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Maria’s never been one for girl talk, but conversations with Natasha Romanoff are always interesting. Nat’s stories are too scary to be true but too detailed to be fiction. Maybe that’s why it took two months for the penny to drop.
It starts with an inkling during practice at S.H.I.E.L.D’s shooting range. They stand side by side, arms steady, attention locked. Five rounds each with a twenty second rest while the paper targets refresh.
Between rounds, Nat pops her head around the partition.
"Best kill?” Nat wants to know.
Maria doesn’t even have to think, though she wouldn’t really class any kill as “best”. “Madripoor. One of Madam Hydra’s henchmen. Chased me through the slums and backed me into a corner. Clean shot right through the neck from above. Worst kill?”
Nat’s eyes glaze a little and Maria knows she’s hit a nerve.
That’s why they do this here or while sparring and not in a bar where alcohol can blur their focus and turn it into a sob session. Minus the actual sobbing. Neither of them is prone to tears.
“Budapest,” Nat shouts over the sound of gunfire when she’s done hitting the bulls-eye another five times. “Galina was one of the closest things I had to a friend at the time. Another Red Room graduate.”
“Why’d you go for the kill?”
“Your typical spy cliché. She was still KGB and I was getting out. She got attached to a mark and became compromised. They were coming for her and she begged me. We tried to get them out but it was too late. I had eyes on her the whole time.”
Maria wants to dig deeper because Nat’s Red Room stuff isn’t anywhere on file but that’s when Rumlow and Strike enter. She goes to roll her eyes at Nat but the other woman is watching Rollins in a way that Maria can only describe as predatory. And not in a Black Widow, I’m going to bite your head off kind of way. In an, I’m thinking about all the stuff that comes before biting your head off.
The phantom pain in Maria’s side flares at the sight of Strike wandering past and waving at Romanoff in greeting. She clutches at her lower torso absently as the memory of what Nat had said only a last month comes back.
“ If I ever give any of those guys the time of day, shoot me in the head.”
It’s a tiny thing, above the notice of anyone else, but Maria files it away as odd. Then she hopes like hell it’s her paranoia playing games with her.
The second clue comes during a stolen conversation with Pepper. For months they’d played PDA tennis, trying to find a suitable time for them to both sit down and nut out the dynamics of S.H.I.E.L.D versus Stark involvement in the Avengers initiative. It was like playing battleship and never sinking a boat.
Finally, Pepper suggests an in car meeting on their way to other respective meetings. After Director Fury’s last shouting match with Stark over the very same issues, Maria doesn't think she has much of a choice. This needed to be settled and not with a dick measuring contest.
The inside of one of Stark’s limousines is bigger than the living room of Maria’s apartment. The appliances are also fancier and there’s a better view.
“Strawberries?” Pepper offers across the open space as they sit facing each other. Maria takes the box with extra care.
“Should you be touching these?”
Pepper only smiles because of course Maria would have found out that the one thing Pepper is allergic to in this world is strawberries. Maria smiles back because of course Pepper knows Maria is partial to strawberries.
Maria can tell that Pepper is a woman who understands the importance of details. She must also have the patience of a saint to voluntarily put up with Stark’s attention seeking antics.
Pepper engages the privacy setting as Happy takes the slow route from the Triskelion to the Smithsonian.
Maria is fully prepared for Pepper the CEO. She’s seen Pepper in action fielding questions from the press about her professional and personal life. She bets Pepper would be killer at poker. What Maria doesn’t count on is her reaction to this practical yet playful woman. They could be kindred spirits if there wasn’t a contract to nut out between them.
“What about first response equals first responsibility?” Hill tries to suggest. “Whoever arrives first, pays.”
Pepper laughs. “I think Tony might take that as a challenge.”
Maria concedes but files that bit of information away. If Stark can match S.H.I.E.L.D’s response time to an incident it means that Jarvis is probably programmed to run surveillance 24/7 on a much bigger scale than just Stark Tower. Something that might come in handy to know.
“What about to each their own?” Pepper offers. “We pay for what we destroy.”
