Chapter Text
Ever since Jemma Simmons was a little girl, she had loved weddings.
Shortly after losing her mother, her grieving father had taken her and her little sister to her cousin’s wedding. Jemma had been immediately enamored with the big pink bows, the flowers everywhere, the way that everyone seemed to be buzzing with excitement and reminiscing over how much the couple to be loved each other.
As usual, Amelia had needed something. In this specific instance, she had needed to use the bathroom. Jemma’s poor father looked immediately distressed. In the months since his wife had finally succumbed to her illness, he had been struggling to fill the massive void she left. With two little girls, he was often at a loss for what to do.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” Jemma immediately comforted. She patted his arm with one hand and took Amelia’s hand in the other. “I’ll take her.”
“Thank you, baby,” her dad sighed in relief. He had kissed her forehead fondly and Jemma had lead the way to the restroom. She waited for her sister to finish, helped her wash her hands, and then began the trek back to the chapel.
In the hallway, she heard her cousin scream. She and Amelia both jumped in surprise. Amelia looked weary, but Jemma approached the dressing room door and slowly pushed it open.
“Oh my God!” her cousin shrieked. “It’s ruined! It’s all ruined!”
Her wedding dress was torn raggedly, just at the bottom of the corset. The entire back of the skirt hung from only the sides, a large expanse of her skin visible.
Worrying her bottom teeth between her lip, Jemma ran through every possible solution in her head. That’s what Jemma did. At home, at school, everywhere, she fixed people’s problems and she made them feel better. She was a fixer, and she knew she could fix this. If only she had some thread, she could sew like her mum had taught her before she died…
Jemma glanced down at her baby sister and the purple satin ribbon that Jemma had tied her brown curls up in.
Bingo.
In just fifteen minutes, with Jemma’s quick work and little hands, her cousin’s skirt was held up with a beautiful braid of lavender silk in the back. It looked intentional, and Jemma couldn’t help but grin toothily at her.
“Something borrowed,” she giggled.
Her cousin made a little “aw” sound and bent down to hug her. “Tell you what, Jemmy. Why don’t you hold my train?”
And so she did, walking behind the bride with her shoulders back and a wide smile on her face, the wedding march echoing all around them.
Weddings, young Jemma thought, were the best. She couldn’t wait to have one of her own.
***
She paces on the corner, waiting for Bobbi to arrive. Predictably, she’s running late.
“Hey!” Bobbi greets excitedly. She hugs Jemma, grimacing at the wedding dress between them. “Why do you even have that? Isn’t Daisy supposed to be the one in white?”
Jemma rolls her eyes. Unsurprisingly, Bobbi looks like a little bit of a mess. She’s sweaty, her hair in a messy ponytail, clearly having just come from her boxing class. At least she’s wearing the bridesmaids dress.
“Of course she is.” She hands Bobbi a little green satchel with a pointed look. “Bobbi pins and hairspray.”
Bobbi drops her jaw indignantly. “Hey! She said hair up, and my hair is up!”
“You know that isn’t what she meant, Barbara.”
“I hate these things,” Bobbi whines. “When is everyone we know going to start having divorce parties? Because those sound fun.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you?” Jemma teases as they make their way up the steps to Daisy and Trip’s wedding venue. She checks her watch quickly. She has plenty of time to get Daisy dressed before she needs to dash over to Kara Palamas for her pre-wedding photographs.
“I’ve only been divorced once, and you wouldn’t let me turn it into a party,” Bobbi reminds her. “Clint got to have a party, but I didn’t!”
“Yes, well, Tony is an enabler and I am not,” Jemma says crisply. Bobbi bites back a smile as she recalls Jemma’s constant battles with one of Clint’s groomsmen over the course of her wedding.
Bobbi allows Jemma to frog march her into the bathroom, gently hanging the wedding dress over the large chaise lounge taking up half the space.
“What is this, a bathroom for the opera house?”
“Shut it and bend down,” Jemma demands. Bobbi huffs but squats down to allow her much-shorter friend access to her hair. She grimaces and moans and groans the entire time that Jemma tugs and yanks on her long blonde hair, but eventually it’s styled in an elegant chignon that even Bobbi has to admit looks nice.
“Daisy is lucky I love her,” Bobbi says half-heartedly, checking herself out in the mirror.
“She won’t if we don’t give her the dress in the next ten seconds.”
Bobbi snatches the dress up and dashes across the hall into the bride’s dressing area, Jemma trailing behind. “Daisy! I picked up your dress!”
Daisy turns around with a broad, nervous smile. “Thanks, Jemma.”
“I said I did it,” Bobbi interjects.
