#also jemmawill

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Agents of SHIELD Rating: teen Relationships: Jemma/Will, mentions of Jemma/Grant Characters: Jemma Simmons, Will Daniels, Grant Ward Summary:   Thirty days after Will's forty day mission began, the uprising hit. Not that that should have any effect on a guy stranded in space.

“O-kay?” Will’s not really sure where this is headed.

“I’m Jemma Simmons,” she says with what is clearly a forced smile. “You might have heard of me as half of FitzSimmons?”

He might nod. Might not. She doesn’t seem to need his response.

“I’m the head of the new SHIELD’s science division, such as it is.”

“Ah.” That explains it.

She frowns at him. “What?”

“I’ve been on an alien planet for two years. I know the risks. Give it to me straight. Do I have some horrific disease?”

[analyticallyminded-a]

will daniels was and will always be one of the most important people in jemma’s life. he was hope when she had none. she would not have survived if not for him, especially after the failed attempt to get home. she is aware, entirely aware, that had it not been for him, she would be dead. her feelings began developing long before then, however.

he was her first real love. she’d had boyfriends before, sure. short-term. but she will always say that he was her first actual love.

[analyticallymindedarchive]

jemmawill closely parallels scully/mulder in many ways, such as the softness of the women and the deep love each party has for their partner, being willing to sacrifice extreme amounts for the safety of the other, as well as the fact that it is heartbreakingly sweet and wonderful and built upon mutual respect, among many other similarities. the mulder/scully relationship, also known as msr, is a dearly beloved relationship by many individuals and is often considered one of the greatest relationships of all time. because of these parallels, it is shocking that jemmawill has received so little love from the fandom and indeed has received vast amounts of hatred, when in reality, this is the relationship that should have been endgame for jemma. in this essay, i will

[dearingsattler]

Anyway enjoy this universe I created in the tags on my own post but am highly unlikely to actually write lol

#kay but just imagine#Will came back with Jemma and they stay together#Jemma and Fitz talk and work out their relationship before things get too complicated#and therefore are able to go back to the way they were in sci ops for the most part#(except for the fact that both have changed due to what they've been through obvs)#and then the framwork comes around and Jemma goes in determined to save the two people most important to her: Will and Fitz#so of course she does manage with some difficultly kinda like in the shpw#and then Ophelia also comes back#and like Fitz manages to talk her around like in the show#but in this case Jemma also vouches for her because she trusts Fitz's judgement and if Fitz sees something in her#then Jemma is going to give her a chance#(admittedly she is a bit hesitant because Aida did kidnap Will and Fitz and replace them with robots)#(also in this one she figures it out when Fitz refuses to allow her to scan him for any head injury after that last scuffle)#so she helps Fitz defend her to the team#and ofc Will jumps in to help as well#which slowly leads to others joining in#and now Ophelia has her second chance and she makes the best of it#and ofc now that Fitz has a girlfriend Jemma is ecstatic about the idea of being able to go on a double date#'we can have a normal night for once Fitz' 'I don't know' 'I would like to go on a double date' 'ha! yes see you're girlfriend is in this is#happening'#and that is the story of how jemmawill and fraida became good friends and now go on double dates and couples retreats together

[theclaravoyant]

AOS S3 Bloopers

- Hunter & May gold - Simmons necklace backstory revealed - more JemmaWill development - just lots of Jemma!! - also Bobbi, Coulson, and May&Fitz!

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XD I'm really curious what three sentences is gonna look like. I may have snorted out loud when I saw the ask meme, I'm not even gonna lie. Hm, I have just purchased some new succulents, so succulent and JemmaWIll please!

send me a ship and a prompt and I’ll write you a three-ish sentence fic

Jemma’seating strawberries, the reddest strawberries Will’s ever seen withjuice that drips down her chin and neck to disappear past the lowcollar of her white tank top and- oh hell no.

Jemmagiggles when he pounces on the couch and drags her into his lap.“Took you long enough,” she breathes into his mouth and he tastesstrawberries on his tongue.

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So...

And I know that means people are supposed to give me fic but I really wanted to get more slightly delayed done this idea came to me yesterday and also comments are great gifts. So here is a fic for all you lovely jemmawill shippers.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Agents of SHIELD Rating: teen Relationships: Jemma/Will Characters: Jemma Simmons, Will Daniels, Hive Summary:   The gorge they'll have to cross to reach the portal looks just as Will described. It's the creature's presence there that's a surprise.

Or, what would’ve happened if Hive had a consistent character and motivations throughout the season.

