Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If Fitz had to pinpoint a time when he truly acknowledged the songs in his head, he would have to say he was about three or four. It was before he’d been allowed to go to school, not that that legality had stopped him from learning as much about the universe as humanly possible, and he distinctly remembered being barricaded into the wardrobe by his mum when his father had stumbled in, waving around a tinny as if it was a sword or some other kind of weapon. He’d been curled up as tightly and as quietly as he could possibly bend, his trusted companion Percival sitting on his knees and whispering words of reassurance to him, when he’d heard a girl’s voice in his head.

His initial reaction had been to try and locate the girl, she sounded like she was a little older than him, but he soon realised how daft that was, Leo knew he wasn’t that smart - Father always said so - but she sounded American. Like on the TV! Either way, she was singing a song, he’d heard it on the radio in the coffee shop next to the library the other day, and while it wasn’t his taste, he really liked her soft voice and how she sang it with such passion and care. Swaying from side to side in his corner, he started moving Percival along to the beat, his favourite monkey in the whole wide world joining his little dance party. But soon enough, her singing ground to a halt, and suddenly the silence of the wardrobe gave way to his father’s angry screams from the downstairs bathroom coupled with his mummy’s softer pleas.

When his father had left for work the next day, his mum doing her best not to give away the fact he had hurt her back the night before, Leo had asked her about it, about the voice in his head. The smile he’d received when he told her this had to rank of one of the best things of his little life, he couldn’t remember the last time Mum had looked that happy, and as she settled him down on her knee, Percival loosely hanging from his hand, she explained that many people had been blessed with soulmates. Not everyone, there was no rhyme or reason to the allocation, which had really frustrated the child upon finding that out, but it meant that one day, maybe soon, maybe when he was old like Mummy and Father, he would meet his soulmate. 

She had stated from the get go that there was no obligation to date his soulmate, whoever they were, in fact they might end up being the best of friends, but either way, his soulmate would be the person he couldn’t live without. And so, Leo had nodded, asked his mum if she had her own soulmate, but when her smile had fallen, he’d hurriedly back tracked and told her to forget the question entirely. But then she’d started talking, with tears welling up in her eyes, whispering to him as if her soulmate was a big secret that he couldn’t tell anyone, she’d started telling him about a lovely, smart, and above all caring man named Holden.

She’d lost him when she was young, meeting him when she was at university (which apparently is a super smart big kid’s school), but her Mummy and Daddy, who Leo had never met for some reason, told her that she had to marry his father. This shook the boy to his core, surely his grandparents would know how important soulmates are, and he’d asked her as much, but she’d only shaken her head tearfully, telling him that it didn’t matter to them. So she’d married his father, leaving Holden behind, but gaining her little lion in the meanwhile had all been worth it. 

And just before Father returned home from work, his mum wiped her eyes and sent Leo up to his room, warning the boy to never mention it in front of his father. He’d initially wanted to argue with her, but when he heard another voice singing in his head, this time a boy, an English boy, he knew he couldn’t tell Father. Although he was only little, although his mum insisted that he was getting bigger by the day, he understood a lot about the world. And if there was one thing that Alistair Fitz made abundantly clear, it was that boys and boys should never love each other the way mums and dads - or should that be mums and Holdens - love each other.

Over the years, Leo had come to terms with the voices, initially it’d been like a jolt down his back every time he heard one, or both, of them sing, but over time, it’d become normality. In fact, knowing that he would hear at least one of them sing at least once a day was the only thing that got him through the hell that was school. Not because he didn’t understand it, not like Father had insisted, but because it was far too easy. He wasn’t a baby, he knew his alphabet, as he knew his numbers: prime, triangle, square, cube, Fibonacci, Pi to over one hundred decimal points. So he couldn’t get why he was stuck doing stuff that was so basic it sent him to sleep.

On more than one occasion he’d tried telling his teachers and his parents that he knew it all, that he was bored out of his mind, but none of them ever listened. Not that he blamed Mum, he knew she’d had to pick up more shifts down the big Tesco because Father was spending more money at the pub, but his teachers really weren’t helping. And by the time they’d worked it out, Leo was halfway finished with some Highers textbooks he’d bought in a charity shop with his pocket money a week before. Of course then they’d rushed to give him more appropriate work, but by then it was too late. He was already the weirdo of the class, and no matter how many times he tried to tell his father he was smart, the man had laughed him off.

On a rare day when he’d felt brave enough to talk back to his father, he’d almost let slip about his soulmates, the ones who didn’t yet know about him despite the fact it had been almost five years since he’d first realised they were real and somewhere in the world, waiting for him to join them. But then his father had shoved him out of the way, sending the frail looking boy flying into the wall, slurring something out about how he was just a whiny brat who needed to learn when to shut his trap. To this day, almost two decades after his father had said those malicious words to his only child, Fitz couldn’t put his finger on what it was exactly that had made it those words which had stopped him dead in his tracks, or maybe it was the first show of violence inflicted onto him, but whenever he’d tried to sing, let his soulmates know he was there, receiving them loud and clear, his vocal chords froze up.

Even once Alistair had gone, his presence a lingering stench neither him nor his mother could get rid of, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not that he didn’t want to meet them, in fact it was quite the opposite. He got to hear them grow up, a few years ahead of him in terms of physical maturity if the guy’s voice cracks were anything to go off of, and always felt this sense of longing to be a part of them. The surges of jealousy whenever they partied the night away, knowing that his Mum would kill him if he dared try to go to a house party or a nightclub at his age, the times he was left distraught over being unable to comfort them when they screamed along to sad songs. 

The feelings that the final part of their trio would be quick to remedy and sooth to the best of their limited abilities. Nothing infuriated him more than being unable to be more than a spectator, the stupid rule of the soulmate bond only enabling them to connect through song leaving him further from their little sphere. But he’d made it that far in life, he’d survived Alistair Fitz, survived the hellscape of the Scottish education system, even survived his university career. The Academy had been no different, all alone in the world, only this time when he spoke people didn’t look at him as if he was speaking total rubbish. At least not all of the time.

It was during his first semester at the Academy that he realised his soulmates had met, presumably for the first time. It could have been a coincidence, but the fact that they were singing along to the same karaoke song, singing in harmony with one another, no echoing or lagging, it seemed less than likely that it was coincidental. The longing that usually thrummed in the background had come flooding to the forefront of his mind, and for the first time in his entire academic history, he called in sick for school. There wasn’t anything of any importance going on that day anyway, but he just couldn’t bring himself to pretend that he was fine around people who just don’t care about him. 

So he’d taken one day off to be a depressed lump in his bed, the feeling of him only being a spare part to his more vocal soulmates’ worlds anchoring him under his duvet. If he’d had the energy, he would’ve gone to the campus store and picked himself up some ice cream, but alas, he’d been immobile on the bed. Late at night he’d heard someone knocking on his door, but he’d willfully ignored them, that is until the door swung open, revealing a surprisingly irate looking Jemma Simmons. She didn’t even give him the chance to lift his head out of the blanket burrito before she began yelling at him for leaving her in the lurch and forcing her to have to work with Will Williamson that day in holographic engineering that day.

It took her a few moments to realise that her yells were being left unanswered, and Fitz had yet to surface from his depression bed, but once she lost steam and got an uneasy silence in return, she perched herself on the edge of the bed. Lifting the blankets off of his head, she gently coaxed him out of the pile, smiling softly at him when his mop of curls and pitiful frown rose to face her. Fitz tried to say something, to explain the hurt he was feeling, but nothing would come out, and when he heard his soulmates singing the start of ‘2 Become 1’ by the Spice Girls, it sent him into floods of tears. 

Although he tried to hold them back, hide them from his far too perceptive best friend, they still streamed down his face, and he found himself being yanked into a tight hug for the first time in months, Fitz trying to hide his face in her shoulder. She didn’t say anything to try and placate him, nor did she try to offer any sort of false reassurances, but she clung to him just as tightly as he clung back. When his tears eventually dried up, he pulled back from Jemma quickly, scrubbing at his face with his sleeves and refusing to look Jemma in the eye.

