Fitz carefully pieces the hologun together, using glasses he invented that could change the zoom at will, thus solving the problem of microscopes with glasses that had arisen when Jemma’s old eyes needed them. He uses them himself, now, since when building he needed the extra magnification his regular glasses couldn’t give.
His monkey assistant suddenly leaps off his shoulder and lands on Jemma’s as she enters the room, and she laughs and pets her neck.
“How’s the hologun? Your hands?” she asks, kissing his cheek.
“Just fine. Boobies has been helping me.” The monkey chatters in response.
“I wish you wouldn’t call the monkey Boobies—”
“She was my seventieth birthday present and so I can name her what I want, and besides, she picked her own name, Jemma, she latched onto yours the moment she saw you—smart monkey, you have beautiful boobies—”
“Oh, Fitz!”
Fitz drifts out of sleep, frantically willing the dream to come back. He’s only known Simmons a few weeks, and he’s dreaming about them being friends when they’re old. He’s pretty sure that’s new.
He drags himself out of bed and starts picking up clothes to put on, blearily aware he’s supposed to be meeting Simmons in the lab soon.
It had been a great dream. In the short time he’s known Jemma Simmons, he could easily imagine the two of them being friends for life; once they finally partnered up and he figured out what to say to her, they were always in-sync with each other. He loves having her around, and her presence seems to fill a Jemma-shaped spot he’d never known existed before she claimed it. If his dream came true fifty years from now, he wouldn’t be surprised in the least.
“Sorry I’m late,” he throws in her direction quickly as he bursts through the lab doors.
“Oh, no, not to worry,” she replies, turning around and beaming.
When she turns around, Fitz feels like he’s been hit by a truck.
A vision of the seventy-year-old Old Jemma of his dream flashes through his head, a stark contrast to seventeen-year-old Young Simmons. And he makes a promise to himself that he won’t mess things up with Simmons, that someday, he’ll see that face for real, remaining by her side all her life as her friend.
Fitz and Simmons stare down at their completed project, now with a letter from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s weapons and technology department signed by Director Fury stating that their Night-Night gun was approved and will soon be distributed to all field agents.
“What if we change history, Fitz? What if the—”
“Night-Night gun.”
“We are not calling it that, but what if someday, bulleted guns become obsolete? Because of us? Because of this gun?”
“Yeah, that’d be pretty cool,” he agrees.
She’s beaming, excited, fascinated by the science at hand.
“Even if that doesn’t happen, just imagine what the world will be like in the future. Imagine what will happen when we’re seventy.”
“What we’ll invent in that time,” he adds.
“Oh, Fitz, what if we have invented something that changes the world?”
Her eyes are lit up like he’s never seen them, and he’s lost in them and he doesn’t think he’ll ever find his way out, nor does he want to. His world will be just fine, he thinks, as long as she’s by his side.
“Do...d’you reckon we’ll still be friends?” he asks timidly, thinking of his dream. He wants nothing more in life than to be friends with her, and if were entirely up to him that dream would become a reality, but for all he knows, she could be planning to dump him as a friend after this project or after graduation—if she even sees them as friends. He could have just made a fool of himself, and he berates himself for it, because of course she doesn’t, why would she want to be friends with him?
Jemma rolls her eyes. “Of course we will. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Fitz grins dopily at her. “Yeah. ’Course.”
“Honestly, I don’t know how you could ever think we wouldn’t.”
“If we take this position on Agent Coulson’s team, we’ll be able to make our lives—”
“What, better? I’m perfectly fine with our lives just the way they are!”
“More than that, Fitz. The best.”
She’s so full of hope and excitement that he takes one look at her face and finds all his anger melting away, and he nods in agreement. “Alright, I suppose. Let’s do it.”
She beams brighter than the sun and hugs him, then kisses his cheek. “Thank you.”
“You won’t leave?” he asks, and he doesn’t know why, but suddenly it’s a large, looming fear for him.
Simmons places her hand on his shoulder, and he puts his over hers.
“I’ll be here as long as you need me,” she promises. “You’re almost there.”
