A/N: This fic actually contains a sneaky reference to another fic I'm writing, even though the two are unrelated. There's no reason you should be able to spot it and, therefore, no reason I should really mention it. But I did anyway. Because of...reasons, I guess.
Title is from Ed Sheeran's Photograph. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!
The morning after they rescue Skye, the team gathers bright and early for a meeting in Coulson's room about what they know and what they should do next.
As to what they know, the answer is: quite a bit. The existence of HYDRA, its connection to Centipede, and Rollins' role in both are the last pieces to a puzzle they've been building for months; now that those secrets are revealed, everything else slots into place.
What to do next is…more of a challenge.
"This is too big for just us," Coulson says in a matter-of-fact tone, gesturing to the chart he's just finished drawing. "We're gonna need some help."
It takes Jemma a few seconds to figure out exactly why he's giving her such a significant look; when she does, she shakes her head at once.
"No," she says. "No, sir, that—with all due respect, that is a terrible idea."
"Why?" he asks, sounding honestly confused. His eyes narrow. "You think he might be HYDRA?"
"No," she scoffs, because that's just ridiculous. "Don't be absurd. Of course he's not HYDRA."
"Then why is it a terrible idea?" he asks.
Fitz raises his hand. "Because when he realizes how much danger you've put Simmons in in the last week alone, he'll murder you?"
"Exactly," she says, pointing at him without looking away from Coulson. "Do you understand, sir? He will murder you. It will be very messy and very unpleasant, and we'll be right back where we started, with not enough people to take on Centipede."
"Okay, I'll admit, he'll probably be angry," Coulson concedes. "But I think murder is a little drastic—"
"Um, hi, hello," Skye interjects. "Sorry to interrupt, but could somebody fill me in, here? Who are we talking about?"
Oh. That's awkward. Jemma had forgotten that she's never told Skye this particular secret.
"My ex-husband," she admits, after a long and incredibly awkward pause. "We're talking about my ex-husband."
"Your—" Skye looks around the room, apparently searching for a partner in her utter shock. Unfortunately, there's not one to be had; Trip, of course, was at her wedding, and May—well, who knows how May knows, but she clearly does. "Your ex-husband? Seriously? You're married?"
"Divorced," she corrects. "As is implied by the ex."
"Don't you ex me," Skye says. "Why didn't you ever tell me you've been married?"
She sounds hurt, which is understandable. They've shared plenty of secrets, she and Skye, and this is a very big one to hold back.
"Are you joking?" Jemma asks. "You know how much I hate failure. And failing at something as-as common and easy as marriage? It's humiliating. Of course I didn't tell you."
As she intended, Skye laughs, and Jemma smiles, satisfied. Skye's been far too solemn since her rescue yesterday which, while understandable, has left the team as a whole quite distressed. At this, her first sign of good cheer, they all relax a touch.
And, happily, it also lets her avoid the question—or at least delay the inevitable, as Skye's not likely to be content with that answer. Still, even the slightest delay is better than addressing the issue right now. There's nothing easy about marriage, of course, and Jemma's silence on the topic has nothing to do with humiliation and everything to do with pain. She really doesn't want to talk about it—especially not in front of her commanding officer.
"Let's get back to the point," Coulson says. "Which is that we need help, Simmons."
"I'm not denying that, sir," she says, frustrated. "I'm just saying that perhaps we would be better off seeking help from someone whose first act upon arrival will not be killing you."
"I have confidence in your ability to protect me," he dismisses, and she sighs.
"Do you have confidence in your ability to protect yourself from his SO?"
Coulson winces.
"Girl's got a point," Trip agrees. "Last I checked, Barton thought you were dead, sir. You know the first thing Ward's gonna do is call him up and tell him you're not."
"And once Clint knows, he'll tell Natasha," Jemma adds. "Are you certain you want to bring that upon yourself?"
"I can handle Barton and Romanoff," Coulson claims.
There's a long and highly skeptical silence. May raises an eyebrow.
Coulson breaks. "All right, I'll admit, it won't be pretty. But we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it; right now, we need help, and Ward's our best bet."
It's obvious that Jemma won't be able to dissuade him from this course of action. She looks to Fitz, who gives her a shrug and an apologetic grimace, and then to Trip, who gives her an encouraging nod.
