Work Text:
Jemma stared through the glass into the lab and tried not to panic. This wasn't the way these things went. There was an order to the way lab accidents proceeded, and normally at this stage -- the part with alarms going off and containment doors closing -- she and Fitz were on the other side, being locked into the lab with the potentially dangerous substance.
It wasn't supposed to be Melinda May in there.
If anyone got trapped in a lab, it needed to be a scientist. Someone who was trained to use the equipment in the lab to formulate an antidote or anti-venom or just figure out a way to clean up and contain the mess so the doors would unlock.
Instead she was watching as red lights flashed and sirens shrieked, standing side by side with Fitz on the wrong side of the glass.
"Oh god," Fitz muttered. "Oh god. Coulson's going to kill us."
"No, he's not," Jemma said. "This isn't our fault, and we're going to fix this before he has to know about it, so he can't kill us."
"Oh god."
"The first thing we're going to do," Jemma said with as much confidence as she could muster, "is work out how to communicate with her."
"And how do we do that? This is the Pen! It's the most secure facility SHIELD has and-"
"-and even here, there has to be some way to communicate with the people in the lab when something like this happens," Jemma said firmly.
"They took our comms when we arrived!"
"Which means there has to be some kind of internal communication system for this kind of thing."
Fitz blinked, looking thoughtful. "Maybe up in the observation room?"
"It's the most logical place to look. Why don't you head up there and I'll try something a bit more basic," Jemma said, pulling a notebook and pen out of a pocket. "At least until we've got voice communication back, anyway."
***
It was supposed to be a routine trip to drop off samples they'd retrieved during one of their missions. The lab they'd been investigating had been used to develop several nasty toxins and a few genetically interesting mice, and after the main threat had been contained, Jemma and Fitz had taken some samples before the building was efficiently decontaminated.
Skye had crowed cheerfully about "burning things with fire", which was a crude but accurate assessment of the process and Jemma had pretended to be indignant, while secretly smiling at Skye's delighted expression as the building went up in flames.
There were half a dozen SHIELD facilities they could have taken the samples to, but they'd received orders to bring them to the Pen. Nobody minded much because the Pen was only an hour's flight away and getting the creepy and potentially deadly tubes and mouse corpses off the Bus as soon as possible seemed like an excellent idea. May had agreed to accompany Fitz, Jemma, and their hazardous materials containers into the facility, while Coulson, Ward, and Skye hurried away for an important debriefing session for field agents.
Loosely translated, that meant they'd gone to the pub.
The nearest town was half an hour's drive from the landing strip and there was a microbrewery attached to one of the bars. Most agents quickly learned about the facilities around all of SHIELD's important sites -- pretty scenery or good food depending on their tastes -- and the little microbrewery was a particular favourite for anyone who appreciated good beer. Fitz had looked wistful as he watched everyone drive away and Jemma had promised to buy him a pint if they got their materials signed in quickly.
On reflection, that might have been where everything started to go wrong.
If they'd been more focussed on their tasks and thinking less about the potential for good bitter, maybe none of this would have happened.
Or at least, Jemma thought as she scrawled in her notepad, it would have happened with her and Fitz on the correct side of the containment doors.
She slapped the notepad against the glass and waited for May to notice and move closer to read what she'd written.
"DON'T PANIC. Fitz is going to find a way for me to talk you through decontaminating the lab. DON'T PANIC."
May raised an eyebrow and Jemma shrugged unhappily. Quoting Hitchhiker's Guide might not have been the best idea right now, but, for a brief moment. May's mouth twitched into just the barest suggestion of a smile.
Jemma breathed a small sigh of relief and began a visual assessment of the lab's facilities, looking for something May might be able to use to get herself out.
***
There were many potential explanations for why the lab had suddenly gone into lockdown mode and Jemma didn't find any of them comforting. The thing she was particularly concerned about right now was that it seemed like everyone else in the Pen had left the building. Admittedly, there were only three scientists on duty and the rest of the staff were guards who were supposed to be stationed outside to prevent anyone breaking in, but it seemed strange that so many alarms were blaring and nobody had come to investigate.
