#post-framework

Fitz: I want Jemma back.

Written for the “having the courage to talk to Jemma for the first time” prompt for Team Engineering’s The Fitz Wish List. Academy-Era and post-Framework.

many thanks to @itsavolcano for the beta!

Read below or at ao3.

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i. then

Fitz knows he and Jemma Simmons will get along. He can tell by the way she eagerly raises her hand in lecture, by the way she fidgets when she’s chapters (books, really) ahead of the rest of the class. By her accent, which isn’t home, but it’s home-adjacent, and since he’s thousands of miles from his mum and his city, home-adjacent is more than enough. He can tell by the fact that she’s his age and has two PhDs, by the way their classmates seem to like her but don’t confide in her. She’s warm and friendly, but decidedly an odd bird, and underneath the surface she seems as lonely as he is. She has a Doctor Who sticker on her notebook and a fondness for his favorite kind of tea. In the same way he knows the laws of thermodynamics and that if he takes a machine apart he’ll be able to put it back together again, he knows, without a doubt, that she could be his friend.

When she answers a question in class, he helpfully adds on. Her ideas are dazzling, and he can’t contain the excitement he feels when imagining how his work could complement hers. His suggestions only spur even wilder possibilities from her, until inevitably their professors are forced to shut down their debate and their classmates look like they’ve had front row seats to Wimbledon.

But she always packs her things into her bag before Fitz can close his book, and in the library he’s too scared to make conversation.

“Hello,” he practices in front of the mirror, when his roommate is out. “Can you believe that work Professor Vaughn assigned? It’s so easy, right?” He raises an eyebrow and immediately cringes. He was aiming for disarming but thinks he landed on lecherous instead.

“Jesus Christ, man,” his roommate groans, stumbling into the room and somehow surmising, despite his inebriated state, what Fitz had been up to. “Why do I always get stuck with the children? Do you need your mummy to come make friends for you, too?”

Fitz’s face burns bright red and he rushes out of the room. When he nearly runs over Jemma Simmons in his haste to exit the building, he thinks how in the movies, this would be the moment she notices and comforts him. Instead, it’s the moment he decides to give up, because he’s wearing pajamas with monkeys on them and his eyes are watery, and maybe that angry voice in his head, the one that’s usually drowned out by his mum’s, really was right this whole time.

The day he finds himself paired with Jemma Simmons in chem lab, he can’t find the courage to even say hi. She might be having an off-day, because she seems annoyed when she sits next to him, and she doesn’t bother making polite conversation.

The longer this goes on, the more dejected he feels. There are so many things he wants to tell her, but if he stumbles over the words in his head, he has no hope of speaking them aloud. Every day he hears an irate, drunken voice telling him he’s stupid and worthless. Every day, he does nothing to disprove the accusations.

When the professor hands back their first lab assignment, she gives them each a genuinely warm smile. “Outstanding work, Fitz, Simmons. I knew pairing you two up could produce fascinating, creative results. I’d love for you to continue with this project on your own if you have the time. Why don’t you drop by my office hours sometime this week?”

Fitz and Simmons both nod mutely, matching wide eyes and stunned expressions. It’s certainly not the first time their work has been praised, or even the first time a professor has wanted to mentor one or the other outside of class. But it’s the first time a partnership has yielded a better outcome than solo effort. Fitz suddenly remembers all the times he’d thought his work could benefit from Simmons’s expertise and now it has, almost without him noticing.

Maybe, he thinks, as their professor leaves them to consider her offer, it’s not too late for a friendship after all. Maybe together they really could be twice as smart.

He licks his lips and shoves his hands beneath the table to hide the shaking. “So,” he says, smiling bravely, “can you believe that work Professor Vaughn assigned?”

++

He wanted to let her sleep. But he also knew if he didn't wake her up and they missed the party she would be quite cross with him. 

“Another Season 4 spec fic?” she asked in disbelief. “Sure,” her brain replied.  “Are you nuts?” she followed up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her brain countered.  *head desk*

I blame @agl03 😉

He who is without sin…

[Contains semi-spoilery information if you avoid any and all spoilery sources including synopses for upcoming episodes and online magazine articles.] 

Sneak Peek below the cut.

Jemma: How? By putting me in more danger?

I never mind for youuuu! :) here’s a healthy dose of angst, haha. just what the doctor ordered? *cries about Fitzsimmons forever*

Up on AO3! Beginning below:

———-

Fitz thinks of all the evenings he longed for her, ashamed of both his lust and his love. He can still feel the ache he buried so deeply within himself it became part of his genetic makeup. He remembers lying on his bed in a cramped bunk, the quiet whir of the plane bleaching to white noise, thinking: I love you and I want you to be happy, even if it’s not with me. He remembers the traitorous prayer, washing over him each night as he faded into sleep, when he was at his most vulnerable and could no longer fight it: But please, please love me back.

He thinks of this and wonders how he could have been so naïve. He’d had so little experience of the world; he didn’t know it was possible to share a bed with someone you loved with your whole heart and still feel empty and alone. He didn’t know it was possible to receive everything you’d ever wished for, only to watch yourself slowly tear it all to shreds.

