Trigger Warnings: Brief mentions of mental invasion via exorcism. Bit of a spoiler, I know, but better to be spoiled than caught off-guard by something that would unintentionally end up hurting someone. Please stay safe.

I hope you enjoy this one. Bit of an exposition-heavy chapter, but it's needed to move forward.

Translations from Russian to English provided in the End Notes.

Please leave comments and reviews. They help me understand how the story is impacting my readers and keep me motivated to write more and write better. Thanks.

Thanks to my beta, ElessarII, for reviewing this story and finding no flaws in it... for once.

[02.01.2021] EDIT: I've overhauled this entire arc to better fit where I'm taking this story. Old readers - apologies for the inconvenience. New readers - hope you enjoy the story.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;

The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

- Darkness; Lord Byron

TIME: MIDDAY

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

She lands in water.

Isabelle plunges deep before it hits her conscious mind, and she revels in the feel of the waves against her skin for a few extra moments before making for the surface.

She shoots out, hovers a few hundred feet above it, and draws in deep breaths, even though she doesn't need to - water has never denied her the ability to breathe. But she wants to familiarize herself with the taste of fresh air after inhaling ashes for god-knows-how-long.

She feels bloated and slick - her body always has gone on overdrive whenever she's too wounded to limit herself. But she's also more clear-headed than she has been since the Armory caught on fire, and her arm's whole and unscathed again, so she's not too inclined to complain.

She rises a little more and looks around. The water is clear, like a lake, but from what she can tell, the basin is far too huge to be one. Squinting her eyes against the sun, she peers towards the closest edge - there's a river meandering down a forested slope and draining into the depression.

On the other end, there is just the hint of an uneven skyline.

The entire landscape seems oddly familiar, but she can't quite place it.

It certainly looks like Earth.

Civilization is much further than she anticipates, even with flight. She's still fresh when she finally lands on the shore, but all the euphoria she'd felt earlier bursts like a balloon when she finally looks at what she's been aiming for.

The skyline she had seen from the distance is nothing more than a city of ruins. Half-crumbled buildings greet her, marked with blast marks or bullet holes. The buildings bordering the shore - and it's not a shore, just a cliff that drops sharply into the water - look like they have been sheared in half, and she can see rubble and broken wires through the massive holes in the remnants.

Her dazed footsteps clap on blackened and ash-scarred cobblestones as she walks through shattered roads. There's something rising in her, a feeling she hadn't experienced even in the darkness of that other world. It's sickening and feels too familiar. It's deeper than fear, than simple terror.

No, this is dread.

She walks for what seems like hours before she finds a sign of life that isn't overgrowth weighing in caved-in roofs.

Her blood runs cold.

She finds she misses the bliss of ignorance as she stares at the decade-old graffiti staining the wall. Even being tossed into another world would've been better than being smacked in the face with the undeniable proof of her mistakes.

She shuts her eyes, but she can still see it - the word sprayed in red against the background of a winged helmet - etched on her eyelids.

FASISTA.

The clues had all been there - the lake which had been too big to be a lake, the blast marks, the ruins.

This is no city.

It's a cemetery.

It's Sokovia.

The sun's gone down by the time she finally stumbles upon a living soul.

Russian is the only Slavic language she knows, and even that isn't her best, but she has picked up a few phrases from Romanoff, so she tries her best to get through to the middle-aged man squinting suspiciously at her.

"Помоги мне, пожалуйста," she murmurs. "я Изабель. Телефон?"

He peers at her, then his eyes widen. Her stomach drops as she sees recognition in his eyes. "Я знаю тебя!" He points an accusing finger at her and there are furious tears in his eyes. "Эсминец! Мститель!"

She doesn't have enough vocabulary to combat his increasingly high-pitched railing, so she murmurs an apology and puts him in a headlock. It isn't long before his struggles peter out and he slumps against her. She apologizes again as she drags his unconscious body to a shade and pats him down.

He does have a phone, but it's an old Nokia brand, with honest-to-god buttons. She can almost hear Tony's ghost whisper obscenities in her ear.

