The Devil's Keeper - Blackhill

Chapter 2 - Know Your Enemy

[March 8th, 2007 – S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, location classified]

Maria was handcuffed and brought into an interrogation room, as per her request, by Phil Coulson and Clint Barton. After May's not-so-quiet mutterings about how unnecessary and overly dramatic they were being, they removed the handcuffs once she was seated in the interrogatee's chair. She knew May, Carter and Fury were probably standing behind the mirror glass, while Bobbi was most likely still in the lab with Fitz-Simmons trying to improve the Web.

She simply looked at them as Clint and Phil sat in front of her, not saying anything.

"Well, are you going to stare at me for the whole day?" She raised an eyebrow at her colleagues.

They looked at each other, before Coulson muttered what might have been a 'right' under his breath and opened the blank file in front of him, picking up a pen while Clint turned on the recorder on the table.

"Please state your name." Phil started to write down the date and Maria's name on the paper in front of him, while Clint just stared at her with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Agent Maria Hill."

"Why the hell did you ask Fury to arrest you?" Clint cut in, after stopping the recorder again. He sighed and slid forward in his chair, his elbows landing on the table. "Look, just start from the beginning, tell us what happened and we'll decide what to do."

Maria's eyes narrowed at him slightly. "You're putting a lot of trust in me."

"We've been working together for three years, Maria. I have your back and I like to think you have mine, as well as the rest of the team's. Shouldn't I be trusting you?" He questioned, his eyebrows raising as he slightly scoffed at her.

"To be honest, I don't trust myself right now." Maria admitted in an even tone that freaked out even Clint a little bit.

"You mean you wouldn't trust yourself if you were us." Phil corrected.

Maria's gaze dropped, then rose back up. "No, I mean I don't trust myself. I don't trust my own eyes, right now. A lot of memories I have of the past few years feel tainted or perhaps even utterly fake. My perception of things is biased. I shouldn't be on this case, I shouldn't be on this team and I probably should not be in S.H.I.E.L.D. at all right now. I'm a liability."

"Are you-" Clint frowned and laughed humorlessly at her. "resigning or something?"

"You don't resign from S.H.I.E.L.D." Phil whispered beside him and gave him a look. Clint shrugged as Phil turned to Maria. "So, what I'm gathering here is that you might be the only person alive who has ever seen the Black Widow and lived to tell the tale. How can your place be anywhere other than on the front lines of this upcoming war?"

"There is no war." Maria stated firmly. "Don't you understand? If we were ever in a battle with her, she got out unfazed."

"And how do you know all of this, Maria?" Clint asked, still skeptical.

Maria sighed and glanced at the mirror glass briefly. If Carter was listening in on the other side, she'd know if Maria lied. She was sure Sharon had already put two and two together. But she couldn't tell them everything, it would put them in danger as well, if her suspicions were even close to the horrific truth she thought they were approaching.

"I met her about seven years ago. I was eighteen and she was-" She shook her head, "I don't know. She said she was twenty-three but..." she sighed and averted her eyes again, "I can't know for sure if she was telling the truth. But she was undoubtedly older than she looked today."

"So you're confirming that she is indeed a time-traveller. You met her in the past and she looked older?" Phil asked her carefully.

Maria nodded, just once.