CHAPTER TWO

As reality returned, it was with the realization that an entire Javanese gamelan was playing rounds in my head. My ears were ringing, any light that made it past my eyelids was like a knife, and everything around me spun in circles like a tilt-o-whirl. As awareness slowly returned, I soon realized that there was a pretty sharp pain in my right ribcage, as well.

"Ow," I moaned out, shifting just slightly to find that I was strapped into a harness in a seat. Probably the Quinjet.

A gloved hand landed on my shoulder. "Stay still, sir," said a voice next to me, "ma'am, he's waking up."

"Good, make sure he doesn't hork," Bobbi's voice came back to me as I finally adjusted to having my eyes open again, "I'm not cleaning it up if he does. Way to blow it, Clint!"

"Aw, Birdie, good to know you still care," I murmured, "you try going hand-to-hand with a super soldier, see how you feel afterward." I let my head collapse back against the hull of the Quinjet, hoping to stave off the rising nausea I felt coming on.

"Just sit tight, killer," Bobbi replied, "we're just coming in for a landing and medical is on its way."

Five minutes later, a med tech was shining an annoying pen light in my eyes to check pupil dilation. Thankfully, the sensitivity to light had subsided somewhat, so it wasn't like someone was gouging out my eyeballs.

"No concussion," the med tech finally declared, "you're lucky."

"Yeah, doc, just how I feel," I groused, "lucky."

Sitwell came storming on to the jet just then, looking none-too-happy. He gave a glare to Bobbi, standing nearby, looked me over quickly, then turned to the med tech.

"Status on Agent Barton?" he asked.

"Well," said the med tech, "pretty good bruise on that pretty face and one cracked rib on the right side. Lucky it wasn't a break."

"Again, doc, not feeling real lucky, here," I put in.

"Is he fit for duty?" Sitwell asked.

The med tech was non-committal. "I don't think any of this is life-threatening or anything, but I'm a little concerned about the rib. I'd like to put him on some muscle relaxants for a day or so, to make sure it doesn't get strained out of place and turn into a break."

"No, no, no," I said with a shake of my head, levering myself up out of the seat, "stuff messes with my aim. I got work to do."

Sitwell gave me an appraising look once again, then looked askance over at the med tech.

The med tech sighed, heavily, a clear signal that he wasn't happy with the decision, but had resigned himself to it. "I suppose he can do with some anti-inflammatories," he admitted, then reached for his bag and dug out a bottle that he put in my hand.

"Good," said Sitwell, "in that case, do you two wanna tell me what the hell happened out there?" Sitwell's glare had shifted to include Bobbi again. "We send you out to bring Rogers in and not only does he get away from two of our best specialists, the tracker on him goes dark, as well."

"That's on me, sir," I put in, trying to spare Bobbi the blame. Bobbi and I hadn't been an item for years, but I still had a bit of a chivalrous streak in me toward her, I guess. "I thought I was grabbing my stun-tip. Turned out it was the EMP."

Sitwell looked at me with no small amount of skepticism on his face. "You, Barton?" he asked. "You, of all people, grabbed the wrong ammunition?"

Whoops.

Funny thing about having a legendary reputation. People have a hard time believing that you made a mistake when it comes to the field that granted you that legend. And here I was asking my own handler to think I grabbed a different arrow than I intended.

Fortunately, I had a cover.

"C'mon, sir!" I said. "I was in a fist-fight with the world's greatest super soldier and I already had a busted rib! Whadaya want from me?"

I could see Sitwell's jaw jump as he ground his teeth. He gave a deep, disapproving sigh and there was a long uncomfortable pause. "All right," he finally said, though it was obvious he still wasn't happy with me, "what's done is done. We have people on his trail, so we'll leave Rogers to them. In the meantime, we need to find Romanoff."


Sitwell kept me and Bobbi in a meeting with Rumlow for about an hour after that. We coordinated logistics and divvied up how we were going to go about finding Natasha and Cap. After that, Sitwell released us all to the wild. Being the most familiar with Nat's habits, I made like I was going to check a number of her haunts and safe houses across the city. It freed me up to check in with Hill.

Taking my gear to my bolt hole, for a bit, I gave it the once-over. Luckily there didn't seem to be anything in them as far as tracking or listening devices, which certainly simplified matters. I dropped a line to Hill from my clean laptop. Used Skype, if you believe it, to send an anonymous text to her phone. The internet is fantastic, when you're a spy!

While I waited for a response, I downed a Cliff bar and went over the info on Project Insight again, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Well, I mean, more out of the ordinary than SHIELD sniping people from the sky before they actually commit a crime. The more I thought about it, the creepier I found the whole thing. I mean, who would make these decisions? Would we ever even know? These were the questions that creeped, more than any of it. And these were the questions that I was sifting through the information trying to answer when I noticed the problem.

See, when it comes right down to it, Project Insight was basically one big, glorified sniper. There are a few things that any sniper needs, regardless of whether they're a person or a machine; they need a target, they need a line of sight, and they need an order. I found programming for the figuring out when a target is in line of sight. I found programming that would give the order to shoot.

But the targets? There didn't seem to be anything that would allow someone to tell the machine who to target. No where to input that information at all, no way to point the thing where we wanted it to point. So not only did we not know who would be making these decisions, we also didn't know how the targets would be... well, targeted, basically.

You having nightmares yet? Because I still do.

Still, that part of things was Hill's purview. I needed to figure out who was involved in this whole thing and what they were after. I turned instead to who had access to the Project Insight files and who had access to the helicarriers themselves. The Project Insight files themselves had some information on that.

Sitwell had access to it. That didn't surprise me. Wentworth, too. Her role was that of "genetic analyst." That was beyond hinky. Why would a high-tech sniper program need someone to analyze genetics? Rumlow was on the list, listed as a security consultant with limited access. I suppose that wasn't too out of the ordinary, but it seemed like kind of a waste of the head of STRIKE.

John Garrett... field operative, limited access consultant. I think I had met the man once or twice, but I didn't really know him. Good taste in music, if I remember right. Didn't really have any idea what he had to offer to the program.

About a half hour later, the laptop chirped back at me that Hill had responded. I had suggested Arlington for this meetup and she agreed.

Since I was supposed to be out looking for Nat, there wasn't any reason to pretend that I wasn't leaving. I took a cycle from the motor pool again. I beat Hill to the cemetery by a good fifteen minutes or so which left me time to ponder the names on the wall of the mausoleum complex.

I had chosen the section in the south-west corner of the complex. It had the biggest trees, cutting off any view of us from above. And the maze-like nature of the complex made for few lines of sight that we wouldn't be aware of before someone came into them.

I hadn't thought about the names on the wall. With nothing to do but stand on the sidewalk and wait for Hill, the names on the wall grabbed and demanded my attention. I hadn't anticipated that. I'm not sure if it was because shit was hitting the fan or some kind of mid-life crisis or what. But for some reason, I was oddly introspective about them.

Herbert Birdsall, First Lieutenant, Army. In his spot all alone with a nice, regimented cross inside a circle marking him as Christian, nothing else to distinguish him in death. I wondered what he had done to earn his rank and what sort of man he was.

Michael O Tomasko, Seargent, Army. He was sharing his spot with his wife Helen Elizabeth. She had outlived him by 23 years. I was always afraid of doing the same thing to Laura and it made me wonder which of them was the luckier of the two.

William Henry Ailor Jr, Lieutenant Commander, Navy. Alone in his spot, but proudly displaying the cross specific to the United Methodist Church. Obviously, that distinction was important to him for some reason. Was he a spiritual guy? And how did he reconcile that with being in the military?

I sensed Hill's approach without ever turning to look at her. She must have noticed my introspection because she didn't say a word as she came up to stand next to me, also looking at the names on the wall. There was a long silence between us, the only sound the rustle of the leaves in the tree just above us.

"You get the feeling we're going to be putting more names on tombstones pretty soon?" I asked her, finally, once the silence had become unbearable. It was perhaps more dramatic than I'm used to being.

"Yeah," Hill answered, quietly.

"I'm gettin' kinda tired of puttin' men in the ground," I admitted, feeling every bit as tired as I probably sounded.

"Yeah," she agreed, impossibly even more quiet than before. After another long moment of quiet, she collected herself and tore her eyes away from the wall. "What do you have?"

"A busted rib and prescription ibuprofen," I answered, gingerly putting a hand to the sore spot on my side, "hope it was worth it. Please tell me Cap's in the wind."

"He disappeared into the metro tunnels after your dust-up," she answered, "and since that tracker is dark, no one can find him. Nice work with the EMP, by the way. Knocked out every cell phone in Thomas Circle and a few computers in cars, besides. There was a pretty good traffic snarl after that."

"Eh, people these days need to unplug," I said, waving it off, "I've been cross-referencing the group that went on the op to the Lemurian Star with the list of people working on Sitwell's taskforce and with clearances for Project Insight. There's a lot of cross over between the three. Other than that I don't have a lot concrete to go on."

"I'll take hunches, at this point," Hill said.

"I keep coming around to Sitwell," I said, "all of this is marching right through his office. He was on the Lemurian Star, he's heading up the investigation into Fury's death, and he has full access to Project Insight. He's in the perfect position to know about whatever this is and cover it up. But beyond that, how does Insight pick its targets?"

The sudden change of topic seemed to jar Hill. She blinked at me several times. I'm not used to seeing her look clueless. I kinda wish I had a camera to snap a photo. No one was going to believe me.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"There is exactly one thing that will make me miss my target every time," I told her, "and that's not being given one in the first place. Near as I can tell, Insight doesn't have anything to input a target; no targeting system, no manual aiming... nothing."

"So how does it pick a target?" she asked with realization dawning. "Oh my god."

