else -- suddenly, the excuses she tells herself don't sound so adequate any longer.
so she tries to phrase it some other way: ] He's the first person I met here in Wonderland.
[There's a small twist in his expression then, a stray thought that makes everything hurt just a bit.]
I've not stayed close with many of the first people who spoke to me here. There were a few disagreements regarding standards and practices. [They're the sorts of arguments he still finds himself facing when approaching the scientific community here. They're largely madmen or complacent cynics.]
[ hm. truth be told, peggy and rip disagree a great deal when it comes to standards and practices. fitz is himself a nexus for those arguments -- something she doesn't dare explain. but it's never strained them to the point of breaking ties.
if anything, the arguments keep her coming back. among other things. ]
I'm sorry to hear it. [ and that's sincere enough. ] Knowing someone from the very beginning -- [ someone i trust ] -- has been something of a comfort. A source of stability.
[ so much so that when she first realized how many people recognized her, how many people claimed to be from her world's future, she'd immediately sought him out again. ]
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. ]
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We work well together. [ peg explains. ] Well enough and often enough that I've become familiar with his doctrines. His philosophies. And it was that familiarity that allowed me to anticipate his outburst.
[ she glances over her shoulder -- not to check for eavesdroppers, exactly, but to be certain she had enough time to explain herself before someone came by to take their order. ]
What I didn't tell you when I first approached you with my concerns, [ what she perhaps should have told him -- although at the time it hadn't seemed perfectly relevant, ] was how those doctrines might change if he was indeed returned as the 'edited' version of himself.
Whatever else had happened to him, whatever else went wrong, I knew one man would be provoked by the question. The other man would have been equally cutting, I suspect, but for rather different reasons. Horrible as it sounds -- I had hoped to see him panic.
[ and she did. ]
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[ that much makes enough sense. Peggy must have confided in him, and forced him to witness what she perceived as a gross case of unprofessionalism. ]
You knew he'd care too much to bear watching you become something you never wanted to be.
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[ a breath puffs past her lips. with the last bit of data still held out of reach, she supposes it must look like that -- and peggy, too caught up in the logic of it all, doesn't stop to think for a moment that fitz could be right. that, on some level, rip hunter's protests had been all about sparing her a disappointment he knew all to well.
goodness, no, it couldn't be that. the possibility doesn't cross her mind. perhaps because in that particular instance she didn't want to think about how much he might or mightn't have cared for her. ]
Not at all. [ she leans back in the booth but her voice stays low. ] It was a test, yes. But of his professional boundaries. Not his personal ones.
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[That seems less likely, somehow. What could Rip's profession possibly have to do with the affairs of some people a century behind and dimension removed from Rip Hunter?]
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she delays her explanation just long enough to order a club sandwich and a mountain of fries -- her words. and longer enough, still, to let fitz place his order as well. once they're alone again, she resumes their conversation. ]
He suffers from a sense of stewardship over time itself. According to those doctrines I mentioned earlier, he genuinely believes -- for example -- that someone from '47 shouldn't go poking around her future.
[ not that it's done much to stop her. if it's a professional boundary for rip, then peggy has made it her personal mission to see just how many incremental incursions she could get away with. ]
I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to compare his caution to, say, you and I believing we know what's best for national and international security.
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He also deals in espionage, then? [ why not just say so? If he was worried about an international incident...? ]
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[ she does believe he'd make an awfully good spy. there is a harmony there between their two professions, she thinks, that helps them better understand one another. helps them better respect one another, even when they're both at their most arrogant. ]
To hear him tell it, it's been his responsibility to make certain that history follows its proper course. A responsibility he would not have felt so keenly if he'd come back wrong. So I rattled that cage just a little with the idea of me perhaps wanting to rescue Captain Rogers a few decades too early.
It never mattered whether it was possible or not. It only mattered whether he cared.
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Fitz sits back then, rolling his eyes.]
Well that's a right useless sort of profession, don't you think?
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Not in his world, it isn't.
