Invisible
Fitz doesn't recognize the world around him. It actually stopped making sense when he began to entertain the idea of aliens and gods a while ago, but now, everything is different.
It's chaos, to say the least.
His colleagues are plotting assassinations, his friends are holding court, Sky is being held in quarantine like a prisoner, and Jemma…that just hurts him to think about. It's as if SHIELD has become some sort of deadly, vengeful force overnight. Trip's death transformed them all – their own version of the obelisk - and for every person that loses themselves to this alien insanity, he is one step closer to being the only normal one on the Bus.
Coulson is a wreck, an angry, vengeful wreck over the death of Trip. Fitz has never truly feared the man before, but the argument between him and Mac was genuinely frightening. Coulson looked five seconds away from shooting Mac in the face, Mac was moments away from throwing Coulson through the glass, and Fitz wanted to pull at his hair and scream at them to just stop.
Jemma scares him. She scares him to death with her talk of killing people and "eradicating the disease" that is the so-called "Inhuman" condition, and it breaks his heart to see her so twisted with fear. She used to support genetic differentiation. Superpowers used to excite her. Now she acts more like the HYDRA agents she was meant to infiltrate, running around with her clipboard, searching and testing for any trace of alien. He used to regret choosing to leave the lab, but now he is thankful for the distance.
He could always talk to Mac, but now he seems more of Jemma's sidekick in the anti-alien crusade than the friendly mechanic Fitz was used to. He's quicker to rouse, quicker to throw punches and accusations, and it sets Fitz on edge.
It is always hard to determine what May thinks, but he knows she holds her suspicions. He knows it is only a matter of time until she finds out about Skye, and then about his lies.
But Skye, the seemingly alien girl and the only person on the Bus that has given everyone else cause to panic, is the only one he doesn't fear at the moment. Sure he has his doubts; he wonders about the future of the human race as he pales watching his friend create a ring of destruction around her. He genuinely felt terror in that moment, but the terror was short lived. He doesn't recognize what Skye has become, but he recognized the fear in her eyes when she thought that she had scared him off for good.
What scares Fitz the most though, is that he doesn't recognize himself.
And when he says that, he isn't referring to the unspoken misconception that his identity is directly linked to Jemma Simmons, because that is one can of worms he does not feel like opening at the moment.
No. He doesn't recognize himself because this isn't who he is. He doesn't tell lies and he doesn't forge false data and he doesn't keep secrets. Well, even that is a lie. He has gotten so good at telling lies, at pretending that his problems don't exist and that the world is all sunshine and roses. Sometimes he gets angry at how easy it is, how they just fall for the lies. Because it shows just how little they care. He knows he can't blame them; he serves no purpose. He is no longer a scientist, and he's a mediocre engineer at best thanks to his damaged hand. He can barely speak without a stutter, is deemed unfit for fieldwork, and for the first time since grade school, he finds himself completely and utterly invisible.
He chances a glance over the table to where Skye is seated, her head buried in a computer. Coulson stops and asks her for a report. She nods and smiles before he leaves without a word. He doesn't say a word to Fitz. May passes by, then Bobbi, none of them acknowledging her, forgotten even though a week ago she was their highest priority. Mac eyes her with suspicion from across the room – he still blames her for Trip's death, and Fitz knows that Mac would be the first to turn on her should her secret come out. Fitz knows that his lies would cost him their friendship. But Skye is his friend as well, and she needs one more than anything right now.
Because she is invisible too.
This is why he keeps her secret he decides one afternoon after he drops his latest project because his tremors are acting particularly hellish. Of course, there is the fact that they are friends, partners; he owes her more than just keeping her secret. But now they share a bond that goes beyond that of friendship. They have the bond of solitude.
He's terrified beyond belief of losing another friend. He's afraid that they'll find out about Skye's DNA and yank her out of her room and try to pull her apart, cut her into tiny pieces until they find out how to kill everyone like her. He's afraid they'll hunt her down put a bullet in her head like Jemma said she tried to do to Raina. And there would be no hesitation.
That part makes him sick. Sure, he was horrified when he had that moment of realization that another one of his friends had been harmed, potentially changed for the worse. But she isn't the monster they would make her out to be; she's just different, and different isn't a bad thing. Different doesn't mean that Skye isn't Skye anymore. He felt that the moment he went to hold her, her body shaking like a leaf under his own.
But Jemma, Mac, Coulson, and the rest, they wouldn't see it that way. They would hunt her until their last breaths, convinced she is the thing that killed Trip and so many others. They would blame her, tell her that she had to understand that it was for the better of the world before they tore her apart and buried her deep beneath the earth. So he keeps her secret, if for nothing other than his own sanity and peace of mind.
They're the caged animals, the survivors, the outcasts. The invisible. And they have to stick together.