"...And then," Alya giggled on her end of the video call, "and then it fell on Owen!"

Jemma laughed politely at the mental image of a mischievous Deke 'accidentally' dropping a laundry basket on top of a poor, unwitting Owen.

Alya seemed to find it funnier though, and it took a while before her own laughter died down. "Owen was so angry."

"Actually," Jemma interjected, "I'm glad you brought that up. I think Owen shouts at Baby Deke too much."

A frown came upon Alya's face. "I know he does, but there's a limit to how much he'll listen to me. You know he's a stubborn ass, if he gets something into his head it will not go away. Even if that thing is thinking that his son is a monster."

Jemma's heart dropped. "That's awful, though. He's not a-"

"No no no, don't get me wrong, he is a little monster. But it's just how he is, it's not his fault."

"Are you sure about that?" Asked Fitz, as he entered and began to maneuver around the kitchen.

"Oh, Dad! I'm glad you're, I wanted to tell you both something."

After picking up a bunch of strawberries from the fridge, Fitz joined his wife and sat down on one of the stools near the kitchen table.

"What?" He asked.

"So Deke's teacher called us into school the other day saying she wanted to talk to us. And apparently Deke's way further ahead of his classmates and she thought he would reach his academic potential by moving up a year."

There was a moment of silence before her parents erupted into suggestions.

"Oh definitely!"

"Yeah, go for it!"

"We did the same for you too, you know."

"Why do you even have to think about it?"

Alya sighed. "No, you don't understand. She said that he was really far ahead in learning and his athletics, but he's kind of behind with his social skills."

Jemma's face fell. "Oh. I thought he was getting better?"

"Not really," Alya replied, "he's still struggling with some of his speech and cannot socialise for the life of him. He's getting left out. The teacher said that he will soar if he moves up, but it will practically ruin any chance of improving his social skills, and vice versa."

Fitz fiddled with the strawberry in his fingers. "I feel like that's just in his genes. I mean, I wasn't great at socialising either."

"He's still not." Jemma added.

Alya smiled.

"But if you're asking for our advice," Jemma continued, "I think that he should stay with his age group. He's your son, so there's no doubt he'll turn out to be a genius anyway. He already is!"

"He's your grandson." Alya said, blushing.

"I agree with your Mum." Said Fitz. "At this stage, I think friends are more important than whether he can count to ten."

"He can count to five hundred."

"Same thing."

Alya and Fitz then fell into friendly conversation (that happened more rarely these days since the younger couple was so busy) and Jemma found herself tuning them out and getting lost in her thoughts.

Honestly, it was no surprise to her that Deke was a genius. She had predicted it, in fact. But she couldn't help but think about the other Deke. For the first time, she wondered whether he'd ever had any proper formal education. Could he count to five hundred at age four? Did he get the chance to have childhood friends? Did he struggle with his social skills too?

...Were they truly the same person?