Hello, @welshpastry! It is I, your secretest of Santas! I’m so happy to have participated this year, and I hope you enjoy what I made out of your prompt (I like to think I took what you asked for and gave it to you in a way you wouldn’t have expected.) Anyways, I hope you enjoy the first part of this fic. I’m going to be posting it as one whole piece on AO3 this weekend once editing is done, but this part is ready now for your viewing pleasure :)
Lock Up
↳ by plentyofmalk for @welshpastry
Summary: Fitz and Simmons are perfect for each other. Daisy knows it, their coworkers know it, it’s just common sense. But due to a rather unfortunate incident during Jemma’s first week on the job at Shield Securities, the two haven’t been able to be in the same room as one another without awkwardness abound.
So maybe drastic measures have to be taken. And maybe they find themselves locked in the work lab overnight. And maybe that’s enough to get these two idiots together by the time the new year rolls around.
“It’s us against the world.”
“Feeling dramatic, are we?”
Daisy sighed, loud enough to be heard amongst the various conversations taking place in the bar, and stared down at the latest text on her phone. The bright light of the screen glared back at her with the text that initiated her frustration.
[Fitz:] Sorry. Didn’t know there were going to be others there. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight, anyways. Have a good time.
One night, that’s all she was asking for from the universe. Just one night of her two best friends in a room together, actually talking, maybe even with each other. Dare she ask for even a little eye contact? But no, of course not. She shook her head and turned toward Hunter, ever full of himself (and already full of a pint or three as well) before replying.
“We’ve been trying to make a love connection between the two dumbest geniuses on the planet for months now. Geniuses who, I’ll remind you, are so bad at communicating that they can’t string together 3 sentences before one of them finds an excuse to leave the room. And now somehow Fitz’s previously-free schedule has magically been booked up because I just mentioned that Simmons might be dropping by. And if I have to spend too much longer thinking about these idiots and their love life, I’m pretty sure Lincoln is going to assume I’ve lost interest in ours.” Daisy huffed, took a swig from her bottle, and turned. “Anything I’m forgetting, Bobbi?”
Bobbi took the handoff, feigning thought before replying. “Oh, I think you’ve pretty much covered the improbability of it all, but did you mean to skip over the fact that the first time they actually worked in the lab together, they ended up practically naked and didn’t even take that as a sign?”
“Right, of course!” Daisy pressed her fingers to her temple. “How could I forget that part when I’m pretty sure there’s a path burned into our living room floor from Fitz freaking out about it.”
Hunter stared down at his bottle, fiddling with the corner of the label and giving a resolute nod.
“I always thought we worked best under impossible circumstances.” He raised his drink into the air in the middle of their table. “So, what do you say? Us against the world?”
Daisy glanced at Bobbi, who looked casually amused as she brought her own glass up beside her boyfriend’s.
They were hopeless. Totally, completely hopeless.
...Unless.
No, Daisy thought. She really shouldn’t. It would be wrong, and a blatant trap. But apparently trying to be casual about things was never going to get anything accomplished.
With determination, Daisy raised her glass. “To us against the world. We’ve got some planning to do.”
All in all, things had gone pleasantly well for the day, Jemma thought. She’d come work for the day with a long list of items she was determined to check off if she wanted to start the new year fresh. Only one simulation to finish, some general tidying up her of station, and two reports to file away before she could officially bid farewell to the office until 2017.
The lab bustled with a couple of others mulling about, even though most seemed to be halfway out the door already. The only other person in the room who seemed to be of any help to her that day was Bobbi, who was currently removing her gloves and packing away her workstation. She smiled as her friend leaned against the countertop in front of her.
“You think they’re ready to go?” Bobbi asked, nodding her head towards two technicians playing paper football in the corner.
Jemma rolled her eyes, turning back to her paperwork, making sure that everything was in order. She didn’t notice Daisy come into the lab until Bobbi was waving her over. She looked just about as ready to leave as everyone else, with her work bag slung over her shoulder and a large, relieved smile on her face.
“What is it about a Friday that happens to come right before New Year’s Eve that makes me want to take an extra sigh of relief?” She asked, pulling her phone out of her pocket and responding to a text on her screen. “It’s like, double the normal amount of good.”
“Agreed.” Jemma chirped. “And once this simulation is done I’m sure I’ll feel the same. But until then, you’re going to have to enjoy the early weekend for me.”
“No problem there,” Daisy shot back, setting her phone down. “I’m heading over to Lincoln’s after this and I do not plan on thinking about work for the rest of the year. The security system can take care of itself this weekend because I am officially...” she set her phone down and stared at the clock on the wall as it officially turned 4pm, “Off!”
As the other employees sped out of the lab, Bobbi shrugged out of her lab coat and reached for her own bag. “I’m heading over to Hunter’s, want me to give you a ride?”
“I’ll gladly take you up on that.” Daisy said. “But I actually came here for a reason. Simmons, what are you doing tomorrow night? Any hot New Year’s Eve plans?”
Jemma batted her hand and scoffed. “No, of course not.”
“So then,” Daisy ventured, “you’re saying you would be available to come over to my place? Nothing wild, just a small intimate gathering with my best friends where, over the course of the night, we slowly drink away at the excess amount of alcohol I bought for such an occasion?”
