Archive of Our Own

"I belong here."

It took her a few moments to realize that she'd actually said it out loud, and she quickly looked around to make sure that nobody heard. Luckily, no one did.

But it was true, she could feel it in her chest and all the way down to her bones. This place, SHIELD Academy, was exactly where she was destined to be.

Not that she believed in destiny, per se. It was a romantic notion, and Jemma Simmons was certainly romantic at times, but destiny was clearly something that fell in the same category as fairies and unicorns. Jemma loved those things, too, but she didn't believe in them. Not really.

And yet, there did seem something magical about this place, whether it was the crisp, autumn air, or the fact that she needed to pass a background check to even know about it. Years of work had lead her to standing in this spot, and she took a moment to enjoy the thrill that ran though her as it all sunk in.

This was a step into infinite possibility.

Of course, she didn't have the luxury of standing around and day dreaming; there was far too much to do. But she let herself smile as she took a small tour of the place, crunching a fallen leaf or two as she went. She was surrounded by older students, of course, but somehow she didn't feel small. Somehow, they made her feel taller.

"Stop it!"

Jemma turned her head to discover the source of the cry, and found a boy with unruly curls and a scowl who was clutching at what seemed to be a shoe box. Next to him, a much older and taller boy (well, a man, really) laughed at him.

"C'mon, Fitz! Don't you know that incoming freshman have to show their prototypes to the seniors? It's Academy tradition."

The boy, who was apparently named Fitz, responded by folding himself over the box and sobbing.

And maybe it was the autumn air, or the excitement of finally starting this glorious path, but something stirred in Jemma's heart.

"Hey," she heard herself yell, "leave him alone!"

Before she knew it, she'd lunged towards the pair, startling the older cadet. She managed to push him away from Fitz, then stood in front of the boy with her arms crossed as a righteous thrill ran through her.

She took a ragged breath in and out, terrified of what shed done at the same moment she realized that she'd done what SHIELD agents were supposed to do.

She was the shield already.

The older cadet towered over her, but there was an uncertainty about him as he looked to his right. Jemma followed his gaze to find several cadets staring back at them. 

"Ah, forget it," he said, and as he walked away, Jemma thought she saw the hint of a blush on his cheeks. She felt her lips twist into a smirk until she heard another sob behind her, and she whirled around to see Fitz, still protecting the box like his life depended on it. 

It was, without a doubt, the saddest thing she'd ever seen in her life.

"Hey! Fitz is it?"

She heard him take a shaky breath in and out, and he nodded his head violently.

She sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. "Fitz, it's okay. He's gone now."

It was then that he looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes and an expression that broke her heart a second time. His eyes darted left, then right, and when he seemed satisfied with that, he nodded. But before Jemma could ask him how she could help, he wriggled out of her grasp and scurried away.

"I'm sorry," she called after him.

And while Jemma didn't believe in magic, fairies, or unicorns, somehow she knew that she would see him again.

And even stranger, she wanted to.

It was the very next day that a head of light brown curls caught Fitz's eye. At once, he was half excitement, half anxiety. He'd been at SHIELD Academy less than twenty-four hours, and already he'd managed to:

a) get lost at least three times

b) learn more than he'd like to about swirlies and

c) have the supreme indignity of looking like a loser in front of the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. 

And the prettiest girl he'd ever seen was very likely Jemma Simmons, the youngest cadet ever to enter the Academy (beating Fitz himself by a few days), meaning she was probably the smartest. He'd heard about her, of course, and hoped to meet and maybe befriend her, but now? 

Now, Fitz was doomed.

And it certainly didn't help that everyone on campus was a whole head taller than him (including most of the girls). Being a young prodigy was great for his academic achievement and precisely nothing else.

But he had to keep going, didn't he? He couldn't let his mum down, after all. So, he sat in the very back row of his very first class and tried desperately not to think of the mother who was an ocean away or stare at the friend he'd already lost.

And by the end of the week, Fitz had learned that:

a) everybody at the Academy hated him (even most of the professors)

b) the pretty girl was definitely the famous Jemma Simmons

b) his continued humiliation was endless, because Simmons was not only out of his league—she was in every single one of his classes.

And it was at the moment that Fitz started thinking about quitting SHIELD altogether.

"Seriously, Simmons, shut up."

"I'm only trying to point out that—"

"Simmons, I swear, if you say one more thing about Fitz, I'm going to scream. Just make out with him already!"

Jemma cocked her head and stared at her roommate.

"Excuse me?"

The glare she received in return made her regret her words.

