Renegade Rising || Leo Fitz Book Two

Chapter Four

Asia felt like her throat was constricting, like she couldn't breathe. If she had had something in her hand, surely she would have dropped it to the floor, shattering it everywhere. There he was, Leo Fitz, beautiful as always, wearing a large, grey, cable-nit sweater with sleeves so long they came down to his palms and a t-shirt underneath. He looked perfect, he always looked perfect, with those stormy eyes and his ever-curled hair cropped short. And he was looking back at her, mouth dropped just ever so slightly open. She needed to look away, she needed to break the gaze, but she couldn't.

Leo was in shock, that much was to say the least. Asia never came to the Lab anymore, much less came near to him, looked at him. They didn't acknowledge each other anymore, though Leo was still trying to figure out what had happened, what had went wrong. But now here she was, standing in front of him, clad in all black. She looked....there was something in her eyes, she looked so tired. Drained. Absentmindedly, he began to wring his hands, mouth dropping ever so slightly open.

Thankfully, May broke the silence. "Fitz," she began, "Is there any update on the material Skye brought you?"

Fitz tore his gaze from Asia to look at May, then down at the microscope where the sample sat. Tapping a few buttons on a tablet, he brought the image of the metal beneath the microscope onto the big screen. "Yes, yes m'am," he began. "Well...er...I guess there...there....no. No updates." He looked down at his hands, still ringing them together. "I just...I just...I can't quite figure out...out...erm, what it's made of. The material."

"Okay," May replied calmly, looking up at the screen, squinting at the image in front of them. It was just a small, jagged piece of what appeared to be metal scrap.

"So this is partly composed of, erm, the same lead as our bullets," Leo began, focusing incredibly hard on making his words form coherent sentences. He felt especially pressured when Asia was there. He wanted her to see he was doing well, he was doing ok. He was getting better. "But there's, uh, something...." he trailed off, looking up at the screen and squinting in disbelief. "Blood! There's blood" he pointed up at the screen, face growing pale. Please don't let this be my imagination, please don't, he thought to himself. He grimaced and looked away from the screen.

Asia's eyes widened as she saw the bit of metal turn to what looked like a scrap of flesh. How was that even possible? Though honestly, as far as her career in SHIELD had taken her, what wasn't possible at this point? She almost took a step closer, to look more intently at the transformation, but stopped herself. This was as far as she had stepped into the Lab in a while, and she wanted to keep it that way.

"Please, um, tell me you can see that," Leo said to May, flustered, holding the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb and squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe if he closed them tight enough, the image would go away.

Gently, May placed a hand on Leo's shoulder reassuringly. "Yes, I see it. It looks like blood."

Leo let out an exhalation of relief, leaning forward on his knees for a moment before standing up straight. "Thank God, erm...I mean. Well, that's a new development. Weird."

"Can you figure out whose blood it is?" May asked the young scientist, feeling very motherly. This poor kid had been through so much, all because of HYDRA. And because of SHIELD too, if she really thought about it.

"Erm, yes," Leo said after a moment. "Yes I think I can handle that." He replied, looking up at the image once more.

"I'll stay and help out, that way I can be here when the results are finalized," May replied, glancing over at Asia, basically giving her an opening to say she would stay as well.

But the girl was already gone. She had slipped out of the room without anyone noticing. Which was just the way she liked it.

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Asia was up in her little nest when she heard Coulson talking to Skye, and she knew the moment they started speaking what he was asking her to do. See, Coulson had a little known secret. But Asia was learning all the secrets of this place. And she knew damn well he was keeping a monster in their basement.

So when the two ended their conversation and the Director had returned to his office, Asia slipped out of the vent and into the empty commonroom. She watched Skye quietly from the darkness, watching her follow Koenig down the hall. She got up and started to follow, but stopped at the door to the Lab. Even though it was late into the evening, there was still a light on in there. Peaking around the door, Asia saw him.

Leo was standing there, leaning over the desk, frustrated and talking to himself. Or what looked like himself. He was talking to some sort of made up Jemma Simmons in his head, and Asia knew it. For a while she resented it, but then not really. Jemma was his best friend, and she left too.

She stood there for a moment, watching him silently. He was working on the cloaking technology for the Bus. He needed to replicate the same tech that the quin jets used so they could fly under the radar. His hands were shaking as he tried to pick up a small tool and fine tune something. His hand fumbled and suddenly he stood up, throwing his tools to the ground and smacking the table. But Asia couldn't do anything but watch, she couldn't make her feet move and go to him. She was so angry. They had worked so hard, their team. Worked so hard to do so much good, and all because of that fucking traitor, Grant Ward, they were all broken. No one had healed fully. And Asia blamed herself, she always did. But now, she was angrier than usual.

She spun on her heel and marched down the hall, stopping at the door she knew Skye had entered. Pressing her ear to the cool metal, she could hear her friend speaking, and she could hear that son of a bitch replying. Her blood was practically boiling. Slipping past the door, she sat down on the top stairs, hiding in the shadows, looking at him.

Grant Ward was in a SHIELD prison, hiding in their basement. He wore a grey jumpsuit and his beard had grown out, scraggly and gross. And here he was, smiling at Skye. He got to feel happiness while she was struggling. Without thought or feeling, she pulled her pistol from her waistband and lined the sights up on Ward. She pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. She imagined him crumpling to the ground, falling, bleeding, dying to her hands. She imagined him never getting to feel happy again. Next thing she knew, she was moving down the stairs, still firing. She could feel something wet on her cheeks, but wasn't sure what. She just kept pulling that trigger until it was clicking, empty.

"It's your fault," she screamed at him, because he hadn't fallen, he hadn't died. The technology that kept him imprisoned in a tiny, rectangular room, also kept her bullets out. "You fucking coward, it's all your fault," she sobbed. And suddenly he was gone, there was just a white screen where he was standing. And Skye's arms were wrapped tightly around her, holding her in place.

"Asia," she said sternly. "Asia look at me."

But she wouldn't look, she wouldn't let her see her pain. She pulled out of her grasp and ran.