Archive of Our Own

Jemma looked up from her menu to see Will's questioning eyes. She ducked her head.

"Not really," she answered, turning the page to the steaks. Ten years in the country, and she was still amazed at the portion sizes. "Actually, well . . . never mind."

A "what?" was coming, she knew it, and she had to take a breath to steel herself.

"What?"

She pinched her eyes closed. "Actually, the last person I went on a date with . . . was you."

"Wow."

"I know."

She refused to meet his gaze, instead focusing her attention on which entrée came with steamed broccoli. All of them, it seemed.

"Well, I've been dating this girl for a while. But I'm leaving for school, so it's probably not gonna work out."

"Oh," soothed Jemma, "I'm sorry."

Will shrugged. "There's time for that later. What about you?"

"Oh, you know," she said, running her finger down the wine list, "I just have trouble finding men who interest me."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "There are plenty of interesting men out there. Are you sure you . . ."

Jemma narrowed her eyes at him. "Am I sure of what?"

"Okay," he said, putting his hands up in a gesture of peace, "this might be crossing the line, but you can think of it as a compliment, if you take it the right way."

The uneasy feeling that had been in the pit of her stomach since the beginning of this conversation upgraded to waves of nausea.

"All right," she sighed, "out with it."

Will played with his fork. "First of all, you're really pretty. I wouldn't have asked you out if you weren't pretty. I mean, I'm nice, but I'm not that nice."

She furrowed her brow. "Okay."

"Look, all I'm saying is that you'd probably get more guys to notice you if you . . . if you embraced your feminine side a little more."

Jemma blinked at him, utterly shocked. "Excuse me?"

"You know," Will explained, "dangly earrings, stuff like that. I really like girls who are just . . . really feminine. You talk about science too much."

Jemma felt her mouth fall open. "Will, science is gender neutral."

"Exactly," he said, pointing his fork at her, "not feminine." 

Jemma was about to ask him just what he thought was feminine when the waiter came, and she had to scramble to find what she wanted.

Not to take Will Daniels out for his birthday, clearly.

"What?" Daisy took a sip of her root beer. "He said that to you? Really?"

Jemma could only look around the pizza place, feeling a little more than silly that the sting hadn't softened in the past twenty-four hours. At least she had better company today.

She dared to gauge her friends' reactions just in time to see Mike draw his lips into a thin line. "I can't believe you let him talk to you like that."

Jemma shrugged. "Well, I was just so shocked, I didn't know what to say. When I moved here, he was basically my only friend in the world, and he's never said anything like that before! Then somehow, we started talking about who he would set me up with—"

"What?" Daisy swallowed. "How did that happen?"

"I really don't know! But guess who he was going to pick."

Daisy and Mike looked at each other.

"Eric Koenig," they said in unison.

Jemma put her head in her hands. "Is that really who people think I should be dating?"

"Oh, no," assured Mike, "that's just who Will would pick. He's always talking about how great Eric is."

"Eric dates a lot, too," said Daisy. "First dates, of course. He asked me out once. He told me it was going to be a hot air balloon show, which sounded pretty cool until we got in the car and I realized it was an hour away. I mean, I barely knew this guy. The hot air balloons were cool, but then they were playing a movie as part of the festival, and he insisted on watching it."

Jemma cocked her head. "What was the movie?"

"Up!" Daisy shook her head. "If it was a good movie, maybe I could suffer through, but no way I was going to watch that when it was still gonna take an hour to get home."

"Who hates Up?" asked Mike. Daisy rolled her eyes at him.

"Anyway, we finally got in the car, and he asked me if I liked pop music, and then—no joke—he blasted Katy Perry all the way back. I mean, nobody likes Katy Perry that much." Daisy shook her head. "Anyway, I wouldn't recommend going out with him. But if you want, I can set you up with someone."

"I can help, too," offered Mike. "I know a lot of guys who love science talk."

"We could go through our Facebook friends and let Jemma pick her top three," Daisy said, eyeing Mike. "That's bound to work, right?" She turned to Jemma. "You want to try that?"

