There's Always a Bigger Fish

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Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn

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The music was giving Melinda May a headache. Honestly, she couldn't understand how people could possibly enjoy this vroot-dorp-vroot-dorp-thump-thump thump electronic noise the youth of today called dance music. In her day – during the small sliver of time between her entering college in 1982 and her being recruited by SHIELD in 1985, when she was inclined to go clubbing at all – club music was melodic, singable dance versions of Top 40 hits.

It was much better music than this crap.

She looked over at Skye, who was obviously grooving on the beat. May rolled her eyes. She knew she shouldn't begrudge the fact that the music was to the younger woman's taste, but it was just one more thing that reminded Melinda May of the fact that on the day that Skye was born, Melinda had been eight months shy of her 29th birthday.

"You know, the DJ is slamming, but this club – I never knew the real meaning of the word 'Eurotrash' until we came here. Are we sure this is the right place?" Skye didn't interrupt her be-bopping to ask the question. "I mean, I'm no expert, but this seems a bit too, I dunno, 'millennial' for a Russian arms dealer."

"He's Ukrainian, not Russian." May swept the crowd again.

"Russian, Ukrainian, what's the difference?"

Melinda couldn't help it. She actually laughed. "Skye, trust me, if you're ever in Kiev? Never say that sentence out loud unless you're ready for a fight."

"Oh." Skye thought about it. "You mean it's like Mexicans and Cubans?"

"Sure. Mexicans and Cubans." May rolled her eyes again. "All our intel says this is the place." She took her eyes off the crowd and met the glance of the younger agent. "But you're right. This could go down bad; too many civilians. That might be the point, though."

Skye looked around. "I don't see Bobbi or Trip."

"Good. Mean's they're doing their job." Melinda kept her eye on the crowd. As packed as it was in here, their target could fade in and out if they weren't careful. Even with the other agents keeping an eye on the entrances, it was just too easy for such a public place, despite what the spy movies said.

"Head's up. Target just made it past the velvet rope." Bobbi Morse's voice came over their earpieces. Skye immediately whipped her head around to look, while Melinda took the slower, less conspicuous route of merely moving her eyes. Skye would learn, eventually.

"I got him. Nazarenko and three playmates."

"Got him. He's passing us now." Skye responded for the two of them. May was just glad the novice agent hadn't held her hand up to her ear. The man they were all watching moved through the club's crowd like a shark moving through the shoals of a reef; the crowd of people parted for him almost instinctively, and not once did he had to slow his pace. Nor did he alter his course to move around anyone. The Ukrainian moved into the club's shadowed VIP area, while the bodyguards took up position on the perimeter.

"We no longer have eyes on the target, just the bodyguards. Can anyone see the target?" May scanned the area and found another table that would have a much better view of the VIP area, yet still be covered by the bar. "We're repositioning. Who has eyes on Nazarenko?"

"I've got him." Trip responded. "One sec. Oh, hi, yeah, no sorry, but my lady's just off to freshen up. Thanks anyway." There was a pause. "Sorry about that. Girl came over, started talking to me. So now I got a club-bunny sitting about three seats away giving me the eye. Still got eyes on the… Oh, you're going to love this, Agent May. Our boy got to his favorite seat, only to find someone already sitting there. Looks like an argument's about to break out. Hasn't called the bodyguards."

"Okay, we're moving." May gestured to Skye and the pair stood up, but before they could move the girl was suddenly there. It took Melinda a quick moment to realize that she'd been dancing right there in front of the two SHIELD agents for a good twenty minutes and neither had noticed anything untoward about her.

"Sorry about this, Agent May, but unfortunately something has come up that's beyond your jurisdiction. Your mission has been canceled." Melinda May didn't recognize the speaker, but from the way she was acting and speaking, clearly she was an agent. The question was, an agent for who?

May immediately fell into a defensive stance and moved forward, ready to take down this intruder. Or rather, she tried. A hydraulic press shaped precisely like a human hand grabbed her by the left arm, while a second steel-gripped hand landed on her right shoulder. Unwillingly, she was dragged backward and pressed back onto the chair.

