Peggy Carter (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} aspeggysays) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} paradisolog,@ 2016-11-05 19:06:00 |
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WHAT: Meeting face to face
WHEN: Backdated to a few weeks ago
WARNINGS: None
STATUS: Complete
| Tony would be lying if he said there wasn’t a bit of apprehension in meeting Peggy Carter. She was a larger than life person in his world, her legend mattered. She was the architect of the least well-known, and yet most important organization the world never really knew. Not to mention she mattered so much to Steve Rogers, a man that had become a friend, and then an enemy; a falling out that no one had seen coming, least of all Tony or Steve. So yea, he was apprehensive. Yet that apprehension was hidden behind a confidence, a curiosity, and a brashness that was signature Tony Stark. Making his way towards the little cove Peggy had mentioned, Tony was dressed in a pair of jeans, and his tight black tactical shirt, which he wore when inside of the Iron Man armor. He hadn’t bothered to go through all of the clothing options quite yet. When he neared the cove, his smirk held firm and the clean-shaven, trimmed goatee stretched beneath while he looked around for the woman whose name was massive, and legend even larger. Peggy tried very hard to keep her mind open with regards to Tony Stark and Steve and whatever it was that had happened in their future. She'd spoken briefly with Steve after he'd returned from his disappearance with Agent Romanoff. But even though she knew Steve and - loved him, she also believed in hearing both sides. That and the fact that she was more than a little curious about Howard's son made this meeting both exciting and apprehensive for her. She had made her way to the cove after speaking with him, and she was waiting on a rock above the water, where if she stretched her feet out, she could feel the sea lap against her feet. Comfortable in a simple blouse and pants rolled up to her knees, she turned when she caught motion off to her side. She smiled and stood up. "Mr. Stark," she greeted. "I see you found me all right." Tony looked up to the young woman on the rock, grin holding steady and then growing upon seeing her. She was definitely a sight, and already met so many of the expectations he had of her. Making his way towards her, he tilted her head in her direction with a slight nod, and neared her. “Agent Carter,” He replied, shrugging, “It wasn’t too hard. I have an innate ability to find beautiful women, and much to my pleasure, you are far more beautiful than those old photos suggested. And they suggested a lot.” Tony laughed then and as he neared her, he held a hand out towards her, “It truly is an honor to meet you Agent, and call me Tony by the way, Mr. Stark was my dad.” She couldn't help but blush in much the same way she blushed when Howard was charming to her as well. It was a blush that would be accompanied by a roll of the eyes if he were Howard, but since she didn't know Tony yet, she kept that reaction to herself. "Your dad was Howard," Peggy said, "but I'll call you Tony if you call me Peggy." She smiled and took his hand firmly. "And even though I imagine you don't want to hear it, you're just like him." She said it fondly though, a hint of a tease in her tone. Tony liked the blush, meant she was receptive and wasn’t immediately shutting him down, so whatever Steve had told her she wasn’t taking entirely to heart, and he respected that. He smirked, though it faltered when she mentioned his father by name and compared him to him. “Well, he was a great man. So I am honored to hear that. Let’s just hope it doesn’t mean I’m like him when it comes to raising a child though,” He offered in a retort. His father, he respected him, he just didn’t know if he loved him. He never felt that from his father, he didn’t know what it felt like. “I do get that though, plenty, so I don’t let it offend me. And alright, I’ll call you Peggy.” A frown flickered across Peggy's face. It was true that she found it incredible that Howard ever settled down and married, let alone had a son, but at the same time it broke her heart to hear from Tony himself that his relationship with Howard was estranged. Was difficult. She wanted to tell him about the Howard she knew, if he was receptive to that, but she didn't think now was the time to do that. "Great," is what she settled on saying. "Are you settling in all right?" she asked. Have you seen Pepper? Steve? She didn't ask about these. She didn't know the entire story of Tony and Pepper, though she'd seen here how happy Pepper was with a baby and she didn't want to put a strain on anything right off the bat. She had her own thoughts about that, but it was none of her business, now was it? Tony would rather not talk about Howard, his father was a sore subject for him; worse still since learning that both his parents were killed by Bucky. It was hard to swallow, and was one of the few things to make Tony visibly disturbed, capable of forcing him to break his usually cool stature. That said, her dropping of the subject was appreciated, and allowed him to keep steady. “I am. Well enough at any rate. Working on the shelter, getting to meet and enjoy plenty of new friends. Such as yourself. And how have you settled in? I suppose the tropics are a significantly different experience