Work Text
The day was turning to evening, it was early spring, and it was still chillingly cold. Alphonso Mackenzie, better known as Mack, once an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and now – its’ new director, was talking to one of his friends, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Mary-Sue Poots, also known – and much better so – as Daisy Johnson and Quake. “So, Phil has left me a request, if you want to be politic about it,” he said quietly, trying to gauge the mood of his interlocutrix: lately she and agent Simmons weren’t getting along, not while agent Fitz was still lost in space, and none of them had any idea as to how to bring him back. “He wants me to collect…okay, to gather, a team of gifted individuals to-““Wait a second,” Daisy said curtly, as she turned to Yo-Yo…okay, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Elena Rodriguez. “Uh, can you go to my locker and get out a blue-covered file folder from it? Please,” she added in a softer voice, perhaps belatedly remembering that since Mack was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s director, Yo-Yo currently was the agency’s deputy director, and as such – she outranked Daisy, so some politeness was in order.…These days, Daisy wasn’t very polite very often; in part, it was Jemma Simmons’ fault, but in another? It was Daisy’s – the two women argued for any reason these days, and neither was truly helpful: Jemma was too fixated about getting Fitz back from space – usually at expense of any-thing and anyone else – but she could be talked sense into, usually, while Daisy… Mack shook his head. Ever since the Framework and AIDA mess, maybe even before, when she’d been swayed by Hive, Daisy was slowly turning from the girl that he had met while infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. for agent Gonzales, (and boy, had that been an exercise in stupidity), into someone else, and Mack was certain that he had lacked the initial version of Skye/Daisy much more than this current one, who hid her hostility behind politeness and professionalism. “Um, here it actually is,” Deke Shaw exclaimed as he appeared in the director’s office, a place that he usually was not in – he was the current rookie agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and so he did not come to Mack’s attention very often. “Thank you, Deke,” Mack said guiltily: by any reasoning, by now Deke should have had a S.O., presumably Daisy, as Melinda May had implied to him and Yo-Yo, when she and Coulson had left for their retirement in Hawaii. According to May, Deke was just the person to reach past Daisy’s new crusty and hard exterior and revert her to her initial personality – and Daisy would appreciate it in the end. Mack was too much of a friend to Melinda, (plus these days the other woman had a lot on her mind given that Coulson was slowly dying and all), to tell her that she’d been wrong about Deke and Daisy: when Deke had tried to follow Melinda’s advice, presumably, Daisy got more than slightly annoyed with the man’s actions…and the she got into a fight with Simmons – over Deke, again…and somehow, she never did become his S.O., and was actually keeping her distance from him…and from everyone else, really. Whatever was going with Daisy, apparently, she did not need anyone to revert her to her initial personality or want to, which was a pity, because again, Mack was quite certain that the initial Daisy had been the better person… but that was Daisy. Deke, on the other hand, had been left to dry in the wind, since Daisy wouldn’t train him, not willingly, (and Mack wouldn’t push her – forcing Daisy to do any-thing would always do more harm than good, regardless of what version she currently was), and Simmons wasn’t very much around S.H.I.E.L.D. those days herself, busy with rescuing Fitz and all…“What’s this?” Mack asked, as he looked over the notes in the folder.“My take on the ‘mission’, when Coulson had me do it, right after the Iliad. Remember, the Co-coon, the Caterpillars and all?” Daisy said flatly. “The gifted, and especially the InHumans, were something of a pet peeve of DC – he didn’t trust them, but had to use them, to keep up with Hydra and all. I did my best…but most of them are dead now – by Hydra, by Hive, by the Kree, and those who aren’t dead, are like Joey – gone and done with S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Mackenzie, give me a few hours to go over the list and I’ll see if I can bring any of them survivors back to our fold…somehow.”Mack opened his mouth: this was it, the day when he told his friend to zip it with the attitude, when the phone rang. He reached out for it…but Yo-Yo got to it first with her speed. “Hello?” she spoke into the receiver. “Melinda? How is Phil? Oh…” she fell silent and listened for the rest of the now one-sided discussion until Melinda dropped her end of the phone line. “It’s Melinda,” she told the other three. “Phil is dead. Melinda is bringing him back here for his funeral.”“I’ll get started with the proceedings,” Daisy spoke up immediately. “You will? Thank you,” Mack began, but Daisy just nodded in acknowledgement and left.Mack just exchanged looks with Deke and Yo-Yo. Daisy was really going nowhere good fast.
/ / /
…As May emerged from the helicopter at the landing pad next to the Lighthouse, (which got re-purposed into the new HQ of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. – but these days, no one cared about what version of S.H.I.E.L.D. was running around, or if S.H.I.E.L.D. even was around anymore), she was struck by how dark and cold it was – it may’ve been early spring already, but at this time of year the New England part of USA still had much rougher weather than Hawaii did, and its’ nights were still long and hard.“Where is he?” Daisy asked quietly, startling the older woman.Wordlessly, Melinda pointed to the closed coffin, (S.H.I.E.L.D. provided her with an extra-special one to bring Phil’s body from Hawaii to New England safe and secure, not that Melinda cared about that anymore), Daisy looked at it, her lips twitched, (Melinda could swear that Daisy had silently uttered something like ‘Legs that walk have knees that bend’, but that was ridiculous), and just fell to her knees, while looking at Coulson inside of it.Now that was more like Daisy, but Melinda found that her heart had no pride in it regarding this fact – now was so not the occasion to reckon as to who was acting like who. “So,” she said quietly, “Mack, Deke, and Yo-Yo – hello. Where’re the FitzSimmons?”“Still in space, or rather – Fitz is still in space and Simmons is still trying to get him from there,” Mack said simply. “The rest of us are here.”Melinda looked around. In the deepening dusk, (the evening was turning to night even as Mack was speaking), she could see quite a few people standing around them and Phil’s corpse, waiting. Just a few years before, Melinda would just shrug it off, as if this was nothing, now, however, she found this deeply disturbing; there was something in the agents’ eyes that she did not like, though she did not know as to just what it was.“Mr. Henrikson?” Daisy spoke up smoothly, as she got onto her feet and faced in a certain direction, “we’re ready to proceed.”“Thank you, my child,” Mr. Henrikson was actually a man of Mediterranean descent, with brown skin and matching eyes and a slopping nose. “Ms. Coulson, if you don’t mind?”May twitched – somehow, being called Ms. And Mrs. Coulson over those last few months felt just weird, no matter how much she had loved Phil. Consequently, she missed the moment to argue as the man’s subordinates took the coffin and carried it and Phil’s remains over to a portable cremation machine of some sort.“…What gives?” Melinda finally found her voice. “Phil would never- He had never-““Yes, and then he gave S.H.I.E.L.D. over to Jeffrey Mace, who, among his other revisions, made this sort of a fiery funeral mandatory for all of the agents, unlike they specifically leave S.H.I.E.L.D., in paperwork,” Daisy said with some tangible bitterness of her own. “You and Phil didn’t, so into the fire you go,” she looked away. “Of course, if Simmons was around, maybe we could’ve changed it all legally, since Mace also made her his deputy director for some reason, but she isn’t around, so nothing can be done.”