Jemma wasn't sure how long she stood there, motionless as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. One second she'd been arguing with Fitz, ready to test the device, and the next she was covered head to toe in ice-cold water, the remnants of their project littering the floor around them. At some point, she must have understood the reality of what the situation meant, but all she could do was stare at the desk in silence. She supposed she also started shivering sometime as the water seeped through her clothes, but her brain was much more concerned with the ruined assignment than with her personal comfort.
Eventually she heard the light crunch of glass as Fitz stepped towards the broken device. "No," he breathed, reaching out his hand to inspect the machine. Jemma was relieved that he stopped himself before touching any of the metal or wires, because she didn't have the energy to yell at him anymore. She didn't even have the energy to speak, really. She was exhausted, in every sense of the word, and it took all of her remaining efforts to sink onto the bed behind her. Normally, she might have cared that her drenched clothes would be ruining one of the few dry spots left in her room. But normally, she wouldn't have felt as hopeless as she did right now.
Everything they'd worked for, all of the hours they'd spent perfecting the project, had been for nothing. All of the effort Jemma had put into both the project and working with Fitz didn't mean a single thing anymore. She had tried. She had really tried to show Fitz that they could move past their initial misgivings about one another and work as a team. And for a minute there, she thought she'd succeeded. For a minute there, she thought Fitz had stopped hating her long enough to see that they had the potential to be great partners. For a minute there, she thought they would soar through the rest of the class with flying colors, and maybe if she was lucky enough he might have even considered working with her in the future. For a minute there, she thought she'd found a friend.
But obviously she'd miscalculated. Obviously she'd been wrong. She'd missed something he'd said and he'd missed something she'd said and now all of that potential was gone.
They'd have to drop the module, no doubt. After all, there was really no way to redeem themselves in a course with such few opportunities for marks, especially if their first project was a bust. Yes, they'd have to drop the module. And then he would go back to sitting in the rear of the lecture halls and she would go back to spending her days alone and they would both go back to constantly trying to outsmart the other in an attempt to move past this unfortunate incident. Jemma supposed it'd been foolish of her to hope for anything more. She'd always had a habit of being foolishly optimistic, but perhaps that was because she'd rarely had cause not to be.
Jemma was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't even register what Fitz was saying to her. She didn't really think he was talking to her anyway. He was still standing by the desk, muttering something about how to go about rebuilding the machine. As if it wasn't completely pointless anymore.
"We'll have to adjust the size, maybe make a miniaturized prototype and then reposition the chambers to make up for the discrepancy," he murmured. "But there's no reason it shouldn't work. There's still time."
The end of his sentence broke Jemma out of her trance. "Time?" she cried, looking up at him from her spot on the bed. She was momentarily confused as to why his features seemed so blurry all of a sudden, until she realized her eyes had filled with tears. She desperately tried to push them back, furious with herself. There was no way in hell she was going to cry. Not now, not in front of him. But it was late and she wasn't accustomed to being awake at that particular hour and she was utterly exhausted and she'd never felt so hopeless before.
"We're supposed to present this in less than nine hours, Fitz," Jemma whispered, looking down at her hands so he wouldn't see the tear on her cheek that she'd failed to hold back. "That's not enough time." She took a shaky breath, her shoulders sinking from defeat. "We're going to fail."
Saying the words out loud was an odd experience for Jemma. Because while she'd never failed anything in her life (that one maths assignment with the coloring exercise in Year 2 hardly counted), and while the reality of the words didn't fully hit her until she'd said them, it gave her almost a sense of relief. After all, didn't they always say everyone had to fail at some point to achieve success? Some of the best scientists in history had failed numerous times before accomplishing anything. Maybe this was what Jemma needed. Maybe failing now was necessary in order to give her the push and determination to excel in the future.
Of course, telling herself this didn't do a single thing to make her feel better about the situation. And it didn't keep the tears from streaming down her face, a few of them even managing to spill over onto her lap.
Fitz was silent after her outburst, probably realizing that she was right, and the room was quiet for so long that eventually Jemma just assumed he'd left. So she was more than a little surprised when he hesitantly sat down on the bed next to her. He didn't say anything, but she heard a small rustle and the next thing she knew there was something warm being draped across her freezing shoulders. She looked down at her arms in bewilderment, clueless as to what was happening, until she recognized Fitz's winter coat. He must have retrieved it from near her doorway, which had thankfully escaped damage from the blast.
