Chapter Text
The first time you hear her voice you’re eleven and by then you’ve been to two foster homes, neither of them stuck. You weren’t sure if it was going to happen, like most other things that don’t work out. You don’t have parents so why would the world or cosmos or whoever is out there running the whole shebang afford you a soulmate? But it happens and it’s scary at first. Of course you’ve heard the stories, you’re not a baby, but the feeling of someone weaving their way into your mind, tendrils of a set of phantom feelings you can’t quite describe taking root, it’s shocking and terrifying.
She says that her name is Jemma and you tell her she talks funny. A flair of offense you don’t think you actually feel flares up somewhere in the back of your thoughts instead of your chest and it’s the first real feeling of hers you truly feel. Annoyance. Though you don’t think about that long because you’re eleven and finally connecting with your soulmate, as scary as it is, it’s amazing and almost unbelievable because you think maybe, if this one sticks, someone is destined to love you.
Even if her accent is weird.
You tell Jemma everything, there isn’t much to tell but she listens patiently anyway, excitedly, and when it’s her turn you know right away how smart she is. Some of the stuff is hard to understand but you end up learning later that it’s better just to listen and not ask too many questions because it gives you both a headache.
Talking to Jemma never really gets old because it’s not out loud. You can lay in your bed with its mismatched bedding and stare up at the stains on the ceiling like you are just thinking really hard about something or daydreaming and have full conversations in your head without anyone knowing. Sometimes you even close your eyes and pretend you’re asleep but that doesn’t always work because Jemma says something to make you smile and you have to pull the mothball smelling blankets to bundle up under your nose and hide it so nobody sees.
You thought before it happened, before you were connected with your soulmate that you would want to tell everyone. That you’d want to brag about it like dumb Arnold Crenshaw and his dumb soulmate he says lives just a town over but you don’t. It’s not because Jemma sounds funny or that she lives farther away across the ocean than you’ve really given too much thought to but that Jemma is special. Its really cheesy and you never say it aloud or hint it to Jemma but she is like your secret and you find, you like it that way. Only yours. You don’t really have anything else like that and you don’t have to carry it around with you in a thin black garbage bag along with your handed down clothes every time the nuns at St Agnes tell you it’s time to try somewhere else.
It’s awkward at first but even at as young of an age you figure out it’s easy to fit with Jemma. It’s like you work out a rhythm with her. You notice how your lives start falling into sync like they’ve always been connected and it isn’t something new.
She fills you in on her day at night and she’s keeping track of how many days it’s been since you haven’t been in a fight, or as she likes to call it a ‘physical altercation’. You think it’s cute so it doesn’t bother you. You’re pretty sure Jemma just likes to write things down.
You’re in eighth grade the first time you realize there is seriously no hope that you’ll ever be able to keep up with her. Jemma talks circles around you, babbling on about science mostly and speaking excitedly about maths--yes, with an s at the end-- as if it’s fun or something. Jemma is crazy smart, you never doubted that but sometimes you think she is running out of space for all the things she learns in her own head and she’s trying to store some of it in yours.
Things just aren’t going as well for you and you can tell Jemma notices. When you lay in bed at night, at a different foster home, with a different set of other foster kids sharing some of your space you can feel her getting close to you. It’s not really like when someone touches you for real, you don’t feel it on the outside. It’s more like a warmth spreading over your body, starting at the base of your neck and tickling its way down your spine. You think you like it and it makes you wonder what else both of you could feel if you concentrated hard enough. Jemma catches you thinking about what her lips must feel like because you’re probably thinking it too loud and she giggles at you. An almost prickly heat pokes at what feels like the insides of your cheeks underneath the skin and you knows it’s Jemma’s blush and not your own. That makes you smile and you kind of laugh too because you like the way her laugh sounds even though you don’t think it would sound the same as filling an empty room and reaching your ears instead of weaving it’s way quietly into your thoughts.
You tell Jemma that she is beautiful and you can practically feel the eyeroll that goes along with the scoffing when she says it is impossible for you to know that. Despite knowing Jemma’s voice so well and being privy to some of her most private emotions over the past few years, you haven’t actually seen her face. So in a way Jemma is right but you just know. You can feel it. And you tell her that.
You tell her she is the prettiest girl alive, you just know it.
It just makes her laugh some more.
When Jemma goes off to college three years sooner than she is supposed to for her age you’re kind of mad about it. You know you should be glad and proud and you are proud, that’s why it’s weird. You don’t really know why you are mad but for the first time ever, even though you and your soulmate have always been a whole ocean apart, you feel the farthest from her you have ever been.
