Daisy had just popped a couple pop-tarts into the toaster when she heard footsteps walking into the common area kitchen behind her.
Turning, she smiled to herself upon seeing that she'd been correct in guessing that it was Fitz, based on the sound of his footsteps and the time of morning it was that she'd gotten back from her mission. But before she could open her mouth to tell him good morning, he sleepily said something that caught her completely off guard.
"Morning, fiancé. Good mission?"
Daisy stared at him in shock, watching dumbly as he continued on into the kitchen, apparently completely unaware of what he'd just called her. In fact, it wasn't until he'd walked up to her and pecked her lightly on the lips, and she didn't kiss back like normal, that he noticed anything at all. He pulled back, looking at her in confusion for not greeting him with her normal enthusiastic greeting and for staring at him like he was some new space alien falling on New York.
"You okay? The mission not go well?" he asked concernedly.
Daisy stared at him for a second longer, before asking slowly, "Do you know what you just called me? Did you actually see it was me before you said good morning?"
"Uh, no — did I call you Jemma?" replied Fitz embarrassedly, running his hand through his hair. "I'm really sorry if I did, I just left her in the shower and came here to make us both tea before she got here."
"No, no, not —"
Daisy cut off for a second, before continuing on thoughtfully, "You know, I actually can't think of a single time you've called me Jemma, even our first few times having sex together alone, or when you were in me when you came when we were all three having sex together. 'Skye' a couple times, actually, but never Jemma — I'm actually honestly impressed," before quickly hurrying on, "But no, you didn't call me Jemma — you called me fiancé."
"Oh!"
Fitz blushed bright red, just in time for Simmons to walk into the kitchen and see it.
"Daisy, are you embarrassing my fiancé?" she teased, smiling at their girlfriend, completely unaware of the ongoing crisis she'd just walked into. "Also, good morning and I hope your mission went well. Missed you last night, and Fitz missed you this morning as well when I refused to 69 him because I happen to like to get to work on time."
Deciding to self-deprecatingly embarrass her boyfriend even further than he already was, Daisy smirked at Simmons and replied, "Yeah, well, it would seem that all I am is a substitute for you when you won't do something or are too busy — he called me fiancé when he walked in here and saw me."
Simmons eyebrows rose dangerously close to disappearing into her hair. "I didn't miss—?"
"No!" exclaimed Fitz loudly, cutting her off quickly, before realizing how that could sound. "I mean, no, I have not proposed to Daisy without telling you beforehand, or us doing it together — not that I would be opposed to proposing to you, Daisy, we just haven't ever talked about whether that's something you want, and I haven't done that. It just apparently came out on its own."
"Subconsciously wanting to be able to call Daisy 'fiancé', maybe?" suggested Simmons with a smile.
"Hold on, hold on. I want to come back to this whole proposing idea in a second, but first — I try to embarrass Fitz even more than my pointing out that he'd called me fiancé already had, by saying that I'm nothing more than a substitute for you, his actual fiancé, and neither of you even bat an eye?" interrupted Daisy. "I'm beginning to feel like maybe it was actually true."
"We had slightly more important issues to be concerned with, like whether you and Fitz were engaged and what that would make you and I, than to acknowledge what we all knew was just a self-deprecating joke," chastised Simmons sternly. "Not one of us here thinks you might actually believe that you're a substitute for anyone in this relationship, and aren't your own, unique, equally valuable third of our romantic trio."
"Oh. Sorry," replied Daisy meekly, before after a second continuing on, "So getting back to the whole proposing idea…."
"Is marrying us something you want?" asked Fitz. "We never really had any clear direction for our relationship with you, like Jemma and I did from the moment we both acknowledged that we had mutual feelings for each other. We just started dating you because we knew we all loved each other, and wanted to be together. You knew from the outset that Jemma and I would eventually get engaged and married, but we never asked you whether you wanted that with us as well, or wanted to always be our third but never actually get married, or if you just wanted to stay with us until you found a guy of your own to marry. Any of which are still completely fine, but something I suppose we now need to discuss at least some if we're going to talk about the idea of proposing."
