so her show is over

[biochemistry]

 I'm alright. I'm fine, and that's more than you expected, so be glad of it. Really, that's what counts, isn't it?
It's kind of you to be worried about me, but it's not necessary.
I'm fine. I'm happy. 
Sure, I know you wish I'd been the one at the Academy. I wouldn't have objected to that either, I'd love to be able to mentor young scientists and giver them the kind of opportunities that I had. I think that sounds splendid. It'd be an appropriate conclusion for me to arrive at. Maybe someday I still will arrive at it, maybe when Alya's a bit older.
(Of course her middle name is Margaret. Don't be silly.)
I know you'd have loved to see me at Daisy's side, professionally or otherwise. You knew you'd have to settle for implying the otherwise, because that's how it's always been, but it's not like I'm not still working with her sometimes, or  that we've drifted apart emotionally.
It's not like I'm not still working sometimes, full stop. It's not like I'm just languishing in suburban domesticity. I'm fortunate to be able to split my time and energy between work and having a child. Sure, I miss the more hands-on work. I miss traveling and exploring. I don't miss the constant physical threat of danger, though, so that should make you happy.
I'll admit i didn't see myself the marry and settle down early" type, and I think it's obvious that Alya was unplanned. Logically, having a child while hiding out in the depths of space was foolish and risky. But it happened, and I do love her. I can't undo her and I wouldn't. She's a brilliant little whirlwind. 
I know you come from a place of concern for me when you worry that Fitz has pressured me into having her, into shoving off for a few years, into carrying the guilt over it, into the aforementioned settling down.  I admit that none of those things were my idea, but again, I wouldn't undo Alya. 
Everything worked out alright with the mission. 
I haven't abandoned science or my friends or the heroic tendencies you suggest I don't get nearly enough credit for. 
And I forgive Fitz for being so laissez-faire about the possible effects of the drug that scrambled my brain awhile, because I have to believe he didn't mean to be.
Am I happy all the time? Absolutely not. Do I regret things? Yes. Am I going to be alright? Yes.

I'm sorry for making you worry about your own mother, though. I'm sorry you have cause to believe she's unhappy and dissatisfied, and I'm sorry I reminded you of her. I can't do anything but offer my sympathy, but I do that.

And I know that suggesting that it makes you feel better that Fitz has secretly got terminal brain cancer is an exaggeration, because I know you don't want to see me hurt, but I know you suspect that. It would explain a lot of things: my agreeing to put real life on pause for a while, my agreeing to go domestic, my seeming unwillingness to discuss my freelancing when Fitz was listening. It's not an unwarranted theory.
In that case, though, you see why I'm "settling." I would want to make the most of this time we have left, that Alya has left with him. Adventure will be there when I'm ready.

Thank you for caring and taking this journey with me, writer. I know it's upset you at times, but I'm thankful for your care.

Comments

[rogersed]

Doctor Simmons, is it?

[the careful concern of one who knows he's a stranger, but knows a little about her courtesy of Coulson] You don't sound entirely happy.

[biochemistry]

[She blushes, because she can't not. Technical strangers they might be, but it's not like she's even slightly unaware of him. She's not starstruck, exactly, but she's flattered and a little confused (why would he bother to engage with her petty emotional babbling?) and this is all very odd.]

You can call me Jemma. If you'd rather. This isn't exactly a formal setting.

And honestly, I'm not.

I love my daughter, I'm not putting that on. She's a miracle and a joy. I love my husband, although I acknowledge the myriad flaws of his that my writer has pointed out indignantly, least of which is his inability to apologize. I'm used to them, though. I can manage.

And I could have it worse by far. I've been kidnapped and even tortured. I've thought I was dying. I've lost people I care about, for a little while or forever. And my writer says she's pleasantly surprised that I made it through seven seasons, because women like me who aren't action heroines even though their friends all are sometimes don't. (She's had bad luck latching onto characters.)

I think I'm just a bit dissatisfied. My writer also says women like me sometimes wind up being made to choose what sort of happiness they get, that no matter how smart or even noble we are we rarely get to "have it all." I don't like that all of my friends are still actively fighting for what's right and since I've a child and a romantic relationship that a lot of fans are invested in I've been sidelined. It feels like I'm the only one who's had to compromise, to accept a life I didn't ask for.