That’s when you discover you can slip away.
It’s an accident at first. You’re pissed about having to change schools again and always being the new kid and never understanding anything that is being taught in class because the teachers all do everything differently and no school is ever in the same spot as where you left off. But you don’t actually consider any of that because you’re only seventeen and nothing in your life is stable enough and Jemma’s got it all. It’s petty and you’re kind of embarrassed for it when you think back on it later but you’re jealous and you feel yourself take a sudden mental step back.
It’s like a dark curtain falls down between you and Jemma and all at once you can’t feel her anymore. It’s foreign and pretty uncomfortable but you don’t allow the panic to consume you, you’re strong and used to having to calm yourself down so you fight the urge to open yourself back up or to reach your way toward your other half again. You fight it for a whole week just out of your own selfish spite and when you finally slip past the divide and its lifted away you are hit with a raw sadness that heats the tips of your ears with guilt.
Jemma doesn’t tell you that she is mad or sad, even though you know she is. She doesn’t ask you where you’ve gone or why you left, she just tells you that she has a dorm room all to herself because they didn’t think it would be appropriate for someone her age to share with an older roommate and you ask her what classes she is taking that semester because you think she’d like listing them off and telling you all about them.
The next time it happens it is no accident.
You’ve dropped out of school. It just felt kind of useless, never being able to catch up and never really learning anything. It takes up too much of your time, and it’s not as if your current foster parents care, they’re kind of only in it for the paycheck. Nobody concerns themselves with what you do.
But Jemma is excelling, and you think maybe that is enough for you. You’re glad that your soulmate is doing so well. She tells you about what she is learning as if you have the capacity to keep up and you can’t tell if you like that she doesn’t try to dumb it down for you or you’re annoyed because you probably need it to be dumbed down to really grasp at any of it.
By the time you have aged out of foster care Jemma is on her way to multiple PHDs. Honestly you’re not all that sure how it all works but you ask her if she has a time turner because how is that even possible? Jemma laughs at you because she appreciates the reference. Apparently nonsensical magic and the high improbability of Harry Potter is somewhat of a guilty pleasure of hers.
It’s probably your best years. You fall in with a new crowd, make a few friends you trust enough to crash with and learn to code. It changes your life. Finally there is something that brings you a sense of contentment and a stability you haven’t really had before. You want to share it all with Jemma and you do. She is delighted for you and you make no attempt to hide your pride when the tables are turned and it’s Jemma that isn’t understanding your babbling about your acquired hacking skills.
Unknown to you, while you’re holeing out your place in the world through underground connections and the fastest free WiFi you can get your hands on, Jemma is finding her footing too. Except she isn’t very giving on the details. It’s a new school she says, a different school. That is all you know.
Something about the secrecy doesn’t sit right with you and the blissful days of mentally falling into each other at the end of the day without a care in the world comes to a slow end.
It used to be nice, even with the time difference. It wasn’t like you had the best sleep schedule to begin with. If you were heading to bed at a normal time, at least before midnight, you would reach out to Jemma, feel at the edges of her sleeping mind and rest there. It lulled you, the quiet warmth of Jemma Simmons, even if she didn’t know you were there. Then there were the nights that sleep didn’t come so easily or the glow of your laptop consumed all of your time until you felt her slide up around you, bright and rested as she woke for her day. Both were nice. Jemma tended to nudge at you to sleep once she was getting to noon her time and you were still at it, the sun only just rising for you, and sometimes you didn’t have the heart not to listen.
The both of you are so happy it is the first time you actually talk about meeting. When it’s brought up it almost shocks you that it hadn’t been discussed before. You guess it’s always just been assumed but now, with no ties holding you down a trip across the pond isn’t as incomprehensible. You want it, so much you want it.
Then two things happen around the same time, and things change. Jemma meets Fitz and you meet Miles.
You don’t know at first that those two things are going to drive a wedge bigger than the atlantic ocean between you but it does.
Everything Jemma talks about is Fitz this and Fitz that. How he’s so smart and all the time she spends with him. It makes your jaw feel too tight and like something inside you is being put out of place with a hot poker every time Jemma says his name.
Fitz is probably a good guy, a smart guy. Everything Jemma says about him is positive and one day you catch so much admiration spilling into your mind through Jemma’s words about him that it kind of makes you want to throw up.
It causes you to be distant and Jemma doesn’t catch on. She would have in the past you think, but now she is too busy with her secret school and spending all her time in a lab with Fitz.
