Nothing will ever be as important to me as this moment is. Not only is it my favorite moment between my favorite brotp, but it says so much by saying so little. Because when Jemma dragged Fitz up from the bottom of the ocean, he changed. He became different. And although it wasn't her fault, and she was dealing with her own demons, Jemma left. And she left him behind with a damaged brain and a damaged heart. (He knows how it feels to be different, and he knows what it's like to be alone.) And not only was he different, but everyone else treated him different, too. He tried to hold on, hold on tight to who he once was but his hand shook and his words mixed and everyone looks at him kindly and pitifully and it frustrated him. Now Daisy's changed, now Daisy's different. She was scared of what she became, and she felt very alone. And Fitz couldn't hold on to who he was, but he could hold onto her. He held on to her right and tells her what he had to learn for himself-- that it's all okay. That she's different now, and there's nothing wrong with that When Daisy feels like she's drowning, Fitz holds her hand and helps her up towards the surface.
I don’t know what this is or where it came from but here’s some more friendship things for Brotp week.
Jemma has a very creepy plastic skull with a rubber model of all the muscles in the human face glued to the front for bonus creepy grossness.
She loves this skull perhaps more than anything else she owns.
Fitz hates this skull more than anything else she owns. It used to sit on a podium, lording over the biology lab at the Academy where someone a long time ago dubbed it Bartholomew and was, along with the nauseating smell of formaldehyde and the abundance of cut-open dead things, a major reason he refused to set foot into the building.
Until that day, right before they graduated, when he stole it for her.
In the stress of finals and writing her valedictorian speech and interviewing with the xenobiological research team at Sci-Ops, she had landed herself with walking pneumonia and on the morning of the Biochem department’s Graduate Hike, could barely get out of bed.
Fitz found her in a heap halfway down the dormitory hallway, clutching her toothbrush and sobbing, between violent bouts of coughing, about how she was never going to get to say goodbye. He put her back to bed and then broke into the biology department for the skull.
The skull comes with her everywhere.
It sits in pride of place above the tv in their Sci-Ops apartment. Until Fitz makes her keep it in her bedroom where it sits in pride-of-place on her nightstand.
There isn’t really space for it in her bunk on the Bus, so she stuffs it in a cabinet in the lab and everyone stumbles unwittingly across it at least once with varying, amusing reactions of horror.
It is one of the few things she brings to Hydra with her, because by then she can’t quite fathom living anywhere without it, and when her cover’s blown and she has to fight her way out of the organization, she’s sure it along with everything else in her apartment is lost to the flames her undercover mission went up in.
But a few days later, Coulson deposits it on her bed along with a few other personal effects (her Doctor Who box set and the teapot he bought for her after his first debriefing visit).
It’s over the skull that she and Hunter get into their first drinking competition. She drinks him under the table and wins a hideous glass eyeball he’d knocked out of some mob boss’s head once upon a time. He watches sulkily as she glues the eye into one of the skull’s empty sockets. Her smirk could not be smugger if it tried.
When she is swallowed by the space rock, when she’s been gone for months, when everyone but Fitz (and Bobbi) have come to their own silent, horrified acceptance that she is not coming home, Daisy breaks into her bunk. She cries herself to sleep in Jemma’s bed, curled around the skull as if it’s a teddy bear, and she takes it, along with one of Jemma’s sweaters, to hold onto when the ache of her loss feels like a black hole in Daisy’s chest.
She waits a little while after they have Jemma home to return the skull. Waits until she can really believe she’s back, risen from the dead and working her way toward okay again. Daisy walks into Jemma’s room cradling the skull as if it’s a baby in the crook of her elbow, apologizes for barely visiting, for believing she was dead, for mourning her. And Jemma tells her its okay, tells her she had mourned each of them, mourned herself and they sob into each others’ shoulders with the skull pressed between them.
Lincoln is infatuated by the thing. When he moves on base, she brings it into the lab and sets it up on a shelf between their work stations. Once, Jemma, Lincoln, and Bobbi spend five hours tossing the skull back and forth between them because once they’d done it twenty times without dropping it they could hardly stop.
May does not understand it at all. But when Jemma’s stuck in the medbay going crazy while her wounds from Giyera heal all too slowly, she brings the skull along with some of Jemma’s clothes and blankets and bites back a bemused smile as Jemma happily mounts the thing on top of her IV stand.
