Drabble 42: Shot Through the Heart
A/N: Prompt from Chloe1999. I hope you're all enjoying this story so far, and thank you for all your support. Please keep it up, and leave a review!
The group of men appeared in the doorway, guns at their sides. They obviously weren't expecting Agent May to be ready for them, firing the moment they appeared. She had much faster reflexes than they did, and quickly downed two of the five. One stayed in the middle, stupidly trying to fire. The other two jumped out of sight, raising their guns as they moved. May took care of the one that had stayed in the doorway and then turned her head to look at Coulson.
"They're hiding." She said.
Coulson smiled at her. "Have fun."
Coulson stepped out from behind the van to stand beside May, leveling his gun at the doorway. Skye stayed behind with Fitz and Simmons, peeping over the hood at the doorway.
They jumped when they heard a shot, and May grinned. "That's one down."
The other man appeared in the doorway, hands above his head. Ward walked behind him, a gun trained on his back.
"Are you sure we need this guy alive?" he asked.
"I think so." Coulson said.
"I thought I could shoot him." May said, lowering her weapon.
Coulson shrugged. "You may still have to."
The man whimpered in fear and Ward grinned at them.
"Why did you hurt him so much?" Simmons asked.
Ward looked at her with wide eyes. "Coulson told me to rough him up. I wouldn't have had to do it if he'd told us what we needed to know."
She shook her head as she looked at the unconscious figure on her operating table. "I think he was being honest, Ward." She said. "He doesn't know anything about the Clairvoyant."
"I know." He said.
She looked shocked. "You do?"
"Why do you think I asked you to help him recover faster? We'll drop him in a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. Let them decide what to do with him."
Simmons smiled a bit. "Good."
She bent to look over the man, closely inspecting his nose and temple area, which were bloodied and bruised, respectively. "I don't think you've broken his nose." She murmured, gently touching it with her hand. "But it will be tender for a bit. You may have given him a concussion."
She stood up straight and looked at Ward. "There's nothing I can do for him, really, except give him a bit of medicine for pain."
"Maybe not too much." Ward said. "Even if he doesn't know anything, he attacked us."
Simmons relented, and left Ward watching over the unconscious man. They were still in the factory building where they had captured him; Coulson wanted to search it for any sign of the Clairvoyant, and he'd brought May with him. Ward had 'interrogated' the man they had captured, and now Simmons decided to go and talk with Fitz.
She walked back to the main part of the factory. "Fitz?" she called out. "Are you in here?"
She didn't hear an answer, so she walked outside. She knew he'd wanted to try and retrace Ward's path from earlier, to see how invisible their specialist had been to the attackers. So she walked to the edge of the building, went to turn the corner - and gasped loudly as a bullet entered her leg. She fell to the ground as pain coursed through her leg, a fire that only got stronger as she realized what was happening.
"Ward!" she shouted, as loud as she could.
She looked up, trying to find her attacker, and saw a pair of legs vanishing towards the back of the building. "Fitz! Skye!" she called. Someone! She thought.
Fitz and Skye appeared from behind her, evidently having been on the opposite side of the building a moment ago. "Simmons?" Fitz asked as they walked closer. Then he saw her sitting on the ground, clutching her leg, and ran forward.
"Go get Ward!" she told Skye. "There's someone around back."
Skye nodded and ran back inside the building.
Simmons took a deep breath and then winced. Her hand had been over her wound, and now it was covered in red. The bullet was in her thigh, which wasn't too bad. Except for the amount of blood she was losing. It was more than normal, wasn't it? She knew that with pressure, she should have lost less. But it was so painful!
"I can't fix this myself." She said to Fitz. "Can you take me to the hospital?"
He had been staring at her, frozen, but her words got him moving again. "Right. I'll call Coulson."
She watched as he contacted Coulson, and within five minutes they were in the air, on their way to the nearest hospital. Within ten minutes she was being helped into a room, and then everyone else was forced out as the doctor came in.
Fitz paced in the hallway outside her room, wringing his hands behind his neck. He had just been walking around with Skye, exploring, and then he'd heard Jemma yell. Then he'd found her sitting on the ground, obviously in pain with a bleeding wound on her leg.
