Author: it's so weird how scenes that are only a few minutes long in a movie can take forever to write up. Thank good for the novel adaptation. Now then *pulls up MCU timeline*
Maria paused when Hawkeye escorted Selvig, a strange man with a scepter and a liaison officer out of the lab.
"Who's that?" She called.
"They didn't tell me." Hawkeye said.
The stranger climbed into a back of an armored vehicle as she watched them all carefully.
Even though she technically outranked him, Hawkeye had seniority over her with at least two decades in SHIELD under his belt... so she was supposed to trust him but something felt off.
"Hill! Barton has turned!"
Hawkeye turned and shot at her, forcing her to dive for cover.
She cringed when bullets ricocheted off the support beam and heard the sound of tires squealing.
The bullets stopped as Hawkeye's footsteps retreated.. then the sound of a second engine and more tires squealing.
"They've got the Tesseract! Shut them down!" Fury commanded over her radio.
Maria jumped into a jeep, flooring it as other SHIELD vehicles fell in behind her.
They were underground on an access road that led up to the surface of the desert.
"Aww c'mon. You know I rather be in an abandoned building in the city somewhere working an assassination over being stuck underground." Clint's voice piped up in her head.
She had been there when Fury had given him the mission to keep an eye on Selvig and the Tesseract.
Hawkeye had whined a little about it, jokingly of course because that was just part of who he was, but accepted the mission without a real complaint.
"Sorry Hawk." She whispered, shooting at the vehicle her fellow agent was in.
She couldn't get a clear shot of the stranger... Not now at least.
As soon as she could see the stranger, he narrowed his eyes and aimed his scepter. The tip flared bright blue and a bolt of energy hit the vehicle in front of her.
"Shit!" She yelped as the vehicle flipped, rolled and landed sideways across the road.
Somebody yelled something from one of the vehicles behind her as she took a breathe to calm down.
"Divider... another access road... Let's try that." She whispered, bouncing her jeep over the divider and standing on the gas.
The walkie-talkie beside her was an on-going stream of voices which told her the energy field meant to contain the Tesseract was about to overload.
"We're clear upstairs, sir. We need to go." Coulson said.
Had Fury gotten out the lab? No time to find out.
She shot out in front of Hawkeye's car and spun her jeep around so she was going backwards right in front of him.
Under different circumstances, she would have laughed at the surprise on his face.
Their windshields shattered as she shot at him. She didn't want to kill him, just slow him down or hurt him so she could capture him.
Hawkeye fired back, making her duck to avoid being hit.
She cringed when his vehicle slammed into her's and forced her out of the way.
"Damn it! I hate that bastard!" She growled, slamming the jeep back into gear and taking off after him.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
The hair on the back of Maria's neck rose when the air around her became oddly still.
She glanced in front of her at Hawkeye's vehicle, seeing him cock his head a little before a blue wave rushed over them.
More voices on her walkie-talkie told her other agents had been felt or seen the blue wave as well.
The ceiling above her shook and there was a terrifying roar of something massive collapsing.
She knew the sound well... she remembered hearing it from her loft as the South and North Towers had collapsed when she was nineteen.
"Breathe... breathe..." She whispered as the road buckled beneath her.
Hawkeye was ahead of the wave of destruction but she was caught in it, watching debris rain down on the road.
She was close to the edge of the base but she had no idea how much of it was of it would collapse.
All she knew was that she wanted out and not to be buried.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Hawkeye... the stranger... the Tesseract were all gone.
"Damn it." Maria whispered, leaning against the wheel.
With all the debris raining down, she had lost sight of Hawkeye and had barely made it to the edge of the base.
"Director? Director Fury, do you copy?" Coulson asked.
"The Tesseract is with a hostile force. I have men down. Hill?"
Fury sounded winded and possibly in pain.
"A lot of men still under. I don't know how many survivors." She admitted.
"Sound a general call. I want every living soul not working rescue looking for that briefcase." Fury commanded.
"Roger that." She whispered, looking at the debris behind her.
"Coulson, get back to base. This is a Level Seven. As of right now, we are at war." Fury said.
Level Seven... SHIELD's highest alert status.
"What do we do?" Coulson asked.
Fury didn't respond for a moment but when he did, she and Coulson both knew what his response would be: "Activate the Initiative."
