I would like to make a warning that this ficlet is a little more sensitive than my others, which is why it is posted on its own at first, but I feel like it needs to be a part of the set. If anything in this fillet offends anyone, I'm sorry and please feel free to message me about it so we can talk. Thank you.
The news hits that she's in a hospital somewhere in New York City. The Avengers are finishing up a fight in North Texas, and Coulson is there to get things covered up and cleaned. SHIELD has no idea where she is, other than a hospital somewhere in New York, and Coulson tries to justify not running off to New York the second he gets the news by claiming he has no idea where to start looking.
Once all the dust has settled and everyone is heading back to Stark Tower, he gets the call that she's in the St. Luke's-Roosevelt's Hospital Center and someone needs to claim her before local law enforcement starts digging into things. She's listed under her old cover name, Mary Johnson, which drags up memories, but the happy flashbacks stop when he calls the hospital and is told to come by as soon as possible.
Phil is terrified when he hears this.
He informs the nurse he's on his way and hangs up before she can finish saying goodbye. He is offered one of Stark's fancy cars, Roger's motorcycle, and a helicopter to get there, but Coulson calls for a taxi and leaves quietly.
He goes to the front desk and asks for the room of Mary Johnson. The nurse pulls out a file and then looks up at Coulson and smiles. "Are you Phillip Johnson? Her husband?" she asks sweetly.
Coulson nods and pulls out the dummy drivers license he's held onto just incase and flashes it to the nurse like it's his badge. The nurse's smile gains a sad, yet relieved tint, and she turns to make a call. A few minutes later, a taller man in a lab coat comes down the hall and holds out a hand to greet Coulson.
"Mr. Johnson, I'm Dr. Avery. I helped lead your wife's emergency surgery. If you'll come with me, I'll take you to see her."
Coulson shakes his hand hard and murmurs thanks, and follows hot on the heels of Dr. Avery to the recovery ward. The doctor stop in front of what Coulson assumes is Hill's room, and turns with her chart in hand and a grim look on his face. Coulson is given a laundry list of injuries.
Her left leg is broken, right wrist sprained, four ribs cracked, right foot fractured, two fingers broken on her left hand, a large burn on her left arm, a strong concussion, and four bullets were removed from her stomach. She had lost consciousness for a while, but she had pulled through despite her blood loss and was looking great.
Phil has to lean on the wall for a second, because the long list makes him sick to his stomach. The doctor gives him some time, and then opens the door and informs Coulson that he'll be back in an hour to check over Mary, and she probably won't be very responsive until her anesthesia is fully out of her system in a few hours and her pain relievers wear off.
Phil walks in and sees her hooked up to machines and covered in bandages and parts of her are held up in braces. She's pale and covered in scratches. She looks like a broken doll. Especially when he sees her face. Her eyes are wide open and staring at the ceiling, empty.
"...Maria...?"
Her eyes turn to him, and he is slightly relieved. He grabs the chair next to her and sits down to just look at everything.
"You won't be stable enough to get out of where for a while," he finally says.
Maria looks away and sighs.
A few hours pass and Maria is in and out of consciousness. Dr. Avery comes in and out every so often, and the nice nurse from the front continuously checks in on them, offering Coulson blankets and food and coffee, but he politely declines and watches Supernanny on the TV in the corner while he waits for Maria to come to.
He makes a call to SHIELD, telling them he has located Hill and she won't be able to move for a while. Fury sends flowers the next day.
Phil lurks around the hospital for a few days before Maria is finally clear headed enough to stay awake for a conversation. She tells Dr. Avery where it hurts when he checks on her, and chats with the nurse about the weather and favorite foods, but never says a word to Phil. She turns to say something to him, possibly about changing the channel, once, but she freezes with her mouth open and just stares at him until she turns away and tries to go to sleep. He wants to be hurt when this happens, but the look on her face makes him too concerned.
Phil doses off in his chair, and as soon as Maria is sure he's asleep, she starts to cry.
These past few days, she's been working hard at keeping this from him. Part of it is due the fact that she's hardly conscious, but also because Maria Hill is an expert at hiding things underneath her cold exterior. But tonight she is clear headed and her emotions start hitting her in giant waves. A few tears later and she sobbing with no way to cover her face or hide when Phil finally hears her and is alert in seconds.
They're staring at each other, and she's crying so hard it's difficult to keep her eyes open, but she forces herself to keep looking at him because he has to know. She can't keep ignoring him and pretending nothing has happened. She can't hide this from him.
