Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or any of the characters affiliated with them. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie in the works.
Author's Note: While I embrace constructive criticism, remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"
Kylen is still an awesome beta! She rocks! :D Just want everyone to know that!
Thanks to all who reviewed Chapter 1: sweetstrawberrysmiles, Thephoenix1996, Leo-firefly, Westhaven18, Strawberrywaltz, Viviannafox, GremlinX, VoldieBeth, LEMarauder, 64, Laverock, Sam Mayer, .fire, Kylen, Shanynde, lunarweather, CyanB, My5tic-Lali, Reteka Hyuuga, ladygris, animexluva13, bookworm1517, Cara, bad-seamstress-blues, SPN4eva556, Lollypops101, Ilia, viressiel, ziggy488, Fyroni, clovely-littleme, authorunable, WickedBlue, AlwaysABrandNewDay, Girafa, discordchick, Dani9513, Panther Moon, horselover28, ArabianForest, TheNaggingCube, Qweb, Dsgdiva, juniper294, Mirabilem Electo, Drake.12, and kat
Thanks to those who reviewed "Year Six": sweetstrawberrysmiles, ChokkaBlockk, ladygris, Thephoenix1996, Strawberrywaltz, VoldieBeth, Susan M. M, bookworm1517, olimpia, Kylen, GremlinX, TheNaggingCube, Reteka Hyuuga, Sam Mayer, Shanynde, CyanB, Izzie McCool, Cara, Fyroni, my5tic-Lali, ziggy488, Splitbeak, Qweb, Stargate Groupie, chibi-ringo, Dani9513, ArabianForest, ReticentReader, lunarweather, WickedBlue, authorunable, AlwaysABrandNewDay, discordchick, horselover28, Panther Moon, Dsgdiva, jacedesbff, Drake.12, xx-Forever Yours-xx, and Mirabilem Electo
To authorunable: I can't promise I'm going to do stories focusing on other team members, but there will be more post-Avengers fics with the whole team there :)
Last Time:
"Don't say I never did anything for you." Coulson pointed at him with a firm look and moved to greet their pilot.
Clint smiled after him.
That was one thing he could never say about Phil Coulson.
Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice. -Woodrow T. Wilson
"I'm just saying how can everybody be so scared shitless of this guy that they won't even say his name?"
"It's a book, Clint."
"I know, but I just don't see how the guy can be that bad."
"The whole evil, murdering, dark wizard thing isn't enough for you?" Phil smirked.
He didn't have to look at Clint to know he was rolling his eyes.
"I was just saying," Clint grumbled, putting his ear buds back into his ears and returning his attention to the book.
Coulson returned his attention to the mission file. He put it down with a quiet sigh when Clint suddenly pulled out his ear buds and spoke again.
"And what the hell kind of name is Dumbledore?"
"You do realize you're criticizing one of the most famous series of all time."
"Not criticizing." Clint frowned. "Just analyzing."
"Mhmm," Phil hummed. He snuck a glance at his watch. They still had seven hours of their nearly nine-hour flight. Clint was literally his favorite person in the world, but he did not want to listen to him talk about his newly discovered obsession with the Harry Potter series for the next seven hours.
And he knew Clint could do it. If he was comfortable enough, Clint could become a regular chatterbox. Coulson knew that there were exactly two situations Clint felt comfortable enough to become that chatterbox: pretty much anytime he was alone with Coulson and when he was on the other side of a comm device.
Luckily, Phil had a, thus far, foolproof plan to get Clint to be quiet without hurting the kid's feelings. He hid a yawn behind his hand and stretched.
Clint blinked at him.
"Tired?"
"I think I'll take a nap. We can talk through the mission details in a few hours."
"Yeah, okay." Clint slid his ear buds back into place and watched Phil rest his head back and close his eyes. He smiled slightly to himself and looked back at his book. Phil really had a heart of gold.
Clint knew that he tended to talk a lot when it was just he and Phil. It wasn't a conscious decision he made to converse more. He had just gotten so comfortable around Phil that his once-natural propensity for chatter reemerged. He'd sniffed out Phil's ruse to get him to be quiet about eight months after he'd joined SHIELD. He left Phil to his sleeping-trick, though, because it was a great cue for Clint to know he was talking too much. And could the guy be any nicer about it?
Clint would have just told himself to shut up.
Phil hadn't meant to actually fall asleep, but when he blinked his way into consciousness four hours later, he ruefully realized his ruse had worked better on him than it had on Clint. He rubbed his hand over his face and looked over at Clint.
