sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

WHERE: Anywhere; multiple locations
WHEN: Apx. 13-18 November
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Serious illness and reactions to such

IMPORTANT NOTES: This is the first of two mingles. Please see the timing and general event details here.

Illness Presents and Putting Heads Together will have their own top-levels in this post, but you may make separate top-levels for whatever you like! Anything is welcome, as long as it tangentially relates to the Worried/Sick plot.

Please keep in mind the established plot details, but creative license is welcome and encouraged as long as it doesn't step on toes.

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"I thought I smelled her cooking. Imagine how disappointed I was," Peggy shares, because she's grateful that someone can appreciate how missing out on Ana's cooking is truly the worst ill that anyone can experience. Stroking his hair from his temples, she knows she's not maternal by any rights, but this feels easy.

"Smearing how?" she asks, too feverish to understand him straightaway, given that everything is jumbling in her own mind.

"Heartbroken." He huffs, managing a thin, wan smile. Ana is- was. Was. Wonderful. She was wonderful.

"Hard to remember where I am. Keep thinking I'm back home or...in the Tower. Or the cave. Just- Details getting fuzzy." He reaches up slowly to scrub at his eyes, like if he presses on them it'll make them function properly.

She knows all about that, because every now and then, she'll look over at him and see Howard or she'll see Steve and wonder why he looks so big. Then she recalls that it's not a hazy dream and she's here and not back in the early days of the war.

"Tell me how I can bring you back," she insists, because having a task to focus on will pull her out of her fever haze. If she can settle on that, she thinks she can manage.

"I don't know where I'm going. So. The road's twisty." A fucked up flightpath more bumbling than a bees, all back tracks and graveled curves poorly lit and for a moment he can hear the car, again, even if there hadn't been much sound in the video. He knew that car, J usually drove them to and from the airport in it.

Wheels on grit and blood in teeth, sand on the back of his neck with the sun beating down on him in the stoic silence where the air is frigid and his heart is breaking to the tune of his Mother's voice calling for Howard.

"...forgave him. I forgave him. Shouldn't have to, but I did."

Peggy's not so sure who the 'him' in this question is. Even if she were feeling fully herself, she suspects that she would be a touch puzzled and it likely shows in the way she frowns, watching him warily.

"Who?" she asks, because it's best to simply get bluntly to the point rather than dance around it too long. "Who did you forgive?" And what was there that needed to be forgiven in the first place?

"Sargent Barnes." His voice sounds- feels- raw and wrong. Like Howard's in the video. Half breathless and five kinds of dazed. "Wasn't his fault but he needed to hear it."

Wait- he shouldn't be talking about this with Peggy. It's shades of the future, things she does't need to know. Doesn't need to worry about. Part of the story he'd decided not to tell. "It's fine. He's fine. I'm fine."

She's stroking his hair through this, wondering if she ever did this for him when he was younger. Was she in his life to that degree? Or was she too busy working, always working, as she anticipated might bet eh case. "I don't think anyone is fine," she counters, because she doesn't like to be lied to.

"Don't lie to me," she says, and it's not angry so much as tired. "It's good if you meant it, when you forgave him. Did it make you feel better?"

"Emotionally. In the feels. We're fine." He mumbles, tapping his chest. That's what matters, right? Bruce is working on what has them sick so- it'll be fine. Bruce is brilliant. He's not going to die today.

Hes pretty sure he's not going to die today.

"M'not lying it's...Part of what you didn't want to hear. Steve's involved." Because if Bucky happens Steve's involved.

She feels a hot burst in her chest and even sick, feverish, and tired, Peggy sees it for the anger that it is. Her eyes are blurry and hot, and she knows it's not Tony's fault, but this is a mountain of issues starting to slide down.

"I am someone outside of Steve Rogers, you all know," she says, her chest aching and she's not sure it has anything to do with the illness. It's a bitterness that's crawling up, born of radio shows and men's ignorance. "I exist as more than a part of him, and I can listen to stories that include him without toppling over the edge."

"Course you are. You're Agent Carter. Grew up trying to design spy gadgets for you that you didn't need anymore." The weight and warmth he puts to the words- it's more than the affection he puts into Aunt Peg. That's- periphery to who she is. It's who he was for him. Agent Carter? Is who she was for the world.

Someone remarkable.

Someone unshakeable.

"You just- when I got here? Didn't seem like you wanted to hear me speak ill of him."

Her breath in shakes, even though she doesn't want it to and it makes her angry that it does. She wants to be more in control than this, but she knows that the illness is making her different, simply because she's not at her best.

