Retirement Ended Up SuperRhino (RhinoMouse)

)Summary:

Daisy was tired of all the fighting, heartbreak, and being left alone when she was no longer useful. But as long as she was in her universe, there was no stopping. It'd never be allowed. So if she wanted out, it meant going somewhere that'd never heard of Daisy Johnson, Quake, or the Destroyer of Worlds. So a universe where there never was a Daisy Johnson. She wasn't exactly expecting a world with a brand-new and shiny Superhero. One who clearly had no idea how to protect themselves from being chewed up and spat out.

Notes:

It only took a few years, but back to the world of Supergirl. No idea how long this one will be, but I've already written 44 chapters of it. I'm going to be updating it every other week.

Heads up that I'm kinda iffy on if this fic should be a 'T' or 'M' rated fic. Like the implication of Daisy's suicidal mindset is very much there even if I don't get into it. And like ya know, anything to do with the horrifying things done to non-humans in either universe. So solid chances I might decide to bump up that rating.

Also, Supergirl timeline is a mess, I've tried to whack it into a shape but like...just go with the adjusted timeframe. I also just moved Barry's crossover in s1 of Supergirl to with Bizzaro instead of with Livewire. Like loved the crossover episode but it legit fucks up the fallout from Red K way too much.

Chapter 1Chapter Text

Daisy lay in the crater staring up at the sky, the last vestiges of the serum burning its way into her system, her whole body nearly numb from the horror of almost being absorbed into something terrible, and she was alone. It…even as the agony of the last bits of serum finished the process of absorbing into her, she was alone. She stared at the clouds, the now windowless skyscrapers rising up into the sky, and she'd done it. The world hadn't ended. She'd won. It hadn't been her. It'd been Talbot and Hydra and a dozen other things but it hadn't been her.

Tears of relief rolled down her face. It had never been her. The terrible weight that had been crushing her since Deke had first named her The Destroyer of Worlds. But she hadn't, she'd won. No Lighthouse, no Kree slave colony, no billions dead. But…as her body, already healing from the damage Talbot had done, told her it had cost what she hadn't been willing to pay. Coulson.

She was stiff as she sat up. Looking around the crater she grimaced. Without her powers, this should have turned her to paste. And without the serum, she probably wouldn't be walking. Up above on the street, she could hear the sirens and the chaos of people dealing with what had happened. But..it could have been so much worse. Her eyes closed. They were alive, they were all still alive. Her hand snapped to the side of her neck, yanking the bandage off. So that was healed too.

Daisy swallowed back the bile at the reminder. She got up, she needed to get to Coulson. The rest…it didn't matter. Her powers easily lifted her out of the crater, her brow furrowed. Her bones hadn't creaked or felt the faintest strain from that…her powers were still there but…it felt different. She'd figure out how the serum had affected her later. Looking up she winced. Oh, that was…a lot of camera phones. Right, flying the fuck away it was.

Daisy barely processed how much softer the landing on the cement was. The lack of the usual jolt as her legs took her weight again. Because Coulson hadn't taken the serum. But…the plane wasn't waiting for her. That made sense, get to the rest of the team for evacs. Made sense. Logical. It still ached to stand there in the street, alone. She'd saved the world alone, and now here she was…alone.

Daisy knocked on the door to Coulson's quarters. Her chest ached as she waited for him to let her in. The dull croak of 'come in' was enough. She opened the door and stepped into the bunk. Her eyes found the IV connected to Coulson where he was sitting on the bed. His bags were half-packed. He had the awful pallor of a dying man. His face was unshaven, the clamminess was clear even if he had showered and pulled on clean clothing.

He looked up, and their eyes met. It was kinda horrible how much they understood one another. Coulson sighed. "Bad news?"

"It's not good." Daisy let the door close behind her, moving to sit next to him on the bunk, their sides brushing. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. The silence dragged.

Coulson spoke softly. "I'd say take your time, but I don't have much left."

