12198/La Madrina: Steve Rogers, Drug Crusader

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La Madrina: Steve Rogers, Drug Crusader
Date of Scene: 28 July 2022
Location: New Jersey
Synopsis: Steve is investigating a drug deal in Jersey City where an elusive new queenpin is taking over the drug trade in the city. He intervenes on behalf of the FBI surveillance team, and Janet makes a 'surprise' appearance coming to his aid at the last moment.
Cast of Characters: Janet van Dyne, Steve Rogers




Janet van Dyne has posed:
Steve Rogers doesn't usually deal with these sort of things-- domestic crime, drug interdiction, organized crime. Between working with SHIELD, the Avengers, and the DEO, however, he has a lot of people who he's worked with and periodically they call in a favor from the Captain. Hence, he's in Jersey City late at night, pulling perimeter watch as a 'non-combatant observer' for a joint DEA/FBI surveillance mission. There had been some concerns about metahumans participating in felony crimes and Steve Rogers is one of the people best equipped to deal with that sort of dynamic situation.

There are eyes and ears on the meeting, but the surveillance equipment seems to be faulty. A lot of the recording is glitched as if scrambled and the camera's light-adjusting filters are going haywire trying to deal with a planetarium-looking device engineered to work in the UV spectrum.

From his position on the roof of the warehouse, Steve has a partial view of the meeting, and his keen hearing picks up on the conversation. It seems to be an argument between a few people, a bit heated but not quite confrontational yet.

"... I bring this up from Columbia, it costs me eleven a K and you want to undercut me by offering me *fourteen*? That won't even cover my shipping costs."

A woman's voice cuts in, speaking heavily Spanish-accented English. "Caiate, Oliver," she tells the man. "I know you are getting for eight-point-five, not ten, and you move fifty thousand kilos anualmente at fifteen. Your market is saturated, you have no new customers and you cannot expand north, si? I offer you fourteen per unit por que to buy you out of the street hustle. You distribute only, and only to me." Steve can't see her face, but there's a beat before Oliver speaks and he's interrupted by a gesture from the woman. "And it is pure. Mucho mas then that talcum-cut shit you sell on the boardwalk."

"My shit's pure, you bitch, how about I--" There's the sound of a gun cocking as Oliver leaps to his feet.

"Oyey, oyey, calma," the woman says as Oliver sits down from some threat out of view. "I will overlook this language once, but if you do it again, you will learn a lesson. Anyone need a reminder? Remember Ignatio?"

Steve Rogers has posed:
    "Non-combatant observer" is a great idea in /theory/, but Steve knows all too well that it's probably not going to work out that way in practice. If the only thing he can offer is eyes and ears, that'll be great, but if they brought him in to deal with metahumans they're probably expecting a fight.

    So as he relays the words being spoken to the DEA and FBI--given the surveillance equipment glitching and all--he tenses at the sound of a gun cocking. But, no, things are smoothed over, nobody's dead. Yet. Ignatio's probably dead, whoever he is.

    Brow furrowed, Cap shifts a little to try to get a better angle and see if he can catch a glimpse of the woman speaking, or a better view on Oliver himself. Or anyone else in the room. He scoots forward juuust a bit up there on the roof.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Oliver is a skinny, sallow-faced man in his early thirties with reddish-blonde hair, wearing a green polo shirt and jeans. At a better angle it's not hard to spot a Celtic cross on his forearm and rat with a crosshair on it on his other arm. A Catholic cross is on the back of one hand and on the other, the colors of Ireland.

"We remember well Ignatio, mum," says another man. He's similarly lean built in a grey dress shirt with cuffed sleeves, and he's kept his seat with his arms folded over his chest. The strong accent's a dead giveaway as to his origin in Ireland. "An' we'd prefer to keep it from happening again. But what yer offerin is going to hit our profit margins. Margins we need to keep the Irish free. We can't keep our people armed if you take away our network of buyers."

Steve manages to get an angle on the woman; she's at the head of the table, but it's hard to get much of an angle on her. Broad-brimmed black hat, black dress, opera gloves; the hat has a veil that obscures her features even more. But she has a certain commanding presence, effortlessly exuding a sense of *owning* the space she's in.

