strangest beauty cries. / one and one, by and by, now three of us here lie.
-"Now Three," Vienna Teng

She's crawling.

She was creeping when I left!

Come home before she decides to leap straight ahead to running.

Rosie was crying, again- but then, eight month old infants did tend to do that. With a quiet sigh Jemma balanced her daughter on her lap, waiting to be patched through the connection that Skye assured her was absolutely secure. Within seconds her husband's beloved face appeared on the screen, and Rosie hiccupped in surprise, her cries faltering.

"Bad day?" Phil asked in sympathy. He did, however, grin at his flummoxed daughter, lifting his hand in a wave. "Giving your mum trouble, Rosie-girl?"

"Ah!" was Rosie's vehement response as she strained against Jemma's arms toward the screen of the laptop.

"She crawls faster than some people walk. I looked away for ten seconds this afternoon and when I turned back around she was under the bed." Fishing her back out had been a dusty adventure. "Also, I think that someone has developed a very good grasp on object permanence," Jemma said dryly, shifting closer so that Rosie could pat her hands against the screen. "She is practically inconsolable, Phil, and I'm not sure she'll be happy again until you come home." She flashed him a quick grin. "Her mother feels much the same way. Half of my bed is empty, and I'm finding that very distressing."

"I don't sleep well without you, either." The statement was in earnest, she was touched to see. Less about sex, and more about how very odd it was to wake up without the other in arm's reach.

Though the sex... she did miss the sex. "Please tell Pepper that I expect you home on the promised day, and no later." She gave him a somewhat anxious look. "You do think you'll be finished within two more days, right? This won't turn into some kind of extended crisis?"

"I've backed Worthington into a corner, and he knows it." He ran a hand over his face, looking weary and very much in need of a solid eight hours of sleep. "It's a matter of pride, now. If he's still being an-"

He paused, giving his daughter a thoughtful look. "-a very stubborn person on Friday, I'll give you a call. You can threaten him over the phone; that would do it."

"I could do that now."

"No need to bring in the nuclear option at this point in the game."

Rosie was beginning to sob again, as if realizing that the smooth screen under her hands was not her father, and in fact was a very poor substitute. "Oh, love," Jemma murmured, scooping her up for a cuddle. Rosie pressed her wet face against her neck, audibly distressed and wriggling. "She'll calm down after a feed," Jemma said, her tone more hopeful than certain. Rosie was usually such a cheerful baby, but it was undeniable that she was having a rough patch. "And forgive me, Phil, but no matter how secure this connection is I won't be doing that in front of a camera."

"That's fine." He propped his elbow on the table, chin in hand and looking wistful. "I miss you both so much."

"Hard to believe you could ever miss dirty diapers, hmmm?" She patted Rosie's back soothingly, wishing she could have a soothing pat on the back herself. "I'll be happy to let you deal with those for a few days, when you get back."

"That, and I'm looking forward to cooking for you again. I shudder to think what the three of you have been eating since I left."

She smirked. "We're not completely incapable, thank you."

"I know."

"But meals have certainly been lacking in that certain something," she admitted. "And I- well, Clint brought home take-out last night." She gave him an embarrassed smile. "After trying to calm down Rosie all day, I was too stressed to eat any of it. I ended up with toast and scrambled eggs."

It had smelled delicious, but some switch in her brain had flipped, and food prepared by unknown hands had simply been out of the question. "Don't worry," she said, seeing his frown. "We're all meeting our daily calorie and vitamin requirements. I just had a bad day."

"I'll reserve my fussing until I get home, then."

She smiled, already anticipating his arrival. "Mutual fussing, Phil. You look exhausted."

"Tony keeps trying to be helpful, but Worthington hates him." He shrugged, rolling his eyes. "Imagine that." He gave her his gentlest of smiles, the one she typically only saw on those occasions when Rosie decided that sleeping through the night was not an option, but a three am feed was. "I love you. Go, take care of our girl."

"I love you, too." She raised a hand in a goodbye, feeling tears sting at her eyes. "Hurry home."

With the connection severed and the laptop screen shut, she looked down at her disconsolate daughter and hummed in sympathy. "I miss him, too, love," she murmured, unbuttoning her shirt. "I miss him, too."

