Ventilation shafts were much noisier than Jemma had expected. It wasn't surprising, now that she was experiencing it herself, but she couldn't help but feel grumpy that both Clint and Rumlow- who outweighed her by a significant number of pounds- managed to travel almost silently.
Damn operatives. Her students would be receiving a much more thorough physical education than the one she had been offered, that was for certain.
Crawling on hands and knees just produced a cringing number of thumps and echoes, and so with a grimace she lowered herself onto her stomach, resolved to slither all the way to the lab if need be. Assuming she could find the lab. She didn't exactly have a map, after all, and the vents were not labeled at intersections for obvious reason.
"Nat," she hissed, "I have to take care of my research first, so if someone could lead me to the lab… somehow…"
Roughly fifteen minutes later, covered in dust, cobwebs, and what she suspected was an alarming amount of mouse shit (may her vaccinations bless and keep her), she paused above a grate, eyeing the room below her. Another nondescript room in a long line of nondescript rooms. Storage, this time. Desks, desks and more desks under a number of dust sheets. Was she still headed east? Without a compass, she couldn't be quite sure.
She heard, suddenly, raised voices somewhere nearby. Not in the vents, blessedly, but perhaps in the hall outside of this room. Her name was definitely being bandied about, and the tone from what she could hear indicated that if the speaker caught up with her, she would be in a great deal of trouble.
She really needed to learn when to pick her battles. She could be sleeping right about now instead of risking contamination by contact with mouse excrement, but no. She had chosen contamination, more fool her.
"I'm telling you," the forceful voice roared from a corridor away, "she is here. The tracker says so!"
The tr-
Oh, bloody hell.
Jemma silently cursed the stars under which she had been born and every instinct that had led up to her making such a phenomenally stupid mistake. They weren't using the chip in her ring to track her. They were using a program on Anne's damnable laptop to track her, or a chip, because of course it had been fitted with some kind of lojack device.
Her bad girl shenanigans were simply not up to par, today.
She pulled the laptop from its uncomfortable position, wedged as it had been against her arse and lower back, and regarded it in the dim light with cold rage. She needed that information. SHIELD needed that information.
Hell, Jemma deserved that information.
She clenched her hands around the frame, feeling the slight shift of exterior that made her think that perhaps Gonzales had scanted a bit on durability when they had purchased whatever tracking module had pinpointed her location. Jemma flipped over the small machine and squinted at the back, looking for some kind of access panel. It was tempting to just smash the damn thing, but that would damage important information and alert the others to her location.
The door to the room below her opened. "You go south, I'll check this room."
The man in question looked at the jumble of furniture and heaved a sigh of irritation. "Traitorous bitch," she heard him mutter, and resisted the urge to smirk.
The door, weighted and on a hinge, swung shut behind him. He barely spared it a glance as he moved down the row of desks, stooping to look under sheets and aim a kick into the dark recesses under a few of the desks. She didn't recognize him, not even slightly.
Eventually he would think of the vents, or someone else would. She was surprised that they hadn't considered it yet, truth be told.
A faint but obvious explosion almost made her jump, startling the man below into releasing an irritated oath. Footsteps pounded against the cement in the hall outside, and he made his own dash to the door, only to be met there by an imposing man in black.
"Stay here and follow the signal," this new man said, his body language indicating that he expected this order to be obeyed. "Check every room on this hall. She's small enough to be subdued by just one agent."
She frowned as the subordinate agreed. Well, one against one were significantly better odds than she had faced just a moment before.
The man returned to his search as his companions left to deal with whatever catastrophe was now waiting on the other end of the base. A distraction, Jemma could only hope. She wouldn't want to run from one enemy straight into the arms of an invading army.
So here she was, dusty and fighting the urge to sneeze, and there he was, carrying a gun as long as her torso and grumbling under his breath.
And she was so very small and easy to catch, wasn't she? So unimposing. So weak.
It was a mad idea, she acknowledged as she tried to dredge up a few tears. But this was a mad situation, after all, and she had turned stranger situations to her advantage.
