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With a sigh, Jemma slipped her phone back into her sparkly gold clutch. It was half-past seven.
She leaned up, elbows against the bar, conveniently pushing her cleavage together as she motioned for the bar tender. She’d have one more glass of that lovely Nero d’Avola, and then head home to take off her bloody heels.
“Just another glass, if you wouldn’t mind,” Jemma said with a thankful smile.
So much for Bobbi’s blind-date ‘set-up’. it seemed that Bobbi had been wrong about the ‘perfect man, perfect restaurant, perfect wine’ - well, no, she had to agree, their wine list had been top notch. They even had her favourite varietal from a Sicilian micro-vineyard that was making pioneering advances in viticulture. It showed in the depth and robustness of the flavour, the dark cherry notes - but that was neither here nor there.
She’d been stood up. By a blind date. Par for the course, really. So much for being a nubile young prodigy.
The bartender nodded with a conciliatory quirk of his lips, took the proffered cash, and then tipped the lip of the decanter into her glass.
Jemma leaned dangerously to the side, trying to reach the tip jar to place a generous sum in it, for his sheer discretion in not mentioning that she had been stood up, when a familiar glimpse of cowlicked curls peeked in her peripheral vision.
“Fitz?” Jemma called out across the bar, slipping off her tall stool with a clatter, and pulling at the hem of her sparkly mod mini-dress. She winced at her swollen feet, but continued to scamper around the bar anyways.
With a comical wrench of his head backward, his eyebrows hitting his hairline, Fitz toppled off the bar-stool, his trainers kicking up in the air as he righted himself. “Jemma?” he wheezed, slapping at his chest, having accidentally downed the rest of his expensive scotch in one go.
He tugged on his tie to straighten it, and couldn’t help the bewildered grin that formed as he looked at her, standing there awkwardly, just as surprised as him.
“You look like a discoball mistake,” he said with a snort, gesturing with a finger at her sky-high strappy heels and shimmery dress.
“Well at least I don’t look like I just came from my year six class photos,” she said, quirking a brow at his red trainers and mismatched tie, plaid shirt, and sweater-vest combination.
“Hunter though’ I looked smart,” Fitz muttered, pulling out his tie, eyeballing it appraisingly. “s’not tha’ bad is it?”
Jemma’s eyebrow arched exaggeratedly. With a huff, he tucked it back into his sweater vest and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“What on earth y’wearin’ that get-up for anyways?” he asked, scuffing his shoe against the parquet.
“Blind date - Bobbi -”
“-Wait, did you say -”
“-Did Hunter tell you -”
“-They both-”
“Bloody hell.” Jemma finished, her shoulders slumping as she slapped her clutch defeatedly against her thigh.
“T’be fair,” Fitz began, sighing exasperatedly as he scratched at his curls, “We probably should’ve guessed somewhere around the ‘oh Fitzsimmons, I have the perfect person for you’ mark,” he mimicked grouchily.
Jemma drooped into the leather bar stool beside him and gave a mollifying shrug. “You’d think we’d be used to it by now.”
“‘Specially after the wedding,” he grumbled, motioning for her wine. Jemma handed it to him, and he slugged back a gulp. “He didn’t even toss the garter! You’re suppose’ to toss it! It’s tradition! Y’don’t go up to a person and stick it in their lapel pocket, an’ then lean in and stage whisper ‘Y’know what I’m sayin’, man’. It’s just not on.”
Jemma waved for the last sip of wine. “At least they didn’t clear the dance floor and enlist enforcers to hold back the swarming mass of single women angling for the bouquet, whilst it lay in the middle of the dance floor, and then stare at you accusingly, threatening dismemberment if you didn’t rescue the bloody thing. Daisy was so huffy.”
Jemma slammed the stem of the wine glass on the bar with an aggravated groan. “I should have been the huffy one! She had May staring down the rabid horde of single women desperate for that superstitious piece of garbage.”
She threw up her hands. “It’s dead flowers! What effect could it possibly have? Dead flowers, tossed about at a party, cannot alter one’s fate. It’s science.”
“You know this is just going to continue, ad nauseum,” she finished.
Fitz pivoted about for a moment, alternating between scratching his neck, scrunching his mouth, and half-gesturing. He brought two fingers to his lips, stilling, and then said, “Unless…”
“...unless what?”
“We give them what they want.”
Jemma’s mouth fell open in a slow dawning realization. “- Fitz? Are you -?”