She spares one last glance at the man and dials a number.

"New York Bell Company," a cheerful voice answers. "How may I assist? "

Isabelle smothers a watery laugh. One thing hasn't changed about Coulson - he's still a sentimental fool. Forwarding calls from unknown numbers to Peggy Carter's SSR cover story is a S.H.I.E.L.D. trick from before the Insight Helicarriers fell.

She's suddenly, desperately glad that some things haven't changed.

"This is Foxtrot 0734," she tells the operator. "I need you to connect me to X-ray 2896."

June 28th, 2024

The Lighthouse, S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ

Med-Bay

Daisy watches closely for a single sign of micro-expression from Isabelle Collins when she hears the truth.

There's none.

"I've been MIA for how long?"

Her tone is curious, nothing more. No shock, no horror, no pain.

To a layman, it would appear Coulson is the same - calm and unruffled as always, but Daisy's known him long enough to know when it's a mask.

"Eighty-one days," he replies. "You disappeared on the 8th."

Collins murmurs, "Of course I did."

There's a pause. "We almost found a way to get to you. But it didn't end well... or so we thought."

The past two and a half months had been hell. No one had blamed her, but they didn't need to - the guilt of tossing an Avenger into another dimension hadn't let Daisy sleep, especially when she'd realized just when Isabelle Collins had disappeared.

April 8th.

The sixth anniversary of the Snap.

To top it all off, after Selvig's failed experiment, they'd hit an impenetrable roadblock with all leads. A deeper, mystical investigation into the Chitauri had revealed nothing further regarding the case.

"I was gone for maybe a day, Coulson," she's saying, and her voice isn't carefully controlled, like Coulson's. It's blank, as though none of this affects her.

Gabe Reyes stirs from his corner. His dark eyes, which hadn't looked away from Collins since he'd portalled her here into the Lighthouse from Novi Grad, bore into hers. "You ever watched Interstellar?"

Collins blinks, then nods slowly. Daisy spots the moment the lightning bolt of realization hits her. "The black hole. Gargantua. Time dilation."

"We think the black hole's energy also affected Selvig's breach, because it threw you two months into the future instead," Coulson explains. "Your future."

There's a loaded silence. Her gaze is clouded, far away when she says, " - he knew."

Coulson straightens. "Was there someone with you?"

"Not physically," she shakes her head, then her eyes meet his alarmed ones. "It was just a mirage, Coulson," she assures gently. "I was a little out of it."

If anything, that just makes him look more troubled. His expression mirrors Wong's, but for different reasons.

Daisy knows the only reason the sorcerers are even here is because of Collins. She is the last lead in the case that's the only remaining thing binding the Masters of the Mystic Arts and S.H.I.E.L.D. together, especially after Coulson's decision to let Wong walk when he'd refused to help them bring her home.

W.A.N.D. is already feeling the pressure of being torn between two organizations, and she privately believes it won't last much longer, not without a strong link binding them together.

"Anything else that you can remember that might help us?" Coulson asks.

Collins' brow furrows. "Something was coming out of the black hole. This purplish flood of… planets, maybe. I'm not entirely sure that was real either."

The older sorcerer pales. "Dormammu."

"He's an extra-dimensional being who rules the spaces between realms, the roots of the universe," Gabe explains, eyes wide. "He must be the Chitauri's new master."

"What does he want?"

"He means to conquer all," Wong says. "And with the onset of Ragnarok, his efforts have just doubled while his obstacles have been halved."

"Ragnarok?" Collins straightens. "You mean the end of Asgard, and the fall of the gods? Thor told me the story."

Wong just looks at her silently for a long moment, before sighing. "Ragnarok isn't the end of Asgard, Collins. It's the end of everything. All the Nine Realms and beyond. It just starts with the fall of Asgard. You've already seen the dark energy engulfing Svartálfheim."

"Dormammu's darkness will encroach upon all the lands and worlds until only he remains," he continues grimly. "The three Sanctums are the only thing that's preventing him from gaining a foothold into Earth."

