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Mornings were, to say the least, difficult for Leo Fitz. During his school days, his mother would have to come into his room at least three times before he would begin to get ready. When he got a job and he had to wake up when the sun was just barely risen, he would lay in bed for nearly half an hour just groaning and cursing the world. On weekends, he would stay buried under the covers until he couldn’t stand the taste of his own breath anymore. Fitz was the opposite of a morning person.
Then he met her. Suddenly, he was setting his alarm so it would go off when the sky was still dark, just so he could be awake early enough to see her.
His infatuation started not too long after they met. It was his first day on Olympus. He had just stepped into the throne room, though room didn’t exactly seem like the right word. The place could have been its own palace, held up by gleaming marble columns that rose to a dome ceiling, on which was displayed an image of a blue, cloudless sky. He was alone except for one person--a girl, sitting on one of the thrones with her arms crossed, looking directly at him.
“Hey there, husband,” she said, with a warm if not somewhat disconcerting smile.
He almost choked. “What?”
The girl laughed, jumping down from the throne and moving closer to him. “You’re the new Hephaestus, right?” Fitz nodded slowly. “We’re married. Technically.”
This did not make him any less confused. “Oh.”
“I’m Skye, by the way,” she continued, holding her hand out to him.
“Fitz.” He shook her hand.
“Well, Fitz, our meeting is about to start. Come on,” she grabbed his arm, “your throne is right next to mine.”
The twelve thrones formed a semicircle, each one decorated differently. The one in the middle was the plainest, a simple seat made out of marble, but it was bigger than the rest. The throne to his immediate left was the most unique. Unique, of course, meaning tacky. Somebody had built a fishtank in the shape of a chair, and Fitz had to stifle a laugh. It was like a piece of modern art gone wrong. Skye’s looked like it belonged in a museum. The arms formed two cherubs, bows at the ready, and the base was a sea shell lined with foam. The seat that Skye pointed Fitz to looked simple enough. It was iron, with a Greek key design etched into the base, but when he sat down he found that it was much more than a simple throne. There was a back massager, a retractable foot rest, and a small compartment filled with french fries that would fill itself back up as soon as it was emptied.
“You can thank your predecessor for that,” Skye said as he grabbed a handful of fries and stuffed them into his mouth. “He was an amazing inventor. Could’ve given Narcissus a run for his money in terms of arrogance, but still great at what he did.”
Fitz swallowed a mouth full of fries, then asked, “Why’d he leave?”
“His official excuse was that he felt he’d be more useful to humanity if he was living amongst them but,” she leaned closer to him and lowered her voice, even though they were still the only people in the room, “it’s really because he fell in love with a mortal.”
Before Fitz could respond, the other gods began to arrive, and the room started to fill up. Seats were taken, and eyes fell on him. There was hushed chatter, whispered conversations that they thought he couldn’t hear. Pieces of their discussions met his ears, words like ‘he looks like a child’ and ‘I doubt he’ll even last a century’. Fitz began to fidget nervously. The harsh words of his new peers made him feel inept, out of place.
The god in the largest throne abruptly stood and loudly cleared his throat, and everybody immediately fell silent. There was a long moment where the only noise came from the crackling fire of the hearth. He turned towards the small assembly, his one good eye narrowed in a scowl, daring anybody to speak out of turn. When it was clear that nobody would, he sat back down, and the meeting began. Fitz released the breath that he didn’t realize he was holding.
One by one, everybody stood and gave a brief report on mortal affairs. The woman two seats down from Fitz, a glaring redhead who was sitting on a replica of the Iron Throne, talked of mindless attacks and disturbing acts of violence all throughout the world. Skye talked about the unfortunately high divorce rate and this era’s “fucked-up perception of beauty”. The man next to him--Trip, Fitz had heard Skye greet him earlier--just gave a mischievous smile, said “It’s all good,” and promptly sat back down.
And then it was her turn.
She was graceful, that was the first thing he noticed. She stood with poise, back straight, arms crossed, head tilted up slightly. And she was glowing. Fitz didn’t know if it was just his imagination, or if it was a trick of the light, or if she actually had a faint orange radiance. She spoke eloquently and passionately of the medical advances that had happened over the last decade. He thought she could have gone on for hours if she hadn’t been signaled to wrap it up.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, even after she had finished speaking. He’d never seen someone with such enthusiasm before, someone who seemed to have the same amount of love for medicine as he did for engineering.
She caught him staring once or twice. For the most part, her eyes were fixed on whoever was speaking. Every once in a while, though, her gaze would shift to him. He would try to be subtle and quickly look away whenever he even suspected that she was turning towards him. And it usually worked, but every so often their eyes would meet. His face would burn with embarrassment, but she’d just smile, even give him a little wave.
