time with tony @ cityneversleeps

[womanofvalue]

It's been too long, as far as Peggy's concerned. The offer from Tony had been made quite a while ago and she's been prodding at Daniel to take him up on it, but still she hasn't had the sort of luck she generally finds she has when she's persistently determined to get results. It's left her feeling a touch out of sorts, but she also believes that she's been using the lack of information as an excuse not to go and see Tony. Today, she decides, she plans to set that to rights now.

Arming herself with some of the Velveeta that Howard so dearly loved (and some pastries, in the event that Tony didn't have absolutely horrible tastebuds like his father, Peggy heads towards Tony's last known address and knocks on his door, thinking that if nothing else, she won't continue to feel so terribly guilty about avoiding him because she's not, now is she?

Besides, since when has Peggy Carter ever shied away from facing a Stark?

Never mind that she absolutely has, she's ignoring that truth right now.

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[ahollowman]

Tony's filled with surprise when he opens the door. He didn't expect Peggy to show up at his apartment, definitely didn't expect her to do so with a brick of Velveeta. Hadn't planned for the eventuality.

He cracked the door open more, to let her in -- because, if she wanted in, she was coming in, and him standing in the doorway like a gaping mackerel wasn't going to change it.

"Peggy. Wow, can I ... help you?"

He peeked down the hallway in either direction. He wondered if, somehow, Nikita hadn't gotten ahold of Peggy, and convinced her to give him an intervention. He hated interventions.

[womanofvalue]

"Possibly, but I think you're going to be disappointed to hear that I'm mainly here for a social call," she says, not entirely sure that they're at a level when she can drop by for personal reasons, but if she doesn't start now, then is she ever? She holds out both the box of pastries and the cheese, giving him a smile that's only a little tense and wary.

How can she feel so comfortable around Howard and yet so unsure of herself with Tony? Honestly, given the similarities she sees in them, she fears it's a touch of a mystery. "I used to see your father regularly," she admits, "and I haven't made the effort I ought to, to visit you. This is me trying to change that."

[ahollowman]

Tony was not, wholly, disappointed, although he remained surprised, slightly baffled. He shut the door behind Peggy, to give them some privacy, before taking the food and heading them both toward the kitchen.

"Honestly, not that I think you intended to flatter me, but that's flattering. Sort of. That you even think you ought to change that."

He thought it must be because of whatever fondness she'd held for his father, and that was not entirely outside of Tony's experience. But he wasn't his dad, and here Peggy was, willing to spend time with him. For seemingly no benefit to herself.

He could have done more to be closer to her. Yet, he hadn't. Peggy was an intimidating figure, both in appearance, and under the weight of all of the stories Tony had heard.

[womanofvalue]

She follows afterwards, not entirely sure whether she ought to make a comment about whether he'd like her to return the Velveeta for something else, having been operating solely on what Howard would have liked, which is partially why she's here, as well. She and Howard had worked together for so long that they were friends, but she's been seeing his son as an extension of him and that's simply not fair to Tony.

"I wanted to get to know you better," she says aloud, "You, properly, and not just the image I have of you in my mind because of who Howard is. The fact that you can help Daniel also factors into that, but right now, I just want to talk to you and learn more about you, if you're willing to let me bend your ear."

[ahollowman]

Tony wasn't touched, not exactly, because Tony couldn't ever remember actually being touched, not in the sense that some people describe it. There had always been something too active, too forward, about the way his mind worked, for it to be filled with utterly sentimental things. It wasn't that he disliked the notion of sentimentality, only that maybe he didn't have all of the capacity for it.

It wasn't, necessarily, healthy. Tony knew that he wasn't, necessarily, healthy.

"Bend away," he said. He bobbed his head and watched her with curiosity, even as he moved to find them something to drink, pulling glasses out of the cupboards. He was, actually, a very decent host.

"Although I can't guarantee you're going to like everything you learn. Not just about me. World's gotten a mess in ways it wasn't when you were young."

A weird thing to say. She was still young, or this version of Peggy was.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy raises a brow when he comments on things that she won't like, wondering how bad that it must become for her to think that. "I think perhaps it's best to establish what you know about me," she admits, seeing as she can ask all she likes, but it would be much more helpful for her to know more about this child of Howard's.

That's still something to grow used to, something that she's amazed by, but something that she can honestly say she hadn't seen coming. "I think from there, maybe I can start to ask questions about you. Actually," she says, struck by the fact she hadn't thought about this from the beginning. "When's your birthday?"

[ahollowman]

"May 29th," Tony murmured. "1970."

