Turns out, running towards the Quinjet is a lot easier than Mazzy had expected it would be. Especially because all the people on her dad's side— all the people who are trying to get her— are pretty preoccupied fighting with all the people on her side, helping her out.

It's really scary, though, not knowing what's going on. She can't know for sure if anyone or everyone is alright. She can't know anything because she can't have comms, which really, totally sucks. The only things she can hear are the faint sounds of yelling and some loud crashes.

That is, until she hears incredibly loud cracking. Gasping, Mazzy looks up as she runs. What she sees is not good.

Right above her intended path, a tall tower piece of the building is slowly tipping down, creaking and crackling along the way. Letting out a loud shriek, Mazzy skids to a stop, her eyes darting around in search of something that could possibly help her. She can see the Quinjet from here. All she has to do is get to it. But the falling tower is quite the deterrent.

Then, she hears a voice. It's faint and extremely hard to hear over all the other noise, but Mazzy is able to make out the words, "Star! Hey! Keep running!"

Mazzy's head whips around in search of the man who the voice belongs to; Bucky. She spots him right at Steve's side, and the two of them are running towards the Quinjet, too. Behind them, she can see all the others, some fighting and some chasing after Steve and Bucky.

Who her eyes latch onto, though, is her dad. He's in his suit, in the air, and despite his face being covered, Mazzy can tell he's angry. She's angry, too, but she can't be sure that her glare is translating from her brain to her face, or if she just looks sad and afraid.

"Mazzy! Go!" It's Steve's voice shouting this time and it snaps Mazzy back into reality.

Looking up again, Mazzy can see glowy-red stuff surrounding the falling tower, keeping it from hitting the ground. Wanda. With all the energy she has left, Mazzy runs like hell toward the Quinjet. She can see it. It's so close and all she has to do is get to it. Only, maybe, twenty steps away and she's there.

But before Mazzy can make it, she's suddenly grabbed from behind.

"No!" Mazzy wails defeatedly as two arms wrap around her body. "Let me go!"

"You need to go back to your dad, Mazzy." God, it's Natasha. Her voice is silky smooth like always, but it's stern and serious, too, and it makes Mazzy wish she could melt into oblivion so all of this could be over.

Mazzy lets out a deep, deep sigh, a lump forming in her throat. "Please, please, please," she begs.

And then there's a scream, and all the red around the falling tower suddenly disappears. The building continues to fall, raining dust and rubble down on Bucky and Steve and they continue to run. Helpless, Mazzy can only watch and hope that they make it through. Or else it's all over.

"Please, please, please!" she shouts over the noise.

Just as she thinks that Steve and Bucky have been crushed by the rubble, they come running through the dust, slowing to a wide-eyed stop when they see Natasha with a disgruntled Mazzy by her side. Mazzy tears herself away from Natasha and steps across to where Steve and Bucky are standing, hiding herself slightly behind Bucky.

"Nat, please. You don't understand!" Mazzy says as Nat raises her weapon, pointing it at Steve. "I can't go back home. Not until I'm fixed! You don't understand. Bucky understands!"

Natasha sighs, completely and entirely conflicted about what the hell to do. She looks between Mazzy's desperate face and Steve's determined one. "You're not gonna stop," she says, sort of like a question.

"You know I can't," Steve answers.

For a moment, Natasha doesn't say anything, staring into nothingness, deep in thought. Then, she takes a deep breath and shifts her aim from Steve to the space between him and Bucky. "I'm gonna regret this," she mutters. Mazzy jumps when a device full of electricity is shot past her, and she spins around to see it land on T'Challa, making him crumble to the ground. "Go," Natasha says. She looks at Steve very sternly. "If anything happens to her when she's with you, Stark'll kill you. And if he doesn't, I will."

"I know. She'll be safe with us," Steve promises.

