Is It Fatal?
After the failed attempt on Ritson’s life Gravik and Pagon retreated to a safe house. Gravik had a rage meltdown when he first got there. A great deal of his troops decimated. Yet, he, Pagon and Raava escaped. Fury lived,
Gravik knew someone was talking and sharing information with Fury, but he just didn’t know who it was. Raava? Pagon? Lyja? He had to keep himself separated from them and part of different plans to keep Fury from getting ahead.
Pagon was there when the safe house was raided, and he was the one who knew all of Gravik’s plans from the beginning. He could have been working with G’iah. He was the one getting most annoyed about not finding the Harvest. Maybe he wasn’t ‘finding’ it on purpose.
Raava was also a candidate for betrayal. She was never loyal Gravik and the only reason he kept her around was because of how long she had been invested in her cover. She also seemed like she was starting to have trouble separating her mission the emotions of the human shell she wore. She was in deep, it was bound to happen, but it was getting in Gravik’s way. He noticed Raava’s discrete way of trying to keep Hill alive not out of any strategic purpose that served Gravik but in the way that showed some kind of caring. If Hill went to Rhodes and told him everything not knowing that he was a skrull, clearly they had developed some kind of bond that was not at all one-sided.
Lyja was another potential person who could be working in the shadows behind Gravik. The reason he suspected her, was simply because she was almost too supportive of him. Like she didn’t want to get caught. She served him blindly, nominating him for the skrull general position and keeping tabs on the council. It was her flawlessness in service to him that made Gravik question her. No one was else was so fiercely devoted without rhyme or reason or going on without making a mistake like Lyja. She also knew a great deal of information about what Gravik was doing and she did have ties to people like Raava and Varra from the earlier generation of skrulls. But the airstrikes that came in and took out the skrulls came from British airspace … or above… she had to know something. The people least expect after all were the ones he had to watch out for.
After Gravik collected himself, he realized, his set back was just that, a minor setback. He could still succeed he was just going to have to come up with a new plan. But now Gravik didn’t know who he should be relying on because it was clear someone was feeding Fury information and Fury was using his connections to fight back and it was happening right under Gravik’s face. That was something Gravik knew for sure. Fury didn’t listen when Gravik told him to bring the Harvest the first time, and now the time was up. So after Gravik figured out exactly what he wanted to do to end this stand off with Fury he gave him a call and was going to bait him into showing up with the harvest.
After Gravik got off the phone with Fury, he thought about what he was going to do next. He needed an update on Ritson, he hoped he would die from his injury but since he was the President Gravik figured he was going to be fine, and now the skrulls were about to become known.
Gravik looked at Pagon as he hung up the phone.
“Fury is slipping ahead of us.” Gravik said ominously and Pagon nodded.
“I can’t afford anymore mistakes.” Gravik continued.
“What can I do?” Pagon asked agreeing with him and then Gravik took a moment to think about it but Pagon could tell that Gravik already had a plan in mind.
—————————
Back at Fury’s tomb…
Fury froze as the shot behind him startled him. It went right by him, above him. He knew it was a warning shot. But Fury didn’t know why. This is what Gravik wanted, wasn’t it? Fury put the vile down back in its case and closed it up again. He sighed deeply as he turned around, he felt the cold air of the tomb against his bare hands, a chill went down his spine. Was he really going to have a battle here, in front of his fake grave? How considerate of Gravik.
Fury slowly turned around, his hand gripping his gun handle but the grip on his gun softened as he turned around and saw who was standing there.
Relief poured over Fury, it was like the stress melted off his face and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Well, that’s a hello.” Fury muttered with his lips slightly curling up.
“Ghosts can’t talk.” Varra said as she stepped out of the dark corner of the tomb.
“And yet…” Fury glared at her.
“Gravik said he killed you.”
“He and his friends tried, they failed.”
Fury looked over Varra skeptically. Gravik’s kills couldn’t all be misses, could they? Eventually, he had to get someone.
“That boy is too confident.” Fury huffed.
“We’ll have to shake that confidence, won’t we?”
“I think you’re on his side, as I recall.”
“He doesn’t want me on his side.”
“That’s not really a good reason for you to now be on mine.” Fury muttered a bit hurtfully. The truth was, he was relieved, overwhelmed by relief that Varra was alive but he was still hurt that she left him for Gravik. She couldn’t just come back to Fury now that Gravik betrayed her. That wasn’t a reason.
Varra just laughed a bit.
“Who says I am?” She looked at Fury.
“That’s the thing about you and Gravik, you two think this is all about you, when really the duel between you is a sideshow. It has nothing to do with the skrulls, and that’s whose side I am on, the side of my people.” Varra clarified.
