thearena | (no subject)

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Who: Peggy Carter and OPEN
What: Arrival
When: early Tuesday morning
Where: Cornucopia and exploring Main Street
Warnings: none yet

Peggy had thought her life had prepared her for any number of odd situations, yet none of them could have prepared her for this. The only redemption to the costume they had forced her into was the boots and cape. The rest would have to go. Immediately if possible. She couldn't be expected to run in all this, stay well hidden or even defend herself. God only knew what the men were wearing. That she had been briefed at all seemed like something of a miracle, but they didn't tell her anything more useful than what she was going to be doing.

She stepped off the platform and into the arena with the sobriety of someone walking to the gallows, but even then she couldn't help gawking. She had seen wreckage. Seen smoldering remains and hollowed homes, bodies falling into mud and on fire and exploding into millions of pieces, yet she still couldn't pretend the sight before her was anything less than extraordinary.

And it was early.

People who managed to sleep would soon be waking and God knew what other kinds of dangers there might be lurking in the hidden shadows, but she was only as good as her knowledge of her surroundings, and there was nothing left for her if she just stood there. Staying alive would be nice, but if she had to chose between death through violence and starving she would pick a fatal wound every time.

So she needed to find food. Food and then shelter and if lucky a place to ditch this bloody awful dress.

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Eliot had gone back to see what he could find left at the Cornucopia before searching the rest of the Arena for something remotely approaching weaponry. Just because he could kill an animal with a rock didn't mean that's how he preferred to hunt. Some firewood would be helpful, too.

Steve hasn't been able to sleep. It's not the arena, he can't sleep in the capitol either. He walks towards the cornucopia to see if anyone's left any supplies behind. On the plus side of these ridiculous costumes, the cape was easy enough to fashion into a sling to carry the cans of food in.

He sees her when he rounds the corner; he hadn't been expecting anyone else (but it's not like he shouldn't have not expected anyone else, either.) He's ready to get on the defensive but he just stands there in shock instead. He freezes.

He could cry.

And then he thaws instead. "Over here," he whispers, ready to duck with her behind where he just came from, at least to get them out of view.

She hears the person before she sees him. At first she thinks, possibly, he's an animal until she spots him coming toward her. A small part of her is telling her to run. Run now. But she's better than that and sudden movements are never a good idea. They make you more noticeable.

Peggy waits a beat until she starts edging toward the Cornucopia. She moves slow and patiently, uncertain whether this might be the moment the man draws a gun or something worse. Because if she is about to die, she'd rather do it fighting.

Peggy is down low in a second before the voice even processes before she can stop herself from launching a handful of gravel in the speakers direction and because of that, she almost topples over. Almost catches her elbow and skins her palms because she knows that voice.

She knows it too well and her tongue suddenly feels thick and dry in her mouth.

He doesn't have a gun and, even if he did, she wouldn't be a target. He looks up when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. She's not one of the Tributes he's seen before this Arena which means the damn bastards have done it again. They've pulled another victim from their time and world and dropped them in this nightmare. And now they're starting to do it even more often. He holds his hands up to show her he's unarmed, for what that's worth. "Are ya all right, ma'am?"

Peggy straightened, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. She grimaced though. What an absurd question that was? Physically? Yes, perhaps she was fine, but there was nothing all right about where they were or what they were meant to be doing.

"Is anyone all right here?"

Before he knows what he's doing, he runs over to her to catch her; he's late (he's always late) but he shields her anyway (he's good at that) just in case that commotion roused anyone else to try and kill them. "We've gotta move," he whispers again, harsher this time.

He has to get away for her to actually... move with him, but he can't bring himself to do it. It's as if, if he lets go of her, he'll be greeting another lifetime passed without her. He can't chance that.

"I'd say that remains to be seen." He gives her a close look. "Ya just got here, didn't ya?"

Peggy can't breathe. She reaches for him, blindly groping for his arms and ending up with a handful of shirt, but it's enough. It's warm and solid and enough to give her room to think, even if she can't make her lungs work as they should.

Her chest burned. They had warned her of this. Warned her of the dangers of the arena, but none of those warnings could have given her a way to process this.

"Right. Of course."

"I did." She pressed her lips together for a moment. "I can't say I feel welcomed."

He doesn't make an effort to move. He just stands there, face buried in her hair. He's all but forgotten her scent and how tall she stands, how light she feels. He's never held her, not until now, and he can't move his feet.

"Peggy," he says, finally. It kind of hits him like a wave, natural and enveloping but threatening to drag him under. With one arm still around her, he turns, cautiously looking around before taking a step. "We have to talk somewhere else."

Breathing is difficult for a long while. She holds onto Steve, sucking in a staggered gulp of air before pulling back, face dry but eyes burning and face horribly flushed.

She isn't going to lie to herself. She is utterly compromised in this moment. She is not all right and no one should expect her to be.

"I don't know this place at all. I wouldn't know where to go."

