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Phil Coulson stretched the rubber as far as he could and let go. One of the soda cans fell down.
"Yes!" he exclaimed, raising his fist. Coleen and Star looked at each other in disbelief.
"Really, Coulson? After everything you've been through, you decided to train with a freaking slingshot?" Star laughed.
"I was advised to find a hobby, and guns are... too close to my former job to ever be interesting again. I'm still figuring out what I want to pick, but this..." he raised the slingshot, "is becoming my new favorite. Thank you for making it for me, by the way. Wait... this is weird."
Phil stopped moving, as if he'd heard something the other two couldn't hear. He tilted his head.
"Give me a moment," he said and handed the slingshot to Star, who instinctively grabbed it.
"What's going on?" Coleen asked, but he was already gone.
--
Fitz was working on a weapon system for field use. He was thinking something strong enough to deal with the threats they were encountering lately, yet lightweight enough for the agents to carry around without the need to mount it on a vehicle. So he was trying to miniaturize his first prototype. He sat at the table, surrounded with holographic projections, and in front of him, there sat a torso of a gun, still without the outer cover. He didn't work with directed energy weapons often, but this looked promising.
Immersed in his work, he didn't notice the dark shadow that appeared near the middle of the workshop. He raised his eyes from his work only after the shadow turned into a man, and the man fell on the ground, letting out a pained groan.
"Hey! Who are you and what are you doing here?" Fitz at first demanded the explanation from the intruder, but then, he recognized him.
"Wait... Phil? How did you..."
Coulson was lying on the side, looking at Fitz, and barely holding his composure. Fitz wasn't quite sure what had happened to the former agent, but if he decided to ignore the security protocols and just appear in the gadgeteer's workshop, it was serious.
"I don't know how you did that... but you know very well that you aren't supposed to enter the facilities of S.H.I.E.L.D. unless you have Fury keeping an eye on you!"
It was still weird to say that. Coulson used to be his superior, and even though he was forced to retire, Fitz still had difficulty telling him what he should and shouldn't do.
"Fitz... I'm so glad I managed to get here. I'm really sorry for causing you problems, but I need help, and you are the only one who can help me. And by that I mean... nobody else can know. Not Fury, not Maria Hill, not anyone else. Can I count on you, Fitz?"
Phil was looking straight in his eyes, and after a while, Fitz flinched and looked away.
"You are asking me to do something that could get me in trouble... even arrested... and I quite like my place here, Phil. So..."
Fitz looked at the former agent and suddenly realized that coming to his workshop was probably his only chance. Coulson wasn't an irresponsible person, and right now, he was risking too.
"So it better be serious," he finished after a moment of hesitation. He stepped towards Coulson and grabbed his shoulders to help him sit up. The man hissed in pain.
"It doesn't get any more serious than this," Phil said and in that moment, Fitz realized that his left hand was missing, just a bit below his elbow, and the stump was covered with black substance that didn't reflect any light at all. He blinked.
"Oh crap. How... who... what happened?"
"I'd rather not tell. I can't say it's 'classified' or anything, but it would be the safest for you to know as little as possible," Phil explained, and slowly stood up, letting Fitz support him. He raised what was left of his left hand to his eyes.
"It's real... Oh man. I hoped it was some cosmic mistake, that it would reset itself as I'd moved through space, but here we are..." he sighed. Fingers on his right hand tingled from shock, and so did his lips. His body was holding blood to cope with the trauma.
"Okay... this is pretty unsettling, to be honest, but... why me? Why did you choose me for whatever thing you need help with? You need surgery to close it, wouldn't Jemna be a better pick for that? I mean.. I get nervous just at the sight of blood," Fitz said with anxiety in his voice.
"The point is... I don't merely need to get patched up. This should never have happened - and I need to make it look like it never did. Only you can do that," Phil pressed his index finger against his former subordinate's chest.
"I could be in great danger if it becomes known that I have been harmed this way. Imagine what would some people be capable of doing if they found out they can hurt Death," he added.