She huffed, her lips pulling up and her throat felt thick with grief. "Funny." It really wasn't funny at all. She brushed her hair off her face, turning to look at him. "I'm not going to space to find Fitz."

"Ah." Coulson leaned back, the disappointment burned. "But you're not telling Mack that."

Daisy hated that she couldn't give him what he wanted. "No, I'm not." She watched the understanding on his face.

"Know where you're going?" He asked, watching her with a far too kind face.

She looked away, staring at the dismal Lighthouse cement and metal walls. "I don't know, can't stay on earth. Don't see the government being too happy with me if I'm not SHIELD or like…something with them."

"No, you'd be on the run with the majority of the Avengers." Coulson made a sound of amusement. "But you're done being on the run, aren't you?"

The trust of it kinda sucked, but if she stayed on earth they'd never leave her to retire. Not as a free agent. "Yeah, I think I am."

He reached out, laying a hand on her knee. "Ok, we'll figure something out then."

"I'm sorry." Her voice cracked slightly.

Coulson's voice was steady. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I couldn't be prouder of you."

She straightened so she could lay her head on his shoulder. If she looked at him again she would cry. "Well, I did save the world."

"I knew you could." He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you a choice."

"I don't know what I'll do without you." Her voice was wet and rough with sobs she was refusing to release.

He hummed, it wasn't as strong as he'd once sounded, but it was comforting all the same. "You'll be a hero, you couldn't be anything else."

They just sat there for a while, she wasn't sure how long. Her eyes were stuck on the IV bag. Even with the medicine, and the best care, he had days left, maybe a week or two. It should have felt sharper but Daisy felt hollow. But sometimes it was like there were shards of glass in her chest. "I'm not sure where I'll go."

"Well, I might have some ideas." He spoke, because of course he had an idea, he always had ideas. "We still have the Devil's car in storage somewhere. Might be able to get you somewhere that isn't here in that."

Daisy pulled back. "If we got the hell car to take me somewhere, wouldn't it take me to ya know, hell?"

"Robbie said worlds, and it's that or steal a spaceship from someone." Coulson had that expression he always got when he was suggesting a Hail Mary.

She couldn't help laughing wetly. "Well, it's going to be awkward if Robbie comes back looking for his car."

"I'm sure he'll understand." Coulson tipped his head slightly. "You might want to try not to scratch it."

Daisy wiped at her eyes, forcing herself not to cry. "So we're going to try and get the car to make a hell portal or whatever, how exactly?"

"Well, SHIELD did apprehend a coven of witches a decade ago. I'm sure you could find a good place to start in the mission files." He had that excited 'so cool right' expression on his face. It was only marred by how clear it was that this conversation was costing him.

Daisy looked at his half-packed bag. "Well, you can tell me about the mission, I'll finish packing for you? After all, wouldn't want you to miss any time in Tahiti."

He looked at her with so much understanding, but there was a weight that she knew meant he was about to say something she wouldn't like. "I'll help, Mack will too. But it could take a while."

Her eyes closed, she knew what he wanted, but would forgive her for not doing it. But she hated disappointing him. "You want me to go help Fitz."

"One last mission, you know Jemma can't do it without you." He reached out, laying his hand over hers and squeezing. But his grip was weak.

Daisy looked away from Coulson and to the wall. "Ok, but I'm done after that."

"Thank you." And the sound of his pride in her shouldn't have felt painful, even as she wished to never let it go.

It was stupid and weak, but she turned into him, hugging him, her face buried in his shoulder. He was her dad. And she just needed…she needed to pretend he wasn't dying. "I'm going to miss you."

He wrapped his arms around her, and for this moment, he was still alive.

////

Daisy set her last bag into the back of the charger before closing the trunk with a definitive thunk. She looked over at Mack who'd come with her for this. "So I guess this is it then?"

"Sure I can't convince you to stay, Tremors?" Mack asked as he held out her sidearm.

