Chapter Text
It had all started with an innocuous red spot. A little red dot on your leg or on the back of your neck.
Something you could easily miss.
It was only when a casual itch became persistent, when it distracted you too much from your work, fixing an engine, or attempting to train hand-on-hand combat or even run a simulation on a supercomputer, and you had to constantly restart said task because your hands were flying to your back or your neck, or, god forbid, your armpit.
It was only then, when you stopped caring about what other people thought, someone as a lab technician that you really hadn’t cared about getting to know better or a communication specialist or the Director of freaking SHIELD himself!
No, once you started scratching without a care in front of the appalled faces of coworkers and bosses alike, then something else was to blame, and you found yourself stripping in the communal bathroom, trying to look at your own back in the mirror; or yelling at your ex-wife-slash-current-girlfriend; or breaking into your best friend’s room to steal her hair brush and use it to scratch your itchy body, potential scars be damned!
Only then, when a number of SHIELD agents discovered not one cute red dot but a constellation of angry red bites and welts that Jemma Simmons found her med bay full of uncomfortable and disgruntled SHIELD operatives demanding her to look at some rash on their bodies.
It didn’t take long for Jemma to issue her diagnosis and so, pushing away the large magnifying glass, she took off her latex gloves and addressed the nervous crowd.
“It’s a Chitauri virus, isn’t it? We are going to die, right? We are all going to die Bob!” a scream in pure panic and in a very distinct English accent pierced the tense environment, prompting the crowd to direct a stabbing stare at the source.
“It’s not a Chitauri virus Hunter,” was Jemma’s curt response.
“Then what is it agent Simmons?” asked Coulson.
“Bed bugs.”
“Bed bugs? Are you sure?” was May’s incredulous look. She was thankful not to be part of the itchy specialists group because she was certain her normal level of stoicism wouldn’t have been possible if she were.
“I just want to confirm by locating a live specimen, but I’m quite sure that is a bed bug bite. I have sent Sneezy and Doc to survey the living quarters. If they find a live one they will retrieve it, but even if they don’t a telltale sign is the smell of rotten raspberries. I should have full confirmation in a few minutes, but I’m 99% sure it is your garden variety, very human Cimex Lectularius, more commonly known as a bed bugs.”
“But this is a state-of-the-art secret spy facility!” Mack’s normal pitch had gone up a couple of octaves in his distress.
“Yes, and I don’t need a PhD to recognize those,” she added pointing to the spots that seemed to crawl from Mack’s hairy chest to his neck.
“How can bed bugs make it here?” asked a very itchy Lincoln, to what Daisy added “I thought bed bugs were eradicated.”
“Well, they almost were, but in recent years there have been known infestation in populated cities, New York for example. It would only be required for one of us to come in contact with an infested dwelling to carry it back to our base,” Fitz contributed while he jammed a hairbrush down the back of his collar to reach hard to get spots.
“Is that my hairbrush?!” asked Simmons in disbelief.
“Hmmm, no?”
Fitz’s feeble attempt at hiding Jemma’s heirloom hairbrush behind his back annoyed the biochemist into rolling her eyes.
“Anyways,” she continued trying to ignore her Gran’s beloved brush used for such disgraceful job; Fitz could be her best friend-slash-something else, but he would have to pay for it. “It only takes one of us having been in contact with an infected dwelling to bring it in the base, and after that it is just a domino effect,” she added.
“Hunter you mother-fucker!” shouted Daisy.
“Why are you all looking at me?”
“You are the one who came back from assignment coincidentally just before this hell broke loose, not to mention the only one with a spotty hygiene record,” Mack accused him.
“I resent that!”
“Shut it Typhoid Mary!” Fitz yelled.
“I was undercover!”
“Bobbi, does being undercover means that your husband can sleep around with questionable characters?” Lincoln asked rhetorically.
“Ex,” she calmly replied.
“Et tu, Bob? I did not cheat you know!”
“Sorry hon, I know you didn’t, but your bolt holes are disgraceful, and I really can’t stand this itchiness.”
“Enough! Agent Simmons, what is the action plan?” Coulson interrupted trying to diffuse the situation. He didn’t want to face Fury if his organization’s demise was brought on my bed bugs.
“We need to call the exterminators, everything will need a thorough clean and I suggest new mattresses.”
