The Pyms were driving North down Route 101 for about forty-five minutes before Hope turned them off at a motel just outside of Santa Rosa. Neither of them spoke a word since the incident; both were too deep inside their own heads. But Hope knew that her dad was boiling and about to explode.
Hope parked and got out of the car, continuing their silence as she wordlessly left her dad to go pay for their lodgings. After the transaction (that she paid in cash) she got their doorkey and walked to the outside entrance of their room. She didn't bother to go back to the vehicle, knowing that her dad would see which residence she'd enter. She left the door ajar for him after she'd gone inside. She then began pacing the floor in front of the two queen-sized beds.
She pulled out her mobile, seething as she wanted to call Maria and grill her with questions – but she couldn't. About sixty miles back she'd pulled out the battery and sim card from it so they couldn't be used to trace them. She growled, throwing her dismantled phone onto the bed.
She then grabbed the remote, turning on the television to find the local news channel. She wanted to see if anything was being reported about the missile attack.
"Okay, Hope." Her dad slammed the door shut after he entering the room. "It's time for you to start talking. Tell me exactly what just happened!" he barked which made the woman jump. Whenever her father had lost his temper he'd always managed to frighten her.
Hope fumbled with the remote, quickly muting the television. In that moment she felt like she was a child again as her father was about to scold her. "I honestly don't know." She looked to him with shame and confusion.
"Don't you dare lie to me." He spat, pointing an accusatory finger at her as she took a small step back in response.
She then blurt out in defense, "I'm not lying! I don't know who blew up the lab or why." Saying out loud that the lab was gone, making it that much more real to her, instantly brought tears to her eyes.
"Who called you, huh? Who was that on the phone?" His pointed glare stabbed her to her very core. Her father had so many trust issues. Despite their rocky relationship over the years she was still the only person he'd ever truly let in after her mother had disappeared. But now, the look of utter disappointment that he was giving her, felt worse than the fact that their one possible connection to her mother was now a pile of ash.
Hope closed her eyes, not wanting to be privy to the reaction that would follow. "Maria Hill," she said in a small voice before opening her eyes.
"Why do I know that name?" He seemed to be searching his memory before it clicked. "Nick Fury! She's Fury's eyes and ears!" He narrowed his eyes at her. "You've been in contact with S.H.I.E.L.D.?" he growled.
"We would be dead if it wasn't for S.H.I.E.L.D.!" Hope passionately retorted back, hot tears now streaming down her face.
"Our lab is destroyed because of them!" he shouted. "There was a tracking device in the lab, according to your best new buddy there. And she was probably the one who put it there." He angrily swept at the air between them as he yelled, "Wake up, Hope!"
She didn't know how to respond to that. He could've very well been right. Maria could've been the one to put them in danger in the first place. Trusting her was in all likelihood what had gotten their bridge blown up. Maria had known that there was a tracker in the lab, she could have been the one to put it there – or worse – she could've used Hope as a mule to unknowingly bring one in. Hope then shook her head as she thought on it more. But it still wasn't making any sense to her. S.H.I.E.L.D. had wanted to use their bridge, not destroy it.
"Hope." Her dad aggressively snapped his fingers at her, making her lose her train of thought. "Volume." He pointed at the television which was now showing a reporter standing just outside of the location that their lab had been; the ground still smoking and firefighters moving about in the background.
She quickly rubbed her eyes dry with her hand as she turned up the volume. The reporter was mid sentence in her coverage. "—and as we can see the after effects of the drone attack here, beside this old steel mill. Luckily it hit an empty lot." The anchor pointed to a giant gaping hole in the ground. "There have been no reports of casualties. There have, however, been eyewitness accounts as well as a cellphone video, revealing that it was an armed Wingman Drone of Hammer Industries that fired the missiles." The screen then showed a low quality recording, shot in portrait view, of the drone flying over the water then firing towards the shore at the industrial yard. To their luck, the camera didn't have a view of the hit zone, clearing the building's, and their own, involvement of the altercation. "We reached out to Hammer Industries but they have yet to release a statement." The reported finished her segment.
"Hammer Industries," Hank said. "What business do they have with us? Why would they attack us?"
A knock then came at their door interrupting Hank's line of questions. Hope instantly turned off the television then took a hold of the motel's landline phone, unplugging it to use as a blunt force weapon, if need be. She then quietly moved to the door, Hank right behind her for backup.
She looked through the peephole, seeing only the parking lot and a glimpse of the sun starting to set. She then slowly opened the door to find nothing on the other side of it. Turning her head, she noticed a folded up note taped to the door. She casually threw the phone onto the bed nearest her before she curiously took a hold of it, opening it to find a message that read:
This mandatory seminar about purchasing a timeshare was not part of the plan but unfortunately here we are.