The dust and the prickle in her sinuses helped, and after a bit of concentrated thought on every terrible thing that had ever happened to her (not a fun walk down memory lane, not at all), she felt satisfied by the slick tears she could feel running faint channels through the grime on her skin. She carefully adopted her best forlorn and bewildered expression, and then purposefully let loose the sneeze that had been threatening.
The man's head snapped up toward the ceiling, and in a matter of seconds his gun was trained on the grate. "Playing hide and seek, Dr. Simmons?"
Well, at least he was using her rightful title. She squeaked audibly, purposefully scrambling in a very noisy way in the vent. "Please don't shoot."
"If you're good, I won't have to," he replied cautiously. "Drop the vent cover."
She did so, the metal clanging to the floor below. Hesitantly she peeked out the new gap, hoping her expression was suitably helpless. He raised a brow and smirked. "A bit dirty up there, huh?"
"There are mice," she whispered, feeling her bottom lip quiver.
"Not down here." He nodded toward the floor. "Come on, jump down."
She gave the distance from ceiling to floor a skeptical glance. "I'll hurt myself, from this height."
He opened his mouth, as if about to say something about injuries being the least of her worries. After a moment he sighed and set his gun down on a nearby desk. Any thought she might have had about weaseling her way out of heavy punishment for this stunt immediately disappeared. They wanted her whole and healthy, and that meant they either intended to rip her to shreds themselves or to make her compliant. A compliant scientist with a broken leg wasn't very useful, after all.
He moved beneath the opening, holding out his arms with a roll of his eyes. "I'll catch you," he promised, and the look he gave her as he said the words was chilling.
She shuffled to the edge of the gap, calculating angles and probabilities even as she tried to give the impression of fear. The fear was there, for certain, but for not quite the reason he probably expected.
"Now," he said sternly, and with an internal shrug and desperate prayer to something she dropped from the ceiling, kicking out one foot to nail him under the chin and allowing herself to crash into his body, knocking him to the floor. The landing rattled her, but he softened her fall enough.
He was, thankfully, unconscious. And she might have heard bone snap as she had landed on his chest. The guilt was instinctual, but- as she reminded herself- unnecessary and impractical. She wanted to live, after all. Preferably with her mind fully intact.
Still, he was breathing. She took a moment to search him, on edge in case he made a sudden, if unlikely, grab for her. The cuffs went around his own wrists, but she did pocket his swiss army knife and taser with a satisfied smile. His gun was useless, at least for her- even if she managed to heft the incredibly heavy thing, she knew well enough that the recoil would throw her back onto her arse.
Wincing at the noise, she slid one of the desks under the vent opening. She wasn't entirely sure that continuing her journey in the vents was the wisest course- getting lost again was a distinct possibility, and she honestly had no idea where the hell she was at this current point- but could she really risk taking to the halls?
While she debated her next move, she retrieved the laptop and applied the screwdriver hidden within the knife to the back panel. She quickly disassembled the casing, nodding slightly when she spotted what appeared to be a tracker secured to the interior. Jemma briefly considered simply plucking out the tracker and reassembling the machine, but decided to be practical. She didn't need the entire laptop; she needed the hard drive.
As a bonus, it fit much more comfortably between the waistband of her trousers and her lower back.
The lights overhead flickered once, then again, before dying entirely. She sucked in a breath in the long seconds before the emergency lighting filled the room with a dull glow. Her companion was still out cold, and the hall outside the closed door was quiet. Could she risk a peek, to try and determine where she was?
She didn't have a choice, she decided. Crawling around in the vents for hours on end was no plan at all; she would have to try the halls and hope that the power outage had also interfered with the security cameras.
The storage room was in a section of the base that she had no familiarity with. She turned right out of the door, in the opposite direction of the explosion. Hugging the wall, she made her way swiftly down the corridor, hesitating at the corner. A pity she didn't have a mirror, but she couldn't hear a damn thing from that direction. She slipped around the corner, hand on her new taser. Empty.
After several such moments she began to feel her shoulders relaxing from around her ears, at least slightly. Whatever had happened on the other end of the base had definitely been serious enough to draw away the support staff, and even if the distraction hadn't been caused by an ally, she was still benefitting from it.
