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marvelous-heroimagines · 7 years

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Familiar

Requested by: @its-another-fan-acc (Here are the specifics)

Pairing: Reader x Bucky Word Count: 2K Warnings: Angst, fighting, swearing

A/N: This was longer than I anticipated, whoops!

~~Third person POV~~

The room full of scientists and agents falls silent as the cylindrical tube slowly raises, letting mist pour out. Everyone was nervous, unsure how the asset would react when defrosted, but Madam Hydra stood tall, her shoulders squared and face blank from expression.

She nods towards two agents, who tentatively step forward and unlatch the asset from the cryo chamber. The asset was starting to come to, the frost in her hair melting and her skin breaking out in goosebumps. She tries to keep herself upright, but her aching muscles made her slump against the agents, who were tense and scared.

“Prep her,” Madam Hydra barks at her agents, who nod and carry the asset off to an adjoining room. The scientists take their cue and follow suit, readying themselves for the possibility of erratic post-cryo behaviour.

~~Reader’s POV~~

You stay still as the scientists poke and prod you, checking to make sure your vitals were correct. You watch as a young scientist approaches you, looking terrified. He was holding an I.V. needle in his hand. He glances down at your right arm and back at your eyes repeatedly. You can tell he’s scared to talk to you, Madam Hydra ordered everyone not to talk to you unless absolutely necessary, but the scientists looks scared to suddenly stick a needle in you.

You slowly extend your right arm towards him, offering your inner elbow. He quickly hurries closer and starts trying to insert the needle. His hands were shaking and his touch is so soft that if you hadn’t been looking you wouldn’t have known that he was actually touching you.

You were so used to this post-cryo treatment by now, you could probably perform it yourself, but you’re forbidden to speak to the staff, unless spoken to. You can’t even speak to inform the scared scientist that they can never find a vein in your right arm when you’re this dehydrated. So you just have to sit still and suppress your winces of pain when he inserts the needle, then pulls it back out, tries looking for the vein and tries again.

A solid 5 minutes passed, all the other scientists were finishing up their examination and setting up equipment, and the scared, young scientists was still inserting and removing the I.V. needle from your arm.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Madam Hydra almost shouts, causing the young scientist to jump. The I.V. needle jerks in your arm and you can’t stop the involuntary hiss that escapes you. Your eyes dart to Madam Hydra, afraid she heard you, but her attention is solely on the young scientist on your right, “Just get the fucking vein,”

“Ma’am, I-I-I...” the scared scientist seemed to be shitting himself now. Being addressed directly by Madam Hydra was never a good thing.

She holds up a hand, instantly silencing the stammering scientist. She nods towards an older man in a lab coat. You recognise him, even though it’d been almost 10 years; he was usually the one that inserted your I.V.

The older scientist steps forward and snatches the I.V. needle from the young one, who cowers away, “The left is better,” he mumbles to the young scientist before wheeling the stand around your back and quickly inserting the needle.

After the drugs had entered your system, to rehydrate you and regenerate your muscles, and the scientists had given Madam Hydra the good news that you were ready for a mission, they cleared out. Madam Hydra’s heels click along the concrete floor as she slowly comes to stand in front of you. You keep a blank expression and hold her stare.

“How many missions have you completed?” she asks, her voice blunt and striking,

“46, ma’am,” you reply, keeping your voice monotone,

“How many successful?” she knew how many, she was clearly going somewhere with this,

“46, ma’am,” you humour her,

“Your 47th will not be like the others,” she stares you down, but you don’t even blink, “We are being threatened by a whole new enemy. One that, if successful, will tear down everything that Hydra has worked towards for the last 72 years,” her words echoing throughout the concrete room, “They call themselves the Avengers. It is your duty to stop them,” you nod ever so slightly, “They are trying to take our weapons, probably for their own use. You can not allow this to happen. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” you say with another nod. She turns on her heel and careens out of the room. You instantly stand and follow her.

