Spoilers for all works set prior to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.
Dr. Leopold James Fitz
"Are you mental? I did explain what I meant using the Queen's bloody English!"
Species: Human
Citizenship: Scottish
Affiliation(s): S.H.I.E.L.D. (formerly), Izel's Crew (formerly)
Portrayed By: Iain De Caestecker
Voiced By: Miguel Ángel Ruiz [Disney dub], Arturo Castañeda [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub), Thadeu Matos (Brazilian Portuguese dub)
Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot
"I said there would come a moment when we would regret the decision to go in the field. I didn't think that would happen in week one."
A Level Five S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who is an expert engineer. He works alongside Jemma Simmons, with the two of them sharing a close friendship. He is a member of Agent Coulson's team that is assembled to investigate strange events around the world.
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A-D
- Abusive Parents: Fitz's father was verbally and emotionally abusive toward a young Fitz, constantly saying that he was never good enough or smart enough. The Framework reveals that he was physically abusive as well (or would have been if he hadn't abandoned the family).
- Action Survivor: Fitz is increasingly becoming this as the episodes go on. For someone who has been the most vocally against being involved in any sort of dangerous adventure or combat, he has proven to be more capable than Simmons of holding his own during one. This is best illustrated in "The Hub" and "T.R.A.C.K.S." where he provides backup to Ward in the former episode and Skye in the latter episode.
- Act of True Love: When Simmons life is on the line, it's a mathematical certainty for Fitz: Simmons always comes first. From letting himself drown to save her to jumping into an alien portal find her. Even if it means helping Ward and HYDRA bring a monster back to Earth to prevent them from hurting her.
- Afraid of Blood: And guts and organs. Especially of cats and especially when left right next to his lunch. The fact that the woman he loves is a biochemist who regularly dissects things is just one of the problems Fitz has to live with.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Simmons apparently left the team in favour of a dangerous deep cover mission within HYDRA rather than deal with the fall-out of Fitz's Dying Declaration of Love. Fitz is bitterly hurt when he finds out, especially since he has to learn about it second hand from Coulson. This eventually gets averted toward the end of season 3, when the two finally enter a relationship.
- All Men Are Perverts: He and Freudian Slips about Skye seem to go together hand-in-hand. He grows out of it as the series progresses, though, as his deep love for Simmons overrides any other sexual desires he may have.
- Always Someone Better:
- Fitz begins to feel this way in regards to Ward after "FZZT". Ward even uses it against him when he's raging at everyone in "The Well".
- From "Providence" onward, he begins to feel this way towards Triplett too: helped by the fact that Triplett, as well as being a total Badass and potential Love Interest for Simmons, is clearly also very intelligent, meaning that Fitz can't even fall back on his role as The Smart Guy around him.
- According to Simmons, Fitz's father always told him he was stupid and worthless as a child, implying that this is a longstanding psychological issue.
- Ambiguously Bi:
- He doesn't exactly disagree when his projection of Simmons describes Mack as being attractive, since she's technically a part of his own imagination. It should also be noted that well over half of the Ho Yay entries are taken from Fitz's interactions with male cast members.
- Played for Laughs in "Rewind". After spending at least one-third of the episode talking to Hunter about his Relationship Upgrade with Simmons, he has this exchange with Hunter at the end of the episode as a Shout-Out to The Empire Strikes Back:Hunter: "I love you."
Fitz: [chuckles] "I know."
- Amnesiac Dissonance: After being returned to reality from the Framework, Fitz regains all his original memories and also retains all the memories of being the cruel "Doctor" there. This causes him to be full of guilt over his evil actions (like killing Director Mace and Agnes, who were both real people) and wonder if he's actually a bad person.
- Anti-Hero: While helped along by his Doctor persona, Fitz gradually becomes more ruthless and disturbed throughout the series.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In "Who You Really Are" after Simmons discovers that Fitz kept Skye's powers a secret due to the Fantastic Racism Simmons has recently developed towards aliens and empowered people, she tries to say that it's different since Skye is her friend. He responds:Fitz: Oh yeah, like I was your friend, and then I changed. How did you handle that? (referring to his brain damage)
- The Atoner: Fitz openly admits being responsible for Jeffrey Mace's death and is ready to go to prison for it.
- Backup Twin: Kinda. Backup Self, actually. Thanks to his travelling backwards in time with the rest of the team but forwards alone, they return to a timeline where there's already a version of Fitz alive, albeit cryogenically frozen. Their next move after the Fitz that travelled with them from the future dies is to go looking for the one who's taking The Slow Path to a Bad Future that's never going to arrive.
- Badass Bookworm: Explicitly averted, the first thing we learn about him and Simmons is that they're not combat capable. A major part of his Character Development halfway through the season becomes his drive to become more of a Badass Bookworm after coming to feel inadequate - which he does quite a bit in "The Hub."
- As the show goes on, he's fully grown into this in a major way. By the midpoint of Season 6, he's (in order) nearly killed Garrett with an EMP device, nearly killed Ward by cutting off the oxygen to his cell and taunting him the whole time, successfully killed The Dragon in two different seasons, pulled a Ballistic Discount on a room full of armed terrorists, rescued Simmons from an alien Death World, set Hive on fire with a flare gun, successfully deduced that the rest of the team has been abducted by aliens while spending six months in confinement, and tricked an alien slave-driver into flushing himself out the airlock. Just for starters.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the Season 5 finale, Fitz gets impaled by some debris from a collapsing building, and he really does die. So when the next scene shows the remainder of the team mourning, Davis installing a commemorative plaque, and Coulson leading a toast To Absent Friends, we're naturally led to believe that it's for Fitz. Actually, it's for Coulson, who's leaving the team before they go searching for the other version of Fitz who's already out in space with Enoch.
- Battle Couple: He and Jemma Simmons fell in love while protecting the world from terrorists, aliens, robots, and interdimensional beings.
- Beard of Sorrow: He's noticeably less than clean-shaven at the beginning of Season 2 due to his traumatic injuries and Simmons leaving.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Poor Fitz falls victim to this a couple of times in major ways in Season One. After complaining that the true worth of his work is often overlooked by his superiors, he's finally recognised as a valuable asset by Garrett, who's about to recruit him to HYDRA by force if he has to. And after a whole season of wishing to be heroic on the level of Ward and Triplett, he's finally being called a hero by everyone after pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to save Simmons, which leaves him brain-damaged and in a coma. In Season Four, we find that his greatest regret is not knowing his father, but then the Framework reveals that Dad would have raised him into a ruthless psychopath.
- Berserk Button:
- Nothing freaks Fitz out faster than the thought of any harm coming to Simmons. Unfortunately for him, it's sort of an occupational hazard.
- From Season 2 onwards, the very presence of Ward sends him flying off the handle.
- As revealed in "Hot Potato Soup", mentioning Fitz's father is a huge button for him. Jemma is the only one he's talked to about it, and she knows to leave it be. Radcliffe's LMD just mentioning him causes Fitz to slam the counter and march off.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Fitz displays a ruthless lack of concern for the lives of the Centipede soldiers after they kidnap Coulson. Jemma is noticeably disturbed.
- In "Nothing Personal" he has a rather violent reaction to finding out that Ward is HYDRA, which surprises everyone in-universe.
- In "Ragtag", he uses the pocket EMP device to disable Garrett's mechanical bits, almost killing him. He then shouts at Garrett and says he doesn't feel any remorse and that Garrett deserves to die. As Fitz and Simmons are being carried away by HYDRA agents, Fitz says that he won't rest until every HYDRA agent is dead. Yikes.
- In "Making Friends & Influencing People", he cuts off the oxygen to Ward's cell, further twisting the knife by saying it's the only way he can make clear what Ward did to him thanks to his aphasia.
- In "S.O.S., Part 2" he's the one to kill Gordon, albeit accidentally. In "Maveth" he temporarily kills Hive. In "Ascension" he kills Giyera. He has one of the highest supervillain body counts in the team, even if he'd probably lose a fistfight to your average high school bully.
