“Hey, baby be careful.”
Skye walked over slightly hunched over in the van to where Jemma was gathering her stuff for the mission ahead. She turned around and met Skye before she got to the door, wrapping her arms around her neck, a sweet smile on her face. Skye gave a half smile, partially happy and partially concerned.
“I promise.”
Skye hung a little bit on the scientist’s shoulders, keeping her head away from the top of the van.
“You better, and I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Jemma lightly kissed the agent.
“I know you will.”
She giggled a little bit and then turned back around, grabbing her bags and throwing them over her shoulders. She opened the van doors and hopped out clumsily making Skye chuckle. She turned back around and looked at the agent before heading over to where Fitz was tinkering with some kind of gadget.
“We should be out of there in a few hours if every thing goes well. Are we doing anything special tonight?”
Skye was leaning halfway out the van, a little smirk on her face and random wires hanging off her neck.
“Well, if you’re not to tired when you’re done I certainly have a few things in mind.”
She winked and Jemma blushed, avoiding eye contact with Fitz who had heqrd the exchange and was now attempting to make himself invisible. She took a few steps backward with a giggling smile on her face. It never ceased to amaze her how even after over two years together, Skye still managed to make Jemma feel like a crushing schoolgirl.
“Well.. I’ll try to conserve my energy.”
She winked, stumbling a little bit before gaining her footing and grinning. Skye laughed and blew a quick kiss, before returning to the back of the van and closing the doors. Jemma smiled and walked over to Fitz, he pretended to be enveloped in his work and she pulled some more equipment out of her bags. Coulson was waving them over to a couple of jeeps that had just pulled up, their transport apparently. Fitz got up and walked with Simmons, both of them carrying lots of equipment, Fitz looked over, a mischievous grin on his face.
“So… ‘Conserving energy‘ are we?”
Simmons gasped a little and hit the engineer with one of the bags on her shoulder, scolding him with an embarrassed smile. He winced a little bit as the heavy bag hit him, laughing he lightly pushed the scientist, making her rock with the swinging bags.
“You’re horrible, Fitz”
He laughed.
“Yeah but, I’m not the one who said it, am I?”
She hit him with another bag and smiled professionally at Coulson as they reached the Jeeps, where May and Tripp were also leaning on the large vehicles. They didn’t ask any questions and instead just packed their stuff in the back of the jeeps. No one looked particularly stressed out for this mission, it was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab of an Asgardian object, which normally included days and days of research and examination, however, based on the descriptions, they had already encountered this object and they all expected to be back at the bus pretty soon. Coulson crossed his arms, he seemed calm and almost absent minded.
“You four are going to retrieve the object and search the area for anymore artifacts, I’ll be in the van with Skye in case of complications and you require assistance. Keep in contact and update the progress of the mission every hour.”
He nodded and headed off, Fitz and Simmons split up with the engineer going in the jeep with Trip and Simmons going with May. Despite the mission ahead, Jemma continued to think about the evening after the end of the mission. She couldn’t be blamed, the entire team was tired and they had a long shore leave ahead of them. The details of the situation and mission had already been explained in detail so for the entire ride over the scientist looked absentmindedly out the window, an arrangement that was ideal for the naturally quiet and reserved May. If she had gone with Tripp she probably would have had to make up some sort of interesting conversation, she looked in the rear view mirror at the jeep behind them. Tripp and Fitz were discussing something passionately, she smiled and shook her head, they were probably arguing about Pokemon.
They arrived at the site and waited while May and Tripp scanned the area before letting the two scientists go into the ruin where the 0-8-4 was spotted. Fitz walked into the door and began setting down the equipment, Jemma, however held on to her bags. She spotted the item and immediately felt a little drop of disappointment in her chest, the information, although physically accurate, didn’t explain the full spectrum and Simmons knew the minute she saw it that this was something that they had never come across before. Fitz, who had just put down all of his equipment, stopped and looked at what Simmons was staring at, he understood immediately the slightly annoyed look on her face. They stood there for a few minutes simply scowling at the 0-8-4.
“Fitz! It is highly active, we can’t just move it!”
The gunfire outside was getting closer and although the two scientists trusted May and Tripp to keep the baddies out of where they were, the ruin walls were beginning to tremble with pieces falling from the edges. Contact had already been made when everything went south which meant that Coulson and Skye were probably almost there. Hopefully with reinforcements.
“We just need more time!”
“We don’t have more time, Jemma!”
“Fitz, don’t!”
Simmons lurched forward to shove his hand away from the spherical object, only to have her own hand lightly brush the side. Apparently that’s all it took as the previously dormant object lit up violently, Simmons felt a surge of heat and electricity as her body was thrown backwards by the force of the sphere. There was a loud ‘crack!’ as her body hit the wall behind them and her whole world went black even before the scientist hit the ground.
Jemma woke up with a jolt as everything came back to her like a brick wall and she shot forward ready to jump back into the situation.
“Hey, Jem! It’s okay, you’re back on the bus. Lay back down, I’m right here, I’ve got you.”
The scientist felt a gentle hand on her collarbone, pushing her lightly back down to the pillow. Jemma’s eyes focused on Skye’s worried face as she fell back. The agent was fidgeting around nervously, watching Jemma closely, she grabbed a little rag that she had setting a bowl and set the cloth over the scientist’s forehead. Simmons took a breathe of relief as the cool cloth took away some of the uncomfortable heat in her head.
“You still have a fever.”
Simmons attempted a nod, she was severely light headed and the back of her scull was throbbing painfully.
“What happened? Is everyone okay?”
Skye shook her head and rolled her eyes, still dabbing the cool cloth over her girlfriend’s forehead.
