InsaneJournal

Who: Peggy Carter & Stephen Strange
What: Peggy the time travelling agent arrives?
When: March 31st 2018
Rating/Warnings: Green

Disorienting was the only way to describe how Peggy Carter felt at that moment in time. She had been in the office, busy filing away paperwork because the men in the office were utterly hopeless and whilst she had no desire to do their secretarial work for them, if she didn’t do it no one would and it gave her the perfect excuse to snoop through the files they didn’t want to show her. After all, they seemed to have forgotten that she was on the front lines in the War with the rest of the men. That she had worked with the Howling Commandos. That she had been in the thick of it as much as any other man. But she had been in the office, filing papers under dim light one moment and the next she had felt as if there were a hook around her navel, tugging her backwards. She felt the world lurch underneath her feet and then there was blackness. It was dark enough that when her eyes were flooded with light she had to lift a hand to shield her eyes from the sun before depositing the contents of her stomach in a fashion that was certainly not ladylike in a nearby trash can. Not only was it the middle of the day, but Peggy Carter was no longer in her office. In fact, she was quite sure that she was no longer in New York City because these buildings were incessantly tall, and the cars were unlike any she had seen. Someone on a bicycle shot past her dinging his bell with a large, square backpack on and a black sedan with the word UBER emblazoned on the side stopped as if he were crawling the kerb to pick up a lady of the night. She looked around herself, disoriented and concerned, trying to see if she could see a newspaper stand on the sidewalk that would tell her where she was and by what means she had arrived here. She pushed her hair back and realised that there were people everywhere dressed differently, distinctly differently. Women and men both were dressed in denim trousers and large, oversized shirts that had hoods. No one was wearing a coat despite the fact that there was a chill in the air and there was a large number of people talking to themselves, eyes fixed on small rectangular pieces of plastic in their hands. What was going on? Another one copied from an earlier point in the original timeline. Stephen Strange felt as though the universe was mocking him with something new every time he blinked the wrong way. His cape rested on his shoulders and he grabbed one of the welcome packs, before opening a portal and stepping out into a busy street. It was so seamless, with the portal closing behind him, that it seemed as though he had stepped out of a nearby storefront. He could find her easily, as the woman wasn't dressed at all like anyone around her. He muttered 'cosplay' to someone walking by and was grunted back at, but it kept them from staring for too long. "Miss Carter," Stephen said as he drew closer, keeping his voice steady to provide a little center of certainty in the midst of so much chaos. "Hello, I'm doctor Stephen Strange. I know this is a jarring experience. I'm here to help guide you through the first steps." If Peggy’s attire was thought to be strange by the locals, she wondered how it was that she was receiving some strange looks for an outfit that she had heard someone call ‘vintage’ which was just an insult but no one seemed to be giving the man in a large red cape any kind of second glance. “You can say that again,” she told him, straightening herself up and brushing down the front of her jacket as if it were dusty. She eyed him cautiously, as if trying to work out if he were armed. If he had stepped out of a nearby shop - or from wherever he had come from - he could be. And he hardly looked as though he were harmless. “How do you know my name?” Stephen could see that she was cautious, but less out of worry for herself and more out of training and professionalism. "Would you believe magic?" he ventured, showing her the innocuous care package. He nodded down the street for a moment. "I can walk you to a hotel, where you can stay. We can talk while we're in public, if that would make you less wary of me or my intentions. “No,” Peggy responded rather bluntly as they started moving, she fell into step beside him, taking the envelope and not looking inside just yet, “I would not believe ‘magic’.” She tucked the parcel underneath her arm, supposing they would discuss the contents of shortly. Her steps were quick and confident despite not knowing which direction they were going in, watching Strange out of the corner of her eye to make sure that she was moving in the right direction. She cleared her throat, waiting at a crossing, “So if you would like to try that one again, but less ridiculous, I would appreciate it.” She had seen a great many things, but nothing that would prove to her that magic was real. Magic was just science that humanity did not understand: people thought the tesseract to be magical. As Howard had tested it, it was proven to be some kind of energy source. "You should really believe magic," Stephen said with a small smile, walking alongside her with the flow of pedestrians until they were at that crossing. "I am a master of the mystic arts. You can think of it as a sort of eastern religious ideology, minus the religious worship. And I have broken time. That is the reason you are here. Time is broken." He looked over at her as they were crossing the street. "It is the year twenty-eighteen, Miss Carter. What year are you from?" Peggy pressed her lips together and decided not to comment on Dr Strange’s choice of profession. Master of the Mystic arts indeed. She was pleased with herself for not scoffing. It was ridiculous; magic was about as real as the chances of her becoming the Director of the SSR, which was even slimmer now that she was apparently no longer even in her own time. She heaved a great sigh at that thought, turning her head to look at Strange before focusing on the path in front of her, refusing to move out of the way of people that were barrelling forward. Unsurprisingly, she was shoulder checked more than a few times. It was good to see that some things never changed. “Twenty eighteen?” she asked, incredulous. “Well, time travel