OPEN TO CR (and +1's, why not!!)

[revlon]

Who: Peggy Carter (revlon), Steve Rogers (starspangle) & Various
What: The wedding!
When: Dec 1
Where: Thesa Station
Warning(s): N/A

[ To anyone who knows Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, this wedding has been a long time coming — almost too long. So perhaps it isn't surprising at all that once they finally got engaged, the ceremony fell into place fairly quickly. Neither of them are ones for much fuss so they've decided to have it up on the station so friends and guests can attend no matter where on the island they live. And while the exhibition hall on Thesa isn't the English countryside or a church in New York City, this day is still uniquely theirs and intrinsically tied to the life they've made here.

It's an intimate late afternoon ceremony with wide windows overlooking the vastness of space and its twinkling stars. Steve, in a sharp suit one might recognise from last December's holiday gala, has Bucky Barnes as his best man and Claire Fraser is there for Peggy as matron of honour — the first friend she made in this new world. With so many absent friends, the bride decides to walk herself down the short aisle and the wedding gown is an understated, elegant affair in satin with a touch of beaded lace, expertly tailored by Claire's own hands. When the bride and groom meet, Captain Kirk begins:

"Since the days of the first wooden vessels, all ship's masters have had one happy privilege. That of uniting two people in the bonds of matrimony. And so we are gathered here today with you, Margaret Elizabeth Carter, and you, Steven Grant Rogers, in the sight of your fellows..."

And once they are pronounced Mr and Mrs Rogers, the party can officially begin! There's a hodgepodge dinner buffet courtesy of the mess hall (and cake later, of course) so perhaps you're trying to decide where to start first; or maybe you've forgone the food for the self-service bar with wine, whiskey, and beer. (Champagne for the toast!) If tipple isn't to your tastes, then maybe the dancing is — it isn't big band swing music, but it's close enough, and you're attending the wedding of some golden oldies from the 1940s so there's sure to be someone cutting a rug. Or maybe you're taking a breather from all that and taking in the view of the stars and the planet below.

Whatever your fancy, mingle and enjoy! ]

Comments

[lednikovyy]

[ Bucky's face scrunches up a little, like he's not thrilled to be asked about it. ]

Room like this feels... nice. Like I can tell people are happy. A lot of the time, it's just like radio static. If I touch someone, it's louder, but it's still hard to figure out what it is.

[ In other words, he considers it mostly useless and mildly annoying as it currently is. He's not exactly big on touching, either, so it's not like he's gotten much practice. ]

[ettersberg]

I see.

[ he considers that for a moment. ]

Something would be amiss if this room didn't feel nice, I suppose. How did you come into this power?

[lednikovyy]

They asked me to do a simulation up here and next thing I know, I've got this.

[ Because Bucky really needed more shit in his head to ignore.

He shrugs, though. It's been a few months and while it hasn't done much for him, it hasn't hurt him much, either. It's better than a destructive power as far as he's concerned. ]

Kinda feels like a power for someone else.

[ettersberg]

What have you tried in order to control it?

[ peter may be in stasis, but regardless, nightingale is his masterteacher (peter doesn't like the word master and quite frankly, nightingale cannot blame him) and peter his apprentice. the process of teaching and learning to control magic or new abilities is something of a professional interest to nightingale. ]

[lednikovyy]

[ The question pulls Bucky up short. Mostly, he's just worked on learning to ignore it so that he can function in a crowd. That first month, he'd barely wanted to leave the apartment. ]

Not much. It's not really in my usual wheelhouse.

[ His usual wheelhouse being guns and knives and even though he's sharp in a fight, it's really not the same thing as having mind powers. ]

[ettersberg]

What is your usual - [ only the slightest pause betrays that this is not terminology he'd ordinarily use. ] wheelhouse?

[lednikovyy]

I was a sniper in the war and, uh [ He coughs awkwardly. ] women really liked me before that, so that might've been my wheelhouse before.

[ He shrugs and doesn't bother mentioning that he's a lot more comfortable with a gun than a woman these days. ]

[ettersberg]

[ softly: ] Which war was this?

[lednikovyy]

[ It's something Bucky's made a habit of lying about with anyone who doesn't already know Steve or Peggy, but his worry about the one threat he'd gotten from a HYDRA agent seems so far away here. ]

World War 2. I served with Steve.

[ettersberg]

[ how is it that at this wedding, thomas nightingale ends up having this precise conversation with two men who are not precisely the same but almost?

he pushes that thought aside. lifts a hand to briefly rub at his jaw. ]

I briefly served.

[lednikovyy]

Really?

