A/N: Hello, thegirlwiththeblackinkpen here. I'm obsessed with this pairing. And now the show won't come back 'til January, and I'm just sitting here, like, "WTF?!" Anyways.
This will be a one-shot collection, a series of missing FitzSimmons moments, if you will. All of the moments in this chapter take place before/during the first episode.
1 How I Wonder What We Are
Simmons groans, rolling her neck in pain. She is sore from the tension earlier, and she glares at the first DWARF prototype on its proud spot in the corner of lab.
True, she is proud of it, and she and Fitz had completed it in under an hour, but right now, all of her thoughts are circulating around the knot at the base of her neck.
"Alright there?" Fitz asks, putting away his drill and his other spare parts.
Jemma nods, "I'm alright, I've just got this awful pain in my neck from earlier."
Fitz grins, "Sounds familiar. Sci-ops, winter of 2004."
Jemma laughs, some of the tension relieving itself at the memory, "You tripped in lab and we – "
"Had to start all over on the pheromone project," Fitz says, finishing the sentence for her.
Jemma nods, thinking of the memory. She had been so mad when Fitz had tripped, knocking over the nearly complete odorless pheromone that would be able to be recognized by Fitz's tracking device. An organic tracking system, potentially revolutionizing the way they handled drop-offs, kidnappings, hostage situations, everything.
And as Jemma gets more and more stressed, she tended to have a horrible pain in her neck afterwards.
"How 'bout I make us some tea?" Fitz asks, and Jemma flashes a grateful smile.
Fitz nods, going up to the kitchen and leaving Jemma alone with her thoughts in the lab.
"How long have you been married?" Coulson had asked earlier. Jemma had blushed, and denied it, and Coulson offered an enigmatic smile and walked away, before adding, "Let me know your answer by next week."
Jemma wasn't quite sure how to respond to such a question like the former. What were she and Fitz? Friends? Were they in a sibling relationship? Girlfriend-boyfriend?
Were they unofficially married, like Coulson had said?
Christ, social conventions are confusing.
Fitz sets down a mug of steaming earl grey in front of Simmons and she stared hard at it.
"What are we?"
Fitz turns and looks up from his own mug of tea, "What?"
"What are we?" Simmons repeats.
"Well, I really think that's more your area of expertise," Fitz says, grinning in a joking manner.
"Not biologically – I mean us. Y'know, us, what are we?" Simmons reiterates.
"Erm, I don't know, you mean –"
Jemma cuts him off, "I mean, our we friends? Just partners? What are we?"
Leo shrugs, "I mean, you're all of those things to me. I mean, we know everything about each other."
Jemma frowns, "What does that mean?"
"I suppose we're just us," Fitz says, shrugging again in a joking manner.
Simmons rolls her eyes, "This isn't a joke! I'm being serious. What are we?"
"We're FitzSimmons. That's what we always are."
2 Up Above the World So High
Fitz doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all. He can't sleep because of the loud drone of the plane outside, and the small space of the pod is making him feel dizzy.
Damn. Sleeping on a plane is going to take some getting used to.
Skye snores loudly through the thin walls next door, and what had previously been a good idea and a fast way to get close with the pretty hacker has now turned into a terrible situation for his REM cycles.
He flips onto his stomach, poking his feet out and throwing a pillow over his head in an attempt to block out the noise, but only a more gnawing feeling in his stomach results from the shift.
A soft knock suddenly sounds on the door, and Fitz gets up, pulling it open in an exasperated manner.
Simmons stands there, her hair disheveled and a slightly perturbed look on her face.
Fitz is slightly surprised, "Jemma?"
"Sorry," she says, smiling nervously, "Did I wake you?"
"No," Leo assures her, "I couldn't sleep either."
"Do you think I could stay here?" Jemma asks hesitantly, "I just – "
"I know. You don't like planes. Not since your grandpa told you that story when you were six," Leo affirms, waving her inside to his cramped bunk.
There's barely any room except to sit on the bed, so they do so.
"Do you want to put a film on?"
"'The Third Man?'" Jemma asks hopefully.
"Sure."
Jemma nods off someplace in the middle of the movie. She leans against his shoulder, her wavy hair tickling his neck and he draws the blanket up around them. Their legs are pressed against each other, his arm encircling her frame. He smiles fondly up at her, and continues watching the movie.
He'll wake up first, feeling the delightful puffs of her breath on her skin, and awkwardly get out of bed and leave Jemma to sleep, but for now, he'll live in the moment.
3 Like a Diamond in the Sky
Fitz knows Simmons doesn't like flashy things. And that's why he allowed her birthday to pass by quietly, unnoticed by the other members on the Bus.
But she should've at least expected a present from him.
He passes the box over to her.
It's heavy, and Fitz watches with anticipation as she slowly opens it, looking skeptical. (He'd once made a box that had exploded whipped cream all over her face when she opened it for April Fools.)
It was a rock.
But, it wasn't just any rock.
Jemma's eyes lit up, "Is this- "
Leo nods enthusiastically, "From Thor's home planet itself."
"How did you-"
"Coulson pulled a favor for me," he says proudly. He nods, "Open it!"
She twists the rock slightly, and it opens up, revealing a beautiful pattern of green geodes and white crystals. Jemma grins, "Pass me the magnifying glass, will you?"
It glitters under the fluorescent light of the lab, and Jemma whistles as she examined it closer, fastening goggles on and squinting at the formations under a magnifier.
She straightens, smiling, "Thank you."
"Happy birthday."