"You paddies have to give it up," she says, bluntly. "The war's over. England's not going to fall and the FBI isn't going to take it well if you try to restart the Troubles here in New England." There's some outraged exclamations from the other side of the table, and she stares at them impassively until they get it out of their systems.

"What I'm offering you is freedom. You're tied down to a cause that you can't win and a business you can't get out of. I'm buying you out. You should take the deal before--"

Abruptly there's a squeal of feedback from inside the room, and angry chatter roars in Steve's ear. <Who the hell shorted that line?> <It wasn't me, sir, I was trying to boost the gain--> <We've got hostiles emerging from the north, permission to engage?> Static crackles again; all that can be made out is <...engage them, they... hostile intentions>.

Inside, everyone at the table is on their feet and drawing guns to look in all directions. "Shit! Did you hear that? Are we bugged-- she's sold us out! I knew we couldn't trust this beaner piece of shi--?!" He starts to raise his gun in the woman's direction. Someone steps in from behind the woman's shoulder and drops the Irishman with a single clean headshot before he can get his gun up.

"Oh christ, she killed Murphy!"

"Murphy killed himself," the woman snaps. "Raise a gun to me and you get the consequences. I'm leaving. I suggest you all do the same." The woman rises and walks crisply away from the table, her bodyguard following behind her.

From elsewhere, gunshots ring out. A burst of pistol fire, then the sound of a submachine gun burping bullets wildly. <Who sent in the QRF? I did not authorize the assault!>

<Contact! We've made contact with the suspects on the north corner of the building. They've got a -- oh shit, meta! Meta in play, this guy's HUGE!> comes the panicked request.

Steve Rogers has posed:
    And that's Captain America's cue.

    He /knew/ this was going to go south. He just /knew/ it.

    At the squeal of feedback he winces away from the sound, then starts scrambling right up to the edge of the roof. Even if he was designated a 'non-combatant,' he came geared up, so he's removing the shield from his back even as he eyes the angle from where he is to that window he's been watching. Even aside from wanting to bring people in for question, he's not a fan of people dying unless they have to. He's even somewhat sympathetic to Oliver and his friends, even if they're funding their cause in a pretty rotten way.

    So. Deep breath, twist around to grab the edge of the roof, and then he launches himself down and at the window through which he's been watching the deal, feet first. Which is going to land him /right/ in the middle of everything, yes, but that's the peril of making a quick entrance. He lands crouched, the shield held up briefly to deflect any immediate reaction via gunfire.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Oh SHIT, it's Captain America!"

To Steve's credit, the Irish gangsters look absolutely flummoxed by the Greatest Soldier crashing into their meeting. They stop shooting, staring at him slack-jawed in shock. Steve's mere presence on the battlefield has been known to make whole armies surrender.

"Dumbfucks, shoot the arsehole!" someone shouts, and guns turn on Steve. They're not quite fast enough to track the super-soldier as he bounds out of the line of fire with that incredible alacrity of his. One of them even manages to wound a friend with a badly controlled burst of automatic fire from his compact submachine gun.

It's a little surprising at how fast the woman disappeared. She couldn't have run that far in those heels, but there's no sign of her. Steve's keen senses pick up a waft of something... a scent that's *almost* familiar, but it's washed away in the smell of gunsmoke before he can identify it.

<Cap? Anyone seen Cap?>

<He went into the warehouse!>

<Cap, watch out for the meta, he's a huge bruiser!>

It's at that moment that a fifty-five gallon water barrel gets fastballed at Steve like it's loosed from a cannon. Aforementioned bruiser is right there, a man seven feet tall if he's an inch and weighing near three-hundred pounds. He roars in anger and picks up another barrel, readying it to throw at Steve.

Steve Rogers has posed:
    The weirdly almost-familiar scent is enough to distract Steve /just/ long enough to get walloped by that water barrel. It's enough to throw him back at the wall next to the window he just crashed through, which, oof. He shoves the barrel off of him, though, climbing to his feet and ignoring the bruised ribs. That'll ache for a bit.

    "You get that one for free," he says, readying the shield. Before the meta can throw another barrell Steve aims the shield at the thing, throwing it so as to cut the huge guy's throwing weapon of choice in half. He follows the shield, catching it on the rebound, aiming to start walloping the brute. Going toe-to-toe might be a terrible idea, but he's got the feeling this guy isn't going to be terribly vulnerable to bullets.