Coulson raises a hand as Collins goes to ask yet another question. "Enough exposition for one day. I need to make some calls, and you need to rest. That's - ," he says firmly when she opens her mouth to argue, " - an order, Agent Collins."

Gabe and Wong are arguing. Daisy is eavesdropping shamelessly.

"You can't be serious," Gabe says through gritted teeth. "She's been through literal hell, Dormammu dogging at her heels, and now you want to shove this onto her?"

"It's necessary. You and the others were in strict quarantine until you were cleared. Why should Collins be any different?"

"Because you still hold her responsible for Peters! Double standards are a bad look on you, Wong - you never blamed me !"

"You should know better than to think I would stoop to such weakness." Wong's voice is like steel. "It's not a coincidence she was immediately susceptible to the Eye's influence; something wanted her bound, branded."

He exhales. "Something, that I suspect, is also responsible for the breach in the Castle. As well as redirecting the one Selvig opened to Sokovia, of all places."

There's a sharp inhale. "You think someone is trying to send a message."

"No, Disciple Reyes. I think someone is trying to send her a message." He sighs. "If you truly distrust my motives, then, by all means, perform the spell yourself. You could certainly use the practice, especially if enthrallment becomes a common problem in the future."

"But…"

And that's Daisy's cue. She slides out of the shadows. Neither of the sorcerers seems surprised. "If it'd been me, I'd have wanted to be cleared by any means necessary."

Gabe's face twists. "What could you possibly know about it?" he says harshly.

She nods, unoffended. "You remember Jemma, right?" The words rush out of her mouth in time with the rapid thudding of her heart. "A few years ago, she was stranded on a hostile, barren planet after falling through a portal. She encountered an alien parasite that took over the bodies of dead humans after it killed them and managed to brainwash Inhumans to its cause."

She looks away from him and swallows past the revulsion at the thought of Hive on her, inside her. She hates that she's never managed to suppress the rush of all-consuming pleasure that always accompanied it. "One of those Inhumans... was me."

"The only difference is, while Collins' exposure to the Eye was brief… I never killed anyone."

He gapes at her in horror and the slightest hint of outrage, but before he can do more than open his mouth to berate her, she hears footsteps shuffling behind her. Gabe's eyes snap to beyond her shoulder.

"Might as well, Agent Reyes," Isabelle Collins says, sliding into view. Daisy's stomach sinks. "I'd like to know I'm no longer hosting an extraterrestrial puppeteer as well."

"This... this isn't personal," Daisy tries, her face flushing. Collins' face betrays nothing, but she must have been close enough to hear the tale of her own failures.

Collins sends a flinty stare her way. "Oh, I think it's a little personal." To Gabe - " - can you do it?"

He closes his eyes, and his mouth twists in distaste. "One thing Master Peters taught me," he replies reluctantly, " - there's very little magic cannot do."

"So the real question sorcerers always have to ask is - should you do it? " Wong says.

The four of them are all on the same page. Especially because they know Coulson will shut them down hard if they ask for permission.

He has a blind spot a mile long when it comes to Isabelle Collins.

But Daisy can see her for what she truly is.

Never someone to be trusted on her word alone.

Med-Bay

Collins' supine on a bed, watching as Gabe washes his hands at the other end of the med bay in preparation for the spell. "Will it hurt?" she asks.

Wong purses his lips. "No. But..." He hesitates.

"Spit it out, Wong," she insists.

"The spell doesn't work without full consent," he explains reluctantly, looking over at Gabe, who's frozen, with the water still flowing through his fingers, his mind far away. "But even with it, it's invasive. Unpleasant."

Collins nods as though she was expecting that to be the case. "Sounds like it'll do a thorough job, then." Her eyes seek Daisy out, and pin her to her seat. "Johnson - be ready to Quake me into another dimension if the scans show something that shouldn't be there, got it?"

Daisy blinks, flexes her fingers. "I... yeah. Got it."

Collins looks over at Gabe once again, and with a twist of her hand, the water sputters and shuts off. She arches an eyebrow as he jerks in surprise and turns to look at her. His face is alarmingly pale.

