Accidents happen, yes. [ peggy polishes off the end corner of her second brownie before sitting back on the sofa -- thoughtful, and just that little bit calmer than she'd been before. ]
But the mansion itself isn't always the safest location. I arrived in the middle of all that mirror mess -- and I can appreciate a desire to 'man the perimeter' so to speak.
[ she stops just short of expressing gratitude as one of the attendees blowing off steam and therefore under time mom's purview. mostly because she's quite certain such gratitude would stick in her throat -- milk or none. ]
[ ray picks up on that, at least. maybe it's something about having already misstepped so horribly during this encounter that emboldens him. he's taken a toolbox to the chest and she's still here. it's worth the shot (and yet another cocky smirk): ]
You're welcome.
[ but the arrogance subsides quickly. he feels like he should confess his intention a little more directly. ]
Honestly? I wasn't worried about more Wonderland incidents. The mirrors' real power lies in their ability to turn us against each other, as far as I've experienced.
Have you heard about last year's mirror crossing? The barrier came down completely, and both sides could mingle almost freely.
[ he pulls at the hem of his shirt, needing movement while he talks about it. this is the reason he reacts so violently when people joke about his mirror, and why he goes overboard and tells friends to shoot the guy on sight. ]
Up until then, my mirror just harassed a friend of mine with writing on her mirror. It was really uhh-- invasive.
[ up until then. and with the barrier down, he was able to harass her more directly. he still doesn't know all the details (they're not for him to know, of course), but that only makes him think the worst. ]
After that, things changed between us. It took awhile to get back to something close to what we had before...
Because of what a man who wasn't you did? Seems a bit -- much. To change things for you.
[ but she speaks from the comfortable position of someone who has never met her own mirror. indeed, her experiences with anyone from that side of the mansion have been oddly comforting. barnes, well, he'd been like the man she'd known in the howlies.
and steve. god, she could almost prefer a man so twisted and wrong that she could hate him -- easier to stomach than a man she loved but couldn't bear to speak to.
of course, there is the other option: she's prodding, goading, looking for sore spots to try and pull on a thread she shouldn't pull. heedless, always, to the sorts of trouble she might cause herself merely in asking. it's entirely possible she knows exactly how flippant she sounds. ]
[ he frowns-- not in anything like anger. it's more akin to consternation, really. his eyes slide downward as he processes peggy's point of view but he comes up relatively empty. ]
I think if someone who looked like you stalked me for months and then tried to kill me, I'd like a little space.
[ still confused, ray thinks he might not understand her perspective at all. he's learning that offering his own helps more anyway. but he also knows how myopic he can be, and he feels his original point slipping away from him. ]
And Chronos knew to go after people his real cares about. Some of those people are children.
[ he nods, and discomfort starts to settle in, finally.
something about the clinical way in which peggy's approaching this makes him start to close up a little. but more than that, he wonders if he should even be talking about something that didn't actually happen to him. he's too clumsy for all this, to get a point across without going through the whole picture. maybe it's ok to skip to the end, to some useful advice. ]
If you kill a mirror on this side, they come back.
[ there'd been so much blood. the least he'd been able to do was clean it up. ]
[ clinical is precisely the word for it. and maybe she should pay better attention to his discomfort, but this isn't any sort of official interrogation. she's got nothing to salvage or save, she decides, and so she all but resists the urge to lean into the conversation. ]
And on the other side? [ she seizes upon the wording.
it's telling. his mirror was killed, was he? maybe by his own hand; maybe by his friend's. and that would also be knowledge worth having. but she betrays her priority when she cuts to this particular chase. ]
[ she shrugs away his concern. she doesn't like the way he worries over the warning -- it reminds her too sharply that in this place death isn't always permanent. and it makes her think that perhaps ray palmer has been here too long if his natural instinct is to consider the prospect of a permanent death the 'odd one out' of the arrangement.
no matter. she got her answer, didn't she? so she can pull back a beat from her hard press. ]
I don't know anything about mine. A blessing, really. I'm in no rush to meet her.
[ normally, being brushed off when he's trying to be helpful would stick in ray's craw. but his defense is one he doesn't like to talk about much. so after he opens his mouth to belabor his point out of habit, he lets the words die and just nods. ]
That's a good policy, honestly. Mine never talked directly to me, so there's that.
I've met two. [ she volunteers this information with a sudden and sharp announcement -- offered after a moment of silence wherein she must have been weighing her options rather carefully. ] Mirrors, that is. One, I confess, duped me from the outset.
[ she rubs the palm of her hand against her chin -- betraying a brief agony. it's not fair to say that barnes's mirror tricked her, really, given the mirror seems more like the man she'd known during the war than the man she's met since arriving here. ]
The other, though? I'd only been here a few days and I knew him for a mirror almost immediately.
