Mazzy Stark can't really describe how she felt watching her father in his Iron Man suit as he flew up higher and higher into the sky with a missile in his grasp. Heading straight through a wormhole, not to mention. All Mazzy could do was scream and cry while the police officer behind her held her back from being able to run back into the wreckage and reach someone who had an earpiece. She wanted to scream into one of those earpieces for her dad to stop.

No other time in Mazzy's life did she feel as scared as she did when her dad flew through that wormhole. Or, at least, not that she can remember.

The silence of those few seconds as the wormhole began to squeeze itself back shut with Tony on the other side was deafening. Mazzy tried to scream, but her throat closed up and she could hardly even breathe.

Was her dad dead? Was he lost in space, never to be seen again? Was she an orphan? She couldn't even remember further than a year or two ago; would she even be able to remember him at all, or would he just be an unfamiliar little echo in the back of her mind?

Nope. He was perfectly fine and craving shwarma.

All that panic and fear was for absolutely nothing. Great. Fantastic. Mazzy wanted more than anything to be furious with him and hate his guts for nearly orphaning her, but she was too relieved that he was alive to do anything other than cling to him like a leech. Tony didn't mind, though. He was just as afraid as she was, flying up into that wormhole. And he was also terrified when he saw her standing there in the middle of the fight, no matter how calm he pretended he was.

So, when he found Mazzy with the police and she came barrelling towards him, he caught her gratefully, holding her so tightly that she felt like her bones would break. He kept assuring her that she was fine, and he was fine, and Nat was fine, and Banner was fine, and everyone else was just fine, but she kept on crying, sputtering out words that Tony couldn't understand.

The only sentence he could actually understand out of Mazzy was, "Avengers is a dumb idea!"

He agreed with her and continued on reassuring her that everything was okay. But how could everything be okay when there was a portal in the sky of New York and everything was destroyed?!

In the end, everything did turn out to be okay. All of the wreckage in New York is beginning to be rebuilt, and Tony and Pepper just started working on a new design for Stark Tower. It is unfortunate that, as soon as they got the thing finished, it had to be destroyed, but maybe it's for the better because the new idea is much more useful.

The new design for the tower includes open rooms for any of the Avengers to stay in if they want to. And, per Mazzy's request, includes a bunkbed in her room, despite the fact that she has no one to share the bunkbed with. She just really wants it, apparently, because it is all she asked for when Tony wanted to know how she wants her room to be. Well, she also asked for her very own ice cream freezer, but Tony said no to that.

Time is flying by and now Mazzy is nine, nearly ten. She doesn't feel much older. She is definitely a lot smarter than she used to be, but now she has even more questions. She feels stupid when she can't remember things. She knows, now, that Tony, Pepper, and who knows how many more people, are all hiding something from her. But she can't figure out what. She has plans of doing some more snooping around whenever she gets the chance, but she isn't usually left alone.

If Tony and the other Avengers leave to go take down another Hydra base, bringing themselves one step closer to retrieving the scepter they've been after all this time, Mazzy is always at least left under the supervision of Jarvis.

But there are ways for Mazzy to figure things out even without sneaking around and looking through things she isn't supposed to be looking through.

There are people living in Avengers Tower who aren't so good at keeping secrets. And ever since last summer, Steve Rogers has been keeping a secret. Mazzy can just tell. He and Natasha know something that she doesn't. They sometimes exchange meaningful glances when Mazzy enters a room, and they talk about her when she isn't there.

Mazzy heard them once, last summer when she was pretty sure that Steve started keeping the secret. They were in the kitchen, rough and beat up from the mission they'd just returned from, drinking what Mazzy was pretty sure was whiskey. Or maybe it was wine. She couldn't be sure. Either way, whatever they were drinking had Natasha letting her guard down.

With intentions of popping a bag of microwave popcorn, Mazzy left the movie theatre room she was in with Tony and Pepper that night, and headed toward the kitchen. She stopped around the corner, though, when she heard Steve say her name.

