Chapter Text
“Morning Steve, good weekend?”
Steve Rogers looked over at the smiling man. He dumped his bag onto his desk and shrugged out of his jacket. Fall had begun and brought some chilly weather with it. Steve pushed the sleeves of his thin cream sweater up, his arms pale and freckled.
“Hey Scott, yeah wasn’t too bad. Got out for a walk on the Saturday and had a lazy day in bed yesterday so…”
“You still seeing that nurse? Cheryl? Sharon?”
“Sharon, yeah. She had yesterday off work so…” Steve smiled at his co-worker, one eyebrow raised as Scott perched on the edge of Steve’s desk.
“Oh…lazy day in bed, gotcha…I don’t remember the last time I got to do that, you know what with Cassie staying every weekend, hey you think an 8 year old might take to a new game of ‘lazy day in bed’ on a Sunday morning…might actually get a lie in for once.” Scott chuckled at the thought of his boisterous daughter staying in bed a minute passed 7am, “Nah…not gonna happen.”
Steve sat down at his desk and switched his laptop on, plugging it into the docking station and booting up the huge, curved monitor that dominated the back of his desk.
“Hey, did you see that piece Carter did for HYDRA over the weekend? The fluff piece on ‘Where are they now? I read it and it was good if fluffy. Still smacked of Carter’s way with words.”
“Yeah well…”
“I heard from Luis, you know Luis? In sports? Well he heard from a cousin’s girlfriend who has a friend, Renata, who cleans for Alexander Pierce that Mr Pierce was not happy with you scooping that Tony Stark story over Carter and that he demoted her. She’s still under contract so can’t leave and has been reduced to writing fluff pieces. I mean the writing was good but I didn’t even know half of who she was writing about. The only one I kinda knew was Chris Evans.”
“Didn’t he have a disastrous marriage and was cheated on and then dropped out of acting to do pottery and smoke weed?” Steve asked as his laptop booted up. He really needed to get a new one as the one he had was taking its sweet time in booting up and it was only a matter of time before he knew he’d be faced with the blue screen of death.
“Yeah that’s the one…sad really but apparently he’s really happy, he and his second dog, Oliver. Peggy actually got an interview with him and he’s a full blown hippy now but he’s happy…There was Paul Rudd, but he didn’t really drop off the face of the earth, more that he went from being an actor to being a full time dad. His wife made more money than he ever did so…but the best one…”
Steve punched in his password only partly listening to Scott. Steve had found out early on in his career for SHIELD Newspapers Inc that if he let Scott ramble on for a few minutes when he arrived then he was generally left alone for the rest of the day. It also helped that Scott worked in the entertainment section and Steve worked in politics and the real news, so he could afford to let Scott ramble and pass the time of day with him, knowing Scott wasn’t about to undercut him and steal a story out from under him.
“…no one knows where he is, or what he’s been doing. His management wouldn’t even get back to Peggy and you could tell from what she wrote that she was pissed off.”
“Rogers…,” Steve looked up to see the editor, Nick Fury looking at him from the doorway of his office, “my office now…Scott...get back to work.”
Scott stared wide eyed, “Yes sir.”
“And well done on the Britney expose.”
Scott smiled. He’d been working on a piece about Britney Spears and her family and what they had done to her for a while now and had only turned it into Nick two days previously. “Thanks.”
“Publishing in this weekend’s edition, online only though.”
Scott pumped his fist, overjoyed to have a piece online.
“Hey, well done.” Steve got up from his seat and walked over to Nick’s office, helping himself to a coffee as he entered.
“Have a coffee why don’t you?” Nick stated dryly as Steve sat down, “Take a seat, you want my seat Rogers? Would that be more comfortable for you?” Nick snarked at him as Steve smiled, sipping the good brew.
“Ah come on Nick, you love me. Last I saw my Stark piece was up for a Pulitzer., and Obadiah Stane was looking at 30 years for terrorism.” Steve looked at the tall Black man sat in front of him, a faint scar bisecting down across where an eye should be; a reminder that sometimes the news was a dangerous place to be.
“Yeah?” Nick looked at the certificates lining the walls of his office, “Come back when you got three of the damn things.”
Steve chuckled and put his cup on Nick’s desk, his bright blue eyes fixing Nick with an amused look.
“So, you gonna spill or leave me guessing cause I’m betting you didn’t call me in here to chat about the Britney saga Scott did.”
Nick smiled, shark like.
“Funny you should mention Scott. Did you happen to see the Carter piece in HYDRA over the weekend?”
“No, I was busy…with her sister.”
“Here,” Nick threw a copy of the weekend magazine across his desk, “You might wanna read the piece, it’s on page six.”
Steve opened the magazine and thumbed through to page six, opening it with a frown as colourful, dated photographs greeted him of actors, actresses, singers and other entertainment people, all smiling under heading “Where are they now?”. The article covered at least six pages and Steve scanned it for a few minutes before looking at Nick. He was puzzled as to why Nick was questioning him on a fluff piece in a throwaway weekender.
