Hero

Leo Fitz

The taste of blood was strong in his mouth; a full assessment of his physical state would have to wait until they weren’t being shot at but at a guess Fitz estimated he’d fractured at least three ribs, quite possibly broken his nose and dislocated two fingers on his right hand – his good hand. HYDRA had struck out at them from nowhere, one moment they were in the air headed for Puerto Rico and the next, May had screamed out to hold on before the entire plane shook violently. A few very bright flashes and loud bangs later and the fuselage tore apart, jettisoning anything and anyone that wasn’t bolted down. Now, he had no idea where he was and couldn’t make out many landmarks through the dense jungle foliage they had landed in. Despite his condition he was already on his feet working through which countries had this kind of ecosystem – he wasn’t in Puerto Rico that’s for sure (they were too far away at impact), maybe Haiti, or the Dominican Republic.

The young scientist groaned in pain and wondered how the rest were faring – Skye was with him, he knew she was hurt but he didn’t know the extent of the damage. Neither Morse nor Hunter were on the BUS when it was hit – they were with Tripp and Mack on the Quinjet – and he hadn’t seen what happened to Simmons, she was in her bunk reading when the plane was hit whereas he had been on the hold by Mack’s garage. Koenig had been on the stairs when the plane broke apart and the last thing Fitz saw of him was him disappearing into a small speck, arms still holding onto the staircase railing. As for Coulson and May, they were both in the pilot’s cabin strapped down. Not that he expected they had fared any better than him or Skye, in fact he suspected they were worse, much worse. Fitz knew from the enormous plume of smoke rising from the treeline in the distance that the fuel in the BUS’ wings must have ignited – probably on impact. If anyone was still in the BUS when it touched down they would be… gone…

Oddly, Fitz didn’t feel anything at all – he knew he should be worried for them, he knew he should be utterly petrified but the young scientist was in shock. His mind was cold and focussed: If Jemma had still been on the plane when Fitz fell then there was a chance, no matter how small, that he would find her at the crash site, therefore the only thing that mattered to him was getting to the BUS’ wreckage; he would deal with whatever awaited him there once he found it. But first he had the matter of Skye’s broken arm to deal with, not to mention his own not insignificant injuries. When the BUS was hit he and Skye were chatting by the cargo ramp and he instinctively ran to get his flight simulators (still left there from him and Simmons’ skydiving session) but before he had even managed to strap anything but the main harness to himself the plane had ripped apart and he had been forced to initiate the suit without any of the thrusters in the right place. This act had unfortunately led to some rather severe burns on his thigh and left forearm where the thruster’s flames were too close to him, his thin long sleeve shirt did nothing to protect him and left his raw and heavily blistered flesh exposed to the air. His brace, too, had suffered fire damage leaving it warped and broken, weighing down his shaking arm.

Being only half connected to his flight simulator the machine had barely responded to his commands and with the BUS descending faster than the maximum capacity of his suit even in peak conditions, he couldn’t get to anybody else except Skye – who was with him on the ramp but couldn’t fasten one of his suits in time. The fact that he had caught her surprised him, he had to switch off the thrusters altogether to try and reach her, relying on weight to get to her in midair like he did with Jemma all those months ago. When he finally reached her he had just enough time to reengage the suit before a very bumpy landing left them both with more cuts and bruises than either had ever had. If they could see how they looked, covered as they were in mud, sweat and blood, they would have thought they’d both been through the makeup department at a 1980s slash-horror flick. As it was, the mere sight of the other was enough to hammer home just how much trouble they were in; they had no food, no water and no way of knowing how far Mack and the team were from them, or how far HYDRA soldiers were away either. Fitz cursed as he picked up the remains of his battered radio unit and threw it into the nearby foliage, it was damaged far beyond repair even for his skillset.

After taking off his flight simulator Fitz immediately set about tending to Skye, helping her against a nearby tree stump and assessing her state. Jemma was always better at physical inspections than he was but even he could see what was wrong. Other than the broken arm Skye had sprained her wrists trying, unsuccessfully, to cushion the rough landing they’d had and worse still was a nasty red patch spreading across her white shirt from her side. He pulled up her now stained top and found the problem immediately, a small piece of shrapnel was pressed inside her, not four inches across from her abdomen. When it caught slightly on her shirt she shrieked so loudly it surprised him – he jumped backwards, tripping on his feet and landing on his burnt patch of arm, cursing loudly.

“We need to leave it in,” he half shouted, his voice deep and growling from his own pain. “We don’t have the, erm, the… supplies…” He offered by way of explanation.