“And.. I’m not?” Fury asked with a tilt of his head.
“We don’t need some human hero, or a superhuman hero to help us or defend us. We need ourselves and some of us have been very poisoned by Gravik and his ideas, some of us were just so excited to have one of us finally, doing something.”
“Hurting people is doing something?” Fury asked.
“I don’t agree with the methods, I don’t agree with the means.”
“But what about the overall goal?”
“For a home? Of course I want that.”
“To replace all humans and take over earth, that goal?” Fury reiterated.
“No.” Varra said deeply and emotionally.
“To keep tabs on me so Gravik or someone else would get ahead? That goal?” Fury continued. His trust with Varra was completely broken.
“No.” She repeated just as sincerely. “I was lying to make it easier for you to leave me. I wanted to follow you to the speech to protect you, I wasn’t going to let them kill you, I wasn’t going to kill you. Part of me joined them because I was lonely, I felt drawn, but the other part of me joined them to protect you. I know you won’t believe that, but that’s the truth.”
“How did you escape?”
“I know I’m old now, but I was once one of the best spies in the world in the most elite secret agency ever known to the world.” Varra bragged and Fury laughed to himself.
“That you were.”
“And then, I fell in love with my boss.”
“A cliché.” Fury pointed out with a snicker.
“But why does Gravik think your dead and not that you escaped?” Fury questioned.
“Because after I killed his minion who was going to execute me, I sent him a photo of the back of his green head with my jacket on him.”
Fury couldn’t help but smile about that level of deception that Varra was doing just like he was.
“He will figure it out soon though.” Fury sighed.
“I know.” Varra nodded and Fury nodded back as he knew it was a short window for him to stay ahead. There was a moment of silence between the two of them. It’s not like Fury could really afford to turn help away, especially right now that he was a framed fugitive.
"I am sorry, I was never going to hurt you, I was never going to…” Varra said tearfully as she admitted the truth.
“But then I realized just doing what I did is what hurt you. That was the harm, wasn’t it.” Varra said emotionally with a nod at herself. Loyalty was everything to Fury, that’s what mattered to him more than air. There were people in his life who showed him this, Maria, Talos, Natasha. Varra wished she was one too, she wanted it more than anything now but she could’t go back in time.
“Yeah, it cuts deep.” Fury added honestly not making the situation better…
“But is it fatal?” Varra asked and Fury stared at her because what was the answer?
“I don’t know about that, is it?” Fury proposed the question back to Varra.
Fury then turned and grabbed the hidden vile from his protected grave stone again.
“And what are you going to do with that?” She asked as she came over to him and watched what he did.
“I’m going to deliver it.” Fury said confidently and Varra made a face to herself.
——————
Back at the hospital Maria and Rhodes were waiting for the President to get out of surgery, they were both standing in the hallway outside of the surgical room, there was more protection for the President now but a lot of people had been injured or killed in the battle so there really wasn’t as much as there should be and both Maria and Raava knew that.
Maria and Rhodes had mostly been quiet after Rhodes first got there, they were not totally sure what to do. The President in surgery in a a foreign country, the Vice President wasn’t here and who was supposed to be making security decisions?
“They followed Nick, you know. They’re going to arrest him soon.” Rhodes said like he was giving Maria some consoling news.
“You mean Fury?” Maria corrected and Rhodes gave her a little slightly amused but partially concerned stare.
“No, I mean just some random guy named Nick that has no relevance to anything that’s happening.” Rhodes tried to joke.
“Seems like a good use of their time.” Maria joked back despite how tense and awkward the situation was. Rhodes forced a little smile.
“I am going to need to brief the president when he wakes up. I’ll see what I can get on background so he can understand the full picture.” Rhodes said rather authoritatively to Maria, Raava wasn’t sure if Maria should do that but she figured that’s what Rhodes would do in real life.
“Got it.” Maria nodded.
“This is just unbelievable.” Rhodes said alarmed as he started to think about the gravity of the situation.
“How long have you known about these things, anyway?” He asked and Maria made a face at his use of the word ‘things.’ This skrull was really going to put on a show for her, weren’t they?
“They’re not things, they’re refugees and very sophisticated and an advanced civilized species. They once held a massive empire in the Andromeda galaxy, and they were forced here in the mid 1990s after a very deadly war.” Maria clarified for Rhodes and Raava found herself surprised at Maria’s defense and knowledge of skrull history.
“Who gave them refuge here?” Rhodes asked skeptically looking at Maria.
“Nick.”
