Nina didn't know how much she'd been looking forward to hearing Fitz's voice until it echoed through her pod later that day. Though if she'd known that she'd sit up to see a very scared Skye and an equally as terrified Fitz, she wouldn't have been nearly as excited.
"Is everything okay?" Nina asked, climbing completely out from under her covers as she address them.
"You tell me?" Fitz responded. He didn't look at Nina as he spoke, but she made out the tears in the corner of his eyes. He held up a watch, and where it didn't encourage any reaction in her, it did in Skye, "I fixed your bio-metre watch. Checked your vitals at the time of the temple collapse. Your heart rate was recorded at almost... 300 BPM."
"Shit," Nina whispered under her breath because there was no doubt in her mind that Fitz knew what they were trying to hide.
"That's very fast," Skye responded to him, inhaling a shaky breath.
"No," Fitz shook his head, not reacting to the stray tears leaving his eyes, "that's inhuman."
"Leo, you're mistaken-" Nina tried but she stopped herself when he turned to look at her. There was a glint in his eyes as they locked with hers, something that she'd seen in the eyes of so many other people before but never in him.
His blue eyes were tainted with fear.
Fitz was afraid of her and the moment she noticed, she was hit with a pain she'd never felt before.
"I thought the readings were a mistake that I put the thing together wrong. I've been struggling to, uh, um..." Fitz snapped his fingers as he tried to think of the word. He looked away from Nina as he did so, though the woman remained frozen in place. Traumatised by the terror in his eyes, "something's wrong with the data in my head."
"What are you saying?" Skye gulped nervously, catching Nina's wide eyes in her peripheral vision.
"The heart monitor shattered from the inside out, but it was still on your wrist when we found you. That doesn't make sense. And how we found you- basically unharmed in the collapse with destruction all around you while Nina was unconscious, bleeding and Trip de-" as Fitz spoke, glass bottles inside Skye's pod began to shake. The sound snapping Nina out of her trance, "I thought I was losing my mind all over again..."
Nina quietly walked over the glass between her and Skye, trying to catch her attention and calm her down but it didn't work. Skye was freaking out, and without an idea of how to control her abilities, there was nothing Nina could think to do.
"That there was something wrong with me, so it took a while to dawn on me, or maybe I was just afraid to think it, that..." Fitz trailed off as he spoke, staring into Skye's eyes and not noticing the shaking bottles, "you survived the destruction... because you caused it."
"No. No, no, no. Fitz," Skye shot up from her bed as she began pleading.
Nina couldn't confidently recount what happened next because once Skye's pod started getting loud, her mind got louder. The voices came back, shouting and screaming over each other, the only difference this time was as they spoke, their blue tinted faces appeared before her eyes.
You bitch! A blond haired man with a scar beneath his left eye said.
I should've shot you as well! These words left the mouth of a man with a military cut and a nasty snarl.
Hail Hydra. A black haired woman said proudly before she disappeared in a puff of blue smoke.
You called me the murderer, what does that make you!?
Hypocrite!
Traitor!
Executioner!
The sentences and words assaulted Nina's mind, while she stood unable to do anything. Black surged up the veins in her neck and face at the same time Skye completely lost control, lights in her pod shorting out and glass shattering into pieces.
Fitz took a step back as his eyes widened at the display while Skye panted heavily. The scientist took several more steps back as he made the mistake and looked at Nina. He somehow managed to be more surprised when he saw the black veins in his ex girlfriend's neck and face as well as the pain in her dark blue eyes.
As much as he felt for her, it didn't stop him from turning on his heel and rushing out of the room at the sight. Fitz was afraid of her, and Nina knew it. Maybe that's why her shadow increasing tenfold and swallowing all light in the pod didn't surprise her nor the pain that came with it.
"Ahhhh!" She screamed as she was submerged in darkness, a burning sensation running throughout her body. She couldn't hear Skye calling out to her in worry, or the creaking of the glass walls as her shadow pressed against them, she could only hear her screams and the voices in her head.
