Work Text:
The clock’s hand slipped past the mark of three-thirty as Jemma popped a fresh batch of snickerdoodles in the oven. She had been up for hours now, mixing and rolling and cutting out shapes with a knife and a cup, varying from elegant flowers sprinkled with pink sugar to the simplistic circles formed into mountains on plates. She wasn’t exactly sure why she was doing this. She didn’t need them and she most certainly wasn’t going to take them, so most nights she just ended up heaping them on plates and leaving a note that read please take in her elegant script. Somehow afterwards she’d feel more relaxed, more at ease, so by the time finals were encroaching, she’d end up spending almost every night stress-baking. No one minded- in fact, the dorm had made a collection jar and people would go and buy new ingredients whenever they noticed the kitchen was running out. Shaking her head to clear her train of thought, she got back to work. The next half-hour was filled with flour and sugar and a myriad of flavorings as batch after batch flew mindlessly into the oven. She was just pulling the snickerdoodles from the oven when she heard the door creak open and spun around to see a lanky boy standing in the doorway, jaw slightly ajar and wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants. Her heart froze and her mind went on overdrive, spinning a thousand tales and excuses. She could still only manage to squeak out one word.
“Cookie?”
A moment passed, and neither moved. Jemma’s hand lost her grip on the barely-opened oven door and it slammed shut. They both stayed frozen. The heat from the pan started to worm its way through the oven mitt and so slowly, as if facing a wild animal, she put it on the top of the stove. He still didn’t move.
“Um,” she managed to get out, “h-hello.”
“So you’re the baker,” were his first words, uttered in a somehow familiar Scottish brogue.
“Um- well- er, yes, I suppose I am,” she said, using a spatula to move the baked goods onto a cooling rack. “And you’re the other freshman in my Advanced Physics class, right? F-something. I’m rather horrible with names, but I think I remember seeing you and noticing you were the only other person who was in my year and that you were also from the UK and, um-” Realizing she was rambling, she quickly shut her mouth and focused on transferring the cookies. Glancing up, she noticed his stance was more relaxed and he walked over to sit on a barstool on the other side of the island counter.
“’m Fitz,” he introduced himself. “And you’re… Jenna Simon? Something like that?”
“Close,” she said with a smile, “Jemma Simmons.”
“Right, sorry. Not exactly perfect with the names, either.” She only smiled in response, slicing swirl shapes into cookie dough and dropping them onto the pan. As she mixed a new batch of M&M cookies, he snacked on fresh snickerdoodles. As he was on his third one, he asked, “So why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you come down here and bake at god-awful hours?” There was a pause and he thought he could see a light flush on her cheeks. She poured another dose of M&Ms into the dough and folded them in without replying, then offered him a small handful of the candy. He accepted it and chewed a few as she took a breath.
“It’s a form of… stress relief, I guess. With finals and everything just going crazy, I need something… rhythmic. Something that puts my jittery hands to work. And so I bake.” He nodded like he understood, going quiet as he popped the small candies into his mouth one by one. At the last one, he chewed and stood, and Jemma felt a tug as he glanced at the door.
Then he turned back and asked, "Can you teach me?"
Jemma grinned and waved him behind the counter. Dipping a hand into the bag of flour, she spread some around the counter and dropped the M&M dotted lump into the center. "Dough's done, just roll it out and cut it into shapes," she said, handing him the rolling pin. He took it and nodded, methodically pressing the dough into a sheet. She smiled as he turned to her again, eyes questioning. In response, she held up a myriad of shaped cookie cutters with a smile. He took a few and together they began slicing the shapes from the sheet of dough. After a while, Jemma took out a scalpel and began to cut some of her own designs. Fish with M&M scales, little starbursts layered on top of each other so the points alternated in patterns, double-helix shapes with color-coded M&Ms representing the proteins. Fitz took what was left of the dough and re-rolled it, finishing off a few more star shapes from the scraps. As they slid the tray in the oven, Jemma smiled and offered him a small ball of the leftover dough, popping her own into her mouth. Leo accepted and Simmons started bustling around him, clearing away the ingredients and wiping down the counters with a speed that suggested she’d memorized the motions exactly. When Fitz placed the bag of M&M’s in the cupboard, her hand reached towards the space they had vacated a moment later and she stared at the blank space for a few moments, blinking, before she regained her bearings and continued in her flurry of cleanup. He didn’t try and touch anything after that.
