Chapter 28: Don't Die Out There

Hunter knew that something was wrong.

He kept looking around almost frantically, searching for an ambush, and while he was obviously well aware how ridiculous it was to actively be wishing for a Hydra attack, right now he might have actually preferred it to this uncertainty and the constant threat looming over all of them.

They had made their way out of the backdoor of the university building by now, and Hunter was getting increasingly nervous, as the Hydra team that was supposedly out here, still hadn't shown itself. He could tell that Bobbi, who was leading the way, ready to take any opponents head on, was feeling the same way, and while he was glad of course that they might be able to avoid a fire fight, something about this whole situation just didn't feel right to him.

Hunter was bringing up the rear of their little group once more, and while Bobbi was at the head, Lt. Lewis was walking between them, one arm wrapped around Alex's shoulder, who had offered to support the injured soldier, to make sure they could move as quickly as possible. The young man was still clutching his Swiss army knife tightly in his right hand, but at this point he seemed to be somewhat more at ease, probably because there was another trained fighter next to him now, ready to protect him.

"So, you've been doing this a lot?", Lt. Lewis suddenly asked quietly, disrupting the tense silence.

"Doing what?" Hunter asked in return, his gaze focusing on the soldier for a moment, before he went back to carefully scanning their surroundings.

"Fighting against Hydra," the injured man quickly elaborated.

"You could say that, yeah," the mercenary replied curtly, but even though his reluctance to discuss this topic was rather evident, Lewis kept talking, ignoring the tone in the other man's voice.

"Got any advice on how to handle them?"

The mercenary hesitated a very long moment to reply to this question, his expression darkening visibly as he contemplated his answer.

"Yeah, I have some advice for you," he finally said, his hold on his weapon tightening. "If you see one of them, put a bullet in their head. Don't hesitate."

Lt. Lewis actually paused at this, turning his head to look at Hunter, and even Bobbi, who was overhearing their conversation, couldn't help but be obviously taken aback by her ex-husband's harsh words.

"That sounds… personal," the lieutenant finally remarked, eying Hunter for a long moment. "I assume there is a story there."

"There is," the mercenary agreed, taking another long look around their surroundings, "and you're right, it's personal."

"Alright, got it," Lt. Lewis nodded understandingly, finally dropping the subject. Or at least he did with Hunter.

"And you," he continued, addressing Bobbi this time, "what's your take on Hydra. Any insights?"

The agent turned around to him for a brief moment and looked at the soldier, who was holding her gaze unwaveringly, before she focused back on the path ahead of her, keeping her eyes open for an ambush.

"No," she replied curtly, not really liking the way Lewis seemed to be questioning her and Hunter. After that a few seconds passed by in silence, until something suddenly seemed to occur to the agent and her brow furrowed slightly as she turned her head to the side to glance back in the soldier's direction.

"Why do you think I would have any 'insights' into Hydra anyway?", she asked, wondering about his choice of words, but before Lewis had the chance to answer, a bullet suddenly cut through the air right next to Bobbi, demanding her full attention and causing her and the others to rush towards a nearby small mural for cover.

Hunter felt the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he pulled Alex and Lt. Lewis along, all three of them crashing to the ground once they had reached the stone wall. He quickly looked over at the two men and Bobbi to see if any of them had been hit, exhaling audibly as they all seemed to be unharmed.

"Are you alright, mate?", he asked Alex, who was sitting right next to him, keeping his head low and covering it with his hands. He waited with concern until the young man nodded in reply, before focusing on his ex-wife. "Bob?"

"I'm fine, Hunter," she replied as she glanced over the top of the merely a few feet high wall, trying to make out their opponents.

"Can you see anyone?" she finally asked in frustration as she couldn't find the Hydra team's position, but after Hunter took a brief look himself, he just shook his head negative as well.

"No, it's like they wanted to pin us down here, but they're not actually trying to take us out," he replied, a slightly perplexed look on his face as he tried to understand their enemies' reasoning.

