Hello, dear Readers! I promise I'm alive, just very busy with life. I started missing Agent Carter and also seeing these two characters, so I fixed this up that I wrote a while ago as a response to the end of Season 2 (has some spoilers!). Because I totally reject the idea of Jack not surviving that shot, I made this instead. Please R&R! Constructive criticism appreciated :) Enjoy!
All characters are property of Marvel.
She drops to the floor when she gets the call.
Angie's devastating thoughts swim through her head in a whirlpool, and she feels the hot tears prickling her eyes. How could this happen? She was just starting to get used to the idea that her big, sweet, thick-headed boyfriend was running around New York getting shot at by bad guys. Now, as soon as he's out of her reach across the country, in the glittering city she dreamt of performing in one day, he takes the hit. And there's nothing she can do about it.
After a few quivering breaths, she slowly rises and gathers her coat and purse. She digs through her purse to her pocket book and pulls out a wrinkled pre-paid ticket that he gave her in case she wanted to join him in Hollywood. She sets her jaw and hops on the next plane heading to Jack.
He's out. Hard.
In and out of consciousness, he picks up murmuring words from unfamiliar voices entering and leaving the room. In brief flashes of memory, he sees a suitcase his hands are packing; a slender pin with an elegant A transforming into a key; a black muzzle in the doorway; red stains on dull carpet.
When he finally comes to, he doesn't open his eyes but simply feels his throbbing head and chest weakly breathe in and out. He's not really thinking about anything, but rather he feels this dull ache in his stomach, a sore desire for something, or someone. It isn't until the sound of lightly clicking heels and an eerily familiar gasp reaches his ears that his ache his realized.
She slowly enters the room, heart shuddering at what she sees. A pale, weakened Thompson hooked up to a million strings as if he's no longer a man, but a piece of a machine. She lets out a small sob, which causes him to stir and gaze blankly around the room until his eyes land on her. After a tense silence he tries to speak, but can only manage to emit a soft wheeze instead. "Angie."
"Shut up, you jerk." She's immensely relieved that he's awake and somewhat breathing, but her pain at seeing him in such a state only allowed her choked up throat to make bitter remarks.
He struggles to sort out a flood of jumbled thoughts and emotions and put them into coherent sentences. "Ang.. Angie," he breathes quietly, "I… I.. What.. what I did…"
Trying to keep both of them calm enough to speak, Angie takes a breath and pulls up a seat next to his thin, stained bed. "Look, you don't need to apologize to me, Jack. Really. I knew full well what I was signin' up for. I knew I wouldn't always know where you'd be or what you were doin'. And I can live with that." She steadies the uncertainty in her voice. "But I can't live with this, with not knowing if you were comin' home or not. Please, just tell me the truth. Who did this? Why'd they go after you?"
His heart rate increases, and he swears she could hear it thudding painfully out of his chest. "I.. had a lead… tried to find… a way in…" He tries to explain further, but is lacking the words and the breath to do it, so he simply stews in frustration and anguish.
Despite her confusion that is further irritated by her turbulent emotions, Angie patiently tries to communicate with her delirious dummy. "Based on what Peg told me, sounded like you were tryin' to cozy up with some government sleezeballs who put you here. If I knew who, they wouldn't have been a problem much longer." She tries not to bite her lip too hard, focusing instead on her words. "I don't really care too much who they were, but I gotta make sure of who you are..."
She pauses for a few seconds, her gaze flickering intently over his bleary blue eyes. "Why'd you do it? Why'd you leave, why'd you turn your back on the people who actually care about you? Just, why?"
The sense of anticipation and worry crossing her face makes his heart ache far worse than it already physically did. He dreads to answer her question, believing that she thinks him to be the two-faced, morally-depraved jerk that he was to everyone else. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he's totally defeated by her unyielding gaze. He draws breath and whispers slowly, "I.. I thought I could… keep people safe if.. I found my way in… made myself one of them.. take the power from.. from the corrupt ones. But I guess… they corrupted me too."
His shame forces him look anywhere but at her, and he knows that she couldn't possibly understand or forgive him for what he did to Peggy, Sousa, his country…her.
After a minute or two of deafening silence, she startles him out of his spiraling depression by gently reaching for his hand and rubbing small circles with her thumb on the back of it. Partly speaking to herself, she gracefully responds, "Well, that doesn't sound like the Thompson I know." She glances at him then back at their hands. "You see, he's strong, brave, clever, and a bit of a bonehead sometimes, but he's too good to back down when bad people tell him." Fixing her eyes on his, she gives him a cute, crooked smile. "And he can be forgiven too."
He stares at her with the utmost disbelief and gratitude, as though she were an angel shining down God's mercy on him, a crooked and depraved man. He knew he didn't deserve such grace, and he could do nothing but grip her hand tighter, his throat too choked up to speak.
She leans down and gives him a kiss on the cheek, and he takes in her sweet aroma and soft curls tickling his face. He silently vowed to become the man that she believed him to be, and would hang up his hat as chief, captain – hell, even president, so long as he could hold on to his guardian Angie.
I made a few updates/edits for clarity and typos. Thanks for reading!