Jai

I found myself blushing as I spoke softly into my cell phone. The chill of the glass pressed against my skin was forgotten and replaced with a warm feeling running through my body. I caught a glimpse of Leon perched over a microscope. He thought I couldn't see him staring; he was wrong.

"Grant stop it," I giggled, twirling my hair around my finger.

"I want to meet again," he purred through the phone.

"Well," I smiled, "I'm not doing anything tonight."

"Great, I'll pick you up."

"Jai!" called Leon. I groaned.

"It's Leon," I sighed. "I'll text you." I hung up the phone and went to see what Leon was whining about. He had been especially needy ever since our double-date, and I had not seen Petra at all since then either. Any other time, I would've been flattered, but I had Grant now. Leon picked the exact wrong time to be interested in me.

"What is it Leon?" I asked, putting my arms on his desk, hoping he'd detect my annoyance.

He lifted the goggles off of his face and swept his fluffy black bangs to the side. "I heard you say you were free tonight," he commented, not looking me in the face.

"Yeah, I am."

He scoffed. "Have you forgotten that we are still working on our very special project?"

My eyes widened. Leon hadn't mentioned our project for over three years, why was he trying to bring it up again now?

Actually I knew why, to get me away from Grant. Leon knew I couldn't resist to experiment with our alien technology project that came to a screeching halt years ago. And sadly he was right.

"If I remember right, you were the one who never wanted to return to that project," I said, raising an eyebrow. I swore I saw Leon blush.

"Maybe it's time to bring it into the light. With gone and Bakshi missing, maybe Hydra could stand to be shaken up again," he smiled. I sighed.

"You know I can't say no," I pouted.

Leon pulled out the aquamarine vial that we had kept in hiding ever since Leon decided to shut it down. The sparkle of blues and greens reflected in my excited eyes, and I felt the same rush I had felt the first time I had started to experiment of the liquid. Some of our combat Agents came across the vial after raiding an old S.H.I.E.L.D. lab and nobody had seen anything like it; Leon and I were completely starting from scratch. All that we had discovered at the time was that the liquid had incredible healing powers. When I found this out, I wanted to alert Dr. Whitehall, but Leon stopped me. We had to experiment in secret, and because I couldn't use all my tools in the lab, I never really found out anything new.

When I studied biochem at the university with Leon, numbers and concepts never came easy to me. I had to suffer through nights of staying up to memorize formulas and procedures from our thick handbook. Leon would try to help me, but I could tell I was just slowing him down. He was a much more visual learner, he picked up on patterns quickly, and was killer at word searches. He tried to help me make up mnemonic devices to help with my memorization, but none of it helped. But the story was completely different in the classroom. Labs was where I excelled; the pure physicality of the experiments were like second nature. But none of that mattered if I didn't know the basics, the numbers, the formulas. So I still ended up working extremely hard, and eventually, I prevailed.

That's what I thought about this alien object all those years ago. If I worked as hard as I could on it, that I could find a way to figure it out without using my strengths. But when Leon took the entire operation off the table, I lost faith in myself and my abilities for a while. That kind of confidence never really returned.

I used a pipette and squeezed some of the liquid onto a microscope slide and slipped it under the high-tech magnifying glass.

"The only thing I remember about this substance was that it had remarkable healing qualities," I commented. "Do you still have that rat without the leg?" Leon nodded and retrieved the rat. I took some of the liquid and dropped it onto the stub. Leon took the leg of the rat and reattached it, with the substance acting like an adhesive. We watched the rat, looking for movement of the leg, but saw nothing.

"I'll put him back in his case, and we'll monitor him for any improvement," Leon said. I turned back to the microscope. I studied the liquid and noticed that the makeup of it looked familiar.

"Leon," I called. "What does this look like to you?"

He peered into the microscope. "Like human genetic make-up, with a few alterations. And its blue."

I sat in a stool. "How had I never seen this before? If this has similar genetic make-up as a humans, maybe it's not supposed to heal rats, maybe it's suppose to heal humans." I looked to Leon for confirmation.

"If what you're saying is correct, there's no way to prove it," Leon put his hand on his chin.

I never could have predicted what came next.

One of the walls of the lab exploded, and debris flew everywhere. I screamed, but was quickly silenced by dust and smoke burning my throat. There was no time to run for cover, so I was hit in the stomach with bits of concrete and I fell to the floor. I heard Leon cry my name, but my main focus was to protect the substance. I flitted my eyes to the vial; Leon took the hint and shoved it into his pocket. He picked up my limp body and attempted to maneuver through the dust and smoke. I was impressed, I didn't think Leon's thin frame had the strength to carry me.

My focus was jarred as my adrenaline wore off and the pain in my abdomen exponentially increased. I groaned and felt myself going into shock. I had heard tales about going into shock from the combat specialists, but I was never meant for the field, I was a scientist. I had only carried a gun during training, I didn't know how to punch effectively, and I had never experienced a wound such as this, even when Hydra defeated S.H.I.E.L.D. and chaos broke out.

"Leon?" I panicked. "Leon, help me!"

His face was covered with ash and pain as he looked down at me. He set me down underneath a desk and cradled my body in his chest. He purred encouragement as he removed my lab coat to survey the damage.

"You're losing a lot of blood, Jai," he explained, trying to stay calm. "I'm going to use your coat to stop the blood."

We were interrupted by another blast and Leon pulled me into his chest, making me cry out in pain. My breath started to come short and my eyelids felt heavy. "Leon, please help me," I panted.

I saw a tear sliding down his cheek as he pressed the coat on my stomach.

"I'm trying, Jai," he whimpered. Suddenly, I saw his eyes flit to the vial in his pocket. He pulled it out and held the glowing liquid.

I used all of my strength to protest, "No," I gasped. "No...telling...what it could do."

"I'm not going to let you die," Leon said and I saw in his eyes that there was no way I was going to convince him otherwise. He poured some of the substance on my stomach. Immediately, it began to burn, and I had to grind my teeth to keep from screaming. "Jai? Are you okay?" I dug my fingernails into his leg and let out a quite screech.

I heard footsteps and I suddenly saw boots in front of our hiding spot. Leon put his hand over my mouth.

"Jai?" called a familiar voice. "Leon?"

"Grant!" cried Leon. "Help! It's Jai."

I passed out from the pain as Grant picked me up.

Who would want to hurt the little science babies? Hopefully Jai will recover.

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