Chapter Text
The office of the Nevada Gaming Control Board is luridly white and not at all appealing; par for the course in Vegas, Steve supposes. The walls have that spray on texture that scratches you if you brush against it. The carpet is royal blue and filled with hair.
Lieutenant Phil Coulson claps Steve on the back as he hurries him through the hallway. Their destination is a shabby cubicle in the back corner, and something tells Steve that Coulson chose that location for his desk. The table is littered with coffee cups and stacks of paperwork. A 10-year-old monitor and dusty keyboard are almost buried in the mess.
“Take a seat, make yourself comfortable,” Coulson says genially. Steve shuffles forward to avoid another hearty slap on the shoulder, and, as he pulls out a plastic office chair, it catches on the fraying carpet, making a subtle crunch like velcro.
He’s barely had time to sit down when an intimidating man with an eye patch barrels around the office partition, stopping abruptly in front of Coulson. “We’ve got an issue,” he declares.
Coulson sighs, though his eyes have adopted a glimmer they didn’t have before. He’s frustrated. He’s enjoying it. Coulson is suspiciously easy to read for a cop.
“Nobels?” Coulson asks.
The man—who Steve has gathered is the chief of the department—nods.
“Well, in that case, Mr. Fury”—Coulson pulls Steve to his feet, forcibly holding out Steve’s hand for the chief to shake—“I’ve got just the man for the job.”
Fury shakes Steve’s hand with a firm, albeit reluctant, grip. He gives Coulson a side eye. “Put him in clean. Don’t train him up on all your crazy ideas. Let the kid decide for himself.” Ominous, Steve thinks. Could he have been assigned any other supervising officer?
“What’s a Nobels?” Steve asks, as Fury hustles away in a rush of billowing sport jacket and cloying sandalwood cologne. Coulson’s eyes are positively twinkling.
“The Nobels. They’re the reason you’re here.” He fishes through a stack of papers, pulling out a file from the bottom and toppling the whole pile. They slide off the table with a swish. “A gang of organized criminals on the strip. Never violent, but god they’re good at swindling casinos out of a check. Conned pretty much every game in the house. We think, at least. Never quite can trace them.”
“Why the sing-song-y nick-name?” Steve asks.
“They play under pseudonyms. Always a different Nobel-Prize-winning scientist.”
Steve wrinkles his forehead. “So, every day, Albert Einstein walks into a casino and beats the house. The casino pays out because they have to and then they report it. Why does this go to us? Shouldn’t this be a private security concern?”
“If it were one casino. It’s not. It’s all of them.”
“Huh,” says Steve and, after a moment: “Let’s hear your crazy idea.”
Coulson grins like the Cheshire Cat. “They’re rock climbers.”
Steve fights the urge to roll his eyes. Bat-shit. Bat-shit insane. “Rock climbers?”
“Hear me out. The casinos always test the cards, right, and swab the chips after they’ve been used for a big payout. Well, after the Nobels sweep through, there’s one consistency; no ink, no markers, nothing to pin on them but magnesium carbonate.”
“Magnesium carbonate?”
“Yes. Got a million uses but here’s the most concentrated—gym chalk. It’s used for drying sweat on hands.”
“Right. I know.” Steve has been around a weight room once or twice in his life.
Coulson presses on. “Plus, they’re seasonal. Only show up in the fall and the spring. That’s Red Rock season. They’re following the weather.”
“Doesn’t prove anything,” comments Steve.
Coulson shrugs. “Do we have any other leads?”
“I don’t know. Do we?”
“No.”
There’s a pregnant pause, awkward and not nearly as long as it feels.
Steve clears his throat. “So. Do you climb?”
A slow smile spreads over Coulson’s face. “Nope. But you will.”