Skye Coulson was currently a little preoccupied.

Work was, in all honesty, pretty slow.

For once.

She didn't have any assignments on the go, and the thing she was meant to be doing - filling in the paperwork from her last retrieval op - was not appealing to her one little bit.

Nobody chose a life of paperwork.

But the man currently stood between her legs, sucking what would probably turn out to be a very-large-but-totally-worth-it hickey into her collarbone, definitely was appealing to her.

So there.

Lance wrapped his hands tighter around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he continued lavishing his affections onto the exposed skin of her neck.

This was risky. They were at work, and despite practically the whole building knowing they were together, getting caught like this in her office would make for some awkward conversations at the next progress meeting.

Either that, or they'd be dragged up in front of the review board for "inappropriate conduct in the workplace".

They'd been there before.

"Skye?"

The sound of Phil Coulson's voice drifting through from the office next door made Skye pull back from Lance with a groan.

She kissed him lightly on the lips once more, before rising from her desk, and smoothing her shirt down at the sides, checking all her buttons were definitely done up. She looked apologetically at him as he pouted in response, pushing him lightly away with a small smile.

"Don't be long" Lance murmured, letting go of her hand at the last minute, before moving around her desk, and throwing himself down into the plush leather chair she had managed to acquire from one of the conference rooms upstairs.

When she glanced back towards him, making sure her hair was covering her neck and shoulders properly, he winked at her, stretching his limbs out around him, and bringing his legs up to rest on the edge of her desk.

Skye rolled her eyes as he grinned lazily after her retreating form.

Idiot.

She sauntered into Phil's office with an innocent smile, twisting her engagement ring around her finger as she walked, before coming to a stop in front of him.

"Hey Dad, what's up?"

He fixed her with a pointed stare, and she knew he was well aware of what had probably been going on in the room next door to him only moments before, but before he could reply, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons entered the room behind her, clearly straight from the labs downstairs; they were still wearing their white coats, and Fitz had a pair of safety goggles around his neck.

"You requested to see us, Sir?" Jemma asked, as her and Fitz came to a halt either side of Skye.

"Yes. Close the door."

Fitz pushed it shut, before returning to his place on Skye's right.

"I want you all to stop whatever it is you're working on right away."

"We have a new assignment?" Fitz asked, stepping nervously from foot to foot. They had been working on developing an improved method of cloaking for SHIELD aircraft, so whatever was going on must have been important; the cloaking was always a priority.

Phil nodded, opening the black plastic file in front of him, and straightening his tie.

"We received a phone-call this morning from a team of archaeologists, at a dig-site in rural China. They came across an interesting piece of jewellery during their excavation of a previously undiscovered set of ruins… ruins which date back several hundred years."

Phil held out a photograph of a necklace for Skye and Fitzsimmons to see, and Skye raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"That doesn't look like it belongs in ancient ruins."

"Exactly."

The picture was of what was obviously a necklace. It had a thick golden chain, and by her estimations Skye guessed it would probably rest, when worn, just above the breastbone.

But the pendant on it was what was drawing her attention more. The jewel was a largely cut stone, clear as glass, with dozens of facets reflecting light in every direction.

If she'd had no idea at all about rocks, Skye would have said it was a diamond, but after comparing it to the one on her finger, she knew she was mistaken.

It was the most unusual thing she had ever seen, and it became obvious why the original team that found it had been confused.

"Do we know where it originated, Sir?" Jemma asked, looking questioningly at the page in front of her with the same expression as Skye.

"No," Phil replied, putting the picture back into the file, and closing it once more. Three sets of eyes then returned to his face. "Which is why it is now in SHIELD's possession. Basic tests at the discovery site suggest it's giving off a small gamma radiation signal -"

" - Radiation?" Skye asked with slightly raised brows. "Like the tesseract did?"

She crossed her arms in front of her; everyone knew the stories of the tesseract, and how, when it had been stolen by Loki several years ago, Dr. Banner had been able to trace it based on the gamma frequency it was constantly emitting.

"Yes," Phil clarified, "But not as strong. Even so, it shouldn't be doing that, so until we find out why, it has been officially classed as an 0-8-4."

"And nothing good ever came from one of those" Fitz muttered quietly, glancing across Skye to Jemma. The two had studied a variety of 0-8-4's in the past, and not one had turned out to have a positive function or purpose.

"Maybe this is the exception?" Jemma suggested. She always managed to look on the bright side of things, even if nobody else could see one.

"What do you want me to do?" Skye asked, all business now that an assignment was in hand. Most of the time at work, they were Agent Skye and Agent Coulson - she insisted on the differentiation to keep things easy, despite sharing a surname - but once they were on their own time they were just Dad and Skye.

"I want you to research," Phil told her, standing up from his chair and leaning his hands down on his desk. "Dig up any information you can find about it. Trawl SHIELD databases and go through old files. Reach out to any contacts you might have that could shed some light on why it was buried within rocks hundreds of years old. Ask Hunter too," he added with a look that told Skye he still disapproved in her taste in men. "He might have some contacts who deal in this kind of jewellery."

She nodded, uncrossing her arms and pulling her phone out of her pocket, immediately unlocking the screen and beginning to type.

Phil then turned to face each of the two scientists. "Fitz, Simmons, the necklace is on its way here as we speak, being flown by Agent Triplett in a private SHIELD jet. When it arrives, I need you take it down to the lab and run some tests. See if you can find any… hidden properties, something the original team on the ground may have missed."

"Yes Sir."

"Any developments, come straight to me, okay?"

"Is this a secret mission?" Skye asked, glancing up momentarily; she knew the protocols that surrounded certain assignments in their business.

"For now, no. But if anything of significance is to come up, then that status may be changed."

"Righto," she replied, nodding at him with a grin. "I'll get on it."

"Us too," Jemma added, looking sideways at Fitz for confirmation he was in agreement with her.

"Dismissed."

All three left the room, and set about their relative tasks.

Phil watched them go, before opening the file once more. He pulled the photograph back out, the paper already beginning to crease after being handled so much, and he stared at it with a frown. There was something familiar about the pendant, but he just couldn't work out why.

Hopefully, his team would find something out. After all, they were SHIELD - unusual objects? This is what they did.

I'm aiming for 20 chapters. It's already planned out. If you could let me know your thoughts in the comments box, it would mean a lot! Thank you :)