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WHO: Peggy Carter
WHERE:
WHEN: October 10
OPEN TO: Alec Holland
WARNINGS: Mind Connections

Peggy had started the day with no understanding of what it would bring. The same routines have been keeping her busy, between the bunker and checking on Tony and ensuring that she's got her plants ready for the winter. Perhaps it's the monotony of the routine that's allowed her to get do distracted today, when she's out by the river around the bunker's outside, working to see if there's any other information she can gather.

Before she came here, when she worked every day with the SSR and her attention had been heightened, she would have caught both the sound of the snorting and the absent tickle of something in her head immediately. As it stands, she's going to blame her exhaustion for why it doesn't register right away, but it doesn't. She's working one moment, the next she turns and there it is, looming, a great big warthog that she knows are wildly dangerous.

By the looks of the coat, winter is coming, but also, this appears to be the male, which means that she's in a terrible situation.

That's the first part she should have noticed.

The second is that when she tries to reach into her mind, paging through thoughts of what she recalls about the things, there's something else there, like a nudging thing. Her power with her scrubs is showing her a path towards something (or someone?), but as she squints, she doesn't think that it's necessarily anything she can work with.

After all, isn't that just a part of the foliage? How on earth is that going to help her against a giant creature?

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It's easier to be out in nature even if he can't connect with it. The world around him is green and verdant and it's home.

With the lack of people, the lack of humans, he reflects that maybe this isn't so bad and that the spread of the red might be behind the disconnect between the kingdoms but...

He's still not connected to it. The green. This world's green. Any world's green. He is painfully human, painfully stuck and painfully alone which is why he's making himself useful. Collecting samples of various items, trying to find useful wood and grass. Hell he'd bring them tree trunks if they needed it.

It gives him things to do.

Shaking his head, he turns away with a stack of plants in his hand before he blinks. Something pulls him forward. Like blood pumping through a vein something pulls him forward until he's nearly there and there's - a woman? In scrubs.

And a boar.

A warthog specifically. A huge creature. Don't go closer. That thing looks ready to charge.

Even with his musings about the peace of the world without so many human beings, Alec can't let one woman be gored to death. I've wrestled alligators before. This should be a piece of cake.

He shifts, going as quiet as he can, trying to get around the creature.

Peggy's mind flashes with a thought that she knows to be sensible, but isn't quite so sure that it's hers, which is a rather alarming thing to notice. It takes her a moment to absorb the panic of the intrusion before she listens to the good advice.

Well, the good advice followed by something far more ridiculous which has her pressing her lips together, annoyed.

If you go wrestle that thing like an alligator, begins her sharp thought process, a warning to the...man? This is going to end with one or the both of you in trouble. Either you should hastily retreat or you should let me help.

From her determination, it should be quite clear that she doesn't intend to go unless he's going too.

It'd almost be funny. The sound of voices in his head jerks him out of the bushes, cracking and snapping twigs and branches. Dark red eyes and massive shoulders exposed, he stares upward at the sky, then back at the woman surprised, then back at the boar which is slowly turning in his direction but -

Failing to sense anything living technically (all sorts of technically) the creature turns back to the ground in front of him. Alec squirms, Whoever you are, whatever you are - if you want to help me save this woman then tell me what you need.

She's not sure that she's ever seen someone with such a massive width as this man (creature? Thing?). Even Dum Dum Dugan wouldn't have a lick on him and he's the broadest man she knows (well, or there's Steve, though that's something she'd still been getting used to).

Peggy is absolutely unsure what is happening, but she rolls her eyes when the man tries to reason with the thing. "Oh, for god's sake!" is out loud, but in her mind is far more rapid-fire.

It doesn't need anything, it's an animal whose ground we're trespassing on. It only matters now how aggressive it is!

Realization clicks in and Alec meets her gaze.

You're psychic? Can you reach into it's mind? But as the creature starts to turn towards her there might not be honest time for that. So he stomps, one big foot down hard on the ground. Distract the thing. Keep it confused.

I doubt it'll smell me. I'm not technically alive.

