#excruciatingly complex headcanon backstory

[grassangel]

Doctor Who thoughts: love the heightened emotion of the finale and all the interplay between the Doctor and the Master - but utterly hate & revoke the content of it.

Much preferred some of the theories floating around before (like clones) and now accept them as personal canon.

Though I DO think there's still wiggle room for a future showrunner to go play with the things Chibnall's introduced and change them. In some cases quite drastically.

Because Doctor Who could, and should, question the reliability of the Matrix's data and indeed question anything the Master says.

"Everything you know is a lie."

Who's to say that isn't a lie as well?

The Master wanted to destabilise the Doctor so she would do something she wouldn't usually do - like accept Missy's birthday present or blow Gallifrey up to hurt him.

Questioning the veracity of the Matrix data, whether it's actual history or just fiction, is something Doctor Who has done before. Hell, the Master has done that before - edited bits of the Matrix to suit their purposes and call the nobility of the Time Lords into question.

Which is a metaphor for the permeable canon of the show. Or something.

So I welcome the day a showrunner, whose storytelling ability is ideally closer to Moffat's than Chibnall's, decides to have fun calling this canon into question and opens Doctor Who canon back up again.

In the meantime - I reject Chibnall's canon and substitute my own

[grassangel]

I may be having feels because, as I read and listen up on Polari due to a little headcanon about Aziraphale using it because Soho and ‘discreet gentleman’s club’, there are some words like queen and cruise that have, for 300+ years more or less kept their meaning amongst gay men. 

(Also there was enough of a population in places like London that 300 years ago, you could live in a gay community like today.)

And then Polari has bits borrowed from Italian and some school boy French thrown in too and I’m eyeing Crowley’s ciaos very suspiciously because I could very well imagine him saying something like bona nochy or calling police lillies. There’s also a delightful ‘translation’ of the Bible done into Polari.

So yes, feels because this is part of (British) gay/queer heritage, and yes it should be recorded and noted as such, and yeah it has problematique elements but the delightful thing is that it’s a language and as such it can change and become more inclusive.

Links below if you too want to read/listen more about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p059qm4b

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170726-the-secret-language-that-broke-taboos

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/76e6e41e-cc53-448d-b2cd-5ecc8640bc13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol8MIXWouiY (a BBC four short documentary, interviewing both academics as well as a small group of older gay men/drag artists familiar with the terms)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBa6f2E9IGE (THE Polari documentary - again with interviews with older gay men, drag artists and academics. Also features a slightly more in depth look at the etymology. Warning: contains historical descriptions of homophobia from 5:05 to 6:25)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0FE3rIHU1o (A basic look at Polari, but notable for the fact it seems like it’s sort of still being used in the London drag scene. Content warning for the g-slur @ 1:39-:41)

https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/polari

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-forgotten-secret-language-of-gay-men

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/1/1761050/-Gays-don-t-have-decoder-rings-but-we-do-have-our-own-secret-gay-language-Polari

https://daily.jstor.org/unspeakable-linguistics-camp/

https://thelanguagecommunity.tumblr.com/post/174921321566/this-post-is-meant-to-be-a-directory-of-every

https://bonapalare.tumblr.com/

[grassangel]

I think it's actually canon-compliant! But: your puddle AU?

For those who don’t know, this is an AU/interpretation of canon that imagines that puddle of ‘oil�� from an alien ship is actually what happens when you leave a Time War TARDIS unattended for 70 years, which is what I headcanoned when I answered a question about where Missy keeps her TARDIS on a Master meme on twitter

So, and this is all preamble: Humanoid TARDISes are a thing.Idris had The TARDIS consciousness placed inside her and there’s the whole holographic interface. Plus, when I saw this ask made to @evilqueenofgallifrey (which definitely influenced this headcanon/AU), I sort of went down the lore rabbit hole and found out that the TARDIS can appear in/have a humanoid form and that a companion had been changed into one. (There’s apparently more lore that the Master’s former TARDIS, a twin to the Doctor’s, was very fond of appearing humanoid and basically staged a coup on Gallifrey? but I didn’t find that out until after this headcanon had started to seed in my head)

