NOVEMBER 2003

Jemma tried not to take up too much space with her limbs as she arranged the beakers on the lab bench in front of her. She really did. But somehow, despite her utmost care, she still managed to accidentally bump her elbow into that of the temperamental Scotsman sharing the same fume cupboard with her.

"Sorry, I-"

"It's fine, just-"

"I should probably-"

"Because I've got the-"

"Maybe if you just move a bit more over there-"

"But I've got the-"

"Or I'll move over here-"

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Good."

"Fantastic."

Jemma sighed, biting back the unusual urge to embellish her comment with a series of very improper phrases. It'd only been two days since they'd been paired together, and they were already getting on each other's last nerve.

Technically speaking, this was only their first day actually working with each other, since the previous day had largely been devoted to receiving the standard induction to the south labs. Even though Jemma had been disappointed in her partner assignment, she'd decided to remain optimistic, knowing that despite his animosity towards her, he was a brilliant engineer who was miles ahead of anyone else in their class. But her energy had slowly drained as the hours went by, and it had become painfully clear that she was alone in her optimism for their partnership.

Almost immediately upon entering the lab for their scheduled session, she'd taken control of the project, a habit that she'd picked up throughout the years of dealing with less competent partners. He hadn't complained about it, but the way he barely said a word to her and avoided her as if she had some kind of virus spoke volumes. She'd thought it would be easier to divide the tasks and tackle the project that way. After all, she was more knowledgeable in the chemical aspect of the device, whereas he was more equipped to deal with its mechanics. On paper, it made sense. Divide and conquer, with minimal required interaction.

But the longer they worked alongside each other, the more evident it became that that particular plan was not going to work.

In all honesty, she had no idea what she'd done to upset him. On one of their first days at the Academy, she'd nearly given herself whiplash from turning around in her seat to see the owner of the very specific Scottish lilt coming from the back of the lecture hall. He was a scrawny thing, didn't even look like he could be any older than she was (an impressive feat in and of itself), but he was the first reminder of home that she'd had since she'd moved to America. And he was obviously a genius. She hadn't needed more than a minute of hearing him answer the professor's question to make that observation. After being bombarded with a culture shock she hadn't quite anticipated, and taking into account his apparent love for science, Jemma figured it would be nice to have someone to share those experiences with.

She'd sought him out after that first class, but having sat at the back of the room, he'd easily escaped the throngs of students exiting the hall before she'd had a chance to find him. And after that, it seemed that every time she'd spotted him on the quad or in the corridors, he'd been too wrapped up in his own thoughts to even look her way. She hadn't understood at first, but after a few classes with him and hearing how he only spoke to contradict or elaborate on something she'd said, she began to realize that the only interaction he was interested in was one in which he was outsmarting her.

She could hardly blame him. As one of the smartest cadets in the Academy (next to her, of course), and considering their respective backgrounds, they would be natural rivals. She'd originally hoped that he would see her academic performance as a common ground they could meet on. But as the term went on and their competition only steadily increased, Jemma's hope for any kind of friendship with him disappeared.

Because at the end of the day, Leopold Fitz was very, very hard to impress.

Jemma carefully measured out the materials she needed, making sure to stay as far over to her side as possible. The last thing she wanted to do was irritate him more than she already had. But as she snuck a sidelong glance over at him, she noticed something too distressing to keep her comment to herself.

She stepped over to him and pointed to the metal contraption he was fusing together. "Are you sure you want to-"

"No," he snapped, startling her as he pushed her hand away. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to alarm a man with a soldering iron in his hands? This thing is well over three hundred degrees Celsius."

Jemma took a step back, absentmindedly rubbing the place on her hand where he'd touched her. It hadn't hurt, but his aggravated tone at her almost ruining his work, combined with the wide eyes behind his protective glasses, made her decide to take a more cautious approach.

"But that's the intended surface for the nucleation chamber," she argued, indicating the pieces he was working with. "It's going to have to be more curved than that, or you're going to have to at least create a smaller angle in order for the-"

"A smaller angle?" he asked in confusion, still continuing to fuse the metal together. "That won't work."