Honestly, Mazzy couldn't think of a single reason why Steve would be saying her name in any given scenario unless she was there talking to him. Or, perhaps, if Tony or Pepper had brought her up for some reason. But Tony and Pepper were waiting for her back in the other room to start the movie, so they obviously hadn't brought her up.

So, who was Steve talking to and why was he bringing Mazzy up?

Breathing as quietly as she possibly could, Mazzy eavesdropped on whoever was in the kitchen. She could hear Steve, along with Natasha's voice. Maybe Nat brought her up. But why to Steve?

"He remembered you. He saved you, getting you out of the water," Mazzy could hear Natasha say. Then, a short, audible sigh. "He could remember her."

"And what if he does? You said they were placed together. Do you really think he would hurt her? Wouldn't it be his instinct to do the opposite of that?" Steve replied.

He. That was something Mazzy had noted for herself. Somehow, whatever secret is being kept from her is connected to this He. The He is important and she is determined to find out who it is.

"Well, he'll do anything they tell him to when he's under their control," Natasha said. Mazzy could hear her place her glass back on the table with a quiet dink sort of sound.

"He didn't kill me. I would have let him, but he didn't."

The He must have been whoever Natasha and Steve were up against for the past few days. Mazzy wasn't sure who they were fighting, but she figured that if she asked then, they would know that she was listening in. So she stayed quiet, keeping herself hidden around the corner.

"Because you broke him."

"That doesn't mean he's completely free," Steve had said with a defeated sigh.

"We'll figure this out, Cap. She's safe here, for now. And if something else comes up, we'll deal with it. Stark's got this under control," Natasha replied.

Stark didn't have it under control, though. He doesn't. He thinks he does, and everyone else who knows thinks he does, but he doesn't. Because as she has grown older, Mazzy has learned one thing that rises above all the others in importance. And that thing is that the more she asks questions, the more everyone lies to her. She has learned that it is better to watch and to listen, and to figure things out without the help of anyone else because there is no one who will tell her the truth.

It's like another subject in school, only this one doesn't have a course to follow. It isn't like she can read the textbook of her own life and memorize the formulas needed to solve each and every problem. In this situation, she is more like all the scientists and researchers who discovered the things that are now kept in textbooks for the first time. The ones without guidance. The ones who were driven by nothing more than their own curiosity.

Old scientists, before anyone believed in or knew of evolution, were thought to be crazy by the common people. How could anyone not believe that God put everyone there on that Earth? How could humans have changed from primates to people? It was nonsense to them. So the old scientists did their work in secret until they had viable evidence of their ideas to prove that they weren't crazy.

So Mazzy Stark will do her work in secret. And, when she knows the answers and has the evidence to prove them, she will go to her dad and she will confront him about it.

She can't do that now, though, because all she'd get are lies. She has to be patient and precise.

In order to keep her evidence as precise as she needs, Mazzy begins recording all of the things she has figured out in the back of her calculus notebook. When she has enough evidence, she'll show that notebook to her dad.

In it, she lists all of the things she has ever heard or read about herself and what those things tell her.

I'm not normal. Something was put in me that made me different. I'm not supposed to be like this.

I wasn't seen in public for almost three years. The same years that I can't remember. Dad says I was sick. I don't believe him.

There are no hearing aids on me in pictures until after I'm "sick".

Loki said I've hurt people.

Natasha knows. Steve knows. Pepper knows. Dad knows. Happy knows. Nick Fury knows. Dr. Banner knows. Thor knows, I think. Clint knows. Maria knows. Agent Coulson probably knew.

There's a He. There's a man who knows me, but I don't know him. We're connected, somehow. Natasha and Steve fought him. I don't know who yet. Hydra controls him.

Hydra, Mazzy has learned, is Sheild's enemy, but Sheild is also somehow Hydra at the same time. Or was, maybe. Everything is messed up and it is making it ten times harder for Mazzy to figure out what she has to do with a man who worked for Hydra.

So far, all she has about Hydra is:

Hydra is bad.

That is it.

