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Cofactors to the Catalyst
One of the more endearing and trying traits in humans is their tendency to worry about the well being of others, despite the worry-recipient’s repeated assurances of hale and hearty health. Still, the concern tends to continue on unimpeded, interfering with many a good plan and interrupting plenty of productive work.
When Jemma Simmons returned from her abduction into the Kree stone, the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. team on base swiveled their attention and concern to her. Never one rest on her laurels, Jemma initially regarded it with exasperation and annoyance, but she tried to maintain her calm. This only did so much, however, when, as with so many people who offer medical care to others, she proved to be a terrible patient.
Though they’d all say she failed to show much grace under fire, Jemma figures she dealt with the external pity party with as much patience as possible. But patience can only go so far, and by her way of thinking, two months is more than enough time for everyone to give up the ghost of her absence.
For the most part, the team has come to see things her way. Slowly, most of them have allowed things to return back to normal.
Consequently, when Jemma hits critical mass with her frustration, it is when only one outlier in the group remains, refusing to buy into her ‘fresh page’ philosophy. Instead, this person elects to fret over her almost constantly.
It’s unfortunate that said outlier just so happens to be her best friend-cum-boyfriend.
Poor Fitz.
By her second week back—returned to the Playground from her adventures in solid rock spelunking—Jemma had counted all 1198 dots in the ceiling tiles above her bed, picked out 129 constellations from their scattered pattern, read twelve novels and eight scholarly journals, and written three fan letters to Joshua Bell (which she had no intention of sending, thank you very much).
Oh, and she’d overridden the code keeping her locked in the medical bay twice.
It was her domain, after all. The mere notion that she wouldn’t know how to get past its security was laughable.
Unfortunately, both of those escape attempts had been foiled without the team so much as breaking a sweat.
“Mack, how lovely to see you!” she’d greeted her guard the first time she stepped through the automatic doors and found him stationed just beyond. She widened her eyes guilelessly, a convincing, cheerful smile plastered on her face.
As Mack pulled himself up to his (considerable) height with a regretful sigh and headshake, Jemma carefully reached behind her, double checking that her hospital johnny remained securely shut. She’d hate to flash her TARDIS knickers to Fitz’s friend when he’d already caught her behaving like a naughty child.
“I say,” she continued on in a panicky rush, though she assured herself that she only sounded brisk, “I have missed seeing everyone. How are you?”
“Go back to bed, Simmons. You know Coulson wants you to stay put for a while longer. Just to be sure you’re okay.”
She pretended she hadn’t heard him. “Before I forget! To show my gratitude for everything you did to help… everyone while you all were trying to get me back, I have brought you biscuits!” She thrust two out to him. Skye really should have thought of this risk before she started piling so many cookies on Jemma’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner trays. But her naiveté was Jemma’s gain.
Snagging one, Mack bit into it and chewed, eyeing her thoughtfully. Around his crunching, he said, “Chocolate chip. My favorite.”
She’d nodded happily, doing an internal jig at her street smarts while he polished off the biscuit in two more bites.
Swallowing, he’d brushed the crumbs from his hands. “So, we have two options here.”
“You mean about my leaving? I would say tell everyone that I overpowered you, but they might not buy it. Our best bet is for the old, ‘I went to the bathroom and she made a break for it’ excuse.”
Mack had smiled affably, his beautiful eyes crinkling. “Good idea.”
Jemma shrugged modestly. She was a secret agent, after all.
And then he had to ruin it. “But we aren’t going to do that. Two options, Simmons. One: you turn back around and take yourself back to the med bay.”
Smile fading, she crisply asked, “What’s Option Two?”
“I carry you back there.”
She eyed him, weighing the idea of feinting one way and running the other. But it was no good. Mack was a giant from another realm. He’d probably catch her without having to extend his arm all the way out.
“Traitor,” she’d hissed. With as much dignity as she muster, she stomped back to her prison. Chomping angrily on the second cookie, she tried to tune out his low, rumbling laugh that followed her through the doors.
She’d waited two days, this time holding out until the inky cloak of darkness had stolen through the Playground.
As soon as she was certain everyone would be asleep, she’d made her second bid for freedom.
And she would have gotten away with it, too, if the five people taking rotating shifts watching her had followed the timetable she’d so helpfully organized for them. If they’d given her that courtesy, Hunter would have been her patsy. A veritable piece of cake. Once the gullible man was situated with his cookies, Jemma would have blessed, unimpeded freedom and she could prove once and for all that she was fully recovered.
