Title: The Set-Up
Author: SLynn
Summary: Three months after Clint Barton's death and what remains of the Avengers is still struggling to make sense of it all as the threat to SHIELD, and to them all, looms larger.
"Can we just discuss it as a possibility?" Tony asked as they stepped back off the elevator into the general lounge where Pepper was still waiting, but this time alone.
"It's not a possibility," Maria sighed, before stopping to shut off her communicator which had beeped as soon as she'd turned it back on again.
"Don't you need to take that?" Bruce asked with a smile.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's nonsense texts. Probably someone's idea of a joke. I've put in a requisition for a new one but that won't be happening any time soon."
"I was saying," Tony said with a smirk.
"What you were saying isn't likely," Maria continued, standing even after Tony and Bruce both took a seat. "All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best bet."
"I am familiar with Occam's razor," Tony sighed.
"Then you have to know that it is far more likely that the man in the image is not Agent Coulson," Maria said and then immediately looked struck as her eyes swung to Pepper.
"I already know," Pepper assured her.
"There really are no secrets here," Maria said with a disbelieving shake of her head.
"Refreshing, right?" Tony asked with a wink.
"I am just saying that the amount of subterfuge involved in a deception of that magnitude is... it's staggering. How would that happen, Tony? How would that work?"
"Admittedly, I don't know," he answered and Maria momentarily looked satisfied.
"Then maybe we need to ask someone who might," Bruce suggested after a brief pause.
"I'm not sure that's a great idea," Steve said as his eyes narrowed in on Bruce before flitting briefly in Maria's direction as if to gauge her reaction.
"Agent Morse," Maria said flatly, her face a near perfect mask of indifference, but the crease in her brow betrayed her to Steve. "You want to involve Agent Morse in this?"
"We might have been selling her short," Bruce said, careful in his word choice. "For the past three months we've been working with her, without incident, and have had no indication that she's informing on us or that she's any more involved than she's already let on."
"She did help us bring in Natasha," Tony added, but it was strictly factual. He wasn't throwing out words with his typical manic glee. He also sensed that they were going to have to tread lightly. Maria's life had been the most changed by recent events and they all knew she wasn't happy about it. "And," he added, because it had to be said, "Director Fury did pick her -"
"I'm aware," Maria cut in harshly but said no more. She understood. Fury had to have some level of trust with Morse or else she had been foisted upon him, upon all of them. However, given the fact that he'd made no indication of such, it was easier to assume the former over the later.
"I just think she might be holding back because she knows we don't trust her," Bruce tried explaining. "She has helped me; she gave me everything she had on the Red Rooms."
Maria felt this was a battle she wasn't going to win. Unwilling to look to Steve for support, and knowing if he had any to offer he would have already spoken up, she let her gaze shift between Bruce and Tony.
"If you think asking her for help is the right thing to do, then do it," she said without inflection.
"I'm not certain it's right," Bruce countered, "I just don't know what other options we have. We're no closer to finding out who is behind any of this and..."
"And she does have a lot of useful contacts," Maria conceded.
"Are we in agreement then?" Tony asked, which was rare enough and another sign that he knew how to be tactful when he wanted to be. When he needed to be.
Steve watched and waited until Maria nodded briskly before agreeing himself and pretty much deciding things. They would consult with Morse the next day about the picture, but nothing more. They'd wait for her reaction and any possible information she could give them before deciding how much further to extend their trust.
After that the subject was changed and Maria decided to leave for the night.
This time, even though he knew it would be awkward, Steve asked to accompany her and was more than a little relieved when she didn't flat out decline.
Halfway through the trip Steve had to say something.
"I'm sorry -"
"Don't do that," she said, quickly cutting him off. "You don't agree with me, fine. You don't need to apologize for not sharing my opinion."
Steve nodded and looked back at the elevator doors, not sure what to say next.
He didn't need to say anything.
"And this whole walking me out thing," Maria continued in an aggravated tone. "This is why Pepper thinks something... It's not, but this is why she thinks there is."
"You could have said no."
"And if I did, she'd have thought we were fighting."
"We kind of are fighting," Steve said, not sure when he'd become angry, but feeling that way none-the-less.
"No, we're not," Maria said with clipped words, moving out of the elevator as soon as the doors slid open on the main lobby floor. "Does this seem like a fight to you?"
"It didn't at first," he said, trailing after her. "But don't you do that. Don't try and turn this on me. If you're angry, tell me you're angry. If you're hurt -"
"I'm not," she snapped, stopping and wheeling back on him.
"Of course you're not," he returned sarcastically before mentally correcting his own attitude. "But I'd like you to remember that when we agreed to this arrangement it was with the understanding that there would be no deception between us. I won't lie to back you up."