"I'd like to get it over with, Reyes, if you don't mind," she says. For the first time, her voice is almost soft.

He nods as he closes the tap and wipes his hands on a towel. Wong looks troubled but says nothing as he retreats from the room and closes the door behind him.

Gabe spreads his fingers before him, and forces himself to lock gazes with her. Daisy tenses at the look on his face, but Collins just slumps further into the bed.

"This will be uncomfortable," he warns her just before the cold light of the spell washes over her.

Daisy had expected a strong reaction, perhaps even a negative one… but not this.

Collins' eyes widen, a low, pained groan escaping her lips. A vein throbs in her forehead as her clawed fingers grapple for purchase against the mattress, and when the cloth tears, she clutches onto the iron bed frame above her head.

Daisy's out of her seat, and pins her thrashing legs when they threaten to smash Gabe's chin. Collins' muscles strain under her hands, and her panicked breaths reach the point of hyperventilation.

Daisy looks over helplessly to Gabe, whose brow is beaded with sweat. He's chanting spells feverishly, his eyes locked onto the other woman's writhing form in pure agony and - the realization hits Daisy like a wall of bricks - self-loathing.

She only starts reconsidering her choices when Collins' back arches off the bed, Gabe turns an alarming shade of green… and Coulson barges in through the door.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

Gabe stumbles away with a gasp, the spell breaking. Isabelle Collins slumps against the bed as though the strings holding her have been snipped, shock and horror etched across her face.

"She's clear," Gabe croaks, before fleeing the room.

Daisy herself feels pulled back and forth between contradicting feelings of regret and obstinate brazenness even as Coulson rushes towards Collins. The woman shies away from his outstretched arms and curls up into a fetal position, her eyes shut tight as she breathes harshly.

Daisy almost quails at the look of pure disappointment Coulson sends her way. She hasn't seen that look aimed her way since her very first few months with S.H.I.E.L.D, now more than a decade ago.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

She has no answer, and before she can gather her thoughts to think of one, the other woman beats her to it.

"It needed to be done, Coulson," Collins rasps, her face unnaturally white. Coulson looks at her sharply.

"It needed to be done."

The Director's Office

Izzy had refused sedation, looking so shaken at the very thought that Phil hadn't had the heart to force her. He doesn't know what the spell had done to her, but it had shattered each and every one of her walls, leaving her very, very exposed.

Gabriel has disappeared, but Wong had assured him that he'd be back after he dealt with the aftermath of the spell himself.

Daisy's waiting for him at his office, her face in her hands. She lurches upright when he enters, her eyes widening at whatever she sees on his face. "How's she?"

He closes the door deliberately, reminding himself that slamming them will not fix whatever is rotting between the two Inhumans.

"Unnerved," he replies simply as he slips behind his desk. He doesn't sit though, just stares at Daisy, who isn't able to suppress her grimace in time.

"Unnerved? Is that really the best she can do…?" She stutters to a stop when he arches an eyebrow.

"I used that word because it's the only one she would consent to, if she were here," he explains quietly, "and because I wanted to see your reaction to it."

She turns away, her mouth twisting in distaste. "I have no idea why you hold such regard for her. She doesn't deserve it, Avenger or not."

He smiles at that, and if it's even half as bitter as he feels, it would serve his purpose. "You think I respect her because she's an Avenger? Wow, Daisy. I wasn't expecting you to be apologetic, but I didn't realize your bias ran this deep."

Her eyes flash and she shoves herself off her seat. "Wong called it the 'Dark World', Coulson! That's almost as bad as a planet whose name literally means 'death'! I don't see you raking him over the coals!"

"Wong and I are on thin ice. But you counted on your sob story to tip both Collins and Reyes over the edge. A completely pragmatic decision on your part, right, one that had nothing to do with the fact that you've been blatantly hostile to her since she joined? You looked almost disappointed when Gabe's scans came clear."

She stays silent, but it's an obstinate silence, not a repentant one.

