Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Trish Walker glanced at the eight-foot gorilla man sitting across from her and, for the first time, wished that her talk show was television rather than radio.

“Welcome to Trish Talk. Tonight I have with me a special guest with a unique insider perspective on the proposed legislation that is all anyone’s talking about, the Superhero Registration Act.

“Now we all know about Captain America, the first public Superhero from World War II. And we all know Iron Man, the first public Superhero of the Modern Era. But the Enhanced did not simply cease to exist between 1945 and 2008. If you were following the Ant Man trial you may have picked up on the fact that Scott Lang’s predecessor, Dr. Hank Pym and his wife, Jan van Dyne-Pym were active as Enhanced agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. during the latter half of the Cold War. And of course, there was the brainwashed Sergeant James Barnes’ horrifying history as HYDRA's Winter Soldier. The Enhanced didn’t cease to exist when the Valkyrie went down in the ice, they went underground. So how do the Accords and SHRA effect those people? What do they think of these new laws to regulate their existence, which was kept secret by no less than a global conspiracy of silence for seventy years. Today I have with me Kenneth Hale, the Immortal Gorilla Man, who served as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. from 1950 to 1956 to share with you his perspective. Ken, could you tell my listeners a little about yourself?”

Hale laughed, a harsh howling sound, “If my moniker ain’t enough to explain it, I’m a guy trapped in the body of a gorilla. Back in the forties I was an idiot afraid of dyin’ so I went chasing a legend about an gorilla who talked like a man and could grant immortality. I got what I was after but there were some hairy strings attached. Looking like this I didn’t see any way I could go back to civilization but I ended up on the SSR’s radar. Later, when their successor, S.H.I.E.L.D. needed an Enhanced team to rescue President Truman before anyone noticed he was missing I was one of those tapped for the job.

“The team was me, Robert Grayson, the Human Robot and Venus. We were led by Agent James Woo, S.H.I.E.L.D. had poached him from the FBI. Jimmy was the Normal, our handler, he never let that stand in the way of being one of the team. Bob’s dad went a little farther than most when it came to getting outta Nazi Germany, he left the planet. Bob was raised on Uranus and the tech he brought back to Earth with him let him read minds, fly and create bursts of light energy. Venus was a woman whose voice makes men fall in love. The Human Robot, M-11 was somewhere between an artificial intelligence and an electronic copy of his creator’s brainwaves. They sent us in, we aced the mission, gelled as team and went on to become the dream team of the day.”

“So what does a veteran superhero from the nineteen-fifties think of having to register with the government and of being placed under surveyance simply because he happens to be Enhanced?”

“I think the paper used to write the Registration Act would be worth more if we used it for wiping our asses,” Hale stated bluntly and with a strange cheerfulness. “The part that’s being debated just now about making Enhanced wear trackers? Gotta wonder if our esteemed representatives on Capitol Hill have ever heard of Civil Rights. Then there’s SHRA’s definition of ‘Enhanced’, reading between the lines, it boils down to anyone who scares the shit out of them.”

“So you’re opposed to SHRA?” Trish asked.

Hale snorted, “I’m not in love with it but what can you expect from an attempt to codify the best practices of an organization that couldn’t recognize it when its upper echelons were infiltrated by fucking Nazis?”

“You’re saying SHRA is an outgrowth of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s practices when dealing with the Enhanced?” Trish asked.

“You think the Hulk’s not in a collar because there were no Sokovia Accords ten years ago not because General Ahab didn’t have the physical ability to get it done? You think this whole Enhanced Registration notion came to them out of the clear blue sky?” Hale asked sarcastically. “Back in my day S.H.I.E.L.D. called it the Index. If you were discovered to have some sort of power, anything from being too good at predicting the odds to having a gaze that could literally kill, your name ended up on the Index. S.H.I.E.L.D. would send a ‘case worker’ to evaluate your abilities and do a personality profile. Best case scenario you ended up being monitored by S.H.I.E.L.D. for the rest of your life and they dictate to you how and when you’re allowed to use your abilities. Translation: If they have a use for your abilities you can use ‘m, if not you gotta hide ‘m however you can. But if your S.H.I.E.L.D. case worker decided you were too dangerous or too unstable they took measures to neutralize you: Limiters forcibly placed on your powers, incarceration or there’s always the old fashion bullet to the back of the skull. You get no say in the matter, no recourse to protest their evaluation, no trial, no sentence except life. You are judged, not on what you’ve done but on what they judge you capable of doing. You don’t fall in line, if you try to go public… Well, it took an alien invasion to break S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ability to silence anyone who wasn’t with the program, one way or another.”

“And this is S.H.I.E.L.D. of the 1950’s? S.H.I.E.L.D. under the auspices of Peggy Carter?” Trish asked.

“It wasn’t because S.H.I.E.L.D. was a rose-colored glasses type place that HYDRA was able to get in unnoticed,” Hale stated. “S.H.I.E.L.D. was about getting the job done, no matter what. Protecting the world from stuff the average joe on the street wasn’t ready to know existed. And it was S.H.I.E.L.D. and the World Security Council that had the final word on what the world was ready to know.”

“The… World Security Council?” Trish asked.

“You folk who don’t know what the WSC is?” Hale grinned sarcastically. “That’s ‘cause they decided you didn’t need to know. ‘Less I seriously miss my guess, they’d be the ones authorized that nuke flying toward Manhattan in 2012. And if I know anything about them? The final report on that incident reads something like ‘By order of the WSC Tony Stark was provided with the means to deal a crippling blow to the invading forces.’ The WSC was the ultimate authority, answerable to no one. While they were running thing they didn’t make mistakes, they rewrote history.

“So now you ask why I quit working for S.H.I.E.L.D., or how an obviously Enhanced gent like me was able to quit working for S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Hale said.

“Under what circumstances did you leave employment with S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Trish compiled.

Hale bared his fangs in something that probably wasn’t meant to be a smile, “In 1956, after half a decade’s service, my team’s leader, Agent James Woo, told us that there was something fishy about the WSC and he was going to look into it. I don’t hear anything more about it but two months later I’m waking up on a plane flying low over the Congo River. The S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent standing over me says my classification on the Index has been modified and if I show my face in civilization again I'll be shot on sight. Then they shove me out the cargo hatch without the courtesy of a chute.”

“Do you know what happened to the rest of your team?” Trish asked.

