the biospecialist network

Here it is! I’m sorry, I’m super late, I hope you’ll like it though ^^” (prompts here and here)

“Stop complaining. I’m trying to save your life.”

Yes, sure, as if shecould actually believe it. The bulletwound in her leg doesn’t allow her to attempt to run, so the best that she cando is trying to crawl away from Ward, who is beginning to sound a bit pissedoff under the worried façade.

To his credit,whatever the reason for wanting to appear friendly, he’s really committed toit: the Hydra agents dead on the ground around them are his doing, even thoughthey are supposed to be his buddies, and so far the most harmful thing thathe’s done is intensifying her pain by trying to stop the bleeding.

Still, the blood losshasn’t made her fuzzy enough to forget what kind of person she’s dealing with.

“I don’t really believeyou,” she spits out, and the pain makes her sound even more aggressive than sheintended. Good.

“I’m trying to help—” he stresses. He’s crutched downin front of her and whenever she moves an inchaway from him he follows, hand steady on her wound. Jemma has no idea how badit is, if the bullet hit just flesh or if she’s about to bleed out because of asevered artery or if maybe it hit the bone instead— right now, she only knowsthat she’s in a great deal of pain, she can’t get up on her own and the onlyoffer of help available is coming from Grant Ward, which means that she’ll mostlikely turn up dead or captured if she accepts.

Bleeding out on thefloor it is, then.

“I don’t want your help,” she says, managing aweak shove at him as she tries to slip away, moved by sheer force of will.

“Dammit, Simmons— willyou stop moving?” he protests,exasperated, applying more pressure and subsequently forcing her to bite herlip to not let out a scream.

“Get away from me,”she says, not for the first time, her voice barely a pained hiss. Once again,he doesn’t comply.

“Let me help you, thenI’ll be out of your face,” he bargains. Maybe he’s hoping that being woundedhas turned her into a complete fool.

“Sure,” she scoffs,looking over his shoulder in the hopes that someonewill come for her— someone that she knows to be on her side, preferably. Afterwhat Ward pulled, there aren’t many people that she’s sure would never harm heranymore.

“I am not joining yourNazi empire,” she remarks, just in case it wasn’t clear enough. “I’d ratherdie.”

“You are not gonna die,” he immediately stresses,and, in the face of what looks like genuine panic at the thought, Jemma can’treally blame herself or anyone else on her team for falling for his act. Even now that she knows she can’t see throughit. “And that’s not why I’m helping.”

It’s the sequel to We’d be so less fragile if we were made from metal, and I honestly have no idea how much sense it will make on its own.

She wakes from a dream of fire and the world crushing on her head to Skye’s concerned face. Her hands are holding Jemma in place, delicate but strong, and her lips are moving but it takes a few extra seconds for her brain to piece together what she’s saying.

“Jemma? Hey, are you alright?”

She slowly nods, taking a sharp breath and looking around to find her room. There’s less familiarity to it than she would have liked, but she can see that it’s hers because of the books lined up on the shelves, and the clothes hanging by the chair, clothes that are unmistakeably hers.

“It was just a bad dream,” she assures, her smile coming strained as her eyes turn back to Skye’s face. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“No need to apologize,” Skye smiles, but it looks odd because the concern is not gone from her face yet. “You need anything?”

“No,” she answers, quickly. It’s a lie. “No, I’m alright.”

“I’ll stay for a while,” Skye volunteers, and Jemma has to stop herself from answering too harshly, because that— that is the last thing she needs right now.

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather be alone,” she says, an apologetic smile on her face. It quivers a bit as Skye’s face falls and a rush of guilt twists Jemma’s stomach, but she really can’t have her here.

It’s nothing against her, she quite appreciates everybody’s concern, really, but having Skye – or Fitz, for that matter – hold her and assure that everything is fine and that she’s out now does very little to ease her anxiety. Through the whole thing, she can only think of Grant, wondering where he is and praying that he’s not being taken away.

Most of the time, it was just the two of them and a bunch of fleeting strangers, acquaintances that Jemma trained herself to forget as soon as possible. Other times, more rarely, Skye and Fitz and their team where there too. But they were just like all the others: temporary, extras in somebody else’s story.

