Work Text:
Fitz opened his eyes slowly, trying not to wake Jemma who was still asleep next to him. Ever since his date with Becca, Jemma had been more affectionate, spending almost every night in his bed. Of course it was just to relieve the stress from the big projects they had been working on, and honestly, they had never been more productive at work. The ideas just seemed to flow. He craned his head to the side to see the glowing numbers on the clock by the bed without moving his body.
It was 5:57, which meant he had a few minutes at least to try to sort through his feelings. Which were very confused. He had agreed to the date with Becca because he knew Jemma thought they didn’t have any other choice. And Becca was great. He actually thought that in another universe, one where he’d never met Jemma and never felt her body writhe beneath him, he would have gotten along really well with her. But instead, he’d spent the entire date noticing all the ways that Becca wasn’t Jemma. Dating was obviously going to be an exercise in futility. But he’d do it if that was what Jemma wanted. And her reaction when he got home gave him hope that she was feeling something more than friendly towards him.
He’d been half in love with her since the day they met, and all the time they’d spent together since then had only reinforced his feelings. It was Jemma he wasn’t sure about. For some reason she liked making love, and he was sure now that was what it was — at least as far as he was concerned. It was the why that he didn’t understand. She could have her pick of anyone she wanted. She was smart and funny...and sexy. And he was her best friend. Grumpy, sometimes awkward Fitz. He knew he was good at his job, and being with Jemma just made him better, but that didn’t seem like a good reason to have sex with someone.
Jemma shifted next to him and he smiled. It was like she could sense that her alarm was about to go off and needed to start her day before then.
She turned towards him and rested her head on his chest. His arm went around her out of habit and he wrapped his hand around her bare hip. As much as he loved her passion, and he had little crescent shaped marks from her nails as a reminder, he loved these quiet moments even more.
“Hi, Fitz,” she said sleepily, smiling up at him.
“Hi.”
As she looked up at him, Jemma bit her lip and scrunched up her nose, clearly thinking. And he wondered what was running through her mind. She opened her mouth...and then the alarm went off, destroying whatever moment they were about to have.
He knew they had another long day ahead of them and he didn’t want it to get off to a bad start, so he released her and promised himself he was just going to enjoy the view for a moment as Jemma rolled out of bed and started gathering up her clothes, which had somehow ended up all over his room.
“I’m going to take a quick shower and then I’ll make breakfast,” she said, tossing his clothes into his hamper before bending over to grab her knickers from the floor.
“Mmmm.” Fitz let his fingers trace the red indentations on his chest, feeling his body starting to respond to her.
“Don’t stay in bed too long — Oh my god! What happened, Fitz? Did I scratch you?”
She was beside him again, her hair tickling his skin as she leaned down to examine the damage.
“Ah, no. More like you dug your claws into me.”
“Fitz!”
She lightly hit his arm and he laughed. He was tempted to pull her back into bed, but that seemed to go beyond their boundaries. Once they got up in the morning, there would be no more “benefits” until after work, at least. Though sometimes it would be several days or even a week before they’d give in again. These last few days had been an anomaly and he tried to remind himself not to get too used to it.
“You were, um, very athletic.”
A rosy blush appeared on Jemma’s cheeks and he knew in that moment what they both had on their minds.
“Yes, well, it doesn’t look like the skin broke, so you should be alright. Let me know if you have any discomfort and I’ll give you something.”
Their eyes locked and held, but then Jemma shook her head.
“I’ll just go get ready now.”
And then she hurried out of his room, leaving her clothes in a pile on his bed.
He didn’t think Jemma had been intentionally avoiding him, but that didn’t keep him from feeling like she was. They were working on the same project again, what he was calling the night-night gun, but he was still working on the designs and she was in the lab trying to figure out how the toxin could be absorbed once the casing broke apart on the skin.
But that left him alone with his lunch. He had just decided to go find her — he could probably come up with a believable reason on the walk to her lab — when his phone buzzed with a message from Jemma.
Jemma: Do you have a minute? I have some questions about how you are going to design the firing mechanism. I think the bullets might be a little sensitive.
Fitz: Sure. I’ll be right there.
Well, that was easy.
Jemma turned when he entered the lab and smiled at him.
“So, ah, what seems to be the problem?” he asked.
Jemma gestured towards the lab bench and…
BOOM!
The sound made him jump and raise his arms to cover his face, but it was entirely too late. The explosion had released red and blue goo that was splattered over every surface in the lab, including him and Jemma. Without thinking about it, Fitz’s hand reached out to hit the large, red emergency button that would lock the lab down and keep anything — or anyone — else from being contaminated.
“Fitz—“ Jemma’s voice came from beside him and he pushed her towards the safety shower, while starting to fumble with the buttons of her blouse.
How could she be so careless? She was clearly working with an unstable substance and she wasn’t even wearing safety goggles or a lab coat!
“We have to get this off of you,” he mumbled, watching as a glob of red goo slid from her hair down to her cleavage.
“Fitz!”
He had all the buttons open now, and barely spared a thought for the lacy bra she had on. Apparently she had been planning on coming to his room again tonight. That was a nice thought to offset some of the terror he felt.
He reached for her breasts spilling over the cups of her bra. Honestly, the little scraps of fabric barely covered anything. He tried to wipe the unknown substance from her, but mostly just managed to smear it more evenly over her skin.
A glop of blue goo dropped on top of the red and Fitz swore under his breath.