The only mind it appears she can reach into is this man-thing or whatever it is that she's going to call it, but she's not entirely sure what he (it) is. Still, as of yesterday, she wasn't able to reach into anyone's mind, so she has to imagine that being psychic suddenly might expand to talk to wild hogs.

At this moment? No, she hasn't got that skill.

I can hear you talking about not being alive! That's all, but that means it still smells me. What's the plan, here?

Sound distraction will only go so far when smell is still in play, after all.

Hrm. This isn't as disconcerting as it should be for Alec - people who are psychic are something he encounters a lot.

He projects an image, a very green image loaded with power of what he wishes he could do, grab the boar and drag it down into the earth. Water the soil with it's blood, turn it into compost...

It's an accident before he locks it behind a wall and turns to meet her gaze again.

Focus. Alec.

If you can get it to turn toward you I can tackle it from behind and snap it's neck.

Well, that's just a touch more disturbing than Peggy thinks she was ready for, her eyes widening a little at the man, having seen every bit of that plan in his mind. It would certainly do to get her out of trouble, but it's more than she thinks she can handle. What she does get out of this is that he's more than capable of helping her out of this mess.

She ought to feel worse about an animal meeting its doom like this, but if it's her or it, she wants herself to live, which is why she begins to make a sharp noise, stomping on the ground. "Hey! Over here!" she shouts loudly, hoping that her new friend is as good as his word.

The boar snorts, his features curling in anger. He's a great creature, massive and sweating, disgusting and foul. There's a smell off of him as he paws at the ground before Alec...

pounces.

He doesn't pounce so much as flop onto the creature trying to draw upon his predecessor's memories of wrestling an alligator. It works, 598 pounds of compact swamp moss formed into muscle.

The creature thrashes beneath his limbs and he let's out a roar, it's an earth shaking sound as the boar paws at the dirt and manages to flip him over.

"Get a-!!-"

Another growl as the creature thrashes against him. One tusk digs into his chest and he punches the thing before it twists against him.

...Stick. Get a big sharp stick!?

Good god, what has Peggy gotten herself into? Luckily, she's very much about prioritizing and right now, her priorities lead her straight to the great, massive thing in front of her (the boar, not the man). It's why she can allow herself the moment to struggle to find a stick, something sharp and effectual.

She can deal with the strength of the other man and how she can read his mind later, once she's sure her life is safe.

On your right, behind you. Forty-five degrees, reach back, and you'll have it. That keeps her out of danger's way, while also helping.

The boar lets out a mighty snort - halfway between a burp and a roar as his tusks gore his chest.

Or try. He doesn't feel any pain in the heat of the moment before letting out an equally loud roar and digging his hand backwards, grabbing, grabbing...

The creature charges again, tusk digging into his chest as he delivers a hit to the creature's head with one ham-sized fist before he scrambles backward, climbing to his feet.

"...Come for me." He bares his teeth, "Come for me you bastard!"

Planting his feet, ignoring the throbbing sharp pain in the marks on his chest, he braces himself against the boar.

He doesn't turn to her as he speaks.

Grab a stick of your own. I'm going to stab him down the middle. You stab him down the side.

Peggy's grateful for the task at hand that allows her to ignore the strangeness of this voice in her mind that has a feeling to it that she can't quite place her finger on. Whatever it is must wait, as she runs to pick up something sharp, ready to wield and stab, positioning herself from the side.

Count off when.

She's ready, even if she's not sure what's happening, but they need to survive before they can approach the oddness of their circumstances.

He twitches. I can't heal. This place has truly cut me off from the green.

She probably heard that and the sense of isolation behind it. No fear, just isolation, before he wraps an arm around the boar's tusk even as it digs into his wrist.

Five!

If It had to cut me off now why couldn't it cut me off with Abby? Why couldn't I leave with abby?

That thought leaves a deep impression of a woman with snow white hair filled with black streaks, like a field marked by tires, intruded upon by the sins of man in his mind.

Four!

His walls go up again before he shouts, "Get ready!"