And when Jemma, Daisy, and Fitz move into the rent-controlled apartment with the breakfast nook, it goes up on the mantel above the fireplace. Fitz objects, but it’s two to one, although they do agree that he can turn it so the stupid eye isn’t bugging out at him wherever he sits. But honestly, by this point he’s seen far creepier things than a muscled skull and, well, it’s kind of a nice reminder of how things endure.
Besides, having it in the living room is far better than having it propped on the nightstand next to their bed, so he’ll take it.
Brotp prompt: AU where Daisy gets pregnant at the end of S3 and that's why she runs away. May, Bobbi, Elena and Jemma accidentally run into her 3 years later hand and hand with a toddler. (Bonus if the little girl's name is named after a team member)
AN ~ aw! I had a lot of nostalgic Static Quake & Bobbi feels writing this… written for AOS Brotp Week Day 2: Favourite Fanon Relationship, bc in fanon all these ladies can coexist bc #reasons
Read on AO3 (~1500wd)
Sounds like a Song
It’s not until after Lincoln is gone that she figures it out. At first she thinks the sickness and bloating and appetite changes must be grief, must be guilt, must be one of the thousands of micro-emotions that pass through her every day. But it’s not. It’s more than emotions it’s – well, something. A person. A tiny little person.
It’s too much, is what it is, and Daisy has to run.
Is she trying to keep the child safe? Escape pity? Avoid memories? Even she’s not sure. She’s not sure of anything these days. Even sitting in the waiting room of the health clinic she’s not sure what she wants to ask for. She ends up with pregnancy health, counseling services, and birthing class.
“Is there anyone with you?” they ask. She thinks of everyone underground, living and dead, all too far away for her to reach even if she wants to, and smiles sadly.
“No,” she says. “Just me.”
She takes the pamphlets and leaves.
But it was never just her. From that moment forward it is her and her child, and maybe it’s the tenuous nature of family in her life to date, or maybe it’s hormones, or maybe it’s both, but she walks out of the clinic like she’s never been more confident with a decision in her life. She is never going to let this child go, or let it get hurt, or let the cruel and nasty side of the world bare its teeth. Even if it is just the two of them, even if that’s the way it has to be, she’ll hold her head high. She’s ready.
Her confidence, of course, wavers erratically from that moment forward.
She bleeds one night and almost has a panic attack, and wishes for Coulson to tell her it’s all going to be okay, or Jemma to start spouting enthusiastic science babble to explain all the things it could be that are not a miscarriage. One of them would have been right, and in the end everything is fine, but still, she wishes she could have heard them say it.
Watching the blurry image on the ultrasound screen, and hearing her baby’s thrumming heartbeat, she remembers how she’d once brought Lincoln back to life. She feels the tears in her eyes and wonders if, somewhere, he can see this or feel it in the electricity that runs through the whole world. There’s still a piece of him here and she can’t believe it. She wonders what the baby will look like. The staff don’t ask about her tears.
Lying in the bed with her feet in the stirrups, she screams and screams to vent the pain, because otherwise she’s going to bring the whole place quaking down around them. She wishes May were here to hold her hand, or Fitz, to be dramatic and queasy and make her feel like more of a badass and less of a mess. When it’s over and her limbs feel like they’re about to detach from her aching torso, and she holds her daughter in her arms at last, she asks one of the nurses to take a photo. Who is she going to show it to? She doesn’t really know, but it feels right. It satisfies the purring dragon within her that says, look at this, it’s mine, I made it.
Over the years her daughter gets blonder and blonder, her hair rough and sun-bleached like her father’s. She’s an inventive kid with a rough-and-tumble streak, unfazed by the fact that Daisy can’t give her a luxurious life; she provides and tries to teach her right and so far, that’s been enough. She hasn’t displayed signs of a gift yet, of course, but Daisy keeps an eye out for signals of that infamous Inhuman emptiness. (Puberty, she jokes to no-one, is going to be a bitch).
They’re at the park when Daisy spots a familiar face, in the distance, at a magazine stand across the road. She think she must be seeing things, at first, but the wind carries the woman’s voice over to her and it fills her whole body with longing and nostalgia. It can’t be her. It can’t be.
