Just something that's been on my mind for a while after rewatching Agents of SHIELD, jus got around to writing it.
On the Zepher, Jemma Simmons walked into the lab, eager just to take a moment to herself. However, she quickly noticed she wasn't alone. Deke was there, sitting in a chair, seeming to be asleep. However, Jemma quickly realized that he was not asleep. In horror, she stared at the headset on Deke's head. She had only seen that one other time: when AIDA and Radcliffe had put their team in the Framework.
"Deke, what have you done?" Jemma asked herself as she made her way to her grandson's side, examining the headset.
Before Jemma could try to figure out what to do, Deke's eyes opened.
"Nana?" Deke inquired as she saw her.
"Deke, why would you go into the Framework?" Jemma demanded.
"To test a theory," Deke said as he removed the headset from his head. "I just needed to know."
"Know what?" Jemma asked, confused.
"If I made the right call when I spared Freddie," Deke said simply.
Jemma paused, taking a moment to consider it. She knew how Deke had been tormented by whether or not he'd made the right call in sparing Wilfred Malick back in the twenties, especially after what happened to Mack's parents. And she realized what Deke had done. It was something Fitz would have done as well.
"You created a Framework reality where you did kill him, to see if you made the right decision," Jemma said and Deke nodded. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
Deke paused, considered as he thought of everything he had seen in the Framework.
Without a Red Skull, there had been no Captain America and no SHIELD, but that didn't mean there was no Hydra. Without a Red Skull, it just never came out into the open. Rather than Schmidt being the leader of the Nazi science division, he'd become known as a rogue Nazi who was obsessed with the Tesseract. His obsession brought him into contact with Peggy Carter. The result was a bloody battle that ended with both of their deaths along with massive casualties on both sides, Bucky Barnes and several Howling Commandos among them.
With no May and Coulson, Bahrain had gone very differently. When Katya's powers had been unleashed, there had been no one to stop it quickly. Rather than just a few lives lost, Katya had killed hundred until an unknown man, realizing the truth, had shot her in the head. Believed to be the one responsible for all the death, Buhrain's head of state had put the man to death.
Howard Stark had still become a famous weapons manufacturer, although not to the extent of when he was a founding member of SHIELD. With no Super Soldier serum in his possession, he and his wife were never assassinated and Howard passed away from natural causes an old man in 2005. His son Tony however, had a much darker fate. He had been kidnapped by the Nine Rings and returned home after breaking his way out, the same as in the original timeline. However, with no Coulson, Pepper Potts had not been able to get away from Obadiah Stane and had been unable to warn James Rhodes, resulting in Tony's death. Stane was eventually brought in by the military and sentenced to life in prison.
Without a Captain America, Thaddeus Ross had never recruited Bruce Banner and Banner never became the Hulk. Instead, he became a professor at Yale, going on to marry Betty Ross and having two kids, a son and a daughter.
Instead of SHIELD, the CIA became involved when Mjolnir had fallen to earth. Thor had been arrested by local police but everything seemed to happen the same as it did in the original timeline in that particular instance.
However, Loki's invasion of earth went far different. Even with no SHIELD, Loki had come to earth on Thanos' orders to locate the Tesseract. Thor had followed him, getting assistance from the Ancient One and the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Loki had been defeated and Thor took Loki and Tesseract back with him to Asgard while entrusting the Scepter to The Ancient One.
With no Scepter, Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff had never acquired their powers. And without Tony Stark, there was no Ultron or Vision. With no Sokovia Accords, T'Chaka was never killed in Vienna. When Killmonger came to seek his revenge for his father's death, T'Chaka had rebuffed him and had him imprisoned. With W'Kabi's help, Killmonger had escaped and with the support of the Border Tribe, there had been an attempted coup. With T'Challa leading the rest of the tribes into battle, a slaughter had followed, massive losses on both sides, ending with T'Challa killing Killmonger after his father's death by Killmonger's hands. T'Challa ascended the throne and had W'Kabi executed for treason.
When Odin had passed and Hela returned to Asgard, Thor had been unable to stop her and was killed along with Sif, the Warrior Three, and Loki. Hela then took control of Asgard and became a ruthless dictator, killing all those who questioned her.
When Thanos went in search of the Infinity Stones, he went to Asgard after acquiring the Power, Reality and Soul Stones. Using the Reality and Soul Stones, Thanos had temporarily trapped Hela in a mirror Dimension before locating the Tesseract and portaling out of there. On earth, his only resistance was the Masters of the Mystic Arts, now headed by Stephen Strange. They put up a good fight, but with four Infinity Stones, they were no match for Thanos. With all six stones, Thanos pulled off his plan of wiping out half of all life in the universe. And with no Avengers, there would be no reversing it.
A timeline with SHIELD had some benefits, but the costs far outweighed the merits. Deke now knows that if he had followed Daisy's order to kill Freddie, he would have doomed the world and the entire universe.
"Yeah, yeah I did," Deke finally said. "I made the right decision. No matter what anyone else says, I made the right decision. Ripples, not waves."
Daisy's plan to kill Freddie and stop Hydra, at least as it was known to the world, from being formed is stupid on multiple levels.
Removing Steve Rogers from his proper place in history alone has some pretty dire effects, but taking out SHIELD all together removes the Avengers from the timeline, which petty much dooms said Timeline when Thanos does show up. And as usual, the show fails to call out Daisy for her stupidity.
Look, while Daisy is far from my favorite character on the show, most times I can tolerate her, but the show lets her get away with far too much. If any other character had pulled the crap she did, it would have spent a couple episodes making them grapple with that. But not Daisy, because Daisy can apparently not be criticized.
Anyway, this was mainly to sow what would have happened had Daisy gotten her way. There would probably be more ripples and some things would likely happen differently than what I described, but you get the idea.