I'm going to kill him, Jemma.

Worthington?

Steve.

Jemma frowned at her phone's screen, and tapped out a quick message to Pepper before responding.

You would regret it, Phil.

But it would be worth it for roughly five seconds. He's completely disrupting negotiations. He's worse than Tony.

Then consider this: if you kill Captain America, your time with Rosie will be severely limited. Also, I don't think maximum security prisoners receive conjugal visits.

Shit.

Jemma snapped a quick picture of Rosie while she was still smiling (and covered in sweet potato puree, but that only added to the charm), and sent a copy to Phil's phone with a tap. "It was so good of your daddy to leave behind all this food for you," she told Rosie, dampening a cloth before attacking the worst of the mess on her face and hands. "There are more containers labeled 'Rosie' in the freezer than anything else."

Rosie blew a raspberry in her direction, beginning to look bored with being cleaned. Jemma only hoped that it wouldn't lead to a tantrum.

"The Empress looks displeased," Clint noted. "And you have puree in your hair, Jemma."

"So do you." Jemma sat back in her own chair and sighed. "She has quite the range."

"Aim's a bit off, but we can work on that."

"Please save that lesson until after she learns that throwing food is against the rules."

Rosie began drumming her hands on the tray in front of her, loudly verbalizing her discontent.

"I think she loves Phil more than me," Jemma told Clint glumly. "Or she's been replaced with a changeling."

"That kid loves you, Jem. She's just having a few bad days." He returned Rosie's grumpy expression with one that was similar, if exaggerated for effect. "She'll be all smiles soon enough."

"I might be loopy from sleep deprivation by then." Jemma grimly considered the night ahead. "I wouldn't be able to do this, without the two of you. Phil would have come home to find every dish dirty and a shambling zombie for a wife."

"You're right. With us, the dishes will at least be clean."

More than that, really. They foisted food on her, they did the laundry, they abducted Rosie for a few hours every day so that she could take a shower and spend a soothing hour or two in the garden, sans wailing infant. Just a week ago Rosie had been perfectly happy to examine her hands and feet while lying on a blanket in the shade for minutes at a stretch, but that was a thing of the past.

Her friends were, however, beginning to sport a kind of stunned expression that Jemma could almost feel in her very bones. "Go," she said, making an abrupt decision. "I'm kicking you both out for the evening."

He kindly tried to hide the look of yearning that crossed his face at the thought of a few hours away from the house. "No."

"I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart," she told him tartly, softening her tone with a gentle pat to his hand. "I need my back-up in good shape, after all. Those moments to myself when you tag-team Rosie are keeping me sane. Plus," she added, "I want a date night with Phil after you get back, so really I am being very selfish."

"I accept your deal," he said, rising swiftly to his feet and hurrying out of the kitchen. "Natasha, we have a reprieve!"

"That's all on you, you know," Jemma told her daughter solemnly. "An operative of his caliber quails at nothing- except, apparently, a temptestuous infant."

"Ah, ah, ah!"

"A bath for you, chickadee." Jemma plucked her daughter out of her high chair, and after a few seconds wrinkled her nose. "And a new diaper."

"Ah!"

"You keep telling yourself that."

"I don't blame you, dear, but I had never realized how much more you love him than me," she explained to a temporarily clean Rosie as she paced through the house that evening, weaving through different rooms and in and out of the garden. "I suppose I thought that after a long labor and many months of breastfeeding, you would be happy to spend time with just your mum."

Rosie sniffled, looking up at her with the kind of lost look that had Jemma nearly in tears. "Oh, bloody hell. Don't look at me like that, love. I could use a smile and a quiet hour, is all. Maybe this is colic? I'm good at being a mum, right?"

As if a child less than a year old would be offering an opinion on that.

There had been clues, she would realize later. She had made enough circuits through the house that evening that she should have noticed some of them, small as they were- a cushion out of place on the couch, an empty water glass on the kitchen counter- but she had been distracted by both Rosie's distress and her own worries, and had become complacent when it came to considering her surroundings in her own house. Which was the point of their hard work, really. Phil always did get that furrow in his brow when he thought she might not be comfortable in their home, whether it was because of their security or because she mentioned moving around the furniture.

