So I started writing this after episode 19, but I couldn't get it right. Then episode 20 was on tonight and I changed a few things, and suddenly it worked a bit better.
Anyway, here. Takes place like an hour after the end of episode 20. SPOILERS.
Fitz had to stop and take a few deep breaths. It wasn't something he had ever had to do before, and that frightened him.
Usually, fixing the DWARFs was something he could do in his sleep. He'd designed them, he'd built them, he'd fixed and tweaked them a hundred times or more. A blast of cosmic energy from Marcus Daniels wasn't even the worst thing that had happened to his little robots, and yet he couldn't seem to keep his hands steady.
"It's this damn room…" he muttered to himself, and he cast a scathing glance around his cramped motel bathroom. He needed a lab to work in, that was the problem. But his lab was currently in the possession of Ward and Deathlok, and therefore Hydra, so the only place he could find to work was the bathroom of the motel room he and Triplett were sharing. He was sitting on the floor across from the sink, his toolbox on the ledge of the bathtub beside him and the DWARFs in their case at his feet. Except for Bashful, who was in his hands and looking no better than when he had sat down to fix him half an hour ago.
So it was easy to blame the unfamiliar surroundings for the fact that his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"Fitz?"
He jumped so badly he dropped Bashful and his pliers went skidding across the bathroom floor.
"Don't sneak up on me like that, Simmons," he snapped without looking at her as he dragged his pliers back across the floor. She didn't respond as he reached for Bashful, who thankfully looked no worse for being dropped, and it was quiet so long he began to wonder if he'd imagined her voice.
"Fitz," she repeated quietly, standing beside him now, and this time he only flinched instead of jumping. He finally looked up at her and was surprised to see her in her pajamas, which in her case consisted of matching flannel pants and button down shirt. But he only knew this from memory, as she was wearing a hoodie over her top, and his stomach did a funny jump when he recognized it as the MIT sweatshirt he'd outgrown at sixteen and she'd stolen.
Without asking for an invitation, she closed the door behind her and sat down on the floor right next to him.
"I just ran into Agent Triplett outside by the pool," she informed him quietly. He ground his teeth a bit at the mention of Triplett, but didn't say anything. "He says he can't sleep because you've been in here talking to yourself."
Fitz blinked rapidly and looked down at his hands. How late was it? Had he been talking to himself? He swallowed hard and clenched his hands into fists so she wouldn't see them shaking again.
"Right… sorry," he muttered, and he waited for her to go. But she didn't move. Instead, she made herself more comfortable on the floor by drawing her knees up toward her chin and resting her arms on them.
"Why are your hands shaking?" she asked bluntly. Of course she had noticed. Her voice had a clinical tone to it, but he could also hear her concern and her care beneath it.
"My hands aren't shaking," he replied instantly, still not looking at her.
Her eyes narrowed and she frowned. "Alright, then fix Bashful," she challenged him quietly.
He stayed perfectly still and silent, hoping in the back of his mind that she would forget he was there if he just didn't move for long enough.
"I'm not a tyrannosaurus, Fitz," she quipped. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "And I am aware that the theory that the tyrannosaurus' vision was movement based has been largely disproven, so don't try to change the subject."
Fitz let out a long sigh of defeat, feeling as though he was deflating as he did so. Damn her and her friendly concern and her womanly intuition and her knowledge of paleontology.
"Fine, my hands have been shaking," he grumbled, and rather than making him feel better, the admission made him feel worse. It was real now that he had told her. Before he could just pretend it wasn't happening.
"Fitz, we've been partners for more than ten years and I have not once seen your hands shake like this," she said plaintively, and this time there was no trace of her clinical tone. It was all gentle concern. And still he wouldn't look at her. He could feel her getting annoyed, and an edge crept into her tone when she continued. "Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" he repeated incredulously. He glanced at her, finally, and immediately wished he hadn't when he saw how worried she looked. So he returned his gaze to Bashful and clenched his fists a little tighter. "What isn't wrong? Ward is Hydra. As if it wasn't bad enough that SHIELD is gone and everything we've worked for means nothing. Now we find out our friend, a man we trusted, a man that jumped out of a plane to save you, was one of the bad guys all along." He could hear himself getting hysterical, but he couldn't seem to stop. "Does anything about that sound right to you?"
"You know that's not what I meant," Simmons replied quietly, and it was something about the gentleness in her tone that took all the fight out of him.
Of course she knew that wasn't what he meant. Of course she could tell that there was something else. Of course she knew that it would take something much bigger to interfere with his work.
"Please, Fitz," she whispered, and without another word she took his hand in hers and squeezed. The gesture surprised him, but damn did it feel good to hold her hand. "Tell me what happened. You've been different, ever since you came to get me and Triplett from the Hub. You were angrier that I'd ever seen you when we found out Ward killed Agent Koenig, and now your hands are shaking."