She took the gun, sliding it into the shoulder holster she was wearing under her jacket. "Coulson convinced me to save Fitz, and then you convinced me to help with the fear goddess, and then there wasn't a lot of time travel. It's never going to stop, but the world isn't about to end today, that's the best I can do for you Mack. Make a better SHIELD than we had?"

Mack gave her a long look but nodded. "I'll do my best. You could stay and help with that? Take a break from fieldwork, see a therapist longer than three weeks."

Daisy stepped into him, hugging him fiercely. "I can't." Her eyes squeezed shut as she imprinted the memory of the feel of him real and solid against her. The way he hugged her back so tight that before the serum it'd felt like she couldn't breathe, but now was just firm enough to feel. She couldn't describe what she'd felt laying in a crater, alone, alive, and realizing that if she'd died trying to save them they'd have hated her. But alive from saving them, they wouldn't be coming to pick her up. Even if she'd done it she couldn't forget that even after staying long enough to save them first, they'd still asked her to die. The cold of space felt like it'd never leave her bones. They didn't want her to leave, but they'd been fine asking her to die.

He squeezed as tight as he could. "Stay safe."

"I've never been good at that." She sniffled slightly as she pulled back, doing her best to smile. "Keep an eye out on Kora for me, yeah?"

Mack shook his head. "Can't believe she wasn't able to convince you to stay."

"Wherever I end up, maybe I'll figure out how to send a letter back or something." Daisy looked at the setup they'd made. One of the remaining hunks of the Obelisk, some runic work she was really hoping was actual magic and not a scam, and the devil's car. Totally wasn't going to blow up in her face. Hopefully…but then, even if it did blow she'd been willing to die last week.

Daisy opened up the car door and slid in, pulling it shut behind her. She looked up through the open window. "Ready to see if this works?"

"I'll never be ready to see you go, Tremors." He swooped down, one of his giant hands cupping the back of her head and holding her eyes from a few inches away. "You're the best partner I could have ever hoped for. Wherever you end up, give 'em hell."

Her eyes burned, but she nodded. "I'm glad you were my partner too."

He tapped their foreheads together before pulling back and slapping the top of the car. "Alright, try not to scratch this baby, alright?"

"Fingers crossed." Daisy started up the car and looked ahead. Here went nothing, hopefully, this wasn't a one-way trip to hell. That'd…kinda suck. But if the runes were right, she was sending herself to a parallel universe. One without Quake, or Daisy Johnson. She stepped on the gas as Mack hit the power on their attempt at a portal. It did something, and then darkness sucked her in.

Portals did not feel great. Daisy barely got the door open in time to puke outside of the car. Spitting the last of it out of her mouth, she groaned. Fuck, that was vile. Her eyes squeezed shut as she spat again, before straightening and looking at where she was. Well, not the flaming inferno. So there was that.

She was in a city alley between two skyscrapers, dim flickering lights, and near dark that said it was late, wherever this was. Daisy wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. Air wasn't poison, that was good to know. Her nose wrinkled, and her vomit wasn't the only thing in this alley that didn't smell great. But hey, the familiar smell of crappy city alley. And super shocking luck not to have just ended up in the middle of rush hour traffic or something else equally sure to cause an accident.

Daisy walked over to the dumpster and reached in, dragging out a kinda gross newspaper. 'National City'? Who the fuck named a city National City?

////

Kara had eaten her way through her second gallon of ice cream when there was a knock on her door. She was about to yell at whoever it was to go away when she paused. What if it was about Alex? She was to the door in a whooshing second, barely remembering to get her glasses on, as she opened the door to find…a stranger. "Hello?"

"You've got ice cream on your nose," The stranger said with an amused grin.

Kara's hands snapped to her face, rubbing the traitorous food off of herself. "Rats, oh golly, I'm sorry." She looked up at the woman, who had laughter in her eyes but a friendly face. It was nice. It'd been a couple of days since anyone had looked at her with anything like kindness. "Can I help you?"

