In many ways, she'd been very lucky when she'd been deployed; she had no family, no one who was the least bit worried about if she'd come home safe. She also hadn't been able to understand the large numbers of her men who missed their wives and kids, but she'd helped them the best she could -- the wives, sometimes begrudgingly, because yeah, it was hard to be a military wife and deal with a deployed husband, but far too many of them had been thoroughly suspicious of her, a female Marine, deployed with and therefore surrounded by men, and so obviously having an affair with one of their precious husbands. She'd pretended that hadn't hurt, just as it of course hadn't hurt to come home to a welcoming band, and walk right past all those excited families to her cold and empty Jeep.
"I'd like it better if he was dead, but I'll take captive and impotent. Phil kept wanting to confront him," Maria grumbled. Even if Loki had been trapped and secure, it had apparently been a wise decision as Loki wasn't as trapped and secure as they liked to believe. She would not have let Phil anywhere near Loki chained, much less Loki on a chain of glass.
"I haven't decided if I'm selling mine yet," Maria confessed. Because while she wasn't always sure of Pepper, given the levels of relationships involved, this was just a practical, business-related deal of what to do with apartments that had worn out their usefulness. Except for the awkward little shift at the comment of personal feelings that tied in too neatly. "It's a safehouse and all, but...I liked having my freedom. I liked having the option of walking away from this if it got to be too much. Then I almost lost Phil, and I planted myself at his bedside. I'm just not sure I want to throw away my escape route, in case things go bad."