Check that. It had worked just as well on Clint.
His agent was sitting in the exact same position he had been four hours ago. He was slouched low in his chair, his feet propped up on the empty co-pilot seat in front of him. His book sat open in his lap with his hands loosely holding it in place. However, his chin had dropped down to his chest and his eyes were closed.
Phil quietly stood and slipped the book off of his lap. Clint flinched awake, his eyes flying open, wide and startled.
"You're all right," Coulson soothed quietly. "But your neck won't be if you sleep like that. Come on."
He gently pulled Clint from the chair and deposited him on the floor of the jet, pack under his head. Clint's eyes were already closing again. Phil glanced down at the book as he settled back in his own chair, Clint's breathing already deep and even once more.
Phil shrugged and flipped the book open to the first page.
"Do we have any intel on where this guy is?" Clint asked, flipping through his mission brief absently. He knew the information he wanted wasn't in there, but held a useless hope that it would magically appear.
"Nope, that's up to us," Phil replied, pulling their non-descript black sedan into the alley behind their safe house, an equally non-descript one-story home. He shifted into park and turned the car off. Clint was already climbing out and walking around the trunk. Phil pulled the trunk release and pulled himself out of the car.
Clint was already slinging his quiver over his shoulder. Phil joined him, pulling his own go-bag out and his large black backpack that housed his laptop, all their communications gear, and his files. Clint grabbed his go-bag and his weapons bag in the same hand and pulled out his rifle case with the other. Phil pushed the trunk closed and led the way to the house's back door.
Clint acted as cover as Phil flipped aside the cover of what looked like a fuse box and revealed the handprint reader. He pressed his palm against the screen and a few moments later the lock clicked open.
"It looked bigger from the outside," Clint mused as he dropped his bags on the couch. There was a small open kitchen on the other side of the living room, an open door that led to a small bathroom, and a closed door he assumed was the bunkroom. There were just two windows - one in the kitchen, showing a nice view of the side of the next house and one at the front, near the front door.
"That's because this safe house has a special feature," Coulson smirked, carrying his bags over to the far wall of the living room and shifting a picture of a boat on a stormy sea. He typed a short code into a now unhidden keypad and the wall shifted.
"Holy shit!" Clint smiled, moving forward as the wall slid away to reveal a weapons rack, fully stocked. "Why don't I have one of these at SHIELD?"
"You don't have to hide your weapons at SHIELD," Phil replied, pressing a button on the rack and stepping back as the wall moved back into place. Clint shook his head in awed appreciation and went to retrieve his bags as Phil pushed open the bunkroom door.
"Now I know that you noticed the flat-top roof on this house," Coulson stated as Clint dropped his stuff on one of the cots. "And I know you've been wondering if you were going to have to monkey up the side of the building."
Phil pulled open what Clint thought was a closet door, but instead it revealed a set of narrow stairs. He couldn't help but smile.
"How the hell do you do this every time?" Clint laughed as he led the way up the stairs.
"Trust me, it takes some doing," Phil replied as he followed.
Clint had to stop when they hit a horizontal door. He grabbed the handle of the metal sliding latch and shifted it, finally pushing the door open.
"What do you think?" Phil asked as he climbed out and joined Clint where he had moved to stand on the edge of the roof.
"Very nice," Clint smirked.
"So, I think it's about time to get some food. You know a place?" Phil asked after a look at his watch.
"Nope," Clint replied simply.
Phil blinked at him, but Clint only shrugged.
"What? I've never been to Croatia before, much less Zagreb."
Phil couldn't respond for a moment. He just hadn't expected it. Clint always had a place wherever they went. He had been so many places during his year as an assassin that they'd never run into a place yet where he hadn't been and discovered an amazing place to eat.
"Don't look so worried, Phil. I'll find a place."
"Is it sad that my first thought was, 'Then how will we know where to eat'?"
Clint laughed.
"How do you even find these places?" Phil asked as he chewed.
"Well, there are a lot of factors that go into deciding if I'm going to try a place," Clint replied seriously, taking a drink from his cup.
"Such as?" Phil couldn't help his amused grin. He just knew this was going to be a fascinating explanation.
"Well first of all, the smell."
"The smell?"
"Yup. Does it smell good."
Phil inclined his head in agreement. That made sense.
"Then there's the tables."
Phil arched an eyebrow.
"Are the tables clean," Clint explained, gesturing around demonstratively at the clean tables around them.
"Fair enough. What else?"
"The staff."
