[ yep, he says. and there is a note of consternation in her expression when hit upon by that particularly abrading form of affirmation. it bothers her more than the lying does -- or more, at least, than the one that's poorly given.
(she's not disappointed; in the end, the world needs some honest people left in it.)
but she's not always petty. if there's no reason to stress-test his lie, then she won't. instead peggy offers a brisk nod and: ] I'm glad to hear it. [ oh, but... ] Something of a card-counter, I'd expect, if I've got the proper read of you.
[ oh whoops. ray starts to shake his head, realizing he didn't make his joke very well. ]
I'm actually pretty terrible. But the Legends like to play, and they're my friends.
[ he says it so matter-of-factly, as if the question of skill has no bearing on the desire to play at all. he's unfortunately not quite self-aware enough to explain the truth of the thing-- that all of that iq and number crunching needs to be trained in specific ways to be useful. that while he's competitive, he values more than walking away from a table with the purse.
friendship is magic! ]
The next time they invite me, I could see if you could take my place. Give them a run for their money?
[ the offer of friendship, with the tone of challenge again. ray thinks he's figured peggy out... ]
well. perhaps it's a little bit unwelcome -- if only because she's stuck wondering how to digest it. there is a great deal to consider in what he says. to wonder whether he is truly that awful that he'd happily let anyone take his place, or whether instead he's bothering to take her at her word and think (for a second) that she might be capable of doing just that. giving them a run for their money.
ultimately, she's not prepared to deliver a verdict in either direction. peggy breathes in, lets her head bobble a moment, and hedges. ]
I haven't actually played a hand of anything since the war. [ that's the only marker she gives. the war. after all, she's given him a year and mentioned churchill himself; if ray can't figure it out from there, then she'd be shocked. but this time she speaks the truth -- the last time she played, the last time she'd been with friends, had been a chilly evening spent outside with the howling commandos. dernier had 'liberated' a pack of playing cards with dirty pictures on their faces.
-- it had been a few months since the valkyrie crashed, and the first time she'd laughed out loud in what felt like ages. ]
I'd hate to oversell myself and turn up rusted.
[ but that's not quite the impetus behind her refusal, should she give it. ]
[ unthinking as ever, ray leaps to reassure peggy, worried that he's missed something. worried that maybe she'd feel uncomfortable among his friends. worried that he made it seem less than proper to a woman from her time. ]
Oh, uhh-- I mean. Sara would probably there, too. And I usually sit by her.
[ on the surface, it's all so terrible innocuous. and, indeed, of what little she's conversed with miss lance...peggy's found her to be intriguing company. but there's something in the way ray proposes the possibility that snags her attention most sharply.
as though it's a compromise. or, worse, a balm.
peggy's brows knit and she seems to stiffen with the beginnings of her indignation. ]
Good for her. [ ... ] Why should that matter to me?
[ peggy has a guess -- nevertheless, she waits for him to colour in those lines for her. ]
[ he doesn't even pause to consider that her question is anything other than curious for curiosity's sake. ray's answer is peppy. helpful again! gosh he's doing real good work today. ]
Well, it won't just be a boys' club. You know, cigars and scotch and all that stuff.
[ here lies sir raymond of the palms white knight do gooder. dr palmer dove headlong into countless dangerous gambits.
and then he stepped in it like real bad rip buddy ]
Oh hey can you reach that toolkit right behind you for me?
[ ...and, all at once, she's transported to the back of the interrogation room. chief dooley (god rest his soul) turning askance and bidding her to leave because he was of the opinion that what took place on the other side of the one way mirror wasn't fit for a woman's eyes. doctor palmer says the words boys' club as though they're harmless things -- incidental, and relating to a bifurcation of leisure activities. peggy hears them and understands a very different meaning. one unintended, perhaps, but with considerable weight.
something twitches in her expression. it's an old and easy anger, and she's long ago learned to channel it well. but 'well' isn't the same as 'healthy.' ]
I rather like scotch. And rye. And bourbon. Any whiskey will do. I'm not picky.
[ however light and airy the words pretend to be, there's no mistaking the gunpowder beneath them. although it appears she might be obliging all the same because she does turn and grab for the toolbox. her heel strikes, as she crosses the space to where ray's popped out of his machine, make for some perilous punctuation. ]
The cigars, however. Oh, you're so very right about that one. But I should think that would be obvious to anyone with a decent nose.
