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For the record, most bad ideas had between Fitzsimmons were usually the fault of Fitz. This was noted and kept on file for future reference. How this applied to Coulson's idea of team bonding through paintball was frankly an exercise in contained madness. It was non-lethal, allowed the team as a unit to practice their marksmanship and relieved any tension that would have built in the course of daily living. Though perhaps Fitz being allowed to modify the guns under Coulson's supervision had been ill advised. Each player had been given a thin layer of body armor, designed to take the brunt of the impact to put under their clothes.
Ward, and Melinda were only allowed in during the last five minutes of play and they weren't allowed to form a team. Fitz had taken to hiding in the rafters with orange and green splotches covering his stomach and chest. Skye who had fared slightly better with orange and purple splattered along her sides was holed up under a table, and Jemma had pink and orange paint in her hair and down her shoulders. Helmets had been optional and she had planned to hide thoroughly enough that she'd only be able to shoot and not be shot at. It'd been unsuccessful.
The initial plan was for Fitzsimmons to take out Skye but apparently Grant's training had left an impact. Her marksmanship wasn't great but it was certainly better than theirs. The duumvirate opted to split up and Fitz in a show on good sportsmanship and the desire to spend more time with his lovely co-worker requested that they tag team Jemma, whom he'd insisted could be very sneaky indeed.
That had been 15 minutes ago, Grant and Melinda were about to be deployed with their blue and red paint respectively. Grant's idea was of course naturally to take out Fitz first solely because he had lost the TV remote, and Skye second to see how effective he was as a teacher. Jemma he'd leave for last because he had a hard time reading her and something about the friendliness of her demeanor and the sharpness of her wit made him less likely to focus on anything potentially beneficial when it came to information.
Melinda wanted to get Skye first, hoping that she'd be able to steal the girl from Grant and train her more efficiently. The easiest way was simply to tag her twice in the chest, and let her decide from there. Jemma second, because in her head she'd decided that Jemma was a good deal more pragmatic and ruthless than Fitz and could make a decent field agent should she ever have the desire, and Fitz last because frankly, she found him funny and it'd be a shame to cut his good natured ribbing short.
Jemma was lying flat under a cave-like wedge of boxes that Coulson had set up as cover in the warehouse made ready for the Bus the previous evening. She knew Fitz kept off the ground, and he'd be easy enough. One clear headshot and he'd be out. Skye wouldn't be much of a problem either since Fitz couldn't resist getting her attention and both the senior field agents wanted a piece of her. Letting them discover her was not an option and quite frankly, she wanted a shot at Grant. The way he'd been scrutinizing her lately was confusing, and the intensity of his stares when he didn't think she was looking had convinced Fitz that he was attracted to her. She didn't want to dwell on it because she was attracted to Grant in all of his stiffness, and prickly demeanor. He wasn't like that all the time, it was just about getting him to relax, he had a wonderful smile when he was relaxed.
Taking on The Cavalry was not an option. Jemma feared and respected Melinda far too much to consider aiming anything at her for fear of seeming impudent and foolish. So she hid, listening to the soft pop of paintballs hitting various surfaces and the thump of Fitz falling from of the rafters and out of play. He was rather loud and currently swearing violently as he crawled out of the lined pit, devised this morning. Unable to see him, she could only assume it had been Grant. They were antagonistic on their best days but she could tell that they'd be friends eventually.
That only left Skye, and a creak about 10 yards off, accompanied by a flash of red sneakers indicated that she wasn't far away and that remaining quiet would be the best option.
"Jemma, I know you're here. Make it easy on yourself and just come out. We both know neither of us will win so let me get another shot or two in and we'll just give ourselves up to Melinda. She'll have probably taken out Grant by now." Skye had surprised Jemma with her assumption that she'd be taken so passively. The gaul of the assumption was almost enough to bring Jemma out of hiding and cover the girl in green paint. If she couldn't win, she could come in third.
