Author's notes: First of all, to everyone who guessed the source of the chapter titles, you're correct. I love that song, and it seemed appropriate for this. Second, to everyone who hopped on board after Aggie steered you over here in Milestone Nine ... WOW. You all shocked me with your approval. Thank you so much. And for everyone who reviewed, followed, or favorite'ed, THANK YOU!
Just a bit of warning here: things are about to get rough. Please heed warning involved with the rating of this story from here on out if you're sensitive. I think it's worth the ride, but you may not.
Outside Kandahar, roughly 11:50 p.m. local time
Looking through the scope of the Remington 700 sniper rifle he had procured from the SHIELD safe house – the civilian alternative to his M-24 – Clint resisted the urge to stroke the barrel in appreciation. Coulson had given him the pick of the firearms in the place, and the Remington had practically sung to him. Clearly, someone had made sure the safe house had clean, well-treated – hell, practically pampered – weapons, and this had been an easy choice. It wasn't even factory new, which spoke to some prior action, and also, a well-trained sniper who knew how to break down the weapon and clean it afterward.
Add in the H&K sidearm he'd pulled, and he felt better protected than he had even in the Army. SHIELD didn't seem to skimp on much, and it definitely didn't skimp on its firearms.
Now settled into his sniper's nest – about 50 feet about and 100 yards out from the enemy camp – he keyed open his mic.
"All right, sir, I'm in position." Barton grinned, pulling away from the scope for a moment and eyeing the camp below. He had the bird's eye view he craved, and just that simple fact calmed him. He was in control. "Clear view of the camp, night scope up and working."
"Roger that, Hawkeye." Coulson's voice echoed through the piece, a slight electronic whine making its way across the line. "Still skirting the perimeter. Wait for my orders."
Barton sighed, making sure Coulson could hear it across the line.
"About those orders, sir… I want to go on record that parts of this plan just suck." He resumed looking through the scope, trying to pick up Coulson's approach. "You're treating me like a trained dog."
"That implies you could actually be trained, Hawkeye." Coulson's sardonic humor came through loud and clear, even if the transmission crackled. "When you've shown me you can plan missions as well as you shoot a sniper rifle, then I'll let you weigh in."
There was a short pause, and Coulson continued, Clint could practically hear the smirk over the comm.
"In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt you to learn the commands 'sit' and 'stay.'"
Clint snorted softly.
"Yeah, just don't expect me to roll over, 'Guardian.'" He'd decided earlier in the day he would match sarcasm for sarcasm with the agent, who might have a terrific poker face, but also seemed to own a brutal dry wit. "And who thinks up these stupid-ass codenames, anyhow?"
Coulson's retort was immediate, and, Barton suspected, planned.
"Well, you picked yours. How about you tell me?"
Clint contemplated his answer for a minute. On one hand, he'd never been embarrassed by his teenage years, and the name had seemed natural when he first started shooting his bow. Eyes like a hawk and all that crap. On the other hand, no one – and that included the Army and the various psychologists in its employ – really knew what he'd been doing as a teenager.
As a whole, he'd rather keep it that way. So, time to compromise.
"Old nickname." Even though no one could see him, Clint shrugged. "That way you know I'll come when called."
Something sounding suspiciously like a snicker ghosted over the comm line, and Clint smirked. But when Coulson spoke a second later, he was all business.
"I'll be in position in 30 seconds." Clint knew where Coulson was – about half a mile away, at the base of another ridge that rose up over the camp. What had been a suspected, approximate position on Clint's map turned into an exact set of coordinates when Coulson had tracked his agent's GPS – which was, amazingly, still transmitting. The agent had then called in a favor with a wizened informant that Clint had doubts could even see the road, but owned a dilapidated pick-up truck to drive them to the base of the foothills about five miles from Clint's old camp. Coulson had slipped the man a wad of cash and what looked like a burn phone, and told him they'd be in touch for the return trip – in Pushtu so perfected that Clint couldn't even pick up an American accent.
They'd walked in from there. The terrorists may have felt comfortable using truck transport in the foothills, but Clint – and as it turned out, Coulson – didn't feel like driving into an ambush. Walking kept the noise to a minimum and gave them more places to hide. About a half mile from the camp, they'd split, each heading toward pre-arranged coordinates. Clint liked the plan well enough, so long as it went off without a hitch. If it didn't, things were going to get messy in a way the sniper knew Coulson wouldn't appreciate.