"You ask me, we got bigger problems than who's pulling the strings on this and that's what strings they're pulling," I pressed.

Hill nodded grimly. "You're right," she agreed, "who ever's behind this, their identity is buttoned up tight from the inside of SHIELD. We'll need to leave that to Rogers and Romanoff now that they're outside. We need to make a contingency plan, a failsafe for Project Insight if it falls into the wrong hands."

"Seems simple enough to me," I said with a shrug, "three helicarriers, three targets. Let's give 'em something to shoot at."

"Program Insight to target itself," she agreed with a nod, "we're gonna need some help with that. And we'll need to fly under the Radar to get some equipment."

"I can move around the Triskelion without being seen," I said, "just give me a list."

"All right," Hill said, "give me three hours, then meet me in the cafeteria. Meanwhile, whatever Sitwell has you doing, act like you're on that."

"He has me checking Nat's haunts," I said, "can't hurt to be seen doing that. Gotta be honest, he's been giving me the hairy eyeball. I'm not sure he completely trusts that I'm buying into the party line."

Hill nodded grimly. "Okay," she said around a heavy sigh, "look, if you get made, or even if you have reasonable cause to think you've been made, get out. I'd rather have you as an asset on the outside than risk you being a prisoner because you tried to stay inside."

"Yes, ma'am," I acknowledged.

Hill turned back to all the names on the wall and pondered them for another moment. To be honest, it scared the crap outta me the fear I saw in her eyes right then. She was pondering what we were about to do, just like I was. It definitely went without being spoken; by the end of this, people were going to die. It was just the numbers that would be different if we succeeded or failed. Either Project Insight would be able to kill god-knows-how-many, or we would be killing the small crews aboard the three helicarriers, some might even have been loyal SHIELD agents. There's no more horrifying choice to have to make than the choice between cold, hard numbers.

"And Barton," she added, still looking at all the names, "let's try and keep as many bodies out of the ground as we can."

"Yes, ma'am," I agreed in kind.

Nothing more needed to be said, but there was a lot to do. Without exchanging words, we briefly looked at each other, then turned and left the mausoleum complex in opposite directions.


I spent three hours popping in on some of Natasha's regular safe spots. As I figured would happen, I didn't see her at any of them. What I did see was some of Rumlow's lackies also checking some of the same haunts. STRIKE was good at what they did, but they were not subtle. It became apparent pretty quick that they knew about some of Natasha's safe houses and didn't know about others. After the third one, I decided not to check in on some of her more private spots on the off chance that I was being tailed by someone a little more skilled than Rumlow's crew.

I had that feeling, that odd little tingle in the back of my skull, that made me feel like I was being watched. I don't know if it was because I was running on a sleep deficit at that point or if it was just plain paranoia, but I just couldn't shake it. But I also knew better than to ignore it. That little tingle had saved my ass on more than one occasion. It's not any sort of super power. I'm not an enhanced or anything. Just another one of the side-effects of this job.

Seriously, we should all be in therapy. A disturbingly high number of us actually are, in fact.

I ran into Hill again in the cafeteria at the arranged time. It took me by surprise to see her walking toward the garbage bins with a tray full of packaging, her food having been finished already. Her eyes snapped toward me for a moment as I made for the lunch line to get a sandwich and some coffee. Then, she picked another face out of the crowd and got their attention, seeming to want to talk about something urgent with them.

My senses immediately went on alert. Had she picked up a tail?

After picking up my food, I wandered in the direction of my normal table on the mezzanine. Hill finished her conversation with the other person just as I passed. She turned as if in a hurry to get back to urgent business and her tray spun around right into mine, sending her trash and my food tumbling to the floor.

Ah. Now I got it.

"Oh, geeze, Barton!" Hill exclaimed.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry," I said around a sigh, playing along. We stumbled over each other as a number of people looked on at the disturbance. We both mumbled excuses; in a hurry, not getting enough sleep the past few days. All the while, we shuffled around with paper towels and sorted through the mess to clean up my spilled cup of coffee and retrieve everything else from the floor. When we were done, the pile of garbage on her tray had been augmented with a few more wet paper towels and I had a couple on my tray that were sopping up a puddle so as not to reach my sandwich.

See, most people when they make a hand-off that they don't want others to notice, will do so in a way they think will draw no attention. Our problem was that everyone in the cafeteria was trained to spot such behavior. So trying to keep a low profile was like sending up a flare. So instead, Hill had gone out of her way to draw attention to herself and then to me by extension. The rest of the room wouldn't want to be disrespectful and stare at two high-ranking SHIELD agents bumbling into a very mundane cafeteria accident. It would be embarrassing for either of us to be seen unaware of our surroundings enough to smack into each other. The eyes that turned toward us quickly flicked away when they saw the situation.

And in that pile of soaked-through napkins that was now on my tray, I knew would be hidden the thing she needed to hand off to me.

We exchanged a few further apologies, then went on our respective ways. She finished discarding her trash and I returned to the line to get a fresh cup of coffee, then continued up to my normal table. On the way, I passed a discarded newspaper on another table and grabbed it. It gave me a reason to stall and look like I was not in a hurry to get out of there and check out whatever info Hill had slipped me on the flash drive I found under the napkins.

I gave it about a half an hour before I cleaned up, discarded the garbage from my meal, and headed out of the cafeteria with the flash drive palmed. I still had that damned tingle in my brain and I just plain couldn't shake it. I didn't spot a tail, but that didn't always mean anything.

I went to my bolt hole the long way around, getting into the vents by way of a bathroom stall where I knew I had privacy. It took me about twice as long as normal to get there, since I went up a few floors and back down again. I finally lost the tingle about a floor away from my hideout.

God, but I was tired. And the trip through the vents had pulled on my busted rib like a sonovabitch. By the time I finally got there, I had to take a breather. The bolt hole had a bunch of old pillows and seat cushions that made a relatively comfortable nest and I flopped onto the pile of them for a few minutes, just breathing. A throb began to creep back into my head and I realized it had been several hours since I had had any ibuprofen. I fished the bottle out of my pocket and dry-swallowed a couple of them.

Any time I hear someone complain about the hours they have to keep at their job, I can't help but be amused. Just sayin'.

I gave myself a little bit of time to let the pain killers kick in, then collected myself and got to work on the flash drive. Hill had given me a list of materials she needed me to collect and some instructions for what she wanted me to do with them. She was going to keep Sitwell off my back as much as she could and take care of the programming side of things.

The biggest thing on the list was three standard server blades from the R&D department. Hill's idea was to replace some of the hardware on the helicarriers with stuff that had new targeting programming. How she was going to accomplish that, I wasn't sure and I dreaded that planning session. If it came to needing to use the new programming, it was likely that we would find out after the damned things were in the air.

The other stuff were bits and bobs of computer hardware that, if pressed, I could get at a local Best Buy using one of my aliases. The server blades were going to be more of a challenge. I needed to find a way to make it so that they wouldn't be noticed missing until Hill had them long-gone to where ever she was going to squirrel them away. That meant replacing them with something similar enough that it wouldn't be noticed unless someone tried to use them. The fact that they were standard server blades helped in that regard. I figured that I could raid the archives for some hardware that was a step or two outdated so they would look similar. All I'd have to do is replace them for the blank ones in a spot that meant they were unlikely to be used any time soon.

I tried to treat it like your run-of-the-mill retrieval mission. I had had to break in and sneak around lots of places to nab hardware, software, explosives, and some stuff I was never even told what it was. But breaking into my own organization and taking something? That was a new one. I had to work pretty hard to tamp down the weirdness of it. Plus, if I got caught, not only would Hill be able to do nothing to protect me, but I'd probably be branded a traitor and take her down with me. With this in mind, I left any sign that she had given me these instructions behind in my bolt hole.

Rule one of covert intelligence work; compartmentalize. It increases plausible deniability and keeps people from knowing things that could get coerced out of them. I was pretty good at keeping secrets under stress, but I could make damn sure that Hill could deny her way out if she needed.

Getting the server blades out of R&D was going to be challenge. I knew the protocols SHIELD had in place for securing their equipment and research and it was tight. Honestly, only an insider could do it. So, when it got discovered eventually, they would at least know that someone from SHIELD had been the culprit. I could only hope that whatever this was would be resolved by then.

I wasn't really known for being an R&D type of guy, but I did have one thing going for me. I had a reputation for pestering R&D for cool gadgets and tweaking my gear. And they always complained that when I got my foot in the door, I didn't leave until I got them to do the thing. So I decided the best way into R&D was to live up to that reputation.

Was that reputation deserved? No. Well... maybe a little. Either way, I wasn't above using it to my advantage.

An idea blossoming in my head, I grabbed my bow and quiver and made my way back out of my bolt hole, once again taking the long way around. I couldn't help but smile at the thought of what I was going to be trying. I was going to be so annoying and it was going to be the covert performance of a lifetime. It was going to be fun.

Did I just say that? Seriously, man. This job messes you up.

The first step was to obtain the decoys. I emerged from the air vents deep in the SHIELD archives. I had been on a retrieval mission about a year prior that had included some computer equipment. I was pretty sure there was a collection of server blades in what was recovered that would fit the bill. And since it had all been cataloged and processed and used as evidence already, no one was likely to be looking for them for a while.

The place was quiet as a graveyard and just as deserted. So it didn't take me long to fine the right archive, grab the old server blades, and pocket them. I was able to leave all the boxes back so no one was the wiser, even taking care not to disturb the dust on the shelf too much. Within just a few minutes, the old server blades were safely secured in a pocket of my cargo pants and I was on my way out of the archives. My clearance got me past the first security point without any trouble and I was already coming up with a way to explain my having been there.