“We both know you didn’t. Now help me into it, would you?”
Delighted to, Jemma unzips the garment bag and helps her friend into her beautiful, perfectly fitted dress. “Oh, Daisy. You look stunning.”
“I swore I wasn’t going to cry,” Daisy chokes out as she looks at herself in the mirror. Jemma hugs her from behind, her cheek on her shoulder.
“It’s your wedding. You get to do whatever you please.”
***
Jemma yanks open the door to the taxi, shoving the garment bags in her hand onto the seat and sliding in behind them. With a cursory glance at her cell phone, she realizes she only has about ten minutes before Daisy’s dinner break. Jemma absolutely has to be back at the wedding—in which she’s the maid of honor—before then. She’ll only have half an hour at Daisy’s before she needs to run back to Kara and Grant’s wedding across town. Kara will absolutely die if the cake doesn’t come out at the right time. Jemma adopts her best no-nonsense voice and turns pointedly to the driver.
“Okay. I’ll give you $500 for the entire night if you wait for me and if you don’t look in the back seat. Every time you do, I take off twenty bucks.”
The driver raises his eyebrows. “What?”
“Do you want the money or not?” she snaps impatiently. Before he’s even answered her, she’s unpinning the up-do that she’d worn for Kara’s wedding, shaking out her curls into the half-up style for Daisy’s.
“Whatever you say,” the man chuckles. “I’m Mack, by the way.”
“Thank you Mack,” Jemma sighs. She reaches up to unzip the black silk dress that Kara had put her in–a bit of a strange choice for a wedding, but Kara and Grant have always been unconventional and a little dark. Mack glances into the rearview mirror for a brief moment.
“Hey!”
“I wasn’t trying to–”
“Twenty bucks,” she huffs as a reminder, wrestling her way out of the dress to put on a gauzy burnt orange number that Daisy had picked out. Daisy and Trip’s wedding is quintessentially them, seamlessly merging Trip’s Southern roots with Daisy’s Chinese heritage.
Jemma is extremely proud of this wedding, perhaps even more so than the other twenty-six she’s played an instrumental role in. Daisy and Trip are two of the best people she knows and they deserve the best for the most important day of their lives. Jemma thinks she managed to help them do just that, which makes all of the stress and insanity over the last several months more than worth it. When Mack pulls up out front of Daisy’s venue, Jemma flashes him a smile.
“I’ll be back in forty-five minutes. Then back to the Hyatt. Don’t let my dress wrinkle.”
“You’re a little weird, you know that?” Mack drawls, looking over his shoulder at her.
Jemma sighs and shuts the door. “I get that a lot.”
As she dashes past the people milling in the lobby out front of the ballroom where Daisy’s reception is taking place, she misses the young man who had also attended Grant and Kara’s wedding. He watches her in interest, noting that she’d also been in the bridal party of that wedding. As soon as Jemma walks in, Daisy grabs her excitedly.
“There you are! Tonight is absolutely perfect,” she gushes. She pulls Jemma into a tight hug, positively beaming. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Leo Fitz watches her smile genuinely as she pulls back to look at her friend. “It was no trouble at all, Daisy. I’m happy to have helped.”
He’s never seen anyone be genuinely pleased to be in two weddings in one night, and given his position as the Weddings writer for the New York Journal–that says something. He keeps an eye on her for the next half an hour. She slips back out to her cab like a pro. No one seems to notice she’s missing despite how instrumental she’s been in the whole process.
Once she’s gone, Fitz wanders outside. He’s been to a hundred of these things—probably closer to a thousand, actually, and they all end up feeling the same to him. The same joking cake smash to the face, the same songs as first dances, the same bridesmaids and groomsmen getting sloshed and hooking up.
It’s all part of the motions of his job. It’s all part of the horrendous beat he’s been put on, when all he wants to do is write real stories about things that are actually important. This whole idea that love is even worthy of the news—it doesn’t compute with him. His editor Melinda May even agrees with him, but she’s also a big believe in giving the people what they want. The people are what keep the paper afloat to begin with.
From his spot leaning against the wall of the hotel, he watches her scramble out of a cab. The driver leans his head out of the window.
“HEY! Your lipstick,” the driver says, gesturing at his own mouth. The girl, evidently named Jemma based on Daisy’s enthusiastic greeting earlier, jumps slightly. She shoots her cabbie a grateful smile and opens up her clutch handbag.
“Oh no,” she moans. “I’ve run out of face wipes.”
Her driver shifts his jacket, pulling a white handkerchief out of his pocket. He waves it out the window at her and she beams happily, running for his window. She furiously wipes at her lips until the offending dark color is off of her mouth.
