FitzSimmons: Agents of Unbearable Awkwardness
Here's a problem I have with FitzSimmons: Though I love them more than what seems reasonable, and though I yearn to see them get together, I'm slightly afraid that if they do actually manage it, it will be so awkward that I'll have to avert my eyes. I wrote this in an attempt to prove to myself that it might be ok. Also, this gets a teensy bit more, ahem, specific than stuff I've written in the past, so that was fun...
It was lucky that Fitz's doting single mother had been so hell bent on instilling good manners into her only son. If it hadn't been for that one saving grace, the comprehensive catalogue of verbal output from the solitary engineering student could have been conveyed by the audio of the first few minutes of Four Weddings and a Funeral on loop. The young Scot had been inclined towards a melancholic ennui that made Eeyore look like a life coach. With his laundry on the floor and a do-not-disturb-on-pain-of-death sign on the door, no one looked worthy of the friendship of a certain biochemist less than he.
By contrast, the biochemist in question exuded cheery sunshine that belied a backbone of pure steel. Jemma had wiled away her Enid-Blytonesque happy childhood in rambles and scones while being raised by the wisest and most functional of parents. As a consequence she had been instilled with not only excellent manners but also good sense, a precocious (if peculiar) conversational style and a slightly over-developed self-esteem.
Brought by fate across the seas to the same centre of extremely focused higher education, it was only a matter of time before the two vertically-challenged seventeen year-olds were thrown together by the foresight of a chemistry professor and the rest was history.
A decade-and-a-bit later, after their rough edges had been scuffed almost entirely away and they had been through no small amount of shifting allegiances and near-death experiences, one thing was clear but many others remained obscure. Crystal clear was that their last remaining allegiance was to one another. Among the obscurities lay the precise reason why.
ooo
"Bollocks," Fitz muttered under his breath as he hunted in vain for a partner to match the stripey sock he'd just donned.
A sharp knock on his door distracted him.
"Fitz?" Jemma called. "I think I've found a few of your bits and pieces in with my laundry again."
Busted. He slid open the bunk door to coyly accept her proffered assortment of socks and jocks. Among them was the very sock he'd been hunting for and his lucky purple boxers.
Fitz peered around her into the basket she held under her other arm. "You didn't happen to find my grey cardie in there too, did you?"
"Fitz," Jemma sighed in affectionate exasperation as she dropped the basket and fished it out. "I've decided I'm holding onto this for the week as payment for doing your extra laundry." She shrugged it on over her blouse and jeans and flicked her hair out over the neckline.
Fitz smirked. "Fair cop." He loved her wearing his clothes.
He stood to one side to allow her into his room, bending to retrieve the basket and carry it in after her.
Jemma had already flopped onto his bed so he slid the door closed, deposited the basket next to it and plonked himself beside her to pull on the prodigal sock.
"Did you hear Coulson's giving us the day off tomorrow?" Jemma asked casually, flicking through the Scientific American she'd pulled from his bedside table.
"Really?" Fitz grinned as he bent to lace up his threadbare Chucks.
"Really."
Something in her tone caused Fitz to glance up at her. Her cheeks looked a bit pink as she perused the magazine with a dogged determination.
Oh no, he thought, somehow managing to knot his finger into his shoelace. This is one of those opportunities that Hunter was telling me to look out for. What do I do now?
But as it happened, Jemma had matters well in hand.
"Fitz," she began, laying aside the magazine and fixing her honey-coloured eyes on him. "I think this," she waved her hand vaguely between them, "Has gone on long enough, don't you?"
He could feel his mouth gaping. He could feel his cheeks burning. He could feel his pulse racing. What could she mean? Is she breaking up with me? We're not even together!
"So I'm taking you out," she said firmly. "On a date." The gaze with which she stared him down practically dared him to object.
"On a date!" Fitz spluttered, careful to keep the questioning upward inflection out of his tone. "Right! I mean, great!"
"Really?" Jemma asked, suddenly looking impossibly small and vulnerable. "You want to then?"
Fitz nodded vigorously even as he internally chided himself for ever letting her doubt it. "Have you made any plans yet?"
"Not really," Jemma shrugged, embarrassed. "Just wanted to make sure you'd actually agree to the idea first."
Fitz saw a chance to redeem himself. "Maybe I could be the one to work out a plan?" he offered tentatively.
"If you like," Jemma accepted, clearly relieved by his enthusiasm.
Fitz straightened up and took a deep breath as he made a grab for her hand. "Thank you for being the one to ask. You've probably guessed that I've been trying for a while."
She laughed, entwining her fingers with his. "I don't think I asked so much as told."
Fitz shrugged. "I probably needed to be told. If you left it up to me to ask, even if you said yes I'd still be left feeling I was forcing you into it."
Jemma was quiet for a while. "I thought that might be it. And don't think I don't understand, Fitz. I'm kind of feeling like that myself right now."
Fitz shook his head, laughing. "I just volunteered to make plans for us." He gave her hand a squeeze. "Jem, there is no one I would rather spend tomorrow with than you."
"I know that," Jemma said quietly. "But the date part? Are you ok with that?"