He hurries to start wiping away her tears and smooth her hair back from her face. It's such a sweet gesture, but it makes her cry harder because she feels she doesn't deserve this kind of treatment. She pulls away and thrashes and mumbles, and he is seconds away from getting the nurse when she finally gets her voice.
"Phil."
He freezes, and she can tell he doesn't like her tone. She sounds more broken than she looks.
"Please sit down. I've.. I have to tell you something."
He does as she asks eventually and sits stiffly at her bedside, waiting.
Maria wants to look away, she doesn't want to say anything and pretend life will be normal once she heals, but it's a lie and if she doesn't tell Phil, she knows he's not going to be to handle being around her, and he'll leave her. Though, Maria is pretty sure he'll leave her once he's found out what she's done.
"I went out for a walk, I wanted to clear my head a little. And then this crazy little man is running through the park, holding this screaming little girl, and I just went after him. He was determined to get away, but I chased him down. That's how I got the burns and sprains, I think. I chased him down and I got that girl out of his hands and then I went to finish the job... I got ambushed, then. I thought I was fine, but I was slow and tired and I just wasn't right. They took my gun."
Phil grabs hold of the railing on her hospital bed, and squeezes until his knuckles are white. It scares her, but she clears her throat, thick with tears, and finishes.
"When they got me here, they had to cut me open to stop the bleeding, and they found.." She has to stop for a second to keep herself from turning into a sobbing wreck, and forces herself to calm down.
"Phil, I was pregnant."
His face is blank at first, but Maria turns away before she can see anything else.
"I was pregnant, and I just threw myself in the line of fire. Almost three months along."
The silence in the room is killing her, and Maria just lets herself go and tears start pouring. She blames it on her medicine, but honestly, she's so heartbroken and ashamed. There is a child Phil never got to meet because she was so stupid.
She finally notices that Phil is leaned over, wiping her tears again, making shushing noises, and stroking her hair again, so she just lets everything out.
"Phil, I got our baby killed."
But he shushes her again, and Maria realizes that she would give anything to be able to be held by him right now, yet stitches and broken bones are keeping her from being able to do anything.
Hours later, Maria is asleep and Phil talks with Dr. Avery about recovery. Physical therapy is in their future, lots of it, but the doctor has little to offer on mental recovery. Phil is aware this will take time, time he necessarily does not have, but he's going to do everything he can. This news has broken him apart, but he's so terrified that Maria is in such tiny pieces she'll never be okay.
Maria agrees to letting the team know about her situation, especially since Maria won't be able to get on the helicarrier once she's released from the hospital, and will have to look for somewhere to stay until she's healthy enough to return to work, and Phil will be sure to help her, thus spending less time in Stark Tower.
The Avengers are very relieved to hear Agent Hill is recovering and doing well. Stark offers to let Hill recover in the tower when he realizes no one had already planned on it, and everyone steps up to offer their help. Then Coulson tells them the full story and they are silent. No one knows what to say, and that's possibly the most painful thing. Eventually, Rogers puts his hand on Coulson's shoulder and says, "I'm sorry." It doesn't help much, but it helps.
A few weeks later, Maria is released, and everyone comes to the hospital to pick her up. During her stay, she had requested no visitors, but now she's going to have to face people who know what she did and can have an opinion on it, and she contemplates pulling open hers stitches to avoid it a little longer.
There are balloons and flowers and teddy bears awaiting her in the van they rented to get her to Stark Tower, and as soon as everyone catches sight of her casts, Banner hands her the orchid he got her and asks if he can sign one. Still a bit loopy on her pain killers, Hill is Maria, and smiles, laughs, and holds out her leg. Everyone signs, and the signatures get progressively bigger and colorful until the nurse comes in with a wheel chair.
A physical therapy specialist comes up to the tower, and when the team has to head out, a nurse comes by to help Maria get around and feed herself and Agent. Maria is healing, physically, but only Phil know she's still blaming herself about the miscarriage, and that's because she still cries about it when she thinks no one is looking.
One day, she is fully healed and gets to training herself to rejoin Fury on the helicarrier. Phil knows she needs it. She's still healing mentally, and even though most people will argue that bottling your emotions is a terrible thing to do, he knows that ordering around people and strutting around being tough is just what she needs.
Eventually, she stops blaming herself, but it takes time. Time neither one thought they had.