Obligatory I-do-not-own-Agents-of-S.H.I.E.L.D. disclaimer statement. Title taken from 'Mr. Brightside' by The Killers, for obvious reasons.
This was supposed to be much, much shorter, but it spiraled out of control because these characters truly have minds of their own. If this sucks, I sincerely apologize. I actually may write a up a short follow up chapter/drabble to this, we'll see. :) Enjoy!
This is also posted on AO3.
"Uh, Fitz," Simmons called out uneasily, fiddling with the piece of tech in her hands. "I think it broke again."
The engineer turned around abruptly and groaned angrily as he swiped the gadget out of her grasp, eyebrows furrowed in disappointed. It was supposed to be a portable particle analyzer, so that foreign items could be identified on the field instead of having to wait to process it in a lab, and it still a work in development, but he'd been working on it for quite some time and couldn't manage to get it to work without breaking apart.
Simmons watched as he began to take apart a few of its pieces, trying to figure out what had gone wrong this time. They were both frustrated with the absolute lack of progress they'd been making, but Fitz had been stirred more by the fact that the problem seemed to be more with his design than anything else.
"I'm losin' my touch here, Simmons," he'd often say, chest raising up and down in a heavy, discouraged sigh.
The lab doors slid open and Simmons turned her head to see an unfamiliar blonde woman; an agent, no doubt, judging by her stance and very intimidating May-like attire. Fitz bit his lip and remained concentrated on his task until he heard the woman begin to speak.
"So, which one of you is Fitz and which one's Simmons?" She asked, her voice oddly sweet in spite of her seemingly stern appearance. She stood tall and wore her dark blonde hair in a sleek, stylish knot behind her head, her face made up very minimally, except to enhance her dangerously pronounced cheekbones and draw attention to her deep emerald eyes.
Taken a bit back by this being one of the few times a stranger hadn't made the error of assuming they were the same person, the two scientists exchanged a confused but impressed look between each other. Someone had obviously done her research.
"That's Fitz, I'm Simmons," she answered, her expression immediately shifting back to its usual warm and welcoming nature. "And who might you be?"
"Agent Lara Dawson, FBI. I've been privately working on the Carlson Ivanov case that your team has just been assigned for the past two years, so I've been contacted by your division to offer my services," she explained, her lips stretching into a smile. "I've got the expertise and you've got the resources, so together I think we'll crack this thing with no problem."
"That's great," Simmons smiled, vaguely recalling Coulson's sour mood at their meeting this morning. He'd said nothing about an FBI consultant being contact, possibly out of dreading the whole ordeal, but it explained the change in his normally good-natured and cordial manner. Simmons instantly thought of Ward and what his reaction must have been like and had to stop herself from laughing. "Is there anything we can help you with at the moment?" she asked politely.
Agent Dawson shifted her gaze from Simmons to Fitz and back again, her friendliness slowly transforming into an almost bashful expression. "I… I broke my new watch. Which is also an expensive piece of communications tech. And I was just wondering if you guys could take a look at it and tell me that it's savable," she told them, holding the wristwatch out in her hand.
Fitz put down the gadget and walked towards her, nervously taking the object from her. He studied it for a moment and smiled. "I know exactly what's wrong. This will be no problem to fix."
"Thank God. I was not looking forward to contacting the bureau about a replacement," Agent Dawson said with a sigh of relief.
Fitz shrugged and headed back to the worktable to fetch his tools. "It's simple. I can have this fixed in less than ten minutes." He paused, looking up at the blonde agent with an awkward smile playing on his lips. "Of course, not that you'd be able to tell how long it takes. Since you don't have a watch and all."
Simmons rolled his eyes, unimpressed and absolutely not amused by Fitz' blatantly pathetic attempts at flirting with women. His motives were always innocent enough but one day, he was going to unknowingly use that tone around the wrong woman and end up with a sexual harassment complaint filed against him. To her surprise, Agent Dawson laughed – a genuine, sincere, eye-crinkling and shockingly playful laugh. Was she… flirting back? She turned around to busy herself with work, narrowing her eyes in confusion.
"Yes, well… I am going to need it, so it's a good thing I got to you in time, then," she'd responded, and Simmons wondered if the two were going to launch into a battle of who can be less clever with words.
