<div class="floatleft">(http://i48.tinypic.com/23llftt.jpg)</div><br/><br/><hr/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Name:</strong> Maria Hill<br/><strong>Title:</strong> Director of S.H.E.I.L.D. <br/><strong>Location:</strong> The Armoury<br/><strong>Time:</strong> 7:20 PM EST(nearly two hours after Tony's departure)<br/><strong>Tags:</strong> Loki</span></span><br/><hr/><br/><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Jacket</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div class="floatleft">(http://i45.tinypic.com/wtd543.jpg)(http://i46.tinypic.com/180utd.jpg)</div> Ignore the jeans, and the pirate like white shirt. I just REALLY wanted a visual aid for this jacket, and it took me almost two months to find.<br/></div></div><br/>Maria Hill slid a brass bullet into a stainless steel clip that was painted black. Her rapid hands had had years of practice. There were two dis-assembled government issued Colt forty-five pistols on the table in front of her. Having just been cleaned, the guns were ready to be fired. She had only the task of putting them back together. Maria's movements in doing so were faster than Rutherford could follow, and he had been trained to clean the same gun no more than five months ago. He watched her from the corner of the table, his eyes in disbelief.<br/><br/>Her first pistol was completed in less then fifteen seconds, and the safety was on, carefully placed in the same place it had just been in pieces. She picked the second piece up more slowly, but not without swift tactful precision.<strong>"It's easy to put something together when you've done it a hundred times."</strong>She said to Rutherford, he was shocked at first, having never heard this tone of voice from her. She sounded human, as if she was gardening. She glanced at him with smug confidence. He looked at her expressionless eyes and faked a smile. She turned backed to the gun steadily<br/><br/><em>"What do you mean to say, ma'am?"</em>Asked Rutherford, more confident of himself than he ever thought he could be. His voice sounded human as well. It was a slow motion moment, something that soldiers often go months without.<br/><br/><strong>"I mean to say that everything requires a cool hand to guide it."</strong>she paused, taking much more time with this pistol, as if she had never done this before.<strong>"Not people, people act on their own, most of the time as if they didn't even have hands. But ideas, weapons, computers, Stark, The Avengers. I've assembled these pistols more times than I can count."</strong><br/><br/>Maria slapped the clip into her the gun with contained rage. It was a solid 'clunk' that echoed through the armoury more than twice. Each one of her hands pulled their pistols into grip.<br/><br/>Her right hand flashed down to her thigh and she closed the holster with a quick touch. Her left arm moved more slowly, sliding the gun under her brand new jacket, hiding it from sight, packing eleven<em>'mortar shells'</em>just underneath her right breast. Another click sounded and Maria turned toward Rutherford. She was dressed in standard issued SHIELD pants, but her 'jumpsuit-top' had been replaced with a black tactical vest. A polymer was tightly worn around her entire body, from her wrists, to her jawbone, all the way to the middle of her thighs. Made of Chitosan and Tencel, Maria's under-garment was fire-resistant,  anti-bacterial, and capable of skin cell rejuvenation. It had been developed in Texas four months prior.<br/><br/>Everything but her new leather coat was taken from the body armour lockers on the other end of the armoury. Private Julian K. Rutherford had been there as she changed shamelessly. He had see her in the hall, nearly naked. It had jaded him of her. She treated him like a dog, and he was actually starting to enjoy it. In a way, he idolized Maria Hill. He had found her attractive for a short time. But, she turned into another friend by the fox-hole. She was neutral, a-sexual, passive, a commanding officer. She had the right to treat him like this. So, he turned his back when she changed. He saluted her nearly every fifteen minutes for one reason or another. When she needed a new jacket, he had provided it. Julian was an 'eccentric man'. No one in the armed forces had really known anything about him. Maria had learned only an hour ago that he had a collection of women's clothing at the foot of his cot. She didn't ask him why.<br/><em><br/>"But you've never assembled the Avengers?"</em>Julian Rutherford bounced the words off of Maria with the question that seemed to be on the tip of her tongue.<br/><br/>She smiled at him.<strong> "No one's ever assembled the Avengers. The only person that's ever come close is Loki. But, you're on to me."</strong>Maria gave Rutherford a careful shine. Her teeth showed, and a glow emanated from her eyes. Again, everything was shockingly human. Rutherford wondered if Maria was always an entirely different person when she had guns in her hands.<strong>"You know that I promoted you, right Julian."</strong>Maria started to walk towards the entrance of the armoury, Rutherford knew to follow her in silence.<strong> "I'll take that as a no. It's nothing drastic, but if you perform well, it will be. Do you understand what that means?" </strong>Maria faced him as they stopped by the door.<br/><br/><em>"I think so, ma'am."</em>He had no idea what she was talking about, she hadn't even told him what his new title was yet.<br/><br/><strong>"It means that you get your shit together."</strong>She looked him up and down. His back straightened.<strong> "You're my director of communications. The communications director for me. You're my assistant."</strong>Rutherford was let down. His face was more telling than he had wanted. Maria paused,<strong> "I left a itinerary on my desk."</strong>She paused again,<strong> "you're dismissed."</strong><br/><br/>Before either of them took another breathe, Rutherford offered her another salute, and about faced his way out of the door. Surely, he had a lot work to do now. He felt unfortunate for a strange reason. It felt like the back-handed sting of a nightmare. A cold chill swiped up his back as he exited Maria's presence.<br/><br/>The Helicarrier was in motion at high speed. Director Hill had made a laundry list of commands in the ten minutes between dressing and cleaning her pistols. Lake Superior was over two hundred miles to the West now, the floating headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. was headed straight for New York City, as the crow flies.<br/><br/>Maria stood in the Armoury alone, and then again, she felt like she was being watched. She put the door to her back side and started to walk toward the back of the room.<strong>"Stark?"</strong>She called to the empty air in front of her.<strong>"Did you forget your dignity on the way out?"</strong>Her smile was unstoppable.<strong> "Did you find out a secret door in the ventilation shafts?"</strong>She had heard nothing, but she was positive that some one was with her. It was the second time she had had this sensation today. In confidence, Maria allowed her rational mind to accuse Ironman of returning to tease her again. However, she suddenly felt a stronger sensation, it was distinct, it was doubt. For, this time, the unseen eyes were noticeably stronger, and she could feel a slight chill, the same one that Julian had felt on his way out. She knew that her company wasn't Stark. Her right hand flew down to her thigh, and she slid her fingertips across the hilt of her Colt.<br/>