AN: For the lovely tumblr anon who prompted Darcy/Fitz 'surprise'. I think this ship is adorable!
"Are you okay to stay here for a bit?" Jemma asks as she takes off her lab coat.
"Yeah, sure," Fitz answers, picking up some kind of medical doodad off the tray next to the bed. He gets a slap on the back of his hand for his trouble.
"Put that back," Jemma scolds, and Fitz does as he's told. "I need to give Coulson a report on Darcy's condition and I'd hate for her to wake up all alone in here while I'm gone," Jemma says, tipping her head towards their patient.
"Take your time," Fitz says, settling into the chair next to the bed.
"Back soon!" Jemma calls as she disappears out the door.
Fitz rests his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands as he watches Darcy sleep. 'Coma, not sleep,' Jemma would correct him, but apparently it's a light coma, and to look at her you'd think she's merely sleeping, long dark lashes resting on pale cheeks. Not disconcertingly pale, just not as rosy as when he met her on the tarmac yesterday morning. He remembers thinking her hair was the exact same colour as chocolate as they stood in the sun and made their introductions, but it looks darker now in contrast to the stark white of the pillows under her head.
Her pink lips are beginning to chap, just like his did during his coma. He puts a hand in his pocket and his fingers curl around the small tube of chapstick he keeps there—the Bus's air conditioning system does a number on his lips.
He pulls the chapstick out and stares at it, because it's a bit intimate, what he's contemplating, but he's fairly certain Darcy wouldn't mind, so he uncaps the tube and gives the base a twist. He hovers over her and carefully paints her lips with the clear balm.
It makes him feel all fluttery in the stomach, which he'd kind of expected, especially the way the gentle pressure pulls at the fullness of her bottom lip. But he's not a creep so he doesn't linger over the task. He puts the chapstick away and sits back down.
He's considering getting his phone out and checking his emails when he notices her eyelids starting to twitch.
"Darcy?" Fitz says gently.
Her eyes fly open and one arm thrashes out. He catches her hand to stop her from knocking over Jemma's tray of equipment, and in an instant Fitz is back in the moment when he woke up from his own coma. His awakening hadn't been quite so energetic, but the confusion and fear in Darcy's eyes is a perfect mirror of the way he'd felt in the seconds after he'd woken up.
"Darcy, it's all right," he says, trying to sound reassuring. "You're fine, everybody else is fine, it's all going to be fine, I promise." He would have let go of her hand by now, but she's clutching his tightly.
She tries to talk, but when nothing comes out her hand goes to her throat and her eyes widen in panic.
"It's okay," Fitz says, making placating gestures with his free hand. "Simmons said the toxin that put you in a coma also paralysed your vocal cords, but it's only temporary. Give it a day or two and you'll be back sassing the pants off everybody from here to Timbuktu."
Ugh, did he really just say that? Darcy doesn't look impressed. She also looks kind of wary of him.
"Simmons also said you might have some memory loss," Fitz says. "Do you remember getting on the Bus—onto a plane—yesterday, with Dr Foster?"
Darcy gives a small shake of her head.
"But you remember, like, the town you grew up in, where you went to university, that sort of thing?"
She nods.
"So just short term memory loss, then. That's what Simmons suspected."
He thinks back to how he felt, lying in that hospital bed, desperate for answers and unable to get them because his body wouldn't respond to his brain's commands. Not at first, anyway.
"You probably have a lot of questions, yeah?" Without really intending to, he gives her hand a little squeeze. "Let's see how many I can answer without you having to ask them."
She watches him and waits.
He clears his throat. "So, um, let's see. I guess, to start at the beginning, we're currently on Director Coulson's Boeing C-17, parked next to an airstrip in the middle of Mongolia. You and Dr Foster came aboard yesterday morning so we could give the doctor a hand with her research. You and I sent some emails back and forth making all the arrangements, do you remember that?"
Darcy seems to think about this for a moment, then her suspicion melts into relief. Her lips move, and though no sound comes out, it looks like she's saying, "You're Fitz?"
