OOM: Travelling with Jemma.

[runningred]

Jay leans on the bar, dressed in his scruffy black leathers. His bike parked just inside the door, ready to go.

He grins to Jemma as she joins him. "Ready to go, Princess?"

Comments

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma Simmons is horrible at coming up with a cover story on the fly. She is, however, the reigning queen of prep work. After a long conversation with Bar quite a fair amount of research, Jemma has come down looking like she could be any one of the hundreds of students taking a gap year in their studies with her backpack hanging over one shoulder. The only place she cheated (and it was shameless cheating, after all, she helped come up with the design, she should get one of the prototypes) was in the body armor - what's the use being part of a spy agency if you don't get to wear the body armor that looks more like normal clothing?

"More than - I could barely sleep last night, I still can't quite believe it."

[runningred]

He laughs warmly. "As long as you don't fall asleep on me before we get to a hotel."

He pulls some things out of his pocket for her. "Travelling presents." IDs and a passport for Jemma while she's in his world and what looks like a fairly stock standard smart-phone but Jemma knows her tech well enough to know better.

"It links to both the helmet cameras and once on the bike if you feel like recording the trip. There's access to a bank account and the such if you find you need it and this," He slides back a panel in the back to reveal a single button. "It took a lot of negotiation with the Bar and she said it's a one time only deal but if you find yourself in trouble, not that I think it's going to happen but just in case, this button will call the door to get back here." Better safe than sorry. He can't bear the thought she might get stuck because of him.

[protect_and_survey]

"That is terribly clever, thank you." She checks over the phone, making sure she can recognize the feel of the catch on the back panel - sure, she really hopes that won't be necessary, but she really doesn't want to have be fumbling if it is needed. Everything is stashed in an inner pocket - she's been in a few labs that ended up needing emergency evacuation, and it only takes one mishap with ID to learn it should be kept on-hand at all times.

[runningred]

"I do my best." He smiles. "Ready for an adventure?" He leads her over to door and opens it, wheeling the bike out.

They step out onto a gravel backroad overlooking the coast and a golden beach, the sun rising on their left. "Ah yeah, that's right. This is where I pulled up." It's been a couple of months for him. "I was watching the sun come up when the door arrived. What do you think?"

[protect_and_survey]

Jay has officially accomplished something more than a few SHIELD agents believe is impossible.

Jemma Simmons is at a loss for words. She's standing in the middle of the road, staring at her surroundings in gobsmacked silence, but the beaming smile stretching from ear to ear leaves absolutely no doubt as to her approval.








"Oh wow."

[runningred]

Jay wraps a gentle arm around her shoulders, scuffing his feet to cover over the spots of blood he left last time he was here.

"It really is stunning out here. At some stage I'll take you out to the edge of the Sahara at sunset. You've never seen so many stars with the naked eye."

[protect_and_survey]

She almost says that it'd be like New York, after the attack - with so much of the city damaged, it'd been possible to see the Milky Way in the night sky that first evening.

Not that either she or Fitz got to see much of the outside world once the clean-up efforts began in earnest. But that's not exactly something someone from a commercial lab would have done, now is it?

"I'll look forward to it. It sounds amazing - though I'm afraid I won't know many of their names, I've never been much of an astronomer." She says instead, returning the hug with a quick squeeze (which is odd in the armor, she won't deny it) before being utterly distracted by the plant life she's never seen before.

[runningred]

"I don't know much either. I didn't see the stars till I was in my late teen. Can't see them thought the smog in the city I grew up in. But they're beautiful."

He laughs as she gets distracted and lets her go, leaning on the bike to wait. "So, shall we add to the Africa forests to our exploration list?"

[protect_and_survey]

She looks up with a sort of guilty puppy sort of look - this is the reason no one's lining up to give her field qualification. She just has never understood the idea of only being interested in one thing. The world is stuffed full of awesome and she wants to know everything about ALL of it.

"Sorry, I've been known to be a bit distractable." This is the biggest understatement of the century, truly. "This isn't anything like what was on the coastline in England. Wouldn't know about the US, I haven't been to the coast there yet."

Tragically. Very tragically. The best she can do on that front is say she's seen it from the Quinjet's windows as she and Fitz were ferried to a new lab or the Helicarrier.

[runningred]

Jay chuckles and shakes his head. "Get as distracted as you like. We're in no hurry and it's beautiful here. Just don't take more samples than we can carry."

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, it's quite alright - I've gotten in the habit of taking very good notes, and there's pictures." She explains, pulling a moleskin notebook out of her pack and scribbling down the information she wants in her private shorthand.

Aka Mr. Simmons put a kibosh on Jemma's habit of bringing home half of the outdoors on every trip almost as soon as she was old enough to start doing it, so she developed a work around.

She has a LOT of notebooks.