“A lot has changed since you were put into... Storage,” she says, staring forward as you both walked through the halls, “We are no longer under the guise of S.H.I.E.l.D. it was dismantled by Captain America,” you have to bite your tongue. Captain America? Since when was he still alive? He was supposed to have died before you were even born. But you stay silent, not wanting to meet Madam Hydra’s wrath if you spoke out of turn, “As if to make it worse, we lost our favourite Asset on the same day,”

Your jaw clenches as you try to ignore her throw away expression about The Winter Soldier.

“But, alas, the future is female,” she glances at you for a split second, a smirk on her face, “Now the Avengers have taken down more than 2 thirds of Hydra’s bases and you are the last remaining asset from our Winter Soldier program. We can not let the Avenger’s continue to dismantle us, or Hydra will be gone forever,”

You nod and promptly accept a folder that she hands you. ‘THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE’ are printed in on the front. You stash it under your left arm and continue following Madam Hydra through the base halls.

A hell of a lot had happened in the last 10 years, and it seemed like a miracle that Hydra was able to survive this long. Your quinjet ride to the Russian Hydra base was long, but you were busy filling it with studying the file Madam Hydra had given you. Once you’d read over it 3 times, you moved onto prepping your gear for a battle. Even though your mission was to ensure that the agents successfully remove the valuable weapons from the already destroyed base, Madam Hydra hoped that you got to take out an Avenger or two.

The file informed you of every active member - Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, The Hulk, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Captain America, and Falcon - and their skill sets, but added notes informed you that they were currently fighting, so it was unlikely that you’d face all of them.

“5 minutes,” the quinjet pilot calls back to you and the agents. You holster you weapons and start to apply your war paint.

The quinjet lands and it’s obvious that the enemy was already here. You and the agents clamour out of the quinjet, straight into the fire fight. Flanking the two agents that had been tasked with retrieving the weapons. The run to the bunker wasn’t an easy one, but you made it unscathed.

~~Bucky’s POV~~

Bucky and Wanda were in full fight mode, having Steve’s voice calling through the comms about a new quinjet that just landed. Wanda glances at Bucky who gives her a stiff nod. Wanda’s red mist helps to shield him as he runs out into the hailing bullets. He watches as a dozen new agents file out of the quinjet, and his eye is caught by a woman, not dressed like the others. He can’t see your face properly, but something in his gut tells him that you’re familiar.

He watches as you and two agents peel off from the rest, making a break for the crumbling Hydra base. Something in him tells him to follow you, so he does.

He follows you down into a sub-basement area of the building, and hides behind a wall.

“Watch the door, Asset,” one of the agents instructs. You doesn’t say anything but Bucky listens as your footsteps approach his hiding spot. His muscles tense and he readies himself for a fight, but your footsteps stop before his spot.

Bucky can hear the other agents chatting about their lives, but he doesn’t hear anything from you. They called you asset, which is probably why Bucky thought you seem familiar. He may have worked with you as The Winter Soldier. He racks his brain, trying to remember what he could about a female asset.

“Buck, where are you?!” Steve’s voice calls in his ear, interrupting his thoughts.

Bucky doesn’t reply, knowing that saying anything would give him away instantly. But Steve wouldn’t stop, he just continually yelled into Bucky’s ear about his location and worrying something had gone wrong.

Eventually, Bucky gets too irritated to try and ignore Steve anymore, “Shut up, I’m in the building-” Bucky whispers into his comms.

“What was that?” an agent calls around the room. Bucky tenses, knowing he’d blown his cover.

Suddenly Bucky is face to face with the woman - the asset. You stares at him, your face completely blank of expression, your eyes covered in black paint like Bucky’s used to be when he worked for Hydra.

Without saying a word, you attack Bucky, and he barely raises his metal arm in time to block your punch. You stops for a moment, your eyes glued to Bucky’s arm. Something swims behind your eyes, did you recognise Bucky?

“Go,” you call over her shoulder, and a moment later the two agents are hurrying behind you, up and out of the basement. Bucky makes a move to stop them, but he’s blocked by your kick. It lands on its target, his chest, and he stumbles backwards.

