Chapter Text
*
With that heavy-metal gaze they'll have to measure in tons
And when you look up at the sky
All you see are zeros
And all you see are zeros and ones - Andrew Bird, Masterfade
*
People might not always credit Jemma Simmons with remembering details that aren't part of an equation or on the periodic table of elements -- mainly she might be accused of overlooking specifically human details directly linked with social interactions -- but she could have sworn that Skye had a different surname when she transferred in last year. But since "Bennet" is what it says in the official school registry, that's what all the teachers insist on calling her.
Even though Skye herself seldom seems to remember that she's meant to answer to it, looking up several seconds too slow for it to be the sort of name she's been responding to her entire life. Highly suspicious.
If anything, this points to those abilities that Skye is rumored to possess being distinctly more than just a myth. That, at least, is good news.
The first good news, in fact, since Jemma's best friend, Leo Fitz, began to worry that he wouldn't be accepted into MIT with his record as it stands now. The idea occurred to him in late June when they began the application process -- the actual writing and updating of their applications, that is, since they'd both settled on their schools of choice in fourth grade -- and he hadn't let up about it since.
As if it was somehow Jemma's fault that Fitz had caught fire to their biology lab in the ninth grade. Not that it was really his fault either! Biology isn't even his area of expertise, and he had only been curious. Most members of the school board had agreed that such ambition in a young mind was admirable, and should not be discouraged. His punishment had only been community service instead of suspension from school.
But the incident was still on Leo's permanent record.
While many students seem to think such a thing is a myth, or at least unworthy of concern, it certainly does exist. In fact, Jemma had seen Leo's file while she volunteered in the vice principal's office after hours, stapling flyers and copying papers.
Sneaking a peek at the records the school has on Leo had been Jemma's very first instance of rule breaking since she got caught stealing an ice cream bar before dinner at age twelve. It didn't feel good, and the sinking sensation when she saw the giant red writing all over the page from that catastrophic event three years ago had only made matters worse.
Leo might be the panicky type of person who is prone to exaggeration, but he apparently wasn't wrong about this.
MIT definitely might be averse to the sort of prospective student who could cost an institution seven thousand one hundred and thirteen dollars and twenty-one cents -- all underlined and circled twice -- and if the two of them were going to grow up to be the accomplished geniuses they were obviously meant to be (together), then she was going to have to do something about this.
She was going to have to break more rules.
*
Of course, there's nothing to say that Jemma had to start by breaking rules -- not counting, of course, the two she'd already broken by first looking at Leo's file and then making a photocopy of it, just in case -- because as far as she could tell, Skye Bennet always hangs around the picnic tables in the quad long after school is over. No cutting classes required.
Though she couldn't say why exactly someone who doesn't seem particularly interested in her academic advancement would spend so much time on campus after the school day has ended. It's something Jemma has never really considered before. She doesn't make a habit of questioning the behavior patterns of her fellow students, let alone the especially aggressive and non-intellectual types who look like they might drink alcohol illegally and drive donuts in their car on the weekend for stimulation. Skye herself hangs around with quite a few of those, though none of them are accompanying her this afternoon.
That's another thing going in Jemma's favor, as she obviously wouldn't be equipped (in the slightest) to defend herself if things went suddenly south. The best she could do is give someone a good whacking with her backpack, and that would most likely damage the books more than anything else.
Perhaps pull out her shoulder.
"Hello!" Jemma says far too brightly, quite certain that she must sound like a small child dizzy on lemonade and overly sugared cupcakes. "… hi."
As though repetition is especially helpful. (Though it does sometimes jog Leo's mind, Simmons has found it serves her best to assume that no one else in life functions in the same way as Leopold Fitz.)
Skye looks up at her with that slightly perturbed and suspicious expression the younger woman is always wearing. Her eyes flick up and down, as though she's making some kind of assessment. "What? You need me to--" But her eyes narrow, apparently settling on something or reaching a decisive conclusion. "No. You wouldn't."
"I wouldn't?" Jemma couldn't say why she feels so indignant at the response when she isn't even sure what she's just been ruled out of.
But still!
Skye hardly knows her at all. Who's to say Jemma might not want to be (or perhaps already is) whatever little-miss-sour-face is so certain she would have no part in? She might!
"… I might."
"You might need me to hack into the school system to change your grades?" She doesn't really say it as though it's a question, and the only word that comes to mind to describe the accompanying expression is a smirk.
Jemma's cheeks flush. "Oh. No, I don't need that."
"Yeah." Skye says, still smirking. "You don't."