“My soulmates have met one another. I know I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but this is the second day in a row where they’ve sung the same song at the same time. It could be a coincidence but, I dunno. I’m not mad at them, it’s not their fault, but it just hurts, you know? Like, they wouldn’t know I exist in the first place, but I just wanted that one thing. Being able to meet each other at the same time, something special for all of us.”

“Oh Fitz.” She sighed out, running her hand up and down his arm, her smile falling and her eyes filling with sadness and pity.

“It was only going to be today, tomorrow I’m going back to class but I just wanted today to be sad and shit.”

From that day on, he’d done his best to not think too hard about what his soulmates were doing. That was always easier said than done, especially when he would hear them singing at random hours of the day, singing about heartbreak, anger, frustration, love, and lust. The pair of them were very hot and cold with one another, that was one thing he could tell, but either way they always wound up getting back with one another. And he’d managed to get through the rest of his time at the Academy and most of his time at Sci-Ops without thinking about them too much.

But then the wedding day had unknowingly rolled around, hitting him like a truck, and Fitz had been left standing paralyzed in his lab. Once he’d come to his senses though, he’d bolted out of the lab faster than he had ever run before, leaving Jemma absolutely bamboozled as she yelled out for her lab partner. His soulmates had gotten married, they’d gotten married without him. He’d never been much of a romantic, but fucking hell. That hurt more than he could ever put into words. 

Sure, he didn’t really know how their relationship worked, how it would feel to be two parts of a soulmate triad (obviously), but surely they had to realise that something, that he was missing. It was like all of the hate and vitriol his father had spewed out like a leaky tap had been released from its former prison and was rushing to overwhelm him. All of the times he’d been told that there was no way anyone in their right mind, or not, would want him, to hear him, deal with him, spend the rest of their lives with him, sinking in deeper, bringing tears to his eyes.

To this day, he still doesn’t remember making it back to his flat, the one he shared with Jemma, only that the wedding march that they’d both hummed along to, a stereo soundtrack filled with pride and joy, just proving how unneeded Fitz was to them, had burned itself into his mind. That the only thing he heard for hours, days, even months down the line, when he was locked in a seemingly never ending solitude, was that tune, mocking him and all of his failings. But just as when he’d discovered his soulmates had met one another before he was there, he’d given himself the day to process before pushing it out of his mind, brushing off Jemma’s well meaning sympathetic smiles and attempts to make him feel better and focusing on his work.

And ignoring what happened was at the top of his list of things to do, at all times. Even when their songs changed, when they fell out of sync and started singing sadder and angrier songs in the late hours of the night - well, for Fitz anyway, he’d figured over the years that they must both travel a lot because their sleep schedules are all over the place - he pushed it all away. Although he did note that when they stopped singing in time for good, he’d felt a guilty sort of relief, not that he wanted them to break up or get hurt like that, never that, but because he couldn’t help feeling jealous that they’d gotten to experience married (and divorced) life before they’d even met him. 

However none of that seemed to matter, not when Fitz was offered a place on Coulson’s elite team , Jemma right by his side as his whole world was thrown on its head. In the space of a few short months, he’d become well acquainted with the notion of near-death experiences, far too many for it to be healthy really, but apparently that had been his life. The comfort his soulmates would give him late at night when he had locked himself in his little box room: Percival still clinging to life by a thread, them unknowingly singing him lullabies that would send him to sleep, the words curling around him like a warm, fluffy blanket, was so painfully reminiscent of those days he’d first realised they were singing, it made Fitz miss his childhood days.

None of them were the same little kids, and it had really begun to show. For Christ’s sake, Fitz was a fully fledged field agent, albeit begrudgingly so, for a secret spy agency currently in utter turmoil because of traitors like Grant Ward and the rest of Hydra. And for all he knew, they could’ve been in the exact same position as him, fearing for their lives and their future. But it was all of these events that had led to this moment, in an emergency rescue pod, located at least ninety feet below the sea, with a broken arm and limited oxygen supply left. 

He isn’t sure what provoked him to do it, after all in all of his twenty five years on this planet, he’d not once genuinely considered singing to his soulmates, but in the same breath, he’d never been facing certain death before. So he bends over quickly, checking that Jemma was still unconscious from the fall, he clears his throat and starts to sing the first love song that springs to mind. He’s no Whitney Houston, but he hopes he does the singer justice as he rasps out the song, wincing to himself as his accent gracelessly alters some of the vowel sounds, making him sound distinctly more Scottish than he presents himself to the rest of the world. 

And as the song, his first and presumably last declaration of love for them, fades off, Jemma slowly wakes up beside him, eyes laser focused onto the sling he’d put his arm in after waking up. While the two of them mull over their own mortality, Fitz keeps the fact that he’d sang to his soulmates to himself as they discuss what they think would happen after they’re gone. It isn’t like he doesn’t trust Jemma, far from it really, but he just wants to have this one thing. One thing that is just the three of theirs. Seeing as a first meeting, wedding, and not to mention a divorce were all off of the table.

When he and Jemma come up with a solution, one that could get them out of the pod, Fitz can hear both of them singing to him, two vastly different songs overlapping as they desperately seek him out, their fear and confusion evident as they sing. And when he offers Jemma the last breath of oxygen, telling her that it just wasn’t meant to be for him and his soulmates, unlike herself and Skye, he doesn’t feel scared. Not when his charming Englishman and lovely American woman were singing to him specifically, seeking out his attention and searching for his reassurance that he was okay, something he wishes he could give them in return for the highs and lows they’ve brought him. So when he slams the defibrillator button, he closes his eyes and smiles, their voices growing softer and softer as he struggles to stay conscious, the last thing he hears being their voices singing a melancholy harmony, a perfect harmony made just for him.

Chapter Text

When Fitz officially wakes up from the coma, all he hears are teary voices, both in his head and outside of it, and he feels as though he’s trudging through tar just by blinking. But he’s tired of waking up only to fall asleep before he can let the rest of them know he’s no longer permanently unconscious, and so using all the energy he can muster, he forces his eyes open, wincing seconds later when the fluorescent lighting of the overhead lamps nearly blinds him. Seconds later he sees Jemma sprint over to the lamps to turn them down, and he feels someone, probably Skye, cling tightly to his arm, the girl’s face coming into his line of sight seconds later.

“Don’t you dare scare us like that again Leopold, you understand me?”

He nods in response, the words he wanted to say refusing to fall out of his mouth like they had once done in abundance. From the disappointed looks on both women’s faces, it seems that this would be an anticipated issue, and Jemma rushes to explain the unknown symptoms and diagnoses which would come from the oxygen deprivation he’d experienced before they had been rescued. Doing his best to be as reassuring as humanly possible, he raises his right hand, which shakes uncontrollably, and clumsily signs to Jemma that she and Skye should go and fetch the doctors, and go take a nap. 

Of course, as in true Jemma Simmons style, she adamantly refuses, but when Skye catches wind of what he’d been saying, she nods in his direction before steering Jemma out of the room, leaving Fitz alone to stare up at the ceiling. His throat feels dry, to be cliched it’s drier than the bloody Sahara desert, but he does his best to hum something. All of the songs he’s ever listened to fail him, and somehow it’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that manages to form itself on his vocal chords. He repeats the song a few times, enough so that they would know it wasn’t a fluke and he was in fact alive and conscious, and by the way he hears songs of joy in response, he knows they heard him. And with that thought running through his mind, he falls back asleep, smiling when he hears the doctors coming into his room. 

Recovering from the incident was long, drawn out and painful. What little stamina he’d gained during his short stint as a sort of field agent had gone completely down the drain, and he’d spent months in private rehab relearning how to function as an independent adult, let alone worrying about his work or getting back to missions. His hands tremored like a bitch, and after months of speech therapy, he could still barely manage to string a short sentence together. Not without trying, ever since he’d declared his existence to his soulmates they both seemed desperate to get him to sing back to them, probably a consequence of his unintended nine day radio silence, but he just couldn’t do it.

