This very much started out as a short headcanon on tumblr and got rather out of hand, for which I can only apologise. I also appear to have misplaced my plotting ability somewhere for this one. I'd appreciate if you could help me find it, and also let me know what you think of this! Thanks.

I don't own anything you recognise. Particularly the British Museum, obviously.

Normalcy

Her eyes twinkled with barely-concealed delight and she just knew what that look would get her.

"Please, Fitz?" she asked innocently, the slightest note of a plea to her voice and damn, surely she must know that if the look didn't work then that tone would.

"Do you not think, Simmons," he began, letting his amusement show in his voice, "that we've been surrounded by quite enough academia and learning these past few days?"

She conceded to him that this was true enough, but that this would be completely different.

He somehow doubted it.

SHIELD had sent the two of them to a conference in London in order to discuss some of the latest defence technology they'd played a part in developing. They'd spent the past six days holed up almost non-stop in the main (but, of course, top secret) headquarters of MI6, batting around ideas for a collaboration between the two organisations. SHIELD, of course, wanted the finest minds working on its technology, and the British were no different, and both had a few very big (and startlingly similar) projects in the pipeline. SHIELD had thought that putting FitzSimmons on their negotiation team would be a good move for dealing with their British allies and things had gone well. While those higher up in the organisation had hammered out a few deals and contracts, they'd spent their time looking around the finest labs, and speaking with the finest minds, that the British Isles had to offer, then advising their fellow agents as to the quality of research being produced. It had been outstanding and the whole experience had been exhilarating to say the least, but he was glad it had finally wound to a close, not least because Coulson had called in and told them the team would pick them up in a few days' time, on the way to the Hub for some briefing or another.

Fitz was delighted that this gave them a few days to spend in England, even if it wasn't really enough time for them to make a flying visit home worth their while and he wasn't surprised in the slightest when, upon discovering they had time to themselves in London, the first two words on Jemma's lips were British and Museum.

Jemma was a barely-closeted history fanatic. She was fascinated by all things from the past, especially anything to do with science or medicine, and she could spend hours upon hours with her nose pressed against glass cases as she read the little labels beside rusted or chipped artefacts. For his part, Fitz had never had any strong opinions on history, but he certainly didn't like it enough to want visit every museum within walking distance as Jemma did and would often trail behind her grumbling about where he could be if he weren't there.

She'd pout at him, as she was pouting at him over her coffee mug now, and tell him all about the latest exhibition she'd read about at any particular museum in any particular city they happened to be in and the excited glint in her eye would be enough to make him cave.

"Pleeeease, Fitz," she tried again, although she knew the battle was already won.

"We're here aren't we?" he joked, jerking his thumb behind him, where the steps up to the museum itself were visible across the road through the window of the Starbucks they were currently sat in.

He'd been largely unsuspecting when she suggested a morning walk over their hotel breakfast, rather more suspicious when their route had taken them in the general direction of Great Russell Street and downright certain when she'd suggested, as innocently as possible, that they get a coffee at the Starbucks conveniently situated opposite the museum. Jemma didn't even really like the chain store that much, would almost always choose to an smaller, independent coffee place if the option was there.

"Let me just finish up here and we'll head in," he told her, draining his cup and he thought he could spend the rest of his life in a museum if that was the smile she'd give him.

"You're sure?" she asked seriously.

Fitz knew, categorically, that he would do anything for her, knew that – technically – he could be described as 'wrapped around her finger' or the suchlike. What's more, he knew that she knew it. And it only made him care about her more that he knew that she would never, ever dream of exploiting that fact. (He didn't, of course, know that she would do anything for him too, that she only recognised that he felt that way because she saw the same trait so clearly in herself). Jemma was far too sweet to actually try put herself in front of anyone in any given scenario, was hardly about to drag him from painting to painting if he would really, truly hate it and her care and concern only made him love her more.

Well damn. He usually had a much better handle on the l-word. He supposed it was all down to being the two of them being together on their own like just they used to be after so long on the Bus.

"Of course I'm sure."

"You're sure you're sure?" she confirmed one last time.

"Yes, Jemma," he sighed rolling his eyes as he stood and collected his coat from the back of his chair, grinning at her to let her know he was joking. She shoved him playfully as they ambled out the door, looping her arm through his as they crossed the road and headed towards the towering marble pillars ahead of them.

It was hardly their first British Museum visit and, by this time, the whole place was familiar to the two of them, so Jemma happily paid a donation from the two of them, and in they went to the huge Reading Room, always so bright thanks to all of its light decor and its glass ceiling, and with the familiar cylindrical structure in the centre, housing the little shop with all its over-priced merchandise.