- All the above examples are when he was restrained by his own conscience and family and brought up in the real world. In the Framework, having a good relationship with his Jerkass father, no Jemma, and with Aida/Madame Hydra feeding him half-truths about herself being a refugee from another world to play on his protectiveness of her, allows him to easily torture Inhumans (including Daisy) and kill an innocent woman (Agnes Kitsworth) For the Evulz in the Framework.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: He's half of this with Simmons. Both of them tend to be soft-spoken and usually come across as just geeky lab rats. But if you threaten Jemma's safety, you have now angered a genius mechanical engineer/physicist who can come up with all kinds of neat ways to hurt or kill you.
- Beyond the Impossible: He's the first person in thousands of years to bring someone back from the planet the Monolith connects to, making him quite the person of interest to HYDRA. While this has been the goal of HYDRA for centuries, it had been treated as impossible by previous generations and been confused for "ritualistic blood sacrifice" by outsiders.
- Big Brother Instinct:
- In "The Hub", when Ward tells Fitz to run to safety because Coulson told Ward to take care of him, Fitz refuses to leave and snaps back that Coulson told him to protect Ward too.
- There's a moment in "Repairs" when Simmons is about to round a blind corner while they're pursuing Tobias along with Ward, and Fitz holds her back to check it out himself before letting her go on ahead.
- When he's the only one to work out that Skye has developed superpowers, despite his initial fear he fakes her blood test results and promises to protect her from the Fantastic Racism of the rest of the team. When Skye's secret comes out, it turns out he was right to do so, as he's the only one arguing on her behalf.
- Big Eater: Played with: He frequently complains of being hungry, especially in inappropriate circumstances like during a stake-out or a field mission, and even when trapped at the bottom of the ocean slowly running out of oxygen - but the fact that he never gets to eat anything on-screen is something of a subtle Running Gag. Ward mentions at one point that Fitz has a secret stash of candy under his bunk.
- Birds of a Feather: He and Simmons, as pointed out by everyone, thus "Fitz-Simmons".
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: In "Turn, Turn, Turn" he has to struggle to bring himself to pick up a stray real gun that gets slid towards him in a fight, and after he uses it to shoot someone to save May, he starts crying and is clearly not happy about having had to do it.
- Bond One-Liner: In "Ragtag", after using an EMP disguised as a joy buzzer to take out Garrett's life-support implants:Fitz: Looks like the joke's on you.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: An interesting example. When Fitz is plugged into the Framework, Aida alters his memories so that his cruel father remained in his life instead of his mother and so that Aida herself, in her guise of "Ophelia"/Madame Hydra, was a part of it instead of Simmons. This causes the Framework version of Fitz to become a cold and sadistic Mad Scientist, brutally experimenting on Inhumans and having his romantic tendencies in the real world perverted into obsessive loyalty to Aida and HYDRA. When Fitz wakes up and gains his real memories again, he is utterly traumatized by what he did inside the Framework, unable to even look Jemma in the eye.
- Brave Scot: Averted, if not inverted, as he tends to be a Lovable Coward at times and he's far more cautious and worried about problems compared to Simmons.
- Break the Cutie: He really goes through the wringer.
- Season One: Between "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Nothing Personal", every bad thing Fitz has imagined so far happens all at once: He and Simmons get separated during the destruction of S.H.I.E.L.D., he's threatened with A Fate Worse Than Death by HYDRA, he's forced to kill someone, Simmons meets someone else who's The Ace... then it turns out that Ward, whom he'd thought of as one of his closest friends and colleagues, has been a HYDRA infiltrator the whole time. Cue the Heroic BSoD. At the end of the season, he and Simmons are trapped in a container underwater, and his Heroic Sacrifice to get the two of them out leaves him brain damaged and in a coma.
- Season Two: He's become aggressive towards Simmons, jealous of Koenig taking over his job as The Smart Guy, and has difficulty expressing his feelings. And it turns out that he's been hallucinating Simmons the entire time, and his damage is to the extent that he's incapable of doing most of his original duties and doesn't even realize it.
- Season Three: Simmons is apparently dead, captured by the Monolith as soon as Fitz turned his back... with Fitz indirectly responsible for loosening the seal. He's gone on a solo mission to bring her back, no matter what. Then, when it looks like there is no hope of getting her back, he appears to ready to go to the Monolith so he can rejoin Simmons. Then he breaks down in front of the Monolith when it doesn't take him.note
- Season Four: At the start of the season, Fitz is doing well: he and Simmons are together and planning to get an apartment, he has a new friendship with Radcliffe (implied to being a substitute father-son relationship), and he's in the lab. However, his helping Radcliffe to create Aida forces him to conceal it from Simmons to protect her from having to lie to Jeffrey Mace, which puts strain on their relationship when she finds out about her. Then Aida tries to steal the Darkhold after reading it to literally save him from Hell, forcing S.H.I.E.L.D. to put her down, and his suspicions force him to investigate why. Then he learns that Radcliffe sent Aida to steal the Darkhold, leaving Fitz heartbroken and bitter over his betrayal. Then he gets stuck in the Framework, with its altered circumstances turning him into a man that he'd be disgusted with (and vice-versa). Indeed, when he wakes up in the real world, he is badly traumatized by the things he did in there.
- By Season Five, the combination of his Framework crimes and a seemingly inevitable Bad Future causes Fitz to have a massive psychotic breakdown and start to lose a great amount of his innocence and cheer, not to mention he was held captive in a government prison for six months. He also outright dies at the end of the season, although since the timeline has been changed, the version of Fitz frozen in space with Enoch can be woken up and reunited with his friends, giving him a chance to do better.
- In Season Six, when the prime timeline Fitz is plugged into a Chronicom device that shares his memories with Jemma, and vise versa. Eventually, he discovers his own dead body, and learns about his temporal doppelgänger, specifically his corpse. Seeing himself lying on a slab leaves Fitz extremely freaked out. Things get worse when the memory of Daisy gives Fitz's wedding ring to Jemma, and Fitz realizes that his doppelgänger married Jemma, which drives Fitz into a full blown Freak Out. Finally, Jemma's memories reveal that Coulson was dying. Learning the one father figure who didn't betray him was dead leaves Fitz openly in tears.
- Broken Pedestal: This man has seen some of his closest friendships broken in the worst ways possible.
- His relationship with Ward in Season One was often something close to hero-worship, with Ward clearly representing the kind of person Fitz wished he could be himself. Needless to say, Fitz's reaction to Ward being revealed as a HYDRA mole is pretty brutal.
- His relationship with Simmons: in Season One he clearly adored everything about her; in Season 2, though it seems he's still in love with her, and definitely still respects her intellect, he eventually makes it clear to her in "What They Become" that he doesn't particularly like who she is now, and would rather not work with her in the future. It gets even worse in "Aftershocks" when he explicitly considers her the biggest threat on the team to Skye, due to her superpowers becoming apparent just as Simmons develops a bad case of Fantastic Racism. They do reconcile, however, because as disappointed as he is, he loves her more.
- His relationship with Mack: in Season Two, Mack was the only one who treated him normally after receiving brain damage, and their friendship was a major part of his recovery. Then it's revealed that Mack was actually working for "the real S.H.I.E.L.D." to take down Coulson. Fitz felt incredibly betrayed by this, even saying that Mack wasn't allowed to call him "Turbo" anymore. The events of the fight against Jiaying managed to repair their friendship, though.
- His relationship with Daisy: in Season 2, Fitz kept Skye's new powers a secret from the rest of the team, as he knew what it was like to be "different" suddenly. Come Season 4, Daisy leaves S.H.I.E.L.D. after Lincoln's death, leaving Fitz particularly angry with her. Once she comes back, they do repair their friendship.
- When his work on trying to keep the Monolith contained causes his mental state to majorly deteriorate, it becomes inverted when Fitz forcefully removes Daisy's power inhibitor as the Doctor since it could compress the gravitonium inside it. Did it end up helping the situation for the time being? Yes. Was Fitz actually responsible, and did he regret doing it? Yes and no (at least partially, even when he apologized). Did it also end up destroying his and Daisy's friendship, possibly for good? Yes.