Why such an obvious and inconsequential fact should suddenly make Tony feel strange, he didn't know, except that it made him wonder. How old had Peggy been when he was born? What had his father been like? Were they close?

He remembered meeting her, when he was small. Family functions, or ceremonies, things to which he'd had to wear very small suits and ties.

Tony stared at Peggy oddly.

"You want a drink? We have water, juice, and mixable liquor. Gin and tonic? You ever had coconut water?"

[womanofvalue]

Oh, Howard. Peggy wonders how he'd gone so long without, but all that she can do is the mental math in her head as she imagines twenty years onwards and what a Howard Stark would be like at that age when he's already so easily distracted and insufferable when she knows him. "Gin and tonic will do nicely," she says, because she's not in the mood to sample some exotic fruit and food pairing simply because Tony has found it appealing.

"It was 1947 when I left," she says, "and I was staying in your father's mansion in Los Angeles, or just outside, rather," she says. "I had been hoping to entreat on his hospitality and stay a touch longer, given that I had worked myself around to staying until I was brought here."

[ahollowman]

"Good taste."

Tony let his dark gaze linger on her for a moment longer before moving to pull two tumblers out of the cupboards. He grabbed the tonic water out of the refrigerator, some cherries and limes if Peggy was interested, and a bottle of very fine gin off of the counter. All of Tony's liquor was very fine liquor.

"I remember," he went on, beginning to assemble the drinks over ice. "I grew up in that mansion, the one in LA. Still had pictures of you up around the place here and there when I was a kid. I ... sold it. A decade back or so. Only so that they could turn it into a museum, though. You're a part of history, Peg."

[womanofvalue]

She raises a brow when he comments on selling it, though Peggy has no place to speak as to whether he ought to have kept it or not. She has no idea whether she'd even kept in touch with Howard to that degree, though she supposes that it would be easy enough to ask a question like that and get the answer. Maybe she's rather worried about that, though. At his remark, she gives a derisive snort, not entirely sure she's pleased about that.

"To a great number of people here, that's all I am," she feels compelled to point out. "You're my future, but I'm a great number of people's pasts, including yourself," she feels compelled to say. "That's rather what I was hoping to try and make less awkward with my visit. Not to mention, I would like to keep you in my good books," she says, "for Daniel's sake."

[ahollowman]

Tony set the drink in front of Peggy very gently, with a soft tap, before immediately moving to make one of his own.

"That's not all you are. I mean, I know I'm kind of a narcissist, but you're your own person."

And yet, as she's said, things still felt awkward, or something like it. There was still a feeling, despite the pointed lack of propriety he showed to Peggy, that had to be careful. About what, he didn't know.

"Anyway, I wouldn't worry about that last part. I'd have done what I could to help him, regardless. There are good people in the world and they ... deserve it."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy takes the drink and makes a clear point of not drinking too much, too quickly, not only because being tipsy right now seems like a poor idea, but she also doesn't want to force Tony to make her another drink right away. "I'd like to think I am, but I've skipped a lot of years to get here," she says. She knows that there are topics to talk about with regards to what that world looks like (and Steve's role in it), but she's here to learn about Tony, not anything else.

"So," she says, settling into a chair that she chooses. "I want to know everything about Tony Stark, the things that only close friends know. Your favourite foods, where you went to school, favourite topics, first crushes," she teases, as if he's not older than her.

[ahollowman]

Tony gave Peggy a smile, too close to his father's. It managed to be a smile, even though the corners of his mouth turned down, instead of up. There was a huge gulf, between where Peggy had come from, and what she'd come into. And Tony wasn't even alive for much of it.

"Uh, wow. Right to the juicy details, huh? Favorite food, cheeseburgers. The cheaper and greasier the better, like diner food. I like black coffee. Vanilla ice cream. I got a Masters in Physics and Electrical Engineering at MIT. I don't have any favorite topics. Everything is my favorite topic. And I am definitely not--"

Tony eyed Peggy over the top of his drink, before draining some of it and setting it down with a soft click.

"--talking about any of my crushes, with anyone, ever. Preferably, I'm not admitting to ever having any."

[womanofvalue]

She ticks off little boxes in her brain for every answer that she gets, rather pleased to be learning more about Tony like this, even if she's hardly doing it in a subtle, natural way. She's missed a lot of years, there's a great deal to make up for, she'll insist. "No tea? Clearly I haven't had enough of an influence on you," is her arch reply, giving Tony an unflinching look in return.

"Now, you see, when you deny wanting to talk about your crushes, it only makes me more stubbornly determined," she says, as if he ought to understand that about her. "What will I have to offer you in turn to get that information?"