TW: self-harm (sort of)

After Pepper grabs Mazzy by the hand and starts leading her out of the building, they are each swooped up off of the ground by Tony and Rhodey. After that, Mazzy watches with a disgusted expression plastered on her face as Tony and Pepper proceed to make out in front of her and Rhodey.

Luckily, after that, Pepper and Tony apologize and Mazzy gets to go back home and have a bowl of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream and sprinkles on top.

Tony sits across from her, and Pepper next to him, each of them having a bowl of vanilla ice cream with Hershey's syrup on top.

Now, Mazzy thinks, is her chance to learn the truth. What is wrong with her and why was she on the news?

"Dad," Mazzy says with more seriousness than a six-year-old should ever have to convey. Tony looks up from his ice cream bowl and, seeing the look on her face, lets his shoulders slump a little lower. He hoped she would forget about it. "I want to know," Mazzy tells him.

"I told you, Maz. There's nothing wrong. You're fine," Tony lies easily, dipping his spoon back into his ice cream.

"Tony..." Pepper says, turning her head to look at him. Tony looks at her right back, exchanging words through the looks on their faces.

Tony's face is desperate, his heart aching and his stomach churning. Don't make me tell her. Please, please. Just let her be a kid. Just a normal, everyday kid.

Pepper's face is sympathetic to both parties. She understands that Mazzy knows more than she's supposed to and she wants all the blanks filled in. But she also understands just how adamant Tony is on allowing Mazzy to live a happy, innocent childhood. She doesn't need to know what she has done or where she has been. She just needs to be okay.

"Dad," Mazzy says again. Tony meets her eyes. Her wide, pleading eyes. "I deserve to know. It's about me. I should know who I am."

"You do know who you are," Tony argues, scoffing away her reasoning. Mazzy wants to interject, but doesn't get the chance before Tony continues. "You are who you are now. That's who you are, that's who you've always been. I mean, you're not making sense, kid," he says.

With determination and frustration fueling her inner fire, Mazzy pushes her chair out from under the table, the legs squeaking against the floors. With furrowed eyebrows of confusion, Tony and Pepper watch Mazzy hop off of her chair, walk around the table, into the kitchen, and climb up onto the counter.

They don't get the chance to run over to her before she pulls the large chef's knife from the knife stand and swipes the blade across her forearm, leaving a deep, clean cut.

"Oh, my God!" Pepper exclaims.

She and Tony jump out of their seats, rushing over to Mazzy and snatching the knife away from her. Tony grabs at her arm, inspecting the wound like he would if she were a normal girl. Pepper tears a paper towel from the roll and presses it against her arm as blood seeps from the wound.

"No! Get off," Mazzy grumbles, shoving the paper towel away from her skin.

The bleeding has already come to a stop. In mere seconds, the cut begins to heal. Mazzy watches intently as her skin binds itself back together, like nothing had ever happened. No scab, no scar, no bandaids needed.

As soon as the cut has healed, Mazzy looks back up at her father's stunned face. She glares, trying her best to express just how tired she is of not knowing.

"Why can I do that?" she asks with desperation. "Why do you still have cuts and bruises from the fight, but my cuts and bruises go away in minutes?"

"Mazzy, you never ever do something like that again," Tony warns, grabbing her face by the jaw. She glares harder, angrier. "Do you understand me?"

"Why did the lady say I wasn't normal?" Mazzy asks, insistent on getting her answer.

"I said, do you understand me?" Tony asks her again, his tone tense and warning.

Fury in her veins, Mazzy's arm lashes out to her left, reaching for another knife from the stand.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey!" Pepper shouts at her as Tony scoops her up off the counter in one quick motion, pulling her away from the knives.

"No! You aren't listening!" Mazzy yells, thrashing in his arms. She slams her fists against his chest and kicks her legs against his abdomen. It hurts more than Tony will ever admit. She's stronger than most little girls for the same reason she can slice her arms with kitchen knives and be just fine thirty seconds later. "Let go of me! You need to listen to me!"

"No! I am your father! You listen to me," Tony scolds, holding her firmly despite how badly it hurts when she digs her nails into his skin. Pepper watches from the kitchen with a hand over her open mouth as Tony starts marching Mazzy up the stairs. "You're going to your room!"

"You can't make me!" Mazzy argues. She has never been sent to her room before. Tony has never had any reason to ground her or punish her. Not until that damn woman on the news started blabbing her mouth on live television.

"Yes, I can! You know why?" Tony asks, swinging open her bedroom door with more force than he intends. He places her down on the ground. "Because you're a normal little girl and normal little girls get punished when they don't behave," he spits before slamming the door shut. "Lock the door," he mutters.

"Locking the door, sir," Jarvis's voice replies with the type of nervousness in his voice that most AIs aren't able to possess.

Mazzy slams herself against the door, tears streaming from her eyes. "You have to tell me! You have to! It's not fair!" she shouts through the door.

