"Jem, Leo's here!" Jemma's mother shouted the following week.
"Okay, send him up!"
A few minutes later, Fitz walked in to Jemma's room carrying his bag, a plastic box and a smile.
"Simmons."
"Fitz. I'll be right with you, I'm in the zone." Jemma said, typing furiously at her laptop.
"I thought it was weird you didn't answer the door." Fitz noted as he sat on her bed.
"I got started on the physics homework and I'm on a roll; didn't want to interrupt my train of thought. I'm almost done. Plus, you're early so I'm not eating into our time." Jemma explained. Fitz chuckled.
"Calm down, Simmons it's fine. We're not on a date or anything."
Jemma stopped typing for a second then continued.
"I see your deduction skills are as polished as ever." She teased.
"Oh, be quiet. It was a joke." Fitz grinned.
"I say this to you very often, but I should remind you jokes are meant to be funny, Fitz."
"They would be if you actually possessed a sense of humour, Simmons."
Jemma shut her laptop and joined Fitz on the bed, placing her stack of notes on her lap.
"All done. What's that?" Jemma asked, pointing at the plastic tub next to Fitz.
"Oh, um…I was just using up ingredients before they went off. I made shortbread." Fitz explained, opening the lid of the tub and handing it to Jemma.
"I love shortbread!" Jemma said excitedly as she grabbed a piece.
"Me too."
"Well, that's obvious. Scottish." Jemma said, attempting a Scottish accent.
"That is literally the worst impression I've ever heard." Fitz laughed.
"Shut up! Better than the one you always do of me to get on my nerves; my voice is not that high pitched!" Jemma argued with a smile.
"I know, I know. You have a somewhat normal voice. You do go squeaky at the end of some sentences, though." Fitz said.
"I do no such thing!" Jemma protested, her voice going squeaky and making Fitz chuckle.
"Simmons, your voice is fine."
"As is yours, even if you can be hard to understand. Though most of the time I don't want to understand you, so there's that." Jemma teased as she tasted the shortbread.
"Oh my god! This is amazing!" Jemma squealed.
"Really?"
"Fitz, it's delicious! Um…thank you…for bringing it, I mean. That was kind of you."
"You're welcome." Fitz smiled.
Wow, his eyes really are blue.
Her eyes are the exact shade of her hair.
"So, um…how's your mum? If you don't mind me asking?" Jemma questioned.
"She's okay, thanks. No better, no worse. I've been keeping on top of the mess, too." Fitz explained.
"That's good to hear. If you need help cleaning one day, I'd be happy to help."
"Simmons, you honestly do more than enough by not telling anyone. They'd think less of me, and that's practically impossible now. Everyone at college hates me, anyway." Fitz sighed.
"Why would everyone hate you?"
"Because I'm the enemy of Jemma Simmons. You're the smartest and most popular girl in that place." Fitz said. Jemma smiled and blushed slightly.
"Did you just admit I'm smarter than you?" Jemma teased.
"…No. I said you were the smartest girl; you're intellect is nothing compared to mine. I am the intelligent ape, and you are a stone slab." Fitz grinned.
"You're an ape? Sounds about right." Jemma smiled before looking down at her notes. Fitz watched her for a moment before doing the same.
"We best get to work!" Jemma exclaimed, shuffling her piles of notes in her hand.
"Oh! Uh, yeah. Where do we start?" Fitz asked.
"Let's just go through what we've got so far and go from there."
"Sure. I overheard Raina from our class the other day; apparently her partner's making her do all the work while she goes out partying." Fitz said.
"Really? That's dreadful; I hate nothing more than someone who doesn't put effort into their work. Except for you." Jemma chuckled, shooting Fitz a quick glance.
"You're on form today, aren't you Simmons?"
"I certainly am. It must be the shortbread." Jemma said.
"In that case, keep your bloody hands off it." Fitz grinned.
…
"Fitz?"
"Yep?"
"What you were saying earlier about everyone hating you…they don't know the story, so don't take it personally. Besides, you're not my enemy, remember? You're my major inconvenience."
"You're my major inconvenience too, Simmons."
…
Later that night, Jemma sat watching TV while polishing off the shortbread (Fitz had insisted she ate the rest of it before he left) when her dad walked in.
"Has that boy gone home already?" He asked.
"Yeah; he got a call and had to check on his mum, that's all. We still got all the work done we needed to." Jemma explained.
"I wish you'd tell us why we should be okay with him all of a sudden. It's like whiplash after years of you complaining about him all day, every day." He added.
"It's a bit too personal, dad. I mean, it's not like we're friends or anything, we just have an understanding now." Jemma said.
"Really?" Jemma's mother asked as she walked into the room and handed her husband a plate of food to indulge in.
"Yes, why?"
"It's just…I never hear you argue loudly anymore and…I don't you, you never seem irritated by him in the slightest when you two are talking down here. I've actually seen you smile in his presence once or twice. You also gossip about your fellow students from time to time. It looks like a friendship to me."
"I'll admit our feuding is a tad more…playful now…but it's feuding nonetheless."
"Playful, eh? Interesting choice of words." Jemma's dad teased.
"Be quiet! I can cope with him now, okay? That's all there is to it. Things haven't changed that much between us when you examine it closely." Jemma said.
"Is that shortbread?" Jemma's mother asked.
"Oh yeah, Fitz made some for me." Jemma smiled, earning a smirk from both her parents.
"Shut up."
…
Fitz got undressed and slid into his bed after tucking his mother in, and was just about to turn off his lamp when his phone beeped on the table next to him. He'd received a text from Jemma.
'Mum had some shortbread and said it was the best thing she'd ever tasted. Thanks again for making it.'
Fitz smiled to himself as he sent a reply.
'My pleasure.'
As he contently drifted off to sleep, Fitz concluded that it felt great to be noticed.
