Just a tiny moment happening during Captain America: The Winter Soldier inspired by the deleted scene where Natasha confronts Fury about how he let her believe he was dead. Not much to this, but a little deleted scene of my own.

Maria was glad her timing had worked out so she was in the room of their secret base when Nick woke up from his all-too-close brush with death. There was a flurry of activity that blocked her from seeing him for a while as his few trusted doctors made sure everything had indeed worked the way he planned. She was about to clear out of the room to let them work when his hoarse voice called her name.

"Sir?" She was a little surprised he knew she was there. She may have been on the side with his good eye, but he barely had that one open and it still didn't look too focused. Of course, trying to figure out how Nick Fury knew as much as he did was always a futile game.

"You okay?" he rasped, and Maria felt her nerves about the situation fade into relief and a bit of irony that he would ask her that after what he went through.

"Better than you are. Sir."

He smiled slightly, only grimacing a little with pain. "…Worked?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. officially believes you're dead," she reported. "Rogers is on the run. Pierce declared him a fugitive. He ordered me back to New York too."

Fury grunted, nodding as much as he could. Then he opened his eye fully and looked at her, his expression serious. "How's Romanoff?"

Maria swallowed, remembering the desperate energy filling the observation room where they had watched as the surgeons worked on Nick, Natasha pleading quietly for him to stay with them. Maria had seen the Black Widow undercover and in interrogation many times. She knew the woman could control her expressions and emotions with the artistry of one raised on manipulation the way others were religion. And knowing that, she still believed with absolute certainty that the fear she had seen on Natasha's face that day, the grief that had shown through her habitual mask as she stood beside his gurney, had been completely genuine.

"She took it hard. Like I've only ever seen with Barton."

His jaw tightened noticeably, eye looking down for a moment. "She safe?"

Maria hesitated. "Hard to say. She went off the grid shortly after I took you to come here. Last we could tell, we think she's with Rogers."

Now the corner of his lips turned up and she could see his body relax. "Well. Good to know."

He closed his eye again, clearly getting ready to go back to sleep.

"Sir?" Maria prodded one more time. "Anything you want me to do right now?"

"You already know," he murmured without looking over. "When they get in trouble, bring 'em home."

Maria smiled a bit, nodding. "Yes, sir."

As one of the doctors stepped back up to administer another medication and take a reading, Maria turned and walked away, feeling far more confident about the future as she started the trek back to S.H.I.E.L.D.