Hero

Fitz woke with a start, gasping for breath, his chest was heavy. His fingers desperately scrambled at the low ceiling of his bunk and he felt, for the briefest of moments, as though he were underwater; the darkness of the still of night reminding him how he struggled to pull himself free from the ropes of the parachute. No matter what sleeping agents he took, he couldn’t shake the nightmares; in fact he was sure they were getting worse. It wasn’t until he noticed a soft warm breath breezing against his ear and the back of his neck that he remembered where he was and who was with him. He let out a sigh of relief and let his head sink deeply into his pillow, their pillow.

“Shhh… it’s just a dream…” an obviously tired Jemma whispered reassuringly, running her hand through his messy brown hair and nuzzling her head on his shoulder. By now she was used to him periodically bolting upright in the night, it had frightened her at first but nowadays she simply held him all the closer to her. Since they had confessed their love for each other they had taken to sleeping together every night – not in the way that Fitz had wanted – they hadn’t had sex, but he took comfort in her company just as much. The first nights after the fall he had woken up not remembering if she was alive or dead; of all the side effects of his hypoxia that had been the worst. He had found he couldn’t always distinguish between dreams and daytime and, without Jemma there, more than once he had woken everybody on the BUS up shouting out her name in blind panic. It was for that reason they were allowed to stay in the same bunk; Coulson had originally objected to it, there was a protocol for just about everything, but it became clear Jemma needed to be around him at least until they figured out some way of restoring his memories properly. Besides, after the revelation that HYDRA had been inside SHIELD all along, those protocols didn’t really mean much anymore.

And it wasn’t for lack of trying either that Fitz couldn’t fix his own state; in truth he had done quite a lot to improve it. Within a week of being released from hospital he had created a rudimentary serum that corrected the shaking in his bad hand quite considerably – it didn’t fix the problem, just reduced it and restored a little more of his fine motor skills. He kept it secret from Simmons and the team, suspecting if they found out what else it did they’d make him stop taking it. Other than the serum, since they moved to the playground he had tried dozens of different inventions and techniques to bridge the damaged connections in his mind, most with little success. The only three that seemed to have any impact though were playing XBOX with Mack, sleeping on the BUS rather than in the Playground’s bedquarters and being around Jemma, especially at night. Yet despite all this, and everything else he had been trying, no matter what he did Fitz couldn’t stop the nightmares: the fall, not being able to catch her, the water entering his lungs… It made him want to be sick.

It had been all he had ever wanted to wake up with Jemma curled up against him, able to feel her heart beating, to press his lips against her forehead in soft kisses. The fingers on his better hand, the one he could still control fully, interlocked with hers and she let out a contented sigh as they lay next to one another. He loved her, and she loved him, and they were whole together. But it wasn’t enough, he wasn’t enough for her – not the way he was. Damaged. Broken. The words bore down on him hard and tears burnt hot against his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. If Fitz was broken then so was Fitzsimmons – he’d known almost from the start, the only time they connected was when they lie together in the night, in the day they were off kilter, he couldn’t finish her sentences anymore – he couldn’t finish his own sentences anymore. The time they spent together on the BUS at night, not in the new lab in the day, was the only time he could relax and be himself, it was the only time he didn’t feel quite so useless and it was because of her.

Which made the thought that he had almost lost her all the worse.

When she fell he barely had time to consider what was at stake, more of it had been reflex than forethought, but nowadays her falling was all he could think about. Whatever time he spent around her was tinged with the sadness that they almost never experienced that moment together. Sometimes it was just a fleeting feeling, passing almost immediately, but other times, like tonight, the sense of almost loss gripped him tight and squeezed the air from his lungs; in many ways it felt like the water did when he almost drowned – surrounding him in a claustrophobic embrace. Almost. Almost. He hated that word more than he had thought possible, he almost lost her, he almost died… he’s almost there. He slipped his hand away from hers and pulled himself out of bed, muttering to her to go back to sleep and that he would be back shortly. She grumbled an acknowledgement, too sleepy probably to have heard what he’d said, and Fitz traced his way familiarly towards the lab, realising only as he walked down the cargo hatch of the BUS into the cold hanger that he was only wearing pyjamas.