“When I saw it in the No Fly Zone it appeared as, well, Death. Obviously to frighten me. What’s the point of appearing as an astronaut, a rather unkempt one at that?”

“It’s not appearing as anything,” Will says in that distant tone of his she’s spent months working to alleviate him of, “that’s just what it looks like.”

“What?” she asks, so softly the few inches of air between them eat up the sound. Luckily Will is looking to unburden himself—that or he simply knows her well enough to realize she’ll never let it go if he doesn’t elaborate.

“It took Taylor’s body.”

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J, L, O, P!

ask me!

J - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr

Conveniently just in time for fall: Over the Garden Wall! It was EVERYWHERE a couple autumns ago so I checked it out and it’s the cutest little series about two brothers who are lost in the woods and all the trouble they run into. I even bought it to own which is a huge deal for me; I am insanely frugal. I bought an itunes giftcard SIX MONTHS AGO to buy OUAT in Wonderland on itunes for a rewatch and still haven’t done it, that’s how bad I am.

And also Stranger Things. I had zero intention of watching it until it showed up all over my dash.

L - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for

Okay I know what this is asking but what sprung to mind was that one of my favorite fanartists once drew a beautiful piece of zutara fanart and said something about it being related to a fic but I CANNOT FIND THE FIC ANYWHERE. So I’d ask them where the heck that is. (Link to things, people. This is the internet. It’s common courtesy.)

But honestly I wouldn’t want to request anything. Especially with fic I tend to be very vague whenever I get the chance to request something because otherwise I have too clear an idea of what I would do with that prompt. So I’d be more likely to request more of a certain fic or more fanart in a series than I would to do a typical “X does Y and Z happens” request. 

O - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of

This one is really hard because every time I find a new song that makes me think of a ship I send it to you.

I get to love you by Ruelle for jemmawill. I just … I love this song a LOT all on its own because it’s very soft and pure in its picture of this relationship and I especially love that it’s a woman singing it because while I think plenty of women feel this way, I don’t think it’s expressed often enough. Typically it’s the man being grateful for the woman’s love. That said, it definitely works for Will’s perspective of his relationship with Jemma, especially with lines like “I prayed for you before I called you mine / I can’t believe it’s true sometimes.” But while I don’t think the specifics of the song fit Jemma as well, the sentiment behind it is definitely there for her after she and Will finally get together.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

Instead of Christian being the one to deal Grant’s way out of SHIELD, it’s his mother. And what’s worse than her reminding him that she, you know, EXISTS, is that she has a job for him once he’s free. 

She’s heard through the grapevine (Fates only know how) that a god has called Jemma the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a thousand years. Which is 100% unacceptable because, as it so happens, Grant’s mom had an affair with said god eight hundred years ago and she’s the goddess of beauty so nope. Jemma must die. 

Easy enough. Coulson’s low on resources and it’ll only be a matter of time before Jemma’s sent out in the open. But Grant’s mom specifically says that she wants Jemma to fall for the most despicable creature Grant can find.* She’s thinking a run-of-the-mill psychopath who will either kill her or just wear her down until she’s no longer beautiful. But Grant, in addition to being a little bit of a narcissist, knows himself. He knows that he’s the most despicable creature he can find. 

He refuses to use his powers on Skye because he wants her to love him for himself, but Jemma? Making one of Coulson’s most loyal agents, a woman who just hours ago threatened to murder Grant if she ever saw him again, fall for him? That could be fun.

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Are there any songs that make you think of Jemma and Will?

Okay so ya’ll know I have a biospec playlist which I really need to update because I’ve gotten a few amazing song recs from people here but I also have a Maveth playlist. Which is, admittedly, a lot more varied (it’s got Jemma and Will and Hive and various combinations thereof) but here are a few of the jemmawill songs:

King of My Heart by Taylor Swift

Johnny and June by Heidi Newfield

While You Loved Me by Rascal Flatts

Heartbeat Song by Kelly Clarkson

I Won’t Say (I’m In Love) from Hercules

From This Moment On by Shania Twain

If I Die Before You from Community

Where Did I Go Right by Hilary Duff

Nothing Without Love by Nate Ruess

You Found Me by Kelly Clarkson

Heart Shaped World by Jessica Andrews

Every Time I Speak by Hoku

How Can I Not Love You by Joy Enriquez

Let’s Take a Rocketship to Space from Phineas and Ferb

What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flatts

and, because I think of my vampire AU every time I hear it:

Dangerous Night by Thirty Seconds to Mars

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“ you’re gonna be just fine, i promise ” - Jemmawill

A wishful s5 fic.