And that’s a small comfort, because he’ll always need Jemma, but it doesn’t seem like enough. He takes the mental image he’s had for years of himself and Simmons old, sitting on a porch somewhere. But for the first time, he’s questioning Jemma’s presence. Not that he doesn’t want her there—he’ll always want her there—but he’s not so sure if she’ll still want to be a part of his life to sit there with him.
And why should she? He’s broken now, and he couldn’t even build the chairs to sit in, never mind the cloaking device the BUS needed. He’ll just be a broken old man sitting alone, without his best friend in the world.
He doesn’t remember what life without Jemma was like. He doesn’t want to. But he thinks he might have to.
“Was that…alright? Are you…?” Fitz asks nervously, suddenly panicked. Just because it had been the best sex of his entire life didn’t mean that Jemma was satisfied.
“Fitz, I had four orgasms.”
He blushes. “Right. Yeah.”
She smiles affectionately and pulls him back in for a kiss. “I think I’ve always known that it was you,” she whispers.
Fitz’s brow furrows in confusion. “Known what was me?”
“That you were who I’d end up with.”
His heart leaps. “Really?”
“Well yeah. I mean, I could never see myself spending the rest of my life with anyone else, and when I pictured the future, you were always there.
And even if I never dreamt it would be romantic, I think deep down I knew it. That it was you.”
Fitz is gazing at her dreamily, with a goofy grin, giving her the adoring look that Skye and Trip had once dubbed his “Jemma face.”
“I love you,” is all he can manage, kissing her deeply and then peppering a series of lighter kisses down her neck. “So much. Probably since the Academy, if I’m being honest.”
“I love you too, Fitz.” She kisses him again and climbs on top of him for another round.
Fitz tickles Amy’s belly and blows a raspberry on it, and the baby giggles and gurgles in response.
“Did you know,” another raspberry, “that your mummy is the most wonderful person in the whole wide world?”
Amy cocks her head at him and he pulls her close to cradle her in his arms.
“She’s very brave. She saved my life, you know. She even went into Hydra.” Amy reaches out and grabs a hold of his shirt collar and tries to put it into her mouth. “And I, uh, I want you to grow up to be as—as brave and strong as she is. And as nice.”
And suddenly there are arms wrapped around him and Amy from behind, and Jemma’s face is pressed against his back. “I love you,” she murmurs, and moves around to the front of him and kisses him.
“I love you too. Did you…did you hear all of that?”
“Leopold Fitz, you are the most wonderful man alive.” She leans closer and gently bops Amy’s nose. “Don’t listen to your father, it was the other way around. He saved my life.”
“If you hadn’t pulled me up—”
“If you hadn’t pressed the button, I wouldn’t have been able to.” Jemma cradles her daughter’s head, and Amy grins toothily back. “And then we wouldn’t have Amy.”
“She already takes after you, by the way.”
“No way! Have you seen her? She’s mini-Fitz! Hungry all the time and—”
“And too curious for her own good.”
“Brilliant like her father.”
“Most of that is from her mum. It’s science, Jemma.”
“Is it?”
“She’s mostly you, and you did all the work creating her. So, she has your brain.” Fitz looks incredibly proud of himself for this explanation.
“We’re both genius scientists. I think she takes after both of us.”
“Fine. But more after you.”
Jemma rolls her eyes.
Jemma rests her head on Fitz’s shoulder. “Do you remember that time at the Academy, when we wondered about what the world would be like when when we were old?”
Fitz smiles. “Oh, yeah.”
“I never thought we’d end up here. If someone had told me back then that we’d be married—”
“Oi,” he interjects teasingly.
“You know what I mean. Back then, I never imagined myself married to you. But really, it couldn’t have turned out any other way. I could never have put up with anyone else this long.”
“Did you know I once had a dream that we’d be friends when we were this old?”
She lifts her head to look at him. “No, when was that?”
“At the Academy. I was too embarrassed to tell you about it, but this is better than that.”
She kisses him, soft and sweet.
“Well actually, one thing was better.” Jemma lifts an eyebrow and he grins cheekily at her. “I had a monkey assistant.” She laughs and gently hits his arm.
“I love you, Jemma.”
“I love you too.”
“I still want that monkey though.”
“Oh, Fitz!”