because a few people asked to see Maria again. I think there's a lot of potential to play with in terms of her friendship with Nat, and I doubt this'll be the last time I write them.

I hope this one is a bit on the lighter side for you (though, I mean...I can't help the teeny bits of angst from creeping in...).

hope y'all are staying safe in these uncertain times, and hope everyone is healthy!

enjoy.

Maria watches Clint shove his hands into his pockets as he tips his gaze down to the base of the tree where there are a few bouquets of flowers laid gently. She hadn't meant to intrude on his time here. She'd figured he'd be at home with his family. But as she watches him scrutinize the flowers at the base of the trunk of the tree, she feels almost like a stranger infringing on a very private moment.

She can't see his face, but his posture is one of a man struggling under the weight of guilt and grief. It's not a surprise, with the day being what it is. She knows the already painful emotions are hitting harder today, because they're hitting her harder too. She doesn't know the details of what happened exactly to lead to Nat's death, but she doesn't blame him. No one does. Except, unfortunately, Clint himself. But that doesn't surprise her.

Her gaze drops to the flowers. She knows for sure one of them is from Fury. It's fresh, the colours still vibrant and lively, and was probably left that morning if she were to guess. The other two are a touch older, their colours having faded as though they've been out for a bit. She guesses Maximoff and maybe Banner for the other two.

"It's not polite to stare, you know," he calls out. She resists the urge to roll her eyes as she begins to walk toward him. Did he really not expect her to know that he'd realize she was there? Really? It was an insult to her competency.

"Didn't expect to see anyone else here today," he adds once she's standing beside him.

"Anniversary of her joining SHIELD," she explains simply with a shrug. "She told me once when we were drinking that it was the most important day of her life." She pauses as the memory wraps around her with a familiar warmth and the corner of her mouth ticks up in a half smile. "I spent the next week trying to figure out if she told me that because she was well and truly drunk, if she was being honest, or if she was screwing with me."

"She was being honest," he replies, answering the unasked question. "She liked you."

"She tolerated me," Maria quips. "She liked you."

"No, she liked you," he refutes with a shake of his head. "She liked that you didn't put up with bullshit. Probably didn't hurt that you treated her like an actual person after she defected."

His answer is more sombre than she'd expected. His tone had been teasing and almost light at the start, despite the heaviness of the situation.

"Not right away," Maria points out. She'd been plenty wary of the supposedly "former" Russian spy at the time. It had taken a few missions and a good chunk of time before she began to trust Natasha, and even longer before they began to forge a true friendship. But once they did, Maria got the feeling that as long as she did right by Nat she could always count on her support. Maybe Clint was right. Maybe Nat really did like her. She didn't share drinks with just anyone, after all...

Clint shrugs. "But after she proved herself...when most of the guys were still angry and being assholes...you were respectful and decent. She didn't forget that. Probably didn't hurt either that you weren't dripping in testosterone like the rest of the guys."

Maria lets out a huff of amusement. "Probably not," she agrees. Her eyes drift to the bouquet of flowers tucked under his arm. "Didn't take you for a flowers kind of guy," she says nodding to the bouquet.

He shrugs. "I'm not really. But I mean, what else do you bring, right?" He sighs. "Laura pointed out that they aren't for Nat. At least, not really. They're more for us to say what we would want her to know. For us to do something to grieve."

Maria nods as she turns over his words in her head. They make a lot of sense. She figures on some level she already knew it. Funerals, after all, were for the living, not the dead.

"She also told me these ones are called, uh, gladioli, I think she said, and they mean remembrance, honour, and integrity." He pauses for a moment as his gaze tips up to the small branches that have begun to spread and grow since the tree was planted months ago. "Can't possibly say everything I'd want her to know, but these are something, right?"

Maria nods and he steps forward with a soft sigh before he squats down and places the bouquet. All at once she feels another wave of regret wash over her that she's stepped in on his private moment. He and Nat had been friends and partners for years, getting to the point where they could communicate with each other with just glances. Hell, Nat had become a part of his family. Maria thinks she should look away and give him some privacy, but instead she watches as he stares intently at the flowers he hasn't let go of yet. He lingers there for another moment and then pats the bouquet once gently before he gets up and steps back in line with Maria.

