The lab was chaos, as Poppy expected. There was yelling in the center of the room where a crowd of bickering scientists had gathered and Poppy sighed, moving forward.
"What? No. I asked you to be here to be here. Not to wait off to the side." She extended a hand to him.
They approached and the clamoring voices became more clear, with one very familiar one in the middle. "I don't know, okay? I don't know where she is!" Poppy frowned before trying to speak. "Excuse me..." The various people crowd didn't seem to hear her, continuing to yell at the person in the middle. "Then call her, or... I don't know. Do your job!" "This is an extreme circumstance," the man shouted back. "I'm just not sure what the protocol-" "Well, figure it out!" Poppy tried again. "Excuse me-" They continued to yell and she blew her hair out her face, annoyed.
The group gradually fell silent. Their eyes had to travel a fair distance from Francis' face to Poppy's and it took them a moment to realize who it was. "Abernathy, thank god," a frustrated looking man said, running his hand through his black hair. "Where have you been?" Poppy raised an eyebrow, looking quite unimpressed. "Elsewhere," she replied curtly. "Why are you all yelling at Phos?" "Because he can't figure out a damn thing for himself," one girl muttered, taking off a pair of rubber gloves. "'Elsewhere' won't cut it, Poppy," one agitated woman said, crossing her arms. "We've been through Hell here these last couple days. Where were you?"
Francis frowned, raising an eyebrow, similar to Poppy. "It is none of your concern where we had to go. Just know that it was critical we left quickly."
One of the men glanced up at Francis with a raised brow. "Abernathy, who even is this?" Poppy pursed her lips, her voice sharp. "My fiance. I wasn't supposed to come in today because it's dangerous for the both of us, but I accurately predicted that you guys wouldn't be able to manage without me, so we came in anyway. You guys are that unable to fend for yourselves." The crowd got quiet for a moment and Poppy sighed, running her hand through her hair. "Anyway. Is this all because of the explosion?" "No, we were able to resolve that," someone spoke up in the back. "This is just everyday issues, but people are trying to be sneaky." "Bethany stole my potassium!" one person cried out. "I did not!" Poppy tilted her head in a very familiar way. "Jesus, listen to yourselves! Alright. Francis and I will be in my office. You will come in with whoever you have a problem with and we'll get this sorted out."
Her gaze flickered to Francis' for a moment and he would be able to detect that she was trying not to smile. She paused but didn't say anything before taking his hand and pulling him to her office in the back.
Poppy's office was much like her other spaces, painted a light green with plants hanging from the ceiling. There were towers of old books on the floor along the walls topped with ferns in pots. There was a worn periodic table up on the wall, and her desk had a computer, a set of beakers, her goggles, reading glasses, and a mug. Poppy gestured to an old, overstuffed armchair in the corner, turning on the lamp. "Make yourself at home," she said dryly, putting on her glasses.
She sat in her chair with a sigh, tugging a lock of hair loose from her ponytail in thought. "It's fine. They're not normally like this. I just... I'm worried about Phos, to be honest."
"Well, that. But they have good reason to be. He's... forgetting things. He should know how to deal with everyday situations like this. It was his job for decades."
