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They hadn’t spoken in a week. The length of time wasn’t unprecedented, but they hadn’t actual met in over a year. Not in person at least. Plenty of times in their dreams, and they talked like all the time. Well, not the all the time since they hadn’t spoken in a week, but still, it felt like a lot of time. Their lack of contact wasn’t by choice, but their lives diverged almost as quickly as they converged. It neither diminished nor deterred their romance. They were forced to utilize other methods of communications, no matter how much she might have preferred face to face interactions of the post-coital nature. But for now, they managed to be together in words (even if she wasn’t very good at it), or at least they had been until she saw her sitting there with Agents Coulson and Ward.
Jemma twisted the thumb ring on her left hand. The nervous but comforting habit focused her thoughts, but right now it only served to increase her anxiety.
“I need to speak with Agent Coulson.” Fitz stared at her, blinking in confusion. It certainly was out of the blue considering they were just talking about preparing the dwarves for their investigations.
“He’s a little busy right now it looks like.” Fitz was her oldest and dearest friend, but even he didn’t know the secret. Not that she didn’t want to share it, but the explanation always seemed unsatisfactory. Things changed, energy diverted or manipulated or transformed in some way. She’d have to tell everyone, and explain why it was hidden – an explanation she didn’t have.
“Looks like he has a moment.” Ward and Coulson stepped from the cell, leaving the prisoner alone. She left Fitz in the lab and moved quickly through the Bus, but even that wasn’t fast enough. Coulson finished conferring with Ward by the time she got up there. She waited there, and it wasn’t long before Coulson exited the cell. She gathered her nerves, because the prisoner deserved nothing less.
“Simmons?”
“Sir.” She shook herself from her thoughts, turning fully towards Coulson. “I wanted to speak with you about…about the prisoner.” He stared at her. She shifted as trying not to let her nervous through her back down to the lab. This was too important. She was too important.
“Come again?”
Simmons looked him in the eye and took a deep breath. “I have some information about her.”
“She’s not a prisoner,” Coulson said. He tilted his head in that way of his as if he was trying to hear her better. “My office?” He left without waiting for a response.
She let her feet carry her the short distance, guiding her around the holo-table and meeting areas, past the little kitchenette and the living the quarters. She tried and ultimately failed to come up with some explanation for the situation. She couldn’t and wouldn’t hide this anymore. That was the one promise she made for herself this whole thing started. Others would want an explanation she didn’t have, and although she never thought to explain her emotional attachment to others, she would have to give one.
Once inside his office, Simmons moved to stand in the center of the room. The office reflected a man in awe of the past and looking toward the future. In between the artifacts and technological advances of a bygone era, she spotted the tablets open with various information streaming through them. His desk held little Captain American mementos and trinkets on it, the things other agents talked about but never said anything to the agent. There even was a blood stained card in a frame placed on the edge of the desk. She itched to reach out and look at it, to question whether or not it was the agent’s blood, but she held back as she waited for Coulson to take charge again.
“Everything okay?” His question drew her out of her observations of the room. She turned back to him and gathered her frayed nerves.
“Sir, I understand that there is protocol that must be followed in all but an emergency and I…why was I not informed?” Simmons struggled to find the correct phrase to express herself. The question slipped out before she could stop it, but once it was there, she would not take it back. Before Coulson offered a response, she found her breath again and kept going. “It is customary that unless it is an emergency or a matter of security that spouses of those being interviewed be notified in a timely manner. Why…why are you interrogating my wife?”
The question threw Coulson from his feet. He sat heavily at his desk, staring up at her. “Your wife?” Simmons nodded and tried to rein in her emotions, but her heart kept pounding in her chest as the adrenaline coursed through her veins. “How long have you been married?”
“Two years, one month, three days, and seven – no eight hours,” Simmons said. “It is in my file.”
“No, it’s not.” Coulson finally snapped out of the stupor created from her question. He reached forward and grabbed one of the tablets on his desk and began to swipe across the screen. His fingers tapped out a rhythm upon it, and she caught enough to recognize the pattern of her name on the digital keyboard. Different packets of information flew across the screen as he worked his way through SHIELD’s servers. After what seemed like eventually, he stopped on the page that had to be her personnel file. “Huh.”
