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Maria Hill was passionate about her job, but she was stone cold to all the agents who knew her. There were rumors that no one had seen her face change from its position, that she was an android, that she had once been shot and not even flinched.
Melinda May knew differently, mostly because she had helped to build Maria’s impenetrable facade. She had seen Maria, fresh out of the army, wild and fiery but disillusioned with life, and pointed her the right way.
She also had seen Maria cry over every romantic movie they had watched. It wasn’t something Maria advertised, for obvious reasons, but May had come to check on her one evening without knocking and walked in on her sobbing to Pride & Prejudice , and there was nothing that she could do after that. May had quietly joined her that evening, and they had established a weekly movie night.
May would be closed off in front of the other agents, but movie nights were their times. Maria boldly worked her way up to resting almost on May’s lap, and they chatted about inconsequential topics in between their heavy conversations. May talked about how she’d always wanted a child, someone to pass on her skills to, to teach her language and her culture. She told Maria about her latest prank on Coulson, clutching her tight as they watched 10 Things I Hate About You .
Maria mostly described the ridiculous things she had seen Clint do in the past week, but she hesitantly spoke to her childhood, and about wanting to find love now that she was in a better place. She wanted the whirlwind romance of the movies she loved, the desire that shone through every aspect of the characters, until they could do nothing but think about one another.
“Unrealistic,” May said. “That only happens in movies. You’re too romantic, Maria. I worry about your heart.” She pulled Maria into her more. It was what Maria envisioned having a mother would be like. “Besides, in SHIELD, everyone is married to the job.”
“I know,” Maria replied. It was a simple reality. Maria herself was endlessly passionate about her missions, completing them with deadly precision, just as May had taught her. She barely had time to see May anymore outside of training; there would be no room for anyone outside of SHIELD.
She turned to bury her face into May’s side, trying to appreciate what she had instead of wanting for a shadowy figure of her own to tuck into her side. “When this is done, help me with my Mandarin?” she mumbled.
“Of course,” May said warmly, in her tone for just Maria.
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Clearance Level: 7
Mission: Charlotte’s Web
Location: REDACTED, REDACTED
Time: REDACTED, 2006
Agents: REDACTED
Handler: REDACTED
Mission Report, Commander Hill:
Target was tracked down to the hotel room. Widow employed various methods to stay hidden, Hawkeye confirmed Widow’s status in the room at 19:48 local time. Signal was given to breach the room. Hawkeye had to physically go in, as the window was barred. Hawkeye confirmed that Widow was sleeping before he entered (new tech worked, if there’s one fucking good thing out of this). REDACTED gave permission to carry out the order.
Hawkeye entered the room and everything went to hell. Hawkeye had the kill shot lined up. Widow had woken but couldn’t get to Hawkeye first without him shooting. Hawkeye did not take the shot, because he doesn’t fucking listen ever. Hawkeye claims that he saw something in her eyes (not murder?) and attempted to recruit Widow to SHIELD. Hawkeye went offline for 45 minutes.
Hawkeye came back online at 21:24, claiming that Widow was willing to switch sides for a deal. He did not respond to any code phrases or initiate any for an agent in danger. Hawkeye claimed that Widow wanted her mind to be scanned and repaired if needed and in exchange would become an agent. REDACTED confirmed through 4 different codes that Hawkeye was serious. Hawkeye reported that Widow was handcuffed, disarmed, and they were ready for extraction. REDACTED stupidly decided to talk to Widow himself, and also decided that she was serious, as if she isn’t the most dangerous woman in the world and a master spy who could fool any lie detector she wanted to. REDACTED contacted Hill at HQ and relayed the situation. Hill called them stupid in every language she could. They refused to back down. Hill very reluctantly agreed to let them land, with Widow in cuffs and Hawkeye watching her. Interrogation to proceed.
“Agent Coulson,” Maria greeted, face a blank slate. “How was the trip back?”
“Nothing to report,” Coulson said. “No murder, no drugs, no talking. She just looked like she wanted to kill Clint, but that’s not uncommon for anyone here. She seemed serious about her offer.”
Maria nodded in acceptance. She was likely playing the long game if she was conning them, so killing the people bringing her in wouldn’t make sense. It would be inside their highly secret facility that she would have to be watched. Then again, they were floating a mile high in the sky, so it would be harder to escape.
“Have her brought out,” she ordered. Best to humor her for the moment, as if she was really coming in from the cold. Fighting could go on later, if it needed to.
