Fic for colebaltblue: Playing The Game: Act I - Pawns & Politics, Secrets & Strategy, Part 2/4
Molly had been quite surprised to find that her old S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance was upgraded as well as reinstated. She, Sherlock and Mary were whisked through a series of corridors to a command room where she saw a familiar figure standing among other agents. Molly moved away from Sherlock and Mary towards her. “Maria,” she said.
Maria looked at her with relief. “Good. No one gave you grief,” she said. She looked around and then at Molly’s companions. “I…need to tell you something. In private, okay?” She nodded to an agent to her left. “Start getting these two up to speed.”
The agent nodded and took Sherlock and Mary away while Molly moved towards Maria. “Let’s go somewhere private to talk,” she said. The two women moved towards the side to a door that Maria opened, walking down the corridor until they came to another door. Maria opened it and it appeared to be a meeting room of some sort. Maria stepped inside and Molly followed. Maria began to pace back and forth, as though she was trying to gather her thoughts, and Molly watched her curiously for a moment before she stepped in her path. “Maria, you’re scaring me.”
Maria stopped and then looked at Molly. “It’s never easy to tell the people who are close to an agent when it happens. I always hate this part.”
Fear struck at Molly’s heart. It couldn’t be her grandmum; the retirement home would have contacted her if that was the case. But all Maria had said about Natasha was that she had uploaded the files. She hadn’t mentioned if she’d been injured in the process. “Maria, did something happen to Natasha?”
“No, Nat’s fine,” Maria said. “I mean, banged up, had a high electrical voltage run through her, but…she’s Nat. She’s been through worse.” Then she took a deep breath. “Alexander Pierce wasn’t the only HYDRA traitor on the premises. We had quite a few others. One of them was John Garrett.”
Molly’s eyes went wide. “Garrett was HYDRA?” she said, sinking down to sit on the edge of the table in the room. She couldn’t believe it. John Garrett couldn’t be HYDRA. He just couldn’t. He’d been one of the people who helped train her. He’d been one of her superiors in some of her missions. She had trusted that man with her life. “I…no, that’s not possible.”
“He fooled us all, Molly,” Maria said. “But not only was he HYDRA, he was pretending to be someone known as the Clairvoyant, who would pass on information to certain parties working against S.H.I.E.L.D.’s interests from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records about missions, agents…we had a team working against those people, and long story short they found Garrett out and Garrett tried to have them killed.” She paused. “Well, after someone else tried to have them killed because the head of their team was suspected of being a HYDRA loyalist, but that was a miscommunication.”
“I’m confused,” Molly said, shaking her head.
“There’s a team headed up by an agent that does the things that S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t really supposed to be involved in, technically,” Maria said.
“The team Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons are on, perchance?” Molly asked, tilting her head. “I’m on friendly terms with both of them. They’re horrible at keeping secrets.”
Maria pinched her nose. “I’m going to have a word with them both, I swear.”
“They felt they could trust me, as Peggy Carter’s granddaughter and one of the legendary Agent 13s and all,” Molly said, waving her hand. “And don’t be too hard on them. They didn’t go into too much detail. All I know is its top secret, Level 8 clearance, run by someone legendary, and they were quite excited because it was field work and they’d never thought they’d get to do field work. They’ve told me zip about mission or anything like that, not even when they were in England with whatever it was all of you were working diligently to cover up.”
“Well, as you’re Level 8, I can tell you,” Maria said. “Phil Coulson runs the team.”
