"You want one?" Tony asks Mazzy, holding a donut out to his daughter.

Mazzy, however, is too frozen solid with fear to even give him an answer. From what she can remember, she has never been this high up in the air before unless she was in a plane, not in a giant donut on the roof of a donut shop.

"No?" Tony asks, raising his eyebrows. Still, Mazzy remains silent. Tony shrugs his shoulders, popping the last piece of a donut into his mouth. "More for me, then," he murmurs, his mouth full.

Still, Mazzy stares down at the world below them with wide, terrified eyes. The short flight up into the donut is terrifying in itself, but sitting up there for a long period of time is even more scary. Tony insisted on it, though, because he said he was sure it'd be a fun and exciting time. Really, though, he is just trying to make up for the fact that he scared Mazzy last night.

Pepper gave him an earful about how irresponsible of a father he was just minutes before he promptly plucked Mazzy up out of her bed and took her on a 6 AM donut run, which she most definitely did not ask for. If Mazzy had a say in it, they'd be at an ice-skating arena, ice-skating their cares away. But Tony didn't stop to think what Mazzy wanted. He just did the first thing that came to mind, which just so happened to be donuts.

As she sits frozen in a giant donut, Mazzy can't stop thinking about what Pepper and Happy would say in this situation, if they were there. Pepper would probably be screaming at Tony about how infuriating and irresponsible he is, and Happy would probably be freaking out about how unsafe Mazzy is, up in that donut with him. But Tony is watching her, ready to catch her in case she just so happens to lean a little too far to the right or left. Even if what he's doing is irresponsible and inconsiderate, he's making sure she's safe.

He already failed at that enough last night.

"Sir! I'm gonna have to ask you to exit the donut!" a voice shouts from down below, snapping Mazzy right out of her frozen state. She looks down to where the voice came from and sees a man standing in the parking lot, looking up at them.

The strange thing about this man is that he isn't just another normal customer clad in either their business casual as they're picking up donuts before work, or their funky-looking pajamas they neglected changing out of for their early morning donut run. This man is dressed in all black. He has big black boots and a long black trench coat, along with, interestingly enough, a black eye patch covering his left eye.

Now, this is a person Mazzy is interested in talking to.

She knocks her little fist against the metal over her dad's chest. "He says you have to exit the donut," Mazzy says, pointing down at the strange man.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Tony says, although he can very well hear the man shouting at him from below. To him, of course, the strange man isn't just a strange man. He is the annoying, persistent man who had once visited him in the middle of the night shortly after he announced himself as Iron Man. So, Tony lets out a long, annoyed sigh before setting down his box of donuts and reaching over to Mazzy. "Alright. Let's go," he mutters, scooping her up into his arms.

More quickly than Mazzy would have preferred, Tony lowers the two of them down to the pavement. When Mazzy's feet hit the ground once again, she is frazzled for a few moments before regaining her composure.

Without a word, the strange man makes his way into the donut shop. Reluctantly, Tony follows. Unreluctantly, Mazzy follows, too.

Less than a minute later, the three of them are sitting together at a booth beside the large, glass windows.

"What's your name, mister?" Mazzy asks the strange man, her eyebrows raised with curiosity.

"Nick Fury. I'm here to talk to your dad about something called the Avengers Initiative," Nick Fury explains to the small girl.

Tony lets out a groan, glaring at Fury over his sunglasses. "I told you, I don't wanna join your super-secret boy band," he says, completely uninterested in the whole thing. Fury lets out an amused chuckle, which seems sort of fake, in Mazzy's opinion.

"I think you should join the super-secret boy band, Dad," Mazzy tells Tony pointedly. Fury smirks, pointing at the girl to emphasize her point.

Rolling his eyes, Tony turns to look at his daughter. "You don't even know what it is," he reminds her.

But Mazzy only shrugs. "It sounds really cool, though."

Again, Tony rolls his eyes. "I don't need a team," he says before taking another swig of his coffee. It's supposed to be helping the hangover, but it isn't doing much good.

And again, Fury lets out a little chuckle. "No, no, no. See, I remember, you do everything yourself. How's that working out for you?" he asks, sipping his coffee.

"It's- it's- it's..." Tony repeats over and over before sighing and shrugging. The truth is, doing everything himself isn't working out for him. But his ego is too large to ever admit that to anyone. So, he covers it up with his facade of humor and complete carelessness. He lowers his sunglasses down his nose and peers over at Fury, gesturing to his face. "I'm sorry. I don't wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye?" he asks.

Mazzy instantly crosses her arms and whips her head over to look at him. She furrows her eyebrows, glaring at him. "You aren't supposed to say things like that," she whispers harshly.

Tony huffs, leaning his elbows on the table and rubbing his eyes. "Honestly, I'm a bit hungover. I'm not sure if you're real or if I'm having..."

"I am very real," Fury says, his tone tense. He leans in closer, making stern, direct eye contact with Tony. Mazzy shrinks down into her seat. "I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet."

"Just my luck," Tony murmurs. He looks around the room, to his left. "Where's the staff here."