And the truth is, she's safer with them than she would be if she went home. Because, for all they know, any of the people at home could be the same as the psychologist. They could be corrupt. Spies. Untrustworthy. With just ten words, anyone could force Mazzy to do anything. Steve can't let that happen to her. Not after seeing all of the things his own best friend has done under other people's control.

Together, Mazzy Steve, and Bucky run toward the Quinjet while Natasha keeps T'Challa back.

Mazzy isn't sure if she's ever felt this much relief in her life.

✮

The Quinjet is quiet and the air inside feels heavy, which is weird because the higher you get in the sky, the air is supposed to get thinner. Not this air, though. This air is poisoned by the guilt, the sadness, and the conflicted feelings of all three of the people breathing it in.

Steve's heart is swollen and each beat feels like a punch to the chest. He's happy that Bucky is with him, safe and free from the hands of Hydra, and he's happy that Mazzy is with him, too. But that happiness is hard to hold onto when he remembers that this is only temporary. Steve can't be sure that after this job is done, he can keep Bucky out of some sort of prison or mental institution. He can't be sure that Hydra won't get to him again. He can't be sure that Bucky will be okay at all.

And he knows that Mazzy will have to go home. For now, Steve can keep her with him and Bucky, helping her come to terms with what she's learned and hopefully find a way to make her feel safer within the confines of her own body and mind. But he can only do that for so long. She has to go home.

Tony has been somewhat understanding, very aware of how devastated and horrified his daughter must feel. He knows she's probably scared of going home not only because of Shield, the government, and what they might do to her, but also because of him. He's sure that Mazzy has got to be furious with him for keeping this secret for as long as he was able to. He knows that she's probably scared he won't understand— which is true; Tony will never be able to fully understand just how Mazzy feels. And above all that, he knows just from the look on Mazzy's face every time he caught a glimpse of her at the airport that she is afraid of herself.

The further away from all people Mazzy can get herself, the safer all those people will be. That's how she sees it.

But it isn't true. Tony wants to help her more than anything. He always has. He doesn't think she's the monster that she now believes she is. He just wants to hold his daughter, to tell her that he still loves and always will love her.

Tony has been patient.

That won't last forever.

Steve is well aware that Tony will have Mazzy back home most likely within the next 10 hours. He won't let this go on for much longer.

And when Tony gets Mazzy back, what will he do with Bucky?

What will the government do? Will they punish Bucky? Will they punish Mazzy? For the crimes they didn't truly commit?

These worries not only fill Steve's head, but they fill his heart. He glances over at Bucky— his sad, blue eyes and small frown— and he thinks of Bucky's hand on his shoulder. Bucky's perfect smile. Just the thought of all of that, all of Bucky's essence, fills Steve's heart even more with that bittersweet feeling. Pain for the empty shell that Bucky is now, but overwhelming love for the man he was before. He has to be hidden in there still, doesn't he? Somewhere in those sad, blue eyes? Somewhere in that small frown? With these questions echoing in his brain, Steve doesn't realize how long he's been "just glancing" at Bucky.

"So, this thing has autopilot, right? Or else who's driving it? 'Cause you're not looking out the windshield very much, Steve," Mazzy says, her voice slicing through the weighted silence like a knife.

Steve's eyes dart away from Bucky and move first to look out the window, and then to look back at Mazzy, who is sat behind the older two. "Your dad designed it. Of course it has autopilot," Steve tells her.

Mazzy huffs, crosses her arms, and slouches deep into her seat. "Can we ban the words 'your dad' until further notice, please? If you must refer to him, you can call him Darth Sidious or Lord Voldemort, or something like that. Y'know, like ugly, evil, deranged people?"

Bucky lets out a quiet laugh and Steve catches a glimpse of his best friend from 1945. Steve laughs, too, his heart feeling a little more full of the good stuff than the bad stuff for a few moments.

The moment doesn't last, though. It can't.