She falters for only a second before she steps forward and lays her own bouquet of flowers. She hadn't known what flowers to bring either, but the florist had pointed her in the right direction. The purple flowers, which she'd learned were called statice, apparently symbolized remembrance. If nothing else, she'd want Nat to know that she would remember her for the good friend, excellent agent, and hero that she was. She lingers for a moment, closing her eyes and letting herself remember Nat and trying to think of everything she'd want to tell her.

A conversation from years gone by drifts forward in her mind, where Nat had told her that she wanted to be remembered for something good instead of just being the Black Widow. The Avengers were still a few years off from being formed but even then Maria had known Natasha Romanoff would have her name etched in SHIELD history for more than just having defected. She'd been an exemplary agent, even if her methods were often outside of standard procedure, and had worked harder than anyone Maria knew. Fury had trusted her with some of the most important missions and intel, and had leaned on her expertise for counsel now and then - something he did not do often. With anyone. But more than all of that, she'd been a good person and a good friend.

Clint chuckles and Maria turns to face him as she stands, a silent question in her expression. "I got her flowers for her first anniversary of joining SHIELD," he explains. "She laughed at me and asked why I would give her something that was going to die so quickly, and what exactly she was supposed to read into that."

Maria smiles, because it was such a Nat thing to say.

"I know she loved them though," Clint continues. "I could tell from the way she said it. She was teasing me, but she was appreciative too. And I'm like 80% sure she was smiling behind the bouquet."

Maria lets out a huff of amusement because that was such a Barton thing to say. But she realizes then that she knows this story.

Maria rubs at her eyes as she leans back in her chair and blows out a tired sigh. They'd been poring over the pages of information for hours now, and she was starting to feel the strain in her eyes.

"We can shelve this and come back to it tomorrow if you want," Nat offers.

"No," Maria replies, eyes opening to meet Nat's gaze, "we should finish this tonight. Steve's expecting it for the briefing tomorrow."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Just give me a few minutes. The teeny, tiny print is killing my eyes."

"Time for some glasses?" Nat teases as she kicks her feet up on the desk and leans back in her chair.

"Don't start, Romanoff," Maria warns. She knows if Nat gets going on a roll with the teasing, it won't end for hours. "Unless you're willing to provide the drinks to accompany it. And I don't mean that Russian shit."

Nat barks out a laugh. "Russian vodka is not shit. It's superior."

"Spoken like a true Russian."

"Why thank you," she replies with a grin

It irks Maria just a tiny bit that jabs at her Russian heritage never seem to bother her. Then again, no one's brave enough to really throw around the heavier jabs. Or, as she likes to think of it - no one is dumb enough to try.

"Did you actually want a drink? I've got some bourbon kicking around here somewhere. Tony gave it to me as a gag gift because he wanted me to "become a true American" as he put it."

Maria laughs. "If Stark was involved, it's gotta be the good stuff, so I definitely won't say no."

"You got it," Nat says as she swings her legs off the desk and swivels in her chair to dig into one of the drawers of the filing cabinet on the wall behind her.

Maria takes the opportunity to look around the office. Between getting training up and running for the new Avengers and trying to coordinate logistics with the final construction projects going on at the Compound, Nat hadn't really had a chance to move into her office until the past week. The office was larger than any of the ones Maria had ever had at SHIELD, but knowing that Stark had always adhered to the 'go big or go home' mentality, that wasn't a surprise. She spots a few pieces of art on the walls, which she guesses are probably from Stark's collection. They seem to be her taste though, and she wonders if he picked them specifically for her.

Beneath the numerous folders and piles of paper they'd been going over is a meticulously neat desk, complete with a laptop and tablet with more technological bells and whistles than Maria could ever imagine. But what really catches her eye is the shadow box containing a few dried flowers.

Nat catches her staring and in a rare show of openness, provides an explanation. "They're from Clint. He gave them to me after my first year at SHIELD."

Maria's eyebrows rise in surprise. She'd never taken Nat to be overly sentimental. Sure, she had the arrow necklace and a few cards the Barton kids had sent her hidden away, but this was new. "I thought you didn't like flowers."

"I never said that," she answers with a quickly arched brow that silently challenges Maria to argue differently. Knowing Nat, she probably hadn't explicitly stated it and had opted to let vague statements be read into instead.

