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[directed]

[Wednesday sees Rip—on a boat! A boat and a bar, to be precise. Anyone is free to find him there. But even if they don’t, they might still speak to him. Only they won’t necessarily know it’s him, as he sets up his text to be anonymous:]

Now that our happy little “war” has come and gone, let’s move on to other things, shall we? I bake things. Cakes, specifically. With preparations no longer taking up so much of everyone’s time, I’ve got hours to fill. Thus, an opportunity for you, the random citizen of Wonderland.

If you would like something made especially for you, let me know. I’ve ample practice in both cooking and decoration, and I’m rather good at it should I say so myself. The one catch is that I’d prefer not to make my identity public. Personal reasons, you all understand. Or you don’t, but that won’t change my mind.

Now then. Ask away as you will.

[Spoilers, he was drunk at the time of this posting.

More spoilers? He’s going to be drunk on Thursday too. But since the bar on the boat closes eventually, Rip does end up back at the mansion. There may even be food involved at some point, should anyone want to find a potentially water-logged British man making demands of the cabinets in the kitchen--though not for nachos. Oh no. His once go-to drinking snack has been forever associated with someone else, and he’s trying not to feel at the moment, thank you.

There’s also the fifth floor bar, where Rip heads with a bit of trepidation. He’s a touch more somber there; more watchful than he cares to admit of the entrance, and those who pass by it. It’s foolish, really. They’ve already had their talk. Why would he expect to catch glimpse of Steve Rogers on the fifth floor now?

Why would he be there still. So many hours—a whole night later.

It’s late in the evening before he thinks better of it, finally, and returns to his room for the night. Late before he drops down onto his bed to stare up at the ceiling, dizzy with drink, and wait for exhaustion or alcohol or whatever other forces remain at play to let him drift into unconsciousness.

He doesn’t expect anyone will come calling.]

[[ooc: So Rip has two open posts! For anything on the boat please go here, anything after that can go in this one. I’m also open to have him found elsewhere should anyone want him! He’s just going to be sad and miserable for a bit. :c]]

Comments

[mucked]

[ he takes her kindness and twists it into something uglier than it ought to be. this shade of green is unbecoming on him, and peggy nearly tells him so, except he's drunk and difficult and she has spent too much caution and care in dismantling another bridge only to let him stand here and burn down theirs.

and, quite possibly, if she hadn't just spent the last twenty four hours reflecting on every rhyme and reason why she's stuck by him? peggy might have drummed up just enough childishness of her own to leave him wobbling here on his poorly chosen hill.

it shows on her face -- quite plainly, at that. she fights a little war behind her eyes between being mean and being merciful, knowing full well that either avenue would still reveal more than enough of what she's feeling. more than enough of why. because he's goading her to be half so transparent with him as she's been with steve.

but they are awful dissimilar, rip and steve, and the conversations she holds with them will always spiral around very different rules. ]

Clear? Oh, yes. Crystal. [ her hands slip off her hips; her arms lift into a sharp, aggressive shrug. she won't let herself be pulled into admitting whether or not steve was, indeed, appreciative of all she'd revealed to him. if she has her way, she'll avoid discussing him any further.

no, this is about rip. ]

But you tell me just how much more clarity you require. Because it all seems rather obvious to me.

[ i'm here, aren't i? quite literally showing him where she stands. ]

[directed]

[Is it jealousy? Surely not--or so Rip tells himself, even as he invokes Steve's treatment in comparison to him. Yet how can he be jealous when she stands there with him rather than elsewhere? Two days late but she's come to his door, hasn't she? What's there to be jealous of?

Because her choice is clear in where she stands, though her expression has turned irate. He reaches up to rub his hands over his eyes, fingertips pressed on the lids as he takes a slow breath in. It's crystal clear, spoken in the language they've always understood with each other, and the better part of him knows how difficult these days must have been for her. Letting her past go as she had, facing the proposition Rip had hardly been able to bring himself to think about in reverse--if he had been the one whose love showed up, beautiful and real and alive.

If he'd been the one with a heart to break.

It all seems rather obvious, and of course it is. Obvious and clear, and wouldn't it be so unfair to ask for more. But relief, it would seem, is slow to take the place of his misery. He's grown greedy in his drunken wallowing, fear drawing in clear relief all he has now to lose.]

I already told you: I know I'm not owed an explanation. [Words that still stand true. She's under no obligation to say the words, to detail in any manner of speech what she feels for him. Actions have proven it enough, and for so many that would be enough--

But he knows her too well.

He knows that for Peggy Carter, it is so much easier to act than to say.]

What if I told you I love you, hmm? [He drops his hands suddenly, looks her square in the eye. Drunk or foolish or mad, perhaps all three; love makes a man so, doesn't it? Yet the words are there, not sung or forced out by Wonderland's machinations. He means his question, and stalks forward a step as if to harden his own resolve.] What would you do?

