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Chapter Text

Their morning had started off like any other morning, going about their usual duties. Fitz had been working on the seemingly never-ending final touches to the night-night gun.

Simmons and Skye had been in the lab with him when Ward had come in to let them know they had a new mission, and again, everything had seemed normal.

But now, there he was with a floating corpse in front of him. And both their team and countless other agents wanting for answers. Answers that seemed very far away given the limited clues and data they had gathered so far.

“Fitz, see his forehead? Look at that endothelial discolouration.” Jemma said as she walked towards the floating body.

“Yeah, same dispersal pattern as the strike on the truck.” Fitz answered, looking up from his tablet, trying to make sense of the scene before him.

“Could be an entry wound cauterized immediately.” Jemma suggested as she walked closer to the floating body.

Without thinking, Fitz caught up to her and put his hand in front of her, preventing her from getting any closer. “Let's not get too close now, hey?” Fitz said with a grimace.

“It’s science Fitz, we have to get a closer look.”

“Which is exactly why I built the DWARFs, just give me a moment to get them out.”

“Honestly Fitz.” She said with a sigh and pushed his hand away from her. He hadn’t been prepared for her push and with his hand extended out in front of him, the force was firm enough to push his hand closer to the body. As if reacting to his proximity, the body made a sound like crackling electricity and something zapped his hand, the body dropping immediately to the ground.

“Ow!” Fitz yelped. “That was freaky.” He said while shaking out his hand.

“Freaky.” Jemma agreed.

Chapter Text

“So, what am I looking for exactly?”

“Wait for it.”

“What was that?” Coulson asked as they watched static electricity jump from one braincell to another. As she started to explain her ground-breaking discovery to Coulson, she couldn’t help but wish Fitz was there instead, he would have understood the enormity of her discovery much better than Coulson.

“And that's the most exciting part, how it spreads, not through the air or through direct fluid transfer, but through electrostatic shock.” She said, growing more excited as she spoke.

“Electrostatic shock?” Coulson interrupted, his face grim.

“Yes sir it-” Oh. Oh no. “Fitz…” No.

“Jemma, stay right where you are.” Coulson said firmly. She fought every fibre of her being to obey his command. Coulson moved to the intercom system, “I need everybody to stay exactly where they are. Apart from agent Fitz. Fitz, I need you to go down to the med pod and seal yourself in. Use the gangway behind the cockpit, do not come through the lab. I repeat, do not come through the lab. Everyone else, if you will be anywhere near Fitz on his journey to the pod please move away quickly. It is of the utmost importance that nobody goes near Fitz.” Coulson said calmly, too calmly, over the intercom.

“Sir-” Jemma started before being interrupted by Coulson.

“How long does he have?” Fitz, her Fitz. How long did Fitz have? How long did he have until his brain, his beautiful, sometimes infuriating, big brain, baked inside his skull? How long until he joined the three bodies already being tested at a SHIELD facility? How long until he was –

No, it simply couldn’t be happening. Not to Fitz. “Jemma?” Coulson asked, hand gripping her arm. Thirty-eight hours. That’s how long it had taken to kill the firefighters.

No. Not Fitz.

“Two… Two hours… At most.” Jemma said as if her whole world wasn’t crashing down around her.

“Jemma, we’re in the middle of the Atlantic, we need you to figure this out.” Coulson said before pressing the intercom button again. “Can I have conformation on Fitz’s location?”

“I’m in the pod sir.” Fitz’s voice came through the intercom speaker, his irritation clear. “Could someone please tell me what the bloody hell is going on?”

“I’ll be right with you Fitz.” Coulson said before leaving Jemma alone in the lab.

Jemma desperately held back her tears and set to work. She could do this. Discover a cure to an alien virus in two hours. She was Jemma Ann Simmons. She could do this. She would do this.

She set to work analysing the virus’ structure and the best way to counter it. Only 5 or 10 minutes could have passed before her phone rang. Fitz. She swallowed and answered the phone, pining it between her ear and shoulder so she could continue working.

“Hey.” Hey? He’d contracted an alien virus and all he had to say was ‘hey’? “Are you okay?” Fitz asked after she remained silent, trying to calm the storm raging inside of her. Of course he was asking if she was okay.

“I’m so sorry Fitz, this is all my fault, first I push you into the field and then I literally push your hand towards a body with a mysterious cause of death, all whilst you were trying to protect me from said mysterious cause of death, which as it turns out is an alien virus!” She said growing more and more frustrated with herself. How could she have let this happen to him?

“It’s okay, everything will be okay, if anyone can solve this, you can.” She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but it only made her feel worse, knowing that the fate of his life lay entirely in her hands. She suppressed a loud sob.  Although clearly not well enough, as he quickly tried to comfort her again. “It’s okay, I have faith in you Jemma.”

“I’m going to find a way out of this Fitz. I am not going to let you… I’m going to stop this.” She said wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “The antiserum will need a delivery mechanism, through electrostatic shock, if I get you the relevant tools and materials do think you could put one together from the med pod?”

“Absolutely.” His unwavering confidence was both uplifting and terrifying.

They spent the next hour working together in their separate rooms, giving each other help along the way through their phones, now set to loudspeaker. Fitz’s delivery mechanism was, on paper, perfect and it was time to test it with her antiserum. She collected it through the quarantine hatch on the med pod door and rushed back to the lap to test the antiserum.

She had only caught a glimpse of Fitz, deliberately trying to avert her eyes, she didn’t have time for the many feelings that seeing him would trigger. But one glance was enough, she saw the worried and desperate look hiding just beneath the surface of his bravado. He said he had faith in her, but he knew as well as she did that science took time. And time was not on their side.

She loaded in the antiserum and tested it on the rat. An electric shock flashed before her and killed the rat instantly. “Dammit!”

“It didn’t work, did it?” Fitz said, sounding like he was trying to hide how defeated he felt. “Do you think it’s the delivery mechanism, maybe I can take another look at it?”

“We both know the problem is with the antiserum Fitz.” Jemma said slowly, trying to stop the tears from running down her face. The team watched on from the cargo bay, whispering amongst themselves and looking increasingly nervous. This would be so much easier with Fitz next to her in the lab, she felt like half her brain was stuck in the med pod on the other end of the phone.

