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Chapter Text

BREAKING NEWS: LONDON SCIENTIST CREATES BLUEPRINT FOR SUPERPOWERED HUMANS

Leaked research from the lab of Dr. Jemma A. Simmons shows that it may be possible to enhance abilities of adult humans using their own DNA as opposed to using synthetic enhancement substances. The results of initial experiments, whilst tentative, were promising and supporting research concludes that it would indeed be possible to manipulate the effects for application in humans. Details of who leaked this report remain unknown. Scotland Yard has launched an investigation.

-x-

“Here you go, Fitz. New assignment for you.”

The file that’s places in his hands is heavy. He takes a look at the name, skimming a few details, before placing it down on the desk that sits between him and his superior. His tongue sticks in the roof of his mouth, heart rate quickening under the starched white shirt of his uniform.  

“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept it.”

His superior, an older gentleman with a military attitude and the matching haircut, frowns. It is utterly terrifying. “It was not a request.”

“I know, sir. All the same, I can’t accept it.”

There are a few seconds of quietness, the air so thick that it’s as though nothing will be able to penetrate it. It should be obvious that Fitz will not win, but in those few seconds it feels as though there is a chance.

“You can’t accept it?” A quiet chuckle that finds no humour at all. “Your job is not to think what you can or cannot accept. Your job is to do whatever assignment I give you and be glad about it.”

“But, sir-”

“But nothing! We protect those we are given to protect because that is our job, that is what we have signed up for. I should not have to give you this speech again.”

He picks up the file, thrusts it into Fitz’s chest, who takes it as though he has a choice. Opening it again, he finds Dr. Jemma Simmons’ magnified workplace ID staring up at him. He snaps it shut. It’s too late, her eyes have already been imprinted onto his brain.

“Sir,” he tries, going for one last shot. “you have to see this is ridiculous. She isn’t royal and she isn’t any sort of politician. This is because of her father; just another way the titled are abusing the privileges bestowed on them.”

He finds he’s breathless at the end of his sentence. From passion? Perhaps, but more likely the fear that he’s overstepped the mark with a man who probably has a lord or lady nestled somewhere in his family tree.

To his surprise, the older man only lets out a laugh as he sits down behind his desk. “From what I hear she feels much the same way,” he says. “Perhaps you two will find something to talk about, hm?”

“Sir,”

“No.” He holds up his index finger. “Enough now. Go and do your job. There will be a brief with Operations at 3 o’clock which of course you’ll need to be in attendance for. Marjorie will give you more information on your way out.”

Fitz holds the file tightly, fingernails turning white. It’s only ten in the morning. Still plenty of time for the day to get worse. “Of course, sir.”

“And Fitz?”

He repressed the urge to sigh. “Yes, sir?”

“Good luck.”

And then he is dismissed.

-x-

The folder doesn’t stop calling to him, even after he has shoved it deep within his bag where it remains for the rest of the day. It only intensifies once he is back at his flat, when there are no longer any other legitimate distractions to occupy his mind. He must prepare for the assignment, and reading this folder is part of preparation.

Her name is Jemma Anne Simmons. She is twenty-nine, the same age as him (In fact, their birthdays are only 23 days apart), except her life has gone a dramatically different course. A graduate of Oxford, with doctorates in biochemistry, she currently works as a researcher at a biotech company in London, where she has been credited with several accolades for her numerous publications about her work.

As much as he hates to admit it, he’s fascinated by her. His superior may be wrong on this one; they’ll have nothing to talk about. Nothing he’ll say will impress her (though he reminds himself that the goal is in fact to protect her and not date her) and he admits this file makes him feel rather intimidated.

Her name is familiar, not just because her father is Lord Simmons and that she comes from a very old family with innumerable connections. He skips to the reason she requires the services of Protection Command.

Now he knows her, can place those eyes. It’s the very same picture he saw during the headlines on BBC News, where the circumstances that has brought them together were the latest national outcry. An inadvertent discovery but one that’s become rather significant. The ability to enhance adult humans when they’re fully grown with their own DNA. A potential for great good, but an even greater potential for great harm.

He supposes that’s why somebody leaked it. At this stage is hardly looks like an accident. He wonders if that person knew what havoc they would wreak on poor Jemma Simmons. He wonders if they knew that within hours of it becoming a breaking news headline, there would be protesters setting up camp outside the labs of the company she works for. That, within the next few days, there would be death threats sent through her door, Twitter threads accusing her of heinous crimes that she did not commit, and headlines in trashy newspapers claiming they’ve dug up more of her secrets. All of them more or less accusing her of playing God.

A headache builds up behinds his eyes, and he presses the bridge of his nose to relieve some of the tension. The last sentence reads that Jemma Simmons has still to give comment. Good, he thinks without meaning to. Don’t give them anything.

He feels sorry for her. It’s hard not to. Except it doesn’t change the fact that she’s still the child of an eminent politician, using her wealth and status to arm herself in ways that others in her situation couldn’t. Fitz has protected all kinds of people who’ve done the same thing, and every last one has been a complete and utter wanker.

There’s not even any consoling himself in looking at the picture again. Even complete and utter wankers have been known to have pretty eyes.

-x-

Short on sleep and wearing a hastily ironed shirt is how Fitz arrives at the labs at 8:45 the next again morning.

An assistant with a polite smile and shoes that click on the pristine white tiled floor leads him up to the first floor. He tries to remain calm, keep his breathing even though his heart jumps in his chest. His gut churns, leaving a sick feeling that won’t go away. Nerves are not uncommon, not in this line of work, but these are excessive.

The assistant leaves him outside the door to the lab, telling him to go in when he’s ready. Fitz isn’t quite sure what they mean, until he hears two voices, leaping over themselves in order to make themselves heard.

“I’ve told you before I have no need for close protection! This is ridiculous!”

“And I’ve told you before that this isn’t my choice, Jemma!”

“The protesters will be gone in a week or so when the news moves on to something more than what’s just theoretical. And the death threats aren’t even that bad, really. Full of horrible grammar and crude drawings but nothing I actually would take as a serious threat on my life.”

“Death threats imply that you need a close protection officer. I shouldn’t even have to argue with you about this.”

“He’s a bodyguard, we might as well call him that. I don’t need some stranger telling me how to live my days and being spooked by everything that goes bump in the night.”

“Like I said, this didn’t come from me.”

“Oh, well we all know what that means. My father.”

“Yes, I do believe it was he who made the request.”

“Oh.” There’s a laugh that’s almost dangerous. “It must have been. If this is about the money-”

“Of course it’s about the bloody money! We keep him happy; he gives us money. That’s the way it always has been! You know this. You agreed to it!”

“I didn’t say that I was happy about it!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Then, softer: “Look, this is all that he has asked for. A bodyguard to keep you safe whilst all of this blows over. It’s remarkably little considering the outcry that you’ve been the centre of.”

“I don’t want to be shadowed by some great big oaf who doesn’t even know what the genome is, or can’t even explain dielectric polarisation!”

This is where Fitz decides it’s time to introduce himself. He steps to just inside the room, noticing the older man she argues with, but looking wholly at Jemma Simmons.

“I can, actually. Explain dielectric polarisation, that is.” He nods at her, enjoying the slight jaw drop. “Leopold Fitz,” he says, holding out a hand. “Your ‘bodyguard’. But you can just call me Fitz.”

-x-

They move a desk for him into her office.

Well, ‘desk’ is a loose term for the hastily put together plank of wood suspended across two battered filing cabinets but it’s what he gets. Jemma scowls at him as two lab assistants erect their masterpiece.

“All alright in here?” A man asks, the same man that Jemma had been arguing with earlier. Her scowl deepens.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” she says, her words clipped, sharp at the ends. Even her boss, who surely must have encountered this before, takes a step back.

“It’s necessary because he’s here for your protection,” the man explains slowly, as if talking to a child. For a second it looks like Jemma might hit him, and Fitz finds that he couldn’t really blame her if she did.

“He doesn’t have to be stationed in my office!”

“Well where else is he going to go? He’ll be working in your office, but the labs are of course free for your own use.”

“You’ve banned me from working on anything besides the experiments I’ve already got running,” she says petulantly.

“Well we don’t want any more leaks, do we?”

Fitz eyeballs Jemma’s fist as it curls into a ball and takes a necessary step forward.

“This is ridiculous. I don’t need somebody watching me all of the time, breathing down my neck.”

“Take it up with your father,” the man says coolly, but while making a hasty retreat.

Cowardly bastard Fitz thinks.

“Ugh!” Jemma goes to sit behind her desk, throwing herself down heavily onto the chair. “How can I focus on my work if I look up and all I can see is you sitting there? There are a number of other offices you could work in. This is quite unnecessary.”

His sympathy vanishes and he feels himself scowl at her, wondering if she’s being deliberately obtuse. “It does actually help if I can see you, you know, for the whole ‘protection’ thing.”

She screws her face up in disgust. “You are going to be insufferable.”

He goes to sit in his own desk chair, which is actually a proper roller chair, throwing over his shoulder as he does so, “Funny, I don’t think I’m going to be the only one.”

-x-

It transpires that Jemma Simmons does not like him. At all.

When he asks to see the death threats she’s been receiving, he gets told to ‘just read Twitter’. When he asks for her address so that he can organise further protection, he gets thrown an icy glare before being told ‘isn’t it in your pretty little file that you must have on me?’ When he asks to see her schedule so he can make a plan of her daily movements in order to minimise the threat, he gets thrown a pile of printed out emails and told ‘wherever they tell me to be.’

It’s not unusual to be met with reluctance, after all who wants to be constantly shadowed by a stranger? But sympathy only goes so far and, if Fitz is honest, it’s starting to grate on him. She’s a genius, for crying out loud, surely, she can see that this goes far better if she cooperates?

“I’m only trying to help, Dr. Simmons,” he says, after the fifth or sixth acidic remark is thrown his way.

“I never wanted nor asked for your help,” she says, not looking up from her computer.

He tries, he really does, but he’s never been known for keeping his mouth shut.

“This isn’t my fault you know!” The papers which he had been writing on scatter across the table. “It’s not like I did this to you.”

She looks up at that, the only sign of her annoyance a slight narrowing of her eyes. “I never said you did.”

“Well then stop treating me like I did, like I like this situation.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache building up behind his eyes. “It’s mucked up what’s happening to you, it really is, and it’s a pain in the arse to have your life upended like this, but all I’m trying to do is make it so that you still have a life so I’d really appreciate some help instead of you treating me like I’m user idiot123 who thinks that women are some sort of mythical creatures who bewitch men in their sleep and steal their brains!”

There’s a pause for one moment, then for two, before Jemma smiles wryly. “I see you’ve been on Twitter.”

He sighs, the memory of that particular set of Tweets making him feel so tired. “Yeah, yeah I have.”

“There’s some interesting theories on there.”

“Interesting, yup.” He presses his lips together. “That’s definitely the word I would use.”

She laughs, only slightly, and it feels like they might actually be getting closer to something. But then her computer dings, she turns away, and the moment is gone.

-x-

Later, while he’s still sitting at his makeshift desk, pouring over emails and building blueprints, she hands him a folder.

“In here is everything you should need. Let me know if you need more.”

Chapter Text

“Hunter, I’m working. You can’t phone me like this.”

“Yeah, I know you’re working. I’m asking what time you’ll be home so I can put dinner on.”

Hunter’s voice is muffled by the sound of the TV that he always has cranked up to the loudest volume, and so Fitz has to raise his own voice to make sure he is heard.

“I won’t be home.”

“What? Like never?”

“Yeah, I’ve moved out and this is how I’ve decided to tell you,” Fitz says drily. “Of course, I’m coming home. I just don’t know when yet.”

“How can you not know when you’re coming home?”

“I’ve got a new assignment. Close protection and that. Won’t be home until the threat’s gone.”

“So where are you staying then?”

“With the person I’m protecting, aren’t I?”

There’s a dramatic sigh, followed by some crunching of what will probably be Doritos, the extra hot kind. “Awww, mate. You could’ve let me know. I got you the Meat Feast pizza for dinner as well.”

Fitz’s stomach rumbles at the thought of pizza and he tries not to dwell on the thought of it languishing in the fridge. “I did let you know, but you were a bit busy with Bobbi.”

“Don’t be like that, Fitz.”

“Be like what? You are always busy with Bobbi.”

“Feeling a bit neglected, are we?”

“’Course not. The next time Bobbi breaks up with you you’ll be home so much I’ll be sick of you.”

“Charming, Fitz. Really bloody charming.”

Jemma walks back into her office, casting an amused smile his way. He feels his cheeks start to glow.

“Look, I’ve actually got to go back to work now. I’ll call you soon.”

“If you must you must. I’ll tell Bob you said hi. Love you, mate.”

He goes to end the call before Hunter clears his throat very loudly down the line.

Fitz sighs, watching Jemma sit down at her desk before cupping his hand around the phone.

“Love you, too.”

He hangs up to Hunter’s cackling in his ear.

“What was that about?” Jemma asks.

“What? Oh, nothing. Just my friend.”

Her face changes almost immediately, her tone not as light-hearted as before. It’s a change from the Jemma he’s known up until this point, someone so righteous and closed off. This vulnerable version makes him uneasy.

“I am sorry, you know.”

Since she’s given him the folder they’ve been getting on alright, he’d thought. As far as he’s aware there’s nothing to be sorry for. He frowns.

“For what?”

Jemma worries her bottom lip before answering. “For all of this. I hate to think I’m keeping you away from your life.”

He shrugs. “It’s not your fault. It’s not like you asked to get death threats.”

“All the same…”

“It’s my job, Jemma. This is what I signed up for. It’s not for you to worry about, alright?”

She looks slightly placated, but there’s a shadow across her face that he finds he can’t bear to see. Perhaps the enormity of the situation is finally dawning on her. He tries to think of something to say, something of the utmost reassurance, but comes up with nothing.

“It’ll blow over soon,” he decides to say at last. “You know what the vultures are like: once there’s no more meat left, they’ll start circling around something else and pick it apart.”

Jemma laughs without any real humour. He wants to tell her that he appreciates the effort, but there’s no need to pretend in front of him. He gets it, he really does. There’s something terrifying about knowing that people who’ve never met you would quite happily have your head on a spike on London Bridge for all to see.

He wants to tell her, but he doesn’t, and instead they settle into a silence, neither of them speaking to the other for quite a long time.

-x-

At the end of the work day she turns to him and says, “You’ve got to come home with me, don’t you?”

Without any real reason to his cheeks flush pink. “Uh. Yeah um yeah, I have to do that.”

She nods thoughtfully, muttering things about spare duvets and pillows under her breath.

“You really don’t have to do any of that. Just give me a couch and a blanket and I’ll be fine.”

She looks thoroughly horrified. “Fitz, no. Absolutely not. I just might need to stop by M&S on our way back to get some things.”

He grins. “M&S? You’re so posh.”

“Am not.”

“Are so. At home we’d just go to Asda or something. They do homeware.”

“This is London. M&S isn’t posh.”

“Regardless, don’t go splashing the cash, alright? I’ll be fine.”

He enjoys arguing with her, he thinks, The flushed cheeks, the indignant set of her chin. The fun kinds of arguments with no real stakes, just for the pure pleasure of winding someone up. Him and Hunter do it all the time. He just never imagined he’d be doing it with Jemma Simmons.