She'd stepped out of the lab with Fitz for two minutes to review some paperwork they needed to sign before their containers could be added to the underground hazardous materials storage area. Fitz had been looking over her shoulder while she scribbled on the forms and when they'd looked up, the helpful technician who had been walking them through the procedure had disappeared.
A moment later, all the alarms had sounded and the lab doors had closed with a clang. Jemma was starting to suspect that something very odd was going on, because their containers were still in the lab with May, and none of their seals looked like they'd been tampered with.
Whatever had triggered the alarms couldn't have been in their samples, so what was it and why had the staff so conveniently disappeared?
More importantly, if Jemma tried to go out to the front desk and leave the building, was there even the smallest chance that she'd be able to?
The answer seemed obvious as soon as she tried to break down everything she knew so far: the lab, the disappearing staff, the slightly creepy feeling running down her spine.
SHIELD protocols for the Pen meant their comms and cell phones had been confiscated at the front desk, so there was no way to communicate with the outside world. It was very convenient and Jemma made a mental note to talk to someone about it when this was all over. Leaving agents with no way to alert anyone if something like this happened was an accident waiting to happen. So to speak.
She refused to consider the possibility that she wouldn't be around to send a strongly worded letter about all of this later.
***
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Fitz said as he hurried down the corridor from the observation room.
He kept his head turned slightly away from the glass, enough that May wouldn't be able to see his expression or read his lips, which was probably a good thing because his poker face was only slightly less terrible than Jemma's. She turned to angle away from May as well and tried not to look worried, but she'd probably failed on that front ages ago.
"The good news?" Jemma said.
"I can probably repair the intercom in the observation room," Fitz said.
Jemma frowned. "Repair?"
"That's the bad news," Fitz said. "It looks like all the communication equipment throughout the facility has been damaged and there's nobody at the front desk anymore. Which means-"
"-we walked into the middle of something-"
"-and we're probably trapped here with no way to contact Agent Coulson or Agent Ward." Fitz nodded. "Exactly."
"What do you think we've walked into?"
Fitz shrugged. "That's the kind of thing Agent May thinks about. Why don't we ask her after we've got the intercom working? We could also barricade ourselves inside the observation room, rather than standing around in an exposed corridor."
Jemma hesitated for a moment.
"Did I mention the bloody handprints I found around the doorway to the break room? I decided not to investigate, because bodies are your territory."
"The observation room sounds like a great plan," Jemma said, grimacing at the thought of dead bodies somewhere in the facility. She had no problem with corpses, but she didn't want to think about the possibility that whoever had made the corpses might still be around. "I'll just tell May what we're doing."
"Tell her? How?" Fitz said.
Jemma waved her notepad. "The low tech way."
"Ah. Good idea. Write fast."
***
The Pen wasn't a large facility by SHIELD standards. Or at least, the portion that most people saw wasn't large. There were a couple of labs, a break room, a reception area with a front desk, and a small meeting room with a table and three chairs. That there was anything more to it would only be obvious to someone observant enough to notice the astonishing levels of security surrounding the facility. To anyone else, it just looked like a small isolated science lab in the middle of nowhere with a high fence around it.
Even the animal rights protesters usually overlooked it in favour of more high-profile targets.
But all that security wasn't for the labs. They weren't even capable of dealing with category four pathogens.
No, all that security was for the huge vault underneath the lab. Buried under half a mile of rock, fitted with the most powerful security and filtration systems, that vault was where some of SHIELD's most dangerous discoveries were kept. Some people (Coulson among them) felt the safest option for a lot of the materials down there was incineration. Other heads usually prevailed, though, and that was why the Pen existed.
Jemma was starting to get the uncomfortable feeling that they'd walked into a heist. The thought of someone stealing anything from the Pen's vault was frankly terrifying.
The only thing that was more worrying, was her growing suspicion that they'd arrived before anything could actually be stolen. That meant there were dangerous thieves somewhere in the building, and potentially more outside, making sure nobody escaped. And the most likely scenario was that whoever was still inside the building was down in the vault.
Unfortunately, the entrance to the vault was in the lab with May. The lab that was currently locked down, with no way for anyone to open it until whatever had triggered the alarm was no longer being picked up by the sensors.