“Alright, well talk me through the antiserum again and we’ll see if we can figure out the problem.” Fitz said, a forced enthusiasm in his voice that sent her stomach churning. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she couldn’t save him and she spent the rest of her life knowing that it was her fault? How would she even be able to look herself in the mirror? Let alone enter a lab again knowing that when it had really mattered, she had failed. She had always been faithful to science, but would it be faithful to her?

“Simmons? Are you listening? Jemma?” She heard Fitz calling her through the phone but it took him saying her name twice more before she could snap out of her daze of despair and answer him.

“Right, yes. Sorry. No time to waste.” She rushed through how her antiserum worked, suggesting any of the changes she thought might be required, but in truth she really wasn’t sure what to do, it was an alien virus after all.

When they ran into yet another dead-end Jemma let out a frustrated groan. “Come on Simmons, you can’t give up on me.” Fitz said, his desperation finally breaking through his voice.

“I’m not. I’m just… I don’t think I’m good enough.” She said, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she tried to cover the sob escaping her lips.

“Jemma,” he said softly, “You are good enough, okay. We can do this. We have to. I believe in you and I believe in us. Alright? So let’s go through it again, from the start.”

“Don’t you get it Fitz? We don’t even know if this virus has antigens, how can I create an antiserum when we don’t even understand the virus? All I have to work with are the antibodies from the firefighters, who in case you didn’t notice, are all dead.” Her voice was rising, and she knew it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t Fitz she was mad at. But she couldn’t stop herself. “I can’t do it, and there’s no time and not enough data and I can’t be responsible for this, I can’t. It’ll kill me.” Now that the tears had started, she couldn’t stop them. “You’re my best friend, Fitz.” She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

The phone was silent for a moment before she realised all she could hear through it was Fitz breathing heavily. He sniffed and there was the sound of rustling movement and another sniff. “Jemma, it’s okay. It’s okay.” He said, trying to keep his voice even. “None of this is your fault.”

“I’m not giving up. We still have…” She checked her watch and grimaced. “We still have enough time.” The remaining 36 minutes didn’t need to be said aloud.

She heard Fitz breath in deeply before he asked her to explain one of her suggested changes in more depth. But their discussion just led them back in circles. The fact that she only had the firefighters’ antibodies remained unchanged. There was nothing to create an antiserum from, the virus had killed everyone it had infected, and Fitz would be next. Except…

“The Chitauri…” She murmured, had the solution been sat above her the entire time?

“What about it?”

“She survived. The virus was on the helmet, it’s not unreasonable to believe that her antibodies are there too.”

“You bloody genius Simmons.”

“I just need some epithelial cells from the helmet.” It was then that she realised the problem. In doing that she would break quarantine and risk infecting herself. Although if she couldn’t save Fitz then… Well she wasn’t going to go there.

“Simmons, don’t do anything stupid-” Fitz warned but she was already moving and out the door before he had finished his sentence. Jemma Simmons was known for many things, but reckless spontaneity was not one of them. So when she sprinted past the rest of the team to get the helmet, no one knew what was happening until she was back downstairs in the lab, helmet in hand. “Jemma? Is that you? What have you done?”

“What I needed to do. Now hush up and let me work.” She frantically started to work, knowing time was against her, there was no time for Fitz’s worries about her safety and no time to talk him through what she was doing.

The clock was down to 11 minutes by the time she was ready to test the antiserum.  Anxiety was bubbling within her, if this didn’t work, there wouldn’t be enough time to rework the antiserum. “Here goes…” She told Fitz with as much calm as she could muster. Fitz remained silent, quietly waiting to hear his fate.

She delivered the antiserum to the rat, eyes fixed, unblinking. The tension was eating at her, as she waited to see what would happen. As the seconds ticked on, she started to let herself get excited. “Simmons? Did it work?” Fitz asked hesitantly.

She waited another couple of seconds before answering. “I think so-” And then the rat pulsed and began to float, unmoving just like the others. “No.” she whispered. “No, no, no!” With each word her anger and frustration grew stronger. “I don’t understand, this should have worked.” She continued to ramble on, frantically searching for the error, praying for a quick fix, something she could do in the few remaining minutes.

She was in such a frenzy that it took her a moment to realise Fitz was trying to speak to her. “Jemma, just stop! It’s alright. You did you’re best, we both did. It’s going to be okay. Just stay away from that damn helmet yeah? It’ll be alright.”

“How can you say that? Fitz-”

“It’s alright. I know what I need to do.” He said with a strange calmness.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when I die, I’m going to emit a much bigger static electric shock and it’ll interfere with the planes electronics,” Realisation rushed through her. “Send you all falling out of the sky. And I’m not-” Jemma was out the room and running towards Fitz’s med pod before he finished his sentence.

“Don’t you dare! We still have time.” She shouted at him through the glass. Fitz turned away from the internal control panel he had been typing away at.

“Simmons, I am not going to put everyone’s lives on this plane at risk. You know you’d do the same.” He said calmly.

“No, we still have time.” He couldn’t do this, this couldn’t be happening. She could not be facing the prospect of never seeing his beautiful face again. Of never getting to see the proud, bordering on cocky smile he wore when he made her laugh. Or the way he lit up when he got talking about monkeys or Doctor Who. Even the idea of never seeing him get grumpy over the little things that normally frustrated her was unbearable. There was simply no world in which she didn’t wake up knowing she and Fitz would do something amazing together that day. And if there was a world like that, she didn’t want any part of it.

“There isn’t any more time.”

“Don’t do this to me.” He had been with her every step of her SHEILD career, it had been the two of them together at the academy, at Sci-Ops, they’d gone into the field together, lived on the Bus together. “I’m not doing this without you. You’re my best friend.” He was more than that, he was her everything, and that scared her, the thought of a life without him wasn’t worth living. He was the person who always made her laugh, set her straight when she got over excited at what others viewed as rather macabre, made her tea just how she liked it, brought her a hot water bottle and chocolates when she was suffering with menstrual cramps and made her eat and drink when she was hyper focused and forgot to take care of herself. He was the most wonderful, interesting, kind and thoughtful person she had ever had the pleasure of meeting, let alone calling her best friend. The thought of being without him made her heart physically ache.