Whatever the reason, the hard arm snagging her around the waist and the sting of a sharp knife against her side was unexpected. Jostled by the unexpected attack, she tightened her grasp on Rosie, who wailed in response, and as the person behind her cursed Jemma screamed.

Screamed "Zeitgeist!", to be more specific, and the ring she still wore on her right hand worked just as expected. The knife fell to the floor at the same time as her assailant, barely missing Jemma's foot as she wrenched herself away from the loosened hold. She whirled, still clutching Rosie close, and stared at disbelief at the young woman unconscious on her floor.

"Fuck."

Were there more of them? With as much noise as Rosie was making, Jemma did not have a clue. Hurriedly she pulled the tiny Mjolnir cube from her pocket and placed it carefully onto the woman's chest. She still breathed, which relieved Jemma of any worry that she might inadvertently be killing the person who might have just tried to kill her.

She glanced down, frowning at the blood spotting the side of her blouse. A scratch, but not a bad one. More of a nuisance than a crisis. "No need to cry, Rosie," she said as she hastened through the house to the panic room. "We'll tuck ourselves away and call your godparents, and everything will be just fine."

She slammed her hand against the biometric panel outside the room, smiling grimly as the system recognized her and the door slid open silently. She had hoped that this room would never see use, but now that she needed it...

Jemma took in a deep breath once the door had closed securely behind her, swaying slightly. "Your Auntie Nat is going to be so upset about this," she told Rosie as she set the squalling babe on the bed, giving her a quick exam to be sure that the crying was only in reaction to the situation. No bruising, no marks on her delicate baby skin- just Rosie, royally pissed.

As Jemma unbuttoned her shirt she moved over to the screens in the corner, reaching out to activate the security feeds. Jemma had initially been against placing a camera in every room of the house- still was, really- but seeing as only four people, including herself, would have access to the feed, she had begrudgingly agreed. It wasn't as if Clint or Natasha would be interested in watching her take a shower or have sex with her husband (or vise-versa), and the cameras only recorded in just this kind of emergency situation, when someone with clearance ordered them to.

That precaution now proved its worth as she scanned the array of feeds and sighed in relief. No other intruders, inside or out. Just one clever thief- or assassin, perhaps- now pinned to the floor of Phil's study.

"Well," she said with new cheer, cleaning and bandaging the scratch with the first-aid supplies. "Less of a problem than we thought, perhaps."

Once Jemma finished tending to her wound she pulled on a clean button-up from the selection of clothing available, but left it open and loose. She settled Rosie against her chest, recognizing her daughter's need for closeness- and her own as well, really. Rosie began to suck with enthusiasm, still whimpering in the back of her throat. "We'll give Nat and Clint a call, hmm? And perhaps we'll get a chance to speak with our guest before they arrive."

She briefly considered how everyone would frown at her later for leaving the panic room prematurely, and frowned herself. They would all have to live with it; Jemma wanted answers and she would have them, or else.

She did take another long look at the feeds, and reloaded the small compartment hidden in her ring before selecting the newest iteration of the ICER from the weapons rack. No need to go in unarmed, after all.

After a moment of thought she doubled back a few steps and tucked a pair of cuffs into her pocket. They really were an ingenious bit of work, she thought admirably. Flexible as silk and stronger than any metal known to man. All Fitz's work, of course. She knew for a fact that he had received a rather large bonus for their design.

Walking back through her home (invaded, again, and in less than a year from the first occasion. This would upset everyone), she felt strong and brave and perhaps a little bit tipsy on sleep deprivation and adrenaline. Rosie continued to eat, unconcerned by anything other than the taste of milk on her tongue and the warmth of her mother's skin against her hands and feet.

"Nice to be so innocent," Jemma said quietly, a bit of wistfulness in her voice. "Ah well."

Her attacker was still unconscious, and remained so even as Jemma temporarily set Rosie aside to bind her wrists together. Rosie used the distraction to crawl hurriedly toward the still open door of the study, though she barely fussed when Jemma scooped her back up. "Now we wait," Jemma told her as she resumed eating, having settled into Phil's desk chair with the ICER well within reach. "Though I really should call your aunt and uncle."

