IX

Excerpt from page 836 of 'Bestiary of the Lower Realms,' stored in the hallowed halls of Asgard's library

The creatures that prowl the dim plains and murky valleys of Niflheim are many and varied. To obtain an accurate description of such fell beasts would require a sojourn into that dark realm longer than any sane man would wish.

Nonetheless, there have been a few Æsir warriors who have braved the terrors and lived to tell the tale of their foul nature. Sigurd, first hero of Asgard, slayed an enormous pale worm, which he claimed fed upon the souls of the dead and the rotting carrion of their vessels.

The elite forces of the Fifth Regiment of the Golden Spear documented several clashes with man-eating wolves as large as their horses, with slavering jaws and claws sharp as steel. Fálki son of Oleig reportedly hunted down a shadow beast of fang and claw with the black scales of a serpent that had slaughtered ten of his men while on a quest to retrieve the soul of his mother from the clutches of a wretched seiðkona– a quest which ultimately failed when he was devoured by a Níðhǫggr.

Cul Borson and his brothers are yet the only warriors who have felled a Níðhǫggr and brought back its serrated fangs. It is said the venom from these fangs could kill a man at arm's-length if he but breathed the vapors, but distilled, can restore a man from the curse of impotence.


X

"Sir, this is just a preliminary report."

Coulson nods, but Jemma isn't convinced. No one outside the science and tech departments ever seems to take those words seriously. And if it turns out some initial deduction she'd made or fact she'd assumed was wrong, it'd all come back on her. No matter how much she stressed that it was a preliminary report and they shouldn't act on the information until she'd had time to check her conclusions, her data, and generate a complete and final report.

She purses her lips but continues. "The specimen is definitely alien." Coulson always likes to hear her conclusions first and her explanations second. "I tried isolating the DNA from a blood sample, but I couldn't get any results."

"Why not?"

Jemma debates how much technical detail to include in her response. "Well, sir, the standard markers - the sequences in the DNA that we use to design matching primers - are specific to human DNA. But I didn't expect those to work, so I also ran the blood with primers to match the markers for a variety of other species. Including but not limited to mammals, invertebrates, angiosperms, fungi - even bacterial and viral markers. Nothing worked."

"So you're saying the creature has completely foreign DNA."

"That's assuming it even has genetic material in the form of DNA or RNA. We don't even know if there's even a sugar-phosphate backbone, for goodness' sake."

Coulson's face is blank. Jemma doesn't know if that's a sign of incomprehension or just his typical super spy default. She sighs. "I'm going to need some more time. I'll run some assays, try to see if there's at least some common proteins, on the off chance there's a really, really far distant evolutionary relationship, but I doubt it. I don't know that there was any biological interaction between Earth and wherever this creature originated from in the whole of terrestrial life history."

Fitz had offered to help, but this sort of puzzle isn't his specialty. To be precise, it isn't even Jemma's specialty. She needs an exobiologist, someone more familiar with the current theories regarding the chemical basis of life on other planets. As much as she hates to admit it, she's feeling out of her depth.

She can tell Coulson isn't best pleased by the report. "We're going to go back to the basics," she offers. "X-ray crystallography, gas chromatography. I've got some samples running in the mass spectrometer right now. If something turns up, I'll let you know."

Coulson relents. "It's more than we knew before." He stands and pats her shoulder. "Now get back to work," he says in a mockingly stern tone. She smiles back, but can't help feeling the failure keenly.

She pauses just as she's about to step out. "Oh, sir – any news about Agent Morris?"

His expression darkens. "Nothing's clear yet."

Her mood sours further. Still in detention, then. Jemma knows they're mistaken, but doesn't know how to prove it.

Fitz seems to sense her frustration when she reenters their shared lab space. "Don't go giving up just yet, Simmons. This alien beastie can't stand up to our combined brainpower."

Her smile turns more genuine. "I'd say it couldn't stand up to the power of the 0-8-4 either."

A gleeful look crosses his face. "I know! Do you see the extent of these tissue burns? The laser cut right through the armored hide!"

"I still can't believe Coulson brought an untested weapon out into the field," she replies.

"You think he was going to risk Captain America getting mauled by the alien version of the big bad wolf? Not a chance." Fitz leans closer. "I heard that the Captain rugby tackled the thing. Can you imagine?" He pokes at a fang Jemma had excised from the jaw for further study. She slaps his hand away.

"No touching the alien specimen," she scolds.

Fitz scuttles around the table to whisper at her. "Speaking of the Captain – I'm taking a survey. I've already got the results in from Labs B & C. Who do you think would win in a fight? Captain America or Agent Ward?"

"Captain America," Jemma replies automatically. She pauses and thinks of Ward's glower and pragmatic attitude. "Hmm. Actually… I'm not sure. Agent Ward seems like the type to fight dirty. Pulling hair and all that."

"But the serum!"

Jemma hums in acknowledgment. "You know, I might change my answer to Agent May."

"She's not an included option!"

"Yes, well, I'm putting my money on her."

"I think she'd just pull an icer on the Captain. That's cheating."

"Ward would probably pull a real handgun."

Fitz concedes the point with a nod. Jemma heads over to her section of the bench and sorts through the pile of papers to stick the preliminary report back in with its related documents. Her eyes catch on a printout from the gas chromatograph.