“Sir?” She took a tentative step forward. The movement drew his attention to her and before she could ask if he found it, he stood up from his desk.
“Come with me.” He strode from his office. Even if it had not been a command, she would have followed him.
Coulson headed toward the cell where her wife was being held. This certainly wasn’t how she planned for this to happen, and granted she never actually had a plan to resolve this, but Coulson’s reaction gave her no insight into how to move forward now that he knew. It wasn’t her plan to have a reunion with her wife in a cell either. But seeing her meant more than the job. This was the promise she made when they got married: if ever forced to choose between her job and her love, there was no choice, no other option.
Love was few and far for her as she blossomed into an adult, and finding it with her wife grounded her in something stronger than science. She rested against it when plagued with problems or questions she couldn’t answer, and she clung to it as struggled forward along the way. Her love was real and it was there and more important than anything in the world. It would be enough.
She followed Coulson at a steady pace, her hands coming together. She wrung the ring, twisting it along her thumb as she stopped just outside of the cell. Coulson glanced down at her hand, and she resisted the urge to hide them from his gaze. He offered what he probably thought was a comforting smile, and any other time it would have been, but right now her wife was being interrogated and it felt like she would be joining her.
Coulson opened the cell door without fanfare and directed her into it. Simmons followed silently, fighting the fear that was only surpassed by the sight of her wife seating at the table.
There she sat, perched on the edge of the table as Ward rambled on about something to do with his grandmother. The other agent stopped when they entered, freezing mid-sentence. “Sir?”
“I’ll take it from here,” Coulson stepped aside, motioning toward the door. Ward suddenly appear coherent as he stood from the desk and walked out. As she moved into the cell and Ward passed her by, she caught her wife’s brown eyes growing wide. Her voice stuck in her throat, her breath was lost. All she saw was her wife, safe and staring back at her.
“Jem?”
“Skye.” She breathed the name and her smile grew wider. Before Skye could get off of the table, Jemma reached forward to wrap her in the tightest hug she could possible give. Her arms wrapped around the younger girl, pulling her in to her orbit and refusing to let go. Skye leaned forward up and off the table and they folded together in a tangle of limbs.
“You said you were on a new mission,” Skye said into her neck. Her breath was warm but her body was even warmer. Jemma laid a kiss on her head, trying to pour as much as she could into that single movement. She wanted to kiss her on the lips, but this was good too.
“And you said you were going to stay out of trouble,” Jemma whispered back. Skye just tried to bury herself deeper in her embrace. Her neck felt damp, but she wasn’t letting go of her wife. Not now, and not ever again.
Coulson coughed, finally reminding the two of them there was someone else in the room. It should have been the signal to let go, to step back and restart the interview, but Skye only clung tighter to her. Jemma poked her in the side, getting a little squeak out of her. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
“Skye? You’re not in trouble,” Coulson added. He kept his voice soft, trying to limit the stress of the situation. For all her bluster and confidence, Skye faked her way through more social conventions and interactions than she did.
“Is Jemma?” Skye asked. She finally pulled her head out of Jemma’s neck. She didn’t let go or made a move to pull away. Jemma wrapped her arms around her waist, letting Skye rest a little more.
“No, and this interview is no longer being broadcasted,” he said. He moved the other chair, offering it to Jemma, but she stopped him.
“I’ll stand.” Jemma gently pushed Skye onto the chair. She smiled at the little, nearly inaudible whine Skye released as she sat down. She drew her hand up to Skye’s shoulder as she stepped around to face Coulson. “Not going anywhere.” She leaned down to whisper. Skye looked back up and gave her a short peck on the lips before turning back to look at Coulson.
At this point, it seemed Skye caught up with the rest of the conversation. “Wait. What? What’s going on? You were broadcasting this?”
“Closed feed for the airplane only,” Jemma answered before Coulson could. Skye settled a little in the chair. Her shoulders relaxed under Jemma’s hand. “It is how I knew you were on board.”
“Yes, I apologize,” Coulson jumped in, dragging Skye’s attention off her. “If we had known you were married and your wife was here, this night would have gone differently.”
“You mean you might not have kidnapped me out of my van?” Skye asked, now angry or at least showing it. Jemma squeezed her shoulder, trying to get to relax a little, though she didn’t know they took her out of that van. She glared at Coulson as well, and maybe made a mental note to speak with Skye later about the death trap she apparently she called home.