“You mean ‘Fury’?” Rhodes tried to joke back but Maria looked serious.
“No, I mean Nick.” And she and Rhodes exchanged another glance.
“You still don’t believe it was really him, do you?” Rhodes asked Maria with a sigh.
“I just saw manipulated news footage of Nick trying murder to me, days ago in Moscow, and the news claiming it happened today before the attack on the motorcade.” Maria pointed out to Rhodes and Rhodes bit his lip.
“If they can manipulate that footage and lie about what happened, don’t you think they can manipulate other footage to get the results they want?” Maria asked Rhodes skeptically and Rhodes sighed.
“Maria.” Rhodes said in a concerned but heartfelt tone, like he was worried about her wellbeing a little bit despite the fact that Raava knew she was exactly right.
“I saw him, I saw him shooting at the people protecting the President. I was there.” Rhodes tried to reason with her.
“I saw him shoot me.” Maria emphasized right back. “And I still know it wasn’t him.”
“I …” Rhodes paused. “I know it’s really hard to lose a friend, someone you are so close with like that whether it is through death or corruption or whatever it is, but… I want to believe that was one of these secret aliens pretending to be him instead, too. You know what this does to U.S. national security? All the plans and everything we have to do know to keep Fury from getting into it? It’s a nightmare. I promise you, it was him, it was really Fury. He shocked us all.” Rhodes continued to lie but Raava could tell that Maria was not convinced at all. Releasing the footage from Moscow did backfire at least for keeping Maria in line, that’s for sure.
“I might not know when the person standing next to me is a skrull in disguise, but I know when someone is my friend.” Maria explained boldly and again Maria and Rhodes glared at each other.
Raava just couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for her. She was so close to being right onto what was happening before her. She was smart, she did figure things out, she didn’t believe the bullshit or the manipulation right before her eyes the way the masses would. She was methodical and careful, and if she had just figured out that Rhodes was in disguise and not Val, they would be in some real trouble. But Raava knew that wasn’t the case as Maria stood there with her pouring her heart and thoughts out like she was talking to an old friend.
“It seems like they are very convincing in their portrayals.” Rhodes said trying again to bring Maria back to this fake reality.
“I have worked and been friends with Nick for 20 years and not once has he ever looked at me with hate and contempt like that person did in Moscow. Hate and contempt that was so real that not only could I see it, I could feel it by him being near me. Like a coldness washed over me or something.” Maria explained and Raava tried not to let out a little exasperated sigh as she explained it.
Clearly Maria was trying to rationalize something that did not make sense to her—she had a reasonable excuse to pin it on that justified her feelings, that made it not seem as bad as it was. She was adding in these feelings after the fact as she remembered it, and it was clear she had some trauma there like anyone would who saw their best friend try to kill them.
“You know what, you might be right. I wouldn’t bet against you. Maybe it was all a set up, manipulated evidence and footage, but we don’t know that right now and that’s why we need to get Fury, or this imposter Fury to figure it out.” Rhodes came down partially on Maria’s side, Raava figured that’s what he would do if he was here. Raava knew she had to keep Maria trusting him because if Fury did reach out to her that would be their best way of finding him and Raava didn’t want Maria to suspect anything of Rhodes.
“I have to take a call from the Vice President.” Rhodes picked up his buzzing phone.
“I will go away.” Maria said with a little laugh and Rhodes smirked.
“But don’t go too far, because you have all the information we need and I might need you to talk to the VP too.” Rhodes said, and this was Raava trying to keep Maria really close just in case she was up to something.
“I’ll just go over there.” Maria pointed down the empty hallway with a smirk.
“Actually, you stay here and I’ll go in here for the secure call.” Rhodes pointed to an empty hospital room a little up the hall and he raced down it and shut the door to take the call.
Maria picked up her phone from her back pocket once she saw Rhodes was gone and behind the door.
“I have one, maybe two minutes max.” She told Fury on the other end of the line, she could feel her phone buzzing lightly in her back pocket.
“Now, who is not picking up the phone?” Fury joked and Maria was unamused.
—————-
While Maria was talking to Fury Raava took a call from Gravik in the other room.
“Well?” Gravik asked in an irritated voice.
“The President is going to be okay, he will be out of surgery soon.”
“How soon?”
“It will be a few hours and then he will come to by the early morning hours.” Raava explained.
“We need to change our plan, Talos’s fucking green face all over the news, helping Ritson, is ruining everything.”
“I still think targeting Fury and going after Ritson ..” Raava started but Gravik cut her off swiftly.
“No. The Russians, they’re working with the skrulls. That’s the story.” Gravik said ominously.