Two days later, Fitz finally got the courage to ask about her. Skye laughed loudly and said in a teasing voice, “Aw, does little Fitzy have a crush?”
“No,” he grunted, face turning red.
She laughed again, ruffling his hair. “You can’t hide from the goddess of love, Fitz.”
“Her name, Skye,” Fitz said impatiently.
“Jemma. She represents Apollo. And she’s really sweet and easy to talk to, so maybe instead of asking me about her like some love-struck middle school kid, you can get up the courage to go to her yourself. Now hurry up and make your move.”
Fitz stared pensively at the chessboard in front of him. After a long moment, he decided to capture one of her pawns. Skye smiled, immediately moving her bishop in front of his king.
“Checkmate, biatch!”
Fitz couldn’t sleep that night. He was consumed with thoughts: thoughts of the new world that he was a part of, a world that he had previously believed only existed in stories. Thoughts of immortality, a concept so abstract and so dangerous that he hadn’t even let himself consider it until it was thrust upon him. And yes, thoughts of Jemma. Thoughts of the girl who hadn’t even said a word to him, and yet he was so infatuated with her that he was sure he’d go crazy.
He felt guilty. His mother had always taught him that men who fell for women based on their beauty were shallow and undeserving. And yes, he knew that his attraction to her was about more than just her looks. It was also about the eloquence and passion in her words. Still, the fact that he fancied somebody who he hadn’t even properly met yet was not right.
Fitz gave up on sleep at three in the morning. He groaned, flipped on the lightswitch, and made his way to his workbench. He immersed himself in his projects, perfecting diagrams and taking apart old, failed inventions to find pieces for his new ones. The world faded away; time became irrelevant. He didn’t even realize that the night was quickly slipping away until he glanced out the window and saw the sky turning a faint pink. Then he saw her.
He was hallucinating, he told himself. He was sleep deprived, and he was hallucinating.
And yet there she was, sitting in a gold chariot, surrounded by a brilliant orange glow. The chariot was being pulled by four white horses, but they weren’t like any horses Fitz had ever seen before. They had wings, and they were pulling her high above the treeline, moving east. And the farther they went, the higher the sun rose in the sky.
The next night, Fitz set his alarm for four in the morning. He’d never willingly woken up that early before, but he had to make sure that what he’d seen was real. He made himself a cup of tea and sat out on the balcony, and just waited. He stared at the sky for almost two hours before she came along again, and it was just as amazing as the day before. He decided, a faint smile on his face, that he wouldn’t mind making a routine out of this--even if the hours were ungodly.
Fitz turned to go back inside, and was so startled by the sight in front of him that he dropped his tea mug. He had no idea how Jemma got inside his house, especially since she had just been a speck in the sky a moment ago. But she was there, standing by his work bench with a concerned frown.
“I am so sorry,” Jemma said, quickly making her way towards him to help pick up the pieces of his mug. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “I’ll just--let me just go get something to clean this up.”
Fitz went into the kitchen to grab a broom, and when he came back he saw Jemma sitting at his workbench, studying his blueprints. He cleared his throat and Jemma looked up at him, a wide grin on her face.
“These are amazing, um...Fitz, was it?” he nodded. “Skye talks about you a lot. She said that you were smart but these--you must be brilliant.”
Fitz’s cheeks burned. “You must be too, the way you talked at the meeting the other day.”
“Is that why you were staring at me?” she asked teasingly. “And why you were outside this morning?”
Fitz’s eyes grew wide and he started sputtering. “I-I didn’t-I was just…” He cleared his throat, and with an impassive voice said, “I happen to like watching the sunrise.”
Jemma laughed a light, musical laugh, and Fitz couldn’t help but wonder if she had any flaws.
“I’d like to discuss these with you,” she said, holding up one of his blueprints. “I think if we combine our fields we could make something that humanity could really benefit from. If that’s alright with you.”
“Of course,” Fitz said, maybe a little too quickly. “Can I make you a cup of tea or something?”
“Tea would be lovely.”
He nodded and went to the kitchen.
“Oh, and Fitz?” Jemma called after him. He poked his head out the door. “Try not to drop these, yeah?”
They kept this tradition for years. Fitz would wake up early to watch the sunrise, and Jemma would come to his apartment immediately afterward to work. He loved everything about her. Her intelligence, her kindness, her witty sense of humor. He loved that she could keep up with his thought process, and how sometimes he didn’t even have to speak for her to understand what he was thinking. He loved how she was there for him, how she would offer him solace whenever he got emotional about his past. And he hated how long it took to meet her, because having a friend like her during his childhood could have saved him a lot of pain.