"I was kinda hoping you could, Supergirl." The woman had a quiet certainty as she said that.

Kara's heart froze and then thundered as her voice pitched up. "What? Supergirl!? I'm not..pfft, I'm not Supergirl. Nothing Super about me. Nope, just an average citizen." Her smile felt plastic as she panicked.

The woman's brows shot upwards. "Oh wow, you are a terrible liar. But chill, I'm not here to threaten you or like out your secret or anything." She gave a meaningful look at the apartment. "But maybe a conversation you want to not have in your hallway?"

"I mean, I'm not…" Kara desperately searched for something to convince this person she wasn't Supergirl, only then her feet slid a full three feet backward from what felt like a gust of wind slamming into her.

And the woman stepped in, the door closing without her touching it…and she hadn't touched Kara either. "Breathe, I'm not human. Kinda why I need your help."

Kara blinked, "What was…what was that?" Because she hadn't seen anything?

The woman shrugged. "I control vibrations, the air vibrates, I can make controlled shockwaves." Her eyes flicked to the two empty gallons of ice cream before flicking back to Kara. "Sorry if I'm interrupting?"

"Oh no, not interrupting just me and…darn." Kara zipped to the coffee table and hid the evidence of her current moping. She skidded back into the room. "What, um, you wanted help with something? How did you know I was..."

"Supergirl?" The woman slid one of her hands into a pocket. "I'm new to this world, like arrived last week. Been mostly doing recon, figuring this place out, but well figured hunting down a local who'd know the actual situation of things would speed that up. So looked into it, and uh, you weren't that hard to track down if you know how to run some facial recognition and chart the number of sightings of you near Catco."

Kara gaped a bit like a fish. "That's…oh." She shook it off, someone actually wanted her help! She couldn't even help people without them fleeing. Hence, carton one of the ice cream. Cartons two and three had more to do with Alex and J'onn being on the run from the government and things with James blowing up again. And maybe if she ate enough she'd stop remembering the horrible, awful things she'd said while her brain had been poisoned. "You need help?"

"Yeah, but I mostly just have a lot of questions." The woman held out one hand. "My name's Daisy Johnson, people called me Quake on my last world."

She quickly took the offered hand and shook it. "Kara Danvers."

"Nice to meet you, Kara, if this is a bad time I can swing by a different time. I saw in the news the whole…whatever fucked up your head incident a few days ago."

Kara's mouth felt kinda dry. "You believe it wasn't me?"

"Well it was your body, but I've only been here a week and I know that was wildly out of character." Daisy's now free hand slid into her other pocket. "Assumed you'd probably be benched for a while to talk to a shrink or something, so now might not be the worst time to swing by with some questions?"

She kinda wanted to cry, because no one had just…assumed something had to have happened to her. But Daisy was a stranger, and she'd like to not just cry in front of a random stranger who knew who she was. So she defaulted. "Do you want food, or to sit down or um…I'm sorry people don't usually just show up here? Not that that's a bad thing. I-"

"You haven't eaten anything other than sugar like all day have you?" Daisy interrupted, but she wasn't upset?

Kara's shoulders slumped. "No, I haven't."

"Well question one then, what's the best takeout in the area that has real food in it?" Daisy asked her smile still there.

And oh, she was kind. Kara smiled back slightly. "How do you feel about Chinese? The place down the road has amazing potstickers. Or you don't know what Chinese is. It's really good."

"I know what Chinese food is." Daisy laughed but pulled out a cell phone. "I eat more than a normal human so what should we get?"

Kara zipped to grab the take-out menu only to freeze. This…this didn't happen. Every alien she'd met had been attacking her. Well, except for J'onn. She turned to look at Daisy. "Um, you wouldn't be from Fort Rozz would you?"

