Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons had a tradition of sorts. Given Valentine's Day was always particularly depressing in the romance area for both of them, Fitz had decided, in their first year at the Academy, to make things just a bit more cheerful. Of course, because he was Fitz, "cheerful" had meant leaving heart-shaped pieces of pink paper with science pick-up lines written on them just about everywhere he knew she would be headed that day.
She had found "Are you made of Copper and Tellurium? Because you are Cu-Te," in her sock drawer, "Didn't you know that chemists do it periodically on the table?" in her textbook during Chem 521, and "Do you have 11 protons? 'Cause you're Sodium fine!" tucked beneath her tea at lunch, to which she'd looked across the table to find her companion smirking at her.
"You're the one that's been leaving these silly things all morning, aren't you?" she'd questioned, to which he shrugged.
"Maybe you just have a secret admirer," he'd disputed as he took a bite of his sandwich, to which she lightly kicked him beneath their table.
"The only way a 'secret admirer' could have left that first one in my sock drawer would be if he were my secret stalker. It's obviously been you; you're the only one with access to all of my things. Give it up, Fitz."
But he wasn't going to do so quite that easily. "I confess nothing," he'd quipped, and Jemma huffed in response. If he wanted to do things that way, two could play at this game.
That afternoon, Fitz found "Are you a compound of Beryllium and Barium? Because you're a total BaBe," in the pocket of his lab coat during Bio 204, "We fit together like the sticky ends of recombinant DNA," stuck to his dorm room door on a POST-IT, and "You're hotter than a bunsen burner set to full power," on his pillow when he had gotten ready to go to sleep. When he questioned Jemma about it the next morning over breakfast, she also confessed to nothing.
And thus began what FitzSimmons affectionately liked to call the "Valentine's Day Wars". Each year, the two of them would hide as many cheesy science pick-up lines as possible where the other may find them, and the one who successfully planted the most at the end of the day would be the year's victor. The loser would have to buy the winner a Valentine's Day themed gift of their choice as a makeshift sort of trophy. Fitz particularly hated losing, because Jemma always chose expensive chocolates and then refused to share any with him.
The year that they joined the team, the score was 6:4 in Jemma's favor. Fitz was determined to win, partly because he wanted the chance at catching up, but mostly because he didn't want to endure another year of no chocolate. What the pair didn't consider was that they would be playing in an enclosed space thousands of feet above ground, and there were other people around to notice the corny heart-shaped pieces of paper hidden in various locations on the Bus.
"What the hell is this?"
Skye, who had been wolfing down a bowl of Cheerios, glanced up from her cereal when Grant spoke, noticing that he had taken what appeared to be a Valentine out of the cupboard where the coffee grounds and teabags were stored.
"What's it say?" she asked once she swallowed her cereal, taking another bite only to snort so hard that milk nearly came out of her nose at what his next words were.
"If I were a neurotransmitter, I would be dopamine so I could activate your reward pathway."
"Oh my God!" she gasped once she was done practically choking to death, the sound turning to hysterical laughter. Ward still looked relatively weirded out, his gaze flitting to the girl losing it over at the table.
"What should I do with it?"
"Put it back!" she cried, jumping to her feet and walking over, snatching it from him to examine the handwriting, determining straight away that it belonged to their resident biochemist. "I highly doubt Simmons left a science related love note for you."
"Why not?" Ward asked, almost tempted to huff at the insult. "I'm not an idiot. I can understand a science come on when I see one."
"Oh yeah? What's a neurotransmitter?"
"...that's not the point."
Rolling her eyes, Skye put the Valentine back where Ward found it, shutting the cupboard door. Almost immediately after she did so, Fitz walked into the kitchen with his tablet in his hand, not yet noticing them, and Skye was quick to pull Ward away from the metaphorical 'scene of the crime' so that their smarter teammate wouldn't realize that the two of them had seen the Valentine that was obviously intended for him before he did. Too absorbed in his work, the engineer pulled open the cupboard and reached for a bag of tea, instead finding the piece of paper which caused him to properly lift his head and examine it. He smirked once he read the pick-up line, a quiet snicker escaping, but he was quick to shove it in his pocket and whirl around when Skye chirped, "Morning, Fitzy!"
"I, ehm, uh, I..." he stammered, his cheeks turning red, scratching the back of his head. "G'morning. Happy Valentine's Day to you both."
"Just fixin' a spo' o' tea?" Skye asked, attempting to mimic his accent, to which Fitz wrinkled his nose, walking past to fetch the kettle from behind them both, clearly snapping out of his daze.
"Don't ever do that again. Please."
"Right. Sure. No problemo. Come on, Ward, we have training to do."
"But I haven't had my breakfast yet-"
"You snooze, you lose!" she stated, dragging him out by his arm, and he frowned with obvious confusion once they were far enough from the kitchen not to be overheard.
"What's gotten into you? You hate morning training sessions."
"Yeah, I do."
"Then why are you so eager?"
"Because we're not training today."
"Excuse me?"
