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They’re supposed to be heading back to the Bus, but he catches her eyeing the piano in the music shop longingly, and tugs on her elbow until she follows behind him.
It’s a surprisingly large store, larger than Jemma would’ve guessed from the outside. There are instruments lining the walls, shelves full of music, cases, any supplies one could possibly imagine.
Grant nudges her shoulder. “Piano, right?”
She gives him both a smile and a quick kiss, quietly making her way toward the instrument. Taking a seat on the bench, Jemma pats the space beside her until Grant sits down too. She rests her fingers just above the keys and then looks over at him.
He’s watching her hands patiently, until he notices her gaze on him. He smiles when she starts playing, still looking at him. He hums thoughtfully. “Beethoven or Mozart?”
“Chopin.” She says quietly. “My grandfather taught me how to play. This is a baby grand, but he had an enormous concert grand piano. Basically had its own room. I practically lived in that room every summer.”
She’s speaking softly, like she doesn’t want to interrupt her own music, and her head is tilted just so, her eyes slipping shut, and it just makes him want to kiss her so badly.
(Everything she does makes him want to kiss her.)
“So you’re a musical prodigy as well, hm?”
She smiles, shakes her head, doesn’t open her eyes. “I don’t think prodigy is the proper term in this case.”
He chuckles a little, and the sound finally makes her eyes open again. He curls his fingers around her jaw and kisses her, because sometimes he just can’t keep himself from doing it.
She’s kissing him and she’s still playing.
“You never told me you played the piano.” He breathes against her cheek, and he can feel her grin.
“Well, darling, you never asked, did you?”
—
He can hear her from the kitchen, talking to her laptop. Or rather, talking to someone through the camera in her laptop. He heard the tones of a Skype call almost an hour ago, and has been distracting himself with a deck of cards since she accepted it.
He’s thinking about heading for the punching bag for an evening workout when she calls to him from the other room. He waits a good fifteen or twenty seconds so it doesn’t seem like he’s been waiting for her, and then pokes his head around the corner.
She smiles and waves him toward the couch. “Come and say hello.”
He falters a bit, because clearly he’s not the most social of beings. But he does it anyway, because she asked him to.
There’s a young woman on the screen, maybe a bit older than Jemma, with a little girl on her lap. “Grant, this is my cousin, Maura. And the little peanut on her lap is her daughter, Sylvia. And this is my Grant.”
Sylvia puts her face closer to the camera. “Jemmy. Did you get married?” She whispers loudly.
Maura laughs and Jemma flushes and Grant nearly buries his head in the couch cushions. “No, love.” Jemma says after a moment, face still pink. “Grant’s my… guy. He’s my special person.”
He sort of wonders if Jemma doesn’t want to say the word ‘boyfriend’ or if she doesn’t want to try and explain it to the little girl. (He likes what she said better anyway.)
After a few minutes longer, Maura and Sylvia say goodnight and Jemma closes her laptop. Leaning back against Grant’s chest until he reclines on the couch, she pats his hand when it rests against her ribs. “Sylvia’s my goddaughter, you know. I’m not sure what Maura was thinking, but… If something happens…”
“She’s cute.” Grant says, because it’s true and because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“She is.” Jemma agrees. “She’s bloody brilliant, as well. Maura and Charlie don’t know what to do with her half the time, they’re so impressed.”
He smoothes his fingers through her hair and down her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you have a goddaughter?”
“You never asked.”
—
When she speaks, she has both her lips and a gun pressed to his temple. “You’re Hydra.”
He clenches his jaw, breathes through his nose. “Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
The gun pushes a little harder against his head. He breathes sharply. (So does she.) “Did you love me?”
His jaw is starting to ache from grinding his teeth. “Yes.”
She’s closed her eyes and he knows it without seeing her. “Do you still?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
Her lips press against his forehead, the gun falls away, and when he turns, she’s gone.