"Skye."

Skye jumped when there was a light rapping on the window but smiled once she saw who was outside. She leant over and pushed the button for the window to roll down, smiling up at Simmons. "Yes, doctor Simmons?"

"I need your help with something."

"Well, if it's to hack somewhere I'm not really supposed to. I will but I'm not supposed to." Skye gave Simmons a small smile.

"No, it's nothing of that nature." Simmons shook her head, drumming her fingers on the door of the SUV. "I need you to toughen me up."

"Toughen you up? You mean, like, beat you up?"

"No, no. Like, teach me how to defend myself."

"Oh."

"It's ok if you don't want to, I could ask May." Jemma backtracks when she notices the unsure look on Skye's face, backing away from the SUV.

"Hey, no." Skye closes her laptop and sat it down on the floor of the car before crawling across the backseat to the window. "I'll help you."

"Oh, good." Simmons sighed, her hand coming up to cover her chest. "I would rather you than May."

"When do you want to start?"

"Just whenever you are free."

"Are can start now if you want. I don't have much work to do."

"Ok, I will go change into something more appropriate." Simmons smiled, spinning on her heels and began walking away, only getting a few steps before whirling back around. "By the way, everyone knows about your secret hide out."

"I gathered."

Simmons just smiled, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet as she turned and walked away.

Skye opened up her laptop again, booting it down before climbing out of the SUV and heading up to her bunk, dropping her laptop onto her bed and grabbing the roll of white boxing tape Ward had given her when he was training her.

When she walked back downstairs Simmons was there waiting for her, now dressed in a pair of blue yoga pants and a black sweater with 'Oxford' printed on it in large, white letters.

"Skye." Simmons smiles that big smile that she only ever seemed to save for Skye. "I'm ready."

"Not quite. Hands."

Jemma forward but held up her hands without question, allowing Skye to take ahold of one of them and roll up her sleeves.

"What is that for?" Simmons asked when Skye began wrapping her hands but before Skye could answer Simmons began speaking again. "It will strengthen my wrist bone, right?"

"Mm," Skye hummed, glancing up at Simmons with a slight smile on her face. "It will also protect your knuckles."

"Okay. And will you be doing the same?"

"I'm not the one who will be punching the bag." Skye answered. "Make a fist."

Simmons did as she was told, curling her fingers into a ball with a little restriction from the tape. Skye nodded to herself and set about taping Simmons' other hand.

"I'm glad you decided to help, I think training with May would have been terrifying."

"Who said training with me wouldn't be terrifying?" Skye frowned, looking mildly offended when Simmons giggled.

"Sorry, it's just- you aren't very scary, Skye."

"Excuse you. I can be scary."

"Okay, sure. You can be scary." Simmons agreed, making a fist with the other hand once Skye finished taping.

"Whatever. Now, punch it." Skye said, nodding towards the punch bag but held up her hands as soon as she saw Simmons make a fist. "No, stop."

"What?" Simmons frowned

Skye stepped closer, eyeing Simmons' fist, her thumb tucked into her palm instead of around her other fingers. "Just rest your fist against the punch bag." Simmons obliged, placing her knuckles against the leather. "Now start progressively pushing harder."

Simmons pushed until she could feel the strain on the joint of her thumb. "Ouch."

"Exactly." Skye took ahold of Simmons' fist and prying it open. "Your thumb goes on the outside otherwise it will just snap."

"And we don't want that."

"No," Skye agreed with a light chuckle. "We don't want that."

"Did you know that, ounce for ounce, a human bone is stronger than steel and around four times stronger than concrete?" Jemma looked up at Skye with such a hopeful and fascinated look that Skye couldn't help but smile.

"I didn't know that, no. But I don't think we should start building houses from bones instead of concrete."

"No," Simmons gave a little shake of her head as she turned back to the punch bag. "That wouldn't be wise."

Skye just hummed, moving behind Simmons and holding onto her wrists, pulling them up into a fight stance. "Now you have to keep these up here, ok? Let them drop and someone could get a clear shot at your head."

Simmons nodded, keeping her hands were Skye had positioned them when the hacker moved away.

"It's a simple one two, ok?" Skye demonstrated on the punch bag punching it first with her left hand that against straight after with her right hand. She then turned to Simmons and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Simmons nodded and Skye moved to hold the punch bag.

"Ok, try it out."

Simmons copied Skye's movements, tentatively at first, but began getting progressively harder as she became more comfortable with the movements. "So, why did you want to do this? Not planning on becoming a field agent, are you?"

"Oh, god no."

"Then why? Did you just want an excuse to spend time with me?" Skye grinned cheekily at Simmons who just continued punching the bag.

"No. I'm just fed up with feeling like the runt of the litter." Simmons spoke, the punches on the bag getting a little harder. "I'm fed up with just being the lab rat."

"You aren't just the lab rat." Skye disagreed, frowning over at Simmons who didn't take her eyes from the bag. "Hey."

Simmons stopped, her hands dropping to her side as she looked at Skye.

"You aren't just the lab rat."

"Yes I am. I can't defend myself when we are out in the field. Even Fitz can protect himself, I'm bloody useless."

"And I would be useless if AC asked me to try and figure out something smart and science related." Skye gave Simmons a half smile, moving from behind to punch bag to between it and Simmons before continuing. "Everyone has their place, yours just happens to be in the labs but nobody could do that job half as well as you do, Jemma."