"We're going to spy on FitzSimmons."
"Excuse me?"
He made her stop pulling him along once he realized what she was up to, shaking his head with a frown. "I'm not going to spy on FitzSimmons. That's ridiculous."
"Oh, come on, Ward! Think of it as a training exercise. A lesson in real espionage. A field trip!"
"A field trip?"
"Come on, please? I just found out that our geeks are most definitely, one-hundred percent, actually crushing on each other, and you expect me not to do some digging? It's Valentine's Day, Ward; get in the spirit."
He didn't like this. For one, it was stupid; invading the privacy of their teammates was no way to learn espionage, of all things. Secondly, FitzSimmons most certainly weren't his geeks... but he also knew that Skye wouldn't shut up about it until he complied, so what choice did he really have?
"Alright, fine," he agreed with an exasperated noise, and Skye made an excited one of her own before tugging him in the direction of the lab.
Down the spiral staircase, unbeknownst to her that she was being watched, Simmons was fluttering around the lab, getting an early start on hiding her makeshift Valentines. She'd already hidden ones in Fitz's bunk, in his lab coat, in the kitchen where she knew he'd fix himself tea and toast, and on the stairs leading down to the garage. Now she was busy hiding them anywhere he might look during the day's work, and she'd been a bit miffed to find he'd somehow beat her to most of the good spots, already having found five that read, "Do you want to extract some protein from my column?", "According to the second law of thermodynamics, you're supposed to share your hotness with me," "How about me and you go back to my place and form a covalent bond?", "If I was an endoplasmic reticulum, how would you want me: smooth or rough?" and "We can make a mess as I've hired some lysosomes to clean up after." Needless to say, the lines had gotten a bit naughtier over the years, purely because those were typically the most amusing.
If her calculations and the time of day were correct, the score should currently be tied at 5:5, and her speculations were confirmed when the doors to the lab whizzed open just as she closed Fitz's tool drawer, quickly turning to face the other scientist as he pulled on his lab coat.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Dr. Fitz."
"Happy Valentine's Day to you, Dr. Simmons."
The two of them smirked at each other, quickly stating how many they had found so far in unison.
"Five." "Five."
Her smirk widening, Jemma's gaze flitted down to the pocket of his lab coat, to which he cursed quietly under his breath, pulling out the one tucked in his pocket that read, "You're so cute you make my zygomaticus muscles contract."
"Six," he mumbled under his breath, glancing at her own lab coat, not enjoying how smug she looked. The little minx.
"Did you find yours?" he asked, and she furrowed her brow.
"There wasn't one in my pocket this year," she stated with confusion, to which he smirked again.
"Did you check the inner pockets?"
Frowning, she shrugged off the lab coat to do so, finding one, as he had implied she would, in the inner breast-pocket, reading, "My hypothalamus must be secreting serotonin because baby, I want you!"
"Damn it," she huffed, and he laughed, crossing the lab to get to work, slipping on his goggles.
"I do believe we're tied, Dr. Simmons," he stated, more confident this year than he had been in a few given all the new hiding places that there were on the Bus. "I can taste the chocolate already."
"What do you think they're talking about?" Skye asked with confusion as she and Grant watched the two in the lab interact from their spot hiding in one of the operative SUVs, and the older agent shook his head.
"I can't tell... But I think she just wished him a happy Valentine's Day."
Glancing over at him, Skye arched an eyebrow.
"You can read lips?"
"I took a class."
"At SHIELD Hogwarts?"
"Don't call it that."
"..."
"But yes."
Turning her gaze back to the lab, Skye eagerly leaned forward when she saw Fitz pull another pink heart from his lab coat pocket.
"Oh my gosh, look! She left another one for him!"
Lifting the specially issued binoculars that they had retrieved before coming down, still finding this entire endeavor more than just a little ridiculous, Ward focused and zoomed in on what was in Fitz's hand, reading the words aloud so Skye would know what the Valentine said before she could even ask, which he knew she would do in a matter of seconds.
"You're so cute, you make my zygomaticus muscles contract."
"What the heck are zygomaticus muscles?"
"I have no idea."
"They sound sexual."
Ward coughed, his eyes widening, lowering the binoculars to turn and face Skye.
"Now you're implying that FitzSimmons not only like each other, but they're secretly having sex under Coulson's nose, even though fraternizing with coworkers is strictly against SHIELD protocol?"
"Yeah. So?" Skye asked, leaning back in her seat. "Just because it's against protocol doesn't mean people don't do it anyway."
"They aren't having sex."
"How would you know?"
"Because Simmons can't lie to save her life, and Fitz is way too uptight to be getting any."
Skye couldn't help frowning at that, mostly because he was probably right. "Darn."
"Darn?"
Catching his gaze, Skye lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I like knowing people's secrets."
"Okay, Rising Tide-"
"Shhh!"
"What now?"
"She's taking off her lab coat! They're totally going to do it on that table with all of the microscopes!"
Turning to look in at FitzSimmons again, Ward frowned and shook his head.