Molly blinked. The last she had heard, Phil was dead. Phil, who had been the friendly face she’d loved to talk to when she was a young recruit, who’d made her feel at ease being in the States far away from home. Phil, who’d been rather like a big brother, sharing a fascination with Captain America and being in awe of the fact that she was Director Carter’s granddaughter. Phil, who had always had a bad joke and a good word at the ready, who would fight for what was right, no matter the cost. “But…he’s not…”
“It’s a very long story. But Phil is alive,” Maria said. She didn’t seem happy or relieved when she said it. She simply seemed to state a fact. “Anyway, to wrap this up, Victoria Hand was the person who tried to have Phil and his team killed first. When the miscommunication get settled and Garrett’s loyalties got exposed, Victoria ordered Garrett arrested and sent to the Fridge, along with most of the other HYDRA loyalists that we’d found, or at least not the ones critically injured in the fighting.” She was quiet for a moment and looked down. “Victoria was killed on the way there, Molly. Murdered by someone on the transport. And everyone who was imprisoned in the Fridge was freed.”
She felt numb at that. It seemed the bombshells kept coming, one after another. Garrett was HYDRA, Phil wasn’t dead, now Victoria was murdered and the Fridge was empty. She sat there, stunned for a moment. She could tell Maria was worried, as she began to nibble on her bottom lip slightly. Finally she spoke. “Do you know what happened?” she asked.
“Not entirely. There were no survivors on the transport and no survivors at the Fridge who were loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Maria said. “But there was one other person there, and he isn’t among the dead.”
“Who?” Molly asked.
“Grant Ward,” Maria said. “I’m not sure if you knew him, when you were with S.H.I.E.L.D., but he went with Victoria, and he’s still alive. I doubt Garrett has him as a hostage, so the logical assumption is he’s HYDRA.”
Molly ran the name over in her mind. It didn’t seem familiar to her, but that didn’t mean she might not have known him. She might recognize him if she saw his face. She looked down at her hands and tried to put a lid on the anger inside her. “Victoria was a good friend,” she said quietly. “I know I put S.H.I.E.L.D. behind me in a lot of ways when I left, but I kept in touch with some of the people I knew, the ones I had bonded with whose lives didn’t revolve around the work. You, Phil, Victoria…” She took a deep breath and looked up. “I want to get the bastard who killed her and I want to make him pay. And then I want to toss him into a deeper, darker hole than the Fridge and hope to Hell he rots there.”
“I know just the place,” Maria said. “And even if the government tears S.H.I.E.L.D. to the ground, I’ll make sure he ends up there and no one ever finds him. Garrett too.”
“Good,” Molly said. She’d cry for Victoria in private, when she was alone. Now was not the time, however. Now was the time to start finding out what she could do to salvage her country’s stake in this situation, what plans she could make for her own personal vengeance. Now was the time for action, not tears.
There was a knock at the door and both women turned their heads towards it. “Yes?” Maria said crisply
“Agent Hill?” Molly heard an all too familiar voice ask. She had rather hoped she would not see her cousin while she was here but it appeared luck was not on her side. The door opened and Sharon Carter stuck her head in. She saw Molly and her eyes widened for a moment before narrowing slightly. “Margaret,” she said, adding a slight snide bite to the name.
“Sharon,” Molly said in kind.
Maria looked from one woman to the other. “I take it you two have personal baggage?” Maria asked, raising an eyebrow.
“A competitive streak a mile wide,” Molly said, eyeing her cousin speculatively. “You could almost say sibling rivalry, except we’re cousins.”
“Unfortunately,” Sharon said.
“Well, keep a grip on it while you’re here,” Maria said. “There’s a lot of other crap to deal with. We don’t need family squabbles on top of it.”
“Yes ma’am,” Sharon said, nodding. “You’re needed back in the command center, Agent Hill.”
“Tell them I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. Sharon nodded again and then left, shutting the door behind her. Maria then turned to Molly. “Why couldn’t you two have a nice, happy, healthy family relationship?”
Molly quirked an eyebrow. “How many spies do you know who come from nice, normal families?” she asked.
Maria opened her mouth to reply and then thought a moment before closing it. “Touché,” she said finally. She headed to the door and then opened it. “I suppose we should start getting you and your friends settled in. I think you have your work cut out for you.”
Molly nodded and got off the table to follow her. She had a lot to think about, a lot to process, she realized. She had the feeling that this was going to be a rather eye-opening time in Washington D.C. and she wasn’t entirely sure if that was going to be a good thing or a bad thing.