Maria takes the glass of bourbon that Nat holds out to her and takes a sip, finding her assumptions of its quality to be correct. "Of course not," she remarks drily.

Nat leans back and kicks her feet up again. "As you can imagine, I didn't have any possessions growing up, so I came into SHIELD with pretty much just the clothes on my back. Clint took me to get some stuff, but none of it was really personal at all - a couple house plants, some knick knacks he put in the cart, and some generic pictures. When he gave me the flowers for my anniversary at SHIELD, they were the first true meaningful thing that someone had ever given me that wasn't a weapon. So I kept them. I had them at my place in the city, but since I'm here more than there…"

She realizes she's gone quiet and hasn't said anything when she feels Clint's gaze on her. He'd evidently realized she was lost in her memories and had waited.

"She had a shadow box in her office at the Compound with a couple of those flowers in it. Said the flowers were the first meaningful thing someone had given her that wasn't a weapon."

Clint's expression falls and Maria feels a pang of sympathy. It'd been months since they lost her, but she knows for him it still feels painfully fresh. She misses Nat too, of course, but not in the same way he does. She figures for him it's a deeper, more painful loss.

"Guess those are long gone," he says bitterly, tipping his gaze over to the still remaining remnants of wreckage from the old Compound.

"Yeah," she replies absently.

"Hey, you wanna grab a drink?" he asks suddenly.

Maria turns to face him with slightly widened eyes and then glances at her watch. "It's 8am."

"I didn't say alcoholic drinks," he argues with a roll of his eyes. "Coffee and tea are also drinks."

She holds in a grimace at his slightly smug expression. "God, I don't know how she put up with you all those years."

"Yeah, me neither," he says, his tone taking on some shades of melancholy as it shifts away all at once from what had been light and teasing. "So, drinks?"

She weighs her options. She doesn't have anything planned for the morning, and Fury had let her go with instructions to "do what you need to do" and a curt nod because he'd known exactly what day it was. And Clint looks like he could use the company…

"Sure, I could go for a coffee."

"Do you remember that mission in Switzerland?"

Clint's brow furrows in thought as he spins his mug of coffee absently. She can once again see the weight of the time spent without his family and the loss of Natasha hanging off him, and she wonders if her own grief is as plainly visible to him. "Davos, right?" he answers after a moment, his hands stopping the spinning motion as he looks up again. "The Economic Conference."

"Fury sent in you, me, Nat, and Coulson," she counts off on her fingers.

He takes a long drink from his mug before he leans back against the back of the booth. They'd opted to stay put in the cafe since it had started raining just as they entered, and had headed to the back of the place to seek out some privacy once their drinks were ready.

He rubs his chin thoughtfully. "He told us it was a counter-op for some threats to the bigwig politicians there, but we were really just a glorified protection detail."

Maria nods as she takes a small sip. It had been a while since she'd had good coffee, and she'd been glad to see the place she used to frequent was still standing after the turmoil of those five years that she'd missed. "Op was for two weeks, but Nat sussed out all the threats and handled them on the first day."

"Right," Clint replies with a nod, "we were left with nothing to do."

"And when Coulson asked Fury for orders, he said to go skiing because we could all use a damn vacation."

Clint chuckles softly as a small smile curls on his lips. "I thought Nat's head was going to explode when she realized Fury had totally handled us."

"Well, handled her mostly. Coulson and I both had approved leaves lined up a couple weeks later, and I'm pretty sure you would've gone home with no complaints. But he had to make it look like a legit mission, otherwise Nat wouldn't have gone along."

"Always was a sneaky bastard. But he wasn't wrong, she did need a break. Don't know why he didn't just send her home with me though."

"That was in her 'giving you space to be with your family' phase."

"Right. That was a dumb six months."

Maria laughs lightly. Nat hadn't realized how much she was loved by the Bartons until Clint started to inundate her with near daily videos of the kids whining for their Auntie Nat. "I think she figured out that she was wrong around 3 months in, but couldn't figure out an elegant solution to end her self-imposed distance without having to admit she was wrong."

"She always was stubborn."

"That's putting it lightly," Maria replies drily before taking another sip from her drink.

Clint stares at his mug for a moment. "It was a fun two weeks. I mean, I missed my family of course, but it was fun getting to be a regular tourist for once."

"Weird though."