“Nothing,” echoed Mr. Henrikson, as he turned around and Phil went onto the final part of his final journey. “Ms. Coulson-““It’s May. Melinda Quilian May-““Fair enough, and I’m Michael Henrikson. Again, I just want to say that while I’m honored to serve all and any friends and co-workers of my late friend Jeffrey Mace, I do wish that we have met under different circumstances.” The flames behind him belied his words; for a brief second Melinda swore that his eyes and skin glowed red instead of being brown, but then someone took her hand and the moment passed.Melinda looked at the person who was holding her hand. It was Deke Shaw. She looked around, saw that Mack and Yo-Yo were busy looking at Phil’s cremation, and were caught in their own world, holding tightly onto each other, ignoring everyone else. She saw that Daisy was standing aside, away from anyone else, (though agent Piper was closer than anyone else was), standing solid and robust, as if she was a stone statue of the young woman that she once was. She was dressed in an S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform but her hair was long and in the style that she had after Hive died alongside Lincoln but before the entire mess with the LMDs and the Framework, complete with some undersized hat. For some reason Melinda found this to be disturbing…but what she found even more disturbing was that she could not really distinguish anyone else – the contrast between night’s darkness and the flames of the cremation process made it hard to see…“I’ll bring her to her rooms,” Deke told no one in particular, as Melinda’s nerves just broke and she fainted. “If anyone asks, we’ll be there.”No one argued with him, (Deke was actually not sure if anyone had heard him), and so he left, while carrying the unconscious Cavalry, from Coulson’s last rites…
TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
…When the Cavalry opened her eyes, it was already morning, the sun was shining, and it was almost eight a.m. By her standards, she had horribly overslept and could as well retire and life the rest of her life on some S.H.I.E.L.D. pension instead, not even thinking of continuing as an agent.Oh wait, she had already done it with Phil, and now Phil was gone, and S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer had a retirement fund, and she was back even though Phil was gone and she had no reason to stay here, and-“Oh good, you’re awake,” Deke Shaw said brightly, his face having an odd shade of red that suggested to Melinda that he might’ve tried to undress her last night or something – S.H.I.E.L.D.’s newest agent from the future didn’t always get the present’s social cues right. “Yo-Yo and Mack have drafted us into going to the local IKEA store to get new furniture and etc. – in part for you, but also, for the rest of the agency.”Melinda opened her mouth; Deke made a rather persuasive version of a puppy dog face. Melinda closed her mouth, remembered that she was supposed to be grieving, not honestly bitching about missions that were or were not beneath her, and got onto her feet. As she did, she turned around to look at the mirror to see if her clothing was not in disarray – Deke was just the type to be clueless enough to try something with the best of intentions – but nothing seemed to be out of order. “You look even better from behind,” Deke’s voice was pure masculine appreciation. “Mind you, the director will claim that the deputy director is better, but – what?”Melinda, who had whirled around to give Deke a piece of her mind, caught onto his last words and paused. “What?” she asked flatly.“Mack and Yo-Yo, our director and his deputy. They’re like peas in a pod, for all the obvious reasons,” Deke explained slowly, as if May was the rookie here. “They plan to get married soon, too.”“…Are you invited to the wedding?” Melinda blinked, as the mention of a director and a deputy director of S.H.I.E.L.D. stirred some unwelcoming associations in her mind.“Probably yeah; not sure about Daisy: Yo-Yo once raised the topic of St. Agnes and Daisy flat-out told her that she hated it and Latin and Catholicism forever. Several times. Loud and clear,” Deke paused. “Given that Yo-Yo is already tense since she and Mack will have an interreligious marriage, this didn’t go well. Hey, did you know that Mack was a rabbi as well as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s director-?”Melinda’s hand firmly sealed Deke’s mouth – God, but this man could talk. Oddly, Deke did not object, but just looked at her, in a way that was actually familiar…right. This was how he had looked at her when they met the first time back in the future, when Melinda had been hurt and caught flat-footed by the circumstances. Just the memory that she currently needed. Not.“Right,” she finally broke the silence, aware that Deke was not exactly upset about her hand still upon his mouth for whatever reasons. “Let’s try this again. Let’s go and talk to Mack and Yo-Yo.”And so they did.
/ / /
When Deke brought May to see Mack and Yo-Yo, the latter pair was already preparing their van, (a bigger, and more robust and family-friendly version than Daisy’s old vehicle used to be). “Oh good, you’re here!” Yo-Yo beamed, and Melinda caught a definite feeling that if she turned her and Mack’s invitation down…they would accept, but their friendship would be seriously dam-aged all the same. The old May would do precisely that, and maybe for precisely that reason, but the current May…did not want that, not at all, and not because just because of Coulson’s death.“So where do I sit?” she asked the Latina instead.“With me in the back!” Yo-Yo said brightly, and Melinda again got a feeling that the other woman knew exactly what Melinda was thinking…and had accepted it.Once Melinda would have really done anything for acceptance. Now…the jury was still out. “So, what was the deal between you, and Daisy, and St. Agnes?” she asked the other woman crankily, because she had a reputation to upkeep.“I just tried to relate because she’s also Catholic, and apparently, she had adapted quite well to her life back in the orphanage,” Yo-Yo admitted, noticeably dimming. “It didn’t go well-““Obviously not, all that Skye – I mean Daisy – wanted, had been her family, to find it, and the orphanage was preventing her from finding it,” Melinda snorted wryly. “Maybe if Fury had just put her into a traditional family, things would’ve been better, but instead Daisy was in and out of foster families without any good reason – that got to leave a mark. I’m not excusing her if she insulted you or something like, I’ve done being her SO for a long time now, but you should remember that Daisy had a very…non-convenient childhood, and as such, she is messed-up.”“Yes, well, true – this doesn’t excuse her-““But only because when she makes an effort, she can fit well enough,” Melinda added. “The problem is that when you’re constantly making an effort, it can get tiresome after a while, and ever since Lincoln died, Daisy grew increasingly frustrated and tired.”“Yes, well, there’s Deke,” Yo-Yo looked really unhappy now – clearly Melinda had opened a sore spot here. “He’s kind of like Lincoln – Daisy has mentioned it so herself…”“She and Lincoln didn’t love each other, not exactly – more like an idealised versions of each other,” Melinda looked away first. “I and Andrew went through something similar…”“Oh Melinda, don’t worry – I’m sure that you’ll find someone else now,” Yo-Yo leaned across the car to hug the other woman. May glared at her instead. “Too soon?”“You think?” Melinda glared. While she wasn’t planning on being the grieving widow here, (and not just because she and Phil had never married), neither she wanted her feelings for Coulson being dismissed so soon; she didn’t know just how this argument between Yo-Yo and Daisy began, but she really needed to-“Everyone?” Mack interrupted the discussion between the two women. “We’re here.”And so they were.
