Thank you guys for reading the last chapter and your reviews!
I decided to continue the story for a bit. There will be no Endgame spoilers in this chapter. Some Agents of SHIELD references though.
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel
No personal Attachment
If this was death, it was kind of comfortable, or so Maria Hill thought. She couldn't quite say where she was, her surrounding didn't seem to have colours. But it wasn't black. It was more like being in a prism, all colours mixed together until you would see white. Only that there was no white either. Maybe she had become a pixel, a part of something bigger. Recycled into the universe. The longer she thought about it, the more likely this became. After all, she had just seem herself dissolve into - into what? Little Maria would have called it "pixie dust " and laughed because in the end everything was going to be okay as long as pixie dust was involved. But mature Maria (or rather mature Pixel?! Wait, what?!) didn't believe in pixie dust anymore.
She didn't believe in easy solutions, because someone always had to make hard calls. More often than not, it had been her.
She didn't believe in "best friends forever" because at some point, most best friends became couples (Tony and Pepper) or had a huge fallout (Steve and Tony or Mack and Hunter). Or one was either killed (Coulson), brainwashed by Loki (Barton), abducted by Hydra and then brainwashed (Bucky) or thrown into the ocean to suffer permanent brain damage (Leopold Fitz).
She didn't believe in happy endings, at least not for herself. Damn it, she had been a soldier and agent for the bigger part of her life, how high were the chances for living happily ever after? As you can guess, not very high indeed. It didn't matter though, Maria wouldn't have chosen differently any day.
She didn't believe in love. Well, at least not in love at first sight. That was bullshit and something people made cheesy movies about, fantasies that were only disappointments in reality. For Maria Hill, love was not about being romantic. It was not about hearts and flowers and rings. It was about commitment, about backbone, about trust. About standing up against the world for it. Like she did for S.H.I.E.L.D. Like she sometimes did for Nick Fury.
Wait what?!
She tried to shake her head until she realized that apparently she didn't have one anymore. No no no, she didn't love Fury. Definitely not. Never had. Even though people whispered so behind her back. Called her his eye-candy and what not She knew that was not true. He had picked her for her skills, nothing else. He was her boss, they were colleagues, but they weren't even friends. Coulson and Romanoff and Barton (even though he could be so annoying) were her friends, but not him. He was trouble, only trouble wherever he went and usually it was hers to clean up.
His recklessness had turned out to be a continuous source of work for her over the years during her career as a field agent and later as Deputy Director. She really had considered walking out on him a couple of times - but she had never followed through with it. Not really. Not after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and she got the job at Stark Industries. She had always been in contact with him too, had always worked for Fury in a way. Then the fight at the helicarrier, Sokovia, crazier even than New York, by his side again. Working for the Avengers had been great even though she had sometimes thought about joining Coulson and his secret S.H.I.E.L.D. again. Then the Civil War because of those morons and their egos and well, for once she couldn't agree with regulations. Fired, an outlaw of sorts, reunited with someone who had besides her in the shadows all along - Fury.
It seemed they never stayed together but also always found their way back to each other. Some people would say it was fate. Some people would say it was romantic. She would say it was a cosmic joke, right?
Besides, even if there were any feelings from her side, just hypothetically, there was no way in heaven or hell that he could ever reciprocate those feelings. Fury didn't love people, that just sounded wrong. He loved his work more than anything, more than life itself, that she knew. And he did like some people like Coulson and Romanoff and Rogers and he disliked or hated others such as Loki, but that was it. Oh well, he did love his cat though.
Theoretically, he could have had someone, of man was a master spy, if he wanted, he could have hidden a potential partner from almost everyone. Nobody in the Agency and probably out of the Agency ever really knew Nicholas J. Fury. He had too many secrets. For example: Who was the beautiful blonde pilot whose picture Maria had found him staring at some time during their early days of acquaintance? He had been in his office and she, extremely outraged about a report she had just received, had barged in without knocking. Even though the man had tried to hide it, Maria had still seen part of the photo together with his melancholic, almost tender expression. She had not given it much thought at that time, filed it away in her brain for later. Only with years of experience the Deputy Director had realized that nobody ever produced that look on Fury's face. The pilot seemed to be the one that got away. A wave of jealousy surged up inside of what was left of Maria - and the train of thoughts stopped.
What did that say about her?
That her ego was too big? That she wanted to be his first? That she cared more than she would admit? That she wanted him to care about her, not only as an agent but as a person?
(Strictly speaking, as she was probably already dead, this whole self- evaluation was very likely pretty pointless. Because she would never see him again. Fuck, that hurt more than she would have thought. But maybe, just maybe, if they could get out of this mess...)
In any case, it was dangerous. It would destroy everything she had thought to know about herself. It was unprofessional and it would jeopardise her missions.
Personal attachment could kill in their line of work, every rookie knew that. With your partner in the field with you, you couldn't think clearly. It was a really bad idea. That was why S.H.I.E.L.D. had regulations.
"But you aren't S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore!" a treacherous little voice whispered somewhere.
That was a fact, yes. There weee no rules for her anymore. Well, weren't they doomed anyway?
Maybe they could be doomed together. Back to back against the wall. That sounded almost romantic in its own way. After all, she had already called him "Nick" and he hadn't argued against it. Not a lot of people dared that, she reckoned. It had just slipped out and it had felt right. Nice even.
Fuck, so far to "no personal attachment".
Thank you so much for reading! Do you want to read more? Let me know!
