So I swore off kid fics literally last night for at least the next month or so just to get my head out of the gutter but then Adrienne pops up at eight this morning with a prompt AND DEAR GOD I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL.
So please enjoy this, and blame Adrienne ( /bioforensics on AO3 and Tumblr) for every second of it.
"I . . . I, well, I need you to run some tests for me,"
Fitz almost doesn't acknowledge her, as has become their sort of, well, thing over the past weeks that they've been on board this space prison of sorts. But when no reply comes from the third party in the small, squarish lab space they've been assigned, his blue eyes blink up to catch her dark ones darting between himself and the table.
"Oh, uh, right," he clears his throat, looking up. He offers a small, somewhat nervous smile. "Sure, Simmons. Whatever you need,"
They've somewhat recovered from AIDA's twisted master plan, deciding to just start out slow and not crowd each other. It's all rather strange - Fitz feels as if they're on a constant first date, scared to push to the other too much, but still eager underneath it all.
"Right," she breathes, twisting her hands together. Jemma slides him a set of blood samples, each labeled neatly with the donor. "These are the team's tests, you'll just need to analyze for any abnormalities and . . . Well, I think you know." Jemma trailed off. She pushed a stack of papers toward him as well. "I, um, I'll be back in a bit. I have a meeting to sit in, so . . ."
Fitz nods, watching her hands travel to her neck. He swallows and quickly looks away. "Yeah, I'll . . . I'll do that,"
Jemma nods once, the smile he loves so much lighting up her face, offers a quiet word of thanks, and then darts out of the lab.
Fitz looks down to the neat rows of vials and heaves a sigh. He's never been the most fond of blood or pretty much any bodily substance. If it weren't for having been teamed up with Jemma way back in chem lab, he probably wouldn't have passed the dissection part of the course.
However, Jemma had asked him for something, and she didn't do that very often nowadays so he only saw it fit to makes sure he did the best job possible.
As if there was any other way, he inwardly grinned.
Quickly, he began pulling out the blood analyzer and a set of rubber gloves. He settled the first batch of samples - Daisy's - into the machine and started the sequence.
It was only a handful of minutes before the results came back, his assigned tablet chirping merrily to alert him. He quickly scribbled the findings onto a report page, inwardly cursing their captors that they hadn't allowed them to use electronic reports. It would have made all of this quite a bit easier - and quicker.
He's humming to himself, the next hour or so passing slowly, when he reaches Jemma's sample.
Fitz fills out another blank report with her information. The machine pings nearly as soon as he's finished, and his eyes dart to his tablet.
His breath stalls in his chest, causing him to break out in a coughing fit.
There's no bloody way.
He sets the machine to run again, breathing deeply to control his heart rate. Running a hand through his hair, he allows himself a moment to chuckle softly. No, there was no way. It was just the ruddy machine acting up. That type of thing happened all the time, after all. Fitz shook his head at himself; he must not have been getting enough sleep lately to actually think the results were viable.
His tablet chirped just then, and Fitz bent to pluck it up.
His smile disappeared when the results only confirmed the first round.
Shitshitshitshit
Fitz hurried down the hallway, ignoring the strange looks from the occasional guard. The SHIELD team had been allowed pretty much free reign of the station, albeit as long as guards kept a general eye on their movement. It was this that Fitz was grateful for as he wound through the base.
There was only a single conference room on the station, and Fitz didn't quite bother knocking before barging in.
Many sets of eyes darted up at the disturbance, and belatedly he noted Daisy, Elena and May sitting in, Jemma all of the way to the very back. He sucked in a deep breath of air, ignoring the fact his lungs were burning from the exertion.
"Doctor Fitz?" The stern woman placed closest to the door - Fitz was reminded very heavily of Victoria Hand - raised an eyebrow. "Is there something urgent?"
He cringed, connecting the fact that she must have been the leader of this meeting. "I, ah, yeah - I need to see Jemma. Doctor Simmons," he pressed his fingers into his palm to quell the shaking. "It's, um, urgent,"
Jemma had already stood worriedly at this point, taking in her best friend's shaken appearance. "Fitz?"
The woman pursed her lips. "Alright, very well. Doctor Simmons, I don't expect you to return, though I do hope you'll at least watch the recording of the remainder of this conference tonight."
