A Long Way To Go
Love is friendship set on fire.
People like to say it as an explanation, with the pompous tone of those who barely know what they are talking about. It is beautiful, almost poetic, to summarize lives in a sentence and, then, to hope that others won't ask for an elaboration.
Because love is rarely simple, and it most certainly can't be described with pretty words and minimizations.
In this case, among the complexities of childhood and of an adolescence labeled genius, there is the difficulty of transition: from theory to practice, from the choices made for them to an assortment of never ending possibilities (take a pick, best of luck).
They are twenty-two years old and still very much children when they first meet.
Jemma Simmons is bright-eyed and nervous, and she carries more books in her arms than most of the students in her class have read in the entire last year. It's something she is aware of, but that never struck her as strange; she is the one teaching, after all.
Leo Fitz, on the other hand, is less scrawny than he'd been when in university, because he's just arrived from a semester in a NASA training program. He is growing back his curls after a disastrous haircut and, all in all, looks about as young as the freshmen that stumble around him in the corridors.
She is late, he is lost, and this is where they begin.
Simmons ran down the hallway, dread washing over her as she realized that putting on the cocktail dress before class hadn't been that great an idea. Sure, no one had noticed the fancy fabric under her lab coat, and for that she was thankful, but running in heels while holding a stack of heavy microbiology books was more of an exercise than she'd expected.
The Faculty Party wasn't the sort of celebration she would usually attend, but Professor Beaumont was an old friend, as well as the one helping Simmons to fill the teaching credits required for her Doctorate, and she'd said there was a guest the biochemist needed to meet before the end of the year.
"You must come, ma chérie!" The older woman had said, thick dark hair falling around her face in a picture perfect depiction of doe-eyes.
And that was it. It didn't take much to convince Jemma Simmons, especially when the only one suffering the consequences of such choice would be herself.
Even in her moments of extreme discomfort, the biochemist was nothing if not selfless.
...
Fitz was as lost as he'd been the first time he'd stepped onto American soil.
In that particular situation, there'd been a snowstorm, and his plane had landed in New York, instead of Massachusetts. It'd been only after almost getting mugged and spending his entire cash in taxis that he finally got to MIT.
That, fortunately, wasn't the case this time.
The boy – because there was absolutely no way that this caricature of a man could be considered anything else – huffed in frustration, turning to one side, and then to the other. He was pretty sure he'd seen that exact painting ten minutes earlier, but he was also certain he had followed the directions given to him perfectly.
He sighed for what felt like the thousandth time and rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate some of the ache that had started to settle.
Fitz knew he'd never been good with directions, but this was ridiculous.
He crumbled his notes into a ball, before throwing it over his shoulder in frustration. He heard the paper hit the ground, but didn't instantly turn to retrieve it. For a second, he pretended he was going to leave the damned thing where it was and just go back home.
He wouldn't, of course. And, despite his irritation, the directions Madame Beaumont had given him were his only means of finding the Christmas Party, especially when all the students seemed so intent on ignoring his attempts of communication.
He really disliked America sometimes.
So, instead of listening to the complaining voice in his head, the engineer spun around in search of those damned notes.
What he found, in their place, was a pretty girl in a pretty dress.
She had her hair tied back with a dark green ribbon, and her dress flared at her waist, almost reaching her knees. There wasn't anything particularly striking about her, not in her features, nor in the light brown color of her hair, but Fitz still found himself completely awestruck.
It was that smile, he knew, and the kindness in it, even when directed to a stranger.
"Are you looking for a bin?" The girl lowered her gaze down to the piece of paper at her feet, obviously too occupied with her books to pick it up.
Fitz grimaced, adjusting his backpack and hurrying to retrieve his notes. The brunette seemed to find humor in his fussiness, because she chuckled softly.
"I- I wasn't littering, or anything, really!" He shifted his weight nervously and tried to smooth down the creases, suddenly conscious of the way his hair hadn't quite gone back to how he liked it. "I was just frustrated over the bloody maze that is this damned university!"
Fitz froze, seeming to realize that he'd been whining. Not the impression he'd meant to cause.
But the girl merely rearranged the books in her arms, extending a hand towards him.
"I'm Jemma Simmons." She smiled at him once again, eyes shining under the brightness of the hallway. "And I can help you with that."
The boy shook her hand, a grin spreading across his face.
