Sitting between three men, all of them being at least twice her size, almost made her laugh. Hadn't it been for the intimidation she was feeling and the brooding of the dark haired man, Bucky they had called him, she would have at least let out a small chuckle. But the contemplative and vexed looks he kept sending her way, and the partial silence of the other two kept her quiet and rooted to her spot. An unusual occurrence, to say the least.

She wanted to think that the annoyance and uncertainty radiating off of them was because of her. But there was also the fact that the third, older man had been in charge of picking a place to eat, and as it seemed, the two other men were not particularly fond of burgers and fries.

"So…," the older man finally started, crumpling up his napkin and grinning at Nora expectantly.

"What do you want to know?" she answered, her own uncertainty making her mirror him and crumple up her napkin, too, while the burger in front of her still lay untouched.

"Anything you can give us," he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. "Information about the owner, regulars, illegal activity, yada yada.."

Squinting at the men, Nora hesitated to answer for several reasons. She knew about the illegal activities. Frankly, everyone did, it was the Bratva after all. But she knew more than she wanted and was involved in even more. The gambling in the back room was probably the least incriminating thing she had done with the Bratva, for the Bratva.

"On one condition," she finally started and the older man, Clint, furrowed his brows. "Nothing of what I can tell you will be used to incriminate me."

The uncomfortable silence that followed made her question what thoughts had to be running through their heads. Confusion and disbelief were most likely on the forefront. But she wanted to make sure that nothing of what she said would come back to haunt her.

The silence was broken by breathy laugh coming from next to Clint. The look of disbelief on "Bucky's" face made her already stony expression harden. Shooting him a look, she pressed further, "I mean it."

"O-kay," Clint hesitantly agreed, his head bobbing along unsurely. "We'll take your intel and leave you out of it." His eyes flitted to Steve's for a second, who slightly nodded his approval as well. "What can you tell us about Yumatov?"

"Nikolay?" Nora's eyebrows shot upwards, a slight smile taking over as she shook her head with disbelief. "That idiot is the least of your worries. He looks dangerous but he's mostly retired now and is just taking care of the bar and the gambling," she told them with a shrug and let her eyes wander around the joint, falling onto the people sitting by the window front. Not many were out at three in the morning for fast food. "What exactly are you after?" she distractedly asked. "Could save us a lot of time if you just told me. The New Yorker branch of the Bratva is after all a good two-hundred, three-hundred men strong."

"We were there for Kondratyev," Bucky finally spoke up, his voice sturdy but his eyes glinting defiantly, as if he didn't expect her to be of help. At the sound of the name however, Nora's face fell until she was able to replace the blank expression with disgust and facing them again.

"Which one? The idiot father or the idiot son?" Nora asked, trying to keep her voice nonchalant but failing magnificently.

"Andrei Kondratyev," he filled her in.

"Did you get him?" she asked, her eyes searching the joint again until they fell onto someone she knew.

Confirming her enquiry, her stony expression changed to being unreadable. "Good. But I hope you're ready for what's coming," she told them and grabbed her coat, frantically slipping into it. Sending them a bright smile, she added, "Green coat, brown beard. Second window from the right. His brother."

She didn't take the time to take in the men's confused expressions. "See ya," she whispered before dashing straight for the street. She didn't feel bad. They were three men with muscles that put the regular gym buff to shame and she was a petite girl that was glad when she once in a while sat on a chair that let her feet touch the ground.

But she never made it further than the door as suddenly a broad chest was blocking her getaway route, which she narrowly avoided running smack into. "Oh," she mumbled, her face crumpled and unwilling to look up. "Hi there."

"You're reckless," the man told her and Nora laughed uncomfortably.

"Haven't heard that in a while," she told him and moved back a step before trying to go around him. But his big hand came to rest upon her shoulder, grabbing her harder than he needed to Nora winced and her whole body tensed up. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing," she stated confidently and finally looked up into the man's eyes. Green, likes his father's. "I swear, I didn't tell them anything." However, that didn't mean she wouldn't have done it - hadn't she been interrupted. She was sick of it. But he didn't have to know that.

Cringing, as his hand wandered from her shoulder to the side of her face, the man snarled, "Be glad you're useful. Go." And with that, he gave her shoulder a shove.

Waiting until her limbs didn't feel like they weighed a ton anymore, she swallowed her fear and bolted. Again. As she usually did. Ignoring the commotion that had broken out behind her.

I know I stopped updating stories bc of my thesis but I s2g, it's been 3 months and I only wrote 8% of it fml