A Moment of Weakness

Jemma Simmons, exhausted first-year-out high school Science teacher, has a weak moment when asked by a catty student if she has a boyfriend. Not only does she answer in the affirmative, she names him – Leo Fitz. But despite her daydreams, gorgeous Leo Fitz is no more to her than her friendly downstairs neighbour.

Cue the AU fluffy fake-dating trope that no FitzSimmons shipper can get enough of.

Prompted by Lavendergaia's inspiring rant about fic summaries on tumblr.

Jemma had heard the words tumbling out of her mouth with as much power to stop them as she had to declare herself the star in a Hermione spin-off film trilogy.

Really, it was bloody Rebecca's fault for being obnoxious enough to ask the question in the first place. And though she was an independent, intelligent, capable and self-reliant woman, in the moment she found herself weak.

Why she felt losing face in catty Rebecca's eyes would be such a problem was something to dwell on for another time. But her first year of teaching Science had been exhausting, her take-out expenditure almost exceeded her rent and it did kind of suck not to have someone with intelligent and expressive blue eyes in her life. On top of everything else it was last period on a Friday; every teacher across the country's defences were low.

"What's his name then?" the little minx had dared as a follow-up.

And as if her mouth had peacefully seceded from her brain, she heard herself announce, "Leo. Leo Fitz."

"What does this Leo do for work?" It was practically a dare.

Rebecca need to be stopped. Perhaps even shot.

Jemma mentally scrambled about for an abort lever, an ejector seat, a self-destruct button but all she could come up with was the truth. "He's an engineer."

"So you're bringing him to our graduation dinner next week?"

Her subconscious suddenly deployed a pre-assembled rent-a-crowd of voices, all shouting sound life guidance: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JEMMA. STOP!

"Of course," Jemma replied with a winning smile – the sort of smile she imagined she would smile if that gorgeous engineer Leo Fitz was anything more to her than her friendly downstairs neighbour.

"Now, back to work."

She thought she caught a glimpse of Rebecca exchanging disbelieving glances with the equally unpleasant Nicole.

Oh, God, this was going to be awful. But she couldn't let them win.

.

Even though her watch showed her favourite time of day rapidly approaching, the blob of dread in her stomach continued to lurch and shudder with every sudden brake and turn of the bus.

The neon sign announcing Advanced Souvlaki that always seemed to herald his appearance shone bright in the early evening gloom. As had become her habit, she eagerly scanned the street for cyclists.

She spotted him, but he wasn't peddling along with his usual accustomed ease. Rather, he was up on the sidewalk, perched on his bike seat, one shoulder leaning nonchalantly against the wall. His curls caught the light of the street lamp above giving them an almost celestial glow. The straps of his backpack pulled the fabric of his pale blue shirt taught across his chest, revealing the definition of his wiry build. He scratched absent-mindedly at the scruff on his cheek, looking for all the world like he was playing a game on his phone.

Surprised by this unusual sight, Jemma turned her head to stare.

At what she presumed was the deafening noise of the old municipality bus, Fitz's head snapped up. He shoved his phone in his pocket and started peddling furiously.

Jemma turned to face forward again, not wanting him to catch her staring. Things between them were about to get well and truly awkward enough.

As if ordained by a Japanese transport schedule, Jemma stepped off the bus at precisely the moment Fitz pedalled past her stop. As had become his habit, which certainly bore no small responsibility for the growing intensity of her daydreams and probably led to today's faux pas, he hopped off his bike to wait for her.

"Fancy seeing you here," Fitz crowed, as if he didn't see her at precisely this spot and precisely this time every day.

"What are the odds?" Jemma laughed, harnessing her qi for what was possibly going to be the most excruciating moment of her life.

Fitz chuckled to himself as he chained up his bike. "Oh," he called over his shoulder. "I have some more of your Scientific Americans and Science Teacher Association Journals in my flat."

"And I have one of your Mechanical Engineering magazines and an Aviation Week in mine." She unlocked the door and held it open for him as he jogged up the steps behind her. "What is going on with that postie?"