He didn’t give Coulson enough credit for the new lab; it was bigger, better equipped and mercifully warmer than the old one on the plane – it just no longer felt like his lab anymore. He threw on one of white coats, for warmth rather than protection, and went towards a series of locked vaults at one end of the room, where he kept his more secretive inventions; the ones he worked on when he couldn’t sleep. Tonight, or indeed that morning – Fitz wasn’t sure what time it was – he would continue working on a brace for his bad arm designed to minimise the shaking even further and, hopefully, to enable him to stop taking his serum which, although nobody knew it, had been presenting some awful side effects including headaches, restlessness and, most worryingly, periodic blackouts. So far he was lucky the only person who had ever found him after one of his blackouts was Skye who, after convincing her it was a side effect of hypoxia, agreed not to tell Simmons. If Simmons had known she would have instantly seen through the lie and made him stop taking his serum altogether; and he needed it – at least for now.

He held his shaking hand out in front of him and, after unlocking one of the vaults to get a vile of the serum, rolled up the labcoat sleeve before giving himself a shot. Warmth spread from his arm through him and for a glorious moment he felt at peace, he probably shouldn’t have included a slight sedative in the formula, he noted, rolling down his sleeve and feeling thankful that he tended to wear long jumpers during in the day that covered his by now blotchy arm from all the injections. He threw the delivery mechanism for the shot back into the vault and locked it before hearing the lab door slam loudly behind him, shaking him from that feeling of euphoria the serum gave him and prompting him to wheel around in panic. Don’t be Jemma, he thought, immediately realising that whoever was at the door had probably seen him take the serum. He cursed himself for not checking everyone was in bed, but then, how was he to know he wasn’t the only one up?

“Are we going to talk about that,” the deep, but soft, voice of Mack rolled out across the lab. Mack gestured towards the locker with his eyes and then closed the distance between them in several large steps. Were it anyone else and he would have been intimidating with his height, ridiculously overtoned physique and inability to wear anything other than vest tops, but somehow, despite all that, he came across as gentle and caring. Fitz had always admired that in him.

Realising Fitz hadn’t yet given him an answer he stuttered, “er… no…”

Mack waited a few moments, looked him up and down, before breaking into a slight smile and saying warmly, “Alright, that’s cool man. What are we building tonight?”

When Fitz had first met him he had originally thought him brutish, unrefined and just one of Coulson’s new hired muscle. In fact, before Fitz worked up the courage to talk to Mack, “Muscle” had been the nickname Fitz used for him whenever he mentioned Mack to others in the group. Skye and Tripp both laughed when he said it, Coulson frowned and May didn’t react at all – but then than wasn’t exactly uncommon. Simmons simply rolled her eyes and told him that Mack was really nice, and then adding that he wasn’t as nice as Fitz in response to the obviously wounded expression she’d drawn from him. Even Fitz had to admit, he was really nice. Looking back, Fitz couldn’t have been more wrong about the impressive man standing in front of him – indeed, Mack’s love of all things mechanical mirrored Fitz’s, albeit in a less sophisticated manner and he wasn’t a bad gamer either.

Honestly Fitz wasn’t sure if Mack was as good a gamer as he used to be before the hypoxia, Mack always struck a good balance; playing competitively enough for it to be fun, but never letting Fitz win outright like Skye did. When they first started it was clear that he wasn’t throwing his all into it so that it was a challenge for them both but with the serum though Fitz had noticed him breaking into a sweat during one of their last games. When he commented on it, Mack blamed the temperature of the lab jokingly, before admitting Fitz was getting better with a joke – I might actually lose for real now. If someone else had said that it might’ve offended Fitz but somehow, coming from Mack, it gave him a swell of pride. Simmons also seemed relieved that Fitz had found a friend in Mack, given that everybody kept treating Fitz like he was damaged it was nice to find somebody who didn’t seem to notice let alone mind the odd way he acted and his difficulty stringing sentences together.