But did that happen? Of course not.
When she had crept through the med bay doors, the person sitting in the guard chair was most certainly not Lance Hunter. Oh no. It was so much worse.
Jemma smiled weakly at Melinda May.
Melinda May arched a single, terrifying eyebrow.
Without a word, Jemma had done an about-face, returning quietly to her hospital bed, where she’d remained, docile and quiet until she received her medical release a week later.
As she lay there, picking out images in the spackling on the ceiling, she wasn’t fooled for one second about just whose opinion Coulson was relying on in his decision to prolong her ‘convalescence’.
Someone who wasn’t even a doctor. Someone who cringed at the mention of needles.
How sad, she’d think mournfully even as she’d accept Leopold Fitz’s hugs and kisses when he’d come to sit with her each day, that true love had afforded her such sparse loyalty.
Now, four weeks out of the med bay and seven weeks back from captivity, Fitz has done little redeem himself.
It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate just how much her disappearance terrified everyone. It makes sense that they’d be overprotective. What had been a month for her had been four for them, and it will take time for the agents to accustom themselves to the idea that she is no longer in danger.
Yes, it was traumatic. Yes, Jemma had to fight and claw her way back home. And yes, when she’d finally returned, she’d been in a bad way: dislocated shoulder, sprained ankles, skin more covered in bruises than not, with a skeletal, weak frame and a disoriented mind for the first several days.
But as far as she is concerned, it’s all in the past. Now she must set to work discovering just where and why she’d been taken. She needs to use science to guide her and give her answers.
Something not easily accomplished when a fretting, fussing shadow interferes every time she enters her lab.
It surprises Jemma every day, just how in love she is. She’s become one of those people. She wants to touch Fitz whenever she sees him. She feels an ache in her heart whenever she goes too long without doing so, and she longs for his smiles, feeling instantly warm every time she receives one. She wants him—all of him—just the way he is. Every single mushy thing she never thought she’d feel for anyone, she feels for Fitz.
Which is why her desire to hit him over the head with her copy of the British Pharmacopoeia is so distressing.
It’s not just that he follows her around, brow furrowed, hands on his hips when he’s not chewing on a thumbnail as he watches her. That alone would make her go spare.
It’s not just that he intervenes at the most obnoxious moments, sidling up to her, intent on leading her away from whatever she’s been working on when he decides she’s been on her feet too long (he’s never been terribly successful with those attempts, she comforts herself with a proud sniff).
It’s not even that he’s being so alarmingly sweet to her.
Well, actually, that is exactly the problem, if Jemma wants to put it succinctly.
While Fitz has always been a naturally sweet person (much to his dismay), the way he’s treated her since she got back is beyond ridiculous.
Though they had not had a spirited debate in far too long, even before the Kree stone, Jemma often finds herself daydreaming, wistfully remembering the way they used to shout over each other while they worked on a problem. The verbal jousting had kept her brain active. It kept her assertive and self-assured. And their arguments excited her before she even realized that excitement for what it was.
Fitz now refuses to debate anything with her. He won’t rise to any bait she throws out that would normally get him going, his voice growing louder, its pitch getting higher and higher and his brogue getting thicker (and thus, Jemma’s heartrate). Dear science, he’s taken to kissing her on the temple and simply saying, “Okay,” whenever she says intentionally inflammatory things about the Planck constant or oscillator entropy.
It’s infuriating.
Worse, he won’t really touch her, beyond those condescending cheek busses and a steering hand meant to tear her away from her work.
As of last night, they’ve now gone out to dinner together twice. After the initial, stilted awkwardness, both dates had been surprisingly wonderful. Fitz had even been relaxed and chatty. He’d smiled and traced her fingers across the table while she talked, and they’d laughed together.
But both times, when they returned to the Playground, he’d resumed his hyper-vigilant routine, inquiring about her emotional well-being as he ushered her back into the base. He’d politely escorted her down to the personal quarters without his hand straying into cop-a-feel territory even once, much to her chagrin.
In fact, despite their dates, Fitz has so far only given one indication that he sees her as something more than a Faberge egg since her release from hospital, and that is only because Jemma forced his hand when they got back from dinner the night before.
He’d stood in front of her when they arrived in the living quarters, his face serious, fathomless as he moved his gaze over her. They were the only two still awake, and the dim glow of the security lights threw his features into relief as they looked at each other. She’d smiled shyly under his scrutiny, and she was nothing but content to be with him in the quiet hall.