/ / /
Once in the shopping centre, Melinda’s mood took a weird turn again. While Mack took Deke for some furniture shopping for real, (and in an actual IKEA center, no less), Yo-Yo dragged Melinda off for some female bonding, or so she said. As Yo-Yo just sat Melinda down in front of some dressing room and quickly zoomed to and fro, bringing one armload after another of some very revealing clothing, that she was going to try on, and Melinda give her her professional opinion, one woman to another, Melinda’s suspicion that Yo-Yo’s face-down with Daisy was less one-sided than how it looked increased. Yes, sure, having just a girls’ day out wasn’t bad, actually, Melinda found it oddly enjoyable, but did they have to trick her into doing this?“We didn’t trick you,” Yo-Yo pointed-out, “Deke straightforwardly told you that we were going shopping-““Yes, for furniture,” Melinda muttered, as she took what was either some sort of underwear, or… no, there was no second opinion for this piece. “This is anything but furniture!”“True,” Yo-Yo had the good graces to look honestly embarrassed by the confession. “Do you want it for yourself though?”Melinda fell like emitting steam through her ears – yes, she wasn’t planning on doing her post-Bahrain routine again, stewing in her own self-misery and self-hate, especially since Daisy seemed to be doing it for her altogether too well, but this-“Too soon?” Yo-Yo guessed quickly. “Sorry, it’s just that a woman with your freckles-“Before Melinda could test out if her experience could get better of Yo-Yo’s InHuman speed and reflexes, there was sounds of a very loud commotion outside…“You again!” came a feminine voice that was decisively not Daisy’s, but rather belonging to some stranger. “Haven’t you learned the last time that you cannot defeat me in a fair fight-“The woman was cut-off abruptly, with some indignant and undignified squawk and a series of thumps, similar to that of a pillow being beaten with no result.“You were saying, you Captain Marvel, you?” The new speaker was clearly male, with a regional accent of some sort that Melinda could not quite place. “You may be hot stuff against them alien types, but against us, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, you don’t stand a chance. Isn’t right, Blob?”Melinda and Yo-Yo raced to the window and saw a crowd of people, centered on several large men, two outfitted with some sort of supervillain disguises, and another two – just really big.“My name is Dukes,” one of them – the biggest one – spoke, even he continued to sit on some blonde-haired woman in yet another outfit.“Oi! That’s Captain Marvel!” Yo-Yo gasped. “We all saw her on TV! She helped the Avengers save the world after everything that that Mad Titan did to it! And now she is in trouble! We got to-”“You let go off her right now, you meanies!” yelled some teenager in the crowd of onlookers, and they parted, revealing the teenager – a young woman – in question. “Right now or I’ll hit you!”The second-biggest man laughed. It was not a nice sound. It was not even very human sounding.“Now Kemala,” The teenager’s parent or uncle or elder brother or cousin appeared on the scene. “What did we tell you?”“If I want to fight a grown-up, you’ll help?” The teen asked the newcomer brightly.“Yes,” her cousin or whoever agreed resignedly, and grabbed the laughing man by his arm. “I’ll hold and you hit him, okay?”“Fine,” the teenager rolled her eyes as the laughing man stopped laughing – and she inflated her fist to a much bigger size. The formerly laughing man twitched – but the girl’s cousin clearly had some sort of powers of his own, as he held the formerly laughing man in place, and the girl hit him, hard enough to make an audible sound.The no-longer-laughing man, however, shrugged it off…and then his fingernails extended into claws with an equally audible click. “My turn,” he told the now wide-eyed teenager – Kemala – as he shifted into a not-quite-human stance. “And girly? The name’s Sabretooth-“Kemala’s cousin abruptly let go as the self-proclaimed Sabretooth went flying into his companion – Dukes – and hit him with also an audible thump.“Thank you Quake,” Kemala’s cousin told Daisy, who let her arms drop and stop her vibrations. “Owe you big time!”“Don’t mention it,” Daisy replied, sounding like her old self for the first time since Melinda had returned to S.H.I.E.L.D., (not that it had been too long, but still), before switching her attention back to the apparent Brotherhood. “And you! You should give up now!”“Avalanche,” Sabretooth muttered as he got back onto his feet – it seemed that he had a healing factor of some sort. “What are you waiting for? A special invitation or Horton?”One of the costumed men nodded and stomped one of his feet, sending a wave – an energy wave of some sort towards Daisy, whose arms shot out, and the duo found themselves in a tie. Upon seeing this, Kemala’s cousins exhaled and enlarged his own fists, wreathing them in flame as well. “Ha! You think that those tricks will help you out against me, Pyro?” the last of the Brotherhood yelled. “The man of flames and master pyrokineticist?”“Enough!” The woman who started it all exclaimed and began to rise, raising the very heavy Dukes with her.“I agree,” nodded Sabretooth as he whirled around, claws and fangs outstretched. “Let’s finish you-!”Deke ICEd him, as he had snuck upon him in the crowd, unnoticed in all of the excitement. Again, the self-proclaimed ‘evil mutant’ had a healing factor of some sorts, but getting shot with an ICER was enough to slow him for Captain Marvel to fully free herself – and punch him across the parking lot into a wall.“Ouch!” Sabretooth muttered as he peeled himself off of it and looked at the woman – who was now flying in the air, literally so, with glowing eyes and fists. “Right. Tolansky!”“Smoke slime foam bombs!” somebody yelled from the rooftop and a series of foam bombs came crashing down onto the fight scene, covering it with a dark green smoke. Daisy immediately counter-attacked with her own vibrations, shredding the cover, but it was enough for the self-proclaimed Brotherhood of the Evil Mutants – they were gone.“Oh, you’re okay!” the youngster – Kemala – cried as she raced over to captain Marvel, and ex-tending her legs telescopically hugged her in mid-air. “Yay! Can I get your autograph?”…Melinda and Yo-Yo winced from the sheer volume of the question. Mayhaps for this Captain Marvel woman the fight with the Brotherhood was the easy part.
