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Jemma’s door swung open at exactly two minutes past five. Fitz grinned at her from the doorway, eyes alight with excitement as they always were. “Ready?” he asked, eyebrows quirking up.
“Born ready,” she replied, equally as eager.
This was their third marathon sleepover of the term, and it was only the second week of October. They were in their third year of university together, and they’d been a great three years so far, from the moment they met on the first day in a chemical kinetics lecture.
“Sorry, is anyone sitting here?” Jemma had asked the curly-haired student sat by himself three seats from the end of a row. He looked up at her with vacant blue eyes, blinked and sat up from his slouched position.
“Uh, no, feel free.”
His accent shouldn’t have surprised her considering that they were in fact in Scotland, but she couldn’t help but grin at it. Thanks to David Tennant, she had fallen in love with the Scottish accent. And as he sat up, she noticed his t-shirt:
It’s bigger on the inside.
In that moment she decided to take the seat right next to him rather than the seat on the very end or one of the empty ones beyond him. He was definitely someone she could talk to.
They sat for a moment awkwardly, both wanting to introduce themselves but neither actually doing so, before Fitz turned to her and said, “So, uh, you study engineering as well then?”
Jemma couldn’t help but smile at the standardness of the question. “Uh, I study biochem,” she replied, turning to face him a little more. There: they were officially engaged in conversation now. She looked at his shirt again and smiled, not sure how to initiate the topic other than ‘Do you watch Doctor Who too?’, which was a question that answered itself.
The boy had apparently noticed he looking at his shirt and said, “Do you watch Doctor Who too?”
At least we’re on a level when it comes to conversational techniques, Jemma thought to herself.
“Yeah – actually…” she reached into her bag and withdrew her notepad. Hand-decorated, she had drawn a TARDIS in a darker blue than the cover and across that she had written ‘Allons-y!’ in bubble writing. Looking at it now she could see how childish and uninventive it was, but she’d done it years ago (adding the writing when David Tennant became part of the show and stole her heart) and used the notebook for absolutely everything.
But her new friend didn’t seem to think it was childish at all – in fact he seemed to find it the exact opposite and grinned widely when he clapped eyes on it.
“Leo Fitz,” he said, offering a hand and trying to suppress his excitement at meeting a fellow fan.
“Jemma Simmons.” She shook his hand and grinned back.
Fitz pulled something out of his bag. “Jelly Baby?” he offered.
Since then, they had been inseparable.
“Okay, so we watched a tonne of Star Trek last time, I vote something fantasy this time,” Fitz announced before he was even over the threshold. Jemma couldn’t help but smile at the heavy emphasis of just how much they’d watched – they’d only gotten halfway through the second season of The Original Series, but to Fitz it must have seemed like a lot more. One of the only things they differed severely on was Star Wars vs Star Trek; Fitz had been raised on Star Wars from the off and could quote each film word for word. It had taken a good while to convince him to watch Star Trek, and that was after Jemma agreed to watch Star Wars in exchange, but eventually he had given in. It wasn’t even that he didn’t like it (although he denied that most of the time, the stubborn Scot that he was) – there was just a lot of it to get through, which he also hadn’t been aware of to its full extent when the deal was made. Now he complained at how unfair it was every time they watched a few more episodes (at least until Kirk and Spock had a moment – then he seemed perfectly happy).
He awkwardly nudged the door further open with his shoulder while trying not to drop an armful of 2-litre bottles of fizzy drinks and huge bags of snacks. Simmons wondered why she’d even bothered stocking up; Fitz always came prepared.
“On it,” she affirmed in his direction before jumping off the sofa, dashing to her DVD stack beside the TV and selecting an appropriate range of material for tonight’s viewing. Fitz dumped the supplies on the coffee table and took a seat.
Jemma huffed and glared at the open door, then looked pointedly to Fitz. He stared back for a moment, arms crossed, before giving in and heaving himself up with exaggerated effort and going and closing it. When he’d left it open on the afternoon of first marathon they’d had, it had gone a little differently.
“What?” Fitz had said under her glare.
“This isn’t school anymore, Fitz,” Jemma had said in a frustrated tone as she stalked over to the door and shut it herself. “Anyone could walk in and take something if they wanted.”
“I didn’t go to a grammar school,” Fitz had retorted, mimicking Jemma’s English accent. “And anyway, if anyone did think about it, they’d see us straight away and wouldn’t bother.”
