Look, my parents were mad scientists who pumped me full of spider-juice just to see what would happen. I went to Hail Hydra high school and Nick Fury university. I've been extraordinary my entire life. After all these years of insanity... a little ordinary sounds pretty #$%^ great. You have your normal... and I have mine.
“Well I try not to think about it, or else I wouldn’t be able to do my job. We screw up every once in a while, but we can’t abandon our teammates because of it.”
“You sound opposite Carol. Not that she wants to abandon Wanda. She’s just – you know how Carol is.” One leg dangled off the lumpy sofa that was plopped in Clint’s living room and Jess swung it idly. “Shame on me for wishing we could all behave.”
Maybe Luna’s first concern should have been where she was and how she got there, but after finding herself in a strange variation of Earth that was unfamiliar to her, she had other concerns. Like getting some food. Typically she tried to eat relatively healthy, but she was starving. And a burger sounded pretty good in the moment. The only problem was that she didn’t have any money on her. She didn’t really have anything, actually. “Excuse me, could you spare me a burger? And maybe some fries? I don’t have a way to repay you but it’d be greatly appreciated.”
What was it with all of the kids? Scott’s daughter … well, that was actually the only new one. Still. Jessica happened to be very strapped for cash. She was decently close to signing up for one of those apps where heroes could rent out their services that Gwen had told her about. “Is this Oliver Twist?” The joke fell flat. “Someone left frozen tacos in the Facilities freezer. They may have freezer burn. Does that work?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger. Sam asked Carol who asked me to grab his stuff. Does he have a second pair of flappies laying around elsewhere?” That was close enough to wings.
That wasn’t true, because she did care, but she could also see the fallout of Westview. “You think SWORD is just going to let this go? You think the people of Westview are just going to let this go? An Avenger mind controlled people for months, took over their lives. We just put our reputation into the ground.”
“I think Abigail Brand doesn’t give a rats ass about Wanda Maximoff in the long run. And it’s terrible but I don’t think the people of Westview can do anything more than the people whose houses we smash through fighting the flavor of the month. Our reputation has been bad no matter how many inspirational speeches Sam or Steve give. I don’t know where to go from there.”
Cindy still wasn’t quite used to the whole adult thing, and it was ten times harder now that she was out in the real world without her parents by her side and fresh off of seven years in isolation. Honestly, the whole being a human person thing felt like a weird concept at this point. It took a lot of courage for her to let herself out of the bunker, and even more courage to put herself out there enough to even meet anyone. She was trying, but conversations were still pretty hard. “Are things getting bad again? I was kind of hoping that I sat most of the crazy stuff out in the bunker.”
Playing the unofficial babysitter to Cindy Moon wasn’t in Jessica’s original plans for the evening. Not that Cindy needed a babysitter – she was a competent semi adult, after all. Maybe it was that Jess felt bad. When she had stumbled from her stasis pod back to reality after decades of being locked away she had been aimless. So aimless she had joined HYDRA, but that was beside the point. Cindy had more going for her than Jessica ever had and she wanted to keep it that way. “It’s a cycle. Good, bad, good, bad. It’s not something you can wait out.” Checking her phone, Jessica ran a hand through her hair. “Gwen’s late and Roger’s got to pick his own kid up which means I have to be home to get mine. What do you say, Moon?” She pocketed the phone. “You’re not afraid of toddlers, are you?”
Daisy was working on fixing things up around the base, since she’d become the residential tech person. She felt like she was working more for IT than S.W.O.R.D., which she wasn’t complaining about. It had been awhile since she had went back to her roots. As she heard a voice behind her, she took the flashlight out of her mouth and turned around. “Did you need something?”
Jessica needed a lot of things but it didn’t seem fair to spring any of them on Daisy when that clearly wasn’t what she was referring to. “I broke the Keurig. Not sure why we can’t just use a normal coffee pot like civilized people.”
“I suppose a warmer welcome was too much to ask for?”
“I’ve met a lot of your type. Been taken advantage of by them as well.” That was when she was younger but Jessica was still wary. “Plus, I don’t like people who mess with my friends.”
