Title: Evil Fitzsimmons

Spoilers: This takes place after Eye Spy, so anything through that point.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, really I don't.

Summary: FitzSimmons is asked to reverse engineer Akela's eye which makes them wonder about Evil FitzSimmons. Post-Ep tag to Eye Spy.

Author's note: So, I really didn't expect to wander into this fandom and there are certain things in the show that I would like to see more of, namely more adorable science-y FitzSimmons. Then I had an idea after Eye Spy that just wouldn't go away and it turned into this. Let me know what you think!

Hearing precise footsteps enter the unusually quiet lab, Simmons turned from the closet to see Agent Coulson with Skye a step behind. Closing the door where she had been storing some of the equipment from their recent impromptu surgery she crossed the room to meet them at the central lab table.

"Agent Coulson, what can we do for you?"

Coulson's eyes slide around the room, most likely looking for Fitz who at this moment was tucked away under the far lab bench reconnecting some of their machines, before answering. "How is Akela doing?"

"She's resting in the holding room. The surgery went as well as can be expected, but we should get her to a doctor soon, I mean I'm a doctor, twice really, but not that kind of doctor."

"We need to get those T-shirts." Fitz's voice rang out and a second later his head popped out from under the bench. Getting to his feet he added, "You know, the ones that say that. They would come in handy on multiple occasions."

"Yes, by all means, let's get matching T-shirts. That's a brilliant idea." Simmons rolled her eyes.

"I didn't say we had to wear them at the same time." Fitz stashed the tools he had been using in a drawer and joined them.

"Is she stable enough to travel?" Coulson asked. "We took possession of her contact's body and effects from the local authorities, but given that we don't know who we're dealing with I would rather head to a SHIELD base with full forensic and medical facilities. The nearest one is 6 hours away."

"She should be fine. I have her on monitors so we'll know if anything goes wrong." Simmons reassured him.

Coulson looked relieved. "In that case I have a project for you before we get there. I would like you to reverse engineer whatever was in her eye."

Simmons traded a look with Fitz, who was now standing next to her. This was definitely the creepiest thing they had been asked to do so far.

"Her eye exploded." Fitz blurted out, turning a shade green with the memory.

"Thankfully in a jar." Simmons added. "And I guess it didn't really explode, but the device is gone or at least there isn't much of it left to analyze, just eye...leftovers."

"Ewwww." Skye made a face.

"But you got scans of the technology and you saw the device up close right before it exploded." Coulson reasoned. "Look, we thought this technology wouldn't be possible for 10 years, but obviously we were wrong. If you can even approximate what the device was we can start to narrow down the list of people who could be behind this. And, quite frankly whoever developed this would have used your two specialties."

"Really, it's the issue of-" Fitz said thoughtfully.

"You can spare me the details right now." Coulson placed a laptop on the table. "Her contact was carrying this. I'm not sure if you'll be able to pull anything off of it, but Skye is going to help."

Skye saluted them and Simmons traded another look with Fitz before they both nodded at Coulson. "Right."

"I hope we can get a lead on this before we hand everything over to SHIELD, so let me know when you have something." With that final comment he turned and left.

The three of them stood in awkward silence for a moment before Simmons faced Fitz. "So you'll start on-"

"-Yep. And you'll run-"

"Of course."

She turned back to Skye, "Sound like a good plan to you?"

Skye simply raised an eyebrow. "You both do realize that I don't share your psychic link."

Fitz just grinned and grabbed the laptop leaving her to explain. "So, you and Fitz are going to work on the laptop while I start analyzing the sample we have. Sound good?"

Skye glanced at Fitz who had wandered over to a side bench with the computer, "You don't mind me borrowing him for a while?"

"Believe me; you'll be doing me a favor." She lowered her voice to mock whisper. "He doesn't do well with squishy things."

"Hey." Fitz protested until she leveled a look at him. "Well fine, but he can hear you."