“Let’s start again,” Coulson said, ignoring Skye’s response and the dual glares. He slide the tablet across the table. The image showed their marriage license, their signatures glaring brightly at them. Hers a neat, elegant script along with Skye’s messy scrawl. “How did you manage to make any documentation about your marriage require a ‘level seven’ clearance?”
“So, we’re not talking about my video anymore?”
“We’ll get back to that, but right now, this is more important,” Coulson said. He leaned over and tapped the table next to the tablet. “How did you hide this?”
“Why is this more important?” Skye glanced up at her, and all she could offer was a shrug of her shoulders. She leant forward, leveeing just a little glare at Skye. “Okay, okay. I just spoofed your protocols. I couldn’t change anything about the system, which why would I? I mean, that’s a sure fire way to get caught? And all I did was make the system think our marriage certificate was a higher security level. It’s not like I stole state secrets.”
“Skye,” Jemma groaned. She caught Skye’s glance up at her, and really couldn’t help the smile at the little bit of fear in her eyes.
Coulson let out a long suffering sigh and reached to rub the bridge of his nose. “What else can you do?”
“What do you mean?” Skye asked. “I just added the clearance level to that document. I couldn’t read anything else.”
“Sir, if she had, then in all likelihood the Rising Tide would have known about it.” As soon as the sentence was out of her mouth, she knew it was the wrong thing. Skye even glanced backed at her, glaring slightly before mouthing ‘not helping.’
“You knew she was in Rising Tide?”
Skye scoffed and drew the attention off of her. “Well, duh. She’s my wife.” She shrugged her shoulders and leaned forward. “Besides, how do you think you got the information that Rising Tide was closing in on that Chitauri neural link?”
For once, Jemma silently thanked her wife for being so incredible brave and stupid at the same time. Admittedly accepting information from a perceived terror cell looked bad, but Skye only sent information regarding anything alien or dangerous, never asking for anything in return. They spent nearly a month of not speaking when Jemma first heard of her wife’s new job, and that month had been time when they could have actually met. After long rational discussions, irrational emotional outbursts, and satisfying coitus, they reached their current agreement: Skye would never place Jemma in the position to lie for her, and if she did come across anything that was dangerous, she would pass it on in hopes Jemma could share it or at least stop someone from being hurt.
“That was you?” Coulson asked. He sounded somewhere between perturbed and elated, though Jemma admittedly couldn’t make a definitive assessment given that he still had his eyes closed and hand covering most of his face. “Then what where you doing here?”
“I live in a van, and I happened to be nearby,” Skye said with a shrug. The response probably wasn’t the truth, and she’d later interrogate her wife, but for now, Jemma stared at Coulson, willing him to believe her.
“Anything else I should know about?” Coulson finally opened his eyes. “Any other dark secrets that could impact this team? Do you two have a child?”
“No, well, I haven’t had one, and I’m certainly not equipped to give one to Jemma,” Skye quipped. Even as Coulson chuckled, Jemma blushed at the implication. The topic never had come up before, and really seemed like something they should discuss. They were still young, and being in the field was dangerous. “Jem?”
“Sorry, the question caught me off guard,” she said. She gave Skye what she hoped was a gentle smile. “No. Nothing else comes to mind.”
Coulson must have accepted the statement and said, “care to explain your side of events then?”
“What else is there to say? I was there, and not the only one who was recording it today. I just made the video for the Rising Tide.”
“And hacked into our system,” Jemma added. Even if it was illegal, she kind of was proud of her.
“I posted that to youtube,” Skye said, “but yeah, definitely the hacking part.”
Coulson didn’t groan or look frustrated, but it certainly seemed to roll off him waves. He stared at them, glancing between the two of them as if trying to decipher what was to happen next. “Come with me.”
Jemma took Skye’s hand as she stood and pulled her along. No doubt May and Ward would be watching them right now, even if they weren’t in the room, but she wanted to keep Skye close. The day wasn’t over with, and she hardly expected things to run easily. There’d be more questions, and maybe some complaints, but they would deal with them. Coulson seemed won over already, and willing to work with Skye, which was nice. Better than nice, in fact, she’d go so far as to classify Coulson’s tentative approval as ‘fantastic.’
