ok, hear me out: an Agents of Shield (esp FitzSimmons and Static/Quake)/Calamity Jane (the Doris Day musical version) AU set in the Firefly/Serenity Universe
Daisy Johnson, known to all on the independent planet of Deadwood as Calamity Quake, is a walking disaster in a dangerous ‘Verse. She’s rough as guts, armed to the teeth and deadly to the roaming enemy (Hydra? Kree? take your pick…) while simultaneously being awkward, clueless and clumsy to the point that she’s a danger to herself and others. Despite her prickly exterior, she yearns for the refinement and softness she’s never had a chance to know and, in her mind, the person who best encapsulates that sensitivity and gentility is Lieutenant Leopold Fitz, a handsome young soldier, daily risking his life on the wild frontier.
A thorn in her side in her attempts to capture the lieutenant’s attention is Wild Lincoln Campbell, a frontiersman who, while he grudgingly respects Calam’s stupid bravery and daring, finds her an irritating nuisance and regularly entertains himself at her expense.
In their female-starved existence (in which Calamity somehow doesn’t count as a woman) the men yearn for Inara Serra, the ‘Verse-famed companion, and dream of her one day coming to Deadwood to perform for them at their only watering hole, The Golden Garter.
Seizing her opportunity to impress Lieutenant Fitz and clutching only a grainy picture on the back of a cigarette box, Calam strikes out on her own into the ‘Verse, headed for Bai Hu, swearing black and blue that she’ll bring Inara Serra or, so help her, die in the attempt. Campbell is utterly unconvinced, claiming that the day Calamity Quake brings Inarra Serra to Deadwood, he’ll attend the show dressed as a companion himself. The clientele of The Garter hoot with derisive laughter which only serves to steel Daisy’s resolve.
When Calam finally finds the fancy theatre at which Inara Serra has been performing, she barges into the companion’s change room and proposes her plan to the young woman she finds there, not quite filling out the garish costume she’s wearing. She doesn’t seem to look much like the cigarette picture but the young woman swears that she is Inara Serra and so the two of them head back to Deadwood.
On her opening night, true to his word, Wild Lincoln Campbell arrives looking distinctly uncomfortable dressed to honour his bet in companion finery. No one laughs harder than Calam.
But when Inara gets up to perform, it is quickly apparent that something isn’t right. She can sing, that’s apparent, but she doesn’t seem to exude the brash bombasticity that Daisy had imagined. The lady’s voice grows increasingly wobbly until she admits, bursting into tears, that she is not Inara Serra, but in fact just Jemma Simmons, Inara’s maid for the Bai Hu season. Miss Simmons tells of her unrealised desire to sing on the stage and of somewhat dishonestly seizing the opportunity that Calamity presented.
The Garter crowd grumblingly disperses but not before Campbell, unwrapping the lasso that he’d used as a belt for his gown, traps Daisy and hoists her up from the balcony leaving her kicking and screaming.
Daisy and Jemma move in together with Jemma’s “woman’s touch” transforming the dingy, dusty space. Jemma even encourages Calam to tone down her tom-boy exterior in an attempt to help her catch Fitz’s eye. Over the next several months, given a second go to perform as herself this time, Jemma wins the approval and love of the Garter patrons, perhaps especially the admiration of both Wild Lincoln Campbell and, to Daisy’s distress, Lieutenant Fitz. The two men blatantly vie for Jemma’s affection right in front of Calam. The pinnacle of this is the night of the annual ball. Both suitors arrive at Calam’s cabin in the hope of convincing Jemma to go as their date. Jemma, who’s heart has been won by the gentle soldier, tries to convince him to take Calam but he’ll have none of it. By devious means, Lincoln is persuaded to take Calamity.
He’s not expecting much but when Lincoln arrives to pick her up he finds Daisy dressed to the nines in one of Jemma’s gowns looking utterly transformed and maybe even beautiful…
The rest really writes itself until Daisy and Lincoln sing “Now I shout it from the highest hills…” and then there’s a double wedding.