"Please," her voice strained in her personal abyss. She didn't know what she was pleading for or who to, all she knew was she was growing weaker and the black in her veins grew darker with every passing moment.
She could only feel the pain, pain that lasted for a dreadful minute before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fell to the floor, unconscious.
Her shadow disappearing as she hit it.
*
When Nina woke up, she'd expected to still be on the concrete floor of her pod. Which was why, she was very surprised to find herself on the soft mattress in her bunk instead. She'd opened her eyes with a groan, the sound only growing louder when she sat up and felt the ache in her back and pounding in her head.
"Here," a voice called out to her as a glass of water and two circular pills were held in front of her. Nina looked at the items before following their arm, up to their face. Confusion filled her own when she saw Fitz with a nervous smile on his face, "it's aspirin. Skye said you hit your head, I'm sure you're in a lot of pain now."
Nina still continued to stare at the engineer, confused and weary, before accepting the pills and water. She popped them into her mouth and where she could take them dry, she decided to drink the water since she was in company.
Once the pills were gone and the glass was half empty, Nina crossed her legs on the bed and focused back on Fitz, "what happened?"
"You passed out-"
"After that," Nina specified, cutting him off when she sensed him about to skirt over the truth, "the last thing I remember is you running out of the lab terrified. If you saw what I remember you seeing, I should still be quarantined not let out."
"You would be, but I got to your blood results before Simmons," Fitz responded honestly, breaking their awkward eye contact and looking down at her hand around the glass. Her veins were no longer black but Fitz couldn't get the image of them out of his head, she looked terrifying with the black lines claiming her body.
Deadly and demonic... yet still as beautiful as ever.
"They're different aren't they?" Nina questioned quietly, looking away from him as she did so. She focused on the guns, lined up along her wall, feeling somewhat unworthy to look at him.
"Drastically," Fitz answered and Nina gulped. She nodded statically, squeezing her eyes shut when she felt them water, "I switched them with your old samples."
"Why would you do that?" Nina whispered, "I can't control this, I'm... I'm dangerous."
"You always have been," Fitz responded blankly, causing Nina to open her eyes in confusion. As she rose her head, she noticed Fitz had turned back to look at her, "I watched the security footage before I deleted it. Before the black veins and shadows, you were dangerous-"
"Leo-" Nina tried when she couldn't get a grasp on where the conversation was heading.
"And I've never cared," he said firmly, causing Nina to stare at him with parted lips. She was surprised by his words and that the fear that had been in his eyes before was gone, "you've always been dangerous Nina and even though I knew that, all I've ever wanted to do was protect you. Nothing has changed in regards to that."
"Leo there is something very wrong with me. This is more than a trauma motivated skill set," Nina bit her lower lip as she spoke, she was thankful for Fitz's protection but was reluctant to accept it, "I don't even know what's happening to me anymore."
"Then we figure it out. Together," Fitz shook his head firmly, "there's nothing wrong with you."
"There is," Nina refused but she didn't expect Fitz to reach out and grab her shoulders, forcing her to remain looking at him.
"No, you're just different now. That's all, you're just different and there's nothing wrong with that."
Nina didn't know if it was the way his grip tightened around her shoulders, almost afraid that if he let go she'd disappear, or the way his blue eyes bore into her noticeably darker ones but she believed him. She believed that she was just different and that it wasn't a bad thing, she believed that she wasn't a monster and that belief caused tears to run down her cheeks.
Fitz instantly pulled her close and Nina collapsed into his arms. He held her tightly as silent sobs wrecked her body, not making a comment on how the temperature of her skin mirrored that of a corpse, and just rocking her back and forth. Nina's hands, balled up the fabric covering his chest while her head rested in the crook of his neck, she felt so small and so fragile.
"I can feel them," she whispered through her pained sobs. Her voice was so quiet Fitz barely picked up what she said, but once he did he responded.
"Who?" he asked as he ran a hand up and down her back, trying to calm her down.