- His relationship with Radcliffe: in Season Four the two bond over their shared scientific knowledge, love of football, and helping him refine Aida. It's implied that it became a substitute father-son relationship. Then Radcliffe betrays S.H.I.E.L.D. to gain the Darkhold, and Fitz is the one who discovers it, leaving him betrayed and bitter.
- Butt-Monkey: Gets knocked out (or possessed, or kidnapped, or threatened, or shot at, or...) on a regular basis, is often the subject of pranks and snark from the others, has men regularly flirting with his Love Interest, accidentally helps out the opposition a few times... the list goes on. At times, one must wonder if The One-Above-All has it out for him.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Towards the end of the first season, he's painfully incapable of telling Simmons how he feels about her, or admitting it directly to anyone else (not that they need telling). He eventually Lampshades this in "The Beginning of the End", when he's still incapable of articulating exactly how he feels about her, but realises that he can show her instead. It certainly gets the point across.
- Canon Foreigner: He had no comic book counterpart before the show started.
- Canon Immigrant: He was introduced in the Prime 616 Marvel Universe with the 2014's S.H.I.E.L.D comic series.
- The Charmer: Despite suffering from a bad case of That Came Out Wrong/Cannot Spit It Out around women he cares for, he demonstrates a surprising ability to successfully turn on the charm when he needs to. In "The Hub", a middle-aged matron (who also happens to be an Eastern European mob boss) starts off wanting to kill him and, two scenes later, is affectionately referring to him as her "Little Bear". Usually contrasted with Ward or Simmons, who are both in their own special ways terrible at dealing with people.
- Chekhov M.I.A.: Fitz's whereabouts are a mystery throughout the seventh season, with Simmons even having blocked him out of her memory via an implant designed by the two and Enoch so the Chronicoms couldn't find him. He was in the Quantum Realm, ready to bring the team back to the original timeline at the right time.
- The Chew Toy: Season 2 is a prime example of how the Butt-Monkey becomes one of these: Fitz's frequent misfortunes are no longer meant to be remotely funny.
- Season 4 probably has the worst of it: the Framework has messed with all of Team Coulson but with Fitz it goes so far as to give him a Face–Heel Turn and turn him into a monster, which comes to seriously haunt him after he gets out.
- Child Prodigy: Implied in "Seeds". Fitz mentions that his mother never understood his science talk while he was growing up and he and Simmons are both noted to have been some of the youngest to have gotten into S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, and must have had one PhD already "just to get through the door" of the academy's Science Division.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Becomes one after suffering brain damage in the Season One finale. As such, it's mostly Played for Drama. His most notable Cuckoolander characteristic has to be relationship with his imaginary version of Simmons after she leaves the team. He gets a little better after teaming up with Mack, from which point on this trope is occasionally Played for Laughs.Mack: Half of what this guy says is nonsense.
[both he and Fitz chuckle] - Cloning Gambit: A completely accidental one thanks to Time-Travel shenanigans, but there's an alternate version of Fitz out in space that's no longer needed for the Bad Future — and therefore can be thawed out to replace the Fitz from the original timeline after the latter dies.
- Cowardly Lion: Basically Fitz's entire personality in a nutshell. Hence the name "Leo".
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed, but present. Fitz does not take it well when Jemma starts showing Triplett attention and affection, although he tries to suppress it and eventually admits to it. It later comes back when he finds out that Jemma fell in love with another man while on Maveth, but he decides I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and tries to bring this other dude back, especially when he finds audio proving that Jemma still did care for him on the other planet. Both men die and Fitz ends up with Jemma so this becomes a moot point, although the reasons they die have nothing to do with Fitz.
- In Season 6, Fitz literally becomes jealous...of himself. Specifically, the time-displaced version of himself that married Jemma and later died. Whenever he starts disparaging his alternate self, Jemma gets exasperated at how absurd Fitz is acting. It's ridiculous enough that it even gives Deke pause.
- Cursed with Awesome: Fitz's life as the Doctor gave him the training and ruthlessness necessary to become an effective soldier. The problem is that the experience mentally scarred him for obvious reasons.
- The Cutie: Unusually he actually becomes more of one as the series goes on, even though Break the Cutie actually takes place first in his case. In Season 1 Simmons is the clear cutie of the duo, with Fitz the more cynical and sarcastic one, but Season 2 sees a gradual reversal of this dynamic, with Fitz the emerging as the more gentle and caring one who's willing to show loyalty to his friends over S.H.I.E.L.D. if forced to make the choice, and generally as one of the most sympathetic characters on the show after many of the other leads Take a Level in Jerkass following the mid-season finale.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Getting impaled through the chest by a huge piece of sheet metal after some debris fell on top of him, his hands are shaking, he can barely speak and he's obviously in immense pain when he dies of shock. Thank God there's another one.
- Deadpan Snarker: Usually at Ward or Simmons's expense, but Fitz is definitely known for firing off a good one-liner.
- Death Is Cheap: The version of himself that goes through Season 5's time loop dies for real. However, before the time loop was established, he froze himself cryogenically in order to ensure that he could appear decades into the future. Given that the future no longer exists, he can come back to life as soon as the other agents find him and wake him up.
- Despair Event Horizon: In the Season 3 premiere, when Fitz's last hope of finding out what the Monolith did to Simmons is a scroll that reads "Death", Coulson decides to officially declare Simmons dead. Believing that there is no hope left of finding her, Fitz breaks into the Monolith's containment chamber, not caring what happens to him as long as it's the same fate as Simmons. Then, when the Monolith does nothing, Fitz absolutely loses it, screaming "DO SOMETHING!" at the Monolith.
- The Determinator: He's the only one in Coulson's team who refuses to give up rescuing Simmons from the Monolith, and because of that they're able to rescue her from the alien world she was trapped on.
- Didn't Want an Adventure: The main contrast between him and Simmons. It's implied that she wanted to join Coulson's team and he reluctantly went along with her.
- Disappeared Dad: When asked about his immediate family in "Providence", he says his only relative is his mother. This was already hinted at in "Seeds", when it's implied that his mum was his only real companion before he met Simmons. Later confirmed in "Hot Potato Soup", where Simmons tells Mack that Fitz's father abandoned him and his mother when he was ten. Fitz hasn't seen him since, and has no real desire to change that. At least, no conscious desire to see him again...
- Disney Death: Double-subverted in the Season 5 finale. First he gets hit by some falling debris, but seems otherwise okay. Then Mack pulls the rocks off of Fitz to reveal that he's been impaled by a huge piece of sheet metal, and he ultimately dies of shock. Good thing that time-travel shenanigans mean there's still another version of him in cryogenic stasis with Enoch.
- Distressed Dude: In one episode, him being held at knifepoint is enough motivation for Coulson to hand over control of the Bus to an enemy.
- Ditzy Genius: He comes across as slightly scatter-brained, but he's good with technology.
- The Dividual: Fitz and Simmons spend so much time together that they're usually just referred to as "Fitz-Simmons." Skye even described them as "psychically linked".
- Season One changes this following the HYDRA uprising, Fitz's Love Epiphany towards Simmons, and Simmons's growing closeness to Triplett and uncertainty about her dedication to the new S.H.I.E.L.D.
- In season 2, Fitz's brain damage and Simmons's sudden departure from the team lead him to hallucinate her presence as an extension of his subconscious in order to maintain this relationship. She tries to guide him on his way to recovery. When the real Simmons returns, this trope is defied; Simmons and Mack each note that Fitz's condition worsens in her presence, leading to more scenes of them apart while they actively avoid each other.
- By the end of season 2, they have re-connected to the point where Fitz can guess what her plan is and seamlessly help her with it without talking with her about it.
- Does Not Like Magic: Fitz comes out and says that he "hates magic" because he think it violates his scientific understanding of things. Unfortunately for him, it has become more and more common as of season 4 (Ghost Rider, the Darkhold, ghosts, etc.).
- Dogged Nice Guy: After saving Simmons from the distant planet that the Monolith sent her to—literally throwing himself through the portal to physically pull her back to Earth—he finds out about her relationship with Will Daniels... and proceeds to work on ways to reopen the portal so as to rescue Daniels as well, because he just wants her to be happy. Simmons actually yells at him for being so kind and supportive, when many men would be jealous and angry, especially after going to the extremes that Fitz went through on Simmons's behalf.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul":
- Subtly implied to feel this way. He is the last member of the main cast to have their first name mentioned in the show; note later in the same episode during a friendly introduction he specifically (and somewhat awkwardly) asks to be called by his last name. Furthermore, while he calls Simmons either "Simmons" or "Jemma" more or less interchangeably, she rarely calls him "Leo".
