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Maria grows up in the suburbs of Chicago the city of the haves and have-nots. There were those on the North-side with their exotic cars and luxury lifestyle and then those over on the West-side drug addled and abused. Of course there was the middle class that was neither. Working everyday, slaving away to be able to give their kids music lessons, sports clubs, and luxurious vacations. Maria likes to think that if things didn’t go to shit the second she was born her life would’ve been that way.
It wasn’t that her childhood was horrible, her father tries his best to love her. Deep down Maria knew that he could never see her for being anything more than her mother’s killer. He reminds her everyday, the reminders twisted in the loud bang that left a hole in the wall, the thump of his fist connecting with her cheek. It was the unapologetic “I’m sorry,” the oh so lovely slur of a drunken fool. It was watching the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally turn into a monster before her eyes. Turns out, the monsters not under her bed are the scariest.
Throughout highschool Maria doesn’t wear anything but baggy clothes and hoodies, along with the clothes were layers of foundation that covers up the bruises. Day after day, year after year, Maria tries to understand, tries to justify why he never has a sober day if he could help it. Why he did everything drunk. Why he never has less than four full bottles of Whiskey and a case of beer in the fridge. Most of all, why the universe seems to hate her so much.
She tries to understand the weird looks she gets in the hall, why she never seems to make close friends. Of course she has the occasional acquaintances that sit next to her next to her but that’s as close as she’d let someone in. It was easier that way, the further away people were to her the less likely they’d ask about her scars, about why she never let anyone near her house.
It’s isolating, lonely, but she keeps her head straight and focuses on her future. She graduates with all honors and the school record for the fastest 5K.
Maria stops trying to understand, she just knows that she needs to get out of there.
So she runs.
The day they hand her a high school diploma she packs a bag and runs. She throws a few outfits into a duffel bag and all the money she manages to find and leaves. No car, no one to help her, just a girl barely eighteen, who was forced to grow up too fast. She remembers running down the sidewalk, her feet hitting the concrete hard, her hands gripping tightly around the straps on her shoulders. Her lungs heaving like the air was acidic and every part of her felt like it would break if she stops.
The first thing she does is enlists herself into the Marines.
She loves following orders, and it turns out she was good at it. By the time she gets her first deployment she’s a stone cold soldier, it’s better that way, reminds her that she wasn’t a weak child anymore. The military offers her a chance to start over, to let go of the past. Well, she doesn’t really let go, but packs the memories, the hurt, the years of anger into tiny boxes and shoves it somewhere she can’t find.
Her first deployment sends her to the sandbox. There, she learns that there’s nothing timid about the heat. The sweat comes and evaporates just as fast. She climbs the ranks fast, a natural leader who demands the attention and obedience of those around her. Her platoon holds a great amount of respect for her and she adores them like the siblings she never had. It doesn’t last long.
It was supposed to be an easy patrol mission, that’s what the intel said at least. Instead, she stood in agony and semi-blindness amid chaos. Her hands reached out for her gun but she doesn’t make it before her vision goes dark. Then as she began to recover her consciousness, the only sound filling the air was her boys screaming in pain. She tried her best to help, every bone in her body screaming at her legs to move but they’re pinned down by a chunk of metal. She screamed in a fit of anger before losing consciousness again.
When she wakes up in the hospital to the rhythm of her own heartbeat and the sterile smell of her surroundings she wishes she died with them.
That’s where Fury finds her. In a hospital room like a concrete pen with a window the size of a biscuit tin lid.
He sits by her bed and offers her two options, stay in the army, or join shield and help them fight a fight that seemed much bigger than she could ever fathom.
Maria wasn’t a coward so of course she chose the latter.
Her first months with Shield consists of hours of physical therapy and reading. She hits a plateau in her physical therapy instead of being discouraged, there’s a fire that lights it’s way through her bones. She’s patient and insists on finishing with the most utmost precision. Of course, the moment her doctor clears her for exercise Maria heads down to the gym and trains until she can’t feel her lungs burning anymore.
In her spare time she reads up on every single part of Shield. From top to bottom, from big missions to something as minute as janitorial duty.
Maria trains her body twice as hard wanting so badly for something good to come out of such a horrible thing. She clings onto training and learning the ins and outs of Shield, it’s the only thing she has left.
Soon enough she gets used to the semi-dry cafeteria food that are uncomparably better than the MRE’s in the Marines. For the first time she finds that the looks she gets in the hallway are ones of respect and awe.
‘Deputy Director Hill’ She likes it, it holds authority, respect, and fulfills her desire to help. She finds out later that Fury had ignored all of the candidates the Pentagon sent in and instead offered her the job.
She doesn’t know how to thank him.
Before she knows it one year turns into two and turns into three, she never tires of the missions, the war rooms, the good, the bad, the ugly. Never tires of training the new rookies and finding the ones that reminds her of her younger self. She makes friends along the way, friends that invite her over for poker night, friends that checks up on her after tough missions, and friends who make her heart feel a little lighter.
She’s still living on base but somehow things just feel, easier. Sure, sometimes she wishes she has her own apartment, somewhere that’s completely her place. But really, Maria knows she probably wouldn’t even furnish it, and after all, apartments off base were awfully unsafe for a deputy director.
For the first time in her life she gets to understand what it’s like to let herself be loved and cared about. That means dealing with May’s fussing and Sharon’s constant nagging when she forgets to feed herself. They teach her that it’s human to feel the light and the dark, that as much as she hates it, she’s human. She bleeds and sometimes she needs people to help mend her wounds. They remind her that maybe it’s time to unpack some of the boxes she buried all those years ago.
