Renegade Rising || Leo Fitz Book Two

Chapter Twentyone

When they finally arrived back at the base, Asia must have spent at least an hour in the scalding hot shower, trying to make sure every possible trace of blood was visibly off her. Of course, she knew, there would always be blood on her hands, even if she couldn't see it. From the very beginning, this had always been true. How silly it was of her to think she could keep people safe.

But she didn't have much time to herself. The team wanted to meet on the Bus for briefing shortly. Fitz was supposed to be setting up the holographic towers so they could do a sort of presentation. As much as Asia felt like she couldn't face Trip, much less Jemma, at this time, she knew she didn't have a choice. At least Trip was alive. Jemma had been waiting at the foot of the cargo ramp the second they landed, tears brimming in her eyes. Asia couldn't bring herself to look at her. She couldn't help but think if she had been quicker, smarter, better, none of this would have happened.

Yet, there was a job to focus on now. And when things got bad, Agent Monroe could always rely on work to keep her focused. Today was no different. She slipped back into a pair of slim, black pants and a black tank, shrugging on her jacket.

When she slipped into the Bus, the demonstration had already started. She had a bit of a leg up anyways, they had gone over all of this on the plane ride back. So missing the first couple minutes really wasn't going to kill her. And there was a large crowd of people watching the presentation regardless. Quietly, she slid into place next to Hunter, who glanced down at her from his spot next to Bobbi. Clearly those two were getting along again. She made a note to herself to bring it up later, if she ever decided to talk with him again. Gently, he bumped her in the side, so she would know he noticed her arrive late. She flicked her gaze up at him out of the corner of her eye then returned her gaze to the front.

"Do we have any idea where the temple is?" Jemma asked Coulson and Skye, who stood at the front of the crowd, explaining how they might have finally had a leg up on HYDRA.

"Well, no," Coulson replied flatly, "But, what we do know is where the city is. And that's more information than HYDRA has." He nodded towards Fitz, who started up the holographic towers, the blue light shining from them displaying a SHIELD case file. Skye walked up to the file and tapped it with her hand, opening a bunch of smaller files. Clicking on one, the image of a globe displayed in front of them.

"When we were in Australia, we hacked a secure military satellite," Skye explained. "When we got in, we were able to run a multispectral topographic scan of the Earth, to search for anything that matched out blueprint of the city. Ancient rock formations and all of that fun secret stuff that only military satellites can get us into. Luckily, we found this," she tapped on the tablet in her hands and the map of the globe zoomed in on one specific location, in the Atlantic ocean off the coast of the US.

"Isn't that in the Bermuda Triangle?" Trip joked, wincing slightly as he laughed. "That would make this crazy make way more sense." He looked down at Jemma, smiling at her. She had been a mess since he got back, he wanted to cheer her up a bit.

"Firstly, we solved that mystery back in the 70s. Secondly, no. Try again, it's Puerto Rico," Coulson replied, nodding to Skye to continue.

Tapping at her tablet again, the map zoomed in further, to old San Juan, placing white dots over specific areas of the city. "These white markers are for vertical air shafts that give entrance to the city. Most of them, unfortunately, are at the bottom of the ocean. Not a whole lot we can do about those. But this one right here," she pointed her index finger at the dot in question, "is still in Old San Juan."

"We're going to take a small team," Coulson interjected. "A survey team to test the temple's structural integrity once we find it."

"Excuse me, Sir," Bobbi cut in, raising her hand slightly as if she were asking a question in class. Then, she tried to casually play it off by brushing some of her blonde hair back over her shoulder. "What happens once we locate it?"