"Not sure what that is, so probably no. Got here in a hell charger, which was not easy by the way. Was pretty sure I was going to get burned to a crisp there for a second." Daisy clearly saw something on her face. "I'm from earth, just…not this earth."

"Like Barry! Oh, do you know the Flash?" She would love to see Barry again. He'd been so nice and had helped with Bizzaro and everything.

Daisy shook her head. "Never heard of him, but you know what parallel universes are the whole multi-verse thing?"

"Yes, Barry explained when he got here. Do you need help getting back?" Kara could do that, hopefully.

Daisy almost was…sad for a moment. "No, I'm not looking to go back. New start and all that." She stepped over. "So, do Chinese restaurants have orange chicken in this universe?"

"We do! And it's delicious." Kara offered out the menu. "You're an alien too?"

Daisy nodded while her eyes tracked over the menu. "Partially, we call ourselves Inhumans, mostly human, alien ancestors. I think one of my grandparents was the alien." She looked up at Kara's face. "And I'd never heard of a Kryptonian before, so I think the difference between our universes was something…galactic, and big. Also, your earth didn't have a mini-ice age from an alien war in the middle ages according to your Wikipedia. So I'm thinking the difference was like some space war or something. And figured you'd know more about space history than Wikipedia, so…"

"So you found me. How did you do that? You said facial recognition and sightings near Catco?" Kara should probably make sure she fixed it however it was she got located.

Daisy pulled up the online order form for food and entered a few things before passing it over. "Add what you want, I kinda owe you for helping me out here. Don't worry about it, brought some Nazi gold over with me. Disappointing to find out both our worlds had to deal with the fascist assholes."

"That is a horrible similarity," Kara admitted as she put in her usual order before passing the phone back.

"Seriously, so sick of Nazis." Daisy made a scoffing sound dripping with disdain and venom at the word 'Nazi'. She shook her head. "Anyways, I was a hacker in my world. Your systems use a slightly altered version of Python mostly, we used more JavaScript, Java, and a bit of C++ in our world. I don't think you guys even have C++, which is so weird." She trailed off thoughtfully before seeming to remember the conversation. "Anyways I was kind of an agent in my world, rewriting some of my software enough to be able to run on your world's internet wasn't that hard. While that was running I made a grid of sightings of you. Living in a neighborhood with high crime rates was smart, justifies your sightings here. But Catco isn't in a high-crime area and you clock more sightings there than anywhere else. So either you were stalking someone there, worked there, or were dating someone who was. From there I narrowed down the time frames of your sightings near there and they coincide with a nine-to-five schedule. So I ran facial recognition software on the employees and viola, you popped up. Course I took a quick look at your name in the system, your citizenship paperwork is top-notch, have to hand that to you, but your early childhood paperwork is a mess. I can help clean that up for you a bit if you want?"

"Oh…that is…very thorough." Kara wasn't even sure what to say to that. "How long did that take you?"

Daisy tilted her head, "I mean if I cut out the time it took to adjust my Python programs to your world's system, about six hours? With the time needed to update things for this world, about twenty. Still have to finish updating everything, but ya know, priorities. But I'm a trained agent." Daisy shifted. "Ops agent, so spy. I was a spy. You're not easy to find unless you know how to find a person who doesn't want to be found and have the technical skills to do so. Without computer skills…probably would have taken me a week to a month."

Kara kinda slumped onto the couch. That was…that was crazy fast. Alex would have drawn a gun on Daisy like…a while ago. She looked up at her. "Why'd you come to this earth?"

"Uh, well wasn't aiming for this one directly? Just one where a version of me doesn't exist and generally was survivable." Daisy shrugged and neatly sat down in the chair across from her, sliding her phone away. "I think my whole species might not exist in this world though. So that's…something."

Kara felt a deep pang at that. "I'm sorry."

"It's…probably a good thing. We were…" Daisy chewed on her lip. "Do you know who the Kree are?"