“Now hear me out -” he began, holding his hands up to still her protests, a sly grin forming, “-We say we’ve had a lovely time, show that we gave it the ol’ college try, yeah? But instead, we just get to spend some quality best friend time together! We haven’t done that in bloody ages! An’ we certainly don’t have to stay in this over-priced -”
“- ostentatious, frankly,” Jemma sniffed, waving her hand towards all the finery and low-lights.
“-restaurant.”
Fitz held out a hand. “You and me. Some place nice.” He winked. “An’ by that, obviously, I mean some place with beer and wings.”
Jemma’s frown bowed into a slow-curving, wicked grin. She slapped her palm in his. “Find me something that approximates a pub, and I’m yours for the evening, good sir.”
Fitz pulled her to her feet, and she grimaced. “Let’s take my car, shall we? I have flats somewhere in the back seat.”
Digging in her clutch, she trotted to the door, Fitz at her heels. “I can’t believe I shaved my legs for this.”
Fitz gave a low whistle.
“I know!” Jemma called behind her, slamming through the door, “I almost got a wax!”
Fitz gulped, the whites of his eyes showing. “Bit TMI, Simmons.”
“Sorry,” she said, “But the way Bobbi was going on about you, it seemed like it might be a necessary precaution! She made you sound rather dashing.”
Fitz flushed, and scratched behind his ear, looking at his feet as he slid into the passenger seat. “In the interest of full disclosure, Hunter’s an arse-man. An’ he had a lot to say about yours. A lot. I might have to straighten him out later…”
“Really?” Jemma said with a salacious lilt, her eyebrow raising in interest. “Because I have been trying a new workout routine -”
“Jemma!” Fitz groaned, covering his reddening face with his hands.
“Right. Too much information.”
A few minutes later, Fitz called out from the passenger side, “There’s one!”
There was a small neon arrow that fizzled bright and then dark and then bright again, pointing towards a rounded wooden door and a faux tudor facade that looked as though it was designed by someone with only the barest understanding of the period.
There was an oversized bulldog statue by the door, and hanging from it’s mouth was a sign proclaiming the highly original name of the pub - The British Bulldog.
“Well this is completely wrong,” Fitz muttered when they walked in, looking at the giant screens that streamed American football. There were framed Bears jerseys and cricket bats that littered the walls. “Have they even heard of a pub? Or Britain?”
Jemma patted his arm and pushed past him, descending into the pit of foosball and ping-pong tables. “I think it’s….” She turned back, her eyebrow quirking as she took in the dart and pool table room, and the large karaoke booth. “charming?”
Fitz stomped along behind her, becoming more grumpy with each inconsistency he saw. “There’s a bloody bowling alley! What do they think Britain’s supposed to be? Adult Chuck-E Cheese?” He held up a hand, his eyes lighting, “Hang on - that could be brilliant -”
Jemma waved to the string of tiny union jacks along the roof-beams, and the framed pictures of Winston Churchill and the Queen. There were collector plates of the Royal Weddings, scattered between sports memorabilia. “It looks like it was designed with love. By someone who had heard England described once, in a dream, and really loved the idea.”
“But why all the cricket memorabilia, Simmons? It’s not even that popular.” He placed a hand on the small of her back, maneuvering her around the foosball crowds, towards the bar. “They could commit to the actual idea of Britain, an’ feature another sport of British origin, say, oh - Golf? or Rugby? Or if they wanted somethin’ equally poncy, what about Croquet?”
When they reached the bar, he whispered in her ear, “An’ are you going to tell them they’ve got the wrong kind of football, or should I?”
She snickered in reply, but cut her eyes towards him. “Ugh Fitz. Be nice.”
“I am nice, they’re the ones makin’ great bloody fools of themselves,’ He grumbled with a half-smile, turning around to lean his elbows on the bar. “I’m going to grab us a booth - get me a Guinness? and don’t forget the -”
“snacks.” She finished, quirking an eyebrow at him, “Just who do you suppose I am, Fitz? When have I ever forgotten snacks?”
“Nothin’ too healthy. I don’t fancy munchin’ on celery.”
“When on earth -”
“The last three times we went out, you ordered, and I quote -”
“oooh!” Jemma slapped at Fitz’s elbow and pointed, “Oooh! Booth! Just opened up! Hurry! By the darts!”