"In position." Coulson's voice came back over the line, all business. "Let's review the plan one last time. What time does your watch say?"
Clint almost snickered. Had Coulson set that up on purpose? Either way, he couldn't let the line go.
"It's a WATCH, 'Guardian.'" Clint made sure to put the emphasis on the agent's codename. "It doesn't SAY anything. But if you're asking me what time it READS, 11:56 p.m."
Silence reigned for a long moment before Clint heard a beleaguered sigh.
"I realize this might be asking the impossible, but could you possibly keep the conversation to mission relevant only?"
This time, Clint DID snicker.
"I will, when we're on mission, Guardian. Right now, we're REVIEWING." When he heard nothing but silence that droned on for a good 30 seconds, Clint finally swallowed back the smile. "Sir, yes, SIR. You wanted me to review?"
"Please." Something between annoyance and exasperation was clear in the man's voice.
"Well, I stay up here and snipe whatever moves, and give you reports on any activity in the compound. You go in and find your agents. Then we all bug out. If anything goes wrong, you want me to make a run for it and use the priority code you made me memorize earlier." It was that last bit that had Clint pissed off. There was a reason Army Rangers had a creed, and Clint had already failed it once.
He'd sworn he'd never fail it again – whether Agent Coulson liked it or not. Never mind that they'd established a fallback point, one stocked with extra packs of medical supplies and other essentials in case of a problem. Clint didn't need a fallback point. He didn't want to need it.
After a long moment, Coulson finally responded.
"I'm fully aware of your objections to that portion of the plan." Clint knew that Coulson knew – they'd gone in circles on it for a half hour earlier before Coulson offered to return him to his unit posthaste. Clint had rolled his eyes – if it looked like and felt like an empty threat, it probably was – and answered with what he was about to rattle off.
"Sir, YES, sir." He could practically hear the agent's irritation through the line when he answered back.
"Listen to me, Ba—Hawkeye. I've got experience in one-on-impossible situations. This isn't my first rodeo. If something goes belly-up, I need to know you'll follow orders." Coulson's voice screamed irritation, but also a weariness Clint knew was due to the situation. "This isn't your unit, I'm not Maxwell – and if something goes that seriously wrong, you do NOT need to be tied to an intelligence-gathering operation in the middle of a war zone."
Clint bit back a frustrated sigh, and rolled his eyes. What did Coulson want him to do – lie to him?
"Roger that, Guardian. Guess we hope nothing goes wrong." He left it at that, and hoped Coulson wouldn't push him further. Besides, it wasn't a bad plan – provided neither of Coulson's agents was seriously injured. If they were, a lot more variables got factored into the equation – ones that Coulson had planned for in excruciating detail, and drilled into Barton's head like elementary school multiplication tables.
Clint could handle this – especially his end of the bargain.
After a long pause, Clint heard the agent sigh.
"Roger that, Hawkeye. Making entry in 60, read 6-0 seconds. On my mark." Clint tapped the uppermost left key on his watch, lighting up the display. He and Coulson had synchronized watches earlier, the time check they'd executed minutes ago planned as a precaution.
"Ready, Guardian. I've got your six."
A moment later, as Clint's watch clicked over to 00:00 and 00 seconds, Coulson's voice echoed back over the line.
"Mark."
As Coulson skirted along the outer edge of the camp, following the arrow on his GPS tracker, he took a deep breath, and swallowed back the nervousness working its way into reality. Something was still eating at Barton. He could hear it in the kid's voice, as much as Barton tried hiding it with sarcasm and smart-ass replies.
The plan worked. Phil had gone through it meticulously, and addressed every last variable he – and in the end, Barton – could think of. But at the back of Phil's mind, a little voice nagged at him, told him the problem wasn't the plan, that, instead, the problem was Barton. The kid really didn't trust anyone right now, and that the only way to earn that trust would be for Coulson to put in the time and the effort – time he didn't have right now. Effort would only carry him so far.
Dammitall. Like it or not, Barton would have to cope with the parts of the plan he didn't like, and trust that Coulson wouldn't order him out of the area unless there was absolutely no chance he and his two agents weren't going to be following close on his heels. He just didn't have time to sort it all through – and neither did Barrett and Callahan.