Skye sitting beside her is no guarantee that everything is fine.

Jemma wishes she could just ask for Grant, but she knows that the request would be met with more than a bit of scepticism – or at least, she’s somewhat sure: it’s hard to keep all the stories straight in her head sometimes, especially right after a rude awakening, and ultimately this reality feels just as real as the others.

Ohhhhh, just the other day I heard Sugarland’s Babe and immediately thought of them.

But I am sadly, nonnie, not the best to come to for recent music. I am not, as the kids say, hip. So while Karliene’s Walk with the Devil came out this calendar year, my other two recent additions to my biospec playlist aren’t so recent: Madilyn Bailey’s Death of Me, Amber Run’s Just My Soul Responding. Still, I hope you’ll enjoy them. <3

“Taken,” Grantsays when the door creaks open. Talbot’s set the whole team up inthis base until the press stops obsessing over Mace’s death andwhile Grant’s had a while to get used to the place, the rest ofthem have been a little busy with their cyber adventures. Simmons is the fourthperson to come in, thinking this was an empty bunk.

“I know,” shesays, slipping inside and pressing her back to the door as it shuts.

Grant sits up,setting aside his book—for a secret base, this place has a prettydecent library—to focus on her. “Something wrong?” WithAida, goes unsaid. Therobot-turned-human woman they brought back is Grant’s first guessfor trouble.

“No,no,” she says. “I only hoped we might talk.”

Here it is! Sorry I’m so late and… it’s also probably not what you had in mind, so… double sorry?

As she enters the bar,Jemma spares a brief moment to regret not having a friend to bring along as awing-man, if only to ease the uncomfortableness that she feels at the mere thought of entering and just startpropositioning to a stranger – to be fair, she could have brought Fitz along,but she doubts he would have been up for the task.

She takes a subtlebreath as she looks around, shifting her weight from one leg to the other asshe tries not to regret her fashion choice for the evening – she knows that shelooks gorgeous in that dress: it shows her legs and enhances her hips, thisshade of blue goes very well with her eyes and she’s also pretty sure that shedid a nice job with her hair and make-up; still, it’s so different from what she usually wears that it’s easy to feelself-conscious about it.

As a general rule,Operations and Science don’t mix. The academies have a well-known rivalry goingon and there aren’t many spots that are known to be place of encounter forpeople from both sides who want to meet in the middle.

Still, Jemma chose togo into one of those places to find a suitable companion for her first sexualencounter, half because she isn’t overly fond of the idea of creatingawkwardness with someone that she’ll have to see every day at the Academy andhalf because she’s always found Operations cadets to be particularlypleasurable to look at – who doesn’t, really?

She notices that shehas caught some people’s attention upon entering, but unfortunately those men –and a couple of women, she notices with an hint of pride – either look likecreeps or are traveling in pairs or groups. She’s not about to approach someonein front of an audience.

Perhaps she shouldhave thought this trough a bit more. Or maybe she should have had more than acouple of shots before getting in, it could have given her more courage.

She’s evaluating theprospect of ordering a couple of drinks before trying her luck with a cute blondthat winked at her she walked by, in spite of his friends standing around, whenshe spots a guy miraculously sitting on his own, nursing his drink and lookingvery uninterested in his surroundings.

The first thing shenotices are his remarkable cheekbones, and thatis a really good starting point. He’s tall and clean shaven, his arms leave nodoubt that he’s from Operations – and hell, if she’s doing it she’s doing it right – and— well, he’s overall veryattractive. And obviously bored, so this would be mutually beneficial.

Jemma isn’t sure how long it takes him: she’s alone in an empty interrogation room, handcuffed and tied to a chair, unable to look out of the window – if there is one, considering that she was unconscious when she was brought in and the light surrounding her might be artificial – and certainly with no clock available to check the time.

Still, they haven’t even gotten around to starting the interrogation when she ears the first explosion, which fills her with relief and makes her roll her eyes at the same time, because of course it couldn’t be something subtle.

She hears commotion outside of the closed door, people running around, barking orders, no one apparently remembering that they have a SHIELD agent tied up in there.