Coulson whistled at the quinjet and Clint appeared almost instantly, a handcuffed woman stepping out in front of him.
The rumors about Widow varied, but all agreed that she was supernaturally beautiful, able to con men into her schemes with a simple smile. Maria had thought that was an exaggeration, but seeing her in person was revealing. The first thing that she noticed was that Widow was young. She looked younger than Maria. The second thing was that Widow managed to pull off the handcuffed look with extreme grace, as if she wanted nothing more than to make a new fashion trend. Probably because she could get out of her handcuffs within ten seconds, Maria thought. She descended the quinjet ramp and looked Maria in the eye.
“Commander Hill,” Widow said coyly. “I hear great things.”
“Widow,” Maria replied in a dry tone. “ I hear that you want to join the gang?”
“If you can’t beat them, join them,” Widow offered with a sharp smile.
Maria frowned. “You seemed to be doing alright for yourself.”
The Black Widow had some enemies for sure, the KGB wanted her back or dead and she had pissed a fair few people off, but their intel on her was limited. She took contracts for money and didn’t discriminate based on who it killed. SHIELD had put her on the ‘take care of, but she’s not actively trying to murder us’ list instead of the ‘kill ASAP’ one, but it was still a kill order. And while Hawkeye was good, Maria didn’t quite believe that Widow couldn’t beat him in a fair fight, which she had the instant that Clint hesitated.
“Any other reasoning you want to give, or should we just get straight to it?”
“I am not in control of my own head,” Widow said, and Maria raised her gun in alarm. That was not a good sentence. “I have trigger words that I can’t break. SHIELD has better technology than I can access elsewhere, and it’s firmly against the KGB. I can give you information,” she explained. “I only know killing, so that is all I can offer to you as payment for assistance. SHIELD seemed like my best option.”
“I suppose if the alternative is dying, it would,” Maria mused.
“I’d rather die than go back there,” Widow spat, emotional for the first time.
Maria raised an eyebrow. It was probably a calculated show to appeal to her better nature, but Maria found herself feeling for Widow.
“Well, Natalia, let’s get you into a cell and then we can see where we’re at.”
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Natalia became Natasha over the next bit, but her drive to be the best never faltered. While SHIELD didn’t trust her, sending her on baby missions still, Natasha took to the training courses and demolished them in her boredom. The scoreboards changed in a series of weeks to be dominated by one name, and Maria was incensed. She had been the first on about half of the boards, after all.
When Clint saw her looking at the boards for the first time after the change, he vanished from sight for three days. Coulson saw her fuming, said, “Oh no,” and busied himself with paperwork. May lifted an eyebrow at her, as if to say, what are you going to do about it?
Natasha got back from her latest mission to find her records beat and a smug Maria Hill practicing her aim in the firing range. She regained some of them in the next week, and from then on the two were locked in competition, trading vicious glares when they crossed paths. It was like a Pink Panther skit recreation, Clint told them weeks later. Maria would post a score, leave, and then Nat would descend from the rafters to erase it. Natasha would beat her time and go to another course, and Maria would appear innocuously to replace the score. Clint had had the time of his life watching their feud.
Coulson sat them down three weeks later. “I understand your pride is on the line here, but this is now impacting your work. You are out of control. Maria, you have so much paperwork. Natasha, you also have paperwork. Less maybe, but I needed it three days ago .”
He fixed them with a stern glare. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Clint, May, and I have devised a little competition for you two. You may complete one event each day, if you have both completed enough work. No more staying at the obstacle course until four in the morning trying to shave two more seconds off your times.”
Maria winced. She hadn’t realized how obsessed they had both gotten. It was strange, how much she had been infuriated by Natasha; she had hardly spared a thought to work. Quite unlike her.
“Sorry, Phil,” the two chorused in unison, before looking at each other in surprise. It was an instinctive reaction to his disappointment that every person somehow shared.
“See Clint for further instructions,” he said tiredly, waving them out. “And go do your damn paperwork.”
————————
Clint was waiting for them eagerly, brandishing a paper in the air.
“Are you ready for the competition of the year?”
He showed them the rules: no killing or serious maiming of each other, no harm to innocent bystanders ( like me! , he said with emphasis), and no redos.
“Bring it,” Maria said with feeling.
Clint bounced up and down, starting to speak in an announcer’s voice. “We have designed a series of tests, each of which you will have three attempts at. Your scores will be averaged together for a more accurate view of your abilities. Attempts to bribe officials will result in docked points. Your first test is- drumroll please!”
They both stared at him, deadpan.