She glanced at Fitz from the corner of her eye and saw that he was turning a light shade of pink and smiling, completely unable to hide the blush the colored his cheeks. He briefly looked at the agent again but avoided direct eye contact before returning back to concentrating on repairing her watch.
"Mind if I hang out here and watch while you work? I have a few minutes to kill."
"Oh, yeah sure, of course," Fitz replied much too eagerly.
Agent Dawson went on to ask about what it was like working on an airplane while Simmons turned her back to them, rolling her eyes. She tuned out their chatter and focused her attention on putting things in order.
x.x.x.x.
Fitz and Simmons worked side by side as they usually did, keeping track of their team's activity as they worked out on the field. Simmons tried not to notice the way Fitz would blush whenever Agent Dawson referred to him by name through the comms or the way the corner of his mouth would twitch up any time he spoke to her directly.
His boyish crush on the hacker had annoyed her, but there had obviously been no reciprocation of the affection on Skye's part; the younger girl was always friendly enough, but did very little to encourage Fitz with the exception of laughing at a few of his jokes. This Lara Dawson character smiled too brightly when he spoke to her and laughed too loudly at things that weren't even intended to be funny and had touched his arm too gently as a thanks for fixing her watch earlier and why couldn't she be as intimidating and demanding as her appearance initially them to believe?
She wanted to scold him and tell him not to be so unprofessional, but he had really done nothing that would constitute as inappropriate behavior, at least not directly, so she kept her mouth shut. He was simply smitten; not even as hopelessly flustered as he'd been around Skye a few months earlier.
Her only option was to ignore his giddiness the way pressed his lips together in a tight smile when the team returned to the bus later in the day, successfully completing the mission and ready to return to the Hub.
She really couldn't understand why the whole thing bothered her so much.
x.x.x.x.
"So what's the deal with Fitz and Simmons?" she overheard the new agent asking Skye later as they were en route back to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. She had been walking up the stairs after spending nearly the whole evening in the lab, ready to collapse in her bunk and pass out for the evening but had stopped dead in her tracks when she heard their voices travelling from upstairs.
Skye's tone of voice was amused in her response. "What do you mean?"
"I'm just wondering… are they, like, involved?"
"Oh," Skye replied, as if she had no idea what Dawson could have been referring to even though it was pretty clear to Simmons that that's what she thought the blonde agent was implying. Her answer was vague, but one that the scientist appreciated. "It's none of my business. FitzSimmons are just FitzSimmons."
She completed her ascent up the stairs and walked through the common area where the two women were chatting quietly and walked past them with a tired but friendly smile and a warm "good night" before locking herself in her bunk and sinking into her bed, holding her pillow close to her chest.
Despite her growing exhaustion, she found her mind replaying the events of the day, unable to shake the image of Fitz' rose-colored cheeks whenever spoken to by the agent or the tone in her voice when she'd overheard her talking to Skye. Normally, when she found herself unable to sleep it was because of the dangerous or disturbing nature of most of their missions, not over some perfectly proportioned blonde who decided to be nice to Fitz. In fact, now that she thought about it, with the exception of the guilt she felt the night she nearly died to save help save his life (as well as the rest of the team's), she rarely lost sleep over Fitz at all.
The idea that she was feeling jealous of Agent Dawson crossed her mind, but she pushed it to the back of her mind, absolutely too ridiculous and laughable a concept to even entertain. Jealous? Over Fitz? Yes, there had been times she'd been jealous of Fitz – like whenever he'd receive a better score on an exam in their early years at the academy – but she'd never felt this way because of Fitz.
So clearly, it couldn't be jealousy.
Still, she decided she hated the feeling, whatever it was.
Unable to sleep, she slipped out of her bunk and headed down to the lab, hoping to clear her mind of this the only way she knew how – refocusing on her work. She hadn't expected to find Fitz there, still working furiously on the frustrating piece of technology he couldn't seem to get right, a large thermos of warm coffee next to him.
He smiled at her before the lab doors even opened, as always, grateful for her company. "Hey. Couldn't sleep either?"
She shook her head as she walked around him in search of a task to occupy herself with, which was proving to be even more of a challenge now that Fitz was actually here.