“Ugh, Fitz. We’ll go and get you a duvet, and give you a culture shock while we’re at it.”

For a second he wonders if he could get out of this by saying there are security implications to going. Then he dismisses it as ridiculous. The most dangerous thing in Marks and Spencers are the old ladies who block up the aisle with their trollies while talking to their friends.

“Yeah, why not?” His mum will at least be proud of him. “Let’s go.”

-x-

One slightly hectic M&S trip, two duvets and three pillows later he is somewhat comfortably installed in Jemma Simmons’ flat. He has to admit it’s not what he was expecting.

For one it’s nothing fancy. It’s nice, definitely, and has more space than his and Hunter’s, but it’s not quite the mansion he was expecting. Nothing is inconceivable to him. They have mostly the same gadgets, in fact they even have the same toaster. It might be strange, but he does feel chuffed that he has the same toaster as the daughter of a Lord.

She shows him the guest bedroom. From the way she was speaking he expected something sparse and harsh, no furniture and maybe left behind paint rollers in the corner. It’s not really like that at all. Decorated in pastel blues, with serene paintings on the wall and a very bare but very comfortable looking double bed sitting pride of place in the middle of the room.

Fitz turns to Jemma with a questioning look. “What happened to the bed?”

She looks slightly uneasy. “My friend stayed here while I was away for work… you don’t even want to know what I came home to.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t I?”

“No,” she says, her tone hard. “You don’t.”

The bed seems so innocent, standing there with a pristine white mattress, but he looks at Jemma’s face and decides to trust her on this one.

They order in food and have the TV on in the background whilst completing their own end of day tasks. The first hour is uncomfortable; he has to ask for the Wi-Fi password and doesn’t know whether to leave his shoes off or on; is too scared to lean back on her two-seater sofa. The second hour is smoother; they’ve lapsed into a comfortable silence, both of them clicking away on their own computers, occasionally stopping to glance at whatever programme is on now. The third hour feels downright domestic, and if he squints, he can pretend that this isn’t a job, and that maybe he’ll get a life like this someday.

“It’s a bit boring, isn’t it?” She says eventually, when they’re both on the sofa, watching some terrible late-night film. They’re both going to work tomorrow, and the clock only keeps on going, but when they go to bed is where the pretence that they’re new friends or that they’re colleagues ends. Reality comes back with a crash and reminds them that this isn’t fun and games, that if something goes wrong there are far deadlier consequences.

He does not say what he thinks (he’s getting rather good at that) and instead asks, “What is?”

“The whole ‘bodyguard’ thing. It’s not at all like the films.”

He can’t help but laugh. “No, it’s not. It’s a whole load of waiting around and checking online and making sure people don’t get too close to you on the street.” He turns away from the TV to meet her eyes. “It’s never as interesting as they make out.”

“The people you’re protecting must be interesting at least.”

“No, not really. It’s diplomatic protection, so mostly a bunch of wanks who like to use their positions for their own gain when they’re meant to be helping everyone else.”

It’s out of his mouth before he can even think about it, and once it’s out it hangs in the air between them, replacing the wall he thought they’d managed to break down. He slides his eyes away from hers.

Jemma doesn’t sound angry, just tired. “Like me?”

He doesn’t answer and instead focuses on the cream colour of her couch, staring at it so intensely he begins to see stars.

She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “I don’t ask my father for anything, you know.”

Something in her tone makes him look up, meet her eyes again, but she’s off the couch, not exactly stomping around but her footfalls are heavier than they were. She starts gathering the plates and glasses they’ve used, never once looking at him. Fitz says nothing.

“I’ve worked hard for what I have. This,” she gestures with one hand, “was all bought and paid for with my own money.”

“Jemma,” he tries, “I never meant-”

She continues as if she hasn’t heard. “I mean yes, I went to a good school and my university fees were paid for, and yes perhaps the birthday money I’ve saved since I was ten years old was more than most but can you honestly say that if you had the resources you wouldn’t use them?”

“Look-”

“Do you know what my mum told me when I left home?” She stops her aggressive gathering and looks him dead in the eye, any lingering easiness long gone. “She told me that I’d never make it, that all I’d ever known and survived on was her and my father. So, I ask them for nothing, no matter how hard it’s been, no matter how little I’ve had to get by on, because I’m not having her think she was right!”

She stands there, breathless, looking at him like she can’t believe she just said it. He knows what she needs to hear, and he gives it to her freely.

“You’re not a failure, Jemma,” he says quietly.

She deflates, gesturing at him as she comes to sit back next to him and says, “Aren’t I?”

“No,” he says firmly, surprisingly himself with his fervour. It’s as though a day has been enough to plant something in his chest, a kind of affection for this woman who he hadn’t even known twenty-four hours ago. It’s a little disconcerting and yet he doesn’t want it to go. “You’re not a failure. Look at everything you’ve achieved, that’s as far from failing as you could get. This thing that’s happening right now doesn’t make it so.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she acquiesces, though still not looking convinced. “I think I’m just tired.” Her eyes are big and wet and once again he wants to be able to say the right thing, just something to make it hurt less.

“It’s been a long day,” he offers. “A real shock to the system. I think we should go to bed, and start afresh in the morning.”

“You’re right,” she tells him with a grateful smile. “That’s a good idea.” She looks at the dishes she’s collected on the table. “I should wash these first.”

“I’ll do it.” Something soothing to occupy his mind. “I don’t mind. I’m a pro at washing dishes.”

“If you’re sure.” He’s slightly worried; it’s the first thing she hasn’t argued with him about all day, but he lets it go. She stands up, touching him lightly on the shoulder. “Goodnight, Fitz.”

He smiles. “Goodnight, Jemma.”

-x-

In the morning, when they are both washed and dressed and are having a quick breakfast, she tells him, “I think we should start over.”

He scratches his head. “I think it was my idea, actually.”

“Ugh, Fitz, honestly. You don’t need to take credit for every little thing!”

“What?! What else have I taken credit for?”

“It’s just – oh, never mind.” She takes a deep, calming breath. “Can we just start over?”

An excellent idea, if he does say so himself. “Of course we can.”

“I’m Jemma Simmons,” she announces, holding out her hand. “Biochemist.”

“Leopold Fitz,” he replies, taking her hand. “Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Officer. But you can just call me a bodyguard.”

Her smile wobbles for just a moment and he fears he’s overdone it. She recovers and give him a nice, firm handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah,” he says, grinning. “Likewise.”

Chapter Text

The first threat comes in the post.

Fitz and Jemma have settled into a somewhat routine over the past few days. They’ve gotten used to each other’s company; in fact, they actually work really well together. They both know when they can crack jokes and when silence is required. Even though their fields don’t overlap at all they’re still able to bounce ideas off each other. It’s only been a few days, but Fitz wonders how he’s going to be able to go work with anybody else after working with her.

It’s like they’ve forgotten that there’s a threat out there, that people are plotting and scheming as they banter between their desks all day. Fitz has taken his head out of the game; has begun to enjoy this assignment he didn’t want. The arrival of the letter is a bucket of cold water over the head, the jolt back to reality that makes him feel sick, but that he needed.

It’s an innocuous letter, delivered to the labs in amongst grant paperwork and science magazines. Jemma opens it after her first meeting, which is her designated post-opening period. Fitz has made fun of it numerous times over the past few days but now he finds himself grateful for it, because it means he is there.

It’s the stereotypical threatening letter, with cut out letters and everything. It would almost be comical except when Jemma shows it to him with a pale face and trembling hands neither of them are laughing. This letter mentions personal things that can’t be found on Wikipedia or even dug up on Twitter. The thing that frightens them both the most is the mention of her address.

“How could they find that out?” Jemma whispers, staring down at the white sheet of paper, such a stark contrast to the dark oak of her desk. “How would they even know?”

Fitz, just off the phone with his superiors, shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He scrubs his hand down his face, the weight of the situation settling on his shoulders. “I honestly don’t know.”

A team are on their way from Scotland Yard to examine the letter and to check security, something Fitz knows he should be doing. And he will, in a minute, but right now Jemma is sitting at her desk looking quiet and shaken, so different to the Jemma he’s been getting to know. He’s meant to be pulling back, doing his job, but all the same he cannot leave.

“I’ll cancel my days off,” he says. “Officer Davis doesn’t need to relieve me.”

“What? No, Fitz, you can’t,” she objects. “You deserve to have days that aren’t spent living in my pocket.”

“I’d never forgive myself if something happened when I wasn’t here,” he says quietly, leaving no room for argument. He will not be swayed.

Jemma, seeing the look on his face, protests no more and instead says she needs to go into the lab.

“We need to sort somewhere else for you to stay,” Fitz says. “You can’t go home.”

“I know, Fitz, but right now, I think… I think I just need to be alone for a bit,” and she gives him a watery smile before leaving. And because this is a secure building and because he needs to step back, he lets her go.

-x-

He lets her be alone and he deals with the Scotland Yard team when they arrive. They talk about changing up her schedule, alternative places for her to stay for the night while they work on getting a hotel, ways in and out of the lab that means she’ll have limited exposure to the protesters that still camp out every night in order to get a chance to hurl abuse or prod at her with theirs signs.

He tries, he honestly tries, to absorb himself in the work and pretend that this is just a problem that needs to be solved, a scenario in a test to get a perfect score in. It works, for a while. He forgets her smile and the indignant way she narrows her eyes when she thinks she’s right and just focuses on the best way to keep her safe. His brain forgets but his heart betrays him and the way it loses a beat every so often when he says her name brings her smile to the forefront of his mind.

“You’re cancelling your days off?” His boss asks him.

“Yeah, it makes sense. I’m familiar with her routines, would know if something’s off. Now’s not the time to bring in the relief guy. Besides, we have a relationship.”

“And just how would you classify your relationship with her, Officer Fitz?”

“The way the relationship is always is,” he replies, a little too sharply, a little too quickly. “I’m her protection officer.”

His superior makes a ‘hmm’ noise, notes something down on a notepad, and doesn’t say anything more about it.

There’s nothing to make a hmm noise about. He is Jemma’s protection officer, and for a brief, stupid moment he thought that they could be friends. He was wrong, misguided, misled, whatever. There’s a wall between them, there always will be, built out of Twitter comments and news headlines and cards with cut out letters sent in the post. He lost sight of the objective for a moment, but it’s okay. He’ll never forget again.

Her life depends on it.

-x-

His new resolve for his new resolution is tested not even an hour later.

Jemma has returned from the lab, still subdued but more willing to cooperate. He lists the new protocols he’s put in place; the limits on her movements, the changing of her routines she listens to, agreeing to them with a ‘yes’ or mostly just a head nod. It scares him, this complete shutdown. He puts down his list.

“Jemma? You okay?”

“Yes,” she says, nodding a little too much. “I’m fine. Go on.”

He feels himself soften. “It’s okay to admit this is bothering you, you know.”

“Is it?” She sighs. “If it bothers me then they win, Fitz. If they get to me then it’s what they want and I don’t want them to win. I really can’t let them win.”

“So we won’t let them,” he tells her, placing a hand over hers where it sits on her desk. She looks at him in surprise, the ghost of a smile touching her lips.

“We won’t let them,” she affirms.

His resolve then makes a comeback and he moves his hand away sharply, ignoring the look of confusion on Jemma’s face, the ache in his chest. Instead he clears his throat and picks up his list.

“Okay,” he says with fake nonchalance. “Now we need to find you someplace else to stay for the night while we find you a hotel and HQ have helpfully  come up with a list of suggestions. Number one: other residence?”

Jemma, it seems, has recovered quickly, too. “Oh, yes, I forgot about that house in the country that I’ve been looking for an excuse to move to,” she says drily. “Come off it, Fitz. You know I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Alright alright,” he mutters, scratching that suggestion off. “Relatives houses?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Absolutely not. I’m not dragging this to their door.” He thinks it’s rather sweet until she adds: “I might as well hold up a big banner saying ‘failure’.”

He scores off again. “Friends?”

“I can’t ask them to take on this burden. It’s not fair.”

“They’re your friends,” he tries. “I’m sure they’d want to help.”

“Fitz,” she says, looking pointedly at his list. “The answer is no.”

They go through several more options, each one getting stranger and stranger until at last they are left with the one that HQ had deemed to be used as a last resort, break glass in case of emergency, kind of option.

“Well,” he announces, smiling but it comes across as more of a grimace. “Jemma Simmons, it looks like tonight you’re coming home with me.”

-x-

His superior doesn’t like it and he’s not the only one.

Jemma huffs and puffs, whirling like a tornado around her office, sheets of paper blowing in every direction as she shows her displeasure. He pays little attention to it. It’s mostly for show, and he knows that by the fact she hasn’t vetoed it that it’s the only option she’s willing to, however begrudgingly, live with.

Fitz remains silent at his own desk as she blusters about. It’s like the universe is permanently against him. Lines are blurring, becoming faded. One wrong step and he’ll have crossed them before he knows it. This was supposed to be a simple job, a job that he’s done tens of times before. It’s getting complicated and he doesn’t like it.

Jemma must notice his face because, sometime around three o’clock, she tells him, “You don’t have to, Fitz. I’ll go stay with my parents.”

An easy way out with an offer that couldn’t have been easy for her to make. Fitz appreciates how hard it must have been for her to make it but only for one second does he consider taking her up on it. There are numerous reasons why she shouldn’t go stay with her parents, namely being that if someone managed to find her address then what’s to stop them finding the address of Lord Simmons? But he also doesn’t want to make her unhappy and the memory of her big wet eyes from that first night still haunts his dreams.

“Actually, that option’s ruled out, now,” he says, explaining the reasons behind it. Her face still looks troubled, and whether or not it’s from the situation or the daunting prospect of coming home with him he can’t quite tell. “My flat’s not some kind of hovel, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she says softly, head tilting to one side. “That’s not what I was thinking about. I just didn’t want to be more of an imposition on you than I already am.”

It’s rare, in this job, to have somebody who cares about the stresses and strains they put on those people who are paid to take bullets for them. It’s rather nice. It makes him believe that at least somebody would care if he lives or dies.

“It’s my job to protect you,” he tells her simply, redrawing the lines.

He watches as his words land on her, as she sits up straighter in her desk chair and brings her keyboard forward when she’d formerly pushed it away. “Of course it is,” she says, tone perfectly polite, but perfectly empty of everything that had been before.

-x-

Hunter, it turns out, is the one who needs the most convincing.

Fitz calls him before they’re about to leave, out of courtesy but also mainly to make sure their flat is in a somewhat reasonable state and ready to receive a guest such as this.

“What the hell!” Hunter exclaims, his voice audible even when Fitz holds the phone far away from his ear. He’s glad he decided to make the call in the toilets.

“What? She just needs someplace to stay for the night while we find a good hotel or something. It’s not like you’ll be home anyway.”

“Oh, won’t I?” Hunter scoffs. “What’s that meant to mean?”

Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose – out of everyone who he’d thought was going to be bothered by this he didn’t think it would be Hunter who would cause such a fuss. “It means that you’ll be with Bobbi, because you’re always with Bobbi on a Tuesday and so you won’t be affected.”

“I’m not with Bobbi every Tuesday,” he says defensively. “And I won’t be tonight. I was thinking we could have a bro’s night, actually. Got the pizza and everything.”

Fitz sighs. “Meaning you two are fighting again.”

“We are not.”

