An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Chicago PD (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz/Jay Halstead, Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz & Everyone
Characters: Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz, Jay Halstead, Hank Voight, Trudy Platt, Intelligence Unit Officers (Chicago PD)
Additional Tags: Episode: s03e03 Actual Physical Violence (Chicago PD), Missing Scene, Intelligence Unit as Family (Chicago PD), Sort Of, Inner Dialogue, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Nothing too explicit, reapearing after 3 years of radio silence with a fic for a new fandom: omg haiiii im back :3!!!!
Summary:
After getting the gun away from Jeff Frazier, Mouse thinks about the future ahead for that man and his daughter, and he makes a choice.
"A moment ago, it was the first time I said I love-"
Daisys heart had stopped, her lungs had frozen mid exhale, and she wasn't sure they had resumed their primary functions in the days and weeks that had followed those words. But they must have, because she was still roaming the Earth. Lincoln was still gone.
"Saving the girl I love and the world at the same time? Seems pretty right to me."
He loved her. Someone loved Daisy. She loved him, too. She never got to say it back.
Her entire life, nobody bad ever loved her like Lincoln had. Nobody had ever made her feel worthy of being loved. Daisy had finally earned someone's love, she earned his love.
A knock sounded at the door to her bunk, which she hadn't left in days. Simmoms had brought meals that were barely touched, and that had been the only human interaction Daisy had had in almost a month.
"Sk-- Daisy?"
It was Coulson.
"Can I come in?"
Daisy hadn't used her voice in days, she couldn't form an answer. Not that she knew what she wanted to say.
Coulson cautiously stepped into her bunk. He looked her over carefully, taking in her pale face, dark circles under sunken, bloodshot eyes, her hair that had gone unwashed for over a week, the same shirt hanging off her shoulders; a shirt that looked a size larger than it had a month prior.
Daisy didn't acknowledge his presence, just stared blankly ahead. She felt the bed sink under his weight.
"Daisy . . ." Coulson started slowly, as if he didn't know what to say. But Daisy knew better. She knew he wouldn't have come if he didn't have a speech planned out. "We're all worried about you." His voice was so soft, but somehow stern. "I . . . I know it's hard, I know it hurts, but you still need to take care of yourself." He place a gentle hand on her arm. "You'll feel better if you eat something."
Daisy moved, suddenly. She moved away from Coulson and looked at him with accusatory betrayal.
"Hurts?" Her voice cracked, volume barely above a whisper. "Of course it hurts," her voice grew louder and rougher. "Of course it fucking hurts!" She stood up on shaking legs--no, her legs weren't shaking, the room was. "I don't want to feel better, I don't want to get over him!" She clenched her fists as fresh tears welled in her eyes and she screamed at Coulson.
In an instant, she was breaking down in his arms again as they sank to the floor.
She was gone the next day.
She bought a van that reminded her of her life before S.H.I.E.L.D, before things went completely, horribly wrong. She remembered Charles -- Charlie -- who had shown her the image of the cross floating right before the flames.
Daisy remembered his daughter, barely in Kindergarten. Daisy knew what it was like to grow up without a father. She couldn't give Robin her dad back, but she could give her mother the means to give them both a good life.
She was branded as a thief, a terrorist who brought down bridges after robbing banks, a radical political figure that was trying to level the scales of society.
Daisy beat the shit out of a man who she saw assaulting a woman half his size, and that was when she became Quake.
No matter how many people loved or hated her, idolized or demonized her for her actions, no matter what she did, her thoughts always wandered back to dark blond hair. Bright blue eyes, electric blue, to be poetic, dry hands from washing them all the time.
A man with a kind smile and dangerous eyes, an intense calling to help people, an imence knowledge and willingness to learn and grow, a sister, a man who loved her.
Daisy still couldn't belive he loved her. She repeated his last words to her constantly.
"It was the first time I said I love-"
I love you.
He loved her.
Someone loved her.
Daisy didn't even know he had a sister until Coulson brought up notifying his family. She loved someone she barely knew.
She loved him, and she hated him.
She hated him for being so good. So heroic.
She hated that she didn't get a chance to meet his sister.
Daisy would give anything to see him again, to just sit with Lincoln for just a moment. To be with him.
She threw herself into dismantling the Watchdogs, hoping that preventing them from hurting anyone would help her; hoping that it would make her feel better.
Holden watched as Agnes tried to hide the tears welling up in her eyes, hide her unease at his assistant, AIDA, looking just like her.
"Just one last step." AIDAs chirpy but monotone voice said as she typed into a computer, her robotic smile plastered on her face. "You're doing well." Agnes sucked in a shaking breath and nodded before looked to Holden.
Holden rubbed her arm, drinking in every part of her that he could see. "See? Painless." His smile was pained, his tears barely restrained. "Just as I promised." Wrong. He promised he would save her; this something different. "The worst is over." No, it was still to come. "No one should have to go through what you have. Soon, you'll never suffer again." He finally told her the truth, but it felt empty, disappointing.
Agnes nodded and laughed wetly, gripping his hand in a vice.
As AIDA fastened the head gear, Holden took another moment to study his love.
Her cardigan was somewhere between red and orange, her white blouse sprinkled with tiny blue, green, and red flowers. The silver and white ring hanging from her neck sparkles in the light of the submarine, as did her blue earrings.
Holden stepped in front of her. "Are you ready for a better world?" A world where we will never be plagued by this grief? A world where the mistakes I made would never have happened? A world where I didn't leave you--a world where I never had a reason to leave you? The secondary questions went unspoken, but she could hear them. Are you ready for a world where our love will never be on a timer?
Agnes nodded, her chest heaving. Holden stared into her eyes, her beautiful eyes, a sparkling brown that should never be shining with tears the way they were in that moment. Her eyes were so magnificent--they were the first things he had ever truly seen, the only thing he ever wanted to look at. Her eyes were the beginning and end of the universe, the very definition of beauty, the gateway to heaven.
Her head fell back, and here eyes closed. And with them, it seemed all the stars in the universe vanished. Holden let himself look away, let his lip quiver.
My beloved Agnes, he thought, I will be with you again soon. I will never leave you again.
And he didn't. Holden stayed by Agnes' side for hours, holding the delicate hands he never wanted to let go of. His world already felt so dull, so bland, even though she was right next to him. Agnes was dying, and the universe knew it.
Holden didn't know what Agnes was doing in her new life, but he hoped she was happy. Maybe she was decorating their house, or reading her favorite, or wandering through a museum filled with all her favorite pieces. Whatever she was doing, wherever she was, Holden hoped she was waiting for him.
"There is nothing we can do to sustain her in this life." AIDA spoke above the beeping of the heart monitor, too few and too far between.
Holden swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly, gently, brought Agnes' hand up to his lips. He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, eyes shut against the cruel world that would take his beloved away from him.
The deafening flatline was a death sentence, Holdens personal damnation to Hell.
He choked in a breath. "It doesn't matter." He held her hand tighter, squeezed his eyes tighter. He couldn't bear to see the world without color, a dull world that would prove she would never truly feel anything ever again. "In the Framework, her consciousness will live forever."
Holden forced his eyes open.
A sob tore through his throat.
Her cardigan was grey, her blouse was white, speckled with different shades of grey in the shapes of flowers. Her skin had lost all warmth, her hair was the color of a storm cloud. He was glad he couldn't see the eyes he adored, for he didn't know what he would do if he had to see the things that gave him a purpose extinguished.
He had fulfilled his purpose, hadn't he?
Success never felt so heart wrenching.
He wanted to see her--needed, beyond food, drink, sleep, sanity, to see Agnes. More than anything, Holden wanted to cram his head into the sensors and enter the only place in the universe he could find happiness anymore. But he couldn't.
He feared what he would see. Would he see Agnes, the love of his life, in all her glorious beauty? Would he see her soft brown hair? Would he be able to count the specks of gold in her eyes?
