“It’s just a scratch,” Fitz protests, after she all but throws him back onto the bed before scavenging for her first aid kit. “There’s no need to make a fuss, I’ll just clean it off in the shower.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says without looking up.

“Or you could clean it off in the shower—that would be perfectly acceptable as well.” It earns him a playful eyebrow raise over her shoulder, but doesn’t stall her mission until she’s found it. 

“This might sting a bit,” Jemma warns him, stepping into the space between his legs at the end of the bed with an antiseptic wipe. 

He sighs, “I know the drill,” but lets her dote over him nonetheless. When the scrape is clean enough for her standards, she thumbs over the skin below it with a small smile.

“All better,” she murmurs. She aims for a soft kiss to the corner of his smile, but lets out a happy noise of surprise when he turns his head at the last second so it lands on his mouth. Looping her arms around his neck, she climbs atop his lap and sighs into their kiss as the angle changes, causing them both to smile. Fitz runs his fingers down her sweater, pulls her flush close.

After a blissful moment, she pulls away to brush her nose against his softly, ponytail swinging. 

“It feels strange being back here,” he points out, gesturing to the bare walls around them—all of their belongings being in their apartment off-base they’d moved into shortly after their time in space. 

“Well, you heard Coulson: you’re—ah,” Jemma inhales sharply at the sensation of Fitz tipping his head to drop a warm kiss on her collarbone. “You’re needed in the morning, anyway.”

His teeth graze another spot nearby and she shivers. “You could’ve stayed back.”

“Mmm, and leave you to your lonesome?” She leans back to give him more room to work with. “Not on my watch.”

Moving up the side of her neck, he kisses his thanks against her skin as she dips her fingers beneath his collar, letting out little gasps and sighs when his lips land on particularly sensitive places.

“You know what else feels strange?” She asks. Before he can return from his trance enough to reply, Jemma has pulled free the chain around his neck he’d tucked beneath his undershirt before heading out on the mission, revealing the silver band hidden from any evil goon capable of using it against him. He grins stupidly as she unclasps the chain and slides the ring on his finger where it belongs, carefully, as if it were the first time. 

It’s routine at this point, the ceremonious reunion of ring to skin in a selfishly quiet moment after every op, and each day brings them closer to an unsaid day in the future where they no longer have to remove them, but Fitz can’t help the way his heart seems to flutter every time it occurs.

Within a few minutes, as she stared pensively out the window onto the grounds of Buckingham Palace, she heard sharp footsteps cross the hall and become muffled as the person entered the drawing room. A bright smile spread across her face, and she twisted quickly around to see that the new person was, in fact, her Fitz. He looked so dapper in his dress uniform, ever-unruly curls barely tamed and blue eyes shining as they met hers, that she sucked in a small breath of pleased surprise. Even though she’d seen him like this before, everything in the next twenty-four hours was guaranteed to be heightened, routines and familiar dress becoming all the more exciting for the life that it was designed to usher in.

The movement of the other dignitaries, guards, and servants now passing through the hall caught Jemma’s eye, and her smile faltered. For although Fitz’s touch was not precisely foreign to her, now was not the time for her to run up and throw her arms about his neck as she had been about to do.

“Well?” she said quietly, slipping around the large table with an enormous vase of decorative flowers that separated them. “They got through it?”

Fitz chuckled, slipping one finger into his collar and tugging slightly. “Yeah. I got through it, which is probably more impressive.”

“Well done, you,” she murmured, taking another step forward. Someone in the hall made a distinct huff, and they both turned, although the noise-maker had disappeared by the time they did. Jemma sighed. “I think they’d have preferred a nice, pink-faced marquis with a grouse moor in the Welsh borders.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t’ve preferred one of those?” Fitz said, clearly teasing but a hint of insecurity hovering beneath his words. “Someone with a grand title, instead of a homeless Scot with a disreputable family?”

“No,” Jemma answered right away, her gaze clear as she met his. Tension leeched out of his shoulders, and the look he gave her was one of adoration that she knew quite well by now. A smile teased at the corners of her mouth. “That would have been much too… antiseptic.”

“You like antiseptic, if I remember correctly,” he said, and she laughed, raising one hand to hide her mouth.