“Oh, please, don’t even try to deny it. This is what you two always do and usually it’s fine but today it’s not, okay? Jemma needs someplace to stay and considering she’s getting actual death threats maybe the least you could do is be a good host and make sure you’re bloody washing isn’t all over the floor when she walks in and not kick up a fuss because your bloody love life falling to bits. Again!”

The line is silent. Fitz finds himself breathless and when he looks in the mirror he sees that his tie is askew, cheeks reddening. He thinks he can hear his voice reverberating off the tiles, bouncing around, unable to be forgotten.

It takes Hunter a while to reply, so long that Fitz wonders if he’s ever going to. Eventually, inevitably, he does.

“Alright, mate. Don’t you worry, this place will be spotless by the time you get home.”

Fitz exhales the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Thank you.”

“No worries.” There’s some rustling in the background. “This Jemma Simmons better realise how lucky she is to have you, that’s all I’m saying.” And then he hangs up.

-x-

All things considered the night actually goes quite well. Hunter is the perfect gentleman (as perfectly gentleman as Lance Hunter does, anyway) and actually makes Jemma laugh genuinely several times during their dinner of Meat feast pizza and beer. Fitz and Jemma don’t even argue, or not as spectacularly as they have before. In another life, Fitz thinks that they would have made a pretty good group of friends.

Hunter manages to corner him when he’s making up the couch with a blanket and a spare pillow, his bed for the night. Jemma’s in the shower, the sound of the running water echoes throughout the whole flat, and so Hunter doesn’t even lower his voice when sidles up to Fitz and says, “Jemma’s pretty great.”

“Yeah.” Fitz continues to tuck in the blanket, not even considering what he’s found out to be a fact. “She is.”

“You two seem like you’re good friends.”

“We’re not friends,” Fitz says automatically, inspecting the pillow. “I’m her protection officer. Can’t be anything else.”

His friend has always had a flair for the dramatics, and Hunter pretends to inspect his nails when he says, “Could’ve fooled me.”

“You’re seeing things that aren’t there,” Fitz says, not even properly answering, too busy wondering if his pillow is going to be enough for his neck in the night.

“Don’t think I am, mate.” Hunter makes a whistling sound. “I don’t think even I could make up the fact that you’re completely gaga for her.”

“What?!” Fitz drops the pillow onto the couch, then listens carefully in case his shout is enough to alarm Jemma. The water doesn’t turn off, but he still hisses, “No, I’m not.”

“Oh it’s okay, don’t feel embarrassed about it, Fitz. She’s completely gaga for you and all.”

His heart thumps under his shirt and he has to carefully remind himself that Hunter isn’t exactly winning awards for boyfriend of the year and therefore isn’t the best person to advise on this kind of thing. The he has to remind himself that he doesn’t care, that he can’t care, because he’s Jemma’s bodyguard and there needs to be an uncrossable line between them in order to keep her safe.

“I just work for her. Kind of,” Fitz says defensively. “I mean did you even see us? We argue all the time.”

“Yeah, and so do Bobbi and I, but even in our worst times there’s not a single moment where I doubt the fact I’d die for her.” Hunter shrugs. “It’s just like that with love sometimes.”

Love?! Fitz turns back to his bedmaking, ignoring the idiocy. There’s no love here, there can’t be. It’s been what, a week? He and Jemma bicker about everything, even when there’s no reason to - sometimes he thinks that she just enjoys winding him up. And yes, she’s pretty amazing. And yes, in those quiet, vulnerable moments he’s allowed his mind to wander far beyond the boundaries of what’s considered professional, but it doesn’t mean anything. It never could.

His dear friend is well off base with this one. As if he could ever love Jemma Simmons. As if Jemma Simmons could ever love him.

-x-

Jemma’s been given Fitz’s room and after her shower it’s where she retreats to for the rest of the night. Picking up on the hint, and with Hunter gone to grovel to Bobbi after being ‘inspired’ or something else like that, Fitz flops onto his own bed for the evening. Unable to get changed into something more comfortable, and with a headache coming on, he’s unable to get lost in the TV show he tries watching and instead he closes his eyes, lies back, and gets lost in his own head instead.

Hunter’s words have sunk in too deep and now Fitz is unable to let them go, is unsure if he wants to. The what ifs start spinning around, making him fall deeper into the dreamland. What if it was all different? What if there was no leak and it wasn’t his duty to protect her? What if they’d met in a normal way? The different lives they could have led take place in the theatre behind his closed eyelids. He doesn’t want the show to end.

“Um, Fitz?”

He jumps up, and spins around to face Jemma, face already reddening as though he’s been caught. He spins so quickly he sees bright spots and he has to hold onto the back of the couch to stop himself falling down.

“Jemma? Hi.” He coughs. “What’s up?”

“Sorry to wake you,” she begins, wringing her hands as she steps further into the room.

Fitz rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, no, no it’s alright. Wasn’t asleep yet, anyway. How’s your room? Everything okay?”

A small laugh. “It’s your room and it’s perfect, thank you. Well, apart from the messiness of your shelves…”

“I’ve not got time to sort them all, I’m too busy saving people!”

“Ah, yes,” she smiles. “Quite the action man.” But then her smile disappears. “Your room is actually what I wanted to talk about.”

Oh. A thousand things flash through his head. Did he leave food in there that’s now multiplied into something horrific? Has the ironing pile that he hastily shoved in the wardrobe exploded out of it? He feels like when he was a child and his mum had went ‘I want to talk to you’ in her most stern voice.

“Oh, yeah, um, what about it?”

She steps forward. “I wanted to say thank you, for letting me stay tonight.”

Relief floods through his veins, but it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “Of course. It’s my-”

“Job, yes, I know.” A strange, closed look passes over her face, gone as quickly as it came. “But still, letting me into your home is a big ask even if it may be your job, and it deserves a thank you.”

“Of course,” he says, making a choice to forget the lines he has drawn in his head. “Always.”

She nods her head and goes to turn away but something impulsive within him makes him say, Jemma?”

She turns around with a raised eyebrow. “Yes?”

But the moment of strength has deserted him as have the half-planned words he was going to say. Instead he flounders for a moment before shaking his head. “Um, it’s nothing. Sorry. Goodnight.”

Even so she smiles, but this time it’s warm and reaches her eyes and he can’t quite look away from the spot even as she bids him goodnight and leaves.

He flops down on the couch, cradling his head in his hands, frustrated with Hunter for getting into his head, the lines that he wishes to erase, and his own bloody cowardice.

Chapter Text

With HQ satisfied that the immediate threat is gone now that Jemma’s moved into a hotel, a suggestion is made that Fitz should take his days off. A suggestion that comes in the form of narrowed eyes, angry eyebrows, and the introduction of Officer Davis.

With no choice otherwise, and secure in the knowledge that his superior wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Jemma while he wasn’t there, Fitz makes a feeble effort to go back to his life pre-Jemma Simmons. It includes waking up in the afternoon, having leftover pizza for breakfast and playing video games with Hunter until he either leaves for work or for Bobbi, and then Fitz goes back to sleep.

Or that’s the way it used to be, back when life was much simpler. Now there are all these things in his head, things that one might call feelings. Feelings that are most definitely about Jemma.

The war between his ever -growing feelings for Jemma and for the desire to protect her and do his job as well as he can rages in his already suffering head. It consumes him. He can’t sleep at night for thinking of all the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘maybes’. The days off aren’t enjoyable anymore, they’re just monotonous. There’s nothing to distract him. Even Hunter’s not here; he’s made up with Bobbi and they’ve been playing catch up for those two days they weren’t talking ever since.

It’s a shame, really, because his best-friend being so in love makes Fitz want that, too, except he only wants it with somebody he cannot have. Nobody else he’s ever met has ever made him feel this way before. And he enjoys the daydreams and follows them as far as he dares, but it’s such a hard crash-land back into the real world when it’s all over.

Just over three years ago Fitz was in a car accident. A terrible, terrible car accident that robbed oxygen from his brain which, in turn, robbed him of the ability to do a lot of things he used to be quite good at. For months he could only speak in fragments of sentences, couldn’t draw a straight line and barely left his flat. He lost his job, his self esteem and really the only person he would speak to was Hunter.

He used to be an engineer and he used to draw schematics on napkins and post-it notes going spare. Now he’s a protection officer, a job that he got and kept because of Hunter. He used to stay up until the wee hours in the morning designing by desk lamp light. Now he gets headaches so badly he sees stars.

The point is that it’s been a long time since he’s had something worth actually living his life for. Or someone. And Jemma Simmons seems like someone worth living for. The problem is that there’s nothing that can be done about it, because he’s her protection officer and because she’s also someone worth dying for.

This isn’t as elegant as they make it out to be in all the books and all the movies. Love isn’t fulfilling and sustaining and joyous. Love, it seems, just sucks.

-x-

His jumbled-up thoughts do not leave him, and his brain feels like scrambled egg when he’s eventually allowed back to work. Nothing seems to help him and the constant headache behind his eyes makes him snap at everyone he comes across. He even snaps at Jemma, and while she says nothing, her reproachful look makes him wade further into his deep pit of misery to wallow.

It only gets worse at the end of the day. They pack up their things in silence, only communicating with a nod when they’re ready to leave. He feels Jemma’s questioning gaze on him on the drive back to the hotel, the searing heat of it burning his face. He manages to resist any compulsion to talk, and by the time they’re settled in their room they’ve barely spoken ten words to each other all day.

The room has a single bed and a double, and Jemma perches on the end of the double, a concerned look on her face as she follows his admittedly erratic movements about the room.

“Fitz,” she sighs eventually. “What is wrong with you?”

He ignores her, unable to answer, unwilling to. “We’ve only got the one room tonight, right?”

“Yes. We had to give up the other room. The hotel is fully booked for a conference for the next few days. This is the last room available.” She gives him a weak smile. “Lucky us.”

The hotel is a cheap one that people pay for because they need someplace to sleep or somewhere to hide scientists that are receiving death threats. It wouldn’t be his first choice for anything really, but his first flat with Hunter was worse so he summons his inner twenty-year old and resists screwing up his face in distaste. If he’s feeling like this, he can’t imagine how Jemma must be feeling.

Then he realisation hits him that he’s now facing a problem that Davis most certainly didn’t. He and Jemma are sleeping in the same room, in beds so close that someone could reach out and touch the other if they so desired. The cosmos must be well and truly against him.

“What bed are you wanting?” He asks, before realising that there are toiletries on the bedside table and a pair of pyjamas folded neatly on the pillow of the double bed.

“Oh, well I’ve been sleeping in this one,” Jemma looks down to where she’s perched, “but we can switch if you like? I don’t mind.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He waves away her offer. “You’ve already been sleeping there; it would be a bit cruel of me to make you change.”

“Yes, how perfectly awful of you,” she tries, but it sounds forced and neither of them really have the energy to pretend otherwise.

She’s sitting at the edge of the bed and he’s standing by the window and they have not a thing to day to each other. It’s as if the past few days he’s been away has turned them into perfect strangers. Even when she detested his presence they still had more to talk about. Fitz knows it’s his fault, knows that he’s driving this wedge between them. He hates it, he honestly does, but maybe this is the way it must be.

“I’m going to go get us some dinner,” he announces, needing to be free of this room, even if it’s just walking downstairs. “Is there anything you really fancy?”

Jemma shakes her head. “You know what I like.”

He nods and turns around but it’s too late - he’s already caught sight of her face and the wounded confusion in her eyes.

-x-

The situation doesn’t improve after dinner and they spend the hours before bed sitting on their respective beds doing their respective thing with the crappy hotel TV playing a Channel 5 horror movie in the background. It’s remarkably similar to the first night Fitz spent at Jemma’s house, and the parallel does not escape him. Last time they were brought closer together, but he has a feeling that this night might drive them irrevocably apart.

It reaches the hour where it’s acceptable to sleep and Fitz, who has been waiting for the oblivion all day, snuggles deeply underneath the thin duvet and waits for the pull of his eyelids. He waits and waits but the oblivion never comes. His irregular breathing echoes loudly throughout the dark room and keeps him awake, or at least that’s what he tells himself. It’s probably more something to do with the confusion in his head, all of the questions that keep flying about, the inability to tame his mind and thoughts into something manageable.

He listens for Jemma’s breathing, hoping that the regular inhales and exhales will soothe his jumbled brain and lull him to sleep. It’s a few seconds until he realises that hers isn’t regular at all. It’s out of place, like his; quickening and then slowing in the dark. He frowns.

“Jemma?” He whispers, just in case he’s wrong. “Are you awake?”

There’s a few seconds where his only reply is breathing and he wonders if he got it wrong, until she whispers back, “Yes. I can’t sleep. Why are you still awake?”

It’s not as if he can give her the real reason and no longer whispering but in a hushed voice he says, “Yeah, I can’t sleep either.”

“You’ve not been right all day, Fitz,” she tells him, and he feels the guilt swallow him head to toe. When he says nothing she gently sighs. “I want you to know that you can talk to me, you know. I want to help you with whatever is bothering you if I can.”

Oh if only she knew… Fitz is glad the room is pitch black so that his rapidly reddening face isn’t visible to give him away.

“It’s just… it’s nothing important. Not really, anyway. I just need to sort it out myself.”

“Okay,” she sounds unsure but resigned to the fact that she won’t be getting the full answer from him tonight. “But if you ever need to talk, I am here.”

“I know,” he says, “and thanks.” It’s a funny thing but he really does know, and it feels like he could tell her more than he could tell anyone else. But he has to be careful. This dark room feels so safe, invincible. This moment they’re living in a microcosm, a taste of what it could be but can’t ever be. It will kill him, afterwards, and yet he doesn’t want it to pass.

“So,” she says lightly. He deliberately keeps his eyes on the ceiling and doesn’t look across to his left, but he imagines her eyes shining brightly. “Since we’re both awake, what should we do?”

“Pft, I don’t know. Lie awake and watch the sunrise?”

“I think that might be a while away yet.”

It’s so dark that he can’t see his own hand in front of his face. Not even a streetlight shines outside the window and he concedes that the sunrise is, probably, some time off.

It’s quiet after that, the only sound their synchronised breathing echoing throughout the room. Fitz is wide awake now, unable and almost unwilling to attempt sleeping. There’s an electricity in the air, like the way it is before a storm. Something is coming, he’s just not quite sure what it might be.

“I’m sorry you’re spending the night here with me,” Jemma says at last. “In a questionably clean bed in a questionable hotel. All this time you’re spending with me, I hate to think I’m keeping you from somebody more important.”

And it’s on the tip of his tongue to say there’s nobody more important than you but of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t even know where the desire came from. Instead he manages to stutter out, “No,” he says quietly, feeling surprisingly at ease with the question. “There’s nobody at home except Hunter, who likes to think of himself as more important than he is.”

“That’s exactly who I meant,” Jemma laughs. “Hunter must not be happy that I’m always stealing your time.”

Hunter has surprisingly warmed up about the idea of Jemma, especially since she stayed with them and he discovered Fitz’s feelings about her. He even has a badly handwritten ‘plan’ of how to make it work between them. Perhaps a bit misguided at times, but he’s the best friend that Fitz could ever have. He owes him a lot.

“He’s fine, trust me. He’s got Bobbi.”

“It sounds like a fascinating love story.”

Fitz scoffs even though he doesn’t mean to. “Fascinating is definitely the word for it. This job was how he met Bobbi.”

“Really?”

