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After a fairly exhausting artifact extraction in Boston, Grant, Skye, and Fitz were all settled around a table nursing their wounds and reviewing the information they'd picked up. Skye was disinfecting a gravel filled scrape along Fitz' right arm while he gripped the neck of a beer bottle and tried not to grimace. She was doing her best but was distracted by the conversation she was trying to have with Grant while he perused a file over a cup of coffee.
"Oh come on! I don't see why we can't have a dog on board. Even a small one. A dog would be good for morale. I'd feed it and Fitz could make it a dog treadmill for walks!" she wheedled as she cleaned a pair of tweezers. Grant shook his head and sat back, smirking at the clearly distressed engineer currently bleeding onto a dish towel Simmons had given them before locking herself in the lab to take a crack at a sample Grant had taken along with the box it was from. She was muttering about contamination in Boston Harbor and how it might have compromised the container of the artifact inside and nobody thought it best to stop her. She could be frightening when she put her mind to something and Fitz had needed cleaning up so he couldn't join her. Skye had a surprisingly steady hand when it came to field medicine so she was left to patching him up and neither of them had complained. Privately, Grant thought that Fitz would be less of a frenetic pain in the ass if Skye was interested in him, and all signs were pointing to her being very interested indeed.
"We don't need a dog. We have Fitz. He's really all the dog we need right now. We have to remind him to eat and practically throw him out of the lab so he doesn't atrophy." Fitz snarled at Grant who just smiled and took a sip of his coffee. A loud crash followed by a torrent of words came from the lab.
"Chèvre putain de fils d'une prostituée malade! Now I have to bloody well start all over again! This is ridiculous!" yelled a supremely annoyed Jemma Simmons. Grant blinked, coughed, and sprayed coffee all over the files he'd been reading and the table they'd been on. He turned a curious shade of red and was attracting stares from both Skye and Fitz. "Okay, Captain Composure. What the hell just happened?" Skye inquired as Fitz looked at the gravel she'd removed from the gash marring his arm.
"She, I, ummm. Hey Fitz? Does Simmons always do that when she's angry?" asked Grant, still red as he mopped up the coffee with a napkin. Fitz just nodded and waved him off with his good arm toward the lab while Skye bandaged him up. She was smiling, it had made her day to see the unflappable agent so clearly ruffled.
"Yes, she does. I however, am drawers at French so I can't understand what she's saying. It usually means something just went pear shaped in a monumental fashion. Go see if she's broken anything important. She tends to throw things when this happens so i'm not going in there." Grant rolled his eyes, finished mopping up the coffee, and tentatively made his way over to the lab where a fuming Simmons was cleaning up the remains of a beaker on the floor, surrounded by what looked like smoke. Skye murmured something to Fitz about Grant not standing a chance and the tone of Fitz' reply indicated something lewd. The pair walked off, sniggering to themselves. He checked his shirt for coffee stains, blood, and whatever detritus may have been left over from tearing through the Harborwalk and knocked. It hadn't gotten past him just how attractive Jemma Simmons was, even with Fitz in close proximity to her most of the time. It wasn't the most professional thought, but he quite admired her brilliant mind and the fact that the mind was accompanied by the rest of her made him unsure how to move forward.
"Simmons? Can I come in? I won't ask if everything is okay because it clearly isn't but i'd like to help." It was a reasonably convincing lie, he thought as she jammed her thumb onto the button that unlocked the door. He could see why Fitz had sent him in; had he known the generally chirpy and pleasant bio-chemist could look so thunderously angry he would have called in a platoon, dogs, a lion, and Captain America to back him up. Waves of intense annoyance were radiating off of her and he almost backed out the door again.
"As indicated, no. Nothing is okay right now. If you want to help, you can start by taking apart that table over there." Jemma pointed a finger at a table with a charred and smoking hole through the bottom of it. Grant complied and grabbed one of Fitz' many screwdrivers from the engineer's side of the lab, getting onto his knees, careful to avoid the blackened and melting polymer dripping from the edges of the now useless table.
"I won't ask how it happened but I will ask why there appears to be a hole in the floor and just how you learned to swear like that. There's coffee all over the table in the other room now. To say that i'm surprised would be an understatement. Fitz and Skye are going to grill me on just what you said later on, I can feel it." One table leg folded in, and Jemma's cheeks turned a shade of pink Grant thought very attractive.
"Six languages" She breathed, agitation forming lines to mar her pale forehead under her goggles. "Right. I'd be correct in assuming one of them is certainly French wouldn't I?" The larger shards of the beaker were safely disposed of and she looked to Grant with a sheepish grin gracing her lips, searching his face for signs of disapproval that weren't in any way evident. "You would. I met a Navy officer just out of the service once, i'd been sent out to detain him for selling government secrets. The mouth on him was nothing compared to yours." He smiled and collapsed the other two table legs, enjoying the play of expressions across her face and the fascinating way her bangs cast a shadow along her cheeks. Jemma Simmons was one surprise after another.
"Since you now know I have a rather bad mouth when i'm annoyed, I think you can call me Jemma. There's no need to be so professional all the time."
