duty before love

@agcntcxrter

When it came to making friends, Valkyrie had never done anything the traditional way. Even before she’d become the last of the Valkyrior, she hadn’t exactly been social, had always preferred to stick to herself. Other people were useful to warm her bed and fill the silence, but they could rarely be trusted. Occasionally, someone came along to challenge that, and Valkyrie found herself with something resembling a friend. Sharon was one of those and, though she might not admit it, Valkyrie was glad to have her.

They lounged in the gym now, water bottles in hand and towels soaked in sweat draped across their shoulders. “You know, you’re one of my favorite sparring partners,” Valkyrie said conversationally, squirting some of her water into her mouth. “You manage to make me work up a sweat. Not many can say that.” 

Sharon was a human on a team of demigods and billionaires in metal suits. She didn’t share Nat’s vast experience, nor did she have Clint’s impeccable aim. SHIELD had been lucky to have her, she knew that much, but on the Avengers, she was definitely the underdog, a fact that she fought back against as often as she possibly could. Training and sparring was necessary in order to stop her from dying the second she stepped into battle, and Valkyrie was one of the steepest learning curves she had.

“You’re one of mine as well,” Sharon said, attempting to smile through her exhaustion. “You know what? You need to put that accolade on my gravestone. You won’t even have to wait that long to do it, because I’m pretty sure round three absolutely murdered me already. My body just hasn’t caught up to the fact it’s dead yet. Give it half an hour and I’ll keel over.” She took a long drink of water, which helped somewhat in preventing her from passing out. This was better than the last time they sparred, at least! “I’m guessing you don’t find too many battles that challenge you in this city, huh? Especially considering the situation.”

Steve had lost people in a thousand different ways. He’d lost Bucky in an instant, one terrible second that haunted his dreams. He’d forever remember the feeling of Bucky’s fingers slipping through his, the sound of his scream as he fell. He’d lost his father before he ever knew him, to a war that ended before Steve was born, only to be carried on again by the time he was a young man. Grieving a memory felt so strange sometimes, more an idea than anything else. He’d lost men on the battlefield, sometimes right before his eyes, blood spattered on his cheek. Sometimes, he didn’t realize until they were back at base, a few less than they’d been before. 

But it was his mother’s death that he thought about right now. Watching her get sicker and sicker, and never taking a moment to rest. She’d always been more concerned about her patients, about Steve. It wasn’t until she’d been coughing blood and gasping for air that she’d finally slowed down, just long enough for Steve to feel the helplessness of it all. All he’d been able to do for her was sit with her, hold her hand, put a wash cloth on her forehead. He’d known it wouldn’t save her – just ease her passing. He hadn’t held onto her for very long after that. And eventually, he’d lost everyone, everyone and everything he had ever known. Some people escaped death, but you never escaped time.

Peggy had faded, just like his mother, but she had more life in her than anyone else he’d ever met before. She shone like a shooting star, like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Even at the end, when her mind wandered so easily, when the fog clouded her eyes and sometimes she looked at him and thought they were still fighting the war – even then, she’d been a force to be reckoned with. Steve had held her hand when he could find the time, but not as often as he would’ve liked. In the end, even Peggy Carter could die, and no one could stop that.

The only person who came close to what Peggy had been was sitting right beside him. Shrouded in grief, maybe, but for the first time, Steve understood what Peggy saw when she found him trying to get drunk after Bucky. She saw a soldier ready to get back out there, ready to make things right anyway he could, ready to take his pain and turn it into justice. He just hadn’t known it yet. Maybe it was different for Sharon, with no train or shadow organization to blame for Peggy’s death. It was just time. Time and illness and age, and there was no fight to be had there. Nothing to rally around. But Sharon would rally, he knew that. He could see strength in every fiber of her being. Peggy was her aunt, not her mother, but in every way that mattered, Sharon was the spitting image of her. “No, it’s not,” he said softly. “But maybe that’s the price we pay, so that some change is good. Maybe that’s just how the world works.” Her eyes were searching his, and he didn’t know if he had any answers for her, if she would like what she found in his gaze. “I don’t feel empty,” he said quietly. “And you aren’t empty either. Believe me when I tell you, this world will take from you. It’ll take and take and take, but eventually – it gives something back. It gave her back to me,” he said, glancing towards the church. “For a little while, anyway.” He turned back to her and sighed softly. “I know it feels like – like there’s this hole in your chest that won’t ever be filled, and thing is, it probably won’t. And it won’t ever get any smaller. But maybe, you start adding things around the hole, you meet new people that take up space in your heart. And one day, the hole seems smaller, because it’s surrounded by so much else.” He took a breath, smiled softly at her. “I lost everything when I went into the ice. And I’m sure I’m not done losing, either. But I’ve got a lot in return. I got Bucky back. I got to see Peggy again. I got to meet a new team, and – and you,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck. “So, I can’t feel empty. Not when I’ve got all these people.”

But she wasn’t wrong – not all change was good. The Avengers were about to go through some major changes, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. Things were about to get rough, a storm was coming. Steve was preparing the best he could – but you couldn’t tell where lightning was going to strike until it was too late. “Speed dial. I know how to work that one,” he said, smiling gently at her. “If we’re trying to even the scales, I’ll owe you for about another seventy years,” he pointed out. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep the phone on, and I’ll always pick up.”

Maybe that was a dangerous promise to make. Especially going into everything they were about to face back home. Nick Fury was proof that even the best laid plans could go sideways at the last moment. Of course, Fury’s solution was to have even more plans, contingencies upon contingencies. “It kind of was a cape,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “I… I never realized that before.” He laughed before he could stop himself, just a quick, strangled sort of sound. Maybe he really was losing his mind like Stark was saying.

He nodded, quiet and solemn as his laughter faded away. “There’s no better way to say it,” he agreed softly. “But I don’t think she would’ve liked living forever. Maybe she would’ve, but I feel like the Peggy I knew had too much respect for death to turn away the reaper.” He glanced over at her, their hands entangled now, her fingers so cold compared to his, so he held on a little tighter. “I thought you did a pretty good job yourself,” he said quietly. Her words sunk in, confirming his wildest hopes, and he felt a wave of relief wash over him. He’d always known, just like she said, but it was something else entirely to hear her say it aloud. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Not about accountability, or another SHIELD – you’re right. But… you’ve got family on the other side of this. Family matters more than anything sometimes.” He bit his lip. “I don’t want you throwing something away that you’ll wish you had later.” He paused a moment. “But I’m also pretty selfish,” he admitted, eyes falling to their entangled hands. “I don’t really want to do this alone.” 