Just hearing her voice would be enough, but Holden was a terrible, greedy man. He wanted everything to be perfect. He wanted to see her. He wanted to feel the giddy happiness he had felt the moment he had laid his eyes on her, he wanted to feel the stars align, he wanted to feel lighter than air, a high that no drug could supply. He wanted to see color.
Agnes would see color. He made sure of it. He would not make a world where she couldn't indulge in the simple joy of looking at art.
After hours of treacherous stalling, Holden bit the bullet.
He didn't look AIDA in the eyes as she hooked him up to the Framework. She wasn't his Agnes, but they had the same eyes. Holden couldn't look into her eyes without feeling like he failed.
The grey world around him faded to black, and Holden had never felt such a mix of fear and excitement in his life.
- - -
His eyes opened in lazy blinks, his hand twitched from sleep, and he felt a deep, peaceful calm that he hadn't in years.
It took him a second to register the pale green walls, or the yellow sunlight filtering through an open window. Holden sat up with a soft gasp. It worked.
"Agnes?" His voice sounded desperate, yet hopeful.
"Yes, Holden?" Her accented voice held a smile, content at happy. She was just beyond a wall.
Holden rushed through an open door and stopped.
Agnes Kitsworth smiled at him from her breakfast nook overlooking whatever city they were in. He felt his insides burning with the pure, transcendent joy at seeing her, really seeing her, like the first time in his life.
Holden slowly approached and sat in the nook to face her. He reached out and cupped her face in his hand.
Agnes leaned into his touch with a soft smile. "Everything alright, Holden?"
He smiled. It had been so long since he had smiled like this. "Everything is perfect."
The flowers on her dress were purple, red, and yellow, the sky outside was bluer than any ocean or lake could ever hope to be. And her eyes--oh, her eyes! They shimmered in the afternoon sun, brighter than any light, warmer than any sun, the universe dimmed in comparison.
Holdens hand drifted from her face to her back. He pulled her in and hugged her, felt her hair against his face, softer than silk. "Everything is perfect." He repeated when her arms wrapped around him in return.
He felt Agnes smile, and he pressed his face into her neck.
"Everything is perfect."
Everything is perfect, in a world where we will never run out of time.
Tony got hurt on a mission and didn't tell anyone until Pepper found out and made him. There was yelling and big gestures and sharp words they both immediately regretted but were too proud to admit it.
It ended with Pepper storming out while Tony was still getting bandaged.
They're both too petty to apologize first, so the bitterness between them lasts way longer than they both thought it should. They only talked when they had to, through passive agreements work e-mails.
"Are you guys still mad at each other?" Rhodey asked while typing something into his phone. "I don't care, but I guess I still need to know."
"Yes." Pepper and Tony said it at the same time and glared at each other.
Rhodey rolled his eyes. "Okay, so I'm not gonna sit you next to each other for the benefit dinner."
Pepper nodded and went back to her laptop to work some more. The room was silent. Everyone who was in the meeting either already knew how the fights between Pepper and Tony went, or were too scared to ask what was happening.
The most agonizing half hour of silence ended when Happy knocked on the door. Some of the new people jumped at the sudden noise, but not Pepper. She calmly stood up and gathered her things to leave; but when she turned to the door, Tony was already there.
"When should we stop being mad?" Tony murmered to her when she passed him the door.
"I'm busy." Pepper said instead of answering. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "We'll talk about it when I'm not."
Tony nodded and shot her a glare. Pepper almost laughed but she couldn't lose this imaginary contest of staying mad, so she glared back.
They both smiled when they turned away.
"You two are so weird." Happy rolled his eyes and held the elevator door open.
"I'll fire you." Pepper shot back.
"I'll go work for your boyfriend again if you do." Happy bumped her shoulder and Pepper laughed.
In the car, she looked up at the sky to see two metal suits fly off the roof. A week of bitter fighting disappeared in an instant, and worry filled the void it left.
It was a few days before Tony came back. His steps were heavy in the foyer of their new Malibu house and Pepper was on her feet so fast. The house was dark but Pepper had memorized the layout long ago so she ran to him with no problem.
She threw her arms around him and crushed him in a hug. Tony gasped in pain and Pepper quickly pulled away to look at him.
"Does this mean you're not mad anymore?" Tony's smile was audible in the dark room.
Pepper took his face in her hands and pulled him in to kiss him; first his lips, then his jaw, then his cheekbone, and up around his forehead to the other side of his face and ending on his lips again. She pulled him in for another hug.
Friday turned the lights on for them when they pulled away again, and Pepper gasped this time.
Tony was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his left eye was bruising, and his lip was split. Pepper took his hand and held it before walking him over to the kitchen and sitting him at the counter.
"How are you feeling?" Pepper kept her voice soft as she put a wash cloth under cold water from the faucet.
"Better," Tony smiled up at her and winced, "now that I'm with you."
Pepper smiled back and started gently wiping the blood from his face. "I'm glad I can help."
"You always help." Tony slung his arms loosely around her waist and pulled her closer slightly.
Pepper left the room to find the first aid kit and came back to Tony fishing an ice pack out of the freezer to press against his eye. He looked up when he heard her.
"Can we cuddle?"
Pepper laughed again and rolled her eyes when a shake of her head and a fond smile. "Not yet, Mr. Stark."
Tony sat down on his chair again and turned his face up for Pepper to put the butterfly bandage on. Her hands were light and soft, but he still flinched when his cut was agitated.
"Sorry," Pepper muttered every time he winced, "I'm almost done, sorry."
Her hands stopped and rested on his shoulders, and she leaned down to place a kiss on the top of his head. Tony's hands went back to her waist and pulled her in for another hug.
They stayed like that for a long while, not saying anything. She stepped back when he went to stand up.
Tony leaned his forehead against hers and whispered, "can we cuddle now?"
For an umbrella academy prompt, maybe some protective!five with vanya? I love their relationship so much this season (sibling wise, NOT shippy)
The Umbrella Academy was back. Not as any type of real, organized superhero group like the Sparrows Academy, but they were back.
And this time, the seven of them were a real team, not whatever they were under Reginalds hand. And there were actually seven of them.
Vanya, Ben, Five, Klaus, Allison, Diego, and Luther Hargreeves were finally functioning as siblings after thirty years.
They were in California, visiting Claire and looking for Sissy and Harland, when someone they did not expect to see appeared.
It started with a gunshot, and it started with Vanya yelling in pain.
The six people and one ghost all turned to see Cha-Cha in the middle of the street, holding the same automatic rifle she had the last time they had seen her.
"Oh, come on!" Klaus yelled. "Again?!"
Cha-Cha stepped toward them, her gun still leveled at the siblings. "My life went to shit becsuse of you!" She yelled. She fired off another shot, but the bullet stopped in mid-air two feet in front of Diego.
Five stepped in front of Vanya, who Klaus and Luther were tending to. "The Handler is dead, Cha-Cha." He told her slowly, "you can go back to the Commission."
The last of the bystanders had run away, leaving them alone.
"And you can go to Hell!" Cha-Cha shouted. She redied her rifle.
"Alright, this isn't going to work with talking." Five rolled his eyes. His hands started glowing with a blue light. "I'll see you all ten seconds ago."
Just as bullets started to fire, they flew backwards right into the barrel of the gun again, so did the one Diego stopped, shortly followed by the one in Vanyas arm. The bystanders ran backwards and crowded the street again, and Cha-Cha was walking backwards with a determined and angry look on her face.
"Diego, get ready." Five opened his fists before Cha-Cha had stepped into the street. "She might shoot us."
"What?" His siblings all looked around worriedly.
Five blinked away in a flash of blue.
"How's it going?"
