The newlyweds had their moment. Time for shit to go down.

Chapter 173: The Honeymoon Part Two

Bora Bora - 9:39 AM

Daniel knew his honeymoon was too good to be true. He had his beautiful wife in a beautiful location with no emergencies back home with his friends. His wedding was a stroke of luck after eight years of being engaged so maybe the stars - god he hates astrology - were aligning for him.

Then he walked into the breakfast buffet with Emily and they saw the same scene but reacted differently. A confused Agent Naomi Malliga sitting at a table with a steaming cup of coffee, staring at them, sitting next to Agent Keith Loughty whose gawking as if he's seeing ghosts.

Fuck astrology and the stars hurtling towards the resort. Even on his honeymoon, he would've been elated to see his friends from the Academy. But on his honeymoon? Seeing them, two people who greatly prefer the indoors on a tropical resort, here of all places? Something is definitely up and he should've just called room service for food.

"What in the Sci-Tech gods?" Naomi mutters, glancing at Keith who's shrugging as he looks at the view outside. Now Daniel knows something's definitely up.

"My child!" Emily exclaims. She runs over to their table and Naomi stands up to excitedly hug each other.

Keith does the worst fake gasp, hiding a grin as Daniel glares at him. "Daniel and Emily Stark? What are you two doing here?"

"I'm onto you," Daniel mutters, holding the back of Keith's chair.

"Hi, Keith!" Emily yells as James would. He doesn't even stand before Emily wraps her arms tightly around him. Instead, Keith zones out as if he's having war flashbacks of the Academy whenever James would scream that from across a lab. When they part, she turns back to Naomi. "Catch me up on everything."

As they chat, sitting down at the table and catching up like old girlfriends, Keith looks at Daniel who's still seething at him as he sits down.

"I waited eight years for this honeymoon," Daniel mutters to him. "What the hell?"

"We've been at this for who knows how long and it was getting to us," Keith whispers back, glancing around the restaurant in case anyone was listening. "I wanted Stark to come so I got into her system and made all her ads to Bora Bora in hopes she would show up on a whim. God, it actually worked. I still can't believe that. Now, who better to ask than Dr. Emily Stark-"

Emily peers into their conversation and taps Keith's shoulder. She fans her wedding ring in his face. "Dr. Stark-Banner."

Keith looks at Emily's ring, seeing Daniel has a matching one, and catches Naomi's smile grows bigger. " … oh I didn't even hear honeymoon in that sentence. Oh. Wow. Shit. This changes things. Shit."

"Oh, my Sci-Tech gods, congratulations!" Naomi exclaims, hugging Emily again. While embraced, she whacks Keith on the shoulder. "What did you do?"

"What?" Keith questions innocently. "I thought they'd be on a vacation. I didn't get an invite."

"Secret mission, remember? Not like we could've gone ... although it's not really a secret anymore."

"Last-minute wedding too," Emily adds to clarify. "Really. I planned it in one go and then we just did it the next day."

Naomi holds Keith's arm. Her expression softens. "Why didn't you tell me they were coming?"

Keith sighs as he looks at her. "Look, we're stressed and don't know what we're doing. I didn't want you to get your hopes up if my plan didn't work. I doubted Emily even had ads on her computer, let alone listened to them."

"It had pretty pictures," Emily states, "but now I have to revamp my firewalls."

Naomi nods at Keith before looking at the newlyweds. "Moral of the story I just listened to, we need your help."

-o-

Keith and Naomi had a room at the main resort which was a typical hotel room from the outside. A simple door with a do not disturb door take hanging on the knob. On the inside, it was a makeshift SHIELD laboratory. There were machines and equipment set up on tables and the floor, papers strewn everywhere from the floor to the couch.

At least they had a beautiful view on the balcony. Emily was right about the pretty pictures.

"A stupid diamond," Naomi says, showing the gem sitting on display under a microscope while connected to whirring computers. "There's a message hidden inside it that we need to encrypt but it's so difficult."

"Why didn't you call Gen?" Daniel asks, glancing at their notes.

"Tried," Keith responds. "Couldn't reach her."

"Thankfully…" Naomi mutters, a little grin trying to make its way onto her face. She fails at being subtle about it.

"So why didn't SHIELD give this diamond to Gen in the first place?" Emily questions as she looks at the hologram of the diamond she pulled up. She spins the gem around with her finger. "No offense to you guys but encryption and minerals are her specialties. This mission - this diamond - was made for her."

Keith and Naomi shrug.

"Do you think she's dead in a ditch somewhere?" Naomi asks a little too hopeful. "How about we change course of the mission and find her body - I mean, find her instead."

"Okay…" Daniel mutters, especially since Emily and Keith are actually considering that option. Admittedly, he's curious on Gen's whereabouts too since he thought she would've snatched this mission for herself. "So, why a diamond?"

"No cyber trail and hard to decrypt, hence our struggling," Naomi responds. "Maybe Gen's just laughing at us from the ditch she's dead in."

Emily nods. "Makes sense, both of those parts. This diamond is at least six hundred."

Naomi almost falls to the ground. "Six hundred thousand? For that rock? It's so tiny, though! Holy shit, I feel bad for almost losing it in my bag now for that rather than work reasons."

"Diamonds are the most commonly known but the rarest mineral, and its size is the most deceiving part. They're lighter, easier to sell, can be recut and reset the easiest out of the gemstones because they're made entirely from stable carbon bonds." Emily glances at them and they're staring at her. "Business and engineering degrees share more than people think. I'm fun at parties."

"Of course you are," Naomi says as Emily nudges her.

Keith's jaw drops. " … wow. Where was that in my stupid elective course on gems?"

Daniel beams proudly. "That's my wife."

"I actually sat behind Daniel's laptop as he took that class online with you. If you saw him glancing past the camera, he was looking at me." Emily grabs a technologically-advanced gem monocle they had and pinches it to her eye as she takes the diamond in her hands to examine it herself. "There are 6,022 × 10 to the power of 23 carbon atoms in this 24-karat diamond. Each carbon atom has a letter or a number you two were in the midst of decoding. Carbon atoms have four links which means that letter or number is linked to another four possible letters or numbers. Given the carat of this gem and the number of outcomes, this will take forever to determine. Do you know an anagrammer?"

When she looks back up at the others, they're staring at her blankly.

Keith gives a slow applause. "Sci-Tech Goddess, Dr. Stark-Banner, and her husband with 3 PhDs that have nothing to do with this."

"Neither do hers," Daniel argues.

Emily nudges him as she puts the diamond back on its scanner. "My husband has a point but my second Ph.D. is in biomedical engineering which means that I've researched and studied materials and minerals, and how to apply them to other projects. You read my thesis, babe, it was our anniversary gift. We wrote each other dissertations."

"Holograms and tech advancement," he states as if he read it yesterday.

"Composition of imaginary numbers." Emily squeezes his hand. "Riveting stuff."

So we've met our randos for this arc and they have the long-awaited diamond. Let's see where this goes. Ironically, in SA as this chapter goes up, Naomi was recently introduced.

I wrote a paper on diamonds, my birthstone, during my second year of uni so I'd say I'm an expert on the subject. (Not really, don't come for me).