Chapter Text
Fitz panted outside the door, trying to refill his lungs after his mad dash across the quad. First day of the semester, and I'm late. This is going to be a great term, alright.
With one last deep breath, he pushed open the door to the chem lab.
Damnit. Everyone was already paired off. He looked around to try to see the odd one out, but the lab was so large and the shelving units so packed that he didn't have a chance in hell of just sneaking in and finding his partner. With a sigh and a shuffling gait, he made his way over to Dr. Levchenko.
"Leopold," she greeted him shortly, taking in his hangdog expression. "Starting the term off right, I see."
"Sorry, Roumi," he winced. God, she looks just like my mum when I track mud into the house. There was nothing worse than disappointing someone you looked up to. "I swear it won't happen again."
She sized him up for a moment, giving him the raised brow of disdain that always made her own kids cower. Once he looked appropriately sheepish, she relented and nodded. "Alright, Fitz," she conceded. "I suppose everyone's allowed one."
"Thanks," he sighed, relief flooding through him. "So who am I...?" he gestured to the benches. Hopefully no one too abysmally moronic.
"You're with Jemma Simmons," Roumi informed him, bouncing slightly on her toes. "Bench 13."
Fitz's eyes widened and he actually felt himself go pale. "S-Simmons?" he asked, his relief now replaced with terror.
"I have high hopes for the two of you," Roumi smiled. Then her face got serious again. "Don't disappoint me."
He gulped and nodded. Hitching his bag higher up on his shoulder, he turned and walked slowly towards his doom.
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Jemma ground her teeth together as she went about setting up her lab bench the way she liked it. Of course I'm paired up with the only other teenager at the Academy. And of course he's a layabout who can't even get to class on time. How he'd managed to get a PhD boggled her mind, if this was the type of work ethic he had. Brilliant or not, you should still put forth your best effort.
She looked up at the sound of a squeaky shoe beside her, and there he was. All gawky and awkward and staring at her like she had two heads and fangs. Well good, then. He should be scared, coming in almost ten minutes late.
"I'll thank you to be punctual from now on," she said rather shortly, turning back to what she'd been doing. "I don't plan on carrying you through the term." She resumed her cataloguing and organizing. "And I'm sorry if you don't like the way I keep my bench, but I have a system and you weren't here to argue against it."
She paused with a box of 10 µL pipette tips and forced herself to close her eyes and take a breath. Just because he has terrible manners doesn't mean I can be rude. Putting down the box, she turned and pasted a smile on her face, sticking out her hand.
"Let's try that again," she suggested apologetically. "Jemma Simmons."
When he continued to stand there staring at her like she'd just suggested having a snack of babies and puppies, her smile turned into a frown. She lowered her hand as her jaw jutted forward. Fine. Wrong foot continuing. What did she care, as long as he stayed out of her way?
"As you like," she shrugged, turning back to the bench and shoving the pipette tips into a drawer with force. She slammed the drawer shut and reached up for the glassware.
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Fitz stood frozen on the spot throughout the entire scene, unable to make his mouth or his body move at all. You're messing it up, you git! She's going to hate you now! But no matter what his brain shouted at him, he stayed rooted where he was. This has to be a nightmare, doesn't it?
But how can I possibly work with Jemma Simmons? She was the first person he'd met who was smarter than he was, and he didn't know how that conversation worked. Would she find him as boring and pedestrian as he found his classmates back home? Would he be able to offer her some interesting insights like his mates at MIT? What if she just dismisses me out of hand as an idiot and ignores me for the rest of the semester?
If he didn't do something soon, that last one was definitely going to be it.
That was enough to finally thaw his limbs. Stepping forward, he stretched one arm above her for the Erlenmeyer flask that was just out of her reach.
She turned to look at him in surprise while his arm was still up there, and suddenly he realized that he was standing probably too close to her.
He caught a whiff of her shampoo. Alright, definitely too close to her.
Swallowing awkwardly, he brought his arm down and presented the flask to her, roughly an inch from the end of her nose. He tried to smile, but he was pretty sure he made a hash of that, as well.
"Erm," he swallowed again. "Fitz," he said hesitantly.
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Her eyes almost crossed as they focused on the flask right in front of them.
"Where?" she asked, leaning her head back and reaching out to take the glassware from him. We'll definitely be having a chat about personal space, then.
"Pardon?" he asked, and he looked as confused as she felt.