"Simmons, he is literally all you talk about," huffed Clemens. "His name is like, your favorite word or something. If you like him that much, just ask him out."

Jemma blinked. "I don't . . . we're rivals. I want the top spot in my classes, and he just happens to be in them. That's all."

Clemens folded her arms and sighed. "Look, I know that you're just seventeen, and that you're more than usually naïve for a teenager. But you have to admit that you're obsessed with that scrawny twerp, and it's kind of ruining my life. So if you could keep it to yourself, I'd greatly appreciate it."

And with that, Clemens stormed out of the dorm, slamming the door behind her.

Jemma stood there for a while, completely dumbfounded, and when she had the wherewithal to close her gaping mouth, she decided that she had never been more indignant in her life. Clearly, her interest in Fitz, in beating Fitz, was purely academic. Yes, perhaps he had gotten under her skin, but that was only because she'd never met anyone so challenging. Jemma was used to easily trouncing students twice her age, but Leopold Fitz was only days older than her and gave her a run for her money in every single subject.

And worst of all, he hated her!

Maybe if he liked her, things would be different. But Fitz had started this rivalry to begin with, and there was no way that she was going to sit back and let him pretend that he was the smartest person in the room.

Even though, she admitted with a shaky breath, he obviously was.

And it didn't help that, despite what Clemens had said, Fitz was objectively very handsome.

"Ugh!"

She sat at her desk, folded her arms, and felt like everything was hopeless until she remembered that she was the youngest cadet the Academy had ever seen. She was already well on her way to being the best agent SHIELD had ever seen. And if she could manage that, surely she was capable of changing Fitz's mind about her.

And if she couldn't, she could at least give him a lesson in humility.

Today, Fitz decided, was the day.

Today, he would ask Simmons to work with him.

After all, it was the only way to get his mother off his back (why had he been so stupid as to tell her about Simmons?), and the recent xenobiology lectures had only gone to show him how little he understood. Luckily, he understood much more than the majority of his classmates, but it was clear that Simmons knew everything. Or soon would, at least. It was likely why she came to the Academy in the first place, come to think of it. Maybe if he offered to help her in their engineering class, she would agree to help him in return. And if she got to see him as a genius, she might forget about the terrible first impression he'd made.

Well, that was his mum's reasoning.

But really, he thought, if he hadn't ruined everything at the start, they probably would have been friends. They were the same age, had the same IQ (or close), and they were both foreigners here. Besides, Simmons was the kind of person who could make friends with anybody. If they decided to work together, they would be unstoppable.

If only Fitz could find the courage to talk to her.

The first step was forgetting how beautiful she was. If she thought he was coming on to her, she'd shut him down without a thought, but if he approached her as a colleague, maybe she wouldn't.

The only problem was that Fitz had never had a colleague, and had no idea how to act like one.

Fitz froze as he caught her in the corner of his eye, passing him to go to her usual seat on the front. If he went to sit next to her, would that be weird? Probably. And it didn't help that, even at this distance, he was incapable of making a coherent sentence.

Fitz sighed.

Tomorrow would be the day.

"Now, seeing as this is a chemistry class," said the professor, "and that SHIELD agents need to learn how to work together in order to complete assignments, I've gone ahead and paired each of you with another student for this next project. Your ability to work with your partner will be fifty percent of your grade."

Jemma sat up straighter in her chair, sure that she would excel at this assignment. After all, chemistry was her specialty, and she got along with everybody.

It wasn't until the professor paired her with the one exception to the rule that her hopes for success were dashed to pieces.

Sometimes, in situations like these, Fitz had to remind himself why he came to SHIELD Academy in the first place.

This was the best place to learn how to be a hero.

Not a swash-buckling, shirtless six pack-haver who saved fair maidens, of course. They trained those elsewhere. But he could learn to create things that would save lives. Maybe one day, he would build a machine that would save the world.

But he would never do that if he died of a heart attack.

So he tried his best to keep his face neutral and avoid saying anything stupid. Which, it turned out, was everything he could think of to say.

"It's a ridiculous assignment," Simmons said, folding her arms. "I didn't come here to make weapons."

That made Fitz look up at her. In the two months since the semester started, Simmons had made it clear that she loved to compete, and somehow, Fitz was shocked that she would have an aversion to violence. After all, they weren't even required to create an actual formula for this assignment, just a plausible idea, and he'd observed plenty of cadets that were more than happy to dream up theoretical death and destruction.

Simmons, once again, was surprisingly different.

"I mean," she continued, "obviously, we need to prevent people from hurting innocents, but do we have to hurt them to do it?"