---
They had been in Washington D.C. for almost forty-eight hours when she finally got some time to herself where she wasn’t sleeping. She needed to get away from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, get away from the constant busyness and the constant drove of people needing her attention and approval. She needed space to move and fresh air to breathe. She needed peace.
She considered talking a walk in one of the parks in the Capitol but in the end decided it would be better if she went and paid her family a visit. It had been a long time since she had seen her grandmother; in fact, the last time she had been to see her had been…nearly ten years, before she’d been moved to the home. It had been a cordial visit, but so unlike the visits she’d had when she was younger, before everything had happened. Before Argentina.
Before her life had been flipped upside down.
She knew her grandmum’s Alzheimer’s had appeared quite late in life; up until her mid-80s she’d had all her mental capacities and had been able to live on her own. She’d been quite proud of that, having kept the same home in Washington D.C. that she and her husband had had since the 1950s. Molly had fond memories of that home, spending her summers there. Her own mum had loved her grandmother, she did, but she hadn’t loved all the secrecy of what she did, of the government work, even when her grandmum could be a bit more open about it. She’d wanted to distance herself from it. But even with an ocean between them she’d never wanted to keep Molly from her grandmum, so every summer as soon as school was out she’d hop on a plane and fly to the States and spend the summer in Washington D.C. with her grandmum and her grandfather, and she adored those times.
They’d truly been some of the best times of her life.
As she approached the building where Peggy Carter lived now it just seemed so sad to see that she had lost so much. Not just her home but her memories. She wondered if she’d even know who she was, to be honest. Ten years was a long time, and while Molly had sent cards, sent letters and sent pictures, she hadn’t visited. Ten years would do a lot to change a person.
And to a woman who was losing her memories, ten years might as well be an eternity.
She went to the nurses’ desk and waited until one of the nurses turned to her before giving her a smile. “Hello. My grandmum is a resident here. Peggy Carter?”
“You aren’t Sharon,” the woman said, eyeing her.
Of course Sharon would come visit, she thought to herself. “I’m her daughter’s daughter. Margaret Hooper. I go by Molly, though.”
“Oh!” the nurse said, her eyes wide. “You’re the one who sends the mail from England!”
Molly nodded. “I’m in the States for business and I thought I’d drop by. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen her. I…I hope that’s all right?”
“Well, you’ve sent pictures, which will help,” the nurse said, giving her a warm smile. “I have to warn you, though, her Alzheimer’s is quite advanced. Sometimes she’s lucid, but usually not for very long. A lot of the time you’ll get brief glimpses where you can see she knows something, and then she’ll slip back to a moment in the past.”
Molly nodded. She had to steel herself for that. She had to steel herself for her grandmum thinking she was still in S.H.I.E.L.D. Or worse, going back to just after she had left, when their relationship was strained. Dear God, she hoped her grandmum didn’t go back to that point. She didn’t know if she could bear that. The nurse had her pull out her passport to prove her identity and she filled out some paperwork as well, and then she was taken to a room. Her grandmum was in bed, resting. Molly never remembered her looking so frail before. The nurse knocked on the door gently and Peggy stirred, turning to look at them. “Yes?” she asked, her voice still strong. That helped ease Molly’s nerves a bit.
“You have a visitor, Peggy,” the nurse said with a smile.
Molly stepped into the room, coming over to her grandmother’s bedside. “Hello, Grandmum,” she said quietly.
Peggy looked confused for a second, and then a wide smile blossomed on her face. “Margaret,” she said. “Oh, my dear Margaret.” She held out her arms for her and Molly came over, embracing her grandmother. Even though she might have looked frail she still had the same warm embrace Molly remembered from childhood. It was still comforting, still soothing. “Was your mission successful?” she asked, her lips in her hair.
Molly felt a strange sense in relief as she nodded. “Yes, it was,” she said as she pulled back. She knew she had tears in her eyes and it was everything she could do not to cry. “It’s been a very long undercover mission, but it was quite successful.” She cast a glance at the nurse who gave her a sympathetic smile and an encouraging nod before leaving and shutting the door behind her.