It didn’t seem fair that in summer, the season when Peggy had always flourished the most, they would be burying her, surrounded by people in black clothing, veils shrouding their faces. It didn’t seem fair that she was being put to rest in London, the city that she had long since forsaken, rather than the country she had fought for and within for more than seventy years. It didn’t seem fair that her legacy would be destroyed mere months before she faded from life herself, that she would die without the full understanding of what she had done, without the time necessary to process such a betrayal fully.

None of it was fair, but Sharon knew that the world wasn’t fair, that it never would be. She fought to make it different, fought to bring justice to those who had been denied it for so long, but she was only one person in an entire army, and not everyone was as dedicated as she was. Ideals would carry on, the future generations would continue the good fight, and maybe they would reach the finish line sometime, but she honestly doubted it. Sharon didn’t have the same faith in the future as Tony did, didn’t have the same faith in anything that most of her companions and friends did. She was fighting the same battles as Peggy had been nearly a century before, they were winning, but then the snakes slithered in through the cracks in the floorboards, reminding them that the source had never been extinguished.

That was why Leviathan continued to plague her mind. Everything that Peggy had looked into, everything that she had ever fought against, seemed to go back to one shadow organisation. Leviathan was associated with Hydra, with the Red Room, the Soviets, even Mussolini at a stage. Evil was much easier to spread than good, it plagued people that would otherwise be kind and non-violent, filled their hearts with hatred. Sharon knew herself who easily it would be to succumb to the darkness, having felt it when she returned, but then there were people like Steve, like her aunt, who had suffered so much and still kept smiling, kept believing.

Maybe it was something to do with the generation they were a part of. Maybe it was just what had drawn them to each other in the first place. Maybe it was hero worship, or something of the kind, though Sharon considered herself to be immune to that now after Fury’s betrayal so many years ago. “Feels a lot like I am.” That was the goal in espionage, after all - to be a paper doll, capable of changing and adapting to any situation. Sharon’s personality was strong, always had been, and that was a danger because it meant that she stood out. “It hasn’t given me anything for a long time,” Sharon said, somewhat sadly. It was rare that she admitted to this much cynicism out loud, that she allowed someone to see past the humour and the laughter, the teasing that always characterised her when Peggy was alive, and undoubtedly would a week after she was gone as well, once Sharon managed to put the mask back on.

Absentmindedly, Sharon wondered whether this would change Steve’s opinion of her, whether it would make him realise that she was nothing like her aunt, nothing like him, nothing like the heroes he fought alongside. Still, though, she was continuing to speak, and he was still standing there, which had to count for something. “Yeah,” Sharon said, looking up at him for a long moment. “The people aren’t half bad.” A small smile appeared on her face when she said that, thinking of Clint and Nat in particular.

“If you promise something, you’ve got to follow through on it, now,” Sharon said, keeping her voice light, as if it was nothing more than a jokingly said warning, rather than something she felt deep down in her gut. “I won’t just call for you to bring Indian, you know. I’ll call with life threatening situations, and maybe if I run out of milk.” Sharon had called Fury, back in the day. She had been trapped, she had formed her own communication system, she had risked everything to get a message back, and he had ignored her. Left her to fend for herself. She understood why, couldn’t resent him entirely because of that, but she was sick of being the one left behind.

Steve’s laugh wasn’t the same as his awkward ones had been across the hall, when Sharon had joked about the laundry, talked about her scrubs like they were something she knew intimately. It wasn’t even the same as the laughter she heard when he had Sam in his apartment, and she could tell that he was feeling lighter than he had for weeks. It was something different, something strained and unnatural. Sharon reached out, touched his arm, a silent reminder that she knew what was happening with him, that she could feel it too - the loss of reality that came with a constant reminder that even the people who were most alive had to die at some point.

Steve still wasn’t thrilled that Fury wanted him babysat, but if it had to be someone – he was glad it was her. It was funny how often that sentiment came up. Sharon wasn’t an Avenger, but Steve felt he could trust her as much as any teammate. She was sharper than any person he’d ever met, except maybe Natasha, and she had the determination of an entire squadron. If you were up with your back against the wall, she was a handy person to have in your corner. 

Tall, dark, and brooding – it sounded strange, but it fit Bucky. At least who he was now. “He wasn’t always dark and brooding,” he said softly, running a hand through his hair. “Used to have this smile that could light up a whole room.” It made every girl – and some of the boys – stop and stare. “Dugan at a birthday party, I don’t even want to ask, do I?” he said, shaking his head as memories of the man flashed through his mind. Then her finger was on his nose and his whole brain went blank for a minute. “Captain Nose?” he repeated, once he found his voice again. “I’m – I’m honestly a little offended,” he said, but he was grinning the whole while. 

His heart was beating even faster than normal, and he was pretty sure that he’d started blushing the second her finger touched his skin. At least she wasn’t looking at him now. “I owe you,” he said simply, taking a sip of his own milkshake. “We’ll find them, Sharon. We’ll get your answers and we’ll take them down. Whatever it takes,” he said, nodding firmly. “Even over a Hulk,” he laughed. “Kind of have to. Stay true to my roots, ya know?” 

Sometimes, sitting with Steve felt as if Sharon was having a familiar, normal conversation with an old family friend, or maybe a work colleague that she hadn’t truly appreciated until she had moved onto the next best thing. Other times, it was as if he was looking at a ghost, though she assumed he looked at the entire world like that, on bad days when everything seemed to pile up on him. Sharon knew what it was like to have her entire world uprooted, her perspective of things changed. She had been trapped behind enemy lines, and no one had came for her. She had fought for her country, and they had abandoned her. She learned then to fight for ideals rather than people, but Steve -- he was changing things.

He had an uncanny ability to do that, to shake up the natural order. SHIELD had fallen because of him, allowing something new to rise up in its place under Coulson’s leadership. The Avengers had been split because he refused to bend the knee. “Really? That sounds like something. Now I’m thinking about it, Peggy might have mentioned something like that once or twice.” Sharon had always been under the assumption that Barnes and her aunt weren’t particularly close, given how little she spoke of him. She always had respect for him, though, that was never in question. “He was my honorary godfather,” Sharon said with a laugh. “Mom never would’ve let it be legal, but for all intents and purposes, he was in there.”

The worst kind of enemies were the ones operating right under your nose. The ones living in your backyard. Secret and subversive, their insidious ideas spreading out and poisoning everything it touched. If he could help Sharon put an end to that poison, clean out old wounds? Then Steve was ready, two hundred percent. No matter what it took. He was with her to the end of the line, wherever it led.