- Averted in the comics, where he is usually addressed as "Leo", presumably to remind readers that despite originating in the MCU, the 616 version of his character is part of a different canon entirely.
- This fact is used to differentiate the Framework version of himself from his personality in the real world. His Framework self goes by "Leopold" to people he knows personally and "The Doctor" to nearly anybody else, with very few people calling him "Fitz". This is ironic, because his Framework self is the one that stayed with his father and would more reasonably want to carry on the family name - although in the Framework, most HYDRA members are familiar with both the father and the son, so in a way this actually makes some sense.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He's aware that the others have been walking on eggshells around since his brain damage, and he doesn't like it one bit.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: He's ultimately done in by falling debris in the Season 5 finale, ultimately being impaled on a metal object. Good thing that there's still a version of him that's still alive thanks to the breaking of the time loop.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: He's frequently frustrated when his talents go overlooked by the others, especially compared to Simmons and Skye, who are often praised for their abilities. Becomes a case of Be Careful What You Wish For when HYDRA consider him too valuable to execute along with the rest of the team, and instead plan to cripple him before forcibly recruiting him.
- Dying Declaration of Love: To Simmons, in a Zigzagged sort of way during "The Beginning of the End". He can't bring himself to say it, so instead he shows it via Heroic Sacrifice. In the end he's not dead, but in a coma.
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- The Engineer: Technology is his specialty.
- Even Nerds Have Standards: He nicknames his custom-made drones after the Seven Dwarves yet he thinks that Simmons is nerdier than he is, because she enjoys doing schoolwork.
- Everyone's Baby Sister: The reactions of the other team members to his unspecified critical injuries in the Season One finale point to this attitude, probably because he's a non-combatant and relatively young to be a field agent. The fact that his refusal to give up on Ward and unexpressed love for Simmons were both major contributing factors in what happened to him rack up the sympathy levels significantly, too.
- Evil Me Scares Me: After he gets out of the Framework. The Doctor's crimes traumatize Fitz to the point of severe PTSD and self-loathing, and he still hasn't gotten over it by the end of Season 4.
- Exact Words: "I didn't solve this today." It's Mack who finally realizes he's trying to say he's solved it already, but just can't remember how.
- Expy: Of Wesley Wyndam Price of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame. Both are British, both started off as hopeless and obnoxious dorks, and both suffered personal tragedies and trials that morphed them into their respective teams' biggest badasses. It even shows in the outer details: they both started off dressed prim and proper and neatly trimmed, and both switched to more casual clothing and a Perma-Stubble following their massive levels-ups in badassery. And on a further meta-level, both characters were created by Joss Whedon.
- Face Framed in Shadow: His face is constantly half-covered in shadowed lighting during season two, especially when he's alone, thinking dark thoughts or talking to the hallucination of Simmons - which is most of the time. The show is particularly fond of having him stand alone, staring into space with a half-shadowed face. It rather ominously reflects his fractured state of mind after the incident.
- Fake American: In-universe, he briefly does this in "T.R.A.C.K.S." and is surprisingly good at it. Skye's Scottish accent, on the other hand... (which is why he went for the Fake American act in the first place as they were posing as a couple).
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences: With Simmons, frequently. They also tend to talk over each other mid-sentence, supplying synonyms for what the other's saying, before ending on the same word.
- This gets a (doubly) grim reprise in the Season 2 premiere: Fitz now relies on Simmons to finish most of his sentences for him, having lost the ability to recall many vocabulary words. This is actually one of the few things that probably isn't wrong with him, since it's his own hallucination providing the "missing" words, but that's not exactly good news overall (not to mention that he isn't even saying them out loud).
- In "Fractured House" it gets even worse when the real Simmons can't finish his sentences anymore, leaving him completely lost.
- By the end of Season 2, Fitz and Simmons have reconnected to the point where they can guess what the other is thinking, and they're regularly finishing the other's sentences in Season 3 again.
- He's also capable of doing this with other people as well. In "SOS Part 1", he finishes Hunter's sentences twice, which Hunter finds weird. He's also on the receiving end in "Purpose in the Machine", when Daisy finishes one of his sentences.
- Freudian Excuse: As a child, Fitz's father told him that he was worthless, not smart enough, and would never amount to anything. Simmons is half convinced that this is why Fitz is as brilliant as he is. Odds are the constant Always Someone Better comparisons stem from this as well.
- Friendless Background: Fitz implies that he came from one of these in "Seeds" when he emphasizes with a fellow lonely tech student. It's highly implied that Simmons was the first friend he ever had, which would explain why he's so devoted to her.
- Gadgeteer Genius: His whole schtick on the team is gadgetry. In season three, for instance, he made a flash bang look like a splinter bomb and put them in a suitcase that mobsters couldn't open.
- Geek: Acts about machines and physics the same way Simmons does about biological mysteries. He even named his robots after the seven dwarfs.
- Good Is Not Soft: Fitz has spent mid-Season One proving this without a doubt. He's a nice, fumbling, socially awkward guy, but he's also arrogant, proud, and if you kidnap his team leader, he will not only be glad to see you dead, he will also compete for the right to torture you for information — and that says nothing for his surprising ability to hold his own in combat situations without being an outright badass like May, Ward, or Coulson. When he finds out they've been hiding Ward in the basement in Season Two, he gives him a taste of the oxygen deprivation that gave him brain damage. Unfortunately, Season Four shows what he's capable of when these tendencies aren't restrained by a moral compass.
- Graceful in Their Element: Fitz may be socially awkward and a bit of a coward, but put him in a lab or talk to him about technology and he'll leave you in the dust.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Fitz reacts with visible irritation whenever anyone flirts with Simmons, or Simmons shows any interest in anyone else. Understandable given that Simmons seems to have a thing for muscular black men and Fitz is very much not either of those.
- Randolph compliments her several times in "The Well". Fitz overhears and does not look particularly happy.
- When, in "The Bridge", Simmons becomes flustered around Mike Peterson's... firmness. Though Fitz protests he's just embarrassed by her.
- In "End of the Beginning" he notices that Triplett and Simmons seem a little too mutually eager to hang out together at The Hub, though on that occasion he looks more hurt than annoyed. (It helped that he'd just accused her of being a little too happy that he wasn't going with her, something she never outright denied.) By "Providence" it's clear that he's developed a strong dislike of Triplett because of his new closeness with Simmons.
- In "Shadows", he's jealous of Koenig appearing to take over his role as The Smart Guy due to Fitz still recovering from his brain damage.
- Averted in Season 3. See I Want My Beloved to Be Happy below. Simmons actually yells at him for not being this.
- Played for Laughs in Season 6 with Fitz taking potshots at his now-deceased time duplicate. Simmons is incredulous that he's essentially jealous of himself, and even Fitz himself seems aware of the absurdity.
- Guile Hero: Displays this trait most prominently in "The Hub", when he causes a blackout in the bar where he and Ward are being held hostage by people who were trying to watch a game on the television before they showed up. This was done just so he could then fix it and gain his captors' trust and help.
- Hallucinations: At the beginning of Season 2, Simmons only exists to him as one, because she had left him when he woke up from his coma and saw he wasn't getting better at all. It's because of the brain damage he experienced at the end of Season 1, so in situations of extreme stress he begins to lose his grip on reality. This comes back way later in Season 5, in which "The Doctor" persona from the Framework resurfaces as an alternate personality, whom Fitz sees as an entirely separate individual.
- Handicapped Badass: Since his Heroic Sacrifice, Fitz has had to deal with the aftereffects of minor brain damage. He has trouble organizing his thoughts, talks with a bit of a stutter, and his right hand is unusable. He is STILL the technical genius of the team and consistently goes past his limitations to prove his worth. He's recovered by Season 3.