[ and for a split second it looks as though she might very well whack him with his own toolbox (she even considers it might be poetic justice) but in the end peggy settles for merely shoving it roughly into his chest. hard, yes, and maybe hard enough to leave a welt or two. harder than she needed to -- and certainly hard enough to communicate an abundance of non-verbal outrage. all while looking him hard in his eyes. ]
[ oh hey he totally knows that shoving. it means he shoved first and didn't realize it and oh crap that's some real definite eye contact. it makes him titter nervously.
that's the kind of look he gets from mick before he's dragged through the halls in a headlock. (a look that from peggy seems like maybe mick actually lets him off pretty easy...)
ok trace back what he said what did he say how can he fix it ]
Right! Yes. Scotch is ... good? [ his gears are turning so hard it's a wonder there's no smoke in his ears. ] I mean, it's great. Whiskey too! Any of the burny ones. Very ... smoky.
Scotch, Doctor Palmer, is a whiskey. Spellings aside.
[ uh-oh. she puts 'ray' back on the shelf with any other possible familiarity and endearment and instead goes straight for the heart of a formal complaint. but, having thrust the tool box unto him, she retreats by a step.
but in the wake of her near-violence, she's left watching him. it's a clumsy mistake. was he only babbling? or was his bit about scotch and cigar mere bravado -- was there some convention, some joke, to which she wasn't privy?
whatever's gone wrong -- whatever's prompted him to talk about boy's clubs and suggest that she'd be more comfortable if miss lance was also in attendance -- peggy cares less about the source and more about what's to be done in its wake.
with a churlish huff, she adds: ] And I'll have you know I'm quite fine without the invitation. Whether it was made out of pity or -- or otherwise.
[ it's what she lands upon. pity. and she lashes out for it, too, although she's got no proof apart from the quiet offer ray made over cupcakes that she could come to him if she ever needed to talk with someone. somehow, she'd managed to twist his assurance over sara's presence into something similar.
[ hey remember that time ray thought he figured peggy out
someone should tell him to figure his damn self out first maybe ]
Pity?
[ his gears finally stop turning. he just sits there with the distinct feeling (besides the pain in his chest) that he's about to just make it worse. his self-proclaimed persistence doesn't always pay off, but he'd rather make peggy more angry if it meant clearing the air than making the same mistake again. ]
I was trying to be persuasive. To make you more comfortable so you wouldn't talk yourself out of hanging out with new friends. I thought maybe having another woman around would help. [ super helpfully, he adds a qualifying ramble: ] Especially since Sara could wipe the floor with all of us at once...
I don't need you curating my comfort. And I certainly don't need new friends.
[ the counter is quick and the counter is harsh. peggy saws a hand through the air, chopping it hard against an open and waiting palm. despite this, she's careful to stress that one word. new. implying (however dishonestly) that she's got others of her own waiting in the wings. that she isn't alone. that she hasn't rather intentionally carved out the one good and reliable connection she'd had from home and made him persona non gratis to herself. for steve's sake as well as hers, she'd argue. ]
That girl -- that assistant you had? She wasn't real. Perhaps she didn't know or care about anyone or anything apart from her job, [ barring a startling new connection whose name (let's call him whitechapel) she won't add to this mixture. ] But I'm not her. I'm not your -- your responsibility, Doctor Palmer. I can see to my own personal life, thank you very much.
[ rapid and without rhythm, ray blinks repeatedly as he processes her words. had that been what he just did? there've been plenty of times through his life ray foisted help where it wasn't needed-- when no one had asked. (does it matter, what he'd intended?) ]
OK. I hear you, and I'm sorry.
[ the answer to that question is a pretty emphatic no. she hadn't asked to broaden her social scope, and if anything she'd made it abundantly clear how tricky it was to open up to a single person. but while he may be quick to mea this culpa, he doesn't think it'll do either of them any good to stay mum. ]
I can tell I upset you, but I think your problem with that assistant? Is maybe more about how you see her than how I do.
[ peggy's not certain she'll ever be fully prepared to accept the way these people apologize to her. him, fitz, anyone else who's been honed in upon by her temper and she finds herself running roughshod with far more ease than she'd ever been afforded in the past. it's as though she's putting up a fight that was never prompted, and so is never met.
peggy puffs out a long-suffering breath. even if he was right (and he is, by one degree or another if not in whole) then it won't be her prerogative to inform him of it.
but she does entertain the notion that they still need to dissect what's happened. after all, isn't that why she's here? ]
How do you see 'her?'