She’s sure that’s what Jemma’s thinking too, when her eyes lock on Daisy’s and can’t help but widen in shock. Jemma abandons the magazine and waves off the vendor, making a bee-line for Daisy so intent that she almost forgets to check for cars before she crosses the road. She walks straight up to Daisy and embraces her firmly, as if making up for three years worth of casual hugs. When she finally lets go, there are tears in both their eyes – and a curious little girl at their feet.
The girl tugs at the hem of Daisy’s shirt until she looks away from Jemma.
“Mummy, who’s that?” the girl asks, and from Jemma’s expression, she’s about to ask the same thing.
“This is Aunty Jemma,” Daisy explains. “She’s an old friend of mine.”
Jemma smiles. Three years feels like a lifetime.
“There’s a whole lot more old friends waiting to see you,” she offers. “We’re on a stakeout but it can wait.”
“Are you sure?” Daisy can’t stop the hope in her voice, springing forth like water from a well after all these years.
“Of course!” Jemma assures her. “But not here.”
She beckons for Daisy to follow her, and Daisy hoists her daughter onto her hip and obeys, curious and excited and her heart swollen with love and excitement. Who’s available? What’s happened for all of them in the time that’s passed? What’s it going to be like, to see them again?
“All units to my location,” Jemma says, into a tiny microphone. “Non-combat situation. Prepare for some…emotions.”
She drags Daisy to a coffee shop across the road, where Daisy’s eyes instantly narrow in on May, reading a book in the corner booth. She has a cappuccino in front of her, but it sits untouched, and Daisy manages to sneak up on her almost close enough to grab it.
“Mind if I have some?” she asks, and May looks up. She doesn’t flinch, barely blinks – and Daisy expects nothing less – but she gestures for Jemma and Daisy to take a seat, and the coffee, and her eyes fall to the face of the little girl in her arms.
“Is that my grandma?” the girl asks. “She looks like you.”
Daisy shares a significant gaze with May. It’s obvious the child is Lincoln’s, and the realisation settles over May’s heart with bittersweet wings, but she smiles and offers her hand out to the child.
“You can call me Grandma if you like,” she offers. “My name is May.”
The café doorbell tinkles, announcing new arrivals, and Daisy twists to see them. Her face lights up when she sees Elena, and she almost blurts out you stayed? Except her tongue isn’t working, because of the face she sees next. Her heart almost stops working. She presses a hand to her chest, hardly able to believe what she’s seeing, except the firm sensation tells her this is real.
“Holy shit,” she murmurs.
“Holy shit yourself,” Bobbi returns, and then, seeing Daisy’s daughter, covers her mouth. “Sorry!”
Daisy snaps out of her shock.
“Oh! Sorry sweetie.”
The girl frowns up at Bobbi, confused.
“Is she my Aunty too?”
“Yes she most certainly is,” Daisy agrees, “and guess what? Her name is Bobbi too.”
Bobbi slips into the seat next to May, gaping in wordless shock.
“You named your kid after me?”
“I didn’t think I was going to see you again! And technically, she’s named after you and Trip. Barbara Ann.”
Elena snorts. “Hunter’s going to love that.”
“Hunter’s back? Is Mack still there? I mean, all of you are – and are you and Mack still a thing? And Fitz, what’s he- ?” Daisy twists in her seat, trying to see them all at once and take in all their news. Jemma flashes a sparkling ring at her and Daisy squeals with delight and gives her the best hug she can manage with a toddler jammed between them.
“Ah. A-Ah.” Daisy stares at the table, gathering herself for a moment before she looks around at all their faces again. “This is amazing, you guys. I love you all so much. I really, really miss you.”
“Come back with us!” Elena insists. “Mack is dying to see you. I’m sure the others are too. And there are more Inhumans there too, they’d love to meet you?”
“I’m tempted, really, but I can’t…”
“Just for the day?” Jemma pleads. “Just to see everyone?”
“Everyone?” Little Bobbi interrupts, her eyes wide. “There are more Aunties?”
“Uncles, too,” May explains. “And Grandpa Phil. I bet he’d absolutely love to see you.”
“I have a grandpa?” Little Bobbi gasps.
“Yes! Your mother’s family is quite large.” May meets Daisy’s eyes when she says it, and Daisy blushes.
