(CLOSED) Your heart wears knights armor.

[oorah]

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.

Comments

[oorah]

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."

[womanofvalue]

"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?"

[oorah]

"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.

[womanofvalue]

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."

[oorah]

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."

[womanofvalue]

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?"

[oorah]

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."

[womanofvalue]

"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.

[oorah]

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?"

[womanofvalue]

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.

[oorah]

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.

[womanofvalue]

"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."