This story takes place in a non-canon universe after the finale where Fitz and Simmons are together and Fitz is pretty much recovered. I have written other stories in this universe and this one takes place between Alone in the World and Monster Goo. (But you don't really have to read those to read this one.)
It is the response to a prompt from notapepper. Yay! Thank you! It is set in the imaginary Marvel nation of Wakanda and will feature notapeppper's monkeys from Oh to be Young the Zakadels :D.
I put a reference to the science fiction show Fringe in every chapter of every one of my stories (usually) so feel free to look out for it if you want even if you don't know what Fringe is. It may stick out as something unusual like a polka dotted cow or pet badgers. ;). Sometimes it is also a line from the show I like or the title of an episode.
Agents of Shield belongs to its creators who are fantastic :D and ABC and Marvel
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Nezhno and Iroro sped along over the tall grass, between the trees, on their hover-boards, secured by their harnesses in case of a fall. The devices were hardwired to stop if one of them tumbled off, which Iroro's younger sister Baku often did. She always hopped right back on though.
Nezhno didn't understand her constant need to tag along with them (didn't she have friends her own age?) however he had to admit, the kid was a scrapper.
She caught up with them now, her board careening back and forth ungracefully as she fought to keep her balance and Iroro tsked irritably at her.
"Go home Baku," she scolded. "Mom wouldn't want you out here."
"She wouldn't want you out here at night either. Why don't I go back and tell her what you're doing?" Baku countered breezily and Nezhno chuckled. "Besides," she added nervously. "I think I saw a lion prowling around."
"You wouldn't be enough for a lion Keke-aaya," Iroro joked. "Come along if you'd like but don't cry when you get scared."
They reached a patch of trees and Baku fell silent, concentrating on weaving through them.
She fell behind again and did not catch up after a minute as she had before. Her desperate screams suddenly shrilled through the air and Nezhno and Iroro glanced at each other, alarmed, before doubling back.
They found her, struggling against the vines of a plant which twisted around her body and arms. To Nezhno's horror, it was pulling her towards a gaping mouth.
"Help!" she cried, terrified. "Iroro, help me!"
Iroro unbuckled the harness and leapt off her board, landing on her feet between her sister and the plant's terrifying mouth. The mouth was brightly coloured and open, long like a snout, with thorns that jutted out along the edge of what would be the lips, had it been an animal, like pointed teeth.
It sprung forward with dizzying speed and engulfed Iroro, trapping her behind the thorns and she began screaming, pounding on them in an attempt to escape, however the plant's flesh grew over the opening so that it was a closed pocket and her screams were muffled behind it.
The vine's released Baku and she sprung forward to help Nezhno in his attempts to free her sister.
Iroro had stopped fighting against the plant, fallen silent and as they hit the snout with rocks and sticks the vines moved again, creeping towards them.
"She's gone," he told Baku wretchedly but the young girl continued to smash against the plant, barely scratching the tough flesh. "Baku we need to get out of here."
"No," she raged at him, squirming and kicking him as he pulled her away. "Let me go," she sobbed.
"Baku if we stay it will kill us too," he warned gruffly, lifting her up. "We'll go back and get help."
Having a task must have focused her because she let him place her back down and scrambled onto her hover-board, zooming away without looking behind her to see if he was following, her board threatening to flip over as she turned sharply to avoid the trees.
Nezhno knew it was too late to get help, but he didn't know what else to do so he sped after her anyway.
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"Fitz... what are you covered in?" Skye asked as Leo tromped into the kitchen.
"Mud," he grumbled, searching through the cabinets. Where was it? It had to be here somewhere, he'd seen it last night.
"Why?" she wondered, confused.
"Because nature hates me," he complained. "And I fell into a bloody ravine trying to get that damn flower, which I crushed, before landing in a patch of brambles and then, of course, tumbling into the ooey, gooey, disgusting mud at the bottom." he ranted.
"At least it's not poo," Skye pointed out, in what might have been an attempt to cheer him up.
"Now I'll need to shower," he despaired. "This was supposed to be a surprise."
