shieldmonkey | (no subject)

He's damaged goods now and everyone knows it. Just walking through the lab full of scientists, Fitz can feel how invisible he is to everyone. They're either not paying attention to him because he doesn't matter anymore, because he's about as valuable to all of this as an old boot, or they're trying not to look at him because they're trying not to look at him like a freak.

He's not sure which is worse.

Fitz, everyone here knows how valuable you are to the team.

Simmons insists things are still the same. He's sure they're not. Her talking to him like this is evidence of that.

He gets up from his desk and she follows, through the lab, like a ghost. This isn't their lab, it's a lab. He feels useless, extraneous, and despite what people keep telling him, Fitz is convinced that any day now, they're going to relocate him to some other facility, out of the way. He's no good here.

Perhaps they need our assistance if they're looking for a way to neutralize Creel's ability, Simmons says, and it's a good point, he can't help but think. Especially because--

"No one has our experience with gifteds," he says, because he and Simmons have been looking into them, researching them for ages now. Or rather, they had been. But--

Of course we can't just hijack the project from them. That would shatter their confidence,

"Do not want to do that...Or, do we?"

But it's a silly idea, he hasn't got anything to contribute here. And even if he did, it's not as if they're keen on coming to him for his experience on the matter. Experience which is quite vast, mind you.

Fitz starts to stretch with a sigh, when something sitting in one of the printers in the lab catches his eye.

Look, there's a packet of research they just left laying about willy nilly for anyone to see, Simmons says, and of course she's seen it first. She always seems to notice these things before he does.

"It's Creel's DNA results." It's a logical test to have run, but it's going to take them ages to work this out, unless--

Interesting, shall we see what we can do with these?

He's ahead of her this time, and Fitz is already removing the results from the printer and holding them close before she's finished speaking.

"Yes we shall, Simmons. Yes we shall," he says, and he turns to head back to his desk, this time almost thankful that no one's paying him any attention or will notice that he's the one who's taken the print-out.

Only when Fitz turns, there's a train coming right at him and he can't move.

"Simmons... why is there a train in the lab?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a common enough place for people to show up, Natasha knows, though it's one thing she doesn't have a lot of experience with herself. She's come across several people who've only just or have recently gotten here, but not at the train station itself. Arrivals aren't so common that she'd come by specifically because of that, anyway, and the information desk, she knows from experience, has nothing that its name would suggest. It's really just chance that has her passing by, thinking she might as well stop inside for a coffee.

Something in her peripheral vision shifts when she's in line, though, drawing her attention, head turning towards the sound of an approaching train. In front of it, there's someone who definitely wasn't there before. Natasha draws in a sharp breath, and previous plans forgotten, hurries in that direction, gauging as she goes the distance between the man on the tracks and the train and how long it will give her to get him out of the way, since he doesn't seem like he's about to do that for himself. He asks a question — from nearby, she sees his mouth move — but she can worry about that once she's gotten him safe.

She pushes past a couple of gasping onlookers, evidently too stunned to do much besides stare, hurrying into the middle of the track to where the man is standing. "Come on, not the best place to be right now," she calls over the train's increasingly loud rattle, and pulls him out of the way, clear of the train just moments before it passes by.

If Fitz hadn't currently been trying to process the fact that he'd been nearly hit by a train— or something that looked and sounded quite a bit like a train— he would have discouraged by the fact that he'd frozen, instead of doing what any reasonable person would have done and gotten out of the way of the bloody train.

He's trying to catch his breath once he's out of the train's path, and it's a few seconds before he even notices who's pulled him out of the way.

"You're... the, um..." he says, because he knows her, he absolutely does, but can't recall her name. This is an important one as well.

Ah, Agent Romanoff! That's fortunate! Simmons helpfully supplies, back at his side again, and he glances momentarily over at her before looking back at Agent Romanoff.

"--thank you, Agent Romanoff, yes. Thank you."

There's still the question of how he's here at all— wherever and whatever this is— but at least there's another agent about.

This isn't the first time since she's gotten to Darrow that Natasha has been recognized by someone she didn't know. Once, she would have found that deeply unsettling, and she still can't say it's a position she likes being in very much, someone else having the upper hand, her being the one short on knowledge. It isn't as unexpected, though, as it would once have been. She'd gone public and then some back home, and has gotten away from most of that here. A few people identifying her isn't much at all, comparatively speaking.

The others, though, hadn't called her agent. That suggests a different kind of familiarity, and leaves her all the more curious. "Natasha's fine," she says with a ghost of a smile, seeming at ease on purpose, though it's true enough that there really isn't any reason to stand on formalities here. The world they're in is a completely different one. "I don't think I've had the pleasure."

She has a lot more she'll want to know, watching him carefully, but for now, it seems like the best place to start.

There wouldn't have been an opportunity for the two of them to have met. Before Director Coulson's team, Fitz hadn't ever been in the field, and he hadn't been on the Bus long, relatively speaking, before... well before Hydra made itself known and S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen apart from the inside out.

"No, you haven't. We... haven't," Fitz says, and not being able to find the word he's looking for isn't what's distracting him at the moment, it's looking round at what seems to be a train station.

It could be some sort of advanced hologram. Or perhaps a portal to another dimension similar to the ones that brought that alien ship to London, Simmons is hypothesizing beside him, and he nods as he continues to look around.

"A portal..."

It's a bit of an odd segue, but nearly everything about this so far seems a little odd to Natasha, even more so than having to explain this place to someone typically is. It leaves her with a lot more questions, too, and mostly ones she can't ask. If he's calling her agent, he could be S.H.I.E.L.D., but where once that might have been a reassurance, now, it doesn't mean much. Too much of S.H.I.E.L.D. has turned out to be Hydra, and she's made more than clear just what her stance is on all of that. Until she knows more, she can't be sure of anything, except that he's just shown up. That much, she could see for herself.

"If you're wondering how you got here," she says, not doubting that's the case, "then it's a little like that. Except it only works one way, and it can happen anywhere."

Her small smile stays in place, one that's meant to try to get him to relax a little. "I didn't catch your name."

The problem is, Fitz hasn't let himself relax since before that pod at the bottom of the ocean. Even when he was supposed to be resting, he was trying to work out how to get back to the way he's supposed to be. There's been working out how to manage the right words, and managing with his hand, and Jemma...

There hasn't been much time for relaxing in the past few months, even not taking into account all that'd gone on with S.H.I.E.L.D. No matter how little he's been able to be involved.

He's guarded for a moment about whether or not he should tell Agent Romanoff who he is, if only because he's not completely certain she is Agent Romanoff. It's not as if he's ever met her before, and S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't exactly on a lot of people's good lists at the moment.

You've got to trust her, Fitz. This can't be coincidence, Simmons says, but Fitz still isn't quite sure.

"How am I meant to you know you're the real... the real you?" he asks, and he wonders if there's some sort of operations protocol for this. He's seen the designs for the photostatic veils they use sometimes. It wouldn't be much of a long shot to think that Hydra could have access to the same sort of technology.