A/N: I am still working on the last few chapters for Inside the Framework, struggling with the balance of writing and uni work plus a lack of inspiration, so here is a one shot until I have time to finish that story. Spoiler warnings for 4x17 plus slight warnings for a very small reference to suicidal thought. Title taken from the song One Day More from Les Mis. I hope you enjoy my take on the Fitzsimmons relationship.
What a Life I Might Have Known
At just sixteen the SHIELD Science and Technology Academy was more than a big building, it was freedom for Fitz. All the lab equipment, advanced technology he didn't yet fully understand, his own dorm room. There was only one downfall. His bio-chem partner. Any other bio-chem student would have been perfect but for some insane reason, they thought he would work best with Doctor Jemma Simmons. The princess from Sheffield who thought she was ph so perfect because she had two PhDs. Plus she was three months younger than him. He could barely even talk around her, the shyness he felt engrained in his DNA rather than because of any subconscious feelings he was sure. They weren't friends, barely even worked as partners. Until one fateful Thursday.
The impossible happened. Jemma Simmons was late for class. It wasn't like it was a lecture, like it even mattered really, most of the other students arrived hours after Fitz and Simmons. Fitz really wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact she set these meeting times and always made a point of arriving early so he looked bad. Insufferable. Only now it had been an hour, and he was worried. Of course he only worried because he could no longer move on without her chemical knowhow. Nothing to do with worry about Princess Simmons.
He searched the places she'd prattled on about during their time working together. Her favourite spot on the third floor of the biology library, the corner of the canteen where it smelt like lavender, a secret hideout known as the boiler room, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually he ended up at her door, knocking before he heard the sniffling, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward when a red eyed Simmons opened the door. She wasn't pristinely put together, tissues littered her usually spotless floor, tears tracked down her cheeks. This wasn't a situation he excelled in, his own emotions to volatile to deal with sometimes. So when Simmons pulled him in hugged him close and cried on his second favourite shirt, he couldn't describe the feeling. He awkwardly pat her on the back, stumbling over words of comfort, his own gut clenching seeing her so upset.
"I'm so sorry Fitz." She stumbled over her words and it twist the knife in even more. She wasn't supposed to be this fragile, this human. She wasn't supposed to feel the pain he had felt his whole life. "My mum was in an accident and she was taken to hospital and I'm here, completely useless. How am I supposed to be a doctor when I can't even save my own family?"
It wasn't until a few months later, when she'd told him with an air of relief that her mother was out of hospital, that he realised he cared for Jemma Simmons. Leopold Fitz finally had a friend he cared about, a friend he knew little details about and one that he would fight fiercely to protect, no matter the cost. That day, he swore to forever remain by her side like any best friend would.
The day she was infected with an alien virus, was the day he felt that need to protect overwhelm him. He had kept his promise, put himself into the field, followed her onto this ridiculous SHIELD response team, even took the bunk next to hers. None of it was enough when he heard she was in quarantine. He couldn't protect her from behind a glass door so of course he'd run in to work beside her, the only way they knew how. It all went by so quickly that he didn't have time to process it. One moment she was by his side and the next they were scooping her from the ocean. He would have jumped, he told her as much after in his bunk, after all what are best friends for?
Certainly not for specialist agents, with bulging biceps who swoop in and save the day. No he was the hero here, Jemma's words reassuring that bond. Then her lips pressed to his skin, something foreign and wonderful fluttering deep below the surface. He was glad she left his bunk as he pulled his arms around himself, processing the whole day. 'You've been beside me the whole damn time.' Those words meant so much more without him even fully comprehending their weight. Through everything she'd been there, and it took nearly losing her to realise he always wanted her by his side.
He didn't tell her until months later, at the bottom of the ocean where the kiss to his cheek, then forehead and all over his face, told him exactly what he needed to know. A kiss that had ignited his feelings back on the bus, now felt like a punch to the chest, a feeling much worse than the literal pain he felt seconds later. He never blamed her for it, especially when he woke up, knowing she had other, superior, suitors. Why would she take a man so broken when she could have someone like Ward or Tripp. Only no. Not Ward. Ward had betrayed them. Ward had done this. Ward was the danger he needed to protect her from.
Everything changed again once he had crossed the universe for her twice. Those feelings he felt high in the air and below the ocean didn't change once he returned from an alien world but something heavier weighed on his heart whenever he saw her. Guilt, pain, regret. Will had been perfect, everything he wasn't, able to protect her in ways he could only ever imagine. He couldn't even save him. He was completely useless and Jemma didn't deserve that. Even through reintroductions, he felt useless to her. When his lips met hers in front of the universe, he felt nothing but guilt, still, again she pulled him back.