He smiles. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm Fitz. Doo-wee-ooo," he half sings, in reference to all the Doctor Who talk that had somehow made its way into their email trail. A smile warms her face and makes her eyes crinkle.
"Anyway." He smiles, glancing at the floor—he feels a bit silly but it's worth it to see that look on her face. "The short version is, we ran into some bad guys and in the ensuing kerfuffle you got a faceful of some kind of toxin that put you in a coma. But you're in good hands. Jemma says you'll be good as new in a couple of days, and she's the best doctor to have if you're going to get hit by a bio-weapon no one's ever heard of."
Darcy doesn't seem too phased by all of this now that she's confident she's among friendlies, but then he remembers she's seen portals to other realms with her own eyes, so a mild coma probably doesn't rate much of a mention in her books.
"Dr Foster would be here to tell you all this herself, of course, if the readings she needed to take weren't so time sensitive."
She gives him a doubtful look, but it's good humoured.
"Hmm, okay, let me see if I can interpret that expression," Fitz says. He affects an American accent and a feminine tone that doesn't sound much at all like Darcy, but is hopefully at least a little bit amusing. "Uh, have you met Jane? I can't imagine why she'd stay by the bedside of her devoted intern when there's important science-ing to be done. Am I close?" he asks in his own voice.
She grins and gives him a thumbs-up.
Fitz is right in the middle of smiling back when Jemma reappears.
"Look at you!" she practically coos at Darcy. "I just finished telling Coulson you'd probably wake up any minute now." Her voice drop to a stage whisper. "Thank you for making me look good!"
Darcy nods benevolently and Fitz introduces the two of them for the second time in as many days. Jemma and her damn hawk eyes picked up on their joined hands the second she came through the door, so he doesn't bother letting go until he has to in order for Jemma to check Darcy over. Jemma will tease him mercilessly later, no doubt, but it'll be worth it.
After Jemma completes her tests and gives Darcy a more thorough explanation of her condition, they put though a video call to Jane, who is at the top of a nearby mountain, surrounded by the new tech Fitz had constructed for her.
She seems genuinely relieved to hear that Darcy is awake and doing well, despite the fact that she barely takes her eyes off her instruments the entire call. She confirms everything Fitz said, and while Fitz finds her lack of eye contact to be the opposite of reassuring, Darcy seems satisfied that everything is as he said it was.
By the time they end the call with Jane, Darcy's eyelids are starting to flutter like maybe she's having trouble keeping them open.
Jemma notices it too. "You'll probably fatigue quite easily over the next couple of days. Perhaps a nap would be a good idea. We'll get out of your hair." She gives Darcy a little pat on the shoulder and heads towards the door.
As Fitz starts to follow, Darcy catches his hand, and there's a worried slant to the way she raises her eyebrows.
"You... want me to stay?" Fitz asks tentatively. He's going to feel pretty dumb if he's reading this wrong.
She nods with a hopeful little smile.
"Yeah, sure, that's—I could do that."
Jemma is looking back over her shoulder at him from the doorway, her eyes round as she works overtime to keep her face expressionless. He's going to get so much grief over this later.
Jemma leaves and Leo sits. Darcy sighs contentedly and closes her eyes.
Fitz messes around on his phone while she sleeps. It's slow going with only his left hand free, but he's not complaining.
When she wakes about half an hour later, the first thing she does is give him a sleepy smile that makes his heart flop around helplessly in his chest.
She rubs one eye and takes a sip of the water he offers her, then makes a motion in the air like she's writing with a pen.
"Here, you can use this," he says, opening up the notepad app on his phone and passing it to her. She releases his hand so she can take it and starts tapping out a message with both thumbs. By the time she shows him the screen she's wearing a cheeky grin.
So have I hit on you yet? Curly hair + Scottish accent = hawt ;)
Fitz wills his cheeks not to turn red. It doesn't work. "N-no, you haven't," is all he can manage in response.
She types something else and her smile turns a little sweeter.
Good. I'd hate to have forgotten our first kiss.
If Fitz didn't know better, he'd think paralysis of the vocal cords was catching.
AN: I know it's an incredibly rare pairing so thank you for reading! Reviews, as always, are very greatly appreciated :)