These humanoid type TARDISes were involved in The War/War in Heaven, not The Time War, but if the Daleks can have puppets with eyestalks in their foreheads, the Time Lords can have their genetically modified, bred and enslaved humanoid TARDISes. Obviously being used in a war doesn’t necessarily make them a War TARDIS but-In the Doctor Falls, Simm!Master confirms he took a TARDIS, one heavily implied to be a War TARDIS. Not all TARDISes used in the war are these humanoid TARDISes but TARDISes are sentient enough to communicate with one another, perhaps enough to give each other ideas…

So Missy has a War TARDIS. It’s probably well kitted out, plenty of defences, definitely has a working chameleon circuit, and certainly isn’t a type 40. We never see her TARDIS though, as apparently she parks well away from whatever scheme she has going on and instead uses a Vortex manipulator to travel short distances.

We don’t know where it was parked when she was arrested. But the Doctor can be sensible at times, so I’m willing to bet that she told him where it was and he towed it or she gave him her Stattenheim remote control to recall it, so that it wouldn’t be nicked like the Thirteenth Doctor was so concerned her TARDIS might be.

So it sits somewhere in Bristol for 70 years, disguised, because the chameleon circuit works. (That or Missy parked it there to begin with, as she does love keeping track of what the Doctor is up to.)The chameleon circuit means it’s perfectly hidden and gently persuades people to move on and ignore it. So if it was parked in an empty lot just after WWII… that lot might just stay empty.

But 70 years in the same place could make a TARDIS antsy. It knows the Doctor’s TARDIS stole someone. It wants to fly again, so it starts looking for a pilot. It’s a War TARDIS, so it has a bit more initiative and can bond with a new pilot more easily than a model that isn’t expected to regularly have its pilots dying or fade in and out of existence.

It finds Heather. Or Heather finds it.Either way, they both want the same thing. So it changes her. Okay, it got things a bit wrong and enmeshed itself a bit too closely into her biology, but it’s not used to working with humans.

So Missy’s TARDIS is now Heather. Or Heather is now Missy’s TARDIS. Or perhaps they’re both a little bit of each other.They can still see the universe together though, so they do. (At least after clearing up the thing with Bill they do.) And doesn’t the whole seeing the universe together echo the promise the Doctor and the Master made so long ago?Heather of course returns for Bill. And the TARDIS is happy to adopt (and manipulate the biology of) another pilot.

Being a TARDIS herself, of course Heather can pilot the Doctor’s. Probably even lets her know how she can be contacted just in case she and the Doctor needs some help. (And even outside of this AU, Heather and Bill occasionally hijack the TARDIS, much like River does, and take her for a spin because the TARDIS likes Heather, Heather likes Bill and Bill likes the TARDIS. It’s a bit of a weird threesome and Bill never wants to discuss it with either the Doctor or the kind of hot cougar lady they sometimes bump into. Especially cougar lady, as the TARDIS gives off a little chime in her presence that feels like she’s saying ‘daughter’ and just. No.)

But because she’s also Missy’s TARDIS, she went to collect Missy too. Her TARDIS couldn’t forget its mistress.Though like… she just puts Missy in a safe place before continuing on with Bill, leaving Missy to kind of… hitchhike her way across the universe for a bit.

(Not necessarily a hard and fast part of this headcanon/AU, but Missy does track down Bill and Heather during their travels at some point and apologises for the whole cyber-conversion disaster and offers a ‘completely safe and non-deadly’ adventure as to make up for it. It’s meant to be just one. It turns into seven and at least three of those are decidedly not safe or non-deadly.)

Depending on how much I’m taking the novelisation of TUaT as canon in a given moment, Heather either joins up with Missy again after Bill dies or they both kind of… tag along as combo TARDIS/companions after bumping into Missy again. (There is more hand holding than Bill is entirely comfortable with.)

I think that was five? Probably more, given I feel like this is basically not!fic/something that would otherwise be called an outline, but the following are the hard and fast things

Missy’s TARDIS was in Bristol.

The TARDIS chameleon circuit meant it was invisible and deterred people from where it was parked.