It took five minutes of walking before she found herself in a familiar area, and she gave an almost silent sigh of relief when she realized that she was a mere two turns away from her lab. A right, a left, and…
Carefully she peered around the last corner, checking for guards or stray lab techs. Empty.
An all-pervasive calm settled onto her as she faced the entrance to her lab. She didn't have to go in, thankfully: the touch screen outside the entrance did more than simply allow access. It also gave an outsider with clearance the option to completely cleanse the lab of whatever biological hazards were within.
It was the nuclear option, of course. Nothing would survive that cleanse- neither equipment nor samples- but it was a standard feature in all SHIELD labs. Admittedly, it was more commonly used to destroy research in the event of a full-scale attack gone south, or some kind of lab accident that threatened to leech into the rest of the facility. It wouldn't do a thing about the notes and reports that Jemma had already uploaded to the server, but in the last week or so Jemma had been carefully leaving out small bits of information- small, but crucial. It would have to do.
The major problem at this moment, of course, was the fact that technically, Jemma did not have the clearance to access the program she needed. She needed a hand, quite literally.
"I thought that I would find you here."
She turned slowly, casually, as if her begrimed state was of no concern at all. "Hello, Henry."
"Now you're going to be friendly?" He shook his head. "Really, Jemma, the Disney-princess eyes are not going to work. Drop the act."
She'd like to dropkick him into the next century. She allowed her hands to hang loosely at her sides, brushing her right against the lump of the taser in her pocket. "Out of curiosity, why did you choose to go along with Gonzales' plan?" she asked. "Fury is quite alive, I assure you."
He shrugged. "Gonzales saved my life during the Hydra takeover. And when I proved that my biochem skills were useful, we came to an agreement."
"Did it have anything to do with babysitting me?" she asked dryly.
"Sort of." He took a step closer. "I've been doing some of my own research. It's a theory I've been working on for years, now, but only after Gonzales took an interest did I make any real progress. I needed human subjects, you see."
She raised a brow, unsure where he was going but not liking the thread of conversation in the slightest. "Is that so."
"Everyone accepts soulmarks as a done deal," he replied, as if her comment had indicated actual interest. "I've figured out how to get rid of them."
Jemma hesitated before replying, her mouth dry. "Impossible."
He nodded. "To get rid of the physical mark, yes. But not to break the link. With the right drugs and the right method of coercion, I can turn just about anyone into Galatea, ready to imprint on Pygmalion."
And wasn't that a horrifying thought? It almost made her want to retch.
He moved more quickly than she expected, pinning her against the wall with her right hand held above her head. "I'm impressed that you managed to disable a guard and pick up that taser, but I would prefer if you didn't use it on me." He grinned, shifting his hips in a way that blocked her left hand from reaching the knife. "Don't worry, Jemma. It won't be so bad, being my Galatea. You'll be happy about it."
"That wouldn't be real happiness," she retorted, trying to pinch a pressure point with her free hand.
"Real enough for me. Come on, stop squirming."
Abruptly she let her entire body hang loose and heavy from his grip. He fumbled to keep his hold, cursing and tightening his hand around her right wrist painfully, and as he lowered his head she slammed her own forward, cracking her forehead against his nose.
Hell, that hurt. The only bright point was that it seemed to hurt him even more, because he dropped her to stumble back, instinctively bringing a hand to his face. She fumbled the taser out of her pocket, wincing at the flare of pain as she wrapped her right hand around it and aimed. The prongs latched onto the front of his trousers, and he shrieked as the electricity coursed through that rather sensitive spot.
She watched as he writhed on the floor, more furious than anything. Jemma Simmons as his Galatea? She thought not.
"I bet you have clearance," she said aloud, kicking him in the solar plexus for good measure. "If they had given you the word, you would have torched the damn lab with me inside. They could have always found another Galatea for you."
He didn't resist as she hauled him toward the panel, merely continued to whimper as she took his hand and slapped it against the screen. Inside the lab, the purge began.
"Stay here and think about what you've done," she told him sternly. "If you try to override this, I will send all of my assassin friends after you. Don't think I won't."
She had a lot of them, after all, and once they finished lecturing her for being such a bloody idiot they would need something to do.
