AN ~ for @unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot who requested aromantic (but allosexual) Simmons. I bring you a canon compat future fic (set in Seychelles because reasons), FS est. relationship, in which Simmons explores aromanticism and its implications for herself, her feelings, and her relationship with Fitz. While researching & writing this I have discovered that I’m pretty sure I’m alloromantic af but hopefully I’ve done aromanticism, aro!Jemma & the aro community justice.
Read on AO3. ~3000wd (oops I got really into it)
-
Love is Not an Eight Letter Word
Jemma hugged her knees to her chest and looked out at the ocean. She breathed in the warm night air and felt it relax her. For miles and miles, there was no one who knew them, and no trouble with which they need concern themselves. Nevertheless, there was a knot in her stomach. It wasn’t about Daisy, or Lincoln: for the sake of her own sanity, she’d come to terms with all that before they’d left. Still, it was something, nagging at her, keeping her up while Fitz slept soundly at her side.
She looked down at his face. His curls were starting to grow back, making him look oddly soft and young despite his stubble. His face was sloppy, mashed into the pillow where he’d rolled onto his side, and Jemma couldn’t help but smile. He’d be embarrassed to consciously share something like this with her, but here he seemed nothing but relaxed; completely unaware of her staring. Of course, she told herself, that was because he was asleep - but even asleep, he would have stirred instinctively if he felt she was a threat.
Thinking of that complete, unquestioning trust, Jemma felt the knot in her stomach grow stronger and more solid. She pressed a hand against it, though she knew it would do little to help relieve the tension. Perhaps she really was physically ill somehow, and she’d become so used to attributing physical discomfort to emotional problems that she was misdiagnosing herself. Then again, how would salmonella know to get worse every time she looked at Fitz?
With a sigh, Jemma slipped out of bed. She pulled on a loose nightgown and left a note on her pillow to assure Fitz of her safety should he wake, and then she walked out onto the beach. She was still so surprised by how clear the water was. It seemed even more so in the dark, when the beach was empty, although she couldn’t see any fish around. Humanity’s limited eyesight was something they had, unfortunately, not managed to overcome yet – although, they had invented telescopes and microscopes and snorkelling gear, to help get up close to some of those things they could not otherwise see.
Snorkelling.
Suddenly, it hit her, the source of the knot.
You think I’m not romantic?
It had been floating around the back of her mind since she had uttered the words. She must have been chewing on it without noticing, because as she delved back into the memory an expansive network of thoughts and concerns flowed out of it.
What if I’m not romantic?
What if I’m not in love?
What if I don’t love him?
What if I can’t feel love at all?
Will came up then, too, like a slap in the face – Will and: Do you love him? I don’t know. Jemma realised, she didn’t know what love felt like. Unlike Fitz, apparently, she had never been able to just know she was in love. Was she overanalysing? Or was she not feeling the same thing he was?
Of course, that didn’t mean anything, necessarily. People experienced and expressed plenty of other emotions – anger, sadness, joy – in a variety of ways, so it was only natural that the experience of love be different too. Still, this felt like a swing too far in one direction. Like she was fundamentally failing to notice something…or perhaps, failing to experience it altogether.
It could just be her hesitation, refusing to let her pinpoint something so intangible, but Fitz and Lincoln, at least, seemed to have a very clear, fairly uniform idea of what love was. May and Andrew, too, had obviously been in love, at least at one point. She could see their heartstrings being pulled with every word and every action. Did she herself look that…desperate? Perhaps she was just not noticing, unable as she was to see her own expressions. But then, why did she continuously fail to understand how Fitz could look at her with such consuming adoration? It was not self-consciousness – she had never been shy of being appreciated, even if she did not overly enjoy being doted upon. No, it was a failure to understand his part of things. What drove him to look like that, like the whole world revolved around her?
Was she just scared of allowing herself to submit to the feelings? Was she afraid that if she admitted to love, she would be expected to move the centre of her world too? No, no, she wanted to be in love with him. World-shifting or no. She’d fight the cosmos for it. Not just for his life – although of course, that too – but she’d taken his hand for a reason. She’d decided, she was all in, and nothing was going to change that.
Except…if she wasn’t in love with him…no matter how much she wanted to be…maybe she should change that. Surely it wasn’t fair to stay in a relationship with him if she didn’t love him back. Fitz deserved that; to have somebody love him as deeply as he loved them. Of course he did.
But.
Jemma loved him deeply too, she was sure. Not in the same way, perhaps, but just as deeply. She was just as determined, just as satisfied, just as committed as he was. It was an insult to her, to them, to everything they’d been through together to say otherwise.
So why was she so torn up over calling it love?
Chewing her bottom lip, Jemma dropped down into the sand. She picked up a nearby shell and tossed it into the ocean, and imagined watching it sink as she cleared her mind.
She did love him. Whatever else, she was sure of that. But if the notion of romantic love – that was the part she was torn about after all - was causing her this much distress, then she needed closure on that. Maybe it was indeed just fear or the ever-elusive desire for some kind of “evidence” of her feelings, but maybe it was something else, and maybe – probably – someone else, somewhere in the world had pondered this very question before her. Whatever the answer, it was time for research.
