Here's the next chapter!

Maria, Pepper, Tony, Wanda, and Clint arrived back at the Avengers tower two days later. Tony immediately took Pepper to their bedroom to rest. Steve assumed that that was where Pepper was going to be staying from then on, until the baby arrived. Then Tony came back down to the common floor, where all the Avengers were seated around the coffee table. Maria was on the floor in front of Wanda's chair. The two seemed to have become friends while they were gone. Natasha sat next to Steve, who was very aware of the redhead's presence. Tony sat on the floor in front of the couch, where Betty, Bruce, and Thor were seated. Vision was in an armchair, as well as Clint. Jane was absent.

"Hi." Tony said awkwardly. The other Avengers blinked blearily at him. Maria leaned back against Wanda's chair.

"Well, this is really awkward." Wanda commented. "Catch me up on what's new. Other than Russia. I've heard enough of depressing things." Steve gave it to Wanda for breaking the ice. She was the newbie, the strange one in the group.

"Um, Pepper's going to have a baby?" Thor's voice rose at the end, making it a question. Tony smiled, although it didn't reach his eyes.

"Yes. We thought about names, but I think the recent events take precedence. If it's a girl, her name is Marie-Grace." he said finally. Maria cocked her head.

"You do not need to name your girl after me, Tony. It's your child, and nothing changes that. Nothing I do will make me deserving of this honor. Please, don't."

"We want to. Because by the grace of Maria Hill, our baby was saved, probably from death. You also might have saved Pepper. I don't take my wife's life lightly, Maria. It's an honor for us to have a friend like you." Tony replied forcefully.

"Tony, you need to chose out of the names you were already considering." Maria insisted. "The knowledge of what I did is enough. Her name does not need to reflect what I did. All the others would have done it if they had been in my shoes. It wasn't even a question in my mind."

"Maria, you could have died." Steve intervened. "And the Starks have every right to name their baby as they wish."

"And I have every right to refuse."

"It's not even your name, Maria. It's Marie-Grace. There's a difference." Tony told her. Maria sighed.

"I've done a lot of bad things, Tony. One action doesn't make up for all of the people that I've killed. Or the people that have died as a result of my orders. I just don't think that I deserve this honor, and your baby doesn't want to have a name that they'll regret for the rest of their life. No one wants to be named after a murderer." she said firmly.

"Maybe they want to be named after an angel."

Later that day, Maria went onto the balcony of the tower. She let the wind blow through her hair and unravel it from her ponytail. She looked out at the view of New York City, the cars little ants crawling below. The sun was setting in the west, and the clouds were streaked with pink and orange. She wore a different white sweater- it was the replacement for the one that was ruined by Pepper's blood and her own. A gift from the Starks.

"Fancy doing a coloring page with me?" someone asked. Maria spun quickly around. She was face-to-face with Wanda. The Sokovian was, for once, not wearing red. She was actually dressed in a pale blue hooded sweatshirt, emblazoned with blue fire.

"I'm too old for coloring pages." Maria replied, turning back to the view.

"No one is ever too old to be a child again, Maria." Wanda replied, after a moment of silence. Maria reluctantly turned around. "You can use your left hand. I know how much you hate using your right now."

"As long as it's an Avengers coloring page." she said.

"What else would it be? We can color Clint's face purple, and make him look like those weird evil things in that animated movie." Wanda said cheerfully. She had started to be introduced to pop culture, much like Steve. Clint had taken her to see the new Despicable Me.

"You mean an evil minion?" Maria laughed.

"Didn't you know that Clint is secretly a purple alien with Einstein hair?" Wanda said, completely straight-faced.

"I suspected it as soon as I met him."

Tony was down in his workshop, trying to come up with a brilliant project idea. He had already made the baby a cradle, a baby mobile, and a fancy sound machine that played classical music, along with some old tunes that Steve had picked out. Natasha had contributed to the mobile, with a hanging blue orb, a spider, a shield, red string (representing Wanda's power), a sparkly yellow faux-gem (for Vision) a green stretchy dude (for Bruce), a small pepper shaker, a non-pointy arrow, and a mini Thor hammer. The others had made a beautiful sea-foam green and pale blue quilt, somehow, even though none of them knew how to make a quilt. It wasn't too bad, for a first attempt. The room was painted, pictures were hung, and fluffy pastel rugs put on the floor.

"Your mobile is missing something, Tony." Elizabeth Ross said. Tony hated the nickname Betty. It made her seem older, less softer, and a lot more grandmother-like. Tony turned around from his workbench.

"What is it missing, Miss Ross?" he asked.

"You need something for Maria. On the mobile. She's part of your team, isn't she?" she said gently. Tony looked up at the mobile, where it hung from the ceiling, still waiting to be installed in the baby's room.

"Technically, no, she's not a member of the initiative." Tony told her. "She's a SHIELD agent and she's assigned to Fury, and he values her skills in that area. She'd be a great Avenger, though." He had never thought about including Maria in the Avengers mobile. Somehow a part of him would always associate Maria with being a SHIELD agent.

"She saved your child." Elizabeth reminded him.

"That's why I want to name her Marie-Grace." Tony said bitterly. "Maria doesn't want it to happen. She's very proud." Elizabeth leaned against the workbench and brushed a strand of her dark hair out of her eyes.

"She doesn't like the thought that she could have done it faster." she told him.

"What do you mean? She went as fast as she could. She did more than I ever asked of her, and I'm grateful for it. Without her, Pepper would probably have lost the baby." Tony replied. "I'm certain of it."

"She thinks that her arm had healed quicker, she would have been able to run back to the farm." Elizabeth said quietly. "She blames herself for not getting there quicker. She believes that she could have gotten her there in a half-hour, instead of a whole hour."

"They were three miles away. There's absolutely no way that Maria could run a ten-minute mile while carrying someone. It can't be done."

"Her fastest mile alone was five minutes, fifteen seconds." Elizabeth said. "In her mind, the double weight accounts for double the time. Ten minutes, thirty seconds a mile. Three miles. That's a half-hour."

"That equation makes no sense."

"Perhaps not. Either way, she deserves to be honored on that mobile." Elizabeth turned to go.

"Thank you, Elizabeth."

"You're welcome."

Wow. That was... unexpected.

Hopefully you all are okay with the name Marie-Grace. I know it's an American Girl doll name, but pretend that that doesn't exist. It's quite pretty. Marie (for Maria) and then Grace (because of Maria's grace for Pepper)

I consider coloring pages as therapy for all ages, and it would help with Maria's coordination... who else likes the idea of Clint as a corrupt Minion from Despicable Me?

I do think that Maria should be an Avenger. Sadly, I don't think she is. Yet. Cross your fingers! I also never really liked the nickname Betty for Betty Ross, so I gave a little of that opinion to Tony. I think Elizabeth is a pretty name and it shouldn't be shortened.

I hope you liked it!