Jemma had kicked him out, then, with a reminder that she still had to analyze the pollen and try to synthesize an antidote. She'd overruled his protests that the old-fashioned treatments were still the best, and told him that she'd see him later.

With that promise in mind, Tony decided that staying on the Globemaster wouldn't be as confining as he'd thought. He just needed to find something to do to occupy him until Jemma had finished. He considered hacking the computers and reading her file, but oddly found himself looking forward to actually getting to know her, not her file.

When he left the medical pod, he discovered a dark-haired young woman, longer hair and softer features than Jemma's, sitting cross-legged on the same sofa where May had sat. Unlike May, though, this woman had a laptop open on her knees and appeared to be studying its screen intently.

"You get wi-fi up here?" Tony asked.

"Satellite feed," she replied without looking up. "Faster and more secure."

"Not that much more secure."

Now she looked up. "Really."

"Really. Or did you not know I hacked a helicarrier before the aliens invaded New York?"

"That was a helicarrier," she said dismissively. "And I hadn't worked on its systems like I have the Bus."

"You think you could stop me if I wanted to hack it?"

"Pretty sure."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You think you can hack Stark Industries?"

"If I decided to."

"Betcha I get in first."

The woman laughed. "Like I can afford a bet with Tony Stark."

"Doesn't have to be money. How about information?"

"Information?" She gave him a curious look.

"When I win, you tell me one totally true, embarrassing story about Jemma."

"You mean besides what just happened?"

"That wasn't embarrassing," Tony declared. "That was destiny."

"And when I win, you give me Bruce Banner's phone number."

"You do know he's married now, right?"

"I wasn't going to ask him for a date," the woman said, then hesitated as if considering what to say next. "I have scientific questions and I think he's the best one to answer them. So - it's on?"

"It's on."

#

When Jemma emerged from the medical pod several hours later, she didn't immediately see Tony, and she was somewhat relieved by that. Not that she didn't want to see her soulmate, but she had something to take care of before she saw him again.

She found Fitz with Mack - of course; those two were almost as inseparable now as she and Fitz had been before Ward had dumped them in the ocean - tinkering with something mechanical she didn't recognize. Jemma waited until there seemed to be a break in what they were doing before she spoke.

"Fitz?"

"Jemma." It was hard for her to read his emotions since they'd nearly died together, but right now he seemed glad to see her. "Are you - all right?"

"I'm fine, thank you." Her response sounded awkward and oddly formal even to her own ears, but it was the safest thing she could think to say.

"Glad you're okay," Mack said.

"Thank you." Jemma said again, this time smiling at Mack briefly before she turned back to Fitz. "Fitz - there's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" Fitz turned the device he was holding between his hands. He wore the somber expression she saw so often these days.

"I - I met my soulmate." It was simply a statement of fact, but the fact of it still filled Jemma with wonder. Given her work in the sciences, especially the odd cases she'd seen once she joined SHIELD, she'd heard I hear you might need some help precisely twice. The first time, oddly enough, was when she'd met Fitz.

She'd been questioning a young woman in a tiny village, more like a settlement, really, outside Mae Sot, Thailand, after an outbreak of a previously-unknown virus had left most of its inhabitants dead or disabled- or trying to. Her lack of language and the young woman's fear of whatever had happened to her made progress difficult. Jemma's heart had jumped when she heard the words, but he hadn't reacted when she'd replied, "Only if you speak Thai."

Fitz hadn't spoken Thai, but he'd brought a machine that made the analysis go three times as quickly. They'd completed that assignment so successfully that once they returned to SHIELD, they'd been assigned together to work on cutting edge biophysical and biochemical issues. They'd been FitzSimmons ever since, and even though Fitz wasn't her true soulmate, Jemma had always felt a special kinship with him.

Even now, after Ward and the uncomfortable revelation that Fitz had developed feelings for her that she hadn't consciously encouraged and her cruel - she'd tried to be gentle, but it couldn't be anything other than cruel - rejection of those feelings, even now Jemma still cared for Fitz and his feelings. It was that caring that had brought her here to speak to him in person, even if he'd already heard the gossip.

"I met my soulmate," she repeated when he had stood staring at her too long. The only sign that he'd heard her was that his hands had stilled.

Mack reacted first. "Tony Stark - Iron Man - is your soulmate?"

"Odd, isn't it?" Jemma kept her attention focused on Fitz even as she responded to Mack's question.

"You're not gonna forget the little people now that you're one of the one percent - sorry, the one percent of the one percent - are you?"

Jemma knew the question was meant in jest, to ease some of the tension building in the room, but still she flicked an annoyed glance at Mack. "I'm not. He is."

"You say so." Mack grinned at her, just a little, then fell silent.

