five times kissed - icantjoininyourshenangins
v: little white lies
icantjoininyourshenanigans
i. It’s when they’re young and in training, and are still getting used to their newly minted relationship. The transition into a relationship had proved - thankfully - not to be terribly awkward. It was mostly them finally letting themselves do the little things they’d kept themselves from doing for years. There were a lot more hugs. Plenty of hand-holding. Thus far, though, there hadn’t been any such thing as a spontaneous kiss. Each one started with a copious amount of eye contact, and what felt like ages of edging very gently forward. From time to time, Fitz had just asked if he could.
The first time he kisses her out of the blue , they’re studying for their exit exams, and they’re settled on the floor of Jemma’s dorm. He looks over, and she’s got her hair piled on top of her head, and is wearing one of his sweatshirts, and has highlighter on the edge of her right palm from accidentally dragging it through as she’s gone along with her review, marking key phrases and rereading the text. And the surge of affection hits him like a ton of bricks. It slams against him, and shocks his system, and temporarily makes him forget about anything that he’d been studying. And he’s got to kiss her. He has to. It is absolutely essential to his being. It’s become as necessary as breathing, or sleeping. So he leans over and gently plucks the highlighter pen from her hand, setting it down on the page. When she looks up - all furrowed eyebrows and confusion - he puts his hand on her jaw and his mouth on hers, and kisses her like he’s dying of thirst, and she’s the first drink of water he’s ever had.
To his surprise, she doesn’t question it. She just closes her textbook.
ii. It’s when they’re back at his parent’s house for Christmas, and they’re 19, and stupid in love. It’s been two years since they graduated early from the Academy, and they’ve settled in nicely with SHIELD life. They have a flat. And it’s small, and it’s SHIELD housing, but it’s theirs, and it suits them fine. It’s taken some time, though. It took time to unpack, and it took time to find furniture, and it took time to get upper-level agents to trust them enough to throw them projects. Because of that, they hadn’t been able to come back last Christmas. And because of that, they haven’t been around Fitz’s family since back before they got together. They’ve been around Jemma’s. Her parents and brothers have witnessed them as a couple. His parents, however, have not.
And it’s the first time that he kisses her in front of them. It’s the first time that his family has witnessed the more-than-friendly affection that they’ve been so avidly watching for for the past four years. He doesn’t even mean to - not really. It’s more of an accident than anything. By this point, at two years of being together, kissing her frequently is reflex. It’s become habit. Showing her little expressions of love have become part of his daily routine. So when he opens his gift from her, he finds himself smiling warmly, and he looks over and she looks like that, and he leans forward and presses a tiny peck to her lips. It’s almost not a kiss, because they’re both smiling for the brief time that their lips are touching.
But he can hear his mother squeak happily from across the room.
iii. It’s when they’re 23 and they’ve gotten a little caught up in themselves. They’re young enough that their hormones are still going strong, and they’ve been together long enough that keeping being together a secret has started to get old. They’ve just cracked a problem they’ve been thinking on for a week or so, and when they finally do, they kiss. And when they start kissing, they don’t really stop. It’s reckless, and inadvisable, and something that has plenty of room to end with them regretting it later - and they don’t care. It’s hands, and teeth, and sighs. It’s stumbling into the closet, and fumbling, and they very definition of a quick escalation. It’s shushing, and laughing, and breathing out each other’s names.
But he pulls back at one point to look at her with soft eyes and a liquid expression, and all she does is beam at him, press her forehead to his, and whisper, “I know”.
iv. It’s when they’re screaming at each other, and pulling at their own hair, and pleading with the other to just listen. They never fight. As a general rule. They are the poster couple for pairing a good knowledge of how to agree to disagree with a cosmic compatibility. This is out of the norm. This is bad. This is proof positive to Fitz that even the very concept of change is something that is never accompanied with much of anything good. He hates fighting with her, he really does. And he hates what this offer has done to them already. And hating what it’s done to them makes him hate the concept of uprooting and running off to board some bloody plane even more.
And then she puts her hands on the table and leans forward, head bowed, obscuring her face from sight. And when she asks, “Do you want us to split up?, he can hear the tears in her voice. But those seven words have deterred him from his war path to get them to stay put, and he can physically feel himself pale. And then he’s by her side in an instant, hand on her shoulder, talking softly. He explains to her that that’s the last thing he wants, and that if that’s what it’s going to come down to, then he’ll…he’ll go. And of course, she’s quick to make it clear that that wasn’t an ultimatum. That she wasn’t using their relationship as a bargaining chip. That they could try long distance. But he’s just as quick to tell her that he hadn’t taken it that way, and that there’d be no point in staying if she didn’t, anyway. He wants a life with her. He tells her that, and she paws the tears off of her face - because soldier’s daughters do not cry - and turns and kisses him. It’s tinged with relief, tainted with desperation. It’s the flavor of their fight, and of their make up. He keeps her close. He promises that it’ll all be okay.
He has no idea how wrong he’ll be.
v. It’s when he first opens his eyes, and he’s disoriented. He doesn’t remember any of it, not straight away. He just sees Jemma, and he looks over at her, and he’s instantly comforted on some sort of subliminal level that he can’t quite understand. It’s a familiar image - her beside him, reading peacefully. But he’s only half-there, and he wants her attention, so he rasps out something that almost resembles her name…and damn it all if that book isn’t on the floor within half a second, abandoned by its holder in her haste to stand.
When she looks down at him, there are tears in her eyes, and one big grin on her face. He feels her fingers in her hair. Feels her other hand land on his cheek, cool, and slim, and feather-light. She starts to ask him questions, and he knows that they’re routine, and that he’s been out for a while (even though they’re asked in a soft, sweet voice). He can tell that she’s stalling, but he doesn’t know what for at first. When he does realize it, he doesn’t feel sleepy anymore. He’s wide awake, and he’s in pain, and his legs don’t work quite right. Or his lungs. Or his hand. Or his anything, really. The force of the sudden realization knocks all of the air out of his lungs, and all of the sudden he’s struggling to get any back in at all.
And she’s shushing, and soothing, and doing what she does so well. There are a few murmured, “no, love“‘s, and plenty of, “Leo, please“‘s. She winds up having to grab an oxygen mask as she strokes the side of his neck. When she does finally get him through the anxiety and stabled out again, she takes the mask off of him, and lets out a long breath of her own. She holds his face with both of her hands, and leans down to kiss him for as long as she knows his lungs can stand at the present moment. “It’s going to be okay,” she promises quietly. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
"We’re going to fix this. Together."