“Too difficult to determine,” Maria vetoes. She’d seen firsthand the kind of destruction the Avengers can wreak on a city and she’ll be darned if she can tell which hero took down what building in their zeal to keep it safe.
In the end nothing will ever be completely fair and S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t have the bottomless pockets that Stark does. So Maria suggests a fifty/fifty split with caveats for unreasonable actions. They deliberate on what actions are considered unreasonable, Maria underlines Stark's name in bold and she and Pepper shake on it. The deal is done. No piss on the floor for their troubles.
“I might set up a foundation,” Pepper says absently. “The Stark Relief Foundation.” Maria can see what Pepper’s already doing. Anything with the whiff of a foundation in its name will equal major tax breaks.
"Not the Potts Relief Foundation?” Maria quips.
“God no! I don’t want my name anywhere near that train wreck.”
“Just on the building lease?”
“No two ways about that.”
Maria’s smiling until what Pepper says next sticks a metaphorical knife in her side.
“How are you anyway?” Pepper says. It’s not so much the words as Pepper’s marginal tilt of her head. The kind of empathetic tilt you give to a wounded child. “Natasha mentioned that you weren’t well.”
Just like that a wall drops over Maria’s face and she schools her every reaction to display normality. Maria’s not sure if Pepper really buys it but the other woman is perceptive enough not to push.
Maria's expression must still be stormy as she steps out of the limo onto the sidewalk in front of the Smithsonian. Rogers is waiting for her at the entrance and almost steps back when he sees her. The last thing she needs right now is his over protectiveness. Not when she wants to unleash on a punching bag at the same time she wants to crawl into a hole.
The thing that Maria loves most about Natasha is that she knows when to keep her mouth shut. You don’t get to be a master spy without learning how to hold on to a secret. Sure they tease and banter but Maria trusts Nat to be discreet. So there is something severely amiss that Nat has mentioned Maria’s personal life to someone else.
The final straw comes at the launch party for the Stark Relief Foundation. Maria is bailed up by a pair of investors that Pepper insists she must make nice with, when Nat glides onto the dance floor. Her red velvet dress is a size too small and gapes open at the neck leaving nothing to the imagination. And there are plenty of people, both male and female, imagining things as Nat grinds up against one of the Stark Industries employees.
Maria’s not a prude. She’s seen bigger and worse in her years in the Army. She’s seen Nat do more damage with a smile than with all her clothes off. But these clothes aren’t Nat. The Black Widow doesn’t need skin tight nothing dresses to show off her figure.
It’s no coincidence that Barton seeks Maria out a few minutes later. The Good Eye and the Hawk have always prided themselves on being watchful.
They trade a blink and a nod.
Then Maria picks up a champagne glass that Nat discards and heads for the balcony. She grabs her phone while she waits for Barton to arrive.
It’s eight-thirty in the evening in New York and Seoul is roughly thirteen hours ahead so Doctor Cho should be at work.
A delicate female voice picks up the line. “Lieutenant Hill.”
“Hello Doctor. I’m sorry to disturb you but I need your help.”
Soft tread behind her makes Maria turn but it’s not Barton. Maria recognises the breadth of Roger’s shoulders even before he steps out into the glow of the lamplight. A dozen choice words that Rogers would highly disapprove of play out in Maria’ mind.
“Lieutenant?” Doctor Cho prompts.
“I’m sorry, can I call you back?” Maria hangs up.
“Important call?” Rogers asks.
“One of many.” She spots Barton heading this way through the glass doors. “Enjoy the party, Captain.”
Maria tries to sidestep him but his chest becomes a barrier, blocking out the view of the party and of Nat. He never makes it easy and she never lets him in. It’s a game they’ve been playing since the fallout after their mouse hunt for Sukov. She’s done a stellar job avoiding him but there’s only so much distance a handler can put between herself and her charge.
“Do you mind if we do this some other time, Captain?”
He catches her elbow and gently turns her so that they’re facing each other. “We don’t have to do this at all,” he says. “Just tell me what you’re doing here with Romanoff’s glass?”
“Maria?” Barton calls from the doorway.
