A/N: I haven't written fic in a very long time so I'm kinda out of practice, but marathoning AOS in 3 days and falling head over heels with these delightful specimens along the way, motivated me out of the slump.

First in a series of drabbles (there'll probably be seven in total) - I hope it's okay! Thanks for reading :')


'- And finally…Fitz, Simmons – you'll be working together.'

The boy coming towards Jemma is wearing a cardigan that is at least two sizes too big and he's oddly reminiscent of her childhood puppy. She smiles when he looks just as young and out of place as she does.

'Hi! I'm Jemma. Jemma Simmons,' she says warmly as he reaches her desk, hands in pockets and head determinedly staring down at his worn Converse. And then he looks up at the friendliest face he's ever seen and breaks into a shy smile.

'Um…Leopold Fitz. Or Leo Fitz. Or just Fitz. Yeah, please don't call me Leopold...'

At the sound of his thick, familiar accent, Jemma gives Fitz a wide smile and he counts her teeth in an effort to ignore the butterflies in his stomach.

'Fitz it is! Right, we better get started.'

Jemma has never had a best friend before but instinctively knows it must feel something like this: Fitz is the end of every sentence. He doesn't stare at her when she remembers the periodic table off by heart; he smiles. Fitz has spent most of his sixteen years as comic relief. But when he tells Simmons about the flying drones he spent two years inventing before accidentally crashing them into a bus, she doesn't laugh at him.

'Aww no, they're not broken: just think of the first law of thermodynamics! That no energy in the universe is created and…'

'- none is destroyed,' they say in unison, chuckling.

They stare at each other for a second too long and Simmons stops paying attention to the Bunsen burner, until…

The test tube shatters the moment and promptly decides to deposit its contents onto Simmons' jumper.

'Oh bugger! This has never happened to me before. Actually… once. When I was five and wanted to see what would happen when I put potassium in the bath…'

Fitz watches her face redden as she scrubs her jumper clean with a mixture of fondness and amusement, before shrugging off his own cardigan and holding it out to her. 'Here, take this, you wally.'

'Oh, I couldn't! It's freezing in here.

'I'm from Scotland. This is like a summer day.'

She beams, closing her fingers over the soft wool. 'Thanks, Fitz.'

By the end of class, they have completed roughly ten experiments more than everybody else and still found time to discuss – at length – the premature cancellation of Firefly. After they pack up, Fitz watches her high ponytail swing out of the door with a slightly wistful smile, before she suddenly turns back.

'I don't know when I'll see you next, but please don't let me run off with this!' She gestures at the cardigan. 'Nice to meet you, Fitz!'

He sees her every day for the next five years. He never asks for it back.