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It doesn't take Fury telling her in her earpiece to know that he's gone.
The entire ship falls silent in that moment and she can't think past the sudden ache in her chest.
It fades after a few beats; she knows she needs to finish the day and then she can grieve later, she can cry once the crisis is over and she logically knows that working for SHIELD, this was going to happen one day.
So she pushes the feelings to the side until this is over.
-
After the Battle at Manhattan is over, Maria cries. It's quiet and no one is around, so she mourns the man who had worked with her for so long, who had wormed his way into her heart from colleague to friend to lover.
And the pain returns.
There is no one now that knows the frivolous things that SHIELD deems unimportant. There is no one left that knows her favourite colour, her favourite coffee and he favourite song. There is no one left who makes her feel calm by simply being in the room; he's left her without him, and she doesn't know if she'll have the time or the will to find someone else.
-
She throws herself into the Avengers, knowing it would have been his pride and joy. Sometimes she'll wander down to his grave and tell him about it, when there's a moment rest and she doesn't have a pile of paperwork to go through or a fight to supervise. She doesn't make it a habit of talking to dead people, but she's willing to make an exception for him. It makes her calmer on the days when she wishes he was still here, running this hectic mess. He would have loved it.
She hardly ever wonders at the 'could have been's and the 'what if's; she too much of a realist for that. But when she does, she wonders if he would be proud of her, of them, and she silently remembers him.
The greatest man she ever knew.