"Of course, from great wars thousands of years ago. They were some of the worst kind of monsters. Slavery, conquest, and horrors caused the Lanterns to face them in war to cease their wars of conquest. Millions died in the effort of holding back their cruelty. Their final defense was a plague that swept through whole planets, including their own before it was stopped." Kara felt the revulsion she'd always felt reading about that dark part of history. "They were almost as horrifying as the Asgardian attempts at conquest before they were beaten back to their realm. Or maybe more. What the Kree did was…twisted. They didn't just kill people, they slaughtered them, their noble House Kasius was infamous for their experiments."

Daisy flinched. "Yeah, that'd be the difference in our worlds."

"The Kree weren't stopped?" Kara felt a wave of horror at the very thought. What kind of horrifying universe would that be? Not even the Dominators stooped to the Kree's level of brutality.

Daisy pointed at herself. "Human Kree hybrid. So yeah, no. Asgard and Titan were the main powers in the Universe till Titan fell and Asgard kinda stuck to their nine realms. Which uh, earth is kinda one of their realms not that they do fuck all about it. The Kree, Skrulls, and Nova have kinda been fighting over everything else ever since. Course I haven't spent a lot of time in space so I'm not too clear on the details."

Kara leaned back, her eyes widening as she processed the horror that would be. "That's horrible…I..wait, you're Kree?"

"I mean and human. The Kree made us to fight their wars for them, the experiments didn't work on any other species except humans. So whole living weapons of mass destruction thing kinda sucks sometimes." She shrugged. "But that would explain the differences. Different aliens on earth, different influences. I mean I've never heard of Kryptonians or Lanterns before. I'm still weirded out that you guys named New York Metropolis. Makes sense I ended up in an alternate Los Angeles even if you people call it National City…which…I don't know what caused the change in names, but you guys suck at naming stuff." Her head tilted. "But evil secret Nazi society didn't survive inside the government here. So major plus for that."

Kara wasn't even sure what to do with that. She was kinda horrified by the second mention of Nazis, cause that was a lot of mentions about Nazis for ten minutes. But a universe controlled by the Kree and Asguard? That would be horrific. And Kara remembered reading about the unethical experimentation the Kree had done. There'd been a whole unit on it at the academy on Krypton. A unit that had given her nightmares as a child. She swallowed bile at the reminder. "I'm sorry, truly."

"It's fine. But kinda why I'm here? I needed…to get out of my spy agency. But I'm Inhuman, we don't really get to retire, more go into hiding. I just…am a bit too infamous to go into hiding on my own world…or the Universe at large really."

Kara took in the worn leather jacket Daisy was wearing, the beanie, the jeans, the flannel. She just looked like a person. And maybe…a lot like a more worn-in version of Alex if that made any sense. But it kinda made her heart hurt. "Infamous?"

"I wasn't a hero like you. Things weren't…that clean for us. But I tried to help people, and sometimes I was able to, and sometimes good people died anyways. I'm just…tired. And people who get the name 'The Destroyer of Worlds' don't get to retire. Even if I didn't destroy any worlds, just…I could, and that's really all anyone cared about." Daisy held her eyes. "I don't mean any harm to your world, wouldn't mind helping you out cause seriously your whole hero thing is super cool, but I just…want an apartment that's mine maybe? To not be a soldier for a while, maybe figure out how to cook something that doesn't involve the microwave?"

Kara's throat felt kind of tight because she could feel the pain in Daisy's words. It was sad, it was really sad. And she wasn't stupid, she knew what a living weapon experiment for the Kree meant, it meant slave soldiers. "Where are you staying right now?"

Daisy blinked, head tilting slightly. "Uh, my car. Or well, ex-...something's car I used to drive through the portal. We figured the odds were better on the whole portal thing not killing me if I used the magic car. Has a pretty nice backseat. I've roughed it worse."

Oh Rao, Alex would kill her for this, but Alex wasn't here. "You can't sleep in your car. I have a couch?"