Set post-The Scene™ but while Daisy is around and part of the team and everything's groovy.
"Well, 'course you'd be in a chipper mood," Fitz grumbled, yanking off the baggy grandpa-style shirt he'd been made to wear during their undercover assignment. "You got to team up with Daisy today. I'm not surprised you had fun."
"Oh, Fitz! May's not so bad, surely," Jemma tutted, kicking her heels into the corner as she shrugged on Fitz's old Academy tee. "She barely speaks, how could she possibly have upset you this much?"
Fitz snorted. "Yeah, except for the part where you get her into costume and she transforms into some sort of… shrill-laughing… sex monster!" He waved a pointer finger accusingly, even as he bent over to peel off his socks. "I'm certain someone was punishing me for something. It's the only thing that makes sense."
Jemma rolled her eyes. He kept talking, shimmying into his pajama bottoms and tying off the drawstring as he started to pace. "You remember the first time we heard her cackle? On that mission to recover the painti… oh. Right." Jemma'd been at Hydra at the time. "Well, take my word for it, it was very unsettling."
"All right, I will," she said with only slight condescension, reaching into her bag to find the makeup wipes. "I still think it can't have been that bad. So she laughed a bit too much; so what? You've faced worse."
"Except someone decided that her undercover persona was a middle-aged cougar, Jemma, and she spent the entire time leering at me like a piece of meat!" He brought up two fingers to rub at his forehead, cursing inwardly. How in the world was he supposed to face May at the next team meeting? "Christ, she's always treated us like, well I don't want to say her children, but—"
"No, that's fair, she's quite maternal in her own way—"
"—but she kept making comments, Jemma! Goin' on about how handsome I am, how she wanted to 'start a new relationship' and 'open up my flower' or somesuch nonsense," he sped up, eyebrows climbing as his words hurried into each other, "and what would it be like if we were married and why don't I ever take my shirt off and all sorts of questionable things!" His voice took on a new intensity as he nervously scanned the room (rather ridiculously, Jemma thought, seeing as it was their own bedroom) before leaning forward to whisper, "Honestly? I think May might fancy me."
Jemma scoffed, the sound muffled by the moist towelette currently swiping across her face.
"I'm serious! Why else would she put that kind of energy into a cover?"
"Because she's a professional, Fitz, really!" Jemma chucked the wipe into the bin by the bed and pursed her lips. "If May had those feelings for you, why would she wait until now to show them? We've been working with her for years."
"Well, you know what they say about forbidden fruit." He wagged his eyebrows. "Maybe she only wants me now I'm off the market."
"Hmm," she smirked, pointedly eyeing the way his pajamas snugged around his bum. "I must say, you have gotten significantly hotter since she first met you."
He paused deliberately, tossed her a cocky grin in a bid to hide how his ears pinked up at the once-over. After a day of being ogled by May, Jemma's appreciative gaze felt like aloe as it slid over him. Not that May was unattractive. Not by half. But he really didn't need to know what her 'bedroom voice' sounded like when she said the word genitals. And that dress she'd been wearing? He'd never have thought that a skintight leather catsuit could look conservative by comparison. It was almost as if May'd had a second mission that day. A mission to corrupt him.
"Look," Jemma offered, twining her hands around his waist and letting her fingers slip beneath his undershirt. "If you want, I'll pair up with May for the next assignment." They both knew she couldn't make any such guarantee, but he appreciated the gesture.
"Like you'd fare any better." He stepped in, nuzzling her hairline with his nose. "You're far too polite. After the fifth double entendre, you'd be wishing you were anywhere else."
"Leopold Fitz." Her lips nipped against his Adam's apple. "Are you saying I can't handle a little sexual innuendo?"
His breath caught, the whole of his attention suddenly on her wandering hands. "N— no, that's not at all what I'm saying, I just don't think you should have to—"
"Because I can handle," she said mischievously, gripping the meat of his arse like she was testing an avocado, "anything you can handle." Her fingertips drifted over his hips, teasing him with the suggestion of moving down his front before reversing course, pushing his shirt up with her wrists. She moved even closer, teeth grazing his earlobe before she whispered, "And for the record, having to spend all day flirting with you and not being able to touch? I'd say May was the one being punished."
Fitz chuckled, splaying his palms wide across her back, and dipped his head to kiss her in earnest as the world shrank down to the two of them, all lingering lips, hard touch and soft breath. Jemma was the perfect antidote to a rough day at work, unvented complaints fading into the background as her tongue skimmed down the corded tendon in his neck. Not for the first time, he welcomed the reminder that sometimes, talking only served to interrupt kissing, and nothing was worth interrupting a kiss from Jemma.
Besides, if Jemma wanted to believe that May had kept her hands to herself, he was more than willing to let her.
:-D
So this was obviously inspired by the serendipitous bounty of amazing SDCC interviews with Ming-Na Wen and Iain de Caestecker. #blessed
For what it's worth, I adore Ming, her sense of humor is my patronus, she always looks flawless (at half her age I was not even a little bit that sexy) and her life philosophies just seem to be the mark of a wonderful person.
BUT I ALSO LOVE HER EVEN MORE BECAUSE OF IAIN'S SCANDALIZED REACTIONS
(I also thought Iain's normally-terrible fashion sense was much better this year! *sniff* Nick Blood, your absence weighs on us all!)
Also this was very nearly titled "Cougar? I Hardly Know 'Er!" except I couldn't resist the WTFness of the assumption that Star Wars and John Cougar Mellencamp somehow go together