There are voicesjust out of reach, the words muffled by chaotic dreams and, as shedrags herself back to consciousness, increasing pain.

“-not much chanceof that,” a voice she doesn’t recognize says wryly. It’sfollowed by the sound of feet retreating and a heavy door shutting, the hum of an airtight seal engaging. But Jemma barely hears any of that; she’s rather preoccupied withthe feel of a rough thumb tracing over the back of her hand and thevoice which follows the first.

“You hear that?You’re gonna be just fine. I promise.” Her hand is lifted, abeard scrapes her skin as lips press to her knuckles. She knows thevoice, the hand holding hers, the mouth. It’s all impossible.

She opens her eyes.

And decides shemust still be dreaming.

“There you are,”Will says, his face breaking in one of his rare smiles. She lifts herfree hand to touch his cheek, feels his familiar warmth, as welcomeon a broken down spaceship as it ever was in Maveth’s tepidatmosphere.

That must be what’sbrought this on—she always dreams of Will when she’s feeling coldor lonely (she dreamt of him every night in the Framework)—orperhaps it’s simply that she’s thought of him near endlesslysince arriving on the ship, constantly asking herself what he mightdo in her shoes. She does wish though that this were one of thebetter dreams with Earth and sunshine. Seeing Will is always lovely but she’d prefer him somewhere that isn’t space.

His smile fades, asthey always did, and he touches her head. From the way it smarts andthe way his fingers trail carefully around the most tender area, sheimagines she has quite the head wound. Now that she thinks of it, shedoes remember one of the Kree backhanding her. Likely this is fromthe impact against the bulkhead and—she gingerly drops her head toone side—that stiffness radiating from her neck through hershoulder must be from the initial blow itself.

“You’re okay,”Will says softly. His fingers move down, trailing along her neckbefore lifting away almost self-consciously. His eyes move to thevery engrossing view of a blank wall. “You lost consciousness butthe scans came back fine.”

Several incongruousbits of data align themselves in Jemma’s mind at once. Sheshouldn’t be feeling pain in her dream. And Will—the Will hersubconscious has crafted in the two years since she lost him—doesn’tshy away from her. Cruel as her sleeping mind might be to repeatedlyforce her to awaken to a world without him, it isn’t so cruel as tohave the only Will available to her put distance between them.

The onlyconclusion—the impossible conclusion—propels her up. Will has tocatch her to keep her from toppling right off the cot (she doesn’t know what hescanned her with but she doesn’t trust the Kree tech as far as shecan throw it) and his hands are as warm and as real as ever, as isthe pain that floods her aching skull. It grows heavy and she longsto lay back down, but compromises by resting her forehead against hisshoulder.

On Maveth there wasvery little in the way of hygiene and she grew fond of Will’sunfortunately rank odor despite herself, but beneath it there wasalways Will, the scent that grew stronger during their brief nightstogether. Here there are similar constraints, but there is a form ofdisinfectant they all use in lieu of traditional soap. Beneath its strong scent,she smells that same Willness again. Rough and strong and utterly him.

“What are you?”she asks while tears sting at her eyes. She knows they’re not fromthe pain.

He stiffens andslowly, cruelly, shifts her away so that he can look in her eyes. Heisn’t a perfect replica—but that’s the trick, isn’t it? AWill exactly like the one she remembers would be obvious as a fakebut this one, with the new lines around his eyes and the grey in histrimmed beard, is far more believable.

She swallowsthickly. “Are you- are you some sort of hallucination the Kreecreated to learn more about us? Or an Inhuman who can assume others’forms? Because if you are, I should warn you-”

“I’m me,” hesays, his hands closing around her shoulders and with him so closeit’s exactly like that night they returned to the caves, when hetold her it wasn’t hell, not really, not anymore. She chokes down a sob. “I’m Will. I’m here.”

“Willis dead,” she says and wishes for a gun so she could do what shedid the last time she was forced to say those words. Maybe this timeit would do more than inconvenience the bastard watching her cry.

Hisbroad palms cup her jaw, his thumbs brush her tears aside. His mouthworks a time or two before a breath shudders out of him. “I’m notgonna hit you, okay? Because you already took a good knock and alsomy dad told me never to hit girls. But if you want you can hit me. Ifthat’ll help you believe I’m real, have at it.”

Shetries to shake her head. “No. You’re not him. Hive killed him, hestole him-”

“Hive?”he cuts in, his forehead wrinkling, deepening the lines, new and old.

