Narrative: Sharon Carter (A Sharonarrative, if you will) Who: Sharon Carter, with our various favorite NPCs (Tiger, the lipstick girl downstairs, Agents 1, 2, and 3. Etc - AKA Jeannie is having a field day) What: Problems at the office --- Problems at home Where: New York SHIELD Regional Director, Sharon Carter's office. And then her Brooklyn apartment. And then The Pierre Hotel When: BACKDATED: Within a few hours of this super cool Amber Alert Warnings: Nah.
Sharon hadn't been surprised, not really, when the alerts regarding Emily started pinging all of her devices. Disappointed, but not surprised. She also wasn't surprised when her assistant, Tiger, walked into her office and closed the door behind him shortly after the pings started.
"Did you kidnap a child today, Sharon? Because Judge Sullivan is on the phone for you. And that Sylvia Johnson-Browne, from OCFS is holding. And that Judge Mayhill is on line three. Etcetera." The etcetera was enunciated, and Tiger was smirking almost conspiratorial in his lowered voice. And under normal circumstances she'd have been endeared. But she just nodded toward the screen where every major news channel had it as their featured story.
Words like "Inside job?" "Ransom request not yet received" scrolled across in bold white letters with the red "Breaking News" background. It was all speculation at this point and she somehow doubted that Judges Sullivan and Mayhill, and Sylvia Johnson-Browne (and whoever was now ringings lines 4 and 5) were not going to be contacting the press anytime soon. Well. Maybe Judge Mayhill.
"Make sure everyone at OCFS is covered and Judge Sullivan too. I think they're both ladies who are on the level. And we might need them both again in the future," she looked tapped her desk with her pen for a moment, her mouth set in a firm line, and her brow furrowing slightly as she considered something. "Judge Mayhill, lets wait on him? I'm interested to see if a few people come walking through my door about it." she said, her eyes moving back to Tiger and not betraying for a second the flurry of thoughts that were running through her mind. The urge to check on Gwen, to make sure she was okay, was as frustrating as finding herself in this position. But it wasn't possible to check in, not yet, she didn't know who was watching, and it would just have to wait a few days. That much she knew. Tiger was making notes and nodding with what she said. "Schedule time for me to talk to Browne and Sullivan first thing tomorrow morning, but in the meantime assure them it is taken care of for them."
Judge Mayhill had been her wildcard, he hadn't actually provided much information that she didn't have, but he had seemed interested that she was asking and he seemed the type to go snooping around. And she suspected he was HYDRA. So it was best she just let that grouchy dog bark for a bit to see who he went to first when she didn't return his calls. Tiger nodded and she went back to her computer for the time being.
A couple of hours, and exactly thirteen calls from Judge Mayhill later (haha), she got a call on her private line from one of her three best agents. She picked it up immediately.
"Carter."
And she listened as she was informed that she needed to casually begin gathering her things, and casually leaving the office, and that she would then need to casually walk three blocks south, take a left turn and get into a taxi that would take her to her apartment. Which was currently occupied when it ought to be empty. Thirteen calls was apparently the maximum Judge Mayhill was willing to wait, and while she was pleased he hadn't gone to any of her superiors within SHIELD, that likely meant that not only were her suspicions correct about him - but he also wasn't willing to give up any of his other SHIELD connections to get to her. Of course that didn't mean she was in the clear, if anything they were going to be looking at her a bit more closely and that was never good. She already felt their heated breath on her neck as it was.
There was nothing at her apartment. Nothing incriminating in any case and as far as she knew no little girls. She hadn't been there herself in days except to wrap Christmas presents. She half hoped up they were up there destroying her things so she wouldn't have to take all of her Christmas decorations down. If she had to do that, the way things had been going lately, she was likely to just burn the building to the ground.
She did as she was told. She left work. She walked. She even stopped for a coffee, and a hot dog on her way to the taxi. And she sat in silence as the driver took her home.
Home.
Home was a funny word that hadn't ever meant much to Sharon. As a rebellious teenager, home had meant parents and rules and cotillion. Everything exciting happened away from home. Aunt Peggy's stories were all about being anywhere BUT home. So it had never been something she longed for, and it wasn't ever really anything she established. She wasn't attached to places, but as she'd grown older and only slightly less rebellious, home became more about the people. Stark Tower had been home once. The Avenger's Mansion. The Helicarrier commandeered by the Secret Avengers had been the last place that was home before she'd disappeared and wound up here.
And her apartment? As much work as she'd put into making it comfortable, it was still just a place. A place short a few people. Her life was short a few people in strange sorts of ways, she couldn't exactly call them absent. They were far from it. She could just call things different, and as someone who could manage change better than most anyone, she was managing just fine. People were coming back, things were settling, she hoped.
The taxi pulled up outside of her building, and the lights in her unit were off from what she could tell from the street. She paid the driver, and got out of the cab and stopped to talk to her neighbor who was outside, looking smug. "The cops were here, I told them you must have skipped town because I hadn't seen you since before Christmas. I thought they might have been trying to track down your boyfriend, but I said I hadn't seen him in even longer."