When he’s finally released from the rehab unit, three months after he wakes up, Fitz is somewhat mobile, and independent enough that he wouldn’t need a nurse on hand at all hours to ensure he hadn’t fallen over and gotten injured. But this discharge from the programme had seemingly equated itself with a full recovery in the eyes of his team, which means every time Fitz is unable to do something which he would have done in seconds months prior, he gets that same pitying look. The look of ‘poor Fitz, still not how he used to be’. At first, he’d found it annoying, as anyone would, but he brushed it off and tried to reassure himself that this was just a normal reaction on those who knew him before’s part, but as time dragged on, his own progress was overshadowed by just how much he couldn’t do.

So, it was almost second nature that he had retreated into himself, and began to avoid his former teammates and the rest of the SHIELD agents littering the base. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, after all he was still technically employed by Coulson, and he still has to shop up for work in the lab even if he can’t physically do at least ninety percent of what he used to be able to accomplish, but when Jemma takes an extended leave of absence, it makes everything far easier. No one wants to go into the lab if they don’t have to, and seeing as he hasn’t got Jemma ready to burst into a ball of tears at every drop of a tool, his life is still just as lonely as he was in the rehab facility.

Nothing changes for a while, just the regular sort of monotony of failing to produce new equipment and maintaining the old gear at the same rate as before, barely eating, barely sleeping, with his soulmates’ songs growing more despondent and tired as he’s still unable to sing back to them. Even when more new agents come in, to the lab and elsewhere within the organisation, he remains the leper, of the lab, of the new and somewhat improved SHIELD. He’s the man who can’t communicate with his words or his hands, who can’t do what he was made notorious in the agency for doing, who has a special connection to the Director despite never being around him or his elite team. 

He hears the whispers in the corridors, in the labs, because apparently having a traumatic brain injury that impedes your speech and communication skills means that you’re entirely deaf, and blind to the looks they send when talking about you to their coworkers. But all of a sudden, weeks after Jemma’s date of supposed return, the whispers change, and everyone is talking about Isabelle Hartley having made contact with her little band of mercenaries, Hunter and Idaho. It’s refreshing, not to be the sole centre of attention whenever there’s a lull in work, but hearing all of this information out through the lab technicians and scientists who think he’s totally incapable of everything, it hurts.

Because once again, it’s proof that little old Fitz, with his hand tremor and stuttered speech, will never be considered a part of the team again. Hell, he’s this close to going down to see Ward in Vault D and commiserating with the man once again about the team’s stupidity, as well as reassuring him that Fitz doesn’t blame him for what went down in the ocean. Sure, he has been left physically scarred from the ordeal, and changed not necessarily for the better, but he could tell that the man was unsafely dependent on Garrett’s direction, guidance, and in a sick and twisted way, the love and stability the man brought to him.

Fitz knew that none of his team would be nearly as forgiving, Christ the number of times he’d heard Jemma swear to Skye that she’d kill him when Fitz was still in the hospital was evidence enough, but he just couldn’t not forgive the man. Because, god forbid, what if Alistair had raised him? Had moulded him into a callous killing machine set on rising to the top no matter who he hurt? The Hydra pipeline would have been just as swiftly executed on Fitz as it had been on Ward, and then what would’ve happened. So when he checks to make sure no one is paying any attention to him, like usual, he makes a break for it.

Trying to find his way to a vault he’s not supposed to know the existence of is difficult to say the least, if it wasn’t the lab, his room, or the kitchen that he was in, Fitz was totally baffled. It would only stand to reason really that he would come across someone eventually on his little quest, but that doesn’t mean he almost sees God when he crashes into one of the new agents. Scowling at the ground as he slowly pushes himself off of the floor, he finds himself face to face with probably one of the hottest men he’s ever come across in his life. 

Mouth agape, he tunes in as the man starts babbling out apologies, the familiar accent warming Fitz up inside and out as he stares at the man. He’d know that voice anywhere, it’s one of the ones he’s heard since he was a child, right here, in front of him, looking at him with confused amusement lighting up his eyes as Fitz stares silently. Shaking himself, he signs an apology to the man in BSL before asking him to repeat himself.

“Don’t apologise love. By all accounts you’ve certainly made my day, I was just asking who you are.”

If Fitz, right this second, had to describe what paradise must be, he’d be hard pressed to say anything other than hearing this man calling him love. It sounds so much softer than when he’d croon it to their other soulmate, but no less amusement or endearment - although Fitz assumes this endearment is more for the fact he’s making a right tit of himself right now. He spells his name a couple times, in both BSL and ASL, just in case he doesn’t immediately recognise the signs, before pointing the question back at him.

“The name’s Hunter sweetheart, it was lovely meeting you however Izzy beckons. Nice meeting a fellow Brit, too few of those around here.” And with a wink and a cocky smile, Hunter jogs off in the direction he’d been heading initially, leaving Fitz still somewhat starstruck in the corridor.

“Fuck.” He mutters as soon as Hunter is no longer in ear shot.

His plan of avoidance had been going terrifically, and it wasn’t like the team was any closer to coming to their senses about the whole alienating him from everyone because they refused to understand how he functioned now, but now, now he couldn’t so freely keep that plan into motion. For the most part, he’s nosy about who his other soulmate is, and seeing as Hunter and her are currently divorced, it would probably be in his best interests to be around the man at some other stage, but also, he just. He wants to reassure them that he’s okay, that he’s alive, because not knowing your soulmate was out there only for them to give off radio silence in return must be terrifying at the best of times, and if he could ease that concern then all would be good.

It’s rather sad to admit that for a team of secret government spies, it’s rather easy to fly under the radar and drift into the background. None of them seem to expect Fitz to make an appearance (something which is both his fault and their own) but that doesn’t excuse the fact that every time the team is together, with Hunter’s team and some guy called Mack who seems to know them, no one notices that he’s there. If he had a therapist, Fitz would probably tell them about it, rant and rave about how unfair all of it really is, but alas he does not and so cannot. On a couple of occasions, he is noticed by Hunter, who once he locks eyes into him, beckons him over to join them, but Fitz shakes his head, signing some kind of half-hearted excuse in response.

He knows that Hunter isn’t thick, far from it actually despite what May and the others think of him, but Fitz wouldn’t know what to do with the others noticing him, staring at him just waiting for the words to fail him. So he hovers in the background, uses the time he can’t do shit in the lab to pick up more new skills, and smiles at Hunter, getting to know him from afar. The last thing he expects, however, is for Hunter to rock up to his bunk - one of the largest ones on base, hidden away in some nook with modifications galore - late one night, leaning against his door frame with a four pack of Stellas dangling from his hand. Fitz has to admit, he’s a bit awestruck, but in his defence, he can’t remember the last time anyone in the team willingly hung out with him, let alone sought him out and went to his bunk to do so. 

Letting the brown eyed man into his room, holding the door open and blushing when he winks at him in response, Fitz motions for him to take a seat while he rushes to tidy up a bit. It’s not a pig sty, nor does it look like a bomb’s hit it (no matter what his mother would say), but there’s clothes in need of being thrown into the washing basket, not to mention some clutter dotted around the room. When he focuses his attention back to Hunter minutes later, he’s made himself at home on Fitz’s rather large bed, cracking open a can and offering one up to the Scotsman. He flicks the tab with a surprising amount of ease, taking a swig of the beer and grinning at how good it tastes - sue him, he’s been drinking American crap for years now.

“So, casa Fitz is fucking huge.” Hunter says, laughing as the younger man chokes on his gulp of beer.

“Yeah, w-well it’s k-kind of a p…” he huffs annoyedly, placing his can on his bedside table so that he can move his hands while trying to find the word, “pity! It’s a p-pity thing, for the injury.”

“You do talk? I have to say, I could hear that accent any time.”

“Yeah, I t-talk. Just don’t get many opp... oh... chances to t-talk nowadays.”

“I’d noticed that, how come you’re always so, so lonely I guess, no offence mate.”

Fitz shrugs sadly, it’s not like Hunter’s wrong, and just because the truth hurts doesn’t mean it isn’t a proven fact.