“You can never be too careful,” Simmons had said, and muttered to herself now as she took a cross-legged position beside the table. “Okay, so we’ve got Harry Potter, Narnia, Labyrinth, Pan’s Labyrinth or Lord of the Rings. I’m for Harry Potter personally.”
“You’re always for Harry Potter,” Fitz muttered – this snag had come up a thousand times before, but on only their third marathon he had said the same thing. Jemma thought she heard him murmur something about the English, but he started talking again before she had a chance to take him up on it.
“How about The Lord of the Rings? The Hobbit films are rumoured to be a thing in the near future. May as well have a recap.”
“Extended?”
“Of course.”
***
They hadn’t even got to Rivendell before Fitz complained that he needed food.
“Fitz, it’s only 6 o’clock! Eat some of the mountain of food you’ve brought with you if you want to eat something.”
He turned to her with a serious look on his face. “Jemma, that mountain is our Cornucopia. We can’t go scoffing it all now; it’s got to last us through the night.”
Jemma sighed. It wasn’t worth taking the debate further (and anyway, she was beginning to get a little hungry herself). “Fine. I’ve got some pizzas in the kitchen - let’s stick them in the oven. And I stocked up on baking supplies – fancy making some cakes?” Fitz gave her a look that quite simply said ‘are you serious?’, but she persisted. “And don’t give me that look, they won’t be any old cakes, Fitz; they’ll be Star Wars cakes.”
At that, Leo’s eyes widened and he suddenly seemed much more interested (however much he tried to cover it up).
Simmons paused the film, rather unfortunately, on a shot of Frodo’s face just after the Ring Wraith stabbed him. His expression was more than a little amusing – they both had a good giggle before moving to the kitchen.
The most annoying thing about cooking food, in Fitz’s opinion, was the wait. No, scratch that - it was the smell of the food that was cooking but not yet ready for consumption.
“God, that pizza smells good,” he muttered to himself as he spooned cake mix into a case.
Simmons rolled her eyes. “I should’ve known that making more food wouldn’t distract you from your bottomless pit of a stomach. Hey!” she added, lightly smacking his hand when he dipped a finger into the raw mixture and dripped a drop into his mouth. She reached into a cupboard and chucked a bag of Doritos at him. “They should keep you happy for a moment.”
Fitz smiled his thanks and alternated between eating and dolloping. By the time the mixture was all out, the oven timer for the pizzas began to beep.
When the oven door was opened and the smell of cooked pizza rushed forward, Fitz let out a hungry groan that would have sounded like something filthier to anyone the other side of the wall. He slammed the cake tray in the oven and didn’t even bother to cut the pizza, ripping into it hungrily and burning his fingers in the process.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuuhh-huh-huck-”
“Hot?” Simmons smirked, pulling the pizza cutter from the drawer and heading back into the lounge. He followed, continuing the curses under his break as he tried to suck the pain out of his fingertips.
20 minutes later, the pizza was long since gone and the smell of cooking cakes was drifting through from the kitchen. The only thing was, they were in the middle of the gathering of the Fellowship, which is not a place to pause, so by the time they got to the kitchen, the cakes were definitely on the Dark Side.
A bit of scraping and liberal amounts of icing made them edible enough for any university student, and the R2-D2 and C-3PO designs (they attempted a Darth Vader but failed spectacularly) cut out of royal icing make them photo-worthy to the complete nerds who decorated them.
They didn’t even think about having a break when they reached the end of the first disc besides grabbing drinks and more snacks, and it was dark outside by the the time the second half had finished. The temperature had dropped but neither of them wanted to move until the end. As soon as the screen faded to credits, though, Simmons turned to Fitz and said, “Operation Warm-Up?”
Leo nodded and they heaved themselves up together, Jemma heading to pull the curtains closed and Fitz to grab blankets from Jemma’s room. They could have switched the heating on but on a student budget and with the option of cocooning up in multiple blankets, there was never any doubt which the preferable option was.
He tried not to look around her room; he’d been in there plenty of times before, but having grown up surrounded by the society that he had, he’d been taught from a young age that girls’ rooms were exciting and drastically more interesting than boys’. That was completely wrong, of course, and Fitz being Fitz found them much more awkward that enticing and so tended to get in and out as quickly as possible, for privacy’s sake more than anything else.
