Archive of Our Own

Technically, she should be keeping her eyes on her own bake, instead of letting them drift towards his bench.

Technically, he is doing no better, walking past her to the fridge, even when they both know he hasn't finished making his dough.

Technically, this technical challenge is trouncing them both.

She takes a breath and forces herself to focus. She's never lost a baking competition in her life, and she isn't going to start now. Besides, baking is chemistry, and she's the undefeated champion in that field, too. She should have every advantage. But a quick look around the room only dampens her spirits. Bobbi, who has a chemistry degree of her own and is barely even British, is as confidant as usual. Hunter, Bobbi's former husband and current claim to citizenship, is peeking into his oven and sporting a wicked smile. Only Brian frowns as he waits for his mixture to come to a boil, but the real shock would be if he grinned. 

And then there's Fitz, who gives her an encouraging smile so big that she almost loses her balance.

Honestly, if she doesn't pull herself together now, everything is going to fall apart.

The problem, besides the fascinating glimmer in his eyes, is not that she's never made gingerbread before—she makes it every year. The problem is that they have to use Roma's signature recipe, which requires Jemma to bring the wet ingredients to a boil before adding in the flour. If she had a brain cell to spare, she would be figuring out what advantage this brings, but she's trying to ignore Brian's unprompted rant on the virtues of truffle oil, not to mention the cameras, the somewhat sarcastic flirting of Bobbi and Hunter, and yes, the occasional glances from Fitz.

Sometimes she wonders how she managed to make it this far.

But she's always been able to draw strength from the show's hosts, Peggy and Jarvis, who even now are standing against the wall with their hands clasped behind them, beaming twin votes of confidence in her direction. She takes in a deep breath and tells herself that nothing in this world exists except this recipe, her ingredients, and her determination to make this her greatest bake yet. But since the recipe doesn't specify how long to chill the dough, or what temperature to bake it at, Jemma has to figure it out on her own. It should need to chill longer than usual, but how long? 

This is what she's thinking about as the mixture comes to a boil and she almost forgets to add the baking powder. If she chills the dough well enough, can she bake it at the same temperature she uses for her own recipe?

She's so stuck on this conundrum that doesn't see the sudden movement in the pot. The mixture is expanding, puffing up into a brown mushroom cloud faster than Jemma can react. She takes it off the heat, but it's still bubbling, ginger and molasses goo spilling out of the pot and sizzling when it drips into the cook top.

Now, there's smoke. It's burning.

And she'd scrape off the goop from the cook top, but it's still expanding—doubling, then tripling in size and still growing. Jemma looks around for a pan, a bowl, anything, but somebody is already scooping the foamy monstrosity away. 

"It's okay," says Peggy, somehow managing to throw a wink Jemma's way as she works. Behind her, she feels the distinct presence of Jarvis, and when she looks around the room, she sees Bobbi and Hunter rushing in to help. Brian, off in the far corner of the tent, seems to have now moved on to some diatribe on the proper use of kosher salt. Fitz simply blinks at her, holding and aimless whisk and looking just as helpless as she feels.

When she looks back, it's almost over; the chemical reaction that started this mess seems to have run its course. But other chemical reactions, such has the adrenaline rushing through her veins, are still in full force. Only now it's compounded with the embarrassing realization that she not only created this catastrophe, but she made everyone else fix it for her. And even if she could actually process that and keep going, how would she bake the gingerbread in time? How much flour would she have to subtract in order to balance out the moisture she lost? Was the mixture on the heat too long? Not long enough? How could she ever—

But she swallows, even as she feels a single tear slide down her cheek. She's made it all this way, and she's not going to—but she doesn't really have a chance now, does she?

It's like a bubble around her pops, and she's suddenly aware that they're surrounding her—the other contestants, the hosts, and even the cameramen. Bobbi and Hunter are arguing for something Jemma can't quite keep up with as Jarvis says it's unfortunately against the rules, squeaking out his counterargument while Peggy stands behind him in solidarity. Even Brian seems to have noticed that the cameras are no longer on him, and when she starts to wonder what Fitz is thinking, it's all too much.

"Excuse me."

She chokes it out as a whisper as she runs, hoping they're too wrapped up in her mess to notice. She goes out of the tent and out of sight, trying to hold herself together, trying not to tell herself that all her dreams have fallen apart.