He was playing a dangerous game. Being in love with your best friend never ended well. Every time he saw her, he reminded himself of this. But then she would smile, or laugh, or make some jesting comment, and suddenly his guard was down and he would fall in love all over again. Yes, he knew that this was a bad idea. But then again, it was kind of difficult to not fall for a girl who quite literally shined like the sun.
“How long have you been at this?” he wondered curiously as she rearranged their workspace. She had taken over years ago, claiming that he was too messy, and that messiness was counterproductive.
“Hm?”
“You know, the whole Olympus thing.”
“Oh,” she said as she separated spare parts into several piles. Only a couple centuries.”
“Only?” he laughed.
“Time flies when you’re immortal, Fitz.”
“Do you miss it?” he inquired.
Jemma didn’t even pause to think. “Not at all.” His eyes widened in surprise, and she took it as a signal to continue. “1870 was...different, to say the least. I couldn’t really decide anything for myself. I wanted to study, to work...but even the thought of that was laughable. So when I was offered a position on Olympus...I never looked back.”
“You could finally be a doctor.”
“Not necessarily,” she drawled. “Medicine is interesting, yes, but I’m rather fascinated by the biology aspect. And I find the process of developing the medicines more intriguing than actually using them.”
“You know, I tried the whole doctor thing. Quit after my first day.”
“You’re kidding!” Jemma exclaimed.
“Nope. I took one class. It was about the peripheral nervous system. And this one type of neurotransmitter...I couldn’t pronounce the name of it for the life of me.”
“Acetylcholine?”
“Bless you.”
Jemma rolled her eyes, and they kept working.
One day, she didn’t come. He waited for two hours after the sun had risen, but she was nowhere in sight. He started to panic. What if something happened to her? What if she had gotten some deadly disease? What if she had retired without telling him?
No, he told himself. Those are ridiculous thoughts. He’d just seen her in the sun chariot, perfectly healthy. She probably just got caught up with some work on Olympus. Or maybe she just...didn’t want to see him.
He desperately hoped for the former.
Fitz decided to spend his day in the mortal world. It had been a while since he’d done that. These days he was always busy working on new technologies for humanity, but every once in a while he would have a moment to himself, and he’d start to get a sort of homesickness. A yearning for the mundane. Yes, immortality was great, but sometimes he couldn’t help but feel that he was missing out on life. So he would forget about the gods for a while. Go to a coffee shop, see a movie. It was therapeutic.
He’d almost forgotten about Jemma. That is, until he opened to door to his apartment and found her sitting on his couch.
“About time,” she greeted him. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”
“You didn’t show up this morning,” he replied, hanging his coat on the rack. “I thought you were skipping today.”
“Of course not. I just wanted to wait until nightfall. Today’s special.” She held up a bottle of nectar and two champagne flutes.
“Yeah? How so?”
“It’s a new century! For us, at least. It’s the anniversary of when--”
“You broke my mug,” he finished.
“That’s how you remember it?”
“Yes. That was my favorite mug.”
They went to the throne room, which somehow looked even bigger at night. The air was still, save for the ever-blazing hearth. Jemma and Fitz laid a few blankets on the floor and sat down. She filled their glasses with nectar and started to cut the ambrosia into squares. He didn’t even wait until she was finished before he started stuffing pieces in his mouth.
“What does it taste like?” she asked him.
“My mum’s snickerdoodles,” he responded, nostalgia clear in his voice.
“Mine tastes like plum pudding.”
Fitz scrunched up his nose. “That sounds like the least appetizing thing on the planet.”
“Oh, it is.” They both laughed, but then her expression turned somber. “But it was my mother’s recipe.” She turned to him with a sad smile, tears starting to form in her golden eyes. “She passed away not too long after I became an Olympian. Influenza.”
“I’m so sorry, Jemma.” Fitz wrapped his arms around her and she broke down. She began to sob uncontrollably, burying her head in his chest.
“I,” she sputtered, “I c-couldn’t even go t-to her funeral,” she cried. “They had to believe I was dead, you know, so I couldn’t risk being seen.”
She was weeping for what seemed like hours. They’d had moments like this before. Though, admittedly, it was usually Fitz who was crying.
He wanted to say something. Jemma was always so comforting whenever he talked about his mother. She would find the right words to soothe him without fail. But all he could manage to do was hold her, and maybe that was okay. Maybe she just needed silence right now.