"Maybe they want to keep us here until their backup team arrives," Lewis proposed suddenly and Hunter and Bobbi exchanged a quick worried glance, realising that this sounded like the most likely explanation for their current situation.

"Meaning, we either take them out quickly, or we're going to be surrounded any minute now," the mercenary pointed out, sighing deeply.

Bobbi's expression became grim as she looked at the three men next to her, obviously trying to come up with a strategy, and once she had made up her mind, her eyes focused on Hunter. When she spoke, the tone of her voice was making it more than clear that she wouldn't allow any objections.

"You stay here, keep Alex safe and watch my back. I'll move to the right and circle back, that way I'll find any Hydra teams out there and take them out."

Knowing how good Bobbi was at this sort of mission and that he would keep an eye on her every second she was out there, Hunter swallowed his concern for her and any objection he might have had and simply nodded in reply as the specialist prepared herself.

"Alright, got it. And Bobbi," she looked back at him at this point, a faint smile already forming on her lips, as she knew exactly what he was going to say. "Don't die out there."


Hunter was kneeling behind the low wall now, his weapon in position to take out any Hydra members he could get in his crosshairs, while he was watching Bobbi make her way from cover to cover, circling around the open area in front of them, so far without having encountered any resistance. Alex was still crouching next to him, simply doing his best to stay in cover, and Lt. Lewis was keeping an eye on their surroundings, making sure that they weren't taken by surprise while Hunter was focused on covering his ex-wife's back.

There was complete silence between them for a few moments, until the lieutenant spoke up once more, his voice low, but still surprisingly calm considering their situation.

"You know, there's one thing I've always admired about SHIELD, and that's the sheer number of highly trained and extremely dedicated people you have working for you."

Hunter wasn't quite sure where Lewis was going with this, but despite the fact that he could vouch for the accuracy of that statement by now, after having spent months working with SHIELD, as a former soldier himself, he simply couldn't just let it stand like that.

"Yeah, well, so does the military," he replied, all the while not leaving Bobbi out of his sight even for a moment.

"Maybe, yes, but I don't think quite to that extend. You've been military yourself, right?", Lt. Lewis now asked, prompting Hunter to shoot him a surprised glance.

"The way you move in combat," the soldier elaborated, indicating the mercenary's position, "it's pretty telling actually. I guess you never forget your basic training."

"No, I guess not," Hunter agreed, focusing back on Bobbi, the slightest hint of confusion in his voice at the lieutenant's choice of topic.

As he didn't really have anything to say to any of this, Alex remained completely silent, just listening to the conversation around him. Hunter had the impression that it was actually slightly reassuring him, to see that the two combat experts were calm enough to have a chat with each other, even in a situation like this, and so he decided not to tell Lewis to be quiet just yet as the soldier kept talking.

"I'd say to find an organisation that can rival SHIELD in terms of talent, you would probably have to look at Hydra. I've heard a lot of agents switched sides once they were revealed to the world," he pointed out, prompting Hunter to scowl irritatedly.

"Considering all those people were willing to work for Hydra in the first place, I'd say it wasn't much of a loss," he replied honestly, still not facing the soldier.

Lt. Lewis was leaning back against the wall at this point, looking first at Hunter and then at Alex for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He rested his assault rifle on his legs for a few seconds as he went on to check his sidearm, a thoughtful look in his eyes when he continued.

"Yes, I guess it really was about time that the truth came out, and of course I can understand the hatred towards anyone working for Hydra, especially if you were close to people who did." Hunter's jaw clenched tightly at this as he thought back to his father and the fallout of his past cooperation with the ruthless organisation, even if the scientist hadn't been aware of it at the time.

While he himself had obviously not been that much affected by the revelation that Hydra had been acting from within SHIELD all these years, he found Lt. Lewis' sudden fascination with the topic strangely grating, and so he replied to him in an annoyed tone.

"You know that we could be attacked any second now, right? So how about you shut up and concentrate, alright, mate?"

The soldier completely ignored the order, however, and kept talking, his voice suddenly sounding utterly relaxed, the underlying strain of both the stress of the situation and the pain from his injury gone entirely.

