"Is she hot?" Hunter's voice interrupted Fitz's tinkering in the lab.

"What!?" Fitz exclaimed, whirling around to see the Englishman sinking into the nearest chair.

"This girl everyone's always going on about when you're not around. Is she hot? What am I missing, mate? I need details," Hunter repeated, looking bored as he studied the healing scabs on his knuckles.

"Wha - Simmons? Are you? I, ah.. She's…" Fitz stuttered, his mind skidding to a halt. "No!"

"No?" Hunter asked, tone surprised. "Oh. Well, that's a disappointment. I just figured with all the fuss-"

"She's not hot," Fitz interrupted, his brain rushing the find the words he was searching for. "She's bea- ah, she's just… She's Simmons." He said finally, nodding as he figured that was the only way to really put it. He'd never really thought about Simmons that way. Yes, she was beautiful - stunning, really - but he had always had trouble talking to beautiful women. And once he'd gotten over the intimidation her brain presented, he had never been more at ease with someone than Simmons. Still… Fitz started to recall all the men he'd seen flirt with Simmons as though he hadn't even been standing there, and their reaction every time she said something charming. Was Simmons "hot"?

"Okaaaay," Hunter drawled, clearly unconvinced, and shaking Fitz out of his thoughts. "Then what's so great about her, mate? Tell ya what, gimme your list of requirements and I'll hook you up! You know what they say," he said, leaning in to Fitz and winking, "The best way to get over someone is to get under someone."

"'Kay, tha's just -" Fitz said sharply, dropping the heat sensor he had been working on, along with the screwdriver he had been using, onto the table and shoved them away from him. He turned and finally glared at Hunter, giving the rude Brit his full attention in hopes that he would finally go away.

"What? It's true!"

"I don't even have a list of require-re-req…. Ah!" Fitz punched the table in frustration, "Things I need! I don't have a list of something I look for in a girl, okay! I just liked Simmons is all! And she left, so that's that."

Hunter, completely unfazed by the scientist's exclamation, just leaned back and grinned, clasping his hands together. "No worries, mate! How bout this: Just tell me what you like about Simmons and I'll work from there."

Fitz just stared at the man's mischievous smile and thought for half a second how fun it would be to punch it away.

"Fitz," a soft female voice echoed behind him and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Go away," he whispered to himself, willing Simmons' image out of his head. She wasn't there. And if she were, he certainly wouldn't want her to hear this conversation.

"What?" Hunter asked.

"I wasn't talking to - it's not.. Um…" Fitz stuttered, eyes flying open as he tried to cover for himself. He didn't need the new guy thinking he was crazy, too. "Everything," he finally blurted.

Hunter just raised his eyebrows and waited.

"Everything," Fitz repeated. "Her brain - she's smart. Really smart. Only person I've ever met who can keep up with me and isn't boring. She thinks of things I haven't thought of, which doesn't happen with anyone else."

"So she's smart and she challenges you," Hunter prompted.

Fitz shrugged, reluctantly agreeing.

"How smart is she?"

"Smarter than me. But only by a little!"

"How smart are you?" Hunter asked.

"Very."

"Quantify that for me, if you please."

"In the top 200 IQs ever recorded."

Hunter just stared at Fitz, eyes wide. "Ever?"

Fitz shrugged again, "Yeah." He didn't know why this was such a big deal. He wasn't typically very humble about his genius, but he had thought this was pretty common knowledge among the team by now. He supposed Hunter's rookie status allowed him the exception.

"And Simmons is on that list of 200 above you?"

"Just barely. One right above me. We're practically tied."

Hunter just continued staring at him, incredulous. "Huh," he finally said.

"So your thing - your whole thing - is that you really are a true genius. And only a handful of people that are even currently alive on the planet are capable of keeping up with you."

"Well, only Simmons."

"What?"

"Of the 200 highest IQs ever recorded, Simmons and I are currently the only ones alive. Well, that's not true, there's a 3-year old in India right now with a suspected IQ high enough to place on the list, based on her parent's IQs and her cognitive skills, but she can't really properly communicate yet. The vast majority of people on the list died in the 50's and 60's, for some reason, and then in the early 2000's we lost some as well. But, yeah, since Simmons and I have met, we're the only ones on that list."

Hunter continued to stare at Fitz, expressionless. His staring lasted so long that the scientist began to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

"So. You're telling me that the only person currently alive on this earth who could have a full-blown conversation with you about science, your favorite thing in the world, is Jemma Simmons."

"Yeah," Fitz confirmed.

Hunter nodded, the tone of his voice shifting into slight sarcasm.

"And you said she's beautiful?"

"Yeah," Fitz agreed quickly. He supposed the cat was out of the bag that he liked Simmons now, no reason to hide it.

"And you saved her life recently?"

"She saved mine," Fitz was quick to correct. "Dragged me - I was complete dead weight - up 90 feet from the bottom of the ocean floor."

Hunter nodded again, "Of course she did. And you've known each other since you were mates in school? You were what, seventeen, eighteen?"

"Fifteen," Fitz corrected again. "Since we both skipped so many years of school, we were the youngest students at the Academy together."

"Sure," Hunter said, sighing in resignation. "And you've never had another girlfriend?"

"Well, Simmons was never my girlfriend," Fitz said quietly. "But no. No one else."

Hunter remained quiet, inspecting Fitz for a final long moment before standing suddenly. "Well, mate, don't know what to tell you," he said, slapping the scientist on the back as he started to walk away.

"What?" Fitz asked, confused.

"This Jemma girl. She sounds like one in a million," Hunter said. As he walked out of the room until he rounded the corner and was out of Fitz's hearing before he muttered under his breath, "Sounds bloody impossible to replace her. Poor man."