15 November 2015

Undisclosed Location

Fitz wiped the drops of sweat from his brow as he carefully maneuvered the last box of sensitive equipment up the lone flight of stairs and the heavy metal door that barred the Playground's roof access. From up here, the view of the meteor shower would be nearly crystal clear. The ambient light was minimal and the nearest residences were quite far away. The air was chilly but nothing a good jumper couldn't fix.

He settled the hard case down and lifted the top of the line telescope he bought when he started at Sci-Ops, methodically lifting each piece out and setting it onto the tripod he'd brought up the night before in preparation. Watching the fall meteor showers with his Mum was a long-established annual tradition.

It had been worse last year, as he struggled to adjust the tetchy light and focus dials with his good hand. Mack had helped him haul things up to the roof, but Fitz had insisted this was time spent only with his mother.

That, of course, was not entirely true.

The phone vibrated against his leg. He quickly answered it, moving the phone to speaker mode so he could properly adjust the focus. "Hi, Mum. I'm nearly finished setting up."

"Hello, Leo-dear," she yawned. "Oh. It used to be so much easier to do this when you were still here with me. I've started to miss us lugging the blanket and gear out to our spot."

"I'm sorry, Mum." He frowned. For as long as he could recall, each November they slogged their gear from of the car trunk and onto the nearest meadow, far away from the bright lights of town. His tenure beginning at University had always made this a bit rough on her sleep schedule in order to make these long-distance viewings work.

"Don't you worry, dear. I've got a thermos of cocoa, your old telescope, and a few extra blankets to ward off the chill."

"You need to throw that old thing away. I could get them to ship—"

"Leopold Fitz." She practically huffed. "You couldn't get me to throw out that telescope even if you tried. Most Mums only get hand prints and holiday decorations. You found the parts and fixed it up. It works just fine for these old eyes."

He sighed and massaged his temples. He couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 when he had located the pieces. The controls were a bit finicky and the base had wobbled, which was surely why their neighbor had condemned them to the rubbish heap. But a bit of time, care, and a few other recovered spare parts recovered had served them pretty well. He had repaired the workings at least three times over nearly two decades. But Fitz had long since learned to choose his battles with his mother. "If you insist…"

"And I do."

Fitz blinked a few times before moving his eye up to the eyepiece. "I just saw one streak past. If you are facing north and then look at about 10 o'clock, you might catch the next one."

He could hear the clink of the telescope dials as she changed position. "Jemma isn't there with you again this year? I know you said she wasn't feeling well last year. I don't think I've spoken with her since she was calling me with updates after your accident last summer."

He raised his eyebrows. No one really thought to mention that fact to him. Not that he had Jemma had really spoken last year until just before she was pulled across the universe. "Well. She has gone through a lot this year. I'm giving her a bit of space."

"Oh, Leo." She did very little to mask her disappointment. "Are you quite sure that she wants space?"

"I—" Fitz stumbled over the words. He had only just found out about how many opportunities he actually had and missed, but still had barely time to process it. Not that it would have done him much good with Will in the picture. "I don't know."

"Have you been fighting, then?"

"No, Mum. It's not really that at all." Fitz sighed. Dwelling on this now would only bring more questions from his mother later. "Could we—would you mind if we talked about something else?"

Jemma Simmons sighed as she slumped against the wall on the landing on the stairs a floor down from the roof. As a girl, her mother had always been emphatic about the impoliteness of eavesdropping, warning that at best she'd hear gossip that would end up getting her in trouble and at worst she would hear something about herself that she'd regret. 'I told you so' conversations with her mother were unpleasant at best.

It was tremendously clear in her own mind what she wanted. She had loved both Fitz and Will in each their own way. If there was even a chance of bringing Will back from that awful planet, it was worth the risk. He made sure that she could get away, that she could get back to Fitz. Will understood what Fitz meant to her. But Will had suffered far too long in that awful solitude and had truly earned a normal life back on Earth. It was all too clear to her that Fitz was not going to talk with her about anything until after Will was brought back.

Once she came out of isolation, Fitz was respectful and polite to a fault, especially where she was concerned—even before she told him what had happened with Will. At their dinner, she really felt the reality and guilt of this awful situation hit her full force. These two men who she cared for had literally put themselves into tremendous danger just for her. Bobbi even enlightened her—at great length-just how much trouble Fitz managed to get himself into while he searched for clues.

Now Fitz was overly polite and incredibly, almost unbelievably helpful. Going far beyond the call of what anyone would expect of a friend, let alone the romantic relationship they had danced around before she had been pulled to the nightmare planet. She had never stopped wanting to start that relationship with him. Now, he seemed far too willing to just give her up.

But she had fought. She fought that planet, fought for her own survival, fought for a way home, and fought against a growing fear of whatever evil inhabited that planet with them for months. She fought with everything that she had, everything that she was. Until her last hope, her connection to Earth and to Fitz seemed utterly and unbearably lost.

Will had been there when her world was closing in; he had felt that same darkness himself. Now, there was no way to even know that Will was well or safe.