“I know,” She said through gritted teeth, tears rolling down her face.

Content that she had nothing imminently life threateningly wrong with her, the shrapnel was stopping most of the blood loss, and that none of the other cuts were deep enough to cause any lasting damage he turned to himself, straightening out and standing unsteadily. It was only as he stretched that he suddenly became aware of the agony that was wracking his body – the adrenaline and shock had dampened much of the pain until then. All at once he felt the pains of a hundred cuts and scratches, of the deep burns across his thigh and arm, of his dislodged fingers on his right hand. He was light headed, sick, and the soft steady flow of warm blood from somewhere above his brow obscured his vision in one eye. Tears burnt in his eyes but whether they were just from the pain or from fear he couldn’t yet say. His entire left arm was seizing up under the weight of the broken brace and a piece of the frame was sticking uncomfortably into his skin from where it had buckled inwards.

“Fitz, you should not be standing – can you see yourself?” Skye asked, wincing in pain as she leaned back against the tree stump. Her arm had a disgusting dark purple mark in the middle where the break was. He ignored her comment, running his two good fingers lightly across his side through his shirt, gasping as their tips brushed over the damaged areas.

“Three.” Fitz muttered to himself, answering his question of how many ribs were fractured or broken, before asking louder to her, “How many guns have we got?” He attempted to undo his shirt to take a look at his chest to judge how bad the fractures or breaks were. It wouldn’t help the stinging pain in his lungs but it would at least give him peace of mind and an idea of whether they could press on to the crash site or if they’d have to wait for rescue. The task of undoing his shirt, however, proved much more difficult than he’d expected; with the brace burnt he couldn’t stop his hand shaking and the dislocated fingers on his good arm meant he ended up just pulling the shirt open by tearing off the buttons, grunting as he looked down at the mulberry coloured swelling on his chest.

“Unless you brought any just one,” Skye answered; trying to take off one of the two shirts she was wearing (a long sleeve chequered red top worn over her usual white tee shirt) but failed to pull her broken arm out of the sleeve.

“I’ll take it,” Fitz told her as he pulled out a small vile from a compartment on his arm brace, letting out a great sigh of relief to find that it was not broken from the fall.

“Fitz your brace is busted – I can see that from here, and unless your fingers are meant to look like that,” she said gesturing to his hand with the dislocated fingers, “then somehow I doubt you’ll be able to even hold it, let alone shoot it.

“I don’t need the brace Skye,” he told her calmly, closing his eyes as he prepared for what he was about to do.

“No! Not a chance!” She yelled at him as she caught sight of the vile of his serum he was holding, “Fitz that stuff almost killed you last time.” She leant forward as if to stop him but was prompted by searing pain from the shrapnel and collapsed back against the tree stump exhausted. Her skin seemed paler than normal.

“We’ll both be dead if I don’t,” Fitz said and heard the familiar sound of the delivery mechanism injecting his serum. He gasped and scrunched his eyes tight as that familiar warm and fuzzy pleasure immediately spread around his body, blotting out the pain he was feeling and giving him an unusual clarity of thought.

“Fitz!” Skye called out but he remained motionless in the bliss of his serum, his face breaking into a grin so wide that it tore open some of the scabs around his mouth and cheeks.

“I’m fine,” he grunted as he came down from the high slightly and walked over to her to take the sidearm holstered on her thigh. Next to the pistol was a single magazine, not more than 20 bullets in total between both it and the rounds already in the gun. “This all?” He asked, hoping she’d shake her head and point out some hidden stash of ammunition. To his dismay, she nodded. He cocked the gun, taking off the safety, and tucked it into his belt for quick access – he still would have preferred his ICER but then, needs must and they were in need. “We have to get moving.” He said, more coldly than he intended.

“Well I’m glad you’re feeling better but in case you haven’t noticed I can’t stand,” Skye snapped at him bitterly, her hand closing around the piece of shrapnel as though to prove it. Her breathing was becoming steadily more laboured and he could see her hand with the sprained wrist shaking more than it should.

“We can’t stay here,” Fitz answered equally intensely, “HYDRA –”

“Will head straight to the crash site.” Skye cut across him, puffing herself up to speak before sinking back from the exertion. “And serum or not you are in no state to fight – how do we know you won’t just drop unconscious again?”