Fitz swallowed hard. Of course she knew. She always knew.
"I killed someone," Fitz blurted, and just like before, telling Simmons made it real. To her credit, she didn't gasp, though he felt her inhale sharply and he saw her eyes widen in surprise. But she didn't let go of his hand. If anything, she squeezed it a little harder. Fitz swallowed again, but his mouth felt dry and his chest was constricting uncomfortably. "I shot him. And he died."
"Oh Fitz," Simmons whispered, and he was so relieved that she wasn't completely revolted with him that he almost started crying. But he didn't cry. It almost seemed like he couldn't anymore. He'd wanted to this past week, silently trying to rationalize the fact that he'd killed a person.
"It was at the Hub, just like you said," he began without her having to ask. His voice was shaking a bit, and he knew she noticed, but she didn't care. "When Coulson and May and Garret and I were busting in to find you and Triplett. But then…"
His voice stuck in his throat. The memory was vivid, and he squeezed Simmons' hand a bit harder than he meant to.
"You found out Garret was the Clairvoyant," Simmons continued for him, recognizing how he was struggling. He nodded and glanced at her, trying to convey how grateful he was without words, and she gave him a small smile of encouragement.
"They'd taken our icers, and they had real guns. With real bullets. And Garret had ordered them to kill Coulson and May and shoot out my kneecaps so I would join Hydra," Fitz went on slowly. In his peripheral vision, he saw that Simmons had tears in her eyes, but she didn't say a word. "Coulson and May were fighting them and I was just trying to stay out of the way… but a gun came sliding across the floor toward me and May was injured and she didn't… she didn't see the man behind her pointing his gun at her… so I picked up the gun and I shot him."
Simmons' eyes widened a bit as she stared at him, and for a moment he could have sworn she looked proud of him. "You saved May," she said simply. The way she said it gave him pause, like she knew, she just knew, that he never would have killed someone if it hadn't been to save someone else's life.
"I didn't really think about it," he admitted hollowly. "It all happened so fast. And then it was over. And I can't help but… I mean I don't…" He had to stop again to take a deep breath. Simmons didn't push him, and he was fairly confident she would have given him all the time in the world. "I don't understand how May does it, you know? How she can just… kill people, and then just go on like normal. I shot one man, and all I can do is wonder what his name was. Who his parents were. Whether he had a wife or kids. Why he joined SHIELD. What made him turn to Hydra."
He sighed heavily.
"I just feel like I need to apologize to someone, but I don't know who," he finished, and he turned and looked at Simmons for her opinion. But the way she was looking at him made him stop. Some of the tears had spilled out of her eyes and slid down her cheeks, but it was the look in her eyes that caught his attention. She was looking at him with such... fondness, and care, and something else he couldn't quite identify, which was odd for him because he could usually read her like a book.
"Jemma?" he asked quietly, and she laughed a bit, embarrassed.
"Sorry," she sniffed, reaching up with her free hand and wiping the tears from her face. "I just… I'm just so glad you're you, Fitz."
Fitz felt himself blushing. "What do you mean?" he asked, flustered.
"You've just gone and proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that all of this hasn't changed us for the worse," she said, and she sounded so relieved that he couldn't help but smile a bit. "Because even though you've killed someone to save May's life, and even though I've disobeyed orders and gotten better at lying, we're still FitzSimmons. And that is the most important thing in the world."
Fitz couldn't help it. He laced his fingers through hers and lifted their entwined hands to his lips, kissing the back of her hand.
"Thank you, Jemma," he whispered, and for the first time in weeks, he smiled so genuinely that it reached his eyes.
Simmons stared at him. He noticed her breath hitching and her cheeks turning red, and all of a sudden she had yanked her hand from his and taken his face in her hands and kissed him.
This was not the shy, timid kiss he would have expected from Simmons. No, this was long and slow and ardent and it made him a bit dizzy so he wrapped his arms around her waist to keep himself steady. By the time they parted for breath, she was in his lap and one of her hands was in his hair and the other was at the base of his neck and neither of them was quite sure how they'd gotten there.
"Wow," Fitz said, and he immediately thought it was the stupidest and most appropriate word he'd ever spoken.
"Wow," Simmons agreed breathlessly.
And without another word they resumed kissing. Though really at this point it was snogging. And when they needed to breathe a second time, Simmons rested her forehead against his and took a few deep breaths.
"So… should we talk about this?" she asked, somehow managing to sound a bit shy despite the fact that they'd just been full tilt making out.
Fitz thought about it for a moment, waiting for his brain to catch up to what was happening. "We don't have to," he finally said. He smiled at the questioning look she gave him. "We're still FitzSimmons, right? And that's the most important thing in the world."