She massaged her head against the sharpen spike of pain that always seemed to hit her frontal lobe whenever she caught herself examining this entire messy situation. She would not cry. She had done enough of that, and it hadn't helped in the slightest. Will was still out there. Fitz was still distant even after they had watched the sunrise together.

But now, she had hope again. And she had been rebuilding her strength to fight.

"Jemma?"

She turned her head up the steps, plastering a smile on her face. "Sorry. I saw Mack carrying the tripod yesterday, and figured you might have come up here. When I climbed up, I saw you were on the phone with your Mom and came back down to give you a bit of privacy."

"Did you-" He trailed off, clearly debating whether or not to ask how much she heard. "Did you wait long?"

"Not really. We did sit out watching the meteor showers for years. And I knew you did sometimes talk with your Mum."

Fitz stood quietly frozen to the spot, a bit stunned. Not quite how she would have expected him to act if he suspected eavesdropping. "Are you alright?"

Fitz shook his head, as if to break out of a trance. "You know I've been doing this for years, yeah?" He lifted the telescope case in gesture. "Well before we started at the Academy. My Mum just mentioned that this was actually one of my Dad's traditions growing up. We've just been carrying it on."

Jemma wore a puzzled frown. In all the years they'd been friends, Fitz had never really mentioned his father. "She never told you why before?"

"Never." Fitz sat down next to her but on the other side of the stair case still staring forward a bit blindly, settling the telescope case in between them. "She rarely ever mentions Dad."

Jemma inclined her head, silently prodding him on. She was not disappointed.

"I remember sitting out under the stars as a kid, we'd find the constellations and spot the meteors. Mum would wax poetic on the universe and the age of the stars. I would read up on the stories of the constellations and tell her about some of the space missions I had read about in the library. I tried telling her about the rocket construction, but her eyes would just kinda glaze over.

Jemma smiled.

"Anyways, I know Mum would occasionally reminisce about Dad, but I can't really remember any specific time that she would actually mention him other than when we'd go out stargazing. She would gripe that he traveled far too often for work. She'd regret every silly fight and mean word. She'd remember the tool box he'd left for me as a Christmas present the year he passed. She told me I had just started to pull apart and re-build everything I could get my tiny hands on. He insisted that if I was quite intent upon it, I at least have the tools to do it right." A ghost of a smile crossed his lips before fading just as quickly. "She'd wish that the awful December day had never come to pass, so I could have had an easier time growing up.

"Oh, Fitz." Fitz wasn't sure when it happened, but when he looked down, Jemma's fingers lay atop his in comfort, her thumb tracing circles over his knuckles. He tried not to dwell on it. Surely this was just Jemma's idea of being friendly and supportive. And for a man he didn't have any real memories of, it was a bit of shock to realize that his Father still had quite a lasting impact on his life aside from the obvious biological contribution. He turned his hand over to hold her hand, giving it a squeeze in thanks.

"I must have been too little to understand when he passed. Or maybe I was so used to him travelling that it just felt like a really long trip. But when Mum got those silent tears in her eyes, it was like a punch to the gut. I barely remembered the man. I didn't think it was worth causing her more pain for what little it might help me."

"After a bit, I figured I'd try and find records on my own. Diving through the public library microfiche had been a bit awkward, and I found out that hard way that I could only be gone for a few hours without making her concerned. Once I was maybe ten or eleven, I was able to do a bit of research at the high school on a decent internet connection. I found information on his plane crash into a Columbian mountain. I even managed to track down some of the papers that he had published in academic journals. But that never really told me who he was. I came to terms with the fact that this work and the few spare hints from his mother were all I'd ever know."

"Besides, it wasn't if I had a lot of time to mope. Mum was contacted by Shield not long after with a proposal to fast track my collegiate studies and join Shield Academy."

"I'm sorry, Fitz." Jemma scooted over, resting her arm on his back and her head on his shoulder.

Out in the brush over 500 yards from the Playground facility, a pair of long-ranged night vision goggles and camera slunk back below the brush line. The man was slim, but garbed entirely in camouflage and face mask. From his position on the ground, he pulled up the camera screen and visually confirmed the captured image on the young man he'd been sent to locate. Pulling gear apart piece by piece, he packed the components into a hard case before slipping it into a backpack.

Unwilling to risk the prying eyes of shield catching him he stayed low to the ground, crawling through the shrubs until him came to the deserted road. Hitching his backpack over his shoulder he took on last look at the base in the distance. His target blissfully unaware he'd been found as he gazed upon the stars.

He powered up a burner phone, dialed, and waited for the call to connect. "The Target's location has been identified. Image confirmation to follow." Killing the call, he powered down the phone, pulled the battery out, and smashed the sim card.

He peeled off the face mask and with two quick taps on his watch, his clothing shimmering and changed to tactical gear and then casual clothing.

Hitching his backpack over one shoulder, he hiked out to the nearest town.

Author's Notes:

Dedicated to agl03: No one else enables my crazy theories quite so much!

Major thanks to LettertoElise for helping on all aspects of grammar and helping to whip my writing into shape!

I really appreciate all of the kudos, reviews, comments, and messages on tumblr. It me helps to improve my writing and definitely helps keep me motivated to keep on writing.