And below it was an address.
Hope grinded her teeth, hating Maria's cryptic message.
"What? What does it say?"
"I gotta go." Hope turned to leave but Hank was too quick and stepped in, grabbing her wrist before snatching the note from her. Hope instantly recoiled her arm into herself when he let go. An uneasy sense of violation rippling through her body as it tensed up.
He then looked at the paper. "What does this even mean?" he asked after reading it.
"It means if I go to that address I'll get answers."
"There is no way I'm letting you go there alone." For the first time the expression on his face was one other than anger. He looked concerned for her well being.
She sighed, collecting herself before she walked up to her dad, embracing him into a hug. The man took a moment before he relaxed into her, enveloping her into his arms.
"Dad, I know you think I've been stupid and careless but I really need you to trust me. I'll be fine." She couldn't even give a reasonable explanation as to how she knew this, but she just did. She then pulled away from him. "Though." She clenched her jaw in anger. "I can't say the same thing about Maria. I might actually murder her." She grinded her teeth, genuinely wanting to strangle her.
Hank looked at her in defeat. "It's like I don't even know who you are right now." He held out the note to her, body now deflated. "Go." Hope stiffly nodded, heart breaking at his words as she took the paper and turned to leave.
About twenty minutes later, following the G.P.S. in the vehicle, Hope pulled up a long dirt drive into a clearing in the forest that sat a beautiful, modern, two storey house that was backlit by the pink sunset. "What the..." The woman cocked her head as she practically pressed her face up against the windscreen to get a better look. She wondered whose place it was. Thinking it could be anything from a safehouse, to a rental, to – god only knows – one of Tony Stark's many homes. Knowing that the billionaire was so close with S.H.I.E.L.D. he'd probably given them access to his many properties.
The sight of the building made her realise just how many assets Maria Hill had access to. She stopped the car, throwing it into park and cutting the engine; her anger now bubbling up again. Maria had all these resources; she knew about the tracking device, she knew about the drone attack, she had this meetup location, which was such a short distance away from their motel that they'd only just found, that she'd pinpointed instantly. She had to have had the knowledge to spare them their lab. Yet she didn't.
Hope sprang out of her vehicle, slamming the door behind her before she furiously cantered to the front entrance while quickly tying her hair back with the elastic that was found around her wrist, readying herself to throw down. She didn't knock, she merely ripped open the door and barged in.
She scanned her new surroundings, instantly finding Maria in civilian clothing, as she stood up from a crouched position in front of the living room fireplace that lay to her left. It looked like she'd been tending to the fire that was blazing in the hearth. "You are a dead woman, Hill," Hope hissed as she made haste towards Maria.
"Hope, wait." Maria put her arms up in defense but Hope was not hearing any of it. Her patience and reasonability were completely drowned out in unadulterated fury. As soon as she laid eyes on the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the woman who cut her so deeply with her betrayal, all she wanted to do was punch her annoyingly perfect jawline; disconnecting it from her lying face.
Hope took a swing at Maria where the agent dodged it. She then grabbed her attacker's extended arm, but before she could twist it back to get opponent into a lock, Hope swept her foot, kicking her stance off balance. The agent dropped to her knees as Hope tried to deliver another kick, this time to her head, but Maria caught her foot. The agent then pulled it towards her while forcefully pushing Hope's shoulder as she came crashing down, flipping her onto her back with Maria landing on top of her. Before the agent had time to get a proper hold on her, Hope got a hand at Maria's unbound hair, using it as leverage as she yanked her off of her, quickly reversing their positions. Hope then pushed her forearm into Maria's neck, applying pressure onto her windpipe. "Why did you do it?" Hope hissed in emotional distress. "Why did you let this happen?" She blinked away the tears that were welling up in her eyes. "You said I could trust you!"
Maria punched at her ribs before wrapping her legs around Hope's body, rolling her off of her, getting the higher ground once again. When Hope's head hit ground, the thud of her skull and the ache in her ribs allowed Maria the opportunity to grab hold of her wrists; securing her hands just above her head on the carpet below all while Hope winced in pain. Maria then looked down to her as she heaved while catching her breath.
"Over there." She then strained her neck to look back behind them as she gazed off towards the sofa at the end of the room.
Hope lifted her head, bringing chin to collar, to see what she was gesturing at. There, sitting to the side of the couch, tucked underneath an end table, sat their lab, miniaturised to the size of a suitcase, and completely unscathed.
"Wha..." Hope whispered out in complete shock before she dropped her head back down to look at Maria. Her face mere inches away from her own. "How?" she gasped.
