uprightness | ɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ

If you're curious about the nuts and bolts of the moon, I'd suggest you speak with -- Max. [ her voice hitches before she speaks his name, but only because his name is so abhorrent to him. what else is she supposed to call him in mixed company? anything else might sound disparaging, and she has yet to properly outline the man to steve rogers. he takes something of a delicate touch. ]

One of our pilots. He jumped straight in to helping the natives with their mechanical work. He's spent time with him -- and has something of an affinity for wasted worlds. Only...

[ she hesitates while she takes a seat of her own. ] He's not easy to talk with.

Can't be any weirder than a talking pony.

[ sorry, peggy but that has to be the peak of unorthodox and Steve had been there and back, he can deal with Max. ]

I have some information from Allen Walker from the Blue Fish and Hank from the Blameless, he's a scientist but even he admits terraforming isn't really his field. Maybe with all of them combined we might achieve some process.

[ crowd-sourced solutions. basically, how she rolled in this fleet. but peggy isn't quite done with her warning: ] ] Only...don't actually call him Max when you do talk to him. He doesn't care much for the name. It's a bit of a long story.

[ and hardly hers to tell. ]

[ he arches an eyebrow ]

Will he agree to 'sir'?

I believe he was some sort of police officer before his whole world went to Hell -- so that might provoke him as much as anything else. But that shouldn't dissuade you from trying. [ ... ] So far as I've been able to observe, each new crewmate must come to their own agreement over what to call him. He's near-feral, at times...if he takes a swing at you, be patient with him.

[ she knows steve can as good as absorb a punch, but she still wants to warn him. ]

He's worth knowing.

Feral?

[ peggy, why. ]

He ever taken a swing at you?

[ mind your step. ]

[ it'll do her no good to lie -- ] He looked about to, once. But he wasn't right in his mind at the time. A sort of tricky darkness had taken over him -- he hallucinates, I think. He hasn't used that particular word but...he says he sees ghosts.

[ these are secret things. private things. things, perhaps, she wouldn't tell anyone else who wasn't already in max's good graces. but she has a weakness for captain america, and spills these details under the understanding that steve should be her ally in his case. ]

Steve, even if he tried -- I wouldn't hold it against him. And nor should you. He's been a good member of this crew. And as much as he won't admit it, he needs our help. I only wanted to prime you so you when you met him, you'd know...

[ ... ] I've nudged him to make polite with Barnes. [ she won't call him winter, not with steve. it seems to cruel. ] They remind me of each other, in their current states.

[ he gives her a look that suggests that he's almost about to argue. To say that comparing whoever the man is to bucky isn't fair, to claim this sort of a person shouldn't be around her or wanda ( he's biased, terribly so ) but eventually there is only a sigh that's mostly acceptance ]

Will they be safe around each other?

I think so. [ she won't commit entirely -- they are both so unpredictable, in the end. ] I was there the night they met. That, ah...dance? The one you'd just missed? [ her smile is slow and sad. ] I went with Barnes. And they met there, down on the moon. Like great big loyal mastiffs, they sized each other up and found each other acceptable.

[ as crass as the metaphor may be, she tells it with affection. ]

[ he is still waiting, patiently as he can for the time to come in which Bucky finds him acceptable but if he doesn't try to kill anyone or him that's progress enough for now. He had missed out, yet again, on a lot, the moment the man took the name Winter, his - tentative relationships with the rest of the fleet, with peggy.

Late, it would seem, as per usual. If only there was more than one hanging bag. ]

I don't like this.

[ honestly ]

But I'll help in whatever I can.

He's doing well, Steve. [ -- he hadn't asked. not truly. but she could tell that worry lurked under every look. steve's dearest friend hardly recognized him. but somehow, for some unknown reason, winter had found common ground with peggy carter. he could remember the red dress, at least... ]

Better than anyone could have anticipated. He struggles -- and he questions himself, which is a good sign.

[ there is a gap between them. a few feet, and she reaches across to take steve's hand. ] He, too, requires our patience. But I keep my eye on him, I swear.

I know you do.

[ and his hand tightens around hers, an explanation rushing up at once, to assure her it's not her he's questioning ]

Last time I've seen him he was -- upset.