 “Yup. He used to do this and she used to be Secret Service. They met, there was some kind of shotgun wedding, she came to live here, they got divorced, she went back to America, then she came back and they decided to try again. Hunter quit this job, Bobbi quit hers and this is the way it’s been for the past year and a bit.”

“Oh wow,” Jemma breathes. He thinks he can hear her smile. “Quite the story. Do you think they’ll last?”

“Yeah,” Fitz hears himself saying, even though he would always say he thought the opposite. “I think they will. At the end of the day, they’re never gonna love anybody else the way they love each other.”

“Aw, Fitz!” Jemma gushes, and he feels himself rolling his eyes. He might have known she would like their story. “How sweet of you. I wouldn’t have thought you capable.”

“Ha ha,” he deadpans. “Hilarious.” Then, being brave: “What about you? Anybody important at home?”

“You probably already know the answer,” she says pointedly. “But no, there isn’t.”

The bravado hasn’t deserted him this time. “How come?”

She sighs wearily and he knows it’s not from the late hour. “I don’t know, really. I could blame it on work, but truly I think there’s just nobody I’ve ever clicked with.”

And he must be feeling supremely brave because he asks, “Nobody at all?”

“Well there was Milton, but he suffered from a brussel-sprout-shaped head and the inability to have a single original thought.”

Fitz has read all about Milton and had thought his head had resembled more of a cabbage but each to their own. He hadn’t seemed like someone Jemma would have dated anyway. A nice guy from all accounts, but dull. He has a job in insurance now. Fitz decides not to divulge this information.

“I love my job,” Jemma admits quietly, as though it’s something shameful. “And I’ve always had trouble making it my second priority. At the end of the day people always let you down but science never has.”

“And you still believe that?” He asks. “Even now?”

“Even now.” He imagines her chin sticking out obstinately. In all this time they still haven’t looked at each other. “It’s not the fault of science that people can’t see its potential. Science just is. Facts are facts. It’s the way people misinterpret them and misuse them that are causing this whole bloody mess.”

In this job he has learned that people are disappointingly just people. They aren’t good and they aren’t bad, they just are, and it can sometimes be too much to expect them to have a higher thought process. It’s frustrating to learn, and maddening to find out that there’s nothing that can be done about it.

“People just judge you,” she continues. “They just take one look at who you are and what you do and listen to absolutely nothing that comes out your mouth.”

He feels his cheeks begin to burn, for in the beginning he did exactly that. In this moment where they are both baring their souls it seems like the perfect opportunity to atone for it.

“I judged you,” he admits quietly. “And I’m sorry. I mean you don’t know that I did that, but I did and I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry about it.”

He awaits the harsh tone but it never comes. Instead he hears her smile, and with it imagines the sparkle in her eyes. “I kind of thought you might have, but it’s alright, Fitz. You had every right. My father did abuse his position to get you as my protection officer.”

“I’m sure he was just worried about you,” he offers. “I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing in his position for my kid.”

She laughs but it’s not the harsh laugh he was expecting. It sounds decidedly sad. “He’s embarrassed by me. My whole life he has warned us, the whole family, not to draw any attention to ourselves, to stay in the shadows, and now with the leak and the news I’ve just done exactly the opposite.”

“Jemma…” he breathes, unable to bear the sound of unshed tears in her voice. “Shadows aren’t meant for everybody. He must get that.”

“You don’t know him like I do, Fitz. He hates things like this. His name, our name, being dragged through the mud. He’s ashamed of me; he wants to hush this all up and make it go away.”

“This isn’t your fault,” he reiterates, needing her to know this, to understand. “You made a good discovery that wasn’t ready to be made public. The weight of that doesn’t fall on your shoulders.”

“It does,” she whispers, and he thinks that this part might not be for him.

It goes quiet again, and he wants to claw back that former closeness, that moment that’s just slipped away. Risking it all, he turns on his side to face her, only able to make out her silhouette in the dark.

“You deserve to be happy, Jemma, and this job isn’t the only thing that’s out there. Today it might be your whole life, but tomorrow is always coming and there’s always something else. Trust me,” he says sincerely, “I would know.”

He sees her turn to face him, feels her hand stretching across the chasm between the beds. His finds hers immediately.

“I feel bad that you’re always making me feel better about things. But thank you, Fitz. Truly.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” he says, squeezing her hand once before letting go.

They still can’t sleep and pass the remaining hours talking about everything that they haven’t before. Fitz confessed about his own father: a man he often wished would just go away but when he eventually did there was a hole deep down that never really got filled. He tells her about moving to London for university, about how he felt so out of place in this big, boisterous city that makes Glasgow feel cosy and also very far away.

“And- and I was in an accident… a car accident. It, um, it changed things.”

His tongue sticks as it always does when he talks about it, but he feels her listening, her expectant gaze on his face, and it becomes a little easier to do so. So he tells her everything. About the headaches and the tremors in his hand and the way it took away what he loved. He tells her how Hunter was there for him through all of it, got him this job as a protection officer only to leave himself six months later because he’d fallen madly in love with Bobbi.

Jemma, in return, tells him all about her own parents. How she’s been provided for all of her life but her father was barely home and her mother expects so much from her only child that it’s exhausting in all ways. She admits how lonely she was when she was younger; she has no siblings and all of the other children in her classes were older and intimidated by her brain. She tells him that what she wants the most is for this to be over, to be able to go back to her normal life before all of this change.

 “But, even when this is all over, I’d still like it if we could be friends?”

And Fitz, completely leaping over the lines, agrees that he would like it, too.

They talk and talk until the sun comes up and Fitz doesn’t even realise he hasn’t slept. He feels more alive than ever.

Chapter Text

“So, do we have any intelligence on where the leak might have originated from?”

The five heads that sit around the conference room table shake all at the same time. The head that sits at the head of the table looks particularly unimpressed, even if the expression doesn’t change very much. Fitz swallows audibly, knowing what’s coming.

“Do we have anything at least?”

Nobody else says anything and so Fitz finds that he’s the one that gets to impart the meagre amount of information he knows.

“Well, the protesters have left, sir, and the news isn’t running the story anymore, but there’s still the letters that are getting sent to the lab, and they don’t show any sign of easing off.”

He finds his palms are sweating and he tries to wipe them on his trousers. These meetings are always tense, especially when there’s an active investigation ongoing. Fitz doesn’t really need to be here; he was invited as a courtesy. Why he started speaking when he had no need to, he honestly has no idea.

“Useful for you, perhaps, Officer Fitz, but not quite useful for the rest of us who are trying to get to the bottom of this.” The man looks Fitz up and down, eerily reminiscent of the way that Fitz’s own boss does, notes something down and then moves on.

Several other people start venturing tentatively forth with their own meagre offerings. Fitz listens in interest, jotting down some things that could be of use in the beginning, but eventually his mind begins to wander. Jemma’s got another officer for the time that he’s here, and he wonders if she’s as forthright with them as she was with him.

His feelings still haven’t been made any clearer, especially since they’re still in that hotel room, sleeping barely three feet away from each other every night. Each night he goes to sleep with a plan to be more professional in the morning, to be firm and in control. Each morning he wakes up and sees her smile at him from across the room while she’s doing her hair and his resolve dissolves into thin air.

“…possibility of it being an inside job. Someone from her father’s office, maybe?”

He has wandered so far that he misses the first part of the man’s sentence but from what he did hear and the looks on people’s faces he thinks he didn’t need to.

“Well,” the boss says, “that is an avenue that should be explored. I think questioning Dr. Simmons-”

“No.”

Fitz doesn’t shout, he would never dare, but he must have spoken loudly because he hears his voice reverberate off the sides of this wood-panelled room just as everybody turns to stare at him.

“This isn’t your meeting. What, pray tell, could you have an objection to?”

And this is why he had refused this assignment in the first place. Whether it be his age, his nationality, his penchant for some common sense, he has always been looked down upon and snubbed in this job, never being seen as someone worth listening to.  Never before has he been brave enough to do anything about it. Apparently it stops now.

“You can’t go around asking her if her family betrayed her? It’s a theory full of holes.”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this but all theories – holes or no holes - need to be investigated.”

The condescending tone boils his blood and all of his inhibitions evaporate with the steam. “It’s like you want it to be someone in her dad’s office – that way you can explain it away. Someone on the inside leaked the information and that way it saves you from actually investigating it properly because the truth is you don’t have any bloody answers!”

The blood rushes in his ears, there’s a thumping feeling behind his eyes. It’s been so long since he’s been this properly angry, not since the long days in the immediate aftermath of his accident, that he’s forgotten the stars that dance across his vision or the tightly clenched fists that suggest an aggression he doesn’t usually mean.

There’s a clearing of a throat and the stars disappear, the fists unfurl. It’s like the mist clears and suddenly he realises where he is and what he’s done and the first thing he can think is oh shite.

But the boss only shakes his head, and doesn’t demand for Fitz to get out and wait for his P45 in the post. His eyebrow raises a fraction, and something that maybe could be a smile flickers across his face.

“You’re a lot like your friend, Officer Fitz.”

Oh, God… Hunter… Fitz never worked with him directly whilst they both briefly shared the job, but he can only imagine what he got up to.

But oddly it doesn’t seem to be an insult, and the man who must have been Hunter’s superior looks like he almost misses Fitz’s friend when he says, “I didn’t see it in the beginning but now…” He shakes his head, looking down at his notes. “I can see it as clear as day.”

Everybody’s looking at Fitz with barely concealed interest. His tie feels like it’s joking him and he has to fight the urge to loosen it. “S-Sir?”

“Rest assured, Officer Fitz, we’re doing everything we can to find out who the true origin of this leak is. But alright, we won’t question her or her family until we have something more substantial.”

And he has to say something so he mumbles, “thank you.”

“Just try to  voice your opinions at a more reasonable volume and remember that you are here as a courtesy and nothing more.” A steely glare for two seconds before it’s lifted, and he looks around to the rest of the table. “Now, does anybody have anything more?”

-x-

He sits at his desk trying not to mull over the events of the morning for the rest of the day but it doesn’t quite work out that way. Mostly he ends up just tapping his pen against his notebook, completely losing track of what he’s meant to be doing.

“Here,” Jemma says out of the blue, and hands him a sketchpad and a pencil.

He takes it out of habit before realising what it is. “What’s this for?”

“You,” Jemma says, stepping back and looking awfully pleased with herself.

He eyes the items as they lie harmlessly on his desk, wondering what exactly they’re for and if he’s been given a task from HQ that requires them. Eventually, after a painful thirty seconds, she takes pity on him.

“I realise that while I’m here working at my desk, you’re also stuck here, too. And while I have plenty of things to keep me occupied, I’ve noticed that the same cannot exactly be said for you so I bought you these.”

“Eh,” he says, scratching his head. The thought is there, certainly. “Thanks, Jemma, really, but I don’t know-”

“It was after our talk the other night,” she interrupts, eyes sparkling. “You told me you used to design all sorts of things before the brain injury, and I see the way you look at the things we’ve got here and the way you talked about the work you used to do and I thought that, well, I thought perhaps you’d like to try again.”

Oh. His eyes feel spectacularly misty as he gently touches the pencil, the type of which he hasn’t touched since the days after his accident where he tried to draw a straight line, couldn’t, and ending up breaking the thing in two with a strength he hadn’t known he possessed.

“This is…” he tries to say, but his throat feels tight and he isn’t able to finish the rest of the sentence.

Jemma takes it to mean something else and steps backwards, looking embarrassed. “Oh. I overstepped, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Fitz, it really wasn’t my place to try and tell you what you’re ready to do.”

“No, no,” he says, managing to clear the tears in his eyes in time to look at her. “This is – it’s great. It’s really,” he breaks off, unsure of what to say and just manages to whisper, “great.”

“You don’t have to use it,” she says, but her smile is wide and he wishes he could see it fully but his eyes are misting up again without meaning to. “But it’s there if you’d like to.”

He just nods, is able to manage, “thank you,” and as she goes back to her desk, he just sits and looks, overcome with emotion and completely unable to show it in this professional work environment that’s rapidly disappearing no matter how hard he tries to maintain it. Just when he thought that perhaps he was able to get a hold of his feelings…

He sits and stares at the pad and paper for a long time. Eventually, he gains the courage to open up the pad to its first page and pick up the pencil. It’s another while before he actually pulls an idea from the ever rotating wheel of ideas in his head and begins to sketch willing, for the first time in a long time, to begin again.

-x-

“Hey, Fitz! Hunter here?”

Bobbi’s greeting is entirely too jovial for the way Fitz feels as he lies on the couch, tie loosened around his neck and belt unbuckled.

“He’s in the bathroom,” Fitz groans.

Bobbi comes over to stand in front of him. “Well don’t you seem cheerful today? What’s up?”

Just then the toilet flushes, the sink runs for a second, and Hunter emerges. His face brightens as soon as he sees Bobbi. “Hiya, love. How’s it going?”

She smiles at him before gesturing to Fitz. “What’s up with him?”

“Ahh,” Hunter says knowingly. “He’s in love.”

“Oh,” Bobbi winces sympathetically, patting his head. “Yeah, I got you there.”

“Oi!”

“I wasn’t even alluding to us. God, you take everything so personally!”

“Well why else would you say that you ‘got him’?”

“He’s young and he’s in love!” Bobbi shouts. “Of course, he’s miserable!”

“Hey, guys!” Fitz decides to join into this spat to stop it going any further. “I’m right here!”

“Sorry, mate.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Fitz.”

He waves away their apology, wanting to go back to the quiet hell he was enjoying in his mind. Clearly his friends have other ideas. Hunter drags over a kitchen stool and Bobbo perches on the end of the couch and nudges him with her foot.

“This is about Jemma, huh?”

Fitz mumbles that yes, it is. The days just get harder and harder as he lives and works side by side with her and must keep up the professional façade that’s in danger of cracking any second now. Normally a day off isn’t a day he wants, yet this is one he’s been dragging himself to like a thirsty man to water. A day without seeing her eyes and her voice. A day that gives him a chance to forget the daydreams. This is a day that he looks forwards to indeed.

“Oh, Fitz,” Bobbi sighs, sounding motherly. “You have to tell her.”

“He can’t tell her, Bob,” Hunter says for him, all traces of teasing gone from his voice. A cause for alarm. “It’s the job. You know how it is.”

“We both do,” she reminds him, eyes soft. Then she turns back to Fitz. “But this is making you miserable. You have to tell her and get it out in the open, or you have to move on.”

He grabs a cushion and groans into it. “Are those my only options?”

“Well, no…” Bobbi starts.

“Or you quit,” Hunter finishes.

This job was only meant to be temporary a little part of his brain tells him. That little, treacherous part that only thinks selfishly and never about the bigger picture. It’s right: this job was only meant as a way to get him back on his feet after the accident, never a permanent career choice. After all, it’s not as though he has a passion for it.

But what else would he do? Where would he go? He can’t go back to engineering… not yet. He’s just not good enough, not ready to put his ideas out there like he once could. To throw away a steady pay check for a woman he’s unsure feels the same way seems idiotic. Romantic? Absolutely – and something Hunter would do – but sensible?

Well, he feels there’s only one answer for that.

“I can’t quit,” he says quietly. “I just – I can’t.”

Bobbi makes a noise of sympathy in her throat. “Then you gotta move on, Fitz.”

“Nope. Don’t think I can do that either.”