“What?” he asked, grinning at her. “Jumping down elevator shafts? This is nothing, you should’ve seen me back then – Bucky nearly had a heart attack whenever I went out on the field.” At least, that was the joke, and the reason Bucky always hugged him so tightly it cut off his air when he came back. Away from prying eyes, of course. “You would say that,” he said, flashing her a smirk. “But right now, I think you’re right. There’s definitely something down here.”

When they landed, it was dark, cold, empty. More like a cave than a facility, even with walls and a floor. He sensed it, too, that presence lurking somewhere in the shadow, just beyond the reach of her light. Steve grabbed the shield, positioning himself in front of her, but then she said they should split up. “All right,” he said, following her lead on this one. “I’ll take that way,” he said, pointing left. “You take right. We meet back here in fifteen, agreed?” He met her eyes, firm and steady. “Don’t take them on alone, okay? You see someone, you come back. I’ll do the same,” he promised. 

If they had been standing on solid ground, Sharon would have rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm, but as it was, she allowed a sound from the back of her throat to suffice. “Rebellious,” she said, though she wasn’t entirely sure that was the right word to use. Excited, perhaps. Invigorated. The fact that she was part of the reason he was feeling that, a reminder that they were both alive, both people, both ‘not empty’ just like he had said all that time ago. It had been only a year, at most, but it felt as if it had been a century. So many things had changed, but others had stayed the same.

Sharon nodded and then, realising that the darkness may have hidden that, said, “Sounds like a plan, Captain.” She lifted her watch up, allowing it to illuminate the path that she was about to take, scanning it for any kind of danger. Peanut didn’t pick up on anything, though its signal was definitely wavering, interference preventing it from searching the area completely thoroughly. “Yeah. We’re in this together, right?” Sharon said, even though she knew somewhere deep down, instinct perhaps, that if she saw someone who had been involved with those bastards, she would punch them in the face.

She walked forward with purpose, not hesitating for a moment. The corridor seemed to go on for an age, and she was inclined to look down at the watch, but Peanut would go off when the fifteen minutes was off. Sharon didn’t bother to look back, either - it wasn’t in her style, and it would only affect her gut if she saw how far the darkness was behind her. Eventually, she reached the end of the corridor. A door stood in front of her, and upon further inspection, she found it was locked. Without stopping to think about whether she should return, she picked the lock and went into the room, purposefully keeping the door open.

Of course, her life was a mess, and so the wind from the corridor behind her slammed the door shut. Sharon went for it as quickly as she could, but it was closed before she could turn around, locked once again, and there was no way to pick it from the other side. “How is that even possible?” she muttered, mostly to herself. She sighed, looking down at Peanut, who was now completely offline. “Great,” she said. She turned around, and that was when she saw a figure at the other side of the room, shrouded in shadows, outlined with an almost fluorescent green.

It wasn’t a glamorous life, at least not the way he lived it. (Hogarth on the other hand – that woman made every court room look like a runway. Was that a sexist thought? He wasn’t sure.) But Foggy had never wanted glamour, or fame – though he wouldn’t mind a little bit of fortune. Just enough. Truthfully, he’d gone into law because it was challenging, because it was hard, because no one in his family had ever done it before. And it was tedious and technical at times, but he lived for that. There was nothing like standing up in court, fully prepared, and ready to blow everyone away – not because he was glamorous or heroic, but because he had worked hard on very boring material. Not everyone could do that, Sharon was proof. Her strengths lay elsewhere, he couldn’t really imagine her as a lawyer, or as a lawyer’s wife for that matter. She was too much her own person. 

“Well, you see, I also like to eat,” Foggy said, smiling at her. “And I’m not getting paid in pies and bananas anymore – which is not something I thought I’d miss, but…” He shrugged, and the smile on his face turned bittersweet. The days of Nelson & Murdock were even less glamorous than working here, but they had been precious in a way he couldn’t grasp at the time. Maybe because he’d never imagined them ending the way they did. “Besides, I’m making do with my grandpappy’s old watch,” he said, holding up his wrist. It was nothing special, but the back was engraved with his grandfather’s name, his father’s name, and now his. Maybe one day, he’d get to pass it on, too. 

His smile grew wider when Sharon conceded, and he nudged her arm a little. “See? Can’t pull a fast one on me, my darling,” he quipped. It was rare to see Sharon discomposed like this, and frankly, he was enjoying it a little. Mostly because, it was a sign this ‘thing’ really meant something to her. “All right, all right, no background checks. He’ll never find out about the car in the pool, or the numerous citations for underage drinking,” he teased. “But if this ‘thing’ gets serious, you gotta tell me,” he said quietly. “I mean, I am your husband.” That joke wasn’t going to get old anytime soon.

“To not screwing up,” he agreed, toasting with his empty glass. He set it aside, and laughed with her. “Shouldn’t you know that better than me? I mean, your cousin is like, the leader of the Avengers, right? Or is that the Star Spangled dude?” he asked, running a hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “It was a very harrowing experience, but I took him out to Josie’s afterwards. You know, as a thank you. He’s a pretty chill guy, ya know – for someone who faces down aliens and stuff.” He placed a hand over his chest in mock-affront. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of being a liar. I’m totally honest, there’s legal precedent proving it – source, I’m a lawyer, Sharon. A lawyer. We never lie.” 

The fact that Sharon’s days in SHIELD were the simplest of her life was something that could almost be laughed at for its irony. Back then, it seemed as if every decision she made was something that could be questioned from an ethical perspective. Some agents cared more about that than others, who were more concerned with efficiency than anything else. When SHIELD fell, Sharon had been sent scrambling along with the rest of the agents that had dedicated their lives to the service. She had joined the CIA, choosing them out of all the offers presented to her, and had spent a considerable amount of time with them before moving to the Avengers, and then helping Nat and Daisy to lead up the Panel. Her jobs were difficult, they were time consuming, and it was getting more and more difficult to maintain a secret identity, but she had always been capable of shouldering great weights before, and nothing had changed.

“You could always ask your clients to change their currency. I’m sure your fees now would be more than enough to get you more than a few apple pies for each happy client made.” It didn’t take a genius - or a superspy, all things considered - to work out what Foggy was really missing, and it wasn’t the additions to his waistline. Nelson and Murdock had meant something, had meant everything to her friend at one stage, and if Sharon didn’t hate Matt Murdock already out of loyalty alone, she would hate him for this. “It is one hell of a watch,” Sharon said. She pulled out the coin necklace that she always kept tucked down her collar. “We’re twins.” Peggy was with her every moment of the day, even now.