“Wh..” Raava started again but stopped herself.
“When Ritson wakes up, get Hill to brief on the skrulls, then add any back up evidence you can get from our plants to support that they’re working with Russia. This is the only way Ritson will fire at Russia.”
“Fire at Russia?”
“Yeah, Raava, that was the point of trying to kill him, a U.S. retaliatory attack, do you not understand what we are doing?”
“I .. understand what we are doing, but…”
“Show him that the Russians took the skrulls as refugees, gave them a place to live in New Skrullos, tell him there’s a million rebels there, working with the Russians, trying to destabilize the United States, and get him to drop the bomb on New Skrullos.”
“… New.. on New Skrullos!” Raava said loudly in shock into the phone. Gravik really did try to kill Raava and he didn’t care at all if the people helping him were killed as collateral, he didn’t even care if their families and kids were killed just so he could try to pull something together. Raava was offended.
“Raava, this is what we have to do to mobilize, this is what we have to do to get all the skrulls fighting with us, against the United States, with Russia.”
“How will killing them mobilize them?” Raava asked with clear irritation.
“You… you idiot. I just sent Pagon up there, he’s evacuating it, tonight before I get there. If Fury doesn’t want Ritson to drop the bomb, he’ll deliver what he owes us. Get Ritson geared up, considering the options, finger on the button.” Gravik said urgently.
“Won’t you die?” Raava asked knowing that Gravik was far too narcissistic to risk his life so he had to be sure Fury was coming with the harvest to get this all set up.
“It’s a sacrifice I am willing to make for our cause, how about you sister?” Gravik asked in a charismatic tone and Raava thought back to how she almost died earlier because of Gravik. Was she willing to die for this cause, for this leader she didn’t believe in? She knew getting the harvest would make all the difference, once it was in their hands. She was just going to have to comply with Gravik until what he wanted came through. If the skrulls were evacuated, what did it matter of the U.S. dropped a bomb on New Skrullos, maybe it would mobilize the rest of the skrulls like Gravik claimed.
“Wait for my orders to get him to do it.”
“Okay…” Raava nodded to herself as Gravik hung up. Raava was a bit ashamed of herself, being too afraid to ask Gravik about why he didn’t replace Hill like he claimed and why he was set to kill Raava as collateral damage in the attack, the bugs he left her hotel room… on her person She just cowered and fell in line even after what Gravik suggested was so dangerous. But if Gravik was willing to risk his own life for it, he had to know that Fury was coming with the harvest and that he would get it and that really changed the position of the skrull rebellion drastically.
——————-
After Fury picked up the harvest, he left the cemetery with G’iah and Varra. They met up with Sonya, Oslo, Dr. Dalton, and surprisingly, Talos in a hidden laboratory.
Fury pulled out his phone and called Maria, she didn’t answer a few times but finally she did.
“I have one, maybe two minutes max.” Maria’s voice came through the phone.
“Now, who is not picking up the phone?” Fury joked and only Oslo laughed a little.
“Great, now that everyone is here, Dr. Rosa Dalton, has agreed to help us with a few things, in order to redeem her past mistakes.” Sonya explained.
“What’s your real name?” Talos asked Dr. Dalton.
“T’eve.” She answered.
“Ah, T’eve, well nice to meet you, T’eve, thank you for agreeing to help us.” Sonya said.
“We need your help with something you enhanced.” G’iah started to ask.
“It’s you! I remember you from the lab.” T’eve looked over at G’iah.
“Yeah, when I was there that day, I found something ‘extremis’ there were injections of it in the laboratory, I stole one and I injected it into myself. I read some of the notes and work you had done on it.”
“That’s wildly dangerous.” T’eve looked at G’iah surprised.
“This extremis, Gravik injected it into himself too?” Fury asked.
“Yes. He has other capabilities as well, the powers of an ice beast, the power of a tree life form. He wants all the powers of the avengers that he can get.” T’eve explained.
“Let’s talk about the extremis first.” Fury started.
“Most injections of extremis eventually fail the host because the body temperature of the host keeps slowly increasing temperature.” Fury started to explain.
“Yes, but I modified the extremis that I was able to steal from a lab where the real Dr. Dalton worked. It’s much more advanced now than it ever was before but it is banned. Skrulls have cooler body temperatures than humans, and Gravik has the powers of a frost beast which can help lower his body temperature when the extremis gets too heated.”
“Can you kill someone with extremis powers?” Oslo asked bluntly.
“Yes, human or skrull.” T’eve answered. “But it is going to be very hard, essentially, you need to get the extremis to work with you, instead of against you.”
