There must have been a storm near the dock because the ocean was getting riled up when the agents piled out of the jet. You couldn't hear anyone unless they were standing next to you and half-shouting. Thankfully, the rain hadn't decided to pour down just yet, so their visibility wasn't compromised, but there was much virtue in the 'yet.' If the cloud cover was any indicator, the storm was moving toward them.
Shipping containers were stacked in aisles as far as the eye could see. Occasionally there was a watchtower poking out from between the stacks, but there was only one in close vicinity. All the workers had been asked to leave the area, so no one was milling about. It was just SHIELD and their target, which didn't reassure Raven.
"There's no way we're going to be able to search this whole dock," Bryan pointed out once they were all standing outside the jet. He used his helmet comm rather than compete with the nearby ocean.
"Makes you wonder why they only sent one unit," Raven added, looking around. "I'm not-"
"Take it up with Mission Control later," Doug told her. "We're not going to be able to cover ground fast enough in only two groups. Split the teams again. Nobody goes alone."
"Yes, sir," they responded, though Raven slightly less enthusiastically. Splitting up even further was the last thing she felt like doing right now. This felt more like a setup every minute, but no one else seemed to be on the same page.
They split into groups of two and three. To her surprise, Smith refused to move more than three steps away from Raven. It ended up that she and Smith were the one group of two, and everyone else ended up in a group of three.
Advancing parallel to the edge of the dock, every group took an aisle. Raven and Smith were closest to the edge, with the ocean crashing on their left. To their right, the other groups took every other aisle.
Smith took the lead, which seemed to be their system nowadays. Raven didn't mind; now seemed like a prudent time to be looking over her shoulder anyway. Might as well make it her job between the two of them.
They really only had eyes to depend on at the moment. The ocean was too loud to enable them to listen for any attackers. There were no such things as footsteps out here. Only movement.
After about a minute, she heard Smith calling to her but couldn't quite make out the words. "What???"
He looked back at her so she could hear him better. "You worried?"
"Are you?"
"You said they shouldn't have sent only one unit. Think something's gonna happen?"
Not that Smith heard it, but she scoffed. "Finally paying attention to those red flags waving in the wind, are we?"
Before the next intersection, Smith paused near the crate on their right. "Look, every time you've said something's up, it happens. You clocked those bombs in that warehouse long before I did, and you sniffed out those hostages days before anyone else did."
"So you were paying attention."
"Why do you think I'm with you?"
She took half a second to appreciate the sentiment. Smith may bicker with her more than anyone else alive, but he also trusted her judgment more than the other agents at the moment.
Raven looked around again. Lots of noise cover, a giant maze of shipping containers, out in the middle of nowhere, and only one unit to answer for. If someone wanted to kidnap or kill SHIELD agents, this was definitely the way to do it.
"Robin?"
"...this is a trap."
"For us?"
"For SHIELD agents, maybe."
He looked forward again, and Raven expected him to look around, maybe issue a warning, then proceed with caution. Instead, he surprised her again:
"Guys, we need to pull back. This is a trap."
Stunned, she didn't speak. Smith trusted her judgment enough to pull the plug mid-mission? That was news.
"What makes you say that?" Bryan asked.
"Red flags. We need to get back to the jet, call for backup or something."
"Great, now you're getting paranoid too. Raven, now's a good time to listen to Danny: lighten up a little."
"Kid, I can't just quit a mission," Doug lectured her over the comm. "None of us can. We're here for a reason. We can't leave until we know that the situation is taken care of."
Smith looked about ready to smack someone, but Raven had an argument ready: "And what exactly is that situation?"
"I told you: someone hacked SHIELD, and they traced them back... here..."
Raven and Smith exchanged glances. Even Doug realized that didn't quite make sense.
"All groups, check in."
"Bryan's group, all accounted for."
"This is Smith, I've got the bird."
They waited for the last group to check-in, the one on the far right. Nothing came.
"Levi? Tate? Danny? I need something from you guys."
"That's not good," Smith said, just to Raven, though. "What are you thinking?"
It wasn't necessarily about her teammates. She had already moved on and was brainstorming why anyone would want to lead SHIELD agents to their deaths. There were plenty of reasons, but something else had occurred to her as well: Out of all of the agents on this unit specifically, Raven was the only one that CROS wanted dead. With everything that had happened in the past few days, it wasn't impossible that this target wasn't here for SHIELD agents; they were here for her.
"Robin!"
"We have fire!" Doug shouted into comms. "Someone's shooting over there. We need backup!"
"NO! No backup!" Danny shouted, finally answering the check-in call. "Raven's right; this whole thing is a trap!"
