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Right jab… left jab… then right again… and then left again…
The cycle kept repeating. Over and over Jemma’s fists slammed into the punching bag. She had forgotten to wrap her hands properly and she could feel the skin on her knuckles starting to break, but still she kept punching.
It wasn’t helping her anger or her sorrow, but it gave her something to do. It had been two weeks since the incident with the temple and no one really knew what to do. Fitz was continuing to avoid her, before finding out about Trip she had hoped they could start going back to who and what they were to each other. Skye didn’t really talk to anyone anymore, unless it was May or Coulson, she blamed herself for Trip’s death and she was hurting and there was nothing Jemma could do to help. And Coulson and May were acting like nothing had changed, like everything was still fine. She knew that was their way of coping and that they were hurting just as much as everyone else was, but if they all could just stop for one minute to breathe that would be nice.
She shouldn’t complain, she was fine, really. She didn’t have any disabilities like Fitz. Her father wasn’t a psychopath like Skye’s. May had been battling PTSD for years and while she wasn’t showing any outward signs of it Jemma knew she was doing her tai chi more these days. And she didn’t even want to recount all of the injuries Skye’s father had given Coulson but she was unharmed and breathing easily… unlike Trip. So really, she shouldn’t complain, she didn’t have it that bad. Not like the others.
Left jab… then right… then left again.
Over and over and over the cycle went, keeping her from falling apart, keeping her together and upright. Her knuckles were burning, her breathing was irregular, and her arms felt heavy; but still she kept on swinging. It was all she felt she could do right now, it was all she could do when her mind was running a mile a minute and all she wanted to do was collapse and cry and throw a fit because life wasn’t fair, because people – her friends – weren’t alive when they deserved to be.
She couldn’t do that, she couldn’t act like a child, life wasn’t fair and as an adult she had to accept that. But that didn’t make the desire to scream and cry go away. She wanted Trip to be alive and making jokes, she wanted Fitz to be able to look at her again for more than a half second, and sometimes she even wanted Ward back and how safe he could make her feel. Things were so much simpler before Hydra.
She could feel herself becoming angrier with ever hit. She could feel the rage and sadness she had been keeping down for days surging inside, trying to escape. She could scream, just once, just a little cry – no one was around to hear her. May and Skye were out grocery shopping, it was the first time Skye had left the Playground since they went dark after San Juan. Fitz was probably with Mack in the garage, far away from her place in the training room. Bobbi and Hunter were somewhere, she didn’t know exactly where but probably not anywhere close to her. None of the other agents around would notice or care, they would probably just think someone made a mistake while training. That left Coulson in his office, just up the stairs from where she was. He could hear her, if he wanted to. The Director had other things to focus on, things that weren’t her, things that were never her.
She threw one last punch and let out a shout of frustration. Her fist connected to the leather and she recoiled as pain shot down her arm. In her loss of concentration she had forgotten to keep her thumb on the outside of her fist.
“Ah!” she shouted in pain, cradling her now injured hand in her other hand. She flexed her fingers gently to make sure she hadn’t broken her thumb or caused any other injuries. Her thumb wasn’t broken, just sore, but her knuckles were ripped from the last 15 minutes she had spent on the punching bag. The first aid kit was across room, but she really didn’t want to use anything to ease the pain right now. The pain from her hand was keeping her from focusing on everything else was feeling.
“Simmons?” she heard Coulson call her name from the doorway. Her back tensed, he must have been in the kitchen and not up in his office like she had thought. She turned around, hiding her hands behind her back.
“Sir,” she greeted him, smiling to hide the pain she was in.
“Are you ok? I heard…” he trailed off as he noticed her hands hidden behind her back. His eyes flicked from her hidden arms to her pained smile. “What happened to your hand?”
“Nothing. Why would you think anything was wrong?”
Coulson raised an eyebrow, and she sighed.
“I forgot to keep my thumb outside of my fist,” she said, moving her arm to hold her hand out to him. He came forward and took it gently between his hands. He ran his fingers over her thumb a few times.
“Does that hurt?” he asked. She shook her head and he nodded. “You should ice that tonight – if it still hurts – so it doesn’t swell overnight.”
He ran his hands over the irritated and torn skin on her knuckles, but didn’t say anything. Knuckle burns were common enough, even with wrapping your hands correctly, they only depended on how you punched. And since she wasn’t an experienced fighter, and had no physical training, he knew that they were caused from not punching the bag correctly.
