The Flu

Maria didn't want to answer her phone. Not after the alarming call she had gotten from Sharon, letting her know what had happened at the mental institution. She didn't want to answer the phone and hear anything else alarming. What she was seeing played out on television, with Director Carter dragging Fury out of the mental institution with bullets flying, was alarming enough. Did she really have a choice, though? Maybe she would get lucky and it would be Sharon calling to report she had gained control of the situation. "Hello?"

"Maria?" Phil said.

"Phil? Is Victoria okay? Please say that she's doing okay, because at the moment, I think if she isn't, I'm going to have to lock myself someplace and scream for awhile." Please let Victoria be okay. Maria wasn't even going to hope for her doing better or making a miraculously fast recovery. All she wanted to hear was that she wasn't any worse at this point.

"She's fine. Jemma had a consultation with a cardiologist, and he seems to think that she's doing fine. Maria, what happened to Nick?"

"You saw the news?"

"yes, I saw it. Maria, what in the world happened? Where's Nick?" Phil said as the footage from the mental institution re-ran. Was that Melinda's mom helping Peggy? He thought he better not look too closely at that, or he might feel some sort of obligation to let her know about it.

"I wish I knew. I asked Sharon to go to the mental institution to try to get Nick out, which didn't work, so then I told her to see if she could talk to him. The next thing I know she's calling me with a report about gunfire." Maria said with a moan.

"You don't know where he is? How can you not know where he is? Isn't Sharon with them?"

"Yes, Sharon is with them, and I got one panicked call from Sharon letting me know what was going on and then nothing else. Shield phones, they're untraceable, so I can't even try to find her that way. I've got people accessing cameras trying to locate the car, which doesn't have GPS enabled, of course, thanks to the fact that it belongs to Melinda's mother, but with how Director Carter's driving, no sooner do we get her on one camera than she's gone on to somewhere else. And somehow, she's remarkably good about figuring out where the traffic cameras are and dodging them, so we're finding her a whole lot less than we were hoping we would." Maria had to resist the urge to beat her head against Fury's desk as she thought of the problems they were running into trying to track Director Carter down. How in the world was she avoiding the cameras like she was? And the cameras that the car was appearing one, Maria was halfway convinced that those appearances were part of some plan to throw any attempt at pursuit off. And if it was, she couldn't believe how well it was working.

"So you can't find them?" Phil exclaimed.

"We're looking. We're looking. And hoping Sharon calls back or convinces her Aunt that they need to get back to Shield. That seems to be our best hope right now."

"Okay. But how in the world did the news get it so wrong that they're saying Nick took Peggy hostage?" Phil demanded. It seemed very clear to him that Peggy was the one almost carrying Nick, and how could people not see that she was the one with the gun?

"Because most people have a really hard time believing that a ninety something year old woman who's supposed to have dementia is capable of kidnapping the head of a major intelligence organization? And I am very suspicious about that dementia diagnosis right now." Maria said as another person came in and dropped a report detailing how Peggy was managing to completely baffle them while speeding through the streets of Washington on her desk. "I'm starting to think that the dementia thing might have been a ploy to lull us all into a false sense of security for some reason."

"The reporters don't think Peggy's capable of kidnapping Fury?" Steve said, glad Phil had his phone on speaker. "I hope she doesn't watch the news or she'll probably kidnap the reporters. Or shoot up the news station. Or…. Wait, she just has guns and not explosives, right, because this kind of reminds me of this time in Nazi Germany." He grinned slightly at the memory before it occurred to him that Peggy staging a repeat of the incident in question in the middle of Washington probably wasn't the best idea.

"Would you please not mention Peggy Carter and explosives in the same sentence, Captain, please, because I would like to not have a heart attack today, thank you very much." Could she have access to explosives? Maria frantically motioned for Jasper to get a move on and check it out. With how Shield's luck was running the last thing they needed was explosions. Bad enough that their former director had just kidnapped their current director and was who knows where.

"Sorry. Anyway, I'm sure that he'll be fine." Steve told her. "Peggy's really good a this sort of stuff."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Maria muttered. She knew all too well the kinds of things Peggy Carter happened to be spectacularly good at, and she was sensing a total disaster looming if she decided to do any of them with Fury along for the ride. She wondered if she ought to look and see if he had a will on file.

"What do you need us to do?" Would it help if I had Skye do some hacking to try to find her?"