“I know you,” he wheezes out, having the air knocked out of him, “You don’t have to do this,”

“Yes, I do. Soldat,” your voice low and threatening. Your eyes narrow as Bucky’s brain suddenly sends a memory to the forefront. He had known you.

“Y/N,” Bucky says, hoping that he can help you. You were still a weapon for Hydra, “I can help you,” he looks at you with kind eyes, trying to convey his sincerity, “You can escape Hydra,”

Your lips twist in a smirk, “I’m not a coward like you,” you spit, “I will never leave Hydra to work for the enemy,”

Bucky frowns at you. The enemy? Hydra must be twisting the truth so that you’ll stay faithful, “Just, listen-” he begins, but he’s stopped when you punch him right in the face.

The basement door burst open, and Bucky whips his head around to see Steve’s shield in the doorway. In the split of an eye you’re shooting at the shield. The bullets ricochet off the shield and Bucky protects his face with his metal arm.

The bullets stop and Bucky lowers his arm to see you fighting Steve. You seem to be equally matched, but Steve’s lack of offensive weapons seemed to be a disadvantage. When it seemed like Steve had the upper hand, you whip out a knife and plunge it into his thigh.

Steve calls out in pain and drops to his knees. You take the opportunity and leap over him, making your way to freedom.

“Y/N!” Bucky calls and runs to the staircase. You pause and glance over your shoulder, a smirk creeps onto your lips and you playfully wink at Bucky before ducking out of sight.

“What the hell?” Steve groans from the ground, “Who was she?”

“You guys alright?” Sam runs into the room, “Who was the chick?”

“Did you stop her?” Bucky asks,

Sam shakes his head, “She’s fast, and she was firing at us... They got away,”

“Bucky. Who was she?” Steve asks again, this time in a more serious tone,

“I used to know her, from Hydra,” Bucky mumbles,

“So...” Sam drawls out, “That crazy eyeliner is just an asset uniform type thing?” Sam teases,

“War paint,” Bucky mumbles mostly to himself, “She needs our help,” he changes the subject, staring at Steve,

“Buck, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. She doesn’t seem to want to leave,”

“Neither did I,” Bucky says bluntly, “I have to help her,”

Before either Sam or Steve can say another word, Bucky pushes past them and out of sight.

Next Part

Tags: @meep-meep22, @redstarstan, @hantu369mc, @leahhavoc, @addictwithafandomblog, @rosyfluffyprincess, @heismyhunter, @coffeeismylife28, @klutzly, @goldenlifevsgutter1996, @spn-worm, @impala-moose, @caitsymichelle13, @buckyobsessed, @buckyandsebsinbin, @girlwith100names, @thedarknesswarrior, @plumsforbuck2016, @wunnywho, @invisible2niall, @aboveaverage-fangirl, @pleasefixthepain, @sebstanwassup, @specs15

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agent-85 · 7 years

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Thank you, Mary:) 1. This time the writing is good - strong storytelling and interesting concept, encouraging a deep philosophical debate and a social commentary. Brilliant acting, I like so much scientifically sceptical Jemma:), the hero Mace and good dad Mack. I'm not convinced about May's story and even more Fit'z change. Maybe it's exhausted part of myself who speek, but until now and what we know, it's not so clear, but they weren't brainwashed?, programmed to forget who they are?

2. and … Framework Fitz is a sadist. Framework could be interpreted as a “reality” where people can discover their potential without the limitations of their past/limitations in the real world (Mace). The writers maintain the interpretation that a minor event can completely reverse the course of our lives and that different experiences can change us to unrecognizable version of ourselves. I don’t know, I just feel like they just switched Ward and Fitz. It’s like Fitz had Doctor in him.

3. For Fitz with his vulnerability it’ll be like his worst nightmare. And until now I don’t seem to find “the truth behind Fitz’s turn” as convincing explanation that he’s a monster. Things will get ugly if they don’t treat carefully this plotline. I can hope for some twist, fuller background, but once (you know, season 3 mess) I had such hope, in vain;) I don’t see how this is ever going to be okay again for now.

