Fear is all Mazzy Stark can feel as she sprints through the halls of the Shield hovercraft. Every turn she takes, she is terrified that, on the other side, there will be the green monster, and he will tear her to pieces. Could she survive that? Will her skin, bones, and organs all pile themselves back together until she's whole again, or will the green monster be the thing that can kill her?

And where is her dad?!

Mazzy desperately wants to call for him, like a kitten trapped in a room with an angry dog, but she's too afraid of attracting the monster instead, so she just keeps slipping through doorways and crevices, peeking around every corner she passes by. She can hear it. Or maybe him, if Dr. Banner is still in there. She doubts he is, though.

Although Mazzy has only known Bruce for less than 24 hours, she could tell a lot about him. He is quiet, smart, and gentle. The green monster, though, is none of those things. The green monster is loud, rageful, and violent. So Mazzy is sure that Bruce can't be in there. He just can't.

Or maybe she is just too trusting. Loki said not to trust everyone, but everyone includes Loki. So who on Earth is she supposed to trust?

There is no one there to tell her how to act, considering her dad isn't anywhere near her. He is busy trying to save the ship from crashing into land below them. Of course, his heart is racing and his head is foggy worrying about Mazzy, but she has only a slim chance of getting out of this okay if the hovercraft goes down. He doesn't know how it works— how she works. Would whatever serum that is pumping through her veins save her or would it fail?

Not to mention the amount of guilt he'll feel when he finally finds her again after all this. He is sure she is looking for him, and he wants so badly to go pick her up and fly her away from this place. But he can save everyone on that hovercraft if he can fix the engine, and he is sure he can. So Mazzy will just have to be scared for a little bit. Still, he asks Natasha over comms to find her.

Natasha is already tasked with keeping Hulk away from everyone on the ship. But she is Natasha Romanoff. She can do both.

Tucking her lips between her teeth, Mazzy finds herself in a dark room full of all sorts of machines and wires that she doesn't understand. She quickly tiptoes through the room, searching for the exit. She just needs to find someone. It doesn't even have to be her dad. Just someone.

Lucky for her, Natasha is creeping around the exact same room.

Suddenly, Mazzy is grabbed from behind and pulled backward. She lets out a gasp, but before she can scream, a hand covers her mouth, keeping her silent. She is spun around by the shoulders to see Natasha herself, crouching next to her with a finger pressed up against her lips.

Be quiet.

Natasha and Mazzy hide behind large, cylindrical machines, sweat beading down their faces from all the running. They can hear heavy footsteps thudding on the metal floors, and they both know what that is. Mazzy locks eyes with Natasha, adrenaline coursing through their veins. The footsteps are slow. Careful. He is looking for them.

Pulling out her gun, Natasha stands up and signals for Mazzy to follow her. They walk through the room, Mazzy glued to Natasha's side, until a loud roar comes from beside them. Mazzy lets out a scream while Natasha shoots at the pipes, releasing a cloud of air down onto the monster.

"Run," Natasha says quickly, pushing Mazzy ahead of her.

If it weren't for what Hydra had done to the little girl, she'd be way in the dust, but instead, Mazzy is just as fast as Natasha is, even a tad bit faster. Through a glass hall, Mazzy and Natasha sprint as fast as they possibly can. Hulk chases after them, smashing through every single thing in his way and leaving behind a trail of all-out damage. When they get to the end of the hallway, Natasha shoves Mazzy to the right, out of the way, and Hulk throws Natasha across the room, making her smack against the opposite wall.

Hulk steps closer to Natasha. He raises his arm back, ready to hit her so hard she will crumble beneath his strength.

"Stop it!" Mazzy screams, launching a piece of debris right at Hulk's back.

The monster turns around, his head twitching to the side as he spots Mazzy. Frozen in her spot, Mazzy presses her back against the wall behind her. Hulk lets out a roar, and just as he is about to charge at her, Thor crashes through the wall, sending Hulk flying into the next room over.