She allows herself to relax as the knowledge that she’ll be out of there soon makes her smile in relief. The necklace hidden under her clothes has been an horrible weight at times, a reminder of what could have been and got ripped away from her, but she’s extremely thankful that she never had it in her to throw it away or stash it in a drawer.

Grant gave it to her for their first anniversary, and it’s a tracking device – albeit a very pretty one –, because he’s paranoid like that. When she woke up with an unpleasant headache, tied up in a strange room and alone, she figured that she’d better call the only backup available at the time. Thankfully she managed to press the button with her chin.

There are two other explosions, one that makes the walls tremble visibly, before the door bursts open to reveal Grant, who looks way too comfortable for someone who just had to perform an extraction in an unknown base single-handedly – Jemma remembers the days when she tried not to worry too much after she watched him leave for a solo mission; the fact that she doesn’t know exactly what he’s up to these days does nothing to ease her anxiety over his fate.

“You rang?” he says, lightly, walking up to her with a smug grin on his face. His expression falls a little when he takes a better look at her face. He reaches up to her right temple, barely touching her with the tip of his fingers. “You’re bleeding,” he states, his tone forcibly neutral.

“They knocked me out,” she explains, and it probably comes out a little too soft. Seeing him hover like that is such a familiar form of intimacy. “But a concussion is the least of my problems at the moment.”

He glances at her wound again before nodding and going back to freeing her. It doesn’t take him long to work up another grin.

“So you kept the necklace,” he states, and he’s not even trying not to sound smug.

Jemma’s never beenmore aware of the space between her and a patient. She’s careful tokeep her distance when she can and, when she absolutely must touchhim, is as obvious as possible with her intent to do so. Which is whyit’s a little surprising when she reaches—slowly, openly—forWard’s face, only to have him flinch back at the last moment.

“Sorry,” hesays, leaning forward to let her do her job.

She doesn’t—orat least she doesn’t immediately reach for him again. Instead shestudies him. He has bruises coming in from his fight with May, butit’s his jaw she was reaching for and there’s no sign of damageat all there.

Her eyes drop tohis neck—also free of damage—and she thinks again of the longhours Ward was missing, all the things that might have happened.

“Did she hurtyou?” Now it’s Jemma’s turn to flinch. Of courseLorelei hurt him. She stripped him of his free will and used him likehe was just some plaything.

Jemmafists her hands to stop them shaking. This isn’t the time.

“I’msorry,” she says, “you don’t have to answer that.”

“No,it’s- You’re fine, all right?” That’s just so Ward, isn’tit? Reassuring her when he’s the one who’s been through hell.“It’s just that- that Lorelei saw my soulmark.”

Jemmakeeps her eyes fixed firmly on Ward’s face. In nine months oftreating his injuries, she’s seen nearly every inch of him, butshe’s never seen his mark. That leaves very few places it can be,all of them rather intimate.

Notthat Jemma’s judging. Her own mark isn’t exactly standard either.If Ward’s soulmate is the sort of person to grab him by the rear onfirst meeting, then who is she to judge?

THIS FIC WILL NEVER EVER BE FINISHED, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I just really needed to get it off my hard drive already so I hope you all enjoy what there is of it.

There’s also bright light and an IVs replenishing the fluids he lost and a doctor with the SHIELD logo on his lab coat. Relief is like a dip in a cool bath. Grant relaxes and listens to the slowing beep of his heart monitor.

Here you go! It’s a S2 AU, Ward is back on the team on probation. Thanks for the prompt, I hope you’ll like it! (prompts here and here)

“Hey,” Grant calls, smoothly sliding next to Simmonsand standing close enough that it’s clear that they know each other, butwithout hovering so much that she’d be likely to stomp on his toe to make itclear that she doesn’t want him around. “Hands off,” he orders, glaring at theguy who was clearly trying to proposition to her. Grant has a good foot on him,looming a bit should be enough to scare him off.

“Oh, sorry, pal,” the idiot immediately says, throwinghis hands up in the air and taking a step back. “I didn’t realize she wastaken.”

