So...the episodes from 18 to 22 were a roller coaster of emotions for me: I got a lot of FitzSimmons feels.
I've decided to write three more stories in this series of one shots: one in Fitz's POV , one in Jemma's and the last one in boths.
It will be a collection of snippets of their thoughts throughout the final episodes.
This one is Fitz's POV throughout episodes.
Hope you guys like this... ;)
Thanks to my Beta StarryDreamer01 who helped me edit this.
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN AGENTS OF SHIELD.
"Things do not change; we do."
-Henry David Thoreau-
Providence was different from the Bus.
It was quiet and eerily silent without the constant humming of the engines and the air conditioning system. Even the spaces were larger: room to walk and larger beds to sleep in.
Fitz never realised that he'd grown accustomed to his small bunk with all his personal things crammed inside. When he'd entered the Bus for the first time, his first thought was that he could never like or get used to the tiny living space.
He had been wrong...
He walked through the corridors and was glad that no one else was around.
The whole Team was adjusting to the new settlement; Coulson was in Agent Koenig's room talking about who-knew-what, May was... somewhere and Skye was waiting for Ward to come back.
As for Simmons...
Fitz ran a hand through his hair as a tinge frustration and sadness shot through him. He didn't know where she could be right now: that upset him more than anything.
He didn't think that he'd return to a point where he didn't know something about Jemma.
It felt like going back to the earlier stages of their friendship when he tried (desperately wanted) to get to know her better but didn't know how to do it. That happened because he didn't have friends before her: he didn't know how to behave in these situations. Before Jemma, it was just him and his Mum. Once in America, it was just him.
He didn't want to go back to that point. He didn't want to be alone: not again.
Fitz sighed and numbly walked to the Bus' current location.
Jemma was probably in her assigned room now or was talking to Agent Triplett.
Both things were plausible at the moment.
Fitz ignored the twist in his chest and walked into the enormous hangar and up the Bus' cargo ramp, noticing that the lab's lights were still on.
It had been emptied of the numerous boxes they had used for their inventory check and it was pristine again.
Seeing the lab brought a little bit of comfort to him, undoing a bit of the tension that he carried.
It made him think of normalcy and of how things were and should be…
But nothing is normal any more, he thought as he stopped short of the doors. The pale blue splatters of the ICERs shots still marred the high right corner of the glass panel.
Fitz recalled the shots, quick and fast as he closed his eyes waiting for an impact that never occurred. He still remembered May's face, cold and deadly as she looked at him from behind the gun.
He could still feel the fear and betrayal that had coursed through his veins.
The lab had always been a sanctuary to him.
When he was younger, it was the place where he could express himself without being judged or mocked. As he grew older, it was the place where he could show his worth, invent devices that were useful.
Somewhere along the line, it also became the place where he and Jemma were the closest, where their synchronization was almost seamless. It was the place where they were FitzSimmons.
But the lab wasn't a sacred place any more.
It had been tainted during the Chitauri incident. Having Jemma inside working on the antiserum while he was out watching had been hard. Being locked in while she was about to jump off the plane, had made the lab a less comfortable place for him to stay in alone.
Having May shoot at him while inside the lab had made him lose his sacred place.
But right now...he needed to be in the lab. He needed a place where he could think alone.
Fitz couldn't sleep not just because of the silence.
Everything was finally catching up with him. His mind was a messy mass of doubts, fears and thoughts.
Hydra was back.
SHIELD was gone.
He didn't have an identity any more. He was nothing more than a ghost.
He was nothing.
His academic achievements had been deleted: no one would see him as an engineer any more.
His Mum... she didn't have a son any more.
She didn't know that her son no longer existed.
Fitz swallowed dryly and walked into the lab: the automatic doors opened and closed behind him. He dropped into his chair and leaned onto his workspace, elbows on the table and head dropping onto his hands.
Everything he knew was suddenly crumbling around him.
Changing.
And he hated change.
Change meant mutation, an alteration of normalcy and Fitz thrived on constancy and routines.