“Jemma-”

“No, don’t give up, don’t do this!”

“Jemma there’s no time. I don’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you do, you can choose not to do this.” But he had turned around and was typing at the screen again. “Fitz!” She was angry with him now, and that anger only amplified when she turned to the control panel on her side to see that he had managed to lock her out of it. “Fitz, don’t you dare. Skye!” She shouted, knowing that if anyone could undo whatever he had done to the control panel, it was her. “Skye! Get down here!”

Fitz turned back to look at her, his finger hovering over the screen. “I’m sorry.” And then he pressed the button. For a fraction of a moment nothing happened, and as she heard footsteps running down the spiral stairs at the end of the corridor, she thought maybe there was still time, but then the mechanical gears started to move and grind, and the pod started to move backwards.

“Fitz, get back here, right now! Don’t you do this! I won’t forgive you for this!” She shouted at him, but it was too late, there was no undoing what he had done.

As the pod dropped backwards out of the Bus Skye and Coulson joined her side. “What did he just do?” Skye asked in complete disbelief.

“May!” Coulson shouted before running back up the stairs.

“Simmons?” Skye asked softly but Jemma was already running back to the lab, there had to be something she could do, there had to be. She couldn’t leave it like this.

As she returned to the lab the weight of what had just happened hit her. Fitz was hurtling towards the sea, or had just smashed into it. The impact of the fall alone didn’t bare thinking about. They were so high up-

He had only been in that position because of her, because of her failure. And now she was in an inescapable hell of her own making. Because she wasn’t good enough, smart enough or fast enough. She felt sick to her stomach from her failure. As her heartbeat raced and she gasped for breath her panic only grew. Trembling she fell to the floor, too light-headed and distressed to stand up any longer.

As she struggled for breath and felt the sweat grow slick on her skin, she wondered if she too was dying, connected to Fitz by some invisible tether. She needed help. But who could help her? And even if they could, she surely didn’t deserve it. Not after failing Fitz.

No. the only person who could help her was dead or dying on the ocean beneath her.

And then Skye was by her side, pulling her into a hug. Holding her while she sobbed and shook. Suddenly the plane tilted sharply, May bringing the Bus down to find Fitz and his pod. But even if they could get to him, even if the impact hadn’t-  

They were too late, there was no time to correct the formula.

But as the plane turned, a squeak cut through the lab. “What was that?” Skye asked, the sound clearly not coming from either of them. Both of them sat up, peering over the counter.

“The rat…” Jemma choked out. “It was dead… I thought it was…” The dead rat was now moving around, distressed by the sudden movement of the plane, but moving, nonetheless. Alive. “It worked!” Jemma’s brain started to go into overdrive. She wiped away her tears, desperately trying to gain control of her mind and body. The antiserum had worked. Fitz needed her. But he was gone. No, May was bringing the plane down, so perhaps…

She checked her watch. 4 minutes and 18 seconds. She had 4 minutes to get the antiserum to him. If he had survived the fall. But if he had, 4 minutes might be all she needed. “We have to get to Fitz!” She shouted out as she gathered the antiserum and delivery mechanism. He had to be alive. She couldn’t face a world where he wasn’t.

The next 150 seconds were a blur, May brought the Bus down next to the pod which had detected the change in atmosphere as it fell and adapted the pod’s density so that it would float upon impact with the sea. The plane sat atop the ocean surface, battered by the waves, sending wobbles of movement through the Bus. The pod was hauled back on board the cargo ramp where Ward forced the door open.

Jemma rushed forwards, with less than a minute left on the clock, Fitz was lying motionless on the floor, blood smeared across the floor and pooling around him. With a shaky breath she delivered the antiserum, a pulse of electricity burst out of him and the pod and plane were plunged into darkness. Ignoring the sudden lack of light she groped around, desperate to find a pulse.

The faintest of pulses was there. A loud sob escaped her before she shouted out to whoever was nearest to bring her the first aid kit and torches.

She desperately tried to get her brain to work, to assess the situation before her, ignore the fact that her patient was Fitz, her best friend, her favourite person, her everything. He was bleeding from his head and probably elsewhere and clearly had broken bones, given the worrying state of his left arm and leg.

Time whirled past as she treated his wounds, her mind focused on solving the problem at hand and once she was satisfied he was safe to move, he was brought into the remaining med pod behind the lab. His bleeding had been dealt with and his broken limbs wrapped up as best she could, now all they could do was sit tight until they arrived at the Sandbox, and he could be assessed by their medical team there.

Laying in the medical bed, bandaged up, one arm in a sling, an intravenous drips delivering him some much-needed pain medication and heart monitor and pulse oximeter attached to him, he looked small and frail. The rest of the team had left them alone, and with only 20 minutes left until they landed, she knew this was the last time it would be just the two of them in a while. “Fitz, you need to wake up so I can tell you off for being such an idiot.” She mumbled into the hand she held between hers. “C’mon Fitz.” He groaned and twitched slightly but remained unconscious.

Another 4 minutes passed before he finally started to stir awake. “J’ma?” He croaked. Her head shot up and her eyes met with blue, weary eyes.

“Fitz!” Jemma buried her head into the crook of his neck. “You’re awake!”

“Wha’ happ’n?” He asked as she peppered kisses on his cheeks.

“You were an idiot. That’s what happened.” He scowled at her before softening his expression as he mumbled a few incoherent words. “You’re safe, I promise, we’ll talk about the rest later.”

“Jemma?”

“Later. I promise. Are you in much pain?”

“M’alrigh’.” He said with a soft smile that set off what was surely a similar smile on her own face. She shuffled her chair up closer to his bed and rested her head against his on the pillow. He shifted over and gently nodded his head towards the space he had made for her on the bed.

For as long as they had been friends, they had always been tactile, they often shared little touches and celebrated or commiserated with hugs, they had fallen asleep on each other on sofas and had always been invading each other’s personal space in the lab. But they had never cuddled up on a bed. There had been a few drunken nights where they’d been even more touchy feely, but it had never ended in anything more than some hand holding and prolonged hugs or the occasional kiss on the cheek. This was new territory. But the last few hours had all been entirely new territory. Which was why she didn’t think twice about gently worming her way into his side, careful of the wires and tubes attached to him.