"I just want to be more than lab coats and safety glasses."

"You are. You are cat livers and alien viruses and gravity altering elements. You are a little English fact machine. You are interesting, endearing and usually a little clumsy. You are a lot more that a lab coat and safety glasses."

"You think so?" Simmons muttered bashfully.

"Yeah. And you don't have to prove anything to anyone." Skye stressed, smiling when Simmons looked up at her. "I mean, Jesus, Simmons, you discovered the cure to the Asgardian virus you were dying from in under two hours."

"That's wasn't a big deal..."

"No, it was. That was incredible." Skye practically gushed, throwing her hands up as she looked at Simmons. "Then you jump out a plane to save us all. That was extremely stupid and I wanted to punch you for doing it but it was also brave. Just don't do it again."

Simmons giggled and shook her head.

"You still wanna do this? Because we can or we can go upstairs and get something to eat?"

"No, I want to do this." Simmons said, determination laced in her voice and Skye couldn't help but smile.

"Ok, young grass hopper." Simmons frowned at Skye, obviously not getting the reference. "Karate kid? No?"

"I've never seen it."

"Of course you haven't. Uh, a reference that you might get." Skye thought about it as she moved back behind the punch bag. "Ah. Use the force you must."

"That sounded nothing like Yoda." Simmons huffed, laying a few punched on the bag.

"Ah, the force is strong with this one." Skye grinned when Simmons lets out a little frustrated huff. "Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you."

"Looks like you are a bigger Star Wars nerd that I am, Skye."

Skye laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Star Wars is a classic, Doctor Simmons."

Simmons didn't disagree.

They had spent a good two hours at the bag and Simmons was way past being exhausted and bored.

"Are we just going to do this all day?"

"Patients you must have."

"That's getting a little old, too." Simmons huffed, falling against the punch bag, resting her cheek against the cool leather.

"I think you got the hang of it a while ago, I just wanted to see how resilient you were."

"Skye!" Simmons snapped, swinging to punch Skye in the arm but stumbled with she took a step back.

"There's your first problem." Skye pointed out, gripping onto Simmons' waist to steady her. "Balance, you need to have a low center of gravity."

Simmons nodded, looking up at Skye, as if waiting for instructions but Skye didn't give her any, she just stated right back at her, the corner of her mouth lifting into a little smile.

"How about we work on some fight combos then you can get back to your actual work?"

"Oh, yes. I have cultures to look at, an Asgardian bacterium. Hopefully not deadly." Simmons joked, taking a step back from Skye and picking at the tape on her hands.

"Yeah, hopefully not deadly." Skye agreed, stepping back into Simmons' personal space to help unwrap the scientists hands, since she would't be needing it for this part. "You are important, you know that don't you?"

Simmons looked up at Skye as the hacker finished unwrapping her hands.

"I mean, not just to SHIELD but to other people, too. To Fitz, to AC." Skye balled up the tape on her hands, raising her eyes to meet Simmons'. "To me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm not one for getting attached but you and Fitz seem to have wormed your way under my skin. He's like a brother to me."

"Are you saying I'm like your sister?"

"No, that would be weird." Skye shakes her head and Simmons is about to ask what she means by that but Skye piped up again. "Ok, lets start."

Skye spend the next hour showing Simmons different punch and kick combinations before finally catching Simmons' hand and smiling. "You're doing good but I should probably get upstairs, I think AC wanted to see me hours ago. Again tomorrow, though, yeah?"

"Okay." Simmons nodded and Skye released Simmons' hands, heading towards the stairs. Simmons' eyes trailing on her as she left.

Skye stopped at the top, grinning cheekily down at Simmons. "May the force be with you, Doctor Simmons."

Simmons couldn't stop the laugh that slipped from her lips and Skye looked satisfied as she disappeared upstairs.

"You are so obvious."

Simmons jumped and spun around to see Fitz standing in the doorway of the lab, a little grin on his face.

"Oh, Fitz. I didn't know you were here."

"Mm, the full time." Fitz quipped, nudging her head back towards the lab. "I was working on Sleepy, he needed some fine tuning."

"Oh, and how is that going?" Simmons asked offhandedly as she walked past Fitz into the lab, grabbing her lab coat as she went.

"Good, I'm almost done." Fitz closed the door to the lab and followed Simmons over to the incubator that was holding her cultures. "But don't try and change the subject. I'm surprised Skye didn't notice."

"Notice what?" Simmons didn't turn to look at Fitz as she sat the petri dishes on the bench and set about turning on her burner to make a slid of the bacteria.

"That you were looking at her like you wanted to just... tear her clothes off."

"What? I was not looking at her like that, Fitz." Simmons shook her head, angling her head away from Fitz so he couldn't see the blush rising on her cheeks.

"You were looking at her like she was a piece of meat."

Simmons just scoffed, turning on her microscope and placing the slid on the base.

"What are you actually looking for?" Fitz asked, leaning a little closer to Simmons but kept a little distance from the bacteria.

"Any structural difference between this bacterium and bacterium here on earth." Simmons murmured, peering down the scope and adjusting focus.

"Rather you then me being near that stuff after what happened the last time." Fitz shook his head, a look of disgust forming on his face as he moved back to his station.