“Well then,” Hunter says, clapping him on the shoulder in a way he hasn’t done in a long time. “I think you know that you have to do.”

-x-

Fitz loves Hunter, owes him a lot, but was never going to follow his advice.

For one, it’s usually terrible and it making semi-sense this time doesn’t make it good. And for second… he’s just afraid.

So he resolves to make good on his previous resolutions, and to suffer through what he’s sure will only be another couple of weeks, at which point he can either part ways with Jemma or muster up enough courage to ask her to dinner.

This is the promise he makes to himself, and it works rather well. Until the day, that is, which Jemma Simmons decides she wants to visit the beach.

Chapter Text

She says it casually one morning while she’s busy report writing and he’s busy sketching.

“Oh, Fitz! We could go to the beach!”

He screws up his face and keeps on drawing. “What? Today?”

“Not today,” she draws out. “But the weekend? You’re working this weekend, aren’t you?”

He thinks back to his schedule, hastily written on a post-it note. “Unless anything major happens then yeah, I am.”

“Excellent!” She actually claps her hands together and he wonders how bored she is. Her last running experiment finished days ago and, still banned from anything new, she’s grown restless.

 “Well yeah, maybe for you it is,” he mumbles.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Fitz closes over the sketchbook and looks at her. “Why’d you want to go to the beach?”

“A few of my friends have made this whole plan to go, as long as the nice weather holds up, of course, and I’d just… well I’d really like to do something that’s not here, for once.”

Jemma Simmons wanting to escape the lab? It must be serious. “I can’t stop you from going to the beach. If you want to go then I’ve got to come.”

She huffs a little bit. “You could act a bit more excited than that.”

“Yay beach day!” He adopts a falsetto whilst clapping his hands as Jemma’s frown only deepens. “What? Was that not good enough?”

“Ugh, Fitz,” she says, going back to her report writing. “You really are insufferable.”

-x-

It’s been a long time since Fitz has been to the beach. He’s never been a fan of them. When the weather’s nice enough to actually visit one it’s usually far too hot for his fair complexion and he ends up spending the whole time underneath a parasol slathered in factor fifty, fanning himself with the tinfoil from the sandwiches. As the weekend looms closer, he finds himself looking out the window in the morning and hoping against hope that it will rain.

Except it doesn’t, of course it’s doesn’t because the universe is spectacularly against him like always, and on Saturday morning when he opens the dingy off-white curtains in the hotel room the sun shines straight into his eyes and blinds him for a minute.

He could have said no, citing some unreasonable security breach that Jemma wouldn’t have believed for a second but might have gone along with anyway. He could have phoned in sick, but considering that Jemma’s been sharing a room with him for the past five days she might have noticed that. He could have simply told her that he doesn’t want to go, but the look on her face in the lab now causes such an ache in his chest, a yearning to do something that he knows he never could have said anything against it.

They go to Jemma’s flat first to pick up some beach attire that she neatly packs into a bag in two seconds flat. She then turns to Fitz and asks, “What are you wearing?”

“Eh,” he frowns, looking down at his jeans and t-shirt. “This.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she gasps. “You can’t go to the beach in those. You’ll melt!”

Well now she tells him. “Well I didn’t have any else with me now, did I? Not like we planned to go to the beach.”

“Why do you have to be such a child all the time? We’ll simply go to yours and pick up some things.”

Which would be all fine and well except Fitz doesn’t really own any beachwear, but it seems a little bit too late now to say such a thing. Which is how they end up at Fitz’s flat, with Fitz raiding Hunter’s wardrobe for some shorts while Jemma waits in the living room. He eventually finds some that don’t make his legs look too skinny and pale and, after a minor fight about who gets to drive (which Jemma wins) they are on their way.

It’s all so stupidly domestic that he has to physically remind himself that this isn’t some couple’s day out at the beach. This is a job. It’s all part of the job. The longer the job goes on, though, the more everything that came before seems to fade. This has become his life. Day in and day out with Jemma Simmons. It’s as bizarre as it is true, and he only finds himself falling further and further, entangling himself more. Fitz thinks of Bobbi’s advice, wonders what could be the worst that could happen if he told her?

Everytime he gets close to wondering, his heart rate accelerates, a headache builds behind his eyes and he finds himself terribly afraid. If that’s what he’s like with what’s in his head, then how would he react if the actual situation arose? He leans back in his seat and tries not to think about it anymore.

“So?” He asks, checking the road the same time as Jemma as she joins the motorway. “Who are these friends of yours we’re meeting anyway?”

“Oh, you know, friends,” she waves a hand before realising that it’s meant to be on the steering wheel. “I suppose you could say the equivalent of what you have with Hunter, only with less beer.”

He frowns. “That worries me, you know.”

“You really shouldn’t worry, Fitz,” she laughs, before going on to describe the friends from her university days that are closer to her than her own family. There’s Mack and Elena, who sounds lovely from all accounts but not Hunter-esque. Then she gets to Daisy and Fitz goes ah.

Daisy this and Daisy that, Jemma speaks of her so much that she becomes almost a legend, making Fitz nervous to meet her. Which is ridiculous, really, because what kind of bodyguard gets nervous meeting friends? But those little butterflies are there, making their presence known, and he almost wants to ask her to open the window as they speed along at exactly 70mph so he can stick his head out of it in case he needs to be sick.

But eventually Jemma moves on from Daisy’s highlights into some other, questionable territory, and while the butterflies still flutter, he feels decidedly less nauseous.

“Is Daisy by any chance the one who destroyed your bed the time you left for a work conference?”

Jemma peers at him for a second, surprise on her face. “Yes, she is. How did you know?”

“Just a feeling I had.”

He must look nervous, face betraying his thoughts, for she tells him, “Don’t worry about meeting them. They’ll like you.”

“Pft,” he scoffs. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I like you.”

It hangs in the air, stops his heart, and for a moment he cannot breathe. Except it shouldn’t be a surprise. Of course she likes him, just as he likes her. He’s been protecting her for a while, the longest job he’s had. They work together, practically live together… by each other’s side the whole damn time. They click. Of course she would like him… just as a friend.

“Well,” he tries to grin, hoping it doesn’t look like a grimace. “At least that’s something.”

If he gets nothing else, at least he has this.

-x-

They eventually make it to the beach and Fitz’s stomach settles considerably once he gets introduced to the whole gang. He’s warmly greeted by Elena, clapped on the shoulder by Mack. Daisy smiles at him and says hello nicely enough, but there’s a glint in her eyes that’s not quite dangerous but close enough.

Jemma, after applying sun cream, makes straight for the water followed by Mack and Elena, leaving Fitz and Daisy with the bags and towels on the sand. Fitz fidgets awkwardly, wondering what he should say. He’s here in a professional capacity, but nobody else on the beach is paying much attention to Jemma on this busy day, and without the need to be on high alert his thoughts are whizzing around his head. Conversation would distract him and he turns to Daisy to try and make friends. It seems she has other ideas.

“So, what are your intentions with our friend Jemma?”

He feels like a deer trapped in headlights, and he tries to stumble out an answer. “Eh, well, I’m her protection officer so my intentions are just that. To protect her.”

Daisy rolls her eyes, reaching into one of the bags for a drink. “Please, cut the crap.”

“Hey! It’s not crap. That is what I want to do.”

“Fine. But it’s not all you want to do now, is it?”

It’s a hot day and his face is already pinkening with the sun so he hopes the heat rushing to it for an entirely different reason isn’t too obvious. Daisy’s right, of course, but it’s not like he’s going to admit it.

“I dunno what you’re talking about,” he says, turning away from Daisy and looking to the sea where there’s a competition between Jemma and the others to make the biggest wave. This is a different Jemma, one different to the one in the lab and the moments when it’s just the two of them. He’s learned that there’s probably countless different Jemma’s, each slightly different parts to the one enchanting whole.

“Oh, come on. Even the way you’re looking at her just now,” Daisy huffs. “You’re so into her I’m surprised she can’t see it.”

“So she doesn’t – she doesn’t know?”

“Aha! I knew I’d get you to admit it eventually!” Daisy cheers triumphantly, raising her can of juice to him.

A trained officer falling for such a trap, he wonders if this would be grounds for dismissal. “Alright, fine. Maybe there are feelings there, but I know it could never happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s bloody unprofessional, that’s why. People should be protected without wondering if their protection officer fancies them. Would taint the whole profession, give us a bad name.”

Daisy sighs. “Alright, drama queen. Chill.” She turns to look at her friends as well.  “It’s not creepy if she feels the same way about you.”

“She doesn’t,” Fitz says automatically. “I would know if she did.”

“Oh really?” Daisy raises an eyebrow. “Just like she totally knows how you feel about her.” When he doesn’t answer she groans. “God, the two of you, for being such accomplished adults, are actual kids.”

He starts to half-heartedly protest but Daisy stops him with a hand and, chastised, he has to admit that maybe she’s right. This game that he’s been playing with himself, the burying his head in the sand, would have been fine if he were still in school. Except he’s not. He supposes this is what Bobbi and Hunter were trying to tell him. Maybe he just needed it to be from a stranger to finally get it to sink in.

“Look, Fitz,” Daisy turns back to him, eyes soft. “I know I’m just some stranger you met like half an hour ago but I do know what I’m talking about. Jemma Simmons is a good friend, one of the best I’ve got. She’s a good person who deserves the world and I can tell that you two would be so freaking cute together I would probably vomit.”

Fitz drops his eyes to the sand. “I’d love to have your confidence,” he mumbles.

“Jemma and I go all the way back to our boarding school days. I’ve known her a long time and I know when I’m right about her. She doesn’t do things without a reason, she doesn’t leap into the void she… she doesn’t take chances! It’s not been easy for her, then or now.” Something in Daisy’s voice makes Fitz meet her eyes again, finds a determination in them burning like a flame. “She deserves something good.”

“And what? You think that’s me?”

“I think it’s what you two could have, what you’ll make together. That’ll be something pretty amazing.”

At first, he felt affronted, but now he feels that maybe it could be possible. Airing the thoughts in his head, giving them room to breathe, has changed his outlook. It doesn’t feel so unreachable anymore.

“You don’t even know me,” he says. “How can you be so sure?”

Daisy shrugs. “Jemma doesn’t shut up about you, which is one thing, but also Mack’s friends with a certain Bobbi Morse and well….” She smiles. “We all know how chatty that ex-husband-slash-boyfriend of hers can be.”

“God, Hunter,” Fits groans, cradling his head in his hands. “Probably half the stuff he’s said are lies, right. I promise.”

Daisy just smirks and says nothing, taking a sip of her drink.

They talk mindlessly for a while, which is nice after the emotionally-intensive start they had. Fitz learns a lot about Daisy; she’s a genius with computers, has a wicked sense of humour, ran away from boarding school three times, and once lived in a van. Daisy share stories about Jemma, about how she was never quite as supportive of her ‘bad girl shenanigans’ and lectured her constantly, but was always there to pick her up when she fell.

“You’ve known her a long time,” Fitz says, more thinking out loud than talking directly.

“Yeah, I told you that at the start,” Daisy laughs. “But yeah, we’ve been though it all together. We’re each other’s family at this point, you know?”

Fitz nods, knowing the feeling acutely. “I get the feeling her mum and dad are a bit…”

“Not there? Yup. I can relate. Her dad’s alright, really. A bit closed off, a bit absent, but nothing traumatising. It’s her mom you have to watch out for. I met her once when Jemma let me stay for Easter break and she was chilling. Like seriously, I’ve been in front of freezers that have given off warmer air than her.”

“Oh?” Fitz listens on in surprise. Jemma’s few mentions of her mother have never been favourable, but they’ve never gone into a depth such as this.

“Oh yeah. She’s the calculating one in the marriage, the political sniffer dog. Got her claws in everything and chasing every opportunity. Dangerously high standards, too. Jemma’s never admitted it, but I think it hurts her that her mom doesn’t care what she’s achieved as opposed to what she’s yet to achieve.”

Fitz sees how that could be so, knows something himself of dangerously high standards. Only his dad walked out when he was ten, and his mum has always been careful to be proud of him, to make up for what happened in his early childhood. To still be living with it now, on the cusp of thirty… Jemma Simmons is a stronger person than him.

“She’s achieved so much, though. She made such an amazing discovery!”

“You know it, and I know it, but the rest of the world and her parents just can’t see it.” Daisy shakes her head. “Parents eh?”

“Parents,” he agrees. You can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Sometimes it seems like all they’re good for is screwing up their children. Then he remembers his mum; his sweet, sweet mum who looked after him in those first few weeks after his car accident. Some, not all. A lesson he’s learned already during this assignment.

“You’re a good friend,” he says to Daisy. “Rounding on a man you don’t know for the sake of your friend and all that. It’s admirable.”

“I’ll do a lot worse to you if you hurt her,” Daisy warns. “But thanks, Fitz. You’re a good guy, and I think you and my best-friend will be awesome together.”

He only manages a shy smile before Jemma comes bounding back up to their spot, shaking the sea out of her hair as she grabs for a towel. Clad only in a bikini, she reaches over Fitz who coughs and looks away. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Daisy roll her eyes.  Mack and Elena aren’t far behind Jemma, and when they catch up Mack throws Daisy a questioning look which she responds to with a nod.

“So,” Jemma begins, and Fitz notices straight away how different her voice sounds, much lighter and carefree. He’s glad he came. “What have you both been chatting about?”

Fitz laughs awkwardly. What to say? He settles for some version of the truth. “Everything.”

Jemma cocks her head, raising an eyebrow. “Everything?”

“Nothing,” Daisy clarifies, shooting him a dark look. “Just chatting about stupid stuff, you know? Movies and snacks and that kind of thing.” She jumps up, clapping her hands together. “Now who wants ice-cream? If I’m not mistaken, I think it’s Mack’s turn to buy.”

-x-

It’s late when they get back to the hotel.

They’d all stayed out late, having a barbeque and watching the sun go down. It was like being a teenager again and for those few hours he had felt invincible, like nothing in the world could trouble him at all. Drunk on sea air and the idea of love, Fitz has come up with what he’s been trying to all along – courage.

“I should probably go for a shower,” Jemma says as she flops backwards onto her bed, “but I’m just so tired. I had such a good day.” She props herself up on one elbow, eyes glowing as she looks at Fitz. “Did you?”

“Yeah,” he says, finding that he means it. “It was great.”

He flicks on the bedside lamp, half listening to Jemma as she says how good it was to just have fun for a change, to relax, to see her friends again. Now that he’s back indoors, the spell has worn off somewhat but there’s still enough magic running in is veins to convince him that this is a good idea. So what if he doesn’t have a good plan? Does anybody ever have one when they feel like this? He can’t quit, can’t move on and this is all that’s left. Tonight is the night; he can feel it in his bones.

“Fitz?” Jemma’s voice breaks through his thoughts and grand plans, reminding him that the moment is here and now. “Are you alright?”

“Yup.” His voice is shaky, though, betraying the nerves that are of course still there. “I just… can we talk?”

Jemma laughs. “It’s what we’re doing right now, aren’t we?”

Being by the sea all day has made them silly. This carefree version of themselves, momentarily unburdened from their responsibilities, is refreshing. Unsustainable, of course, but refreshing nonetheless.

He laughs in spire of himself. “I suppose we are, but a… different kind of talking.”

“Oh.” Jemma sits up. “That kind.”