Three!

the creature screams.

Two!

One!

He flings it off and heaves to his feet dodging a few paces away, stick out. Loose flaps of green peat moss hangs off the wounds the creature gave him, a few cracked bones jolt from his chest.

If you can imagine a man who has been gored standing up and walking, that's what's happened here. The gore broken apart by leaves, bark and twigs and vines and rich plant life - all behaving the way it should never behave.

He plants his feet and the boar comes charging at him, impaling itself upon his spear.

The roar of his voice is truly terrifying.

"Now! Stab it now!"

Peggy's patience dips a little at the thought about being unable to heal, her own thoughts running towards an irritable, well, none of us are able to heal, we're all just human, only the thing that she's looking at is clearly not, so she ought to perhaps hold back her tongue.

Not that it helps at the moment, because he's bypassing her words and going straight to her thoughts. Instead of fixating on this Abby, Peggy grabs for a stick that looks sharp enough, moving around to the side with steady movements until she's in place, jabbing at one!

The stabbing of the boar, well, it's easier to cope with than getting her first good look at the man in all his gore and glory.

Frightened is definitely one word for it, but she tries her best to bury it under a mountain of pragmatism as she works on driving the self-made spear in deeper.

"Is it working?"

He twists as the creature kicks and writhes. The hooves dive and kick. Once he's sure the creature is in his death throes he drops his hands and moves to snap the creature's neck.

He breathes, eyes rolled back into his head before he breathes, shoving the being's body off of him. Covered in blood and gore, he heaves himself to his side, breathing shallow.

Bits of leaves and tree branches fall out of the holes in his chest. The last time I was injured this bad was just after I had turned for the last time. Abby took care of me.

His eyes roll back in his head, "...Suppose...you heard...that. In my head."

Peggy feels awful for the thing when its neck is snapped, but she also understands that if it weren't the creature, it would have very likely been her. In a situation like that, she feels as much empathy as she can, but also understands that it had been necessary.

"I did," she agrees cautiously, about the words in his head. "Not just those words, but many others." Given that they're here alive, that should be clear. "Who's Abby? And who are you?"

Alec's eyes go wide as he looks away.

"My wife. "His one true love. His destined bride. There's a flood of emotion from him that he doesn't bother to hide as he breathes, chest rising and falling expelling oxygen out into the air, "She's dead."

He rolls the creature off of him, not yet giving his name, "You're the one who was talking to me? Are you psychic?"

"No," Peggy says, with the weight in that one word of a woman who understands how implicitly things have gone wrong right about this moment, because she shouldn't be able to hear anyone's thoughts, but she can. She can hear his specific thoughts and that's a very strange thing.

She can even feel a bit of that grief of his. "All of a sudden, it came on, I could hear you." Can you hear me still? she thinks at him.

"Yes."

He moves to stand and groans, body aching. He can feel it, a bone ache in his leaves and chest. It's not something he can re-grow back either.

Test test, one two three.

"Do you have any magic in your bloodline?" He grunts, "...Hnngh. There's no way you can...carry me. This isn't going to be fun. You're..."

What's your name?

She shakes her head, because she's the least magical person that she knows. She's guns and practical plans and fights, she's a soldier. I'm Peggy Carter, and not a shred of magic in me. She's a bit more concerned with the fact that he doesn't seem like he's going anywhere and she's not magic at all, so how is she going to do this.

"Is there any way to help you? Can I staunch it like I do with a regular wound?" she asks, trying to look him over and find skin and mass underneath all the growth.

"I'm...afraid not."

This is exactly the thing he was afraid of happening, "Ever done any basket weaving? Or willing to learn how?"

He winces, spotting a tree a few feet away - thick and old. I'm sorry brother.

"I think perhaps if you can make me something to tie things with - or have something on you - I can make myself a crutch and hobble to the hot springs."

Abby would have asked that.

Damn it.

"...My apologies. If we're intruding in each other's minds perhaps...at least until you've mastered this I should do my best not to...think."