"I'm not going to rest until I get this bloody thing to work properly. It's literally been driving me insane."
Simmons shot him a reassuring smile. "You'll get it going. You always do. Besides, there's no rush."
"Yeah, yeah," he mumbled as he began to rewire the contraption. "So, what's got you up at this hour?" he wondered, the sound of his voice indicating that he sensed something was wrong.
"Nothing," she lied, because really, could she really talk to him about this?
"Nothing," he echoed, imitating her voice. "Pfft."
"Yes. Nothing, really," she persisted, and he pretended to believe her. He poured some coffee into the cap of his thermos and offered it to Simmons, who gratefully accepted it.
She settled on repeating a few old experiments on the night-night gun, collecting data and trying to figure out how to get it finally ready for field use. It was useless, considering it was technically Fitz' job anyway and there was almost literally nothing she could do, but she needed to occupy herself, and it (sort of) did the job.
After working in silence for a while, Fitz cleared his throat, causing Simmons to jump a bit.
"So, something weird happened a little earlier," he started. She looked at him to continue, but he remained quiet for a moment, staring hard at the tiny screw he held in his hand.
"What?" Simmons asked, absentmindedly returning her gaze to the night-night gun where it sat on the table next to her.
"Lara, I mean, Agent Dawson… asked me on a date, I think."
Simmons felt as if a block of lead had been slammed against her abdomen, a mixture of pain and shock and confusion bubbling at her core. "She… what?"
"I don't know, she probably… She was just bein' friendly," he said, more to himself than to Simmons. "She was just thankin' me for being so nice to her today, especially since the rest of the team sort of gave her flack for bein' with the FBI and she wanted to get a bite when we landed again."
At that moment, Simmons felt an unjustifiable amount of hatred for Lara Dawson and her perfectly contoured face and piercing green eyes and long legs and shiny hair and she hated her for making her have to finally admit to herself that, yes, she was absolutely jealous and utterly powerless against it.
"Oh? Did she now? Well!" was all she could manage as a response. She almost wanted to blast herself with the night-night gun.
"I know. She said it was to thank me for being so kind. I… I don't know, she was probably just bein' grateful, right? Am I reading into things again? I've got to stop doing that," he said, again mostly to himself, his voice almost a whisper.
Simmons felt her heart skip a beat – she hated that saying for its scientific inaccuracy, but she could think of no other way to describe the feeling in her chest. Did he really think that little of himself that a beautiful woman who expressed such an obvious interest in him could possibly want nothing to do with him at all? Sure, she hated when Fitz flirted with women and often discouraged him from doing so, but only because she was looking after him – could she have actually contributed to his feeling this way?
"Jemma?" He spoke and she realized how long she'd been quiet for. She looked at his face, recognized the tired, conflicted look in his eyes, and smiled weakly at him.
"She was probably not. Just being, friendly I mean," she blurted before she could catch herself. "She is interested in you."
Fitz blinked, looking confused.
"If it weren't obvious enough by the way she's acted around you for the past 24 hours or so, I overheard her talking to Skye about you, so…"
He shook his head. "What?"
"Is that so hard to believe?"
"Well… yes, kind of," Fitz admitted. He let the little screw he'd been playing with bounce on the table, watching distractedly as it spun around a few times, gradually slowing down before coming to a complete halt. His face twisted into an expression Simmons had never seen before. "I mean, why would she be interested in me?"
"Oh, Fitz, don't be daft. You're wonderful."
He shook his head. "Of course you think so."
"Exactly. Why wouldn't I think so? Why wouldn't anyone think so?" She replied, her eyes soft. "You are intelligent and nice to be around and kind-hearted and funny… kind of. And handsome. Any woman would be stupid..."
She stopped herself from going any further with that statement, unable to believe that she said most of it at all. They had always been able to talk about anything, but there were lines that had never crossed, and her response to his question definitely was one of them.
He turned away from her, incapable of holding her gaze any longer, burning with an even more violent shade of red than he had before. "Um, thank you," he murmured, his eyes downcast.
