Anivengers... bc it's all I have energy for lmao. I'm thinkin about how SHIELD coerced Jake into signing his life away to them. Ok I'm mostly rambling some what-if thoughts as I continue to work out a coherent timeline, so bear w me (lmao that's a pun!!!! dem go to sleep oh my god) This is LONG, sorry I gotta figure out what SHIELD was like around 1998/99 when the Yeerk War would have ended- but I'm imagining they haven't had much, if any, contact with aliens. Maybe investigated some shit but never found anything concrete or had any encounters of the first degree (maybe they've seen some Skrit Na?) but the base being when they stumble onto the Yeerk War it's Huge compared to anything they've come across. SHIELD opts to cover it up bc A) it's a hugely unbelievable story on its own, B) they don't think people are ready for this kind of thing and C) they don't think Earth itself is ready to deal w a Galactic Audience just yet like that's just inviting MORE aliens to show up and that's just a bigger mess So SHIELD is in panic mode trying to get whatever information they can, and what they learn is that there are 6 kids out there who are Very Important To The Mission. Cut to the kids who won a war, watched hundreds of allies die and then saw Rachel die and the Blade Ship escape, then went and negotiated peace with the assholes who were going to destroy their planet anyways, and actually got an alliance out of it. They've been awake for at least 24 hours. They're exhausted in all ways possible. They get off the Pool Ship after landing back on earth and are immediately swarmed by SHIELD agents who have taken control of Ground Zero and essentially forced into (separate) locked rooms to be 'interviewed' (it's an interrogation) And yes we all know the Ani kids are tough. They are so strong they are unbelievably strong they make me cry with how much they can endure. But the war is over, here are people saying they can take care of it, and so the kids share everything. Or maybe they all elect/force Jake to talk with SHIELD so they can see their families and just Get Away from their trauma and actually be able to grieve. The war is over and they haven't had time to process anything. Either way, in SHIELD archives is a 16+ hour video of Jake locked in a room talking with an agent about everything the kids had done under his orders, and Jake occasionally pauses or starts crying because he keeps thinking about how he's going to tell his parents about Tom or his Aunt Naomi about Rachel of the 17000 Yeerks he killed because he could, and basically he's a very scared, very traumatized 17yo who SHIELD is very afraid of. Jake is v obviously not in any sort of healthy mental state (and also technically a minor!!!) but the agent coerces Jake into signing an agreement that SHIELD will take care of the Animorphs and their immediate families, and won't bring up any charges against the Animorphs for any of the crimes they've committed, so long as Jake is loyal to them. And bc they can't have a minor as an agent, Jake has a full year of being home and horribly depressed before he's recruited to SHIELD and at first it's a blessing and honestly saves his life bc he's working, doing something again. Jake needs a cause and SHIELD has the best intentions and Jake can get behind that and throws himself into his work. The implications of the agreement don't come until more unsavoury work comes up, until Jake starts to resent the fact that Cassie and Marco are making a life After The War, and he can't, because he's protecting them but he's being a self-sacrificial/self-inflicting hero in suffering alone when he doesn't have to- but he won't figure that out for a while yet. He moved to DC, to the other side of the country, to be closer to SHIELD HQ and away from his friends and family and isolates himself even further and lives that way for years, and eventually convinces himself he's happy, and he is happy. Well, he's not massively depressed bc he doesn't let himself Stop, and he's not hurt that his friends have moved on bc he doesn't talk to them and also he's very good at his job and so if that's happy then Jake is happy, and then he's assigned to be liaison w the Avengers for SHIELD. And that's who Jake is when he meets the Avengers.
