Jemma came awake without opening her eyes. She stretched and yawned, feeling much more refreshed than she would have expected after just an hour or so.

Tony was right, a nap was just what the doctor or - wait, that's daylight.

Jemma opened her eyes, blinking against the sunlight streaming through the window of their room. Definitely daylight, definitely morning. She lifted her head, craned her neck to see the clock on the bedside table, groaning when she saw the time.

Not just morning. Almost time for elevenses.

Behind her, Tony still slept - soundly, to judge by his deep, even breaths that weren't quite snores.

"Tony."

When his name didn't rouse him, she shifted, rolling onto her other side so she could face him. She nudged his shoulder with her free hand. "Tony."

"I second the motion." Then Tony was blinking, eventually focusing on her. "Thanks for waking me - I was having a nightmare."

"A nightmare that involved a motion?"

"An SI board meeting that never ended." Tony shuddered in her arms.

"Speaking of never ending, sort of - you were supposed to wake me after an hour."

"If the rest of the universe were moving at near light speed, it would only have been an hour."

"Physics is no excuse," Jemma retorted. "We missed dinner. And breakfast."

"And we can't even blame the sex pollen this time."

"Tony!" Jemma knew she was blushing again.

"Relax." Tony pulled her closer. "It's downtime. There are no schedules on downtime."

Jemma allowed herself to relax into his arms. He was right, of course - but she'd had a schedule for so long that she wasn't entirely certain what to do without one.

And then she lost her train of thought entirely as Tony started stroking her hip, drawing lazy patterns with his fingers. She moaned, the sound so soft even she almost didn't hear it, and arched toward him.

"So." Tony nuzzled her neck, sprinkling it with kisses between words. "Can I interest you in an appetizer before breakfast?"

Oh, yes, please, Jemma thought, but before she could focus enough to say the words aloud, her stomach rumbled, much more loudly than she'd moaned.

Tony started, then frowned. "How long has it been since you've eaten?"

"I don't remember." Jemma tugged at his neck, trying to pull him closer. "A little longer won't hurt."

"Jemma." Tony kissed her before pulling back once again. "It matters - if only because I don't want you passing out from hunger in the middle of things."

"Tony -"

"Or think of it this way - you'll need something to build up your strength now that you're not all hopped up on sex pollen."

"Tony…" Her tone was somewhere between pleading and exasperated, and Jemma didn't think she'd ever used it before.

Better get used to using it. She didn't want to acknowledge that, so she reached for Tony again, only to find that during that brief moment of distraction, he'd already gotten out of bed and was grabbing her suitcase to put it on the bed. He opened it and then came around to perch on the edge of the mattress beside her.

With admirably bad timing, her stomach growled again. Tony just grinned. "Or you could look at it from my point of view. I don't want you distracted during round four."

Before she could respond, he leaned down and kissed her again, this one long and lingering and she wondered if maybe he'd changed his mind.

Then he was straightening away. "I'll be a gentleman and let you have the shower first."

"I'm sure that's new for you," Jemma said. "Being a gentleman."

"I expect I'll get lots of practice, thanks to you."

#

Tony paid no attention to the staff at the Admiral Hornblower's restaurant - at least no more than was necessary to get their table and place their orders. Jemma, however, noted every start, every stare, every whisper that followed them to their table - away from the window, as Tony had specified.

She supposed she couldn't blame them for staring - it wasn't every day Iron Man walked into a restaurant in a tiny country town in England. She just hoped that was the reason they were staring.

"What's bugging you?" Tony asked after they'd given their orders - full English for both of them. Jemma normally didn't eat that much, but her stomach had reminded them several times that it had been more than twenty-four hours since she'd had anything more than coffee while she worked.

Jemma gave Tony a half-hearted smile. "I'm just not used to being stared at."

"We're probably the most exciting thing that's happened here in years." Tony glanced around the centuries-old building that had been converted to a restaurant. "Maybe decades."

She didn't want to dignify that with a reply, however true it might have been. So she just murmured a "Thank you, that's lovely," to the server who'd brought coffee.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Iron - I mean, Mr. Man -" their server, a young man who might be working his way through school, stammered.

Tony flicked an amused glance at Jemma. With a tilt of her head, she willed him not to be rude to - she glanced at the server's nametag - Brian.

"Mr. Stark is fine," Tony told him. "What can I do for you?"

"An autograph? My sister's got your posters all over her room, and she'd love it if she had your autograph."

"Sure. Where do I sign?"

Jemma smiled over the rim of her coffee cup at Tony's easy acquiescence. She didn't doubt this was an exception, made only because she was with him, but she allowed herself to relax a little, knowing that he wasn't going to make a scene.