You hate him. It’s awful and you don’t like yourself for it because he seems to make Jemma really happy but you hate him.
Fitz is so much better than you. Smarter, closer, more well off. You don’t think you’ve ever felt Jemma brimming with that much interest in regards to you and even if you’re imagining it, it hurts.
That alone probably wouldn’t have been enough to drive you away but when you meet Miles he does a good job of convincing you of a lot of things.
Miles introduces you to The Rising Tide and through a web of internet contacts you grow a pseudo family. People that actually want you and credit you for the work that you do. You’re good at hacking, it came so naturally to you and you quickly become known as one of the best in the inner circles. Miles admires you for it. You can see it in the way he looks at you.
You call yourself a hacktavist because it feels good to have a title, like it’s a real job. It is to you. You and The Rising Tide do a lot of good work, digging up what the government and big organizations don’t want you to know. You liberate information and it brings change.
You don’t tell Jemma about it.
Something tells you she wouldn’t really understand and as pleased as you are with yourself the approval you get from others, from Miles, that is enough.
Miles doesn’t have a soulmate. He tells you how his mind is quiet and all his own, it’s always been that way. You ask him why he thinks that is and he has a lot of theories about it, you discover that he has a lot of theories about everything.
He tells you all the stories nobody wants people to know. How many there are that don’t have soulmates. How there are studies that show real evidence of the connections people cling to so willingly are evolving out but the world is so accustomed to using it in marketing and propaganda that it’s all covered up. That the connections are flawed and even people who seek out their soulmates don’t always stay with them. The idea of one singular destiny gives off the illusion that there is no control but Miles is all about control. The individual needs to have say in their own life, he says, or else they’re just blind sheep to capital slaughter.
You don’t think you want to be a sheep but your connection is real. Jemma is everything to you and you don’t want to think bad things about that. So you brush it off. You ignore the idea that a soulmate may not really be the person for you until you can’t anymore.
Maybe somewhere along the way some wires got crossed. However you were chosen to be connected to Jemma must not have had all it’s parts in working order because it starts to dawn on you that you’re not really right for Jemma.
You don’t think you fit together like you used to, not like when you were eleven, not like Jemma and Fitz do. It should of been him in her head. He should have been the one privilege with the brilliance of her thoughts. It’s something they could have shared together. That they should.
When you decide it you’re twenty one and Jemma begs you not to as soon as you start to explain. There isn’t very much to say, just that you want her to be happy, that she deserves better than what you can provide. It hurts a lot more than when you did it by accident as a teenager but you push past the pain and you fall away from Jemma.
That dark veil comes down between you and the silence that resonates through your mind as soon as you feel far enough keeps you from being able to breathe for longer than you think is healthy. For a long time you have to fight to keep it in place and it’s a struggle not to give up and pull your way back to the person you are sure now that you love. But it is because you love her and want the best for her that you don’t. A week goes by, a month, three months, and without really noticing it you realize it gets easier. You don’t forget about her but you move on and the blank spot in your mind where Jemma used to be remains quiet and empty.
You start dating Miles.
It’s a long while before you do because you are heartbroken and he understands that but he looks at you like you’re the only person he sees and one day he tells you he is in love with you.
You try not to think about Jemma when you wrap yourself in him, because it’s been a year and you love him too. You do. But the blank spot in your mind can be loud sometimes, absence is a palpable thing.
You buy a van and its retro and the biggest thing you have ever owned. You love it. It’s yours and you worked for it, you earned it all yourself and you make it your home. The van is a perfect all encompassing hub for everything you do. Parked in the alley behind your favorite coffee shop, close enough to pick up surprisingly excellent wifi and just big enough to house all your equipment and a bed that’s all your own.
Miles thinks it’s weird and he doesn’t understand why you won't just move in with him because you have been dating for a while and he’s offered but when you tell him about it being sort of an accomplishment for you, coming from so little, he gives you your space.
Of course, he spends plenty of nights with you there, piled up on each other in your tiny bed but neither of you mind.
You think about Jemma more than you should. It only serves the ache you feel whenever thoughts of her arise and more than once you have to force yourself back in check instead of peeking out behind the blinders in your mind that you have put into place.
There are dozens of times that you deny yourself but sometimes you don’t. Sometimes when you lean back in the small chair at the center of your van, sitting in front of your workspace, eyes sore from scrutinizing the numbers and symbols you’re spelling out across it--you allow yourself just a little.