“We don’t.” He answered simply and looked around them more fully, taking in their surroundings more fully. The rush of adrenaline seemed to kick start something in him, for the first time since he drowned his thoughts seemed just a little less disjointed. He’d only been speaking in simple sentences but the words were closer than they had been in months. One word in particular hovered in his mind with every passing breath… Jemma…

“She’ll be alright Fitz.” Skye said after a while, watching him as he struggled to figure out what they should do. Skye knew Fitz was weighing up the option of whether to leave her to find Simmonds or whether to stay and risk HYDRA striking and finishing off whoever was left from the BUS alone.

“You don’t know that,” Fitz half yelled, surprised at the anger and panic that was boiling over in him. The odd sense of calm and his ruthlessly pragmatic approach to the situation began to fall apart under the increasing sense of dread and fear he felt for Jemma. He could get there on his own but not with Skye, not in her state, he would have to leave her there.

“Was there ever anyone else… except Simmons?” Skye asked, suddenly sounding very tired and frail to Fitz’s ears. She looked it too. The fire she had summoned up to object to him taking the serum had clearly drained her; it was all she could do to stay awake. Her wounds were taking a very heavy toll on her – he couldn’t leave her there, and yet they couldn’t stay either.

“No,” Fitz said quietly, knowing it was the truth. Since the moment he set eyes on her, the first friendly face he’d met at the Academy, he knew she was the one for him. Despite his complete faith in his science he couldn’t explain how he knew that, he just knew that he did.

“Then go…” Skye breathed out, groaning as she leant her head back against the branch. The colour seemed to drain from her face yet further with each passing moment and she gave a couple of sickly coughs. He couldn’t believe how much he missed her usual smile.

“I’ll not leave you.” He promised her, inwardly cursing himself for even considering the idea. She wouldn’t likely survive long on her own even if they weren’t being hunted for by HYDRA, and suppose he got killed she would be left to slowly bleed out with no way of calling for help. The chances of Mack and the rest of the team finding them without a tracking beacon and in forested terrain were slim… no, Fitz couldn’t leave her. But he could bring her with him.

He rushed over to his damaged flight simulator and turned on its interface, entering numbers through the cracked touchscreen. He detached the parachute, the oxygen and a whole host of the other unimportant functionalities before bringing just the thrusters and fuel lines over to where Skye lay prone. Her breathing was shallow enough that he gave her the oxygen he’d removed before connecting her arms and legs to the thrusters, angling them away from her. They couldn’t stay here – despite the dense foliage and trees around them it was not readily defensible with too many vantage points from too many places able to target them. They needed to go and if Skye couldn’t walk there on her own steam, she could do it with the flight suit – it didn’t have enough fuel left to enable her to actually fly, but it could make her practically weightless. Skye had her eyes closed and was mumbling incoherently by the time he finished adjusting the suit for her settings, Fitz guessed she must be suffering from more severe internal bleeding than he’d originally thought.

“I’ll take care of him,” she struggled out to nobody in particular, “I promise...”

“Skye?” Fitz crouched by her side and placed his good hand on her shoulder, flinching slightly as his dislocated fingers twitched at the contact. She blearily opened her eyes but couldn’t hold them open. Something was very, very wrong. It wasn’t until he felt a slight dampness by his feet that he looked down and noticed a growing crimson-black patch spreading across the dirt stemming from the shrapnel wound in her side – the shrapnel was clearly not, as he had thought, plugging the injury and stopping the blood flow. At this rate, plummeting as she was in a rapid decline, she didn’t have long.

“Fitz?” She breathed meekly, her voice a weak imitation of its former strength; strength that she had had just moments before. Her skin was greying.

“Skye stay with me,” Fitz asked her, half commanding half begging.

“I’m… tired…” Fresh waves of lighter crimson rolled over her white shirt. It made Fitz feel sick.

“Stay awake Skye, you have to, erm, stay awake…” he trailed off before cursing at the fact he could barely put a single sentence together – if there was ever a time he needed to speak cogently and coherently it was now.

“Fitz…” She struggled out again, her body was trembling. He had never thought Skye, now one of the best field agents he’d ever met, could look so weak or so frail.

“Don’t try to talk Skye,” he ordered her, lifting up her white shirt and inspecting the slightly dislodged piece of tarnished metal sticking from her side.

“Fitz!” She cut across him in frustration, for a moment her eyes opened and bore a fiery spark of her normal self. Her face was still a wreck, covered in cuts and bruising just like his. Within seconds that spark was gone and she mumbled something so quietly he couldn’t make it out. He leant in closer until his face was right next to hers and, rather than speak, she arched her neck and planted a soft, blood-soaked kiss on his unsuspecting lips. A smile flickered across her face for a moment before she seemed to collapse inwards and fell unconscious.