4. I hope it’s not over, but the AoS writers usualy put the closure and make the caracters healing offscreen:(, so, I don’t expect believable closure, there are only four episodes left, a lot of it of it won’t be addressed properly. Finally, for Fitz’ mental health I need RealFitz to come through by himself, not by Jemma, especially after Daisy’s remarks that Fitz became a Doctor in a world without Jemma.

Hey there, Mary! Somehow this turned into a jumbled mess, but bear with me.

I really do like the writing, despite how much it hurts! They are really doing a good job of balancing all the characters and showing how all of them are trying to get through the world that AIDA put them into.

And they definitely WERE brainwashed, just as much as those kids in that facility. They have been programmed to play the roles that they play. I think the greatest evidence of that is that this isn’t just the world that would happen if a handful of people had made different choices—it’s a world in which AIDA/Madame Hydra is the supreme ruler of the universe. That’s not an accident. And it’s DEFINITELY not an accident that Jemma’s dead, and that AIDA has Fitz as her Ken doll. AIDA is framing this world to be what SHE wants, and some are under more control than others. Coulson, Mack, and Mace didn’t have to drink the Kool-aid, but Fitz and May definitely did.

It’s not just that they have different memories—they have different morals. Coulson is a person who’s afraid to stand up until Daisy comes along. Mack is, too! Mace is exactly the opposite in that he’s NOT the coward he was before. And May and Fitz? They believe that what they’re doing is the right and best thing.

That’s why I don’t see Fitz as a sadist. He’s not doing it because he enjoys hurting people. He does it because he thinks it’s necessary. Daisy tells him that he doesn’t want to torture her, but he does because a) she’s a threat and b) he thinks she’s lying to him. And yet, when he kills Agnes, he asks himself: Did I have to? Was it necessary? Or was she a person I should have protected? That is a man who believes that what he’s doing is RIGHT, it’s just that someone went into his brain and changed what right and wrong mean. It’s the same thing that happened to Kara Palamas.

To contrast, let me tell you a little about Star Trek. In Star Trek: Voyager, there’s this episode called The Killing Game, in which these aliens abduct the characters, implant false memories, and put them in an alternate reality: Nazi Germany. Sound familiar? There’s a difference, though: the characters gravitate to the same roles they have in their real lives. The captain becomes the leader of the Resistance, the married couple starts to flirt with each other (even though he doesn’t know her baby is also his), and the team ends up defeating the bad guys in a way that’s authentic to them. They were given false histories, but they were still the same people, even though they didn’t have to be. That’s because no one was purposefully trying to change who they were.

[This got long, so the rest is under the cut!]

And I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to fundamentally change yourself, Mary. I have. I got to a point in my life where I had to change everything down to my thoughts and my perception of the world, because depression goggles can really mess you up. It took me almost a decade of constant, intentional, hard work to change myself that much. You can’t change Fitz that drastically with a flip of a switch. It might look that way when he’s in public, but have you noticed that he’s different in private settings? When he’s alone with Ophelia or his father, he’s completely different. That’s where we see the real Fitz peek through—when he doesn’t have to put on a show. And what happens then? The brainwashing continues. Madame Hydra and his father reinforce the lies he’s been told, with the silent threat that he will lose their love if he doesn’t step in line. That’s not a sadist. That’s not even The Doctor. That’s someone in more than one relationship that’s deeply abusive.

As for Mace, yes he did get a chance to be a hero. BUT, you can’t say this is a world without limitations. The moment he became an actual threat to her, AIDA killed him. Like I said above, everyone is under her control. This is a prison in disguise. No one is living their true potential, and I think Mace and Mack are the only ones who are getting anything close to what they actually want, and the price for them is STEEP.