Sharon laughed, unable to hold herself back in this circumstance. “Oh hubby,” she said, “you would be surprised by how much I can manage to pull over on you.” She said it lightly enough that there was no seriousness to it whatsoever, even if the truth was present in every word. She had been good at that for a long time, peppering lies and truth into conversations so casually that people didn’t know where they stood. “The car in the pool is a great story, and one I stand by.” Serious was a word that typically made Sharon literally break out in hives, and she pushed Foggy gently because of it. “You know I hate that word,” she said, shuddering at the thought. “You’ll be the first to know if hell freezes over, okay?”

“Intergalactic threats never really stop, y’know? Doesn’t leave a whole lotta time for information sharing, I doubt they ever really had a whole lot–just wanted people like Thanos to think they did.” He shrugs his shoulders, taps his fingers against his helmet. “I never really thought that was the best call, but I’m pretty biased, being human and all.” His loyalties were always going to be somewhat split–it had been a concern when he had first been called to Xandar, it would have been easy for him to devote his time and power to exclusively protecting his home world. But the darkness between stars, the pull of gravity from a planet in need of protection–that had been more of a home than any four walls on Long Island had ever been. And after learning about all of the bureaucratic red tape that had gotten thrown up with the Accords and Doom after he had died, he had better understood why the Nova Prime before him had been–hesitant, to share their capabilities with Earth law enforcement agencies, agencies exactly like SHIELD. 

“No, it really isn’t.” He says simply, shrugs his shoulders again. “And you should be grateful you don’t know about it, means we did our job.” He sighs when she asks him if he has any sort of insight as to what’s going on with the city, worries his bottom lip between his teeth. The closest thing he has to experience with any of this is the Cancerverse–but that door had opened itself, had been a tear threatening to spill something out of it, not keep something in. And he’d only been able to close it by using almost all of the Nova Force the Worldmind could give him and the power of an infinity stone–and it had killed him. He can’t–he can’t go through that again. “I’ve seen alternate dimensions before, even been in them, but there’s always been a kind of door of some kind–the universe follows certain rules y’know? Things tear, people need a way to get in and out.” 

Sharon remembered the days when reveals such as Nick Fury’s various outposts in space had come as enough of a shock to the system to slow her down for a week or more. Now, hearing about alien cows invading the city or Skrulls replacing some of the most important people in New York rolled like water off a duck’s back. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely healthy to be unphased by absolutely everything, but it was a good way to ensure her survival on a team with demigods and billionaires in metal suits, so Sharon wasn’t fighting back against it. “I imagine there weren’t many humans on the force, huh?” Sharon asked, curious as she always was when it came to foreign army forces. “From what I’ve heard, space is much fonder of their giant green dictators than Earth is. Accountability tends to go with that.”

Control. Every goddamn problem in her life came down to control – or lack of it. The accident she caused. Kilgrave. Trish’s death. It shouldn’t have surprised her, this IGH shit. To learn that something else had taken control from her, stolen twenty days from her life, caused who knows how much shit exactly. But that’s the part that scared her. Not knowing.

For a long time, she thought she was better off in the dark. Keeping certain doors closed tight. Her family’s ashes were sitting in the bottom of her closet because she couldn’t even think about scattering them somewhere. Closure never meant what you thought it did, never looked like it was supposed to. When Sharon came to her that first day, with that list, her name in bold under ‘patients’ (which really meant experiments, if her suspicions were correct), a door had been thrown open. She couldn’t shut it again, not until she knew. But she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach, a nauseating feeling that she couldn’t even blame on whiskey – this wasn’t going to end well. 

“Is that a nice way of saying bitch?” she asked casually. The black hole inside her was growing bigger the closer they got to the shore. Malus’ house did look like the typical place a rich dickhead would rent for the summer. But this time, she wasn’t sneaking onto the property to get some choice softcore porn for a case. This time it was personal, which went against her one goddamn professional rule. “So paranoia is a Stark family trait,” she muttered. She couldn’t have hid her irritation at the mention of Howard even if she wanted to, not tonight. Her nerves were shot already – which made it a good thing she brought Sharon along. At least, she hoped so. “Do you like, actively avoid anything normal?” she asked, glancing back. Sharon looked confident behind the boat’s controls, her hair blowing in the slight breeze they kicked up. Like she was ready for anything. All Jessica could do was hope that was true, that it wasn’t a monumental mistake bringing her along. If anything happened… Christ. This personal shit was making her paranoid and sappy.

The sand didn’t feel right under feet, but then, maybe that was just a side effect of being in an alternate dimension. She didn’t want to think about what it meant that Malus was so close after all these years, that she was ‘lucky’ enough to have him transported here, too. (Was he keeping tabs on her? Watching his little test-tube project screw up?) Jessica hovered over Sharon and her tech, keeping herself hidden behind the boat itself while she stared at the house. It looked so normal. She could see a fire pit and a backyard, goddamn laundry on the line. Did he have a wife? Kids? (No playground though – probably not. Even now, she was still a P.I. more than a hero.)

“Then we don’t have any time to lose,” Jessica pointed out, marching forward. She didn’t bother with cover or staying low. She almost wanted him to know she was coming, that she was finally here. “Front door looks pretty good to me,” she announced, crossing the lawn in long strides. She walked right up, and paused a moment to look around. No security, no death bots. (Christ, she’d hung around Tony too long.) With a single, decisive kick, she sent the door falling.

It landed with a dull thud, but there was no other noise inside the house. Jessica glanced at Sharon, then stepped over the threshold. Inside, everything looked even more normal. There were dishes in the sink. A couple of used glasses sitting next to a bottle of sangria. Books and a telescope, a throw blanket over the couch. “What the hell kind of evil scientist has decorative pillows?” she muttered, picking one up and turning it over in her hands. This wasn’t what she expected, not at all. She moved to set the pillow down, and that’s when she heard the thump. Coming from the floorboards. “Basement,” she murmured, moving hurriedly to find a way down there. 

When new recruits came into SHIELD Academy, they did so with many misconceptions that had to be addressed within the first few days. Sharon was the agent put in charge of training those that came in, and when she stood in front of them, the first thing she said was not that espionage and emotions couldn’t go together. What she said instead was that being an agent, fighting for the world at large even when they didn’t know who you were or what your name was, required courage. It required bravery, and determination. All of those things were borne out of knowing that what you were fighting for was something that was good and just. You needed to have faith, you needed to believe in what you were doing.