"I have no idea," he laughed, his accent echoing delightfully in the tiled foyer. "I mean, a two and a seven might be a forgivable mix-up, or a three and an eight, but it's pretty hard to mistake a nine for a ten."

"Especially when they're always such clearly printed labels," Jemma replied as they climbed up their old building's central staircase side-by-side.

"Put on the kettle for me and I'll bring them up to yours, then?" he suggested casually, the electric blue of his eyes somehow intensified under the flickering fluorescent light.

Under normal circumstances her heart would be hammering with excitement but the weight of the favour she had to ask him made her certain their budding friendship was about to draw to a swift close.

"Sure," she sighed, seeing no chance to postpone the inevitable.

His face fell. "I mean, only if you're not too tired. I can just drop them off and go."

"No!" she replied, a little too loudly. "No, Fitz. Please do come up and have tea. It's just…"

"Just what?"

She could feel the tsunami of red rushing over her throat. "I have an extremely awkward favour to ask you."

Fitz's grin returned in force. "Doing extremely awkward favours for people is my absolute favourite activity."

Jemma shook her head, laughing in spite of herself as she trudged up the stairs to her floor leaving him on his landing. "Mmm, just wait til you hear it."

"I'll grab the journals and be up in five," he called over the jangle of his keys.

Jemma slammed her front door closed and slumped against it, unceremoniously dropping her heavy bag full of books to correct on the floor. She thumped the back of her head against the door a few times before finally pushing herself off it to check for visible underwear or mouldering Thai food.

Certain the coast was clear she kicked off her pointy flats and padded into the galley kitchen to flick on the kettle and rinse the morning's tea leaves out of the pot. Setting a fresh pot on the trivet and covering it with her Gran's crocheted tea cosy to brew, she nipped to the bathroom to check that she didn't have half her lunch-time tabouli still stuck between her teeth.

Jemma glared at herself in the mirror, toothbrush in one hand and roughly tugged the elastic out of her professional-looking teacher's bun, letting her curls tumble over her shoulders. Before she even had a chance to think about what to do with it she heard a knock at the door. She only had time to rinse, spit and drag a towel over her mouth.

This will have to do.

.

Opening her front door to Leo Fitz who held scientific journals in one hand, balanced half a chocolate cake in the other and smiled like the sun, would never get old.

"Your place looks exactly like mine," Fitz observed as she stood aside to let him in. "Except, you know, yours looks like a human might actually survive in it."

Jemma laughed. "You've only been in your flat three months!"

"Oh, trust me," Fitz sighed. "I can scum up a place pretty fast." He held out his large, well-shaped hands to show her the grease marks that stained his long fingers. "I'm always tinkering with something or other."

Jemma suddenly felt the pressing need to open a window. "You can pour the tea if you like," she called over her shoulder, surreptitiously fanning at her face.

"You'll eat some of this cake with me, won't you?" Fitz asked, deftly filling the two cups Jemma had left warming.

She narrowed her eyes as she walked back towards him. "Did you make it?"

"God, no," he chuckled. "I'd never dare offer you something I made. My mum visited last weekend. She baked it for me. As I live and breathe, my mum is the world's best cook. You'll be quite safe."

"Alright then," she nodded, mentally noting that the man loved his mother. "But only if I can have an absolutely enormous slice."

Fitz beamed at her and exaggeratedly slid the knife from where he had it poised to cut a sliver to an angle that encompassed most of the remaining cake.

"Well," she sighed begrudgingly. "I suppose we could just go halves."

"Finally," he chuckled. "A woman who knows how to eat!"

"It's hard sometimes," Jemma replied, "Trying to subsist on cake alone. But I'm making a good go of it and I think it's really paying dividends in embarrassing mid-morning sugar-highs and all-encompassing mid-afternoon slumps."

Fitz carried the two plates of cake and the tea pot to the lounge with Jemma on his heels balancing their two cups and the milk jug. He plonked himself down, turning his whole body to face her as she sank into the lounge next to him and handed him his cup.

