The Battle of Sokovia
“Barnes, I’m trusting you.” Maria scrubbed at her face, this was the safest option.
“I know,” his face was so entirely serious that she couldn’t help but hand over the keys to the apartment.
“Happy’ll drop her off-” The Commander started.
“At 5:30 in the lobby,” Barnes nodded, “I make sure she does her school work, eats her vegetables, and brushes her teeth. Tomorrow she’s back in the lobby at 8am.”
“She’s going to fight you on all three but that’s normal, her pajamas are in the top drawer of her dresser, and school clothes are in the closet. Her vitamins are already laid out on the kitchen counter, she gets it once in the morning with breakfast,” Maria wracked her brain for all the important details, “you can sleep in any of the guest beds other than Yelena’s room, Ellie will tell you which one it is.”
Barnes nodded once more.
“If something happens-” she started.
“I call Yelena, I get her to Clint’s farm, and I keep the Ruiz’s safe.” The man gave a small distant smile, “Ya know, it’s not even my first time watching her.”
“Which is why I’m trusting you,” that and she didn’t have other options.
“I got ‘er,” his smile widened.
“Thank you, Bucky,” in a spur-of-the-moment move, she pulled the man in for a hug, “Call me if you need anything.”
He nodded once more and she left. The Ruiz only lived 1 block away, but still, she picked up her pace to get there as quickly as she could.
“Ready?” She asked as Elena opened the front door, uniform on.
“Ready.” The Agent gave a curt nod and followed Maria out of the building and into her car.
The two talked logistics from the moment the engine turned over until they parted ways as they approached the bridge of the Helicarrier. Maria watched as Rhodes and Elena started pulling together a group of other pilots to give orders.
Maria’s boots hit the grates that covered the flooring of the ship and took a deep breath, no matter what, this would always feel like home. She looked at the agents that came jogging in behind her.
“Torres, Mason,” the two agents were only barely able to contain their smiles, “I need you both to get coms across the ship up and running.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the two sat behind screens they had occupied for so many years.
“Ruiz, ready to get this thing in the sky?” Maria looked at the woman and her small team behind her.
“Say the word and we’ll have take off,” Ruiz smiled.
“As soon as that last door closes, make the announcement,” Maria nodded once and then made her way up the stairs and to the few offices that had windows that overlooked the bridge below.
She braced herself and unlocked the second office, her office. It was just as she had left it the day the world went to hell, save for the items that had fallen to the ground when the carrier went down.
Maria picked up a mug that had broken, she frowned as she looked at the handle that had snapped clean off but then smiled as she realized which mug it was. A small cartoon frowny face looked back at her, one that Clint and Natasha had gotten her years back.
“So you can just point to it and save yourself the wrinkles,” a male voice she knew as well as her own said from behind her.
She whirled around and let out a long breath as she met Fury’s stare.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” she smiled as her boss used his foot to close the door, “get it? Because cats bring in dead things and you’re supposed to be-”
Maria was still smiling as he brought her in for a tight embrace.
“I get your shitty joke, Hill,” he shook his head.
“Good because we have Avengers to save and I don’t really have time to explain it any further,” Maria pulled them apart and walked over to her desk and pulled out a pack of gum, “only came in here for this.”
“Good, now get your ass back out there,” Fury tossed his trenchcoat behind him as he made for the door once more.
“Nick,” Maria called out and waited for him to face her again, “I missed you.”
He dropped his voice, “I missed you too, kid.”
Maria called out orders as they got closer to Sokovia, making sure there was a team of defense, rescue, and medical on every boat they prepared to send out.
“Bravo Team I want boots on the ground as soon as you land, Klein you make sure they are sent off-” she started but was cut off by Torres.
“Commander we have visual, working on coms still,” the agent pulled up a live stream of what was occurring.
“What am I looking at here?” she watched as a large section of the city hovered above the rest, starting to ascend rapidly.
The Deputy Director figured it out just as a handful of other agents put the pieces together.
“If it falls from there-” a murmur from her left said.
“Full power,” Fury commanded from the ledge he stood on next to the massive windows, “someone get me options.”
Maria nodded to the agent who looked at her, the carrier moved even faster a moment later. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think of what the radius of destruction was.
Faster and faster they moved, every agent on board was ready to move as soon as they got closer to the city that now surged impossibly higher.
“I’ve got audio!” Torres called out, “It’s still choppy from here but it will get closer as we do.”