Passion was what had spurred Sharon and many other junior agents on, but she knew that as they rose through the ranks, they would face other challenges. They would have missions that would make the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end. They would go against everything they set out to do, but they would do it because they had orders, and they knew that ultimately, it would lead to something good. Like growing up, everything would be flipped on its head, the truth would be revealed, and they would discover that even in the truth, there were dark corners.

This was something in between. Emotion, passion, was a driver, but the real reason they were here wasn’t because they wanted to be, it was because they needed to be. Jessica needed to fill in that time, needed to get those answers, needed to chase down the people that had made her into what she was, at least physically. Her body had been someone else’s for so long that she needed to get it back entirely, not only partly. “If I wanted to say you were being a bitch, I’d say you were being a bitch,” Sharon said, “bitch.” She nodded, meeting Jessica’s gaze as if to agree with what she knew her friend was thinking. “On my good days. Actually -- yeah. I do.”

Jessica was a PI, she was well adept at crossing boundaries and not trusting what was presented on the surface. For that reason, Sharon was not hesitant to follow her through, trusted in her judgement, especially when Peanut was backing up everything that she was doing with fact. “Evil scientists are still people,” Sharon said, turning to look at the photographs sitting on the mantelpiece, detailing a family life that people like this didn’t deserve to have. The thump knocked through the room, and Sharon turned to look at Jessica.

@agcntcxrter

Well, she was right. This thing had gone to shit pretty goddamn quick. It was hard to feel vindicated though, when the second Doom stepped off the stage, the frenzy started. She had lived in New York all her life, she knew how to read a crowd, and this one? Was about to lose its ever-loving shit.

The crowd surged in every direction, a thousand people moving at once. All of them pissed off. People were screaming, yelling, shouting – it was hard to discern anything specific. But the panic was clear. It was time to leave, and in a goddamn hurry. Jessica stepped back, stumbled over the feet of someone behind her. “Sorry,” she muttered, barely audible. She tried to push past them, but they grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around.

She barley had time to process her (typical) rage at being grabbed, because the guy holding her was wide-eyed, his entire face red and screwed up in his own fury. “You’re one of them!” he shouted, drawing the attention of several people around them. “I know you, I read about you. You’re one of those freaks, but I don’t see your name up on that list, Jessica Jones!” Jessica yanked her arm out of his grasp, but she was surrounded, the people around her pressing in tight, cutting off any escape. 

“Why the hell aren’t you helping us?” someone else asked. Jessica opened her mouth to answer – something pithy, like well, you just called me a goddamn freak – but she didn’t get the chance. Everyone was talking at once, screaming at her from every direction. Her head whipped around, desperate to find something, anything, some way out of this. Then she saw the familiar face, a face she happened to have been avoiding currently, and she bit her lip. Her eyes locked onto Sharon’s, and even if she couldn’t say the words, she was screaming them silently. Help me. 

A few years ago, Hill or Fury would have been in Sharon’s ear telling her to get the hell out of dodge, and she would have listened to them. She would have disappeared into the crowd, pulled a coat off the racks to hide herself behind, and returned to a safehouse to regroup before going back undercover. Now, though, she could actually do what she had always wanted to do back then - she could stand and fight. Sometimes that didn’t mean a simple fight like punching a bad guy in the face, sometimes it meant speaking up when the party was swelling to a crescendo, and Sharon wasn’t afraid to do just that.

Seconds after she finished attempting - and failing - to give a speech that inspired people to accept each other and calm the hell down, Sharon turned to look for Doom. True to form, the man had left the party, and if that didn’t say something about his motivations in regard to this reveal then nothing did.

Across the crowd, she met Jessica’s eyes, and that was when she realised the group that was forming around her friend. Her immediate response was to go in there and break the nose of the guy that had grabbed her arm, but she knew that she was in a position of power, and people would be looking to her. Instead of getting blood on her seriously expensive dress, Sharon pushed her way into the crowd, deliberately banging her shoulders against them as she walked in.

Bruce grinned behind bleary eyes, sardonically raising his half empty glass in a toast. “Late and chaotic nights are my forte. That’s what the tabloids say anyway.” He knocked back the rest of the drink, shaking his head in an attempt to rouse himself. He was surprised at how tired he felt: he could hit the streets night after night in his cowl, but one evening that took an unexpected turn, combined with an argument with Tony, had left him utterly drained. 

Resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t going home any time soon, he got up and moved down to the end of the bard to sit with her. “Bruce Wayne.” He offered his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.” Bruce Wayne certainly hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Agent 13, but Batman would have been remiss in his duty if he hadn’t done his due diligence before coming to Gotham. Indeed, he’d bee surprised at how little of a trace he’d been able to dig up on her, not even a real name. The Panel, at least, took secrecy seriously. “You’re not like a… human fireball or something, are you? Or a wizard, or something like that? I don’t want to get burned or something by being near you.” He motioned for another from the weary-looking bartender. “Shaking hands with people is a lot more dangerous than it used to be.” He glanced over his shoulder, making sure they were alone. “Clearly trust itself is a little too much to ask anyway, these days.” The words were bitter in his mouth. “If you’ll excuse the generalisation.”

“What the tabloids say,” Sharon repeated, looking up from her glass to the man in front of her. Her time with the Starks as a child had taught her enough to know that the headlines rarely gave the full picture, twisted things to their own purposes, and hid the true darkness from view. Scandal was one thing, but disrepute against a business owner was another thing entirely. “I’m guessing the truth is a little different, then? At least tonight.”

“Fuck,” Lois said under her breath when a list full of names, some names of people she knew personally and adored — appeared at Doom’s whim. To her right stood Sharon and so Lois nudged her gently. “What now?” It was such a loaded question but she couldn’t keep herself from asking it. Sharon had a level headed and she cared about her position on the panel, Lo felt like she, or Tasha, of course, would be the person to ask.

“Do you think there will be retaliation?”

@agcntcxrter

“Shit,” Sharon muttered, a split second before the list appeared on screen, and the party descended into chaos. A large part of espionage involved predicting the future, trying to work out what your opponent’s next step would be, and Sharon had missed this one until a split second before it happened. “I feel like most smart people are leaving,” Sharon commented, looking at the half of the crowd that made for the exit, “but people rely on the Panel, so if I can try to calm the crowd - with your help - that might be best.”

