a/n: set post-avengers. since i don't know how long this is going to take, who knows what'll happen after age of ultron...
upon cracked and narrowed streets
i. still
Maria Hill comes into the world, met with cries from all sides.
The midwife cradles her – cradles her as her mother breathes her last; as her father yells and pleads, a face of thunder that she can't ever erase; as the doctors shout for help among the shriek of machines; as she herself announces her presence to a room preoccupied with the prone figure on the table – and hums a lullaby, a haunted singing that cuts through the chaos.
(She'll later find out the exact lullaby – face black and blue as a reward – and she'll experimentally hum it to herself in the confines of her room.)
Chaos comes with sound, she learns. It's not that she's scared of disorder and such (no, she is fearless); rather, it's that she'll always find more in the blank spaces in between.
Stuff that goes unsaid… well, you know.
...
Steve Rogers is born, and there is little fanfare and no sound at all.
(Breathing problems, they said. It's funny how things turn out.)
...
It is midnight, and her father is downstairs with a bottle for company.
She is eight and her skinny knees are cold and sore from the hardwood floor. She is eight and she presses her hands together and whispers an innocent prayer; hoping with the conviction of a child whose belief in the world is only fractionally dented, hoping like a child for an unequivocal reply from some being she cannot see.
Thirteen years later (her Marines uniform still clinging to her), when Nicholas J. Fury asks her what S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for, she looks him in the eye (past the eyepatch) and blinks once before answering. Her voice doesn't waver and Fury smirks slightly and nods, signs the form, and shakes her hand.
Seven and a half years after that, when he promotes her to his right hand, he asks her again. She stares and brusquely tells him that her answer hasn't changed.
It shouldn't, and she can't.
...
He's slightly more preoccupied with the currently invisible and floating ship in the sky, than the brunette standing in the middle of the expansive bridge smoothly giving orders to the dozens of agents milling around.
Slightly.
Which is strange when he thinks about it, because that's really not what happened seventy years ago, and he's not that old, and goddammit, it's hard when everything changes so quickly. He still remembers the piercing attention that her voice brought; precise notes and the almost imperceptible hints of frustration slicing through the air of misogyny.
He hands Fury the ten dollars, looks around and nearly misses catching her eye. She looks intently at him and raises an eyebrow, before turning her focus back to the scene around her.
And hours and hours later, like before, she almost slips his mind.
Because after Manhattan, after the Chitauri carcasses fall from the sky, after shawarma, after they hand over Loki to Thor and Asgard, he finds himself on his bike travelling wherever he wants, finally free. It's not until his new phone beeps with a new message, that he pulls over and stops. He frowns at the unfamiliar screen before finally locating his messages.
Have fun, Captain. – N :)
Mentally slapping himself and cursing his self-absorption, he tucks the offending device away, climbs back on the bike, and heads back in the direction he came from.
(It has been seventy years, but honestly, he tells himself he should know better.)
...
The helicarrier is still a mess, and the World Security Council are still politically-motivated idiots.
(Also, Fury is a fucking bastard.
Phil would like his playing cards back now, thank you.)
The Avengers are god-knows-where, and frankly, she doesn't give a damn. With the exception of Romanoff and Barton, she doesn't want to think about Fury's future plans for his motley crew of superheroes, no matter how much he pushes.
So she organises the clean-up teams for the streets of Manhattan, organises the funerals for the fallen agents, organises the engineers and the scientists to repair the helicarrier, oversees the training program for new recruits (there's now an extra-terrestrial component) with Sitwell, and alternates with May to sit next to Coulson in his bed during the early hours of the morning.
And it's after these early hour visits that she frequents the gym that no one uses; small and basic and tucked away behind the armoury. She punches and kicks the bag over and over, and doesn't imagine anyone's face because that would be wrong.
(These are things she also doesn't do:
She doesn't hit until her knuckles are red raw.
Her shoulders don't shake from sheer exhaustion.
She doesn't hurl her gloves across the room in anger.
She doesn't scream.)
Face red and heart pounding, she breathes out slowly, holds the bag still and rests her forehead against the rough material.
Counts.
Lets go.
(Tries to, anyway.)
(And on any other day she would, but today, she doesn't hear the footsteps behind her.)