Unlike the night that she stayed at his flat, the bravery hasn’t deserted Fitz yet. His heart is thumping underneath his t-shirt and his cheeks feel hot for a different reason other than the sunburn, but he is not so afraid as to throw the chance away.

He sits down next to her on the bed, looking down at his hands as he tries to put the words together in his head. “So, I was, ah, talking to Daisy today…”

“Oh,” Jemma says again. “I kind of thought, I mean, I saw you two talking and your face did that funny thing when you’re talking about something you don’t really want to talk about and I just knew she’d pester you.” She looks up at him through long lashes. “I’m sorry, Fitz.”

“No, no,” he hurries to say. “Don’t be. She helped me realise things.”

“Really?” Jemma’s voice sounds odd and he can’t tell if it’s nerves or excitement driving the change. “What sort of things?”

“All sorts of things,” he says. “But mostly that you’re, well you’re pretty amazing, Jemma, and I know we’ve only been working together for a short time but I just, I can’t imagine going back to a life without you in it. And I know that you said that you wanted to be friends after this ends but I don’t want to be just friends… I’d like to have something more than that.”

He’s finally able to meet her eyes, breathless at the end of so many words that he didn’t rehearse at all. Jemma looks at him for one second, then two, and it’s three seconds later before she smiles and says in a voice that sounds unlike any other voice he’s heard her use, “So what are you saying?”

What is he saying? He doesn’t know, not really. Just getting to this part is the only achievement he considered without getting laughed off. Any further and he is completely in uncharted territory. “I’m saying…” he says, taking a deep breath. “Well, asking, really, is if you would like to go to dinner with me. Dinner that’s in someplace nice.”

Jemma’s moved closer and he didn’t even realise. “I would love to,” she grins, eyes bright. His heart thumps in victory. “Only…”

Oh no. There’s no way to survive this fall. He regrets his entire life in this moment, only managing to squeak out a, “What?”

“I just don’t think I can wait that long,” she says, inching ever closer. “Who knows when this will be over?”

His breath comes easier into his lungs and he takes back all those thoughts he thought only a moment ago. “So – so what do you think we should do about that?”

“I think,” she murmurs, so close now, the closest they’ve ever been to one another, “that we should stop thinking and that we should just do,” and kisses him.

It’s a little clumsy because it’s late and because they’re silly, but it’s also familiar. She tastes of salt and hope and love and they move with each other with an imperfect synchronicity that they’ve had from the start. In this moment he feels invincible. It feels exactly right.

When they break apart, foreheads touching, he already misses her. It’s gone to his head already; this feeling has made him drunk.

“That was…” Jemma begins.

“Nice,” Fitz finishes.

Jemma raises an eyebrow. “Nice?”

It’s like his brain has just taken a back seat, letting his mouth just have free reign. “Very nice,” he assures her. “Very, very nice.”

She shakes her head, unable to hide her smile from him. “I think it was very nice, too.”

They both smile, suddenly shy, and for a moment neither of them speak, overcome with the implications of it all.

 Fitz goes first.

“So does this mean that we’re just not doing dinner or?”

“Oh, Fitz,” Jemma sighs. “Shut up.” And she kisses him again.

Chapter Text

The only way to describe it is like it’s a Disney film.

The birds seem to sing to him as he wakes up in the morning, the sun parts the clouds for his benefit only, and the whole world seems to sparkle with hope and magic and love.

Both him and Jemma have to be careful in her office, where prying eyes with a love for drama could give them away. They’re professionals, so of course it should be no problem, except right now they’re more lovesick teenager than anything else and, unfortunately for them, subtlety is not their strong suit.

Apart from that, though, it’s amazing how little has changed. They still bicker like they always have and laugh like they always have. The only difference is that at the end of the day when they leave work and go back to the hotel there’s no more confusing feelings scrambling his brain and making him grumpy. They go back together, in all kinds of ways, and he feels the best he has in years.

Bobbi and Hunter are, of course, elated.

His day off is two days after the beach trip and, when he drags himself back to his flat, both of them are waiting on the couch like they’re his parents.

“So, Fitz,” Hunter begins. “Where you been, mate?”

Fitz frowns, dropping his bag to the floor. “Working,” he says slowly. “Why?”

Hunter jerks his thumb to his right. “Bobbi here has been speaking to a certain Alphonso Mackenzie, who spoke to a certain Daisy Johnson, who spoke to-”

“Alright, alright!” Fitz holds up his hand. “I get the picture. What do you want to know?”

“Did you tell her?” Bobbi asks.

“I did,” Fitz nods, keeping a straight face to make them suffer.

“And?” Hunter’s practically bursting out of his seat. “Come on! You can’t leave us in the dark like this!”

The smile that Fitz has barely been able to keep back suddenly makes an appearance and both Bobbi and Hunter jump up, coming over to hug him in congratulations. He suffers through it good-naturedly, knowing that it very well might not have happened if not for their not-so-gentle shoving.

“Aww, Fitz! I’m so proud of you!” Hunter ruffles his hair. “Truly, mate.”

“I only told Jemma how I felt,” he tries to laugh it off. “Nothing that big.”

“But big for you,” Hunter tells him, looking him straight in the eye. “And I’m proud.”

They’ve been through a lot, Fitz and Hunter. They live together, briefly worked together, and for a long time Fitz has relied on him because the world was too big and too daunting to face on his own. They know how much they mean to each other, and it never needs to be said, so this unexpected display of sincerity makes tears prick at the corner of his eyes.

Things are changing, he can feel it in the air, but no matter what, Hunter will always be the person who was there in the beginning, and will be there to the end.

“Thanks, mate,” Fits says, slapping Hunter on the back. “Thanks a lot.”

-x-

When Fitz is summoned to HQ, his first thought it oh shite.

Pretending in front of Jemma’s colleagues everyday that he’s not walking on air is challenging enough, but pretending in a building that houses trained officers, and frequent visitors from MI5, takes every ounce of strength he has. He’s reasonably sure that his boss can’t have found out anything, and while it’s not technically illegal, it’s certainly against the rules, and so his heart thumps painfully as he takes the lift up to the floor where he’s sure he’s about to get fired.

Fitz gets directed to a meeting room with five or six others and he decides to let himself breathe. Unless everyone here has found themselves in love with Jemma, he’s sure that this isn’t the sacking he was so terrified of. When his superior designs to join them all ten minutes later, the man walks in with something close to a smile on his face.

“We arrested our penpal,” he announces, looking proud of himself even though Fitz doubts he played a physical part. “The one who loved some cut and paste. He’s confessed to it all, and even gave us some of his friends.”

There’s sighs of relief throughout the room, and Fitz feels the knot in his own chest loosen significantly. Protection Command was receiving intense pressure from Jemma’s father in particular for not having found the culprit yet and the man being found means the burden has been lifted from their shoulders. Fitz finds his relief comes from a rather more personal direction.

“With that in mind,” the boss continues, “we feel that security can be lifted. Dr. Simmons may move back to her own home. I’d still like an officer there, of course, and to accompany her on journeys, but the stricter side of things can be relaxed. If everything continues as it has done, I should say she will no longer require our services within the next few weeks.”

It’s welcome news, and uses up the remaining grains of Fitz’s self-control. There are a few arbitrary points to go over, and then eventually the short meeting comes to an end.

“I trust I can tell you to pass the news along to Dr. Simmons, Officer Fitz?”

“Yes, sir,” he says, trying to remain calm while every cell is alive with energy.

“This will be very welcome news for you, I imagine,” the man says, a small smile on his lips. “Very welcome news, indeed.”

-x-

Fitz returns to tell Jemma the wonderful news with a spring in his step.

She reacts enthusiastically, kissing him in excitement. They spend the rest of the evening packing up the hordes of random items they’ve amassed during their hotel stay and when they finally make it back to Jemma’s flat both of them wear the same looks of relief.

It’s easy to get addicted to the feeling. They sit on Jemma’s couch, a Chinese takeaway on the coffee table in front of them and they discuss how wonderful it is to be back, how uncomfortable the hotel beds were, how nice it will be to be able to cook again. Inevitably they turn to the future.  The news from today confirms that the circumstances are about to change soon and it makes him nervous but also terribly excited.

“Boss man said it’ll be a few weeks until you don’t need me anymore,” Fitz says.

“I know, Fitz. You’ve told me three times this evening,” Jemma teases gently. “And as I’ve told you, of course I’ll still need you. Just not quite in the same way.”

He’s giddy with happiness and it’s clearly affecting his short-term memory. The way she says of course makes him dimple. He wants more.

“I think if we can just figure out who leaked your research then we’d be able to speed things along. Don’t you think so?”

Jemma’s eyes slide away from his, and she picks up a spring roll. “Perhaps, but it doesn’t really matter who did it now, does it? The news is already out there. Finding out who put it out there won’t change anything.”

“Nah, I suppose not,” Fitz concedes, deflating against the cushions. “Would just be good to catch who did this to you, so they couldn’t do it to anyone else, at least.”

“It’ll blow over soon, I’m sure. These things always do.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” he sighs. “It’s just… I dunno, these people shouldn’t get to get away with it. They could really ruin lives. What if someone didn’t have your dad’s influence and got faced with an angry mob because they couldn’t get a bodyguard? It’s not fair.”

“Fitz-”

“I’m serious, Jemma. It’s not right. There was no reason to release this. It’s not like it was an accident.”

“Fitz, please-”

“They knew exactly what they were doing, which makes it worse! They deserve to face time for it. It’s utterly ridiculous that in this day and age-”

“It was me.”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, doesn’t breathe for a second. He decides to give her a chance. “What was you?”

Jemma fidgets with her fingers but looks him straight in the eye. “It was me who leaked the research. I sent it to the news.”

He blinks. It’s all he can do. The news has hit him with the force of a freight train; so many feelings flitter though all at once. Betrayal, hurt, love, confusion, anger… he settles for the last one. It’s hot and fiery and it hurts so much less than anything else.

“What the hell?”

“Please,” Jemma says urgently as Fitz springs up off the couch, unable to sit at the place where minutes ago they were laughing. He starts to pace, thoughts rushing at a million miles a minute. She stands, too, and they both end up standing behind the couch. Jemma has tears in her eyes and he feels only a little bit sad. “Please, Fitz, just let me explain.”

“Oh, yeah,” he laughs, a harsh, ugly sound. “Go on then. I really want to hear this one.”

“I was just trying to do the right thing,” she says.

“And how the hell could this be the right thing?”

“It wasn’t my goal to create that kind of method, you see. It came as the result of another experiment, a complete accident.”

He just wants the truth, doesn’t care about all of this backstory. “It doesn’t matter how it came about.”

“Actually, it does.” Jemma takes a deep breath. “I told my supervisor about what I’d discovered. I thought she’d tell me to publish it, like I was going to if the experiment had revealed what I thought it was going to. Only she didn’t. She told me to keep it quiet, and that she would handle it.”

“How is that a bad thing?”

“Because I knew exactly what would happen. It would go higher and higher and when it got to the top it wouldn’t be shoved into a drawer. Think about it, Fitz! They could have sold it. It’s only theoretical just now but with more time, a few years perhaps, it could become a reality. Imagine how many countries would like to have that. Imagine if this one did. It would be biological warfare, only with no way to stop it.”

“So you leaked it,” he says, flatly.

“Yes.” Jemma’s chin remains high, and while her eyes remain tearful, they do not divert from his own. “I did. Because if it’s out there then it means nobody can use it without being held accountable for it. They’ll know exactly where it came from.”

There are very few ways in which Fitz is like his father, but his quick temper and inability to listen when angry are two of them. He doesn’t allow her explanation to sink in, doesn’t really care for it all that much even though he asked for it.

“That doesn’t make it okay, Jemma,” he tells her, anger seething into his tone. “It doesn’t make it right. You can’t take it upon yourself to make decisions like that.”

“And what else was I supposed to do? You can’t trust people with this type of thing.”

He scoffs. “Clearly.”

“Please try to understand! I was only doing what I thought was right.”

“It doesn’t matter!” He yells. “You’re supposed to be smart. Surely you knew how this was going to play out, how many people you would drag into your bloody circus.”

“I didn’t,” she protests, and he tries to ignore the tears clinging to her eyelashes. “I truly didn’t think it would get like this. People don’t seem to care about anything these days, certainly nothing scientific. I expected he Twitter comments and maybe a few distasteful articles but nothing on this scale. You have to believe me.”

“No,” he says, betrayal making him hard. “I don’t.”

“Fitz,” she breathes, pouring everything into the one syllable.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes so he doesn’t need to see her face for a second. He’s been working with her for weeks and all this time she’s been keeping this secret from him, stringing him along. What other secrets has she kept, he wonders. What other truths has she left out?

“No.” He opens his eyes, sight momentarily blurred by tears. “Just don’t. Don’t you see? You aren’t different at all. You’re exactly like your parents, like all those people you pretend you’re better than.”

Jemma narrows her eyes. “That’s not fair.”

“Yes it is. You thought you were immune; that you could do whatever the hell you liked without any consequences.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“No, maybe not, but that’s what it all boils down to, isn’t it? Your lot think they rule the world, think it’s your place to decide what happens. That’s not right.”

They stand before each other and what they had tentatively built crumbles between them. In the morning, Fitz might care. Right now, he’s too mad to even try.

“That’s not why I did it,” Jemma tries to explain. “You know me, Fitz. You know I don’t think like that.”

“Clearly you do!”

“And so, what? You never changed your mind about me at all?” Jemma finally shouts back. Yes, Fitz thinks. Yes. Get angry. If they’re both angry, shouting and screaming at each other then he can handle it. It’s fine. What he can’t bear is the trembling of her bottom lip, the tears clinging to her cheeks until the last possible second. He doesn’t want to feel sorry for her right now.

She continues. “All this time you’ve just been there silently stewing? Saying one thing but meaning quite another.”

“Of course, I haven’t,” he scoffs. “But even if I had, I wouldn’t be the only one. You have no right to judge me when you’ve been keeping the biggest secret of all. God, don’t you understand? This is against the law, Jemma!”

She looks briefly down to the ground, “I know.”

“Do you? Do you know that all your work is covered by the Official Secrets Act? Do you know that you can actually serve jail time for breaching that?”

“Of course I do,” she says. “You don’t need to explain it to me.”

“Are you sure? Because it seems like if you knew that you maybe would have thought about it more before leaking the bloody documents to the press!”

And now he has come to another problem, one that should have occurred to him from the beginning but that his heartache made him forget.

“I could go to jail for this,” he says quietly. “If I know what you did, and I don’t tell them, then I’ll be an accessory.”

Jemma only blinks.

“I’ll lose my job, my flat. My mum will be in bits.” He heaves a shaky sigh. “Did you even think about that.”

She swallows audibly. “I did.”

Her short answer stokes the flames. He scoffs. “And?”

“I’m not telling you to do anything, Fitz.”

She has shifted the choice to him and God, how he hates her for it. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I told you because you should know,” she says carefully. “If you want to tell your superiors then that is your choice. I’m not going to plead otherwise.”

He scoffs again, waving away the option he never really had. “Please, like I could do that to you. I care about you too much to hurt you.” His admission slides out without meaning to, and he looks at his feet before mumbling, “A feeling you clearly don’t have about me.”

Jemma gasps, a sharp intake of breath. It sounds like it hurt. He hopes it did. “Oh, Fitz…”

“No. Just, just don’t, okay?” The anger has vanished, replaced by an unbearable weariness. There’s nothing within him to fight anymore. “Just… was it real? What you told me… did you mean it?”

