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momentofch-aos · 3 months

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M's Marvel Thought of the Day

Daniel Sousa, now settled in the 21st century, looks up what happened to his friends from his own timeline.

Daisy had already gently broken the news about Peggy's death to him. They visited her grave site and talked about the adventures and missions the two had been on.

He read the case file on Howard and Maria Stark's death, the Winter Solider case and knowledge of who he was sending him for a loop. He'd met Sergeant Barnes once, that day when he thought he would die on the battle field. He had never been Howard's biggest fan but no one deserved that.

He read the obituaries of Ana and Edwin Jarvis, found they were buried in New York, side by side as they'd been in life. He left pink flowers - Ana's favourite colours of peonies - on their grave, and thanked them for their friendship and support.

There had been two people he'd been somewhat surprised to find out were still alive and unbelievably in the same old people's home in DC. He'd been unsure whether visiting would be a good idea but after some gentle investigating from Daisy and Mack, he found himself entering a rec room. There was various elderly people around, reading newspapers or napping in high backed armchairs. But no-one looked familiar. Daisy squeezed his hand before getting the attention of one of the nurses, who led them around the corner of the room.

As they make their approach when Daniel hears a far too familiar voice, making him stop in his tracks.

"Ha! Got you again Thompson, pay up!" Rose Roberts, with now grey hair but with the same thick glasses, smirked triumphantly across the top of the checkers board.

The older man across the table groaned. "We go through this every damn day Rose. Can we go back to Chess?" Daniel took in the older man he'd known a life time ago, hair still slicked back in the way it had always been. A cane leant against the wall behind him and he coughed after laughing at Rose's comeback.

"Chief Thompson? Agent Roberts?" The nurse asked drawing their attention. "You have some visitors."

Both former agents looked across to see Daniel standing with an indecipherable look on his face.

"Fucking hell..."

"What the hell..." Their voices overlapped suddenly.

"Hey Rose, hey Jack." Daniel said stepping forward. Rose struggled to her feet, using the table to leverage herself up.

"Chief? Is that really you?" Rose looked up at him, his arms coming up to help balance her.

"It's me. It's good to see you Rose." And he found himself engulfed in her arms, wrapping his back around her and holding her tight. "God it's good to see you Rose."

"How the hell are you here?" She said as she looked back up to him. "And who's the beautiful woman you brought with you?" She fixed him with that same mischievous look she used to shoot at him all the time after glancing to Daisy who stood off to the side. Always so invested in his love life, so he chuckled.

"I can explain everything I promise. Why don't we sit?" He helped her back to her chair, glancing across to Jack who had his hand's in fists on the other side of the table. "Hi Thompson."

"Who are you?" He demanded. "You're sure as hell not Daniel Sousa. He died in...55." He paused remembering the exact year. "We buried him. We... mourned him. You sure as hell aren't him."

"I can explain that I am Jack."

"I am 102, not stupid." Rose scoffed, making both men turn to her.

"Jack do be serious. What about Rogers? He came back to Peg did he not?"

"How can we be sure? It may be some traitor. Davey was telling me just the other day about those shape shifting aliens Fury was palling around with..." Jack started saying.

"How about this Jack? I'll prove it to you." The older man looked puzzled but let him continue. "Before you went to Russia with Carter, met the Howling Commandoes when we were investigating Stark. You tricked me in the locker room, into seeing Carter changing. You asked me to get your compass from..."

"Locker 42." Jack finished his sentence and looked Daniel up and down, his gaze resting on the prosthetic leg.

"I've still only got one leg but the future makes a better prosthetic than Stark by a mile." Daniel joked, and Jack stood at that, pulling Daniel into a hug that he was not expecting. "It's good to see you too Jack."

They sat back down, chairs pulled up for Daniel and Daisy, as they told the story of faking his death, and pulling him out of time. Of their adventures into space and the weird and wacky things he'd discovered in the 21st Century.

They told him stories from their own lives after his death, cases he'd missed out on, Howard's ridiculousness. Peggy's rise to power. The three old friends spoke fondly of her, recalling stories from throughout the time they spent with her.

Rose grilled him and Daisy on their story and relationship, telling Daisy all the embarrassing things that Daniel had been happy to leave behind in the 50's. The unlikely pair giggled and formed a friendship.

Rose told her stories of her first and second marriage, her daughter, son-in-law and grandson who would visit every weekend.

