Authors note: Okay, so I am way late to Agents of Shield, only having watched it after Netflix threw it up to me as a suggestion during the pandemic when I had nothing to do but watch TV, and OH MY GOD how could I have missed out on this for so long? So I binged each season, and absolutely fell in love with Fitzsimmons. The greatest relationship in the Marvel Universe, without a doubt.
Then I discovered the fanfic out there, and became even more enthralled, enough so to the point that I thought that I would give it a shot myself, despite being so late to the game. So if I screw something up, please forgive me. I am going to try and keep this as canon-compliant as I can, with some tie-ins to other fanfic that I have read.
I am one of those infuriating nerds who lets the historical inaccuracies in movies ruin their enjoyment of them. I couldn’t enjoy Gladiator, because I was muttering crossly to myself that Marcus Aurelias wasn’t murdered by his son Commodus, and he died in Serbia, not Germany. Work has not been proofread by anybody, so any mistakes are because I didn't pay attention in English class in 4th grade. Seriously. What does diagramming sentences have to do with anything?
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
But why?
“I heard he told you how he felt and you bailed.” Jemma could hear the accusation, the judgement in Mack’s voice.
“That’s not what happened.” She didn’t know why she felt the need to explain herself to the man, they barely knew each other. He was a new recruit that Coulson had picked up in the time she had been undercover, while she had been an original member of Coulson’s team.
S.H.I.E.L.D. may not have such a rigid hierarchy anymore, but she liked to think that she maintained a bit of status due to her long association with the Director. To have this newcomer, this interloper into her and Fitz’s friendship hurl such an unfounded statement at her she found galling. To make matters worse, she knew that that information could have only come from one source: Fitz.
She hadn’t said a word to anyone about what Fitz had said to her in the storage pod when he was convincing her to take the last of the oxygen. She had described his genius in rigging the beacon and helping her devise a plan to escape their watery grave and his heroism in choosing to give her their last breath, but she had never spoken about the reason why he had done so.
The rest of the team had simply accepted his selfless act without comment, or thinking it extraordinary of him. She shook her head ruefully, not so much worried about what Mack thought, but if that’s what he believed happened, it meant that that was what Fitz believed had happened.
And when he had told her that seeing her around Fitz lead him to believe that she was making him worse, it broke her heart. Because Mack could see it, and she could see it, but Fitz couldn’t. She’d had to leave, in order for him to get better. And damn the man, now he’d left the two of them alone, without a buffer between them, dropping an emotional grenade on his way out.
Poor Fitz had been so panicked, scuttling in front of him, trying to block his exit, lest he be left alone with her. She felt a stab of pain in her heart. Is this what they had come to? Afraid to be alone together? Not knowing what to say?
And now Fitz was telling her that he was leaving her. She was trying to assuage his feelings, assure him that she didn’t see him as useless, that she hadn’t given up on him when he broke in, talking over her, telling her that he was leaving her to run the science division on her own.
At first, she thought that he was quitting S.H.I.E.L.D. altogether, but he clarified that he wasn’t leaving the agency, just her. He was going to the garage with Mack, his new best friend. His replacement for her.
“But why?” The tears were on the tips of her eyelashes, threatening to spill down her cheeks.
“You know why.” He couldn’t even look at her, instead casting his glance down to his shoes.
For God’s sake, why can’t we speak honestly with one other? she wanted to scream at him as he danced around the subject, talking about how his reduced capabilities prevented him from being able to work with her any further.
But then, she hadn’t been able to be honest with him when he had asked her why she left. And now, her reticence was coming back to haunt her. The look in his eyes when he asked her had told her all she needed to know.
His piercing blue eyes seemed to bore into her soul, begging her to tell him why. Why she had left, why she didn’t tell him, why she didn’t love him the same way that he loved her. But they also carried a hint of accusation. You left because you know I love you, and you don’t feel the same way. You couldn’t handle my feelings for you, and you had to get away.
She hadn’t been there to answer him, so he had filled in the blanks on his own, and had gotten it wrong. But she lacked the courage to tell him so. Instead, she had fled to the kitchen to settle herself and had come across Daisy, who encouraged her to talk to him, to tell her how much she had missed him, but she just hadn’t had the chance; and even if she did, she had no idea what she would say to him.
“At the very least, you should be honest with him.” Bobbi had told her earlier today. “If you don’t have trust …” she had left the statement hanging in the air. But Jemma knew that they couldn’t be honest with each other because for her part, she didn’t know how she felt. He was her best friend, had been for ages.
She never thought of him in a romantic way ever since she went to his dorm room for the first time, all those years ago in the academy. She had of course noticed him before that; she found him handsome despite his pastiness, and his stunning intellect matched her own. But after she had realized that his genius was tap dancing on the borderline of madness as she calmed his manic mind, her feelings for him became nurturing and protective, rather than passionate and romantic.
Skye had claimed that the two of them were psychically linked, but he saw her as more than his best friend, and she had never suspected a thing, up until the moment he told her so. How could she not have seen it? When he told her down in the pod, with time running out, she was still trying to process what he had said, leaving her stunned as she peppered his face with kisses, then he just … looked at her with an expression of serene peace and acceptance, and hit the button that would lead to his death and allow her to live.
After that, she was desperate to save him and she had avoided thinking about her feelings while waiting for him to awaken from his coma, and continued to do so as he struggled through his recovery. Leaving for Hydra was what was best for him, but it also helped her avoid dealing with her own feelings.
By the time that she had returned, she was hoping that enough time had passed that he would have returned to his old self, and that she would have her best friend back. She had tried to slide back into their well-established patterns, bringing him his tea on a daily basis, and trying to complete his sentences, but it was no use. Too much had changed, and it wasn’t just Fitz’s condition. She was just so confused as to how she felt about him. She couldn’t imagine her life without him, but she had just never considered him as a romantic partner.
And now she had to admit to herself that she was afraid too, afraid of losing their friendship. He had told her that the last thing that he wanted was for things to change, but then he had gone and blurted out that bloody confession, changing everything between them.
As he left the Quinjet, she released a breath that she wasn’t even aware that she had been holding, and forced her emotions down into her little music box, lest she burst into tears.
She couldn’t help feeling that he was walking out of her life after ten years together. Oh sure, he’d still be around, but not beside her. He’d be at a safe remove from her, ensconced on the bus, away from the things that hurt him. Away from her.
She didn’t know what to say, had no idea how to fix this mess that they had become, so she let him go without another word, awkwardly twisting her hands together, and feeling more alone than she had in her entire life.