"What about them?"
"Are they aesthetically pleasing."
Phil shot him a doubtful look.
"And finally, there's the sranje."
"What's that?"
"The only Croatian word I know."
"What's it mean?"
"Bullshit," Clint replied just before taking a large bite of his food.
Phil huffed a laugh and glared half-heartedly.
"There's no process, Phil, I just choose a place that has people in it and hope for the best."
Phil shook his head in amusement.
"How do you pick a favorite?"
"I eat at a lot of places until one stands out."
"So that's your big secret? You choose at random?"
Clint smirked, taking another bite.
"And here I thought there was method to your madness."
"That'll teach you to think that there's ever a method to any of my madness."
"Have you ever had a tie between two places?" Phil went on with an eye roll.
"No, but I have gotten food poisoning in four different countries."
Phil looked doubtfully at the plate in front of him, his appetite fading.
Clint laughed and took another bite.
"Please don't point that thing at me," Phil stated as he worked to bring their communicators online.
"You don't trust me?"
Clint turned his body anyway, loosing an arrow at a target he'd drawn on the wall with a sharpie.
"I don't trust your hands since you just spent the last twenty minutes throwing up your meal. You should really lie down."
"Yeah, mental note to cross that place off the list," Clint replied as he pulled another arrow, nocked and released it.
It didn't escape Phil that he had completely ignored the second part of Phil's statement.
"You're paying to get that wall fixed, you know."
"Yeah, yeah, take it out of my check." Clint drew another arrow, but paused as he brought it up to bear.
"Clint?" Phil glanced over his shoulder when he didn't hear the familiar sound of impromptu target practice.
Clint was already moving, bow and arrow clattering to the floor. Phil winced when he heard knees hit linoleum in the bathroom and the sound of retching a moment later. Phil stood and went to the kitchen, retrieving a water bottle from the fridge, and then moving to the bathroom.
"I think you should reconsider your strategy for finding restaurants," he advised as he unscrewed the lid to the bottle and held it out to his panting agent.
"You kidding?" Clint nearly groaned, taking a drink from the water bottle, swishing it around and then spitting it into the toilet. "I'm halfway to double digits now."
Phil shook his head in fond exasperation and reached to put the back of his hand against Clint's forehead where he'd all but collapsed across the toilet lid, propped up on his sprawled arms. He couldn't help the shot of pride when Clint didn't pull away or even flinch at the contact.
"Low-grade fever. No more target practice, you're lying down."
"I'm fine," Clint protested. It bore really no weight when he hadn't lifted his head from where he had it resting on his arm.
"Yeah, okay, tough guy," Phil patronized. He grabbed Clint's closest bicep. "Come on."
He pulled Clint up and walked him to the couch where he could keep an eye on him. He pulled the quiver free from Clint's shoulders and deposited him onto the cushions. Clint curled into an impressive ball on his side with a groan.
"You know, I should really reconsider my strategy for finding restaurants."
"Sounds like a good idea. I wish I'd thought of it," Phil mocked lightly, putting a trash can next to the couch and setting the water bottle on the floor. He crouched next to Clint's head and looked at him seriously.
Clint blinked at him.
"You think you can keep down some oral medication?"
Clint opened his mouth to respond, but Phil went on before he could.
"Do not tell me you don't need it. Honestly, Clint, can you keep it down?"
Clint closed his mouth and nodded. Phil mirrored the motion and stood, retrieving a bottle of Zofran from the small stock of medicines stored in the bathroom. He watched just long enough to see Clint put one of the pills in his mouth so it would dissolve, and moved away to the bunkroom to retrieve Clint's iPod. He tossed it lightly onto the couch in front of the archer's chest. "Try to get some rest."
Clint slid his ear buds into place and was sleeping moments later.
Phil moved quietly to pick Clint's bow up off the floor. He folded it up and slid it into its place on the quiver and then returned the abandoned arrow to its fellows. He rested the quiver against the side of the couch, then moved back to his place at the small desk in the corner to continue bringing their comms online.
"You sure you're up for this?" Phil asked twenty hours later as he handed over the small earpiece.
"I haven't puked in hours. I'm good to go," Clint assured, sliding the comm unit into place. "Besides, I want to get a lay of the city."
"All right, let's take a look at the map."
Phil spread their city map over the desk top.
"We're here." Phil marked a red X with a marker. "President will be in the open from here," he made another mark, "to here." He added a third mark and drew a line following the streets between the final two marks.
Clint nodded, scanning the route and committing it to memory.