"Okay, fine. I get it. That was low. I'm going to take my shoes off now and then you won't be able to hear me coming. You can't be far off and I had a lot of time to look around." The rustle of fabric and a frustrated groan indicated a struggle and then Skye's bright red shoes went flying. A show of good faith, but not good enough. Jemma wanted Skye out of play, and it had to be done quickly.
"Thank you, but still. I'd rather not. I'm offended by your assumption that i'd go quietly!" called Jemma from her still undiscovered hiding spot. She could see Melinda take up Fitz' first spot atop a pile of crates, and the lack of Grant was unnerving. Blood started pounding in her ears, and had she not known better she'd have assumed it was loud enough for the whole warehouse to hear. She did not want Grant Ward to come after her.
A strange sliding noise indicated the presence of Grant about 50 feet away, he had jumped from the nose of the Bus and slid across the floor to land parallel to Jemma in the space between two of the bottom crates in a pyramid. From what Jemma could tell of his expression, he was scanning everything at eye level. This prompted the spotting of Skye's shoes, the brashness of the ploy had gotten his attention and he stood. Walking forward about 30 feet, and taking cover behind a shipping box, he appeared to see Skye and Jemma felt her heart stop. Skye was standing right atop her little cave. Rolling onto her side and looking up, she could tell that Skye had yet to spot Grant and Jemma quietly turned over again to look at him.
He had seen her and Jemma knew this because he had just thrown a two finger salute her way and placed his index finger over his lips. That had sufficiently thrown Jemma off enough to mutter a perplexed "What?" from her hiding spot. The utterance caught Skye's attention and she peered down through the cracks in the boxes.
"Well aren't you clever. You've done well to get this far. Have fun in four- Shit!" Skye toppled over off of the box pyramid with blue paint in her helmet right where the space between her eyes would be, and two red paint stains just above the pocket she kept her phone in on her vest. Melinda had grown impatient and Grant just wanted to teach her a lesson in humility. Jemma stifled a giggle as Grant jogged over and offered his hand.
"Melinda got annoyed, so I guess it's just us now. My advice would be to trust me, get out of there, and run!" Jemma didn't need telling twice, especially when a flurry of red paintballs narrowly missed Grant and hit the wood above Jemma. She scrambled out, grabbed his hand and they took off running.
"Should I ask why you opted for chivalry, when you had a clear shot at me?" Jemma asked, as he stopped short, and tugged her into a narrow space between two large rows of crates by the tail end of the Bus. Grant hadn't let go of her hand yet and the burst of adrenaline had him grinning like an excited child, so she didn't point it out and his hand was warm and surprisingly soft for someone in such an unpleasant line of work so she wasn't going to pull away either.
"You surprised me. You chose to go and stay out on your own once Fitz decided Skye would be a better option. It's rare to see you without each other and Skye is good enough already to know that i'd come after her first. Besides, she needed a lesson. I wouldn't have taken you for the going quietly type at all." He peered out for about five seconds and ducked back in with a sigh. "Any sign of Melinda? Thinking you were after me was bad enough. She's way scarier." Jemma started to shake, the running had taken it's toll and she wasn't much for physical activity. The close proximity to Grant's almost abnormally well sculpted chest was also making her uncomfortable. She was almost certain that under his shirt she'd be able to view and label each muscle group with ease. Sadly, she'd yet to catch him sans shirt and it had her more than a little disappointed.
Grant peered down at her and his expression was a mix of the adrenaline fueled smile and that intense look Fitz had described as weird, and broody enough to make him look kinda dumb. "Well, i'll just have to learn to be scarier in future if I decide to come after you. As for Melinda, no. But that's exactly the problem. I'd say keep moving but I know scientists don't run track for fun." Jemma nodded and mentally kicked herself, she hoped she hadn't offended him. He hadn't sounded offended but her mouth got away from her sometimes. "It's not that you aren't scary, you're incredibly scary. Intimidating I mean, you're intimidating. You're tall and you carry a gun, and you've been known to break other people's limbs. Besides, I've made a habit not to trust people I could look at naked and accurately label without a chart." That had been a bad decision. The lighting between the crates wasn't ideal but she could tell he was blushing and the rise and fall of his chest had increased.