Still, he caught a glimpse of a framed photograph on her desk of the two of them from the year before when they’d taken a day trip to Alton Towers. They’d spent most of the day discussing the physics of rollercoasters with awed expressions, but Jemma had also managed to drag him onto the biggest ride in the park (he can remember being very glad they hadn’t eaten lunch beforehand). They stayed until the park closed and had to get a late train home, and by the time they were crossing back into Scotland, Jemma had fallen asleep on his shoulder, exhausted by the day and snoozing softly. It was always incredible watching her face light up at the world in its waking hours, but in that moment, when she was content and completely at peace… It had made Fitz truly content as well.
“You got the blankets, Fitz?” Simmons called through from the lounge.
He blinked himself back to the present and forced himself to mobilise. “Yeah,” he responded. heading back through and plucking a blanket off the top of the pile, chucking the rest on the sofa as he shook it open and draped it over his friend from behind her.
She laughed and thanked him as he joined her and took a blanket for himself, then in unison they jiggled around for a few moments to warm up a bit. They then looked up to the still-rolling credits.
Fitz sighed deeply before shuffling across the floor and changing the DVD. “Life would be so much easier with magic. Nobody would ever have to leave the comfort of warm blankets to change a DVD; we could just move things from where we sat.”
“But we’d get so lazy if we didn’t have to move. It’s a wonder there isn’t a wizarding world obesity problem.”
“Oh I’m sure there is, but to be honest, I don’t think it would’ve been as important an issue for JK to cover as a world-dominating evil wizard and his Horcruxes,” Fitz pointed out as he crawled back to the sofa and grabbed a bag of Haribo from the Cornucopia on the way past. “What?” he said at Simmons’ raised eyebrow. “It’s dark, and that means we can dig in.”
Jemma only shook her head. “Maybe obesity could be solved with magic as well,” she continued.
“And what would the spell be for that? ‘Fattus eradicus’?”
“Okay then, the biology would be too complicated for a single spell, but maybe magical strength has some kind of correlation to physical health; as a wizard or witch’s physical condition deteriorates, so does the power of their magic.”
“Interesting, but couldn’t physical exercise and exercising magical ability also work completely independently? You could be awesome at charms and suck at flying, or any kind of physical exertion. I know that’d be me.”
“That’s a possibility. But then have you seen Ralph Fiennes’ arms? They scream extreme power.”
“I think that’s what’s called an artistic decision, Jemma.”
“And look at the transition of Neville,” she continued, apparently taken by this train of thought. “He’s not looking too shabby these days either, ever since he mastered Expelliarmus...”
“Alright, alright, this isn’t Hogwarts’ Next Top Model,” Fitz cut in, trying to catch the ire he suddenly felt before it crept into his tone. Wow; he never thought he’d be jealous of Neville Longbottom, but seeing Jemma’s eyes start to glaze over at the thought of him seemed to have done the trick.
Just then the film automatically started to play, so Fitz shuffled in close to warm up in the Muggle way of sharing body heat and tucking his blanket closely around him. “And I bet Neville still sucks at Quidditch,” he mumbled as the titles faded in.
The food pile depletes a little more over the next two hours, and by the time the midpoint comes, the pair of them are slumped down to horizontal under at least two blankets each.
“Fitz,” Jemma mumbles from her half of the sofa. “That’s halfway. Know what that means?”
Leo groans. “Half-time mandatory exercise.”
This was a condition they had built into any marathon over six hours: at the halfway point, there had to be at least a half-hour break for some kind of physically engaging activity. “What’s today’s ‘sport’?”
Simmons grinned at that question, then reached under the sofa and pulled out… “Twister.”
Fitz rolled gracelessly off the sofa and untangled his limbs from the blankets. “Let’s get it over with, then.”
Of course, on the inside, his heart was starting to pick up pace. Things always ended up in awkward places when one played Twister; it was just inevitable. Knowing Fitz’s luck, he’d end up with cleavage in his face or having to straddle Jemma because it’d be the only way to reach the right colour. So this should be fun.
What they had also neglected to remember in attempting Twister was the difficulty of playing with only two people; the spinner became out of reach on multiple turns, and getting out of the tangle they were in to reach it again seemed difficult until they had to remember the colours they had been on.