He was fairly certain that she wasn't talking to him at all, and perhaps she'd forgotten he was there. But the way she paced across the room with her hands clasped together made him desperate to say something to ease her mind. 

"Of course, that assumes that there are innocents, though we know that no one truly is. Everyone takes part in shaping the world, whether they realize it or not. It's physics, really. Just breathing does enough to change the composition of the air and that effects the environment in ways most people can't even comprehend, and I know that I'm rambling, but I—"

"We don't have to."

Simmons stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him.

"What?"

Fitz swallowed, unable to meet her eyes.

"It's just . . . we're supposed to be able to stop a target's heart. He didn't say we have to do it permanently."

When he had to courage to look at her, he found that she was gaping. Either he'd said the dumbest thing she'd ever heard or . . .

"That's brilliant," she said. "We don't have to kill the victim, just-"

"Disable him, yeah. If we could make up some kind of compound that was easy to deliver, untraceable—"

"Nothing's untraceable, Fitz."

"Yeah, I know, but if it was something they weren't looking for . . . or maybe something that looked like something else. Maybe agents could use it to play dead, or they could use it on innocents to-"

"Protect them?"

Simmons was breathing heavily, and the strange way she was looking at him almost made him think that she wanted to kiss him, but he was obviously projecting. In any case, she shook her head, as if to dispel a day dream, and folded her arms.

"You really think we can create a weapon that can save lives?"

He found the question somewhat sobering, and he straightened.

"Well, yeah, that's why were here, aren't we? To, uh, to-"

"Save the world. Using science," she finished.

Fitz gulped. "Yeah. That's what SHIELD is about, protection."

There was a strange kind of sparkle in her eyes, a kind he found alluring in a very different way than he expected. This was more than a pretty girl, or a smart girl; this was a girl who looked at the world and saw something close to what he did. She would never be interested him him, he was sure of it, but perhaps they could be interested in things together.

Jemma's mind was racing a mile a minute, because did she just make Leopold Fitz smile? It didn't seem possible, but there he stood, smiling at her.

And when he reached his hand out to her, she found herself shaking it.

"Partners?" he asked.

She nodded. "Partners."

And somehow, she had done it. Against all odds, she had managed to make Fitz like her. Or at least, made him willing to work with her. But there was a small part of her, the part that liked fairy tales and sappy movies, that thought that this was just the kind of scenario that started with hate and ended with love.

And wouldn't it be amazing to be in love with a mind such as his, or even better to be loved by it?

But no.

Clemens was right. She was young, and naïve, and she didn't come here to get swept off her feet. She came here to help. And Fitz would help her for now, but soon the project would be over and they would go their separate ways.

And yet, somehow the project ended, but the work didn't. Somehow, one idea turned into two, and four, and twenty.

The cork didn't pop off the bottle as much as it was pried out in a very arduous and ungraceful fashion, and Jemma had to stifle a giggle so as not to offend the man who opened it.

Fitz, after all, was very sensitive to such things.

So she held back her laughter with a smile and kissed him on the cheek as he poured the champagne.

"Here you go," Fitz said, handing her a glass as he poured his own. She watched the bubbles fizz to the top and felt something similar happen in her heart. There had been so many times when she thought this would never happen, that they were too late or too broken to end up where she wanted them to be. 

And yet, here they were, together.

"Should we toast?" asked Fitz, raising his glass. "What should we toast to?"

Something about the uncertainty in his eyes reminded her of the boy she met a decade ago, the one who was brave through his tears and brilliant in his silence. He, too, had thought that this moment would never come, that they would never find their way into such happiness as this. How lucky were they to be wrong?

"New beginnings," she said with a grin. "And destiny."

"You don't believe in destiny," he countered, mirroring her grin.

She stepped closer, and were it not for the champagne in her hand, she would have wrapped her arms around him. She decided to remedy the situation shortly.

"No, but you do." She pressed a kiss to his jaw. "And, I admit, I rather like the notion."

Fitz surprised her by catching her eyes with a gaze so intense it made her breathless.

"Okay then," he said, "to new beginnings. And destiny."

She clinked her glass against his. "To new beginnings and destiny."

She watched him as she drained her glass, astounded yet again by how far they'd come, and how long it took to get this far.

But a strange sensation came over her when he tugged the glass out of her hand and pulled her in his embrace. His scent and his warmth was familiar, of course, but she'd never been this close to him, not like this, and as new as it was, it also felt ancient. Like they had always been like this, somehow.

And the strangest part of all was that, for the first time in a long time, Jemma felt that she was exactly where she belonged.