"What was supposed to be a surprise?" Jemma asked, sounding slightly concerned as she appeared in the kitchen and his plan was completely ruined. "What are you covered in?"
"Not poo," Skye offered and Jemma tilted her head at her while Leo let out a groan of frustration. "Hey, I am just trying to look on the bright side," she defended. "But Mr. Grumpy over there decided he hates nature."
"Nature hates me!" he corrected short-temperedly.
All he'd wanted to do was surprise Jemma with a bouquet of wild flowers but now he was covered in mud and thorns and had leaves and sticks, sticking out of his clothes and Skye was going on about poo, which wasn't very romantic at all and he couldn't find the stupid vase to put the flowers in. Everything was completely ruined, even after he'd gotten up early and spent almost an hour trekking through the woods, risking being eaten by some wild animal and actually being eaten by swarms of mosquitoes.
"Nature can't hate you Fitz," Jemma reminded him, somewhere between scolding and amused. "Nature doesn't recognize hate, or good and evil. Just balance and imbalance."
"Well I certainly lost my balance," he muttered and now her expression turned sympathetic as she came over and lifted his chin so she could kiss his nose, which wasn't muddy.
"What were you doing outside so early?" she asked, as he took a wash cloth and wiped some of the mud off his face before he took it and continued her work.
He sighed and moved aside so she could the wildflowers he'd collected.
She lit up when she saw them, lifting the bundle to examine it.
"Oh look, Digitalis lanata, Grecian foxglove," she added to Skye, who had raised an eyebrow at her. "It contains a powerful cardiac glycoside which has been used to treat heart conditions, digitoxin. It's also a toxin of course and it can cause nausea, cardiac arrhythmias-"
"Why is it in the kitchen then?" Skye exclaimed.
"Hey! I was just- I was putting them in some water not mixing them into the Shreddies," Leo objected, offended.
In truth, he hadn't know the plant was poisonous, he'd simply thought it looked pretty. Ellie Sattler of Jurassic Park would have been ashamed.
"Sweetheart this is wonderful," Jemma chirped, forgetting the mud and kissing him enthusiastically, smudging some of it onto her nose. "Maybe I can isolate some of the toxin, wouldn't that be fun? Come help me," she added, grabbing his hand and leading him off to the lab. "Bye Skye! Unless you'd like to come along."
"I'm OK," she replied indifferently, rising to take out a mug and pour herself a cup of coffee. "Have fun with your plants."
She loved it, Leo thought proudly, feeling a little dopey after her reaction. He still turned oey goey inside when she called him sweetheart and he was delighted that he'd made her so happy. She was bouncing along in front of him, flowers one hand, his in the other and she turned for a moment, a wide grin on her beautiful face, overflowing with her affection for him and filling him with so much joy he felt as if he were floating.
He didn't hate nature, nature was fantastic.
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Thank you for all your likes, follows, reviews and reads on my other stories. You are all fantastic as foxglove :)
Nezhno, Iroro and Baku are not speaking English (or thinking in English) at the beginning. Think of it as if you had a babble fish in your ear when you read that part (you can understand it even if you don't speak the language)
Keke-Aaya is from me putting in little (kekere) and then monkey (aaya) into google translate for the language Yoruba (which is spoken in parts of West Africa and apparently in Wakanda.)
Their names are based off the Wakandian characters Nezhno, Ororo and M'Baku
The hover boards are based on the ones from the book The Uglies by Scott Westerfield, except they don't need metal underneath them to work. Wakanda is suppose to be very technologically advanced and I thought they would be cool for them to have.
The Fringe reference is the "nature doesn't recognize good and evil, nature only recognizes balance and imbalance." Walternate says at one point in the series and I thought it fit this story pretty well.
The stuff on foxglove and digitoxin is from wikipedia and plants for a cause org
Ellie Sattler was a paleobotanist in the movie Jurassic park, she once said (in either the book or the movie, I don't remember) that the people who owned the park were foolish for keeping all these deadly plants around just because they were pretty.