“The brace,” Fitz answered, to which Mack nodded and walked over to the sink to wash his hands before they began. Originally it had seemed weird to work with another mechanic, especially one whose hands were always covered in motor oil, but Mack joined Fitz on around half of his late night building sessions – frequently enough to suggest that he too had trouble sleeping. They never spoke about that though.

“We should be nearly there with it shouldn’t we?” Mack asked enthusiastically as he wiped his hands against one of the towels, leaving dark oil stains on it.

“Yeah, we just need to, to…” he trailed off as he unlocked the locker with the brace designs in it and lifted a box of metal parts and pieces onto the lab table, immediately fishing out the pretty much finished contraption. He struggled with finding the next word in his sentence.

“Tighten the hinges?” Mack suggested, lifting the toolbox he had taken to leaving in the lab onto the table. When Fitz shook his head he continued, “Shave down the edges on the wrist loops?”

“No, well we need to do that too but…” He paused, closing his eyes as he tried to visualise the word. “Trackers!” He half-shouted, “We need to calibrate it to the trackers.”

The technology Fitz was referred to was based off Tony Stark’s Mark 42 suit; a series of markers are inserted under the skin across his body which allow the suit to respond to his actions. Of course in Fitz’s case he was only interested in installing them on his arm to help with the precise movements he had to make when building things. Fitz had begun work on the design for his prototype back at the Hub; using SHIELD computers to access case files from Stark Industries on the Iron Man suits. Sifting through the information had been frustrating at first as everything was Level 10 Classified and even after he’d got into the files, the only word he’d been able to find was “JARVIS” – everything else had been heavily redacted or worse yet deleted. When he asked Coulson about it, all the man had said was that Stark had hacked the SHIELD servers and removed a lot of his research from them, he claimed that Stark was a “private” person – something Fitz highly doubted. He had wanted to say, what kind of private person reveals to the world they’re a superhero on live television? But thinking back, Fitz realised he never did get round to asking it; not that it really mattered. The only thing that did matter was getting his hands on the software that would enable him to use his arm fully again.

Surely enough, bit by bit, or rather byte by byte, Fitz had uncovered a few lines of code and, with Skye’s help, was able to begin reverse engineering it for his own project. Strictly speaking it was highly unethical, every part of his scientific mind – or rather, ever part of the parts of his scientific mind that still worked – protested at plagiarising from Stark. Admittedly though, he felt much better about it when he remembered that the man had made his money and name in the weapon’s industry, and Fitz believed the use of his arm would let him save lives. Working on things had got much trickier after HYDRA resurfaced and they had to regroup from the series of attacks; he had had to shelf his designs until they were more firmly established at the Playground, eventually completing the software with Skye on the bus when he couldn’t sleep. When it came to incorporating the AI interface into his design he only made one major change – he changed the name from “JARVIS” to “JEMMA.” It seemed fitting since the real Jemma was also helping him to recover. In truth though it didn’t make that much difference as he removed the speech function from the AI; the thought made him smile a bit – despite everything, the great Tony Stark had obviously been lonely enough in his lab to need to create someone to talk to. Fitz had Simmons and now Mack; he didn’t need AI to keep him company.

“You sure you want to put them all in tonight man?” Mack asked him sceptically as Fitz pulled out an injector not dissimilar from the one that he administered his serum with and loaded it with the trackers. All in all there were some thirty to apply – five for each finger and the hand itself broken down with one per phalange and then two for each metacarpal bone, two for the thumb and the rest ran down his forearm. The thought of that many separate injections did make Fitz’s stomach turn, but it was better than continually taking the serum.

