Bonnie and Clyde
Prompt 13: Bonnie and Clyde
In the final desperate moment, Fitz turned to Jemma, squeezing his hand in hers. She smiled, but her mind was caught on the Icer gun in her other hand. She only had a few shots left, and the number of people they needed to take down, far exceeded what was in the chamber.
“We’ll make it out alive, like we always do,” Fitz said to try and comfort. He wasn’t as confident in the words as he sounded. Jemma leaned over, removing her hand from his to slip around his neck. He could feel the dampness of fresh blood on her hand, but he didn't care. He fell into her kiss, heightened by the tense surrounding they were in. The gunfire had stopped, but their ears were still ringing. They behind their cover; knowing they would be safe for only a few moments more as their enemies regrouped.
The desert heart caused the blood to congeal. Their sweat smudged it across their skin.
Pulling away from the kiss, Jemma entertained the sad thought that this would probably be the last time she would get the chance to kiss him. She moved the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away blood slowly forming at her scalp line. Fitz had a gash similar to hers, situated on his temple. They were a bloody mess together.
In the moments before wheeling around the trunk of their car to return fire, both of their chests heaved intensely. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air.
For Jemma, she had thought about death so much it was already a memory to her. That kind of thought crossed her mind on dozens of occasions. Her Will and testament spelled out everything she wanted if she were to die. It was simple stuff mostly. Where she would be buried, what she would like to be wearing…. She had seen it so many times in her mind that it was practically a reality. It was the last thing she carried into battle.
Fitz and her had been in this kind of jam before and gotten out. But usually, there was some other factor. In different times they had more ammunition, there was a window to jump out of, or there was a fire extinguisher nearby. But they were up against the trunk of their bullet ridden car, there was no more ammunition in it. Their tires were shot out from the last battle. There were no more Icer grenades. They had exhausted every last measure. Yet, more people were coming. And they were coming with guns loaded.
“If we go out, we go out in a blaze. Because I’d rather die with you in a hail of gunfire then die old and alone,” Jemma said.
“It’s not going to happen that way,” Fitz tried to reassure her again. He looked away, hearing the sound of approaching vehicles. It was nearly time. The ground softly shook upon the approach, and tires wailed as the brakes were pulled. Doors could be heard opening, but not closing. The bottom of boots and shoes slapping on the ground as the people they belong to got into position. There were muffled commands being shouted out by a familiar voice.
Jemma clenched her eyes shut. Her hands were shaking. They hadn’t done anything to deserve this; they merely chose to be friends with the wrong person. And he had relentlessly hunted them down again and again.
“We ran away, we did all that we could,” Fitz said out loud. The sun was setting.
“I love you, Fitz,” Jemma said. She could feel the air shift. He smiled at her.
“I love you, too,” he nodded. He planted the soles of his feet flat on the ground, readying himself to spring up. He peeked his head around the side of the car to get a glimpse of their positions. He could see Ward standing in the empty space between their car and his men. Ward stood tall, unafraid, just as the imposing tormentor that had been chasing them for weeks would. Fitz leaned back for a moment, clenching his eyes and swallowing deeply.
“Ready,” he said when he opened them. Jemma readied herself to spring up, she waited for his count to spring out.
“One…two…,” Fitz counted, he hesitated before reaching three.
But as soon as he said three, both of them were on their feet, brandishing their Icers and whipping around the car. Jemma reached it first.
“What is one lover without the other?” Ward called out, smiling. He outstretched his arm with his gun. He played with real bullets. The sound of a weapon going off seemed delayed to Fitz.
Just as Fitz made it to the front, the bullet had struck Jemma. She was thrust backwards, her back slamming into the hood of the car. One perfect bullet entered one perfect body.
Fitz isn’t sure what he did first, if he went to go shoot Ward or if he screeched ‘No!’ But Ward turned away, walking back to his group of agents, signaling them to leave. Fitz hesitated, but ultimately ran over to Jemma, who had slid down the hood. Her body crumpling over once it hit the ground. A smear of blood tracing her descent on the way down.
She was a live, but barely. The bullet was perfectly placed, puncturing her lung and close enough to her heart that there would be no way to stop the internal bleeding. Fitz grabbed at her body, pulling her into his arms.
“I’m glad it was me,” she choked out, her body shutting down rapidly. With the amount of pain she was in she wish she would die faster.
“No, no, no, don’t say that. I’ll get him; we’ll end this, together, Jem… Jemma, stay with me, okay, we’ll get through this. Jemma… Jemma…I love you, please,” Fitz was stammering. He could feel his knees become saturated. The fatal wound bleeding out furiously through her back.
“You can have me back when you get him,” Jemma moaned.
Fitz followed where his tears were falling, and kissed her, one last time. She was already turning cold.
By the time he lifted his head up, Jemma was gone.
For an unknown amount of time, Fitz held her to his chest. He was screaming. No one heard him. No one was there in that moment. He had lost the last thing in his life that mattered. He should have kept her out of this, but he knew he couldn’t.
Ever since meeting Ward, things had begun to slowly turn sour. Ward became friends with them just to steal the project they had been working on. They outed them to their superiors. He torched their lab, leaving them without their jobs, their livelihood. He cut them off from their team. He ransacked their apartment, getting the information of their parents. He went to their parents’ homes and tortured them for no reason other then to provoke them.
And then he started to come directly after them. This person they once felt safe with now pawed at their lives. He forced Fitz and Jemma on the run. He was always behind them. His fury had no bounds.
And the most twisted thing is that he only wanted to kill one of them.
Fitz couldn’t bear being there at her funeral. How does one actually show up to bury the love of his life, he wondered. He spent the three days of her wake hiding in a drunken stupor, like a coward. He visited her grave after the funeral, where the soil was still freshly placed. She was buried under a tree on top of a hill, like she had planned out. Jemma got what she said she would have wanted. She got to die first, but he would be the one to rot. They never got to go out in a fury.
She imagined death so many times it had become a memory. But he was the only one to remember it now. If there were anything he could do, he would do it. But there was no reversing time. That’s what he would think. That’s what he would think until forces beyond what he could fathom would change that.
Jemma was waiting for him… but not in death. He would be seeing her a lot sooner then he thought.