That night, in the kitchen, Mazzy greeted Natasha and Steve normally, like she hadn't heard a single thing they were saying. She put on her fake smile and cheerful demeanor, and they didn't know a thing. If everyone was going to lie to her, she was going to lie to them right back.

The most frustrating thing for Mazzy is that she is almost ten, and she still feels like she has no idea who she is. She knows she is smart, like her dad. She knows she is strong. She knows she is brave. But she doesn't know if she has those qualities because it is really who she is, or if it's because those qualities were put in her with whatever medicine or serum was injected into her.

She is determined, though, to figure it out. So she will. Soon. Tony can't hide it forever.

In very early 2015, Mazzy is nine years old, only a month away from being ten. And she is left alone at Avengers Tower. Well, of course, there are always tons of other people in the tower, like scientists, detectives, agents, as well as who knows how many government officials. But that is all going on below her. Where Mazzy is, is away from all of them. She is on the floor that she calls home, which just so happens to be the same floor Tony calls home, considering he is her father and all.

It is just Mazzy and Jarvis left on that floor, and Jarvis is just a voice. Well, he is more than a voice, obviously, but he isn't a physical being, which means that he can't pick Mazzy up and throw her over his shoulder when she tries looking through all of the data stored in her Dad's computers.

After looking through each room to make sure that she is truly alone, Mazzy starts on her mission. Her mission is to look through files and find out who Steve and Natasha were fighting last summer, and maybe, if it's possible, find some sort of file or piece of evidence that will tell Mazzy where she was and what she was doing before the age of six.

This isn't an impulsive sort of plan, either. It is a real, proper plan. Mazzy has just been waiting for a day when every single Avenger is out on a mission at the same time as Pepper is working.

Today is the day.

Usually, Mazzy would pitch a fit over the Avengers leaving her behind. But this time she's grateful for it.

With her calculus notebook in hand, Mazzy makes her way to the lab. The lab is where Bruce and Tony will often do experiments and research on whatever they so please. Lately, they have been working on inventing other kinds of advanced artificial intelligence, similar to Jarvis. Mazzy usually watches, and sometimes even helps, as they run their tests and try different things, but so far, they have been drawing a blank.

The reason Mazzy has been so interested in helping them with their AI research unfortunately isn't because she is sincerely very interested in the subject, but because she needs to memorize all of the passwords and verifications she'd need to get through in order to reach the information she needs.

So, when she gets to the lab, Mazzy climbs up onto one of the desk chairs and takes a deep breath. Her heart is pumping hard in her chest. The stakes feel much higher than they should. If she gets caught, her dad will know that she is still trying to find answers, and he'll get all strict and fill her head with more lies. She doesn't need that. She needs the truth.

"Miss Stark, do you need assistance with your work?"

Mazzy nearly jumps right out of her skin when Jarvis speaks, illuminating all of the computers and lights around her. She already knew he would be there, but it is still scary to hear anyone speak unprompted when so much adrenaline is pumping through her veins.

"No," Mazzy grumbles, keeping her eyes on the computer.

She loves Jarvis, but sometimes, she wishes he would just go away.

"Are you sure? I can always assist you," Jarvis replied, unphased by her hostile tone.

"Yes, I'm sure. It's not homework. It's just... for fun," Mazzy lies easily. Lie and be lied to.

"What are you up to, Miss Stark?" Jarvis asks. Gosh, Mazzy wishes he would just stop asking questions. What she doesn't know, though, is that Jarvis knows exactly what Tony doesn't want her to, and he isn't supposed to let her figure it out.

"None of your beeswax, Jarvis," Mazzy replies, typing away. She already knew the password to get into the computer before she even had this plan hashed out, so that isn't the problem. The problem is going to be getting to the files that are, for some reason, very locked away.

Most Avengers missions aren't very secretive. Mazzy is sure that the files about whatever mission they're on in Sokovia at that moment will be easy to access, but the files about Steve and Natasha's mission are locked up times a thousand. From that, it is obvious to Mazzy that there must be some sort of answer in there.

