+ MEME TIME +

[beautifullies]

The Questions and Answers Meme

➟ Respond with your character.
➟ Other characters can respond, asking questions (E.g., 'What are you afraid of?' 'What is your favorite color?' 'What do you like about where you live?' 'Who are your parents?').
➟ For reasons completely unknown, your character is forced to answer honestly!
➟ Have fun!

Comments

[captain_america]

[ He would have hated all of them. ]

Those sound terrible. I would have just rather the Commandos, you, Howard and Phillips toasting me in some bar with an open tab.

[ That was always more their speed, that was fitting. They were the ones that’s knew him best after all. ]

Yes. Though considering you laid out what you wanted and it was followed to a T, I can say that with confidence.

[mucked]

-- We might have managed a toast or two.

[ soft, earnest, and informative even though she's not the one on the hot seat. so to speak. there are so few people (back home) with whom she can so much as mention steve's name and not feel as though her chest is caving in. and steve had just named all of them. ]

I'm not certain your attendance was written into my last will and testament. [ but maybe she's wrong. she knows so little about her later life -- perhaps this conversation can change it. ] Did we -- [ she frowns ] -- did we meet again? Before the end?

[captain_america]

Good. [ He knows what his death meant to all of them, because he knows what any of their deaths would have meant to him. Did mean to him when he woke up. Peggy had been the only one left. He had made peace with death as the plane crashed and waking up was like dying all over again but instead of peace he had to keep going in a world that was too fast, too loud, and too bright. It took him longer than he was proud of to get used to that. ]

Probably not, but that’s because you knew I would be there at that point. We did. You were in DC for a while and so was I. I visited you every chance I got. [ Without fail, even if her bad days hurt, they were worth it for the good days.

[mucked]

-- Oh.

[ it's rare, really, for her to be so dumbstruck. lost and wordless, despite the fact that she asked the question hoping for an answer exactly like this one. every chance he got, steve says, and she can feel a cracking deep and low in her heart. ]

I was glad to see you again, wasn't I?

[ it's rare, too, for her to ask such stupid questions. but she's not leading with her head just now. ]

[captain_america]

[ That question just hits home. And he doesn’t want to say every time because he’s not sure she’s ready to really hear about the end, and the dementia, not when her mind is one of the things she’s most proud of, that’s most important to her. But he gets just a little choked up, just slightly. ]

You were, told me I was late. [ And he had loved her just as much as he did back then. ]

[mucked]

[ -- the calculation plays out almost too easily in the back of her thoughts. she can imagine the tone and tenor of how she might chide him if (after decades) he'd turned up again. but what chokes her up most is hearing him be moved, hearing him feel something just beneath the surface of his words.

she shows a little bit of mercy. instead of asking a direct questions, she says: ]

I suppose the Stork Club is long gone by then. Keeping in mind the rate at which the world changes.

[ late indeed. ]

[captain_america]

Yeah. A lot is gone, or just different- changed. It was...difficult to get used to. [ Nevermind that he was stubborn and didn’t want to get used to it at first. ]

[mucked]

For what it's worth -- [ and she's not convinced it's worth all that much, really, when contrasted against a seven decade long sleep ] -- things were already different. After the war. Or maybe the problem is that they weren't different enough...

[ she'd gotten used to mattering. to making waves. she'd changed, but the world hadn't changed enough around her. most of it would have been happy to put her back in her box. ]

I won't ask you where you were found. [ ... ] There are some answers I know I shouldn't chase.

[captain_america]

[ It’s always been so easy to talk to Peggy that he doesn’t hesitate with his thoughts. ] It just seems like we’re still fighting the same war, it’s just not a war anymore. Or it is but it’s not what you think of when you hear the word war. We were fighting for freedom and yeah, so much good has happened but it still feels like the same fight. Only now we can kill people in more horrible ways.

[ Well, someone is maudlin. ]

[mucked]

-- Steve, I think we'd all be hard pressed to find a way of killing people that isn't horrible.

[ which doesn't address his concern (far from it) but rather emphasizes that perhaps it's not the era that's at fault but rather the constant capacity that people have to be...awful to one another.

about equal, she suspects, to their capacity to be wonderful. ]

[captain_america]

I know. It’s just...disheartening.

[ this is where he turns into a grumpy old man. ] I’d hoped the world would lose its taste for war.

[ Because he’s good and just and Steve. ]

[mucked]

It didn't before ours. [ so, no, of course it wasn't going to lose its taste for war after either. but his idealism is a sweet one -- and her hand twitches at her side, subduing the urge to lay a palm warm and gentle against his cheek. ]

And I suppose it's why the world still needs you. [ ... ] Though, if I had my way, your retirement would be signed and sealed.

[captain_america]

[ A huffed out breath. ] I wouldn’t know what to do with retirement. I thought once... [ Well he wanted a marriage and a family but that was before. ] but now, what else am I supposed to do. The world needs me.

[mucked]

So long as you never forget that you, also, need the world.

[ advice she'll never take for herself -- but will gladly (warmly!) dispense it to him. ]