"Since i'm smart enough to know that you say things like Goat Fucking Son of a Diseased Whore, when you're annoyed and can appreciate it, you can call me Grant."
The sharp and acrid smell of the temporarily forgotten burning carpet and rubber snapped them both back to attention. Grant looked in alarm to the smoking hole in the carpet, then to Jemma who leapt up and grabbed a fire extinguisher and an alarmingly yellow tube of gel.
"What was in that beaker?" Grant coughed as the fire extinguisher belched and sputtered white foam over the hole. "The compound in the case surrounding the artifact. It was corrosive. The harbor ate through some of the shielding and it had a bad reaction with the chemical I was using to try cleaning it up. Hence the swearing, smoking carpet, and this stuff." Jemma waved the yellow goo and poured it into the hole left by the acid. It sealed up almost immediately but sadly didn't do anything for the smell. She sat back on the floor with a sigh of relief, pulled off her goggles, and peeled back the blue gloves she'd been wearing with a hiss. An ugly, and raw red welt was forming on the back of her left hand between her thumb and forefinger.
"Damn, I didn't notice earlier." she murmured, turning her hand to view the patch of skin from different angles. Grant, who'd been kneeling down with the screwdriver, dropped it and leaned in to examine the severity, trying hard not to allow the proximity to his very pretty co-worker distract him from what might be a rather problematic injury. He gently took her hand into his and peered closely at the puckered and oozing flesh. It didn't look deadly but it certainly looked painful, she winced and he let go, hoping he hadn't been too rough. She was making him nervous, and nervous didn't quite suit him. he'd have to distract her from it, in case she'd noticed.
"Well Jemma, there's nothing to be done for it. I'm going to have to chop off your hand." Peals of laughter emanated from the biochemist and she put on her best expression of intense concern, swooning dramatically on the ground and pressing her arm to her forehead. "Will it hurt terribly? I simply cannot abide pain." Grant stood, walked over to the wall and picked up what appeared to be a bone saw from a rack of rather deadly looking instruments Jemma used on a regular basis and waved it around in an arc.
"It will be absolutely unbearable. If you can remain conscious, I will find you a lollipop. One of those rainbow ones that have kids bouncing off the walls for days." He helped Jemma to her feet and she playfully elbowed him in the ribs on her way to the sink. He watched her turn on the cold water and her shoulders relaxed as the water ran over the skin. He wanted to be more helpful but he was finding more and more that any excuse to just look at her was fine by him. Among many other things, she could read minds too.
"Can you go over to the first aid kit, and grab some gauze, a bandage, the medical tape, and the tube labelled In Case of Accidents please?" He looked around and spotted a gray case with a red cross on it. After rummaging for a bit he found what she needed and walked it over to her.
"Unless you can apply medical aid with one hand, how about you let me do this for you? " The difference in their heights became apparent when Jemma offered her hand up to him and clenched the other around the edge of the countertop. Grant concentrated on applying the substance in the tube generously over the welt, and gently pressing the bandage and tape over it. Diffusing bombs was much easier than this.
In his effort to not look at her, Jemma was taking the opportunity to give him a very thorough examination. She quite enjoyed having Grant around in a non-mission capacity. His sense of humor had proven very helpful, and he was of course utterly spectacular to look at. He was different from Fitz in every way and she was fascinated by how quickly his demeanor could change. His talent with his hands was also something to ponder and swallowing the desire to push him against the counter and kiss him was taking up all of her better judgement. Such a pity, perhaps with a bit more time. She had noticed him looking after all, he'd been less than subtle and his willingness to speak with her had been an indicator right along side it being him who came in to check after her well being. When he finished, he finally caught her gaze and the corner of his mouth turned up in a knee weakening smile.
"Well, you've been a wonderful patient. I'll see what I can do about that lollipop." Grant stepped back and allowed her a little more breathing room. Jemma shook her head, only just managing to make words come out with her hand still in his. "I actually can't abide lollipops, too much sugar. I think we're staying in the area for the night, so how does a drink sound instead?" Grant nodded, and lightly pulled her away from the edge of the countertop, not wanting to think too hard about putting her on top of it. Drinks far away from the Bus sounded like just what they needed, it could make things worse but it could make things better too.
"Considering the day we've had, drinks sound perfect. I think I saw a few places before I hit the water. I don't think Fury can give us flack for taking a break. If you want to take a crack at this again, i'll help you out until your hand heals up. Omni-disciplinary top field agent Grant Ward has a nice ring to it." Jemma led him out the door and stopped, openly staring at him now, letting go of his hand to turn him in a circle. She stopped him, pressing both hands to his shoulders, and giving him the single dirtiest smile he'd thought possible for a woman to possess.
"Yes, I think you'd look good in or out of a lab coat. Time will tell. Now this stings like a bitch, if we're getting drinks, they have to be strong." Slightly dumbstruck, Grant just nodded. He'd follow the surprisingly filthy and exquisite Jemma Simmons anywhere she wanted to take him, protocol be damned.