“Turn it on the host.” Sonya nodded.
“The way to do that with Gravik, is to raise his body temperature significantly so even his cooling powers won’t keep him regulating himself. Then, while his body won’t cool, you strike on his nervous system, head, neck, spine, brain most important because extremis acts through the nervous system. Eventually, he won’t be able to heal himself and as his body temperature raises from the extremis trying to heal it it will start recognizing stop healing and instead become burns because he will be too hot for his body to heal.” T’eve explained and everyone nodded.
“How do we raise his body temperature?” Talos asked.
“Setting him on fire would help…” T’eve smirked a little.
“Consistent and repeated electrics shocks.. uhm he’s starting out much cooler than a human so… this will be hard.” T’eve knew this would be a struggle for them.
“How about boiling his blood?” Sonya asked in a chipper tone and everyone immediately turned to look at Sonya based on the question she asked in the tone she asked it.
“Uhm, yes, making him internally really hot with a substance that could increase the temperature of blood in the body would definitely help, a lot…” T’eve explained.
“This is sangius calor. It’s not a legal substance by any means, but it is useful…” Sonya pulled a large metal syringe from her bag. It was the same substance she used on Brogon to get him to talk days ago.
“Do you just carry that around with you?” Oslo asked glaring at Sonya.
“Well, I didn’t know if I was going to need to get any skrulls to talk.”
“Sangius calor?” G’iah asked.
“It raises the blood temperature internally making you feel like your blood is literally boiling from the inside out.” Fury explained — it is very illegal.
“You inject it in small increments getting hotter and hotter until the subject could eventually die.” Sonya explained.
“It’s torture.” Talos said dismayed.
“Yes. Torture that is designed to leave no marks.” Sonya admitted.
“If you injected that into Gravik, it could stop the effectiveness of his cooling mechanism and the hinder the extremis enabling him to be executed.” T’eve said a bit glumly because it was a gruesome death, no question.
Everyone heard Maria’s loud sigh on the phone.
“Is there anyone else who has extremis?” G’iah asked.
“Just you and Gravik, I know of, but potentially some others in the field could have gotten it.”
“Pagon and Raava, the skrull who is pretending to be Rhodes, those are my guesses.” Varra suggested as potential skrulls who Gravik may have enhanced.
“So, everyone is going to need some assistance here…” Fury sighed.
“T’eve, we are going to need more of the sangis calor, more syringes.” Sonya requested. “It’s a synthetic substance made in laboratories much like this, do you think you can look at it and put something together?”
“I might even be able to adjust it specifically toward skrull genetics. I will see what I can do.”
“And we need one other thing…” Fury started holding up the vile of DNA in his hand.
“This..” He started.
“Is this the harvest?” T’eve said amazed she was seeing it in person.
“Gravik has been searching for this for years.” She added in. “You can’t give it to him.”
“We’re going to give it to him, but… not in the way that he thinks we are.” Fury said with a little smirk to himself.
Fury explained to T’eve exactly what he needed her to do the DNA samples and he knew she would be able to modify the DNA so it would still run through the machine even if it wouldn’t enhance Gravik. Fighting off Gravik with the extremis and other powers would be hard enough, him getting his hands on Avenger DNA? He’d become invincible.
“How much time do I have here?” T’eve asked.
“Not very long.” Maria muttered into the phone and Fury nodded that Maria was right.
“Work on the DNA sequencing first, we’ll give the sangius calor that we have to Talos, since he’s the one going to New Skrullos. If we can get more for back up, that’d be helpful, but editing out the enhancements in this DNA sample, that’s the priority.” Fury explained and everyone nodded in agreement.
“You’re going to New Skrullos?” T’eve asked Talos and he nodded.
“A lot of skrulls have just headed there, more of them than ever, after the news broke where they saw you, your true skin, on the news and people got worried. They flocked there to hide, they’re really afraid that they will be purged or killed.” T’eve explained.
“We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Fury assured “but the sooner you help us the sooner we can help them.”
“I gotta go.” Maria said quietly into the phone.
“Hill, let’s finish this.” Fury said in his old style Fury way.
Maria smiled to herself, as she heard it on the other end. That was the confidence in Fury’s voice she missed.
“You got it. Don’t be late.” Maria remarked before she hung up on them.
“Mmm, not the best sign off.” Oslo mumbled and Fury laughed because he agreed.
Talos, Varra, and G’iah were going to New Skrullos to fight Gravik. There was no way Fury could survive there with the radiation levels. Talos wanted it, he wanted to go fight Gravik badly, for Soren, for G’iah, for Maria and even Fury too. For the damage he did the skrulls everything. Gravik thought his was with Fury, but he was wrong, it had always been with Talos.