Raven threw her hands up in the air before turning around and running back the way they came, with Smith right on her heels. Of all the times to be right, this was not the best time she could have hoped for.
"She's after Raven!"
Those were the only three words that could have made her stop dead in her tracks. Tate, who had spoken, went on: "She wouldn't say who she is, but she's here to kill Raven! You need to hide!"
No, Raven didn't need to hide. She needed to confront this. Otherwise, she would be hiding forever.
She looked back at Smith, who was staring at her. Then she caught a glimpse of a watchtower behind him. There.
"Get back to the jet, help the others," she told him. "I'll figure this out."
"Hell no. The safest place to be right now is wherever you are."
"The safest place to be is as far away from me as you can get!" she argued, pointing back toward the jet. "If she's here to kill me, then anyone close to me is in the line of fire!"
"And it's still the safest place to be! If someone's out for the kill, I'd rather be with the spy!"
This wasn't going anywhere. Raven was just wasting time arguing with Smith, even if she didn't believe he was right.
"We need to regroup!" Doug ordered. "Everyone check in!"
The other agents started calling their names, individually this time, but Raven shook her head and held a finger over her mouth. Then she started running back forward, toward the watchtower. "This way."
"Kate!"
"Levi!"
"Caleb."
"Bryan."
"Tate."
"Grace."
"Taylor."
"Is Danny not with you?"
"We scattered once she started firing. He might be down!"
"Smith! Raven! Where the hell are you?"
"Are we really not going to say anything???" Smith asked, glancing to the right every once in a while. "We're supposed to radio in!"
Raven shook her head. "Not until Danny calls in."
"Why not?"
"Wait!"
"RAVEN! SMITH! ANSWER YOUR COMMS, DAMMIT!!!"
Completely ignoring her superior officer, Raven kept running. She knew was she was going to do.
The target had set up this mission specifically to kill Raven. They had chosen a good spot and got her unit to come here fairly easily. Danny, Levi, and Tate must have run into the assassin and exchanged a few words before gunfire was exchanged. The assassin probably didn't care much about the other agents but was willing to hurt them if it meant getting Raven. Either this was personal, or the target was a good assassin, probably in league with Evan Hart.
If Raven wanted to take down the target before the target took her down, she needed an advantage. The only one she could secure right now was a vertical advantage. If the target was over on the far right moments ago, they were nowhere near this watchtower. Raven was counting on that.
"Does ANYONE have eyes on Danny?!?"
"Up here," Raven told Smith. "Hustle."
They started climbing the stairs, trying not to be unsettled by the fact that no one was answering Doug's question. Or rather, Smith was trying to not get worried. Raven was maintaining her focus elsewhere.
When they reached the top of the tower, a new voice joined the radio channel: "I'm sorry, Danny is... unavailable right now."
Smith stared at Raven, looking for her reaction. Raven took off her helmet and transferred her comm output to her wrist controller. "That's why I didn't want to say anything over comms. I'm not giving her any more information than I want to."
Nodding, he concluded that he was out of his element now. "So what do we do?"
"Watch the stairs," she told him. "I'll take care of this."
"I'm here for the Romanoff girl," the target went on, but her voice was shaking a little more than Raven expected. She kept talking as Raven walked to the corner of the tower, looking out over the area the SHIELD agents were supposed to be. "The rest of you can walk away, but I want her. As soon as I'm done with her, all of this is over."
It was a reasonable threat, but it was much less convincing when the target sounded so shaken. Is she losing her nerve? Raven wondered, checking her firearm. If she was, that was a perfect weakness for Raven to exploit.
Her Field gun was medium-range. It wasn't a sniper rifle by any means, but it was going to have to work. Luckily, this watchtower wasn't extraordinarily tall. It was only forty feet or so, just barely rising over the top of the shipping containers. Raven had about five feet of height over the tall aisles of stacks. If the target came to the watchtower, there was an open area that would give Raven a clear shot. She needed the target to come to her.
Good thing she was in the watchtower. Even though the target was farther away, the next closest tower was still half a mile in any direction. If the target felt vulnerable, she would do the same thing Raven had done: seek higher ground. Unfortunately, Raven had already beaten her to it. Now all Raven had to was make her uncomfortable.
"Come on, Romanoff," the target taunted again, her voice slightly more stable now. "Stop hiding. Come out and join the fight."
"Now, why would I do that?" Raven asked, keeping her voice relaxed and low. She had to convince the target that Raven was the predator, not her. Predators weren't scared of their prey. "Half the fun of killing is the hunt."
If this target were a professional assassin, she wouldn't get shaken easily. If she had already killed Danny (Raven had to accept this; there was no other way she could have gotten Danny's helmet), then Tate and Levi couldn't have put up that hard of a fight. Not enough to shake a professional. Killing someone other than your target would definitely be enough to rattle a novice, and with how young the target sounded, it wasn't out of the question.
