#shieldcarter

Danny didn’t have much in the way of family, but the ones that he did have in his life were… extraordinary. Davos and Joy and Ward had always been rough on her heart, the kind of family that made you wonder if it was worth it, opening yourself up. But then she met Tony and the extended family that Danny had through the Starks and the Carters. She met them and they gave her hope that there was something good out there in the world. That family didn’t have to be the people who tore you down and tried to make you into something that you weren’t. Family could be people who loved you and helped you be a better version of yourself — not the version they wanted you to be.

And Peggy Carter was an extension of that family. (Dead — recently alive. And Colleen tried not to think about the Hand when she put those thoughts together. Tried not to feel sick at the thought of someone waking up a shell of themselves until someone else decided their life and told them lies that would program them to simply follow orders.)

“Thank you,” Colleen offered gently, unsure of what to say to a woman who was getting a second chance at life. “For coming with me, I know Danny would want to come but he would try and make friends with everyone and that’s great and all but…” But they wouldn’t be staying here. They were welcome for a time, but Colleen was sure that there was a timer set somewhere on the island that was counting down until they would be forced out. And she wasn’t sure if Danny could handle that. He was too kind. Too good. The but that hung in the air between them made it sound like Peggy was a second choice, which wasn’t the case at all. Colleen was simply… famously bad with words. But she was desperately trying to make a good impression but struggling to find the right anything to do that with. Words failed and, as if on cue, one of the volunteers threw their paint brush, splattering paint across the wall and part of the floor and he looked at the two of them, like a deer in headlights.

Colleen exhaled deeply, looking at the new, mismatched color on the wall that textured the walls. “It gives it character, I guess?”

“What?” Simon furrowed his brow, glancing over with a quizzical expression. Of course, he didn’t take his eyes off the glowing light in the distance for too long. He was a Green Lantern, and it was kind of his job to pay attention to shit like that. He couldn’t get distracted by everything, no matter how tempting it might be. (And it was. It was very tempting. The world was full of so many distractions. It had been getting Simon into trouble since he was eight.)

Looking back to the light, he squinted and tried to puzzle out what it might be. “How can you not think that’s definitely something? It looks like a tractor beam! There could be aliens abducting someone right now, and you’re standing here telling me you think it’s nothing?” God, he hoped there were no aliens abducting anyone. If an alien abduction happened while he was arguing about what qualified as something worth observing, Hal was probably going to fire him. (Could Green Lanterns get fired? Simon had a feeling he’d test that theory at least ten times before this job inevitably got him killed.)

Resurrection was a tricky thing. It was hardly unheard of these days. You couldn’t throw a rock in New York without hitting one hero or another who’d been through it, but the methods were all so wildly different that Rachel had a hard time wrapping her head around it. She’d tried to match them up as best she could with what she’d been through, but so far... 

Nothing quite fit. It wasn’t a cosmic force, like what the X-Men dealt with frequently. She didn’t think it was magic, either --- Zatanna would have told her. So far, she’d found nothing that wasn’t easily written off as wrong, nothing that wasn’t simple to disprove.

At least, until now.

It took longer than it would have taken Dick or Tim, but Rachel wasn’t a detective and SHIELD hid their secrets well. But people were difficult to hide. They didn’t stay locked away in towers without argument, didn’t allow themselves to be tucked away. Peggy Carter had famously died four years ago. Her funeral was aired on live television. And she was back now. Rachel wanted to know how, wanted to know if it matched up with her story. 

So she tracked her down. She found the apartment Peggy was staying in, she used a few tricks borrowed from Zatanna’s playbook to get inside. And she waited until the key turned in the lock. Her hands were up the second the door opened, and she did her best to look nonthreatening. “Agent Carter,” she greeted. “I just want to talk. About what happened to you. Something similar happened to me. I want to find out how similar.”

@shieldcarter

@shieldcarter

She went on missions without Simon before, but now that they were partners — it was harder for her to justify going solo. (And she often didn’t want to.) But she was looking at a man who had collapsed out of nowhere and a woman was hovering over him, saying that he must have had some moldy bread — and maybe she was right. Jessica was probably over thinking this. (She often did.) I can do this. Jessica told herself, crouching down next to the body and hold her ring out. I can do this. This is easy. This is my job. “Better safe than sorry,” Jessica said, looking up at the woman before the green light from the ring washed over the man’s body.

“Subject is alive.” Yeah, she knew that. “Excessive amounts of redbulb found.” Oh. Jessica scratched the back of her head and stood back up.

( text → miss peggy carter ): I used to tell my father some convoluted stories about aliens and how math was just a cover for their way to communicate without us knowing just so that he would think I wasn’t intelligent. He would throw things at me less if he thought I was stupid.

People had been in and out of John's life so much that there were plenty of times when he ran into someone he may well have known. If the person either turned and got the hell away from him or punched him in the face, that was a dead giveaway that they knew him. But sometimes there were people who did neither of those, which left it to John to puzzle out whether he actually did know them. This particular time, he had been smoking outside a cafe--far enough from th' door not ta be breaking th' law, you picky sods--when he saw a woman walking up who seemed familiar. Yet the more he thought about why she looked familiar, the more improbable it seemed.

Some years ago he had met an elderly lady who apparently knew Zee's dad. But at the time, John had not had the opportunity to hear the how or why of that. He had not thought much about her since, but the more he looked at this bird headed his way, the more he could not shake the feeling that she really reminded him of that old lady. So, at the risk of sounding like a totally creepy git, he decided to speak up. "Hey, uh, I know this is gonna make me sound like a righ' creeper, but d'you happen ta have a gran who might be inta any weird, occult stuff? 'Cause you kinda remind me o' an old bird I met once, who said she knew a mate o' mine, an' I can't imagine why she'd have known one o' th' world's greatest magic users if she was jus' interested in crochet an' doilies." He scratched his head a little sheepishly, hoping this was not going to end with him getting kicked somewhere sensitive.