“Alright. We’ll come visit. But we’re not sleeping on base. And I’m not touching a gun. And nobody’s allowed to swear. Alright. Maybe a little swearing but no guns. And no getting excited about killer virus or robots. And-“
Jemma passes Daisy her phone.
“Just write us a complete list and I’ll mail it out.”
AoS Brotp/3 Appreciation Week - Day 1: Canon Brotp/3
AKA: Hey look, I wrote something short!
Written for AoS Brotp/3 Appreciation Week. Thanks @agentcalliope for the quick beta.
I had to go Bus kids. HAD TO!
[Read on AO3]
Origin Story
(S1, some time prior to T.R.A.C.K.S.)
They’re hunkered down in Simmons’ bunk, sitting side by side on her bed with some bottles of beer and a bag of chips after yet another mission that almost went south but didn’t.
“You know, I think the three of us should get a name,” Skye says, taking a sip of her beer.
“A name?” Simmons asks slightly confused, turning her head towards Skye.
“Got a perfectly fine name already,” Fitz mumbles, his head buried in the bag of chips.
“No, I mean like a team name. Like The Three Musketeers,” Skye explains.
She’s met by confused looks from the two scientists.
“Or the three Stooges?” she offers as an alternative.
Still nothing but silence and wrinkled foreheads from the other end of the bed.
“Oh!” Skye exclaims. “Three’s Company!”
“Hell no!” Fitz exclaims, while Jemma adds, “Good Lord!”
“Oh, come on, guys,” Skye tries to argue. “We’re a team. A small team within a bigger team. The others don’t take us seriously.”
She pauses and shifts sideways, allowing her to look at Fitzsimmons more directly. “I mean, May treats us like we’re still in diapers or something. Like we’re nothing but kids who’ve invaded her precious plane. But we’re… we’re fucking awesome!” she exclaims and is met by shy smiles from her two friends.
“And I think we should get a name!” Skye repeats. Her lips mouth an excited “OH!” and she clenches her fists excitedly when another idea pops into her head. “Coulson’s Angels!” she calls out.
Fitz almost chokes on his beer, and Simmons puts her hand on his back, patting it gently to help him get his coughing under control.
“No,” Fitz mutters between coughs, pointing his beer bottle at Skye. “No no no!”
Skye looks at Simmons, hoping for support from her.
Simmons’ lips twitch nervously. “Do you really think calling us Coulson’s Angels will make May reconsider her assessment of us, however inaccurate it may be?” she asks, shaking her head slightly.
“We’re Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Fitz adds. “There’s your bloody team name right there.”
“Yeah, except that I’m not an agent,” Skye replies slumping her shoulders.
She doesn’t notice the shy looks Fitzsimmons exchange.
“Well, maybe,” Jemma begins, and Skye looks up, unable to stop the corners of her mouth from quirking up. “Maybe May isn’t so wrong.”
“Ugh,” Skye scoffs.
“Well,” the biochemist continues, “we are far younger than the others. We are the kids on this bus, but I don’t consider that an insult, because—”
“The future belongs to the children!” Fitz exclaims, raising his fist triumphantly.
“Ugh, Fitz,” Jemma scoffs, rolling her eyes.
“Simmons’s right though,” Fitz continues unfazed. “You want a name, stick to the truth.”
“Bus kids?” Skye mumbles, scrunching her face questioningly.
“I’d proudly wear that title!” Simmons remarks.
“Same here!” Fitz adds.
Skye lets a short puff of air escape her nostrils, barely recognizable as a chuckle.
“Well then,” she says, one corner of her mouth quirking up. “Bus kids it is!” she exclaims, raising her bottle for a toast that Fitzsimmons gladly accept.
“Should we make a logo or something?” Skye asks, taking a sip of her beer. “Secret knock? Hold meetings?”
“Don’t give Simmons any ideas, or she’ll formulate three-hundred-page bylaws by Monday that we have to follow down to a T,” Fitz interjects.
“Oh shush, Fitz!” Simmons replies, and slaps his chest in protest. “My bylaws would simply state that the Bus kids are to meet on a regular basis at a location of their choosing,” she tells him, wrinkling her forehead sternly. “Preferably providing beverages and snacks,” she adds.
