Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"All right," Fitz sighed, briefly closing his eyes in concentration. "All right, can…could…everyone just…just stop talking?"

He leaned in close to inspect his options, relishing in the two seconds of silence he was granted. But it was never bound to last. He was running out of time.

"Come on, man," Trip said gently. "It's over. Some battles you just can't win, you know?"

"He's right, Fitz," Mack agreed, giving Fitz a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "It's okay to let this one go. Everyone'll understand. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Fitz heard a choking sound over to his right and a loud clink. "Oi!" Hunter coughed, swatting Mack's hand away. "Okay, you lot, you've said your bit, now back off and give the man some room."

"You can't be serious, Hunter," Trip chuckled, shaking his head. "There's nothing you can do that's not gonna-"

"He'll find a way," Hunter replied too loudly, drowning out Trip's protests. "He always does. And when that happens, you'll be sorry you ever doubted him." There was a short pause before Hunter's voice was directly in Fitz's ear. "You do have a plan, right?" he murmured.

Fitz continued to stare at the contraption before him, trying to ignore the comments flying back and forth, but the room was spinning a little and he could feel his focus starting to slip. He managed to give Hunter a distracted nod, though, and waved a hand next to his ear.

Thankfully Hunter took the hint and backed away. "There," he said with an air of satisfaction, but Fitz didn't even have to look up to know that the other two were probably not buying it. "Nothing to worry about. So we'll see who's laughing when-"

"That one," Fitz interrupted, pointing to a spot in the lower left corner before leaning back in his chair.

Hunter looked momentarily disoriented. "Wait, what?" he asked, sliding forward to the edge of his seat and taking care not to bump into the table. "Which one?"

Fitz indicated the spot once more. "That one."

Hunter's eyes widened in alarm. "That one?" he cried.

Fitz simply nodded, folding his arms as he ignored the snickers coming from the other side of the table. "Yup."

"Are you raving mad?"

"Just give it up, buddy," Mack advised. "I'm telling you, sometimes you gotta know when to throw in the towel, and right now that's looking like your best option."

Hunter was still staring at Fitz. "And you're absolutely sure?"

Fitz didn't bother giving him more than a glare in response, and Hunter nodded, even though he still didn't look convinced. "Well," he sighed, rubbing his hands together nervously. "You haven't failed me yet."

"Oh my God," Trip said incredulously. "You're actually gonna do it."

"Of course I'm going to do it," Hunter replied with indignation. "The guy's a bloody genius, if you haven't noticed, and I'm not gonna give up on him just because the stakes are high."

"It's not worth it, Hunter," Mack insisted. "You know what happens if you fail."

"I also know what happens if I don't," he responded quietly, reaching over to drain the glass in front of him. "All right, let's do this before I change my mind."

He leaned forward towards the structure, his hand hovering around the block Fitz had indicated. "You're positively certain that-"

"Yes," Fitz said in annoyance.

"All right, all right, I was just making sure," Hunter insisted, his fingers inching closer until he gingerly grasped the small piece. Fitz held his breath, knowing that despite his certainty, the entire enterprise hinged on Hunter's unwavering hands. Even Mack and Trip had stopped talking at this point, their eyes shimmering with anticipation as Hunter slowly removed the block.

Nothing happened.

Hunter remained hunched over, staring at the structure for five whole seconds before his mouth twisted into a grin. "Well, would you look at that."

"Hey, it's not over," Mack pointed out, running a hand over the lower half of his face. "You still have to-"

"I know, I know," Hunter said, rolling his eyes before taking another deep breath. "In the middle, yeah?" he asked Fitz.

Fitz gave him a nod, not trusting himself to say anything else. The next few seconds crawled by at an agonizing pace as Hunter leaned forward, carefully placing the block on top of the precarious assembly. As soon as the piece was in position, he held his hands behind his head and quickly stood up to back away from the table. The rest of them stared at the tower in stunned silence, but after a while it became obvious that Hunter had achieved the seemingly impossible.

Not that Fitz was surprised.

"Damn," Trip muttered, shaking his head.

But Mack was inspecting the tower, undoubtedly looking for evidence of a sleight of hand. "There's no way."

"And that, my friends…is how it's done," Hunter laughed, giving Fitz's shoulders a squeeze before sitting back down in his seat. He leaned back, opening up another bottle of beer that inexplicably appeared in his hands. "What's it up to now, mate?"

"Two weeks inventory, one week kitchen duty," Fitz recited, enjoying the shocked looks on their opponents' faces more than he thought was possible.

"Well, boys," Hunter smiled, taking a sip. "You fought a noble fight, worthy of any of the greats, really. But alas, the sweet taste of victory belongs to-"

"Hey, whoa, whoa," Mack interrupted, holding up his hand. "You're talking like the fat lady sung already. But she hasn't even started warming up yet." He gestured to the cards in front of him. "We've still got a hand to finish."

Hunter sat up, his jaw open as he stared at Mack in disbelief. "You actually think you can still win this?"

Mack's face didn't falter for a second. "You're damn right we're gonna win this," he said in a quiet voice.

Hunter held his intense gaze for a moment longer, his expression slowly changing from doubt to mischievous amusement. "Ready to put your money where your mouth is?"

"Two weeks inventory, two weeks kitchen," Mack replied without hesitation. "But you know what? Let's sweeten that deal," he grinned, briefly sharing a knowing glance with Trip. "Losers also have to clean the bathrooms for a week."

Fitz tried to catch Hunter's eye, but he was already shaking his head. "Scum doesn't get to raise the stakes, only King gets to do that."

"I am King," Mack protested.

"Wait, I thought it was President," Trip said in confusion.

Fitz and Hunter spoke at the same time. "It's King."

"Yeah, so I played the two tens," Mack continued. "And then you tried to play that crap about the Jack, I called your bluff, you somehow managed to appease the Jenga gods even though I'm pretty sure there was dark magic involved, and now here we are." He pointed to his chest. "But I'm still King."

"Whatever," Hunter said in irritation. "You seriously think you're gonna be able to convince me you've got anything better than a ten at this point?"

Mack's lips curled into a smile. "I don't," he replied, leaning back in his chair and looking over at Trip. "But he does."

Right on cue, Trip laid a card facedown in the middle of the pile. "Unless you've got two aces hidden up your sleeve…it's over, Hunter."

Hunter looked back and forth between Mack and Trip. "An ace?" he asked with a laugh. "That's the best you can do?"

"Check it if you want," Trip shrugged. "But you'll only make it worse for yourself."

"Well, that was easier than I thought," Hunter muttered, throwing down his last remaining card. "Deuce."

"I'm sorry, what'd you call me?"

Hunter's brow furrowed in confusion until he seemed to realize what Trip meant. "Two, it's-it's a two," he clarified, pointing to the card.

Trip stared at him. "Didn't have you pegged for a comedian, Hunter."

"Oh, you think I'm joking, do you?"

"That or you're just out of your damn mind if you think a two can beat an ace."

"Course a two can beat an ace, that's how it's always been."

"The game's rigged, Mack," Trip shook his head. "Now he's just making crap up."

Hunter ignored him, using his hands to gesture pointedly in front of him. "Two's up top, then it's ace, then it's King, Queen, and so on. You can ask anyone."

"It's true," Fitz piped up. "That's…yeah, the two, it…er…it beats…it's better than the others."

"Thank you," Hunter replied, nearly poking Fitz in the eye as he pointed towards him. "You see? He agrees with me."

"Yeah, he agrees with you," Mack argued. "He's on your side."

The banter continued across the table for a few more minutes, but Fitz couldn't have said he minded. In fact, for the first time in a long time, he felt…content. And sure, perhaps it was the alcohol-induced haze he was currently in, or the fact that despite his disadvantage he'd still been able to determine which block would keep the wooden tower intact. But he didn't care. Because for just a short while he was able to forget about how frustrated he constantly felt. For just a short while he didn't have to think about how much he'd lost.

But, of course, it was never bound to last.

He wasn't sure when it happened, whether the others went quiet first or if he heard the door open or if somehow he just knew, but all of a sudden she was there.

"Fitz, did you-" she began, only to stop short at seeing the group around the table. "Oh."

"Simmons," Fitz said, sitting up quickly and trying to fight past the buzzing in his ears. "Is it…has anything…d-did you…" He stifled a groan, knowing he had the words but that they dangled out of his reach, an affliction that was not entirely derived from his injury. "Do you need something?"

Fitz could have smacked himself. Do you need something? The words themselves were harmless enough, in theory. But it was the way he'd said them, as if he were bothered by her presence rather than by the fact that he'd had to focus all of his energy on getting a simple sentence out. And that wasn't even taking into account that there was no way she actually needed him. She'd never needed him, and chances were she probably never would. Could he really not have chosen any other words?

There was something else, too, something playing on the edge of his mind, but the room was spinning even more now and he couldn't grasp onto it. Instead he had to painfully watch as Jemma avoided his gaze.

"No, no, it's…I was just seeing if…but it's not…never mind," she stammered, giving them all a tight smile as she backed out of the room. "I'll just let you get back to…" She gestured towards the haphazard tower and the array of bottles littering the table, her voice trailing off. "Excuse me."

Fitz closed his eyes in humiliation, unable to believe himself. He wanted nothing more than to follow her out the door, but something told him that in his current state he would probably just make things worse. He'd have to talk to her later, preferably when he was positive he could walk in a straight line.

To his relief, the others didn't seem bothered by their most recent interruption. And to his further relief, Hunter kept his comment to himself until Jemma had disappeared.

"You know, I still don't get that," he said, raising his eyebrows as he took another swig of his beer.

Mack's eyes flicked over to Fitz before he looked at Hunter. "Don't get what?"

Hunter leaned forward, setting his bottle on the table and resting his elbows on his knees. "How long did you say you two've known each other?" he asked, turning his head to Fitz.

Fitz was caught off-guard for a moment, unsure where Hunter's question was coming from or what it had to do with anything. But he sighed and looked down at his hands, more as an excuse to avoid everyone's eyes than because he needed his fingers to count. "Um…well, I guess by now it'd be…nine? No…it's ten years now. I think." He glanced back up at Hunter and tried to make sure his expression remained as neutral as possible, despite the heaviness he felt in his chest by the reality of the answer. "Yeah. Ten years. Give or take."

A confused look passed over Hunter's face, and he tilted his head as if he were trying to figure something out. "So you didn't meet at the Academy then?"

"No, we…we did, yeah," Fitz replied, his discomfort growing as Hunter squinted at him.

"How old are you, mate?"

Fitz scoffed, folding his arms. "Old enough, thank you."

"Whatever," Hunter dismissed, shaking his head. "Ten years?" he asked with a level of disbelief that Fitz felt was hardly justified. "You're saying you've known each other for ten years? And in all that time, you've never-"

"Hunter," Mack said quietly, giving him a pointed look.

Fitz didn't have time to argue before Hunter sat up, holding out his hands in front him. "Look, all I'm saying is there has to be a story there."

Now it was Fitz's turn to be confused. "Story?" he repeated. "No, there…that hasn't…well…there's not…I mean, it's not strictly…" He sighed, his hands falling to rest on the arms of his chair. "There's not a story."

"Oh, really?" Hunter said doubtfully. "Because from what I've heard, SciTech is pretty damn competitive. And you're telling me that when you two met, everything was peachy keen and you were best mates right off the bat?"

There was silence following Hunter's question, and Fitz was baffled to see that even Mack and Trip were looking at him expectantly. "Well…that's…it's-" he stuttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Not…exactly."

"See?" Hunter smiled, grabbing his bottle again as he stood up. "Story."

Fitz opened and closed his mouth. "Wait, it's not-"

"Even I gotta hear this, man," Trip said, laughing as Hunter tossed him and Mack new beers.

"But…it's…" Fitz sighed, staring at the cold bottle that had been placed in front of him and knowing there was really no way he could get out of this one. He reached forward and twisted the cap off, already regretting whatever he was about to say.

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

Chapter Text

TEN YEARS, ELEVEN MONTHS, AND FIFTEEN DAYS AGO. GIVE OR TAKE.

Fitz quickly slid into one of the open seats in the back, his usual tactic upon entering a classroom. It wasn't necessarily that he wanted to avoid drawing attention to himself (which was true) or that he liked having the fastest escape route at the end of the hour (also true). Mostly he felt that the back gave him the most useful vantage point, where he could observe unobserved without the added pressures of participating. The other kids were tolerable, to a certain extent, and the professors were excellent, without question. But Fitz had always been more comfortable keeping to himself, demonstrating his talent through his work rather than by verbally fighting against the countless cadets only seeking to further their careers.

No, most of the time Fitz was fairly quiet in class.

Most of the time.

He kept his eyes cast downward, absentmindedly sketching designs in his notebook as the room slowly filled up. It was a smaller class, the beginning of a four-week seminar he'd been invited to enroll in, and Fitz had arrived ten minutes early just in case this professor happened to be on the stricter side of such policies. Fitz couldn't have said he cared all that much about the rules, definitely not as much as some of the other cadets, but in this case he figured it would be in his best interest to be on time. And he actually was quite interested in this particular module (or perhaps more specifically the professor teaching this particular module), despite the low number of students and despite knowing that she would undoubtedly be there. That was a given, after all. She was much too smart not to have been invited.

Sure enough, he heard her enter the classroom with a few minutes to spare. Fitz tried not to wince or make any sudden movements when she took the only remaining seat left in the classroom, the seat that fate had cruelly reserved next to him. His pencil paused on the page in front of him as she settled in quietly, and even though he didn't look over at her, he knew she was just as thrilled by the seating arrangement as he was. Her irritation was practically radiating off of her.

In all honesty, he had no idea what he'd done to upset her. On their first day, his eyes had widened upon hearing her clear voice answer one of the professor's questions. The accent wasn't Scottish, true, and she most definitely identified as English. There was something familiar to it, though, a cadence that echoed her northern origins and oddly reminded him of home.

But that wasn't the only thing they shared in common. She was younger than the others, perhaps even younger than him by the looks of it. Being years behind his classmates developmentally had largely been a part of why he'd disliked his academic advancement so much. So to know that someone else would not only understand but also identify with those experiences had given him hope, the hope that maybe joining S.H.I.E.L.D. and moving halfway across the world had not been such a bad idea after all. Plus, she was obviously brilliant. He'd needed less than a minute of hearing her talk to realize that, even without her exemplary marks putting her above everyone else in the Academy (besides him, of course).

Fitz couldn't really explain it, but somehow he just knew that if he got the chance, if he could just show her how similar they really were, they would get along. All he had to do was find the right thing to say, something that would impress her enough to consider giving him more than a passing glance outside of the classroom. But as the term went on and his class participation skyrocketed in the lectures he shared with her, that particular feat proved to be much more difficult than he'd originally anticipated.

Because at the end of the day, Jemma Simmons was very, very hard to impress.

Fitz attempted to surreptitiously glance at his watch, willing time to defy its own laws and move faster. Next to him, she was very pointedly avoiding his gaze, her hair cascading over her shoulder in a way that strategically covered the side of her face. Despite her less-than-subtle hostility, Fitz found himself smiling slightly. He'd never seen someone take that much time to write the date at the top of their paper.

After a few minutes, it became evident that their professor was not the punctual kind. The low buzz that had filled the classroom steadily grew louder, and some of the other cadets' comments could be heard over the din.

"Did you guys get a syllabus for this? Why even bother with another seminar if it's only four weeks?"

"Chemical kinetics, my ass. You know who this guy is, right? It's a cover."

"One of the third years said the cadet who has the best final project gets recommended for early graduation and immediate relocation to the Sandbox."

"Oh, you're all going down."

"I heard he's actually on the government's watch list, and S.H.I.E.L.D. just recruited him to keep an eye on him. That's why this class is so short. They don't want to keep him in one place for too long."

Fitz tried to keep his amusement to himself, but the absurdity of that last remark earned a low scoff from him. Thankfully no one paid him any attention, because Simmons set her pencil down just then.

"What a load of rubbish," she said, rolling her eyes. Almost immediately, the rest of the small class fell silent, a common effect whenever she began speaking. "Dr. Hall is an asset to S.H.I.E.L.D., a valuable one at that, and an extremely busy man. We should consider ourselves very lucky to be under his instruction. I mean, his work in the physical chemistry field is unparalleled, and that's not even taking into consideration his groundbreaking theories on the gravitonium-"

"Well, there goes my plan for a spellbinding introduction."

Fitz joined the others in turning towards the back of the classroom, where Dr. Franklin Hall stood in the doorway. For a world-renowned scientist, his outward appearance hardly commanded the presence he deserved. He wore a simple jacket and tie, his briefcase looked as if it had survived at least three decades, and the spectacles perched on the edge of his nose gave him the odd impression of a school librarian. But as Fitz could easily testify, appearances could be deceptive. He knew very well that this man was quite possibly the smartest person he'd ever been in the same room with.

"It seems as if you're already familiar with my research," Dr. Hall continued as he made his way over to the large desk near the whiteboard.

"Your reputation precedes you, sir," Simmons replied with a smile, always miraculously quick to recover. "As well as your work, of course."

Dr. Hall gave her a small smile in return before addressing the rest of the class. "I apologize for my tardiness," he said, pressing a button in the side of the desk. "I was trying to convince the board of directors to upgrade the Holotable in here to the most recent prototype. But it looks like we'll have to make do with the old mark for now."

Fitz briefly wondered why any classroom in the Academy of Science and Technology would be using old prototypes, but his attention was immediately redirected as soon as the Holotable booted up. "Now, if I could just…" Dr. Hall muttered, pressing a few keys. "Ah. There it is. The colors aren't as impressive here, but…well, you'll get the idea." With one swift motion, he raised his hands above the table, and a holographic projection of a silver substance hovered in front of their eyes. Almost involuntarily, Fitz leaned forward, his jaw going slack. The gasp that escaped his lips sounded a bit louder than he would have expected, but that was until he realized that it'd been magnified by a very similar sound coming from the person next to him. He snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, and saw that her face had broken into an astonished grin.

"Bloody hell," she murmured with a laugh.

One of the cadets in the front of the class was the first to speak up. "So you, like, actually found it? The gravitonium exists?"

Dr. Hall sighed, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Well…yes and no, Miss…"

"Webber, sir," she supplied quickly with a smug smile on her lips, probably very pleased at being the first student to gain recognition by name. "Sally Webber."

"Thank you, Miss Webber," Dr. Hall nodded before turning back to the projection. "While all the data supports the existence of the gravitonium, I'm afraid it's still only a theoretical concept at this point." He swiveled the image around so that they could see the different sides of the substance, and Fitz marveled at how real it appeared, the outer surface swelling and falling like waves on a seashore. "But based on my calculations and with the help of modern technology," Hall continued, "we've been able to determine what the element's physical properties should be. Would anyone like to venture a guess as to why the gravitonium would appear like this?"

Sally Webber never stood a chance. "Well, that'd be because of its high atomic mass, of course," Simmons answered, not bothering to raise her hand. "Together, a group of gravitonium atoms has the ability to distort the gravity fields within itself. But since those fields would theoretically remain uniform, the element has an isotropic flow, which is why it would appear amorphous. Its properties aren't dictated by earth's gravitational field."

Fitz waited until she took a breath before he spoke, partly out of a genuine interest in the subject and partly because it gave him a chance to prove that he'd also done his research. "But that all could change, though, yeah?" he asked, and quickly powered through when he noticed her shoulders slightly tense up. "Theoretically the fields would be evenly distributed, but they could also erupt if stimulated by an outside source. An isolated positive charge should do it."

Dr. Hall smiled. "Very impressive, Mr.-"

"But you wouldn't actually want to do that, of course," Simmons interrupted in an overly sweet voice, still aiming her comments towards the front of the room. "Applying an electric current to a mass of gravitonium could have disastrous effects, especially considering the unpredictable nature of the subsequent gravity fields that would emanate from the source-"

"Well, yes," Fitz agreed, somehow managing to sound more irritated than he felt. "But if you were to find a way to control those fields, you could potentially-"

"Move heavy objects easily or…expedite the process of harnessing resources like oil, true. But that would require reversing the pull of gravity-"

"Or shifting the point of attraction," Fitz specified.

"Thank you," Dr. Hall nodded. "That's-"

"But all of that depends on our ability to even find a gravitonium deposit in the first place," Simmons continued, apparently unwilling to appreciate what Fitz had to say.

"Yes," Dr. Hall said, trying once more to interrupt them. And though Fitz felt childish for even doing so, he wasn't ready to let the subject drop until he'd gotten his point across.