"Don't get me wrong, I can't blame Hydra's heads for wanting to remain in the shadows for so long – it is a great way to stay ahead of your enemies after all – but sooner or later you just have to reveal yourself, or else, where is the fun in all that?"

Hunter's body was moving before his brain had even finished processing the words. He was spinning around towards Lt. Lewis' position, grabbing his assault rifle tightly, but before he could manage to pin the man down in his crosshairs, his eyes fell on the handgun aimed right at him. Just a fraction of a second later, he felt a stunning blow hitting him, causing his weapon to drop from his hands and him to collapse to the ground without so much as making a sound.

The mercenary ended up lying on his back, his head tilted slightly to the side, so he could see what was happening next to him, but without being able to do anything, as he simply couldn't move. His entire body was paralysed and completely numb, with him being unable to feel a thing. Whatever weapon Lt. Lewis – if that was even his real name – had used on him, it was forcing him now to just lie there and watch what his attacker was going to do next, powerless to stop him.

As Alex had watched Lt. Lewis shooting Hunter, obviously unable to tell what kind of weapon he was using, and that it wasn't lethal, he had let out a startled cry, before he tried to move away from the soldier, holding his pocket knife out in front of him, willing to defend himself. The man only grinned slightly in response, however, before moving forward in one frighteningly quick movement, grabbing the young man's wrist, and twisting his hand around forcefully.

The soldier didn't break eye contact with Alex for even a second as he pushed his hand, which was still holding the Swiss army knife, back, ultimately stabbing the young man with his own weapon.

As he looked down at the blood running from the wound, Alex whimpered slightly in pain, earning himself a rather unsatisfied look from his attacker.

"I'm sorry, but I am trying to get someone's attention here, so if you could maybe just be a little louder?" he asked, before twisting the knife until Alex was screaming at the top of his lungs for a moment.

"Thank you, I think that will do," Lewis remarked, pulling the knife out from the wound, allowing the blood to flow freely. He closed the weapon and stashed it in one of his pockets, before leaning over Alex and pushing him to the ground, where he held him in place, but without hurting him any further.

The young man was already too far gone to actually realise what was going on any longer, slipping in and out of consciousness from the pain and blood loss, but Hunter was still wide awake, although completely unable to do anything to stop what was happening in front of him. He couldn't even so much as blink to show that he was still alive, and when Bobbi suddenly entered his field of vision a few moments later, obviously drawn back by Alex's scream, gun at the ready, and her eyes landed on him, he could see her immediately arriving at the worst possible conclusion.

"Hunter!" she cried out in shock, freezing in her movements as she didn't even bother to head into cover. "What–", the agent began to ask as she focused on Lt. Lewis, who was still crouching over Alex's body, giving the impression that he was actually trying to save the wounded young man instead of having been the one, who had injured him in the first place. He quickly interrupted her, however, playing his role from before once again, at least for another few moments.

"Hydra," he pressed out, his voice tense, making it seem as if he was hurt as well. "Didn't see them coming." He was obviously keeping his answers short now, not wanting to give away anything at this point, but as Alex suddenly opened his eyes once again, and seemed to be about to say something, his attacker knew that he couldn't afford to lose another second to take out his final opponent.

"The kid's badly hurt, can you give me a hand here?" he asked, glancing back at Bobbi, but while he did manage to pull the specialist out of her stupor, she actually remained entirely focused on Hunter, holstering her weapon as she headed towards him, obviously about to check his condition.

The second her gun had left her hands, though, Lewis raised his own, which he had kept concealed so far, and shot the agent, causing her to drop to the ground as unceremoniously as Hunter had before.

With Bobbi out of the way, the man, who had just singlehandedly laid waste to their mission, finally dropped all pretence, starting with getting up from his position on the ground, removing his helmet in the process. His earlier limp was completely gone now, and while he ignored the bandage around his leg for the moment, it was perfectly clear that it was in fact not covering up any injury at all, and that that was just one more of the things he had been faking.

