Who: Maria (Open to SHIELD and Thunderbolts) NPCs: Command crew Where: Helicarrier bridge When: 1/4 (backdate) What: Maria's back at work, which includes briefing the Thunderbolts. Rating: R for Rogue language
For all she was getting better at interpersonal relationships that didn't involve work (at least not all the time), she was still far more comfortable standing on her bridge, looking out over her screens and her crew, watching the escort fighters cut through the clouds to settle into their landing pattern. A year ago, this had been nothing more than a hope; she'd flown, crashed, and now she flew again.
It was something of a metaphor for her life, if she really wanted to dig at it...though she could hardly fathom why. Looking to the past and remembering pain had never gotten her very far, not when she was about to get a new president dropped on her country, one that several trusted sources thought was going to destroy the country. Too bad she couldn't put surveillance on him without tipping her hand to her worries, she thought sourly. It was hard enough to keep training Lois in self-defense a secret from SHIELD; anything involving the flight deck would not go unnoticed.
Luthor would be a problem for another time, if a large one. She watched another jet land on the flight deck, and checked the radar on the tri-up automatically. That was today's problem. It was bad enough she had to get back to Gotham to keep surveillance on the vigilante population; she had to have a team of (ex)criminals running tame on her flight deck. They'd get the job done. She even thought that they'd learn to be a more effective force - they just wouldn't be rehabilitated. At best they'd learn to talk the talk enough to get released.
Of all the bars Stark had to blow up, why had he felt the need to destroy that one? She should have given him a lump of coal, too.
Maria reached over and brought up the mission planning to the center screen. Whining about Stark was never productive. Regretting a personal misstep was less productive. She'd suck it up and deal with the mess.