Jemma bit her lip, hoping that - well, just hoping, really. Hoping Fitz would accept, if not understand. Hoping she could still work with Fitz somehow, despite his current limitations. Hoping he wouldn't come to loathe the sight of her. Hoping he'd say something - anything, at this point, even if that something was to tell her to stay far away from him.

His words surprised her.

"I'm happy for you, Jemma," was all Fitz said before offering Mack the device he still held and turning back to whatever conversation she'd interrupted.

Mack shot her a sympathetic glance over Fitz's head. Jemma gave him a brief smile in return before letting out a breath and turning away. Really, Jemma, what else should you have expected?

But there was no sense in dwelling on the past and Jemma had to admit, however reluctantly, that FitzSimmons was the past. She'd always care for him, but they could never go back to being what they had been, not with truth between them. They'd build something else, something different, but Jemma hoped it would be as good as what had been between them before.

That was one future she had to look forward to, to work toward. There was another, as well, and he was somewhere on the Bus, probably causing Coulson no end of trouble. That was the future she started toward now.

#

Tony grinned at the young woman - whose name, she'd informed him, was Skye - and shut down his pocket computer with a flourish. "Looks like you owe me one totally true embarrassing story about Jemma."

Skye scowled at her laptop. "Another two seconds…"

"You did pretty well, considering that antique you're working on."

"Nobody likes a gloating winner, Stark."

"I'm just basking in the undeniable superiority of SI's electronics. I'll send you a StarkPad and you can see for yourself. Story?"

"You're persistent." Skye set her laptop on the sofa next to her.

"It's one of my redeeming characteristics."

Skye laughed. "If that's what you have to tell yourself."

That made Tony chuckle. He shouldn't be surprised, he thought, that his soulmate was surrounded by exceptional people - Agent May (he reminded himself never, ever, to call her the Cavalry), Coulson (he'd never admit that aloud; Agent might find out - the man was creepy scary that way), the young woman sitting across from him, and a few others he hadn't met yet but whose files he'd accessed during the challenge with Skye - it probably was one of her defining traits, as it was one of his.

Still, he wasn't going to let Skye distract him from his winnings. "Story?"

"If I'm going to be telling stories, you can bring me a drink."

"Agent allows alcohol on board?" Tony rose to cross to the small wet bar on one side of the room.

"Coffee's fine, thanks."

Now that she mentioned it, another cup did sound good. Tony filled two cups and brought one to her. "So. Story?"

Her grin looked entirely too smug. "There's really not one."

Tony paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." Skye's expression was serious now, too. "Jemma's super-smart and gutsy, but I really think the most embarrassing thing she's ever done is not wear pantyhose."

"Is that supposed to be embarrassing?"

"My point."

"That can't be right."

It was Skye's turn to frown. "Why not?"

"She's my soulmate," Tony said. "How can she be my soulmate if she hasn't done at least one embarrassing thing in her life, and preferably one a year?"

"Maybe to counterbalance all of your embarrassing things?" Skye suggested.

"Points for assuming the universe is logical. I'm not convinced it is, but points for the assumption anyway."

Before Skye could respond, he heard, "Why wouldn't you think the universe is logical? You're an engineer."

He'd only known her a few hours, but Tony recognized her voice as if it were his own, and he turned to face his soulmate and answer her question.

"I think assuming it is or isn't is a fallacy," Tony told her, then corrected himself. "Technically, it's at least two fallacies - an unwarranted assumption and an existential one. We don't have enough information about the universe to conclude one way or the other."

"A very large number of scientists who have prestigious awards would disagree with you," Jemma said. She crossed to the coffeemaker and Tony watched her pour a cup.

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm right," he said. A chuckle from the sofa made him break off what he was going to say next to focus on Skye. "What?"

"If there were any doubt you're soulmates, it's gone now." Skye rose, gathering her laptop in one hand. "Happy debating."

Then she was gone, and for the first time since approximately puberty, Tony found himself unsure what to say to a woman. So he contented himself with watching Jemma as she sipped her coffee, looking as awkward as he felt. He searched for something to say, found it.

"Ask you a question?"

Jemma turned startled eyes to him. "What?"

"Just how did you come to put my name on that form? Did you suspect we might be soulmates?"

To his surprise, Jemma blushed as hot-rod red as his armor. "I - I'd rather not say."

"Oh, now you have to say." Tony took the two steps that brought him next to her, resting his hand on the shoulder where he knew his words lay under her blouse. "You can't embarrass me, sweetheart, so just say it."

"I'll embarrass myself." Jemma looked surprised to have said that aloud.

"Tell me and I won't pester Skye for an embarrassing story about you."