Fitz flashed back to a pod on the bottom of the ocean. Should I bring that up? Nothing has changed. He decided against it. "It's probably about time we clarified some things."
Jemma's shoulders visibly relaxed. "My thinking exactly."
ooo
"I mean, I've been shipping those two for ages. I've been shipping them hard, you know that," Skye was saying, "But I don't know," she shrugged. "Maybe too much time has gone by. Maybe…"
"It's too uncomfortable to imagine?" Hunter volunteered.
Skye nodded ominously. "Exactly. I mean, I think I still love the idea of them, but can you imagine the two of them actually…" she trailed off.
Hunter's face conveyed the distress her silence communicated. "Kissing?" He paused. "Or worse?"
Skye shuddered. "It feels incestuous. Not to mention…"
"Incredibly, painfully, blindingly awkward."
"Yeah." Skye nodded emphatically. "So awkward I think I might throw up just thinking about it."
"I'll hold your hair back," Hunter laughed. "And then it can be my turn."
Skye leaned forward across the table, grinning. "Can you even picture him leaning in for the…"
Lance's hands were already up, defensively shielding his eyes. "Don't make me picture it, Skye. Honestly."
"Picture what?" rumbled Mack as he wandered into the mess and grabbed three beers from the fridge. Sliding two of them up the table to Skye and Hunter, the big man folded himself into a chair.
Lance and Skye exchanged wary glances.
"Did you hear about our scientists' plans for tomorrow?" Hunter ventured. "They're finally going on a date."
Mack pulled a face. "Wow," he chuckled. "A year ago I would have been psyched for my man, Turbo. But now…" He shook his head.
"Too awkward?" Hunter supplied knowingly.
Mack nodded decisively. "As far as I am concerned, that ship has well and truly sailed."
Skye laughed. "I used to try and bust those two making out in the lab," her face soured as she drew near to the end of her sentence. "But if it's really happening this time, they better steer well clear of PDA!"
"To be honest," Mack shrugged sadly, "I don't think it's gonna get off the ground with those two."
"Too much water under the bridge, mate," Lance agreed. He shook his head forlornly. "I think it's doomed."
"Oh no!" Skye's mood plummeted from playful to pitiful. "This could be really awful," she whispered.
ooo
From the hideously early moment that Fitz awoke he oscillated between dizzy excitement and blind terror. The day ahead held so much potential both for triumph and for disaster, and as everyone knew they'd seen no shortage of disaster. But as he'd watched Jemma leave his bunk the day before, after she'd been so insistent on the date element of their day together, he'd made a little resolve. He was utterly surrendering the self-preservation default that he'd been clinging to. All he felt for Jemma – the awe prompted by her brilliance, the reverence inspired by her beauty, the exhilaration that came from finding himself her trusted friend, the eagerness he felt to make this transition to whatever could come next for them – he was keeping none of it to himself. It was becoming more and more apparent that the barrier between them now was not what they had expressed but what they hid from one another. Jemma could keep hiding if she wanted, but Fitz was letting it all out.
He dressed himself carefully, taking his mum's word for it that blue was his colour, and fished the bunch of flowers that he'd hastily purchased the previous evening out of the beaker of water on his dresser. Sneaking through the deserted corridors to the mess, he brewed a pot of tea just the way they liked it and made his way to her bunk.
He was only half surprised to find Jemma already up and dressed. She was all smiles as she accepted the bouquet and let him pour her tea but Fitz knew her well enough to see the pensive set of her jaw. How have I managed to cock this up already? We haven't even left the base!
Jemma took a tell-tale deep breath and Fitz braced himself for the worst.
"I've been up for a while thinking," she said quietly.
Here we go. Over before it's even begun.
"There's something I said to you so many times, but it only just occurred to me that you never heard it."
His heart continued to sink even as his eyebrows rose. "Yeah?" he asked, trying to keep the despair out of his voice. "I didn't realise I'd been that distracted."
Jemma shook her head. "You weren't distracted."
She reached for his hand. Good sign?
"You were unconscious."
"Oh… Right." Fitz let out a sorry excuse for a laugh, still fairly certain his heart was about to be stepped on. "So I can't be in trouble for not paying attention."
Jemma ignored his attempt at humour, her imploring eyes finding his. "I said it every day. I mean, I probably said it every hour while I waited for you to wake up. I can't believe I haven't said it once since."
Fitz caught the urgency in her tone and leaned forward intently. "Said what, Jemma?"
"Thank you, Leo," she whispered, a single tear slipping down her cheek. "For saving my life."
Fitz reached out to gently brush away the glistening tear, weighing up whether or not to say what had popped into his head. He recalled his earlier resolve. He swallowed hard.
"You remember why, don't you Jemma?"
She nodded, leaning her cheek against his hand.
"Anyway," he gave her a lopsided grin. "You saved me right back."
"Leo," she went on, pressing his hand against her cheek with her own warm palm. "You are the bravest, best, most brilliant man I know. And I never meant to, but I've treated you so badly, haven't I?"
His eyes dropped to study the quilt beneath them as he shook his head.
"I have," she insisted. "You only wanted me to love you and I do, Fitz. But you were right, I just got so frightened."
