Renegade Rising || Leo Fitz Book Two

Chapter Twentyfour

Asia didn't want to admit it, but she was starting to think so, too.

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Trip was the one to finally come and get her. "Come on, Tic Tac. Work to do," he gave her a small grin. "Time to head back to the big, bad tunnel. And we get to make things go boom. It'll be fun." He could tell something had thrown her off. She seemed even more out of it than usual. On edge. Like someone tiptoeing around, knowing full well the glass they were walking on was about to break through. "Are you...upset about Mack?" He asked quietly.

"Well I'm not happy about it," she replied, pressing her forehead down to her knees before sighing and looking back up at him. "You're going to think I'm crazy, but, Trip, I swear to you. There was a moment, when he was going crazy, where he looked at me. Just me. And he let me be." She shook her head, looking back out the window. If she let her mind drift, she could see it again. The recognition. The awareness. The fact that she knew he wouldn't hurt her, no matter what she did.

Trip shook his head. "Maybe he just knew you'd destroy him if he laid a hand on you," he tried to grin at her, shake off some of the nerves, but it was pretty apparent her nerves weren't going to evaporate any time soon. "Well, lets just look on the bright side. We set up these bombs, we never have to think about that tunnel again. Quick and easy. Like a bandaid." Oh, if only that were true.

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Yet, Trip had always had a way of smooth talking Agent Monroe into cooperation. And that was how she found herself back in that damn room, staring at the sealed hole,knowing they were about to pry the lid off and descend into the darkness. She didn't want to think about what was under that lid. She had never been afraid of the dark, or of heights, but this. This made her terrified.

Everyone has a fight or flight response. It's basic human instinct. Some believe you can train your response to tailor to your situation. Agent Monroe had always believed this. But perhaps she was just never put in a situation she had been truly terrified of until now. She had always been a fighter. Everything between that one moment of weakness as a child until now had been fighting. Never flight. But now, now she wanted to run and run far. She wanted to get herself and her people as far away from this cursed place as she could.

"Right, well, let's get the suits on," Jemma said, trying to hide her own nerves with work. She did truly believe science was on her side right now. The suits, theoretically speaking, should protect them from whatever had infected Mack. And while this was only theoretical, much of Jemma's life was based on theory. What was one more thing? Nothing if they were right. Everything. Everything if they were wrong. But they didn't have a choice now.

"I still think one of you should wait up here, just in case something goes wrong," Trip said, looking at Jemma pointedly, as he stepped into his suit. The red head rolled her eyes.

"Darling," she said, resting a hand on his cheek before pulling away and pulling up her own suit. "You know that's not going to happen. We've already discussed it."

"She's right," Leo pipped up, stepping beside Asia, trying to send comforting enegry her way. She was on edge in a way he had never seen before. "We will have no technology down there," he continued. "Our probability of success gets much higher if we work as a complete team. And I think we'd all like to be successful, yea?" He looked around. All of them shook their heads in agreement. It was settled then. They were going down together, or not at all.

Asia stepped into her suit, slipping her arms into the squishy, white sleeves. The suit felt a tiny bit like armor, like maybe whatever was down there couldn't get to her through it.