Jemma Simmons

Jemma will always remember the second mission as a series of snapshots, tiny clear spots in a day full of fear and worry and sketchy decision-making.

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The Mayan ruin was... immense, awe-inspiring, ancient, surrounded by the most intense humid heat she's ever had the misfortune of encountering. She'll have to re-think her outfit if they have to stay here for longer than a few hours. Jemma does hope they'll be here that long - once they figure out the mysterious object that brought them here in the first place, of course. After that, they should be free to do a little personal exploration - Fitz can find one of his monkeys, and maybe she'll find a snake or two - the area's supposedly thick with them, every single one fascinating. She convinces Fitz to stop for a photo before heading inside the ruin - maybe someday, when all of this has been declassified, she'll be able to tell her parents about it.

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The heat is worse inside the ruins - at least outside, there's a breeze once you get above the trees. Inside, the buzz of the DWARF drones competes with the buzz of the mosquitoes, and Jemma begins to regret her comments about Dengue Fever. She's making a mental note to make sure and check everyone for infection once they're back on the Bus when the readings she and Fitz are getting from the drones start to make clear, horrible sense.

And then, of course, there's gunfire.

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Jemma eyes her normally verbose partner worriedly as she works, sifting through the pile of data they already have on the mysterious machine they've found. She was so very happy when she found out that Fitz had been assigned to this team as well, but... Maybe she shouldn't have asked for it. He's never really wanted to be out here. Not like she has - she has only herself to blame for all this, she did ask for it. Repeatedly.

Of course, she didn't know she was asking for a frantic cross-country drive with a dangerous Tesseract-powered weapon that might possibly could explode sitting practically in her lap while armed rebels chase them through the jungle, ending with a plane full of rescued Columbian soldiers on their plane and a whole lot of shouting between people who were supposed to be teammates.

Anxiety makes her tone snippy as she taps the holotable to life.

"So, should we work, or just continue to..." 'Sulk' was the next word, but finally Fitz feels like answering, and it almost feels like something approaching normal.

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They tie her up first.

One of them still has a knife to Fitz's throat, jammed up against his carotid. She's already done the math three times, she knows just how quickly he'd bleed out if that knife slips. Still, it's embarrassing. She's a SHIELD agent, she should be able to... do something. Slow them down. Get out of this fix.

They tie her up first, but in the end, the only one not tied to the cargo bay doors is Coulson. With how relaxed the enemy soldiers are, they probably have Coulson captured somewhere. This... this isn't good.

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Jemma stares into the refrigerator, considering. She feels rather battered, the plane is in... rather rough shape, they're grounded for the near future... but. They got the weapon to the Slingshot, and soon it will be out of anyone's hands. They worked together as a team.

Agent May is the Cavalry.

Decision made, she pulls the ice tray out of the freezer door and dumps it into the cooler. There's enough beer in here for everyone, they can watch the rocket launch from the hanger bay doors and have a drink. Perfect end for the end of a day in the field.

Maybe she'll have one now. Just to make sure they're still good.

So, Jemma is pretty sure that a large part of Los Angeles is about to go up in smoke. The lab is in a state of not-very-controlled-at-all panic.

This isn't really how Jemma saw her first day in the field going.

First they discover an unknown superhero, then said superhero appears to be going mad, then they find a whole secret plot to combine every super-soldier or alien serum into one noxious cocktail for... reasons unknown (probably something along the usual, but that's neither here nor there), and then they figure out that the combo is deeply unstable, and people using it tend to... well. Go boom. Yay Extremis, right?

And then, instead of ordering their rogue superhero be taken out for the greater good, Coulson orders them to find a way to stop this Extremis variant from taking out its user (and, it turns out, downtown Los Angeles - would it really be to much to ask to at least move the target to somewhere less populated?).

It's on you. Get it done.

Coulson's words echo 'round and 'round in her head as she frantically feeds new combinations to Fitz, listening to the series of failures behind her as he runs the data to find the one that works. She wishes she was Hermione, that with a swish of a wand she could just... make this all end. Somehow, in all the stories of adventures in the field, no one mentioned the 'not knowing what the hell one is doing'.

Time slips by fast as lightening, every second precious, and they're losing, they're not going to...

There's a shout of victory behind her.