"And here I thought you didn't like me. Is picturing everyone naked a habit of yours Doctor Simmons? Or am I just very lucky?" If the ground could swallow Jemma and her paintball gun, she'd very much appreciate it. "No, yes. Damn. What I meant is that you're hard to miss. You're hard to miss and hard to get to know. It makes you a bit of a puzzle to me, and Agent Ward, i'm known for my tendency to solve puzzles very, very thoroughly." Going for broke and attempting to climb him like a ladder would be ill advised but damned if it wasn't the best line of thought to recently cross her very busy mind. He gripped her hand tighter and brushed his thumb along her knuckles, looking down at his feet in a mock showing of shyness.
"Well then. Any time you decide you want a challenge, i'll let you solve me. I don't know much about you independently of Fitz and that's a huge and disappointing oversight." His hand let go of hers and moved up to settle lightly on her shoulder, twining her fingers in her hair. Jemma had opted for no helmet as she hadn't planned to be shot in the head, she was silently thanking her ability to plan ahead for this fortuitous decision. It wasn't a grand gesture but in such a small space it was both attention grabbing, and sending small shockwaves down her shoulder and through her arm. What could only be described as nerves caused her hand to jerk and fire off the gun, the paint splashed around their ankles and a low rumble of laughter from Grant indicated that he wasn't too bothered by her sudden bout of nerves. The desire to bite his irritatingly perfect shoulders was currently at the forefront of her mind but his hand had wandered up from her shoulder to her cheek and it was the most distracting thing she'd ever encountered.
"Well Agent Ward, we can forfeit the game to Agent May by staying here and you can let me show you exactly what I want you to do with your hands, or we can find her, I can lose horribly, and let you ice down whatever bruises i'm undoubtedly developing." If her total lack of a brain to mouth filter hadn't gotten her into trouble before, it certainly had now as Grant had dropped his gun, bent down, tangled one hand in her hair, clamping his other arm firmly around her waist, and kissed her, pressing her back against the coarse sides of the crate. Not one to allow for anything but equality, Jemma slid her hands up over his chest and braced them against his shoulders, doing her level best to stay quiet. It was proving exceptionally difficult seeing as his teeth had just grazed her lower lip and she thought her knees would give out. They were so pre-occupied with seeing who could get Jemma up and wrapped around Grant's hips faster that neither of them had heard The Cavalry drop down from above them and lean against the entrance to their admittedly poor hiding spot.
"Or I could just shoot you both, win, and let you get back to whatever this is. Fitz is in the shower and Skye is cleaning paint out of her phone. Coulson got bored after you two took off and I decided to have a little fun." Jemma had absolutely no desire to move from where she was and Grant didn't seem inclined to allow her to move anywhere but closer to him, not that it would be possible anyway. He made a shooing motion with his hand and Jemma pressed her forehead into his shoulder, her cheeks burning. Melinda smirked, whipped out her phone, snapped a picture, and shot them both at close range. Grant in the ribs and Jemma in the thigh. She hissed in pain and every muscle in his body tensed, but the proximity to each other and the overwhelming desire get back to the business at hand dulled the pain.
"I'll leave you to it, but i'm keeping the picture as evidence that team building exercises really do work. Coulson will be thrilled. I owe him money." She waved, and strode off, whistling. The end of the statement shocked Grant enough for him to pull back slightly from Jemma's neck and swear quietly. "They were taking bets? That's just not right." Jemma tightened her legs around him and let her fingers drift down to his arm, allowing her nails to dig in just slightly. "Grant?" she said sweetly. "If you don't keep kissing me i'm going to pick up my gun and empty the clip into your groin." He did so with enthusiasm, shifting his hips up to allow her more room to lean back. Team building was a beautiful thing.
"Yes, ma'am."