Simmons just smiled and went to the cooler to take out what was left of Akela's eye. Against the familiar background noise of Fitz's technobabble, she started setting up the set of standard tests for biological specimens and a complete chemical analysis. This part of her job was so familiar that her mind couldn't help but wander. In spite of the exploding aspect, there was no doubt that the eye was an amazing scientific feat. The way it had been integrated into Akela's sensory and nervous systems was almost unimaginable. Maybe there was a way to figure out who had developed the technology from that standpoint?

This thought was still at the forefront of her mind when the three of them reconvened an hour later.

"We managed to recover some files from the laptop, but they're encrypted which Skye is going to work on." Fitz informed her.

"The analyses are running, although it will be at least a couple of hours before any of the tests are done." Simmons said.

Fitz nodded, "In the meantime I thought we could start engineering the device without the tests. I mean, we know what it needs to be able to do-"

"-and there are a limited number of ways to accomplish that. So, we come up with options and narrow those down later using the biological and material analyses."

"Exactly."

"Okay, clearly I have been in here with you guys too long because that actually made sense to me." Skye smirked and lifted the laptop. "If you don't need me for anything else I'm going to work on these files somewhere else, preferably somewhere with a couch."

"There is one thing," Simmons grabbed a notepad and started writing. "Coulson was right in that someone with our specialties would have designed the eye. Here are some research topics that would have to be involved. Could you look for anyone that studies these and maybe has gone missing or left their research position?"

Skye just shook her head and took the paper.

"What?"

"Fitz said you were quiet because you were coming up with something." She glanced over the list. "Okay, I may have a few questions later because I'm not sure that some of these are actually real words, but yes I will check. Maybe we can even figure out who Evil FitzSimmons is."

After Skye left they both shifted to lean back against the table, staring at the relatively neat and tidy lab which wouldn't remain that way once they fully started working on this newest project. Simmons knew that everyone thought her and Fitz babbled at each other incessantly, but she really enjoyed sharing these comfortable silences with him. She was pulled from this thought by Fitz bumping his shoulder against hers.

"What do you think Evil Us would be like?"

"What?"

"Skye said Evil FitzSimmons, so.."

"Well, we would still be a fantastic scientific team just lacking-"

"-a moral compass."

"Yes. Oh, and if pop culture is anything to go by Evil You would have a beard." She squinted at him trying to picture it, not having seen Fitz with anything beyond scruffy facial hair if he didn't shave for a while.

"Okay." Fitz studied her for a second, "But Evil You can't have a beard because you're a lady-"

"Thanks for that."

"-so, Evil Simmons would have to wear black eyeliner, a lot of black eyeliner."

"That seems fair."

"Well, now that that's settled, where should we start?"

"I'm not sure." She said with a sigh. "It's all a little daunting and-"

"Creepy as hell." Fitz gave her an encouraging smile. "Hey, we just have to channel Evil Fitzsimmons."

"How long would it take you to grow a beard." She quipped.

Fitz's eyes lit up. "I can't grow a beard in 4 hours, but I have been wanting to try something out." He rushed over to a cabinet and returned with a small briefcase. Gesturing with one hand like he was hosting a game show, "May I present the Disguise-o-matic, portable and compact for all your espionage needs."

Simmons chuckled at the hopeful look on his face. "Well I guess I'll just have to go put on some black eyeliner then, because obviously this is very important for our process."

"Obviously." Fitz said seriously, before grinning and excitedly punching buttons on the case.

Simmons headed for her bunk to put on eyeliner. Once there she decided that Evil Simmons would also have a whole evil wardrobe, so she changed clothes too. And this made her realize that Evil Fitz wouldn't wear plaid, so she invaded her partner's room to grab a different shirt for him. The end result was that she didn't walk back into lab until about 15 minutes later.

"Good you're back. I was beginning to get worried because how long does it-" the rest of Fitz's sentence trailed off when he turned and saw her.

Her stomach flipped at his stunned look, but rather than focus on that Simmons rushed to explain. "Okay, I know this is more than eyeliner, but Evil Me would wear different clothes. And this seemed more appropriate," She gestured to the black leather pants and fitted V-neck sweater she had changed into. She threw the shirt she had picked out at Fitz, who was now sporting a surprisingly lifelike goatee. "I also may have gone in your room to get a different shirt for you because, let's face it, plaid isn't evil."