It was the puddle in that empty lot

It adopted/changed Heather to become its new pilot, both of them combining/merging to become something similar to Compassion, the first and only, humanoid type 102 TARDIS

Being a TARDIS herself now, of course Heather knew how to pilot the Doctor’s TARDIS

Missy’s TARDIS is at least a little faithful to her mistress and does save her from the colony ship

Missy’s TARDIS/Heather does return to Missy at some point

(Definitely not a part of this headcanon/AU, but the Doctor’s TARDIS definitely got Ideas after the run-in with Pilot!Heather and convinced Missy to give her a few upgrades that would give her some of the features of the humanoid type TARDISes.)

[grassangel]

I read the TARDIS wikia again and Moffat fucking plugged a hole in canon and I'm angry at the slyness that he did it with. And also angry at the fact it's a hole so obscure only other DW fans who are deep into lore would recognise he's done it.

So there's this End of the Time Lords, which given Gallifrey was one of the first planets with intelligent life, is probably concurrent to the present day on Earth. No one likes talking about it, but every Time Lord knows that it will happen and hates that knowledge. In one of the books, the place where Gallifrey was is empty, and no one is supposed to look too closely at it. It's assumed Gallifrey was destroyed in a war (there's been at least three, one of which is unhelpfully known as "the War" (aka "the War in Heaven"), the others being the Eternal War and the (Last Great) Time War) but again, no one looks too hard.

But then Moffat had to go and shift Gallifrey to someplace/sometime else, so yes it's no longer there as a result of a war, but Gallifrey is still around, in the universe, even if I suspect they may try to keep a lower profile/try to rename themselves.

In other, mostly happier, things, Susan almost definitely called the Master 'uncle' (and uncle shares the same percentage of shared genetic material as grandad (and cousin, if you want to be picky), so you can fucking fight me over the Master being 'just' a family friend). But the Doctor also got a bit jealous of the way Susan kept talking to the Master so he also took what is basically her Internet connection to the Matrix away.

Romana and the Doctor have both referred to humans as pets, so it's not just something the Master says, it's all Time Lords being awful to 'lesser lifeforms'. (The wikia uses 'homeworld' as synonym for Gallifrey. There's a lore post in my queue about how Rassilon committed genocide against all lifeforms that didn't follow a Gallifreyan plan, aka that line about "you look Time Lord" is absolutely fucking on the money.)

The first law of time is the only reason why the Doctor and the Master are still the same age, but is otherwise broken ALL the time.

Just like we were robbed of a sword fight between Twelve and Missy, we were also robbed of them communicating telepathically with the whole temple touching thing. (Maybe that's what's causing Thirteen's headaches though... psychic feedback from something)

[grassangel]

A thought while I chopped up ginger for crystallising: that story in the Missy Chronicles, the one set in Venice has the Thirteenth Doctor making a cameo. It reads very much as the Doctor checking in and tidying up Missy's scheme mess.

That implies that the Doctor is tracking Missy down, trying to find her again after the colony ship. Presumably to make the whole travelling together thing work. Because the Doctor is optimistic and hopeful again.

But eventually the Doctor is going to discover there is no Missy after the colony ship. Which could lead into angst because the Doctor doesn't want to interfere with established events and has to accept Missy is dead (because the Doctor remembers Missy talking about regenerating alone)

OR

the Doctor rescuing Missy is canon plausible. Which obviously makes me very happy

[grassangel]

I am having a lot of feelings about "that shouldn't stop us" being the core of the Doctor and the Master's relationship

[grassangel]

zabbers replied to your post “how do I tag this prose about Thirteen on AO3? like do I do that thing...”

I have no solution but tags are hard! And also mmm that line, and a kept Master (which I think there's still SO much to say about).

Tags are hard when they aren’t things that obviously require a warning. Or tropes people are I’m into. And this is non-fiction, which kind of makes things harder. I’m leaning towards shoving everything in freeform tags, because the shipping is barely mentioned, and Clara, Martha et al get like a line each but don’t otherwise have a meaningful impact or presence in the entire piece. And that’s my threshold I have for tagging things like that.

Yeah, that line! It feels like such a large concept to explore, but it’s barely been poked at. I’d love to see it explored more in canon, especially since the whole ‘we were friends once’ feels almost worn out now. And given the way Missy left and how her term was cut short, it definitely feels like there is space left to explore it, and the consequences, further.