The Hulk’s anger has always terrified Maria in a logistical nightmare kind of way, but the fury that steals across Rogers’ handsome face makes her stop breathing. Could this all be because Barton gets to call her by her first name?
Everyone thinks that Captain America is all sugar and spice but Maria’s seen the metal behind those blue eyes and it makes her shiver. She knows he’d never physically hurt her but physical is the least painful way a girl can be scarred by a man like Steve Rogers.
Her side begins to ache again, but at least she’s herself. Something she suspects Black Widow is not. Rogers doesn’t try to stop her a second time but Maria doesn’t start to breathe again until she and Barton are inside one of Stark’s many conference rooms.
“Tell me about Galina and Budapest,” Maria says to Barton once she’s sure the room is secure.
His posture becomes ramrod straight at her request. Maria wishes she could be surprised at his reaction. How much of what Nat has said to her over the last few months has been the truth?
“Galina was a mark that Nat was sent to kill. She was the daughter of a Russian dignitary.”
“How old was she?”
“About five.”
Maria sucks in a breath. “Nat did it?”
Barton nods gravely. “But it was her last.”
“She lied to me,” Maria says. No matter how ugly reality is, Nat has never shied away from the absolute truth.
Maria’s on the phone again to Helen Cho.
“Doctor, if I can get a saliva sample over to you, do you think you could run a DNA comparison?”
“For the kind of tests you’re asking me to run I need blood. The fresher the better,” Cho says. “Sukov might be a madman but he’s also a genius.”
By the time Maria gets off the phone she’s convinced Doctor Cho it’s a good idea for her to come to New York for a while and that Barton will pick her up in the quinjet. Now all Maria has to do is get a fresh sample of blood from arguably the world’s most dangerous woman.
Maria thinks she’s caught a break when Nat’s annual physical comes up but then The Black Widow and Captain America are called away to deal with a hostage situation in Croatia.
A week later Nat hasn’t rescheduled her appointment and the sliver of time Maria’s given herself to deal with the situation discreetly is beginning to close. Soon she’ll have to report to Fury that Black Widow is compromised and all shred of credibility Nat has as an agent will go up in smoke.
Maria knows she’s desperate and Barton can see it in her eyes as she and Nat pace around each other in the octagon. Sweat beads down Maria’s forehead and her black t-shirt clings to her back and chest.
Somehow their sparring match has gained an audience and she can’t help noticing the money changing hands. If she were a betting woman, Maria’s money would be on the Black Widow. Maria is a competent fighter, a great strategist but Nat is the Black Widow and Nat doesn’t have a searing pain stabbing intermittently at her side.
Maria’s focus is on the mission: making the Black Widow bleed. She doesn’t lose sight of it until the blue clad figure steps through the training center’s swinging doors and goes to stand beside Barton.
Sensing her distraction, Nat lunges and Maria blocks her with a sharp kick, making sure to strike and then pull away. If she lets Nat hang on she knows she’s done for. Nat is shorter but she’s better built for close combat fighting. Maria’s tall and her attacks are swift but she’s hamstrung and they both know it.
The women strike and feign, parry and block. Voices in the growing crowd urge them on. Maria has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to stop from leaping over the rope of the octagon and knocking their heads together.
Don’t these idiots, including Captain America, have jobs to do?
Nat chooses that moment to weave inside Maria’ personal space and use Maria’s throbbing side as leverage to wrap her legs around Maria’s shoulders. They both topple as Nat uses her body weight to unbalance them. She flips mid turn so that Maria falls first, her shoulder jarring against the mat. The pain splinters through Maria’s torso but she’s had a lot of practice fighting through pain recently. It’s ironic that it’s the thing which gives her an advantage. Where another opponent would need to catch their breath, Maria doesn’t lay still for a second. Just as Nat thinks she’s going to constrict her opponent in a classic wrestling move, Maria rolls onto her back and kicks out, slamming her foot into the old bullet wound she knows still gives Nat trouble.
Suddenly, Maria is on her feet before Nat can recover. A powerful right hook connects with the side of Nat’s face. The crowd goes silent as a crystal clear pop punctures the air. Next minute Barton is there with a crisp white towel, mopping up the river of blood running down Nat’s nose. His hand grazes Maria’s arm for the briefest second and Maria understand what he’s telling her: I’ll take it from here.
