A week later, Maria Hill was updating Fury on the ongoing efforts to track down the remaining alien weaponry and gear (which was going fairly well) and the efforts to make the weaponry work (not going so well).

"What else?" he asked.

She paused, because the next update combined two of Fury's least favorite things - Stark and the press - but he had to know. "An update on Stark." Fury scowled, but she pressed on. "I'm going to give Stark the okay to start mentioning SHIELD by name." Now he looked incredulous. She continued, making sure to keep her voice absolutely calm and steady. "He'll continue to protect Barton's and Romanoff's identities, but the press is pushing him for specifics. If he doesn't give them something, then they'll go digging."

"Let them," Fury said. "They won't find anything."

"What if they do?" Maria returned. "At this point, sir, you know as well as I do that we can't guarantee that, and frankly, we have more control if we put out the information through Stark."

Fury stared at her for a moment. "They got to you."

She forced herself not to smile. "Ms. Potts is very convincing, sir."

He sighed. "Just the name?"

"Just the name," she confirmed. "There may be calls to DHS to confirm SHIELD does, actually, operate under them."

"Fine," Fury said. "Anything more than that-"

"I'll let you know, sir."

"How's he doing?" Fury asked. "Do we need to do any damage control yet?"

"No sir," Maria said. "He's actually doing very well." And yes, that surprised her as much as it did Fury. "He's solidified public opinion in the Avenger's favor. Barton and Romanoff have been mentioned, but not by name and only briefly. He warns me he doesn't know if he can keep it that way, but for now, people seem content to focus on Captain Rogers, Thor, Iron Man, and Hulk."

"How long do you think we have before he pulls one of his typical stunts and goes off script?"

"I've gotten assurances that won't happen, sir."

"From Stark?"

"From Ms. Potts," Maria said.

"Well. That actually does make me feel better. How goes it with Dr. Foster? She gotten sick of Stark yet?"

Maria wondered how surprised Fury would be by the next pieces of news; it had sure as hell shocked her. "Just the opposite, actually," she said. "Dr. Foster intends to stay in New York and work at Stark Tower on a permanent basis." Fury just stared at her with a blank expression. "Apparently Dr. Foster was very impressed by Stark's labs. She will do some work at an observatory in upstate New York, but for the most part she'll be working out of the tower. I told her SHIELD wouldn't have a problem with it."

"Did you, now?" Fury said.

Maria paused, suddenly uncertain. She had guessed Fury would be surprised, but hadn't thought he'd have any objections. Sure, Stark was one of Fury's least favorite people, but he was mostly trustworthy and reliable, at least in serious situations. What had she missed? "You did tell me to help Dr. Foster set up shop anywhere within reason, to help SHIELD regain her trust," she finally said.

"I did say that," Fury said. He sighed. "Well, offer her SHIELD resources if she needs help finding an apartment."

"That won't be necessary," Maria said. Time to really shock him. "Dr. Foster will have an apartment at Stark Tower."

"Stark invited Dr. Foster to live in his home?"

"It's a very big tower, sir. And I think it might have actually been Ms. Potts," she said. "Dr. Ross will be moving into the tower as well."

Fury just stared at her, as thrown as she'd ever seen him. "You're serious," he said. He looked like he half-expected her to tell him she was pulling his leg.

Maria didn't blame him. She was sure she had looked even more shocked when Pepper had told her the news. Tony Stark, in general, did not like people. He did not make friends quickly or easily, and he certainly didn't invite anyone into his life like this a week after meeting them. Or let anyone else invite them into his life. And yet, that was exactly what had happened. "Yes, sir, I'm serious. Dr. Ross is going to be consulting on a project for Stark Industries and will be continuing her research, possibly at one of the universities in the area. She's actually flying out to California with Stark next week. While he does interviews on the west coast, she'll be packing."

"And Stark is okay with this?"

"Yes," Maria said. Pepper had played dumb when Maria had asked her that very question, just tilting her head and asking why wouldn't Tony be okay with it. Stark had been even worse, keeping his head buried in his phone and offering only a distracted "Yeah, should be fun," to her questions on the subject. Fury seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation, which was a problem because she didn't have one. She shrugged. "Dr. Ross, Dr. Foster, and Ms. Potts seem to have become good friends," she offered. There was more to it, but that was the only piece of the puzzle she had right now.

"That woman can get Stark to do absolutely anything," Fury muttered. Maria didn't doubt that, but she knew there was more to this than Stark giving into his girlfriend. She couldn't tell Fury about her half-baked suspicions, though, so she kept her mouth shut.

She waited to be dismissed, but Fury was just leaning back in his chair, staring at her in that way that she absolutely hated. He was testing her patience, and she failed this test every damned time. He had something to say, but wanted to see how long you could go without asking. Her only consolation was that everyone else failed this test, too. (Except possibly Coulson, but that rumor had never been confirmed, because getting information out of either one of them had always been impossible.)

Maria broke after only five minutes this time, because damn it, she was too busy for this. "Was there something else, sir?"

Fury let himself smirk ever so briefly before putting back on his neutral expression. "Agent Simmons came to see me today."

