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Phil scanned the courtyard, focusing his binoculars on the double doors that would be swinging open any moment. The concert was running a little late and he knew Clint was feeling antsy. He was feeling a little on-edge himself. The intel was good. He knew their target was there. But as the time dragged on, he worried that perhaps he knew that they were there and had escaped out another exit before the show concluded.
At last, the doors swung open and people started streaming out of the event. Phil knew exactly what their target looked like, but he activated the facial recognition mode on his binoculars, just to be sure he didn’t miss him in the crowd.
“Status check,” Phil said into the comm.
“Locked and loaded,” Clint replied immediately. “Just say the word, sweetheart.”
“I’m still looking.”
Phil gave the courtyard another long sweep. There was no sign of him and as the crowd exiting slowly thinned, he felt anxiety rise up. How had they missed him?
Suddenly, there was movement at the employee exit. Phil recognized the man pushing through the door and facial recognition confirmed it. Former agent Devon Steel.
“I have eyes on the target. Exiting through the side door at the south side of the building and heading east. White male, average build, wearing a plaid shirt and a red hat. I doubt you can read the writing at this distance, but-”
“I got him,” Clint said.
Phil’s hands tightened around the binoculars and he leaned forward, watching intently as Steel hurried along the sidewalk. Suddenly, he clutched his chest. He took two more halting steps and then collapsed to the ground. Bystanders rushed forward to do CPR but it was already too late. Clint never missed a kill shot.
“Nice shot.”
“Thanks, babe.”
There was a rustle over the comm and the crunch of leaves. Clint was no doubt quickly packing up his sniper’s nest and moving out of the location. By the time anyone realized it was a shot and not a heart attack, Clint would be long gone and there would be no evidence he had ever been there.
Phil turned the binoculars towards the woods. He couldn’t see any movement in the trees, which meant Clint was keeping very low to the ground, not doing anything to give away his position. Of course he was. Clint was a consummate professional. Phil was lucky to have him at his side. There was no one else he trusted more.
When Hydra’s involvement in SHIELD had been exposed, Phil had been shocked and appalled. He had joined SHIELD to make a difference and help protect the world from organizations like Hydra. To know that some of the people he worked with were secretly working for the enemy had been hard to accept. And it was even harder to accept that some of those same people were also responsible for keeping Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend, captive under torture. Phil had felt somewhat responsible for what happened to Bucky. As a high-ranking SHIELD agent, he should have paid more attention to what was going on in other departments.
But now that he knew what was really going on, it was his duty to get rid of all the corruption inside SHIELD. Phil would not stop until he had eliminated every single person involved with Hydra and the Winter Soldier program. He was pleased to see that all of Strike Team had been brought to justice as well as Alexander Pierce. But a lot of the lower-ranking agents involved had just quietly left SHIELD. They were probably hoping it was too much effort to track them all down and they would remain nameless, faceless grunts in the grand scheme of things.
But Phil had all the time and patience in the world. Every last person involved would pay. He owed it to Bucky and he owed it to Steve. And thankfully, Clint shared the same beliefs.
“We still meeting at the arranged spot?” Clint asked.
“Yes, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Start thinking about where you want to go for dinner after.”
“Thai food, obviously.”
Phil chuckled. Some things never changed. He was grateful for that. He flipped down the visor on his motorcycle helmet and navigated around the ambulance and out of the parking lot.
Tomorrow, they would track down another target. But tonight, they would celebrate.