After making a quick circuit of the room and collecting a few handy-looking leaflets and maps, it didn't take long before they were in one of Jemma's favourite rooms. They must have crowded round to get a good look at the recreation of the Rosetta Stone a good five or six times before this particular visit, and Fitz began his normal grumbling when a small child's bony elbow connected with his shin, and a rather haughty-looking mother coughed and glared at him when he rubbed his leg indignantly, as though it were his fault, and not hers, that her precocious son couldn't behave himself.

"Unbelievable, don't know why people always shove you to get to stuff in museums. It's been around for thousands of years, it's not going anywhere is it?" he huffed under his breath, too quiet for the family behind to hear, but loud enough that Jemma, whose back was pressed to his chest (honestly, he was trying not to think about it too much) and whose ear was none too far from his mouth (he was trying not to think about that either), would pick up on his words.

She simply chuckled and placed her hand on his arm lightly, all too familiar with his lamentations in these types of situations. They had gone to Alton Towers together once. Jemma always said that it was very much a first- and last-time type of experience.

Soon enough, however, they'd shuffled over to the large dark tablet with its little letters and characters carved into it, and Jemma absently ran a small hand over the notches as she read the plaque beside the model. He watched her concentrate on the words, and cast her gaze over the inscriptions and the look she wore was one he saw every day when they worked together in the lab and for that he felt pretty lucky. He couldn't fail to notice the way her eyes lit up when something interested or excited her, the smooth curve of her brow as she concentrated hard on something and the way her soft lips parted of their own volition, small puffs of air escaping between them as she breathed in and out quietly, imperceptibly, her whole body still apart from the darting motion of her eyes as they skimmed quickly over the information, taking it all in at a mere glance thanks to that brilliant mind of hers. She turned back to him, that same look of passion and delight still on her face.

"Can you imagine, Fitz?" she asked quietly, almost reverently, "all the history and information that would have been lost if this had never been written?"

All he could manage at this point was a contemplative 'mmm' of agreement, trusting that she knew him well enough to understand that this was a serious agreement and not a dismissal.

Gradually, they wandered off to examine the numerous glass cases and bookshelves in the room, Fitz taking a particular interest in a very old copy of Philosophaia Naturalis Principia Mathematica. He ambled a few feet away from her as she examined a chipped Roman bust, in order to see if there were any other Newton pieces to look at (if only he could leaf through the pages!) but found to his disappointment that there were none. He had a shock as he turned to examine some gruesome-looking surgical instruments instead, musing at all the funny different tricks humans had tried to make themselves better, when he caught sight of something even more gruesome, a set of severed and mummified heads, and stepped back on instinct.

"Oh Fitz," Simmons murmured fondly, more to her herself than to him, as she came up behind him and crouched at the level of the glass and peered in to get a closer look, and there it was again; that little furrow of the brow, the flash of interest in her eyes and the beaming smile that felt for all the world as though it were only for him, even if he knew this wasn't really true.

She was so beautiful it made his heart constrict. He tried to ignore it, it wasn't as though she would ever love him back in that way. It was better to have her as a friend, like this, and to batten down hatches on those feelings than not to have her at all.

She began reading from the card next to the stupid heads a moment later.

"It says here that these guys are some of the earliest examples of brain-surgery patients! They appear to have suffered some trauma to the head and there's evidence that there's been some attempts, not very good attempts mind, to try and repair it!" she informed him excitedly, and he appreciated that that was interesting, but he'd rather just leave the heads behind.

"Great for them," he replied weakly, really it was the twisted, pained look of the mouth that got him – the way the lips had pulled back to the teeth and made them look like they were screaming in pain.

"Sorry Fitz," she said, her eyes searching, apologetic and, then, altogether too teasing for his liking. "C'mon," she said suddenly, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the shrivelled heads and out of the room. "I read that there's a new exhibit over here that's got a whole display of ancient jewellery and amulets. There's this really well-preserved monkey one, apparently," she told him and squeezed his hand slightly. His heart did another funny jump at that, and at the thought that anyone looking at them would just naturally assume that they were together, a couple.

"What kind of monkey is it?" he asked eagerly.

"I have no idea Fitz, you'll probably be able to tell me,"

"Brilliant. Speaking of monkeys, d'you reckon we'd have time to make it to the zoo?"

Her bright, happy bubble of laughter seemed to startle a few people in the hushed room as they entered, and even earned them a couple of irritated glares. They didn't even notice them as they walked over to the little primate in question, still hand-in-hand and smiling, perfectly content in this little pocket of happiness, in just being normal and doing normal things, even if only for a few days. And somehow, if this was his reward, if this was how happy normal could feel, then maybe all the Russian mobsters, crazed scientists and resentful spirits might just be worth it in the long run.