[ the feel of this conversation is too familiar, too easy to fall back into. he forgets that he'd only just gotten a proper introduction to peggy a month ago over apologies and cupcakes. his shorter argument rolls off of him, something wonderland said he'd done countless times before. "before." ]
Peg. C'mon. You could've just asked me for down time.
Hardly seemed appropriate, did it? [ they'd had a patter, a rhythm, jumbled into their heads and it bothers her how easily it bubbles up once again. the long-suffering assistant, professional but friendly. ] To beg off hard work while the boss burned the midnight oil, regardless of whether it was midnight or not.
[ and on one of the busiest political weeks of -- stop. peggy's sigh is audible. and when she lashes out, it's not at him but at how comfortable she finds the argument. ]
[ so far, following peggy's lead and trying to make her comfortable has blown up in his face every time he's tried it. but it's different between them now, even if the experiences were manufactured. the feeling of familiarity remains, whether they like it or not. ]
Maybe it'd help if you tell me something real about yourself.
[ a challenge, and one he doesn't levy lightly. their fake repertoire is all he has to go off of, and maybe that's part of the problem. ]
[ oh. he surprises her. and although that comes with an initial sting (there's safety found in predicting another person's gambits), the more lasting effect is a much sharper piquing of her interest.
he's not wrong. she might not care what he thinks of her, exactly, but it does matter that he's acting on bad intel. her thoughtful silence drags on until... ]
Alright. [ ... ] But not over these infernal things. It will have to be in person.
Good Lord. [ well, it's not the sort of neutral ground she'd imagined but her constitution isn't so delicate that she can't handle a bit of grime, appearances to the contrary. ] I didn't realize I was interrupting anything.
[ he's constantly working. people interrupting him is a good thing peg. and audio's even better because it means he can have most of his body tipped inside the spectrometer rip dismantled while having a polite conversation about assumed relationships! ]
Besides, you gave me the very serious we should talk intro. That's like the keyword for stop what you're doing, Ray, you have to actually pay attention for once.
[ it's almost friendly. at the very least, it's delivered whip-quick with a kind of idle distraction as she shuts her door and begins down the corridor. she could hang up; she could say goodbye. but she's never been to this 'workshop' and on the off chance that she heads in the wrong direction, she doesn't want to court the embarrassment of having to call him back. ]
[ the truth. there it is, once more. he gives it freely and asks for it in turn. or a piece of it, at least. peggy hasn't yet decided what, exactly, she could offer him that might appease the question.
there's the dull sound of high heels on stairs as she moves between floors. ]
Here's a bit of honesty for free: patches of radio silence aside, I rather admire an active work ethic.
[ and there it is: the very question she'd anticipated, and the reason why she'd insisted on meeting face-to-face for it. so now she must find an answer (a placeholder) that won't make her caution too obvious. ]
Now, now. Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you? [ she doesn't like owning up to her own shortcomings, but perhaps she can distract him a little with a bit of professed ignorance. ] I'm nearly there. At least, I think I am.
[ she bites down on a smile of considerable gratification. the question is dropped (for now) and she can bide her time and answer it at her own pace once she can keep an eye on his expression. get a better read, indeed, on how it lands. having met such a broad spectrum of people and professions in wonderland, however, she doesn't anticipate it'll come with any surprise.
but it's nice to know she's right about one thing -- a touch of vulnerability, a request for help, and the conversation swings smoothly back to the realm of ray palmer and his attempts to mitigate disappointment via baked goods. ]
Brownies will do nicely, thank you.
[ and it's not long before she's pocketing her device and striding into the workshop with an admittedly earnest awe in her eyes. it's all considerably more than any of stark's workspaces.
she rounds a desk and calls out, curious: ] -- Ray?
[ it's as much a living space as a working one-- the sofa and armchair are there to encourage friends and teammates to hang out while ray tinkers. he's a social creature down to his bones, but he also lowkey believes that he needs to give people a reason to come around. so there's always snacks and music and projects for people to try out.
ray himself may not feel worth the attention, but he's useful. being useful means being needed. ]
Hey! You made it!
[ his voice is muffled before he stands up inside a large, hollowed-out machine. his hair is much less kempt than usual, and he's dotted here and there with the aforementioned grease. in fact, he might look more the part of a town mechanic than a genius who collects phds for fun. (then again, the blow-up clowns in the opposite corner maybe also scream manchild...) ]
Have a seat wherever looks solid-- I'm just getting the last pieces out of this thing, and if I stop now I'll lose my place.