She sighed again. "If you'd just have followed the…" Her words died on her lips as she glanced at his notebook, opened to his sketch of the design. "Wait, what's this?" she asked, picking it up. He reached out a hand to stop her, but she sidestepped out of his reach. "What's this nonsense? Why did you add this part here?"

Fitz didn't try to take the notebook away from her, but she saw his fist open and close, his other hand still holding onto the soldering iron. "I…I had to make some modifications-"

"But you didn't even run them by me-"

"It's nothing to do with the process, the procedure should still work-"

"How could you possibly know that? The fastest way to achieve nucleation is to reduce-"

"The interfacial area so you can lower the nucleation barrier, I know," he said in annoyance. "But that design right there is the only way to do that without the delivery mechanism collapsing in on itself."

"Oh, please," Jemma rolled her eyes, setting the notebook down in front of her station and staring at the blueprint. "This can hardly be our only option. Especially this part right here, it's completely unnecessary." She held her arm out towards him. "Hand me a rubber, will you?"

A few seconds of silence passed, and after she realized her hand was going to remain empty, she turned her head to glare at him. He shrugged and went back to the metal under his fingertips. "Only brought a pen," he mumbled.

Jemma sighed again and rummaged through her bag, only to find that she herself had only brought one pencil, the ends of which were hardly suitable for her needs. Sufficiently annoyed, Jemma tossed her bag aside in a huff and spun around.

"Does anyone have a rubber I could use?" she asked, perhaps a bit too loudly. "This genius over here forgot to bring one."

A few heads looked up from their work at her outburst, and she was confused to see a couple of them smiling, although no one came forward to assist her. She knew she was overdoing it, she knew she was letting her irritation get the best of her. But frankly, she was exhausted from trying to deal with someone who clearly loathed her.

Jemma walked over to the pair working nearest them, ignoring the insistent whispers of her name coming from behind her. She put on her sincerest smile. "It's…Sally, isn't it?" she asked, still unsure whether or not she was supposed to address her classmates by their surnames.

Sally stopped talking to her partner and turned to face Jemma. She quickly continued, noticing the other cadet's blatant distasteful expression, probably at being interrupted so rudely. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if perhaps you had a rubber I could borrow? I promise I'll get it back to you straightaway."

Jemma didn't quite understand the raised eyebrows or the low scoff she received in return. And she most definitely didn't understand the "Oh my God" she heard Fitz mutter under his breath.

"Look," Sally replied quietly, glancing around the room. "I get that you guys feel like you missed out on the whole…college experience or whatever," she said, looking over Jemma's shoulder at Fitz. "But some of us actually take this seriously."

Jemma was stunned, completely confused as to what Sally was talking about.

"I'm sorry, have I-"

"Simmons," she heard Fitz murmur behind her, but she ignored him again. She didn't know him that well, true, but she could still hear the laughter in his voice and she very much did not appreciate it.

"Have I done something to upset you?" Jemma finished, glancing down at Sally's workstation, where an assortment of pencils had been placed off to the side. "Because I really did just need a-"

"Yeah, we all heard you," Sally interrupted, rolling her eyes. "Look, if you're not gonna shut up about it, fine." She reached down under the lab bench and opened her bag, unzipping one of the back pockets. Before Jemma knew it, Sally had deposited a small colorful square into her hand. "Here," she murmured, the annoyance written plainly on her face. "And I really don't need it back, okay? Now could you let us return to work, please?"

Jemma stared at the object in her palm, utterly bewildered by what had just occurred. She didn't even have a clue where the miscommunication had happened, but the soft laughter she heard over her shoulder told her that something had definitely gone over her head. She felt a blush on her cheeks as she spun around, and the smile that Fitz was failing to hide made her face burn even more.

"What in…I don't…have I missed something?" Jemma finally asked in bafflement, her hand still outstretched in front of her.

Fitz calmed down after a few seconds and pointed to the square, still trying to contain his amusement. "That's what they call those over here."

Jemma glanced back and forth between Fitz and her open hand, waiting for his explanation to click in her head. "So this…" Her eyes widened. "This is a rubber?" she whispered in horror.