“I was working on trying to defend myself,” she blurted out. She saw a look of shock cross Coulson’s face for half a second before turning into concern. “I’m the only one who can’t defend herself, and I’m sick of feeling weak and useless now.”
“You’re not –”
“I am.” She looked at Coulson with a steely resolve, and he sighed.
“Why didn’t you ask for help?”
“I didn’t want to worry anyone.”
“You wouldn’t have worried any of us,” he said as he shrugged off his jacket. “With our line of work it makes sense, you could have asked May to train you. Or you could have always asked me for help. I’m not too busy that I can’t make time to help you with that.”
“Sir, that’s not really –”
“Really what? Appropriate? Necessary?”
“It’s not that, it’s just that –”
“If you don’t want my help, I’ll leave.”
Jemma nodded. “It’s not that I don’t want your help, sir, it’s just that I know you’re busy and don’t have a lot of time even for yourself, and so is May. Its fine, really, I can do it on my own.”
Coulson sighed and walked over to the chair across the room. He set his jacket down on it and turned back to her.
“I always have time for you, you only need to ask.” Jemma smiled sadly. “What do you want to learn, getting away or just how to defend yourself?”
“A little bit of both, actually.”
“May will be better to learn from for getting away, you’re both similar heights, and she’s better with that area. But I can walk you through a move May used to use on me during our sparring sessions at the Academy.” And he started walking her through what to do, it was rather simple, but she hadn’t had anyone to practice on. When he was done instructing her on the basics of what to do, he walked around her back and placed his arms around her middle, crushing her right arm to her side while leaving her left free.
“On my mark, do as I told you, if you do it right you’ll be out of this lock in seconds,” he said as he tightened his hold around her middle. “Ok…. now!”
She pulled her elbow back, like he instructed her, and slammed it right into his face. It took her a moment to process what happened, Coulson didn’t really cry out in pain, he more grunted and staggered back a few paces, letting her go in the process. But when Jemma turned around she saw the blood gushing from his nose.
“Sir!” she cried as she rushed forward. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to – I was just doing as you said and the – Let me grab a first aid –”
Coulson’s hand came up quickly, halting her speech. His other hand coming up to his nose and squeezing the tip as he tipped his head forward slightly. He held the position for a minute, his raised hand not falling and Jemma not saying anything until he stood upright again. He smiled at her.
“You did good, now hit me again.”
“Excuse me, what?”
“Hit me again. You wanted to learn self-defense, well escaping is only half of it, and in all honesty you have that down; being able to damage your opponent is the other half.” Coulson grabbed her hands and folded them into proper fists. “These are weapons as much as any gun, or knife…. or May’s thighs. The more you make me bleed – the more you hurt me – the more I’ll know that you can take care of yourself. So hit me again.”
She stared at him flabbergasted, her hands were still being held by Coulson’s own wrapped around her wrist. She pulled them away, and threw a punch into Coulson’s abdomen. Then another, and another, and then another. After a few that was all she could think about, and she kept punching.
She could hear Coulson handing out advice to her. To keep her thumb on the outside of her fist, to keep her arms up, to force all her weight into the punch – not just some. She could hear it, she was following it, but all she wanted to do was collapse, months of wanting to cry but never allowing herself to because she could be strong. She wasn’t strong, she could feel the tears finally starting for real this time. She couldn’t stop them now. She threw one last half-hearted punch before falling to her knees and allowing the dam to burst.
Months of repressed tears started to fall in earnest. Months of anger and sadness coming to a burst and overflowing. Ward’s betrayal, Fitz’s condition, her own stress… all that she had been sitting on, trying to keep inside just came flooding out. She felt Coulson move next to her. He placed his arms around her shoulders and cradled her head to his side. She let out a sob and pressed her face into his bloody shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Coulson rubbed her arm as he spoke, “I know that maybe we all aren’t as close as we used to be when it was just all of us on the Bus, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t care about each other still. And I know I’ve been busy, and I am keeping a certain distance now, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t care. And Skye’s going through a lot, and May’s taking care of her but if you went to her she would be there for you in a heartbeat. And Fitz… Fitz is trying to figure himself out. I know it doesn’t seem fair but you are important to us, you always have been. You’re the only one who doesn’t contribute to my thinning hair… except for that one time you decided jumping from the plane was the best idea. But that was just as heroic as anything Captain America has done, because you were doing it to save all of us, so I can forgive that.”
Jemma let out a watery laugh as he brought a few fingers to her cheeks and wiped away her tears.
“We do care, Jemma, don’t ever think we don’t.”