When Clint picked up the call, he sounded almost distracted as he greeted Phil. "Hey, how's DC?"
Phil frowned, recognizing Clint's I'm avoiding a serious discussion tone when he heard it. "Did someone die?"
"Nah. Just regular old stuff going on at chez assassin. Just us doing assassin type things… as one does."
"I know you're lying."
"Everything's cool, Phil, all right? We would tell you if there was an emergency."
Phil rolled his eyes. "Sure, after the fact."
"We have everything under control. Here, talk to Nat."
Nat's cool, calm voice filled the line before Phil could respond. "Micromanaging again?"
"I think we're close to an agreement, here." That they were keeping something a secret was obvious. His odds of getting an answer out of them, though: bordering on nil. "It might even be today. I want Jemma out."
"We'll get right on that," she replied, her voice faintly amused and- maybe, possibly- a tad annoyed. It made him suspicious.
"Is Jemma all right?" he asked, resisting the urge to flip Nick a bird when the other man rolled his eyes at the question.
"Kicking ass and taking names," Natasha told him solemnly. "Now get off the phone, Phil. I have things to do."
She cut off the call abruptly, leaving him staring at the cell in his hands.
"Problems?" Nick asked, his expression much more serious than it had been moments before.
"I think yes, but Natasha refuses to confirm or deny."
"She's bad to do that."
The problem with the well-timed explosion was that it had occurred near the entrance- aka, her exit. After taking down two men almost twice her size, Jemma was not in the mood to deal with that kind of inconvenience. Her injuries weren't helping: her wrist (fractured, perhaps) was aching and swollen, and her head ached.
Also, dropping from the ceiling onto a grown man might have saved her from worse injuries, but she still felt as if someone had swung a hammer at various joints.
She was tucked in a somewhat concealed corner as she considered her options, ears alert for any movement in her direction.
There- a solitary set of footsteps. Quick, heavy, and authoritative. Not good news for her.
"Oi, Agent Lewis!"
The footsteps paused, and Jemma released a quiet breath.
"The boys say that they found some kind of alien detonator near the door," Lance reported with a tone so innocent it almost made her teeth ache. "I'll continue your patrol, shall I?"
The agent in charge cursed in Italian, heading quickly in the direction opposite of Jemma. Footsteps that could only belong to Lance now made their way to her, and in seconds he peered around her scant shelter.
"You," he said meaningfully, "are a menace to society." He considered her bedraggled state. "What, were you hiding in the dust bin?"
"Could we leave first and discuss this later?" she asked hopefully.
"Bit hard to leave with every exit swarming with agents," he shot back. "Don't suppose you have the Widow on some kind of comm, do you?"
She tapped her remaining earring. She wasn't quite sure where she had lost the other one, but she guessed it had been during one of her two scuffles. "One way."
"Well, in that case you and I will head to a less-occupied portion of the base and let them blast us out." He reached out and slapped her on the back, raising a cloud of dust. He wrinkled his nose. "Can't believe I did that. I'll probably end up with the plague, now."
"We have a vaccine for yersinia pestis," she replied, following him down the hall at a trot. "I'll nurse you back to health myself."
"Stop threatening me! The idea is terrifying."
"That wasn't a threat."
"Bullshit, Jem. I'd rather play Russian roulette with the Widow."
He led her what felt like a kilometer away, into a section of the base that she had never seen. The emergency lights seemed dimmer, here, though she suspected that was her own imagination.
"And now?"
He shrugged. "We wait," he replied, leaning against the wall of an alcove. "All the exits are blocked. All of them. If you had given me some advanced warning, I might have, I dunno, done something…"
"It was rather spur of the moment," she admitted sheepishly.
"Yeah, attacking a board member is definitely something you want to do on the spur of the moment." He gave her a thorough inspection, likely noting the number of bruises on display. "Met up with a few people after that, did you?"
"Oh, a guard. And my former assistant."
They regarded each other levelly for a few seconds. "Fair," he said finally. "Good job."
Each minute that passed increased Jemma's anxiety level. Why hadn't she insisted on some kind of two way comm? Surely Fitz could have rigged something. Or-
A blur of movement and an indignant yelp ended with Lance pinned against a wall, and it took a moment for Jemma's panic to clear long enough for her to recognize the latest addition to their party. "Brock!" she snapped. "He's with us."