With one hand she scrolled through her contacts in her phone, wrinkling her nose at the ache in her side. One more scar, dammit. "Hello, Nat?" She glanced down at her daughter, whose eyelashes were fluttering. "I'm sorry to cut your evening short, but there is an unconscious intruder in the study-"

She paused, smiling faintly. "No need to curse, Tasha."

The spill of swear words over the phone made her eyebrows rise in amazement. "Wow."

Jemma watched as the woman woke, and didn't bother to hide her grin as her intruder attempted to sit up only to be deterred by mini-Mjolnir. "So sorry," she said cheerfully as the woman tried to tug her bound wrists from where they had been secured around one of the legs of the desk. That particular piece of furniture was damned heavy, and Jemma doubted that her guest would be going anywhere. "You probably didn't expect that."

The woman stared at her, obviously disconcerted by her current circumstances. "You have a baby."

Not Limean, Jemma guessed, but she couldn't quite pin down the accent. "So you see. Don't yell, you'll wake her up."

"They never said anything about a baby." The woman- more girl, really, because she couldn't be more than eighteen, if that- frowned. "Or whatever you did to knock me out."

"Whoever sent you in obviously offered some very bad information." Jemma cuddled Rosie closer, her smile all for the infant. "I would be angry, in your place. Though you did manage to break through our security, which is impressive."

The girl flushed, looking both irritated and embarrassed. "Never did anything with your security."

Jemma gaze sharpened. "I find it hard to believe that my house-mates simply left the door unlocked for you."

The girl gave her a mulish look, but remained silent.

"They are better at interrogations than I am," Jemma continued with a shrug. "And they'll be home soon. So-"

"It was a dare," the girl said quickly, interrupting her.

"A dare offered by, perhaps, the Rising Tide?" Jemma raised a brow. "Or Hydra?"

Mentioning Hydra was superfluous; the girl's eyes had widened comically at 'Rising Tide'. "Oh dear," Jemma said with a sigh. "The precedent for this is very complicated."

Jemma pulled out her phone as the girl sputtered, snapping a quick picture before she entirely realized what was going on. Jemma took a moment to study the composition of the shot, grinning at how her own reflection had been caught in the mirror across from her. One bound intruder on the floor, one seated, barefoot woman wearing a half-buttoned shirt with her hair piled in a messy bun and a baby asleep against her chest. It would drive Phil crazy.

She sent the picture with a caption (Looking forward to your return; have caught your new adoptee.) and settled back into her chair. "Now," she said with a smile. "Let's talk about how you got in."

He arrived home late- close to four in the morning, and that was after finishing the negotiations in record time and accepting Pepper's offer of a chartered flight. She had been positively gleeful once he had managed to wrest a number of unexpected concessions from Worthington at the last minute, and he probably could have asked for a portion of the company's profits in that space of time and received them (up to twelve percent, perhaps).

Natasha was waiting for him, draped over the couch with a glass of what was probably vodka in her hand. "She left the panic room," she said irritably, a hint of pride in her voice. "Not that Emilia was going anywhere." She knocked back the remainder of her drink with nary a wince. "Just our luck that she volunteered to join the Rising Tide, and did so knowing that she could walk through both stone and wood." She shook her head. "I am not lining the walls with chicken wire, inside or out."

"I'm hoping that Emilia is unique in that ability." He eyed her consideringly. "You look… tired."

"Your daughter is a hellion," she replied with an easy shrug. "And I'm the Welcome Wagon, so to speak. We forced Jemma to go to bed a few hours ago."

"Thank you." At that he readjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder. "We should both do the same. Everything will be better in the morning."

"Maybe," she muttered.

At least Emilia herself was no longer a problem, Phil thought as he passed quietly through the garden to his own bedroom door. After a friendly chat with Jemma she had been eager to accept an offer to study at the operatives' academy- or that was the story he had received, anyway, and he doubted that Jemma would have lied to him on that matter. What she had told the kid to get her to that point was another question altogether.

He unlocked the door and slipped inside almost silently, moving through the dark room with ease. This layout he knew like the back of his hand- or like the curve of Jemma's lips, which he spent much more time considering than the actual backs of his hands. He could hear her breathing soft and slow in the dark, and some of his anxiety slipped away at that.