She's never been a weaver of any sort, but she's rather good at braiding hair, so she thinks that the same principles apply. "Yes, I can do that for you," she says, opting to speak out loud because it feels like she's intruding on his privacy to always broadcast into his mind.

Peggy does give him a sympathetic look. "Don't do that on my account, I can manage," she guarantees. "Now, tell me what I need to get in order to weave you a patch. We can work on a crutch after."

"Long grasses. It..."

He tries, thinking, before thinking an image at her of the kind of grasses she needs.

"Did you...get that?"

He groans, "...Well thank God I can't die. I'm only sorry you have to see this. Normally I can regrow my body easily."

Peggy nods as soon as she gets it, instantly starting to think about the places that it grows, knowing that she'll have a better chance by the water. "Does it have to be dry or wet?" She thinks the same words, to give him a chance to respond out loud or via the connection, whatever is fastest for him.

She knows that this is a terribly strange thing, but all the same, she also feels like she's got a purpose, for the first time in a very long while.

"...Wet." He swallows, "Preferred. I-" He groans and lies back, "...Useless. Absolutely useless."

He bares his wooden teeth and prods at the wound in his chest, "...I don't know what I'm going to do with this."

He pauses, "...Are you all right? I'd imagine this is terrifying."

Peggy has definitely been in better situations, but it's hardly his fault that she's been attacked by a boar and saved by a plant-man who's now injured. It's certainly more than I'd expected to deal with, she thinks as she heads to the river, wondering around the boundaries of this connection of theirs and how deeply it goes.

"These?" she asks, hauling them up near the water to show them, hoping they're both long enough and wet enough to work.

"That'll...be fine." He rolls his eyes back in his head, "...I forgot what pain feels like. Is that strange? I missed it."

He begins to pick leaves out of his wounds, "...I imagine this might be shocking for you."

Peggy knows that it is, and as she approaches again to begin weaving, she doesn't want to lie or hide it from her face. She's so unsure about all of this and she knows that it's there in her brow, in the curve of her lips.

"What are you?" she finally asks, because if she doesn't, she suspects that he's going to read it from her mind anyway and that seems ruder.

"I was a scientist." Alec murmured, "..No. I am a scientist. I was working for the government on a bio-restorative formula - designed to make forests out of deserts. Solve world hunger."

"...Some guys tried to steal it. It turned out it was destiny, the universe pushing me to become the guardian of the green. A plant-human hybrid. I died. A couple of times."

He smirked weakly then rolled his head back, "It's...a long story."

Peggy's still not sure how it works, but at least she has the story to be able to piece it together, slowly. She squints at him as she weaves, letting her fingers distract her from what she's doing. "So, beneath all of that foliage, do you have the same organs that a human might?"

Or has the change fully co-opted his body, she wonders? "How is it bonded to just you and not trying to take over the environment?"

"No."

Alec puts a hand over his chest, "I did. But the flesh beneath the mantle was destroyed. The closest thing perhaps you can imagine is...a ghost. A ghost of the man I was. More plant then man. Until I came here at least."

He winces, "...The green doesn't take over anything. It's only human beings who see it as something to be...feared. And even then. That was not always the case."

There is a brief flash of an image, of a sense of time older then old, when those who came before him were worshipped as Gods of the wood. Ancient green threads through it along with ancient drums.

"How's it coming?"

Peggy's not entirely sure of her weaving skills, but more than that, she thinks that the weaving alone isn't going to be near enough to save him. She's listening as she works, eyeing the plants, and as she thinks about him being a plant or a man, she wonders how she would heal the other.

"So if you need to be healed, if you had a disease, what would you do," she says, thinking that maybe there's a better way to go about this.

"...I can't get sick."

He leans back, "...I've never missed that part to tell the truth. When I was a child I got sick a lot. I spent a lot of time outdoors in the rain, the sun..."

The chuckling shakes his leaves and wood and brambles as he closes his eyes with a wince.

"I used to worry about that for Abigail. She spent so much time in the Swamp with me. That she'd be sick all the time. I'm not exactly the most...cuddly creature."