"Have the chrome results already come back?" she asks in surprise.

"Yup. I put them in the right pile, I swear!"

"Yes, Fitz, thank you for remembering, this once. I'm looking at them right now. Did you see these peaks on the far right?"

Her lab partner wanders over and inspects the graph. "Hmm."

"This retention time doesn't match any of our usual suspects." She studies the troughs and valleys outlined in black and white. A unique compound? Is this the first step in quantifying alien biochemistry? A thrill of excitement shoots down her spine. She tries to tell herself not to get ahead of the analysis.

Fitz and Jemma exchange glances. They squeal in unison. Jemma catches her breath after a few minutes of jumping and twirling giddily with Fitz around the lab bench. "Okay, okay!" she laughs. "We'll run another sample to make sure this isn't a fluke and work on this further before we tell anyone."

Jemma's too wired to type up the conclusions for last week's soil samples. She drags Fitz into the break room on the second floor. This S.H.I.E.L.D. facility is only twenty minutes from downtown Washington D.C., so there's always agents coming and going and she's usually guaranteed a fresh pot of coffee any hour of the day.

This time is no exception, and Jemma makes a beeline for the machine. Fitz is still trying to convince her to support Captain America in his unofficial survey when Coulson walks in with a pretty dark-haired girl by his side. She's wearing a denim shirt and those skinny jeans with the zippers on the sides that Jemma always wishes she could pull off without looking like a complete poseur.

She waves her coffee cup in greeting. Coulson changes direction and heads for their table. "Fitzsimmons, this is our newest recruit, Skye."

"Believe it or not, we're actually separate people. Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz." She extends her hand. Skye shakes it with a smirk.

"Sup."

"I'll leave you guys to get to know each other. Have them give you a quick tour of the labs, then come by my office when you're done and we'll get your intake papers signed." Coulson slips away, orders given.

Skye leans casually on the table. "So… how ya like working for S.H.I.E.L.D.? Gotta say I'm feeling like a total sellout."

"It's not so bad," Jemma says quickly.

"Yeah, the upper management kind of has a thing for red tape and an obsessive fixation on paperwork, but it's worth it to get to play with all the toys," Fitz adds. "And if you can ignore the arrogant jocks who do the field work, the people are great."

Skye smiles. "I'll be sure to remember that when I'm out in the field."

Fitz sputters and Jemma's cheeks flame. "He didn't mean—"

"Relax, it's okay." She sprawls on a chair across from them. Jemma abruptly feels like the nerd that the cool girl is slumming with in some melodramatic American high school movie.

"Sooo… what's the good gossip round the water cooler?"

Fitz shrugs, still sheepish. Jemma takes a quick sip of her coffee and chokes when she burns her tongue. "W-well," she stammers. "Fitz is taking a survey about whether or not Captain America could beat up Agent Ward."

At the next table, Ward turns and glares at them. "I almost picked you!" she insists. Skye laughs and Ward's eyes turn to her, lingering.

"You're that hacker," the dark-eyed agent says.

Skye raises her brows. "So I guess I'm the water cooler gossip."

Fitz glances between the two. "What? You're a hacker?"

"Not a hacker. An internet activist."

Ward snorts. "That's a euphemism if I ever heard one. You headed down to the Cheese Cupboard with the other mice?"

Jemma jumps in. "He means the Intelligence Analysis Department. I don't know why they even call them that."

"Cuz they hole up in their little underground nest, eating our scraps. You know, the scraps of information we risk our necks for in the field?"

Fitz rolls his eyes. Skye leans forward, tilting her chin up. "I'm training to be a field agent."

"You went to the Academy?" Ward asks with narrowed eyes.

"Well, no," she admits.

"You have combat experience?"

"No," she repeats sourly.

"Do you even know how to throw a punch?"

"Of course! I've won my fair share of bar fights."

Ward chuckles and Jemma tries not to gape at him. The stern agent never laughs. She had imagined the only time he ever smiled was when he was covered in the blood of his enemies, or something equally morbid.

"Then I'm throwing in my own two cents for this survey. Skye beats Captain America in a knockdown, drag-out bar brawl." Ward's grin is handsome, and it lightens his air of grim seriousness. Jemma internally sighs. She has a feeling this is going to become somewhat of a common occurrence around Skye.

Ward winks and hops up from his chair with his water bottle, tipping it at Skye as he leaves. The new recruit turns back to Fitz. Jemma watches him from the corner of her eye, but he's just about as awkward as he ever is.

"You really haven't heard about me?" Fitz shakes his head and she huffs a breath of relief. "Cool. I hate to feel like the new kid at school who's just come back from juvie."

Jemma privately wonders how she knows what that's like but doesn't ask. "Most people are still talking about Brock getting caught with Mariana in the supply closet. Personally, I don't see the appeal of doing that with a loaded weapon."

"And Agent Martinez is still AWOL. Brenna thinks he's ditched his wife but couldn't be bothered to go as far as faking his death and just disappeared to Venezuela instead," Fitz supplies.

Skye rests her chin on her hand and leans closer, eyes sparkling. "I think we're gonna get along just fine. Tell me more."