Both men looked at her at that, Rumlow's face resigned even as Lance gave her an offended expression. "Him?" they both asked in unison.
"Yes, him," she replied ruthlessly. "He was recruited by Natasha Romanov," she said, pointing at Lance, "and you swore to get me out of here alive. Let's all work together, hmm?"
The two men exchanged a glance. "Do we get hazard pay for this?" Lance asked Rumlow seriously, who huffed a dry laugh and released him.
"For dealing with her? I'm planning on demanding it."
Natasha and the others evidently had taken Hunter's suggestion seriously, because one moment the three of them had been debating in quiet tones the merits of attempting to escape out the front, and the next the air was filled with dust and smoke as a portion of the wall at the other end of the hall exploded inward. The ceiling over that portion buckled and groaned in an ominous fashion.
"Oops," Clint said innocently as he clambered through the new opening. "Must have been load-bearing. We'd better make our exit."
Jemma hissed in irritation when Rumlow tossed her over his shoulder before she could attempt to pick her way through the rubble. "Excuse me," she said sharply, wincing at the pulse of her headache. "I can walk, and I don't appreciate being manhandled."
"You are trouble personified. I just want to get you out in one piece; after we're in the escape vehicle you can find some other way to injure yourself," he replied, his voice terse. Hunter, blast him, merely snickered.
To her annoyance he didn't put her down until they were next to the SUV. She had to resist the urge to squirm or give any other indication of her discomfort at being in such a disadvantageous position. She didn't trust him the same way she trusted Phil, or even the same way she trusted Bucky and Natasha. She felt almost exposed, draped over his shoulder as she was.
There was a second explosion as he stopped beside the vehicle, and she caught an upside-down glimpse of the now-demolished rock facade that had acted as camouflage for that particular wall. Her vision swam momentarily as she was placed abruptly back onto her feet.
"Looks like you took a few hits, doll." Bucky placed gentle fingers on her chin, tilting her face upward to get a better look at her forehead. "You probably broke his nose. Good for you."
She smiled weakly, sun in her eyes. "Could we please drive away very, very quickly?" She pulled the hard-drive from its hiding place, relieved that she would no longer have to deal with it digging into the skin of her back. "And I brought you all a present."
"How sweet." Bucky ushered her into the vehicle, his touch so light she barely felt it. "I'll keep that in mind when I lecture you later."
She gave him a disgruntled look as he fastened her seat belt. "I won't be sitting still for that lecture." She doubted that he would let her sleep through it, either.
"It would be a waste of effort, Bucky." Natasha started the car, catching Jemma's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Look at her; she's hopeless."
Jemma turned to glare at everyone else in the vehicle as they began to laugh. Rumlow, the sole exception, rolled his eyes. "I realize that I acted a bit rashly-" she began, only to be interrupted by Bucky.
"A bit rashly? A bit rashly?" He ran his hands through his hair, dislodging the elastic. His calm front was no longer quite so believable. "You snapped and blew your cover and all you can say is that you acted a bit rashly?"
"I'm very sorry," she muttered in response, stung. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off she was beginning to feel rather shell-shocked, and more than a little shaky. She wanted a shower and a bed and her husband, and then and only then would she allow herself the luxury of a good cry.
"You will be sorry once I finish my memoirs." He smacked his metal hand down on the dashboard in front of him, denting the plastic. "'Bucky Barnes and those two punk idiots who keep trying to shorten my life'."
"I think you'll need something snappier than that," Hunter said thoughtfully, ignoring Bucky's growl of irritation.
"I will think of something."
There was silence for a few minutes as Natasha drove away at breakneck speed, a silence that was only interrupted when she cursed quietly in Russian. "We have a tail," she said grimly, hitting the gas even harder. "Everyone has a seat belt, right?"
"Mine's broken," Hunter reported from the very back.
"Everyone other than the new guy has a belt, right?" she asked, and jerked the wheel to the side before anyone could respond.
