sixthiterationlogs | (CLOSED) Your heart wears knights armor.

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(CLOSED) Your heart wears knights armor.

WHO: Frank Castle
WHERE: House 13
WHEN: December 6
OPEN TO: Peggy Carter
WARNINGS: mentions of current illness & past violence. will update if anything else arises.

Peggy lives just up the road from him, so it isn't surprising that Frank knows which house is hers. He only has the one dog in tow today, it's below freezing and most people are tucked away inside. Frank has been making the rounds, checking on people whether they had been sick or not. He regrets not being able to do more for Peggy before, though he'd brought her the elk stew he'd made and preserved peaches as promised. While he's not sure if it helped, today he's here with more gifts, mostly just as an excuse to see her. And maybe to see if she's well enough to tell him those stories yet.

Aretha brays at the closed door, giving him away, but he leans in to rap on the wood in Morse code anyway. G-I-F-T-S, he taps into the frame, then for good measure even though he's sure no one else greets people this way: H-O-T-D-O-G. When she comes to the door, he offers her an unwieldy smile, lifting his eyebrows and lifting the crate he has in hand. Let him come in and unpack? Aretha isn't so shy, she barges forward and starts sniffing at Peggy insistently.

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Peggy's been feeling better, though she wouldn't go so far as to say that she's fully healed. She still feels rather sapped of energy and her appetite is only slowly returning to her. Even so, she smiles warmly when she hears the familiar tap at the door. Not quite a knock, but something more.

Peggy opens the door and gives Frank and company an amused look. "I'm not so sure your secretive Morse helps when the dog is that loud," is her quip, standing back to gesture inside for him to follow. "I see you're all in one non-fiery or icy piece? Avoiding the chaos, I take it?"

He nods, it's a good point. Aretha has no such qualms about making noise though she is slowly but surely learning the Native sign he'd been teaching her. The second he gets the box on a surface, he's turning to the dog with a signed Quiet and she sits and starts using her inside voice. Much better. Frank is pulling off his mittens so he can get at what he brought over and show her. He's all bundled up, but he's sweating from the brief walk over anyway.

"Trying to. Neighborhood drama." He rolls his eyes, she'd done well to avoid it even if it was more out of necessity than anything else. "You hungry now? I brought more soup."

Peggy leans down to pat the dog, though it's not with much affection and is more a simple attempt to calm the barking before Stella or the neighbours hear it and grow irritated. She heads back towards the kitchen where she'd been working on drying and packaging new tea leaves, eyeing Frank over her shoulder.

"Since I've been sick, I'm always hungry," she confesses, and though it's hardly ravenous, it's enough that she's eyeing what he's brought with a great deal of interest. "That looks very much like a chicken broth."

He signs Down and Aretha goes down like a ton of bricks after accepting her pats from Peggy, finally silent and seemingly instantly chilled. He sets down the container and produces another like it - he made a lot of soup okay, before starting to unpack elk jerky and various preserves he'd packed in jars. There's also a big jug of wine he sets down.

"Close enough. Water goose." In a soup you really couldn't tell the difference and he's really hoping it hits the spot. "It's still warm if you wanna go for some now."

Without ceremony, he also unpacks the hat, scarf and mittens he made her that match the same ones he's wearing. Except that his are teal to match his communicator and her set is a matching blue, though perhaps a little richer than her scrubs had been, almost royal blue but not quite. He scoots past her to get some water for the dog while she goes over her bounty.

"Fowl is fowl," is her uncaring remark to that. She's not going to sit there and nitpick chicken versus goose and with complete honesty, it's the latter she'd been more used to as a child, so her stomach is happy to rumble in anticipation for the meal. "I'd love some, so long as you're having them as well."

Eyeing the other items, she's not sure what they are until she sees the second set, a tender swell in her heart. "Frank," she calls over to him, wanting to verify, but able to make a guess. "Are these also for me?"

"Sure," he replies amicably enough. He brought plenty for them to both eat and still save several portions for the week ahead so he's not opposed to having a friendly meal. He sets the bowl of water for Aretha down who instantly starts slurping it up. Peggy's question gets a distracted hm? as he stands.

"Uh, yeah. I fired with the weather getting colder..." It's hard for him to put himself out there these days, but he may as well use his skills to help, right? He worries his lip before forcing himself to ask, "They're okay?"

Peggy's already settling herself down, because she needs to rest or she'll grow too exhausted, as has been the case these last few days. She gives Frank a look of warmth as she sifts through the items, shaking her head.

"You absolutely didn't have to, but I'm not going to dare try and give them back," she assures, because she very much wants everything she could get. "I didn't know this was a talent of yours."

"I learned this in the other place." How to knit, he means. He's decent at it too if only because he never slept in that place, and has rarely been sleeping here either. He nods before going to warm their soup while she takes a rest. "...I could teach you if you want." Unless she knows already, that is.

"I always had a good hand at weaving and other things in that area, but I'm afraid that knitting was never a talent," she says, though the needles were always quite handy-seeming if she was going to need to get out of a tight situation.

"You shouldn't waste your time in teaching me that. I'd much rather spend my time practicing my other, blunter talents," she deadpans, which is to speak of the training she'll need to return to once she's healed. She hasn't had much strength in her to keep up with the punching bag and her own health and she knows she needs to get back to it.

He doesn't mind being the resident knitter, he just thought he'd offer anyway. Her commentary gets a snort and he can understand her frustration all too well.

"Well, you know where to find me if you need a punching bag." No really, that had been one of his nicknames in Reims. He's really quite good at getting the shit kicked out of him by the fairer sex.

