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There are a few different reactions he typically gets when he sneaks up on her. Most of them include some form of squealing, giggling, and if he times it right, there’s occasionally a kiss or two in it for him.
The response varies each time, but Jemma punching him square in the jaw has not been one of those responses. Until just now, anyway, when he slides his arms around her waist and tries to press a kiss to her cheek. And gets a fist in the face.
“Oh my god!” Grant yelps from the floor, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “What the hell was that, Jemma?”
“Close, but no cigar.”
Grant groans as he pulls himself up. She’s got the right face, but her hair only just barely touches her shoulders, her ears aren’t pierced, and that was definitely not the right accent. “Sorry, Maeve.”
She narrows her eyes but nods once, slowly, and a grin quirks at the corner of her mouth. “You should probably check before you go kissing people with the same face as your girlfriend.”
He starts to head for the lab, and Maeve follows behind him at her own leisurely pace. She makes Grant a touch nervous, mostly because her Irish accent makes her sound like a version of Jemma that finally spent too much time with Fitz. (Yes, he knows Ireland and Scotland are not the same place, but still.)
He also thinks this might be why Maeve is Fitz’s favorite, aside from Jemma.
They step into the lab, and the only one Grant can pick out for sure is Lottie, with her slightly darker curls cut much shorter than anyone else’s. “Hey,” Maeve starts before Grant can say anything. “Heads up, Agent Ward is trying to put the moves on us.”
Grant’s face burns bright red, and he only realizes Skye is in the room too when he hears her trying to stifle a laugh. “I am not.” He mumbles, looking down at his feet to avoid the others. A hand brushes down his arm and he looks back up into hazel eyes that are both familiar and obviously not. He frowns at her smiling face. “Don’t do it, Simone.”
This one’s French, and she sighs dramatically (like she always does when he won’t flirt back) before shrugging. “You can relax, Agent Ward. I have decided to focus my attention on that delicious new teammate of yours. Mm, I could eat him with a spoon.”
When she waggles her eyebrows, Lottie giggles, face bright pink just like Jemma’s. She doesn’t speak English very well, so when she says something in quick German, the remaining look-a-like (he wants to say Lilah) translates. “Lottie wants him with chocolate sauce.”
Maeve, Simone and Lilah burst into laughter while Lottie tries to hide her face in her hands. Skye takes the appropriate amount of time to watch them in awe, then begins to laugh too.
Grant sighs. “Can we not discuss Trip with chocolate sauce? Please? Where’s Jemma?”
Skye just grins at him. “Uh, I think she’s upstairs with Fitz, Sofia, Cadence, and Agent Dessert.”
The girls beam, and when he makes his way toward the stairs, they follow behind him like a line of little ducklings that happen to be clones of his girlfriend.
Damn it, he should be way more used to this by now.
—
Of course, the first thing he does when they make it to the lounge is to sidle up beside Jemma and mumble, “I sort of kissed Maeve on the cheek. And tried to put my arms around her. And she punched me for it.”
“At least you lead with your words this time.”
“Oh, son of a bitch.” Because that’s not the right accent either.
Sofia just shakes her head at him. “Fondled any of the rest of us?”
Grant collapses back on the couch, pressing his face into his hands while his elbows rest on his thighs. It shouldn’t be this hard, not after years of this. “No. They’re too busy trying to fondle Trip.”
“I do not blame them.” Sofia turns and makes her way toward the other clones, crowded around where Trip is showing Cadence how to work the holo-table.
Grant refuses to look up, refuses to do anything else until he figures out which of all of these girls is the one he’s been looking for. Luckily, she makes that easy for him, the way she does with most things.
“Are you alright?”
His gaze flies up to meet Jemma’s. Jemma, his Jemma, with the right hair length, the pierced ears, the same shirt he unbuttoned and then re-buttoned this morning, and he can’t stop himself from tugging her down into his arms. “Hello.”
Winding her arms around his shoulders in an attempt to keep her balance without kneeing him in some unfortunate places, she lets out a heavy breath that has a trace of laughter woven in. She’s grinning against the top of his head. “Oh, you kissed someone again, didn’t you?”
—
They lay in bed together that night, trying to ignore the sounds of clone-bonding happening out in the lounge that has now been taken over by sleeping bags. Fitz had gone to bed earlier, after helping Grant carefully extract Trip from the girls. Skye had been the last to admit defeat, trudging down the hall about fifteen minutes ago.
“Lottie’s easiest. She’s got shorter hair than the rest of you.” Grant says, rolling over until his chest is pressed to her ribs and he can kiss her shoulder. “And Maeve’s is next shortest. I think. The other four are harder.”
Jemma nods along, hands folded over her stomach and looking up at the ceiling. “Darling, you don’t have to know who’s who immediately if you just quit going straight for the kiss. It would make this so much easier on you.”
Grant groans, dropping his head down to her shoulder and nuzzling against her neck. “You should be flattered.”
She scoffs a little, hand creeping up his back to run her fingers through his hair. “Should I?”
He nods, exhaling against her collarbone. “I just want to kiss you all the time; I can’t seem to get my brain to catch up to the fact that not everyone that looks like you is you. I’m just excited to see you.”
The noise that Jemma makes is somewhere between a laugh, a gasp, and an indignant snort. Which is not attractive. At all. But she knows he’s being honest, remembers that he always perks up just so when he sees her, even if he tries to hide it a moment later.
So she closes her eyes and breathes deeply, tries to keep her heart from hammering through her chest. Then she tugs lightly on his hair until he tilts his face up enough to meet her in a kiss.
Down the hall, something tips over, someone laughs, and someone else exclaims something loudly in a language neither Grant nor Jemma speaks.
She smiles, shakes her head. “They’re out of control. Good thing Coulson and May are away.”
Grant leans over her, elbows planted on either side so he can look down at her. “You can go out there, if you’d like. I know all seven of you haven’t been together at the same time in awhile.”
Jemma shrugs slowly, fingertips tracing over his forehead, his cheek, his mouth, down his jaw line. “They’re all here another night. Cadence and Simone are leaving first, but not until the morning after tomorrow.”
“I think Simone might quit hitting on me now that Trip’s here.” Grant observes, catching her hand in his and twining their fingers together.
She grins. “They’re very distracted by him, aren’t they? Then again, who isn’t?”
Grant raises his eyebrow at her until she laughs, leans up to roll them over, and kisses him.