    He expects he's about to find out if the Irish gangsters decide to turn their guns on the meta. Or keep tracking him.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
It's a hell of a hit, and the fact that Steve recovers his shield so effortlessly makes the guys shooting at him gawk again. Even if he's currently out to mess their day up, there's some visible admiration in their faces. One of them even drops his gun and walks off, hands raised. "Fuck this, I ain't killing Cap. I'll do the jail time," he declares, and heads towards the warehouse exit with his hands on his head.

The meta looks to be full of rage, in some kind of berseker fury. Cap's pretty strong, but the lumbering brute is a good bit stronger still. But he's slow and lumbering, all raw strength and relying on his impervious nature to take those hits. Bullets do indeed bounce off his skin; getting throat-punched by the legendary shield, on the other hand, makes his eyes bulge and he coughs violently a few times before stumbling to his knees and catching himself on one hand.

The gunfire redoubles in Cap's wake, the remaining gangsters clearly angered to the point of recklessness. More gunshots from outside; these sound like high-velocity rifle rounds, which means the government tactical team is closing in on Steve's position.

Will they get to him in time?

Steve Rogers has posed:
    "Get out of here!" Steve shouts at the other gangsters. Futile, maybe, but the one guy who walked off had the right idea. Anyone caught in the crossfire of this face-off is liable to get hurt unless they've got powers themselves.

    Setting the shield back on his arm, and making note that bullets bounce off but the shield gave him pause. So Cap goes for a shield bash, slamming the shield right across the brute's face and then following it up with a right hook. Which puts him right in reach of the big guy's hand, but that's the risk. Maybe he'll be too dazed by the shield to make a grab.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
The impact from the shield staggers the man backwards, though the right-cross does little more than make him flinch at the hit. The meta's a hell of a bruiser, the type of neckless that lets him just shrug his shoulders and weather anything that gets thrown at him. A bloody cut forms over one brow from the shield hit, proving that he is in fact not invulnerable.

But Steve does get in too close, and though the brute misses a more satisfying arm grab, he stumbles forward to get Cap in a bear hug and just... falls forward, trying to pin Cap under him. This puts Steve in a rather perilous position, as the Irish gangsters close in for the kill.

Which is approximately when a big steel table-- the sort formerly used for packing up heavy machine goods-- goes flying across the room over the bruiser's back and takes four of the Irishmen off their feet. They hit the ground hard, all almost certainly with some seriously broken bones for the impact.

"Get off him!" a familiar voice roars, and Janet-- head scraping the ceiling-- grabs the bruiser by the back of the neck and peels him off the floor. With a twist of her arm she flings him a good fifty feet, through the sidewall and into the parking lot beyond.

"Oh fuck, the Avengers are here!" Two of the goons still on their feet have the good sense to drop their guns and run off in a panic, leaving three of them hastily reloading and trying to take aim at the giant Wasp before she stomps them!

Steve Rogers has posed:
    For a moment, Steve feels something he rarely feels anymore, though it was once such a familiar feeling it's practically an old friend: panic. The 'oh god oh god' panic that sets in when surrounded by bullies set on using one as a punching bag, or when hypothermia's setting in, say. He's always been able to push through the panic, though, and even now he focuses on trying, maybe, to angle his shield to use it as a wedge and pry the brute off him--but can he manage it before the gangsters close in--

    "Janet?!" There's a brief, stunned moment--when did /Janet/ get here?!--and then Steve rolls to one side and scrambles to his feet. No time for questions, or even to see if the meta's been taken out of commission or is going to come charging back into the fight through that hole he just made in the wall. He returns the favor, pulling up his shield to use it as a battering ram as he runs at the three goons who were stupid enough not to flee.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet vaults into a diving leap, vanishes with a *whish* of air, and reappears four feet above one of the gunmen at her regular size. She's in her classic Wasp attire of black and gold, and both feet deliver a well-practiced double-heel-stop right into the man's jaw. Down he goes like a dropped rock, knocked out cold, and Janet vanishes again before she hits the ground.