Mazzy shoots up to her feet, her heart racing. Natasha is lying on the ground, groaning in pain. Mazzy swallows back the lump in her throat and hesitantly starts walking across the room, stopping right in front of Natasha. "Are you okay?" she asks, her voice all high-pitched and trembling.

"Don't you ever do that again," Natasha says sternly as she sits and catches her breath.

"I'm sorry," Mazzy murmurs, rubbing her fist in circles around her heart. She feels like curling up in a ball on the floor and crying right there with Thor and Hulk fighting in the next room over. She wants her dad. "Where's my daddy?" Mazzy asks, anxiously tugging on the end of her shirt and watching the fight through the new hole in the wall.

"He's fixing something. He's okay," Natasha assures her as she brings herself back up to her feet.

"But I need him," Mazzy whines, pressing her teeth against the tip of her thumb.

"It's ok. Just stay with me, okay?" Natasha says. Mazzy doesn't say anything, slightly shaking her head. She wants her dad more than anything, and the noise coming from the room over isn't helping. Her hands are shaky and she feels like crying. "It's okay, Mazzy. Nothing's gonna get to you. Come on." Again, Mazzy shakes her head, her face crumpling. "Come here. You're okay, Mazzy," Natasha says, pulling the girl against her side.

And that is when the ship begins to lean. Mazzy shrieks, squeezing Natasha tighter.

"It's Barton. He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level," Fury says through the comms. "Does anybody copy?" Mazzy can't at all hear what he is saying, but Natasha can.

Natasha reaches up to her ear, pressing down on the piece of technology in her ear. "This is Agent Romanoff. I copy," she responds.

"What?" Mazzy asks, her eyebrows pinching together.

"The fight isn't done," Natasha tells her, standing up off of the ground. "But you can't come with me."

"What?" Mazzy asks for a second time, panic encasing her all over again. She is just gonna leave her there?! She can't do that!

"Don't worry. I'll take you to Maria and Fury," Natasha assures her.

"I don't know who Maria is!"

"You'll love her," Natasha says, dismissing her concerns. She grabs Mazzy's hand and starts pulling her through the hovercraft.

Mazzy could fought back, but she is scared that if she does, Natasha will just leave her alone. Even if she doesn't know who Maria is, being with her is better than being alone. Mazzy is extraordinarily strong for a seven-year-old, of course, but she can't utilize that unless there is someone there, telling her what to do. She needs orders. And by herself, she is just as clueless about what to do in a situation like this as any other little girl.

Above all, Mazzy is just scared. And, from what she can tell, Natasha is, too. She is shaking, ever so slightly. But she keeps going anyway because she is brave. So Mazzy has to be brave, too.

"Ok, look," Natasha says, stopping Mazzy in her tracks. They stand in the hall, Natasha's hands on Mazzy's shoulders to keep her focused. "This is how I get up to Barton, but-"

"Barton?"

"My friend. Loki's controlling him and I need to get him back. But you have to go to Maria. She's just down the hall in the control room. Can I trust you to get to her?" Natasha asks. She has a very serious and stern look on her face, and Mazzy knows to listen.

"Yes," she says, nodding her head.

"Okay. You get to her, and she'll keep you safe until your dad comes to find you. Now go," Natasha says, ushering Mazzy down the hall.

Mazzy starts her trek down the hall in a run, which she stumbles in helplessly due to the current state of the hovercraft, as Natasha makes her way up to where Barton is. She doesn't have to run much further to get to Maria, but it is scary all the same. But Mazzy is brave like Natasha, so she keeps going until she is in the control room with everyone else. When she gets inside, she stops to catch her breath and presses her hands against her eyes to try and calm her nerves.

The entire ship is still leaning on its side and everyone in the control room is panicking. All of the stress around her doesn't make it any easier to calm down. After taking a few deep breaths, Mazzy uncovers her face and goes further into the room, away from the entrance. She can see Nick Fury in the room, but she isn't sure who Maria is just yet.