There was a point where Fitz’s face ended up suddenly very close to Simmons’, and he had to really focus on steadying his breathing and trying to will the flush he felt rising up his neck back below his collar. And he certainly didn’t glance at her focussed expression as she read the spinner and moved accordingly with great delicacy before meeting his eyes and smiling, “Your go.”
Of the few times they played over their break, Jemma won the most. In all fairness, Fitz had been wearing rather inelastic jeans and had also sacrificed one round to preserve the dignity of his stomach when it was threatened by his uncooperative t-shirt.
But still, Jemma was more flexible and always managed to find a way to reach that little bit further. That, and the fact that she was extremely competitive; whenever Fitz won, her nose would scrunch up a bit and she’d ask for immediate rematch.
By the end, they ached all over and it was a great relief to flop back down onto the sofa and curl up once more. That was, until they realised they’d done the same as before and the screen sat staring back at them, politely asking them to switch discs.
“I’ll get it this time,” Simmons offered, rolling back off the sofa again.
***
The second half of The Two Towers brought both joy in the form of the Gimli vs Legolas kill count contest and a solemnity in the form of the ending, preparing them for the final leg of the journey.
It also brought much colder hours of the early morning and a need to bring out the bedding.
Simmons moved the coffee table and pulled out the sofa bed as Fitz dumped the duvets, blankets and pillows on the floor beside it. He then, on a random momentary impulse, picked up one of the pillows and bopped Jemma on the top of her head with it.
She froze, raised her head and very slowly turned towards her friend. “Oh you did not.”
Fitz gulped.
And then Jemma had grabbed as many as she could hold and whacked him back, initiating a 10 minute long battle which involved chucking pillows and cushions at one another from opposite ends of the sofa bed and ended with a photo being knocked off the coffee table and the glass cracking as it hit the floor. Fitz apologised repeatedly and promised to pay for a replacement but Simmons simply moved it to the side of the room and pulled him onto the sofa bed, snuggling close as she pressed ‘Play’ on the remote for the final instalment.
“If I ever go on an adventure,” Jemma said, slightly sleepily and out of the blue, “will you be my Samwise Gamgee?”
She turned her face up to Fitz’s and smiled. He looked back at her, heart clenching in an overwhelming affection that he’d never felt for anyone else. “Of course I will. What kind of adventure would you like to go on?”
She considered for a moment. “Something that took us across oceans. I mean, I love the UK and it’ll always be my home, but just imagine everything else that’s out there, all there is to explore. We see some of it because of the technology we have today, true; we’re more connected than ever. But I don’t think anything could beat standing right in the middle of it and seeing it with your own eyes.”
Leo was staring, he knew it, he watched Jemma wait for him to say something but he just wanted to soak up her wonder at the world for a moment longer.
“What about you?” Simmons ended up prompting.
He finally looked somewhere else, anywhere else. “Oh, I don’t know,” he babbled at the curtains. Anything would be an adventure with you. he wanted to say. “Overseas sounds good to me too. Maybe we’d meet someone famous - not like Kevin Bridges” - Jemma laughed because the two of them had bumped into him on their way to a lecture the other day, which was very exciting but in the grand scheme of celebrity he wasn’t very high on the name-drop preferences - “but someone like… man, imagine if we met Tony Stark or Bruce Banner.”
They sat for a moment marvelling at the thought. Both were heroes of theirs, and the possibility seemed such a distant fantasy that it was ridiculous.
“Even being in their vicinity would probably make me implode with excitement,” Simmons murmured.
Fitz smiled to himself. “That sounds about right.”
“But who knows,” she said looking back up him. “Maybe we’ll be involved in some top secret alien investigation some day.”
“Now that sounds like an adventure.”
By the time they got onto the last disc, the curtains were being illuminated by the soft glow of sunrise. After the last part, the glow had become bright beams streaming into the room and Simmons had fallen asleep across Fitz’s lap. As the credits scrolled through the full official fan club for well over 15 minutes he sat perfectly still, listening to his friend’s even breaths and just loving that he had her in his life. To find someone with the same enthusiasms as him who he got on with so well and so immediately was rare and to be treasured and he thanked his stars for the hundredth time that he’d got to that first lecture so early.
“I’ll never leave you, Frodo,” he whispered, and felt the arms around his middle tighten just a little.