“ If Stark finds a way to blow this ro -” Natasha’s voice came in, patchy but enough for the carrier to know what the game plan now was.
“Charlie plan has explosives, Director,” a young agent, one of the ones who had been in charge of getting options, called out to Fury.
There was more static as Steve’s voice came in “ Not 'til everyone's safe .”
“ Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there .” Natasha’s voice was getting clearer as they approached.
“ I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it ,” Steve argued.
“Rescue boats 1 and 2 prepare for deployment,” Maria called over the conversation and looked at Klein who nodded.
“ I didn't say we should leave ,” Natasha’s voice had gotten quiet, “ There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this ?”
Maria’s heart bottomed out at the words, to know that the woman she loved was so willing to give up her life-
“Glad you like the view, Romanoff. It's about to get better,” Fury gave Maria a reassuring look as he regained command, “Nice, right? I pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do.”
“ Fury, you son of a bitch .” Steve’s voice cut back in.
“Oooh! You kiss your mother with that mouth?” the Director chuckled.
Maria looked at the controls next to her and regained composure, “altitude is eighteen thousand and climbing.”
“Lifeboats secure to deploy. Disengage in three, two... take 'em out,” Agent Klein spoke quickly as the boats left the ship.
They watched as each of the lifeboats were sent to the city, offering support where they could until they drew too much attention. Tiny blips showed up on the radar.
“Sir, we have multiple bogies converging on our starboard flank,” Maria looked over her shoulder to fury.
“Show 'em what we got.”
The brunette looked to Rhodes who was practically squirming with excitement, “You're up.”
In a matter of moments, the blips on the radar were gone. She continued to work with the team on board, glancing up every once in a while to check on Natasha and Barton, the two who wouldn’t survive the fall if anything should happen before they were able to blow up the chuck of land.
“ Alright, let's load 'em up! Alright, here we go. Here we go, let's move. Let's go, everyone !” Clint called out from where he stood next to the carrier.
Maria was just waiting for a moment alone with him, if only so she could yell at him for leaving a very pregnant Laura behind and coming to join this fight instead.
“Number six boat is topped and locked. Or, uh, or stocked, topped. It... it's, uh, full of people,” the young agent next to her stammered.
Maria only had the chance to nod before she saw it, “Incoming!”
The robot hit the window with enough force to shatter not only the glass but the entire wall of screens next to her and Fury’s offices. It looked up and started crawling as soon as it landed. Without thinking, the Deputy Director pulled out the firearm from her thigh holster and sent multiple rounds into its face. Fury walked over and finished it with a shard of metal through the neck.
They barely glanced in each other's direction before going back to make sure the rest of Charlie plan was still on track for what felt like hours. The only passing of time was the dwindling numbers arriving back on the boats, and the ever-increasing altitude they were flying at.
“Romanoff, Barton, on the next lifeboat,” Maria spoke into her headset after doing one last sweep of the number of people in the city.
“ Copy ,” Romanoff responded.
“ Got it ,” Barton replied and then continued after forgetting to turn off his coms, “ I know what I need to do. The dining room! If I knock out that east wall, it'll make a nice workspace for Laura, huh? Put up some baffling, she can't hear the kids running around, what do you think ?”
“ You guys always eat in the kitchen anyway .” Natasha responded barely audible from the archer's device, “ You’re still on coms .”
“ No one eats in a dining room- ” Clint argued, “ oh, oops ”
He cut his radio and Maria shook her head and swallowed thickly. Grief was a funny thing, as much as she was focused on the mission in front of her, a piece of her hurt as the thought of Phil hit her. He was their handler, he should have been here, should have been the one laughing next to her at the two agents who acted more like siblings than anything else.
But that wasn’t reality, so she nodded once more and asked “How many on that last boat?”
“73!” an agent responded.
“Mason, use any eyes we have on the ground to search for stragglers,” Maria requested.
She pushed the thought of Phil back down and continued to work. Fewer and fewer people were being sent back on the boats, they were down to one of the last when a flash of green and red landed in front of her on the landing strip of the carrier.
Her feet were moving before she could think about what she was doing and within a few seconds, she was standing over Natasha.
“You were supposed to be on that lifeboat 10 minutes ago!” She yelled.
“I had to get Banner!” Natasha argued back.
“Banner?!” Maria shook her head, “The Hulk can take a mortar to the face and walk away, you cannot!”
Natasha just stared.
