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OPEN POST ( !!! )
MUSELIST | SHIPPING OPEN POST | ANYTHING GOES ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | TEXTING | PIC PROMPTS | ETC | |
MUSELIST | SHIPPING OPEN POST | ANYTHING GOES ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | TEXTING | PIC PROMPTS | ETC | |
two brits walk into a shield warehouse
Suddenly Peggy Carter makes the leap from 1947 to 2018.
For all that she's been surrounded by some of the most brilliant scientific minds of the Twentieth Century, none of them are around to explain that maybe time isn't that linear after all, that it's really more of a circle, or the past, present, and future run parallel; infinite realties, Dr Wilkes might say. And before the events of Los Angeles, she might have been skeptical of the idea, but tangling with Zero Matter does change one's perspective of just what the world is capable of. But there's no Zero Matter here. Hell, no Howard experimenting in the basement trying to blow them all sky high. No, Peggy had been alone and rooting through some warehouse vault of the Council's in Queens, and she'd heard someone coming, ducked into a spot to hide, and backed into — something — and been thrown onto the floor of somewhere else.
She recognises nothing. If she's honest with herself, she feels a little sick with how disorienting it all is, but she's still scrambling to her feet. Another storage facility of some sort, but not the same one she was just in. Or is it? Peggy keeps her weapon cocked and flashlight raised as she moves through the space slowly, heels soundless on the concrete floor. But then someone else approaches and she whirls around, swinging up her gun and aiming. ]
[ yells in the queen's english ]
— the prophecy, yes. I'm well-aware.
[ Every drawing Robin scrawls onto a bit of paper is a bloody prophecy. He's not a skeptic, no, it's just tiring to parse out stick men and vague phrases, to feel like he's at the whim of a kid even though it's the cosmos toying with him. He has his tablet in hand, ticking off the seemingly inactive relics in the Lighthouse. Not the Kree staff or the Skrull mirror acting up today, at least.
Fitz hears it, then, in the space between his snappish counter and Enoch's sure-to-even reply: The slosh. It's the sink of one the monoliths changing states, he thinks, though he can't be sure, seeing as he's yet to catalogue the entirety of their warehouse. In seconds, he raises his gun with his left hand (his newfound ambidexterity is the one benefit of the Framework, though he doesn't think Jemma would concede that). Enoch quiets and Fitz nods to him, indicating with a tilt of his head that he'll go left while the Chronicom goes right.
He isn't soundless, with his light tread steady on the floor. Perhaps he should speak, seeing as people tend to appear whenever prophecies and monoliths are involved, but, well — ]
Christ — [ He doesn't physically jump, like he might have a year or two ago, but his eyes grow big (bug-like, as Hunter is keen to remind him, as if they're too big for your wee head) as he dives aside instinctively, behind the nearby scaffolding of storage. And that's all the Framework, not his first life. The crate he finds himself behind is covered in markings. Asgardian, probably. Not a good idea to shoot it up. ] — Don't shoot! I mean, I won't shoot, so.
[ At first glance, she's just the outline of a woman, obscured by mixed lighting in the room, harsh yet sparse. He hopes she isn't another spectre from a fear dimension or whatever simulacrum of hell the Ghost Rider clawed out of 'cause he's had enough of that already. ]
I'm here to help. [ he calls from around the corner, the sound echoing in the immediate area before being swallowed by the wider room. ]
[ Scottish, definitely. Crisper than it ought to be, after years in America. ]
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Peggy moves slowly towards cover of her own, scanning the area in case her fellow countryman had brought back-up. Her voice is as steady as her aim. ]
Considering where we are, you understand if I find that hard to believe. [ The truth of the matter is she isn't sure where she is. She knows where she last was, which was practically enemy territory. Her shoulder hits a crate marked with an SSR stamp from the end of the war. The Council got their hands on confiscated HYDRA tech? Bloody hell. ] Who are you?
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Still, Fitz follows protocol, sliding his tablet to the ground and swiping it open as he speaks — precious seconds pass in which he initiates a lockdown. Quarantine procedure. Even if something human came through a rift or portal, god knows what they're carrying. ]
[ Evenly, ] We might not be where you think we are. [ not as informative as he'd like to offer, but he can't provide details without an ID on her. He places his gun on the concrete, safety on, and slides it out from behind his cover. Being unarmed isn't ideal but a shoot-out in here is worse, in the end. ]
Leopold Fitz. [ He resists the urge to clarify just Fitz. Not Leo or Leopold, no, because both of those fit too easily in certain people's mouths. ] Agent Fitz. I'm with SHIELD, if that means anything to you.