Then she sits up straight, an excited smile adorning her lips. “Oh!” she exclaims. “We could start a little fund to purchase said snacks and beverages. Sort of like a membership fee. And there should probably be an oath of secrecy. We should also discuss the possibility of adding members in case our team expands at any point. And it may also be necessary to—”
“See what you did there, Skye?” Fitz interrupts her, gesturing at his rambling science partner, who falls silent, grinning sheepishly.
“Thanks guys,” Skye says quietly, smiling shyly.
“Well, that’s what friends are for, aren’t they?” Simmons remarks, shrugging her shoulders.
“To the Bus kids!” Fitz exclaims, raising his bottle of beer.
“To the Bus kids!” Skye and Simmons chime in.
Thanks for reading. If you have prompt ideas for the other days of Brotp Week, send me an ask. [Can’t promise that I’ll have something for each day though ;) ]
Summary: The evolution of a friendship, from a beat-up couch in the Playground to a 7-Eleven in Singapore (or: Nostomania - intense homesickness; an irresistible compulsion to return home).
[excerpt]
Bobbi sneaks the occasion chip from him as she tells him stories.There’s that time she and Hunter hitch-hiked across The Great Plains to shake atail and ended up in Mexico with no passports, that time they accidentallyjoined a cult in exchange for protection, and that time Hunter got into a barfight with an Irish gang so she had to drag him away kicking and screaming.“Jemma would have loved to see that,” she remarks before snatching the lastchip with a grin, and it swells and swells until it fills up the empty airport.
He wants to tell her stories too, Stories-with-a-capital-S,the kinds that don’t include ancient monsters or dead friends or killer robots,but he can’t, so he holds his tongue.
[read more on ao3 or below the cut]
i.
The stranger is on the couch again, her feet propped on thecoffee table. She’s leafing through a trashy magazine, and only notices him whenhe trips over his own feet trying to leave the room. His tea sloshes,uncomfortably hot on his wrinkled shirt. He reaches his bad hand up to smoothit out.
“Can’t get away from me fast enough, huh?”
There’s mirth in her voice, but also a bit of hurt. His earsburn. He motions to the Xbox, bounces on his heels as if to shake loose the nervousness.“I – uh – I was gonna play, but thought it might – uh – disturb you.”
She tosses the magazine aside and looks at him, a softening,unfurling sort of curiosity. “You’ll have to be Player Two,” she says, resolute.Turns on the console, hands him the spare controller. And that’s that.
ii.
The stranger doesn’t come into his life by sneaking up onhim. Rather, she barrels into him, and it’s a blinding flash of sunlight hairand sunlight smile, her presence suffusing like crisp summer. Two in themorning and she drags him, half asleep on a workbench, out of the garage andinto bed. Three in the afternoon and they are on the floor in the common area,hunched over a game of Operation, his left hand tracing the motions until thebuzzer no longer buzzes. The stranger becomes Agent Morse becomes Bobbi, whichbecomes Barbara when he’s in a particularly playful mood. He’s still Fitz toher though, the syllable somehow familiar and easy on the tip of her tongue.
One evening she pokes him with the corner of a folder. “Sayshere you never passed your field assessment. Something about abysmalhand-to-hand combat.”
That is how he finds himself being thrown repeatedly ontothe padded floor.
“Again,” he demands, but the effect is somewhat lacklusterwith his face squished between her forearm and the sweaty training mat.
She backs off, extends a hand toward him. He takes it andclambers to his feet. He holds her gaze. “You were holding back on me. Don’t.”
So she doesn’t. It wouldn’t be the only time she hurts him.
Then comes the real S.H.I.E.L.D. Then comes strange facescrawling all over the base, some new, some old, but they might as well be new.She’s standing in front of him and he can’t see past the betrayal that cloudsthe space between them. A childhood wound begins to ache, somewhere deep in hismarrow. This time, at least, he gets to be the one who walks away.
“We’re not the only ones after Coulson’s toolbox.” She patshis shoulder. “Be careful out there, Fitz.”
For a brief second he melts into her touch, seeking thereprieve from reality it offers. In the end, though, he shrugs her hand off.“Goodbye, Agent Morse.”
iii.
The next time he’s alone with her, she’s in a hospital bed,tangled in a million tubes, bruises red and raging on her skin. His anger suddenlydissipated, he sinks into the seat next to her. They exchange a smile that istwo parts water.