It was such a peculiar gesture coming from him, not at all like something she would have expected him to do. She slowly raised her gaze to meet his, and if the moment hadn't been so bleak, she might have laughed. He was staring at her with wide eyes, looking absolutely terrified as he held out a box of tissues towards her.
"Wha…" she breathed, the sound stopping short in her constricted airway. She glanced down at the box and back up at him, trying to figure out what was going on.
"I-I'm sorry," he stammered, his face turning red. "I have no clue what-"
But Jemma suddenly realized what he'd been trying to do, and for absolutely no discernible reason at all she burst out laughing. She wasn't sure if it happened at the same time or not, but eventually Fitz started laughing too, and soon they were both doubled over. It was a hysterical kind of laughter, borne out of exhaustion and lightheadedness, absurd in both cause and nature. Their project was still in ruins and they were both still soaked to the bone and they were still going to fail. But for just a minute, Jemma was able to forget her despair and laugh about how Leopold Fitz had tried to comfort her with a winter coat and a box of tissues.
"Oh, dear," she sighed, letting out another watery laugh as she grabbed a few of the tissues. "Look at us. What a dreadful pair we are."
Fitz wasn't laughing anymore, though, and Jemma held her breath as she nervously waited for him to say something. "Maybe that's just it," he said quietly, fiddling with the tissue box.
Jemma felt her heart sink, even though she'd already known how this entire scenario would play out. "What do you mean?" she whispered, needing to hear him say it.
"I mean," he sighed, shaking his head as if he was trying to find the words. "Maybe…we've been going about this the wrong way."
Of all the things Jemma had expected him to say, what he'd actually said had not been one of them. "Going about…" she repeated in confusion. "You mean you think we can…" She followed his gaze to see that his eyes had landed on the desk, where the pathetic remains of their assignment rested. "You think there's still…Fitz!" she cried, raising her hands to cover her face. "There's no way we can fix this on time."
Fitz opened and closed his mouth, staring at her helplessly. "Well…maybe not with the way we've been doing it," he eventually managed to get out, although it sounded more like a question than a statement.
Jemma scoffed, unable to find any adequate words to retaliate. But Fitz seemed to at least understand that he would have to clarify if he wanted her to have a bloody clue as to what he was talking about.
He glanced away from her, looking like he was regretting the entire enterprise of trying to talk to her in the first place. "Look, didn't…" he began, briefly closing his eyes. "Didn't Dr. Hall say that the reason we were put in pairs was to make sure we could all work with each other?"
Jemma raised her eyebrows at him. "That's…not what we've been doing?" she asked.
"No, not really," he replied gently, although he still managed to sound mildly exasperated. "I mean…you've been doing your bit with the crystallization and I've been doing my bit with the electronics, and…yeah. Maybe we've been talking a bit more, spending more time together and working in the same room and all that. But technically speaking…we've been doing most of the work on our own."
Fitz paused just then, like he was debating whether or not to continue. Jemma remained silent, partly out of surprise from hearing him say so much at once to her and partly because she hoped he would go on.
"I'm not an idiot, all right?" he sighed, glancing down at his hands again. "Contrary to what you might think, I actually am a certified genius."
Jemma fought the urge to roll her eyes, mostly because despite the arrogance of his words he didn't actually seem like he was trying to annoy her. She didn't have a lot of time to analyze his assertion, though, because his next words surprised her more than the other ones had.
"And you're obviously brilliant," he continued, gesturing vaguely in her direction. "I mean, for God's sake, you've got what? Two PhDs? Most kids our age couldn't even tell you what a PhD actually is, let alone have done enough work to earn two of 'em."
If Jemma hadn't been so stunned, she might have smiled. Was Fitz actually complimenting her?
He took another deep breath. "The other day…" he said, finally turning his head to look her in the eye. "You said that…well, I think you said something like…that it's easier to fix things-"
"Solve things," Jemma corrected quietly, but she was actually smiling this time.