"There are plenty of mines that could potentially harbor gravitonium, it's just a matter of financing that's the issue-"

"That's not the only issue. Gravitonium is not like other elements. If it's ever found, we'd have to find a way to remove it safely-"

"Sure, but extracting it directly from the ore should work, considering-"

"That's purely speculation, and even if that were a viable option, it'd have to be enriched-"

"Of course it'd have to be enriched, that wasn't even a question-"

"FitzSimmons."

Whatever Fitz had been about to say completely disappeared from his mind as he turned his head towards the front of the room. Had he just heard what he thought he'd just heard? Next to him, Simmons also went quiet, and Fitz noticed that Dr. Hall was looking at the two of them with raised eyebrows.

"You…you know our names," Simmons stammered after a few seconds of silence, surprising Fitz even further. He was much more concerned with the way Dr. Hall had said their names, combining them into one word rather than addressing them separately.

As if he'd been admonishing one person instead of two.

Dr. Hall smiled again. "Your reputation precedes you."

Fitz was still in a state of shock, only now he was wondering how on earth two first years had garnered enough talk amongst the faculty to even have a reputation. He was even more bewildered to see many of their classmates covering their mouths, subtly trying to hide their amusement. For her part, Simmons nervously tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, staring down at her lap as her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink.

Thankfully Dr. Hall moved on quickly. "I appreciate your enthusiasm on the subject," he said, ignoring the quiet laughter coming from the other cadets. "Unfortunately, however, in this course we won't really be covering the theories surrounding gravitonium." He gave them all an apologetic smile, reaching over to minimize the projection on the Holotable. "I was told by my peers that I would get your attention faster with something like this. And while I'm always interested to hear your theories and opinions, I'm afraid this really is a chemical kinetics seminar."

There wasn't any audible groaning from the class, since they were all professionals. But the disappointment was palpable enough for Dr. Hall to notice. "Oh, come on, guys," he said. "It'll be fun, don't worry. But we do have a lot of ground to cover in four weeks, so it's not going to be a picnic. Some of you have more experience in this field than others, so the lecture portion of the course might seem a little repetitive. We'll meet in here three times a week, where we'll cover the basics in reaction rate theory, equilibrium, quantum scattering, all that good stuff. But the majority of your grade will actually derive from your performance in the lab practical."

He hit another key on the Holotable, and stepped aside so they could read the syllabus on the whiteboard. "It's no accident that you're all here today," he continued. "Every single one of you was invited to enroll in this course for a reason. You're the best of the best. The top of your class. Scientists who are heralding in a new era of technological development, one that is making strides we couldn't have even dreamed of twenty years ago. I have no doubt in my mind that you've all worked very hard to get to where you are."

Dr. Hall leaned against the Holotable and folded his arms, glancing around the room. "Now, I've been in your shoes before. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I know the hours you've put in. I know the measures you've taken to achieve the success that you have. And I know all about being that one guy who always ruins the damn curve." Most of the class laughed appreciatively, but Fitz was still too distracted by the strangeness of the previous moment to join in.

"And while a little competition is healthy," Dr. Hall went on. "S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't interested in its agents stepping over one another to get to Level Three. The organization only thrives when everyone is able to work as part of a cohesive whole. So…to foster such an environment, you will each be randomly assigned a partner, with whom you will work on and present your projects."

The groans were definitely audible this time around. Even Fitz felt his stomach drop at the prospect of having to work with someone else, especially with anyone in that class.

Dr. Hall rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored their protests. "Your first project is due next Monday, so I'd get started right away if I were you. The parameters of each assignment are specified in the syllabus I just sent out, but really the whole point of this is that you learn to work as a team. As long as your projects involve thoughtful consideration, I don't care what you turn in. Whether you wish to create something new or modify an existing piece of technology or procedure is up to you. This course has a designated lab time once a week, but you'll all get limited access to the south labs for the remainder of the term."

Despite his dread, Fitz actually found himself sitting up straighter in his seat, following suit with the rest of his classmates. The south labs were usually only reserved for faculty and upperclassmen.

"I don't really have anything more for you today," Dr. Hall concluded, swiping across the screen as he flipped through the syllabus. "Here's the course roster showing your partner assignments, which are…non-negotiable." Fitz wasn't quite certain, but he thought the professor's eyes lingered just a little longer at the back of the room. "I look forward to seeing what all of you come up with. If you have any questions, see me after class. Good luck."

As soon as the roster displayed on the screen, Fitz immediately understood the pointed look he'd received. Because right across from his name, in bold capital letters, was the name of the one person in that entire class that he absolutely did not want to work with. Of course, there was also the minor complication that she happened to be the one person in that entire class that he actually did want to work with.

Dr. Hall left the assignment list up on the screen for a few more minutes, and as the rest of the class paired off and began discussing plans, Fitz remained frozen in his seat, staring down at the paper in front of him with unseeing eyes. He wracked his brain for something, anything, to say, but everything that was flashing through his mind was completely inadequate.

Eventually he heard her breathe in sharply. "Well," she said finally, drumming her fingers on the desk surface. "Looks like we're…partners."

She didn't sound nearly as upset as he thought she would, so he took his chances and looked over at her. He couldn't tell if she was smiling or wincing as she met his eyes, but either way he had absolutely no idea what to say in response.

"Is…is something wrong?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'm just…not exactly a partner person."

It was, without a doubt, the worst response he could have come up with. But the words had escaped before he'd had time to process them. And even though it was technically true, he silently cursed himself as all the alarm bells in his head told him he'd definitely said the wrong thing. If she hadn't considered him smart enough to notice before, there was absolutely no way in hell she'd want to be his partner now.

Her wince froze in place as she glanced down at her hands momentarily. "Well, you'd better get used to it," she said after clearing her throat. And when she looked back up at him, he was surprised to see that she didn't look angry. In fact, her smile even seemed genuine, although he figured her exceedingly polite nature was only barely overcoming her irritation. "Because how else are you going to solve the problem of your freezing device without a crystalline nucleation process to actually make it work?"

Fitz was pretty sure he stopped breathing for a few seconds, completely thrown for a loop by what she'd said. She must have noticed his confusion because she gestured to the notebook in front of him. "Y-your design," she clarified, reaching up to tuck another loose strand behind her ear. "I couldn't help but notice-"

"Oh," Fitz breathed, looking down at the paper as if he were seeing the sketches for the first time. "Oh, that's….just…"

"Just an idea?" she offered. He managed to give her some combination of a nod and a shrug, which probably made him look ridiculous but thankfully got his point across. "Well, it…it could work," she concluded, folding her hands in her lap as she looked at him expectantly.

Fitz opened his mouth to respond, but he still didn't have a bloody clue what she was talking about.

"For a project," she explained, looking at his notebook once more. "It would fit the parameters for the first assignment, or at least it would with a little modification. I've already read them."

Of course she'd already read the assignment specifications. Jemma Simmons was nothing if not prepared.

It was only when she started talking again that he realized he hadn't actually responded, and that he was most likely looking denser by the second. "Look," she sighed, glancing down at the desk. "It's not…ideal, no. But we're stuck with each other. And we're going to have to tolerate one another, at least for a little while, if we want to pass."

Fitz could feel his hope at any kind of friendship with her diminish as she continued. He supposed he had made quite the impression, but it wasn't the one he'd been aiming for if he'd become a partner that had to be tolerated.

"It's four weeks," she reasoned. "Four weeks and then it'll be over with. So…you do your part, I'll do mine, we'll got top marks, and then you'll never have to work with me again."

For about the hundredth time that day, Fitz found himself speechless. He wanted to say something about how he actually didn't think he'd mind working with her, or about how he thought the project idea was excellent, or perhaps something about the brilliant suggestion she'd made based on only a rudimentary sketch. But all he was able to manage in terms of a response was a small nod as he met her gaze, hoping that by some miracle his eyes could express all that he could not say.

She glanced away from him after a few seconds, and if he hadn't known better, he might have said she looked somewhat hurt. "I'll meet you in the lab tomorrow at nine," she said, quickly gathering her things together as she stood up. "Bring your designs and we'll brainstorm then."

She'd taken a couple steps away when she paused, and even though she was facing away from him, he could tell she was having an internal argument with herself. He saw her shoulders rise and fall as she took a deep breath, and she slowly turned back around to face him.

"I…I understand why you want to work alone," she began in a quiet voice. "All right? Really, I do, but…" She hesitated, but seemed to come to a decision to finish what she'd started saying. "But sometimes it's just a little easier to solve things…together."

He knew he most certainly didn't deserve it, but she smiled at him anyways. "See you tomorrow, Fitz," she said softly, leaving him alone in the now-empty classroom. He didn't realize until she'd disappeared that it was the first time she'd actually said his name. It replayed like an echo in his head, long after he'd left the room and made his way back to his dorm. He'd never been particularly attached to his surname, but the way she'd said it definitely gave him a new appreciation for it. In fact, as hard as he tried, he couldn't think of a single sound he would prefer to hear, which was a bit of a problem considering she probably thought he was a lunatic.

He had four weeks. Four weeks to convince her that he wasn't a complete idiot. Of course, after that disaster of an interaction today, he had a lot of damage to make up for.

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

PRESENT DAY

Fitz fiddled with the bottle in his hands, awkwardly waiting for someone to break the silence.

"That's it?" Hunter asked, sounding somewhat disappointed. "You're just gonna leave it there? Come on, there has to be more."

But Fitz was exhausted now, mostly because he'd spoken more words in the last few minutes than he had in the past month. It also didn't help that the longer he spent thinking about his memories from the Academy, the worse he felt.

"Not much more to tell, really," he shrugged, purposely avoiding Mack's eyes and knowing the mechanic could probably see through his lie anyway.

"Right," Hunter replied doubtfully, finishing off his beer. "The two biggest know-it-alls at the Academy forced to work together in close quarters, barely stomaching each other and yet managing to create a partnership within four weeks that would last over a decade." He shook his head. "You don't have to tell me, mate, but there's no way I'm going to believe there's not more to tell."

"It's not that," Fitz mumbled. "It's just…well…Simmons could probably tell it better than I can," he finished sheepishly.

"If you say so," Hunter laughed.

"But what about the project?" Mack asked, probably in an attempt to satisfy Hunter's curiosity without getting into uncertain topics.

"Got it done, yeah," Fitz said, placing his nearly empty bottle on the table. "Hit a few bumps, sure, but nothing that would make for a good story is what I've been trying to say. Actually, if you want to hear something really funny-"

"Oh no," Trip groaned. "Not the bunny-suit story again."

"It's a classic," Fitz protested.

"Simmons actually does tell that one better," Trip explained to the others.

Fitz grumbled a little, but he knew Trip was right. He'd never been able to tell a story quite like she could, even when he hadn't had trouble with his words.

"Well, this has been fun," Hunter said after a few moments. "But I'm beat. Did we figure out who actually won that last round?"

"It was definitely us," Mack replied.

"Bollocks, I don't remember," Hunter muttered. "But that can't be right. Let's call it a draw then, yeah? Settle it next Saturday when we're all…present. You know, mentally speaking. Like the classic gents we are."

"Nice try, Hunter," Trip said, gathering up the cards and shoving them randomly into the box. "You're lucky I'm too tired to care."

Hunter simply gave him a grin before ambling over towards the door.

"Try not to pass out until you actually get to your bunk this time, Hunter," Mack called after him, earning a dismissive wave in response. "I should probably follow him," he sighed. "Lord knows what'll happen if Bobbi finds him unconscious in front of her door again."

"He's a big boy," Trip said, starting to toss out some of the empty bottles on the table. "And big boys have to accept the consequences of their drunken-ass actions."

"Yeah, I hear you," Mack replied quietly before turning to Fitz. "What're you thinking, Turbo?"

Fitz had been staring off into space, trying to figure out why Hunter's words had sent up a red flag in his head. And suddenly he remembered what had happened to inspire his trip down memory lane. "Is today Saturday?" he asked.

Trip looked at his watch. "Sunday now," he replied, gathering the last remaining wooden blocks from the table. "Jeez, Fitz, I keep forgetting how much of a lightweight you are," he laughed as he headed to the doorway. "Don't even know what day it is?"

Under normal circumstances, Fitz might have argued that he could hold his liquor just fine, thank you very much. But at the moment he was much more preoccupied with a different problem. Of course, it'd been months. Surely he wouldn't have expected her to uphold tradition, especially a tradition that had sort of gone on hiatus with her absence. But she had sought him out, oddly enough, despite everything that had happened between them. Fitz felt like smacking himself once again. Because now he knew what Jemma had come for earlier.

And he absolutely hated himself that he'd forgotten.

Chapter Text

When Jemma slid her coat on and opened the lab doors the next morning, the last thing she expected to see was Fitz, hunched over as he examined something on the desk in front of him. She closed the door quietly behind her before cautiously edging her way toward him, knowing from experience that in his current state she would be more warmly received if she didn't make too much noise. But as she approached him, she was surprised to notice that though his eyes looked bloodshot, he otherwise didn't appear tired or hung over. A screwdriver dangled from his fingertips as he inspected the device, his other hand resting on his opposite shoulder. For a second, Jemma almost smiled. Because for a second, she could have sworn he looked like the old Fitz.

But that was until she saw his lips moving in a silent conversation with himself.

In fact, Fitz was so engrossed with whatever he was doing that he didn't seem to have heard her come in at all. Jemma cleared her throat.

"Hi, Fitz," she said in as cheerful of a voice as she could muster. "You're up early."

Fitz nearly dropped the screwdriver as he sat up, his eyes going wide before focusing in on her. "Oh, I was, uh…" he began, scratching the back of his head and looking away. "Well, yeah, you see, I was just, er…" He gestured towards the desk in front of him, as if it could supply the words he couldn't find. Jemma remained silent, waiting for him to finish and hoping that her smile was still fixed in place. "Just having a bit of trouble, er…trouble…trouble…sleeping, is all," he finally sighed, sounding exhausted.

"Oh," Jemma replied, upset that she didn't have a more appropriate response. "Um…are you feeling all right?"

She suppressed a groan, especially when she saw Fitz's blank expression in reaction to her horrendous question. "I mean," she clarified, closing her eyes for a second, "you're not feeling ill or anything like that, are you?"

Fitz glanced down at his hands, but Jemma could see the hint of a smile on his face. "No, no, I, uh…I'm fine," he said, taking another deep breath before getting out of his seat. He made his way over to one of the adjacent lab benches, where he sifted through some papers with his back to her. "It just, uh…happens sometimes with the, er…" His voice faded away as he turned toward her, pointing vaguely to his head.

"Right," Jemma nodded, even though she knew that that response was hardly any better. She was thankful when Fitz gave her an appreciative smile on the way back to his seat, a few diagrams held tightly in his hands. There were a couple moments of uncomfortable silence, and the longer Jemma stood in the same spot, the more out of place she felt.

The worst part was that Jemma understood, or at least she thought she did. She wanted to ask him if it was really his affliction that made it difficult for him to sleep, or if it was something else. She wanted to ask him if he also awoke in the middle of the night, gasping for air as if he's never breathed before, or if it also takes him until sunrise to stop crying and realize he's no longer in that med pod. She wanted to ask him if he could ever forgive her for not swimming fast enough, for not being able to help him, for leaving when he'd thought he'd needed her most. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many things she wanted to say. But she couldn't.

And she knew why she couldn't.

Instead she had to settle for playing with her hands as she awkwardly tried to think of something else to say. "So what are you working on?" she asked brightly, stepping just close enough to see the device properly without breaching the unspoken boundary that was now between them.

Fitz looked up at her briefly, but his focus remained on his hands. Jemma tried and failed not to notice the trembling. "Oh, uh…nothing important, just tinkering around," he shrugged, setting aside one of the parts.

He didn't seem particularly irritated with her at the moment, so Jemma summoned up her courage and took another step forward. "Is that…one of the early D.W.A.R.F. prototypes?" she asked, recognizing the old designs that hadn't quite made it to the final product. "Looks like…is it Grumpy?"

"Snow," Fitz corrected quietly, removing the bot's microchip and placing it carefully on a plastic plate.

Jemma leaned forward and rested her hands on the corner of the desk, taking care not to accidentally brush against Fitz's shoulder. "Ah," she said, spotting the small engraving of the apple on the side of one wing. "I see it now."

She wasn't sure if she was imagining it, or if it was even conscious on his part, but Jemma couldn't help but notice that Fitz held his breath until she backed away from him again. "I can't believe you still have the first one," she marveled, hoping to minimize his discomfort as she took a minuscule step backwards. "We were barely out of the Academy when you designed it."

Fitz reached across the desk and grabbed the tablet sitting on the edge. "During those last exams, actually," he murmured as he began to sync the microchip with the program. "Yeah, you, um…well, you made us take one of those, er…revision breaks-"

"Which you hardly needed persuading into," Jemma remarked before she could stop herself.

"Yeah," Fitz smiled, even though he still avoided her eyes. "But, um…it was during one of those, and I don't know, you…er…well, I think we settled on a Disney marathon, or something like that, and um…well, it was late, and you never could make it past one movie without falling asleep. I think you, er…I think you passed out right around the wishing well part, actually." Jemma couldn't tell if it was a trick of the light, but the tips of Fitz's ears seemed to turn red as he continued, still staring studiously at the tablet in front of him. "But I, uh…I kept it on anyways and got out my old notebook, and…well…that happened," he said, gesturing towards the disassembled D.W.A.R.F. "And I finished the sketch about near the end, and I don't know, I guess I just…well, actually, you scared the living daylights out of me because, um, well because you woke up the same time Snow did." He shook his head, almost as if he were coming out of a daze, and when he spoke again, the lightheartedness she'd momentarily heard in his voice was gone. "But uh, that's…that's how the name came about, I-I suppose," he finished quietly.

Jemma stood still, the edges of her vision blurring as she stared at him. There were so many thoughts swirling through her head, so many things she wanted to latch onto but couldn't figure out how. Because everything she wanted to talk about, how he'd just said the longest thing she'd heard him say since he'd come out of his coma, how he'd only stumbled over his words once or twice the entire time, how she was so proud of him for trying to relearn how to use his old inventions, how her heart ached at hearing him talk about days that felt like a lifetime ago, were not the things she was allowed to talk about. Instead she honed in on the safest response she could find in the midst of her surprise.

"You've never told me that before."

Fitz's hands froze momentarily, but he managed to give her a shrug without looking up. "It was a long time ago," he said softly, lifting the D.W.A.R.F. so it rested in his palm. Jemma watched him for a few more seconds before she headed over to the opposite lab bench, blinking back the tears that had inexplicably risen to the surface. Whatever had prompted him to speak earlier, whatever had distracted him long enough to forget why he now hated her, was gone again. She figured they would both be better off if she didn't try to smother him.

"You know, they're bringing the D.W.A.R.F.s back from the safe house," she said lightly, grabbing two gloves from the box and pulling them on. "The one in Belgium? Hopefully they'll be able to give us more information on…on what happened." Jemma felt a heaviness in her chest, especially when she thought about all those poor S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that had died. She couldn't tell from across the room, but she thought she saw a flash of anger pass over Fitz's face as well.

"Yeah?" he asked, meeting her eyes.

"Yeah," she nodded, once again finding herself at a loss for words. Because she knew that whatever she said, however much she tried to convince him of the opposite, he would believe those lives were on him. It didn't matter that he'd figured it out eventually, or that if he hadn't spotted those similarities they would have lost even more lives, perhaps even those of May or Bobbi. He would still punish himself for not solving it sooner. He would still blame himself for not getting the information to Coulson on time. And nothing Jemma could say would make any difference.

But she needed to at least say something. The pain in his eyes was nearly unbearable.

Just then, Jemma heard the lab doors creak open, and she broke away from Fitz's gaze to greet their newest visitor.

"Bobbi," she said, her voice nearly coming out in a squeak as she placed her hands on her waist. She focused all of her energy to keep from cringing, knowing she'd just wasted a perfectly good pair of gloves. "What…what brings you to the lab so early this morning?"

The amused expression on Bobbi's face told Jemma that she'd only succeeded in looking like an idiot, but her smile was good-natured. "Not that I didn't want to come say hi," she prefaced as she reached into her pocket. "But actually, my, uh, my comms were acting a little wonky earlier," she explained, holding out the earpiece in her palm. "And I was told this would be the place to go to get 'em looked at."

Out of habit, Jemma was about to grab onto the small object, but she stopped herself. "Actually, this is not really my area of expertise," she said, turning around. "Fitz?"

Fitz had gone back to inspecting Snow, but he looked up distractedly upon hearing his name. Jemma gestured towards the comm. "Do you think you could…?"

