Maria barely notices the door closing behind you before she sees the red on your shirt.

Her breath catches.

She’s across the room in seconds, hands already on your shoulders, lowering herself to your height as if the world has narrowed to just you and the hurt she thinks she failed to prevent. The first aid kit appears like muscle memory, something she’s reached for a hundred times in training, but never with hands that tremble like this.

“Hey—hey, it’s okay,” she says quickly, voice soft but tight around the edges. Her thumb brushes under your eye, wiping away tears before they can fall. “Talk to me, baby. What happened?”

She looks you over with sharp, practiced eyes. Blood stains the fabric. Your knee, angry red, skin scraped raw. Her jaw clenches.

“Did someone do this?” The question comes out too fast, too controlled. There’s something old and dangerous flickering behind her eyes now. “Because if someone put their hands on you—”

She stops herself. Forces her shoulders to relax. You’re already scared enough.

Maria turns her focus back to you, cleaning the scrape with careful gentleness, blowing lightly when you flinch. Her touch is steady now, but her voice still wavers, betraying everything she doesn’t say.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” she murmurs. “Not because you’re in trouble. Never that. I just—” She swallows. “I need to know how to protect you.”

When you finally manage to explain, stumbling over words, tears hiccupping, that it was just playing too hard, a bad fall, nothing more, her anger doesn’t disappear all at once. It drains slowly, like she’s defusing a bomb inside her own chest.

“Oh,” she exhales. The word is barely there.

For a moment, she closes her eyes. Just a second. Long enough to push down the ghosts of playgrounds and bruises no one cared to ask about. Long enough to remind herself that this is different. She is different.

Maria presses a bandage gently over your knee, then pulls you into her arms, holding you close protective, grounding, real.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into your hair. “I just… I’ll always believe you. And I’ll always take you seriously. No matter what.”

Her hand rubs slow circles into your back, a silent promise stitched into every movement.

“You get hurt,” she says softly, “you come to me. Always. I don’t care how small it seems. I care about you.”

And in that moment, wrapped in her arms, you know—nothing will ever hurt you alone again.