“Daisy…”
“Did I mention there are party hats involved? I already bought you a hat, Simmons, you have to come. Tell her, Bobbi.”
Bobbi nodded. “I was with her when she bought them.”
Jemma sighed. This wasn’t the first time either of them had tried to drag her out to something while blatantly omitting the fact that Daisy’s roommate -- and mutual coworker -- would be there as well. Which was silly, because of course she didn’t have a problem with Leo Fitz. But it was glaringly obvious that the same couldn’t be said for him.
Since starting at Shield Securities earlier that year, Jemma had run into Fitz a total of six times. Not that she was counting. But if she were, she would also know that of those six, four of them were in her first week. They had been introduced by Phil Coulson on her first day, and she had immediately been taken aback by several things about him. The first was his accent, that reminded her of home and caused her name to roll off his tongue quite nicely. The second was that he appeared to be as young as her, which after some research into his work later that day, revealed to be true. It had been a while since she found someone to match her intellectually, even if he only had one PhD to her two.
And the third, she’d thought as she stared down at their shaking hands with blushed cheeks, was that he was very -- incredibly -- handsome.
He’d been shy, or maybe just quiet, but perfectly polite to her nonetheless on their second encounter outside the building after work that day. And again when they happened to share an elevator ride up together the next morning, talking a bit about the weather and her thoughts on a prototype he needed biochemical advice on.
And the fourth time they met, after hours in the lab, discussing more about his ideas and how she could improve them, was going extremely well. She could even pick up on the moments here and there when Fitz, for all his clumsiness, actually attempted to flirt with her.
And then, of course, it’d all gone horribly wrong when Fitz’s literal clumsiness led to a broken beaker that spilled over his sleeve and her pant legs. Which then led to a shirtless-Fitz and bare-legged Jemma sharing a very cold, and very awkward, decontamination shower together.
They didn’t see each other again for another week during a staff meeting on the incident in which Fitz somehow managed to avoid looking at her the entire time. Which she was willing to contribute to embarrassment over the whole thing and be done with it. But two weeks later, when he’d shown up for drinks that his friend Daisy had invited her to, only to find a reason to leave after only a couple minutes, it became very clear.
He very obviously wasn’t interested in anything to do with her.
Coming back to the present, Jemma shook her head at her friends. “Of course I would, Daisy, but I think Fitz might not take to kindly to the idea.”
“First of all, you’re so wrong on that, and I’ll say it as long as I have to-”
“I’m not-”
“But!” Daisy raised her hand to stop her. “That doesn’t matter anyways, because as it just so happens, Fitz isn’t going to be there. Won’t even be in the country, in fact. I guess he’s flying back to visit his mom or something. You know, good kid stuff that I’ll never understand.” She said with a smirk.
“So will you please come over tomorrow? Make this your last good deed of the year, c’mon.”
Jemma pondered. It would definitely be nice to spend the night in good company, and if Fitz really wasn’t going to be there…
“Sounds like fun.” She agreed, shrugging off her lab coat even though her work wasn’t quite done yet.
Daisy let out a squeal and raised her hands in the air. “Yes! It’s going to be great, I promise. Just come over, no need to bring anything, and we’ll say so long to this crap year together. You ready Bobbi?”
Bobbi, as it stood, was already halfway across the room heading toward the door. “Let’s go. If I don’t get to Hunter in time, he’ll fill himself up on junk food, and I have reservations.”
She watched her friends leave, and with a twist of something pleasant in her stomach, Jemma thought the weekend might not be so bad after all.
@welshpastry replied to your post “@welshpastry mentioned you in a photoset “FitzSimmons + Bookstore...”
Ahh sorry if the book titles are hard to read! The text went a little pixel-y when I uploaded the images :( But I am /so/ glad you liked it, I wasn't sure whether you were expecting a fic and fic isn't really my wheelhouse, hahah <3
oh no, I added the clarification about my bad eyesight so you’d know it wasn’t your fault! really, I have a very high prescription, haha, I have my dash zoomed far more than normal anyway - and ppl always ask why the text on my phone is so big. XD (it’s ‘cause I have the font set to the big-ass settings designed for seniors, heh.)
and I LOVE visual gifts!! particularly ones that are m a g i c (seriously, that giffing is unbeLIEvable), AND it was like a puzzle ‘cause I got to hunt for those titles! so much fun!
welshpastry replied to your post “So apparently the guy who wrote “Progress” a.k.a. Slingshot episode 3...”
I didn't get the impression he didn't want to move in with her, I saw someone who knows what his best friend is like when she gets into a new task. And in any relationship there's going to be times when one person is more enthusiastic about something than the other, and unless you have the patience of a saint it's going to get old sooner or later. I thought it was very realistic for grumpypants Fitz to want to avoid having the subject brought up as much as possible.
@welshpastry yeah i see where you’re coming from. Like obviously we know he does want to move in with her because they were looking at apartments together and this scene doesn’t magically negate that. And i think it was more him being like “oh god what have you done YoYo she’s gonna make like 5 billion lists now this is gonna be exhausting” But i guess just the way it was written and how it sounded felt OOC for me. I totally get why you didn’t see it that way though. I’ve seen many varying opinions about it.