/ / /
Consequently, it was. Melinda had to admit that she missed out on more than she supposed, while staying with Coulson on Hawaii, for it appeared that USA had a brand-new superhero on top of the old Avengers, and a very popular one, especially among teenage girls, (but some boys as well).“So, how did the shopping go?” Daisy asked her and Yo-Yo, (Mack and Deke were standing further from her than May and Yo-Yo did). “Found any new furniture pieces for the Lighthouse and beyond?”“Yes,” Melinda said, sounding more cross than she intended to – seeing Captain Marvel out there in the spotlight, surrounded by all of those young people did something to her heart, something that she wasn’t entirely sure just what precisely. “See?” She thrust…the lingerie piece that Yo-Yo had thrust upon her before the entire Captain Marvel situation had begun. “Um-““Keep it,” Daisy said simply, with nary a sign of jealousy or envy in her voice. “This sort of clothing was always more of your thing than of mine. Yo-Yo? Sorry about going all crazy upon you earlier this month, it’s just that St. Agnes, and Catholicism, and Latin, are all sore spots for me-““All’s forgiven,” Daisy said brightly, “now if you’ll excuse me, I and the big guy over there need to smooth some things out between us. Deke, director, nice to see you,” and she turned around and left, sounding decisively happier for a long time now.“So this is what Tess’s grandpa looks like,” Deke spoke thoughtfully from Melinda’s other side.“Excuse me?” Melinda blinked.“You remember Tess, right?” Deke spoke, reminding Melinda of the young woman that she, Coulson and the others have met back in the future. “Yes-?”“It took me a while to figure it out, but figure it out I did. Daisy, or Quake, was Tess’s grandmother – the one that the Kree must have killed when they have come to the devastated Earth-““What?!”
TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
For the next few days, or maybe even weeks, (but no, mostly days), things have quieted down since the entire Captain Marvel incident. Melinda did check out the latest news regarding her and the rest of the Avengers, and it was really impressive; the way that they defeated the Mad Titan and restored life to the half of the known galaxy was certainly something; pity that it didn’t bring back Phil, but still…Thinking of Phil made Melinda think of Jeffrey ‘The Patriot’ Mace and whatever else he had done to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s rule book – Melinda tried to find-out, of course, but it wasn’t so easy: Mack confessed that ever since he took over S.H.I.E.L.D. after Coulson, he had inadvertently stuck Mace’s rules somewhere so obscure that not even he could remember or re-discover as to where it was. Pity, but Mack and Yo-Yo were certain that they would recover it, what with Yo-Yo’s speed and Mack’s meticulousness. The thoughts of Mack and Yo-Yo made Melinda feel…divided. On one hand she was complete-ly happy that the two of them were finally getting together, and quite quicker than how she and Phil got together, on the other, this made her feel jealous, on the third – she felt upset by the fact that Yo-Yo wasn’t bothered at all by helping Mack out with paperwork and vice versa – she and Phil never had this dynamic, and not just because Melinda hated the paperwork…“I hear you,” Deke nodded as he sat next down to her, looking over his own papers. “But it is, unfortunately, just as a big a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. as field work is. What?” he added, seeing how Melinda was glaring at him now. “This was my room first, technically.”“…What?” Melinda blinked as she looked around – somehow she had tacitly moved into it without anyone’s objections. “But it was so barren before-““Yes, well, I don’t have much in terms of belongings,” Deke said with a sourer note than his usual optimistic attitude was. For some reason, Melinda did not like it – she was the pessimist around S.H.I.E.L.D. here, thank you very much – and so she stopped her own mental ruminating for a moment and began to aid Deke with his paperwork. They did so quietly and efficiently – Melinda didn’t have Yo-Yo’s speed, but she had plenty of experience; in fact, they did it so efficiently, that Melinda only belatedly remembered that she wanted to ask Deke something else entirely.“What do you mean, Daisy is Tess’s grandmother?” she asked the younger agent. “She destroyed the Earth-““Only she didn’t – she was framed, somehow, by that Graviton person, or maybe the Kree,” Deke looked away. “Listen, I don’t know entirely as to what has gone down in the future, well, between now and the future – I’m no time travelling specialist, so naturally I get some things wrong, especially since grandma Simmons and grandpa Fitz broke the time loop and all, but-““No buts. Tess and Daisy. How can they be related?”“Yeah, and we’re back to the – buttocks. The two of them look very similar from the back-““Oh Deke,” Melinda slapped him on the shoulder perhaps slightly harder than it was necessary. “You’re such a man here-“Deke stared at her; Melinda, belatedly realizing that she was acting definitely out of character here, stared back.“Ah, excuse me,” Yo-Yo chose this moment to zoom into their room; (apparently it was theirs, as Deke had not moved out when Melinda had moved in). “Melinda, but do you want to have another girls’ day out? Please?”And Melinda, who wanted some distance from Deke right now obliged willingly enough.
/ / /
…Several hours later, as Melinda was sitting alongside Yo-Yo in some spa, she was beginning to have some serious mental issues about it all, largely because she was having flashbacks to her marriage to Andrew Garner, and not just to the time when it had all gone wrong, (i.e. he becoming an InHuman known as Lash), but to the previous, more happy, times.“This is one of the reasons as to why I realized that I didn’t love Andrew,” she told the other woman even as they were being waxed. “This is fun, but to him? For a woman that was his wife? It was something else. He…used to be a high-profile man with a high level of privilege and responsibility, enjoying being in the spotlight. I – not so much.”“Mmm,” Yo-Yo nodded appreciatively, even as she wore some sort of a healing medical face-mask on her face. (She was not one of the more bizarre types of InHuman, thank you very much). “If you say so.”“So, what kind of relationship you and Mack are having?” Melinda asked sourly, aware that she was trying to put her heart onto her sleeve, (something that she did not usually do), and Yo-Yo – not so much, apparently. That stung.“Melinda.” The other woman in question clearly sensed May’s soured mood and did some damage control. “I and Mack are nothing like you and Andrew were; you’ve been away for a while, of course, but S.H.I.E.L.D. still is nowhere near what it was during Fury’s tenure.”“I can live with that,” Melinda said suddenly, surprising Yo-Yo yet again. “I was never big on S.H.I.E.L.D., see? Not as how Phil was – he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and I followed. I do not know if I did not have any regrets, but a lot of water had flowed since that time. Where did the time go…” she trailed away, staring into the past without seeing the present…“Melinda,” Yo-Yo’s voice was completely serious now. “Don’t. Do not dwell in the past. The present, as well as the future, aren’t done with you yet.”Melinda glared at her, but the other woman did not back down. “No. Don’t give me any of your looks either – Daisy’s are more intimidating anyhow.”“I thought that the two of you began to mend bridges-““We have, but the truth is our relationship was never as smooth as it looked, not even when the first edition of the Secret Warriors was running,” Yo-Yo replied. “Coulson didn’t help – he never liked powered people, I could tell-““We all could, even Daisy-““-and the mess with Hive only brought it to the front. Everything. Daisy’s insecurities, Coulson’s, even Joey’s, mine,” Yo-Yo looked away. “I’m not like Daisy, I’m not interested in the other InHumans at all – I know my family and my kin, and the InHumans aren’t it, only generally speaking they are. Daisy, on the other hand? Ever since Lincoln died, she did her best making inroads into the InHuman community not as a princess of theirs, just – one of them. It seems to be working, even though she is honestly happier as an agent, not as a civilian, but on the other hand? It honestly appears as if misery is her default setting these days and she doesn’t appreciate fiddling with it.”“Deke doesn’t help? That man-““For a while she outright avoided him and Simmons,” Yo-Yo muttered. “Mind you, it’s easy to blame her, but Simmons wasn’t the easiest person to get along at that time either. Right now, she’s working with NASA and FBI to bring Fitz back.”“And Mack doesn’t mind-?”“Remind me to tell you about the fight that he had with Simmons,” Yo-Yo muttered crossly, be-fore switching her attention to a topic that effectively blindsided Melinda: “So how is Deke, anyhow? You thought that we didn’t notice that you effectively moved in with him-?”Melinda opened her mouth to tear Yo-Yo a new one, when the spa’s staff began to apply a facial mask to her face, blindsiding her both literally and metaphorically, so her fight with Yo-Yo and her stupid suggestions got showed to a side instead, but only temporarily!