[ she continues to draw that line between one personality and the last. she must. ]
[ the question feels a little like a sandpit. it makes ray furrow his brow not in confusion this time but with suspicion. ]
What I see is that you want to make sure you aren't like her. [ he shrugs. ] And that's fair. I mean, I'd be pretty miffed if you came away from that thinking I'd actually have anything printed out ever.
[ like, seriously? binders? yuck.
and ray's been paying attention, but it's only now that he draws an actual conclusion of his own. he hadn't made a picture out of what little peeks peggy'd allowed him until the convention. and now, her strong reaction to the possibility that he was treating her the way he had when he had no choice. she'd called him to let him know she hated being a go-for, but he hadn't realized it was so important to her to draw these thick lines. ]
[ this is thin ice. peggy had made a life for herself -- a viable philosophy, of sorts -- in ignoring what others thought. their opinions didn't (and shouldn't) matter. and indeed she still did not care what ray palmer thought of her, agent peggy carter of the ssr and of 1947.
but suddenly (inexplicably, to her) it matters what he thought of that other version. it's a by-product of her first proper mind-altering event: it's blurred a line and made it harder to separate the parts of her that bleed too easily into that other personality. she'd been happier, maybe, but her days had felt so meaningless.
she smiled more; she achieved less. ]
I don't. [ she exhales. ] Only -- only you're the one suggesting my problem is in how I see that version of me. The second problem built atop the first problem is that how I see 'her' isn't exactly unbiased. Nowhere near.
[ nor will his be, of course, but it's a damn shot nearer to it than her own checklist of complaints. ]
You're the one who called to tell me not to ask you for coffee.
[ you started it, he might as well say. but he relents, if only because he'd claimed to want to help her. and maybe in part because he needs some help here, too. ]
Look, I don't know if I see her in any specific way, but it's not easy for me to let go of connections from these kinds of events.
[ the worst part is that this could have happened even without the event. he'd come on too strongly to darcy too, after his mirror had revealed himself to her. he'd felt responsible for making it better when he'd had nothing to do with it. he's fumbling now, because for ray this isn't necessarily an event problem. it's a ray palmer one. ]
It's not so much that I think of you tying my tie for me-- which is ridiculous by the way. It's more that I see you as someone I care about, even though I don't really know you.
[ she's grateful, at least, that he words it as though it's his problem. he's the one who finds it difficult to scrub those associations from the record, so to speak, and divorce them utterly from who they should be with one another. still, it makes her worry just a little about whether that's a common stumbling block -- still, her thoughts drift to rip. and her expression sours.
but only for a second. it passes quickly enough. and in its wake she's left to confront the substance of what ray suggests. he cares -- a care unwanted and (peggy believes) undeserved. as he says: he doesn't really know her. ]
The bit with the tie was ridiculous, yes. [ she hems and haws her way through the remainder of her reaction -- temper still present, but cooled down to embers. hers, it seems, was a flash in the pan. ] But I'll confess that tying a tie is one of the small number of talents I actually share with that version. School uniform to army uniform -- [ she waggles the fingers on one hand. ] Might as well be muscle memory.
[ -- which isn't important, really. what's important is that he mentioned not knowing her, she owes him an answer to his earlier question still, and this is a step towards it. temper or no temper. not that it's a big step, really, because all the hints were already there. the year, the war, winston bloody churchill. it should be no surprise that she served in some capacity.
peggy hasn't yet decided whether that capacity will be aired today or not. ]
[ ray can't help it-- his eyebrows raise with interest at peggy's confession. he smiles, too, because it makes sense that she was part of a regimented organization. it also made sense why they might clash a little more. it was the same as with oliver, and snart, and the jsa. he doesn't really do well with their sort of rigid social protocol. ]
I always kind of hated wearing business suits. It was nice to have a sort of uniform, but it was never one I felt right in.
[ he tries for self-deprecation, but he can't help comment on peggy's past: ]
I don't think I'd have lasted very long in the military, though. Discipline's not exactly my forte-- I'm pretty sure Rip has about forty-three percent more headaches than before he recruited me.