Cha-Cha whipped around with wide eyes. "Shit!" She tried to raise her gun, but Five moved faster. He grabbed the rifle from her, slammed it into her face, and kicked her legs out.
Five brought his foot back and kicked her again, letting a snarl and a glare take over his fave. "You piece of shit." He spat and kicked her again. "You shot my sister, you bitch!"
"Five!" Allison shouted and ran toward him, followed by the other five siblinds.
Five did not calm down. Cha-Cha tried to reach for her gun, and Five kicked her again before kicking the rifle away.
"Five, I heard a rumor you calmed down!" Allison grabbed him by the waist and lifted him away from the former assassin.
Despite wanting to keep kicking and struggling, Five felt his muscles relax. He gave up with a sigh.
When his feet touched the ground again, he watched Klause and Luther restrain Cha-Cha and Diego walk to a phone booth; to call Herb, probably. Vanya stood next to him.
"What was that about?" She asked.
"Cha-Cha shot you and was trying to kill us." Five answered plainly, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Allison was silent for a moment. Then, "So you time traveled to reverse it?"
"Yeah, you never do that when any of us get hurt." Klaus stood up.
"Not true." Five defended. "I'll time travel when it's serious." He told them. "If you get shot in the leg, or something, you can heal from that on your own."
"Where was I shot?" Vanya asked. Five hesitated. Her eyes widened. "Oh, my god, did I die?"
"No!" Five said quickly. "No, you didn't die. She shot you in the arm."
They all blinked at him.
"The arm?" Luther asked.
"Yes." Five said. He was in deep shit.
"What happened to letting us heal on our own?" Allison crossed her arms.
"Yeah, I could have survived that easily." Vanya frowned in confusion.
"Vanya plays the violin." Five pointed to his sister. "She can't do that if her arm is injured!"
"So when I get shot in the arm, you tell me to eat shit," Diego had joined them again, "but when it happens to Vanya, you time travel?"
"Where's the Commision? Didn't you call them?" Five deflected.
Klaus threw his head back and laughed. He threw his arm around an invisible figure next to him. "Say it again, say it again!"
Suddenly, Ben was visible in his ghostly, transparent, blue form. He was smiling. "We're not supposed to have favorite siblings, Five."
The rest of the siblings laughed along. Except Five, who flushed red in embarrassment.
Vanya places her hand on his shoulder, an amused twinkle in her eyes as she looked at him.
"Thank you, Five." She smiled. "I appreciate not getting shot."
maybe a s5 au where instead of deke being all grown up he's more around the age of a teenager? and everyone is super exasperated with him as per usual in s5 but the team takes on a more parental-ish role and when fitzsimmons find out he's their grandson its less skimmed over and more like them taking an active role in being there for him
The first thing May felt was the piercing pain in her leg. Wherever she was now, she was in no condition to fight. But she wan't going to tell the man with the glowing helmet that.
He was good, she would give him that, but she was winning. Until he shoved his belt buckle into her stomach, and she lost all weight. He twisted the front of it, and she flew back and hit a wall.
The man sighed heavily, leaning against a table not far from her. May watched as the man raised both his arms and took off his helmet, his hair was disheveled and he had a scruffy beard, and he was glaring at her.
"I hate wasting the charge on that thing," he pointed to his belt buckle, and started walking forward. "Honestly, I wasn't trying to hurt you, but you had a lead pipe at the ready, and I can't r-"
May kicked him in the face.
He reeled back, and his glare was back when he looked up. He shoved a cloth in her mouth, pulled her right arm forward, and stabbed her wrist. He inserted a circular plastic thing into her wrist.
"What the hell is this thing?" May yelled at him when he took the belt buckle back. "And who the hell are you?"
The man sighed and rolled up his own right sleeve, showing a matching black device as the one he just put in her. "It's a metric. Everyone needs one, here. Now, where are the others? Because I was paid to give them to all your friends."
May didn't trust this man, who introduced himself as Deke, but she had no choice, he would take her to the rest of the team. Walking beside him to the holding level of what he called the Lighthouse, he looked way younger than she initially thought he was. The angry expression and the beard added a few years. She stopped worrying about his age when they met up with the rest of the team, having bigger things to worry about. Deke had stabbed her, but he also helped get her friends out of a holding cell.
She would tolerate him.
Daisy had blown past Deke, ignoring his pleading for her to make a better plan, to play the long game, as he put it. He looked really young when he wasn't yelling at them. But she wan't about to let Simmons suffer under the Kree, she would get her friend back.
Daisy, dropped down from her whole in the ceiling, looking at the much nicer hallways than the rest of the Lighthouse, and started walking in one direction. As she turned a corner, and invisible wall blocked her way, and a white vapor hissed out of the wall and into her air ways.
She watched as a Kree with a fancy coat and white makeup sauntered over to the glass, a familiar man following close behind.
"I told you she'd find her way down here." Deke Shaw looked straight into Daisys eyes. "And demonstrating her powers, no less."
He called her a weapon of mass destruction, but his eyes were pleading. It made him look younger than her. He had begged her not to do this, maybe he thought he was saving lives by ratting her out, Daisy didn't care.
Daisy coughed, glaring at Deke with all the fire she had in her. "I'll kill you," she promised, "I swear."
He really did look like a kid.
- - -
Coulson watched how Dekes face completely changed when he heard the recording of the man from the surface, taking almost ten years away. He recognized that voice. He wouldn't tell Coulson who it was, but he was willing to help them, when he couldn't get far enough away from the S.H.I.E.L.D team when they first got there.
Deke helped Coulson and May get down to level 35, a big help.
"People don't get pregnant anymore." Deke told them when they were all looking over the baby.
"What do they do -- sterilize the whole population?" Coulson asked as May walked around more.
"We think they do it through the food," Deke glanced down at the baby,
"so they can decide who has children."
"How long?" Deke didn't seemed phased, but Coulson was horrified. This was a full dystopian vibe.
"They've always tried to control it," Deke turned and started walking throughout the room, "I was one of the last ones born the old-fashioned way. Until Kasias decided that it was easiest to just-"
"Create the children themselves." Coulson finished. "How long ago was that?"
Deke shrugged. "About sev-"
"Phil!" May looked up from a computer screen and stormed over. "I found something."
"What is it?" Coulson asked. May looked angry.
"Him." May glared at Deke, then she swung her fist.
Deke held his nose, which started to bleed. "Okay, ow!"
"May?" Coulson followed May, then saw what made her so angry.
Deke Shaw sold Daisy to Kasius.
"Okay, well, this is probably the part where I should explain." Deke glanced at the screen, where Daisys face was pictured.
"No." Coulson shook his head. "This is the part where May breaks your face."
But May did not break his face, he started to explain. Then, two Kree entered, and Deke tried to talk them down, but Coulson hit one of them with a chair.
"Oh!" Deke took a few steps back. "Okay, we're fighting."
Yes, they were fighting. And they were losing, until Deke decided to help and hit one of the Kree over the head with an oxygen tank. The Kree took out a small knife and stabbed Deke.
Coulson wanted to leave him, but the Kree had Jemma, Daisy, and May. And Deke wanted to help them, that counted for something. So he patched the man up.
"Okay." Coulson backed away. "The bleeding's stopped. How's it feel?"
Deke breathed heavily. "It's fine." He was obviously not fine.
"Good. In that case--" Coulson punched Deke, who groaned.
"I really need you people to stop doing that." He stood up and limped to the other side of his room.
Coulson grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Where's Daisy?"
Deke looked like a scared kid. "Look, I had to do that. People have died, and Kasius wouldn't have hesitated to kill hundreds more, and Daisy didn't even seem to care at all!" His eyes were earnest and shining. "So, trust me -- it's safer with her out of the mix."
"I don't trust you!" Coulson shot back. Those reasons did seem valid, but Daisy was like his daughter.
"Well I did what needed to be done." Deke was so convinced of this, like a stubborn teenager.