As Mazzy watches, intimidated, Fury reaches forward and points out marks on the right side of Tony's neck, which Mazzy had failed to notice until just now. His skin is red and irritated around the linear, black marks trailing up the side of his neck.

Concerned, Mazzy gets up on her knees to look more closely at the marks on her dad's neck. When and how had he gotten those? What did they mean?

"That's not looking so good," Fury says, deadpanning at Tony.

"I've been worse," Tony mutters, knocking Fury's hand away from his neck.

"Are you sick, Daddy?" Mazzy asks, her eyebrows pinched together with concern.

"I'm fine," Tony insists.

"Are you?" Fury asks. He knows, though, that Tony isn't fine. He knows exactly what is happening to him and knows that if Tony doesn't deal with it soon, he will die. But he has his own solution to the problem. And, either way, he is not about to say that to a little girl worrying about her father, no matter how much of a narcissistic asshole Tony is.

Lucky for Tony, Mazzy's attention is very quickly taken from him and put onto someone else.

A very familiar red-haired woman walks into the diner with purpose. Clad in an all-black bodysuit with weapons tucked away all over her body, none other than Natalie Rushman makes her way over to their little booth.

"We've secured the perimeter, but I don't think we should hold it for too much longer," Natalie reports to Fury, not even sparing a glance in Tony's direction.

Mazzy's eyes are wide with both shock and admiration as Natalie speaks. After swallowing a large sip of his coffee, Tony slams his cup back down onto the table and stares up at Natalie with the same shocked look as his daughter— except Tony's look is full of a lot less admiration and a whole lot more anger. He has a sort of are you kidding me? look on his face before he lets reality sink in and calms back down.

"Huh," he eventually says monotonously.

"You're a super spy!" Mazzy exclaims excitedly.

"You're... fired," Tony murmurs.

"That's not up to you," Natalie Rushman says to Tony. She flashes a quick smile at Mazzy before taking a seat next to Fury, on his side of the booth.

"Tony, I want you to meet Agent Romanoff," Fury explains, putting a hand on Natalie's back.

Again, Mazzy's eyeballs practically pop right out of her head. "Your name isn't Rushman?!" she asks.

"It's not Natalie, either," Natalie, or Not-Really-Natalie, rather, says. Mazzy's jaw drops. Not-Really-Natalie holds out a hand for Mazzy to shake. "Natasha Romanoff," she reveals.

Silently, but excitedly, Mazzy takes Natasha's hand and shakes it.

When she looks over at Tony again, he gives a weak, "Hi."

"I'm a SHIELD shadow. Once we knew you were ill, I was tasked to you by Director Fury," Natasha explains, clearly and quickly.

But Tony doesn't care at all about that. He cares more about the fact that she fooled him and everyone else, which secretly embarrasses him. "I suggest you apologize," he says, leaning his cheek against his hand.

Fury doesn't even give him a chance to continue. "You've been very busy. You made your girl your CEO, you're giving away all your stuff, you updated your daughter's guardianship provision in your will. You let your friend fly away with your suit," he lists off. Mazzy doesn't know what a guardianship provision is, but she doesn't have the guts to interrupt and ask. "Now, if I didn't know better-"

"You don't know better. I didn't give it to him. He took it," Tony interrupts, his tone tense and annoyed.

"Woah, woah, woah. He took it? You're Iron Man and he just took it?" Fury asks, like it's the most unbelievable thing in the whole world. Which it really is, honestly, except Mazzy was there and she saw Rhodey take it. So, Rhodey took it, but maybe Tony let him take it. "Little brother walked in there, kicked your ass, and took your suit? Is that possible?"

"Well, according to Mr. Stark's database security guidelines, there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage," Natasha explains. Fury gestures to her, as if saying, my point is proven. Tony only glares at her blankly.

"Dad, are you really sick?" Mazzy asks, getting a bit more worried as the conversation goes on.

"I'm not-" Tony cuts himself off, immediately softening his tense, annoyed tone. "I'm not sick, Maz," he says. Mazzy isn't sure if she believes him.

Lucky for her, Mazzy doesn't have to decide whether or not she believes him, because Fury is ready to butt in. "You are sick, Tony."

"Well, what do you want from me?" Tony asks, irritated with the whole situation. From his perspective, there really isn't anything he can do about his sickness, and he doesn't want to talk about it whatsoever in front of his daughter. She already has enough worries as is. He does not want to add to any of that, especially if he's going to be dying any time soon.

"What do we want from you?" Fury asks, his eyebrows raised. He sounds like he can't believe the question. Hasn't he already made it very clear what he wanted? Not to Tony, apparently. "Uh-uh," Fury says, shaking his head. He leans in again as Natasha gets up and leaves the table. Mazzy watches her go. "What do you want from me? You have become a problem. A problem I have to deal with. Contrary to your belief, you are not the center of my universe. I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with!"

Mazzy doesn't like any of this arguing, so she keeps focusing on Natasha instead. She watches Natasha walk away until she's out of her sight, and then when she returns, she watches Natasha walk back up to the booth, right by Tony's side.

As soon as Natasha returns to the table, Fury interrupts his own rant to say, "Hit him."