Somethingin the vicinity of her heart tightens. It feels like hope, like thehope she left behind in that desert.

“It,”she says carefully. “Death. Its name was Hive.”

Hisface goes slack and a horror she’s only seen once or twice washesover him. His shaking hands drop back to her shoulders. “Itfollowed you? It found you?” His eyes drop, searching every inch ofher like he’s looking for some fatal cut to have opened up whilethey’ve been speaking.

Thathope blooms brighter. It’ll do anything to fool you,he said. And yet she believed so easily Fitz and Coulson’s tellingof events, even took Hive’s taunting as confirmation. She’d spent days circling water with no idea it was there; how difficult would it have been for Hive to create the illusion of a man,one it had spent more than a decade hunting. But if that is whatoccurred, that still doesn’t explain this.“How are you here?” she asks, the softness of her voice drawinghis attention back to her. “What happened? I thought It had killed you.”

Ittakes him a moment to compose himself, but when he does, he chuckles.“I was abducted by aliens, if you can believe it. I’ve beentrying to get back to Earth ever since.”

“Andyou ended up with the humans on this ship?” The odds seem rather, no pun intended, astronomical, but that does explain howthe humans out here all knew about SHIELD and why they keep referring to some unseen“astronaut.” She’d assumed it was just a nickname bestowed onsomeone who’s proven to be especially adept at this life or who, like Deke,makes a habit of going on ridiculously unsafe spacewalks.

Hesighs. “That – is a long story. And since I know you won’t besatisfied until you hear it-” he pushes her back down onto thenarrow cot- “you can listen while you rest.”

Shecan’t help a smile. He knows her so well. Despite that, however,she isn’t in the mood for a long story, especially one that willonly have to be repeated once they find the others.

Shefists a hand in his shirt and drags him down with her, marveling asshe does at the feel of new (well, newer)fabric beneath her hand. He’s finally found himself a change ofclothes and she’s almost sorry to lose the sight of him like this,but not so sorry as to change her plans.

“Thatcan wait.”

Will’seyes widen at the promise in her tone and his mouth even drops open. It’s adorable.

“Whatabout-”

Shepresses her mouth to his just when his lips are forming the fuhsound. She doesn’t want to explain what she’s been through or whoshe’s lost any more than she wants to hear more of his explanations. He’shere and he’s alive and he’s all that she wants. Nothing elsematters.

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“Here, drink this. You’ll feel better.” - Jemmawill

“Here,drink this.” The young man—the one with the rather ruggedbeard—presses a warm mug oftea into Adela’s hands. He gives an identical one to Edmund.“They’ll make you both feel better.”

“They’renot drugged, are they?” Edmund asks, his tone somewhere between wary and teasing.

Adelapauses with the mug at her lips.

“No,dad,” Jemma says sternly. Or … Jemma. It’s obviously Jemma. Butthen they both are.

Adelatakes a bracing sip, using it as an excuse to close her eyes on both Jemma and …Jemma. Just this morning there was only one and now thereare two near identical girls sitting on the couch. She sets the mugdown, throwing a glance at the two men who came along. (Fitz cametoo, of course, but he’s out back looking at Edmund’s car.) Themen, thankfully, are notidentical. They are similar however—which she supposes says something abouther daughter (daughters?)—but it’s their names that give her thereal trouble. Will and Ward are rather difficult to keep apart.

“I’msorry,” she says. “Remind me of your name again?”

“Will,”says the one who gave her the tea. He also gives her a warm smilewhich certainly must have played a hand in Jemma falling in love with him.

Andshe is. The thinner one. She’s utterly besotted with the youngman—who is not so young, actually, and that doesn’t seem to haveescaped Edmund’s notice, if his low growl of annoyance is any sign.

Adelarests a hand on his knee. “I believe you were about to explain whythere are two of you,” she says to the pair of Jemmas. “You saidsomething about a lab accident? Is there any chance of it beingundone?”

Thegirls exchange guilty looks. “I’m afraid we’re not sure,”says the one on the left. She looks to that Ward fellow for a bit ofmoral support. (Adela allows herself a silent chuckle. “Moralsupport” was exactly why he said he came along. She’s no fool.)

“Andit wasn’t so much a lab accident,” says the other. “Or evenquite an accident at all.” She frowns, which brings out the lineson her face. Adela itches to bustle into the kitchen to make her athree course meal. She’s so thinand so pale. Jemma’salways been something of an English rose but this poor dear is almostsickly. She takes Will’shand. “We were stranded. On an alien planet.”