Fandom should talk about it more too, and not just mire it in Academy-era headcanon. Like I love and accept @ileolai’s approach to the Vault storyline that the Master (and Missy) could not keep going on being destructive in that all-encompassing manner, at least not without causing their own self-destruction, and that the appeal she made to the Doctor was her very last chance at escaping that ending. But it’s one of maybe three really thought out explorations (that I’ve seen) of what lead Missy to that point and why Missy made that decision. And okay, I’ve really only been interested in fluffy 13/Missy stuff for after the colony ship, but there’s room there too to explore where the trajectory of the Master’s character will go. (And since they keep coming back to the Doctor, it wouldn’t be too much to assume that perhaps this pattern, coming to them of their own free will, might be the new normal.)

[grassangel]

a concept: Shuri wearing one of those fashionable cat ear headbands

a further concept: she has a collection of them, only half of them black

[grassangel]

How much of a back seat driver do you think Missy was when she was brought along on observational field trips?

I think a lot, up to and including pushing and pulling at the Doctor’s hands

[grassangel]

little DW headcanons

the Gallifreyan continent names? translated into English from their etymology, rather than leave them in their original form. (e.g. the opposite is how Aotearoa is an official name of New Zealand, but the translation ‘the Land of the Long White Cloud’ isn’t) which is slightly brilliant, as it means people who live in places that have that kind of historical etymology will recognise ‘Wild Endeavour’ as being translated, rather than being its actual name

the Doctor often uses the TARDIS’s holographic filter to avoid dressing up when they go to a historical period with their companion. sometimes. Twelve and One seem to rather like dressing up, while it seemed to extend to Martha in the Shakespeare episode

Thirteen loves disguises. she isn’t sure if it’s easier than explaining for the n-th time that yes, she’s the Doctor or if it’s a bad habit picked up from Missy, but it’s exciting to put on a mask during Walpurgisnacht or use some photopolymer gel to give herself a funny nose

if there’s Old High Gallifreyan, there must also be Old Low Gallifreyan. because German. (and English.) and because of those two there must also be Middle forms of them both, and potentially Modern forms too, if they haven’t merged into one

mitochondrial DNA is a big thing on Gallifrey. if you’re fond of looms, it’s what links families/houses together, if you’re not, it’s likely one of the few things that stays unchanged from regeneration to regeneration, plus it’s ring-shaped (linking nicely to circular Gallifreyan and those collars)

from an evolutionary standpoint, what came first, telepathy or regeneration? I’d put regeneration first, since there then becomes a need to identify individuals on something other than appearance, which telepathy can then come out of

when the Doctor receives unwelcome romantic advances, they've recently began using the excuse that they've got a girlfriend already and her name is Astrid. the TARDIS is pleased at this

[grassangel]

this is very very VERY much based on my own headcanon/opinions as an agnostic atheist and posted purely to poke at @farragoofwires

but if I had been in charge of Good Omens the TV Series, there would have been no Heaven in the tower, Hell in the basement.

no.

they’d be on the same floor. just one side is all glass meeting rooms and hot desking and the other side is cramped storage closets, cube farm and a photocopier that jams if you so much as look at it. 

just. the hilarity of Aziraphale and Crowley getting into different lifts. then we see Aziraphale coming out into corporate Heaven that’s sorta similar to the one we saw....

only to then pan to the right and see Crowley come out on that floor too, and the dingier more cramped side that is Hell

if you absolutely had to have more space between them– they’re neighbouring skyscrapers. WITH A SKYBRIDGE BETWEEN THEM.

[grassangel]

I’ve been thinking about Eurus Holmes and TFP. I’ve also been thinking about Mark Gatiss and how he loved Crimson Peak and how he watched it just around the time he would’ve been writing S4. I wouldn’t say he’s copied it, just TFP has elements that seem inspired by it. And given the relationships in Crimson Peak, it does have some interesting unintended consequences when it comes to headcanons for Eurus.

tl;dr - Both Crimson Peak and TFP have sisters that are possessive and obsessed with their brother’s love and attention, killing to keep it. Given extra similarities beyond that particular detail, the big spoiler of Crimson Peak - that the Sharpes have an incestuous relationship - has unfortunate implications when it comes to Eurus’s feelings towards Sherlock.