is not possible either so-” She took in a breath and looked around them because the more that she looked the more likely it seemed that there was a possibility that something quite crazy had happened. Science, not magic. Just… science. “Nineteen forty-seven,” she said finally, resisting the urge to rub her hand over her face and pinch the bridge of her nose. She could feel a crawling tension up her neck that was undoubtedly the start of a headache. “So, if I were to believe you,” she continued, “you somehow broke all of time and that action has resulted in my being here?” "If you were to believe me," Stephen said, also getting his fair share of being bumped into, "the answer to that would be yes, I did. A spell to reverse the destruction of a city, and the world, caused a temporal disruption of massive proportions. It created our own timeline, which is a part of the multiverse. Infinite dimensions and other universes, some very similar to this one we're now in." He noted that she might be overwhelmed with their surroundings, but she was also absorbing information and assessing everything she could. A good thing, considering she was out of her time frame and it would take a lot of adjusting to the leaps in technology and information. "There are others who have gone through the same distortion," he explained, motioning with one hand that they should turn right at the corner. "They've arrived here from other parts of the world, or times, or even overlapping from the prime universe this one split off from. And there's a secret network that allows for those directly affected to talk to one another. The package is everything you will need, to access that. It's a temporary measure. I've been assured that more permanent housing will be made available." Peggy pressed her lips together and wondered just what it was that she had gotten herself into now. Magic and alternative realities? It sounded like utter nonsense, but she was nothing if not pragmatic. If it walked like a duck, looked like a duck and quacked like a duck… She looked at Strange out of the corner of her eye as he directed them to the right. “I’m quite sure I will be able to source my own accommodation,” she told him, confident at least in that moment that she would be able to navigate her way through… the future with ease once she got herself acclimatised. After all, how different could it be? “But thank you, I appreciate how prepared you are to greet newcomers.” She opened her mouth to say something else before she stopped dead in her tracks, eyes fixed on a newspaper stall that had Steve Rogers’ face across a magazine cover. She had seen every picture of Steve that had survived the war, she knew each one by heart and so she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this picture was new. Breaking away from Strange, she strode towards the stall and snatched up one of the magazines, ignoring the vendor’s exclamation of disapproval and brandished it at Strange. “And what is this?” At least Peggy Carter was no nonsense. It provided another one of those unique but intriguing challenges when trying to welcome new arrivals. "Make no mention of it. Mister Stark has made the temporary arrangements for the new arrivals," Stephen informed Peggy before there was a magazine held up at him. He looked at it closely, and then told her, "That would be Captain America. Given what year you're from, I imagine you're familiar with him. He's one of those affected by the time distortion." Peggy narrowed her eyes a little at the bland response. “That’s not what I’m-” She pressed her teeth together, feeling them grinding a little before she looked at the photo, her expression shifting into something sad. She dropped the magazine to her side and drew in a slow breath through her nose. “Steve died,” she told him. “In 1945. So is he… is he from before the plane crash?” She visible pieced herself back together, the shock of knowing Steve was alive had temporarily displaced the mention of Mister Stark. “Where is he staying?” "Well, you mentioned accommodations and then Captain Rogers, so...." Stephen winced a little when he noticed her jaw clenching at him, and then stopped wincing as he listened. His mouth made a little 'oh' shape and he looked off to one side, thinking of how best to explain it. "...he isn't from before the plane crash. After. He has been awake for a few years," Stephen tried to explain, as gently as possible. "He helped save the world from an alien invasion in New York. And from a shadow organization known as Hydra, in twenty-fourteen." Stephen held up one hand and a business card appeared between his fingers in a flash of embers. Upon it was written an address in calligraphy, where Steve could be found. He held it out to Peggy as though this was the most natural thing in the universe, and required as much conscious thought as blinking or breathing did. Peggy took the card from Strange’s hand with a vaguely suspicious look. She had seen a similarly impressive sleight of hand before, a flourish that produced a card was a trick that she was familiar with, if not one that she had never been able to master herself. It was one thing to believe that she had been pulled forward in time, it was another matter entirely to believe that Steve had come back from the dead. He had crashed, there was no way he could have survived that crash; they had looked for him for years until Howard had finally had to call the search off, and even then she knew that he had kept looking. “You have been quite helpful,” she said shortly, putting the card into her inside pocket and replacing the magazine on the stall, with the cover a little crumpled. She might have been on board for a little while, but it was kind of an insult to Steve’s memory. It was an insult to everything he had done. “Thank you for your time, Doctor. I can make my own way from here.” Stephen gathered how resolute she was, and although he wanted to offer further council, Peggy probably didn't want to hear it at this juncture. It was clear to see that she had unfinished business with Steve Rogers, and nothing was going to stand in her way. "Of course. If you have any further questions or require any further information, don't hesitate to ask. I'm on the network, too." He nodded in farewell. "Take care, Miss Carter."