This ties in right before Kari meets Clint at the shooting range.
"Fine, if you won't feed me I'll go myself," Kari stood up pulling a disgusted face at Jared. "You're so fucking mean to me."
With that she stomped to the door. Jared kept his head buried in the laptop to hide his smirk. Kari had just fallen right into his trap of getting out of the room for 10 minutes. He wasn't an idiot. He watched Riley follow his sister out of the corner of his eye until she had left the room. Only then did he actually turn back to his work.
"She's single you know," Jared spoke up as soon as the door slammed shut.
"I know," Riley didn't look up from his work. His fingers tapped away at the keyboard. Jared raised an eyebrow in surprise. As far as he knew Kari and Riley barely had a conversation together. Despite Riley driving her home a few times, Kari insisted they really didn't talk that much. But he wasn't blind. He could tell when his sister was attracted to someone. Riley was more subtle but Jared wasn't missing the hints he was giving off. They were both being idiots. But Jared didn't know Riley well enough to call him out on it. However he wasn't above being sneaky to get the information he wanted.
"How do you know?" Jared pressed for an answer.
"Because she told me," Riley's voice was giving nothing away as he continued to work. "Why does it matter to you?"
"Because I'm sick of seeing you two not acting on your feelings," Jared said bluntly. Subtle really wasn't going to work here. "She thinks she's being all smart and coy with it but I know her better."
That made Riley looked up from his computer and over to Jared. He pursed his lips before turning back to the screen. He wasn't actually typing anything. Just tapping on the keys looking embarrassed.
"I have this horrible feeling this is such a loaded question," Riley said dryly when he finally spoke. "If I say I like your sister you'll threaten me about breaking her heart or using her. If I say I don't like her then you'll be offended and ask why she isn't good enough for me."
"If I was a complete asshole I'd do that," Jared turned on the charm to try and pry some more information. "But I'm more curious. So do you like her or not?"
"She's pretty awesome," Riley's answer was vague and didn't really answer the question.
"Yeah she is," Jared kept going. "Weren't you a Marine or something? You guys should have something in common to talk about."
Jared knew Riley had been a SEAL. Even he was impressed by the quiet STRIKE member's service record. As soon as he saw Kari was interested in him, he'd pulled Riley's file out. After a curt email from Hill reminding Jared he was doing data entry, he only had time to skim over it. But he was just trying to really get this information out of him. It was almost frustrating Jared about how evasive he was being.
"Navy, I was a SEAL," Riley shrugged. "Not much in common with a fighter pilot."
Jared fought back his sigh of irritation. Riley wasn't making this easy on him.
"Still, shouldn't you have that whole ooh rah mentality? Pretty sure Kari does," Jared pressed some more. "She still walks with a stick shoved up her ass like a typical military person."
"Most military prefer to call it a military swagger," Riley laughed shortly. "I've been out a few years now, you lose it after awhile. Again, that's Marines. I was Navy, massive difference."
"You're deflecting," Jared smirked. "Come on man, do you like my sister or not? If you do I'm happy to push her in the right direction. She's pretty fucking oblivious to anything to do with feelings."
Besides, Jared had been keeping a very careful eye on a lot of the STRIKE guys he knew. He'd even asked Barton and Natasha to both make sure none of them bothered her. Kari had caused a big stir by joining SHIELD, whether she knew it or not. He'd lost track of the amount of times he'd told other guys to fuck off and mind their own business when they asked about her. Riley would be about the only guy he liked enough to actually let his sister go anywhere near. She'd had enough problems in the last few weeks, let alone getting into relationship problems this early in her life at SHIELD. Or getting the wrong kind of reputation which wouldn't be hard to do at all.
"Why is it so important to you?" a flash of annoyance crossed Riley's face as he looked up from the laptop. "I'm sure she's perfectly capable of making her own decisions."
Jared had to stop himself smiling. There is was. The defence mechanism coming out instead of actually answering the question.
"Because she's not only my sister, she's my twin," Jared explained. "She just got dealt a very shit hand after she worked her ass off to get where she was in the Air Force. She hated SHIELD and never wanted to be a part of it until her arm got twisted to join or end up in the Fridge. Idle threat, but she didn't know that. It was just Fury manipulating her into joining because SHIELD has wanted her since the day she graduated high school. So I will do everything in my power to make sure she's as happy as she can possibly be in the circumstances she just found herself in."
The silence in the room was near deafening. Jared had to hand it to Riley though. His stare never back down from Jared's face. It took a long minute before Riley spoke again. This time the annoyance was gone from his face and voice.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to snap," Riley offered a half smile. "Yeah I like your sister. She's smart and independent. Its awesome the way she never backs down from a challenge. I heard she sky dived the other night just to prove Rumlow wrong about something."
"That's my Kari," Jared smiled proudly. He heard the story as well. If he hadn't of been so annoyed about her taking his car that morning he probably would have congratulated her there and then. He loved doing anything to make Rumlow squirm. Especially if there was a crowd while he did it.
"I don't know if she likes me that much though," Riley's smile dropped and his eyes went back to his laptop screen. "I know she's had a hard time lately. I don't want to screw with her life anymore than it already has been."