He chuckles. "Definitely. Not that we can't be normal people, but to be normal with the people you work at a super secret organization with? Not so much."

She nods and smiles because she gets it. Relaxing around her colleagues was hard enough, let alone taking a vacation with them. They were all of them a bit broken and a bit dysfunctional, but they made it work.

"Coulson made us take skiing lessons, didn't he?" Clint asks.

"Yeah, 'cause none of us had ever been."

"Nat was furious he didn't just let her loose on the hill. She tried to convince him she'd figure it out."

"Coulson denied her flatly and told her that while we were in fact on vacation, he was technically still responsible for making sure she wasn't brought home in a body bag. And he gave Nat the patented Coulson look of disappointment when she started trying to sweet talk the instructor."

"And yet she still ended up skiing circles around all of us."

"Of course she did," Maria grumbles.

"Still holding a grudge, Hill?"

"One thing," she says holding up a finger to emphasize her point. "I'd have liked to beat her at one thing, just once."

"You were better at paperwork," Clint offers with a cheeky grin.

She stares at him, unimpressed. "One thing she gave a shit about," Maria amends.

Clint chuckles. "If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure if she'd ever given a shit about a bow and arrow I'd have been out of a job."

Maria waves it off. "She liked you too much to take that away from you."

Clint blinks, as though Maria's teasing words were occurring to him for the first time. "Well shit."

"Clint, I was kidding," Maria replies, suddenly a bit worried to have hit him while he was down, accidental or not. She wasn't one to use kid gloves around people, but even she could tell Nat was an especially sore subject for him. Rightfully so she thinks sadly.

"Kidding or not, you're probably right."

Maria lets out a soft exhale as she watches him start to spin his mug again. "You want a refill?" she offers after a quick glance to the windows at the front of the cafe and finding it was still raining.

"Yeah, if you don't mind," he says with a nod, pushing his mug forward when she holds out a hand to grab it.

She takes their mugs and leaves them in the designated dirty dishes area before lining up to order. She's shocked to find a familiar face in line in front of her. "May?"

"Hill? What're you doing here?" May replies, her own shock clear on her face.

"Having coffee with Barton," she answers, nodding toward their table at the back of the cafe.

May's brow furrows and Maria can't blame her for the confusion. She and Barton didn't usually hang out outside of work after all. But...did she know about Natasha? She must...it's been months… Come to think of it, she had no idea where May had been.

"It's the anniversary of Natasha joining SHIELD," Maria offers in explanation.

May's expression shifts, and Maria sees the genuine sadness ripple across her face. "It's unbelievable, isn't it? She always seemed like she could beat even the worst odds."

"Yeah," Maria says with a nod. A beat of silence passes and then she adds, "You should join us."

May shakes her head. "Oh, I don't want to intru-"

"You wouldn't be," Maria interrupts. "It'll be nice to share some stories about her to someone else who was around in those early years. And I bet you've got a few of your own too."

May smiles. "Yeah, I've got a few."

Clint looks up as they approach the table and his eyes widen. "Well I'll be damned. As I live and breathe, Melinda May. The Cavalry, herself."

"Barton," she greets him with a nod and slides his mug over to him before sitting down. "Don't make me tell you again to not call me that," she warns.

"How're you? It's been awhile."

"Yeah, it has," she says apologetically. "Been better, been worse. All things considered...not bad."

"Missed you at Nat's funeral," Clint says, his tone sliding into accusatory. Maria shoots him a look of warning.

May's expression falls. "I didn't know about it."

Barton's brow arches doubtfully. "How?"

"Clint," Maria warns. She knows it's his grief leaking out. She knows he's not actually angry with May. Historically they'd always gotten along well.

"No, he's right to be angry. I wish I could have been there."

"Why weren't you?"

"Barton!" Maria says as her eyes widen further in shock. He'd always been a bit blunt, but never to this degree.

"I was...away."

"Define "away." Because I know you two were friends, and I know she would've been at yours if things were reversed."

May blows out a breath. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Magical stones, half the world dusting away, and time travel are all things I've seen in the last five or so years. Nothing is going to surprise me anymore."

Maria is a little surprised by how much he's willing to share, but then this was May...perhaps the only person who did compartmentalization better than Nat.