[ a town mechanic is nothing to sneeze at. and, certainly, upon seeing him her demeanor is at least politely pleasant. although no one could be blamed for wondering whether peggy carter ever manages to appear happy.
she stands a comfortable distance with her hands perched on her hips -- no reason for it, really, except that it's a characteristic posture of hers -- and takes the measure of his work-hours appearance.
hard work and industry. nothing, indeed, to sneeze at. ]
Don't stop on my account. [ despite his invitation, she doesn't rush to take a seat. instead, she drinks in the sight of the machine. ] Except -- except what is it?
Well-- [ ray grunts as he crouches back down, squeezing into the confinement of the machine's skeleton. as he talks, he tosses pieces out into the pile he's been growing for a few hours, now. ] --it used to be a mass spectrometer.
It got a little banged up, though, so I figured I might as well dismantle it entirely and add some better functionality anyway. Research isn't exactly my favorite part of the job, but I've got a lot of data to start verifying.
[ you know -- the boring stuff. science can't all be fun explosions and time traveling ok. ]
[ it's just as well that he's out of sight -- or, rather, that she is. because now that she knows what it's meant to be, she's eyeing the machine with considerably deeper interest. it looks a bit more streamlined, perhaps, than the calutron mass spectrometers used during the war.
(but that's a dark thought; she chases it away.)
peggy watches what she can see of the job. it's all like another language to her -- wherein she can recognize the pieces, but not exactly how they fit together. or why. ]
Dare I asked what happened?
[ she owes him an answer of her own but it seems she's unprepared to make it easy on either of them. ]
[ for once, ray is left uncharacteristically silent. it feels like it stretches on forever, his hands paused at the wires he'd been pulling apart. his head peeks up over the metal, and his elbows poke upward so that he can lean his chin on his crossed forearms.
he knows this isn't going to play, and that it'll depend on how peggy reads it. ray smiles, unconvincingly. ]
[ she nearly lets him get away with it. indeed, she takes a full moment to consider the merits of letting a clumsy excuse slide on by. in might buy her a bit of goodwill going forward for when she inevitably must tell a tall tale of her own.
in the end, she errs on the side of this strange new-found and unfairly earned camaraderie. ]
Isn't this meeting meant to be all about honesty, Ray? What a dreadful precedent to set.
[ peggy watches him. carefully. it's supposed to be about her honesty, yes, but she'll push the boundary a little if she can. see what she can't get away with. ]
[ he scowls, mock suspicion giving way slowly to real suspicion. ray's a supporter, a giver, a natural nurturer. but there's a line, even so. he can feel it drawing closer. ]
[ alright. perhaps she ought to lead with an edge of an explanation -- an implication, at least, of what's at stake for her by even agreeing to think about what he'd suggested: resetting the balance, so to speak. ]
You asked a question earlier that, when answered honestly, risks a charge of treason. Back home.
[ and her voice shows remarkable little strain as she says it, no matter the substance. ]
[ at her rhetorical question, ray's head tips -- he does have to concede the point. (he begged it, after all.) ]
That sounds pretty serious.
[ he knows it should land harder, by her own reluctance to even answer. ray knows that he's tone deaf sometimes, but he also knows that peggy's trying. she nearly looked happy coming in here, when he'd been sure she'd needed to blow off steam at him for being an impossible jerk of a boss. (he'd have let her, knowing that it was important and at the same time impersonal.) this is different, but ray is trying to understand that the gray things are even grayer in wonderland.
so, they're sharing things that specifically are uncomfortable to share. he doesn't want to talk about this-- has only actually spoken of it to gideon after the fact. and only because she'd come looking for him. between peggy's own morsel and the odd blunt pragmatism she seems to favor, ray thinks this is the right choice. ]
Rip found out that I obtained the brainwashing tech to fix him. [ he gestures as the disaster zone that is the workshop. ] He went hunting.