I was rounding the corner of an aisle when the air vent above me suddenly burst open and a black-clad figured dropped to the ground, just behind me. On reflex, I whirled around, moving to deliver a blow to my assailant's solar plexus. Something grabbed that wrist and pulled as a mop of blond hair whirled around in my face. When that cleared, there was a metal cylinder sailing toward my head. I ducked it, rolling with the tug on my wrist and flipped, kicking my legs out at my opponent and landing on my back, ready to kip up. She danced around my attack at her legs and landed sitting on my chest before I could get back up. Before I could blink, two batons were on either side of my throat, crossed over each other. Just beyond them, I could see the suddenly surprised face of Bobbi Morse.

"Well, hey, handsome," she said, taking on a smirk and removing her batons, "sorry, didn't know it was you."

Suddenly her weight on my busted rib made itself known and I couldn't hold back the cringe. "Thanks, Birdie, this is really making this morning's dust up with Cap feel so much better," I ground out.

"Sorry," she said, giving a grimace, and rolling off and to her feet in a single graceful move. She held out a hand for me to take and pulled me up. "What are you doing down here, anyway? Thought you were tracking Romanoff."

"Still am," I said, "needed something from my bolt hole."

"More explosive arrows?" she asked, casting a gaze over my shoulder to my gear, her look sobering. "Things getting that serious?"

I sighed, looking away from her for a moment and shaking my head. "God, I hope not," I said, dragging my eyes back to her, "this scares me, Bobbi. Everything about this whole thing is just wrong."

"Yeah," she agreed, leaning up against the nearest shelf, "I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of Captain America being a traitor. And I don't really feel like Sitwell cares if he's brought in alive or... not. And Romanoff..." She shook her head in disbelief. "Look, Clint, I know you disobeyed a kill order to bring her in and I know I wasn't exactly one of the people who was on your side at the time..."

"Not on my side at the time?" I said, incredulously, "as I recall, you threatened to break my bow on the justification that I clearly didn't have the balls to use it any more!"

"I know, I know, it was a low blow," she said with a smirk, "you're never gonna let that one go, are you?"

"C'mon, Mock! No one threatens the bow!"

"God, Hawk, you're so male!" she said with a laugh, then sobered again. "But seriously. Romanoff... I know I wasn't on board with having her around at first, but she's one of the best of us. Her going rogue... I know with her history it's looks like it's something to be expected, but it doesn't ring true."

"Yeah," I agreed, leaning against the shelf as well, "whatever this is, Bobbi, it goes deep and it's going to get ugly. And there aren't many who would give Nat a fair shake."

"Yeah, I know," she said, "which is why I hope you're the one to find her. I know you will. And she and I, we're not friends or anything, but, a fair shake... it's the least she deserves."

"It'll mean something to her to know you said so," I said, meaning every word.

"Don't you dare! She'll hold it over me forever!"

"Well, okay, I'll tell her you said she's a blood-sucking death-spider."

"Stop!" Bobbi said, rolling her eyes and pushing off from the archive shelf. "I gotta get going. Watch your back, Hawkeye." She tossed a wave over her shoulder as she headed out of the archives

"You too, Birdie," I called after her, watching her go for a moment. After she rounded a corner out of sight, I allowed myself a moment to center, feeling like a jerk for having misdirected her away from what I was doing. I had used our friendship to do it and that was just low. The fact that she hadn't picked up on it only made it worse. Luckily, I'd get a chance to apologize to her for it later. But at the time, I felt like an asshole.

Of course, then again, she did sit on me...


Phase one of my plan complete, I headed to the R&D department for phase two. Waving a greeting to the department receptionist, I passed the security checks easily and rounded the corner into the tech labs.

I came up a little short when I ran right into Doctor Wentworth. She was seated at a computer station and I spotted some sort of ultra-localized wireless connection on her screen. A moment later, she placed a tube full of some kind of liquid within its range and typed a few commands. She looked up at me as I entered and minimized what she was working on, rather quickly. That was weird, since I had the clearance level to be in this lab and she knew it. Also, what was a geneticist doing in the tech labs? Something definitely rubbed me the wrong way about it.

Needless to say, I had no qualms about carrying out my little scheme on her.

I plastered a winning smile on my face and wandered in.

"Agent Barton," she acknowledged, sounding rather cold, "aren't you supposed to be looking for Agent Romanoff?"

"Waiting to hear back from some contacts," I said with a shrug, "taking care of my gear in the meantime." I pulled one of the explosive tip arrows out of my quiver and held it up. "Got anyone can look at the triggers on these? They seemed a little slow to go off, this morning."

"I saw the footage, they seemed fine to me."

"Well, okay, then," I said, pouring on my trademark sarcasm, "if the scientist wants to correct the trained marksman about the performance of his own gear, well..." I waved the arrow around a bit so that the tip whistled through the air between us. "I guess that's that and I'll just be on my merry."

The gesture had the desired effect. Wentworth's hand shot out and she grabbed my wrist to stop the arrow flailing about, looking as if it was going to reach out and bite her. "Perhaps I can have Harris take a look," she allowed, slowly letting go.

"Great!" I said, popping the arrow back into the quiver and taking it off my shoulder.

Wentworth paged Harris from one of the back labs using the intercom. I hovered nearby, casually leaning against her work station and peeking at her notes with feigned interest. I got right into her personal space and she shifted somewhat uncomfortably.

"Huh," I said, "extremis. Isn't that the stuff that Stark had a run-in with a while ago? Is it true it turns people into walking bombs?"

Wentworth looked up at me, an eyebrow raised in reprimand.

"C'mon, you know I'll just ask Stark," I pressed, pouring on the boyish mischief.

Wentworth rolled her eyes. "Yes, it turns people into bombs," she said with an exasperated sigh.

Harris entered the main lab just then. "Hey, the triggers on these don't seem right. Can you check the tolerances?" I asked him, handing over my quiver as Wentworth turned back to her notes.

"Sure," Harris said with a nod and then disappeared back into the depths of the lab. I went back to peeking over Wentworth's shoulder and gave a low whistle.

"Whoof! Looks like a crazy cocktail, there," I said, getting right into her space and poking a finger at her paperwork, "hey, why does GH325 have a question mark next to it?"

"Agent Barton!" she exclaimed, flipping the folder closed and pulling it away from me.

"Right, right!" I said, throwing up both my hands and stepping away, "need-to-know-stuff, got it. Can't blame a spy for spying, though, right?" She rolled her eyes again and turned back to her work while I began to wander around the room, poking at this and that and looking for the rack of server blades that I knew would be in the room somewhere. I spotted them fairly quickly, but skipped over them without showing any interest while Wentworth was in the room. Instead, I found my way to a workbench and began fiddling with a few tools. I feigned knocking them over, causing a clatter that echoed throughout the silent room.

"Are you quite finished?" Wentworth snapped, turning back to me with the look of an impatient parent.

"Sorry, sorry," I said, looking sheepish and putting the tools back in their proper places. I went back to wandering the room again and as I reached out to fiddle with something else, Wentworth spoke up again.

"Agent Barton, I know you're like a kid in a candy store, but please refrain from poking the research." Her voice was tight with annoyance. It was working. Just a little bit more...

"Oh, fine," I said, backing away from the object I had been about to touch, then moving over to a cleared counter and sat on it. It afforded me a clear view of her computer screen and I saw her once again minimize her work. "I'll just sit here, while I wait. You know, quietly."

It took me less than a minute to move on to the next annoyance. I pulled out my bow and started to repeatedly unfold and close it. I managed to continue this for a good three or four minutes, watching tension build in Wentworth's shoulders. She even seemed to twitch a few times. After putting the bow away, I moved on to drumming my fingers on the counter top. I started with a simple rhythm at first and then began to pick up the complexity, changing it often so that it just failed to turn into white noise that could be ignored. Somewhere along the line, it kinda turned into the drum solo from Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida. Eventually, I added humming into the mix. Finally, it was adding in the lyrics which pushed Wentworth over the edge.

The tension in her shoulders had piled up into her neck and she suddenly pounded on the keyboard to lock her station and turned back to me.

"I think I'll go see what is keeping Harris," she said, tightly. She then beat a hasty retreat through the door that Harris had disappeared behind.

"Cool, thanks!" I called after her.

I didn't know how much time I had, so I moved quickly as soon as the door slid shut behind her and she was out of sight. I was across the room to the rack of blank server blades in a couple of strides, pulling the old ones out of my pocket as I did. Opening up the rack, it took what felt like an eternity for me to find the ones with Hill's specifications, pocket them, and shuffle around the others so that I could slip the old ones into a place they were unlikely to be looked at or used any time soon. I was just closing the cabinet when I heard footsteps approaching again and had just enough time to select another doohicky to fiddle with before both Wentworth and Harris came through the door with my quiver.

"Agent Barton!" This time, Wentworth sounded exactly like Laura when she's yelling at Cooper for climbing the trees by himself. I half expected to hear my middle name.

Francis, by the way...

"Sorry! Sorry!" I pleaded once again. "Just can't resist!" I wandered back over toward them and held out a hand for my quiver. "They okay, doc?" I asked Harris.

"I tightened up the pressure switches," he answered, handing it to me, "they were a little loose. Probably got shaken around a bit too much lately."

"Yeah, probably," I said swinging the quiver back over my shoulder, "you know how things go out there, sometimes." I turned and made my way for the door, tossing a wave over my shoulder. "Thanks, docs!"

I felt, more than saw, the glare that followed me though the door and I thought I heard Wentworth telling Harris to make sure I hadn't messed up anything. The act had been perfect. Suppressing a grin, I made my way to the motorpool to get a bike and head out of the Triskelion again. I had the rest of my shopping list to pick up.


