#leofitzfic

This had shattered what was left of Fitz. His life, his friends, his confidence in himself. All of it was awash in a mad storm and Skye knew all too well what it was like to be abandoned by somebody she was sure had loved her, in one way or another. She knew all to well what Fitz must be feeling: after all, Jemma had never given either of them a reason for leaving, had never even said goodbye. Skye had thought – and so had Fitz apparently – that she had just been headed off on a visit home, but then she’d dropped off the radar. Just like that. Fitz had torn himself up over it for weeks, and had come to the conclusion that she had given up on him, or been repulsed, or been scared off: that, for whatever reason, she had abandoned him. Skye had tried and tried to promise him that was not the case, but she couldn’t give him an alternative. If she were being honest, she was feeling quite abandoned too.

Unfortunately, this didn’t really help her reach out to Fitz as much as she might like. He was feeling lower than he’d ever felt, and he was bitter and angry and horrifically depressed and honestly, Skye was worried about him, but if Jemma couldn’t help him, how could she? And it didn’t help that he struggled to communicate back, too. He was different to how he was before, and it unnerved Skye – it unnerved all of them – and though she was more ashamed by the minute to admit it, she knew the team was starting to abandon him too. They ignored him when he got upset, instead of trying to figure out why. They didn’t stop the lab techs from gossiping, or from avoiding Fitz in the hallways. They even started to avoid him themselves. It was cowardly, Skye knew, but what else was there to do? She was busy, she told herself. She was just too busy.

But she loved her friend, and it hurt to see him, hear him, feel him in pain. She just needed a push in the right direction, to help her passion overcome her hesitation, and today was the day she received that push, in the form of a crashing sound. It could have been a mistake, she thought, but then it was followed by another, and a howl of anger and despair.

It was coming from Fitz’s room, of all places, and Skye’s first thought was that he must be in danger so she ran up to his door with her heart in her throat. The smashes and thuds continued in a fairly regular pattern, with the occasional cursing and muttering and wordless screeches in between. Then there was a break. Perhaps he’d run out of things to throw around, but he seemed to be breathing heavily. Running out of momentum? Skye took a deep breath. It was now or never.

She keyed in his code and the door slid open.

Fitz turned to her and for a brief, brief moment she saw his body light up as if he thought that maybe, just maybe, it was Jemma coming home. When he saw that it was Skye, he froze up. There were books and clothes and sheets and instruments and souvenirs scattered about the place, some more broken than others, and he standing amongst it all. Helpless. Distressed. He held a plastic model Tardis in one hand, clenching and unclenching his fingers around it as if waiting for the fury and pain to bubble back up and inspire him to throw it to the ground, but it did not. It hovered below the surface, quelled by that brief moment of hope that all was not lost, and by the fact that Skye hadn’t turned and left him yet.

“I don’t think you want to do that,” Skye offered. “You don’t want to break that, Fitz. Maybe put it down?”

Fitz clenched his fist again, until he could feel the plastic straining against his fingers. Surely nothing would be such a satisfying cure to the tension beneath his skin, than to throw it into his dresser mirror, or similar. It probably wouldn’t break though, and his arm didn’t want to move anyway. Tension was turning to tears, overwhelmed by confusion and frustration and shame.

“It’s okay, Fitz, I’m not going to take it off you,” Skye assured him. “I just… I understand. I understand why you’re so hurt so angry, but this isn’t how you want to deal with it. I promise.”

He nodded. She waited a beat and asked,

“Can I come in?”

Fitz retreated and sat on the side of his bed. Skye stepped through the carnage to join him, and he realised as a bitter taste settled on his tongue, that she was right. Littered across the floor were Academy shirts and jackets and books he and Jemma had once studied together. A little carved monkey on a keychain, a gift she’d bought him from their first trip to the Central Park Zoo. An old copy of the Hobbit, with some of its pages scattered – it hadn’t been faring well before this onslaught, when Jemma had read it to Fitz at his bedside. Seeing it finally broken brought tears to his eyes, and all he could think of was how much Jemma loved that book. What had he done?