"That seems a bit stretched... But you won't tell me any details, huh."
"No. I need to be cautious. The things that are in play right now.." Phil went silent.
"Okay. We need to think constructively," Fitz started muttering, partially for himself, "I need to... make you a new hand, an one that would pass in as many circumstances as possible. That could take around a week to complete, with my knowledge of LMD technology and Henry Hayes' hardware, if I'm working without any help..."
"I don't have a week, though. I'm already raising suspicion among the members of the Infinity Watch, since I disappeared without explanation. We need to act fast."
"Uh... There would be a way, but it's risky," Fitz said after a while of thinking, "Fury has LMDs in the storage on this base, and I know for sure that at least one of them is of you. I could use its hand as a framework for the prosthesis and that would mean I wouldn't have to construct the synthetic skin from scratch. Oh yes... And I could then recreate the hand at my pace and attach it back to the LMD without you poking me to go faster, like you are doing now.."
"Wait. Nick has a LMD of me? Why would he need that, for god's sake, and why did he never mention that?"
"He keeps it for the same reason he'd keep a LMD of anyone else. To sacrifice it instead of yourself if things go wrong. What did you think?" Fitz looked at Phil, one eyebrow raised.
"Okay... what's the plan, Fitz?" Phil asked to counter the question. The inventor looked at him, specifically at the stump covered by the black mass.
"I think first I'll have to go fetch the arm... then we can focus on creating the interface on the... er, on what's left from your own arm. But it will have to heal before you can fully use it, and if we want to be quick, it will hurt, Phil. Every time you use the hand, you'll be in pain. Let me know if you decide to reconsider it."
Phil stretched his arm and gritted his teeth.
"It can't be worse than it is right now... right?" he asked, "can it?"
"From my sparse experience with this... it can."
"Oh great."
"I'll go get the arm," Fitz said, "but if they catch me walking through the base with a detached LMD hand, it's your fault."
Phil grabbed him as he turned around.
"Wait. Your chances of succeeding are minimal, and I don't want to risk our success, or your career, because of sloppy planning. Show me the exact location on the holoscreen, and I'll go fetch it," he said.
"You are barely standing because of the shock, though. And you would need to cut through and disassemble the LMD's arm, which is not easy even with two hands," Fitz objected.
"That might be, but I can move around freely without being seen. Is there any safety alarm system inside of the storage? What about cameras?"
"There's a sensor, and there's a camera guarding the entrance from the outside, but..." Fitz didn't know what else to say. Coulson was right. He still had his marbles, and he knew who had the best chance of success in a given team. Even if their "team" consisted of just two members.
"Okay," Fitz said and stepped to the table. He waved his hand and the prototype gun projections disappeared. A few manic gestures later, he turned to Phil and pointed at a room in a three-dimensional map of the base.
"We are here," he showed Phil, "and here's the storage room. Please, just be careful and don't go near the door, because if my information is correct, there's a proximity sensor, right...." Fitz tapped his finger, "...around here."
He handed Coulson a plastic toolbox containing two thin knives, pliers, screwdrivers and several other tools.
"Be gentle, try to keep it as intact as possible. It would be the best to disassemble the elbow joint and to go from there, so there's enough material for me to customize the hand to your length," he instructed Phil, hoping that this guy won't mess the piece up.
"Okay, I'm on it," Phil said and disappeared into a black shadow. Fitz's stomach felt as if it had been replaced with a stone at this point.
--
The storage room wasn't entirely dark, and Phil was grateful for that. There was some sort of permanent orientation light on the walls, so he didn't have to risk triggering the alarm while searching for the light switch.
It seemed that this room was mostly occupied by deactivated LMD's, and it was quite... freaky to see hyper realistic copies of real people just standing around him with their eyes closed. He moved on, and soon, he found his own LMD.