Maybe I'm just jealous. Daisy gets adventures, because she's a superhero. Elena gets adventures, because she's a superhero. May gets, quite honestly, the ending I thought I'd have. I get my husband's vision of a perfect end, house in the country and lovely child and domestic bliss. I feel like I let myself down, let down the friend-family I've made that I could be helping still, let down the girls like me whose greatest strengths are their mind and their compassion. I feel like it's unfair that I'm the only one whose destiny wasn't really her own.

And, again, my husband might have brain cancer. I'm glad of the time we have left, but I can't help but wish we'd sorted out a life together that suited both of us equally.

...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go on like this.

[rogersed]

Jemma, then. You can call me Steve.

[The smallest of smiles, to be friendly, to empathise.]

I think reacting the way you're reacting is entirely understandable, though of course you don't need my approval. You've been through a lot, and it's something of a cliched ending, isn't it. Doesn't mean it's not worthwhile, especially for those who really want that kind of ending. But there's a lot in your life that means that you shouldn't've ended that way.

I've had a similar issue with my own ending being nice but not right, and I'm still trying to see how to go on afterwards, too. I hear you.

It's difficult when you're presented with something that you should feel grateful for.

[biochemistry]

Hello, Steve. I wish we'd met under better circumstances. (I'm still holding out hope I'll get to meet some of your teammates, my writer says that my actress seems like she'd be willing to reappear in other projects, but given your ending -- I've also heard about this, I share a writer with a Peggy -- I doubt it's possible to see you outside of this space.)

Thank you! Yes, that's exactly the issue. Prior to the introduction of my grandson from the future, who necessitated my eventual childbearing, I think I'd mentioned wanting a family once, maybe twice? In the vaguest possible sense, and very much as something for the distant future. And after I learned we would have a child (in a timeline that we subverted, no less! So it shouldn't have even been necessary) it was less something I wanted and more something I seemed convinced was going to happen, again at some distant point. I'm the one who urged Fitz into the field, who regularly anguishes when I'm unable to help. I may not be the superhero, but not doing anything at all to assist my friends that are honestly makes me ill.

It's especially egregious given that two of my former teammates have specifically discussed wanting to have children together multiple times. I'm not saying I'd foist retirement off on them, but their having a child would have been much more satisfying. They could manage a child and careers. I should be able to manage that too, more than this vague consulting I've apparently been doing.

I'm sorry about your ending, too. It seems nice at the outset, but it does rather seem to override a lot of important things about you, if you think about it too much. I think (if it's not presumptuous to say) that we're both the types to work tirelessly to help others, even at our own expense, so seeing us choosing what looks like our own peace and happiness actually just ignores what makes us feel the best about ourselves. It may be a harder life, but at least it'd be honest.

My writer has plenty of ideas about how to go around my so-called happily ever after, but it's still exhausting. Especially given how much my writer dislikes my canon romance and wishes I'd wound up with the girl who's explicitly my best friend and implicitly someone who loves and respects me much more genuinely. It's a fairly popular relationship in the fandom at large, her and I, but it's difficult to find other people on this site who are interested in writing it.

I didn't even need that relationship out of the canon, or exactly what else I dreamed of, I just wanted the same respect afforded to me that my teammates' endings showed.

[rogersed]

Agreed, very much. (Oh, Peggy. Sending a hi.)

That seems pretty unfair. To end up having a kid because it's predestined. People who want to have kids should have kids. I know you're not saying you don't love yours.

I... yeah. [Wry smile, as he ruffles his hair.] I love Peggy. So much. And I don't have a problem with my ending including her. But leaving behind everyone in the modern day? Especially Bucky? It could've been a revolving door, so I could go visit Peg and both of us could still get on with our lives. She has her own arc to follow, and it doesn't have to include me, and my arc was all about grief and moving on and finding a place and a way to help people in the modern day.

[Deep breath.]

So I get it, for you. And just because you don't have powers doesn't mean you can't help. My person likes Fitz well enough, but agrees with the problems you've mentioned. Him being important to you still doesn't mean that you had to end up shoehorned into a romantic relationship with him.

Daisy is good, and you two have a lot of chemistry. My person's always been fond of her.

Understandable, Jemma.

[biochemistry]

Honestly, the lack of interaction between the two "sets" of characters in our universe is aggravating in its own right. There are the few that have been both places, but it feels like what happens to you affects us and not so much the other way around. It's a shame. I'd love to work with Helen Cho or Jane Foster! And the fact that Daisy is so powerful and good means it's absolutely ridiculous she's never helped any of the Avengers. I hope that changes in the future.