Skye inhaled slowly, heavily, as she took in the wreckage of the room. Beside her, Fitz whimpered with regret and heartache and Skye began to feel herself fill with the same. She’d been doing quite well with denying how much she missed Jemma, by hiding in the betrayal of it all just as well as Fitz did sometimes, but the loose ends still stung sometimes. Especially since she’d hoped to be putting those days behind her – which was part of the reason she had come in here. She took Fitz’s hand, the one not still half-heartedly clinging to the Tardis, and intertwined his fingers with hers. She leaned into him, until the warmth and pressure soothed them both.

“I don’t mean, like, you shouldn’t be angry,” she clarified solemnly. “I’m angry too, I get it. I know you loved her a lot and sometimes it feels like it was all some big joke and none of this is worth it anymore, right? It’s just- I’ve been there, and I wish somebody had stopped me.”

“…From what?” Fitz asked, after a moment.

Skye drew a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. More came to take their place, but apparently it was going to be that kind of a moment, so she let them be this time.

“You know how I was… I was in the foster system when I was a kid. Some of the homes, they sucked, but some of them were great. They were really great. But even the great ones kicked me out. Sent me back. I mean, now I know it was Shield making them do it, to keep me safe or whatever, but it still- it still hurt, you know?” She sniffed again, suddenly feeling acutely like that little girl all over again. She squeezed Fitz’s hand and pushed on. It had been so long since she’d thought about this, and felt it all, that now she couldn’t stop.

“One family, they bought me this camera,” she recalled. “Oh, it was beautiful. Way fancier than I knew anything about, so I spent weeks reading the manual and watching these tutorial things, learning everything I could about it. Taking pictures of literally everything. We went on a camping trip, me and them and their son and daughter, and I documented it all on this camera and I was going to scrapbook it and everything. I finally thought I was part of something. But of course…”

“They sent you back.”

“Yeah.” Skye blinked. Closed her eyes for a moment, lost in the bittersweet memory of her last few moments of peace at that house. “As soon as we got home. I didn’t even get to unpack.

“So of course I was furious, and I smashed the camera and ripped the manual all up and everything and it wasn’t until way later, after I’d run away and was living alone in my van feeling sorry for myself one night, that I realised… I’d destroyed everything I had of the people that had loved me. That had taken me into their home, their family. I could have done photography for money, I could have even sold the parts, but that’s not what I missed. It was the photos. It was the whole thing, what it meant. It was gone. Forever. All because I’d been a bit too angry for a few too many seconds.

“I just- I didn’t want that to happen with you and Simmons. That’s all.”

She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes, and glanced at Fitz’s other hand – the one around the Tardis. He lifted it from his lap, and put the Tardis down on the bed-sheets beside him, safely away from impulsive hands. In silence, Fitz took a few moments to let Skye’s story sink in, and then squeezed her hand.

“Thank you,” he said. “I think- I think you’re right.”

“I hope I’m right,” Skye added.

“Me too.”

“I came out,” he declared. “Well – I guess I didn’t, technically, come out ‘til just now. You’re the first person I’ve told. Joey knows, sort of, but-“

“As what?” Jemma interrupted.

“Hm?”

“Came out as what?” Her eyes glimmered with pride and excitement. She bit back her instinct to say I told you so, and grinned at him instead. “You never said.”

“Oh,” he said, and grinned, as the gears in his head stopped grinding; overthinking; qualifying. “I’m bi.”

Jemma squealed, jostling the popcorn dangerously close to falling out of the bowl.

“Tell me everything!” she begged. “How did you know? When did you know? Was it Mack? It was Mack wasn’t it. Or was it Hunter… He’s a little roguish, but he’s got that loner-with-a-heart-of-gold air working for him quite well, doesn’t he? I can see you falling for that.”

Fitz waved her off. “It was lots of things. Ever since the Academy. I just kept telling myself, it was nothing – you know, it was hormones or jealousy or whatever.”

“Life goals or wife goals,” Jemma added, nodding in understanding.

“- but every time I started to think about it, really think about it,” Fitz continued, “something would happen, and it would go away, or I’d spook myself and hide it. Joey saw through all that, and he sort of- he got me to reflect on all this stuff, the crushes and everything, and I realised that actually… I’ve known about this for a long time. I just wasn’t ready to accept it.”