A quick trip to a Best Buy later and I had the rest of the equipment Hill wanted me to nab. After that, I decided to look in on a few more of Natasha's haunts, to look like that was what I was out doing. I even took a few minutes to talk to a low-level snitch I paid sometimes. Good thing, too, since there was an agent in the bar at the time. Made the whole thing look nice and tidy.

After that, I stopped at a library and messaged Hill from a browser-based email address. Anonymity is so easy on the internet! Sometimes, I wonder how we track people at all, these days! This time, I chose the National Cathedral.

I insinuated myself into a tour pretty easily, which gave me a reason to hang out there until I spotted Hill. When she finally wandered in, the tour guide had us sitting under the stained glass that everyone calls the Space Window. Did you know that has a piece of actual moon rock in it? I didn't, but the tour guide went on about it proudly. Pretty kick-ass, actually.

Hill plopped down into the seat next to me and listened until the tour guide finished this stop. As the group moved off to the next stop, she and I stayed behind, and found a relatively quiet section of the narthex to chat.

Yes, I know what a narthex is. I read!

"Getting more and more spiritual on me, Barton," she said, "something you're worried about?"

"Would you look for us here?" I countered.

She gave a non-committal bob of her head in response. "Probably not," she said, "did you get them?"

"Any doubt?" I asked handing a backpack over to her.

Hill opened it up and looked inside. "This all looks new," she said.

"Except for the server blades it is," I said, "I figured, I already had to make off with those, why raise more red flags stealing other stuff, too? Plus, this has never been used, so it won't leave any known traces."

"Sold," Hill agreed, swinging the backpack onto her back, "I'll take care of the rest of this part. Rigby Fallon from the AI department is going to help me get these ready to go. He'll be in his own lab for most of the day, so if you need to pass messages to me, you can leave them with him."

"Don't think I've ever met the guy," I said.

"He's a nerd and a pain in the ass, but he's distrustful of authority, so, you'll like him," Hill said, "he told me about a weird breach of the SHIELD databases yesterday that I think might be a part of this whole thing. Besides, brought him in myself. I trust him."

"Works for me," I said, "can't be choosy anyway. If you trust him, I'll trust him as a contact."

"How's the rib?"

"Pain-killers are a god-send."

"I hear that. Check in with Sitwell, then see what you can do about catching some sleep. You look like hell."

"You don't look much better," I tossed over my shoulder as I turned to leave.

"Well, you sure know how to flatter a girl," she replied in kind, "get lost."

"Yes, ma'am!"


Sitwell did not look pleased when I checked in with him. He was just finishing dressing down a group of Rumlow's people when I found him. Something about the best lead they had had all day, an Apple Store, and losing Cap and Nat again. On one of the screens in Ops 3, the footage from the camera in one of the interrogation rooms was showing. There was a very uncomfortable-looking nerd-wannabe fidgeting in a seat, obviously looking like he was wondering what he had fallen into. He was wearing a nametag that proclaimed him to be an employee of the afore-mentioned Apple Store.

Nat had probably manipulated the guy like a boss. From the look of him, poor guy hadn't stood a chance.

"Agent Barton, where have you been?" Sitwell ground out, not even looking up from the file he was reading after he dismissed STRIKE.

"Looking for Natasha," I said, "sad to say, all my leads came up cold. Looks like she's counting on us knowing how she moves and where she goes, sir. Pretty much means all bets are off. None of our mutual contacts have seen or heard anything from her. She's a ghost. And it looks like she took Cap with her."

"Almost a ghost," Sitwell said, nodding his head toward the monitor showing the Apple Store mook, "they turned up in a mall a few hours ago. We think they might have been trying to decode the data from the Lemurian Star."

I filed that bit of information away to make sure to get to Hill. It was a good bet at this point that Cap and Nat were on the trail of the source of whatever this was. Maybe we would be able to be in contact with them soon and have some answers, finally. I couldn't let that hope show around Sitwell, though. The more I saw of his actions, the less and less I thought he was on the right side of this. He wanted this kept bottled up, even from the rest of SHIELD.

Sitwell's eyes finally came off of the file he was reading and looked up at me. It was so sudden that I very nearly flinched. He had that look, the one that said he was carefully gauging my next reaction. I had to be very careful here. The guy wasn't as good as me, but he was still a level eight agent for a reason. This was one of those times where he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask.

In short, it was me he was testing.

"Assuming they were able to decode the information, what might Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers do from there?" he asked, his eyes boring into mine.

"It would depend on the nature of the data, sir," I replied, unflinchingly, my eyes locked on to his. We were having a weird battle of wills right then, both trying to glean information from the other without giving any up ourselves. "But if she got a lead from it, she'd chase it down, for sure."

"She would go wherever it leads then?"

"Yes sir," I replied, "like a bloodhound."

Sitwell's eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly, as he looked at me with a nod. There was something about that look that I really did not like, as if I had just threatened him. In retrospect, I suppose I sort of had.

"Hmm," he murmured. Finally, his eyes went back to the file he had been reading. "You seem tired, Agent Barton," he finally, said, "perhaps you should get some rest. I'll need you to be prepared for whatever comes of all of this."

"Yes, sir," I said, turning to leave.

I headed back to my bunk in the dormitories after that, mulling over the exchange as I went. I couldn't help but feel like Sitwell had managed to glean something out of it. I didn't know what. It's not as if I had lied; Natasha would follow any lead she had, once she got her claws into it. Hell, I had once gone with her all the way to Nepal just on a hunch. If she had something concrete, she would be all over it like red on a mob banker's books. And Sitwell knew that.

He had been testing me, trying to see where my loyalties lied, if I would continue to follow orders. He was getting suspicious of me and that wasn't good. And while I was grateful for the down time I'd be getting - God! I needed sleep! - it was worrying to be sidelined like that.

The best I could hope for now was to glean information off of Sitwell in return. So I started thinking about his line of questioning. He had asked me where Tasha would go with the information. Not what she would do with it, or who she would tell. Where she would go. And then he had confirmed that she would go somewhere if she was told a location. He was worried about a place.

That had to be what was on the flash drive from the Lemurian Star, some sort of information about a place. And Nat and Cap were headed there to find out what was being hidden. Only problem was that I didn't know where "there" was. It could have been on the third floor or in a third world country, for all I knew.

Somehow, though, I had the distinct impression that Sitwell did.

Once again feeling that odd tingle that meant I was probably being watched, I decided not to press my luck and went back to my bunk instead of trying to retreat to my bolt hole. Sitwell had ordered me to get some rest and so had Hill. I needed it and I needed to look like I was still a good little soldier, following orders. So, off to bed I went and I made sure to be seen doing it. I would check in with Hill's nerd in a few hours to let them in on what I had learned.

I woke with a jolt when I felt the whole building rumble. On reflex, I reached for the knife that I kept under my pillow and sprang to my feet, ready for a fight. When I realized that I wasn't in immediate danger, I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. It was just a little after 21:00. I had been asleep for about five hours.

Something big had just happened. And I knew where to go to find out what without being subjected to scrutiny. I hopped on the Triskelion directory and looked up the office for Rigby Fallon from the AI department. I made myself decent as quickly as I could and headed there.

Like I had told Hill, I had never met the guy. But I had met SHIELD computer nerds before. The brilliant minds that SHIELD Science churned out were usually cut from similar cloth; insular, in it for the research and the thrill of the work, and completely amazing at what they did and very little else. My title of Specialist was a bit of a misnomer, really, since I was trained in a variety of tactics, fighting styles, and sciences. The science guys were the ones who really specialized.

So, I had an idea of what to expect when I got to Fallon's office. The place was a windowless cave that was aglow with little LEDs and computer screens all over the place. It was entirely too dark and the desk was a wall of monitors and readouts. Basically, exactly what you would expect from a coding geek with access to all the best toys.

"Whoever you are, close the door before the room heats up," came a voice from behind the monitors, "you're messing up my cooling system and this box is very sensitive."

"Uh, sure," I said as I closed the door, "sorry."

"Bad enough it took a jostle, just now," the voice continued amid the clatter of a keyboard, "solid state, cold super computer. What the hell was I thinking?"

I rounded the corner to the other side of the wall of monitors and was brought up short. Sitting in the chair at the desk was a kid who looked like he wasn't even of legal drinking age.

"Sorry," I said, "I'm looking for Doctor Rigby Fallon."

"Lookin' at 'im," said the kid.

"You have a doctorate?"

"Three," he corrected absently, eyes still fixed on his monitors and still typing a string of commands into the computer, lightning fast. "And, then..." And here he made a flourish and hit the final keys to enter the sequence. A graphic of some sort of a pattern that looked like it came out of a spirograph popped up on the screen and Fallon reached for a microphone. "Flynn, what is your status?"

"Good evening Rigby," came a synthetic voice from the speakers of the computer, "I am operating within normal parameters."

"Why don't you let me be the judge, Flynn-boy. Full diagnostic."

"Process will take one hour and twenty-eight minutes."

"Execute." As the spirograph thingy was joined by a bunch of lines of code on the screen, Fallon spun his chair around to look at me. "Whew! Coulda lost three months of work in that... tremor." His eyes went wide as he looked me up and down. "Hey, you're that Avenger Agent, Hawkeye, right?"

"Lookin' at 'im," I parroted back, with a shrug.

"Phat," Fallon said with a grinning nod, "there's an Avenger in my office. Love this job. Maria said you might be stopping by."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the kid. How the hell did he get away with calling the Assistant Director of SHIELD by her first name? Only other person I knew who got away with that was Stark. Must have been a genius thing. If I had tried it, it would have earned me a trademarked AD Maria Hill Glare of Death.

"Assistant Director Hill," I said pointedly, "is who I'm looking for, actually. She told me I could trust you as a contact. Has she let you know what that rumble was?"