“So do you,” she retorted, folding her hands primly in front of her skirts as she glimpsed someone’s disapproving glance from the hall. “Otherwise you’d never come into my lab again.”

“If you didn’t leave cat livers lying about,” Fitz groused, and she giggled again, “then it wouldn’t be as much of a problem.”

“The livers keep things interesting.”

“You do that well enough on your own.” Another fond smile spread across his face as he finished talking, and she felt fit to bursting with her own happiness.

With the way Fitz was looking at her, she knew that he was likely to throw propriety to the wind at any second. Oh, on any other day she would love for him to just sweep her off her feet; but there was too much riding on the next couple of days. After all, she’d had to spend months pressing her case for their marriage, had needed to convince everyone from Buckingham to sundry that Fitz was worthy of the titles that had just been bestowed upon him. With luck, it would be very many more years yet before she became queen and he became the queen’s consort, but marrying the crown princess was still not something permitted to just anyone in the kingdom. Jemma, however, having found the source of her future happiness in her best friend in the world, had refused to let anything in the world keep them from being together. The trade-off was that for the next little while, they had to behave as good as gold in order to convince the rest of the world – and the extended royal family – that the match had not been a complete mistake.

After a few seconds, he half-glanced behind him and then stepped towards her. Reluctant to seem like she was rejecting him and yet also wary of drawing the attention of the judgmental people around them, Jemma tensed, prepared to step hastily back if need be. But all Fitz did was lay his hand on the round table, reaching towards her, and she realized he’d just been angling them so that the flowers hid their hands from any outside viewers. Giving him an admiring smile, Jemma slid her hand along the gray and white marble until it met his, their fingers slipping gently over each others’, skin barely ghosting against skin lest they need to separate again soon, all too soon. It had been well over a week since they’d been alone, and truth be told it was driving Jemma mad. If they could even just dance together, chests pressed so close they could nearly feel each others’ heartbeats, at this second, that would be enough for her.

Her eyes caught a smudge of grease on the outer side of his palm, and she let out a sharp hiss of annoyance. “Oh, Fitz! Please don’t tell me you were mucking about in the garage again, not now. You know you can’t do work like that until things have calmed down. The queen thinks it looks common.”

At least he had the grace to look sheepish. “The engine just needed a quick fix,” he explained, bright blue eyes widening imploringly. “It only took a second, and I was really careful that no one saw. Other than the drivers. And my butler.” She raised an eyebrow, and he grimaced. “Yeah, I know. I just – I like helping. I’m good at that, you know, that’s what I do out on tour. It makes me feel useful.”

“And normally, I love that about you,” she murmured, smoothing her palm up so that it rested firmly over his hand. His mouth twitched up at the corner, half in surprise and half in affection. Sometimes, she had the impression that he didn’t quite believe how in love with him she truly was. “But you have to give it up for now. For a few weeks. Until things have settled.”

Fitz sighed, giving his head a chastened nod. “I do miss working when I’m not. But,” he continued, turning her hand over and grasping it tightly with his, “like a great many other things, I’m going to give it all up for you.”

Jemma nearly found herself stepping forward, but the sound of more voices passing by in the hallway kept her in her place. Instead, she gave her fiancé a warm smile. “Well,” she said, tilting her head mischievously, “you still have twenty-four hours to change your mind.” Glancing down at the slim-banded watch on her wrist, she let out a small hum. “Closer to twenty-one hours, actually.”

“Do you really,” Fitz started quietly, taking another half-step forward and entwining their fingers completely, “think I would ever change my mind?”

They stood there in silence for a few moments, energy spinning between them along with all the words they knew had to go unsaid for just a little longer. Tomorrow night, at the end of far too many hours of pomp and circumstance, they would be able to leave propriety at the door and be together as they should. Without artifice, without costume, without company – other than each other. To say that Jemma had been dreaming about that moment for months was something of an understatement.

“No,” he said at last, breaking the quiet spell that had woven between them, “much too late for that.” With a laugh, he gestured back at the room across the hall, which seemed to have finally nearly emptied. “I just signed myself away and everything.”

Watching as a last medalled dignitary exited the room and closed the door, Jemma’s smile thinned. “Or won the greatest prize in the kingdom.”