Both Crimson Peak and TFP contain a damaged childhood home and wells/pits which are revealed to contain the bodies of murder victims. They both feature a sister with a personality disorder who is murderous and has been committed to an institution because of it, fixated on her relationship with (and ownership of) her brother and is implied to be more coldly intelligent than him. There’s also relatively minor aesthetic similarities. The brothers are visually similar - tall, with an aristocratic bearing and have dark, curly hair and pale eyes, and dress in dark clothing - not to mention Hiddleston and Cumberbatch are friends. The sisters have long, dark, wavy hair and pale eyes, both wear a night gown for their denouements, and both also wear a red dress prior to that.

The endings are different: Sherlock gets to save his relationship with Eurus, while Thomas couldn’t, and Crimson Peak is about Edith’s survival in the ongoing confrontation between her and Lucille, while TFP is... not. However, Crimson Peak is about love and what it can make you do, and TFP isn’t quite as lofty as that, but it does demonstrate that Sherlock can and does love, and will make sacrifices because of that love.

These similarities might just be a case of using tropes, the mad woman in the attic wearing a nightgown isn’t exactly a unique image, but Gatiss was effusive about Crimson Peak, the timing is right and he does love his references.

Which is all a bit unfortunate considering the big spoiler in Crimson Peak is that the Sharpes have an incestuous relationship. It’s a relationship driven largely by Lucille, who is possessive of her brother’s love and is jealous of all of his wives. Thomas isn’t as slavishly devoted to Lucille, which becomes his downfall when he tells Lucille that he thinks all of them could live happily together.

And, given the way Eurus resembles Lucille, does call into question Eurus’s feelings toward Sherlock and how exactly she wants to play with him.

I don’t think Gatiss intended to suggest that there were incestuous feelings going on with his reference to Crimson Peak. He was probably aiming for something more general, trying to echo that same feeling of Victorian/Gothic horror. But it is rather short-sighted that he didn’t consider that people who can recognise the reference might draw unfortunate implications from it.

(P.S. it’s also interesting looking at Sherlock’s previous relationships, since there’s enough Mofftis could go ‘look! these characters reminded Sherlock of his sister!’. Whether it means his subconsciously misses his sister or subconsciously attracted to women who resemble his sister could go either way. But considering Molly, Irene, Janine and Mary, he definitely seems attracted to intelligence, morbid senses of humour and dark or curly hair. The fact that two of those are sexual and/or romantic doesn’t help things.  John doesn’t help either, being technically intelligent with a morbid/fatalistic sense of humour, okay with casual violence and is very willing to hurt Sherlock to get an appropriate response out of him.)

[grassangel]

I have no idea what the context of this post was, but I like it and I’m clearing my drafts out a little

A while ago I was talking to farragoofwires about how Natasha seemed to know a lot about Sam’s career and I posited that she (and I quote):

WAS PROBABLY ASKED, LIKE WITH TONY AND BRUCE, TO KEEP AN EYE ON POSSIBLE ASSETS. SO SHE READ UP ON PEOPLE AND SAM WAS PROBABLY ONE OF THEM AND SHE PROBABLY HAS A MENTAL PLACE FOR SAM ON THE AVENGERS. Though obviously she didn't ask him in A1, probably because she dropped by the VA in a wig and tatty civvies and evaluated that he didn't want to get back into things at that moment. (Either that or he was still in service and she whined about not being able to poach him.)

And while I do think she and Steve had a hell of a time convincing Sam to join the Avengers for real, not just as Steve’s right hand man, I am so pleased I got something right. Ish.

[grassangel]

you know how the British have a talent for understatement, aka the how ‘quite a bit’ means ‘quite a lot’ thing?

Sherlock and Mary stating they like each other might just be equivalent to saying they love each other

[grassangel]

I’ve been thinking a lot about that AU Paige Pettoruto came up with for Cap!Peggy in MPQ and how Peggy gets to be Captain America. And okay, the trailer/promo and some of the interviews for her suggests that Steve was Captain America when he was killed, but just like I love any AU that brings Peggy into the future, I’m not going to accept that Steve got the serum and then got killed.

So Hydra had enough information to get a man in the room, this time, they get information as to who the candidate is and change the transport arrangements so that Peggy and Steve travel by train with an armed escort.They plan to ambush the group as they’re walking toward the lab, kidnapping Steve. Zola’s obviously improved his variant of the serum a little since Erskine left, but he suspects that Erskine’s methods are just as important as his formula, thus the focus on the candidate and selection process.

