Work Text:
Fandom: Marvel
Prompt: “I’m at the hospital.”
One day. That’s all she wants, just one bloody day.
“Rose says the whole street’s closed off,” Daniel mutters as they race through traffic, “they want to establish a perimeter or something.”
“Shooter’ll be long gone.” Peggy glances out the window at the swarms of police cars. “Cut and run.”
They pull up at the hospital and dash inside, Peggy already taking out her SSR card and showing it to the officers.
“He’s still in surgery,” the nurse says, recovering quite admirably from the sight of two harried agents in her lobby, “they’re not sure yet.”
Daniel nods, still breathing hard from the mad dash through the hospital. His grip tightens on his crutch. Peggy curses under her breath.
“Damnit, Thompson, you’d better pull through,” she mutters.
“You’re damn right.” Daniel turns towards the wall.
“Don’t,” Peggy says quickly, reaching out to stop him from turning his crutch, “you’ll hurt yourself too.”
“So what,” Daniel snarls before he takes a deep breath. “Sorry.”
Peggy just shakes her head. He doesn’t need to apologize. She’s not much better off.
“Sit,” Daniel manages after a minute, “we need to sit.”
“Right, yes, that’s a good idea.”
Somehow they make their way to the waiting area, ending up on one of the benches and staring at the floor. The whole atmosphere in hospitals makes Peggy’s skin itch. Being here for Ana Jarvis was horrible enough.
It’s the smell, isn’t it? It doesn’t smell healthy, it doesn’t smell fresh, it smells clean. That doesn’t provide the reassurance that it should. It gives her the same horrible shivers that having her mouth stuffed with a bar of soap did. At least in the field, it was dulled by the earthy tones from outside. Here, it’s everywhere.
“We should go look,” she manages finally, “before the police take everything.”
“Get SSR eyes on it.”
“Make sure it can’t be covered up.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of them moves.
“He won’t be out of surgery for a while,” Daniel says, “that’s even if he—“
He breaks off, gulping.
“He will.”
Daniel looks up at Peggy. “I know.”
They both know they’re bluffing.
“You should go,” Daniel says, laying a hand on the arm Peggy didn’t realize was shaking. “I know hospitals ain’t your thing.”
She shakes her head. “I should be here, shouldn’t I? For you. For the SSR. For Jack.”
“Two worried agents aren’t gonna make the surgery go faster.” Honestly, the fact that Daniel can muster up a smile at a time like this… “Go. No one is more qualified to look at this kind of crime scene.”
He’s right. Sitting here won’t do her any good. She squeezes his hand and stands, her armor sliding back into place with every step she takes.
Someone shot one of her agents. They’re not going to get away with it.
By the time she sets foot outside, all the police officers in the vicinity practically snap to attention. She has work to do and she’ll be damned if anyone gets in her way.
Why’d they have to make hospital chairs the most uncomfortable things in existence?
Wincing when his leg decided it really didn’t want to move, Daniel shifts his weight for what feels like the tenth time in as many minutes. He’s spent more than his fair share in hospitals, first for his leg, then for the therapy. He’s developed some sort of buffer just to stand the goddamn things.
He knows he should be doing something. He should be working, trying to figure out what the hell happened. It was on his watch, too.
Jack Thompson got shot on his watch.
He still doesn’t know who he can trust. Sure, Vega gave up all of Vernon’s cronies that he knew of, but someone like Vernon Masters wouldn’t have told his minions everything. Hell, he didn’t even tell Jack that Vega and Blackwell were his too. He can trust Rose, he can trust Samberly, he can trust Peggy.
Rose, who snapped up the information that Jack got shot quicker than even the hotel receptionist.
Samberly, who promised to get the ballistics to him as fast as possible.
Peggy, who sat next to him in the car, talked when he couldn’t manage around the lump in his throat and left to go do something actually helpful as opposed to sitting here.
Some chief he must be.
Daniel shakes his head, pushing away all the stupid self-deprecation and focusing on the task as hand.
Why did someone shoot Jack?
Jack Thompson is Jack Thompson. He’s an arrogant, self-absorbed, ambitious son of a bitch. He’s a pompous asshole who’s good at his job. Peggy’s right; he’s a good man, he just…you have to break through the layers of jackass before you get there.
Daniel frowns at the tiles like the secrets are embedded in the grout or something. Vernon Masters is an obvious suspect. Well, loosely speaking. The man’s dead.
Thank god.
Daniel still remembers the chills that went up his spine the first time he laid eyes on the bastard. Something about the way he moved. The way he looked at people. He spoke like a centipede, crawling all over the ground, many limbs picking his way through the undergrowth. He’s sure the others felt the same. And the way he looked at Jack…
Daniel’s no dummy. He knows Peggy isn’t either. They’re all from military backgrounds. They know what it’s like, trying to work your way up the chain of command without getting eaten alive. He’s met people like Vernon. Luckily for him, he’d been raised alongside two sisters who took no shit from anyone and knew what to look for. He’s not so sure Jack did.
Daniel’s grip tightens on his crutch and he finds himself trying to glare a hole in the tile. Jack; the middle child of other brothers, desperate for his father’s approval, absent mother, completely on his own after the war, bright, eager to please, good looking…
He may as well have had a sign around his neck.
Daniel closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. No use getting mad at a dead man.
Clearing his head, he sets aside Vernon’s…other interests in Jack in favor of how it may have lead to this.