"Yes, well I was adapting it for our circumstances," Fitz said hastily, waving a hand near his head. "It's all the same, isn't it?" he asked with a shrug. "But you still said it, yeah? You said it's easier to fix things together. So…I don't know, maybe…maybe if we actually tried that instead of working separately…we could do it. I mean…we're smart enough on our own, sure. But…shouldn't that mean that combined, we'd actually be twice as smart?"
Maybe it was the hour, but it took Jemma a long time to respond. Mostly, she was reeling from the fact that Fitz somehow still wanted to work with her, even after everything that had happened. The other part of her was trying to figure out what exactly she was seeing in his eyes when he looked at her. And it wasn't until his words clicked in her head that she realized what it was.
It was hope.
Jemma turned on the bed, tucking one leg under the other as she stared at him incredulously. "Fitz," she said slowly, searching his face for any sign that he was teasing her. But all she saw was apprehension, and maybe a little bit of alarm by her sudden movement, so she sucked up her courage. "Are you saying…you still think we actually have a chance at finishing this?"
Fitz glanced back at the desk, and Jemma could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "I don't know, Simmons," he murmured. "Maybe."
When he looked at her again, that mystifying hope was still in his eyes. "But I think it's worth a shot, don't you?" he asked softly. Jemma wasn't entirely certain he was only talking about the project.
Despite the fact that every bone in her body was telling her to just curl up and go to sleep, Jemma knew that this was far too important to pass up. She couldn't quite explain it, but something told her that whatever she decided then, in that exact moment, would change everything.
Then again, what did she have to lose? She'd already accepted failure, and she'd already accepted the loss of a potential friendship with Fitz. It wasn't even a difficult decision, really.
She ran her hands over her face, wiping away the remnants of her tears before standing up. "Where do you suggest we start?"
Fitz stared at her blankly for a few seconds, like he wasn't sure if he'd heard her correctly. But eventually he stood up to join her. "Oh, well I, er…" he said, scratching the back of his head as he looked at the exploded device again. "I was thinking that maybe since we don't have enough parts to make the full thing, we could try going for a more compact version. I was looking at…" He picked up a dented cylinder, all that remained of the nucleation chamber, and held out a hand. "Here, watch out for the…glass," he advised, guiding her as she gingerly stepped over the shattered pieces on the floor. She was momentarily surprised at how warm his hand felt, considering he'd also been splattered with the ice water, but he immediately released his grip on her as soon as she'd made it over to the desk.
"I was looking at these bits here," he continued, avoiding her eyes as he picked up another part. "And I know you wanted a smaller angle between the chamber and-"
"The outer surface," she nodded.
"The outer surface, yeah," Fitz agreed as he reached into her desk drawer for a pad of paper and a pen. A few lines began to form on the page as he sketched his idea, using his knee as a writing surface since the desk was still covered in water. "But what if…what if we actually put the immersion cooling chamber inside the nucleation area instead, which we could then use to create-"
"A pressurized canister," Jemma breathed.
"Yeah, exactly," Fitz replied, giving her a smile. "I mean, I know it's a long shot, but wouldn't that be more useful in the field anyway? You know, as opposed to lugging a giant machine around, they could just have these small canisters-"
"And with remote activation, they wouldn't even have to deploy the device on-site-"
"Yeah, and with the cooling chamber actually inside the device, the interfacial area-"
"Would automatically be reduced, thereby naturally lowering the nucleation barrier by the design alone," Jemma finished in amazement. Maybe there was still hope for them after all.
Fitz looked up from his sketch. "So you think…you think it could work?" he asked hesitantly. "I mean, would you have enough of the compound to-"
"Yes, yes, of course," Jemma assured him. "Fitz, with this design…we wouldn't even need half of the amount of silver iodide we'd needed before."
"That's right," he murmured, carefully extracting the cooling chamber from the debris. "Because the reduced size would already act-"
"As a catalyst," Jemma said along with him.
Fitz glanced over at her with probably the most genuine smile she'd ever seen on his face. But his eyes suddenly widened as his gaze fell somewhere over her right shoulder. "Mother of all things," he whispered, the parts clattering out of his hands onto the desk.