Also Peggy and Steve chat a little bit more, both in the truck after the flag pole incident, and on the train on the way in, so Peggy learns Bucky is serving already and that, plus Steve’s morals, is why he volunteered.

Unfortunately Hydra’s ambush and kidnapping goes ahead and Peggy does her best to fight off the assailants, but they’re retreating just as back up arrives. Colonel Phillips insists on bringing the second best candidate to perform the test; Howard insists they've only scheduled a narrow window for the power required with the city and they don’t have the time to bring in someone from the camp in NJ, not without having to postpone the test for two weeks. While they’re arguing Erskine quietly states that they don’t have to reschedule anything or message Camp Lehigh, his second choice of candidate is standing right there in front of them before asking Peggy if she had much to eat for breakfast. After a rather cautious response of ‘didn’t have enough time for anything more than a cup of tea’, Erskine then starts hurrying everyone back inside. (Where Phillips and Stark continue their argument and a nurse is sent off to find a suitable gown/slip.)

There’s some minor smoke screening with the brass as to who exactly is receiving the serum, but everything else happens more or less as it did in TFA, except maybe there’s an armed nurse who’s quick to fire instead of Peggy and Peggy’s even grumpier than Steve was to be on the bond tour. But they won’t even let her go back to regular service, so she grumps and does so anyway and the numbers of WAC applicants absolutely SKYROCKETS in the cities she passes through and so everyone up high is going ‘okay, a couple of shows for the boys on the front and then you can go back to code breaking or whatever you were doing’ because it is kind of embarrassing that there are more women volunteering than men are being drafted. Anyway, Peggy recognises that hey, this was the regiment Bucky was in and the least she could do is tell Steve’s friend what happened to him. He’s not there of course and Peggy, who literally signed up for this shit, of course jumps out of a plane to rescue him.

So Peggy meets Bucky and the rest of the commandos and becomes friends with Bucky because they saw the good and brave in Steve. And maybe she persuades a couple of the other bonds girls that they’d make great spies (including one Angie Martinelli from New Jersey) or maybe she takes a shine to one of the young Chinese translators back in England who’s crafty and good with a blackjack. And everything goes more or less like it did with Steve; the train and Bucky’s fall happens, the plane happens, after Peggy wakes up in the future she becomes friends with Natasha and Fury and Sam. She does handle Tony a lot better than Steve did though.

But. Steve was kidnapped, and if it had been Schmidt in charge of that operation, he would’ve been killed. But Zola was in charge, and he orders a full evaluation, including psychological profile. (Which for once results in good science because Steve wouldn’t answer any question straight, so it’s like quadruple blind.) With these tests, Zola comes to understand what Erskine believed influenced the serum - that Steve Rogers is a good man with a strong sense of morality. A good soldier... if he believed in what he fought for.

So Zola breaks Steve. He tortures him with the bastardised version of the serum he’s refined, tells him enough truths about the US and the Allies and enough lies about the Axis powers until everything is upside down and back to front. At the end of it, they don’t exactly have a good soldier for Hydra, the serum not quite good enough for that, but they do have an excellent spy, one whose American accent is flawless, who looks charming and good, and who they can program to believe whatever backstory they give him.

Of course they put him on ice, that precious a resource can hardly be left to wither away. Hydra have their weapon, and so does Leviathan, and though they work together after the SSR brings Zola and Fenhoff together under their purview, it’s not until the ‘60s do the spy and the soldier ever work together. They run seven missions with each other; after the third a note is put into their files stating that prolonged exposure produces erratic behaviour, the Winter Soldier acts only as extraction for the spy from then on.

(No one realises what these two men mean to each other. Steve Rogers is largely forgotten by history, a footnote at best. There are no newsreels talking about Captain America and his childhood friend, only ones talking about bonds forged in battle. Steve Rogers’ file lies forgotten in a SHIELD archive, not pored over by scholars for decades like Peggy Carter’s is. There are two letters informing her of a soldier’s death in Miriam Barnes’ diary, one for her eldest son and one for the son she never had. It similarly lies forgotten in an attic, until it is thrown out in the trash when her grandchildren clear it out for their mother.)

