Chapter Text
Like many good ideas that go around base these days, this one comes from Bobbi and it’s so brilliant that Fitz could kiss her, except, you know, she is married. (Is she, though? Doesn’t matter.)
“Just because I don’t follow your moronic system in the lab doesn’t mean that I am not smart, Leopold,” she grouses at him, and he likes her enough to not make a fuss about her using his given name. (He is a bit scared of her, still, and with good reason, if one percent of the stories Hunter tells about her are true.)
Getting permission from Coulson is easier than he expected- missions have been slow for the last couple of days, Andrew-through-May is on his side, he uses the Jemma card liberally and besides, Christmas is coming up and everyone knows the Director has a mushy heart.
“Don’t let anyone know that I allowed you to go out again, Fitz,” Coulson warns him before he can leave to start the planning. “If I have to hear one more complaint from Hunter about how he is wasting his best years in the dark, I will strangle him.”
Fitz does his best to keep his smile under control.
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Coulson nods, and Fitz considers himself dismissed. He has to stop again when his hand was already on the doorknob, Coulson’s voice sounding older than his actual age.
“Why don’t you take Daisy too, Fitz. Brightening up a bit will do her good."
He runs into Daisy in the kitchen, sitting on the counter with a pout on her lips. Fitz puts on the kettle and starts rummaging for a good couple of thermos to store the tea before asking her, “Daisy, what’s wrong?"
“Bobbi kicked me out of the lab.” He raises his eyebrows at her, and he didn’t know her pout could go any deeper. “She says that all I do while I’m there is drink coffee and say bad words, and neither are allowed in the lab.”
Fitz almost chokes with the effort to not laugh.
“Isn’t she right?”
“No!” She denies, vehement, and then with a lot less heat, “... I also write bad jokes on the boards.”
He could point out that she has done a lot of excellent work on the computers in the lab, but they both know it. She is just feeling antsy, and Fitz understands why Coulson asked him to take her in this wintry outing.
“Well, joke is on Bobbi, because she is staying in the lab while we are going out.”
Daisy tilts her head to the side, catches in the air the thermos he throws her way.
“Are we?”
“Yep.” Fitz pops the ‘p’ between his lips, he is just hopeful enough that he can’t keep it contained. “We are taking Jemma to see her first snow.”
It’s neither the first snow of the season nor the first snow Jemma has seen in her life. But it’s the first one since Maveth, and rediscovering things and helping her rekindle with what brought her joy in the past has been a key part of her recovery. Six months might not feel like a long time in other circumstances, but if you have been reborn in the middle, well. You can be entitled to experience things for the first time all over again.
Daisy kicks her feet in the air in delight and then looks down at the thermos with a frown.
“What are you putting in here?”
Fitz waves a box of Earl Grey at her face, and Daisy makes a grimace.
“Tea, of course.”
“Oh my god. No. We are making hot chocolate.”
Getting Jemma to come out is not a difficult matter, though Fitz is glad for Daisy’s help nonetheless. Ever since their failed date things are a bit strained between them: his heart aches for her but translating that into actions is not always easy. Too many things happened in the last couple of years to pretend that they can still be the same friends they were, but at the same time, he knows they both long to have that closeness and that safety back.
Daisy is a good buffer for that because she takes Jemma’s hand and drapes a scarf around her neck (the scarf is Fitz’s, and he aches aches aches) and starts whispering conspiratorially in her ear about how they are going to side against him in the snowball fight. Jemma is mostly silent but she smiles and lets Daisy swing their hands back and forth, and Fitz pretends he can’t hear them plotting just to let them have their moment.
When they get outside the car Jemma shivers, and Fitz rushes to offer her his jacket. Daisy rolls her eyes at him mockingly but Jemma says thank you in a soft voice, and he would gladly get frostbite if it means she will keep looking at him like that. Daisy is skipping all over the place, and Fitz eyes suspiciously the thermos she is carrying that he knows is spiked, but she just seems to be genuinely happy, which is also a nice bonus.
“Hear me out, nerds. This is how things are gonna go. I got these,” she takes out of her pockets a blue and green scarf that is Mack’s and what Hunter likes to call his ‘cool sunglasses’, “and we are gonna use them to make the best-est snowman that has ever graced this Earth, gotcha?”
“How are snowmen ranked?” Jemma asks suddenly, and both Fitz and Daisy turn to look at her so sharply that she blushes. “I mean, if we are going to make the best one, we need to know which parameters are in consideration, don’t we?”
Fitz is so happy to see her slipping into her old self that he could kiss her. Except, well. You know. Luckily, Daisy doesn’t have the same predicaments as him, and she makes a beeline for Jemma, holds her rosy cheek in between her gloved hands and kisses her square on the tip of her nose.
“It will be the best one because you will build it with these two pretty hands of yours, Jemma Simmons.”
Jemma puckers her lips at the excess of attention, a bit overwhelmed, and Fitz kneels down to divert the attention.
“Are you two lazybones going to help me gather this snow or do I have to do everything myself?”
Jemma starts talking in long sentences after a while, her eyes bright and her hands idle as it was, and Daisy winks at him in victorious complicity. Fitz mostly provides commentary about structural integrity and fills their cups with chocolate every time one of them runs out, and keeps producing new pieces of clothing to pile up on Jemma every time she shivers. But when it comes to the snowman, he lets them work and just takes the time to soak them in, relishing on seeing them happy and placid for once.
Fitz proclaims the snowman a monstrosity after Daisy tries to give it a mohawk, and Jemma quips back that it is a lovable monstrosity. Once it’s done they take a whole bunch of selfies with ‘Munter’, as Daisy names him in honor to the former owners of its clothes. Their fingers are numb from the cold even through their gloves, but their hearts are light, their lips smeared with hot chocolate and their ribs sore from laughing too much, and Fitz couldn’t ask for anything else.