"Why would she -?"

"Lost a bet. Come on, it can't be that bad." Except, to judge by her expression, it could be.

Tony set his cup aside, took Jemma's other shoulder with his free hand and turned her to face him. She wasn't looking at him, so he tilted her chin up with one hand.

"Whatever it is, it's okay," he told her. "It won't make me hate you, and it sure won't make us not soulmates anymore."

Jemma's expression shifted from - was that shame? Tony wasn't acquainted with the emotion so he couldn't be certain - to wariness. "Promise?"

"Cross my arc reactor."

"You don't have an arc reactor anymore."

"Sure I do. Just in the armor, not in me."

That made her smile, even if the expression was little more than a twitch of her lips. She was silent a moment longer, then spoke so quietly Tony almost didn't hear her. "I thought the form was a joke."

He must not have heard her, Tony thought. Because that didn't make sense. "You thought - what?"

"I thought the form was a joke." Jemma's voice was stronger this time, and now she met his gaze almost defiantly. "Because really - sex pollen? It sounded like a prank you'd play on new recruits, like hazing in a fraternity or sorority."

"Understandable," Tony said, and he smiled at her surprise. "Like a snipe hunt, only different. A rite of passage. Still doesn't explain why you picked me."

Jemma looked like she wanted to ask something - probably what a snipe was - but instead she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "You'd just come on the scene. Every girl was fantasizing about you. And since sex pollen wasn't real, it didn't matter what I wrote, so I picked you."

She was still so obviously embarrassed that Tony felt a need to reassure her - thankfully, all he had to do was tell the truth. "I'm glad you did."

"Because you met your soulmate."

"Because I met a beautiful, intelligent woman who happens to be my soulmate."

"Flatterer."

"I don't flatter," Tony told her. "I can't flatter. I am genetically incapable of flattering."

"I don't think that's a genetic trait," Jemma said, but she was smiling, and Tony was satisfied that her embarrassment had lifted, at least a little.

"Simmons." That was Agent's voice, and Tony's satisfaction melted away as he turned to scowl at the intruder. Coulson didn't appear to notice. "Get the lab ready. We've got a lead on the obelisk. If we find it, we'll need you to test it."

"Want some help?" Tony asked, and if those weren't the most uncharacteristic three words he'd ever said, they certainly came close.

Jemma glanced at Coulson and Tony grimaced internally at her need for approval. It was part of her, but a part that needed tempering.

"Thank you, but no, Stark," Coulson's use of his name brought Tony's attention back to the present. "This is a SHIELD investigation."

"There's no more SHIELD," Tony reminded him.

"Not officially," Coulson said. "Not yet. But what we do is still necessary." He turned to Jemma. "Wheels up in ten."

Jemma almost looked relieved, Tony thought, and that made him wonder what she was avoiding.

"If you want me to stay, I will, whatever Agent says."

"Oh, please don't." The words sounded instinctive, as though Jemma hadn't thought about them, and they pierced his soul. Was she tired of him already?

"I mean," Jemma continued, "that we're a team. We've done this before, and we know how to handle whatever comes up."

"I can offer some serious firepower, if needed." Tony wasn't used to asking someone's permission to do what he wanted to do. If this was how his soulmate was changing him, maybe it was best that he leave now, before she changed him too much.

"But you're not exactly … discreet."

That was true. "You're sure?"

"This is my job," Jemma said. "And being soulmates doesn't make us conjoined at the hip."

"Only sometimes," Tony quipped, and grinned when Jemma blushed again. "Okay, I'll go. But I'll be there if you need me."

"I know." Her simple confidence surprised him as much as her earlier words had stung.

Minutes later, Tony had donned his armor and stood with Jemma at the rear of the Bus. Its cargo bay was open, and he suspected that the aircraft would be rolling as soon as he left. Which made him want to delay his departure as long as he could. It was only out of consideration for Jemma that he was leaving at all, much less when they'd asked him to.

"Take care," she said, an oddly formal farewell, considering how they'd met.

"I will if you will," Tony said, and she gave him a tense smile. "Look, when you get back, take a few vacation days. Come to New York."

"And play tourist?"

"If that's what you want," Tony said. "But I was thinking we could get to know each other in the non-Biblical sense. Got the Biblical sense pretty much covered."

"You're impossible."

"One of my most charming features." Tony grinned at her, felt it becoming a genuine smile. How long had it been since he'd offered someone a genuine smile? He didn't know and chose not to dwell on it. "Be safe."

"And you."

Tony leaned forward and kissed her, gently. Then he stepped back, slipped the faceplate of his armor into place, and took off, trying not to think that his soulmate was heading off on a potentially dangerous mission and he'd been forbidden from joining her.