As Careful and Precise as Our Fate

slamncram:

Because I can, I wrote Steph giftfic for our anniversary. We have a Domesticverse for Fitzward that we’ve been building since about January of 2014, and that continues to grow. I wanted to write something in that verse, because it’s the original, and the one that started everything off. Our Homebase-AU, if you will.

So, without further ado…

When Grant thinks back on what Leo’s hands did the first time they met, he can’t entirely believe that those same hands are in his, a gold band shining on one.

[Also on ao3]

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When Grant first met Leo, one of the first things the other did was take the communicator unit from his hands. That was, probably, the first time Grant noticed them.

Leo was – is – an engineer. He worked with his hands. It was what he did, and because of it, his hands were skilled, controlled and careful. There was no difference in the skill and care that they used in taking the communicator from him or in smashing it, perhaps only the level of force. If he hadn’t been so thrown off by the sight of this slight, Scottish Sci-Ops agent destroying his brand-new equipment – while his lab partner forcibly swabbed his mouth – he might have taken the time to notice the elegance of those hands then.

Of course, they do always say that hindsight is 20/20.

That was the first time that they’d met. Grant had heard of Leo. Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. Two of the youngest graduates of SHIELD Academy to date, brilliant minds, and a duo to be reckoned with. In the early days, Grant was assured that the reckoning would only come in the form of extreme annoyance. The two of them could be freaky, in a Doublemint Twins kind of way, now and then. That didn’t account for the way they went into the field; she, bright-eyed and ready, he with a level of trepidation and uncertainty that seemed wise until it got in the way of Grant doing his job.

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