Another All Nighter

[attached_to_his_pinky]

Fitz was in the lab. It wasn't unusual for him to be found there and it was where he felt the most at home. The table was a bit of a mess as he worked with his papers and notes on one side and a bunch of various components on the other. Safety glasses down, he had his nose as deep in his work as could be without getting in his own way. Just then, a slight spark flew and Fitz cursed to himself. He gritted his teeth and surveyed what happened and then tossed the gadget he was working on to the side on the table.

He let his head fall down and the tiredness showed. He had been pulling an all nighter again but he was tenacious. He knew he had to get this done or all of the work he had done would be for naught. He reached for his coffee mug and brought it to his lips and found it empty. He groaned and just let his head fall.

Comments

[attached_to_his_pinky]

A groggy "Urrrrgggggggh..." can be heard and then the aroma of the freshly brewed coffee reaches his nose. He perks up immediately and grabs the cup.

"Oh. You are a lifesaver. I'm not quite sure what I would do without you."

He ignores the greeting although his gratitude is apparent. He may not be quite as perky as her even with the coffee boost but he's at least present.

[protect_and_survey]

"Well, you'd be short a cup of coffee." She points out, stepping around the table to hand him the mug and peer at what he's working on. "Have you been at this all night?"

[attached_to_his_pinky]

"I'm not sure. What time is it?" He accepts the cup of coffee and takes a sip. He winces as it's hot but manages to keep it down. He sighs, "I just can't get this quite right... It's supposed to be able to phase out a section of a wall so that agents can get into where they need to be!"

[protect_and_survey]

"It's eight in the morning." She admits, trying to make sense of the schematic. All of her own work is in the biological sciences, but she can work her way around the hardware side well enough at this point. "Displacement or dissolution?"

[attached_to_his_pinky]

"Displacement. It's better we leave no trace in case the mission is covert." He was beginning to get his second (third?) wind as was always the case when Jemma was around. His all nighters never were that successful without her. "This should not only displace but put everything back into place when we're done."

[protect_and_survey]

"Perhaps if it wasn't..." She pauses, grabbing a piece of scratch paper and sketching out molecular compounds. "If it wasn't so much a breaking and reforming of bonds as a... loosening? Making it more of a liquid or gel than a solid."

[attached_to_his_pinky]

Fitz perks up. "So more of a transference of forms rather than a breakdown? Like Ice to water to gas and back again?" Leo is getting excited at the thought. He shuffles through some papers and he takes his pen out of his pocket and writes a few things down. "I think that could be easiest to do on metal surfaces but I think we could swing it with plastic if we work on a few tweaks."

[protect_and_survey]

She nods, shifting down to pull up her own files on the holotable. There's plenty of work still to be done, even just accounting for the artifacts pulled out of the fight of NYC.

"So I heard that there's a new Italian place downtown - Stamish from Accounting says it's really good."

[attached_to_his_pinky]

"Really? Stamish from Accounting?" It is more a polite and friendly jab than anything else. They all have the same goal in mind even if they were different cogs in the massive machine that was S.H.I.E.L.D. He moved fluidly around her now, continuing to sip his coffee. Over to his calculations and then tweaking something on the schematics. Then back to the gadget itself.

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh hush, he's perfectly lovely... even if he does have an unfortunate fondness for cats." She chides, though even she can admit he has a somewhat unrealistic number of cats for the small apartment he inhabits. "I just thought it'd be a good place for lunch - they're serving meatloaf in the cafeteria today."

[attached_to_his_pinky]

Fitz winces at the mention of meatloaf, "Yes. Maybe you're right." Anything was better than the mystery meat they wedged into a loaf here at S.H.I.E.L.D. He did grin at the mention of the fondness for cats. "Well, we all know you two wouldn't get along. Especially not after our cat incident." He looks at Simmons and rolls his eyes.

[protect_and_survey]

"Your lunch was perfectly fine." She huffs. "I do know proper containment protocols, you're the one placing food on the worktable."

[attached_to_his_pinky]

"How else do you expect me to eat it when I don't get a chance to do so?" He eyes Simmons as he continues his work. "You do realize if I hadn't done that there would have possibly been a husk of a body decaying in the corner, right?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Nonsense, I just had to finish the previous autopsy first, there is a method to these things Fitz, I cannot complete more than one at a time." She retorts by rote, finishing her latest series of reports for official approval by their SO.

[attached_to_his_pinky]

"Right." At this point even though they were arguing, Fitz has this goofy grin plastered on his face. He knew there were times when they argued but a lot of time they either ended in the brilliance that S.H.I.E.L.D. wants from them or just in some sort of laughter. He glances at Fitz and then adjust the notes. "Okay, I think this next test run should work. Hopefully, no more sparks ruining my work."

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, should I be wearing a grounding strap?" She asks, turning to rummage through the drawer they usually were dumped in. "Sorry, didn't think of it."

[attached_to_his_pinky]

Fitz glanced over, "Starting now, yes please." He was already wearing his. At least he could remember that much about safety protocol. "The spark that ruined this one," He pointed at the one he had tossed aside just before Simmons' entrance, "happened just before you got here."