#the hardest part by far was the stripes on Leo’s shirt | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tenscupcake · 7 years ago

Text

the null hypothesis (3/?)

fitzsimmons. teen. ~3.9k this ch. woo! a fast update this time. hopefully i can stay on a good schedule with ep so i can keep that up. i seriously just want to post the whole fic rn bc i love it so much. hope you guys enjoy. summary: roughly one out of every six people can't feel touch; that is, until their soulmate touches them. fitz and jemma are two indignant contributors to that statistic, content to devote their lives to science rather than searching for their supposed 'other half.' both too clever for high school, they head off to university at sixteen, completely unaware their fates are about to become intertwined. but in a world where soulmates don't always match, it's not always easy to confess to a stranger. a soulmate au with a twist. this chapter on ao3 | back to chapter 1 on ao3

As much as Jemma wanted to enjoy her first week at Uni, for the most part it’s been profoundly boring. By Friday, she’s finished the reading and assignments for the next two weeks, even started on projects that haven’t been assigned yet. There’s only one class where she actually learns a few things the first week: physical chemistry. Relatively speaking, it’s always been one of her weak points.

The non-science, general education requirements on her schedule this semester have got to be the worst: world history and psychology. Two subjects that, admittedly, she hadn’t taken courses or AP exams for during her high school/community college years, too busy filling out her schedule with as many biology and biochemistry courses as she could. But in retrospect, she really should have gotten some of these out of the way early. The subject matter mostly feels like common knowledge. She’s learned everything they’ve covered so far just by visiting a couple of museums, watching the occasional documentary on National Geographic, and having bloody common sense.

Still, the most boring course of all has got to be general chemistry. Now there’s a class where the syllabus contains nothing she hasn’t learned already. But the university simply wouldn’t let her transfer those particular credits from community college. What a waste.

She’s hoping her major-specific courses will pick up a bit as the semester goes on: microbiology and genetics. In fact, she’s confident they will; it just happens that the first week entails a substantial amount of review of basic biological concepts.

More than anything else about attending university, she was looking forward to the labs: a chance to apply some of the skills she’s acquired. As it’s uncommon to let prepubescent children play with caustics or BSL-II microbes, there haven’t been many appropriate settings to practice her laboratory skills. It was always her favourite part of her community college courses, so she’s positive that the absence of labs during the first week of class is contributing to her sense of disappointment.

So, going into the second week when the lab portions of her courses will finally be meeting, her hopes are still high.

Her first one of the week is Gen Chem, Tuesday afternoon. Though it’s the least stimulating science course by far, she walks into the chemistry building with purpose and optimism. Though it’s unlikely any of the concepts will be new to her, perhaps she can learn a new laboratory technique or two.

She’s the first person into the lab, aside from the TA, and she takes a seat near the front of the room, against the wall, ready to tackle whatever protocol they throw at her.

But when turns to the page in the lab manual that’s written on the whiteboard, it takes everything in her not to sigh.

Reactions of copper.

How utterly elementary.

Still, the lab portion of the course is not optional. She pulls out one of several fresh lab notebooks from her backpack, designates it with a label for CHEM100A, and starts writing out the title, objective, and methods anyway.

The rest of the students in the section slowly trickle in as it gets closer to the class start time, and Jemma grows increasingly anxious as they all pair up with one another without hesitation. Roommates, met at orientation, knew each other in high school: whatever the backstory between the pairs may be, they all seem to already know each other. Jemma should have expected as much. Being a minor, she’s not allowed to have a roommate, but even if it weren’t against university rules, who would want to room with a teenager? And, in the same vein, who would want to have one as a lab partner? None of them know her, or the fact that she’s nothing like a typical sixteen-year-old.

She finds herself torn. On one hand, she hoping there’s an odd number of students in the class, because she’ll probably finish the experiment faster on her own. But on the other, she sort of hopes it’s an even number. Even if she has to spend all three hours in here with a chemistry amateur, perhaps she can make a friend. That’s one thing she desperately needs.