Maybe things would be different if they weren’t in some mysterious space prison. Maybe on Earth there could be therapy and indefinite leave to a cottage in Perthshire. He imagines it, sometimes, when he feels he deserves the extra punishment. Jemma would smile—like she used to, not this small brittle expression she gives him now, as if he’ll shatter at any moment.

Here they’ve all been separated. He hears murmurings from the guards occasionally, a whispered mention of “Coulson” or a sneering, contemptuous “Little Ms. Quake.” A part of him can’t wait until they’re free and Daisy makes their captors pay, but mostly he keeps his head down and hands Jemma the tools she needs.

As far as he can tell, the menial labor they do only serves to keep this ship/station/rock thing in space. Still, he can’t help the tremors that run through him at the idea that his work, however inconsequential, could be supporting something horrible and he has no idea. He had refused, at first, which landed him in solitary confinement with no food or water until Jemma had been allowed in his cell to beg.

“We’re just keeping ourselves alive,” she’d said. “I can’t find any evidence that what we’re doing in the lab is hurting anyone.”

At his silence she had grabbed his hand. “I promise, and if I’m wrong it’ll be my burden to bear.”

And when he still didn’t respond, she had forced him to look at her and she had cried. “You can’t do this to me,” she said. “You can’t kill yourself like this.”

So now his days follow a steady, unvarying rhythm he’s never before experienced: a shrill, station-wide alarm in the morning, a quick shower, toast and butter with Jemma and a ridiculous number of guards, mindless work in the lab, a thirty-minute lunch break, rotations to fix a keyboard or the wiring in a door panel, dinner with Jemma and a second group of guards, and then lights out in their room.

He has the side of the bed near the wall, and every night he curls as far away from her as he can manage. During the day, they work together seamlessly. Sometimes they even joke, and sometimes he looks at her and for half a second believes they’re back home in their lab, happy and in love, before everything fell apart.

But at night their bodies are too close and he’s never felt more alone. She cries when she thinks he’s asleep, silently, her body barely moving.

He wants to extend a hand and touch her. He wants to hold her and tell her everything will be okay. But he would be lying, and at any rate, he’s lost the right. So he listens to her cry and bites down on his knuckles, hard, to keep himself from reaching for her. Eventually, her shaking subsides into the tortured breathing of her nightmares, and he lets sleep force him under as well.

Hi, love! This ended up being Fitz/Daisy brotp with a mention of Jemma, hope that’s okay! But I’ll let you know if I come up with something else. :)

++

Daisy sits on the couch and reaches a hand gently towards him. He thinks for a moment she’s going to caress his cheek or smooth his hair out, but instead she wraps her fingers around his throat and squeezes softly.

He’s not alarmed, but he is confused. He doesn’t understand her joke, although these days nothing seems funny anyway.

“Do you remember what this felt like?” she whispers. “I don’t understand how you can forget, but you’re not afraid of me.”

Her hand drops away suddenly and he blinks like she’s released him from a fog. “What?” he asks.

“Hive.” Maybe this is the joke: every time, their traumas can be reduced to a single word. Devastations that will take lifetimes to unravel can be conjured up in a syllable.

He turns his head from her, unwilling to follow her train of thought.

“I nearly killed you, Fitz. I thought I would never get over the guilt, but you told me over and over again that it wasn’t me. How is this any different?”

“It’s different, Daisy, and you know that.” She takes his hand in hers and he flinches. His fingers twitch in her palm and he only lets himself take a second of her comfort before withdrawing from her grasp. He covers up the hand that had hit her as if hiding it will erase what he’d done.

Daisy smiles sadly. “Fitz, you’re more afraid than I am of you hitting me. I know you won’t do it. I know you would never do it.”

“But I did,” he protests, and this time he uses his hands to cover his eyes as tears drop from his lashes. “I hurt you so badly.”

Daisy sighs and sinks further into the couch, crossing her arms over her chest protectively. “I’ve survived much worse than a slap. But you’re right, it did hurt. It hurt to see you and remember you as someone who’s been my best friend for years and know you felt nothing for me. It hurt that I couldn’t get through to you. I guess it’s stupid but I really believed, you know, in the power of love or whatever bullshit. I didn’t realize the extent of her programming.”

She turns to look at him. He’s silent, but his shoulders are shaking with barely-contained sobs. “Fitz, you know what really hurt the most? It was having this faith that we would get you out and you’d be yourself again, and knowing that you’d never forgive yourself. I know what that’s like, and I would never wish that feeling on anyone. Especially not someone I love so much.”

He’s quiet for so long that time seems to pause and settle around them like a stifling blanket. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs finally, voice nearly washed away in his tears and muffled by his hands. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

She frowns, confused. “You were always pretty collected, actually. Did you ever yell at me?”

Fitz shakes his head, still not looking up. “Here. After…after you left. I’m sorry for yelling.”

Daisy hesitates before inching closer to him, like he’s an injured animal who might run at the slightest provocation. “It’s okay,” she says. “I can see how that would have felt for you.” She pauses for a moment, considering. “You’re…you’re not planning to run away too, are you?”