"Where do you think it fits?" she asked, scooching over to the side along the bench to put a bit more distance between them. If he has a particular way he likes to arrange things, I suppose I can hear him out. Unless his way is wrong, of course. Which it probably is.
He frowned and shook his head. "No no," he disagreed, waving his hands in front of him. "I'm Fitz," he said. "That's my name."
Now it was her turn to be confused. "I thought you were Leopold. Or Leo?" she asked. The look on his face when she said that was almost payback for his lateness. Clearly, he does not like to be called that. She filed that away for future reference.
He shook his head vehemently. "Not if I have any say in the matter," he said.
He obviously doesn't always have a say. Professor Vaughn always calls him Leopold. Maybe that's why he never seems to pay attention in class?
"Very well, Fitz," she said, and it was an effort not to make some sort of joke about him Fitzing in at the Academy. "Now, do you have any preferences for how to arrange the bench?" She arched an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms. This ought to be good.
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Fitz looked over what she'd done so far. She has her tools and pipettes on the right hand side, so she must be right-handed. The trash bin's there, too, perfect for easy disposal. All of the common solutions were on the left and the uncommon ones were on a shelf above them. She had a clear, workable space in the middle of the bench and her notebooks were off to the side, well away from any potential reactions.
He nodded in approval. "Looks perfect," he said. Not that I'm surprised that Simmons has a perfectly-ordered bench, but still.
"Really?" she asked, and she obviously hadn't been expecting that.
"Yeah," he confirmed. She must've been expecting an argument or something. "I'm right-handed too, so this works for me."
She blinked a few times, and he wondered what she might be thinking. He was just going to ask, when she spoke.
"Well," she nodded back, a stiff smile on her face. "That's just fine then, isn't it?" She turned back to the bench and shuffled a rack over a few inches, paused, and then shuffled it back.
"Mmhmm," he agreed.
Silence opened up between them, and Fitz searched frantically through his brain for something to say. Anything to say. C'mon you thick-headed idiot! You've had a whole semester to think of something bloody clever to say and you haven't managed it. Now you have to come up with it in the next three seconds! He rubbed the back of his neck and willed his mind to stop being blank, but to no avail.
"So..." he began, just as she started to speak.
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"How much do you know about inductively coupled plasma - mass spectrometry detection in analysis of inorganic compounds at trace levels?"
Jemma felt the heat on her cheeks and knew she was blushing. Blushing! That's ridiculous! Since when did she blush when someone told her she did something perfectly? She always did things perfectly. Or nearly always, at least. True, the people calling me perfect aren't usually as bright as I am, but just because I value the opinion doesn't mean it's cause for embarrassment. Or flusterment. Or whatever this was.
Really, this was no time for any of that. She needed to know who she was working with and just how much of their assignments she was going to have to expect to do. While she hadn't had to take over a project completely since she'd started here at the Academy, she was just waiting for that day to come.
Honestly, whose idea was it to give group assignments, anyway? It was totally unfair to...
She snapped her attention back as she realized Fitz was answering her.
"... -ronmental and clinical applications," he was saying. "But my real interest is in instrument design and calibration methods." At this point, his face lit up. "Wait! Let me show you!" He swung his backpack off and dropped it on the stool so he could open it. After rooting around for a moment, he pulled out a triple-paneled tablet.
She couldn't help but be interested in the technology as he slid his left hand under the elastic on the back and started tapping on the screens. She'd never seen anything like it before. "Where did you get that?" she asked, reaching out to tilt the screen towards her. A triptych approach to handheld computing would allow for much more flexibility and compatability between-
"Made it," he shrugged, focusing on what he was doing. "One second..."
Jemma's eyes moved from the tablet to his boyish face and back to the tablet. He made this? Her eyebrows rose in surprise. It seemed she'd underestimated Leopold Fitz. As she watched his fingers moving over the touch screen, she started to reevaluate him. He might be useful after all.
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"There!" Fitz said triumphantly, sliding the tablet off his hand and offering it to her. "These are some of my designs." When she hesitated for a moment, he pushed it into her hands. "Go on then," he encouraged her. "Take a look and see what you think."
He held his breath as she scrolled through the designs, rotating the tablet or zooming in on certain aspects. Please think they're good? Please? Her face gradually changed from unsure to interested to surprised and finally impressed. By the time she looked up and met his eyes, he was smiling nervously.
"So?" he asked.
"So," she answered, slowly placing the tablet on the lab bench and then looking up at him once more. "I think this is going to be a pretty good term after all," she smiled.