Right! I've never objected to the idea outright, but it seemed like once the narrative brought it up it became inevitable. And honestly, I'm sort of appalled that I went through with it whilst hiding in a time-space pocket with minimal resources and only Fitz and Enoch to help. (This is where my writer's brain cancer theory comes in. It's awful, but the way she explains it is that if there was only a set amount of time left for us, it'd be more reasonable to make the most of it.)

[She bites her lip, nodding.] I... I mean, I only really know Peggy from sharing mental real estate with her, but I've always looked up to her and admired her. I liked the story she followed. And it does seem strange, how they wanted you to just give everyone up like that. (I share space with a Wanda too -- my writer has far too many of us up here, admittedly -- and she tried not to take that personally but even still she struggled with it.) It doesn't seem like something you would do, based on everything you've done before.

I mean, I know that, intellectually, about the powers. But my writer takes it very personally when I'm not explicitly acknowledged as being heroic, and I'll admit that does rather feed my self-doubt and anxiety, which at least they bothered to essentially canonize (though my writer was especially furious at Fitz for comparing the manifestation of my mental illness to the manifestation of his Nazi alter-ego). And it sort of feeds into a lot of my writer's issues with him, that I'm seen as more useful in conjunction with him and therefore as an extension of him instead of as my own person and that's insulting. My writer actually adored him in the first season, when we were just best friends; our relationship there actually reminded her of her and one of her best friends. But the minute they started writing a romance, and especially when they started making me out to be the unreasonable or cruel one for not immediately reciprocating, her alarm bells went off.

Thank you, I think? I'm happy for how her romantic storyline ended up, she finally found someone who respects her. And my writer tends to abide by the "everyone is poly because Avengers/SHIELD/etc." mindset, at least, so she's fully comfortable imagining a world where Daisy has a boyfriend, I have a husband, and we also have each other. (And maybe I share her boyfriend sometimes. She very much won't share my husband, because of the thing he did to her, which in turn is another thing my writer is still angry at him for, but still.) At least there's that, I suppose.

[rogersed]

It's insane, isn't it. Your team has saved the world. So has mine. Why haven't we talked more? I understand the out of universe reasons, but in universe, it's quite ridiculous. You should be counted as one of the top scientists in our shared universe.

I admit I'm not familiar with everything you're talking about; my person watched the first three or so seasons very closely then fell out of it, apart from reading occasional summaries. But your writer's theory absolutely makes sense.

Peggy moved on. She made her own life, with her team, with her husband, and it mattered that the two of us met again when she was ninety. It felt like a step backwards for both of us for me to go back. (There are quite a few here, too. Thor, for example....... oh, Wanda. Yeah, that one hurt, too. If you want to talk about that, Wanda, let me know. I left you behind when I was a big brother figure to you, and I left Pepper when she'd just lost her husband...)

It's not right for only those with powers to be acknowledged in that way. The whole point of our shared canon is that even those with power have to step up and be brave and deal with the crap thrown at us. Same as those without power. We're all people, first and foremost. The point is not to have big flashy battles that don't matter.

[He exhales sympathetically, screwing up his nose.] That's rough, Jemma. I'm sorry you've been through that. You're a person in your own right, not an appendage.

It's good that you have such a firm idea of where things could go for you. I'm sorry that you have to work around canon, rather than with it, though. I completely agree about everyone being poly.

[biochemistry]

And people on our teams were acquainted! I know May was friends with Natasha (god, hers is the worst ending, truly) and obviously there's Coulson. I suppose there was some need to keep his being alive a secret? But we could have arranged something. And -- thank you. I don't need fame, but I do rather like being recognized by my peers.

Oh! My apologies. Our fourth season, with the Framework and all, spurred on a lot of these problems; it's 5.14 when Fitz hurt Daisy, and 6.06 when my anxiety was featured. (Not in so many words, but it's obvious that's what was going on.) The theory derives mostly from a few lines in the last season about blood tests and radiation, plus she's watching a different show where a character has a neurological illness so it's been on her mind.

That makes sense! She's an incredibly strong woman who made her own life despite all the hardships. Truthfully, she was an idol of mine from childhood, largely because of her perseverance. It's such a shame when writers confuse romance with happy endings. (She may take you up on that. She understands why what happened happened, but she does miss you. That's another reason we should all interact, I think, so we can all be there for each other. So we never run out of friends, no matter what.)