Jemma grips her hands behind her back, as if firming up her emotional resolve could run hand-in-hand (so to speak) with such physical gestures. (There is evidence to suggest, of course, that mental state is highly reliant upon several outside factors including physical comfort or lack thereof, and perfect posture has always helped bring a certain calmness and clarity that she can appreciate.) "Nothing needs to be changed," she says slowly, wishing that she might have had more practice with smirks herself. It would be really good to deliver her follow up with enough smugness to match Skye's own. "But I may need something… expunged."
For several moments, Skye just looks at her -- apparently the words didn't have nearly the impact Jemma had hoped for -- and then her smirk amps up.
(She is really good at this.)
"Okay. So, let's expunge."
*
The truth is that Jemma hadn't expected things to go this easily or, by extension, to escalate this quickly.
She had expected to approach Skye when she was surrounded by her compatriots of equally questionable morals and to be forced to communicate in some kind of code. Perhaps they would exchange several text messages before coming to some kind of agreement.
What she had not anticipated was following Skye Bennet -- though that is likely not her real name -- into an abandoned field only a few hours before sundown. Soon Jemma's parents would be wondering where she was. She's a responsible girl who always keeps curfew, and usually calls when she's going to be staying out after dark.
But she's not sure if Skye would approve of phone calls, or any other sudden movements really. She seems like she might be jumpy. (Most criminal types do. Perhaps that's a sign of a guilty conscience, or maybe a highly evolved self-defense mechanism preparing them for a future of running from police officers.) Not that Skye strikes Jemma as the type of person to commit any major felonies.
Though hacking is of course a criminal offense and in many ways a form of disruptive behavior that might suggest poor socialization and limited people skills.
Maybe the kind of poorly socialized person who would lead a trusting -- some might say naive -- fellow student into the middle of a field to rob her of her lunch money or whatever it is people steal these days, her smart phone then, and so it's only with a slightly worried lift in her voice that Jemma suddenly bursts out, "I don't have any money."
Skye stops walking and turns to look at her, blinking. Her hands are in her jacket pockets, and for one ludicrous moment Jemma wonders if she might be concealing a weapon of some kind. (Absurd. She obviously wouldn't fit any kind of handgun in there and a blade would perforate the material. The only possibility would be a pocket knife, and Jemma's quite sure she could run away before the blade was fully engaged.)
"Yeah, okay," Skye says, speaking slowly. "So what?"
Her hands are still in her pockets, but that might just be a result of the cold weather.
Come to think of it, Jemma is feeling a bit chilly herself. If she'd known she was going to be staying after late today, she would have packed a scarf in her bag, which she hoists higher up on her shoulder now for the added contact and warmth. "Well, I just mean that if you're expecting me to pay you today, it'll have to wait…"
That sounds like a reasonable excuse that doesn't involve accusing her would-be cohort in (slightly) illegal activities of doing anything that might make her angry. (Accusations like robbery or blackmail.)
Though Jemma supposes one could always obtain the evidence required for blackmail with a simple (hidden) recording device of some kind. Payment would be demanded later, only after the damning evidence -- or unwitting confession -- is obtained, and it would surely ruin her attempts to get into Harvard if she was found tampering with another student's permanent records.
Hell.
"Look, Skye," she finds herself suddenly almost stammering -- just as Skye had resumed walking too -- and the look the other woman sends her is such a strange mixture of amusement and annoyance that Jemma feels her cheeks flush. "I don't mean to be a bother, of course, but… maybe this isn't a very good idea."
"You haven't even told me what your bad idea is."
"… I know. And perhaps it's best that it remains that way." She worries her lower lip and tries to imagine what a woman like Skye might be thinking just now. That almost incomprehensible combination of two such conflicting emotions on her face certainly isn't making it any easier for Jemma to decipher her. "Don't you think?"
Skye laughs, but it isn't a cruel sound. It's light and sort of teasing, like an old friend -- the kind of laugh Fitz usually reserves for when he's about to bring up some story from when they were both quite young and prone to silly mistakes. It's this sort of laugh that Skye sends back over her shoulder as she continues walking further out into the middle of a seemingly endless field.
(Ridiculous exaggeration, of course. But in the moment it certainly feels as though it might go on forever. She did not wear the proper footwear for this much walking across uneven terrain.)
"I think," Skye says, still chuckling. "We should talk more once we get there."
"And uh…" She shifts her bag on her shoulder, adjusting the weight to carry it more easily while still walking. "Where are we going exactly?"
Another laugh, and Skye points.
With all the grass growing up the side of it, Jemma hadn't noticed at first, but of course now she sees it.
The field isn't empty -- or, obviously, endless -- at all. There, standing roughly twenty-four feet away from where they are now is a giant, well rusted van.
"My second home," Skye says and for a brief moment Jemma wonders if it means anything that, this time, there's not a trace of laughter.