Phil lets her see the full force of his anger. "This isn't like you."

"And it's not like you to let a HYDRA operative into our base and our lives!" The truth behind her hostility finally erupts from her.

There's silence, broken only by her semi-controlled heaves of rage and frustration. Phil looks at her for a long moment, before sighing and rubbing at his eyes.

"Skye," he says, forgetting, yet again, that she no longer goes by the name and barely tolerates it from him. "For the hundredth time, she was a triple agent."

Her face twists into a humorless smile for a brief second, as though she's pitying him and what she perceives as his naivety. Phil doesn't let it affect him - she doesn't know the whole story; probably never will, the way things are going. "You sure about that?" she asks, almost derisively.

"As sure as I am of my own name."

She sighs. "Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s assessment wasn't very flattering about her even before she was exposed."

"Peggy Carter penned down that assessment to protect her from those who would try to take advantage of her Inhuman abilities along with her lineage. C'mon, Daisy, this is childish. I'm not saying what you did was wrong."

"But the why you did it was."

Med-Bay

Isabelle's knees threaten to give out on her, but closure is something they both need, even if only one deserves it. "Wong," she calls.

The sorcerer stills, caught in his attempt to slip out surreptitiously. She's not angry; she'd agreed to it after all - in fact, she's almost grateful for the spell - it had bleached away the last of the Entity's control over her.

She no longer feels like a possession. For that, and for more, she owes him. "I'm sorry… about Peters."

He sighs, turns to her. In the low light of dusk, he looks exhausted. She's never seen him at anything less than impeccably impassive. "I know what Stephen Strange did," he says, apropos of nothing.

She grows cold.

"He bound himself to an inescapable fate - a fate which started with the death of your brother."

"Started…? What… ?"

"It means what goes around comes around. Pandora Peters was Stephen's novice," he explains. "Ambitious and arrogant like him. But while he outgrew that, for the most part, she never did… because the Decimation ensured she could never complete her tutelage under him."

Her heart grows cold, suddenly aware where he's going with this.

"He... was responsible for killing your brother. And in return, you killed his best student."

Horror swoops in her stomach. "That's not... I didn't... it wasn't…"

"Vengeance?" He shakes his head. "That's not what I mean. It was fate. Circle of life."

He sighs. "Thinking that you could exert any control over an entity that is more powerful than anything you have ever faced is the same hubris that Peters displayed."

His eyes are intense, almost glowing. "Don't fall into that trap, Isabelle Stark."

Living Quarters

It's late evening when Gabe finally makes his way back to the Lighthouse. He looks worn and exposed, and Daisy's oscillating between whether to approach him or leave well enough alone, but he takes the decision right out of her hands.

They're sitting on her bunk, and he's clutching onto a mug of hot chocolate, his gaze distant. "You know her brother saved my life?"

That… hadn't been what she was expecting. She blinks. "Tony Stark?"

"Yeah," he nods. "During the Decimation, I was holed up at home. Supplies were running out, but I was better than most - I could hear gunshots and screaming outside." He swallows. "It was... it was horrible. And then the looters came. They had a gun and... it felt like the car accident all over again. I was sure my time was over, and then, then... there he was."

She links her arm with his. "A real Good Samaritan this time."

"Yeah," Gabe smiles. "He came in through the roof. Crushed my wheelchair so he had to fly me to S.H.I.E.L.D. after he dealt with the bangers."

His smile disappears as swiftly as it had come. "He saved me, Daisy. Built me my leg braces even though he didn't have to, and I just…" He shudders out an exhale. "I just violated his sister's mind."

A sudden coldness strikes her core. Her mind plays back Isabelle Collins' expression as the spell had hit her, and Daisy can't help but compare it to her own experience with Hive.

They'd both been forced into their individual situations. The only difference was that Daisy had actually enjoyed being under Hive's spell - high as she had been on the parasites that had targeted the pleasure centers of her brain - while Collins had been defiled by one.

Again.

"Gabe, no..."

