- "Put down Fitz and Simmons."
"What? No. There's plenty of time. I won't leave you."
"And I'm telling you to cross them off for me. It's not a weakness, is it?" - ―John Garrett and Grant Ward[src]
The Kidnapping of Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons was an abduction perpetrated by John Garrett's faction of HYDRA to prevent Phil Coulson and his team from reclaiming the Bus. Grant Ward forced Fitz and Simmons to board the Bus and then threw them into the sea after Fitz almost killed Garrett with an EMP.
Background[]
- "Because we had to fly in low, we'll have to search for our plane from the ground. Fitz, Simmons, you have the maps. Do not engage under any circumstances. If you find the Bus, call us and stand down, or come back here and wait."
- ―Phil Coulson to Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons[src]
Grant Ward prepares to shoot Buddy
In 1999, Grant Ward was broken out of Juvenile Detention by John Garrett who trained him to be a skilled HYDRA agents inside S.H.I.E.L.D. for the next five years. Ward often found himself alone in the wilderness with only his dog, Buddy. One day, Garrett told Ward that he was accepted into S.H.I.E.L.D.. He explained that as a HYDRA member, he had to make sure he had no attachments. To prove this, Garrett ordered Ward to kill Buddy. As Ward stood there, with the gun pointed at Buddy, he looked him in the eye, and decided to shoot up instead. Buddy then ran away from the noise. Later, Ward took a sniper and shot Buddy from a far.[1]
In the aftermath of the Battle at the Hub, Phil Coulson and his team were able to take their plane, the Bus, away from both HYDRA and the authorities by taking it to the secret base of Providence.[3] However, Grant Ward, secretly a HYDRA infiltrator within Coulson's team whose real agenda had been discovered by Skye, later commandeered the Bus along with Deathlok, who was working under HYDRA's coercion, taking Skye as a captive. Coulson was able to rescue her, but had to abandon the Bus to Ward.[4]
Refusing to let Ward get away with his crimes and keep the Bus in his possession, and in dire need of mobile headquarters, Coulson tracked down Ward's path to Havana, Cuba. Once the team arrived in Cuba, Coulson instructed agents Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons to find the Bus, but they were ordered not to attempt to reclaim it on their own. Fitz and Simmons successfully found the plane at Abel Santamaría Airport and reported to Coulson, but warned him that John Garrett, Ward's superior, were on the verge of leaving.[1]
Kidnapping[]
Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons are brought to John Garrett
- "This is our plane. We want it back."
"Really? Just like that, kid?" - ―Leo Fitz and John Garrett[src]
Unbeknownst to them, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons had already been spotted by Grant Ward, who intercepted them as they planned on sending a D.W.A.R.F. inside the Bus to spy on HYDRA and keep being able to track them down. As they were unarmed, Ward had no problem forcing Fitz and Simmons to board the Bus, where they were confronted by John Garrett. Figuring out that his base in Havana had been discovered, Garrett ordered the plane to be taken in the air, but before he could make another move, Fitz activated an EMP Joy Buzzer he had taken along, thus seriously affecting Garrett's biomechanics systems who kept him alive.
Remaining deaf to Fitz's plea to let Garrett die as he still believed that Ward had some good in him, Ward retrieved the necessary equipment to save Garrett's life and ordered everybody else to leave the room. Garrett then ordered Ward to execute Fitz and Simmons, and although he initially attempted to refuse, he soon realized that he had no other choice. Garrett asked Ward if it was a weakness. Meanwhile, Fitz and Simmons were able to escape from their guards, but encountered Ward as they were fleeing, forcing them to lock themselves inside a medical pod to escape from him.
Grant Ward after he dropped Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons into the ocean
Fitz refused to open the door to Ward, but once again tried to appeal to the good nature he thought was still lying in Ward's mind, urging him to switch sides and abandon Garrett for his former teammates. However, Ward refused, as his loyalties lied with Garrett. Nevertheless, Ward could not resolve to shoot them down as he had been ordered to, still caring for them on some level even though he knew Garrett considered this a weakness, and instead he decided to eject the medical pod they had locked themselves into in the ocean, abandoning them to their fate.[1]
Aftermath[]
Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons are trapped at the bottom of the ocean
- "I've spent the last hour trying to figure out why we sank. We're at the bottom of the ocean, in case you missed that bit."
- ―Leo Fitz to Jemma Simmons[src]
Due to Grant Ward dropping the pod they had locked themselves into, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons found themselves stranded in the middle of the ocean, and their pod soon began to sink, trapping themselves at the bottom of the ocean. The violence of the shock also caused Simmons to briefly lose consciousness. Facing death, Fitz crafted a way to emit a distress signal on a S.H.I.E.L.D. radio frequency, although he had little hope that someone could receive it.
Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz are rescued
They then reviewed their options and managed to find a way to open the pod and swim to the surface. However, only one of them could perform the feat and Fitz, who confessed his love to Simmons, gave her a chance to save her life. Eventually, Simmons was able to pull Fitz from the pod as well and they were saved by Nick Fury, who had managed to pick up Fitz's emergency signal. Although Fitz suffered from significant brain injuries, both he and Simmons were therefore able to survive their kidnapping.[5]
John Garrett carves the Words of Creation
Although he had been seriously affected by Fitz's EMP Joy Buzzer and nearly died from the consequences it had on his cybernetic enhancements, John Garrett was saved by the GH.325 Raina had been able to synthesize, which was added to the Centipede Serum that had kept Garrett alive. This helped Garrett to recover, drastically improving his physical condition, but it came at the progressive cost of his sanity, as he began to see the Words of Creation as the other human patients that had been exposed to the substance.[1]