Phil Coulson looked over to Melinda May. She had never gotten the super-soldier serum, which was a pity – She was a much better combatant than he was. Her black hair reached her shoulders when it was down. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, as they sat.

"Fitz says they're preparing for a mass attack on political opposition," May said, checking her rifle one last time in the belly of the plane. She put it down and sighed. "I don't like it though. I hate to shoot people just doing their job."

Phil nodded his head, "It doesn't matter. We've tried the legal channels, no luck, and we're running low on time. All our sources say it's happening soon."

Bobbi Morse came down into the belly of the plane, "You guys ready?" Morse had taken the Super-Soldier serum too, back before it all went wrong, and she was one of their most useful agents. Her blond hair and typically amazonian physique made her conspicuous, but she was invaluable in a fight.

"As we can be," May said, sighing. "Fitz's tracker still working? Not getting thwarted by the camo?"

Bobbi nodded her head in agreement, "We're all going to go to jail for this."

"If we're lucky," May said, her tone dark enough to meet the words. It wasn't going to be fun.

"How's our cloaking holding up?" Phil asked.

"It's working fine."

----

The team jumped from a great height onto the new helicarriers, pushing into the building. "Go!" Phil ordered as soon as they touched the tarmac. The alarms had clearly gone off because a swarm of SWORD security was coming towards them. Poor bastards had no idea what they were defending. Melinda fired into the crowd of SWORD security officers as the rest of them made a break for the edge of the helicarrier. They'd considered not landing at all, but it had been too risky. Phil was grabbing the reppling gear as he reached the edge, hooked it, gave one solid tug to see if it was clear, and started climbing down the side.

The others, led by Bobbi, soon followed and they made their way toward the center of the ship and the glass orb that contained the high-power computer that made the targeting decision. The wind bit hard and pulled at them, but they managed to stay on task thanks to the magnetized gauntlets they had for this purpose. Eventually, they reached the orb and Phil and Bobbi kicked holes in the side of it. The rest of the group followed through the holes.

A large cross section above where they landed inside was the location of the design. Bobbi and Phil were able to reach the top, where four guards were waiting. Bobbi put a bullet through one and tossed the other one down into the glass, the depresusrization of the space making it difficult to move or think. Phil climbed across the cross section to the center, knocking his two men aside in a brash rush.

He took out the override command unit and slid it into the airship and slumped up against the wall of the helicarrier, hands in the air, "We surrender," he said mostly to himself, his voice weak. And then the guns started going off.

"What's happening?" Phil shouted, "The command unit was supposed to override this!"

Bobbi looked as confused as he was and the others were making their way to the top. "Fitz, what's going on?"

"I don't know," Fitz said, running up to the central command unit. "It should've stopped the program."

"Make it stop!"

"Well I would if I could, wouldn't I?" Fitz said, not looking away from the central console. Then he let out a curse, "Those sons of a bitches," he said.

"What is it, Fitz?" Phil asked, hauling himself off the ground as more members of SWORD arrived, climbing down into the room.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Phil," he said, looking over at him as Bobbi darted forward, kick spinning off the edge of the cross-section walkway and knocking the attackers to the ground. "This console isn't live."

"What?"

"It's been updated, where-ever the control console is, it's not here."

"Well then where is it?"

"I don't know!" Fitz shouted, his voice frayed. "There's nothing we can do, they won Phil."

Phil cursed and looked at the others, their eyes aghast. "Alright, fall back, we'll have to find some way to tell people what's happened. Use the escape schutes. And if we don't make it," he looked around at his team and felt a sharp pang. "It's been an honor to serve with you."

They dropped back toward the cracked glass and Fitz took a bullet, "Go!" he shotued, stumbling down. But Phil couldn't abandon him – He came back and grabbed Fitz, aiming his fire at the attackers, hoping for the best.

They made it to the cracked glass and Phil watched as his team disembarked to the open air.

That was when the bullets started hailing into the airship. Cracking through the glass, rounds tore into Phil and his friends, into the ship itself, into the SWORD agents. Why were they firing on themselves? Phil wondered hopelessly, as the bullets began to bleed him dry. What were they doing?

It didn't really matter, whatever they were doing, someone else was going to have to deal with it.

---

Nat grinned as she served little Nathaniel a sandwich out on the picnic table Clint had made. "Thanks for having us," she told Clint, who was teaching his daughter archery.

"It's nice," Clint said. "A bit domestic. Would you have ever imagined?"

Nat laughed, "Not even once." They had gone from being SHIELD agents to quietly retired, or semi-retired in her case. Bruce was smiling and telling a joke to Laura. This was what she had never thought she would have, what she hadn't could never have seen coming. She felt ambushed by joy.

Then the bullet slammed into Bruce's chest. It came from nowhere, but there were three rounds protruding from Bruce's newly green skin, blooming into his form. "Inside!" Clint shouted, grabbing two of the children under one of his arms annd Natasha grabbed Nathaniel instantly.

They had barely started to move toward the house when a bullet went through Natasha's chest and scraped across Nathaniel's cheek. "Targeting us," Natasha said, her breath failing her, rolling Nathaniel away from her and breathing what she was sure was her last breaths. She looked over at Clint only to see his head was missing.

She should've known God wouldn't forgive any of them.

---

I was sitting inside, watching it all play out. The plan went off perfectly – Coulson and his team were dead, as were every senator or house representative who was in the open air and who had been in office four years ago. Technically, there were four or five who'd voted against SWORD, a couple aspiring isolationist Republicans and a few conscientious objector Democrats, but they wouldn't be an obstacle.

We'd had to do a lot of coordinating to get so many of our preferred targets into the open air for the afternoon, but we'd pulled it off. Of course, anyone who had been on our side in truth and not by mere coincidence was inside somewhere that was perfectly plausible. I was surprised to discover that Bruce had survived his bombardment and apparently, Steve and Daisy were missing too from the target list.

That was going to be a problem.