"Are you snooping, Miss Stark?" Jarvis asks. Mazzy huffs. "There is a strict no-snooping policy in this laboratory."

"I'm not snooping. I live here," Mazzy argues.

There is a file on the computer titled TWS: Mission Report. That is one of the files that is very protected, and the date on it seems to be what Mazzy can remember being a few days after Natasha and Steve had returned.

After a deep breath, Mazzy clicks on it.

It doesn't open.

Another password prompt pops up on the screen. This is what Mazzy knew she would have trouble with. She hasn't ever seen anyone open this particular file just yet, so she doesn't know what the password for it might be. She does, however, have a list of all the passwords she has ever watched her dad type in.

Flipping open her notebook to the list, Mazzy begins typing away. After each time pressing the enter button, she is met with bold, red words.

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

"Oh, phooey," Mazzy mutters. She is about halfway through her list now, and none of the passwords have worked.

"I don't believe you're authorized to open that file," Jarvis speaks firmly.

"I'm not opening any files," Mazzy tells him, even though she knows very well that Jarvis can see what she is doing.

"Shall I call Mr. Stark?" Jarvis asks.

"What? No, you shall not," Mazzy spits in response.

Faster and faster, Mazzy types away. Every password is wrong.

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

"Calling Mr. Stark now," Jarvis announces.

"No. Don't do that!" Mazzy shouts. She begins to panic, ditching her list and going rogue.

Quickly and recklessly, Mazzy starts typing out random guesses for what the password could be. She uses Natasha's name, Steve's name, their superhero names, and their favorite colors. She tries her dad's name, and she tries his birthday. But no. She even tries her own name and birthday, but that doesn't work either.

She can hear the ringing noise that comes from Jarvis calling Tony, and it sounds like a ticking time bomb, just getting closer and closer to everything being ruined.

NatashaMazzy123

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

SteveNat345

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

MazzyPurple214

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

TWSfile11111

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

TNatWSteveSMazzy

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

Secret

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

StupidpasswordIhateyou

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

NatSteveTWS

INCORRECT PASSWORD.

NatSteveTWS565

A small circle appears on the screen, spinning in a circle. Mazzy's breath hitches in her throat. The line continues to ring.

The file opens.

In big, bold letters at the top of the page are the words: THE WINTER SOLDIER.

The ringing stops.

"Hello?" Tony's voice says. Mazzy quickly exits out of the file as her father's face appears in the corner of her screen. "I've kinda got a lot going on right now," he pauses for a moment and Mazzy hears a shout of pain from someone else, "so, how 'bout we make this quick? What's going on?"

"Cookie clicker won't work," Mazzy says, wringing her hands together anxiously beneath the desk.

"That is not an emergency," Tony huffs.

"I didn't call you. Jarvis did. Without asking," Mazzy tells him, narrowing her eyes at the air around her. She can't exactly glare at Jarvis, considering he is a non-physical being.

"Sir, Mazzy has been attempting to-"

"To play Cookie Clicker. Yeah, I already told him that," Mazzy interrupts quickly. She pretends to type something into the computer, then put on a smile. "Oh, it's working now. Thanks, Dad. See you later, alligator! Love you! Bye!" she ways before spamming the button to hang up.

When the call ends, Mazzy lets out an extremely relieved breath. She picks up her pen, flipping to the very last page of her notebook.

The Winter Soldier.

File password: NatSteveTWS565

"Miss Stark, you know you're not supposed to be looking through these files," Jarvis says, his voice both sad and sympathetic.

It takes Mazzy a moment to come up with a lie that she is confident will work on artificial intelligence. "I'm just doing research for a project, Jarvis. It's for history. And it's about my dad, so it's a surprise. I was just making sure he wasn't on that mission, so I wouldn't leave it out if he was."

For a moment, Jarvis is quiet. Then, "Very well, Miss Stark."

"Yeah. Very well," Mazzy murmurs with a new question on her mind.

Who is the Winter Soldier?