This story is my version of a 'lost' mission that takes place between Yes Men and The End of the Beginning and is very inspired by the fourth season episode of Fringe (a science fiction series) Welcome to Westfield (though the plot will differ considerably later on, think of the episode as a super prompt if you've ever seen it.)
I really love FitzSimmons and this story will focus on them and will include a bit of romance ;), but features the rest of team as well, because they're awesome too.
Agents of SHIELD belongs to it's creators and Marvel. They rock socks. :D
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"Fee, will you stop playing with the GPS, we're lost enough as it is," Sarah complained, irritable from driving in circles for three hours in the dark, hungry and tired. They sped by the sign that read 'Welcome to Westfield' for the third time and she swore under her breath.
"What is your destination?" The GPS asked in a monotone female voice.
"Mars," Felix joked, chuckling to himself and Sarah fought the urge to smack her brother.
"Felix I swear if you don't stop that right now I'm going to-" the car's engine suddenly cut out and the battery went dead, leaving them in darkness as they skidded to a stop on the empty road.
"I didn't do it," Felix declared, holding his hands in the air to show he hadn't touched anything.
"Obviously you didn't do it," she grumbled, getting out of the car to look under the hood.
She reached into her coat pocket, pulling out her bulky black cell phone to call for roadside service, but it was dead.
"The GPS isn't working anymore," Felix announced, hopping out of the car, concern flickering across his face, visible even in the moonlight. "And my cell phone's dead."
"Mine too," Sarah told him.
"Shit," he cursed. The hand holding his phone trembled slightly and Sarah knew he was scared, her kid brother didn't like dark, open spaces, even if, at seventeen, he wasn't exactly a kid anymore, and they were stranded on a pitch black road in the middle of nowhere, the moon their only source of light.
"Let's get in the car," she suggested, gentler now, the gravity of the situation they'd found themselves in pushing out her annoyance.
He complied quickly and Sarah locked the doors before she realized they were sitting, dark, in the middle of the road. If someone came along they'd probably crash right into them.
She was preparing to tell him that, that they should get out of the car, when the whir of a low flying plane caught their attention. They tilted their heads so they could peer out the windshield and saw it soar, startlingly low, over the trees. Then there was a bright flash of orange light and a loud boom that shook the ground beneath them.
"Sarah..." Felix squeaked.
She squeezed his shoulder, offering a moment of comfort before she unbuckled her belt and opened the door. Felix scrambled out after her, sticking close beside her.
"Should we go help?" He wondered anxiously, the flames reflecting in his eyes even from a distance, shining orange dancers. Sarah could imagine the searing heat coming off of them and her stomach twinged fearfully.
She took her brother's hand, the same way she'd done when he was much younger and she hadn't wanted to lose him in a crowd or have him run ahead of her to cross a busy street on his own.
"I think we should try," she told him.
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Fitz and Simmons sat in the back of the SHIELD vehicle, arguing over top of Skye who sat between them.
"Inherent weakness," Fitz scoffed. "What exactly, Simmons, does you being a female give you that I don't have?"
Skye, who really wished she'd been allowed to ride with lone-wolf Ward and the two military scientists who had volunteered to assist them, in the other car, stifled a few sarcastic replies. Their science-duo had been bickering the entire two hour drive from the landing site and the last thing she wanted to do was fuel the fire of the debate. On the contrary, she wished she had a fire hose to spray the two of them with, maybe the cold water would shock them enough to give it a rest for a few minutes. Besides, then they could have a water fight, which would be way more fun than sitting neutral in the middle of World War FitzSimmons, trying and failing at pretending to be distracted by her phone, which was rapidly losing both its wifi and mobile signal. When they both finally gave out in the middle of her tweet 'My friends are driving me nuts. #they're crazy but I love them #the old married couple,' she shoved it back into her pocket and sighed.
"It's not what I have," Simmons was saying. "It's what you have, all men actually."
"Which is?" Fitz questioned, unconvinced.
"A susceptibility to Lorelei's voice," she told him, tilting her head and shaking it back and forth, as if disappointed he hadn't already known the answer.
"Yeah, well that isn't how you meant it earlier today," he grumbled.
"That's exactly how I meant it earlier today!" She objected loudly, causing Skye to cover her ears, her eardrums an unnoticed casualty as her friend continued. "What in the world did you think I was saying?" She questioned.
"Oh C'mon Simmons," he argued, talking over her while narrowing his eyes at her and frowning. "I know you're embarrassed about giving into the 'girls rule and boys are smelly' playground nonsense but you don't have to lie."