“Goodnight, Jemma,” he’d murmured, ghosting a hand down the shape of her arm. She had followed his not-quite-touch with an arched eyebrow, biting her tongue to stop herself from feigning moral outrage and a fit of vapors at his palm accidentally brushing her jacket cuff.
Instead, she’d just moved in to hug him. But before she’d even taken a half step, he’d already turned to head towards his own room.
Her smile had slipped. She might have let out an indignant squawk. And perhaps it was becoming a bit of a habit of hers to grab his hand to haul him back from a retreat from her, but needs must.
Whatever the case, he’d hardly had time to turn to her again, eyebrows raised in concern—damned, coddling, suffocating concern—before she’d shoved him up against her closed door, hoisted herself up onto tiptoe with arms flung around his shoulders, and met his lips with hers.
Oh, yes, she’d kissed him the way she’d been wanting to for quite some time now.
In the initial seconds following her ambush, he’d stood there, stunned or possibly winded—she may have shoved him harder than she’d intended—while she pressed herself to him. She didn’t have time to worry about his lack of response, however, before he’d huffed out a quiet moan of surrender and banded his arms around her.
From there, he’d kissed her ardently, mouth warm and firm against hers, his hands clutching at her back and waist. His fingers convulsed in tight grasps of her shirt when she’d darted the tip of her tongue into his mouth to meet his and he’d pulled her even closer, following her lead with the deepened kiss.
Not long after that, when she bit at his bottom lip and then kissed along the rough stubble at his jaw to just below his ear, his head had fallen back against the door with an audible thunk. His swollen lips had whispered her name like a litany as she unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt for better access to his neck.
Jemma had thrilled in the rush of heat in the pit of her belly. She’d shivered when Fitz’s fingers dipped into the back of her skirt, his blunt nails scratching lightly at the flare of her hips. She’d couldn’t help a small squeal of happiness when he wheeled her bodily around, pressing her to the door and insinuating a thigh between her legs as his lips rooted for hers to return to his.
Mindless of where they were, they shared several more, breathless kisses that left her whole body humming and encouraged her to resume her exploration of his neck and shoulders.
It was only when she rocked her hips into his—and his had jerked back against hers—sighing his name against his collar bone, that he’d remembered himself. With a groan, he’d slid to the side, away from her questing lips, a look of absolute turmoil on his kiss-stung face.
Before she could ask him what he was on about, he’d shaken his head furiously.
“Jemma, I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “I shouldn’t have—you don’t need this—you’re not—Sorry.“
Before she could dispute him or get any other word in edgewise, he’d hurried off down the hall, veering into the bathroom instead of his bedroom.
Though she’d thought about following him, Jemma had been too angry and frustrated to barge into the men’s loo. Instead, she’d stomped into her room and flung herself face-first onto her bed, growling obscenities at her absent best friend and the unsatisfied ache between her thighs.
When she sees him the next morning, he dodges her single attempt to discuss what happened. The moment she says the words, “About what happened last night,” he shoots up from his lab chair and stumbles through another apology, promising her that he’ll be sure to keep things slow.
From there, he hurries off, returning soon after with a glass of water for her. He pulls a stool over to the counter where she stands, switching his lecture to something about blood clots and rickets. He doesn’t provide a salient reason for his barmy preventative care, and though her confusion over it never lessens, she doesn’t care to clarify. Instead, she remains at her station, measuring pipettes of chemicals into a rack of test tubes while she continues to stew.
The day passes like this. While she’s managed to take care of several backlogged tasks, she’s spent the majority of the time shooting glares at Fitz, though he remains oblivious.
Fussy, stuffy bother with a White Knight complex. That’s what he is.
In all of her imaginings of what FitzSimmons-the-Couple would be like, Jemma always pictured herself as the calm, even keeled one. She’d be passionate but level-headed, playful but practical. Fitz would be the more spontaneous, randy of the pair, always suggesting that they sneak off to get handsy while waiting for some experiment’s results.
As it stands though, all of her expectations and assumptions need to be shoved aside. She doubts she’s ever felt this hot and bothered, and Fitz happily works on, pure as the driven snow, apparently.
In many ways, she thinks forlornly, it would be easier if she weren’t certain that he completely reciprocates her feelings for him. If he’d held himself aloof when she’d first returned, she would have been disappointed and, yes, heartbroken, but she’d have eventually decided that they’d missed their window and she would have tried to move on.