“On it!” Fitz was already cutting through the crowd when he shouted, with a backwards wave of his hand.
“Now tell me,” Jemma said, leaning heavily forward and tucking in her elbows, catching the attention of the bartender (or, more correctly, her cleavage catching his attention), “how spicy are your spiciest wings? And would you be able to send a bottle of sriracha to the table with them?”
“An’ y’know, this is better anyways,” Fitz agreed, halfway through his second pint, “Because we can talk as much as we like about the quark-gluon -”
“-plasma discovery in the-”
“-comin’ out of the RHIC in Brookhaven -”
“-lower energies! So jealous! such a chance to study quantum goo -”
“-Building blocks of the universe!”
A hesitant cough sounded beside them. A harried looking server in a tiny kilt layed down a heavily laden tray of wings, two more pints, and produced a bottle of sriracha. “Your wings, and your next round. ” She announced, unnecessarily, before scurrying back.
Fitz looked between the last remaining half of his guinness, and the nearly full pint of Newcastle Jemma had been nursing, and smirked. “First done their beer gets first grab of the wings?”
Quirking a competitive eyebrow, she answered “You’re on,” quickly chugging back the brown ale as Fitz veritably inhaled his.
Only a moment before he could slam his glass on the table, he heard the familiar clink of hers being set, ever so gently, down.
“Simmons!” Fitz cried, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Every time! How? How?!”
Jemma’s mouth unfurled into a wide and satisfied grin. And then she burped, loudly, and with pride, as a loud cheer went up from the dart-playing duo to their left.
“You’re disgustin’.” Fitz huffed, crossing his arms and slouching further into his seat. “bur-” he cut himself off with, surprise on his features, as a large belch tore from the depths of his stomach. “I have no idea where that came from,”
Jemma just winked and nodded. “Very ladylike, Fitz.”
She pushed the plate of wings towards him in a concilliatory gesture.
He shook his head, childishly, in the negative, slumping even further into his chair, pulling a face. “Don’ try an’ appease me. I refuse to be appeased.”
Jemma guffawed, and kicked him in the shin. “Enough of that. You should know by now you’ll never beat me. I don’t know why you insist on attempting every time we go out.”
“Because real heroes never give up,” He insisted, trying not to smile as she wheedled him, holding a deliciously sumptuous-smelling chicken wing under his nose.
“Who told you that?”
“Air Bud,” Fitz deadpanned, watching as Simmons collapsed into sudden cackles.
“Yeah, alrigh’,” Fitz agreed after a second, swiping at the platter of wings as Jemma composed herself, squirting a squiggle of sriracha onto the wing in her hand.
Fitz ripped the tender, delectable chicken flesh from the bone in his hand with a nod. “Spicy. But not too bad.” He quirked an eyebrow at his friend, “Y’know, you don’ need to go easy on me. I can handle the spice. It was one time!”
Jemma groaned and rolled her eyes, passing over the bottle of sriracha as she licked off her fingers.
“I’ll have you know I’m very capable of handlin’ as much spice as you are, woman.”
Jemma, another chicken wing in her mouth, just waggled her eyebrows comically and nodded, as if to say ‘have it your way.’
Meeting the challenge in her eyes with a wicked glint, he slathered the drumstick in his hand until it was blanketed in the red chili sauce, and stared her down as he leaned over the table, right in her combative face. “Be prepared to be amazed. And probably extremely turned on. I bet Bobbi didn’ warn you about this secret skill.”
Jemma snorted, crossing her arms over her chest, leaning over until they were basically nose to nose. “Impress me,” she commanded in a cutthroat tone.
“Oh I - I will!” He insisted, stuffing the drumstick in his mouth and ripping the meat off it savagely. With a triumphant wave of the de-nuded chicken wing, he slumped back into his seat, and dabbed at his mouth with a serviette.
“-wha’? Like it’s hard?” Fitz raised an exultant eyebrow.
After a second, a tiny sheen of sweat began to bead at his hairline.
Jemma reached for the sriracha, beginning to coat another drumstick.
Fitz’s pasty complexion began to cloud with red, and his smile to fade. His eyes grew glassy and defeat seemed to flash through them as his fingers started, hesitant, stuttering, to the tall, cool glass of guinness that was perched so near.
