bravejemma | IC Inbox

[She chortles at that.] Anything sweet or crunchy, especially if it has ingredients fifteen syllables long.

[Every once in awhile she shakes something green and leafy in his direction, but that's about as close as the two get. She considers sharing the Sandwich, but in the end she keeps it to herself.]

Anything that goes well with tea -- he likes his tea time treats.

I really think that this will blow over. Knowing that you don't judge him or treat him any differently will be the biggest help. After... well, it's important to him that he not be handled with kid gloves.

[ that's just it, isn't it? peggy hadn't considered her kid gloves to have been in use on that particular afternoon. or maybe she's slipped them on (so to speak) once things started charting south. she presses her lips together.

no, tea treats won't solve this one. as lovely as the thought is.

but then, of course, jemma leaves a little gap in her sentence and peggy can't help but go excavating. ]

After what? [ a tip of her head. ] Are you talking about -- about the injury? The one that showed itself so unavoidably during not that event? You were both a touch younger.

Yes.

[She sounds a touch regretful in bringing it up, but it had just been an automatic explanation that she hadn't thought to check until the beginning had left her mouth. But it sounds like Peggy knows, at least a bit of the tale.]

I suppose it's... a few years, when you combine our timeline with the time in Wonderland. He nearly died. After a nine-day coma he woke up, and had trouble with -- well, you name it, I suppose. Speaking, movement -- I think his hand still bothers him sometimes. But it just compounded what was already ingrained in him.

[ -- already ingrained in him, hm? well. peggy doesn't make too much of a show of mulling over those words, perhaps it once again boils down to culture, but they certainly don't go unheard. ]

Yes.

[ a huff of breath. they'd talked about that, hadn't they? the way your vulnerability after a near-fatal (should be fatal) injury knocks you down and makes you question your place. indeed, it'd been that path that had brought them hard against the topic that had unwound everything: the portal.

she wars with herself. how easy it might be to tell jemma to tell fitz that she's got no interest in pursuing that path -- not really, not any longer. only peggy can't be certain saying so would be truthful. ]

Yes, he would have had a lot of ground to recover. Living it again, thanks to the event, might have exacerbated those feelings. [ feelings, those pesky little things are always the problem. ] He did acquit himself marvelously during the -- interrogation itself, I'll say. I hope our little disagreement doesn't convince him otherwise.

I'm sure a therapist would say the same. [Not that Fitz would have played well with a therapist. The physical therapy had been trial enough.]

I'm sure he did, and I'm sure on reflection he'll remember that he did will.

[Well, she's sure about the first part -- the second will come in time.]

Actually -- just how much field training have the two of you had?

[ fitz might stand uniquely endeared to peggy for a great many reasons, but she isn't so blinded by that favouritism that she can't see the writing on the wall: simmons is, by far and large, the more reliable source.

somehow, these questions come with baggage when she asks them of fitz. maybe she'll find a more satisfactory and straightforward response with the other half. ]

[Jemma tries a smile and a laugh to cover what is going to be a bit of an embarrassing reveal, but it comes out as a grimace.]

Officially, none. We failed our field tests before we left SciOps to be on Coulson's team, but... he wanted us anyway.

[Coulson wanted them and she wanted to go, and that was that.]

[ ...oh.

remarkable, really, how her expression doesn't shift an inch. but inside she's humming with a rare chorus of uncertainty. did she do wrong, then, to go dragging the fellow into a caper like monday's? but no, no, no, she still meant what she'd said: he had acquitted himself well. ]

But you've both had plenty of experience since then. [ the reports certainly implied as much. and simmons herself had discussed doing undercover work at...hydra, good lord, of all places. ] More than most, would it be fair to say?

[Somehow, her not saying anything says everything, but Jemma understands.]

It's been a few years, and experience has certainly been a grueling teacher. I don't know that we'd be effective specialists, but we can get the job done.

Specialists. There's that word again. [ a puff of breath; a shake of her head. ] We don't use it in the SSR. There are field agents and there are otherwise.

[ she pauses while she takes a drink. ]

Not that being designated as one guarentees you any time in the field.

Lots more probably changed between your hey day and mine. Specialists work alone in the field, when things might require... well, they're probably a lot closer to proper spies than anyone else.

[She considers that. The only specialist she's really known before things collapsed was Ward, and she had been forced to conclude that none of them really knew him.]

I suppose it's a gentler name. Specialists. [ a quirk of her smile. ] Spy is such an ugly one -- and a dangerous one, to boot. Espionage isn't something anyone wants to be caught doing.

[ the rules of war don't protect them, after all. ]

Gentler name for some not terribly gentle people.

[She supposes she shouldn't tar them all with the same brush that she would happily blacken Grant Ward with, not that he needed the help, and even more to the point she probably shouldn't have said anything, but it's done and she takes another swallow of the whiskey, grimacing at the burning in her throat and studies what's left in the glass.]

They have their place in the organization.

[ hmm. ]

Some rivalries never end, it seems.

[ the labcoats vs the field agents. ]

[Those had been the fun days -- gentle ribbing, showing their pride in their profession and their academy. She smiles a bit.]

Someone has to keep the field agents on the cutting edge.

And, for me, that someone was always Howard Stark. [ perhaps it's rude to suggest it, but: ] I tended to prefer his gadgetry over what the SSR labs produced.

[Jemma can't blame her. He was probably the best of the best.]

In my experience, scientists keep all the fun stuff in their private labs anyway.

Oh, Christ. [ a small laugh -- perhaps the first of the evening. and she drinks a little more and shakes her head and confirms exactly what jemma suspects. ]

Stark's private vaults got cracked, about a year ago, and some truly ghastly technology started hitting the black market. Things dangerous enough to convince just about every bureaucrat in Washington that Stark must have set the whole thing up so he could sell to America's enemies.

[ peggy can talk about it now with a touch of levity, even though at the time things had gotten...quite bad. ]

Hogwash, of course. But he had some truly terrifying stuff in those vaults. He called them his bad babies.

That must have been horrible.

[She sort of understands the instinct -- not really thinking how things could be turned against you and others, wanting to see only the good potential in your creation.]

Is... that all sorted?

As sorted as it will ever be. [ it's hard to say, these days, what parts of these tales ever managed to touch public record. she doesn't know how much she needs to tell, or how much she's safe to omit. ] Nearly all the items were recovered. Not without incident, unfortunately.

[ deaths. peggy tries not to linger too long on those. especially not the ones she can blame on herself. ]

And at least one of the culprits is still at large.

[ at large again more like. ]

Well that sounds exciting.

[She says it brightly, but her face indicates 'exciting' can easily be as bad as it is good. ]

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