That wasn't a surprise; Simmons had flat-out told her he was going to talk to Fury after she had reprimanded him for the incident with Dr. Foster, and Maria had warned Fury. "Did you show him the surveillance video, sir?" she asked. The only direction Fury had given her on how to handle the situation was to not mention the video to Simmons. She had asked why, but Fury hadn't given her a reason.

"No," Fury said. She wanted to ask why again, and Fury knew it. This time, he took pity on her. "I'm not telling him there's video because I want to see how far down in this hole he's going to dig himself. Simmons is insisting that we have what happened all wrong. That Dr. Foster was too upset to listen to anyone from SHIELD and that Stark provoked the situation."

"So what did you say to him, sir?" she asked.

"I agreed that Stark's an annoying bastard and said in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I was trusting your call on the situation."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what did he have to say to that?" she asked mildly.

"Nothing you need to shoot him for, so relax," Fury said. "He did make another request that I thought you'd find amusing. He thinks he should be considered for Phil's position."

"You're kidding," she said.

"I take it you don't think he's qualified," Fury said, a slight smirk on his face.

He knew as well as she did that Simmons could not do any part of Phil's job, but she outlined her objections anyway. "If he didn't have a talent for planning and running ops, I would be pushing for you to fire him, sir," she said bluntly. "He looks down on anyone who isn't an agent, especially scientists, and most especially female scientists. Putting him in any position that requires contact with civilians would be a disaster." Though she might actually pay money to see Simmons try his usual routine with Pepper.

"I agree," Fury said. "I told him he didn't have the social skills necessary to deal with civilians and that I've already filled Phil's position."

She frowned, because Fury hadn't mentioned any candidates to her. Of course, he didn't need to consult her, but if he had filled the position, why was she still running herself ragged trying to handle Phil's job on top of hers? "With whom, sir?"

Fury raised an eyebrow, thoroughly amused. "I'm looking at her, Agent Hill."

She stared at him. Oh, god. She had misunderstood him last week. Fury hadn't asked her to take over Phil's job temporarily, he had asked her to take it over permanently.

"We should get to work on finding your replacement, though, because apparently you've been too busy to realize you were promoted," Fury said.

"Sir, this is- I'm not the right choice," she said. She could not do what Phil did. She couldn't do half of what Phil did.

"Okay," he said. "Name me someone more qualified than you."

"Agent Romanoff," she said. Even without his recent- problems with Loki, Barton didn't have quite the right temperament for the job, but Romanoff could absolutely handle it.

"I need her where she is," Fury said. "Anyone else?"

She opened her mouth, but damn it, she couldn't think of another name. She tried another tack. "Sir, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I really don't think I'm the right choice. Take the Avengers, for instance."

"What about them?"

"Phil was the driving push behind the Avengers Initiative. I've been against it from the start."

"Are you still against it? Do you think we could have won last week without them?"

She hesitated, but then shook her head and answered honestly. "No. But I still have reservations and I am not the right choice to manage anything related to the Avengers."

"You are the right choice," Fury said. "And you should have reservations. The Avengers are a group of very powerful and not very controllable people who will probably ignore ninety percent of what you tell them to do and ninety-nine percent of what I tell them to do. But with the threats I believe we're going to face in the future, we're going to need them. Just keep a loose rein on them, earn their trust, and you'll do fine."

Fury said that like it was a piece of cake. Maria didn't even think Romanoff and Barton took her seriously half the time, and the others- her thoughts slammed to a halt as she realized one more aspect of her job that probably wasn't temporary. "And Stark?" she asked. He had been fine this week, but when things settled down... oh, god, Stark would make her life hell just for the fun of it.

"Oh, he's all yours, Agent Hill," Fury said, smirking at her. She glared at him, but Fury just chuckled. "Listen, the secret to handling Stark is to stay on Ms. Potts' good side. That's how Phil managed it and that's how you'll manage it. Besides, you're one of the few people who know what he's capable of."

"I think a lot of people know the kind of headaches Stark's capable of inducing," she said.

"Not what I meant," Fury said, and his tone was the soft and serious one - the one you couldn't ignore. "When that nuke was headed for Manhattan, I called Stark. Not just because he was the only one who could divert it, but because I knew he would - without any hesitation, no matter what the cost. Not many people knew he was capable of that before he proved it. Hell, I'm not sure Stark knew. But you did, Agent Hill. You would have made the same call I did for the same reasons."

Damn it, sometimes she really hated how perceptive Fury was. But knowing that Stark could be counted on when the chips were down did not making dealing with him on a daily basis any easier. "Sir, if I end up shooting Stark-"

"Don't shoot him. Ms. Potts will not be pleased and you do not want that woman mad at you. Though if she likes you, she might be okay with you rendering him unconscious."

This was still too much. "Sir, the other agents, coordinating the ops- there's no way I can-"

"Maria," Fury interrupted. "There is no one else. I need you to do this."

And when he put it that way... "I'll do my best, sir," she said. "Was there anything else?"

"No, Agent Hill. You're dismissed."


AN: Just wanted to state for the record that this story diverges from movie-verse canon after the Avengers, and that I have no plans on working in anything from Iron Man 3, the upcoming Captain America and Thor sequels, or the TV show Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thanks.