But the minute hand on the clock ticks to two, and the TA leading the lab starts his introductory spiel on laboratory safety before anyone takes the empty stool next to hers. She supposes it’s for the best.

As the TA – Jason, his name is – rambles on, Jemma’s thoughts take a turn for the worse. What if he notices she’s alone, and decides to rope her into another established group of two, turning her into the world’s worst third wheel? (Well, chemistry-wise, she’d probably get all of the work done, but socially speaking, a third wheel.)

But at eight minutes past, before she can dread such a possibility any longer, an out of sight door swings open, and someone comes stumbling in.

With all the shelves and ventilation shafts above the benches, she can’t properly see them, can only vaguely see a figure and hear their shuffling feet and panting breaths, as though they’ve been running. She wonders whether there’s an unpaired student across the lab after all, an empty seat out of her sight that the late stranger will occupy.

But the mystery person circles around to the front of the lab, heading straight for the TA in his search for an empty stool. He’s a pasty-looking bloke with short, curly hair, a striped tie in glaring contrast to the chequered shirt tucked into his kahki trousers. His fair cheeks are flushed pink, and he’s quite out of breath, presumably from running here. He looks so… young. Like he should still be in high school.

What sort of college student runs to class?

“I just finished explaining to the rest of the class,” Jason addresses the late boy. “Being more than five minutes late to a lab means you can’t participate in that lab, and you’ll have to take a zero. You’re all right for today. But starting next week, be on time or don’t come at all.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy responds, barely audible to her. She thinks she sees him roll his eyes.

“Anyone missing a partner?” Jason raises his voice, addressing the entire lab, and Jemma’s stomach sinks.

The boy pauses at the front of the lab, glancing around. Oh, brother. Like Jason hasn’t already seen her sitting by herself? Must he draw the entire section’s attention to the fact that she has no friends?

Holding her breath, she tentatively raises her hand, only just next to her face. Hoping that at least the students on the other end of the lab won’t see her, or have this introductory memory of her. The boy takes a deep breath as though he’s disappointed, and ducks his head as he hurries to the empty stool beside her.

“Excellent,” the professor exclaims. “The two young geniuses get to work together. This’ll be interesting.”

Huh? ‘Two young geniuses?’ Is he her age, after all?

Her gut instinct is to be excited. Someone else her age might be nice, an opportunity to make a friend. But right now, she can’t seem to maintain any level of excitement about the boy now approaching her. He clearly doesn’t have the same priorities. Late to the first laboratory? Rolling his eyes like he’s too good to be here? She doesn’t need a smart arse.

He slumps onto his seat, dropping his backpack so loudly it drowns out a couple of Jason’s next words. Not that it matters; she’s already written down the entire protocol and she’s well aware of both OSHA and university laboratory safety guidelines, thanks very much.

The irresponsible mystery boy rushes to catch up, scrambling to put on his coat and gloves, and pulling out a notebook and pen, scribbling down the protocol in chicken scratch. She looks away, realizing she shouldn’t care what his handwriting looks like.

It’s only a couple more minutes before Jason gives them permission to begin, and Jemma sighs while the rest of the students hastily rise to collect their materials. Her partner isn’t quite ready yet.

She supposes she should give him a second chance, though. He could have an excellent reason for being late, aside from laziness. A car accident, a sick grandfather. She should give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, she’s stuck with him for sixteen weeks now.

“I’m Jemma,” she offers with a smile. “Simmons,” she adds. Pausing his mad scribbling, he glances over at her in surprise.

“Leo,” he replies. Putting far less effort into his returning smile, he turns back to his notebook. “Fitz,” he adds.

“Right then, Leo,” she says, not caring if he’s finished or not. No time to waste. “I’ll get the reagents. You can get the other supplies.” She heads for the table at the opposite corner of the room where their reagents have been pre-prepared without giving him time to respond.

