1980s: Sharon
The first thing Michael did after being released from federal custody was ask Sharon Phillips to marry him, and of course Sharon had said yes. They were married in a small protestant church surrounded by family and friends. For the most part it had been a lovely gathering. Harrison and Amanda had come over from England to see their son get married, and to visit with their grandchildren. Things between Peggy and her mother were strained because Amanda was upset over Peggy's divorce, but they managed to keep the tension at bay until after the wedding. A year ago there had been riots over the summer after a raid on a bar in the village called Stonewall. People like Peggy, Angie, Monty, and Howard had had enough of being abused and cast aside, and were done hiding in the shadows and in closets. They had found their voices and were now using them to demand they be seen as people with the basic human right to love and live the way nature had intended them too. So after her brother and new sister-in-law had gone off on their honeymoon, with Angie's support and her father's silent encouragement, Peggy told her mother the truth. Her marriage to Monty had been a lie, and she had been in a romantic relationship with Angie for twenty years.
"Bloody hell Margaret, I'm your mother, do you honestly think I didn't know who you had made a life with? Do you think I couldn't see the love and devotion between you and Angela?" Amanda replied after Peggy's big reveal. "You think me so backwards and daft, my girl? I just wish you had kept up the pretense of an actual marriage, if not for your own image, than your childrens'."
Peggy had been honestly surprised, though she wasn't sure why. Angie's family had silently accepted them since partially day one. Her father had also silently accepted Peggy's love for Angie. Why hadn't she trusted her mother's love of her enough to think Amanda would as well? And then she remembered an old conversation she'd had with her aunt. "Times are changing, Mum. It's not like when you and Aunt Phyllis were children, or even like when Angie and I were children. I don't need to be married to a man, real or otherwise, to protect me, or validate me, or simply to keep up appearances. All I need is what I already have, my wife, my children, and I hope my family."
"Don't be such a moppet, Margaret." Amanda huffs. "You're my daughter."
Helping her mother through the changing times would come in handy seventeen years later when Michael's only child, his daughter Allison, got pregnant while working in the catskills the summer before her senior year of high school. Allison names her daughter Sharon after her mother who they'd lost to breast cancer when Allison was fifteen, and Michaela after her father who did his best to be there for her through it all. Peggy and Angie did what they could to help as well so that Allison could finish high school and then go on to college. They gladly babysat Sharon while Allison was in class or working, and Peggy quickly learned what it was like to have her own little duckling following her around.
When Sharon was little they made a game out of the fact that she liked to be wherever Peggy was. Peggy would take odd or out of the way paths through the Washington D.C. apartment she and Angie lived in when they were in the capital after Peggy and Howard had moved SHIELD HQ to D.C., or through the house and yard of their Seneca Falls home, which forced the little girl to find creative ways to get to her. When Elizabeth was little her favorite thing was to snuggle up with Peggy as she read from one of her favorite adventure books. Sharon's favorite thing was to act out Peggy's favorite adventure books.
"Sharon Carter." Angie scolds gently as she walks out of the kitchen and into the dining room to find their three year old niece standing on her dining room table. "What do you think you're doing up there?"
Sharon, her sandy blonde hair pulled back into a braid, one strap of her Osh Gosh purple overalls undone, her tiny bare feet with their tiny purple painted nails slapping against the polished wood, pointed to her aunts' two dogs. Sage was Basil's granddaughter, and an eager young dog willing to go along with anything in a calm joyful manner. Cinnamon was a labradoodle pup they'd gotten after losing Sage's mother's Nutmeg, and was a bundle of energy. Both dogs were standing by the head of the table, which was missing it's chair. "Dragons, Auntie Angie."
"Dragons?" Angie tried hard not to smirk at the toddler's seriousness.
"Mmmhmm." Sharon bobs her little blonde head.
"And what are the dragons hiding in their cave under the table?" Angie asks the girl, who she is just now realizing, is wielding a shield but no sword.
"Auntie Peggy." Sharon replies.
Angie had to bite her lip. "English, are you under the table?"
"No." Came Peggy's accented reply. "I'm in a cave waiting to be rescued, so do stop questioning my knight in shining overalls, my knees are killing me."
There was no holding back her laughter now. Shaking her head as she continues to chuckle, Angie helps Sharon down off the table and then tells her to wait a moment and she gets something to distract the dragons so she can rescue her Aunt Peggy. She disappears back into the kitchen and returns a moment later with two milk bones dog treats. After Peggy is rescued from the cave under the dining room table, Angie shakes her head at her. "One of these days she's gonna crack her head open climbing over the furniture like a billy goat, and you're going to have to explain it to Allie."
Sharon never gets hurt playing with her aunts but she does get incredibly hurt when she's outed by her best friend after the other girl finds out that Sharon has a crush on her. Unsure if her mother will understand Sharon seeks out the one person she knows will understand, and who will make her feel safe again. She knows that her Aunt Peggy does important work for the United Nations, but Sharon doesn't know where her aunt works. She does however know where her Aunt Angie works, so she leaves school and makes her way to the little theater that her aunt's theater group worked out of.
Angie is on stage helping a couple of new kids to the group through their scene when Sharon arrives. When she sees her niece's blotchy, red, tear streaked face she tells everyone to go home for the day, and then takes Sharon up to her office. Sharon isn't very chatty about what's upset her until they get back to the apartment and Peggy arrives home after Angie calls her. Sharon tells them what happened and the pair do their best to reassure and support her.