Thankfully, Jemma has the necessary combination of toxins on hand to countermand the Centipede serum. Thankfully, when they bolt down the plane's loading ramp there's a car waiting for them, and a driver more than willing to play fast and loose with traffic laws. They're going to make it, they're...

Three blocks out they hit a wall of un-moving traffic. It's not just the inescapable LA gridlock, this is the police trying to set up a blockade, a blockade that is going to get people killed.

Jemma has never run so hard in her life. Not in training, not in qualifying. Fitz is hot on her heels. She shouts wordless warnings as she barrels through people going in the other direction - evidently her panic and determination come through, because people scatter out of the way. They reach the train station, ground zero, and Fitz heads for the stairs while Jemma keeps going, heading for where their explosive superhero, Mike Peterson, is making his (hopefully not last) stand.

A shot rings out overhead.

Jemma dodges around her teammates (May looking shocked, Skye looking horrified, Coulson looking grim) to skid down to her knees besides Peterson.

To a very alive, breathing, unconscious, and not exploding Peterson. Beaming, she turns to look up at Fitz. Fitz, who's standing up on the balcony, trying to catch his breath but smiling back, giving her a thumbs-up, Ward holding the Night-Night gun.

Turns out maybe she's Hermione after all.

Everything is so efficient when suddenly you're part of a proper mission. There's a blur of a morning, and somehow she and Fitz are on the loading deck of the Bus (they have official names for things now, the plane is 'The Bus', isn't that just too cool?), all of their sanctioned equipment stacked up neatly and the whole world ahead. All that's left for them to do is get set up.

Which means a whole lot of unpacking.

Of course the technicians who unloaded all of their things didn't exactly separate them out very well, so some of her stuff is on Fitz's and vice-versa. She shifts Fitz's latest project out of the way so she can get at her pack... and is prompting interrupted by a querulous Scot.

"Whoawhoawhoa watch it! That's the Night-Night Gun." Fitz scolds, sounding as scandalized as if she just dangled a baby by its foot over an acid bath.

"Well, it's on my stuff and it doesn't work and there's no way we're calling it the Night-Night Gun." She points out, rolling her eyes at him as he hugs the prototype weapon defensively. He waves one of the heavy cartridges at her as they take the latest load into the lab space.

"The bullets work. Non-lethal, heavy stopping power, break up under the subcutaneous tissue..." Fitz gripes, but she's having none of that.

"Yeeeeah, with only a dose of point-one microlitres of dendrotoxin - I'm not Hermione, I can't create instant paralysis with that." Jemma rolls her eyes at him, and barrels on - the outraged protectiveness of his design on his face means he's going to try to do the same. "You should have run the specs by me properly before building the molds, or read a book, it's not particularly difficult..."

There's a heavy thump at the open door to the lab, and they pause in their mutually satisfying rants to look over.

Hoooooooly crap. Has she mentioned recently that operations agents are rather well built? The one standing there staring at them is gorgeous. She vaguely remembers him from the briefing they were given - he's the fellow they've assigned to do all the shooting-type stuff.

"Fitzsimmons?" He drawls, sounding vaguely put-out and bored at the same time, looking between them like he's not sure which one he hopes its not. Poor dear.

"Fitz." She introduces, pointing to her partner.

"Simmons." Fitz returns, waving a hand at her. "I'm Engineering, she's... Biochem." Aaaand there's the long-standing scorn, so she goes to find the proper kit. Everything's all disorganized right now, this has to be fixed once she gets a quiet moment.

"Agent... Ward?" Fitz hazards from behind her, and she suspects she knows why the (ruggedly handsome) agent has sought them out, so she digs for a fresh swab out of her sampling kit.

"Agent Coulson said I'd need my comm unit encoded." Ward is handing Fitz one of the newer hand-held systems. "I don't know if you've worked with that model before, it's..." Ward stops, looking dumbfounded, as Fitz breaks the machine down ruthlessly (and mostly with a hammer). "... Brand new."

"He'll repurpose the IDIS chip." She explains absently as she scans through Ward's paper file, one of the handful left on their worktable.
"Don't need the external receiver for the inner ear comms any more." Fitz adds in the same tone.