“I-it’s a l-long story.”

“I have time.” 

Heaving out a sigh, and telling Hunter he might wind up deferring back to signing if he can’t get the words out properly, he perches himself on the edge of his bed, eyes widening as Hunter pulls him in closer, squeezing the Scot’s arm reassuringly. So in very slow and very painful detail, he explains how him and Jemma had been in the pod, that he’d come out of it with oxygen deprivation and a plethora of issues stemming from that, and how after he’d spent 3 months alone in a rehab facility, the team couldn’t accept he wouldn’t be his past self, causing him to just give up on being around them and dealing with people. While some may say it’s oversharing, especially to someone who is practically a stranger, it’s nice to finally have someone to talk to, someone who gives a shit.

“Shit Fitz. And you tried telling them this?” Fitz shakes his head in response. “Why the fuck not?”

“B-because for that, they w-would have to notice that I’m there. You know they won’t.”

Running his hands through his hair, Hunter takes another chug of his beer, Fitz’s eyes being drawn straight to the man’s Adam’s apple before shooting back up to stare at his eyes instead. He’s mesmerised by the little flecks of gold and jade, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it would be creepy to continue staring at him, he could do it for hours on end, catching them changing at every flicker of light. But alas, he averts his gaze once more as Hunter starts to strike up a less heavy conversation, and for the first time in months, Fitz is genuinely enjoying himself, relaxing, and having fun. 

They spend hours chatting away, Leo soaking in all of the Bobbi stories that Lance can come up with, learning as much as he can about his other soulmate through the adoringly heartbroken lens of Lance Hunter. The pair laugh about their shared distaste for their eccentric first names, Lance having changed his from the far worse Lancelot when he’d turned eighteen, Leo admitting that he’d considered it but the wrath of his mother and her tea towel always deterred him from doing so; for the first time since before the incident, Leo feels light, happy, like nothing bad will happen if he stars in this moment. But after hours of talking, they fall into a comfortable silence, Hunter’s face turns serious, eyes darting around Leo’s room as if he’s trying to put pieces of a puzzle back together.

“Scuse me for being blunt, but when was the pod? Like the date. And how long were you in a coma?”

“Umm M-May thirteenth, I was in a coma for nine days. Why’d you ask?” He asks calmly, hope rising in his chest as everything seems to click into place for the Englishman beside him.

“Christ love, it’s you isn’t it? You’re mine and Bobbi’s other soulmate.”

“I-I think so, haven’t h-heard her voice in person so can’t be t-too sure, but I’m pretty sure that you’re my soulmate.”

Before Leo manages to blink, he finds himself being pulled on top of Lance, the older man squeezing him tightly to his chest, muttering thanks under his breath between him pressing kisses to Leo’s curls. Hugging back just as tightly, he apologises into Hunter’s collarbone for not singing back once he’d learnt how to speak again, but he didn’t want to do it if it meant he was stumbling through it all, so humming every now and then had been his best bet. Lance shushes him, carding his hand through Fitz’s thick curls as he tries to reassure the younger man that neither him nor Bobbi blame him for that, telling him how thrilled he knows Bobbi will be to hear that he’s met their other part, and that he’s alive and well.

Mentioning Bobbi sparks something in his memory, and he loosens his grip around Leo’s waist as he fidgets and tries to grab his phone out of his jeans pocket. Fitz lifts his head up, rolling himself off of the mercenary’s chest and pushing himself upright to watch him properly as he excitedly waves his phone about. When Lance realises that his second soulmate is looking at him as if he’s gone absolutely round the twist, he explains that even though they’d split up years before, they’d always maintained contact, and when they’d realised there was a third player in this soulmate relationship, they’d texted each other whenever possible. 

Leo doesn’t wait to reassure him that he can inform Bobbi of their meeting, eager for his other soulmate to know that he’s safe and for her to be sure that he is still alive. But what he isn’t too keen on is having his photo taken, Hunter having to catch him off guard and capturing him pouting when the flash he’d ‘forgotten’ to take off goes off and gives him away. He isn’t sure what he expects, what with Bobbi supposedly being a SHIELD agent known for going on long-term, undercover missions, but he does feel slightly disheartened to her lack of immediate response. Shaking it off, he turns his attention back to the Englishman laying beside him, clinging tightly to the other man’s firm chest, Fitz smiles brightly at Lance, who stares down at him adoringly.

Without giving him a chance to ask what he’s staring out, or receiving an answer that would undoubtedly make him blush, Lance tips Leo’s head up with his index finger, his eyes tracing over Fitz’s face before ducking his head down to kiss them. The first attempt as a kiss is a tad bit awkward, the angles not being calculated properly meaning that he winds up pecking Leo on his nose, beaming at him when the younger man scrunches his nose up, a soft smile gracing his face. But when Fitz situates himself properly, kneeling between Hunter’s legs and resting his hands on his stubbly cheeks, he goes in for their second attempt at a first kiss, smiling into the kiss when their lips make contact.

Fitz would love to sink into the kiss, he could easily sink into Lance’s embrace and never resurface, but he can feel his core balance waning and so he has to pull away, sighing happily as he pulls away and witnesses the blissed out smile Hunter sends him. Running his thumbs over his cheeks, Leo maps out his face before finishing at the tip of his nose, tapping it with a sense of finality. It causes Hunter to bark out a stunned laugh, his eyes lighting up as his smile grows wider by the second. Rolling off of Hunter once again, Fitz settles in the bed beside him, gently kicking at his feet and silently prompting him to kick off his shoes, sighing blissfully as he gets to soak it all in, finally being with one of the people who made him feel safest in the world.

“So, what do we do now?” Leo asks, speaking slowly so that he doesn’t trip up.

“Now now? We go to sleep, hopefully with a few more kisses and a lot more cuddling, although I doubt that’s going to be an issue for you. As for tomorrow, and what else comes? I couldn’t tell you, but I’m not letting you do that disappearing act again love. It’s not healthy, and you and I both know your speech would be miles better if the team wasn’t filled with daft gits. We’ll take it at our own pace, no pressure to do or be anyone else, and when Bobbi makes it back to base, we can see about sorting all of that out then. Sounds good?”

“S-sounds great. D’you want some of my… the grey sleep trousers?”

“Joggers? Pyjamas?” 

He waits for Leo to nod his agreement before thanking him and accepting his offer, reluctantly pulling away from the younger man when he doesn’t get any closer to getting up off of the bed, or rather his embrace. Leaning back against the pillows, he stares at the Scotsman, awe filled eyes going completely unnoticed by his focal point as he bends over and rummages around for something that wouldn’t look ridiculous on him, throwing them behind him haphazardly, unintentionally blocking off Hunter’s view when a baggy t-shirt of his lands on Lance’s head. However he only notices when he turns back around to find the man gawping at him, glaring at him with no real heat as he does nothing to resituate the top serving as an, admittedly rather shit, blindfold.

Hunter makes a snarky comment, something about this being the first time someone’s ever told him to put on more clothes, which Fitz internally corrects and points out that was never an outcome he’d expressed a desire for, and he rolls his eyes at him fondly, telling him to turn around or go into his ensuite. From the corner of his eye, Leo watches as he saunters away, and when he shuts the door, sending an exaggerated wink in his direction, he quickly gets changed into his pyjamas, weighing up whether he’d sleep without a top on before deciding against it. There would be plenty of time for that at a later date, he wouldn’t want to scare the man off, or worse blind him due to the distinct lack of Vitamin D found in underground bases. 

Throwing himself down onto the bed, he puts his meds on his bedside table before snuggling down under the thick duvet that almost acted like a weighted blanket with just how big it was. Not that he’s complaining, it’s now edging closer towards winter and he’s definitely not dealt so well with the cold in recent months. When Hunter walks back in moments later, his short hair free of most of its product, and him being hilariously swallowed by what he thinks is Simmons’ brother’s old t-shirt, Fitz holds the duvet up for him to slide in. He lets Lance rearrange them so that it’s comfortable for the both of them, and when he’s finally settled, curled around Leo’s back with his head tucked safely in the crook of his neck, he heaves out a happy sigh.