Peggy gestured to the chair next to her bed and then carefully got into a more upright position. “You should tell me about it, then,” she said. “Stark never tells me about when agents go on long term undercover missions anymore. You’d think he was the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Molly gave her a smile and tried to ignore the lump in her throat as she spoke, filling in her grandmum on various bits of things that had happened to her in the last few years. She avoided certain touchy subjects, like the deaths of her parents, and focused more on other things. She found herself spinning a tale, tweaking her involvement with Sherlock into a grand story of how he was an MI-6 agent and they were working together to bring down a criminal mastermind named James Moriarty. She could see that her grandmum had started to tire towards the end, and by the time she had gotten to the fictional confrontation on the roof between the three of them her grandmother had fallen asleep.
Only then did she lean back in her chair and silently allow the tears to fall. She had lost so much time with her. So much time she could never get back. She was an utter idiot. After a brief cry she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and then pulled the covers up, tucking her in, and then quietly left the room. She stopped to thank the nurse on her way out and then went and made a beeline for the bar at the hotel where she was staying at, The Dignitary. She needed to get properly pissed, and it was going to take a great deal of alcohol to do that. Fuck all if it was only four in the afternoon.
She went to the bar and sat down, ordering a shot of the highest quality whiskey. Her goal was to drink as many shots as it took for her to feel nice and stupid, then go to the room and pass out in a nice alcohol induced stupor. Then maybe she wouldn’t think about what a fool she was for wasting those precious years with her grandmum. For not trying to mend her relationship with her family. For being a coward. For being a coward in a lot of ways, actually.
She wasn’t quite sure how many shots she’d had when she saw a familiar figure arrive. She groaned at the sight of him, especially as he slid onto the stool next to hers. “I don’t need a babysitter,” she said, picking up the shot the bartender poured and downing it in a single fluid motion.
Sherlock nodded, looking at the empty shot glass. “All right.”
She looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “You’re just going to agree with me?”
“I’m just going to sit here and escort you to your room, and make sure no one takes advantage of you,” he said. “That falls under the job description of bodyguard as opposed to babysitter.”
She stared at him a moment and then signaled for another shot. “How did you know I was here?” she asked. “Using your skills of deduction?”
“No,” he said. “The FBI and CIA have you tailed. We just butted in on them and found out where you are.” He pointed to four people sitting near the entrance to the bar in two booths and waved at them. “The two in the booth over by the door are your tail and my tail from the FBI and the two in the booth next to them are the CIA tails.” All four of them scowled at him, and then he turned to the bartender. “Send all four of them Shirley Temples, please. Are her drinks on a tab?”
The bartender nodded. “Yes,” he said.
Sherlock pulled out a credit card. “Put the four drinks and all of hers on this card,” he said.
Molly frowned. “Sherlock,” she said as the bartender took the card.
“Mycroft gave it to me to use when I’m abroad doing things like this,” he said with a shrug. “He may raise an eye at the charges but I doubt he’ll care too much.” Then he nodded to the empty shot glass. “How many is that?”
She thought about it. “Six?” she said hesitantly. “Possibly seven.”
He studied her a moment. “And yet you don’t appear pissed.”
“Trust me. Go drinking with Natalia Alianova Romanoff enough times and you develop a remarkably high tolerance.” She looked at the shot glass and then shook her head, pushing it away. “It’s not even worth it, to be honest. All I’ll do is wake up with a headache and cotton mouth and a sour stomach from drinking on an empty stomach. I might as well just give up.”
“At least let me get you something to eat, then,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m sure.”
“All right,” she said.