(✉ → Sharon): It is a traditional sort of holiday, right? I’ll be wearing my hat and sunglasses at night, does that count as my brand?  (✉ → Sharon): … Then I’m definitely being ironic. I do not want to be on the other end of your fists.  (✉ → Sharon): In the middle, I’ll take that. That’s perfect. (✉ → Sharon): Oh no, I’ve made the mistake of missing out on a Carter dance before. Not doing that again. Unless, of course, you don’t want me for your partner.  (✉ → Sharon): Practicality, mostly. When I was a kid, there were better things to spend money on, and today, there’s more important fights to have.  (✉ → Sharon): They dance in clubs now? As long as you don’t mind me stepping on your feet, I think that’s a good plan. 

it never ceases to amaze him the way humans often to operate, not that he can entirely separate himself from the species having grown up here, learned their ways, adopted their techniques, even brush-stroking himself as more average guy than most would, but the way they shine in their own atmospheres, the way a certain spectrum of light curls around their bodies when they are in their own element, colors them kaleidoscopes, always gives him a sense of lightness, a sense of awe. they call him a hero but he calls them an inspiration, wishing he could somehow impart back to them the way they glow, either in happiness or pride, when someone is confident and secure, brimming with luminescence and a strength of character clark always wants to radiate himself; in his mind, once again, he only absorbs the sunlight and reflects it to the best of his abilities.

and here is agent 13, all five foot five inches of her, shining in that special way only people who have earned their place in the world tend to do, her jaw straight, her eyes forward, her handshake steady and sturdy in his grasp as they touch, and it shifts his polite smile into something more genuine. he takes a seat opposite her, quick to rummage through his bag on the floor to pull out and set up the mini voice recorder, flipping it on, as well as a good old-fashioned notebook and pen– never one for ditching well-used, well-proven techniques for the tides of technology. anyone with a smartphone and a brain could write word-for-word interviews, but it takes something a little extra to be a good reporter, it takes cognizance and ascertainment to weave threads of events together in ways that people would actually want to read, and clark has found this is the best method he knows to do that.

at her suggestion though, he does pause a second to soak in the delivery of a first name, the hint of the secret, the irony of it all, and then chuckle slightly, quick to nod and duck his gaze, her double meaning not entirely lost on him despite how innocent he might appear. “it’s definitely been a whirlwind, i’m doing my best to keep on top of the chaos. no worries then, ma’am, i’ll only have you written down as agent 13. that does actually bring me to my first line of questions though, in regards to the accords, and what your viewpoints on that really are, given that your own identity is a secret. would you consider yourself an advocate for registering and listing, despite wanting to remain secret?” he tries to keep his tone as conversational as possible, his baritone light, his lips still curled at the edges, his hunger for truth leaking out of him like an overflowing cup and he can’t help himself from leaning forward slightly as he asks, as though they’re old friends.

In another life, perhaps, Sharon would have liked to be a journalist. It fit in exactly with what she was trying to accomplish on a daily basis as it was, after all, the pursuit of truth, to show people the information that everyone else was desperately trying to hide, to allow them to form their own opinion. As it was, her time in SHIELD and the CIA, amongst the other agencies that she worked in throughout the years, had shown her that the grand majority of journalists were people who she needed to avoid, lest they blow the entire operation out of the water or put false information out there. If more journalists were like Karen Page or Clark Kent, though, Sharon had a feeling opinion would be different surrounding them.

There was something genuine about him, that was the first thing she noticed. A long time ago she had been commended on her ability to pick up little details about a person, to put them together to form an entire picture of what they were, who they could be, who they had been. The way that Clark tapped his pen against the notebook as if he enjoyed hearing the sound of it, how he settled back into the chair with more comfort when the smile on his face became brighter, the subtle ways he attempted to make himself seem smaller. It reminded her of Steve in many ways, though she was trying to prevent herself from thinking about him too intently. Good people didn’t make noise about being good people, and good reporters didn’t need to boast - their words on the page spoke for them. Sharon was interested to see what he would write about her.

Steve had a lot of experience with grief. They were surrounded by it back in his day, the ones back home sick with it. (The ones who had men over there, anyway. The ones who didn’t forgot what it meant, what those numbers in the news were really saying.) Some people, grief tore ‘em open. Left them exposed and vulnerable, the obvious pain too tragic to watch, too astounding to look away from. The women who fainted when they got the news of their fathers, their husbands, their sons or brothers. But that was never what grief did to Steve. Not when his mother died, slow and painful, too ragged by the end to even open her eyes all the way. Not when Bucky fell, fell past his fingertips, into the snow below, as if the mountains themselves had swallowed him whole. 

No, grief for Steve meant closing in. Doubling down on his goals, refusing to feel anything but determination and righteous fury, (and a desperate desire to get drunk that would never be sated). When he heard the news of Peggy, just as the Registration Act was at the forefront of his and every enhanced person’s mind, he expected the same thing to happen. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could feel the steel forming, the resolve preparing to settle over his skeleton, but right now… he just felt small. 

He felt small next to Peggy Carter, smaller than he’d ever been in the past. And it wasn’t because of the legend of her – though that was certainly nothing to sneeze at. No, it was because of the life of her. The life that continued past the war, past all that grief. The life that was still continuing on now, through Sharon, through all these people she had touched and loved and cared for. Including him. He was just a small, small part of the web she had woven, the intricate design something he would never truly understand. 

Maybe it was because he was imagining himself interwoven with all these strangers, but he didn’t feel himself closing down. He wasn’t swallowing down his pain, pretending it wasn’t there in favor of more aggressive emotion. Instead, he was even smiling, and Sharon’s hand was on his arm, keeping him connected to the present. Like an anchor, when he didn’t even realize he needed one. “It’s hard,” he echoed back. “But it’s… it’s good, too. Things should move on. Some things should end, so something else can take their place. The world’s supposed to change, ya know?” He hoped he was making sense, that opening himself up to this grief hadn’t scrambled his brain beyond even super-serum repair.

No one is lost forever. He liked to believe it, but some days, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure he’d find a way to bring Bucky back – mostly because some days, he wasn’t sure that he wasn’t lost. But Sharon’s words reaffirmed his faith, because the war was always harder if you had to fight it on your own. “That goes both ways,” he reminded her, just in case she somehow forgot. She had already made so many of his battles easier to win, he wasn’t about to leave her to fight hers all alone. 