[ she's prepared to downplay it. prepared to explain that it should be serious, except that everyone from 'her world' seems to already know the details of her life that (by the strictest definition) should also be covered by that same blanket of confidentiality.
prepared to explain that somehow the official secrets act means next to nothing in wonderland, and that it's been an adjustment. what she's not prepared to do, it seems, is live her life by these new standards.
but it's all blown far out of the water when her poking and her prodding is gratified by an answer. peggy takes a step forward, her interest in the matter betrayed by a kind of energetic enthusiasm to piece it apart. ]
That tracks. [ it's so much easier to discuss that brainwashed version of rip hunter. much more easily discussed than the one from the last event. ] When our paths crossed, he seemed like a man with nothing to lose except for his 'new philosophy.' So it makes sense that he would disrupt those efforts.
[ peggy clears her throat. ] I haven't seen him since. [ she lies and it's a rare clumsy one but she doubts her 'boss' had caught wind of with whom she'd been spending her radio silences. ] Is he still...?
[ he's so quick to reassure her (and maybe himself) that rip was in his right mind once again, that there isn't any initial follow up he has prepared. ray's also not looking for the eye contact he's usually mindful of making.
he really doesn't want to talk about it. ray moves to lean back and give his hands something to do. the change in task gives him a shift in tone-- a very recognizable habit to someone who "worked" with him for a few days recently. ]
You know, this is kind of embarrassing. Have I asked you when you're from, yet?
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Peg. C'mon. You could've just asked me for down time.
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[ and on one of the busiest political weeks of -- stop. peggy's sigh is audible. and when she lashes out, it's not at him but at how comfortable she finds the argument. ]
This is absurd.
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[ so far, following peggy's lead and trying to make her comfortable has blown up in his face every time he's tried it. but it's different between them now, even if the experiences were manufactured. the feeling of familiarity remains, whether they like it or not. ]
Maybe it'd help if you tell me something real about yourself.
[ a challenge, and one he doesn't levy lightly. their fake repertoire is all he has to go off of, and maybe that's part of the problem. ]
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he's not wrong. she might not care what he thinks of her, exactly, but it does matter that he's acting on bad intel. her thoughtful silence drags on until... ]
Alright. [ ... ] But not over these infernal things. It will have to be in person.
[ no please, no thank you, no may we. ]
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If you don't mind the smell of machining grease, you can come by the workshop now. I'm sort of elbow deep in a rebuild...
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[ and yet she's already leaving her room. ]
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[ he's constantly working. people interrupting him is a good thing peg. and audio's even better because it means he can have most of his body tipped inside the spectrometer rip dismantled while having a polite conversation about assumed relationships! ]
Besides, you gave me the very serious we should talk intro. That's like the keyword for stop what you're doing, Ray, you have to actually pay attention for once.
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[ it's almost friendly. at the very least, it's delivered whip-quick with a kind of idle distraction as she shuts her door and begins down the corridor. she could hang up; she could say goodbye. but she's never been to this 'workshop' and on the off chance that she heads in the wrong direction, she doesn't want to court the embarrassment of having to call him back. ]
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[ he chuckles, and grunts while turning something that doesn't want turning. ]
I know it's hard to believe, but it's important you know the truth.
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there's the dull sound of high heels on stairs as she moves between floors. ]
Here's a bit of honesty for free: patches of radio silence aside, I rather admire an active work ethic.
[ she won't say 'healthy.' ]
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What kind of work do you normally do, anyway?
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Now, now. Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you? [ she doesn't like owning up to her own shortcomings, but perhaps she can distract him a little with a bit of professed ignorance. ] I'm nearly there. At least, I think I am.
Where, exactly, is the workshop?
[ that should tide things over. ]
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[ it's rattled off with the ease of someone who says the same thing to everyone. he does amend, though: ]
Oh-- I'm still getting it back in order. Hopefully brownies make up for the mess?
[ translation: it's a disaster. there's literally just a pile of junk in one corner. ]
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but it's nice to know she's right about one thing -- a touch of vulnerability, a request for help, and the conversation swings smoothly back to the realm of ray palmer and his attempts to mitigate disappointment via baked goods. ]
Brownies will do nicely, thank you.
[ and it's not long before she's pocketing her device and striding into the workshop with an admittedly earnest awe in her eyes. it's all considerably more than any of stark's workspaces.
she rounds a desk and calls out, curious: ] -- Ray?
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ray himself may not feel worth the attention, but he's useful. being useful means being needed. ]
Hey! You made it!