"You two might actually want me? Wouldn't I ruin your perfect marriage?" asked Daisy in disbelief.
Sure, she knew she was a valued and loved and equal part of their relationship, but she'd just always kind of assumed marriage was for them, and she was just their lover for as long as they still wanted her around. Which admittedly did often feel like it might be forever, though she wasn't sure how that would work when it came to FitzSimmons eventually having their daughter, and possibly more children.
"No, you wouldn't 'ruin' our marriage!" exclaimed Fitz almost angrily. "Have we not shown you enough over the course of our relationship that we love you equally, even if how we show it varies slightly between us and you, and between Jemma and I, because of how differently we got to know each other and how we each fell in love?"
"I know you love me, and want me around, but that's not exactly the same thing as marriage," defended Daisy. "It's one thing to always want me in your bed, it's another thing entirely to give up the perfect, socially acceptable two-person marriage you can have, for a three-person marriage that probably wouldn't even be recognized anywhere and would certainly be scandalous if anyone outside of Shield knew about it — hell, it'd be scandalous inside of whatever Shield exists at the moment, it's just that all the scandalized people would probably technically work for at least one of us, so they probably wouldn't dare say anything."
"We're wanted fugitives at the moment, Daisy," replied Simmons. "Do you really think we care about what other people think about us? No. We're perfectly fine having an uncommon marriage, because we love you, and we know you love us, too."
"But what about kids?"
It's not that Daisy didn't want to be married to her best friends and now lovers, but she still didn't feel like they should want to be permanently stuck with her like that.
"You can still be a mom even if you don't want to have any yourself," replied Simmons gently. "Or if you do, and that's what you're worried about, neither of us have any problem raising a family that biologically came from both of us."
"And our children will easily be able to see that they come from a unique family compared to normal, and when they grow up will be able to make their own decisions of whether they want a normal husband and wife marriage, or if any of them find their own two soulmates, they'll have the best example we can provide them of how to be a good three-person marriage and family," continued Fitz. "And until they're old enough, we simply never mention to any of them who their biological mother is, and they'll simply grow up having two mothers. As soon as they learn how pregnancy works they'll obviously know they each could have physically only come out of one of you two, but even then we can still tell them that we'll tell them their biological mother when they're older, that it doesn't matter because you're both their mums — or mum and mom — and they're all equal in our eyes regardless of which one of you two physically popped them out. And we can, and in my opinion should, still do that even if we only have the one daughter or Jemma has multiple kids but you don't have any."
"Popped them out? You do understand how pregnancy works, and specifically how it doesn't work, namely 'popping them out', right?" asked Daisy with a raised eyebrow at Fitz. "I mean, I assume Jemma at some point explained childbirth to you, or made you watch a documentary on it or something."
"Yes, Jemma made sure I knew every tiny, excruciating detail about pregnancy and the female body during pregnancy, when she was studying for her medical classes at the Academy, and then for all the extra med classes she managed to finagle her way into over the years we worked at Sci-Ops, enabling her to become the unofficial doctor and surgeon she is now," replied Fitz with a roll of his eyes. "I was being facetious. Though who knows — by Jemma's third trimester, she may have discovered or invented some new biochem/medical thingamajig or doodad that removes all the pain and sickness and difficulties of pregnancy, and it really is just popping the baby out. If anyone can do it, it would be her."
"While I agree that acknowledging how we would raise children is important to this discussion," interrupted Simmons, rolling her eyes at her fiancé and his talk about popping out babies, "now that we have, actually having children is still a long way into the future, and not something we need to dwell on at the moment when it comes to whether you would actually like to be married to us one day for that to even become relevant. Now, before we actually propose, we should make sure we're on the same general page for how many children we are all interested in having and approximately what timeline, but that's only relevant if we're going to propose in the first place — so let's stick with that at the moment."
Fitz nodded his agreement as he turned to look at Daisy, who asked "Are you really sure you want to be stuck with me forever?"
"Absolutely," answered Simmons.
"Always," said Fitz.
"Then propose to me, my science nerds. And then Fitz can correctly call me fiancé until the day he starts calling me wife."