She grew up all alone in a world so dark, that treated her like she was less than human. She was adept at hiding her broken insides, hiding her desires to be loved. She was used to hiding her feelings, it came with the job.
But her friends, this new family she found, they were good for her. Instead of leaving when they could see her stoic mask crumbling down and the raw emotions take over, they stay and brave the storm with her.
Before she really realizes it, she finds herself feeling comfortable, like she has a family.
____
Maria humors the thought of “love at first sight” until she meets Natasha Romanoff. Fury brings her in as a “potential asset”, she’s put in charge of Natasha’s deprogramming. Surprisingly, Maria doesn’t really interact or see her all that much, she merely signs off on her progress reports here and there, keeping tabs from afar.
Once Maria clears her for duty she assigns her to Agent Barton, who’s partner had just recently been killed while undercover in a Hydra facility. On paper, they seem like an unstoppable duo, off duty Maria realizes they’re literal children.
The first time she debriefs the two separately is after their 4th mission in Hungary. Barton only seems to be half listening and gave the vaguest answers he could muster, she gives him the benefit of the doubt and blames his lack of sleep. That is, until Romanoff does her whole debrief in a flawless British accent that ends with Maria grinding her teeth and sending her off to go shower.
After that first debrief she found herself running into Agent Romanoff on the daily. It turns out she had gotten a displacement and her room was now across from Maria’s. Soon enough Maria finds herself walking out of her room only to see the Agent making pancakes or coffee. Before she arrived, most of the guys in her room block never used their communal kitchen. Maria wasn’t a morning person, seeing Natasha Romanoff and her stupid soft smile first thing in the morning surely didn’t help. Not even when the agent surprises her by handing her a cup of coffee (It’s not suspicious at all that she happens to know how Maria likes her coffee) and slides a plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs onto the table in front of her.
Maria looks at her but Natasha just shrugs and takes a seat in front of her, silently sipping her tea and working on her crossword puzzle.
She expects it to be a one time thing but every morning without fail (unless either of them were out on a mission) Natasha hands her a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of something warm to start her day. They eat in silence most of the time, some mornings when she’s feeling social, Natasha quizzes her on useless knowledge from her crossword puzzles. Maria pretends she hates it but she finds that she actually doesn’t mind. They form an unusual friendship, it’s unsettling at first but Maria finds herself enjoying their breakfasts, even if Natasha did find her ways to annoy her later on in a more professional setting.
She gets to know the different Natashas, not just the Agent who reeks of arrogance. Not just the stoic and unapproachable killing machine everyone makes her out to be, but instead the sleepy girl with bedhead and oversized sweaters.
It surprises her when she reflects on the way that the redhead had snuck her way into her life. They stick strictly to breakfasts until Natasha shows up at her door one night, her face littered with bruises. She finds out later that those bruises continue down all the way to her toes.
2 bruised ribs with a nasty half-assed stab wound. Maria doesn’t hesitate to grab her first aid kit after forcing Natasha to sit down by the tub. The mud and grit were enmeshing themselves into the raw pink flesh. She’s angry that Natasha didn’t go check herself into medical, but she’s angrier at herself for not doing her debrief.
After she finishes bandaging Natasha’s shoulder they sit in silence for a second before the agent stubbornly rose unsteadily to her feet. Maria quickly stabilizes her with both hands and carries her weight.
“You know sometimes you’re a real asshole to yourself,”
Despite her current state Natasha snickers at Maria’s comment but she leans into her side and lets herself be led into the bedroom.
They don’t talk about it.
It, being the frequent sleepovers that happen after that night. It, being the solace that they find in each other.
Breakfasts turn into lunches that Natasha forces Maria into. Being deputy director has its perks but it also has hours of never-ending mission logs and seldom anytime to eat.
Lunches turn into dinners and that turns into Natasha showing Maria all her favorite spots in the city. From diners to vinyl record stores that smell like nostalgia and dust.
It stays like that for a good while and Maria’s perfectly content with ignoring the warmth in her chest everything they’re together.
Natasha reminds her of the sun. She has people orbiting her, some worshipping the Black Widow wherever she went; some were so close it burnt them, some were so far they were the victims of ice cold glares and shoulders.
She was one of the lucky ones.
One of the ones, the perfect distance, close enough to feel her warmth, In one way or another after she joins the Avengers, the Black Widow attracted the attention of the world, but Maria was content with just Nat.
Just Nat who makes her doubt reality the first time she pulls her close. Nat who makes her lose her inhibitions and self control. Nat who’s loving and flawed and everything Maria thought she didn’t deserve.
For the first time in her life, Maria thanks the universe for aligning. For slinging her millions of miles away into Natasha’s gravity. For showing her where her place was in the solar system.
She found her place in Shield, she found people that loved her despite her flaws. She found someone who was better than her father ever could, Nick was a thousand times anything that was ever left of that man. She found her love and her home in Natasha, who loved her unconditionally and relentlessly despite her stubbornness.
But most of all, she found herself.
Not the scared sixteen year old but the thirty-seven year old who loved worn out books and rainy days; the thirty-eight year old who loved small towns and binge watching medical dramas on tv; the thirty-nine year old who still risked her life at every chance to save the world; the forty year old who loved her wife and their 3 cats; the forty-one year old who cried when she held her daughter for the first time.
She found love, she found sunshine and gratitude and life.
And that was the story that she deserved.
Fin.