[ He hopes the weapon and his name are enough of a peace offering to compensate for the whoosh and click of the basement's multiple entrances locking shut. ]
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How did she get herself into this? How does she always get herself into this? She thinks about the radio in the messenger bag slung across her body, how Mr Jarvis — no, she left him in Los Angeles. She has no back-up here. Damn. ]
It doesn't, [ she fires back crisply. She doesn't recognise any organisation by the name of SHIELD. What an absurd name. Probably thought they were being clever when they — ah. Bollocks. The doors. ] Are you trying to box me in, Agent Fitz?
[ He may have disarmed himself but she won't do any such thing, not when he has the run of the place. She moves around behind the boxes, finding an alternate route to where he's situated himself. She doesn't speak as she slinks her way there and only when she comes up behind him does she introduce herself, pistol raised. ]
Agent Carter with the Strategic Scientific Reserve — which won't take too kindly to you locking up its acting chief, I might add. So I'd choose my next move very carefully if I were you.
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It was terrible.
And now she's going to shoot him, fresh out of the past yet sharp as ever. ]
Agent Carter. [ breathed more than said because, wow, that sure is a thing. Fitz raises his hands slowly in the universal gesture of surrender and doesn't turn around, gaze skipping over his tablet and ICER to assess the nearby containers. Gotta be something useful — or loud, at least, to bring Enoch back from the other side of the cavernous room. ] We are boxed in, technically. The both of us. In the basement of a SHIELD safehouse, and my colleagues won't take too kindly to you shooting the current Head of Technology while trespassing.
[ He drops the head of science and blah blah blah intentionally. He's a nerd! The gadget-guy! Definitely not the guy you need to shoot! ]
Any idea how you ended up on our property, Agent Carter?
[ He has to say her name again to remind himself that, oh god, this is happening. ]
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That's musing for a later time. She wets her lips, thinking quickly — a scientist, she has a scientist at gunpoint. Someone like Samberley but with more composure. No, she mentally corrects, eyeing how steady his hands are as they raise into the air. A scientist with field experience or training, at the very least. Not one to be underestimated. She knows that as someone who often is. ]
You're the genius, you tell me.
[ It's a quip she'd ordinarily save for Howard Stark, but she's at a loss for any real answers. For a safehouse, she doesn't feel very safe. But far be it from her to let on that she's a little out of her depth. ]
After you turn around — slowly.
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He swallows audibly. ]
Alright.
[ And turns around, as instructed, hands still raised. At the sight of her up close, his brows lift. Definitely has the look of vintage Carter, like she walked right out of a photograph in the SSR museum exhibit. ]
Are you familiar with...unusual artifacts? [ then, quickly. ] Objects with strange, seemingly unexplainable or impossibly advanced properties?
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More than most people, [ she demurs. ] Enough to know this isn't just a safehouse.
[ One corner of her red lips quirks in a smile that neither reaches her eyes or lingers longer than a second. If it was a safehouse, these crates would be filled with supplies, rations. Instead, SHIELD seems to have acquired quite a few things that belong to the SSR. Dangerous things. Things meant to be locked up with the likes of Arnim Zola, Johann Fenhoff, and Werner Reinhardt. Was this something done under Vernon's brief stint in command? Was Thompson up to something else, despite his coming around and that's why he was shot?
Curiouser and curiouser, as they say. ]
Given what's around us.
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Given what's around us. [ He nods, then. A tacit acknowledgment that this is more than a safehouse and, yes, it's filled with dangerous items. His right hand twitches, as if he'd like to move it, to gesture at her and explain. ] One such object has been known to pull people in at one point — one location, that is — and pop them out at another location entirely.
[ A beat. He holds her gaze, steady. ]
I think that's what happened to you.
[ He thinks, not knows, because the sound of the Monolith slopping after a phase change has haunted him since he went after Jemma the first time. Hearing it again now could be just another symptom of his newfound instability. ]
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(Sometimes she wonders if she sounds more mad for accepting these things so matter-of-factly.) ]
You think I —
[ She breaks off, frowning. She did feel like she was being pulled, earlier. Enveloped and spat back out, to be precise. Peggy finally lowers her weapon: he isn't armed, and this requires civility on both their parts. There's a brief pause, during which she doesn't look away from him, but her focus does shift inward for a beat. Then she wets her lips and recollects herself; it's subtle, her back remains ramrod straight. Calmly, now, Carter. ]
All right. All right, [ she repeats, more firmly. ] So it's safe to assume I'm not in Kansas anymore. Or, rather, New York. Yes?
