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Rank 1
“Well, that’s the last of it,” Pepper Potts announced, leading Maria back to the gates of Avengers Academy where they had started their tour. Pepper checked her clipboard and looked up at Maria, apparently satisfied with their progress. “Do you have any questions?
“No ma’am,” Maria replied. She fell into parade rest instinctively.
Pepper looked taken aback. “Oh… okay. I’ll show you back to your dorm so you can get settled in.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Maria fell into step at Pepper’s side as the Academy administrator guided her along the rather direct route to the dorm.
Halfway there, she summed up the courage. “Actually… ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“Are the dorms here co-ed?” Maria asked crisply. It came out like an order.
Pepper laughed. “Don’t worry, Cadet Hill. The dorms are co-ed, but each floor is single-gender, so your roommate will be a girl. You’re not the first person to ask.” She glanced around playfully and leaned a little closer as they walked. “I’d hate to live down the hall from some of the boys here. Half of them are obnoxious, and the other half haven’t realized they have to shower after training.”
Maria gave a polite smile as Pepper giggled.
Pepper left her in front of the dorm and Maria navigated her way to her room. When she arrived, the door was already open, and a short redhead was hanging a pink feather boa along the wall. One side of the room was already heavily decorated with pink accessories.
“Excuse me,” Maria said. “My name is Maria Hill. I’ve been assigned to this room.”
The girl turned around. She had freckles and a peppy smile. Maria felt uncomfortable already. “Hi! I’m Mary-Jane. My friends call me MJ.”
She held out her hand. Maria shook it firmly. The girl’s grasp was fluttery, weak.
“I’m so excited to be here! I can’t wait to get to training. Oh! Let me move my stuff.” Mary-Jane, last name unknown, grabbed the pile of clothes she’d draped over the chair belonging to the bare side of the room and deposited it on her already-besieged bed. “Sit down!”
Uncertain, Maria did so.
Over the next half hour, they chatted while Mary-Jane unpacked. Maria learned that, excessive pink aside, Mary-Jane was alright. She was enthusiastic about training and had a solid feel to her that made Maria believe she’d be a valuable teammate. This, despite her perfect make-up and designer clothes.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Rank 2
Maria threw herself into her training. Avengers Academy was rigorous. The days were long and the work was hard, but she tackled it with more dedication than some of her fellow students. She worked hard on her skills even outside of classes and assigned training hours. In fact, the only person who trained more than Maria was Steve Rogers (Codename: Captain America).
Maria wasn’t one for Cap stories growing up, so she wasn’t driven wild over him the way some people on campus were. She saw enough of him around SHIELD HQ and on the training yards to regard him with respect, but she didn’t think about him much. At most, she might say it was nice to have another student who cared as much as she did.
(In no way did she feel as though they were in competition. Maria was absolutely well-adjusted enough to recognize that competing against a super-soldier could be hazardous to her health.)
(Even though her range scores were just about— just about! —as good as his.)
So when he asked her out one Tuesday afternoon after they each completed a rigorous workout at the Cosmic Combat Simulator, Maria was very surprised.
“Captain, I—”
“Steve, please.”
“Steve. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to date. I’m focusing on my work as an agent,” she told him, straightening up just a little proudly.
“I understand that you’re busy,” Steve said earnestly. “I myself have only 15 non-training or sleeping hours in a week. That’s why I thought we could go to the shooting range.”
Maria blinked. “That makes sense. How about… Thursday?”
“That sounds great. I’ll see you then, Hill.” He raised his fingers like he was touching them to the brim of a hat, or saluting, and started jogging away backwards.
Maria did the same motion back. Steve grinned before he turned away from her.
“That looked stupid,” she said to herself.
Her cheeks felt warm. Maria ignored that, focusing on her aching thighs, and glared at Steve as he jogged sedately away.
…
The session at the blasting range on Thursday was pleasant. They made conversation while cleaning and reloading their weapons, lingering over the crisp rows of firearms and grenades. Steve was funny, and nice, and… decently attractive. Still, as the session drew to a close, Maria could feel her shoulders tensing up when she went into her shooting stance.
They put away their last set of weapons and Maria caught a glance at his score: better than hers, by just two points! She ground her teeth, but let it go. She would practice more, and do better next time.
They walked together out of the range. Maria stopped on the grass outside.
“I had a great time today, Steve. But…” she hesitated, unsure how to explain.