[ well that term is as good as any ]

He saved my life but after that, I couldn't find him. I don't know hoe much he remembers. I think - if he does remember, he'll know what my share was in all of this.

[ in the end, it's he who didn't save him and knowing what they did to him - it'll always be his responsibility to bring him back. It's his fault he's as lost as he is begin with. ]

Your share's no weightier than my own. But -- he doesn't remember much. He did better with...[ jim, here. oh bloody hell. she has to tackle this now, doesn't she.

her cheeks puff. ] There was someone here who kept very good care of him -- he knew exactly how to talk to Barnes. Exactly how to treat him, and he did him a world of good. But if I begin to explain who that person was, you may never believe me.

[ a world of good, she says and he feels a stir of guilt and something else, a pang of envy. Bucky had taken care of him since before he can remember. Isn't his job to know how to help now?

Until the end of the line, he had echoed bucky's words to him but how much has he helped, really? He looks away from her for a moment ]

Well, whoever he was, I'm sorry he's gone.

[ she sees his pain -- and regrets having caused it, however obliquely. her firecracker brain doesn't slow down, and she's quick to assuage the ache: ]

Me, too. He -- Heavens, Steve. You've been here long enough to hear people talk about alternate timelines. Whole universes, chock full of different choices?

Overlapping.

[ Winn's voice rings through his head, explaining the science behind it. He nods. ]

I heard.

One of the earliest connections I made upon my arrival was with a -- [ oh, she breathes out. before today, she thought this might be easier. simpler. but there's a heavy ache in her heart as she considers how to introduce jim barnes. she misses him terribly. even now, she wonders what sort of world he returned to. ]

He went by the name Jim. And he told me how during the battle on that HYDRA train, it was his world's Steve Rogers who fell. He took up his best friend's mantle. He became Captain America.

[ peggy cues up the shield intel file on her device, and leans forward just far enough to show steve: a document outlining the battle of new york against the chitauri -- but there is no ROGERS, STEVE present in the text. only BARNES, JIM. ]

Jim was as good as the Winter Soldier's keeper while he was here. For him, it must have been like trying to help heal a version of himself.

[ he takes the device from her, looks at it for a long moment without saying anything. Winn and Hank warned him about this but faced with this other world, there is only one conclusion Steve reaches to. ]

I'd go with this version of things, if I could.

[ so, so softly: ]

And I would wager my very last penny that Jim would say the same thing about your version. [ a hard swallow. ] Our version.

I would have traded places with Bucky a hundred times if I could it's -

[ he shakes his head, doesn't let go of her hand ]

At least somewhere out there I did.

[ it hadn't been easy for her -- to learn about even one untouchable world where steve didn't survive as he did in her own, eventually. it had felt like grief, doubled. like a second cut, down to the bone. ]

You both made your choices. [ remember this speech, steve? ] And I choose to respect those choices. Both alternatives.

[ however much they might hurt her, in the end. ]

[ lost in thoughts of bucky, her words suddenly throw him to the present, this and now where she had lost him once and in a way twice and once over when he left the last time and suddenly, he wants to fall onto his knees before her and apologize for it all, everything he did or will do to her. ]

Peggy -

[ there's so much to say that lies between them and none of it will be enough ]

Coming back home would only have been to you.

I don't blame you. [ her shoulders are squared. the room seems to melt away -- awkwardness and worries about what's appropriate and what isn't, none of it matters. they're both adults, burdened by their choices and by the responsibilities thrust upon them. ] You made the only call you could make. I ...

[ her head shakes. ] I'm glad to hear it, though. I wish we'd had that chance.

I know.

[ knows it well and true because he carries her in his hopes and dreams and thoughts no matter what he does and where he goes. She has a hold on his heart that's hers and hers alone. He squeezes her hand just a bit ]

I do too.

[ i love you. it ought to be easy to say -- she'd admitted it, as much, to others in the months following his disappearance. an elite and trusted few. but now, just when it would be most appropriate to say it to his face, she finds she...can't. it wouldn't be fair; there is no solidity here. no permanence. what if she sowed those seeds, only to leave tomorrow?

she could not break his heart like that. ]

But instead you live alone. [ she exhales. ] You shouldn't be living alone.

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