"Drunk, Tired and Gone." [Blackhill Fanfic]

Chapter 2: Tired.

It has almost been one year exactly since Natasha Romanoff died saving the world by sacrificing herself for the soul stone to bring back the other half of the world that got blipped. Including her girlfriend. Maria Christina Hill. And now they were forever separated.

EARLY MAY 2024

Maria's eyes woke up to the New York City bright sun breaking into her apartment. She turned her head to the left side that was forever empty now. Maria sighed softy before getting up to go to her closest to grab something to wear. Maria was no longer working at Stark Industries because well of two reasons.. one, she was fired because of insubordination by disagreeing that the Avengers should get back together after the whole fight in the German airport & Siberia. And two because.. Tony Stark was dead and last time she checked no-one was really running Stark Industries so she had no job there. But that was not her only job. She still worked for Fury in some way even though there was no more S.H.I.E.L.D and he had left her to Earth as he went to work on S.A.B.E.R.

Maria knew Fury was different after the blip, she wasn't clueless. Fury had instructed Maria to call him if there was an emergency on Earth. Which she knew wouldn't happen for a while, so she was left there. Alone. Maria had also been told that two Skrulls would be taking their place if needed. Which in this case, she did. Maria had discovered there was disturbances all over the world for some reasons. Mass murder, mystery abductions, and governments turning against each other. And the thing is Maria had to do this alone, in secret, no-one had to know she was gone and without Fury, because the only people that knew Fury was gone was her, Talos, Soren, and some of the Skrulls that worked for Fury before and a little after the blip. She had called Soren, who she actually became close with so she could up rise her role has well, herself, to let her know she was going away for a while and didn't know when she'd come back and needed her to stand in for her.

Maria got changed into a black plain army t-shirt she kept back from her Marines days, a pair of dark blue jeans and black boots than soon packed everything she needed; extra clothes, money, basic appliances for care, her "S.H.I.E.L.D" laptop, notebooks, her phone, and private book. "I think that's it." Maria thought to herself. As Maria grabbed her bag, she looked back and the photo of Nat before the break up of the Avengers with her, before she left her, before she died. Maria turned back and exited the apartment and headed to her car. Right before she left, she informed Soren that she was leaving and Soren instantly knew what to do after that and with that, Maria headed off to Russia, Moscow.

LATE JULY 2024

Maria had been in Russia for almost 2 months investigating, the disappearances of random people, the death and random up-rises to the governments in Russia and she hadn't found much but she found enough to realize that the random up-rises weren't just from any ordinary people but from the missing to reappearing people and from that Maria realized that they weren't people at all. They were Skrulls. She wanted to call Fury because this was kind of an emergency. If the Skrulls took too much ground by making citizens betray their countries and governments that would cause a very very bad riot, so she did. But she never received an answer. She knew Fury was busy but him to returning her made her feel useless, not worth it. But she didn't want it to bother her, so she didn't.

Maria had a unhealthy problem with making herself over work herself just to forget real life. She did it after a few months when Natasha died and now she's doing it with Fury ignoring her. Now Maria knew that she and Fury didn't always see eye-to-eye but she respected him and she new he respected her but sometimes it just wasn't enough. She constantly updating Soren if she has questions but she usually doesn't. Maria also checks in with Clint because they were more than just co-workers or Deputy-Director and Agent, they were friends so she tried to keep in-touch with him every few months or so, but that didn't change anything. Maria also wrote a lot of notes and just personal stuff in Russia. She was always that person that noticed the smallest thing, and when she did notice something like that, she'd write it down.

BEEP. Maria looked up from writing down whatever she had seen today. She stood up from her chair and looked at her open laptop. A email from Soren. Maria quickly opened the email.

Maria, this is going to sound very weird but in London, me and Talos discovered a slight problem with the young boy that was invested with Mr. Stark, but we handled it. There was some destruction but we took care of it. The didn't find out anything important. But we did find out there was a mole. He was killed from we can tell but there's a more serious problem now. The boys identify was revealed.

Maria sighed. "Of course, this just got harder." Maria knew the young boy. Peter. She had been around Mr. Stark long enough to know him a bit and she knew how much protentional the kid had but he was just a kid. Just a kid. She couldn't help him right now though. And it would be so weird if she just showed up after he just saw "her". Maria decided to stay in Russia to continue her leads and more. If Tony had trusted Peter with becoming a hero at sixteen, she could trust him to handle this. But she also knew Tony was not always great at making decisions in the end. Maria got away from the laptop, closed it, grabbed her phone, her gun, and headed out the door.