My brothers a what?!?
A few weeks after she graduated high school, Maria was off to basic training, leaving Tony alone for the first in years. With nothing keeping him tied to New York anymore he relocated to Los Angeles, with him buying land in Malibu to build himself a mansion.
After relocating to California, Tony hired a PA for the first time, a Virginia Potts or Pepper as he had begun calling her, and it was completely by accident. He had been sitting in his office going over designs for new body armor for ground forces, something he had since taken a personal interest in with his sister now being a Marine, when the woman from the finance department burst into his office followed closely by security to alert him to an accounting mistake that would have cost the company hundreds of millions. After that, Tony had immediately hired her.
After Maria completed basic and secondary training she was assigned to be stationed in California. When she found out about this she immediately confronted her brother, assuming that he had called in some favor in order to have her close to him again but to her complete surprise he hadn’t done anything in fear of drawing unnecessary attention to the two of them. He explained to her that it would have been rather difficult to explain to military higher ups why he wanted a specific Marine that he supposedly had no prior relationship to, straight out of boot camp assigned at a particular base.
One weekend in March of 2001 that Maria had been granted leave, she headed up to Malibu to her brother's now finished house. She hadn’t been up to see him since construction had finished, only while he was renting a ridiculous house near the Playboy mansion. He had called her the week before panicked asking what the soonest she could get up to Malibu was. In all the years that she knew her brother, she had never heard him like that so she knew something was up. She immediately called in every favor she had already acquired in her short time in the Corp. to get leave for the following weekend.
As she opened the door and headed into the now completed house for the first time, she was greeted by a voice that seemed to come from nowhere, “Good afternoon Maria Hill.”
Terrified, she let out a scream of, “What the fuck!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Aunt Peggy rounded the corner in front of her and leveled a glare at her, “Maria! Swearing is not necessary.”
“Oh yeah, because Tones and I have never heard you curse.” Maria said with a laugh as she walked over to hug her aunt, before teasingly adding “You seem to forget that both of us have been in a car that was driven by you at some point in our lives.”
“I do not swear.” Peggy defended, pulling away from her niece.
“Did you really just say that with a straight face?” Maria asked incredulously, “I’m pretty sure you could make a sailor blush.”
“Why I never.” Peggy said in mock offense “I get absolutely no respect from Sharon or you and your ungrateful brother. I don’t have to take this from any of you.”
Maria laughed at her aunt. “So not that I don’t enjoy seeing you but I don’t think you’re what Tony had me come up here for. Any idea what's going on?”
Peggy’s happy expression quickly turned to one of exhaustion “Oh just your brother's vices biting him in the arse.”
“Well that could literally mean just about anything.” Maria said as she followed Peggy downstairs into the garage and lab. She noticed that her brother had brought a couple cars with him from New York but there were a lot that she didn’t recognize.
As Peggy opened the glass doors, the same mysterious voice from earlier spoke “Sir, Maria Hill and Margaret Carter are here.”
“Jesus Christ!” Maria jumped again as the voice spoke “What the hell is that?”
“That would be Jarvis.” Tony said as he came out of a room off to the side and walked over to hug his sister.
“Tones, Jarvis is dead.” She said, confused. Jarvis had died about two years after Tony had taken her in.
“I know.” He said as he put his arms out as if presenting something “Jarvis is an AI I developed. Stands for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System.”
“An AI Tony, really?” She asked skeptically “Did you not think of Skynet, Hal, Joshua, that one from Tron, and the Matrix just to name a few?”
“You two watch far too many movies.” Peggy said from her seat at one of the work benches causing both Maria and Tony to shift their attention to her.
“We’re cultured.” The siblings said at the same time before looking back at one another and laughing, causing Peggy to roll her eyes and smile at their antics.
“So what was so important that you had to drag me up from Pendelton? Aunt Peggy said something about my ‘brother's vice’s biting him in his arse’.” Maria said in a mock English accent earning a snort of laughter from her brother and a glare from her aunt.
“Well that's not inaccurate.” He said sitting down next to his aunt.
“Okay, but what happened?” The young marine asked as she hopped up onto the table across from them.
“Lets just say Howards fuck ups is going to be getting another member in a couple of months.”
“What are you talking…” Maria began confused before her eyes widened in realization “Oh Tony.”
“Yeah.” Was all Tony said.
“Please tell me it wasn’t one of the bunnies.” His sister pleaded.
“What… No it wasn’t.” He stuttered out “Have a little faith in me.”
“What are you talking about? What bunnies?” Peggy asked, extremely confused, looking between the siblings.
“Oh did he not tell you? While he was building this place, the man whore known as my brother rented a house around the corner from the Playboy mansion.”
“Tony!” Peggy admonished, hitting him upside the head.
“I never even knew where it was before I came out here. I swear. I was completely surprised when I found out it was there. I don’t even know what Playboy is.” He tried to defend himself before glaring at his sister “Thanks for this.”
All he got in response was a smile.
“But no, the mother is not a bunny. She’s a genetic engineer.” Tony said, trying to get this back on track.
“Wow, that's a step up from your usual one night stands.” She teased.
“She’s not a one night stand.” He defended “We’ve been dating for a couple months now.” Tony confessed.
Maria was shocked “You’re in love with her.”
Tony simply nodded
Maria loved her brother but she knew that he didn’t have the greatest track record when it came to women. For as long as she knew him, he had always preferred one night stands and quick flings. She knew from Peggy that he had scaled back considerably after he took custody of her but he had never had a real relationship that she knew of.
She was disrupted from her thoughts by the computer Jarvis “Sir, James Rhodes is at the door.”
“I’ll be right back.” Tony said getting up to run upstairs.
“So how are you handling this?” Her aunt asked.
“You’re worried about me? Tony’s the one about to have a kid, not me.”
“I know that but I think your brother is actually excited for this.” Peggy said, gesturing for her niece to come sit with her “When he told me this when he brought me out here last week I was understandably shocked. I yelled at him that he was reckless and careless, I confess that I felt like Howard at that moment. But when I met her and saw how the two of them interacted with each other, all of my worries were erased.”
“So you’ve met…” Maria began before trailing off, realizing that he never said her name.
“Mary. Lovely girl. Nothing like any of Tony’s other…. female friends.” Peggy told her, getting a snort of laughter from Maria at the description of Tony’s one night stands. “Plus she was able to pass a Shield background check.”
“Why does it not surprise me that you did that?” Maria said laughing “Oh man Howards fuck ups are getting a legacy member. What is the world coming to?”
“I really wish you two wouldn’t call yourselves that. There is no need for all the profanity that the two of you use.”
“Did you really just say that?” Tony’s voice cut through as he led Rhodey into the lab.
Maria got up from her spot and made her way over to hug Rhodey as Tony teased Peggy
“No need for profanity. This coming from the woman that when we were going to get breakfast yesterday called a poor student driver…” He was cut off before he could finish.
“There’s no need to fill them in on what happened.” Peggy said, causing everyone to laugh “Do you two coordinate your attacks on your poor old aunt?”
Tony looked at his sister in confusion.
“I may have said something similar when I got here after Jarvis scared the shit out of me.” She said, filling him.
“So why am I here?” Rhodey asked before the siblings could go off on one of their legendairy tangents.
“Because my dear friend from the United States chair force, I’m going to be an aunt.” Maria said, patting him on the shoulder as she left the room in search of something to eat.