His slow recce brought Coulson to the end of the rock ledge surrounding the camp. In front of him, the ground leveled off into a flat area, eddies of sand spinning idly in the evening breeze. In front of him were three buildings, and if the GPS was right, at least one of his agents should be in the second of those. The mapping showed a hard fix on Callahan's cell 20.34 feet straight in front of him.
The question was: what else was between him and his agent? Time to get Barton involved.
"Confirm my position, Hawkeye."
His earpiece immediately crackled to life.
"You're visible to my left, Guardian, but only with the night vision." Barton's voice was cool and professional, none of the earlier banter or dissention apparent. "You have two guards walking the perimeter of the camp, but they're not getting close enough to the rocks. Sloppy."
Coulson let a tight smile crease his face. With that kind of spacing, and with only the two men out there, he could skirt the edge of the camp all night and not get caught.
"Roger that. GPS is reading about 20 feet in front of me. What's there?"
A few seconds passed before Barton answered.
"Second of the three buildings, no one guarding the entrance." Barton paused for a moment, then added, "That your target, Guardian?"
"Affirmative. Problems?"
"Yeah, sir." A tinge of sarcasm crept into the sniper's voice. "There aren't any guards."
Coulson frowned – not at the words, but the implication. The GPS tracked the signal on Callahan's phone, nothing more and nothing less. That he had tracked that signal to an unguarded building likely meant one of two things: one, the phone had been discovered and discarded in a different place than his agents, or two, the guard was actually inside of the building.
More likely the former than the latter, given that setting just an inside guard would have meant working without a second layer of security. Then again, with just the two guards on the perimeter, Barton hit the proverbial nail on the head.
Sloppy. He could exploit that.
"Doesn't mean much, Hawkeye. Do I have a clear line to the doors without being seen?"
Another moment of silence, then, "You will in about a minute, Guardian. Perimeter will be blind then." Barton cleared his throat. "You going in?"
"Yes." The silence hung thick for a long moment before Barton responded.
"Sir, if it looks like a trap and smells like a trap…" Barton stopped and sighed. "Do I really need to finish that statement, Guardian?"
Coulson sighed. Barton had a point. The problem was, he needed to know if his agents were in there. And if they were, it was his job to get them out of there – trap or not.
"That's why I've got you as my eyes and ears, Hawkeye." Phil huffed a small sigh. Barton wasn't going to like this, but Coulson didn't see any other alternative. "Your job is to keep that trap from being deadly, Hawkeye. Or were those glowing evaluations in your file a measured pile of animal excrement?"
Barton's answer was immediate – and more than a little indignant.
"Sir, no, sir. Wait one." Coulson did as he was asked, heaving a silent sigh of relief that the sniper was back on task. After a few seconds, Barton came back over the comm line.
"You're clear, Guardian. Go now."
Coulson didn't need any more encouragement. Double checking to make sure his safety was off his gun, he skirted first along the last of the rocks, then against the outer wall of the first building.
"Stop and hold one, Guardian. New addition to the equation." Barton's voice echoed back across the line, and Coulson pulled up short at the added tension in the sniper's voice. "Two more bad guys just joined the perimeter patrol. Came out of the building at the center of the compound, and went to my left. You have about 30 seconds before they make your position, so I'd pick up the pace and get into your building, sir."
"Copy that." Coulson took the intelligence at face value and fought the urge to look around him as he sprinted for the door. Barton would have the better view right now, anyhow, and if he didn't trust the kid to have his back, what the hell was the point?
Ten seconds later, his free hand landed on the door handle, and he twisted. Surprisingly, it yielded under the motion, and after clearing the blind spots on either side of the door, he slipped inside.
"I'm in. Update on those two new shadows?" Coulson spoke in low tones, using Pushtu so as not to draw any attention – if anyone was even listening. The small, well-lit corridor sported hanging neon fixtures at regular intervals, and two branches – one to his left, and one to his right. The halls were clear, but not disused. He wanted to find his agents and get the hell out of here before he had to find out just how used they actually were.
"Skirt—h—remiter." Barton's voice broke up in the static, though Phil noted with amusement the sniper had also switched languages. "Yo—goo—to—for—moment."
Coulson frowned. The comm pieces he'd pulled for this op were practically brand-new, out of the case for field testing only. And they'd had absolutely no issues until now. He took a finger and tapped it hard against the earpiece.
"Say again, Hawkeye." He barked the comment out again in Pushtu. "You're breaking up."