"Okay, buddy... let's borrow your arm," he murmured and opened the toolbox, holding it awkwardly with what was left of his injured left arm. He made the first cut, and stuck his fingers deep into the LMD to feel the joint he had to take apart. Red liquid that resembled blood dripped on the floor.
Phil hoped Fitz would clean that up later. He realized that the Brit didn't tell him how exactly he wanted to smuggle the new LMD hand into the storage after they'd be finished, but he forced himself into believing that Fitz could figure out something. He maybe had some flaws, but he was resourceful and extremely smart.
These were Life Model Decoys, designed to be as lifelike as possible, to confuse an attacker into believing that they were real people, to bleed, express pain in the most human way, and die. That was their purpose, yet right now, Phil saw himself, having every little detail that he had as the original, and he was cutting into his own arm. His LMD looked slightly younger than him, but to an untrained eye, they would look the same. He wondered how old was this LMD. It must have been made before he died.
And then his robotic copy groaned in pain.
"Stop... stop it," Phil whispered and instinctively put his palm over the LMD Coulson's mouth.
"You have to be quiet, okay?" he said and the LMD slowly nodded.
"You look like me," LMD Coulson whispered, "are you the original? What... what are you doing? It hurts... oh boy it hurts. Why are you doing this?"
Phil felt bizarre, looking himself in the face. He didn't have as much experience with LMDs as Nick Fury, sr., not even as much as his son, his best friend. But he remembered that after an incident of some sort, all LMD's were programmed to know that they were machines and what their purpose was. And from what he gathered from his copy, this LMD Coulson wasn't an exception. It didn't make it easier, though.
"What is your purpose?" Phil asked him.
"To protect the original, even if it would mean my destruction," the LMD said, sounding a bit surprised about his own words.
"Why did I say that? I don't feel fake... but you are here, and I somehow know that you are the real one."
The LMD looked down at his arm, cut open by Phil.
"Oh god... I have metal inside me... This can't be real! How long have I been out? How did I just wake up here? And you... you have been harmed. Does it hurt too?" he looked at Phil, his eyes wide. His confusion was almost contagious.
"Take it easy, Phil," Coulson said, addressing the LMD by his own name, "this isn't the right time for an identity crisis. I need your help, and you can help me by giving me your hand. I mean, literally. My friend can turn it into a lifelike prosthesis, you see? Nobody can know what happened, and you are the key for our plan to succeed. So it would be best if you never told anyone what happened there. My friend will make you a new hand, and you'll be as good as new in no time. Just... let me do his."
The LMD relaxed a bit.
"Okay... I will do anything to help the original."
"Would you like to turn off, so you won't feel the pain?" Phil asked.
"No, I'm good... I'm not afraid of the pain, Phil. I'm afraid of oblivion. I don't want to ever turn off again. I'd rather stand here, alone, than to lose myself."
Phil understood. He was also afraid of oblivion, after spending a few years in the grave.
LMD Coulson made a quiet, pained sound as he watched Phil continue detaching his arm, and once it was done, he smiled.
"I hope it serves you well," he said.
"Me too, buddy, me too," Phil said as he closed the toolbox.
"So, are you sure you don't want to turn off? I don't know when my friend will arrive to fix you," he added.
"By that friend of yours, you mean Fitz, right?"
"Yes."
"I like the guy. He was always kind to... you," the LMD said, "I'm looking forward to his visit."
Phil nodded his head and disappeared, leaving the LMD alone with his thoughts.
--
"What took you so long?" Fitz asked once Phil reappeared in the workshop, holding the arm which was covered in red liquid, "did you have any trouble?"
"You forgot to mention that he'd wake up in the middle of the operation," Phil said and handed the arm to Fitz.
"O... oh. I SUSPECTED there would be a chance you'd trigger the self-preservation protocol when you'd disturb its integrity... but..."
"His."
"What?" Fitz didn't understand what his friend meant.
"His integrity. And he was very disturbed indeed," Phil continued.
