I was thrilled to be asked earlier this week to fill-in and provide the wonderful @agentlukaofshield a gift! I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you again to @jemmafitzsimmons and @eclecticmuses for organizing the exchange, and to @janedoh1 and @libbyweasley for always-sharp beta-ing. It was a delight to get to write two fics for the exchange!
The fic is called A Certain Energy, is rated Mature, and is 1,800 words.
Summary: After Season 3, FitzSimmons are not granted that trip to the Seychelles, but they are allowed a few days at a remote cottage in Perthshire.
URL: agentlukaofshield
Name: Luka
Personality type: Hufflepuff, Cancer, INFP
What do you love the most about FS?: I love how they are a true partnership. No one part is greater than the other but together they are better than either half could be on its own. Not to mention, they both think the other is just the best person ever and won’t let the other (or anyone else for that matter) think they aren’t for one minute.
Favorite FS moment: Probably either the 3X17 or the hug in 4X08. They’re both such tender moments and they both destroy me every time.
Favorite Non-FS character: Daisy
Fun fact: Even though I’m an English minor in college and love writing both fanfiction and original stories, I’ve actually been diagnosed with a mild form of dyslexia so my spelling is awful and I thank God every day for spell check and my beta.
Recommendation: If you’ve never had Thai curry before, please go try it because man, you are missing out.
Hey there! Grats on writing so much about our beloved scientists, your fics are a gift to the fandom. Anyway, for the prompt thing, how about "things you said at 1 am"?
aw thank you so much!! I considered a few different ways to approach this one, so I hope you like where it goes. a bit of light angst, a bit of h/c. Follows this ficlet.Anniversary Ficlet 6/8.Rated T, for vague canon trauma/noncon mentions. FitzSimmons. Future fic, space!fic.
Sometimes when Jemma awoke in the middle of the night, she thought about Daisy’s old favorite joke that she and Fitz were psychically linked. These days, Jemma wished it were true more than ever. Perhaps then she could shoulder some of his burden, perhaps then it wouldn’t pain him so much. Perhaps then she could truly, finally understand.
Because she didn’t understand. She couldn’t. Even as far as her natural empathy took her, there was no way for her to truly understand what was going on in his head after the sustained, traumatic abuse he’d suffered. And on nights like this, she wanted to know what he was thinking more than ever.
While watching an ancient episode of The Twilight Zone late one night – the Peak’s entertainment catalogue was somewhat lacking in current fare – the two of them had fallen asleep on Fitz’s bed. The space station’s cots were even smaller than those on the Bus, which Jemma once hadn’t thought possible.
(Coulson had lucked out and been assigned to what was technically a storage room in the midst of being re-appropriated while the Peak incorporated its seven temporary new team members. In theory, he would be reassigned an actual bunk shortly, but somehow that order hadn’t yet come down the pipeline. Daisy liked to mutter conspiratorially about Coulson using his super-spy powers to arrange this, but neither Jemma nor Fitz were convinced it was more than atypically lucky red-tape bureaucracy at work.)
Jemma stirred first, feeling somewhat squashed but pleasantly so, and it took her a few seconds to remember that having Fitz wrapped koala-like around her was no longer commonplace. The side of his dresser was pressed uncomfortably against her shoulders, with him having burrowed his head into the crook of her neck and pushed her slightly backwards while they slept. Despite the low level of discomfort, she felt unspeakably content, and she allowed her fingers to trail up and card through the mess of his curls. They had spent so many months keeping themselves carefully apart that this kind of closeness still brought with it an acute sense of relief.
Suddenly, she felt all of Fitz’s muscles stiffen at once, and he reared back, with her just barely managing to avoid his skull and her chin colliding.
“What –?!” he muttered hoarsely, pushing out of her embrace and looking wildly around in disorientation and fear.
“It’s okay,” she started, trying to both reach out and soothe while also not hindering his escape if he wanted it.
“Jemma.” As soon as his eyes caught sight of her face, his muscles relaxed and he stopped moving backwards. Sagging against the mattress, he scooted back into her arms and dropped his head against the pillow they’d been sharing. “Oh God, it’s just you. It’s you.” His voice was laced with affection and relief so potent it made her want to cry, and she screwed her face up against empathetic tears as she reeled him closer in, letting him cling to her as tightly as he wanted.
