I swear I don't have a clue of how this one came out.. It will be a couple of chapters long, I think; probably 2-3.
Give me some feedback please: I'm pretty sure I've got some of the characters OOC...
Hope you guys enjoy it.. ;)
Thanks to my Beta StarryDreamer01 who helped me edit this.
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN AGENTS OF SHIELD.
Taken from the Oxford online dictionary:
jealous. Pronunciation:/ˈdʒɛləs/adjective. Origin. Middle English: from Old French 'gelos', from medieval Latin 'zelosus'.
Definition #1: feeling or showing an envious resentment of someone or their achievements, possessions, or perceived advantages.
When Simmons got to the lounge room after her shower, she didn't expect to find the scene currently playing in front of her eyes.
Skye was laughing loudly, almost on the verge of toppling down from the stool she was sitting on. Agent Ward was next to her, casually leaning on the bar's glass table, a glass of Scotch (she presumed, alcoholics have never been her thing) in his hand and – here's the thing that left her utterly flabbergasted- grinning.
Fitz was seated on the armchair nearby, his back to her; judging by the blotchy red that colored his nape, he was blushing furiously.
Skye 's eyes lit up as soon as she saw her by the door.
"Simmons!" She called delightfully and beckoned her to get closer. "You really have to hear this!"
Jemma approached her teammates, wondering what was going on.
They were having a rather quiet period now: no impromptu missions whatsoever in the last weeks after Fitz and Ward's two-man mission. Nevertheless, it was unusual -though quite pleasant, she mused- to see this cheerful mood on the Bus.
Skye was grinning, Ward smiled at her from his glass and Fitz.. She stared at him.
Fitz's face was bright red and when his eyes met her questioning ones, he immediately averted his gaze.
Brow raised at her partner's behavior, Jemma looks at her other teammates.
"What do I have to really hear?" She asked Skye.
The brunette grinned wildly. The biochemist had the fleeting sensation that she must have had quite a few drinks and was tipsy.
"My S.O here-" Skye gestured with a hand vaguely in Ward's direction. "-was telling us some details about the mission in South Ossetia."
"Oh.." Jemma replied, taking a seat in the armchair in front of Fitz. She heard a soft scraping sound on the little table between them and saw her partner slide a bottle of Guinness towards her. She looked at him: he had one too, untouched.
"Thanks.." She whispered softly with a smile. He nodded, lips quirking slightly in a smile before looking away again. She arched a brow again, fighting back a frown.
Things were still a bit edgy, at times, between them. She had hoped that after his mission, they could have gone back to be what they were before but there was still a long road ahead of them...
"Details of which sort?" She asked, finger sliding on the bottle at her side. It was cool, just outside the refrigerator: just as she liked it. He knew it, of course...
"Of how Fitz gained his new name." Skye was barely restraining her laughter and Jemma looked at her blankly.
"New name?" She repeated. She heard Fitz mutter something intelligible under his breath but didn't turn to him.
"Little Bear.." Skye said this with a horrible East European accent and then started laughing again. Her blank expression must have pitied Ward because he took a sip of his drink and straightened up.
"We had a small...impasse at the beginning of our mission." He explained, "My contact was dead and we were pretty much in the coven of these Russian gang who thought we wanted to deal with the separatists."
Jemma nodded. She knew that much of the story: Fitz had regaled her with a rather colorful tale of Russian mobsters threatening them and nearly scraping it out alive from the boundary lines under multiple gun fires.
She had listened with a mixture of amusement and concern, knowing that some things were true (thus her fear that he had faced all of this. Without her.) While others weren't. She had assumed that the whole mobster part had been a bit of a folkloric addition... But she had been wrong.
"We were in a tight spot and I was sure that we would have to deal with something very unpleasant to get out-"
"Unpleasant?!" Fitz exclaimed, looking at the other man with a bewildered expression, "Now that's an understatement. You were imagining gruesome torturous ways and asking me how high my pain tolerance was!"
Ward glanced at Fitz and then turned to Simmons, completely ignoring the engineer's outburst.
"Anyway.. We were tied down when this woman comes out. Turns out she was the leader of that gang."
"Really? A woman?" Jemma said, eyes wide. This was turning out to sound like some action movie. And, she realized, Fitz never mentioned a woman in this mission...
"Yes, sided with these thugs with guns and menacing looks. I couldn't convince her that we weren't working for the separatists and we were going to get shot, when Fitz here-" He nodded at the younger man. "-worked his magic."
"Oh, yes, I know that part," Jemma remarked and turned to her partner with a smile. "He shorted out the fuse box while you were tied down."
Fitz blushed slightly and took his beer bottle in his hand, ready to take a sip.
"Oh... Did he tell you how he fixed everything?" Skye asked, making Fitz put the bottle back down and glare at her. The hacker stuck her tongue out at him in retort.
"Er-" Jemma watched the interaction with mild confusion, ignoring a sudden twinge in her stomach. "I know that he fixed the fuse box and then negotiated your trip beyond the boundary lines."
"Passing on his negotiating skills that definitely need to be refined.." Ward remarked, "He fixed the fuse box with the help of some of the Russians... and made friends with them."
"Really?" Jemma turned to Fitz. He was turning red again.
"Well, friends is a broad word-" he started but was cut off by Ward.
"Seriously.. You were on first name basis with the leader and her side kick."
"That's no-"
"You called them Martha and Vlad while we were running away, Fitz."
"Yes, but-"
"You drank a shot of vodka with the guy, Vladimir!"
"I couldn't refuse now, could I?" Fitz's retorts were getting weaker.
"Martha had a soft spot on you: she kept calling you Little Bear as you worked. And you called her sweetheart." Ward looked at him. "Seriously? Not friends?"
Skye laughed out loudly again.
Jemma had watched the two men banter with mild amusement until Ward's last statement.
Fitz called this Martha woman sweetheart.
And this Martha woman called him Little Bear.
Something erupted inside her stomach. Something warm, blazing and utterly new. Unknown.
Taken slightly by surprise by this feeling, she snatched her beer and took a sip, hoping that the cold liquid would calm this sudden fire in her body.
Fitz had never called her anything less than Jemma or Simmons in all these years. Never called her in any other way.
Never called her in any affectionate way.
And she never called him in any way that wasn't his surname. She rarely called him with his name nowadays.
Jemma wasn't even sure why this bothered her so much. No wait- she did know. She just didn't want to admit that her platonic/friendly feelings towards her partner had changed to some unknown/romantic ones.
And now, some Russian woman who leads a mobster gang gets to be called sweetheart by Fitz, minutes after meeting him? And she, in turn, gives him a pet name?
Like that?
To her partner? Her Leo Fitz?
For some odd reason, her mind was imagining this Martha woman looking very much like Natasha Romanoff (in her whole deadly, brilliant and sexy glory) and it wasn't helping placate the flames in her stomach.
She took a long swig of beer.
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