Chapter Two: Voss's Lab
The setting: Season 5, episode 8. Voss's lab on the Zephyr
"Until then," Fitz is saying, "we are on our own."
"I guess we are," Jemma replies.
He turns towards her first, and she responds with a devilish grin. She touches her hand to the side of his face and they are kissing.
For Jemma, the feeling is akin to a homecoming and her heart starts to throb with warmth and even a hint of contentment. It has taken so much to reach this moment. Their years together have been full of separation and heartbreak. The pain is always there, in the background, and yet simultaneously the simple act of pressing their lips together acts as a natural salve and starts to wash away the sadness. His tongue against hers is making everything feel better, is reconnecting them.
As a rule, Jemma tries to not dwell on the bitterness life has dealt her. What would be the point of mentally rehashing the torment she faced at the hands of Kasius and Sinara? The disorienting hellishness of the device they placed inside of her to block her hearing. Sleeping on a mat on the floor outside of Sinara's room, waking from a nightmare only to realize the nightmare hadn't ended and she was still trapped in her silent prison. Spending every moment wondering where Fitz was and when she would see him again. And yet, to Jemma it had been when and not if. She knew they would be reunited someday and that thought kept her going during her time with the Kree.
As she kisses Fitz, Jemma fleetingly reminds herself that she had been right. Their brains and their hearts had brought them back together yet again. And now, Fitz's arms are around her, their tongues lapping together, and they are experiencing the impossible luxury of privacy and time. Privacy and time. Gifts they will not squander; they will spend every moment of this respite touching each other. It has been far, far too long. She focuses on the sensations her body is experiencing, the wetness of Fitz's tongue and his hard body pressed against hers.
As they kiss, Fitz's hands began to slowly roam around, traveling underneath her shirt and up her back.
"Shall we?" he asks, raising his eyebrows and taking a furtive glance around the empty lab.
"I desperately want to," Jemma answers, her rational side naturally returning to the forefront. "But I don't know how long it's been since I've had the shot; I'm certain it has been too long though. We can't risk a pregnancy."
Fitz brings his face back to hers and begins to nuzzle her ear. He flicks his tongue out and licks her delicate earlobe. "Then we will suck and lick each other, wife," he murmurs, speaking his suggestions slowly and deliberately in a way that suggests that he cannot be denied.
Jemma's body is already starting to burn at his words and his touches. She loves Fitz entirely, and loves this side of him which only rarely makes appearances. The passion she feels is almost too much. She smiles and turns her head. "Wife?" she echoes. "You mean fiancée."
"'Wife' sounds better," Fitz replies, again pulling her close and placing a trail of kisses along her neck. The hollow of her throat is always sensitive to his mouth.
Jemma wants to give in, give herself over, but another concern tugs at her. "Fitz, wait –it's been a while since I've been able to wash and – "
"There's a sink right there," Fitz cocks his head.
Moments later, they are laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Jemma smiles and says, "Well, this is sexy" as they perform their ablutions at the sink, both having stripped from the waist down. Fitz shares her smile. So much of their life has been full of moments like this, moments where they have to make do with what they have, where the situation is not ideal, never a storybook. They are not inside a luxury hotel, Jemma is not retiring to a marble-plated bathroom to slip into a silk negligee, they will not be able to make love on satiny sheets atop a four-poster bed. Instead they are inside a mud-colored lab lit by a few bulbs hanging from the ceiling, about to make love for the first time since the Framework nightmare.
And yet somehow the moment is perfect, and they both know it. Jemma looks hungrily at the man she will marry.
"You first," she says, seeing that he's already aroused and hardening. She arranges their discarded clothing into a cushion for her knees, and without preamble, kneels in front of her fiance. She reaches for him, and flicks out her tongue to begin circling the head. Drops of pre-cum have already started to appear. Jemma cups his balls the way he likes. She continues paying lavish attention to the head of his cock, lapping on it, as her hand now begins to work his shaft.
Fitz starts to moan and gently grip the back of her head. Jemma reaches and takes in his length. She hears him moan again and she adores bringing him this much pleasure, feeling this close to him. The time and space that separated them hardly matter; they know each other's bodies inside and out. She knows when he's ready to thrust, knows the delight it brings him. She finds it incredibly sexy to have him inside her mouth, knowing she is driving him crazy with desire and bringing him so close to release. He continues to move inside her and he signals when he is ready to come. Jemma knows that Fitz likes best if she stays on him when he does. He moves his hips more rapidly as he reaches his peak.