As for if one event can change your entire self, we actually have two conflicting viewpoints: Radcliffe and Jemma. Look at these two people and what they think about accountability. One most definitely believes he is the victim of circumstance, even though this whole predicament came from his choices. The other believes that if you want something in life, you have to work hard and earn it. She believes that people are more than their programming, even though a SERIES of events might give a person an opportunity to go another way. We are seeing this debate play out, but I think it’s obvious who’s winning. If this world were the natural consequences of one different event in each person’s life, AIDA wouldn’t need the thought police to keep them in line.

Also, I personally have a moral objection to this deterministic idea that one thing can happen to you, and you have no way of overcoming it. That’s what we’re saying, right? It changes you forever, and that’s that? A bad father means you’re going to be a bad person? A mental illness means you have no chance of being happy? I refuse to accept that idea, because it means that people don’t have any actual agency, and if you take away someone’s agency, you’re taking away a large portion of their personhood. We each have the responsibility and power to change ourselves, to rise above our circumstances. Coulson is doing that right now. May did it, in a large part, between seasons one and three. If we don’t have the power to change ourselves, there is no actual meaning in life. There’s no reason to vote or have children or try to help a stranger. We’re all just a victim of our circumstances, right? Why make any kind of effort of nothing’s going to change?

So, I mean, yes, a character did say that onscreen. I wouldn’t take it as gospel. That character is also the supreme idiot whose lack of morality and accountability got us in this mess in the first place.

As for the truth behind Fitz’s turn, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here: it’s not convincing that he’s a monster. He maybe a man playing at being a monster, he may be a man who believes that he NEEDS to be a monster, but like I said, a monster wouldn’t worry about killing Agnes. It’s not that the Doctor was in Fitz—it’s that Fitz is in the Doctor. He HAS been brainwashed, but there’s a part of him that’s fighting back. There’s a part of him that’s drawn to Jemma. There’s a part of him that’s rising above his circumstances. The problem he has is that he has two people who are actively trying to keep him down. Coulson, May, Mace, and Mack don’t have that. They have the environment in general keeping them down, but they aren’t being targeted by specific people. Fitz doesn’t just have to rise up. He has to conquer AIDA and his father first.

You know that I agree with season 3 being a mess, but this season had a masterful setup. This isn’t Jemma having PTSD one episode and not having it the next. This is Jemma and Radcliffe having competing viewpoints from the start! She’s trying to grab power to help her friends; he’s trying to skirt his responsibilities in order to help himself (and pretending he’s helping others to assuage his guilt/get other people to help him). That’s 4x01! And Fitz, this whole time, has been caught in the middle. You don’t have that kind of storytelling in season 3. Jemma is going to have her moment, she is going to make her own arguments, and she’s going to win because she’s actually right. So I mean, yes, we’ve seen the writers royally screw up before, but all they have to do is follow the exact course they’ve already set, and we’ll end up with some of the most powerful storytelling we’ve ever seen. I’m cautiously hopeful.

I think you’re right, though, that the characters won’t get as much closure as we’d like. They’ll probably get a hug and cut to black, a short conversation if we’re lucky. My real OTP for this show is myself x closure, so I get how frustrating this is. We should prepare for headcanon to fill in the gaps.

Finally, the good news is that Fitz has already come through with the help of Agnes. Agnes is the one who’s making him question himself. Daisy, too. I think that Jemma has contributed a little bit, but it’s mostly Agnes that is weighing on him. And if he has to fight May, his most trusted soldier? If Madame Hydra gets sick and can’t influence him? If he find out about the brainwashing of teenagers (I’m not convinced that he knows) (or maybe there’s something else he doesn’t know about)? It’s all going to fall apart. Jemma might be the final nail in that coffin, but it’s not just going to be her. In the end, we’re going to get Real Fitz back because Real Fitz is going to rise up. That’s what it’s looking like, at least!

