Chapter Text
Morse and Hunter were inseparable. Geniuses beyond compare really, their lives encapsulating one another’s since they were fresh faced kids in a world neither of them could truly understand. Hell, they’d even gotten married, and it’d seemed as though they would forever be inseparable. Except, life never works out the way anyone plans it to, and with joining the Phil Coulson’s team, spending quite literally every waking moment in each other’s company, and trying to come to terms with the fall of, really, the only thing they’d ever known took its toll.
It was no surprise when, after weeks and months of bickering that had boiled over into the worst argument they’d ever had, Bobbi had served Hunter the divorce papers before leaving at the first chance she’d gotten. And once he’d had a chance to breathe, away from her all consuming presence, Hunter realised just how much he needed Bobbi in his life, how much he’d depended on her to make it all seem right again. But he hadn’t been given any say in the matter, left all alone just like when he was a kid, and without his other half, he’d knuckled down big time. Gone was the loud mouthed Lance Hunter who was always making snarky comments, in his place there was a much more subdued man, one who was in a seemingly never ending turmoil.
The months spent trying to help Coulson rebuild SHIELD had been difficult to say the least, the man had become far more secretive, and with his teammates being stretched thinner than ever, Hunter found himself more often than not losing himself in his work. It hadn’t been as bad when Mack made it to the Playground, and honestly the relief at knowing he’d survived the “Hydrapocalypse” as he and Skye called it was unquantifiable. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d teared up when the man had made his presence known to the Brit. And sure, the uncertainty of Bobbi’s safety was a genuine fear of his, one that had kept him up at night more times than he’d care to admit, but she’d never not been fully capable, and it was something he’d always admired about her.
So, the loneliness had eased up slightly. Not an awful lot, after all there was no one quite like Barbara Morse, but he found the time to hang out with the team, catching up on the field missions he’d been grounded from, even having a beer or two with May on one very strange evening. But he’d settled into a new routine, a new way of life which wasn’t totally repulsive, and Hunter had found himself even looking forward to what may come, which, with his profession, could well be anything and everything. That is, until Coulson had brought in Izzy and her mercenaries, more specifically the very mysterious Fitz.
Because while he’d known Izzy for years, since her and Victoria Hand had expressed interest in one of his and Bobbi’s first collaborative projects, and Idaho was a chatty enough bloke, this Fitz was a total mystery to him. And, by the sounds of it, a mystery to the rest of them as well. In fact Hunter was certain he’d heard Skye cursing up a storm in her bunk one day about the distinct lack of information about him on any of her hacking networks, and even May looked a little perplexed at the bearded man. That wasn’t to say none of them hadn’t tried to get to know him, but outside of a courtesy head nod and a hello out of him, he hadn’t uttered more than five or so words consecutively around any of them.
From the sounds of it, or more specifically the looks on Idaho and Izzy’s faces when he had said things to them, those sparse words were something of a miracle in and of itself. But his muteness was nothing of importance in comparison with his efficiency and the skill he demonstrates in the field. Watching him from afar is something akin to magic, in Hunter’s eyes anyway, because he’d never seen anyone look so graceful and composed when taking out targets. Well, aside from May, but everyone and their mum knew that the only reason that May was the way she was is due to what went down in Bahrain, whatever that was. So it’s safe to say that he felt fondly about this Fitz character.
And yet, every time he tried to find him, seek him out, get him to join the team in some form or another, he’d just managed to disappear. At first, Hunter had presumed it was something to do with losing his team, losing Izzy and Idaho had hit all of them pretty hard, but to be the only survivor, Christ Hunter couldn’t imagine it, but even after the pain would’ve began to ebb away, he still repelled himself as far away from the team as physically possible. Every now and again, Hunter caught a glimpse of the shorter man hovering outside of the lab, his gaze almost wistful, but for some reason the moment he appeared also seemed to be the moment he left. By that point, he’d all but given up on ever getting to properly know the man, but when Coulson offered him a proper job in SHIELD, it seemed all Hunter’s wishes had been answered.