“I understand,” Steve said. He squared his shoulders and looked like he was about to take a punch.
“No—,” Maria said quickly. “I just—I have to devote myself to being the best SHIELD agent I can be. I don’t think I could be in a committed relationship right now, and….”
Steve nodded his understanding. His body language relaxed, since he was no longer preparing for rejection. “And neither of us are the kind to look for something casual.”
“Exactly,” Maria said in relief.
Steve cleared his throat. “Well, let me know when you’re ready for another date. In the meantime, I’ll see you at the Arena.”
“Yes you will.” Maria grinned. She punched his shoulder and Steve relaxed and nudged her back.
Rank 3
Maria earned her first major SHIELD promotion, which meant that she could wear limited SHIELD body armor around campus. That wasn’t as important a change as the higher level missions she was allowed to go on, but it felt more important for a little while, because of what came out of it.
Maria and her roommate Mary-Jane, or MJ for short, had become friends. When Maria came back to the room with the news that she’d been promoted, MJ insisted that Maria come to her stylist to celebrate.
MJ changed her hair style every other week—only Jan Van Dyne (Codename: the Wasp) had her beat for campus fashionista—and she knew dozens of people and went to parties all the time. Maria didn’t begrudge MJ her friends or her popularity, and when MJ invited her to events it never felt like an obligatory roommate invite. MJ’s other friends were pretty cool, though Maria only partied with them every so often, when she spared time from studying.
This invite felt just as genuine. Maria went along with it because she enjoyed spending time with her friend, not because she actually cared about her hair. But the ponytail cut, which tucked neatly around the base of her skull and gave her long bangs, felt sleek under Maria’s fingers and let her feel the breeze on her neck. She liked it, and she had a good time.
Other people were more surprised at the new look. Jan Van Dyne winked and took a snap of Maria for her daily style bulletin. Tony Stark (Codename: Iron Man), stared at her as she walked by, then recovered enough to make finger guns at her. And Brian Falsworth (Codename: Union Jack), gave her a similar double-take and look-over.
Maria wasn’t sure how to feel about the last one.
But she remembered it, a lot. She thought about it when she changed into her uniform in the morning. She thought about it when she sat with Steve and his friend Sam Wilson (Codename: Falcon) at lunch. She thought about it when MJ lent her some make-up for the Winter Warlock concert.
Union Jack only looked that way at the male students on campus… and Loki.
Maria thought a lot about Loki.
And then she spent a lot of time thinking about herself.
She made a plan and didn’t rush it, waiting for the right time. Two weeks after her haircut, Maria had it arranged so that she was the only guard on SHIELD’s highest security lab for an hour. She slipped inside and used one of the highly encrypted computers to search the internet, one term leading to another, some of them resonating more than others.
‘not really female’
‘transgender’
‘not really female, not really male’
‘agender’
‘genderfluid’
‘bigender’
‘genderqueer’
With fifteen minutes to spare, Maria wiped the search history and returned to her guard post. When her next partner arrived, she was calm and alert on duty. Her face didn’t show a hint of her tumultuous thoughts, or an uncertainty so deep it almost felt like nausea.
MJ was out on the town that night, celebrating Felicia Hardy (Codename: Black Cat) joining the Academy. Maria had the room to herself, and she curled up tight under her blankets. She looked at MJ’s side of the room, pink and sparkly and soft, and at her own side, utilitarian and neat and colored more brown and blue than anything else. Her thoughts were racing, but she also felt so tired.
There were so many things packed into her brain: years of her own expectations and those of others, images of the future she’d always imagined for herself, and these new ideas of other ways things could be. Other ways she could be.
Maria had never spent much time thinking about gender. She had wanted to be in the military for as long as she could remember, and, being a very goal-oriented person, everything had centered around that. When she had been recruited to SHIELD, their more relaxed policies about dress for their agents hadn’t made a difference to her—only their mission statement.
But here at Avengers Academy, all of the students seem to have their own schtick. Colorful outfits, one-liners, secret identities. Most of the superhero play-acting didn’t really appeal to Maria.