After a while, Jemma began to calm down. She slowly disentangled herself from his embrace and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, throat scratchy. “Today was supposed to be happy. I just...I haven’t thought about my family in so long.”
“It’s okay,” he assured her.
There was a long pause, and then suddenly Jemma snapped back to her usual joyful self. “Let’s get on with the celebration, yeah?” she said, passing him a glass of nectar.
Fitz gave her a look. She didn’t have to put on a show for him. If she wanted to be sad tonight, they could celebrate tomorrow.
“I’m fine, Fitz,” she promised. “Really.
“Okay then,” he said, raising his champagne flute. “To a century.”
“To a century,” she repeated, and clinked their glasses together.
They drank in silence, and as he looked at her, Fitz couldn’t believe it had been a hundred years. He couldn’t believe that this girl, so brilliant and passionate and full of life, was centuries old. That she had seen genocide and disease, had seen everything Pandora unleashed on the earth and still refused to see anything but the good in people.
Oh, Gods, he was so in love.
“Hey,” Jemma said, bringing him out of his reverie. “How many of the constellations do you know?”
“A few,” he lied.
They laid down and looked at the domed ceiling, which depicted a beautiful, cloudless night. Fitz smiled contently as Jemma pointed out every constellation she could find. Orion, Taurus, Hydra. “Look,” she said when she found Leo. “It’s you.”
“Okay, well, see that square-like one over there?” he asked. She followed his gaze and nodded. “That is the, uh...celestial parallelogram.”
“That’s not a real thing!” Jemma exclaimed.
“It definitely is. Trust me, Jemma. I’m a scientist.”
“So am I, Fitz,” she said, playfully shoving him. “And that’s a part of Ursa Major. Good try, though.”
They dissolved into comfortable silence. Before long, it would be time for sunrise, and Jemma would have to go. He didn’t know when they’d get another day like this--no work, no worrying about the fate of humanity, just them. Perhaps he’d have to wait another hundred years, and honestly, he was completely okay with that. He was okay with waiting a thousand years if it meant he’d feel as happy as he did in this moment.
“I want to show you something,” Jemma said, sitting up suddenly. “I’ve been working on it for a while and I think I’ve finally got it right.”
“Okay,” he said. “Show me.”
Jemma closed her eyes. Nothing happened for a moment. Then Fitz noticed the room starting to get brighter. He looked up and his jaw dropped. Suddenly, it was daylight. The sky above them was a bright blue. The throne room went from an ominous grey to sparkling white. The world around them was still dark--it was like they were in a bubble--but Jemma had created a gorgeous scene for them; their own little piece of sunshine.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. You’re beautiful.
Fitz turned to Jemma and saw that she was looking at him with a weird expression. He was about to ask her what was wrong, but she silenced him before he even opened his mouth. She pressed her lips to his and for a moment, he couldn’t think. Couldn’t even breathe. By the time he gained enough of his senses back to respond, she was already pulling away.
“Did I...do that right?” she asked.
Fitz was silent for a moment, still trying to process what had happened. Then her words sunk in, and he burst into a fit of laughter. The thought of somebody as beautiful and intelligent and amazing as Jemma never having been kissed...it was an outlandish concept.
Jemma crossed her arms, gaining a vexed expression. “Well I’m sorry that people in the 1870’s didn’t just go around kissing everybody they thought was attractive!”
Fitz tried desperately to get his laughter under control, but he couldn’t seem to stop. The longer he went on, the more annoyed she seemed to get. “Jem,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and forcing himself to sober up. “Jem, I’m sorry. You were brilliant. If that was your first kiss then you’re a bloody natural.”
“Yeah?” she said, still seeming to be a little bit cross.
“Yeah.”
He kissed her again, placing his hands on either side of her head. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and he smiled against her lips. He’d waited a hundred years for this very moment. And it was so worth it.
Fitz began to feel warm. Not from arousal, not even from the pure joy that he felt. The entire room just seemed to be heating up to a hundred degrees. It was a little uncomfortable, honestly.
They pulled apart briefly. Fitz opened his eyes, and nearly jumped at what he saw.
“Uh...Jem?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re glowing.”
Jemma gasped and held her arm out in front of her. Sure enough, she was illuminated by the same bright orange glow that she had whenever she was in the sun chariot. She laughed, embarrassed, and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Fitz replied, briefly pressing his lips to hers. “You’re beautiful.”
Years later, after they’d retired and started to grow old together, they would look back on this very moment. They’d tease each other, talk about how dumb the other was for not realizing their attraction sooner. They’d laugh until their sides hurt, and briefly wonder how things on Olympus were going. And then they would sit back and watch the sunrise.