#Mary #Meta of Agent 85 #AoS promo #Anons of Agent 85 #Answers of Agent 85

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unaugmentedmonkeyscantfly · 7 years

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From Space to the Grave || Drabble backstory for Framework!Fitz pt 1

Science was such a wonderful thing. It had let humans touch the moon. Sample the stars. Map the inner workings of the brain. Yes, science was wonderful, and beautiful, more beautiful than any woman could ever be, mused Fitz, even knowing the lengths he’d go through for Madame Hydra. It just…wasn’t the same.

Fortuitously timed, the doctor found something in his letters: a personal invitation from NASA to come see their new emergency escape modules. Lesser Hydra agents might say that having such things was cowardice, but better to waste money on a module like that than waste a valuable human life. Fitz was no fool, and knew that some astronauts, cosmonauts, whatever, were irreplaceable (Damn shame about that Will Daniels bloke. He had potential.)

“Reyna,” he called out to his bodyguard, standing outside the room as always. "How’d you like to take a day trip to Houston tomorrow?“

"Sounds like fun, sir.”

“Excellent.”

–

The flight was a pleasant one, as always, little bits of information pinging in on his in-flight wifi. Hopefully the food would be better, the last chef hadn’t been as good as he’d hoped, and the one before that intentionally gave him food poisoning that put him out of action for a week. Needless to say, that particular chef had been made an example of.

The humidity wasn’t what got to Fitz the most. It was the heat. Early May in this part of the country was nasty enough for someone from Britain, worse still for someone wearing a three-piece suit. Still, NASA was NASA, and it touched something deep inside Fitz’s memories, from the times in his childhood when he’d wanted nothing more than to build robot astronauts and the spaceships they flew in. A simpler time. A gentler Fitz. A long-buried Fitz.

Checkpoints. Blah, blah. He never had to deal with the Inhuman ones, of course, but they weren’t the only people out there who didn’t see the wisdom of Hydra’s ways. There were other subversives, some of whom had experience with explosives or weapons or heavy machinery, and they were never content to go out quietly. Idiots who didn’t see that Hydra was saving lives, making them better, paving the way for an actual cure for Inhumans and other uncontrollable powered persons. Hadn’t the Deathlok program saved lives, too? Didn’t stop people from forgetting that.

For whatever reason, the pod was set up near the testing pool. Maybe they’d just finished doing some sealing tests on it or something, that was the only reason it should have been where it was, but he supposed NASA knew what they were doing. It was dry now, at least. The pod was something you could easily walk into and sit down, a partially collapsible rectangular prism big enough for five.

“As you can see, there are useful cubbies for things like basic first aid kits, oxygen tanks, thermal insulating blankets, that kind of thing,” the engineer was telling Fitz, to his clear approval. "You never know when you’re going to have to get the hell out of Dodge while suffering from some moderate injuries like a broken arm or something.“

Reyna and the woman exchanged glances, and Fitz stood up straight, on-edge. "What are you not telling me?” There were alarm bells going off in his head, and he knew better than to dismiss them as paranoia. "Reyna, what do you know that I don’t?“ Ice. Anger. Worry.

But it wasn’t Reyna who answered the question, it was the scientist. "We’re just a little worried that the seals won’t hold as airtight as possible with a subject inside who may be on the verge of panicking. I mean, we screen all our pilots, but you never know what stress does to a person.”

“What you’re sayin’ is that you need someone to test it on, someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re bein’ thrown into, yes?” Fitz followed towards the door to the pod as Reyna stepped outside and appeared to nonverbally flirt with the scientist, blocking Fitz’s way out. “So just chuck some poor sod in there, watch what happens.”

“Exactly what we were thinking,” the scientist said, and the door slammed shut, Fitz inside, Reyna outside. Reyna turned and faced his boss, no apology or shame or worry in his expression.

“Very funny,” Fitz scowled. Then the pod moved, the crane above shifting and jolting it. "Reyna, do something.“ The pod lifted off the ground, and Fitz had to change his stance to stay upright, furious and outright terrified by the fact that his bodyguard was doing nothing to stop this kind of experiment.

"I am doing something. I’m watching a monster in a cage.”