Instead, she has the way he kissed her face over and over again when he found her.
She has the “I love you. I love you, Jemma. Please be okay,” breathed against her ear as they wheeled the gurney bearing her weak body into the med bay the night she came back.
She has the way he watches her when he forgets he should be a mother hen. There’s nothing close to disinterest there when his blue eyes darken and drink her in.
She has the way he kissed her last night, with absolute abandon and heat.
No, Fitz wants her the way she wants him. But his fear and despair have yet to abate, even though she stands before him, flesh and blood and wanting.
Watching him tilt his head back and forth, considering whatever he’s working on,she comes to a decision. This won’t stand. None of it. She’s had enough. And his reluctance to touch her is the first thing that needs to go.
Her eyes narrow as she considers her poor, sweet, annoying Fitz, innocently fiddling with a gadget of his own design. Bleating like a lamb to the slaughter.
“I’ll show you bleating,” she murmurs, snickering as she imagines him making similar noises in the throes of passion.
Fitz glances up. “What’s that?”
Adopting a neutral expression, Jemma shrugs. “I was just thinking about next steps for identifying the cofactors to this enzyme.”
“Oh.” Satisfied, Fitz glances at the clock on the wall behind Jemma’s head and then returns his attention to his gadget, though his concentration is clearly split. She can see him watching her through his eyelashes (or at least she thinks he is. It’s awfully hard to tell when she’s trying to watch him just as stealthily).
Deciding there’s no time like the present, Jemma sighs loudly, fully expecting Fitz to pull his Florence Nightingale routine once he cottons on to her distress.
It won’t be long now.
Darling man. She can only hope he will be able to breathe when she’s finished with him.
When he pockets his gadget and turns to Jemma, she’s ready for him. She tries to look weary as she waits for him to speak. Really, that alone should set his spidey-senses tingling if nothing else does, but nope. Dr. Fitzy barrels on.
“You look knackered,” he says, eyes filled with concern. She almost experiences a twinge of guilt for her deceit, until she remembers all of the times he’s brushed her protests aside and not trusted her assess her own capabilities in the past few weeks.
Heaving a sigh, Jemma nods. She throws in a slight massage at her temples for effect. “It just hit me all at once.” Shooting him a weak smile, she adds, “I probably overdid it today.”
He’s by her side in an instant, arm loose at her shoulders as he herds her through the lab door. “Jemma, you have to be more careful,” he admonishes.
Resting her head against his shoulder as they walk, she sighs, trying to calm some of her anticipation. This isn’t helped by a subtle, indulgent sniff of his underarm. Dissimilar major histocompatibility complex really is a beautiful thing, she thinks dreamily. He smells like laundry detergent, Old Spice, and pheromones that must contrast perfectly with hers.
Fitz unconsciously presses a tender kiss on her head when they reach the deserted hallway to their rooms, and Jemma rolls her eyes at her the way her heart jerks when he does it. Really, you’re a twenty-eight-year-old woman, she scolds herself, hardly some coltish preteen receiving a peck on the cheek for the first time.
Still, she reciprocates with a kiss to his shoulder, and he allows his arm to close more securely around her, cuddling her closer just before they reach her door.
“Now, you rest,” he instructs her. “I’ll come back around dinner and see if you’re hungry.”
“Mmhmm,” she nods, hoping her eyes look alluringly hooded rather than blitzed out on some kind of narcotic. ‘Will you step into my parlour?’ said the Simmons to the Fitz, she sing-songs in her head.
She strikes.
“Oh! I almost forgot!” She grabs his hand as soon as he’s opened her door for her. “I wanted to show you what I drew up for Sneezy’s refurbished sensors!”
He follows her in willingly, and Jemma has to disguise her fond smile at his ignorance of the old come-in-and-see-my-etchings seduction ploy, never mind the fact that they’ve gone into each other’s bedrooms many a time to do just this: look at drawings and graphs and simulations. No less thrilled with her guile, she signals him past her, flicking on the dim lamp on her desk by the door. While his back is turned, she closes the door and quietly locks them in.
Turning to her desk, she shuffles through some papers, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder to see him lean back against her chest of drawers, fiddling with the cuffs of his jumper.
He really is beautiful, she thinks, fighting a goofy grin. And he’s mine.