That was apparently the breaking point of Fitz's self-control, because he immediately burst into laughter again. Jemma closed her eyes in humiliation, slowly realizing the depth of what she'd done. She cringed as she took a cautious look around the room, and though most of the cadets paid no attention to her, some of them were almost as amused as Fitz. She even received a few glances from a couple of the older cadets that made her blush more furiously.

"Well," she cleared her throat, placing the object carefully on the lab bench. "Um…you learn something new every day, I suppose," she muttered. "Especially in this country."

She avoided Fitz's eyes and checked her watch. "Oh, no, it's already half four," she groaned. "We'll have to start washing up soon."

Sure enough, most of the other cadets were busily clearing their stations, although Jemma thought they seemed a bit more hurried than the situation warranted. She returned her focus to their own fume cupboard, and slid the notebook back over towards Fitz. "Don't think I'm going to forget about what I said," she told him, hoping to retain at least some of her pride. "We'll discuss the structure of the device later, but there will be a discussion."

Before Fitz had a chance to respond, Jemma noticed one of the students pause near their station on his way from the sinks. He pointed to the assortment of parts in front of Fitz. "Wait, you guys aren't done?" he asked incredulously.

Though Jemma was irritated with Fitz, she still placed him leagues above the rest of their classmates. "It's not a race," she replied with a smile, defending their work even if they hadn't gotten as much done as she'd have liked. "We'll be marked on the quality of our projects, not on the speed with which we finish them."

For some strange reason, the cadet's face broke into a grin. "Hey, Himelstein," he called to his partner over the lab benches across from them. "FitzSimmons aren't done yet."

Jemma didn't have time to fully process the fact that that had been the second time she'd heard her name combined with Fitz's, or contemplate its origins. On the other side of the bench, a boy with disheveled curly hair that only rivaled that of Jemma's own partner looked up distractedly from his work. He glanced between the three of them, and Jemma saw realization dawn on his face, followed by an oddly sympathetic expression directed towards her.

"Dude, they probably don't even know," he pointed out.

"Oh, right, I guess they don't have it over there."

"Know what?" Jemma asked, hoping she hadn't accidentally embarrassed herself more than she already had. "We still have four more days, as well as clearance to work in the south labs."

"Yeah, but tomorrow's Thanksgiving," Himelstein explained patiently. "Most of us are going home for the weekend."

"Oh," Jemma replied, familiar with the American holiday but unsure how it should affect her and Fitz. "But surely the labs will remain open."

The cadet next to her shook his head. "Nope," he said, with just an air of superiority that didn't escape Jemma unnoticed. He obviously didn't share his partner's polite disposition. "Closed until Monday."

"Monday?" she repeated in shock, a jolt of panic hitting her in the chest. "But that's when the assignment's due."

"I know," he nodded, making his way back over to his station. "That's why we've all been busting our asses in here trying to get 'em done."

Jemma's heart rate was reaching unhealthy levels as she searched her brain for something that would contradict his words. But now the rushed behavior of her classmates made sense. She turned to Fitz, unable to tell if his white face indicated surprise at the new development. "You don't…" she began in a low voice, stepping closer to him. "You don't think this is a prank, do you?"

He glanced away from her, looking deep in thought. "I don't think so," he murmured. "It makes sense, though. I should've remembered."

"Nonsense," Jemma replied hastily. "They shouldn't have expected us all to be experts on this country's bank holidays." She looked at her watch again, trying to assess the situation as quickly as possible. "You're not going home, are you?" she asked.

She failed to read his expression again, a mixture of something like amusement and disappointment as he disconnected the soldering iron from the power source. "No," he answered, shaking his head.

"Right," she nodded, taking a few deep breaths. "Well, that's fine then. We'll just…have to pack up what we can and find another place to work." She mentally made a list of everything she would need. "You've got your own equipment to work with, don't you?"

Fitz scratched behind his ear. "Er…well, most of the stuff I have is pretty basic. But I suppose it'll get the job done, sure."

"That's all we need," Jemma insisted before throwing on a pair of gloves and starting to dispose of her solutions. "And I've already calculated everything and…oh, no," she breathed, freezing in place.

Fitz had been gingerly testing the temperature of the device's parts as she babbled on, but he turned his head at hearing her gasp. "What is it?" he asked.