Though Fitz was listening extremely carefully to everything Jemma said, three words in particular jumped out at him and he couldn't hold back his excited grin as he met her eye.
His joy was infectious and Jemma couldn't help but grin back. "You definitely heard that then," she laughed.
Fitz nodded. "I did." And he collapsed back onto the bed beaming.
He wasn't entirely sure how it all happened, but within only a second or two, Jemma's warm weight was pressed along the full length of his torso and she was smiling down at him.
Fitz's breath hitched and he nervously caught his bottom lip between his teeth as he reached up to tentatively tuck her cascading hair behind her ear.
"Hi," she breathed and the tenderness in her eyes rendered Fitz incapable of speech. Jemma's hand settled behind his ear, her thumb stroking the sandpapery stubble that defined his jawline. He sighed and wound an arm around her waist, steadying her against him. Fitz had never been this intimate with anyone before and the heightened emotion and apprehension he felt was exquisite. He cautiously slid his other hand along her spine and slowly, gently entangled his fingers in the curls at the base of her skull. Jemma failed to bite back a moan and Fitz watched in awe as her eyelids fluttered closed and she arched her neck, pushing back like a cat against the welcome contact. A myriad of stimuli flooded Fitz's senses and suddenly his inexperience didn't seem to matter at all. Jemma was here in his arms and she loved him. Showing her how deeply she was wanted, needed, was the only thing left in the world.
He lifted his head from the mattress, following her raised chin and ever so carefully pressed his lips to the column of her throat. Jemma gasped at the connection, and immediately tilted her face down toward him. For a solitary beat her eyes flickered open and Jemma and Fitz gazed directly into one another, acknowledging just for an instant this leap off their long familiar precipice. He slid his hand further into her hair, bringing her face down to meet his so that this time his lips could brush ever so lightly against hers. If that first connection was electrifying, it was nothing in comparison to the lightning strike of Jemma pressing herself more firmly against him and drawing his top lip into her mouth in such a way that he couldn't help but drag her bottom lip into his.
Every inch of his body was alert to every one of her movements just as hers appeared to be to his, but Fitz took nothing for granted. The trajectory of years and years of unacknowledged longing set an unspoken course between them and their heart-rendingly tender kisses and caresses eventually turned the inevitable corner towards a deeper insistence. At every new stage of their exploration, Fitz sought her eyes, silently and sometimes verbally seeking her consent, ensuring her certainty, pursuing her pleasure with the determination of a lover whose own satisfaction would be entirely born out of hers. At every careful question and the sweetness that inevitably followed, Jemma knew an even greater depth of love and trust and fulfilment than she had ever previously imagined.
"Jemma," Fitz murmured against her bare shoulder, making her name sound like a prayer as only he could. "You know I adore you."
She hummed happily in response, pressing kisses all across his face as she'd done once before, feeling, despite the medical implausibility, as though her heart might burst.
While the rest of the team took advantage of their rare chance to sleep in, the scientists had decisively crossed that looming frontier. Afterwards, as they held one another close, all Jemma could wish was that she'd had the foresight to seek Fitz out for that first time at the Academy and every time thereafter. To know how deeply she was loved and then to have that conveyed in the achingly beautiful manner in which Fitz had shown her had brought her undone in ways she had never thought possible – over and over and over.
ooo
It was close to noon by the time a bleary-eyed Skye, Hunter and Mack stumbled across one another in the mess.
"Anyone sighted anything cringe-worthy yet?" Hunter asked as he flopped into a chair cradling his plate of toast and marmalade.
Mack shook his head and Skye's eyes immediately flew to the screens that relayed security footage from all over the base. "No embarrassing views from here," she declared. "Wait, is that…?"
All three of them stared at the screen broadcasting images from one of the long corridors lined with bunks. Fitz and Simmons had just emerged from Simmons' bunk and the minute she'd slid her door closed, Fitz had grabbed her into a long, languid, open-mouthed kiss, his fingers winding into her just-out-of-the-shower-wet hair as she snaked her arms around his waist, her hands disappearing under the wool of his navy cardigan.
The three observers exchanged surprised glances.
"Ooh!" Hunter cried. "I don't know about you two, but I take everything back. Maybe those two aren't Agents of Awkward after all."
"That's actually pretty hot." Skye fanned her face with a piece of toast. "And you realise this means Fitz and Simmons are suddenly getting more action than we are."
Mack laughed and raised his coffee cup in a toast to the oblivious FitzSimmons. "Nerds getting it on at last," he chuckled. "I like it."
Ok, I'm officially ready to see this happen now. Make it so, Marvel!
If you're ever so nicely inclined to leave a review (which will totes make my day!) just be aware that 2x21 and 2x22 are yet to screen in my part of the world so no spoilers please!
And if you're on the look out for more FitzSimmons fics, you *might* like my stories "The Flying Haggis: FitzSimmons' Adventures in the Campervan of Awesome" or "By My Side" (which is kind of a mess of FitzSimmons one-shots). There are some other Marvel things in amongst my eclectic collection - a little bit of Spidey/Gwen, a little bit of Loki, something for everyone!