I was pretty sure there could be nothing worse in the world than the crappy hotel Clint and I once stayed in where the manager assured us that the rats under the bed "won't bother you as long as you throw some crackers down there" and that the bathroom light, a lamp clipped to the edge of the metal shower stall with an exposed bulb, definitely wouldn't electrocute us if we took a shower with it on.

I was wrong. Being trapped in a S.H.I.E.L.D. transport plane with Agent Bitch-face and her "carefully chosen strike team" is one thousand percent worse. Whenever Clint and I sign to each other she glares at us, but if we try to talk to her she's cold and seems annoyed. She doesn't even talk directly to me anymore. I feel like she's treating me like just another piece of gear, another thing they need to take along so Clint can get the job done. Like I'm nothing more interesting than his bow. I mean, don't get me wrong, the bow is awesome (and slightly scary after that one malfunction with the putty arrows Clint assures me was just a minor glitch), but hey, I'd like to have a conversation please. I've never felt more like an asset.

It doesn't help that I can't stop thinking about what we're going to have to do. I know I'm not going to be the one taking any shots, but what if I'm the first one to see Nat…yeah right, like that's gonna happen when you're partner's name is Hawkeye…or what I'll do if I have to give a kill order. Nat is my friend too. She helped me get through training, laughed and joked with me over cups of strong Russian tea that gave me a headache, and never, ever treated me like I was a lesser person because I didn't have the same skills she did. I've done a lot of things I never expected I was capable of. I've even killed. But somehow this is different. I've never had to turn on someone I trusted. The feeling twisting my gut is actually worse than the internal bleeding in Kirgawe. How could Nat possibly have turned on us when it feels this horrible?

I remember what Bobbi told me when we were on one mission. That I had to decide if I was an interpreter or an agent. I wonder if being an agent means shutting down this feeling and doing the job, no matter who gets hurt. Like Bitch-face is.

Loyalty has always been a funny thing to me. My family life didn't suck, but I got along a lot better with my friends in college than with my blood family, and ended up moving after college with one of my best friends, against my family's advice. It worked out, in the end, but it took a long time for the people I hurt to get over it. My loyalty has always been to the people who understand me and treat me like a valid human being who is capable and intelligent. I can't imagine having the same kind of loyalty to an organization, to a faceless code of conduct. Maybe that's why Bobbi said I'd never make a good agent if I didn't change. Because an agent needs to be loyal to the organization before its members. I care more about the people.

I wonder what kind of loyalty Nick Ryder has. Does he know what he's signing on for? It's one thing if he's been told he's the bait, and agreed to help bring down the person who killed his boss because he wants to do something to make that right. It's something else entirely if all he's been told is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is coming in to pick him up and make sure he gets safely out of London. If he trusts us to protect him, when all we're doing is turning him into the perfect target. And I'm really afraid, judging by the way S.H.I.E.L.D. handles most of its issues, that he thinks we're coming to help.

When we step off the plane it's to stereotypical England weather. I really didn't think it was going to be this much like the movies. Fog swirls across the runway, and a misty rain turns my hair into a mass of frizz in minutes. I knew a shorter haircut was a terrible idea; I now look like Mufasa. I tried to copy Nat's chin-length bob, but what was cute on her looks like a slip with the scissors on me. She laughed so hard when she saw what I did…Nat, please tell me this isn't what they say. Please tell me all that time we spent together wasn't an act.

There are three black Range Rovers waiting at the edge of the runway, and Clint, Bitch-face and I step into one. A short man with dark curly hair and an accent that is a somehow not completely bizarre combination of Scottish and Indian is already inside.

"Welcome to London, Agents. I'm Senior Agent Kirke and I'll be your point on this mission. The subject is being kept at our most secure facility, and per instructions from your Director I've sent you no information on its location. We'll be driving there now."

Fury asked them not to tell us where Ryder was so Nat couldn't get there ahead of us. MI 7 may be good, but even their people couldn't keep her out if she wanted to get past them.

I got that. I'm not a complete idiot, Barton.

I know, but you're new to the business.

Shut it. I've watched all the Mission Impossible movies at least ten times, I know how spy stuff works. It's honestly just a relief to be doing something as normal as pre-mission bickering with Clint. Then Bitch-face glares at us and I'm back in the reality that we're going out to kill one of my friends and maybe get someone else innocent dead along the way.