[mucked]

[ she has, without a doubt, earned these countermeasures of his. earned this moment when he turns her tactics back against her -- saying everything and nothing with one neatly worded implication. what if, rip asks. what would? and everything about his mode of address is bent towards making her break. how he advances and how he doesn't duck away from how she stares.

stunned.

an uncomfortable heat creeps under her collar. an itchy fidget, starting in her stomach, climbs up the back of her throat and makes her keen to scold him for saying anything of the sort. the gall! the cheek! there is nothing innocent, nothing innocent at all, about his oblique and almost confession. had it been anything but strategic (she convinces herself) then he wouldn't have phrased it thus.

even so, shaking off her surprise is a lot like shutting a door on emotions all warm and lovely and temptingly familiar for how foreign she believes them to be. love, and its entourage of trust and compassion and desire. ]

Oh, flipping hell. Don't you dare. [ -- but she's got a slight sputter to her words. and it's as if she just now remembers the rest of her whiskey and drains the glass forthwith. ] Either you're too drunk or I am far too sober.

[ for that particular conversation. ]

[directed]

[He can hardly recall how they managed to go from Peggy quietly stealing into his room, calling out his name, to the moment where they are now. Yet as he stops within arms reach of her, there can be no denying the road they travel now. Or perhaps there should not be, and yet even now she tries in her way. He can see too clearly how her skin goes red, her cheeks flush with something not at all related to the whiskey she's just tossed back. Certainly it's strategic: the sweetest words turned into a weapon, a dagger pointed straight into the heart of what's between them. But it's sharpness comes from it's truth. Even as she denies it, tries to will it away as pure tactic and cunning--

Even as she warns him to not dare with unsteady voice--

He's had far longer than just this night to hone its edge.]

If I were stone cold sober I could still say it. [The thing they'd agreed never to do, to fall for each other like hopeless children. He lifts his hands briefly, lets them fall back to his sides in a helpless gesture. He's too far gone; they both are, for anything but this.]

You know Tony Stark--Tony bloody Stark--told me I should fight for you? Didn't understand why I was in a bar rather than, hell, probably getting into an actual brawl. [Or whatever he'd had in mind when he'd chastised Rip, told him that Peggy deserved her happiness, so Rip better sober up and see it happen.

Rip had given his word. In light of how often he breaks it, it's not a promise made lightly.]

And of course I wanted to. God knows, you're the only thing in this whole ruddy world that makes living here decent. But that's not what you wanted from me, was it? You asked for time.

[Can't make it tonight. Don't wait up for me.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.]

Now I'm asking for this. Your answer. [To the question asked, to what they are, to where they go from here--all of it. Everything. Too much to be fair, to face drunk or sober, and still he demands it anyway.]

[mucked]

[ her mental gears are sticking more than they turn. teeth catch, bite, twist on every unpolished piece of their conversation. peggy still hasn't recovered from the suggestion -- the conjuring, really -- of his love. every fence and fortification fell when his hypothetical sapper slipped in and blew mines along her walls. and maybe she should feel some relief now that it looks as though the long-fought siege is nearing its end. but, mostly, she can't come to terms with the how of it.

this was supposed to be a sweet thing, this return of hers. she was meant to darken his doorstep and she was meant to pull his face close to hers for a kiss. and she was meant to renew her silent commitment to him with nothing more than that -- and he, him! he was meant to play his part and ratify that treaty without reservations.

peggy really ought to have known better. he lives to frustrate her and stretch her that extra inch outside of comfort, expectation, and safety. even now, when it's all heart and no head, he pushes her. pulls down her down, brick by brick, until she's left standing within arm's reach with an empty tumbler sitting heavy in her hand.

he says something about tony, something she vaguely thinks she ought to be upset about, but she's still spinning 'round the axis of if i were stone cold sober i could still say it. but he hasn't, not yet, not really, although christ alive if she can't distinctly remember his voice curling around the words in the climax of a song. she refused then too.

(has the description decent ever before sounded so significant?)

peggy swallows a castigation, boiling and justified, over the very notion that she could be fought for with anyone but herself. she's always been her own champion; if anyone should be brawled... ]

Rip. [ only his name, left hanging. there's something to be said for her lack of retreat. even now, cornered against the ropes of her own traitor heart, it doesn't occur to her that she could still turn tail and leave. not this time. ]

I've never said I love you and meant it. Not to any -- well -- [ she gestures her hand and the empty cup fruitlessly in his direction ] fellow.

[directed]

[In truth though Rip has orchestrated the path they now take, it feels quite more like a freefall rather than some solid and steady trail. The rum doesn't make him near so dizzy as the words that have spilled from his lips, the shock and fear and will in Peggy's eyes. All heart and no head, and Peggy might damn well have been right to think he was too drunk for this, no matter how many bold claims he might make to the contrary.

But the jump has already been made. The cliff vanishes into the distance far above them. The only question now is whether they would crash upon jagged rocks, or find a way to survive the fall.

He's honest with her; he can be nothing but, considering that he demands the same. And Peggy does him that courtesy, still struggling with her answer, offering distractions, excuses--perhaps reasons he shouldn't expect so much of her, not now, not yet. He's close enough to touch her and now he does, first reaches for her glass to tug it free of her fingers. She looks rather ridiculous holding it like she does; truth be told, Rip barely spares a glance for where he sets it, high on a shelf that's close enough to reach, without straying from the line he's drawn.]

I wouldn't want to hear it if you didn't. [If the words were a lie, then he could happily go on with them forever unsaid. Far better for them to live with their secrets than that brand of poison. But equally Rip knows that things are hardly as easy as all of that. He'd told her before: there is rarely anything one might find in any world that is either simple or perfect.

Still and always, they are not the sort who can shake the burden of that fact.

He licks his lips, draws in a breath. Perhaps it's wrong to invoke what he does now, but how can he not? Rip had learned of love from one other; had only confessed to one other before in his life.]