...
His mother taught him it was rude to stare. And really, he does his utmost not to.
But.
He's curious.
He knows that the gym is rarely used (it's why he picked it), so when he spies someone brutally attacking the bag – (unbridled) – he watches, mesmerised. His eyes dart back and forth, tracking the fluidity of the movements.
There is no gradual cessation of movement; it is abrupt and fast, and he is acutely aware of the sudden silence punctuated only by her wracked breaths.
He holds his own, willing himself to move away – he also knows a thing or two about respect – move away quietly, back into the shadows.
...
He manages to catch her in the dining hall, slides behind her in the lunch line. He's thinking – overthinking, more like; for someone who likes to be prepared, he's surprisingly not in this particular moment – of what to say when she interrupts the turning cogs in his head.
"Captain Rogers."
It's nothing more than a polite greeting, but still, her low and cool voice is startling. It occurs to him that it's the first time she's directly spoken to him.
"Ma'am," he recovers quickly. "Would you care to join me?"
"It's 'Lieutenant'," she corrects absently, assessing him out of the corner of her eye as she collects her cutlery. "And to what do I owe this pleasure?"
A spark of irritation flares at her sarcasm, before it's tamped down immediately. He moves his tray along and shrugs. "We should have said something at the end," he replies simply.
She raises an eyebrow and inclines her head towards the expansive windows on the side. He follows, taking note of the empty seats in the far corner, and trying to ignore the curious gazes of the agents in the hall. She looks back at him and catches his slight discomfort, smirking slightly. "Would have thought you'd be used to this."
"Not quite the same," he admits. He looks around again; their table is isolated enough to be away from prying ears, but close enough to at least pretend to be communally functional. Perfectly placed, in his opinion.
"Is this table normally free?" He asks, genuinely interested and trying to determine the dynamics of the people in this strange new world.
"It's not a restaurant. Nor a social caste system, despite the rankings," she says, a shadow passing over her face. "But yes, Coulson and I would sit here."
The sucker punch makes the bottom of his stomach fall. "I…"
She cuts in bluntly. "Why are you here, Captain?"
There is a pause. "We just left," he says, with an ounce of dissatisfaction. "And we were okay with it. Agent Romanoff even sent me a message to tell me to have fun."
Her face is impassive. "Fury thought you all deserved a break."
"It's not how it should be. We should have done something, or said something at least," he repeats.
"You saved Manhattan from a bunch of flying alien exoskeletons, and the world from an egotistical demi-god with golden horns. I think that says enough."
"Then you should have told us to stay, to help clean up."
"You're not soldiers anymore," she says, not unkindly. "And you're not leading a team of soldiers either, or agents for that matter. The Avengers are much better and much worse than that."
He stabs his potato. "But—"
She slices her potato neatly. "There are lines, Captain. As obvious as it may seem, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't operate in the public sphere; you clearly do. We don't own you, nor control you, and you are not a subset of this agency." She looks him in the eye and finishes calmly, "So, think of this as a partnership of sorts: you guys can keep saving the world or dealing with whatever vaudeville alien comes next, and we'll be happy with the behind-the-scenes work."
"And Agents Barton and Romanoff?" He challenges, skewering the unrecognisable piece of meat next, but still maintaining eye contact.
Her mouth quirks up a fraction, pieces falling into place. "What do you want, Rogers?"
"I don't know." He stares at his plate, before turning to look out the window and back at her. "I don't know what Tony or Bruce do, or where they are. I didn't even know that there could be other worlds out there. But S.H.I.E.L.D…."
"It won't be the same," she says quietly. "It might come close, or even resemble what you had back in the day, but it won't be the same. It's not black and white anymore, but I think you already know that."
He thinks for a few minutes, and she doesn't say another word. When he looks at her again, his mouth is set. "I don't have anywhere else."
She shakes her head. "There's always a choice. Maybe hard to see, maybe silent, but always there. Don't let anyone here tell you otherwise." Her eyes harden against something or someone that he can't figure out, and he wonders whether anyone still doubts the competency of women in work such as theirs.
"Okay," he nods slowly in understanding at her warning. "Okay. Count me in, then."
She gives him a brief smile, a flash of lightning. "Welcome aboard, Captain."