Chapter Text
Fitz shifts uncomfortably in his jeans as the nominees for the Best Kiss Award play on the screens above them. It’s been years but he’s still not used to seeing himself on-screen, and it’s especially odd to watch himself make out with his girlfriend on a jumbotron. They’ve been together—officially—for six months, two weeks, and five days. He doesn’t even pretend like he isn’t counting.
The scene playing on a massive scale is the big reunion scene from Maveth, when she finds him on the blue planet and runs for him. On the screen, Jemma reaches him. She practically leaps and he catches her, one of her legs hoisted up over his hip as she captures his lips in an incredibly passionate kiss.
The other nominees are all people they know, of course, as it always seems to go. Going up against everyone’s favorite sweethearts Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers is always tough—they’ve been married for about ten years now, and work together almost as often as Fitz and Jemma do. Trip is nominated in this category, too, for his romantic comedy that they went to the premiere for just a few months ago.
It’s especially strange for Fitz to watch the kiss they’re nominated for given that they weren’t actually together during this particular film. The chemistry between them is pretty palpable, although maybe he’s just a little bit biased. It’s easy now to look back on shooting that film and know that there was something brewing between them, even though he hadn’t noticed at the time. Hunter leans forward from his seat behind Fitz and claps him on the back.
“Good work, kid,” Hunter winks cheekily.
Fitz rolls his eyes and bats him away as all of the teenagers who spent so much time voting for the MTV Movie Awards begin screeching with the conclusion of the award nominees. Up on the podium, Skye seems to be having far too much fun with this, alongside her co-star Joey.
A lot of people say this stuff is beneath the great FitzSimmons, but not to Fitz. It’s the only kind of award show that feels fun and important. They get to walk on an orange carpet and be interviewed by kids. There’s nothing more fun than that. Plus, when he and Jemma started this journey into fame and recognitions, they were just a couple of kids themselves.
“Too bad Fitz wasn’t more convincing with me,” Skye jokes into the mic. “Or maybe we’d have been nominated for one of these things!”
Fitz slaps a face over his hand and sinks further into his seat as Jemma laughs on the couch beside him. She reaches over and squeezes his knee affectionately.
“I hate her,” he grumbles.
“You do not,” she sighs fondly. “Do you remember the plan?”
He huffs. “Jemma, it’s not a complicated plan.”
“That wasn’t my question!” she protests, still whispering as Skye finishes her bit and prepares to announce the winner. “Do you remember the plan?”
“Yes, I remember the plan,” he confirms. “For the record, I still think it’s stupid.”
“That’s because you’re no fun,” she teases, sticking her tongue out at him briefly. She manages to look like a dignified adult just in time for the camera to pan to them in anticipation of the result.
“And the winner is—“ Joey begins.
“Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons!” Skye announces triumphantly. She beams excitedly as her friends stand to applause. Fitz puts a hand on Jemma’s lower back to help her navigate the narrow aisle in her heels. She looks back at him with an anticipatory little smile.
He still thinks the plan is stupid, but if it makes her happy—well, then he’ll do it, just like he’ll do just about anything that will make her happy. When they get closer to the stage, Jemma peels off to go up the stairs on the left side and Fitz turns to go on the right. He watches her dramatically peel off her red and white jacket, tossing it at Skye.
Their friend drops her jaw excitedly, brown eyes going wide. For some reason the entire thing starts to get his adrenaline pumping, so he jumps up and down and leans into the comedic vibe coming off of Jemma as she rolls her shoulders back. Fitz moves his neck from side to side in a stretch and she meets his eyes all the way across the stage.
He kind of forgets that this is a whole big plan of hers, that they’re in front of a bunch of their peers as well as large numbers of total strangers. He raises up his hands to beckon her forward and the screaming escalates, nearly drowning out the loud pop music playing throughout the stadium.
Then Jemma starts striding, very quickly, toward him. She looks happy and relaxed, and more than a little bit eager to reach him. He starts walking, too, because he’d very much like to have her to hold onto.
When she does reach him, she hops—just like she had made him practice in their living room. He grabs onto her in a perfect imitation of the kiss from Maveth—her leg up on the side of him, her hands on the sides of his face, fingers trailing down his neck from behind his ears.
It’s amazing to him that after six months, two weeks, and five days, she still has this kind of affect on him, that all of the screaming and the lights fades away until he can’t hear any of it. The kiss is passionate—just as much if not more so than the one from the film—and he feels the unfortunate but necessary need to cut it short before things escalate to decidedly beyond the G-rating required for this type of event. He puts her back down and she laughs breathlessly.
