Story about area is work in collaboration (6)
I believe the answer is:
liaise
'work in collaboration' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'story about area is' is the wordplay.
'story' becomes 'lie' (story can mean a fabrication).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'area' becomes 'a' (maths abbreviation).
'a'+'is'='ais'
'lie' placed around 'ais' is 'LIAISE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for liaise that I've seen before include "make contact" , "Foster co-operation" , "Act as a link between groups" , "Mediate" , "exchange information" .)