Fitz managed to catch the shirt. "Umm...okay," He finally answered, still not moving to put on the shirt.

"Oh, fine I'll turn around while you change." Simmons swiveled so she was facing away from him. "Although it's not like I haven't seen you practically naked before, so I don't know what the big deal is."

Fitz made a choking sound, "Decontamination shower, Simmons! We were in a decontamination shower at the time. I don't think that counts."

She made a shoo-ing motion with one hand and waited until the sounds of rustling clothing faded before turning back around.

"Well, do I seem eviler...more evil.. now?" Fitz asked.

Simmons took a couple of steps closer, noticing that the boots she wore as Evil Simmons evened out their heights. The goatee made him look like an older, less carefree version of himself and the navy shirt she had picked out deepened Fitz's eyes to a darker blue. In fact she was having trouble tearing her gaze away from his eyes. The only thing that seemed out of place was his curly hair. "I think Evil Fitz would probably gel his hair." She said, reaching a hand out to see what that would look like.

Fitz caught her hand before it touched his hair. "Jemma, what's going on?" He asked gently, those blue eyes now concerned and searching her face. "You were quiet earlier and now...it's not that I don't enjoy going down these tangents with you, I love it actually, but it seems like you're taking this a bit far."

Simmons' stomach flipped over again, this time she wasn't sure if it was what Fitz had said or the fact that his thumb was rubbing the inside of her wrist. She tore her gaze away and focused on a point in the distance to attempt to logically sort out her feelings.

"I guess I'm trying to stall now that we have to start designing this amazing yet terrible thing. Think about the good that could be done with this technology, the blind could literally see again, but instead it was used to make Akela a tool for someone to exploit. It's such a perversion of what science should be used for. And I know that I'm probably being a hypocrite because we've designed weapons before, but this...when I think about actually figuring it out I just get this sick feeling." She snuck a look at Fitz, feeling better now that she had actually verbalized her feelings. "I'm sorry, I'll-"

"Hey, you have nothing to apologize for." Fitz said softly. "We knew fieldwork would be challenging, not anticipating something like this, but...you never have to apologize to me for how you're feeling. We'll just work something out, okay."

A rush of gratitude went through her and before Simmons knew what she was doing she had reached out and pulled Fitz into a hug. A second later his arms wound around her and Simmons realized just how lucky she was to have a partner in this bizarre adventure.

"Thanks Leo," she mumbled into the side of his neck.

"Of course." One of his hands started to absently rub her shoulder. "You know I'll always have your back."

After another moment they disentangled themselves and Fitz cleared his throat. "I'm…I don't think I can work on this without you though. It's based in biology, and that's the only sample we have. Would it will help if we just focused on individual parts of the device to start with?"

"It's worth a try."

"You cannot be serious Fitz. There is no way that that power configuration would work over the long term."

"But it doesn't have to work over the long term. What you're suggesting is more fantasy than the level of fantasy science we are already proposing."

"Do I need to separate you two?" Coulson's calm voice effectively cut through the heated argument, causing both scientists to realize that they had a visitor in the lab. "We're going to land in an hour, so I thought I'd see if you had come up with anything." He added.

Fitz glanced at the clock, surprised by how much time had passed. They had started working on the eye technology slowly, piece by piece as he had suggested, which had helped Simmons focus. Then, quite by accident, he had stumbled on a better way- strenuously arguing with her about every third or so detail, only some of which were warranted. If Simmons was yelling at him she wasn't thinking too much about what they were actually designing. In the end, they had made rather remarkable progress. It was a good thing he had worked with her long enough to know which buttons to push to make her angry.

"Agent Coulson, perhaps you can settle an argument." Simmons cut him an annoyed look. "Fitz is proposing a scheme that would burn out the technology in 3-5 years most likely with disastrous effects on the host. While I-"

"While you are suggesting an expensive, pie-in-the-sky alternative that has little benefit beyond increased lifespan of the device and subject. Seriously, what would Evil Simmons do?"

