A/N: Hey guys! So in this one shot, it tells a little more about Maria! Steve asks her about a couple of her many scars and bruises. Enjoy. Please review. Warning: Mentions of Sexual abuse and rape.
"Hey Nat, have you seen Maria anywhere?" Steve asked Natasha, who sat in the break room talking with Clint.
"No I actually haven't. I haven't seen her since yesterday to be honest." Natasha answered honestly, shrugging.
Steve sighed. Maria had been being very evasive over the last few days, seldom speaking to him unless it was absolutely necessary. It was beginning to worry him.
"You can ask Emily. I'm sure she's seen her." Clint said, nodding to the door way as they saw Maria's sixteen-year-old sister walk by, seemingly in a hurry. Steve quickly thanked them and ran out the door and following Emily, trying to catch up with her.
"Hey Emily, have you seen Maria anywhere?"
"Yeah. She's in her office. Getting changed."
Steve looked at her confused, "Why would she be getting changed?"
"She slept here last night. Said she didn't want to worry you so she just stayed here. She texted me to bring her a change of clothes." Emily answered, nodding her head towards her sister's office before Steve walked in that direction.
Steve didn't bother knocking when he got to her office. He just walked in and saw Maria's back facing him. She was in the process of putting her shirt on when she noticed him, but not before Steve noticed the two small bruises on the middle of her back. Maria quickly turned around and faced her fiancé, who now saw another bruise to the right of her heart.
"Can I help you with something?" She asked, not phased by Steve just barging in on her. Steve just stared at her in shock. He didn't actually think Emily had been serious about Maria getting changed. The super soldier did the politest thing he could think of and turned around so his back was facing her so she could finish getting changed. They may have been engaged and he had seen her naked plenty of times, but he thought it to be rude if he tried to have a conversation while she was half naked.
"I need to talk to you."
"So talk."
"You've been very distant the last couple of days. Is it something I did? Emily said you slept here last night." He said, still facing the wall.
Maria sighed, "No it's not something you did. I didn't want to keep you up last night with my nightmares." She said, taking his hand and leading him over to one of the chairs in her office where she sat with him. Maria just sitting on his lap.
"Are they nightmares about how you got those bruises on your back and chest?"
"Yes. I got them when I was in Iraq. I was shot three times."
Steve nodded in understanding, finally looking at her and seeing she was now in a white, long sleeved shirt that hugged her curves perfectly. He remembered Maria telling him that she went through three tours in the middle east.
She remembered that day too well.
Sergeant Major Johnson had placed her and her friend Jake on the rooftops to gun down any potential threats. They got bored and started playing games and asking each other stupid questions and they loved to annoy each other by asking the other embarrassing questions, while Maria was in a lying down position looking through her M110 Semi-Automatic. Everyone thought the pair were romantically involved, when in reality they were just good friends.
"Oh did I tell you that Emily asked me what sex was last year? How is she by the way?" Jake asked, sitting up against a concrete barrier. He had been with Maria the year before when her older brother called and told her that the then eight-year-old had been raped by their dad's friends who did it out of revenge. A way of getting back at Maria, whom she had ratted out to the police when she was fifteen for sexually abusing her. She never followed through on pressing charges, which was something she ultimately regretted.
They were on their way home from deployment when Maria, who had been eighteen, had gotten the call. Jake was the only one she told because she was a wreck and he wouldn't leave her alone until she told him.
Maria didn't answer his question. Instead, she was focusing on something. On the ground about two hundred yards away was a child, no older than four or five on the ground, bleeding.
"Oh my God. Jake, come with me." She said, getting up and slinging her rifle over her shoulder and grabbing her back pack. Jake got up and followed after her, and almost immediately after leaving the safety of the building they were being shot at. Maria was the first to reach the little girl, picking her up and bringing her inside another abandoned building. She placed the child on the floor in the house, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the little girl was still breathing.
She had a head wound and a cut in her side. The Marine reached into her back pack and grabbed the gauze that she always carried with her and tried to stop the bleeding. The child was starting to come around.
"As-salām 'alaykum. Mā ismik?" She asked the girl in Arabic, who looked at her with wide brown eyes.
The little girl hesitated before answering, "Ismee Soraya." She answered, before finally losing consciousness again.
"What should we do with her?"
Maria looked at her friend, her hands now covered in the child's blood.
They were both thinking the same thing.