Sharon could have killed her. Right then she could have killed her. But she just smiled, "We've been out of town," and as if on cue the taxi driver got out of the car and started unloading suitcases from the trunk. Nice touch. Sharon took the two suitcases, they actually appeared to have something in them, and somehow she doubted that they were her vacation clothes. She nodded once at the woman and headed into her building and up the stairs. The suitcases were left outside her door and she took a moment to examine the lock, which had been broken. Clearly broken. She doubted she would find anything else better inside, they weren't trying to be sneaky. Before she pushed the front door open she pulled her gun from it's holster, holding it steadily in front of her as she entered the apartment. She didn't think they were still in the apartment, but she was not one to be caught letting her guard down. At least not in situations like this. Clearly, her personal life, left a little to be desired in that regard. What with the sudden changes in Steve, and Natasha leaving, Bucky disappearing, Gwen pulling some nonsense that everyone involved had to know was nonsense. At least from her perspective it was nonsense, she'd reserve full judgment for when it was safe to make some kind of contact with Gwen again.
Her front room had been - in a word - destroyed. Christmas tree, ornaments, everything knocked over, she peered into the kitchen every drawer had been emptied onto the floor. Her credenza had been knocked over, papers rifled through, stacks of bills opened and thrown about. Books pulled from their shelves, pictures moved from walls. There was a chill coming from the roof access, they'd even gone up there to her patio it seemed.
As she systematically cleared through the rooms, opening closet doors, and stepping around piles of her broken, and misplaced belongings, every drawer had been emptied, they had taken her paper shredder which she would have found amusing if it hadn't been so infuriating. The idea of some HYDRA flunky being told to paste her shredded documents together was hilarious. Especially because she was pretty sure all that was in the shredder was a catalog for Bloomies and other sundry junk mail.
Room by room she went, thinking of anything that they'd have found, and suddenly glad she'd moved her entire life to her office. As uncomfortable as that couch was on her back - there had been nothing for them to find. There was the chance they might surprise her. But even as she stood in the doorway of her bedroom and looked at her broken lamps, overturned mattress, piles of clothes, broken drawers, and cracked pictures from the nightstand, what she really felt was frustration. She'd been too lenient, too slow to act, too worried about getting everything perfectly clear that she had lost sight of the bigger picture.
She spent a few hours gathering up some things into her own suitcases, more of her clothes, and she called for a clean up, called for a "taxi," and halfway back to her office she decided she'd stay in a hotel and sent Agent number 3 to gather her things from the office and had Tiger book her a junior suite at The Pierre on her own tab for the time being. The rest would be sorted later. Once all of her calls were made and she stared out the window as the car crossed the East River she let her mind wander a bit.
Her house, her life, everything was currently overturned right along with her mattress and she could blame that on HYDRA no matter which timeline she came from, or anyone else came from, or whichever universe they were all currently running around in. It didn't matter. They had invaded her house. But almost everything in the place was replaceable, the things that weren't were at least fixable. And not much more than a few pictures, credit card bills, and her bogus wall calendar had been taken. And cash. Classy. Real classy.
But SHIELD was her home. Even when she had been on the opposite side of SHIELD it had only been because she believed in SHIELD doing more, and being better. SHIELD was home. And family. The Avengers here? Maybe someday, and she knew better than to push that agenda. She was treading lightly. But SHIELD was what she had left, and HYDRA had invaded that too. Poisoned it more than SHIELD at home could have ever done to itself. Even when God damned Tony Stark took over, he started to grow a conscious. Sort of. A bit. Maybe.
Either way. She was in this one on her own regardless of the consequences now. If they wanted to overturn her house. She'd overturn theirs, and they could go back and forth for a while she supposed. The game of cat and mouse that was familiar and old hat by now.
But it seemed they wanted to invade her home and make it theirs. Maybe they already had taken it from her, maybe it was a lost cause, maybe there really was no hope at this point and Steve had been right that SHIELD had to go, even here and now. But it was time to stop “calibrating,” and time to stop “shifting,” and start making plays. As far as they knew they were scaring one woman, reminding her who was boss. Perhaps even educating her about who she’d crossed. That thought amused her more than anything.
It seemed almost like mere seconds had passed when she was finally situated and showered and in a big fluffy white bathrobe in a big cushy room with a bottle of dry red wine and enough chocolate to kill a small plow horse, but she was exhausted. Her last task was done with shaky hands, almost embarrassed at how frustrated and stressed, and just plain angry she was. Luckily the last task was simply opening the suitcases her taxi driver had miraculously appeared with, and inside she was pleased to find the files she needed to start nailing some very important people to the wall. It seemed almost selfish to have all this fun on her own. But for now, before she got too liberal with the guest list, she had reading to do. And chocolate to eat. And wine to drink. And not necessarily in that order.