Chapter Text
"Yes, Mum... Yes, Mum... Yes, Mum," Jemma pursed her lips together and raised her eyebrows. She was trying to keep the frustration out of her voice, but it was getting increasingly difficult. "Alright," she agreed, practically at her wits' end.
"Hey, Simm-" Fitz stopped short as he entered her office. "Sorry!" he mouthed, starting to back out of the door again when he noticed she was on the phone.
"Fitz!" Jemma practically shouted, her relief washing over her as she saw her chance to escape. She waved him back into her office and then spoke into her phone again.
"Sorry, Mum, but Fitz needs me." Her eyes flicked up to look at him. "Uh huh," she said noncommittally, looking away quickly. "Mmm," she agreed, biting her lower lip and curling her hair behind her ear. "Oh, I don't think that-" she shook her head with an awkward smile that was cut off into a gulp. "But Mum-" she glanced at Fitz again. "Mum!" she gasped, and her cheeks reddened. "I'm hanging up now, Mother!" she warned. She listening for another moment and nodded, then smiled with a sigh. "I love you too," she admitted fondly. "Love to Dad!"
Fitz watched the exchange with a commiserating look on his face. Honestly, his own conversations with his mother tended to be rather similar in both scope and sequence. "Why can't you work for a S.H.I.E.L.D. office back in England?" he asked, guessing the source of tension in the conversation. It was the most common argument she had with her parents, so the odds were in his favour.
"Worse," Jemma chuckled and smiled wryly. "Family wedding."
They both shuddered simultaneously.
"Whose?" Fitz asked, sympathetically. He'd had to go to his uncle's wedding two years before, and he still occasionally cringed at the sheer amount of cheek-pinching that had been involved.
"My cousin Laura's," Jemma answered, straightening her already neat desk. She was avoiding looking at Fitz and trying to find a way out of her mother's rather pointed instructions.
Fitz wandered further into her office and sat in his usual chair at the side of her desk. He picked up one of the fidget toys she kept there and started playing with it absently. "Think you can get out of it?" he asked.
Jemma blew out a humourless breath. "Not according to my mother," she said, shaking her head with feeling. She looked at him from the corner of her eye and then quickly refocused on centering her keyboard on her blotter.
Fitz sighed and shrugged. "Maybe you'll get put on special assignment and not be able to go?" he suggested, trying to boost her spirits.
She grinned at that, finally turning in her seat and looking at him fully. "She's thought of that, unfortunately," Jemma confessed. "Probably because that's what happened the last three family events." She managed to look appropriately guilty as Fitz laughed. "It's not that I don't want to go home!" she explained hurriedly, not wanting him to get the wrong impression.
"I know," Fitz nodded, still smiling. "You just don't want to have to deal with the entire family when you're there."
Her shoulders sagged back into relaxation. "Exactly," she said. That was the great thing about Fitz. He always understood.
"So what do you mean she's thought of it?" he asked, frowning as he tried to unstick his fingers from the tangle he'd made of her desk toy.
"Well," Jemma blushed and tucked her hair behind her ears again. She turned away from him and went back to organizing her already-perfect files. "As it turns out," she continued hesitantly, "The wedding is this weekend."
Fitz barked out a laugh. "Can't exactly expect you to go home for that, now can she?" he asked, tugging the somehow-tightening rings and only succeeding in getting himself further trapped.
"Actually," Jemma said weakly as fiddled with her own ring. "She's bought us tickets." Once more she peaked at him in her peripheral vision, wondering if he'd noticed her pronoun choice.
"Did she also buy you a time machine?" Fitz asked sardonically, looking at her and silently holding out his hands for her help. "Because that's the only way you'll manage to fly to England, go to a wedding, and make it back in one weekend."
Jemma swallowed awkwardly and concentrated on pulling this way and that to untangle him. "She's also arranged for us to have the week off work," she said, not looking at his face.
"How'd she manage that?" Fitz asked. "Ow!" he sucked in a breath as he was hit by an errant ricochet of plastic. "Watch it!"
"Sit still!" Jemma admonished him. This whole situation was just ridiculous. "Actually it was your mum who did most of the talking," she said, almost accusingly.
"My-?" Fitz's mouth dropped open in shock and suddenly he wasn't worried about his trapped fingers anymore. "What's my mum got to do with your cousin's wedding?"
"Apparently," Jemma explained with a fair bit of irritation. "Our mothers have decided that we don't visit enough, and they've taken this wedding as an excuse to get us to come."
"They can do that?" Fitz asked, his voice a harsh whisper.
Jemma's computer beeped and she turned to read her new email. It was from their lead agent, informing them that their vacation requests had been approved.
"It appears they can."