Hunter kept watching the red headed man intently, and the nonchalant way in which he finally began to talk now instantly made his loathing for him even stronger.

"Mr. Hunter, Agent Morse, I apologise that I kept this little charade up for this long, but I have to admit that I was kind of curious about you two and didn't want to miss the opportunity to at least talk to you for a moment, before you find out who I am. I guess any future exchanges between us will turn out a little less light-hearted than our chats so far, but I guess at least now we can actually be honest with each other."

The man fell silent for a long moment after this as he was simply looking at the three bodies on the ground, but as he continued, it was Bobbi, who he was concentrating on. He even stepped over to her and crouched down next to her, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen into her face.

"Because you see, if there is one thing I don't like, it is people pretending to be someone they're not. Or, perhaps more specifically, people inside my organisation, inside Hydra, pretending to be someone they're not. I don't mind a good enemy, but a traitor, that is someone I simply cannot stand."

Hunter wanted to break every bone in the Hydra operative's body for so much as touching Bobbi, but as he listened to his barely concealed threat, considering that his ex had previously acted as a mole inside Hydra, his blood ran cold, horror washing over him once more at the realisation of just how helpless he was at the moment.

The situation became even more unbearable, though, as the red headed man continued, his words cutting into Hunter like a knife.

"I'm not entirely sure if you're aware of who I am, but even though my work usually speaks for itself, given the fact that I know perfectly well who you two are, I think it is about time that I introduce myself as well. My name is David Hawkins. I know that some people call me the Bloodhound, as I have a knack for finding my next targets wherever they hide," he explained, his hand grabbing the back of Bobbi's head, "but considering the circumstances, I thought you might like to know my real name. Not that it's going to do you much good, obviously. I mean, your father knew my name for years," he said, looking over at Hunter now, "I even told him that I wasn't going to forget about him and he still didn't see my men coming, did he?" Hawkins asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

Of course the mercenary wasn't able to give any kind of reply, despite the hatred burning inside of him, and so the Hydra agent was already about to focus back on Bobbi, when a movement not far from him suddenly got his attention.

Hunter could see that Alex was conscious again, and was slowly inching towards the rifle he had dropped earlier, but before the young man could even get anywhere near it, Hawkins had walked over to him almost lazily and stepped on his hand, before kicking the weapon away, far out of his reach.

After that, he ignored the injured student once again, this time focusing on Hunter. He leaned down to the mercenary and grabbed the front of his tactical uniform with both hands, before dragging him closer towards the stone wall next to them and propping the mercenary up against it, so he could face him properly as he now crouched down in front of him.

"You know, despite my personal feelings about your pretty ex-wife, I'm actually not here to kill either of you. I'm here, because I want something back that is mine, something that first your father and now you stole from me."

Hunter realised immediately what Hawkins was talking about, but as he was completely paralysed, he had no way of replying to his opponent.

"Years ago, Robert Hunter apparently copied a whole bunch of data about the project he was working on for me, and even though I know it took me a while to get back to that, just when I had sent my men to retrieve it, you and your lovely ex had to get in their way, and took what didn't belong to you. Now your father already paid for his actions, but as you barely knew what you were doing, I am going to give you a chance to make this right again.

You have until tomorrow to hand over every single file you found at and took from his house. If you don't, Director Coulson is going to receive another list from me, and this time there will be the names of proper SHIELD agents on it, not just some easily replaceable informants. But trust me, they'll die just as quickly."

Hunter felt his anger burning in his chest at Hawkins' assumption that just because the people his men had killed today hadn't been agents, they had somehow been worth less, or that their deaths had been any less hard on Coulson, but once again, he couldn't do anything to articulate his outrage. As the Hydra operative finally continued, the mercenary would have given anything to at least be able to spit in his face, but he could do nothing except listen to his cold-hearted words and take the humiliating treatment.

