For a second there it's going great by Maria's relationship standards. She's still getting a fluttery feeling inside her when she sees him and there is a projected first date on the horizon.
Steve Rogers gets his first date.
Maria Hill doesn't get hers.
The girl's name is Beth, a perfectly nice girl and a perfectly nice name. Which makes Beth so much fucking harder to hate, because Beth hasn't done anything to Maria. She's not a bitch, she's not stupid, she's not rude, she's not noisy, she's not boastful. She's pretty and blonde and normal and oh-so-fucking-innocent. She's fucking perfect for Steve, and Maria knows that they'll have a boatload of equally perfect blond, blue-eyed children and live in a nice picket-fenced house in Hoboken where they make pies and occasionally save the world.
Fuck Steve for getting her hopes up.
Fuck Beth and her utter perfection and her fucking 'feminine wiles'.
Fuck Fury for introducing them.
Fuck Coulson for dying and giving her his job.
Fuck Loki for making the Avengers come together in the first place.
Fuck Tony Stark for being the most miserable bastard ever but still getting to be happy.
Fuck Romanoff for getting her fairy-tale ending.
Fuck Maria herself for being so goddamn gullible.
These feelings last for the whole time that she knows Steve and Beth are together (eight months, six weeks, four days, ten hours, twenty-three minutes, ten seconds). They should be together longer. They should have been together for the rest of her life. When Maria's not slowly working himself to death she lies on her mattress listening to Leonard Cohen and drinking cheap red wine straight out of the bottle.
And then they're not together anymore and Maria feels sick for all her months of self-hatred and semi-alchoholism.
Steve and Beth were out on a date and HYDRA had their best sniper in the apartment complex across the street, four blocks down. It was an impossible shot, one that even Clint would have trouble making on the best of days, and that day there was a strong easterly wind. It was a one in a billion shot. Nobody's sure if they made the shot or not. It hit Beth strength between the eyes in a spot where, mere nanoseconds ago, Steve's shoulder had been. When Maria finally gets there Beth's body is being carted away to the SHIELD morgue and Steve is sitting in his chair with Beth's blood spattered across her face.
Maria's not sure what to do when she sees this man who she's always seen as an emotional rock and a steadfast soldier slowly falling to pieces in front of her eyes.
She wraps her arms hesitantly around his neck and strokes his hair and murmurs that its going to be alright.
She wishes she was telling the truth.