His eyes traveled to Bobbi's hands, and he slowly got out of his seat to make his way over to them. He stared at the comm for a second before pointing to it. "Do you mind if I…" he murmured, looking up at her for permission.

"Knock yourself out," Bobbi replied, holding her hand out for him.

Fitz gingerly grasped onto the earpiece and turned it over in his palm. "And, er…what's…" He tapped his foot quietly on the floor, and though it wasn't distracting, Jemma noticed. "What's…wrong with it now?"

Bobbi folded her arms. "Nothing too crazy, it just went in and out a couple times out there." She watched him as he brought the comm over to the lab bench, and she waited a few seconds while he inspected the device. "So do you think you can fix it?"

Fitz nodded, but he didn't seem to be paying attention to either of them anymore. "Yeah, yeah," he murmured. "I just have to…well, then it's got to be…should repurpose...I'll just…" His voice trailed off as he picked up the earpiece and promptly exited through the side doors without so much as a backward glance.

Bobbi pointed after him, her burrow furrowed in confusion as she turned to Jemma. "Is he always so…chatty?" she laughed before closing her eyes. "Oh…God," she shook her head. "I'm sorry, that was-"

"It's fine, Bobbi," Jemma insisted, giving her a smile. "Actually," she said as she removed her freshly contaminated gloves, "compared to when we first met, this is talkative for him."

Bobbi studied Jemma's face, as if she were trying to spot a lie. "No kidding," she smirked, leaning against the lab bench.

"Yeah," Jemma nodded, smiling a little to herself despite the dull pang she felt in her chest. "He refused to even talk to me until we got paired together in chem lab. And even then, on our first day working together, I don't think he spoke more than a few words to me at all."

"Really?" Bobbi asked doubtfully, tilting her head to the side. "That's not what I heard."

"No, it's true," Jemma replied, tossing her gloves into the bin. "He hated me for the longest time, and…wait," she stopped, only just picking up on what Bobbi had said. "Hang on. What…what did you hear?"

"What?" Bobbi asked, her eyes widening before she looked away. "Uh…nothing, I was, it-it was something else I heard," she stammered, shaking her head before quickly moving along. "Got it…mixed up. So...so you were saying your first day working together was pretty rough, huh?"

Jemma almost laughed, but she was so bewildered by Bobbi's behavior that she decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and act normally. "That would be an understatement," she responded, looking down at her hands. "Actually, it was quite embarrassing, if I'm being honest."

Bobbi placed her hand on the lab bench. "Embarrassing?" she asked in disbelief, and Jemma already regretted her choice of words. Because she'd seen that look on Bobbi's face before, many times when Skye had wheedled information out of her. "Okay, now you have to spill."

Jemma shook her head, closing her eyes as she rested her hands on her neck. "Oh, it's been ten years, and I'm still absolutely mortified by it," she winced. "And…and I'm sure you've got plenty of things that you have to-"

"Jemma."

She opened her eyes and sighed, knowing that it was her fault she'd even brought it up. Bobbi simply continued to smirk at her with her arms folded over her chest. Jemma didn't even have to remember their encounter at HYDRA to know that Bobbi wouldn't back down until she'd gotten the story.

"Oh, all right," Jemma groaned.

Chapter Text

NOVEMBER 2003

Jemma tried not to take up too much space with her limbs as she arranged the beakers on the lab bench in front of her. She really did. But somehow, despite her utmost care, she still managed to accidentally bump her elbow into that of the temperamental Scotsman sharing the same fume cupboard with her.

"Sorry, I-"

"It's fine, just-"

"I should probably-"

"Because I've got the-"

"Maybe if you just move a bit more over there-"

"But I've got the-"

"Or I'll move over here-"

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Good."

"Fantastic."

Jemma sighed, biting back the unusual urge to embellish her comment with a series of very improper phrases. It'd only been two days since they'd been paired together, and they were already getting on each other's last nerve.

Technically speaking, this was only their first day actually working with each other, since the previous day had largely been devoted to receiving the standard induction to the south labs. Even though Jemma had been disappointed in her partner assignment, she'd decided to remain optimistic, knowing that despite his animosity towards her, he was a brilliant engineer who was miles ahead of anyone else in their class. But her energy had slowly drained as the hours went by, and it had become painfully clear that she was alone in her optimism for their partnership.

Almost immediately upon entering the lab for their scheduled session, she'd taken control of the project, a habit that she'd picked up throughout the years of dealing with less competent partners. He hadn't complained about it, but the way he barely said a word to her and avoided her as if she had some kind of virus spoke volumes. She'd thought it would be easier to divide the tasks and tackle the project that way. After all, she was more knowledgeable in the chemical aspect of the device, whereas he was more equipped to deal with its mechanics. On paper, it made sense. Divide and conquer, with minimal required interaction.

But the longer they worked alongside each other, the more evident it became that that particular plan was not going to work.

In all honesty, she had no idea what she'd done to upset him. On one of their first days at the Academy, she'd nearly given herself whiplash from turning around in her seat to see the owner of the very specific Scottish lilt coming from the back of the lecture hall. He was a scrawny thing, didn't even look like he could be any older than she was (an impressive feat in and of itself), but he was the first reminder of home that she'd had since she'd moved to America. And he was obviously a genius. She hadn't needed more than a minute of hearing him answer the professor's question to make that observation. After being bombarded with a culture shock she hadn't quite anticipated, and taking into account his apparent love for science, Jemma figured it would be nice to have someone to share those experiences with.

She'd sought him out after that first class, but having sat at the back of the room, he'd easily escaped the throngs of students exiting the hall before she'd had a chance to find him. And after that, it seemed that every time she'd spotted him on the quad or in the corridors, he'd been too wrapped up in his own thoughts to even look her way. She hadn't understood at first, but after a few classes with him and hearing how he only spoke to contradict or elaborate on something she'd said, she began to realize that the only interaction he was interested in was one in which he was outsmarting her.

She could hardly blame him. As one of the smartest cadets in the Academy (next to her, of course), and considering their respective backgrounds, they would be natural rivals. She'd originally hoped that he would see her academic performance as a common ground they could meet on. But as the term went on and their competition only steadily increased, Jemma's hope for any kind of friendship with him disappeared.

Because at the end of the day, Leopold Fitz was very, very hard to impress.

Jemma carefully measured out the materials she needed, making sure to stay as far over to her side as possible. The last thing she wanted to do was irritate him more than she already had. But as she snuck a sidelong glance over at him, she noticed something too distressing to keep her comment to herself.

She stepped over to him and pointed to the metal contraption he was fusing together. "Are you sure you want to-"

"No," he snapped, startling her as he pushed her hand away. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to alarm a man with a soldering iron in his hands? This thing is well over three hundred degrees Celsius."

Jemma took a step back, absentmindedly rubbing the place on her hand where he'd touched her. It hadn't hurt, but his aggravated tone at her almost ruining his work, combined with the wide eyes behind his protective glasses, made her decide to take a more cautious approach.

"But that's the intended surface for the nucleation chamber," she argued, indicating the pieces he was working with. "It's going to have to be more curved than that, or you're going to have to at least create a smaller angle in order for the-"

"A smaller angle?" he asked in confusion, still continuing to fuse the metal together. "That won't work."

She sighed again. "If you'd just have followed the…" Her words died on her lips as she glanced at his notebook, opened to his sketch of the design. "Wait, what's this?" she asked, picking it up. He reached out a hand to stop her, but she sidestepped out of his reach. "What's this nonsense? Why did you add this part here?"

Fitz didn't try to take the notebook away from her, but she saw his fist open and close, his other hand still holding onto the soldering iron. "I…I had to make some modifications-"

"But you didn't even run them by me-"

"It's nothing to do with the process, the procedure should still work-"

"How could you possibly know that? The fastest way to achieve nucleation is to reduce-"

"The interfacial area so you can lower the nucleation barrier, I know," he said in annoyance. "But that design right there is the only way to do that without the delivery mechanism collapsing in on itself."

"Oh, please," Jemma rolled her eyes, setting the notebook down in front of her station and staring at the blueprint. "This can hardly be our only option. Especially this part right here, it's completely unnecessary." She held her arm out towards him. "Hand me a rubber, will you?"

A few seconds of silence passed, and after she realized her hand was going to remain empty, she turned her head to glare at him. He shrugged and went back to the metal under his fingertips. "Only brought a pen," he mumbled.

Jemma sighed again and rummaged through her bag, only to find that she herself had only brought one pencil, the ends of which were hardly suitable for her needs. Sufficiently annoyed, Jemma tossed her bag aside in a huff and spun around.

"Does anyone have a rubber I could use?" she asked, perhaps a bit too loudly. "This genius over here forgot to bring one."

A few heads looked up from their work at her outburst, and she was confused to see a couple of them smiling, although no one came forward to assist her. She knew she was overdoing it, she knew she was letting her irritation get the best of her. But frankly, she was exhausted from trying to deal with someone who clearly loathed her.

Jemma walked over to the pair working nearest them, ignoring the insistent whispers of her name coming from behind her. She put on her sincerest smile. "It's…Sally, isn't it?" she asked, still unsure whether or not she was supposed to address her classmates by their surnames.

Sally stopped talking to her partner and turned to face Jemma. She quickly continued, noticing the other cadet's blatant distasteful expression, probably at being interrupted so rudely. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if perhaps you had a rubber I could borrow? I promise I'll get it back to you straightaway."

Jemma didn't quite understand the raised eyebrows or the low scoff she received in return. And she most definitely didn't understand the "Oh my God" she heard Fitz mutter under his breath.

"Look," Sally replied quietly, glancing around the room. "I get that you guys feel like you missed out on the whole…college experience or whatever," she said, looking over Jemma's shoulder at Fitz. "But some of us actually take this seriously."

Jemma was stunned, completely confused as to what Sally was talking about.

"I'm sorry, have I-"

"Simmons," she heard Fitz murmur behind her, but she ignored him again. She didn't know him that well, true, but she could still hear the laughter in his voice and she very much did not appreciate it.

"Have I done something to upset you?" Jemma finished, glancing down at Sally's workstation, where an assortment of pencils had been placed off to the side. "Because I really did just need a-"

"Yeah, we all heard you," Sally interrupted, rolling her eyes. "Look, if you're not gonna shut up about it, fine." She reached down under the lab bench and opened her bag, unzipping one of the back pockets. Before Jemma knew it, Sally had deposited a small colorful square into her hand. "Here," she murmured, the annoyance written plainly on her face. "And I really don't need it back, okay? Now could you let us return to work, please?"

Jemma stared at the object in her palm, utterly bewildered by what had just occurred. She didn't even have a clue where the miscommunication had happened, but the soft laughter she heard over her shoulder told her that something had definitely gone over her head. She felt a blush on her cheeks as she spun around, and the smile that Fitz was failing to hide made her face burn even more.

"What in…I don't…have I missed something?" Jemma finally asked in bafflement, her hand still outstretched in front of her.

Fitz calmed down after a few seconds and pointed to the square, still trying to contain his amusement. "That's what they call those over here."

Jemma glanced back and forth between Fitz and her open hand, waiting for his explanation to click in her head. "So this…" Her eyes widened. "This is a rubber?" she whispered in horror.

That was apparently the breaking point of Fitz's self-control, because he immediately burst into laughter again. Jemma closed her eyes in humiliation, slowly realizing the depth of what she'd done. She cringed as she took a cautious look around the room, and though most of the cadets paid no attention to her, some of them were almost as amused as Fitz. She even received a few glances from a couple of the older cadets that made her blush more furiously.

"Well," she cleared her throat, placing the object carefully on the lab bench. "Um…you learn something new every day, I suppose," she muttered. "Especially in this country."

She avoided Fitz's eyes and checked her watch. "Oh, no, it's already half four," she groaned. "We'll have to start washing up soon."

Sure enough, most of the other cadets were busily clearing their stations, although Jemma thought they seemed a bit more hurried than the situation warranted. She returned her focus to their own fume cupboard, and slid the notebook back over towards Fitz. "Don't think I'm going to forget about what I said," she told him, hoping to retain at least some of her pride. "We'll discuss the structure of the device later, but there will be a discussion."

Before Fitz had a chance to respond, Jemma noticed one of the students pause near their station on his way from the sinks. He pointed to the assortment of parts in front of Fitz. "Wait, you guys aren't done?" he asked incredulously.

Though Jemma was irritated with Fitz, she still placed him leagues above the rest of their classmates. "It's not a race," she replied with a smile, defending their work even if they hadn't gotten as much done as she'd have liked. "We'll be marked on the quality of our projects, not on the speed with which we finish them."

For some strange reason, the cadet's face broke into a grin. "Hey, Himelstein," he called to his partner over the lab benches across from them. "FitzSimmons aren't done yet."

Jemma didn't have time to fully process the fact that that had been the second time she'd heard her name combined with Fitz's, or contemplate its origins. On the other side of the bench, a boy with disheveled curly hair that only rivaled that of Jemma's own partner looked up distractedly from his work. He glanced between the three of them, and Jemma saw realization dawn on his face, followed by an oddly sympathetic expression directed towards her.

"Dude, they probably don't even know," he pointed out.

"Oh, right, I guess they don't have it over there."

"Know what?" Jemma asked, hoping she hadn't accidentally embarrassed herself more than she already had. "We still have four more days, as well as clearance to work in the south labs."

"Yeah, but tomorrow's Thanksgiving," Himelstein explained patiently. "Most of us are going home for the weekend."

"Oh," Jemma replied, familiar with the American holiday but unsure how it should affect her and Fitz. "But surely the labs will remain open."

The cadet next to her shook his head. "Nope," he said, with just an air of superiority that didn't escape Jemma unnoticed. He obviously didn't share his partner's polite disposition. "Closed until Monday."

"Monday?" she repeated in shock, a jolt of panic hitting her in the chest. "But that's when the assignment's due."

"I know," he nodded, making his way back over to his station. "That's why we've all been busting our asses in here trying to get 'em done."

Jemma's heart rate was reaching unhealthy levels as she searched her brain for something that would contradict his words. But now the rushed behavior of her classmates made sense. She turned to Fitz, unable to tell if his white face indicated surprise at the new development. "You don't…" she began in a low voice, stepping closer to him. "You don't think this is a prank, do you?"

He glanced away from her, looking deep in thought. "I don't think so," he murmured. "It makes sense, though. I should've remembered."

"Nonsense," Jemma replied hastily. "They shouldn't have expected us all to be experts on this country's bank holidays." She looked at her watch again, trying to assess the situation as quickly as possible. "You're not going home, are you?" she asked.

She failed to read his expression again, a mixture of something like amusement and disappointment as he disconnected the soldering iron from the power source. "No," he answered, shaking his head.

"Right," she nodded, taking a few deep breaths. "Well, that's fine then. We'll just…have to pack up what we can and find another place to work." She mentally made a list of everything she would need. "You've got your own equipment to work with, don't you?"

Fitz scratched behind his ear. "Er…well, most of the stuff I have is pretty basic. But I suppose it'll get the job done, sure."

"That's all we need," Jemma insisted before throwing on a pair of gloves and starting to dispose of her solutions. "And I've already calculated everything and…oh, no," she breathed, freezing in place.

Fitz had been gingerly testing the temperature of the device's parts as she babbled on, but he turned his head at hearing her gasp. "What is it?" he asked.

Jemma gestured helplessly towards her scribbled calculations. "I'm going to need insoluble silver iodide samples."

He stepped closer so that he could read the writing over her shoulder. "That'd be to catalyze the crystallization, yeah?"

"Well, of course," Jemma replied with a scoff, more annoyed with their situation than with him. "Considering the temperatures we're dealing with, we'll have to shift the entire nucleation curve, otherwise the device will be rendered completely useless."

"Useless?" he muttered. "Obsolete, perhaps, but surely not…you know what, never mind." He sighed, squinting at the notebook. "How much do you need?"

Jemma shook her head. "Two grams, I suppose?" she shrugged. "But it hardly matters now, since we won't have access to the material. I'll have to think of something else, an alternative that would surely do the trick. I mean, silver iodide would be the most preferable option, since the water molecules would most readily attach to the silver ion's terminate face, but there has to be something else that could work, something else that would promote a well-ordered hexagonal bilayer to act as a template for the ice growth and-"

Jemma stopped talking, realizing that Fitz was no longer standing next to her. She whipped her head around, only to see that he was almost at the end of their lab row, heading towards the chemical storage.

She ignored the looks of disapproval she received as she sped after him, somehow finding an uncomfortable balance between walking really fast and jogging. She ended up catching him just as he reached the cupboards. "What are you doing?" she hissed, placing her hand on the cabinet door he was opening.

He pointedly pulled the door open again. "Getting the compound," he responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Jemma gaped at him. "Are you out of your mind?" she whispered, looking around to see if there were any professors in the lab. "We can't take hazardous material outside of the lab."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" she repeated. "Well, besides the fact that it's hazardous," she stressed, folding her arms. "It's against the rules."

"It's not that hazardous," he dismissed, searching the rows of containers. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with our taking it. It's for the project, and you know what you're doing with it, so I don't really see the problem."

"The problem," Jemma replied, holding out her hand to stop his arm from reaching towards the silver iodide, "is that it needs to be stored in very specific conditions, and we're not equipped-"

"You're a biochemist, aren't you?" he interrupted, pulling his arm out of her grasp. "You’re telling me you don’t have hazardous material in your room right now, or the means to store them if something like this were to ever happen?"

She hesitated, which was enough confirmation for Fitz to turn back to the containers. "Thought so," he murmured, an infuriating smirk on his face.

Jemma was still in a state of panic, but her eyes swept the room one last time. "Okay, well if you won't listen to reason, we're at least going to do this properly." She quickly grabbed a box off of the neighboring lab bench and tossed it to him. "Put some damn gloves on."

He didn't argue with her, so she hurried over to her station and grabbed a clean container. "Honestly, it's like you've never even been in a chemical laboratory before," she muttered, snapping on her own gloves in record time. "We have to hurry."

"Relax," he insisted as he carefully transferred a rough approximation of two grams of silver iodide into the container. "We'll be fine."

Jemma sealed the lid and triple checked her work. "I just feel like we're cheating a bit," she said quietly on their way back to their station. "The others don't have the opportunity to-"

"They had other advantages over us," he said, closing the fume cupboard and turning off the light. Jemma supposed he had a point, since they hadn't known about the labs closing, but she still felt uneasy. She held her bag carefully in front of her as they exited the lab, hoping the walk back to her dorm wouldn't result in the compound spilling all over her things. No one stopped them, but she didn't think her heart rate even began to slow down until they'd reached the quad.

"You're in Erskine Hall, right?" she asked him before they parted ways.

Fitz shifted the plastic bin in his arms so that he had a better grip. "Yeah, but, er…it'd probably be better if we-"

"No, that's all right," she said, reaching into her bag for a pen and ripping off a small piece of paper. "I'm just next door in Carter Hall. Fifth floor." She scribbled her room number on the paper and stepped forward to set it at the bottom of the bin, placing a scrap piece of metal on top to keep it from blowing away. "You can pop round whenever tomorrow," she told him. "I'm up most mornings at six."

Jemma didn't wait for him to respond, too exhausted from the hectic day to match his enmity towards her. But as she walked away and heard him mutter something along the lines of "Probably be a bit later than that," she realized that though they'd had a rough start and most certainly disagreed on specific aspects of the project, they'd adapted to unexpected circumstances almost seamlessly.

Maybe working with Leopold Fitz for four weeks wouldn't be as bad as Jemma had thought.

PRESENT DAY

Jemma sighed, the look on Bobbi's face making her regret having said anything at all. "What?" she winced.

Bobbi shook her head, her grin only growing wider as she tried to hide her amusement. "I'm just…so disappointed," she laughed, "that I was not there to witness Dr. Jemma Simmons asking for a condom in the lab."

Jemma groaned, briefly covering her face with her hands. "Oh, bloody hell, I shouldn't have told you."

"No, you definitely should have," Bobbi insisted, her expression growing serious. "Because that is absolute gold."

"I suppose you're not going to let this one go, are you?"

"Not a chance."

Despite the fact that Jemma knew Bobbi was just teasing her, she found herself glad when Fitz returned into the room. She knew the color in her cheeks would give her away, though, so she pretended to busy herself with reorganizing her desk to avoid the pointed looks Bobbi was undoubtedly giving her.

"You're all set," Fitz said, holding out the earpiece for Bobbi to take. "Did you want to, er…check to make sure it-"

"I trust you," Bobbi smiled, promptly placing the comm in her ear. "Thanks."

