You had been assigned to be Ed Nygma's partner for the science fair, a situation for which he had immediately raised his hand in protest. "Mr. Becton?"

"Yes, Ed?"

"Can I do the science fair by myself, without a partner?"

One of your boyfriend's douchebag jock friends said quietly enough that the teacher couldn't hear, but that Ed still could - "You'll spend your whole life without a partner, Nygma. What a good idea to start practicing now."

The asshole beside him said a bit louder, so that more people could hear, "Dude's gonna die a virgin."

That elicited a lot of chuckles – a spattering of spitballs - and burning red hot ears from Ed.

Yet, Mr. Becton had no sympathy for him. "Learning to work as part of a team is an important part of one's journey into adulthood, Mr. Nygma. It will be good for you."

Early on, Ed had been skeptical about your ability to work with him and tried to take on the entirety of the science fair project himself - but you had turned that around almost immediately. And that afternoon, it all finally sunk in. . .

"Umm. . ." he says, looking up from his lab notebook where he had been jotting down information on just how moldy the bread you two had been studying had gotten by that point.

You look up from the microscope. "Yes?"

He gets off the stool he had been sitting on and walks over to you. "I just wanted to thank you for pulling your own weight. I'm used to having to do everything while others just coast and earn my grade for doing nothing."

"No problem," you reply, smiling brightly.

"I guess there really is such a thing as teamwork and that people don't always just mooch off of others." He gives you a little smile.

"There can be," you reply and then point at the microscope. "Here, take a look at this."

He doesn't even wait for you to get off of your own stool to make room for him. Instead, he wedges himself between you and the microscope and for some reason, the feel of his back pressed into your chest is electric. You can feel his heart ramp up, which makes you certain that he can feel yours do the same thing.

When he backs away from the microscope, he is flushed and his hands flitter about with nervous energy. They find their way up to his glasses where he adjusts them unnecessarily. "I. . . um. . ."

"Ed -"

"I'm terribly sorry," he says in a rush before looking up. "I didn't mean to . . ."

He lets that sentence trail off as he really looks at you, studies the expression on your face intently. Something he sees there makes him want to close the distance between you – and he does.

As his face looms over you, you gulp. You never realized how handsome he was before. Wavy brown hair, eyes like chocolate. . .

He slowly lifts a shaky hand, but you aren't looking at it directly because you are lost in his eyes. Studying them, you can see the craving there. The longing.

Just how long has he wanted you?

Once that shaky hand finds its way to your cheek, the shaking stops - touching you appears to have steadied him.

As he bends down to kiss you, his eyes remain open until the last possible second.

And as your lips meet, you finally close your own.

The almost jolting sensation throughout your body as his soft lips land upon yours is nothing like you've ever felt before. Embarrassingly, you moan with your own longing and he pulls away, chuckling nervously.

Then, he lets out a deep sigh of relief or contentedness - you're not sure which - as his forehead comes to rest upon yours and the hand that had been caressing your cheek finds its way to the back of your neck - it is shaking again. It seems like he might be as overwhelmed as you are.

"Damn. I think I need to break up with my boyfriend."

FIN

Thanks to doomed_cooper for the beta. :-)