Someone far better than me once told me that once you know love, it changes everything. And she was absolutely right, of course. [He reaches for Peggy even as he speaks of Miranda, takes gentle hold of a hand not adorned with a ring, not given with a vow. She's the reason he can think the words at all, really. Miranda had made him far better a man than he ever would have been without her; she had been his humanity, when the Time Masters tried to snuff the heart of him out.]

I don't want you to run. [She doesn't need to say it. And while he hopes she feels it, Rip suspects he can live with that lacking too. She rankles at the thought that he would fight for her, but he must to have her. Not Steve Rogers, however; his battle is with the woman before him now, clad in her armor of stubbornness, fortified in behind the bricks and walls she's built up around her heart.] But I also cannot turn my back on what has become so abundantly real.

I love you, Peggy Carter. I never meant for it to happen, but it has. And even if I could go back and change it--I know I damn well wouldn't.

[mucked]

[ last night, she told jane she thought she might very well be falling in love with rip hunter. love, or something like it. but is that quite the same as knowing love, full and bright, beneath one's breastbone? and even as rip reaches for her hand, she can't help but feel a little left behind -- as though they both started with the same navigational chart, only he's raced ahead and discovered something vital and beautiful while she's still prevaricating over whether her compass can be trusted.

(because it wasn't a mere excuse. having never confessed her love before, peggy wonders whether it's even fair -- to spend those pent up words on someone else after they'd been sitting dusty and patient in the back of her mouth for a dead man. one who isn't dead at all.)

but an explanation for rip's certainty soon becomes abundantly clear, and it's so much more than the rum. he speaks of his late wife, she's certain of it, and the epiphany sags through her expression with a sad sort of relief. maybe it shouldn't be such a comfort but -- but she much prefers the places where the seams of their grief meet. that's where they first stitched themselves together. more than that, peggy has felt an uncanny camaraderie with the woman ever since she'd taken temporary possession of rip's pocket watch during his last disappearance. there is no doubt in her mind that the man confessing his feelings before her right now owes much of his shape and character to miranda.

so -- rather than assault the walls again, rip digs beneath them. he rushes towards feelings even as he correctly guesses at peggy's inclination to run. he goes and says it! he tells her he loves her. equally moving, however, is his insistence that he wouldn't alter the course of their history even if he could. what's poetic in that sentiment to many is a very solemn vow from him. the words are naked, not tucked into the corners of sly questions, and it turns out she can listen to all of them without feeling sick.

she doesn't say them back. but, for what it's worth, had she said them they would have been true. for now, she grits her teeth down against an uneasy smile. it's uncommon for peggy but, just now, she panics. ]

I have something for you. [ she says instead. the words fall in a hurried heady rush -- fingers twining with his, almost tenderly, because she's already leaning on old habits and letting her deeds speak loudest.

it's a rather sharpish change in subject, yes, but her expression pleads with him to allow it. after all! she'd come here with more in mind than squabbling with him over what's obvious and what's fair. she'd come here with more in mind than talking about love and whether or not it exists between them.

holding his hand emboldens her. she pulls him nearer by a step. ] But I might need your help in retrieving it.

[ please, please, please can we stop talking about our feelings? ]

[directed]

[They share grief and loss indeed--but Rip has also had the joy of seeing that love blossom and grow bright and beautiful. He's had the benefit of a far better guide, a patient hand to hold in his while he tried and stumbled and too many times failed to find the words, until at last he had. He remembers the sadness in Miranda's joy when she told him her ardent wish, that he might think of her the day he came to understand what she had found with him.

And now, Rip suspects he knows just how that happy and sorrowful sentiment must have made her heart ache.

He sees the panic in Peggy's eyes even before she deflects. She pulls him closer and he goes, yet even as he takes that steps he knows the feint for what it is. Peggy will not say the words; even as he bade her to not run, she does, pleads with silence even as she so awkwardly, clumsily offers up another distraction. Something according to her own plans, perhaps. She'd already confessed that she came to his room ready, every time, with some goal in mind for him. This surprise had apparently been part of hers, and later, when he's not quite so preoccupied with emotion, he'll remember that she knows when his birthday falls.

Please, she begs in their unspoken tongue, fall in line, do as she says, listen to Peggy's orders. Rip cannot quite smile in full as he holds her gaze; she runs, away from what she fears, towards an easier expression. After all--she never has to make the promise, if he's always able, willing to envision the bridge across the gap.]

Peggy. [He wants to show her mercy. Rip knows she has gone through so much, and it would be kinder indeed to grant her the same pardon he'd been shown so many years ago. After all, Rip promised to be with Miranda, but had he said the words? Had he spoken of love that day, even in as it exploded, a firework in his chest? No.

No. He'd waited far too long. He'd made so many mistakes, always thinking there would be more time.

He tilts his forehead down to rest against hers. His empty hand lifts, his fingertips coming to rest softly against her cheek.]

Don't make a choice you'll regret. [He's told her he doesn't want to hear words that are a lie; that remains so. But he thinks, he thinks with reason beyond mere hope, that perhaps they wouldn't be if she whispered them into the otherwise still room. Time is something they are not guaranteed. They have never been promised such a thing, and they each carry the scars of tragedy. She had missed her chance with Steve; she regretted it, always. What they could have had, and now never will.