"Okay," the archer began, "since we don't know the play it could be a hit or a grab, both methods require a different approach and execution."
"So we plan for both," Phil decided. "If you were doing a hit, how would you do it?"
Clint's eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"If it were me, I'd send an arrow through his heart from a vantage point over here." Clint picked up the pencil and motioned at a small area on the map. "But they aren't as cool as me and won't be using arrows. That's not good for us because it widens the places they could hit from."
He grew silent as he studied the map.
"He'd be covered while in the car," Phil put in thoughtfully.
"Unless they pulled a car bomb," Clint countered.
"How would they get it on the car?"
Clint shrugged a shoulder in acquiescence.
"Best way to do a hit is with a sniper. I'd probably do it as he arrived at the airport."
"There's more people around at the airport," Phil pointed out.
"Yeah, but better vantage points, more cover, and easier exits."
Phil nodded, but Clint was shaking his head.
"Short of playing bodyguard, we can't effectively stop this guy if we don't know what angle he's coming at us from. There are dozens of good vantage points in the kill zone. We can't cover all of them or know for sure which one he would use."
"Sounds like we need to find this guy before he can make his move then," Phil deduced.
"That's the best option for keeping the president alive."
"Okay." Phil sat back, pushing the map away and reaching for his coffee. "We know what he looks like, we'll split up and start casing the city."
"Block by block scouting. Awesome." Clint let out a loud sigh. "Can I at least bring my bow?"
"As long as you stick to rooftops and alleys," Phil allowed, pushing his own ear piece into place. "Comm check."
Clint winced, his finger going to his ear and ripping out the earbud.
"What?" Phil asked.
"Serious feedback."
Phil frowned. Usually their comms had no issue being in close proximity. He moved across the house and into the bunkroom.
"Comm check," he stated again.
"Better," Clint replied. Phil moved back to the living room.
"All right, let's get going."
"If this guy is planning to make his move when the president is leaving town, we have less than two days to find him," Clint pointed out with a frown.
"Then let's hope we get lucky," Phil replied as he headed out the back door while Clint headed towards the side door and the fire escape that he knew was beyond it.
"Yeah, cuz luck is totally my thing," Clint muttered.
"Did you just say you saw a monkey running across a mine field?" Clint asked with a frown as he gauged the distance between his current building and the next rooftop.
"No," Phil grumbled across the comms. "I said, do you have money to pick up some food?"
"Yeah that makes more sense. Sure, I saw this place a few blocks back that looked good."
He took a few steps back and took a running jump to the next building. He tucked into a roll and came up to his feet, frowning again as Coulson's response was interrupted by random bouts of static.
"Say again? Because something tells me you didn't say 'dope is the key to a performance of a lifetime.'"
"I said I hope we don't have a repeat performance of last time."
"I hate to break it to you, Phil, but I think the comms are broken."
"No shit."
Clint smirked. He'd heard that one loud and clear.
"Meet back at the house in an hour."
"Will do."
Clint moved in a crouch to the edge of the building, going to his stomach as he reached it. He spent the next several minutes scanning the area. They hadn't seen any sign of their target since they'd started looking yesterday. The president was scheduled to leave in the morning and Clint found himself hoping that they planned to make their move when he got back instead of when he was leaving.
Because if Josif Andrić made his move tomorrow morning, Clint knew they wouldn't be able to stop him.
"Do you know what this is?" Victor asked.
"I bet you're gonna tell me." Clint managed to force out.
"It's a device that scans for transmitting frequencies. I will find your communication device."
"What device?"
"Who are you in communication with?"
"I'm not in communication with anyone," Clint denied, watching with forced calm as Victor turned on the device and brought it towards Clint's head.
"Clint…" Coulson sounded for the first time since Clint had known him like he didn't know what to say.
Clint glared straight at Victor when the device lit up as it hovered next to the left side of his jaw.
"Interesting." Victor smiled darkly. "Open his mouth."
A steel-like grip locked on his jaw, forcing it open as Victor slipped the device back into his pocket. He pulled out a small flashlight and clicked it on, turning it to shine into Clint's mouth. Clint darkened his gaze, trying not to show the fear he was feeling. Victor's eyes lit up suddenly.
"Ivan, go find Josef and ask him if we may borrow some pliers."
Ivan, presumably, left quickly but the grip on his jaw didn't waver.
"Are you fond of the dentist, Hawkeye?"
Clint glared.