“Fitz,” Jemma said again, this time taking his cheeks in her hands. Her hands were cool...and wet, covered in the same substance that was on the rest of her.
“You are very sweet, but you are overreacting. This is what I needed to show you.”
She was smiling at him, but that didn’t make any sense. Whatever chemicals had been released must already be affecting her.
“Jemma—“
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Fitz.”
She kissed him gently on the mouth and then he felt her tongue slide across his cheek.
Completely perplexed, his hands rested on her hips, temporarily abandoning their quest to divest her of her clothes.
“It’s nontoxic. Food coloring, gelatin, basically edible paint.”
“But...but, why?”
Jemma rolled her eyes at him and he felt oddly comforted.
“The casings you designed. They seem a little unstable. I was just running some tests and I needed something that wouldn’t be dangerous.”
“Oh.”
Breathing a sigh of relief he pulled her into a hug, belatedly realizing she was half-naked and covered with paint.
“I guess we should, ah, get cleaned up?” Fitz asked, as Jemma started undoing the buttons of his shirt.
She tilted her head to the side and said, “We have at least thirty minutes until the sensors finish the diagnostics on the lab and determine there is no danger. So we’ll need something to keep us busy until then. And we do need to figure out how to make the casings less...explosive. A little stress relief might help.”
Fitz was doing his best to think straight, but she had already pushed his shirt from his shoulders and was now tugging his trousers down. This was unusual, especially at work, but he wasn’t about to say no. Some parts of their relationship still felt a little tenuous and he didn’t want to miss a single moment that they could spend together.
His trousers around his knees, he held onto Jemma for balance and she slid her hands through his hair while kissing him deeply. The way his body responded to her, it felt like it had been ages since they had been together, and not like she had just left his bed this morning.
Hands slipping around her back, he released the clasp of her bra and kissed down her neck in the way he knew would make her moan. Dragging his tongue over her skin, he could taste the paint as well as the sweet taste of Jemma herself.
Her hands moved from his hair down his back and finally to his bum where she used her grip on him to pull his cock against her center. He bit his lip in anticipation and reached for the button on her jeans, the paint on his fingertips making his grip uncertain.
Jemma hands released his arse and as her hands skimmed across his hips before encircling his cock she left a trail of purple paint.
He tugged down her jeans and she kissed him again, pushing her tongue into his mouth. He held her tightly, their bodies sticky and slippery against one another, and only relaxed his hold when she started to turn in his arms.
Her hands braced against the wall, she rubbed her perfect arse against his erection and he plucked at her nipples, knowing that neither of them would last long. There was something about Jemma practically naked in the lab and streaked with paint that made it hard for him to think straight.
Jemma moaned again and tilted her hips back towards him and he slid inside her with one thrust. She rocked her hips back towards him and he thrust eagerly into her warmth. Echoing the frantic motions of their bodies with his lips on her neck, he let his hands explore every inch of her exposed skin before settling between her legs. He rubbed fast circles over her clit, not sure if the wetness was all from her or from the lab experiment gone wrong.
But either way it didn’t take long before her muscles starting pulsing around him, triggering his own release. Jemma’s soft cries probably wouldn’t be heard outside the lab and he muffled his own by sucking at the soft skin on her shoulder.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, kissing the bruise that was already forming.
“Sorry? Whatever for?”
“‘Fraid you’re going to have a bit of a bruise.”
Jemma pulled away from him and starting laughing.
“What?” Fitz asked, a little indignantly. He thought it had been nice, if a little messy.
“I think we are going to need that safety shower after all,” Jemma said, pushing her jeans and knickers down.
That wasn’t exactly the kind of shower he had imagined taking with her.
He looked at her a moment, color swirled over her body from where his hands had touched her. He knew without looking down that he would have similar markings from being pressed against her and he felt a pressure settle inside him.
That feeling in his chest was love. He knew it was. And even though this was a terrible time to say it, the words were on the tip of his tongue.
And then she turned on the shower and both of them were pelted with cold water.
“Help me get all of this off,” Jemma said before rubbing her hands down her body. Fitz’s hands followed hers and eventually they were both clean — or at least their skin had been returned to a normal color.
He kissed her one last time as water sluiced between them, knowing this was something he shouldn’t get used to, and prepared to put his paint-stained clothes back on.
“Wait a minute. I have extra clothes for you.”
Jemma produced a bag from a cabinet in the lab and thrust a clean set of clothes at him as she donned fresh clothes as well.
“You keep extra clothes here?” he asked with a smile, knowing it wasn’t really a question. It was just so undeniably Jemma that he couldn’t help it.
“Of course. Better to be prepared, wouldn’t you say?”
“Definitely.”
When the all-clear buzzer sounded and the doors released, they were already deep in discussion about how to make the casing stronger so it wouldn’t just explode unintentionally, but still break apart on impact. They really did do their best work post-orgasm.
“It’s going to take the rest of the day to get this lab cleaned up,” Fitz said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Did you want to help me with these designs and then maybe get out of here early for once?”
Jemma looked at him, surprise clear on her face. “You know what, Fitz. I think I’d like that.”
He’d have to see what she thought about it once they got home, but he had some good ideas for how they could spend their extra time tonight. He had thought of some other things he could rub all over her body...and then lick off. And even though he couldn’t seem to come up with the courage to tell her how he felt, maybe it would be enough to show her.