One week! Sorry this is a bit of a shorter one but I wanted to get something up tonight and it was kinda necessary to break it off here. Anyways, hope you enjoy!
xx
Daisy knocks on the apartment door while the other two hesitate in front of it. She rolls her eyes to herself and taps four times against the hardwood.
Twenty seconds later the door pulls open revealing a fully suited up Coulson. It only takes another ten seconds for his expression to shift from annoyed, but politely smiling to something darker.
"Look, I'm glad I made an impression on you Miss, but showing up at my home is unacceptable-"
"Mr. Coulson, I'm afraid I wasn't completely honest with you earlier."
"Not again," he mutters, anger now clouding over his features.
He tries to shut the door.
There's a bicycle on the lawn as they step out of the car. It's purple, large but still obviously belonging to a child. Dread settles over Jemma as they walk up to the front door. The sunshine contrasts it, spilling a cheery vibe over the suburban landscape.
When the doorbell chimes it sets off the deep barking of a dog that they can't see through the curtained front windows. Fitz takes a somewhat hesitant step back when the door opens.
A young girl, no older than twelve stands before them, the head of a slobbering Doberman stuffed, caught between her knee and the doorframe.
"Hi," she smiles and it's Mack's smile repeated onto a different face.
Fitz recovers faster. "Hi, are your parents' home?"
Just as the girl opens her mouth to speak again Mack's booming voice emerges from deeper in the house.
"Hope! What have I said about answering the door!"
Mack's broad frame dwarfs the girls as he emerges behind her, pulling the dog back into the house, he smiles politely.
"Can I help you?"
"Mr. Mackenzie." Fitz holds out his hand, stepping closer to the house.
"Mr. Fitz," He sounds more than a little surprised and takes a hand off his daughters shoulder to shake Fitz's. "Did I do some- Is something wrong?"
Fitz smiles wryly. "That's a bit more complicated of a question than you think it is at the moment, Mr. Mackenzie." He pulls Simmons forward by the elbow. "This is my colleague, Dr. Jemma Simmons, she's got something she'd like to speak with you about."
Ten Minutes Earlier
Coulson sets down his mug of coffee with a resigned sigh and goes to answer the door. Waiting for him, is a man. Tall and thin with dark skin and classically handsome features laid out in an inviting smile.
"Good morning, Mr. Coulson. May we come in?"
An even taller blonde woman hovers behind him, her gaze darting around the hallway beyond his apartment.
"That depends, who are you?"
"Mr. Coulson, we're with an organization that's here to help, we-"
"We're with SHIELD," the blonde cuts in, her expression more than serious. "And you're in danger."
"Hope, go get ready for school." His voice turns stern in an instant, not even six words into Jemma's speech about reality.
"I am ready, Daddy," she whines, pressing forward out of his grip towards Jemma, towards the story.
"Hope." His tone leaves no room for arguments and she slinks away back into the house, pouting.
Mack steps out of the doorway, closing it behind him. It pushes them all out further onto the sidewalk.
"Look, I don't know what you're doing at my house, but you need to leave."
"Mr. Mackenzie," Fitz steps forward again.
"Mack." Jemma interrupts him. "I just need you to hear me out."
He scowls. And she's failed.
Daisy shoves her foot in the doorframe at just the last second before it latches shut. Funnily enough, she doesn't feel the ache of the impact through her boot, even though she thinks for a moment that she should.
"Mr. Coulson." She pushes the door back open and steps past him into the apartment. It looks like it's been staged as a show home but she brushes off the impersonality of the space and turns back to Coulson, who looks affronted that she's dared to barge in.
"I'm going to call the police if you don't get out of here."
"Mr. Coulson..." Ward tries, but Daisy shoots him a glare to shut him up.
"That wouldn't do you any good."
He seems to be ignoring her, has moved from standing shocked by the door to puttering around his kitchen, muttering to himself.
"Second time in one morning… just absolutely unacceptable…"
"Coulson," Daisy puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He flinches.
"Are we not the first ones here?"
"No!" he explodes, throwing his hands in the air, almost catching Daisy if she hadn't moved back already.
"I just got the other agents out of here when you all showed up!"
Daisy turns on May and Ward.
"What did you do?"
They exchange a glance. Daisy itches to reach for her weapon but knows it would just freak Coulson out more.
"Who did you call?"
"No one!" Ward protests.
May holds out her hands. "Nothing, Skye, we didn't do anything."
"Then who?" she glances at Coulson, who has the expression of a lost puppy and stands numbly beside his island countertop, then back at May. "Who showed up here?"
"They said they were with SHIELD."
An earthquake rumbles beneath the streets of Los Angeles. The roads quiver, jostling but not buckling the pavement. In a diner, the coffee in a man's mug sloshes, just barely contained by the porcelain, not daring to run over the edges of the mug.
A child sits in her front garden and watches. Watches the bee which was sitting happily upon a daisy flutter up, take flight, and buzz suddenly skyward. The grass flutters around her, as if in an invisible breeze, but she doesn't feel the shaking.
A remote auxiliary storage facility for FitzTech crumbles. The empty building shakes on its foundation, beams and joists breaking down, falling in on themselves, splintering wood and drywall and metal into dust which does not rise up into the atmosphere.
The roof caves, the walls fall in. An entire building folds down as easily as a paper cube, one made by schoolchildren, held together by stick glue and careful creases. The materials disintegrate, folding in and in and in until there is not even a mote of dust left behind. Desert takes over the space once again, nothing remaining but a dry and empty landscape.
There is no one around to notice.
Leo Fitz awakes from a nightmare.
xx
Let me know what you think and as always I'm around on tumblr at sinkingsidewalks