In order for that to happen, Vernon would’ve needed measures in place. And judging by the way he used the memory thing on Jack…the way he seemed completely down with turning on Whitney Frost on a dime…and he died before they could tell anyone else…
If Vernon had a hit on Jack, he’d’ve had hits on Daniel and Peggy too. Probably not likely. Not impossible, but not likely.
So then who else?
A couple of the other guys from the Arena Club, sure, but almost all of them had been killed in the whole Frost debacle in the first place. The only ones left were too busy covering their own asses, they probably didn’t have the care to worry about Jack Thompson. He didn’t have enough political power on his own, and judging by how Vernon talked about the SSR, it was unlikely they were going to kill him over that.
There’s something bigger here that Jack had access to. Something that is worth killing him over.
The light tapping of a nurse’s hand on his shoulder shakes him out of his pondering. In an instant, he’s on his feet.
“What is it? Is he alright?”
“He’s still in surgery,” the nurse explains slowly, holding out her hands, “but there’s a call for you.”
“Oh. Thank you. Uh, sorry, what’s your name?”
The nurse smiles. “I’m Abigale.”
“Right. Thank you, Nurse Abigale.” Daniel hurries to the phone she points out. “Sousa.”
“Where are you?”
“Peggy?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“I’m, uh—“ Daniel shifts to lean against the wall— “I’m at the hospital. Wait, you called me here, shouldn’t you—“
“I asked Rose to find you,” Peggy says impatiently, “she gave me this number to call.”
“Oh.”
“Any news?”
Daniel shakes his head then remembers she can’t see him. “No. Not yet. He’s still in surgery.”
“Damn,” Peggy curses.
“What about you,” Daniel says quickly, “what did you find?”
“This was a professional hit,” Peggy says, “none of the staff saw anything. No traces of the shooter.”
“So we’re chasing a ghost.”
“We’ll have to wait for the ballistics to know more.” He hears some sort of rustling on the other end. “I have to go. I’m going to take a look at the rooms surrounding this one.”
“Okay. Thanks, Peggy.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Of course.”
He hangs up the phone and slogs back to the chair, taking up his vigil once again.
Thompson better fucking get through this.
Peggy’s nails tap an anxious pattern on the receiver. Something is off about this whole thing, and not just because Thompson got shot.
She’s missing something.
She looks through the suitcase again. Suits. Shoes. Ties. More clothes. It’s too clean.
Jack Thompson is an SSR agent. He would never go anywhere without some sort of protection. The hospital didn’t find any weapons on his person and she guesses that Daniel hasn’t had the chance to got through and look for anything SSR issued.
Something is missing, then.
The phone rings under her hand.
“Carter.”
“Peggy?”
“Rose? What do you have?”
“Dr. Samberly found Vernon Masters’ briefcase in Chief’s office,” Rose says over the phone, “we went through it and we found some things. You’ll have to come in and look at them.”
Peggy makes it there in less than ten minutes.
“How many people know about this,” she mutters to Rose as they walk casually into one of the conference rooms.
“Just me and Aloysius.” Rose pushes open the door and locks it behind them. “He’s keeping the rest of the lab boys busy.”
Peggy starts digging. There’s the Isodyne tape she watched with Dr. Wilkes, half a dozen files from the SSR’s cabinets, and some truly revolting tie pins tucked into a corner. No more of the Arena Club ones, thank heavens, but honestly, the taste…
Hang on…
“There’s a file missing.”
Rose’s head snaps around and she joins Peggy at the table. “What do you mean?”
“During the case, Thompson tried to blackmail me into stopping the investigation with a redacted file.” Peggy looks through everything again. “My guess is he would’ve given it to Vernon Masters.”
“A redacted file?”
“From MI5,” Peggy explains. “It showed up rather conveniently.”
“If it’s not here, then where…” Rose trails off as they both realize where it must be.
“That’s what they wanted.”
“Jesus, Jack,” Daniel huffs when they finally make it into the room. Peggy takes a seat on one side of the bed, watching Jack’s chest go up and down.
“Here.”
She pushes another chair his way. He takes it gratefully, easing down onto the seat and setting his crutch aside. He looks so small.
"Ballistics."
"One bullet. No rifling. Soviet-made."
That doesn't give them anything they didn't already know.
“So…” Daniel tries, hoping to give himself something else to think about, “do you think he read it?”
“The file?” Daniel nods. “Yes.”
“I, uh…” His gaze darts to Peggy and then back to Jack. “I don’t wanna pry, but…”
Peggy shakes her head. “It’s a forgery. It has to be.”
“Peggy, I—“
“Don’t you think I would tell you?”
Daniel sighs. She’s right. “I know you would,” he says, watching as she relaxes, “but I also know what we would say might be different from what other people would say.”
Peggy glances towards the door. “This goes no further.”
“My lips are sealed.”
She goes through her war record and part of Daniel feels like she’s in an interrogation. Her voice doesn’t waver but her grip on Jack’s hand tightens a fair bit. Halfway through, he reaches across and takes her free hand.
She told the truth; nothing she’s just told him is worth killing Jack Thompson over.
Peggy stops once she gets to the end. Then she glances down and chuckles.
“What?”
“Look at us,” she says, smiling for the first time since they found out, “we’re all holding hands like children.”
Daniel looks and it brings a smile to his face. He’s leaning on one side of Jack’s bed, holding Jack’s right hand while Peggy holds Jack’s left.
“Maybe the indignity will wake him up.”
“God forbid.”
it doesn’t work and they don’t let go.
“We’ll just have to ask him what it said,” Peggy says, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “I’m sure it’ll help.”
Daniel just nods.
Damnit, Jack, wake the hell up.