Fitz made a small noise of dissatisfaction, separating their hands and turning briefly around to follow her gaze. “I dunno. I mean, that’s what they’re all saying, but I’m not so sure.”

A brief laugh sounded from her throat, and she propped one hand on her hip. “Oh? You’re not, are you?”

“Nah,” he said, turning back to meet her gaze, his own expression a mix of amusement and adoration. “Greatest gift on the planet, maybe. Or in the galaxy.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she murmured, instinctively reaching up to tuck a nonexistent lock of stray hair behind one ear. He liked making these grandiose statements that, paradoxically, made her feel uncharacteristically small. Yet she still avidly tried to memorize each one.

After watching her for a few seconds, he glanced around again, noting – as she did – that the rest of the royal dignitaries and signatories and whatsatories had all finally disappeared down the hall, and they were left only with the guard at the entrance to the room.

“Watch out,” Fitz said in a low voice, and before Jemma could register his movement, he was cupping her jaw with both hands and kissing her as if it were the first time all over again.

A small huff of surprise sounded from her throat as their lips met, and although she knew now was a bad time, knew that anyone could walk in at any moment, she didn’t step away. Instead, she wrapped one hand around his wrist and rested the other on his arm, knowing she shouldn’t cling but clinging anyway. Fitz’s lips were warm and gentle and still passionate, pressing in over and over again until she was breathless. But with time being so short, she chose his mouth over air, heart skipping a beat when he broke away to brush their noses together and then capture her lips again.

Oh, damn propriety and damn reputation, Jemma thought, leaning further into her fiancé’s embrace. She and Fitz would be married tomorrow; they were allowed to be blissfully, unreservedly happy, and to forget what anyone else thought.

Panic darting through his chest, Fitz sinks to his knees next to her on the floor, reaching forward and taking away the tablet that she was now only loosely holding. “Marry me, Jemma? I just - I know we sorta talked about it, and I was gonna plan a whole night, with roses and dinner and everything, but then with the bomb and Hive and I know you’re still recovering, and it doesn’t have to be right away, if it’s too soon, but I -”

She bursts into laughter, pushing herself up onto her knees so that their faces are even. “Too soon? Fitz, we’ve been together in some way for over ten years.”

“Eleven years and eight months,” he corrects, cheeks reddening. “Give or take a few days.”

Grinning, she stretches up to press their foreheads together, curling her fingers gently around the back of his neck. “Yes, I will marry you, Leopold James Fitz. As long as you marry me right back.”

“Deal,” he breathes, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and capturing her lips with his.

“Don’t I get any input?” comes Caedmon’s voice from behind them, and Fitz lets out a small chuckle against Jemma’s lips. She groans quietly, and twists around to look at her daemon. The lion must have moved up to the end of the bed at some point while they were distracted, and now lay with his head resting alongside Sarama’s body.

“Would you like Fitz to propose to you, too?” Jemma deadpans, curling her fingers into Fitz’s shirt.

“I think I’d like that, yes,” her daemon responds, and she lets out a small tsk. Forestalling any further bickering - the two of them had only recently made up, after all, and he doesn’t want them to regress - Fitz leans in to give his fiancée (fiancée!) a kiss on the cheek and then shuffles over to the bed.

“Caedmon,” Fitz says, leaning forward on the edge of the bed so he’s staring the lion head-on, “will you and Jemma marry me and Sarama?”

“Sarama and I,” Jemma corrects from beside him, and he shushes her.

“I’d like that,” Caedmon answers, and then scoots forward enough that Fitz can reach around his head for a hug.

Beside them, Jemma leans down to the edge of the bed, putting herself at eye-level with the lizard. “What do you think, Sarama?” she says, unable to fight the grin that tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Marry us, too?”

“About time,” Sarama teases in response, lifting up onto her front legs so that Jemma can scoop her up onto her arm.

With that, Jemma wraps her other arm around Fitz’s back, nuzzling into his neck. They stay like that for quite some time, giggling sporadically about their oddly shaped four-way hug but each of them knowing that this was exactly the way it was meant to be. Jemma and Caedmon with Fitz and Sarama - happiest together, no matter where that was.

(Fitz doesn’t have the ring yet - he has to call his mum and have his grandmother’s mailed over to them in the US. Jemma’s more than happy to wait.)