Giving a triumphant “Ah ha!” Jemma grabs her jotted diagram (second down in her tidy pile, but what Fitz doesn’t know can’t do anything but give him a knee-buckling orgasm) and hurries over, stepping into his personal space under the guise of looking at the drawings with him.
“This looks great, Jemma,” he murmurs, eyes pouring over the paper. “We might need to make some adjustments for the type of sniffer apparatus required for this technology and it’ll take some fiddling to keep him airborne, but I think you’ve got it.”
She beams, genuinely pleased. But time’s a-wasting, she reminds herself.
“I’m so glad to hear,” she says as she sidles closer until her breasts, stomach, and thighs brush against him.
His eyes track her hands as she takes the paper back once more and reaches around him to set them on the dressing table that he leans against
“Jemma?” he asks, going still.
Swaying fully against him, Jemma takes a moment to appreciate that Fitz’s slouched position against the chest of drawers puts him almost at eye level with her. She moves one foot over so her legs bracket his and she winds her arms around his waist.
Dipping her head to brush her nose against his jaw, she murmurs, “Yes?”
“Shouldn’t you—you should be resting,” he stumbles, clearing his throat halfway through.
“You know,” she muses, “I’m not all that tired now.” And she ducks again place a warm, open mouthed kiss against his pulse point.
Enjoying the salty taste of his skin on her tongue, she smiles at the low whimper that vibrates in his throat. Pleased with his passivity, she gets busy sliding her fingers up his hip and dipping beneath his shirt so she can press her hand to the skin at his waist.
Fitz’s breath shudders out and he stares at her with a look of combined arousal and betrayal. “You planned this, you faker,” he accuses.
She can’t help but notice that his arms twitch as he struggles not to hold her closer.
She shrugs unapologetically. “Yes, I did.”
“Jemma, you are in no—“
His remonstrance is cut off when she grabs both sides of his shirt collar and pulls him in to her. Though she catches his eyes dropping to her lips, the tip of his tongue darting out to wet his own, she moves to the side, instead.
When her lips brush his right ear, she whispers, “I am going to make a few things very clear, Leo.” She pauses to gently bite and suck at his earlobe, glorying in the moan she earns as a response. Yes. “I won’t let you interrupt me this time. Do you understand?”
His desire to change her mind and his desire for her do silent battle, but he eventually nods.
“Good,” she murmurs, flicking his ear with her tongue one more time as she draws back. “First of all, do you want me?” she asks bluntly.
Fitz attempts one last stand. “Of course I want you, but—“
“No buts,” she interrupts. “A yes or no will suffice. And if you were convinced that I was in perfect health, if I had never been taken away, would you fuck me right now?”
Moaning, he nods, his thighs shifting slightly between hers. A glance down confirms to Jemma that he’s already hard and straining for her, and she squirms at the bolt of heat that starts in her belly and ends in her core at the sight.
“I don’t want to push you into anything you’re not ready to do,” she continues, gentling her gaze, though that only lasts long enough for him to guffaw and run shaking fingers through his hair. Her eyes narrow in response.
“Believe me, Jemma,” he assures her with another incredulous laugh. “I’ve been ready to have you for years.”
Her lips curl in another ridiculous grin—hardly sultry—but she disguises her giddy reaction by leaning in and gently biting his jaw. His voice, pitched enticingly low since they began this exchange, rumbles in a near-purr.
Biting her lip, she considers what to do with him now that he’s hers for the taking.
Backing up off of his legs—giggling, egads, at his whine of protest—she tugs at his hand until he straightens to his full height. He still tries to look reluctant when she ushers him to her bed, but his hands move to her hips as she stands in front him, and as soon as he’s sitting, he helps pull her into his lap so she’s straddling him once more. This time, they’re pressed intimately together and they both sigh at the contact.
She tilts her hips, rubbing against his straining cock. When he grips her backside and pulls her in again, she sets up a rhythm, press and retreat, press and retreat. Soon, they are panting, sharp breaths interspersed with low noises of pleasure. Watching him, she commits to memory the way his eyes clench closed and his mouth drops open to pull in increasingly desperate gulps of air while she moves.
Leaning forward again, she sucks a mark low on his neck. Dropping her forehead to his shoulder for a brief moment, she listens to their labored breathing and notes the way his hands have moved to clutch at the fabric of her trousers on the outside of her thighs. Like he has to hold himself back from being too eager and it’s a strain.
Jemma curls around him, touching her lips to his. He kisses her, reluctantly at first, and then with increasing strength the longer their mouths move together.
