Renegade Rising || Leo Fitz Book Two

Chapter FourtyFive

Asia's eyes slowly blinked open, the bright light above her blinding. She was sitting down in a hard, cool, metal chair, in a dimly lit, tiny room. Where was she? What had happened? Was she still on base? She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember the last thing which had happened. Mack. The Server room. Leo. The explosion. Asia shooting Mack full of ice, albeit not entirely on purpose.

She opened her eyes once more, looking at the man who sat across from her, arms crossed. He was bald, with a stern gaze, and wore a black suit with a skinny tie. If she didn't know better, she would say he was SHIELD. But he wasn't someone she recognized, or knew, so she knew that he had to be on the outside. She furrowed her gaze, and looked down at her hands. Handcuffed at the wrists, no surprise there, and those gloves....the dark blue gloves of Jemma's design, they were attached tightly around her wrists.

"Weaver," the man called out over his shoulder, not taking his gaze off of Agent Monroe. "This one is awake." From the doorway covered in shadow, stepped another figure, one in heals and a sharp navy suit, her black hair slicked back into a tight bun. Someone Asia recognized. Someone Asia hadn't even known was still alive. It had been so long since she had last seen Agent Weaver at the academy. It felt like an entirely different lifetime.

But here, in this situation, with her hands bound and a man clearly ready for an interrogation in front of her, the trust and respect she had once felt for the woman faltered. Asia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, concentrating, trying to put the pieces together. And as she did, she noticed something. She could still feel a vein of cold running through her body. It curved and ebbed away from her hands now, but she could still feel it. Her hands may have been inhibited, but the river running through her simply found a different path. Jemma hadn't invented a way to shut down her powers, after all. She hid a grin, but inside she was singing. She had the upper hand now, and they didn't even know it.

"Agent Monroe," Agent Weaver greeted coldly. The warm welcome once received at SciTech was long gone, replaced with this harsh, stony woman. Asia flinched as if she had been hit. "I'm glad you're awake. Now for Agent Mackenzie, he hasn't been so lucky yet. You hit him with quite the blast. That's why we forced Agent Simmons to hand over the gloves of her design." She nodded down at Asia's hands. "Don't want anyone else getting hurt now, do we?" She asked, narrowing her eyes, trying to get a read on the young agent.

"I didn't..." Asia began, trailing off. She was going to say she didn't intend to hurt him, but she had. He had charged her. She was just protecting Leo. Leo...where was he? Was he okay? Weaver hadn't mentioned him yet...was he hurt from the blast? Where was the rest of her team? She said Jemma was forced, was Jemma okay? The questions raced through Asia's mind at a mile a minute. She could hardly focus she was overwhelmed with the cacophony of thoughts and she had to blink several times to clear them away, file them back into her mind's cabinet.

"Mm, we're sure," Weaver replied, turning on her heel and heading back out of the room. "Agent Calderon, Director Gonzales wants to see her in the office, five minutes." Weaver called out over her shoulder one last moment before she disappeared entirely. She hadn't noticed, but Asia took note of the name. Little things. Gathering data, making the puzzle pieces all fit together. She still wasn't entirely sure what was going on here, but she knew she did not like it. She knew Bobbi and Mack were somehow behind it. And she was worried for her team.

"Alright, lets get moving," the other agent nodded at her, standing up and pulling a gun from his belt. His gaze was more of a sneer than a look, like she was a rabid animal chained in front of him. Reluctantly, she did so, letting him force her out of the room and out into one of the bricked walls of the Playground. So they were still here. Good. She would have a better homefield advantage.