"So let me get this straight mate, you and your crazy scientist adoptive dad built a hot robot chick, who then read a book from hell to bring you back from another dimension; the book corrupted both your crazy professor dad and the hot robot chick, so they allied themselves with a Russian obsessed with Coulson. Then they kidnapped the whole team and locked you into a video game (which you helped to build), where you became the big Nazi boss, who tried to kill off all the other characters, while building a machine to bring your video-girlfriend over to real life with a few upgrades. Your real girlfriend in the meantime plugged into the videogame and tried to get your sorry ass out, but you didn't remember her and instead almost shot her in the head because she took out your video game dad. Then you both got back to the real world, but it turned out the machine was real, so your crazy-robot-video-girlfriend became a real girl with lots of kickass superpowers you gave her and she lost it when you decided to break up with her and went on a rampage. Then some flaming head demon came with a whip on fire, gave his flaming head to Coulson, who killed your sex-bot girlfriend. Then you all went for pie and everyone got kidnapped except you." Hunter looks at Fitz.
"Well, you forgot the part where the whole US military is looking for us, because a Daisy looking LMD shot General Talbot, but essentially yes. More or less that's it, yeah." Hunter clearly sees humour in the crazy story, but Fitz remains mirthless.
"Sounds totally crazy, and strangely enough it sounds also just like another day at SHIELD." Hunter shrugs. "And you need my help you find the team."
"Yes, I have a theory that they got taken through a portal."
"Of course, you have a theory. You always have a theory. Wait, you mean like the monolith?" Hunter asks.
"Maybe, but I think it's different this time. I think it is a device that allows travel not only through space, but also through time or between dimensions. It's not really clear." Fitz explains.
"And why did they leave only you behind?" Hunter furrows his eyebrows.
Because I am useless. I am a crazy killer. I am broken. I am not worthy. Take your pick – Fitz wants to scream, but just shrugs instead. "Maybe I'm not supposed to exist in that place – maybe it's the future and I am already dead." Or I am the only one that exists there and it would cause some ripple to take me there again. Maybe I am a future mad scientist who built the portal to kidnap my friends, Fitz thinks. These nightmare scenarios have been playing in his head on an endless loop ever since he found himself all alone in the diner, before the special forces attacked the place. He managed to sneak out and take a small ring-like fragment he found on the floor as he crawled through the rubble and broken glass.
"So what's next?" Hunter asks.
"I got the information I could through the rudimentary devices I have access to, but we need to break into a facility with state of the art instruments. ATCU has a secret lab in the middle of the desert in New Mexico – I need to get in there and run a couple of tests." Fitz sighs.
"OK, well, I still have access to a couple of my old drop-boxes so we can get money, and fake identities." Hunter nods. "I also have some surveillance tech that can help us figure out how to break into the lab, mate. But it wouldn't hurt to get a couple more bodies."
"There's, there is nobody left. SHIELD is destroyed – and it's all my fault." Fitz buries his face in his hands.
"You are moping, now, mate. When was the last time you slept? You look like the walking dead." Hunter puts a hand on his shoulder.
"I certainly feel like one." Fitz keeps staring at his beer bottle without drinking.
"What is this about?"
"Have you heard the part where I was a fucking Nazi and almost killed Simmons?" Fitz snaps now banging his fist into bar table. There are not many other patrons in the bar in the late night or rather early morning hours, but they all raise their heads at the sound.
"That was in a video game, Fitz. You can't believe the destruction I caused in Halo" Hunter says.
"No, it was a virtual reality. But that's not the point. Real people got killed, real people got hurt, and all because I am fucking monster." There is somehow a relief to say it out loud. Hunter takes a long look at him.
"Fitz, the women may have been deceived by your cute little puppy act, but seriously, the monster did not get into you because you were the bad guy in a video game – for God's sake, you are a top-notch weapon designer for a secret spy agency, not a choir boy. There are no people with all rainbows and unicorns in our line of work: not you, not even your adorable little girlfriend. Just because you guys don't usually kill with your bare hands, it doesn't mean there is no blood on it."
"You're right, the monster was there all along, I just kept hiding it." Fitz mutters.
"You are missing my point mate. The monster is in all of us. You need to get to know it, make friends with it, tame it. If you try to lock it away, it tends to get real mad and bite you in the ass." Hunter waxes philosophical.
"I don't know if I can live with it. I should know right from wrong. I thought I knew who I was, but I'm not sure anymore." Fitz feels like throwing up again.
"You can be remarkably dumb for a rocket scientist, so I am going impart some wisdom on you, I learnt fighting two tours in Afghanistan. There are no black and white hats. We all live in a grey world, just trying to survive, especially in a war. You get thrown into a meatgrinder, with a narrative while on the other side, some other guys, who are just like you get thrown in with a different narrative and they give you guns, they point and you shoot. And you try to kill first, before the other guy kills you. But as the body count grows, the narrative loses all its meaning and the only thing that remains is survival, keeping your buddy next to you alive and the thought that when you get out of the hellhole, you'll get five minutes of bliss burying yourself in a drink or a pair of well-formed tits or whatever floats your boat."
"That sounds remarkably bleak." Fitz swallows.
"Maybe, but that's reality. And you learn to live with the monster that helps you survive it or you curl up in a corner and cry. Those are the options." Hunter gulps down his beer. "I'm going to tell you how it goes. You will finish that beer, then you'll go to sleep. When you wake up, you'll take a shower, because I'm not getting in a car with you in the state you're in. And if your monster is the ruthless sonofabitch, you say he is, you will use him, because we'll need him to get you to the portal."
Fitz nods and takes a swig of his beer. It tastes bitter like the tears frozen inside his skull, but the tiredness hits him together with the alcohol. He gets up on unsteady legs and lets Hunter take him to his room where he falls into a black hole of sleep.