Author's Note: Wrote this a while ago. Made up the tech names, lol.
Bobbi sighed as she sat down on her bed. She fiddled the thumb drive absentmindedly, while her thoughts ran back to Lance Hunter, asshole extraordinaire. They hadn't exactly been together again, not exactly, but after that angry make up sex things seemed to go back to how they used to be. When they would laugh and joke and love each other. Things still hadn't been perfect, but they were okay. And then he saw the thumb drive, and then everyone almost died. And afterwards he had yelled at her, saying he couldn't be with someone he couldn't trust, and that she lied far too much, and that he couldn't go back to their tortuous relationship. She had yelled back, but it was over. They had had a brief remembrance of their happy days, but it seemed to have only been their to show them what they couldn't have.
Knock knock. Bobbi shoved the drive into the barely existent back pocket of her jeans.
"Come in," she called. The door opened and in walked Mack. "I know, I know. You told me so," she said.
"Hey, like you said. I'm not your big brother. I just wanted to make sure you were all right, that's all," he said. Bobbi pursed her lips.
"Yeah, okay. I'm fine," she said. Lies, lies, lies. Lance was right. She did lie a lot.
"You do know that saying 'I'm fine' is the most obvious sign that someone's not fine, right?" He smirked a little. "You knew it wouldn't work out, though."
"Yep. But it burned faster than I expected." Seeing the concern on Mack's face, she forced a smile. "Hey. Let's go downstairs, see what the others are up to."
"You sure you want to risk running into him? After all, it was only this morning."
"No use overthinking this shit. Might as well risk it," she said. Mack shrugged a bit, but he followed her downstairs.
The bus was surprisingly happy, although some of it was obviously forced. Fitz, Skye and Simmons had decorated the BUS with Christmas decorations. Bobbi thought it a bit strange to be celebrating Christmas like that. After all, they had just recently lost a team member, and none of them had accepted it fully. But everyone laughed and talked and pretended that everything was okay. They were all lying to themselves, thought Bobbi, but hey, 'Fake it till you make it', right? She grabbed a cookie off the counter, Fitz and Simmons had been baking everyday for the last week, so there were always cookies to be eaten. (No point in calling them Fitzsimmons, no one called them that anymore. They weren't that anymore.) Christmas Eve, Bobbi thought, nibbling the cookie. First Christmas without them, without Idaho and Izzy. Not really Christmas then, is it? She meandered around, stopping to watch Fitz and Simmons. They were babbling on about some techno-science thingamabob, but it was nice to see Simmons becoming friends with Fitz again, poor girl. As Bobbi stood there, watching them blankly, she heard someone come up behind her. Being too busy in her thoughts, she ignored them, assuming it was only Mack.
"How's it, lier girl?" Bobbi groaned internally, turning around to face him.
"Yeah, and what do you want, Hunter?" she half said, half asked. They stood like that in silence for a bit, but of course he had to interrupt it.
"You eat hella slow," he commented. Bobbi didn't try to conceal the groan this time.
"You eat hella fast," she spat back, biting of a huge piece of cookie all at once. She knew it was childish, taking a big bite because he commented on her taking small ones, and he wasn't worth it, but what was she going to do, just stand there and take it? He grinned at her, but it was more a smirk. He was obviously proud to have gotten a reaction from her. Bobbi tried to chew and swallow the mass in her mouth, but suddenly it seemed impossible. Here he was, starting her down, trying to prove to himself who knows what, and Mack had almost died and poor Simmons had almost died too (she had fallen into the hole, she would have died if it hadn't been for Coulson), and breathing was the hardest thing. Bobbi wouldn't classify this as a panic attack she didn't have panic attacks, and she wouldn't have been panicking had it not been for the cookie in her throat. She tried to take a deep breath to steady herself, but of course that resulted in the cookie wedging itself in her throat. She coughed and gasped, trying to dislodge the offender, but the breaths wouldn't come. Her vision started clouding, but there was hardly anything she could do. She could hardly think, but she felt hands around her, the Heimlich maneuver was applied, and with a cough and a choke, the cookie flew from her mouth. She gasped in air, almost forgetting that everyone was most likely staring at her, and she had just spit chewed-up cookie across the room. Finally she was able to steady her breathing, and she looked to her savior, and of course, it was Lance. As soon as he saw her see him, he hurried to his feet. He was always saving her life. She quickly got up, and picked the chewed cookie off the floor with a napkin, tossing in the trash.