Jemma gestured helplessly towards her scribbled calculations. "I'm going to need insoluble silver iodide samples."

He stepped closer so that he could read the writing over her shoulder. "That'd be to catalyze the crystallization, yeah?"

"Well, of course," Jemma replied with a scoff, more annoyed with their situation than with him. "Considering the temperatures we're dealing with, we'll have to shift the entire nucleation curve, otherwise the device will be rendered completely useless."

"Useless?" he muttered. "Obsolete, perhaps, but surely not…you know what, never mind." He sighed, squinting at the notebook. "How much do you need?"

Jemma shook her head. "Two grams, I suppose?" she shrugged. "But it hardly matters now, since we won't have access to the material. I'll have to think of something else, an alternative that would surely do the trick. I mean, silver iodide would be the most preferable option, since the water molecules would most readily attach to the silver ion's terminate face, but there has to be something else that could work, something else that would promote a well-ordered hexagonal bilayer to act as a template for the ice growth and-"

Jemma stopped talking, realizing that Fitz was no longer standing next to her. She whipped her head around, only to see that he was almost at the end of their lab row, heading towards the chemical storage.

She ignored the looks of disapproval she received as she sped after him, somehow finding an uncomfortable balance between walking really fast and jogging. She ended up catching him just as he reached the cupboards. "What are you doing?" she hissed, placing her hand on the cabinet door he was opening.

He pointedly pulled the door open again. "Getting the compound," he responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Jemma gaped at him. "Are you out of your mind?" she whispered, looking around to see if there were any professors in the lab. "We can't take hazardous material outside of the lab."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" she repeated. "Well, besides the fact that it's hazardous," she stressed, folding her arms. "It's against the rules."

"It's not that hazardous," he dismissed, searching the rows of containers. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with our taking it. It's for the project, and you know what you're doing with it, so I don't really see the problem."

"The problem," Jemma replied, holding out her hand to stop his arm from reaching towards the silver iodide, "is that it needs to be stored in very specific conditions, and we're not equipped-"

"You're a biochemist, aren't you?" he interrupted, pulling his arm out of her grasp. "You're telling me you don't have hazardous material in your room right now, or the means to store them if something like this were to ever happen?"

She hesitated, which was enough confirmation for Fitz to turn back to the containers. "Thought so," he murmured, an infuriating smirk on his face.

Jemma was still in a state of panic, but her eyes swept the room one last time. "Okay, well if you won't listen to reason, we're at least going to do this properly." She quickly grabbed a box off of the neighboring lab bench and tossed it to him. "Put some damn gloves on."

He didn't argue with her, so she hurried over to her station and grabbed a clean container. "Honestly, it's like you've never even been in a chemical laboratory before," she muttered, snapping on her own gloves in record time. "We have to hurry."

"Relax," he insisted as he carefully transferred a rough approximation of two grams of silver iodide into the container. "We'll be fine."

Jemma sealed the lid and triple checked her work. "I just feel like we're cheating a bit," she said quietly on their way back to their station. "The others don't have the opportunity to-"

"They had other advantages over us," he said, closing the fume cupboard and turning off the light. Jemma supposed he had a point, since they hadn't known about the labs closing, but she still felt uneasy. She held her bag carefully in front of her as they exited the lab, hoping the walk back to her dorm wouldn't result in the compound spilling all over her things. No one stopped them, but she didn't think her heart rate even began to slow down until they'd reached the quad.

"You're in Erskine Hall, right?" she asked him before they parted ways.

Fitz shifted the plastic bin in his arms so that he had a better grip. "Yeah, but, er…it'd probably be better if we-"

"No, that's all right," she said, reaching into her bag for a pen and ripping off a small piece of paper. "I'm just next door in Carter Hall. Fifth floor." She scribbled her room number on the paper and stepped forward to set it at the bottom of the bin, placing a scrap piece of metal on top to keep it from blowing away. "You can pop round whenever tomorrow," she told him. "I'm up most mornings at six."

Jemma didn't wait for him to respond, too exhausted from the hectic day to match his enmity towards her. But as she walked away and heard him mutter something along the lines of "Probably be a bit later than that," she realized that though they'd had a rough start and most certainly disagreed on specific aspects of the project, they'd adapted to unexpected circumstances almost seamlessly.

