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Fitz was doing everything he could. He knew that.
From the rest of the team, it was something they reminded him when they wanted him to slow down, or even stop. But to himself, it was a promise.
Just like the reservation he held for the two of them— Leo and Jemma, FitzSimmons— at that nice restaurant was a promise. Simmons was delayed, inconvenienced on her way to their date, that’s all.
The monolith took Jemma one month ago.
He’d watched that footage a thousand times. The images of a rock swallowing Jemma whole and the sound of her scream were now burned into the back of his eyelids, a constant ringing in his ears.
Jemma was late. Unlike all the other times in their lives, when he’d been willing to wait for her for anything, Fitz wouldn’t be patient now. It wasn’t emotions; it was science separating them. And science was their thing.
He would follow every lead to the ends of the earth, even cross the universe, to get her back.
Which brought him to his most recent hypothesis, photocopies of old SHIELD reports from the nineteen-eighties glowing on the computer screen in the middle of the night.
“Fitz,” a woman’s voice said gently.
It wasn’t her. Even if it was, Fitz was used to hallucinating Jemma and wouldn’t be fooled.
The woman cleared her throat. Fitz kept reading his file, not acknowledging her.
Until Bobbi rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, it’s three in the morning.”
“Is it? Hadn’t realized. You know, there aren’t any windows down here for us to gauge the time of day,” he murmured.
“You should rest, you know. Sleep deprivation is not gonna... accelerate our progress.” She stumbled through those last words. He knew she really meant to say, it won’t bring her back, because Bobbi didn’t think they were actually making any progress. Well, she could take all the awkward pauses she wanted. It’s not like it mattered to Fitz. He wasn’t even going to ask what she was doing in the lab at this hour, for all that she preached about how he should take care of himself.
Fitz found the name he was looking for at the bottom of the report. Perfect.
Swivelling around in his chair, he pulled the corners of his mouth back into a not-smiling smile at Bobbi.
“I need you to cover for me.”
She sighed.
“Will you get at least eight hours of sleep before you go?”
“I will be in my room for the next eight and a half hours.”
“Fitz.”
“Relax, I’m not leaving until early afternoon.”
He cleared out of the lab and made it to his bed in less than three minutes, leaving Bobbi behind to rub her tired eyes and pray that this would finally be the answer, at least. That the Pym particle would solve the mystery and bring back their girl.
Fitz didn’t sleep well.
He was at SHIELD academy.
It was cold, where he sat in the lecture hall’s front row. He rubbed the ends of his cardigan’s sleeves between his fingers and noticed a grey sky outside through the windows.
Bill Foster posed a question to the room, searching the crowd of students hopefully.
“Does anyone who hasn’t contributed yet care to offer a solution?”
Met with silence, Bill sighed with a barely suppressed smile and turned towards Fitz. That is, Fitz and the other person who had been raising her hand sky-high beside him the whole time, a smile on her face as bright as her gold headband.
“Very well. Since there are no other takers… FitzSimmons, how would you approach it?”
Fitz was caught off guard for only half a second. No one had combined their names like that before. But it felt so natural that he recovered quickly, at the same time that Jemma did. Their words started tumbling out, and he was aware of her shifting in her chair to face him, so he did the same. They traded back and forth. They interrupted each other.
Fitz woke up silently and alone, his hands prickling with a strange, tingling ache.
Ideally, Fitz would have been able to go directly to Hank Pym. The founder of Pym Technologies would have been the best qualified person to talk to about a particle literally named after himself.
Yeah... Fitz had tried that. The less said about that meeting, the better. (Fitz maintained that if he’d had another minute, or perhaps if he’d shouted a little louder over Pym’s stupid voice, he might have been able to get something out of him, but when Daisy had intervened it was time to cut his losses before she would have gotten Coulson on the line.)
Now, Fitz stood before a much more familiar, no less intelligent face.
Foster didn’t seem all that surprised to see Fitz, despite his visit to the University being unannounced. He simply raised an eyebrow and beckoned him into his office.
I need you to tell me everything you know about the quantum realm, Fitz had on the tip of his tongue. But something made him pause.
This office wasn’t the same room Dr. Foster had used at the academy — an entirely different institution, of course. But something about it sent Fitz back to his seventeen-year-old self, showing up outside of his teacher’s designated office hours because he (and Simmons) just couldn’t wait to get started on their ideas. Sometimes they asked for advice or assistance with procuring materials. Very, very rarely, did they ask permission to do anything. Foster never minded. If something went wrong, he’d see to it that they were held accountable and, more importantly, learned the proper lesson.