"Like I need her to tell me that," he said with a snort of derision, then turned back to his computer monitors and typed on the keyboard again. Within moments, a display from Ops 2 was splashed on a side monitor. "Whoo, yikes! Looks like we launched a missile. Or three!"

My jaw hit the floor. The Ops data wasn't supposed to be able to be accessed outside of the three Ops suites. Somehow, this kid had pulled up supposedly un-hackable information with a few keystrokes. "How did you-?"

"Three doctorates," the kid interrupted, "more than two, less than four. Five is right out."

I didn't really know how to respond to that. He spun his chair back around to look at me again, a look of incredulity on his face. "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch?"

I shook my head. I had nothing.

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

Still nothing.

"Wow. They must keep you pretty busy."

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the utter confusion. "Just... where are the missiles headed?" I asked.

Fallon rolled his eyes and pulled up a map showing the path the missiles had taken. They had launched from the Triskelion and headed straight for...

"Jersey," said Fallon, "looks like some old, abandoned army base."

"What the hell is out there?" I mused, leaning over his shoulder to look at the map.

Abruptly the door to Fallon's office opened, spilling light in from the hallway. My knife was in my hand again and I turned toward it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fallon minimize the Ops feed.

"Cool it, boys, it's only me," Hill's voice came from the silhouette in the doorway. She closed it a moment later, allowing the light of Fallon's electronics to reveal her face.

"Getting jumpy," I said with a shake of my head, sheathing my knife. "You know anything about missiles headed for New Jersey?"

"Well, I'd consider it a public service to take out the cast of Jersey Shore," Hill replied, coming over and joining us at the computer, "but other than that..."

"Think that's where Widow and the old man are?" Fallon asked.

"If they were there," I mused, "we'd better hope they had already left. The place is flattened."

"Rogers and Romanoff can take care of themselves," Hill said, "we need to figure out who here could have launched those missiles and why."

"Sitwell," I said, "he has the clearances. And when I was talking to him earlier, he seemed pretty concerned with whether or not I thought that Cap and Nat would go where the data from the flash drive led."

"What did you tell him?" Hill asked.

"The truth," I said, "that Nat would sink her teeth in and not let go. It's not really a secret and I think Sitwell is watching me pretty close."

"Damn," Hill said, crossing her arms over her chest, "we're running out of time. Rig, where do we stand with the server blades?"

Fallon pulled up another window on another monitor, showing lines of code and and a progress bar. "Compiling the code, now," he replied, "gonna be an all-nighter, but I should have them ready by morning. After that, one in each ship and we're golden."

"Easy as that, hey kid?" I said.

Fallon scoffed again. "I'm the brains, you're the brawn, Hot Guy," he said, "that part's for you to figure out."

Hot Guy? Hill was right. The kid was a pain in the ass.

"Listen, Cabbage Patch Kid," I started.

"Woah, man, way to get 80s!"

"Enough, children!" Hill broke in. "Rig, get those server blades ready. I'll come and collect them in the morning. Barton, get back with Sitwell in ops. I want eyes and ears on what is happening in Jersey and I want to know the minute they find any sign of Rogers and Romanoff. If you can, get on the team that Sitwell will be sending to Jersey. And I want the both of you ready to bug out of here tomorrow."

There was one thing that Fallon and I both agreed on and that was that the idea sounded frightening.

"It really comin' to that, Boss-Lady?" Fallon asked.

Hill shook her head with a deep, tired sigh. She had the kind of look that crushed your soul, when you saw a tidal wave coming and knew there was nothing you could do to stop it. She was about to come undone. We all were, really.

"We're about to lose our advantage on the inside," Hill said, "Cap and Widow are doing more on the outside and if we're going to get these server blades on the Helicarriers, we're probably going to need to join them. We'll make our move when we get a read on Cap and Widow."

Sobering, I nodded grimly. "Kid, you know how to put together a go-bag?" I asked Fallon.

The kid shrugged blithely. "Sure," he said, "that's part of standard training, even at the SHIELD Science Academy."

"Then I'd go get one together while this," I motioned to his bank of computers, "is doing its thing."

"Uh, I'm not a trained specialist or anything," Fallon replied with a look that said he clearly thought I was out of my mind, "but even I'm not so clueless as to think it's a good idea to leave a potentially treasonous program compiling on a computer, unattended."

"Won't be," I said, motioning him up and out of his chair, then taking the place myself, "you have an hour."

Fallon looked at me with a look like one of my kids uses when they're about to argue. It only made him look even younger. A reflex caused me to pull out the because-I-said-so face. The kid rolled his eyes and looked over to Hill with the but-mom-say-something face. Hill looked back at him with the do-as-your-father-says face. The kid rolled his eyes with with oh-fine-whatever face and made for the door.

It was the single most surreal conversation I had ever had at SHIELD and there wasn't a single word spoken.

"Don't touch anything until l get back," Fallon said as he exited.

I couldn't help but rub the bridge of my nose with a sigh, then looked up at Hill. "Really?" I asked. "This is who we're bringing into SHEILD now?"

"He's a brilliant programmer," Hill said with a shrug, "and we can count on him to keep this on the down-low. Besides, I remember some people saying something similar about you when Coulson brought you in. I believe Fury called you, what? A '22-year-old circus punk,' wasn't it?"

I didn't have a response to that. I had to cop to it. I kinda _was_ a brat at the time. Took Coulson kicking my ass for a full year for me to get it together.

"Don't be too hard on him," Hill continued, "he may be a work in progress, but he's a good kid."

"Yeah, all right," I allowed, with a wave of my hand.

"Listen, as soon as he gets back, I want you on Sitwell like glue," she said as I put my feet up on the edge of the desk and made myself comfortable, "as soon as he hears about Rogers and Romanoff, I want to hear about them. Don't worry about appearances after that, just tell me and get out."

"Rendez-vous?" I asked.

"Probably won't be time," Hill replied, "I'll need to get the server blades to Fury at that point. Just get out of DC and I'll find a way to contact you when the dust settles."

I nodded and then she went out the door.

With an hour to myself, watching Fallon's programs run on the banks of monitors, I let my mind wander a little. Unless a miracle occurred, I was about to be out in the cold. The walls of the Triskelion, which had up until now been a comfort and a place I could count on being safe, now felt like they were closing in on me and keeping me trapped. My world was turning upside down and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even hang on.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. Well... okay, maybe a little embarrassed. But can you blame me? I cried a little just then, alone in a dark room, where I should have been safe but wasn't. In the center of the second best thing to happen in my life, outside of my family, watching it fall apart. I don't think I've ever felt as alone as I did right then.

I ran an op in Beijing, once. The details aren't important, but it resulted in my having to run from the city at about 02:00 and hide in the rainy Chinese countryside with nothing but a few MREs and my bow. It was cold, dark, wet, and miserable and I didn't think that there would ever be as bad a feeling as that, as being all alone in a dark, horrible, hostile emptiness.

As I looked around at Fallon's office, at all the blinking little lights and the displays on his computer monitors and everything, I suddenly knew there was something worse.

Being all alone in a scary crowd of people who know you.


The overnight hours were simultaneously nerve-wracking and boring as hell. I stuck with Sitwell in Ops 3 the whole time, tracking the same information that he was and watching for anything that I might be able to pass to Hill. At first, I tried to get myself on to one of the teams headed to Jersey to investigate the site the missiles had struck. But the time I spent hanging out with Fallon's computer had put the kibosh on that. Also, Sitwell said he wanted me close in case he needed me.

And if you buy that, I got a nice, red bridge to sell you in San Francisco.

No, he wanted me where he could keep an eye on me. The battle of wills we had overnight was intense. I didn't give him any reason to make a move on me, but I knew he could tell my defenses were up. His were too, and he wasn't alone. Any time Rumlow or Wentworth came in the room, he would talk to them in hushed tones, well away from me and always with an eye on me. At one point, Bobbi came in for a while and I noticed that they were treating her in a similar fashion.

Seeing this, I suddenly felt bad for having kept her in the dark about what Hill and I had been up to. I was also relieved to have reason to think she wasn't with Sitwell and his crowd. I resolved right then and there to try and get her to leave with me, if I could. Sadly, she was still looking at me as if she just wasn't sure.

Probably why it hadn't worked between us all those years ago. Trust issues.

Eventually, Sitwell left Rumlow and Wentworth in charge in Ops 3 and said something about having business to take care of. I tried to find an excuse to go with him, but he wasn't having it. He mumbled some stuff about clearance levels and whatever. He knew I was watching him just as he was watching me, I guess.

Hours passed. By then, I figured that Fallon had probably gotten the server blades to Hill. It was almost 13:00. The tension in Ops 3 was thick and almost no one dared to say anything.

The breath we were all holding finally let go when an ops tech suddenly leaped out of his chair and spun around to get Rumlow's attention.

"Sir!" he said. "We've had a sighting! Someone saw Captain Rogers!"

"Where?" Rumlow snapped.

"Some car on the Beltway," the tech said with some surprise, "plates are registered to a Sam Wilson. And... standby... field please repeat that?" After another pause, the tech turned back to Rumlow with wide eyes, disbelief written all over his face. "Sir, the field is reporting that there's a... bird-man? Flying around with Rogers and Romanoff?"

"Sir!" another tech broke in. "We just had visual confirmation. Rogers and Romanoff have Sitwell, sir!"

"How the hell...?" Wentworth mused, distressed.

"I'm out in the field with STRIKE," Rumlow said, turning on his heel and leaving Ops 3 at a tear.

"Get the asset out there, now!" Wentworth barked to the techs.