"Phil. It's just an LMD, it's not real. I know you don't come into contact with them very often, but even though they are packed with memories and something that resembles a personality, they are just machines."
"I saw someone who acted the way I'd act in his situation, and he was scared and confused," Phil objected.
"But you got the arm."
"Because he allowed me to take it. And then he refused to shut down."
"Oh god."
"Don't worry, we talked it through. It would be good, though, if you fulfilled your promise and made a replacement arm for him at some point. He's looking forward to see you."
"You had one job..." Fitz sighed, "okay. While you were gone, I constructed this, based on your measurements. It's not perfect, but you want us to be fast, right? (I hate working under pressure)"
Fitz showed him the "thing". It looked like a high-tech lid, with circular grooves on one side and quite complex structure underneath.
"Show me your hand," he asked, and shook his head after Phil stretched his fingers towards him,
"I mean your left."
"That's not really a..." Phil started, but obeyed the gadgeteer, who looked closely at the black substance that covered the wound.
"What's that?" He asked.
"Well, it's a part of the Death Stone's energy. I put it there myself, to prevent further damage. Don't ask me how that works," Phil shrugged.
"Well, in any case, you'll have to remove it if we want to get anywhere."
Phil looked at the stump, and the black matter slowly faded.
"I would expect a waterfall of blood, so this is... unexpected," Phil said, staring at the wound.
"Hmm... peculiar," Fitz murmured as he studied the edge of the cut.
"Come here," he motioned to Phil, dragging him towards the table. He put the binocular magnifier over his eyes and looked closer.
"What is it?" Phil asked.
"I'd need Jemma as the biologist to confirm this, but... how I see it, your tissue is not attempting to regenerate at all. It closed off the vessels, but that's it," he said, looking at Phil, "were you hurt in any way before this happened? Any scratches, cuts, anything?"
"Not that I''m aware of... but isn't it a bit soon to look for the signs of regeneration?"
"With this," Fitz tapped on his binocular magnifier, "I should be able to see the granulation tissue as soon as one hour after the wound was done. But I'd really need to call Jemma to confirm my hypothesis..."
"Let's not do that, okay? It's enough that we two know about this..."
"And the LMD."
"Okay, and the LMD. The point is..." Phil raised his finger.
"I know."
"I have a theory," Fitz continued, "I think that the Death Stone allows you to... control your regeneration. You got it under your command. I don't know how fast you can go, if you can have an increased healing factor or anything, but as long as you don't do anything..."
"Nothing heals," Phil finished Fitz's thought.
"Exactly," Fitz nodded.
"Let's keep it that way while I install this, alright?" he said, raising the thing that had to become the "base" for Phil's new hand.
"It would be best if I sedated you while doing this, local anesthesia is not strong enough to prevent the pain in a severed limb for long..." he started, but Phil shook his head resolutely.
"Not an option," he said, "you know that my job as Death is to lead people to the afterlife, and for that, I need to be conscious at all times."
"Alright then.." Fitz sighed and filled a syringe with Chloroprocaine, "you should be grateful that I have this at hand, this is certainly not a standard workshop equipment. Here. I'm not a PRO, but this should help a bit."
Fitz injected the syringe's content into Phil's arm, and his "subject" could feel the numbness spreading across, reaching almost to his shoulder.
"We got around 40 minutes before this starts to hurt, so let's get to it," Fitz said and put on a mask.
Phil could see that Fitz was battling himself as he cut in and prepared the wound, looking for the nerves in the flesh, and working on the bone which had to be screwed on the titanium base to give Phil strong grip with his new hand. He disinfected the contact points and closed the plate, which now sat firmly on top of the stump. The former agent didn't even know Fitz was capable of all this. His expertise was technology. Not crazy surgeries on his crazy friends. And the Brit looked as if he'd puke into his mask at any moment.
"I'm very grateful that you are doing this," Phil said.
"Thank me after we're done. If we'll still be free and not in PRISON," he answered and put down his mask.