"Yes! Thank you. That would be fantastic!" He grabbed two of her books just as they started to fall. "Let me help you with these. I'm Fitz, by the way." His eyes darted up to her face, and he tried to suppress the anxiety that her presence made him feel. "Hm… I'm trying to find the Christmas Party. I think."
Simmons glanced at him as they started to walk, but her expression wasn't so much of surprise as it was curious.
"I believe you're referring to the Faculty Party. We prefer not to specify which belief we're commemorating, since the staff is very diverse." She scrunched up her brows, eyes focused on his. "I'm sorry, I didn't know there would be any new professors."
He blinked, before understanding what she'd meant.
"Oh, no!" He snickered, looking away from her unnerving stare. "I would be a terrible teacher, wouldn't have the faintest idea on how to do it. No, I'm just a visitor."
The girl bumped their shoulders together, calling his attention back to her.
"It's not that difficult, to be honest." She exhaled heavily, as if her mind had drifted somewhere. "The students can be a bit much, but they usually mean well."
Fitz hummed in agreement, trying not show his surprise. The girl couldn't be more than an year older than him, and he'd subconsciously classified her as one of the undergraduates. If she was truly a professor, then he couldn't have been more wrong.
"Well, a wee bit is already too much for me. I nearly lost my patience with this lass back at training because she couldn't tell me the difference atween a liquid bipropellant engine and a Dual Mode propulsion!" He huffed, indignant. "Can ye believe that?! What an eedj–"
There was a snort coming from the girl, and Fitz paused, turning to look at her.
Simmons had her hand over her mouth, trying to hide a fit of giggles. She looked like a child caught in something she shouldn't, but that didn't seem to embarrass her in the least.
"I'm so, so sorry." She muttered after a moment, still grinning. "It's just… You're so Scottish. It's been a while since I last heard such a thick accent."
Fitz smiled awkwardly in return, rubbing his arm.
"Yeah, some habits die hard, ok?" He balanced the books against his chest, grimacing at her. "You're not one to talk, little miss English."
She glared playfully at him, not bothering to answer, but Simmons straightened herself to stand taller.
"What are you doing in the Faculty Party, anyhow?"
He twisted his lips, unsure of what to say. He couldn't very well tell a complete stranger about Madame Beaumont and SHIELD.
Could he?
"I'm here to meet Madame Beaumont."
This seemed to be the right thing to say, because the brunette turned to look at him fully and smiled, rapidly asking about how he'd met the professor and why he'd come all the way to the university to see her.
"A remarkable woman, she is. Her research about the poxviruses had groundbreaking applications, and I believe it greatly affected the delay on deciding whether or not to destroy the smallpox virus." A light had ignited in her eyes, and Fitz found himself smiling at her enthusiasm. "Are you a pupil of her?"
The boy staggered, taken aback by her sudden inquiry.
"In a way." He breathed out, disguising his discomfort about the lie with a forced cough. "Assembly Room 5, here we are!"
Simmons stared at him suspiciously, but went through the door he'd opened, as if deciding it wasn't worth asking.
Madame Beaumont was on them in the next instant, complaining in French about Simmons' books and both their tardiness.
"Do you know each other already?" The woman laughed, just as Fitz handed Simmons the last of her books to put away.
"Already?" Simmons was looking at them over her shoulder, still trying to force her backpack closed. "Oh, wait!" There it was, that spark again. "Is he the friend you wanted me to meet?"
Céline Beaumont smiled, her thin lips twisting upwards in that feral way that always caught him off guard, reminding him that she was, in fact, a SHIELD agent.
"Bien sûr." She flicked her hair over her shoulder, impatient. "The two of you are my dearies, my selected."
"You mean she is…"
"Are you saying he also…"
The two had spoken at the same time, and they turned to look at each other, shock evident in their expressions.
The professor tssed at them, evidently entertained by their reactions.
"Selected. You are my two special picks. Geniuses, the best on your respective areas, and your names match."
Fitz grimaced while Simmons chuckled, both asking "They do?"
"We usually don't send you in pairs, but I took too long to get in touch with you, and the partnerships had already been designated." She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Ils sont trop difficile dans l'agence... So I had to make do. But I don't think it will be a problem."
The girl, now, had her hands clutched together and she took a step closer to the professor, an anxious smile on her lips.
"I don't mean to sound rude," she nodded in his direction, and her voice was cautious when she continued. "But how can you be so sure?"