“I do not understand why I’m forced to do this if my bunk was infestation free,” was Jemma Simmons’ bitter complain as she rolled the large cart packed with her belongings.
“You heard the AC, everyone needs to pack all their belongings in these nifty carts and wheel them to the garage where they can be decontaminated, while the bunks go through a serious cleaning. By the way, how come your bunk was not infested?” asked Daisy
“Well, I never came in contact with the source problem.”
“I could say the same thing,” Lincoln interrupted the women.
“You didn’t Lincoln, but Daisy got it from the couch in the rec room, and then she slept on your bed, and well…”
“But Fitz got it from the couch as well,” Lincoln asked pointing at Fitz.
“And?” Jemma added raising a perfectly styled eyebrow.
“You still cannot seal the deal eh mate?” Hunter stated shaking his head at Fitz.
Fitz’s neck sported a crimson hue that he couldn’t attribute entirely to the bed bug bites.
“Oh, don’t get me started Hunter. It’s your fault we all have to do this, and because of that you are going to deal with all this carts and put our stuff back in our bunks,” Jemma accused him pushing her own cart into the mercenary.
And with that Hunter found himself alone in the garage with thirty-something carts of belongings freshly decontaminated.
“Fuuuck!”
“Well, don’t come running to me if something happens to your precious belongings,” Hunter talked to himself as he pushed carts against each other, “Oopsie Daisy!” he uttered as a few boxes fell from a cart. He picked one up peeking at the contents, “I knocked your precious glass figurines… Who do these belong to? Mack? You have got to be kidding me!” he said putting the items back and stacking the box back onto the cart.
“Oh, and sweet sweet Daisy with her electronics and what do we have here?” he said turning his attention to his friend’s boxes. “Blimey! If I were Lincoln, I would feel very threatened by that… thing!”
“Agent Hunter!” Coulson’s yell startled Hunter, who shoved Daisy’s… device, towards another pile of boxes, which prompted them to fall off their respective carts.
“Ah! Yes, sir”
“Quit fooling around and bring those carts to the correct bunks!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And for God’s sake, pick up all of those!”
Resigned, Hunter started picking up objects and restarted his monologue.
“So, who do these belong to? Star Wars paraphernalia? Bob, of course. Golf clubs, hmmm ‘Property of Agent Melinda May’, off you go over here. Glass figurines were Mack’s; you are not getting away with this mate! Scary electronics, Daisy, assorted Tardises and Daleks? Jemma, or was it Fitz?” he suddenly picked up a tattered manila envelope and accidentally had the contents fall to the ground.
“And where did these come from? Envelop full of greeting cards?” he asked himself as he held a stack of greeting cards stuffed in their respective envelops and held together with a cerulean ribbon.
“Shit! Well, I bet no one would mind if I take a looksee to find the owner right? Hmmm…” he said convincing himself. “‘Dear Fitz’, that answers that mystery. Okay you go in this one,” he said placing the stack on Fitz’s cart and wheeling it back to the residential area.
One thing Leopold Fitz had to accept was that the beg bug incident had had one silver lining: his bunk had not been this tidy is years; and not only that, but he had rediscovered a number of objects once thought lost forever, and some he had completely forgotten.
Did he really own bagpipes?
He sat on his brand new mattress admiring odds and ends when something on his desk caught his eye.
Perhaps it was the rich color of the ribbon holding the stack together.
“TARDIS blue,” he mumbled to himself as he got up and walked towards his desk to pick up the bundle of cards. He knew Hunter could not be trusted with personal items, and yet they all had done so. The softness of the ribbon felt good against his callused fingers, and he couldn’t stop from pulling it loose. He touched the expensive card stock of the envelopes and noticed that the cards were not sealed shut, but the flap was simply tucked inside.
The right side of his moral compass told him he shouldn’t peek inside, but the other side assuaged his guilt convincing him that he wouldn’t know who to return them to if he didn’t look inside.
Little did he know that the person whose privacy he was betraying was himself.
He pulled the flap out of the one on top and he was greeted by the stylish image of a TARDIS, the sight encouraged him to look inside and he was taken aback by the sight of his name written in the unmistakable penmanship of his best friend.
Without planning it, he found himself sitting on the floor with his back against the wall deeply immersed in a one side conversation with Jemma years before.