The game on the TV had Mack riled up. Loud and riled up. Fitz did not do well with loud, shouting men that were larger than him, it brought back too many bad memories. Mack really wasn’t an angry man and had a seemingly endless supply of patience but not when he was so many beers in, and his team were losing this badly. He was shouting and gesturing, and Fitz had never seen him worked up quite like this. When they were out in the field Mack always held back, kept himself calm. When Mack and Fitz spent time together, he was gentle and soothing.
They were in the lounge, Fitz sitting close by Mack on the sofa in their usual spot. Fitz really had preferred how the evening begun. They had been watching a film, just the two of them, and Mack’s arm had ended up around him. They’d been dancing around something for a while, and maybe tonight with just the two of them and only the flickering light from the screen, Fitz thought maybe something had been going to happen. He was sure he was reading it right. They were friends, but it was more, there were the looks they shared, the almost constant little touches. He’d watched films with friends before, but he’d never cuddled up with them, never let his head rest on their large firm muscular chest on a sofa in the dark.
Then Hunter stormed in and threw himself in a chair opposite and the moment was gone. Hunter was loud and brash and bored, which meant they were stuck with him. When Mack turned to continue his friendly argument with Hunter it meant taking his arm away from Fitz. Fitz felt the cool loss of Mack’s warm heavy arm and took a long pull of his beer. It was bad timing, this interruption, but if anything was going to happen between them it wasn’t going to be tonight. Maybe a night of sports and beer would do them all some good, let them blow off some steam. They didn’t get many chances to truly relax.
As it turned out, it was apparently an important game that was on, and it wasn’t even soccer or anything Fitz counted as proper sport, but Mack clearly did. This new side of Mack was a little intimidating. ‘Idiot!’ Mack screamed at the screen, ‘how can you be so stupid!’ Fitz tried not to move, held in the urge to run. Stupid. That was a word Fitz knew. Stupid. Not good enough. Worthless. No, he shook his head to try and dislodge the thought and took a swig of beer, his heart beating hard in his chest. He was safe, it was Mack. Mack who was good, and kind, and handsome and who understood him. Then a different face flickered across his vision. This one was blonde like he was. They shared the same blue eyes, but this man’s eyes were cold. Emotionless. Dead. This face had a cruel grimace, this face shouted and screamed and spat. Fitz tried to blink the thoughts away, his chest heaving.
The action on screen was heating up again and Mack half stood in frustration and heavily sat back down on the sofa. ‘Useless!’ his long arms gesturing to the television. ‘Useless fucking- ,’ and as he turned to explain to Fitz exactly how terrible they were, his arm followed, and Fitz, Fitz just reacted. It wasn’t just the way Fitz flinched so far back away from him, although that hurt, it was the terror in his wide blue eyes. He was terrified. Fitz was scared of Mack, as if Mack would ever do anything to hurt Fitz, as if he ever could.
They both froze for a moment. Fitz could see the pain in Mack’s eyes and knew he had to say something to make it go away. ‘Sorry, I, um, I just.’ Well that hadn’t helped any, of course now he couldn’t get the words out, when he really needed to. Mack’s brown eyes looked sad, but he just downed his beer and turned back to listen to Hunter. Shit thought Fitz. He hadn’t meant to make Mack feel bad, it was hardly Mack’s fault that Fitz was like this, so broken, so nervy.
They watched the rest of the game, but Mack didn’t shout like before. They stayed up, drinking and playing Xbox and talking about nothing but Fitz felt Mack being careful with him. There was none of the usual teasing, the back and forth of banter that Fitz thought was part of how they flirted with each other. Fitz made sure to involve himself in the conversation, to make sure Mack could see he liked him, he wanted to talk to him, it wasn’t Mack that he flinched away from. Eventually Hunter yawned and headed off to his bunk leaving the two of them alone again. ‘Another game?’ Fitz said, gesturing with the controller and grinning at him. Mack looked over at Fitz, an awkward silence between them before Mack said, ‘I think actually, I’ll just head to bed.’