[ whether 'it' is his incompatibility with discipline or the percentage-jump in mister hunter's frustration, she won't plainly say. both are valid enough. truth is, peggy hasn't been coping so well with authority these last two years. during the war, it had been different. dreadful as it was, circumstances had offered her every chance and opportunity to prove herself. again, and again, and again.
afterwards? well -- coffee carafes and lunch orders. filing and answering phones. all necessary bits and bobs of any organization's continues existence, yes, but so far from her wheelhouse. she'd been selfish in trying to shoulder her way back into danger, perhaps. desperate to recapture old conviction, if not old glory. ]
It was either enlist or stay home. At the time, the choice was -- well. I won't say it was easy. But neither was it difficult.
[ and the thing about discipline is that it's rather easy to stomach when you're the one drilling recruits. or delving behind enemy lines under low-supervision and high-disguise. discipline never chafed her, really, until after the war. she'd had a fine role model in her defiance. ]
And it certainly wasn't the sort of thing I envisioned for myself, either. [ a bob of her head, alluding to some common ground. by all rights, she shouldn't have lasted very long either. ] Wasn't really the done thing, you realize.
I guess I should have. [ realized. ] I felt the same about Rip's offer.
[ he knows a little about making a hard choice because the alternative is unacceptable. when he'd started it all, after anna, he'd envisioned himself looking after starling city. offering free clean energy sources, and putting his money where his mouth was.
the best laid plans, huh? ]
Do you miss it? The-- service, I mean. Not the war, obviously.
[ an easy-ish conclusion to come to, given all the little details she's shared now. ]
[ now, there's a tricky question. and one she certainly doesn't care to answer with anything but a bland attempt. peggy is tempted to lie and tell him what's probably easiest to hear -- that she doesn't miss a moment of it, that the top brass were bastards and the enlisted men were worse and what a fine thing life is in the wake of active service. but it's not true, is it?
she misses parts. she misses many. and, of late, she can't help but look back on those years with a guilty fondness. peggy misses the difference made and the way colonel phillips never minded when she punched out any wanker who opened his gob a bit too wide. ]
Truth is, I still serve. In a manner of speaking. [ ... ] My branch was never disbanded after the war. The only difference is that these days I get to wear something other than olive green.
[ ray thinks he can feel her hesitation. he wants to reassure peggy that it's ok to just say she'd rather not talk about it. but she's only just pointed out her discomfort with how he attempted to make her comfortable before. instead, he nods and prompts her a little more gently. ]
It's the little things?
[ bad jokes. he's here all night! tip your wait staff... ]
[ really, raymond. hard to say whether her nose scrunches up in dismay due to the joke itself or else the notion that he should try for humour in the middle of this dreadfully awkward conversation.
but in another version of this moment it might have been funny. what settles poorly in her gut is that peg, his assistant never minded silly jokes. she would have laughed and she would have meant it. ]
But as we're on the subject, [ she swings things lock-step into order, ] you must have a hell of a time keeping your -- your suit -- out of the hands of the military. Those scavengers will go after just about anything.
[ she would know. one of her earliest substantial missions with the ssr had been to secure erskine from the red skull's fortress. quite apart from it being the right thing to do, she'd known how the allied forces had hungered for any drop of the serum he was rumoured to have developed. ]
[ he manages to look very pleased with himself, but it's not long before it's his turn to scrunch his face up in displeasure. ]
Not military, no. But police, maybe. Eventually. [ he sighs. stupid future. ] Since it's technically proprietary technology of my company's, and I'm technically dead...
[ yeah. he doesn't think about it often-- or, rather, there are usually more pressing issues for him to distract himself with. ]
My brother apparently sells them out as drones at some point in the time line. The vulture.
[ once more, she's met with an onslaught of things that just about barely toe the line of logic. the idea of police maybe eventually comes across as wishy-washy and ridiculous until she remembers the pertinent detail of time travel.
and the rest? well -- peggy delves straight to the heart of it. ]
'Technically' dead?
[ how is she meant to interpret a description like that one? good lord. ]
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(she's not disappointed; in the end, the world needs some honest people left in it.)
but she's not always petty. if there's no reason to stress-test his lie, then she won't. instead peggy offers a brisk nod and: ] I'm glad to hear it. [ oh, but... ] Something of a card-counter, I'd expect, if I've got the proper read of you.
