Chapter Text
"Is this a real paper, or is it just you trying to work something out?" Jemma asked distractedly while she peered into her microscope.
"Simmons!" Fitz gasped, totally affronted. "I would never ask you to proof a paper unless it was important!"
"Really?" Simmons asked, not looking up.
"Of course I wouldn't!" he replied, his voice cracking slightly.
She rolled her eyes and changed slides. "What about last month when you had me read that ridiculous treatise on Newton's First Law of Motion explaining why no one except Thor can lift his hammer?"
Fitz didn't even let her finish her sentence before talking over her, "That is a valid hypothesis! And one that I plan to publish!"
Jemma finally looked up from the scope and raised one eyebrow at him. "Gravitons? Really, Fitz?"
"Uru metal could very well have unknown properties, one of which could be the increased emission of gravitons --"
"We've been through this already, Fitz!"
" -- to counterbalance the upward force of --"
"They don't exist!"
"-- UNWORTHY INDIVIDUALS --"
Jemma threw her hands up and sighed, walking to the other side of the lab to clean out the autoclave. There was no reasoning with Fitz when he got like this. You either had to let him finish what he was saying or be prepared to have a huge headache from all the yelling.
Fitz continued ranting for a further two minutes until he felt like he'd made his point. Then, seeing that Simmons had calmed down enough to speak reasonably again, he placed his hands on his hips and said, "Well?"
"I'll pick it up tonight after chem lab."
"Thank you."
Jemma sighed as she picked her way through the laundry strewn across Fitz' floor. Considering how very particular he was about the care and storage of his tools and mechanisms, she could never understand why he cared so little about his other possessions. She supposed he just had a different set of priorities than most people.
When she finally managed to wade her way over to his desk, she puffed up her cheeks and blew out a breath of air. "Oh, Fitz..." How did he ever find anything in here? She swiped half-heartedly amongst the books and papers until she accidentally caused one pile to avalanche off the side. It was hardly a disaster, considering, but she did feel slightly guilty nonetheless. It was when she bent to pick the papers off the floor that she saw it peeking out from under her friend's bed.
Her eyes were already starting to glaze over and she hadn't even finished reading the abstract yet. After writing a quick "You OWE me!" note and attaching it to his pillow (the only place in the room where he might actually see it), she took the paper and headed over to the cafe by the library. There was no way she was going to read this without coffee.
Ten minutes after sitting down to read, her coffee sat beside her, forgotten.
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Fitz absentmindedly crunched another pretzel as he keyed in the code on his door lock. Dropping his bag on the floor and hitting the lightswitch, he flipped a page in the journal he was reading and shuffled his way over to his bed. He tossed the half-full bag of pretzels on the edge of his desk, still within reach of his pillow, and then kicked off his shoes before flopping down on the mattress.
"What the..." his face scrunched up at the strange feeling under his head. He rooted around a bit and then pulled out a piece of paper with Simmons' neat penmanship on it. "Owe her?" he thought, brow wrinkling in confusion. "What for? She didn't even come and pick up the paper like I asked her to."
Mentally shrugging and figuring she'd let him know when they met for breakfast the next morning, he went back to his article. Stark Industries was doing some very interesting things these days with arc reactors.
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Jemma sat, gobsmacked, in the cafe. She knew Fitz tended to be methodical when it came to figuring things out, but this was... He'd definitely outdone himself this time. She was barely two pages into the paper and already her face was flushed bright pink. She should definitely not be reading this in a public place. If she should even be reading it at all! Honestly, what was Fitz thinking giving this to her?
She quickly packed up her things, hiding Fitz's paper in her neurobiology textbook, before stepping out into the night air.
"I won't read it," she decided. "I'll give it back to Fitz and tell him how inappropriate this was, and I won't read it." She bit her lip. "Although he did say it was important..." She shook her head. "No, I won't read it."
Her thoughts continued to sway back and forth for the entire walk back to her dorm room. Just when she'd decided that she did not want to learn certain things about her best friend, a little voice in the back of her head would pipe up reminding her that he wanted her to read it, that he'd given it to her, that he probably didn't realize that sharing this particular biological information with this particular biologist (alright, biochemist, but Fitz didn't make those kinds of distinctions) would create any kind of awkwardness.
Jemma entered her room and turned on the light, placing her bag on the floor at the end of her bed and hanging her jacket up in her closet. It was that last argument that made up her mind for her. Just because every other person she'd ever met would know not to give their best friend a detailed article outlining their ejaculatory emissions didn't mean that Fitz would.
Taking a deep, steadying breath and putting the kettle on to make tea, Jemma sat down on her bed and started to read about the frequency with which Fitz orgasmed.