Eris ▷ s.rogers [1] ✔️

29.| LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE

ERIS SURVEYED THE MAN ON THE STREET across from her.

She'd been following him for three days now. Though he'd been easy enough to track down, she'd been ordered not to make a move. Not yet, at least.

Eris didn't know what she was waiting for.

But she was compliant.

Tugging up her hood, Eris slouched a little deeper into her jacket. Her target had moved across the street, looking over a stand of fruits. He wore a dark jacket and a baseball cap, gloves on his hands.

Eris leaned back on her heels and studied him.

Cold, emotionless, disconnected.

He exchanged a few words with the stand owner and nodded, pocketing a few fruits and stepping back. As he moved on, she did too, keeping enough distance between them that she could've been nothing more than another pedestrian.

But suddenly, he froze. Eris went rigid too and watched as he gazed at a man in another stand, not fifteen feet away.

She followed his gaze, studied the man.

He was jittery.

Suspicious.

In a matter of five seconds, he was moving and leaving his cart behind, vanishing into the crowd. Eris's first thought was to go after him. But she had orders to keep an eye on her target.

So when he moved over to the now empty cart, she stood in silence and watched.

Behind her, the static of a TV interrupted her thoughts. Eris gazed backward, just for a moment, to see the flashing lights of breaking news on the screen. A small group had gathered around the cart blaring the news.

She stepped closer and studied the screen.

The first image was a man— the very man Eris was tasked to follow, she realized with a start. Then the image changed. To a photo of damage and destruction.

A man's voice came over the images.

"First, we've got the daughter of the Red Skull wandering our streets. And now, we've the Winter Soldier back in action. It's no mere coincidence that the pillars of HYDRA are showing their faces now. This is a war."

The face of the man speaking came on screen and Eris recognized him in a second. Faint, but true. General Talbot. The name rang through her mind.

Her heart beat into her throat.

"Are you saying the terrorists are connected, sir?'

"What I'm saying is that these psychopaths need to be apprehended, no matter what it takes. The Avengers tried to hide on of them and how did that go? She's gone. Having aided alongside this attack for all we know."