whenindoubt | Let me poke and prod, alright?

"I know," she says over her shoulder as she walks ahead of him, "that this seems redundant, but I'm trying to isolate environmental factors from both of our universes since they're clearly parallel." She's already poked and prodded Clint, had him do V02 max tests, electrocardiograms -- She's tried almost everything to separate out if there's a molecular difference between him and everyone else she's been able to get her hands on who knows who the Avengers are-- and to whom they are real people.

While she hasn't quite gotten up the nerve to ask Tony yet, she supposes that it's only a matter of time.

But she'd found several new tests, and when she'd texted Clint and asked - well, cajoled, really, given that she'd offered to have dinner delivered and asked him to bring Lucky and she knew full well that an evening with her studying him was not exactly thrilling entertainment, but she said she'd owe him. And feed him, and now here he is.

"After we do this, I'm going to see if I can get Mr. Stark to let me do the same," she admitted, even though she's more than a little wary. Clint - well. Clint's her friend. Tony Stark.... he's something else entirely.

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"What?" Jemma turns to look at him over her shoulder, and to be honest she's looking more surprised that he's actually said what's been in the elephant in the room for months.

"Hypothetically," she says automatically, looking back at the tablet, and she's much more of the matter-of-fact 'we should get dinner' type of person than the 'wiggle 'round the topic' sort of person. But this? This was something else entirely. "It could be the right idea, I suppose. Possibly." She turns back to him, and she's got an oxygen monitor in her hand along with a thermometer. Clipping the monitor on his finger, she holds up the thermometer. "Open."

As it reads his temperature-- baselines are important after all, she thinks about what she's trying to say, her brows furrowing together.

".... How right or wrong do you think this idea is? Hypothetically." She takes the thermometer, noting down the results.

"Historically?" I say, slurring around the thermometer she's shoved under my tongue until she takes it away. "Given my uh, track record? It's the wrong idea, even when it seems like the right idea."

Hey, look, I think that's what they call self-awareness. Man, I wish Bobbi could see this. And Nat. And Jess. And...

"But hypothetically? It doesn't seem like a terrible idea."

"I could agree with that," she says after a moment, her brows furrowing. "That it doesn't seem.... terrible."

Such a ringing endorsement! But it's mostly because she's frowning at his chart, and then she turns back to him. "Well? Is it a thing, or not? Not hypothetically, but in reality, or else we can just let it go a while longer, and just sort of-- You know, keep playing cat and mouse for the next 6 months. Again."

Again. Because it's not like she's blind, and it's not like she didn't actually notice on New Years-- Well.

Unclipping the monitor from his finger, she frowns as she scribbles the number. "Your O2 is a little low, have you been feeling alright? Also could be the monitor." Like it's totally normal to go back and forth on what's actually quite an important conversation.

"Could be the monitor. Or, you know, the interrogation," I say, and she's rambling in her way and-- crap. I smile, because how can I not? She's adorable and it's really messing with my head.

I remember, once, being kind of smooth with this sort of thing. Part of me wants to blame Bobbi for the change, but even I know that would be really unfair.

"In reality? Yeah. It's a thing."

"That's not something that would make your oxygen levels drop unless you were holding your breath or hyperventilating," she said absently as she scribbles a note, and then looked back up at him with raised brows before she realised what, exactly he just said.

That yes, this was a thing after all.

.... Alright then.

"Well," she says after a moment, looking up at him. "What do we want to do about it? It seems that we have two choices - namely to actually do something, or just... wait to see if something happens." She's being remarkably even keeled about this whole thing, namely because she's not a hundred percent sure if Clint wants to do something, or just agree that it's a mutual state of mind and leave it, given the previous however many times they've skirted the edge of this.

"Isn't something happening? Right now, with both of us, you know," I gestured helplessly.

"There's probably a long list of reasons why we should, you know, just... wait and see and probably pretend like this conversation never happened. I'm actually really awesome at that."

I offer her a wry smile.

"But I don't care? If it's a bad idea, so what? And at this point, what exactly would we be waiting for?"

"It depends on your definition of 'something'," she said after a moment of thought, and she finally put down her papers and the thermometer and everything else, and turned back to him. "We've been pretending that this conversation hadn't happened or almost happened for the better part of a year." She'd had reasons for erring on the side of this being ignored for some time, but now that they're actually talking about it...

And she'd talked to Fitz.

She'd talked to him, she'd had this exact conversation with him, or nearly. What she had Fitz had - and still did, actually - was something that'd been an amorphous blob between them since not long after they'd met.

Same, apparently, with Clint.

"I'm tired of just ignoring it. It may be a terrible idea, but worst case scenario, it goes horribly, Tony is the one making your kit, Fitz hates me, and we both avoid one another. That's honestly bad, but not that terrible, and exceedingly unlikely. Frankly, either it will go well, or it'll likely fizzle into nothing, and either one of those options are quite a bit better than us playing cat and mouse for the next year as well. Don't you think?"

"Uh."

Honestly, I miss some of that. It's not that I'm not listening, but she's a fast talker even under normal circumstances, and technology and impressive lip-reading skills have their limits.

I catch enough of it. Bad, but not terrible. We could break things, but not dismantle them. And hey, I've got fathoms of experience breaking things, so at least it'll be familiar territory.

"It'll likely fizzle, huh?" I say, offering her a smirk. "And here I thought you were an optimist."

"If it doesn't go well," she repeats, staring up at him. "There really are only two options if it doesn't go well, either it will fizzle into nothing or it will explode, and I don't particularly think of myself as an explosion type of person, although," she looks thoughtful. "You are."

Still, she takes a deep breath, and thinks for a moment, then nods. "Alright. So. What now, since there actually isn't anything to wait for?" Because, more or less, the decision's been made, as far as she's aware. They were doing this... right?

"Jemma, I'm not an explosion type of person. I'm a flounder and then avoid the problem until it goes away type of person," I assure her, even though I know that's probably not much of a comfort.

Maybe I'm working on that whole honesty thing.

"Um. Dinner? We could go to dinner."

Her brows arch upwards in a sort of question. "Clint, I'm relatively sure that where you go, explosions follow. That being said, I appreciate the sentiment." She nods once, and then smiles, her pen stilling on the paper she'd been taking notes on. "I'd like that. Dinner. Maybe dinner and TV? Since you have a new one."

She looks downright pleased, and she's actually fully stopped taking notes -- clearly an indication that this isn't just some passing whim, but instead what she actually wants to do. It takes a lot to get between Jemma and her labwork.

Let me poke and prod, alright?

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