It was probably the only reason they were still alive: the thieves needed to get into the lab and that meant they needed the scientists to figure out a way to get the lab open. The men down in the vault wouldn't risk alerting May to their presence until they had a way out, because May was legendary and nobody wanted to face a pissed off Melinda May in a confined space.
Jemma only put the barest bones of their plans and her suppositions into the note to May and she left it to the more experienced agent to read between the lines and work everything out.
May had found a thick black marker by the time Jemma and Fitz reached the observation room and she was holding up a large sheet of white paper. Her note read, "WORK FAST."
Hopefully the upper case writing was just to make sure they could read the note from the window high in the lab wall and not a sign that May was getting agitated. Jemma didn't really want to see what an edgy, upset May could do.
***
"I don't have the right tools," Fitz said as he poked at the tangle of wires hanging down from the broken intercom. "My stuff is all in the lab."
Jemma knelt beside him on the floor after quickly peeking through the window into the lab. "What do you need?"
May was sitting calmly on one of the benches, and if Jemma hadn't known better she would have sworn that May was meditating.
Actually, hold on, May really was meditating. The woman was amazing. Jemma hoped she'd have that kind of calmness one day.
"If I can't have the right tools for the job," Fitz said, "then I'll have to make do with whatever thin pieces of metal you can lend me. Do you have a hair grip?"
Jemma reached up and freed a couple of hair grips, handing them to Fitz and tucking the loosened tendrils of hair behind her ears. Fitz looked at them with a critical eye before starting to bend them into new shapes.
"I don't suppose you have some chewing gum as well?" he asked.
"Do I look like I'd have some chewing gum?" Jemma said. She felt around in her pockets anyway, and sheepishly held out a stick of gum. "Here."
Fitz barely nodded to her, intent on carefully manipulating broken wires and twists of metal. "Chew it for a couple of minutes, then I'll need it."
The gum tasted minty and fresh and made Jemma painfully aware of how hungry she was. She chewed steadily until Fitz held out a hand imperiously. His face as he took the slimy gum would have been funny under other circumstances, but she couldn't make herself laugh.
Jemma clapped her hands over her ears as the room filled with a piercing feedback sound. Inside the lab, she saw May do the same and shoot a glare at their window. Jemma shrugged, mouthing sorry, while Fitz muttered apologies and fiddled with the wires until the sound abruptly shut off.
"Do you think anyone heard that?" Fitz said.
"Probably," May said.
Her voice sounded tinny and slightly muffled, but she was there. Fitz gave a loud whoop before slapping his hand over his mouth and whispering a quiet "sorry".
May rolled her eyes, which made Jemma smile because it was so normal. Now that May could communicate with them, she just knew that everything was going to be alright.
"How do I get out of here?" May said.
Jemma straightened up and let her scientific side take over. "There must be something in the lab that the sensors are picking up and interpreting as a contaminant. That means either our containers have a leak, or someone introduced something that shouldn't be there."
May looked thoughtful. "How likely is it that the seals failed on your containers?"
"It's possible," Jemma said. "Nothing is ever completely fail-proof, especially not when you're dealing with unknown toxins and genetically interesting mice."
"Biochemistry!" Fitz said, not quite under his breath.
"It doesn't seem likely that the contaminant would have been deliberately introduced to the lab," Jemma said. "That would be crazy. They'd be locking themselves into the vault as well as the lab when what they'd really want is for us to drop off our stuff and get out of here as fast as possible."
"Who's they?" May said.
"Whoever is trying to steal something from the vault," Jemma said. "Obviously."
That tiny almost-smile appeared again and Jemma felt a small surge of pride at the sight.
"The guards are missing and we seem to be the only people still in here," Jemma said. "Or at least, the only people on this level, and there's only this level and the underground sections, so that probably means we're the only people left who aren't part of the heist."
"I found blood," Fitz said. "I'm not happy about looking at dead bodies. There's something wrong with them."
"Yes, they're dead," Jemma said. "That tends to be what's wrong with them."
"You know what I mean."