"Sorry, I did not intend to get so sappy. I guess I just need to remind you that I am a girl sometimes, since you obviously seem to forget that fact," she tried to make light of the moment, but the current vibe between them was really too strange to even try to make sense of, let alone change. "So, what did you even say?"
"Hmm?"
"To Agent Dawson," she clarified. "What was your answer?"
"Oh. Yeah. I said we would."
"Oh," she said, the disappointment that had settled in her stomach beginning to bubble up again. Why was she getting so upset? It wasn't like Fitz was her property. He could go on dates with pretty blondes if he chose to.
"Unless you don't want to."
"Wait, what?"
"She asked and I said we would love to," Fitz explained.
"That doesn't make any sense," she stated, an eyebrow raised.
"Well, I thought she was just bein' friendly because I was so nice to her and I felt guilty because I had flirted with her all day, and you were nice to her too, and I don't know. I panicked and said 'yeah, sure, great Simmons and I would love to.'"
Simmons pictured the scene in her mind and found herself smiling a bit, especially when she imagined the disappointment Dawson's face when he invited Simmons to dinner without even checking if it was okay.
"Don't you want to be alone with her, though? You should tell her I won't be able to make it," she said in defeat.
He shrugged, causing Simmons to instinctively roll her eyes. He never could make up his mind.
Something in her snapped just then – all of these little things building up inside of her, forming a feeling too strong to ignore. The indecisiveness, the feigned indifference, as though he wasn't nearly as bothered as she knew he was that a beautiful woman had asked him out to dinner, and even the self-doubt had transformed from something heartbreaking and unsettling to just plain annoying.
"Well, I'm not going, and you can tell her that," she said abruptly. "I wouldn't want to be a third wheel, anyway."
She was normally never so confrontational, not with anyone, but she'd never felt this kind of hurt before, so angered and aggravated and betrayed at the same time.
"What the hell, Jemma? You'd never be a third wheel. Where the hell is this even coming from?"
She ignored his question and began to clear her workstation, carefully putting the gun into the crate designed specifically for it.
"You really thing I should?" he asked, hopeful.
"Yes," she grit her teeth but forced a smile. "Go for it."
He quietly agreed that he'd think about it and talk to Dawson before they landed, Simmons muttering a half-hearted congratulations as she exited the lab and left Fitz to his own devices.
She passed by an exhausted Dawson sitting on the couch and staring at the screen of a tablet.
"I could never sleep on planes," she explained. "Don't know how you do it."
Her anger still running high, she was tempted to say something foul in response or just ignore the woman altogether, but it was never in her nature to be rude, especially to someone who had done nothing purposefully malicious towards her. Sure, she made her realize she had feelings for Fitz while simultaneously managing to steal him away from her, but it probably wasn't something she was aware she was even doing. And at this point, she didn't even blame here.
So instead, she forced a smile and politely wished the FBI agent a good night for the second time and returned to her bunk.
x.x.x.x.
Time passed at an alarmingly slow rate as Simmons worked alone in the lab, researching something online, pretending she wasn't just waiting around for Fitz to return from his date with Agent Dawson. A part of her brain was telling her that she shouldn't even worry about it – even if the two of them did hit it off, what kind of a future could they even have? They both led lives that didn't leave much room for a real relationship. But then she had another part of her brain was still busy trying to deceive her into thinking she didn't care. She wasn't sure which side was even winning anymore.
"Simmons! Just the gal I wanted to see!" Skye sang as she sauntered into the lab.
"Hello, Skye," she smiled, relieved to have some company. "What is it?"
"Nothing. Just trying to escape the wrath of Agent Grant Ward," she explained. "Training did not go too well today and I think he's kind of annoyed with me, so I figured it's best to just ignore him altogether. So," she bit her lip, changing the subject, "how are you handling the break from Fitz? Better since he's not behind enemy lines this time?"
Simmons made a face and shrugged, trying to appear as though she'd barely noticed Fitz' absence.
"I know you two are tight, so you must have some opinions about this Lara Dawson chick. Do you think she's good enough for our pal Fitzy?" Skye inquired with genuine interest. "'Cause let me tell you, the others are pissed about it. They did not like her at all, something about how the FBI likes to step on everyone's toes." She added with a laugh, "Their fragile S.H.I.E.L.D. egos."
