Thanks to Natalia-Fury, and the two Guests who read and reviewed, as well as to all of you lovely people that followed and faved.
"Georges Batroc," Steve placed a mug shot on the white board.
Natasha chewed on the back of her pen and stared at the victim's face. "Now why would anyone want to kill him?" Tony said sarcastically and Steve looked at him with the world's most contemptuous eyes. "I mean, look at this guy, better yet—look at his rep sheet." He passed Natasha the incriminating sheet of paper. "This guy was up to his ears in organized crime; B&Es, assault, assault and battery, attempted murder—"
"—Okay, we get it," Natasha nodded, passing Steve the rep sheet so he could copy it onto the board in his signature blue marker.
"Uh, hello," someone with a slightly watered-down English accent said awkwardly behind them.
"Hey, Ian," Natasha smiled, standing up from where she'd been sitting on Steve's desk, "what've you got for us?"
"Well, I just figured I'd look into the victim's bank accounts and I found this," he said, handing her a packet, and leaning over and pointing at a sum he'd highlighted, "and I'd already seen his rep sheet so, where does someone like that get this much money transferred to him?"
"How much was it?" Steve asked, the crease between his eyebrows ever present on his other wise perfectly sculpted face.
"Forty-million." Ian said gravely.
"Holy shit!" Tony yelled, pulling his feet off of Steve's desk and standing to grab the sheet from Natasha's hands.
"That's what I said!" Ian yelled, watching the paper as it traveled to Steve's hands and then, after a moment, onto the white board. "And I started looking a little further back, and every couple of months, he'd put in a new deposit for forty-million."
"He should be rich, like living in the 90210 rich," Tony said, looking from the paper's new perch and back to the tech intern, "what happens to the money?"
"Most of the time, he uses it up slowly—"
"—How slowly?" Natasha asked abruptly, and Ian shrugged.
"As slowly as you can with that kind of money, so like by the ten thousands."
"Can we trace the money?" Steve asked and Natasha shook her head, guessing what Ian confirmed a second later.
"He'd take it out in cash; fifties and hundreds." Ian said, and when Tony looked at him funny, "What? I called the bank and asked; I do my homework."
"Alright, what ever." Tony said.
"Hello humans from the land of the living," Darcy said and she walked over to them. She often called the upper levels of the precinct the land of the living (for obvious reasons), and referred to the lab as either the dungeon or zombieland. "Here are those crime scene photos that you asked for, and that were left on my desk for a day and a half."
"It's alright." Natasha shrugged and began to flip through them.
"Hi, Darcy." Ian said and she turned to him.
"Ex-zombie." She said curtly, and with that turned and left. She still held a grudge about his transfer from the CSI squad (as she frequently called it) to the tech department, saying he'd been cured of the zombie virus.
"I can't do anything to appease her." Ian said in an annoyed tone of voice.
"She'll come around." Natasha said blankly, suddenly engrossed in the photos. "But in the meantime, you should probably go help Bruce with the Hunter case."
"Yeah, alright, bye." Ian nodded and pushed himself away from Tony's desk, of which he'd been previously leaning on, and shuffled away dejectedly.
"Poor sucker." Tony said, and Steve gave him a side glare. "So, what do you think we should do now?" Tony said, changing the subject.
"Maybe we could go door to door, ask if anyone saw anything?" Steve suggested, and Natasha shook her head.
"Even if they did, they wouldn't talk." She said, walking over and starting to put up the Polaroids and trying not to remember things that had begun to resurface.
"Are these them?" Someone said behind the detectives, and they turned to see the mayor walking out of the captain's office.
"Yes, this is detectives Rogers, Stark and Romanoff." The captain said nodding to each of them in turn.
"It's very nice to meet all of you in person," He said, shaking each of their hands, "you're doing this city a great service."
"Just doing our job, sir." Steve said.
"Yeah, speaking of our job, what's got you so interested in this case," Tony said, squinting slightly at the graying man, "crazy shit like this has happened before and you haven't paid much attention, so what's got you so interested in this one?"
"Tony," Steve said as though Tony had greatly embarrassed and/or offended them, but Natasha had to admit that's what she'd been thinking as well, although she had the willpower enough to hold her tongue.
"No, no, that's alright, you detectives have gotta have the whole picture don't you?" The mayor laughed good-naturedly, "I just don't want this to become a pattern; someone like this could really hurt our city, socially and economically. As if we haven't got enough troubles with crime already, then a madman with a deadly and unusual weapon will just make matters much, much worse."
"Natt, Steve, Tony!" Maria ran over to them, "You're up; get your coats."
"What happened?" Steve asked, taking two long strides to Maria's side.
"Your killer struck again, but this time the vic survived; he's in general right now." Maria then noticed the mayor, "Mister Mayor, it's very nice to see you again."
"I'm very sorry sir but, we've got to—" Natasha started, but he interrupted her.
"No, I'll come with you, I've got to see this for myself." He said, pulling on his coat.
"Alright," Natasha said, finding his idea slightly strange.
Tony always got weirdly excited when they put on the siren, and so he seemed to be practicing his badass face, if not his just serious face, in the backseat of her car. "Tony, you're weird, cut it out." She said, her gray eyes watching him through the rearview mirror.
Steve smirked slightly and tightened his grip on the door as she swung around a sharp corner, and pulled into the hospital parking lot. As they walked in, they got a few odd stares since the mayor of New York City was walking in with them.
"Sorry," someone said, and they turned to see that someone had walked into Pierce. Although he apologized, his dark eyes conveyed a different truth, one much angrier and more sinister.