“Take a look at number 4. Bucky Barnes. He disappeared ten years ago. Had a good career up to then, sell out tours, platinum selling albums and a star on Hollywood Boulevard then nothing. No one knows where he went or why and, until now, no one had been able to get anything on him.”
Steve’s interest was piqued even though it wasn’t normally something he’d even deign to read. Especially as it was something written by Peggy Carter. The only reason Steve was dating Sharon was because the two sisters hated each other.
“Why now?” Steve asked, his mouth opening again as Nick looked at him, “and more importantly how did you get something on him and who gave it to you?”
“His manager…well ex manager, Maria Hill, she owes me one, we go way back. This magazine hit the stands over the weekend and the internet blew up. Now I know you’re not a social media kinda guy but it went viral. People clamouring to find out where he is and what he’s been doing and sales of the last album, The End of The Line, have picked up. Number one group on Spotify for Sunday alone, nearly 500 million listens.”
“So…” Steve was wary.
“So, Maria called me, this morning, with a proposition. She’s spoken with Mr Barnes who has agreed to be interviewed by one of mine.”
“Why? I mean why now? He’s been missing for ten years so why now?”
“One of the band is threatening to go public with what happened and it may not turn out well for Mr Barnes. Maria wants to get his side of the story out, hence the agreement. Although knowing Maria, it’s more her twisting his arm than him actually agreeing.”
“And you have no idea what happened?”
“No. One of the caveats is we’re not allowed to ask directly about it. The person I send will move in with Mr Barnes and live with him for a while, getting to know him, and if that person is able to get Mr Barnes to open up about what happened then…” Nick looked at the blonde man in front of him. Steve had worked with him, firstly alongside him as Nick had gotten his Pulitzers and then as Nick’s top journalist once Nick had moved out of the field and behind a desk; having one working eye was not conducive to staying safe in a war zone much to Nick’s chagrin.
Steve narrowed his eyes at Nick and took a long swallow of coffee before helping himself to another. He had a bad feeling about all this. He made his coffee and sat back down, aware he had Nick’s gaze on him.
Steve put his cup down on the desk and pulled at his right sleeve until it was back above his elbow.
“Then why are you telling me about it? This is Scott’s domain. I don’t do fluff pieces and I certainly don’t do Entertainment. I have more stories I’m working on, AIM for one. I can’t afford to go along and interview some strung out singer who dropped out of society more than a decade ago. I know you said it went viral but really? How many people are actually interested in some drop out?”
“Last I looked, #whereisbuckybarnes? had been tweeted 120.7 million times, and the article itself has had almost 37 million views in 24 hours. People want to know, and you’re going to interview him.”
“No.” Steve stated calmly.
“No?” Nick glared at him.
“I said no, Nick. This is not important. Some old singer. I have a story I’m working on, Aldric Killian and AIM and whether it has connections to Stane. I’m meant to be interviewing Killian soon and I can’t miss that.”
Nick looked at him, thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers together.
“I know that look Nick, what did you do?” Steve sat forward, his eyes narrowed in anger.
“I did nothing, but Stark may have invited Killian to a party on the day of your interview. His office called this morning and rearranged. The next date available is in two months but he’ll be here in NYC, so you don’t need to travel to DC for it.”
“Fucks sake Nick…tell me why? Why is this so fucking important to you?” Steve all but exploded, safe in the knowledge Nick wasn’t going to fire him for shouting.
“James Buchanan Barnes is my godson.”
“James Buchanan…oh…you mean George’s…” Steve’s eyes softened slightly as he looked at the first Pulitzer Nick had received for his piece on the war in Iraq that had doubled as an obituary to George Buchanan Barnes.
“Yeah, he’s George and Win’s son, my godson. He always was a bundle of chaos, right from when he was born and after George…” Nick looked down, sighing.
“I’m sorry Nick, that whole time was awful.” Steve frowned, lost in memories of a laughing jovial man. A slight memory of a dark haired young man tugged at his brain but it had slipped before it could form.
“I promised them both when James was born that I would look after him if anything happened to them. George died twelve years ago this year, you know that. I was lucky, I only lost an eye. Win was still around and I did what I could but it wasn’t enough. Win died six months ago.”
“Shit, I’m sorry Nick.”
“George was my best friend, or as close a friend as you get in this game and I need to do all I can for James. I can’t send Scott to do this. For one, he has his daughter every weekend and two, he ain’t up to it. He’s a good man but he’s no Steve Rogers.”
Steve picked up his coffee and downed it, sighing, “When do I need to go and where?” he put the cup back on the table, his shoulders slumped.
“I’ll send you the details.” Nick smiled as Steve got up.
“You owe me for this Nick.”
“Yeah, yeah, come back when you get your second nomination.”
Steve just huffed and left his office. If he happened to slam the door a little more forcefully than normal, well that was his business.