Now she just had to get through the rest of her day and then figure out a way to convince her boss that being married wasn’t a hindrance to her position on the boss but an asset. It really shouldn’t be that difficult.
I0I
“Some first mission,” Skye whispered once they were finally cocooned in her little cabin.
“No talking,” Jemma whispered back, “I have five more minutes of holding you without talking because you scared me half to death today.” She pulled her wife closer, squeezing her waist.
After Skye and Coulson shared knowledge about the "hooded hero," Jemma returned to her lab to assist Fitz and begin examining some of the wreckage. Fitz stated the need for some other source of information to be able to draw any conclusions from the security footage he recovered. He also asked for an explanation, but that certainly wasn’t the time. Then Skye returned to her van, along with Agent May, to send back her audio-survellieence recordings. That part of the mission was a success, except Mike Peterson knocked May out, kidnapped Skye, and nearly blew himself up (along with her wife).
Luckily, between her and Fitz, they managed to get a concentrated dosage of dendrotoxin to render Mike Peterson incapacitated. Ward may have fired the shot taking out Peterson, but Jemma only cared that they were able to save Skye. After checking Peterson to ensure his vitals were stable, Jemma tackle-hugged Skye there on the station floor.
After debriefing, and Skye came on board for the third time, Coulson spoke briefly with both of them about Skye coming on as a consultant for SHIELD. Her wife jumped at the opportunity, saying ‘yes’ before Coulson could finish explaining the offer. Jemma asked how the others felt about it, mainly May and Ward since she and Fitz discussed her marriage while working on the Night-Night gun (such an idiotic name). He seemed to accept it, but wanted more details once things settled down, a request she happily acquiesced to.
Now, with Skye’s meager belongs off her death trap home, Jemma took the few moments to just hold her wife. Sexy times would happen (thank God for sound-proof cabins), but this was good too.
“Five minutes up?” Skye asked, lifting her head off her shoulder. Jemma opened her eyes to glance at the digital clock Skye brought with her. It had been only three since she last spoke, but that was okay.
Jemma kissed her once long then pecked her quickly before saying, “You lasted longer than I expected.”
“Well, it’s not every day I get offered a job to work with my wife,” Skye said, once she get her breath back and laid back down. Jemma reached up and pushed some of the black strands of hair off Skye’s face. Her fingers brushed along her skin, the way Skye enjoyed non-sexually relaxing. She kept it up for a little while longer and almost drifted to sleep when Skye asked another question: “Do you think they like me?”
Jemma leaned up, just enough to catch the worry in Skye’s eyes. “Oh, sweetie.” She rolled over so she could lay completely on top of Skye. She cradled Skye’s head in her hands, her thumbs brushing her lips and cheeks. “How long has this been bugging you?”
“Since we left that room?” Skye said, the statement turning into a question. “I mean, I don’t want to cause any trouble for you, and I know I won’t be in the way or anything so -”
Jemma silenced Skye with a kiss. She pressed their bodies together, breasts rubbing against each other as Skye spread her legs to bring her closer. Her body felt alive as they kissed, lips melding as she tried to move into the same space as Skye. She held onto her head with one hand and let the other leave a trail of light touches along her exposed skin. She cupped one of her wife’s breast, her thumb rubbing the nipple that strained to be released from her flimsy tank top.
She pulled back slightly, their breathing heavy, but kept up her ministrations on that nipple. Skye eventually opened her eyes, staring up at her. “They may not know you, but they will love you. I love you. And nothing on this gorram planet is going to change that.”
“I love it when you speak Captain to me,” Skye said. She arched her back to get closer, her breaths now coming out ragged. “Less talk, more sex?”
“Talk later, love now,” Jemma corrected before returning to worshiping her wife.
There were few things more important to her than science in this world, more important than rules. Skye was one of them, and making her happy made Jemma feel like Peggy Carter. She’d conquer the world for Skye if she asked, but right now, as complied and gently continued to make love to her. The rough stuff they both enjoyed would come later. Right now, slow and steady, locked together, this was what they needed after a long winter of not being with each other.
As she dragged the hand that teased the nipple lower, Jemma let herself go to the sensation, gave into her wife. The rest of the stuff would work out fine in the end. There’d be bumps and tumbles, but Skye was here, and come hell, high water, and nightmares, nothing would stop her from holding on.