He looked up, chin cradled by his palms and watched the empty space before him. He didn't realise how quiet the lab could be without all their equipment on.
He almost expected Jemma to be standing there, behind her microscope or by the centrifuge. He almost expected her to look at him with that little smile of hers, telling him to take a deep breath and calm down because things would turn out alright.
But she wasn't there.
That was one change he wasn't ready for. Not having her by his side, always by his side, as it had been for almost eight years, was unravelling him.
Jemma had been drifting away from him ever since the mission at the abandoned guest house. The retrieval of the GH325 and the lack of information about it had taken her complete attention and focus.
He knew she was worried for Skye: he was just as concerned about the hacker and her well-being.
But Jemma, rule-following-Jemma, started questioning everything, first of all Coulson's authority. Fitz knew that Skye and Coulson were hiding something but he thought that their leading officer had good reason to do that.
When she was called at the HUB -alone, without him, as Agent Hand had ordered- he immediately knew that she would take advantage of the situation and use the lab facilities.
He decided to trust her instincts and gave into her plan; decided to help her in jerrying up an encrypted line so that they could be in touch.
But then Hydra took over. Their lives were at stake and now, they were alive but with nothing left.
The relief he had felt when he saw her and she hugged him had been overwhelming.
She was alive.
But now, as they patched the Bus as quickly as they could, he wondered how they had gone from being in sync and close to being apart again.
And he couldn't bear the sight of her getting close to Agent Triplett.
He knew that they had been together at the HUB and had probably faced dangerous moments together. He could understand that.
What he didn't understand was why she was taking the other man's side, why she was listening to his words and not to him.
Why?
"Well, at least we still have each other..." She looked sincere.
"Yeah. Good..." Fitz felt a wave of relief. "The last thing I want is for things to change."
The relief froze in his body as he took in her look. It was almost...apologetic.
"Fitz, it's too late for that..."
He couldn't come up with any word in reply. What change had she been referring to?
SHIELD gone? Their entire lives wiped out? Their loyalty towards Coulson and the Team?
Them? Their loyalty towards each other?
Fitz didn't know. And he didn't know what his partner had been thinking.
He looked around the lab, taking in the silence of the usually noisy room and sighed loudly.
Honestly, he didn't know what he was thinking either.
He didn't like change: he never had.
But he was changing.
After having shot that man in the HUB, he felt something shift inside him.
He couldn't forget the way his heart had thumped in his chest and how his hands had been shaking. And he couldn't forget May's astounded look when he saved her life.
He couldn't shake off the burning feeling simmering in his stomach when he lingered on the thought that he had killed another human being.
He had kept it quiet and Jemma hadn't noticed it. It stung somehow that she didn't notice his inner turmoil. There had been times when she would see right through him and notice every nuance of his character and emotions. And yet he could do the same with her.
He didn't like that change between them...
"Respectfully, Sir, I think he should come along with us."
Coulson looked at her.
"Okay, but Agent Triplett's your responsibility."
Fitz watched as Jemma touched Triplett's arm after Coulson left and felt something coil in his stomach.
But maybe it was a good thing... This wasn't the moment to acknowledge his feelings...
They had always been there, those feelings, hidden beneath doubts and thoughts and fears. He had always shed them away, considering them ridiculous and inappropriate.
Now that Jemma was seemingly moving away from him, he couldn't think of anything else.
He had to stop.
Fitz got up and started sorting his things, re-ordering them after the soldiers of the HUB had searched the Bus and figured out what was missing. The had taken inventory of their supplies but not on their personal belonging and working items.
It took him a while to assess his possessions and he was relieved to see that nothing had been taken. All of his blueprints and devices had been locked in the back of the lab and the data in the computers had been wiped out by Skye and saved on a hard drive.
Hydra hadn't taken anything.
But Garrett knew what he could do.
Fitz felt a wave of anger towards the man. He had trusted him: the whole Team had. He had agreed with him, was willing to fight with him.
And that bastard had shown his true colours and had wanted to destroy them all...