“I lost half a lung,” she begins, already out of breath. “Ilaid there in my own blood, wheezing, and I thought of you.”
The fluorescent light hums quietly. He brushes a thumb acrossthe back of her hand. “We’ll all learn to breathe again eventually.”
“You did. But what if I won’t?”
“Hey,” he says, and thinks of something golden, something light,“I had a little help, didn’t I?”
iv.
She’s on crutches and he’s on his last legs chasing anotherdead end. He catches a red-eye back from Yucatan, arriving at the base justbefore dawn. In the gym, she is doing simple stretches before her morning PTsession. He knows to go to her before she even asks.
His duffle bag hits the floor with a dull thud, and then he’scrying, gracelessly, the kind of crying that’s more half-choked sobs thantears. Every fiber of his being needs Jemma back, but every fiber of his beingis tired and lost and he just wantsto stop existing awhile. The process of getting through time is agony.
Rubber-clad metal thumps against the floor. Bobbi limpstoward him and leans on her crutches, shifting her weight away from her bad leg.She doesn’t say anything; she just stands there beside him while he clutcheshis heart and bones and other things that break.
Minutes – or maybe hours – pass before he looks up to meether eyes.
“I asked Coulson for a transfer,” she tells him. “Startingnext week, I’ll be working in the lab.”
And it sounds so much like moving on that for a moment heselfishly resents her for it. But then she bends down to adjust her knee bracewith a grunt, her crutches awkwardly in the way, and it occurs to him thatthey’re both stuck in the same hole, trying to claw their way out to find theirpurpose again.
It’s easier when they do it together.
He wipes away the last of his tears. “We have some timebefore your PT. Want to go to the lab and help me set up your new work station?”
He hears the clank of metallic crutches as they fall, andbefore he knows it her arms are around him, a hand stroking his back in slow,circular motions. She feels like the view outside his childhood window, hethinks idly, steadying her so that they lean onto each other.
“We’ll find her, okay?” she murmurs against his hair, voice asubdued kind of glow. “We’ll find her.”
v.
February is meant for restless sleepers. Especially thosecloudy evenings, when night falls in dim and icy veils, the sky awash with arolling, tainted black.
He wakes covered in cold sweats. The bedside alarm reads3:58 AM. His nightmares are always blue lately, but the tail end is a fieryred, punctuated by the sizzling sound of a burning corpse. It’s been burningfor months.
The couch in the common area is not empty. He flops downnext to its sole occupant, grateful for her presence but a bit sad too. No onedeserves to be awake alone in the long hours before dawn breaks.
Bobbi pushes a half-finished mug in front of him. “Here,drink this,” she offers. Black tea with too much milk and too much sugar. Justthe way he likes it. He wonders if she made it for him, if she’s been waitingfor him this whole time.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she laughs, a response to hisquizzical expression. “My knee and the cold don’t get along. I couldn’t sleep.Figured you couldn’t too.”
“How long have you been up?”
She simply shrugs. He nods, a mutual understanding for theintricacy of silences, and hands her back the tea. They pass it back and forthuntil there’s barely anything left, the residue leaving a lonely smudge at thebottom. Then he turns on the Xbox and they content themselves with somemindless FIFA matches.
(All the first-person shooter games have been thrown away.No one ever questions why.)
When they head back to the living quarters, the sun is juststarting to rise. Sleepy light drifts in through the window as they walk pass,slanting on her face in bars of gold. There’s this unbidden fondness for herthat overwhelms him, and he bumps her shoulder to whisper a soft thank you. Sheanswers by nodding toward the sunrise. A clean slate. February is meant forrestless sleepers who are trying to forgive themselves.
“Good morning, Fitz,” she says.
Neither of them knows that it’s the last private moment theyhave together.
vi.
After Russia, he stops doing shots. It’s not a consciouschoice, not really. In Bucharest, he gets a tequila shot and just picks at thelime for a while, the dull ache like a phantom limb that he knows is there butcan’t quite touch. Then he gives up and orders one of those garish florescentcocktails instead.
In the afterglow of it all, tangled between the sheets, helistens as Jemma tells him about an undead monster who looks like Grant Ward whoacts like Will. “It’s awful, Fitz,” she concludes in a hushed tone, hershuddering breath ghosting his skin. “I’m just glad at least Bobbi and Hunterare not caught up in this mess.”