It’s one of the hardest things she’s ever done, watching these technically-adults try to use the safety pump on the nitric acid. She barely stops one of them from using the same pipet for sodium hydroxide as sulphuric acid, and another from diluting their acid solution by adding water to it. “Acid to water, never water to acid!” she can’t help but shout, and it captures the attention of the roaming TA. As Jason approaches to give the hapless student a repeat lecture on safe practices for corrosives, Jemma seizes her window to access the reagent bottles she needs.

When she returns to the other end of the room, Leo already has a pre-1982 penny, a hot plate, a crucible, and extra glassware set up in their fume hood. She’s not sure how he found everything so quickly. He missed the walkthrough of where each of the items were located in the lab.

“Found everything all right, then?” she asks.

“Hard to misplace a hot plate,” he quips.

Oh. He’s Scottish, then.

In an instant, she finds her heart softening to him a bit. It was not easy transferring here during high school, and she can’t help but wonder whether he just moved here. His accent seems unmistakeable now. She doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it before. Not expecting it, she supposes. She can’t remember ever meeting a Scottish person since she moved to America. Assuming he was American, she thought he just had an unusual pronunciation of his name. But glancing over at his now-closed notebook resting on the lip of the hood, she sees ‘Leo Fitz’ and finds herself thinking it’s a bit cute. Fitz.

Her curiosity gets the better of her.

“Not from around here, I’m guessing?” she asks as she places the penny in one of the beakers he got.

“Glasgow,” he answers, pouring the correct volume reagent into the beaker without being prompted, with neither a splash nor a dribble.

“Sheffield,” she volunteers, spirits lifted that so far he’s not completely incompetent at chemistry.

He’s not terribly talkative yet, and she’s not sure whether to chalk it up to nerves or an ego. But she can’t help trying to engaging him a little more; it’d be so nice to have a friend her age.

“What’s your opinion of America so far?” she ventures as they watch their penny dissolve.

“Lives up to the stereotypes.”

She chuckles. She could say the same thing.

Still, it’s not the detailed answer she’d hoped for. There’s got to be some way to get this boy to talk, but she’s not sure how to find it out. She surreptitiously looks to his backpack and the lanyard sitting at his station, but they’re both utterly plain and black, no stickers or themes to be found. She’s starting to second guess whether she wants to be friends with him at all.

To her surprise, after the following step, he asks her a question.

“When’d you move here?”

“About three years ago, now.”

“Hmm. Me too.” As though it’s a trivial thing, immigrating to a new country.

“Though we didn’t move here, specifically to New Jersey, I mean,” she qualifies. “My parents are in Los Angeles.”

“Ah,” Fitz nods. “Yeah, my... my mum, she’s in New York.”

“How old are you?” she asks, since the can of worms has been opened now.

“Sixteen,” he says, shrugging just slightly like he’s a bit proud of himself.

“Seriously?” she asks, not able to help herself from beaming at him a bit.

“Seriously.” He nods.

“I am too,” she says. “Couldn’t stand another day of high school,” she adds.

He chuckles a bit, at that. And though she doesn’t understand why, Jemma finds herself quite happy she’s at least capable of making him laugh.

They’re both quiet as they carry on the next step of the experiment. Jemma is more impressed by the minute at Fitz’s knack for chemistry. She doesn’t know if she could’ve asked for a better partner. Despite being late and having hardly any time to read the manual, he seems to have memorized the protocol. He helps her setup each new step before she has to ask.

“What’s your major?” she asks, trying to sound as casual as possible, if only because she doesn’t want to seem desperate for someone to talk to.

“Engineering.”

Of course. A numbers bloke. It’s all math and physics to them, it’s no wonder he can barely hold a conversation.

“Biochem,” she counters, without prompting.

Despite their mismatched fields of study, they work surprisingly well together. Still, worried they may not have much curriculum in common outside this wretched lab, she narrows her inquiries into ones strictly related to it.

“When are Dr. White’s office hours, again?” she asks. Just to get the ball rolling.

