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The line went dead.
Maria stared down at her phone, like it could tell her she was wrong, that what she was sure was happening was not actually happening.
They had been preparing for this for months. Everything was ready. The doctor. The bunker. The cover stories. But yet, there was so much out of their control, and Maria’s heart almost skipped a beat as she tried not to think of everything that could go wrong. They could kill him before he could escape. They could not get to him in time. They could be found out. Someone they trusted — a total of two people at the moment, besides them — could be Hydra.
But there wasn’t time to think about that. There was only time to put their plan into action.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small black pager. The one Nick had given her more than a month before when — in whispered conversations in the middle of public spaces so no one would be able to overhear — they had first begun planning for what had looked like an inevitable situation.
“Call for her,” he had told Maria then. “She’ll come. You can trust her.”
Maria had never met the her on the other end, but she had heard Nick mention her. And Phil Coulson had too. If they said she could be trusted — that there was no one else they would trust more — then she could be trusted.
Maria sucked in a lungful of air anyway and then pressed the button on the pager. She stared down at it as a symbol she didn’t recognize began to flash.
“How long will it take for her to come?” Maria had asked Nick that day, as she had slipped the pager into the pocket of her jeans, where it would stay beside her for the next month.
“Depends how far away she is,” Nick had answered. “A few hours perhaps. A few days.”
“I don’t know if we’ll have a few days,” Maria had said.
“Well, we better make sure we do.”
--
She watched him flatline in front of her eyes, her right hand in her pocket, fingers clenched around the pager that was still sending its signal out across the universe.
It wasn’t hard to pretend to be upset. Everything she thought they had built, every good she thought she had done since she stepped foot on the SHIELD Academy campus — it was all coming to an end. Or maybe it had never really started. Maybe it had always been an illusion built on other people’s lies.
It was harder to watch Steve and Natasha be upset and not tell them it was okay. Especially Natasha. Maria had thought from the beginning that they should bring her in on the plan; after all, no one lied and manipulated as well as she did so they wouldn’t have to worry about her giving them away, but Nick had insisted they keep it small.
“The more people who know,” he’d said, “the more danger we’ll be in.”
Maria gave Natasha as much time as she could with Nick’s supposed dead body before sending Steve to retrieve her. She watched the two of them have an argument in the hall and hoped that Fury knew what he was doing by giving the drive to Steve. He was the last person at SHIELD who would ever be Hydra, but he had no idea what was coming. She just hoped he would be okay — and the drive along with him — before they could meet up again.
It was easy to get the hospital to release Nick’s body to her. A flash of an ID and a couple of scrawled signatures, and they were letting her take him, offering their condolences as she did.
Dr. Fine met her at the medical examiner’s office — the one belonging to his longtime friend and confidant.
“If anyone asks,” he told her, “they’ll think Nick’s body’s here, waiting for that autopsy.”
Together, they transferred him to the van. She stared down at him, hidden from view under a sheet. So still. So easy to imagine that this is what really could have been if they hadn’t prepared. Her heart hurt at the thought.
“I will see you as soon as I can,” Maria told Dr. Fine.
“We’ll be waiting.”
“He is going to make, right?” she asked, as an afterthought. “All the injuries …”
“I can’t say it won’t be painful.” Dr. Fine smiled. “But yes, he’s going to make it. I am very good at my job.”
--
The atmosphere at the Triskelion was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She could feel the grief and the sorrow over Nick’s death from the looks people gave her as she walked down the halls. But at the same time, she could almost feel the undercurrent of tension and excitement that ran through the air. Hydra knew what this meant, and they knew their time was coming near.
Maria concentrated on looking sad but stoic and sticking to the plan she and Fury had gone over in detail many times before.
Of course, there was a twist she hadn’t exactly seen coming but one she couldn’t exactly say was surprising either. They knew this had always been a possibility.
She watched the video of Captain America punching out an elevator of men before escaping over the side of the building. She listened to the reports of SHIELD agents trying to track him down. And she remained calm as Jasper Sitwell showed her a video of Steve, with Natasha, in an Apple store. And if Maria was correct, she had a feeling the two rogue agents were trying to find out what was on the drive Nick gave Steve.
Good.
“Did you know about this?” Sitwell asked her.
“No,” she answered truthfully. “But I’m not surprised. That’s Captain America you’re after. He tends to inspire a certain brand of loyalty.”
Sitwell practically glared at her. “So does SHIELD.”
--
She made her exit not long after that. She had to get to the bunker — she wasn’t safe at SHIELD, not with Hydra about to make their move, and she needed to meet the woman on the other side of the pager. She couldn’t have her showing up to the Triskelion. She needed to be Maria’s little secret for now.