Tony lets out a heavy breath, rubbing his eyes as he leans his back up against Mazzy's bedroom door. He doesn't need this stress added on top of every other thing in his life. Mazzy doesn't need this stress, either, but there isn't anything he can do about it now.

If only he could go back in time. Maybe he would have known better. Maybe he would have caught onto his then-girlfriend's odd behavior in time to stop her before she could run away with Mazzy in the middle of the night.

It was late 2008, just a few months away from the New Year. Mazzy was three, almost four. She would start preschool in the fall of next year. Tony wasn't looking forward to it. He was worried about her going to any school, no matter if it was private or public. No matter what, he wasn't sure if she was safe. Most kids aren't the children of celebrities. How would that play out in Mazzy's school life?

Evelyn Nelson wasn't so worried about that, though.

Only she knew that Mazzy wouldn't be in preschool in the fall. Mazzy wouldn't be anywhere near any preschools for a long time. She'd be out of the United States, out of North America, and across the ocean.

But that was a secret.

As Tony and Evelyn tucked Mazzy into bed, Tony was none the wiser about the plan Evelyn had laid out in her head.

Tony would go to sleep that night with Evelyn by his side. When Tony fell asleep, Evelyn would slip out of bed and change into dark clothing. Then she would creep down the hall and into Mazzy's bedroom. She would stick a syringe into Mazzy's skin and fill her blood with a drug that would keep her asleep for hours on end. She would pick Mazzy up and carry her out of the house, to a car, then to a plane. That plane would fly across the world, and when Mazzy would wake up, she would have a handcuff around her wrist, linking her to a bedframe.

The next morning, Tony would wake up to see that his girlfriend was missing. And when he'd go to get Mazzy out of bed, he'd see that she was gone, too. But it would be too late. Mazzy would be gone.

"Dad! Let me out! Please, please, Daddy! Just tell me!" Mazzy screams, kicking at the door with all the force she can muster up.

Tony isn't sure how much longer he can sit there and do nothing. He was hoping she would have calmed down already, but she hasn't. Mazzy just keeps screaming and crying and kicking.

With nothing else to do, Tony gets up off of the floor and walks back downstairs. He can't bear hearing her cry like that anymore. It makes guilt build up inside his stomach and he doesn't need that. He needs her to stop asking questions. His lies worked for months and now it's all crumbling just because of that stupid woman on the news who can't mind her own business.

The woman's now been paid off to keep quiet about the whole thing. She was reluctant, at first. Tony told the woman that, when Mazzy got sick, the only cure they had was an unofficial, experimental drug for healing, and with no other options, that was what they tried. And it had worked. It's total bullshit, but the woman bought it. Plus, she got 100k in her bank account to keep it to herself.

If only Tony had been able to pay her off sooner. Then all of this could have been avoided.

When Tony gets back downstairs, he watches as Pepper wipes the droplets of Mazzy's blood off of the countertop. He hates that Mazzy had done that. It makes his stomach churn and his heart race. He's overwhelmed with guilt.

He clears his throat, announcing his presence to Pepper.

Pepper turns to look at him with that same wide-eyed look she always gets when he does something stupid and dangerous, like when she first caught him building the Iron Man suit in the lab. "What are you going to do?" she asks him.

At first, Tony doesn't give any answer. He just walks to the counter and opens up one of the higher-up cabinets. He picks up the knife stand and puts it up, out of Mazzy's reach. "Jarvis."

"Sir."

"Remind me to install child locks," he mutters exhaustedly.

"Would you like me to order some, Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"Ordering now."

"Great," Tony huffs, leaning his back against the counter and rubbing his face.

"Tony," Pepper says, standing across from him with her back against the kitchen island. She crosses her arms over her chest, giving him a serious but sympathetic look. "What are you going to do?" she asks for a second time.

"I don't know, Pepper. How about not tell her?" Tony suggests, his tone tense and annoyed.

Pepper's mouth drops slightly open with disbelief. Sometimes she can't believe Tony. He never seems to deal with things in the most responsible way. "You can't be serious," she says, shaking her head.

"I am serious. I'm not telling her. She can scream and cry and throw as many fits as she wants. I'm not gonna tell her, Pepper," Tony says without making eye contact. He understands why it's frustrating for Mazzy to not know, but he doesn't care. It doesn't weigh out evenly in the end. If he tells her, he might ruin her sweet, sweet personality forever, and he isn't taking that risk.

That is his baby.

His baby who Hydra ruined. His baby who is lucky to be unable to remember what she did before the age of six. His baby who had killed people without meaning it. His baby.

It would kill her to know what she's done.

"You don't have to tell her everything. She just deserves to know why she can do what she can do," Pepper tries to reason with him. She can hear Mazzy crying in her bedroom upstairs and the sound of it twists around in her brain, pulling at her amygdala and forcing emotional reactions out of her.

But Tony isn't budging. It pulls at his emotions, too, but those emotions only make him more and more insistent on keeping Mazzy out of the loop. "The more I tell her, the more questions she'll have. It's better if she doesn't know any of it," he insists.