- Happily Married: To Jemma, as of the end of "The Real Deal". Ironically, since the Fitz that survives is the one created outside the Time Loop and the one that gets married is inside it, Fitz ends up missing his own wedding.
- The Heart: He's grown into this role during Season 2; partly because he can't fill the Smart Guy role as well as he used to thanks to his injuries but largely because of the way he's formed relationships with the rest of the team. After the midseason shakeup, he's basically the only one openly on Skye's side; defending her to the others and giving her emotional support.
- Heroic BSoD: At least once a season:
- He briefly goes into this twice: after being involved in the HYDRA uprising at the Hub, and again after learning that Ward has been a HYDRA mole the entire time.
- It gets worse in season 2: as if brain damage weren't bad enough, after Simmons left from worry that she was impeding his recovery, he's started talking to an imaginary version of her as his only way to cope with everything that's happened.
- In the season three premier, his last hope of finding what the Monolith did to Simmons turns out to be a scroll with the Hebrew word "Maveth" or "death" written on it. After this, Coulson decides to officially declare Simmons dead, and all Fitz can do is quietly whisper "Okay". Then he breaks into the Monolith's containment chamber in a scene that is screaming attempted suicide.
- Fitz's ultimate lowest point happens after he comes back from the Framework. His Alternate Self was a cold-blooded HYDRA scientist on the level of Daniel Whitehall, referred to by the moniker "The Doctor" to the general public and whose name is enough to fill anyone with dread. Since the Fitz of the real world retains memories from both his lives, he gets sent past a Heroic BSoD and straight through the Despair Event Horizon, unable to even look at Jemma after what he's done. This is especially ironic because for the past four seasons Fitz has been the one to love Jemma unconditionally, and now he has to face himself after he told Jemma (in an alternate reality) that she means nothing to him (luckily, Simmons is a very understanding person).
- The BSOD from Season 4 continues into Season 5, compounded with Fitz's depression over the belief that the future cannot be changed, a Call-Back to the Season 3 episode Spacetime in which Fitz believed Daisy Johnson's future vision could not be averted (which he was right about). These things combined cause Fitz to take a level in jerkass, which is heavily implied by Deke and Robin's visions to continue into the Bad Future. Thankfully, Team Coulson is able to avert the Bad Future thanks to a Heroic Sacrifice by Fitz and a difficult decision by Daisy, and Fitz was put into cryostasis to take The Slow Path before the Time Loop was created, thus allowing the second version of Fitz to re-emerge without the looming threat of an inevitable Bad Future. He missed his own wedding, but otherwise, it's likely that the frozen Fitz will be much happier when he wakes up.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Attempted in the first season finale, "Beginning of the End" where he gives the one breathing device to Simmons so she can swim to the surface, since his broken arm will make sure he can't make it. Averted when she just drags him up with her and Nick Fury rescues both of them. Though he doesn't escape unscathed: it's noted that he received brain damage from oxygen deprivation and is not seen again for the rest of the episode. The best Simmons can say to describe his condition is "alive." He sacrifices himself again to save Robin's mother and Mack in "The End" being run through with debris after a roof collapses on top of him.
- Hero Killer: Inverted, Fitz is a prolific villain killer. He severely wounded Garrett all the way back in Season 1, killed The Dragon in Seasons 2 and 3, set Hive on fire with a flare gun, and knocked Sinara out in Season 5.
- Played straight with The Doctor, who kills at least two innocent people in the Framework, Jeffrey Mace and Agnes Kitsworth. Because in the Framework Your Mind Makes It Real, this means that both of their minds are dead in real life, too.
- He's Back!: As of "The Things We Bury", he seems to have overcome the limitations brought about by his brain damage, at least as far as regaining his status as a Gadgeteer Genius is concerned.
- Hidden Depths:
- Although initially coming across as meek and fearful, though snarky, intelligent, and deeply loyal, Fitz's character is fleshed out in two important episodes. In "The Hub", he goes on a mission with Ward where he proves that he may not actively seek adventure like Simmons does but he's perfectly capable of handling himself during one, saving Ward's life not only once but twice. In "The Magical Place", he couldn't care less how many Centipede soldiers they have to kill in order to get Coulson back, despite Simmons rightly pointing out that those are innocent men being controlled.
- Fitz later exploits this trope himself in "Ragtag", when it doesn't take much to convince Ward that the joy-buzzer he's carrying was just meant for a prank, and there's nothing suspicious about him reaching for it during a tense stand-off... except that it emits a powerful EMP that nearly kills Garrett on the spot.
- Hollywood Homely: Invoked, not through his appearance so much as the fact that he's the only lead character never to have anyone romantically interested in him in Season One, and having him unfavourably compared to Ward and Triplett on a regular basis due to their superior strength and physique (often, it's Fitz himself drawing the comparison, but not always). This is probably intentional, though, since Fitz is The Chew Toy, and the universe often seems out to confirm his worst fears and insecurities at every turn. When talking about how they first met at the academy, Simmons describes him as "handsome". It's worth noting as well that Iain De Caestecker is at least as popular with the Fangirls/Fanboys as Brett Dalton or B J Britt, and if anything the character gets shipped harder than either of them by the Fandom. Averted later on, as Fitz and Simmons have become the show's Official Couple.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: When Coulson orders him to reassemble and install a transceiver in under six minutes in "The Things We Bury", Fitz protests that he's only got one fully working hand due to his brain damage. Coulson then has him practicing non-stop during the early stages of the mission, which does one-handed, and is frustrated that he's unable to trim the time down enough. Finally, when Coulson asks how long the procedure will take him, Fitz replies that he's got it down to just over seven minutes... with his bad hand. With both, he'll be just fine.
- Imaginary Friend: After Simmons leaves the team, Fitz creates an imaginary version of her to both cope with the loss and to help him finish his own sentences. After Mack starts interacting with him, he seems to be aware that she's not actually there, and starts to phase the imaginary Simmons out.
- Insecure Love Interest: In Season Three towards the Love Triangle that he, Simmons, and Will Daniels are potentially in. Fitz feels painfully inadequate toward Will, who is so great he might as well be Captain America, and can't rival him in any way. Simmons points out that Fitz jumped through a portal just to find her.
- Insistent Terminology: Fitz always refers to Aida as "she", both because he sees her as a person, and he's well aware she's anatomically correct.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: Fitz bonds with Donnie over this in "Seeds". He didn't like being at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy at first because he didn't have any friends, and his well-meaning mother could never keep up with his technobabble. It's implied that Simmons was the first friend he ever had.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: When Fitz and Simmons were kidnapped by HYDRA in Season 3, Malick's lieutenant Giyera tortured Simmons, and Ward forced Fitz to listen. After that, any time a picture of Giyera is shown, Fitz gets noticeably angry. Fitz ends up being the one who kills Giyera with an invisible gun he made specifically to kill him.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In Season 3, after learning of Simmons's boyfriend Will who's still stranded on the alien planet, Fitz resolves to help her get him back, even if it means that his feelings for her remain unrequited.
- Knight in Sour Armor: This is most highlighted by his relationship with Simmons, but Fitz, despite being a do-gooder, is much more cynical and ruthless than one would initially expect. It's seeming more and more like his cautious and cowardly behavior from previous episodes were a reflection of a deep knowledge of how dark the world can get, which makes him more resistant to Break the Cutie than Jemma.
- Last-Name Basis: Even on a show where last names are used as standard, more so than any of the other characters; see Embarrassing First Name, above. Even Jemma still refers to him as Fitz after they begin dating, and still does when they get married.
- Living Legend:
- In "Seeds", he and Simmons are both revealed to be this to the science and tech students at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.
- There's the fact that nearly everyone within S.H.I.E.L.D. - including Dr Stretian and Nick Fury - seems to know them by reputation even before the pair go into the field for the first time by joining Coulson's team, up to and including referring to them by their Portmanteau Couple Name. Only Ineffectual Loner types like Ward and non-agents are ever surprised to discover they're two people.