“I’ve just… I’ve lost Fitz, and even Skye seems like a stranger, and I’ve never really been one for complaining and…” As she trailed off Coulson’s hand moved to her hair and brought her into him closer.
“You have to give Fitz time, I know it doesn’t seem fair, and that what you guys had should be easy to recapture,” he said as he ran his fingers through her hair, “but Fitz needs time. He just went through something that you can’t understand, even though you were there, and he needs to adjust to that. But he will come back to you. You’re his best friend, and even if you don’t share his feelings – yes, Fitz mentioned that he told you how he felt and that you never really got a chance to respond – but he will come back to you. He just needs to do it on his own time. And when he does come back, it will be just like old times again… and maybe a bit of something more.”
Jemma knew that Coulson was speaking from his experiences with May, while they never talked of the time before Bahrain, or Bahrain itself, she knew that their relationship had been different then. And from Skye she knew that things had been said afterwards, but neither of them knew what or had any guesses, now she had a pretty big one but she wouldn’t tell Skye. May and Coulson would figure out their own way and would tell them when they were ready.
“Coulson! May wouldn’t let me get Oreos!” Skye bellowed across the Playground, interrupting her line of thought. Coulson sighed and rolled his eyes. He moved his hand from her hair and held it out for her as he stood up. She wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks and took the help up. She stumbled a little as she stood up, her feet unsteady after sitting for so long, his other hand moved to her shoulder to steady her a little before he smiled and went to grab his jacket from the chair he had placed it on, and headed back to the Playground’s kitchen.
When they entered May and Skye were unpacking the few groceries they had needed to get, and Skye looked happier than she had seen her look in weeks. Skye smiled when they entered and bounded over with a separate bag.
“May wouldn’t let me get Oreos, but she did allow frosted animal crackers, because they’re so much healthier” Skye laughed. Jemma could see May roll her eyes as she put away the last of the lettuce.
“I didn’t say they were healthier, just that I’m tired of stealing Oreos when I have a sweet tooth,” May shrugged, throwing the last bag into the cupboard under the cutting board.
“I knew that was you, you’re the only one who knows where my hiding spot is,” Coulson said as he joined May over by the kitchen island. She smiled mischievously at him and quirked an eyebrow.
“Honestly, Phil, the bottom drawer in your desk is not the most subtle hiding spot”
“It’s better than the shoebox under your bedside table – and yes, I know exactly what is in there.”
Skye and Jemma shared a look before they both started to giggle at their bickering over who had better hiding spots. They both knew May had a stash of Belgian chocolate that Coulson hadn’t found in the cupboard above the refrigerator. May used to give them some before Jemma left for Hydra when Coulson was running around recruiting former agents. Skye looked back at them as their arguing was tapering off and their faces had softened.
“Ugh, can you two get a room and stop undressing each other with your eyes, there are children in here,” Skye said laughing as she covered Jemma’s eyes. Jemma ducked out from under her hands.
“I’m older than you, thank you very much.”
Skye snorted. “Yeah, but you don’t look it.”
Jemma stuck her tongue out at her.
“If we were to go ‘get a room’ we’d be doing a lot more than undressing each other with our eyes,” May said as she walked past them. Both Jemma and Skye’s jaws dropped as they looked at each other. Barely believing that the ever silent Melinda May had actually just said that. Coulson quietly started to follow her out of the room. Jemma saw Skye snap out of her shock a little as he moved closer to them.
“Hey, Coulson, how’d you get all that blood on your shirt?” Jemma stiffened at Skye’s question. She shook her head as Coulson’s eyes flicked over to her. She wasn’t ready for Skye to know about her trying to defend herself, she was lucky that Skye hadn’t notice how red her eyes were yet. Coulson smiled and looked back at Skye.
“I was bored so I decided to shoot a few hoops, the ball hit me in the face and I didn’t have a chance to clean up.”
“Oh, well you should clean up, it looks like my crazy sperm donor knocked you around again,” Skye said as she hopped off of the table and started heading to the counter. Coulson and Jemma smiled as she started to shuffle through that cupboard, looking for any candy that had survived Hunter’s appetite.
“Thank you,” Jemma mouthed to him as they shared a look. He smiled and nodded, and headed out, the bag of frosted animal crackers in his hand. She didn’t feel so alone anymore, she felt better than she had in months really. She felt good enough to really laugh when Skye hit her head on the cupboard as she extracted a Snickers bar from the very back of the cupboard, and that was good enough for her.