“All of it,” she assures him. She goes to take a step forward only to think better of it. “I meant it.”

He should never have asked. There’s an acute pain in his chest that intensifies with every second that passes. He starts to fumble around for his bag, his jacket. He pulls out his phone.

“What are you doing?" She asks, voice dripping with desperation and tears. "Where are you going?”

“I can’t say here.” With his back to her he swipes the tears from his eyes. “I can’t pretend. I'll phone someone, say I’ve got to go home sick or something.”

“Fitz, come on. We can have a discussion like adults do.”

“There’s nothing to discuss, Jemma,” he says flatly. With all of his things together he stands before her. They’ve become strangers to each other. Perfect strangers. There’s nothing of the people they were to each other standing here now.

“Davis will be here in half an hour. I’m sure you’ll be fine until then.” He grabs the door handle. “See you around.” He turns away.

“Fitz, please,” she’s all but begging, He’s too worn out, can’t stay here any longer. “It was real. All of it. Everything. I promise you that.”

He half turns around. “Your promises don’t mean anything anymore.”

He doesn’t stay to find out the impact of his words, instead leaving without another word and without once looking back.

Chapter Text

He can’t go back to his flat when he leaves Jemma’s and, with nowhere else to go, he ends up driving around the streets of London aimlessly. When the tears blur his eyes too much for him to make out the road ahead, he parks in a supermarket carpark and starts walking.

It’s just getting dark and the breeze is sharp but if anything it’s a welcome distraction from the feeling of a hand squeezing his heart and so he doesn’t even register he forgot his jacket. He doesn’t have his phone – Jemma keeps trying to call and so he left it in the car – and there’s nothing else to think about or to do as he trudges over muddy grass and pot-holed paths.

The events of the past hour keep replaying in his head, a loop that he cannot break. The anger resurges, an anger that he hasn’t felt in the longest time. It takes hold of him completely, its fingers around his throat, its pressure pressing his teeth together. He wants to break something, anything, just to release it. His hands curl into fists, nails cutting half-moons into his palm. He kicks at the ground, a pathetic, childish attempt to make himself feel better. It doesn’t do anything, only hurts.

Then just as quickly the anger disappears, steam evaporating away as quickly as the water boiled. It’s just sadness that’s left, an unbearable hurt that cuts so deep that he doesn’t even know what to do. He can’t do anything except keep walking numbly forward.

He doesn’t know what time it is when he makes it back to his car. His eyes sting, his throat is sore, and his chest feels like someone has reached a hand in and scooped his heart out. It aches all over. It’s a miracle he’s able to drive home.

“Fitz!” Hunter stands up as he comes in the door. “Where the hell have you been?”

Wasn’t it only days ago that Hunter said that exact thing only in a completely different voice, with a smile on his face? It seems like another life entirely.

“Around,” Fitz says. “What does it matter? Thought you’d be with Bobbi.”

For once Hunter doesn’t rise to it. “Jemma phoned, said you weren’t right when you left and she wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

He scoffs. “Yeah, I’m sure she did.”

“Mate, I’ve been worried sick! Bob’s out looking for you now; she made me wait at home in case you came back or the police called!” Hunter runs a hand through his hair; from the looks of it it appears it’s not the first time. “Jesus Christ, Fitz. Look at the state of you!”

Fitz looks down and for the first time registers what kind of state he’s in. His boots are caked with mud and grass, and the laces on one foot are undone. His trousers are ripped at the back on one side – he must have snagged them when he walked through the trees. His shirt is sodden – he hadn’t noticed when it had begun to rain. Fitz catches sight of himself in the side mirror and sees what Hunter sees: his tie is askew, his face is red, eyes are swollen and his hair sticks up, going in fifty different directions.

“I’m fine,” he says robotically.

“’Fine’ my arse. You’re not fine. Anyone can tell by looking at you you’re not fine.” Hunter exhales a shaky breath, and Fitz feels a nugget of shame for making him worry. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.” He peels off his boots, leaving them by the door. One thing at a time to keep himself sane.

“Alright,” Hunter says, surprisingly not pushing anymore. “Another time, then. Just get in the shower, would you? You’ll be freezing, and also you smell.”

Now that it’s been mentioned, the cold hits him with full force. He starts shivering almost automatically and he lets Hunter shove him into the bathroom with a clean towel in his hands. It’s been a long time since Hunter has mothered him like this, and the regression makes bile rise into Fitz’s throat.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hunter tells him. “Whatever it is we can fix it, okay? We’ll figure out something.”

It’s not like that Fitz wants to protest. For the first time in his life he’s crying over a girl. He could laugh at the ridiculousness of it except it’s not ridiculous at all because it’s not just a girl he’s crying over. Betrayal is so much worse.

“Have a hot shower, have a sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning.” Hunter sighs. “I’ll call Bob, let her know you’re alright.” Then he closes the bathroom door behind him.

Fitz turns the water hot, following instructions. The small bathroom fills with steam quickly and fogs up the mirror. Good. He doesn’t want to see the mess he’s become.

He hears Hunter on the phone outside. Hello, it’s Hunter…. Yeah, we’ve got him. He’s gotten himself worked up… I don’t need-… right, yeah, I will do. Try not to worry, Jemma. He’ll be fine.

Jemma. So she was worried about him, was she? Like all those weeks he spent worrying over her… he feels used and dirty. He climbs into the shower with the intent of scrubbing his skin raw only for the hurt to get too much to bear and he cries until his stomach hurts instead.

-x-

“Are you going into work today, Fitz?”

Hunter waits at Fitz’s bedroom door, listening for any sign of life. There’s nothing. He sighs and knocks again.

“Fitz? Mate? You need to at least phone if you’re not going in, you know how this works.”

There’s a rustle of sheets and then a sad voice calls out, “Told them I had a stomach bug. Can’t go back for another 48 hours.” Then a mumble that Fitz thinks Hunter can’t hear. “Not that I want to.”

“Fitz,” Hunter sighs again, wearily resting his head against the doorframe for a moment. “It’s been three days already.”

There’s no reply to that.

It had taken almost 24 hours but eventually Hunter had managed to weasel the truth out of Fitz.  The whole truth in all of its brutal glory, right down to the parting blow that Fitz had delivered as he left. After they’d spoken, Fitz had retreated to his room and that where he’s remained, leaving sporadically for the basic human needs, ever since.

Hunter flops down on the couch, scratching his head in an effort to understand. He gets the betrayal, he understands the hurt, after all he and Bobbi’s first shot at marriage ended for a reason, but what he doesn’t understand is the seclusion. Fitz has never liked falling out with people, at least not as long as Hunter has known him, and to not return any of Jemma’s phone calls or text messages doesn’t make sense.

He’s hurt, Hunter gets that, but he can’t quit. Him and Jemma’s story can’t end like this.

Bobbi has had messages from Daisy and Mack and Elena, all hearing from Jemma that something’s happened but they don’t know what. Last night, when Bobbi had read out the latest one, she had turned to him and told him, “I don’t care what you do, but do something.” It was all Hunter needed. There’s a plan forming in the depths of his mind, half-finished and probably utterly insane but at least it’s something. If he leaves the two idiots to their devices then it’ll never get fixed and for the rest of their lives they’ll be doomed to roaming the earth in circles, alone and unsure of themselves. Probably.

Relationship drama is meant to be Hunter’s thing, and he’s in the middle of wracking his brains to try and think what Fitz would do for him in this situation when there’s a knock at the door. His head snaps up and he frowns. Nobody tends to visit them during the day, or nobody that would knock, and he knows who it is a split second before he answers the door.

“Jemma,” he greets. “What a surprise,” even though it’s not really a surprise at all.

Jemma looks shifty as she stands in the door, dressed for work but clearly not there. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days, with dark circles under her eyes poorly concealed and cheeks hollow.

“Hello, Hunter,” she says, perfectly politely, but her eyes dart to the hallway behind him. “Is, um, is Fitz here? I was hoping if I could speak with him.”

“He’s out at the minute,” Hunter lies, "but come on in."

Jemma comes in alone as Hunter shuts the door behind him. He ushers her into the living room and closes that door, too. Fitz is probably already back to sleep but he still takes the precautions. His plan has been expedited and he’s not fully prepared but it doesn’t matter. Anything for his best friend.

“Where’s your new protection officer?”

“Mm?” Jemma looks around as if she too is wondering why she’s here alone. “Oh, Officer Davis? He’s still in the car. I can’t be very long, I’ve got to get to work, but I was just wanted to tell Fitz something but if he’s not here then it doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

“It’s alright, love. I know.”

“You do?” Then Jemma smiles tiredly. “Of course you do.”

“Took me a while to get it out of him if that’s any consolation,” Hunter offers.

“A little.” Then a shadow crosses her face. “So, now that you know...”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” he says, trying to smile and put her at ease. “This is between you and Fitz.”

“But you could go to-”

Hunter holds up a hand. “I could, except I won’t. I’ve got too much dirt on the place for them to ever want to send me to jail.”

“Must be nice to have that kind of security,” Jemma muses.

“Eh.” He shrugs. “A pain in the arse, sometimes. Knowing all these things that you can’t share with anyone.”

Jemma tries to laugh, but it comes out more as a bark. “Tell me about it.”

Hunter doesn’t dislike Jemma, not the way Fitz wants him to. He kind of admires her, for the guts it takes to do something so risky yet selfless. Fitz will see it later when the wound stops smarting. Of that, he is sure.

“I get why you did it,” Hunter says at last.

Jemma tilts her head to the side. Something that’s almost relief sweeps across her face. “You do?”

“Yeah. It maybe wasn’t the smartest of choices but I get it. I don’t blame you for it.”

“Thank goodness someone doesn’t,” she says, her eyes drifting to the door.

Hunter could go and wake Fitz up right now, march him in here and demand the two of them talk it out. He’s always liked the straightforward approach. But people, as Bobbi reminds him, as he himself knows, are rarely straightforward and in this case it just won’t work. They need to do this on their own.

“He doesn’t hate you,” he says gently. “I don’t think he ever could. He’s just hurt, and he’s a baby when he’s hurting. He’ll come round eventually, don’t you worry.”

There are tears in her eyes. “No, he was right. I should have thought it through more I just…”

“You got scared,” Hunter finishes. “We all do stupid stuff when we’re scared. And you had good reason to be.”

“I never expected for it to get this far,” she says. “I truly didn’t think it would. I wasn’t trying to rule the world, I didn’t think I could whatever I wanted. It was,” she breaks off, taking a deep breath. “At the time, it was the only option I could see.”

A daughter of a lord or the son of a plumber, but only human when it comes to making mistakes. There’s really no difference, Hunter thinks. None at all.

“I just want to tell him I’m sorry,” Jemma says, swiping away the tear clinging to her eyelashes with her thumb. “And that I didn’t want to hurt him. I just thought he should know the truth.” But she takes a deep breath and Hunter watches as she draws herself up to her full height and becomes what she knows how to be. “But maybe this is for the best, him not being here. I think… I think I would only hurt him more.”

“Fitz’s job is to protect you,” Hunter says quietly. “But it’s my job to protect him. If I thought you’d hurt him then I wouldn’t have let you in. You fit together; you need each other. You need to make everyone else nauseous about how perfect the two of you are for each other. It’ll work out, love. Just you wait and see.”

“I would love to have your confidence,” she admits. She shakes her head. “I really must be going but, well, thank you, Hunter. For everything.”

He walks with her to the door and gives her a grin that Fitz associates with troublemaking. “Anytime.”

Once he’s made sure that she’s alright and gotten downstairs okay, he comes back up and flops down on the couch, grinning stupidly and feeling awfully proud of himself.

-x-

The phone rings once, then twice, then three times.

Fitz almost hangs up. It hadn’t been his own choice to make this call; Hunter had rather pressured him into it. You need to be the bigger man here, Fitz. You need to be an adult, at the very least, and other variations are all that Fitz has been hearing for the last week. He doesn’t want to be an adult in this moment; it’s mentally exhausting. A child seems like the better option.

Though he knows his friend is right, because otherwise he wouldn’t be doing what he says. And also because, well, he misses Jemma. He misses talking to her, laughing with her, working in the same office as her. The possibility of a relationship he mourns, of course he does, but it’s the loss of friendship that has cut him deeper than anything else.

“Hello?”

Her voice, the one he hasn’t heard in what seems like so long, jars him for a moment, rendering him still. The last time he heard it she was begging him not to go… he has to close his eyes.

“Jemma? It’s me, Fitz.”

“Fitz,” she breathes, a seemingly automatic response. His heart clenches at the way she says his name. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Big breath in. Slow breath out. “Hunter, um, wanted me to call you.”

“Did he now?”

“Well no. Well, yeah, actually but not just him. I wanted to call you as well. I wanted…” He takes another deep breath. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she says, and he can imagine her face as she does so. “Nothing.”

“I do, actually. The things I said, I shouldn’t have said them. About you being, well, you know…”

The memory comes back to him as he imagines it does to her because they both fall silent at the same moment. There had been so much anger that night that he hadn’t known what to do with it. There’s still a little, he would be lying if he said otherwise, but it’s no longer a mist, doesn’t obscure his vision. Now he’s able to see what it looks like from the other side.

“I get it,” she says quietly. “You had your reasons. I admit it must have seemed that was but I promise you it wasn’t.”

“It hurt.” It still does. “It felt like I was being used. If you could lie to me about that, then what else did you lie to me about?”

His insecurities, when voice aloud, sound pathetic but it has to be said. It’s the only way they’ll move past it and, moving on, is something he really wants to try.

“I didn’t think it would get this far,” Jemma tells him. “I didn’t think you and I would ever be what we ar-were. You were never meant to be permanent but then you became my friend and then you became more and I just- I didn’t know what to do. Telling you seemed like the right thing.”

Now he can appreciate her position. After all, fear does funny things to people. Why else would he be in this job when he could have tried engineering again long ago?

“It was.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It was the right thing.”

“I’m sorry, Fitz.”

“For what you did or what happened between us?”

It’s out before he can stop himself but he doesn’t regret it. He has to know.

“I’m sorry for how I made you feel, and I’m sorry for what happened last week. I really am.”

“But?”

“But,” she says, blowing out a breath. “I’m not sorry for what I did. I know wasn’t well-planned, and I know there may have been other ways but I can’t say that I wouldn’t do it again, Fitz. Even with everything that’s happened. I’m sorry.”

Oddly he’s not. “No, it’s okay. Honesty, I like it.”

“Thank you.” Her laugh is a little forced. “I’ve been trying.”

They’re at the edge of something, he can tell. Both of them are waiting to see where it will go. Perhaps they could try again. He’d like that.

“I do wish I hadn’t dragged you into the mess with me, though. I regret that.”

“I’ll figure out something,” Fitz laughs tiredly. “Hunter probably has some tips or something like that.”

“I spoke to him, did he tell you?”

“Yeah, he said he saw you. Didn’t tell me much more than that.”

There’s a pause.

“You can turn me in if you’d like,” she says quietly. “If that’s what you want to do. I wouldn’t blame you.”

He could do it. He could tell his boss and he could tell her boss who the leak came from. The thought has crossed his mind. Except he could never actually do it, he knows that about himself. He could never condemn her like that.

