Maria Hill is fourteen when she submits a paper detailing the plausible causes and effects of World War III-and when S.H.I.E.L.D. comes calling at her door.
They have a place for her at their academy, the man, Agent Coulson, tells her. Her first instinct is to trust him-his face is earnest and radiates kindness-but her gut knows that just because someone looks kind does not mean they are. She stalls. She hems. She considers it.
Her mother tells her to take the chance and run.
Maria takes another day to think about it. She's a month shy of fifteen when she packs her bags for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, and she never thinks about Arkansas again.
Her teachers call her calculating and brilliant. Her classmates call her cold and ruthless. Maria has the rulebook memorized within the year; standard operations come to her as easily as breathing. When she tires of-or is bored by-standard ops and procedures, she invents her own. By the time she graduates-a fully-qualified field agent at 19, the same age as the legendary Melinda May-she's revolutionized the way operations are handled.
The calling card she receives on graduation day from the Triad shouldn't come as a surprise, but it does. Maria fights like a man, operates like one, calculates like one. Is she really the kind of woman they want in Peggy Carter's elite fighting force? The kind who doesn't act like a woman at all?
Peggy Carter presides over the meeting silently. Maria feels Peggy watching her the entire time as nothing in particular is discussed. She feels like this in and of itself is a test, this sitting around a table in a private room at a well-to-do restaurant and discussing things like the weather and the current political situation. How does Maria feel about the outcome of the presidential election? What does she think President Bush's time in office will amount to?
Maria knows enough to answer every question as honestly as she can, but she looks at the matriarch of the group every time. She watches the older woman's face, immovable and calculating as she considers Maria's answers. Peggy is so different yet not from the portraits that had watched over Maria every day at the academy.
When Maria is offered a position in the Triad, she's unsure. She's heard of their work-studied it in operations, watched the rare footage comparing the American cavalry to the Russian Widows-but she's still unsure if it fits her.
"Why do you want someone like me?" she finally asks.
Peggy speaks for the first, and only, time to answer: "Because they still underestimate you. You'll work yourself to the bone, mimicking them and creating more new procedures to benefit yourself and them, but they'll always underestimate you. You are one of the best. We only take the best."
She's not sure about that. Still, she can apply what the Triad has to offer her to her work.
When 9/11 happens three months later and Maria gets run through the ringer in the deadliest games of intelligence warfare, she's still unsure of Peggy's words. The world has changed in 50 years, and it'll be even more different in the next 50 years.
It takes a long time for her to realize that Peggy's words are true-in a way. It's not that Maria's underestimated, it's that she's never first in line: she's second. In any major decision, she's asked second. Agent Hill, confirm or deny the leader's opinion? Agent Hill, does this comply with standard S.H.I.E.L.D. operations procedures? Agent Hill, can you redo our first choice's work because it's subpar and we realize-but can't admit aloud-our mistake in not choosing you first?
It's not that Maria likes being placed second. She actively dislikes it. But she learns to work within it. She knows every rule, every regulation, every procedure, every standard ops run. She can formulate an extraction plan in five minutes with minimal casualties.
Maria seeks out the leaders. She slips in a word here and there. She changes minds by reminding them of the rules.
They may underestimate her. But she is the unseen force behind them. They don't understand what would happen if she cut their strings.
And when Maria meets a Black Widow herself, she wonders again how anyone can underestimate someone so clearly pulling every string in the room. Even hers.