"No, I-"
"How do I get out of here?" May said before Jemma could get too far into the argument. "Can you rewire the doors?"
Fitz shook his head. "I could try, but it probably won't work. The labs here aren't like the ones on the Bus. There aren't any codes to override the alarms; the only way they'll open is if the sensors stop detecting whatever tripped them originally."
"That means you'll need to find and neutralise the problem," Jemma said.
"That doesn't sound complicated," May said. "Where do I start?"
Jemma peered down at the lab, mentally sifting through all the bits of equipment she could see and dismissing each one until...
"Do you see the silver tablet with a thing like a hose coming out of it?" she said. "Over there, two benches to your right."
May turned to look at it and nodded. "What is it?"
"Well, it's a sort of...sniffer. I'll walk you through it."
***
"Drat," Jemma said.
"Oh god," Fitz said.
May just stared at the two crates stacked in the middle of the lab, her eyes flicking between them and the sniffer's screen. It was flashing a red warning every time she trained the hose over the stack and that made Jemma's heart sink. She was sure they'd used all the right seals on everything, including the boxes and tubes nestled inside. They'd double-checked before they even left the Bus. Those crates should have been more than capable of containing whatever dangerous substances they'd found for much longer than the time it had taken to transport them.
"What do we do now?" May asked.
"You're going to have to examine the crates for any sign of holes or tampering," Jemma said. "Then, you'll need to analyse whatever has escaped from them and we'll try to work out a way to neutralise it."
"This isn't my area."
"It's going to have to be for the next couple of hours. I'll walk you through it, don't worry."
May's expression barely flickered, but Jemma thought she caught a glimpse of a slightly dubious frown. Until now, she'd been too busy trying to work out what was happening and how to get out of the mess safely to feel worried. Now, seeing that momentary doubt in May's eyes, a wave of fear washed over her and Jemma wanted desperately to be in that pub sampling beer with the rest of the team. She took one careful, calming breath, forcing the terror back down into a box where she could deal with it at a later date. Preferably in her sleeping pod with nobody watching her.
"You're going to need to find some gloves, overalls, and a mask," Jemma said, trying to project calm in her voice. "If we're lucky, you haven't got any of the contaminant on you, so let's trying to keep it that way. Then I'll need you to carefully check the exterior of the crates."
May nodded and put the sniffer down while she hunted through the drawers someone had helpfully marked as containing the relevant items.
"If you can get me out of here, have either of you worked out how we're going to signal Coulson and the rest of the team?" May asked, as she pulled on a paper suit.
Jemma exchanged a glance with Fitz and they both frowned.
"I was hoping you'd have some ideas," Fitz said. "This isn't really our area."
A wry smile appeared on May's face before she slipped the mask on. "It's going to have to be today."
"I'll start working on that, then," Fitz said.
Jemma was aware of Fitz leaving and returning to the observation room laden with bits of what looked like a microwave and a kettle, but all her focus was on May's careful examination of the crates. The top one, carrying the genetically interesting mice, looked sound and the seals around the bottom one were also secure. When May tilted the bottom crate to examine its base, though, she froze, and Jemma heard her quick inhale.
"What's wrong?"
May peered closer before looking up. "It looks like we put the crates down on a small glass vial, which broke. Could that be the source?"
"Probably," Jemma said. "If it took a few minutes for the contents to aerosolise and reach the sensors, that could explain it. Why would they have left a vial on the floor?"
"I doubt the techs who normally work here did it," May said.
"You think it could be the thieves?"
"It seems like the logical conclusion. If we disturbed them in the middle of whatever they were doing, one of them might have dropped something when they were running back to the vault to hide."
It was both comforting and incredibly disturbing to have her worst case scenario confirmed as the most likely one. Jemma had been hoping she was wildly off track with her theory. The fact that she was right meant there were probably people surrounding the building and people down in the vault, all probably armed, and they were trapped in the middle. Unarmed and mostly untrained. Even if May was the Cavalry, Jemma didn't think they stood a high chance of getting out alive if they couldn't call for backup.
Probably the only thing that had saved them so far was that some of the group was trapped underground, and that advantage would disappear the moment they cancelled the alarms. Unless...