"Oh, please!" Coulson rolled his eyes. "That wasn't the first time you went for a payday." Deke turned away, and Coulson prodded his chest. "You weren't out to save lives, you made a profit. So don't pretend your motives are pure!"
"There's so much that you don't even know that-" Deke turned to storm away, but Coulson yanked his arm again, making him wince.
"And now you're doing it again, aren't you?" Coulsons words were venomous. "You don't want to help those people on the surface. You want to turn them over to Kasius for-"
"You don't know me, man!" Something in Deke broke, his eyes were shining with something else. "I was nine -- okay? -- when my mother got dragged away and murdered. Kasius got rid of all the elders, all the smart people, and she was one of them." He was close to tears, he looked so young. "And after she was gone, my dad took up the cause. He carried the torch for her. And as I got older, I begged him not to. I said that they were gonna get him, too," his voice cracked, "and I was right. He got sent to the roaches, just like the rest of them, when I was twelve."
Coulson watched Deke carefully.
"That's why it was pretty strange to hear his voice, after five years."
That one sentence sent Coulsons mind reeling. "That was your father?" Then another realization. "You're seventeen?!"
Deke looked like a scared kid because he was a scared kid, acted like a stubborn teenager because he was one. No wonder he looked so young, he's just a kid. A kid who just wants to see his father again.
Deke fumbled with his things and pulled out a shiny coin. He held out the coin to Coulson. "Take it. It's what Kasius gave me for Daisy." His eyes shone with tears. "I don't care about it anymore, I just want to help you. I want to see my dad again."
Coulson thought for a minute, just staring at the kid in front of him. He shook his head and started walking towards the door. "No, stay out of this. You're safer if you stay out of this."
Dekes eyes widened and he ran forward, but the door slammed in his face. He slammed his fist against the metal, yelling to be let out.
"What's the plan with Deke?" Yo-Yo asked as Mack welded Dekes door shut.
"I just grounded him." Coulson looked back at the door. "I punched a seventeen year old kid in the face."
- - -
Daisy turned away from Fitz and Simmons, and watched a pair of glowing blue eyes appear out of the darkness. She grabs him by his shoulders and slammed him against the large tank in front of her.
"Good thing I'm wearing a helmet."
Daisy ripped the helmet off of Dekes head and threw it aside. "Are you here to pick up the bounty?"
"No! I'm here to save your ass." Deke tried to step forward, but she pushed him back again.
"I should kill you right now!"
"Who the hell is this guy?" Fitz looked between the two of them.
"He works for Kasius." Daisy kept her hand on his shoulder.
"I don't work for-" Deke stopped himself and addressed Fitz and Simmons. "I mean, sometimes I do, technically. But right now, I'm team S.H.E.I.L.D, alright?" He gave Daisy a fake salute.
"It's convenient, you showing up right now."
"Convenient?" Deke scoffed. "No, it's mindblowing that I managed to escape my room after Coulson grounded me and welded my door shut."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?" Daisy shoved him again. "Coulson locking you in your room like some teenager?"
"Well," Deke glanced down at the scientists, "some teenager knows how to get you guys out of here." He picked up his helmet. "Come on."
Daisy and Jemma helped Fitz stand up.
"How old is he?" Jemma whispered to Daisy, who shook her head.
"Seventeen," Deke called back from ahead of them, "now, hurry up!"
- - -
"Alright, are you ready to take this thing out?" Coulson asked Deke when the whole team made it to the Trawler. Everyone else looked to Deke, who looked at everyone else.
"Me?" Deke pointed to himself. "I'm not a pilot."
"What?" Daisy clenched her fist against the concrete wall. "You don't know how to fly this thing?" He's just a kid, you can't quake him.
Deke scoffed with a small smile, the first time his expression fit his age. "I never said I did." He jogged up the stairs and climbed the ladder, leaving the rest in the hallway.
Coulson sighed. "I kind of feel bad about punching him."
"At least you didn't threaten to kill him." Daisy said and grabbed one of the ladder rungs. "And I still might punch him."
"He's a child." Fitz pushed himself off the wall to follow Daisy.
"A child who sold me to Kasius." Daisy started climbing the ladder with a sarcastic smile. Deke was sitting in the cockpit, fiddling with the radio. He didn't look up when Daisy sat heavily in the copilots seat.
"If you want to kill me, can you wait until after we get down to the surface?" Deke turned a knob on the radio, smiling at the static sound.
"Why?" Daisy propped her feet up on the control console in front of her. "You want to breathe real air before you go?"
Deke laughed quietly. "That would be a good bonus, but that's not the reason." He finally looked at her. "My dad's down there."
Daisy didn't say anything to that, just studied Deke. His eyes looked remarkably like Fitzs, all blue and emotional. His beard had grown since she had last seen him, making him look well into his twenties, but if he made the right facial expression, like the melancholy one he wore at that moment, he really did look like the teenager he was.
"What?" He shifted uncomfortably, winced slightly, and brought one of his hands to rest against his abdomen, around the same spot Fitz had been stabbed.
"Nothing," Daisy shook her head and told herself to stop with the Fitz comparisons, "it's just, you're really young."
He groaned loudly as Coulson and Fitzsimmons entered the cockpit. "I liked it better when you all thought I was thirty and hated me." He closed the cabinet to the radio and stalked out.
Fitz sighed heavily as Simmons helped him into a chair. "What if we put him in time-out?" He asked. "D'you think he'd go?"
"We have to survive this, first." Coulson turned the key and the Trawler rumbled to life. "So strap yourself in."
They did survive, but the ship crashed. Deke threw them all clothes and goggles to cover themselves with, and pointed out to the howling winds when asked why. "It's brutal out there, with the storms and the roaches. It's why we thought nobody could survive." He told them as he pulled on a pair of gloves.
So the five exited the Trawler and walked to the Zypher, thankfully it wasn't far. May was there to greet them.
"Holy hell," Deke, Fitz, and Simmons all looked up to the small balcony above the cargo hold, where a smiling man stood, "is that Deke Shaw?" The man started descending the staircase to get to him. "I thought I was looking at your old man twenty years ago!"
"Oh, my God, Voss!" Fitz and Simmons watched as Deke hugged Voss, and they could finally see how young he was. For just a moment, his jaded side melted away and he just looked glad.
"May told me you implanted her metric?" Voss asked, and Deke nodded proudly. Voss laughed, "Alya would be so proud of you, you're just like her."
Jemma and Fitz decided to let the two have their moment and look around the Zypher.
"Why'd you bring Deke?" May asked them while Jemma stitched up Daisys cut.
"We couldn't find a babysitter on such short notice." Fitz said, which made Daisy laugh.
"What?" May looked between all of them, confused.
"He's seventeen," Jemma clarified, "just a kid."
May blinked a few times in surprise. "A seventeen year old has enough medical knowledge to stab through my wrist an not kill me?"
Daisy huffed a laugh and pressed the bandage against her arm, "that seventeen year old kid rebuilt the Framework out of scraps."
Fitzs eyes went wide and his head whipped around to look through a doorway at Deke, fiddling with one of the claws they use to keep the Zypher grounded. "How did he do that?"
Daisy shrugged and stood up. "It doesn't seem dangerous, I've seen it." She took a few steps toward the door, "it's not even realistic. People pay to see one building with fake beer." And then she left the room.
Jemma sighed and started packing up her medical supplies. "He's a genius." She glanced up at the others in the room. "Maybe a little annoying, but a genius."
After Voss' people attacked, and Robin was dead, Coulson looked around at his team. Someone was missing.
"Where's Deke?" Coulson met Daisys eyes. Something like panic flashed across her face, and she twisted Voss' arm a little farther behind his back
Voss hissed in pain. "Relax, he's fine." He yelled through his pain. "He figured us out first, he's in the back." Daisy started walking him out, and Voss laughed bitterly. "That kid's too smart, it'll get him killed, the same way it killed his mom."