Thank goodness because more than one part of Maria's body feels like it’s shutting down. The dispersing crowd murmurs in disappointment. This tells her they’ve deemed her victorious and most of them are unhappy about it. She wouldn’t care except one immovable presence looks downright ready to throttle her.
Rogers actually follows her into the lady’s change room.
“That sign with the figure in the dress means the same thing now as it did in the nineteen forties, Captain.”
He answers by locking the door behind them.
She turns on the water in the hand basin and splashes her face, hoping the cold will ease some of her dizziness. She prays for another agent to come in but let’s face it, S.H.I.E.L.D is still predominately a man’s organisation.
Just say it, she thinks. Tell him you’re flattered but not interested and he’ll back off completely.
But then he’s pressing a wet towel to her forehead and when he eases that away her skin is clammy but on fire at the same time. She can’t open her mouth because she knows this is about more than just attraction.
She could give in and they could sleep together. But she doubts Steve Rogers is a one night stand kind of guy. Somehow Maria knows if she gives him an inch he’ll want the whole farm to go along with it and she’s nothing if not territorial.
She’s too wary to look him in the eye but too wilful not to. So her gaze settles on his lips and then she has to drag them away and focus on the first aid box on the wall behind his left ear.
“I don’t know if I’m more annoyed that you don’t trust me or that you’re acting as if I’m an idiot,” he says.
“Not everything is about you, Captain.”
“Even when it’s about someone on my team being compromised?” Her surprise is evident in the tilting of her head to finally meet his gaze. “You’re not the only one who sees things, Hill. I work with her too.”
“She wouldn’t want you involved.”
“The way I see it, I’m already involved. Let me guess, what's happening to her is connected to Sukov?”
Maria can only nod.
“Then it’s partly my fault. She got hurt on my watch. At least give me a chance to make it right.”
She doesn’t want to involve more people in this. The more who know the weaker they become. But she can tell Rogers isn’t going to take no for an answer so she sighs.
“Fine.”
“Thank you.” He unlocks the door but before he leaves there’s something she has to know.
“How did you figure it out?” she asks. “Were you watching her?”
“No,” he says. “I was watching you.”
Two days later Dr. Cho confirms the worst of her fears.
“They’re nano-bodies. They wouldn’t have come up on other tests but I’ve isolated the particular molecules in the saline solution and there they are. Rewriting her neuro-pathways. Changing who she is on a molecular level.”
“Is there anything we can do to reverse it?” Maria says. Her attention is glued to the nanoscopic dots multiplying before her eyes.
“I've attempted to create a cure but I need time. Unfortunately, time might not be something we have.”
A day after that, Maria and Rogers are led into the Ryker’s Island correctional facility. The guards don’t set their guns down at any stage and Maria’s got her own weapons where they’re easily accessible. She can feel Rogers breathing down her neck he’s walking so close and she wants to elbow him just to clear some space. If only they didn’t have to present a united front.
Sukov’s cell is in the non-enhanced wing but it’s no less heavily guarded. The spy hole is nothing more than a slit in the metal door. When the guard lets them in Maria wants to gag the air is so fetid. It takes every inch of her willpower not to recoil at the sight of him. How one person can decline so badly over a month is beyond comprehension. Then it dawns on her. His health was yet another product of his work. Vitality through scientific experiment. He’s a genius alright. That doesn’t mean he’s any less responsible.
Sukov raises a hand to block the reflection from the fluorescent lights coming from the corridor. “Ah,” he croaks. “You’re right on time.”
“You know why we’re here,” Rogers says.
“She was my greatest achievement.”
Rogers takes a step forward. “She’s not an experiment,” He seethes.
Sukov sputters. Maria recognises it as laughter but without mirth. “This coming from the world’s most well known experiment.” Sukov turns his head towards her. “Lieutenant Hill. Still mopping up behind the One-Eyed man?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Maria says. “It doesn’t pay so well but it takes me places.”