It's when she feels his hand on her shoulder that she breaks.

She's not sure how she knows it's Fitz, or why she turns to curl into him, only that she's clinging onto Fitz for dear life, and he's not saying a word. She feels his breath against her neck as she is encircled in his arms, and somehow she can let it all out—all the fear, the anxiety, the disappointment. She's so used to winning everything that it's a blessing to not have to learn to how to lose on her own.   

It's later, when the last and final bake of the episode is over, that she finds Fitz looking over at her with worried eyes.

"It's going to be me," he says. He nods towards the dalek he constructed entirely out of cookies and edible glue, and Jemma frowns.

"No," she says, "Roma and Merlyn are going to sack me. You presented three fully-baked items."

"You mean burned," he corrects, rubbing at his eyes. "You'd think that an engineer would be able to figure out how a blasted oven works."

"It's the humidity in the tent; it throws everything off." She watches as he buries his face in his hands.

"Humidity?" He shakes his head, then drags his hands down his face. "Why didn't I think of humidity?"

She dares to bump his shoulder with hers. "Because you're an engineer," she teases.

He looks down at her shoulder and up at her, and she finds herself staring at at the thing that's been haunting her since day one—the intelligence burning behind his impossibly blue eyes. She leans in and finds a kindness in there, too, which makes sense. Why else would he have stayed beside her this whole time?

It's not until she feels his breath on her skin that she realizes just how close she is, and she jumps back, seeing him do the same.

"Sorry," she says.

"No, it's—"

"I really think it's going to be me, anyway."

"Jemma, you can't—" 

"Though I can't bear to think what my mum and dad would—"

"They said my dalek was all style and no subst—"

"And I don't know if I can bear the look on their faces, but—"

"Dinner."

Jemma stops mid-thought, blinking back at him.

"What?"

He clears his throat, looking down at the wringing hands in his lap.

"I was just—I mean it's a pretty close call, I think, and you've done better than I have in most of the other rounds, so—"

"Fitz."

"I'm just, you know, saying that you've been doing great so far. You're a great baker, Jemma. It doesn't seem right that one mistake should outweigh everything you've accomplished."

He's frowning now, and she finds she can't look away from him. But that's been the real problem this whole time, hasn't it? If he wasn't— If she wasn't so distracted by—

"Just . . . let me make it up to you. Take you out for dinner." He takes a deep breath in and out, and if he keeps wringing his hands like that, they're liable to shred like paper. "I mean, if that's okay with—"

She reaches out and covers his hands to still them.

"I'd like that," she says, "but if—I couldn't imagine this show without you." She feels the warmth in her cheeks as her heart beats a mile a minute, but she forges on. "So, I mean, if you're the one to go, you, uh . . . you should let me do the same for you."

She watches as all the color drains from his face, but somehow he manages to smile.

It's strange to go into a baking competition with the intent to win and only end up learning that winning isn't everything. At least, Jemma feels strange when that's the answer to everyone's questions. Yes, she tells them, she wanted to win. Of course she did. Yes, it is sad that she lost everything in one fell swoop. But she finds that it's hard to be sad about it when Hunter steals the phone from Bobbi in the middle of a recipe exchange, or when Peggy calls to check up on her (and Jemma can clearly hear Jarvis sputtering in the background).

And really, it's something of a relief that she doesn't have to be stuck in a room with Brian again.

But the very best thing that's come out of all this is the hand that holds hers as she's shopping for ingredients, only letting go to point out something she missed. They always do this together now, Jemma and Fitz, and she's not sure why she never realized how beneficial it would be to have a partner, especially one who inspires her to do her best work. He's promised that if she helps him work on recipes, he can design whatever special equipment she needs, and she can't seem to banish the image of their shared bakery from her head. 

So it doesn't bother her much when she stumbles across an article explaining all the ways she failed. Failure, she's learned, is a necessary part of life.

And if failure feels like his hands on her waist, or like his lips pressed against hers, then it's nothing to be afraid of.

In fact, even as she kisses him back, too caught up in savoring the brown sugar and orange on his tongue to worry about anything else, Jemma might even be grateful that she failed to win the bake off.

She might even say she's never tasted anything sweeter.