"She seems… nice."
"Wow, that's it? Just… 'she seems nice?'" Skye imitated her accent, and did a poor job at it, at that.
"I don't know, I barely got to know the woman," Simmons explained herself.
"Neither did Fitz, really, then, and he's probably got more to say about her than 'nice.' Of course, he is a guy, so…" Skye trailed off, pausing a moment before continuing on. "So, can I ask you something kind of personal? You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."
Simmons nodded her head and looked at her friend, curious as to what she could want to know.
"Does it kind of bother you, Fitz being out with her? You pretty much gave him the cold shoulder earlier before he left, so… does it?"
Simmons didn't answer her question, she didn't have to. One of Skye's most valuable assets is her ability to read people and talk to them, and she's known Simmons long enough to be able to see right through her at this point.
"It's okay if it does," she assured her. "It doesn't even have to mean anything else. He is your friend and you barely know this girl. You have every right to be upset." She paused, studying Simmons' expression with her arms folded across her chest. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, the long waves of hair bouncing all over the place. "And if it does mean something else, you know, then that's fine too."
There was another moment of silence between them, Simmons unable to think of a way to respond – she almost found it funny; she understood without any difficulty the most intricate and sophisticated pieces and functions of the human body, but could not wrap her mind around something as everyday as simple human communication.
"Well, whatever!" Skye exclaimed, trying to lighten the mood and change the subject, recognizing that it wasn't going anywhere. "Do you have to be in here all day? We've got nothing on the schedule for a few hours. How about we go get some ice cream or burgers or something?"
Simmons smiled, thankful for the distraction – an actual distraction – and followed Skye out of the lab and off the ship.
x.x.x.x.
Fitz returned around the same time as Simmons and Skye, anxiously walking up to Simmons as he was still not used to not seeing her all day.
Luckily, being out with Skye had lifted her spirits and while she was still upset over the whole ordeal, she no longer felt so bitter about it.
"How did your date go? Are you glad I talked you into it?" She asked, taking a slurp from the smoothie she'd gotten.
Ward appeared at the top of the steps and beckoned for Skye, requesting a word with the clearly irritated hacker. She sighed dramatically and marched up the stairs, disappearing behind the surly agent through the doorway.
"It went alright, I guess," he began explaining, trying to work out the words he wanted to say. He gave up. "It was so incredibly boring, Jems. How someone so beautiful and intelligent could have so little to say truly baffles me."
The two of them made their way through the lab doors and stood at the table facing each other. "Isn't that usually the case?" she laughed.
He looked at her intently. "Nope," he said, popping the 'p' sound. "Not at all, really. Anyway, what'd you do all day?"
"I did some research for a bit and then went with Skye for burgers at some understandably overpriced fast food establishment," she told him, a smile playing on her lips.
"Oh," he said, pressing his lips together.
She shook her head, amused. "Skye brought back some for everyone. She must have took it with her upstairs."
"Oh," he repeated, this time beaming with excitement. Naturally, she thought to herself.
"So I take it there won't be a second date, then?"
He sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "When would there be time for one anyway, right? And let's be honest, don't I have enough women in my life to deal with?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Like you're such a joy."
"Hey, I'm good enough for hot FBI agents," he said sternly.
"No one else on this plane even likes FBI agents, Fitz. Get with the program. That's basically the S.H.I.E.L.D. equivalent of getting the chess team in high school to like you," she teased him, brushing a lock of hair behind her hair. "Like, seriously dude," she mocked Skye.
Truthfully, she couldn't tell if she was more relieved that his date didn't go well or that he didn't seem to be too upset about it not going well and though she felt guilty that these emotions even competed with each other, she decided to dismiss the feeling and move on.
Fitz laughed and reached over to wrap his arm around Simmons. "Hey," he recalled, "wasn't there something bothering you last night that you didn't want to talk about?"
"Nope," she assured him, though she could tell he still wasn't thoroughly convinced. She sighed. Why couldn't lying just come naturally to her?
"Uh-huh," he said suspiciously. "It's fine, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." He eyed the equipment sitting at one of the workbenches. "Well, I think I'll go and see about an overpriced slab of meat and bread. That article analyzer can be damned."