piper didn’t laugh often , or break into a smile she didn’t have a lot of reasons to. && she didn’t want to either. with the life they lived , with the way they handled things , she didn’t have time to be happy. but , sometimes , although it was rare , something would bring out a smile onto her face. && for a second , the big weight on her shoulders would fall , letting her breathe. but only for a second until her stone cold expression fell back onto her features. “ just me then. ” she didn’t mean harm to anyone , but , it did happen. it sucked for maybe a day , two if things got really personal && heated , but at the end of the day , piper never dwelled on the casualties. their missions were always to get as many people out as possible. that didn’t mean they’d get EVERYONE out. && she’d come to peace with it , which was the reason why she could talk about the loss of civilians so easily. more blood on her hands , wasn’t a big deal. they were already coated anyway. “ i’ll admit , good old fashion combat sounds good right about now. give it a few more days , colonel. GOTHAM never stays quiet. alien attack , or the joker does something stupid again. maybe some more villain wannabes. someone’s bound to slip up && we’re always the first ones there to clean them up. ”
Rick breathed out a low chuckle that could go unnoticed by inattentive ears, “Nah, I’m sure it’s not just you…” Though his crew was mainly a collection of human soldiers, the best in the business, who were taught similar ideals Flag knew regular dark thoughts like Piper’s must fill their heads from time-to-time. It was his leadership, boundaries, that kept operations on the straight and narrow, but nothing could channel freewill–not even Richard who showed his teammates due respect and attention. They all had their own view of the world, methods of coping, and were the closest thing to a family the Colonel still had on earth. They were the only kind of family he wanted. “An alien attack… that sounds like fun.” Flag snickered and ignored the slight jab he felt hit his chest. “Yeah… criminals are about the most dependable people you could get to know–outside of our troop, of course.” Rick seemed to hesitate, “If you could get out of ARGUS. Waller’s command. Go in to business with me or on your own, would you take that shot?” Part of the man trusted that Piper wouldn’t repeat this query to their crew mates.