Afaint noise of distress escapes Adela, and Edmund’s hand covers herown.

“Therehad been a civilization there once and I attempted to use theirtechnology to find us a way home.”

“Shewas amazing,” Will says. Jemma blushes under the praise.

“Isucceeded, but …” She sighs precisely the way Edmund so oftendoes. “We’re on Earth, obviously, but this isn’t… I believethis is an alternate universe.”

“Andwhat makes you think that?” Edmund asks, leaning back morecomfortably in his seat.

“History,”Jemma says readily. She shares another look with Will. “Ourtwentieth century went much as yours did, but there are differences.”

“Suchas?”

“Edmund,”Adela says gently. This is not the time to quiz the poor girl.

“CaptainAmerica,” Will says. “In our history he died in 1945.”

“Well,”Jemma says. “He was presumeddead, but his body was recovered and revived in-” She pauses with aforced smile. “It’s not important. What is important is that thisis not our world.”

Adela imagines not, if the man who helped usher the world into the twenty-first century died more than fifty years before it even began.

“Theproblem,” the other Jemma says, “is that without access to thetechnology they used to get here, we have no way of getting them totheir own Earth.”

“Allright,” Edmund says, nodding to himself as he works through thedata he’s been presented with. “And you’ve come here because…?”

Thegirls exchange another guilty look.

Adelasits forward, shifting to the very edge of her seat. The Jemma who isnot hers is thinner and paler, but she is also older. Not much, notmore than a year or two, but…

“Yousaid you were stranded,” Adela says. “For how long?”

Jemmadrags in a breath. “It- um, it’s difficult to tell, I’m afraid.The planet’s rotation isn’t as even as Earth’s and it’s hardto tell time-”

“Jemma,”Adela says sternly. She knows when her daughter is trying to avoidsaying what’s on her mind.

Thepoor girl blinks rapidly. “The better part of a year, I think. ButWill was there for more than fifteen- Where are you going?”

“Mum?”the other Jemma asks.

“ʼDela?”Edmund calls.

“Goon ahead telling your story,” Adela says while she grabs her apronfrom its hook by the kitchen door.

“Whatare you doing?” Edmund demands.

Sheputs her hands to her hips, fixing them all in place with her mostdisapproving stare—well, nearly all. She does hope the older Jemmaknows it’s not at all meant for her. “We’ve just found out thatour daughter spent the last year alone and starving on a planetwithout a proper sun—yes, I can read between the lines, love—Iplan on feeding her and her new boyfriend until they’re lookingless emaciated.”

Edmundgives a long-suffering sigh—as though she’sthe one being ridiculous, honestly—but he at least has enough senseto do his own duty. He spends barely five minutes ensuring that Willprotected Jemma and was respectful towards her before turning hisattention to Ward. Adela catches a glimpse of the boy’s expressionwhen the focus shifts to him and it reminds her of nothing so much asa hare preparing to run for its life. A very handsome hare though;it’s nice to know her daughters have good taste, no matter what universe they might be from.

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is there a ship that you used to ship, but don’t anymore? what’s a ship you like that most people don’t? what’s a ship you hate that most people like? what is the most underrated ship, in your opinion? what is the most overrated ship, in your opinion?

is there a ship that you used to ship, but don’t anymore? 

answered here

what’s a ship you like that most people don’t? 

Kira/Odo from Star Trek Deep Space 9. I get a lot of the problems people have with this ship - the whole guy who pines until she finally realizes he’s just been waiting this whole time thing is obviously not my favorite (Odo did have other relationships though so it’s not like he was just waiting forever) - but I think the complaint that has me clinging all the tighter to it is that it was a waste of potential representation for an asexual character. Which yes, I will grant you. But Odo is told time and time again that he’s not supposed to want Kira. He’s not supposed to want any kind of sexual relationship. (I think my very first episode of the show was entirely about this issue even, which is probably a lot of why I like these two.) But he does. That’s who he is. Odo is that guy who’s told that what he wants, his base attractions that he cannot control, are wrong and that he is broken for wanting them. So yeah, I want him to get the girl. 

(And then I could go into how deeply Kira believes in Odo long before they’re even together and how she trusts him with her life (*cough*jemmawill parallels*cough*) and their messy history that forms the basis of who they are as characters at the outset of the show but this is long enough.)

what’s a ship you hate that most people like? 