"You know, you're gonna have to go home eventually, Mazzy," Steve reminds the girl. He has this sympathetic, but also serious look on his face, and it makes Mazzy kind of want to punch him. Just a little bit.

"That's not true. I could get facial surgery and change my name, and then I'll be a whole new person and I'll never have to go home," she says in a pretty lighthearted voice, which insinuates that she's joking around. Which is good because out of all the people who might say that and be serious about it, Mazzy would be Steve's top guess.

It's hard though, because while Mazzy's joking, Steve is not. "I'm serious, Mazzy. I'm happy to have you around for as long as I can, but we can't hide from your dad-"

"Darth Sidious."

"-forever. You have to go home. As soon as we get this figured out— as soon as it's safe— I'll have to let you go home," Steve explains, ignoring Mazzy's little interruption.

"It'll never be safe, Steve. Not unless I'm either dead or, like, lobotomized or something," Mazzy says with a scoff. She's trying hard not to be angry, because being angry right now is not the most productive thing, but it's really, really hard not to be angry. If she could just reach inside and rip all of the badness out, maybe everything would be okay, but she can't do that. "We deal with the psychologist and, sure, he's not a threat anymore. But how do we know that there aren't a hundred more people out there just like him? Other people who know how to do what he did?"

For a moment, no one says anything. But then Steve, with no other idea of what to say or do, gestures to himself and Bucky before saying, "We're dealing with the psychologist. You're not part of that. You're done fighting."

Mazzy scoffs, her eyebrows furrowing in frustration. "That's stupid, first of all, and second of all, I'm not stupid. I know what deflecting is and you're doing it."

Steve sighs defeatedly. "I don't know what you want me to say, sweetheart. We're doing all we can do at the moment."

"What you can do at the moment is let me stay with you so I don't have to go home," Mazzy says in a voice more whiny than she had intended.

Before Steve can reply with some other desperate attempt to figure this out and ease Mazzy's worries, Bucky finally decides to speak up. He straightens a bit before turning slightly in order to look at Mazzy, who is borderline pouting in the backseat.

"I know you're scared, Mazzy. I am, too. We have to be. It keeps us careful," he starts off by saying. Mazzy's pout is now hidden by her knees, which she has pulled up to her chest. Only her eyes show now and they look frighteningly hopeless. Bucky takes a breath and continues. "There are always gonna be threats out there. We can't ever be sure if we're safe— if the people around us are safe— but you can't keep running away from everyone because of it. Trust me. They're gonna catch up to you, eventually, and it's better not to be alone when that happens."

Mazzy isn't sure what to say to that. She runs her lips over her teeth, trying not to let the lump in her throat dissolve into tears. "No one'll understand. They'll think it was really me," she says so quietly that Steve and Bucky have to strain their ears to hear it.

And that strikes a hole through Bucky's chest, knocking the wind straight out of him. Because she's right. No one will understand that it wasn't really her or that it wasn't really Bucky who did all of those evil things. They won't get it because they didn't live it. And there's nothing Bucky or Steve can do to change that.

For a second, Bucky's scared that neither he nor Steve will be able to come up with a response to ease the girl's thoughts, but Steve comes to the rescue.

"Maybe the public won't, but the people who love you will," Steve says. After a few seconds of silence, Mazzy nods in understanding. "You've got a lot of people who care about you, kid, and we all know you well enough to understand that you never would have done those things if you had any choice in it."

Mazzy chooses to believe him. She chooses to believe that the people who love her— her dad, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, and everyone else— will love her just the same as they always have. But nothing can change the fact that every time she thinks about them, she can't stop wondering what they think about her. Pity? Fear? Maybe even a little bit of resentment? Mazzy can't know for sure, but she knows that there is a parasite in her stomach that gnaws away at her insides every time she thinks about these things.

✮

Bucky and Steve sit quietly in each other's presence, sharing the occasional short conversations and comments, but careful not to be too loud. Mazzy is asleep in the backseat, after all, and the kid really needs the sleep.