[ It actually catches him off guard a little, but he's not sure why. A lot of men were serving back then and a good number of them went home afterwards and lived normal lives. Back then Bucky had expected to be one of them. ]

A soldier and a cop and a... what? A wizard?

[ettersberg]

[ nothing about thomas nightingale's life after the war had been normal, but for the rest, it's accurate enough.

plainly: ] Yes. [ and then he adds ] Not necessarily in that order.

[lednikovyy]

So what order, then?

[ There's an easy smile settling on his face now, his posture relaxing a little more. He really doesn't meet a lot of people who are from the same time. There's a coyness to their interaction that Bucky can't help enjoying and he's not too unhappy that they're talking about Thomas and not himself now. ]

[ettersberg]

Wizard, first and foremost.

Both soldier and police officer are secondary to that. I briefly worked for the Foreign Office as well, before the war.

[ not quite a spy, but... not quite not, either. the sort of person who'd be found at diplomatic events just as soon as chasing german archeologists through nepal. ]

[lednikovyy]

How does that work? Something you're born with?

[ It's invasive, maybe, but Bucky's pretty sure he can get away with a few invasive questions between them. ]

[ettersberg]

[ hardly invasive. he doesn't mind questions about magic nearly as much as questions about the war, most days. ]

Oh, no. It's something I learned in school.

[lednikovyy]

Is that normal where you're from?

[ Bucky's not sure what had existed on his world and what hadn't. He's experienced so many unbelievable things since him childhood and even more after waking up here. For all he knows, people were using all sorts of magic and he just never saw it. He's seen things close enough, at least. ]

[ettersberg]

When I was born, it was not entirely unheard of, but nothing I would call normal, no. There was one school, in all of Britain.

[ and admission was based on needing to know the right sort of person... and being from the right sort of family, too, though that didn't become obvious to nightingale until much, much later. ]

By the time the storm hit, it was entirely unheard of and the school empty.

[ please don't ask him what happened. ]

[lednikovyy]

When was that?

[ Bucky's got an idea, of course, if he served in the war, but he can't really help the question, anyway. He wants to know more about Thomas and not just because the idea of magic still feels a little exciting and fantastical even now. Besides, his own timeline doesn't add up and he's been about as cards-on-the-table as he gets with Thomas. ]

[ettersberg]

Ah.

[ when is a better question than why, and it isn't as though it really is a secret. ]

The Storm hit in 2017.

[lednikovyy]

Shit and here I thought I was special for being so old.

[ But it's kind of an odd relief. Bucky's never even sure how old he feels anymore between all the lost years and the ever-present feeling that he's fallen out of time. Steve's the only other person he knows who's been through anything similar, but it's so different. ]

It was 2016 for me. Is that normal for wizards? 'Cause it ain't normal where I'm from.

[ettersberg]

No.

[ steve knows about thomas' age. him and peggy are some of the few that thomas has mentioned it to. and now bucky. ]

At some point after the war, well into my 80s, I started ageing backward. I've no idea what caused it. [ "magic returning into the world", only magic had never truly left, had it? still, there'd been a revival of sorts.

he'd almost missed it, of course, too busy fighting ghosts of the variant that couldn't be exorcised, demons of the war instead of anything more literal. ]

[lednikovyy]

[ He nods, not sure how he's really supposed to react to that. It's beyond weird and Bucky's entire life is basically weird these days. ]

I was cryogenically frozen for a while, but I don't think I age normally, either.

[ Really not something he'd been planning to reveal to anyone, but here they are. ]

[ettersberg]

[ it is beyond weird, but thomas is glad bucky isn't asking any more questions. his age isn't something he minds, precisely, but he'd resented the reversal of the ageing process for a while, when he'd been capable of resentment at all. ]

How so? [ the age, he means. ]

[lednikovyy]

Oh, uh, during the war I was captured. I don't really know what they did to me in technical terms, but it I guess it made me pretty indestructible, kinda like Steve.

[ Which, given some of the other ways he's seen attempts at that go, Bucky knows he got off lucky biologically-speaking, even if just about everything else went wrong in the worst ways possible. ]

It's not a big deal.

[ The way his eyes avert and his voice gets tight makes it all too clear how much of a lie that is, but he lies about this stuff when he's not at his best friend's wedding, so he's sure as hell not going to let himself get emotional about it now. Making jokes and changing the subject is how he navigates this heavy stuff, because it's the only way he can keep himself together. The only person who's got the full truth is a psychic girl who's back in cryo and he plans to keep it that way. Even Steve doesn't get all of it. ]