She slept through his detour into the bathroom to wash and change into a t-shirt and boxers, only waking when his weight dipped his side of the bed.

"That had better be you, Phil," she murmured, her hand patting the mattress near him. "One intruder per week is quite enough, thank you."

"Definitely me." His hand closed over hers, fingers tracing her wrist. "May I turn on the light?"

She grumbled, but said, "Okay."

The soft lamplight revealed his beloved wife dressed in one of his old t-shirts, one arm slung over her eyes to block out the light. "Which side did she get you on, again?"

"Here," she said, tugging up the shirt she wore. "Just a scratch, see?"

She was right: it was just a scratch, but he was offended by its very existence, as well as the fact that Emilia had used one of his own kitchen knives to do the damage. He certainly wouldn't be using that knife again. He might as well hand them all over to Natasha and buy a new, untainted set.

"Before you start, Phil, I refuse to spend the rest of my life never being alone in my own house." She moved her arm, squinting but still offering him a smile. "And I did rather well, don't you think?"

"Amazingly well," he admitted, smoothing the shirt back down her body. "I will merely ask that if we should ever be invaded again, you will actually stay in the panic room with Rosie until all is said and done."

"I will do my best." She yawned, squirming back under the sheets and blanket. He noted the dark shadows under her eyes, the way her eyelids drooped. "And this particular invasion ended well enough. I was thinking that we could offer a scholarship."

He blinked, considering this idea. After the very long day he had had (made longer by that damn text and Clint's follow-up call an hour later), he was feeling a little slow. "The Simmons-Coulson Scholarship for Wayward Young Women?"

"Scoff if you must. At least I've never used a black-bag op as a prelude to an adoption."

"Ouch." That did make him laugh, which had doubtlessly been her intention. He leaned forward to kiss her lightly. "My warrior wife."

Jemma gave him an appreciative smile when he pulled back. "I have been rather short on kisses, lately," she said softly. "Maybe you should do that again."

A squall from Rosie's room interrupted the next kiss, and he pulled back readily, eager to see the other person he had dearly missed.

"A dirty diaper, just for you," Jemma said, her smile now rather wicked. "Go on."

"I don't even mind that." He left the bed, padding into the nursery on quiet feet. No need to turn on the light here; the dim glow of the monkey-shaped night-light led him to his daughter easily enough. She hiccupped mid-cry when she saw him over her crib, and reached up with insistent hands. "I've missed you, angel-eyes," he told her as he took her into his arms. His nose told him easily enough that Jemma had been right- she needed a change. "Let's get you changed and then go snuggle with your mum, hmm?"

She wasn't crying, exactly, but she did continue to hiccup as he cleaned her up, gazing at him in the dim light as if she were uncertain whether or not he were truly there. "I would much rather have been here with you," he told her as he worked. "You'll crawl for me later, right? I leave for only a week and you learn an entirely new skill, which doesn't surprise me in the least."

Rosie was making a sound which almost sounded like a chuckle by the time he was done, and he was certain that when he finally returned to Jemma's side his joy was evident. "She really did miss me," he said in amazement, settling beside Jemma on the bed, Rosie in his arms. "I thought it was... I don't know what I thought it was."

"She missed her daddy." Sitting up, Jemma leaned in to kiss his cheek. "I missed her daddy, too."

He shook his head slightly, still feeling a bit befuddled. "This was too hard, Jemma. Next time, please come with me. We don't have to stay at the tower."

"I might be amenable to staying in the tower for a short period," Jemma said thoughtfully, her mouth quirking into a smile. "Especially if the mirror over the bed is a still a standard feature."

He looked at her, and then up at the ceiling. "If…"

"Oh, no." She was smirking, now. "I like our ceiling the way it is. But our short stay in New York was interesting."

He definitely had some good memories of the view. "True enough."

Rosie reached up, patting her hand against his chin to reclaim his attention. Giving it to her fully, he lovingly considered for the millionth time the hints of Jemma's mouth and his nose on her face, and those brilliant, focused blue eyes. Perfect. "Can she sleep with us tonight?" he heard himself ask as he reclined against the pillows, and Jemma glanced at the clock before looking back at him, understanding in her eyes.

"I think that can be arranged," she said softly, and curled up against his side. "Welcome home, Phil."