The silence, though, leaves Bucky deep in his thoughts. And his thoughts aren't always the safest place.

It's hard because his thoughts are often full of self-deprecating, self-loathing, and self-hatred. Or, rather, the hatred of the Winter Soldier. He hates himself for the things he did, even if it wasn't really he who did them. At the same time, though, the logic is inconsistent.

He doesn't hate Mazzy for the things she did. Hell, he gave her a whole pep talk about the whole thing just a little bit ago. He can tell her that he doesn't blame her and no one else should either as many times as he likes, and he can truly mean it every time, but somehow, that way of thinking doesn't translate over to himself.

Somehow, it's different with his own mind and his own actions. It feels different, at least. Like somehow, just because it's him, it's his fault. But it's not Mazzy's fault because she's Mazzy. It just doesn't make sense. Bucky knows this, but he can't stop those self-loathing thoughts from seeping through the good ones and screaming until they get his attention.

Bucky stares blankly into his lap, trying and failing to work out how he feels. He sighs, looking at Steve out of the corner of his eye. "What's gonna happen to your friends?" he asks quietly.

Steve's expression hardens, and it takes him so long to answer that for a moment, Bucky thinks he isn't going to. But then he sighs and shakes his head. "Whatever it is... I'll deal with it," he says.

That's not an answer, though. All it tells Bucky is that there will be repercussions and it's his fault, but Steve won't blame him for it. Why won't he just blame him for something at least? This is his mess, and Mazzy's been dragged into all of it, now, too, and Steve won't blame him.

"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

The words hit Steve like a truck. Because, God, Bucky is worth all this and more.

"What you did all those years..." Steve looks over at Bucky, his eyes glassy and disconsolate. "It wasn't you. You didn't have a choice," he reminds Bucky. His voice is soft and gentle in an attempt not to wake Mazzy, but his words are firm and stern. Like what he says is the truth, no matter what.

"I know," Bucky says. His despondent stare into nothingness breaks to make eye contact with Steve. "But I did it."

Steve glances back at Mazzy just to make sure she's still sleeping, and she is, so he turns back to Bucky. "Is that what you think about when you look at her?" he asks.

And the answer is, "No," obviously and undeniably. Bucky even scoffs a little as he says it, shaking his head. "She was a baby. It's different."

"It's not different," Steve counters. Mazzy's age didn't change the fact that she had no control, and Bucky's didn't either. They were only puppets. The control belonged to the sick people pulling the strings. "You're grasping at straws, trying to come up with a reason to hate yourself, Buck."

"How can I not?" Bucky asks. His frozen demeanor breaks just for a moment, like a twitch, and Steve catches his frown. It makes his stomach churn. "I killed people. I walked alongside Mazzy, when she was only— what— five years old? Watching her, letting her kill people, too."

"You didn't make that decision, Bucky. Someone else made it for you," Steve insists, his eyebrows furrowed and his voice tense. He wishes he could drill the words into Bucky's brain.

It's not your fault.

You are not to blame.

"She used to cry the whole time."

"That wasn't your fault. You did all you could do," Steve tells him.

And it's true. Bucky really did do everything in his power to help Mazzy. The problem was that his power was minuscule, if he even had any at all. He would have saved her if he could, even if it would have killed him. He wouldn't have done any of the things he was made to do. Not in a million years. He knows that. But that self-inflicted blame can't be washed out.

"It's not your fault, Bucky. It's not hers or yours, and it never will be."

💫⭐️💫⭐️

This chapter is a bit boring and I don't like it very much, but I had to push through it or else we would never be able to get to next chapter, which is going to be incredibly eventful. We're almost done with Captain America: Civil War!!!

I might include a few Homecoming chapters, just to kind of establish Peter and Mazzy's relationship a little bit more, but other than that, we're onto Infinity War next, which is bonkers insane!!!!!! Mazzy is getting old