Grant’s eyebrows shoot up, because taken or not,Simmons is evidently too drunk to stand,let alone decide if she wants to have sex with the first shitface she crossespaths with, and he contemplates breaking his nose out of principle.

Coulson’s complaints would be a pain in the ass,though, and the satisfaction wouldn’t be worth it at the end of the day. Theyhave a ‘no unnecessary violence’ agreement going on, and he’d hate to give hisboss an excuse to throw him back in Vault D. Better to just glare at the idiotuntil he realizes that it’s better to step away as fast as he can.

When the guy does leave, Grant leans towards Simmons,who’s trying pretty hard to sit upright on her chair – she’s also failingspectacularly, but that doesn’t seem to discourage her one bit.

“Alright, time to go back to base,” Grant announces,throwing his arm around Simmons’ waist and taking her hand to help her stand.

“What if I want to stay?” she replies, and the wayshe’s pouting is, frankly, adorable. That’s just the only word for it.

“It’s late, and you are drunk,” he points out. Sheallows him to help her stand, and as soon as her feet touch the ground shelooks a bit unsteady, but her mouth seems to work perfectly well.

“I am not,”she protests. At his sceptical expression, she corrects: “Not too much. And I can walk. Alone.”

“I seriously doubt that,” he comments, as she tries toshake off his arms, without much coordination in her movements.

“I can,” sheinsists. “It’s all about the— mass centre. And the balance. I have to find thebalance, alright?”

She swings a bit on her feet – he is ready to catchher if she risks to faceplant on the floor, but she doesn’t fall –, beforefrowning at him. “I never liked yoga, you know?” she grimaces.

He doesn’t really know what to say to that. “Okay,” heends up replying. “Can I help you now?”

“No, no, no!”she protests vehemently, shaking her head, which seems to not help at all withher balance, judging by the few extra seconds she needs to go back to lookinglike she knows where she is. “I can do it. My ears can keep me up, I just haveto concentrate on my ears and they’ll do allthe work for me. You’ll see.”

He opens his mouth to offer to help, again, but she raises her hand tosilence him. “Ssh, no, don’t talk. You’ll distract my ears.”

Okay then.

for @agniavateira, who requested page 18 in my inbox meme. It’s not quite as biospecialist as I meant it to be, but hopefully you’ll enjoy anyway!

“Will you get me aunicorn?”

“Okay, anything within reason,”John says. “You gotta work with us here, doc—ma’am,” he amends smoothly whenDoctor Simmons raises an eyebrow. “Ma’am. I’m willing to pay through the nosefor your valuable time, but I can only do so much.”

“Hmm.” Simmons’ gaze drifts to Grant and then back to John. “Butif not mythical creatures, what can you give me that I can’t get myself? You’veyet to offer a compelling reason as to why your little pet project is deservingof my attention.”

Here it is! S2 AU, it all went down a bit differently from the show, but the gist of it is: Skye didn’t shoot him, so he didn’t get involved with Kara (…;_;), subsequently he just went on dropping dead or tied up people on SHIELD’s doorstep (like. a creepy cat.) until Coulson got fed up and offered him probation. Jemma got sucked into the Monolith and here we are. I hope you’ll like it, thanks for the prompt! (prompts here and here)

Considering that he’s the one who ended up getting herout, Grant was already expecting to gain a few points with Simmons.

He found her sitting in the corner of what looked likean interrogation room, a gun in her hands, blood all over her clothes and abody slumped next to her. She looked up at him with eyes filled with tears, sheshook her head hesitantly when he asked if she was hurt and she obedientlyfollowed him outside, throwing glances at whomever it is that she had to leavebehind – of course Simmons would make friends in the alternate dimension insidethe rock, why is he surprised?

He announced over the comm that he got her, Coulsonordered everyone to go back to the portal and Grant got to kill some ofwhomever those guys were on his way out – which was frankly pretty refreshing:with Coulson’s restrictions to keep him on the team, he’s had to limit himselfto non-lethal measures 99% of the time, which is a pain in the ass when theother side shoots to kill.

So, yeah, fate was on his side for once and he endedup being the hero of the situation who burst into the right room. Still, he wasalready working for them when Simmons got herself into that mess, so him comingto the rescue doesn’t really explain the wide-eyed look that she’s been givinghim since when he got her out.