"And I didn't ask you to."
"But you are holding it against me."
"I'm not."
"It seems like you are," he countered.
"Because... Shit, Steve, every day I'm a little more obsolete around here," she through clenched teeth. "I'm of no value. I can't help. I can't do anything."
"All of our hands are tied."
"Not like mine have been. I've been cut off - cut out of everything. Do you know how that burns me up inside?"
"I do," he said softly after a moment.
"Then try and understand that I'm not meaning to take this out on you," she said, her voice thin and slightly shaky, "but I've ran out of ways to take it out on myself."
"You're not obsolete," he argued, reaching out to her unaware. "Maria, we need your help." But already she was shaking her head and pulling back. "We do."
"No, you don't. Everything I do, Morse can do for herself. She just doesn't because... probably because with me here she doesn't have to. I mean, this stupid communicator that has been ringing all damn night," she said, taking it out and showing him the screen that indicated several missed numbers, "it's not even really mine anymore. Technically, it's hers. Or the number should be at least. I'm holding on to it because she hasn't bothered to submit the paperwork that I filled out for her authorizing the change. This damn thing should be annoying her, but it's not, and..." Maria sighed and for a moment Steve wasn't sure if she wasn't just going to chuck the thing across the room. She didn't. She clipped it back into place on her belt and shrugged. "You know, this isn't the time or place," she said after a long pause. Steve hadn't known what to say and honestly Maria wasn't sure what to say either. "It's been a long day. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Maria..."
"Goodnight, Steve."
"Goodnight."
Maria left him standing there, not daring to look back but with her head held as high as she could muster. Mentally she was exhausted. She needed a good night's sleep. Or a drink. Or a vacation. Perhaps all three.
All three sounded really good at the moment.
Finally reaching her apartment, Maria pulled off her boots and set down her keys near the entryway. The first thing she always did when she got home was to lock away her gun and SHIELD credentials. Usually the next thing she'd do was check her communicator, take a quick shower and then unwind with a book, but not tonight. Tonight she immediately unpinned her hair and poured herself a glass of red wine.
There were at least a dozen things she could be doing but Maria couldn't concentrate on any of them long enough to get a single thing done.
She decided to just go to sleep.
However, once in bed, she still couldn't stop her mind from turning over everything. Maria couldn't decide what burned more, the pity or the helplessness. Part of her knew that Director Fury moving her out of the deputy position was for her own good but it was also very limiting. Now she didn't have nearly the same level of access she'd had before and it had hampered her own internal investigation into SHIELD, which was probably his secondary intent. The little she had discovered was of practically no importance. The people responsible were too high up to be touched and everyday they moved their own people into key positions throughout the organization.
And there was nothing Maria could do.
With one last deep purging breath, Maria tried to push it away and rest.
That's when she heard a noise.
Someone was in her apartment.
Maria's first instinct was not to get up and investigate; it was to remain still and wait.
Mentally she was already making plans. Her gun was locked up, but it was hardly her only option. She was an agent of SHIELD, demotion be damned, and she knew how to defend herself if needed. Her communicator and phone were also both out of reach. Her security alarm, which she had set, had failed to go off.
That last bit, added up with the fact that whoever was in her apartment was not ransacking the place looking for valuables, wasn't nearly as frightening as it was enraging.
Her back was to the door and she could hear whoever it was moving closer.
Quietly she let her hand drop off the bed and reached for the outlet. Once she found the extension cord, she pulled the plug free and slid her hand up until it rested just on the base of her bedside lamp.
Maria was fairly confident that, in the dark, the intruder couldn't see what she was up to. And once she was certain he was close enough, once she could hear their breathing and sense the shift in the room, she moved.
She got lucky and she knew it.
In one quick motion she'd heaved the lamp across the room and was rewarded with loud crunch where it connected with the intruder's nose. Not stopping to admire her work, Maria rolled off the bed and grabbed the only secondary weapon she had within reach; the bat she kept under her bed.
The amateur, and he was an amateur because he'd immediately dropped his gun and began to curse as he clutched his face, didn't stand much of a chance.
Maria was on him in half a second, swinging first for his knees and then for his head. She'd learned a long time ago never to hold back. To hold back, even a little, could cost a person everything. If this man meant to kill her than she wouldn't feel remorse over his fate. So when she swung the bat it was with deadly intent.
Once he was down and out, she stopped and picked up his fallen gun. Using the only thing she had on hand, in this case a few curtain tie-backs, she bound the man's hands and feet and pulled off his mask.
He was kind of a bloody mess, but breathing. He was also no one she knew.
It had been easy. It had been so easy, in fact, Maria was a little insulted.
They really thought some common thug was enough to take her out?
That was it. That was all she could stand.
She knew what her next move needed to be.