-
Researching the nature of love was frustrating. Usually, researching such a thing as a philosophical abstract, she would have found it fascinating, but as it was – seeking the answer to seemingly impossible questions, with an increasing ense of urgency – she was torn between throwing the computer out the window, and holding on if only to scrape together what tidbits existed that made sense to her.
“Aromantic.” She whispered it to herself, committing it to memory. It was described as a romantic orientation – like a sexual orientation – or in this case, a lack thereof. Good to know, then, that if indeed she did fall into this category, she was not alone, and she had something to point to that could prove it. It was also quite distinct from a sexual orientation: many of the authors and bloggers she could find writing on the topic were very clear to specify that someone could be allosexual – that is, not asexual – and could still be aromantic. (Many of them also, to her pleasure, pointed out that aromantic allosexual relations were not necessarily flings or at all cheapened by the lack of romance. Romance did not equal commitment, or meaning, or love.)
“Alloromantic.” Another good word. It helped her separate in her head, romantic attraction, from the concept of romanticism. She could believe in hope and love and art and the universe – she could be “romantic” - without being alloromantic, necessarily.
After that, it all got much harder. The distinction between a- and alloromanticism was almost entirely personal, as it depended upon one’s own definition of romantic attraction. Simmons screwed up her nose. Vague definitions were just what she did not need, in the middle of the night, and on the verge of what she was beginning to feel was possibly a revolutionary discovery about herself.
There were plenty of ways of describing what romantic attraction was not: for example, a disdain for grand gestures, or socially coded ones, was emphatically pointed out as not inherently aromantic. In a way, that was reassuring, because it meant she could still be in love even if she rolled her eyes every time Fitz offered to pull out a chair for her. (Maybe not every time.) But it was disconcerting too, because it was far more difficult to determine what romantic attraction was. The desire to share one’s life was a prominent criterion, and she certainly felt that for Fitz – but was that innate, or was it because she had decided to do so, as part of entering into a relationship with him? Another popular notion was a “special feeling” that nobody seemed to manage to define besides a “floaty” sensation, or nerves upon meeting the object of attraction.
At first, the vagueness made Jemma grind her teeth together, but as she read on about aromantic people’s experiences, listening to alloromantic people talk about love and not being able to relate, it began to feel less like vagueness and more like alienation. Not in a bad way, just…distance. It was like hearing people talk about religion, and appreciating but never quite fully grasping the extent of their reverence for God. Jemma was not a religious person, and it had never bothered her – but then again, her relationship with another person had never been dependant upon which deity she did or did not believe in.
In the end, that was her main hesitation. She had never been a particularly introspective person – she found it much easier and more worthwhile to focus on the world around her – but she knew herself well enough to know that the “aromantic” label was feeling increasingly suitable. Her main, if not her only, obstacle to accepting it fully was the terror, slowly building, that she would have to let Fitz go if it were true. He was possibly – no, easily – the most romantic person she had ever met. Could he ever be truly happy, truly fulfilled, with an aromantic partner?
Fortunately, this seemed to be a question many aromantics had attempted to answer – and to her unending relief, the answers were overwhelmingly positive.
“A surprising number of aromantics, asexual and allosexual, actually want a primary partner or multiple significant relationships that go beyond contemporary standards of “friendship…” (x)
“When thinking about the sort of person you’d want to date…” (x)
“Queerplatonic is a word for describing relationships where an intense emotional connection transcending what people usually think of as ‘friendship’ is present.... People in a queerplatonic relationship may think of themselves as partners, may plan on spending their lives together, etc...” (x)
“Aromanticism looks different for different people and that’s okay.”
Jemma sighed and sat back, reading the last one again. The anxiety she’d been feeling all night slowly relaxed its grip on her, and she started to feel her eyes burn with the hours she had been awake – and staring at a bright white computer screen in the middle of the night? What had she been thinking? But she smiled, satisfied, as she folded the laptop down and set it aside. She curled up over Fitz, and let the sound of his heart and the rhythm of his breathing lull her what little way she had left to sleep.
-
The sun was streaming through the windows by the time Fitz opened his eyes, yet he found himself strangely obstructed by the weight of his girlfriend - his girlfriend - lying across his chest. He frowned down at her, concerned: Jemma rarely, if ever, slept in this late. Then again, he supposed, she had a few years of anguish to sleep off by now.
Still, that didn’t make him need to go to the bathroom any less. Or get a drink. Or move any of his limbs, which had been in the same position for a good ten hours now, if not longer, since he’d all but crashed the night before. So he tugged on the blankets just enough to expose her hands and feet to the air, and even though it was not a particularly cold morning, she reacted with the predictability, if not the speed, of a Venus Fly Trap. Without waking – with barely a sound - she rolled toward the edge of the bed, away from him, to cover the exposed areas, and took the blankets with her.