After locking Voss away with the rest of his people, Daisy started looking for Deke. She turned a corner and saw him sitting on a desk. She picked up her pace when she saw the blood matting his hair and dripping down his ear and neck. He looked up when he heard the keys to the padlock jingle in her hand.
"I thought you'd be dead." Daisy pulled the door open.
Deke didn't stand up, he just looked back down at the floor. "Yeah," he looked so small at that moment, "I guess Voss didn't want any more of my family's blood on his hands."
"You're dad . . ." Daisy closed her eyes. This kid would never see his father again. He's an orphan. "Deke, I'm s-- I'm so sorry."
Deke finally stood up, which looked like it took too much effort. "I just hope Robin can help you find your answers." His eyes, which were always so expressive, looked red and empty. The tracks down his face told her that he'd been crying. Daisy put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly.
"That doesn't look so good." Daisy gently turned his head to look at his head wound. "Let's go get you checked out."
As the two started walking, Daisy was thinking. She couldn't stay mad at Deke. He was a scared kid doing what he thought was right, and she can't blame anyone for doing that.
In the short amount of time they had known Deke, the S.H.I.E.L.D team had grown somewhat fond of him. They would never admit it, but they liked the kid. So, when Enoch says he has twelve minutes before the Kree capture him, and Deke volunteers to secure the time machine, Daisy says she'll come with.
"I'll come, it'll be better if we take the plane together." She walks to his side.
"Yeah, no duh." Deke blocks her path. "But none of the time travelers can go because you all need to be at the rendezvous when it's turned on, so do the math."
The three adults all understand what he's trying to say, and they don't like it.
"Deke, it's a suicide mission, you can't." May says.
"You're just a kid," Coulson steps forward, "and you still have your whole life-"
Deke shook his head with a scoff. "No, nobody who grows up in this place is a kid." He tells them, taking a few more steps backward. "Tess has died, Flint's building your magic time travel rock. You guys gave me a gun and let me decide what to do with Voss. None of us are kids." He sighed and glanced behind him. "And besides-- what are you going to do? Lock me in my room?"
He turned around and started walking back to the Zypher.
"Be careful!" Daisy yelled after him.
"You're a pain in my ass!" Deke shouted back.
- - -
Somehow, through some means, Deke made it to 2018 with the rest of the team. As soon as Daisy saw his mugshot pop up on the giant screen, relief flooded her veins. He didn't die with Enoch. She jumped into action.
The fresh air is heaven to her. The first time she's breathed it in in weeks and it's amazing.
"That's my little brother." Daisy says to the cops in the small town of Rivers End, the ones who arrested the kid they brought back from the future.
Deke stood up, smiling when he saw her through the holding cell. That was the first time Daisy had seen a real smile on him.
"Are you okay?" Daisy asked as soon as they were out on the street. "How are you here?"
"I'm great!" Deke was still smiling and he was practically skipping beside her. "I was powering up the time machine, and right before it exploded, the rock kind of melted, and then I ended up here."
"So the first thing you do is commit a crime?" Daisy raised an eyebrow and indicated an alleyway to walk down.
"In my defense," Deke held the door to the Lighthouse tunnel for Daisy to walk through, "I didn't know you payed for things with paper money in 2018."
"I'm not talking about that." Daisy shook her head. "You're only seventeen. You have to be twenty-one to legally drink alcohol in the United States." She glanced back and saw his surprise. "You're lucky the beard makes you look my age or they would have charged you with underage drinking."
Deke didn't say anything to that, except: "Wow . . . "
Daisy hummed in agreement. "Hey, speaking of your beard," she pointed to a door that lead to the control room, "are you going to shave it?"
Deke gave her a weird look and stopped just before entering the room. "Why?"
Daisy shrugged and sat down on the spinning chair. "I don't know. So you can look your age, maybe?"
The next time things were relatively calm, Deke walked into the control, but didn't say anything for a while.
"What is it?" Fitz asked, not looking away from his screen. Deke opened his mouth, closed it, then ran a hand down his face, through his beard that had grown scruffier, if possible. "Deke?"
"Can you teach me how to shave?" The kid blurted out.
Fitz stopped what he was doing and turned around. "What?"
"Never mind." Deke said quickly, his face going slightly red. "It's stupid, forget about it."
"It's not stupid." Fitz stood up and reassured, which stopped Deke in his tracks. "I'm just surprised, is all. Nobody taught you in the future?"
"No," Deke shook his head, "it's usually a dad thing, right?"
Fitz winced. "I'm sorry. Just give me a minute to finish up and then I'll be free."
"So it's that simple?" Deke was sitting in front of a mirror, a can of shaving cream and a razor in front of him.
"Basically." Fitz nodded. "Just be careful around your neck, it's easy to cut yourself while shaving."
"Thank you," Deke smiled nervously, "this is probably really weird."
Fitz shook his head. "No, I get it." He watched the teenager carefully drag the razor down his jaw. "My dad wasn't around to teach me how to shave, either."
Fitz laughed and leaned against the wall behind him, "My mum did."
"Wait-- girls shave?" Deke furrowed his brow.
"Yeah," Fitz laughed again at his surprise, "some of them do." At the confused look, he clarified. "Their legs."
"Oh-- ow!" Deke dropped the razor and leaned closer to the mirror, watching a bead of blood run down his jaw. Fitz sprung forward and grabbed a wash cloth.
"How bad is it?" Fitz asked, trying to get a look.
"Not very." Deke took the cloth and pressed it to his face. "Faces bleed a lot for minor things, right?"
Fitz nodded. "Yeah. You're almost done, do you want to finish?" He handed over a small adhesive bandage.
Deke covered the cut with the Band-Aid and picked up the razor again. "I'm guessing this gets easier the more you do it?"
"Yes, it does." Fitz wiped his hands on a towel then handed it to Deke when he finished shaving. He clapped his hand on his shoulder. "Congratulations, you're a man now." He joked.
Deke rolled his eyes with a smile. He looked at himself in a mirror, he finally saw what the others did when they called him kid.
- - -
"NO!"
Jemma froze mid-step in the empty hallway. That was Deke. There was a crash, and Jemma took off running. She halted at a doorway to a storage room just in time to watch Deke stab a Kree soldier. She ran to him as the Kree crumbled to dust.
"Are you okay?" Jemma put her hand on his shoulder and guided him to sit on the floor. He fell heavily, staring at a spot just behind her. "What was it?"
"My . . . my mom." Dekes voice was hoarse. "I knew she wasn't real, but I couldn't . . ." he dropped his knife. "Then the Kreeper just--" he coughed and looked away.
Jemma rubbed his arm comfortingly and sat down across from him on the floor. "I'm sorry, Deke. You shouldn't have had to see that."
Deke sniffed and braced his hands on the ground to get up, but stopped and looked at his bicep. "They're not real, how did it hit me?"
Jemma jumped into action, helping him up and having him take off his jacket. She ushered him to medical and inspected the deep gash on his arm. She took out a needle and spool of thread and started stitching the cut closed.
"I really thought I was done getting choked up about things," Deke said absently while the scientist worked, "I guess I was wrong."
"Well," Jemma didn't look away from her task, "your life has changed very drastically in a very short amount of time. I wouldn't be surprised if you have mixed emotions."
Deke sighed in frustration and ran his right hand through his hair, showing off the bloody bandage that has been wrapped around his wrist since he took out the metric. "But everything in the past is so much better." He stared at the wall in front of him. "I just-- I don't know what's going on with me."
"You'll figure it out." Jemma smiled encouragingly as she wrapped his stitched arm with a bandage and then went to change the one on his wrist. "The steps you take don't have to be big, they just have to take you in the right direction." The words she had said so many times to so many people rolled off her tongue so easily, but Deke sat frozen on the cot, his eyes wide. "Are you okay?"
