fix you

chapter fourteen

"Will you tell me what happened?"

Maria looked up from the report she was writing. Steve stared steadily at her from his hospital bed, his face lined with concern. Since Simmons administered his second dose of medicine, he had been able to leave the hospital bed a few times and taken a few tentative steps on his own.

She'd been secretly thrilled that his first steps had been towards her. But not much later that concern had settled into his features, and she'd become incredibly interested in her transcripts.

Wilson had arrived, full of news that the Hydra base was clean and Maximoff still hunted Sin. Steve had been able to sit up and play cards with him for hours, even making it to the couch at one point.

Maria stayed at the table in the corner, focused on her reports. Even after Sam left and Steve slowly sank back into bed she stayed buried in them, trying to get Coulson all the information he needed. She couldn't join him on the bed. Now that she was no longer terrifyingly worried about Steve dying, the truth had risen up to smack her in he face, and she couldn't do a thing to make it go away.

She'd put him there. All of this, every horrible thing that had happened to him, was her fault.

So like the coward she was, she stayed away. She couldn't bring herself to leave the room, the memory of Steve pale and needing a ventilator too fresh.

But she couldn't get too close.

"You know what happened, Steve." Her eyes flitted back down to her writing. It needed to be foolproof, she wouldn't let Coulson take it until it was.

"I don't know what happened to you, Maria."

That was because she didn't want to talk about it. And she'd been distracted by the whole him-nearly-dying thing. Pressing her lips together in a thin line, Maria fought back the nausea swirling in her stomach and answered. "Hydra thought they could recruit me. They were wrong."

Why was there pity in his eyes? He'd been through worse than she had. And yet those fierce blue eyes seemed strained as he said, "I know you were there the whole time. I could hear...I could hear you..." his voice hitched, and he squeezed his eyes closed.

Her hand was twitching, not trembling. She smacked the pen she held down, fought to control her heartbeat. "I could hear you too," she said quietly. "It wasn't...I couldn't--"

Blackness curled in at the edges of her eyes. Pushing it back, she tried to keep the dizziness away, but she could hear the echo of Steve's screams resounding in her ears. And then suddenly, the room switched, and she was back there. Back in that damn chair, with the words "Hail Hydra" being chanted over and over and over. Steve's screams pierced through them, and she was begging somebody, anybody, please help them, please get that awful fucking tape off her eyes...

"Maria!" Steve's voice snapped her back. He kicked at the covers, scrambling to get out of the bed. She rose on shaky legs and went to him, pushing him back down.

"I'm fine," she stated, pressing him into his pillows. "Just a bad memory, I'm--"

The bile rose up before she could control it. Paling, Maria rushed to the waste basket and dropped to her knees.

Nothing came up, which was a small mercy. But when was the last time she'd eaten? Surely she'd had something that day. But nothing came to mind, and well. That was probably a large part of the problem. She should probably correct that.