- Lovable Coward: Fitz and danger do not mix at all. He had to be strong armed by Simmons into accepting the field assignments, complains bitterly any time they're forced to leave the Bus, is squeamish about everything, can be seen clinging to pillars and hiding in corners when things get crazy, balks when faced with anything remotely actiony, etc. Yet he's always portrayed as cutesy and adorable about it, and he can swallow his fear enough to still pitch in when there's absolutely no other choice. Simmons safety being on the line can also properly motivate him out of it.
M-W
- Madness Mantra:
- His main method of communicating important information with everyone other than his hallucination of Simmons after suffering brain damage, as in his insistent repetitions of "I didn't solve this today!" in "Heavy is the Head". Unfortunately, most of Team Coulson write it off as self-pity at best, meaningless babble at worst; luckily, Mack proves adept at figuring him out.
- He briefly develops another one in "Aftershocks", due to his belief that he's hallucinating Skye's blood test results due to his stress over Trip's death: "There's something wrong with the data in my brain."
- Mad Scientist: Fitz has shown shades of this throughout the series, however during his time in the Framework these tendencies were hyped up when he was known as the cold-hearted and sadistic HYDRA Doctor.
- Men Can't Keep House: Discussed when Fitz sees Donnie's dorm room at S.H.I.E.L.D. academy, and comments that his old room looked exactly the same... except there was more laundry on the floor. Averted in that whenever his bunk on the Bus is shown, it's as tidy as anyone else's, implying that he grew out of this trope at some point; not to mention that it's usually him complaining that Simmons is the one messing up his (their) "pristine" lab space. He also excuses his flat refusal to enter Skye's bunk because "she's a slob, she leaves... lady things everywhere."
- Morality Chain: Downplayed, but "The Magical Place" implies that Simmons might be this to him, as Fitz sees absolutely nothing wrong with the deaths of any and all Centipede soldiers standing between them and Coulson (or in general) after Coulson gets kidnapped. It is Jemma who points out to him that they are being mind-controlled and can't help their actions and even then Fitz doesn't care. Season Four ramps it up, as the Framework shows the man he would have been with some less positive influences instead of Simmons, and it isn't pretty.
- My Greatest Failure: His father not caring about him was a big one for him until he got put into the Framework. It turns out that Fitz's father walking out on him was a blessing, because growing up with him turned Fitz into the sociopath known as the Doctor.
- My God, What Have I Done?: His real-life reaction to his Framework counterpart the Doctor's crimes, after Dr. Radcliffe throws him into the portal.
- Necessarily Evil: When Coulson was kidnapped he didn't care how many Centipede soldiers had to die to rescue him. When Skye was gut shot he agreed that the proposed methods of treatment sounded "diabolic" but that "you can't argue with the results."
- Nice Guy: He's managed to remain The Cutie despite everything that he's gone through.
- The Nicknamer: The first MCU character to say the word "Inhuman," in reference to Skye's impossibly fast heartbeat after becoming Quake.
- Non-Action Guy: It's made very clear that he has no skills whatsoever with bullets or fists. Lampshaded when he laments not having learned kung-fu to prepare for the job. In "FZZT," this becomes a minor issue for him, hinting that he feels inadequate surrounded by the badass actions of people like Ward all the time.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- To Grant Ward of all people. After waking up from the Framework he realizes that, just like it was with Ward, all that it took for him to go bad was an Evil Mentor.
- When Deke calls out Fitz on the latter's Jerkass behavior towards him in "Inside Voices", he sadly adds that Daisy hates them both now for their respective betrayals.
- Obfuscating Disability: When promising to act as Skye's Secret-Keeper following his realisation that she's developed superpowers, he's able to successfully convince Simmons and May that nothing is wrong by using his usually total honesty, his acknowledged clumsiness, and the fact that he's been suffering from an apparent relapse in his mental health. Despite being two of the people who ought to be most attuned to him lying to them and that there's an atmosphere of almost total distrust around the base, they both accept what he says implicitly.
- Older Than They Look: Gets teased for this when they visit the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy in "Seeds", when Skye and Simmons tease him for still being believable as a student despite being in his mid-twenties. Fitz counters that he'll still look good when they're "jealous, wrinkly old hags".
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted; he's an engineering and tech specialist who has a decent working knowledge of other disciplines, but it's very clear what his role in the team is and what his limitations are in areas like computer sciences and life sciences.
- Played Straight (or at least straighter) in later seasons, specifically after Daisy gains her Quake powers and the computer expert part of her character is all but dropped to focus on it. It's never commented on, but Fitz becomes a lot more prolific in computer sciences around the same time.
- Parental Abandonment: His father abandoned him as a child. If the simulated version of his father who appears in the Framework is an accurate emulation, that was probably for the best.
- Platonic Life-Partners: While he was attracted to her when she first joined the team, him and Skye/Daisy develop into this, particularly after he becomes her confidant and stands-up for her following her Terrigenesis. They share a deep friendship and trust in each other, being arguably each other's closest friend after Simmons. This all serves to make the breakdown of their friendship following Fitz's temporary Sanity Slippage in "The Devil Complex" an even greater tearjerker.
- Plucky Comic Relief:
- Though everyone gets a certain amount of this, largely due to the MCU being a World of Snark, Fitz fills this role most consistently due to his status as the Butt-Monkey of the main cast. Often involves a Funny Background Event, but he gets a fair bit of deliberate snarking in as well.
- "FZZT" shows him attempting to fulfill this role In-Universe: while he and Simmons are desperately (and unsuccessfully) searching for the cure to the Chitauri virus she's been infected with, he makes a few jokes and tries to get her to smile. It even sort of works.
- Proud to Be a Geek: In addition to his unabashed geeking over all things related to engineering, he's shown to be a fan of Doctor Who and Minecraft. He's also revealed as the owner of the Grumpy Cat mug that finds its way into Playground Base in Season 2.
- Put on a Bus:
- He's absent for the latter half of "The Beginning of the End" due to suffering severe oxygen deprivation as a result of his Heroic Sacrifice to save Simmons. It's implied that he's in a coma and has suspected brain damage, but he's never seen on-screen again after Fury and Simmons pull him out of the ocean. This means he misses the final V-Formation Team Shot of the season, leaving something of a Cliffhanger as to whether this trope will stay in effect for Season 2.
- Ultimately Inverted, after a fashion: Fitz makes a partial recovery and re-joins the Team, but Simmons gets Put On A Bus for real; the version of her seen in the Season 2 premiere is revealed to be Fitz's hallucination of her after she leaves.
- Fitz is absent for much of Season 7, due to Iain's acting commitments elsewhere. In-universe, he's in hiding so the Chronicoms can't use him in their schemes.
- Really 700 Years Old: Technically, Fitz is at least a century old depending on how far away the Bad Future is, because (thanks to Enoch and his handy-dandy cryostasis pod) Fitz is the only member of the team to travel there the old-fashioned way. Though this doesn't apply to the time-duplicate Fitz, whose cryostasis was interrupted after only a few months.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Simmons's blue, sometimes they're even Colour-Coded for Your Convenience. Though interestingly, while he has the emotional and Hot-Blooded aspects of the Red Oni, he tends to be the cautious and worried one of the duo.
- Relationship Upgrade: After more than two and a half seasons, Fitz and Simmons finally enter a romantic relationship in "The Team". They're still together in Season 4, when most of Team Coulson is separated from each other, and are planning to move into an apartment together. They finally say I Do in Season 5.
- Running Gag:
- His love of monkeys. This is apparently a bit of
Actor-Shared Background/Throw It In! from Iain De Caestecker. - He has a tendency to get knocked out by someone every time he turns around. Simmons and Coulson even lampshade the latter in "Yes Men".
- No matter how dire the situation, Fitz can be relied upon to complain that he's hungry, though he barely ever gets to eat, even if the food is right there.
- Fitz does not like it when Simmons flirts with someone else or gets hit on, and his obvious annoyance forms a Funny Background Event right up until he acknowledges how he feels about her and it stops being Played for Laughs.