He flitted his worried eyes toward Simmons, who had just finished coating her morsel of chicken in double the srirarcha he had used. She then, calmly, proceeded to eat the tender flesh, and deposit the bone on the side of the plate, all as her knowing eyebrow crept higher and higher, and the fire on Fitz’s tongue turned into a blazing inferno -
“Just drink the bloody Guinness!” She demanded, unable to take it any more.
Fitz grabbed it in a hasty movement, slamming back the liquid in searing gulps until he could breathe once more.
“You’re like a dragon!” He croaked, “D’you eat fire as well?!”
As the hours wore on, their little spot by the dart boards became prime traffic, with bodies slipping out and in, bumping elbows as Fitz and Simmons downed pints, and poured over hastily drawn serviette-schematics, insinuating themselves into scientific conversation -
“Whaddaya call that do-hickey?” A beefy gentleman insisted, smacking his finger on one of Fitz’s diagrams, as Simmons reeled back, eyes wide, movements too large - a sure sign that she was becoming inebriated.
“A hydrostatic transistor,” Fitz mumbled, curling in on himself in the presence of the large man who loomed over him.
It a sure sign that Fitz himself was becoming quite drunk, as well - and a very specific type of drunk. Quiet Drunk Fitz rarely made an appearance, but when he did, it was only natural that Jemma as his best friend and erstwhile speaker, volume control, and self-appointed protector (drunk as well), would become Loud (and mildly belligerent) Drunk Jemma.
“Wassat?” The rotund man asked, his eyebrows drawing tightly over his squinty, bleary eyes. “Didn’t hear ya, young fella.”
Jemma gulped down the dregs of beer in her glass and waved for another. “He said, ‘A HYDROSTATIC TRANSISTOR’. Now if you don’t mind?” Jemma said, with a shoo-ing wave. “We were quite engaged?”
“Engaged?” The big man said, “Well slap my ass and call me Muriel!”
Fitz scrunched up his face and tilted his head in confusion. With a grimace, he leaned over to gently tap the man’s behind. “Muriel?” He mumbled, just a touch above a whisper.
The giant man danced away in a surprised circle, his oversized stomach jiggling.
Jemma raised a sassy eyebrow, and crossed her arms at the man in a challenging manner. “Well. You did ask him to.”
“S’pose I did?” The man said, scratching at his heavy side-burns. “I was gonna say, Reggie and Hannah too!” He waved to a happy couple playing darts.
In fact, it seemed to be only happy couples playing darts. Many of them. Loudly, and clumsily, with large, drunken movements, all flapping about and spilling Jemma’s drinks and stomping on Fitz’s toes, making him curl even tighter into the corner, and just who did these people think they were?!
“I CHALLENGE ALL OF YOU TO A DUEL!” Jemma shouted at them, gesturing with a wide swing of her fresh pint, spilling beer over the rim. “Oops,”
“Y’mean game,” Fitz whispered, grumpily sipping on his Guinness.
As an aside, she muttered behind her hand. “It’s for your honour, Fitz. So it’s a duel.”
“It’s darts, not a duel, Jem,”
“HEYYYY!!!!” The dart crowd cheered, throwing their arms up in cries of joy, “MORE PLAYERS!!!”
“COMPETITION’S ON GERRY!” One lady screeched. “TONIA AND ME ARE GONNA KICK YOURS AND MARCIA’S ASSES!” The other woman, whom Jemma assumed to be Tonia, whooped loudly, grabbed her girlfriend, and dipped her back, planting a passionate kiss right on her lips.
Jemma nodded decisively, and knocked back the last of her drink with a sideways belch, grabbing Fitz by the elbow. “Come on, Fitz. With my keen reflexes and your ability to do physics both drunk and blindfolded, we shall be handing these ingrates their bottoms on a platter,”
“We’ll show’m how the empire works,” He muttered, rolling up his sleeves. “oh - wait? aren’t we the rebels?”
“Brown Coats, you mean?”
“Joss Whedon?”
They both looked at each other confusedly.
“For queen and country!” Jemma cried, marching forward, Fitz trailing behind.
“For SCOTLAND! FOR FREEEEEDOM!” He shouted suddenly, tripping forward, arms windmilling, clutching onto her back to remain upright.
“Simmons,” He whispered, suddenly quiet and shrinking.
“Yes Fitz?” She asked, whispering as well.
“I think p’raps we’re quite drunk.”
“An astute observation.”
Fitz and Simmons had not merely walked into a rowdy, if rather competitive, game of darts. Unbeknownst to them, they had entered into a Valentines’ Couples Darts Tourney put on by the social club of a local non-profit.