He hums in agreement.
“Do you think they’re doing okay?” she asks, the sheetsslipping off her shoulders as she sits up to meet his gaze. She’s holding her immenseheart in her hands like a little bird, and god,maybe the universe is forever expanding and maybe we’re all dying as we live,but she’s the only one who makes it less devastating.
Overwhelmed, he surges up to kiss her. They’re both smiling,he can feel it against his lips, contentment unfurling in a haze. When theypull apart, he answers in earnest, “I don’t know, Jemma, but I hope they’rehappy too.”
vii.
Eventually, they all carry on living. He does shots againand they re-stock the fridge with Bendeery. It’s not a form of forgetting; theyjust learn to re-shape their lives around the dull ache, which is only noticeablewhen they choose to remember.
This evening, however, he’s acutely aware of the ache in theempty.
After Radcliffe, he and Jemma decide to leave for a while.Just make a run for it, like if they’re fast enough maybe they can leave thehurt behind. In the blur of it all, the headwind stinging their eyes, they findthemselves with an overnight layover in Changi. Except for a bored cashier in a7-Eleven down the walkway, they’re alone in the terminal.
Jemma’s dozing off, a backpack wedged between her head andthe floor, but he can’t sleep, so he decides to wander for a while. It’sstrange, this dreamlike atmosphere of an airport after midnight. He feelssuspended between places, out of sorts. Usually he appreciates the chance toslip into a state of not-being, clear his mind and all that, but now the liminalityjust makes him sad. He likes belonging. He likes it when their team felt likehome.
He goes to 7-Eleven for a bag of chips. Outside, night fallsmore heavily on the tarmac, a vague yet persistent melancholy. He takes his timein the aisles just to keep the cashier company. That way, the loneliness iseasier to bear. They don’t make small talk over the counter, choosing to sharea smile instead, but when he reaches for his wallet, he hears a voice behindhim.
“On me,” it says, languid and syrupy and gold. “I still owe you a shot.”
viii.
It’s Bobbi, of course. He shouldn’t be that surprised. Here,in a country not even visible on the maps, where sharp skyscrapers are builtupon mottled history, people are bound to run into the ones they lost.
They sit by a giant glass panel that overlooks a vacanttaxiway. It has begun to drizzle, and raindrops trap the terminal light withinas they trickle down the glass like liquid diamonds.
Bobbi sneaks the occasion chip from him as she tells him stories.There’s that time she and Hunter hitch-hiked across The Great Plains to shake atail and ended up in Mexico with no passports, that time they accidentallyjoined a cult in exchange for protection, and that time Hunter got into a barfight with an Irish gang so she had to drag him away kicking and screaming.“Jemma would have loved to see that,” she remarks before snatching the lastchip with a grin, and it swells and swells until it fills up the empty airport.
He wants to tell her stories too, Stories-with-a-capital-S,the kinds that don’t include ancient monsters or dead friends or killer robots,but he can’t, so he holds his tongue.
They watch the rain in silence. He glances at her from timeto time, and is struck by how far away she looks against the backdrop of sultrytropical rain, spilling over the foreign skyline that’s stirring at thetail-end of its dream.
After a while, she nudges him gently. “Hey,” she says. “Whatare you thinking?”
You, actually, hethinks. You hogging the Xbox. You makingdreadful tea. You steadying me when my hands are not steady. You dying on ahospital bed and you hobbling around the lab learning to walk again, battle-scarredand heavy, heavy hearted. You believing in me believing in you. When I think ofyou I think of broken and persistent light, and it makes me want to scream tosilence the absence of you between my ribs. It’s not the same without you. Thisteam doesn’t feel like home because the roof caved in after you left. Lay downyour load, take your heart home. Goddamn it, just take it home.
He inhales sharply. “Nothing.” He shrugs. “I was just wonderingif you are happy.”
Past the jut of her shoulder, he catches a glimpse of a few bleary-eyedpassengers shuffling into the terminal to catch an early flight. Down the walkwaytwo duty-free clerks fumble with their keys to unlock the store. Just likethat, the liminal inertia is gone, and slowly but surely everything movesforward again.