Deke suddenly stood. "I'm good now, thanks," he took a step toward the door, "I should probably go get my ja--"
"I'll get it." Jemma gently pushed him back down on the cot. "Just sit there and rest. You don't need to risk hurting yourself more."
Jemma felt his eyes on her back as she walked out, but paid it no mind. She entered the storage room she had found him in, the only evidence they were there being the leather jacket on the floor next to an open box. She picked up the jacket, smoothed it over her arm, and turned to leave. But something on the floor glinted and caught her eye. It was the knife Deke had used to stab the Kree and cut open the tape on the open box. Jemma bent down to pick it up, and she recognized it. The number 17 was carved into the side of the multi tool, just the same as Fitz did. This belongs to Fitz.
"Deke?" Jemma walked back into the med bay and stopped in front of him, taken off track before she even started. "I just noticed, I'm sorry, but you shaved?"
He felt his jaw and nodded, looking nervous. "Fitz taught me."
"Speaking of Fitz--" Jemma set the jacket down and held out the multi took, "why do you have Fitzs knife?"
Deke stopped looking nervous and a confused expression took over. "What?" He picked up the knife and examined it. "No, this is mine. My grandfather gave this to me when I was a kid. See-- it's got a little seventeen on it." He pointed to the number.
That made Jemma even more confused. "This is . . . this is Fitzs, I swear . . ."
Dekes eyes widened again. "Oh, my God." He muttered.
Jemma looked up at him again. "What is it?"
"This is going to sound really crazy," Deke warned, "but . . . when I was a kid, my mom would always tell me that thing you said earlier. You know, the steps you take don't have to be big . . ."
"They just have to take you in the right direction." Jemma finished for him. He nodded wildly and pointed at her.
"Right! She said she learned it from her mom, who also taught her a bunch of basic medical procedures, which she taught me-"
"You put Mays metric in without the device everyone else used." Jemma caught on to his thought process. "And your grandfather gave you Fitzs multi tool . . ."
Deke smiled nervously, "I think, I think I'm . . ."
"You're our grandson." Jemma finished for him, and he nodded. She stared at him, really looked at him for a while. Freshly shaved, he looked so much like Fitz when they had first joined the team in the field. She jumped up suddenly and ran to the other side of the room, pulling three test tubes out of a cabinet. She placed it in Dekes hand. "Spit in there, I'm going to get Fitz."
She had run out before he could answer.
"Fitz!" Jemma burst into Control and grabbed her husbands hand. "Come with me, it's important."
"Jemma, what--?" Fitz tried, but was cut off as he was dragged away.
"Not now, just follow." Jemma held one of the test tubes out to him. "Do you have your multi tool?"
"Yeah, why?" Fitz held the glass tube in his hand and picked up his pace when he realized they were on their way to the med bay.
Deke was sitting gingerly on one of the cots, holding an empty test tube of his own.
"Deke, I told you to spit in it." Jemma said, then turned to Fitz. "You, too. Spit."
"Why do we have to spit into a--?"
"I'm doing a DNA test." Jemma answered quickly, hauling out an old microscope from a cabinet and setting it on a lab counter. "So spit in the tube."
Fitz turned to Deke, a questioning look on his face that was answered with a single sentence.
"I think I'm your grandson."
Fitz turned away, utterly baffled. But he complied and spit into his vile, then gave it over to Simmons.
"This might take a while," she told the boys, "the technology is old."
Fitz turned to look at Deke. "How are we your grandparents?" He couldn't really comprehend the concept, but he had to try.
"My mom is your daughter, I think." Deke flushed nervously, then dug around in his pocket, pulling out an old metal knife. "My grandfather gave this to me when I was younger."
Fitz furrowed his brow in confusion and dug around his own pockets. He felt the multi tool Jemma asked about, and he took it out. It was exactly like the one Deke was holding, just newer. They both even had the same number scratched into the side.
Minutes passed, with Jemma staring down at the three DNA comparisons the whole time while Fitz asked Deke questions.
"It's true." Jemma said suddenly, quietly, but it made both men go silent. She looked at the two of them from the other side of the room. "Deke Shaw is our grandson."
The three of them all sat in silence for minutes. Then, Jemma stood up and walked over to them and hugged them both.
"Should we tell the others?" Fitz looked to Deke for the answer.
"Why are you asking me?" Deke tried for a joke. "You're the adults, here."
- - -
"Woah," Daisy smiled when Deke walked into the room with the rest of the team, what had become the makeshift dining area, "guys, doesn't he look like Fitz when he got out the academy!" Everyone chuckled at that.
"Fitz used to shave?" Elena asked with a smile, fiddling with her new prosthetic.
"Fitz taught me how to shave." Deke grinned and sat down to serve himself some food.
Coulson hummed and pointed to the small Band-Aid on the teenagers jaw. "Fitz is rusty, he'd probably do worse the next time he tries."
Even May smiled at that remark. The team fell into small chatter in small groups.
"Now that I think about it," Mack said when there was a lull in conversation, "Deke's a lot a like Fitz."
The team all made noncommittal noised of agreement, while Deke smiled nervously.
"You look exactly like Fitz, but with straight hair." Elena pointed to his hair while, unnoticed by everyone, Fitz and Simmons stopped in one of the entrances to the room.
"The weird little inventions." Coulson pointed out. "Fitzsimmons invented the ICERs we use all the time."
Daisy snapped her fingers and pointed to the ceiling. "You both stand in that weird way!" She smiled excitedly and stood up, trying to imitate the pose, making everyone laugh again.
Deke looked helplessly at Fitzsimmons with a shrug and a shake of his head.
"I think we should save him." Simmons turned to her husband and whispered.
Fitz smiled back at her. "I think we should wait a little bit, see what he does."
Jemma playfully smacked his arm and walked forward, into the room. "Stop harassing him."
"He's Fitz with Simmons' hair!" Daisy pointed between the three. "I figured it out."
"Deke, you're their son." Elena joked.
Deke looked to Jemma and Fitz, who glanced at each other before shrugging and nodding.
"Grandson, actually." The whole team laughed it off, thinking it was part of the joke. But, upon seeing the serious expressions on their faces, they stopped.
"Wait, seriously?" May looked between the three of them. "We brought your grandson back from the future?"
"All of you, line up next to each other." Mack said.
"I did a DNA test," Jemma told them, "it's true."
"No way." Coulson smiled wide. "You two skipped regular children and started with the grandchild!"
"Was this a coincidence or did you know the whole time?" Elena asked at the same time.
"It was a complete coincidence, we just did the test-- wait-!" Fitz tried to explain, but couldn't get much further, for Daisy pulled him and his wife into a tight embrace.
When she let go, she ran to the other side of the room, to Deke, and gave him a hug of his own. "You're actually family, now!" She let go and held him at arms length. "That actually makes so much sense, you being related to them."
"It does?" Deke shifted awkwardly.
"You and Fitz are both so . . ." she looked at Fitz with a joking expression. ". . . special."
That was what broke everyone. The eight of them all laughed, though some more than others. Piper and Davis stuck their heads into the room.
"What's happening?" Piper asked. Coulson explained with one single sentence.
"The kid we adopted is actually Fitzsimmons' grandson from the future."
(i hope im not sending too many prompts, i have so many deke feels after tonight so im throwing them at you, if its too much ignore me!!) maybe something where deke accidently talks about his childhood a bit to fitzsimmons? like, an expansion of what we know in canon and how horrible it was. like (forgive me if im wrong my s5 memory isnt perfect lol) but im pretty sure he was a slave for a huge part of his life and that isnt spoken about much
Jemma Simmons was having as good of a day she could, having just time traveled and being a fugitive of the law, hiding in a huge underground bunker nobody knew about.
