Summary: Fitz and Jemma go undercover as a couple and discover it isn’t as difficult as they’d thought it would be. But what happens when those feelings become a little too real? Season 1 au
This is my last chapter for this fic, hope you enjoy it and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the last one from @libbyweasley next week <3
“Hey girl!”
Jemma looked up from her tablet and smiled. “Good morning agent Triplett.” She didn’t feel like smiling a lot these days but it was hard not to smile at someone with such a genuine, sunny personality.
“Just Trip. I’m not even sure we’re agents anymore. Or that it’s safe calling ourselves that. What are you doing?”
“Ironing out the last details of our mission.”
“Oh right, the undercover mission,” he said with a strange knowing smile on his face that made her frown. They had all agreed that going after the 0-8-4 they had been told to retrieve before everything should be their priority, that they had to get there before Hydra got their hands on it, and that it made sense to go undercover. It wasn’t like he was in on some big secret.
“I can help with that if you want. We worked pretty well together the last time, right?”
I stand by what I previously said: I don’t think this is the original or “real” Jemma. The tease in the finale of last season that it took her, Fitz and Enoch “a long time” to develop the tech for the time jumps, a few other throwaway lines - she’s a Jemma from far in the future who came back to rescue them from Izel’s temple and set them on a path to stop the Chronicoms. She’s seemingly human, based on May being able to pick up her emotions, so probably not LMD; a clone, maybe?
Fitz was 100% the guy coming down the ladder behind Coulson just before he blew up the Chronicom ship. But it’s not the real Fitz either - how could a human survive on a ship with no life support systems? “Completely exposed”; he was on that ship, sending the team the coordinates for the next jump as soon as he knew them, disguised in the body of a Chronicom or LMD.
This could explain Jemma’s freakout after having Diana removed - she realized that Fitz was in the ship that Coulson blew up, but she had no memory of it until that moment (“What have I done? I’m sorry. No!”), the same way she had no memory of programming Enoch to protect Fitz’s location at all costs. To this point, if this were, in fact, not the “real” Jemma, of course she would have no qualms about putting the importance of Fitz’s cover over the life of her replica.
I think Enoch rescued Fitz and Jemma during the assault on the Lighthouse by the Chronicoms, and they secreted themselves away, building tech that would allow them to fight the robot war. During that time, they developed tech, started a family, and fought the robot war, perhaps losing their friends, perhaps even their daughter, along the way (this could also be the cause of Jemma’s freakout because let me tell you, as a parent, there is no greater fear).
So when the Chronicoms decided to go back in time to stop SHIELD at the beginning (which ties in some nice Terminator vibes), Fitz and Jemma saw an opportunity: what if they could create replicas of themselves to go back in time, gather their friends, resurrect Coulson and May, and stop the robot war from happening? They could save their daughter’s future. Then they programmed/inhibited these replicas to forget, so they could perform the mission without distraction.
This would mean they had time, and a life together, and could destroy their copies when they caught back up to the timeline. Based on promo materials, it looks like the gang is back at the 1983/4 lighthouse in “Stolen” - maybe they can find Fitz’s hard drive among the wreckage, the way they found Coulson’s. Maybe Fitz was able to hide himself in Coulson’s hard drive (plausible especially if the person on the ladder was him; then he and Coulson would have been on the same room when the ship detonated).
So here’s the TL;DR - Jemma is not the “real” Jemma; she’s a clone or an especially advanced synthetic. Fitz is a LMD or Chronicom and his data is under the Lighthouse somewhere.
The PS is that based on episode titles, I think Fitz will be reintroduced by the end of “Stolen”, and then “Brand New Day” will be a flashback of he and Simmon’s time together during the robot war.
These are just my predictions, please be gentle in the comments.
Just a thought but… why did Jemma’s say in 7x01 that fitz was safe? From what we learned in 7x06, he is very much not safe and the chances of him being discovered are very high, so why would she say that?
I know her implant is keeping him safer, but idk, still wouldn’t consider him safe
So despite being gone from tumblr for a hot minute, I’ve fallen back in because I’m shipping Daisy/Sousa hard and need that sweet sweet content, but all that to say: I have a theory.
I don’t think it’s really Jemma and Fitz.
Every time Jemma has been asked the question of how long it’s taken her and Fitz to develop the technology they would need to travel through time, she’s been exceptionally vague. “Some time”, “a long time”, etc. So… how long? Years? Decades?
Perhaps enough time to have a child? To raise her into adulthood, at which point she had a child of her own? Perhaps enough time to create extremely lifelike and autonomous LMDs using a combination of the Framework and Enoch’s Chromicon technologies? One for Coulson, of course, because he had the knowledge they didn’t, but also maybe two more. Two more that look just like them as their friends would remember them. Two more that could have their memories altered at will so as not to give away Fitz’s position.
And let’s talk about that: where is Fitz that he can keep tabs on the Chromicons? Their only bases of operation are a) on ships with no food, no water, facilities, sleep, or any other basic human needs and b) within the technology itself as data. How could Fitz survive that? He would have to be a machine too. Perhaps even the mysterious figure climbing down the ladder behind Coulson as he destroyed the Hive? (Because why have an audio cue introducing that figure, then show him in focus in the same shot but with his face obscured?).
A sentient virus in the Chronicoms systems, sending the coordinates of each jump to the Zephyr as he gets them. That would explain why it’s so critical that no one know his location: if exposed and eliminated, they would have no control over their time jumps. And oh, look at that - Coulson blew up the ship (and presumably the mysterious figure), and their next jump immediately went haywire (something “deteriorating”?).
The major hole to this theory is of course that May has been picking up Jemma’s emotions, but otherwise I feel like it’s a good fit. Thoughts?
TL;DR: Jemma and Fitz are actually LMDs like Coulson.