Gingerly, she offers the cloth back to her driver. He grimaces dramatically, glaring at the oily lipstick smeared all over it.
“Ya know what, weirdo? Keep it.”
“Thanks, Mack!”
Mack gives her a thumbs up and Jemma turns to dash back into the hotel. The edge of her dress gets stuck in the closed door and she shrieks, rebounding backward. Fitz hides a laugh behind his hand. This hectic, busy, insane woman is the most interesting thing he’s seen at a wedding in years.
He seems to be the only one who notices that she ever left. She melts back into the crowd easily, jumping right into the cupid shuffle with her fellow bridesmaids and the bride. It’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.
The cupid shuffle winds down and Jemma skips up to the microphone with a wide grin.
“Okay, ladies! Daisy will now be tossing her bouquet, so we’ll ask that everyone lines up on the dance floor.”
She hands the microphone back to the lead singer of the band. She strides out onto the dance floor and firmly plants herself directly in the middle.
She likes to think that she’s not superstitious, but she’s been in twenty-seven weddings and she’s never once caught a bouquet. She’s also never once gotten close to getting married herself. If catching some bouquet of flowers might elevate her chances even the tiniest bit—well, then she’s willing to hop up an down.
Plus, it’s tradition. Jemma is a sucker for tradition, particularly wedding traditions. From the music to the games to the way that couples almost always smash cake in each other’s faces—she adores every second of it.
Weddings are magic to her, start to finish. If she had it her way, love would be the only news printed in the papers.
Daisy lines up to do the bouquet toss, shooting Jemma a wink over her shoulder as she does so. When the bouquet goes flying into the air directly toward her. The flowers flip and flip as Jemma stretches her arms up as high as they can reach. She’s almost there.
But then a blur of stampeding women collide with her, knocking Jemma onto the ground.
The world goes black, Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” the soundtrack to her fall.
***
Jemma awakens with a groan, her fingers slowly reaching for her head. She blinks her eyes open, the blurry figure of someone standing over her gradually sharpening into view.
She had seen him briefly outside, as she had made a return from Kara and Grant’s wedding. His blue eyes are striking, his build slight, and he smiles at her gently.
“Good morning,” he grins. “Glad to see you’re up.”
“Morning?” she asks wearily. The loud music sends a jolt of pain through her skull.
A couple of Daisy’s other bridesmaids—women she had met at a retreat with her mother, called Afterlife—titter around her. The man furrows his brow and barks directions at them.
“I’m going to need exactly six cubes of ice, a shot of whiskey, and a rag for her to bite down on. Stat!”
He snaps his fingers and they scamper off. Jemma frowns as he helps her sit up, his hands warm and soft on the silk of her dress.
“Are you a doctor?”
“Nope,” he smirks. “I just thought they were kind of annoying. I’m Leo Fitz.”
Jemma rolls her eyes. “Jemma Simmons. On that note, I’m going to go home.”
“I don’t think standing up is such a good idea.”
“I’m fine,” she insists, standing shakily on her little kitten heels. To her surprise, the entire room spins around once, and then twice, and she stumbles.
Directly into the waiting arms of Fake Doctor Leo Fitz.
“I’ll split a cab with you,” he offers. “To make sure you get home safe.”
She appreciates the clarification, but she certainly doesn’t need any help getting home. She stubbornly shakes her head even as she allows the complete stranger at her side to lead her outdoors.
“Mack will take care of that. Wait! I have to bring home a centerpiece.”
Fitz sighs loudly, letting her wobble to one of the tables so that she can retrieve a large centerpiece made up almost entirely of sorbet colored daisies. “Ready?”
“Ready,” she affirms. “Take me to Mack.”
“Who’s Mack, exactly?”
“My driver,” she explains, waving at him in his cab. Her driver turns out to be much larger than she first anticipated. He gets out of the car with a grim expression on his face, eying the man next to her cautiously.
“Who’s this? I don’t think you should be going home together.”
Jemma laughs. “This is Leo Fitz. I got knocked over during the bouquet toss and he helped me.”
Fitz raises his free hand in surrender. “I just want to make sure she gets home okay.”
Mack examines his face for any hint of ill will and nods firmly. “Fine. Hop in, I’ll take you home after her.”
Fitz smiles in victory and helps Jemma slide into the backseat of the taxi. “It’s finally over.”
Jemma purses her lips in annoyance. “Let me guess, you’re a cynical, sarcastic man who doesn’t believe in love and weddings, and yet you still manage to talk bridesmaids into going home with you.”
“Technically, I talked you into letting me take you home,” he quips, “despite the lack of an offer to stay the night, mind you. And if you’re implying that I don’t believe in marriage…well, then you would be right.”
