Author's Note:
Minor edits made to the first chapter.
Chapter II:
The insistent buzz of her phone dragged Maria from a restless sleep. Sunlight streamed through a crack in the blinds, painting a harsh stripe across the rumpled sheets. Another day. Six months had passed since Tony's funeral, six months since she'd traded her tailored suits for the quiet anonymity of civilian life. Six months, and the silence was still deafening.
She reached for her phone, her fingers fumbling with the device before opening the blinds.
People passed by her window, going through the motions of life with what appeared to be purpose and direction. A young couple pushing a stroller, a businessman striding purposefully towards the subway, a group of teenagers laughing as they walked to school. Each one a tiny vignette of a life being lived.
Maria squinted at them, feeling a pang of something that might have been envy.
She'd wanted that, hadn't she? The break, the normalcy, the chance to finally figure out what "brunch" was and why people seemed to enjoy it. Turns out, brunch was just breakfast with a superiority complex, and normalcy was about as appealing as a tax audit.
Her phone buzzed again, this time with the insistent vibration of a small, angry insect.
Today was the day.
Like a persistent weed, the idea of returning to SHIELD had taken root in her mind. For the last month, her stomach, apparently tired of digesting existential dread, decided to stage a revolt, churning with a nervous energy. Maria had tried to reason with it, reminding herself of the stress, the danger, the constant threat of death or dismemberment. But her inner voice wasn't having any of it. "Danger? Excitement? Purpose? Sign me up!" it roared. "Anything beats watching reruns of reality TV."
The part of her that thrived on chaos and adrenaline had staged a coup. And it won.
Maria unlocked her phone and answered,
On my way.
-Ω-
"Funny seeing you here." Maria exclaimed, easing herself back into her old seat in the S.H.I.E.L.D. war room.
"Didn't have much of a choice." Bruce Banner greeted back, shrugging his broad shoulders. Poor guy was still in human-Hulk form. "Like you, I can't seem to get rid of myself. Trust me, I've tried."
Fury nodded his head, and Banner pulled multiple pages up on the big screen. Maria had never seen so much text before, not even when they were fighting Ultron.
"Right, okay." Banner said, rubbing his hands together as the images of six glowing rocks then appeared. "To put it simply, when we were organizing our little time heist to reverse The Snap, we underestimated the sheer influence of the stones."
"Underestimating the power of the Infinity Stones," Maria muttered. "That's nothing new."
The stones moved off the screen, replaced by a rendition of what she figured was the time machine used.
"When we removed them from the past to create the second Infinity Gauntlet," Banner continued, "we accidentally created a ripple effect throughout time."
Maria stood up, moving closer to where the two of them stood. "You removed them with the time machine, so couldn't you just return them the same way?"
Banner grimaced. "We did, or more specifically, Steve did, yes. After the battle. And we thought it was fixed after that, but it turns out that even with the stones being gone for a fraction of a second in their respective places in time, that was enough to trigger what we're calling, anomalistic sequences."
"Anomalistic… sequences?" The words felt foreign in her mouth.
"Anomalies, for short." Banner positioned himself at the corner of a desk, which leaned heavily underneath his weight. "Think of it this way. We tend to think of the past as, well, the past. Can't change, because it already happened. But in reality, time is much more like wet concrete than a paved sidewalk."
"So it has structure, but can still be molded."
"Yes, exactly that." The gears in Banner's head were visibly turning. "It is molded by history as fate has sculpted it, but still possesses a capacity for change. So, when we borrowed the Infinity Stones, we caused a ripple, or butterfly effect, which exceeded that capacity."
"Which means," Fury jutted in, "that when they went back for the stones, they were like a bunch of toddlers running through drying cement, and didn't even know it."
"And the footsteps they left behind dried up," Maria finished, finally understanding. "Changing the sidewalk."
Banner frowned. "Well, when you put it that way, it kind of sounds like we were being stupid."
"Just a metaphor." Fury promised. "I'm not trying to say that I would've done it another way. What Tony and you did was genius, in fact. It's just that its unintended consequences have left us in a tough spot."
"Okay, well," Maria gestured to the screen, "All this talk, but where's the proof that it's actually a problem? How do you know this is all true? These anomalies? What even are they?"
From his trenchcoat, Fury held out a small glass box. "What do you see in here?" He asked, handing the fragile object to her.
Looking inside, Maria saw nothing more than a tennis ball. But then she saw a baseball, then a golf ball. Blinking rapidly, each time the ball changed, rattling around in its glass container.
