Chapter Text
Chapter 7
“You might slow me down.”
Fitz was a little bit nervous when he went down for breakfast the next day, he had to admit it, but he was mostly excited. Jemma and him had talked all afternoon again, about science and then other things – he was delighted to learn that she was a Whovian, too – and he was growing more and more comfortable around her which was amazing.
She was really kind. And insanely smart. Funny, too. And she didn’t even hesitate to tell him when she thought he was wrong. It was the first time in his life that he didn’t grow bored during a conversation with someone. She always found new subjects to pick his brain about, jumping from one to the next, sometimes so fast even he could barely follow. The more they talked though, the more her thought process started to make sense to him, and that was exhilarating.
He’d woken up earlier than usual that morning, and yes maybe he’d taken a couple more minutes to get ready too – wondering what t-shirt to wear, trying to tame his stupid curls. He pretended not to see how his mum obviously noticed it, and to his relief she made no comment about it. Her knowing little smirk was deeply annoying though.
Fitz’s heart was beating steadily as he walked into the restaurant, his eyes flying to the table he knew Jemma and her parents usually sat at for breakfast. Her father was there, reading his newspaper, but there were no signs of Jemma. His shoulders sagged a little, but the prospect of delicious breakfast was enough to cheer him up – besides, they had agreed to meet at the library, not necessarily at breakfast, so everything was fine.
“Hi there!”
Fitz jumped, cursing himself as the roll of bread on his plate almost managed to escape. He put it back in the center of the plate then turned towards the voice, and was met with Jemma’s bright smile, his heart stuttering in his chest at the sight. He really needed to keep his stupid heart in check, he thought to himself. He was lucky enough already that Jemma seemed to want to be friends with him, he didn’t need to go and ruin everything with feelings.
“Morning Simmons,” he mumbled, stacking a couple of toasts on his plate.
“Oh, you seem awfully chipper this morning,” she told him with a teasing tone, and he rolled his eyes, secretly pleased as she started following him around to fill her own plate. She chuckled, then grabbed the tongs from his hand, and a shiver ran up his spine as their fingers brushed. He knew he was being ridiculous, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “You’re here early, I guess that’s why.”
“Huh?”
She bit her lip, putting a spoonful of fruit salad in a bowl, and Fitz wondered if maybe she wasn’t blushing just a little. Probably not. “Well,” she started, shrugging, “you’re not at breakfast this early usually, so I figured you were probably not one of these morning persons.”
“Ha,” he nodded, because that made sense. “Yeah definitely not a morning person.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she told him, and gave him a little side look that made him grin despite himself.
“You’re definitely one though.”
“Oh yeah I do my best work in the morning.”
“We’ll see.”
“Is that a challenge?”
They were waiting near the eggs now – you could get any type you wanted, which in Fitz’s opinion was exactly what made this buffet so perfect – and he rolled his eyes ostensibly at her once again. “Not everything is a challenge, Simmons.”
“Mmh, we’ll see about that,” she retorted, nudging him, and his stupid heart skipped a beat again. “Are you going to the pool this afternoon?”
He stacked his sunny-side up on his plate and pretended to ignore her, drawing a chuckle out of her that made him smile once again. He could feel her amused gaze on his face, and it was making his cheeks a little warm, but he liked the banter they’d found themselves in more than once during their previous conversations.
Everything was a challenge with Jemma Simmons – a wonderful, exciting challenge that made his brain run faster than it already usually did. They met up in the library after breakfast, and he showed her the sketches he’d made for his forensics drone. Jemma was so full of ideas and smart insights that by noon, Fitz was under the impression he’d made more progress in a couple of hours with her than he’d made in the last 6 days. They kept talking until his stomach started to get too loud, and then they talked some more, before he realized that his mum was probably waiting for him at the restaurant and he was incredibly late.
Somehow he found himself agreeing to meet again at the pool – to Jemma’s great satisfaction – and then they parted ways, waving goodbye to each other with matching grins. Fitz ran to the restaurant, and found his mum already halfway through her lasagna. He apologized and she gave him her knowing annoying smirk in return. “So what are you up to this afternoon?” she asked casually when the waiter brought back his double cheeseburger and fries, and he felt his cheeks warm up a little.
“Meeting up with Jemma,” he replied without hesitating, surprising himself almost as much as he did her. “She insisted we meet at the pool, but I’m kind of hoping we can avoid the bathing part of that plan.”
“You know, if you tried you might actually like swimming,” she teased, and he huffed.
“Don’t think so.”
“So you were with Jemma this morning?”
“Mmhm.”
“It’s nice to see you have a friend.”
“Ugh, mum, you say that as if I don’t have any friends back home.”
“Well, do you?”
He made a face at that, wincing at her pointed glance. “Maybe not. But Jemma is different.”
The soft smile his mum offered her at that made him blush again, so he dove into his fries, avoiding her eyes. “She sounds great.”
“She is.”
His mum didn’t mention Jemma again after that, then left him to eat dessert on his own as she made her way back to the village. It gave him every opportunity to think about his morning with Jemma, and what his afternoon might look like with her once again. The rest of his vacation, too. As they talked, they had realized that they were staying the same amount of time, leaving on the same day in two-week’s time. Jemma had seemed excited at the prospect, and he had to admit he was as well.