Even for the SHIELD agents, though, the rules were nothing like the military expectations Maria was used to. Bobbi Morse (Codename: Mockingbird) and Daisy Johnson (Codename: Quake) had designed their superhero costumes around the SHIELD uniform, while adding their own flair. Peggy Carter only occasionally wore her 1940’s uniform, and had her hair in elaborate curls when she did. Other agents, like Jessica Drew (Codename: Spider-Woman), never wore the uniform, but were still respected members of SHIELD. And even Sharon Carter (Codename: Agent 13), the only high-level agent to actually wear the uniform on a regular basis, had her own paler version, and kept her long blonde hair down when she wore it. In fact, none of them had their hair in any sort of regulation cut at all.
None of the rules about professional appearance Maria had previously lived by seemed to apply anymore. And when there was nothing telling her how to dress or present herself anymore, that meant she would have to figure those things out for herself. Maria had never really thought about how she wanted to look or present herself, and now, faced with the fact that she would have to decide who she wanted to be…
She had a lot of thinking to do.
She took a day off her heavy training schedule, using the excuse that she’d strained a muscle in her side, and Claire Temple had told her to lay off. Instead, she took the QuinJet out for a few hours on a pilot training module, watching the towns and hills scroll away far below. Alone in the jet, she had a lot of time to think, to consider different visions of the future, even the most outlandish and impossible. And maybe, maybe some of them weren’t impossible.
Maria might not be comfortable yet with what she was learning about herself, but her parents hadn’t raised her to avoid hard truths. She took another day off to do more discreet searching on the internet (“Getting ahead on my alien language modules,” she told a curious Phil Coulson), even finding a few chat rooms where she could observe conversations and ask a question or two of her own. At the end of that second day, feeling a little more like she could breathe inside her own head, she went back to…
His life. No. Their life? Its life? Oh, definitely not. Zher life? Hmm.
In any case. Going back to training was comforting, nothing more than hard work and being sharp at all times. SHIELD always came first, and that was the way it should be, no matter what else was going on.
And if she happened to notice, casually, how unfailingly polite Steve was to Singularity, to the Ancient One, to Angela’s girlfriend when she visited campus…
Well, Maria couldn’t help being observant.
Rank 4
Maria got a text just as she exited the Robo Dojo late one Thursday afternoon. It was on her SHIELD pager, rather than her civilian phone, so she checked it immediately rather than waiting until after she’d had a chance to shower.
The text was from Romanova (Codename: Black Widow), and it was not directly work-related. Maria rolled her eyes, but Romanova had earned enough of Maria’s respect to excuse the infraction.
‘Calling in my favor from last month. I need you to double date with Taskmaster and me. Play it casual.’
So Romanova’s latest intrigue involved Tony Masters (Codename: Taskmaster)? Or maybe she was just using him to get at Amora the Enchantress. Maria filed the information away in case it ever became relevant to her SHIELD duties, then began to consider the more important detail: Where was she going to find a date?
When she got back to the dorm, MJ was already preparing for the Thirsty Thursday parties with her usual crowd: Black Cat, Elektra Natchios, and Greer Grant (Codename: Tigra). Mockingbird was there too, which meant the mission in the South China Sea was over. Maria updated her mental notes on current SHIELD missions in order to distract her from her rising preoccupation.
MJ, with her eagle-eyes for drama, was at Maria’s side within a minute of her entering their room. She pulled Maria to the side from all the making-up and moisturizing that was going on.
“Is everything okay? You look… well, kinda afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Maria scoffed. “I just…” She sighed. “Do you know anyone who would be interested in going on a date tonight? Not a serious one,” she hurried to add when MJ’s eyes got big. “Casual.”
“Do I?” MJ practically hopped in excitement as she whipped out her phone. “Maria do you even know how many people on this campus would give their left eyebrow to go on a date with you?”
“Uhh…”
MJ’s phone chirped and she punched the air. “You’re all set.”
“Who is—?”
“Now we just have to get you ready,” MJ interrupted. She glanced from Maria, to Maria’s rather sparse closet, to the crowd of girls behind her, her smile growing until it was scarier than Dracula’s.
Maria noticed a sudden silence behind her and turned to see all four of the other students sharing MJ’s devious expression.
She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer.
An hour and a half later, Maria arrived at Club A, simply grateful that it was all over. Her feet were sore from being shoved into a dozen different pairs of heels, her skin felt chapped from a whirlwind of outfits, her scalp was sore from her new intricate hairstyle and her entire face felt like it has been smeared with a concoction out of Pym’s Lab—something both slimy and dusty.