And as he slowly drifts off to sleep, it’s to the sound of the ‘I Will Always Love You’, the same song that he had sung that day in the pod. While it starts with just Hunter serenading him, seconds later Bobbi echoes on, their voices fusing into the perfect harmony to ensure he’s safe as he sleeps. Fitz hums along with them, his vocalisations trailing off as he falls into a deeper sleep, a soft smile painted onto his face.

“Sweet dreams love. Sweet dreams Bob.”

Chapter Text

The changes were almost instantaneous. The morning after Lance’s realisation and acceptance of Leo as his other soulmate, Hunter had been active in keeping his soulmate company throughout the day, chatting along with him and even telling one of the more catty lab technicians to fuck off when he overheard their gossiping. That, paired with Fitz’s overall lack of reaction to the debacle, sparked a ten minute long rant, wherein the still kind of mercenary let everyone know what would happen if he heard them talking shit again, promising that when Bobbi made it back to base that she would be executing far worse things. Hearing his impassioned rant, watching as he said all of the things Fitz had been dying to get out of his system when he’d first left the rehab facility, it made him feel warm inside. He knew that whatever may come, whatever may happen, Hunter would always have his back.

By the time lunch had rolled around, Hunter impatiently eyeing the clock, the engineer had been almost dragged out of the lab by a very bored but very hyper mercenary who had declared from the get go that he was being starved to death. Thankfully, he managed to cling onto Hunter’s hand as he sped through the corridors, narrowly missing the other agents milling about the halls, but it was a close one, and at one stage Fitz was even yelling at him to watch out for May, yelling out an apology to the bewildered woman on Hunter’s behalf. Good, they can be confused all they want, if they had really given a fuck about him then he wouldn’t have been left as alone as he was, and now that someone was paying him attention, he didn’t care to explain himself to them.

When he came to a halt in the kitchen, Fitz very nearly crashing into the man’s back if it weren’t for some unusually fast reflexes, Hunter eagerly lead Fitz over to the group in the corner, introducing the man as his other soulmate, that Bobbi was well aware of before anyone asked, and introducing him to some of the new people. Doing his best to remember his very rusty people skills, he took a seat beside Mack on the sofa, who could only really be described as an honest to God giant, leaving enough space for Hunter to sit beside him if he so wished. The moment Hunter walked over to the counter, shouting for them to tell him what they wanted for lunch, he felt a poke on his arm, turning his head to see a very confused Idaho staring at him as if he were an alien.

“W-what’s up? Am Scottish not bloody ET.”

“Huh? No, I know that, I think.” The man shook his head, and Fitz heard Isabelle laughing at her teammate’s confusion. “No, I just, when Hunter told us about his mysterious other soulmate, I kinda thought he was smoking something. And now he’s met you, and you’re you, it’s hard to believe.”

“What do you m-mean ‘you’re you’?” Fitz glared at the mercenary, a glare which he’d been on the receiving end of more times than he’d care to admit.

Idaho’s eyes widened as he realised what implications those words could have, especially for someone in Fitz’s situation, and he stuttered out half finished thoughts as he tried to dig himself out of the hole he’d found himself in. Eventually, Isabelle takes pity on the man, even if she had let out a few quiet snorts moments before when he’d flushed red before turning a pale white.

“Excuse Idaho Agent Fitz, he’s not trying to say anything derogatory about your disability, nor your intellect or character. Rather the opposite actually, we’ve all heard stories about you floating around the base, what you and Simmons were like, what you did in the initial Hydra uprising, all sorts really. I think he was trying to imply that Hunter is punching above his weight when it comes to both you and Bobbi.”

“Exactly! Shit, sorry man, I’m not trying to be a dick I promise.” Idaho looked about three seconds from launching over and begging at Fitz’s feet for forgiveness.

“It’s f-fine. Don’t w-worry about it.”

Thankfully, when Hunter sauntered back over, ladened down with trays and plates galore, they had swiftly moved away from that awkward conversation and the newer agents were regaling Fitz with stories of Hunter’s mishaps in particular, with a few Bobbi stories thrown into the mix. He let out a quiet groan when Hunter gracelessly flopped down onto his lap but wrapped his arm around the Englishman’s waist when he tried to get up off of him, telling him to stop being so daft and to stop fidgeting. For the better part of an hour, they sit together, talking and getting to know one another, Hunter taking any and every opportunity to pepper kisses on his forehead and fiddle with his calloused fingers when he isn’t signing his thoughts and getting either him or Izzy to translate for him. 

When Izzy declared that she and her team were going to have to go training, and Fitz said that he probably should head back to the lab anyhow, the group began to get up, throwing their plates in the industrial dishwasher before making their way out of the common room. As they’re leaving, Hunter having clung to Fitz’s back like he was a monkey in a tree, Fitz’s team - if they could really be called that after months of essentially radio silence - made their way in, all of their eyes bulging out at the sight of him and the new growth plastered onto his back. He rolled his eyes and pried Hunter off of him, pecking him on the cheek before pushing him in Izzy’s direction and following Mack through the base and waving the man goodbye when they arrived at the lab.

Work remained as dull as ever, although he was happy to note that the gossip he overheard was geared towards other members of the organisation rather than himself and Hunter, out of fear of repercussions or something else Fitz couldn’t be sure, and by the end of the day, he’s ready to go back to Hunter and see if Bobbi had messaged. Like a knight in shining armour, or some kind of guardian angel, when six o’clock rolled around, Hunter came running into the lab, crashing about and smiling when he got an endearing look off of Fitz in response. He rushed to pack up his things, shutting his computer off and flapping at his partner’s wandering hands when he tried to help out.

“I app… th-thank you f-for your help, but don’t t-try to help if you d-don’t know where it goes.”

When he was finally ready and done with everything in the lab, he offered his hand to Hunter and pecked him on the cheek before letting him lead him through the halls. He listened attentively as Hunter recalled all that went down in his training sessions, and how Skye and Trip had both cornered him afterwards about their relationship. It’s clear that whatever was said by the field agents was highly unappreciated, and rubbed him the wrong way, because Fitz had had to stop him from storming ahead and punching something, tugging him into a hug in the middle of the corridor and humming into the man’s neck to calm him down.

Either way, when they arrived in the kitchen, and his teammates noticed him there with Hunter, they quickly averted their eyes and left the couple be, although Fitz could tell that Skye was itching to run over and grab him, he left that be, let her stew in whatever guilt and other emotions she was feeling. Instead he perched himself on the kitchen counter, watching Hunter cook and trading little loving jibes with him, and when Mack and the others walked in, he revelled in their stories and anecdotes. And when Hunter dished out the food, enough tomato pasta and garlic bread to feed an army, they took it into the seating area, Fitz returning the hesitant smile Skye sends him. There wouldn’t be immediate trust there, not after everything and how much resentment he felt towards them, but he couldn’t slate them if they were to try and atone for their mistakes.

His days tend to run in a similar vein, missions aside, and although there’s nothing remarkable about his work, at least in his opinion anyway, it’s the days where Bobbi manages to make contact with Lance that make his week. They hadn’t yet been able to call one another, or see each other on video call, but any text Lance told him that they had received never failed to make him smile. Especially after Fitz had been brought back into the team, or rather enough so that he was made aware of briefings and meetings, just for Izzy and Idaho to get killed by Creel. 

He hadn’t known them really well, not like Lance had known them, but it still hurt. It hurt a lot actually. Because they had just welcomed him into their group with open arms, taking what they saw at face value and making sure that he felt comfortable around them, seeing him for Fitz the scientist and Hunter’s soulmate, not Fitz the poor sod who had almost drowned and been left to fend for himself after the incident. Of course, he did everything in his power to reassure and comfort Lance in the safety of his bunk, letting the man cry it out and come to terms with what went down, but it was incredibly hard. 