When you know that she is most likely sleeping and you might be able to get away with it you toe at the connection you hope that she has forgotten and you lower yourself slow and stealthy to Jemma. Every time you do, no matter how long it’s been, it’s like breathing perfectly crisp air. That first breath when breaking the surface of water to give burning lungs what is needed to survive.
It’s self indulgent and you know that you shouldn’t do it but you like to know that she is still there. You try not to get close enough to be detected but you feel around at her resting thoughts for hints of how she is doing. If she feels happy. You really can’t know for sure but it cuts you too deeply how much sadness you feel from her the first couple times you find yourself swaying back in her direction. You know it’s your fault and you snap yourself away before the weight of Jemma’s emotion crush you deeper than your own.
Though it’s not always like that. Just like you as time goes on, it must get easier and you’re glad. You want that. You want everything for Jemma.
It is a little invasive and entirely unfair that you do this, you know that and you feel guilty for it but like an addiction it’s hard to quit. Especially when you start to feel hints of excitement mixed up in Jemma’s subconscious. The things that come alive when she is asleep. It isn’t like it’s nightly, you’re not a crazy stalker. More like once every few months, just to check up on her, just to satisfy your need to know that she is okay.
One time she catches you.
You don’t realize it at first and you’re pretty sure that she wants it that way because what you notice first is a sudden nervousness, like fear but with hope attached to it. Jemma isn’t asleep. All of your muscles tense and you’re not really sure what to do. Everything in you says to back out quickly and hide yourself away from her but it’s different from when she is sleeping and you slip back into her thoughts, it’s like she is not really there. Though now, the empty space floods with Jemma, her hope, her sadness, it’s almost solid to you and you can’t bring yourself to let go just yet.
You feel guilty because you’re laying besides Miles who is on his back and snoring in your tiny bed. For a brief moment you wonder if someone is there beside Jemma too but you quickly dismiss it. You don’t want to know.
It’s awkward and you’re not sure what to say, sorry doesn’t seem appropriate because you don’t plan to stay and you’re only sorry for selfish reasons.
Jemma tells you how she graduated, top of her class she adds, as if it’s a surprise and you melt into her voice so deeply it almost makes you want to cry.
You tell her about your van and no judgement filters into your thoughts, only pride and a little bit of what you think is jealousy. It makes you smile. You miss her.
Just as you think it Jemma says it and you wonder if she felt you feeling it but you’re not sure. You sigh aloud and then turn your head to look at Miles, you’d almost forgotten he was there and the last thing you want to do is wake him. Jemma withdraws in your silence and you want to tell her it’s alright and that you miss her too but you think that won’t really help anything. Instead you ask her if she is doing okay and she tells you that she got a job, or, recruited for a job but the explanation ends there and you get the impression it’s for the same reasons she never really told you about her school. It isn’t as if you have a right to mind, you don’t have a right to anything. You don’t ask questions.
Jemma asks you how you’re doing and you tell her you have a job too, sort of. The ‘sort of’ makes her laugh and you don’t realize how much you’ve missed that until that moment. The weight of how much you’ve missed her feels like it might crush you and her both, or collapse your van into a tiny cube with you and Miles inside like you’re in a cartoon. You’re not sure what else to say so you just say goodnight and right before Jemma says it too she actually thanks you for checking in. It’s rushed and you feel a tug of her embarrassment in your mind but she doesn’t seem to regret it and you back away before you can say anything more.
You’re such an asshole.
That is the last time for a while that you check in, not wanting to get caught again. It was wrong from the start and the days you spend pulling yourself back together afterward, like losing Jemma the first time all over again, it’s too much to risk another visit past the divide you have created. Miles asks you a few times what’s wrong and you brush him off and say you’re fine. There is only so many people you can hurt at once.
But your resistance doesn’t last. You’re kind of mad at yourself because you know you are stronger than this but maybe you just don’t want to be anymore and your resolve disintegrates. It was those few moments you had with her that night laying in bed, how Jemma makes you feel, when you put it side by side with how Miles makes you feel there is really no comparison and you’re not sure if that makes you happy or sad but either way you decide you can’t ignore it.
Things don’t go back to normal, not like when you were young. You’ve been away from each other for too long to be connected all the time, plus there is the fact that you still have a boyfriend. You convince yourself it is only to see how Jemma is doing and once or twice a week you lift the curtain from around yourself and indulge in Jemma’s presence.