[ all she'd had to do was look at steve. listen to him. and she'd known. ]
I've met two. One was Chronos-- which wasn't hard to pick out. The other one was easy, too.
[ leo had been terrifyingly endearing. at first, ray thought they'd probably have been friends in another life. he'd been immediately distinguishable, even if it'd taken ray a moment to shift from leaning on expectation into reality. ]
But it was sort of worse? He was kind, almost sweet. I think I liked him.
[ peggy would like to think she'd always know the difference. and that a keen attention to detail would see her through such circumstances. it matters not at all that barnes's mirror had communicated with her via text alone, nor that she was first and foremost busy being shocked with his survival. peggy still holds herself accountable for believing -- for days! -- that the barnes she'd spoken to on her first day in wonderland hadn't been the right barnes.
(part of her wishes he was; he seemed...more whole.)
ray alludes that this other one was also simply distinguished. so she asks: ]
-- I take it the other was someone you know well, then.
snart had always kept people at a distance. but ray always felt an uphill climb to snart, himself. which meant that for snart it was a quick jog down when he wanted to display his own understanding of just which of ray's buttons to expertly push. ]
Not-- well the way I'd usually use it. I don't think many people know him well.
[ he tries to hide a wry smirk, but given the subject and his conversation partner's own tendencies to hold her cards close, he definitely fails. ]
[ she unravels what threads she can from between those lines. the smirk, especially. there's an implication being made, and far be it from her to let it go unremarked upon. ]
But, nevertheless, it was someone with a distinctive enough personality to spot the differences in his mirror rather early on.
[ -- not that she really cares who, exactly, it might have been. but she needs to consider how to best build up her tools for distinguishing between reals and mirrors. and she needs to do it soon.
Oh yeah. The kind of person who's got personality to spare...
[ but while ray seems very open to talking about snart, he isn't exactly giving up real details. he's rarely got mixed feelings on a person, but this is a case where ray has no straight feelings for len.
he starts to move and clean up his snack area, pausing to make sure peggy's finished with hers before sweeping everything up. ]
Are you usually a punctual person? I used to be. But Wonderland's turned me into the chronically late person. [ he looks only a little guilty, though. ] Like right now, actually. But you can hang out if you want! Mi casa, and all...
[ she refrains from explaining that she is, indeed, a remarkably punctual person. he likely doesn't need to be told. the question -- she quickly realizes -- is a self-indulgent one, meant to ease to the revelation that he's bringing their conversation to a close.
peggy won't blame him. it's been a bloody ride, hasn't it? whether she believes his reasoning or not (doesn't matter, really) she meets it with a half-nod. ]
No, no. It's quite alright. [ she finds her feet. ] I don't mind shoving off.
[ a hum. she considers all the 'care' she'd taken of her employer throughout the breadth of that event. and, with a wry note, she leaves with a parting shot: ] Take care of yourself, Ray.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
But the mansion itself isn't always the safest location. I arrived in the middle of all that mirror mess -- and I can appreciate a desire to 'man the perimeter' so to speak.
[ she stops just short of expressing gratitude as one of the attendees blowing off steam and therefore under time mom's purview. mostly because she's quite certain such gratitude would stick in her throat -- milk or none. ]
no subject
You're welcome.
[ but the arrogance subsides quickly. he feels like he should confess his intention a little more directly. ]
Honestly? I wasn't worried about more Wonderland incidents. The mirrors' real power lies in their ability to turn us against each other, as far as I've experienced.
no subject
I don't imagine you're much prepared to share an example of that power.
[ which is her way of not outright asking him to share one, although it leaves plenty space for him to correct her.
there are some instances where she courts the possibility of being proven wrong. ]
no subject
[ he pulls at the hem of his shirt, needing movement while he talks about it. this is the reason he reacts so violently when people joke about his mirror, and why he goes overboard and tells friends to shoot the guy on sight. ]
Up until then, my mirror just harassed a friend of mine with writing on her mirror. It was really uhh-- invasive.
[ up until then. and with the barrier down, he was able to harass her more directly. he still doesn't know all the details (they're not for him to know, of course), but that only makes him think the worst. ]
After that, things changed between us. It took awhile to get back to something close to what we had before...
no subject
[ but she speaks from the comfortable position of someone who has never met her own mirror. indeed, her experiences with anyone from that side of the mansion have been oddly comforting. barnes, well, he'd been like the man she'd known in the howlies.
and steve. god, she could almost prefer a man so twisted and wrong that she could hate him -- easier to stomach than a man she loved but couldn't bear to speak to.
of course, there is the other option: she's prodding, goading, looking for sore spots to try and pull on a thread she shouldn't pull. heedless, always, to the sorts of trouble she might cause herself merely in asking. it's entirely possible she knows exactly how flippant she sounds. ]
no subject
I think if someone who looked like you stalked me for months and then tried to kill me, I'd like a little space.