"Yes, of course," Jemma breathed out, already gathering her tablet and sweatshirt. "I . . . Good day, Miss Moore,"
By the time Fitz thought to relax his fists, Jemma had already crossed the conference room and taken his elbow, guiding him away from the doorway. It hissed shut behind them.
"Fitz? Are you alright?" She whispered, guiding them back to his bunk. It wasn't very far, only a hallway and a turn, but at the moment it felt as far away as earth.
It took a moment for her question to register, but when it did he shook his head slowly. "No, I . . . "
Fitz just managed to look up into Jemma's face, at the crease between her brows, and the worried glint in her whiskey eyes. "I'm not . . ."
She shook her head, silencing him. "Shh, it's alright. Let's just get you back to your bed."
His legs still feeling like jelly, Fitz held Jemma's hand tightly until they finally made it to his bunk. She entered the code with ease, and within a moment the door was hissing open.
She tugged him gently to the bed, pulling the blanket to drape over his knees before settling in next to him. Their backs to the steel wall, she gently took his hand again, looking up into his eyes.
"Fitz?" Her voice was low. "What's wrong?"
His free hand pinching the bridge of his nose, he pulled in a shaky breath. Counting to three, he released it. "It was the, ahm, blood results,"
"Oh," she breathed, his grip tightening. "Was there . . . Something different?"
He couldn't help but chuckle at that, still clenching his eyes together tightly. "Yeah, you could, you could say that,"
The worry radiating from her is palpable, and another quiet murmuring of his name is all it takes.
"It, um, it detected raised levels of hCG in your bloodstream." He finally manages, the air leaving his chest once more. Fitz tilts his head back against the wall, eyes darting up to the ceiling.
He can feel her still next to him, the finger that had been stroking gently to quell the shaking in his hand stiffening.
"Oh," she exhaled again. "Oh,"
"Yeah," he breathed out, lowering his chin so he can gaze out at the galaxies spiraling outside the glass. "I, ah, ran the screening twice,"
She blinks, as if in a haze. "So I'm . . ."
". . . yeah,"
Her free hand drifts down to her stomach, lightly laying there, just the weight gently reassuring. She sniffs, blinking.
"Yes, that would, um, make sense." her fingers gently trace in a circle. "The exhaustion, the missing cycles. I thought it was all stress . . . We are in space, after all," she manages a light chuckle. "I just never thought . . ."
She trails off, Fitz allowing himself to cast a glance at her. She looked calm, almost. Her knees pulled up, mirroring his own, hand on her flat stomach.
He blew out a breath. "Neither did I, if it helps any."
They both smile at that. Jemma leans her head to rest against his shoulder, and though he stiffens for a moment, he tilts his head to rest atop hers. Their fingers entangle, and he's startled back to their first kiss - their first real kiss, back on earth, when they weren't worrying over astronauts or portals.
"I suppose the cosmos does want something after all, Fitz," she breaks into his thoughts, voice breathy and somewhat nostalgic. "We tried to take it slow, and yet instead we got a . . . a baby,"
His breath shudders at that, at the enormity crushing him yet again. He can feel his eyes moistening, but he pushes it down. "Yeah. A little one,"
Fitz can't help but kiss her at that. It's the first they've shared since before AIDA, before space, and maybe they're rushing, but there's a baby on the way. If that isn't rushing, then he doesn't quite know what is.
Her lips are wet and hot and they feel like home, and he thinks he catches a little moan as he licks over her lower lip. It's only moments, but it feels like galaxies, and he can't help breaking into a breathless smile against her lips once they release.
"So, we're doing this," he rasps out, running his fingers through her hair, lightly ghosting her cheek on each pass.
She smiles up at him; warm and full of joy and life, and for a moment the bags beneath her eyes seek to disappear along with the rest of the past two months. For a single moment, they're every other set of parents finding out for the first time that they've created a little spark of life.
But it all comes crashing back down, the reminders of everything weighing down on them. And he knows - they both do - that they have a lot to work through. A lot to figure out, to plan.
And yet all he can feel in that moment is calm beneath the anticipation in his stomach, heavy and warm and mysteriously similar to the woman next to him.
A didn't want this angsty so I decided to leave out most of Fitz's inevitable struggles to come to terms with what happened to him in the Framework. But don't feel put off - Adrienne is also prompting me from beyond the hiatus grave with a crap ton of recovery head canons. Keep an eye out ;)
Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave a review ;)
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