Private Sector

Hill knew she was in trouble when she opened the door to her new boss's office and saw the files from the Providence Base op strewn all over the desk. But there wasn't much point in admitting guilt, so she put a brave face on it. "You wanted to see me, Pepper?"

"Today I'm Ms. Potts." Pepper's face was devoid of its normally warm smile as she waved Hill to the seat in front of the desk.

"Very well." Hill nodded. Personally she preferred that anyway—no one had ever called Fury "Nicky" (at least not to his face) and while she couldn't complain about Potts' effectiveness as a leader, at the same time she felt uncomfortable with the informality that seemed to be the rule around Stark Industries. "I take it I'm in trouble?"

"Something like that, yes." Pepper fixed her with an eye. "You know, Tony's not overly fond of SHIELD, and I can't say I'm their biggest fan either. I mean, even before we learned the organization was riddled with Nazis and may have had a hand in killing Tony's father, there was the whole almost-nuking-New-York matter."

"You still hired me." Hill shrugged.

"Yes. We did." Pepper nodded. "And we did so on the understanding that there would no more secrets. That you would not be working an agenda—not running some sort of secret warrior operation or Section H under our noses. That you would trust us and that we would trust you."

"Talbot's been at you about Providence base." Hill held up her hands. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the facility, but honestly I didn't think it was even still active. There's scarcely anything there worth counting, it's a glorified bunker." She sighed. "And yes, I imagine Talbot's mad, but just... leave him to me. I'll work out a deal with him, no need for the lawyers to get involved."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you." Pepper gave her a cold look. "In fact, I'll bet you'd rather Talbot didn't talk to me at all."

Warning bells were going off in Hill's head, but she played it cool—no sense in admitting to something that hadn't been discovered. "Well, if you WANT to talk to him... he's kind of an insensitive jackass..."

"Oh, I'm aware." Pepper nodded. "I've had to endure three hours of his delightful company, listening to him rave about how you knocked out four of his men and helped a known fugitive escape."

"Things got a little out of hand." Hill shrugged. "But as I said, let me deal with him, I should be able to..."

"Among other things," Pepper spoke right over her, "he demanded—not requested, demanded—that we keep you under surveillence, and inform him if you came into contact with a 'Phil Coulson.'" Pepper slapped a photo on the desk. "Even gave us this recent shot of him. Wasn't that nice?"

Hill closed her eyes.

"Answers." Pepper snapped. "Now. And no more lies. I like to trust my employees."

"Technically Fury didn't lie." Hill answered. "Coulson was dead."

"Col. Talbot disagrees." Pepper frowned.

"He was." Hill insisted. "For... forty seconds. He was in a medically induced coma throughout most of the battle of New York, we didn't know if he was going to make it until a day or two later. Fury just thought it would give more punch if they said he was dead."

"Really." Pepper swiveled around her laptop. "Then what's this? I had Jarvis go digging through all that SHIELD data that was released? Coulson was declared dead prior to the battle for New York. Pension, life insurance, everything."

"Right." Hill waved. "Part of the cover. Tony was hacking SHIELD files, we had to make everything look real."

Pepper looked at Hill for a moment, then smiled. "Maria." she said sweetly. "What would you say if I called you a horrible liar?"

"I would ask for your advice on how to improve, Ms. Potts." Hill answered crisply.

"And if I asked you for a straightforward answer on this Coulson business?"

"I would give you a straightforward lie, Ms. Potts."

Pepper gave a long breath through her nose and massaged her temple.

Hill wasn't sure if it was honest pity for her employer or an honest desire to stay employed, but she spoke up. "Look, honestly, even I don't know the whole story behind Phil's... recovery. And what I do know..." She averted her eyes. "...you're better off not knowing."

Pepper's eyes narrowed.

"Just... know that Fury wasn't lying about Phil being dead, and by the time Phil was not dead..." Hill shrugged, "...telling would have brought on too many questions and problems." She gestured at the laptop. "You're probably wondering why there's no record of the living Coulson in those files that Jarvis searched through. Fury buried every record he could find, and ensured that Phil's mission involved no red tape. And no records." Hill shrugged. "That should give you an idea,"

Pepper studied her for a long moment. "That's all I'm going to get from you, isn't it."

"Unless it concerns world peace, Ms. Potts, then yes." Hill waited a moment. "Are you going to fire me?"

"I'd like to." Pepper huffed, glancing back to her desk. "But no. For the moment, you're still too valuable."

"Thank you, Ms. Potts." Hill nodded. She hesitated a moment longer. "Are you... going to tell Tony?"

Pepper didn't answer right away. "I... I don't know." She sighed. "Just... get out of my office."

Hill gave a nod. "Of course." She walked out and closed the door. Then she straightened her suit and walked back to her office with clipped, brisk, steps.

Pepper wouldn't tell Tony. Hill had seen it in her eyes. Pepper just wasn't willing to accept that yet. Both she and Tony were new to the world of global security, new to the world of threats, lies, and secrets. They were just starting to learn what that could mean.

But that's what she was around for, wasn't it?

She just hoped Pepper never discovered that Fury was still alive too.


A/N: I decided to expand this story. Originally this Hill vignette was going to be a separate story, but with the Recruitment Drive series I'm doing right now, I also wanted to do a bit with Hawkeye and Black Widow (who will be coming later), and decided to expand this into its own one-shot series.

It strikes me as very unlikely that Tony would not sift through all the info Widow released on the internet, and equally unlikely that some mention of Coulson would not be in there SOMEWHERE. So I tried to explain how that might work.

But even outside of that, it's incredibly unlikely that Talbot would fail to mention Coulson to one of Hill's new superiors. And since, if Coulson ever shows up again in the movies (pleasepleaseplease), Tony is going to have to be VERY shocked, it makes sense that that would be Pepper. Who, honestly, would probably take it worse than Tony.

Anyway. Enjoy! The next "Recruitment Drive" installment should be out soon, and also another chapter of Mysterious Mynds (I'm between classes right now, so I have lots of spare time).