Natasha's hand shoots up to Tony's neck, pricking it with some sort of needle. Tony jerks back, groaning in pain, and Mazzy watches the interaction with caution.

"Oh, God, are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?" Tony grunts as Natasha grabs his chin and turns his head around in order to get a better look at the lines trailing up his neck. Mazzy watches those lines, too. She watches as the dark color seems to drain from his veins, his neck returning back to the way it initially looked before any of this— before Iron Man. "Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds?" Tony mutters.

"Holy moly!" Mazzy breathes out in awe.

Tony's eyebrows furrow. He looks at Mazzy, and then at Natasha, and then at Fury. "What did she just do to me?" he asks, concerned and overwhelmed. He really just wishes he were lying in bed, honestly. But instead, he is at this donut shop with persistent Nick Fury and the lying Not-Really-Natalie.

"What did we just do for you?" Fury corrects his question.

"It fixed your neck," Mazzy says, poking the side of his neck with her pointer finger. He swats her hand away.

"That's lithium dioxide. It's gonna take the edge off. We're trying to get you back to work," Fury explains.

Still, Tony doesn't seem grateful in the slightest. "Give me a couple of boxes of that. I'll be right as rain," he says.

"It's not a cure, it just abates the symptoms," Natasha tells him.

"It's not a cure, Dad," Mazzy parrots.

"Doesn't look like it's gonna be an easy fix," Fury says, eyeing up Tony's neck once more.

"It's gonna be a hard fix," Mazzy agrees, nodding her head in agreement.

Turning to look at her, Tony gives her an are you kidding? sort of look. "Who's side are you on, here?" he asks.

"We're all on your side, Tony. If you haven't caught on, we're helping you," Fury insists.

"I don't need your help. I've been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. I've tried every combination, every permutation of every known element," Tony says, unimpressed by Fury's offer of help.

Mazzy is still confused, and honestly, she's a little annoyed. As the conversation advances, she's coming to realize that her dad knew that he was sick, and maybe even dying, based on how Fury and Natasha were acting about it, and he didn't even care to tell her. Mazzy could have very well been spending her last days with her father without even knowing. Doesn't she deserve to know about this sort of thing?

From Tony's perspective, however, he's only trying to protect Mazzy. He doesn't want her to be scared. He doesn't want her to worry about him at all. And he especially doesn't want her treating him any differently just because she knows he's dying. And when it comes to Nick Fury and SHIELD, Tony doesn't want Mazzy anywhere near any of them. He doesn't want her near any superhuman organizations, like the Avengers Initiative or whatever the hell else Fury has in mind.

All Tony could think about when he heard about the Avengers Initiative was what SHIELD will want with Mazzy if they ever find out what types of drugs and serums were pumped into her veins during the span of those two short years when she went missing.

Of course, the public was under the impression that Mazzy had gotten very, very sick as a young child. That's why she wasn't seen in public for two years. That sickness was what caused Mazzy to lose her hearing, too. But that was a cleverly constructed lie to avoid putting too much attention on the young girl.

But, if SHIELD already knows oh so much about Tony, then they probably already know about Mazzy, right? Tony isn't sure. And, either way, he doesn't really want to take that chance.

If Tony is taking help from anyone, it isn't going to be SHIELD. So, "I've tried every single one," he emphasizes.

Fury shakes his head. "Well, I'm here to tell you, you haven't tried them all."

That intrigues Tony. He has a difficult decision to make. Can he take the risk? Can he let SHIELD— Nick Fury, more specifically— help him, at the risk of his daughter being involved in all of it?

Super-powered people aren't always treated well. Tony remembers hearing about Steve Rogers, the super soldier who fought valiantly for the US. Growing up, the mighty Captain America was all his father, Howard Stark, ever seemed interested in talking about. They worked together during World War II and Howard was even involved in the Strategic Scientific Reserve's Super Soldier Project, which created the serum running through Steve Rogers' veins. Howard helped Steve in his fight against Hydra before he ended up under the ice in 1945.

No one cared where Steve came from, who he was, or how he got his powers. All that mattered to them was that he had the power to fight. So he fought. Lucky for them, Steve was passionate and determined. Fighting was what he wanted to do.

But Mazzy?

Mazzy is practically a baby. She can't make an informed, true decision on what she wants to do. And even if she can't remember it herself, Mazzy is still affected by what she was made to do during those two years. Tony can see it in her, sometimes. In her eyes. In his nightmares. In the way her skin patched up those cuts that the glass left in her hands and knees just last night.

Will anyone care that Mazzy is only six years old, almost seven? Or will they see what she is capable of and use it? Will they force her to fight at a young age, or will they train her persistently and ruthlessly until she gets older?

It's obvious to Fury and Natasha what Tony is thinking about. He can't stop glancing over at his daughter, and behind his facade of carelessness, they can see him deep in thought.

He is irresponsible. He is an irresponsible, wreckless father and everyone knows it. But only he can know just how much he cares about his daughter and how her life will play out. He can never be too careful.

"Stark," Fury says. Tony looks away from Mazzy to meet Fury's eyes. "We know. And she won't be a part of it."

They know. And she won't be a part of it.