Love triangle, anyone? I don't know... should Maria be supportive of Steve and Natasha or does she secretly love him? I mean, Maria deserves a great guy and all, but Captain Hill is not one of my favorite ships. Still... must... decide...
Anyway, you guys are fantastic! I enjoy the support and the incentive that you guys give me! It makes me keep writing! Thanks!
Steve didn't want to face the rest of the team. He was still furious at Natasha for what had happened. If she hadn't been stupid enough to be carrying a knife, Maria would still be alright and Fury wouldn't be mad at Natasha. But with all her insecurities, Natasha had taken a knife, even though she knew what could happen. He had finally lost his patience with the assassin. She needed to be brought back down from her high horse to realize what a danger she posed to the team and regular citizens.
"Steve!" someone was banging on the door of his bedroom.
"JARVIS, I thought I told you to lock everyone out of the floor!" Steve shouted at the artificial intelligence system. The banging continued. Steve jumped up and began to pace the room.
"I apologize, Steve. My system was overrun by Miss Ross." JARVIS finally replied. Betty had hacked into Tony's system? Steve, despite himself, was impressed by Betty's courage and intelligence level. He still didn't answer the door.
"Steve, if you don't open the door I'll break it down!" Betty shouted through the door. Steve groaned and wrenched the door open. Betty was standing there, startled looking, with one fist raised ready to pound the door open.
"Well, don't just stand there." Steve snapped. Betty stepped inside the bedroom and Steve slammed it shut, after checking to see if they were being spied on by the rest of the team. Betty sat on his bed, her feet dangling over the floor.
"You shouldn't have blown up at Nat like that. She was in pieces by the time that Pepper got her out of the car." Betty admonished. "She feels really guilty about what happened." Steve snorted. He crossed his arms over his chest.
"She was the one who brought a knife into that meeting." he replied icily. "I don't understand why you're blaming me for yelling at her." Betty patted the bed beside her. Steve obediently sat. They stared at each other for a minute- a soldier and a professor, just looking. Analyzing. Calculating. It wasn't a romantic glare. They were both trying to figure out what the other one wanted.
"They've stabilized Maria's condition. She's lost a lot of blood, and she's very weak at the moment. But she's alive." Betty said finally. "I thought you should know." Steve looked away.
"Maria has helped me through the New York City battle. She helped me get adjusted to the modern world and she made sure that the paparazzi couldn't track my house. She's like a best friend to me, and if she died, I think it would be over between me and Romanoff. I couldn't deal with her anymore." Steve said softly.
"Are you sure... that you're just friends?" Betty asked hesitantly. "You and Nat." Steve looked at her, his eyebrows narrowed.
"I don't know anymore. Just when I thought we had something special, she goes and throws a knife at my best friend. How am I supposed to deal with that?" he asked bitterly.
"She wasn't herself. She feels awful about it. When you're in those flashbacks, you can't see what's real and what isn't. The line gets blurred between reality and the past." Betty said. Steve raised his eyebrows. It was a surprisingly accurate description of a flashback.
"I might apologize to her. Nat." Steve said.
"You can't keep a grudge forever, Steve. Life is too short to be angry at someone you love. That's what I learned." Betty said, and left.
What happened at the SHIELD headquarters after Steve and Natasha left...
"Coulson, please." Fury said, his hand on the knife embedded in Maria's arm. She was tensed, ready for the pain that she knew was coming. Coulson was standing in the doorway, torn between going to get medical, staying beside Maria, and chasing after Romanoff and Rogers.
"I'm going." as Coulson started down the hall, he heard Maria's ear-piercing scream, and Fury swearing. He began to run toward the medical room.
Fury was desperate. Maria was losing blood and he didn't know how to stop the bleeding, especially since one of her arteries was cut when Natasha threw the knife. He just held Maria's arm in his hand, swearing the whole time.
"Why did you take it for me?" he asked her through clenched teeth. His hand was slick with her blood now, and Maria was covered in it. It was streaming down her arm at a rapid pace. Her breathing was becoming shallower and shallower. He raised his other hand and pushed a strand of Maria's dark hair out of her eyes. Then he finally heard Coulson returning with medical. Maria went limp in his lap.
"Fury, please get out of the way." one of the medical team said authoritatively. "We need to stabilize her before she can be moved." The team was kneeling in her blood, and Maria was in the center of it, her arm continuing to spew dark red blood. The medical people put an oxygen mask on her face and began to clean the area around the knife wound. A white bandage was pressed onto the wound and quickly it began to show blood. Maria's face was growing even paler.
"Come on, Hill." Fury growled. "Don't do this over a knife wound."
"Sir, we can stabilize her but you will have to take her out of the field until it heals." They were clamping the artery shut. The blood flow slowed. A fleeting thought ran through Fury's mind We'll need a new meeting room!
"She's stabilized. She's alive." the medical team finally said. Hill had been moved to a hospital room and Fury and Coulson were waiting to her the verdict on her condition.
"I'm going to kill Romanoff." Fury growled. To his surprise, Coulson started laughing. It was the hysterical kind of laughter, the kind that happens when a person doesn't know to laugh or cry. "That agent is more trouble than she's worth."
"Must be worth a lot then." Coulson snickered.
"Grow up, Coulson. We almost lost an agent today." Fury barked. That shut the agent up.
Before you guys get excited, it's not a Fury/Hill fic either.