Especially since he had to be the one to break the news to Bobbi, because every time Lance tried to write the message, he broke down into tears, and Leo had to do his best at consoling his other soulmate through text, while also consoling the soulmate that is beside him. But as with everything else in their life when working for SHIELD, there is very little time to do anything, let alone mourn them. It seemed as though that the team had forgotten it all overnight, meanwhile Idaho hadn’t even gotten a proper burial and Lance, Mack, and Leo had had to mourn Izzy at her funeral from afar, and then the three surviving men of their quote unquote group had been thrown back into the chaos without consideration.

The missions gain in intensity at a worrying rate, Skye having to kill Donnie before he could kill Simmons and blow her cover at Hydra, and Fitz would rather kip out on his bed for a week rather than deal with any more terrible missions. But instead, he spends every waking hour that he isn’t working in the lab or working on a mission training himself in the gym. Yes, he isn’t going to be out in the field anytime soon, but seeing as he’d been capable of defending himself before the incident, it would be good for him to work himself back up to that strength and ability, rather than the base level fitness he’d regained after rehab. Besides, having Lance help him train and reduce the noticeability of his hand tremor when handling weapons isn’t exactly a downside to the gym-based torture. 

Either way, Fitz is pretty much perpetually exhausted, constantly being reminded of the friends he’s lost and the trust he would struggle to fully regain in pretty much any of them, and in need of a good sleep. But when Simmons’ hasty extraction is ordered, under the fears that she would be subjected to the same brainwashing as Donnie Gill if her true allegiances were discovered, Fitz finds himself having one of the worst days he’s had in a while. Skye had practically skipped into the lab, beaming from one ear to the other as she excitedly told Fitz the good news, no longer grimacing at being in the lab without her soulmate, but he couldn’t hide tensing up at Hunter’s side at the announcement.

“Th-that’s great Sk-Skye.” He says, his smile barely making it to his eyes.

“I’m glad to hear it love. I’m sure you’ve got loads more secret work to do for the bossman so you might as well get on with that, wouldn’t want you to miss out on the reunion.”

Thankfully, Skye is far too excited about the news to notice Hunter’s heavy handedness and so she eagerly speeds off back to her work station, leaving Fitz practically trembling in Hunter’s embrace. Seeing that it was close enough to dinner time for them to leave the lab, Lance guides Leo through the base, the younger man stunned silent despite his partner’s best attempts at coaxing something out of him. He guides him to what is essentially their room now, Hunter having declined Coulson’s offer for a bunk when he agreed to join SHIELD full time, and sits Leo down on the bed, running his fingers through his curls and quietly singing to him to try and calm him down.

When he realises that Leo still isn’t grounded for one reason or another, even after moving to their room, he plucks Percival from the top of bedside drawer and placed him in his hands, placing his hands over Leo’s and rhythmically squeezing them to try and bring him back down to earth. It takes longer than Lance would like for him to realise what’s going on, but when Leo finally does come out from wherever he retreated, head slowly spinning round as he tries to locate himself before recognising where he is, Leo’s eyes are clearer, and he looks at Lance with clear recognition and confusion.

After giving him some water, and being reassured that the Scotsman would be fine, Lance hesitantly retells him the news, and how he’d reacted. Almost immediately, it’s like he deflates and an exhausted, not to mention defeated, look covers his face. It doesn’t take much prompting for Leo to explain his idea as to why he reacted the way he had, honestly he could never know for sure, but it takes a while for the words to come out right, and he gets increasingly frustrated with himself as he struggles further. 

He tries to explain how, as with the rest of the team, Jemma had expected him to be magically better overnight, or rather once he was deemed capable of caring for himself and being discharged from rehab. And like the others, she too had failed to take into consideration how the incident would permanently change him, especially in regards to his scientific abilities. Even though he’d been proud about the little things, like holding a fucking pen long enough to make a rough sketch, it seemed as though his successes were just more reasons to pity him. And if there’s one thing he’s terrible with, it’s pity.

So he hadn’t been surprised when she’d ‘jumped ship’ (for lack of a better term), but in doing so, it caused his infrequent interactions with others to fall from one person to no one overnight. While of course meeting Hunter had been a true blessing, getting to know the other new agents/affiliates as well being an added bonus, the loneliness had been chronic for months, and even now the team still unintentionally avoids him like the plague when they forget he’s still there. Jemma returning is obviously a good thing, she’s safe and will continue to be safe from Hydra’s threat, but he doesn’t know if he can stomach all of the sad sighs and new and improved self-pity which inevitably would trickle down onto him anyways.

Not to mention the team, God once they see him from Jemma’s perspective again, there’s no telling how insultingly they’d act in regards to his disability and how ‘different’ he is now. He flops back onto his bed rather dramatically, cradling Percival to his chest and glaring up at the ceiling, Lance quietly laughing at his dramatic display before turning serious. Rubbing his hand up and down Leo’s arm, doing his best to coax a smile out of him, Lance chuckles to himself when he leaves Percival on his chest to grab a pillow and scream into it.

“Okay Mr Drama King, I understand where you’re coming from, and of course it’s going to be strange and annoying, but you have me, and Mack, and whenever Bobbi makes it back I’m sure you’ll have her too.”

“B-but what if she h-heard about me? And, and she th-thinks I’m too m-much, and b-because she thinks it, you do too, and then you l-leave. Because then I’ll j-just be ‘poor F-Fitz who lost both of his…’”

“Soulmates?” Gently lifting the pillow off of Leo’s face, Lance lays down beside him and turns so that he looks him dead in the eye. “That would never happen. One, because you are insanely cute and are way out of my league, so I’m not letting you go. Two, because Bobbi is well-informed enough to not be an ableist prick, and three, because we already deal with you, and whatever in your mind is ‘too much’ for us to handle. You’ll never lose us Leo, because we were meant to be in each other’s lives for a reason, and even if the romance doesn’t work out, we will still love you and be there for you.”

“I guess. I mean if s-someone is w-willing to talk to you after a divorce then that has to mean something.”

“Oh, Fitzy’s got jokes does he?” Lance jests, and before Leo can realise what he’s intending to do, he launches at the engineer, sitting on his thighs and tickling his sides, tears welling up in the Scot’s eyes as he laughs unrepentantly. 

When Leo’s laughter turns to breathlessness, Lance decides to declare a ceasefire, grinning from ear to ear at the childish pout he gets in return. He uses his position to take in all the little details about Leo, the ones he’s spent weeks trying to catch and still failing to notice them all. As he gently pushes his rapidly growing hair back, he notices a very faint smattering of freckles at his hairline, pretty much undetectable unless you were seeking them out, but he manages to catch them and chalks them up as another successful admiration session. 

It’s clear that Leo has no complaints about where Lance has decided to settle, so he takes the opportunity to just sit there and get lost in his thoughts, especially about their relationship. Like with a lot of soulmate relationships, falling into that something more than just platonic - whether it be a bond stronger than any regular friendship, or a romantic bond that would hopefully last forever - had been easier than tripping over nothing. And he and Leo were no exception, although they’d technically known each other for weeks, they had barely gotten to know one another hours prior to Lance’s realisation before they had their first kiss. Not that he was complaining in the slightest, he’s only ever felt that way with Bobbi and so it wasn’t like it’s a common occurrence, but he worries at times that they’re moving too fast.

More so concerned for Leo than himself, he knows that Leo has been more than receptive to the flirting, the touches, and especially to the kisses they’d shared, but with Bobbi’s lifestyle, not to mention his own, the permanence and foreverness of soulmates comes into contention much easier. He loves having someone to come home to, someone who gets him despite struggling with communication, but when it could all fall to shit at any time, it’s a terrifying thought to have constantly weighing on the back of his mind. But when he stares down at Leo, a toothy grin paired and eyes shining brighter than stars in the night sky, he decides to push those concerns away for the time being. 

He goes to suggest the two of them skiving off the important meeting Coulson had deemed mandatory for them all to attend, just to stay in his room and watch some shit TV and more importantly not stress about the upcoming arrival of one Jemma Simmons, but Coulson’s voice blares over the base intercom system, warning of an incoming Quinjet with the retrieval unit, halting his plans. Going off of the disappointed look marring Leo’s face, he had been thinking along a similar line of thought - ooh, maybe Lance was corrupting the younger man after all. Izzy would be pissed if that was the case though and God rest her soul, he is not risking her haunting him, especially he knows Idaho would join in the ghostly party if only to laugh at his misfortune.