She found Dr. Fine with Nick, still unconscious from the drugs that had stopped his heart.
“How long until he wakes up?” she asked.
“Probably another eight to ten hours,” he said.
She didn’t succeed in keeping the look of disappointment off her face because Dr. Fine added, “I had to make sure. If something had kept us from getting him here …”
“It’s fine,” Maria said. “There’s just a lot going on. I could use his help.”
“Soon enough,” Dr. Fine said.
They hadn’t done much to the bunker before now. They’d moved in tech little by little over the course of the last few weeks, but most of it was still in old boxes that looked a little like something a college kid would throw together before moving into a dorm for the year. But they hadn’t wanted to draw any suspicion or give Hydra any idea that they were on to them. What they had managed had been done in between regular outings to security council meetings and SHIELD debriefs and even trips to the grocery store.
Maria set about pulling everything from boxes and setting up the security monitors. Her last mission, finished just a couple days ago, had been to get a backdoor line into the SHIELD network so she could monitor what they were monitoring, which right now was the whereabouts of one Steve Rogers and one Natasha Romanoff.
Fortunately for both of them, SHIELD did not have any leads.
“You two stay safe,” Maria whispered into the air, and then headed down the hall to make sure there was enough food for a few days and blankets for the cots and even some clean clothes. She didn’t know how long they were going to have to stay here — they needed the woman on the other side of the pager to arrive and they needed a plan, which couldn’t be made until Nick was awake.
--
It was close to midnight when Nick opened his eyes. Maria had been dozing by his bedside when she felt him stirring. Instantly, she was sitting up straight, grasping his hand as he blinked groggily against the light.
Finally, he turned his head to her and then glanced down at their hands.
“I’m not actually dying, Hill.” He coughed.
“I can still be happy to see you awake,” she replied, but she did let go of his hand.
Nick’s eyes scanned the room. “Is she here?”
“Not yet.” Maria pulled the pager from her pocket, showing him the symbol that had continuously been flashing all day.
“She will be soon,” he said. “Anything else I should know?”
“Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff are officially fugitives from SHIELD.”
Nick nodded at that. “Romanoff is with him. Good. He’ll be safer with her.”
“She’s not going to be happy when she finds out you’re alive.”
His lips twisted into a slight smile at that before he coughed again. “I know. Just make sure they’re okay, as much as you can.”
Maria nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“And go get some sleep, Hill. You look like crap.”
--
She slept restlessly that night, her head full of dreams of everyone she knew and loved suddenly turning out to be Hydra and the woman on the other end of the pager turning out to be a furry green monster that wasn’t like any alien she had ever seen in real life or in the movies.
It was pitch black when she woke for what must have been the tenth time that night, but this time was different. Her skin tingled in warning, and her hand instinctively reached for the gun she always kept under her pillow.
The light flicked on before she could get her bearings, and she blinked, fear and adrenaline racing through her body. She pointed her weapon before she could make out the blonde woman in the red, blue and gold suit standing in front of her, arms crossed and looking displeased.
“Where’s Fury?” the woman asked.
Maria dropped the gun to her side. “You’re …. her?” she finally managed. “He didn’t tell me your name.”
“Carol Danvers. Where’s Fury?”
“Maria Hill,” she said. “Deputy director of SHIELD. Or I was. Follow me.”
She slipped out of bed and out of the room she had been sleeping in, Carol following behind her. Carol didn’t ask her any questions and Maria didn’t offer any explanation, not until they were standing at the door to Nick’s room.
Maria pushed it open just enough for Carol to get a look at Nick, to see the wires he was still attached to and the bandages that covered most of his body.
“Maybe I should catch you up before we wake him up,” Maria said softly to her.
Carol looked at her, eyes wide. “Yes,” she said. “I think that would be good.”
--
They sipped on cheap coffee in the room that had been designated as the kitchen while Maria brought Carol up to speed — on Hydra infiltrating SHIELD, on Hydra finally getting ready to unveil themselves with the launch of Project Insight, on Hydra setting up Nick to be killed but Nick and Maria expecting it and countering it before Hydra could finish him off.
“You were really able to make him seem dead,” Carol said.
“They cut him open and everything.”
“But he’s going to be okay?”
“The doctor said there will be some recovery time, but he will recover.”
Carol took in a breath. “Okay,” she said, sounding relieved, and then, “He wants me to dismantle Project Insight?”
“He wants you to help dismantle Project Insight,” Maria said. “Though we might need to handle something else first.”