“Fine. Be like that. First up is guns. Constructing and aiming with five different versions and nine different targets, near, mid, far, moving slow near, moving slow mid, moving slow far, moving fast near, moving fast mid, and moving fast far. May, Coulson, and I are judging.”
Natasha won that one, barely. Maria didn’t have as much experience with the different guns as she did. She was more furious though, because Natasha had thrown her off her game. When she shot alone, Maria was astoundingly good, but Natasha’s presence was getting to her like no one else ever had. The way she brushed up against her, winked at her, whispered challenges in her ear, it drove Maria crazy. It was just a tactic, she was sure, but it was working to a degree that neither of them had expected.
Tomorrow, she would be better, tomorrow, Natasha would go down, Maria vowed to herself.
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Maria scraped out a win on the obstacle course as Natasha got nailed by a bar in her first round, distracted by Maria examining herself for injury by pulling off her top. “I thought it might be serious,” she explained later, after she calmed down from losing her cool because of her concern for Maria (Maria‘s abs). “Can’t have Commander Hill get injured on my watch, they’d think I did it on purpose.”
————————
Natasha got her back by winning in sparring.
First match: they had traded blows for a while before Natasha had pulled off her signature move, wrapping her thighs around Maria’s head and pulling her down to the ground. Sitting on Maria’s chest, she smugly looked down at her. Maria quickly tapped out as Clint snickered on the sideline.
Second match: Maria refused to lose and got Natasha with a sneaky grab she had learned from May. She pressed Natasha face first into the mat, whispering in her ear, “Not so happy now, are you?”
Third and final match: Natasha overpowered Maria, which was fair. She was the one going on active missions while Maria did paperwork, she should be better. Maria would have had to re-evaluate her if she didn’t win.
Natasha was laying on top of Maria, her legs cinched around Maria’s hips, pinning her arms down above her head. She leaned over Maria, with that smug expression firmly back on her face. Maria was filled with an inexplicable urge to do something to her. Slap her, maybe?
Natasha leaned in close. “I win,” she said softly.
Shivers ran through Maria’s body and as her hips jerked slightly, she could see Natasha take the slightest of inhales.
“Okay!” Clint interrupted their moment quickly, not sure where it was going. “You can get off her now, Nat,” he added.
“She didn’t tap out yet,” Natasha murmured to him, eyes still fixed on Maria.
“Well, I’m the ref so I’m also allowed to call it,” he replied, but neither of them were listening.
“Do you concede?” Natasha said.
Maria frowned. She tested her strength against Natasha’s once more. For such a small person, she held a lot of force. Maria’s hands wouldn’t move, her hips could only buck up into Natasha’s, and her legs were pinned tight.
“I concede this match,” she said begrudgingly. “Well done.”
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Maria destroyed Natasha in chess. “It was the only thing my dad liked about me,” she said in an undertone to her when Natasha was aghast at losing all three games. Natasha gave her a look of understanding, but said nothing.
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Clint showed up Friday evening even more excited. He had dragged Coulson along with him, who had an exasperated look on his face. “Today we are going to be playing a game called UNO.”
Maria stared at him. “UNO?”
“What’s UNO?” Natasha said with a frown. “This seems unfairly weighted for Hill, if she knows what that is.”
“You’ll pick it up pretty quick,” Clint assured her, “but we can do some practice games first. Maria, have you played before?”
She had, but only with her team from the army, who were long gone and unavailable now to help her relax and play children's games. “It’s been a while,” she said somberly.
“Perfect.” Clint clapped his hands. “Phil and I will be playing with you, and May will oversee us. Points are given for winning, obviously, but you’ll also be docked if Phil or I win, depending on how many cards you have left. This game will be taking place in my quarters. Come along now,” he finished, speed walking away.
“It’s a card game?” Natasha questioned neutrally, but Maria could see that she was clearly confused at the turn that their competition had taken.
Maria nodded at her as they walked behind Clint, not bothering to keep up. “One that I’ll destroy you at,” she said confidently.
“Oh, Maria, so naive,” Natasha said, reaching out to brush a hair out of Maria’s face. “I don’t need to know what we’re doing to wreck you.”
Maria’s face remained impassive, even as her insides grew warm. “Mmm,” she replied. “We’ll see.”
Maria won a little more than Natasha did, but the real surprise was in Coulson and Clint, who turned out to be fucking card sharks.
“Did you have us play this just so that we would lose?” Maria complained to them near the end.