We drive for what feels like hours, and then the vehicles stop at what is definitely not what I pictured as a high-security safehouse. It's an apartment above a deli. And then I realize the deli, the laundromat and shoe shop flanking it, and the café across the street are all manned by people in ordinary clothes but with too many tells. Watching every movement on the street. Slicing the same piece of ham over and over but never putting the pile on the counter for the customer who has been on page 258 of his book for so long a fly has landed on it and he isn't brushing it away. A man drinking from a coffee cup that doesn't have any steam rising from it. Everyone on this block is an agent.

The thing is, if I can figure that out, so could Nat. She could have found this place, I'm positive. But obviously she hasn't made a move. Then we're all climbing out of the Range Rovers, and the extraction team (who are equipped far more heavily than any normal S.H.I.E.L.D. extraction group) walk into the building, led by Bitch-Face. Clint and I bring up the rear. Normally we'd be in a sniper position, but Nat would know that and be prepared. So the plan is to change things up. I don't like it; and not just because it was Bitch-face's plan and not ours. Clint isn't as safe on the ground. He's best in open space with distance. Close combat tactical is not his thing, especially with his hearing. He needs to be able to see a threat coming, and in a crowded, chaotic extraction situation, he's vulnerable. And me trying to explain things would only be a distraction.

When I first joined I would have felt safest here. Surrounded by a bunch of guys with massive weapons and full body armor. But since working with Clint, I've learned to value the safety that is two people who trust each other, both doing their absolute best to keep each other alive. We have each other's back out there, and this seriously feels like we're still not trusted. I wonder if the real reason behind Bitch-face's idea is to keep us where she has her eye on us. Or so she's got as good a chance of making a kill shot as Clint. If she really is that competitive, she may be putting him at a disadvantage just so she has a chance to show him up. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that's the real reason. She's not doing this for the legitimate reason that a day ago we were under suspicion for collusion in this thing. She just wants to best Clint. And if her idiotic rivalry gets Clint hurt, I'm going to be seriously pissed.

We walk past the fake customers and up the stairs, to an apartment that is definitely not trying to hide the fact that it's a safe house. Up here there are uniformed guards at the door of the hall, the walls are covered in sensors and cameras, and there's a reinforced door leading to what I can only assume is the safe room. Bitch-face walks up to the guards at that one and presents her credentials. There's a whole weird thing that I assume is checking to see if she's not being body-doubled, because they swipe a scanner over her hands and face and then finally open the door.

There's two more guards inside, along with Ryder. It takes me a minute to recognize him, because instead of the wide smile, he's frowning, his eyes look haunted rather than hopeful, and his hair isn't pulled back anymore but falling down loose around his face. He looks frightened and lost, like the stray golden retriever puppy I found hanging around my dumpster in Portland.

And we're going to throw him to the wolves. I flinch involuntarily, because once again he reminds me of me. The me Coulson and May picked up and drove off with to a place I wasn't sure wasn't going to be the death of me. I signed on for this debacle. Ryder has no choice. And then we're moving. Down the stairs, the extraction team in such tight formation I can't see Ryder's rumpled grey suit through them, out through the deli, onto the street. I'm thinking we might make it to the cars. And then there's a sharp cracking sound that I'm already ducking for, a yell, and that strange metallic odor I can sadly instantly tell is blood in the air. I'm on the ground, and so is Ryder, inside the circle of agents, bleeding out from a chest wound. The blood's already spreading across the pavement toward me. I don't know where Clint is, but I can hear Stevens yelling. When I look her way she's got one of the extraction team's rifles, and is aiming at something I can't see. I look down at the blood again. No one's helping Ryder. The whole extraction team is following Bitch-face's orders and movements. I push myself through their legs and get a hand on Ryder's chest. He's still breathing, eyes wide in panic and pain. I pull off my jacket and wad it up, pressing it to the wound and trying to ignore his breathless gasping and whimpering.

Shit. I knew this was going to happen. I knew it was. But I am not going to let it end the way I was so afraid it would. Not if I have any say in it. I can't protect Nat. I can't do anything for Clint now. But I can keep Ryder alive. I hope.