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Yes, well, we're under New York. [ He tips his head this way and that, fussing over the details. ] Beneath Lake Ontario, to be specific. [ Details are good, right? Reassuring. Except his features scrunch shortly after, a tell of the news to come. ] In 2018.
[ Just dropping that bomb now because the whole SSR evolves into SHIELD conversation requires groundwork, and he's still ascertaining whether she's the genuine article. ]
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Yes, she's — laughing. It's not funny, not even remotely, and the sound is more a puff of air than anything else; but Peggy does take a step back as if some part of her does believe, a little, and is struck by the gravity of it. The rest of her hasn't caught up yet. ]
Twenty-eighteen, [ she echoes, looking at him with some measure of incredulity. ] What, seventy years into the future? You're mad. You expect me to believe —
[ And then her gaze flickers, she takes in what he's wearing. She did earlier, a cursory glance, slightly out of place but not drastic enough for her to pinpoint why; but with the context, it's obvious. The trousers, the shoes, the tailoring on the jacket — entirely wrong. She doesn't raise her gun again but her expression falters, then hardens, her voice cools. ]
Time travel? That's your answer? Please, you'll have to do better than that.
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Fitz gestures between them quickly, and the sharp set of his features says, yes, that's exactly what he expects her to believe. ]
Why would I say something that mad if it weren't true? [ A little huffy, because he can't help himself. ] Here, just, don't bloody shoot me for taking out my ID card.
[ He lifts one hand up again, still surrendering, and brings the other to his blazer pocket, slipping out a square card clipped to a black lanyard (patterned with constellations — a gift from Jemma) and offering it to Peggy. If she accepts, she'll see the standard ID for new SHIELD, emblazoned with a vaguely familiar logo in the corner and plastered transparent across his biographical details. The card is bordered orange to signify his clearance level.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
FITZ, LEOPOLD "LEO"
HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY
DOB: 08/19/1987
SEX: M, EYES: BL, HAIR: BRN, HEIGHT: 5'8"
ISSUE DATE 2018FEB05 / EXP. DATE 2023FEB05 ]
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She is who she is and this man, this Leopold Fitz, seems to at least believe he's telling the truth — there's that much conviction in his bearing (because of course she's looking for any sign of a lie). But the only explanation on the table is too fantastic to accept, not without more evidence. It could still be a trick, although the why behind that is unfathomable.
Peggy presses her lips together and hands it back and reaches for her own, but not before holstering her weapon in the waistband of her trousers. Her ID is more plain but if Fitz has ever gone to the International Spy Museum in DC, he'd recognise it as identical to the one on display in the wing dedicated to the SSR. It could also be a very good copy, but apart from her memories, it's all she can offer in exchange. ]
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Now, he's meeting her again, in the flesh and in the now: Her first exposure to SHIELD, and it's his sloppy stand-off followed by a tetchy introduction. God, he's going to get an earful from the team.
Suddenly, Enoch's voice echoes from around another storage unit. "Mr Fitz, are you quite alright?" Oh, bollocks, he ought to deactivate the quarantine, with everyone upstairs waiting on high alert, and Jemma, oh, Jemma will be itching to get down here. ]
No thanks to you! [ comes his reply, instinctively sarky, as he hands back the ID. His mouth quirks at the corners. Enoch's footsteps fade as he methodically covers his side of the area, up and down the rows of units. ] My colleague — who's likely not alone in wondering what's going on.
[ waving a hand, as if to say, anyway. ]
So if it's alright with you, Agent Carter, I'm going to pick up my tablet [ he points at the black screen before bending to do just that, still intent on not experiencing her famed sharpshooting first-hand. ] deactivate the quarantine procedure — [ tapping away. only, ah, wait. ] — actually, you didn't notice any other passengers, did you? [ without waiting for her answer. ] We ought to sweep the basement first. [ oh, they're a "we" now, are they. ] Wouldn't want anything loose upstairs again.
[ potential threats trump further niceties and explanations, in his shifting list of priorities. ]
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She's been in worse, she reminds herself. The war, a brush with the Gestapo, Whitney Frost.