I don't think it's even powers so much as I'm not punchy? My writer will see gifsets on tumblr of my team's women being "strong" and almost every single time they'll show one of the rare times I've picked up a gun or physically fought someone. Never mind that I've saved the lives of, oh, every one of my teammates and then some. Apparently that's not as impressive.

Thank you. I don't mind being a known pair, really I don't, but I spent all this season doing everything I could to keep the team afloat, then I put together the machine to pull Fitz out of the Quantum Realm (it's complicated) while only halfway coherent (even more complicated) and he showed up to seem the big damn hero. My story wasn't mine, it was his with me as the supporting character. It's... it's disheartening.

I'm used to going around canon, at least. We got married, Fitz and I, and my writer's been ignoring it almost the whole time except with a specific other player she trusts. She's also got a lot of dead women on her roster and she tends to favor f/f romances (which are almost never canon, though she plays half of the best one that is too) so she's used to amending things on a moment's notice. It would be nice if there didn't need to be so many fixes, but it's an interesting exercise, at least.

[rogersed]

Validation is completely reasonable. Oh, of course. Nat's mentioned her once or twice, though not by name, of course.

.........my person's looking at information now, and thank you. Not your fault. Fitz hurt Daisy? I know a little about anxiety these days. Didn't really have a name for it back in my day, beyond people thinking they were weak or lazy.

Physical strength isn't all there is to it by any means.

I'm glad you're persevering. [soft] You deserve that. So do the other women you have.

[biochemistry]

My writer calls it a praise kink. I feel odd calling it that because it's not a sexual thing (usually) but it's not entirely incorrect.

And -- of course! Heaven forbid any of us get mentioned in a film. [She's comfortable enough by now in this conversation to be snarky. This is a compliment.]

He did. He was... mentally unwell, shall we say, but he did. While holding me and our future grandson at gunpoint, no less. My writer doesn't hold it against me how soon I forgave him, but she does hold it against the writers. It was unacceptable. Mental health issues aren't handled well even today, but it's at least a little better, I think, and our media reflects it. I hear one of the Runaways girls' anxiety is even canonically discussed!

I know that. I think my teammates know it, though they don't always say so. But it's an uphill struggle to get some people to see that. Even characters who are primarily physical can be strong in other ways. You're just as compassionate as you are capable of fighting, and that should be appreciated too.

Thank you. That means a lot.

[rogersed]

[Steve reddens a little. He enjoys sex, and a handful of different kinds of kinks, sexual and non-sexual. He's just a little shy. And his writer is cackling.] That's a good name for it. My person has bulletproof kinks in stories and the kinds of interactions she makes me and others play out, and they're not all sexual, either.

[He grins at that, and appreciates the compliment, too. She's very professional, very intelligent, and relaxing enough to be able to do that is real nice of her.]

Ouch. That's harsh as anything. The way we treat mental illness has come a long way since my time, but there's still a long way to go. There always has to be a balance between understanding that the mentally ill person is compromised, and hurting, and needs support... and understanding that that doesn't erase damage done to others. How was the kid, afterwards?

[soft] You're very kind, Jemma.

[biochemistry]

[She doesn't mean to embarrass, really she doesn't, but she's a little too blunt about such things sometimes.] That makes sense, yes. Admittedly, there are a fair few sexual kinks that tend to show up, but a lot of those even represent more than just the sex. It's about taking care of people.

[Well, he's being nice in turn! This is a very easy conversation to carry on.]

Exactly. He hadn't mentioned how he was struggling prior to what he did, so I couldn't exactly help, and I feel awful saying this but it wasn't exactly a traditional multiple personalities situation because the evil personality had been stuck in him from the Framework, which in turn he did have a hand in designing. I should mention, too, that in the Framework, my alternate was dead while his was off playing Nazi house with a corrupted android, and his alternate there tried to kill me again upon seeing me. We all had trauma from that whole experience. It didn't make any of the rest of us try to do invasive surgery on each other. But then the version of him that had done that died and we rescued an earlier version of him who dealt with the intrusive thoughts somewhat better, so it worked out alright, I suppose.

The kid...? Oh! [She laughs.] Deke was our age, about, when we met him. Timeline shenanigans. He was upset, but he wasn't hurt. Though this also prompted the conversation between him and I that led to the aforementioned inevitable childbirth, actually. A lot of my writer's issues point back to the same places.

Thank you, but I'm just being honest. You've done so many incredible things that aren't just about battles. You've reached out to people who needed it, you've fought to give voices to those who might not have them. It's what we need more of.