“More or less. See, I’m not the type to buckle under first threat thrown my way so I go digging. First thing I see is Jimmy’s been grabbed up in one of the last of Senator Joe’s Commie hunts. They found him guilty of espionage, biggest load of crap I ever had the displeasure of smelling. I was going break him out but Venus found me first, told they’d implanted a bomb in his neck, that they’d kill him if we tried anything. But when I say told, well that’s a misstatement, she wrote it. They took her like they took me, cut her vocal cords out before they let her go with her warning. They weren’t so gentle with M-11, guess they didn’t count him as really alive, they took him apart then melted the pieces down. We never found a trace of what happened to Bob. I hope he made it back to his people but he could be inhabiting an unmarked grave just as easy. With half the team gone and Jimmy as their hostage, Venus and I couldn’t do much but slink back to our holes like a couple of whipped dogs.

“What changed?” Trish asked. “Why come forward now?”

Hale chuckled darkly, “The Accords and SHRA, even with all the loop-holes ready for exploiting, violations of privacy, all that shit that makes them cruddy laws, they’re better than what we had before. The Accords take oversight of the Enhanced outta the hands of shadow governments like the World Security Council and puts it in the hands of the UN. Like or dislike the United Nations, it’s got a mandatory degree of transparency that’d make the WSC feel as exposed as a nun in a nudey magazine.

“What SHRA wants to do to us, it’s all out there in black and white, where I can fight it. Until just recently I existed at the WSC’s discretion. I couldn’t argue against how I was being treated because they reserved the right to erase me if I told the public I more than some Yeti story.”

“What about after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell?” Trish asked. “Wasn’t that the ideal situation for the Enhanced? From the Avengers’ example it seems safe to say that there was no one overseeing you from 2013 to 2016.”

Hale snorted, “That’s what I call a power vacuum.” He shook his heavy head, “Anybody that tells you that’s a sustainable way to live is showing an embarrassing level of naivety. During that time you had multiple factions of S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA running around trying to grab power, plus at least a dozen different governments throwing their hat in. Inevitably one or several of them was going to end up with oversight of the Enhanced in their bailiwick, the UN’s a better option than most.”

“Better than the Avengers?” Trish asked.

“The Avengers are a bare handful of folk,” Hale pointed out. “The team was designed to address obvious as the nose on your face global issues like being invaded by hostile bug-people, they aren’t set up to police a whole world of Enhanced, let alone police interactions between Enhanced and Normals across the world. You tick ‘em off and they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks but if you don’t do something that hits ‘em where they live odds are they aren’t going to see it, they just don’t have the numbers.

“On top of that they’ve got nothing written to say what laws they support. Even me, making like Dr. Livingston out in the jungle, knows that easily half the Avengers don’t give credence to a mess of damn common laws, anti-vigilantism regs hardly need mentioning do they? Brutality among those vigilantes the Avengers don’t have a problem with? Some people say the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen goes too far, even more say the Punisher is outta line, the Avengers don’t say shit. Now maybe they agree with what one or both are up to or maybe they just don’t notice what they're doing. Who knows? Theft? They didn’t push charges against that Lang character when he stole from Stark, I guess if you’ve got a good enough reason stealing’s okay by them. The witch? Maybe it don’t matter what you do if you’re a pretty little thing with a sob story. In short nobody knows which laws the Avengers’ll uphold and which they’ll ignore, ‘cept we do got a good notion that it’s on a case-by-case basis. So if they’re in charge the rest of us’ll do whatever we feel like and the Avengers’ll let us know, after the fact, in blood and bruises, if it wasn’t okay. Not a workable plan.”

“So the long and short of it is the Enhanced have powers and we use ‘em to impact everyone around us. ‘Cause of that someone was going to end up in charge of regulating us, either on the table or under it, and the UN’s probably the best possible option. Good enough that, even with my reservations, I went and let both the UN and the Avengers know who I was and that they could call on me. Because by making myself known to them, for the first time in sixty years I’m not afraid to ask that someone to dig into what was done to my team.

“For the first time since I got into this life, back in the fifties, legitimate governments, the ones that have to answer to someone are stepping forward and trying take responsibility for coming up with a solution to the issues we Enhanced cause by existing instead of putting it in the hands of people they can deny knowledge of. And that is a step in the right direction from where I'm sitting.”

Chapter Text

Foggy walked into the office he and Matt Murdock shared, flipped on the lights then jumped when he saw Matt already sitting at his desk. From his expression, Matt's mind was a million miles aways. “Jeez Matt! You’re going to give me a heart attack, sneaking up on me in the dark like that!”

“Were the lights off?” Matt asked innocently, like he’d done a hundred times before since they’d been roommates in college.

Foggy frowned, slightly suspicious. “Do you actually not know when the lights are out?” he asked.

Matt shrugged, “Fluorescents buzz when they’re on, like a mosquito in my ear. I spend half my life wanting to smash the damn things so I can get a little peace. Incandescents? I can make a pretty good guess based on the temperature given off by the bulb. LEDs? Not a clue.”

Foggy glanced up at the light fixture and saw it was an Incandescent, “So what has you sitting in the dark thinking serious thoughts? I do know that expression.”

Matt waited until Foggy shut the door and sat down across from him. “Just realizing that if I walked into a police station cold and smelled the blood on one of the guys I’d dealt with? I’d be planning a defense based on police brutality before they said a word.”

“You listen to the Tish Show,” Foggy realized.

Matt snorted, “I don’t have much choice but listen to everything anyone in my building listens to. The soundproofing isn’t that great.

"It's only because I'm the one dealing the damage that I know," he grimaced, "I think that it's justified. I wouldn't be particularly willing to listen to explanations from a cop who operated the way I do. I'd question their presumed knowledge of their victim, the criminal's guilt. Regardless of what information they have access to, I'd question their impartiality. I'd argue that there's good reason for our judicial system. I don't trust cops. They couldn't get justice for my father, there were too many of them in the Kingpin's pocket. But I expect the public, and the police, to trust me to make the calls I don't trust them to make, without knowing my name or anything about me. I expect them to trust me to be impartial without giving them anyway of knowing my biases."

“Does this mean you’re rethinking your stance on SHRA?” Foggy asked.

“I’m not dismissing the work you and SI did to make them a better law,” Matt said.

“You helped,” Foggy reminded him, “At least while you were laid up and bored. It’s still got a long way to go and you’re a good lawyer. Better than me, when you’re not too wrapped up in being a vigilante anyway. Matt Murdock, the guy who spent three years at law school, is valuable too. Not just the guy who has supernatural senses and hits hard. Maybe more valuable. How many Enhanced would really understand the law the way you do? And how many lawyers are going to understand where they’re coming from?”