Fitz gave her a nod before heading back to his desk, where he seemed to have no trouble picking up where he left off on Snow. Jemma hadn't realized her gaze had followed him until she felt a poke in her side. She pursed her lips together to keep from involuntarily yelping out loud, and widened her eyes at Bobbi, who had an inexplicable smirk on her face.

Before she had a chance to ask what on earth had gotten into her, May popped her head in the lab doorway.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

The smile on Bobbi's face disappeared as she spun around. "Is you-know-who ready to go?"

May simply glared at Bobbi, who cleared her throat. "Yeah," she said. "Coming."

Bobbi was about to follow after her when Jemma stepped forward. "Wait, what's going on?"

She received a smile in return, but Jemma had seen enough genuine smiles in the last few minutes to know that this was not one of them. "It's nothing," Bobbi shrugged. "Just-"

"Bobbi."

Bobbi hesitated, looking as if she were debating whether or not to tell her the truth. Her eyes traveled over in Fitz's general direction before she stepped closer to Jemma and lowered her voice. "Ward…" she began, and Jemma didn't even have to hear the rest to know what had happened. "He didn't make it to the drop-off point."

Jemma felt cold all of a sudden. "So he escaped?" she murmured.

Bobbi nodded reluctantly. "But there's not a lot of places he can hide, okay?" she assured her, placing a hand on her arm. "We'll find him, Jemma."

"Yeah," Jemma whispered, trying to drudge up a smile but knowing she wouldn't be smiling for a while.

Bobbi gave her arm a small squeeze before she made her way towards the door. "Bobbi?" Jemma called out, and Bobbi paused at the doorway. "Be careful."

Jemma knew it didn't mean much. She knew Bobbi was more than capable of taking care of herself. She'd witnessed first-hand how capable Bobbi was of taking care of herself.

But she also knew what Ward was capable of.

Bobbi gave her a reassuring nod, and then she was gone. Thankfully Jemma didn’t have to dwell too long on her depressing thoughts before Coulson swept into the lab.

"Sir, what is it?" she asked, hoping for some kind of distraction. "Can I do anything to help?"

"We've got a team going to get Ward," Coulson promised. "But we've got another problem on our hands, one that we need to take care of right away. And I'm gonna need you and Fitz."

Chapter Text

Fitz looked up from his work, an unexpected feeling of dread settling into the pit of his stomach. He didn't quite understand why he felt so panicked all of a sudden. Granted, it might have had something to do with the fact that his expertise had been barely required in months, or that he still wasn't certain how useful he would actually be in his current circumstances. Then again, perhaps his anxiety stemmed from the alcohol that his system hadn't quite gotten rid of, or from his severe lack of sleep. Or perhaps, when it really boiled down to it, it was the prospect of working with Jemma again that was the problem.

Maybe the source of Fitz's sudden panic wasn't a complete mystery to him after all.

Despite his reservations, Fitz still wanted to help as much as he could. He gently set the prototype down on the desk before getting out of his seat. "What…what do you need, sir?" he asked, making his way over to the front of the lab. He could feel Jemma's eyes boring into the side of his face, so he made sure to keep his gaze set on Coulson.

Coulson lifted up a large containment case and set it on Jemma's lab bench. "Our agents picked this up over in Bruges," he explained, inputting a complicated security code into the side panel. "We swept the place for more, but this is all that was left." As he unclasped the case, Fitz held his breath, expecting some kind of energy emission or strange noise or flashing lights. And while the small disc-like shape situated in the middle of the case didn't demonstrate any of those things, the dread in Fitz's stomach failed to disappear.

Jemma inched forward to inspect the object, and Fitz had to restrain himself from holding out his arm to stop her. "Is that…" she began in a murmur. "Is that one of the weapons-"

"That HYDRA's been using to disintegrate some of my best agents?" Coulson finished for her, placing one hand on the lid of the case and looking at its contents with disgust. "Yeah," he nodded. "And it's really starting to piss me off, almost as much as the name. HYDRA's calling them Splinter Bombs."

Fitz instinctively glanced over at Jemma, who had an all-too familiar look on her face. "Oh, well that'd be because of-"

"Yeah, how it-"

"Burrows under the skin, which can cause an infection-"

"And that can, er…migrate to other parts of the body-"

"Yes, exactly," she agreed. "If left untreated, splinters can cause severe internal-"

"Damage, yeah. Yeah, that's…that's quite-"

"A clever name, really," Jemma murmured before catching herself, probably noticing Coulson's very un-amused expression. "But terrible, utterly repulsive-"

"Horrible, yeah," Fitz quickly muttered in agreement. "Really bad taste, that is."

There were a few moments of awkward silence as the weight of what they were facing descended upon them again. It wasn't that he'd forgotten the destructive nature of the weapons in question, or that he still didn't feel ill just thinking about those agents that had died because of his insufficiency. It was that for a second, for just a second, everything seemed normal again. For just a second, he and Jemma were finishing each other's sentences. For just a second, he and Jemma were marveling over the terrible beauty of scientific advancement together like they used to, like they'd done every day since they'd met each other at the Academy. For just a second, they were simply FitzSimmons again.

But as quickly as the moment had come, it was gone. And Fitz knew that whatever happened between them, things could never return to normal again. There was too much there, too many reminders of how much things had changed.

Fitz folded his left arm underneath his right to keep from fidgeting. He cleared his throat. "And…and what exactly did you have in mind for-"

"You want us to reverse engineer it, don't you?" Jemma asked, her eyes still transfixed on the weapon. Fitz was too distracted by the fear in her voice to care that she'd interrupted him.

Coulson nodded again. "The only thing that's been getting under my skin is how HYDRA has managed to stay one step ahead of us this whole time," he said. "This could give us a way to level the playing field."

"But sir," Jemma argued cautiously. "These aren't just ordinary weapons. They've been developed because HYDRA has somehow found a way to weaponize the effects of-"

"The Obelisk," Coulson finished, his mouth in a thin line. "I know. And that is precisely why I need you two to figure these things out. If HYDRA's got the Obelisk, we need to learn as much as we can about it if we're gonna stop them from unleashing any more destruction." He glanced over at Jemma, and he must have noticed how pale her face was, because his voice was much gentler when he spoke again. "You've been in there, Simmons," he said quietly. "You know that if HYDRA has the Obelisk-"

"Then these Splinter Bombs are only the beginning," she nodded, a rare expression of hatred passing over her face. It was gone in a second, but Fitz saw it, and he had to dig his heels into the ground to keep himself from stepping closer to her.

Since she'd returned, Jemma hadn't spoken to him about her time at HYDRA. But the way her voice hardened at its mention and the tears that she quickly blinked away convinced him that every single terrible thing he could possibly think of had happened.

He still couldn't even contemplate the reality of her being there, of her voluntarily going into that hellhole, without feeling sick to his stomach. It was enough to drive him mad if he thought about it too much.

Fitz clenched his fist under his right arm and tried to focus on the conversation.

"Exactly," Coulson continued. "We don't know what HYDRA has planned, but I'd put a lot of money on it not being good. We need to be ready for whatever they throw at us." He glanced down at the small disc, not even bothering to crack a smile at his own pun. In fact, he looked more tired than Fitz had ever seen him. "We can't afford another attack like this, guys," he finished quietly. "I can't afford to lose any more agents."

"We'll get right on it, sir," Jemma assured him, her voice reflecting a certainty Fitz knew she didn't have. "But the hard drive I brought from Whitehall's lab contains no references to the Obelisk or these Splinter Bombs. We'll have to deal with the weapon directly if we're to reverse engineer it."

"Do whatever you have to," Coulson ordered, looking over at Fitz. "I trust that you guys know what you're doing."

Fitz had no idea why Coulson had such unwavering faith in their ability (or, perhaps more specifically, his ability), but he didn't argue. "Got it, sir," he said softly.

Coulson gave him a curt nod before gesturing to one of the other agents that had entered the lab. "The D.W.A.R.F.s did a general scan of the safe house, so whatever they picked up might be able to help you."

Fitz stepped forward to take the bots' case out of the agent's hands, and carefully set it down on an empty table. He bit back his irritated comments about how only two of the D.W.A.R.F.s had been returned to their designated places, deciding to save them for another time. But he would definitely be giving a very detailed presentation on how to properly handle the drones in the near future.

"Sir," Jemma continued, just as Coulson was about to head out the door. He spun around, his forehead creased in confusion. "Agent Walters," Jemma clarified, sounding hesitant. "Do we have any…" Her voice faded away, and she looked only somewhat relieved when Coulson seemed to know what she was asking.

"There wasn't anything left to bring back," Coulson said after a pause. Fitz felt the pit in his stomach grow, and he knew he wasn't going to feel like eating anything for a while. Jemma didn't look like she was faring much better, and not just because she wouldn't have any tissue samples to work with.

"We've got the security tapes from the safe house, and from the attack on the UN," Coulson went on. "Use those. I'm telling you, whatever you can find out about these things, or about the Obelisk, or about how to keep any more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from turning into dust, will be a hell of a lot better than what we've got right now."

"Understood, sir," Jemma replied, giving him a tight smile that disappeared as soon as he was out the door. She and Fitz stood in front of the lab bench for a few more seconds, but Fitz didn't quite know where to start. Usually he and Jemma were able to jump in on a project immediately, easily assessing what needed to be done and barely even needing to speak in order to understand each other. But things were different now. Now he had no bloody idea what Jemma was thinking.

In the end, Fitz decided that scanning the weapon for its properties would be as good a place to start as any. Unfortunately, though, Jemma must have had a similar thought, because just as he stepped towards the table, she moved at the same time.

"Oh! Sorry. I'll just-"

"Yeah, I was just-"

"Going to get the-"

"And I was just gonna-"

"So if you want to do that, I can-"

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead-"

"I'll just download the information from the D.W.A.R.F.s-"

"And, um…I'll just take care of this, I suppose-"

"Right."

"Yeah."

Jemma carefully stepped past Fitz to grab the case, and Fitz rested his hands on his waist until she'd taken the D.W.A.R.F.s over to her workstation. If Fitz hadn't been so nervous about the task at hand, he might have laughed at how similar the exchange had been to their first day working together. At least now they had a little more room to work with, instead of that small fume cupboard they'd been cramped in.

But then again, at least that day she'd tiptoed around him out of disdain instead of pity.

Fitz tried to push his distracting thoughts aside. The last thing he could afford right now was to be unfocused. There was a deadly weapon derived from alien technology not two feet in front of him, and Coulson needed them to determine how it worked in order to prevent the loss of countless lives as well as possible mass destruction.

Fitz should have known it was never going to be easy. Sure, it was his first real task since that cloaking disaster. But working with S.H.I.E.L.D. (and specifically for Coulson) had never been a walk in the park.

After examining the weapon for a couple minutes, he retrieved his tablet from his desk and borrowed Sleepy to check for radionuclides. As the bot whirred back and forth, Fitz snuck a glance over at Jemma, who was studiously examining the information from the D.W.A.R.F.s on her computer screen.

"I'm afraid this isn't going to give us much," she murmured, shaking her head. "The drones barely picked up any residual effects from the weapons at the safe house. No radiation, no abnormal electrical activity, not even an anomalous speck of dust."

Fitz powered down Sleepy and placed the bot back in the case before inspecting his own results. "Yeah, not a lot over here either," he said, reaching for a pair of heavy protective gloves. "There's a bit of…a bit of an unknown isotope in there, but…that's-"

"Probably congruent with the metal from the Obelisk," Jemma supplied automatically before she grimaced. "Sorry," she apologized. "I didn't get that one wrong, did I?"

Fitz did his best to give her a small smile. "No, that…that was it," he assured her.

"Oh," she said in surprise, hesitantly stepping closer to him. "Good. So…are you just going to-"

"Yeah," Fitz nodded, setting aside the tablet. "I think it should be fine-"

"And…you've got the gloves, right?"

"Yes, I've got the gloves, Jemma," he said, weakly rolling his eyes. He held up his hands so she could see the protective equipment, and quickly glanced back at the Splinter Bomb to avoid having to see the worry on her face.

"Did you…did you want any help?"

"I've got it," Fitz muttered, grabbing a set of tongs and gingerly using them to grasp onto the object. He mostly used his good hand to control the movement, but he was thankful that Jemma was too busy clearing a space on the table to notice the shaking. He set the small disc on the surface, where it sat motionless for ten seconds as he and Jemma stared at it. Maybe it was their terrible history with all-things alien, but Fitz wasn't going to take any chances with this particular weapon.

It didn't look like it was going to start disintegrating anything in sight, though, so Fitz set aside the tongs and leaned in closer. Across the table, Jemma reached out a hand to point at something on the Bomb. "Are those markings-"

But she didn't get a chance to finish her question. Because this time Fitz was unable to stop himself from reaching out to push her hand away. "No," he admonished her, before quickly yanking his hand back. He stared at the stationary weapon, waiting for her to argue with him. He would have actually preferred that classic Jemma response to the one he ended up receiving.

"I'm…I'm sorry," she stammered. "I was…"

"I know," he sighed, resting his hands on the table. "Why don't I, um…why don't I do this and you look at those…er…look at the, um…surveillance tapes."

"Yes," Jemma agreed, her voice higher than usual. "That is…an excellent idea, Fitz." He wasn't sure what prompted him to do so, whether it was the words themselves or her tone, but when he glanced up at her it was like being transported back in time. Her cheeks were pink and she was avoiding his eyes and if it hadn't been for their current situation he could have sworn it was that first day working together. He'd pushed away her hand then, too, to make sure she didn't burn herself on the soldering iron. He hadn't understood the expression on her face then and he didn't understand the expression on her face now, almost like he'd hurt her or something.

As if she was actually offended that he was concerned for her safety. Which didn't make any bloody sense at all. Did she expect him to just let her touch a lethal weapon with her little bare hands and not do anything about it? If she did, then she obviously hadn't learned anything in the last decade.

He wanted to ask her about it. He wanted to ask her why she felt the need to treat him like he was a time bomb ready to explode. He wanted to ask her why she was even there if he made her so uncomfortable. He wanted to ask her why she didn't just leave him down in that med pod like he'd told her to. He wanted to ask her why she went to all that trouble just to leave anyways. He wanted to ask her so many things, but he knew he couldn't. He knew there was too much going on, he knew the timing was horrible, he knew that the last thing she needed was for him to give her any additional stress. She deserved better than that.

So they worked in uncomfortable silence. And as Fitz struggled to disassemble the weapon without causing massive destructive, and as Jemma sifted through footage on her computer, he was struck with the realization that as far as they'd come in the last eleven years, they'd managed to find themselves right back where they'd started. Fitz didn't have a lot of experience with déjà vu, but their current situation reminded him a lot of that first project they worked on together.

Ironically enough, so far this project was proving to be a lot less explosive.

Chapter Text

THANKSGIVING DAY, ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Fitz readjusted his grip on the plastic bin in his arms, trying not to drop its contents as he scanned the numbers on the doors. Thankfully it had been a short walk over to the building, and he'd been able to use the lift in Carter Hall instead of lugging all his materials up five flights of steps. But he still managed to be weighed down by the large rucksack on his back, filled to the brim with his equipment, so he was nearly out of breath by the time he actually reached room 537.

He stood out in the corridor for an extra minute, cursing his determination not to make more than one trip and wishing his slight frame could better handle what should have been an easy load. After his heart rate had slowed down somewhat, he awkwardly maneuvered the bin so that it rested against the doorjamb and raised his fist to knock on the door.

Before his hand could make contact, the door swung open unexpectedly. Fitz nearly tumbled straight into the room (as well as the girl standing in the doorway), but he swiftly bent his knees and caught the bin before it slipped completely out of his grasp. He stood there uncomfortably for a few seconds, hoping his face didn't betray how embarrassed he was. But Simmons didn't seem to pay him any attention, and instead glanced over his shoulder into the corridor.

"Did…did you just now get up here?" she asked, her eyes traveling from his face to the parts he'd just saved from crashing to the ground.

Fitz was lost, in more than one sense of the word. "Er…yeah," he answered in what he hoped was a nonchalant voice. "Why?"

Simmons shook her head dismissively. "Nothing, it's just…well, I thought I saw you out on the quad a few minutes ago," she explained. "And I didn't think it'd take you so long to make it up here, but I see you've got quite a lot on you." She quickly stepped forward to take the bin from him. "Here, let me help you with that."

Normally, Fitz might have told her that he could handle it just fine, but she had a way of disorienting him in such a way that the bin was out of his hands before he knew what was happening. "Come in," she said, moving away to set the parts on her spotless desk. "I've just put the kettle on."

As Fitz stepped cautiously into the room, he found himself glad that he had an extra moment to take in his surroundings without her scrutinizing him. He scanned the room quickly, trying to figure out what felt off to him. He supposed he wasn't all that surprised that her room was probably the neatest he'd ever laid eyes on, or that despite the standard dormitory furniture she'd managed to put her own personal touches on the space in an absurdly tasteful manner.

On the corkboard above her desk, she'd put up a small map of the world, and Fitz noticed a handful of colorful tacks pressed in places he assumed she wanted to visit. On her bedside table, there was exactly one framed photograph, showing a slightly younger-looking Simmons wearing a cap and gown, standing in between an older couple. An assortment of books were neatly arranged in strategic places throughout the room, and from the abundance of whites and light purples, Fitz thought he could probably take a stab at what her favorite color was. None of these things really shocked him, though, if he was honest. But there was still something that felt weird to him, something that he couldn't quite place, and it wasn't just the glass case in one corner that contained what looked like a dead bug collection.

Simmons finished arranging the box on the desk and spun around. "Feel free to set your things down wherever," she told him as she headed over to the tiny kitchenette area she'd fashioned out of a miniature fridge and a small cupboard. He must have paused for just too long, because she glanced back at him with a wry smile. "Surprised it doesn't smell like formaldehyde?"

That was it. It was the smell. That was what had struck him as weird, but only because it actually wasn't weird at all. He didn't really know why he'd expected her room to smell unpleasant. It wasn't that she herself smelled unpleasant (quite the opposite, really). Perhaps he'd expected that in her field of study it was simply an occupational hazard. But the only thing he detected in her room was some kind of flowery scent (lavender, maybe), and the faintest hint of disinfectant. Altogether, it was hardly disagreeable.

Not that he wanted Simmons to think it came as a surprise. "No," he replied hastily, taking off his rucksack and using the movement as an excuse not to look her in the eye. But he still knew she didn't believe him. "Well…"

She scoffed. "Typical," she muttered, but she was still smirking. "You know, I don't care too much for that particular stereotype," she said, shaking her head as she searched through her cupboard for two mugs. "Any reasonable person with sufficient experience in chemistry knows better than to work with harmful fumes outside of the lab."

Fitz nodded, searching for a change of subject. "So," he cleared his throat. "Uh…where'd you find a kettle?"

Simmons gave a short laugh. "Oh, my mum sent it to me within a week after I left," she explained as she placed two tea bags in the mugs and poured boiled water over them. "I'm afraid I was a bit homesick when I first got here, called her up in tears crying about how this country has no bloody clue how to make tea of all things." She shook her head again. "Goodness, I was a mess," she sighed, leaning over to grab a carton out of the fridge. "Do you take milk?" she asked.

Fitz was mildly caught off-guard, so he didn't exactly think his answer through. "Oh, dear God, no," he replied, before suppressing a groan. "I mean, er…that's all right, thanks."

She didn't seem too offended by his outburst, though, and carefully poured the milk into just one of the mugs. He didn't understand the knowing smile on her face as she returned the carton to the fridge. "That's right," she said, digging through her cupboard again. "You'll be wanting sugar, I suppose."

Fitz folded his arms. "And on the subject of stereotypes," he muttered, reluctant to let her know that she was actually right.

Simmons had a curious expression on her face when she turned to look at him, but after a second she smiled. "I didn't mean because you're Scottish," she assured him, taking a small container out of the cupboard and turning back to the mugs. "I meant because you're hypoglycemic."

Fitz froze, his eyes going wide. It took him a few seconds to recover from his surprise, and he was severely grateful that her back was turned to him. "Where…where did you get that idea?" he asked slowly.

"Oh please, Fitz," she replied, giving him another one of those mystifying smiles. "We've spent the majority of the past few days together. Did you really think I wasn't going to notice?" She placed a hand on her waist at seeing his expression. "You brought sweets into the lab. Who does that?"

Fitz shrugged. "People who like sweets," he mumbled.

She raised her eyebrows at him and held up a hand, counting off her evidence on her fingers. "You get particularly grumpy if you haven't had anything to eat in over three hours, you insist on having something high in sugar or carbohydrates every so often even if I have to kick you out of the lab in order to do so, and you don't carry anything on you that indicates it's an insulin problem."