Maria huffed through panted breaths. "There was no tracking device." She shook her head. "I lied incase our phone call was being monitored. We scooped up the lab with a motorbike right before the missiles hit the site."
"We?"
"Myself and a trusted friend," Maria explained, her breathing now back under control. "The same trusted friend who tailed you to your motel and delivered my message to your room."
Hope then looked back to her lab, needing the confirmation that it was, indeed, there and she hadn't imagined it. "Who sent the attack then?" she asked, still not completely comprehending how her lab was there before her eyes.
"I did."
Hope's head snapped back to focus on Maria. "I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted the bridge?" She was baffled by her answer.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. does. And so do others." Maria then looked up into the distance as if she were gathering courage before she sighed, dropping her head back down. "My actions were independent of S.H.I.E.L.D.," she admitted, "I acquired the drone in secret and piloted it myself." She locked eyes with Hope. "I shot your lab's known location to make it look like it was destroyed by an outside hostile."
Hope was vibrating with an onslaught of emotions. Anger, confusion, relief, scepticism, she couldn't sort them all out. She needed a semblance of control. In desperation for her own sanity, she pulled her hands out of Maria's, now, loosened grip. She then grabbed a hold of the agent's shoulders, throwing her off of her to the ground as she straddled her hips. Maria didn't even fight back that time, she just let Hope pin her to the floor by her shoulders, allowing her arms to flop down beside her. Hope then narrowed her eyes at her with disbelief. "So you're telling me that you, Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., knowingly deceived Fury and the entire organisation you swore your allegiance to, just so we'd be left alone?"
Maria's sapphire eyes bore into Hope's very soul as she answered her with complete conviction. "Yes."
Hope implored her, needing to understand the woman laying beneath her. "Why?" She nearly cried out for an answer.
"It's not our bridge," she simply said as her eyes softened, "It's yours. Yours to find your mother with."
Hope's heart started beating so fast that it felt as if it was going to burst right through her chest. Maria's words about her mother, implying that she risked her career all for her to have an opportunity to find her made Hope lose any power she had prior in fighting off her blatant desires towards this woman laying beneath her. Before she realised what she was doing, Hope dipped her head, crashing her lips together with Maria's as she clapped her eyes shut.
Maria responded to the kiss almost instantaneously as she suckled on Hope's lip while bringing her hands to her waist. She then dragged them up her back, sending shivers along her spine with them. Hope slid her hands from Maria's shoulders to the sides of her neck as she repositioned her mouth to scrape her tongue over the agent's teeth, begging for entry. Maria granted it, opening her jaw as she met Hope's tongue with her own, causing the woman below to arch her back and moan into Hope's mouth. The guttural sound that came out of Maria made Hope's hands drift further behind her neck, fingers tangled in dark brown hair as she pulled the agent's head up, needing to deepen their kiss like her very life depended on it. Maria then grabbed at Hope's ponytail, ripping the elastic out of her hair as it fell around their faces like a waterfall. The action made Hope gasp in excitement, sending her stomach into a flutter. Maria's fingers soon busied themselves, finding a home as they combed through her long locks then finally settling at the base of her neck.
Hope could feel tears running down her face as she kissed the woman with a sense of desperation. She'd always been one to fall quick and hard for people, but there was something different happening in that moment with Maria. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. She assumed it was probably something to do with their secretive and high stakes relationship, not wanting to decipher it any further than that, scared of the possibility of it being something deeper.
Maria removed a hand from Hope's body as the other slowly found its way to settle on the side of her face, softly cupping her cheek. The agent beneath then smoothly lifted herself into a sitting position, guiding Hope along with her, not breaking their kiss in the process. Maria then wrapped her arm, that she'd just used to prop them up, around the lower back of the woman who was straddling her lap, pulling her in closer right before they parted mouths. They both took a deep breath. Hope not realising how deprived she was of air.
Hope then felt Maria's hand brushing her hair away from her face as she fluttered her wet eyes open to see the woman looking at her tenderly, making her heart skip a beat and her stomach knot. Maria then ran her fingers gently over her cheeks as she dried her tears, Hope tremble underneath her touch.
"Do you want to come upstairs with me?" Maria asked softly.
Hope gulped before nodding. There was no possible way in which she could deny this breathtaking woman before her; she was beyond captivated by her.
Maria bore a heartwarming smile as she responded, "Okay." She then coaxed Hope to lift herself up off of her so that she could stand up herself. Maria took her hand, wordlessly guiding her to the second floor and into a bedroom.
Maria wasted no time in pulled her in close as Hope wrapped her arms around her. They kissed passionately, once again, before falling into bed together.