It is a burden she doesn't want her to carry with him as well.]

[mucked]

[ he strikes at the heart of the matter. and he does it with affection, tilting so near that she can smell the booze off him. rum! and peggy isn't surprised. rum carries a kind of miserable stench; it sets this bender apart from nights where they simply indulge too much together.

no matter how gently he touches her face, she sucks in a breath. as though jolted, burned, electrified. peggy sways a moment, leaning in his direction, but stops just short of folding herself into his arms. but, oh, she wants to. it ought to be easy. but she has let herself become too accustomed to defying him in every granular detail. especially -- especially! -- when he sinks his eyeteeth into her regrets. he knows just what vein to tap. but only, peggy thinks, because she's allowed him to learn it. ]

It's not a choice. [ she acknowledges in a quiet voice. peggy might whisper, but there's nothing vulnerable left in her delivery. she might speak low and measured, but in the few second between when their foreheads touching and when rip issues his well-meant warning, her intentions snap neatly into place. ] Nor a game. Nor a dalliance, really. Not for some time, now.

[ they both know it to be true -- even if he's been the one doing her a kindness by not saying so aloud. not until now. equally, she knows what she wants. she's known for a while, now, even if she's long since protected herself from thinking of it in anything but the above-whispered terms. and she wishes she was telling him sober, but suggesting that they wait even a quarter hour more might invite regret, that exact demon he rightly recognizes as one she should avoid. beyond that, she doesn't want to say it simply because her hand feels forced -- not by rip, rather, but by someone else's arrival.

circumstances are not ideal. then again, when are they ever? if she waits around for what's ideal, she'll only be recreating old mistakes. reliving history. standing with empty hands and too full heart.

peggy turns her head. she doesn't kiss his cheek but rather presses her mouth, her face, against the plane of his jaw. rip is achingly familiar to her when she breathes him in -- himself, still, beneath the rum. here's a man to whom she might confess lots. she could confess everything because she knows he would keep her secrets. she knows he could keep her on her toes. and all he wants, all he asks for, is perhaps the most challenging confession of all.

three inch heels make this moment a bit easier. she drags a faint smudge of lipstick from his cheek to his ear so she can say, very softly, something she prays she won't regret saying. ]

I think I love you too.

[ because she won't lie to him. not about this -- and the truth is simple, if unromantic. if only she could have taken a few more days, weeks, months to test the mettle of these emotions. but she's only ever been able to identify her love after losing the objects of it. love, to her heart, has always been an aching absence. it's a shadow she feels long after love has been yanked out.

but, with rip, she has a chance to get out ahead of that pain. it's got her scared witless. so scared that she stays there, mouth to his ear, without saying another word. frozen and on highest alert. ]

[directed]

[He would not regret pushing her so; even as Rip decides it to be his final gambit, regardless of outcome, he knows in his heart that he has done the best he can by her when plucking on that vulnerable string. There has always been loss written into the telling of their relationship; this world by its very nature denies them the promise of a life together. A few years at most, and then one of them, perhaps both of them, would be sent away, back to their universes to live out their timelines. They would forget, eventually, everything that passes in this moment and all others between them.

But until that inevitable end comes, they must exist here and now. And with no promises beyond that single one, Rip thinks they must equally steal back what they can from Wonderland. It would take their memories and tear them apart, but oh, until it does! Until it does—he intends to love her, to do it well.

And to that end, he warns her of old wounds.

She doesn’t tuck into his embrace. To have her so near and yet that distance carefully maintained only makes Rip feel the emptiness in his arms: awkward, almost, in that they do not have the curve of her waist to shape around. She denies the act of choice, and on some level of course she’s entirely right. They’d stopped making choices about the nature of their relationship a decent while ago, except to leave it unnamed, undefined. Unacknowledged, for all it was becoming.

Silence lingers on after that. Her lips trail on his skin, and though he does not turn to meet her Rip takes in the slow breath of perfume; lavender as always, leading the charge, when he has opportunity to catch the scent of her hair. She doesn’t complain about the scratch of his beard, though Rip knows it must do so. Perhaps it has been as he’d so confidently boasted when they first came to terms with sharing a bed every week: Peggy had indeed grown use to it. Certainly she doesn’t complain so much as she did, once.

So very much has changed. Everything has changed.

He closes his eyes when she whispers her confession; within his chest, the coil unfurls, releasing with it a rush so strong it makes him far more dizzier than the alcohol ever had over these past two days. He tightens his fingers around hers, their hands still joined, and with a smile Rip does at last turn his head, gives Peggy a warm kiss upon her cheek, though he spares her the weight of her gaze by not drawing back.

She’s cracked herself open for him, in a way she’s done for no other. She thinks it unromantic, her quietly spoken theory, but she’s wrong. She’s so very wrong, because he cannot think of words that would have sounded sweeter to hear confessed.

He can only imagine how terrified she must be; now, at last, Rip shows her the mercy she’d pleaded for mere moments before. Like Peggy, his voice is soft; quiet, meant to lure her from her frozen state rather than startle her out of it.]

I’d kiss you properly, but—I know how you despise the taste of rum.

[There! Relief from the weight of his demands, and hopefully a pinprick of humor that might shatter due to the sheer ridiculousness of the words. They both know damn well that’s not what stops him, but she’s given far more than she ever expected to. She’s offered up everything; Rip, in the aftermath, knows he must take care of her now. Never mind that she would resent him for it, if she knew that was his intent. Circumstances and revelations and all the rest have no doubt taken their toll on both of them, and Peggy as always would insist that she can carry her own far better, particularly when he was drunk besides.