Dragonfly wings buzz past Steve's ear. <Go right!> she says over their communicator, and Janet emerges at full size again in a baseball slide underneath the second gunman's line of fire. Both hands come up and she gives him a double handful of her bioplasma blast, lifting him up off his feet and bringing him down with smoke coming up from singed brows and clothes. She rolls through and slaps a hand onto his brow, giving him a stunning electrical jolt before twisting into a crouch to make sure Steve's OK as he deals with Goon #3.

"*This* is what was more important than dinner?" she demands of him with an irate expression.

Steve Rogers has posed:
    Steve goes right when told, barreling over the third goon and knocking him into a wall--whoever owns this place is going to have some repair bills to foot. Once he's sure the guy's down, he turns back to Janet and says, "I owed a guy a favor! And /look/ at that /mountain/ you hauled off of me!" He gestures toward the hole through which the enraged brute flew. "You think the FBI's gonna handle /that/ on their own?"

    He frowns at her. "What're you doing here, anyway? Not that I'm not grateful, but were you really /that/ upset about dinner that you tracked me all the way down here?" He peers around. "And where'd the other ones go? The woman, and her bodyguard, the ones the Irish were meeting with--they're the ones with the /money/."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"What am I-- I was worried about you, /ass/!" Janet sputters. "You think I don't know what it means when you say 'No it's nothing big, just a favor for the Feds, blah blah Jersey City'?" she asks rhetorically. "I can count on ONE HAND the number of times that 'sit and watch' has actually been nothing but 'sit and watch'." She steps up close to Steve and pokes him in the middle of his chestplate, staring up at him pointedly. "I'm irked because you're here having fun /without me/. We're a duo, buster, don't forget it. You clearly needed a wingman more than I need to sit at home doing my nails."

It's hard to take her completely seriously; Janet's gaze is focused on Steve's face, and her breathing and pupil dilation definitely suggests that anger and battle-adrenaline are being replaced by some other hormone.

The FBI and DEA agents swarm in and immediately start subduing the prisoners and rendering aid to the wounded. Through the knocked-down wall, Steve can see them fitting the big bruiser with a soporofic respirator and four men staggering towards a paddy wagon while bearing his weight.

Steve Rogers has posed:
    "I mean, you're not /wrong/, but I didn't think it was anything I couldn't handle," Steve replies with a smirk. "I mean, I would've had him, just another minute or two and I could've pried him off." Uh-huh. Sure. "Look, I don't think this thing is over. We need to find out who sent in the big guy, and what happened to the woman trying to buy out the Irish. She's the /real/ target here, I've got a feeling. So next time I'll invite you along, okay?"

    He leans down to give Janet a kiss before she can protest any further, then pulls back to look around at the FBI and DEA agents. "Keep me in the loop on this. Where there's one meta, there'll be more. Did you guys need anything else from me tonight?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
The embrace mollifies Janet for the moment, and she emits a frustrated little sound when he breaks off a bit too early. Professional decorum, what? A hand rests on Steve's arm and she gives his bicep a gentle squeeze of affection, and when he turns to address the Feds, she does as well. Though at his offer of furthur aid, Janet glowers at them pointedly from just out of Steve's line of sight.

"N-no?" the lead agent says, looking from Cap to Janet, back again. "No, uh, no sir," he clarifies. "We've got the meta detained and we're rounding up the Irish. Major Crimes and the ATF will be very happy to have these guys in jail, these sons of the Lucky Charms Revolution are categorized by the US DOJ and INTERPOL as domestic terrorists." He glances again at Janet and steps towards Cap, trying to be respectful of their space. A handshake is offered to Steve and then to Janet. "And Miss Wasp, you were awesome. I feel really lucky to have the Avengers here. You saved lives tonight, I'm sure," he tells them.

Janet smiles winningly at the fellow. "Always happy to lend a hand," she tells the fellow with an urbane expression. "

Steve Rogers has posed:
    Steve shakes the agent's hand easily and nods. "Like I said, keep me informed, and give me a call on the next one. I'm curious now." He glances sidelong at Janet, then winks at the agent and says /sotto voce/, "She really is pretty awesome, huh?"

    He steps back and turns to Janet, easily slipping an arm around her waist. "Well, now I've worked up an appetite. Let's go get that dinner, huh? And I can fill you in on what we know about this whole thing."