"The older she gets, the more questions she'll ask. It's inevitable, Tony. You're going to have to tell her sooner or later, or she'll just find out by herself," Pepper says.

And Tony knows that. Mazzy is a smart girl. She has his genes, after all. She will figure out the secret eventually. But not yet. And the longer he can go without her knowing, the better. She is six years old. Six years old. It doesn't make sense for her to know. She doesn't have to. She shouldn't even be worrying about it at all.

"If you don't tell her, she'll hate you. She'll just keep acting like this. She could do something worse than what she just did. You don't want to take that risk," Pepper goes on.

"Whatever she does, I'll deal with it," Tony says. He pushes his hands off the counter and begins walking away again, but Pepper follows after him.

"You need to give her some sort of answer," Pepper insists. Mazzy will never settle for simply not knowing.

"I don't need to give her any answer. She's my kid. I get to make these decisions. Not you. I'm not asking for your input," Tony snaps at her. Pepper pauses, giving Tony a stern, warning look that makes him rethink his words. He sighs, rubs his hand across his face, and takes a breath. "Pepper, look. We're going in circles here. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but I'm not telling her the truth. She doesn't need to know it. So I'm not going to tell her," he says more calmly this time.

"Well, you have to tell her something," Pepper says.

And just like that, Tony has an idea. He will tell Mazzy something. It doesn't have to be the truth. It wasn't the truth with the woman on the news, so it doesn't have to be the truth with Mazzy, either. What she doesn't know can't hurt her, right?

"What? What are you thinking?" Pepper asks, her eyebrows furrowed. Usually, when Tony gets that thinking look on his face, she never likes the idea that comes after.

"I'm thinking I'll tell her what I told that lady," Tony answers.

Pepper presses her lips together, frowning slightly. She sighs. There really is no good way to deal with this situation. The only options Tony has are to tell his daughter that she has killed countless innocent people without knowing it or just lying right to her face. Neither option is necessarily good for Mazzy, but only one of them will give her answers without tearing her apart. So lying is the only good choice.

Tony makes his way up the stairs, leaving Pepper alone to wonder whether or not this is a good idea.

When Tony gets to Mazzy's bedroom door, all he can hear is her crying on the other side of it. She isn't screaming or kicking anymore. She's just crying. And it makes Tony's throat tie itself into a knot. He swallows, takes a breath, and knocks on the door.

"Go away," Mazzy sobs from the other side of the door.

"I want to talk to you," Tony tells her.

"I don't care," Mazzy spits, giving the door one more weak, little kick.

Jarvis unlocks the door and Tony pulls it open, frowning at the sight of Mazzy on the floor with her head hidden in her arms. He kneels down beside her, putting a hand on her back. "How about you hop up off the floor and we talk like civilized human beings," he says.

Mazzy peeks her face out, glaring up at him. "Why? For all I know, I'm not even a human being," she grumbles.

Tony rolls his eyes, blowing air out of the side of his mouth. "I thought you wanted answers. I don't have to tell you, if that's what you'd prefer," he says, shrugging his shoulders. He stands up again, walking back toward the door.

"No!" Mazzy shouts, shooting up off of the floor. She grabs him by the hand, not letting him leave the room. "You have to tell me."

"Alright," Tony says, putting his hand on her back again. He begins leading her to the bed. "Come sit. And stop freaking out."

"You made me," Mazzy murmurs, narrowing her teary eyes at him.

Again, Tony rolls his eyes. He wipes the tears from her cheeks with his hands as they sit down on the bed. "You wanna know why your body heals so quickly, or do you wanna pout some more?" he asks.

"Tell me, please," Mazzy says, her eyes wide and glossy.

"You know how I told you that you got sick when you were littler?"

"Yeah," Mazzy answers, nodding her head.

"Well, the only way the doctors could make you healthy again was by giving you a special medicine that made your body heal faster," Tony explains to her. Part of him doesn't like lying to her face like that, but ultimately, he doesn't care. He'll hide the truth from her for as long as he can, no matter what it takes. "That medicine stayed in you. And it always will."

"How come you wouldn't tell me?" Mazzy asks, pinching her eyebrows together.

"Uh..." Tony murmurs, fidgeting with the bear stuffed animals on Mazzy's bed. "Most people can't, uh, get that medicine. It was just a prototype. So we have to keep it a secret, alright? You think you can do that?" he asks.

Mazzy nods enthusiastically, sniffing away the urge to cry some more. "I'm good at keeping secrets," she says, wiping her face with her shoulder.

"Oh, yeah?" Tony asks, a small smile finding its way onto his face. He's glad she didn't ask any other questions. She probably will in the future, but he doesn't have to worry about that just yet. 

"Yeah. I kept Natasha's secret real, real well. I didn't even tell Pepper," Mazzy says proudly.

"Wow," Tony says, his voice soft and quiet. He smiles, tucking Mazzy's hair behind her ear. She's still his sweet girl and she will be for as long he can help it. Maybe someday he will have to worry about Mazzy figuring out the truth, but he doesn't now. Now all he has to do is keep her happy.

All he has to do is keep lying.