She then gets to her feet and reaches to brush his lips with hers. Their hands join as they kiss some more.
"Why don't you get back on the floor?" Fitz whispers after a moment of gentle kisses. He releases her hands.
Jemma assents; she doesn't see anywhere else in the lab that would lead to a good position for her to receive his mouth, and she doesn't like to try to stand up while coming. She arranges their discarded trousers into a pillow for her head, as Fitz follows her to the floor. She spreads her legs for him, and he places his hands under her buttocks.
"Be careful, my love," Jemma whispers. "You're injured."
"We've each had one injury or another for the past four years," he chides. "That never stopped us before."
She smiles. "You're right. Nothing could keep me from enjoying this."
"Same here," Fitz says, and without further ado, he dips his head down.
He begins by slowly and gently licking her folds and her opening. Fitz knows she likes it when he speaks a bit during sex, so he occasionally stops his tongue's work to murmur, "I missed your taste and your smell." Then he dips his mouth back down to continue. "I thought about this so many times when I was in that cell," he says a bit later. "Touching you like this. Feeling your legs on either side of my head. You don't know how intoxicating this is." He returns to licking, and Jemma lays back and basks in the sensations.
Jemma then makes that certain groan and gently taps his head, the signal that his tongue and his words have done their job to get her ready and now he needs to get her across the finish line. He begins to trace circles around the head of her clit. Jemma groans again and whispers "Keep going." Fitz wants to reply that he knows, but this is not the time to use his mouth for speech. He continues circling until Jemma commands, "Now!" Fitz then applies firm pressure with his tongue against the head of her clit again and again, over and over.
"Oh god right there right there right there!" Jemma groans. His tongue is precisely where it needs to be to get her off, putting exactly the amount of pressure she needs on it. She continues to moan as she goes over the edge.
Afterwards, they lay together on the floor for a bit, kissing each other, hands touching. One of his hands starts to gently travel underneath her shirt; they hadn't removed the top half of their clothing. Jemma looks down. "You're a bit hard again," she observes.
"What I just did always has that effect." He then shakes his head, dismissively. "It will go away though. I need to rest for a minute."
"Me too. I know there are a million things we need to do but let's just rest for a bit."
"If we don't get a bit of rest, we won't be able to do much of anything," Fitz says and Jemma agrees.
As she settles her head against his chest, they are quiet for a moment. But Jemma's mind is turning over ideas, which she soon verbalizes. "I do miss having actual intercourse though," she says. "There's something so wonderful about it. There has to be some way we can acquire birth control. I thought about trying to determine when I'm fertile but my cycles have been so off because of the stress and the time change. Perhaps we could have taken the risk, but…..well it would still have been a risk." Fitz murmurs his assent, as she continues. "Then I thought that we could try the withdrawal method, which combined with my inconsistent cycle lately might stave off any conception. But there would still be a degree of risk with that." Jemma brings her head up for a moment, looks sideways, swallows nervously, and adds, "If we could find some lubricant, I'd be willing to try anal sex but I don't know if we can find – "
"No," Fitz says. "Just no on that one. I'm good with what we just did. I think the oral stuff is just as intimate as the thing that makes babies." His voice is somewhere between firm and sleepily content. He kisses her forehead and then lays his head back down.
Jemma resists the urge to smile at his word choice. "You're right. Of course once we solve this and get back to our own time, then we'll have more options. We can get condoms, and my cycle will hopefully normalize again. Or if we stay here we can reevaluate the risk and decide if we wanted to try…."
Jemma's voice trails off; she takes another glance at her fiancée and sees that his eyes are closed. He will be sleeping in a minute or two, lightly snoring soon after that. She smiles. The floor isn't comfortable and isn't particularly clean either. Yet somehow she wouldn't change a thing about this moment, and she just accepts that this is how their life is. Another chaotic, makeshift moment held together by their love for each other. She makes a mental note to again tell him – after he wakes up of course – that she enjoyed his use of the word 'wife'. With that, Jemma pushes away any lingering guilt over the fact that they are not working this very instant, and decides to allow herself to join Fitz for just a few more minutes of rest.
Author's Notes:
Please join me in pretending that Voss's lab on the Zephyr is larger than we actually saw in the episode.
Also, I wanted to mention that when Fitz was kissing Jemma's ear, it was not the ear that was damaged by Kassius's implant. I couldn't find a smooth way to add that fact into the story itself though!
I am seeking a beta tester; please let me know if you could do it. I'd be happy to reciprocate.