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I'm actually pretty terrible. But the Legends like to play, and they're my friends.
[ he says it so matter-of-factly, as if the question of skill has no bearing on the desire to play at all. he's unfortunately not quite self-aware enough to explain the truth of the thing-- that all of that iq and number crunching needs to be trained in specific ways to be useful. that while he's competitive, he values more than walking away from a table with the purse.
friendship is magic! ]
The next time they invite me, I could see if you could take my place. Give them a run for their money?
[ the offer of friendship, with the tone of challenge again. ray thinks he's figured peggy out... ]
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well. perhaps it's a little bit unwelcome -- if only because she's stuck wondering how to digest it. there is a great deal to consider in what he says. to wonder whether he is truly that awful that he'd happily let anyone take his place, or whether instead he's bothering to take her at her word and think (for a second) that she might be capable of doing just that. giving them a run for their money.
ultimately, she's not prepared to deliver a verdict in either direction. peggy breathes in, lets her head bobble a moment, and hedges. ]
I haven't actually played a hand of anything since the war. [ that's the only marker she gives. the war. after all, she's given him a year and mentioned churchill himself; if ray can't figure it out from there, then she'd be shocked. but this time she speaks the truth -- the last time she played, the last time she'd been with friends, had been a chilly evening spent outside with the howling commandos. dernier had 'liberated' a pack of playing cards with dirty pictures on their faces.
-- it had been a few months since the valkyrie crashed, and the first time she'd laughed out loud in what felt like ages. ]
I'd hate to oversell myself and turn up rusted.
[ but that's not quite the impetus behind her refusal, should she give it. ]
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Oh, uhh-- I mean. Sara would probably there, too. And I usually sit by her.
[ that should help. good job, ray. ]
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as though it's a compromise. or, worse, a balm.
peggy's brows knit and she seems to stiffen with the beginnings of her indignation. ]
Good for her. [ ... ] Why should that matter to me?
[ peggy has a guess -- nevertheless, she waits for him to colour in those lines for her. ]
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Well, it won't just be a boys' club. You know, cigars and scotch and all that stuff.
[ here lies sir raymond of the palms white knight do gooder. dr palmer dove headlong into countless dangerous gambits.
and then he stepped in it like real bad rip buddy ]
Oh hey can you reach that toolkit right behind you for me?
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something twitches in her expression. it's an old and easy anger, and she's long ago learned to channel it well. but 'well' isn't the same as 'healthy.' ]
I rather like scotch. And rye. And bourbon. Any whiskey will do. I'm not picky.
[ however light and airy the words pretend to be, there's no mistaking the gunpowder beneath them. although it appears she might be obliging all the same because she does turn and grab for the toolbox. her heel strikes, as she crosses the space to where ray's popped out of his machine, make for some perilous punctuation. ]
The cigars, however. Oh, you're so very right about that one. But I should think that would be obvious to anyone with a decent nose.
[ and for a split second it looks as though she might very well whack him with his own toolbox (she even considers it might be poetic justice) but in the end peggy settles for merely shoving it roughly into his chest. hard, yes, and maybe hard enough to leave a welt or two. harder than she needed to -- and certainly hard enough to communicate an abundance of non-verbal outrage. all while looking him hard in his eyes. ]
Regardless of what other parts they've got.
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that's the kind of look he gets from mick before he's dragged through the halls in a headlock. (a look that from peggy seems like maybe mick actually lets him off pretty easy...)
ok trace back what he said what did he say how can he fix it ]
Right! Yes. Scotch is ... good? [ his gears are turning so hard it's a wonder there's no smoke in his ears. ] I mean, it's great. Whiskey too! Any of the burny ones. Very ... smoky.
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[ uh-oh. she puts 'ray' back on the shelf with any other possible familiarity and endearment and instead goes straight for the heart of a formal complaint. but, having thrust the tool box unto him, she retreats by a step.
but in the wake of her near-violence, she's left watching him. it's a clumsy mistake. was he only babbling? or was his bit about scotch and cigar mere bravado -- was there some convention, some joke, to which she wasn't privy?
whatever's gone wrong -- whatever's prompted him to talk about boy's clubs and suggest that she'd be more comfortable if miss lance was also in attendance -- peggy cares less about the source and more about what's to be done in its wake.
with a churlish huff, she adds: ] And I'll have you know I'm quite fine without the invitation. Whether it was made out of pity or -- or otherwise.