“I’m blind,” Matt pointed out. “If the people I fought knew that it wouldn’t take a genius to realize how I compensate and to take advantage of it. Do you know how hard it is for me not to just curl up in a ball with my hands over my ears every time a car alarm goes off unexpectedly when I’m fighting? And don’t say I shouldn’t be fighting,” he added before Foggy could say anything. “The whole Good Samaritan thing and responding to what is happening right in front of you takes on a different meaning when I can hear everything that is happening for miles around. I listened to my dad being murdered from blocks away. I couldn’t help. I couldn’t even tell the police what I knew. Who’d believe me?”

“Maybe if you were registered, if you gave people proof of your abilities then you could testify to what you observe,” Foggy said. “You could call the police and have them take you seriously.”

“Fingerprints, DNA testing it took time to establish them as legitimate evidence,” Matt said cautiously. “We’re still debating polygraphs… I can tell you that I’m much better than a polygraph machine at detecting lies.”

“We still wouldn’t have them as evidence if people hadn’t taken the time to prove those methods scientifically sound,” Foggy replied. Matt could hear his best friend holding his breath, waiting for his response.

“I know.” Matt sighed, “I don’t want to give up being Daredevil. Hell, if I come forward as the Daredevil I might have to give up practicing law as well.”

He heard a loud thud as Foggy let his head hit the desk. “Did it ever occur to you that, maybe, you were doing something wrong if you had to hide your face to get away with doing it?” Foggy asked.

“I’m already so far down this path,” Matt admitted. “I don’t know how to go back. I was ten when my dad was killed, no one would have believed me if I told the police what I’d heard. No one would have believed it was possible then. They would have written me off as crazy. I didn’t want to be powerless when people around me were being hurt again.”

There was a long silence between them, “Can we make a deal?” Foggy asked finally. “Matt Murdock registers but Daredevil doesn’t?”

Matt tilted his head to the side. “If I get caught as Daredevil I’ll be completely screwed,” he said.

“Not registering at all and keeping on as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, you’re screwed anyway,” Foggy argued, “If you get caught. If Matt registers you can start building a space where you use your powers to help people without going outside the law. Maybe someday you’ll even be able to consider giving up the Devil.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes too high,” Matt replied with a dark look. “... But I’ll try .”

Chapter Text

Nick Fury, the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Peggy Carter's hand-picked successor, sat in a nondescript hotel room. In the moment of silence after the radio clicked off he glanced up at the sky. If he’d been the romantic sort he might have felt the urge to visit her grave but there was a risk of being seen by the wrong eyes and talking to a stone or rotting bones wouldn't give him any more answers than talking to the roof of a cheap hotel… Besides, the hotel room had been swept for bugs.

To most of the world, Peggy Carter was a footnote in the history books, a supporting character in movies and radio dramas. The real Peggy Carter had been so much more than someone’s love interest, even Captain America’s, although she’d been willing to disappear behind the myth by the time he’d met her because it helped her do her job. Because the job had been important even if it was often cruel.

“Right from the first you made sure I knew this was an ‘ends justify the means’ deal,” he said to the memory of the woman who’d recruited him into S.H.I.E.L.D.

March 20th, 1981

Nick noticed her the moment she walked into the bar: An older woman, attractive and professionally dressed but what really caught his attention was the ingrained military air about her. There weren’t many women in the service and, by her age, he’d have figured her for a combat veteran from Korea or even WWII, but there hadn't been any women in combat positions at that time… Were there?

She walked over to his table, pulled out a chair and sat down. “I can drop the military bearing if needed,” she said as if answering a question. “But it caught your interest.

“Nicholas Joseph Fury, you lied about your age and enlisted at sixteen. Your parents both died in auto crash and you had three siblings to support. I assume you and your older sister decided it would be best for her to raise the younger pair while you became the family’s breadwinner? Very old fashion of you.

“You completed three tours of duty in Vietnam before the war ended. Climbed rapidly through the ranks, received a battlefield commision then managed to get an associates degree while you were home between your second and third tour. You were promoted to Captain during your third tour. I have to ask: Are you ambitious or patriotic?”

“Just saw things I’d do differently if I were the one calling the shots,” Nick replied. “Figured I’d try my hand at it.”

The woman smiled at him as if he’d given a correct answer. “At home, you lost your older sister to cancer and your younger brother to a volatile temper and prison. Your remaining sister hasn’t spoken to you in three years, because of the war I hear. Politics or because you were there when your family was falling apart?”

Nick shrugged, his expression closing over. “Ma’am, your guess is as good as mine.”

“You haven’t tried to patch up differences with your sister. But two years ago, you left a very promising career with the army for the CIA. You’ve proved adapt at spy-craft. You’re independent, resourceful and adaptable, rumor has it that when you’re sent on a mission it’s as good as done.”

Nick couldn’t help but smirk at that.

“But given all that you’ve accomplished, truly remarkable accomplishments for someone barely thirty, I still look at your career and I see someone who is dissatisfied. You started down this path to make a living, you stuck with it to make a difference. But you’re not making a difference.”

“You don’t mince words,” Nick said, the smirk falling off his face.

“You’ve been in the spy business for several years now, you must know to make the most of the moments when you’re allowed honesty,” the woman said. “They’re few and far between.”

“So this is honesty? Not manipulation?”

“All the best manipulations are done by presenting someone with the truth. They don’t come unraveled the way manipulation through lies do. You are not a mark Agent Fury, you are someone I hope to have as an asset for a long time to come.”

“And whatever alphabet soup agency you answer to? It can get real changes made, unlike the CIA?” Fury snorted skeptically. “Or does it even have a name?”

“Peggy Carter, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.” She offered her hand. “Albert Einstein once said, ‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.’ I’m in the business of making sure that’s the worst outcome of a third world war. There are some wars, that once started, will never end until there’s no one left to fight another war. It’s my job to prevent those wars from starting, whatever it takes.” She stood up, “If you’re interested in helping to save the world… Look me up.”

Of course he’d recognized the name the moment she said it. That didn’t mean her address, office or phone number was easily accessible and S.H.I.E.L.D. was a rumor of a rumor even in intelligence circles. Fury remembered how every challenge, every dead end had only made him more eager. He shook his head, Director Carter had walked up to him cold, offered him a job with an organization he’d never heard of and by the time he resorted to seeking out missions that put him in contact with former Howling Commandos to gather info about her he’d been panting for it.

