❝Being alone is easy, it's the loneliness that'll kill you.❞
❝I can deal with the noise. I don't mind the noise. The quiet is a different story.❞
In which both Mara Reyes and Steve Rogers have no fucking idea what they're doing with t...
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CHAPTER FOUR Yards Park
THERE WAS SOMETHING about running that made Steve feel better. It helped clear his head and starting the day refreshed wasn't the worst thing in the world. He had his own route from his apartment to Monument Park which he ran around at least a dozen times before calling it a morning.
When he finally came to a stop, the sun was already high in the sky and people were already making their way to work and to schools.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and with an exasperated sigh, Steve took it out and flipped it open, glancing at the screen.
Not more than half an hour later, Steve was sat in Nick Fury's office in the Triskelion of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main headquarters with Natasha in the chair opposite him.
"This is who I want you to tail." Nick Fury announced, tapping the tablet and the slide on the monitor changed to a woman in her mid 20s with light brown hair, dark eyes and a warm ivory skin tone. "Her name is Gemma Langley. She's part of the Reyes family in the international crime syndicate: the Maggia and has assumingly been involved in some of the biggest crimes in the country over the years, especially in New York – all your classic loan-sharking, robbery and gambling. Facial recognition caught her at Duelles International airport the other day."
"Isn't this a little below our pay grade?" Nat asked, quirking an eyebrow. "We already took out a Maggia operation a few weeks ago."
"It would be, Romanoff, if this was just a house robbery. But there are tips that that operation and the rest of the growing crimes around the country are funding something big and something dangerous on a national scale. And the Maggia has too many ties and tunnels to take them down in one night." Fury said. "They stole weapons and chemicals and they've had weeks, who knows what they could be planning to use them for?"
"And do we have any idea exactly what this something is?" Steve inquired. He didn't like the sound of this one bit.
"No. That's what you need to find out and Gemma could be the key to all this."
"Then why don't we just arrest her?" Natasha questioned.
"Because we have bigger fish to fry." Fury pointed out. "And besides, we don't have any concrete evidence. Arresting her would be meaningless. She's gone off the grid, but she's probably still in the city. If facial recognition picks up on her again, I'll notfiy you and whichever one is closer, you follow her, see who she meets, where she goes. Something tells me time isn't our friend. And another thing, I want this between the 3 of us for now."
"You got it." Natasha said and Steve nodded.
He ran his hands over his face. He really needed a cup of coffee.
