In the past, Victoria Hand and Maria Hill had not gotten along.
One had graduated from S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, a proper S.H.I.E.L.D. agent supervisor through and through. The other had been transferred to S.H.I.E.L.D. from another department by Congress, tasked with monitoring S.H.I.E.L.D. while coordinating its work. Victoria Hand had always believed Maria Hill would betray them, while Maria Hill had always thought Victoria Hand was too cold, too efficient, and utterly unconcerned with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s little workplace culture. To her, there was nothing in Hand's life but work. Though she admired that attitude, she had no desire to get close to her. She also believed Victoria Hand was better suited to the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security than S.H.I.E.L.D.
Most of those tensions had vanished after the Hydra Rebellion, because that disaster had allowed every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to prove their loyalty and innocence. Victoria Hand, in particular, had suffered a complete betrayal. If the Emperor had not tightly gripped her soul, she would have died from Grant Ward's gunshot long ago. Although their later interactions had been limited to contact and cooperation between the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Sacred Guard Intelligence Department, their relationship was no longer as hostile as before. Still, it could hardly be called warm.
"Our opponent is very likely Coulson's team," Victoria Hand said over the Communication Channel. "I know you have the key to Cold Storage, Agent Hill. I want to know whether there is anything in Cold Storage that I don't know about. Did Nick Fury hide anything else from me?"
"Everything from the Sling-shot Program is in there."
What Maria Hill referred to was a S.H.I.E.L.D. program intended to deal with unknown dangerous objects. Put simply, it involved using chemical-fuel rockets to send warheads carrying hazardous items into the sun. It