Fury, Sonya, and Oslo were going to head to the hospital and help Maria. Maria had to hang up the phone while Fury was explaining what he wanted T’eve to do, but she already knew the plan and it made the most sense to her.
After T’eve started working on the adaptations of the DNA samples from Fury. She gave the finished product to Talos and Sonya gave her the blood temperature raising agent. Talos, G’iah, and Varra all looked at each other and then Talos looked at T’eve.
“You were always our best leader, you know that, right?” T’eve said admiring Talos.
“I’m not really a leader anymore.” Talos answered.
“You’ll have followers, regardless.” T’eve gave him a sheepish smile.
“Go get him.” Fury said with a little smirk.
“I’ll put on my worst face.” Talos joked and he and Fury took a moment standing together putting their foreheads up against each other. Varra and G’iah sighed at the sight of it giving each other side eye at the emotional exchange of these two old men. The skrulls from the group left. They were going to meet Rick Mason and get to Russia as fast as possible where Gravik was waiting.
Sonya, Oslo, and Fury remained hoping that T’eve could help them making more sangius calor, and she started on it.
—-
As Maria and Rhodes waited for Ritson to make it out of surgery they both sat down in the empty locked down waiting room. There wasn’t a lot they could do at this point. Rhodes was in and out on phone calls with D.C. and Maria was just keeping watch on him as she waited for the others to eventually arrive but Raava thought it was the other way around. Raava thought that she was keeping tabs on Maria in case Fury contacted her. Raava doubted Maria would really tell him, but maybe she would if Rhodes bought into her theory.
When Rhodes finally returned from another call he looked really stressed and het sat down right next to Maria.
“You might not sit so close to me if you knew how long it’s been since I took a shower.” Maria joked.
Rhodes took a moment, he paused and then he laughed, even though he wasn’t really in a laughing mood, but he was so nostalgic for that Stark-esque banter back in the day he couldn’t help but laugh. Rhodes shook his head with a little sigh.
“I did think there was a smell, but I didn’t want to be rude.” Rhodes gave a dramatic frown that turned into a smile when he saw Maria’s face from his comment.
“Oh that was really funny.” Maria’s said with an eye roll and smirk. God this skrull was laying it on thick.
“What are they going to do, is the Vice President taking over?” Maria asked. If the president was under anesthesia, the Vice President was supposed to be the actin President until he got out of surgery but usually the President would sign a letter granting the Vice President temporary executive authority, but since this wasn’t a planned surgery there were all kinds of legal issues coming up complicating everything and by the time it was solved, the President would be awake.
“It’s a mess over there.” Rhodes sighed. Raava was relieved though she probably couldn’t work the VP like she could Ritson since they had a long history together.
“I can’t even imagine.” Maria muttered, she hated politics.
“It would be easier if you were there helping. You know, working in leadership like you’re supposed to. C’mon, Hill, what are you doing out here, working for Val?” Rhodes had to ask.
“Stopping a rebel group of alien refugees from causing a massive global war that would wipe out most of humanity and make this planet unlivable for anyone but them.” Maria said very casually under her breath like it was no big deal.
“No, c’mon, for real, what are you doing out here doing fieldwork like this is 20 years ago?” Rhodes shook his head. Maria was too good and too smart to be hiding doing low level agent jobs, and it was absolutely dangerous for her to be out in places like Moscow instead of D.C. Maria almost became a very high value political hostage in Moscow when they were at the brink of war with Russia, it would have been even more of a disaster.
Maria was taken back for a minute as she recalled exactly what she was doing out here.
“As I recall, you summoned me into your office two years ago and told me to get moving, like I was somehow the cause of world-wide post blip backlogs.” Maria reminded and Rhodes laughed because he did do that.
“If you wanted it bad enough you would have figured it out on your own, it’s not like you not to do that.” Rhodes pointed out the truth, Raava knew that for sure if Maria wanted to get back in the game on her own she would have figured out how but she must’ve been waiting for someone.. for Fury to come back.
“Well, maybe at the time, I didn’t want to get back into it that bad.” Maria shrugged, she was lying a little she did want a job but did she really want one working for Val? It was a trade off for sure.
“I don’t know, seems like you did.”
“Maybe, I don’t know, somehow I still turned out to be in the wrong place.” Maria sighed.
“Or the right one.” Rhodes shrugged and Maria and Rhodes exchanged a glance.
“You were hoping Fury would come back around back then and that’s why you didn’t try.”
