In times past, SHIELD agents could walk around without care in crowded areas without anyone ever wondering why they were there, the good ones anyway. Life had been good hiding behind the secure protocols SHIELD had in place to keep the general public, and more importantly the people who wished SHIELD assets harm, from knowing who anyone in SHIELD was. In fact, those secure protocols were the only reason Clint Barton had agreed to join SHIELD when Coulson had finally caught up with him and offered him the deal. SHIELD was the perfect mask for an assassin; you never had to worry about a mark's allies coming after you because you were the perfect ghost.
Of course, all of the positives had blown up when Fury decided the best course of action to keep the world safe was to betray every single one of his loyal agents. But what did it matter since many of them were HYDRA anyway? Why not throw out the good and the bad together?
Now the once invisible men and women of the world were being thrust into the light, their covers blown and their carefully planned exit strategies useless.
SHIELD would never negotiate for their safe return; if you were caught, either find your way out or die guarding secrets you must never tell aloud.
Not that SHIELD could have negotiated even if they wanted to – SHIELD was dead.
Hell, even Fury had pretended to be dead for about an entire week! Not quite a record for him, but he always did have trouble not announcing his presence.
Everywhere you looked, whenever someone happened to bump into you on a crowded sidewalk, if someone stared a little longer than normal at your face, you wondered if they had been on the internet lately and noticed your face from the leaked SHIELD files detailing every single one of their agents, including current assignments.
Thankfully for Clint Barton, he had finished his latest - and apparently last - assignment two days prior to the leak and had just made his way back to Washington DC the day the information went worldwide.
The city was in complete uproar; not only were people surprised and pleased to see the famous Captain American and Black Widow running around supposedly defending the city, but doing a heck of a job destroying it in the process, the general populace had just found out about rouge agency intent on annihilating the world. It was turning out to be a mind-blowing Tuesday for people.
Buildings near the harbor were in shambles. Thick coats of mud covered the remains of a once glorious government base as the stone building sunk to the depths of water contaminated with the blood of hundreds of innocent bystanders and nefarious Hydra agents alike. Yet, amongst all of the bloodshed and treachery, the Avengers who were supposed to be saving the world barely showed their faces. Captain America had saved the world from mass murder in the end, but many more lives could have been spared.
Splash! The perfectly smooth stone that had been merrily skipping across the wreckage had run into a high-rising block of stone jutting out from the harbor's floor. That had been the tenth stone to fail in its mission to cross the entire three-hundred feet of harbor separating land from land. However, former SHILED agent Clint Barton was determined not to be defeated by the wonderfully ironic tribute of his life as a spy slowly sinking and decaying until the world forgot it ever existed, much like the smashed remains of the nearby helicarriers.
Trying to appear inconspicuous, he had donned a pair of white-washed jeans and a faded Captain America shirt just for good measure. The well-crafted black leather jacket threw off the "normal person" look slightly, but, with Hydra agents God-knows where, he had refused to leave the relative safety of his safe house without a few knives strapped along the liner of the jacket.
Bending down to pick up another stone, a solitary figure over by the edge of the bay caught his eye. Wary that the stone would make too much noise if dropped, Barton gripped the stone tighter in his right hand. Being careful to avoid stepping in the mud puddles and the mounds of loose pebbles, he slowly approached the target from the shadowed line of columns resilient enough to not have collapsed.
The man was oblivious to Barton's approach - he simply continued to stand still and stare at the lot of ground filled with still crumbling stone. His suit was covered in a thick layer of dust and grim – clearly he had been in the building when it collapsed two days prior and had yet to change his clothes.
Calculating the odds that the man before him would not be a large level threat, Barton decided to forgo the way of cold-blooded murder and attempt to glean any information from the man. Sticking his hand with the stone deep into his jean's pocket, Barton moved forward more quickly, allowing the mud and dust to cover his boots thoroughly.
"You ain't part of that salvaging crew, are you, mate?" The suited man jerked his head to the side at the sudden intrusion into his dark thoughts. "Excuse me say'in so," Barton gestured to the man's once impecible suit "but you don't look the sort to hang around a trash heap like this'un." Cocking his head to the side, Barton stared at the man with a worried look, "You ain't lost your marbles, have ya'?"
The suited man shook his head wildly, "N-no. L-l-look, I don't know what you're doing here, but you need to leave." Mind-numbing fear appeared to grab him as he stumbled away from Barton. "They could come back soon!" His eyes shifted from pile to pile of rubble as if he saw the world the way it was before the attack.
Pulling his hands in front of him, the suited man continued to step back. "They'll kill you! Hydra doesn't take prisoners."
Barton, who had been edging closer to the man, froze at the mention of 'Hydra'. Intent on covering up his emotional error, Barton tried his best to appear confused. "Who's that? Ain't no one ever come af'er me for noth'in. Wait, you high, mate?" He asked in an effort to solidify his persona like Natasha had taught him.
"This isn't how everything was supposed to turn out…" The suited man mumbled under his breath, completely ignoring Barton in the process. "They weren't all supposed to die-"
"Die?" Dropping all façade, Barton grabbed the man roughly by his shoulders. Spinning him back around, Barton glared angrily, "Where's my team?"
The man continued to shake his head, whimpering. "I thought I could do it – I thought I could pull the trigger."
"Dammit!" Barton cursed and sharply shoved the man away. The man was in shock and likely would be unable to give any helpful information any time soon.
I need to find Nat and the others. He spared a quick glance toward the man now lying in the dirt, crying and talking to himself intently. "Couldn't do it…Said it was alright. …We'd be important."
Right now this man is the only link I have…Guess he'll have to start talking eventually. "You better start praying my friends are alive." Clearly, the man was afraid for he shook in terror. Whether the terror was directed towards Barton's anger or at some other entity remained to be seen.
