[ Lucky that she chooses that moment to look away, that he doesn't have long to consider the slight colour in her cheeks or the way she fidgets, so unlike her typical poise — because she asks after the science, so his focus drifts, spying something in the corner of his eye.

This is the part he knows intimately, the knowledge he's withheld since arriving here and chatting with Strange (seeing the slight knit of his brows, hearing the suspicion in his voice). Fitz knows exactly what tests you need to run to ascertain to get a full picture of their inhuman profiles. His life's work was finding ways to identify, extract, and use that data. Bloodwork's only the start. ]

Yes, apart from the aliens and the androids, we're rather ordinary.

[ dry, that. he straightens up. ]

But there are other tests. [ Fitz's hand returns to his pocket, shifting the coin between his fingers. ] We'd need DNA samples and lots of them. [ rattling them off, ] Hair, nails, cheek swabs, and so on. [ a noncommittal noise. ] We could look at hormone levels, too. And see if we've been exposed to radiation of some kind through frequent blood tests over several days, looking for drops in disease-fighting white blood cells and abnormal changes in the DNA of blood cells. [ sighing. ] We'll also need controls from several local individuals willing to submit the same samples — [ oh, now there's an idea. ] — like the lab techs we rescued.

[ He glances back to her, eyes alight with interest. Maybe they can look into this, after all. ]