Summary:

Maria tries to figure out where she lost control as the inevitable finally happens.

Notes:

Well, finally, here it is. The last chapter of this part of the story. It gave me serious trouble until I finally figured out that my problem was I simply couldn't, under my current circumstances, bring myself to write the break-up scene. I know, I need help, but that's a pretty established fact by now. :D

Anyway...This is told mostly in flashbacks (in italics). The break-up is going to just be assumed at this point. I had also started another chapter while I was working out this one. It was supposed to be Maria's POV during TWS, but, as always, it became a story unto itself. Not sure when/if it will be published. I have another story after this that I'd like to finish before May1 and the MCU screws up my headcannon again. :D We'll see.

Also, this has been upped to M, though it's not really super-M, just a brief scene at the beginning. I've marked it off so if you want to skip it you can.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)


February 18, 2014, 2am

Maria lay on her bed in her darkened bedroom and stared into the blackness wondering when she had lost her perspective. It was long before three nights ago when Steve was with her in this room and they nearly consummated their relationship.

-M-

They stumbled into the room in their attempt to walk and undress each other at the same time. Maria's breath hitched in her throat when Steve pulled off her shirt and gazed at her, scars and all, with wonder and raw need. Then his lips were hard against hers as his hands reached around and fumbled with the clasp on her bra.

He pulled it off then pressed his bare chest against hers as he wrapped his arms around her and moaned against her lips.

They fell into her bed and she pushed him onto his back so she could straddle his hips in the way she'd longed to do for months. His gasp and the look of pure pleasure on his face made the wait worth every second.

No one had ever looked at her the way he was looking at her, need laced with something more, something pure, something she was terrified to give a name to but powerless to stop.

He skimmed his hands from her hips along her scarred abdomen then gently grasped her breasts. Maria found it hard breathe as his thumbs moved across her nipples. She moaned his name as she ground against him. She had never wanted this as badly as she did this night, with him.

She slid her hand down between them and Steve moaned then suddenly flipped her so he was over her.

Maria laughed.

"Oh, you think this is funny?" Steve said, his voice thick with desire as he buried his face against her neck then slowly kissed his way down her chest to take one breast with his mouth, the other with his hand.

Maria wasn't entirely sure what she thought it was, but she had never laughed in this situation before. Sex had always been about some physical need she had. Enjoying it simply meant the guy was good enough to get her off.

But that wasn't what was happening between she and Steve. It never had.

Her hands were in his hair and Steve slowly began to move down, kissing her scars as if they were some beautiful part of her, not something to be ignored and avoided.

It was then that she felt it again, that feeling that had been growing, demanding her attention. The emotions that Steve had somehow been able to tap into, that she had always kept under tight control, began to surface and, if Maria wasn't careful, she knew she would soon drown in this. The most surprising part was that she didn't care. She wanted it, wanted everything he was offering her.

She felt him slide his hand into her waist band and unsnap her pants. He placed a kiss there then lower and lower as he slowly unzipped her pants. Maria's body burned with need as it never had. She wanted all of this more than the air she was breathing in desperate gasps.

He began to slide his hand inside her panties and Maria reacted with an involuntary jerk of her hips and a quiet cry.

"Is that what you want?" Steve whispered breathlessly.

Maria wasn't sure she had the wherewithal left to answer even a simple question like that coherently. But the decision was taken out of her hands when they heard her phone ring from the other room.

She felt Steve let out a frustrated puff of air across her hip as she clenched her jaw in what was becoming an increasingly regular frustration.

-M-

"I'll get your phone," Steve said.

She watched him leave and had to bite back the words that would make him stop.

When he returned, Steve grumbled Fury's name like a curse and handed her the phone.

"Hill," she answered in her usual tone.

"I need you here in DC," he said, as always without preamble.

"I'll be there by eight," she said, though she knew full well he wasn't calling to confirm her already scheduled trip.

"What the hell's wrong with you. Hill?" he asked, but Maria knew it was a rhetorical question.

"When, sir?" she asked struggling not to sound angry.

"Four hours," he told her.

Maria bit back a remark she knew she'd regret.

"Yes, sir," she replied, then hung up the phone.

She set the phone on the bedside table and released a frustrated sigh. Usually, a call from work while she was with a guy was a relief, an excuse to distance herself or to just get away. With Steve things were different. With Steve the interruptions were annoyances.

She felt his lips on her shoulder then he turned her face toward his.

"It's OK," he said. "I understand."

She stared at him for a moment before she shook her head and sat up.

"Some days, I don't think you are real, Rogers," she told him.

She could tell he was smiling behind her, that she knew that unnerved her only slightly.

"Same goes for you, Commander," he replied and Maria chuckled at the smirk she heard in his voice.

She pulled her uniform out of her closet and fought back the warmth the knowledge that Steve was watching her dress created.

When she finished, she walked into the bathroom to finish preparing to leave. By the time she was ready, Steve had re-dressed and was waiting in the living room.

He pulled her into his embrace and kissed her slowly before they walked to the door.

"See you in a few days," he told her.

A few days, Maria thought. The next time she saw Steve would be nothing like the last. It never should have been. She should have had more self-control. Why hadn't she?

It wasn't Copenhagen.

"What's this for?" Maria asked as Steve pulled a yellow hibiscus flower out from its hiding place under his coat.

"It's the four month anniversary of our first kiss," he said, his smile playful as she laughed at his sappiness.

"I should have known you'd be a mushy guy," she rolled her eyes, but she took the flower and walked into the kitchen to get a cup of water to place it in.