“So do you do this every night?”
“Most, now that it’s finals. My nerves are just too on-edge to rest. I try and go to sleep and I just end up tossing and turning for hours on end. At least this does something productive.”
“And after this you go to sleep?”
“If I can. Occasionally I go back and do more work.”
“Do you ever get sleep during finals?”
“Hardly any, generally enough to keep me functioning, though. Two to five sleep cycles, every two days minimum.”
“That’s the problem with you bio majors. You will literally find the maximum you can strain your body and push yourself there constantly for two weeks.”
“What can I say? It works.”
“You look like you’re going to keel over.”
“I’m fine.”
“I call bullshit.”
“I’m fine, I swear. I’ll even get some rest when I get back to the room, alright?”
“You better. Otherwise everyone’s going to wonder what happened to all of the cookies when you die.”
“You can’t die from sleep deprivation. Well, technically you can. But that’s only after 11-32 days without any sleep,” she said breezily, brushing off his concern as well as the remaining flour from the counter. “Alright, that’s everything,” she finished, pulling the last tray of cookies from the oven. “I’m going to turn in for the night, then.” Sliding the final batch onto the cooling rack for whoever wanted to grab them, she put the trey to the side to cool and whisked out the door. “Goodnight!”
“Goodnight,” he replied as she disappeared, staring in a little bit of awe and feeling like he’d gotten smacked upside the head by something. Shaking his head a bit, he grabbed a cookie and wandered back to his dorm, chewing the half-melty chocolate as he went.
Fitz came back the next night. He couldn't help but like the girl who smelled like vanilla and nutmeg and smiled like the sun. And besides, there were cookies. This time he tugged on a shirt before wandering down to the kitchen, greeting her with a shy smile.
"Hey, Fitz," she said with a smile that matched his own.
“So what are we making tonight?”
It became a comfortable routine. Fitz would show up at the kitchen around one and find Jemma just pulling out ingredients. They’d bake together for hours, exchanging stories and projects, eating too much raw cookie dough than was necessarily healthy, and baking too many cookies for anyone in the dorm to be healthy. The first week of finals passed and it was onto the second and final week, and as time went on Fitz watched Jemma deteriorate little by little. It mostly started when she stopped sleeping for days on end, her only real “rest” baking in the kitchen with him. Nights like those Fitz mostly baked and made her rest in one of the chairs when she would start to wobble. On the third from last night from finals, she passed out at the counter and was completely unresponsive to any attempt to wake her up (that he was willing to try, that is). That night he ended up carrying her up two flights of stairs- read, struggled up two flights of stairs- bridal-style, and knocking on her door until a sleepy and slightly deadly-looking roommate opened it. An also surprisingly strong roommate, Fitz learned as Melinda lifted Jemma’s sleeping body with ease and carried her to bed. As she tucked her in, she shot Fitz a look that read, if you tell anyone you saw this, you won’t have a tongue, vocal cords, or eyes when I’m done with you.
Fitz took that as his cue to leave.
“So tomorrow’s the last day of finals,” Fitz mentioned as he sprinkled cinnamon into the snickerdoodles while Jemma plopped balls of chocolate dough onto a baking sheet.
“Thank god. I have one more final in the morning, and then I’m done.”
“I’ve got one in the morning, then I’ve got to go test my independent project. There’s bound to be some issues, so I’m taking it out to the lower labs and ‘m gonna try to use it.”
“That sounds fun. What is it?”
“Quadcopter that can venture into the field and analyze data. It’s too heavy right now, though, so I need to see what variables I can eliminate.”
“What if you make a bunch of little copters? Like one to analyze a single variable or two? That way it won’t be weighted down,” she offered, opening the oven and sliding her tray up top. “Room for one more,” she said, throwing him a look.
“Thanks.”
As he popped the last tray into the oven, he paused to absent-mindedly wipe his cheek, smearing it with whatever the heck was left on his hands. A giggle drew his attention back to his baking partner, and she grinned before pressing a flour-coated hand to his other cheek.
"Hey!" Grinning, he wiped his flour-y hands in her hair.