"Everyone," was the single word she uttered before the stress of current events rendered her silent, her breathing grew heavy and she fell asleep in the familiar comfort of Fitz's arms.
Fitz didn't understand the significant of the word, but he would very soon. He was sure about that but for now, his main priority was holding the sleeping woman he loved dearly in his arms while she broke the façade she'd built to keep Skye from breaking down in a similar manner to what she had just done.
*
A few hours later, Nina found herself seated cross legged on the floor in front of the couch. Fitz was seated on the couch directly behind her, with his legs either side of her body. They'd been attached at the hip since the conversation in her bunk, Nina too worried about losing control in front of the team and Fitz keeping his declaration to protect her.
Where Nina would have previously been insulted at the idea of needing someone else's protection, she felt comfortable that Fitz was the one providing it.
"Remember that one time when Trip tossed me the mag on the Burnside raid and it fell down the sewer grate," Hunter said with a laugh from his position laying across the couch opposite them. The team were all there in the living area of the base, minus Coulson who was paying Trip's mom a visit and Wren, who'd been ordered to bed by Fitz once the alcohol came out.
"Yeah, what did he say again?" May asked as Nina lifted up a beer. Fitz grabbed it out of her hands and opened it, before passing it back to her. She tilted her head back slightly, her hair brushing against his lap, before smiling to show her gratitude.
"Good catch, soccer hands," Hunter answered May's question, imitating Trip's voice as Nina lowered her head back down, "Nina even went as far as to send him my old rugby videos."
"I had to let him know you could never catch," Nina grinned with a small laugh as the team mirrored the action. While they continued to talk, all sharing their own stories about Trip, Nina watched as Bobbi and Mack stood up.
They moved into the kitchen area of the room, speaking in whispers that caused Nina to raise an eyebrow in suspicion. She didn't get the chance to question them before Fitz's hands found her shoulders and she subconsciously leaned into his touch.
"You okay?" he asked and Nina felt her cheeks flushed. He'd leaned down and spoke directly beside her ear, getting close enough to feel his breath against her skin. If she turned her head, they'd be close enough to kiss... and a sinful part of her really wanted that.
"Yeah," Nina hummed her answer. Fitz nodded giving her shoulder a squeeze as he leaned back, not before pressing a kiss on the top of her head and finally succeeding in making Nina blush.
"Did he ever tell you about the time his grandpa took him to Grandfather Mountain when he was a child in North Carolina?" Simmons asked the group, the pair focused back on the stories being shared as Nina allowed her hair to fall in front of her face, hiding her red cheeks, "well, he gets there, and they pull up to the gate and his grandfather..."
Nina zoned out slightly as Simmons told the story, her head pulsing slightly. The pain wasn't anywhere near as close to how bad it had been before but the feeling of being watched followed immediately. She didn't look around the room to see who'd appeared this time, instead looking down to her hands and sighing in relief when her veins hadn't changed colour.
"And he says, I'm sorry, grandpa. I thought you owned the whole mountain," Simmons completed and the room was filled with laughter, "he'd be mad I told you that story."
"No, he'd say..." Skye started as the rest of the room, said her next words with her, "come on, girl."
Everyone laughed again before the atmosphere turned rather sombre, the memory of Antoine 'Trip' Triplett running through their minds.
"We're going to laugh a lot less, that's for sure," Skye said as everyone silently agreed.
Nina turned her head to look at the door frame. As she did so, she made out the blue tinted body of a certain late SHIELD agent. He locked eyes with her and where she expected a blank look, like all the other people that'd appeared, he smiled. She looked at him, mouth agape as he didn't look away.
"To Trip," Nina said out loud, raising her beer. The team followed her actions as she added to the toast, tilting the head of her bottle towards the door frame, "there's no one quite like him."
"To Trip," the words echoed through the room, but Nina focused on the words only she could hear.
Hey Ace... smile.
And smile she did. Even if it was small and barely lasted a second, she smiled because Trip'd told her to. Just before he went up in a puff of blue smoke.