A/N: I sure do love Fitz, and I just really wanted to know about his life before SHIELD. So I decided to write it. This first chapter is just a tester. If, after you have finished, you like it. Favorite it and/or review, and I'll update for you!
1987 was an exciting year for the United Kingdom. Their Prime Minister, one Margaret Thatcher, had been re-elected, making her the longest, continuously serving Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool himself; and the year Rick Astley was "Never Gonna Give You Up".
But 1987 was especially exciting for the freshly started Fitz family.
Leopold Bernard Fitz was born one cold, December night in Edinburgh, Scotland. His first home was nothing more than a small apartment building on the edge of town. His mother and father were proud of their first-born, and decided to name the boy Leopold, after his grandfather, who had died a month prior his birth. Leopold would eventually come to resent the name, after being teased in primary school. After that, he always introduced himself as Leo, and even later, as Fitz.
Leo's early childhood was mostly uneventful, other than his brief outbreak of Fifth disease. The symptom of a deep blush commonly associated with the disease seemed to stay with Leo well into his teen years. His curly hair was in full bloom by age two, and his light blue eyes could stare up at yours and receive almost anything they wanted, without even quivering a lip. He mastered this skill by age five, and his mother worked up no defense towards the attacks.
"Mummy, did you see 'dat toy car? I sure would like it." There was hardly a moment of hesitation before the toy car was promptly added to the shopping cart.
The one thing Leopold Fitz could never recover with a look from his oceanic blue eyes was his father.
Killed in a car accident on his way home from work, Darius Fitz left his only son fatherless. Five-year old Leopold sat very still at the funeral. He was the best behaved boy there. His mother stared forward, her eyes vacant, as if there were nothing left to look at. Leopold was sitting still just for her, but she would not notice him. His grandmother noticed, his father's friends noticed, the rest of the funeral procession noticed. They told him so, when they shook his hand to leave, and told the little Mr. Fitz they would bring him some food, because he was the only one to listen. His mother just stared, on the verge of tears the entire time, but never spilled a single one. Until they got home. She cried for five whole days.
Leo's grandmother visited him every day, to make sure he was fed, and traced his letters and learned his alphabet. His mother still did not notice how still he sat for her. That's when it started. Leo couldn't hold it in any longer; he began to fidget all the time. His grandmother would scold him when he was unable to stay at the dinner table without stacking the salt and pepper shakers or drumming his fork. She would then send him to his room, where he would disassemble a certain toy car he had once coerced from his mother, back when she would pay attention to him. He reassembled the car almost as quickly. He continued in this way for many days. Sent to his room after being rambunctious at dinner, disassembled the car, reassemble. Disassemble. Reassemble. Destroy. Create. Tear apart. Rebuild.
Leo always felt his best rebuilding his toy than tearing it apart. When he became overly-familiar with the car, he moved on to other objects in his room. His robot action figures, lamp, and even his cassette player were all victim to his demolition. Putting the aforementioned cassette player back together proved difficult for the little boy, and was not accomplished fully until the second grade.
This was how the two-person Fitz family coped. She stared. He destroyed. She stared. He created.