- His love of monkeys. This is apparently a bit of
- Sanity Slippage: Following the traumatic events of the Framework, Fitz's mind created a split personality of his Framework persona to deal with his actions. While trying to close the rift to the Fear Dimension, the stress and loss of sleep caused a psychotic episode where he began hallucinating the Doctor to justify his actions to remove Daisy's inhibitor against her will to properly compress the Gravitonium to seal the rift. This is actually a Call-Back to Season 2, where Fitz hallucinated a version of Simmons that wasn't there thanks to his brain damage.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: A Downplayed example with Simmons. It's clear Fitz's only reason for joining the team was so that they could keep working together after Simmons decided to become a field agent, and he's openly apprehensive about going on missions, at least to begin with.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: When falling victim to his own forgotten prank in "Repairs". It makes a particularly amusing contrast to his usual level-headedness when faced with a real crisis.
- Secret-Keeper: He takes it upon himself to keep Skye's becoming an Inhuman from the rest of the team until they've calmed down from the event that caused it.
- Single-Target Sexuality: It's downplayed as he was implied to be attracted to Skye by some Freudian slips and nervous behavior, but from "FZZT" onward he's exclusively Jemma-sexual, barring the occasional act of brainwashing. Unfortunately, not only is brainwashing a real problem in the MCU, it's something of an occupational hazard for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. When Fitz is plugged into the Framework, AIDA alters his memories so that she takes Jemma's place in Fitz's life. This causes Fitz to not only become a sadist but to develop obsessive loyalty not to Jemma, but to AIDA, who in the Framework is known as Madame Hydra. When his father asks if he's seeing another woman, Fitz laughs it off as though the idea were preposterous. When Fitz is woken up from the Framework, AIDA still wants to be with him, but even with two lives' worth of memories, Fitz says he can't love anyone but Jemma, which causes AIDA to snap.Aida: You're a romantic. And there's only room in your heart—
Fitz: For her. - Sharp-Dressed Man: The Framework version of Fitz is always in an immaculate three-piece suit.
- Ship Tease: Initially he's attracted to Skye, but from "FZZT" onward he experiences something of a drawn-out Love Epiphany with regards to his formerly platonic relationship with Simmons.
- Skilled, but Naive: The status of both him and Simmons when they join the team. Of everyone on the Bus, they are the least acclimated to the hardships of life and battle.
- The Smart Guy: Shares the role with Simmons because they're The Dividual. He specializes in the technological side of things.
- The So-Called Coward: After his Character Development in "The Hub", he's more akin to this. His "cowardice" being more a matter of his opinions than his actions.
- The Slow Path: Fitz is the only member of the team who's not transported to the future via Kree Monolith, instead, he tracks down Enoch, who gives him a cryostasis pod, in which he simply sleeps for the next several decades until being woken up at the same point in the timeline where the others have arrived.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: He and Simmons have been put through Hell and back over the course of the series. Then they literally become this when Simmons gets taken by the Monolith. He even Lampshades this in "Many Heads, One Tale", when he says that he and Simmons are "cursed" and that the cosmos wants them apart.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: With Scott Lang. Both Fitz and Scott independently got the idea to use the quantum realm to travel back in time to retrieve a lost item from the past needed to save the world.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: He's resigned to his hallucination of Simmons having a crush on Mack, and openly admits this probably means he agrees with her assessments of the latter's attractiveness. Ironically, the real Simmons doesn't get along with Mack at first.
- Tantrum Throwing: Has an occasional tendency to do severe damage to the surfaces of lab tables when he's really, really upset.
- Technical Pacifist: He has no problems with firing ICERs at people, the prospect of helping torture someone, or trying to fight back with fisticuffs to defend himself, but if he has to kill someone, he balks at it. This changes as the series progresses, where he develops the will to kill.
- Teen Genius: He and Simmons were both mentioned to have been this back when they were at the Academy.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Considering how things ended for him in Season One, Season Two begins with things not looking too bad for Fitz. He may have some pretty severe nominal aphasia, a touch of paranoia, and be on a string of medications, but since he could have been left brain-dead he got pretty lucky: He's still a capable engineer and Simmons is constantly by his side to reassure and encourage him. Except Simmons left months ago after deciding that her presence was hindering his recovery, but her absence only caused him to disconnect from reality completely, and now he's hallucinating her and unable to work. What Fitz (and the audience) sees as frustrating but gradual recovery, the rest of Team Coulson recognises as a rapid descent into madness. However, in the second episode of Season Two, he shows that he's aware "Simmons" isn't really there despite the hallucination continuing to talk to him, and he's able to come up with a solution to stop Creel, but he needs Mack to essentially help translate his own ramblings to himself first. Comes back way later in Season 5, when he starts hallucinating the Framework version of himself as a separate entity thanks to his old brain injury.
- Throwing Off the Disability: After Coulson describes him as too damaged to ever return to work in the Season 2 premiere, he does a pretty good job of demonstrating he's still valuable to the team in the following episodes, provided Mack can provide the missing words brought on by his aphasia and Hunter can do the physical work he's no longer able to since losing some of the mobility in his hands. Of course, Coulson's gloomy prognosis probably didn't take into account how much Fitz's psychological distress over Simmons leaving was holding back other aspects of his recovery.
- Zig-zagged as Iain De Caestecker never actually stopped portraying the disability even after the plot moved on & his performance joined the new status quo. If you rewatch, in Season 1 Fitz almost never stumbles over his obnoxiously. large. words. But as the brain damage plot starts taking a backseat mid-season 2 (because he's improving), he starts using a more accessable and *relatively* simpler vocabularly that is harder to stumble over. Which he does, all the time, stuttering & stumbling periodically in his dialogue, right up until Fitz's very last scene of the show.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Because he was the only member of the team who took The Slow Path to the Bad Future, when Fitz travels back in time with the rest of the team he returns to a timeline where there's already a version of him alive, albeit in cryogenic stasis. When the main Fitz dies in the Season 5 finale, the team resolves to take the Zephyr and go looking for the version of him that's still frozen on Enoch's spaceship somewhere.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- His Character Arc in "The Hub" is about adding the 'badass' part to his Badass Bookworm credentials.
- He goes up another level in "Laws of Nature" where he outsmarts mobsters and then escapes from them with his objective in hand. Then, in "Purpose in the Machine", he literally jumps into an unstable portal just on the hope of finding Simmons on the other side.
- Shown to be a side effect of his alternate self in the Framework come Season 5, as he seems to have better combat training and a mean streak to back it up, which surprises Hunter who wasn't present for the Framework stuff.
- Took a Level in Jerkass:
- He handles the events of "Turn, Turn, Turn" worst of all, and ever since then he's been generally less sociable and pleasant.
- Season Two builds on this following the incident that leaves him brain-damaged. He's completely socially withdrawn, except from his hallucination of Simmons, to whom he's frequently irritable and unkind. He also shows a few more violent tendencies which were only hinted at in Season Two, though he limits himself to inanimate objects and Ward.
- Although it's an alternate reality version of him, Season Four cranks this all the way up until the dial breaks. To the point where the very potential that sweet, dorky Fitz could ever have the potential to be like that traumatizes a large portion of the team - Fitz himself perhaps worst of all.
- Starts to happen to the real Fitz in Season 5, as a result of seeing both his alternate evil self and a Bad Future that apparently cannot be prevented. Mack calls him out on this, and Fitz ends up pulling a Heroic Sacrifice which averts the Bad Future. Thankfully, there's still another version of Fitz out there in space who has a chance to do better, and probably will, without the pressure of the Bad Future weighing on his mind.
- Season 6 sees Fitz at his most desperate, both to survive a hostile universe, and to reunite with Jemma. The stress understandably gets to him, but unfortunately the one who's taking the brunt of it is poor Enoch. Enoch is truly going out of his way (and well outside his parameters) to help Fitz - he even considers him his best friend! And yet all Fitz does is demean and manipulate the poor guy. Not long after, Enoch suffers a massive existential crisis, moaning and pouting from severe depression while Fitz fights to save both of them. It's then when Fitz realizes just how important he is and how much he means to him, and finally returns the friendship Enoch's given him.
- Trademark Favorite Food: The very specific sandwich that Simmons makes for him in "The Hub". His relationship with it has mutated into something of a
Cargo Ship among the fanbase (and the cast themselves, if the "behind the scenes" photo showing Fitz and the sandwich happily reunited is anything to go by). - Tranquil Fury: Fitz doesn't seem quite as furious as his teammates when it's his turn to rake Ward over the coals, but what he does to him... ain't that a kick in the head!