Barton's answer was immediate – and annoyed.
"No—it. You—aking—p, too." The static continued, and Phil fought the sudden surge of adrenaline at the hitch. Faulty equipment or some sort of interference, it really didn't matter. Phil sighed softly in irritation, and pulled his knife, even as he answered Barton.
"Got it, Hawkeye. Going in silent, left from the inside of the door. Let me know if someone decides to follow."
"-op- that." Barton then fell silent. Coulson was already moving to the left, holding tight to the wall in case someone came around the corner. He thought he'd heard voices as he'd slipped through the door, but since then, silence. He didn't know if there was a guard, two guards – or no guards, or if he'd set off someone's Spidey sense when the door had opened and shut.
He'd just have to hope –
Coulson had about a half a second's warning – the sound of a footfall scraping sand as it came closer – and then a man in desert fatigues and a keffiyeh came around the corner brandishing an AK-47. As he rounded the corner, though, his gaze and gun were aimed high, looking to take out a man at his own height.
By then, Phil had dropped to a crouch. It took the gunman a little more than a second to recognize his target was on the ground, but by then, Coulson had sprung up with his knife, releasing it in a lightning-quick throw and bringing his handgun up a second later in case he needed to announce his presence further with a gunshot.
The knife buried itself in the other man's left eye. As it did, the insurgent's grip on the gun loosened, and Coulson closed the gap between them in two strides. Pulling the gun out of the man's grip with one hand, he pulled his knife back out with the other – then buried it viciously in the base of the man's skull.
The insurgent dropped immediately, Coulson pulling him forward so no one else would see the body fall. He pulled the strap of the AK-47 over his head, and edged toward the corner.
"Hafiz?" A voice, curious, but not alarmed, voiced an inquiry. More words followed, ironically-chosen Pushtu inquiring if Hafiz had tripped over his own two feet yet again. Phil waited, and the second man obliged, walking far less quietly down the hallway after his companion.
This time, Phil was ready for the man. Edging right up to the corner, he again crouched low. As the toes of a pair of boots came into sight, Coulson kicked out and swept the man's legs, bringing him quickly to the ground.
This one hadn't even had a handgun pulled. He blinked in amazement at the agent even as Phil got one arm around the man's throat, braced it with a hand – and twisted. Bonelessly, the man crumpled against Coulson, who stepped away and dropped the body with the other.
Phil counted off a full 10 seconds, waiting to see if anyone else would come down the hall. At the end of the count, he raised his gun, dropped to his knees – and leaned around the corner ready to fire.
No one stood at the lone door, located several yards away at the end of the hallway. Apparently, those two had been the only guards.
"I'm clear, Hawkeye. Going in."
Before he even heard Barton's static-y "copy," Phil sprinted down the hall, coming to a rest against the metal doorframe. The iron door didn't have a handle or doorknob. Rather, a bar dropped into two latches on the door frame, insuring it could only be opened from the outside – and that he could be locked in if he wasn't careful. He lifted the bar, dropping it back into a similar latch on the door, and pulled it open quickly.
The door opened out, which meant Coulson lost his cover as soon as he stepped into the room. It also meant he could clear it quickly. He didn't need to bother. The only two forms in the dark room – lit only by the residual light from the hallway – were tied, arms and legs, to wooden chairs set in the middle of the room.
As he slid fully into the room, Coulson's stomach rebelled against a foul odor – a mix of copper and urine and something else, something familiar and yet unidentifiable. He felt along the wall for a light switch. It took barely a moment, and as he flipped the switch on, he got a clear, unobstructed view of his two agents.
Barrett and Callahan didn't move. The two chairs sat in pools of blood, so copious that Phil's mind automatically corrected his thinking from "two agents" to "two bodies." He dropped down next to the closer of the two, and lifted the head. Barrett's lifeless eyes stared back at him, his face a rictus of pain. Phil knew he had to check Callahan, knew just as certainly it would be pointless. Because as he had lifted Curt Barrett's head, his eyes identified the smell his nose had picked up and made the final connection his brain had been missing.
All this – traveling to the country, finding the Ranger unit after a failed rescue, finding Barton – had been completely pointless. Barrett and Callahan were dead. His adrenaline surged, fueled by fear, fueled by grief – fueled by anger at being too late to do anything but look at their bodies and realize that he was so late to the game that the bodies were already starting to decompose.