“Fun, right?” she asks him quietly as they make their way to the podium. Skye is clapping and laughing, Joey mockingly covering his eyes at their spectacle.
“Yeah, okay,” he grudgingly admits. “It was fun.”
She shoots him a wink and holds out her hands toward Skye. Skye tosses the jacket back, which Jemma slips on as she steps up to the podium.
“Well—“ Jemma begins.
“I honestly just wanted to show off that I can still do that,” Fitz grins. Jemma shoots him a teasing look as the crowd erupts into giggles. “No, I’m serious! The first few times we did that on set, it was a disaster.”
The laughter continues and Jemma chimes in. “It really was. The amount of times that we ended up on the ground, completely covered in dirt—“
“—the whole thing was a mess,” Fitz agrees.
Jemma furrows her brow and grabs his chin, turning it toward her. She bites down on a smile and wipes at his bottom lip, her finger coming away with a smudge of red on it. “Sorry about that. I put some lipstick on you.”
It begins again, with loud screams and excited cat calls. Jemma grabs his hand behind the podium and he squeezes.
“Thank you so much for always supporting us!” Jemma says genuinely as Joey jogs over with their little metal popcorn trophies. “I truly can’t even tell you how much it means to us.”
“For the record, real food next time would be very much appreciated,” Fitz jokes, nodding at the award.
Jemma grimaces at his bad joke but plays along. “We’ve collected quite a few of these now, and he tries to eat it every time."
“Maybe that’ll be our next film,” Fitz muses aloud. Skye waves her hand as if to say wrap it up, guys, and Jemma takes the hint.
“Maveth almost didn’t get made because no one really though that romance and outer space and parallel universes could all combine to make a decent movie, but I think we did it, and we were able to do it because of support from fans like all of you.”
“And uh—stay in school?” Fitz closes. Jemma throws her head back in a laugh and the music starts up again, as does the cheering. Skye and Joey join them as they make their way off stage, Fitz taking her trophy from her. They're surprisingly heavy.
“You could have warned us,” Skye chuckles. “I probably wouldn’t have screamed so loud.”
“You still would have,” Joey disagrees with a shake of his head. “Good to see you, Fitz.”
“You too,” Fitz says amicably. “I’d shake your hand, but—“
“Got it,” Joey smiles warmly. “We’ll have to get the old cast back together soon.”
Jemma doesn’t flinch at the mention of Fitz’s time on Mary Sue. She continues chatting with Skye as they wait in the wings for the next transition so that they can get back to their seats. When it’s time, Fitz hands off the awards to one of the producers assistants and makes his way back to his seat clutching Jemma’s hand.
They sit down to whispered teasing and jokes from their friends, and Jemma immediately leans into his side. He puts an arm up on the back of the couch to better accommodate her, playing with her hand where it sits on his leg.
“I think Maveth really started it,” Jemma says in his ear. He turns to look at her, brow furrowed in confusion.
“Started what?”
“This. Us.”
“Really?”
“That kiss—joking around with you, falling in the dirt—it felt good. I thought about it a lot every day after shooting,” she explains, uncharacteristically shy. He’s glad it’s so loud, given that this conversation feels very intimate.
“At the time, you did not think it was fun,” he reminds her cheekily. She rolls her eyes with a little shake of her head.
“I loved shooting that scene. And I knew at the premiere, when I saw that kiss and the way it came off on screen—it was clear that I loved you, even then. Even though I didn’t know it.”
He can’t hold back his smile, and he would love to kiss her if it wouldn’t result in banging his teeth against hers. She grins back and leans her forehead down on his shoulder.
“I hate P.D.A.,” she grumbles.
He scoffs and her face shoots up. “That’s a lie, Simmons.”
She narrows her eyes. “I do!”
He begins ticking off instances on his fingers. “The red carpet kiss, it was your idea to pull that stunt anyway, then there’s this conversation, not to mention the time—“
She’s smiling wildly, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter, and she silences him with a kiss.
He doesn’t really care if the camera is on them, or if their friends or watching, or if everyone on earth knows that he’s absolute putty in Jemma Simmons’s hands. He melts into her kiss but when she pulls away, he can’t help himself.
“Bloody hypocrite.”
It earns him a light smack on the chest, but she doesn’t move away. He has no complaints.