/ / /
“So, what’s the plan here?” Deke asked Mack, as he and the older man were waiting for one of their contacts, while hoping that they were not making a mistake.“We’re making contact and hoping that it works,” Mack muttered, “because if it doesn’t, I’m upgrading my axe-gun to something better and hope that it will be sharp enough and shoot hard enough, to make it work.”“Why do you have an axe-gun to begin with?” Deke decided to fill the silence with talking, since he hated the quiet; how did Melinda put up with him, Mack did not know. Then again, it was Deke’s room from the start, so the question as to who was putting up with whom was up for grabs – and Mack didn’t want to go there; he left Yo-Yo do the tricky social outgoing plots here.Yo-Yo…Mack looked away. He loved her, he really did, but the matter of her father was something else: as the day of their wedding came closer, so did the threat from Horton ‘the Gryphon’ and that was not something that Mack was taking lying down for all sorts of reasons, starting with the facts that he loved Yo-Yo while her father was a malicious asshole that needed to be taken down, period.Unfortunately, while Mack was an agent and a director of S.H.I.E.L.D., his fighting skills were still second to his engineering ones, whereas Horton was, apparently, a more derived version of Brock Rumlow – i.e., he could fly. While it was true, that Mack and Yo-Yo had several options as to how to deal with Yo-Yo’s father, Mack decided to act smart and do the unexpected – and now he hoped that his plot would not bite him in the ass in the future.“Director Mackenzie? I want to apologize.”…Okay, it appeared as if it was going to bite him – and Deke, but that was a small consolation, if any – now, seeing how Carol ‘Captain Marvel’ Danvers, the new darling of the US and especially – of the U.S. Air Force, approached him and Deke, dressed in civilian clothing this time.“Apologize for what?” Deke asked brightly, doing his best to be backup to Mackenzie – admittedly, the two men were not very friendly with each other, but Deke was a good and eager agent, that Mack had to admit.“Over my confrontation with your agent, Johnson. Didn’t she tell you-?”“We got the gist that it was a private matter between the two of you that you’ve settled already?” Deke said brightly, clearing thinking and speaking fast.“Yes,” Captain Marvel admitted, before visibly steeling herself on the inside. “But! Still! I also admit that I feel that it would be better if I apologize to you people as well, in the person of, well, your person-““Stop, and try again from the beginning, in a less official language,” Mack pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming upon him now. “From what I understood, your quarrel with Daisy began over-““Well, shave my skull and call me bald!” called-out a new, masculine, rough voice, as the aforementioned Brock Rumlow appeared on the scene at last, looking not much worse for wear since his defeat by the Avengers back in Africa. “Mackenzie, in person! What brings you out, you hermit?”And now Mack’s idea had practically gone sour, but S.H.I.E.L.D.’s current director plowed on, doing his best to ignore the smoldering – in a bad way – gaze of Captain Marvel, as she beheld the newcomer, and she did not even know him, (unlike the Avengers, for example).“Are you another one of the InHumans?” she said flatly. “You know, the ones descended from the Skrulls-““Just consider me an ogre,” Crossbones replied affably, at least by his standards. “Don’t I know you?”“Yes, she’s the new hero, Captain Marvel – she helped defeat Thanos and his alien hordes-““Whereas you, Mackenzie, were where?”“In the future, helping the last of Earth’s people escape from the Kree,” Mack said flatly, before giving Danvers a look. “Let me guess – this is why you and Daisy had an argument to begin with?”“Yes,” Captain Marvel admitted, unhappily, giving Rumlow a very dark look. “Clearly, your experiences with the Kree and mine were very different, but why have someone like him involved?”“This is about something different,” Mack told her, before switching his attention back to Rum-low. “You want a shot at Horton?”“…This was unexpected,” Rumlow said simply, as he abruptly sat down and ignored the woman for the moment. “Go on, I’m listening.”“Yo-Yo’s his daughter, I’m marrying her, and I understood that the Gryphon won’t stand for it. You want in?”“You bet your amazing facial hair that I do,” Rumlow growled, looking even uglier than he usually did. “He’s a fraud – until Whitehall worked on him, Horton was no one, a pathetic nobody, even more so than John Garrett had been!” He paused, thinking about something, rubbed his neck for some reason, and continued. “And then Whitehall experimented on him, made him into a gryphon, and lo and behold! He considers me to be his equal!”“He supposedly had defeated the Iron Man lately-““The Iron Man, supposedly, had impregnated an alien woman called Nebula – it’s hard to tell fact from fiction with him. Fury should have done with the Hammers instead-““Fury currently is busy,” Deke decided to pipe up. “S.H.I.E.L.D. assigned Jeffrey Mace to be its’ director for a while, and it was a bad thing-““As someone had said it, Mace is bad news, alive or dead,” Rumlow grew even more thoughtful, before looking askance at Danvers. “You want Skrulls? Stick with S.H.I.E.L.D. – I bet that Skrulls will be coming out of the woodwork soon enough, at least one of their factions.”“Which one?” now Captain Marvel was all business herself. “The one of the Great Maharajah, not the one that follows the Skrull queen,” Rumlow grinned, and it was not a very nice grin. “Are you in, ‘Captain Marvel’?”“Yes,” the latter replied. “S.H.I.E.L.D. could clearly use someone in their corner; it might as well be me. In addition, both Fury and Coulson were good people, clearly their friends are also, though not all of them,” she gave Rumlow a look.“I’m neither their friend nor S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Rumlow did not back down.“But you can be, unless you would just go around the world hurting people,” Mack spoke up once again. “S.H.I.E.L.D is getting back up, you know?”Rumlow just ignored him…well, sort of. “Just sign the newbie on the dotted line, director,” he told the other man flatly, and Mack had to admit that despite them being the same height, he could not defeat Rumlow one on one regardless – he could see it now. Rumlow was something else. “You could use someone like her and vice versa. I will be coming to your wedding to take down Horton, though. Shake on it?”And Mackenzie reluctantly shook.