Through a mixture of taunts, intimidation, expert angle-management and arc-arrangement, superior reflexes and masterful skill, Fitzsimmons proceeded to trounce, rather terribly, the coupled-up employees of the Community Network Association.
“BOOYAH.” Simmons declared, throwing her hands triumphantly in the air as Fitz hit another bullseye.
“How?” Tonia asked, her shoulders drooping as Kelly kissed her temple.
“I don’t know honey. Maybe magic?”
“‘s not magic, Simmons.” Fitz mumbled to his partner, now barely loud enough for her to hear. “Tell’m.”
“He says it’s not magic. It’s SCIENCE.” Jemma wrangled him around, yanking him to face the room of sad, defeated, and expectant eyes (the ones that weren’t busy drinking and carousing, that is). “And I will happen you to know that MY FITZ HERE is the best at science. And angles. And darts. And the second best at chugging beer!”
“Tell’m I can handle the spice, Simmons,”
“AND HE LIKES IT SPICY!” She crowed, as the crowd parted with a snicker.
“I bet he does with a gal like you on his arm,” Gerry complimented ruefully.
“Oh Hush! Don’t listen to him, Jemma honey, he’s just a sore loser.” Marcia said, slapping Gerry’s arm teasingly.
Mel, the bartender, (who they had begun to speak to on a first name basis around the tenth round of drinks, and the third round of solid round-robin knock-outs) elbowed his way forward through the Community Network Association’s canoodling employees. “Break it up you two, there’s a dark hallway by the bathrooms, jeez,” He groaned, finally squeezing through the crowd to the open floor, where Fitz clung to a rather bouncy (and somewhat dizzy) Jemma’s waist.
Mel extended outwards a tall trophy. It had a small golfer on it, done up in gold.
“Look, Fitz!” Jemma cried excitedly, slapping at his shoulder enthusiastically and bouncing on the balls of her feet, like she had so much kinetic energy her body couldn’t process it all. She lunged for the trophy and held it up. “WE WON!”
“but why's 'e a golfer, Jemma?” Fitz asked, pulling at the sleeve of her cardigan (it was really his, but she’d gotten seven-drink cold, and he’d handed it over. It was their system.), trying to get her attention.
She spun to look at him, her eyebrows scrunching in bewilderment as she whispered back. “I don't know Fitz." She turned to Mel, who was attempting to escape back through the crowd."S’CUSE ME WHY IS OUR DARTS TROPHY A GOLFER?"
"It's actually the foosball trophy.” Gerry offered with a good-natured smile. “I read the inscription,"
Mel threw up his hands and pushed past the previous couple (now nearly horizontal on the corner table), “We lost the hockey player girl for the darts competition."
"...Why don't they have trophies for the actual sports, Jemma?" Fitz whispered, cupping his hand against her ear.
"WHY DON'T YOU HAVE AN ACTUAL DART TROPHY FOR THE ACTUAL SPORTS?"
Mel gave a long suffering sigh. "Have you ever seen a dart trophy?"
"no?" Fitz murmured, barely above hearing.
Mel waved a towel exasperatedly in Fitz’s direction. "Exactly."
Fitz shrugged "Alright." He flung his arms around Jemma, who was taking tiny victory laps around him, and shouted at the top of his lungs "TROPHY!"
“TROOOOOOPHY!!” They screamed in unison.
“Mel! Mel! Get the camera!” Marcia insisted. “We need a picture for the trophy wall!”
Mel groaned, long and sustained, but snatched the decrepid, aged polaroid from behind the bar. “Knock yourself out, Marcia,”
“Say cheese, you two love-birds!” She tittered.
"wait," Fitz whispered, "we're not -"
“KISS’EM BABY!” Kelly screeched.
Fitz held the little golfer aloft, one arm around Jemma’s waist. Just as the flash went off, he felt hands on his cheeks and something moist and surprising on his lips. There was a roar from the crowd, and suddenly, Jemma was pulling back, a self-satisfied grin on her face.
Marcia waved the polaroid picture that slid through the camera in the air. As the image began to take shape on the black exposure, it revealed Jemma, in a blur of movement, kissing a blushing and surprised fitz messily right on the mouth, as he held up the trophy.
“Well that’s a keeper,” Gerry said warmly, tacking it, with a smile, onto the tournament wall.