Jemma involuntarily jumped at the noise. "What?" she asked in panic. "What is it?"
"Y-you…" he stammered, reaching out a hand towards her face before pulling it back. "You're bleeding, Simmons," he winced, holding his hands out in front of him like he didn't know what to do with them.
"What?" Jemma mumbled, bringing a hand up to her cheekbone. She didn't feel a cut, but when she removed her hand, the tips of her fingers were stained red. "It must've been from the blast," she reasoned, not particularly alarmed. "But it's small. Shouldn't be too hard to clean up."
"Um…" Fitz began, following her as she retrieved a first aid kit from her cupboard. "Are you sure you don't, er…I mean, isn't that technically a head injury, so wouldn't you want to…I don't know, get it checked out or something?"
Jemma laughed. "Fitz, it's barely a scratch," she said, removing the antiseptic and a couple plasters.
Fitz was still on her heels as she brought the materials over to her mirror. "But shouldn't you at least head over to the infirmary-"
"The infirmary?" Jemma repeated with another laugh. "Fitz, this hardly requires a hospital visit. Besides, I don't know if you've noticed, but we've got a project that's due mere hours from now."
"Well, I don't know if you've noticed," Fitz retaliated in a loud voice. "But normal people don't think about homework when there's blood coming out of their face."
Jemma worked on pulling her hair back so she could better access the wound. "Are you always this dramatic?" she asked. "What, are you afraid of blood or something?"
The scoff she received in response, as well as the incoherent mumbles, made Jemma stop what she was doing and turn to face him. "I'm not…I'm not afraid," Fitz eventually murmured, pointedly looking away from her.
"Oh my word," Jemma shook her head. "You don't like blood."
"It's not…" he argued, folding his arms. "I don't…it's just…you know, are you sure you don't want to-"
"No, it's not a bad thing, Fitz," Jemma smiled, turning back to the mirror. "I'm just surprised, is all, but I guess it's really not all that surprising. It's a perfectly normal response."
She saw him fidgeting out of the corner of her eye, but Jemma was preoccupied with the antiseptic again. "Damn," she muttered, turning her head towards the mirror. "I can't see well enough to clean it." She sighed before giving Fitz a rueful smile. "I know it's a lot to ask, but would you mind?"
She'd expected to see panic on his face, or perhaps disgust. But he just looked nervous as he stared at her hands. "Are you sure? I don't know if I-"
"Fitz, it's not rocket science," she said, pouring antiseptic onto a piece of cloth and holding it out to him.
Fitz seemed to have an internal argument with himself before he carefully took the cloth. "No, it's not," he sighed, stepping closer to her. "That I could actually do."
Jemma simply rolled her eyes before tilting her head so he could clean off the blood. And maybe it was because of how long it took him to actually make contact, but as soon as the cloth touched her skin, she let out a hiss.
Fitz immediately removed his hand from her face. "Oh God, are you okay?" he asked, his eyes widening in terror. "Did I-"
Jemma desperately tried to cover her mouth, but it was too late. "I'm so sorry, Fitz, I couldn't help it," she giggled, his horrified expression only amusing her further. "You just seemed so nervous, and I-"
"That is not funny, Simmons," Fitz replied sternly, closing his eyes as he took a few deep breaths. "Now, if you pull a stunt like that again, I am taking you to the infirmary myself."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her laughter starting to subside. "Really, Fitz, I'm sorry."
"It's fine," he grumbled, gently bringing the cloth to her face again. "Just…it's fine."
Jemma did her best to stand perfectly still as Fitz finished cleaning the cut. "I think it's stopped bleeding," he murmured. "That's good, right?"
"Yes, Fitz," Jemma smiled. "That's good."
"Well, I'll put a plaster on it just in case," he said, carefully setting the bandage and smoothing down the edges. In fact, he spent so much time making sure it was in place and he was so intent on what he was doing that Jemma was caught off-guard when he met her eyes. "Is that…" he whispered, his hand hovering an inch above her face. "Is that all right?"
"Yeah," Jemma nodded, giving him a small smile. "Thank you, Fitz."
Fitz let out a sigh of relief and backed away from her. "Okay, then," he said, spinning around slowly. "Then we should…"
"Right," Jemma replied, remembering how much they still needed to get done. "The project."