She shifts to lean her aching head against the window. She gives him her most withering, sarcastic look. “How refreshing, a man who doesn’t believe in marriage!”
“Marriage is an outdated, antiquated institution, propped up by bakers and the designer dress industry to trick hundreds of thousands of people every year to spend their life savings on one day—“
“One beautiful, perfect day with the people they care most about while they dedicate themselves to each other for the rest of their lives,” Jemma interrupts. “Weddings are the closest thing to magic that exists on this earth.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Did you really just say that? Really? Magic?”
“Yes,” she huffs, attempting to cross her arms but ultimately failing due to the gigantic centerpiece on her lap. “Turn here.”
“Huh?”
“Not you, Mack.”
“Ah, right,” he concedes. He looks at the black dress on the seat between them in distaste. “I can’t believe you were in two weddings tonight.”
She shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s not the first time, I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
His jaw drops. “Are you kidding me?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t kid with you, I hardly even like you—“
“Hardly is close enough,” he grins. She’s starting to find his effortless charm more than agitating. “What is your deal with weddings, huh? Give me the real story. Were you left at the alter? Did you elope at a young age only for your groom to die dramatically? That would be positively Shakespearean.”
“You’re a pest,” she sighs.
“And a persistent one at that,” he continues on. “I’m just trying to understand how you could continuously subject yourself to these atrocious false displays of fidelity and love forever.”
“You’re making me sick,” Jemma hisses. “Honestly! It’s as though you’ve never cared about another human being in your life! These people are my friends, and they’ve fallen in love, and being a part of the biggest day of their lives is an honor and a privilege. I suppose you wouldn’t know a thing about that, since you’re some kind of—some kind of heartless robot!”
He just smirks at her, clutching at his chest. “Jemma. You wound me.”
“Well, Leo, let’s hope it’s a deep one.”
“Your calling me Leo is the biggest wound of all. It’s just Fitz.”
“I don’t really care what it is,” Jemma snaps. “Mack, up here on the right!”
“Got it,” he says easily. He seems completely unruffled by their bickering and fighting. When Jemma moves to get out of the car, Fitz starts to follow. “Hey! You said you weren’t going to try anything funny.”
“I’m not!” Fitz insists once again. “I’ll be back down in one minute, promise.”
“No, you won’t,” Jemma grumbles, her arms full of makeup bags, a dress, and the centerpiece. “Because I’ll murder you if you follow me upstairs.”
Fitz rolls his eyes and manages to catch the centerpiece just as it nearly tumbles from her arms. “You’ve got a concussion. I just want to make sure you actually arrive at your final destination, and that you don’t break this tasteless centerpiece on the way there.”
“It’s not tasteless! I chose these!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”
She opens her mouth to protest again when they reach her front door, but then she steps on the extra dress she’s carrying and nearly ends up on the floor for the second time in one evening. When she wordlessly hands the centerpiece to Fitz, freeing up her sightline, he simply raises an eyebrow.
Exhausted, annoyed, and more than ready for this interaction to be over, Jemma opens the front door and leads the way in to her building. They stand in awkward silence in the elevator, and when they reach her apartment he shuffles in after her, gingerly placing the vase of daisies on the counter.
“Alright, Jemma Simmons, see you around.”
He gives her a cheeky little salute and leaves immediately after. She’s a little bit surprised by that, actually. She had expected more bickering. As she makes her way to the bathroom to wipe off her double-wedding makeup, she presses the button on her answering machine.
“Hi big sister!” a perky voice, much like her own, chirps. Jemma freezes mid-rinse, awkwardly crouched over the sink. “It’s Amelia. Obviously. Anywho, I’m going to be coming in to New York tomorrow! Can you pick me up at JFK at 4:00? Please, please, please? Who am I kidding, of course you will. I’m so excited to see you and daddy. Love you!”
Silence falls over the apartment for a long moment and a slow smile spreads over Jemma’s face. While her younger sister Amelia is certainly a handful, Jemma loves her to pieces. She’s been off modeling in Europe for over a year now, living her usual glamorous, adventurous life.
“I’ll need to clear up my schedule,” she murmurs to herself. “Where’s my planner…”
She wanders over to the pile of her belongings in the middle of her little entryway and begins digging, the crease between her eyebrows deepening the longer she goes without finding it. It’s bulky, a thick brown leather planner that carries her entire life in it.
Jemma excels at preparation, and that often means meticulously planning every moment of every day, practically minute by minute.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she curses repeatedly.
She left her planner in the cab. Leo Fitz has undoubtedly gotten ahold of it.