"That's what it feels like, you know," he explains with a pained grimace. "That spell - the Light of Agamotto - it's an exorcism. It doesn't actually require complete consent - that's just to reduce the negative effects on both the caster and the… the victim," he admits.

She finds she can do little more than allow him to clutch her hand as though it's the only thing that's keeping him in the here and now.

"Magic always has a price, and that spell... it demands more than most. In the old days, sorcerers used it to ferret out secrets hidden in the very souls of their enemies," he says.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Gabe," she stammers. "I didn't know."

He shrugs, leans his head on her shoulder. "I love magic, I do. It gave me my legs. But sometimes... I just wish I could go back, you know? To a life without it. Without the Ghost Rider. When it was just me and my brother."

She swallows the lump in her throat. Her eyes are stinging. "I wish I could give you that, too. Robbie would too, if he were here."

He stirs at that, leans back, surreptitiously wipes his eyes. Then he meets her gaze and seems to steel himself. "You said about that thing you saw - the one who brainwashed you and other Inhumans, rode the bodies of dead humans?"

She blinks, nods. "Yeah?"

"Is... is that what the Ghost Rider is, really?" He asks hesitantly, looking perturbed. "I mean, the thing inside Robbie... he rides dead people too, technically and he...well, he allied with you, so..." His voice tapers off as she hurriedly shakes his head.

"God, no, Gabe," Daisy protests, grabbing his shoulders and shaking lightly, willing him to understand what Robbie was, what Robbie is. Better than Isabelle Collins, better than her, better than Coulson himself. "I wasn't... I know what it feels like to not have any control over my own mind, and it wasn't like that with Robbie. He was my partner, not my master."

"The Rider... he might have very violent and destructive ways of removing evil from the world, but he is fundamentally good. You don't need to worry about that." She smiles tremulously. "Besides, shouldn't you know all of this by now, being a sorcerer and all?"

"The Masters don't know anything about the Ghost Rider. There are no books, no tales, no stories." He shakes his head. "Daisy, I went to them for answers and I looked for five years and there was nothing ."

Her heart sinks. "He hasn't returned? Not even once?"

"No. I don't even know whether he made it through the Decimation."

"...I'm so sorry, Gabe."

God, Robbie.

Where are you?

Med-Bay

She still has a tremor.

Isabelle balls her fingers into a fist when the door opens, and Coulson walks in. She clears her face of any and all emotions by the time he takes a seat beside her.

She's already shown enough weakness in front of him. He has lost the right for more.

He doesn't ask her how she is, something she's doubly grateful for, because she doesn't think she can lie very effectively right now. But the alternative isn't much better.

"You're going home," he pronounces quietly. "You have more than enough vacation days saved up."

"I can work," she protests, but it sounds weak even to her own ears. She's certain that she's right, though - going home will do nothing to stabilize her nerves, but punching people will work wonders.

"By my count, you haven't slept for the last eighty days. Time dilation or not," he argues. "You are weak, injured - yes, I know the water healed you, but it can't fix what's broken inside you, Izzy - and you've just been through a horribly traumatic experience which you didn't have to go through."

"I've read the reports on Hive, Coulson," she murmurs. "Quake's powers are devastating, yeah, but if I'd been under the Entity's control for much longer, I could've literally desiccated the Earth. And you yourself said no scanners can detect the effects of magic."

He sighs. "That's not entirely true. We don't have any such devices in the Lighthouse, but the Castle does." He hesitates, then barrels on. "The founder and former Director of W.A.N.D. - Pandora's predecessor - was brilliant. Wasn't a sorcerer, but merged magic and technology in ways no one had seen before. Even renovated the whole Castle to what it is today. Pretty sure one of his inventions would've been less… invasive than Reyes' spell."

He's meeting her eyes squarely, not a hint of guile in them, which is when she knows that he's hiding something from her. She thinks of his tentative tone, while speaking of this previous Director. She thinks of those holograms being tossed around in the Great Hall, the machinery spelled with runes.

The tremor doubles in intensity.

"Who was the founder of W.A.N.D, Coulson?" She's not sure she wants to know the answer, but suspects she already might.