"It will start to hurt in a few, so get ready. I'll get to work on this in the meantime," Fitz grabbed the LMD hand and moved towards the table. Hours passed.
--
Phil was watching all the shenanigans his friend was doing with the hand, and he found himself almost entranced by it. He sliced it open, put tiny bits of metal inside, and closed it with some sort of laser-emiting device which removed the seams, healing the synthetic skin almost as if it was real. He made space inside for what seemed to be a battery of some sort, which made sense, considering that the hand wasn't connected to the LMD's central power source anymore.
At one point, someone knocked on the door, and Fitz, thinking fast as usual, handed the equipment to Coulson together with a small communicator he had in his pocket and motioned him to disappear, so Phil had no idea who the visitor was. He transported himself to the only other place where he felt safe. Fury's LMD storage.
"Oh, hi!" LMD Coulson smiled as his original appeared in front of him, "how is your project going?"
"We are getting there. Fitz mounted this on my stump, but my bone hurts like hell," Phil showed him the "base" for the prosthesis.
"At least you have bones," LMD Coulson said with a smirk. It was exactly something Phil would say if they roles were inverted. Finding little bits of humor in the horrors of existence.
"How are you moving around like that, by the way?" the LMD asked, as if he'd just realize what he saw.
"It's a long story. But it's one of the perks of being the new embodiment of Death."
"Oh, that's cool. You should find the time to fill me in on that, someday..."
"I guess I agree, it is 'kind of' cool..." Phil nodded, and then the communicator bleeped a few times. He raised it to his ear.
"All clear," Fitz said on the other end.
"Visit me again, when you'll have time," said LMD Coulson before Phil disappeared again.
--
"LMD Coulson says hello," Phil said as he returned the hand and the equipment to Fitz.
"Ah so that's where you were," Fitz answered in a flat tone, "you have been bonding, huh?"
"He's a great guy."
"He's literally you, though."
"Maybe I'm a great guy too, then. Great, and extremely humble."
Fitz couldn't help himself. He laughed, even though he was tense and worried that the thing he was doing would get him into huge trouble.
It was getting dark outside.
"I'm almost done here," Fitz said as he closed the last seam, "but we still have to do some testing. I reinforced the inside of the hand with an alloy that should be able to channel energy, but I am not sure about how it will react to your particular energy type. Because, you know... it would be odd if you could suddenly use only one hand with the death rays or how the hell do you call them."
"Fitz, did anyone ever tell you how great you are?" Phil asked him as he grabbed the hand, "I can't think of anyone else who would be able to work this fast while taking everything into consideration like you did."
"Well, you were the one who told me we had no time, so I had to think outside of the box," Fitz objected, but he was visibly pleased with the compliment.
"Just try it on, let's see if I was right. It's like fastening a bayonet light bulb, if you know what I mean," he said, imitating the plug-in motion with his hands.
"Yeah, I get it," Phil nodded and put on the hand. He moved his new fingers with a curious expression on his face, and then connected his palms together.
"It looks nice, very nice... though I can't feel anything except the pain. Is that intended?"
"I wouldn't say 'intended', but while I was able to connect your nerves directly to the synthetics which contract like real muscle, I wasn't able to create feedback for the nerve endings, even though the LMDs do have contact points that serve as the entry points for the touch registration capabilities..."
"Fitz... English, please..." Phil said, looking at his hand from all angles. Then he put both of his hands in front of him and his palms became void black, releasing a quick stream of dark energy that hit the ground and disappeared.
"It's not able to feel. Sorry about that," Fitz said, "but the energy channeling works, which is... something. I gave it like 50% chance of success when I was working on it.
"It's perfect," Phil smiled at Fitz, and the Brit stepped aside, as if he was afraid that the next ray would hit him instead of the floor. Coulson decided to pretend that he didn't notice that.
"Though... is there a way to hide the seam? I mean, it does look like a bracelet, but it could raise questions."