Jack had been married when Daniel died, to Peggy's lovely personal secretary Ruth who knew how to put him in his place. They'd only had a daughter the year or two before Daniel supposedly died. Jack talked about how they'd gone on to have three more daughters, now had 8 grandchildren, including a grandson who had joined SHIELD recently (Daniel promised to keep an eye out for him). Then, his Ruth had passed a few years ago and Daniel expressed his condolences.

At that moment, a young boy, probably 5-years-old barrelled into the room and to Jack's side. "Pops, Pops!"

"Hey there, Danny. How's my favourite guy?" With surprising strength for a man of his years, Jack swung the young man up till he was sat on his knee.

"I'm good! Momma's coming now." He pointed to where a pretty blonde was making her way across the room, shaking her head as she stooped to kiss Jack on the cheek and ruffle her son's head.

"Sorry Grandpa, the traffic was horrendous." She greeted Rose much the same way, passing her a package. "Fudge from that place on 4th for your Rose, Danny over there insisted." She turned to the guests who sat between them. "Hello, I'm Ruthy." She shook their hands.

"Ruthy, this is Daniel and Daisy. Daniel, Daisy, my granddaughter Ruthy and her son, Danny." Jack smirked at Sousa as his great-grandson played with the watch on his wrist.

"Danny? Huh." Was the only thing Daniel came up with as he watched an old friend acting like a goofy grandparent.

"Yeah, Grandpa had a friend called Daniel who saved his life a bunch of times when he was younger. Used to tell us stories all about Sousa and Carter and their adventures. We never believed him until we found out where he worked." Ruthy filled in nonchalantly, sitting on the opposite side of the table, digging through her bag to produce a water bottle for her son unaware of the look on Daniel's face. Jack smirked massively. "Here, Grandpa. I managed to grab that album from storage that you wanted." She handed across a large leather bound photo album to the older man, who flipped through a few pages.

"Here you go Daisy, you'll like this one." Jack smirked, that old charming smile creeping onto his face as he passed the now open book across to her, Daniel peering over her shoulder and scoffing.

"Woah." Ruth finally looked up, glancing at the photo and then back up to Daniel and back again. "Well. I cannot believe it took me that long. I knew you looked familiar. I thought it was just Quake that had me thinking that."

Daisy smirked. "You don't seem surprised?"

"Oh I've worked at Stark Industries for a long time, I'm so used to superheroes and weird tech not much surprises me anymore. You see Tony Stark walking round in Iron-Man pants one too many times and you get over stuff pretty quickly." She levelled Daniel with a look. "Time travel huh?"

"Yes. But I haven't seen these in literal years." He said his hand tapped a few photos. One from the first day of opening the first SHIELD base, Thompson and Howard Stark stood either side of Peggy and Daniel. Another of Peggy, Daniel and Rose throwing confetti at Jack's wedding. One of Daniel and Thompson with Peggy on her Wedding Day. An outtake of that one where Howard was attempting to jumping into frame and Jarvis dragging him out, while the three of them laughed lay below it.

He could still picture that party, he could hear the band playing, memories of Peggy dancing with Rogers, happy and content. He remembered how happy he was for her.

Daisy squeezed his knee beneath the table and brought him back to the present. He pressed a kiss to her temple and continued the conversation. They had coffee and cake and Rose shared her fudge. Daisy made lunch trolley roll across the room, making Jack's great-grandson shriek in delighted laughs and push it back into a position where she could do it again and again.

They left hours later and Daniel felt more settled than he had done in a long time. Daisy squeezed his hand as they drove away.

They'd return to visit every time they were in town, which was more often these days now SHIELD HQ was there, sometimes together, sometimes alone. They met all of both of their families, attended Ruth's 100th birthday. Brought presents for Daniel's namesake's birthday.

When Daisy and Daniel tied the knot, two reserved seats on the front row of the groom's side were filled my two of his oldest friends some of their families just a couple rows back. They 'snuck' them into new SHIELD HQ to see all the new tech and planes, the memorial wall that included people they'd known a lifetime ago.

Daniel loved the future, loved living his life alongside Daisy and her family. But knowing his friends were there, getting to spend time with them was an unexpected but valuable thing for him. It gave him a link to the past, someone to shoot the breeze with, with some similar experiences from the past. A taste of a previous life he was grateful for as he lived his new one.