Maria wanted to roll her eyes to herself but she didn’t, this skrull was digging deep, it was just like Talos warned her days ago back at the bar, ‘skrulls are good at mind games.’
“One thing I can say for sure is that I definitely wasn’t.” Maria answered confidently and truthfully, although admittedly it had been weird to her to not work with Fury after 20 years.
“Then, what’s the reason, why did you really split?” Rhodes pressed and Maria gave Rhodes a look like his question was uninvited and none of his business.
“You want me to come down on your side, believe your theory about the skrulls replacing Fury, I want to, but telling me that two people who worked together for 20 years, someone who helped Fury fake his own death among many other things.. the only person who calls him by his first name.. to his face, to other people still, you two just parted ways with no terms and for no reason?” Rhodes pressed her again.
Maria did not have an answer for this, she hadn’t thought that this would come up. What was she going to say.
“We just had some disagreements about the ways we wanted things to move forward and I wasn’t going to change my mind and he wasn’t going to change his.” Maria shrugged like she was talking about the dissolution of a marriage that no one would be surprised had ended.
“Irrevocable differences? Really?” Rhodes asked.
“Yep.” Maria shrugged like she was done with this conversation.
“But, not that irrevocable…” Rhodes pointed out since Maria told him she did call him and he did come back.
“Are you serious.” Maria sighed quietly.
“I need to know.” Rhodes said a bit more intensely that he had been talking to her before. “It’s for your safety, my safety, Ritson’s safety.”
“Why?” Maria was clearly visibly annoyed now.
“Because he’s going to call you. You know he is.”
“Why would he call me if he was trying to kill me?” Maria asked pointing out the flaw in in Rhodes’s logic.
“You said it wasn’t him.” Rhodes shot back.
“And You said it was. I told you I don’t know where the real Nick is.”
“If there’s a fake fury out there, that means there’s a real one too, and how are you going to know when he asks for your help if it’s the real one or not?” Rhodes emphasized the point he was trying to make directly.
“I wouldn’t.” Maria admitted. “But if you were smart, if you wanted to do this right, you’d want him to call me to find him. But you don’t trust me enough to propose it despite the fact that I am sitting here, next to you, not him.” Maria called out what was really happening.
Damn, Raava thought to herself, Maria was once again right on the money on what was really happening.
“Well, you did call him first. You reached out to him first when you found out about the skrulls.”
“Oh. Is that what this is really about? You wanted to be first?” Maria looked up for a minute and then at Rhodes very skeptically and Raava realized she had to dial it back a bit.
“No.” Rhodes answered shaking his head and Maria and him exchanged a glare. Although Raava could tell that Rhodes personally did feel jealous that Maria called Fury first, but what else could he expect.
In fact, Raava could tell from Rhodes’s memories that Maria and Rhodes had a somewhat similar conversation over ten years ago when they sort of tried to have a personal relationship. That must be why Maria shot back so quickly she was remembering that. It was a bad move on Rave’s part clearly as Raava realized her mistake recalling that memory.
Rhodes still looked at Maria like he wanted answers and Maria was just beyond herself that he he was doing this, but Raava knew he had to.
As Maria thought about it she wondered what she could answer that would be believable. She had gotten by so far mostly telling the truth.
The reason Maria and Fury split was complicated, they just couldn’t stop disagreeing and Maria was offended that Fury had stolen the Avenger DNA. Did she tell this skrull about it? The skrull probably had to know about it already. She knew that DNA had to be a altered by now an unusable for Talos to do the bait and switch on Gravik, so if she brought it up it should be safe, right? Maria had to figure it out fast.
“He stole DNA.” Maria finally admitted from Rhode’s intense pursuit for information on the deterioration of her and Fury’s relationship.
“He stole DNA?” Rhodes repeated. “Whose?” He asked looking at Maria. Rhodes had to wonder why that would make Maria so upset but Raava felt very satisfied getting this out of her. Like she had done a good job getting Maria to reveal that she knew about the Harvest. Gravik insisted Hill knew about it, and it sounded like Gravik was right.
“He stole DNA from the Avengers.”
“How?” Rhodes feigned being appalled and surprised.
“He had someone go to the battle site and recover spilt blood from the Battle for Earth, he was able to find, identify, and store DNA of the Avengers who fought Thanos and almost died or did die for it. He stored their DNA without their knowledge or consent. I learned about it, I was offended, and we got in an argument and I told him I needed a break after that.” Maria admitted.
Rhodes looked stunned as Raava feigned surprise.
“For what possible reason…” Rhodes started to say and Maria sighed loudly.
“I can’t think of a single good one.” Maria muttered. “But I can think of a whole lot of bad ones.” And she sighed again.