"Agent May," Jemma said, "do you see that door over in the corner? The one marked with all the danger symbols and hazardous materials signs?"
"Yes."
"Can you find a way to block it before we start clearing up the mess?"
May's eyes flicked to her once, for a moment, and Jemma felt herself grin at the expression of approval in them. It seemed completely inappropriate to be feeling happy in a situation like this, but somehow that look chased some of the fear away.
***
"I've done it!" Fitz exclaimed.
Jemma jumped, feeling like her heart was going to beat out of her chest for a moment before she regained her control. She'd been focussing so tightly on watching May carefully transfer the neutralising agent they'd prepared into a pipette that she'd completely forgotten that Fitz was busily building something. May carried on working without spilling a drop, her hands steady even though she had to have heard Fitz's outburst. Fitz waved a contraption that looked a lot like a kettle with wires protruding from the lid and his smile was contagious.
"What is it?" Jemma said.
"Single burst communications device," he said. "Should be strong enough to get through any jamming signal they're sending out so we can get a message to someone's cell phone."
"Are you sure it will work?" May said.
"Yes, definitely," Fitz said, his voice filled with enough defiant confidence for Jemma to know that he was definitely lying.
"Will they be able to trace the signal?"
"It should go completely undetected."
He was definitely lying; Jemma could see it in his eyes. She thought May could sense it as well.
"We'll use it as soon as we've worked out a plan," May said. "Have you got anything else?"
Fitz poked cautiously at a jumble of wires and shiny metallic things on the floor in front of him. "I might. Maybe. Soon. Give me ten minutes."
That was much less confident, and Jemma smiled encouragingly at him. He sounded more himself, that odd mixture of assurance and nervousness that always meant he was onto a good lead but he didn't want to jinx it yet. They worked so well together because they knew each other this well, could read each other through tone and body language far more accurately than words.
"Make it five," May said. "We're almost ready."
Fitz smiled tightly and bent his head to his work. Jemma recognised components from a microwave, a toaster, and a blender. He must have raided the break room for equipment despite the dead bodies, which was typical Fitz. Anything squishy and biological freaked him out until he had a purpose, something to concentrate on, and then he could ignore sights that made Jemma feel a little queasy.
"Are you sure this will work?" May asked, holding up the solution she'd created over the last hour.
"As sure as I can be without actually being in there with you to test it," Jemma said. "After you've applied it, we'll probably only have a couple of minutes before the sensors register that the contaminant is gone and release the door locks."
"Understood."
They'd discussed the next stage half a dozen times, but Jemma still held her breath as she watched May spray the crate and the floor under it with the reagent they'd made. It hissed and smoked on contact, but it didn't explode or do anything else she hadn't expected, which was a relief. There was still the possibility that it wouldn't work, but at least the first stage hadn't accidentally killed May so that was a positive sign.
May stood back and watched critically as the clear substances reacted together and slowly turned into a sticky blue mess. After a minute, she moved away and began rifling through cupboards, pulling out bottles marked with familiar symbols and setting some aside while filling her pockets with others. Jemma could guess what May intended to do with them and she winced internally.
It might not be May's area, but she seemed to know which acids and bases would cause the maximum damage, and Jemma hoped she wouldn't have to use any of them, although she knew it was probably a vain hope.
There was a quiet "schtick" noise from her left and Jemma turned to see Fitz holding up something that looked a lot like a comic book ray gun.
"Is that-?"
"A death ray cleverly engineered from everyday household appliances?" Fitz said. "Of course."
"Fitz," Jemma said, impressed.
"Will it work?" May said.
Fitz's grin was a little wild, a lot proud, and Jemma knew before he said the words that it wouldn't just work. It would work better than he'd ever intended.
"It will work," he said. "We're heading to the lab door now."
"Good. I have a plan," May said with a small, fierce smile. "Send your message, Fitz."
***
The lab door beeped and swung open just as Jemma and Fitz arrived. May held out two bottles of concentrated sulphuric acid and Jemma shook her head.
"Give me thirty seconds, I might be able to make you something better," she said. "Something with a little more fire to it."
"You have one minute," May said. "Then we need to get moving."