Well, not much of one, she amended, as the young man appeared to realize that if he were going to get Tony's autograph, he had to have some paper for Tony to sign. Finally, he settled on one of the tickets on his order pad.

"What's your sister's name, Brian?" Tony asked. Jemma blinked, surprised that Tony had bothered to use the server's name. Then again, he'd been surprising her pretty much since they'd met, so maybe she shouldn't be surprised at all.

"Betsy. She's twelve."

"Twelve?" That seemed to set Tony aback, but he covered it quickly, scrawling a brief note on the ticket before handing it back to Brian.

"Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it."

"Just make sure breakfast is hot when it gets here," Tony said. Jemma knew he intended the words as a jest, but Brian's expression was as serious as if he'd just been assigned a duty to the Queen herself.

"Absolutely, sir. Thank you again."

Brian was gone even as Tony was waving him away. Tony looked up at Jemma, gave her a small smile.

"My life," he said.

"And I'm part of it now."

"If you choose to be."

"What?"

Tony took a sip of his coffee before answering, and if Jemma didn't know better, she'd think he looked nervous. "The soulmarks are a promise, a potential. It's up to the parties involved to make that potential real. Schrodinger's soulmark, if you will."

Jemma's lips quirked at the description, but something in his tone - "Do you not want to make it real?"

"I do want to. Very much." There was sincerity in his tone and expression, and Jemma felt something inside her relax, however fractionally. "But we have challenges, Jemma. I'd be foolish to assume you're willing to accept them."

"What challenges?"

"Starting with the obvious? That." He waved a hand in the general direction Brian had gone. "Happens all the time, and usually not quite as politely."

"You love it."

"Sometimes. And there's the age difference - I've got to be at least twenty years older than you. And then there're the jobs. Sure, there's a fully outfitted biochem lab at SI with your name on it - or there will be, soon as I make a call - but all your teammates say you're brilliant at what you do and you love working for SHIELD, or whatever's left of it."

His concern was touching, and the fear that leaked through beneath it tore at her heart. Jemma took a sip of her own coffee, using the brief moment to gather her thoughts.

"Every couple, soul-bonded or not, has challenges," she said. "I think the bond gives us more reason to work through them than most, and perhaps gives us a head start in that we know that at some basic level we're compatible."

"And you're willing to work on the challenges?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"Yes." Then he grinned. "Especially if it involves more Biblical knowledge."

"Tony!" She was blushing again. She had to be.

"After breakfast, maybe?" Tony paused as Brian returned with their meals, placing them, Jemma thought, with a care usually reserved for precious objets d'art. Once Brian had left again, Tony looked up at her. "Or after you show me what there is to be seen in town?"

"Do you really care what there is to be seen in Oakham?"

"No, not really. But you care to show me, and I care about you."

#

He really was becoming a sap, Tony thought. At this rate, even Captain America would have nothing on him by the end of the week.

Still, it was a challenge, making small talk that wasn't for the purpose of persuading someone - whether that someone was a woman he wanted to bed or a buyer he was courting. This was small talk just to get to know someone else, and even more importantly, that someone else was his soulmate.

He tried.

He asked whether she watched soccer - or should he call it football while he was in England? That made her laugh, and Tony wasn't really surprised when she said she did. He stared at her when she mentioned her favorite team, though.

"Who the hell is Aston Villa?"

"A football club in the Premier League," Jemma responded. "You mean you didn't hear about them on those trips to Birmingham?"

"Should I have?"

"They're based in Witton, and they have a fierce local rivalry with Birmingham City. Not to mention more honors than almost any other English football club." Then Jemma smiled. "And they have famous fans, including Prince William, Prime Minister Cameron, and Black Sabbath."

"Black Sabbath? Really?"

"Ozzy Osbourne, at least."

"Huh." Tony filed that bit of information away. "I'll have to watch them sometime. We'll have to watch them sometime," he corrected himself. "You can tell me who all the players are, and if there are actually any rules -"

"Of course there are rules!"

"- that make sense."

"That might be a bit more difficult."

Tony laughed. "At least you're honest about it. I've had people actually say to me that the reason Americans don't like soccer is that we don't like games where there's not always a winner."

"You don't agree?" Jemma asked.

"That's part of it, maybe, for some people. For me, it's that what's happening on the field is chaos. I can't watch it and intuit the rules. I have the same problem with basketball."

Jemma appeared to consider that as she sipped the last of her coffee. "I can see that. And it's true that some rules just don't make sense. Still, it's great fun to watch, and to have someone to root for."