“You want me?” she asks again against his lips.
“Yes. Always,” he mutters. “Yes.”
Though she allows herself to kiss him deeply again, she pulls away slightly before she can get too distracted.
“Then why are you making this such a battle?” she asks, running the tip of her tongue along the fullness of his bottom lip.
His head jerks back and he stills. His expression turns thunderous—no, not thunderous. That would imply something silly about his reaction. Jemma flinches at just how genuinely hurt and angry he looks.
“A batt—are you joking?”
She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes though she keeps her tone even. “Not even slightly. I want to know why you won’t believe me that I’m fine.”
Scrubbing his hands on his face, Fitz tries to calm his breathing. “Jemma, you were sucked up by a giant, alien rock! If you hadn’t figured out how to escape wherever you were, you would have died there. You nearly did die, anyway!” He trembles as he speaks.
Unable to meet his eyes while they discuss her brush with mortality, she winds her arms around his neck. “Not nearly. Not even close.” She’s crooning into his neck, hoping to bring him some semblance of comfort.
His arms move around her, hugging her tightly. “You didn’t see, Jemma. When I pulled you out of the box, out from under the stone, you were so still. So pale.”
“I’d like to see you looking daisy-fresh after wringing yourself from a rock,” she snips.
He doesn’t rise to her bait. “You were bruised and so frail. I could see your ribs. You’d had nothing to eat or drink and you could hardly stay conscious.” She lifts hers to see him turn his head away from her. His eyes are glassy with tears.
“Fitz,” she murmurs, pressing her forehead to his temple, her fingers gently stroking the other side of his face. “I’m okay now. I’ll stop trivializing what I went through, and what you went through, too. But I am fine now.”
He shakes his head, not necessarily in denial. More in abject helplessness. He still refuses to look at her. “I’ve seen you do this before, Jemma. So many times. Too many times. You pretend you’re okay when you aren’t because you’re worried about other people. About me. You ignore anything that might be wrong because you’re too wrapped up in taking care of me. So how am I supposed to trust that you’re really okay?”
“That’s not true—“
“But it is!” He grips her arms, turning his sad, pleading eyes back to her. “We have been through so much together and apart, but you don’t complain because you believe showing vulnerability will hurt someone else.”
“Fitz, I…” She scoots back on his thighs, putting some distance between them. This time, it’s she who turns her head, looking up to the ceiling, moving her eyes in a failed attempt to disperse the burning sting of tears before they fall.
“Mack told me why you left,” he says quietly. When she turns to look at him sharply, he nods. “He told me why you thought you had to leave.”
She shifts in his lap, terrified of where this is going.
“I could only see my injuries and what they meant for me. So when you left, I let myself believe the most selfish scenario. It never occurred to me that what you did was for me.” He runs his hands up her arms, stopping when he can cup her face and turn her head to face him. “And Jemma… I don’t understand why you couldn’t say any of that to me.”
Her eyes burn. She wants to weep piteously, but she owes him an answer. “You would have said it wasn’t true. That I wasn’t hurting your progress. That I’d make you worse by leaving.”
He nods ruefully. “Yeah, I would have.”
A hot tear drips down her face. Angrily, she clenches her eyes closed. “Exactly. And I would have let myself believe it. Did Mack tell you that he agreed with me, that I was making you worse?”
“He told me what he said, yes,” Fitz nods. “He believed what I told him. He had no other source until he met you. So he accused you of giving up on me and made sure you knew that you weren’t helping me by coming back.”
A sob tries to escape, so she clenches her teeth and lips. Still, she is unable to suppress a soft keening noise in the back of her throat as she nods. Fitz pulls her to him again.
“But Jemma, from the moment you told him that’s why you left in the first place, he said he’s been so ashamed. He tried to think of a way to apologize to you, but then everything happened with Skye and the second S.H.I.E.L.D., and he let it fall by the wayside.
“He doesn’t owe me anything,” Jemma insists. “He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. That I didn’t already know.”
Fitz cringes, but he nods slowly. “Yes, I guess it’s true in the broadest sense of the term. I’ve always been so in awe of you and you’ve always taken care of me, and I became too codependent.”
“I did, too,” she insists.
“Not like me. No, don’t argue,” he says in a rush when he sees her open her mouth to do just that. “Maybe you did, but not nearly like me. In some ways, I idolized you to the point that I couldn’t honestly be in love with you. Because you could do nothing wrong in my eyes.”
