Of LMDs and people
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™.
Once again, the FitzSimmons were in their lab, planning to go at an LMD…only everything else was different. The LMD was their friend and co-worker, for a start. The fact that the entire team was here, (technically), not just Mack, was another.
Okay, actually, Yo-Yo, was absent – she was on a fact-finding mission for the department, but somehow no one thought that this was a time to be truly meticulous; (plus the relationship with between Mace and Coulson still has not mended, and no one wanted to deal with that on top of the recent development).
"So, let's get down to business," Fitz sounded and looked as if he would rather not, (the same went for everyone else). "May isn't May-"
"Apparently not," the woman (robot rather than human, but still) replied, sounding utterly dejected in the process. "Only I am. Sort of?"
"…Didn't Coulson and Daisy switch you off when they were bringing you here?" Fitz replied carefully further away from the Cavalry. "Um?"
"No," Daisy shook her head while replying. "I damaged one of her legs, but we didn't do anything else. We were too distracted, and besides? When we recovered her after the gunfight, she was distraught, and incapable of resisting, not to mention unwilling."
Coulson made some sort of a displeased sound; Melinda twitched. "I'm sorry," she told him, "I didn't know that it was in my programming, I honestly thought that I was human all this time!"
"Yes?" Coulson gave Melinda a sharp look. "Well, what is the first thing that you remember?"
May gave Coulson a very familiar look – the one she used on him when he would get to her nerves in a bad way.
"My first memory?" she spoke slowly. "My first actual memory was when I was a toddler. My family, my parents, they weren't involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. back then; actually, back then it was still SSR instead of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Margaret Carter and her people ran it, not Fury. Regardless, my first clear memory was when our home was invaded all the same – either by Hydra or one of its affiliates," she looked pensive. "My parents fought, but they were outnumbered, and it was night. It would have been the end of us, but the SSR forces arrived and saved us. To this day, I do not know why were invaded…" May paused, clearly thinking about something personal, before continuing. "And my first clear memory, Phil? It was a short while after the attack, when my parents did join the SSR for real. It was you, and I, and our friend Thersander, who was not Thersander at all, but Alexander, because neither of us could pronounce Alexander at that time. We went to visit your uncle, who was living a couple of streets away from your mother and you at that time, and got into a fight with your archrival, who became your close friend and then your worst enemy – John Garrett. I kicked his ass! And-"
"Stop!" Coulson snapped, slamming a table with his fist. The table visibly shuddered, even though it was S.H.I.E.L.D.-quality table. "How can you know this, how? It was so long ago, and you-"
"I don't know how!" Melinda snapped. "I'm flawed! I do not know! I did not know that I was a machine with an integral scheme in my stomach and that Radcliffe was pulling my strings! I love you, Phil! I do not want to work for Radcliffe in any capacity! However, I am flawed! He made it so that I cannot hurt him, cannot really resist him! I love you, Phil! However, I am flawed! I need help," she exhaled and looked down at your ground. "Phil, I want your help. You're a lousy helper, but I still want it."
There was a very uncomfortable silence as no one looked at Coulson and Melinda, or at each other.
"…You sure that Melinda wasn't a robot from the start?" Daisy finally asked, looking very uncomfortable. "For one thing, her vibrations haven't changed from all these months when the three of us had this argument about Lincoln. Radcliffe never had a chance to seize her beforehand, because he was busy dealing with Hive – he did not even have Aida back then!' She paused, calming down somewhat. "I mean-"
"I get what you mean," Coulson replied, sounding even more miserable than May or Daisy did. "And there were rumors of Fury and others in S.H.I.E.L.D. using LMDs before the whole mess with Hydra-"
"So I'm an S.H.I.E.L.D. LMD that's been hacked by Radcliffe? Instead of being one of Radcliffe's LMDs from the start?" May asked, looking much smaller than how she usually did. "Well, that is some small mercy."
"Don't speak like that," Coulson huddled next to her, looking equally miserable. "May, there's always light at the end of the tunnel-"
"-and sometimes it's an onrushing train!" May snapped, as the pair exchanged looks that were half-smiles and half-grimaces of spiritual pain.
The uncomfortable silence returned. The FitzSimmons did not even pretend to be willing to open Melinda up, LMD or not. Mack and Daisy just looked as if they would be anywhere else but here.
"Excuse me?" Jeffrey Mace intruded onto the scene…not welcome, but not unwelcome either. "What has happened here?"
"Melinda realized that if we were to continue, together, she'll need to get help," Coulson muttered, unwilling to let Mace onto the new secret.
"And Phil realized that he will have to help, for real, not come and go as it tickled his fancy," Melinda echoed.
"Excuse me?" Phil glared.
"Phil, during the seven years after Bahrain, you didn't even send me a birthday card," May looked and sounded unusually tense for her. "I know that you had Audrey and all, but I, I don't want to be just your back-up security net. I-I did something similar with Andrew and it cost both him and me in the long run. This is not what I want. This is not what I need. Sorry," she looked away from Coulson first.
"Yes, well," Coulson and May looked anywhere but at each other. "Fury did fix me after New York, but he was too liberal with T.A.H.I.T.I., I'm afraid. I had to put myself together again, mentally, and…yes, we got issues, beyond the obvious."
"Oh, a couples' therapist will help you with that," Mace said brightly, sounding almost deliberately obtuse. "And, agent Johnson?"
"Yes?" Daisy asked, half-cautiously and half-angry.
"You get to chaperone them on those sessions, to ensure that they don't hurt each other or anyone else," Mace continued in the same, forced-cheerful, vein. "Anything else, here and now?"
"What's up with you?" Daisy caught it on. "And no, this is enough for us."
"The Koenigs called: they arrived safely, even though one of them is hurt and another one is Larsson."
"Good!" the others perked-up. "Anything else?"
"Well, when they arrived a group of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were making a withdrawal from their base, of weapons and ammunition," Mace continued, aware that the others were aware that Koenigs were something of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s quartermasters, not just of 0-8-4s, but of the more mundane things too. "It was done all right and proper, with the correct paperwork in my name, but I'm not sure that I did order the withdrawal to begin with-"
"Let's start with the obvious," Daisy muttered, as she contacted technical support staff of the base. "Naomi?"
"Yes?" the woman on the other end sounded not quite like herself either, Daisy noticed, but now so was not the time to bond, so she plowed on:
"The withdrawal order in the director's name?"
"Oh, it is arriving now, actually," came the reply. "Also, agent Rodriguez has returned. Apparently, she found a new lead in Radcliffe's case."
There was a pause as everyone thought this over and perked up. "You know," Fitz spoke in a happier tone of voice, now that his and Simmons' forced examination of May got shelved, "maybe things are looking up, pieces are coming together into a proper puzzle, right, Daisy?"
The InHuman agent just nodded. She was just as happy as the rest of her team, but deep inside of her? The worry that they were looking at the combining pieces from a wrong angle lingered.
The End?