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[b]Washington D.C.
March 27th, 2005
08:41am[/b]

Adorning the walls of Maria Hill's office were pictures of her in army fatigues in far flung corners of the world. In each she was surrounded by smiling friends, often with arms interlocked, or sat in a beach chair somewhere with a beer can in her hand. Bucky could count on one hand the times he'd seen her smile since they had met. The pictures were a humbling reminder of the double lives most SHIELD agents led. Hill looked like a completely different person in those pictures and it was likely she was one when not prowling the halls of the Triskelion. The absence of family pictures was notable but Bucky put that down to times having changed more than anything else. A seated Hill stared at a tablet on the desk in front of her whilst Bucky watched on. 

"Thanks to your little performance last night I’ve been up all night trying to track and remotely delete any footage of your little run in with Cornelius Stirk. I apologise in advance if I come across as seeming a little irritable but I assure you that Director Fury was doubly so when he found out. You’re lucky it’s me you’re talking to or not him."

"Cornelius Stirk? That was that thing’s name?"

Maria nodded curtly and slid her hand along her tablet. A run sheet of Stirk's popped up on the screen. "He’s a small-time criminal out of Gotham with telepathic powers of some sort. We’re not sure what brought him to Washington but we certainly could have dealt with him without announcing to the world that Captain America was back."

Bucky shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "They were going to find out sooner or later."

Maria Hill let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. She made no attempt to hide her exasperation. The bags beneath her eyes were heavy with tiredness and Bucky's indifference seemed to grate on her. There were more factors at play here than Barnes had accounted for and his desire to play the hero last night had cost her far more than a night's sleep. There had been a plan in place for Captain America's eventual reveal that had been thrown into disarray by what had happened in Washington last night.

"Of course, but HYDRA and the Red Skull didn’t announce their return by pounding on some anonymous SHIELD agent in the middle of the street, James. They made sure they had an audience. We had hoped for something slightly more worthy of the return of Captain America than grainy footage of you beating on Cornelius Stirk being beamed round the world."

"I was just trying to do the right thing," Bucky muttered as Stirk's illusion of Steve Rogers flashed through his mind for the umpteenth time. Every time he'd closed his eyes since leaving the restaurant he'd seen it. "You didn’t see what he’d done to those people. If you had you’d understand."

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"This is bigger than you, James, this is bigger than all of us. It might sound crass to say it but it's bigger than a handful of people in a restaurant too. We could have had a SHIELD unit there within five minutes if you’d told us rather than steaming in half-cocked. We need you to be smarter than that. We had you put that uniform on to give the world hope, not to deal with street level threats like Stirk."

"I did what was right," Bucky said sternly. "I won’t apologise for that."

Hill placed her head in her hands and sighed again. "Fine. Well, we managed to have most of the footage taken down but given the nature of the internet we’re always going to be one step behind. Facebook and the like are the least of our problems. We can lean on them."

"What’s the issue then?"

With a stroke of her finger Maria Hill brought up an audio file on her tablet. "Listen to this."

"Maria, it's Lois Lane from the Daily Planet. I thought given our history I ought to call you as a courtesy. The Planet have received some footage from the incident in Washington last night. We know Captain America is back, Maria, and no matter how many times SHIELD tries to shut this thing down, we're going to follow it up until someone eventually rolls over and cops to it. You know as well as I do that it's only a matter of time. You have my number if you decide to get out ahead of this one."

Bucky stared at Maria expressionlessly. "What are you telling me? That you can lean on these… [i]websites[/i] but not on a single reporter?"

The beginnings of a smile appeared on Maria Hill's face.

"Lois Lane is not just some reporter, Barnes, she’s a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist with international reach. We can dismiss the videos as a hoax, some social media ploy, but Lane is not so easily dismissed. She’s a terrier. Once she has something in her sights she doesn’t let it go. Think Ben Ulrich in a pencil skirt."

"None of this means anything to me," Barnes said with a bemused look. "What are you saying? What’s our play here?"

What had been the beginnings of a smile spread into a broad, bashful one and Bucky couldn't help but smile back at Maria. Suddenly it dawned on him how unusual it was to see her smile and he reasoned that there must have been a reason for it. His own smile began to fade as he realised that Agent Hill had something planned for him that he wasn't going to like. When her bashful smile finally broke and she opened her mouth to speak his fears were confirmed.

"You’re going to sit down with Lois Lane tonight for a televised interview that will be seen the world over."