“Yeah,” she answers after a beat. “In a way, yeah, I am.”
summary: fitz's peaceful morning gets interrupted by shenanigans. because why would a morning on base ever be quiet?
tumblr prompt: bus kids + “she’s hiding behind the sofa”
a/n: stop the presses i wrote something under 2k hotdamn. idk how the heck this got so damn silly honestly.
It was uncommon that there was ever a slow day at SHIELD, so on the rare occasion that they did come along, they were to be considered the highest of blessings.
That day was one of those blissfully quiet moments for Fitz. The only thing on his schedule that day was a morning meeting with Coulson (and Mace) about building a second Zephyr, which had gone easy enough. After that, he'd been just free to go down to the lab and work on whatever project he wanted to.
The rest of the team, even Jemma, were on various recon missions, so the base was calm. Peaceful really.
Or at least it was until Daisy ran into the kitchen area like a bat out of hell, nearly barreling him over in her hurry.
The scalding tea in his hand sloshed over the sides of his cup, making him wince at the burning sensation. “Daisy! Bloody hell! What’s your rush?!”
Daisy took a large breath, attempting to steady her breathing, her eyes wide. “Jemma’s trying to stab me with a giant needle!”
Fitz snorted. Of course the thing to send Daisy off running through base would be Jemma wielding a needle. Never mind that it wasn’t even the most dangerous thing Daisy had faced off with in the past week. “Well, she can be rather scary when she gets into medical doctor mode… Why does she want to poke you this time?”
spoilers for 4.15 *** For the first time she's glad Jemma isn't with her, because this is the first time she's seen Fitz in this world, and the last time she's seen Fitz he was lying in a pool of his own blood. Or, at least, she thought it was him. She saw his lifeless body and the air rushed out of her lungs and she couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't think anymore. She wonders if that was what it must be like to drown. Seeing him now, the real Fitz but still somehow not real Fitz, walking right towards her is enough to her eyes water, and cover her mouth with her hand. And as he brushes past her, their shoulders touching for that fleeting moment, a lump in her throats appears and she dares to look at him. He doesn't look at her. Fitz continues walking, and Daisy stops, staring forward while he moves away behind her. Because this is what she always wanted. Because she loved Fitz and Jemma and Coulson and everyone so much that she wished she was a ghost, and tried to be. She ran, and ran, and ran, and hoped that one day she would outrun the ghosts and the memories chasing her. That her love for them would justify the day she could pass by them, and they would think nothing. Now Fitz doesn't know her. The same small boy who became a man who first told her that she was different but it was okay, who gave so much more than he received-- walked right pass her and said nothing. Thought nothing. She, is nothing. (the unseen scars on her body and in her mind burn and she feels like she's on fire. and she still somehow wonders if this is what it's like to drown.) Suddenly there's a hand on her arm and she tenses, swiveling her head and meeting blue, familiar eyes. "Do I know you?" His voice rises above the crowd around them, and she blinks rapidly, trying to find what words she could possibly say. "Maybe." "Maybe?" He narrows his eyes and tilts his head, his hand still on her arm and she doesn't know how she feels yet about this Fitz but she's willing to give him a try. "My name's Daisy. Daisy Johnson." He bites his lip and shakes his head, and Daisy feels the panic rise in her throat. "What about Skye? Does that name sound familiar?" His hand lets go of her arm, and she has to force herself to look at the ground. "I was so sure-- sorry. Have a nice day." He's let go of her but she can't let go of him. This time she grabs his arm and musters the courage to speak. "Don't go, please. You do know me," Daisy pleads, her eyes wide. "But we can't talk here, where anyone can listen to us. You know the cemetery, yeah? In a half hour can you meet me at Jemma Anne Simmons' grave? I'll explain everything, promise." He laughs. He laughs and shakes his head and rips his arm away from her grasp. "You think i'm going to go to a cemetery with you? A stranger?" Fitz puffs his jacket and scoffs. "Bye, Daisy, or whoever the bloody hell you are. You need help." As he turns the other way, Daisy shuts her eyes and tries to breathe. She can hear his footsteps as he walks away, mingling in with the hundreds of other people rushing around her and she doesn't dare look up until she knows he's merged with the crowd and disappeared. She's the one who tried to become a ghost, but she became haunted, instead. (She knows that this is like how it feels to drown.)
