A/N: Hiya guys! I know y'all aren't expecting an update from me so soon, but i'm trying to make up for the 3 months I was on hiatus so expect an update at least 3 times this week. WARNING: Mentions of abuse in this chapter. Read with caution. Enjoy!

Maria sat down behind her desk, motioning for Skye to take a seat as she reached into the drawer to her left, pulling out a file, which Skye only knew was the file that Coulson had most likely given to Maria when he had first found out Skye was his daughter, and watched as the agent took a look at it before looking up and folding her hands in front of her.

Skye was the first to break the silence.

"We do need to talk, but can we take a moment to talk about...oh...I don't know...YOU'RE MARRIED TO CAPTAIN FREAKING AMERICA!?" Skye shouted as she sat down, causing for Maria to put her head in her hands as she continued, "When did you get married? How'd he ask you? Where did he ask you? Are you going to have kids? I can't believe I didn't know! I knew you guys had been dating for awhile, but this is huge!"

Maria sighed and shook her head as she looked at Skye, who was right now in a full blown fan-girling moment.

"We got married on January twenty-first, but you should know that. All of you were at the wedding."

"We were? Oh yeah now I remember you looked so pretty! I can't remember a lot of details though, I was kinda..." Skye said, trailing off and gesturing to her head before continuing, "Drunk. But you didn't answer my other questions!"

Maria nodded, "Maybe after we talk i'll answer them if i'm feeling up to it. So, Coulson tells me you were in an abusive relationship with Marco and you believe it to be your fault."

"Because it is. I could have left the relationship at anytime, but I was an idiot and stayed even after he pushed me down the stairs." Skye said, shrugging and refusing to meet Agent Hill's gaze.

Maria sighed, feeling sympathetic for the younger girl.

"Skye, I know how you feel. I know what it's like to be abused and not everyone understands the psychological impact that abuse has on someone, especially a woman."

Skye looked up, finally meeting her gaze, shocked to hear those words come out of the older agents mouth.

"You know what it's like?"

Maria sadly nodded, "Yes, my mother, Mary, died in childbirth and my father, John, had always resented me for it, eventually turning to alcohol. He'd beat me, punch me, drag me by my hair across the floor, kick me. Everything. He was even emotionally abusive; called me fat, ugly, a waste of space on a daily basis, a whore, stupid, dumb ass, cunt, he told me to go kill myself, called me everything in the book. My older brother, Danny, would try to protect me, but dad would turn on him whenever he tried, sometimes, such as when my brother got much older and into his teens, he'd try to physically stop our dad. He had always been more emotionally abusive to my brother, only becoming physical when he defended me. My dad re-married when I was five, Diana, my step-mother, was Emily's mom. She was no better than my dad and was worse, often hitting me over the head with a frying pan and once even broke my jaw, she burned me with the stove, everything." Maria stopped speaking at the moment, sighing before she continued.

"I was in the hospital at least once a month for concussions, broken bones, but the doctors were always so clueless, and so were child services. Danny and I refused to tell them what was going on."

"Why didn't you ever tell them about the abuse?"

Maria sat back in her chair, crossing her arms and sighed, "Scared, afraid that Danny and I would be separated, the fear and anxiety only increased when Emily had been born. My grandmother from my dad's side cut off all contact with dad and tried to get custody of me and Danny, even tried to gain custody of Emily when she was born. Then not even a year later, my mothers side, her mother, tried to get custody of us too, and eventually dad cut off contact with them too. We just recently saw both sides again in December after almost two decades of no contact. Emily had been born when I was ten and we wouldn't let our father and Diana anywhere near her. When I was eight up until I was a teenager, dad and Diana would leave me alone with their friends while they went to bars, got drunk, got high off drugs and_"

Skye cut her off, seeing how uncomfortable the agent was getting just talking about this as she said, "You don't have to tell me all of this, you know."

"I might as well, you're probably going to find out anyway...my dad's friends would sexually abuse me, then after I left for the marines, they...took the abuse one step further with my little sister. For awhile I believed what happened to Emily, who was eight when that happened, was my fault because I wasn't there to protect her. I realized much later that none of what happened was my fault, and my dad went to rehab a week after it happened." She explained, and she didn't even have to say the word, Skye knew what Maria meant by 'one step further'

"Did you ever attempt suicide? Eating disorders?"

