(no subject)

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma Simmons is honored, really, to be called on-site. She's excited about being in a field lab for a couple days (a field lab that's heavily guarded, far away from anything exciting).

She isn't so thrilled about the overnight flight to get there, no. Thus, it's a bleary-eyed Simmons who stops at the bar and tries to decide what to get.

Comments

[runningred]

"You look worn out, Jem." Jay calls from a nearby table. "I'd offer you a beer but you look like you need coffee and lots of it."

[protect_and_survey]

"Flattering." She grins wryly, giving up on ordering for the moment and heading to Jay's table instead, helping herself to a seat.

[runningred]

He waves over a rat, laughing at her warmly. "Jemma Simmons. You are beautiful, talented and clearly very tired. Let me buy you a drink?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Now you're just being ridiculous. But yes, you may." She informs him, propping her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands. "I've developed a dislike for red-eye flights."

[runningred]

"Ah! Yep, red-eye flights are a special kinda hell. Unless you can fly first class. Come 'ere."

He turns her chair so she's facing away from him and starts massaging her shoulders. He's got strong but gentle hands and is very, very good at this.

[protect_and_survey]

Her muscles are a tight knotted mess - the flight was just the cherry on top of a long week spent arguing with the team she's been sent to help, trying to fix their problem from across the country when no one could seem to adequately describe the problem in the first place.

Jemma's been a frustrated researcher, yes.

It's visible when the endorphins hit, taking the starch out of her posture, dulling her normal frenetic energy. Too much of that and she's going to be asleep at the table.

[runningred]

Jay's more than happy to keep going till the kinks in her shoulders and neck are good and relaxed. He pulls her back gently, resting her against his chest in an embrace as he works down her arms and hands.

[protect_and_survey]

"You are... really really good at this." She informs him drowsily. She wonders, idly, what would happen if she tried to advocate for a masseuse on the lab staff.

Mostly a lot of laughing, she'd bet.

[runningred]

"Thank you." Jay kisses her shoulder softly, working thought the pressure points in her hands. "Physical therapy was part of my training."

[cutting_edgex23]

X looks at Jemma from a seat farther down the bar, head tilting very slightly.

Then, because of the bleary-eyed --

"You are okay?"

[protect_and_survey]

"What?" She starts, blinks, and gives herself a bit of a shake once she realizes she was drifting a bit, there. "Oh, sorry, hullo, no, I'm fine, just... long flight."

[cutting_edgex23]

X blinks. Twice.

"I have not come here from an airplane. Before."

Beat.

"You did?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, no, the airport - I have a two-hour layover until the next flight." She's really not looking forward to the next flight - evidently the plane is a bit... tiny.

[cutting_edgex23]

"Oh."

X absorbs that.

Then --

"I am allowed to ask? Where you are going."

[protect_and_survey]

"Um... I don't know?" She knows Agent Barton and AD Hill have talked to X, but she has no idea what to what extent she's been let on what SHIELD is and does.

"It's not terribly exciting, all things considered - I'm not field certified, so the lab is fairly well removed from... everything, and under heavy guard."

[cutting_edgex23]

"Okay."

X frowns a little, though.

"People will be trying to kill you? On your -- "

Will mission be a problematic word to use her? X ventures to say 'yes'.

" -- job."

[protect_and_survey]

"Probably not." Her grin is wry. "The most exciting bit of this will probably be trying to adjust to a different time zone."

[starrydome]

Elrond has just ordered tea and smiles, when he sees her. Then he cants his head a little.
"Are you unwell, Jemma?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Lord Elrond!" She brightens precipitously. "No, I'm fine, really, just tired - I'm on assignment, sort of. I've been moved temporarily to a satellite laboratory, and there was a bit of a rush."

[starrydome]

"Have you arrived?" he asks.
"Sudden departures tend to leave one a bit rootless for a while after, I find."

He's had plenty of those.

[protect_and_survey]

"Most of the way there. There's a..." How does one explain 'layover' to someone who's never seen a plane? "It goes by stages?"

[starrydome]

"Ah," he says.
Having one's journey interrupted at intervals is of course something he understands.
He smiles and says, "I should think it is not because your horses need sleep?"

To someone who travel by horse, feet, cart, or boat (and once or twice - gloriously - by eagle) the idea of uninterrupted travel would likely be more novel.

"How do you travel?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Err." Look, she's already had the experience of lying to Elrond, it's not something she cares to repeat (ever). This would be so much easier if Fitz were here.

"So there is a ship... a whole fleet of ships, that fly."

[starrydome]

He cants his head a little.
"A starship or a - plane?"

Milliways has a library. Elrond is partly Noldo. After he was done about reading about printing presses, he's branched out.

[protect_and_survey]

"Yes, a plane." There's clear relief that he's heard of these before, and she doesn't have to try and explain the whole thing. "A couple planes, actually - the next one is supposed to be a bit... tiny."

She's offered to drive, but unsurprisingly that was turned down. Emphatically.