Fitz found himself speechless, unable to figure out how she'd paid enough attention to him to notice something that very few people knew about. She turned back to preparing the tea. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Fitz," she said in a gentler tone, grabbing a spoon and stirring in one measly lump of sugar. "I assume it's probably hereditary, yeah?"

He stepped over to the table and grabbed the spoon she'd set off to the side. "Um…yeah," he conceded, avoiding her eyes as he put two more helpings of sugar into his mug.

"Oh, now you'll just rot your teeth," she admonished him, her face scrunched up with worry.

Fitz held up the mug, ignoring her protests. "Cheers," he grinned before taking a cautious sip.

She relaxed a bit, but she still had a look of mild disapproval on her face as she grabbed her own mug. Fitz was about to move away until he caught a glimpse of the picture on the side of her cup, and held up the one in his hands to see that it was actually a matching set.

"Do you watch it?" he asked in surprise, pointing to her mug.

Simmons glanced down at her tea, but it took her a beat to figure out what he was talking about. "Ah," she said, giving him a nod. "It was my dad's favorite growing up. He owns most of the serials on tape, if I'm not mistaken." She held the mug closer to her body, a wistful smile on her lips. "Yes, the Doctor was quite the staple in my house as a child." She laughed a little, almost to herself. "Actually, my parents met at a fancy dress party at uni. Mum made a dress to look like a Dalek, and Dad dressed as a Cyberman." She shook her head and blew on her tea, taking another sip. "I suppose I was always bound to be a nerd with those two as my parents," she mused.

Fitz was about to say something about how he didn't think she was a nerd, but decided it would be best not to lie to her. So he said the first thing that came to mind instead. "Funnily enough, this was the only thing my mum and I could ever agree on watching together," he told her, remembering how excited he'd gotten when he'd discovered the show and how he'd gotten even more excited to find out his mum had liked it too. He'd sat through enough American soap operas that literally anything else would have been preferable, so he'd been lucky with the solution. Watching Doctor Who with his mum was probably the closest he'd ever gotten to sharing his love of science with her.

Simmons was grinning at him over her tea. "Your dad not a fan?"

Fitz tried to keep his expression blank, but he ended up glancing away from her. "It's…uh…it's just me and my mum," he explained, walking over to the desk and pretending to examine the parts he'd already examined a thousand times.

"Oh, I'm…I'm sorry," Simmons stuttered. "I didn't-"

"It's not a big deal," he said dismissively, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

She nodded, looking uncomfortable for a few seconds until she seemed to remember something. "You know," she said, clearing her throat. "I heard from my parents that they're thinking of rebooting the show."

Fitz was momentarily confused, but after glancing at the mug in his hands he understood. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah," she smiled, slowly crossing the room over to him. "My dad actually sent me the article, says they're going to start fresh with a new Doctor. I mean, it probably won't air for another couple years, but still. That's pretty exciting, isn't it?"

"Sure," Fitz shrugged, actually more excited than he was letting on. "I mean, well…as long as they don't completely butcher it. Easy to do with a classic."

Simmons sighed. "Don't knock it already," she said in mild exasperation. "They haven't even started production yet."

"I'm just being realistic," he laughed, finishing off his tea. "So, er…" he pointed to the desk. "Is this where you want me to-"

"Yeah, yeah," she said quickly, checking the desk as if there was a fleck of dust she'd forgotten to clear away. "I thought since we don't have that much space to work with, we could take turns with the device. I've only got enough of the catalyst for one test round, maybe two if we really need it, and then of course for the presentation. So while you work on the assembly, I can get started on the written report. Does that sound all right?"

"Yeah, that's fine," he nodded, setting his mug down on the shelf and starting to remove the parts from the box.

Simmons walked over to her bed, where she picked up a small notebook. "I've thought about the design," she prefaced, sounding hesitant. Fitz prepared himself for her inevitable criticism. "And even though I still think we should have a smaller angle between the nucleation chamber and-"

Fitz sighed in annoyance. "I already told you-"

"The outer surface," she continued, talking over him. "I might be able to adjust the reagents accordingly." She held out the paper in her hands, where she'd scribbled a series of calculations. "But I can only do that if the immersion cooling chamber is twenty percent larger than we'd originally planned."

He shook his head, not wanting to disappoint her but knowing there was really no way around it. "Can't do that," he sighed, placing his hands on his waist. "There's not enough-"

Simmons scoffed as she tossed the notebook on the desk in a huff. "No, of course not," she said sarcastically, folding her arms. "Well, I don't know what you're expecting, Fitz, but I'm not a miracle worker. Unless you can find a way to ensure the nucleation actually happens, the bloody thing isn't even going to work."

Fitz didn't back down. "It'll work," he insisted, pointedly moving the papers away from his workspace and pulling out the chair to sit down.

She stood behind him for a couple seconds before grabbing her laptop. "We'll see, I guess," she muttered, and Fitz didn't have to look at her to know that she was probably rolling her eyes as she flounced away to work on her bed.

For the next couple of hours or so, they worked in relative silence, peppered here and there with various comments about the project. Fitz found himself oddly amused whenever he happened to glance over at her, finding that each time he did so she seemed to have two additional books opened up for reference. He supposed the chemistry of the device would need more citation than the design in their report, but Fitz still had no idea what she could possibly be writing that would need that much research.

For the most part, though, Fitz poured the majority of his focus into making sure the structure of the device was absolutely perfect. He knew Simmons didn't really understand the modifications he'd made, but he hoped that once it was finished she would be able to see that he really wasn't as big of an idiot as she thought he was.

At one point, he heard her close a large book with finality. "All right, I've got most of the introduction written, as well as my part of the abstract and experimental sections." Fitz spun around in his chair, removing his protective glasses and massaging his cramped hands. She stood up, briefly stretching her arms above her head before beginning to put her books away. "How are you with writing reports?" she asked him.

Fitz did his best not to look too offended. "I do have a PhD, you know," he pointed out.

Simmons paused, looking over her arm at him as she arranged her books on one of the shelves. "No, I…" she sighed. "I simply meant that everyone has different strengths," she finished weakly, looking like she was regretting having said anything at all. "Of course you have a PhD. Glasgow, right?"

Fitz turned back to the device, inspecting the sides he'd just fused together. "MIT, actually," he corrected her quietly. "Did my undergrad at Glasgow."

"Yes, MIT," she hurriedly agreed, as if it'd been something she should have remembered. "That was it." She crossed the room to grab a few more books. "Well, that must have been quite the adventure for you."

Fitz continued to triple-check his progress so he'd have an excuse not to look at her. "You sound surprised," he muttered bitterly.

"I…I'm not surprised, Fitz. I just-"

"No, you're just wondering how on earth a kid from Glasgow with a single mum could afford to go to school in America."

He hadn't meant for the words to come out so harshly, but his head was pounding and he'd been working for a long time and he still had no idea how to talk to this girl. He cursed himself for snapping at her, knowing he was just asking for an argument. But when she responded, Fitz was shocked to hear that she didn't sound half as insulted as she had every right to be.

"Nonsense," she dismissed. "That school probably bent themselves over backwards for you. My guess is they most likely ended up paying you to attend."

Fitz's hands stilled, and he felt an odd burning in his cheeks. Her reaction was hardly the one he was used to receiving when his peers found out he was a scholarship kid. Thankfully Simmons was still busy putting away her things, so he went back to fiddling with the device. "Yeah, well…I wanted to go for the longest time," he shrugged. "You know, one of the best for engineering and all that. And, of course, Tony-"

"Tony Stark went there," Simmons said along with him.

He nodded, his lips curling upward from the fact that she'd somehow known what he was going to say. "Yeah, but er…well, anyway, I didn't think it was gonna happen," he told her honestly, still pretending to be engrossed in the project. "But my mum always said that if I ever wanted something in life, I had to work hard and earn it. And…I don't know, I guess it's worked out pretty well so far."

Fitz didn't quite know why he was telling Simmons all of these things, things that he'd never told anyone before. Truthfully, the entire process had been a lot more stressful than he'd described. But he didn't think Simmons would want to hear about the uncertain nights he'd stayed awake, tinkering with his projects and inventions on the off chance he'd be accepted into the program. He also didn't think she wanted to hear about how his mum had cried when she'd told him she couldn't afford to send him overseas, or how keeping a straight face and lying to her about being fine with it had been the hardest thing he'd ever done. In the end, it had worked out, and MIT had fully funded his graduate studies. In the end, he'd ended up at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, ranked with some of the smartest people in the world. Simmons didn't need to hear about the rest. Besides, he figured she had much more interesting things to concern herself with.

It took Fitz a while to realize that she hadn't actually responded to him. When he turned his head, he was surprised to see her sitting on the bed, looking at him with a small smile. "She must be really proud of you," she said softly.

Fitz was temporarily baffled. "My mum?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Oh, no, I gave her hell growing up," he told her solemnly. "Yeah, probably took apart everything in our flat at some point, nearly drove her up the wall when I tried to talk about anything to do with science. And then, of course, I wasn't exactly the bright shining pupil you probably were in primary school. Didn't really have the attention span."

"Well, I should think not," Simmons replied with a smirk. "Why should a prodigy with your intelligence level be bothered with learning about the kings and queens of old?"

"That's the first sensible thing you've said all day," he remarked, and he was glad that she didn't seem to take his comment seriously. He wasn't used to talking about himself, though, so he tried to divert the conversation. "What, er…what about you?" he asked casually. "You're Cambridge, I take it?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "How did you know I went to Cambridge?"

Fitz thanked every possible deity that he didn't have to tell her about how he may or may not have searched her name on the Internet. "You, um…" he began, pointing in her general direction. "Your jumper, it's…"

Simmons quickly glanced down at her jumper, as if she'd forgotten she was wearing something with Cambridge's crest on it. "Oh," she said in embarrassment, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Right. Well, it's an excellent school," she admitted, playing with her hands. "Although I'm sure it's probably a tad more enjoyable if you're not a fourteen-year-old girl living away from home for the first time." She laughed a little, but Fitz could tell her heart wasn't really in it. "But what am I saying? You probably understand better than anyone."

She glanced up at him just then, and he didn't really understand why she looked nervous. It was almost as if she was afraid of what he would say in response. But even he didn't know what he was going to say. Eventually he supposed he gave her some kind of nod, but the moment itself didn't really need words. It was a strange moment, and he wasn't sure how long it lasted. But he didn't mind, and she didn't seem to either. It was like time was hanging in suspension, and everything he wanted to say didn't matter because she somehow knew what he meant.

What she'd said had been true. He did understand. He understood what it was like to be the youngest in the class, for others to have preconceived notions of the person he was supposed to be or of what he was supposed to accomplish. And for the first time in his life, there was someone else that understood him, or at least seemed to understand him. Wasn't this what he'd wanted, ever since he'd heard her voice on that first day? Didn't he work tirelessly so that she would notice him and realize that they had more in common than she probably knew?

He hadn't thought it was possible, because of the horrendous first impression he'd given her, but maybe he still had a chance. Maybe there was hope for him yet. After a few seconds he figured he might as well try to say something. It'd have to be something clever, though, something that would tell her he understood what she meant but also assure her that he was as intelligent as she'd suggested. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Are you feeling a bit peckish?"

Fitz closed his eyes in humiliation. What the hell?

But Simmons was apparently a saint, because she overlooked his terrible attempt at communication and stood up quickly. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she apologized, as if it was her fault that he was an idiot. "Sometimes I work for so long that I forget, but you're probably starving."

Fitz's mouth hung open as he watched her pull things out of the fridge. "No, I didn't mean…" he stammered, forcing down a groan. "I just thought…we could go get something…or whatever. You don't have to-"

"It's really not a problem, Fitz," she insisted, continuing to set out an absurd amount of food. "I did some shopping last night, so I've got plenty. And besides, you're probably not going to find many places open right now, on account of the holiday. Unless…" She paused, looking over at him hesitantly. "Unless you're quite particular."

Fitz let out a laugh. "Hardly," he said. "I could eat pretty much anything."

"Oh, good," she smiled, looking relieved. "Does a sandwich sound all right, then? I've got some prosciutto and…buffalo mozzarella," she announced, lifting up a couple of the bags. "Oh, and I've also got…" She stepped past him to open the fridge again, removing a small jar. "Well, it's an old family recipe, and this was my first time attempting to recreate it. I'm not sure if it's any good since I haven't tried it yet, but if you're up for it, I could just put a little in and you can tell me if you like it or not."

Fitz glanced at the jar in her hands. "What is it, again?" he asked uncertainly, hoping she wouldn't accidentally put silver iodide in his sandwich.

She seemed to realize what he'd implied. "Oh, it's pesto aioli," she clarified, opening up the jar so he could see inside. "I've got the other compound safe in an airtight container over there," she promised him, pointing across the room.

"Right you are," he nodded, glad that she had enough sense to keep her hazardous chemicals separated from the food. "That…sounds delicious, actually," he said, gesturing towards the jar.

She gave him another smile, but she seemed a bit nervous. "Well, I'll just put a tad in, to be on the safe side," she murmured, setting aside the jar and grabbing a couple small plates.

Fitz scratched the back of his head. "Did, uh…did you need any-"

"No, I've got it," she assured him. "It'll just be a minute."

"That's fine, really. Take your time."

They mostly ate in silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. And when she asked how he liked the sandwich, he decided to refrain from giving a long and passionate speech about how it was probably the greatest sandwich he'd ever tasted in his life and instead settled for saying, "It's…really good."

After that, they easily settled into a routine, switching back and forth from working on the project and writing up their report. Fitz didn't realize how fast three days could pass, but they seemed to fly by much quicker than he'd have liked. He even found himself naturally getting up earlier in the morning, looking forward to spending the day with Simmons. Eventually he started contributing to her food supply, bringing over an assortment of items that she silently shook her head at but were much better than some of the tasteless crap she called "snacks" in her cupboard.

Every day, sometime in mid-afternoon, Simmons insisted on going for a short walk, claiming that "staying cooped up inside all day will drive us both mad." He only half-heartedly argued with her, mostly due to the weather.

"You're from Scotland. Aren't you used to the cold?"

"That doesn't make it all right, Simmons!"

On Saturday, though, she'd ended up convincing him to go for a small trip into town with her. He'd conceded under the pretense of being mostly finished with the project, and the fact that the day was unseasonably warm. But in reality they could have been woefully behind and the day could have been below freezing and he still probably would've gone with her.

They only ventured a few blocks off-campus, Simmons already seeming to know where she was going. She first brought him to a quaint little bookshop off of the main square, where she pulled him down various aisles and pointed out some of her favorite volumes. Normally in such a place he could have easily grabbed a book and settled into a dark corner by himself, but for some reason, he was much more fascinated with hearing her talk than with anything else that that bookshop could have offered him.

It was a slightly different story when they popped into the next store, though. A wide range of animals lines the walls, and Fitz scanned the cages as he followed Simmons over to a pen holding a handful of newborn puppies. Simmons promptly asked the attendant if she could hold one of the smaller ones, and after the puppy had been deposited into her arms, Fitz stepped forward and murmured, "You don't think they have any monkeys here, do you?"

They only spent a few more minutes in that disappointment of a pet store (the puppies were adorable but they were not monkeys) before deciding to finish off their trip by splurging on some ice cream. Altogether, they hadn't really done anything special, but Fitz couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed a day so much.

Of course, Sunday night eventually rolled around, somehow managing to surprise them both despite the fact that they'd had the entire long weekend to prepare. Sometime around midnight, Fitz was putting the final touches on the wiring in the device when Simmons placed a few white cards next to his arm.

He sighed, feeling like he'd had this disagreement with her for weeks instead of days. "Simmons, is all this really necessary?" he asked, holding up the paper. "Note cards? Really? It's the first project. They're not expecting us to-"

"No, they're not," Simmons replied, folding her arms. "They're expecting us to fail, Fitz." She looked exhausted, her hair starting to come out of her usually neat ponytail. "All right? We're the two youngest people to ever come through here. They're expecting us to wash out. And I've heard what the others have been saying about us."

Fitz felt his heartbeat speed up. "What have they been saying about us?"

She shook her head. "Look, it doesn't matter what they think," she argued. "What matters is what Dr. Hall thinks. And as long as we can prove to him that we belong here, that we deserve to be in his class, then…then maybe we have a chance at becoming really great S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists."

Fitz thought about retaliating, but there was something in her eyes that was maddeningly enough to crumble his resolve. "All right, fine," he groaned, running his hands over his face. "I'll look 'em over. But I'm not reading off of cue cards in front of the class tomorrow."

"Well, of course you're not," Simmons agreed, looking at him in bewilderment. "You're to have that memorized by morning."

"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered, turning back to the device to set the last wire in place. "Are you ready for the test run?"

"Yeah," she said wearily, quickly pulling her hair back before grabbing a cup to fill with water. "So I'll start with the introduction, and talk a little bit about the practical nature of the device-"

"Wait, I thought I was doing that bit, and you were gonna talk about the nucleation-"

"Well, I am talking about the nucleation, but I figured since you're going to be discussing the structure and how to use it in the field-"

"Wouldn't that all kind of go together, though-"

"Oh, for God's sake, Fitz, it's all written on the cards, if you'd just look at them-"

"Who cares about the damn cards? I want to know how we're actually going to show how it works-"

"I'm getting to it, Fitz," she cried, snapping on a pair of gloves. "If you'd have actually read the cards, you would've known exactly what I was talking about." She held up one of three vials she'd carefully prepared with the silver iodide. "I'll add the compound to the cooling chamber-"

Fitz stared at her hand in panic. "But that's already supposed to be in there."

"No, it's not, I'm supposed to add it just before we need crystallization-"

"No, you're supposed to add it before the nucleation chamber has had a chance to activate-"

"That doesn't make any sense, how would you deploy the compound then?"

"By remote activation, of course," he replied pointedly, holding up the small button.

"When did that happen?" she asked, quickly grabbing it out of his palm. "You didn't tell me anything about remote activation-"

"Well, I thought it was a given, considering field agents aren't exactly gonna have time to measure out point six five seven grams of silver iodide-"

"It's point six two grams, thank you very much, and obviously I wasn't expecting-"

"Wait, Simmons," Fitz interrupted her, staring at her hand. "You didn't press it, did you?"

She glanced down at her hand before slowly looking back up at him. "Why?" she asked in a whisper. "Fitz…what happens when I press this button?"

"The silver iodide gets released into the nucleation chamber," Fitz murmured.

Simmons stared at him. "And what if there's no silver iodide in there?"

"It-"

But Fitz didn't have a chance to tell her what would happen. Because just then, a loud noise came from the desk next to them, and before he knew what was happening, the two of them were covered in a mixture of ice water and glass. The force of the blast didn't knock them over, but the effect left them just as stunned. The floor around their feet was filled with scattered pieces of metal, and everything within a five-foot radius of the desk was completely soaked. Fitz stared in open-mouthed horror at the mangled piece of machinery in front of them.

Their project had exploded.

Chapter Text

Jemma wasn't sure how long she stood there, motionless as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. One second she'd been arguing with Fitz, ready to test the device, and the next she was covered head to toe in ice-cold water, the remnants of their project littering the floor around them. At some point, she must have understood the reality of what the situation meant, but all she could do was stare at the desk in silence. She supposed she also started shivering sometime as the water seeped through her clothes, but her brain was much more concerned with the ruined assignment than with her personal comfort.

Eventually she heard the light crunch of glass as Fitz stepped towards the broken device. "No," he breathed, reaching out his hand to inspect the machine. Jemma was relieved that he stopped himself before touching any of the metal or wires, because she didn't have the energy to yell at him anymore. She didn't even have the energy to speak, really. She was exhausted, in every sense of the word, and it took all of her remaining efforts to sink onto the bed behind her. Normally, she might have cared that her drenched clothes would be ruining one of the few dry spots left in her room. But normally, she wouldn't have felt as hopeless as she did right now.

Everything they'd worked for, all of the hours they'd spent perfecting the project, had been for nothing. All of the effort Jemma had put into both the project and working with Fitz didn't mean a single thing anymore. She had tried. She had really tried to show Fitz that they could move past their initial misgivings about one another and work as a team. And for a minute there, she thought she'd succeeded. For a minute there, she thought Fitz had stopped hating her long enough to see that they had the potential to be great partners. For a minute there, she thought they would soar through the rest of the class with flying colors, and maybe if she was lucky enough he might have even considered working with her in the future. For a minute there, she thought she'd found a friend.

But obviously she'd miscalculated. Obviously she'd been wrong. She'd missed something he'd said and he'd missed something she'd said and now all of that potential was gone.