“Don’t do that to me again, please?” He turned his head to her and gave her a frown, silently telling her none of what had happened had been his plan A, B or even C. “You know what I mean.” She added, more softly than before and taking his hand in hers. She caught the slight raise of his brows as she did so, but he squeezed her hand, letting her know she hadn’t crossed any lines.

She wasn’t sure what it meant, or even why she’d taken his hand. But it had felt right. And it felt even more right now that he was holding her hand back. When he leant his head against hers she couldn’t help but breath in his familiar and comforting scent.

Fitz yawned, his jaw rubbing against the top of her head. “Sleepy...” He grumbled, clearly unhappy with how groggy he felt.

“Rest up Fitz.” She said softly before planting a kiss on his cheek and nestling her head in closer to his and closing her own eyes. Snuggled into him, the world finally felt right again. The unending sense of doom and worry had finally left her, and she could think straight again. But most importantly she could relax and take some much-needed down time to process all that had happened to them.

Their moment of peace was interrupted not long afterwards by the sensation of the plane landing, meaning Jemma had to prepare him for transfer.

It was another 7 hours before they were alone again, and even then, nurses kept popping in to check on him. Fitz was asleep again, this time with his left arm and leg in a cast. With the risk of either the rest of the team or medical staff coming in, she didn’t dare join him on the bed again. Instead, she remained in the chair next to the bed but kept his hand tightly held in hers.

She was just drifting off, over come by the emotions of the day when she heard him call her name. “Simmons?”

“I’m here.”

“You alright?” He asked, gently stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. Of course Fitz was more concerned about her than he was himself. It was what made him so infuriatingly wonderful.

“I’m not the one lying in a hospital bed.”

“I know, but… if it were the other way around, if I hadn’t stopped you getting close to the body… if it had been you, I’d have been going spare.” He struggled with his words self-consciously. “So I just wanted to check in with you. Check you’re okay. And… that we’re okay.”

“Of course we’re okay.” She told him softly. She wanted to be mad at him for giving up and trying to sacrifice himself. But she knew as well as he did that she would have done the exact same thing as him in that situation.

“And you? Are you okay?” His eyes were filled with so much raw emotion that she had to look down at her lap. “Jemma?”

“It was really scary. That’s all.” She tried to stop her bottom lip from trembling as she spoke.

“I know. C’mere.” He tugged her arm gently, signalling for her to join him on his bed again. If Fitz wasn’t going to worry about people seeing them, then neither would she. She climbed in next to him, and wrapped her arms around his middle, careful of his arm in the sling. “I’m sorry.” He said, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

“It just all got very real today. It’s one thing knowing that working in the field could be dangerous, it’s another thing to actually have your life be… be left in my hands. If I hadn’t been able to- to…” It was too painful to even put into words what could have happened, what so nearly did happen. “I mean the fall alone could have-” As her words dissolved into sobs, Fitz pulled her in for a tight hug with his unbroken arm, murmuring comforting words and apologies in her ear until he too couldn’t talk through the tears, once he started, he seemed as unable to stop as she was. “It’s just harder than I expected. Being in the field.” She sobbed out.

“Yeah.” Fitz exhaled deeply as he spoke, letting the simple word hold all the emotions of the day. “At least you won’t have to worry about me while I’m recovering.” He tried to make it sound like a good thing, but the knowledge that he was injured enough to mean he was being given sick leave until he could walk unencumbered again stung. And the thought of being without him for that length of time hurt just as much.

“I don’t want to be in the field without you.” It was out of her mouth before she even realised what she was saying. She cringed at how pathetic and co-dependent she sounded, but that didn’t make it any less true.

“You’ll get used to it. And it’ll only be for two months. I’ll be back before you know it.” He was trying to be strong, strong for the both of them. But she didn’t want him to be strong, she wanted him to recognise that this would be the longest time they had ever spent apart, and that she would have to face danger every day, while he had to recuperate back home in Scotland with his mum.

“A lot can happen in two months.”

“Yeah, I know.” For a moment she thought he was going to give her the emotional honesty she needed, return to the intimacy they had just shared while they broke down in tears together. But when he opened his mouth to continue that hope was dashed. “Don’t go discovering any more alien viruses without me.” He teased.

“I’m serious Fitz. This isn’t a joke to me.” She told him, pulling away from his hug and sitting up slightly. The events of the day had sent her head spinning, forcing her to quantify just how much Fitz meant to her, and if she didn’t mean as much to him in return… well she needed to know.

“What else do you want me to say? That I’ll be miserable without you, that I already know I’m going to drive Mum nuts with how bored I’m going to get, that I’m going to be worrying about you every minute of every day that we’re apart? How does any of that help?” He said, a low level of anger faintly burning behind every word.

“At least it’s honest.”

“Yeah, well honesty isn’t always helpful.” He grumbled in bitter exasperation.

“You don’t get to be mad at me, not today.” She bit back, moving to stand up. “You didn’t have to desperately try to create an antiserum knowing you were the only person who could save your best friend! You didn’t have to come to the realisation that you had failed, and killed your best friend in doing so! You didn’t have to watch your best friend eject themselves out of a plane!” Once she started, she couldn’t stop, her anger at the situation they had been put in boiling over. “You didn’t have to return to the lab, our lab, to find that the antiserum had worked but it was too late because you had already sent yourself hurtling into the ocean! You didn’t have to enter that med pod and find your body battered and broken and barely breathing, wondering if you had got there in time! You do not get to be mad at me!”

“I thought I was going to die and take all of you out with me, what choice did I have?” Fitz cried back, his anger matching hers.

“You should have stayed!”

“And then what? We had minutes left, you weren’t going to go back to the lab, you’d never have known it worked, and then we’d all have died, me first and then the rest of you by dropping out of the sky!”

“You don’t know that!” The desperation in her voice was clear to both of them, she just hoped he knew she wasn’t really mad with him, she just had to let out all the hurt and anger before she exploded.

“Yeah, well how else was it going to play out?”

“If you had just waited, not had your stupid plan, then I would have still been in the lab to see the blasted rat wake up!”

