Chapter Text
6:00am. Fitz. Fitz. Fiiiiiitz
6:05am. Fitzy. Fitz-icle. Fitz-a-fitz.
6:08am. Leopold.
6:08am. Skye. No. Morning. Sleep.
6:10am. Know what today is?
6:15am. Saturday. Day for sleeping.
6:15am. Guess again.
6:17am. You're no fun. Today is....moving day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
Skye liked to think of herself as the best best friend Leopold Fitz had ever had. (And if his college roommate Mack wanted to disagree with her, he could suck it.) She'd met him the first week of freshman year, after her roommate had sexiled her. At three in the afternoon. While Skye was in the shower. So she'd knocked on every door until Fitz opened his and then sat on his floor in a towel and played Scrabble with him for three hours. She'd repaid the favor by baking him cookies (from frozen cookie dough, but still), watching TV with him on Friday nights when she could have been out flirting with emotionally screwed up but still hot guys, like her complete asshole of an ex-boyfriend, always losing at Scrabble (totally on purpose), making him earthquake-proof their rooms (they totally lived on a fault line), and setting him up with every eligible girl in a twenty-mile radius. However, her best best friend status most definitely did not extend to not complaining about helping him move in.
“Hey, Fitz,” she shouted, grabbing another stack of cardboard boxes labeled simply Who. “I figured out how much a fuckton is.”
“Skye, why are all the hills so steep here?” he panted, leaning against the banister, face barely visible behind a pile of lamps, stacked on top of yet more cardboard boxes. Skye thought vaguely that she should probably stop him before he got crushed by any of his furniture. Maybe find a hot neighbor to carry the aforementioned furniture? “And why couldn't I find a parking space that wasn't five blocks away?”
“Welcome to San Francisco,” she said and glared up at the stairs. “Fitz...aren't you going to ask me how much a fuckton is?” His only response was a faint whimper. “It's how much stuff you have. Why do you have so much stuff anyway? I thought we did that purge thing.”
“The purge thing was a terrible idea,” he replied. Behind the lamps, Skye could tell that he was making a face. “You wanted me to throw out every piece of furniture I'd ever had sex with my ex-girlfriend on. By the time you were done, I didn't have a bed, a kitchen table, or a living room.”
“You let me do it! So there,” Skye added and stuck her tongue out at him.
“You got me drunk,” he huffed. “With that awful pink stuff that tasted like raspberries.”
“It was catharsis,” she said smugly. “I took Psych 101, so I know what I'm talking about. Also, if we don't finish moving in all your stuff soon, you're probably going to get a parking ticket.” Fitz made another whimpering noise. “But then we can go to Ikea and buy you new furniture. And meatballs. Lots of meatballs. Enough so we never have to go back to Emeryville.” Skye grimaced. She was pretty sure she'd had a one night stand in Emeryville—he'd worked at Pixar or something and he'd had a Mike Wozowski model sitting on his shelf that Skye had been convinced was watching them. God, she needed to find better one night stands. Or two-night stands. Or maybe if she was really lucky, a whole month stand. If that was a thing? Considering your track record, good luck with that a nasty little voice whispered in the back of her head. She told it to shut up. Either way, she really hoped that Fitz had a hot neighbor. (With the rent he was paying, he deserved a hot neighbor.)
“You go all the way to Mountain View for work,” Fitz pointed out.
“That's different. Besides, I work for Google—it's like its own country. They'll be printing their own currency any day now.” Skye had gotten the job at Google right after college, after she'd hacked her way into their mainframe, and she'd started begging Fitz to move out to California almost a year ago. But he'd been in the middle of the Thing They Were Not Talking About Anymore and life had been...weird. “We're wasting precious Ikea time,” she finally said when Fitz showed no sign of moving. “Time that could be used deciding between the Pippi and the Longstocking beds. Maybe even buying some of those weird frozen berries they sell there.”
“Those are not their real names,” Fitz panted, and forced the stack of boxes and lamps up a few more steps. “It doesn't even have an umlaut. Also, I still can't believe that you made me get rid of my bed.”
“It was therapeutic!” Skye shouted back. Because back then, the night that it had all ended, Fitz had been working his way through a box of photos and a bottle of vodka and Skye had wondered if he was ever going to move from that one spot on his couch. Worse than that, she had wondered if he was ever going to be over her (who Skye had had a bad feeling about from the very beginning, thank you very much, if only because of the way she'd asked Skye what she was going to hack next, nose turned up, smirk plastered across her face). So clearly a major exorcism had been in order. It wasn't like Fitz owned any furniture that didn't come straight from the thrift store—there had been that one stain on his couch that everyone always avoided sitting on.
Skye (fucking finally) reached Fitz's door and set down the stack of boxes with a loud thump. Ten down, ten to go—why had Fitz decided to live on the fifth floor anyway? Especially when the elevator had been out of service for about forever. She swung the door open to move the boxes into the living room and—wow. That was why Fitz was living on the fifth floor. There was an amazing view of the bay from his window, all the way over to the Golden Gate. “Fitz, come see your view!” she called down the stairs. No response. “You aren't dead, are you?”
“Not yet,” Fitz forced out, maneuvering his stack of stuff through the door. At least, she thought it was Fitz-- “Do I really need the stuff that's still in the car?”
“It's your plates, so yes. Come on.” Skye dragged him up from the floor, where he'd collapsed, sprawled flat, and back down the stairs. “No rest for the wicked.”
They'd just gotten the last of the boxes in when there was a knock on the door. Probably the president of the building again, a middle-aged man with wildly curly hair and a bit of a power complex who'd presented Fitz with a leather-bound set of the official building regulations after he'd signed all the papers. (He'd been in government—some kind of super high up muckety muck—and according to his wife, he was having some trouble letting go.) “I'll get it,” Skye told Fitz, who'd collapsed on the floor again, gasping for breath and kind of looking like a skinny beached whale. In plaid. “Because I'm awesome like that.”
It was not the power-mad building manager, or his kind of fantastic wife, or any of the other people they'd literally bumped into on the stairs. It was a gift from the apartment gods themselves. Because, in fact, Fitz did have a hot neighbor. Even if she wasn't the kind of hot neighbor that Skye had been hoping for. “Hello,” the hot neighbor said. “I heard some noise on the stairs and then I remembered the newsletter about a new resident, so I thought I should stop by and say hi. I normally make welcome baskets for new residents but I was at yoga class this morning and I have brunch reservations at noon—anyway, do you have any allergies or dietary restrictions? I like to make all inclusive welcome baskets.”
“I don't live here. I'm just helping that one move in.” Skye pointed over her shoulder at Fitz, eyes shut in exhaustion and covered in dust from the floor. “And he eats everything, as long as it doesn't involve intestines.”
“Intestines aren't real food,” Fitz mumbled. Then he opened his eyes and sprang up off the floor so fast that he almost fell back down again. Skye told herself that being an awesome best friend involved not laughing.
“Hi. Sorry! I wasn't ignoring you, I swear, I just had my eyes closed. As you probably saw. But yes, I moved in today. I live here now. Which is kind of weird, but good.” Fitz was doing the pregnant woman stance again. Skye thought that she should probably tell him about that someday. “I'm Leo Fitz. Hi again.”
“Jemma Simmons,” the hot neighbor—that was what Skye was going to call her forever and ever now, especially considering the way that Fitz was trying very hard not to stare at her—said and shook hands with Fitz. Their eyes met and Fitz looked at Jemma. Jemma looked at Fitz. They were still holding on to each other's hands. Skye had a good feeling about this.