Renegade Rising || Leo Fitz Book Two

Chapter Twentyfive

Leo Fitz looked down at the small, modest, gravestone, a frown slipping over his chiseled face. The grave was small and grey, and it was tucked beneath a large, leafy tree, so he always knew where to find it. Protected by the shade, it almost would have gone unnoticed. But he knew, and he noticed, and he always made sure to pull the weeds trying to spring up around it. While it only had a small name written on it, dates, and a loving quote below, he would always know the weight of what had happened down there in the Temple. This battle, it had left its mark on all of them. Scars would be marked on his team forever, even if they weren't always visible.

The funeral had been brief, not many people were invited. SHIELD was still a secret organization, after all. Technically, wanted by the government. So they couldn't really just swarm the elementary, too many agents in one place was a liability. Maybe it would have been flooded with people if that hadn't been the case. Leo liked to think so. Even though it was brief, it was still nice. The speaker had good things to say, motivational things. How just because someone was gone, that didn't mean they were forgotten. Leo knew that too well. His whole team had craters in their hearts. But as pleasant as it was, it was still difficult to be there, to see that casket lowered into the ground, buried in earth. There was no coming back from that. That was just how this job went, he supposed. Nothing was permanent. They had signed up for the life of an Agent of SHIELD, and this was the outcome.

But just in case, he kept coming back here, on his free days. Once a week, was his goal. He liked to make sure this little grave was well kept, that it wasn't left alone. That would be too cruel, after all his team had been through. He knew a thing or two about being left alone, and he didn't want anyone else to feel that way. Not if he could do something about it.

Bending down, Leo looked at the item, in his palm, sighed, and set the small, inactivated EMP ring next to the grave and traced Trip's name. The same one Trip had given him last year, the one he had used on Garret. "Hope everything is alright, buddy," he mumbled, patting the gravestone with one hand as if he were patting someone gently on the shoulder, before standing up, glancing around the cemetery for anyone who might be watching him, and strolling discretely away. After all, the woman he loved was still in quarantine. He needed to make sure she was okay.

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Asia woke to the same thing she had been for the past week: shivering and sobbing. Sobbing because she had been dreaming of Trip, all the ways she could have saved him. She relived the moments of his death every time her eyes shut. And the shivering was because it was uncomfortably cold inside of the containment chamber. Every morning she remembered it all over again: Trip dying, the Temple collapsing, Skye and Asia barely making it out. Her body aching, not even being entirely sure how she had survived the ash that ate her body. Then there was the quarantine. It was mandatory, obviously. SHIELD protocol. Until they were able to run tests and confirm that both Skye and Asia remained unaffected by what the Obelisk had done. Asia didn't like to think about what the Obelisk had done....because she was fairly certain these were the sort of changes that could never be undone. She couldn't be fixed.

Every day, Asia woke up sobbing, trapped in that glass bubble, because she knew she could have saved Trip. She could have jumped in front of him, shoved him to the ground. She could have been his shield. The look on Jemma's face when she found out....Asia would never forgive herself. She could still see his body crumbling in front of her eyes. Another victim of the Obelisk. Another victim of her own curse, the curse of hurting everyone around her.

The agent sighed, shifting under the blanket on her small, not entirely comfortable cot. If she rolled over, she knew she would see Skye on the other side of her containment wall. The two of them were kept in almost identical rooms, separated by only a thin wall of glass. Asia knew if she rolled, Skye would be awake, staring at...who knows what. Pacing, probably. She did a lot of pacing. Asia knew her friend felt like a caged animal in here. It was a feeling she knew well. She didn't like being caged up in here either, but Asia never let it show. If she did, then people would know something was wrong. And she didn't want them looking into what had happened down there any deeper than they already were. Asia knew something was wrong, something inside her had changed. She could feel it.