12166/So the gym tried to kill you

So the gym tried to kill you
Date of Scene:	12 September 2020
Location:	Recovery Room 01, The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Steve checks in on Peggy, post-killergymnasium.
Cast of Characters:	Peggy Carter, Captain America

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Peggy Carter has posed:
It's the morning after a very strange, dangerous night. Rumors have gone around the Triskelion of some incident in the gym. Apparently, the security system went into overdrive, trapping two agents in one of the sparring rooms. Those agents? Bucky and Peggy. He eventually was able to punch through the metal security door and get them both out, but there had been a high level of toxic gas released into the room. Everything in the files is reading as a strange over drive, Bucky or Peggy having been read by the computer as threats in need of immediate neutralization. It's still being analyzed.

Meanwhile, Peggy's laid up in medical and annoyed about it. While breathing is still a *little* uncomfortable, her vitals have been stable since last night, and it looks like Bucky got them free before any permanent damage was done. This is all over protection, as far as she's concerned, but she's been voted down as to leaving. So, she's settled in bed, in a comfortable, old fashion satin robe someone brought her, a cup of tea in one hand a book in the other. She still looks a little pale around the edges, lips not their usual brilliant red and something gray about her face, but maybe it's just the medical lighting.

Captain America has posed:
    At the door there's a small commotion, far enough down the recovery bay that it's not immediately in her line of sight, but close enough that she can hear the small discussion back and forth. Not contentious, for the smooth yet slightly rough Brooklyn accent she's come to expect from the man is steady and calm. But whomever he's talking to seems to be semi-animated and trying to impart something fairly firmly.
    It's a conversation that's brief, short-lived as after a moment it ends and she'll see around the corner the blond man walking past another diagnostic table as well as several medical beds with their attached display panels. A step around a nurse is given as he smiles to the man, then makes that small distance to Peggy fade with a few strides.
    "Malingering again is it, Agent Carter?" She can see the smile there, the light twist of his lip, even as he's taking up her chart and taking a glance at in its current tablet form from the data display attached to her bed.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The sound of his voice gets a drowsy look from dark eyes, though the commotion is enough that Peggy's rather certain she's not going to be alone much longer. She ordered Bucky out of the room hours ago, before she finally slept, since his super soldier enhanced self was fine with the levels of poison they seem to have inhaled. She wasn't quite so lucky, but she sure as hell didn't care for Steve to see that.

So, as he's coming down the hall, she's pushing herself up into fully sitting. Book set aside and tea cradled in her lap, she looks all the dignified, slightly annoyed queen in her chaise instead of the somewhat pale SHIELD agent in a medical bed. Her hair's still a muss from last night, pulled back into the low pony tail she normally wears when sparring. Her robe adds some soft dignity to the scene -- black satin with flamingos. It looks like a 1950s print.

"Look, I am not at fault here, and I'd have gotten a perfectl restful night in my own bed if *they* weren't being quite so stubborn about it. At least they let Bucky out. He didn't need poked and prodded any more." There's an unspoken tone in her voice, a gentle worry about the fact that they drug Bucky in at all. He and medical procedures? He's probably had enough for a lifetime.

Her chart reads worrisomely lucky. The gas? A mix of carbon monoxide and tungsten hexafluoride -- both present in SHIELD's systems, one for helping conduction in certain labs and the other as excess product to be released outside. But together? They are incredibly deadly. She's got mild internal burns and it was momentarily touch and go when Bucky got her first out, but oxygen over night and good medical care has helped a lot. Now, she's clearly just annoed to be trapped.

