Didi and her companions giggled off into the night, floating like perfume from an atomizer, or iridescent bubbles at a children's party, dancing away until the distance swallowed them whole. Unsure whether the "lookout brigade" would do much good, FitzSimmons circled around to the front entrance of the dance club and questioned the bouncer. His name tag said Bruce; his face said don't look me in the face. Bruce didn't bat an eye at their clothing, having seen far weirder in the queue of club-hoppers that gathered every weekend night. In fact, he didn't care much about anything except directing them to the back of the line, if you're not on the list you're not on the list - though he cooperated well enough when Fitz flashed his Sci-Ops badge. For once, the engineer imbued that quick flourish with just the right balance of assertiveness and impatience to signal 'secret government business, no time for questions'. Fitz so often fell on the "cranky" side of the line when he gave instructions, that the sight of him being swift and assertive preyed on Jemma, lighting her up like an ant under a magnifying glass. It's this June weather. It wasn't.
"Two kids, that young? Nah. We boot'em if they're underage. No exceptions. And we haven't had any problems tonight outside the norm." Bruce crossed his meaty arms and went back to his wide-stanced sentry at the club doors, lazily intimidating like a bull mastiff draped over the porch steps.
Fitz looked at Simmons with something like hopelessness. "Well… what now?"
"We could start making our way back to the car, I suppose, and wait for Didi or her network to make contact…"
"Yeah. Or we could stop for a slice. I'm starvin'." Fitz indicated a hole-in-the-wall pizza parlor with a window that opened out onto the street for convenient purchasing.
Simmons reluctantly acknowledged she could probably stand to eat something as well. "I suppose some food wouldn't go amiss. Let's get to it, then."
They walked along the busy downtown avenue, munching their pizza and looking around a bit before admitting they had no idea where Cody and Trey had run off to.
"You really can't think where they might have gone?"
"Simmons, I'm in the dark as much as you." That's true enough. Despite the streetlights and the glow from store windows, Simmons was thankful for the dim of night. She wasn't faring much better now in keeping herself from staring at Fitz as he walked - with that arse like two adorable piglets snuggling under a blanket, oh God, where did that come from, none of this is remotely appropriate, Jemma - and the constant pull-and-push inside herself was driving her up the wall. As unfair as her rational mind knew it was, she was taking her inner tension out on Fitz, snapping and bickering more than usual.
"You were a teenage boy once, Fitz," she pressed, raising her eyebrows. "Surely you must have some ideas. Just think."
"You know me; I'm full of ideas," he shrugged, "but unless these boys are inventin' a robot to make uncloggin' the kitchen sink a mite less disgusting - no, I don't think my teenage experience is gonna help us."
She rolled her eyes at that, and Fitz chewed thoughtfully on a slice of pepperoni, the tension in his shoulders hinting at some sort of internal struggle.
"Simmons," he started, "do you trust my powers of observation?"
Her brow knit together. "Come again?"
"You know, my attention to detail, whether or not I can interpret what I'm seeing and relay accurate results."
"Er… yes, of course- what's brought this on?"
"So you respect my judgment?"
Simmons looked over, melting a bit at the unsure expression on his face. Whatever was going through his head, she never wanted Fitz to feel like she didn't value him.
"Fitz." She leveled him with a reassuring stare. "We've been partners for years now. You're my best friend and the smartest person I know. You see things nobody sees, make connections anyone else would miss." He started to interrupt, and she drifted gentle fingers over his forearm, stilling his words. "I'm just being honest, Fitz. So what's this all about?"
"Earlier, those girls- you could be a film star, Simmons."
She looked at him like he'd gone mental. What's he on about? "I don't want to be a film star. I like being in the lab."
He made an exasperated little noise in the back of his throat. "No, it's not- I just mean- you're-" he raked a hand over his neck, clearly flustered. "You're… pretty. In case you didn't know it, you should."
That drew her up short. "Oh."
Her first reaction was surprise. I know I'm pretty. Her second was a painful dab of unquashable hope. Fitz thinks I'm pretty? But given the sheer difficulty he'd just shown in getting the words out, she wasn't sure it was meant as a compliment. Knowing Fitz, the statement was exactly what he'd described, an impartial observation of the data. Hardly grounds to assume he was nursing a crush. No. Fitz saw her brain, not her body, and that was an acceptable status quo. Even if I can't bring myself to return the favor.
Before she could respond, her phone shook in her pocket, pinging a text alert.
[Didi 22:49] check the arcade on 18th and main. two blocks north of the club
And a minute later, she got another.
[Didi 22:50] you can discover everything you need to know about everything by looking at your hands
Puzzled, she held up the screen for Fitz to read.
"What is that? Some kind of code?" Fitz asked, examining his hands in the city-light gloom. Don't look. Simmons couldn't afford to be distracted right now. If she started staring at his bare hands - Christ, look at the length of those fingers - damn it Jemma - she'd just end up with honeyed warmth in her chest and a regretful churn in her stomach, and they'd never get their power core back.
"I don't know, Fitz, but c'mon - we've got to go."
It wasn't far to the arcade. FitzSimmons dashed inside, hoping their quarry had decided to stay and play instead of skipping through. The air was thick with the smell of puberty, the floor sticky and a bit damp under their feet, and her ears were immediately suffused with pings and beeps of all stripes. Electronic music blasted out of almost every game station and flickering neon swam across her eyes as she scanned the crowded room, the clink of quarters adding a cymbal clash to the already cacophonous orchestra of the room. This environment was all a bit too distracting, a mental stampede of elephants through Simmons' brain, but she forced herself to focus.