"... Uh, so how does it..." Ward's mouth is open, so really it's the perfect time to swoop in and get a cheek swab. Permission is for people who haven't signed it away to SHIELD already. She does the poor thing a favor and explains as she gets a good sample. (Lord he's tall)

"Embedded neurosensory silicon matched to your DNA. It's quite posh." She assures him, rather chipper about the whole thing - a FitzSimmons joint venture, actually, from about a year back. Good to see it finally in use. "So, are you excited to be coming on our journey into mystery?"

"It's like Christmas." She grins at him for that answer, knowing she looks a bit giddy and not caring - it really is like Christmas, isn't it? It's absolutely brilliant. She hears tires screech as she sets up the DNA extractor, and by the time she has that finished and can look up, Agent Coulson has arrived and Ward is disappearing upstairs with him.

Ah well. Better get her work done now, there's time for eye-candy later. Coulson is the last of their group to arrive - not ten minutes after Ward leaves, the engines start spinning up, and they receive a terse warning from May that they're going to be airborne soon.

This is going to be the best day ever.

Jemma cannot remember the last time she was this excited. It's really, really happening - her field assignment starts today, and Fitz is coming too, and they have their own mobile lab, and it's all quite frankly the best thing ever.

So Jemma is exploring. She'll visit the lab later with Fitz, but she wants to see everything else too (and possibly scope out the best bunk).

Jemma Simmons is the ideal customer of the Container Store. She likes things organized, and her apartment attests to that - things are labeled, stacked, folded away, and generally kept as neat as anyone could possibly wish. It also attests to the fact that she is a bit of a geek and has no problem with this, highlighted by the clock on the wall. Actually, that was a gift from a friend in her first PhD program, but the point stands - she kept the clock.

"While you're in there, could you fetch me a cider?" Jemma calls as she flops onto the couch - it's been a long, hard day of science-ing. She has earned herself some cider and at least a few handfuls of the popcorn she's pretty sure Leo is making.

Jemma had realized, once she'd started trying to convert a section of the bar's infirmary to a workable lab, that it'd be so much easier to do so in the kitchenette in the rooms she rents here - after all, she and Fitz had done so once before during their university years.

...

And at Academy.

...

Who is she kidding - she got a new microscope for their current quarters last week. Anyway. It isn't really that hard, and there's so few other distractions here, she actually has a chance to get to work. Step one: figure out how Elrond's blood sample varied from a normal half-elf. Of which, she knows of... five. None of which come here, that she knows of. All of which were fictional to her a few months ago.

Well.

This is going to be a bit challenging.

Still, she can at least get started - she did promise she'd try, and you try enough things the answer generally sorts itself out. And then maybe she can put on a nice frock and go grab a snack - those patrons downstairs looked delicious.

...

She stops hard, blinking at nothing. That thought was... weird. Very weird. Very... like someone else.

Swear words her mother would have been shocked to hear her utter fill her head in that brief, shocked moment. Hell of a way to find out she was right - it's contagious. And elves and humans are more closely related than Elrond let on.

He could be tasty too - bit of variety never did anyone any harm.

Well that's not good. She goes through the next series of motions without thinking about them, just in case - in case there's only so many Jemma Simmons thoughts in her head left, and after that only the rather scary ones of this other person. She's only glad she has an interior room at the moment. One minute to put on a tourniquet, and draw a blood sample of her own. Another to put on a plaster and store the new sample alongside the other, and lock the case down. A third to slap a SHIELD-created (or, rather, Fitz-created) lock on the room's door and scramble the code. Sure, she could unlock it.

But the other person? The one who's thoughts are replacing her own?

Chew on that for a while, you interfering little twit.

He'd just like it to be known - he didn't hate the people on his new team. There's not a lot to hate there - Coulson and May are living legends, Skye is entirely too like him for hatred to be healthy and she seems honestly willing to work towards being a full-time agent, and the pair of scientists... well. You just don't see people taking that much joy in their work anymore.

He just wishes, devoutly, that they'd go and do it in a nice safe lab somewhere, with lots of guards and checkpoints between them {and their talents and the naivete and their heads full of S.H.I.E.L.D secrets) and the rest of the world. Give them a nice big lab space full of... whatever it is that those two need, and let them just... be. They shouldn't be in the field, where a good attitude and willingness to try gets you almost nowhere.