Jemma was not near any of the windows, crammed into the middle seat between Clint and Rumlow as she was. The sudden turn sent her crashing against Clint, who continued to load the gun he held with remarkably steady hands. "Nat's pretty good at defensive driving," he informed her casually. "Keep your head down, okay?"
Not an easy thing to do, given the quick turns Natasha was executing and the way her op bookends were aiming their weapons out of the open windows.
She risked a glance back. Two pursuing cars, now, and Hunter had flattened himself against the seat, clinging onto the upholstery as each bump threatened to send him flying up toward the ceiling. He was cursing with impressive creativity.
To think she could have been curled up in her small bed at this very moment- and that reminded her that her sense of time was very askew, because her body said that it was midnight when it was obviously mid-morning. Still, it was much better to be here, facing death for the umpteenth time on that particular day, then to be waiting to deliver death herself the next.
Phil probably knew all about her research, she realized miserably, trying to stay small and contained so that she wouldn't jostle her companions. Now they had both been party to unethical experimentation.
She rather wished that she had the excuse of death and resurrection to obscure those memories. Not really, but… just a little.
Natasha stepped on the gas again, though Jemma could have sworn that her foot had already had the pedal pressed against the floor. "It's just like Budapest!" she called back, a kind of manic glee in her voice.
"Dammit, Nat, not everything is like fucking Budapest!" Clint yelled in response, taking another shot out the window.
"I seem to recall a chase across a bridge-"
"I was chasing you-"
"And when you caught up you said-"
"Stop flirting!" Rumlow snapped. "We don't need to hear the entire damn courtship."
Natasha laughed in return, swung the vehicle into another quick turn around a stand of trees, and Jemma fought the urge to vomit.
Maybe a concussion? She supposed she might have a small concussion. And possibly whiplash.
Assuming they ever found a safe place to stop, Bucky might find her a captive- though not willing- audience after all.
Phil was finding it hard not to smirk. After so many weeks, victory. Finally.
It was Director May who had given them the key, and in doing so she had also delivered a number of surprises. Not only had she used her various connections to legitimize SHIELD in a number of other countries- including England, which would be a boon for both Jemma and his in-laws- but she had found definitive proof of Talbot's invasion of Providence. The man had been so very careful about his movements that for the longest time Phil had despaired of actually pinning the invasion on him, but now they had video and mission reports and witness testimonies. This might not have been enough, if the information had remained confidential, but Director May had kindly alerted her contacts within the Canadian government before forwarding the proof to Fury.
Unsurprisingly, while the base itself was SHIELD property, Canada had taken great exception to the casual way American military had crossed the border. So much so that a number of phone calls had been made to President Bartlet and other key members of the government, which had led to an emergency meeting in the war room, which had led to a spirited bargaining session between Fury and the attorney general, which had led to a mess of paperwork and doses of aspirin all around. When everyone had finally dispersed at eleven in the evening, it had been with SHIELD once more legitimate, a number of official pardons in hand, and Talbot facing a rather lengthy list of charges.
A good day, Phil thought. Once he reassured himself that Jemma had been safely extracted he had plans to pour a double of something and raise it in celebration.
Fury entered their suite ahead of him and stopped stock still in the doorway. "When did you get here?"
"A few hours ago," was his answer. Natasha continued. "We ordered room service. Told them to put it on your tab."
Phil managed to push past Nick after a moment of effort and scanned the group of assassins and operatives lounging on the sofa and chairs. Natasha, Clint, Rumlow, Trip, Barnes, and Lance Hunter. He almost missed Jemma- she was curled up in an armchair facing away from the door- but after a few seconds Natasha reached out and tapped her on the arm. "Phil's here," Natasha said.
Jemma bounded up, wincing slightly as she did so, but whatever was paining her did not keep her from crossing the room in a matter of seconds. Pleasantly stunned, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, lowering his head to nuzzle his nose against her hair. It smelled like his shampoo, his conditioner. She smelled like his soap.
"She has a small concussion," Barnes informed him. "Where's the punk?"
Phil missed whatever answer Fury had for him as he turned his attention back to Jemma, pulling back just enough to note that she was beginning to slump against him, her eyelids heavy. There was a bruise on her forehead and a worrisome bump. "How did you get this?" he asked her quietly, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her face.