Madame Beaumont smiled gently back at them, and her eyes were soft for the first time since Fitz had met her, almost an year earlier, when she'd burst into his lab with a SHIELD badge and an offer of dinner.
"Because I know you."
With that, she wished them a Merry Christmas and left towards a group of older men.
"So…" Simmons started, smirking slightly. "A pupil?"
Fitz grinned, still a bit sheepish.
"In a way." He repeated, and the girl seemed to consider it humorous enough, chuckling into her glass of champagne. "You too, apparently."
Simmons smiled from behind the glass, eyes focused on the ground as they walked, going around the circles of conversations formed by the different departments.
"A bit of an adventure, it will be. The academy, I mean." She glanced up at him. "I never thought about it before the professor brought it up, but… After the suggestion, it all just seemed so obvious."
Fitz shrugged, unsure if he wanted to share his insecurities with someone he'd only known for an hour and who he would be seeing a lot more from now on.
His silence wasn't what the girl had expected, of course, and she continued to focus her inquiring eyes on him.
"You're a biologist, right?" He said instead, grabbing a glass from one of the waiters.
"Biochemist, actually." She corrected, throwing her shoulder back like she'd done when he'd mentioned her nationality. Hiding the upturn of his lips behind the champagne, Fitz realized that this was Simmons when she was proud. "Which you're not, obviously."
The boy scowled at her, crossing his arms over his chest.
"I could be a biochemist."
The girl must have realized she'd offended him, because her eyes widened and she brought her hands up in a gesture of distress.
"I didn't –! I just –!" She exhaled, noticing the mirth in his gaze. "Oh, put a sock in it! You know what I meant! If you were at least a bit interested in my area, you would have said something about the whole poxviruses debacle. It's the superman vs. batman of virology!" She laughed, and, in response, he grinned.
"Ye've got me there. I don't know much about bio anything, really. But if you're dealing with gadgets for spatial analysis or – ideally non-lethal – weapon manufacture," he leaned against the nearest table, fumbling when its cloth slipped under his hands. "I'm – I'm your guy."
Redness colored his cheeks, but Simmons merely grinned, pretending not to notice his awkward recovery.
"Ah, Simmons," a man appeared from the other side of the table, smiling with mischief at the pair. "Look up, my dear, and cease the moment."
Behind the man, Madame Beaumont rolled her eyes.
"Leave Fitz-Simmons alone, Gaspar. They don't need le gui to make things more difficult than they already are. A new partnership is delicate, and you, my friend, are a drunk brute." She chastised the man, pulling him away by the arm.
Just as they left, Fitz-Simmons looked up. They took in the mistletoe with the sort of horror that only highly embarrassing public settings could provide and backed away from each other, blushing like children.
"Christmas sucks."
By his side, Simmons sighed, staring ahead with that tiredness in her gaze that usually meant she was fed up with him.
"You don't mean that." She replied, and Fitz saw, through the corner of his eyes, as another curl fell from her bun.
"No, I really do!" He turned to look at her. In the moonlight, he almost couldn't see the disapproval in her expression. "It's a bunch of traditions designed to make us feel equal parts happy and anxious, advertising only the happiness and pretending the anxiety isn't there, which seems to cause further uneasiness, because we are all brainwashed to think that, if we're unhappy during the holidays, then there's something wrong with us!" He exhaled loudly. "Not only that, but the religious background of it is almost completely ignored, since, apparently, present-giving and the ingestion of overpriced food are more important than the people you spend this time of the year with!" Fitz paused, noticing her frown. "No offense."
Simmons rolled her eyes, before letting herself fall back against the porch swing they'd been sitting on for the past thirty minutes.
Snow fell heavily around the Simmons' house, covering the grounds in brightness. From where they sat, the two could see no other properties, only a frozen lake and the woods that went well into the horizon.
It was a pretty sight, but neither seemed able to appreciate its beauty.
A year after they had met, and six months after they became partners and friends, Fitz-Simmons sat on the girl's porch swing, alone, in the first hour of Christmas' Eve.
"Offense taken." Simmons stated, clearly unimpressed by his little speech. "Christmas may be a faux concept in many ways, but it's also a time that represents good will amongst men." She smiled at him, softly, as if trying not to push the engineer with her cheerfulness. "So stop with this nonsense. My family will wake up in the morning and they will be thrilled to have you here. My grandmother will try to knit you something, and Jonathan will be glad he won't be the only one going against dad when they decide to play football."