They waited for the bartender to return the card, and then Molly got a nonalcoholic drink to sip on while they waited for the FBI and CIA agents tailing them to get their drinks delivered to them. Once glares were sent in their directions, answered with one of Sherlock’s thoroughly fake smiles, Sherlock and Molly left the bar and headed out to get a cab, telling the driver to take them to what he considered the best Chinese food place in the city. He took them to Sichuan Pavilion, where they had a meal of dumplings in Sichuan sauce, hot and sour seafood soup, lamb Sichuan style for him and duck red home style for her, and then headed back to their rooms at the Marriott. Sherlock escorted Molly to her door, leaning his shoulder against the wall while she slid her key card into the slot. She got the door open and then he looked at her. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “I suppose I’ll have to be,” she said. “There isn’t anything I can do about it now.”
“Well,” he said, “if you need me, I am here for you. You are one of my friends, after all. One of the few.”
“Thank you,” she said, giving him a small smile. She leaned in and kissed his cheek softly before pulling away.
“Molly,” he said quietly, and she stopped.
“Yes?” she said.
He hesitated a moment, and then leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. It was a soft kiss, very tender, and she shut her eyes, enjoying it. She shouldn’t be enjoying it, she knew that; she was engaged to another man, but she had imagined this for so long. After a moment he pulled away, still keeping close. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said finally.
“No,” she said. “But…it was nice.”
“Was it?” he asked.
She nodded slightly. “Yes.”
He kept close for another moment before reluctantly pulling away. “I will see you in the morning, unless you need to see me sooner,” he said, turning and heading towards his room. She turned to watch him go, almost tempted to call him back. She didn’t know what on earth had possessed him to kiss her, but she knew one thing: she wasn’t going to forget it any time soon.
---
It was two days after she’d visited her grandmother and the kiss had happened and Molly was just so tired. She’d had a rather hard time sleeping, with all sorts of thoughts running in her head, and she was spending more and more time at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Mary was plying the contacts she still had in Washington to see who would be open to negotiations of taking ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from the United Kingdom into the fold, be it the American government or whomever, so long as it was nice and legal. Sherlock was seeing what doors his brother’s name and connections could open for her to make backroom deals with. So far she’d gotten a few, and with the bargaining power Mycroft had given her she’d managed to make some decent headway in protecting Her Majesty’s interests.
She wasn’t the only one doing this kind of work, she realized. There were other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from other countries scrambling for purchase for their homelands, trying to salvage something to give them an edge. But for the most part they were getting shut out. They didn’t have the clearance level she had, didn’t have the lineage, didn’t have the actual backing of their home government. She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if some of these agents took what they knew when S.H.I.E.L.D. went belly up and tried to go rogue. That would be a headache and a half for the intelligence communities left over. She idly wondered if she should be taking notes on particular agents of interest to hand over to Mycroft for MI-6.
She rubbed at the back of her neck and shut her eyes for a moment. She’d kill for a nice massage right about now. This game of politics was not what she’d signed up for; when she’d been in the game, all those years ago, there had been missions. She’d gone into all of this putting her life on the line to actually do things, not move a bunch of metaphorical pieces around on a chessboard and make backroom deals and play the political game. She had no idea how her grandmother had done it, and done it so well, for all those years.
Yes, but HYDRA had slipped in under her nose, a nasty little voice said in her head. She wanted that voice to shut up, to go back in its dark little corner and rot there. But it was true all the same. The deal Peggy Carter had made had allowed Nazi scum like Arnim Zola to bring HYDRA in right under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s watch and flourish in the cracks. And there were so many cracks. S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten so large that there were so many dark places for evil to flourish, she was learning.
She was honestly surprised the HYDRA uprising hadn’t happened earlier, and hadn’t been far worse.
Finally she stopped rubbing at her neck and lifted her head up before leaning back in her chair. She needed some air. This time she would head to one of the parks, she thought. Or perhaps the Smithsonian; it might be interesting to visit the Captain America exhibit. Not that she didn’t know the stories like the back of her hand; when you spent summers having them regaled to you in person by the surviving members of the Howling Commandos it was rather inevitable.