"She's one of the ones taking care of Victoria, isn't she? No, don't do that. I don't want anyone getting distracted from getting Victoria better right now. I'll figure out something. Maybe Sharon will convince her to come in. Hopefully Sharon will convince her to come in. Do you think Melinda could get hold of her mom and see about convincing her to come back to Shield?"

"I'll talk to her." Phil looked up at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps and spotted Melinda heading towards them, phone in hand and an unreadable expression on her face. "I'll call you right back. I think she might have heard what happened."

"My father just called me and told me that my mother was on the news." Melinda said as soon as she reached Coulson and the others. "They're saying that she and Peggy Carter were kidnapped by Director Fury after he shot up a mental institution. Dad was wanting to check and see if I was going to be fired for my mother helping to kidnap my boss. What's going on?"

"Apparently your mother was with Director Carter when she decided that the best way to get Nick out of the mental institution was at gunpoint." Phil said. "Can you call your mom and see if she can get everyone to go to Shield? I'm pretty sure that Nick's going to need to be checked over."

"I tried. She isn't answering." Melinda told him. "What's Maria planning to do?"

"From the sound of things, probably have a nervous breakdown herself." Phil said. Really, how could this situation get any worse?

"Aunt Peggy, we need to get back to Shield!" Sharon called from the back seat of the car. At least her aunt was on the right side of the road at the moment, but she didn't like the speed she was driving at or how she was constantly swerving and weaving at all. And she especially didn't like the dazed looking in the director's eyes that seemed to be getting worse with every moment that passed. What in the world had they given him at that mental institution? He had only been there a few hours! "Aunt Peggy!"

"Shield's the first place they'll look for Nick, Sharon. Honestly, didn't Shield teach you anything that you don't realize that? Best to lie low for awhile. I know a place that should work." Peggy sped up a bit and swerved close to the curve as she talked to dodge another traffic camera.

"Aunt Peggy, watch out!" Sharon shouted as she saw a woman appear in front of the car. "Aunt Peggy!" And then there was a loud thump and the woman was gone from view. "Aunt Peggy!"

"I didn't hit her." Peggy slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a screeching halt. Best to see what had happened though. They couldn't leave any witnesses standing around, or lying around, she amended the thought as she stepped out of the car and spotted the woman, crumpled on the sidewalk, unconscious.

"She jumped out of the way and slipped." Lian said with a nod as she spotted the woman's broken shoe.

"That doesn't make me feel better." Sharon moaned as she got out of the car, almost tempted to kiss the pavement in relief that the car wasn't moving. "I can't believe this. I think she's with some other agency."

"Rosalind Price." Lian nodded. "I'm not sure which agency she's with. She seems to change them rather frequently. And names." She knelt down by the crumpled woman and looked her over. "She's breathing. It looks like she hit her head."

"We need to call an ambulance. And Agent Hill." Sharon said. "Which would be a whole lot easier to do if you hadn't taken the battery out of my phone and tossed it out the window!"

"No need to do that. We do need to get moving, though, before someone else gets that idea." Peggy said. "Nick, what are you waiting for?" She ordered Fury who had somehow stumbled out of the car and was swaying, barely on his feet. "Help get her in the car!"

"Director, no! Aunt Peggy, she could have a serious head injury! You can't just toss someone with a serious head injury into the back seat of a car!" Sharon exclaimed as it looked like Fury was going to obey her aunt.

"Don't be silly. We did it all the time in the war and it worked out fine. Go on. Get in and we'll slide her over to you." Peggy ordered her niece.

What was she supposed to do? She couldn't stop them, and running down the street screaming, which was what she wanted to do wasn't really an option. She had to stay with them. Sharon didn't know how it happened, but the next thing she knew, she was in the back seat of the car, Rosalind's head in her lap and Fury tumbling back in, falling across the poor woman's legs. And then the car was speeding off again, barely giving her a chance to get her seatbelt secure and to fasten the director in as well. As for the unconscious Rosalind, Sharon frowned and started digging around, hoping to find another seatbelt that had slipped between the seat backs and the actual seat to make some attempt at keeping the poor, unconscious woman marginally safe.

"We probably need to switch this car." Peggy commented as she sped along, ignoring the noise from the back seat as Sharon squirmed around trying to secure her fellow kidnapping victims. "The authorities will probably be looking for it shortly. I don't think I was able to dodge all of the cameras while we were loading Ms. Price up. Any suggestions for getting a clean vehicle?"

"My son-in-law. He came to town for a lecture." Lian told her. "Turn right up ahead. I know what hotel he always uses. I'm sure it will be fine with Andrew if we borrow his car."