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[The eye-rolling persists until he looks to Peggy for agreement and finds none.]
....Because it doesn't. It's a limitation of third-dimensional perception.
[Is this something he'll have to explain to her? Who doesn't understand spacetime??? Ugh, where's Jemma when he doesn't want to have to explain things...]
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That is a conversation you would need to have with him. I don't understand it -- but there are a lot of things, since arriving here, that I've learned I don't understand.
small>[ she folds her arms on the table. the point remains: what she does understand is how rip hunter thinks (or so she imagines) and she acted on that knowledge yesterday afternoon. ]
His is a strange world. With strange possibilities. [ she breathes in -- but at least recognizes there's nothing amiss in sharing what she's about to share. rip himself had shared it, after all. ] That event that had us all talking truths to one another. [ they promised not to talk about it, but peggy holds up a finger as if to buy his patience. ] The stuff that was happening in our rooms? The horrible moments looped forever? That was courtesy of his world.
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That event had been humiliating. They'd been in an abhorrent space, blurting out things that should never have been uttered. It shouldn't --
He deflates when she mentions the other half, the part that sent them all scrambling together in the first place. And for the second time in two days, he's reminded of his father's voice, the smell of sweat and stale liquor.]
That. Was unpleasant.
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[ she doesn't need much to remember the chill of the hydra base. or the sound of static on the airwaves. ]
Our worst moments on repeat no matter what we did to divert them. I imagine it's how he sees any given timeline: not to be changed or fixed or ameliorated, no matter how much pain it brings us.
[ nevermind that she knows he tried. but it's as he'd said as he apologized to the mansion's population shortly after the event had begun: time wants to happen. ]
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[It still seems like a useless task to Fitz. But perhaps in the future, enough people become aware of the fourth dimension to attempt to impact its integrity somehow -- as if that's even possible. At least he'll hold back the dismissive gesturing this time, for Peggy's sake.]
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[ there's no need to court fitz's disbelief further, she supposes, by suggesting the lengths and breadths first the time masters and then the legends might have gone to in order to keep history on its proper track. peggy only knows what she can piece together from rip's careful allusions and ray palmer's much looser tongue.
nevermind that it's all very much in the past tense, now.
all she really wants is to impress upon fitz the reasons why he was called upon to answer that question. and, perhaps, why it was important that he lie to her while doing so. from day one of describing the shield agent to mister hunter, she'd been adamant that she wanted to see him as a resource and not a tool. the difference means so much to her, now, that she's unwilling to leave him in the dark. ]
But I do want to thank you for answering with a lie. [ she takes a beat while she considers asking fitz whether he knows the accurate coordinates, too. ] When I asked him whether I could share this much with you it was contingent on my telling him whether or not you'd answered honestly. As I said, these things matter a great deal to him.
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[Because Rip Hunter appears to know things. And he doesn't just know that Fitz is one of the SHIELD agents here. He knows seemingly everything that Peggy thinks about them as well.
He knows Fitz is the favorite, apparently. She hasn't disputed that part. Does that confirm that it's true??]
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[ maybe it's enough to stick firmly to the language of business. honestly, it seemed like such a simple pretext right up until she had to try and explain it to someone else -- suddenly, the excuses she tells herself don't sound so adequate any longer.
so she tries to phrase it some other way: ] He's the first person I met here in Wonderland.
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[There's a small twist in his expression then, a stray thought that makes everything hurt just a bit.]
I've not stayed close with many of the first people who spoke to me here. There were a few disagreements regarding standards and practices. [They're the sorts of arguments he still finds himself facing when approaching the scientific community here. They're largely madmen or complacent cynics.]
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if anything, the arguments keep her coming back. among other things. ]
I'm sorry to hear it. [ and that's sincere enough. ] Knowing someone from the very beginning -- [ someone i trust ] -- has been something of a comfort. A source of stability.
[ so much so that when she first realized how many people recognized her, how many people claimed to be from her world's future, she'd immediately sought him out again. ]
And we could all use more of that around here.
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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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