Coulson frowned innocently at her. “We thought it would be good to incorporate some non-work related elements in, to help you relax from doing paperwork all day.”
Maria eyed him. “Sure,” she said. “And you picked the one game that you’re really good at, just for fun?”
Coulson shrugged at her, not giving an inch. “It’s a good start to traditional game play.”
For the first time that week, they didn’t instantly disperse when Clint declared the game over. There was no need to shower or to stomp off after an embarrassing defeat. They were in the same boat now, and held together by their mutual friends.
“Pizza?” Clint said, a bit hesitant, trying to evaluate their moods.
“Only if it’s the good kind,” Maria said, relaxing back on the couch. “And only if you’re paying. I did so much paperwork to clear your last mission after it went FUBAR, I see it in my dreams now.”
Natasha scoffed. “You weren’t the one that he abandoned because of a minor snake bite.”
“It wasn’t minor , Nat!” Clint protested. “You were out of your mind because of the poison.”
“Mmm, and I still could’ve helped,” she said, annoyed.
Coulson cut in. “We said that we weren’t going to talk about this anymore. Let’s just have a nice dinner, okay? Watch a movie or something.”
“No sappy romance movies,” Maria ordered curtly, but agreed to the evening’s plans.
“How do you all feel about Shrek?” Clint questioned with a grin.
“Never seen it,” Natasha and Maria replied in unison.
Coulson stifled a groan. “That’s fine,” he said.
————————
“So,” Clint said the next evening. “How much do you both have going on tomorrow?”
“Just some more paperwork.” Maria looked him up and down. He was full of barely contained energy.
Natasha shrugged. I can make myself free , it said.
“Excellent.” Clint grinned maniacally. “Tonight, we are having a drinking competition.”
“Will you be drinking as well?” Maria casually inquired, grimacing to herself. Natasha was well known for being able to drink anyone under the table, and Maria didn’t have great experiences with anyone who was drunk. This was setting up to be a bad experience, but Maria could never back down from a challenge. Besides, she trusted them.
“Nah, I’ve got to keep an eye on you two. I’m bringing May as backup as well so you drunk spies don’t get up to any shenanigans behind my back.”
That made it much better. May knew her background, she would pull Maria away if anything happened. And if Clint wasn’t drinking, then well, how bad could her and Natasha be?
May nodded to her as they entered Clint’s quarters once more. Clint had designated it as a neutral battleground, which Maria thought was unfair, because Natasha had been in there a lot more recently than she had.
“Shots every 30 minutes no matter what,” Clint began. “We’ll be playing some games in the meantime. Beer pong, flip cup, and so on. Your classic frat party night, except no one here has ever been to one of those.”
Maria locked eyes with Natasha, who smiled sweetly at her. “I’m sure you’ve heard about my prowess, Hill.”
“I don’t give a damn about your reputation,” Maria replied, blatantly lying.
They downed their first shots and then grabbed beer bottles, lining up back to back as Clint told them the rules.
“I’ll ask a who’s most likely to question, and if you think it’s you then you will drink. If you don’t agree on who it is and either both drink or neither drink, then you will both take another drink. Okay, so starting off with who’s most likely to get an embarrassing tattoo!”
Maria drank, blushing. Natasha wouldn’t get a tattoo because she regularly did undercover missions still. Also, Maria might have a tattoo already, but she would never admit to it. She had gotten mind-blowingly drunk, convinced a shady person to give it to her, but not given clear enough instructions. She had been trying to honor her five fallen team members with their names and connecting lines to show their love, but had ended up with something else entirely. It was a Satanic summoning pentagram on her lower back. So, a tramp stamp for the Devil. May had let out a rare laugh when Maria had confessed to it at movie night.
“Please tell me there is a story, Maria,” Clint said. “Why are you blushing? Do you actually have a tattoo? Maria Hill, Commander Hill , has an embarrassing tattoo?”
“You’re going to have to get me a lot drunker to tell you that,” Maria replied calmly.
“Is your whole body heating up?” Natasha interrupted, pressing firmly into her back. “How far down does that blush go?”
“Shut up, Romanoff,” Maria said. “Alcohol takes away my body control fast.”
“We are going to circle back to this later,” Clint said, “but first, who’s more likely to ditch their friends to flirt with a stranger?”
Maria didn’t move. She didn’t go out with friends, as May had predicted years ago.
“Clint, you need to get over this. It was one time!” Natasha said behind her.
“Three!” Clint said. “And the second one wasn’t even hot.”