She slipped on her coat and then made her way out of the headquarters and off the premises. She nodded to her FBI and CIA tails, earning a scowl from each of them. She was rather amused by that. She hailed a cab the first chance she got and had it take her to the Smithsonian, and eventually she found her way to the exhibit. She had seen photos of the men she knew so well when she was young, but seeing them blown up to life size was a new experience. Knowing that so many of them weren’t there anymore left her with a pang of regret and loss, and knowing now what HYDRA had done to Bucky Barnes angered her, but she stifled it as she moved into the exhibit, studying things.
It was maybe ten minutes later she realized she was being shadowed and not by one of her government tails. It was quite a familiar feeling. She knew when this particular person was tailing her because she went about it the same way every time. Well, two could play her game. She pretended to be enthralled by the exhibit which appeared to be missing the life size replica of Captain America and his WWII outfit. “Natasha, you need to change your style every once in a while,” she said once the woman was in earshot.
“How do you know I wasn’t doing it on purpose?” Natasha Romanov replied, sidling up to Molly.
“Because you do it every time you tail me?” Molly said. “It’s a lazy habit.”
“Or maybe I want you to notice I’m tailing you,” Natasha said. When Molly turned to look at her she saw the infamous Black Widow wearing a smirk. “The Smithsonian is very upset with Steve. He ruined a perfectly good artifact.”
“Oh?” Molly said.
Natasha gestured to the display. “He stole the outfit before the fight at the Triskelion. It got ruined. The paramedics cut it off of him in the ambulance. A perfectly good relic, destroyed. And Steve didn’t believe in taking good care of his uniforms in the war.”
Molly grinned slightly. “Do you enjoy poking fun at his age?” she asked.
“I find quite a bit of joy in it,” Natasha said with a wide smile. “He hates it, which makes it even better.” She nodded towards the exit. “Seen enough?”
Molly looked around. “I suppose I can come back later,” she said.
Natasha studied her. “This all means something different to you. More like it means to Steve.”
Molly nodded, gesturing around them. “I grew up with stories about all this, when I would spend my summers with my grandmum. I knew the Howling Commandos. I’m related to Chester Phillips. This is all…well, it’s all a part of my history, too, even though it’s about Captain Rogers.”
“Then let’s finish looking at things and then get some coffee and talk,” Natasha said, almost gently. The two women walked through the rest of the exhibit. Molly felt the familiar lump in her throat that she’d had at the retirement home when they got to the video of her grandmother talking about her memories. Once again, she wished she had done things differently, but it was too late now.
When they were done they left the exhibit and made their way to Baked & Wired for coffee, tea and what Natasha insisted were the best baked goods in the District at Natasha’s insistence. They placed their orders and then sat down. Molly wasn’t quite sure it was safe to talk there but Natasha seemed content to speak her mind. She supposed with all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrets out in the open there wasn’t much left to keep secret anymore at this point. Molly took a sip of her Assam tea and then looked at Natasha. “I should be much more angry with you than I actually am,” she said.
“I did what I needed to do,” Natasha said before taking a sip of her latte. “It was the only way to salvage the situation.”
“I know. That’s the only reason why I’m not absolutely livid.” Molly leaned back in her seat. “Neither you nor I are up for playing the politics game. We never were.”
“But you’re better at it than I am,” Natasha said. “That part of your grandmother’s personality rubbed off on you. You’re doing a great job right now, from what I’ve heard.”
“And just what have you heard?” Molly asked. “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.”
“Well, considering I’m an ex-assassin turned spy for the US government, I’m very high on the kill list of quite a few governments,” Natasha said. “S.H.I.E.L.D. protected me. S.H.I.E.L.D. as we knew it is gone, and if the US government has its say, S.H.I.E.L.D. won’t exist at all much longer. They want to offer it up like a sacrificial lamb. You can smell it in the air. So right now, until Congress calls me in to give testimony about what happened, I’m laying as low as I can and distancing myself from the fallout. When it’s all over, I’ll probably slip away and come up with a new cover.”