Smith seemed to gather this too. "Is this a kid we're talking to?" He asked Raven, but she didn't respond.
"You would think killing is fun, wouldn't you?" the target asked, and a certain amount of venom was laced into her words. "This is all just a game to you, isn't it?"
Raven laughed, not changing her tone. This wasn't an assignment; this mission was personal to the target. Raven could make that work. "It's always been a game, sweetheart. Just with heavier consequences if you lose."
Who had Raven killed that the target would take personally? Sure, Raven had gone on assassination assignments recently, but there was only one who would have referred to her as 'Romanoff's girl.' The Kings of CROS. This target was a CROS agent, and they were here to avenge Hart.
"Of course, you've already heard this, haven't you?" she asked, making her voice sound a bit more pretentious. "Surely, Evan wouldn't have trained you without giving you the talk?"
It was a guess, but it was an educated guess, and the target's silence told Raven she was right. This girl had been trained by Hart before Raven killed him, and now she was here to avenge him. Hart had done well, which was evident by the mission itself. It was a good setup and a perfect one under different circumstances. Unfortunately, it didn't seem that this girl had the stomach to do the job. Not if she was shaken just from killing Danny. That was all Raven needed. This fight was hers.
Raven propped the barrel of her firearm on the watchtower railing. "Looks like someone wasn't listening during class," she sneered.
"How do you know that?"
"You think I wouldn't be prepared? Unlike you, I understand this game we're playing. So did Evan. We both knew what we were getting into when I broke into your base that day. Death is always on the table in this line of work, sweetheart."
"Don't call me that," the target said, her voice shaking a little again. Raven grinned. "And if you understand it so well, shouldn't you be worried? I'm here to kill you!"
"Oh, I'm sure you are," Raven said dismissively. She pointed her scope down into the open area at the base of the tower, where the target was sure to show up any minute. She was probably on her way now. "So was Evan, and look how well that turned out for him."
"Don't call him that!!!"
Raven laughed into her comm. "If you're going to play out here, you really ought to be ready to receive threats, sweetheart. Anything is fair game. You shoot at my unit, and I make fun of your teacher. Everyone gets a taste of their own medicine."
"I'll give you a taste of your own medicine," the target spat, but it was much less scary when she herself sounded frightened. "I'm gonna kill you!"
"Mm-hm."
"I WILL!!!"
"Then hurry up and do it," Raven growled, dropping her voice suddenly. "Go ahead, little girl. Take the shot. I'm right here."
She couldn't see the target yet, but she could imagine her spinning in circles, looking for Raven. Nothing like a misdirecting threat to unsettle your prey.
After a minute, Raven went on. "What you don't understand is that everyone, everyone, in this game has motives. Me... you... Hart... everyone wants something. Hart wanted to take down SHIELD, you want revenge, and I want this to be over with. Once you understand the motive, the question becomes what you're willing to do to get what you want. Hart and I were willing to kill, but you..." Raven threw in a chuckle just for good measure. "You're in over your head, sweetheart. Your moral compass is getting in the way of your mission."
"At least I have a moral compass."
She smiled. "Yes, you do."
On the ground, Raven saw the target, a young girl, approach the corner of a shipping container. She was clearly trying to get to the watchtower but was too paranoid to abandon her cover just yet. Raven took aim while the target kept talking. "How can anyone trust you? SHIELD, your teammates... is that why Romanoff trained you?"
"Here's the secret," she said, adjusting her aim to account for the increasing wind. "Nobody trusts me. Maybe they trust my judgment, maybe they trust my skill, but they don't trust me. Nobody should because, for me, nothing is off the table. Death, sabotage, betrayal... manipulation."
"Yeah, I bet you manipulate everyone around you. Did you manipulate your teammates too?"
"The question you should be asking is: did I manipulate you?"
The target laughed, and she finally stepped out from behind the shipping container. "You can't manipulate someone that doesn't trust you."
"Then why did you go to the watchtower?"
Raven took the shot before the target could actually process what she had said. By the time she realized that Raven had tricked her, the ICER had already hit her neck, and she was losing consciousness.
She slung her firearm back over her shoulder. "The target is down. Any word on Danny?" she asked the other SHIELD agents, who had undoubtedly been listening the entire time.
Doug responded first: "The target shot him in the head. He's gone, Raven."
"I had a feeling." She walked back to the stairs. Smith was supposed to be keeping a lookout, but in reality, he had been staring at Raven for the past few minutes. "Come on," she told him. "We need to get the body to Retrieval."