Captain America has posed:
    It's rare that Steve jokes so easily with someone, a handful of people in the world that he feels comfortable doing so. Most get that calm and control she's used to seeing when he's around folks, representing the person he feels he needs to be. But Peggy gets the bad jokes now and again. Lucky her.
    But it's when discussing what happened and what she needs to do that his tone shifts back to that more steady calm tone she's used to hearing when he's with the troops. "I know it's probably just a precaution, but it's for the best. Good to trust these people since they know what sort of trouble they'd get into if they miss something. And this, even if it was an accident, isn't something to sneeze at, Agent Carter."
    He sets the tablet back in its housing on the side of the bed then moves around as he draws up a stool closer, causing its wheels to squeak faintly. Settling down on it, he smiles a little at her and he tells her, "So I read the report. But you know what I'm gonna ask you right?"
    His smile is apologetic as he then says, "I'm going to ask you to tell me what happened in your own words." Because of course he would.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"You know, I wish you'd go back to the awful dad jokes. Those are easier to dodge." Peggy deadpans at him, her head turning on the pillow to fully face the man. Her smile gives her away, paled out lips rarely smiling quite that much for anyone except him. She had a British reputation to protect, after all. She takes another deep sip of her tea, the mug helping keep warmth in fingertips. Despite her protests, she's probably feeling just off enough to know it was a closer call than is comfortable.

The question of what happened gets a low sigh. She rolls dark eyes up to the ceiling for a moment, smirking over her tea now. "That's generally my question, isn't it? Stealing all my lines now, Rogers." She teasingly chides him. Being obstinant made the entire experience a little more bearable.

But she doesn't fight him more. One last sip of her tea and she sets it aside. She forces herself to sit up just a bit straighter, arms crossing over her chest, though she has to be careful of wires that keep careful track of the quiet, slow beats of her heart and now steady respiration. "James and I were sparring. Had been for a good bit, so we were properly into it. Then every security door and window closed off the room around us. No alarms, no indication of an emergency. Just... Trapped. His mobile phone was entirely dead as well, not a single bit of signal from inside SHIELD. We were investigating the best ways out when I started feeling... Off. It came on very fast. Gas from the vents, apparently. Bucky decided not to waste time with an elegant solution and somehow managed to literally punch our way out of the room. He drug me here. End of story. SHIELD didn't even get notice something was wrong until he breeched the door."

Captain America has posed:
    "I've been told I make dad jokes." He draws his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, then lets it slip free as he smiles, "Didn't understand until someone showed me. Makes me wonder if I originated them somehow." Back in the annals of time.
    But his smile shows he's not serious as he settles on that stool, resting a hand upon his thigh and the one hand over the other. Then those baby blues meet her gaze and he listens, that same attentiveness she's seen in innumerable briefings and debriefings. Properly focused he attends.
    She can tell he's gauging her tone, listening to the pacing of the words she chooses and how she decides to deliver them. Nodding at the bare bones information he lifts his chin and she might hear a small 'hrm' at one point, but for the most part he's quiet and attentive. But it's near the end that his eyes lower, then lift back up after he's considered his thoughts.
    "So three possibilities." He starts, knowing she's already gone through these most likely. "Accidental random, something in the system anyone might have encountered. Accidental specific, the combination of yourself and Bucky's background keying something archived in the SHIELD system perhaps. Or malicious. An assassination attempt."
    His head turns to the side, then back. "But your return isn't something that it... staggeringly known. So if it's the latter the list of suspects is at least semi-narrowed down."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Oh hell. I... don't know if it was you, but I wouldn't put it *past* society. You were quite the hot number, back in the day." Peggy grins as she says that, trying to draw a bit of the thoughtful heaviness off of his face. She hates being visited like this, being laid up, worrying people she was supposed to be in the field with, fighting side by side.

She exhales a slower, slightly longer breath, on the edge of a sigh but she doesn't care to let herself sound that tired, whether she is or not. Her arms unfold again, not quite able to get comfortable in the bed. Or maybe just the situation. She lets her cool fingertips trail over to the back of his hand on his knee and gives the lightest of reassuring squeezes. Even through all this, her nails are still their classic, rather perfect red. "Don't worry quite so much. We both got out relatively unscathed."

As he's going through the possibilities, she lets her fingertips linger. He's warmer than the tea, at this point. Sometime in the last whenever, she'd finally taken off her wedding rings. Or maybe they were removed for sparring? Either way, they aren't there now. "Bucky and I both had the same thought. HYDRA. Now... whether that's because we're seeing old patterns of cruelty and jumping to conclusions or because this feels like far more than unlucky concidence, I don't know. But it did not feel random, even if the techs are saying it was."