"It's been ten years." Ten years since he was that resentful teenager, focused so coldly on science he hadn't accounted for friendship. Ten years of Jemma Simmons working her way into his heart, making him feel so many things he never felt he deserved. With every kiss they shared, the guilt lessened. He still felt some remorse for his actions, even after he was assured killing Hive's host was the only way to rid the world of such evil, but now he had Jemma to reassure him, her hands and lips lessening the burden he felt. Loving her, and having that love returned, gave him the strength he needed to be a hero.
"I know exactly who I am." The bullet fired before Radcliffe can protest, before the consequences can hit him. A voice he doesn't recognises screams his name, a name he never got called but over the past few days it had been a regular occurrence. To everyone he was The Doctor. To Ophelia he was Leopold but nobody but her got to be so personal. Skye had used it just the day before and now she was detained. Whoever this girl was, she'd find the same fate as Skye soon enough.
"Fitz!" The world around him seemed to freeze as her words rang out. Bullets rained around him but for a second it didn't matter. His eyes met hers and that was it. She was hurt, not physically, but he could sense her pain. Disappointment. She was disappointed with him. The subversive had the audacity to show such emotion and yet, his gut twisted and suddenly his actions made him feel sick. It wasn't like Agnes was the first life he'd ever taken but here, watching her, he felt something he'd never felt before. Regret pumped through his veins, his eyes fixed on hers for what felt like a lifetime, even if it was only really a couple of seconds. One woman. One subversive and his whole world view was changed. He didn't love her like Radcliffe had said, this wasn't a fairy tale where there eyes met across a ballroom and he was suddenly a prince in need of rescue, but he felt different. Hurting people felt wrong all of a sudden. Torturing Skye felt unappealing. He suddenly wanted one of the stray bullets to hit him. Tears built up but never fell, that sort of weakness something he couldn't show on the battlefield or off.
Later that day, he takes it out on Radcliffe, his sleeves rolled to his elbows as he cuts, never spilling a drop on his pristine shirt. That's what he gets for spreading lies. He feels himself once again, like the blip with the subversive never happened. Still, once he is alone in his office, the tears fall for the blood he'd shed. He couldn't even find it in himself to be angry, an emotion he was so used to. No, now all he felt was regret, resigned to the fact that Agnes' life had been stollen by his own hands.
He woke up with the feeling of death laying heavily on his heart. Agnes and Radcliffe's blood on his hands and so much life he still couldn't be sure would be saved. May was in bad shape being hooked up for so long, Mace for being in such a bad condition when he entered the Framework and Daisy from fighting to get to their physical bodies after the mental torment he'd put her through. If the physical scars hit him hard, seeing Mack break down in Elena's arms as he was pulled from the machine made the regret sink deeper than he thought humanly possible. She tried to hold him but he knew he didn't deserve that love, not when pain and death from his hands surrounded him. Mack had been right, this was all his fault.
He finally feels her arms around him when he showers that night, struggling to catch his breath as he collapses, spilling out onto the bathroom floor. She is at his side in a flash, pulling his soaked body into her lap, telling him that everything's okay but how could it be? How could anything be okay after the lives his inventions had taken? After the lives he'd taken with his own hands? He didn't deserve her love and he certainly wouldn't accept what he'd done like with Will, no matter how tightly she held him.
He left SHIELD behind without knowing the fate of his team, something that makes the hole in his heart grow, especially when Jemma packs her bags with his, insisting she go wherever he does. They move to Glasgow, close to his mother. A strategic move on Jemma's behalf so he can feel love from the two women in his life who never judge his tears or his constant nightmares.
It takes years this time before he can build himself up again, teaching at the local university, hoping his students will learn from his mistakes. Jemma's love slowly pulls him back and when she says I Do before their small family, a little bit of the guilt is absolved. When they finally catch word of their teams safety a little more of the guilt lifts, but it is only when Peggy is born, so tiny and innocent that he no longer feels the darkness that has plagued him for so long. The fierce need to protect the small girl, with his eyes and Jemma's smile, overcomes any and all remaining guilt he feels. If he can succeed in the creation of something wonderful like Peggy Fitzsimmons, there is no need to wallow in actions of the past, to live in his grief. He has something to love, something to protect and he would lay down his life before he lets that twist into something ugly.