They'd have to drop the module, no doubt. After all, there was really no way to redeem themselves in a course with such few opportunities for marks, especially if their first project was a bust. Yes, they'd have to drop the module. And then he would go back to sitting in the rear of the lecture halls and she would go back to spending her days alone and they would both go back to constantly trying to outsmart the other in an attempt to move past this unfortunate incident. Jemma supposed it'd been foolish of her to hope for anything more. She'd always had a habit of being foolishly optimistic, but perhaps that was because she'd rarely had cause not to be.

Jemma was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't even register what Fitz was saying to her. She didn't really think he was talking to her anyway. He was still standing by the desk, muttering something about how to go about rebuilding the machine. As if it wasn't completely pointless anymore.

"We'll have to adjust the size, maybe make a miniaturized prototype and then reposition the chambers to make up for the discrepancy," he murmured. "But there's no reason it shouldn't work. There's still time."

The end of his sentence broke Jemma out of her trance. "Time?" she cried, looking up at him from her spot on the bed. She was momentarily confused as to why his features seemed so blurry all of a sudden, until she realized her eyes had filled with tears. She desperately tried to push them back, furious with herself. There was no way in hell she was going to cry. Not now, not in front of him. But it was late and she wasn't accustomed to being awake at that particular hour and she was utterly exhausted and she'd never felt so hopeless before.

"We're supposed to present this in less than nine hours, Fitz," Jemma whispered, looking down at her hands so he wouldn't see the tear on her cheek that she'd failed to hold back. "That's not enough time." She took a shaky breath, her shoulders sinking from defeat. "We're going to fail."

Saying the words out loud was an odd experience for Jemma. Because while she'd never failed anything in her life (that one maths assignment with the coloring exercise in Year 2 hardly counted), and while the reality of the words didn't fully hit her until she'd said them, it gave her almost a sense of relief. After all, didn't they always say everyone had to fail at some point to achieve success? Some of the best scientists in history had failed numerous times before accomplishing anything. Maybe this was what Jemma needed. Maybe failing now was necessary in order to give her the push and determination to excel in the future.

Of course, telling herself this didn't do a single thing to make her feel better about the situation. And it didn't keep the tears from streaming down her face, a few of them even managing to spill over onto her lap.

Fitz was silent after her outburst, probably realizing that she was right, and the room was quiet for so long that eventually Jemma just assumed he'd left. So she was more than a little surprised when he hesitantly sat down on the bed next to her. He didn't say anything, but she heard a small rustle and the next thing she knew there was something warm being draped across her freezing shoulders. She looked down at her arms in bewilderment, clueless as to what was happening, until she recognized Fitz's winter coat. He must have retrieved it from near her doorway, which had thankfully escaped damage from the blast.

It was such a peculiar gesture coming from him, not at all like something she would have expected him to do. She slowly raised her gaze to meet his, and if the moment hadn't been so bleak, she might have laughed. He was staring at her with wide eyes, looking absolutely terrified as he held out a box of tissues towards her.

"Wha…" she breathed, the sound stopping short in her constricted airway. She glanced down at the box and back up at him, trying to figure out what was going on.

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered, his face turning red. "I have no clue what-"

But Jemma suddenly realized what he'd been trying to do, and for absolutely no discernible reason at all she burst out laughing. She wasn't sure if it happened at the same time or not, but eventually Fitz started laughing too, and soon they were both doubled over. It was a hysterical kind of laughter, borne out of exhaustion and lightheadedness, absurd in both cause and nature. Their project was still in ruins and they were both still soaked to the bone and they were still going to fail. But for just a minute, Jemma was able to forget her despair and laugh about how Leopold Fitz had tried to comfort her with a winter coat and a box of tissues.

"Oh, dear," she sighed, letting out another watery laugh as she grabbed a few of the tissues. "Look at us. What a dreadful pair we are."

Fitz wasn't laughing anymore, though, and Jemma held her breath as she nervously waited for him to say something. "Maybe that's just it," he said quietly, fiddling with the tissue box.

Jemma felt her heart sink, even though she'd already known how this entire scenario would play out. "What do you mean?" she whispered, needing to hear him say it.

"I mean," he sighed, shaking his head as if he was trying to find the words. "Maybe…we've been going about this the wrong way."

Of all the things Jemma had expected him to say, what he'd actually said had not been one of them. "Going about…" she repeated in confusion. "You mean you think we can…" She followed his gaze to see that his eyes had landed on the desk, where the pathetic remains of their assignment rested. "You think there's still…Fitz!" she cried, raising her hands to cover her face. "There's no way we can fix this on time."

Fitz opened and closed his mouth, staring at her helplessly. "Well…maybe not with the way we've been doing it," he eventually managed to get out, although it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Jemma scoffed, unable to find any adequate words to retaliate. But Fitz seemed to at least understand that he would have to clarify if he wanted her to have a bloody clue as to what he was talking about.

He glanced away from her, looking like he was regretting the entire enterprise of trying to talk to her in the first place. "Look, didn't…" he began, briefly closing his eyes. "Didn't Dr. Hall say that the reason we were put in pairs was to make sure we could all work with each other?"

Jemma raised her eyebrows at him. "That's…not what we've been doing?" she asked.

"No, not really," he replied gently, although he still managed to sound mildly exasperated. "I mean…you've been doing your bit with the crystallization and I've been doing my bit with the electronics, and…yeah. Maybe we've been talking a bit more, spending more time together and working in the same room and all that. But technically speaking…we've been doing most of the work on our own."

Fitz paused just then, like he was debating whether or not to continue. Jemma remained silent, partly out of surprise from hearing him say so much at once to her and partly because she hoped he would go on.

"I'm not an idiot, all right?" he sighed, glancing down at his hands again. "Contrary to what you might think, I actually am a certified genius."

Jemma fought the urge to roll her eyes, mostly because despite the arrogance of his words he didn't actually seem like he was trying to annoy her. She didn't have a lot of time to analyze his assertion, though, because his next words surprised her more than the other ones had.

"And you're obviously brilliant," he continued, gesturing vaguely in her direction. "I mean, for God's sake, you've got what? Two PhDs? Most kids our age couldn't even tell you what a PhD actually is, let alone have done enough work to earn two of 'em."

If Jemma hadn't been so stunned, she might have smiled. Was Fitz actually complimenting her?

He took another deep breath. "The other day…" he said, finally turning his head to look her in the eye. "You said that…well, I think you said something like…that it's easier to fix things-"

"Solve things," Jemma corrected quietly, but she was actually smiling this time.

"Yes, well I was adapting it for our circumstances," Fitz said hastily, waving a hand near his head. "It's all the same, isn't it?" he asked with a shrug. "But you still said it, yeah? You said it's easier to fix things together. So…I don't know, maybe…maybe if we actually tried that instead of working separately…we could do it. I mean…we're smart enough on our own, sure. But…shouldn't that mean that combined, we'd actually be twice as smart?"

Maybe it was the hour, but it took Jemma a long time to respond. Mostly, she was reeling from the fact that Fitz somehow still wanted to work with her, even after everything that had happened. The other part of her was trying to figure out what exactly she was seeing in his eyes when he looked at her. And it wasn't until his words clicked in her head that she realized what it was.

It was hope.

Jemma turned on the bed, tucking one leg under the other as she stared at him incredulously. "Fitz," she said slowly, searching his face for any sign that he was teasing her. But all she saw was apprehension, and maybe a little bit of alarm by her sudden movement, so she sucked up her courage. "Are you saying…you still think we actually have a chance at finishing this?"

Fitz glanced back at the desk, and Jemma could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "I don't know, Simmons," he murmured. "Maybe."

When he looked at her again, that mystifying hope was still in his eyes. "But I think it's worth a shot, don't you?" he asked softly. Jemma wasn't entirely certain he was only talking about the project.

Despite the fact that every bone in her body was telling her to just curl up and go to sleep, Jemma knew that this was far too important to pass up. She couldn't quite explain it, but something told her that whatever she decided then, in that exact moment, would change everything.

Then again, what did she have to lose? She'd already accepted failure, and she'd already accepted the loss of a potential friendship with Fitz. It wasn't even a difficult decision, really.

She ran her hands over her face, wiping away the remnants of her tears before standing up. "Where do you suggest we start?"

Fitz stared at her blankly for a few seconds, like he wasn't sure if he'd heard her correctly. But eventually he stood up to join her. "Oh, well I, er…" he said, scratching the back of his head as he looked at the exploded device again. "I was thinking that maybe since we don't have enough parts to make the full thing, we could try going for a more compact version. I was looking at…" He picked up a dented cylinder, all that remained of the nucleation chamber, and held out a hand. "Here, watch out for the…glass," he advised, guiding her as she gingerly stepped over the shattered pieces on the floor. She was momentarily surprised at how warm his hand felt, considering he'd also been splattered with the ice water, but he immediately released his grip on her as soon as she'd made it over to the desk.

"I was looking at these bits here," he continued, avoiding her eyes as he picked up another part. "And I know you wanted a smaller angle between the chamber and-"

"The outer surface," she nodded.

"The outer surface, yeah," Fitz agreed as he reached into her desk drawer for a pad of paper and a pen. A few lines began to form on the page as he sketched his idea, using his knee as a writing surface since the desk was still covered in water. "But what if…what if we actually put the immersion cooling chamber inside the nucleation area instead, which we could then use to create-"

"A pressurized canister," Jemma breathed.

"Yeah, exactly," Fitz replied, giving her a smile. "I mean, I know it's a long shot, but wouldn't that be more useful in the field anyway? You know, as opposed to lugging a giant machine around, they could just have these small canisters-"

"And with remote activation, they wouldn't even have to deploy the device on-site-"

"Yeah, and with the cooling chamber actually inside the device, the interfacial area-"

"Would automatically be reduced, thereby naturally lowering the nucleation barrier by the design alone," Jemma finished in amazement. Maybe there was still hope for them after all.

Fitz looked up from his sketch. "So you think…you think it could work?" he asked hesitantly. "I mean, would you have enough of the compound to-"

"Yes, yes, of course," Jemma assured him. "Fitz, with this design…we wouldn't even need half of the amount of silver iodide we'd needed before."

"That's right," he murmured, carefully extracting the cooling chamber from the debris. "Because the reduced size would already act-"

"As a catalyst," Jemma said along with him.

Fitz glanced over at her with probably the most genuine smile she'd ever seen on his face. But his eyes suddenly widened as his gaze fell somewhere over her right shoulder. "Mother of all things," he whispered, the parts clattering out of his hands onto the desk.

Jemma involuntarily jumped at the noise. "What?" she asked in panic. "What is it?"

"Y-you…" he stammered, reaching out a hand towards her face before pulling it back. "You're bleeding, Simmons," he winced, holding his hands out in front of him like he didn't know what to do with them.

"What?" Jemma mumbled, bringing a hand up to her cheekbone. She didn't feel a cut, but when she removed her hand, the tips of her fingers were stained red. "It must've been from the blast," she reasoned, not particularly alarmed. "But it's small. Shouldn't be too hard to clean up."

"Um…" Fitz began, following her as she retrieved a first aid kit from her cupboard. "Are you sure you don't, er…I mean, isn't that technically a head injury, so wouldn't you want to…I don't know, get it checked out or something?"

Jemma laughed. "Fitz, it's barely a scratch," she said, removing the antiseptic and a couple plasters.

Fitz was still on her heels as she brought the materials over to her mirror. "But shouldn't you at least head over to the infirmary-"

"The infirmary?" Jemma repeated with another laugh. "Fitz, this hardly requires a hospital visit. Besides, I don't know if you've noticed, but we've got a project that's due mere hours from now."

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed," Fitz retaliated in a loud voice. "But normal people don't think about homework when there's blood coming out of their face."

Jemma worked on pulling her hair back so she could better access the wound. "Are you always this dramatic?" she asked. "What, are you afraid of blood or something?"

The scoff she received in response, as well as the incoherent mumbles, made Jemma stop what she was doing and turn to face him. "I'm not…I'm not afraid," Fitz eventually murmured, pointedly looking away from her.

"Oh my word," Jemma shook her head. "You don't like blood."

"It's not…" he argued, folding his arms. "I don't…it's just…you know, are you sure you don't want to-"

"No, it's not a bad thing, Fitz," Jemma smiled, turning back to the mirror. "I'm just surprised, is all, but I guess it's really not all that surprising. It's a perfectly normal response."

She saw him fidgeting out of the corner of her eye, but Jemma was preoccupied with the antiseptic again. "Damn," she muttered, turning her head towards the mirror. "I can't see well enough to clean it." She sighed before giving Fitz a rueful smile. "I know it's a lot to ask, but would you mind?"

She'd expected to see panic on his face, or perhaps disgust. But he just looked nervous as he stared at her hands. "Are you sure? I don't know if I-"

"Fitz, it's not rocket science," she said, pouring antiseptic onto a piece of cloth and holding it out to him.

Fitz seemed to have an internal argument with himself before he carefully took the cloth. "No, it's not," he sighed, stepping closer to her. "That I could actually do."

Jemma simply rolled her eyes before tilting her head so he could clean off the blood. And maybe it was because of how long it took him to actually make contact, but as soon as the cloth touched her skin, she let out a hiss.

Fitz immediately removed his hand from her face. "Oh God, are you okay?" he asked, his eyes widening in terror. "Did I-"

Jemma desperately tried to cover her mouth, but it was too late. "I'm so sorry, Fitz, I couldn't help it," she giggled, his horrified expression only amusing her further. "You just seemed so nervous, and I-"

"That is not funny, Simmons," Fitz replied sternly, closing his eyes as he took a few deep breaths. "Now, if you pull a stunt like that again, I am taking you to the infirmary myself."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her laughter starting to subside. "Really, Fitz, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he grumbled, gently bringing the cloth to her face again. "Just…it's fine."

Jemma did her best to stand perfectly still as Fitz finished cleaning the cut. "I think it's stopped bleeding," he murmured. "That's good, right?"

"Yes, Fitz," Jemma smiled. "That's good."

"Well, I'll put a plaster on it just in case," he said, carefully setting the bandage and smoothing down the edges. In fact, he spent so much time making sure it was in place and he was so intent on what he was doing that Jemma was caught off-guard when he met her eyes. "Is that…" he whispered, his hand hovering an inch above her face. "Is that all right?"

"Yeah," Jemma nodded, giving him a small smile. "Thank you, Fitz."

Fitz let out a sigh of relief and backed away from her. "Okay, then," he said, spinning around slowly. "Then we should…"

"Right," Jemma replied, remembering how much they still needed to get done. "The project."

"Yeah, but er…"

"We should probably-"

"Yup."

"Yeah."

Jemma quickly removed Fitz's winter coat and tossed it to him on his way out the door. As he rushed across the quad to Erskine Hall to change, Jemma worked on changing out of her own damp clothes. She tried not to look at the clock, knowing that time was not on their side, but the number on the display still managed to send a jolt of panic through her. At least she wasn't shivering anymore, though. That was one less thing she had to worry about.

By the time Fitz returned, Jemma had gotten out her small vacuum and attempted to clean up the broken glass from the floor. "I think I've got it all," she told him, setting aside the vacuum and picking up a few towels. "But I'd keep your shoes on, all the same."

Fitz grabbed one of the towels, joining her as she worked at drying off the desk. "Watch out for the-"

"The wires, yeah," Jemma agreed, moving aside to let him clean off the machinery.

They managed to clear most of the water away, but Jemma remained on edge as she and Fitz worked on reassembling the device.

"You should probably wear gloves with a bit more protection than those," she said, arranging the parts for him on the desk.

"I'm fine, Simmons."

Jemma pursed her lips together, not wanting to start another argument when they had such little time left. "All right," she replied crisply. She pointed to one of the cylinders. "Well, then you can-"

"First of all," Fitz sighed, setting down the device and looking over at her wearily. "The whole point of working together is that we actually…you know, work together."

Jemma shook her head. "What…what does that even mean, Fitz?"

"It means I'm your partner, Simmons," he explained before putting on his protective eyewear. "I don't work for you, you know."

"Well…" Jemma smirked. "Not yet, you don't."

"Oh, I see," he laughed, leaning in towards the machinery to carefully fuse the chambers together. "Got your eyes set on running the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. science division, have you now?"

Jemma was mildly annoyed, even though he'd only been teasing her. "Is that really such a preposterous notion for you to consider?" she asked, folding her arms.

Fitz's smile faded, but his focus remained on what he was doing. "No, it's not, actually," he eventually murmured.

For some reason, his answer threw Jemma for a loop. She cleared her throat. "Well, truth be told, that's not really something I'm interested in," she shrugged, handing him the next piece he needed. "I'd much rather enjoy figuring things out in the lab as opposed to telling everyone what to do."

"Jemma Simmons, not wanting to boss people around?"

"Oh, shut it," she ordered, playfully swatting his shoulder. "You know what I mean." He gave her a half-hearted glare for touching him while he was handling the project. "Maybe I should go for it someday," she said pointedly, just to spite him. "I'm still quite young."

"You do know who you're talking to, right?"

Jemma just rolled her eyes again, making a mental note to remember that Leopold Fitz had the ability to descend into atrocious levels of sarcasm when tired.

For the next few hours, the two of them worked side by side, Fitz carefully constructing the canister while Jemma explained to him the requirements for the catalyst. They still ran into a few disagreements along the way (Fitz had had to back down from adding an attachment, and Jemma had had to concede with keeping the silver iodide within the immersion cooling chamber), but altogether it wasn't nearly as bad as Jemma had anticipated. In fact, they'd ended up agreeing on most aspects of the device, and neither of them had complained about taking an extra thirty minutes to fashion a protective box for its remote button.

As their time dwindled and Jemma started to see spots from being awake for so long, she quickly made her way down to Carter Hall's computer lab to print off their report. When she returned to the room, she sat down on her bed as she waited for Fitz to finish wiring the device. She figured she should probably help him, or see if he was doing everything correctly. But as soon as her body made contact with the soft duvet of her bed, she decided she could afford a few minutes to rest.

Later, Jemma would not be able to recall how or why it happened. Theoretically, she probably could've figured it out. But she had absolutely no recollection of the time between when she sat down and when she jerked awake.

The first thing her eyes fell on was Fitz, hunched over on the desk as he rested his head in his arms. Warm sunlight streamed in through the window, the light landing on the unkempt curls that framed his pale face. Jemma was severely disoriented, knowing that something was wrong but unable to pinpoint what it was. After about ten seconds, though, she began to put the pieces together. Because individually, Leopold Fitz asleep at her desk and their project sitting on the shelf behind him and the sun coming in were hardly causes for alarm. But put all of those things together at 8:44 in the morning, especially on that very particular Monday morning, and Jemma was in full panic mode.

"Fitz!" she hissed, gently shaking his shoulders. "Fitz, wake up!"

Fitz immediately sat up in his chair. "What the hell?" he mumbled, his eyes focusing on her shirt before he looked up at her in confusion.

"Class is in fifteen minutes," she told him hurriedly as she removed the device off of the shelf.

Fitz didn't look nearly as troubled as she'd expected him to, simply taking a few seconds to rub his eyes. "Right, then," he muttered, quickly getting up to help her gather everything together.

"You've got the case, right?"

"Yeah, and you've got the extra-"

"Reagent, yes, and the report's in my bag-"

"And I've got the remote-"

"Here, we can put it with the other-"

"I'll hold onto it, if you don't mind."

Jemma didn't argue with him, having a plethora of other things to worry about. She rushed over to her wardrobe and pulled out a clean jumper, and tried not to let her gaze linger in the mirror for too long. Goodness knew she didn't need further confirmation that she looked like a drowned rat. There was still a bit of makeup left on her face from the day before, but she didn't have time to fix that particular damage. She briefly debated removing the plaster from her cheek, eventually deciding to leave it on. After all, the bandage would probably harm her presentation much less than the bright red gash underneath it. Thankfully the jumper she'd chosen managed to hide the wrinkles in her shirt, so she didn't look completely ridiculous.

She was about to move away from her wardrobe when she caught sight of Fitz, who was hastily ensuring everything was ready to go. Without thinking, Jemma reached into her wardrobe and pulled something out.

"Here, Fitz," she said, tossing the blue tie over to him.

Fitz stared at the material in his hands. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Put it on, of course," Jemma replied in exasperation.

"You're joking, right?"

"Absolutely not."

"Simmons, we don't have time for this. I'm not-"

"It'll only take a second, Fitz. Just put it on."

There was something in the way he continued to stare at the tie that made Jemma suddenly realize why he didn't want to wear it. She pushed aside her surprise and quickly walked over to him, taking the tie out of his hands.