“It’s me,” she murmured into his hair, encouraging him to tuck his head back beneath her chin and again wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s me.”
For a few minutes, they lay together in silence. A fine tremor ran through Fitz and prompted Jemma to try to hold him more tightly, as if the perfect hug could make his nightmares disappear.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last, words muffled by her skin. “It’s – it’s been a long time since I’ve woken up with someone there, and… I… I dunno where that came from.”
Her lips thinned, and she distracted herself by pressing a kiss to his hair. They both knew what he’d been afraid of, in whose arms he’d thought himself trapped during that brief moment of barely-awake terror. Jemma swallowed down the anger that washed through her veins for the hundredth time, biting back the bile that rose at the remembrance that someone had done something (so many things, unspeakable things) so vile to her favorite person in the universe. If the android weren’t already long since exterminated, Jemma would happily kill her again and again, a part of her itching for the satisfaction of the vengeance she had watched Coulson enact.
The anger leeched away again almost immediately, though, as she focused on the man in front of her. “You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “Not to me, ever.” After a moment, she added what she worried he kept forgetting: “I love you, Fitz.”
As his breathing evened out, she continued scratching her fingers through his hair. It was a bit like she was petting him, but since he just settled himself more comfortably in her arms she assumed he didn’t mind. The thought that she missed the days when touching had been so easy between them flitted through her head, and, aside from a familiar vein of guilt, she noted again that this was something she would never tell Fitz. Wishing for things that could not and would never be was pointless.
“I don’t understand,” he said after another long silence. “Why you’re still here. Why you… love me.”
His statement felt like a slap across her face, and Jemma had to bite hard onto her tongue to keep herself calm. “Fitz –” she started, voice already shakier than she wanted.
Fitz interrupted her again, shifting back but keeping his hold around her. “No, just – let me finish. I was thinking about it during the episode, just trying to understand it. It just doesn’t make sense to me. You deserve to love someone who… who isn’t….”
Jemma tried to let him talk, she really did, but as he fumbled for the next words, she had to interject. The whole subject was making her chest ache. “Isn’t the love of my life? Or my best friend in the world?”
Swallowing, Fitz stared up at her for a few moments, irises a deep navy in the darkness. “I just – don’t understand,” he continued, almost sounding helpless, “but I think that I just won’t. I don’t think I can understand it. It’s not like – debugging a line of code, or, um, the way I feel about you. Y’know, I understand that. Those things. So when you say you feel like that, when you say you love me, I just….” He sighed, twisting his mouth to the side before finishing. “I have to believe it. And that’s hard, I think. It doesn’t come naturally. But I do believe you,” he said quietly, reaching up to tuck hair behind her ear. “I think I’m there now. Where I believe you.”
A couple errant tears slid down Jemma’s cheeks as she blinked into a relieved smile, and she nuzzled forward to press their foreheads together. “Thank you.”
He gave her a half-smile, and then pursed his lips, letting his gaze drop from hers. “I…” he started, before pausing and licking his lips. “I wish I could….” Huffing, he reached around so he could entwine their fingers and bring their hands up to rest between their chests. “Never mind.”
“No, tell me. Please. What?”
Fitz sighed. “I wish I could do something, y’know, to show you. How that makes me feel. Happy, grateful… everything. I just –”
“Being here with me is all I need from you,” she replied quietly, speaking over his halting explanation. “And – well, this. The talking. Having you talk to me like this makes me terribly happy, Fitz, it really does.”
With a slight inhale, he let go of her hand to reach up and trace the path of her scattered, fallen tears. “Happy?”
“Yes,” she said, more firmly this time. “Happy. Sometimes there are tears, but I am happy, Fitz. It makes me happy to be with you, to see you, um, coming back to yourself. Bit by bit. And if we stay just like this, if this is as far as you get, I’ll still be happy.”
He studied her face for a few long seconds, eventually tangling their fingers together again and then pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. “I love you, Jemma Simmons.”
“I love you right back, Leo Fitz,” she whispered into a smile. “Even if you don’t understand it.”