“Any plan that keeps you alive isn’t stupid!”

“What about your life?”

“For the last bloody time, I thought I was dead. I did the best I could with the information I had!”

“It wasn’t fair, what you did, it wasn’t fair.” As she said it she knew she wasn’t being fair either, she knew in her heart she’d have done what he had. She could feel the fight draining out of her, until she heard his answer.

“Well that’s what it’s like in the field, you wanted to be here, this is what we have to deal with!”

“Don’t blame this all on me!” His implication that today had been her fault hurt more than anything else, as if she would knowingly put his life in danger? That she didn’t value his life above her own? It made her blood boil, he meant more to her than she had words to express, and that wasn’t something Jemma Simmons was at all familiar with.

“You really think I’d have come out here without you?” Jemma stood in a stunned silence, she knew she’d been more excited to join the team, but she had thought that was just his nerves, not that he didn’t want to be there. “I was perfectly fine in our safe, indoor, non-mobile lab!”

“I didn’t force you to go anywhere.”

Fitz let out a scoff. “We’re a team Jemma, wherever you go, I go.” The heat was gone from his voice now, leaving behind a tone she couldn’t quite decipher.

Jemma was still formulating an answer when the doctor stormed in. “All this commotion is not good for Leopold, if you can’t keep it down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I was just going anyway.”

Chapter Text

Fitz’s time off sick was as awful as he had expected, he hadn’t seen Jemma again before being flown home to Scotland and he had been told not to contact the team while he was on leave for everyone’s safety. His recovery was tedious at best, and as he had expected, being back home with his mum after having left home so young was testing them, especially when his default mood was angry and irritable, and he still had another month left to go.

He was simultaneously furious with Jemma for how she had left things between them and desperately missing her, longing to be in her presence again. Bizarrely his unresolved argument with Jemma had haunted him more than his near-death experience. He’d had nightmares nearly every night, and although his infection and plummet from the plane had been on replay most nights, it was Jemma’s words and tear-stained cheeks that he couldn’t get out of his head.

Part of him was mad at her, for wanting to go into the field and bringing them into a situation where both of their lives had been at risk, but he knew she’d had no way of foreseeing what had happened. And he had willingly followed, even if he never would have considered it without her. But an even bigger part of him was mad that she’d never come to apologise, or at least see him off. Especially after all the confusing cuddling.

He and Jemma had always had an easy relationship, that didn’t require much thought, they just were. He’d never needed to analyse or question their friendship, he’d known exactly where they stood with each other. But the cuddles had been new. And so had the near-death experience, what he couldn’t figure out was if the cuddles were solely because of the extreme emotions and stresses of the day, or if they signified something else. A shift between them.

Cuddling wasn’t something he was overly familiar with, he could count on 1 hand the number of people he had cuddled prior to that day, his mum when he was a child, and the four women he classed as his ex’s, although he only really considered two of them to have been his girlfriends, both relationships lasting around a year.

All his experience with cuddling as an adult was firmly in the romantic camp. But that didn’t necessarily mean that cuddling couldn’t be done platonically, just that he hadn’t experienced it. After all, Jemma was his only truly close friend up until joining the Bus.

But Skye was his friend, and he couldn’t imagine cuddling her like he had with Jemma. But then he and Skye were new friends, unlike him and Jemma, who had nearly a decade of friendship behind them. But that thought process didn’t bring him any closer to understanding whether or not the cuddling between him and Jemma had been platonic or not.

Which had sent him down a different line of enquiry, did he want the cuddling to be platonic? Did he want to change things between them? It should have been an easy question, but it was anything but. The way he felt for Jemma didn’t fit in any category he could determine. He certainly didn’t feel the same about her as he had his ex-girlfriends. But he also needed to factor in that his exes had ended things because they thought he kept prioritising Jemma, which had to mean something?  

As inept as he had felt Googling it, he needed answers before he returned to the Bus, so into his laptop he had typed, ‘How to know if you love someone’. But it still didn’t help him as much as he had hoped, because all the things you were supposed to feel about someone you loved romantically, he had felt for Jemma since the very beginning of their friendship. Because of course he felt safe with Jemma, wanted to spend all his time with Jemma and thought about her nearly nonstop. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t. But he couldn’t have been in love with her all that time and not noticed, he wasn’t that much of an idiot.

And of course he thought she was beautiful, but that was objective fact, it didn’t mean anything on its own. But the cuddling had been nice, and he couldn’t help but wonder if anything else might have happened if it hadn’t all ended in such a big argument. Regardless of his confused feelings, something had changed that day, never before had they had such a personal argument, and he had no idea what it would be like walking back onto the Bus.

He was upstairs moping in his childhood bed, half watching a Star Trek episode, when the doorbell rang. With a groan he pulled himself off of his bed and picked up his crutch to get to the door as quickly as he could, no doubt it was a parcel for his mum, and he didn’t want them to drive off before he got there. “I’m coming!” He shouted as he made his way down the stairs.

As he got to the door he could see the silhouette of the person on the other side, notably smaller than the usual men that delivered any parcels to the house. He fumbled with the keys before finally opening the door.

“Hello Fitz.” Fitz’s heart stopped.

“Simmons?”

“Can I come in?” She asked nervously, like she really believed there was a chance he might turn her away.

“Uh… yeah, course.” He held the door open for her and moved out of the way so she could come through. “You… err… you want a cuppa?”

“That would be lovely. Would you like a hand making it?”

“No, it’s alright. You sit down.” He said and gestured to the lounge. As he brewed their tea, it gave him a moment to try to get his head around the fact that Jemma had shown up out of nowhere. It seemed unlikely that she had got leave and travelled all the way to Scotland just to finish their fight. And she hadn’t seemed mad at the door. But things were so uncertain between them he couldn’t help but worry. What could possibly have brought her here that had taken her a month to visit to come and say but couldn’t have waited another month?

He brought Jemma’s drink in first, unable to carry both mugs at once with one arm in a cast and the other using his crutch. She was sat on the end of the sofa, one hand out trying to coax his mum’s cat into letting her pet him. Despite Jemma having visited his mum’s house whenever they had been on leave in the UK together and having known Monty since he was a kitten, the cat was a grumpy sod and had always been rather standoffish to Jemma. “He thinks you’re after his liver.” Fitz joked, trying to bring a semblance of normality to the situation. But Jemma just withdrew her hand from Monty and quietly took her tea from him.