This vacation sounded a lot more fun now that he could share moments with one brilliant scientist.
“Ah, there you are!”
Fitz waved at her as he made his way to her lounger a few hours later, grinning to himself as he found her apparently deeply focused on a crossword puzzle. She moved her feet up, silently inviting him to sit, so he did, a little shy for some reason. She really was very focused on her puzzle, her brow furrowed in concentration, and he took a few seconds to just look at her thinking face – he’d caught a few glimpses of it that morning already, when they were talking about real life applications for his forensics drones – then he glanced at her puzzle and raised a curious eyebrow.
“What’s this?” he asked, leaning forward to better see, and she looked up with an excited expression that made him grin.
“A numerical crossword puzzle,” Jemma exclaimed, her enthusiasm very obvious. “And yes, they really should have called it the–”
“Crossnumber puzzle,” he finished with her, and she beamed at him while his heart skipped a beat for no reason. “Is it what I think it is?”
“Yes!” She sat up, moving closer so she could sit next to him and show him the magazine properly. He tried to ignore the way her thigh pressed against his – her skin was almost cold, she must have been swimming earlier – and focused instead on the puzzle she was halfway through solving. “It started easy with some Roman numerals, see there, MDCV minus LII which is–”
“1553.”
She raised an eyebrow at him and he mirrored her expression, ignoring the way his cheeks seemed to warm up again. He’d learned that morning that he really didn’t need to dumb himself down with Jemma, and it felt amazing. At first he had, explaining in simple details his creative and scientific process to come up with his drone sketches, but she kept finishing his sentences, despite herself it seemed because somehow she’d apologized whenever she did. So after a while he’d started talking the way he thought, jumping from one concept to the other, and to his absolute wonder she’d followed him perfectly, never hesitating to ask for details about things she wasn’t familiar with.
His mum had said she sounded great, and he’d agreed, but she was more than that.
She was magnificent.
“Alright, show-off, care to work this out together?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, biting the inside of his cheek when she looked at him without hiding her disappointment, “you might slow me down.”
She looked at him, mouth open in both shock and offense, then rolled up her magazine and slapped his chest with it. “Rude!” He snickered at her tone, and she resumed her previous position leaning against the lounger’s backrest, poking his thigh with her feet and a falsely hurt pout. “Go away, you’re not invited to my crossnumber puzzle party anymore.”
“No, Simmons please, let me stay,” he pretended to whine, but his cheeks were hurting from grinning too much, “I’ll be your personal calculator, please!”
“Don’t need a calculator thank you very much,” she retorted sternly, and he chuckled. He had no doubt she absolutely did not need one. “I’ve never met such a rude calculator anyway.”
“Pretty please?”
She pretended to think about it, and Fitz bit his lip as she did, eyes roaming her face. Everything seemed so easy around her, he loved every second of it because that was usually never the case around anyone. “Alright, you can stay, but you have to make it up to me so–”
“I’m not getting in the pool, Simmons.”
“Ugh, fine! But you’ll have to listen me list everything I want to do during this vacation then.”
“Deal!”
As if listening to her would be such a hardship, he thought to himself as they shook on it, then fist-bumped for the sake of it. She sat back next to him and they worked on her puzzle, finishing it in no time. It was like they were twice as smart when they worked together, he thought, which was saying a lot because she was definitely the smartest person he’d ever met, and he wasn’t too shabby himself. Then they agreed on walking around for a bit and she told him all about what she wanted to do – kayaking and scuba-diving and playing some tennis and did you know there was archery here at the resort too? – and before he knew it it was almost 7 and his stomach was getting loud, which made her laugh.
The village was a lot quieter now, people off getting ready for dinner – French ate horribly late, what was up with that – as they made their way back to the pool so Jemma could grab her beach towel, and Fitz kept thinking about the great day he’d had by her side and hoping he’d get to do it all over again the next day. He was a little nervous when he asked her if they should meet again in the library, but she eased his concerns with a bright smile.
“Of course!” she told him happily, and he grinned for the nth time that day, “although I will have to work on my dissertation tomorrow, since I skipped that the last couple of days.”
“Yeah okay, no problem,” he nodded, ignoring the rush of relief running through him. He couldn’t quite believe how lucky he was that she really meant for them to be friends. “I’ll just work on my drone or something.”
“Sounds great!”
They walked for a couple of minutes in silence, then realized that Jemma’s mum had already picked her things up from the poolside, so they walked back towards their hotel. It was getting late, and his mum was probably not very happy with him being late again, but Fitz still decided to walk Jemma back, while she explained what she’d been working on for her second PhD – yeah, she was definitely smarter than him, although he wasn’t about to admit it to her just like that.
It was fascinating, and he would’ve kept asking her questions about the non-gross parts of it, but he really was getting hungry, the noises of his stomach growing more and more obvious, and she eventually just shooed him away with an amused smirk and the promise to tell him more about it the next day.
As he walked away, glancing back once to see her watching him go, he thought to himself that yeah, he definitely wasn’t that mad at his mum anymore, for lying to him about staying here three weeks instead of one.