Woman Out of Time: A Maria Stark Story

Chapter 8

Because I love you guys, and I'm trying to write something every day, here's an extra update for the week!

"Hey," he said soothingly. "It's me, promise."

Maria studied her presumed-dead friend. "How?"

He chuckled and shifted her in his arms before standing to carry her into the next room.

"It's a long story, Mari. I'll tell you soon but right now, we have to check your heart rate, blood pressure, basically everything." He gently set her down on the lumpy couch in his room.

Maria nodded absently as she noticed two other people trailing behind him.

"Steve," she tugged on his sleeve.

He looked at her and following her gaze saw Sam and Wanda.

"Oh those are friends of mine--"

"Tell me," she interrupted, "something that only Steve would know." Her brown eyes bore into his blue ones.

He nodded and looked away for a moment, thinking. "When you were fifteen, your mom secretly hired me to be your geometry teacher because you failed the first two tests." His eyes met hers again. "We made up an excuse when your dad saw me hanging around. Said you and your mom were giving me dancing lessons so I could take the girl I liked out dancing. Somehow, he believed that lie all semester." He laughed softly, and reached out to brush some hair out of her face.

"That's because," Maria groaned as she pushed herself to lean against the sofa back, "he saw you shuffling around the living room and calling it dancing. He actually felt bad for you--rather rare for him." She smiled weakly at him. "It's really you?" Her voice cracked and a tear traveled down her cheek.

"Yeah, doll." Steve wiped away the tear with his thumb. "It's really me."

She burst in tears and pulled his shirt closer so she could sob into his chest.

Steve quickly reached out and wrapped his arms around so she was leaning against him. His hands rubbed her back gently as he whispered, "You're safe now. Everything will be fine."

Someone cleared their throat and Maria pulled back, patting Steve's wet shirt. "Sorry."

He smoothed her hair away from her face and smiled. "It's fine. You can cry over all my shirts as long as we get to keep you."

"Who's we?"

"Yeah, man. Introduce us to your friend." Sam smirked and motioned between himself and Wanda.

"Be patient," Steve chided. "This is Sam and that's Wanda." He pointed to each of them. "Guys, this is Maria." Steve looked at her quizzically. "Is your last name still Collins?"

"Not exactly." Maria sighed and blew her nose, thanking Wanda with a nod.

"It's Stark." She finally said.

"What?" Steve said.

"As in Tony?" Sam asked at the same time.

Wanda just nodded, almost as if she'd expected it. Sam looked at her and frowned.

"Did you read her mind before the big reveal and neglect to tell us this?" He whined.

"I didn't want to freak her out," Wanda said defensively. "She's been through a lot so I wanted to see what we were dealing with. I certainly wasn't expecting to find out that the woman we rescued is the mother of the man who just had us imprisoned." Her shoulders hunched and she curled in on herself a bit.

"Wait, what did Tony do?" Maria sat up, grabbing Steve's arm for balance.

"He uh, well we got into a big fight. And that resulted in several of us being imprisoned. I broke these guys out." Steve explained awkwardly pointing at Sam and Wanda.