“Oh, please. Have you seen some of the people that you’ve slept with?” Natasha bit back.
“Hey now. I’m aware my standards are lower than yours.” Clint said in protest. “But they’re not that bad.”
Natasha hummed. “Do you want the real reason, Clint?”
He paused. It did seem like a set up, Maria thought. “Do I?”
“I have standards, yes,” Natasha began. “But I also look for a certain type of person on occasion. A certain type of person who might have certain types of things that they like in bed.” She chuckled, and it reverberated through Maria’s body, pinging through her mind, bringing her blush back up. “Do I need to go on?”
“Message received,” Clint said. “Although, I am curious now, which one are you ?”
“That,” Natasha said, and Maria could sense the smug grin on her face already, “is for me to know and for someone to find out.” She ran a finger up the side of Maria’s leg, and as Maria’s breath hitched, May stepped in.
“Next question. No fucking in front of me.”
“Yes, now, which one of you is more likely to win at golf?” Clint said quickly, and they began again, starting to drink rather heavily once Clint really got into it. Maria had probably gone through three and a half beers in twenty minutes with his rapidfire questions.
“Now that you’re a bit sauced, let’s play some beer pong,” Clint said, still excited.
Maria groaned as she moved away from Natasha and toward the beer pong set up. Natasha was still moving with some grace, and although Maria really tried, she went down in all three games.
“Not so confident now, Hill!” Natasha laughed from her side of the table as if she had made the funniest joke they’d heard all evening.
“Shut your fuck up,” Maria replied, swaying next to the table. “What’s, what’s next?”
“Next, I’d like to see who can win at chess now that Maria is smashed!” Clint said, excited. He pulled a chessboard from his room and Natasha swiftly moved over to him. “Every time you lose a piece, take a drink,” he began to explain before his eyes fixed on Maria who was staring at the chessboard. “Maria?”
She didn’t react. May looked up from where she was sitting on the couch and tensed. “Maria,” she called softly. She motioned for Clint to back off. “Maria.”
It took May a while to help Maria out of her flashback, as Natasha and Clint stood frozen at the chessboard.
“Game is canceled for tonight,” May said firmly. “Have discretion. Maria made the decision to trust you with the possibility of this happening. Don’t let her down.”
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None of them brought up the drinking night as they continued their little game. Night after night, Clint came to them with a new challenge. He presented them with the challenge of a Mario Kart tournament. He asked them to make the tallest rock stack they could. He introduced many card games to them, often ending in violence. They tried to play Monopoly three different times before Coulson declared that they had to stop before they broke everything in rage. They executed a series of pranks on the baby agents.
Gradually, Maria felt her rivalry with Natasha shift. In the beginning, she had genuinely been furious with Natasha. Impressed, but holding a silent grudge. Now, Maria would consider them to be friends. She held respect for Natasha, not just for her skills, but for her person.
Clint presented them with their final challenge with an evil smirk on his face. He ushered them into separate escape rooms, handcuffed them together through the wall, and let them struggle. Maria and Natasha quickly figured out that the rooms were themed by a show the other had watched, and adapted to instructing each other on what they should do.
“It’s just a mission,” Maria realized halfway through, as she directed Natasha to another puzzle. They were working well together, skills now combined instead of turned against each other, and Maria felt the affection she had gained for Natasha rise up into her chest.
“Nat,” she began hesitantly, “do you want to go out for drinks after this?”
“Just us?” Natasha asked, deceptively calm.
“Mhm.” Maria’s heart pounded and she fiddled with her next clue to distract herself from the feeling that she had just ruined everything.
“Sure,” Natasha finally said. “Sounds like fun.”
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Maria was silently monitoring coms for a pair of agents. They had received some complaints about working with these two in the past, and Maria had taken it upon herself to see what the situation was. The mission was simple and the two agents had performed acceptably to maintain their cover. Maria was almost satisfied with her first check in when they began to gossip over their coms, assured in their mission and now turning to other matters on their minds.
“Did you hear?” Agent One said.
“Hear what?” Agent Two replied.
“Black Widow and Hill are involved,” Agent One said, sounding disgusted. “Someone spotted them kissing the other day.”
Maria sucked in a breath and turned her full attention to their conversation.
“Ugh, no wonder Widow has such a high clearance level. She’s just sleeping her way to the top.”
“And if she’s not already going to hell, Widow sure is trying hard to get there. And dragging Hardass Hill down with her? Don’t they know that’s a sin?”
Exhaling, Maria shook her head, trying to shake off memories of her childhood.
