The Flu

"Phil, please tell me you aren't calling to report a problem." Maria said as she answered the phone. Shield could not handle anymore problems at the moment. She couldn't handle anymore problems at the moment.

"Everything's under control here." Coulson quickly reassured her. "I'm guessing from how you're sounding that Peggy hasn't turned up yet?"

"I am starting to get suspicious that Director Carter was holding some sort of invisibility formula back, because she's completely fallen off the radar. And before she managed to fall of the radar, she amused herself kidnapping someone else. So now I have one of Rosalind Price's underlings here demanding to know what's going on, and Fury being blamed for the entire disaster!"

"I do have one bit of good news for you." It had almost slipped his mind completely with the flurry of bad news. "Skye managed to get hold of Victoria's family and she let them know that she was okay."

"That's the little hacker right? How did she accomplish that miracle?" Maria asked. "And how big of a promotion does she want for doing what no one at Shield seems to have been able to pull off? Please tell me that Victoria's family are alright."

"I understand there weren't any threats to sue. I'm going to take that as a good sign. And Skye and Agent Simmons are taking care of Victoria. She was able to use her phone to get through to them."

"Which it didn't occur to any of us to think of." Maria said with a grimace. "I would offer her my job, but with the disaster that's going on, I'm pretty sure she would see it as a punishment, not a promotion. But Victoria's family knows she's okay. That's one good thing. I'll take one good thing out of this day of disasters."

"I might have some other news that could help with hunting Peggy down, too. They've switched cars. It seems Director May took Andrew Gardner's car. There's a chance if they think that no one knows about the switch yet, that they might not be as cautious."

"Probably a one in a million chance. Wait, they didn't take poor Andrew too, did they, because as much as I think that poor Nick's probably going to need some help after the last few days I don't want to imagine how Melinda would handle that."

"No, they just took the car and left him stranded at his hotel. He told Melinda he was going to try to look for them."

"Well, he can't do any worse than we seem to be doing at the moment. Jasper!" She called for the other agent as she spotted him passing her door. "Get someone to pull up information on Andrew Gardner's car! It seems that our merry little group has decided to add grand theft auto to their growing list of potential charges. Phil, do you know if Andrew reported the theft to the police or let anyone else know besides Melinda?"

"Not as far as I know." Coulson told her. ""If he knows that the police are blaming Nick for everything, I doubt he'd want to add anything else to the mess. And haven't they gotten things straightened out, yet, that Peggy's the one responsible?"

"The senior citizens are still being vastly underestimated." Maria said. "And I am seriously questioning that dementia diagnosis of Peggy's at the moment. I swear she must have faked it, and since she couldn't have known something like this was going to happen, I'm seriously afraid of what she was faking it for."

"We're trying to think of anywhere they might have gone." Phil offered. "Melinda's pretty sure that her mother wouldn't use any of her safe houses, since she knows Melinda would know about them, so we're trying to figure out what places Peggy might use."

"That's how we've been going at it too." Maria said. "Is there any chance you've had some luck? Does Captain Rogers have any clue as to where she might have went?"

"He's thinking about it. And John talked to Tripp and he suggested the Dugan's of Falsworth's daughter. Stark has Pepper checking for properties of his dad's that Peggy might try using. There was one thing, though. Do we have eyes on the British embassy in case she decides to go there?"

"I think that we have someone monitoring it. Is there a reason we should be watching it besides the fact that Peggy's British?" Why was Maria getting a very bad feeling.

"It seems that Peggy's friends with their queen." Phil told her. "Captain Rogers even said she gave her a few driving lessons once."

"She did….. And I used to think that England was a nice, safe place. At least the queen isn't here though." That was one small miracle. If she had been, Peggy would have probably amused herself recruiting her to join their merry group of kidnappers and she would have a reenactment of the War of 1812 on her hands.

"That's the one good thing I noticed. And I think it was just a couple of granddaughters that were at the funeral, not the grandson with the pilot training, so she can't be planning anything plane related."

"The… Oh, no! the granddaughters!" Maria suddenly paled as something hit her.

"What about them? I'm sure they're fine. Well, I guess they would know how to shoot, maybe, with how the family's into hunting, but that's probably not enough to get Peggy to recruit them. Between her and Melinda's mom, they should have any shooting they need covered."

"It's not the girls, although thank you so much for reminding me that they probably can handle a weapon in case Peggy does drop in to invite them on a little adventure. The big problem is who they had escorting them at that funeral. Pete Wisdom!"

"They got him to do escort duty?" Coulson asked. Suddenly he was feeling a bit worried himself.

"I don't know what they had to do to pull that off, but he was there, and he's probably wherever those girls are now." A disaster. Maria was sensing a total, utter disaster looming. "You know, Jasper was never able to figure out if there was a chance Peggy could have some sort of access to explosives. I was just worried about what she could blow up. Now I have to worry about what she could meet up with Pete Wisdom and blow up! And yes, I remember that Pete Wisdom doesn't really need explosives to blow things up, and that really isn't comforting." Her fears about that reenactment of the War of 1812, were definitely increasing big time. Was Washington insured for a reenactment of the War of 1812, a Peggy Carter caused reenactment? She was pretty sure that most auto insurances had finally dropped those Peggy clauses from their policies, but had the property insurances ever got around to getting rid of them?

"You're watching the embassy though, right?" Phil said. "As long as you're watching things, surely you can step in before things get too out of hand."

"Things got too out of hand right around the time Victoria's funeral started this morning." Maria muttered. "And it just occurred to me, those girls and Wisdom might not even be at the embassy. As long as they had Wisdom with them, a regular hotel would be safe enough."

"Would Peggy be able to find them at a regular hotel, though?" Phil asked, and then winced as he realized the answer to that was obvious. "Never mind. I know the answer."

"Take care of Victoria. I'll get people on it." Maria told him. "And keep Stark and Rogers working on trying to figure out anywhere else she could be!"