“Er… I dunno,” he responds, looking at her like she’s mad for asking. “Isn’t that in the syllabus?”

She tries a different avenue a few minutes later.

“Have you done the textbook readings yet?” He probably doesn’t need to read it, from the looks of it, but perhaps they can discuss how easy this course is together. Have a laugh at the first chapter of the text explaining the properties of water.

It takes him a moment to answer. “I’ve sort of been busy with other classes, actually.”

Jemma is growing frustrated. The more she tries to engage with him, the more he seems like a self-absorbed knob.

“Yeah,” she says, nodding along. “Me too.” In an attempt to salvage her dignity, she adds: “Never know what could show up on an exam, though.”

Discouraged, she decides to makes one final school-related attempt.

“Have you been to the library yet? Or logged onto the online database? There’s more journal subscriptions than I could ever read. Molecular biology, physiology, pharmacology… and I know they’ve got lots of engineering ones, too.”

“I’ve been meaning to but, not yet.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “The truth is, I spend most of my free time working on projects of my own.”

“Really?” Whether or not he meant it, she interprets it as him throwing her a bone. “Like what?”

“Well, right now I’m working on this sort of, drone. It’s multifunctional. Designed to gather intel in places that are too dangerous for humans. Contamination sites, outer space, that sort of thing.”

Here it is. This is what will get him talking. She should’ve led with this, asking him about machines and things. She hasn’t heard him string together sentences like this the entire hour and a half she’s been by his side. And more than that: as he’s pouring sodium hydroxide and outlining the functions he has planned for his drone, she realizes he’s smiling as he does it. Properly smiling. She should steer the conversation toward engineering more often. His smile is quite lovely. And he’s clearly passionate about this project, and that’s something she can relate to. Perhaps their friendship isn’t doomed after all.

“Sounds fascinating,” she offers. “And you do that all on your own?”

“For the most part, yeah.”

He reciprocates by asking what sort of projects she’s been involved in for biochemistry. She decides to tell him about the pharmaceutical internship she did before she arrived here. She leaves out the fact that, due to her age and inexperience, she was not allowed to directly conduct any experiments and was instead responsible for dishes and paperwork, thinking the genius doesn’t need to know. It’s not quite fair, after all. The only reasons she doesn’t have a side project of her own at the moment are logistical in nature. It’s not as easy for a biochemist to keep their own experiments, unless she wants to go capture some animals and keep them in her dorm. Or grow a garden inside of it.

But just then, Jason walks up behind them and asks where they’re at.

“We’ve just finished precipitating the copper metal –” Jemma begins.

“We’re just about to dry the sample –” Leo begins at the same time. They glare over at each other, but neither truncates their sentence.

Jason merely laughs, and continues his rounds.

They can’t agree on how to collect the copper solids, either. They both want to go off-protocol for increased accuracy, but disagree on how. They end up flipping a second (undissolved) penny, and Jemma loses.

Jemma is starting to think it’d be a terrible idea for them to work together on anything outside the confines of this painfully easy laboratory. With more complicated problems, they’d surely find even bigger things to squabble about.

They finish up fairly quickly after that, without any more small-talk. They record the mass of their copper and turn in the carbon copies of their methods and observations.

But once again, they disagree on how to dispose of their leftover acids and bases. He wants to walk them over to the corrosive waste storage; she wants to neutralize them and place them in the general non-halogenated waste bin.

At least this time, Jemma wins the coin toss.

Once they’ve finished cleaning up, Jemma remembers the beginning of the lab. The fact that he walked in eight minutes late, and Jason’s stern reminder about not being able to participate in the future.

“I hope you don’t make a habit of being late,” she warns Leo, trying to sound stern. “It’s not only your grade that’s dependent on your punctuality.” She might be coming off a bit rude at this point, but she doesn’t care as much as she should. He’s been a bit rude on a few occasions already.

“Couldn’t find the building, that’s all,” he mumbles through his teeth, his face slowly going red.

