A/N: As you may have noticed, if you've been here before, I'm currently in the process of re-writing this for clarity and to expand the ideas more. I'm also planning on adding more to the end. Please leave a review to let me know what you think! (Rewritten 7/25/17)

Alistair Fitz had had a habit. When anything went wrong-anything- he would go to the bar and drink until he could barely think. Sometimes he would stumble home, sometimes a buddy would drop him off, sometimes a cab showed up, and sometimes he didn't go home. His son, Leopold Fitz, had hated it. Hated the fears that came with it- would his dad come home at all? Or would he be drunk and angry and looking for a fight?

Either way, he had sworn never to get drunk, never to lose control like that if he could help it.

But after the monolith? After the insult, the spit in the face of the evil thing- there was nothing left to do. It wouldn't take him back to Jemma, and life didn't seem possible without Jemma. Maybe, just maybe, if he drank enough, he would see her. Maybe he could find the solace that his dad had seemed to find at the bar.

Coulson didn't deny his request to leave the base for a drink. In fact, he encouraged it, even offered him some cash for it. He seemed to think that this was a sign that Fitz was "getting over it." How was Fitz supposed to "get over" this? How could he possibly move on from his best friend of over a decade? A single night of bloody drinking wasn't going to fix that. What the bloody hell did Coulson think a drink was going to fix?

Walking into the bar was the hardest part of following in his dad's footsteps. He stood outside on the sidewalk, pacing back and forth. As much as he wanted to push away his memories of his dad, of the drinking, he had let the influence creep in. After all, here he was, in front of a bar, with the money and intention of getting so drunk he couldn't walk straight. Fitz turned around, staring up at the blinking security camera on the spotlight. "What the hell are you looking at?" He asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and pacing again. Funny, thinking over his dad wasn't quite as difficult as it had been before all of this. Jemma made pain feel relative. It was like he could still hear his dad's voice in his head sometimes. Can't even get drunk. Not even gutsy enough to go for a drink. You can't do anything decisively, can you, boy? And you call yourself my son.

Fitz went into the bar.

He struggled again with actually drinking the damn thing. He had asked for whatever was strong, didn't know what was in it, but that didn't matter. He knew getting drunk wasn't rational, or logical, or what Jemma would have wanted him to do, but that didn't matter anymore. There wasn't a rational explanation for what had happened to Jemma. It wasn't logical that she could have just disappeared into it. Jemma would have wanted him to keep looking, but Coulson wouldn't even let him do that. He had wanted to analyze the dust he had found off the rock, but Coulson had revoked his lab access. He had nothing left anymore, except to do what his dad had always done. Sitting at the bar, he stared at the drink. Could he really do this? Let himself down, let his team down?

His team could live without him, he knew that. They barely even knew he existed anymore. Bobbi and Hunter, Daisy and Mack. They were the team. And then there's Fitz. The afterthought. The screwup. The disabled one. He downed the drink in one shot.

He stared down at the empty glass, wondering if they'd even noticed his absence. Probably not. They were getting along just fine without Jemma now, weren't they? Didn't even notice how much it had hurt him that she was gone. They didn't care. The bartender gave him a refill, and asked about his keys. He had walked to the bar.

It was all about the Inhumans now. Inhumans everything. They were so focused on the people the team helped that they were forgetting that some of the people on the team needed help too.

Mack called him "buddy" like a child. Mack was supposed to be better than that. Mack was supposed to be one of the good ones who didn't treat him differently. Like Daisy- hadn't he been there for her when she needed help the most? And now she was chumming with Mack, and both of them had forgotten him. He let the bartender refill his glass for a third drink.

Hunter- it was all Bobbi now. And of course, that was logical. In this whole screwed up, illogical mess, that made sense. He would have at least thought that Hunter cared a little bit. Bobbi herself took Jemma's place in the lab, messing up their systems and replacing her. They couldn't just replace Jemma. Jemma was special. And gone. Another drink.

Mack was doing the engineering work again, just like he had after the brain thing. And in that situation, who could blame Leo for searching after Jemma? Maybe it was a waste of time, but he had nothing else to do. They obviously didn't need him for anything.

In their eyes, he was still damaged, still useless to them, that's how they felt, Leo knew. He had seen the look in Bobbi's eyes. She thought he had lost it. Again. He had lost it again. No wonder Jemma was gone again. And, of course, that was his fault too. Loosening the latch, blowing up the pod, every time he got close enough to her to say something, to dare to talk to her, he screwed it up.

He had begun to notice the tremor again. Staring down at his hand in the dimly lit bar, he watched it until he could see the shake. Fitz squeezed his fingers into a fist, ending the involuntary action, and ordered another drink. The bartender gave him a look.

"You okay, dude? Are you sure you can handle another of these?"

"I'm Scottish." Fitz said, "Just give me the damn drink." Who was he, the pasty, spiky haired hoodlum to question his ability to drink. Like father, like son.

After that encounter and drink, it felt like time to go home. The bartender asked if he wanted a cab, but that would have exposed the base. He walked. Fitz began walking back to his access point for the base. He was a Scot. He could hold his drink. He was paying perfect attention to everything around him. Nobody would sneak up on him.

Kidnapping him couldn't have been easier. After all, a person is weakest when they are all alone.