“SKYE!” He yelled at her, whether for the kiss or fear of her dying he didn’t know and instinctively busied himself trying to stop the bleeding. He detached the thruster from her arm and pressed it against her stomach, facing sideways towards the shrapnel, before taking a deep breath and in one smooth movement twisting out the piece of metal and engaging the thruster, searing the wound closed.

She screamed… and then was silent.

By the time the first bullet ricocheted off of a nearby tree, Skye was still breathing – but faintly. Fitz knew their situation was poor: HYDRA was within striking distance and with Skye unconscious they were stuck. Added to that they only had twenty bullets and the targeting system for Fitz’s brace was misaligned (where the thrusters had warped the metal) they didn’t stand a chance. It had been Fitz’s hope that if he could wake Skye up then she could use the flight simulator and they could get to a better position but she showed no signs of immediate recovery and he didn’t have time to wait anymore. He picked up the thruster he’d used to burn her wound shut and pulled back the chrome plate cover to see the fuel canister inside – it had just over forty percent left. As a second and third shot rang out and hit alarmingly nearby he fired a warning shot on his pistol into the treeline at nobody in particular, just to alert the attackers that he was armed and prepared to fight. If nothing else, it bought him time.

The signal to activate each thruster could be delivered remotely from the computer on Fitz’s wrist – a manual override of sorts in case something went wrong mid-flight. He had just enough time to disconnect four of the five thrusters from the suit, open the casing and jam the sharp edge of the shrapnel he’d pulled out of Skye into the fuel cell before the battle began. The rocket fuel he used was particularly volatile – it had to be in order to conserve space in his design – and with the fuel tank of each thruster ruptured the ignition would burn all of the fuel in one go. The ensuing explosion would not only project the casing of the thruster in all directions but also create a large enough fireball to make their position clear from the sky. Each one of the flight stabilisers that survived the impact with the ground became firstly what was essentially a highly unstable and very powerful grenade, but secondly they also served as flares to signal their location to Mack, Bobbi and Morse.

The few moments he bought himself were up and additional bullets bounced off nearby trees and shrubs. Although the HYDRA soldiers approached cautiously, they were approaching nonetheless and Fitz hadn’t had time to plant any of the newly weaponised thrusters. His best guestimate suggested he couldn’t throw them far enough for him to then escape the blast radius, thanks to his inclusion of arc reactor technology (courtesy of Stark Industries’ redacted files) even a tank with just five percent fuel would explode with almost three times the force of a normal grenade. He fired off two more warning shots into the treeline towards the HYDRA soldiers – he had no idea where they were or how many of them there were but his survival relied on buying time for them to be rescued, even if he just wanted to push on and find Jemma. Taking the last thruster from Skye’s suit, the unmodified one, he lashed it roughly to one of his grenades and dug it into the ground at a 45 degree angle. If this didn’t buy them some time he didn’t know what else would. He activated the first thruster.

The canister shot forwards through the shrubbery and out of sight. It wasn’t until he heard a couple of gunshots crack that, after taking instinctive cover behind a tree, he activated the converted thruster in the hope it had landed somewhere near his adversaries. For the briefest moment nothing happened. Fitz gripped the pistol so hard that his knuckles shone white, terrified that his gambit had backfired and he and Skye were beyond saving. That was until everything around him lit a bright shade of blue. Indeed the resounding boom was so loud it blew out his left ear drum and threw him face first into the dirt, even from behind the tree stump. The volume of the explosion left him with a high pitch ringing noise punctuated only by the pounding of his heartbeat, his ear felt hot and swollen as warm liquid trickled past his lobe. When he shakily turned around to see the effect of his IED on the HYDRA assault teams he could hardly believe what he was seeing. The enormous blue pulse that followed the explosion ensured that any foliage and trees blocking his eyeline before had been completely levelled: great snaking tendrils of fire rose up high in front of him, belching dark plumes of smoke and burning embers like swarms of fireflies against a night sky. Amongst the carnage, terrified HYDRA operatives scurried backwards for cover, clearly unprepared for anything like that level of resistance. Guilt descended on Fitz as he saw the many trees he had uprooted and shattered, the debris of which was likely more dangerous than the metal casing itself.