[ his voice is muffled before he stands up inside a large, hollowed-out machine. his hair is much less kempt than usual, and he's dotted here and there with the aforementioned grease. in fact, he might look more the part of a town mechanic than a genius who collects phds for fun. (then again, the blow-up clowns in the opposite corner maybe also scream manchild...) ]
Have a seat wherever looks solid-- I'm just getting the last pieces out of this thing, and if I stop now I'll lose my place.
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she stands a comfortable distance with her hands perched on her hips -- no reason for it, really, except that it's a characteristic posture of hers -- and takes the measure of his work-hours appearance.
hard work and industry. nothing, indeed, to sneeze at. ]
Don't stop on my account. [ despite his invitation, she doesn't rush to take a seat. instead, she drinks in the sight of the machine. ] Except -- except what is it?
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It got a little banged up, though, so I figured I might as well dismantle it entirely and add some better functionality anyway. Research isn't exactly my favorite part of the job, but I've got a lot of data to start verifying.
[ you know -- the boring stuff. science can't all be fun explosions and time traveling ok. ]
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(but that's a dark thought; she chases it away.)
peggy watches what she can see of the job. it's all like another language to her -- wherein she can recognize the pieces, but not exactly how they fit together. or why. ]
Dare I asked what happened?
[ she owes him an answer of her own but it seems she's unprepared to make it easy on either of them. ]
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he knows this isn't going to play, and that it'll depend on how peggy reads it. ray smiles, unconvincingly. ]
Scavenger hunt gone bad?
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in the end, she errs on the side of this strange new-found and unfairly earned camaraderie. ]
Isn't this meeting meant to be all about honesty, Ray? What a dreadful precedent to set.
[ peggy watches him. carefully. it's supposed to be about her honesty, yes, but she'll push the boundary a little if she can. see what she can't get away with. ]
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You make it sound like a negotiation, Peg.
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[ alright. perhaps she ought to lead with an edge of an explanation -- an implication, at least, of what's at stake for her by even agreeing to think about what he'd suggested: resetting the balance, so to speak. ]
You asked a question earlier that, when answered honestly, risks a charge of treason. Back home.
[ and her voice shows remarkable little strain as she says it, no matter the substance. ]
So you'll forgive me if I don't give it easily.
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That sounds pretty serious.
[ he knows it should land harder, by her own reluctance to even answer. ray knows that he's tone deaf sometimes, but he also knows that peggy's trying. she nearly looked happy coming in here, when he'd been sure she'd needed to blow off steam at him for being an impossible jerk of a boss. (he'd have let her, knowing that it was important and at the same time impersonal.) this is different, but ray is trying to understand that the gray things are even grayer in wonderland.
so, they're sharing things that specifically are uncomfortable to share. he doesn't want to talk about this-- has only actually spoken of it to gideon after the fact. and only because she'd come looking for him. between peggy's own morsel and the odd blunt pragmatism she seems to favor, ray thinks this is the right choice. ]
Rip found out that I obtained the brainwashing tech to fix him. [ he gestures as the disaster zone that is the workshop. ] He went hunting.
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prepared to explain that somehow the official secrets act means next to nothing in wonderland, and that it's been an adjustment. what she's not prepared to do, it seems, is live her life by these new standards.
but it's all blown far out of the water when her poking and her prodding is gratified by an answer. peggy takes a step forward, her interest in the matter betrayed by a kind of energetic enthusiasm to piece it apart. ]
That tracks. [ it's so much easier to discuss that brainwashed version of rip hunter. much more easily discussed than the one from the last event. ] When our paths crossed, he seemed like a man with nothing to lose except for his 'new philosophy.' So it makes sense that he would disrupt those efforts.
[ peggy clears her throat. ] I haven't seen him since. [ she lies and it's a rare clumsy one but she doubts her 'boss' had caught wind of with whom she'd been spending her radio silences. ] Is he still...?
[ wrong. ]
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[ he's so quick to reassure her (and maybe himself) that rip was in his right mind once again, that there isn't any initial follow up he has prepared. ray's also not looking for the eye contact he's usually mindful of making.
he really doesn't want to talk about it. ray moves to lean back and give his hands something to do. the change in task gives him a shift in tone-- a very recognizable habit to someone who "worked" with him for a few days recently. ]
You know, this is kind of embarrassing. Have I asked you when you're from, yet?
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is this too much goof for you lmao i feel like i'm hardcore testing your limits lol
it's lovely.
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