"I know Coulson isn't going to like this deal, and although he will agree to it in the end, because he won't be willing to sacrifice anyone else, he will surely try to double-cross me by sending in one of his specialists to the handoff. But you can tell him that that is not going to work," Hawkins instructed with a cruel smile. "I'll send the coordinates for our meeting, but I want you to be the one, who delivers the files to me in person. You were the one, who took them, so now you'll be a good boy and bring them back to me, alright?", he finished, slapping Hunter's cheek lightly in a condescending manner, making his head loll to the side so that he ended up looking directly at Alex.

Hawkins grinned at the mercenary one last time, before finally getting back to his feet, looking at the scene in front of him. He was obviously about to walk away, but then he stopped once more and looked down at Hunter again, addressing him almost as an afterthought.

"You know, I'm really glad that we had this brief opportunity to talk to each other. It's always good to know your enemy, get a sense of what they're capable of, and I have to say, I think I like your attitude. 'If you see one of them, put a bullet in their head'", he repeated Hunter's words from earlier, while looking down at him almost appreciatively. "Sounds like a man after my own heart."

With that he pulled out a different sidearm, released the safety of the weapon, and shot Alex, who was lying only a few feet in front of Hunter, straight in the forehead, before the mercenary had so much as the chance to realise what was happening.

"Tell Director Coulson what I said, and remind him to pick his battles wisely, because this is not one he is going to win. His fifteen informants are already dead, and while I might not have killed any of his agents so far, he shouldn't think that I don't stand to my principles just as much as he does to his." At this point Hawkins raised his weapon again slightly, aiming it in Bobbi's direction this time.

He pulled the trigger once more, but even though his assertion that he didn't want to kill any SHIELD agents today seemed to be true, as the bullet only hit her lower leg, far away from any vital organs, Hunter's position didn't allow him to actually see Bobbi, causing his heart to skip a beat in fear.

Now Hawkins finally turned around to leave, but then he stopped himself once again, an almost charming grin on his lips as he faced Hunter one final time.

"Oh, and please pass on my congratulations to Coulson for his appointment as director. You can say what you want about Fury, but his footsteps surely aren't easy to follow in and from what I hear, Coulson is doing quite well for himself. I'm almost impressed."

He gave Hunter a small nod as goodbye, his expression entirely light-hearted, before finally walking away from the scene, leaving an utterly horrified mercenary behind, who kept staring at the dead young man in front of him, unable to turn his head away, or even to close his eyes, as he was still completely paralysed.

He had failed – again – and again somebody had died on his watch, somebody he had been supposed to protect, and while he wanted to scream, to shout, to go after Hawkins and take him out with his bare hands, he could do nothing but sit here and look at his latest loss. Hydra's latest victory.

The fact that Hunter couldn't be sure about what had happened to Bobbi, whether she was dead or not, or what else Hawkins had done to her was making his helplessness even more unbearable, the worst possible scenarios playing out in his head, clawing at his sanity.

By the time he heard several footsteps approaching, the mercenary was so caught up in all the images of blood and death surrounding him, that he barely heard Captain Grayson's voice as she spoke up, her tone reflecting the horror he felt himself.

"Oh god, we're too late. Sergeant, call a medic!" she instructed one of her men as she kneeled down next to Hunter, looking at him with a sad expression.

Not that it mattered, really, or that it would change anything at this point, but the mercenary suddenly realised that she thought he was dead, too, which wasn't really surprising, given his current state. He was still paralysed obviously, but he could tell that the effect of the toxin wouldn't last for very much longer, and with an immense effort, he finally managed to blink once, startling the captain.

"Holy shit," she exclaimed suddenly, moving away from him in shock. "He's still alive! Check the other agent, and get our medic here ASAP," she called out once more, before focusing back on Hunter.

"Looks like we didn't lose everyone after all." There was a small hint of relief in her voice, but even as the commotion around them intensified, assuring Hunter that Bobbi was alive as well, when he was lifted onto a gurney a few minutes later, the only thing he could think of was how incredibly wrong Captain Grayson had been.

They had lost everyone.

Everyone they had been supposed to protect was dead and Hydra had won.

Again.

To be continued…