Once he had retrieved his own tea he sat down and took a sip, needing both the distraction of something to do and the familiar comfort it provided. He could see Jemma fidgeting nervously in her seat and was just wondering if she was waiting for him to say something when she finally spoke again. “I’m really sorry Fitz. For what I said and how I left things.”

“I’m sorry too.” Although whether he was sorry for his words or just his tone he wasn’t sure. “Did you just come here to apologise?” Jemma looked at him awkwardly before looking down at her lap and fidgeting hands. He hated how uncomfortable things were between them, it was worse than back when they had first met and he’d just sit next to her silently, unable to open his mouth until he thought of something smart enough to tell her. “Well?”

“I’ve… I’ve done a lot of thinking this last month.”

“I’d expect no less from a certified genius.” He teased to fill the awkward gap she had left.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?”

“I… just it was… seeing you in danger like that… Before, I’d always taken you for granted, our friendship. I’d just… I’d always assumed you’d be there. And then suddenly tha- that wasn’t something I could assume. And it just…” She trailed away, seemingly losing whatever nerve she had worked up to talk in the first place. It was surreal seeing her speak with such disorganised thought and lack of confidence, he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Okay…” He murmured, unsure whether she was going to finish her sentence. Jemma went back to fidgeting and looking down and Fitz could feel the anxiety in his chest building to a crescendo, he needed to understand what had brought Jemma here and he was none the wiser after her ramblings. As if aware of the tension between them Monty jumped up onto the mantel piece and threatened to knock the small plant pot off. “Monty, no.” He told the cat firmly. Monty looked at him, as if to say ‘Monty, yes’ and swiped the plant pot off, breaking the pot as it smashed against marble. “You little…” Fitz scowled.

“I’ll get it.” Jemma jumped out of her chair and set to work cleaning up the mess of soil and ceramics Monty had made. Jemma seemed relieved to have something to do and he was sure she had swept everything up while she continued to use the dustpan and brush. Eventually even Jemma had to concede that she had tidied everything up and almost reluctantly returned to the sofa.

“Everything been alright on the Bus?” He asked after it seemed clear Jemma wasn’t going to continue.

“Not really no. Your first replacement died almost immediately after joining us, on a mission with Ward.” Fitz cringed at that, wondering if the same fate would have befallen him if he had been there, he was sure Jemma had too. “And the lady we have now is rather frustrating, never listens to what I have to say. I miss how easy it was for us.” Fitz nodded, that was one thing they could agree on, he had missed their easy partnership in the lab as much as he had missed their easy friendship outside of it. But given how awkward they were being, he wasn’t sure how easily they would return to either one. “But I didn’t come here to talk about that.” Jemma breathed in deeply, sitting up straight, clearly summoning her courage, although what she had to say to him that was so difficult, he couldn’t fathom. Unless it was that he had done something wrong, maybe he’d made her uncomfortable with the cuddling? Which would answer his questions about the cuddling rather decisively.

“We’ve… I think… we just fell into our friendship.” Fitz felt panic start to replace his anxiety, if she was going to say she regretted their friendship he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to hold himself together. “And everything that happened last month has made me think that… maybe… that’s not the best word for us. Or for where I’m at anyway.”

“What?” It fell out of his mouth before he even realised he had spoken.

As Jemma opened her mouth to speak, the sound of keys in the door interrupted them and his mum bustled in. “Leo darling, I’m home! Do you think you’d be up for helping me with dinner later?”

“In here mum.” He called out. His anxiety was far too high for the interruption of his mum, but he knew there was no way they were getting back to their conversation anytime soon now.

“Oh, you’re downstairs, how-” When she caught sight of Jemma, she dropped her things and rushed over to give her a hug. “Jemma! What a lovely surprise, Leo didn’t tell me you were coming, I’d have bought food for you if I had known.”

“It was a bit of a surprise visit.” Jemma beamed as she hugged his mum. Monty interrupted their hug with some yowling and butting, clearly upset that his favourite person was giving someone other than him attention.

His mum continued to rattle on about how glad she was to see Jemma again, commenting that she looked too thin and that she hoped she was looking after herself, asking about how she was getting on without Fitz, and asking how her parents were.

Fitz did his best to give his mum a look that politely told her to leave them be, that they were in the middle of something. She caught his glare and stared him down with narrowed eyes. “How about you tell me all about that wonderful life of yours with S.H.I.E.L.D. over dinner, you two go upstairs and have some time to catch up. I can’t think of a time when you’ve ever been apart for so long, a month must feel like a century for you both.” He gave his mum a grateful nod before they both headed up to his room.

Jemma patiently waited for him to get himself up the stairs and to get comfortable as they both sat on the edge of his bed. “Does it hurt much?” She asked, gesturing to his cast arm and leg.

“Not much anymore, the first week wasn’t great though.” That was rather understating things, the first week had been rough. He hadn’t slept well with the casts and pain, and his days had been mind numbingly boring, which left him with nothing to distract him from the pain.

“I’m glad you’re doing better now.” Jemma said softly, she hesitated for a moment before touching the thigh of his unbroken leg and giving it a light squeeze. Her hand lingered and he watched it carefully, trying to piece together what Jemma was trying to tell him, until she retracted it, bringing her hand limply back to her lap.

“Jemma, what’s going on?” His emotions were all over the place, seeing her had brought back all the confusion of their argument and her words and actions since arriving had done little to help him figure out what was happening between them. “Do… do you not want to be friends anymore? I didn’t mean to upset you, it was just an argument, we were emotional and I-”

“Fitz, stop.” Jemma interrupted his rambling. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

“Believe it or not, I agonised over how to say all this, I had a little script in my head, and it’s all gone wrong.” Jemma’s nerves showed through in the tremble in her voice.

“Well how about you just say it and don’t worry about saying it the right way? Because I don’t think I can take much more of your ambiguity.”