How do you know they won’t throw you in jail?” Molly asked. “I mean, technically, you’re committed crimes against several different countries prior to being in S.H.I.E.L.D. You aren’t absolved of those.”
“I know. The red in my ledger,” Natasha said quietly. She picked up her drink and took a long sip. “To be honest, they could arrest me. They have every right to arrest me. But they also know that with the threats there are in this world, the threats from here and from other planets, that it’s people like you and me and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. who are the best qualified to keep the world safe, and we can’t do that from prison.”
“More like people like you,” Molly said. “I don’t want to get wrapped up in this life again. I put it behind me for a reason. I’m doing this as a one-off favour to a friend and that’s it,” Molly said.
Natasha tilted her head. “I never did understand why you left,” she said. “All Director Carter said was that it was personal reasons and that there would no further discussion. I know your father died shortly afterward, but…”
“It had to do with something my father was involved in,” Molly said, her voice tight. “It went horribly awry and he ended up paying a steep price.”
Natasha was quiet for a moment, and then nodded. “I suppose I’ll have to be like you and live a normal life,” she said, and Molly felt herself relax. Natasha had decided to drop the topic. Good.
“It’s easier said than done, I suppose,” she said. “There were times I missed the old life.” She had some more of her drink. “Perhaps that’s why I got tangled up in the life I did.”
“Associating with consulting detectives and taking down a worldwide criminal network?” Natasha asked with a slight grin. “Sounds like you just couldn’t let the old life completely go, Molly.”
“I suppose not,” she said. And here I am, even further in its clutches she thought to herself as she had more of her drink. She started to wonder if she had ever really left the life behind, or if she had simply tamped down her involvement to just being on the fringes and associating with others who did the more dangerous work she had used to so love.
But what worried her more was the thought that if she had to go back to it, if she actually went through with the mission of finding Garrett and Ward, would she want to go back permanently?
--
Somehow, she knew that eventually she’d get a visit from him.
She let herself into her hotel room after she and Natasha parted ways that afternoon and she went back to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters to work on taking care of some more of the business she was sent to Washington to do, and sitting on her bed was Nick Fury. She had been so used to seeing him in the long leather duster and black turtlenecks and black trousers with his eye patch and that was not what he was garbed in right now. He was wearing black denim trousers, a black hooded pullover and, most surprisingly, wearing sunglasses instead of his patch. She shut the door behind her. “Fury,” she said quietly.
“This hotel has always had shit security,” he said. “Didn’t Holmes tell you that?”
“Mycroft usually tends to give himself better accommodations,” Molly said, setting her handbag down on the desk. “I sincerely doubt he would set himself up here.” She moved in front of the desk and then leaned against it, crossing her arms and staring at her bed. “And besides, his brother is accompanying me. I doubt very much that he’d put Sherlock up someplace like at…I don’t know. The Four Seasons or someplace like that.”
Fury chuckled at that. “Oh yeah. The Holmes brotherly feud is legendary. It’s up there with the antics between you and Agent 13.”
Molly’s jaw set at the mention of her cousin. “Yes, well, when you spend a lot of your life being told what a great S.H.I.E.L.D. agent your cousin was and how since she’s left the agency she’d gotten her medical degree and a Masters in forensic science, written some award winning research papers, become one of the top forensic pathologists in the world, worked closely with the world famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and helped bring down a criminal network run by a man S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t even touch while you can’t even tell anyone what you really do for a living, there tends to be a bit of hard feelings.”
“I take it your aunt and uncle sing your praises?” Fury asked, and she could see his eyebrow raise over the sunglasses.
“Quite often, from what I understand,” Molly said. “I love my aunt and uncle, I do, but they just make it worse. I try and avoid Sharon as often as possible, but her parents want to be involved in my life. They feel sorry for me, because I’m all alone, and with my grandmum being how she is…”
Fury nodded, and then he leaned back to lie down on the bed. “You’re going to go after Garrett and Ward, aren’t you. For what happened to Victoria.”