So with a little manipulation of circumstances, such as getting Skye to drag him into the common room one evening seeing as no one could deter a determined Skye even if it killed them, Hunter managed to get Fitz to hang out with them. That, while being one of his greatest achievements, also ended up being a potential precursor to Hunter’s untimely death, because Jesus Christ it was bad enough when he’d been just a pretty face with piercing baby blues, but a pretty face with a raspy accented voice, calloused hands, and intellect to spare. It was like his dream man all wrapped up into one “mysterious mercenary Fitz” bundle. And although Fitz still refrained from speaking all that much, just some well thought out questions and dry remarks which indicated he’d been listening to Hunter’s babbling, Hunter found himself becoming even more intrigued by the man.
From that night on, it seemed whenever Fitz wasn’t off training or out on a mission, he was hanging around the lab, a silent presence which Hunter used to bounce ideas off of whenever he’d hit a wall. Plus, it wasn’t exactly unwelcome that he acted as an unintentional bodyguard, keeping the more irritating lab techs far away from Hunter’s space, leaving him with far more emails than inquisitive questioning that always left him exhausted by the end of the work day. And as the team grew closer, and Hunter realised that while he couldn’t ever just fill the void of Bobbi’s departure and that he could stand on his own two feet once again, he found himself falling down a dangerous rabbit hole. Because while he was sure that he would always love Bobbi, the feelings he had for Fitz were no more platonic than his feelings for his ex-wife, and he was slowly beginning to accept that that was okay as well.
But then, almost out of nowhere, Raina resurfaced and had threatened to blow Bobbi’s cover, at Hydra of all places, and suddenly that baseline level of fear had surged into something he couldn’t seem to get a hold of. Bobbi, his Bobbi, the woman who got him through some of the worst times of his life, was in mortal danger, just because Coulson wouldn’t even consider negotiating with Raina. And once again, he’s thankful that Fitz was there with him, sat across from him at the table, preventing him from doing something as stupid as storming over there and socking Coulson, his boss and the only reason he wasn’t in military prison for treason, in the gob. Although by the steely look on Fitz’s face, the usually level headed man seemed to be annoyed somewhat as well.
Once Raina was suitably tagged and sent on her way, having given them an address for a place nearby, Hunter is near-on fuming with Coulson. It’d been bad enough being kept in the dark all these months, his impending divorce being swung over his head like the bloody sword of Damocles itself to keep it that way, but to leave a valuable agent, and more importantly, his fucking wife alone like that was just unforgivable. And by the time they’d all made it back to base, the true horrors of Skye’s father having only just begun to unravel themselves, with none of them any the wiser as to Bobbi’s status, he just wants to curl up in bed and cry. But when Fitz gently led him into the labs, clearing them out with a single glare and pushing Hunter down into a seat to try and help him take a breath, Hunter’s original plans went out of the window.
Feeling as though he could take a breath, his shoulders still weighed down by the uncertainty of everything, Hunter finally looked down at Fitz, crouched in front of the chair with concern seeped into his every pore, and thanked whatever may be for putting this wonderful man in his life. He squeezed the hand resting on the arms of the chair, smiling thankfully for the man’s peaceful presence, but just before he could officially call himself calm enough to confront Coulson, he heard the lab door open. And there was Bobbi, not a scratch on her, brown hair tumbling down her shoulders, a burgundy coat he didn’t recognise draped over her arms, stood next to a much shorter brunette woman. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that Bobbi was currently taking up all of his attention, Hunter would’ve noticed Fitz standing to attention like a soldier presented with a drill sergeant just as he launched himself from the desk chair.
“Hey Hunter. Nice suit.” Bobbi said, and it was just so her that he could feel his breath leave lungs.
Now, this had been the moment he’d spent months waiting for, preparing for, dreaming about. He’d tell Bobbi how sorry he is, and how he’s such a twat, and how he never wanted to leave her side again. However it seemed that anger and frustration took over, boiling up after months of the rage simmering in the background.
“‘Nice suit?’ Really? That’s what you’re leading with?” He paused momentarily. “What did you do to your hair?”
“Ever heard of undercover?”
“I prefer you blonde!”
“Well I didn’t do it for you. Two seconds in, there’s already a tone.”
He physically recoiled at that comment, it's always been one of the first things to be brought up in an argument, despite his hatred for her bringing it up. Fitz gravitated towards him slightly, brushing his shoulder against the taller man’s in support, and it was then that Hunter noticed how pale Fitz seemed at the other presence in the lab.
“This isn’t a tone. This is my speaking voice when I’m upset with an unreasonable person.” He snapped, scowling at her and her stupid brown hair.