"Very well," she sighs, and stands. "I'll…just go call him, then."
If she has to contact Grant, she will not be doing so in front of her entire team.
"But I want it on the record that I objected to this," she adds as she heads for the door. "This is all too likely to end in tears."
Probably hers, if she's honest.
"Noted," Coulson says.
She doesn't give herself time to chicken out; as soon as she's secured within the room that she and Skye are sharing, she pulls out her phone and dials a number from memory.
It's the number to Grant's emergency phone—a number he made her memorize in their fourth month of dating—and while she's never had to use it before, she's never forgotten it. Of course, there's no guarantee that the number will still be in service—several years, a divorce, and the fall of their entire organization later, there's every chance he's disconnected it—but it's certainly a better bet than his personal phone.
She doesn't know whether she wants it to be disconnected. Any action they take against Centipede is likely to be a total failure without at least a little outside assistance, but…well, there's a reason she didn't call him the moment Agent Weaver spoke those fateful words.
The phone rings five times, and she's just starting to consider another possibility—one that she's deliberately kept herself from confronting thus far—when Grant finally answers.
"Jemma," he says by way of a hello, and something in her chest eases even as her throat goes tight. "Are you okay?"
She has to take a moment to struggle with her composure. It's been years since they divorced, but she still hasn't been able to turn off the part of her that associates Grant with home and refuge. She's spent all of her time since HYDRA came out of the shadows keeping her grief firmly under wraps; now, just the sound of his voice is enough to have her on the verge of tears.
(Life would be so much easier if she hated him.)
She has to swallow twice before she can speak. "How did you know it was me?"
The phone she's using is one of the burners Coulson handed out from the Bus' stock after Skye erased their identities. There's no logical reason he should know it was her calling.
There's a pause, long enough that she pulls the phone away from her ear to double check that the call hasn't been disconnected. It hasn't.
"You're the only one who has this number," he answers finally, voice unreadable.
She lets out a slow breath. She's not sure which is more affecting: that he has a phone solely meant for her to call in case she needs him—a phone that she knows he is never without, no matter the situation—or that he's still carrying it, more than two years after they divorced.
She has no idea what to say, and eventually settles on, "Oh."
"You didn't answer my question," he points out. "Are you okay?"
"I'm not hurt," she says.
"I'm very glad to hear it, don't get me wrong," he says, and there's certainly a touch of relief in his voice, "But that's not what I asked."
She should've known he wouldn't let her get away with that. However, she's already fighting tears, and if she gets started on how exactly she's feeling, there's no way she'll be able to hold them back for long.
"I'm…alive," she decides. "And that's more than a lot of people can say right now."
He sighs. "Fair enough."
"What about you?" she asks. "Are you all right?" She can practically hear him considering his answer, so she adds, sternly, "And I'll take the truth, if you please."
"I'm a little beat up," he admits. "Had to fight my way out of Kazakhstan when my cover got burned. But I'm okay. How's your team?"
She hesitates. She doesn't want to get into it, doesn't want to think about the betrayal and Skye's kidnapping and having to do a post-mortem on a man she'd been laughing with not twenty-four hours previous.
But she's never made a habit of lying to Grant, and she doesn't want to start now, so saying they're fine is out.
"Shaken," she finally settles on. "But mostly intact."
"Mostly?" he asks, in that particularly calm tone he uses when preparing himself for the worst.
"Our specialist was HYDRA," she says, simply. "However, we've already a replacement, so it's no great loss."
A half-truth at a stretch—they've all lost a friend and Skye has lost much more, and Jemma is desperately afraid that Fitz's continued insistence that there's some reasonable explanation will get him killed—but it's the best she can do.
"Oh, yeah?" he asks, allowing the brush-off. "Anyone I know?"
"Yes, actually. Trip."
"Huh," he says. That's all. Just, huh.
But she's dragged this out long enough and she needs to get to the point sometime today, so she lets it go. She has a question or two of her own to ask before she requests his help.
"How are Clint and Natasha?" she asks.
"They're fine. Clint's off the grid," he says, which she knows is actually code for Clint's at his farm pretending to be a civilian in order to avoid facing his emotions about this mess. "And Natasha's being interviewed by Congress."
"Oh, dear," she says, although of course she already knew—the papers have been all over it, Black Widow being summoned to the Congressional hearings. "Those poor Congressmen."