Even with this success time was against him and Skye. HYDRA could regroup faster than he could and he immediately picked up another of the primed thrusters and ran in the direction of the explosion. Fitz had to position it at about the same distance to avoid him and Skye getting hurt which meant running directly towards what was left off the HYDRA forward assault teams. Although the soldiers were still in complete disarray when he got to a tree suitable to place the first makeshift explosive, by the time he made to retreat they started taking shots at him. He fired several bullets from his handgun and even came closer to hitting one of the enemy agents but it didn’t do him much good, he felt a stabbing pain in his thigh and hit the ground, landing on his arm with the dislocated fingers and cursing loudly. At first glance he counted seven HYDRA soldiers within his immediate line of sight and desperately tried to crawl to safety. The nearest opponent was barely a stone’s throw away and Fitz was still firmly within the blast radius of his IED, unable to give himself the cover he needed in order to drag himself back to Skye and patch his leg wound. As the nearest HYDRA agent came almost close enough for Fitz to see his own reflection in the man’s gas mask visor the young scientist instinctively raised his sidearm and squeezed the trigger three times, putting three bullets through his opponent’s chest. The soldier dropped almost on top of him, the sight of the thick, dark blood bubbling up from the otherwise lifeless corpse of his would-be killer made Fitz feel sick.

Leo Fitz was many things but he was not a murderer. He had killed before and he knew he would likely have to kill again (though of course he’d do almost anything to avoid it) but he had to believe there was a difference between having to kill someone to survive and murder. Soldiers and field agents kill in wars all the time, Fitz reasoned to himself, and this was a war, a global war. SHIELD and HYDRA were the opponents and he was on the front line. The other agents were closing the gap between him and them. Fitz didn’t have enough time or strength to either get back to Skye or get out the blast radius of his planted thruster. He knew what he had to do to protect Skye and with HYDRA only seconds away from surrounding him, killing him and then killing her he used the body of the man he had killed for what little cover it would give him and set off the positioned thruster, hoping the body would be at least a partial ballast and shield him from the blast that would surely kill him. To his great surprise he found himself praying that it would take out enough of the HYDRA assault agents so as to prompt either a retreat or even a surrender and that even if he died, it would save Skye.

The wave of heat and force hit him hard, even with the HYDRA body in front of him he felt himself sliding into warm darkness in response to being thrown backwards. The morphine in his serum did little to block out the enormous rolling pain, reigniting the agony from the wounds he already had and adding fresh suffering as well. This second blast was so loud it made his tender head feel like it too was about to explode, as though someone had filled his skull with razor blades and then rattled it. He let out a strangled cry as he coughed on the dark smoke that engulfed him and tried to struggle to his feet, collapsing immediately as his leg gave out; the leg still oozing dark liquid from the bullet wound. His fingers scrambled through the upturned earth to find his pistol, having dropped it in the explosion, and when at last his hand brushed over it he clawed himself into a sitting position, using what was left of his brace to prop himself up. He remembered what Garrett had told him at the HUB; that if they caught him they wouldn’t kill him – they would make him comply, and Fitz didn’t want to comply. He would die before he let himself be captured.

The tragic truth of the situation struck him hard, his injuries were severe, Skye’s were worse. The likelihood of either of them surviving even if they weren’t surrounded in hostile territory by trained killers was slim. He had one last trick, one last chance that he could use to buy Skye some more time. It had taken him weeks to figure out how to power the brace in his suit, in the lab he had hooked it up to great batteries but when he came to design the thrusters for the flight simulator, the fuel cells in those turned out to be so efficient he ran the brace off of one. It was smaller by far than the type used in his suit but with more fuel left it would have a similar effect, only this time he wouldn’t be able to get away from the explosion. Using it would mean his death as well. As the ringing began to subside in one of his ears he made out muffled orders coming from somewhere in the dense smoke that surrounded him. He could make out soft balls of lights from torches in the darkness. From his half sitting position he couldn’t fire his pistol from his right hand, the dislocated fingers meant he couldn’t grip it properly, and his braced arm was holding him upright. He lie down against the cold mud, feeling some relief when he did, and took aim at the shadowed figures in the smoke.

He waited for what felt like a lifetime as droplets of sweat and blood and tears dripped from his face. His hand was steady in front of him, eyes lined clearly through the pistols iron sights. When at last his enemies revealed themselves he squeezed the trigger firing shot after shot at his adversaries and watching as one by one they fell down before him. With one final crack the slide of his gun cocked back fully and ejected its last, spent cartridge. He rolled onto his back and looked up above him, just making out the blue sky through the thick lingering smoke. If the BUS had been shot out of the air it was highly likely their other plane, with Mack and Tripp and Morse and Hunter, was down as well. Koenig was dead. Coulson and May were probably dead… and Jemma, Jemma. New tears streamed from his eyes. The empty gun in his hand slipped through his fingers and landed in the soft, tilled earth soundlessly. He shakily pressed the buttons on his brace to prepare it for self-destruction, having to use his middle finger because his index one was so disfigured. He closed his eyes, picturing the only face he wanted to see.