"It's a lot to adjust to. I don't suppose you know much about fighting?'

"I do," he says. "Just follow me; we'll be safe." He can't promise that, he shouldn't promise that. It's a lie; they aren't safe and if they were, only one of them could survive in the next week or so anyway.

It dawns on him, that he'll have to leave her behind again.

"Trust me," he says, attempting to usher her over to somewhere else. Somewhere slightly more secluded.

Barbara watches her, crouched on a rooftop. She looks confused; maybe a little scared? Definitely vulnerable. The sort of person Barbara should be trying to protect. Instead she just wonders whether the girl might try and kill her.

It would be best - she knew - to avoid the woman entirely. At best she'd just be another eventual casualty that Barbara can't save...

She got up to leave, back to scout for Harley, when her foot bumped into a stone and sent it rattling off the building. The sound would alert anyone with ears to Barbara's presence.

Peggy bristled. "Would you care to come closer and find out?"

"Always." When had she ever not had faith in him? It was hard to fathom a point in their collected memory where she hadn't believed in him. Perhaps the very first day she saw him, but everyone knows first judgements are the poorest.

Peggy grabs his wrist and stays low, looking back at the cornucopia with something akin to disgust. She didn't get to see what happened when others had arrived.

She was late to this game. That didn't mean she wished to die immediately.

Peggy tensed. Her fingers itched for a gun that she no longer had as she turned on the spot, scanning the rooftops and balconies of the derelict street. Something had moved, be in animal or person, either could be dangerous.

And either would have seen her while she could not see it.

"Who's there?"

It hadn't been pretty, and Steve's still not okay with any of this, but the goal is survival. He hasn't come up with a good alternative, other than that. And now he has to, for her sake. He won't say that, but he'll allow himself the thought.

As soon as they're in the relative safety of an enclosed space with a chokepoint and a piece of furniture he can possibly use to defend them in case they need it, he pulls out a can of food and offers it to her.

"Are you hungry?"

"No." They were dressed like royalty and sent to slaughter others. There was nothing here to bring any kind of appetite. Even then, she knew better than to eat what they had now before they truly needed it.

She wasn't naive. People would always be awful to one another given any thin reason, that didn't mean she wished to understand a future where this was a normal course of behavior. To cheer for others pointless slaughter.

Peggy watched Steve move to set a barricade, for whatever that was worth. What did they know of the other's here with them? Of the creatures that could be roaming? Of the hazards in the area?

"There's nothing that can be done here, is there?"

She had been thinking it since she had arrived in the Capitol. Long before they outfitted her to enter the arena when she had been lain on a metal table and primped within an inch of her life. She never saw so much of her own skin taken off without an actual wound to show for it.

He shakes his head. "But when you die here, you just go back to the Capitol. If you win, you don't have to do this again." His voice kind of implies that he doesn't want to win. She will have to watch him die, and he'll have to watch a fair few of his friends bite it. Again.

"This is my second game. I haven't learned much about this place, but we're stuck here until they let us leave. And..." He looks rather guilty. "I know these circumstances could be better, but I'm happy to see you." Gently, he rests a hand on her arm, and god what he wouldn't do to kiss her, slow like they're not in a warzone and he isn't going to leave this little house to go die.

"But all the others do." Her lips thinned as her gaze dropped to her trembling hands clenched so tight over her knees. And all she could think was why? Why do this at all? What is the purpose?

Peggy drew in a stuttered breath and let it out again. His hand was warm and familiar and she had to look up at him.

"I'm glad to see you too. So very glad."

God knew how much. Steve was the one good thinhg here. Her one good thing. Just his presence settled her and made her not just need to but want to think. He made her want to play this game and get out of it with her soul intact.

"Peggy, there's something I have to tell you," he says, even though this is a bad time to have any sort of serious talk, but he can't chance one of them dying and not being able to talk until the other one does as well. "I... didn't make it out of that plane. I woke up in a bed in New York and they told me it was the year 2012.

"The first thing I thought... was that I missed out on seventy years with you." He's standing close to her now; it's a natural progression. He doesn't even realize he's inching forward.

"You didn't die." That was the only part of it that mattered. She could have been dead by the time he was found, but what mattered was Steve had survived.

Peggy reached for him, not hesitating, not in that moment, and brushed her fingers along his cheek and down over his jaw. He was every bit as she remembered him. Every inch the few photographs she had coveted and stolen from headquarters and kept pressed between the pages of her books.

"We never were going to stop looking."

"You never did," he says, but there's something melancholy in his voice. "--When you go back, when we both get out of here, if you don't remember anything about this place, I want you to remember you've got my blessing. I don't want you to wait for me, not for seventy years."

A large part of him wants to march up to the ninety-year-old Peggy Carter and ask for her hand in marriage so they can enjoy what time they have left together. But a larger part of him would rather she spent those years he now knows he was gone, happy, cared-for, and loved, even if it was by someone else.

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because this icon breaks my heart

WELL GEE THANKS :|

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