When Trip picked her up in a small, rented out prop plane, the ride was silent. He let her have her space, and he let her talk when she wanted. It was easier than trying to push her into something that she wasn't ready for quite yet. Some of the agents at the base didn't understand that, didn't understand her, but Trip did. He knew Agent Monroe well enough to see she had put up walls not to protect herself, but to protect everyone else.
When they got close to where they needed to land, Trip called out to the back, where she sat strapped in. "Hey TicTac, we're almost here. We're going to drop this plane at the airport and go meet up with the others. Coulson wants us to monitor some of the new agents on a purchase deal, make sure nothing goes wrong."
Asia turned slowly and glanced over at Trip, and nodded at him before looking back at her feet, thinking. Slowly, she raised her hood to cover her face.
"Coulson said all you need to do is take a high perch somewhere in the warehouse, keep an eye on things. Minimal interaction. You'll be our break glass in case of emergency, ok?" Trip called out back to her again, but this time she didn't respond. Instead, she leaned over and double checked her backpack to make sure her gun was in position the way she liked it. When she reassembled things, recently she wanted them to be ready in the precise order. It made things quicker, easier. Then she leaned back in her chair, shutting her eyes. Trip could just make out the side of her face beneath that heavy hood. She hadn't said no, so he assumed it was a yes.
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It wasn't long before they landed, and caught a cab to a back alley and walked the rest of the way, till they met up with Agents May and Skye.
"Nice to see you on a team mission again, Monroe," May said, tilting her head to the side so she could look the girl in her eyes. Asia flicked her wide eyes to meet May's gaze and nodded, then looked away. Well, May thought, at least that was a reaction. It was something. Melinda May hated seeing Asia like this. It was like she was a shell of her former self. Now, she understood what it must have been like for her teammates, after Bahrain, when she too, became secluded. But Asia hadn't asked for a desk job yet, she hadn't asked for dismissal. Coulson thought there was still some part of her in there, and at some point, they would pull her back out. For now, she was just the kind of deadly weapon SHIELD really needed.
"I have to go get in position," Asia muttered, turning away to face a warehouse. Deftly, she scaled the side of the building, using boxes that were stacked near by, then SHIELD tech to help her up the smooth side, until she made it to an upper window. Opening the glass, she slipped inside and disappeared.
"That was seven words, wasn't it?" Skye asked, not able to take her gaze away from where Asia had disappeared. Her friend, one of her best friends, had changed on a dime, from the happy, open person she used to be, to someone who hardly spoke at all anymore. "Seven is good."
"I told you she's still in there," Trip said with a shrug. "You just have to be patient, give her a little more time to come out from hiding. This is just how she copes." He too looked up at the window, then pulled a tablet from his bag. "She should have a feed up and ready for us momentarily. It's fixed to her scope, we'll see everything she sees."
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As Asia entered the upper level of the warehouse, she pulled herself ontop of a wooden crate. The enter building was filled with haphazard stacks of them, with seemingly no specific order to their semblance, which made something in the back of Agent Monroe's brain twitch uncomfortably. There was such a neater, more methodical way to do this. Sighing, she quietly pulled out her gun and assembled the pieces, sliding her scope into place with the tiniest click. Laying down, she took position, flicking on a small toggle that ran the video feed. Her teammates outside would have eyes on what was going on and be able to move forward and into the building. Focusing in, she got vision of where the deal was about to occur.
A small, fold out table was in the center of the warehouse. A man and a woman in dark, but casual clothes, stood on oneside, another man, who she had better vision of, with a pale face and brown stubble that hadn't been shaved for a day or two growing on his chin and below his nose. He looked familiar, but she couldn't place where. His mouth was moving rapidly, then, he pulled out a folder, tossing it onto the table. The woman reached forward and flipped the folder open, revealing the grainy, black and white image, of a box. Quietly she adjusted the scope to get better focus of the picture. Painted evenly on the box were the numbers '084.'
Shifting her gaze up, Asia eyed the guards who stood behind him. There weren't many, they'd be easy to take down in necessary. She shifted the sights back down to the table where the conversation was happening. Out of nowhere, a large man rushes onto the scene, plowing through the two guards behind the seller, knocking them, dazed, to the ground. The well built man,where raggedy clothing, grabbed the seller and twisted his next, dropping his limp dead body to the ground, then he lunged across the table at the other two.
Without hesitation, Asia squeezed the trigger, but instead of seeing blood fill her vision, all she heard was a 'tink' similar to the sound of a rock bouncing off metal.
Asia looked up from the scope, astonished. Putting the safety on, Asia slung the sniper rifle over her back and flipped off of the boxes, landing on the hard floor of the warehouse below. What was that man? What was he here for? Most importantly, was he HYDRA? The man had grabbed the file folder and ran for the nearby window across the way.
Asia darted after him, running past the woman and man who had been with their backs to her, just as Skye, May, and Trip were running up. "What the bloody hell is she doing here?" she heard the man shout in a distinct British accent, before shouting about how they were interrupting the intel mission and ruining everything.
Ignoring the rest, Asia sprinted straight for the open window, fully preparing to launch herself out into the streets below. She pressed down with one leg and began to jump in the air when someone's strong arms grabbed her around the waist from behind and yanked her back down.
"He's gone, Renegade," the British spy, Lance Hunter, griped, as he released her, letting her fall to the ground. "No reason to suicide out the window, mate." Asia looked up at him, blinking, narrowing her eyes. But she didn't speak, she simply stood up and stomped off back towards the exit. She was done for the day.
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For the entirety of the SUV ride back to the base, Agent Monroe remained silent. Her mind was racing through what had happened in the warehouse. She had hit the mystery man. She was absolutely sure of it. The footage from her scope would prove it. But he hadn't been injured. He hadn't been downed. He was fit enough to run on out of there and disappear. The other agents talked angrily, arguing with one another about how Coulson sending Skye, May, Trip, and "The Renegade," as Hunter called her, often using air quotes, was detrimental to their mission.
"If he doesn't trust us, then what's the point?" Agent Hartley said, crossing her arms over her chest. Hartley had been a SHIELD agent for years. Asia knew who she was, but had never worked with her before now. Now, they were some of the few agents left. Agent Hartely pulled her short, brown hair back into a tight pony tail. "I'm a SHIELD agent for Christ's sake. He shouldn't be doubting me."
Trip parked the SUV and everyone piled out of the black vehicle, still arguing. Asia couldn't stand it, the constant bickering. It made her head feel like it was about to explode. She pushed in front of the rest, grabbing her lanyard and pressing it hard against a small scanner beside a set of thick, metal, reinforced double doors.
"Agent Monroe," a small robotic voice chirped from the scanner as the doors slid open.
"Where are you going?" Hunter called out as she walked through them. "We're not done talking about this mess, and you're a part of it. Just because you're some Renegade now doesn't mean you can't have a bloody conversation." But the doors were already shut and Agent Monroe was gone. "It doesn't mean that, does it?" He said, turning back to the other team members.
Skye looked at the closed doors where Asia had momentarily been. "For her it does."
YOU ARE READING
Renegade Rising || Leo Fitz Book Two
Fanfiction**this is a sequel to Birds of a Feather** Following the acts of Birds of a Feather, we find ourselves amidst the story of SHIELD after their fall. Phil Coulson has become the new Director of SHIELD and is working on assembling those still loyal to...