[ still confused, ray thinks he might not understand her perspective at all. he's learning that offering his own helps more anyway. but he also knows how myopic he can be, and he feels his original point slipping away from him. ]
And Chronos knew to go after people his real cares about. Some of those people are children.
no subject
(or perhaps peggy hasn't been quite burnt enough by the mirrors. or, perhaps, a great deal many things.)
she sits back on the sofa with her legs crossed at the ankles. comfortable, but nevertheless composed. ]
Is that what yours did? [ she ignores 'chronos' for the time being. ] Stalked someone? Your friend?
no subject
something about the clinical way in which peggy's approaching this makes him start to close up a little. but more than that, he wonders if he should even be talking about something that didn't actually happen to him. he's too clumsy for all this, to get a point across without going through the whole picture. maybe it's ok to skip to the end, to some useful advice. ]
If you kill a mirror on this side, they come back.
[ there'd been so much blood. the least he'd been able to do was clean it up. ]
no subject
And on the other side? [ she seizes upon the wording.
it's telling. his mirror was killed, was he? maybe by his own hand; maybe by his friend's. and that would also be knowledge worth having. but she betrays her priority when she cuts to this particular chase. ]
If killed over there, do they stay dead?
no subject
Peggy, if anyone dies over there, it's permanent.
no subject
[ she shrugs away his concern. she doesn't like the way he worries over the warning -- it reminds her too sharply that in this place death isn't always permanent. and it makes her think that perhaps ray palmer has been here too long if his natural instinct is to consider the prospect of a permanent death the 'odd one out' of the arrangement.
no matter. she got her answer, didn't she? so she can pull back a beat from her hard press. ]
I don't know anything about mine. A blessing, really. I'm in no rush to meet her.
no subject
That's a good policy, honestly. Mine never talked directly to me, so there's that.
no subject
[ she rubs the palm of her hand against her chin -- betraying a brief agony. it's not fair to say that barnes's mirror tricked her, really, given the mirror seems more like the man she'd known during the war than the man she's met since arriving here. ]
The other, though? I'd only been here a few days and I knew him for a mirror almost immediately.
[ all she'd had to do was look at steve. listen to him. and she'd known. ]
no subject
[ leo had been terrifyingly endearing. at first, ray thought they'd probably have been friends in another life. he'd been immediately distinguishable, even if it'd taken ray a moment to shift from leaning on expectation into reality. ]
But it was sort of worse? He was kind, almost sweet. I think I liked him.
no subject
(part of her wishes he was; he seemed...more whole.)
ray alludes that this other one was also simply distinguished. so she asks: ]
-- I take it the other was someone you know well, then.
no subject
snart had always kept people at a distance. but ray always felt an uphill climb to snart, himself. which meant that for snart it was a quick jog down when he wanted to display his own understanding of just which of ray's buttons to expertly push. ]
Not-- well the way I'd usually use it. I don't think many people know him well.
[ he tries to hide a wry smirk, but given the subject and his conversation partner's own tendencies to hold her cards close, he definitely fails. ]
no subject
But, nevertheless, it was someone with a distinctive enough personality to spot the differences in his mirror rather early on.
[ -- not that she really cares who, exactly, it might have been. but she needs to consider how to best build up her tools for distinguishing between reals and mirrors. and she needs to do it soon.
for her own sense of security. ]
no subject
[ but while ray seems very open to talking about snart, he isn't exactly giving up real details. he's rarely got mixed feelings on a person, but this is a case where ray has no straight feelings for len.
he starts to move and clean up his snack area, pausing to make sure peggy's finished with hers before sweeping everything up. ]
Are you usually a punctual person? I used to be. But Wonderland's turned me into the chronically late person. [ he looks only a little guilty, though. ] Like right now, actually. But you can hang out if you want! Mi casa, and all...
no subject
peggy won't blame him. it's been a bloody ride, hasn't it? whether she believes his reasoning or not (doesn't matter, really) she meets it with a half-nod. ]
No, no. It's quite alright. [ she finds her feet. ] I don't mind shoving off.
[ a hum. she considers all the 'care' she'd taken of her employer throughout the breadth of that event. and, with a wry note, she leaves with a parting shot: ] Take care of yourself, Ray.
[ she doesn't wait for his goodbye. ]
no subject
they're totally friends. he calls after her before speeding off to shower and change-- ]
You too, Peggy!