Before Jemma could answer, both Daisy and Mike were pouring over Daisy's phone, and Jemma really could do nothing but take another bite of pizza. 

"Hey, how about Grant Ward?" Daisy squinted at her screen. "He's pretty cute. And he's the son of a senator."

Mike shook his head. "He's also a felon. He killed a bunch of dogs."

Daisy nearly spit out her soda. "He did what?"

"Yeah," said Mike, "it was twenty dogs, or something. He was part of some weird cult."

Daisy looked at Mike, absolutely flabbergasted. "Okay, he's dead to me. What about that guy who built that security system? He must be smart enough for Jemma."

Mike sighed. "That's Eric's brother. Billy."

"Oh," Daisy said, "right. And I was thinking that there was this guy who studied light, but then I remembered that he stalked Audrey for a while, so he's out." She gave Jemma an apologetic smile. "Don't worry, Jemma. We will find you love."

"But we'll have to do it later," Mike said, standing up. "I've got to get going. It's getting close to Ace's bedtime."

Daisy rolled her eyes at him. "What's the point of getting a sitter if it means you have a bedtime, too?"

Mike merely chuckled as he gathered his things, but as he headed out the door, Jemma called out his name.

"Yeah?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Thanks for not agreeing with Will," she said.

He nodded before disappearing through the door, and the moment he was out of sight, Daisy let out a groan.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed hanging out with Mike, because it'll be another year before we see him again."

"Daisy," Jemma admonished, "it's not that bad."

"You have no idea how hard it is to get him to do anything," argued Daisy, "even when it's something he can bring Ace to! Mark my words, Jemma. Sooner or later he's going to pop into your head, and it'll be so long that you'll wonder if he's even alive. I'm telling you, Jemma, men are the worst."

"You're being dramatic," Jemma said with affection. She let out a sigh as she realized just how full she was. Had she really eaten that much pizza? Well, no matter. "So, what next? It's Friday, and I'm tired, but I'm not ready for the night to be over yet."

"Hmm," considered Daisy, "we could see a movie."

"Perfect."

In a moment. Daisy was on her phone yet again, this time asking Jemma's opinion on movies rather than on men. And honestly, Jemma liked it better this way. After all, as well-meaning as Daisy and Mike were, did she really have a chance for anything to actually change? If men really were the way Will said they were, then Jemma would have to change to be considered by them. The only catch would be that Jemma would lose any respect for a man who expected her to change for him, and she'd lose any respect for herself if she did. It was much better, she thought, to spend time with a person who valued her.

Really, she decided, dating was stupid and pointless, and it didn't matter that she wasn't doing much of it at present. She had a great job and great friends, and that added up to a great life. Maybe she should avoid anything that would threaten to change that.

"What movie should we see," Jemma mused, trying to shake the thoughts from her head, "Bad Girl Shenanigans?"

"Actually," Daisy sighed, "I promised Hunter I'd let him know if anything was going on tonight, so it has to be something he'd go to."

Another strike against men, Jemma thought. Why was it that men only saw movies geared towards men, when women went to all kinds? Though, if she'd been honest with herself, she hadn't exactly wanted to see Bad Girl Shenanigans  either. 

"How about Scorch? That's from a comic book, right?"

Jemma furrowed her brow, considering. "Well, it's supposed to be awful."

"Hmm," said Daisy, "let me check." She tapped her phone a few times, then let out a low whistle. "Wow. Twenty-seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes." She looked up at Jemma with a mischievous grin. "Sounds amazing. We can sit in the back and make fun of it. Hunter would totally be on board for that."

Daisy texted Hunter as Jemma boxed up the leftovers, and before she knew it, they were on their way.

"Okay, he wants to bring someone, is that alright?"

Jemma's hands tensed on the steering wheel, knowing these sorts of questions were always rhetorical. Hunter wouldn't bring Will, would he? She'd come to the restaurant straight from work, was still wearing her SciTech polo, and was certainly not in the mood to deal with so much as a look from him.

"Who's he bringing?" 