“How are the mighty fallen,” she murmurs.
He shakes his head. “I hardly knew myself. What I felt for you… I’d happily follow your lead without question, and I did rely on you to come up with answers and held you solely responsible for keeping me whole after the pod. And that was nothing to build a healthy relationship on.”
She nods. It’s nothing she hasn’t considered for herself. It’s why she couldn’t see herself in love with him until recently. The building blocks were there from the day they met, from the way they became each other’s world. But she knows it it would have grown stagnant, with nothing to foster emotional growth between the two of them. Not when so many of the emotions he allowed her to see were just reflections of how he saw her. She’d only found herself tumbling into undeniable love with him when they’d had that time to grow after ten years of lateral orbit around each other.
“So listen to me, Jemma.” He waits until she’s thumbed the tears out of her eyes and met his gaze again. “You were right. As usual,” he says, smiling infinitesimally at the small huff of a laugh she gives before he sobers again. “And the time where we weren’t just a single unit not only helped me heal, but it gave me a chance to prove to myself what I’m worth, and find what I really want. And one of the things I want most, I’ve found, just so happens to be you.
“I’m not saying there weren’t some serious flaws in your execution—telling me you were just going on a quick holiday home and then bloody well disappearing into Hydra comes to mind—and I’m not saying that we don’t have other things to work out. What you did was so brave and I’m so proud of you. But you did it for me without once thinking about how what Ward did to us affected you. And you’ve just continued down that path.”
She nods, unable to argue.
“And that, Jemma, is why I’m so worried about you now. And why I have to ‘make this a battle.’”
An ashamed flush steals into her cheeks. “That was unfair of me.”
“Gross understatement,” he mutters.
After flicking him lightly on the arm, she sinks into the warmth of him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “I understand why my behavior wouldn’t really sell you on my recovery.”
He remains silent, giving her chance to collect her thoughts. “I do promise that I will be more honest, and try to deal with my… my stuff. Even before the Kree stone, I’d been thinking that I should maybe try to talk to Andrew.”
She can feel more than see his nod. “That would probably be good,” he agrees carefully.
“If he can’t help, I’m sure he could point me to someone who can.”
Fitz rubs his cheek against hers, breath shaky. “Just… just promise me when you need help, you’ll tell me so I can help find it. I want so badly to be someone you trust, Jemma. You’re far from perfect. I do realize that now, but you’re perfect for me and all I want is for you to be okay.”
I love you. I love you, Jemma. Please be okay.
Straightening, Jemma’s lips tremble as she sucks in calming breath. Though eye contact has always been easiest with Fitz, a shy, scared part of her struggles while she looks at him. But she holds steady, and her words, though they’re more exhaled than spoken, are unwavering.
“I love you. I love you, Fitz. I want to be okay.”
He sniffles loudly, wiping his damp eyes on his sleeves before he draws her in. “I love you,” he assures her. They share slow kiss before they return to their prior embrace, content for the moment to hold each other in the dim light and quiet of her room.
The spell is broken somewhat when Jemma says, “One thing, Fitz.”
He gives a quiet Hmm? in question.
“Just because you were right about a lot of the situation doesn’t mean I’m not desperate to jump your bones. I intend to have my way with you shortly and I don’t want to hear another word about whether I’m healthy enough for it.”
The way he shifts under her tells her that she has his attention.
“Sure,” he agrees, voice cracking.
Ah, Jemma thinks, a slow smile curling her lips. Even footing.
The bed springs of the twin bed they’re on were not built for this sort of thing. They squeak loudly with their movements but paradoxically offer no give to the press of their bodies.
Jemma experiences a small niggling of worry that her writhing around on the narrow, hard mattress might accidentally knock Fitz off of her and right onto the floor. Not so much worry that she isn’t able to enjoy herself thoroughly, but enough that she can acknowledge that it would be unfortunate, especially when she’s this close to coming.
So she locks her ankles high around his waist and wraps her arms around his shoulders
Recognizing what she’s doing, Fitz lifts his head enough to nuzzle her sweaty brow. “My hero,” he whispers between labored breaths. His face is flushed, his eyes dark pools of arousal when he draws back enough that they can see each other.
She shudders when he increases the speed and force of his thrusts, his cock rubbing against the best places inside her. She only realizes that she’s been chanting, “Yes, Fitz, yes,” when he releases his grip on her thigh and tugs one of her hands loose so they can link fingers.