This time, when Fitz grimaced, there was the slightest smile on his lips.
For a moment, they didn't say anything. The two stared out into the grounds, each lost in their own thoughts.
It wasn't unusual for them, of course. Both had grown up amidst people that didn't always understand what they said, and the looks they used to receive would have been enough to silence anyone. Fitz and Simmons had learned quite young that not everyone wanted to know, for instance, about the reason why snow was white, despite the fact that ice water was actually translucent. And, so, they kept quiet.
Until now.
"Did you know the reason why snow is white is because ice water is translucent, and snow is a collection of ice crystals? Individually, each changes the direction of the light photon that goes through it–"
"Collectively, they bounce the light all around," interrupted Simmons, enthusiastically. "Doing the same thing with all the different frequencies. All of them bounce back out!"
"And the 'color' of all the frequencies in the visible spectrum combined in equal measure is white!" Fitz completed, laughing along with her.
When they finally recovered from this surge of silliness, Simmons scooted closer to the boy, kissed his cheek and dropped her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes.
"You really are my best friend. You know that, right?"
Fitz's smile was unseen by the biochemist, but he put his arm around her shoulders and nodded.
"I'm sorry I was being ungrateful earlier." He traced the seams of her coat, trying to distract himself. "I'm just mad I won't spend Christmas with my mother. I can't believe she would leave for the winter and not even tell me."
Simmons knew he had problems with his family, but she also knew that there was nothing she could say to make him feel better, not in regards to his mother, at least.
"You will always be welcomed here." She muttered against his coat, smiling when he pressed a kiss to her hair.
If one of them noticed the mistletoe hanging above their heads as they dozed off, neither said anything.
"I can not believe we just did that." Simmons exclaimed, laughing as she went down the corridor. "How come you convinced me to do that?"
Fitz grinned, letting her pull him by the hand and around another corner. It was the third time they went through that same living area, but he knew she would ignore whatever comment he made.
He wasn't very good with directions, and it was her dorm, after all.
"Well, we are a bit intoxicated." He answered, scrunching up his brows. "And it's Christmas! Good will and all that… We embarrassed ourselves in the name of charity."
Simmons looked at him over her shoulder, eyes dark and alive, despite how late it was. She blamed it in late hours and champagne, but the girl felt excited, happy like she hadn't been all year.
That wasn't true, however.
She had had an extraordinarily good year, with her best friend by her side and the progress in her research about gamma radiation. With everything they had done so far, she wouldn't be too surprised if they completed their time in the academy with two years to spare.
Fitz-Simmons were twenty-four, and things were going accordingly to plan. Sort of.
Jemma Simmons wanted to kiss Leo Fitz.
She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and pull him down, just those few inches that made him taller than her, so she could press her lips against his, and then down and down, until she was making him moan, and–
Where had that come from?
The biochemist stared ahead, blinking rapidly and trying to erase the image that her mind had created.
It wasn't that she didn't know, from a detached point of view, that Fitz was a good-looking young man, but she had never felt like that towards him.
Had she?
In a way, she knew it was another one of those situations in which the more you know someone, the more beautiful that person becomes. And – hair mussed, eyes wide – he had never looked more attractive.
Late hours and champagne.
"There is no amount of alcohol that can explain us waltzing, Fitz." She laughed again, forcing herself to stop thinking of such matters. "When did you even learn to dance like that? I had no idea! It caught me by surprise, and – oh! I must have stepped on your foot at least three times!"
The boy stopped, pulling her closer by her hand.
Simmons gaped at him, obviously surprised by his actions. Her expression seemed to distract him, because he just stared at her for a second, eyes full of something that she couldn't quite comprehend.
And, then, he was blinking, a blush rushing up his cheeks.
"Ah, yes, we're here." He nodded towards the closest door, which was, in fact, hers.
"Oh." She muttered, trying her best not to let her gaze drift to his lips. "I guess we are."
"Do you want to–"
"I probably should–"
They chuckled. They had been doing this a lot for the past semester, talking at the same time. Initially, it had been sort of strange and irritating, but they were starting to see it as just another one of their "things".
Simmons was the first one to talk, this time.
"Do you want to come in? Laura and Rachel have gone home for Christmas…"
Just as she finished saying it, the biochemist realized how terribly sexual the invitation might have seemed. She knew she was blushing, but there was no way of hiding it in the bright lights of the hallway.