Next to her, Skye was being treated the same way by a tall, long-haired brunette. "Hey, get off me, you bitch! Let me go!" That earned Skye a slap to the back of the head from the woman holding her. It obviously didn't injure her partner, but it surprised the younger woman into silence.

May tried to turn to see her attacker; before she could, she was slapped in the back of the head; not hard, but just hard enough. The hand used had come off her shoulder and was back in place before Melinda could do much more than wince from the slap.

A husky voice – a female voice - carrying a slight Boston lilt came from behind her. "Eye's front, Melinda."

The girl in the silver dress – Dawn, if the voice behind her was to be believed – pulled out one of the unused chairs at their table and sat down. She flattened the dress's short skirt with her hands before smiling back at May again. "Right. I'm Dawn Summers." When Melinda's eyes grew wide, the girl smiled. "So you've heard of me. Good. That makes this easy, and I'll get right to the point. You can't have Hryhory Nazarenko; as much as Phil Coulson wants the intel in his head, Hyryhory's been a very naughty boy, and we're here to show him the error of his ways."

May stopped struggling against the iron hold of the woman standing behind her. "I have heard of you, Agent Summers." There was a snort from the brunette holding Skye in place. "Just about every white hat intelligence agency on the planet has a story about how you people drop in, bust up active operations, and then vanish back into the vapor. No one seems to be sure just which agency you work for, and if they ask, all they get from the brass is 'stop asking'."

"Believe me, I understand your frustration. But I'm also sure you understand how the saying goes: It's need to know, and you simply don't."

"Right." Melinda stared into Summers' eyes. "My team?"

"Don't worry. You and your team aren't going to be hurt, or at least not hurt much. Depends on how much they struggled." Summers smiled, obviously trying to make Melinda feel better about the situation. "Feel free to contact Agents Triplett and Morse; they're unharmed, and when this is all over, you'll all be able to go on your way."

Melinda just stared for a moment. "Triplett? Morse? Sitrep?"

Trip's response, "Yeah, I just got my ass handed to me by a teenage girl who looks like she should be at home doing her algebra, but I'm fine. Embarrassed, but fine," was immediately followed by Morse's "Same here. At least she's being nice about it, though."

"Won't be too much longer." Summers smoothed down her skirt again. After a handful of minutes spent staring at each other, a tall, muscular man with dark hair and an eyepatch stepped up to tap Summers on the shoulder. "Taken care of. Buffy's already out the door."

Summers gave May a quick smile. "See? Painless. And now no one needs to worry about Hryhory Nazarenko. Here." The girl placed a thumb-drive on the table in front of her as she stood. "This is everything SalixGoddess could dig up on his operation, which means everything. Hope that helps."

And with that, the four of them vanished into the crowd.

"Come on, we can get them before they disappear!" Skye stood, her eyes full of anger.

May just shook her head. "No. Won't do any good. They're in the wind already, and besides, we'd just get called on the carpet by Fury. Let it go." She reached over and picked up the thumb-drive. "I want you to dig through this and verify as much as possible."

Skye took the drive. "You think it might be fake?"

"No. It's going to be real. Ever hear of a hacker named SalixGoddess?" At Skye's expression, May nodded. "Right. She's reliable. Creepy and utterly criminal, but reliable."

"They've got SalixGoddess working for them? Who the hell are those guys?" Skye sat back down just as Morse and Triplett arrived at their table. Bobbi had a bruise covering most of the right side of her face, while Trip was rubbing his shoulder.

"No one knows, but no one messes with them more than once. Which is why we're going to take the thumb drive and go." She looked over toward the VIP area. There was absolutely no sign that the bodyguards or Nazarenko had ever been there. A bussing crew was emptying tables, and a janitor was running a vacuum cleaner over one patch of the carpet again and again.

"We'll take what they gave us back to Coulson and call it a win."

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