May's eyes widen fractionally, but that's her only tell of emotion. "My team ran into some alien objects that had us catapulting through time and space for a long time," she answers plainly.

Maria and Clint both blink in shock as they try to process her words. They'd both assumed that the Avengers travelling through time to retrieve magical stones would be the ultimate in unbelievable things becoming reality.

"Shit, Mel," Clint says before turning to face Maria. "Now I'm sure we should've gone for real drinks, morning or not."

"We're not here to do a debrief," May says bluntly with a shrug before taking a sip from her coffee. She turns to face Clint and her tone softens significantly. "I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose someone you love."

Maria scrutinizes her for a moment, picking apart the depth of her words. Did that mean Coulson was gone now too?

"Don't we all," is Clint's response. He holds up his mug. "To lost friends."

"To lost friends," she and May echo as they raise their own mugs before taking a drink.

Silence washes over them for a moment as the absence of Nat echoes.

"She ever tell you about our op in San Francisco?" May asks suddenly.

Maria frowns. "No, I don't remember anything in San Francisco."

Clint shakes his head but stays quiet.

"We were sent in to do some surveillance on a few guys who were dipping their toes into some operations that were starting to tread into those despicable categories. So we spend weeks watching, mostly in near complete silence because let's face it, Nat and I were never renowned for our chattiness."

Maria and Clint both chuckle. Talk about an understatement, Maria thinks to herself.

"So finally we get the go ahead to take out the operation because the opportunity had presented itself. Nat volunteers to be the one to go in, and says she'll be fine and will call for backup if she needs. I don't argue, because who am I to question the young hotshot agent that Coulson won't shut up about?"

Clint smirks and Maria watches as a smile creeps across May's face. It's clear that it's a fond memory for her, and Maria isn't the least bit surprised. Nat and May were a lot alike, and bonded fairly quickly over their shared strong work ethics, prowess in hand to hand combat, and general derision for stupidity.

"By the time an hour had gone by, I'm getting a little worried because I haven't heard or seen anything. Suddenly my comm crackles and it's Nat asking for my assistance. I rush in ready to help fight off some goons, and instead I find Nat behind a bar, mixing some drinks."

Maria and Clint's eyebrows both shoot up in surprise.

"I look around and find bodies strewn everywhere, but no threats so I holster my gun and head over to Nat. Before I can even ask, she's pushed a drink toward me and is gesturing for me to sit. Didn't even get a chance to ask anything before she explains that the guys were irritatingly easy to deal with, and that we both deserved a drink for our troubles of having had to watch their stupidity for weeks."

Clint barks out a laugh. "Yeah, that tracks. She hated wasting time."

"I still haven't figured out how she knew my drink though. We barely knew each other then."

"She always did seem to know everything," Maria interjects.

"We must have stayed there for another hour before we called it in. Just chatting and sipping our drinks."

"What'd Coulson and Fury say?" Clint asks.

"Coulson gave us his patented look of disapproval, but he was happy we'd bonded. Fury didn't say much of anything, but I got the feeling he was amused by the whole thing."

"You're just lucky he had a soft spot for Nat," Maria offers.

"Oh, I don't know if I would say he had a soft spot for her. Not in the beginning at least," Clint interjects. "I can remember at least a few times where he had the two of us in his office and he screamed until he was blue in the face."

"That's because you two were reckless. All the time," May offers.

"But effective," he counters.

"Yes, but you don't always need to blow everything up. And you don't always have to accidentally leave an arrow embedded in a guy's leg. Or arm," Maria points out.

"Party pooper," he accuses.

Maria rolls her eyes at his childish response. "I'm just saying, you two caused a hell of a lot of chaos considering you were both well trained in stealth."

He grins cheekily. "To be fair, we saved it for the real assholes. Nat liked to exact some revenge on the folks who took advantage of vulnerable people."

May's phone beeps and she pulls it out to check it. She looks up apologetically. "I have to go, I'm sorry."

Maria waves her off immediately. "Don't worry about it. It was good to see you."

"Likewise." She turns to face Clint. "Nat was a hell of an agent, but she was an even better friend. I'm sorry."

Clint nods. "Yeah," he agrees before pausing to clear his throat, "me too. Good seeing you, Mel."

"Take care of yourself," May says softly, reaching down to squeeze Clint's shoulder for a moment. "Both of you," she adds, turning to face Maria again.

