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The morning after their first date, he sort of feels like a giant goofball. It might have something to do with the fact that she called him a giant goofball, but also because he’s kind of got this big (goofy) smile on his face as he eats his breakfast in the kitchen.
Skye comes in and asks how the date went while she pours an enormous bowl of cereal, grinning when all he does is give her the goofy smile. She does a little happy dance and promises him that Jemma looks much the same down in the lab.
—
The morning after they sleep together for the first time, his fingers drift down the smooth expanse of her back, and he barely suppresses the urge to kiss down her spine. He traces freckles, feels the ridges of her vertebrae, until she slowly starts to wake beside him.
She reaches back like she’s trying to brush away what’s touching her, until she finds his hand and tangles their fingers together, pulling his arm around her waist. “Good morning.” Instead of responding, he chooses to flatten his palm against her belly and tug her back against him.
—
The morning after their first weekend away, she’s so upset and distracted that Fitz is also perpetually frowning. He follows her around the lab until she snaps at him to leave her be. He goes to heckle Grant and see if something went wrong during their trip.
By the time Fitz goes back downstairs, Jemma’s just sitting behind her microscope, chin in her palm. “You’re upset that the weekend’s over, aren’t you?” When she nods slowly, an apology already on her lips, he just squeezes her shoulder tightly.
—
The morning after they move in together, he forgets why he’s waking up on a mattress on the floor in an empty apartment. There’s actually a good fifteen seconds where he thinks that he slept through the most thorough robbery in the history of robberies, but Jemma is sitting next to him, legs crossed, tea in one hand and book in the other.
So he stretches until his spine pops, then scoots across the mattress and rests his head in her lap. She leans forward to press a kiss to his cheek, smelling like citrus soap and her favorite tea. He nuzzles his nose against her hip and falls asleep again.
—
The morning after their arrival at the Simmons house, he finds himself sitting at the long dining room table with coffee in a Santa mug and Jemma’s mother across from him. She’s all put together even though he’s in flannel pajama pants and a hooded sweatshirt, but she speaks kindly to him, asks questions and listens attentively, genuinely.
Jemma comes down the stairs with a smile, drinking the last of his coffee and demanding he bundle up so they can go for a walk in the fresh snow. He kisses her, just a brief peck with her mother in the room, and goes to find his gloves and his hat.
—
The morning after her bachelorette party, she’s got a little bit of a hangover. He closes the curtains and keeps the lights off, brings her water, tea, and Advil. She gulps it all down, curling back up and falling asleep again. He rubs her shoulders and down her back, runs his fingers through her hair.
“You haven’t realized that single life is the way to go, right?” He mumbles against the back of her neck, hand ghosting over her hip. She’s barely awake, but she squeezes his fingers until he can feel her engagement ring pressing into his skin.
—
The morning after the blizzard, they’ve given up on the ‘we’ll just have to keep each other warm’ attitude and adopted the ‘when we freeze to death, are we leaving the movie collection to Fitz or Skye?’ attitude. They’ve traded in the nudity and body heat in favor of two pairs of pants each, and as many shirts and sweatshirts as they could fit into.
“Do we have any more blankets?” She asks through chattering teeth, an hour and a half after the power’s gone out. They don’t, though, and she knows that as much as she knows he got up and checked fifteen minutes ago. So he doesn’t bother answering, just tightens his arms around her and tucks her head beneath his chin.
—
The morning after their wedding, they get breakfast in bed in their hotel suite. They lay together in the soft sheets, trading bites and looking through the pictures people posted from the night before.
She reaches for her phone and plays their first dance song, and he pulls her to her feet to sway together again. They clamber back onto the bed and finish the pancakes. There’s syrup everywhere and she keeps spinning his ring around his finger.
—
The morning after they move into their house, their plan to have a lazy day unpacking, listening to music and dancing around the living room gets thrown out the window (the most enormous and beautiful bay window she’s ever seen) with a phone call from work. He entertains the idea of not answering, but she just smiles and tells him she’ll unpack while he’s gone.
He’s gone for almost thirty-six hours, coming home in the middle of the night. He makes sure the house is all locked up, then he crawls into bed beside her. By the time he sleeps off the remnants of his mission, it’s two in the afternoon and she’s already gone to the lab.
—
The morning after their first big fight, she wakes up to her alarm and knows he’s awake too. She sets out her clothes and starts the shower, goes downstairs to turn on the coffeemaker. When she gets back to the bedroom, he’s sitting up, watching her as she enters.