“Yeah,” Fitz mumbled almost so quietly that Mack didn’t hear him as he finished placing the last tracker into the injector. He took off the lab coat, only then remembering that he was still in his pyjamas, before rolling up his sleeve – exposing the bruised skin underneath. It made Fitz uncomfortable as he knew Mack would ask him questions and he couldn’t do this without Mack’s help – there was no way Simmons would agree to it. Sure enough, when Mack saw the discolouring running up his arm he confronted Fitz, the warmth of his voice laced with concern.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” It wasn’t a question and Fitz knew that, he couldn’t say no.

“The shaking,” Fitz mumbled, “I’ve found, I can…” he trailed off, unsure of what to say but this time Mack didn’t offer him words, just stared at him until he answered, “I’ve been able to stop the shaking, with a serum… but, it’s not… it’s not enough.”

“This serum,” Mack began, “anyone else know about it? Does Simmons?”

When Fitz shook his head Mack’s expression shifted from amiable to visibly concerned, the mechanic’s eyes traced up and down the trauma lines of Fitz’s arm; the red blotches where he injected himself and the pale blue and mulberry hues of the surrounding skin. When Fitz pulled out an acetate design indicating where each tracker needed to be placed and carefully laid it over his skin, so that it was clear where he would need to inject, Mack stepped backwards slightly, drawing away.

“I can’t do this without you,” Fitz told him truthfully, he knew how painful the trackers would be and there was no way he could install thirty of them successively – he would need Mack to do it. The main part of the brace was finished; with this done he would have the use of his arm by morning and not have to take the wretched serum again.

“Are you sure?” Mack asked him, staring intently into Fitz’s eyes as he did so. The thought occurred to Fitz that Mack probably knew how painful this was going to be and was offering him a way out. When Fitz nodded Mack began tying leather loops around the table to pin Fitz’s arm – for this to work he had to keep it completely still, which Fitz doubted he’d be able to do once they got started. In what seemed like no time at all, they were ready to begin; Mack looked at him once more “you don’t have to be awake for this. I can get some anaesthetic…”

“No,” Fitz told him determinedly, stringing together a full sentence almost without gaps, “I need to be able to move it afterwards… the erm, anaesthetic, will just… get in the way.”

Mack nodded and pressed the cold nozzle of the injector against where it needed to be on Fitz’s arm. The young scientist took a deep breath before Mack squeezed the trigger. There was a sickening hiss sound from the delivery mechanism and a trickle of blood bubbled up from where the tracker was now lying buried. Fitz winced in pain, letting out a sharp breath and a curse. It didn’t take long for the second, then the third, and then more, trackers to be injected and as Mack worked his way further and further up Fitz’s arm until he reached the hand tears began to well up in Fitz’s eyes. It wasn’t just pain, he was introducing new components to his body; his arm ran hot underneath the surface of his skin and each new marker seemed to itch and burn more uncomfortably than the last. By the time it came to attaching them to his fingers Mack had to force Fitz’s hand open with each shot as it instinctively screwed into a fist.

“Four more,” Mack said after what seemed like an eternity, tears were flowing freely down Fitz’s cheeks, rolling under his jaw and dripping onto the table. It made Mack sick to see the young scientist in so much pain. “We can stop.”

“No.” Fitz growled with an aggressive determination that unnerved the mechanic, Fitz’s face was pale, his hair matted and his brow coated in sweat. His entire frame was shaking and he breathed heavily, looking away from his now bloodied arm. “We’re almost there.”

Mack nodded and, after a brief joke about it maybe being better if Fitz had just replaced his arm entirely, sped through the last shots; thankful that the affected area of Fitz was restrained on the table rather than free to lash about. When the last tracker was in he threw the injector against the lab table in disgust and placed his hand on Fitz’s shoulder, “let’s hope this works.”