Too goddamned late.
Clint hated waiting.
Never mind that he'd gotten damned good at it over the last three years. Sometimes it seemed like that was all he did in the Army – hurry up for just about everything, and then wait for the situation to pull the trigger. He'd lost track of the number of hours he had spent camped in a sniper's nest, desert sun beating down on his neck, with just Collins as company and a bottle of water to keep his mouth from drying out completely.
He could and would wait – even patiently, if it meant the satisfaction of taking down a target that richly deserved to have a bullet squarely placed in his or her eye. He still preferred his bow and arrow – thing had recyclable ammunition, which tended to come in handy – but he could make due with a sniper rifle. Hell, he'd established one hell of a reputation "making due."
It didn't making waiting ANY easier, though, and Coulson was seriously starting to push his luck. Clint knew the agent would contact him if and when he needed to, and not before. But the silence nagged at him anyhow, and just sitting here in the dark, doing absolutely nothing while waiting for the damned man to …
"Guardian to Hawkeye. Do you copy?"
The static on the line still scratched away at Coulson's voice, but the man's voice came through clearer than it had earlier.
"Roger that, Guardian. You find them?"
There was a beat of silence, and just before the agent's voice came back across the line, Clint suddenly knew why.
Coulson's voice came back, at once gruff and yet pained.
"They're dead, Hawkeye."
Clint sagged down against the stone floor of his sniper's nest, a surge of shame fresh in his stomach.
"How long?"
Coulson didn't even pretend to not know what he was asking.
"Probably about a day, judging by the state of the bodies." Coulson's voice stayed calm, almost infuriatingly so. Then the man heaved a shaky sigh. "Looks like they were tortured. Given what they look like, I don't think they gave up much – if anything."
And that was supposed to make him feel better? The whole fucking situation was fucking FUBAR. Clint bit back an angry retort, even as he felt bitter bile eating its way up his throat, and slid his left hand off the sniper rifle, clenching a fist and releasing it several times in an attempt to keep his emotions under control.
If I'd taken the shot, they might still be alive. The two agents might still have died, but they might not have. By not shooting, by waving off the rescue … he'd essentially signed their death certificates.
He'd signed it – no one else. God. Maybe Maxwell and Nelson had been right, and he was the biggest fuck-up on the face of the planet. He should –
"Hawkeye!" Coulson's voice barked out his name, pitched to get his attention and hold it. Clint winced, and tugged slightly at the earpiece.
"Fuck, Guardian. I hear you, OK?" Clint knew the sarcasm had bled back into his voice, and he really didn't much care. He'd screwed up. AGAIN. He ran a hand over his eyes, fighting for a moment of calm, something to force some sanity back into this mess.
When he finally spoke, he dug hard for the humor.
"So, are you a fan of whole 'Samuri falling on his sword on dishonor' method, or do you just want to make Maxwell's day and deliver me back for that court martial?"
There was a long moment of silence before Coulson's voice, calmer and a tad gentle, came back over the line.
"Neither, actually." That eerie detachment – that preternatural calm – crept back into the man's voice. "We'll worry about a postmortem once we're the hell out of the country, but this isn't any one person's fault. Right now, we need to move on. You understand?"
Clint closed his eyes, took a deep breath and counted to five, then hissed the breath out through his teeth for another count of five. A sniper's repetition count, designed to slow the pulse and narrow the focus.
Two more times through the pattern, and Clint had some semblance of control back.
"Copy that, Guardian." He opened his eyes, and settled his eye back to the rifle's scope.
"I'm headed back to the outside door. Give me a–"
"Hold one." A movement at the edge of the compound caught Clint's eye, and he focused back through the lens of his scope, forcing a measure of calm into his behavior. He was a sniper. This was what he did – and no one did it better.
What he saw, though, had him back on the comm after about two seconds of observation.
"Guardian, recommend you relocate, preferably as fast as humanly possible. I don't know if you set off a silent alarm or your guards missed a check-in, but there are two groups of 10 moving in on your position, plus the group still walking the perimeter."
Clint grinned in the darkness, and flicked the safety off his rifle. "Permission to wipe some of these fuckers off the face of the planet, SIR."
"Right now, we need to move on. You understand?"
Phil shook his head as he waited for Barton to get his shit together and answer. He would give the kid 60 seconds, and then both of them were going to have to find whatever respective mental boxes they needed to store this in and utilize them. God knew they'd both need them.