"Evil Simmons would say that increased lifespan means that you don't have to recruit and implant subjects as often." Simmons walked over to a machine that had just beeped and turned back to him with a triumphant smile. "Her idea would also be supported by this chemical analysis."

Fitz quickly looked over the analysis and groaned, "I guess I'm buying drinks next time."

"Yes you are partner." Simmons beamed, any of the animosity she had been feeling toward him earlier was clearly gone. In fact she had probably figured out what he doing a while ago. She knew how to rile him up too.

"So you've made some progress then." Coulson said mildly, failing to hide a smile.

"Some," Fitz said.

They turned back to the table and pulled up a few schematics, ready to show Coulson the two options they had reverse engineered.

Simmons started to explain, "At this point there is a lot of supposition involved, but-"

"Hey did you guys change clothes?" Skye asked.

Fitz turned around and saw that Skye and Ward were now standing next to Coulson.

"You have a beard." stated Ward, sounding a bit bewildered.

"Oh, I used the Disguise-o-matic." The goatee was surprisingly comfortable.

"Who names these things?" Coulson sighed.

"Why?" Ward looked absolutely confused while Skye just seemed amused.

"Technically this was your idea." He pointed at Skye.

"Me?"

"Oh yes, you. You said something about Evil Fitzsimmons, so to better work on this we became Evil Us." He explained.

"Which for Fitz is a beard and not plaid. And for me is eyeliner and black clothing." Simmons elaborated, walking over to a corner of the lab to retrieve her boots. "And these boots, which Fitz made me take off because he said they were distracting."

"Simmons' boots are distracting?" Skye asked, before breaking into an all too knowing smirk. "Interesting."

"You try listening to pacing in clicking boots for half an hour." He shot back to cover the truth.

Fitz knew his partner was beautiful, but when she had come back dressed as Evil Simmons he had been stunned. He had gotten past his initial reaction, especially when it became obvious that she was upset about something, but once they started working on the device and Simmons started pacing...well, the way those boots made her walk was completely and utterly distracting. Seeing Ward's eyes widen in appreciation as Simmons sauntered back to the table, wearing those boots again, actually made him feel slightly vindicated. That is until a thread of something else worked its way in- protectiveness maybe, for his partner, and not anything else because his life did not need to get more complicated.

"I hadn't really thought about you guys going undercover, but I could work with this," Ward said thoughtfully, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

"What would Evil AC be like?" Skye asked.

"AC?"

Coulson shook his head. "She means me. And that nickname is not catching on." He informed them.

"A full beard." Fitz answered.

Simmons nodded, "Pop culture says so."

"So I guess I would have a beard then too?" Ward asked.

"No." Simmons answered, studying Ward for a second. "Evil You would have an interesting scar on your face somewhere. And slicked back hair."

"What is it with you and hair gel today?" Fitz wondered.

Simmons just shrugged.

"And Evil Me?" Skye asked.

"Tattoos." Fitz said.

"Red streaked hair. Or maybe purple." Simmons added.

"Huh," Skye considered the answer, "I can live with that."

"Well, I'm glad that's all been cleared up." Coulson said, causing Skye to grin and Ward to look a little embarrassed. "We land in about an hour. Can you write up what your results and prep the evidence for transfer."

"Yes, sir."

"Also, let me know if you still want to work on this. SHIELD will pursue the investigation, but its also in your area of expertise so I can ask them to keep you in the loop and let you work on it as well."

Fitz didn't even have to look at Simmons to know their answer, "That's all right, sir. I think we have enough to keep us occupied right now."

Coulson nodded and after the rest of the team left, Simmons turned to him. "Hey, thanks for everything today, even all the arguing, it really helped."

"Fair warning- I'm going to remind you that you like arguing with me the next time I'm driving you crazy about something."

She smiled, "It's a good kind of crazy though, Fitz."

"Wouldn't change it for the world, Simmons."