Written as a prompt for an awesome writer on A03. Prompt: Hydra!Jemma. Thanks for checking out and hope you enjoy!
"Jemma?" Fitz asked, standing there, arms raised looking at the woman he once classed as a friend, someone he once loved. It had been months since he had last seen her, months since she had last been heard off. She had went undercover in Hydra, and ever thing had been going fine, she had been passing regular updates to Coulson.
And then everything had went wrong.
Once Raina had leaked her photograph, all contact from her had ceased, no one knew where she had went or what had happened to her. No one could do anything. Bobbi had been pulled out, and she blamed herself for what had happened to the younger agent. Blamed herself for all the pain that Jemma might currently be enduring.
But now… now Jemma was here after so many months of being classed as MIA, so many months were no one knew if she was alive or being tortured. Where no one knew just nothing…
And now she was here, gun raised at him. Eyes wide.
"Jemma," he said again, though not a question this time. He tried to take her in, her pale complexion, the shaking of her hands as she held the gun, how her hair seemed so limp and lifeless. Just everything about her seemed so un-Jemma. "What…"
"Please," she cut in, her voice shaking as though she were trying not to cry. "Please Fitz."
"Please what?" he asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. Despite all that had happened, she had still left him, had still left him in his darkest hour, and… if he was being honest with himself, she didn't care about him now that he was different. She didn't care about him. "Join you? Or what? You'll shoot me? Because I would rather die than join Hydra."
A sob escaped her, and she lowered the weapon slightly. "They have…" a pause to take a breath. "They have Liza."
Fitz felt his blood turn to ice. Elizabeth Simmons… they had her sister.
Hydra.
Had.
Her.
Sister.
Everything started to make sense now, and the anger faded from him. They had her sister. They were using that against her, to make her comply…
Comply.
Brainwashing.
Ward had mentioned that once upon a time.
That's how they had gotten Jemma to where she was now.
They had threatened her sister to get Jemma to comply.
And Jemma would do anything in the world to keep Eliza safe. Anything.
"Please Fitz," she whispered again. Tears now made tracks down her face as he took a step forward, taking her in again but this time from this closer perspective.
And two of the things that he saw made him feel physically ill. Where her top was riding up he saw the tail ends of scars snaking around her stomach and sides, and her pupils were dilated… just what had Hydra done to make sure that she complied?
"Jemma," Fitz said again, hands still raised in the hair in a gesture of surrender. "If I come with you, if I let you take me, will they keep Eliza safe? Will they not hurt her?"
She gave a very small nod. "They won't hurt her."
He sighed. "Then I'll come."
She allowed her hands to drop by her sides as the door opened behind her and two Hydra operatives ran in and restrained Fitz.
"Thank you," she mouthed, only seen by him.
And he nodded in return, knowing just how much Eliza meant to her.
And if he could help keep her safe, then he would.
Bobbi had always said that Bakshi had a flair for the theatrics and if Fitz was going to be honest with himself, she always thought that she was over exaggerating, but now, sitting on one of the seats on Bakshi's private jet, he saw that in fact she wasn't over exaggerating.
That Bakshi did have a flair for theatrics. And Fitz couldn't help wonder if he was compensating for something.
"Where is she?" Jemma asked from the sofa just down from where their seats where.
Bakshi set down his champagne flume and shook his head, almost like he was disappointed in her. "What have we told you Jemma?"
She fixed Bakshi with such an intense and ferocious gaze that Fitz couldn't help but wonder just how much of her mind that Hydra owned, and just how much was hers. Doing what it wanted. Thinking what it wanted to think.
Unable to meet her unwavering gaze Bakshi sighed and waved his hand towards one of the guards at the door who opened it, and not two moments later a young girl came running in.
"Jemma!" she called out enthusiastically and jumping up on the sofa beside her. She wrapped her arms around her older sister, and instantly Jemma softened. But there was still something hidden, an urge to protect the younger girl.
Fitz watched the two, mentally working out how old that Eliza would be now. Five, he decided on, remembering that it would have been her fifth birthday the other week. And as he looked on, he couldn't help but wonder now just where her parents were.
"Jemma?" Eliza asked, knocking him out of his thoughts, holding something up to Jemma. "Will you?"
Jemma looked at the bag she was holding, full of hair bobbles. "Sure," she replied, her voice light and fun, as if she hadn't been trapped within Hydra all these months now.
"Thank you Jemma," Eliza replied, sitting with her back to Jemma. "Did I tell you my tooth fell out?" She spun around to show Jemma.
"No?" Jemma's voice her voice fully of shock. "When did that happen?"
"Last night. The tooth fairy hasn't been yet." There was a tinge of sadness to her voice.
Jemma picked up on this and was quick to reassure. "Maybe she was busy last night? Will we keep an eye out tonight?"
Eliza nodded, and passed Jemma the bag. Jemma accepted it with thanks, immediately taking a hand full of Eliza's hair and plaiting it.
"So, Mr Fitz," Bakshi began, knocking Fitz away from the two sisters. "Do you know why we're here?"
Fitz shook his head.