He exhales. "Tony Stark."

The sound of his name drives the breath from her lungs. It's a while before she has enough oxygen to croak out, " - he hated magic."

She can hear the smile in his answer. "He did. But only as long as he thought that it broke the laws of physics." He sighs a sigh that's part amusement, part grief. "After he realized it operated within completely different laws, and that he could learn and quantify those laws, he… tolerated it."

"Despite not being a sorcerer, he understood magic like the best of them," he continues. "It was why he was the best candidate for Director of W.A.N.D."

"Why?"

He sighs. "He was trying to research the Infinity Stones, Izzy, he - we were trying to find a way to bring you back."

"He was working on time travel." She has no doubt Fury had told the truth of the Time Heist to Coulson, who's the most sensible guy in the world, the lie of his resurrection notwithstanding.

"Tony never liked to back just one strategy."

She nods. Almost without her consent, the words spill out. "I saw him there. He helped me get home."

Coulson's face doesn't change; he isn't surprised. But he doesn't take it as evidence of her rapidly degrading mental condition, either. "I've heard that word before, in relation to Starks. Mirage."

"Tony said he hallucinated you in Afghanistan after he escaped the Ten Rings," he explains. "You motivated him to keep going, even though you hadn't spoken in years."

Her breath stills.

We've done this before, you and I. Bit of a role reversal. I was dying in a barren hellhole and you told me to get off my ass and get home.

She hadn't known this before. She's certain. Tony would never have admitted this in life; not to her. His pride wouldn't have let him.

Phil had known, though. The hallucination had known.

How had a hallucination known more than her?

It wasn't possible. Everything that Tony had told her… had come from the part of herself that hadn't wanted to die in that alien wasteland.

Where else could it have come from?

A line of solid warmth pressed against her side.

And then, words, older than that memory.

Tony Stark's story is not yet finished.

Her hands are visibly trembling now, and everything inside her feels shaken, loose, even more than it already was. She shoves her hands into her pockets when she sees him staring, but the damage is already done. His face is stony when he meets her gaze.

"If it makes you feel better, this isn't entirely for you. Your family has been worried sick," he says. "I've already made the calls - but you need to see them. I'll not have an angry redhead storming my ultra-secret, underground base just because you're being stubborn."

Her family. Pepper, Rhodey… Morgan. Their faces flash in her mind, particularly one she hasn't allowed herself to know yet. She probably still won't, when she gets back.

But she has a message to deliver.

Tell her… I love her 3000.

He arches an eyebrow questioningly, and she can't do anything but nod tiredly in agreement.

"Home it is."

MCU Context:

FASISTA!

Age of ULTRON deleted scene. Rogers steps down from the Quinjet in Sokovia, sees it on the wall. Was pretty blasé about it too, which kinda seemed weird at the time, but in the context of the Civil War makes a whole lot of sense.

Sokovia: In the Age of ULTRON, the city was lifted up, leaving a massive crater on the land. There's an image of a river flowing into it, forming a pretty large waterfall. I imagine in about ten years, it'll fill the hole.

New York Bell Company: SSR base in the 40s was situated in the basement of this telephone company. In my canon, it still survives, and Phil Coulson, a huge fan of Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers and the Howling Commandos, would definitely still be using this.

Marvel Comics Context:

Mindless Ones: The golems' that Collins and Johnson fight. Servants of Dormammu. They're practically undefeatable in comics, but in this fic, I made that big red glowing gem on their 'foreheads' a vulnerable point.

In MCU, when Dormammu conquers a new world, all the world's inhabitants become Mindless Ones. You saw it happening with Kaecilius and his zealots in Doctor Strange when they were absorbed by the Dark Dimension at the end of the movie.

Russian Translations:

1. Help me, please.
2. I am Isabelle. Phone?
3. I know you!
4. Destroyer! Avenger!

This week's AoS episode, 'Know Your Onions', kinda cleared a personality trait of Daisy Johnson for me. I'm glad because it means that I pegged her character pretty right in the chapter. Fate, I guess?