"Tell me about it," Grant agrees, and she can hear a smile in his voice. Only for a moment, though; when he speaks again, he sounds very serious. "But you didn't call just to check in, did you?"
"No," she admits. "I actually need a favor."
"Name it," he says at once, just like that, and her eyes sting with tears once more at his easy acceptance.
He's never made a secret of the fact that he still loves her, though he's never pressured her at all, either. He was so sweet and understanding when she asked for the divorce—barely even tried to talk her out of it, in fact, which perversely made it that much harder—and has been completely respectful of her boundaries ever since, but there's still something so…so sad about him, and it kills her.
She just feels so guilty every time he's kind to her, which—as he's never unkind—is something of an inconvenience.
"My team is on the trail of a subset of HYDRA," she says, shoving her emotions firmly aside. This is no time for a breakdown. "Centipede."
"I've heard of it," he says. If he's surprised that they're still on the trail of anything, despite SHIELD's fall, he gives no indication. "Barton and I hit a few of their labs back in December. They kidnapped some high-level agent, didn't they?"
"Yes," she confirms. It's something of a surprise that he and Clint were sent out while Coulson was missing—as Clint, after all, is an Avenger, and Director Fury seemed very against the idea of the Avengers learning that Coulson was alive—but then, an operation staffed with super soldiers would require the best, wouldn't it? And whatever else he is, Clint is most certainly one of the best. "My commanding officer, as it happens."
"Sorry to hear that," he says. "He okay?"
"Yes, he's fine," she says. "How comprehensive was your brief on Centipede's operations?"
"It wasn't," he replies. "All we got was that it was some science-based operation that kidnapped a SHIELD agent and had traded for alien technology."
"I see," she sighs. It was too much to hope, she supposes, that SHIELD would be thorough in this matter and spare her the trouble of explaining. "Well, to make an incredibly long story short, Centipede was making super soldiers."
Grant's silence has a distinctly startled flavor to it.
"I know," she says. "Unfortunately, that's not the worst part."
He takes a deep breath. "I think you'd better tell me everything."
So she does. Well, for certain values of the word everything. She tells him about the Centipede serum, about Mike Peterson, and about the GH-325. She does not tell him about Coulson, except in the vaguest of terms, nor about the threats that were laid against her at the Hub, as they're almost entirely irrelevant. She does, however, tell him about Skye's near-miraculous recovery, and the fact that Centipede is currently in possession of a hard drive containing all of Jemma's own research on the subject.
It takes nearly twenty minutes to fill him in, and by the end of it, Jemma is hoarse from stress and emotion both. That's the real problem with Centipede, of course; they've all of them allowed it to become personal, and they're all of them compromised by it. Centipede has been haunting their steps since their very first day as a team, and even Trip—who was only present for the end of it—has felt the strain of it.
And learning that Rollins was so deeply involved in the whole mess certainly didn't help.
When she's finished, Grant is quiet. She closes her eyes and listens to his slow, steady breathing, letting herself pretend—just for a moment—that he's there with her. There's so much tension and bad feeling tangled in her chest when it comes to him, guilt and anger and grief to accompany the love she's never been able to shake, but for all that…
For all that, there's no one in the world whose mere presence can match Grant's for instilling her with a feeling of comfort and safety—of peace. And peace is one thing she's been sorely lacking, of late.
Finally, he sighs. "It sounds like you've got a real mess on your hands."
"We do," she agrees quietly. "If Centipede manages to integrate the GH-325 with its original serum, the results could be catastrophic." She pinches the bridge of her nose, but of course it does nothing to ease the headache building behind her eyes. "Especially now that we know HYDRA are the ones pulling the strings."
"So you're going to take them down," he concludes. "Before anything worse can happen."
"That's the plan," she says, as brightly as she's able. "Which is where you come in."
"You need more manpower?" he guesses.
"We're a tad short on it," she confirms. "Not to mention trust."
"You can trust me, Jemma," he says softly.
"I know I can," she says, equally quiet. "I've never doubted it. Why do you think I'm calling?"
"…Thank you," he says, and for the sake of her own sanity, she chooses not to analyze his tone. He clears his throat. "So, where are you?"
"Downtown LA," she says. "A motel called the Vagabond Inn. Where are you?"
