First review, from babycraycray, asked for Fitz! Here we go!

As we round the bend, the passengers on the north side of the train...

Fitz looks out of the filthy window and wishes he could actually see out of it. He wants to have time to take in the views, because the mountains that are the subject of this announcement are supposed to incredible. He hopes that Coulson will allow them to spend some time sightseeing when this op is over. He doesn't see why not. After all, the team deserve a break.

Skye is busy typing away, and Fitz wonders how it's humanly possible for her fingers to move that fast.

"I'd love to see the views," he hints, but she hardly pays him any attention.

"Sure," she says.

"Ignore me, then," he grumbles, "Do you have any snacks? I'm feeling a bit peckish."

She laughs and rolls her eyes. "Well, you could risk your job and go and buy something if you like."

"Actually? Put it that way, you know what? I'm not so hungry any more. In fact," he says, pausing to consider it, "I kind of need the toilet."

"Oh, Fitz," comes Simmons' sigh.

"It's not funny!" he says grumpily.

Skye giggles at his expression.

"So is the package an 084?" she asks.

"No, we might not know what it is, but we definitely know that it comes from Cybertek."

"Right. Have you ever heard of and 084 being a...person?"

"No." He gives a hollow laugh. "I'd hate to meet the guy. Aargh, I can't stand it. I'm going."

Skye snorts. "Ok, turbo," she smirks.

He leaves, and she notices that May's goggles are offline. "When did that happen?" she murmurs. "Coulson? Simmons? Does anybody read me?"

Nothing.

"Fitz," she calls.

He is gone.

Someone runs in, and she breathes a sigh of relief, but it isn't Coulson. And he's holding a gun.

And firing at her.

Skye jumps behind an empty crate and pulls out her gun. She fires the six bullets she has, and looks around to see one last person, holding a glowing blue grenade. Simmons runs in.

"Simmons!" Skye shouts wildly. The man hasn't noticed her.

"We've been made!" Simmons cries, using some sort of urn she's holding to knock out the man, but she is a split second too late, and he throws it at Skye, and there is blue light, and there is darkness.


Fitz comes back in, panicked, to see Simmons frozen, staring at a limp form on the ground with a terrified expression. He grabs her arm and she lets out a cry of fear, struggling out of his grasp and preparing to hit him with a large silver urn(?).

"Simmons! Simmons, it's me!"

She peers at him closely before throwing herself at him. "Skye," she sobs.

"Is she...?"

He gently extracts himself from her and bends down beside Skye. He checks her pulse.

"She's ok," he says, relieved.

"It looks like she was hit by some sort of dendrotoxin. That would explain the blue...a sort of black sleep would make sense. How did Cybertek manage to make it airborne?"

"Jemma, what the hell's going on?"

She looks at him fearfully. "We were made," she whispers, "Coulson left, but he didn't come back. All our communication devices are down. I don't know what to do."

"Search the train for the others. I'll try and wake up Skye."

She bites her lip and nods.

When she returns, she shakes her head sadly.

"I don't understand, Fitz. This was meant to be a non-combat op. What happened to everyone? Are we the only ones left?"

"I think so."

"Where did the Cybertek Man go?" she asks suddenly, but a look at his face and she knows.

"Sorry," he says quietly.

"You did what had to be done."

"We're stopping," he realises.

"Why? We aren't due for another half hour."

They go over to the grimy window and together wipe it with their sleeves so that they can see out.

"Cybertek have the package," Fitz says, stricken. What have they done to May, Coulson and Ward?

"We're the last two left. Do we stay here?"

"I have an extra tracker. We could follow them," Fitz suggests.

Simmons shakes her head. "What about Skye?" she asks.

"She can look after herself. We'll leave her with this," he says, gently removing the gun from Jemma's grasp.

"She can tell Coulson what happened," she agrees, failing to see the lack of logic in this statement.

"Yeah," he says, letting it go because he doesn't think it's entirely relevant right now.

They open the door of the carriage and jump out.


"Coulson was right," she breathes, "Quinn's here. Cybertek led us right to him."

"I'll activate the tracker," Fitz says, fishing in his bag for it.

"The team will find us soon, won't they?" she asks quickly.

"Of course. Why do you...oh. No, you cannot be serious."

"Fitz, if we don't go in there, Quinn will get away."

"We didn't even pass our field assessments, for goodness' sake!"

"But we trained for them. We could do this, Fitz, we could. We could take Quinn down, get the package."

"That's Ward's job. Ours is to sit tight and tell him how to do it."

"If we wait till Ward gets here, he'll launch a full on assault and shoot everyone, giving Quinn a tip-off and allowing him to get away! But if we do it, Fitz...we can get in quietly, remove the package so it's unharmed, and then let Coulson and the others take down Quinn. Think about it, Fitz...this is our chance to prove ourselves to SHIELD, to show that we are loyal to them and always will-"

"Stop," Fitz says, "Just stop."

He holds up a hand.

"Fitz," she says.

"Fine," he sighs, "You're right. Just like you always are."

And then they were inside.

"Meet me back there in ten minutes," she mutters, "With or without the package. Don't try and find me."

"Likewise," he hisses, and she goes upstairs, and he continues on through.

He doesn't regret his decision to give her the gun.

Yet.


He hears footsteps and pins himself to a wall hoping that they can't see him.

"Tell Mr. Quinn that his purchase is in the basement." The voice is that of a woman, with a thick Italian accent.

Fitz smiles.

He knows where the product is now.

Slowly, carefully, he makes his way down the stone steps, into a dark, dusty cellar. He is drawn immediately to the large metal tube in the corner, and he walks towards it, noting the suitcase on the table as he passes.