"Oh for fuck sake," Jared had to laugh otherwise he'd throw something at Riley's head. "She likes you. Trust me. I'm sure she gets herself off thinking about you most nights. Her favourite word at the moment is your name."
That was a stretch of the truth. Kari was careful about not talking about Riley too much. Jared just knew by the way they looked at each other there was a definite spark.
"Just ask her out Riley," Jared continued. "I swear I'll even disappear for the night if you two want some alone time."
"I have my own apartment," Riley chuckled. "But thanks for the offer."
Jared decided not to push the issue any further. Despite working together for the last month and getting to know him, he didn't know Riley that well. He didn't want to piss him off and make things awkward for Kari just because he decided to be an asshole about things. He went back to the painfully boring job of doing data entry. Hill promised that if he got it all done by the end of the week she might consider reinstating him for field duties. After a month of being at the Triskelion Jared felt like he was ready to climb the walls. It felt like a glass prison most days. Secretly he was glad for Kari being around so he could help her out. Or feed her bullshit and watch it spin in her head until she called him out on it. Riley mostly did that for her though.
"So, if I was going to take your sister out on a date," Riley broke the silence after a few minutes. "Any suggestions? She's already told me she's more of a pizza, beer and come over naked kind of girl rather than romantic dinners and flowers."
Jared nearly choked on the lungful of air he'd just taken. It wasn't surprising that Kari had said that at all.
"Invite her to your place with beer and pizza?" Jared suggested unhelpfully with a muted laugh. "Be naked and see how it goes for you?"
"If I did that I'd worry she'd either castrate me," Riley shuddered at the mere thought of it. "Or I'd get the night of my life and never see her again."
"Could be both," Jared laughed properly this time. "I don't know, she likes hockey, fast jets and scotch. Maybe try and combine some of that together? And for the love of god do not put ice in her scotch. You'll never hear the end of it. Does this mean you're going to ask her out?"
"Maybe," Riley shrugged. "i've got my medical tomorrow to see if I can get cleared for duties again. I want to see how that goes first."
"How does it feel?" Jared decided to steer the conversation away from Kari for the moment. She'd been gone long enough that there was every chance she'd barge back into the room.
"No more fucked than the rest of me," Riley said with a quiet chuckle. Riley rotated his arm as if to prove to himself that it was functional and not still broken. "It was a pretty simple patch job. Just a dumb injury that I'll probably never hear the end of from my team."
"At least it wasn't something really dumb like breaking your tailbone trying to slid down a set of stairs on a sled," Jared chuckled. "Now that's something you would never hear the end of."
"That sounds like you know from experience," Riley glanced over to him with a small smile.
"Not me personally, but if I told you who it was you'd never believe me," Jared admitted with another chuckle. Truth be told, it was Natasha who'd done it. They'd all been drunk enough to think it was a fantastic idea. Unfortunately for Natasha she'd been the one to come off the sled halfway down the stairs and bounced down the rest of them on her ass. She'd sworn both Jared and Clint to secrecy when it happened. No one was game enough to question why she had walked around funny for 2 weeks. Even Coulson didn't question it. He just shook his head and was very adamant he didn't want to know.
"You three get up to the craziest shit," Riley shook his head as he started typing again.
Silence stretched out across the room. Jared was only half paying attention to his work. His brain was ticking over in trying to think of a way to get Kari and Riley together. And actually speak to each other. Jared sighed in frustration at the amount of work he still had to get done. He hated being here doing boring data entry. But at least he hadn't gotten a worse punishment. He could have been ended up guarding a base in Siberia for the next 3 years.
"Can I get Kari's number off you?" Riley broke the silence again.
Jared mentally high five himself on a job well done. But he wasn't going to make it that easy for Riley.
"Just ask her," Jared looked over to him with an infuriating smirk. "She won't say no."
A very irritated sigh was Jared's only reply. He stopped typing and looked over at Riley.
"And Riley?" Jared made sure he had the other man's attention before he continued. "You hurt my sister and there won't be any corner on this Earth that you can hide. I will find you and I will hunt you down and kill you. I'll even bring Romanoff along with me for the fun of it. Got it?"
The paling of Riley's face and the tight nod was enough to let Jared know he had most certainly got it. Jared flashed a charming smile over towards him to break the harsh words he'd just spoken.
"Good, just letting you know," Jared said brightly. "I'm going to tell Kari I'm working late tonight. Take your chance and run with it man."
Jared had to chew on the inside of his cheek hard to stop himself from laughing at the frustrated look on Riley's face. Riley didn't bother to answer which gave Jared time to pick his phone up and send Natasha a message.
I'm trying to get my sister laid. I'm hiding at your place tonight.
Just as Jared hit send, the door banged open and Kari walked back in.
"Who loves me?" She asked brightly holding up 2 coffee cups.
Jared smirked to himself seeing the conflict of emotions playing over Riley's face. This was far too much fun not to sit back and watch.
Authors Note
My inspiration has run away at the moment so I decided to revisit this one and tap away at it to get my mojo back.
If you're reading it. Hope you enjoyed it! I love requests for these one shots. So if you think of anything just send me a review or message.