Fitz pounded his hand on the inches-thick glass. "Let me out of here, you coward, or you’ll die in ways you can’t even imag–“ The box shifted again, higher, and it seemed he was being lifted. It didn’t take the engineer he was to realize that at the crane’s maximum height, if they dropped him onto the concrete, then the pod, the concrete, and he himself would be wrecked to kingdom come. Don’t scream. They can hear you. Don’t show weakness. You’re smarter than they could ever hope to dream of being.

Then the pod snapped off the crane, almost but not quite at full vertical reach, and the pod went plummeting down, throwing Fitz off-balance and causing him to hit his head on the first aid door, blacking out for about a minute and a half while the pod sank to the bottom, nestled right where the Hubble mockup used to be. Not leaking, but definitely not buoyant.

When Fitz opened his eyes, there was blood on the wall, and all the first aid stuff had spilled out. First I get out, then I kill them, he decided, and looked to see if there was anything there. No door release. Nothing he could stab to let himself out without drowning first. The oxygen tanks appeared to be there for demonstration purposes only, completely empty, although the alcohol and things were the genuine article. But to Fitz’s relief, someone had thought to rig the door to blow like the old capsules, in case of water deployment, but he had no way to trigger it. A simple spark wouldn’t be hot enough, nor would the flame from a lighter (not that he smoked anyway).

So he thought. He sat down and pored over the maths, trying first to work out how long it was he had to think on this before he ran out of oxygen. Second, he was trying to figure out how many people were involved. Clearly, whoever had designed the materials of the pod (and the people who could have vetoed them) was involved, as was Reyna, the person who stocked the pod for demonstration reasons, and whoever was on the security monitors. A good crop of traitors in an organization Fitz had once yearned to belong to. So much for childhood dreams.

Then it hit him. The alcohol had a lower flash point than the explosives and a much higher temperature than the spark he could cause by shorting out his smartwatch. (How did he come up with that? Someone had come up with that before. Who? Maybe it was on television somewhere. That made sense.) He just had to hope that the shock didn’t knock him out and that nobody was waiting with a gun up above. But the room was dark now–someone had switched off the lights in the facility a good ten minutes ago, probably giving some excuse about maintenance, and he was working by the light of his phone and nothing more. Yet he had to escape. He had to get out, had to punish them, had to punish himself for letting even a bodyguard get close. Pity they couldn’t clone May or something, that would have been…

Fitz nodded to nobody, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and shorted out his watch. Water rushed in, even though he was only forty feet down, knocked him against the back of the pod right as he registered lights flicking on again, and he was dazed enough that he forgot how to swim up and out of the pod. Then he forgot how to do anything, and darkness came.

–

The water parted. No, wait. Water was clear. Not black. The black parted.

"No, what I’m saying is there’s nothing I can do,” said a voice, although something about the noises he made sounded off. Not like words. Just like…Sims. "I’m good, but I’m not fix-severe-temporal-lobe-damage good. There, I said it. Something I can’t do.“

The black came back.

–

Black gave way to sunshine. A nice little blue room with a television and a thing on his arm. And his face. And his…the thing the arm had at the end of it.

And Madame Hydra was there, watching news reports until she saw him. She…smiled at him. "Hello, Leopold,” she said soothingly, and there at least was one word that sounded like a word. "The doctors said you might never wake up, but I knew you would. Some things are set in stone.“

The only response was a vacant but worried stare. Fitz’s face itched, but he didn’t know what to do to fix that.

"There, there,” Madame Hydra said soothingly, placing her fingers against his cheek. “Everything’s going to be alright now. I’ve made things the way they should be. In a few days, you and I can watch as the people who hurt you die. I promise.” She did something then that she’d never done before. She reached over and kissed his forehead, right above his left eyebrow.

It felt right, like the world was in the perfect alignment at that moment. Like he’d be looked after, like he’d be safe. Like he’d be loved for the first time he could remember.

#headcanon: welcome to the Framework #((woo 1650+ words))#((which is v good if you're very tired like me))#((also whee random Stephen Strange makes an appearance))

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