[ it's what she lands upon. pity. and she lashes out for it, too, although she's got no proof apart from the quiet offer ray made over cupcakes that she could come to him if she ever needed to talk with someone. somehow, she'd managed to twist his assurance over sara's presence into something similar.
she resents it. ]
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someone should tell him to figure his damn self out first maybe ]
Pity?
[ his gears finally stop turning. he just sits there with the distinct feeling (besides the pain in his chest) that he's about to just make it worse. his self-proclaimed persistence doesn't always pay off, but he'd rather make peggy more angry if it meant clearing the air than making the same mistake again. ]
I was trying to be persuasive. To make you more comfortable so you wouldn't talk yourself out of hanging out with new friends. I thought maybe having another woman around would help. [ super helpfully, he adds a qualifying ramble: ] Especially since Sara could wipe the floor with all of us at once...
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[ the counter is quick and the counter is harsh. peggy saws a hand through the air, chopping it hard against an open and waiting palm. despite this, she's careful to stress that one word. new. implying (however dishonestly) that she's got others of her own waiting in the wings. that she isn't alone. that she hasn't rather intentionally carved out the one good and reliable connection she'd had from home and made him persona non gratis to herself. for steve's sake as well as hers, she'd argue. ]
That girl -- that assistant you had? She wasn't real. Perhaps she didn't know or care about anyone or anything apart from her job, [ barring a startling new connection whose name (let's call him whitechapel) she won't add to this mixture. ] But I'm not her. I'm not your -- your responsibility, Doctor Palmer. I can see to my own personal life, thank you very much.
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OK. I hear you, and I'm sorry.
[ the answer to that question is a pretty emphatic no. she hadn't asked to broaden her social scope, and if anything she'd made it abundantly clear how tricky it was to open up to a single person. but while he may be quick to mea this culpa, he doesn't think it'll do either of them any good to stay mum. ]
I can tell I upset you, but I think your problem with that assistant? Is maybe more about how you see her than how I do.
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peggy puffs out a long-suffering breath. even if he was right (and he is, by one degree or another if not in whole) then it won't be her prerogative to inform him of it.
but she does entertain the notion that they still need to dissect what's happened. after all, isn't that why she's here? ]
How do you see 'her?'
[ she continues to draw that line between one personality and the last. she must. ]
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What I see is that you want to make sure you aren't like her. [ he shrugs. ] And that's fair. I mean, I'd be pretty miffed if you came away from that thinking I'd actually have anything printed out ever.
[ like, seriously? binders? yuck.
and ray's been paying attention, but it's only now that he draws an actual conclusion of his own. he hadn't made a picture out of what little peeks peggy'd allowed him until the convention. and now, her strong reaction to the possibility that he was treating her the way he had when he had no choice. she'd called him to let him know she hated being a go-for, but he hadn't realized it was so important to her to draw these thick lines. ]
Why do you care what I think of her, anyway?
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but suddenly (inexplicably, to her) it matters what he thought of that other version. it's a by-product of her first proper mind-altering event: it's blurred a line and made it harder to separate the parts of her that bleed too easily into that other personality. she'd been happier, maybe, but her days had felt so meaningless.
she smiled more; she achieved less. ]
I don't. [ she exhales. ] Only -- only you're the one suggesting my problem is in how I see that version of me. The second problem built atop the first problem is that how I see 'her' isn't exactly unbiased. Nowhere near.
[ nor will his be, of course, but it's a damn shot nearer to it than her own checklist of complaints. ]
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[ you started it, he might as well say. but he relents, if only because he'd claimed to want to help her. and maybe in part because he needs some help here, too. ]
Look, I don't know if I see her in any specific way, but it's not easy for me to let go of connections from these kinds of events.
[ the worst part is that this could have happened even without the event. he'd come on too strongly to darcy too, after his mirror had revealed himself to her. he'd felt responsible for making it better when he'd had nothing to do with it. he's fumbling now, because for ray this isn't necessarily an event problem. it's a ray palmer one. ]
It's not so much that I think of you tying my tie for me-- which is ridiculous by the way. It's more that I see you as someone I care about, even though I don't really know you.