"So," he said, carefully taking it from her. "Tell me about this favour."

Jemma shook her head. "Let me fortify myself with cake first. Tell me about your day for a minute instead."

Fitz took a thoughtful sip of his tea. "Well, turns out I don't hate my new boss as much as I first thought."

Jemma tried her best to convey interest with her eyebrows while her mouth was crammed with cake and Fitz's ready laugh sounded again. She couldn't have explained it even if pressed but she was certain that he was laughing with her rather than at her. It was a heady rush to find herself being so appreciated by such keen blue eyes.

When every last crumb of the cake was gone, Jemma was left with no more excuses.

"C'mon, Jemma," Fitz urged at last, refilling her cup. "I'm in suspense. What did you want to ask me?"

Jemma curled herself into a protective ball and dropped her head onto her knees. "Oh, Fitz, I am so embarrassed," she moaned.

"Want me to tell you something embarrassing first?" he offered. "Share the pain?"

She raised her head about an inch from its resting place, interest piqued.

"At this conference in Munich last year, I tripped on the steps leading up to the dais and began my presentation prostrate on the stage."

She raised her head fully now, keenly feeling that embarrassment. "No…" she breathed.

"Oh, yes," he nodded.

"Did you manage to pull yourself together?"

He laughed. "I did but I don't know how. Maybe the mild concussion helped me overcome my nerves."

She giggled along with him until he fixed her with a pointed look.

"Alright," he said. "Now it's your turn. Out with it."

"Oh, Fitz," she sighed. "This year has been so intense. I mean, I love my job, I love my students. Well, most of them," she added darkly. "And I just want to be taken seriously and respected, you know? I want to feel more confident, more established."

"Sounds like everyone who started a job ever," Fitz nodded along in sympathy. "But what does this have to do with me? I'm willing to try but I doubt I'll be much help with your lesson plans."

Her laugh was no more than a quick breath out her nose. "I let them goad me, Fitz," she sighed.

"Let who goad you?"

"Rebecca Crawford and Nicole Marquez."

"These are colleagues of yours?"

Jemma shook her head. "If only."

The light of realisation dawned in Fitz's eyes. "They're students aren't they."

She nodded, shame-faced. "And they asked me if I had a boyfriend."

"Ah."

She raised her head boldly, her voice suddenly firm. "And I know better than most that one doesn't need a boyfriend to be complete or fulfilled. I love being independent and self-reliant. I love my career and I don't…"

"Need no man?" Fitz interjected, his eyes twinkling.

She elbowed him in exasperation. "Exactly. I don't need no man." She laughed in spite of herself.

"And yet, here I am," he observed, clearly amused. "A man, if I'm not much mistaken. And I've been lured here because you have a favour to ask me. So, perhaps you actually do need a man. Am I right?"

Gazing back at his ginger stubble, his structured cheek-bones, his broad shoulders and those blue, blue eyes, Jemma only just stopped herself from whispering a plaintive Yes.

"I may have, in a weak moment," she began tentatively, "Accidentally answered in the affirmative."

Fitz held up his hands. "Hang on, hang on, Simmons. Let me catch up here."

Jemma dropped her head back into her hands. He was enjoying this a little too much.

"You don't have a boyfriend."

"Correct," came her muffled reply.

"But you told these two students that you did."

She nodded into her knees.

"Intriguing."

"It gets worse," Jemma groaned. "They asked me his name."

"Oh? And what did you tell them?" Fitz's voice was laced with amusement. Now maybe he was laughing at her.

She raised her head and gave him a pointed look.

"What?" He was the very picture of innocence.

Jemma raised her eyebrows even higher and nodded in his direction.

"Are you alright, Simmons?" he asked with mock concern. Yes, he was definitely laughing at her.

"I gave them your name, alright!?" she exploded. "They asked me for my boyfriend's name and I told them his name was Leo Fitz."