At least, Jemma thought to herself as she snuggled closer in, delaying the moment when she would inevitably have to return to her own minuscule bed, they each were still trying to understand something about the other. The important thing was that they kept trying to understand, and that they did it together.
It’s a new month, which means new birthdays to celebrate, and TFSN would like to give a big shout out to all them!
This July, please celebrate:
@leosfitzy -- July 2
@adaughterofeve -- July 2
@ohifonlyx33 -- July 3
@ifwehadamonkey -- July 5
@jemmannesimmns -- July 5
@grapehyasynth -- July 5
@unbreakablejemmasimmons -- July 6
@hailhydrating -- July 7
@inevitablefan-ne-girl -- July 9
@drfitzysimmons -- July 9
@paperspub -- July 12
@jewishfitz -- July 12
@agentlukaofshield -- July 18
@lifeofamonkeybum -- July 23
@eclecticmuses -- July 27
@chylerlwest -- July 30
@sun-koroleva -- July 30
Happy birthday to you all! We’ll reblog this post on the day of your actual birthday to make sure you’re showered with lots of love ♡ ♡ ♡
(If you’re a member and want us to celebrate your birthday, click HERE! If you are adding your birthday for the current month, be sure to also MESSAGE the network to alert us,)
@agentlukaofshield replied to your post: Hey there! Grats on writing so much about our...
Oh this is lovely! I’m always here for these two healing together and Fitz being a sucker for head scratches lmao. These two smols have been through enough, they deserve time off to watch The Twilight Zone and have important conversations about their mental health!
I’ve always loved the hc of Fitz liking being petted, haha. he really is like a human puppy sometimes. (of course, he’d only ever let Jemma do this - no one else is allowed to know. ;-) )
thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! I just... have so many feelings about them always. <3
A (belated) Fitzsimmons Secret Santa gift for @agentlukaofshield whose prompt was ‘christmas fluff.’ I’m so sorry you had to wait this long (I know, I suck). I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all the best in the new year. ♥
Title from 'Sweet Creature’ by Harry Styles. [also on ao3]
In the pleasant quiet of the living room, Jemma takes a moment to admire her work.
She takes a step back and tilts her head, enchanted by the slow rotation of the golden ornaments dangling from the thick branches of the Christmas tree and the twinkling strings of lights strategically wound around them.
Logs steadily crackle in the fireplace off to her right, casting a faint golden glow over the otherwise dim room. Three red stockings line the mantle piece — one for Jemma herself, one for Fitz, and a collective one for all their loved ones back at the base. It’s not much, but it serves as a reminder, and she figures that’s something.
She takes a moment to savour the serenity of it all, knowing all too well that next Christmas is bound to be…different. She bites the inside of her cheek to suppress a smile at the thought.
Jemma moves towards the fire, reaching her hands out on instinct. She crouches down, letting the warmth of the flames brush against her skin. It slowly spreads through her body, curling her toes and pinking the apples of her cheeks.
It’s their first proper Christmas together, and Jemma — in typical Jemma fashion — wanted everything to be perfect. After all, the first experience leaves a lasting impression, and more than anything she wants their home to be filled with memories they can treasure in years to come.
It’s not a cottage, and it’s not exactly Perthshire, but it’s their own, and Jemma can’t even find it in her to be disappointed. A small semi-detached house in the suburbs of Glasgow, Jemma’s learned, can be every bit as homely as the cottage of her childhood dreams. And besides, it’s not the building that makes a home, but the people in it, and frankly, she couldn’t be happier.
Still. There are miles (3224.38 of them to be exact), several cities, three countries, and an ocean between them and their friends, and Jemma finds this new experience both exciting and unsettling. There’s still a tightness in her chest, a longing, an emptiness that can never quite be filled, no matter how long and frequent their phone calls are. It’s gotten slightly easier since Daisy’s assured her that she plans to bring everyone along to spend New Year’s with them, and Jemma’s been pretty much counting down the days ever since.
Jemma’s startled from her reverie by a groan, a quiet but unmistakable sound of frustration. She stands slowly, warm hands palming at her jeans to brush off the excess heat, and turns to meet the source of the noise.
