@istbenstridge said: I thought when you were hiring you wanted an assistant not a guinea pig to use in your experiments?
"I'm almost 500% positive that when I took this job you didn't mention that I would have to actively help you with your experiments. In fact you made it a point to mention that you already had a partner, that all you needed was someone to keep this hot mess organized."
"That is not how percentages work, and it's just one teeny little blood sample. It's not like I'm actually going to inject you with the serum to see how it reacts. That would be irresponsible and besides Fitz won't let me try it out on our actual guinea pig."
Which turned out to be the greatest thing in the world because the serum that was supposed to heal superficial wounds in the field of combat so that soldiers could keep going, turned the sample of Daisy's blood into a glob of tissue that started disintegrating.
Daisy gave Jemma a horrified look.
Jemma gave her a bright smile back.
"Back to the drawing board!"
Daisy left her to it, and went along finishing her actual duties which included cleaning out previous mentioned guinea pig's cage.
---
"Now I promise you," Jemma said cheerfully placing a helmet over Daisy's head carefully. "This won't hurt a bit! We're just going to attempt to try to communicate directly with the neurons in your brain!"
"And the sedative?" Daisy slurred out because the only reason she was even strapped to the table with a helmet in the first place was because Jemma had asked, and Daisy had refused, and Jemma (whose moral compass is screwed up to hell when it comes to doing things in the name of science) decided to drug her into compliance.
This was certainly not in the job description.
"Oh that's just to keep you nice and docile while we send electrical pulses into your brain!"
Daisy would be more worked up about that, but she's already falling asleep.
---
"Nope," Daisy said popping the P a little too hard and turning away from Jemma to fix the obvious holes in their firewalls. Fitz was a genius how did he miss this many backdoors into their research?
"But I haven't said anything yet!" Jemma protested attempting to get into Daisy's field of vision which was difficult since Daisy was working on the computers in the server room, and three of the four walls were covered with sensitive equipment and the other one was a glass wall where the door to enter the room was. So basically, Jemma was leaning against sensitive equipment not caring if she did any damage because her interest didn't lie with the computer sciences.
"You're going to ask me to do something questionable and probably hazardous to my health to do with one of your super secret government experiments, and I'm going to say no and wake up strapped on top of a surgical table missing one of my kidneys."
"That was one time," Jemma protested. "And I returned the kidney back to you!"
Daisy gave her a look because ever since The Incident which now makes her wary of any food or drinks that Jemma or Fitz (the enabler) give her, Jemma's been saying the kidney not your kidney, and that was just really worrisome.
But this job paid her too well (probably to keep her quiet and as some sort of blackmail, maybe?) and had all these amazing benefits (Daisy's gone to do her physical and got her teeth cleaned and just recently had an eye test that required her to wear glasses now when she was using computers, glasses which were propped on top of her head), and leaving would require too much effort (and a lot of paperwork, the last assistant quit three months ago and they were still coming in to sign paperwork), and well maybe the way Jemma looked relieved and smiled happily whenever Daisy opened her eyes and looked at her after one of their experiments could have something to do with it.
"The kidney?" Daisy asked pointedly and Jemma flushed horribly and excused herself from the room.
Daisy just shook her head and got back to work.
---
Daisy had been walking down the hall heading to her actual apartment that she owned because it had been weeks since she'd been home and she really needed to empty her fridge because the neighbors were complaining about the smell.
Hunter, her landlord had left her a personal message about it which told her that he'd gone into her apartment to look for her and hadn't found her and was worried.
She heard a soft sound, and then felt a sharp pain in her neck and when she reached up she touched a dart.
She took it out wincing and noticed that it wasn't just a tranquilizer dart, no, it was dripping with a slightly green liquid.
She looked up directly into Jemma's guilty face, "What did you just do to me?"
Jemma didn't move her mouth, but Daisy heard the words in Jemma's voice but deeper, Experimental direct mental contact. I've taken the serum too, if that helps any. It's the only way it would work.
But she also heard in a voice that sounded like Fitz but also deeper and already halfway into an argument, …to quit because you've gone too far and you won't even be able to tell her how you feel and then when you're bemoaning about why you're alone I'm going to tell you it's because you put the people you shoot innocent people with experimental drugs that could accidentally kill them or permanently change them for life…
"What?!" Daisy asked and thought really loud, just for good measure.
Jemma flinched, and Daisy heard Fitz drop something that sounded really heavy and expensive in the other room.
The effect lasted for three hours and distance wasn't a problem at all.
Fitz blabbed constantly and Jemma couldn't stand to correct him when he was wrong, so Daisy spent three hours yelling at them to shut up only to find that she'd also yelled out loud and people were looking at her weirdly.
It was probably a good thing that her commute back home was twenty minutes long
---
So the thing was that Daisy has good deductive reasoning skills, and she knew that Fitz had been talking about her, and that meant that Jemma had a crush on her.
But she could also be wrong.
So they've been sort of hanging on the edge of this something and doing absolutely nothing about it.
Jemma had even stopped randomly experimenting on her, and while it meant that Daisy got her job done and didn't have to spend any nights in quarantine, it also meant that she was spending less time with Jemma.
It had been about a week now, and Daisy was prepping herself to just enter the lab and talk to Jemma, when the doors to the lab swished open and there was Jemma with her hand on the bioscanner.
"We have cameras on the doors you know."
Daisy opened and closed her mouth several times before shrugging. "I need your help with something."
"What?" Jemma asked looking alarmed but ready for whatever Daisy would ask of her.
"Well," Daisy said gulping and she'd thought a lot about how she was going to this and had decided that speaking in Jemma terms might be appreciated. "I'd like you to join me in an experiment, where we go out to a social setting or maybe just my apartment, together and just talk about anything for a couple of hours, over dinner preferably, but I'm not picky."
Jemma blinked slowly at her before tilting her head. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
Daisy just let out a breath and nodded, "Yes, I am. Check yes or no?"
Jemma smiled then, eyes bright and she bit her lip and nodded her head shyly.
Daisy smiled back.