He begins responding with encouragement and praise of his own, pausing only to give a small, surprised grunt when she tightens around him.
“Come on, baby,” he pants. “Come on, come on. Oh, fuck. Come on, Jemma.”
A wail is lodged in her chest, unable to escape. It’s perfect.
“I’m a—I’m about to come,” he babbles. “Are you close?”
She doesn’t respond, her whole body drawing taught underneath him. Her mouth drops open, no sound escaping as her back arches and her fingers scrabble against his skin. She’s reached a precipice and she only barely has the presence of mind to worm a hand between them, down to where he works in her so she can stroke her clit. The tips of her index and ring fingers caress his cock, and he reacts beautifully.
“Holy shit ,” he hisses, his eyes crossing in pleasure as he tries to hold out just a little longer, to keep it together her until she finds release.
And then she does, heat radiating out through her body. She comes hard, her inner walls clutching around him in strong pulls as she bites down on his shoulder to stifle her sobs of pleasure.
Overcome, Fitz tucks her arms in, nestling her up underneath him while he thrusts faster still, losing any semblance of rhythm. He buries his face in her neck, and she clenches around him again as he lets himself go with a drawn out shout, the volume of which they might should worry about later.
They lie there, stunned, soaked with sweat and breathless, for several minutes.
Finally, though, Fitz shifts. He drops friendly kiss on the tip of her nose, pulls out of her, and staggers out of the bed to dispose of the condom, not without stopping to brace himself against a handy wall for a moment.
Jemma remains spread eagled on her back, staring dazedly up at the unremarkable ceiling.
“I predict that these sheets are going to feel disgusting in approximately a matter of minutes,” she slurs to him when he moves back to the bed with a damp flanel for her. “Just as soon as I regain feeling in my limbs.”
Nodding sagely, he strokes the cloth across her forehead. “Want to go back to my room?”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s at least twenty meters from here. Too far. ‘Sides, we’ll just end up defiling your sheets the same way.”
He gifts her with a lecherous leer.
“We’ll just sleep in the spare bed,” she continues after pinching his waist to make him jump. “It has sheets on it. Thank god Coulson never insisted on us bunking up two to a room. That’d make things bloody awkward.”
“I think we would have astounded any one of our teammates with our prowess,” Fitz preens. “They’d be lucky to bear witness to such an animalistic, primitive display of coitus.”
“Eew.” Jemma can’t muster much disgust in her tone. She’s not an exhibitionist and she’s fairly confident that Fitz isn’t either (if his reluctance to be seen even in swim trunks is anything to go by), but she can’t help but agree with his smugness. “Though, we are rather good at this, aren’t we?”
He nods emphatically, watching as she uses the flanel to clean up a bit.
Tossing the cloth into her hamper, she rolls towards him with a groan. “Must move. Sheets getting cold. Help.”
He takes her hands and hauls her to her feet and up against him, humming in satisfaction as her warm skin meets his.
When his hand snakes up to fondle her breast, however, she bats it away. “If you start that, you get to sleep in the wet spot.”
“Oh, fine,” Fitz agrees with a lusty sigh. “But we’ll probably get all sweaty, anyway. A single is not exactly conducive to cool sleep conditions.”
She glowers at him. “I hope you’re not suggesting sleeping separately. I refuse to have a clandestine affair that everyone knows about if we can’t have a friendly competition to see who gets caught first by May or Coulson when we sneak around in the mornings.”
He rolls his eyes at her. “Please, Jemma. Give me some credit. You’ve just seduced me, a wee, innocent bairn.” He ignores her snort of amusement. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’ve written my mother with your request for my hand.”
Drawing back, she considers him. “What’s your dowry?”
“Crippling student debt and a grouchy temperament.”
“Sold,” Jemma agrees. “Now take me to bed, you sexy highland bull. To sleep! Other bed!” she shrieks, when he happily starts to steer her back towards the one they’ve just vacated.
He grumbles as they move back across the room, stopping first to flick off the desk lamp. “Fine, but I feel strongly about making use of both of the beds in my room. Sex use, that is.”
They fall onto the mattress, curling around each other in a tangle of limbs.
“I agree to your terms. I’m great about compromise,” she assures him.
“Of course you are,” he mumbles sleepily. “You and I are famous for our quiet, dignified brand of conflict resolution.”
Jemma’s cackling laugh splits through room, but only briefly. And then the dark is filled with a warm, content silence.