She nods once at Fitz's request, less authoritative and more, Well, if you must. (She doesn't know a tablet even is. But unusual technology isn't a rare occurrence for her, so she isn't as fazed by that.) She wants to know more — needs to know more. She shores up walls around the nerves and uncertainty, mentally squares her shoulders. So — time travel. Potential time travel. All right. On to the next step.
If this SHIELD is to be trusted, they're her way home. Or she has to get out of this basement and find another on her own. Either way, she'll play along for now. ]
No, I imagine we wouldn't. [ It's lightly said, after an exhale. ] Run into that sort of thing often, do you? Uninvited guests cavorting through your safehouse?
[ She doesn't shrug, her brows don't raise, but both are painfully evident in her voice as she adds under her breath: ]
Doesn't seem very safe to me.
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Better they arrive here than out there. [ said with a nonchalant air, as he retrieves his ICER pistol with his free hand. ] Seeing as we're equipped for it. [ and he's off, peering around the corner just in case someone else approached during their chat. No signs of other life, however. Fitz pauses, then, glancing back over his shoulder at Peggy. ]
[ casually — ] I should mention that the SSR was absorbed by SHIELD. It's our research subdivision now.
[ He hopes that the more uncanny and precise details he offers, the more likely she is to believe them. ]
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And then he says what he says and he gets the drop on her anyway.
Her composure slip and her jaw drops; the first thing that springs to mind is in Jack Thompson's voice, loud and clear: bullshit. Another organisation bulldozed their way through and took over, despite eliminating the threat Vernon Masters posed to the SSR? ]
Who authorised that? When?
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Time travel's a real shitstirrer, huh. He has the decency to look abashed. God, he should have waited for Coulson and Jemma to say that. They would have packaged it into something more digestible, perhaps even appealing. ]
The senior management, at the time, the 1950s, I think — but everyone was on board, if I recall correctly. It wasn't a — a takeover or anything. [ restructuring, rebranding, smartening up with changing times. ] My wife would know better than me. She's the, ah, history buff.
[ aaand he regrets saying that as soon as it's out because it implies she's, well, history. ]
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But it's a hell of a thing, isn't it, knowing what lies ahead and feeling like it's already set in motion and you can't stop it. (It's already happened. But you saw it coming, didn't you? Masters saw it, Jack saw it. A storm's coming, Agent Carter.) ]
I see. [ What else can she say? Peggy watches him quietly for a moment then offers, ] Before I woke up here, I was in the middle of an investigation in 1947. A warehouse we — I — suspected of belonging to an organisation called the Council of Nine. [ If this is truly history and if the SSR is now part of this SHIELD, then the records should exist. ] Are you familiar?
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For a moment, Fitz regards Peggy neutrally, more pensive than anything else. ]
Allegedly assassinated McKinley, ties to the Wall Street Crash of 1929, last head was — [ snapping his fingers. he recalls the name scrawled on the back of a blue flashcard. Blue helps your memory, Fitz, Jemma had told him, when they'd made the set for class. ] — Frost. Whitney Frost.
[ Rattled off like trivia, which it sort of is, isn't it? It puts any doubts that Carter is anyone but herself out of his mind, and places her sudden appearance in context. He and Jemma have been working on a timeline for the monolith's whereabouts. This information slots neatly into a fearsome gap. ]
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She must have been, too. Her and everyone she knows and works with. Footnotes in books, nameless soldiers in a secret war no one was meant to know about. Not like Steve Rogers — but this was never meant to be his life. God, she thinks, trying to not let it overwhelm her. Is she even still alive? Howard, Mr Jarvis, the Commandos? ]
I have, [ she begins softly, ] a dozen questions. All of which I suppose you can answer and none of which you will. So what's your plan, Agent Fitz? Keep me locked up down here like another one of your artifacts?
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No, no, god no. You are a — a respected agent. [ which is as close as he'll get to saying "extremely famous and important." ] I am doing my job, [ by ensuring nothing nefarious followed Peggy here to their safehouse. ] and then — there will be tea, there will be gin, there will be answers.
[ His voice is firm. ]
I promise you, Agent Carter.
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So she exhales and squares her shoulders and puts a bit of steel back into her voice and posture. ]
Very well, then, as you were. [ A respected agent, he says, with such surety — as if he knows her. She'll parse through that one later. There's a pause and then she volunteers, a little more lightly, ] Although I should point out I'm much more partial to whisky, if you have it.
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