"I… I probably shouldn't." Fitz rubbed his arm uncomfortably. "Not that I–! I mean, it's not like you're…"
He was flustered, Simmons realized, and this recognition made a smirk spread across her lips.
"It's okay, Fitz. People would probably think of the most absurd things, if you did sleep over." She put her hand on his shoulder, pretending that the images of the two of them involved in less than pure situations hadn't been going through her mind mere seconds before.
He looked down at her hand, then at his, forcing a smile.
"Yeah, people."
Simmons didn't know how to interpret this. She wanted to believe he was also having a difficult time not kissing her, but they were friends, and certain lines just couldn't be crossed. Her hopefulness could be the end of them, and she couldn't have it. She wouldn't kiss him.
Instead, she did the next best thing.
The girl enveloped him in a hug, mumbling a Merry Christmas into his neck. Just as they parted, she quickly pressed her lips to kiss cheek.
"Mistletoe." She explained, gesturing to the little splotch of green that hanged from the ceiling.
Fitz nodded his head, and his expression of surprise morphed into a warm smile.
He was still standing there when she closed her dorm's door.
"Jemma, dear, come down for a minute!"
Simmons tried to rub the sleepiness away from her eyes, but her eyelids insisted on dropping.
She knew she shouldn't have spent the night watching classical Doctor Who episodes, but she'd promised Fitz, and an early night had quickly turned into an all nighter.
And now her mother was calling.
Considering it a lost case, she closed her laptop and straightened her clothes, doing her best to pretend that she had just woken up. A row over her jet-lag was definitely better than a full-blown lecture about how not sleeping messed up her circadian cycle.
Mrs. Simmons met her daughter in the middle of the staircase.
"Oh, you should have told me! I would have prepared something, of course." The woman wore a bright smile, much like Jemma's, and she pulled on the girl's sweater, obviously disapproving of the creases. "You need a bath. And coffee, I would say."
The biochemist yawned, eyeing her mother's apron and the way some strands had escaped from her ponytail.
"Are you cooking already?"
The other offered her a sheepish smile.
"She's been baking since we woke up." From the bottom of the stairs, a man of greying hair appeared, nursing a cup of tea. "Alice, go get Jonathan, he said he would help you with the cookies. I'll finish the cake."
Mrs. Simmons nodded at her husband.
"Oh, Jon will be so glad!" The woman smiled. "And Ellie is coming too! How I adore Christmas!"
Jemma chuckled, watching as her mother skipped the rest of the steps and into her brother's bedroom. If she knew Jon, he would be trying to contact Ellie, probably already worried over her meeting the rest of the family.
"She is awfully chipper." The girl turned to her father, giggling over how silly her mother could be.
"She's in the brink of hysteria." He corrected. "We didn't even know if you were coming home for the holidays, and, suddenly, we have guests staying over."
Simmons sent him a curious look.
"What do you mean by that?"
The man lifted an eyebrow, offering her the tea he was holding.
"Take this. I know you didn't sleep, and we'll talk about it later. Now, however, you have a visitor waiting for you in the hall."
As she walked towards this strange surprise, Simmons downed her tea and tried to contain her smile. She had a pretty good idea of who it could be, but she didn't want to get her hopes up.
She didn't have to worry. Standing on the doorway to the hall was her best friend, Leo Fitz, with an uncertain grin on his lips.
"You did say I would be welcomed here." He played with the Christmas cookie that her mother had obviously given him. "I can't say I didn't miss your family's recipes."
Her first instinct was to throw herself at him, but she knew it wasn't exactly their style, especially when they'd only parted ways three days before and had talked every day since leaving sci-ops.
Yet, if he was there, it was because something had gone wrong with his mother, and she also didn't want him to feel like she wasn't happy for his presence in her home.
So Simmons walked the last few steps towards him and took his hand, smiling up at the engineer.
"I did." She chuckled. "You are."
"Jeez, guys, you're such flirts." Jonathan was leaning against the kitchen's door, rolling his eyes at them. "Can I say hello now, or do you want me to leave you alone, so you can finally admit you fancy each other?"
His remarks didn't bother the two scientists. Having known each other for three years and been inseparable for two, they had grown accustomed to people's opinions about their relationship.
"Mom's already hysteric. I don't think she needs another surprise." Simmons replied, pulling her hair into a bun as her brother and Fitz shook hands.
"Well, I think she would be thrilled." The dark-haired boy countered. "Now, if I may, I need to go outside. Ellie will be here any second."
