Chapter Text
The boy and girl stand close together, hands clasped as they look upon each other with affection and tenderness. The boy takes a step forward and looks at his future wife as he opens his mouth to speak his vow.
“Give me your hand before this holy friar. I am your husband…umm… if you’ll take me? No I mean, if you’ll have me… Uh… Shit.”
“Cut!”
Phil Coulson’s voice booms out from where he is sitting in the center of the auditorium. He lets out an audible sigh that seems to carry out through the enormous room and stands up as he looks at the kids standing in front of him. He can see the tension between them and knows that starting from the top won’t do any good so he waves his hand dismissively in their direction and says, “Take five.”
The second the words leave his mouth, the actors on stage immediately drop the old English and turn to one another in frustration.
“It’s, if you like of me. Oh honestly Fitz! How many times are we going to have to rehearse this scene before you actually manage to get it right?!”
“Bloody easy enough for you to say Simmons. I’m pretty sure if you were to actually crack open your script for once, you’d see that I have quite a few more lines to memorize than you!”
“Oh really? How many times have we had to ‘take five’ because I couldn’t remember my lines? The answer, Fitz, is zero.”
“Again, Simmons, it’s easy to remember your lines when you have less lines to remember.”
“Ugh Fitz, do you really want to start this again?”
The boy merely stares defiantly back at her and raises his eyebrows in challenge. Jemma is more than happy to accept.
“Fine, Fitz. Let’s go through it again. Enter LEONATO, Governor of Messina; HERO, his Daughter; and BEATRICE his niece, with a MESSENGER.”
“Oh don’t start with that… Yes I know you’ve memorized the entire damn play Simmons. You’re not the only one! For Pete’s sake here we go… LEONATO: I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon…”
“...comes this night to Messina.” Simmons finishes the sentence with a smirk and continues reciting the play until Fitz steps in and talks over her.
Offstage Skye stares at the two in wonder as they get progressively louder, cutting each other off at every sentence and turning red in the face as both refuse to stop for a breath. Skye turns to Coulson with a look of disbelief as the Director steps beside her to take in the spectacle.
“What I don’t understand, is how you can see that,” she points to Fitz and Simmons, who are now screaming the play at one another in an attempt to outdo each other, “And stand by your casting decision. In what world are those two Claudio and Hero? Answer: No world. In no world are Fitz and Simmons Claudio and Hero. They are the literal, real-life embodiments of Beatrice and Benedick and I just don’t get how you don’t see it.”
Coulson sighs slightly at the young girl and the fact that she’s again making her displeasure regarding his casting decisions known.
“I do see it Skye. I would have to be both blind and deaf not to recognize the similarities between FitzSimmons and BeaDick. Wait no… That’s not… That’s not as good. Don’t let that catch on. Skye. Stop laughing, I mean it. I don’t want to hear Hunter yelling BeaDick when he gets here later.”
Skye is snickering at the portmanteau and Coulson sighs in disappointment at his stage manager’s lack of maturity. He’d expected a bit more from the high school senior but can only thank his lucky stars that none of the boys had heard what the central characters’ names form when combined together.
He decides that the best course of action is to simply let Skye’s laughter subside but after a solid minute and a half of her whispering, “BeaDick,” under her breath and making herself crack up again, Coulson decides that the actual best course of action is to threaten to make her stay late after rehearsals to organize props in Scene order.
This shuts her up almost immediately and Coulson smiles at his quick thinking. He takes advantage of the girl’s momentary silence to explain for the thirteenth time why Fitz and Simmons had been cast in their respective roles.
“While I realize that Fitz and Simmons are essentially the modern high school version of Beatrice and Benedick, this is a play Skye. The goal is not to have people play themselves. I want to give people a chance to act, not to just be themselves while portraying characters that are exactly like them.”
Coulson keeps his eyes on Fitz and Simmons, who have already reached Act III in their recite-off, and sighs at the two seniors.
“Acting is meant to make people push their limits and bring them out of their comfort zones. Well, I figured nothing makes FitzSimmons more uncomfortable than having to get along, so if they can’t do it in real life, lets make them in the play.”
He turns to face Skye who is staring him with a knowing look and a smirk on her face. Coulson has come to learn to be nervous whenever he sees such a facial expression on Skye. While he’d originally thought it was simply the girl’s resting face, he quickly discovered that it’s such a common look because Skye always knew something. The smirk probably was natural, but the knowing look was exactly that.
“What is it Skye?”
He looks at her profile as she turns to face the stage with an innocent expression.
“Hmmm… Oh nothing.”