I didn't know what or who "the asset" was, not fur sure. But I had a frightening gut feeling. The whispered rumor, that urban legend of tradecraft; I had a sudden feeling that our worst nightmares were about to be realized. And as I watched the footage and heard the reports coming in, I found out with horror that I was right.

The Winter Solider.

He moved with a ruthlessness that I hadn't seen since back in the day when I was sent after Natasha, before I brought her into SHIELD. And he had skills and strength that rivaled Cap's. A battle of forces tore across the streets of DC as we watched. Natasha fighting STRIKE. Steve and the Winter Soldier tearing at each other. The guy with the mechanical wings darting in and out overhead like some sort of demented warrior angel. The area nearby became a warzone.

I faded into the background of the room as I watched, out of the way, where I knew I wouldn't be noticed in all of the chaos. It was pretty easy with the spectacle that was playing out on the displays. I stood still amid the insanity, watching everything play out, becoming invisible among all the noise and movement. I knew I had to get to Hill to report what was happening, but I wanted to get some indication of the outcome of this fight. Wentworth shouted orders and directed the people at her command with a brutal efficiency that didn't really seem like it belonged to a scientist.

Soon, I realized, Cap and Nat and their flying friend weren't going to make it out of this. I watched as the noose tightened. When it reached the point of no return, I carefully slipped from Ops 3 and headed out, hoping no one had noticed me leaving. I took off down the hallways of the Triskelion, making for Hill's office. It was only a few turns before I realized I had that tingle again. I picked up the pace and tried to check reflective surfaces for whoever was following me, but I never caught sight of them.

I practically skidded around the corner into Hill's office and pulled the door closed behind me.

"They've been found," I said, "and they're going to be caught. Nothing I could do. Cap, Nat, and some guy with them that's using some Airforce equipment codenamed Falcon. And the Winter Solider is there too."

"All right," Hill said, already reaching for her backup service weapon hidden in a locked desk drawer. "It's time for you to get out. Get to Rigby, get him out of here. I don't want him on Sitwell's Radar. Disappear. I'll take care of Rogers and Romanoff. We'll get their intel to Fury and take care of the Helicarriers."

I nodded as she got out of her seat and made for the door.

I couldn't help it. The world was spinning out of control. Everything had just gone stark-raving mad. I gave in to that little tiny voice in the back of my head that said that none of this could be what it appeared to be. I put my hand on the door before Hill could open it.

"Hill," I said, demanding her gaze. I had to be sure and I needed her to know that I needed it. "Maria. Are you sure about what we're about to do? Are you _absolutely_ sure?"

She took a deep breath, not taking her eyes off of mine. There was steel there, but fear, too. "I'm not sure of anything, any more, Clint," she replied, "except that I trust Fury and I trust Steve. And if they have reason to fight, I do, too."

That was all I needed. I nodded, my doubts retreating again. I wasn't betraying SHIELD. Fury was SHIELD and Fury said to stop this from happening. And Captain America was fighting against it, too. There was no question I was on the right side of this, even if I still didn't know what it was.

"Catch you on the flip-side, then," I said, putting out a hand to Hill. She took it a moment later.

"Watch yourself out there, Barton," she replied, "I have a feeling we're going to need you after all this."

With that, we opened the door and exited back into the hallway, ready to head in opposite directions. We allowed ourselves one last wordless pause to look back at each other. I knew this was the last I would be seeing of her for a while. And I could tell, she knew, too.

It was all right, though. We had said what needed saying.


That tingle stayed with me as I sped back to my quarters in the dormitory to retrieve my go-bag. It turned into a very insistent buzz as I made my way to Fallon's nerd-cave. But still, I couldn't catch whoever it was that was following me. I didn't have time to deal with it until I got out of the Triskelion, though. I knew I had been made, but it didn't matter any more.

I tore open the door to Fallon's office and snapped it shut again behind me. In surprise, he jumped up out of his chair, peering over his monitors.

"Time to go, kid," I told him, "grab your bag."

"Maria?" he asked, as he reached under his desk and pulled out a duffle. I heard the rattle of some bits of tech and figured he had backed up some of his research and programs.

"Already doing her thing and the less we know, the better," I replied, "now c'mon."

The kid scrambled around the desk and joined me near the door.

"Now look," I said, "you have adrenaline, your heart's going a mile a minute. Everything in you is telling you to run, get out as fast as you can. But you can't. You have to keep your head and walk, just like we're strolling out of here for a lunch break. You got it?"

The kid looked impossibly young as he clutched his bag and and nodded.

"All right, here we go," I said, grabbing the door handle and opening it.

A hand was immediately in my chest, shoving me back into the office. Behind me, Fallon went stumbling and fell on his butt. The door snapped closed again and I just barely registered that the hand pushing me belonged to Bobbi. The buzz vanished as she revealed herself and I suddenly knew she had been the one following me since I left Ops 3.

"You're bugging out?" she asked, incredulously. "Now? What the hell, Clint?"

"Aw, c'mon, Bobbi," I began.

"Don't 'aw c'mon Bobbi' me!" she exclaimed, arms akimbo and glaring knives at me. It brought flashbacks. "You know more about what's happening than you've told me, so spill! Where are you going and what the hell is happening around here?" And then she looked past my shoulder to Fallon. "And who the hell is this kid?"

I rubbed the bridge of my nose for a moment. This was hardly the way I would have chosen to get word to Bobbi about what was happening. But she had forced my hand. I suppose I probably should have expected it.

"Agent Bobbi Morse," I said, gesturing between the two of them, "Doctor Rigby Fallon."

"This kid's got a doctorate?"

"Three," Fallon and I both corrected at the same time as the kid picked himself off the floor.

"Whatever," Bobbi said with a shake of her head, "I assume this has something to do with the disaster taking place in Ops 3?"

"Look, Birdie," I said, trying to soften my tone, "it's Cap and Tasha. Sitwell's guys are about to catch them. Hill and I have reason to believe that they have been on the trail of something rotten in SHIELD. We've been working to stop it, but bottom line, if we don't, a lot of people could get hurt. With Steve and Nat about to be caught, Hill wants me and Fallon here out of DC."

"And then what?"

"I don't know!" I exploded back at her. "I have no friggin' clue! I can't trust my own people, Fury's out of the picture, and Captain freaking America's been labeled a traitor! So, no! I don't know 'and then what!' I have no goddamned idea!"

Silence in the room for a long moment. I could swear I heard my words echoing off the concrete walls.

"Been holding that in for a while?" she asked after a long moment.

"Yeah," I said, my eyes sliding away from hers and to the floor.

There was another long pause and Bobbi sighed heavily.

"And you know for sure that this is happening?" Bobbi asked me. I could see the same spark of doubt in her eyes that had been in mine just a little bit ago, with Hill.

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't know, Mock," I replied.

And just like that, I saw the doubt in Bobbi's eyes vanish. It was amazing what hearing an affirmation from the right person could do. Especially when you consider our line of work and the stuff we normally deal with. Needless to say, trust doesn't come easy in this business. Small miracles...

"Always knew Sitwell was a snake," Bobbi said with another sigh, "all right. But I'm coming with you and you're going to fill me in on everything."

"Deal," I said.

"Hey, don't I get a say in this?" Fallon put in.

"No," Bobbi and I replied in unison, immediately.

"How'd you get stuck being a babysitter?" Bobbi asked me.

"Not that different from Stark, really," I said with a shrug as I pulled open the office door once again.

"Hey, speaking of Stark, think you could put in a word for me?" the kid asked. "Maybe get me a little face-to-face time with Iron Man?"

"Kid, don't make this day any longer than it's already going to be," I said as we all started down the hallway, trying not to look like some kind of demented spy family.

I doubt we really succeeded all that well.


Not wanting to go too far, we decided to make for a bolt hole that Bobbi had in Georgetown. There's an old building on the campus there, dating back to the 1890s that used to be a trolley depot. They call it the Car Barn. It's been converted into classrooms and offices, but some of the old garage areas remain, more or less cut off from the rest of the building by remodeling. The space was pretty cramped for three people and their gear, but it sufficed and Bobbi assured us that she had not had it on record anywhere but in her head. Plus, since it was an academic building, it had WiFi, so our nerd could hack back into the SHIELD systems and keep an eye on things.

Evidently, it only took Hill a few hours to make her own move. Reports were that the transport with Cap, Nat, and some guy named Sam Wilson never made it back to the Triskelion. And no one could find Hill. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.

This is another reason why I like Hill. She looks like an office monkey most of the time, but she can kick some serious ass. If you don't know her, you'll never see it coming.

There wasn't much for us to do but wait and assess our options. Fallon's eyes stayed on his computer for most of our time there and Bobbi spent a great deal of time pacing. While we were there, we learned that Sitwell had been killed in the fight that afternoon. I could only hope that Cap and Nat had gotten the intel out of him that they needed.

"Portland?" Bobbi asked me.

"Nah, I'd feel guilty for not looking in on Phil's cellist friend, Audrey," I replied, "and if I were to be tracked while looking in on her, I'm pretty sure Phil would haunt me forever."

A strange look passed over Bobbi's face just then, like she wanted to tell me something. In the end, though, she kept it to herself. Probably just as well. I wasn't exactly in the mood for touchy-feely while Fallon was around.

"What about Houston?" I asked.

Bobbi immediately shook her head. "Jamie Slade's there," she replied, "that's the last thing we need right now. What about Miami?"

"Two words," I said, "William Cross."

"Still?"

"He was on my to-do list, but then aliens started falling out of the sky in New York," I said, "my priorities kinda shifted. Milwaukee?"

"Juston Seyfert," Fallon spoke up, still not taking his eyes off his computer screen. There was long pause as Bobbi and I looked at him. Truth be told, we had kinda forgotten he was a part of the conversation. When he realized that we were not responding, he turned to look at us, clearly insulted. "What? Hackers can't have enemies, too?"

