A/N: The SHIELD agents (our SHIELD agents) are outraged by the events of episode 2:15, and I'd better let them vent before the next episode.

Ranting

Bobbi Morse returned to the headquarters of Coulson's SHIELD half supporting another agent who had a long spike of wood in his shoulder. The man was ranting about Skye injuring him with her unnatural powers.

Morse rolled her eyes and said, as she'd obviously said several times, "You were shooting at her. She was defending herself."

"It's just proof that her kind should be wiped out, her and that freak Coulson."

Leo Fitz started to his feet in outrage, but a guard roughly shoved him back to the floor.

"Hey!" Morse protested, as she handed the wounded agent off to Agent Weaver.

At the same moment, Melinda May was escorted into room, her handcuffed hands on top of her head.

"She attacked Gonzales," a guard said angrily.

"He started it," May said, unruffled.

The guard slammed her in the face with his gun butt. Knowing how to ride a blow, May received nothing worse than a split lip.

Fitz jumped to his feet, dodging his guard this time. The one who hit May, brought his weapon to bear. Morse leaped into the middle to calm things down.

"We're all SHIELD agents," she said to soothe. "We're all on the same team."

Fitz looked at her as if she was certifiably insane.

"If we were on the same side, Agent Morse, you would have come and said 'Hey, Coulson, we have resources, you have resources, why don't we work together against Hydra.' But instead, you skulked in here and lied to us so you could steal from us. That's not playing on the same team."

"I saved your life," Mack protested to the young man who had been his friend.

"After putting all of us in danger in the first place. You don't get any points for that,"

Jemma Simmons said tartly. She bustled past, ignoring the man with the spike in his shoulder and checking May's bruised face instead.

"It's not personal, Fitz," Mack tried.

"It seems very personal to me, with gun toting goons shoving me on the floor," the Scotsman huffed.

"We can't do it Fury's way any more," Mack contended. "Too many secrets."

Fitz barked a laugh. "That's rich coming from you two. You've done nothing but lie to us and keep secrets since we met."

"I thought we were friends, Fitz."

"So did I, but we were both wrong," Fitz said bitterly.

"Look, it makes sense for our teams to join forces. We have more people, more ships, more assets," Morse argued.

"In the first place, this hardly qualifies as 'joining forces,'" Simmons said in that proper British voice that could sound so scathing despite being perfectly polite. "In the second place, while your group has been sitting on your assets, Agent Morse, our team has cut off a half dozen Hydra heads, prevented them from using a deadly 0-8-4 and infiltrated one of their main laboratories. And what have you done? Oh, attacked us. Well done, Agent Morse."

Fitz took up the rant. "And now you're bragging about murdering Skye and Coulson, because they were injected with alien DNA against their will while they were unconscious! You're as bad as Hydra. No, you're worse! Hydra has a goal — deranged though it is — to conquer humanity for its own good. You just want to kill anything that scares you!" he finished in disgust.

Fitz saw a funny expression on May's face. He'd call it a fond smile on anyone else.

"What?" he asked cautiously.

"It's been a long time since I needed to tell you that you talk too much," May said.

Fitz blinked. He realized he'd been ranting without stuttering. Gobsmacked, he sank to a seat on the floor again. Simmons sat beside him and put her head on his shoulder.

With only a hint of irony, she said brightly, "See, there's always a silver lining."