[ 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?
[ she could smile, maybe. either at the good news -- indeed, she huffs a quiet thank god when ray suggests the man in question might be 'himself again.' twice over, she thinks, but doesn't dare approach the topic aloud. although she figures herself as a brave soul, she knows she's not yet prepared to seek rip out for a debriefing anything near to what she'd proposed with her former boss.
she's bandying around thoughts about what she could say instead, but ray asks a good question. a better question, really, than the one about her work.
so she smiles about that instead. the smile doesn't reach her eyes. ]
You haven't, no. But if you did, I'd tell you it's 1947.
[ his voice genuinely perks up at that, glad to both have successfully change the subject and also gotten a morsel of info about peggy. it makes it easier to make the trek back to a more conversational tone, too. ]
Oh, see? You're barely an antique... [ his hand pops up to paw at the ledge, attention too divided to just look where he's searching and see that the screwdriver he wants isn't there. ]
[ peggy doesn't skimp on the sarcasm: ] Oh, how kind of you to say so.
[ she shakes her head -- a bit taken aback, perhaps, by the reminder of their last conversation. last conversation before the event, she tells herself. she feels older than she is thanks to nearly (nearly) every conversation held and every recognition sparked. ]
I'm afraid you might be in the minority with that opinion. And I -- I'm sorry, but, is there something I can grab for you?
[ she's not being helpful so much as feeling an itch of frustration just watching him grope for a tool he can't find. ]
Hm? [ absent-minded, ray pops back up to process her offer while at the same time looking around for the darn thing. he both gets it and spots the tool on the worktable near to peggy. he points. ]
Thanks, yes-- the blue screwdriver right there, please. [ while waiting, he smiles. ] I've broken into top secret governmental facilities before, by the way. If it helps.
[ an obliging nod of her head -- and peggy does indeed lean to grab the screwdriver, tossing it lightly in her palm before she approaches the machine (and ray inside of it) and holds it handle-side out. ]
I don't see how it could. [ help. but it's a rough'n'glib joke. ordinarily she might have been surprised about such an admission, but a vague understanding of what the legends do allow her to imagine quite a broad scope of activities. ]
But if we're being honest, [ peg's brows raise, ] I might have done a little bit of black-site infiltration myself.
[ he mutters another thanks and then smirks in satisfaction. ha. it totally helped, peg. he pauses before setting back to work to "challenge" her admission's bad assness: ]
I ate the president's jelly beans once. And I didn't even ask.
[ -- the response is quick. knee-jerk, almost. a funny little mixture of her familiarity gained through the last event a very natural taste for competition. she doesn't much merit the debt as anything remarkable, but doctor palmer has gone and made the challenge. although this is less about 'bad-assness' and more a flexing of the old empire v. colonies spat.
who cares about a president's jellybeans, in the end. except!
except the nature of ray's work (of time travel) rings like a bell in her memory and peggy is forced to ask: ]
[ hey look sometimes he's marginally helpful. he pops up with a hunk of metal in one hand and the screwdriver in the other to follow up on that big ol name drop: ]
Wait. He owes you? You can't just leave it at that!
[ peggy offers up a bit of a theatrical shrug. she and nixon may have been contemporaries in the allied war machine, but never in any fashion that allowed them to meet or even know of each others' names. but she commits it to memory now. richard nixon, she thinks, sixties.
one never knows when this sort of information comes in handy. ]
A trifling debt, really. Accrued over cards. [ a poker game at which she'd cheated -- but then again, one hardly gets recruited into the special operations executive because of a talent for honesty. ] Do you play card games, Ray?
[ it's a minor deflection. mostly a test, she decides, of whether an abrupt question put to his own person is enough to throw him off the hunt. ]
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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.
no subject
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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she's bandying around thoughts about what she could say instead, but ray asks a good question. a better question, really, than the one about her work.
so she smiles about that instead. the smile doesn't reach her eyes. ]
You haven't, no. But if you did, I'd tell you it's 1947.
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Oh, see? You're barely an antique... [ his hand pops up to paw at the ledge, attention too divided to just look where he's searching and see that the screwdriver he wants isn't there. ]
no subject
[ she shakes her head -- a bit taken aback, perhaps, by the reminder of their last conversation. last conversation before the event, she tells herself. she feels older than she is thanks to nearly (nearly) every conversation held and every recognition sparked. ]
I'm afraid you might be in the minority with that opinion. And I -- I'm sorry, but, is there something I can grab for you?
[ she's not being helpful so much as feeling an itch of frustration just watching him grope for a tool he can't find. ]
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Thanks, yes-- the blue screwdriver right there, please. [ while waiting, he smiles. ] I've broken into top secret governmental facilities before, by the way. If it helps.
[ ray no ]
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I don't see how it could. [ help. but it's a rough'n'glib joke. ordinarily she might have been surprised about such an admission, but a vague understanding of what the legends do allow her to imagine quite a broad scope of activities. ]
But if we're being honest, [ peg's brows raise, ] I might have done a little bit of black-site infiltration myself.
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I ate the president's jelly beans once. And I didn't even ask.
[ it's how they do, riding the wave yo. ]
no subject
[ -- the response is quick. knee-jerk, almost. a funny little mixture of her familiarity gained through the last event a very natural taste for competition. she doesn't much merit the debt as anything remarkable, but doctor palmer has gone and made the challenge. although this is less about 'bad-assness' and more a flexing of the old empire v. colonies spat.
who cares about a president's jellybeans, in the end. except!
except the nature of ray's work (of time travel) rings like a bell in her memory and peggy is forced to ask: ]
Wait. Which president?
no subject
[ hey look sometimes he's marginally helpful. he pops up with a hunk of metal in one hand and the screwdriver in the other to follow up on that big ol name drop: ]
Wait. He owes you? You can't just leave it at that!
no subject
one never knows when this sort of information comes in handy. ]
A trifling debt, really. Accrued over cards. [ a poker game at which she'd cheated -- but then again, one hardly gets recruited into the special operations executive because of a talent for honesty. ] Do you play card games, Ray?
[ it's a minor deflection. mostly a test, she decides, of whether an abrupt question put to his own person is enough to throw him off the hunt. ]
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Yep! All the time. I win a lot, too.
[ peggy you know the company he keeps! ]
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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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