“You were the master I could only aspire to be,” he said. “I had to lie to your godson and it didn't even achieve the end I was going for. I offered him protection, he blew us off. Offered him a place to belong, he wanted to go it alone. I tried flattery, he didn’t buy it. -I don’t know what Howard was thinking. He can’t talk to his son in person, so he records a message then he never bothers to send it. Just leaves it in with the waste clips, leaves it to chance if it’s ever seen or not- I tried to challenge him, guilt him into being better… Or at least being what we needed. Thought we had him but it still took his girlfriend to get a toe in the door and the end of the fucking world to get his goddamn attention. And the brat still found time to hack my files.” Fury sighed, “Even so, I thought my job was done, that they were off and running. Turn my back on them for two fucking seconds and he’s swung too far in the other direction, blaming himself for the Maximoff girl playing him, for things that even hadn’t happened yet, if was bad and even halfway possible he was ready to shoulder the blame. Every step of the way he fought me and suddenly I don’t have even token resistance. I try to back-peddle but…” He just shook his head. “Now he’s gone and I don’t know where I went wrong.”

“I was trying to follow the code you preached: Do what needs to be done, for the good of the world. I just couldn’t close the deal.”

May 4th, 1982

Nick popped the lock on the door and let himself into the waiting room outside the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s office. He thought about letting himself into the office itself but decided there was a line between demonstrating his abilities and plain bad manners. If some of the things he’d learned about Peggy Carter in the last year were true crossing that line might get him shot at, probably a warning shot but still better to not press his luck.

Director Carter unlocked the door several hours later. “Good day to you Agent Fury,” she greeted him pleasantly as she reached for the light switch. “So what have you managed to discover since last we spoke?”

Nick took a deep breath, “S.H.I.E.L.D. deals with things tabloids would think twice before printing.”

“Lovely to hear,” Director Carter replied. “Keeping them off the radar IS one of our primary remits.”

“Captain Roger, the Red Skull, they weren’t the last,” Nick said.

Director Carter nodded, “The Gifted are the weapons we must, at all costs, prevent from being used to fight World War III. Now, the important part: Do you want in?”

“Whatever it takes, do the job. Failure is not an option,” Nick told the ceiling. “But all these years, how often were we were working toward HYDRA’s ends, ‘stead of our own? And our ends? Anything to stop a potential. We think we know how bad it’ll get but if we do it right we’ll never know for sure.

“Meanwhile I hear there’s at least some opinion that we’re the cure worse than the disease. ‘Course Hale never knew what the disease was, didn’t have the clearance.”

October 13th, 1994

Agent Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. sat across from Director Carter, in clothes that stank from the ashes of a secret lab, a bloody bandage covering his left eye-socket.

Carter looked him up and down then pulled a flask out of the bottom draw of her desk and poured a healthy measure into the coffee mug clutched in her agent’s shaking hands. “It was necessary,” she said. “I’ve seen several dozen attempts to recreate Dr. Erskine’s Super Soldier formula, or to build other power sets. Most end in horrific failures but in every single case the change was written in the subjects’ DNA. That lab? That power-set? It was not something we could allow to escape into the wild.”

When Carter went to return the flask to her drawer, Nick reached out. She sighed and handed over the flask. “The warmth of the coffee would do you good, not to mention the sugar I’m sure someone already fortified it with.”

“They were kids,” Nick said taking a gulp from the flask. “The subjects.”

“It was a child’s power set they were trying to replicate,” Carter replied. “Most of the researchers during the original accident died before they understood what they were dealing with. Even so, one of the few survivors believed, that with proper precautions, he could recreate it and control it.

“The Johann Schmidts aren’t the ones we have to fear, they’ll always inspire their Steve Rogers. The ones who volunteer always have an overwhelming drive, a reason why. The ones with good reasons, the ones with bad reasons, they’ll never be controlled, it won’t matter what security measures are employed, they’ll overcome them. They’ll fight their personal battles in the shadows, canceling each other out. And that’s all to the world’s advantage.”

“So who do we fear?” Nick asked.

“The ones who don’t volunteer,” Carter said. “The ones who are taken, given no choice, weaponized. When they take the field to fight the latest war, it won’t end. It gets in their DNA. The war where they’re unleashed? The human weapons will survive but we won’t. They’ll create more of themselves, one of the most basic drivers of all living beings will ensure it, and they’ll know nothing but how to be a weapon. They will have nothing to teach their children but more of the same. The third world war, if fought with weaponized Gifted will never end, until there is nothing left.”

“Couldn’t we have done something else? Trained them? Fight fire with fire?”

Peggy gave Nick a pained smiled, “With a different power? Yes. But the ability to take another’s will? If I could find Patient Zero, I’d cheerfully put a bullet in his head. I believe he’d be about thirteen now.

“I’ll be retiring soon,” Peggy said. “Then it will be you making these decisions: Which ones we can use? Which ones is it sufficient to demand they suppress their abilities? Which ones need to be locked away? When is locking them away not enough? Your agents will make the recommendations, carry out the sentences but ultimately it’s your responsibility to see that they get it right.

“The idealist in me, what’s left of her, says the solution is to not weaponize them. Make sure they stay human, make sure they become people who use their abilities as tools, not weapons to be used as the tools of others. But I’ve seen organizations dedicated to raising children stripped of all humanity… They didn’t even have powers. Normal girls taken from their families young, trained as assassins, trained to use their bodies in every way imaginable to complete their missions, without hesitation, without moral qualm... Put a bevy of Gifted in that scenario?” Peggy shook her head. “That can’t be allowed.”

Nick started to talk.

“You want to believe that our government wouldn’t do that but I assure you they will,” Peggy told him. “Arms races trump morals every time. Once one side resorts to that level, the other will follow suit rather than be left behind.”

“Seems inevitable the way you put it,” Nick remarked.

“Luckily powers have proven themselves extremely tricky to mass produce,” Peggy said. She smiled predatorily. “In the ones who can be used, I’ve found it quite rewarding to install a certain paranoia around protecting their powers. Even the ones who go rogue tend to be wary, well, volatile really, toward anyone seeking to recreate their powers, seeking to create the Gifted at all. Done properly, you’ll never even have to give the order, they’ll go behind your back to do the job.”

“The biggest problem with the ends justifying the means is the means come first,” Fury said. “We gotta commit while gambling that it’ll work. We bet on the end we don’t want and the one we do. It’s building a bridge out into a fog bank, believe that there’s somewhere on the far end you wanna be.”

“Can’t do nothing though.”