The idea that it mightn’t work hadn’t occurred to Fitz, who immediately laughed in a worryingly delirious fashion at the thought that he could have gone through all that pain for nothing. Even as Mack undid the straps binding his arm to the table Fitz continued to let out small giggles while wiping the blood from his arm with tissues.

“You ready?” Mack asked, his anxiety evident in his voice, as Fitz slipped his arm into the brace he’d designed and Mack had helped him build. They hadn’t yet worked out how to condense the power source so for now they simply ran the brace off two bulky batteries; Fitz made a note to consider looking at Stark’s arc reactor technology. The design itself was fairly simple: a series of surprisingly thin metal rods ran from his upper arm to his wrist and then branched out to cover his hand like a gauntlet. These rods could become magnetic when a current ran through them and were designed to counter the shaking by sending a series of fast electrical charges through alternating rods according to the movements registered by the trackers. With the trackers doubling as receptors to the magnetism “JEMMA” could determine the appropriate magnetic pulse to stabilise or guide his motions according to his activity. That was the theory anyway, and since Fitz hadn’t come up with any other ideas but was desperate to come off the serum; he found himself praying it would work – even though he’d never been particularly religious.

Atop of the metalwork rested a generic plated leather sleeve that ended in black fingerless gloves – not that dissimilar from the tactical gear he’d seen May or Skye wear from time to time. The only difference was that about halfway up the underside of his forearm a hole had been cut through to make way for a thin touchscreen that allowed him to keep tabs on how the brace was functioning and to make any adjustments to the software he needed. By not addressing the power source concern the bulk of the design was relatively lightweight and barely visible under the sleeve – they had done such a good job with it that if you didn’t already know why he was wearing just one arm’s worth of combat leather, you could probably be forgiven for thinking it was just an obscure fashion sense. Even Fitz had to admit that it looked quite cool when he put a fingerless glove over his good hand to match, even if he didn’t have the full sleeve for that arm – or at least, it would look quite cool if he wasn’t standing in his striped pyjamas. Mack too, look impressed with the result.

In the short term Fitz clipped the two rather bulky batteries to his waist, leaving the cables above his pyjama shirt to hang freely and giving him unrestricted movement around the lab. He noticed his good hand shaking as he turned the power on the small screen cut out in the arm and booted up the interface. “Here we go,” he muttered and activated the machine, immediately gritting his teeth as electricity surged through his arm. He cursed loudly and dropped to his knees as a series of vibrations shot through his hand and the trackers powered up with the rest of the brace. It wasn’t painful, just extremely uncomfortable, and after a few rather excruciating moments the pressure that had started to build in the arm abated and he flexed his fingers into a fist shape, pleased with the new level of control. It had worked.

“Is it working?” Mack asked cautiously, ready to comfort Fitz in case it wasn’t.

“One way to find out,” Fitz grinned at him slightly mischievously.

“XBOX?” Mack asked, not sure how to respond.

“No… not XBOX…” Fitz smiled, jumping to his feet and rushing to the door, opening it with his now restored hand and continuing to flex his fingers, eager to find out exactly how precise his control was – whether or not it was similar to before the hypoxia.

The cold night air of the hanger stung Fitz’s cheeks, reminding him they were still wet from tears, as he ran out towards the weapons bay. Mack followed, taking long strides not to fall behind. Fitz hated guns, he always had, but they were a useful determiner of precision, the distance between a grouping of bullets would show him more effectively if his hand was sturdy than his own estimation ever could. When he arrived he almost ran straight into Koenig, stopping just in time to avoid knocking him over.

“Can’t sleep?” Koenig asked, his expression half amused and half unreadable; certainly not what you’d expect from a man who was almost knocked over by a scientist in pyjamas. Fitz got the distinct feeling the tone was accusatory though, as though he had to explain what he was doing outside the weapons area at this time of night – he found himself thrilled when Mack came to his rescue.

“He’s with me,” Mack said calmly as he rounded the corner of the corridor.

