A/N: I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Fitz…" she began, a small wrinkle marring her forehead as she skirmished the right approach around in her mouth, "Did you tell your mother we're dating?"
"What? Us? Like that? I mean, that's just- erm, why do you ask?" he squeaked, scratching a spot behind his ear.
"Well," how could she put this, "maybe because when she told me to leave my bags in your room, she winked at me?" Her voice was beginning to crackle with righteous affront.
Fitz put his hands in front of him, palms out. "I didn't- Simmons, I swear I didn't tell her we were datin'. But she just kept tryin' to set me up with these girls from church every time I came home, and well… she misinterpreted you comin' home with me, that's all."
Simmons stood in the entryway to the lab, eyes rimmed red, hair shorter than before. "Fitz." The name jumped from her throat, amphibian and strange.
"Mack," Fitz reached back blindly, his hand grasping for the taller man's presence, "Mack, do you see that... Do you see her?"
"Yeah, I see 'er. Calm down, now, don't wander off on me." The mechanic waved a massive hand in front of Fitz's face.
He couldn't breathe. "Simmons. Si-" His eyes declared war on the rest of his face, his voice shattered, his pen thunked out of the side of his mouth.
"Simmons? This your old partner?" Mack assessed her, saw the way her eyes were locked with Fitz's, the pain stretched out between them like strands of old glue recently submerged. "Yo, uh, I've got inventory to check." He built the excuse like one of his engines. "You cool here, Turbo?"
"Sim- it's Simmons. She's back from the, er… back from the... " He was still staring, they both were, her gaze carving an epitaph across his gravestone face.
"Back from my assignment." She stepped forward, invisible shackles clanking. For a fragment of a second, grief twisted her features, before she somehow wrenched her expression - like re-setting a bone - into an agonized smile. "Is that what I am, Fitz? Your old partner?"
"Christ!" Fitz jumped slightly at the press of her icy toes and hopped up from his seat. "Y' daft woman," he chuckled, disappearing into the hall. He returned after a few minutes with a pair of thick, woolen, reindeer-printed socks balled up in his hands. Settling back on the couch, he took up one of her chilly feet in his unseasonably warm grip and tugged the sock on.
"Aren't those the socks your nan knitted you?" She couldn't keep the affection from turning her voice to molasses.
"Indeed they are. An' you'd best not steal this pair, hear?"
A/N: Y'all do not have to leave a review on this. I'll be updating periodically as I mess around with different ideas, but this is mostly for my own organizational purposes (I just really like to have all my fic together).