"We can't leave her here. Not in a war zone and the nearest hospital is too far away." She answered, getting up to look at him. Jake was aiming his own M110 out the window, watching Maria's back.
They both decided to bring the little girl to the camp for medical treatment since it was closer, but both knew that Sergeant Major Johnson, or as they liked to call him, 'sergeant major dickhead' would give them shit for it.
Maria got up and just as she did, the window on the opposite side of the room broke and a bullet hit her in the chest. It all happened so fast she didn't have time to think before she turned to Jake, trying to get an aim with her own rifle to see who shot her before two more bullets pierced into the middle of her back, sending her to the ground on her stomach.
"Man down! Sergeant Hill is down!" Jake screamed through his ear piece, rushing to Maria's side.
Within minutes, two fellow Marines along with a SEAL who had seen Maria and Jake enter the house from another rooftop, came to their aid.
"Sergeant Reynolds! Help me get Maria to the camp. Private Jameson, grab the child and bring her with us." Jake ordered, slinging one of Maria's arms around his neck while Reynolds did the same with Maria's other arm and both men placed their hands around her waist to help her up.
"Sergeant Dawson! We can't bring a little girl into a war zone!"
"Well the nearest hospital is 30 Kilometers away, got any better ideas, Private?" Jake snapped and Private Jameson grabbed Soraya and the Navy SEAL watched their backs until a vehicle arrived to take Maria back to camp.
Maria came around a week later in the hospital.
"Hey Jake...is Soraya alright?" The nineteen-year-old asked, "Did Sergeant Major Johnson give you shit for it?"
"No actually. He said we made the right call. The kids parents were dead, so she was placed in an orphanage over there. Since you've been out, I've been working to get her a visa because when the doctors were working on her, she said she wanted to come to America. Oh, she thanks you for saving her by the way. But yeah, she's flying in next month and if my wife says it's alright. We might even adopt her."
Maria gave her friend a weak smile, "Hey, was I given an epidural?"
"No. Why?" Jake asked, confused.
"I can't feel my legs."
"It was three weeks before I got feeling back in my legs. Yes. I was in the hospital for my twentieth birthday. But it was another two months before I could walk again. I joined SHIELD about a week after getting feeling back in my legs. It took three months after I could walk again before Fury sent me on missions. I moved up through the ranks here as fast as I did when I was a marine. I just...I've killed people, Steve. I know I was doing what I had to, but sometimes, I have nightmares and every time I would come back, some people thanked me for my service, but others gave me disgusted looks because they thought I enjoyed killing people. But I don't." She explained, tears slowly cascading down her face.
"Hey, you did what you had to do. You're not the only one that's done things you regret. I have too. I did some things that made me not sleep so well at night, but I did it so that people could have freedom."
Maria sighed. He did have a point.
"I was doing so well keeping me nightmares at bay. Last week was my first nightmare in three years. It was about my dad's friends and what they did," She started, after her fathers friends found her living in New York, ultimately attempting to sexually assault her before attempting to murder her, she decided that she had enough and wouldn't be afraid of them any longer, and pressed charges. Which lead to them getting put behind bars for thirty years to life, "All the other nightmares I got were from missions that Fury sent me on."
"One step at a time, babe. And i'm always here for you."
"Thanks Steve," Maria said, giving a soft smile as she rested her head on his shoulder, "I only really get nightmares when i'm away from you. You do a great job at keeping them at bay." She added, the nightmare she got last week was when Steve and the rest of the team were in Bangladesh for a mission.
Steve gave her a kiss on the forehead in response, "So, about this Soraya girl...did Jake and his wife actually adopt her?"
"Yes they did. The same day I got out of the hospital. She's twelve now I believe and from what Jake says she's doing great. They began teaching her English after they first adopted her, and she had to have a translator in school for a bit, but she's more comfortable speaking her native language." Maria explained, smiling at Steve, who gave her a kiss on the lips. Maria kissed back, wrapping her arms around Steve's neck and stretching her legs out across his lap.
"Woah there! Get a room!" Emily snapped, coming into the room with her hands covering her eyes.
As always, Emily had to ruin the moment.
A/N: Let me know what y'all think! Please review :)
No flames.
P.S. Here is the translation for what Maria said to Soraya in Arabic.
As-salām 'alaykum.mā ismik= Hello. What is your name?
Ismee Soraya= My name is Soraya.