“Yes,” Molly said, nodding. “I want to toss the both of them into a deep, dark hole and then let them rot until they die of natural causes.”
“You’re not going to budge on that ‘no kill’ rule of yours, are you?” Fury asked.
“I’ve managed to hold to it for all these years,” Molly said. “There’s no point in breaking it now.”
“I’ve always thought it’s a pretty stupid rule myself,” he said. “I mean, what happens if you get in a situation where you aren’t left with any other choice? Are you going to be an idiot and let them kill you? I mean, have you thought about that?”
“I’ve always said I won’t kill, but I never said I wouldn’t defend myself,” Molly said. “And if someone dies because I defended myself then I suppose I’ll live with that. But I didn’t purposefully kill them, so I can live with that.”
Fury sat up, leveraging himself on his elbows. He grinned at Molly and then nodded approvingly. “Damn, Hooper. I’m impressed. I never thought you’d have it in you.”
“Well, no one’s ever actually asked me for specifics before,” she said. She uncrossed her arms and then placed a hand on the desk on either side of her body. “I know there’s a reason you’re here and we’re having this chat. It isn’t just because you missed my sparkling personality after all of these years.”
His grin turned into a smirk. “You always were a smartass, Hooper. That’s definitely a trait your cousin didn’t get from the family tree. I’ve missed that since you left.” He sat up fully and put his hands in his lap and then looked down at them. “Agent Hill told you about Coulson by now.”
Molly nodded. “He’s running the secret Level 8 clearance team,” she said.
“He’s also going to be the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. now,” Fury said. “The government’s going to tear it apart officially, but unofficially, it’s going to remain. It’s going to have to. The world can’t exist without it. But it will be different. Hopefully it can get back to the ideals that your grandmother and the other founders had for it.”
“Phil would be just the man to run it,” Molly said with a nod. She was quiet for a moment. “How many people know?”
“Not many,” Fury said. “Hell, you shouldn’t know, but I’m telling you out of respect for the fact that Peggy Carter is your grandmother and I need your help.”
“With what?” she said slowly.
“We know Garrett and Ward are collaborating,” Fury said. “We think Coulson’s team had intel that they wanted that they can’t access. I sent the team to a secret base called Providence and we’re supposed to hear from our man on site there, Agent Koenig, but he hasn’t sent us word in three hours. Agent Hill is on her way there to find out what’s going on there now. If the worst has happened and they’ve had to go off the grid, I want you and your friends to track them down and help Coulson and his team make sure Garrett and Ward end up in that deep, dark hole you want them in so bad.”
Molly looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Sir, all due respect, but I’m not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent anymore, and neither Sherlock or Mary answer to you. Plus, for all intents and purposes, you’re dead. Technically you have no authority at all anymore.”
“Are you fucking sassing me, Hooper?” he asked incredulously.
“Just pointing out the obvious,” she said. She was quiet for a moment. “This is all going to be off the books, I take it?”
“I figure in a few weeks S.H.I.E.L.D. as we know it is going to have a fork stuck in it and be done,” Fury said. “Maybe even in a few days. We may see the government hurry up and get off its ass and get it done so quick our heads spin. So after that yeah, everything is off the books.”
“Then I suppose I shouldn’t tell Mycroft,” she said.
“Somehow I’m pretty sure he’ll figure it out,” Fury said. “He’s a crafty little bastard with his fingers in a lot of pies. But he knows how to keep secrets. And since he’s close to you, I think he’ll keep that one.” He got up off the bed. “Take care of your business for him first. But when you’re done, get to work on this. I want the threat Garrett and Ward pose to be taken care of as quickly as possible.”
Molly nodded as Fury made his way to her door. “Anything else?” she asked.
He put his hand on the door knob. “Yeah. Don’t get killed,” he said before opening the door and stepping out, shutting it behind him. She shook her head and then made her way to her mobile. She should at least give Sherlock and Mary a heads up that this favour was going to take longer than they expected. She had a feeling that this was going to be a long afternoon that was going to leave her with a raging headache.