“I know, I’m sorry, that’s really not my intention. It’s just hard to say this.” Jemma looked into his eyes for just a moment before staring straight ahead at the wall. “You… you don’t have to say anything back. And if you need time, that’s fine, or if you don’t need time and it’s not the same for you then that’s fine, we can find a way back. It’s just I thought, maybe it is the same for you. Or at least it could be. And I’d never know if I didn’t tell you. And I spent the last month trying to figure out my thoughts. My feelings. And once I figured it out, I couldn’t wait. I needed to know. But now I’m here… it's not so easy to just say it.”

As she talked it finally started to click into place, or at least he thought it did. And waiting for her to say it just sent his already racing heartbeat soring even faster.

“I think… no, I know… that since the virus, things have changed, for me. And maybe you feel that too. But either way, I… you are the most important person in my life, and nothings changes that, but the virus, it made me reflect on exactly how I feel for you. And those feelings… are no longer just platonic.” She glanced at him nervously as she said her final sentence, she breathed in a shaky breath that only seemed to make her look more terrified than she already had.

He wasn’t sure what expression was on his face, but it clearly wasn’t the one she had been hoping for because she quickly looked away. “It’s okay, you don’t need to say anything, I just knew not telling you would eat me up. But it’s alright, I can… work through it. Our friendship is-”

“Jemma, I didn’t even say anything yet.”

“It’s alright, you don’t need to.” She nervously played with the edge of her cardigan.

“Yeah, I do.” He told her firmly. “Just give me a second?” If his mind had been racing before it was going at hypersonic speed now. All his questions about their cuddles coming to a head, but he was no more illuminated on his own feelings now than had been then. He still felt the same way he had before the virus, just with the added desire for more cuddling. But now he knew she felt differently, he let himself wonder what it would be like to do more than just cuddling, after all if cuddling had been good, perhaps more would be too.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have known with certainty if he had feelings for her. He’d had crushes before and he’d been well aware of them, so why were his feelings for Jemma such a mystery? The longer he spent thinking in silence, the tenser he could feel Jemma getting beside him.

Finally he decided to tell her what he was certain of, and see if they could work from there. “I liked the cuddling.” He said quietly. “But the rest… is confusing. I kept trying to sort it out, but I couldn’t, especially after you never came to say goodbye.”

The way she deflated on the word ‘but’ hurt more than he had expected, but he needed to be honest. A part of him wanted to kiss her, to see if that clarified things for him, but he couldn’t do that, not when she was certain and he wasn’t, that wasn’t fair to her.

“I’m sorry, I should have fixed things before you left, I should have said goodbye. I was such a mess, I couldn’t think straight and that made me act stupidly.”

“You’re here now.”

“That I am.” She said awkwardly, clearly not sure where they went from here. And unfortunately, neither was he.

“How did you know?” He asked suddenly. She crinkled her brow in response. “Know what you felt? I can’t… figure anything out.”

“Well I was just confused for a while. And then it just sort of… clicked. The way I feel, and I think to some degree always felt, it was more than platonic. The… cuddling was just part of it, I think. Fearing and then thinking I had lost you… forced me to acknowledge what had always been there.” She was clearly embarrassed to be talking about it, but he appreciated her honesty. It was necessary if they were going to figure out what came next.

The fact that she thought her feelings had always been there was interesting, because Jemma was the only person he would acknowledge as being smarter than him, and if even she hadn’t realised the nature of her feelings, well maybe that meant it wasn’t so absurd for him to have missed it too. He just needed to determine if the attraction he had always had for her was simply common-sense aesthetic appreciation or the sign of something more.

He let himself collapse backwards onto his bed with a groan. “This is why I like maths. It’s clear and objective and you know where you stand. Feelings are confusing and messy. It’s my own stupid brain, I should know how I feel, it shouldn’t be this hard.” He said, frustrated at himself and his lack of an answer for Jemma who had been brave enough to put everything on the line.

“I know.” Jemma said with a huffed sigh, joining him on lying back on his bed. “Whatever you decide, it’s okay. I don’t want to lose you over this.”

Fitz nodded, but he knew Jemma well enough to know that without her needing to say it. But it was nice to hear, nonetheless. “Jemma darling!” His mum called out from downstairs. “Are you okay with mushroom carbonara?”

“That sounds great thank you!” Jemma called back down. Fitz let out a small huff, she never asked him if he was alright with mushroom carbonara, but then she probably knew he’d much rather have it filled with copious amounts of meat, which his mum insisted they only eat twice a week. “Your mum really has excellent timing.” She said with a slight laugh. He pulled a face, that told her he knew only too well how impeccable her timing could be, and Jemma let out a slight giggle. Hearing her laugh again sent a smile to his own face, there was no one in the world he would rather make laugh, and he took great pleasure in being the person who did it most often.

As he watched her laugh the smile faded from his face, a strange feeling burning in his chest. Their faces where less than a foot apart and he could see every freckle. “What?” Jemma asked, clearly sensing his mood had shifted.

He shook his head almost imperceptibly, unsure what this new feeling was surging through him. He just knew he never wanted to go another day without making her laugh. “I… don’t know.” But that wasn’t entirely true. He wanted to kiss her. He just couldn’t quite determine if that was because he shared her feelings or if it was because she had put the idea in his head and he wanted to know what it would be like. And he couldn’t do something as game changing as kissing her until he knew. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

“I’m sorry. For making things difficult for you.” Jemma said quietly.

He shook his head. “Don’t apologise. Not for how you feel.” Jemma smiled softly at him, chewing her bottom lip. The look she was giving him made his heartbeat pick up again after finally having returned to a healthy rate. He swallowed. His internal battle raged on, perhaps the only way to truly understand his feelings was to give into his desire to kiss her, but what if it only made him realise he didn’t feel the same or it didn’t give him the clarity he craved? But then would he want to kiss her this badly if he didn’t return her feelings? He’d never had such a strong urge before… it was decidedly something new, and perhaps that did need to be acted on.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?” Jemma asked quietly. He wondered if his thinking face was as clear to her as hers was to him.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He said carefully as he turned onto his side to face her, it wasn’t overly comfortable lying on his left with both his arm and leg in plaster cast, but he wanted to look at her fully.

“You won’t.” Jemma said, her own brain seemingly whirring away, trying to figure him out. Good luck to her, he thought, it would be nice if one of them could understand his state of mind.

