Fitz didn't like Chinese. It wasn't because he was a picky eater; it was because the other grad students in his PI's lab at MIT all liked Chinese, and when it came to takeout, nine times out of ten, they'd ordered Mary Chung's. It would be okay if he never ate another order of mu shu in his life.

But here he was, dabbing dumplings into sauce and taking glum bites, barely tasting what was in the styrofoam container. He didn't even notice Skye poking him with a chopstick until she went for his pec.

"Ow." He rubbed his chest, blinking. "What?"

"I said, can I have one?"

He slid the container over to her, and she bit one in half, regarding him thoughtfully.

"Where's your daemon?"

"What?" he said again. He was starting to resent her presence in his lab.

"Your other half. The girl. What's her name, the one with the too-sweet voice?" Skye rolled her eyes. "Simmons. What, does she have a date?"

"She's at a talk on G-protein-coupled receptors." And she would have ordered General Tso's. He pushed the remaining dumpling around with one chopstick.

Skye's smile widened slowly. "You don't know what to do with yourself without her."

"Oh, give me a —" He slouched on his stool, refusing to scowl.

"Come on. I've known you for two weeks and already I can tell you guys are like the old married couple. When's the last time you spent an evening away from the lab?"

Fitz didn't answer, mostly because he was trying to do the calculations in his head. His memory had more to do with the number of takeout containers in the lab's fridge than with the actual date. What day of the week was it, anyway? Something ending with a Y… He shook his head irritably, shutting the styrofoam container with a squelchy click. "Aren't you done here?"

"Sure," Skye said amicably. "You heading home?"

"Work to do."

It wasn't untrue, at least in the sense that he always had more to tinker with in the S.H.I.E.L.D. lab. And it didn't really matter where he crashed, as long as it was flat and reasonably soft and not too cold. Tonight it was the bionic heart and the couch behind the centrifuge. Simmons had left an orange fleece blanket there, and it had become a fixture of the lab.

The third time he woke up, it was to Simmons' hand on his brow. He rubbed his face on the nubbly fabric of the couch and squinted at her. "What time is it?"

"After two. But I had espresso. And the lecture was brilliant." Her eyes gleamed. "I didn't think you'd want to wait until morning to hear about it."

"No," he agreed, sitting up with a stifled yawn. "And there's Chinese in the fridge for you."