"Relax, will you? She's just getting something out of her pocket," he stated, turning to face her again after a moment, "Besides, if they were going to have sex, do you honestly think they'd be stupid enough to do it in a room with glass walls?"
"Clearly you have no sense of kink," Skye remarked, grabbing the binoculars from him to get a closer look, missing the flustered look on his face. "Oh hey! She's got a Valentine in her lab coat, too."
Lowering the binoculars again when she couldn't read what it said due to the unhelpful angle Simmons was standing at, Skye made a thoughtful noise that earned her a curious look from Ward.
"What?"
"If there was one hidden in the coffee cupboard, do you think there could be some hidden in other places, too?"
Even he couldn't deny that the prospect made him curious. A few seconds later, they were climbing out of the SUV as quietly as they could and bolting toward the stairs.
Back in the lab, Simmons looked up just in time to catch them getting out of the vehicle, her eyes going wide.
"Fitz."
"What?"
He turned around again to look at her, removing his goggles, following her gaze and blinking with surprise.
"She said that they were going to train. What were they doing in there?"
A small grin pulling at her lips, she turned around to look at him properly.
"Maybe they're secretly shagging."
"What? Skye and Ward? Nooo..."
Trailing off, Fitz made a curious noise, watching the other two agents hurry up the stairs and out of sight.
"Well, maybe."
"Aha! Found one!"
Pulling her hand from between the couch cushions in the lounge, Skye grinned and read aloud what was written on the heart in Fitz's handwriting, "I wish I was an Ion so I could form an exothermic bond with you. Aww. That sounds kind of cute. I don't know what it is, but it sounds cute."
From where he was searching in the boxes of board games across the room, Ward shook his head. "This is like some sort of weird Valentine's Day egg hunt. Only... with Valentines."
"I think it's sweet," Skye commented, putting the paper heart back where she found it, rising to her feet to go and search the bar for more. "It's like a geeky way of saying that they love each other."
"And that they want to bang each other senseless," Ward stated, pulling another heart from the Operation box, reading aloud what Simmons had written, "Hey baby, want to form a synapse with me and exchange neurotransmitters? What the hell is a neurotransmitter, and why does she like them so much? Is it a sex thing?"
"I think it's a brain thing," Skye commented, grinning when she found another of Fitz's behind a bottle of scotch, reading it to him, "It's a good thing you've got evaporative cooling, 'cause I'm going to make you sweat."
"God, I hope the bunks are as soundproof as Coulson says the are," Ward muttered, shuddering to think of the two adorable science nerds actually banging each other senseless.
By the end of the day, which, for their "war", was always around 11:30pm, both Fitz and Simmons were confident that they had won. So, when Simmons slid open the door to Fitz's bunk, a box filled with the hearts that she had found in her hands, she rolled her eyes when he pressed a button on his phone, playing a drum roll from an app that he had downloaded purely for today's activities.
"Your grand total, m'lady?"
"You first," she disagreed, sliding his door shut again and walking over to sit on his bed. He didn't object, sitting up and emptying own box onto the blankets so that she could count them if she really wanted to.
"Thirty-seven."
Simmons was quiet for a long moment. So long that Fitz was starting to worry, but he let out an elated cheer when she whispered with horror, "Forty."
"Ha! " he shouted, pointing a finger at her, his grin almost painfully wide, "I won! For the first time in three years, I won! In your face, England! Who's the Valentine's Day victor now? Scotland, that's who!"
"Oh, pipe down," she huffed, sticking her tongue out at him and moving to lean against his pillows. "I'm still beating you in the long run. We're 6:5, now."
"But I won," he disagreed, wanting to enjoy the moment, still grinning victoriously. "And you owe me a box of chocolates. Belgian, white, with those little dark sprinkles. Handmade, or I'll make you go back and get me another, proper box."
He couldn't resist getting that dig in, given that's precisely what she made him do last year.
"You're such a rubbish winner," she grumbled, and he scoffed.
"Need I remind you of 2006, when you asked for a giant stuffed bear and you carried it around with you to every class just to rub it in my face that you beat me?"
"That was one time-"
"You did it for half a month!"
"Oh, can it!" she complained, covering his mouth with her hand, and he smirked, pushing her arm away.
"I still won."
"Yes, you did."
"Say it."
"You won."
"Say it with feeling-"
"Fitz!"
"Alright, alright! I'll stop."
"Good."
"...but I still won."
Needless to say, Skye was more than just a little disappointed when nothing appeared to be any different between the two scientists after the holiday ended. How could they hide such sappy, sexual notes for each other and then go right back to their typical banter in the lab the next day? The only difference was that Fitz had a box of chocolates with him after their next stop on the ground that he seemed to be enjoying far too much in front of his partner, not offering her a single one. Ward thought it was a bit rude, but he didn't say anything about it.
The current score: 6:5. Jemma may have been in the lead, but Fitz had a box of chocolates and enough determination that she would only be enjoying that title for a few more short years.
And next year, he was going to ask for a giant stuffed monkey