“Yes, everyone is alright.”
She helped Jemma sit up and lean on the pile of pillows behind her, the scientist still looked dazed.
“Unless you count Dr. Simmons, who got thrown into a rock wall, suffered a concussion and nearly lost her right arm.”
Jemma looked down at her arm which was carefully bandaged all the way to almost her armpit. She lifted it off the bed next to her, there wasn’t any pain at all, in fact she could barely feel anything.
“Fitz’ll be back in a little bit.”
Jemma looked down, never meeting the agent’s eyes, she bit her lip uncomfortably and reached the undamaged hand over to Skye’s free hand.
“I’m sorry, Skye, this must have been scary for you.”
Skye took the scientist’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly, adding a kiss on her knuckles for measure.
“Hey, it’s not like you could have seen this coming, I’m just happy you’re alright.”
Jemma smiled, laying her head sideways to look at the other woman. Suddenly she looked around quickly, scanning the room in a panic.
“The 0-8-4! Where is it?! Did we get it out?!”
She sat up, ignoring the dizziness, and swung her legs off the little bed, still looking around intently.
“Whoa! Whoa!”
Skye didn’t even let her feet hit the floor before she grabbed her legs and put them back on the bed and pushed her back on the pillows. She replaced the fallen cloth, a little harder this time and kept her hand in front of the escapee patient.
“Uh-uh! You’re not going anywhere! You just got electrocuted and thrown into a rock wall, you’re keeping your ass in bed until you’ve healed all the way.”
“We don’t know what happened! I need to go see that artifact!”
Skye shook her head stubbornly.
“Stay. In. Bed. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a Doctor, Skye.”
“No but I’m your girlfriend. And I say your ass is staying in this bed until you‘ve had plenty of rest.”
Simmons giggled at Skye’s little rant and laid back on the bed attempting to pout angrily even though the effect didn’t really work through the smile she kept cracking.
“You know, Doctor Skye is a bit pushy.”
“Yeah well, patient Simmons is kinda rowdy.”
She winked and leaned foreword, planting a kiss on the scientist’s still warm forehead before moving down to her smiling lips.
A few days later and Jemma was allowed to leave the hospital bed and go back to work, she was determined to figured out what the cause of the object’s reaction and, of course, what it was exactly. Her arm, which still wasn’t hurting, looked awful, it was healing but it had the resemblance of a direct lightning strike. The explosion left vein shaped bruises and marks all the way up her arm and her skin was a bluish purple color. However, she still had full use of it and the marks were going away a little bit each day. In fact the incident faded from her mind as she learned more and more about the artifact until it suddenly became relevant again when she was working on a specific part of the object. Without paying attention, she reached up above her to grab something out of the cabinet, realizing to late that it was shut, however, instead of the shock of impact, her hand went straight through the metal doors. She looked up at the strange prickling sensation that was pulsing through her hand only to scream and fall backwards. A concerned Fitz came running through the door and Jemma gave him some made up excuse to calm him down. She then retreated to a back room, shaking and looking at her arms, she should have told Fitz what had happened but honestly the idea that something happened to her in the explosion didn’t scare her as much as the thought that her teammates and of Skye worrying or treating differently.
A couple of days went by and Simmons realized that she could phase her entire body through any kind of solid object without any effort, it wasn’t painful or difficult for her but she still hadn’t told any of the team even though she almost got caught mid-phase by Skye a few times who simply attributed her nervous behavior as a side effect of the incident and brushed it off and instead tried her best to be supportive.
Jemma had never kept a secret from Skye, however, she was thankful for this new found ability whenever the bus went down and they all ended up trapped in the rubble. She had already figured out that anything she was holding was able to phase through matter just like she was. She held on to Skye as the screeching of metal and the flashes of broken wires surrounded them. Everyone seemed to be in different places on the ship but at least she had Skye, she let the two of them fall directly through the bottom of the ship and she pulled the agent out, laying her gently on the ground. Skye had screamed all the way down and she was still in complete shock as her girlfriend ran back through one of the walls of the crashed aircraft, One by one, she got everyone out safely and they were transported to a medical facility.
Simmons, in an attempt to get away from the stares and worried looks of her coworkers, found an dim empty closet in the hospital and took a seat in the corner. Everyone was getting examined and she was pretty much the only one without any wounds. She hadn’t been there for very long when the door opened, letting in an intense stream of light from the outside, Skye walked in and shut the door, she sat next to Jemma and took a deep breathe. Jemma kept her head down.
“Well.. Wouldja Look at that, we’re back in the closet”
Simmons giggled and shook her head, still not looking up.
“How long have you known?”
“Just a few days…”
“So.. The explosion?”
“Yeah”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jemma looked up at Skye who didn’t seem angry or disappointed, instead she seemed worried and analytical.
“I guess.. I was afraid. And I was pretty sure that the effect was temporary. I didn’t-- I don’t know I suppose I didn’t want to worry you or anybody, especially if it would just go away. Believe me! I feel terrible about keeping it from you, I just felt it was necessary. I‘m so sorry”
“It’s okay. I just-- I want you to know that you can always tell me anything. That’s what I’m here for.. We’re in this thing together, right?”
Jemma nodded
“Of course we are. I’m sorry.”
Skye reached her arms out and pulled Jemma close to her, the other woman wrapped her arms around the other’s waste and laid her head on her chest.
“It’s in the past now, Jem. We’re back in the closet. May’s about to strangle Coulson cause she told him not to take that mission and Fitz and Tripp fell asleep together and I love you so let’s move on. Hopefully to a bed of some sort. In a nice hotel. With chocolates.”
Skye kissed her head and Jemma closed her eyes, and held onto her girlfriend tightly.
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