Maybe working with Leopold Fitz for four weeks wouldn't be as bad as Jemma had thought.

PRESENT DAY

Jemma sighed, the look on Bobbi's face making her regret having said anything at all. "What?" she winced.

Bobbi shook her head, her grin only growing wider as she tried to hide her amusement. "I'm just…so disappointed," she laughed, "that I was not there to witness Dr. Jemma Simmons asking for a condom in the lab."

Jemma groaned, briefly covering her face with her hands. "Oh, bloody hell, I shouldn't have told you."

"No, you definitely should have," Bobbi insisted, her expression growing serious. "Because that is absolute gold."

"I suppose you're not going to let this one go, are you?"

"Not a chance."

Despite the fact that Jemma knew Bobbi was just teasing her, she found herself glad when Fitz returned into the room. She knew the color in her cheeks would give her away, though, so she pretended to busy herself with reorganizing her desk to avoid the pointed looks Bobbi was undoubtedly giving her.

"You're all set," Fitz said, holding out the earpiece for Bobbi to take. "Did you want to, er…check to make sure it-"

"I trust you," Bobbi smiled, promptly placing the comm in her ear. "Thanks."

Fitz gave her a nod before heading back to his desk, where he seemed to have no trouble picking up where he left off on Snow. Jemma hadn't realized her gaze had followed him until she felt a poke in her side. She pursed her lips together to keep from involuntarily yelping out loud, and widened her eyes at Bobbi, who had an inexplicable smirk on her face.

Before she had a chance to ask what on earth had gotten into her, May popped her head in the lab doorway.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

The smile on Bobbi's face disappeared as she spun around. "Is you-know-who ready to go?"

May simply glared at Bobbi, who cleared her throat. "Yeah," she said. "Coming."

Bobbi was about to follow after her when Jemma stepped forward. "Wait, what's going on?"

She received a smile in return, but Jemma had seen enough genuine smiles in the last few minutes to know that this was not one of them. "It's nothing," Bobbi shrugged. "Just-"

"Bobbi."

Bobbi hesitated, looking as if she were debating whether or not to tell her the truth. Her eyes traveled over in Fitz's general direction before she stepped closer to Jemma and lowered her voice. "Ward…" she began, and Jemma didn't even have to hear the rest to know what had happened. "He didn't make it to the drop-off point."

Jemma felt cold all of a sudden. "So he escaped?" she murmured.

Bobbi nodded reluctantly. "But there's not a lot of places he can hide, okay?" she assured her, placing a hand on her arm. "We'll find him, Jemma."

"Yeah," Jemma whispered, trying to drudge up a smile but knowing she wouldn't be smiling for a while.

Bobbi gave her arm a small squeeze before she made her way towards the door. "Bobbi?" Jemma called out, and Bobbi paused at the doorway. "Be careful."

Jemma knew it didn't mean much. She knew Bobbi was more than capable of taking care of herself. She'd witnessed first-hand how capable Bobbi was of taking care of herself.

But she also knew what Ward was capable of.

Bobbi gave her a reassuring nod, and then she was gone. Thankfully Jemma didn't have to dwell too long on her depressing thoughts before Coulson swept into the lab.

"Sir, what is it?" she asked, hoping for some kind of distraction. "Can I do anything to help?"

"We've got a team going to get Ward," Coulson promised. "But we've got another problem on our hands, one that we need to take care of right away. And I'm gonna need you and Fitz."

A/N: Simmons's miscommunication in the lab is based on a very similar experience I had in chem lab when I studied abroad in England. (Her situation is more exaggerated than mine, obviously.)

Also, the character of Himelstein is supposed to be a reference to the nameless agent from Captain America: The Winter Soldier that stood up to Rumlow. ("I'm not going to launch those ships. Captain's orders.") It's always been my headcanon that he is the "buddy at the Triskelion" Fitz mentioned in T.A.H.I.T.I., and during the film I kept referring to him as "American Fitz" based solely on his hair and unwavering loyalty. The actor's name is Aaron Himelstein, so you can tell that I have astounding naming skills.