/ / /
“…And so, a deal was made, complete with paperwork,” Deke explained to Melinda later that day. Actually, it was evening, May and Yo-Yo were back from their trip to the spa, and Melinda felt as if she was a human noodle – all of her joints were relaxed, all of her body was hyped from the massages and etc., she felt decisively underdressed in the clothing that Yo-Yo had loaned her for their trip, and yet she didn’t gave a f- cough. In fact, though Melinda would not admit it under torture, she did feel horny. Right. She was going to kill Mack and Yo-Yo; and speaking of them…“Was there shouting?” she asked Deke instead. “We had some bad people in S.H.I.E.L.D. in the past, but Rumlow was something else. He is an honest, undiluted, genuine sadist-““He calls himself an ogre instead-““Same difference,” Melinda shook her head as she went down another path down the memory lane. She did not want to go there – too many faces that she had lost to time and other factors, so she returned to her earlier question: “And how did Elena take Mack’s plan?”“Well, there was shouting,” Deke admitted, “but then Mack confessed that even if he did get his gun-axe upgraded and all he couldn’t take on her father alone in a straightforward, one on one fight, and he wasn’t giving her up, so he had to get creative, and the deputy director grew all thoughtful, and I left, because this meant that they were going to get really private, and I’m not talking about sex here, because you people of the past are really hang-up about sex-““Stop,” Melinda said simply. “Deke, thank you for telling me about this, now I need to think-““Why? They are both your superiors and your friends – don’t you trust them?” Deke actually challenged her, and Melinda – paused, got quietly onto her feet and raced to the door of their shared domicile, (honestly, after today, she did not want to leave or to make Deke leave, because spa), whereupon she opened it, and saw…an empty corridor. For a moment, she thought that she saw a glimpse of someone disappearing around a bend in it, but it was too far from their domicile, and Melinda was very unsure if she had not just imagined it, so she…let it go.“Maybe you’re right,” she closed the door, locked it, (no one has ever died from pure paranoia yet), and turned to face her roommate. “Maybe we should just go now to sleep and see what tomorrow brings us.”Deke raised an eyebrow.“Ah, just shut up,” Melinda snapped, cross at her own innuendo, threw a pillow at her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and went to bed
TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
…The hotel view – well, the hotel’s view slash appearance, as opposed to the view from the hotel – was impressive. The aforementioned view from the hotel – ditto. “…I must admit, this is nice,” Melinda muttered to Deke, who – surprisingly or not very – had gravitated next to her, as they, and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and Captain Marvel, (and a few other people) arrived at the hotel, booked by Daisy for Mack and Yo-Yo’s wedding. “I’m still a NYC girl, but I must admit – Boston has its’ charms too.”“The present Earth has several cities – multiple cities, and we’re not talking towns here – we’re talking metropolises,” Deke muttered, still clearly stunned by his epiphany. “This rocks! Just – call me a red-eyed tree frog or something!”“Oh Deke,” Melinda affectionally patted him on a shoulder. “The more I learn about Earth’s future that we’ve derailed, the more I hate it. And I’ve been there, as had been our friends.” (Including Coulson, but Melinda was honestly determined not to think about him on their friends’ wedding. Oddly, it was not so hard anymore – maybe time does heal all wounds or something).“Oh good, you’re here,” Daisy came over to the other two agents, and Melinda felt her eyebrows raise – the other woman was wearing a very solid red and white number, very different from Melinda’s – or Yo-Yo’s, for that matter – more multicolored clothing. “Neat. Now, we are on a flexible time schedule here, because of a variety of reasons, so you two could go on a city tour of Boston-““You’ve been here before?” Melinda neatly deflected the other woman’s suggestion with her own question.“Yes. Lived in a van. Been here, been in Chicago – hated it – been in several other places, including Canada, but only by accident and I quickly left it as soon as I realized my blunder. I didn’t need RCMP going after my ass on top of the other people that I have annoyed,” Daisy did not budge. “So, I honestly hope that you will enjoy the hotel’s restaurant, it really conducts the taste of genuine Boston-““You worked here before?” Captain Marvel chose this moment to approach the trio. “Nice clothing, though it makes you look Republican-““Hillary Clinton wore something similar during the last elections-““-And she lost-““So what? Just because the woman proved to be flawed, doesn’t mean that her taste in clothing was-“It was then that a school bus appeared on the scene, unloading a number of school-age students, including one Kemala Khan, and her friends, who promptly raced over to Carol Danvers and glomped her, for the lack of a better word. Captain Marvel and Quake exchanged some unreadable looks. “Someone could use some more pointers from the Iron Man about Internet and information sharing-““Excuse me.” It was Kemala’s cousin, the male one. He wrapped his arms around Daisy and led her – not too subtly – away from Captain Marvel and her fan club.“Good idea,” Deke said brightly, and taking Melinda by the arm, did the same. “So what did Daisy mean about tours, just now?”“Hmm,” Melinda wanted some private time to think some things over. “Why don’t you ask Mack or Yo-Yo instead?”Deke made some sort of a puppy face, and Melinda gave-in. Maybe it was because of spring – even by New England’s standards the weather was warming up and time was changing: people in the U.S. were switching to the daylight savings soon – or maybe it was because of admittedly tasty smells coming from the hotel’s restaurant, or maybe it was just the generally optimistic atmosphere – courtesy, mainly of Mack and Yo-Yo, but still – Melinda gave-in.“Come on,” she spoke with a grouchiness that she did not feel. “Let’s go and talk to Mack and Yo-Yo all the same. They’re the director and deputy director of S.H.I.E.L.D. – if we’re going on a tour, we should notify them.”And Deke willingly complied.