"Yeah, but er…"
"We should probably-"
"Yup."
"Yeah."
Jemma quickly removed Fitz's winter coat and tossed it to him on his way out the door. As he rushed across the quad to Erskine Hall to change, Jemma worked on changing out of her own damp clothes. She tried not to look at the clock, knowing that time was not on their side, but the number on the display still managed to send a jolt of panic through her. At least she wasn't shivering anymore, though. That was one less thing she had to worry about.
By the time Fitz returned, Jemma had gotten out her small vacuum and attempted to clean up the broken glass from the floor. "I think I've got it all," she told him, setting aside the vacuum and picking up a few towels. "But I'd keep your shoes on, all the same."
Fitz grabbed one of the towels, joining her as she worked at drying off the desk. "Watch out for the-"
"The wires, yeah," Jemma agreed, moving aside to let him clean off the machinery.
They managed to clear most of the water away, but Jemma remained on edge as she and Fitz worked on reassembling the device.
"You should probably wear gloves with a bit more protection than those," she said, arranging the parts for him on the desk.
"I'm fine, Simmons."
Jemma pursed her lips together, not wanting to start another argument when they had such little time left. "All right," she replied crisply. She pointed to one of the cylinders. "Well, then you can-"
"First of all," Fitz sighed, setting down the device and looking over at her wearily. "The whole point of working together is that we actually…you know, work together."
Jemma shook her head. "What…what does that even mean, Fitz?"
"It means I'm your partner, Simmons," he explained before putting on his protective eyewear. "I don't work for you, you know."
"Well…" Jemma smirked. "Not yet, you don't."
"Oh, I see," he laughed, leaning in towards the machinery to carefully fuse the chambers together. "Got your eyes set on running the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. science division, have you now?"
Jemma was mildly annoyed, even though he'd only been teasing her. "Is that really such a preposterous notion for you to consider?" she asked, folding her arms.
Fitz's smile faded, but his focus remained on what he was doing. "No, it's not, actually," he eventually murmured.
For some reason, his answer threw Jemma for a loop. She cleared her throat. "Well, truth be told, that's not really something I'm interested in," she shrugged, handing him the next piece he needed. "I'd much rather enjoy figuring things out in the lab as opposed to telling everyone what to do."
"Jemma Simmons, not wanting to boss people around?"
"Oh, shut it," she ordered, playfully swatting his shoulder. "You know what I mean." He gave her a half-hearted glare for touching him while he was handling the project. "Maybe I should go for it someday," she said pointedly, just to spite him. "I'm still quite young."
"You do know who you're talking to, right?"
Jemma just rolled her eyes again, making a mental note to remember that Leopold Fitz had the ability to descend into atrocious levels of sarcasm when tired.
For the next few hours, the two of them worked side by side, Fitz carefully constructing the canister while Jemma explained to him the requirements for the catalyst. They still ran into a few disagreements along the way (Fitz had had to back down from adding an attachment, and Jemma had had to concede with keeping the silver iodide within the immersion cooling chamber), but altogether it wasn't nearly as bad as Jemma had anticipated. In fact, they'd ended up agreeing on most aspects of the device, and neither of them had complained about taking an extra thirty minutes to fashion a protective box for its remote button.
As their time dwindled and Jemma started to see spots from being awake for so long, she quickly made her way down to Carter Hall's computer lab to print off their report. When she returned to the room, she sat down on her bed as she waited for Fitz to finish wiring the device. She figured she should probably help him, or see if he was doing everything correctly. But as soon as her body made contact with the soft duvet of her bed, she decided she could afford a few minutes to rest.
Later, Jemma would not be able to recall how or why it happened. Theoretically, she probably could've figured it out. But she had absolutely no recollection of the time between when she sat down and when she jerked awake.
The first thing her eyes fell on was Fitz, hunched over on the desk as he rested his head in his arms. Warm sunlight streamed in through the window, the light landing on the unkempt curls that framed his pale face. Jemma was severely disoriented, knowing that something was wrong but unable to pinpoint what it was. After about ten seconds, though, she began to put the pieces together. Because individually, Leopold Fitz asleep at her desk and their project sitting on the shelf behind him and the sun coming in were hardly causes for alarm. But put all of those things together at 8:44 in the morning, especially on that very particular Monday morning, and Jemma was in full panic mode.
