Lab Assistant
An Agents of SHIELD fanfic by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio


As a rocket scientist-level engineer, Leo Fitz believed only in science, in technology, in anything he could control and manipulate. Unlike his stalwart partner, he preferred the mechanical aspects of their work because machines were reliable in their results (so long as they were properly maintained). He liked the orderly and straight answers he retrieved from computers and drones and the way they didn't act up. He liked the cold, emotionless, precise responses from the pieces of his equipment. He liked the certainty of outcomes in his weapons. He was in the firm belief that there were no (unwelcome) surprises in engineering except from the limitation of his imagination.

Perhaps a small part of his love for engineering was due to his dislike of meddling with living, moving specimens, which could act and react to probings in nasty, icky ways. He always got a chill up his spine when Simmons examined anything vaguely alive. Despite his long partnership with her, the more he sees Simmons tackle her experiments enthusiastically, the more he was thankful that his research partner freed him from the necessity of dissecting anything that might move - his disgust with that side of things never gets easier even with familiarity.

His one exception to his lack of fascination with - or perhaps even the fear of - the life sciences was... well...

Simmons blamed Aladdin completely. But no matter how much she argued that it couldn't possibly make good scientific or engineering assistant, or how neglected the D.W.A.R.F. drones would feel, to say nothing of the potential carnage it would wreck in the lab, Fitz had always wanted a pet monkey.

No, screw that. A monkey assistant. An intelligent, brave, obedient monkey assistant like Abu. He could do all the kick butt things and slip in everywhere, using his adorable little hands in ways his drone babies couldn't possibly do without adding mechanical limbs (which would mean added weight, hampering their flight abilities).

Except for Simmons, Fitz would drop dead before entrusting his work to any other living creature. Unless he had his monkey of course. Maybe that's the real reason Simmons never went on board with the idea. He really had to convince her that neither she nor the drones would be any less important to their work even with the addition. After all, Simmons could surely see in the end what a difference an extra pair of (adorable little) hands would make.

And in the meantime, while he worked on getting Simmons to agree to requesting the new member of their lab family from HQ, he could spend his free time in between designing and redesigning weapons, tinkering with the drones, calibrating their forensics equipment and checking out Skye, to fine-tuning his design for the new assistant's uniform (everything but the little hat was negotiable) and figuring out the division of responsibility so that his little helper's induction into their family would be so smooth that Simmons would thank him one day.

- Finis -