Her day got immensely worse when she entered the Lighthouse lab and saw the teams newest member, and her grandson from the future, digging a knife into his own arm.
"Deke!" Jemma rushed forward, grabbing a towel and going to take the knife away from him.
Deke Shaw looked up, breaking his concentrated grimace with a slightly curious look. "What?"
"What are you doing?" Jemma wrapped his bloody wrist with the towel.
"I'm taking my metric out." Deke set his knife down. "Is that supposed to be a big deal?"
Jemma furrowed her brow, carefully pulled the bloody towel away and inspected the cut. Sure enough, the circular metric was gone. The work was careful and delicate, and there wasn't as much blood as there should have been for an inexperienced cut.
"I thought you were hurting yourself." She said quietly. "I'm sorry."
Deke awkwardly wiped his bloody left hand on his pants. "It's fine, don't worry."
"Where did you learn to do this with such precision?" Jemma leaned down to look at the cut more carefully. It looked like it was made by an experienced surgeon.
Deke shrugged and grabbed a roll of bandages from the table next to him. "I picked it up as a kid. My mom was kind of like the doctor of the Lighthouse."
"This is amazing work." Jemma complimented. "But, doesn't it hurt?"
"Not really, no." Deke shook his head and started unrolling the bandages. "I have a high pain tolerance."
Jemma quickly grabbed the bandages and started wrapping his wrist for him. "Really?" She looked at him with concern. "Since when?"
Deke carelessly wiped the blood off the blade of his version of Fitzs multi tool with a small smile. "Oh, you know. The Kree weren't exactly benevolent leaders." He retracted the blade and put the knife in his pocket, smiling like he just made a hilarious joke.
Jemmas hands froze as she thought about the implications behind that statement. Deke took the opportunity to finish wrapping his wrist and start walking out.
"Bye, Nana!" He called cheerfully over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold of the door.
- - -
Fitz sighed and slammed his fist on the door. Locked. All the system updates that locked down the Lighthouse were getting very annoying.
"What's wrong?" Deke Shaw, Fitzs overeager grandson from the future, was leaning against the concrete wall.
"Bloody door's locked again." Fitzs frustration was abundant in his voice. "I need to get to the other end of the level." He held up a satchel full of papers he needed to get to the lab.
Deke smiled. "I can help." He walked over to the vent on the floor, slid his fingers between the grates and pulled. He set it against the wall and gestured to the new hole in the wall. "Do you have a problem with small spaces?"
Fitz stared. "You want me to crawl through the vent?"
"I know my way through the whole vent system, I can get you anywhere you need to go." Deke crouched down and looked through the dark tunnel, then up at his grandfather. "Unless you want to wait?"
Fitz sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, then gestured to the vent. "Lead the way."
The vent shafts were larger than Fitz thought they would be, not quite wide enough for the two men to sit side by side, but tall enough for them to sit comfortably. But, they did not sit. Fitz could barely keep up with Deke, despite only being a few years older.
"Deke, slow down." Fitz called ahead, leaning back on his heals.
Deke stopped and turned around. "Sorry." He said sheepishly and crawled back to Fitz.
"Why are you in such a rush?" Fitz cracked his stiff neck.
"Force of habit, sorry." Deke apologized again. "I'm usually running when I'm in here."
That set off an alarm bell in Fitzs mind. "Running?"
"Yeah," Deke said like he wasn't talking about something important, "the Blues had some sort of vendetta against me or something. I think people made bets on how far I could go without getting caught." Fitz stared in shock. "My record is four levels."
"Were you okay when that happened?" Fitz asked carefully.
"No, of course not." Deke turned his head away. "Let's get going, you said you have something important, right?"
He did not wait for an answer, just started off in the direction that would lead to the lab. Fitz sighed, filed away that information to talk to his wife about later, and followed his grandson
- - -
"Ta-da!" Deke kicked the grate of the vent out and climbed out. He stood up and spread his arms out to show off his feat of navigation.
"Thank you, Deke." Fitz tossed his satchel to his grandson before climbing out and fixing the vent cover over the gaping hole. "I think I'll just wait next time."
Deke shrugged and handed the satchel over. "I get that. I usually only used the vents if I was in real danger."
"But you . . ." Fitz frowned, "you memorized the whole layout?"
"You've seen this place in eighty years." Deke started casually walking to the lab. "You know how often 'real danger' is."
Fitz stood frozen for a few seconds, staring at the back of his grandsons head. Then, he practically ran to the lab.
"Jemma," Fitz ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the open door, "has Deke said anything that's made you concerned in the time you've known him?"
Jemma looked up from what she was doing, worry flitting across her face. "What did he tell you?"
"Did you know that our grandson has the ventilation schematics memorized?" Fitz walked forward and lowered his voice. "Just in case he needed to run from the Kree."
Jemmas eyes widened. "Oh, my God."
"What did he tell you?" Fitz sat on one of the cots, the papers of research all but forgotten at his side.
"I found him digging his own metric out of his arm with a knife." Jemma leaned in, like this conversation was a secret to keep from the rest of the base. "But it didn't seem to hurt him, he told me he has a high pain tolerance." She sighed. "He implied the Kree would hurt him regularly, and he said it like it was no big deal."
Fitz sighed and scratched his neck. "What should we do?" He looked up his wife. "He shouldn't live in this world and expect it to be just like his."
Jemma nodded. "None of us are really qualified to act as therapists, but we should talk to him."
"I know this isn't the place I grew up in."
Both Fitz and Simmons spun around to look at the source of the voice. Deke was standing in the door.
"Deke!" Jemma stepped forward, as if to act like she wasn't just talking about him.
"I'm not naive." Deke continued. "I know this isn't the Lighthouse I'm used to."
Fitz put his hands up in a placating manor. "We never m--"
"I don't make a big deal out of my past because I don't want you guys to make a big deal out of it." Deke cut Fitz off. "I know my childhood was messed up. Believe me, I know."
"Why don't you want us to make a big deal about it?" Jemma asked. "You went through Hell."
"Yeah." Deke nodded. "I did. But this isn't the same place, and I want to move on with my life."
"Deke," Fitz started calmly, "it's not that easy."
"You can't just bottle everything away and expect to be fine." Jemma added.
"I'm very good at compartmentalizing." Deke crossed his arms.
"Compartmentalization isn't good for you." Fitz said. "Trust me, it's not."
Deke sighed. "If you knew what it was like to grow up in this place, you wouldn't want to think about it either."
Jemma walked over and placed her hand on her grandsons shoulder. "There are some things in life you have to face to move past."
"I am moving past things." Deke said stubbornly. "I'm making new, better memories where all the bad things in my life happened."
"Trauma doesn't work like that, Deke." Fitz said as gently as he could.
Deke ran both his hands through his hair with a deep sigh. "I shouldn't have said anything." He stood up and turned to the door.
"Deke, wait." Jemma grabbed his left arm. "You don't have to forget everything about your past or reinvent yourself."
"But I want to." Deke said very clearly. "Kasius owned me, and I don't want to feel like his property anymore."
Jemma made sure keep her voice calm, she didn't want to escalate this. "We've seen what he did, we know--"
"No, you don't know." Deke snapped. "He literally owned me. After my dad was sent to the surface, Kasius and Sinara wanted to groom me into one of their deaf servants."
Jemma and Fitz looked at each other, then back at their grandson.
"You know what it's like." He looked to Jemma. "Having that-- that-- that thing in my ear is one of the worst things that's ever happened to me."
"You've had it?" Jemmas voice went quiet. "How old were you?"
"I was fourteen." The fire in Dekes eyes never dampened. "So, forgive me if I want to forget that part of my life."
"Deke," Fitz said slowly, reaching out, "you don't need to keep going, we understand."