"I don't want anyone to speak ill of him or you if it's not deserved," she makes it clear. "If you have cause or reason or history behind it, I'm not going to argue that." She closes her eyes, grasping the edge of the bed to steady herself. "I'm sorry, if I wasn't clear in that."

Well then. Better to rip off the bandaid. It comes out slowly, like pulling shards of glass from an inflamed wound. "He knew. About the accident. Buck's involvement. Knew, lived around me, worked with me, and didn't tell me. Kind of had a recording of the incident shoved in my face with Buck standing two feet to my left after...a long, stressful, fucked up week. Didn't take it well. Kind of sore at him, still. Ish? A little. We said clean slate but I'm not sure I can manage that the way he needs me to."

But he wants to try.

"You should lie down. I think the next bed's empty?"

When Tony tells the story, Peggy finds that she's not surprised. She's not angry, nor disappointed. After all, doesn't she know precisely how far Steve will go for James Barnes? Perhaps the only sadness she feels is that Steve still has to protect him and remains in his shadow, the same as Peggy remained in Steve's.

She presses her lips together and nods, thinking Tony is speaking quite sensibly. "Yes, I probably should," she murmurs, reaching out, but only making it to sit on his bed. "Here's fine," she insists. "Have you forgiven Steve? Or just Barnes?"

"I don't know." It's the most honest he can be. "Barnes I forgave awhile ago. Steve- I don't know. I thought we were friends, he didn't trust me. That...kind of stings."

And they've talked about it. They said clean slate and he's trying. He is. But some things still stick and ache and it's easier to ignore all of it when he's not thinking about how fucking lost and alone Steve must be.

She can understand how that would potentially go poorly. She would never want to feel as though Steve didn't trust her. She would likely want to hold a grudge, as well. And yet, if there truly is a deep friendship and even a love, then she knows that at some point, it would happen.

"Does he trust you now?" Peggy asks, which seems a rather simple question, so maybe that's the fever speaking for her.

"I don't know." How can he be sure? It's not something you ask, it's not something he's got any kind of right to expect. Demanding that after everything- it'd be the height of entitlement.

"I really don't." He wants to try but- Extending too much trust too soon last time is part of why it all went wrong.

"We're all too sick for it to be important," Peggy says, feeling like that's wise or somehow critical, but then the thought slips away from her and she leans forward, listing a little as she reaches out to hold onto Tony, patting his shoulder.

"Budge over, will you," she insists, because she's not making it to another bed when the warmth from him seems so lovely. "I'll pat your hair, if you let me stay."

"Fair enough." He can't think of much of anything right now- other than the way the world sort of swims and settles at that promise. He's not going to cry, he isn't, he's- going to budge over to give her the room she's asking for, voice thick, smile a little watery. "Haven't done this since I was nine."

Much too old for it by his father's estimation, but who in their right mind told Peggy Carter no? No one that could hold to it, that's who.

She gives a soft humming noise as she keeps stroking his hair, settling into the room he gives and tugging the blankets up to cover the both of them. Peggy knows this is a grown man beside her, but she can imagine him at nine, wondering if they've done this, only with her older and him younger.

"I'm glad that I seemed to have still had time for you," she murmurs. "I always worried, myself, that I lacked some of the core requirements that people who become mothers or motherly need."

It's as soothing as it's ever been, leading Tony to list into the contact, eyes fluttering shut with a quiet sigh. He's good. He's safe. It's not home, it's not his childhood and fever sucks like it's always sucked but-

They'll make it through this he's sure.

"You're a good Aunt. A great mom." He only knows the latter from observation but- she's beloved. Respected.

"I don't know that I ever will be, if I stay here," she admits, her heart aching a touch to think of a future that won't be. It's not the first time she's thought of it, because the early days after losing Steve had been so hard, that she thought some mornings, she wouldn't get out of bed.

"I'm glad I've been good to you, though," she says, latching onto the positive. "I'm sure I'm very proud of you."

"Who would you settle down with?" Wait- does he want to know who she'd look to, does he really have any kind of right to her lovelife? She's her own person, someone connected and not to him, and it's- complicated. Or simple.

Figuring this out is a bitch when he's not all fever fogged. "You tell me that more than Dad. Always do. Even when I'm a little shit."

Peggy swallows back that thick knot in her throat, the one that feels a terrible amount like grief. If she felt better, she wouldn't be saying this, but she's not. "I always imagined, before the war ended, what things would have been if Steve and I had that dance and our date." Shaking her head, she moves on.

"I don't know. I only began to even begin to consider other men before I got here, and not seriously, not having kids serious," she clarifies. "And your father simply liked to hold things tight to his vest, even from me."

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[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

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