In the mirror, and the endless array of pictures MJ and Greer had taken, Maria looked like a model. She looked angelic and airbrushed and feminine and beautiful, and not at all like the person she really was.
In a way, that made it all easier. Maria wasn’t pretending to herself any longer that this was what she was meant to be. The dress and the make-up were just another part of the con: they were necessary for the moment, but at the end of the mission they could be taken off.
So maybe… the rest of it could be like that, too.
She was brought out of her contemplation by the appearance of Satana in front of her. The demi-demon was wearing a shredded black gown that was somehow both very long and very revealing. She wore red lipstick and silver eyeshadow that called attention to the sharp lines of her face, especially her cutting smile. She took Maria’s hand in a caress that may have, from the outside, passed as a handshake.
“So good of you to grace us with your presence tonight, Agent Hill,” Satana simpered.
The hairs on the back of Maria’s neck stood up.
Romanova and Taskmaster showed up before Satana could do more than stand too close to Maria under the guise of standing at the crowded bar, and they quickly ended up on the dance floor. It was a little tight, what with Cindy Moon (Codename: Silk) spinning Miles Morales (Codename: Spider-Man) around the center of the floor. Satana took advantage of the limited space to dance very close to Maria while Maria tried to participate in conversation with Romanova and Taskmaster.
Eventually, Romanova gave her the signal and Maria withdrew so the Black Widow could work her magic. Satana raised an eyebrow at the return of Maria’s attention.
“Finally given up on the Widow?” she drawled into Maria’s ear. Her hand slid down Maria’s back, and Maria stepped away to avoid it.
“What are you talking about?” she called over the music.
“Widow doesn’t swing your way.” Satana spoke just low enough that Maria had to step close again to hear her. “Her loss.”
She slid her hands up Maria’s arms, passing close to her breasts on the way up. Maria tried to step back again, but nearly trod on Silk’s foot.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Maria said firmly. “I’m not here for a hook-up. Didn’t MJ tell you? I just wanted a casual—”
“Oh darling, I’m not your date,” Satana laughed. “She was your date.”
She pointed one finger (with a nail painted a suspiciously dark black that made Maria shiver to look at) into the corner of the club near the basement staircase, where there was a swirl of ragged, angry-looking darkness.
Maria stopped pretending to dance. “What’s your scheme, Satana?” She fingered the blaster concealed under the hem of her dress.
Satana just grinned. “I couldn’t turn down the chance to snare you. Butches are always great in bed.”
That earned her an affronted look from J.A.R.V.I.S., who was passing by the dance floor with a tray of drinks, but Maria was frozen.
“I’m not…”
“Not a lesbian?” Satana said bluntly. “Because you can’t deny that you’re a butch.”
“I’m not either.”
“Oh come on. The whole campus knows, ever since you turned down Captain America.”
Satana’s cruel comment rang out through the entire club as the last song ended. Everyone inside turned to look at them—which included Steve, Maria realized with horror, over by the pool table.
“I’m not gay,” she said. It didn’t sound as steady and commanding as her usual tone, and Satana smirked like she’d won.
“When you figure it out, sweetheart? You can come to me for your introduction to all things Sapphic.” She winked salaciously and swept off the floor, leaving Maria alone in the metaphorical spotlight as the next song picked up.
“Maria I am soo sorry!” MJ was suddenly at her elbow. Maria had to drag her eyes away from Steve’s concerned gaze across the club. “I swear I didn’t set you up with her! What a bitch! I don’t know what happened to Valkyrie, but—oh, and I wouldn’t have set you up with a girl if I’d known, but I thought—”
“You thought—what she said.”
MJ winced. “…yeah, kind of.”
Maria nodded sharply. “It’s alright. You meant well.”
“I really am sorry though, I—”
“I’m going to go,” Maria interrupted, and walked off the dance floor.
“Oh, okay. Text me if…”
Luckily, Maria couldn’t hear the rest. She walked to the basement stairs in a kind of haze, held down to Earth only by focusing on her duty to protect a classmate. Satana’s malicious black whirl had died down, leaving a dazed-looking Brunnhilde (Codename: Valkyrie) sitting against the wall. She blinked a few times when Maria knelt down in front of her.
“Let me take you back to the dorm,” Maria offered gently.
It took a minute for Valkyrie to focus her eyes on Maria. “I wanted to get a dance first,” she murmured.
“Maybe another time.”