"I think we can take a code monkey," I said.

"Fine," said Fallon, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "but you guys get to deal with his killer robots, too, 'cause I'm not-"

"And scratch Milwaukee off the list," said Bobbi. She gave a sigh, resuming her pacing and trying to stretch out the muscles in her neck while Fallon went back to his computer. "There must be somewhere we can go where none of us have extra complications."

"Well, you can add one more complication to the list," Fallon said, "in addition to Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff, the SHIELD database now lists an APB for Agent Hill and..." He turned around with a flourish and pointed two fingers directly at me. "You, my friend."

"Aw, hell, that was fast," I groused, scrubbing a hand down my face, "what about you two?"

"Not so far," Fallon replied, "I've got a pinger set up. If our names show up, we'll know right away."

"In the meantime, you two have a little extra breathing room that I don't," I said, "I think we should split up. You two go wherever you need to and I'll go someplace completely different. It'll keep heat off of you two for a little while longer, anyway."

"Well, in that case, lady," Fallon said, looking up at Bobbi with a look that clearly said he had certain _intentions_, "how about you and I go someplace romantic? I was thinking maybe-"

"Don't!" Bobbi cut him off. "First, we keep our destinations secret from each other, in case any of us gets caught. Second... I don't want to be arrested for statutory rape!"

"I'm 19!"

"The answer is still no, kid, so get your hormones under control."

I couldn't help but laugh. This earned me a death glare from Bobbi. That, in turn, just made me laugh harder. "Give it up, kid," I said, "you'd never survive it. I barely did."

"Still might not," Bobbi groused back at me, deepening the death glare. Apparently, I was in the mood to live dangerously. "What does this do to your resources, Clint?"

Sobering, I reached for my go-bag and pulled out the fake IDs I had in it. As I began going through them, I realized that very little of them were worth anything, with a SHIELD APB out on me. I tossed the credit cards aside immediately, along with the three drivers' licences. The passport I had was garbage, so I was staying in the States. Finally, I tossed it all aside and held up the stack of 50-dollar bills that rounded out the kit.

"That's it?" Bobbi asked.

"Yeah," I said, "and I don't dare go to any of my cashes here in DC. They might be watched."

"I've got a cache we can raid," she replied, "got a few extra papers in it that might fit you. We'll go after dark. Meantime, how's grub sound?"


We left Fallon in Bobbi's bolt hole and told him, in no uncertain terms, he was not to leave until we got back. Predictably, he whined at this, saying he wanted to get food, too. Finally, we had to promise him some crappy fast food pizza, one all to himself, when we got back. We picked up two and Bobbi and I each ate a few pieces of one while we made our way to her hidden cache.

We made our way to the little corner of land where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers came together. The block boarded by First, Second, R, and S was a run-down little junk yard without a whole lot of security on its borders, surrounded by a chain-link fence and a few trees. It was an easy thing to hop the fence and get inside. In fact, I did it still munching on a slice of pizza.

"Nice place you got here," I said.

"It's not glamorous," she admitted, "but the owners don't believe in barbed wire and it's constantly changing, so it makes for a nice little hiding place. Even if the cache gets found, you can come back in a month and set it again, since the whole place might look different."

Bobbi led the way through the junk yard and toward the section that held the old rusting husks of cars and trucks that had outlived their drive systems. She shined a dim flashlight on to several old rust heaps, looking for a particular one. But as we rounded a corner, we stopped dead in our tracks when we came upon something that looked to be a small problem.

There was a dog, standing right in the middle of the path, looking straight at us. It was some kinda golden-brown mutt with matted hair and a worn-looking collar.

That's right. We seriously ran into a junk yard dog. Cliche anyone?

"He wasn't here before," Bobbi said with some trepidation.

I looked again at the dog. His ears were perked up and his tongue flicked out to lick his chops. Tail giving a wag, he sat, his eyes fixed on us. Unconsciously, I took another bite of my pizza and that was when the dog gave a little whimper.

"Huh," I said, taking a step toward him.

"He's gonna bite you," Bobbi warned.

"I don't think so," I replied, keeping my voice even as I approached, "I don't think you're gonna bite me, are you buddy?" The dog's tail sped up its wag as I came closer and reached out a hand. He sniffed it, then looked back up at me, one foot pawing the air in the general direction of my other hand, still holding the last few bites of my pizza. "You hungry?" Gingerly, I held out the pizza to him and he snarfed it up, hungrily, his tail wagging his whole behind, now. "There, now, he can't be all bad, Mock. He likes pizza." After practically inhaling the pizza, the dog went on to lick my hands and face, still wagging his tail, mouth hanging open in one of the goofiest, most stereotypical I-just-met-you-and-I-love-you dog faces. I reached for his collar and found the tag. "Huh," I said, looking up at Bobbi with a grin, "Arrow."

"Well," Bobbi said with a roll of her eyes, "they say if you want a friend in Washington to get a dog. If you get fleas, you're not coming back in my bolt hole." She wandered past me and the dog, her flashlight settling on a particular car.

"Aw, you don't have fleas, do ya, boy?" I said, giving into the temptation to use that cute baby voice that people use when talking to their pets and still petting him up and down. "No, no fleas on you. You're someone's buddy, aren't ya?"

"I suppose you're going to bring him home with you?" Bobbi said, wrenching open a rusted car door and working a crowbar into the joint between the metal outside and the plastic finishing inside. In moments she popped the plastic off and was digging around inside the rusting metal. A moment later, she produced a sealed plastic bag with some IDs and some cash. She took the money and a few documents out and tossed the rest to me. "You're welcome to anything there," she said.

I didn't take much, selecting only a fake ID with a male name and a couple of matching credit cards. A little bit of time back at the bolt hole and I could put my own picture on the ID easily enough. I gave the rest back to Bobbi and she stashed it into her backpack, then placed the car door back as quietly as she could.

"All right, that's that," she said, heading for the fence where we had come in, "let's blow this place."

"Yeah, Fallon's probably eating his own arm, by now," I agreed, standing up, "c'mon, boy!" As I followed Bobbi, the dog excitedly followed me.

"Are you kidding me?" Bobbi asked me.

"Aw, c'mon, Birdie," I implored, "tag says home is just over on 6th. We're passing by that way anyhow. He looks like he's been lost for a few days."

She looked skyward with a sigh. "Sport, I never could say no to your puppy dog eyes."

We swung by the address on Arrow's collar on our way back to Georgetown. It was a rowhouse, in the block between H and G, with a friendly red door at the top of a white concrete stoop. I couldn't help myself. Even though I couldn't risk being seen, I still had to make sure the family got their dog back. There was a small brick landscaping wall just across the street I was able to hide behind. I told the dog to stay on the stoop, then hit the doorbell with a putty arrow.

A middle aged woman answered the door and Arrow went crazy, jumping up and down and all wags and licks. It wasn't long before the woman turned around and called into the house. Two kids, a girl and a boy about Lila and Cooper's ages appeared at the door. They both gave yelps of joy when they saw the dog and quickly ushered it inside. The woman remained behind long enough to find my putty arrow still stuck to her doorbell. She peeled it off and looked around, puzzled. As she retreated indoors, I heard her call for her husband.

I gotta say, the globe-trotting, the alien-fighting, the acrobatics, hell even getting an action figure of yourself; it's all pretty awesome. But none of that is why I do what I do. None of that is why I stay on with the Avengers, even after all that's happened. That little row house, those kids, missing their dog, the every day heroics; that's why I do what I do. In the realm of gods, monsters, and aliens, it's easy to lose track.

Bobbi nudged my side after a moment. "You about done, you big softie?" she said with a knowing smile.

"Yeah," I said, completely unable to wipe the contented smile off my face as we both turned to leave.


By the time we got back to the Car Barn, I was pooped and my latest dose of ibuprofen had long since worn off. We decided to spend the night there and part ways in the morning. I must have looked like hell, because Bobbi very nearly hit me in the head to make me take the first shift sleeping. As I settled in to try and get comfortable on my sore side, I once again mulled over my options.

My mind spun around and around. I immediately dismissed any SHIELD facilities outside of DC. There were still plenty of people around that I felt I could trust, but I didn't want to put anyone else in the uncomfortable position of having to choose whether or not to turn me in. I thought about trying to find Fury, Hill, Natasha, and Cap, but I had no clue where to even begin looking. After all, if there's one thing SHIELD agents are good at it's hiding. I figured I'd probably get caught while trying to find them or worse give them away. I thought about trying to go public with what I already knew, but I had to admit that it really wasn't much. What I knew, what I had proof of, probably wouldn't make it above the fold of the Washington Post.

Around and around my head went and eventually, I was left with only one option that seemed viable at all; the Avengers. Even if I was done in SHIELD, I still had a team. Stark, Banner, they would sure put stock in what I already knew about. They had seen some of the seedier side of SHIELD for themselves. And they would have some resources that might be needed if everything went to hell.

So, that was that. That was where I was going. New York City.

My decision finally made, I slipped off to sleep with plans of getting to Manhattan running through my head.


Bobbi shook me awake around 05:00 and we switched off. Fallon continued sleeping until almost 08:00, then was back on his computer again, catching up on the latest and muttering obscenities about the taste of MREs. Not that I could blame him. They do taste kinda like sand. But c'mon, we had bigger things to worry about.

I was using my own computer to try and find a schedule for a bus to New York. Fallon's cursing suddenly escalated, then he looked up at me with urgency. "Uh... we got problems," he said, eyes wide.

I set my computer aside and shook Bobbi awake. "What's going on?" I asked Fallon. At those words, Bobbi snapped awake, suddenly alert.