/ / /
Mack, an agent and the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was not as happy as he wanted to be. Quake and Captain Marvel were not getting along; it was not exactly as bad as the feud between Stark and Rogers, say, but it was there, and it was improving only very, very slowly.“Remind me, what is the problem here,” he turned to the two women, who were not exactly unhappy with each other, but they certainly were not happy with each other either. “There is no problem, there’s only a complication,” Daisy said flatly, but without the hostility that appeared in her, after Coulson and Melinda left S.H.I.E.L.D. to, well, die. Sure, Melinda was alive and well…and Daisy’s own attitude had obviously improved…and…“Go on.”“Horton is tough – he’s a bloody gryphon the size of a horse,” Daisy said flatly, “and while Kemala certainly has potential, and I’m sure that so do her little friends, I do not enjoy thinking about what could happen to them, if Horton catches even one of them. The man’s Hydra, and as such, he doesn’t fool around.”“Sure enough, but that’s why you got me,” Rumlow piped up, possibly to make a bad situation worse. “Don’t worry, I can handle Horton.”“And the children?” Daisy raised a skeptical eyebrow, and for a good reason – Rumlow himself had never been particularly child-friendly, not even in the past, when he led S.H.I.E.L.D.’s S.T.R.I.K.E. team instead of a Hydra outfit. “This is where we come in,” someone else said brightly. “Hello, I’m Kemala’s elder sister, Rashida, and this is Blade.”Everyone looked at the new speakers. “And who are you?” Mack frowned.“You know, you look like Wesley Snipes!” Captain Marvel said brightly.“…My name’s Blade and I’m with her?” the man said equally brightly, while nonchalantly hiding behind his girlfriend: apparently, Captain Marvel being perky could be overwhelming. “What he means to say,” Rashida rolled her eyes, and regardless of her physical differences with her little sister, the similarity was obvious, “is that we can handle the Hydra, really. We handle vampires and similar supernatural sh- you know what I mean, we can handle the whomever the Gryphon can scrounge up now.”“Vampires?” Mack blinked as he turned to Daisy.“Yeah, you need to talk to Robbie about this,” Daisy nodded. Mack opened his mouth. “After the wedding,” Daisy said smoothly. “And just for the record? I made my peace with him by now.”Mack closed his mouth and looked around for Yo-Yo, but his deputy director was busy talking to Deke and Melinda instead, so there was nothing to say.“They look good together, and so do you,” Daisy said softly.Mack still said nothing, but waited for Yo-Yo instead.
/ / /
“…Oh good, we’re finally moving on,” was what his deputy director said as the two of them ob-served Daisy, well, fitting-in, from a distance, in no small part because they wanted their own privacy too. (They were at that stage of their relationship, really). “That is good, because for a while I was worried that I, and Daisy, and even Jemma messed S.H.I.E.L.D. up for good for the last time”Mack blinked and stared at Yo-Yo: “Say what?”“Daisy is fitting-in – see?” Yo-Yo pointed to the table where the younger woman was holding court…and actually acting like her old self, even if she was giving Carol Danvers the occasional stink-eye…but nothing serious either. “She is very good at it, because thanks to Fury, she’d been in and out foster homes, eager and trying to please different foster parents time after time. That takes some acting skills – and they will stick. Meanwhile, at the same time, Daisy was also figuring out just whom she actually was – and that was a completely different person from whomever she had been pretending…and now this person is coming to the fore at last. She really cared for Coulson and did her best to treat him as her father – in the same way that she’d treated her foster parents…and then, thanks to Hive and everything else it all came crashing down and Lincoln died…” Yo-Yo stopped rumbling. “I miss him too, you know, sort of. He was never my type – too young and all,” she added with a cheery grin to her boss and husband-to-be, cough, “but he had been a good friend of mine and never deserved to die,” she finished, much more somberly. “I do hope that he’s doing better in whatever afterlife he’d ended up at.”“I hear you,” Mack nodded, equally sombre – that mess with Hive and the InHumans it had swayed was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s lowest points indeed. “So what do we do now?”“Get married?” Yo-Yo raised one of her eyebrows and looked at Mack complete with a lissome smile. “That’s for tomorrow,” Mack said brightly, when his comm.-link went off. “What?” he snapped crossly.“We went to one of the ethnic compounds of this fine city, and Melinda – agent May – had some of the local gingerbread and went crazy, in a non-S.H.I.E.L.D. way” Deke’s voice came from the other end. “Any manly advice?”Mack and Yo-Yo exchanged looks. Deke’s future-to-present linguistic dictionary was not always easy to understand at best of times, and right now, it was not that sort of time. “Deke, man, where are you and Melinda right now? At what street corner?” Mack asked the younger man. “We’re coming to sort it all out!”And so they did.
TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
…So far, the wedding was outright beautiful, as Yo-Yo walked down the aisle in a very traditional wedding dress, though it was not entirely pure white – apparently, the Latina did not like ‘pure’ colors and always did her best to dilute them with different colors whenever she could. Mack, of course, was dressed more traditionally, i.e. – less colorfully, and more of a basic wed-ding get-up. He almost looked like an Afro-American Harry Potter in the fourth movie’s Christ-mas Ball, which Melinda found somewhat odd, since at least a part of his and Yo-Yo’s arguments had been about the entire Catholic vs. Judaic faiths. Then again, however, her wedding to Andrew was done in the same vein, even though her mother wanted it to be more ethnically Chinese. Her grandmother, on the other hand, vehemently disagreed – they had left China behind and immigrated to U.S. permanently after all…so there was a big fight between her mother and grandmother, one that had never properly mended, and now her mother (and father) were old, and her grandmother (and grandfather) were dead and gone…Melinda looked away. Sadly, she still hadn’t recovered from yesterday’s gingerbread high – she and ginger had a very peculiar relationship, to be honest, one that she had never disclosed to too many people before, and most of them were gone now, and-“May?” Deke muttered to the older agent. “Are you weeping into my shoulder because of Yo-Yo, or because Kemala makes a very good impromptu bridesmaid?”“…Both?” Melinda muttered without breaking her poise, both because she still felt ridiculous after her yesterday’s actions – this wasn’t typical for her to just break out of her metaphorical shell just so, a trip down the memory lane or not – and because Deke did raise some very good points in his question and she did have the sniffles because of... reasons. “Okay,” Deke patted Melinda on the shoulder – cautiously, because he was not that experienced with women, both in the present and the future. “Now, ah, they’re about to say their vows-“The door to the chapel opened with a crash, as the Gryphon broke them apart with a single kick. “Hello everyone,” he spoke with a humorless smile. Melinda frowned. At a first glance, the Gryphon appeared to be human, albeit dressed strangely, (by Boston’s standards – by NYC’s, he would fit right in), and then she realized that at least part of his clothing were wings, and she began to have a feeling in her bones that she didn’t feel since S.H.I.E.L.D.’s disastrous involvement with the Hulk, general ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, and the Abomination. This was going to be bad.“Hello father,” Yo-Yo smiled thinly. “Maybe we could bury the axe of war instead?”The Gryphon smiled back – and in profile, the family similarities were actually very obvious – and said something in Spanish that caused several faces to freeze, including Melinda’s, whose own Spanish wasn’t very good, but still good enough to understand.