A/N: Hey guys! So, this is a deleted scene from Falling Back, so you will get a little more of a look at Maria's past!

Trigger Warning: Mentions of physical and sexual abuse, implies rape, and self-harm. I'm giving y'all a warning so no one PM's me with obscenities for not warning you. I'm in no way making fun of people that struggle with depression and self-harm, or those that have been abused in any way!

I've been treated pretty badly, I struggle with depression and self-harm, and figured that since it's such a big issue, I should get across the seriousness of those things to others. So, if y'all ever need to talk, feel free to PM me and i'll listen. On days where I feel like I wanna just give up, I realize that i'm a fighter, and i'm gonna beat this depression or die trying. I'll fight it, and you should too :)

Enjoy.

Maria Hill sat on the couch of her and Steve's floor at the Avengers Tower, overwhelmed after all the events that had happened recently. Her father getting out of rehab two months earlier was the biggest, blow, forget about Loki returning. The twenty-six-year-old let the tears slide down her cheeks, the memories that she tried so hard to keep at bay coming back to hit her full force.

Her dad's drinking and constantly hitting her since she was the young age of three, marrying her step-mother, Diana...the days when Diana would hit her over the head with inanimate objects and burn her with lighters and the stove, not to mention all the times she was in the hospital for broken bones, concussions, and a coma for over a month when she was seven.

"You're such a fucking worthless waste of space! You killed her! Had you never been born, she'd still be alive!" Her father had always told her whenever he had beaten her, and Danny would say,

"She is not! Leave her the fuck alone, dad!"

She remember her older brother, Danny, always tried to protect her and stop them from hurting her. Then there was Emily, her now sixteen-year-old half sister, had been born when Maria was just ten, and she had promised to protect Emily just as Danny had promised to protect Maria. She loved Emily and Danny more than life itself and would die for them. The day that Emily had told her that her dad's friends had 'taken advantage' of her just a week after Diana died from a drug overdose, she was pissed. She remembered Emily calling her from the ER and saying, 'daddy's friends hurt me, Maria.' and just after she had gotten off the phone, Danny had called her and told her what happened. She was eighteen then, and that day is still a fresh memory and that was just two years before she joined SHIELD, and that was two weeks before her dad went to rehab for his alcohol and drug addiction and he had actually said,

"Maria, I love you and hope for the best. I promise i'll be a better father when I get out."

She had scoffed and said, "I'll believe it when I see it, papa."

But since he got out, he actually seemed like he wanted to make things right, and she didn't know what to think about that.

For the longest time, Maria didn't see any point in living. She was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when she was just nine-years-old, having attempted suicide three times by the time she was thirteen and twice by the time she was sixteen and had graduated high school early so she could join the Marines and do something with her life. She had beat it after she left home. After they recruited her for the marines. Before that, she remembered that note she had written.

I'm sorry for what i've done, but dad and Diana are right. I am a waste of space and deserved everything that has happened. Danny, I want you to tell Emily I love her and to stay strong for me. I love you both and thanks for trying to protect me. Emily, i'm a failure, and i'm sorry but I have to do this. I hope you go far in life and be better than I am...was. To my friends; thanks for being there for me, but i'm not meant for this world.

Goodbye, I love all of you and you'll see me again soon.

I don't doubt it.

~Maria

Then she had overdosed on pills.

That had been a month before her sixteenth birthday.

A month before the marines recruited her.

That was the last time she attempted to take her life.

The fifth time, and she remembered word for word what she had written.

She actually thought that if she didn't kill herself, she'd die in the line of active duty or die before Fury had made her his second in command, but that changed when she met Steve and the two had started dating shortly after the Battle of New York a year earlier. He saved her in many ways, but she couldn't help but feel broken, since she was what most guys would call "damaged goods" and she didn't know why he loved her, and he had been the first person aside from Coulson that she had told, although she didn't tell Coulson everything unlike when she told Steve.

Steve knew everything.

Fury knew the least and he had actually told her that it was her personal life and not his.

She couldn't believe that she almost cried when Steve told her that he didn't care about her past, and that he had still wanted to be with her, actually forcing her to move in when her house had burned down.

"You're serious about this, aren't you?" She remembered asking him several weeks earlier to which he replied,

"Of course. I love you." and had they not been in public, she'd have broken down right then and there, and it was actually Phil that coerced her back in March, when he had come back from the dead, so to speak, to tell him more than what he had already known.

"Steve won't care. He loves you for who you are." He had told her, earning a smile from the woman, who had nodded and said,

"I'll think about it. But you're right. He does deserve to know more."

Maria wiped the tears from her face and sighed, getting off the couch and walked up to their bedroom, waiting for Steve to return from a phone call with Fury, having not wanted to be in the main lounge and deal with Stark.

Not today.

She entered the master bedroom and placed her lap top on her bedside table before she walked hesitantly to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

"Look at you. They were right. You are a worthless waste of space and deserve everything that happened." She said to herself, glaring at her reflection in the mirror before she looked down, her gaze setting on the razor.

Just do it. Who cares if you've been clean for over ten years...actually, you did it two months ago like the weakling you are. You deserve it, anyway. She thought, picking up the razor with a shaky hand and pressing it to her wrist.

But she didn't have the chance to do it before a knock sounded on the bathroom door.