than the front lines of the ‘Great’ war..” She smiled. "So far so good. It's taken a while but I feel more at home here now than when I first arrived. It wasn't easy showing up and meeting a half dozen people who all knew of me and of a future I hadn't yet experienced." It was easier for her now, she thought. Peter helped, since he knew a different version of her. Agent Hill and Agent Coulson had brought her up to speed. She and Steve … well, there were some things she still needed to get used to. "I was told that in the next few weeks I would have been headed out to Los Angeles anyway, if I had stayed where I was instead of coming here. I supposed in a way I was destined for sunshine and warmer weather regardless." “I imagine the confusion and overwhelmingness of the whole thing would be frustrating at first. I’ve never met my future in such an alarming way, though to be fair I doubt it would be all that great to do so. Not sure how my legacy will finish, after all,” Tony offered a shrug of his shoulders, then looked out at the ocean. “I lived in LA for a time, Malibu. That place was destroyed by The Mandarin and his people. I live in New York now. For most of the year… well, I guess not now.” Tony scoffed, gesturing around him with a laugh, then back up towards her, “LA is pretty nice. I think you’ll like it here though better.” “I’m glad you’re settling though, found some friends, some comforts. What made you come here? The war?” LA would have been interesting, to say the least, if what she's learned about her time there said anything. "I do like it here," she assured him. "But as you've already learned, it's easy to find,yourself with little to occupy your time. At least less than what people like you and me are used to." Why had she decided to come? That was a complicated answer, she thought. An easy one harkened back to the vial of Steve's blood Howard had given her. But with the division between Steve and Tony, she didn't want to bring that up. And of course Steve being here complicated things. "No," Peggy said. "The war had been over for some time. I was with the SSR in New York and it had been a trying year. Howard asked me to - your father, that is - help him get out of a tricky spot and when it was finally over, I felt like I needed to get away." Though the hypnosis and gas and Dottie Underwood were all so close on her mind as harrowing events, she still smiled fondly at the mention of them and of Howard. Tony listened as Peggy spoke, taking in her opinion of the place, and of her reasons for coming, and just smiled. It was weird listening to her talk about his father; frankly, he never really knew his father all that well. It was one of the many things that hurt him to think about his father. So many knew his father as this great man, and yet Tony never knew him as anything more than cold, angry, frustrated, and unloving. Tony figured he got the real Howard, everyone got the fake one, and yet Tony sometimes wished he even got the fake one at times. He glanced up towards Peggy, and scoffed with a smirk, “Dad always seemed to have his head on his shoulders to me, never thought he’d be one to get into a tricky spot. Guess you knew him when he was younger.” Tony suddenly wished he had a drink in hand. He then shrugged, “I imagine ‘getting away’ is really most people’s reason for coming here.” Peggy couldn't help but laugh. "Someone was always picking Howard out of some tricky spot," she said, thinking back to her time with him. Having his head on his shoulders was true, but only when it came to his genius. With everything else, Howard seemed to do anything and everything he wanted without a care. "He liked to have a good time," she said, "and sometimes that got him into trouble. Though this time had nothing to do with that and everything to do with his work." She smiled a bit and nodded at Tony. "Is that your reason too?" she asked. She thought back to her conversation with Steve and a frown passed across her face as she recalled the harsh words he shared about Tony. Words that Peggy wouldn't use to describe the Tony she was meeting face to face at all. Tony raised a brow and laughed, “Hard to believe that that man knew what a good time was in anyway,” Tony could remember how tough on him his father was, how much his father looked down at him, judged him, so on and so forth. He knew that sometimes parents were tough because they saw their kids making the same mistakes, but he also always felt his father was stifling a great bit of what Tony could become. He looked back at her and then nodded and shrugged his shoulders, “Yes. I’ve… made mistakes. I’ve also done things I’m not proud of, but were necessary; I’ve made enemies of my friends, because I was willing to make the difficult choice. I needed to escape, to be free of some of those choices. A new start. I felt like I did everything I could, but I also felt the Avengers were becoming too dangerous. My leaving felt necessary. As if it could help.” Peggy frowned again but decided that at first meeting wasn't the best time to argue with Tony about what his father was or wasn't. Though her frown deepened a little when he began talking about why he was here. She thought back once again to her conversation - argument? - with Steve about Tony and found herself nodding. "Well, I hope that that works out for you here," she said quietly, carefully. She looked at him with a concerned expression. |