He just couldn’t figure out if kissing her would be brave or reckless. He was looking at her lips, and when her eyes darted to his, he realised she had noticed. Whether it was brave or reckless, or downright stupid, he could tell she wanted him to kiss her, and damnit, he wanted to as well.

He brought his right hand up, cupping her cheek and she turned fully onto her side to match him, bringing her face closer to him in the process. His heart was thumping in his chest, sure to break out at any moment. With one final swallow and a quick dart of his tongue over his lips he closed the distance between them.

There was a brief moment of awkwardness, neither quite sure what they were doing, stepping into unknown territory, but it quickly melted away into gentle passion. Jemma brought her hands up to his face, one caressing his cheek and the other burying itself in his hair, that had got entirely too long as of late. But the way she scraped her fingernails along his scalp and gently tugged on his hair made him think that perhaps this was indeed the perfect length for his unruly curls. In response he wrapped his hand round the back of her head, pulling her in closer as he moved his lips over hers.

As they deepened the kiss he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her on top of him and letting his good arm hold her close, while his cast hand could at least gently hold her cheek. “Fitz.” Jemma’s voice was breathy with desire, but she pulled her lips away from his, a hesitant look covering her features. He was just feeling the familiar wave of anxiety pass through him, worrying if he had done something wrong or, even worse, he hadn’t lived up to expectations and she had changed her mind, when she spoke again. “I… I think… if you’re still confused, I think we should stop.”

He shook his head. The kiss had been everything he had needed it to be, it had been wonderful and set his muddled thoughts into place. As it turned out he was in fact that stupid, because of course he had loved Jemma Simmons from the start.

“I’m not confused.” Jemma’s lips smashed back into his before he had a chance to elaborate. She dove back in wasting no time in exploring his mouth with her tongue, both of them letting out little moans of contented pleasure.

Having his left arm and leg immobilised with their casts had been a constant annoyance for the last month, but never more so than now. An irritated groan escaped his lips as he tried and failed to hold her the way he wanted.

“It’s alright Fitz.” Jemma said, resting her forehead against his. “There’ll be time for that later.” She said as she shifted to snuggle into his side. The smile on Jemma’s face melted all his frustrations, her entire countenance had shifted, he was now met with a strange combination of peace and giddiness, the worries she had been working through with both her own feelings and then confessing them to him had disappeared the moment their lips met the second time.

Jemma linked her fingers between his and gently stroked his hair with her other hand. “Why didn’t we start doing this years ago?” He mumbled. “It shouldn’t have taken a near death experience and a month of muddled thoughts to realise this was a good idea. We’re supposed to be smart…” As stupid as it sounded, it really felt like her lips had held the key to understanding the intense feelings he had always had for her but had never been able to parse out.

Jemma shrugged at him, pressing her lips together into an expression he didn’t see on her often, one that said ‘I don’t know but it doesn’t matter now’. “Better late than never.”

“Yeah, I guess. Can’t believe you figured it out before me, too.”

“Why’s that?” She asked, a hint of offence in her tone.

“Well out of the two of us, who would you describe as being more emotionally in tune?” He asked, gently teasing. He pressed a tender kiss to her nose to make sure she knew he didn’t mean any harm in his comment.

Jemma rolled her eyes, trying to avoid the fact that he was right. “Well, I’ve always been just that little bit smarter than you, so really I’m not surprised at all.” She teased back. Fitz narrowed his eyes, but his smile shone through. Not even he was cocky enough to argue against that, she did have two PhDs to his one, after all. “And really it makes sense you’d need a kiss to be able to work it out.”

“Why? Am I a Disney princess or something?” He joked, not quite sure where she was going.

“No, although…” Fitz deadpan glare cut off whatever thought his comment had triggered. “I meant that your area of expertise has always been more practical and hands on, so it makes sense.”

“Yes, well I am very dextrous.” He said with waggling eyebrows that sent Jemma into a fit of giggles that were only subsided by his lips meeting hers once more.

Fitz’s good hand was just trailing its way under her blouse when his door sprung open. “Jem- Oh my-”

“Mum!” Fitz shouted out, completely mortified. “Have you never heard of knocking?”

“This is hardly the first time I’ve come in like this, and normally you two are just talking science or watching some TV. So how was I supposed to know?” His mum asked as if it was their fault for not having updated her the moment their relationship had changed. “Anyway, I just wanted to ask if Jemma would be staying the night and if I should set up the guest room, but perhaps I don’t need to bother either way.” His mum said, taking far too much joy in their embarrassment.

Fitz raised his eyebrows, silently begging her to go away. “We’ll see you at dinner Mum.”

“Ungrateful bairn. Got me cooking his food, providing a roof over his head and this is how he treats his dear old Mum?” His mum muttered as she left, notably leaving the door wide open. Fitz picked up his crutch and wacked the door closed with a scowl.

“You know she’ll be on the phone to your mum in no time, right?” He sighed. The cat was well and truly out the bag before they had even defined what they were.

“Yeah, I know.” Jemma said, but her tone was light, clearly, she wasn’t bothered about their families knowing.  She snuggled back into his side with a content smile.

“Are you- will you- What I mean is, how long before you have to go back?” He asked, his mothers words reminding him of the reality of Jemma’s visit.

“Tomorrow.” She said, pouting slightly, and then bitterly, “Morning.”

Fitz chewed at his lip, the last thing he wanted was for them to be separated for another month. But he didn’t see any way around it. “Well we best make the most of it before you leave.” He did his best to sound flirty and not let on his upset at her leaving so soon.

“Yeah? What did you have in mind?”

“Hmmm… what to do, what to do?” He muttered thoughtfully before turning to capture her lips in a kiss again.

“Leo! Jemma! Dinners ready!”

“It’s like she bloody knows. I swear she’s doing it on purpose somehow.” Fitz half growled against her lips.

“Come on, ready for a really awkward dinner with your mum?”

“Absolutely not.” He grumbled, but he took her hand anyway, a smile poking through his frown. She pulled him up and kissed him sweetly before passing him his crutch. “But I am bloody hungry.”

Jemma smiled, holding back a laugh. “Of course you are.”