She finds Fitz sitting cross-legged on the sofa, a large pile of presents lining the floor around him, waiting to be wrapped. There’s a roll of festive wrapping paper on the coffee table — a generic but jolly little Santa pattern she’d picked up from the store earlier that week — and a present lying in the middle of it. One of Daisy’s, Jemma assumes.
Her eyes catch on Fitz as he wrestles with the tape dispenser.
He’s got several strips of it stuck to his fingers — one or two even caught in the sleeve of his sweater — and desperation etched across his features. His brows pull down in a frown, and Jemma shakes her head sympathetically, a small gesture directed at herself more so than anything else, before crossing the room. She knows she really shouldn’t find his struggle this endearing, but she just can’t help it.
“You okay?” Jemma asks softly, easing herself down onto the sofa next to him. She watches him for a moment, the flames from the fire casting a warm glow over his face.
Fitz shakes his head.
“You’d think I’d be able to do this, but…” He trails off, throat tight. He glances at his trembling hand where it hovers over the wrapping paper, and his frown deepens.
“It’s alright.” Jemma murmurs, reaching out to briefly close her own hand over the valley of his knuckles.
And then she drops her hand, moving it so that she’s cupping the gift and lining it up with the paper. Carefully, she starts folding in the edges, securing them with small pieces of tape.
Jemma doesn’t miss the puzzled look Fitz shoots her as she sets the perfectly wrapped box aside. She pauses, then smiles. “We’re gonna fix this - together. Isn’t that what you always say?”
Jemma runs a hand through his hair, fingertips sweeping over the nape of his neck and sliding down to rest on his shoulder. She gives it a small squeeze, and Fitz hums. Leaning in briefly, she presses a quick kiss to his temple.
“Yeah.” He agrees. “Together is better.”
“You hold and label, I cut and tape.” Jemma grins, bumping his shoulder. “And then I’m gonna make us some hot chocolate. How does that sound?”
Fitz nods as Jemma sets to work on wrapping the remaining gifts. He finds himself in awe as he watches her work, nimble fingers folding the edges of the paper with practised ease. There’s a serenity about her, a smoothness to her careful and deliberate movements. There is no anger, or frustration, only patience.
A smile tugs at the corners of his lips, chest tight with something like overflowing devotion. And just like that, Fitz feels himself falling that little bit more in love with her.
They steadily work their way through the gifts, folding, taping and labelling until all of them are satisfactorily wrapped and given Jemma’s nod of approval.
Twenty minutes and two mugs of hot chocolate later, Fitz and Jemma deposit the presents beneath the tree and curl up on the sofa together, watching the soft flickering of the Christmas tree lights.
Jemma tucks her legs under herself, leaning her head against Fitz’s shoulder. The warmth radiating from the fireplace and the slow stroke of his fingers through her hair makes her eyelids flutter.
Her hand slides over Fitz’s thigh as she laces her fingers through his.
“I didn’t have time to wrap yours this year.” Jemma says.
Fitz frowns.
“Your present.” She amends. “I didn’t—I didn’t wrap it this year.”
“That’s okay.” He tells her, dipping his head to press a quick kiss against her lips. “I don’t mind.”
And then she’s smiling, lips curving upwards in a mischievous smirk, and Fitz can’t help but feel there’s a joke in there somewhere, one he’s very obviously missing out on.
Jemma bites her lip as she carefully guides their entwined hands to rest against her stomach.
Fitz’s breath catches as their eyes meet.
He’s looking at her like he’s seeing her for the first time. He swallows, eyes darting all over her face. His lips are parted, mouth agape, something like wonder etched across his features.
“You’re…?” He trails off, breathless.
Jemma nods.
“Yes, I am.” She confirms, and there’s a hint of a smile in her voice. Her hands slide up to frame his face, stubble burning her skin where she’s got her fingers splayed out against his cheek. Pulling him closer, she presses her forehead against his.
“Merry Christmas, Fitz.” She says.
He lets out a laugh, the warm, low sound vibrating through her ribcage. She slides her eyes shut and smiles.
Merry Christmas @agentlukaofshield from your Secret Santa 🎅 I hope I managed to sorta incorporate your prompt ‘Christmas Fluff’ into my gift for you and that you’re still feeling festive even though Christmas has come and gone. It’s been great speaking to you and I hope you have a fantabulous 2017 ❄️⛄️🎄
