Can't Help Falling Into Her (Wanda Maximoff x Reader)

Chapter 1: A Doubtful Task

19 hours. 26 minutes.

That's the amount of pain-staking time that you'd spent drilling through the prolonged files, security footage, and witness interviews to not surpass an opportunity to nab the predicted drug boss. The time was 9:37 PM on a Thursday night, April 9, 2021. The evidence provided just seemed to be an endless dance of dead-end footage and rebutted remarks in arrogant interviews from those who lacked true intelligence of Victor Mancini's whereabouts.

Mancini was an intelligent man, but a naïve one in his hiring tactics. Most of his accomplices were making fatally decisive errors left and right, only drawing the New York City Police and FBI closer to nailing his location. The only positive thing the men had going for them was their lack of brains when it came to the interrogations and refusing to offer up prominent evidence.

"Still here, y/n?" You lift your eyes groggily, straining to refocus on the figure of a fellow peer, Jamison McLaughlin, standing just behind the monitor atop your desk.

He wasn't new, but he wasn't exactly a seasoned officer in the field per say. He had only graduated a class back from you in the police academy. You'd finished up in 205, his finalizing in the year 2014, and yet here he was. McLaughlin held the same rank, title, and even paygrade that you were receiving as a newly instated detective. It wasn't jealousy, no, just- discern distaste for the NYPD's decisions for giving him the opportunity so easily that you'd worked determinedly for.

A grimace sprawls across your features which only makes the inexperienced officer shrink back. His features soften, but a grin plays across his lips which makes your stomach recoil even before he asks, "- do you ever sleep?"

His retort only makes you avert your gaze back into the suspects paperwork sprawled in front of the computer, "No." You offer sharply, almost annoyed by the question. Some of us don't get our jobs handed to us on a silver platter, Jamison. The thought ebbs as you bite your cheek to hold back the comment.

For the endless hours of work, you weren't really being left with a choice. Mancini was continuing to empower the underground drug ring in lower Manhattan, running everything from narcotics to assault weapons through dealers and buyers. Each week their seemed to be an assault or murder that was involved with those in his business, and the fear was beginning to trouble ever-day citizens as the news plastered it on everyone morning and evening broadcast.

"Well- best to you," McLaughlin offers, slinging the leather strap of his laptop bag over his shoulder, and gripping it firmly before continuing, "don't want them to get the Avengers involved in this."

Is he serious? The comment makes you lift your attention again, brows furrowed in minor disbelief to the statement, as if the NYPD would be green enough to involve the group. A drug ring case was obviously below their paygrade, even with the murders incurring. How could they hope to get the multi-million-dollar, world-saving, Avengers, to stumble onto an NYPD drug bust.

"They wouldn't."

"Oh, but they've already discussed it." Jamison rejoinders, now gripping the top frame of your monitor, with an all too eager expression across his face. "Come on- it's been three weeks now with no progress," he shrugs away, replacing his hand to the strap of his bag once again, "You've been working hard, y/n, but we've made no progress, and that's just the truth." His features soften, he's not being a dick, but he isn't generally being aware of the hard work you've been putting into the case.

"We don't need them for this," you offer, as you shift your jaw in slight frustration. It felt like your own peers were turning their backs to the work you'd put into Mancini's case. "They've already dragged the FBI in, is that not enough?" Your tone is drawn out in utter disapproving nature, but McLaughlin seems unphased.