No, this was all going wrong, Fitz knew he had to fix this. ‘Mack, please don’t go.’ Mack turned to Fitz with surprise on his face as Fitz grabbed his hand and held it in his, looking up at him plaintively. Mack was clearly confused. ‘It’s okay Turbo. You don’t trust me, after the temple. After I tried to, tried to hurt you.’ There were tears in Mack’s eyes, but he held them in. Mack really thought that was behind them, Fitz had been the only one who hadn’t once looked at him differently since that day. A horrible day in Mack’s life, the day he’d been possessed in the underground city and tried to take out his team. It hadn’t been Mack, he was not in control, but now it seemed Fitz hadn’t been as okay with that as he thought. He thought Fitz knew him, inside and out, and it pained Mack that Fitz still thought there was a part of him with that capacity for violence.
‘No Mack,’ Fitz spluttered, ‘that’s not-, I know you would never hurt me.’ Fitz looked genuine, he was clearly as upset as Mack was. Mack felt Fitz’s thumb stroking up and down the back of his hand. ‘Turbo, I saw it, that look in your eyes-,’ and then he was blinking back tears. ‘Nooo,’ and Fitz brought his hand up to Mack’s cheek. He looked him straight in the eye, this was the time to be brave. He had to do this for Mack, had to make sure he didn’t think of himself this way. ‘Please, just listen to me okay? Will you do that?’ and he saw Mack nod.
Fitz wasn’t sure he could look at Mack while he did this, so he tucked himself under Mack’s arm, the way he had been earlier, and lay his head in the crook between his chest and his arm. He wrapped an arm around Mack’s stomach and gently stroked it. They had never been this blatant with their physical closeness before, but Fitz wasn’t sure he could do this if he didn’t have Mack’s comforting presence next to him like this. He felt himself calm and relax at the heat of Mack’s body, the feel of his breathing. ‘It wasn’t you Mack. I know it looked that way, but it really wasn’t.’ Mack went to interrupt but Fitz stopped him. ‘P-please Mack, please just listen.'
'I-I’ve never been good with loud voices.’ Fitz paused to gather his thoughts. Words weren’t his strong point anymore and he really didn’t know what words to use here. He didn’t want Mack to think he was even more of a broken mess than he already knew. 'When I was growing up, my D-,’ no, Fitz wasn’t going to use that word, he was never that to Fitz, ‘when I was growing up there was a lot of shouting. Sometimes I think I’m past it and, I just get brought right back there. That’s kind of what happened earlier.’ Fitz peeked up at Mack to see how he was reacting to this. He looked sad and thoughtful, but he hadn’t left, he was still here with Fitz. That had to be a good sign.
This was the hard part. He had never said these words to anyone, not even to Simmons. ‘Sometimes, it was loud, and there was shouting, and,’ he took a breath and started again. ‘Sometimes there was h-h-hitting.’ He paused. It felt odd to say those words out loud. Simmons was probably smart enough to have guessed but he’d never actually told her. It was kind of cathartic but he wasn’t really sure how to continue now. He didn’t want to relive it, go through what happened. He didn’t want to find himself back there in his mind, to remember living that way.
He felt Mack’s arms close around him and he was being pressed into that big warm safe chest. Mack’s hands rubbed up and down his back, and Fitz felt safe. He had told someone, he had said it out loud, and it was okay. He sighed into Mack’s chest and closed his arms around him. ‘Turbo,’ Mack mumbled into his neck, ‘I’m so sorry. No one should have to go through that.’ Fitz pushed himself back so he could look into Mack’s eyes. ‘It’s okay Mack, well not okay obviously, but I’m sorry I made you worry like that. I thought I was over it. I know you’d never hurt me,’ and they were back staring into each other’s eyes. This time Mack brought his hand up and stroked gently down Fitz’s cheek. Fitz closed his eyes at how nice it felt and when he opened them Mack’s face was close, so close he could feel the warmth of his breath.
They held themselves like that for a beat longer before they were both leaning in until their lips finally met. It was a soft kiss, full of emotion, but it soon became something more. Their lips moved firmly against each other, their mouths opened, and Fitz slid his tongue into Mack’s mouth. Mack groaned and pulled Fitz across so Fitz was now nestled in his lap. This was a much nicer angle to kiss at Fitz thought as he flung his arms round Mack’s neck and they didn’t part until they began to run out of breath. They both smiled at each other, big cheesy grins, entirely happy with how the night had ended up.