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When they finally made their way back to the rendezvous point—not an easy task: Maria’s left ankle throbbed every time she touched her foot to the ground, and Natasha’s concussion had messed with her night-vision, forcing her to walk the last half-mile through the snow with one hand on Maria’s shoulder—they found Tony Stark waiting just inside the cabin, arms folded over his chest. Maria could see the weight of his suit buckling the cabin floor under his feet.
“You two,” Stark said, squinting at the pair of them, “have failed the Bechdel Test.”
“Stark,” Natasha said, “if you don’t get out of my way, I’m going to reprogram all of your robots to only answer to my voice and my voice alone.”
“Good luck finding an actual print of her voice to use, too,” Clint, who was taping up his wrist, said. “She threw the last guy who tried into an active volcano.”
“What? How?” Stark asked.
Natasha’s only answer was a smile. Maria’s was a snort. That Quinjet was still a little warped from the heat.
“But yes, the Bechdel Test,” Stark said, wisely moving out of the way. Rogers and Thor had yet to arrive, Bruce was sacked out on the couch, snoring off the exhaustion from his latest bout of the Hulk (smashing two helicopters together like cymbals had surely must have taken it out of him), and Clint was in the corner, patching up his wounds. “You two have failed it.”
Natasha and Maria shared a look; Natasha tilted an eyebrow—you deal with him, or me?—and Maria gave a resigned sigh. Natasha had taken out the guard Maria hadn’t seen, a rookie mistake. Maria owed her.
“What are you blathering about, Stark?” she asked, hobbling over to the table.
Tony Stark sounded smug. “The Bechdel Test is used to identify gender bias in fiction. A work passes the test if it features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.”
“Is that from a Wikipedia article?” Clint asked. “Stark, what are you doing reading Wikipedia?”
Stark rolled his eyes. “You think it’s fun being in the suit for three-hour flights by myself?”
“Why not?” Natasha asked. “You’re alone with your favorite person.”
“Funny, Tsarina. I hacked your private channel during the mission, and you said precisely two things to each other. ‘Where’s Hawkeye?’ and ‘Think Rogers got there in time?’”
God, if she’d realized just how much of a headache Tony Stark was going to be, she’d have found some way to pawn this job off on Sitwell, Maria thought. Working with the Avengers was a bit like trying to pound in a nail with her forehead instead of a hammer. Eventually the job would get done, but in the end, it usually wasn’t worth the migraine. “So?” she asked.
“So every single thing you lady-folks talked about was men. You realize how sexist the two of you are? This is a problem that needs to be addressed if we’re going to have a proper, working team. Isn’t that what Fury’s pushing for? A ‘well-oiled machine’—present and accounted for, thank you—‘with the initiative to solve more problems than it causes, for once?’”
This wasn’t something that was going to go away, Maria realized. She turned to Clint. “Any idea where Rogers and Thor are?”
“See? You’re still doing it!” Stark stabbed an accusing finger at her. “You’re still talking about men. You need to expand your horizons, Hill. Look beyond the patriarchy, fight the power—”
“They were pinned down by a sniper nest in the southwest corner,” Clint said. “Thor was handling it. Could take them a little while to get here, though. Steve wanted to go through the facility again, make sure we got everything.”
“Thanks,” Maria said. When he tossed her the roll of elastic bandage, she nodded her gratitude and began to work at getting the boot off of her swollen ankle. It felt like sticking a hot knife into her own skin, but she clenched her jaw and finally eased the boot off. Natasha and Clint didn’t offer to help. She was grateful for that.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Wouldn’t not listening to you just because you’re a man make us more feminist?” Natasha’s voice was absolutely dry.
Stark gave the matter some thought. “Yes, but it’s not enough. You’ve got to pass the Bechdel Test. The future of our team working cohesively with our new liaison depends on it.”
“He does realize how sexist he’s being right now, right?” Maria asked Natasha.
“He’s got an IQ of 267. He knows.”
“Still failing the test,” Stark said.
This time, it was Natasha’s turn to sigh. “Very well,” she said. “Maria, strangulation or suffocation?”
“Depends on the victim,” Maria said, and eyed Stark.
“I go for suffocation myself,” Natasha said. “That’s, of course, when the knives won’t work. You hit just the right spot in the arm, and the bleed-out is nice and slow but ultimately unstoppable.”
Stark shifted. Maria noticed that he patted the metal suit to make sure that it was still protecting him.
“You know, I think I prefer a good neck-snapping to both of those,” Maria said. “Get the right leverage, no muss, no fuss. Plus, you get that nice pop noise. I find it very soothing.”
“An excellent point. I did not consider that.” Natasha paused; Maria could see Clint’s lips twisting upward as he obviously enjoyed Iron Man’s discomfort, but the archer was silent. “No, I think I prefer knives. Far more satisfying.”
“And it makes a statement,” Maria said, nodding.
“Okay, okay!” Stark waved his hands. “You’ve passed the test. Congratulations. You’re awesome feminists. Hooray.”
“Oh, look,” Natasha said. “We have won the approval of a man. Our lives are completely enriched and fulfilled.”
“I have the sudden desire to bake him a pie,” Maria agreed, mirroring her deadpan delivery.
Stark opened his mouth to say something, but the door opened to admit Steve. He had snow dusting his hair and eyelashes, but even red-faced from the cold, he looked wholesome and patriotic. It was so completely unfair that nothing ruffled him, while she felt gritty and disgusting from crawling through tunnels all day. She pushed down on the silly desire to fix her hair.
“What’s going on?” Steve asked.
“Hill’s baking Tony a pie because of feminism,” Clint informed Steve.
Steve, in the process of removing his shield, paused. Maria could actually see the thoughts working themselves out in his brain, trying to figure out how they had arrived at such an absurd summation. “Oh,” was all he said. “What kind of pie?”
Maria gave him an incredulous look.
“What?” he asked. “I’m hungry, and it stands to reason that you’re good at everything, so pies would be included in that.”
For a second, there was absolute silence in the cabin, and then, as one, the Avengers began to laugh so hard that Bruce woke up. Steve stared at them in bewilderment. “What?” he asked. “What’d I say now?”
“What just happened?” Bruce asked, looking groggily about.
“Sexism never stood a chance against Captain America, Doctor, that’s all,” Clint said.
Thor chose that moment to arrive. “Did I hear a’right?” he asked. “Did somebody say pie?”
Maria put her face in her hand and sighed. She did the same three days later when she received the mission reports from the team—which had taken much bothering on her part, and even a few creative threats—and every single one proudly claimed that the team had officially passed the Bechdel Test. She hoped that Fury knew how to use Wikipedia, or that was going to be an interesting debriefing.