“I love you Jemma.”

His hand hovered over the final button, waiting for the new blurred shapes to get as close as possible before he pressed it. His qualms about killing dissipated as he pictured the cold, dead body of his one love and reminded himself that these were the monsters that did this… and he would take out as many of the bastards as he could before he died. The edges of his vision began to fade into darkness; one of them was getting close enough but even in his state he could see they weren’t wearing the standard HYDRA black. The blur knelt beside him and rather savagely yanked his hand away from his brace, squeezing it tightly in theirs.

And then he heard her.

“Oh, Leo.”

Jemma Simmons

The BUS shaking violently woke her up; the force of the sudden loss of altitude threw her into the ceiling of her and Fitz’s room. As everything started spinning she landed against one wall and then the other, hitting her head hard against the wooden bedside table. Orange light glowed through the port holes on the sidewall as the room warped around her; the steel bending and then snapping into different pieces. Her world literally fell out from under her as the room was ripped apart. She screamed for Fitz but against the whirring sounds of the engines and the roaring of the wind in her ears even she didn’t hear her own voice as he tumultuously plummeted towards the earth far below her. The cold air rippled through her clothes and nestled deep in her breast, she should have been terrified but curiously, she was not. In fact she felt oddly calm as the shock kicked in, even as she fell with the remnants of the BUS. While her gut and teeth clenched in reaction to the sudden freefall – in fact her entire muscular system had, predictably, seized up – she closed her eyes and enjoyed the spinning. It reminded her of her flight with Fitz, not the fall, but rather when they had tested out his flying apparatus.

That flight had been the most incredible experience of Simmons’ life. True, she had almost never been as terrified as the moment when the ground disappeared from underneath them and they free fell for an impossibly long thirty seconds, but even then she simply gripped Fitz’s hand tightly and focussed on him. Once the thrusters kicked in she realised she could control her movements in the air in much the same way one might control them while under water; simple adjustments to position and posture changed both her speed and direction with surprising ease, like swimming. She had never felt freer: they spiralled and soared, they twisted and tilted, they fell and they flew like they were born to do so. Being in the sky with him was like diving into a limitless, timeless ocean of loving warmth. She didn’t think she could remember Fitz ever looking as happy as he did, bathed in the orange light of the setting sun and grinning as he made motions so intricate it was clear he had tested the suit out before. Truthfully, they both glided with such grace and precision an observer would think they’d been doing it their whole lives.

Only, it wasn’t warm now. And Fitz wasn’t there with her. She forced her eyes open and spread her arms into a star shape, trying desperately to create a larger surface area. This time she knew she had very little chance of survival without intervention. Far below she spied out the shining red of Lola, Coulson’s flying car, remembering that he and Skye had once survived falling out of the BUS in it as she did. But it was too far, and there was no guarantee she could get it working even if she caught up – Coulson kept it under quite literal lock and key, mainly to stop Mack trying to drive it. Her heart skipped a beat when she noticed one of Fitz’s flight simulators in use in the distance but even far away she could tell something was wrong with it; it wasn’t working properly and its user was dropping far too fast for her to ever get to them. Nonetheless she found herself wishing it was Fitz; that he’d survive this awful ordeal, even if she didn’t – but she hadn’t told him. The thought of him living his life without her made her feel an overwhelming sense of pity for him; her death would be instantaneous, he would spend a whole life incomplete. Tears burnt in her eyes, made cold from the wind.

Scanning the rest of the wreckage through her windswept hair she resigned herself to her fate, closing her eyes and trying not to imagine the moment of impact. She wanted to focus on her second flight with Fitz, where they danced together in the sky, but her mind kept coming back to their first fall instead – when she nearly lost him. Then, as now, the thought made her sick. She attempted to hold on to that joy when he had given her the antiserum and held her so close to him that she thought he might break her ribs if he squeezed any tighter but her mind wandered to the cargo ramp where Skye tried desperately to resuscitate him, to Fitz’s panic stricken expression when he woke up and couldn’t breathe, drowning in front of them, to his relief when he spat out the water and looked to her – concern and love shining from him. After their second flight she told Skye what he had asked her to do, to jump off the plane in the flight simulator, and was shocked by the knowledge that everybody else already knew, they had known for weeks. While writing the software Skye and Fitz had already done several test flights together outside the Playground to make sure it all worked.