"Yes, I attempted a few times. I also believed the abuse and neglect was my fault and even believed that I did, in fact, kill my mother, started to believe everything he told me. I then developed what they call anorexia athletica, or exercise induced anorexia. Which means that I would exercise a lot to take my mind off things, at least five times a day, and as the amount of exercise increased...my appetite decreased until I was eating almost nothing."

Skye looked down at her lap before looking back up, "When did you get help for it? Does Steve know about all of this? What about Fury and my dad?"

"I helped myself, realized I had a problem and it needed to stop, but it wasn't easy. By the time I did get help for it, I was sixteen-years-old, eighty pounds, and less than one percent body fat. Steve knows about it, but I didn't want him to be here...in this room...when I told you. It was hard enough for him to hear it the first time. Well, because of what happened I can't trust anyone a hundred percent ever again, took me awhile to even get up to trusting Steve with any of this information. Director Fury doesn't know about half of it, only that I was abused and how far to an extent it was, he told me it was my own personal life and I didn't have to tell him if I didn't want to. Coulson knows a little bit more as does Natasha and the other Avengers. Last March, a little over a year ago, my father got out of rehab and has been trying to make things right ever since."

Skye gawked at Maria, who definitely does not seem like the forgiving type.

"So you forgave your dad after all he's done? After all he let his friends do to you? You don't hate him for it? What about your step-mother?"

"Diana died of a drug overdose a few weeks before dad went to rehab. He's my father and I still couldn't hate him even if I wanted to. Claimed that it had been the grief of my mothers death and the alcohol that made him say and do what he did, and part of me does believe that...alcohol makes you act differently. My dad would be sober and act like the loving dad he was before my mother died and then i'd get home and he'd be either at work, still drinking, come home and beat me, and then go to a bar and get home and it'd happen all over again. He didn't know what his friends were responsible for until he had gotten out of rehab, they had threatened that they'd do much worse if I told and they even got arrested for sexual abuse, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence. They attacked me last June...tried to anyway, attempted to murder me, but you don't need to know about that right now. I haven't forgiven my dad for everything he's done, but i've forgiven him for some. But I won't be able to trust him completely for awhile, if at all. He watches the children while all of us are at work, which I don't completely trust him about."

"Children?"

"My brother and his wife's son, Ryder, who's a year old, and Starks son, Jason, who's almost a year old, and of course, Lilith. I told each of those children's parents that they were stupid for trusting my dad so soon after he got out of rehab. Although, they made a deal with me that if any of the kids had any signs of abuse and neglect, then they wouldn't let my father anywhere near those kids again."

"What's exactly the point of this story?"

Maria sighed, "The point is, yes, you are going to think the abuse was your fault for many years to come, and people will look down on you for it and blame you, asking questions like, 'why didn't you leave? Why didn't you tell someone?' but they were not there for the abuse, they didn't witness it and they more than likely didn't go through it to such an extent that people like you and I did. Our past doesn't define us; it will only make us stronger as we go along." Maria explained as the door opened and Emily came in.

"Steve took Lili to the break room, just thought you should know." She said, crossing the room and sitting in the chair in the corner of the room where Tony had been sitting moments before as she added, "I think they're playing a game or something."

"Emily, I swear to God if they're playing poker..." Maria said, turning to look at the girl, who laughed at her sister's response.

"Relax, they aren't playing poker! They're playing monopoly or something...now, as for you, you need to go to the infirmary and check those scars out before they get infected. Looks like they're bleeding again, i'm surprised Steve didn't notice them."

"Well, the scars are concealed by her hair." Skye said, nodding to Maria for Emily to brush her sister's dark hair out of her face.

"I'll be fine, Emily. I got checked out on the way back from Romania."

Emily got up and walked up to Maria, bending down so her face was just inches from Maria's, her voice low and her lips inches from her ear.

"Go to the infirmary or I will send Steve after you...or would you rather Fury?"

Maria sighed and looked up, looking at Skye, who looked amused, then to the seventeen-year-old.

"Is that a threat?"

"Not a threat. A promise."

Maria was about to say something else when gunshots rang out from down the hall and Coulson entered, seemingly out of breath.

"Marco's escaped."

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