"That's alright." The older man nodded kindly, and watched the back of the other man's head a little confusedly as he walked very quickly out of the building.
The lady behind the des kindly directed them to Natasha's favorite doctor; the young, blonde and very calm Sharon Carver, who also happened to be the detective's roommate.
"Mayor Pierce, this is Doctor Sharon Carver." Natasha said, introducing them.
"Actually, still in training, but nice to meet you anyways." Sharon said kindly, extending her hand to him.
"What've we got?" Natasha said, smiling slightly at the pretty girl.
"Well, he's not bad as I'm told the last one was, but you can tell me," she said as they walked down the hallway, Steve and Tony on either side of the two women, "he got an arrow in his right thigh, and another in his shoulder." They stopped in front of a closed door, and she handed Natasha the folder holding all the information, "He's also got a couple fractured ribs and a broken toe, but I think that happened before he was attacked."
"What can we expect about his personality?" Steve asked, looking at her with his usual, serious face, concentrated only on the task at hand.
"Well he's not a ray of sunshine, I can tell you that." She said as though she'd tried to talk to him and gotten nothing but rude comments. "I don't like to judge books by their covers but, I'm pretty sure he's got a criminal record."
"Steve it's your turn," Natasha nodded to him, and handed him the folder,
"Brian Duhame?" Steve asked calmly as they walked into the room.
"What is this, the Spanish inquisition?" The man said from where he lay in the hospital bed. Although he was weak, his gross attitude and personality were as strong as any, and just from that one sentence Natasha could tell exactly what kind of person he was.
"I understand that you're in a lot of pain, but we need to ask you some questions." Steve replied calmly, but his hand twitched slightly, like it always did when something was annoying him.
The man nodded, and Steve flipped open his little notebook, and began to ask the normal, rudimentary questions, as if this were any other kind of investigation. Natasha smirked, remembering all the times Tony had made fun of him for that stupid notebook, but, if anything, Steve was a man of tradition.
"Son, I promise, these detectives will do everything in their power to bring down the man who's doing this." Mayor Pierce said, patting the guy on the shoulder, as Natasha internally rolled her eyes; politicians, she said with a look to Tony who quirked his eyebrows in agreement.
"But, uh, in the meantime, could you work with a sketch artist?" Steve asked, as Sharon came softly into the room to go over and check some of the monitors next to his bed. Steve's eyes followed her for a second, as if he were checking to see if she was a threat, "We'd just like to get a picture of him." He said, his eyes still resting on the back of the blonde's head suspiciously.
"Yeah, sure thing." He said through his heavy New York accent.
Steve nodded and they left one after the other, Natasha leaving last, to smile goodbye to her roommate. Just as she left the room, she could just hear Pierce as he walked in front of Steve and gave out directions like a sargent.
"…And I want this cleaned up and solved immediately; our city's got enough trouble as it is without some madman with a bow and arrow running around and terrorizing our citizens."
She caught up with Tony, who was looking slightly morose, "You're awfully quiet," She stated, "you alright?"
"Yeah, just hoping Legolas doesn't put too many arrows in me for getting on his case." He replied and Natasha laughed.
"I doubt he'd come after us directly; that's too public," She said as they caught up with Steve and the Mayor, who were starting to walk out the front door. "and from what I can tell, he's more of a…"
She trailed off, something out of the corner of her eye catching her attention; two people, a boy and a girl, looking to be in their early twenties, sitting in chairs right next to the doorway. He had hit hat pulled over his forehead, but she still recognized him as the guy that'd bumped into Pierce as they'd walked into the building. His poorly died blonde hair and clothes of varying shades of blue contrasted with the girl's dark hair and red jacket. She didn't really know why they caught her eye; just the way they were sitting seemed to resemble the way Steve and Tony looked when the three were on a stakeout.
"…Man of the shadows," she finished, pulling her eyes away from the pair, and frowning as they walked out of the building, her mind was now moving at millions of miles an hour.
The sun was very bright as they walked out, and the three detectives stood, watching as the mayor walked to his car, telling them to figure this out fast and that he didn't like the people of this city being scared. Just as his bodyguard was about to open the door for him, something began to shine in Natasha's eye. She leaned slightly to the side, trying to see what it was, but she suddenly felt a searing pain on her arm, her other hand covering the area reflexively.
Suddenly, the world was in slow motion. She lifted her hand to find it covered in blood and a large gash cut through her jacket. She turned slowly, tracing the path the bullet must have taken, and found one of the mayor's bodyguards fallen against the brick wall of the hospital.
And there was a dark purple and black arrow sticking out of his eye.
The bodyguard next to mayor shoved him into the car. Tony ran to the guy, and knelt down next to him, checking his pulse. Steve and Natasha got down behind a car, pulling their handguns out of their holsters. They watched as the mayor's car sped away, Natasha swallowing hard, and popping up over the car to look around. Her eyes ran over every building, until she saw an open window, on the corner of a building, three blocks away.
"There." She said, pointing, and Steve shook his head.
"That shot would be impossible," He said disbelievingly, "no one could make that with a rifle, let alone a bow and arrow."
"He could," Natasha said, "and he just did."
A/N- So, I changed Sharon's last name to Carver because I may or may not put Peggy into this too and that would be weird. And I'd also like to put Steve with someone, but there are so many choices (Peggy, Sharon, Maria, Tony, ect.) so I was wondering what you guys wanted to see happen, because I really can't decide XD.
-ShadowJay