“Then you’d rather go get those earplugs?” Summer cocked her head at him. “Stop trying to lie to me, just stop talking about it. Or if you /must/ talk about it now, I’ll go get a clearance from Agent Coulson. He’ll probably be relieved.” She chewed on her lip. “If you’re suddenly doing fieldwork, I expect someone should be monitoring you anyway. It might as well be me.”
He cleared his throat, lowering his voice and hiding his mouth behind his hand. “My lab is… technically… classified… now.” More than any other part of his job, Fitz hated the lying, the cryptic details, the inability to communicate things with people below his rank. He missed being level four. Level four was nice. It was average. “It’s technological assistance on field work. I—I go in with agents to do the sweeps. Collect samples. It’s… streamlined approach to productivity. They weren’t doing a good enough job. And when we get dropped in hot, well, there are guns. Lots of guns. Unexpected guns. It’s nothing. And, anyway, Simmons monitors me. Makes sure I’m all there. Ship-shape.”
Mildly, Summer said, “Jenna Simmons is not an empath. She’s a biochemist. A very good biochemist, but still not an empath.” She shrugged, letting her hands fall to her sides. “It’s fine if you say no.” It wasn’t fine; Fitz was intriguing and she was curious, but pushing would get her nowhere.
He really should have those earplugs, though.