See, there’s an easy answer to this that we all know but I’m gonna say instead…

Artemis/Wally from Young Justice. Their whole ~courtship stage just rubbed me the wrong way. I’m not a huge fan of the guy wearing the girl down with endless inappropriate flirting and come-ons. I’m honestly very sad he’s coming back in s3 and that the showrunners have made it clear they want these two back together.

what is the most underrated ship, in your opinion?

Jane/Thor from the MCU. They just WORK, okay? On EVERY LEVEL. Thor is the embodiment of everything Jane’s ever worked for but at the same time he is the antithesis. He’s this relic of a bygone age of magic and sorcery and it shouldn’t fit into her world view at all (see: Jemma Simmons) but they make it work. And then Jane is everything Thor is supposed to end up with - she’s a weak woman who needs protection - but as Thor himself says she has a strength of spirit that makes up for that. (She literally held the Aether.) There should be this constant push and pull to their relationship because of all the ways they don’t fit rubbing up against all the ways they do except that never happens. They are deliriously in love just all the time. They’re that couple that you know would be grossing their teenagers out with PDA twenty years into being married. They are. Just. The BEST!

what is the most overrated ship, in your opinion?

I feel like this is gonna be horrifying to a lot of people but Jyn/Cassian from Rogue One. It’s not their faults! I think part of it is that it took me SO LONG to see the movie that by the time I did I had already been exposed to so much for the ship and then there’s really not a lot there? At least I didn’t feel the chemistry at all. (I also didn’t feel the movie much. I laughed when the Death Star fired on them.)

(Not because they were gonna die. Because the weapon firing from space managed to hit the only tower on the whole damn planet. You gotta admit that’s ridiculous.)

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Jemma/Will and Phil/Melinda for the meme

send me a show/character/ship and I’ll tell you my top five moments

jemmawill

“did you think I was gonna build a helicopter?” - Jemma’s still so JEMMA with her sass and her cute little “kinda” (gosh, did she not realize she was driving the poor guy crazy?) and Will’s TEASING her and it’s just such a cute moment

stealing water - they’re just so adorably in love and happy in that final scene in the caves; if I ever get up the nerve to rewatch the episode again, I might stop right there

bored game - it’s from the deleted scenes but it’s SO PRECIOUS and we know Jemma likes ridiculous puns

the HUG - when she hugs him and you can see him wanting so bad to hug her back but he knows he can’t and my HEART

impossible odds - there are a lot of little moments you can see Will falling for Jemma, but I think this is when she started falling for him, even if she didn’t realize it. He says he just can’t resist proving the odds wrong and she sees a little of herself in that, is perhaps a little more charmed than she expected to be by this wild spaceman

special mention for Jemma crying over the wine back on Earth

philinda

“You mean a lot to me. A lot.” (1x17) - my HEART. I think this might even be when I started sincerely shipping it. Up to that point it was just kind of a background “that’d be nice” kind of thing but she said that and how could I not love it?

patching up (1x13) - I genuinely cannot remember a single thing said between them in this scene but I love WATCHING it, there’s so much said between the lines (also when she checks on him by the tracks! BEST)

Face My Enemy (2x04) - From the scene in the car (how bitter am I he confessed to trusting May with SHIELD’s leadership to Kara? so bitter) to the end (kangaroos!) it’s beautiful and perfect and my HEART (HE REALLY LIKES THAT DRESS)

the hug (2x17) - the way he holds her after Bahrain. It’s even better than the kangaroos!

the kiss (4x12) - specifically that thing his hand does in her hair, come on

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“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” JemmaWill please!

There is absolutely no Will in this, for reasons that should become obvious pretty quickly. But it has Jemma, so there is, as always, hope.

Jemma watches the bright spot of the engine flare until it grows too distant for human eyes to see against the backdrop of the sky, and then she watches the place it disappeared until the blue fades to purple and stars begin to appear.

The others have gone in by this point. She made note of their movements, how the happy camaraderie of surviving near death faded to hushed tones and quiet motions around her once the repair crews retired for the evening. Ward and Fitz managed to work together long enough to carry in the cooler. May disappeared without a sound. Coulson dared to rest a hand on Jemma’s shoulder before he did the same.

She stands, wipes the seat of her jeans, and grabs her empty bottle from the ramp lest May chastise her later. When she enters the lab, the change in temperature alerts her to the tears that have mostly dried on her cheeks. She wipes them away with a sad smile.

“So you’re a weepy drunk,” Skye says. She’s at one of the computers, but sitting sideways in a lazy posture that implies she’s not up to anything important. “Good to know.”