"You too," Maria replies. "And stay in touch, okay?"

May nods before turning and heading to the door, leaving Clint and Maria alone again.

They stay there for another hour, swapping stories about Nat from over the years. Eventually they grow silent though, each beginning to feel the true weight of her absence, because it was exactly the kind of thing Nat loved to do in her spare time - shoot the shit with her friends over good drinks, alcoholic or otherwise.

A question that Maria had always wondered about drifts to the surface of her mind. "Can I ask you something?" she asks before she can think better of it.

"You just did," he says, but the tease lacks any sort of bite - his tone is dull.

She shoots him an unimpressed glare. "It seemed like she healed pretty fast. Not quite as fast as Cap, but I always wondered..." Maria trails off, leaving the thought unspoken.

Clint's eyes meet her gaze. "What?"

Maria hesitates, because it feels almost wrong to be discussing it. It was something Nat clearly held close to her chest and didn't talk about. Yes, she and Nat had been closer than most, but certainly not to the degree of Nat and Clint. What right did she have to ask these kinds of questions about a woman who valued her privacy and anonymity above almost everything else?

"Well, she told us the Red Room was conducting experiments in addition to the training. I always wondered if she had some version of a serum or something. Right before we took down the helicarriers, she shook off a high caliber bullet wound through her shoulder like it was nothing. The next day she was doing hand to hand combat and hanging out of a helicopter like it hadn't even happened."

Clint sighs. "She never told me but I suspected as much. I don't know if she even knew herself about everything that had been done. She told me she had gaps in her memory from childhood."

"God, those fuckers were something else," Maria says bitterly. What Nat had been through...what she had survived… It was unimaginable. That she could still have the capacity for love and trust after it all was no small miracle.

"Preaching to the choir," Clint agrees with a tense nod.

"They all dead?"

"I think so. She had a list that she worked through, and after Germany she went off the map for a bit. When I heard from her again she said she'd crossed off a few extra names she hadn't known should've been on the list."

"Any way to verify?" Maria asks.

"I can dig through some of our old safehouses and networks - see if she left anything. Why?"

"Seems like the right thing to do," she says. She knew how much Nat hated them, and how much she wanted them to never be able to get it started up again. Not to mention that an organization like that was beyond evil and should never exist. Ever.

Clint nods. "I'll see what I can dig up."

Her phone chimes and she pulls it out to check the message. It's from Fury, and tells her that her morning off apparently ended at 11. "I have to go," she says apologetically.

He nods. "Yeah, I should be getting back myself. Got five years' worth of chores to catch up on at home."

"Yeah," Maria answers, unsure of what else to say. She stands up and shrugs on her jacket, slipping her phone back into her pocket.

"Maria," Clint says abruptly as he stands up, "you should know...you were important to Nat."

Maria's heart clenches and she swallows to tamp down the emotions that swell inexplicably at his words.

"I just- I'm sure you knew that. But I thought you should know...you know...for sure," he says, fumbling through the words. "And I'm sorry you didn't get to say goodbye," he adds, gaze rising to meet hers.

"Me too," she says with a nod. "Listen...I don't know what Fury's got cooked up in terms of next steps, and I know you're retired, but if you ever need anything. Let me know."

Clint nods. "I will. And you too. I'm retired, but-"

"In the case of potentially universe-ending events we can call you?" she finishes drily, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

He cracks a tired smile. "Yeah."

"Shoot straight," she says with a smile, calling back to what she and Nat had always told him before missions.

He smiles, this time a little warmer. "Yeah, you too."

I couldn't resist having May show up. she's such an intriguing character, and I really think there's probably a lot of shared history between her, Nat, and Clint given their tenures in SHIELD. that and I'm certain she and Nat got along well; they're too alike to not have hit it off as friends. I admittedly played it a bit fast and loose with the timelines for May because I honestly didn't feel like trying to puzzle out the nonsense that was AOS and the MCU timelines...

I'd forgotten how amusing Maria's character was until I went back to watch a few of her scenes. the sarcasm and wit is just a treat, and I hope that wry humour came across here at least a little.

as always, any suggestions or ideas for future characters to dive into is welcomed. I do take all of them and put 'em on a list to work on!

and again - hope everyone's safe and healthy.