#6 Call the "Professor"
When Jemma was four years old she'd learned how important it is to learn from the best - otherwise one would waste time in search for credible information, only to find it inaccurate and spend even more time trying to get rid of bad habits. That was why, when she had been four and wanted to learn about the history of the neighbourhood, she went to Mrs Williams, the oldest resident. For the same reason she went to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy when she was looking for answers to mysteries of the world. This exact belief made her go straight to Fitz whenever she needed help with anything about engineering in the last ten years.
Unfortunately, the best attorneys didn't understand her hunger for knowledge and belief that masters should share their wisdom with others. Even when she assured them that they would get paid as much as needed, they still refused to see her on such short notice. Jemma was a scientist and she knew better than to give up when one experiment went wrong. She opted for the next solution, which was the best substitute for private lessons: YouTube videos. After an hour of watching best scenes from the most popular court dramas she thought she got the basic hang of things. Crossing out from her findings the overall plot of: army investigations, model turned lawyer after an accident, struggling with a husband politician and the standard childhood friendship, she got enough pure data to prepare. After another hour her speech was complete and ready for rehearsal, after which she just needed 40 minutes of taking deep breaths and staring at her phone while Fitz pat her arm in encouragement, made her tea, told her funny and stupid stories about dogs and monkeys to make her less stiff, and finally reminded her that she had two PhDs and achieved so much by now, so this was nothing to her.
Still, her fingers trembled a little while dialing the number she had found on Harvard's website, and her heart was pounding in her ears even louder than the dial tone in the phone. Her mouth went dry when her mind was coming with all the reasons why this was a bad idea, but seeing Fitz smile at her filled her with renewed courage. If someone as smart as him believed in her, she had to be right.
"Hello?" An irked voice filled her ear.
"Hello?" She answered, her voice a little quivery. "Professor Hojo? This is Doctor Jemma Simmons from, uhm..." She couldn't said she was from S.H.I.E.L.D. since that was classified and the agency didn't exist anymore. "Well I'm calling from Brazil, but that's not really important," she crinkled her nose in slight embarrassment after realising that actually she could tell him about S.H.I.E.L.D. The loop would erase it anyway, that was the whole point after all. Fitz squeezed her hand and she felt some of her confidence coming back "What's important is your last article in Science Fair, and how it's a pathetic example of ignorance and a disgrace to science itself!" She started her rehearsed opening sentence. Maybe she was getting too emotional, but it was a rare opportunity to tell that prissy old guy exactly what she thought about him and his "expertise" - something she wanted to do for a long time. After all, it was Professor Hojo who was giving her troubles at every science conference since she was a 16 and giving her first presentation.
As she continued her speech, bringing up exhibit after exhibit, calling her own research and the ones of others as witnesses to testify against his weak line of defence, she proved just how wrong he was in his research and latest publication about DNA mutations. She continued with asking him armor piercing questions that showed without a doubt how he was ignoring basic laws of nature in his experiments. Maybe he was even forging results and wilfully manipulating data to support his ridiculous theories. It lasted until she demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt of completely ignoring her own input in the field over the years. Publishing findings before it was properly proven and ignoring hard work and research of other scientists were crimes so big it could be seen by any reasonable and prudent person, and Jemma just couldn't let slide. There was no jury to be convinced by her closing argument, nobody to announce the verdict, but if she could judge by Fitz's wide and cheerful smile full of pride, she won the case. She defended her view on the matter and proven that Hojo was guilty as charged. Happy that she did so well during this trial, she agreed to the settlement: his written apology in the next Science Fair with adding corrections and proper credits to his latest article. A punishment fitting a crime.
Even if the next loop would erase it all, and so the apology will never see the daylight, she would still know. She would still have the satisfaction and faith that justice will prevail.
A/N:
This chapter is dedicated to all female scientists, because unfortunately there are still some dinosaurs hiding all over the world, who think that female shouldn't "play" science.
Huge thanks to TheLateNightStoryTeller for beta reading this and brainstorming about what Jemma might argue about. I decided to go with DNA mutations since genetics is the only part of biology I actually liked and understood, and we have the whole "Mutants can't be in AoS because of some law problems" thing too.
Huge thanks to SuperIrishBreakfastTea for helping me with the "lawyer language" - since I couldn't really describe the science part, I thought "why not make a court drama instead?"
Professor Hojo is a reference to Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core (although he appeared in all the others FFVII works). He was the one who ordered Zack (and Cloud) to be locked up and experimented on (which lasted for four years). He was basically the bad scientist behind everything in the game. And he was experimenting with alien cells and mutations too. Mrs. Williams is a Doctor Who reference ;)
There are four court dramas references in this chapter (but I've watched only three of them), I wonder how many titles you can guess?
There will be one more chapter added to this story, with a very alternative ending ;) As always, feel free to visit my tumblr and send me a prompt for this story!