Post-Civil war (Avengers-non-canon AU)

Part 6 of 6

Part 6: A Ross by any other name

Ross groaned as he woke up. His head was throbbing and he was face down on the floor of his own apartment. He was also tied up with duct tape and he now had to find a way to get free. Everything had all started this morning after his discreet call to Stark. The day had just spiralled out of control. It was either his luckiest day or his most unlucky one. He was leaning towards the latter since he currently needed to scratch an itch developing on his nose and his hands were tied behind his back.

That morning after the call ended with Stark he went up to the ground floor. Since his three months medical stay in Wakanda he had been put on probation. Mainly because he refused to tell his bosses just what went on after Busan and what he had seen in Wakanda. He figured that the CIA would keep him around because he was the only one who had actually made it into the heart of Wakanda. Something not even their other spies could do. Probation he expected. Being assigned the worst possible job in the building to make him crack, he also expected.

It was mind-numbingly boring work. He had been assigned to oversee the CIA records basement, which no one visited anymore because everything was digitized. The entire place was covered in dust and cobwebs. If his superiors thought he was gonna crack then they had another thing coming. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut about Wakanda for two more weeks. That was when T'Challa was going to do the big reveal at the UN. So on the morning of his new assignment, Everett went down to the janitor's closet grabbed a pair of mops and dusters and started cleaning. If he let a mouse or three escape the room and get into his boss' office, well it wasn't technically his fault. He was a lone man cleaning a large area and couldn't keep track of all rodents.

The one upside about being alone in the basement was that he could snoop around the old records without anyone watching. Something had been bugging him about the Secretary of State even before Busan. Most of the records had been blacked out but the ones that he found seemed to suggest that General Ross was more invested in finding the Super Soldier serum than he let on. That was basically what prompted the call to Stark. That and watercooler gossip. CIA watercooler gossip was mostly spot on with rumors. Although he did not want to know just why Andy from Logistics was wearing mismatching socks today.

It was around nine o'clock when Ross had come out of his stuffy office again for more coffee and he had expected the offices to be quiet. Analysts rhythmically typing away valuable data. Instead, the whole floor was in a flurry of activity. "What's going on?" Ross had asked one of the agents passing by.

"We've located one of Klaue's safehouses. It has a cache of weapons and Williams is sending out a team to gather them all up." The agent spoke quickly.

"ROSS!" Speak of the devil and he shall call your name. Ross turned to the right to see Agent Williams come bounding towards him. They had never liked each other during training. Ross thought that it might have been because he got a lucrative assignment right off the bat while Williams had to start from the ground up. That first assignment had mainly involved Ross' previous piloting expertise and that had later gotten him the position at the JCTC. Now with Ross' probation they had put Williams in charge and oh, was the man smug and irritating. It might just be another ploy of his superiors to make him crack. Seeing his rival take over his job. He might let a mouse run lose in the man's office after lunch.

"Yes agent Williams?" Ross turned towards the man looking calm and unruffled. That seemed to get on the man's nerves just a bit. Williams might have thought that Ross would have let some emotion show.

"We're short on manpower so I'm sending you with the team to go catalog everything in Klaue's safehouse." Williams worded it so as if to say that Ross wasn't part of the team anymore. Maybe he wasn't but it didn't ruffle his feathers that much. There would be a surprise waiting for the CIA in two weeks and it wasn't just what T'Challa was going to reveal. "Can I count on you to not disappear for three months while doing it?"