"Oh, this is war, mister," she laughed, reaching towards the counter to re-flour her hands.
By the time they were done, both wore smears of white in their hair and streaking across their skin. Fitz had a large handprint on his chest and Simmons's hair was streaked with so much white, you could hardly see her natural color peeking through. Both were giggling uncontrollably as they slumped against the counter, leaning on each other a little for support.
"You're helping me clean up," Jemma said as soon as she could speak again, indicating the mess around them.
"Fine," he sighed with a smile. "You should really get some sleep, though. How long have you been down here?"
"Since midnight."
"Please tell me you got some sleep before that." She awkwardly shifted a moment, and that was all the answer he needed. "How long has it been since you've slept?" She glanced towards the red numbers glowing on the oven.
"Forty-nine hours."
"You need rest," he said. "Just after this batch comes out of the oven, alright? I'll even clean up." Her eyes narrowed at him, confused. "Really. You look like you're going to drop. And don't you have the last final in-" he glanced at the oven, "three hours?" She let out a small sigh and slumped against him even more.
“Why do you think I haven’t slept in forty-nine hours?”
“Oh.”
“But hey, if it means you’ll clean up this mess, I’ll try,” she said, smiling and glancing up at him before leaning forward to shake out the cloud of powdery white from her hair.
“Starting to regret that promise,” Fitz sighed as the flour slowly piled on the floor. Jemma only smiled at him, propping open the oven and sliding the cookies onto a cooling rack. As she wiped down the counter in her usual efficiency, he pulled a broom from the cupboard and started to sweep up the powder covering the floor. He was only half-way done when she finished, and so she smiled at him and walked over to flop down at the counter.
“You’re almost done. I’ll wait.” He nodded but as he worked, he saw her head dipping lower and lower, until she was curled up half on the counter, fast asleep. When he did finish, he gently nudged her awake and ended up half-supporting her down the dorm hallway until she was finally awake enough to walk on her own.
As they reached his room, he saw her wobble a little before steadying herself and a piece of him wanted to ask her to stay, to come to bed and sleep with him, not like that, but just curl up with each other because her dorm was too far and he wanted her close.
Fear kept his mouth shut and all he could manage to get out was, “Good night, Jems.”
“G’night, Fitz,” she murmured, and then in a moment of half-awake spontaneity, leaned on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for cleaning up back there,” she finished, gently squeezing his hand before walking to the stairs and disappearing as she turned the corner. It took him about five minutes before he shook himself out of his trance and was able to open the door.
The next day- or the same day, technically- he was worn out to the bone- between testing and fixing everything the tests brought up, he needed rest. Staggering into his room at midnight, he didn’t even bother to change before flopping onto his mattress and promptly falling asleep.
Three small knocks on the door woke him, and as his roommate turned over and grumbled “You get it,” he sighed and glanced at the clock. 1 AM. Who the hell could it be?
“Fitz?” asked a soft voice from the other side of the door. Groaning a little, he shuffled to the door and peeked out to where Jemma was wringing her hands.
“What’s wrong?” he mumbled, sleep making his tongue heavy and his accent thick.
“I’m sorry, it’s just… I can’t bake right now. My hands are shaking and it’s too quiet and I… I think I miss you,” she whispered, staring at the way her fingers were twisting around each other. Oh, fuck it, said his brain.
“Jemma, come t’ bed. The dorm can go without cookies for a day. Jus’ come an’ sleep, okay?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to his room. She glanced up at him, worry pinching her brow, and internally he started to curse himself. Then, in a small motion, she nodded.
Seven hours of blissful sleep later, the first thing he heard was, “You have a girl in your bed.” No judgment, no question, just the simply stated fact that there was, indeed, a girl in Fitz’s bed.
“Who’s that?” murmured Jemma, pulling herself tighter against him.
“Jemma Simmons, meet Grant Ward. Grant Ward, this is Jemma Simmons, the mysterious cookie-maker. Now if you don’t mind, it’s Saturday and I need about three more hours of sleep,” he slurred, tightening his arm around Jemma.
“Fi-i-itz,” she complained softly, “you weren’t supposed to tell anyone about that.”