That’s a sin , said her father. What is wrong with you? Can’t you do anything right?
“Maybe they’ll repent,” Agent Two said speculatively.
“Once a sinner, always a sinner. My uncle was like that. They tried to fix him when he was young but it had taken hold of him and they didn’t get it out fast enough.”
Maria shivered. She shut off her coms and sat silently.
Natasha and her were good friends now and they went out for drinks often. Sometimes they slept together, but nothing was official. Whenever one of them seemed like they might make a real move, there was an emergency to deal with. Leaving it at friends with occasional benefits was the best move. It wasn’t a sin when it was like that, Maria reasoned. There were no feelings involved, she just trusted Natasha with her body.
After listening in on the two agents, Maria began to carefully spy on the rest of the agents, trying to see if they were gossiping too. It would do her no good if the agents didn’t trust her because they thought she was with Natasha.
The search did not turn out well for her. Everywhere she went, she heard whispers.
“Hill and Romanoff are fucking?”
“The deputy director?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
She grew stiff with Natasha, citing work to her. She stayed later and later in her office. There was always paperwork to be filled out, she didn’t have time to go out with Natasha or the others.
Logically, Maria knew that she was letting homophobic words get to her, but there was always that part of her that had rebelled at the thought of starting anything with Nat. It had been there before she had heard people talking, sowing discontent in her head. It had grown when she was just a child, and she had tried to burn it out when she got away, but the root system was deep.
Illogically, Maria figured that she was protecting everyone as much as she could. Agents would feel safer if there were no more rumors about her while she planned their missions. If she could pass it off as speculation, Natasha would be safer with her coworkers. It was the best move forward.
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Clearance Level: 7
Mission: Extraction, REDACTED
Location: Paris, France
Time: REDACTED, 2008
Agents: Strike Team Delta
Handler: Maria Hill
Mission Report, Deputy Director Hill:
Widow and Hawkeye in position at 1:49AM local time. Instructions are to infiltrate and extract three children. Widow will enter on the ground. Hawkeye is to enter through the roof. Under no circumstances should they get captured, as the enemy is known for their torture. Agents entered at 1:56. Hawkeye cleared the top two floors of five. Widow went into hiding on the ground floor before slipping down to the basement. Widow confirmed the presence of three children, in stable conditions.
Hawkeye indicated that the ground floor was swarming and that they knew someone was there. Four bodies went down to the basement to investigate. Widow was instructed to hide. Widow did not hide. Widow ran straight toward the four bodies and past, up the stairs to where the other thirty men were meeting, on high guard. Widow engaged in battle with them, instructing Hawkeye to attend to the children while the enemy focused on her. Widow subdued approximately fifteen men before being overcome and captured. Sixteen men guarded Widow’s room as they attempted to torture Widow like I fucking mentioned at the start. Lost contact with Widow. Hawkeye was able to easily get the three children out and into the getaway vehicle. Hawkeye drove to the appointed meet spot. Hawkeye dropped the children and went back.
Hawkeye began to pick off enemies, sneaking through the vents. Hawkeye was instructed to cause a commotion opposite to where Widow was being held. Hawkeye set off a small bomb in the basement. Only two men guarding Widow’s room were left, so Hawkeye subdued them and retrieved Natasha. Once outside, he administered some emergency care and drove them back to the safe house. A Quinjet was flown in to pick Widow up so she could receive appropriate care.
Mission was a success.
Disciplinary action for Widow in question for going against orders, but the medical leave may be enough.
Medical Report:
Hawkeye - major bruising, bullet graze
(week off before any major missions recommended)
Black Widow - broken leg, fractured ribs, concussion, three broken fingers, knife wound in shoulder and leg
(bed rest required, PT required, at least two months off recommended [advanced healing factor])
Natasha lasted three days in medical, drugged up, before Maria got the notice that she had escaped back to her quarters. She started going stir crazy two weeks later when she had exhausted every possible thing she could do in her quarters and at the base.
It didn’t matter. Maria had already sent out a notice that Natasha was not allowed to go on any mission or train, no matter how simple, before she was reassessed in two months.
Natasha showed up in her office 26 days after the mission. Maria hadn’t gone to visit her while she was awake, afraid that one of them would start yelling. There would be no doubt that Natasha would be pissed to be benched when she felt relatively fine, but Maria was mad enough at her for intentionally getting captured against orders.
“Agent Romanoff, how can I help you?” Maria asked, face blank.
