What Is and Isn't Mine
Tie a Yellow Ribbon Series - Part 1

She groans as her phone rings just as she's sliding her key into her apartment door. She's wanted a night, that's all. A moment, a break, a chance to be petty and part over the fact that she'd been passed over for the 'promotion' to rebuild SHIELD. And it is petty, she knows. There are a million reasons why Coulson is an infinitely better selection, not the least of which is the fact that despite her belief in the cause, she does not envy his job of rebuilding. But she's not immune to the strange sting she'd felt when Pepper – Pepper knew before she did and if she ever tracked Fury down, she was going to wring his neck for not telling her himself – passed on the information.

So she'd left work early because the petty anger that she hates had been making her damn useless, with every intention of wallowing for a night because she's human dammit and she does feel emotion despite her reputation. The ringing phone does not bode well for her original plan.

"Hill," she snaps into the phone.

"Maria."

His voice washes over her, makes her shoulders slump and sag in ways they shouldn't. She can't say she's actively missed him since seeing him off, but there's a strange hollow ache that seems to feel less jagged at it's edges as his voice floats over the line. It's a feeling she refuses to let herself dissect with any sort of focus.

"Is this a bad time?"

She wants to say yes because it has been a long, emotional day and the very idea of thumbing through information on Barnes makes her stomach roll. She opens her mouth to tell him so. "No, of course not."

And then there's a gust of his breath over the line and her heart flips over. Because of course when a man as good and wholesome and wonderful as Steve Rogers asks for help finding the only connection to a life he hadn't really wanted to leave, she can't help but give it. She's not a cold woman, not really.

"What do you need, Captain?"

"Steve," he says, with a strength that does not heat her stomach and does not sound like an order. "I need a friend."

Her mouth drops open. "I'm sorry?"

"I just-"

She waits still and silent and still standing with her coat and shoes on, keys dangling from her hand.

"Am I ever going to find him?"

She doesn't know what to say. She'd told him on the landing platform what she felt, that she was sure he wouldn't, that the Winter Solider would not be found until he was ready, no matter what Steve did, but she doesn't say it.

"Maria?"

"I'm here." Her voice does not crack. It just doesn't.

"I just- I've been out here for weeks, chasing down lead after lead and sometimes I feel it, I feel the way I'm just a breath away."

She swallows thickly, manages to kick her heels off and pad to the couch, phone still pressed to her ear. She curls her legs beneath her and propped her arm on the back of the couch.

"But he's not there, he's never there and what if he's never going to be there?"

Reassurance is what he needs, that this isn't a wild goose chase and his months on the road with nothing to show for it have been worth it. But she's honestly not sure she can do that. She doesn't have the pretty language for him like she'd had at Avengers' Tower.

"We tore everything down," he says his voice a rumble that does not do things to her insides. "And we made the right decision, the only decision, but-"

"It never seems like enough."

"No."

Silence falls, holds, but it's not uncomfortable. It should be uncomfortable.

"Fury wants to rebuild SHIELD."

"From his grave?"

She laughs a little. She's forgotten about his deadpan sense of humour. "No. He's got men for that."

He waits a beat, like he's not totally sure he wants to say it but then it comes out. "No women?"

She sighs. She should be better. She is better. She is a spy, a secret-keeper and she's better than letting Steve hear the bitterness she shouldn't be feeling because God she does not want to have to go recruiting, flying all over the world, she wants to make a damn difference and while she may have had her eye on the director's chair at SHIELD, it was wholly under the belief that she could change things, make people see the humanity in each other and keep the world safe from the things they weren't ready to handle.

Because at her core, Maria isn't cold or selfish. A career woman, yes, a woman willing to throw everything else aside for that career, but she is a good person. Even if everyone else forgets.

"I can do more at Stark."

"Maybe," he says and she's surprised by the support she feels in the one word, like if he could go to bat for her, he would. "You've been invaluable to me."

She has a million replies, all of them on the tip of her tongue about how she hasn't helped him because they always seem to be a step behind, never seem to be able to catch up to the Winter Solider and now he's on the other end of the phone asking her to tell him they will, that Steve will find is friend, and she hates that she can't make that promise. But she swallows them back.

"Are you coming home then?"

His laugh is bitter. God, so bitter. "Home to where? To what?"

Maria looks at her ceiling, tilts her head back against the cushions. "Stark's been making noise about moving everyone into the Tower."

"We're not some giant fraternity."

Her laugh is a little more genuine. "No. But you know him."

They both did, knew what his file said about abandonment issues and saw how some days he could just cling to Pepper like he'll lose her any second. Maria's not fooled. Moving everyone into the Tower is as much about having people around as it is about trying to give each of them a place to belong.

"Barton's already moved in. Rumour has it Romanoff has said yes, though as far as I know she hasn't returned stateside." She's talking now, rambling almost and she wants to say she doesn't understand it but she's too smart for that. She's just not sure whom, exactly, she's trying to talk into falling in line. "Bruce loves the labs, all of his toys."

"And you?"

And there's that feeling again, like her answer is going to mean something she doesn't want it to mean. She weighs them carefully. "I think I've mixed work and play a little too much for one lifetime. It's nice to have somewhere to go. Somewhere that's just mine."

He hums and she feels like she's passed a test, said the right things. She hates the way her stomach warms at the thought. He's never mattered, really, a soldier in the overall battle they're always fighting, but after DC, after all of this hunting, she's having a hard time as seeing him as 'just' a soldier. She's having a hard not seeing him as a good man. And even if the man is attractive as hell with a heart of gold, she knows she's not anywhere near his type; not at all what he deserves.

"I'll think about it," he finally says.

And she isn't sure what makes her say it but she blurts, "Come home, Steve."

He blows out a breath and it's loud and harsh. "Maria-"

"Come home," she says again, this time strong because she is not weak. There are no pleas in her voice, nothing but affirmation and a hard line. It's an order. A personal one.

"I'll think about it."

She hangs up on him because she hates the way it hurts.