She should say something, try to talk it out more calmly than the screaming match they’d already had. She wants to say something, because god, she hates this, the not-talking, the creaking of floorboards, the swallowing of their usual words, the way she felt so staggeringly lonely all night even though he was lying right beside her. She bites her lip, turns into the bathroom and shuts the door.
—
The morning after their second big fight, he’s waiting on a tarmac for a plane that will take him on a mission he promised her he’d turn down. He feels nauseous, guilty, apologetic, but still a little angry at her. But mostly nauseous.
His phone rings, and when he answers he’s met with loud, angry, Scottish brogue-tinged swear words mixed in with reprimands and threats of physical violence. He asks if she’s there (“none of your damn business right now, you twat”) but eventually hangs up because his plane is rolling toward him and he can’t go home now. No matter how nauseous he feels.
—
The morning after their first anniversary, she’s forgotten they have a puppy now. Edison is alternating licking her face with trying to burrow his way underneath the blankets with her. She giggles, pushing herself into a sitting position and tugging him into her lap. He focuses fully on licking her face and neck, nudging his head into her hands when she scratches behind his ears.
“I tried to keep him out so you could sleep longer, but he’s pretty fast.” He says quietly, standing in the doorway. Edison tries to climb up her front, finding her hair particularly enthralling, and she just smiles and beckons Grant into the room to play with their new addition.
—
The morning after they go apple picking, she’s turned the kitchen into a disaster area. He’s reminded her twice that she doesn’t have to find uses for every last apple, but she keeps finding new recipes for delicious things, so he just stops trying. Instead, he sits at the island counter and does whatever she asks with whatever apples she hands him.
When she starts putting together the ingredients for apple dumplings, he’s instructed to slice two granny smiths, and unfortunately, she notices that he’s eating more than he’s cutting. “You are so lucky you’re handsome.” She sighs with a quirk of her eyebrow, and when he kisses her across the counter, they both taste like apples.
—
The morning after they meet Bruce Banner, she can’t wait to go to work and tell everybody. She can practically recall the entire conversation from memory, and she’s trying to compile some things to send to Dr. Banner as soon as humanly possible.
He found Banner pleasant enough, but something about the exchange of science talk didn’t sit well with Grant. She notices, quiets about the topic just a little. They move on.
—
The morning after their second anniversary, she’s out of town and he’s alone in the house.
She promises to call. She forgets. He means to call her instead. He forgets too.
—
The morning after their third big fight, she snaps Edison’s leash on and walks through the neighborhood until the sun starts to rise.
She waits down the road until she can see his car pull out of the driveway, before going back to the house and finally falling asleep in their bed.
—
The morning after their ninth big fight, he’s asleep on the couch, and she’s in the guest room.
Edison trots back and forth between them.
—
The morning after they take vacation time, they’re doing better than they have been in awhile. The plane ride is quiet, but they’re comfortable, hands linked.
The week is nice, though he can’t help feeling the tension lurking at the edges of every moment. It’s like they left their problems at home, which seems fine for now, but will no doubt smack them in the face once they return. He doesn’t want to go home.
—
The morning after their fifteenth big fight, he storms out of the house and drives away.
She stays in it, blasting music from the speakers to cover up the glaring silence that’s settled.
—
The morning after they leave for separate vacations, neither of them can ignore (no matter how hard they try) the way some of their anger and stress dissipates.
They can’t ignore the way that fact makes it harder to breathe.
—
The morning after their last big fight, Skye answers her phone, turns to Fitz with tears in her eyes and whispers, “They’re getting a divorce.”
—
The morning after their house is sold, Fitz asks who’s keeping Edison.
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The morning after they sign the papers, they’re moved into separate apartments on separate sides of the city. Most of their shared possessions are in storage.
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The morning after her clothes stop smelling like him, she takes off her wedding ring.
—
The morning after he takes off his ring, Skye shows up at Jemma’s door with tears on her cheeks and stays for the rest of the day.
—
The morning after he takes a new job on the other side of the country, Fitz claps him on the back with a sad smile, accepts Edison’s leash, and takes the dog over to Jemma.
—
The morning after Skye and Fitz tell her that he’s in town, they see each other on the streets of New York for the first time in nearly two years. She thinks she stops breathing for a moment. Her ribs crunch in, her lungs collapse. He’s sure his heart has shrunk in on itself, the blood in his veins freezing in place and turning him cold all over. They’re walking toward each other.
He looks away. She does too. They pass without a word, without another glance. It’s better that way.