“You really think Coulson would let him risk his life like that?” Skye had said, before adding with an almost unnoticeable touch of sadness, “You really think he would have risked yours? He loves you Jemma, more than I’ve ever seen anyone love anyone.”

“You will look after him won’t you?” Jemma had asked, “If anything ever happens to me.”

“I’ll take care of him, I promise.” Skye vowed.

She was jolted from her memories by a pair of hands roughly grabbing her from behind accompanied by the familiar hard voice of May shouting something in her ear, the words lost against the great noise of the air. Jemma tried to turn to face her but doing so only made the two of them spin and pick up speed which in turn prompted May’s grip to loosen so much that she almost let her go. Finally stabilised in the air Jemma took stock of her surroundings, from her peripheral vision she watched Coulson, parachute on his back, diving down towards the ground at great speed but lost sight of him after she and May span slightly too far left. She saw the burning wreckage of the BUS strewn across the land below them, an enormous explosion erupted from one of the wings as it hit the earth alarmingly close to where they would likely land. As the dense forest approached rapidly on them Jemma felt a clip being fastened around her waist before she was jerked upwards as May’s parachute opened. Below them, Coulson’s parachute also opened and they gently glided towards solid earth, watching as the tall trees came closer and closer. May expertly steered them away from the large fire of the BUS’ fuselage.

The leaves and branches pressed across her their faces, leaving a couple of small scratches as they dropped through the treetop canopy. Getting down from the parachute proved problematic though as the got tangled in the uppermost branches and left both Jemma and May hanging quite some way above the ground. If the circumstances weren’t so desperate the thought had made her laugh that, after surviving the BUS being blown out of the air and getting safely to the earth, the short distance from where they were hanging to the mud below could still be fatal. With some grace May cut one of the most knotted ropes with her knife which dropped them some ten feet towards some branches that would be thick enough to carry their weight. By the time the two of them shakily shimmied their way along the tree and climbed down they were joined by Coulson and Koenig, the latter of whom seemed very pale. Simmons assumed Coulson had dived for him the same way May had dived for her.

“Fitz?” Jemma asked, the obvious emotion in her voice betraying her desperate desire for him to be alive.

“He was trying to put on one of his suits when the plane broke apart, with Skye,” Koenig said quietly, evidently in shock from what had just happened. She had been told that he very rarely was allowed to spend time in the field – he was too important to the running of the Playground and her sister stations. Her gut tensed at the memory of the faulty flight simulator spiralling into the distance, she doubted anyone would have survived that landing.

“How did they find us?” May asked, checking her pistol and switching off its safety.

“I don’t know.” Coulson replied, a dark patch of blood above his eye making him look weak for the first time. His expression was a mixture of concern and incredulity both at having survived the landing and having been shot out of the sky in the first place.

“Where are the others?” Jemma asked, holding her hands together to stop them shaking.

“I don’t know.” Coulson repeated, looking towards his feet in a resigned fashion that she had never seen from him before.

“We have to find Fitz and Skye.” Jemma said, turning to each person in the group one by one: first Coulson, then Koenig (who wouldn’t meet her gaze) and then May.

“And we will.” May answered putting a hand on Simmons’ shoulder before turning to Coulson. “Koenig,” she said so authoritatively it shook him out of whatever he was thinking, “Radio the jet – tell them we’re fine.”

Koenig nodded but before he had time to even unclip his radio a great wind blew down from above them, rustling through the tree leaves.

“Looks like they’ve found us,” Coulson said decisively, reassuming his mantle as team leader. Somehow the blood above his eye now served to make him look more serious, rather than weak, Simmons noted with some curiosity.

“Need a ride?” Tripp quipped over the radio at the same time as a rope came tumbling down through the tree canopy, complete with a harness to winch each person up to the jet – after all, the plane couldn’t land there.

Koenig went up first, then Simmons, May and Coulson in that order. Bobbi pulled her to her feet when she reached the top of the pulley and before she could catch her breath Mack descended on her, gripping her arm.

“Fitz with you?” He blurted out and stepped back dismayed when she shook her head.

“Have you heard anything, on the radio?” She asked nervously, not sure if she wanted to hear his answer. He placed his hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

“Nothing yet.”

“How did they find us?” May asked again as she climbed aboard the jet.

“We’re still checking,” Hunter answered, apologetic for not being able to give her a better response.

“Have you heard from the others: Skye, Fitz?” May asked, running a hand through her hair before turning and helping Coulson onto the cargo ramp of the much smaller jet.