Fitz slapped the boy's shoulder, and the two exchanged a few words before Jonathan slipped out of the hall.
Simmons stood there, silent, smiling at her best friend.
"He really likes you." She said, after realizing the puzzled look Fitz was sending her. "It really is great to have you."
"Thanks, Jemma. He's a good lad… And you know that I like it here." He turned the cookie in his hand once more. "Mom was drinking, and I just left. I ended up here." He shrugged. "Sorry for not calling ahead."
The girl nodded, pretending that she hadn't felt anything strange in her stomach when he used her first name.
"Well, there are more cookies where that one came from, and you just know we'll be recruited to help Jon bake, so you're helping, really."
Fitz leaned against the doorway, a smug expression on his face.
"Well, I am a damn good cook."
Simmons laughed into her hand, and the boy grinned, because they both knew how untrue that was.
"Jon is right," came a new voice, and Ellie entered their field of vision, followed by a clearly amused Jonathan. "Just kiss already." As the two scientists started to blabber about how they weren't like that, she raised her hand, pointing to a spot above them. "No, I'm serious. Mistletoe."
For some reason, the presence of the plant made things slightly less awkward. Simmons shook her head, smiling, before standing on her toes and kissing Fitz's cheek.
"I heard what happened to Agent Coulson, and I'm so sorry." Agent Días said, emerging from the crowd in a long blue dress.
Fitz nodded, averting his eyes to where Simmons was talking to Skye. The mission's failure still left a bitter taste in his mouth, and the last thing he wanted to do during a SHIELD Christmas Party was talk about it.
"Yeah…" He took a sip from his glass of champagne, but the drink seemed to have lost its appeal. "Confidential matters, though."
The woman was taken aback by his bluntness, but she smiled through her shock.
"Sure, only level seven and above." Días threw her dark hair back, analyzing him with a look he'd learned to associate with Ward. "Lucky me, I'm a ten."
This attracted Fitz's attention, and he turned to her abruptly, frowning.
"I thought you were a level five, like Simmons and I." He blurted out, before remembering that he shouldn't have this kind of information and that Skye would most likely have his head for outing their little shenanigans with SHIELD files.
The other scientist wasn't fazed by this. She fixed him with what could only be described as a sultry look and smirked.
"I meant the other kind of ten."
He blinked, finally realizing that she was flirting with him.
And, for whatever reason, it wasn't working.
Fitz was standing next to a beautiful woman – she was a ten – at a party, and all he wanted to do was find his partner and get the hell away from the rest of the agents.
Maybe it had something to do with the stares his team was receiving, the pity and the disappointment in them, but what irritated him most , if he was being truthful, was that he'd been so busy with these strangers that he hadn't talked to Simmons since the beginning of the hellish thing.
"Agent Días, I see you haven't changed since the academy."
Simmons was suddenly right there, beautiful in her favorite red dress. She smiled at the other woman, but there was something forced in her usual cheerfulness.
"We were just talking about what happened to Agent Coulson." Días sighed, her expression unexpectedly blank. "Such a shame."
Simmons turned to him with narrowed eyes, and Fitz lifted his hands in a defensive stance, trying to indicate that he hadn't actually told the woman anything. The biochemist didn't seem convinced.
He was about to say something, change the subject into a lighter topic than the kidnapping and possible murder of their superior officer, when Agent May passed by them, downing a glass of champagne.
"Beware the mistletoe, FitzSimmons."
Instantly, much like the first time they'd met, the two backed away from each other, looking up at the offending plant.
Días snickered, standing exactly where she'd been a moment before, right under the mistletoe.
"Yes, FitzSimmons, I see you haven't changed either." She rolled her eyes, turning her back to them and disappearing into the mass of agents.
But Fitz had his gaze locked on Simmons, who was looking at anything but him. She looked different, somehow, sadder. He wanted to say something and, yet, he didn't know what. Comforting people had always been her forte, with all that kindness and all that optimism, not his.
"We do seem to get stuck under that thing quite a lot." He exclaimed, attempting to attract her attention back to him.
She smiled, but kept staring at her shoes.
"You should have kissed her, you know?" Simmons chuckled. "She had expected you to. It's why she caught you under the damn thing, in the first place."
Fitz frowned, strangely irritated by her words.
"You can't know that."
The biochemist looked up, eyes wide.