[runningred]

"There's plenty of memory in that phone I gave you if you want to take photos." In his head, he's already designing a notebook cover with an inbuilt camera.

He looks up as a van of travellers pull up - young French surfers on tour. He catches the language as they tumble out and calls a greeting in French. They call back and one of them spots Jemma, calling a very special greeting to her. "Bonjour belle dame! Vous eclipse les vagues sur un matin comme ça!"

[protect_and_survey]

Her reaction is less flustered, but more... resigned. She works for an organization that also employs the likes of Natasha Romanoff - consequently, she's come to recognize comments of that ilk as a sort of... odd and increasingly un-fun teasing, because no one flirts seriously with the SciOps crew.

"Bonjour, monsieur - je ferais mieux de partir, donc je ne ruine pas par conséquent votre divertissement prévue." She replies in polite tones, dusting the dirt off her clothes and tucking her notepad away to better effect an escape.

[runningred]

"Oh la belle dame! Vous pouvez augmenter le plaisir d'une journée comme celle-ci." He laughs warmly, flirting sweetly and genuinely. "Venez surfer avec nous?"

Jay leans against the bike still, listening with a half smile. Jemma seems to be able to handle herself just fine but ready to step in if she wants him to.

[protect_and_survey]

"Oh, non, je ne pouvais pas." She's going into uncharted territory here, and it shows - no one keeps flirting! "Je suis ... nous avons un long voyage à l'avance, et nous devrions vraiment y aller." She goes on retreating, pulling her backpack up onto her shoulders.

[runningred]

Jay waits with the bike, handing her her helmet as the French surfers call after her, promising to be much better company than her smelly biker friend.

Jay laughs and makes a rude gesture as he gets on, waiting for her to settle behind him. "Better luck next time, boys!"

He kicks the bike into gear and moves them back onto the road, whispering her through the helmet mikes. "Been here a few minutes and already making friends." His voice is playfully teasing.

[protect_and_survey]

She's holding on tight, mostly because she isn't at all trusting of the bike to stay between them and the road. Other people do this all the time, however, so it must be at least somewhat doable.

"Oh, they didn't mean anything by it." She demurs, still sounding flustered.

[runningred]

Jay's an accomplished rider and keeps the bike steady and smooth on the road.

He laughs warmly, accelerating a little as they move onto the highway. "Jemma, you're gorgeous. Why wouldn't they try their luck?"

He watches the signs as they ride a perfectly normal highway, the ocean still there on their left. "Breakfast in Rabat?"

[protect_and_survey]

"Sounds like a wonderful idea." She agrees, notably short on opinions about the reasonableness of the taste of surfers. The longer they fail to go tilting into the pavement the more she relaxes, gaining more confidence in the whole bike-riding endeavor.

[runningred]

After a about an hour's ride, he brings them up a small hill to overlook the ancient fortified city of Rabat. The walls that protect and enclose the city date back to the crusade but the city itself is modern and welcoming, just waking for a new day as they slow into the city streets.

He looks around as they slip through streets. "See if you can spot us a nice looking cafe or bakery."

[protect_and_survey]

She stops rambling about the city and it's influence in world pandemics in the past (PhD #2 - epidemiology) and focuses on something of much more current import - coffee.

Coffee, and stretching her legs - she's just not used to this sort of thing yet.

"Over there, on the right - they seem popular." When in doubt, follow the local tastes. It's saved her and Fitz a lot of trouble with SHIELD-based cafeterias. (Hint: never get the meatloaf)

[runningred]

Jay bring the bike around and parks it out front, shooing away a couple of kids who run over to eye it off. He offers Jemma a hand to get down. He knows how easy it is to get stiff while riding.

"I don't know about you but I could kill for a coffee." He finds them a seat outside in the warm morning sun and offers coffee to start in flawless Arabic. "How adventurous are you, food wise? I just tend to go with whatever the local speciality is and see what happens."

[protect_and_survey]

Arabic goes far beyond her boarding-school language abilities, so she just focuses on smiling when smiled at and not offending anybody.

And enjoying the sunlight, that's... that's really nice, even if she's pretty sure she's going to burn despite heavy-duty sunblock. The trials and travails of the lab-bound researcher.

"I'm open to most anything, unless it tries to crawl away like something out of an Indiana Jones movie."

[runningred]

It's one of Jay's stronger languages thanks to the League and Talia. He asks for the house special and sips the rich, thick coffee that's brought out to them along with piles of fresh warm bread.

"So, the continent of Africa is that way. South West Europe is that way and the Mediterranean is that way. Where do you want to start?"

[protect_and_survey]

The coffee is amazing, and Jemma hums contentment when sipping it. She is going to be so spoiled for normal coffee when she gets back to the lab.

"Well, there's a necropolis just outside town, and Tangiers isn't too far away." Guess who has been studying maps? She has to keep her reigning status in prepwork. But you do have better local knowledge than I do."