Natasha growled. “Let me do something! The gym doors automatically lock in front of me and I know you have something to do with it. I’m fine. I won’t do anything that I can’t. I’ll follow your instructions, just let me go in and do something!”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Maria said nonchalantly, scribbling in a signature on another form. “You’ll just get hurt again.”
Natasha paused. “Are you mad that I got hurt?” She said, confused. Her eyebrows drew together into her thinking face, the one that made Maria want to kiss her. “I hate to tell you, Maria, but that’s the business that we’re in.”
“I’m mad,” Maria said, voice even, not showing a single bit of the turmoil inside her, “that you went gallivanting off on the mission against orders and that you got tortured because of that. I’m mad, because I specifically told you both that you were not to get captured, and you freely offered yourself up as bait.” She glared at Natasha. “I am aware that you might get hurt on missions, but we do what we can to prevent that. I’m mad that you pulled that move that you did without talking to me. We are a team, Agent Romanoff.”
“Oh.” Natasha looked almost shocked at her words. “But, it was a good plan. We got the kids out easily because I drew everyone in. Clint handled it. The mission was a success. Why does it matter that I got hurt? I knew what I was doing.”
Maria took several deep breaths. “First,” she began, “as Deputy Director, I would like for my agents to return to base alive and well. We can’t have an agency without healthy, happy agents. Second,” she paused, trying to word her sentence correctly. “You mean a lot to the people around here. Clint, Coulson,” she paused again, shuffling papers around on her desk. “Me. Seeing you hurt makes m-, us, sad.”
“You have been ignoring me for weeks!” Natasha cut in. “You don’t care.”
“I was busy!” Maria protested. “Promotions take up a lot of your time.” She gestured to all the paperwork around her. “I have to do so much stuff.”
“That’s not healthy either!” Natasha shouted at her. “You fucking hypocrite. Have you ever heard of delegation?”
“We’re not talking about me right now,” Maria said firmly, trying to guide Natasha away from why she had been avoiding her. “Did you ever think about the fact that I might have had a plan where you, Clint, and the kids all made it out safe without getting tortured, or did you just decide that my thoughts didn’t matter on the mission that I was running?”
“That’s how Delta works. We went in with your plan, I saw that the plan would go to shit, I made a new plan on the fly and Clint adapted. It worked.” Natasha spat out.
“I can’t work with you if you’re going to ignore my instructions!” Maria’s voice began to climb.
“I don’t trust you!” Natasha yelled back at her, advancing closer to the desk. “I did nothing wrong and you dropped me just like that. I thought we were friends, or something. You started ignoring me a while after you got that fucking promotion. I know it wasn’t that!”
“I was afraid!” Maria shouted, standing up rapidly from her desk.
Natasha paused in her tirade. “What?”
Maria sighed. “I was afraid,” she said again, quietly.
“Of me?” Natasha shrank back, pained.
“I didn’t want to torpedo your career. Or mine,” Maria said, dropping back down in her chair with a sigh. “There were rumors about us. Not positive ones. So, I pulled away. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You should have made that decision with me. I have had enough of people deciding what they’re going to do with me and not telling me. That was something that impacted us both. You had no right, no right to take that away from me.” Natasha said angrily. “This is your fault.”
Maria flinched. “I-, no. You’re right. You’re right. I did this to us.” She sighed.
“Why didn’t you just talk to me? We had something, something real. I lo-“ Natasha paused abruptly. “I cared about you.”
“Natasha.” Maria’s voice cracked a little. “I got it into my head that I shouldn’t be with you, and once I decided that, I knew I needed to push you away.”
“Why? Why shouldn’t we be together? And don’t give me that bullshit about our careers. Fury doesn’t give a flying fuck and he is the only person who can fire us. What are you so afraid of?”
Maria shook her head. “I can’t. Nat, don’t. I need to, I need to,” she looked around aimlessly, trying to find something that would soothe her. “I need to punch something.”
Natasha frowned. “I’d like to punch you as well. Let’s go.” She turned and left the room without checking to see if Maria would follow.
In a trance, Maria mechanically got up and went after her. Natasha led them down to a small gym near her quarters. It was left empty most of the time, as it was now.
The large space was suffocating, all the words that were left unsaid hanging in the air. Her office had been small, contained; she was Deputy Director there. Here, Maria was just a woman. She was vulnerable.
Natasha gestured for her to stretch briefly. “Normal rules,” she said curtly. Maria nodded and stepped into the ring.
Natasha easily overpowered her on their first fight. Maria’s moves were sloppy, slow, and telegraphed. Natasha rolled off her and grunted in dissatisfaction. “Again.”