Jemma thought she’d left like the rest. Oddly, she’s pleased she didn’t. She appreciates the concern the others showed, but it wasn’t necessary. She would have been content to watch in her own private silence while the rest of them went about their celebrations of a second mission successfully completed.

“No,” she says, tossing her bottle into a recycling bin in the corner. “I’m quite a competent drunk, actually. I can do complicated math and everything. Fitz hates it.”

Skye abandons the computer entirely to rest her weight on her arms on one of the lab benches. Concern wrinkles her forehead, and she tips her head sympathetically. “Was it today? The plane-jacking?”

Though it might have been that in part - it was rather harrowing, and she imagines it will feature in her more frightening dreams in the future - Jemma shakes her head. “It was the rocket.”

Now Skye’s face twists in obvious confusion. It’s such an overblown expression however, that Jemma has to laugh. She lets the feeling of buoyancy - so welcome after the last hour (the last several hours, if she’s honest) - carry her across the lab to mirror Skye’s position.

“My husband was an astronaut.” It’s strange, how easily the words come out. The past tense slipping along her tongue like it’s not the most painful thing in the world.

Emotions flicker across Skye’s face like light on water. Jemma had wondered if Coulson might have told her when she officially joined their little team or if Fitz did - he tends to warn people when he thinks they might inadvertently bring it up; it’s sweet of him - but now she knows Skye had no idea. Not about her having been married and certainly not about her having been widowed. 

Jemma watches her cycle through reactions and can’t help but wonder what question out of the many she plainly wants to ask will be the one to make it out of her mouth.

“Oh. Was it-?” Her gaze slides down the length of the cargo bay, out the doors, to the distant horizon the rocket disappeared over. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry, I’m just- surprised!”

“It’s all right. And I don’t know, actually. It’s all highly classified. I’m sure I could, at this point, make an attempt at seeing the files, but…” She wants to know. Desperately. There are times she aches with curiosity over how it happened. But she also knows her own imagination too well. If she knew how Will died, she wouldn’t be able to help herself going the step further and imagining it. If it was quick, it might not be so bad, but if it wasn’t…

The persistent pang of her own curiosity is a far more welcome hurt than knowing Will suffered.

Skye’s hands cover one of hers. “I’m so sorry.” She drops her head forward. “Wow. Did that sound as dumb to you as it did to me?”

A soft chuckle escapes Jemma. “It’s fine. It was several years ago now. I won’t say it no longer hurts, but it’s manageable.” She reaches over the loosened collar of her shirt to toy with her necklace, as she often does when he comes up.

“Was he- I mean, I know you said he was an astronaut, but does SHIELD do that?”

Jemma shakes her head. “There have always been rumors of another organization dedicated solely to extraterrestrial threats, but I’d imagine they would have shown themselves after the Chitauri invasion, same as we did. Will and I met while working at NASA.” 

Skye is obviously interested in the story behind that as well, but for all it’s technically a case of international espionage, it’s terribly dull. So instead of getting into the minutiae of it, she says, “He actually almost lost the job because of me.”

“What?” Skye demands, eager, just as Jemma hoped, for the juicy details 

“I was something of a prodigy, you see - finished university long before most of my peers were even thinking about their A Levels - but I was in this professional environment at NASA, surrounded by adults sometimes decades older than me. It made me feel rather young, but I suppose it made everyone else think I was older.”

“Ohhhh no,” Skye says, sounding anything but displeased.

“Will asked me out when I was still seventeen.”

“Oh my God,” Skye giggles.

“And I knew, of course, that I was still a minor.” It had, in fact, been made very clear to her on more than one occasion by her parents and her superiors both that until she turned eighteen she was not yet an adult. “But he was this rugged jet pilot, like something out of a film; I thought he was very attractive and I knew if I told him I was still four months away from my eighteenth birthday, he’d likely never speak to me again for fear of looking like some sort of pervert. So I simply-” she waves a hand, smiling as she remembers those first months with Will- “forgot to tell him.”

Skye giggles in a devious sort of way. “Oh gosh. And he got in trouble?”

“Not right away. But by that time I was an adult and it was obviously all an attempt by a professional rival of his to discredit him when a promotion came up.”

“Did he get the promotion?”

“Of course! We may have had to place into evidence the log for how often Will visited the gym in those first few months-” Skye smothers another laugh in her palms- “but it all worked out.” Will got his promotion and sixteen months later was offered a spot on a highly coveted long-term mission.