"I am not lying!" She shot back at the exact moment Fitz said the word 'lie'. Skye even thought she might have said it a fraction of a second before he had, but she wasn't exactly a slow motion sound recorder so what did she know? "Playground nonsense," Simmons huffed. "You're being completely ridiculous because you're the one embarrassed about being seduced-"
"Affected-" Fitz corrected and Simmons rolled her eyes.
"Affected, by Lorelei's voice," she went on. "There's no shame in it Fitz, she had all the men under her control, not just you-"
"I'm not embarrassed," he muttered, though by the blush that rose to his cheeks, Skye got the feeling that he was.
"-even Ward was- Ow, Skye," she complained because Skye had poked her in the ribs with her elbow a little harder than she had intended to. Her friend raised her eyebrows at her, requesting an explanation and Skye jerked her head towards May who sat in the front seat beside Coulson, seemingly ignoring their conversation, and she seemed to understand, falling silent and looking down guilty at her hands.
Fitz took advantage of Simmons' silence to push his point. "I'm just saying that if there were some incredibly handsome, well formed Asgardian man with an enchantingly seductive voice, you'd be just as much under his control as I was under Lorelei's, especially considering you seem to go for that sort of thing."
Skye reflected that it didn't really have to be a man, Lorelei's power was obviously not about who people were attracted to if it affected all men. Not all men liked women like that. Still she kept her mouth shut, hoping this would be over soon. She met Coulson's gaze in the rearview mirror, wordlessly asking the cliche road trip question 'are we there yet?'
'Soon,' he mouthed, sympathetic.
Simmons snorted. "It wouldn't matter if he were my type if his voice had similar effects to Lorelei's would it? And what do you care what my type is?"
"I don't," he said, a little too quickly. Skye could tell he did care, a lot, but Simmons was oblivious as usual.
The car stopped, at last, and Skye practically crawled over Fitz to get out.
"Didn't we tell you to pee before we left?" Fitz scolded, guessing wrong at the reason she needed to get out so quickly.
She left the still bickering pair to join her SO and the far more disciplined looking set of scientists beside him.
"Next time, please take me with you," she begged.
"FitzSimmons driving you crazy?" He guessed.
She blew out a breath. "They're still on the whole Lorelei's seduction agrument," she groaned, before remembering he too had been affected by the criminal alien bent on collecting all the men of the world like human trading cards and bit her lip. "Or... I mean her super magic powers or whatever," she corrected herself. "I think Fitz is still sore about it."
"Well he did chase after Simmons under her control," Ward pointed out. "He might still be afraid what he would have done to her if Coulson hadn't ambushed him."
Skye narrowed her eyes, disbelieving. "He wouldn't have hurt her, he looked more like a little kid trailing their rebel friend who'd broken some sort of rule. I think he was just going to try to convince her to listen to him. Fitz wouldn't hurt Simmons."
Ward shrugged, unconvinced. "Maybe not, but whatever she did to us, we weren't thinking clearly, did things we'd never do otherwise." He glanced at their friend, who was waving his arms in the air to elaborate on some point he was making. "If he felt the way I did, he'd have done anything for her, and maybe that's shaken him."
"Did it shake you?" Skye asked, concerned.
He shrugged again. "No."
Skye thought he was probably lying but Coulson was calling them over for a group meeting and the tin-man had never really been the kinda guy to respond to her poking and prodding anyway.
Hard as she tried she couldn't imagine Fitz harming anyone, especially Simmons, but if he had been manipulated into it, if he had really been ready to cause her harm, she could understand why he was so upset.
She watched Simmons, puffing her cheeks at him, clearly still annoyed at his earlier accusation, and thought she understood why the whole thing had upset the biochemist too.
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This first chapter was from Skye's point of view, but later chapters will likely be from Fitz or Simmons' POV.
Felix and Sarah are named after the brother/sister duo from Orphan Black (another science fiction series). Their personalities are not the same though, neither are their physical characteristics (which I usually like to leave up to the imagination).
I talk about Loreili's control over Fitz and Ward in this story and it may not be a big topic throughout but is a catalyst for later conversations. If you want a good look of the aftermath of that episode you should check out Notapepper's fic, Weak.
There is a reference to the series Fringe in this chapter (and there will be one in every chapter). It is when Felix asks the GPS to plot a root to Mars. Peter jokingly does this in the second season episode Northwest Passage.
Also the picture for this story is something I drew, haha they have this intense 'Do you own the photo?' box you have to click so I just draw my own stuff when I put pictures (whatever my drawing skills may be). My profile picture is from google though.