Disclaimer: I don't own Agents of Shield
Home was such a bizarre word. Four letters, one syllable, bucketful of meanings.
When Fitz had been six, his mum had made him repeat back their address to her, in case he got lost. He had memorised it immediately, but every day for nearly three months she had made him recite it whenever they went out.
Then when he was six or seven, he had been feeding the ducks and his father had gone off to look for an ice cream truck. He had wandered a little way over the bridge, chasing this goose that was definitely going to be fed, whether it wanted to be or not.
He had turned around, successful in his mission, only to find that he didn't know where he was. He didn't recognise anything. He started to cry, panicking, until a kind blonde woman had asked whether he was lost. Instead of reciting his address, like he had been told so many times before, instead of pointing in the direction his father was probably in, instead of just saying yes, Fitz started to describe his home.
Still sobbing, Fitz incoherently blabbered about his blue bedroom, and his ceiling painted like space. Ignoring the lady's gentle questions, he gulped and hiccupped about his yellow kitchen, and where the furniture was to the exact millimetre. About the white front door, with the peeling paint and place where he hid his chocolate.
His father had shown up ten minutes later, looking flustered.
Just before he turned nine, his home had been compromised. It was no longer a place for family, or for laughter. His father was gone and he had taken Fitz's home with him.
It was a little while before he noticed, but soon home wasn't his small house.
When he pictured home, it wasn't of his space-themed room or white front door, but of his mother. His mum making breakfast, shouting at him to hurry up, telling him to put on jacket on or there was going to be hell to pay.
His mum protecting him, and loving him and making him laugh.
Not much changed when Fitz moved to America. His room was his room, his lab was his lab, his mother was home.
It was even a fairly common question when people first heard his accent. They tended to ask him where he was from. Where home was. Automatically he would picture his mother, alone in their house, making dinner for one, before replying with:
'Scotland.'
He had originally wanted to go Edinburgh or Glasgow, as close to her as possible, but then SHIELD had come along with an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
At first Fitz had been so homesick, he considered leaving. He had missed his mother like crazy; he had missed that feeling of home.
When Fitz had befriended Simmons, everything had seemed a little better. She knew what it was like to be homesick, to only talk to your parents on the phone because you're half the world away. It was one of the first things that they both instinctively shared and understood about each other. It was not the last.
Fitz made a trip home to Scotland a week before Simmons' birthday. He remembered the moments leading up to the call vividly. He'd been going out to grab Chinese for Simmons and him, as they were planning to pull an all-nighter. He had been annoyed when he saw his mum calling, because he had tried her several times earlier that day and she hadn't picked up.
It was the hospital.
He didn't remember much about what was said. All Fitz could remember was the blur of the next two days; buying plane tickets and packing, eating was an inconvenience and he didn't sleep.
Once again, his home was being threatened. He never should have left his mum to fend for herself.
He stayed in Scotland for two weeks. His mum came out of the hospital a few days after he arrived so the majority of time was spent at her house.
It had been odd. Fitz had been home for the summer six months ago, but everything seemed different. One of the neighbours had moved, new trees had been planted, there was a peculiar feel to the place.
And then there was girl from the coffee shop right next to his house.
He had been picking up hot chocolates as a treat for his mother, because he realised that she had stopped keeping hot chocolate powder in the top right drawer beneath the sink, and he was a firm believer that there was nothing that a good hot chocolate couldn't solve.
When he had lived with his mum, Fitz hadn't been to the coffee shop enough to have a regular or to chat casually and often with the staff, but sometimes they would recognise him from school, or shopping, or just from around.
He had never seen this girl before. She had started making conversation, after he ordered the drinks since he was the only one in the shop.
'So, where are you from, then?'
'Sorry?'
'Where's home?' she had repeated, leaning over the counter and smiling.
Here. This was home. Fitz had said barely anything, not enough for her to get a good feel for his accent. So it meant that she had just assumed. Gathered from the way he held himself and the way he acted that he wasn't from around here.
