Betrayal - A Bucky Barnes Fanfic

Chapter 41

After her visit to Wanda, Ava still hadn't managed to make any serious progress in her research. She stood tensely in front of Ranner's office and strained to calm her breathing. He wanted to hear the progress she had made so far, so she would bring across her findings so far in as much detail and as convincingly as possible. Her hands began to sweat.

"Miss Summers, do you want to come in now or keep playing bouncer?" Ranner suddenly shouted through the closed office door. Ava had thought she could stand outside the milky door unnoticed, after all Ranner was always bent over a stack of papers or looking out of the window front with his phone pressed to his ear, but now she felt quite stupid.

Nervously, she opened the door and entered the large office. Ranner was sitting at his oversized desk as usual, eyebrows drawn together. He didn't look up when Ava walked in, so she stood a little awkwardly in the door, the door handle still in her hand.

"Well then," Ranner began, finally looking up from his desk, "get started."

Ava sat down hesitantly, took one deep breath, and then told Ranner what she had been able to find out so far. She told him about the vans she had seen, about the warehouses where some kind of goods were stored, about the suspicion that it might have something to do with arms exports. She avoided the matter of James as good as she could, but one insight that Ranner was sure to jump on Ava told anyway:

"I also know for sure that a task force has been convened to get to the bottom of this. So it is confirmed that there is more behind these warehouses, something illegal, that requires its own taskforce." Ranner actually looked at her with interest. He hadn't interrupted her once during her whole talk either, which was new.

"I underestimated you, Miss Summers. You've done a good job so far and I rely on you to keep me updated regularly. I want the next update in a week. As I said in our last conversation – use your working hours to pursue research as well, as long as urgent matters continue to be attended to on time. So I'll see you in my office on Monday," he said, turning back to the stack of papers on his desk. Ava guessed that that was her cue to leave. She carefully closed the door behind her and then took a deep breath. She couldn't help smiling – finally Ranner seemed to see her as more than just a simple intern and she was overjoyed to receive praise for the work she had done so far. Maybe it wasn't all bad after all.

Ava was so buoyed by her conversation with Ranner that she would have liked to go straight to the warehouses to continue her research. But just as she had finished all the tasks she had to do that day, April appeared at her desk.

"Good news!" she beamed and Ava looked at her in irritation, "I was finally able to get you an assignment. 4pm, the cinema just around the corner. It's closing down and we need a short story on it for tomorrow. Congratulations Ava, your first assignment!"

"Wow, April, thank you!", Ava managed to get out, annoyed at herself for not being able to express her gratitude better.

"I'll email you the details, have fun," April winked at her and then disappeared again.

Ava's gaze fell on Peter, who was on his way to the copy room and gave her a cautious smile. Quickly she lowered her gaze. She wasn't ready to deal with Peter yet. The memories of the night James and Peter had gone at each other were still too fresh and Ava couldn't have any distractions right now. Today would be her first official appointment for the New York Times and she couldn't be more grateful or excited. She could more than use these small successes after James had broken her heart.

Saturday, 14th August

A penetrating knock brought Ava out of her sleep. She blinked in annoyance at the scattered rays of sunlight shining through her curtains. Ava was on the verge of just going back to sleep – after all, no one could want anything really important from her right now – when she blinked at her phone to make out the time. 11am. Whoever was at her door must have had a real nerve to get her out of her beauty sleep. The last few days had been busy at work, so firstly Ava had little time to do her research and was spending that precious time on unproductive phone calls to the police, and secondly she hadn't been getting much sleep. The only good thing about it was that she barely had time to think about James and the gaping wound in her heart.