"Not everyone will be accepting of who you are, Sharon." Peggy warns the girl gently. "There will be people, shitty horrible people, who will look down on you, condemn you, but you must always remember that their issues with who you are, are their issues and not yours." She presses a kiss to Sharon's temple as she cuddles her on the sofa. "It won't always be easy, but you must always be true to yourself, and to who you are, Sharon. Don't ever let anyone force you into being anything or anyone you're not."
With her aunts by her side Sharon tells her mother and Allison is supportive of her daughter, just as Peggy said she would be. What Allison wasn't so supportive of, was Sharon's interest in following in Peggy's footsteps. While Sharon didn't know details of her aunt's work, she knew it was intelligence based and important. She knew that her aunt helped keep the world safe. And she knew that she wanted to have that kind of purpose in the world as well. So Sharon worked hard in school, top marks in her classes, best in athletics, and extracurriculars that would look good to recruiters in the intelligence fields.
Graduation was approaching quickly and Sharon would soon have degrees in her double majors of Sociology and International Studies, with a minor in Computer Science. Since she was graduating from Stanford Summa Cum Laude, she had several recruiters trying to grab her attention. Including, and she found this amusing, Stark Industries. But she didn't want to work for some international company, that had not been her goal. She had wanted to grab the attention of the American and British intelligence agencies. Maybe she should have done ROTC after all? But honestly, she hadn't had any extra time for herself over the last four years, she didn't know where she'd have fit it in and still slept.
Sleep was a good thing, Sharon was looking forward to sleep, all she had to do was make it to her mother's apartment now that she was back in Virginia for Spring Break. She was really looking forward to spending the next week with her mom and hopefully driving up to D.C. to see her aunts. The thought of her aunts made Sharon's stomach growl and she blushed a little as she looked around to see if any of the other disembarking passengers heard it. Her mother could cook well enough to keep her alive, but her aunts, Peggy's roasts or Angie's anything, that's what homesick little girls dream of.
Sharon was so lost in the prospect of warm sugary zeppole that she almost didn't sense the man creeping up on her. Almost. She reached quickly and on instinct, grabbing hold of the man's wrist before his arm was fully extended in her direction. In one fluid motion she had the man on his back on the parking garbage pavement with a purse taser trained on him.
"Sharon Carter," The man said easily. "Agent Coulson," He paused to fick his hand to his right. Sharon caught sight of an Asian woman standing nearby, a slight smirk on her lips. "Agent May. We're with SHIELD. We've been sent to retrieve you and take you to your appointment."
"SHIELD? What's SHIELD?" Sharon questioned, her gaze darting between the two with her finger on the trigger of her taser. "I don't have any appointments."
"If you'll let me get up?" Coulson says easily. He smiles when she backs off, but keeps the taser in hand. He straightens his suit and hears May snicker.
"I told you not to sneak up on her." May tells him.
He scowls at her and then softens his expression when he looks at Sharon again. "I'm going to reach into my jacket for my i.d." He tells her before doing just that and showing her his identification. "Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, or SHIELD for short. We're an independent intelligence agency in partnership with the United Nations, and you, Sharon Michaela Carter, caught our eye. Our Director would like to have a word with you, and we'd be glad to take you to that meeting."
"I'm not going anywhere with a couple of strangers from what sounds like a made up agency." Sharon says firmly
"I told you that wouldn't work." May says as she pulls a card from her jacket pocket. "You watch too many spy movies." Turning her attention on Sharon she holds out the card. "The FBI, CIA, MI5, they ain't got nothing on us. You wanted noticed, you got noticed. Be here at three o'clock."
Of course Peggy has doubts about bringing Sharon into her world. Her world is dangerous, and Peggy only ever wanted to keep her loved ones safe and sound, and as fair away from SHIELD as she could keep them. But Sharon had set her sights on this line of work all on her own, without any direct influence from Peggy, and she would be damned if any of those other agencies got a hold of her. If Sharon wanted to become an agent, she would become one of Peggy's, and honestly with her retirement looming ahead of her, Peggy really liked the idea of having a Carter in SHIELD after she was gone.
Sharon shows up at three and is escorted to the top of the tall building she had always known was there but never gave much thought to. The Triskelion, according to Coulson who was taking her up to meet with whoever she was meeting with, was impressive and overwhelming. As they moved from the parking lot the man at the guarded bridge gate directed her too, to the building itself, and through the lobby past the large open winged bird statue, Agent Coulson was explaining the agency to her. There was a lot of pride in his voice as he told her what they did and what their purpose was. In the lift on their way up to the top floor, Sharon took in the view as Coulson continued to talk, she was only half paying attention as she tried to sort out her own thoughts and feelings, but then he said something that sounded familiar and it made her snort.
"Something funny Miss. Carter?" Agent Coulson asked.
"No, sorry." Sharon replies, blushing a bit. "It's just what you just said about finding purpose, it's something my aunt says to me all the time."
Coulson smirks. "You're aunt sounds very wise."
"I think she is." Sharon smiles warmly.
Coulson escorted her into an outer office and told her to wait. It was another agent who opened the doors to the inner office and told Sharon to go in. Sharon had no idea what to expect but finding her aunt sitting behind the large desk in the room wasn't even close to being on any kind of list. "Aunt Peggy?"
"Hello darling." Peggy stands to greet her niece. "And it's Director Carter here, dear."
Sharon would need to take the entrance exams to get into one of the academies, but she wouldn't have wanted to get into SHIELD any other way. She wanted to be a SHIELD agent more than anything now that she knew about Peggy's connection to it, but she also wanted to succeed on her own merits. Which she does. Agent 13 makes a name for herself as one of SHIELD's best, and Peggy couldn't be more proud. When Peggy finally retires, she feels reassured knowing that Sharon is there and that someday her niece will carry on her legacy.