Fitz didn't want to embarrass her, so he notched up his American accent (he'd been practicing) and spun this lie about visiting from the states.
But when he was walking back, Fitz didn't think that what he believed to be the truth was quite the right answer anymore.
His mother had changed. She's got a new haircut, painted the front door maroon and she just seemed… Odd. New. Different.
Fitz spent a lot of the time he was in Scotland on the phone to Simmons. Whilst he was shopping, or she was experimenting so they could pretend that they weren't in separate countries.
Fitz had spent so long wanted to come home to Scotland, to his mother, but in his head Simmons always seemed to be right there beside him.
As much as he loved his mum, maybe it was time for Fitz to build himself a new home, instead of relying on one, that it appeared, was starting to disappear.
He and Simmons had lived in a variety of apartments over the years. They had been kicked out more times than Simmons would ever admit, mostly because of Fitz, but sometimes because of Simmons. There were also the standard problems of their lease running out, and moving to be closer to that particular waffle place on the outskirts of town.
These apartments didn't differ much in size or shape, two bedrooms, a small lounge and kitchen, a bathroom and that extra room that Simmons had dubbed early on as the 'research room'.
They all seemed the same.
They were all home.
Home was their Doctor Who DVD's stacked in chronological order; it was his papers spread hazardously about the place, where he would stumble across half-finished designs months later. Home was Simmons pulling his covers off because he had overslept again, them making dinner, getting flour all over the counters, falling asleep on the sofa after working on their new assignment.
When Simmons had been so excited about their opportunity to work in the field, one of the many things Fitz was worried about was leaving it all behind. When you're constantly on the move, it's difficult to have a permanent home.
Then. Simmons and Fitz were on a trip to buy new pyjamas, Fitz had been forced into coming because apparently it was his fault that the washing machine numbers were unreadable and half of her clothes had come out three sizes too small. He would have ended up coming anyway, but he wouldn't have had Simmons holding it over him for the next couple of months.
He had stepped outside the shop to check his phone, a professor was supposed to email him their latest test score and Simmons was getting nervous.
He saw a small kid, maybe five or six, standing stock still, looking helpless as the streams people passed her. Fitz made his way over the child cautiously; he wasn't amazing with kids, as he had learnt the hard way trying to get Simmons' baby cousin to like him that one unfortunate time someone had convinced them into babysitting.
Fitz crouched down in front of the tiny girl, getting down to her eye level.
'Are you all right?' he asked her quietly, he didn't want to spook her.
The girl stared at him blankly.
'Where are you parents?'
Still with the creepy staring.
'Where's your home?'
Fitz swore she didn't even blink; she just stood completely still and silently.
'Olivia!' Someone who Fitz assumed was the mother was frantically striding down the street towards them. 'What have we told you about wandering off?' The woman picked up Olivia in her arms and apologised to Fitz. 'We just can't get her to stay still!' She offered as way of an excuse.
'No problem.'
He spun around, and saw Simmons in leaning against the doorway of the shop. She was smiling at him, bag in hand, and as he got to her, she launched straight into a story of the unhelpful check out man.
Fitz didn't know why it had taken him this long to realise it, or why it had hit him in this particular moment. All he really knew was that he wasn't too worried about going into the field anymore.
Everything from their constant change in apartments, to that girl in coffee shop knowing he wasn't from the area, to the tiny child he had just talked to seemed to have proved one thing that he now knew with absolute certainty.
Home was her. Home was them.
And nothing was going to take that from him.
A/N: This is a quick thing that I found interesting. The title is taken from cinematic orchestra 'To Build a Home' which is awesome and you should definitely listen to it. This links in loosely with my other Fitzsimmons story which you can read if you want. I would really like to do one of these for Simmons as another chapter, but it may be a little while because I've got these pesky exams.
So if you liked it or hated it, if you think it was overly sappy and unrealistic, if there wasn't enough Simmons or have no idea why it was this moment that Fitz finally realised Simmons was home, let me know.