Daisy frowned at her phone. "He refuses to tell me." She looked up at Jemma and gave her a shrug. "Well, hopefully Mystery Man likes superheroes."

"And has a good sense of humor," added Jemma.

She reminded herself, though, that it didn't really matter who Hunter brought, and she was silly for worrying about it.

And in the end, Hunter and Mystery Man arrived after the previews had started and sat on the other side of Daisy. Jemma breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way that mop of curly hair at the end of the row could change her life forever.

 "I think," said Daisy, "I think my absolute favorite part of the movie was when Jemma and I just looked at each other in complete disbelief."

Jemma smiled in spite of herself. "It happened at least ten times."

"I expected it to be bad," Daisy added, "but it was bad. I'm not even sure what was happening half the time. Did anything actually happen, or was it all a bunch of dream sequences?"

"I have no idea," said Hunter. "What I couldn't figure out was why there were scenes of Deathlok acting as some supreme overlord. The man's a hero!"

"Yeah," agreed Daisy, "that made zero sense."

"Actually," said the man Jemma had yet to be introduced to, "it's from the comics. There's an alternate universe where— "

"But if you have to read the comics to understand the movie," countered Jemma, "doesn't it fail as a movie?"

He gaped at her, almost running into a wall as they turned a corner. "I, uh, yeah. Fair point."

"I think my favorite bit," Hunter continued, "was how they all would have died if Scorch and Deathlok's mums had different names."

"Okay, but in all seriousness, I think we can all agree what the best part of that movie was."

"Raina," said Jemma, Hunter, and Mystery Man in unison. Jemma shot Hunter a smile and found that it accidentally landed on Mystery Man, who smiled back.

"Well," Hunter sighed, bringing the group to a halt, "I need to use to loo. Be back in a moment."

Jemma thought nothing of it until Daisy disappeared as well, leaving her and Mystery Man alone, which was not awkward at all.

"Hold on," he exclaimed, "do you work for SciTech?"

She followed his pointer finger to the logo emblazoned on her blouse. She'd forgotten she was wearing it. "Oh! I do, actually. I'm in the biochemistry department."

"I was just there," he said, grinning from ear to ear, "not in the biochemistry department of course, but at the facility. They want me to consult on a few things."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're a scientist?"

He certainly didn't look like a scientist. After all, he wore a loud, plaid button-up with a tie that clashed. Not to mention that he'd let his curly hair grow out long enough to make him look like a poodle. Still, she thought, he was very handsome, or could be with the right haircut.

"I'm an engineer," he said, nodding. Jemma's jaw dropped.

"Oh! We're in need of engineers!"

But, if course, he knew that. What he didn't know was if she thought the projects would be worth his time, which was all she needed to launch into a rant about how truly stupid the funding system was (not just at SciTech, but in the scientific community at large), and how she couldn't possibly express how invaluable it would be to have an engineer working on her projects, and why didn't SciTech just have an engineer on staff? Or several?

He agreed on every point, coming up with her next argument before the words came out of her mouth. Of course the potential of biochemistry was largely untapped, of course any good scientist needed an interdisciplinary approach to make true discoveries, and of course the ones who held the purse strings were idiots not to see it that way. She had never experienced a moment like this in her life, more exhilarating than the action scenes they'd just watched, and so engaging that she hardly noticed when Daisy and Hunter reappeared. But reappear they did, and before she knew it, Hunter nodded towards the doors to the parking lot, and the boys were on their way.

"I, uh, we were never properly introduced," Jemma heard herself say.

He offered her a hand, and she shook it. "Leopold Fitz, but I go by Fitz."

"Jemma Simmons."

And just like that, his hand slipped out of hers, and he was off. Jemma watched him go, feeling a kind of loss that was ridiculous. It had only been one conversation.

But at the same time, it made Jemma think that men weren't so bad, after all. If they were all like Fitz . . .

Well, it didn't matter, because she probably would never see Fitz again. Except, of course, for the fact that they had a mutual friend, and that he likely would be working in the same building as she was.

Honestly, it was very likely that she would see him again.

And Jemma thought that she rather liked the idea of that possibility.