Chapter Text

Jessica Jones grimaced a little when the guy beside her at the bar turned in her direction. He’d been drinking like someone looking for liquid courage for a while. He was pretty good looking, a latino with a neatly trimmed beard and a trim form and before meeting Luke she’d have probably said yes, but things change. Jessica made herself a bet on whether it would end with broken fingers or just a verbal put down when she rejected him.

“You heard that guy on the Trish Walker Show?” he said.

Jessica privately marked her bet as having been lost and lost soundly, “You’ll need to be a little more specific,” she said deciding that she owed him a sounding board for the violent thoughts she’d been entertaining.

“Makes me think, maybe I should come forward too,” he said. “Tell people that S.H.E.I.L.D.’s still out there, that the ATCU isn’t any better. Make it public what’s going on, the stuff that they were doing just before the Accords and all this SHRA stuff started coming up in the news. People should know what’s being done. The stuff that, if the average guy had to look at it, had know it was being done in the name of keeping him safe, maybe they’d say: No. I would’ve said no back before I knew it was me.”

Jessica turned toward him, giving him her full attention and genuine interest. She’d never hidden her powers but she’d never really advertised them either. Given the number of people who knew about her not registering didn’t seem particularly viable but she wasn’t sure what she’d be letting herself in for if she did.

“Sokovia Accords were already being discussed but I wasn’t paying much attention, didn’t really seem relevant to me back then. Back before I woke up with powers,” the guy said. “They aren’t really any laws about Inhumans, Enhanced… people with powers, the Accords are too new and everyone just does whatever they think is necessary.” He grimaced. “A total free-for-all. I was a construction foreman, a normal guy, super powers aren’t supposed to happen to someone like me. I’d finally got my life together, dealt with my normal problems- Never thought I’d see the day when I’d call coming out to my parents a normal problem.”

“Yeah, I get that…” Jessica trailed off, putting on her information gathering hat.

“Joey,” the guy supplied. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. I just woke up one morning and metal would melt at my touch. Turned out I’d taken bad fish oil supplements, that I had alien DNA and the fish oil turned it on,” he shook his head in disbelief at the very notion. “I didn’t know what was happening to me, I just wanted help. Instead the government sent a SWAT team after me. I guess they were trying to capture me but they were shooting, I thought they were trying to kill me, what else could I think? I tried to surrender but they didn’t listen and stuff kept disintegrating around me.”

“Capture you?” Jessica asked.

Joey nodded, “They were rounding up all the Inhumans they could find, sticking them in gel suspension until they could ‘cure’ us. I didn’t ask for powers, if they’d talked to me I would have happily agreed to take something to make them go away… Probably wouldn’t have agreed to going into suspended animation until they had the cure finished. Probably wouldn’t have, I was scared that morning. But they never thought to ask, to talk to me like I was a person with rights and thoughts about my future.”

“Obviously they didn’t get you,” Jessica prompted.

Joey nodded, “That’s where S.H.I.E.L.D. comes in, they scooped me up instead. Stuck me in a plastic room until they were happy that I could control my powers, until I agreed to be one of their Secret Warriors.”

Jessica waited a beat, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

“Maybe they would have let me out whether I joined the team or not but I felt like I had to agree to what they wanted,” Joey sighed. “They showed me the government hunting for me, told me I had nowhere else to go.” Then he shrugged, “Course the one guy who got to decide if I was okay to let out of my cell turned out to be Inhuman himself. The rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t know about it. While they and ATCU pointed fingers at each other he was going out and murdering those Inhumans he didn’t like… Never did find out what made him decide to kill us or spare us.”

Jessica’s eyes widened, “And he was the guy deciding whether or not you got to come out of a cage? Tough judge.”

Joey nodded. “I guess he was a good guy, everyone at SHIELD respected him a lot. He seemed like a good guy when I was talking to him but isn’t that what they always say about serial killers. Anyway, while he was killing people like me, he saved one of their their people from HYDRA and I heard later-” Joey licked his lips nervously. “There was one member of S.H.I.E.L.D., a real member of the team not someone like me that they thought they could use, who was Inhuman. He saved her, instead of killing her he freed her from another Inhuman, a bad one’s mind control. I heard, I don’t know for sure, but I heard, her boyfriend got all religious about Lash then, saying how we were given our powers for a reason and Lash’s reason was to save her. I don’t remember him talking like that back when Lash was murdering his friends. But there was a lot of that going around.”

“A lot of what?” Jessica asked.

“You know the saying about it’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know?” Joey asked. “I’ve never worked in a place where that was more true than S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“How so?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to be the good guys, right? That’s what I thought anyway after how ATCU came after me,” Joey said. “They saved me from what ATCU would have done, right? Only ATCU’s director and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s? Well when they got in bed together I don’t mean it just figuratively. And suddenly sticking Inhumans into suspended animation and ‘curing’ them is an okay thing to do. Probably didn’t hurt that it gave them another option for dealing with Lash, like I said they liked him. One of their agents was his ex-wife, current girlfriend. And Lash, sure they were against him murdering Inhumans in practice but the only one who really cared about it was the guy who had been Inhuman for long enough to have Inhuman friends. And those friends were the ones dying but, like I said, even he changed his tune when Lash saved his significant other.”

Joey glanced away, “I’ve got to give Lash’s wife credit though, she tried to be impartial. But,” he shook his head. “A lot of anger there, not a little of it directed at people who’d hurt her husband, even after she shot him herself. Still, gotta give her credit for trying to be professional.”

“So who didn’t try to be professional?” Jessica probed.

“You know how I said S.H.I.E.L.D. was suddenly okay with ATCU’s methods once the directors got together? That didn’t last long. HYDRA’s about as gone as S.H.I.E.L.D. is, no surprise there. One of them killed the ATCU director, right in front of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s director, plus that part of HYDRA had personal history with S.H.I.E.L.D. The director stepped down for, like, two days so he could murder the HYDRA guy, never did stop using SHIELD resources while he was hunting the guy. It was the most ridiculous excuse for avoiding a conflict of interest or not tarnishing an organization’s reputation that I’ve ever heard of, not even lip-service really, more like mocking the whole concept.”

Jessica knew she’d opted for expediency maybe more often than she should, still she pictured a cop taking off his badge for the night, maybe using his department connections to get an address, then going out for a little eye-for-an-eye. The rest of his department knowing but not even questioning it when he showed up for his next shift like nothing had happened, like it was okay because he hadn’t been wearing a badge in them moment when he’d abandoned everything the badge stood for.

