This is not the floor she expected

[therightpartner]

Of all the ways Peggy had anticipated her day going, becoming the head of Stark's latest endeavor had not been one of them.  Once the details of her exploits the night before were known, she had expected two reactions.  She would either be praised for her work or her efforts would be disdained simply because she was female.  Even knowing which outcome was more probable, being reprimanded and called incompetent by someone like Flynn had been insulting.  

Then, everything had changed with that phone call.  Howard had always believed in her abilities.  He might have spent most of the war flirting with her but he had never doubted her place in the SSR.  Or her place in S.H.I.E.L.D.  The idea of it, the idea of being one of the leaders of the organization left her in an almost awed state.  

But even through that shock there was a quiet happiness that finally the doors that had always been slammed in her face because of her gender were now being opened.  It wouldn't be easy.  Men like Flynn would dismiss her until they realized Peggy wasn't a pretty trophy piece that Stark had chosen to decorate the S.H.I.E.L.D. offices.  There would be resentment from some, but  it was something she was used to.  

At least now she'd be doing real work.  The type that had kept her going when it would have been easier to focus on her grief and return to the role that was expected of a woman after the end of the war.  After Flynn offered his feeble congratulations, Peggy moved to the desk, removing the one personal item that she had kept in that depressing office.  

The framed photograph in one hand, her purse in the other, Peggy stepped onto the lift.  Smiling faintly when she looked down at the picture of Steve, she hoped he would pleased with this new incarnation of their work.  The doors slid open and she stepped into...

A pub?  One decorated in a style that looked more like a Hollywood set than any bar or club she had ever seen.

Taking a few tentative steps forward, she looked around, trying to understand how the lift - the entire building - could disappear.  Or how she could have disappeared, stepping out of a lift and into somewhere else entirely.  The look of shock and confusion lasted only a moment before Peggy regained her composure, moving to one of the tables and sitting down as if that had always been her intention.  Placing the photo on the table beside her and her purse in her lap, she watched those around her, trying to understand where she might be and how she had arrived.

Comments

[therightpartner]

Telepathy really wasn't that shocking, but the idea that someone had been reading her thoughts, perhaps seeing her best and worst memories...

The situation was unnerving, potentially frightening, but so had what they had tried to do to Sinthia. "Is it something that is constant or do you choose when you use your... ability?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"It's constant," she answers softly. "I can't turn it off. Ever."

She doesn't like admitting that. She really doesn't. "It's okay, I don't talk about what I hear."

[therightpartner]

"It's not your fault." No matter how unnerving it might be, Peggy doubted that it was a talent that Sinthia had asked for.

Perhaps she might not talk about it, but she knew that things slip occasionally which meant that she would have to be cautious if she ever had to use her training in this place. "Thank you for that privacy, Sinthia. It must be draining to hear so much." Are there ways to make it less of a nuisance?"

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia lifts and drops a shoulder in an unerringly good mimicry of a more normal adult's shrug. "Not really. It's not everything, all the time, but it's little things. More if it's a bad day."

Which are usually marked by her curling up in a ball on the floor and badly dealing with what feels like pressure enough to pop her skull. But telepathy hasn't exactly got an on-and-off switch, much as she'd prefer that. "Things don't slip. I'm good with secrets." How many has she gleaned from men she's passed in her father's prison-factories? None of them have ever passed her lips.

[therightpartner]

"Kind of like a radio kept at a low volume all the time?" It was the best comparison she could think of offhand. Something that could be ignored or gotten used to on good days. On the bad days... Peggy would try to keep her eye on Sinthia but she had the feeling the girl might not like having someone being too interested in her abilities even for kinder purposes.

Secrets really weren't something that she wanted to discuss, especially the darker aspects that came with espionage. Sinthia may have seen that side of the world before but that Peggy should add to that knowledge. "Then I'll be grateful that if someone has to keep mine, that it's you that has them."

[abyssum_invocat]

"More like radio static," she says. "When you keep changing the channel and can't hear anything whole, but snatches of things. I don't usually pry, though. It takes concentration to do it and gives me a headache."