He'd stayed with her while Skye fetched Ward and May and Coulson made their way back. He hadn't left her side until they'd forced him out of the room a few minutes ago, to take care of her.
He'd seen the fear in her eyes. Jemma was good at handling stressful situations, much better than him a lot of the time. But she'd never been shot before. He wasn't as good at healing as she was, and with her frazzled, he didn't know the best way to help her. Should he apply as much pressure as possible, or barely any?
So now he paced, hoping he had done the right thing. Skye was waiting right outside, and kept moving her gaze from Fitz to the door to the floor. Finally she stood and looked at Fitz straight-on. "Why would he shoot Simmons like that?"
Fitz stopped his pacing, only for a moment, to look at her.
"He created a distraction."
Fitz looked up and saw Ward join them, leaning against the wall next to the couch Skye had been sitting on. "He needed something to draw us out of the building so he could sneak in and kill the man we captured."
"He killed him?" Skye asked.
Ward nodded, his face stoic as usual. "Apparently our man knew more than he was letting on, and his 'friend' didn't trust him to keep it secret."
"Did you see the guy who shot her?" Skye asked, sitting back down.
"No." Ward said, squaring his jaw. "No, I missed him."
Fitz listened to their conversation in one spot, shifting restlessly from foot to foot. He suddenly thought of something. If Simmons hadn't stepped outside, the man with the gun would've probably shot him and Skye. Or, and this seemed more likely, he would've lost his patience and burst inside, taking his chances and shooting blindly… in which case Simmons might have ended up dead, and Ward as well.
That was it. It was too much for Fitz to think about.
He passed out.
He came to on the couch in the hallway, next to Skye. He groaned softly and sat up straight, rubbing his eyes. "How long?" he asked her, his eyes still covered.
"About ten minutes." Skye answered.
Fitz nodded and leaned back again, placing his hands on his lap.
"You must be pretty worried, to pass out like that." Skye said. "Favorites much? You weren't like this when I was hurt."
"Haha." Fitz said lowly.
Skye lost her playful smile. "Hey, it's normal to be worried." She said. "But you don't have to be. The doctor came out like two minutes ago and said she's completely fine."
That seemed to bring Fitz to life. "Really?"
"Yeah." Skye said with a smile. "It'll just be a battle scar soon."
Fitz felt himself smile, too. "I could tell she was worried, so I didn't know how serious it was. If a bullet hits an artery…"
"Whoa." Skye said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "You're getting pale again. Relax. It was close to her artery, but it didn't hit it. She just bled more than she expected to. It's understandable." She slid her hand off his shoulder. "It feels horrible, getting shot." She said softly. "Even if you know what it's supposed to be like, you can't prepare for it."
Fitz knew this was his time to comfort her. "Hopefully we're done with being shot." He said. "For a while at least."
She gave him that lopsided grin she almost always wore, and he knew his feeble attempt at comfort had been recognized.
Jemma was let out about an hour later, limping slightly until Fitz helped her walk back to the Bus. Once he saw her he calmed. She really was fine; shaken, but fine.
And Coulson was in a rage to find the Clairvoyant, now more than ever. Fitz understood. He kept hurting their team mates. He needed to be stopped.
As he lay in his bed that night, Fitz felt himself relax more than he had in hours. They were all safe on the Bus, far away from the factory building and anything linking to the Clairvoyant. He hadn't realized how stressed he had been lately. Jemma being shot had driven him over the edge, to make him pass out like that. He hadn't passed out since freshman year.
His heart had contracted painfully when he realized Jemma was hurt. Seeing the fear in her eyes, and the blood that had covered her pale and shaking palm… Jemma, who always had steady hands… it had hurt him. He felt the pain as if it was his own. And not the physical pain, but the equivalent one feels when a loved one is injured in front of them, and there is little they can do about it.
He had been wounded emotionally, and now he had to let himself heal, as Jemma was.
It was a peaceful, restorative night. For both of them. The first he'd had in a long time.