A/N: So here's the next chapter! Not much to say. Hope y'all like it.
Shawna sighed and grabbed the papers off the table, quickly looking through them before she put them back down.
"Got a pen?" She asked, looking at everyone as John reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen, which she took and signed the papers with.
"Once you find out what Alexa is, you won't be able to handle it. Even with Lilith. Once all of you find out what they are, you'll be giving them back to CPS." Shawna answered, giving the papers back to Maria, who passed them off to Emily so she could fax the papers to the social worker.
"Well, how about you two take Alexa and bring her upstairs and get changed into some dry clothes?" Patty asked, noticing that Maria and Steve were still soaked. Shawna went to go pick up Alexa, but Steve beat her to it.
"She's not your daughter anymore, Shawna. She's ours now." Maria said, having to remind Shawna about the papers the older woman just signed. It felt so good to be able to finally say that.
"I'll get her dressed." Anna said, carefully taking Alexa from Steve as she left the kitchen.
When Maria and Steve got upstairs, instead of getting dressed, Maria sat on the bed and put her head in her hands.
"Hey, are you okay?" Steve asked, tightly wrapping one of the blankets on the bed around Maria, "Is it about Alexa? Your aunt?"
Maria sighed, "Steve, what's wrong with my father?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Steve lied pitifully. He had promised John that he wouldn't tell Maria.
"Why are you trying to lie to me? You're an awful liar." She said, glaring at him.
"Maria_"
"Just tell me."
"Maria, I can't. I promised your father because he isn't ready to tell you and Emily himself." He said, sighing as Maria got up and began to get dressed.
"So that's how it's going to be? You're lying to me, your fiancée, for my father?" She said, nearly on the verge of tears.
Steve sighed as Maria put her tight, black dress on, turning to Steve so he could zip it up. Just as he zipped the dress up, he let it slip.
"Your father is sick."
The woman turned to look at him.
"Sick? What do you mean?"
"John has acute myeloid leukemia. He found out last month. That's why he's distancing himself from you; he wants to make his passing less painful." Steve answered, sighing.
"So you knew for over a month and you neglected to tell me that my father is dying!" She snapped, raising her voice softly.
"Well, when Gamora and Peter were here. They were with me when we found out. And I told him he had a week to tell you or I would. He told me he told you!" He said, unintentionally throwing them under the bus. He remembered that day all too well. Maria was in the hospital after an incident when Gamora's sister came to earth, looking for a necklace that Gamora had given to Maria a few years before when she had gotten on SHIELD's radar. By the time he realized what he said, it was too late for him to take it back, and Maria looked as though she was about to kill someone.
"And you took his word for it?" Of course Steve would, "And Gamora and Peter knew too?"
Steve hesitantly nodded.
"Oh the next time I see them, they're going to get an earful, but I can't believe that you of all people didn't tell me! I expect that from them, or even Natasha and Clint, but you? No matter what he's done to me, he's still my father, Steve!" She yelled, not giving him a chance to respond before she grabbed a pair of her tights and started to leave, but not before stopping at the doorway, "You know, if someone you cared about was sick, I wouldn't keep it a secret from you." She added before finally leaving.
Steve didn't have to be a genius to know who she was talking about. She had subtly mentioned Peggy, maybe without even realizing it.
Maria went up to Jacqueline's floor to let her know what was going on. Even though it concerned her father, she wasn't going to go to him and confront him just yet.
"Well, it certainly wasn't right for him to keep it from you, but you've kept things from him too." She said, giving Maria a knowing look, "You kept Emily a secret from him, the miscarriage, Emily's stillbirth. You're exercise...issues."
"I had reason. Emily has been to hell and back. The stillbirth she had at the beginning of her sophomore year of high school and the short period-of-time she slept around...it was her place to tell. Not mine. And hiding her from him? I wasn't going to let her meet a man that I wasn't sure i'd end up marrying. She gets attached to people too easily." Maria said. It was true in a sense. When Emily met someone for the first time, she would become attached to them. Not in a romantic way, but more of a, 'hey I like you so we're going to be best friends forever' type of way.
Emily had high-functioning autism and Maria had no doubt that it played a roll.
"Besides. When Emily had the stillbirth last September, Steve and I had just started dating. I wasn't going to tell him something so personal so soon. Yes, he eventually found out about the miscarriage just like all of our friends eventually found out about Natasha's miscarriage. He also found out about the exercise problems I had when I was a teenager because Emily opened her big mouth."
"Yes, but_"
"I know it wasn't right to keep those things from him, Jacqueline, but he lied about my dad being sick, which to me, is much worse. How'd you know about those accidents anyway?" Maria asked, putting her hands on her hips.
Jacqueline was about to respond when Alexa came bounding into the room as Maria gave her cousin a look that said, 'we're going to talk about this later.' before she kneeled back to her new daughters height. The little girl was wearing a red dress with a black ribbon around her middle and a red ribbon was braided into her silky black hair.
"Well, don't you look pretty tonight." She said, and Alexa shocked her by signing, 'you too' in sign language.
"I taught her sign language awhile back to help her communicate. Until she starts to talk, anyway. She's a remarkably fast learner." Jacqueline explained as she finished getting ready.
"Well, that will be helpful for when Clint misplaces his hearing aids since he's eighty percent deaf." Maria said, about to tell Alexa that she's being adopted, but figured that Steve would want to be there when Alexa was told.
They went down stairs with the two-year-old, stopping in her tracks when she saw Steve talking to Patty. When the super soldier looked at Maria, he looked increasingly distressed and looked as though he had almost been crying as he looked at her with his bright blue eyes.
This was going to be a long night.
A/N: Let me know what y'all think! Please review :)