In awe, she stared back at them. "...what"
"An anomaly. One that is corrupted." Banner nodded. "Those that are corrupted are the only ones we are able to detect because they never finished changing from their original form. Or at least, that's the theory. Which is scary because who knows what else has changed? We have no perception of it. History itself could have been rewritten ten times already and we would have no way of knowing."
With care, Fury took the box back from Maria. "For now, we can only track the rippling affecting physical objects, and so far it's only been small ones like this ball. But the fact that more like these are popping up, leads us to believe that the rippling will only continue to worsen."
Maria scoured her mind, trying to think of anything that she may of noticed. Everything had been strange to her as of late, her life like a maze, constantly reconfiguring itself.
She turned to Fury. "So what can I do?"
Fury steepled his fingers. "We need someone who can operate independently, who can think on their feet, adapt to any situation, not afraid to get their hands dirty." He paused, regarding her. "I need somebody I can trust."
Maria raised a brow. "What about the rest of the Avengers? Surely one of them is more qualified than I am."
She turned to Banner, who was currently attempting to scratch an itch on his back, his enlarged green arm making the simple action look incredibly awkward.
He caught her gaze and offered a sheepish grin. "Don't mind me. Just trying to reach this one spot... it's been driving me crazy all day." He grunted with effort, his face turning a slightly darker shade of green.
Fury shook his head. "I can't be any of them. You'll see why in a second."
The director waved his hand across the screen, bring up another projection. This one, however, contained what appeared to be blueprints for a suit. Not just any suit though.
"Wait," Maria leaned back a little, "Are you planning on going back in time again? I thought you just said that's what messed everything up in the first place?"
"We are, but I've made some modifications to the suits we used during our first time heist." Banner spat out quickly. "With this new one, your presence should be subtle enough to not affect the timeline."
Then from the pockets of his white lab coat, Banner plucked a device no bigger than a smartphone.
"This device we've developed is able to sense significant points of instability along our timeline. With this, we'll be able to know the right place at the right time to drop someone in, to prevent a change from our current reality. Basically, targeting which key moments we need to safeguard. Like preventing an assassination, or inciting one. Which is where you come in, Agent Hill."
Straight back into the fray. It was like she'd never left.
Banner returned to one of his computers, pulling up the profiles of each Avenger. "Tech-based heroes, like Scott and Sam, risk inspiring discoveries earlier than they should happen. Whether it be through their tech being stolen or something else. An infinitesimally small risk, sure, but one we are not prepared to take, given what we know now."
The faces of Ant-Man and the Falcon were replaced by others, including Banner himself.
"Similarly, those whose powers come from other sources are, particularly in times devoid of science, just as likely to draw attention or inspire a new religion as they are to help. This mission requires someone who can handle themselves without the aid of powers or tech, and with the ability to handle situations covertly and tactfully."
"I don't see Clint on here," Maria muttered, scanning the faces. "Why not him?"
"Clint's retired now." Fury replied. "Gone to take care of his family."
Maria bit her lip. Yes, she came back not knowing what she would be signing up for. But how was she ever supposed to have guessed it to be something like this?
"And we can't just leave it as it is? Let the anomalies just happen?" She asked.
"We would be leaving the entire universe in limbo." Declared Banner, spreading his large arms wide. "Every day that passes, more anomalies are set to appear here on Earth and elsewhere. And any one of them, if left unchecked, could set something off that might end all of life. It's weird to process and grasp, I know, but we got to remember that time is not linear."
"Okay, so you're trying to stop these anomalies from happening." Maria pulled. "But how do we put an end to it all? This doesn't sound like a plan to stop it."
"It's an impossible situation," Fury admitted. "For now, the best we can do is plug the holes. But we have plans on making an entire division within S.H.I.E.L.D. to combat this. As of now, we are calling it A.C.T., or the Anomaly Control Team. But to make sure we can go ahead, we need to know that everything works."
Fury had that look in his eye. A look she seldom saw. She knew what it meant, and she hated it because she felt it too. That burning desire to do good. The hero complex was rooted inside of her, beckoning her to rise up to the challenge. She hated herself for even considering it, for even entertaining such a notion. Yet here she was.
"Okay then," Maria breathed out, hands returning to her sides. "So you know where I'm going to have to go first? What I'm going to have to do?"
"We do yes," Banner confirmed, adjusting his glasses while doing so. "I hope you got a toga."
Author's Note:
Yo, sorry this took literally forever to update. Trying to be better about that this year :)