"I, personally, despise the practice," Victor continued conversationally, "No matter how many times they tell you it will not hurt, it always does." Ivan practically sprinted back into the room, handing a grungy pair of pliers to Victor.
Clint tried to pull away, but the grip on his jaw was unrelenting. Victor pushed the pliers into his mouth and the archer exhaled sharply through his nose.
"I am pleased to tell you, Hawkeye, that this will hurt very badly." Victor smiled darkly as he closed the pliers around Clint's molar.
Clint determination not to show pain or weakness lasted for the next ten seconds. Then Victor adjusted his grip and really started pulling.
Clint couldn't help it then. At that point nothing mattered but the pain.
And he screamed.
Phil sighed deeply where he was studying their map, different sections of it now shaded to indicate where they'd already searched. The president had made it onto his plane without incident this morning. Phil and Clint had both breathed a sigh of relief from where they were perched on a high rooftop near the airport, Phil searching the surrounding area with binoculars and Clint doing the same with the scope on his sniper rifle.
Neither of them had really breathed as the president's car pulled up and he was escorted by heavily-armed guard through a private entrance to the airport. They hadn't really started breathing again until they were watching his plane take off.
They'd spent the rest of the day searching for Josif Andrić's location and the net was closing slowly. Clint had sacked out on his cot in the other room just over an hour ago, but Phil couldn't get his mind to shut off. He was just getting ready to start a pot of coffee in the kitchen's archaic coffee machine when he heard it.
It was barely noticeable, but in the quiet silence of the house it was like a beacon to Phil. A gasp. It was quiet and if he hadn't known the pattern of Clint's breathing as well as his own, he might have dismissed it all together. But the gasp was followed by another rapid breath, too loud to be that of calm sleep.
He moved towards the bunkroom, coffee forgotten.
Clint was on his side, back to the wall. He never slept with his back to the room. One hand was under his pillow, the other was clenched, white knuckled, around his blanket.
Phil waited a moment, waiting to see if he would come out of it on his own. Clint's dreams were unpredictable. Sometimes he woke moments after they started and he would be just as wild eyed and panicked as he was when he was trapped for long chunks of time. Phil usually woke him up if he didn't come out of it on his own after a few moments.
"Clint," he called out carefully, making sure to stay out of swinging distance as he crouched down a few feet away from the cot.
Clint's head twitched, as if he'd heard, but he didn't wake. Instead, his breathing picked up and he muttered something under his breath that Coulson didn't catch. He was about to call the younger man's name again when suddenly Clint was screaming.
The sound was like nothing Coulson had heard from his agent in a long time. Clint had learned to channel pain. He'd learned to laugh in the face of it. This yell was guttural and full of pain and fear and something about it was so terrifyingly familiar that Coulson was moving forward to comfort before he'd fully thought it through.
His hand touched his agent's shoulder and suddenly Clint was awake, swinging his knife, and backing himself right off his cot and onto the floor. He landed with a thud, legs tangled in his blanket.
"Easy!" Phil urged as he moved closer.
He had to block a swing of the knife. When Clint made to attack again, Phil was forced to twist the blade from his disoriented grip. That had the exact effect he knew it would: Clint panicked even more. Phil blocked a fist and pressed his hand against Clint's chest to keep him on the ground. Clint flailed, spitting threats in every language he knew. His breathing sped up even more and Coulson knew they were moving rapidly towards hyperventilation.
"Clint! It's me. It's Phil," he insisted, grabbing Clint's wrist when he tried to strike again.
"Let me go!" Clint shouted angrily, flailing again, but then his free hand went to his jaw, trying to stave off a phantom pain.
"Clint! Focus on my voice! Whatever you're seeing, whatever you're feeling, it isn't real! Snap out of it!" he ordered, watching Clint still suddenly, breaths still short and shallow.
"Phil?"
Phil wanted to curse in every language he knew because he hated that tone of Clint's voice with ever fiber of his being. He only ever heard it when Clint came out of a nightmare and it made Phil outrageously pissed at the same time it made him overpoweringly protective.
"It's me, you're safe. Deep breaths, you know the drill," Phil coached. He watched Clint strain to force his inhalations to deepen. Felt the muscles under his hand twitch under that strain. Abruptly every muscle under his hand tensed and Clint shot upright, scrambling past Coulson towards the trashcan. Phil winced as he forcefully expelled his dinner.
Phil moved to his side, waiting for it to play out. When he was finally done, Clint spit into the trashcan and all but dropped back to the ground, rolling to his back with his eyes closed and a fresh wave of erratic breathing to get under control.