"Babe, are you ready? Everyones waiting." Steve asked, drawing Maria's gaze away from the mirror and putting the razor where she had found it.

"Shit!" She exclaimed, completely forgetting about the gala that was being thrown for Steve and the rest of the Avengers as she opened the bedroom door and rushed past Steve and into their walk in closet, putting on the black, floor length dress that she had bought a few days earlier.

"You forgot, didn't you?" He asked, following Maria back into the bathroom, stopping and leaning against the door way, "Why do you think you and the girls went shopping?"

Maria shrugged as she applied her make up.

"I guess I just forgot." She said coldly, not looking at him.

"You know you look beautiful with out that stuff." He said, crossing his arms.

"I want to look nice for the occasion." She said, her voice cracking.

Steve approached her and wrapped his arms around Maria's waist.

"Honey, look at me." He said, gently turning her to face him, his brows creasing in concern at her puffy, red eyes.

"Why do you love me, Steve?" She asked, resting her head on his chest and her arms around his waist.

Steve sighed, "Well, you're beautiful, fierce, intelligent, strong...you're everything that i've ever wanted." He said, kissing her on the head.

It was true in a sense.

Ever since he had gotten out of the ice...ever since he had lost Peggy, he thought he'd never love anyone the same way ever again, but that had changed when he met Maria, who was like Peggy in many ways.

Maria laughed bitterly, "I'm anything but strong. I'm broken." She said, letting the tears fall once more as she continued, "I've been abused by men my whole life and it makes me feel like shit because I did nothing to stop it and I...and I can't even trust you a hundred percent. How do I know that you're not going to hurt me like my father and step-mother? Like my dad's friends? Like all the others I dated?" She asked, the memories of her childhood coming in over whelming amounts as she let go of Steve and hit the near by wall, collapsing to the ground in tears.

Never once had he seen her this upset.

"Maria, I would never hurt you intentionally and you know that. I would sooner die before in any way that I wasn't supposed to. No man should ever hit a woman or child, or abuse them in any way." He said, kneeling down beside her and wrapping his arms around her, making the woman tense up before she relaxed and leaned into his embrace.

"I'm damaged goods. Isn't that what you'd refer to me as? Every other guy has...they even told my sister she was damaged."

"Well, you're not damaged goods...not to me, anyway. I've also never met your sister, but I probably should, don't you think? You talk about her and Danny a lot. Tell me about her." He said, wanting to change the subject and make Maria feel better.

Maria sighed and wiped the tears from her face before she spoke, "Well, she's sixteen, born just a few weeks after my tenth birthday, and she's a great person overall. You'll meet her soon...all the other times that you had a chance to meet her, she was out with friends, but here's a bit of a warning...she has aspergers syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. So once you actually do meet her, you might notice how she can't really advocate for herself in some instances and has some repetitive behaviors, along with problems interacting with others, but really she just talks a lot and no one knows she has it until she tells them. She was diagnosed with it when she was eleven."

"Do you know the cause?"

Maria shrugged, much calmer than she had been moments before, "The doctor said it could've been caused by her mothers substance abuse during pregnancy, but it could've also been caused by the trauma of seeing my dad and Diana slap me around and what she endured by...dad's friends."

"Did she go through what you did? The...sexual abuse."

"Not my place to tell you. It's hers. I was coming home from a deployment in the marines when I had heard what happened. I should never have left and it wouldn't have happened. I know now that what she's gone through in her life wasn't my fault, but I feel like a shitty sister for not protecting her. I made that promise. The same promise that Danny made me when I was born. She wants to be a SHIELD agent too, so I told her that I would train her and be her supervising officer once she was eighteen so she won't have to leave and go to the Academy." She said, pulling away from Steve's embrace and looking down at her lap.

"Well, you're a great older sister for doing that. Besides, Maria, what happened to you wasn't your fault. What Emily has gone through wasn't-isn't-your fault, and it wasn't hers. It's no ones fault but your dad, Diana's, and those assholes faults. Okay?"

"I guess...Emily got a bit of a wake up call back in September, but again, that's not my place to tell you. My dad didn't find out about what his former friends did to us until he got out of rehab. I feel like shit because he's trying to be better, but I can't forgive him and i'm trying to."

Steve sighed, "Well, i'm not defending him or his actions, but he seems like he's trying his best and just wants to be there for all of you and make up for how bad of a father he was when you guys were kids. At least you're trying to forgive him. You're both trying to let go of the past."

Maria sighed and rested her head back on Steve's shoulder.

"Thank you. I love you, Steve."

Steve smiled at her and tilted Maria's head up to look at him before he gave her a peck on the lips.

"I love you too." He said, kissing her again as he helped her up, not breaking the kiss as Maria leaned against the sink, wrapping her arms around his neck, reluctantly pulling away when they heard someone calling him.

"Are you guys ready? You've been up there getting ready for forever! You're not getting ready, are you?" Tony called, his footsteps coming closer.

The door to the bedroom closed and they could hear Tony's footsteps stop outside the bathroom door.

"We're coming, Tony." Steve called, sighing, obviously annoyed at the billionaire, making Maria laugh.

"We can finish our..conversation...when we get back, Steve. I hate to say this, but if we take any longer, we will be late. The Avengers can't be late." She said, kissing him once more.

For once she felt completely whole.

Not broken like she had always been before.

A/N: Let me know what y'all think! Please review :)

No flames.