He is not prepared for what is inside the tube.

Mike Peterson. The one who died on the bridge. The one who betrayed Coulson for the life of his son. The one who would have gotten away with it, only to run back onto the bridge which promptly blew up. The one who had Extremis running through his blood. The one who would have blown up, but who was saved by the weapon Fitz had helped create. Fitz can't work out who Mike is: friend or foe?

He decides that in their current predicament he is probably a friend, and is so lost in thought that he does not notice the men come up beside him until there is a hand around his throat and his own gun pointed at his head.

Dammit.

"Leopold Fitz," comes Quinn's smooth, polished voice, "Agent of SHIELD, Level 5. A member of Coulson's team, I believe. Helped invent this little weapon." He taps the night-night gun in Mancini's hand.

"This is the same as the specs. you gave us for the grenade," he says.

Fitz does't know where to look, and it doesn't help that his eyes will not quite focus from the lack of oxygen. He tried to get the hand away from his throat.

"You see," Quinn continues, "We've been watching you just as closely as you have us."

"You won't get away with this!" Fitz shouts. "We have a full team on their way and another agent who is searching as we speak!"

"Oh, the agent upstairs?" His tone is clipped and even, as though he has rehearsed this speech. "They have been...taken care of."

Fitz stops struggling. His breathing is ragged. Time slows down.

"You...you...Jemma?"

It made sense; how else would he have her gun?

"I am sorry. Was she a friend of yours?"

And then Fitz has fury, and terror, and anger, and grief, and he pushes Mancini away from him and he is lunging at Quinn, and something connects with the back of his skull.

He falls almost comically, in a tangled heap at their feet.

Quinn nods at the case and his partner brings its contents over. Fitz notices that the chamber is open and Mike is sitting up. He must have blacked out for a minute or so.

"I brought you something to help you complete them," Quinn is saying.

Mancini slides the...thing...onto Mike's stump of what used to be a leg. "Stand, please," he says.

Mike stands and Fitz tries his very hardest not to hear the grunts of pain that escape his lips. His vision is a little blurry but he can see quite clearly a glowing metal leg.

Fitz closes his eyes, and stands up.

He almost doesn't make it. He feels nauseous and a wave of dizziness knocks him back into the wall.

When he opens his eyes, the other man is gone. It's just him, and Quinn...and Mike.

"So, Mr. Peterson, you know you can't hurt me, right? No. But...if I hurt you...would you stop me?"

Mike is silent. "No," he says finally, "I would not."

"Mike - Mr. Peterson," Fitz says frantically, "I'm Fitz. Do you remember me? I designed some of your equipment, saved your life from the Extremis. I'm on Coulson's team."

"But do you follow my orders? For example, if I asked you to...well, you know, cross him off, would you?"

The silence is unbearable. Fitz moves away from the wall, but he can't go far, because there is a gun pointed at him.

And then Mike nods.

"Good man," Quinn says, and then, whispering in Mike's ear so that Fitz can't hear, he tells him, "Two in the stomach."

He turns and walks up the steps.

"Mike-"

Bang. Bang.


It's been ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. She's worried. Twenty minutes.

She hears a scuffle. A gunshot.

Fitz.

She hardly thinks about what's she's doing, but she starts towards the house. This was her fault.

There is a movement, and she whirls around. She vaguely remembers putting the gun down to search for a hidden doorway, and it isn't in her belt where she has been keeping it. There is a man pointing a gun at her.

"Hello," she says weakly, hoping that she doesn't sound terrified (though of course she does). "Can I help you?"

There's a sharp crack, and she leaps out the way, but it wasn't from his gun. He slumps downwards.

"Simmons!"

"Where's Fitz?"

Shakily, she points towards the house.


Coulson grabs Quinn and presses a gun to his head. "Where's Fitz?" he spits.

Quinn laughs. "Which one of you was upstairs? He thinks - well, thought, I suppose - that you're dead. Two to the stomach, just like hi-"

Coulson punches him so hard that he blacks out for a minute or two.

"We have to find him!" Simmons cries, "He won't be upstairs."

They all start running.


Quinn hears the pained cry from where he lies, tossed unceremoniously on the floor with hands cuffed behind his back, and lets out a little laugh. May kicks him hard in disgust and he doubles over, groaning. She follows the noise.

Fitz is in Jemma's arms, lifeless, his blood pooled on the floor. She is sobbing, trying to wake him up, but it is no use.

May utters a foul stream of swear words she didn't even realise she knew. "Coulson!"

It turns out that he was close already, and he runs in, stopping dead when he sees FitzSimmons.

"Oh, no. What can you do for him? Simmons?"

She is weeping. "It's my fault," she says over and over again. "I did this. I'm sorry."

May marches over. "Can you do anything for him?" she asks.

Simmons looks around the whole room as Skye and Ward walk in. "He's lost so much...there. Put him in there."

"What is that thing?" Skye asks.

"A hypobaric chamber and put him in there!"

Her trembling hands are covered in blood, but she manages to press the right buttons.

"Simmons, is it working?" Ward sounds like he's already said this, but she hardly hears, staring intently at Fitz.

He breathes.


She leaves as soon as she can. She does not want to see him like this.

Nobody will search for her in a storage closet, so she goes in there, and curls up in the corner.

This is her fault.

"Fitz, forgive me," she says, but nobody's listening.

Fitz, I think I love you, her mind says, but she doesn't say it aloud.

...Yeah. There we go. Who are you guys interested in me doing next? A big thank you to babycraycray and to Lamarquize for telling me what you thought.

Thanks!