Maria walked Valkyrie back to the dorm and made sure her roommate Betty Ross (Codename: Red She-Hulk) knew what had happened. They agreed to file a report to Director Fury in the morning about Satana’s use of her powers against a fellow student.
When Maria got back to her room, she wiped all the make-up off with hands that were only shaking a little. She showered, brushed her teeth and hair, and got in bed, before remembering the last task she had to complete before she could slip into dreamy oblivion.
Reluctantly, she texted Romanova. “Sorry I ditched you. I still owe you one for last month.”
“We’re even,” Romanova replied. “I got what I wanted. Let me know if I can assist with your demon problem.”
It was enough to make Maria smile before she went to sleep.
Rank 5
The day of her final promotion at SHIELD, Maria texted MJ to meet her at the bench on the quad. When they got there, Amora (Codename: Enchantress) was trying to magically ensnare Maxwell Dillon (Codename: Electro), but that always wore off after a few hours, so they walked through the park instead of interfering. MJ was wearing her civilian clothes to fend off the heat, but Maria was comfortable in her SHIELD-issued climate-controlled jumpsuit.
"What’s this about?” MJ asked, fiddling with her watch compulsively. “You’re not going to move out, are you? Please don’t, you’re the chillest roommate I’ve ever had. I really am sorry about setting you up—”
“I need your help,” Maria cut her off. “I want to get another haircut, and… I want it to look a certain way, but I don’t really know… what it is.”
In an instant, MJ transformed from nervous to ecstatic. “Excellent! You have come to the right person Maria, there are so many hairstyles that would look wonderful with your facial structure. I have an app, look here…”
An hour later, MJ was tugging Maria into her salon, shoving her into a chair, and rattling off instructions to the stylist, who was clearly used to this sort of treatment. Maria sat back and relaxed in the chair, already feeling lighter.
When her hair was newly cut, with sharp bangs and a short back, Maria returned to the dorm. It took all of her courage to walk up to the rooftop, but Maria hadn’t made it to the top echelons of SHIELD by avoiding her fears.
She found Steve at the punching bag, completing his afternoon program. He noticed her and finished up with a reverse spin kick.
“Afternoon, Hill. I like the new cut.”
“Thanks. Good workout?”
“I broke a sweat.”
Maria smiled at the joke while Steve unwrapped his hands and toweled off his face and neck. “Do you have a minute?”
“For you, I have ten.”
He smiled and came over to stand against the wall at the edge of the roof with her. He leaned against her a bit and Maria laughed and pushed him away, wrinkling her nose at his dampness.
She took a deep breath. “Steve… this is… hard to explain.”
“Take your time,” he told her, sobering quickly.
“You know Singularity? How she looks like a girl… but she's not, really?”
Steve nodded intently. “Yes. She's a pocket universe.”
Well that wasn’t helpful. “...Okay. You know how Loki is a he sometimes, and then sometimes a she?”
“...Yes,” Steve said, frowning slightly in confusion.
“Yes. So. That is, somewhat, not unlike—" Maria clenched her hands on the concrete and powered through it, "—how I feel." She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“...Okay.”
“I. I don't think I'm both, like Loki. Or, I don't know,” she admitted. “But I'm definitely not… one hundred percent a woman.”
“Has one of the other students been giving you a hard time?” Steve asked. He sounded concerned and a little bit angry, like he would if any of his teammates were being mistreated. Maria felt at least one of her worries fading.
“No. I'm telling you because, I wanted to ask you, if… Well, you said I should tell you if I was interested in another date.”
Steve was silent for several long seconds, so Maria finally looked up at him. He looked surprised, but not offended, or repulsed.
Maria let her nerves get the better of her, and started babbling. “This is all out of the blue, it’s unusual, I know, and it changes things, so if you don’t want to—”
Raising a hand to halt her anxious words, Steve interrupted. “Maria, I'm not sure I understand perfectly. But I absolutely want to go on another date with you. Maybe get a drink from the espresso stand?” When she didn’t reply, shocked, he continued tentatively, “If you want to explain more about this, that would be fine.”
Maria’s heart was racing. She took a deep breath and was surprised when it came out shaky. “Are you sure?”
Steve took her hand. “I’m positive. The espresso stand is set up by the Power Gym this week. We can hit it after our afternoon workout.”
Laughing, Maria squeezed Steve’s hand back. “That sounds perfect.”