"I tend to prefer to do it with inanimate objects, but if you ever make me cross, I'll take you up on your offer," she assures him, given that she certainly had made quick work of Howard from time to time, and she felt terribly confident in that.

"Is that what you've been doing to pass the time? Knitting while the rest of us were recuperating?" It had felt so endlessly hopeless and exhausting, being that sick, and Peggy's very glad it's all over.

Frank shrugs, he doesn't mind either way but he can't say he wouldn't jump at the opportunity to spar with Peggy Carter herself.

"Pretty much. Cooking too, obviously." Anything that helped but also kept him far out of the way. "And going around seeing who needs what." Because even though he wants to distance himself, that doesn't mean abandoning everyone. Making sure everyone survives Winter is very much his first priority from now until thaw.

"It's appreciated," she says, and she might just be speaking for herself, but she thinks that's plenty important at this point in time, seeing as she's very happy for both the food and the clothes. Setting spoons in front of them, she gets eagerly ready for some of the soup.

"I've been ill before here, but never like that. The cure..." She gives Frank a brief, scared smile. "Well, there were moments where I thought perhaps that was it, for me."

He nods his understanding, to her gratitude, and to the rest. He knows what it's like to die, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone, especially not Peggy.

"You're still here though, right?" And that's the important thing. It has to be.

"This time," she agrees, even though she's being a touch dramatic. She knows that she's far stronger than any sickness and she already knows that in the future, it takes almost a century to take her down. "I'm beginning to almost wish I weren't. I don't mean that to say I want to die," she deadpans.

"It's simply that I've been here for so long, I have to wonder what my purpose is, apart from watching all of you new folks coming in," she admits.

Frank's mouth opens to protest before he even realizes what she's said fully. But then she's going on and it snaps shut again.

"No one else can find that for you." What her purpose is... in one horror town it had been Mayor for him, in this one apparently it's resident knitter. You never know what people will need you for, and he learned a long time ago it's better not to turn them away even when you've been hurt and run down yourself. The problem is simply that Frank doesn't know where to draw the line between letting other people in and starting to care for himself. "But you're Peggy Carter, huh? I'm sure you'll think of something."

"Purpose isn't my concern, truthfully, it's that I feel like I'm splintering away from a life that I'm eager to get back to," she says, forever frustrated with this place. "I'm meant to do so much, everyone keeps saying. Here, I can do things, but how can it possibly impact as much?"

"Maybe it can't, but it'll impact these people. We have to help if we can."

That's why he's here, right? Yes, he wants to hear war stories, but it's more than that. He doesn't know how to abandon others, even when they seem to have lost all hope.

He's right, honestly. Peggy's simply been trying to look for a big picture when this place is made up of little ones and that's not a bad things, it's just not something that she's used to. "Hence the soup and the knitting," she admits.

"I do appreciate it," she adds, and maybe that's what she needs to see. Not the forest, but the trees. "I suppose a part of me wants to help, but also wants to get to enjoy my life. The war put it on hold for so long."

He gets where she's coming from too, but after a year of putting everyone's needs above his own he doesn't even think the picture in his mind makes a forest anymore.

"We may not ever get to go back. This might be all we get." It's honestly better than what he had set up at home, but he knows it isn't that way for everyone. He knows how much being here affects most of the people when they just want to get back. That isn't their choice, but what they do here absolutely is. "I once took my life for granted. I won't do it again."

If that's the case, then Peggy feels awfully depressed and it's not something she thinks she can talk about with Frank, because if this is their lot, then being on the same page as others is impossible and she'll need to pursue a different path.

Convincing her mind to that isn't so easy, though. "Are you happy?" she asks, because she'd rather move on and focus on that. "Here?"

He takes her inquiry seriously though it initially catches him off guard, assigning appropriate weight to it before answering as honestly as he can.

"Sometimes... yeah. Yeah, I think- more than in a long time, anyway."

"Well, I'm glad for you," she assures, as she tucks into the soup. There's no sarcasm or doubt in her voice, because if there's one thing that Peggy is quite good at, it's believing when others find happiness around her. She's the rock in that stream, standing still.

"If it means you'll bring me soup and knitwear, I can only encourage it," she adds, seeing as she's benefiting quite well from this mood of his.

Glad for him? Okay, he obviously didn't answer that question right. But when you're at your lowest a place like this isn't the worst. He still doesn't like it, but he doesn't have a home anyway. It's not really location that matters to Frank.

"You can always count on that, ma'am," and that's sincere, she can take it to the bank. He's finally eating some of his soup now that it's cooling down. "Now, how about those stories, huh?"

Peggy finishes a large spoonful of soup, giving him a happy smile for the reminder of why he'd come. "Yes, of course," she agrees, and she exudes far more happiness now that they're moving to this topic. "Dum Dum Dugan stories," she says. "Where to start?"

"I assume you won't mind if I tarnish your hero's halo?" she questions, seeing as Dugan won't come out of this absolutely glowing.

He just snorts. "Go for it." No war story came out with everyone squeaky clean, except maybe Curtis. Maybe he could tell Peggy one of those one time.

"There was one time in France where Dugan got his hands on far too much cavaldos, on a mission retrieving an artifact," she says, starting with the usual bawdy tales of her Howling Commandos when they drink too much. "He wept to sleep, singing loudly about a beauty from back home."

"Dernier had to gently rock him to assure him that he wouldn't remain alone forever," was her wry response. "I slept horrible that night."

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(CLOSED) Your heart wears knights armor.

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