“While I was there it seemed like every time you turned around someone had an under the table project, usually something to do with their lovelife.” Joey grimaced, “You know, it wasn’t that their personal projects were bad or anything: Save the girl, save the boy. Stop the serial killer. Stop the hate group. Stop Grant Ward. It was they way they operated that really got me. I’ve been a construction foreman for years, I know how it is: You’ve got ten things to do in any given day and you’ve only got the people to finish seven of them. So I’d sit down with my guys pretty much every morning and we’d work out a plan to make sure we got as much done as possible and to make sure the important things didn’t slide.” He sighed, “S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t work like that. They all hide their individual goals as much as possible, take the resources they need, whatever they can get, to address their personal priority. On a good day the Director is herding cats, on a bad day he’s one of the cats and no one’s even trying to ride herd. It wasn’t even the big thing but it didn’t give me a good feeling about the whole operation.”

“What was the big thing?” Jessica asked.

“Choice,” Joey said instantly. “The way everyone wants to make them for me. From what I’ve heard Inhumans getting powers use to be carefully controlled by their people. They wouldn’t awaken your powers until you were ready and they had a system in place to help a person through the transition and while they were learning about their powers. I’d guess that if you didn’t think you were ready you could opt out. But then the Inhuman leader decided to leave it to random chance and dumped the stuff that activates our powers into the ocean. ACTU was out to lock us away from life until they can cure us, but they never ask us whether or not we wanted that. HYDRA tried to force us to be an army for this one Inhuman that they worshipped. Lash killed us to stop that from happening. Hive’s powers drugged us into loving him. S.H.I.E.L.D. locked us up until they decided we were good enough with our powers...

“S.H.I.E.L.D. told me I was one of them, part of the team but I was still a second class citizen. They lied to and tricked me instead of giving me a chance to do the right thing. I don’t even it was prejudice against Inhumans, just being the new guy is a group that apportions resources based on what you can take and how many people like you.”

Joey looked up at Jessica with vast uncertainty. “I’m scared of this whole SHRA thing, of the thought of putting my name on a list. But S.H.I.E.L.D. already has my name and I- I want to come forward.” He chuckled weakly, “I spent years hiding what I was out of fear, I don’t want to go back to that. I really get how scary the idea of SHRA is, especially if you’ve been hiding yourself for awhile but I want to tell people what the other options are.”

“How much worse can the UN be, right?” Jessica finished wryly.

Chapter Text

“When I was a kid, I had to put my bed up on cinder blocks to make room for all my boxes of superhero comics,” Scott commented to Sam one day after Clint and Steve had left the common area to go back to their cells.

“I think most of us did,” Sam replied settling back in his chair.

“Guys running around in brightly colored spandex, saving the day,” Scott sighed. “Can I just take a moment to say how glad I am the Ant-Man suit is not spandex? I totally don’t have the abs to make that look work.”

Sam snickered, “Or biceps larger than most men’s thighs? Steve and Thor sure but the rest of us are just human.”

“Clint seems to like showing off the muscles archery puts on a guy’s shoulders,” Scott remarked with a shrug. “But yeah, the bodies on the heroes in those comics, totally not real world… But, I- guess I thought the part where the heroes held themselves to higher standard, I thought that was real.

“Cops and soldiers, they have a rule book because they’re only human. Even with the best of intentions, they’re only human. The heroes in those comics books I used to read, they held themselves to a higher standard. A cop might fire his gun because the guy he was trying to arrest made him fear for his life and we understand that. But he’s just human and maybe he screwed up so when it happens it gets reviewed, to make sure he had just cause.”

Sam nodded, “Yeah, it’s not entirely different for a soldier. When you’re not at war the last thing you want to do is be responsible for starting one. But at the same time, most overseas postings, you wouldn’t be there if there wasn’t at least the possibility of things going south. It’s in the job description to risk your life, not to throw it away.”

“In the comics the hero would save the day and stop the bad guy without killing anyone,” Scott said. “But that’s not us. The scum-bag Hank chose as a protege went after my little girl, I killed him and never lost a moment of sleep over it. He went after Cassie!”

“When we went to Bucharest Steve and I put Bucky’s safety over the safety of the public,” Sam admitted. “That freeway chase, we were so caught up in the fight, in NOT letting those other guys bring Barnes in, we never gave a thought to the civilians who should have been our first concern. The guys in the comics I grew up reading never would have done that.”

Scott sighed, “You know, that’s what I wanted to be: Robin Hood stealing from corrupt system, Superman swooping down to save the day. The heroes in the comics, they wanted to make the world a better place-”

“So did we man,” Sam broke in.

Scott smiled sadly, “-And they hold themselves to such a high standard of behavior that no one could fault them. They could just go out and do the right thing and they never had to compromise, they could save the hostage, bring the villain to justice and nothing important ever got hurt in the process. They could always think of an option C. Our world’s never had superheroes, just Enhanced people trying to make it better. Except for our powers, we’re no different from the guys who become police officers or soldiers, just with more luck and less training required to get were we ended up. I’m not a better, smarter or more moral person than Jim Paxton because he went to the policy academy and I stole a super-suit, just ask Maggie… Or actually don’t, I’m not that much of a masochist.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “You heard that Ken Hale guy: Until Stark came along we were always working for some sort of government agency or shadow government, starting with Steve and the SSR back in WWII- And Stark was probably just trying to imitate the same comics you used to read because he didn’t know the system. 2008 to 2016, the Golden Era of Superheroes when real life decided to imitate fiction.”

“And then reality crashed back in when Sokovia fell out of the sky,” Scott finished mournfully.

“Makes me want to toast Tony Stark,” Sam said with sickly smile. “You know, Steve and Nat were working for S.H.I.E.L.D. when I first met them? Without Tony’s example, without his funding, those couple years where the Avengers were their own entity never would have happened.”

Impulsively Scott picked up his tin cup. “To Tony Stark, for letting us live a dream, even if it didn’t last long. Camelot wasn’t less grand because it was short lived.”

Sam picked up his cup and clicked the rim against Scott’s. “It was a good dream.”

Chapter Text

Danny was just finishing his morning workout when his phone rang. “You have a meeting with Hogarth at lunch on Friday,” Ward Meachum informed him. “Please don’t find a mob boss or drug lord to fight instead.”

“What’s so important?” Danny asked and Ward groaned. “The Sokovia Accords ring a bell? Or their local cousin, the Superhero Registration Act, that’s going through Congress now?”

“Colleen and I have been a little busy with the Hand’s latest scheme,” Danny pointed out mildly.