His chest heaved as he prepared himself for another verbal lashing off of his still current wife, but their argument grinded to a halt as the other woman spoke softly, resting one hand in Bobbi’s forearm as reaching another out to Fitz, who subtly edged away from it. Her voice matched her looks, soft, doe-eyed, unassuming, but he was sure that anyone who would have to go undercover at somewhere like Hydra would have to be unassuming enough that no one would question her presence or any affiliations she’d had with the enemy. Either way, he doesn’t like how in a matter of seconds, Fitz had gone from the open and unknowingly charming mercenary turned SHIELD agent to the recluse he had been when Izzy had brought him and Idaho to the Playground.
“Hi Fitz.” She said softly, as if she were speaking to some wounded animal and not the more than capable agent he was.
For some reason it irked Hunter, maybe because he knew how brilliant the man was, or maybe because they’d clearly had a past that was as uneasy as his and Bobbi’s.
“Simmons.” He said blandly, standing straighter and tilting his chin up so he didn’t quite have to look her in the eye. “Is that really you?”
This sent her into a brief fit of giggles, but from the way his arms tensed against Hunter’s, he could tell that whatever reason behind his question was no laughing matter. She sobers up in seconds, but in that time Fitz is truly guarded once more, his eyes steely and his posture impeccable.
“Of course it is. Who else would it be?” Stepping closer to him, Hunter had to resist the urge to pull Fitz behind him, as if he’d be the one to protect the specialist and not the other way round. “How’ve you been?”
The well meaning question sent him speeding out of the lab at breakneck speed, and although he could see this Simmons bird was raring to go, he shook his head at her. Instead, he told Bobbi that they needed to talk later, about everything, before chasing after the man, unsurprisingly winding up in the training room. It was currently empty of all people except for one Leo Fitz, who had turned around briefly to acknowledge Hunter’s presence before carrying on beating and kicking the shit out of a punching bag. Able to do little more than watch from the sidelines, Hunter took a lap of the gym before stopping directly in line with the punching bag and Fitz, wincing every time his unwrapped knuckles made contact.
It took a while for him to get it all out of his system, and Hunter was frankly exhausted just watching him do it, but when he did, he simply slumped to the ground, grabbing onto the punching bag to stabilise it in case it decided to repeat on him. Taking that as his cue, Hunter rushed over to him, uncurling Fitz’s hands and doing his best to avoid touching his split knuckles, sitting on the floor with Fitz. He waited for Fitz to nod his permission before trying to touch him elsewhere, and when he finally did, Hunter pulled him into the tightest one armed hug he’d ever given, rubbing the man’s arm while reassuring him that whatever it is, it’d all be okay in the end.
Thankfully, no one had disturbed them, and for the first time ever, he thanked Coulson’s tendency to run mission debriefings which felt longer than the Queen’s Speech at Christmas. Neither one of them tried to articulate their thoughts, after all what can you say to the absolute crapshoot of a day that they’d had, and especially how it ended like this. But after a while, Fitz began to pull away, not out of want but rather because he was working to rebuild those walls Hunter had fought tooth and nail to rip down, and he’d be damned if this woman managed to do all of that in a matter of minutes.
“Look, mate, I know talking isn’t exactly your thing, but by the looks of it this Agent Simmons is here to stay, so please, talk to me about it. I’ll even talk to you about Bobbi, no bullshit, not too much whinging either.”
Fitz snorted quietly and took a moment to mull it over, before nodding and jumping up off of the cold padded flooring, a hand stretched out for Hunter to grab onto as leverage. He felt his hand tingle slightly as their skin made contact, but he ignored it in favour of following Fitz out of the gym and into the bunk area, gawping slightly when he opened up his bunk for Hunter to come in. It was almost like crossing holy ground, Hunter knew it wasn’t sacred persay, but he’d never been in here before, and bedrooms are probably one of the better reflections of who a person really is. Either way, he remained cautious when entering, toeing his shoes off and placing them by his dresser before taking the room in.
It’s rather sparse, although given the lifestyle he’d led up until joining SHIELD, that’s to no real surprise, but Hunter did smile when he saw the little stuffed monkey he’d picked up for him on a supply run one day sat proudly on his bedside table. Fitz clearly didn’t see any issues with Hunter coming into his room, and waved the man over to join him on the bed. Hunter sat down a respectful distance away, or as respectful as possible on a tiny single bed, and sat quietly, thoughts running wild in his head as he theorised all of the potential reasons why the Scotsman had reacted so viscerally to this agent Hunter had never come across before.