He'd sent them here. Phil dropped his head down, and reached deep for the emotional bunkers he'd carefully constructed over the years.
They didn't come easily. He – Agent Phil Coulson, Guardian – sent them here looking for information, and they were dead. "Guardian" had failed. Again. Phil wanted nothing more than to lose his fabled composure, scream at the fates, take a weapon and shoot anything and everything in the immediate area that so much as twitched.
Instead, he found himself looking at the sad fact that he couldn't even bring Barrett and Callahan home to be buried. He reached into his pack, and pulled out the explosives he'd carefully stored there. Granted, the plan had been to use them to blow the compound to kingdom come AFTER rescuing Barrett and Callahan, but he supposed a funeral pyre would work just as well.
Phil had just planted them around the doorframe, attached the timer and set it for five minutes – then started the timer on his own watch – when Barton came back on the line.
"Copy that, Guardian." Barton's voice was a cool match to Phil's own faux placidity – a fact for which the agent was grateful. None of this was really the sniper's fault. It was shit bad luck, pure and simple. Phil just didn't have time to explain why quite yet.
"I'm headed back to the outside door." Phil tapped the start/stop button on the timer, and scrambled to his feet. "Give me a –"
"Hold one." Barton came back across the comm, his voice edging back toward tense. Phil froze, raising the AK-47 as he waited for Barton to continue.
"Guardian, recommend you relocate, preferably as fast as humanly possible. I don't know if you set off a silent alarm or your guards missed a check-in, but there are two groups of 10 moving in on your position, plus the group still walking the perimeter."
Shit. Phil made a quick show of clearing the immediate area, then raced down the hall toward the exit. But even as he moved, Barton was back on the line.
"Permission to wipe some of these fuckers off the face of the planet, SIR."
Phil knew Barton was itching to fire his weapon, and he knew why. But until he knew for sure he'd been compromised, he didn't want to take the chance of Barton's position being made. And no matter what kind of shot Barton was, he'd be limited by the size of the magazine on the Remington 700 – likely five shots.
"Negative, Hawkeye. Hold one and see where they –" Phil didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. Through the door, he heard a loud voice, issuing orders in Pushtu to open the door and fire on anything that moved.
Phil raced back for the bend in the hallway, knew instinctively he wouldn't make it before someone opened fire.
And then a crisp, clear shot rattled off. Even as he turned to fire a short burst from the assault rifle, the first body fell in through the doorway – blood streaming down the side of the man's face from what Phil knew had to be a sniper bullet to the head. Before anyone else could follow the leader, four shots followed in quick succession.
There were wild, panicked shouts outside the door in the short silence that followed. Phil got himself to the bend in the corridor, relief flooding him even as he wondered if anyone had gotten a bead on Barton.
Then another five shots silenced the voices in the night beyond. In the distance, he heard someone shout orders to find the shooter, but no one else breached the door.
Even as Phil opened his mouth to read Barton the riot act, a snap-crackle announced Barton's presence on the comm.
"Guardian, consider yourself guarded." Barton's smart-ass tone rang out loud and clear, and Phil could hear the sniper clearing and then reloading the magazine for the Remington in the background. "You might want to find some new cover before the second group decides to get friend –"
Barton stopped talking, and Phil heard the sniper reel off another three shots. Two impacted at a distance, but the third cracked bone – presumably someone's skull – close enough for Phil to hear the body crumple to the ground.
The chatter of an AK-47 responded, aimed high and away from Phil. He could hear the bullets ricocheting off the rock walls high above him, and then the same sound a microsecond later as the bullets impacted close enough for Barton's comm to pick them up.
Fuck. They'd located the damned kid. Mindful of keeping himself as low profile as possible, Coulson sprinted for the door and hoped the last round of gunfire from the sniper had taken out anyone nearby.
Even as he reached the door, though, two more rounds from the Remington apparently found targets. Then Barton came back on the line, every ounce of sarcasm gone – hidden behind a layer of irritation laced with a hint of pain.
"Sir, you've got your distraction." Barton panted the line out, and Phil heard footfalls that he could only pray were the sniper's. "Recommend getting the fuck out of Dodge."
Author's note: Yup, all hell is about to break loose. Remember, I love reviews as much as Aggie does, so please leave one if you don't mind? :)