His chuckle sends leaves and branches to the ground again and he groans.

"If the hot springs don't work I have no other option but to root and attempt to regrow my body. All plants and trees can regrow limbs as long as there's a seed.

It would just...take forever. Years most likely."

Peggy's not entirely sure that the springs will work if he's a plant, but she's wondering if there's another genus or species that will mend better. "We should also try to get you some peaches," she insists. "They have a similar healing effect, but perhaps ingesting it will also work. Or we could get you to drink some of the spring water?"

Either way, she's looking for options, right now.

"Spring water perhaps might be easiest."

He clenches his teeth, "I can just absorb it. Nice thing about being a plant. You can just absorb things in it."

He studies her, "You're handling all of this remarkably well."

"I've dealt with plenty of uncomfortable situations in the past, why not one more?" She's going to have a moment later to decompress and ask herself if she really did experience what she did, but that's later. Right now, she's more than happy to simply get through all of this, not think about the finer details, and move on.

"How about we get you to the springs? Will you be able to move? I'm not sure I can carry you," she points out bluntly.

"...Beings like me are uncomfortable." He smiles, "...That's a fair assessment."

"I'm afraid not. I weigh about 500 pounds. hence." He gestured to the crutch, "...Once there I can find...some way to heal myself."

He grimaces, gritting wooden teeth, "...I'm sorry. This is deeply frustrating for me. Ordinarily I'd be the one helping human beings. Without my abilities and now with this I just feel...useless."

"I wish I could lift you up, but unfortunately, I haven't grown that sort of strength in the last blink of an eye," Peggy offers, terribly apologetic even though she knows there's really nothing that she can do other than wait it out.

"We need to get you to the springs, that's for sure. Can you hobble along at least?" she suggests. "I could probably lever you up if you fall, so I won't be entirely useless."

"Perhaps we could use the crutch for that."

He gestures and does his best to project an image of using it like a fulcrum. I shouldn't break the stick so your hard work won't go unabated.

"...Are you all right? I mean, meeting me is...a lot."

"It is," Peggy agrees, being cautious and not wanting to be outright rude to a man she's just me, but their minds are linked (still) and there's no point in lying when he can likely feel her uncertainty. It's not that he looks that way, it's the fact that she's not sure how to heal him or how to treat him.

"Give me some time," she recommends. "I think I can get around to managing," she adds, even if her brain is whispering, hopefully at her like a pessimist. "Right now, I'm most occupied with you getting healed and my reactions has nothing to do with that."

"...You remind me of Abby." And despite the spike of pain in his mind his tone is kind, "She had a hard time adjusting initially too. She was a...a nurse. So I can only imagine."

He looks pained, "...I've been loathe to try that power vending machine but if they have something that would allow me to function perhaps I ought to consider it for situations like these."

He sighed, "As soon as you finish weaving those you can hand them to me and I'll tie the sticks together. That way I can at least hobble somewhere safely."

Peggy is working as quickly as she can, but she begins to work to make herself more efficient, giving her a chance to work the weaves in. Once she's done, she hands it towards him, rather leery of the fact that hobbling safely somewhere isn't her ideal choice.

"Can you at least let me walk with you until you're seen to, either by one of our plants, the hot springs, or a doctor? Though, I'm also not entirely sure what a doctor would plan to do."

"Of...Course." He winces, "...It hurts but it doesn't hurt as much as you'd think." He groans and moves to try and pull himself into a sitting position, reaching up to pull two more branches down.

The regret on his face is palpable.

"...Forgive me brother."

Peggy's wary about the relationship with nature, mainly because she really hadn't paid much thought to those sorts of things being sentient or in any way able to feel like that. Lucky for her, she can tuck it away firmly and she decides that if she can't carry him, she can lead the way.

Peggy takes a few steps forward and gestures for him to follow. "Follow me, then. We'll get you to the springs."

Taking the stick he pauses, putting one hand over his chest. Pressing his hand against his wounds, holding it closed, he moans. The noise sounds like the earth shifting.

"...Quickly. As quickly as I can go."

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