"Well…"

"Well, what?" Jemma insisted, unsure if she was more annoyed at herself or at him.

"That was an interesting choice of answer," was all he replied.

"Look, yours was the first name that came to mind," she tried to explain. "I see you every single day." And dream about you every single night. Though perhaps that would be coming to an end now that he was turning out to be such a smug pain in the neck.

"Alright, Simmons," he laughed. "Thank you for confessing, but I don't think there's any real harm done. So what if a couple of kids think you have a boyfriend with the same name as me?"

"It's just… Well, they didn't seem to believe me."

"Your lie, you mean," Fitz chuckled.

"That's right," Jemma replied between her teeth. "And so when they asked if I'd be bringing my boyfriend to their graduation dinner next Friday night…"

"Ahhh," Fitz nodded in understanding. "You told them you would."

She nodded sheepishly.

"So, let me guess. The favour you want to ask me is that I go along to a school function next Friday with you and pose as your boyfriend."

"Yes."

"Right."

There was a long pause.

"Right, what?" Jemma finally asked.

"What?"

Ugh. He was infuriating. Much less attractive. Well, not that much less.

"So are you going to do it?" she demanded. "Or did you just let me unfold this whole mortifying tale for nothing."

Fitz grinned. "As it happens, I'm pretty free next Friday night."

She tensed everything to get out the question she hoped she already knew the answer to. "And your girlfriend won't mind?"

He feigned offense. "I'll have you know that one doesn't need a girlfriend to be complete or fulfilled. I love being independent and self-reliant. I love my career…"

Jemma let out a long breath. "Shut up."

Fitz laughed. "Alright, alright. I'll play along."

"Thank you."

"But I can see one gaping flaw in your scheme."

She arched one eyebrow at him. "Oh, yes?"

Fitz shrugged. "I don't think we can pull it off."

"What?" she asked. "Why?"

"Well, aren't these students of yours going to be watching you like a hawk? How are we going to convince them we're really together? We've only known each other a few months. This is the first time I've even been inside your flat."

Jemma hadn't thought about the need to be convincing. "What do you think we should do?"

"Well," Fitz mused. "Maybe we should practice this weekend."

"Practice?"

"We should start tonight. Let's go out somewhere and pretend to be a couple."

Jemma looked at him sceptically. Fitz's idea sounded simultaneously wonderful and horrible.

"Better that than being found out by this nasty little piece of work, wouldn't you say?" he shrugged.

For one fleeting moment, Jemma pictured the triumphant faces of Rebecca and Nicole if they uncovered her lie.

"Absolutely," she breathed.

Fitz startled her by suddenly getting to his feet.

"Alright, then m'lady," he smiled down at her. "I'm going back down to mine to have a shower and get changed for our date. Pick you up in half an hour?"

Jemma found herself jumping up to look at the clock. Six thirty.

"Umm, okay." She couldn't quite work out why she found herself smiling shyly back at him. "Where are we going? You know, just so I know what to wear."

Fitz surprised her by gently placing his hands on her shoulders. She gasped at his touch.

"Not telling," he grinned. "But wear that green dress. You know, the one with the spring flowers."

Jemma looked back at him confused. How long had Fitz been paying such close attention to what she wore?

He grabbed up his cake plate and the pile of his journals she'd collected for him and headed for the front door to let himself out. Suddenly he turned his blue eyes back on her, his hand resting on the door knob. The grin Fitz gave her seriously needed to be restricted by federal law.

"And wear shoes you can dance in, okay?"

"Okay," Jemma breathed, unable to hide her dazed smile.

"See you soon," he called, pulling the door behind him.

Oh dear, this can only be the result of one of my own moments of weakness... A fluff explosion!

I suspect this will be Part One of a two-part story unless I find myself extra carried-away later in the week.

I haven't abandoned "In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass" or anything, I just found myself in an AU frame of mind. (Ha! As if ICOEBG isn't an AU! But you know what I mean...)

Love love love (as always!) to hear what you think!