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but only for a second. it passes quickly enough. and in its wake she's left to confront the substance of what ray suggests. he cares -- a care unwanted and (peggy believes) undeserved. as he says: he doesn't really know her. ]
The bit with the tie was ridiculous, yes. [ she hems and haws her way through the remainder of her reaction -- temper still present, but cooled down to embers. hers, it seems, was a flash in the pan. ] But I'll confess that tying a tie is one of the small number of talents I actually share with that version. School uniform to army uniform -- [ she waggles the fingers on one hand. ] Might as well be muscle memory.
[ -- which isn't important, really. what's important is that he mentioned not knowing her, she owes him an answer to his earlier question still, and this is a step towards it. temper or no temper. not that it's a big step, really, because all the hints were already there. the year, the war, winston bloody churchill. it should be no surprise that she served in some capacity.
peggy hasn't yet decided whether that capacity will be aired today or not. ]
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I always kind of hated wearing business suits. It was nice to have a sort of uniform, but it was never one I felt right in.
[ he tries for self-deprecation, but he can't help comment on peggy's past: ]
I don't think I'd have lasted very long in the military, though. Discipline's not exactly my forte-- I'm pretty sure Rip has about forty-three percent more headaches than before he recruited me.
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[ whether 'it' is his incompatibility with discipline or the percentage-jump in mister hunter's frustration, she won't plainly say. both are valid enough. truth is, peggy hasn't been coping so well with authority these last two years. during the war, it had been different. dreadful as it was, circumstances had offered her every chance and opportunity to prove herself. again, and again, and again.
afterwards? well -- coffee carafes and lunch orders. filing and answering phones. all necessary bits and bobs of any organization's continues existence, yes, but so far from her wheelhouse. she'd been selfish in trying to shoulder her way back into danger, perhaps. desperate to recapture old conviction, if not old glory. ]
It was either enlist or stay home. At the time, the choice was -- well. I won't say it was easy. But neither was it difficult.
[ and the thing about discipline is that it's rather easy to stomach when you're the one drilling recruits. or delving behind enemy lines under low-supervision and high-disguise. discipline never chafed her, really, until after the war. she'd had a fine role model in her defiance. ]
And it certainly wasn't the sort of thing I envisioned for myself, either. [ a bob of her head, alluding to some common ground. by all rights, she shouldn't have lasted very long either. ] Wasn't really the done thing, you realize.
[ women in the field. ]
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[ he knows a little about making a hard choice because the alternative is unacceptable. when he'd started it all, after anna, he'd envisioned himself looking after starling city. offering free clean energy sources, and putting his money where his mouth was.
the best laid plans, huh? ]
Do you miss it? The-- service, I mean. Not the war, obviously.
[ an easy-ish conclusion to come to, given all the little details she's shared now. ]
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she misses parts. she misses many. and, of late, she can't help but look back on those years with a guilty fondness. peggy misses the difference made and the way colonel phillips never minded when she punched out any wanker who opened his gob a bit too wide. ]
Truth is, I still serve. In a manner of speaking. [ ... ] My branch was never disbanded after the war. The only difference is that these days I get to wear something other than olive green.
[ so, not an answer at all. ]
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It's the little things?
[ bad jokes. he's here all night! tip your wait staff... ]
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[ really, raymond. hard to say whether her nose scrunches up in dismay due to the joke itself or else the notion that he should try for humour in the middle of this dreadfully awkward conversation.
but in another version of this moment it might have been funny. what settles poorly in her gut is that peg, his assistant never minded silly jokes. she would have laughed and she would have meant it. ]
But as we're on the subject, [ she swings things lock-step into order, ] you must have a hell of a time keeping your -- your suit -- out of the hands of the military. Those scavengers will go after just about anything.
[ she would know. one of her earliest substantial missions with the ssr had been to secure erskine from the red skull's fortress. quite apart from it being the right thing to do, she'd known how the allied forces had hungered for any drop of the serum he was rumoured to have developed. ]
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Not military, no. But police, maybe. Eventually. [ he sighs. stupid future. ] Since it's technically proprietary technology of my company's, and I'm technically dead...
[ yeah. he doesn't think about it often-- or, rather, there are usually more pressing issues for him to distract himself with. ]
My brother apparently sells them out as drones at some point in the time line. The vulture.
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and the rest? well -- peggy delves straight to the heart of it. ]
'Technically' dead?
[ how is she meant to interpret a description like that one? good lord. ]
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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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