"Broke my assistant's nose," she replied simply, snuggling back against him and yawning. "Take me to bed?"
"No vigorous activity," Natasha said dryly. "She's been awake long enough, though. I think she'll live." She followed them into Phil's room. "She almost drowned herself in the shower."
"She wouldn't let me take a shower by myself," Jemma said, grumpy. "And she drives like a demon."
Phil considered his wife carefully, and then gave Natasha a questioning look. "You'd be tired too, after the day she's had." Natasha shrugged and began to pull back the sheets and blankets. "Go wash up, Phil. I'll stay with her until you get back."
She jerked her head toward the bathroom door with a commanding air, and reluctantly Phil obeyed. He hurried through his shower and evening routine, noting the dirty towels in one corner and the litter of bandage wrappers and used antiseptic cloths in the waste basket.
Jemma was sitting against the headboard when he emerged, the large t-shirt she wore revealing a number of bruises and a bandaged wrist that he had missed on his first inspection. She smiled at him, looking more present than she had even ten minutes before. "Natasha just left," she said, and stifled another yawn. "I haven't felt this tired since… it's been a while."
He turned off the overhead light, leaving her sitting in a pool of lamplight. He had had dreams like this, but none where such livid bruising covered her limbs. That didn't stop him from feeling as if she might disappear into thin air. "Their extraction plan obviously didn't go as well as I might have hoped."
Surprisingly she blushed, slumping back against the pillows. "If I promise to explain everything in the morning, will you let me sleep now?"
He had a sudden vivid surge of memory- her mid-air evacuation, that episode with the grenade on the train, her dive for Fury months before. "Am I going to like it?"
"Bucky yelled," she muttered. "A lot."
He thought back to that phone conversation he had had with Natasha that morning. Apparently the extraction had already been well underway at that point, and judging by Jemma's expression she had put it into motion herself. "I think some sleep would do us both good," he said finally, giving her a smile as he slid into bed next to her. He didn't want to start any kind of debrief tonight, anyway, not when she was in such a state. Better to take care of her and indulge his own need for closeness.
"Did good things happen for you today?" she asked, curling against his side with her head on his shoulder. She yawned again, and brought up a hand to sweep her fingertips against his cheek. "Have you been sleeping at all?"
"Not much," he admitted, still feeling vaguely surprised that she was even here. He let one hand rest lightly against her hair. As soft as he had remembered, sliding smooth under his hand. It felt almost real, now: her being here when for so long she hadn't. "You've been officially pardoned, by the way."
"That's nice." She smiled up at him, hesitant. "Hopefully that covers what I had to do… back there. For Gonzales."
"It will." He'd insisted on reviewing the wording of all the pardons for just that reason. Jemma wasn't the only one who had been forced into actions she would not have otherwise taken. "The warrant for your arrest in England has also been officially rescinded. How does it feel, to be a free woman?"
"Sleepy." She blinked wearily, a lock of hair sliding down over her face. "You do know what I've done, Phil?"
"You've been very brave." He waited until she met his gaze before continuing. "Not that I expect anything less from you. We can talk about it in the morning, if you like, but Natasha kept me fully informed. No one blames you for anything."
She nodded slightly, though he doubted that she would let the matter end there, at least in her own mind. Her worries would buzz and percolate until she found some kind of answer or fix for the situation, and until then he could only give her what support she would accept.
"The anti-serum..." she began.
"We have a stockpile ready and waiting."
"I did manage to sneak a few minor errors into the formula." She waited while he turned off the lamp and then snuggled close. "Probably won't delay them for long."
"Anything you consider a minor error is probably a major stumbling block for anyone else." He smiled even as he felt a tear slip down his cheek, and wrapped his arms securely around her. "I'm so glad to have you back, sweetheart."
"I love you. I love how warm you are," she mumbled. "Don't leave without waking me up in the morning."
"I love you, too." Here was what he had been missing- her breath against his neck and the line of her body stretched against him, one leg draped over his. He would probably wake up with a numb arm and her cold feet pressed against his calves, and he was actually looking forward to it.
Sleeping alone, he had come to find, was just too lonely to bother with.