But for now, he’d rather not present so severe a target. Let some sweetness linger in the moment, for all the harshness that had brought it about.]

[mucked]

[ the world (worlds, plural, perhaps) seems as if it spins on the axis of these modest but fierce touches. a hand in a hand, a cheek against a cheek, and the not-quite-fulfilled promise that their two bodies might yet crash together. but for the time being and for different reasons, they both hold their ground. peggy, unseasoned to say the least in feeling quite so vulnerable, won't allow herself to navigate anywhere near the inclination to hold him tighter. hypothesizing aloud about her feelings makes for such a big leap! and it's true that everything has changed. an embrace now, after those words have been said, will be different from every embrace that came beforehand.

-- or else the hug wouldn't be different at all. and, oh, wouldn't that be worse! hard proof that what's whispered now has been truer for longer than she'd like to admit. and that the change hadn't been instantaneous upon his uttering i love you and her (eventually) replying i think i love you too. rather, the change had been incremental and long-coming. inevitable and established. worse yet, he'd figured it out well before she did.

something flutters in her stomach and peggy wonders why it's not joy. nor happiness, really, although a hundred heady romance stories always promised it would be. that's not to say her guts don't incline toward what's positive -- certainly, there's a warmth spreading through her that reminds her this is no catastrophe -- but a certain amount of fragility still holds her back. it wouldn't matter one bit if she didn't abhor feeling fragile.

(and, for just a moment, she considers crucifying rip for seeding so much passion between them. the quiet tug on her heart when she hears his voice just about manages to reassure her that they must be blamed equally for this outcome.)

peggy doesn't laugh. but his joke, such as it is, inspires a slight hum against the shell of his hear before she draws back -- still a little wide-eyed -- and takes the initiative to look at him properly once again. and for brief span of seconds, she wears her love plainly in her expression. half-hurt and half-amazed. wounded, but wonderfully so. ]

I hope you're not waiting on me to protest, to wave my hands, to tell you rather sweetly that the taste will be endured for romance's sake. [ because it's not happening. what she does do, however, is briefly hold the curve of her palm against his jaw. ] Because you've only just finished scolding me about what I might regret and -- [ regrettably! ] -- a rum-soaked kiss falls firmly into that category.

[ she's teasing, albeit sternly, and he'll have to make do with an affectionate pat on his cheek. it seems she's determined to get away with nothing more than few chaste pecks. ]

Now, if you don't mind...

[ she uses a tilt of her head to indicate the exit. she still has something for him, after all, and may still need his help to retrieve it. and so just like that she shutters away what's vulnerable and tender in favour of what's already been planned. as much as she might like to tumble and fumble and fall with him a little further -- to consummate their confessions -- she first needs to claw back a bit of control. a bit of self-possession.

and rip? well, rip needs to sober up. ]

[directed]

[For a moment, a precious and sparse number of heartbeats, Rip sees more truth in Peggy’s eyes than she would likely ever care to admit aloud. She pulls back and all the wonder of love lingers there, not happy but so much more than that, overwhelming and humbling, that force of which poets throughout countless centuries have tried to surmise and always, always, fall short of its expanse. The joy comes not from the emotion itself, he thinks, but the promise (the hypothesis) that someone might feel something so great and so magnificent for a person such as him. There are so few things one might devote themselves so wholly to, after all. Choice and circumstance have led Peggy to tie such a bond to him.

And he, absolutely, to her.

But he meant his jest as a gateway, and oh, Peggy absolutely leaps through. She doesn’t kiss him, refuses to, and tosses his own words back at him in a volley meant to assure her victory. Oh, but it does anything but. He might have gone with her if not for how thorough her gambit it. Yet when she shows no mercy, suddenly Rip feels a need to do likewise. Her head tilts, she might have even tugged him a long, but Rip, despite his drunkenness, somehow manages to stand firm.

--Or at least, he doesn’t tumble when he pulls Peggy back, catches her just enough off-center to press his lips to hers in a heated kiss.

It would be nothing more than that; already he’s mapped out in his mind where this little encounter would go. One kiss, one heated and eager embrace to leave the each of them breathless, and when they part with that touch of flustered pink in each of their cheeks, then Rip would let himself be led on whatever scavenger hunt Peggy’s designed for him. Certainly he’s curious about it, despite his refusal to indulge up until now. There have simply been more pressing things than that particular avenue of escape—and now, a far better moment in which to use it to his advantage, rather than hers.]

[mucked]

[ for heaven's sake!

he plants himself damned steady for a drunken man. steady enough, yes, that when she makes her attempt to draw him towards the door she, ultimately, draws him nowhere. and instead he pulls her in and turns himself into a bollard for her to hit, bump, crash into. and in the pulse-beats after it happens, peggy can't rightly explain why she falls so willingly into his arms when she could have (by all rights) boxed his ears -- bottled him, even, for hearing her draw a line in the sand only to subsequently rush beyond it.

so he gets his one kiss, greedy gannet that he is, and peggy sinks against him in exactly the way she'd denied them both moments earlier. she crams herself so close to him that she's got a foot between both of his; she's so close that when she takes one sharp breath she can feel her body expand against him. and it would be a lovely kiss, too, if it wasn't so rum-flavoured.

even so, she proves herself to be in no hurry to end it. it's a kiss that empties out hours (days, really!) worth of pride and passion. a dam breaks; she grabs at him, corrects for her own over-extended balance, and drags him down to better meet her mouth. it's an aggressive gestures -- saying, loudly, that if he's going to kiss her then he'll be kissing on her terms.

but afterward, he still gets what he wants: both of them flushed and short of breath and peggy doesn't half feel as though she'd sucked in some of his inebriation in the process. feeling heady, and feeling buzzed. ]

Oh -- you tosser. [ she's still holding onto him in the wake. ] I take it back. All of it.