Jemma nodded. Her own sexual awakening had come to her rather easily, but she knew a good number of people for whom it had not been so simple, or welcomed. Yet she couldn’t help but spare a moment of solemnity for the messy timing of all this. She found herself wanting to ask, so what does this mean for us?, but of course she already knew. The answer was probably, nothing. Just because Fitz now recognised another side to his romantic and sexual nature, it didn’t change his feelings for her, and it didn’t change the mess they were in. And it didn’t change the fact that he still trusted her enough to tell her first.

“How do you feel about it now?” she asked instead.

“Honestly, good,” Fitz replied, then qualified - “Most of the time. I still doubt myself sometimes, or I think, what would Mack say if he caught me staring, you know? Would it change things between us?”

Seeing that he was starting to fret, Jemma put an arm around Fitz’s shoulder and pulled him close. These were waters she knew well.

“That’s okay,” she promised. “These are all very normal feelings, and you don’t have to tell Mack – or anyone – if you don’t want to. But he’s a good man and he won’t hate you for it. And, you know, have you ever considered that it could change things in a good way? If you feel like you’re hiding something or lying to him now, coming out might help that. You’ll feel more secure. And… you might even get a date out of it. I don’t know Mack’s situation, of course, but if I were you I wouldn’t let those guns pass me by without letting him know I was on the table.”

“… That’s a very sexual image.”

“Yes it is.” Jemma bit her tongue. She was going to enjoy mocking Fitz relentlessly, he always got so flustered when it came to matters of the body, but she had to ease him into it first. “But it’s not just a matter of that, is it? You said you liked the way Mack treats you, with respect, with forwardness, with kindness. You enjoy doing things together. Same taste in cars, same taste in movies; that’s as good a place as any to start. It seems to me you two could build, if you’d pardon the pun, quite the life together – or at least show each other a good time.

“Or what about Hunter? Now, I know for a fact he likes people of the masculine persuasion. He’s got a nice beard, very rugged, and don’t think I haven’t seen you checking out that ass. From what I’ve heard, he’s also a great softie, underneath all that swagger. You two would get along quite well, I’d imagine. Although, the fights over football would be a problem. He barracks for a different team does he not?”

Fitz snorted, as if about to start on a rant at the very thought, but then something occurred to him and he smiled to himself. “We play together too, though. Football, I mean. He’s rather good at it.”

“See?” Jemma nudged him. Fitz laughed.

“Alright, so are you going to set me up with every guy in this place or what?” “Well, you don’t have many options left as regards the women,” Jemma pointed out. “Daisy’s somewhat taken, apparently; May, while gorgeous, is too old for you; and I’m sorry but Bobbi is just out of your league.”

“Oh, but right in yours is she?”

“What?” Now it was Jemma’s turn to blush.

“Don’t ‘what’ me,” Fitz scoffed, smugly taking another handful of popcorn. “You know full well what I’m talking about. You started at her legs when she walked into the lab the first time for a full minute. A full minute Jemma-“

“What about you!” Jemma retorted. “I saw you lick your lips when Mack walked out the other day with that tank top and the grease stain on his collarbone-“

“You started fake cursing like an old woman from the South the first time you saw Daisy without a top on-“

Verbal arguments failing her, Jemma shoved the bowl of popcorn at Fitz. He shoved it back, and she deflected it straight onto the floor, sending popcorn spilling out across the carpet. They paused for a moment in their bickering, and decided they’d best clean it up, so they slithered onto the floor together and crawled around on their hands and knees, dropping popcorn piece by piece back into the bowl. The fight was not over yet though, with Jemma taking this distraction as a chance to have the final word.  

“It’s not like you can talk, Mr ‘let me show you my equipment,’” she mumbled.

“What was that?” Fitz beckoned, and flicked a piece of popcorn at her. It bounced off her shoulder. “Did you have something you’d like to share with the class, Ms ‘well formed and symmetrical’?”

“Ugh, Fitz!” Jemma groaned, and threw a handful of kernels at him.