"It's hardly our fourth anniversary, however," she told him.

"Sure it is," Steve took her hand and pulled her into his arms then placed a kiss on her cheek before he trailed his lips down to her neck.

"Four months ago I finally worked up the nerve to kiss you while we were in Hawaii," he told her.

She pulled away and gave him an incredulous look.

"That was not our first kiss, our first kiss was in Copenhagen," she reminded him.

He shook his head before he replied.

"Not likely. Our first kiss was in Hawaii," he rebutted.

"That was a cover kiss," she said.

"Not for me it wasn't," he said, then he cupped her face and leaned in to kiss her in the same soft way he had in Hawaii.

It was long before Hawaii.

Maria opened the door of the apartment to a sheepish looking Steve Rogers and wondered why she had allowed him into the building. She was only inviting trouble, knowing how long she'd been attracted to him and how inebriated she was at the moment.

But she stepped back and allowed him access, and she knew it was to more than the room, and the next morning when she found him in her kitchen, she knew she had already taken too many steps in the wrong direction. But she didn't stop it, she didn't even want to stop it. Because it was just so nice to have someone in her corner, someone who respected her and she could respect in return.

Maria wasn't stupid, she'd figured out quickly who was straightening the pencils and papers. She'd ignored it, it really was just something Captain America would do. But she couldn't ignore the growing respect she had for him, the sense of loyalty that was slowly becoming a part of her.

"Save some for Rogers," Fury interrupted her remarks.

"Excuse me, sir?" Maria didn't understand.

"Save something for him to say when he hears about this and comes to chew my ass out," Fury said. "I get tired of hearing the same speech twice."

"I don't think I understand," Maria said, now wary.

"You and Rogers," he replied. "It's like you're a tag team."

Maria only shook her head.

"Deny it all you want but I'm never stationing the two of you together," he said. "I hate to imagine what my life would become if you two were together all the time. Some days you're like a mini-version of the man."

At that, Maria rolled her eyes. But in her mind she had wondered if that wasn't the nicest compliment she'd ever received.

Now, as Maria lay here, she realized it was that long ago, only months after New York, that she had begun to think of a fellow SHIELD agent as something more. It wasn't just the knowledge that they took a similar stance on issues within SHIELD, it was the fact that he respected her authority when other, far more modern, men could not. It was more than the stupid pencils, it was that he viewed her as someone important, someone who mattered. That had never been a deal for her before. She had never cared. But that Steve thought more of her, that he understood her, that mattered.

And now it couldn't. Now, with the knowledge Fury dumped on her in the early hours of February 15, nothing she felt for Steve, nothing he felt for her, could matter again.

"Sir, I think we should..."

"If you say, 'Bring Rogers in on this,'" Nick cut her off. "I swear I'm gonna demote you to janitorial duty."

"Sir, I just..."

"Look, I know this has nothing to do with your relationship with the man," Fury cut her off again, and Maria steadied her gaze, hoping to give nothing away.

"Don't look at me like that," Fury said. "I know you well enough by now to know that something has been going on between you for a while."

Maria bit back the desire to defend herself by saying it had only been a month and a half.

Nick sighed and shook his head.

"I don't suspect you are compromised, " he assured her. "I would have said something already if I did."

He stared at her a moment before he continued.

"You had to realize that at some point there'd be a conflict," Fury said. "You're level 10, he's level 8. Eventually something like this would come up."

Maria nodded slightly as the thoughts of Project Insight she'd forced her mind to dance around since Copenhagen now refused to be ignored.

But this was bigger than Project Insight. This was, if all these dots connected the way it appeared, ...

"We should put Insight on hold for the time being, " Maria finally said.

Nick looked at her exactly the way she expected.

"We need to move forward now more than ever, Hill," he said. "I don't understand how you can see it differently. "

"Sir, if SHIELD is compromised at any level, then Insight is compromised as well."

"Insight goes forward," he said with finality. "I need you to research more of these ops and get back to me ASAP."

Maria nodded, then stood to leave. The question of why this couldn't have waited a few hours unasked. It didn't matter now. In fact it had probably been for the best.

She returned to her office to begin her assignment, which, in her opinion, had to begin by ending things with Steve.

Now, as she faced the inevitable the next day, Maria felt the weight of what had to be the most foolish and selfish decision she'd ever made. She could try to justify it, tell herself she was just human after all, or that she had been so overwhelmed by the idea that someone like Steve Rogers could have any interest in someone like her. It didn't matter. She should never have allowed any of this to happen. She should never have let Steve think of her as more than his superior at SHIELD.

Maria turned over and, with deep, steady breaths, tried to control the emotions that were, again, threatening at the thought of what she was going to do to Steve. No one had ever been able to get to her the way he had. She'd never allowed anyone in this deeply, so far that he could draw feelings out of her that she normally pushed aside, never to be dealt with. But Steve was a different kind of man and Maria reacted to him in a different way.

Still, she thought, as she pulled the pillow over her head and allowed a single tear to escape, she should never have allowed herself to fall in love with the man.


Notes:

When I wrote the first story in this series, "Too Busy," I liked the idea of Maria falling in love with Steve first. It's not the usual course we Captain Hill shippers take, but I thought that I could see how someone like Maria would see Steve for all he was and understand the significance of his romantic attentions. And that those attentions would cause her to feel love for him, even if she felt herself unlovable.

I have one more one shot that I had intended to use as an epilogue to this story but I just don't think it's working that way. So now I have to find another title. :D

Hope you all enjoyed this story. And, hopefully, I'll be able to finish up what I have of this series before D-Day (ie May 1). :)