“Secret’s safe,” scoffed Ward, throwing on a shirt. “Now if you’ll excuse me, lovebirds, I’m going to go work out. Just don’t touch my stuff.” With that, he walked out and slammed the door behind him, making what Fitz swore was as much noise as humanly possible.
“He’s a prat,” he muttered under his breath.
“Agreed,” mumbled Jemma, already half-asleep again. With a little huff of breath, he tucked his head down and felt his breathing slow back into the steady rhythm of sleep.
An unexpected six hours later, Fitz woke up and found Jemma still there, dead asleep. Deciding that she needed as much rest as she could get, he gently removed herself from the bed and headed for the door. Swinging it open (he’d made some new squeak-proof hinges when he was bored one week- there were no worries of waking Jemma there) he found himself face-to-face with Melinda May and the barrel of a gun pointed straight at his chest.
“Where is she?” came the growl.
“Ohmygoddon’tshootmeshe’sinbedIswearshe’stherewillinglyIdidn’tdoanythingohmygod,” he rambled, hands up near his chest.
“Move,” she snapped twitching the barrel of the gun to the side. He did as instructed, pressing himself against a wall so she could pass. The barrel of the gun never wavered from his chest. The only time she took her eyes off of him was to check on Simmons.
Then Ward came home.
“What the fu-” Halfway through his sentence, he twisted the gun away from his roommate and slipped it from her hand. As he was doing so, an elbow slammed into the back of his head, May twisting to kick his knee out from behind. Ward went down on one knee, alright, but took Melinda with him, throwing her onto the ground. She was back up impossibly fast, though, slamming a kick at his face that Grant just barely blocked.
“What on earth?!” came a cry from Fitz’s bed. “May?!”
“Are you alright, Simmons?” growled the still-fighting woman, temporarily pinning Ward in a hold before he flipped her over and the fight resumed.
“Wha- Of course I’m fine!”
“What do you- oof!- what do you remember from last night?”
“IwantdowntobakeandIcouldn’tsoIcamehereandFitzofferedformetosleepheresoIdidnowJesusChriststopfighting!” she screamed. All of a sudden the two broke apart, both with still-raised fists and circling each other like predators.
“Ward, stand down,” said Fitz slowly. “I think this is all a misunderstanding.”
“Simmons, you’re okay?”
“Yes, May.”
“Jesus, Ward, why’d you even attack her?”
“She was pointing a gun at you! Of course I was going to try to take her down!” There was a pause as everybody just took in everybody else, eyes flicking at one and other and tensions in the room so high, they were close to beating Mount Everest. Finally-
“Watch yourself,” May growled before dropping her fists, holstering the gun, and walking out, calm and stoic as ever. There was a pause as the group watched her leave. Then Jemma broke the silence.
“Sorry. May’s got paranoia issues.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Ward sneered.
“A guy slipped something in her drink during her sophomore year. She’s paranoid for the both of us now.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, but she’s usually not this bad. She did incapacitate that boy I brought inside our room last year, though. Poor guy. He had to wear a neck brace for a month,” she commented with a shrug. Fitz’s eyes went a little wider and Ward rubbed his temples.
“He’s okay now, though!” she rushed to add, noticing the looks flashing over their faces.
“Too much weird. I’m out of here,” growled Ward, grabbing his shower supplies and a bundle of clothes before disappearing down the hall. Fitz watched him go, then let out a sigh.
“You should probably go before he gets back.”
“Yeah. I- I should. Sorry for the mayhem,” she said, shifting a little bit in place.
“Not your fault, but apology accepted.” She smiled at him at that, and he couldn’t help but blurt out-
“Do you want to go to lunch later? Er- actually maybe tomorrow because it’s already past lunch and we might have slept through it-”
“Fitz.” He stopped his ramblings and glanced at her as she cut him off with his name, a smile plastered over her face.
“I’d love to,” she said, reaching out to give his hand a squeeze. “Tomorrow. Meet in the quad?”
“Of course.”
“And Fitz?” she asked, just as she was turning to leave.
“Yeah?”
She turned back to him and went up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek.
“Thanks.” It took him a couple seconds, but he managed to become coherent enough to stutter out a single sentence.
“Wh- what for?”
“Just… thanks,” she said with a smile, squeezing his hand one last time before she disappeared down the hall.
And being the giant dork he was, Leopold Fitz punched the air.