Ward retreated into the armory - he'd found, over the years, that the somewhat mindless and repetitive work of cleaning his gear helped settle him, and it'd keep him busy for a while. He had no idea what Coulson was thinking - the man was legendary, and the teams he had a hand in forming more so - hell, the man was rumored to have helped pick the Avengers. For the life of him though, Ward couldn't figure out how two bright-eyed and bushy-tailed scientists were supposed to be part of good field team. In his experience, the scientists were the people you sent stuff back to - eventually things would filter back in return in the form of better field supplies - from infiltration to medicine and everything in between. He'd never asked how they did it. Frankly, that much science being thrown around gave him a rash, and he'd never met a word over five syllables that he'd liked. For example, that first 0-8-4 they'd run across. Would it have been so hard to say something like 'don't touch that, it's emitting the stuff that made the Hulk!', or 'that device was made by the same people that brought you Red Skull!'. Simple, straight-forward, to the point. You didn't need a degree to know that stuff is probably something you want to stay well away from, and if you had to touch it, proceed with caution. He's not sure what could have been done differently, getting shot by rebels certainly wasn't in his list of things to do and never would be, but at least they all would have been on the same page.

And sure. Eventually, they'd find their feet, probably learn or be forced to learn how to use a gun, get some hand-to-hand combat skills. They'd toughen up, assuming they survived long enough.

That option almost isn't better. Then they might be alive, but they'd be... different. Scarred. He likes the idea of them being in a lab, babbling on at each other, completely unintelligible to people like him. He likes the idea of them being in a lab in a heavily fortified facility. He likes the idea that when they leave said building, there's enough security that the things they do don't bleed out into their every day lives, and they can go do silly things and have normal lives. When they're in that lab, in that situation, they don't become... well. Him. Eventually they'll become wary. Fitz will stop suggesting 'adorable plucky monkey with his cunning monkey hands' as a viable infiltration scheme. Simmons will stop grinning like an kid on Christmas every time they find some piece of inexpiable tech. They won't be them anymore, and to him that's just as bad as all the other horrible options he throws at Coulson in an attempt to make the man see reason.

"Soooo. This what you do for fun?" Skye was leaning against the door-frame, arms crossed in a bit of a defensive gesture - probably unconscious on her part. She always seemed to get a bit worried when Coulson and May are having 'discussions'. He supposed that's not so odd, given what he knows about her history.

"Proper maintenance of your equipment can save your life." He retorted, and then narrowed his eyes at her attempt to hide a giggle. "And it can help you figure out where exactly the safety catch is. Get in here."

"Look, I'm sorry, I was a little stressed at the time..."

"You'll be a little stressed every time." He cut off her somewhat useless excuses. It was a bit unjust, but after he'd been done being nearly beside himself with worry when Akaela had attacked the van, he'd been angry at Skye. She wasn't an agent yet, she didn't have a military background, but she'd been the one with the gun, protecting the two that had no defense at all. He'd managed to avoid lecturing her, but God help him if he was going to let that particular scenario play out again.

When she sat down, he set a Sig in front of her wordlessly, and ignored her overly-dramatic sigh - she claimed to hate the dull repetition of breaking and reassembling firearms more than anything else.

Then again, she said that about everything.

"After this, do you want..." His hesitant attempt to do a better job connecting with Skye was interrupted by May's voice over the intercom.

"Landing in fifteen minutes, Coulson is buying first round at the bar in forty-five."


Later that night, Coulson admitted that his plan was a bit of a wash. Fitz and Simmons were happily trading 'lab experiments gone wrong' stories with a few of the techs from the base, Skye was flirting with one of the flight crew, and Ward was playing darts with the base's resident sharp-shooter.

May, as if sensing his thoughts, snorted her amusement before taking a drink of her whiskey as she sat beside him.

"I really thought they'd be a bit more bonded by now." He admitted. The beer he'd ordered hours ago has long ago gone flat and warm - a horrible drink to match his mood.

"You have one specialist who has been in the field solo for too long, two scientists who have been relying on each other for so long they've forgotten how to easily incorporate others, and a complete unknown with no training whatsoever and a disdain for most of our protocols." She replied, dryly.

"What about you?"

"I wrote most of those protocols, I'm allowed to have disdain for them."

"Not what I meant." He pushed, and she gave him a side-long look.

"You were right - it is a great plane."

"Yes. Yes it is."