[Backdated reveal because hitting post is usually essential to posting]
The Academy Award for Best Editing may not go to Sharon Carter, but the disappearing translucent woman didn't realize what she'd been cutting to pieces until after it was said and done. She didn't disappear. She didn't fade away, and when her tablet lit up with a couple of messages she knew she hadn't faded away from anyone else either.
But stepping out into the light from the hotel, the place where she'd cut her hand with the razor began to bleed, and she felt stinging and stickiness begin to seep on different parts of her body. As she hurried down the street, she took off her denim jacket and wrapped her hand in it, it soaked with blood quickly and she hailed a cab, it would be faster getting home. She noticed her arms covered in cuts, not deep ones, but cuts and scrapes. Like instead of cutting film she'd been hacking away at herself. She felt her shirt sticking to her and assumed her torso must look the same as her arms. As she walked her jeans rubbed against her legs, the stinging felt there as well. Lovely.
A car stopped for her and she slid in catching a glimpse of her face in the rear mirror, she had some cuts on her face, not several, just a few, and her hair, cut unevenly, still long but cut jagged and would need a serious trim to even it back out.
She gave the cab driver her address, and ignored his looks of concern. He was a New York cab driver, it was sunrise, he'd seen worse.
She was silent as she looked out the window, ignoring the annoyance of the cuts on her body, she hadn't signed up for this. She had barely known what she was doing. Hadn't recognized, hadn't seen it until the very end as she'd started to disappear entirely. Hadn't even recognized herself. And it wasn't just her weird messed up life here, she'd started at the beginning. It wasn't as though she was taking out parts and replacing them with better parts. She was replacing her. Like HYDRA had done to her twice before. She worried if they'd done it again. Would she even know? Would it even matter?
She wondered if it was all just her mind playing tricks on her, because she was feeling confused and had lost a bit of herself when she'd lost SHIELD. Failures all around. She couldn't think about that on top of hotel drama. She was fine, a little beat up, but fine. The nicks and cuts just lasting reminders not to do what she was told anymore. Even in her own dreams apparently.
She unwrapped her jacket and looked at the cut on her hand, that was definitely going to need a few stitches. She didn't relish the idea of finding anymore like it on her body, but she also wasn't going to undress in a cab to find out. She kept pressure on the wound and stared out the window, forcing her eyes to stay open. Saying 'yes I'm alright' every time the driver said 'you sure you're okay?' when she started to drift off. She just looked like a kindergartner had come after her with the classroom scissors. A very psychotic kindergartner. But she was fine. Would be fine. Eventually.