"You can root for me now," Tony said without thinking.

"You have the whole world rooting for you."

"But they're not you." That came out with even less thought, and Tony wondered just how this petite brunette had gotten so completely past his guard.

Being your soulmate had something to do with it.

Tony shook that off and re-focused on Jemma. She was regarding him with serious eyes. Too serious, Tony thought, and wondered how he'd screwed up.

"There's something I need to tell you," she said.

"There's someone else?"

"In a way." Jemma paused, appeared to search for words. "You're not the first one who said my words to me."

"Is that all?" Tony felt parts of him relaxing that he didn't realize had tensed. "That happens all the time. You know, people have words like 'hello, how are you' or 'nice to meet you.'"

"One other person said those words to me. Only one."

"And you and he -" it had to be a he, the way she was acting "- are together?"

"No. He wanted to be, but -" she gave a helpless shrug. "We're very good friends."

"And you think I'm jealous?"

"I think you should hear the truth from me, before you hear it from someone else."

That made Tony hesitate, uncertain what to say but certain that wasn't any flippant remark. Jemma wasn't used to that part of him yet, and letting that part have fun when she'd obviously taken a risk by telling him something important and intimate would be beyond rude. He wouldn't be that rude to his soulmate.

So he decided to be the opposite of rude.

"Thank you for telling me."

Jemma's eyes widened in shock before narrowing in suspicion. "That's it?"

"That's it," Tony confirmed. "God knows, as close as Pepper and I are, half the world thought we were soulmates, and we didn't even have half an exchange between us. It's okay if you have a friend like that. Better than okay, even - I know there's someone else out there who'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe."

He hadn't expected tears.

"Jemma? Jemma, honey, what is it? What did I say?"

She was struggling for control, some little bit of decorum that matched this restaurant - this restaurant that was now filling with the lunch crowd, Tony noted. She wouldn't want to break down in public.

"What you said," Jemma's voice was rough, her words spoken carefully as she kept the tears at bay. "He already did."

"Already did - what?" But Tony was a genius, and understanding came in the next heartbeat. "He already did whatever it took to keep you safe."

Jemma nodded. "And now he - and I - and -"

"Not here," Tony cut her off. "Too many other people around. We can go back to the room and you can tell me and I'll listen, I promise. No sarcastic commentary, either."

That last made her chuckle, as he'd hoped it would. She wiped her eyes on her napkin, set it aside. "I'll hold you to that," she said. "But later. I want to show you Oakham."

Tony understood. "Later" meant she'd have time to compose herself, to prepare for whatever she had to say. He already knew it wouldn't be good. The only question was how bad it would be.

However bad it was, he'd listen, and he'd hold her, and he'd let her cry it out if she needed to.

Yep, he was definitely a sap.

#

Jemma had been prepared to step out of the restaurant and into an overcast, drizzly day. It was England, after all; overcast, drizzly days were hardly anything new.

She hadn't been prepared for a barrage of flashbulbs and questions.

Instinctively, she turned away from the cadre of reporters, hiding her face against Tony's shoulder. She was SHIELD; having her image plastered across the telly, especially on Tony Stark's - Iron Man's - arm, couldn't be good for security measures.

Then she remembered the Triskelion and the information that had been made public, and decided that security measures were the least of her worries now.

Tony's arm had already come around her, and he held her close, steady and strong. Or, she thought, just accustomed to this invasion of his privacy.

"You realize I'm on vacation. I don't sign autographs while I'm on vacation. I don't usually answer questions, either," Tony said when the clamor of questions had abated.

"Why did you pick Oakham for your holiday?" one of the reporters asked, either not understanding or not caring about Tony's last comment.

Jemma tensed, felt Tony do the same, though she was certain his smile never wavered. The question struck right at the heart of their relationship, her insecurities. What was he going to say?

Then his lips were against her ear. "What do you want me to say?"

She stilled.

He was giving her the decision - how to define their relationship, even whether to define their relationship. It was in her hands.

She knew exactly how she would decide.

Jemma straightened, turned to face the reporters. She took a breath, felt Tony's steady presence beside her, and spoke directly to the reporter who'd asked the (invasive, even insensitive) question.

"He chose Oakham because it's important to me."

More flashbulbs, more questions. Jemma tried to match Tony's casual posture as she waited them out and one question sounded clearly. "Who are you, then?"

"Tony Stark's soulmate." Then some imp possessed her and she added, "Sorry, girls, he's taken."

"Very taken," Tony murmured in her ear, and she supposed she was blushing again, but that was all right. She was where she wanted to be.