"Uhh..." Fallon seemed uncertain, as if he wasn't sure how to break the news,. "They've activated Project Insight. They're getting ready to launch the helicarriers."

"Damn!" Bobbi bit out. "How long?"

"About two hours," Fallon answered.

"Did Hill manage to replace the server blades?" I asked. "Can you tell?"

"I embedded a code to send a signal to my box if they were active," Fallon replied, "and I'm not getting that signal. They're not in there."

"Can you stop the launch?" Bobbi asked.

Fallon gave a grimace and shook his head. "I'm good but I'm not _that_ good. Just trying to take over the countdown would be like posting online 'hello! Rigby Fallon and his merry band of traitors are right here!' And I'd probably fail like a noob."

"So, what, we just sit here and watch?" Bobbi said, incredulously.

"Well, there's still two hours," I said, "maybe Hill will be able to-"

"What the hell?!" Fallon exclaimed, drawing our attention back. "The countdown just... vanished! They're launching now!"

"Jesus!" I breathed. "Someone is pressing them! Kid, stay here and keep an eye on that. I'm going out to see. We should be able to see the launch from here."

"Wait, I'm coming with you," Bobbi said, digging a pocket radio out of her pack and putting an earbud in. She followed me as I left the bolt hole.

As soon as we got outside, there was a terrible noise in the air coming from the direction of the Potomac. Water was churning and a tremendous clanking and grinding of metal gears was echoing through the whole district. The ground rumbled a little and soon, the silhouettes of three advanced helicarriers began to rise out of the river just beneath the Triskelion. I kept hoping to see some sign that the launch was aborting, but they just continued to rise as we watched.

I didn't have any words. I was horrified. All I could see was the mysterious shadow that was apparently manipulating Project Insight. There was no accountability, no way of knowing who was behind it.

At least, until right then.

"Oh, my god," Bobbi breathed, her hand pressing on the earbud in her ear. I had never heard her so shocked. "Clint..." She held out the other earbud to me, her face pale, her eyes wide with what I could only describe as terror. It was not what I was used to seeing from Bobbi Morse.

Fearing what I was about to hear, and still unable to take my eyes off of the rising helicarriers, I put the earbud in my ear and listened.

"Repeating once again, breaking news," said the voice on the radio, "WTOP sources have confirmed that Captain America has publicly claimed that the world-wide intelligence organization knows as SHIELD has for decades been a front for Hydra, a terrorist organization that was founded during World War Two and which was thought to have been eradicated."

The exclamation died in my throat and I felt like I had been punched in the solar plexus. I could feel Bobbi next to me, trembling. Or was that me? It was hard to tell.

Hydra. The shadow that Hill and I had been chasing for days, the nameless malice that was manipulating Project Insight to its own ends. It was Hydra, the darkest shadow of all, the greatest evil of the 20th century, now crawling out of hiding in the 21st. And the worst part of all was that it was crawling out of our own damned bed. And odds were pretty good it had already bitten us and we had been poisoned.

"Captain America has promised the world that proof of his claim is about to be made public," the broadcaster continued, "though we still do not know what form that proof will take. Meanwhile, the Triskelion, which is the main headquarters of SHIELD, is launching three massive aircraft as we speak, the purpose of which has yet to be revealed, although we have been warned that Hydra is behind the launch."

I couldn't listen to any more. I had no reason to doubt what Steve had said. Everything I had seen had pointed to something beyond rotten, but I never imagined this. Not in my wildest nightmares.

I ripped the earbud out of my ear and turned to head back into the bolt hole.

"Clint!" Bobbi exclaimed in surprise, taking the other ear bud out of her ear. "Where are you going?"

"To get my bow," I snapped back, not breaking stride.

"To do what?" she shouted back at me.

"Cross off some Hydra bastards!" I replied.

"And how are you going to do that, Clint? Even if you could tell who was Hydra and who was SHIELD, how would you get past those airborne killing machines to do it? You're good, but even you'll get killed! What do you expect to be able to do?"

"I dunno!" I very nearly screamed at her, turning back, hearing it echo off the red brick of the Car Barn even over the din from the Potomac. "I don't know, Mock! But I can't just stand here and watch! I just found out that the cause I believed in, the thing I've been loyal to for half of my life, may have been a stinking lie the whole futzing time! I've been used, Bobbi! I've kill..." The words turned to ash on my tongue as the full implication of it hit me. It was another punch to the gut. My voice dropped to a quieter volume. "I've killed people for them!"

Was that Loki laughing I could hear in the back of my brain? God, I am one screwed up bastard!

"Oh, God, Bobbi, I've killed people for Hydra!"

I could barely breathe. My chest was heaving as if I had just run a marathon with Cap.

A moment later, Bobbi's hands were on my shoulders. "Clint, don't do this to yourself," she said, desperate to cut through my rising panic. "I need you sane right now, Hawkeye. Because if you lose it, I don't have much hope of keeping it together." Her face was a mask of stony indifference, but her eyes told a different story. She was panicking, too. You needed to know her to see it, but her mind was whirling just like mine was.

We stood there, like that, for a long moment, just looking at each other and trying to draw strength from whatever friendship and memories and support that was between us. In the distance, the noise grew more intense. It was joined by gunfire and explosions and breaking glass. Neither of us dared to look. We knew that if we did, we would both crumble.

"We are agents of SHIELD," she said, "say it."

"We are agents of SHIELD," I said.

"You are an Avenger! Say it!"

"I am an Avenger!"

"What do Avengers do?"

"Avenge what we can't save."

"And what do agents of SHIELD do?"

"Shield the world!"

"Hydra's not going to stop us from doing that," Bobbi affirmed, "not now, not ever. But we need to regroup. That." She pointed across the Potomac, her eyes not leaving mine. "That is out of our hands. We've done what we can here. We need to leave and find others. We need to start rebuilding."

I finally had my breath under control and I nodded. "We stick to our plan," I agreed.

"I'll take the kid with me," she said, "you go be an Avenger."

"Yeah," I said, "let's go do it."

Still clinging to each other, Bobbi and I went back into the bolt hole in the Car Barn. Fallon was there, frantically saving files to a couple of 3-terabyte hard drives he had.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked as we entered. "Cap's evidence just hit the web. Every single file saved on SHIELD's database in one massive file dump. Every classified file from every level. And you'll never believe whose fingerprints are all over them."

"Hydra," I said.

"Okay, so... maybe you will believe it," Fallon replied, sounding a little disappointed that he didn't get to make a big reveal, "I'm making two copies, one for each of us to take with us. God only knows how long the files will be up and who's going to cover it up. If anyone's going to clear Captain America's name, we need to be sure we can back up everything he's been doing these past few days."

"Good thinking," Bobbi said, returning to her pack and shoving things into it, "finish as quick as you can. We're leaving."

"You got one of those finished?" I asked Fallon, motioning to one of the drives. He slid one over to me and I tossed it in my pack, along with what remained of my supplies. I could last a week without having to buy food, if I needed to. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. "All right, I'm moving," I said, swinging my backpack over my shoulder and holding a hand out to Fallon, "keep doing what your doing, kid."

Fallon paused what he was doing and looked up at me in surprise. For the first time since I had met him the previous day, there was no spark of arrogance in his eyes, no wide-eyed excitement for life to be a grand adventure. He couldn't seem to find anything to say, so he took my hand and gave it a firm shake.

What? You thought I hated him?

As I passed her, Bobbi planted a kiss on my cheek. "Careful out there," she said, "and good hunting."

"Good luck," I replied. I allowed those two words to say everything that I wanted to. Bobbi got it.

I was on the move fast, keeping to side streets and park paths to keep out of sight and out of the way. I made for the Foggy Bottom metro station, since it was the nearest. If the light rail was running, I'd be able to blend into the doubtless thousands of people trying to get out of the area around the Triskelion. If they weren't running, I'd have a nice, safe underground pathway to pretty much anywhere I needed to go in the district.

The Foggy Bottom metro is only a few blocks from the Watergate Complex, so my path kept me near the Potomac most of the way. This meant I had a pretty good view of everything that was happening. I saw the three helicarriers suddenly turn and target each other and I knew what caused it. I saw them fall out of the sky, one of them slamming into the Triskelion. I couldn't help but pause for a moment when that happened. I knew that, out there in the rest of the world, there were probably fights going on at every SHIELD facility, everywhere.

SHIELD really was finished.

The chaos in the city was enough of a distraction to allow me to pass though the emergency responders that were around. The metro wasn't running out of Foggy Bottom, but I was able to slip into the tunnels without any trouble at all.

It was time to disappear. So I did.


FROM THE EDITOR...

This chapter got away from me a little and got longer than originally intended, mostly because it contained the bulk of what happened CA:TWS and it was complex to weave it in and out without changing anything. I decided to take the biggest lingering question that I had from the movie and address it; where did they get those oh-so-convenient server blades that reprogrammed the helicarriers? They just sort of appear after Hill rescues Cap, Nat, and Sam and brings them to Fury. I figured that it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Clint to have had a hand in making them ready.

I drew on some obscure Marvel lore for a few of the other characters mentioned. Rigby Fallon, William Cross, Jamie Slade, and Juston Seyfert all have Marvel-616 precedent. Given that we've now been introduced to William Cross' cousin Darren in Ant-Man, I hold out hope that we will one day see Crossfire in the MCU.

And yes, that was supposed to be an MCU version of Lucky the Pizza Dog. I couldn't resist. Originally, I was going to have the dog follow Clint on his way out of DC, but I decided that it just wasn't practical. And then, the Clint Barton that has taken residence in my brain protested just leaving him behind and whined that he had to be taken home. What can I say? It's my head-canon.

See you all in the next chapter! And remember! Fic authors love reviews!