"I'm fine," she assured them, all the others seemed to be staring. After that, though, they went back to what they were doing. And there she was again, standing next to him. This time though, no snarky comments were made.
Lance tried to focus on anything else. Forget she almost died, she didn't die, it was just a stupid cookie. He watched Fitz and Simmons. Before the fight this morning, Bobbi had told him about what Simmons had said, and now Lance was set on getting Fitz and Simmons back together.
"Yes, but you couldn't very well achieve that without a hecnophober, now could you?" Simmons said, and Lance smiled although he couldn't understand a word of their techno-science babble.
"No, but if you could calculate the gramti of the p-p"
"The pectorlator, yes, then you could calculate the gramti, which would tell you the septertone of the sample, and you wouldn't even need a hecnophober! Of course, why didn't I think of that?"
"I don't know, it's quite obvious, really."
As Lance looked at the maybe-sortof-friends, he noticed something. A red berried plant hung above them.
"Hey, smarties. Look up, mistletoe." Fitz swallowed. He could feel the blush creeping up his neck. Simmons felt her heart stop for a second, but she had to be sure, maybe Hunter was just kidding? As she looked up, she thought: Oh, thank god, and said:
"Actually, that's holly. Common mistake, really. See, holly has red berries." Fitz sighed in relief, and Jemma smiled at him, then turned back to Hunter. "Mistletoe looks like—Well, actually, there's some above you now!"
Oh shit. Lance looked above, and lo and behold, mistletoe. And of course, I'm standing right next to Bobbi. Lance felt his stomach sink, until he realized: Maybe Simmons is just trying to trick us…
"Are you sure that's mistletoe?" he asked, and Bobbi looked at him in encouragement, as if she thought Simmons might be messing with them, too.
"Yes, I'm absolutely sure! Look, here's a picture!" Jemma showed him her phone. She had pulled up an article, which said the difference between holly and mistletoe. Lance whipped out his phone in retort, and googled 'mistletoe', and it looked exactly like what was above the geeks heads. He showed it to Jemma, who then shoved her phone in his face. This article explained that mistaking holly for mistletoe was very common, but the white-berried plant above his head was indeed the real mistletoe. He began to protest, and Bobbi joined in, but before they could get far, Skye interrupted.
"Hey, what's the big deal?" she asked, "After all, you did have sex in that van not too long ago."
This just keeps getting worse, thought Bobbi, but she tried to deny it.
"We wouldn't-"
"I would never-"
"Why would you even-"
"Think that?" But they were both blushing profusely.
"Really? Because I got up that night from a nightmare, and I saw your shirts lying outside that van. And, as if that wasn't enough, I could hear you guys. You weren't exactly quiet."
Dammit. Bobbi had thought someone might figure it out, but since no one had mentioned it, and it had been long enough ago… She looked at Lance, and he was redder than ever. Oh, why didn't we just kiss, and get it over with? Then Skye wouldn't have brought this up, and it wouldn't be this awkward… She could feel the other agents' eyes on them. She knew that two SHIELD agents having sex with each other wasn't allowed, and it seemed that most of the others knew that too. Would they be expelled from SHIELD? She didn't think so, but this was bad enough.
"Y'know, the mistletoe is still there," said Skye. Shit, couldn't Skye just give it a rest? She looked at Lance warningly, daring him to step any closer.
"Oh, what the hell," he said, and kissed her. As they kissed, Bobbi felt in love again, and she knew that wasn't good. When they broke apart, she looked at him, and from he look on his face, he felt the same.
This is one crazy game.