Koenig simply nodded his head and walked away, somehow that man seemed to merge into the very structure of the Playground as though he were a part of its mortar. Mack unlocked the target range and, once inside, noted that Fitz seemed to have a new lease on life with the physical symptoms of the hypoxia seemingly supressed. The engineer watched as Fitz rushed over to a computer by one of the target ranges and brought up his previous grouping results from the year before – despite his then steady hands he’d only just made it through weapons training. This image was then projected onto the target to allow for the shooters to measure improvement over time, his best grouping had a 14cm diameter between the furthest shots, the less said about his worst grouping the better. Strictly speaking this wouldn’t be a fair comparison: where before he had used both hands this time he intended only to use his weaker one, he was determined to see exactly how shaky it still was without interference.

The range was clear, the target set and Mack had brought him a loaded firearm and placed it on the table. As the young scientists hand hovered over the cold steel of the gun he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment and then wrapped his fingers around it. He heard a beep from his arm brace registering he was now holding a weapon (by the position of his fingers) and squeezed the trigger of the gun hard five times, trying not to wince with each loud crack like he had been told off for doing in training all that time ago. The result was incredible, or it would have been – if he had hit the target. The bullets had shot straight past the image of a man and nested into the concrete of the far wall some twice the distance away from what he was aiming at and yet the grouping between all five bullets was less than 6cm in diameter even at that greater distance.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Mack said incredulously as they walked down the training range to the holes in the wall, “maybe I should make on for me.”

Fitz couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, the brace was a success. It wouldn’t help him with finding words or remembering things any faster but with a little training in shooting one handed, it might well make him one of SHIELDs best field agents. Immediately ideas filled his mind of how he might incorporate the targeting system from Stark’s Iron Man suit into it, with that he could be as good a shot as May. He laughed, tracing his fingers around the holes in the concrete, enjoying the image of him icing whole cohorts of HYDRA soldiers. Jemma had been right, he always wanted to be a Field Agent, and nowadays SHIELD could use as many hands as it could get – even if they had to be guided mechanically. Though even then, in the midst of his joy, he knew he would never leave Jemma’s side.

He hit the floor, hard.

Fitz had always hated the medical bay – it had an annoying flickering light that made a faint but ever present buzzing sound. It was to this sound that he awoke, covered in sweat and suffering with a nasty tension headache. He immediately flexed his arms and was reassured to feel the cold steel against his weaker one; they’d left his brace on him at least. The blue hues of the room seemed to swim together as he blearily tried to focus on his surroundings. In front of him one of the nurses he didn’t recognise was checking his fluids and he was almost sure he could make out Skye sitting in the back of the room and several blurred figures watching him from behind the windows.

“Simmons.” Fitz mumbled, drawing the attention of both the nurse and Skye. Skye rushed over to him, turning to the nurse to ask a question.

“Is he alright?” She asked. The nurse took his temperature, shone a torch in his eyes, checked her notes and the computer readings before answering.

“It seems likely the worst has passed, of course we won’t know anything for sure until Simmons has finished with the bloodwork.”

“Good,” Skye said, looking visibly relieved, before she rounded on Fitz and struck him hard in the chest with her fist.

“What the bloody hell was that for?” Fitz responded, so shocked by Skye’s violent outburst he didn’t notice that he didn’t hesitate between any words in the sentence.

“Mack showed us what you’ve been injecting yourself with Fitz, what were you thinking?” He rolled his eyes at her and looked away but she continued, “This is serious.”

“I was thinking I’m no use to this team without both my hands,” Fitz shot back, once again not noticing he’d strung a second sentence together almost flawlessly.

“You scared us half to death; Simmons hasn’t stopped working on countering your serum since you collapsed.” Skye told him, obviously still frustrated, “and Mack wouldn’t leave your side until Coulson ordered him to.”

“Simmons knows?” Fitz half asked, hoping he’d misheard Skye – Simmons would give him hell for this he knew it. “Wait what do you mean, how long, er… how long have I been?” As quickly as it had gone his inability to find words returned.