“Who else knows about it?”
“Just me and him, I think, and now you.”
“Well what about the people who collected it?”
“He said they didn’t know what they were doing, just a clean up crew.” Maria slouched down in the chair.
“You never told anyone?” Rhodes asked again.
“I could never. It was so wildly out of character. I didn’t even want to tell you now.” Maria admitted quietly, this was a good way for Maria to get points with fake Rhodes she figured, it wasn’t like she was telling the real one.
“Yeah, it’s not really helping me agree with your theory that the Fury out there doing these things isn’t him.” Rhodes pointed out and Maria thought about it.
“It was…” Maria started to defend Fury but then she stopped herself.
“You were just about to defend him were’t you.” Rhodes noticed it immediately and Maria didn’t deny it but she didn’t say anything.
“That’s what made you guys split? Really?” Rhodes asked.
“You think I’d be okay with that?” Mari asked and Rhodes shook his head no.
“There was a lot going on, I just found out I was dead for five years, I didn’t have a job anymore, I had no idea what was happening in the world and lots of the people I knew or cared about died. I needed some time.”
Rhodes nodded.
“One of my closest friends spent five years trying to hold it together and then she never even got to see her family come back. She died cold and alone and tired.” Maria shook her head.
“Were you two even that close?” Rhodes asked again as he was surprised to learn that Maria and Natasha had really anything more than a minor professional connection, but since rekindling with Maria it turned that they in fact were closer than anyone realized.
“Yes and she spent years doing the miserable work of holding the world together while these powerful men went off and fucked around and did whatever they want because they can’t contain their emotions or rage or think for a second and then she died never knowing if it meant anything. I can’t help if that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence for me about the will to keep going.” Maria sounded a bit deflated admitting it.
“She died bringing everyone back to life.” Rhodes tried to reframe it.
“Yeah, or she died because she was tired of babysitting adults with too much testosterone and adrenaline who can’t sit down for a minute and deal with their emotions and problems. If you don’t think five years of that wouldn’t make us jump off a cliff..” Maria gave Rhodes an exhausted look, she was mostly kidding but sort of not she had a lot of empathy for what Natasha went through for those five years. Rhodes had to agree that it probably was exhausting for people like Maria and Natasha to hold things together all the time and Maria was here still trying to do it and she did look beyond tired.
“You guys are… or were… exhausting.” Maria admitted.
“Did you ever even like us?” Rhodes laughed to himself.
“Well, I like Sam.” Maria said with a little shrug and then Rhodes stared at her partially squinting that she said that and Maria smirked at him.
“Of course you like Wilson.” Rhodey groaned.
“I like you too.” Maria reminded.
“It didn’t seem like it for a minute.”
“Well, I don’t like it when people are prying into my personal life.”
“It wasn’t for personal reasons…” Rhodes tried to cover up the situation.
“It didn’t seem like it for a minute.” Maria echoed and they gave each other quick glance it was not a tense look though.
“So, is Fury as exhausting?”
“Of course he is, that’s why I needed a break. I came back and the world was broken beyond repair. What else was I going to do? I told Fury we can’t fix it, not like this, especially because we kept arguing. So I took some time, Fury went to S.A.B.E.R., he didn’t even say goodbye and then you called me and told me to ‘get back to fucking work already.’” Maria laughed at that last part and Rhodes shook his head.
“I think I was nicer than that.” Rhodes defended himself jokingly.
“Maybe a little. I tried calling him a few times… maybe a dozen times and he never responded, not once until last week.”
“What does that mean what you sent him? You sent him the word ‘check’? Why would that make him respond?”
“It’s from chess. I was telling him the king was in check.”
“Who is the king?” Rhodes asked tilting his head.
“The world.” Maria answered obviously.
“You told him the world was under attack in one word? How did he know that’s what you meant.” Rhodes looked stunned at the depth of their relationship, he was right to have concerns about Maria and Fury’s bond.
“Well..” Maria took a dramatic pause. “When I said it, we weren’t playing chess.” She joked with a smirk and a laugh after taking the pause. Maria knew she had to move on and not be offended at the prying, she was gaining trust.
Raava had to think for a minute. Maybe Maria and the real Fury were working together. But why would she tell Rhodes all of this if she didn’t trust him. It didn’t make any sense. She seemed like her normal self, defensive where she would normally be defensive , serious about security and safety, snarky as ever. Raava was sure, mostly sure, that Maria trusted him, believed him, but she was just so paranoid now and Rhodes was jealous that Fury could understand what Maria meant with one word after not talking for years.