"Wait, what-"

"Don't argue with me, Fitz," she ordered, draping the cloth around her own neck and proceeding to loosely tie it together at breakneck speed. When she was finished, she slipped it over her head and onto his, ignoring his protests. "Besides, no one is ever going to take you seriously if you don't make an effort to dress up to your qualifications."

"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered while she tightened the knot below his collar. "I've got the rest, Simmons," he said, pushing her hand away. "I said I've got it."

"Fine, then," Jemma said before slipping her coat on and grabbing her bag. "Come on, we're going to be late."

Fitz continued to grumble as she practically dragged him out the door, but Jemma found that she oddly didn't mind. Maybe they would make it to the room just in time before class started. Maybe Jemma would panic because she'd forgotten the note cards, only to find that Fitz was able to seamlessly finish off her sentences when she needed him to. Maybe the whispers would be louder that day, and maybe Jemma would pretend she didn't hear the other students talking about how disheveled she and Fitz looked. Maybe Dr. Hall would be floored by their project, asking them to present it to the rest of the faculty and eventually offering to personally advise them in their second year.

Maybe she and Fitz would start sitting in the middle of the lecture halls together, and maybe it would just happen without either of them thinking about it. Maybe she would hear the word FitzSimmons so many times that sometimes she'd catch herself saying it too. Maybe Fitz would start spending more time in her dorm and she would start spending more time in his dorm, and maybe one day they wouldn't even remember what it had been like to do their homework alone. Maybe one day working together would be an instinctive choice. Because maybe one day neither of them would be able to imagine working with anyone else.

Jemma knew there were a lot of maybes when it came to Fitz. She knew that trying to be friends with this quirky Scottish boy, a boy who'd hated her at first, would be a risk. After all, their first project together had literally resulted in an explosion. But as she raced across the quad with him in tow, trying to rehearse their presentation and listening to him exasperatedly telling her not to worry, she had a feeling that maybe the risk was okay.

Maybe, just maybe, the risk would be worth it.

Chapter Text

PRESENT DAY

The hours crawled by agonizingly slowly in the lab that day, the uncomfortable silence only perforated by a few short remarks here and there about their progress. Jemma did her best to concentrate on the task they'd been given, knowing that Coulson was relying on them to minimize the damage HYDRA could cause with the Splinter Bombs. But by the time mid-afternoon rolled around and neither of them were any closer to figuring out how to reverse engineer the weapons, Jemma felt more and more hopeless, and not just with the mission.

It wasn't like she'd never worked in silence with Fitz before. They'd spent so much time together throughout the years that silence between them was as easy as breathing, as natural as when they were speaking to each other a mile a minute. Even back at the Academy, they'd been able to while away the hours together without having to say a word at all, and when they did resume speaking it would be as if they'd never stopped. No, spending time with Fitz in silence was hardly a new experience for Jemma.

But this silence was different. This silence hovered over the lab like a relentless companion, suffocating Jemma to the point where she thought she might scream if she had to endure it for much longer. This silence echoed with all of the words she couldn't voice. Because even if she could say everything that she was keeping inside, it wouldn't matter.

Because she wasn't entirely certain this silence was one that could be broken with words.

In a way, she was almost thankful when she heard Fitz start cursing under his breath. It gave her an excuse to approach his side of the lab, although she still made sure to keep a safe distance away from him. Besides not being too keen on getting her hand pushed away again, the last thing she wanted to do was give him any additional stress.

"How's it coming over here?" she asked hesitantly, trying hard not to flinch when Fitz threw his screwdriver down on the table. His irritation seemed to stem from the weapon anyway, so Jemma cautiously stepped closer to him.

"It's not…" he sighed as he paced in front of the table, one hand gripping his waist tightly and the other pinching the bridge of his nose. "I can't get the…the…I haven't been able to…to…"

Jemma knew she was probably only going to make him more frustrated, but she had to try to help him. It killed her to see him struggle to get the words out. "Disable the adapter casing," she nodded, her eyes traveling to the area of the weapon he was gesturing helplessly towards.

He shook his head, continuing to pace in front of her. "No," he murmured. "It isn't doing the…I haven't-I haven't been able to…"

"Find the switching unit?" Jemma guessed, her voice losing its confidence with every passing second.

"No," he replied, shaking his head more vigorously. "No, it's the…the…I h-haven't been able to-"

Jemma tried to bite her tongue, because he needed to find the words on his own. But there were some habits she hadn't quite broken yet. "Extrapolate the weapon's foreign components?"

"No!" Fitz groaned, stopping short to rest his fists on the table. Jemma really did flinch this time, but Fitz had his eyes closed as he pressed his already white knuckles into the surface. "Wait, yeah," he breathed, straightening up quickly and meeting her eyes for the first time since she'd approached him. "Yeah."

Jemma was so surprised by his sudden change in tone and the hopefulness in his expression that she nearly forgot what she'd said that had miraculously been correct. "So…" she said slowly, making sure to choose her words carefully. "You're saying that…you haven't been able to determine where the alien tech in the weapon merges with what's manmade?"

"Yes," he whispered, almost desperately, his eyes glistening with the relief that she'd finally been able to understand what he was trying to say. Jemma had to restrain herself from closing the distance between them and flinging her arms around him, knowing that she had to savor the small victories on her own for now. Instead she settled for trying to give him her sincerest smile.

The smile he gave her in return was small and fleeting, but it was still there. Fitz turned his attention back to the Splinter Bomb. "And…and the reason I haven't been able to do that," he said, lightly snapping his fingers in the general direction of the weapon. "Is because…because it's not…i-it's not…I mean because right here it's been-"

"Fused together?" Jemma supplied.

"Uh…" Fitz shook his head apologetically. "N-no…it's because it's…" He trailed off, looking at her expectantly, but Jemma couldn't do it again. She couldn't bear getting it wrong one more time, not when she'd gotten it right after so many tries. But she plastered an encouraging smile on her face to let him know it was okay for him to take his time. And if anyone had had the nerve at that moment to come into the lab and tell them time was not on their side, Jemma would have had a few choice words for them, words that she would have had no trouble unleashing.

Fitz breathed out slowly, looking down at the ground. "I haven't been able to because it's…because it's…" His voice grew quieter, and Jemma couldn't quite decipher what he was muttering under his breath. He seemed to be testing out the words on his lips, as if they were foreign to him or he needed to hear them out loud to know if they were the right ones. Finally his head snapped up again. "Dor-dormant," he stammered, his face betraying how terrified he was of making a mistake.

"Oh, of course," Jemma replied quickly, more than a little relieved that she actually did understand. "Because the Splinter Bomb's not active right now, you can't find the area where the Obelisk's power has been incorporated."

"Yeah," he nodded, reaching a hand up to scratch behind his ear. "Or find the, um…find the t…trigger."

"Well, I'm sure we can work that out, Fitz," Jemma declared as she looked at the small disc resting on the table. It was hard for her to believe that such a small thing could cause so much damage and destruction. Then again, she'd nearly lost her life to something alien that she hadn't been able to see at all. That ordeal seemed like ages ago to her now, even if the sensation of falling still managed to find its way into her nightmares.

Jemma cleared her throat, not wanting to dwell on things that didn't matter anymore. "In fact, I think I might be able to-"

But she didn't get to finish her sentence, because at that moment Fitz's attention was directed to something over her shoulder. "Mack," he said quietly, sidestepping past Jemma to get to the door behind her. Jemma didn't really know why she felt tense all of a sudden, but she tried to keep her expression neutral as she spun around.

Mack had paused at the open doorway, his gaze traveling from Fitz to Jemma to the Splinter Bomb lying on the table. "Sorry, Fitz," he apologized, shaking his head. "Coulson asked to see me, and he's not the kinda person you wanna keep waiting, you know what I mean?"

Fitz moved closer to the door. "But couldn't you stay and help out with the…" He simply gestured vaguely behind him, probably hoping Mack would catch on.

"With that thing?" Mack asked incredulously. "Hey, I'm a mechanic," he chuckled, holding up his hands. "You give me a car, mobile command station, Quinjet, whatever. I'm your guy. But all that alien mumbo jumbo stuff?" He shook his head again, breathing in sharply. "I saw the footage from New York, man. That was some pretty messed up crap right there. And you guys have way more experience with this kinda stuff than I do. You'll figure it out faster without me in your way, trust me."

"But-"

"Look, I gotta stay on the boss man's good side if I ever want to even go near Lola, all right?" Mack laughed, tapping the lab door before pointing to Fitz. "You can do this, Turbo," he said as he headed down the hallway and called over his shoulder. "I believe in you."

Jemma wasn't quite sure where the strange nickname for Fitz had come from, but she was more concerned with the slump in Fitz's shoulders (and, of course, with the previously mentioned weapon directly in front of her). She averted her eyes from the doorway, not wanting Fitz to feel like she was watching him, and leaned in towards the table to inspect the Splinter Bomb.

She hadn't realized that she'd unconsciously reached her hand out towards the weapon until Fitz was at her side. "No, Jem-Jemma, stop," he said quickly, his voice tinged with panic. He didn't push her hand away this time, but he held out his arm between her and the Bomb. "All right? Please…don't touch it."

"I think it's fine, though, Fitz," she replied gently, pointing to the object. "The Obelisk kills anyone who touches it, right?"

Fitz simply stared at her with wide eyes, and she realized that while her explanation made sense to her, it would hardly make sense to anyone who hadn't followed her train of thought. "From what limited information I was able to obtain from Agent Hartley's medical report," she explained, "it appears as if the oh-eight-four is able to somehow send powerful electric currents through the body. It starts with numbing the afflicted area instantly, and then spreads outwards from there until the victim is…" Jemma hesitated for a moment, trying and failing to find a word that didn't make her want to vomit. "Until the victim is incinerated."

She moved on quickly, noticing the drained color in Fitz's face. "And yes. These Splinter Bombs are somehow able to replicate the Obelisk's petrifying power. But in all of the security tapes, Scarlotti isn't wearing any gloves," she insisted. "Which suggests that even though the weapons are derived from the Obelisk, they aren't lethal in and of themselves."

Fitz didn't remove his arm. "Yeah, but…but there's still a blade in there."

"I can handle a blade," Jemma smirked, earning a long sigh in response.

"Okay, I-I know I've said this before," Fitz told her, closing his eyes for a second. "But tossing a knife to Trip one time does not count as-"

"Oh, whatever, Fitz," Jemma scoffed in annoyance, although she was secretly glad he felt comfortable enough to start teasing her again. "Need I remind you that I have performed autopsies before, which requires careful precision with-"

"That's not the point, Jemma," Fitz groaned, but she thought she saw the hint of a smile.

"You're right," Jemma nodded, realizing that they shouldn't be wasting time on a petty argument. "The point is that even though the Obelisk is predisposed to disintegrate anything organic that it comes into contact with, Scarlotti and the other HYDRA mercenaries were able to touch the Splinter Bombs without consequence."

Fitz sighed again. "All the same, I think it'd be better if…c-could you just wait until we figure out how the…I mean, how it…how it…works? Please."

Jemma decided for the sake of time and her own sanity to let him win this one. "Fine," she relented, taking a step back from the table. "Where do you suggest we start?"

And for just a split second, the blank expression she received in reply was like looking through a time machine, back to that fateful night all those years ago when he'd convinced her to take a chance. She knew he was remembering it too, knew he was also wondering what might have happened if he'd simply left, if he hadn't said those words, if they'd just given up.

What she didn't know was if he regretted it, or if he was wondering if he'd have been better off if they actually had given up. What she didn't know was if he would have been safe, or healthy, or happy at this very moment if she'd just said no that night. What she didn't know haunted her every day.

But it was only a second, and then Fitz wasn't looking at her anymore. "Uh…I was thinking that…that maybe the Bombs have some sort of…that they might have a…that they might have a…"

Jemma watched him helplessly, her heart breaking as she saw how distressed he was. In all the years she'd known him, he'd only ever started shaking when he was really upset, when he felt he'd lost control. Before the med pod, she could've counted all those times on one hand. Now she had to see that frustration, that powerlessness, almost constantly. It was bad enough to see him struggle with his words. It was worse to know that the only reason he couldn't find them was because of her.

Jemma kept her mouth shut this time. She needed to let him finish on his own.

"It's an, er…" Fitz continued, stopping mid-pace and holding out his hands in front of him. "I think it might have an…ac-activation mechanism."

Jemma glanced over at the Splinter Bomb, knowing that despite the uncertainty in his voice he was probably right. "What, like a timer?" she murmured, looking to him for confirmation.

"Yeah," he sighed, and Jemma didn't think he could have sounded more exhausted if he'd just run a marathon. "I mean…m-maybe," he corrected himself, shaking his head. "I don't know."

"No, I think you've got it, Fitz," Jemma assured him as she headed back to her computer. "They do call it a Bomb, don't they? Come take a look a this."

She quickly pulled up the surveillance tape from the S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house in Belgium, fast-forwarding to the part she needed. Fitz's footsteps were quiet as he walked up to stand behind her, but she would've known he was there anyway. She'd always been able to tell where he was in relation to her. This time he stood a little farther away than he was normally inclined to, but Jemma figured that that was to be expected under their current circumstances.

"Okay, so here we've got Scarlotti's men holding down Agent Walters," Jemma explained, glancing behind her to see if Fitz was paying attention. "And Scarlotti is about to do Lord knows what to her with that knife of his, but-" She stopped talking abruptly, noticing that Fitz had looked away from the screen with a wince on his face. "No, watch this bit, Fitz, it's the best part," she smiled. "He doesn't get anywhere with her that way because she literally slams her head into his."

"Good for her," Fitz muttered. "Doesn't she get incinerated for it, though?"

Jemma's smile disappeared. "Yes, well…from what I've come across on Scarlotti, he likes to take his time," she said quietly, remembering the first and only time she hadn't muted the security footage. "I'd have chosen the Splinter Bomb over the knife too."

Fitz didn't say anything or try to touch her, but she thought she heard him take a step closer to the back of her chair. It helped a little, because Jemma absolutely hated watching the next part.

"Now, the angle of the camera makes it difficult to ascertain how Scarlotti actually activates the Bomb," she explained, resuming the video. "It appears as if he just sort of…I don't know, shoves it into her side, and then it goes off. But then he moves away and…" Jemma trailed off, letting the footage speak for itself. She snuck a glance at Fitz, and was only somewhat surprised to see that he was leaning so far forward that his chin was almost resting on her shoulder. If she was honest, though, she was more surprised that he wasn't grimacing at the stomach-turning spectacle in front of him.

"Wait," he murmured, pointing to the screen. "Could…could you, er…could you go back?"

"Um…sure," Jemma replied, slowly rewinding the tape. "Fitz, did you see something?"

"I don't…" he mumbled, his focus on the display. "Wait, yeah," he said suddenly. "There."

Jemma immediately clicked the pause button, but she still didn't know what Fitz was talking about. He indicated the Splinter Bomb, which had just started to burrow its way into Agent Walter's ribcage. "Do you think you can, um…zoom in on that?"

Excited that Fitz seemed to be on the verge of an important discovery, Jemma found the zoom feature and made the Bomb as large as she could without sacrificing the resolution. The viewpoint was at such an angle that only the Bomb's bladed edge could be seen, but Fitz seemed to be pointing instead to Agent Walter's side, about a hair's breadth away from the Bomb itself.

"There," he repeated, looking between Jemma and the screen. "Do…do you see that?"

Jemma squinted at the display, desperate to see what he was seeing. Eventually she shook her head. "What, the Bomb?" she asked weakly. "I don't…"

"No, it's…" he said, tapping the same spot on the screen almost frantically. But after a few seconds he must have seen her bewildered expression and realized she didn't understand, because he groaned and began pacing behind her chair.

"Is it the blade?" Jemma tried again. "The point of contact, the-"

Fitz held out a hand towards her. "No, Jemma, just…" he sighed, and she closed her mouth. He stood still with his eyes shut for a while before he eventually shook his head. "What, um…do you have the…do you have the other one?"

Jemma glanced at the screen and then back at Fitz. "The other attack, you mean?" she asked. "The one at the UN?"

"Yeah," Fitz nodded distractedly, looking deep in thought. "Yeah."

"Hang on, I've got it right here."

Jemma hurriedly pulled up the footage from the UN's Headquarters. "All right, we'll just skip through Talbot's spiel…" she muttered, trying to find the timestamp she needed. She knew that the general was on better terms with S.H.I.E.L.D. at the moment, but that didn't make her forget about how he'd tried to intimidate her and the rest of the team back at Providence. And, of course, his speech wasn't really relevant to what they were looking for.

"Okay, and here we have Dioli standing up to challenge Talbot's claims," Jemma explained, letting the video play. "And then…out of the blue." She paused the tape and pointed to the Splinter Bomb that had embedded itself into the Italian representative's chest. "Are you seeing what you saw earlier?"

Fitz was staring at the screen. "Yeah, um…I think so, it's just…I need to see-"

"I'll zoom in again," Jemma said, and after a few clicks the Bomb took up nearly the entire display.

"Right," Fitz murmured, his finger hovering over the outer edges of the disc. "Er…do you think you could go back and, um…slow it down?"

Jemma didn't really know what Fitz was searching for, but she trusted that he knew what he was talking about. She rewound the file, adjusting the settings to play back at half the original speed. This time they watched the Bomb come into the shot in slow motion, and right before it hit Dioli's chest, Jemma gasped.

"There," Fitz said breathlessly, and she could sense that he was searching her face. "You saw that, didn't you?"

Jemma slowly turned her head towards him, and Fitz must have seen the recognition in her eyes because his shoulders sank forward with relief. "So…"

She grinned up at him. "I'll find something organic," she said, getting out of her seat.

Fitz pointed in the opposite direction. "I'll set up the Echo Chamber."

Fifteen minutes and a few awkward explanations later, Jemma entered the Bus's cargo hold carrying two potted ferns. As she set them down next to the ficus she'd already placed by the staircase, Fitz came in with the Splinter Bomb's containment case. He only spared a passing glance to the assortment of vegetation she'd brought in. "Not even gonna ask where you found those," he murmured, shaking his head as he brought up the Echo Chamber.

Jemma stepped forward to hand him the microchip for the video files. "Where is everyone?" she mused, trying not to let her gaze linger too long on the space that had once been her and Fitz's lab.

Fitz was inspecting the tablet in his hands. "Um…well, Coulson told us he sent a team off to go get Ward, yeah?" he said in a voice that was a bit too calm. "And everybody else?" he sighed. "Well, it's after five on a Sunday. My guess is they're off for the night."

Jemma glanced down at her watch in shock. "It's already past five?" she repeated, the alarm bells starting to go off in her head. "Fitz, you haven't eaten anything all day."

Fitz didn't look at her, but she saw the tense outline of his jaw and knew he didn't want to talk about it. "Neither have you," he muttered stubbornly.

"Fitz!" Jemma cried, furious with herself that she hadn't forced him to take a break earlier. He'd always been self-motivated when it came to getting food into his system. "You know that-"

"Jemma," he sighed, still refusing to look her way. "Let's…let's just get this done first, okay?"

For a moment, Jemma briefly considered walking over to the Holotable and grabbing something out of Fitz's secret stash of sweets in the third drawer. But that was until she realized it probably wasn't there anymore. "Fine," she conceded. "But if you collapse on me out here, Fitz, I swear-"

"Yep, fine, got it," Fitz said quickly, and before Jemma had a chance to respond, they were suddenly surrounded by a holographic projection of the UN attack. She looked around in amazement, always stunned by how the program was able to render a three-dimensional image from two-dimensional data. She crossed over to stand next to the projection of Dioli and pointed to the spot on his chest she knew was going to get hit.

"All right, so if we send in the Bomb at the same speed we used earlier-"

"Yeah, we should be able to see-"

"The weapon's activation mechanism."

Fitz initiated playback as he walked up to Jemma, standing across from her on the other side of Dioli. When the weapon came into view from the opposite end of the Chamber, Jemma and Fitz turned their heads at the same time to follow the Bomb's trajectory. And just as it passed between them, the symbols around the outer edge began to light up one at a time. Fitz paused the video once the entire edge was glowing yellow, and reached a hand out to lower the disc.

"You were right, Fitz," Jemma breathed, a smile spreading across her face.

Fitz was still staring at the projection of the Bomb, his eyes out of focus. "I…I'm not sure if it…"

"No, look," Jemma insisted, pointing to the bright symbols. "The activation mechanism is triggered upon the weapon being thrown. And the edge lights up as the timer goes off."

