Consanguine

So far the past has been confusing; twist his brain into pretzels confusing.

For one thing Earth hasn’t been destroyed yet, so he can go to outside and there is a freaking outside! The Earth is huge and for a guy that has been stuck inside a space station for his whole life it’s almost too much to take in. When his Mom and Dad used to describe the world, their home planet, he always used to think they must be making parts of it up cos for a kid who has only ever know a space station the idea that something existed which isn’t surrounded by machinery and airlocks isn’t something he can quite picture.

A lot of things here are better to; the food for one thing and alcohol, the people are nicer to most of them anyway, but then they don’t have to live with being killed for sport or having their children taken away to be slaves to their blue overlords. However the people he is stuck with are hyper focused super hero types: Coulson is a little uptight for him but then he doesn’t have the whole leadership of the only people who can save the world weight on his shoulders. Mack’s very chill and YoYo is just plain cool.

May honest to God frightens him.

And Daisy is Daisy and that is a whole different kettle of fish. 

He’s seen fish now they live in water not kettles.

Then there’s the whole run into your own grandparents when they’re young and haven’t even given birth to your mother yet. And attend their wedding. And get them their rings, that your Mom then will wear and give you the idea to buy it for your Nanna when you see it in the pawn shop.

If he thinks anymore about time travel, paradoxes and time loops he’s gonna pretzel his brain into an extra pretzelly pretzel.

The drive to be close to his blood family is weird too and oddly persistent. Has him lurking around the lab, researching them as he likes to tell himself. He loves to watch them together though, like he is right now leaning against the railing watching his insanely smart Grandparents try to figure out how to stop the earth from cracking like an egg. He always thought his parents were perfectly in love, the very picture of a married pair, with his Dad devoted to taking on his Mom’s mission and beliefs even after she died. His parents have nothing on his grandparents, it’s incredible obvious to everyone that they are the light in each other’s world and are so devoted to each other that he can’t believe there wasn’t a time when they didn’t know that they were in love with each other. He remembers vaguely from Daisy speech after the wedding ceremony that apparently they were the only ones in the entire WORLD that didn’t know that they had feelings for each other. And apparently they had been friends for a whole TEN YEARS.

He wishes he knew more about them and how they got together, his Mom had tried to tell him several times but being a little boy, stories about love had made him whine and pretend to throw up and eventually she would stop, tickle him tummy and tell that he was her silly boy.

The really weird thing is that he can see his Mom in both of them.

It makes sense seeing as she got genes from both of them – he’s not taking that thought any further though. She explained to him that traits can get passed down though families in their genetics and looking at them he can understand it.

If he looks at Jemma and squints a little he can see his Mom in her underlying bone structure, the shape of the cheek bone and jaw, the slope of the nose. Their smile the same too, quick, bright and cheerful even when things seemed/are bad. Her and his Mom’s hands are similar as well, thin fingers and small palms, cleverly solving problems and always freezing cold. He had a jolt the first time she passed him something after he realised she was his Nanna and saw the hands that tucked him in every night. Later observation makes him realises they would be within a few inches in height as well. But its more than the physical that makes him think about his Mom when he’s around Jemma its personality as well.

His Mom is there in Jemma’s kindness, steadfast hope and unbelievable smartness, shes in her little gestures as well, the flick of the hand, tilt of the head or the ways she stands, an echo from her future and his past.

Makes it easy for him to love her.

His Mom is harder to see in Fitz, although that might be because he’s so busy and short with everyone except his wife and cos Fitz is a man. He can’t help but admire a man who took the long way through time to save his friends, insulted the Big Blue in charge, then invented a time machine. And clearly is the brain in charge of inventing the machines that save all their butts.

Yeah his Bobo is so cool!

But his Mom does exist in Fitz, she has his eyes for one thing blue and bright that catches and catalogues everything going on in the world. And his razor mind and sharp tongue that they both use on people who displease them, mainly him. She had his curls in her red brown hair, clearly Fitz and Simmons carried to genes for red hair, and his Scottish pale skin. After careful observation and having to quickly grow thick skin, Bobo can be mean, it becomes obvious that Mom got her determination and drive from her Pops as well as that intensity of loving someone the way that Fitz loves Simmons and that his Mom loved his Dad and him.

He tries to see if he’s like them, spending ages in front of the mirror to see if he can see them in his face, until Daisy yells at him to get out. He always thought he looked more like his dad than his mom and it comes as a shock to realise that he does look a little bit like Fitz and he likes to think that he has Jemma’s eye colour.

Although brown is the most common human eye colour.

It does come as a shock that he does have some of their gestures and personality which he always thought he got from his Mom. Their intelligence for one thing though he never had the learning they did he does pick up things very quickly. More annoyingly he's found out that he is loyal to a fault with friends that are worth it, in fact that that loyalty is what got him here in the first place, As well little gestures like putting his hands on his hip when he is thinking or frustrated, tapping his forehead when trying to explain something and rambling. Oh God the rambling and digging yourself deeper into embarrassment.

Who knew putting your foot in it was genetic.

Still every time he sees a bit of his Mom in both of them or both of them and his Mom in him it adds to the warm glow in his chest.