"We'll meet you there in a second," Stark promised Jemma. "Just give me and your guy here one more minute to fiddle with this thing and then we'll go straight to Coulson's office."

Jemma looked between Stark and Fitz nervously. Both of the men were bent over the smart-phone-sized device that Tony had made and attached to the arm of Fitz's wheelchair, twin looks of concentration on their faces.

Fitz pled, I just want to figure it out for sure before we debut it.

Jemma sighed, fixing him with what she hoped was a stern glare as she agreed, "Fine. But I mean it – one minute, literally sixty seconds, and then off to Coulson's office. Agent May doesn't like waiting for people."

As she walked out of the lab, she heard Stark ask, "Is the voice right, do you think? Are the words vocalizing correctly?"

Jemma was already far enough away that she didn't hear whether or not Fitz answered via his new toy. She walked into Coulson's office where everyone else was already gathered and explained that Fitz and Stark were "polishing a new project" and would be in momentarily. True to their promise, Stark and Fitz appeared a perfect fifty-eight seconds later.

"Can we begin now, please?" Coulson asked, arching his eyebrows at the two scientists as they found spots for themselves in the room.

"Yeah," Tony spoke up. "I've got a question. When are you going to bring Bruce in?"

"Bruce?" Phil repeated, already trying to figure out an at least halfway tactful answer to Stark's question. "As in Dr. Banner?"

"Yes, Dr. Bruce Banner," Tony answered impatiently. "Hill said that I might be called upon to make some weapons for us. Now, you know how I feel about that these days, and I can tell that you don't want to bring Bruce here anymore than I want to make more weapons. So why don't we make a deal? You bring me Bruce to work with, and I'll get you your weapons, sound good?"

"No," Melinda broke in.

"Why not?" Stark asked, looking between her and Phil.

How to put this delicately… "Stark," Phil began carefully. "Dr. Banner's Hulk is frighteningly strong. It's also unpredictable, as is what will set the Hulk off. I don't think it's wise to keep Banner – and, along with Dr. Banner, the Hulk – in an underground base. It just seems very… unsafe."

Stark took a deep breath and stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans as if to dismiss them all as he said, "Alright then. No Banner, no weapons and no Ironman. It was nice seeing you guys again. C'mon, Pep, we better be getting back to Malibu."

"You cannot possibly be serious," Agent Hill said in exasperation.

Tony's answer was a dismissive "of course I am" as he continued towards the door.

It was Melinda who stopped him in his tracks when she said, "You do know that since you know the location of this base, we have to kill you if you're not on our side, right? And that goes for your girlfriend too."

"I am on your side," Tony answered, not turning towards them, though Phil heard the thread of ice in his voice that fully acknowledged the threat he'd just been issued. "I just happen to have conditions to whether or not I stay here and work with you guys. Namely, I need someone in this base with whom I can have an intelligent, scientific conversation."

Stark may have missed the glares that Fitzsimmons was sending him from behind his back, but Phil didn't. Those glares wouldn't matter anyway, not if Stark had really made up his mind as firmly as he seemed to.

"I'll contact Dr. Banner," Phil finally conceded with a sigh. "Have a nice, long conversation with him and explain the exact situation we're in here. If he feels comfortable with the idea, then we'll let him try it out down here with us, agreed? We both know I can't offer you anything better than that."

"Alright," Stark nodded, a pleased half smile, half smirk on his face as he turned back around and took his seat once again. "Fair enough."


Leo Fitz gave the wheels of his chair a particularly hard shove so that he could catch up to Jemma as she left the team meeting that had just ended. He was tempted to use the new text-to-speech device that he and Mr. Stark had made to catch her attention, but he'd made a deal with the billionaire, and no matter how much the idea petrified him, he intended to keep up his end of the bargain. It was high past time Jemma heard the words verbally affirmed, right – at least as well as he could manage it?

But what if she didn't feel the same way? She'd never actually said one way or the other before they had left the bottom of the ocean and now what with his wheelchair and all… She certainly deserved better than what he had to offer her.

As he had numerous times since his accident, Leo became lost in his thoughts – and thus was just as surprised as Jemma when he ran into her with his wheelchair from behind. She yelped his name, lost her balance, and landed squarely in his lap in the middle of the hallway, knocking the wind out of both of them.

He would've made an attempt at catching his breath under any other circumstances, but the thought didn't even cross his mind when he heard the animated voice speak up, saying the words that he had typed in before even approaching Jemma. One of them must've pushed the "translate" button when she fell on him.

"Jemma, I love you."

They both sat stock still for a long moment before she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, making no attempt to remove herself from her perch on his knees as she asked carefully, "What did you say?"

With a trembling hand, Leo reached out and pressed the translate button again, fastening his eyes on hers as he tried to convey the truth behind the electronic words.

"Jemma, I love you."

She swung her legs over one of the arms of his wheelchair then so that she could look him more fully in the face as a slowly growing, gentle, loving smile bloomed on her face. She moved so that she was cupping his face in her hands and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders to keep her steady.

Breath that Leo didn't know he'd recaptured was stalled in his throat as Jemma leaned her face a mere inch from his, whispering, "I love you, too," in the moment before she kissed him.


Hey, guys, I just wanted to let you know that I've got a poll up and would really appreciate some votes on it. Thanks!:)