Leviathan eventually fades, leaving only Hydra roots in the KGB. Both the soldier and the spy are Hydra’s now, but they are generous with their assets. The soldier is loaned out in ‘90 in an attempt to train a new batch of Winter Soldiers, a last ditch effort to keep the USSR together. The spy goes out on loan several years after to train the latest iteration of the Red Room program. He’s returned after six months; the girls have perfected their accents, but the spy grew too attached and went soft on them during physical training. The Winter Soldier, and five other similar looking men, are sent to replace him.

The new millennium dawns - the spy does mostly recruiting now, spending a month at Stark Industries, at Pym Tech, scoping out those who would welcome a handshake promising power and connections before being frozen again; the soldier does pinpoint assassinations and training for Hydra. Sometimes the Soldier is brought out and paraded like a well trained dog, standing still and silent as his master does business.

Then Peggy Carter is found, and Captain America is alive again. Hydra freezes its most precious assets, using more liquid ones to monitor her until they can be sure she isn’t a threat to them.  She isn’t and eighteen months after the battle of New York, a man walking his dog runs the same route one Peggy Carter and one Sam Wilson take. He wears sunglasses even in the pre-dawn gloom, and his hair is dark, unbleached by harsh soap. The spy isn’t assigned a long-term handler for missions like these, not when he believes so whole-heartedly in the cause. There’s no one to recall him when Peggy starts giving Sam jibes like a sergeant at boot camp, and something in the back of his mind starts to fall apart. It crumbles when he follows her the next day to the extraordinarily well researched Smithsonian exhibition where Steve Rogers is slightly more than a footnote.

But he’s been trained as a spy for just over seventy years, so Steve stays in position and reports in as usual until the morning after Captain America is apprehended on the bridge. 

He flees then. And maybe, late in the afternoon, he finds himself in the same safe house as the Winter Soldier, who he can now identify as his friend Bucky. And maybe they cry a lot and jump at shadows and totally get ‘fake’ married in New York before they leave for Europe.

And Natasha gives Peggy not one file, but two, saying it’s worse than Peggy thought and that while she really needs to create a new life for herself, she might be able to find one beside Peggy.

So Peggy and Sam and Natasha go on the great Steve and Bucky quest of 2014 while said people are off honeymooning in Europe, burning Hydra bases and safe houses down and helping each other remember things and crying themselves to sleep a lot whilst cuddling. And then after Ultron (which Peggy is So Disapproving of, honestly I thought better of you Tony) on a tip off from Fury, Natasha and Peggy go to a small Bulgarian seaside town and plop down and say hi to the married men watching the sunrise and invite them back to the Avengers headquarters with them where there’s Wanda and Dr Cho to help them.

(And Civil War still happens, because Bucky is easier to convict as a killer, but sans the angst of trigger words because Peggy talked to Natasha, Clint, Selvig and Wanda about their experiences and got Wanda to help burns those triggers out of Bucky’s (and Steve’s) brain. But Peggy still quits, because she’d rather retire with her three husbands, her wife and her adopted kids rather than yell at Tony more.)

[grassangel]

more Civil War fridge logic (just a little)

the shield drop was basically Steve’s version of a mic drop. a ‘fuck you, fuck being captain america, I quit’ mic drop

so any Pepper scenes basically ended up on the cutting room floor, but given that Tony’s summation of why they’re on break was ‘I was being too clingy and protective’, I am 100% reading that as Pepper’s Extremis was stabilised and that if she’s in danger she can start glowing red and defend herself.

also I feel like all of Tony’s anxieties about needing to protect other people is because he fucking took the arc reactor out of his chest. now he isn’t so focused on his own protection, he goes to extremes to protect everyone else and that isn’t working out great for him

maybe Rhodey’s injury will help catalyse that there is no way Tony can protect everyone and that Rhodey and Pepper and everyone else are responsible for their own safety and don’t need or desire Tony’s help

it’s an even split whether Tony’s attempt at self-therapy, Natasha (and Clint’s) experiences at brainwashing and programming, Wanda’s gifts or Wakandan medical knowledge/tech will be what ultimately helps get rid of remaining triggers in Bucky’s brain. maybe it’s a joint effort of those last three (gimme the fic)