“Unconscious?” Skye finished, “two days.” When Fitz said nothing she added, “That serum of yours, what is it?”

“A derivative of the GH.325 formula, mixed in with some mild sedatives and a few other nasties,” Fitz admitted, if Simmons had been working on it for two days they’d find out sooner or later. His honesty still earned him a second punch though.

“We still don’t know what that does to people,” Skye spoke, the concern evident in her voice.

“Well you’re fine, Coulson’s fine…” Fitz protested, he knew she was right but for some reason he felt the urge to argue.

“And Garrett turned into a psychopath,” she countered surprisingly aggressively, before lowering her tone, “you should have told me Fitz, that day on the plane.”

“You would’ve told Simmons,” Fitz said.

“I wouldn’t have–”

“You would have, and you would have been right to,”

They were interrupted by the closing of the medical bay door, announcing the arrival of Coulson and May. Coulson immediately turned to Skye and gave an order, “Fetch Simmons, she’ll want to see him – Mack too.” Skye left straightaway and in her absence an uncomfortable silence fell on the room.

“Sir–” Fitz began but was immediately cut off.

“What you did was reckless and irresponsible; you understand you could’ve died.” Coulson told the young scientist, the slight sparkle in his eye the only indication that Coulson was happy to see Fitz wake up. “You should have informed us about your serum Fitz, we could have monitored you, ensured you were safe. You should have at least told Simmons.”

Fitz was silent but gave no indication of regret for his actions, he didn’t want to scare Simmons and he didn’t want to alarm the group. It was his choice to do it.

“That being said, the results of your last grouping with that brace were beyond impressive, with some training in one handed shooting you can be practically as good a shot as May. That brace, it’s good work Fitz.”

“Thank you sir,” he answered, relieved that Coulson had mentioned something he wasn’t angry at Fitz about.

“But if you ever do something as stupid as testing an unapproved serum on yourself again,” Coulson trailed off, his voice was dripping in threat but he seemed unwilling to let himself get too angry at Fitz given the young scientist’s state. After a few moments he settled with “We’ll have to have a discussion about your future with SHIELD.”

A second awkward silence descended, mercifully broken by a flustered Simmons bursting through the door and practically throwing herself on top of Fitz. She held him in a tight embrace, showering him in soft kisses, before pulling herself away and thumping him in much the same way that Skye had done. “GH.325 Fitz, what went through your head?” She snapped angrily, Coulson seemed to stand straighter at the sound of the formula’s mention.

“I didn’t want to be…” he paused, the word he was searching for sat in his throat like acid, “broken.”

“Fitz don’t be stupid, you’re not broken – look at this,” she pointed at his braced arm, “we all saw the grouping, you built this. You’re far from broken.”

She gripped him in a vicelike hold, hugging him so tight he thought his lungs might explode. Tears rolled down her cheeks as their lips locked in a heated, needy, kiss.

“You scared me so much. I love you Leo Fitz,” she whispered to him softly, “remember, you’re my man from the sky – you’re my hero.”

“I love you too,” he whispered back, arms resting on the small of her back as their lips explored each other. “I’ve always loved you.” She let out a slight, arousing sigh when he said that.

 “You’re nearly there Fitz, you’re nearly better.” She said while Coulson and May sheepishly left the two young lovers together, “but your condition doesn’t change how much I love you, not at all. Promise me you won’t take the serum again, no matter what happens.”

“I promise.” Fitz swore truthfully after deciding for a few moments.

“I love you Leo.”

“I love you Jemma.”

That night, having been released back to the BUS to sleep next to Jemma – he refused to spend another minute next to the buzzing light, Fitz had his first restful night sleep since her fall; free from nightmares and interruptions. Whatever the side effects of the serum, they’d face it together come the dawn, but for now, he simply enjoyed the warmth of their loving embrace.