"I– I can, actually." She shook her head, seeming exasperated. "Fitz, you are a wonderful young man, and any girl would be lucky to be with you, so stop selling yourself short." She huffed. "Next time, take the risk. Kiss the girl."
"No! Are you daft? You can't put it there!" Fitz complained, taking the ornament away from Skye. She groaned for the thousandth time, before taking the entire box of objects and trusting it into the boy's arms.
"If you're gonna keep with the whole spacing and color coordination thing, you do it yourself!"
Simmons giggled from where she was decorating every possible surface with tinsel.
"We take Christmas very seriously, Skye." She explained, gleefully walking around the lounge. "Why don't you check on Ward? I'm sure he'll need help with the cookies."
The younger girl considered it for a moment, before grinning.
"I'll make them as colorful as possible." She said under her breath. "And Fitz will want to kill me over the lack of symmetry, or whatever. It will be like Christmas has come earlier."
Simmons smiled tensely; she knew Fitz could be difficult, with his tantrums and pet peeves, but she also knew there was a psychiatric reason behind them, and she didn't appreciate Skye's lack of patience with him.
Still, the childish joy the girl seemed to take in these activities stopped the biochemist from saying anything.
On the other side of the room, the Scottish boy had stopped decorating.
Fitz lifted his eyes to his partner once again, nervously correcting one of the ornaments. He hid himself behind the tree and took a deep breath, going through all the possible – terrible – outcomes that could result from the plan he'd devised.
With Skye finally gone, however, he knew it was his chance. If he waited any longer, there would be Ward and his silent judging, May and her all-knowing eyes, and even Coulson, the more human of the field agents, curious enough about his team to actually hang around to find out how things went with the two scientists.
No, an audience was the last thing Fitz needed.
With that in mind, he pressed the autopilot button on Bashful. For some reason, it'd always been Jemma's favorite.
"Jem, I need to tell you something."
She was startled by his outburst, he could tell, but smiled nonetheless. It was really incredible, the warmth that he felt every time he looked at her, and, not for the first time, Fitz hoped this wouldn't ever go away, that she would never go away.
Stick to the plan.
"Is everything okay, Fitz?"
He wanted to shake his head, because there was something twisting in his gut and his brain seemed to have turned into mush, but, instead, he took a step closer to her, nodding.
"Yes… It's just…" He was looking down, and up, and back down, anywhere but her, and he could almost feel her annoyance at his behavior.
"If there's something wrong, –!"
"Last year, you told me…"
They stopped talking, staring at each other like they usually did when this sort of thing happened. Simmons smiled, holding back her laugh, and Fitz felt himself do the same, part of his anxiety drifting away.
She motioned for him to go first.
"Last year, you told me I should take the risk." He gulped, but kept their eyes locked. "Kiss the girl."
Redness had rushed towards her cheeks, and he knew she had caught on to what he was doing. The fact that she wasn't fleeing seemed like a good sign.
"So that's what I'm doing right now." He lifted his gaze to where Bashful floated, right above them, with the sprig of mistletoe he'd nicked from Skye's "Box of Christmas".
"Mistletoe." She bit her lower lip, trying – and failing – not to smile. "You thought this through."
She looked sheepish under his stare, and Fitz knew he probably wasn't much different, with his deep blush and the nervous wrangling of his hands.
"I had six years of experience on the matter."
Before he had a chance to do anything, Simmons had closed the distance between them and pressed their mouths together.
He sighed into her, relieved that the plan had worked out so well, and she laughed against him. The whole situation was strange – the robot and its little plant, the two partners and their tentativeness –, but it worked for them.
It was an oddly comforting thought: they had always worked together, from the moment Madame Beaumont had introduced them to the day they fought about whether or not they would be joining the "flying circus" that was the BUS. Through banter and through inside jokes, they had been FitzSimmons, two parts of a whole in the most incomprehensible of manners.
So Fitz kissed Jemma like he was reiterating the years of friendship they had shared and promising even more of his love, with his hand on her hips, and her body pressed against his, with her moans on the tip of his tongue.
But all good things must come to an end, and they were interrupted by Skye, when she dropped the tray of cookies she'd been holding.
"I knew it!" She shouted, a grin spreading across her face. "I freaking knew it!"
Simmons cocked her head to the side, confused by the other's reaction, but Fitz dropped his head onto his partner's neck, remembering a conversation about exes and psychic links.
This story really took its toll on me. I hope it was to everyone's liking, especially to Asha's, whom I wrote it for.