It's late and Fitz has already gone to bed, but Jemma's wide awake. She's working on a side project, an antiserum for something she found in the S.H.I.E.L.D. databanks. The biocontainment protocols are on, because it's a bio-agent capable of destroying whole villages at once if latched onto an airborne vector. The antiserum, of course, is developed as an airborne, to maximise efficacy, but she's got samples of the original in Petri dishes on her table.
She dips a pipette into one of the Petri dishes and releases it into a half-full beaker of distilled water. It's harmless, as long as she doesn't drink it, and they only drink out of beakers in the Cellar. She supposes it might get airborne if she spills it, so she makes sure it's well away from the edge of the table. She repeats the process with three more beakers, and then marks them with a wax pencil.
She's just finished preparing the candidates for the antiserum and is about to prep her microscope slides when the Bus hits turbulence and the beaker on the end of the row tips over, splashing the diluted bio-agent across the table and onto Jemma's clothes. She has a mask over her face, but she pulls it tighter as she runs to the wall and slams her hand on the containment alarm. It doesn't sound anywhere outside the lab, but down in the cargo hold, the lab lights turn red and the Holotable tells her to step into the decon shower while it neutralizes the bio-agent with a radiation sweep.
The decon shower makes her take off any articles that got even a little bit damp from the dilution, which means she's left standing in her underthings, socks, and trainers. Her lab coat took the worst of it, but it splashed down onto her shirt and her skirt as well. The tiny cubicle proceeds to decontaminate her, which takes a while.
She steps out and looks for her extra lab coat, but she doesn't have one.
The laundry. She and Fitz had taken all their stuff in the last time they were at the Hub two days ago, but of course they hadn't gotten around to bringing the extra lab coats downstairs—they only used them when they were doing dangerous science.
She stands in the decontaminated lab, staring at the puddle of water that's come out of the beaker, and wonders if anyone would notice if she snuck up to her room wearing only her underwear.
The lab door opens with a hydraulic whisper. "Simmons, have you seen my—what are you doing?"
Jemma blushes and crosses her arms over herself, pointing to the spilled experiment. "We hit turbulence, and the beaker fell over and I had to hit the containment alarm—it's dangerous if it's airborne—but the extra lab coats are all upstairs and—"
Fitz snorts, giggling like a schoolboy.
"Fitz!"
"I'm sorry! It's just—for once it's not me. I'll get you something from upstairs." He walks out, and returns five minutes later (what on earth took him five minutes?) with a shirt and a pair of her favorite sweats. "Maybe you should put that stuff away for now," he says. "I'm sure there's a perfectly good hazard locker just waiting for a couple of beakers."
"It doesn't matter; the serum's inert anyway. The radiation sweep did it in."
"Wait, is that the 752-Rho from last April?"
Simmons nodded. "Yeah. I'm running out of samples, though."
"But—the radiation killed it."
"Yes, and if I hadn't been in the decon shower, the radiation would have killed me, too. Not a very effective solution," she says.
"Shame," Fitz says. "Accidental discoveries are always remembered the most: gravity, displacement…"
Simmons rolls her eyes and grabs a few paper towels to clean up the spill.