He heard something over the phone that could have been Ward’s head hitting his desk. “Do you remember our talk about drug pricing? About how, yes, I was price gouging and you have every right to challenge me on that but there is a huge space between at cost and price gouging.”

“I remember,” Danny said. Ward had actually spent hours taking him through the expenses involved in developing a new drug, getting FDA approval and bringing it to market. Shown him the data on Rand’s seven to eight unsuccessful pharmaceutical efforts for every one success and how they need to have a profit margin on the successful launches if they were going to have the funds to support the new pharmaceuticals still in the pipeline... Before asking Danny sit in on another pricing meeting.

“This is even more important for you to understand. Rand Enterprises has to take a stance on the Accords, it has to be one you’ll support and you have to know, have to be an expert, on the subject,” Ward said. “Actually, why don’t you bring your… Is she your girlfriend or your sidekick? Bring Wing, the Sokovia Accords are going to affect her too.”

“Sokovia? That was a terrible disaster,” Danny said solemnly. “Even though I was in K’un Lung at the time, I still heard talk of it nearly a year after the fact. Was Rand able to do anything to help?”

“We weren’t big on philanthropy before you came back,” Ward admitted.

“But what are these Accords?” Danny asked.

“Something you cannot afford to be well meaning but ignorant about,” Ward sighed.

Danny called Colleen about the meeting, “You don’t mind if I tell Claire?” Colleen asked. “She knows several other people who are like us but might not have access to someone like Ms. Hogarth to explain the legalities.”

“Yeah sure,” Danny agreed. “The more the merrier. They might think of concerns I miss.”

When Danny, Colleen and Ward walked in, the conference room was full. Jeri Hogarth shrugged, “I’m not sure when it turned into a party,” she said. “I called in Foggy Nelson. You might have noticed that the September Foundation has broadened its scope around Enhanced issues from simply supplying funding to repair areas damaged in Enhanced Battles since Ms. Potts took over the reigns? Mr. Nelson is basically a liaison between the Foundation and the ACLU, his department-”

“Department’s a bit of an overstatement at the moment,” Foggy said, Pepper was interview a second lawyer, he thought her name was Walters, to work with him. While Foggy had been trying to recruit Matt.

“-Was set up to ensure that the new laws being developed do not violate the civil liberties of Enhanced Individuals. In that role he’s been involved in the committee working on new laws, currently being developed under the name the Superhero Registration Act, to bring the US into compliance with the Sokovia Accords. He brought his former partner, Matt Murdock. Since Ward told me you were bringing extras I decided to save some time for myself and invited Ms. Jones, she’s a PI and she is uniquely talented when it comes to serving subpoenas to people who don’t want to be served…”

“Luke Cage,” the towering black man introduced himself when Jeri trailed off. “Claire and Jones both mentioned this, figured I should show if Je- Jones thought it was important enough to…” He grimaced.

“Ugly ex’s,” Jessica supplied, there was a faint slur to her voice. “My fault.” She jerked her thumb at the blonde with the pained expression standing beside her. “My sister, Trish. She’s the one with the social conscience, I figured she should know what she’s talking about the next time she gets it in her head that I’ve got a responsibility.”

“Hi,” Trish said flatly. “Can’t really follow up on that.”

“Detective Misty Knight,” Luke introduced the woman with the empty right sleeve sitting beside him. “Her precinct saddled her with me.”

Jeri and Foggy looked impressed at Misty’s presence and at Luke for bringing a police officer.

Then several eyes turned toward Claire, “Oh don’t worry about introductions, everyone knows me,” she said.

“I guess it’s my turn,” Danny said “I’m Danny Rand of Rand Enterprises, also the Iron Fist.”

Murdock’s mouth dropped open in surprise but the others only looked bemused by Danny’s title.

“This is Colleen Wing, she’s also a martial artist and has been helping me fight the Hand. And finally Ward Meachum, the real CEO of Rand, he’s the one who realized that this Accords business would effect me- Us?” Danny stared at the others curiously.

“So we’re doing this?” Luke sighed. “Well it’s not like you can’t look me up online. Currently I’ve inherited a barber shop in Harlem, I’m bulletproof with enhanced strength. I try to keep my neighborhood a nice place.”

Misty smiled wryly, “And I try to keep him on the right side of the law while he does it.”

“I’m a nurse,” Claire said. “That’s it.”

“You’re the one who keeps putting our pieces back together,” Luke corrected.

“Stronger than normal, not as strong as him,” Jessica declared nodding towards Luke. “On a good day I can fly, there aren’t many good days. Like Jeri said, I’m a PI. I don’t advertise that I’m Enhanced but I don’t hide it either. I don’t do heroics… But there are some assholes I won’t, can’t turn a blind eye to. And what the fuck is an ‘Iron Fist’? Or a ‘Hand’.”

“The Hand are evil ninja,” Claire explained. “Yes, this is my life.”

“The Iron Fist is a legend,” Matt said. A hopeful look lit up Foggy’s face. “The guardian of the mystical city of K'un-Lun and the one fated to destroy the Hand. I’m here as Daredevil’s representative.” Foggy’s eyes dimmed. “He was trained by a member of the Chaste, they were supposed to be the Iron Fist’s army when the time came. He’s already had several encounters with the Hand. If you need him I can put you in contact.”

“You, not Nelson?” Cage asked looking between the two.

“Me,” Matt stated defensively. “Foggy has no connection to Daredevil.”

“Okay, we all know each other? Good,” Jeri said briskly. “Let’s start with some cold hard facts: the textbook definition of a vigilante is a member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate. And yes, it is illegal to be a vigilante in this country. Maybe you haven’t been charged because you did a good and necessary thing.” She nodded toward Misty and Luke, “Maybe you’ve managed, by the skin of your teeth, to stay under the protection of Good Samaritan Laws or the rules of a citizen’s arrest. But if you keep doing this you either are or soon will be in violation of our current laws. The thing is most people don’t actually want you to stop. However they do want you to be regulated, like the police, the military and everyone else who has the legal authority to do what you’re doing.”

“Right, I’m a licensed PI,” Jessica contributed. “So does that mean I’m good?”

“That’s one of the more contentious parts of SHRA,” Foggy replied. “Currently there’s a lot of support in Congress to require all Enhanced individuals to register their abilities. Investigators like yourself and even police officers would be required to register as Enhanced on top of their professional registration.”

“Fuck, I avoided a lot of paperwork by not carrying a gun,” Jessica groused.

“But are you less dangerous than someone with a gun?” Foggy asked.

Jessica smirked, “Handgun or machine gun?”