“Really?” He falls again into another fit of coughing. “Well, what have you two come to offer me for Natalia’s life? I know very well S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t negotiate with terrorists of murderers. I’ll bet One-Eye doesn’t know anything about this does he?”
Maria feels Rogers tense beside her. As though he’s going to beat the answer out of Sukov. But Maria knows no amount of physical pain will get them what they need. Sukov is a genius on his last limb and what men like him want is a legacy. To be remembered as more than they were by someone who won’t speak ill of him when he’s gone. And if he couldn’t cultivate that while he was alive why not engineer it?
Maria can hear the last words her father said to her as she exited the hospice. “You were always such a wilful child.” Not an apology or an acknowledgement but an excuse. As if those words would explain him and wash away the blood from his hands.
She sees Rogers’ brow furrow when she digs into her pocket and pulls out a series of photos. You wanted in, Captain, Maria thinks. Now make it count.
Maria tosses the photos on the floor beside Sukov. He doesn’t immediately glance at them but Maria sees his head tilt down just a little.
“Two weeks ago Agent Romanoff was on a mission in Croatia. After it was over she went off radar to a little house outside of Dubrovnik. The photos are of a boy. He looks to be about twelve or thirteen. Dirt poor of course but phenomenally bright, the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since Tony Stark perhaps. As you can see Doctor, in one of the photos he’s holding a micron beta reactor that he constructed using spare parts. His mother didn’t respond so well when Agent Romanoff mentioned your name.”
Halfway through her explanation Sukov picks up a photo. By the end, he’s got them all in his gnarled fingers and is crushing them in his feeble grip. “You’re lying,” he says.
“Maybe I am,” Maria says. “Are you willing to take that chance? You’ve made enemies in your time Doctor. And I’m willing to bet those enemies would love to get their hands on a son with your talents.”
Rogers grabs her arm and turns her abruptly around. His Boy Scout reaction is exactly what she’s looking for to convince Sukov it’s the real deal. Maria does cold-hearted bureaucrat better than most but no one does righteous indignity like Captain America. Indignity is halfway to truth.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” He says. “We’re not going to turn over a child to some thugs! S.H.I.E.L.D isn’t a terrorist organisation!”
“Who said anything about S.H.I.E.L.D?” Maria says. She turns back around to Sukov. “Like you predicted doctor, I haven’t informed my superiors about Agent Romanoff’s condition. So the ball, as they say, is in your court.”
They leave Ryker’s Island with a scrap of paper for a formula in exchange for a promise of protection.
On the quinjet Rogers is contemplative rather than explosive like he would have been during their earlier missions together.
“Does the boy really exist?” Rogers asks.
Maria doesn’t look up from the console. “Doctor Banner has this theory that the universe is multi-layered,” she says. “I suppose in one of those universes, a boy matching my description might exist.”
“You are a frightening woman, Hill.”
She mulls the sentiment over. “Thank you.”
Black Widow’s reprogramming takes weeks, during which time Barton is on twenty four hour duty as the yard stick to which all her stories are measured. It’s a long and arduous process but Maria insists and Fury agrees that Nat can’t be let out of containment until Dr. Cho is sure she’s one hundred percent.
One evening Maria kicks open her office door with a pile of files in her arm after a debriefing that took too long. She wonders when she’s ever going to get accustomed to listening to the Council parry their agenda back and forth like school children.
Maria sets the pile of reports down on her groaning in pile and then notices a long white envelope on her desk. The scrawl of her name is familiar. It brings a small smile to her lips.
Inside the envelope is a single ticket to an ice hockey game. A note stuck to the ticket reads: Hey Stalker. Thanks for keeping an eye out. ~N
There’s a knock on her door just as Maria is wondering why there’s only one ticket. The answer walks in with a confused expression on his clean shaven face and a matching white envelope in his hand.
“Hill, would you like a ticket to a hockey game?” Rogers asks. “Romanoff left it for me but I know you enjoy…” He trails off when she waves her ticket in his face.
He could at least hide his grin a little better, Maria thinks.
As she prepares to make an excuse not to go with him, Maria think it’s a shame she went through all the trouble of saving Nat’s life, because now Maria’s going to have to kill her.