“You know from what I’ve heard since we arrived you’ve had a lot of passive suicidal ideation today, I feel like Maggie might need a phone call-” Maria started but was cut off by Natasha who seemed to come back to at the mention of her therapist.
“Well, Clint didn’t get on a boat with me either!” The Agent tried to push the blame on someone else.
And damn it, it worked.
Maria was running with Natasha back into the main portion of the carrier, knowing if something happened to the archer, Laura would make them all pay.
“Who has eyes on Barton?” the Commander called into the bridge.
“Lifeboat 3, he just got on with…”
It was hard to tell if the agent's words trailed off from the image on the screen, a picture of Barton and Pietro Maximoff playing on the floor of the boat, or the city that now began to plummet towards the rest of the earth.
“Every boat get in the air now,” Maria spoke into the system-wide communications system, not letting herself think of Clint and the young Maximoff.
The Commander blinked and watched as the city fell and fell and fell. Her stomach dropped out as she realized who would be affected, not just those on the ground around them... but Ellie.
Ellie.
Her daughter, the light of her life, her reason for waking up every morning, and the only guaranteed thought that would put a smile on her face at the end of the day. Someone screamed, maybe it was her, she didn't care, not as she saw the end of not only her life but her daughters. Maria did what she hadn't done in what felt like a lifetime. She prayed to any god that would listen.
She wasn't breathing, her vision started to warp, and then, as if one of those higher beings heard her, the plummeting city exploded into thousands of pieces. Maria coughed and braced herself on a nearby desk.
“Hill,” Fury called out from where he stood at the front of the room, “go check on the rest of the team.”
She knew it was an out, he knew that she knew it was an out. Yet she still found her feet moving quickly through the carrier, checking in all the small places for Natasha and Clint. Letting this task fill her every thought, not pausing to think about the what-ifs of what almost occurred.
She found the duo in the place she least expected: the Med bay.
Her knees threatened to buckle as she took in Clint’s somber face from where he sat next to Rhodes and Natasha. The former was sitting still as a nurse worked on a gash over his eye, the latter was looking at Maria, sadness in her eyes.
“The kid didn’t make it,” Clint said by way of greeting, “saved me and-”
He shook his head as Maria wrapped him in a deep hug, she knew the hurt of survivor's guilt, knew that it would stick with the archer. She also knew that if she didn't get the fear out of her with physical contact, she would break.
And so they wrapped each other together in a deep embrace for seconds or minutes, Maria had no idea.
“I’m gonna go find his sister,” the blonde stood and left without another word.
“Mind if I steal her?” Maria asked the man next to her.
“All yours,” Rhodes motioned with his hand.
The two walked in silence, Maria didn’t tell Natasha where they were going but after so many years onboard, she knew that the redhead had figured it out before they arrived.
The keypad of the duo’s range was worn from where Clint and Natasha had pressed in the code over and over again. She opened the door and led them both inside.
Natasha silently sat on the metal lip of the second stall, her head hanging as Maria stood in front of her. The room was soundproof and locked so thoroughly that they both knew the only other person who could show up was Clint.
“You,” Maria sighed as she slotted herself between the spy’s legs, “Tasha you-”
Maria closed her eyes and tried not to think about the coms she had overhead between Natasha and Steve. How the woman had been so willing to risk it all for everyone else. Her thoughts of Ellie drifted in once more.
“You can’t-” her voice broke and soon warm arms wrapped around her waist and brought her into a tight embrace.
“You can’t just do that; you can’t be so willing to die, to leave us all behind-” warm tears rolled down Maria’s face as she said the words out loud, “I need you, our kids need you.”
Surprise flashed across the redhead's face for just a moment before she pulled Maria impossibly closer, “I’m here now Masha, we’re all okay.”
The weight of the day came crashing into both of them as they stood in each other's embrace for one moment, then another, and then one more until Natasha finally spoke.
“I think I do it because I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, it’s all been too good to be true. It can’t keep going on like this so I might as well bring the inevitable in before I get too caught up in it all,” her voice was small as she explained why she had been willing to sacrifice herself not once but twice.
“Or, you can just enjoy it while it’s here,” Maria offered.
“Life hasn’t ever been like that, not for either of us,” the Russian shook her head.
“Then maybe it’s about fucking time we catch a break,” she leaned back until she was eye to eye with the woman in front of her, “maybe it’s time for the good parts.”
Natasha nuzzled her way into Maria’s neck as she spoke again, “You’re who I want to spend the good parts with.”