Day by Day/Tools of the Trade

"OK, let's go over this again."

Simon knelt on the dusty incline of a small slope, clipping his battered assault rifle onto the back of his equally battered armor. He tugged a small duffel bag off his shoulder and set it down on the ground beside him.

"You've got their comms, right?"

"Of course I have their comms, dumbass," Diana responded irately. "What do you think you pay me for? Oh, wait. You don't pay me at all."

"Shut up. Is everything going like they said it would?"

Nothing. He sighed and unzipped the duffel. "I really don't want to deal with this right now, Diana. Not today."

"Then you should be nicer to the girl who's the only thing between you and a very messy death, shouldn't you?" she said archly. "And you should give her the benefit of the doubt unless she says otherwise."

"Fine, fine, I get it. Christ." He opened the duffel and pulled out a barrel, the first component to the disassembled SRS-56M sniper rifle he had just lugged half a mile to this little hill. "As if I didn't have enough to deal with without having to tiptoe around you, too."