Maria let Carol see Nick after that, leaving the two of them alone to catch up. Nick hadn’t told her that much about Carol — mostly that he had met her years ago and they had been through a lot together. She did know Carol had superpowers that were unrivaled by anyone else and that if they wanted to just blow apart the hellicarriers that were targeted for Project Insight, they could be done within five minutes.
But it wasn’t going to be that easy. They needed to get rid of Hydra — or at least make sure they couldn’t go undetected anymore.
--
It was the next afternoon when Maria got a firsthand look at how useful Carol’s powers could be. Nick, Carol and Maria were together in Nick’s room, going over possible ideas to bring down Hydra and destroy Project Insight, when the monitors they had set up to track SHIELD’s monitoring system started going crazy.
Maria and Carol went to check what was happening.
“They’re going after Steve and Natasha,” Maria murmured as they listened to the shouts and commands of the people leaving the Triskelion in full combat gear.
“Those are your friends?” Carol asked. “The ones SHIELD … well, Hydra … is going after?”
“They can be trusted,” Maria said.
“Hydra will kill them.” It didn’t seem like a question.
“Yes, they will.”
Carol looked at Maria, like she was studying her. “I have an idea.”
Ten minutes later, Maria had taken the place of one of the SHIELD officers sent to apprehend their two fugitives. Carol had gotten her to the scene in minutes and then quickly subdued one of the officers.
“Where will you take him?” Maria had asked, looking down at the man’s crumpled form.
“Somewhere they won’t find him for a couple hours,” Carol said, and then she grinned. “Don’t worry. Your tracker is working. I’ll be back in time.”
Maria wasn’t really worried. More like impressed.
From there, it was only a waiting game. Wait for Steve and Natasha, and some guy they had obviously picked up along the way, to be loaded into the van. Wait for them to be taken to the spot where they were supposed to be killed. Hit the button on her tracker, knock out the other guard next to her and wait for Carol to come.
Carol had the restraints off everyone in less than thirty seconds.
“Who are you?” Steve asked her, as Carol helped him support Natasha, who was losing blood rapidly from a gunshot wound to her shoulder.
“Friend of Fury’s,” Carol told him. “I’m Carol.”
“Steve.”
“Yeah, even I know who Captain America is,” Carol said, and she grinned.
They ducked into an abandoned building not far from where the van was parked.
“I’ll take you all one at a time,” Carol said. She pointed to Natasha, who was looking a little woozy. “Her first.”
“Is there time for that?” the new guy asked hesitantly.
“Don’t worry,” Carol said. “I’m fast.”
--
By the time the sun set later that day, they had a plan. Natasha (who had indeed been upset to learn Nick had kept the truth from her) and Nick were going to infiltrate the Security Council meeting. The only way they were going to take down Hydra was to take down SHIELD along with it, and that meant leaking everything that had been kept hidden for years on to the internet.
Maria, Steve and the new guy — Sam was his name — were going to go rally as many of the SHIELD agents as they could. Find out who was on their side and try and keep anyone from launching Project Insight early.
And Carol was going to take down the ships, hopefully keeping the human cost as low as was absolutely possible.
“You ready for this?” Maria asked Carol later that night. They were once again sipping cheap coffee at the makeshift kitchen table.
“It’ll be fun,” Carol said. “But I think the real question is, are you ready for this? It’s your life that’s going to be destroyed along with those ships.”
“You work with SHIELD,” Maria pointed out.
“I save whoever needs it,” Carol said. “I don’t need SHIELD. Do you?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“For the record, I think you’ll be just fine.” Carol touched her hand and smiled, and then returned to her coffee.
--
For the most part, the plan went well. Except for the part where the Triskelion fell along with the ships, everything crashing down into the Potomac.
Maria stood that night, hidden in the shadows on the opposite side of the bank, watching the embers still burning on the rubble that remained above water.
Carol stood beside her.
“You did the right thing,” Carol said quietly.
“I know.” Maria turned to look at her. “You’re heading back out?”
“I might stay a couple days.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Carol kept her eyes on the water. “I was thinking of maybe taking this woman who seems like a super cool badass out to dinner and maybe some drinks.”
Maria stared at her, watching the reflection of the moon bounce off her golden hair. She felt something warm start to grow inside her chest.
She looked back at the water. “You better not mean Natasha.”
Carol laughed. “Is that a yes?”
Maria thought. Everything she had thought she’d known was now gone, every expectation people had of her gone along with it. The agency she had dedicated her entire life to was smoking in the waters in front of her.
But maybe it wasn’t all bad. Maybe it was a new start. A new chance. Maybe it was time to take a new chance.
“Yes,” she finally said. “Let’s go to dinner. It’ll be fun.”
Carol laughed. “Yes, it will be.”