- Undying Loyalty: When you get Fitz's loyalty, it's nearly impossible to break.
- To Coulson. When the others begin to think he's acting erratically after HYDRA's return he tells the others to zip it.
- To Ward. Even after he's revealed to be The Mole, Fitz is the only person on the team who's still convinced that Ward must have a good reason for what he's done. After Ward tries to kill him and Simmons, this goes away.
- To Skye. When Simmons develops her bout of Fantastic Racism and everyone else is wary of Skye's new powers, he's the only one who doesn't hesitate to be on her side 100%. He's her Secret-Keeper for an episode or two, he stands up for her in arguments about her - he knows what it's like to suddenly be "different", and he refuses to treat her as he was treated.
- To Simmons. He originally joined Team Coulson because Simmons wanted to be a field agent, and Fitz went along to keep working with her. Then he's willing to sacrifice his life to save her, which leaves him with brain damage. While the fallout of this damages the relationship between Fitz and Simmons, they ultimately reconcile, just in time for Simmons to get swallowed by the Monolith. Fitz then spends the next six months looking for a way to get her back, and when he does, he jumps into a portal without hesitation to find her.
- Villain Killer: Leo Fits is surprisingly good at killing Dragons, killing Gordon at the end of Season 2 and Giyera at the end of Season 3.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: While his Doctor persona puts things into motion in "The Devil Complex", he resorts to rather questionable methods towards the goal of containing the dimensional crack in the Lighthouse.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Seems to have a genuine fear of dead things and the possible diseases they can carry.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Just as Simmons seems ready to abandon this role towards the end of the season, Fitz takes it up, insisting that no one is inherently evil, and that Ward must have genuinely cared for them. An unusual case in that this trope comes into effect after Break the Cutie has comprehensively taken place for his character.
Alternate Versions
Fitz LMD
Leo Fitz LMD
"I'm not gonna fight you, Jemma, even if you are a decoy. I'm the bad guy, okay? No matter what. So I'll do whatever you say. Okay? I'll do whatever you say."
Species: Life-Model Decoy
Portrayed By: Iain De Caestecker
Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
An android duplicate of Agent Leo Fitz, created to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of Radcliffe's plans to replace the entire organization with LMD duplicates.
- Manipulative Bastard: In stark contrast to the real Leo Fitz, his LMD does everything he can to trick Simmons into believing he's the Fitz she knows, only to stab her in the back when she's vulnerable.
- Rasputinian Death: Jemma drops an engine on him, stabs him in the chest repeatedly, and cuts his neck before he finally gives out. The other LMDs manage to patch him up fairly quickly.
Framework Leopold Fitz / The Doctor
Dr. Leopold James Fitz
"Did you think that you could play in the shadows without me?"
Species: Human
Citizenship: Scottish
Portrayed By: Iain De Caestecker
Voiced By: Miguel Ángel Ruiz [Disney dub], Arturo Castañeda [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub), Thadeu Matos (Brazilian Portuguese dub)
Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"The Doctor" is Fitz's cruel alter-ego in AIDA's Framework, who continues to manifest himself in the real world from his counterpart's broken psyche.
- Alternate Self: The Framework version of himself is a cruel sociopath known as The Doctor. This is because who Fitz becomes is based on which single parent he grew up with; while the real version of himself grew up with his caring mother (who raised him to become the All-Loving Hero he is today), his Framework counterpart grew up with his ruthless and abusive father, who never left him and instead took him away from his mom when he was young. As AIDA reveals later, she also injected herself into his life in her Framework identity as Ophelia/Madame Hydra and in effect replaced Simmons as his friend and Love Interest, which also had a lot to do with it.
- Anti-Hero: Ironically, given his Framework crimes, the Doctor ends up functioning as this in the real world, as though his actions are still questionable, up to and including a torturous surgical procedure, his intentions appear to be good this time around.
- Beware the Nice Ones: In the Framework, having a good relationship with his Jerkass father, no Jemma, and with Aida/Madame Hydra feeding him half-truths, the normally compassionate Fitz develops into a psychopath easily willing to torture Inhumans (including Daisy) and kill an innocent woman For the Evulz in the Framework. Perhaps he is right: we don't know him at all.
- Breakout Villain: The Doctor became incredibly popular with fans for his sheer creepiness, leading to him returning in guest roles in the next two seasons.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": This is used to differentiate the Framework version of Fitz from his personality in the real world. His Framework self goes by "Leopold" to people he knows personally and "The Doctor" to nearly anybody else, with very few people calling him "Fitz". This is ironic because his Framework self is the one that stayed with his father and would more reasonably want to carry on the family name - although in the Framework, most HYDRA members are familiar with both the father and the son, so in a way, this actually makes some sense.
- The Dragon: Fitz serves as Ophelia's lover and the second-in-command of HYDRA within the Framework as "the Doctor."
- Dragon Ascendant: While he doesn't take over as the villain for the season as a whole, after AIDA's Ophelia avatar within the Framework is taken out of commission by Daisy, the Doctor becomes the new head of HYDRA, spearheading the hunt for S.H.I.E.L.D. to avenge his lover.
- Enemy Within: He serves as this to Fitz in the episode "The Devil Complex", surfacing as a split personality who takes ruthless but necessary actions like restoring Daisy's powers through surgery against her will that go against the morals of Fitz's regular personality. At first, Fitz believes the Doctor is an Enemy Without made real by the portal to the Fear Dimension that's been acting up in the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents' base recently, but then Daisy reveals she cannot see the person Fitz is arguing with, whereas Fear Dimension manifestations can be seen and touched by everyone. In fact, he was brought out by a combination of crisis-level stress and Fitz's old brain injury.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's very attached to his father and to Ophelia, and is enraged when the former is killed by Jemma and the latter is injured by Daisy. He also shoots Agnes because Ophelia claims that she's a threat to her whom Dr Radcliffe wants to replace her with, and believes Ophelia's half-truths about herself having been treated as a slave in another world she escaped from that's now intruding on theirs.
- Faux Affably Evil: Leopold maintains Fitz's Nice Guy attitude, but it’s all a façade.
- Hate Sink: In the Framework, he is initially shown as just an average HYDRA scientist, like Arnim Zola, who is evil but has limits, but he is later revealed to be on the heinous scale of Daniel Whitehall, with the one redeeming quality being his love for his father and Madame Hydra. Among the resistance, he's thoroughly Dreaded, and Mace's reaction to hearing that Simmons loves Fitz is basically, "Are you crazy?"
- Hero Killer: The Doctor kills at least two innocent people from the real world in the Framework, Jeffrey Mace and Agnes Kitsworth. Because in the Framework Your Mind Makes It Real, this means that both of them are dead in real life, too.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He hesitates when Holden Radcliffe begs him not to kill Agnes, then goes through with it anyway.
- Knight of Cerebus: His presence always brings with it unquestionable dread, as the personification of all of Fitz's faults and potential for evil.
- Mad Scientist: The Doctor was feared for his unethical and immoral scientific experiments on Inhumans, and his complete lack of sympathy towards those who went against the regime.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: He's always dressed in an immaculate three-piece suit.
- Tranquil Fury: His anger tends to take a cold and understated form, until he's Suddenly Shouting.
- Undying Loyalty: This trait is turned against Fitz when he is plugged into the Framework. Because AIDA altered his memories so that she was a part of his life instead of Jemma, Fitz develops undying loyalty to her, which leads to undying loyalty to the Framework version of HYDRA. Add to that that his sadistic father was still part of his life in this world, and Fitz becomes a sadist while in the Framework. Luckily, Radcliffe forcibly throws him into the portal to the real world before he can hurt Simmons, and when Fitz wakes up he's utterly traumatized by what he did in the Framework, thoroughly and completely broken by what happened in there.
- Unholy Matrimony: He and Ophelia are romantically involved. He later becomes this with Nightmare Jemma, giving up their hunt for the real FitzSimmons in their memories to passionately make out.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his Doctor persona in "The Devil Complex", he resorts to rather questionable methods towards the goal of containing the dimensional crack in the Lighthouse.