[ but her indignation is mostly ornamental. old steps to a new dance. for one, she can't quite stop herself from grinning while she says it.

and, for good measure: ] You taste like the bottom of a sailor's boot.

[directed]

[She kisses him, and it’s with all the rush and abandon their second kiss had held, so many months ago. He’d been entirely drunk then as well, and Peggy far more sober, though she’d spent a good several minutes catching up just before. Still, the differences are there right along with the similarities: there’s a happiness underlying things that’s of a finer caliber than that time before. Aged, so much like the whiskey they drink, carefully cultivated by equal parts effort and chance and a damn lot of luck, until they can both be left rosy-cheeked and panting and blissfully dizzy.

He even grins along with her when she calls him a tosser. Of course she does. Can’t let Rip have too many victories, now can she?]

Licked a lot of sailor’s boots, have you? [Since she’s so sure he tastes of them. But it’s what she’s said between that really sticks, has him smiling a little like a fool. He’s protested more than once that he’s no school boy; that he wouldn’t wind up falling head over heels, foolishly and recklessly in love with her. Except now he has, and maybe she has too, and it’s the sort of thing that just won’t leave him be mournful in moments like these.

He’s known all the worst love has to offer: that heart-wrenching agony when it’s stolen away, the anger and rage that can be fueled by no other flame. But there’s a damn lot of joy to be found in it too—when things are good.]

It’s a bit late for takebacks, I’m afraid. [For both of them. He’s held to her this whole time, one hand on her arm, the other snaked about her waist. But now, with that promise that the deal’s already been made, the devil’s hand shaken, he loosens his grip on her so he can instead take her hand into his. They’ve still got a mission to finish, after all. She’s been rather insistent on going off to find whatever this little surprise is, and now at last it would seem Rip’s feeling cooperative enough to follow along.

Just one problem. He’s looking at her—watching her, the way Peggy grins and scoffs and scowls. It’ll be up to her to break free of that intent gaze, take those first few steps to the door. Rip would follow to be sure—but Peggy’s got to be the one to point them where to go.

Should she still want to go, instead of seeing what they might get up to where they stand.]

[mucked]

[ there are urges -- pieces, really -- compelling her to stay. a paucity of breath, so much so that she feels as though she's been left skint broke of oxygen. of reason and good sense, too, as she slowly stumbles over the full realization of what she's done. what doors she's closed; what windows she's opened. there are no easy retorts for what he's saying. in many ways, she feels entirely disinclined to punch any holes in his sails. not when he's looking at her like that.

(has she ever seen him smile so much? no, not at all, not since -- whitechapel. and even the barest comparison of such an easy unanchored happiness has her head spinning.)

good feelings, little bouncing pebbles of the same, roll through her and gain momentum. she's adamant that she didn't make a choice but, truth be told, there's a great deal of relief found in the wake of whatever-else-it-was. choice or otherwise. and without that happiness, she might have given up on the supplemental quest. only...only she finds the gift at the end of it is something she really does want to give him.

so she turns her head, she looks away, she disengages with him just long enough to fish her handbag off the floor and pull out a familiar compact mirror. but, for the first time, rip hunter will see it opened -- and after she fiddles a moment with the device, a little holographic map materializes above the mirror's surface.

it's the mansion. ]

Look. [ she leans in and draws his attention toward a scurrying blip. no more than a dot, really. it's a fine distraction from what had otherwise been a moment teetering on too much tenderness. ] Objective the first.

[directed]

[It hurts in so many small ways: that unhappy ache that comes from muscles left to atrophy, not tended to or exercised in any significant way. But once it passes, once the memory kicks in that oh yes, this is a way to move, to stand, to smile, it all feels rather right.

So it goes, for so much of this evening.

He doesn't fight when she pulls off; even if he weren't feeling so cooperative in spirit, curiosity would overbear his resistance. And, it seems, be paid off in turn: she pulls from her bag a compact he does indeed remember quite well, one he'd managed to steal away for a time, and barter back in exchange for a rather tidy sum.

He'd been quite pleased over that deal--right up to the point that the event ended, and Rip became all too aware of why he shouldn't be.

Now that unanswered question finds its end, as Peggy opens the compact to reveal a rather clever device within. Drunk or not, the puzzle snaps together nicely: he's seen the partner to this device as well, a sliver of a thing tucked away in a watch, just in case it turned out that Rip returned more monster than man.

The same sliver, he suspects, which now lies embedded in whatever she's got planned for him.]

Seems a rather easy scavenger hunt thus far. [Even if it's only the first branch, as she implies. It's an impressive little bit of tech all the same, and Rip takes stock of the mansion laid out before them, where the marker summons them to go.]

