salute [h.s]

piper got herself out of a jam with a little help

Piper was quiet for a moment and Harry followed her dot on the screen. "Remember when you were in Jordon, that first time we talked."

"Of course." It was a day he'd never forget. Running for his life with an unconscious asset over one shoulder and a bullet in the other, and her voice in his ear making it all okay.

"And you said that next time we could switch places — I'd be the agent and you'd be the operations analyst."

Harry chuckled. "I do remember that."

"Well, let's never do this again, alright?"

That was something he had no problem agreeing with. "Deal."

2.

"New C8s out of Canada," Louis said with a grin as he dumped a weapons case onto the table between Harry and Liam. "C wants the two of you to test them and then get a report back to El before the next JIC meeting."

"Which is tomorrow," Liam muttered with a roll of his eyes. He was the one on JIC duty this month because Harry had done it last time and Niall was busy with work. "So basically we have to test them now."

"It'll be fun." Louis plastered on a smile and shoved the box in their direction. "Have at it."

With that, he turned on his heel and left. Liam rolled his eyes at the whole situation and then picked up the box, nodding toward the door. "Come on," he said as they walked out of Harry's office and toward the lifts. "Might as well just get this over with."

Twenty minutes later, Liam had inspected the guns carefully before handing on over to Harry and taking the other himself. The two of them were in a private shooting range in the armoury so they had the space to himself. They'd spread out and taken some practice shots, and were just about to start proper testing when a beep sounded over the intercom system and a polite voice interrupted. "Agent Payne?" she asked.

"This is Agent Payne," Liam answered, straightening up and letting the gun drop to his side. Harry also got out of shooting position, lounging against a nearby table to wait.

"We have an incoming call for you. Would you like to receive it?"

"Yes, patch it through." Liam looked at Harry curiously and Harry shrugged because he had no idea what was going on.

They were greeted with the sounds of gunfire in the distance and then a familiar voice was saying, "Liam, I have a gun question."

"Piper." Harry snapped to attention at the sound of her voice. "What the hell is going on?"

"Liam, I have a gun question," she repeated, ignoring Harry completely.

"Go for it," Liam said, giving Harry a stern back off sort of look.

"So they stuck me with this AK-103 and I have no idea how to reload it. Help me out?"

She was doing a solo mission in Venezuela with another field agent from O branch that Harry wasn't particularly fond of because he'd helped train his cohort and they'd all been sort of useless. Piper had gone on a couple of field missions with MI6, outside of One Direction. It always made Harry nervous when she didn't have someone directly on their team to work with her but she tended to call them when she had problems rather than her handlers at MI6 so he at least knew that her issues were being handled by experts.

"There's a lever on the side, right?"

"Yep."

"Pull that," Liam directed. He was moving his hands in front of him as if he had the weapon before him, trying to explain what he already knew by muscle memory. "Take the magazine by the top, press the magazine catch and twist counterclockwise while you pull. The magazine should come out."