The first thing you notice is that her sleep patterns have changed. There are times when you go poking around and she is still awake well past what would be her bedtime and you wonder why that is. So you ask her if she’s turned into a night owl like you and she laughs and tells you that she has moved and there is a timezone change. The news makes your heart race and you’re afraid to ask where so you make up some excuse about how you have to go and back away before Jemma can say anything.
Thankfully it doesn’t come up again. It’s probably because if you know where she is, if you know that she is closer somehow, she’ll be harder to resist. The more time you spend open to her the more you begin to forget why you stepped away in the first place and that is dangerous. You remind yourself often how you’re not right for her, that she deserves better, that soulmates aren’t always the right fit. You are not the right fit.
Most of the time that works.
The next thing you know you’re sitting across from Mike Peterson and your life as you know it is about to plummet into a whole whirlwind of crazy.
You’ve been on SHIELD’s tail for a while. Big secret government organization that blankets truth from the public and could generally be considered a private black ops. You blog about it and hack your way through dozens of files that aren’t supposed to exist trying to follow their trail. A trail that always runs cold. They’re good but you’re better and you find Mike first.
There is a video of a hooded do-gooder on the phone in your pocket, a guy jumping out of a burning building with a woman in his arms and he lands on his feet, unharmed, saving her life. As soon as you slide into the booth at the cafe you know for sure Mike is the guy you’re looking for.
It is absolutely amazing. Mike has powers, like actual superhero powers. His jump from the building was the greatest thing you’ve ever witnessed and you can’t figure out why he isn’t as excited as you are. You don’t usually talk about your work with Jemma but you’ll have to make an exception this time because his powers would fascinate her and you want to share.
You think you have him convinced he is in danger, that he is awesome, but also that people will be coming for him. Men in black suits. You got the drop on SHIELD for once and got to him first but you’re sure they won’t be too far behind. Trouble is Mike doesn’t seem to care all that much and he slips from your grasp before you get him to believe you.
That doesn’t stop you.
You’ve got his address, a little petty thief trick from your orphanage days but you’re not exactly sure what your next move is. It turns out that your next move doesn’t matter because those suits you mentioned, the ones in black, the ones backed by highly trained scary SWAT team type agents, they find you before you can make it.
Grant Ward is a tool. He thinks he’s all smart and buff and okay, you’ll grant him the part about being pretty fit but he’s not about to wear you down and his face is too smug for you to actually enjoy looking at. You’ve got your own kind of training. It comes with being passed around like an unwanted ragdoll your entire childhood. But then there is Coulson, that guy knows what he is doing.
You spend an hour questioning Agent Ward before he knocks out cold on the metal table and the rest of the time you’re locked in the cell, one you correctly predicted to be on an airplane, you find your thoughts trickling away from you.
Suddenly Jemma’s voice is filling your head, asking you why you are scared. In your concentration to keep from giving yourself away in the creepy honeycombed box you’re being held in you forgot to guard yourself internally. Multitasking hasn’t ever really been your strong suit.
You tell her you’re not scared and she calls you a liar. It’s concern, that’s all you can feel from Jemma and she is reaching out to you, asserting herself in your thoughts so you can’t push her away. Not this time.
It takes a lot to assure her you’re fine, especially when the thick metal door swings open and you and your heart jump about fifty feet in surprise.
You tell her again that you are alright but you’re really not sure if you are. This Coulson guy could be leading you anywhere and you make a note to at least be grateful you don’t have a black bag over your head again.
But then, despite everything that is going on, something extraordinary happens and it steals all of your breath away.
You know it’s her right away. Not because she is standing in a lab, or because she is looking at you with the same amount of shock that must be on your face too, you just know.
It’s Jemma.
After all the time and effort you have put into keeping away from her there she stands, staring back at you. There are a lot of things running through your mind, some of them Jemma’s surprise along with your own, but the one thing that nags at the forefront of your thoughts is that all those years ago you were right. Jemma Simmons is the most beautiful person you have ever seen.
You feel like a fool because it really hits you, all the time you wasted, all the energy burned up into letting yourself believe that fate wasn’t real or that soulmate connections could be flawed. It’s like you tested it and you think Jemma would enjoy that thought, trialing the connection the way you have only to end up smack in front of the person you were running from. She might have if it hadn’t been so directly hurtful to her too. You wince thinking about it and her expression changes to something questioning. You expect her to ask you, in your mind, like she always does but instead she does something else. Something new. Something you can’t run from. Jemma speaks, out loud, to you.
“Hello, Skye.”
You know right then, you’re never running from fate or her ever again.