Captain America has posed:
    A single nod is given as she tells him not to worry, and he rests his hand upon hers for a brief moment to share that sentiment, squeezing slightly. But then he takes a deep breath and nods, "I know, but still important we make sure we know what was behind it all."
    "I'd tend to want to rule out the more serious aspects first." As well she knows. "So I'm going to ask Tony if he can maybe take a look at some of the systems, if I can get Hill to sign off on it. I trust him..."
    A pause as his eyes unfocus for a moment, then ever the boy scout he has to add, "Mostly." To prevent any hint of prevarication. But then he smiles around that admission and adds, "In this at least for him to dig around and find out if there's a trace of... anything that's left behind that might mean we have a plot to look into."
    He takes a deep breath, "But. Right now, that's not something you should be focusing on unless one of us comes back here with more questions. Right now you need to give your voice a rest and to... well."
    His lip twists up as she's said the same to him before in various ways so he just murmurs the words back to her. "Get better."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The squeeze of her hand gets a slightly different smile. Reassuring, but also softer. Not something that's putting on a brave but stubborn face for the nurses. The sort of smile that simply says there's a part of her that's glad he's here. Embarrassing as it is to be laid up. She returns the squeeze softly, a quiet communication that yes, she was quite alive and mostly her old self. Even if her fingertips are a bit cooler than usual.

The mention of Tony brings a strange, bemused look to her face. "I need to check in with him after the slight... mess we got into in France anyway. It'd be good to bring him in. We've been working on a small side project, I should tell you about sometime. He is..." There's that nostalgia. That tone and look in her face of a thousand things she forgets how much she misses until something brushes against that edge of emotions and they are all there again, "...So much like Howard. I know he'd hate to hear it. But it's been strange, working with him. ... Nice." The amount that Peggy misses her best friend, as difficult as he was, is almost overwhelming to even her careful British composure.

She swallows it all back a moment later, composing herself as her head sinks into pillow. She's smirking at his smile as he repeats those time honored words. "I am perfectly fine, and have been working on those orders since last night. So, job done."

Captain America has posed:
    "Side project?" Steve turns his head to the side, and he smiles as he seems to follow along with Peggy as she takes that trip of nostalgia. Not privy to her thoughts, but sharing a recognition of that sentiment and feeling when her gaze distances like that.
    "Yeah," Steve says eventually, smiling at the connection between Howard and Tony, their similarities that would likely earn both of their objections. "I tried to get along with Howard. It was..." His own gaze mirrors her own from a few moments before but his renewed smile is summoned almost instantly.
    "He was a difficult man to get along with sometimes." Such cruel admonishment from Captain Steve Rogers.
    But then he returns to the here and now and it's his turn to seek her hand to squeeze even as he pushes himself to his feet and gives a single more business-like affected nod.
    "Good soldier." His lip twists a little. Then he takes a breath. "I'll get to work on finding what's what. You rest up." The way he inclines his eyebrows it asks her silently, 'ok?' even though he's not exactly open to a disagreement.

Peggy Carter has posed:
That last squeeze is returned and Peggy lets her fingertips fall away. She doesn't bother for her tea again. The conversation had been tiring, whether she wanted to admit it or not. She gives him one last, quiet laugh, "Oh, Howard was impossible. Tony is only half impossible. I am exceedingly fond of them both, in their own ways."

She's then sinking deeper into the pillow, the motions of someone who is going to stop fighting sleep and let it take her again. "Fine, fine... Only because you asked quite so nicely. Go... Check in on Buck, for me. Too many doctors in this place..." She's still worried about the other agent. His best friend. If there was ever old, uncomfortable blood between Peggy and Bucky, it seems long gone now.

With those last words of concern, she lets her eyes sink shut and gives herself back to the sleep of recovery. She'll be out of the room before the end of the day, no doubt.