It’s absolutely not the excellent excuse she anticipated, and Jemma isn’t pleased that he hasn’t given her any assurance he won’t be late in the future.

Still, as they take off their PPE and pack up their things, she starts to feel guilty about her brusqueness. She does have to spend dozens more hours with him in here, and he’s far from the worst lab partner she could have. He’s very clever, at least, and they completed the experiment without any errors or holdups.

“Looks like you guys make quite the team,” Jason says, coming up behind them by surprise again. “I’ll have to come up with some extra experimentation for you two next week, since this was clearly too easy for you.”

She definitely hears Leo sigh.

Jemma can’t let them leave them off like this.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Fitz,” she says before either of them can leave.

It’s too late when she realizes she called him ‘Fitz’ instead of ‘Leo.’ He doesn’t comment on her fixation with his last name, and she’s too embarrassed to acknowledge the slip-up and correct herself.

“Yeah,” he says, slinging his backpack on. “You too.”

Before he can turn away, she holds out her hand in a gesture of goodwill. An olive branch.

“See you next week?” she says, gently smiling at him.

For a moment he’s frozen with surprise, just staring down at her hand. But eventually he reaches for her extended hand with an equally apologetic smile, almost as though he realizes they’ve both cocked it up a bit.

But as soon as his hand touches hers, she forgets about all that. Him stumbling in late, their disagreements, his thinly veiled irritation with her questions. Because this is not like any other handshake she’s ever had – a vague pressure deep under her skin to indicate the other person has squeezed her hand sufficiently hard.

This is so much more than that.

A million dead neurons resurrect beneath his hesitant touch, flooding her brain with signals it’s not nearly prepared to receive. Callouses on his palms from working with his hands too much, the layer of slick moisture coating their hands from hours of wearing gloves. Every individual metacarpophalangeal joint pressing into her palm, the whispers of hairs on the back of his hand against the pad of her thumb. The extra strength tucked away in his larger, thicker grip that really only comes from having ten times the circulating testosterone.

It’s him.

Oh, God, it’s him.

It doesn’t matter that he’s a reticent engineer, that he was late or that they seem to love to annoy and interrupt each other. Suddenly all that matters to Jemma is that this endearingly pasty hand feels like it was meant for hers. That this clever, slightly grumpy, painfully quiet boy is the soulmate she’s spent her life waiting for. The boy she’s supposed to be with forever.

She realizes she’s still staring down at their linked hands, and that this conciliatory handshake has gone on far too long. She glances back up to his face, to find him staring blankly down at her hand, too. When he meets her eyes it’s only a fraction of a second later, but it feels like a lifetime.

Okay. Don’t panic, she tells herself. Assess the situation.

But he doesn’t look like he’s just experienced what she has. She’s heard stories, watched films, even seen it with her own eyes a handful of times. There’s almost always shouting, squealing of some kind. But Fitz – damn it, Leo – is silent.

Suddenly, he yanks his hand away.

She inhales sharply at the rush of friction across her skin, sending zings all the way up her arm.

Paralysed with shock, all she can do is watch Fitz as his expression turns grave, like he’s both confused and disturbed by this lengthy episode of physical contact.

An image of Uncle Jeff still in tears over Aunt Emily six months after she’d left flashes in her mind.

This can’t be a match, either.

Tears welling up in her eyes, Jemma quickly concludes she can’t let on what’s just happened. He’d transfer himself to a different lab section in an instant if he found out.

But before she can figure out a way to improvise a professional farewell, he gives her a quick mumbled affirmative to whatever she’d asked (what was it???) and practically leaves skid marks on the linoleum as he turns around to head for the nearest exit door. In what seems like a fraction of a second, the door is slamming into its stopper and he’s out of sight.

#fstag #fsfic #fitzsimmons #aaaaaaaaaaa #time to do a lot of reading on almonds #oh yeah #sexy stuff be jealous #written by yours truly

7 notes · View notes