“Quiet so far,” Hunter said; the lack of hope obvious in his voice, “and HYDRA ground crews are scouring the crash sights.”

Coulson nodded in understanding before handing out marching orders to the various members of the team. It was only when he said “Jemma,” loudly that she noticed she hadn’t been listening, and had instead been looking through one of the jets windows at the forest, wishing she could see where Fitz had landed, hoping beyond hope he would be alright.

“Sorry I–” she started but was cut off.

“If he’s out there to find, we will find him.” Coulson told her quietly, trying to give her hope. She felt her lip begin to quiver and tears escape her eyes.

“He could be hurt, and alone.” She found herself saying. “If he isn’t–”

She was interrupted by an enormous bang coming from the forest below.

“Tripp, talk to me what was that?” Coulson called anxiously through the cockpit door.

“Whatever it was it wasn’t us,” he snapped back, turning the plane slightly.

“Are we taking fire?” Hunter asked, gripping the side of the jet as though it were about to split apart.

“I don’t think so.” Morse answered; her hand ghosting over his.

“There!” Mack pointed out of one of the porthole windows to a large plume of smoke, “Right there!” As Simmons reached the glass a second, enormous explosion erupted with a bright blue flash.

“Fitz!” She exclaimed and, without thinking, took an assault rifle from the rack of weapons and ran to the rope, slipping harness around her and looping the rope through it. She didn’t know how but she just knew it was him. “Get me close!” She called out and, to her surprise, Tripp did. He flew so close the smoke from the fire flooded the hold.

“Simmons!” Coulson yelled. She was expecting him to stop her but instead he put his own harness on and pushed a pair of heat vision goggles in her hand to help with the low visibility. Admittedly, they were more hassle than they were worth as the smoke was hot enough to completely block out any other signatures.

The drop was short and sharp, her knees buckled when she hit the ground and she tripped forwards. In the moments before Coulson, May, Hunter and Morse also landed she looked around at the carnage, gripping her gun tightly. She could hear gunshots nearby but both with the goggles and her naked eye couldn’t make out a thing. When the others had safely landed they pushed forwards in the direction of the shots. Only, they went silent. The wind from the jet engines hovering over them started to clear some of the smoke and the true scale of the chaos became clear – all around them the half-melted forms of HYDRA soldiers lie prone, some of them still eerily twitching, perpetually reliving their death throes. She screamed out Fitz’s name but heard no response, she pushed forward until she could see the shape of a man in the smoke but it was not Fitz. She didn’t even realise she’d done it until the man dropped into a crumpled heap on the floor, but she had squeezed the trigger on her rifle.

“Over here!” Coulson called from somewhere behind her, and when she turned she saw him pointing out a twisted figure lying in screwed up against the floor.

She had never run so fast in her life.

“I love you Jemma.” The figure mumbled through cut lips, his fingers ready to press the button that would end it forever.

She closed the gap between him and her in seconds, realising what he was about to do and immediately grabbed his hand to stop it. He recoiled in pain and as she looked down at him, at the man she loved, she said in a mixture of wonder and pity and fear, “Oh, Leo.”

“Bloody hell,” Hunter muttered as he and the others gathered round Fitz and Jemma. While Coulson shot him a stern glance even he could see why Hunter said that: Fitz looked a horror. Deep burns, cuts and bruises covered his body, coated in encrusted blood and dirt. His hair and clothes were blackened and a bullet wound to his leg bled freely. It made Simmons want to throw up.

“Skye…” Fitz mumbled and twisted his head towards her direction.

Coulson nodded and ran with May to go to her while Hunter and Morse took crouching positions around Fitz and Simmons in case HYDRA regrouped.

“I didn’t think… I would see you again.” Fitz struggled out, his throat dry and body trembling under the exertion of speaking. His face broke into a slow smile, reopening many of the cuts around his mouth, “I’m glad I did…”

“Shhh…” Jemma said, running her hand through his blackened hair, her voice cracked with emotion “You’re going to be fine, you’ll see.”

“Jem…” he breathed, barely able to speak, before his eyes flicked shut and he felt limp in her arms

“Fitz?” She said, her voice small as she rocked him slightly in the hope his eyes would reopen. “Leo!” She half screamed as her tears dropped onto his emotionless face.

He didn’t know, she hadn’t told him.

The words flowed softly out of her mouth.

“Leo you can’t die, I can’t do this without you, I don’t want to… I love you Leo, I’ve always loved you… you have to live because, because you’re going to be a father.”