The wave of anger coiled into something hot in the pit of his stomach and Fitz had to put his hands down on his workbench, forcing himself to calm down. It had been a while since he'd felt so angry...
He would lash out and throw things when he reached a boiling point as a kid: it usually occurred when he couldn't keep his emotions and fears in check and his room (and his hands) took the brunt of that.
The last time he'd lost it he'd been at the Academy; after the -nth prank and bullying episode, he'd just given in to his anger, destroying a good part of his prototypes.
And Jemma had been there to calm him down.
Fitz fingers curled into tight fists and he swallowed dryly, fighting back a lump in his throat as his emotions were trying to get the best of him.
He had to calm down. He had to focus on what was important now.
Help Coulson and the Team. Find Garrett and defeat Hydra.
And... get back to being FitzSimmons.
He had to get that back at least. Even if his whole world was crumbling, he had to have Jemma by his side again. He had to find a way to go back to normalcy.
With that in his mind, he settled down on his chair and picked up an ICER, starting a maintenance that wasn't really needed...but what his jittery mind and hands demanded from him.
-:-
"We need to talk."
"We do?"
When Jemma stood in front of him, his fingers latched onto the seat's safety belt by reflex.
The twenty hours following their arrival at Providence had been hectic and his mind (and heart) were in shambles.
Seeing Coulson and Audrey's story had left him... yearning, wanting something but also confused. And scared.
His feelings for his best friend were clearly not friendly
("What's in the box?" "Simmons." He'd never want to be alone...Never without her.).
If he even had a doubt that he was slowly and irreversibly falling for his partner, his time with Coulson just forced it out of him. As they planned a way to stop Daniels and randomly talked, he realised everything.
"What don't you tell her truth?" He watched Jemma on the stage with Audrey, he saw her comfort the older woman. She had always been good in that: comforting people, giving them hope...
Jemma started talking but he was only half listening. She spoke about Triplett again and how he was sure that he had done something to upset him.
Suddenly the other man wasn't his worst problem. Even though he had felt the need to hit something when Triplett and Jemma smiled at each other knowingly after Coulson's briefing. Even though he had groaned about him to Ward.-
"It's not because you're afraid to talk to her?" He watched Jemma leave and he suddenly felt like the shy, friendless and too young boy who admired the brilliant, smart and equally young girl back at the Academy. He had never found the courage to talk to her on his own... It took them being paired together at chem lab to make her see him...
Suddenly, Jemma Simmons had become his problem.
"It's not him."
"What is it then?"
He looked at her. He opened his mouth to talk but the words didn't come out.
He didn't know what to say or how to say what his mind and heart were telling him.
He was in love with her.
And that realisation changed everything.
It changed eight years of friendship and ease.
How could he tell the girl (woman really... A beautiful and brilliant woman...) that had shared his thoughts and spaces for years that he was in love with her?
How could he do that while she was clearly not interested in him in that way?
Fitz instantly shut his mouth as confusion fled his mind replaced by daunting fear.
He couldn't tell her.
It would destroy them.
He'd rather never say a word about his feelings then risk his relationship with Jemma.
Fitz looked at her and took in the amber eyes (concerned eyes, he realised. She was worried for him...) that he had seen every day for years.
He smiled slightly.
"You know how I can be," he said softly. "I hate change."
He wouldn't change them.
Never.
-:-
It was only when they were almost a hundred feet beneath the ocean, with him and Jemma trapped in the medpod (she was in the box after all...He realised the irony only later...) that he realised that he had to embrace the change.
Fitz looked at the almost empty oxygen canister in his hand -the only oxygen source among the supplies. He held it tight in his hand while he heard Jemma preparing everything near the glass.
He'd be brave: he would not hesitate.
He'd do anything to convince her take the canister.
She had to live.
There was no way the Leopold Fitz would allow Jemma Simmons to die. He cared her too much for her.
He loved her too much.
He'd die for her.
Fitz decided that he would be brave.
That was the biggest change he could offer her.
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