The euphoria drains out of the room, leaving Jemma feeling lonesome the way she always is after an evening spent stargazing.

Skye’s hands wrap around hers again. “I’m sorry.”

Jemma attempts a smile, but fears she falls woefully short. “Me too.”

[ilosttrackofthings]

“You don’t have to say anything, if you don’t want. I just thought you should know.” Jemmawill

There is, as it turns out, a lot of work to do after you fall off the face of the Earth for more than a decade. There’s the recovery, of course - physical and psychological (and it turns out SHIELD’s resident shrink is a monster so he’s kind of on his own there) - and then the paperwork. He was declared KIA less than two years after the mission began, which he’s happy to discover everyone else finds just as suspicious as he does so they’re looking into it, but it also means paperwork. 

He’s sitting in the lounge - an accomplishment seeing as he walked here all on his own and was only so winded he needed the chair, not the couch - staring at form 924/B. Coulson says he’ll have to file it in triplicate (which may or may not have been a joke about those twins he’s supposed to file two of them with) and after that Daisy’ll get him his life back. Or a new life. She was very strenuous about letting him know he could be someone totally different if he “felt safer.”

Between that and the death certificate dated sixteen months after he left Earth, he gets the idea SHIELD thinks someone wants him dead.

But he’s not thinking about that right now; he’s a little busy trying to remember how to sign his own name.

“Oh!”

Will’s head snaps up so fast he can hear his neck pop. Jemma’s standing in the doorway, one hand on the frame like she’s not sure she should come in.

“Don’t let me stand in your way,” he says, gesturing to the open lounge. If she wants to play the old Galaga arcade game, he’s not gonna stop her. 

Oh, he’d like to. He wants- Well, truth is he wants to be with her, right next to her all the time, drinking in her smiles and her voice, close enough to touch and be touched the way they were…

But they’re not there anymore. Jemma’s got her life, her friends … Fitz. She doesn’t need some broken old astronaut invading her space. So he’s been trying to give her plenty of it since she brought him back.

“Literally,” he adds when she still hesitates, “I’ll need at least another twenty minutes before I’m good to stand up.”

He tries to make it a joke, something to get her smiling again, but it only makes her expression fall.

“Are you all right? Should I call Lincoln?”

Lincoln’s his doctor. Not someone Jemma ever mentioned on the planet, but she said a lot of good things before leaving Will in his care. He’s a good guy. Good doctor. Just not the one Will would’ve wanted.

“No, no. I’m fine,” he says quickly. “Just getting my sea legs back.” He gestures again to the rest of the lounge. “Really, do what you gotta do, I don’t mind.”

He watches her walk past him, but not any farther than that. He does listen to her footsteps though, but he figures he can be forgiven for that since there’s really no way not to hear them. That means he knows when she stops, just at the base of the stairs if he’s any judge, and turns around to tower over him.

“There’s something I have to say.”

He sets down his pen and shifts in his seat to give her his full attention. “Okay.” This is it, this is the moment she tells him what he already knows: she and Fitz are together. He mentally focuses on his face, on his expression. He’s not gonna let her know how much it devastates him to hear. 

“I love you.”

The room is utterly silent, no sounds from any other corner of the base, so there’s no way he could’ve misheard that. Maybe she misspoke?

“You don’t have to say anything,” she rushes to add, “if you’d rather not. I just thought you ought to know. Since I never said it. On the planet.”

Okay, maybe she did say what he thought she said.

But he thought … No. That doesn’t …

He can’t think. He’s trying to make sense of not only what she said but the last couple weeks in the context of what she said and he can’t think. He just keeps getting stalled on those three little words, ones he never thought he’d hear.

“Right. I’ll just go ask Daisy if she can bury me alive now.”

She turns to walk away and all he knows is that she can’t leave, he can’t let her, not after that.

“Jemma, wait.” He reaches to catch her hand but she’s a little too far and he has to stand. For a heartbeat it’s fine but then his knee slips sideways and he goes down. He doesn’t have enough common sense to let her go, but his reflexes are still good enough to ensure she lands on top of him.

“Will! Oh my goodness. Will! Are you all right?” Her hands are everywhere. Clinical, not sexual, but anything is better than the weeks of nothing since he came back. “What happened? Tell me where it hurts.”

He wraps an arm around her back, pulling her flush against him and stalling her search for the injury that it’s there. “Nothing hurts,” he says into the scant space between them. 

She blinks, wide eyed and just a little confused. He puts her worries to rest with the kiss they’ve both been waiting months for.