He laughs, but it’s entirely without mirth. “I don’t know where I could go,” he confesses. “You can’t run away when all of the monsters are in your own head.”

She rests a hand on his shoulder carefully and this time he doesn’t pull away. He melts against her, like he’s just not strong enough to fight against the solace she offers. “Yeah,” she says. “I learned that the hard way.”

He concentrates on matching his breathing with hers. Lately, it seems like even this is a struggle, but if he counts out her inhalations and exhalations carefully, he finds he can follow the pattern and relax for just a moment.

“You know,” she continues, “to be honest I think maybe I had the right idea, though. The execution was just poor. Also I pushed myself too far. Okay, really, it was very self-destructive and unhealthy. But I think there’s something to removing yourself, even temporarily, from a situation that’s this painful. Jemma mentioned you two had been talking about going to Scotland for a visit…what if you just stayed there? Not permanently, but indefinitely.”

Fitz frowns. “By myself?” He has always hated being alone, even now when he’s using isolation as a form of self-punishment.

“No, of course not. You know Jemma would stay with you. God knows she could use a break too.”

“And what about you?” he asks, softly, like it’s a question he doesn’t have the right to voice.

She smiles then, a genuine smile, her first in ages. “You know I’ll visit all the time. Whenever you want me to. Probably even when you don’t.”

Hi, thanks for sending a prompt! I’m afraid I cheated a bit…I just couldn’t handle writing it exactly like this especially after last week’s ep. :/ But there is a pregnancy, haha. I have seen some other fics more in line with your request floating around, and of course anyone else is welcome to write this. Anyway, with that disclaimer, here we go:

++

She sits in the cell, defiant. Like Skye—or Daisy, he supposes—she hasn’t changed her story and she hasn’t flinched from the punishment. Her attitude towards him changes, though. Sometimes she seems truly heartbroken, eyes shimmering with tears she doesn’t even attempt to stop. Sometimes she is angry—at him, at herself, at the world. Sometimes she loses herself and begs, although not for her freedom. For him to remember her, of all things.

The thing is, he does remember her, in a way. Fragments of another life push through whenever he’s in the same room with her, and it inevitably frightens him. Ophelia had warned of fabricated memories implanted from the other world, and prior to this they had all felt false. Hollow, sepia-tinged, like someone has inserted pieces of another life into his brain but not bothered to fill them out with any real detail or emotion. He sees himself doing things that he’s never done, but he can’t feel any of it and that’s how he knows Ophelia is speaking the truth.

But the longer he spends with Jemma, the more these memories take root and refuse to be shaken. He finds that nothing in his life has scared him this much, because if she’s telling the truth (and she’s not, she can’t be), then he is losing control over the narrative. And nothing is guaranteed to destroy a life faster than losing control.

He knows if Ophelia were not bedridden, she would demand he stop visiting Jemma. He’s perfected the Looking Glass; there’s no need to bother with one subversive, even if she is the most dangerous subversive they’ve ever encountered.

But Ophelia is not here, and his father is not here, and some part of him needs to puzzle this woman apart before he can allow himself to escape.

“I know that you’re not my Fitz,” she says when he has come back one evening. He has a glass of water in his hand which he offers to her without thinking. He immediately hates himself for the sentiment. He should knock it out of her hand. He should. He will, later, when the jumbled noise in his head dissipates.

“I know that you’re not my Fitz,” she repeats, after greedily gulping the entire glass in one go. “But I can’t help loving you anyway.”

She says this oddly, as if speaking a truth but expecting nothing in return. It’s different, he thinks, from how Ophelia expresses her love, and he tightens his expression in response to the traitorous thought.

“I always thought you would come back to me, no matter what.”

Come back to me. That is why he hates her and yet is drawn to her—these mind games she somehow plays, these loaded phrases that should mean nothing yet pull at his heart in the strangest way.

His visits lately have been spent just like this—him sitting in a chair while she sags against the back wall. He doesn’t touch her; he hardly even speaks. She says whatever comes to her mind and he tries not to let the effect her words have show on his face.

Today, she stands up suddenly and he immediately stands as well. He should stop her. He should tell her to sit back down, but for some reason he can’t.

“I know you’re not him,” she says, tears hanging on her lashes, “and so I didn’t want to tell you this. It’s not for you to know when he doesn’t. But I need your help, Fitz, please.” Her hand drifts down until it rests against her flat stomach and she shudders through a sob.

“It’s nothing here. I’m just an avatar, and AIDA wouldn’t have known anyway. But in the real world, in our world, we’re going to have a baby. And if something happens to us, Fitz will never forgive himself.”

He doesn’t move for a moment. He wants to scoff. He wants to walk out of the room and leave her here forever. But he doesn’t—he can’t. She walks forward until she’s centimeters from him, and she doesn’t look afraid at all.

“I—” he starts, but his throat is dry and the words catch and crumble. She smiles at him sadly, and there’s something so familiar about it all. Was there a plane once? Another leap of faith?