Slating that conversation/horrific realisation for another time, he reluctantly rolls off of Leo, misjudging how many rolls away he was from the edge of the bed and managing to fall onto the floor with a rather loud ‘THUD’. Leo does his best to be a decent partner, does his absolute best not to laugh at him, and even promises to kiss it better after work if he doesn’t whinge too much when they return back to the lab. He watches as Lance practically springs up from his current place on the floor, eagerly speeding out of the room shouting at the engineer to hurry up so that he doesn’t make the day last any longer than it has to.

Walking at a far more sedate pace, he follows Hunter through the maze of corridors, popping his head into the garage to check up on Mack, much to Hunter’s faux-offense. When they make it back into the lab Fitz is having his ear talked off, Hunter bouncing from one subject to another without pause or any real explanation of how they’re related, a dopey smile gracing his face as they go over to their work station. With a peck on the lips once Hunter loses steam and indicates it’s a good stopping point, Fitz sends him over to his own computer set up, reminding him of which bits of paperwork he has to finish for today as he studies the inexplicably destroyed ICER on his worktable.

Hearing the lab door open and a gasp follow isn’t anything new, Christ every time Skye comes in and sees Fitz either flirting with Hunter or doing the job he’s paid to do she does it, so Fitz doesn’t pay any attention to the person who entered the lab. He figures they’ll come to him if they really want to talk to him, so he doesn’t bother looking up, but it seems Hunter has no qualms about doing that, or rather no qualms against leaving his reports in favour of anything else, and he hears the man let out a quiet gasp at the sight, clasping at Fitz’s free hand. So he lets out a soft sigh, taking off the magnifying goggles and putting his tools down before turning around and coming face to face with Jemma Simmons, shadowed by an incredibly attractive, incredibly tall brunette woman who looks like she could break his arse just with a look.

“Christ Bob.” Hunter breathes out, and Fitz’s head spins to look at the Englishman beside him.

“I thought you s-said she was b-blonde.”

“Last time I saw her, she was.” He pauses for a moment before leaning in closer, breath tickling his ear. “I take it the shorter bird is Simmons.”

Fitz nods silently, pulling his cardigan sleeves over his hands before waving at the women, Bobbi sending him a soft smile while Jemma has that same look of pity as she’d worn the day she’d left. He takes a steadying breath, not willing to let her own unresolved issues ruin this meeting with his other soulmate, before shyly returning the smile, eager to go over and properly introduce himself to Bobbi. But before he even gets that chance, Jemma is sprinting across the lab and practically rugby tackling him, Hunter having to steady him so that he doesn't go flying back onto the disassembled ICER. 

His hands hang limply as she apologises profusely for leaving him the way she did, making it seem as though she sees him as some kind of incapable child who couldn’t possibly function without her in his life, telling him about how she’d feared she was holding him back from improving, and how he clearly hadn’t changed with or without her there. When he dares to look at Bobbi, she looks downright furious, a glare focusing on the back of Jemma’s head, and if Fitz was to look at Hunter he’s ninety nine percent sure he’d see that exact same look on his face too. Prying Jemma off of his arms, his gaze darts from her face to the mascara splodges she’d left on his cardigan during her pity party, before focusing on his best friend - if he could still call her that, he isn’t sure.

“Look, J-Jemma, I don’t want to h-hear it.”

“What do you mean Fitz?”

“Your ap… Your apologies, I don’t w-want or need them. I may n-not be the Fitz you knew at the Academy, b-but that doesn’t mean th-the person I am now is wrong.”

“Oh God no, I would never think that Fitz, I just mean the fact that you’re stuttering and your hand still tremors, that facility was supposed to be the best of the best and yet…” she trails off, wincing when her eyes drift to Hunter.

“Yet, I’m still sh-showing symptoms of the l-lifelong physical disabilities I have, and I’m n-not the s-same, pre-Hydra Fitz you and the rest of the b-bloody team can’t s-seem to fucking forget.”

“Leo!”

“No Simmons, no ‘L-Leo’-ing me! When I was in rehab the doc, the doctors told me they didn’t th-think when I woke up that I wou-would recover from the TBI, let alone return to work after three months. So you can st-stuff your idea of p-progress where the sun d-don’t shine. You and the rest of the t-team for that matter.”

Huffing to himself, he shouts at one of the less gossipy lab technicians to let Coulson know Hunter, Bobbi, and him would be taking the rest of the day, and any briefings could be pushed back to tomorrow, before guiding Hunter away from their desks and walking over to Bobbi.

“Leo Fitz, nice t-to finally have a f-face to put to a screen. W-wasn’t expecting you to have brown hair though.” He holds his free hand out to Bobbi, the tall woman smiling at him and shaking it, not commenting on how much they were shaking, out of frustration or his injury acting out he couldn’t be sure.

“Bobbi Morse, it’s nice to have a face to put to the other voice in my head. And don’t worry, it washes out, just thought I would get a reaction out of Hunter first.” She winks at him before pulling a gobsmacked Hunter into a hug, the Englishman letting go of Fitz’s hand to hug her back. 

When they pull away from one another, having been sucked into their own little world, Bobbi pressing a kiss to Hunter’s cheek, Fitz is holding the lab door open for them, Jemma now nowhere in sight and by the saddened look on Fitz’s face, she had run out past him while they were caught up in their hug. Focusing on the three of them for now, he smiles up at them, motioning for them to go on ahead of him, telling Hunter to take Bobbi to their room and blushing when Bobbi pecks him on the temple in thanks for his show of manners. He walks slightly behind the former married couple, smiling to himself as they unknowingly fall back into an improvised comedy scene for the whole agency to bear witness to. 

By the time they’re back at the bunks once again, Bobbi is gaping at the sheer size of the room, and she looks at the bed with a comical amount of hunger in her eyes, and Leo is half tempted to ask her if she wants alone time with the bed itself, let alone them in it with her. With an incredible level of self restraint on her part, she takes a perch on the end of the bed, unzipping her knee high boots and passing her coat to Lance for him to hang up on the back of the desk chair, motioning for the men to come and sit beside her. Before they can start talking about the nitty gritty of it all, he warns her that his voice probably will go, or his words will fail him, especially after the mess with Jemma, and so he will most likely use sign language, remembering that she would most likely know ASL so he promises to try to stick to that if he does have to.

She reassures him that one way or another, this conversation would happen. Maybe not all at once, but the most important things anyway, and how they would seek to move forward. Out of the corner of his eye he notices Percival, and before he can launch over to grab him, Bobbi reaches behind her and grabs him, smiling at the teddy that has lost most of its stuffing before passing it over to his rightful owner. Leo tries to justify him still having it, but she shakes her head, telling him about her own comfort animal currently situated at the very bottom of her bags and reassuring him that she is in no place to judge either.

“So, I guess the first question I have really, is why did you sing to us then? After all these years.” She asks, Lance tensing up as his mind goes to the worst case scenario from what little he does know.

“Okay, so, I d-didn’t sing when I w-was younger because my father was an ab, an abusive prick. I’m s-sure that Simmons told you about the Pod. Yes?” Bobbi nods in response. “Well, I actually w-woke up before she d-did. And at the time, I th-thought that we were going to die down there, and I just. Hold on.”

“It’s okay Leo, take your time.” Lance says, plying Percival out of his hands so that he could sign.

‘Right, so essentially, the crux of the matter is that I didn’t want to die without you both knowing I existed. Without getting married, or divorced, like you did. I don’t begrudge you for it by the way, but I didn’t want my existence, or rather end of it, to be an out of the blue surprise. It was shitty on my part, I know that, but I needed to tell you both how I felt about you at the time.’

He waits for their brains to fully compute the meaning behind his shaky signs, and when they do sink in, he finds himself being tugged even closer to Bobbi, Lance placing his hand on his thigh and smiling reassuringly at him. 

