something occurred to me— who was helping fitz shave/cutting his hair post jemma leaving to be a mole at hydra?
i have to assume may was the one helping him shave at least in between jemma leaving and s2 starting/the first few episodes of s2. i wonder if at some point mack offered to do it instead. would be a really good prompt for a fitzhunter fic too altho in canon def would not have been hunter.
but like ugh the angst of it being mack. of it having been simmons— simmons helping him button his shirts and tie his shoes and shave his facial hair. and then she leaves and he gets a little better at doing up his shirt buttons— it takes him forever and he is so frustrated but he can do it most of the time and when he can't, he gives up and puts on a sweater but he wants everyone to know that he can do it so he always goes for the button ups first— and maybe he starts wearing shoes he can just jam his feet into most of the time. but he can't shave his face. it's not like buttons or laces— he can't just try over and over again until it works. so he leaves it for a bit, and it's getting too long, and it's bothering him and he looks a little crazy, and may just does it for him. coulson doesn't tell her to, fitz doesn't ask her. she just does it, and they don't talk about it, aside from fitz's small 'thank you' at the end, to which she nods in response.
and they do it a handful times while simmons is gone. when it's starting to get a little crazy, may finds him in the quiet hours when there's no one to walk in on them, and she helps him. and he appreciates it— god, does he. and he loves may, and he wants to feel okay accepting her help: help that comes from love, mostly. but it doesn't change how absolutely awful it feels every time, because her help also comes from a place of pity and sadness and heartbreak. and it makes him want to run away and hide.
mack doesn't. mack didn't know him before. mack met him like this and loves him like this and even if he knows what happened to fitz was a tragic thing, it doesn't feel tragic to him— he didn't lose anything. and mack asks him one day, when it's getting a little much and he's scratching at his beard and it's clearly bothering him, 'can i do it?'
he doesn't ask if fitz can, if fitz does, who is it if not fitz? he doesn't ask if fitz wants him to help, needs him to help. he asks if fitz will allow him to help.
and may hadn't asked those things, either— may hadn't asked anything. and that's the only reason he let her do it. but just because may doesn't speak doesn't mean she isn't saying something, and fitz had become well versed in the art of not talking.
mack, though? mack said what needed to be said. he said what he meant. and fitz trusted him, in a way he didn't think he'd ever be able to trust anyone new since ward. so mack helped him shave. and it was easier than when it was may, it was lighter. there was no heavy silence, there was mack telling him stories, calm and content. he didn't let it grow past the point he liked it anymore, waiting until he was desperate to get it off, he let mack do it regularly, help him feel like himself.
mack was his brother. mack was the good he'd needed ward to be, the here he'd needed jemma to be, and the patient he'd needed may, coulson, and skye to be.
and then mack was betraying him, too.
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