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"Peggy?"
"No, Steve. It's Maria."
"Do I know you?"
Maria pressed her mouth together in a grim line and picked up his hand in hers. "You're going to be okay. Try not to move."
"What happened?"
"A building fell on you," Natasha commented from the other side of the small, cramped opening under the fallen building that had crumpled around them in the blast. "You're stuck under the frame. We're here to get you out."
Maria didn't correct her. She didn't say, you were at the epicenter of a blast zone because you lit the fuse before you got out, because you were being a hero, because you never even care if you're going to die even though I care.
"You're going to be okay," she said again.
Steve held her hand and looked up at her with uncertain eyes, no flicker of recognition to calm the hot pounding in her chest. "Peggy?"
"No, Steve. It's Maria."
Natasha shot her a grim look of empathy and kept digging.
"Peggy?"
Maria looked up from his bedside in the hospital. "No," she said softly. "Steve? Do you know where you are?"
He looked around, puzzled frown on his face. His injuries had all been braced and they said he wasn't paralyzed. Everything about him was supposed to heal faster, better than normal, but for some reason, his brain hadn't gotten the memo yet.
"A hospital?" His head fell back. There was sweat on his forehead.
Maria got up and gently wiped it off, then handed him a cup of ice chips.
His hand tightened on her wrist. "What's y—?" He hesitated, brows knit together in confusion. "Who are you? Don't I know you?"
Something tightened firmly into a painful knot in her stomach. She leaned over and kissed his forehead briefly before backing away to the safety of her chair again. "It's Maria."
Maybe he kept calling her Peggy because he remembered something. It was outlandish to hope that, but she hoped it anyway.
"Steve?" Natasha poked her head in the door, red hair swinging forward, a bag of takeout in her hand.
Maria thought groggily that Natasha wasn't exactly what she'd been hoping to wake up to. "He's asleep."
He was still, head laid out on the pillow as if he had nothing to worry him and she had nothing to worry about either.
Her fingers clenched in her lap.
Natasha dumped the bag on top of her hands. "Eat. He'll get better when the brain swelling goes down."
But what if he didn't? Maria didn't voice her worry. She just opened the bag with a sigh and ate.
"Peggy?"
Maria was too worried, too hurt to do more than shake her head. "You're awake." She brushed back his hair from his forehead. The other Avengers had been in and out, but it was Maria who stood watch over him, waiting desperately for him to remember. "You've been sleeping for a while now."
He looked at her for a long time, squinting slightly before he asked for water.
She gave it to him, looked back, waited.
"Peggy?" he asked again.
She managed to take a deep breath before shaking her head. "No, Steve. It's Maria."
"Maria." He settled back comfortably, his hand reaching for hers almost on reflex. "That's nice."
She could hold her breath. She could hope. She had always been more practical than that.
When he woke up next, Natasha gently shook Maria's shoulder to wake her as well.
"Steve?" Natasha leaned forward.
Maria sat up and looked at him studying her with a slightly puzzled frown on his face. He opened his mouth, then shut it, looked at her a little longer, then finally, finally asked, "Maria?"