The door to the vault shook in its frame, and Jemma gave it one nervous look before hurrying to the supply shelves.
"If I combine a couple of things," she said as she carefully poured clear liquids into a couple of glass bottles, "and add a temporary fuse..."
"Are you making grenades?" Fitz said.
Jemma made a noise she hoped sounded affirmative, never taking her eyes away from where she was carefully inserting strips of cotton and plugging them lightly into the bottle necks. Her hands were steadier than she'd expected, but she could feel the time slipping away from her too fast.
"They're probably closer to Molotov cocktails," she said when she held up the finished product. "Highly unstable, so we'll have to be careful, but they should have the effect we need."
May raised one eyebrow and nodded. She took one of the bottles and shook her head when Jemma tried to hand the second one to her. Fitz looked awkwardly uncertain with his microwave death ray, but he squared his shoulders when May glanced at him and Jemma felt unexpectedly proud of him. Neither of them were trained for this, and they were probably going to die, and yet he wasn't letting his fear stop him and nor would she.
"You know the plan," May said, pulling a lighter out of a pocket. "They'll know soon that the Pen isn't in lockdown anymore, and if we don't fight our way out now, they'll kill us anyway. The rest of the team should have our message, by now but there's not much chance that they'll be here in time. We have the element of surprise right now so we have to use it."
"You give really comforting pre-battle speeches," Fitz said.
"It's not usually my job," May said.
"We guessed."
The vault door shook again and Jemma winced as she heard something metallic crash against it. So far, the heavy metal pole May had used to jam the door was holding, but it didn't seem likely to last much longer.
"Can we start now?" she asked.
May held out one of the little bottles of sulphuric acid again and Jemma reluctantly took it and pushed it into a pocket.
"Let's get moving," May said.
The reception area was as empty as Fitz had described. May held them back for a long moment while she assessed everything, her eyes moving restlessly as she took in every detail. A smear of red on the edge of the front desk looked loud and incriminating now, and Jemma couldn't understand how she hadn't noticed it when they first arrived. Perhaps it was because she hadn't been expecting anything out of the ordinary, or possibly she'd been thinking more about how fast they could get out than security. She would have felt guilty except May had missed it as well and if anyone was going to see something like that, it would have been May.
It was dark outside now, and Jemma was sure that there would normally have been lights in the area outside the glass doors and windows at the front of the building. Someone must have disabled them, though, because the only illumination out there was the faint glow from the lights inside and that ended only a couple of feet from the door.
Jemma waited tensely, straining to see any movement outside, but it all seemed quiet. Too quiet. Her muscles tightened in expectation and her mouth seemed incredibly dry.
May held up a hand and gestured sharply. Her feet didn't make a sound as she moved forward and Jemma felt like a clumsy oaf as she followed. Fitz's shoes made a quiet click sound as he walked at her side and she could already tell this was going horrible wrong but they couldn't stop now.
There was movement outside, just the barest hint of a shadow stirring, but May's response was immediate. She thumbed on the lighter, held it to the fuse, and gently rolled the bottle toward the glass door as soon as it lit. Then she dove behind the reception desk, with Jemma and Fitz joining her a moment later.
Just in time, it turned out, because there was a loud kaboom and flames shot up, glass shattering and flying everywhere.
"Was it supposed to do that?" Fitz said.
"It was a little more powerful than I expected," Jemma admitted.
May cautiously peeked over the desk and ducked down as gunshots suddenly whizzed over their heads.
"Your turn," she said, touching Jemma's hand for a moment. "Make it count."
Jemma took the lighter from her and fumbled for a moment, before finally getting it lit and holding it to the fuse of her own cocktail. She stood up in a half crouch as soon as the fuse caught and lobbed it at the shattered remains of the window. This time, the crashing explosion was accompanied by screams.
"I bowled for the school first eleven," she said breathlessly. "We won the county championship three years in a row."
"So you can throw things well?" May said. "Good, start throwing."
Before Jemma could reach for one of her bottles of acid, Fitz stood up with his microwave death ray clutched tightly in both hands.
"I can't shoot like Ward," he said through gritted teeth, "but the dispersal pattern on this makes accuracy redundant."