Deke sighed again, more aggressively, showing the frustration he was feeling. "Do you?" He asked. "You all were there for a few weeks, maybe. I was born there, raised there. I spent the first twenty-eight years of my life in that apocalyptic hellscape!" He gestured wildly around the room. "And I'm still here! Even when there's a rest of the world out there, I'm here, in the place I watched my whole family die."
"Deke . . ." neither grandparent knew how to handle this. It seemed that this was the first time he got to really talk about his past traumas in a serious way.
Deke sat down on one of the cots tiredly. "I watched you both die." He whispered, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.
"What?!" Jemma was at his side in seconds, Fitz not far behind.
"When I was nine, Kasius got rid of everyone who believed in the prophecy. All the smart people." Deke forced himself to steady his breath and closed his eyes. "They killed everyone in the middle of the Exchange, to make an example." He looked up at Jemma, then Fitz, then at the concrete floor. "They took my mom, and my moms parents."
"I--" Fitz clenched his fists at his side. "I'm sorry, Deke." He said quietly. He lifted his hand and carefully, comfortingly, rubbed Dekes back between the shoulder blades.
"We're going to make sure that world will never exist." Jemma promised. "So the next version of you to exist will never go through that."
Suddenly, Deke threw his arms around Jemma and Fitz. He pulled them into a tight hug and finally let the tears he had been holding in for God knows how long fall. Deke buried his face in the soft fabric of Fitz shirt as his shuddering breaths shook his whole frame. Both grandparents immediately returned the hug. It was a hug from a child who had lost his family too young, had been alone for too long.
As unconventional as this new family was, they loved each other. And this family kept their promises, no matter how far they need to go.
"I have made an interesting discovery." Enoch said to the group, looking up from the Kree computer system. "It seems that one of the women imprisoned in the Lighthouse, is the daughter of Agents Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons."
The entire team went quiet. Then, Daisy smiled and hugged the couple.
"Oh, my God!" She squeezed her best friends. "You guys have kids! That's so amazing!" Her eyes widened and her expression changed into something barely short of terror. "Oh, God, we need to go rescue her!"
Fitz nodded numbly, his eyes wide and his jaw was slightly dropped. Simmons' brow was furrowed, her mouth working to speak but unable to form words. They glanced at each other to make sure they both heard the same thing.
"Daisy," Coulson was smiling fondly at his three surrogate children, "maybe let them process this news before we make a plan."
Daisy nodded and let go of Fitzsimmons with a small apology. Elena and Mack gently guided the two scientists into the next room.
Flint shot Deke a confused look, and Deke shrugged in response. The entire SHIELD team looked as if the daughter of those two was the best news they had ever received.
"What the bloody hell . . ." Fitz whispered when the metal door clicked shut behind him and his fiancé. "We have a daughter, Jemma!"
"We have kids, Fitz!" Jemma shocked expression gave way to hope. "We make it to the future."
Fitz gave a disbelieving smile and short scoff of a laugh. "We're parents." His smile grew wider.
Jemma held his face in her hands and pulled him in for a kiss. After all they've been through, they had a child to look forward to. A happy, normal life with a family of their own.
"Let's go meet our daughter." Fitz kissed her again. The couple linked hands and walked back to the rest of the team.
- - -
"Deke, you know the Lighthouse best." Coulson pointed as the team planned out the operation. "Go with Fitzsimmons to get their daughter before coming back to power up the time machine."
Deke nodded with a shrug and checked the charge on his belt buckle before following the couple out to the elevator.
"What do you think she's like?" Fitz leaned against the wall as the large elevator climbed. "What if she doesn't remember us?"
Jemma wrung her hands nervously. "We raised her, didn't we? Of course she'll remember us." She turned to Deke, suddenly. "Do we look presentable enough to meet our daughter?"
Deke shrugged, looking ahead at the door. "I wouldn't know. I mean, if she's your kid, I just think she'll be happy to see you."
Jemma nodded and held Fitzs hand in one of hers, gripping an ICER tightly in the other. The large door to the elevator opened, and the three rushed out, weapons ready.
The four Kree guards raised their spears, only to fall to the ground as soon as the gun shots rang out.
As the three made their way down the hall, a Kree tried to attack them from from behind. Deke grabbed at the spear just below the blade, spun around, and kicked the Kree in the chest.
"Go, I'll take care of them!" Deke yelled as the blue alien got to his feet. Fitz and Simmons both fired at the Kree before continuing down the hallway. Toward their daughter.
They opened every cell they came across, resulting in them gathering a following of about a dozen. Then, they got to the last cell. With baited breath, the two scientists threw open the door.
She looked exactly like the picture in the database. She had Jemmas hair and face, Fitzs eyes and posture. She even stood like Fitz, with her hands somewhat backwards on her hips. She turned as the door opened, her eyes going impossibly wide.
Her shocked expression was exactly like Fitz, but her smile was Jemmas.
Alya Fitz-Simmons stammered her way through a single sentence. "Wh-what . . . M-Dad, M-Mom?"
There was a loud BANG outside in the hallway, then the sound of footsteps running. "Simmons!" Deke shouted from down the hallway. "Fitz! Come on, we gotta get going!"
Alyas eyes widened. Deke slid to a stop in front of the door, his mouth open to say something else, but he froze before he could speak, staring at Alya, slack-jawed. His face was slightly bruised, and he was pressing one of his hands against a cut on his arm.
Alya starting running forward. Fitz and Simmons prepared themselves, but their daughter ran right between them. She, instead, came to a stop in front of Deke, hesitant.
"Mom . . ." Tears glazed over Dekes eyes. Alya reached out and gently prodded a cut on his cheekbone, then she wrapped her arms around his shoulder in a tight embrace.
"Oh, sweetie, what happened?" She whispered to Deke, who buried his face into her shoulder.
Jemma and Fitz looked at each other, baffled by this development.
"What the hell?" Fitz said out loud. Alya let go of Deke, her face ecstatic.
Deke stood slightly behind her, wiping his face. Alya threw herself at Fitzsimmons, closing them both in a bone crushing hug. "Robin was right! I can't believe she was right!" She pulled away from her parents, "and you met my son already. This is the best day of my life!"
Deke made eye contact with Fitz and Simmons, his grandparents. The three of them stared at each other for a long, silent minute. Alya noticed.
"What is it? What's wrong?" She looked back at her son, then to her parents, then to her son again.
Deke opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, turned, and fired his ICER at a Kree, all in one second. "We have to go." He held his arm out to Alya, who happily followed him. "Let's talk about this later."
As the four walked to to elevator, Alya smiled and clung to Dekes arm. "How did you meet them?"
Deke scoffed with a small smile. "Virgil payed me to protect the team when they got here." He glanced back at Jemma and Fitz, "it was really hard. They just love causing trouble."
"That's not fair!" Jemma cut in.
"Coulson locked me in my room and you two threatened to kill me a few days ago!" Deke shot back. Alya looked between her son and her parents, all three of them were angry as they stepped into the elevator
"You sold Daisy to Kasias!" Fitz pointed. Deke rolled his eyes and turned around, his hands on his hips.
"I liked you better when you were old and gave me a knife."
Alya laughed quietly. Fitz and Deke looked at each other, standing in the same position. They both stopped at the same time.
"I always knew Deke would grow up to be just like my dad." Alya leaned over and said to Jemma, who laughed.
"Well, Deke," Jemma extended her hand towards her grandson, "I think we ought to start over, because you seem like a nice man."
Deke looked her her hand for a moment, then sighed and shook it. But his sigh wasn't exasperated, it was sarcastic, and he was smiling. "Well, I guess you can't be completely horrible, if you raised my mom."
Alya, Jemma, and Deke all turned to Fitz, who stubbornly glared at Deke for a minute. Then, he broke.
"Fine, fine." Fitz rolled his eyes, but he was happy. He shook Dekes hand, then wrapped one of his arms around Jemma.