“I can’t do that, Jemma. I just can’t.”

He imagines her tearful look on the other end of the line and coughs to clear the emotion in his throat. It's enough for today. “I’ve got to go now but it was nice to speak to you again.”

“It was lovely to hear from you, Fitz. I’ve missed you.”

His heart swells. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“And I’ll see you on Monday.”

He can feel her frown. “Monday? What’s happening on Mon – oh. Are you…?”

“Yeah, I’m coming back.”

Her smile is almost audible. “Well I shall see you then. Goodbye, Fitz.”

“Goodbye, Jemma.”

It’s small but it’s a step, and, as long as they’re going in the right direction, it’s enough.

-x-

When they meet on Monday morning Fitz nods and hands her a cup of tea.

Jemma says thank you and hands him a pastry.

They both smile at each other, tentatively but real, before sitting down behind their desks, both ready and willing to try again.

Chapter Text

It’s awkward at first. There’s no denying that.

It’s reminiscent of the early days when they danced around each other, unsure of where to put their feet. Only now they know where their feet can go and they spend most of their time trying to avoid the places they’re not allowed to dance anymore.

They’re trying though, that’s important. They both try to steer things back to the way they once were; that in-between stage where they hadn’t kissed but they didn’t want to rip each other’s throat out every five seconds. A good stage to rebuild a friendship.

Except of course it’s not that easy. The smiles start off as unconscious but soon his mouth begins to ache and it feels more like a grimace. Spontaneous jokes are sporadic, and others are forced and elicit a laugh only because it would be more uncomfortable not to. The banter is careful and rare; he’s too afraid that a joke may go too far and their carefully constructed bridge will fall apart with him in the middle of it.

Fitz would rather have this than fighting, or at least that’s what he tells himself. He tells himself so much he almost believes it. At least when they were fighting he knew where they stood, but now it’s so confusing and the lines are there, somehow, but they aren’t straight and instead are this ginormous squiggle, a maze that he can’t figure his way out of.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” he tells her one day. They’re both sitting at their desks. They haven’t spoken in about three hours, which Fitz thinks might be a new record.

Jemma sighs and puts down her pen. “What else do you suggest we do?”

A valid point: what else do they do? There are limited options to choose from.

“I dunno,” is what he says, even though he does.

“Well then this is what we have to do.” Jemma picks up her pen again and leans further over in her chair.

“Well,” he says slowly, drawing it out and giving him time before he has to finish the sentence. “We could always go back?”

“Go back?” Jemma makes a noise in the back of her throat and doesn’t look up at him. “I thought that’s what we were trying to do?”

“No, no, not this.” Fitz waves his hand in the air. “Not this pretend stuff we’ve been doing. No, I mean really go back to the way it was before. No more pretending.”

She looks up at him, an indignant look on her face. “I’m not pretending.”

“Aw come off it, Jemma. We’ve both been pretending. We’ve been pretending that this isn’t awkward, that we’re getting there, but we both know we’re caught in a loop that we’ll never break out of if we don’t try.”

She smiles, a true smile, and he feels his heart jump a little in his chest. “I think you may have a point.”

“We’re overthinking it,” he continues, on a roll now. “And I think we should stop thinking and-”

“-and just do,” she finishes.

“Yeah.” He feels a little breathless, her look at him like this, like he means something to her. It’s a look he thinks he could get used to. “Exactly that.”

“Alright.” She nods her head. “No more pretending.”

He nods, all serious even though he could jump for joy. “I believe we have a deal.”

“You have some good ideas, Fitz,” she tells him. “Only sometimes, of course.”

“Of course,” he says solemnly. “Wouldn’t want to get too big for my boots, now. I’m glad I’ve got you to keep me in the real world.”

She laughs and shakes her head, mumbling under her breath that he’s an idiot, and he knows without a doubt that there has never been a lovelier thing to be called.

-x-

They go on a date.

It’s just to the cinema, and to anyone looking it’s just a regular outing for a woman and her bodyguard but to them it’s so much more. He wears nice shirt and trousers, as opposed to the strict black and white attire of his normal work day, and Jemma curls her hair and puts in a pair of sparkly earrings that throw rainbows around the room everytime she laughs.

They hold hands under the cover of darkness and, when Fitz introduces Jemma to the concept of sneaking in their own treats, they have to hold back their laughter as they tease packets of maltesers and minstrels out of their pockets.

It’s silly and it’s fun and it goes a long way to relieving the tension that’s built up between them. For those two hours they aren’t anything other than themselves and it’s so wonderfully refreshing he can’t help but smile.

They don’t kiss but he doesn’t mind. She leans on his chest towards the end, head fitting comfortably under his chin, and he breathes a sigh of contentment.

He loves her so much he feels his heart could burst from it.

-x-

She drops the news when he least expects it.

Later he’ll think that he really ought to have known, or at least suspected that something was amiss. Jemma suggested a nice lunch and then a walk through the park after if they had time before they were missed. She picked at her food and drank a lot of her water and seemed eager to get the meal over with. With hindsight it will make sense, but for now he’s lost in the haze of love once again and has trouble seeing anything without the tinge of pink.

“Fitz,” she begins as they stroll though the park. “I have something to tell you.”

It’s a nice day and his face feels pleasantly warm, but her tone and the gravity he hears in there makes his blood run cold. “Alright,” he says slowly, not wanting to go any further but knowing he must. “Is it a good something or a bad something?”

It takes her a moment to respond. “It’s something.”

Oh shite. Oh shite. The last time there was something it didn’t end very well. Why does this always happen to him? Hasn’t he already done his time? Didn’t the car accident already cover it all? It seems he’ll be stuck like this forever, always repenting for some unknown sin.

“Okay.” He swallows, trying not to pay attention to the lump in his throat. “What’s the something?”

“I’ve decided to confess.”

At first, like always, he doesn’t know what she means. Confess what? He didn’t know she was religious. Then: oh. Confess, like the act a criminal might do when the conscience gets too much to bear.

“Wha-why? Why would you want to do that?”

He’s dropped his voice to a whisper, an unconscious thing more than anything else but it comes out as more of a hiss and only serves to make them look suspicious. Jemma throws him a look but keeps on walking, acting like nothing is happening but not very well. Thank God they aren’t spies; they’d be terrible at it.

“I have to, Fitz. I was thinking about what you said-”

“Jemma-”

“No, let me speak. I was thinking about what you said and you were right: I can’t go around thinking that my actions don’t have consequences. Even if what happened was unintended, even if I didn’t mean it or didn’t think about it, it doesn’t matter. I have to own up. It’s the right thing to do.”

It should make him glad. It should make him so glad to hear these words but it just makes him incredibly sad. He never meant to say what he did in the fight. His chest aches. Jemma, it seems, has that effect on him.

“Don’t do this for me,” he says, voice strained. “Just don’t.”

“I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for me.” She smiles. “This is about what I can live with.”

“You could go to jail.”

“I might,” she agrees, nodding. “Or I might not. I don’t know what will happen exactly but I know that I have to do this, Fitz. For me.”

He gets that part, about doing things for yourself. After the accident it was all he wanted: to own his decisions and take control of his life. How could he try and dissuade someone from doing the same thing?

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “When?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you before I do. I promise.”

He nods and takes her hand, uncaring of who might see them anymore. He blinks rapidly, not wanting her to see the sudden wetness in his eyes. It’s hard and it seems unfair and yet he knows it’s right. Besides, it’s not about him.

She’s right: it’s all about her. Hasn’t this, right from the beginning, always been about her?

-x-

It’s raining.

They had agreed to meet in the park afterwards, the place in which she broke the news. “I’ll meet you there after I’m done,” she’d said, trying and failing to hide how nervous she was. “If I don’t come then, well, you know…”

He paces in the mud, ruining his boots. It doesn’t matter, it’s not as though he’ll be employed for much longer anyway. If it goes one way he’s quitting, leaving this behind and seizing the day. If it goes the other… it doesn’t even bear thinking about.

A jacket was a good idea and he’s proud that he managed to remember one this time. He’d been at home ready to shift-swap when Jemma had phoned. “Don’t come to mine,” she’d said, and he had known exactly what she had meant. “I need to be alone for a while, I think. Yes, I need to be alone.”

Fitz had tried to dissuade her, of course, because there was a chance that he might not see her for a while depending on which way it went. But she had been adamant, never shifting, and eventually he’d admitted defeat. He understands her, sometimes it scares him how much, and so he’d let her go. Alone.

His heart thumps in his chest, pounding like the rain pounds down all around him. He left his phone in the car; the empty notifications would only crank up his stress level. He’s already at the edge and one little thing might just tip him right over.

It’s too much. It’s all too much. He wonders what’s happening in the office of Jemma’s boss right now. He wonders if he should go over there. But she’d told him to stay away… If she doesn’t come soon, if he doesn’t at least know something soon then he’s going to drive himself insane.

“Come on, Jemma,” he mutters. “Come on.”

His watch says it’s just past four. She went in at three, or at least she said she was going to. He has to begin to watch where he paces; he’s worn tracks in the mud and now it’s slippery, dangerously so. One false move and it will all fall down.

His brain feels so lost. It’s a strange sensation. Nothing in his life has felt like this before. He hopes nothing will again. These kinds of nerves make him sick to his stomach; they wrap around his throat and make it so he cannot breathe.

How do people live with this, he wonders? How do people stand this kind of anticipation?

He’s three seconds from an almighty meltdown when he sees someone rushing towards him, not even mindful of the slippery paths. Swiping water from his eyes, he squints to see the figure, not daring to hope that perhaps, for once, things might actually be alright.

“Fitz!” The figure yells through the water, waving manically. “Fitz!”

Heart in his throat, he begins to carefully make his way towards her. Surely not…

“Fitz!” She makes it to him before she slips and he catches her just in time.

He grins. “You’re here.”

“So I am,” she says, grinning back.

“Are you fired?”

She laughs, water dripping from the hood of her jacket onto her nose. “Oh absolutely.”

He tilts his head to the side. “You seem awfully happy about that.”

“I am, Fitz. I really, really am.”

Jemma Simmons, right from the beginning, has always been a mystery. He could quite willingly spend the rest of his life trying to figure her out. No matter how much he thinks he understands, there will always be things he will never know completely.

“So,” he asks, finally letting go of her arms. “What happened?”

“He was mad, very mad and he called me a great many names that I won’t repeat but he said they won’t be taking it any further.”

Fitz’s eyebrow raises so far so fast he’s surprised it doesn’t come off his face. “They won’t.”

Jemma looks down at the ground. “No.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not going to like this,” she murmurs. She looks back up and takes a deep breath. “They don’t want to risk further public humiliation. Imagine the scandal if one of their own scientists leaked information because she couldn’t trust them.”

He nods. “Makes sense. What wouldn’t I like about that?”

“Well it’s not just that… they also don’t want to upset my father.”

“Ah.”

“He’s like a god to them and they’re worried that if they pressed charges or brought more attention then they would upset him. Not because it’s me, no, but because it would smear his name. He would inevitably be brought into the scandal and that’s something they just don’t want to risk. So, if I go and I go quietly then they’ll say no more about it. They’ll lose his money, of course, but better that than incur his wrath.” She gives him a sheepish smile. “You see?”

“I see.” He scuffs his boot into the mud, cringing at the squelch it makes. “Why wouldn’t I be happy about that?”

She gives him A Look. “Oh come on, Fitz. You’ve had this whole thing about privilege, right from the start.”

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “But it’s not like I wanted you to go to jail. Besides, this was all about you, you said that yourself. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“You’re sure?”

He grins, relishing the opportunity to be the bigger one. “You idiot, of course I am.”

She hugs him, a bone crushing hug, and then slowly brings her hands to his face and kisses him. It’s familiar, something he’s missed, and yet also different. There’s something there that wasn’t before. A taste of freedom. He thinks he could get used to it.

They break apart, almost reluctantly. Foreheads touching, they stand in the muddy grass with the rain pouring down all around them. The park is deserted. It feels like they’re the only two people in the world. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.

“So,” he begins, a little breathily. It’s cold, he can feel it on his face, yet he glows from warmth.

“So,” she mirrors, laughing a little. It’s a strange feeling, he’ll admit. Not so long ago it felt like an ending and now the future stretches out before them, completely infinite.

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know, but…” she finds his hand and takes it, gripping tightly. Their skin is wet, hands are freezing, and yet he knows it will take a lot for them to let go. “Whatever we do, I’d like us to be together.”

His heart thumps with relief. What a strange journey this has been. He would take it again in a heartbeat. All roads lead home. All roads lead to her.

“I’d like that,” he says.

“Then it’s settled.” Her eyes flash with victory. “Together.”

He kisses her again. It’s like they’re one. “Together.”

-x-

BREAKING NEWS: LONDON SCIENTIST WHO CREATED BLUEPRINT FOR SUPERHUMANS INVENTS NEW NON-LETHAL WEAPONARY THAT COULD CHANGE WARFARE AS WE KNOW IT

Dr. Jemma A. Simmons, the scientist who had her blueprint for superpowered humans leaked last year, and her partner Dr. Leopold J. Fitz have released their new prototype for non-lethal weaponry ahead of their upcoming R&D conference in London next month.

The prototype, which Dr. Fitz has affectionately named ‘The Night-Night Gun’, is a miraculous combination of engineering and biochemistry. A custom tranquilliser rifle, its bullets are non-lethal and have heavy stopping power, allowing them to break up under subcutaneous tissue. When broken up they deliver a small amount of dendrotoxin which renders their target unconscious long enough for them to be secured. Trials are still ongoing but so far, no ill side-effects have been reported.

This new invention comes weeks after Drs Fitz and Simmons announced their first big project out of their new development company: SHIELD. Speaking to Dr Simmons, she said, “SHIELD is deigned to keep people safe. We want our designs to be used to help rather than harm. The ‘Night-Night Gun’ is just one of many ongoing designs we have that will help us reach our goal of a safer, better world.”

Dr. Simmons and her former bodyguard-turned-partner Leopold Fitz founded StrategicScience last year after Dr. Simmons left her previous job at BioMatic labs after her top-secret research was leaked leading to weeks of harassment. It was never discovered who leaked the research but Scotland Yard dropped the active investigation after all leads were exhausted.

Speaking about her ordeal, Dr Simmons said, “It was a tough time, there’s no denying that, but I had some excellent people around me who supported me and were nothing less than extraordinary the entire time. I learned a lot and it gave me the courage I needed to start a different company with focuses that were much more aligned with my own interests.”

“I also met my wonderful partner, Fitz, who started off as my protection officer and became something much more. We have an excellent working relationship and it’s always fun to see what we can create together. He’s my life, heart and home. I wouldn’t want to do this with anybody else.”

Speaking about his own feelings on the subject, Dr. Fitz said, “It’s really important, the work we do. We want to show people that science has practical applications that can really make a difference, which is definitely something that’s sort of ignored on the bigger world stage. Our SHIELD project aims to change that and I really think it will.”

Speaking about his relationship with Dr. Simmons, Dr. Fitz said, “Words just don’t really seem enough. She’s my partner. She’s incredibly smart and passionate and it makes her so great to work with. I’m just, well, I’m well aware that I’m the luckiest man on any planet.”

Drs ‘Fitzsimmons’, as they are now being dubbed within the scientific community, have promised that their work has only just begun, and that the ideas for their life-saving designs, along with their partnership, show no sign of going anywhere anytime soon.