Bakshi gave him a wicked grin. "Hydra has been wanting to recruit you and Miss Simmons here…"
"Dr."
"Pardon?"
"Dr. Simmons. That's her proper title."
Bakshi looked at him, as though he were a puzzle that he was trying to work out. "Miss Simmons was easy enough to recruit once her parents were dead and we had Eliza…"
"Her parents are dead?" Fitz couldn't help the sorrow that flowed through him. Her parents were dead… they were practically family to him. They couldn't be… dead.
Bakshi nodded. "Indeed Mr Fitz. Once they were dead, and we had Eliza, Miss Simmons here was more than happy to comply. And we knew the same tactic would work on you."
"What do… what is it… what do you want?"
Bakshi smiled at him. "I want you and Miss Simmons to work together, at Hydra, with us."
"What? Where are we to live then? One of your dungeons?"
Bakshi had the nerve to laugh at this. "Mr Fitz, you'll find it's quite the opposite."
It was penthouse.
It was a penthouse of all things.
Eliza and Jemma had clearly been living there for a while now, toys were littered all over the floor and it just had the feel of being lived in. A feeling of home. As though Jemma had been trying to make it as happy and comfortable as she could for Eliza
"Jemma?" he asked, following her into it, and locking the door behind him. "Is everything… Jemma, what's going on?" Jemma was carrying the younger girl on her hip as they made their way in. Eliza had begged to be carried, saying she had sore feet and Jemma had given in easily. It was as though she was doing anything Eliza wanted, just to make her happy, to take away from the horrors they were currently facing.
She didn't answer him, looked down at her sister and smiled. "Pizza and chips?"
Eliza beamed up at her sister, her front tooth missing and nodded. "Please?"
Jemma smiled. "Of course, why wouldn't we?"
Eliza's smile grew wider at this, and Jemma set her back on the ground. The younger girl immediately ran over to the breakfast bar and climbed one of the seats and started to draw, picking up crayons that lay scattered across it.
Fitz took the seat beside her, looking at what she was drawing. It was a picture of her and Jemma, simply captioned my familie.
This hurt Fitz more than he thought, the idea that Eliza hadn't included her parents. It seemed to him that Eliza didn't fully understand what was happening, that Jemma was trying to protect her from the horrors of the world, that they were facing.
"Jemma." This time she looked at him, met his eyes. "Is it true, what he said about your…"
She didn't reply but the sadness in her eyes confirmed his worst fears. They really were dead, and now Jemma… he couldn't even begin to comprehend what she had been through, what she had suffered… and she was still carrying on.
"I'm sorry," he said as she crouched down again, looking in the freezer for something. The pizzas obviously. "For putting… for… for locking you out Jems, for after the pod incident." She froze, half in a crouch, three small pizzas in one hand, and a bag of oven chips in the other. "We found your note, clearing out your bunk. Returning your stuff to your parents... You're still classed as MIA."
There was a shaking breath, silence, then Jemma rose having composed herself. "My parents thought I was dead?"
"MIA."
She now faced him, and closed her eyes. "Eliza, would you mind going to your room?"
The young girl looked up, clearly oblivious to this conversation and to all that was going on. She nodded, lifting her paper and crayons and tottering down the hall.
Jemma set the food on the breakfast bar. "Hydra… they showed me their corpses. I had to bury them… and Eliza… she doesn't understand, not really."
"Did they ever…"
"No," Jemma said. "They used her against me but they never hurt her. They knew I wouldn't comply if they did. She was too valuable to them."
She turned around, and turned the oven on. "You found the note?"
"Yeah, Jems. Did you really think that you were making me worse?"
She nodded, facing him now having put the food in the oven. "I was Fitz, every step forward you took, I made you take two back…"
"No." His voice was stern, hoping to get his point across. "No, Jems. You didn't. I wanted to show… I wanted to… I wanted to impress you, I wanted to be good enough for you."
"Leopold Fitz, you were, and will always be, good enough for me. Don't you ever, ever think that you aren't good enough."
He nodded, slowly, because what got him, what convinced him was the look of love in her eyes. "Because I love you too Leo, I love you more than anything else. You are… you're important to me, never forget that, okay? Never forget, no matter what happens to me."
"Jemma," he said, rising from his seat and making his way around the breakfast bar. "I love you too, and no matter what happens, we'll get through this, okay? Like we do everything…"
"Together," she whispered as he approached and cupped her face, using his thumb to gently wipe her tears away, tears that she didn't even know that she was crying.
He nodded, "yeah," and before he knew what he was doing, his dipped his head, and allowed himself to kiss her. It took her less than a fraction of a second before she was returning the kiss, her arms making their way up so that they wrapped around his neck, her fingers dancing in his hair, now getting curlier again.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in closer, trying to make the moment last as long as he could.
"Jemma?" a voice asked. "Jemma? What….Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!"
It's really up to you whether or not Jemma is brainwashed in this, I like to think that she obeys the order but isn't completely brainwashed as her love for Eliza overpowers everything else, and all that stuff. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Title from Roots by Imagine Dragons. Feel free to check me out on Pinterest, I'm Agentsofsuperwholocked there also!