“You did,” he replied, without thinking. He blinked rapidly, and then tried desperately to think of a way to backtrack. “I mean, you did visit his headstone. Right?” It was very, very desperate, but it was the best he could come up under pressure. He rubbed the back of his neck, turning his head and catching her gaze. She was joking, but her eyes weren’t. And he didn’t know how to ask about it, whether there was even a question there. Instead he just nodded once. “Still seems unbelievable,” he said softly. Truthfully, he wished people would stop coming back from the dead, or pretending to be dead – it gave him false hope every time. And sometimes, there was no miracle. No last minute twist. Just the cold, hard truth.

But the truth wasn’t always as simple and concrete as death. He didn’t know if Tony’s belief about heroes was more true than his own. He didn’t know if he pulled his hand away, or if Sharon’s fingers never quite reached it. He didn’t know if what she saw when she looked at him was true, but he wanted it to be. Maybe that was enough, for a leap of faith at least. He swallowed hard, and nodded to her. His eyes fell down to his hands, and he just listened, to the cadence of her voice, the wisdom in her words. “You told that story about her,” he said quietly. “Her advice about compromise, and planting yourself like a tree when you can’t,” he breathed. He had never heard Peggy say the words, but when Sharon said no you move, he could’ve sworn there was more than one voice. He looked up at Sharon now, that determination finally surging through his veins. “I think it’s time for us both to make a stance. Do what’s right. Carry on her legacy of sticking up for what you believe in.” He paused a moment, then reached out and gently placed a hand over Sharon’s. “You don’t need to prove anything. But this will be a hell of a lot easier with you on my side.” He almost said by my side, but stopped himself just in time.

Sharon knew a little more about grief than the next person. SHIELD was filled with it, new recruits falling on their first mission, her first love along with them. Her family were all agents, and that meant that when they died, they died doing something that was worth dying for, whether their family could hear the specific details of that or not. Death was seen as something honourable, as something worth being revered, as something that was the best possible end to an agent’s life. People like the Carters, they didn’t get retirement. They didn’t get a white picket fence, a nice house with cheap insurance, kids that grew up well adjusted. They got war and fire and brimstone in their veins, and it burned hot until it burned out. Sharon saw the same thing in Steve, felt it in his every movement. He didn’t give up, didn’t give in, would never stop until the war was won, and the war would never be over.

This, though, this was different. Sharon had lost people before. She had mourned for them in the way that most agents mourned - she got angry, she shot things (and people), she got revenge, she carried on the legacy. Peggy, though, was her hero. She was untouchable. She was her mother, in all ways that mattered. Peggy Carter had raised her into the person that she was today, and most times, Sharon loved that person. She was grateful for her. Watching Peggy fade away, seeing how her memory faltered, was painful enough, so painful that she expected her death to feel like a relief.

It didn’t. It just felt empty. Someone had reached into her chest and pulled whatever was left of her heart out of it, had stepped it into the pavement, or thrown it into the ground with her aunt’s coffin. Her family, the family that had been betrayed and divided by SHIELD’s fall, wouldn’t meet her eyes. Her father barely remembered who he was. Her mother had always been more complicated a relationship than most. She had no siblings, no cousins that she still spoke to often, no one but Steve Rogers, the man out of time, the only person perhaps who understood what it felt like to lose the sun and keep on pretending that there was light at the end of the tunnel anyway.

Sharon couldn’t give up. She knew that the grief would pass. But yet, at that moment, it felt as if Peggy had taken everything good and bright and worth fighting for with her. It made Sharon feel sick to imagine a world without her, how she would go on without her advice, or a listening ear. She had friends, she had family in the form of her team, but Peggy would still be gone. There was no replacing that. “Not all change is good,” Sharon said lowly. She looked up at Steve, searching his face for something. “Does it get easier?” It wasn’t fair, asking him this. All she had lost was one person - he had lost an entire world, an entire time. “Feeling … empty?”

She told herself it was because it was her aunt’s funeral. Because she was back in London, surrounded by memories of her less than happy childhood, because SHIELD had fallen and even the Avengers seemed as if they were about to split right down the middle. The truth was, though, that she felt comfortable with Steve, safe in a way that belied the danger in the world. He only reaffirmed that with what he said. “I’ve got you on speed dial,” Sharon said, a small smile on her face. “You better pick up if I call, Rogers. We have scales to even up.”

Then, in the midst of all that emptiness, there was a small flicker of something in her chest, in her gut. At least, there was, until Steve kept talking, and Sharon swallowed back what she had been about to say (which was what, exactly? She was at Peggy’s funeral, for Christ’s sake). “Yeah, I did. The path of a righteous man. He really hammered it home with his epitaph, huh? He couldn’t have picked something simple. Suppose it fits the kind of guy who wore a glorified cape.” Nick would argue that, but Sharon had seen his coat blowing in the wind. It was a cape, comparable to Thor’s. Everyone knew it.

It started with the months on stage. The beginning of ‘Captain’ America was nothing more than a propaganda push. They didn’t need a soldier there, or even a real person. No one was looking at him, they were looking at an idea. The perfect American, the ideal, the dream. It was different, when he got to the front, after he proved himself and got to join the real battle. But even then, so many people looked at him and saw the stories, the fame, the victories he and the Howlies snatched from defeat. The only people who looked at him and saw Steve, the person behind the mask, were Bucky, and Peggy. One of them was brainwashed, the other was dead, and for a moment, Steve wondered if anyone would ever look at him like a real person again.

Then he met her. Even when she was ‘Katie,’ and his invisible body guard, she had looked at him and it felt different. Felt right. He pretended not to notice, because he didn’t know how to approach her. What would he have said? Do you see me? It sounded bad even in his head. “Well, don’t know about that,” he said, smirking a little, shuffling in his seat. “Bucky could be real charming when he wanted. Dugan, too. They’d fight over which one of them the girls were smiling at.” Little moments of normalcy in the middle of the chaos raging around them. There weren’t many, or many girls smiling, which made each one all the more precious. He arched a brow at her story and his eyes instinctively looked for the tell-tale signs. “Looks like she wasn’t wrong,” he said, smiling at her. “But nothing wrong with that, right?” he asked, tapping the side of his own nose, which had the bump to prove that not even super-soldier serum could fix everything.