Even as Fitz tries to suffocate her with a hug andSimmons’ arms shoot up to reciprocate, she keeps staring at him.

What’s up with that, really?

When Simmons walks up to him, her eyes filling withtears again, Grant is expecting some kind of— well, if not an explanation, atleast something. A thank you, or acomment that’d give away if she was killed and replaced by a doppelganger – itwouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen to them, after all –, but insteadshe takes a big leap forward and throws her arms around him.

He’s startled enough that he automatically catchesher, moving a step backwards so that the extra weight doesn’t make him lose hisbalance. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, sniffing quietly and—that’s a fierce hold she’s got there, who would have thought.

After a moment of contemplation, he decides thatpatting her on the back in a brotherly and reassuring fashion is the safest wayto go, considering that he’s got a pretty nice visual of half of the team fromthere, and they don’t look pleased.

“It’s so good to see you,” Simmons says. Her voicesounds wet and thin and absolutely sincere.That’s a very warm greeting. The few points he had expected, but this is—weird.

“Yeah, I’m— glad that you are back,” he says,carefully. They are all looking at him like he’s assaulting her, which is superunfair, because she jumped him and it’s not like she seems to mindthe contact, if anything she’s clinging to him for dear life.

Here you go! It’s a S2 (and S1) AU, Jemma is Hydra too, she and Ward were together and now she busted him out of Vault D. I hope you’ll enjoy it, thank you so much for the request! *^* (prompts here and here)Warning for referenced self-harm.

“A real bed and a shower, I might cry,” Grantcomments, lightly, as they enter the motel room they chose to spend the nightin. He’s grinning and he looks genuinely cheerful at the change of scenery,which is enough for Jemma’s anger to quiver for a second. But she’s beenstoring it for a while now – and not only during their escape, when theycouldn’t waste any time arguing –, she’s not letting go of it any time soon.

“I think it’s time you explain,” she states, crossingher arms and staring at him intently.

Grant stares back for a few moments, a slight frown onhis face and the corner of his mouth still lifted. “Explain what?” he finallyasks, when he doesn’t seem to be able to make sense of it. Or maybe he’s justplaying, she rarely is able to tell.

Jemma deliberately chooses to believe that he’s not playing dumb, or she might attemptto slap that irritating habit of playing games out of him once and for all.

“What, you ask?” she scoffs, her voice a tadhysterical. She takes a few leaps forward until she’s close enough to grab hisarm and pull up his sleeve. The sight of the scar on his wrist makes herstomach turn. “This. I want you toexplain this.”

“Oh.” He pulls his arm away, slowly enough that itdoesn’t seem defensive. “It was a play.”

Jemma inhales, lifting her eyebrows. “A play?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, his tone flat. “If I wanted to getout of there without you having to blow your cover I had to do something— I figured that if I could getCoulson to see how sorry I was, or Skye to pity me, or something along thoselines, they would have let me back on the team, in time. At the very least itwould have made me seem less dangerous.”

A play, he says. All strategic, because he always hasan angle, a plan, contingencies for the plan and contingencies for thecontingencies. He delivers it all with a straight face and his standard briefingtone, and yet—

“You could have toldme,” she snaps, but it’s not really what she wanted to say.

“I was monitored,” he protests.

“Bullshit,”she spits out, and half a grin twists his lips before he can take it undercontrol, because the idiot is alwaysamused when she swears. He thinks it’s cute.“You could have found a way to tell me and you know it.”

He huffs. “Okay, fine,” he concedes. “I didn’t tellyou because I already knew what you’d say.”

“That it’s bloody mental?”she yells at his face, and he doesn’t as much as quirk an eyebrow.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward Characters: Grant Ward, Jemma Simmons, Phil Coulson, Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May, Leo Fitz Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon, Season/Series 01, Team as Family, Crack Treated Seriously

It’s all the result of their investigation into the 084, which apparently had some, quote, weird blinky lights, end quote, and released an unknown substance that made the whole team pass out.

Not the kind of news a team specialist wants to be woken from his nap to hear.

“This does not look fine,” he says.