Finally Clint blinked, his breaths gained a little control, and the last remnants of the nightmare disappeared. Phil withdrew the supporting hand he'd put on his shoulder as Clint dropped his head back against the floor.
"Sorry," Clint breathed. He swallowed purposefully, trying to ward off the bile in his throat and resisting the urge to touch his jaw again.
Phil gave him an affectionately exasperated glare for the apology. Like Clint ever needed to apologize for something like this. He reached to pat a hand against his agent's shoulder.
"What was it?"
"The Andes mission." Clint shook his head. "I haven't dreamed of that in forever."
"Well, it was fairly traumatic." Phil struggled to keep the pragmatism and wry humor out of his voice. Clint wasn't the only one with bad memories from that rather hellish trip.
"Fairly?"
"OK, I'll give you that one. It more or less sucked."
Phil watched as the younger man worked on slowing his breathing. The run-up – and the downside – to his nightmares had almost gotten routine, even if hand-to-hand combat normally wasn't a sidebar. He stayed in a crouch until Clint huffed out a breath, then drew a slow one back in.
And that's how you do it, kid. Phil couldn't help but have some measure of pride at how his charge could pull himself together. It had kept him alive more than once. He waited until Clint's vision drifted to him, and then offered the young man a hand.
"Run?"
"Run."
They both changed quickly, pulling on running shoes, athletic pants and hoodies to account for the cold night air. On the way out, Phil nabbed the trashcan and left it outside the door. He'd clean it when they got back.
Phil let Clint take point and set the pace. Because of that, the first several minutes after they warmed up were closer to a sprint than a jog. Phil kept pace without complaint, letting Clint deal in his own way. Finally, Clint slowed and Phil drew up next to him.
"Trying to run me into the ground?" Phil asked around expertly controlled breathing.
He got his intended result when Clint smirked.
"Having a hard time keeping up, old man?"
"Ha, I could do this all day," Phil boasted dramatically.
"Careful, I might make you back that up," Clint teased.
"I could leave you in my dust if I really wanted to, rookie," Phil shot back with a smirk.
Clint laughed outright.
"Don't let me hold you back," he mocked.
"I wouldn't want you to get lost," Phil excused, taking a sudden left as they approached an intersection.
Clint cursed and reappeared at his side a moment later.
"Give a guy a little warning, would ya?"
"I knew you could keep up."
"Why the sudden trajectory change?"
"I found a place I think you're going to like."
Clint followed with no more questioning. The jogged in companionable silence through the city and finally Phil slowed to a walk a block away from the train station.
"We there?" Clint asked, barely breathing hard.
"Yep," Phil motioned at a bakery across the street. A oval red sign hung on the building with bright yellow letters that read 'Pekarnica Dora'. "Local bakery, supposed to be really good and they're open 24 hours."
"This place smells amazing," Clint commented as they crossed the street and made their way inside.
"Maybe you should judge a restaurant by its smell before you eat there," Phil pointed out with a smirk.
Less than ten minutes later, they were walking back the way they'd come, both munching on a fresh pastry.
"We need to find these guys. The president comes back in seven days and I'd prefer not to be laying on a rooftop crossing my fingers when he does," Clint stated around a mouthful of pastry.
"We're closing the net. We'll catch sight of them," Phil replied confidently.
"I think I just did," Clint answered suddenly.
"Where?" Phil asked, his gait not changing and nothing about his posture altering.
"Eleven o'clock, across the street."
Phil glanced in the appropriate direction. There, as plain as day, was Josif Andrić, walking purposefully down the street and then turning a corner and heading away from them.
"Go," Phil ordered firmly.
Clint stuffed the rest of the pastry – a large mouthful and more – into his mouth and disappeared into the shadows of an alley as they passed it, looking a bit like a chipmunk. Phil just kept walking, keeping his pace and taking a casual bite from his own pastry, shaking his head at the younger man's appetite.
He and Clint hadn't put their comms in, but he wasn't concerned. Clint would be following by rooftop and from a distance. He wouldn't be making a move tonight. He would follow until the target got to where he was headed and then he'd watch for a while to make sure he didn't move again. Then he'd come back to the safe house.
And Phil got the thrilling and exciting job of waiting for him.
End of Chapter Two
Crazy who you see walking the street in the middle of the night.
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Here's your preview of Chapter 3
"Here."
Phil held out a black plastic poncho.
"Really, Phil? Really?"
"What?"
"It's a fucking trash bag that you cut arm holes and a neck hole in."