runningred | OOM: Travelling with Jemma.

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?"

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."

Yeah, Turkey did that to Jay. He can never drink cheap coffee again.

"Sounds like fun. City of the dead and then on to Tangiers. Ah!" He grins as their breakfast arrives, a large tagine of Shakshouka - eggs poaches in a spicy sauce with minced lamb and baked tomatoes. "Fantastic." He used the flat bread to shovel it onto his plate as they're brought mint tea to go with it.

"To tell you the truth, most of my work was much further south in the Congo and Ivory Coast. Not as nice as here, that's for sure but beautiful in it's own harsh way. I was on my way to fly out of Africa for France when the Bar picked me up."

She mimics his technique with the unfamiliar food, humming her appreciation once she manages to get a bite.

(It takes a couple tries. It's a bit tricky, and the ratio of bread-to-filling is problematic.)

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."

Eating it isn't much better but what's the point if you can't have fun and make a mess enjoying something. And there's no lack of bread to slop about with.

"Oh no, you're not interrupting anything. I um... had a few problems on my last job and get my contract terminated. I'm a free agent now."

"Oh dear, I'm sure you'll find a good employer before too long." She assures him. That, at least, is one thing she's sure she won't have to worry about - between SHIELD's tendency towards secrecy and her own tendency towards rule-obeying, she's highly unlikely to not be employed by SHIELD any time soon.

"Have you been to this area before?"

"Maybe I'll just freelance for a while. It'll be nice to pick and chose my own jobs for a while. Maybe I'll find somewhere to set up my own workshop and just build things."

"No, I haven't. I mostly based myself in Casablanca. The League owned a five star hotel there. It made sense to use the resources at hand." He looks around with a smile. "I have to admit I like it here. The city walls give it a sense of history, of time."

She nods, curling her hands around the mug of coffee.
"It is like Oxford - it's something grander than oneself, though here there's less chance of being run over by an undergraduate on a bicycle."

Jay laughs warmly and nods to the street full of motorbikes and mopeds as the city wakes up and gets on with its day. "Not bicycles anyway. So what was it like, studying somewhere so grand?"

"Actually... I didn't. Unlike most English schools, there are many American universities which allow early enrollment. Besides, Oxford would have been a bit close to home."

Aka Jemma Simmons may have gone a bit mad if forced to attend too many more mind-numbing Sunday dinners.

"And you were a child genius who had to graduate at age 14." He teases playfully, aware that he never made it that far.

"So you wanted to get away, see the world or just away from family?"

"I wanted to study." But being away from family hadn't necessarily been bad. "And I had Fitz with me, of course."

At least her parents had tried to keep up with her, and show an interest in her increasingly esoteric interests. She remembers Fitz's mum as being perpetually bewildered and rather annoyed by the pair of them. There'd been none of that, at least, once they'd established themselves at university.

"One day, I'm actually going to meet this Fitz. How long have you known each other?"

"Oh... goodness. Years. Just about a decade at this point. And I think you'd like him, his specialty is engineering." And as much as they gave each other hell about their respective life choices in academia, they pretty much only went to each other for help in their respective fields.

"I hope so. I want to meet your young man." Jay chuckles, finishing off his plate and sips his tea. "So, necropolis?"

"Ready and waiting." She agrees, eagerly.

...

"Oh, no, he's not my young man, he's Fitz, I mean..." She adds on in a fit of fluster once that sinks in - She's been partners with Leopold Fitz for so long that the idea of... well. No. It's just not right.

Jay grabs a cloth and cleans off his hands, tossing money on the table for breakfast.

He grins warmly and bumps her shoulder gently. "I know, I'm just teasing. I still want to meet him anyway."

He throws his leg over the bike and waits for her to get comfortable before they head off.

She trails him out of the cafe, still muttering protests about how that just isn't right, not Fitz, that's different, but settles well enough once she's on the bike. Once they get going (that part still makes her nervous, when there isn't enough energy to make the bike feel grounded, when one wobble could be a wobble too many) and she can relax again, she pipes up again.
"I think you two would get on wonderfully - and the bar might become awash in mechanical widgets."

The ride to Chellah doesn't take long at all and Jay pulls the bike up a respectful distance from the World Heritage site. "I present to you, the necropolis of Chellah." Massive pelicans nesting in the trees above them call out as they enter the city. "Do you want to find a tour group of just wonder?"

Oh.

She's shaking her head as she dismounts because no, not people, people are slow and ask a multitude of dull questions and keep wanting to do silly things like take pictures of each other when there's this whole marvelous place right in front of them so full of history and the detail still carved into the stone is amazing and she's never seen those birds before and oh it's Christmas.

There's a happy squeak of excitement, and Jay gets a hug for his pains. That's pretty much all of the explanation he's going to get at the moment as she hurries off into the ruins - Jemma Simmons is too excited to use her words, and too distracted by awesome to come up with a different mode of communication. Words are boring anyway, in comparison.

Jay laughs and hugs her back. He follows along after her happily, enjoying her glee as she darts from sight to sight. He stops to take a couple of photos of his own.

"Check these out." He points to a tree of hanging white flowers. "Angel Trumpets, stunning but very poisonous."

{ooc: found some fantastic photos.}

"In Peru, a version of this plant was fed to the women and slaves of dead royalty so they would submit to being buried with their lord." She replies cheerfully, because she'll always have words for her primary field of study, "From all reports the effects are quite rapid and horrific."

She pauses, reviews that, and pulls a face.

"And they're also very pretty?" With cool toxic properties!

"Really? I didn't know that." Jay smiles, not teasing at all. "I can imagine it wouldn't be pleasant. You have thought they've have gone with something faster. But I guess the lord really doesn't care what state the slaves arrive in the afterlife."

{ooc: sorry!}

"It seems about par for the course for the civilization at the time." She shrugs, and fails to mention that many of the toxins in these plants have found a home in her own lab, for various purposes - some to aid field agents, as an addition to their medical kits, some... well. She did make a decent attempt at re-creating the Haitian zombie drug with some of those compounds.

"But did you see the turquoise above the archway? I have no idea what pigment could be used to get such a long-standing effect, it's simply stunning..." Now it seems that she's found her words again, she has an over-abundance of them, and has an opinion or questions for just about everything.

Oh what Jay wouldn't give to have a play with her lab. "I guess that's true."

Jay follows her over to have a closer look. "I'd offer to take a sample and find out for you but it is a world heritage listed area. It'd be sacrilegious." He's been an assassin but he has lines. And defacing monuments is one of them. "We could always find a museum with a research department and ask."

{ooc: Sorry, seriously having a shocker tonight.}

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