Shall we be off, then?

[mucked]

[ it is an impressive little bit of tech. and, for a moment, peggy can be seen manipulating the display with anachronistic ease. with light, practiced gestures she "zooms in" on the dot's location -- the basement, apparently -- and each touch shows that she's learned and practiced what she's been given. she mightn't understand the work and engineering behind it, but she's adapted wonderfully to the actual user experience.

thus focused on the first checkpoint, she trusts the compact and its map to rip's care. grabbing his wrist, she raises his hand and leaves the compact sitting open in his palm. but it's true that her touch lingers, fingers drawing back against his skin with more time taken than necessary. he is her partner in this (in a lot of things) and even if she can't articulate it half as heartily as he can, it shows in moments like this one. ]

I already did most of the work for us. [ she counters, abruptly, and uses her newly freed hands to rummage for something else in her purse. two somethings else, actually, because she pulls out a flip notebook and a tube of lipstick. the former because it has written in it important intel for the hunt; the latter because he's gone and smudged the red on her mouth with his kiss and she's keen to correct it before they leave.

peggy tucks the notebook into the waist-hem of her skirt and (without a mirror) applies a fresh coat of lipstick. after a soft pop of her lips, she explains: ] It'll be a rat. A white lab rat, to be precise. And it'll have coordinates marked on it. I've caught two before tonight. This little bastard is the last one.

[ a rat chase! how romantic. her brusque delivery suggests they've hardly just been engaged in exchanging vows or confessions of any sort. ]

[directed]

[Rip needn’t strain himself to guess the origins of the compact once Peggy sets about manipulating it’s display. She’s long had her favorite, and creating something useful for the future Director Carter no doubt has played into her efforts to build him back up after the portal disaster. An accomplishment in Wonderland: that rare little gift, and seeing Peggy pleased by the results would likely have been an effective balm indeed.

Rip, certainly, has taken comfort in her satisfaction before. He enjoys watching her now, navigating through technology so foreign to her era.

What he doesn’t expect, however, is how easily she hands over that little marvel to him now. Before she would have given up nearly anything to barter it back from it; now, the surprise shows briefly in his eyes when she takes hold of his wrist, positions his hand just so and trusts him with it. Certainly it wouldn’t be the case should he not be recovered back home as well as here—the thought pops into his head, a practical, logical explanation for action. But another voice tells him that he needn’t break apart the details this time. For once, he should just be happy that someone he cares for sees fit to believe in him.

It’s a rare thing. Rightfully so, for him. Time Masters weren’t meant to have partners.

But I am no longer a Time Master.

As her touch reminds.

Then to the mission; objective the first turns out to be objective the third by her count, the last in a trio of white lab rats. Peggy takes a moment to pull out a notebook first and lipstick second, and in that brief pause Rip has to wonder at the sight of her readying herself for this little bit of action. She won’t leave the room unprepared it seems, either as an agent or as a woman taking measure of her appearance; practiced gesture, given how confidently she reapplies the red without needing to so much glance at herself. He’s long found the color striking on her; moreso now, that he’s got the opportunity to watch her put it on as a knight would armor.]

So this was set up for you. [Now that’s curious. Perhaps by the same architect who created the watch? A surprise shared between the two of them then, although presumably Peggy knows what treasure lies at the end. Still, her having the answer damn well doesn’t mean he does. There will only be one way to find it out, and with a quick swipe at his mouth to scrub away any unseemly hints of the kiss they’d shared, he moves towards the door.

And pretty damn well, for a drunk man.]

We’ll likely need to hurry. If the rat finds its way into the tunnels, we could end up spending the rest of the night chasing it.

[mucked]

Back whilst I was still convalescing, yes.

[ she punctuated the space between one of his statements and the next -- peppering the brief silence with an explanation that (truth be told) hardly counts for one. whether rip has sussed out the engineer or not, the rest of the implication is left vague and up to his interpretation. had she asked for such a hunt to be arranged? was it done to peeve her? did her convalescence have anything to do with the puzzle, or is the timing a mere coincidence?

peggy watches him move -- reading his gait as he goes, gauging how sauced he is by how the skinny remainder of his balance presents itself. and before she follows, she places the tube of lipstick on the corner of his desk. leaving it there for later. her handbag, too.

but once they're out of his room, she waits only so long as he fumbles with his key in the lock. he walks passably well, but finer motor details seem to still escape him. with a tut, she nudged him aside and wrestles the key into her own care. and while she works, she delegates: ]

-- Focus on the map, Rip. [ she makes much shorter work of the lock. the jiggle of the tumbler, the curve of the doorknob in her palm, it's all remarkably familiar by now. ] It's your duty to tell me if our friend Ratty makes a break for Toad Hall.

[directed]

[Convalescing, and quietly going out of her mind with the boredom of being able to do nothing productive or even routine without sharp agony running through her. A more foolish man—as Rip has often been—might take the opportunity to point out that if she’d let him help her sooner, she might not have been stuck for so long. But even as drunk as he is, outside his door and now struggling just a touch to get his key in, Rip isn’t nearly that stupid. Not when things are finally going right.

At least until Peggy ushers him aside. He frowns rather petulantly even as he does as she says.]

I’d have had it in another second. [Merely a mumble as he stares into the hologram, eyes examining where the rat’s red dot falls on the map.] So far so good. Seems he’s busy with a bit of doggerel just now.