In their second round, Maria channeled her anger, her sadness, her fear into her motions. She surprised Natasha with a reckless move and pinned her back to the floor before silently moving off her.
When Natasha held her down in their third bout, she had Maria facedown, unable to move. “Talk to me, Maria,” Natasha whispered into her ear. “What is going on with you?”
Maria shuddered. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. Holding them back with all her might, she shook her head again. If she started to talk, the floodgates would open.
Natasha let up on her hold and sighed.
“We shouldn’t have sparred, you might have aggravated something,” Maria managed to bite out.
Natasha growled in frustration. “You infuriating fuck,” she spat, stalking away. “You have two days to change your mind.”
Maria thumped her head against the cold gym floor.
“That was stupid,” May said from somewhere in the room. Where she had come from, Maria had no idea, and frankly, she didn’t care right now.
“Go away, May.”
“She’s offering you everything you’ve ever wanted. She sees the real you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Maria rolled over and groaned. She needed to train more.
May spoke from closer to her, almost whispering, in Mandarin. “Haven’t you told me that I have to move beyond what’s in the past? You need to do the same.”
Maria sighed, slumping against the floor.
“Consider therapy,” May said as she slipped out of the room. “And try delegating. You’re not alone, Maria.”
Maria banged her head against the floor again.
--------------------
Clearance Level: 7
Mission: Extraction, REDACTED
Location: Dallas, Texas
Time: REDACTED, 2008
Agents: Strike Team Delta
Handler: Maria Hill
Mission Report, Deputy Director Hill:
Pre-Mission Intel: Widow in position, successfully infiltrating the group. No check-ins missed. Hawkeye in position on a nearby rooftop. Widow’s intel states that ten children are placed in the basements, and three in upper bedrooms. Five to ten traffickers guard the basement. Layout is provided on page two of nine (why the fuck are these so long).
Objective: Hawkeye is to cause a distraction, splitting the enemy inside the building. Widow will incapacitate the others. Hawkeye for the upper stories. Widow for the basement. If there are any USB drives, they are to be collected. Lethal force acceptable, but prisoners preferred.
Go ahead given at 17:42
Hawkeye did something with his blasted arrows, I don’t know what that one did, but there was smoke and a bang. Widow’s com on, confirmed three men down. Hawkeye, confirmed two men down, one kid acquired. Hawkeye, two kids acquired, ran into another group of men, three men down, no time to confirm. Widow relayed that there was a bomb somewhere in the building, two minutes on it. Hawkeye was forced to escort the two kids out to safety of REDACTED. Hawkeye went back into the building. Widow, two men down, confirmed. Ten children acquired and carefully escorted out, passed to Hawkeye.
Widow confirmed with Hill that she could find the last child and get out. Hill approved. One minute. Widow, immediately located the last child in a closet, then proceeded to fucking ask Hawkeye to catch them as she threw the both of them out of the window, ten seconds left. What the fuck. Hawkeye shot an arrow of slime? at them and the ground, resulting in the both of them bouncing and rolling in purple goo. Building collapsed as the bomb went off. No casualties.
Mission successful.
Medical Report:
None. Maybe some light bruising, but they didn’t even show up to medical, so.
Maria smiled at Natasha, who was waiting for her in the corridor.
“Hello, Deputy Director Hill,” Natasha purred as soon as Maria stepped out of her office.
“Agent Romanoff. To what do I owe this pleasure?” Maria said, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Are you free tonight? I thought we might have an evening to ourselves.” Nat raised an eyebrow right back and Maria snickered, quietly. No one else needed to know that she melted in Nat’s presence.
“I might be,” she said. “Just have to drop off this mission report. Ninth perfect mission by Strike Team Delta, you know.”
Natasha’s lips quirked up. “I heard they’re working well with their handler.”
Maria began walking down the corridor, Natasha following close behind. “I heard Clint wants a rematch in UNO.”
“Yes, well, only if we team up against him and Phil again. Together, we’re winners.”
“Do you think they found the mirrors at all? Or interpreted our code? Or converted May? Or found any other of the methods we used to defeat them?”
Natasha let out a full smile. She turned to Maria, eyes showing her clear affection. “You are perfection. Never let anyone else tell you otherwise.” She sighed happily, before continuing, “And it is quite possible that they’ve cottoned on to one of our plots. We’ll have to come up with some others.”
“But first,” Maria interrupted, “it’s date night, and I was promised laser tag.”