"Fitz!" she hissed, gently shaking his shoulders. "Fitz, wake up!"
Fitz immediately sat up in his chair. "What the hell?" he mumbled, his eyes focusing on her shirt before he looked up at her in confusion.
"Class is in fifteen minutes," she told him hurriedly as she removed the device off of the shelf.
Fitz didn't look nearly as troubled as she'd expected him to, simply taking a few seconds to rub his eyes. "Right, then," he muttered, quickly getting up to help her gather everything together.
"You've got the case, right?"
"Yeah, and you've got the extra-"
"Reagent, yes, and the report's in my bag-"
"And I've got the remote-"
"Here, we can put it with the other-"
"I'll hold onto it, if you don't mind."
Jemma didn't argue with him, having a plethora of other things to worry about. She rushed over to her wardrobe and pulled out a clean jumper, and tried not to let her gaze linger in the mirror for too long. Goodness knew she didn't need further confirmation that she looked like a drowned rat. There was still a bit of makeup left on her face from the day before, but she didn't have time to fix that particular damage. She briefly debated removing the plaster from her cheek, eventually deciding to leave it on. After all, the bandage would probably harm her presentation much less than the bright red gash underneath it. Thankfully the jumper she'd chosen managed to hide the wrinkles in her shirt, so she didn't look completely ridiculous.
She was about to move away from her wardrobe when she caught sight of Fitz, who was hastily ensuring everything was ready to go. Without thinking, Jemma reached into her wardrobe and pulled something out.
"Here, Fitz," she said, tossing the blue tie over to him.
Fitz stared at the material in his hands. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Put it on, of course," Jemma replied in exasperation.
"You're joking, right?"
"Absolutely not."
"Simmons, we don't have time for this. I'm not-"
"It'll only take a second, Fitz. Just put it on."
There was something in the way he continued to stare at the tie that made Jemma suddenly realize why he didn't want to wear it. She pushed aside her surprise and quickly walked over to him, taking the tie out of his hands.
"Wait, what-"
"Don't argue with me, Fitz," she ordered, draping the cloth around her own neck and proceeding to loosely tie it together at breakneck speed. When she was finished, she slipped it over her head and onto his, ignoring his protests. "Besides, no one is ever going to take you seriously if you don't make an effort to dress up to your qualifications."
"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered while she tightened the knot below his collar. "I've got the rest, Simmons," he said, pushing her hand away. "I said I've got it."
"Fine, then," Jemma said before slipping her coat on and grabbing her bag. "Come on, we're going to be late."
Fitz continued to grumble as she practically dragged him out the door, but Jemma found that she oddly didn't mind. Maybe they would make it to the room just in time before class started. Maybe Jemma would panic because she'd forgotten the note cards, only to find that Fitz was able to seamlessly finish off her sentences when she needed him to. Maybe the whispers would be louder that day, and maybe Jemma would pretend she didn't hear the other students talking about how disheveled she and Fitz looked. Maybe Dr. Hall would be floored by their project, asking them to present it to the rest of the faculty and eventually offering to personally advise them in their second year.
Maybe she and Fitz would start sitting in the middle of the lecture halls together, and maybe it would just happen without either of them thinking about it. Maybe she would hear the word FitzSimmons so many times that sometimes she'd catch herself saying it too. Maybe Fitz would start spending more time in her dorm and she would start spending more time in his dorm, and maybe one day they wouldn't even remember what it had been like to do their homework alone. Maybe one day working together would be an instinctive choice. Because maybe one day neither of them would be able to imagine working with anyone else.
Jemma knew there were a lot of maybes when it came to Fitz. She knew that trying to be friends with this quirky Scottish boy, a boy who'd hated her at first, would be a risk. After all, their first project together had literally resulted in an explosion. But as she raced across the quad with him in tow, trying to rehearse their presentation and listening to him exasperatedly telling her not to worry, she had a feeling that maybe the risk was okay.
Maybe, just maybe, the risk would be worth it.