“So,” Fitz said, his voice raspier than normal, “me and Simmons, we’re... well we’re complicated. We met a while ago, and became partners real quick. Not romantically, but she had my six and I had hers. But then a few years ago, it all went wrong.”
He began coughing, his throat clearly rebelling against this much talking all in one go, so Hunter decided to take over.
“Me and Bob are still married. Technically. Haven’t signed the divorce papers yet, and I don’t know if we will. But we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs, we’re both pretty stubborn, and hard headed. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I love her, but sometimes it’s hard to like her, especially when she left the way she did. And now with you and Simmons in the mix, our relationship just got a whole lot more complicated.”
“We got captured, tortured by this Hydra big wig’s brainwashing victim who thought the sun shone out of John Garrett’s arse. I took the brunt of it, more fractures and contusions than was good for me, for some reason he just couldn’t bring himself to physically hurt her, Jemma that is, Simmons. But then he brought out the water barrel, threw me in and locked it shut. It took Simmons eight minutes to get me out, six minutes without oxygen, and after we were rescued I was put in a medically induced coma for nine days.”
“Jesus fucking Christ Leo!”
Fitz took another pause, more for Hunter’s sake than his own, steadying his breathing and grabbing hold of Hunter’s hand to anchor the engineer to Fitz’s bed. Whatever images his mind was concocting would be far from pretty, and it was hard enough to think about after all these years of compartmentalising and suppressing the memories, so he was sure Hunter would be struggling just as much as he had in those first few weeks.
“When I woke up, the doctor told me I had severe traumatic brain injuries, hypoxia induced aphasia as well as a drastic decline in my fine motor skills, and some damage to my vocal chords. Recovery had been a bitch, and at first Je- Simmons had been by my side, but after a while, she’d began to pull away, and one day she just left, leaving a note for me to remember her by.”
“I don’t begrudge her, but when she did leave, I started hallucinating, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder due to genetics and trauma. But the worse thing was that I was hallucinating her, and when I was deemed fit for combat, I couldn’t stop seeing her in the line of fire, and nearly died because of it. So, yeah, it’s hard, seeing her again. I’d made my peace with that a long time ago. Fuck man, I thought I was losing my mind all over again, seeing her with Bobbi.”
For the second time that night, Hunter pulled Fitz into a hug, squeezing his arm reassuringly before resting his head on Fitz’s shoulder. They sat in silence, Hunter now noticing the pill box in the far corner of the room, his breaths evening out as he pondered over how to bring up the mess that is his relationship status combined with his feelings for Fitz. But it seemed he didn’t need to, as Fitz pulled out his phone, clearly exhausted from the last minute training session coupled with more talking that Hunter’s ever heard from him, not to mention the emotional upheaval that his speech had brought. The former mercenary typed quickly, asking Hunter about how he wanted to go about all of this: his marriage, their friendship which was on its way elsewhere, the former almost relationship he’d had with Simmons.
“Well, I’m gonna go talk to Bob in the morning, about how I feel about her, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you there too. Not to bombard her or anything, but, you’ve seen how we get, and I don’t want it to be like that, you know? I wanna save this. From there, I guess lots of talking, you with Jemma, me with Bob, you and I, anything else that comes out of our conversations really. I don’t think I could stomach losing you Fitz.”
“Me too.” He rasped out, his voice sounding like it was on its last legs.
“How about for tonight we sleep together?” Fitz turned to him incredulously, and Hunter gently whacked his chest in mock chastisement in response. “Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter! Maybe when I’m not at risk of being hung up by my balls by my darling wife for committing infidelity.
Shrugging in response, Fitz took a couple moments to strip down to his boxers and chucked on a pair of grey joggers, smirking at Hunter’s roaming eyes before sending him back to his own bunk to get changed and brush his teeth. He returned minutes later to find Fitz lying on the bed, arms raised behind his head with his pill box having been moved to reside on his bedside table. Letting Hunter climb in so that he was next to the wall, Fitz allowed the taller man to adjust them however he fancied, smiling when Hunter curled around his back, one hand supporting Fitz’s head and the other draped over his stomach. Smiling back at him, Fitz turned the light off with Hunter’s permission before shuffling back and closing his eyes, muttering his goodnight wishes and grinning when he gets a response back that is just as soft and content.