The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
-Mario Puzo
Jemma Simmons was surrounded by no less than four armed guards (and probably more she couldn't see), at least four enemy agents who would shoot if given a reason a to, without her partner, in an unfamiliar lab, with an impossible time limit hanging over her. She was working under difficult circumstances, to say the least, and she was absolutely terrified.
Her hand reached into her pocket, her fingers running over the smooth plastic of the familiar object, reminding her why she was there, calming her for an instant.
She wasn't expecting the reaction her movement created, hadn't expected six guns to suddenly be turned on her, their safeties clicked off, but she rose her hands instinctively, the object held between her thumb and index before one of the guards stepped forward and roughly yanked it away.
"It's a toy," she told them insistently, a squeak in her voice. "Just a toy, it has... sentimental value, nothing more, I swear."
"Let her work," a voice over the intercom instructed impatiently. "It's harmless. Place it on the desk," they demanded and he did as he was told, setting it down where she could see it.
Simmons glanced at it briefly before she set back to work, straining to keep her hands steady, she didn't have time to make a mistake.
'No one is going to shoot you,' she assured herself. 'They have no reason to, you haven't done anything wrong.'
Not yet.