There was a low hum, a sound that almost seemed to vibrate though Jemma's bones, and then the entire room lit up as a ray of something blue and terrible shot through the air and there was more screaming. A lot more screaming.
"Thank god that worked," Fitz said, before triggering it again.
This time, there were fewer screams, which Jemma guessed had more to do with the number of people groaning somewhere on ground than anything else. The death ray made a quiet fizzling sound and Fitz shrugged philosophically.
"I think that's all we're getting out of her," he said, as he crouched behind the desk again.
"Time for the last resort then," May said, holding up a bottle of something with a caustic sticker on it.
Jemma felt the cool glass of her own bottle of acid, slid a thumb over the familiar shape, but she didn't have time to stand and throw it because a voice interrupted her.
"Stop fighting; you're surrounded." Coulson's voice was calm and unhurried. "There are twenty agents from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division surrounding you and we've got back-up on the way. Put down your weapons."
"Think he's found a megaphone?" Fitz said.
"Definitely," Jemma said, surprised to hear May echoing her.
They exchanged glances and Jemma smiled at the look of resigned exasperation in May's eyes.
"Think it'll work?" Fitz asked.
Somewhere outside, there was the sound of guns falling on concrete.
"Definitely," Jemma and May said together.
***
Jemma didn't often see May in the recreation areas except when she was passing through on her way to the cockpit. There had been hours and hours of debriefing before they were all allowed to return to the Bus, and Jemma had fallen straight into her bed and slept for twelve hours. The crash from all the adrenaline that had been rushing around her system had hit her hard. She thought the Bus could have gone through the worst storm in history and she wouldn't have woken up.
Now, she was sitting curled up next to Fitz as they steadily worked their way through a large pot of tea so strong it could probably take the metal plating off the spoons they were using. Skye had taken one look at their bleary faces and retreated fast, recognising and respecting the caffeine depravation and the need for silence while it was remedied. The Bus was still on the ground, and Jemma suspected Coulson and Ward were still dealing with the fallout from an armed group trying to steal dangerous materials from one of SHIELD's secret labs. It wasn't as if they'd actually been involved, not really, but people seemed to look at Coulson when they needed someone to fix things and provide a reassuring voice and so far nobody else had shown up to out-rank him.
It was a surprise, therefore, when May slipped into the recreation area and sat down opposite them. She looked as sleek and controlled as ever, but there was a hint of tiredness around her eyes that Jemma didn't think May normally let people see.
"Tea?" Jemma said, reaching out to nudge the pot closer to May.
For a moment, May frowned down at it, and Jemma felt Fitz go tense next to her. There was no way to read May's face, she was too good at being a blank page for that, and Jemma didn't realise she was holding her breath until she started to see stars.
May stood up and Jemma released her breath, quietly accepting that any camaraderie that had developed in the Pen had been entirely situational and not something that would carry into their lives on the Bus.
When May returned with a heavy china mug, Jemma felt her eyebrows rise. She watched as May poured tea from the pot, added milk, and took a careful sip.
"That is disgusting," May said, grimacing. "Why are you drinking this?"
Jemma shrugged. "Caffeine."
"It's all the tannins from steeping it too long," Fitz said. "They go bitter. We keep meaning to figure out a way to fix that."
May wrapped her hands around the mug and settled back on the sofa, taking another sip with a thoughtful expression. "It's not too bad after the initial shock."
"That's the taste buds dying," Fitz said.
Jemma took a sip of her tea and hid a smile behind the mug.
One corner of May's mouth twitched into something that was almost a crooked smile, gone in a flash, but lingering in the warm expression in her eyes. "You both did well in there, despite your lack of field rating."
"So did you," Jemma said. "Despite your lack of technical training."
May saluted with her mug and took another sip. "Thank you."
They didn't say anything more, but the silence felt warm and companionable. The sort of silence where people who had shared a difficult experience just needed to absorb and recover without discussing all the details, because they'd been there together every step of the way.
A friendly, tea-drinking kind of quiet that Jemma thought she would like to be a part of again.
(Preferably without the terror and explosions beforehand, though.)