[Or rather more simply, just staying put.]

[mucked]

[ some thin mercies remain. if he were in a better state, if these days had been better days, she might have teased him that one more second could have been another second too long. after all! he does as he's told. and she doesn't shoo him so far away that they aren't still standing thick like thieves beside one another.

shoulder to shoulder. temple to temple, too, if she felt so inclined to lean in his direction. although she doesn't -- choosing instead to keep her back straight and her posture in line. they are together on the other side of his door, now, and she won't be quick to forget the difference. what either of them said on the other side of it doesn't change her habitual discretion.

but oh the way he extends the joke tugs a brief smile onto her lips. ]

Here. [ peggy offers him back his key. after all, she has her own -- although he never gave that one to her either. ] So -- three coordinates. Why three?

[ they live in a multistory building, after all. peggy knows why. but the question isn't posed because she believes (for a moment) that the answer isn't laughably easy; rather, it's posed because she wants to take the measure of his drunkenness. it's less about whether he knows the answer and more about how he gives it.

and how well he keeps pace with her as she strides to the stairwell. ]

[directed]

[Well. At least he won’t have to go wishing up a third key, although Rip’s aware enough of the reason why Peggy doesn’t need to add another to her collection. He pockets the thing, and though he might still like to pout a bit about it, her smile does too many wonders to his spirits for that to be allowed. A common reference, rooted perhaps in her childhood as well as his, and the stories he shared whenever he could spare a night to spend with his son.

(He’d brought Jonas a toy motorcar once. Just like the one Mr. Toad stole.)

Peggy snaps him out of that train of though with a question, fortunately so—although she’s being a bit obvious in the asking. He gives her a brief look, put upon and questioning, because they both clearly know she already knows the answer she’s after. And while it might be a decent enough question of ability for most, for Rip the answer is child’s play.]

Three dimensions. Can’t just go left or right. [Complete with accompanying hand gestures of course; Rip motions one way and the other, all with minimal sway before changing to a vertical movement.] There’s also up and down.

[Although at that particular moment, their red dot seems to be scurrying on a more horizontal plane. Rip catches the movement out of the corner of his eye, then lets out a groan.]

Dear lord. We’re about to have to run, aren’t we?

[mucked]

[ she examines him, as well as his answer. and no effort is made to conceal such an examination -- lifting a brow when he gives himself over to gesticulation. there isn't anything particularly odd in it; he is, after all, in the habit of moving his hands as if they somehow lend more weight or credibility to his words.

(they don't -- not for her. but, then again, peggy is of the mind that he's got weight and credibility enough all on his own. no body language needed in order to reinforce what he says.)

but it's adequately proven he's stable enough where he stands. peggy nods her verdict, one last flicker of concern duly addressed and silenced, before she puts away the proverbial kid gloves. ]

Do you have something against running?

[ contrary to the question, she slows her pace just as they reach the stairwell -- gesturing for him to take point. he is, after all, holding the tracking device in his hands.

and surely it's got nothing to do with the way those particular words (in that particular order) seem to stick in her throat. ]

[directed]

[It’s an old habit, really; emphasis, explanation, distraction when needs must. But in this case, under her ever watchful eye, Rip begins to wonder if he’s not being tested. Perhaps the whole mess with the key (just one attempt more!) has wrecked her faith in his ability to handle his liquor.

Or at least, the amount he’s likely to have consumed over the past two days. So it’s not an entirely unfair concern, even if Rip’s still firmly sure it’s unwarranted. Mostly.

But running! Oh, does that throw a spanner in the works. A brisk walk would be fine enough, and no doubt there’d be some darting about required once the infamous Ratty was in sight. But to break into that faster pace when they still have stairs to climb down, twists and turns to make in order to reach the basement—

So her concern might be slightly more founded than Rip would care to admit. He’s absolutely certain, after all, that a sudden surge of sickness would be decidedly unsexy.

Yet the trap has long been set. Any hesitance now would only open the door further to Peggy to needle him over his reaction to the whole affair, so he hits that first passageway firm, sparing a glance back over his shoulder to her.]

Only that you might not keep up. [Ah, Rip Hunter. Always one to dig his grave ever deeper. But there’s nothing for it now but to continue down that darkened road—or stairwell, in this case. Quick as you like, with one hand safely hovering just above the stairwell in case of the worst.

She’d get bloody damn cross if he lost his balance and dropped her precious locket, after all.]

[mucked]

-- Wrong answer.

[ peggy doesn't know what the right answer should have been. but she does know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the one provided is a good half-dozen leagues in the wrong direction of anything approaching correct. and for many other people this moment might make a good candidate for explaining all the ways in which his answer is so very very wrong, but peggy chooses instead to lead by reckless example.

well. only a little reckless. after all, she's performed far more strenuous feats in heels than chasing a man down a stairwell. her steps are certainly louder than his -- punctuated by the echoing noise of her shoes on each step.

he'd had a bit of a head start, yes, but she takes some stairs two at a time with confident and headlong hops. it's not long before she's switched from tutting over his rum-soaked balance to instead using it to her advantage as she stretches to catch his elbow in her fingers -- either to pull him back or push him aside or at least slow him up so that his 'taking point' doesn't transform entirely into 'taking the lead.'

she's convinced whatever happens is his fault and not hers. rip, after all, should have known better than to offer her anything even vaguely challenge-shaped. ]