"New to Me"

Leo Fitz was definitely intimidated by his soulmates. Terrified of one of them, and just generally overwhelmed. And confused. How on God's green Earth did he get Grant Ward and Melinda May for soulmates? They were both experienced agents – May was a personal friend of Phil Coulson, for crying out loud! – and Fitz was an engineer fresh from SHIELD academy with absolutely no field training. If they were supposed to be contrasting each other, he had no idea how.

It was clearly the relationships could only ever be platonic. He was pretty sure that either of them could break him with their pinkie; in May's case, probably with a raised eyebrow. That seemed pretty lethal in and of itself.

"I'm sure you'll be fine, Fitz," Simmons said.

"Yeah, yeah, you say that now," he said. "I s'pose I should be happy that we're all on this plane together. Now that we've found each other, the separation would be an irritating itch."

She patted his arm, and they continued to unpack.

Yes, it became clear very quickly that he wasn't going to interest either of them. And, quite frankly, he preferred to spend his time with Skye and Simmons. He couldn't help spending time with Simmons, and it seemed like Skye preferred to hang out with people her own age, and who were much friendlier than Ward.

After their first mission together, he was left reeling. May. Was The Cavalry.

Shit. One of his soulmates was The Cavalry.

Then he and Ward went to South Ossetia, and he felt… closer to his soulmate. After they got past the arguing.

But Ward ran hot and cold. The berserker staff could be blamed for his anger, but it still hurt to have such vitriol aimed at him. It didn't take long to realise that there was some kind of relationship happening between May and Ward, though. At least his two soulmates were sexually compatible. They were disagreeable, and it baffled him, but they weren't alone. He would've felt bad…

Of course, it would help if he wasn't alone himself. His attempts at flirting with Skye were pathetic, and he just couldn't seem to talk to Simmons about his feelings.

"Do you think I'm broken?" Skye asked.

"What do you mean?" Simmons said, bent over her microscope. Fitz was working on the weight of the ICERs.

"Because I don't have a soulmark."

"Soulmarks are more trouble than they're worth," Fitz said. "Too much hype about them."

"What do you mean?" Skye said, tilting her head. He shrugged.

"They don't seem to mean anything, that's all," he said. "Look at me. My two soulmates are May and Ward."

"Seriously?" Skye said, her eyes goggling.

"You didn't tell me that!" Simmons exclaimed, looking up.

"It didn't seem to matter," he said. "There's nothing going to happen there. I can't imagine two less likely people for me, can you? I've been in the field, but—"

"You're badass too, Fitz," Skye said. "You're a genius, and one of the nicest people I know. You totally deserve a couple of sexy field agents as your soulmates."

"That would imply that I'm sexually interested in either of them, and I can't see it being reciprocated. Ward isn't exactly my type, and I'm pretty sure Agent May… well, she could be my type, but they both terrify me. They'd eat me alive."

"Oh, poor Fitz." Simmons patted his shoulder, and he glared at her half-heartedly. "It'll happen one day."

"Put it this way," he said, pointing a spanner at Skye. "You don't have Fate telling you that you must be with this person, or these people. It means that you're not going against Fate if you choose someone different. No chance that the world might be knocked off its axis or something." He shook his head. "It's all a very woolly science."

"Wait." She glanced at Simmons. "I thought it was Hermione who referred to divination as a woolly subject."

"I am not Hermione!" Simmons said, and she returned to her microscope with a grimace while Skye giggled. Fitz winked at Skye, and returned to the ICER.

After Ward chose HYDRA over their team, May noticed that his soulmark disappeared. Well, it appeared as soon as she accepted the betrayal. It seemed that Fitz's stayed longer. It was probably his sentimentality. She didn't know that he set such stock by soulmates, but she'd heard him babbling to Simmons that his mark was still there, that Ward couldn't be HYDRA because of that. May wanted to slap sense into him, hold him tightly until he understood, beg him to let go.