“So you’re capable of doing more damage than someone in your position using a handgun. Why shouldn’t you have to register that when your colleague with the handgun does have to?” Foggy asked.

“Until they start trying to penalize people who commit crimes with powers more harshly than people who use a gun,” Matt interjected with a frown. “Or trying to control who is allowed to have powers by mutilating the people who they don’t think should have powers.”

“Which is why I’m talking to the ACLU,” Foggy replied with a touch of aggravation. “We know Emil Blonsky was placed in cryofreeze with no intention of ever giving him a trial or defrosting him because he was deemed too dangerous to treat otherwise. His cell was set up so that if the cyro system failed it would pump all the oxygen out of the room, the hope was that he’d suffocate before he managed to batter down the walls. It’s only because Ross wanted to experiment on him that he wasn’t pre-emptively executed. Matt, that is the status quo you’re so eager to defend!

“Now, with the Accords dragging everything out into the open, we’ve got technological resources working on a way to contain him so that he can go to trial, so that a real mental assessment can be done, so that an appropriate sentence can be determined or treatment for whatever that bastardized super soldier formula did to his mind. We’re trying to find ways to respect his rights, without unleashing him on the public again… Because no one wants another Battle of Harlem.”

“Can’t say I’d want to take that guy on,” Luke admitted.

“What happens to the kids cropping up with powers under this SHRA of yours?” Colleen asked.

“If they can’t control their powers they’ll have to be segregated until they can show that they aren’t a danger to everyone around them,” Foggy replied. “Colonel Rhodes and the New Avengers are converting their compound into a training facility, there’s almost no opposition to giving them responsibility for teaching newly discovered Enhanced to responsibly control their powers. Pym Industries has taken the lead in devising humane, wearable power-blockers, in the event that some people are incapable of developing control.”

“How do will they decide if someone’s control is good enough?” Luke asked.

“Some form of testing, including a psychological component,” Foggy answered. “Still being hotly debated. Congress needs to hear from the people who will be impacted by these laws but, apart from the Avengers, almost no one is stepping forward. I realize it’s risky to make yourselves known but you don’t have a voice if you hide instead of speaking.”

Danny shrugged, “The government already knows about me, I don’t have anything to lose by coming forward.”

“And you’ve got Rand Enterprises behind you,” Jeri said. She gave them a cynical smile, “We like to think justice is blind but who you are, your money, is why you’re not in jail for your little mistaken identity issue where you beat the hell out of a bunch of DEA agents.”

“I was able to extend protection to Colleen then, can I do it again?” Danny asked. “For all of us?”

“Thank God, you’re getting smarter,” Ward announced. “Yes, Rand Enterprises does have an effective lobby. The next question: Do we throw in with SI and Pym Tech? Or with OsCorp and Roxxon? Or is our position sufficiently different that we start our own faction?”

“Kids need a safe place to learn, with trustworthy mentors,” Colleen stated. “I like the idea of the New Avengers teaching the emerging Enhanced. I want to know more about who will be doing the overseeing- Because if it’s the military, hell no!”

“The UN wants to see evidence that no one is turning kids, or anyone, into weapons,” Foggy said. “The Accords Committee will have oversight of both Enhanced schools and prisons.”

“Could use a little more monitoring in regular prisons as well,” Luke muttered.

“While some members of the Committee would very much like to be able to turn out their own, mindlessly obedient, enhanced soldiers they don’t want the guy sitting next to them doing the same thing. There are enough different interest that they’ll keep each other honest.”

Colleen nodded. “Good.” Her chin came up, “I got my training from the Hand. They’re a cult. Because they wanted to use me to recruit the next generation of kids into their ranks I didn’t get the full indoctrination, that’s why I was able to leave. Some of the kids I brought in, believing in what they taught me, they have powers now but they’re less than human, they don’t have free will.”

“The Chaste are the ‘good guys’ in that war, as much as anyone is,” Matt said quietly. “From what I understand of the situation, they don’t go so far but they’re also a cult. They take in kids too young to know better and indoctrinate in their way of thinking. Daredevil’s mentor abandoned him as a kid because he liked him too much, for what that tells you about the Chaste. I don’t trust the government but I can’t trust people who fighting shadow wars for hundreds of years either. In other words, as much as I don’t trust the US government, I trust organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. a lot less.”

“You know, paperwork aside, I’m not completely opposed to the idea of registration,” Jessica said. “There are fucks out who can turn your mind into a pretzel, play with you like their personal little doll. And they can get away with damn near anything, in part, ‘cause everyone believes it’s impossible to do what they do. Maybe there’s some blow back against the nice mind-fuckers out there,” Jessica shrugged, “but given all the lives destroyed by the bad eggs: Killgrave, the Avengers’ Witch, Loki. People need to know the sort of shit they can do to you.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. “This must be how baseline folks feel about all of us,” Luke said softly.

“Scared and helpless to protect yourself?” Jeri asked. “Yeah and Captain America, of all people, basically declaring that he was above the law only helped convince the world that you’re all liable to trample us boring normals underfoot if we get in your way.”

“People don’t want you to stop, not really,” Foggy reiterated. “That’s not what this is about. But the public wants a say in what you do. They want guidelines around where and how Enhanced individuals get involved. They want proof that you’re competent and that you don’t have an ulterior motive that’s going to end up biting them in the ass. Thus far you’ve had the only say in whether or not you help, that’s what has to change but you should still have some say.

“This isn’t the sort of situation where your powers are going to swing the decision in your favor; we do not live in a might makes right society and none of us want to live in that sort of society. But you are more than your power sets. Never forget that. Look around this room, you are lawyers, police officers, medical personal, investigators, CEO’s. You have resources, media connections, political connections. You have each other.

“My primary goal is to ensure that no one can demand more from the Enhanced than from baseline citizens. Control over your powers is going to be non-negotiable. We can argue about the definition of control and how it’s verified. We can argue about the methods used to enforce control of powers but individuals who can’t or won’t control their powers will have some form of control enforced on them. No one has the right to harm the people around them. But the main thing I want to ensure is that you can’t be forced into employing your powers, to maintain that the Enhanced shouldn’t be defined by their powers. You won’t be free to have full discretion in over where and when you want to help. But, if you don’t like the guidelines established by SHRA, you should be able to to say ‘screw you’ and walk away.”

“It’s not always that easy,” Matt said.

“But it’s worth doing everything we can to make this a good law before we decide to oppose it,” Danny stated. “If we don’t put in a real effort to make this workable then we don’t have the right to say it’s unworkable.”