"I knew you would ask that," Fitz noted, and handed him something that looked like ordinary transparent tape, "I designed this a few months ago to hide small objects on someone's skin, like bugs, without the need for them to go sub-dermal... because that's just unpleasant. It can also hide tattoos... and birthmarks. All is done with nano-particles that blend into the surrounding skin and take on its structure. It should also help to waterproof the seam. You'll have all of the advantages!"
"Oh nice, so I'll be able to shower with the hand on," Phil said and stretched the tape.
"Do you shower?"
"Fitz! I may be powered by the Death Stone instead of the sleep, but that doesn't mean I'm a machine now. I'm pretty much as human as I was before, and that reminds me that I'm quite hungry right now."
"Me too... But I don't think it would be wise to have dinner together in this situation."
Phil slowly applied the tape around the two metal rings that marked the spot where he ended and the LMD tech began. As soon as he cut off the tape, it displayed moving stains of pinkish color, and in another second, the seam was gone.
"That's handy," he noted, well aware of the pun, "Can I keep the tape?"
"It's all yours."
"Now to test another theory," Phil said, and slowly transformed his left hand into its skeletal form.
"When I do this, I change my form in reality, but at the same time, it's an illusion too, on top of it. I noticed that a bit ago because of small details that didn't quite fit together. So I was wondering if I could somehow... expand the illusion..."
The LMD hand turned into a shadow and in the next moment, it became one with the skeleton. Fitz looked at it with an expression of clear disbelief. Phil was clearly enjoying himself, at least as much as he could considering that he just lost a freaking arm.
"Goodness, that's distracting..." Phil noted. After a few seconds, his arm turned back, and from his expression, it was clear that he had quite a hard time keeping it up. But he didn't comment on that.
"Okay. I think we addressed everything," he said.
"Just be careful about metal detectors and MRI. And röntgens. And very strong magnets. But you should be fine."
"You did an amazing job, Fitz. I'm in debt towards you, so... if you'll ever need me to do something, just give me a call on this number," Phil handed him a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it in pencil.
"Oh, Phil, by the way... the power cell should last a few months. It's one of my own designs. I'll keep an eye on the calendar, and call you when the time comes for it to be replaced."
The two men hugged, tapping each other's back.
"Just... take care, and don't forget that no matter what happened to you, you are not alone to battle it, okay?" Fitz said and looked his friend in the face, giving him a weak smile.
--
Phil was standing next to the electric kettle, rubbing the fingers of his left hand together mindlessly. It looked real, even though Phil knew that its nails would never grow, and that there would be time when he gets a call from Fitz to replace the battery and do some minor adjustments.
His hand was in pain. It was all so fresh... He wondered at which point it would stop, if it ever would... It was a constant reminder of what happened.
The water boiled, and he poured it into two cups. He grabbed each in one hand, and headed towards the table in the shape of the infinity symbol.
"Here's the coffee, Coleen," he said.
The girl looked at his left hand holding the cup in a way that would cause any normal person to burn their fingers.
"Isn't it hot?" She asked. He looked at his hands.
"Eh, not really," he said, and put the coffee he held in his right hand on the table next to her, while keeping the other one for himself.
"I poured a bit of cold water in mine, so I could drink it faster," he lied.
"Where were you, by the way?" she posed another question.
"Visiting an old friend."
"I didn't know you had those," Coleen teased him.
"It's shocking and absolutely unbelievable, but I indeed do have friends," Phil grinned.
His mind was on the creature that took his hand. He was almost certain that this being would become a problem in the near future, and it was his fault. It tasted his blood. And he could feel it approaching, slowly but surely.
Once it arrives, he'll be ready to face it, if not alone, then with all the heroes Earth has to offer. He was one of those heroes now.
But until then...
He'll just keep pretending that nothing had happened to him.
Phil looked at his hand, at every little detail that made it indistinguishable from the real thing, and took a sip of his coffee.
Nobody can know.
END