Taken aback by this wave of nostalgia, Fitz asked instead, “How have you been?”
“I’m well, thank you,” Foster replied smoothly. Fitz didn’t know what his former teacher saw in his face, but it made Foster lean forward in his chair with concern.
“It’s a pleasure to see you, Fitz, but I get the feeling this isn’t a social call.”
“Relax, it’s not an op.” Fitz mumbled, dumping his stuff on the nearest armchair. Foster’s face didn’t even flicker with annoyance, as it might have when Fitz was a teenager.
“This is SHIELD?”
“It’s Jemma.”
A pause.
“I see.”
One week of sleepless nights later: “I’m sorry, Fitz.”
It was a dead end.
As much as Fitz hated to admit it, he held a far fiercer hatred for the idea that Jemma could be running out of time. So, he’d have to move on and find the right answer quicker, because quantum technology wasn’t it.
“Well, thank you for trying. I need to get back to SHIELD anyway, work to do and more leads to follow.”
Fitz saved his work, logged out of Foster’s system, and was halfway to the door when Bill stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Fitz.”
Was he going to try to hug him? Say some words of encouragement? Foster never had before, when he was Fitz’s teacher and mentor. (Things had also never been quite this serious before.)
Foster did neither of these things. For that, Fitz was grateful.
Instead, he simply nodded and promised, “I’ll keep looking for other options on my end, too.”
Fitz remembered to say “Thanks.”
“Well, that’s quite a tale,” Bill chuckled, cleaning his glasses.
“Oh, you haven’t even heard the best parts! I’m afraid those are classified,” Simmons winked at Fitz.
“Isn’t everything these days?” he muttered, and Jemma laughed.
She looked well, better than Bill would have thought possible for someone who’d gone through what she had endured so recently. A hostile alien planet? Honestly, he couldn’t even be shocked that a portal had been the answer, in the end. But it was surely outside his area of expertise, so he was glad Fitz had found reliable sources and support to crack that one. Jemma Simmons was back in the world, laughing and sipping tea at Leo Fitz’s side in a coffee shop. Maybe Bill should start believing in miracles again.
Simmons was a resilient one, that’s for sure, and her friends at SHIELD must be taking good care of her. Bill suspected that the way Fitz and Simmons were clearly holding hands under the table across from him had something to do with the renewed light in their eyes, too. Good. It had taken them long enough.
“That’s right,” Simmons rolled her eyes with humor, looking from Fitz to Bill, “As much as I miss working with you back at the Academy, I doubt you’d ever accept an invitation back to SHIELD — under our current leadership — in a million years.”
“Coulson’s not in charge?” Bill asked, surprised. Seeing their faces, Fitz like he was about to launch into a Scottish tirade and Simmons about to delicately word the most diplomatic non-explanation, he quickly added, “Ah, forget I asked. That’s enough to tell me whatever it is that you’re not allowed to tell a humble civilian.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Fitz grumbled.
“What have you been up to, Bill?” Simmons asked brightly. She looked genuinely excited.
“Oh, you know. Lecturing the leaders of tomorrow. Their studies might not be as, let’s say advanced, as the old Academy’s syllabus, but there’s a few I’ve really got my eye on. They have what it takes to change the world.”
“So, it’s more teaching than research?”
Bill thought about how to answer. FitzSimmons had basically told him not to trust SHIELD, as it was right now. But they were brilliant scientists, lightyears beyond him and everyone he knew, and more importantly, good people.
“Well, there is one project…”
Fitz and he had something in common now, Bill supposed. While the work they had done in his lab several months ago hadn’t been the solution to bringing Simmons back, here they were again — this time, for Bill’s loved one.
Fitz knew engineering. Jemma knew the human body. Foster knew Ava Starr.
Ava shut the door to her new chamber and laid down on the bed. Simmons spoke to her encouragingly before activating their designs.
Ava sighed contentedly as glowing waves washed over her, stabilizing her body, and Bill’s heart shattered and warmed at the same time. Who knew how long this solution would work? In a few years, it might not be enough anymore, and they’d have to start over again. But this was enough for today.
Bill looked over at Fitz, who gave him a thumbs-up as the corner of his mouth tugged back in a small but real, “I see you, hell yeah it worked” smile.