Nick Fury is in the center of the room, standing in front of a control panel with a rapidly dropping number on the screen. Mazzy walks up behind him, watching the number fall and fall and fall. She knows what that number is. The lower the number on that screen, the closer they all are to dying.

"Are we gonna crash?" Mazzy asks Fury, her eyes wide with worry.

Fury looks at her and slightly narrows his eye. "No," he says firmly, like he really, truly meant it.

"Are you sure?" Mazzy asks. She doesn't feel like he can possibly be sure.

"Yes, I'm sure," Fury insists, turning back to the screen in front of him. "Your dad is fixing it right now."

"How do you know?"

"Because I told him to."

A lightbulb goes off in Mazzy's head and her eyes lit up. "You can talk to him?!" she asks, bouncing on her toes. If Fury can talk to him, that means she can, too, if he would just share. "Can I please, please, please?" Mazzy begs.

"Miss Stark, if I were blind, would I ask you for a kaleidoscope?" Fury asks her.

Mazzy frowns, furrowing her eyebrows. "Can't you put him on speakerphone or something?!"

"This is an earpiece. It doesn't have speakerphone."

"Can I just talk to him? Please, can I? I don't even have to hear him," Mazzy pleads. After a sigh, Fury gives in, handing her the earpiece. She grabs it from him hastily and presses down on the talk button. "Dad, I'm not dead. The Hulk almost got me, but I was too fast! It was really scary, but I'm still scared because we're gonna crash. So you have to fix it faster! Hurry!" she says to him.

Tony wishes so badly that she could hear him, but she can't. So he just does as he is told. He hurries up.

Not ten seconds later, the hovercraft begins to steady itself again and everything starts to calm down. The Hulk is gone and the hovercraft is stable, and Mazzy can finally breathe properly.

But Loki is gone, a life has been lost, and the team is now at their lowest.

✭

Mazzy now sits in her dad's lap, her head resting on his chest. They are around that same glass table as before, but now it is only Steve and Tony. Fury stands in front of them and the woman whom Mazzy has learned is Maria stands in the corner. The air is so tense that Mazzy isn't even sure if she wants to be there, but she is so shaken up that she doesn't want to leave her dad's side ever again. She has made her mistake and she has learned from it.

The Avengers have made their mistake, too. They let petty disagreements with each other tear their attention away from the real problem, which was Loki. They let it distract them so much that Loki was able to kill Agent Coulson.

Although Mazzy didn't know Agent Coulson well at all, it is still weird and sad to think about the fact that he is now dead. She had just seen him a few days ago. And now he is cold and lifeless. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to think about things like dying and killing.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury says. Mazzy can't see what's in his hands and she isn't sure if she even wants to. "I guess he never did get you to sign 'em," Fury says to Steve. He tosses Captain America collectors' cards on the table. They are stained with bright red blood. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor... I got nothing for you."

Dr. Banner went missing after an agent lured him away from the hovercraft on a jet in order to stop him from hurting others. Thor went missing at about the same time Agent Coulson died. It was all Loki's doing, and Mazzy knows it. She wishes she had never spoken to him in the first place. She never should have trusted a single word out of his mouth. He was probably lying about everything he said. Probably.

"I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming."

Tony runs his hand through Mazzy's hair. He feels guilty. Guilty for a thousand things. Guilty for letting this all happen. Guilty for not keeping a better eye on his daughter, allowing her to go and talk to Loki without his knowledge, which Natasha had informed him of earlier today. Guilty for not being with Mazzy when the ship was going down and the Hulk was on the loose. She was scared and he wasn't there for her. He just keeps failing to protect her. He promised himself that he would never allow anything bad to happen to her again after what her mother did. And he just can't keep that promise.

He can't keep that promise and be Iron Man at the same time. But he can't turn back now. How will that look to the public? Iron Man selfishly retiring from saving people. Imagine that in the headlines.

And Fury had promised Tony that Mazzy wouldn't be involved in anything he has to do with Shield. That promise was broken by Tony's own doing. He brought her here. He put her in danger. He is a screw-up and a bad father; he is sure of it.