"I can be there in…nine hours," he says, dodging the question. "Should I call in Barton?"
She hesitates. Coulson didn't say to keep it to just Grant, but he certainly didn't look eager to face down Clint and Natasha, either. (Not that she has much sympathy, there; she's always thought it ridiculous that his survival was hidden from them, and it was only the mountain of non-disclosure statements SHIELD made her sign—not to mention a few threats against her partnership with Fitz—that kept her from telling them herself as soon as she found out.)
"I'll leave that to your judgment," she decides. "With you, we'll have three specialists, in addition to one field agent, one hacker, and Fitz and myself. If you think we could use further help, then by all means bring Clint."
She presumes Natasha is out of the question, being as she is busy running rings around Congress.
"Better safe than sorry," he says, and she can't hold back a scoff, because that is the exact opposite of his general approach to life. He laughs and adds, teasingly, "It's something new I'm trying."
"I'll believe it when I see it," she counters.
"You'll be very impressed," he assures her.
There's a retort on the tip of her tongue, but luckily, she swallows it back in time. Friendly teasing is good; irreverent references to their sexual history are not. She needs to be careful about that—it's far too easy to fall back into old habits with him.
"So," she says instead. "You'll be bringing Clint, then?"
"Yeah," he says. "And Nat's occupied, obviously, but if things go south we can always call in the big guns."
The big guns referring to the Avengers, of course. It hasn't stopped being slightly surreal, for Jemma (nor for Grant, she thinks), that Grant's SO, who stood next to him at their wedding and has always treated her as a beloved younger sister, is an actual superhero now. The first time he casually referred to Doctor Banner as Bruce in her hearing, she nearly broke a plate.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," she says, because while she has nothing against Clint and Natasha's teammates, she's not in a hurry to add their chaos to the problems her team is already having.
"Fingers crossed," he agrees dryly. "So, nine hours. Can I reach you at this number in the meantime?"
"You can," she confirms.
"Great," he says. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Until then, stay safe."
"You, too."
"Always," he says, and just from his tone she can perfectly picture the grin he's wearing. Her heart swoops in her chest. "Nine hours."
"Nine hours," she agrees, and hangs up.
She sends a quick text to Coulson's new phone, letting him know Grant's ETA. Then she drops the phone onto the bedside table and falls back to lie on the bed, covering her face with her hands.
Nine hours. She has nine hours to get herself under control—to wrestle her emotions into submission and regain her mental balance. It won't be easy—in fact, it will be the hardest thing she's had to do this week, and that's including looking Coulson in the eye and telling him that Rollins was responsible for Koenig's murder—but it's entirely necessary.
To her, Grant means comfort and safety. It doesn't matter that they're divorced, and for very good reason. It doesn't matter that she's moved on. It doesn't even matter that there are times she genuinely wishes she'd never met him. Grant makes her feel safe. He makes her feel special and loved and protected.
He makes her happy, is the thing, and even knowing, intellectually, that it's only been a week since they celebrated Skye's graduation from consultant to agent doesn't change the fact that it feels like it's been years since she was happy.
She's spent the past week feeling, in no particular order, furious, grief-stricken, betrayed, and frightened out of her wits. It's been like treading water in the ocean again, trying to keep her head above the never-ending waves whilst waiting for rescue, and the worst part of that simile is how it always leads right back to the undeniable truth that the man who was treading right next to her—the man who saved her life and then kept her spirits up with awkward jokes—was a traitor.
In short, the past week has been an endless cycle of misery. Yet, after only one phone call—and a particularly emotional phone call, at that—with Grant, her heart is already feeling a little lighter. Despite the years and the distance and legal dissolution of their marriage between them, the effect he has on her is still undeniable.
So before Grant gets here, she needs to be in control of herself—and, more importantly, of her reckless heart.
It's the only way she'll be able to keep from throwing herself at him as soon as he arrives.
Of course, she may need to do that anyway, if only to prevent him from harming Coulson. That silence after she finished recounting the team's history with Centipede wasn't thoughtful; it was the sort of silent Grant gets when struggling with his temper. Considering the fact that that was only half of the danger she's been in since joining the team—and that Fitz can most certainly be counted on to fill Grant in on the other half at the first available opportunity—well.
Either way, this is almost certain to get messy.