Fitz grinned, and decided that he would have to remember that trick, as he slid out of bed and went about his morning routine. He had just returned to the kitchen and was setting the kettle to boil when he noticed the glow of the laptop from Jemma’s bedside table. Classic Jemma. Doing research into the night. He should have known. Curiosity piqued, he snuck over to the laptop, and carried it back to the kitchen bench with him, wondering what he might find. “Venomous species of East Africa” seemed like something she would look up to relax. “Lingerie deliveries to the Seychelles,” perhaps? He also wouldn’t put that past her. He hoped she wasn’t looking up how to splice breed roses. That was his thing. (Well, it was biology, so technically it was her thing, but that’s why he hoped she’d be extra surprised).
When he finally opened the laptop lid, his jaw dropped. The kettle whistled loudly and Jemma stirred and all of a sudden Fitz was frozen by the feeling that he had just seen something he most definitely should not have.
“Fitz?” Jemma wondered. “What are you doing?”
Search: can aromantic people have romantic relationships?
“I – uhm…nothing.”
Search: can aromantic people have fulfilling relationships?
“I was just looking up…the weather.”
Search: can aromantic people feel love?
“Um. Jemma? What is this?”
Abandoning his futile attempt at a cover, Fitz turned the computer so the screen faced the bed. She wouldn’t be able to read it from so far away, but she must know what was on it.
“You know,” Fitz continued. “When I said that, about you not being romantic, I meant…y’know, roses. Grand gestures. I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t feel love.”
“You didn’t. You didn’t imply that. Apparently, I was just a little vague in my Google searches.” Frowning, Jemma hopped out of bed and came over to explain, pulling up the other windows he had minimised, to show him as she spoke. “See, there’s this concept called ‘aromanticism’, and basically, it means that some people…don’t feel romantic love. Romantic attachment. At all. To anyone.”
“And you think you don’t?” Fitz fretted, his eyebrows creasing with concern. “Just because I said-“
“No!” she interrupted, hushing him. “No, look, I did some research. ‘You have trouble telling the difference between romantic and friendly feelings.’ ‘You are sometimes perceived as flirtatious when you only meant to be friendly.’ ‘You don’t understand why people do ridiculous, irrational or over-the-top things in the name of love’? Doesn’t that sound like me?”
“That doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a checklist!
Jemma continued to read out the list as Fitz protested:
“They could have put anything on there. How many times have you lectured people on those fake psychology things, and confirmation bias, and-”
“’When you discovered the word ‘aromantic,’ it felt like something finally clicked into place for you.’”
She met his eyes, and Fitz trailed off. Jemma was obviously starting to get uncomfortable; her voice was softer now, and she kept fidgeting her hands. This was a personal and confronting thing and here he was making an argument about it. He swallowed his next words and lowered his head; settling, ready to listen.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Fitz.” Jemma took his hand. “Do you feel something special when you look at me? Or think about me?”
“Of course I do.” He looked up, meeting her eyes again. With his free hand, he brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “Of course I do. I love you.”
“What does that feel like?”
Fitz frowned, trying to capture it – and wondering what sort of test this was; did Jemma really not know?
“It’s…like…light,” he tried to explain. “It makes me feel…better. Happier, more hopeful, like knowing there’s something so good about the world that nothing can destroy. It makes me want to make you happy. Make the light even brighter. It makes me feel like I could do anything, too, like…am I…am I making sense?”
“No,” Jemma breathed. It was almost painful to realise it, despite how reassuring it felt to have it confirmed. “Not that you don’t make me feel happier, or I don’t want to make you happy. I do. Just. Not like that.”
“Oh.”
Crestfallen, Fitz let his eyes wander back down to where Jemma held their hands together.
“I do love you,” she insisted. “I wish I was in love with you, like that, but I’m not, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. But I promise it’s not you. It’s not just you.”
“It’s not you, it’s me?” Fitz paraphrased. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Jemma’s hand tightened around his. She took a moment, blinked and sniffed.
“Would you like me to?” she asked, softly. A little tearfully.
“No, Jemma. No. No.” Fitz pulled her in for a hug. She was shaking a little – and no wonder, stand out on a limb like that. Fitz kissed the top of her head, and let his lips linger.
“Are you okay?” Jemma asked. “You seem upset. Are you upset?”
“I’m upset because I made you upset,” Fitz explained. “And because…I love being in love with you. It’s the best feeling in the world. I wish you knew how it felt.”
Jemma pulled back, to study his face.
“You don’t…mind? That I don’t love you back?”
“I don’t love you to be loved back,” Fitz explained. “If you’re uncomfortable with it, of course that’s different, but you’re not, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
“And you want me to be safe, and happy?”
“Yes, of course!”
“And you want to be in a relationship with me?”
“Yes.” Jemma nodded, tears spilling over her cheeks. “Yes. Very much.”
“Well then, if that’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me.”
Fitz smiled, but Jemma only appreciated it for half a second before she grabbed the collar of his shirt and kissed him – long and hard.
“I love you.” The words spilled out. Without all their incorrect, assumed meanings she had never quite believed – knowing that Fitz would no longer read into them the wrong things – they spilled out like the answer to an easy question. The easiest question in the world.
Fitz stared back at her for a long moment, soaking in the way she looked – relaxed, content, glowing in the sunlight – with his gentle, adoring eyes.