Coulson knows better than to believe that. Skye’s innocent look isn’t fooling him because he knows that ‘Skye’ and ‘Innocent’ are two words that don’t go together unless the context is Skye is not innocent.
“Skye.”
She turns to him with a grin and mirth in her eyes. Coulson should probably have his Assistant Director teach the girl how to hold her ground a bit better but doesn’t think May would appreciate another task added to her growing list.
“You Director Coulson, like everyone else in this production, heck, like everyone else in this school, want Fitz and Simmons to be FitzSimmons. You’re making them play Hero and Claudio to set them up.”
Coulson turns back to the stage, much as Skye did before, for the sole purpose of avoiding the girl’s gaze. Her assumption wasn’t necessarily correct. He actually cast FitzSimmons… Fitz and Simmons… as Hero and Claudio in the hopes that they’d learn to work together and realize that together they’re twice as capable.
That being said… If the experience let them grow a bit closer and realize how blind they both are… He wouldn’t object. But he can’t let Skye know that.
“I’m doing no such thing. I have no personal interest in the relationships of any of mystudents. But I will admit that I’d been hoping that playing Hero and Claudio might get those two to work together… and yes, maybe even get along.”
Skye scoffs at this and nods her head at the stage. “And how’s that going? Because in case you haven’t noticed, those two are still bickering. This happens once a day and, interestingly enough, the only scene during which Fitz messes up his lines is the wedding slash kissing scene. Coincidence? I think not.”
Coulson doesn’t think it’s a coincidence either but that’s neither here nor there. He’s confident that those two will work things out before opening night and if they don’t…
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Skye ignores his rather pathetic attempt at denial and instead continues to stare contemplatively at Fitz and Simmons. She moves to tap her finger against her chin and tilts her head as she takes in the sight of FitzSimmons who are now standing with their arms crossed, facing opposite directions and giving each other the silent treatment.
“The question is… does Fitz realize he’s messing up because he’s nervous to kiss Jemma, or do you think he’s still telling himself it’s because he hates her? Hmm…”
Skye turns to quirk an eyebrow at him and Coulson has to find all the strength within him not to answer her question with his own two cents.
“No comment.”
Skye rolls her eyes before her gaze locks on something behind his shoulder and she lets out another laugh. “Well, at least you won’t have to worry about Hunter and Bobbi’s big kiss scene as BeaDick…”
Coulson shoots her a warning glare. “Stop saying BeaDick. And what makes you think that Morse and Hunter won’t have any issues?”
“Because based on how much they’re currently practicing for it… They shouldn’t have any issues. Later Coulson!” Skye points behind him with a slight grimace and Coulson turns to be greeted with the sight of Lance Hunter and Barbara Morse eating each other’s faces in between arguments of their own.
Coulson sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose before taking a deep breath and shouting, “All right everybody, lets try this again. From the top of Act 4!”
He plops down in his seat and watches as the SHIELD Academy Drama League scurries across the stage to find their places. Fitz and Simmons are elbowing each other, Hunter and Bobbi are switching between bickering and making out, and he can hear Skye’s laughter from where she’s standing in the wings.
Coulson sighs again in both exhaustion and trepidation as he opens his worn script of Much Ado About Nothing.
“What have I gotten myself into.”
__________________________
TEN DAYS PRE-PRODUCTION…
A soft knock echoes throughout the room, breaking the all-consuming silence, but John Garrett doesn’t so much as look up from his paperwork as he calls out. “Come in Ward!”
The SHIELD senior tentatively opens the door to the office and nervously pops his head in through the small opening. “You wanted to see me sir?”
Garrett glances up at the boy and carefully removes his glasses before placing them on the papers resting on his desk. “Yes son I did, come on in.”
Grant Ward slowly makes his way across the room and takes a seat in the worn-down leather seat across from Garrett. He’s skeptical as to why he’d been called out of class today considering the last time he’d done something against school policy was on Monday…
Clearly the powers that be at SHIELD have gotten sloppy, no longer concerned with immediate action against student disobedience. Ward knows that navigating the remote-control helicopter through the school’s ventilation system was definitely against school rules but at the time it had seemed far more preferable to sitting through another boring class and hearing those FitzSimmons kids belt out the answer to every question.
As he gets slightly more comfortable in the chair, Grant prepares himself for a lecture from his mentor turned father figure. He winces when Garrett moves forward and then grows confused when the man across from him changes course and leans back into his chair with a mischievous smirk that Grant knows spells trouble. He’d been the one giving that smirk on more than one occasion and tenses as he prepares for whatever Garrett has in store.
The man leans further into his chair and ends up saying the last thing Ward would have expected him to.
“So Grant, let me ask you a question. Have you heard about Phil Coulson’s little Drama League production?”