Part of him wishes that Mazzy would stop clinging to him like he's the Sun in her universe. It makes that guilt swell up around his heart and squeeze so hard it might as well kill him.

"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though, because I was playing something even riskier," Fury explains. He starts to walk around the table while both Steve and Tony avoid any and all eye contact with him. "There was an idea— Stark knows this— called the Avengers Initiative."

The Avengers Initiative. What Tony dismisses as a super-secret boy band. Mazzy thought the idea was cool until she saw it in person.

"The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could."

Tony is already tired of this spiel. He wants to take Mazzy home and serve her up a bowl of way too much ice cream.

"Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea."

Stop it.

"In heroes."

Mazzy jumps when Tony suddenly stands up, picking her up with him. She wraps her arms around his neck, hiding her face in his shoulder as he walks out of the room. She doesn't know which thing he's angry about or who exactly he is angry with, but she hates that he is angry. She thinks that, maybe, he is angry with her for talking to Loki.

She keeps her eyes pressed against his shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't listen," she murmurs quietly.

Maybe if she had just gone straight to Natasha, she wouldn't have been put in danger. That is why he's mad, she thinks. Because she didn't listen and that put her in danger.

"It's not your fault, Maz," Tony responds monotonously. But he still sounds angry.

Mazzy pulls her head up, looking over at his face. He won't meet her eyes. "Yes, it is. I was supposed to go to Natasha like you said, but I didn't."

Tony sighs as they enter a new room. He places Mazzy down on her feet and kneels down in front of her. "You're seven years old, Mazzy. You're gonna make mistakes because that's what kids do. I forget that sometimes and I trust you with too much because I know you're smart, but-"

"You can trust me, Daddy. I swear. It was just one time I didn't listen," Mazzy tries to convince him.

"No, Maz, that's not what I'm saying. I do trust you. But you're a kid and you're not supposed to have to be trusted with all that stuff. Just, listen," Tony stops and sighs, rubbing his eyes. It has been a hard day and he feels like he is just making it worse. "Everything bad that happened to you today? That's my fault. I focus more on my work than I do my own kid." He chuckles to himself humorlessly and shakes his head at himself. "Hell, I'm just the same as my own dad. Probably even worse."

"Don't say that," Mazzy says, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Look, what I'm trying to say here, kid, is that I know I'm bad at this and I'm gonna do better. So, I need you to know that none of what happened today was your fault. Okay?" Tony says, raising his eyebrows at her as he finally meets her eyes.

"Ok," Mazzy murmurs uncomfortably. She isn't sure if she likes her dad being so caring like this. He usually just makes a joke out of everything. This is sort of making her anxious.

"Good," Tony says. He pats her shoulder and stands back up to his normal height. Now that that is out of the way, all he has to worry about is Nick Fury and the Avengers Initiative.

Mazzy, however, has other worrying to do. "Dad?" she says, grabbing his attention once again. He looks down at her, giving a questioning look. "I can trust you, too, right?" she asks.

Now, that is a strange question for her to be asking her own father.

"What? Yeah. Why?" Tony responds, slightly concerned.

"Well, Loki said not to believe everything anyone says," Mazzy tells him, shrugging her shoulders and linking her hands together behind her back to fidget with them.

Damnit.

That wound just never healed, did it? It can scab over and start the healing process as many times as it wants, but there will always be someone or something to pick at it again. And this time that someone is Loki and his awful mindgames.

"And you're gonna trust the space magician over your dear, old dad?" Tony asks light-heartedly. He doesn't have the energy for another emotional, serious conversation. He just wants those ideas out of her head as soon as possible.

Mazzy lets out a small giggle, tugging at her shirt. "No," she says, shaking her head.

"Good. 'Cause that fella is full of what I like to call B.S. Know what that is?"

"Bolonga sandwiches?"

Tony cracks a smile. "Yeah," he says, placing his hand on Mazzy's head and ruffling her hair. "Bologna sandwiches."