“That actually brings up a good point. Me and Leo have both agreed to seeking out a romantic relationship, well, we kind of are, it’s early days y’know? But what about you Bob, how would you like this to go? And that includes both of us, not just Leo. You may well be a she-devil of an ex-wife, but you’re still my she-devil of an ex-wife and I wouldn’t want you any other way.” 

That comment causes a brief but rather efficient elbowing fight that almost sends Lance flying off of his side of the bed, scowling as Leo laughs so hard he curls up on himself and falls into Bobbi’s side. Bobbi takes a minute to think her answer through, just as she had done with every text message that she had ever sent, but Leo knows that whatever her answer may be, he would be thrilled to bits in hearing the response. Once she’s gathered her thoughts, she explains how there is definitely physical attraction there, towards the both of them, and through the texting she’s grown to really like Leo, however she has her reservations. Not necessarily with Leo, although she states that she’d rather they didn’t jump into a relationship just like that, but with Lance and the way their marriage ended.

It’s a sore subject for the three of them, Leo remembering how he’d felt after realising they’d gotten married without him, and Bobbi and Lance holding numerous regrets about how it had ended on such bad terms that they couldn’t even remain friends, and only regained contact when Leo came into the picture. She says that for now, she’s happy to consider this becoming a romantic relationship, but until they had had time to get to know one another better in Leo’s case, and properly talk over the issues which arose during their ill fated marriage with Lance, she’d much rather they remained, well, as platonic as possible. Although she is quick to reassure them that she doesn’t mind the guys being more than that, or being romantic in front of her, just to not rope her into it until they’re ready for it.

“Alrighty then. Can we just talk about one more thing and then figure out what we’re doing for the rest of the night? Because I don’t know about you guys, but I’m knackered and the sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can sleep.” Lance asks, squeezing Percival from his perch on his lap.

“Sure.”

“Go for it.”

“Leo, how do you want us to go about telling your team? About our relationship and what it may become, our soulmate status, about how shittily they’ve treated you, all of that.”

It tears him in two. On the one hand, he’s more than happy for them to know, what are they going to do, try and separate them? There’s too many laws prohibiting that, not to mention the fact that the three of them are very important assets in Coulson’s eyes so he couldn’t dare risk losing him. But confronting the team, once again, on how terribly they’d treated him up until now? That’s something he can’t even begin to stomach. In the passing months he’d sort of accepted the futility of it all, much to Lance’s (and Mack’s and surprisingly some of the lab technicians’) very vocal displeasure about how they’d gotten away with getting their own ableist views unchecked by everyone, especially himself when he had been unable to advocate for himself. But Bobbi had been exposed to it not five minutes after meeting him, and she’d been ready to blow up at Simmons had he not done so.

“I don’t care about the team knowing about us, that’s more than okay, it’s not like I can show you guys off to anyone else anyway. As for the team, I don’t know, can we just leave it?”

“No, Leo, we can’t just leave it.” Bobbi says, her eyes softening but never once pitying. “I know Mack and Lance are both sick of it, so you must be too. It’s got to be coming up for five months since you left rehab now, and the fact that they expect you to be how you were before your TBI, then forget you exist because you aren’t being given the accommodations and support you need is not on. Lance told me about what you said, about him being the first person to hug you and treat you like a normal person since your discharge from the unit, and it can’t carry on like this.”

“You don’t deserve to have to carry on like this.” Lance chimes in, reaching for his hand and squeezing it tightly.

“Okay, f-fine. B-but I w-want it on record that if it goes t-tits up, you both coer… coerced me into d-doing it. And I will need ice, no, ice cream after to m-make up for it.”

“You drive a pretty hard bargain Lion boy. But I’ll see what we can wrangle up.” Lance says, smiling at Fitz as if he’s one of the most precious things in the world.

With all of them growing more fatigued by the second, Lance proposes that they call it a night, and leave any of the other hard hitting conversations that were bound to arise at some point in the future. Bobbi reluctantly pushes herself off of the bed, turning back to stare at it longingly, and Leo bravely decides to suggest she sleep with them for the night. He’s quick to clarify that he isn’t trying to cross her boundaries, but seeing as though she looks seconds from crying at the thought of having to sleep in a single bunk, it wouldn’t hurt for her to sleep in their bed and then just get ready in her own room in the morning.

She seems torn for a moment, and Lance even offers to give her his Scout’s Honour, but Leo’s laughter makes her eye him dubiously, and he promises on Percival’s life not to do anything untoward to either of them if it would make her uncomfortable. Nodding at his promise, or rather the murderous look Leo sends his way at the thought of Percival being caught in the crossfire, she promises that she’ll be right back, bending down to peck both of the men on the lips before heading out, an unseen smug look crossing her face at their bewildered wide eyed stares. Shaking themselves out of their temporary daze, they get off of the bed, Lance rummaging through the drawers and finding them pyjamas while Leo brushes his teeth and washes his face.

Minutes later, just as he’s finishing up in the ensuite, he feels Lance hip check him, his pyjama pants slung low on his hips and his chest noticeably bare. Taking the not too subtle hint to hurry up, he heads back into his bedroom and changes quickly, umming and ahhing about whether he should wear a shirt to sleep. Unlike Lance, he isn’t vehemently opposed to doing so, but also unlike the Englishman, he isn’t nearly as muscular as him, some softness around his hips, and while he doesn’t for one second believe Bobbi is the shallow type, he still doesn’t want to put her off of him by having to look at him half naked.

However, as if by magic, or Lance possessing a mental ‘Leo is thinking self-deprecating things’ radar, he’s back in the bedroom and hugging Leo from behind, head resting on his shoulder and arms wrapped around his torso. He doesn’t say anything, he knows that no matter how much he tries to reassure his partner that he is one of the most gorgeous people to ever walk the Earth, it’ll be a long time before he’s managed to convince him, but he holds him close, peppering soft kisses on his collarbone and neck and soaks in every giggle he gets in response. Bobbi knocks on the door minutes later, Lance shouting at her that it’s open and that she can walk in, and when she does, she does a double take at the sight of a very obscene looking Leo being hugged by a very shirtless Lance.

“Fuck.” She says, repeatedly eyeing the pair up and down. “You’re killing me here.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself, I see Angel is back.”

She holds her stuffed bear up proudly, joking that Leo looks rather cuddly and comfortable himself, so they all technically have something to hold onto in the night. Bobbi doesn’t miss the way Leo is staring intently at the t-shirt in his hands, and by the disheartened look on Lance’s face, it’s a mental war he’s fighting, rather than a physical one. Striding over to them, she unclenches his fists from the material and takes the oversized top in her own hands, smiling at him when his blue eyes flash up at her and properly look at her.

“You don’t have to wear this if you don’t want to. Not to overstep, but you are so incredibly handsome, and Hunter and I both see that. Wear it if you want, but we won’t mind either way.”

Grazing the back of her hand across his cheekbones, she passes him the shirt back before standing on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead, heading over to the bed, eagerly lying down and situating herself on the right side. It takes him a moment to come to a decision, and slowly he pulls away from Lance’s embrace, looking down at his stomach before breathing out a shaky breath and throwing the top near the floor by the chest of drawers, before speeding over to Bobbi, tucking himself under the covers and smiling when he comes face to face with her. His eyes linger all over as he tries to capture this moment in his mind, smiling at the way her hair looks almost like a sort of halo in the soft light of the desk lamp behind her.

Not to be left standing alone, Lance follows after him, shuffling in behind him and pulling Fitz close to his chest, stretching an arm to drape over Bobbi’s waist. Eyes feeling heavier by the moment, they all wish each other a good night, and aside from Bobbi cursing up a storm when Leo’s cold feet accidentally brush against her bare calves, it’s a relatively peaceful end to their rather eventful day. Especially when Leo starts to tentatively sing to them for the first time in over half a year, barely stumbling over his words as he lowly sings ‘I Will Always Love You’, serenading them to sleep, the soft Scottish voice fostering a feeling of safety and contentment in the former married couple, just as they had done for him for years, and hopefully would continue to do for countless more to come.