"Do you see them? Or the battery?"
"In this mess? Everything's bloody glowin', Simmons."
Just then they heard cheers coming from the Dance Dance Revolution setup. A crowd of spectators had gathered to witness a particularly skilled duo face off against each other.
"This plucky loser thinks he can take my title. Should we find out if he's right?" The loud, scornful gauntlet came from a loose-limbed woman, early twenties perhaps, with bold square glasses and twin onyx ponytails, who set off a new game as soon as she finished speaking without bothering to wait for her opponent's reply. He was a rail-thin, lightning-footed teen with a shock of long blue hair, dark at the roots and fading into a swampy-colored green further down. In stark contrast to the rest of his mane, the left side of his head was shaved completely bald. Both of them were dancing as if their lives depended on it, the concentration evident in their brows and mouths as they stared at the screen ahead, barely touching the pad under their feet as sneakers and combat boots flew across the large, symbol-stamped squares.
Simmons was reminded of a SHIELD training seminar she and Fitz had traveled to a few years before. The city had been going through a cricket infestation at the time; the little buggers were everywhere, swarming up the sides of buildings and hanging around exits, sleep-blockingly loud. When one had unexpectedly hopped into Fitz's shirt collar and skittered its way down his sleeve, he might have come close to imitating the jerky, hurricane movements of the two gamers up there. Might. She was chuckling at the memory when she felt the buzz of a text-message alert at her hip, and whipped out her phone, wondering who it could be this late at night.
[Didi 23:07:00] if a bookstore never runs out of a book does that mean everyone reads it or nobody reads it
Strange girl. She didn't know if she was meant to respond, and briefly wondered if it would be rude to avoid further contact now. But Didi had helped them to find the boys - whom Simmons now glimpsed in the corner - so she simply shook her head and put the phone away.
"Fitz!" She tucked her mouth next to Fitz's ear again, this time to avoid the need for shouting over the raucous din. If she happened to breathe in the suis generis scent that rolled off of him and shorted out her concentration - mint and metal and musk and man - well, no one could blame her if she inhaled a bit more sharply than usual. "Cody and Trey at four o'clock."
They angled around to try and catch the boys off guard, but couldn't work their way into a good position to cut them from an exit. Simmons thought this might be what it felt like to do the sort of thing a SHIELD specialist got up to, not that she'd ever had many opportunities to do proper spy work. It might be fun, someday, to go out in the field. Though she'd have to convince Fitz. He wasn't what one would call adventurous. He was, however, doing a fairly good job of flanking the youngsters without calling attention to himself - no small feat considering the way he was dressed.
They came up behind the pair and Fitz clapped a hand on Cody's shoulder. "Hello, again."
The boys spun around, startled, and broke into a run when they saw the scientists. Simmons tried to follow, but the pair were small and quick, and they soon lost themselves among the crowd. It was only then that she noticed she'd been holding on to Fitz the entire time, or they might've been separated as well. She released him with a flush, embarrassment warring with disappointment when she realized that a couple of children had managed to evade them yet again.
"Where are they, Fitz? I can't see-" She'd never been particularly upset about being short, but was up on her toes, straining to see over the tops of the arcade patrons' heads, to no avail.
"Yeah, I can't either… Ah- I've an idea." Fitz hopped up onto the now-empty DDR platform, using the height advantage to peer out into the room. Within seconds, the pigtailed woman from earlier jumped up next to him.
"We have a challenger!" she announced, a trash-talking edge scratching grooves into her proclamation. "Let's see if he can unseat the reigning queen!" She threw her hands up dramatically.
A roar went up as everyone turned to face them. Fitz whipped around to the girl, stuttering, "No, I just- I wasn't trying to-"
"Hey, fancypants!" Trey shouted mockingly from off to the right. Simmons immediately started trying to make her way to him. "Let's see you dance!"
A girl to her left chimed in, "Yeah, show us your moves!" and a few others took up the cry.
Fitz squinted in the low light. "I think you've all got the wrong impression here-"
Simmons had reached the boys. "If he dances, are you going to give us back what you stole?"
Cody answered, ogling her through her tank top. "You mean, if he can beat Alma? Absolutely. But that'll never happen. Now, if you want to dance for me..." he wagged his eyebrows creepily, and she couldn't repress the shudder that came from his Bieberesque demeanor.
"Fitz!" she called up to her partner, if only to derail the conversation she was having with Cody. "They'll give it back if you win!"
She could see the nerves spreading through his body. Fitz had never been much of a dancer, but he did enjoy videogames and arcades, and she knew for a fact he'd owned this one in particular, though she'd never actually seen him play. Swallowing, he nodded to his competitor, and Alma set off a new round.
Okay, guys, so I just want to say that I wrote this like two weeks ago, and I'M SORRY for the whole "Hey, Simmons, do you trust me to accurately interpret what I see with my eyes" business. Obviously I didn't know what we'd be dealing with now, and that exchange was just supposed to be a cute little compliment from Fitz to Simmons. So I hope it still made you d'aww and not d'oh.
You may recognize Didi's odd text message, but that's all I'll say about it at the moment.
I honestly don't know any kids Cody and Trey's age, except for having worked with 8th-graders several years ago, and I remember some of them being inappropriately sexual and fairly obnoxious. If you feel that the kids are badly written, a) I'm sorry for that, you're probably right, and b) please let me know how you think I could improve it. But, in a private message. Because c'mon.
New chapter up on Sunday! :-)