“Right-o,” Rumlow nodded, as he got onto his feet. “Whenever I say it, there’s usually a fight or some violence. Sure you don’t want to back down now, Horton, you old fraud?”Horton – his smile now more of a skull’s rictus - snapped his fingers and the already-encountered Brotherhood of Evil Mutants appeared on the scene. Then all Hell broke loose.As Melinda ducked down, and realized that she was woefully underarmed and underprepared for this fight, she saw Rumlow hit his rival with chunks of his pew, (this was going to be an expensive expense, to be sure), and the latter promptly shifting into his trademark form – that of a winged eagle-lion hybrid the size of a horse, if not bigger.“Fling me!” Rumlow told Captain Marvel, who promptly did that, just before flying off into the battle herself. The sprinklers went off, and Melinda could hear the pyrokinetic mutant – Pyro - sputtering in a distance, as his flamethrowers were suddenly at a disadvantage. On the other hand, Melinda and Deke found themselves at a disadvantage themselves, as another one of the Brotherhood’s members – Dukes – suddenly loomed over them. “Got you!” he chortled. “Does it have to end in violence?” Melinda spoke, acting quickly – maybe even too quickly, but she did not want to fight this mountain of a man, fat or no fat. Somehow, she could not shake away the feeling that there was plenty of muscle beneath that fat powering all of this bulk. “Maybe we could do something else? An eating competition, perhaps?”“Well, the way you went yesterday on that ginger ice cream and stuff,” the big mutant chuckled, “was kind of cute. You certainly got potential. Maybe we could-“Deke hit him. With another mutant. One that had an extra-long tongue, like that of a chameleon, a toad, or a frog, and who was built like a toad or a frog as well. “Ouch!” said Dukes and promptly sat down, before fainting from the impact. “Sorry,” Deke turned red. “I kind of, I sort of-““You’re adorable,” Melinda kissed him. She did not mean to, it just happened. “Aw!” Daisy cooed from nearby as she and her date blasted yet another member of the Brotherhood across the room into Sabretooth, who just dodged. “You surrender right now!” Kemala was clearly determined to be difficult as she appeared before the feral mutant. “Or what?” Sabretooth did not appear to be too impressed by her, as he loomed, quite convincingly, over the gifted teenager. “I’ll…have Mr. Hunter show you his magical penis?” the girl said brightly, finally aware that she was kind of over her head here. Maybe. There was a pause as everyone within earshot just stared at her…except for the Gryphon, who finally collapsed with a thump, as he had finally succumbed to Rumlow chocking him into unconsciousness, (while Captain Marvel held onto his hindquarters and prevented him from flying away).“Nice job,” Daisy’s date, Kemala’s male cousin, said wryly, as he and Daisy finished off their opponents, Pyro and other mutant whose name was apparently Avalanche or something similar. Rumlow just smiled without any particular humor – and Lord, but he really was an ogre and all, and said something in a non-Earthly language. The other man replied.“Excuse me,” Melinda interrupted their fledgling discussion, “but how did you come back? Phil killed you on Maveth-“ she blinked, trying to push away her own memories of those days for personal reasons.“He’s T-1000,” Daisy rolled her eyes. “Apparently, he just walked back and brought some other people with him, plus he learned some new skills-““Phil?” Melinda interrupted the younger woman with an apologetic glance, but nonetheless. “Not that simple,” Grant shrugged, as he removed his disguise – apparently, he had learned some new tricks from the other side. “Let’s just say that his signature on Mace’s documents regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. messed up even the agents’ afterlife on top of anything else – Fury will have a hard time fixing them with the Maharajah-“Carol Danvers sniffed, daintily and disdainfully at the same time. “Yes, you’re right,” Grant exhaled. “He leads the – more materialistic and nasty fraction of the Skrulls. Happy now?”“Meh,” Captain Marvel shrugged, “though for the record? Quake is correct – the Kree had never been a good people ever, and I started that argument with you through sheer stubbornness. Want to start again?”“Yes,” Daisy nodded, but before this could proceed any further, Kemala Khan trotted over.“Ms. Yo-Yo and Mr. Mack wanted to say that now that her father is defeated, they’re eloping and are sticking the Avengers’ with the property damage bill to the hotel’s chapel,” she said with the bright innocence of youth.Everyone just groaned and/or twitched for a variety of reasons. “The glamorous life of an S.H.I.E.L.D agent,” Melinda said wryly, as the sprinklers around them died down at last. “Let’s clean up this mess.”Therefore they did.
TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“…I cannot believe that this is over,” Melinda muttered to the rest of her companions, as the four of them sat in a small-scale Chinese restaurant, (even Boston have those), that was located across a tattoo parlour which was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fronts in this city. “Mack and Yo-Yo are finally married. Yay!”“Try it again,” Daisy wryly suggested. “Somehow you don’t come across as fully authentic-““I don’t want to,” Melinda admitted. “Mack and Yo-Yo, somehow, have become better leaders for S.H.I.E.L.D. than I and Phil have been, and that stings.”“Mmm, I hear you,” Daisy nodded sagely. “Even before I’d been swayed by Hive and all, my leadership skills over the Secret Warriors were seriously lacking. Being a good agent isn’t the same as being a good team leader…and being a good team leader isn’t the same as being a good director…”“Sore at Phil, hah?” Melinda muttered, aware that she was wounding like her own mother at her crankiest, but still. Phil. Her loss of him was not so acute anymore, but still rankled.“Eh, well, when he comes back, when Fury brings him back again, we’ll talk,” Daisy looked away first, “and it won’t be entirely happy either – but I’m done sorely pleasing the parental figures in my life.” Melinda reached out and patted her shoulder. Daisy flushed but said nothing.“So, where’s Captain Marvel right now?” Deke gamely changed the discussion before it became even more awkward. The other man – who was still sore at Deke at declaring him to be ‘Tess’s grandpa’ as soon as they met properly – just pointed across the street at the rooftops, where the woman in question was being herself, once again.
/ / /
“And I cannot believe you! Going after a teenager like that!” Captain Marvel hovered in mid-air as she gave Kraven the Hunter a very disapproving look. “Seriously, what kind of a super-villain are you?”The latter just turned around and looked at Rumlow, who had tugged along and was enjoying the show, (much more son than Spider-Man was, as the latter was experiencing flashbacks to the time that his aunt May told off Flash Thompson, and things between him and Flash got really bad, in a high school style). “Don’t look at me, mate,” Rumlow told the other man. “I went after Avengers en masse and not after their mascot alone.”“I’m not their mascot! I’ve saved Europe!” Spider-Man stomped his foot. Kraven’s genetically modified puma, (or a panther, or a cheetah), as black as night, with oversized fangs and bony ridges on its back stirred to life, or tried to – Rumlow gave it a glare and it died down immediately: it didn’t want to have another face-off with the ogre. “Well I did,” Spider-Man added in a weaker tone of voice: he looked into the glowing dull yellow eyes of the animal and had not liked what he seen there, really.“We believe you, really,” Kemala Khan, who really should not be here, again, but was there, any-how, patted Spider-Man on his shoulder, while recording the entire confrontation for YouTube channel. “We’re sure that you did great in the Olde Country or wherever.”..And from the other side, from the comm.-link, Spider-Man (cough, Peter Parker, cough), came a bunch of helpful (no, really) advice from Tony Stark as to how for Spider-Man to handle her, (cough), while he goes and talks to colonel Danvers. Spider-Man just stifled a groan. Life has certainly changed around here while he had been away in Europe.End