"Yeah, but…" he sighed, shaking his head. "It doesn't…he doesn't, or he didn't-"

"Didn't throw it at the safe house," Jemma reluctantly agreed as she saw the flaw in their theory. "So…does that mean there's more than one activation mechanism?"

"Maybe," Fitz shrugged, as if he didn't trust himself. "It'd make sense, though, wouldn't it?"

"All right, well bring up the other file," she told him, gesturing to the tablet. "We can probably see it better in here anyway."

Fitz minimized the current video feed, and soon the images around them faded to give way to the foyer of the safe house. Jemma circled around Fitz to stand near the point of attack, where the HYDRA agents were clustered together. "Okay, you be Scarlotti," she said as she positioned herself in the right location.

"I don't wanna be Scarlotti," Fitz grumbled in protest.

Jemma rolled her eyes. "Fine, then," she scoffed, stepping away from the projected wall. "You can be Agent Walters."

Fitz opened and closed his mouth a few times. "Wh…why do I have to be anyone?" he asked, pointedly remaining in the same spot.

Jemma forced down a groan. "You know what? Forget it. Just come over here and stand where Scarlotti is standing," she replied with affected patience. "So we can see how he activates the Bomb, and so we'll actually have something to tell Coulson today."

Fitz continued to mumble to himself as he moved to stand in Scarlotti's position. Jemma saw his hesitation and gave him a smirk. "I promise I won't do the part where she rams her head into his."

He was still avoiding her eyes, though. "Yeah, I think I've had enough head injuries, thanks," he muttered.

"Oh," Jemma winced, utterly ashamed of herself. "Oh, Fitz, I-"

"Jemma, I know you were joking, all right?" he assured her wearily. "It's fine."

"No, that one was really bad, Fitz," she said, using all of her self-restraint not to place her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"I said it was fine," he replied brusquely. "Let's just get this over with, yeah?"

Jemma looked down at her hands for a few seconds, feeling a burn in her cheeks. "Right," she nodded, before taking a deep breath. But Fitz was engrossed in the tablet in his hands, getting to the relevant part of the video file. When he was finished he placed the tablet on the ground next to him, and as he tapped the play button, the scene around them came to life.

What happened next was one of the strangest experiences of Jemma's entire life. Because she was staring into the face of a man she knew had done unspeakable things, a man she'd actually seen do unspeakable things, and he was looking at her with a disgust she didn't think she'd ever been looked at before.

And at the same exact time, she was also staring into the face of her best friend.

In her head, she knew the knife was Scarlotti's, and she knew the disgust in his expression was not meant for her. But even though Fitz wasn't looking at her with outright revulsion, she couldn't help but see the pain in his eyes and wonder if the hatred she was seeing was Scarlotti's alone.

It was such a surreal moment that Jemma found herself completely speechless as the attack unfolded. Jemma knew she wasn't really there. Consciously, she knew that. But she was so terrified in that instant, terrified for Agent Walters, terrified for what was about to happen even though she'd watched it dozens of times, that logically explaining it would not have been possible.

And despite the fact that the video was playing in slow motion, Jemma still gasped when Scarlotti shoved the Splinter Bomb into her side (or, more accurately, into Agent Walter's side). She stared down at the weapon protruding from her ribcage, noticing that Fitz's hand hovered just over the blade with Scarlotti's. She saw the click, the subsequent whirr, the symbols, everything. And she knew Fitz did, too. The answer was literally right in front of their faces.

She wasn't sure if it was a conscious decision or not, when Fitz took a step backward the same time Scarlotti did. Like her, he seemed to be in a sort of trance, probably also confused at seeing someone else's projected image over her body. As Scarlotti turned around and walked away, though, Fitz remained rooted to the spot. And maybe it was Jemma's imagination, but she thought she saw the ghost of Scarlotti's hatred still in his eyes.

But that wasn't the worst part.

No, the worst part was when the video kept playing, still in slow motion. The tablet rested a few feet away, but Fitz didn't pick it up immediately. He simply stared at Jemma as the Splinter Bomb sank deeper into Agent Walter's side, while Jemma found herself frozen in place. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to do something other than to watch helplessly. But no matter how slowly it happened and no matter how much she wanted to help, she knew that she was powerless.

So the video played on, with Jemma and Fitz watching in silence as the weapon did its work. And when all that was left of Agent Walters settled into dust at Jemma's feet, she released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in, nearly sinking to her knees from the shock. Fitz seemed to come out of his stupor as well, and leaned over to grab the tablet off the floor.

Jemma wasn't sure what had just happened in that Echo Chamber. All she knew was that she very much did not want to talk about it, and she had a pretty strong feeling that Fitz wouldn't want to talk about it either. So after an uncomfortable pause, she cleared her throat, only to find that Fitz began speaking the same time she did.

"So you saw the-"

"Did you see the-"

They both stopped talking abruptly, and Jemma let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, of course you did," she dismissed. "So we should-"

"Yeah, I'll get the-"

"And I'll get the-"

"Yep."

Jemma glanced away from him and hurried over towards the spiral staircase, picking up one of the potted ferns. Fitz turned off the Echo Chamber and brought the Splinter Bomb's containment case over to one end of the cargo hold, while Jemma set the plant down on the other side. When she joined him again, he was pulling on a pair of gloves before carefully extracting the weapon from the case.

"Did you want me to-"

"No, I've got it, Jemma," he murmured, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands.

Jemma followed him to the middle of the cargo hold until they were both standing about fifteen feet away from the fern. "And the weapon can be used more than once, right?" she asked.

"Yeah, um…because it's-"

"Right, I was just checking," Jemma said quickly, not wanting to take Fitz's focus away from what he was about to do.

Fitz remained in the same position for a few more seconds, still staring at his hands. Eventually he looked at her uncertainly. "Maybe…maybe it'd actually be better if you-"

"You can do it, Fitz," Jemma smiled. "Or are you forgetting which one of us actually passed the marksmanship portion of our field assessments?"

If anything, Fitz looked even less confident than he had a second ago. "Yeah, but that was before-"

"Look, it's not a big deal if you're off a bit," she assured him, realizing it'd been a mistake for her to mention anything from before. "The Bombs only affect organic material, right? So if you miss, it's no harm, no foul. But I don't think you will."

Fitz exhaled slowly, bouncing a little as he shook out his right hand. If their circumstances had been any different, Jemma might have laughed at how nervous he looked preparing for such a simple task. But their circumstances were not different, and there was a deadly weapon in Fitz's hands, and he was afraid that he was going to fail, and she couldn't tell him how much faith she had in him because he would never believe her. So instead she kept the encouraging smile on her face, and stood as close to him as she dared to, hoping that that would be enough.

When he finally threw the Splinter Bomb across the cargo hold, a lot of things happened at once. As suspected, the weapon lit up as it spun, the symbols giving off the same yellow glow she and Fitz had seen on the surveillance footage. Just as the Bomb left Fitz's hand, though, Jemma heard footsteps on the cargo ramp behind her.

"Aww, are you two playing Frisbee?"

Skye's question was immediately followed by the sound of the blade embedding itself into the fern's stem. And right before their eyes, the entire plant disintegrated, leaving behind an empty pot surrounded by dust. Skye walked up to stand on Jemma's opposite side, her mouth hanging open at the spectacle before her. But in the end, she was actually the one to break the silence.

"Remind me never to play Frisbee with you guys," she said, her eyes still transfixed on the pot. "Like, ever."

Fitz looked over at Skye in confusion and pointed to the incinerated plant. "You know that was actually-"

"Yeah, I know, Fitz," Skye smirked, rolling her eyes. "It just felt like the moment needed a little lightening, okay?" She sighed and turned to face them. "So how many ferns have you guys murdered today?"

"Just the one," Fitz replied quickly before walking over to retrieve the Splinter Bomb.

"And hopefully the only one," Jemma added, holding up a finger. "That is, if our theory turns out to be correct. Fitz, are you going to grab the-"

"Yeah, I'll get it," Fitz nodded as he gingerly placed the Bomb back in the open containment case. Jemma waited until he disappeared into the Bus's supply room before she placed a hand on Skye's arm.

"How are you doing?" she asked gently.

Skye looked at her curiously for a moment, but she eventually gave Jemma a teasing smile. "I'm doing just swell, Simmons," she chuckled.

Jemma didn't return the smile. "You know what I'm talking about, Skye," she continued, lowering her voice just in case Fitz returned too fast. "Are you all right?"

Skye's expression faltered, but Jemma was grateful that she wasn't trying to hide her feelings as much anymore. "I'll be fine," Skye promised. "Don't worry about me. Although I gotta say, I could really use some good news right about now."

"So no word then?"

"Not yet," Skye shook her head. "But they'll find him," she reassured Jemma. "May's out there."

"Right," Jemma replied quietly, remembering that Bobbi and Trip were also on the team that went to find Ward. She searched around for a change of subject, and her face broke into a relieved smile when Fitz came back into the hold. "Well, we might just have a bit of good news now."

"I grabbed a few just in case," Fitz told her, holding out his palm. Jemma took the small devices out of his hand before setting up the remaining fern.

Skye pointed to the last plant by the staircase. "What about that one?"

"The ficus?" Jemma asked, watching Fitz pick up the weapon again. "Oh, that's simply for emergency purposes."

Skye snorted. "Only you two would have an emergency ficus," she muttered as she took her spot in their small line. "So what are you doing now?"

"You'll see," Jemma grinned. "All right, are you ready, Fitz?"

Fitz nodded over to her, only looking slightly more comfortable than he had earlier. "And you've got the-"

"Yep, right here," she said, showing him her palm. "These all have short ranges, right?"

"Oh yeah, no more than twenty feet," Fitz replied. "'Cause otherwise, that'd be…well, that'd be…bad."

"And we can't have that, now can we?"

The two of them nodded to each other before facing the fern again. Jemma focused on the device in her palm, even though she could see Skye fidgeting out of the corner of her eye.

"Wait, bad? I thought-"

But Fitz threw the Splinter Bomb just then, and the instant it left his hand Jemma pressed down on the button. The blade continued to whirr at full speed, but only a few of the symbols had the chance to glow before the light flickered and died, the entire thing lodging itself into the plant's stem. Jemma smiled after a few seconds when it became obvious that the fern wasn't going to start disintegrating.

"Should I even ask?" a weary voice spoke from near the cargo entrance.

All three of them spun around to see Coulson taking in the sight before him with an expression of mixed amusement and suspicion. Jemma felt the strange urge to laugh, knowing that despite the fact that she and Fitz had known what they were doing, the experiment probably looked questionable to the director.

"Sir, you're just in time," she said, her voice coming out a bit higher than she would've liked. "I think we've managed to find a way to counteract the Splinter Bombs."

Coulson walked up the rest of the ramp, looking warily over Jemma's shoulder. "Does it involve my agents carrying around a bunch of shrubbery?"

"What?" Jemma murmured, wondering how on earth he'd drawn that strange conclusion. But then she saw the fern on the other side of the hold. "Oh," she laughed, shaking her head. "No, sir. Just an EMP device."

"An EMP?" Coulson repeated, folding his arms. "I thought these weapons ran on alien tech."

"They do," Fitz piped up. "But they, er…they rely on elec…electricity."

Jemma gave him an encouraging nod before turning back to Coulson. "So far, we've been able to identify two activation mechanisms on the Bombs. One uses built-in motion sensors to detect when it's been thrown, and the other is just your run-of-the-mill manual switch located in the center of the disc." Fitz worked on retrieving the weapon from the fern as she continued to explain. "But each of these mechanisms requires the use of electricity to deploy the Obelisk's petrifying factor, so they can still be disabled by an electromagnetic pulse."

Coulson didn't look particularly thrilled. "Sounds like a gamble, Simmons," he said uncertainly. "Besides, wouldn't it just be a temporary solution anyway?"

"You're right, sir," Jemma agreed. "And as long as Whitehall has the Obelisk, there's no way to guarantee he's not developing even more lethal weapons as we speak. This solution is temporary, true, but it's the only solution we have right now."

Coulson gave a long sigh. "So you're basically saying we need to get that Obelisk away from HYDRA yesterday."

Jemma grimaced. "Unfortunately, yes," she said quietly. "But you probably already knew that, sir."

Coulson exchanged a glance with Skye that Jemma didn't quite understand. "All right, good work, guys," he said, giving them each a curt nod. "Why don't you take the rest of the night off?"

Fitz busied himself with putting the Splinter Bomb in its containment case, and Jemma gestured vaguely to the Echo Chamber's corners.

"Oh, but there's still-"

"Yeah, um…it hasn't been-"

"It actually wasn't a suggestion," Coulson spoke, just loud enough for the two of them to fall silent. "With all the crap that's going on, I need everyone to be on their A game right now, all right? And that's not gonna happen when you two are overworking yourselves."

Jemma couldn't help but be struck by the dark irony of what Coulson had said, noticing the sharp crease in his forehead and the hunch in his shoulders that indicated he probably wasn't following his own advice. But she knew it would be pointless to argue with him. "Yes, sir," she nodded, casting her eyes downwards.

As soon as Coulson was out of earshot, Jemma turned to Skye. "He doesn't look so good, Skye," she murmured. "Do you think he's okay?"

"Yeah," Fitz spoke up from disassembling one of the poles of the Echo Chamber. "He looks a bit, er…on edge."

"Can you really blame him?" Skye asked, sounding pretty tired herself. "HYDRA's out there with a weapon to end all weapons, Ward's on the loose, and the general public probably thinks we're all still terrorists. It's not exactly a tranquil job."

"Well, yes, of course," Jemma replied. "But-"

"Look, I'll keep an eye on him, if it makes you feel any better," Skye assured them, nudging Jemma with her elbow before heading down the cargo ramp. "Now you guys need to just chill out, okay? Director's orders."

Jemma thought about making some sort of retaliation, but eventually decided against it. Instead she made her way over to the far end of the Echo Chamber, where she began taking down one of the remaining poles, partly as a way to have something to do and partly so she wouldn't have to talk to Fitz immediately. Now that they no longer had a task to work on, Jemma felt the silence seep back in between them.

She knew she had to talk to him. She knew she owed him an explanation for why she left, for everything she'd done in the months since he'd been hurt. She knew that until she talked to him, the distance they were keeping from each other would only continue to grow. The only problem was that she had absolutely no idea where to start.

It wasn't until she and Fitz had put away the last of the equipment that she finally took a breath, only to hear him do so at the same time.

"I think I need to-"

"Jemma, I-"

"Oh."

"Oh."

"Did you-"

"No, no, no, you can go first."

"Oh, it's not…I wasn't…that's quite all right, Fitz," she said brightly, although her voice was shaking a little. "What were you going to say?"

"Uh…well, I just, um…" Fitz stammered, not quite looking her in the eye. "I just wanted to, er…well, about last night, I'm sorry that I-"

"Last night?" Jemma repeated in confusion, but then she remembered. "Oh," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "Don't be silly, Fitz. Besides, you looked like you were all having a fun time anyway, and with everything that's been happening, it was probably a good thing to relax for a bit."

Fitz didn't seem very convinced. "Well, sure, but-"

"I wasn't expecting anything, Fitz," Jemma said, hoping her smile was still intact. "I mean, I have been away for most of the current series anyway, so for all I know you could've jumped off the bandwagon in that time."

Jemma was relieved to see the beginnings of a smile on Fitz's face. "Not exactly," he said as they made their way back to the Playground.

"Yeah, I thought you'd quite like this new Doctor," Jemma grinned.

Fitz's eyebrows furrowed together, and Jemma had to stifle a laugh because of how in one look he'd basically confirmed her suspicions even more. "Oh, and what's that supposed to mean?"

Jemma shook her head solemnly. "Absolutely nothing at all."

Before, Fitz might have tried to deny her implications or muttered something about the dangers of stereotyping. But now he simply grew quiet until they'd reached the kitchen, where they both had unconsciously gravitated towards. Without a word, Jemma set to work making a couple sandwiches while Fitz turned the electric kettle on and retrieved two mugs out of the cupboard. For a moment, Jemma could have sworn it was like how it used to be. For a moment, it seemed like it was just the two of them again, scrambling for food after a long day of working in the lab. But the illusion faded when Jemma saw the slight shake in Fitz's hands as he poured the tea.

He reached into the fridge and took out a carton. "So…" he cleared his throat, adding the milk to one of the mugs. "How, um…how was it?"

Jemma glanced over at him warily. "Pardon?"

"Oh, er…last night," he clarified as he got out the jar of sugar. "It was the, um…finale, yeah?"

"Oh," Jemma replied, not sure why she felt relieved. "Actually…I didn't end up watching it."

She had gone back to preparing the sandwiches, but she still saw Fitz pause in her peripheral vision. "Yeah?" he asked quietly.

"Well, it was late," Jemma shrugged, hoping she didn't sound too bothered. "I just decided to turn in for the night, is all." And before she could change her mind, she summoned up her courage. "If you want-"

"Did you want to-"

They both laughed nervously, realizing they'd been asking each other the same thing. "I mean, if you're up for it," she said, just in case he wanted to be away from her or hang out with Mack or something.

"No, no, that, um…that sounds…nice."

Jemma gave him a shy smile. "Okay, then," she nodded, turning back to the sandwiches. "Well, I'm almost done here."

Fitz slowly walked up to stand next to her, and set one of the mugs down for her before leaning back against the counter. "So, um…did you see the-"

"The nightmare one?" Jemma asked, perhaps a bit too loudly. "Yeah, that one was quite strange, wasn't it?"

"Yep, strange," Fitz replied quickly. "That's-that's what I was gonna say, too."

Jemma began putting away the ingredients, recalling the eerie episode she'd watched alone in her flat. "I mean, the idea of there being…creatures that exist only to listen to us when we talk to ourselves?" She shook her head. "I suppose theoretically it's a nice idea, but altogether it's hardly realistic. Or practical. Sometimes when you're talking to yourself, you're just talking to yourself, you know? Actually, if you think about it, it'd be rather creepy if something were really there. Wouldn't you agree?"

Jemma picked up the plates and turned around, only to see that Fitz was staring blankly into his tea, apparently lost in thought. "Hmm?" he murmured, looking up at her as he seemed to realize she'd stopped talking. "Oh," he nodded distractedly, avoiding her eyes while he took one of the plates. "Yeah. Creepy."

She smiled as they headed over the lounge area, but she could tell that while they seemed to have made progress that day, Fitz was starting to withdraw from her again. She couldn't determine if it was the subject matter she'd brought up or if it was just the stress of the day's events starting to fade, but he grew more and more quiet as the night went on.

Maybe it would feel awkward to watch Doctor Who with him again. After all, until recently they hadn't missed a single episode together. Maybe she would try to make conversation about something or other that happened, only to receive a short response in reply. Maybe they'd sit on opposite ends of the sofa this time, unsure of how close was too close anymore. Maybe she'd have to blink back tears at the end of the hour when a certain companion lied to a certain Doctor, letting him go in order to spare him pain. Maybe Jemma would have to excuse herself afterwards, waiting until she'd reached her bunk to let the tears spill over.

Maybe Fitz would start to avoid her more often, and maybe she would unconsciously start avoiding him as well. Maybe trying to work together had shown her that no matter how much she wanted things to return to normal, she had to accept that they'd both changed. Maybe she'd resolve to give him his space, to let him learn to do things without her smothering him, to let him form friendships with people that could give him what she never could. Maybe she would pour all of her focus into helping Coulson, to stopping HYDRA, not only to give herself something to do but also so she wouldn't have to be constantly reminded of how much she'd lost.

Maybe one day she'd tell Fitz why she'd left, when she could articulate her thoughts and when she could say the words without crying. Maybe one day he'd be able to look at her without pain in his eyes, and if she was lucky enough maybe one day he'd want to be friends with her again.

Eleven years later, and there were still a lot of maybes when it came to Leopold Fitz. Jemma knew deep down that things could never return to the way they'd been. She also knew that trying to repair her friendship with this unpredictable Scotsman, someone who'd tried to give up his life for her, who struggled constantly against an affliction he only had because of her, who'd given her everything and asked for nothing in return, would be a risk. After all, it'd been a risk all those years ago when he'd convinced her to fix their ruined project.

But as they sat on opposite sides of the sofa and watched Doctor Who together, Jemma couldn't help but notice the empty plate that had held his favorite sandwich. And despite everything, she knew that if she could go back to that night at the Academy, she wouldn't have changed anything. Because despite everything, he was still her best friend in the world and she couldn't even fathom her life without him in it. So maybe things would be difficult for a while. Maybe things would never stop being difficult. But if Jemma had learned anything in the last decade, she knew that the risk was worth it.

Maybe, just maybe, she and Fitz would be okay.

FIN