“On missions,” Steve repeated. “Of course.” He could practically hear Tony’s groan of annoyance, see Bucky shaking his head in disbelief. (The old Bucky anyway – maybe the new Bucky was different, like everything else). But Steve was grateful just to hear her say they made a good team. Just to look at her eyes and see someone staring right back. He was Captain America, the dream of so many, and she was Agent 13, the nightmare of many others, but right now, they were just people. Real, tangible, human – for better or worse. “A great team,” he agreed, smiling softly. “Trust me, I know. Nothing worth having does,” he said. Her trust in him? That was one of the greatest assets he had, one of the most powerful weapons in his arsenal. “And when it comes to a fight, I’d take your services over just about anything else.” Forget guns and shields, he’d rather have Sharon Carter standing next to him. She had been so many things, wore so many disguises, but when he looked at her, he only saw one thing: a hero. 

If Fury had been presenting the protection detail of Steve Rogers to any other agent in the facility, he would have hammed up the fact that they would be working in close proximity to Captain America. Hell, they would basically be working with him, if they played their cards right, the only catch being that the man himself would have no idea. With Sharon, Nick hadn’t tried any of that - thank God. He knew about her family’s history, believed in her in a way that few others did, and that meant that he just had to nod at her, slide the file over the desk and trust that she would get the job done. Sharon doubted he had envisioned her being an instrumental part of saving his own life, but maybe he had. Nick Fury had always been perceptive, a visionary, and his loss continued even if she knew he was not dead.

Sharon had known that she wasn’t working with Rogers. She was protecting him. She was seeing who he was under the mask, and maybe if she hadn't been working, she would’ve liked that enough to say yes to that coffee. Now, though, she was a part of his team. She was with the Avengers, she was heading up the Panel, she had so many new roles that she was spending every day trying to get to grips with them, and being part of Steve’s life wasn’t one of them. It came naturally. “I bet he could,” she teased. “Tall, dark and brooding. And Dugan, with that mustache? No woman could resist him. He used to be the main attraction at my birthday parties.” Sharon grinned, and without thinking too much about it, reached out to touch against where Steve was gesturing. “That’s some insane scar tissue, though,” she said. “That nose couldn’t be broken by the Rhino, now. We could call you Captain Nose, instead.”

Once a soldier, always a soldier. It was something Sam had said once, during one of those sessions Steve definitely didn’t attend, but listened to from the hallway. Sometimes, it was said in mourning, to talk about how hard it was to adjust to a civilian life after the fact. You got used to the routine of army life, got used to getting orders, only worrying about completing them. (And occasionally, whether you’d die.) But sometimes, it was said as a triumph, a battle cry. Because once you were a soldier, you couldn’t just walk away from something that needed to be done. Steve might not have been taking orders anymore, but he was still fighting for the ideals of his country. 

And his friends. Though he was certain Bucky would claim Sharon was on the edge of being something more than a friend. Steve was more terrified of that prospect than of anything they might find down in this basement. Enemies were easy. It was love that was hard. 

He felt himself flush, but luckily the darkness hid that for the most part. He glanced back at her, shaking his head slowly. A part of him wanted to ask about her leg again, wanted to abort the mission now while they still could – but this was Sharon’s call. She was no damsel in distress, she caused the distress, and Steve wasn’t about to treat her like she was made of glass. That was the only choice Peggy would’ve approved of, he knew that. 

The air rushing up from the elevator shaft smelled stale, but had an almost sterile scent to it. Steve’s brows furrowed as Sharon tossed the canister in. “That’s a long drop,” he noted, but that didn’t stop him from leaping onto the cables. “But at least we know there’s an end to it somewhere,” he said, grinning at her.

“Common sense?” he suggested, but she was already stepping back. She took a running leap, and he stretched out a hand, just in case she needed it – but of course, this was Sharon Carter. She managed to make the jump and put herself in the lead position all in one smooth motion. “Or woman,” he added, sliding down so he was side by side with her. “Some things have definitely changed for the better.” He smiled at her once, made sure the shield was secure, then slowly started to lower himself downward, into the dark below. 

It was somewhat ironic that for the number of years that Sharon had been looking into Leviathan, tracking their every possible movement, predicting where they would go next (something that proved ultimately impossible), she would choose now, when the city was suspended in another dimension, to look into it more tangibly, to follow physical evidence and get her hands on a piece of her family’s shadowy history. Perhaps it was because New York in itself was a world now, and that the city being separate allowed her to narrow it down, think of a definitive place to start. The world was so wide, smaller than people thought but still impossible to entirely navigate, and by narrowing that world down, it made it bearable.

Having Steve beside her made it a whole lot more bearable as well, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Since Peggy’s funeral - since before that, since before he knew her real name or even what she was doing across the hall from him - he had felt like family, like someone she could rely on, something solid to lean against. Sharon had never needed that, had always thrown herself headfirst into danger whether she was alone or in a team, but sometimes, it was nice to just want something. She wasn’t going to deny herself that entirely.

“I like seeing you like this,” Sharon teased, seeing the glint of his grin in the darkness, matching it with one of her own. “Overrated. Instinct works a hell of a lot better, and right now, I say we’re onto something.” Sharon looped her leg around the cable, using it as a winch to lower herself down. Her feet touched the uneven ground, wet and damp from years of disuse, but something told her they weren’t alone down here. Sharon touched the watch around her wrist, and the holographic display lightly bathed the corridor in blue light.

Running the Panel was an honour that Sharon had been grateful to accept, but that didn’t mean it didn’t come with its challenges. People still had a bitter taste in their mouth regarding registration of those with enhanced abilities and undoubtedly would have for the foreseeable future, remembering how it tore their teams of heroes apart mere months before. Doom, though, was entirely separate to the Panel, going so far as to refuse to meet with any of the three leaders. That in itself was enough to make Sharon suspicious of the man, as if his name hadn’t been enough of a giveaway. Her identity was secret, she was known only as Agent 13 to the public, and that meant that she was in a unique position in order to try and discover what was going on with the president. Tonight had seemed like the perfect opportunity to achieve that, but well laid plans rarely panned out that way.

After trying, and failing, to gain the attention of the masses that had remained after Doom’s reveal, Sharon begrudgingly returned to the empty bar, poured herself a drink, and took a seat on one of the stools. Tomorrow she would meet with Natasha and Daisy again and discuss potential ways in order to relieve the situation, but tonight, she had earned a moment to digest all that had happened.

Of course, she didn’t have to be alone to achieve that. On the other end of the bar she spotted Bruce Wayne, who was almost impossible not to place immediately. She knew of him through Tony, but had never spoken to the man directly, nor was she entirely convinced he knew her name. Agent 13, perhaps, was the extent of it. “I think we all deserve a stiff drink after that party,” Sharon said, a small smile on her face as she turned around to the man. “You’re one of the last here. Not so easily dissuaded by a little bit of chaos, huh?”