Prompt: Skimmons + dubious
From: @sad-tunes
Word count: 632
(Can be read as either platonic or romantic Skimmons)
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“It looks off,” Skye said with a frown.
Jemma blinked. “It looks fine to me.”
Skye shook her head slowly. “Nope, it’s off,” she said decidedly. “He’ll notice.”
Jemma bit her lip. “Okay. What do we do?”
“Hold on.” Skye grabbed the drying paint brush from Jemma’s hands and dipped it into their bottle of bright blue paint.
“What are you-”
“Hold on,” Skye repeated before squinting and adding a small dab below the toe on the figurine.
Jemma winced. “That’s such a small detail, are you sure you want to risk messing up the rest of the paint-”
“He’ll notice, I promise,” Skye said. “One time I very slightly bent one of his precious trading cards on accident- it took a boatload of promises to do inventory to get him to let me near his office again.” Skye pulled back and away from the figurine of Captain America, eyeing its fresh paint job. “That looks better. Almost like nothing happened.”
Jemma looked at the figure doubtfully. “This is a ridiculous plan.”
“It’s the best one we have. Unless you want to tell him that we spilled whiteout all over his favorite-“
“Hey guys, what are-”
Skye whirled around with a squeak, tucking the paintbrush and paint bottle behind her back.
Jemma stammered out a quick, “Hmm, oh uh- sponges?”
“Sponges?” Skye hissed at her with wide eyes.
“Sorry,” she cringed.
Coulson blinked at the both of them standing tensely in front of his bookshelf. “Is everything… okay?”
“Yep!” Skye replied with a suspicious grin.
He looked at them both closely and obviously knew something was up, but decided not to press the issue. “Have you seen Hunter?” he asked.
“Probably, um,” Jemma blanked. “Buying blankets.”
Coulson blinked at her. “Okay, thanks, Simmons,” he said, before leaving his office, shaking his head.
“Your lying skills have somehow gotten worse!” Skye exclaimed, moving over to the trash can and disposing of the paint supplies.
“I got better after being undercover in hydra,” Jemma defended.
Skye laughed. “Really. So randomly saying ‘sponges’ is an improvement?”
“It’s much harder to lie to Director Coulson than some evil-doers,” Jemma frowned.
Skye paused, seeing that Jemma looked genuinely upset.
“Oh, hey, I was kidding,” Skye said apologetically. “You did great at hydra. I couldn’t have done it, staying undercover with all of that pressure.”
“No, it’s fine,” Jemma smiled. “I’m still rather awful at lying. I mean, sponges?”
Skye grinned, glad that Jemma wasn’t too upset about Skye teasing her. “I’m not much better. One time May asked me to do extra training but I didn’t want to, and my on-the-spot excuse was that I had to babysit my brother.”
Jemma blinked at Skye. “You… don’t have a brother, Skye.”
“Exactly!”
They both dissolved into a fit of laughs, doubling over.
“May looked at me like I was insane,” Skye wheezed.
“I would’ve too!” Jemma replied.
Their laughs slowly tapered off into giggles as they remembered the situation.
“Coulson’s gonna murder us if he finds out,” Skye groaned. “We just have to pray he doesn’t.”
“Maybe we should tell May,” Jemma suggested. “She helped with Sitwell.”
“Yeah. But also this is Coulson, not Sitwell. Since I’m 80% sure they’re doing the horizontal hokey pokey together-“
“Skye!”
“-she will tell him we screwed up his figurine immediately.”
“They are not doing it together,” Jemma said with wide eyes.
“Sure,” Skye smirked. “Have you seen them look at each other in meetings? May and Coulson look at each other like they want to-“
“Skye?”
Jemma and Skye turned around to see May in the doorway of Coulson’s office, looking at them strangely.
“What-“
“SPONGES!” they both squealed at the same time, before bolting out of the office in fits of nervous giggles as May hid a smile.