She didn't. Then he nearly drowned and she'd come close to losing her second mark. If it wouldn't look out of character, she would've hugged Simmons for saving him. May would have really regretted it if she'd lost her chance to get to know her remaining soulmate. Maybe if she'd spent more time with him, and less time in bed with Ward, this whole thing would hurt less.

So she stayed by his side during his recovery. She knew he saw her there, even held his hand when she was confident that no one would see it.

"He'll pay for this," she assured him. "As soon as I'm allowed to, I'll make him pay. He can't remain useful forever."

She could've sworn his hand twitched under hers.

"I'll protect you properly next time," she said. "Just you and me now." She leaned over and kissed his forehead. It should've felt strange, but instead it felt natural.

That was new. She should've done it a long time ago.

They were so busy in Puerto Rico that Skye missed the appearance of a couple of smudges on her body, especially after Trip's death and she began to go through yet another personal crisis. Seriously, why did life pile so much bad on her?

It was a major shock when Simmons drew a sample of blood in quarantine, and squeaked.

"Skye!"

"What, what? Do I have a spider on me? A rash?"

"Look."

It looked like a bruise, or a bunch of funny-shaped bruises.

"That doesn't look natural," she said.

"I've seen videos! It's what happens when someone gains a new soulmark. Concentrate. Can you feel it?"

Skye paused, and focused on that spot. She felt it happening elsewhere, and hopped off the examination table. She pushed her pants down and examined the smudge on her inner thigh, close to her knee.

"Two of them?" she said. "At the same time?"

"I don't understand, but perhaps something happened in the temple which unlocked… this," Simmons said, her eyes shining with the possibilities. Skye huffed, and held out her arm."

"Okay, Spike, just take your blood then get back to work."

"Fitz will run the tests while I oversee—"

"I know, I know." She winced at the unpleasant sensation of having her blood drawn.

"I'll pop that to the lab, and we'll be done. You might want to pull your trousers up."

Skye rolled her eyes, but she followed Simmons' advice. The scientist buzzed out of the quarantine room, and Skye sank onto the bed.

And waited.

She hadn't seen May or Fitz since she came out of the temple, and hadn't spoken to them, either. It was… weird that she was thinking about the two of them more than anyone else. But then Fitz was testing her blood and May was her SO, so it made sense for them to be at the forefront of her mind. She guessed.

Why was she getting soulmarks now? What if they weren't soulmarks? What if they were for other people who'd had weird stuff happen to them? Was the same thing happening to Raina? Had the same thing happened to Skye's mother?

"How…" She squinted as words began to become clear. "How… something… something-ing." She traced the letters as they appeared. "You… How are… 'How are you feeling?' That's…" It came clear, and she grinned at reading her first ever soulmark. Excited, she pulled her pants down again and narrowed her eyes, leaning down to read. Her eyes adjusted, and it was easier to make out the words. "You, uh… you look… letter? No, better. Then… no, than. Be… 'You look better than before.' Huh." Pretty generic, but not as bad as a straight 'Hello' or 'Hi'. So she couldn't complain. Maybe she'd even see her soulmates at the same time?

She covered up again, and rested back, smiling for the first time since the temple. Real smiling, not the fake or sarcastic smiles she'd given the rest of the team. Mainly Coulson and Simmons, really, but at least she'd seen them.

There was a tap on the window, and she looked up. She smiled in relief, and some surprise, as Fitz and May waved.

"I can hear you, you know," she said. "It's not soundproof."

They looked at each other, and then her.

"How are you feeling?" Fitz asked.

"You look better than before," May said.

Skye swivelled around on the bed, staring at them, mouth agape. She managed to shake herself out of it, and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm good," she said. "Real good." She smiled widely. "I'm great."

Fitz beamed back, and May gave her a small, genuine smile.

Okay, peeps, so I'll be out working casually a few days this week. I spent several hours today writing 'The Deceit Was Mine', and I have Wednesday off; but I won't be able to write anything while I'm working, so yeah. You probably won't get much from me on those days, if anything. I suppose that's the time to work on the smutty-smutty bonding scenes. I've been working on the Creed/Phil scene, because that's been haunting me for days.

Moving on.

Please review!