Blue eyes, blonde hair, young...maybe twenty-five at best.

Brown eyes, blonde hair, even younger.

Blue eyes, red lipstick, perfectly manicured nails.

Each face and their features flashed through your subconscious as you slept, feeling with perfect recollection the snap of a bone between your hands or the thrust of a blade into soft skin. The stench of blood filled your nostrils and the sounds of last breaths were deafening. They were the actions that your mind had protected you from at the time, but now it wasn't so kind; every single horror that you had caused was replaying through your dreams as if you were there again, and it bolted you awake with a scream and covered in sweat. Steve was immediately awake with a hand cautiously on your arm, waiting for you to come back to reality before he moved any further.

"(Y/N), you're okay," he reassured gently, "you're at home, and I'm here. You're okay."

"How can you say that," you whispered with a painfully dry throat, "do you know what I did?"

"Yes, I do."

"I'm a monster, Steve."

"That's not true," he replied more sternly this time, taking the risk of putting an arm around you and hoping that you wouldn't push him away. When you didn't, he only held you tighter. "You could never be a monster, (Y/N). You may have lost control, but under the circumstances..." he paused, taking a deep breath, "I think the world may be a little better for it."

You pushed away with your hand against his chest, snapping your head towards him in complete shock and disbelief at what he was saying. He actually believed that what you had done was a good thing; Steve Rogers, the man who loathed killing, thought that your massacre was a benefit to the world. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Why not? Honey, they were Hydra. If you didn't stop them, they would have stopped you and would never care about it like you are right now. They aren't a loss."

"But she was one of them too," you sighed, shaking your head before lying in back down against your sweat-soaked pillow. "We killed my mother, Steve."

"She wasn't a mother, (Y/N). She doesn't deserve for you to think of her that way." When you didn't reply any further, Steve lowered himself back onto his own pillow, rolling onto his side towards you to wrap his arm around you and pull you against him. He knew that this nightmare was only the first to come before the sun would rise the next day, but he was prepared. You had helped him though so many of his own that he was ready to repay every single minute and more.

Steve was also ready to bury the body of the woman that had done this to you; the woman who had threatened your life and the futures of his children, all while toying with your mind and emotions to bring you here now. He wasn't normally a man of spite, but when her casket drops into the ground, he'd be there to give her a final push into hell.

~~~

Tony sat behind his desk with a heavy posture, leaning back into his chair as if he didn't have the strength to hold himself any straighter. In his hands he held the information gathered on your mission to find Anna, the number of bodies found and the report on how each of them died by your hand. Nick sat across from him and waited for him to say something, patiently allowing Tony to process it all.

"She doesn't remember doing it," Tony finally spoke, though quietly.

"I'm sure she doesn't. The way we found everything, and how it was all laid out, you could tell that it was methodical...almost like she was in auto-pilot."

"And who's fault is that, Nick?" Tony replied with a growing anger now. "Who taught her how to do all of that? That was you."

"Yes, I did," Fury agreed readily, "and at the time, that's what we needed her to be. You can't just un-learn those things, Stark, and in the position that she was in there, of course it all came back."

Tony threw the tablet onto the desk with a slam, turning his chair slightly to look out the window at the compound lawn. The sun was shining and the sky was a clear blue, but to him it was muted and plain; he hadn't felt like himself since the two of you had returned the day before, and it worried him that if he felt this low, you could be on a very dark precipice in your own mind. "Are there any more like her in SHIELD?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. It seemed like the thing to say."

"No, there aren't."

Tony turned back to Fury with a furrowed brow, considering the implications of the man's answer. "Why not? Did you do this because of me? I thought I've been around long enough now to avoid all of this secret-keeping bullshit."

Nick sighed and dropped his shoulders, relaxing his own posture into acceptance that the moment had come to tell Tony the last secret left to share about you; he was honestly a little shocked that no one had figured it out yet up to this point, with all that had gone on. "Listen, Tony, there are always secrets, no matter who you are. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all."

"Except you."

Fury could only nod and smile gently, feeling an empathy for the man who was only looking out for both of his families. Tony had changed so much over the years that Nick's mind wandered over their history together for just a moment before bringing himself back to the moment. He wasn't lying when he told Stark that he cared about him, and keeping this secret any longer had no purpose. "You're wrong about me. I do share. I'm nice like that."

"Yeah, I think we've all heard that line before," Tony scoffed, waiting anxiously for whatever big reveal that Fury was holding. If the man waited any longer, he felt like an explosion was brewing beneath his barely composed surface.

"Alright, so listen," Nick began, "has anyone ever stopped to put things together around here? The girl has some damn sharp reflexes, don't you think? Steve told me that she can catch the shield with a bare hand and has accuracy that rivals Barton."

"So? They practice all the time."

"She's successfully taken down both Cap and Thor. A super-soldier and an Asgardian."

"Where are you going with this?" Tony groaned, rubbing his burning and exhausted eyes. "I'm not really feeling the suspense today."

"Okay, so this should set of a few bells in that huge brain of yours. First, she has a complete recovery of an extensive spinal injury, then she just tosses you a spare piece of organ to keep you alive. Follow that up with a repulsor blast to the chest, and then to cap it off, a bullet tears through her femoral artery...and she heals up like a champ. Not to mention popping out triplets in there somewhere like it was just any other day."

Tony's eyes widened with each point and his mouth dropped more and more as he listened. He cleared his throat as the revelation built and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His mind raced through your timeline in his head, from when you arrived at his door at the age of five until today, but nothing made sense; until he remembered the letter from Anna and that there had been plans for you from since before you were even conceived. "What did they do to her, Nick?"

"When Barnes retrieved the serum from your father in 1991, a portion of it was segregated and held for experimentation, and she's a product of that work. Whose DNA would be better to mix that with than a Stark? Hydra has never been a fan of the name, as you can imagine."

It wasn't anger or resentment that Tony felt, it was an overwhelming despair followed by nausea and then the inevitable anxiety. In his usual fashion, he immediately blamed himself for this, and then Howard, setting off a cascade of doubt and anger that he struggled to contain. He would have to talk to you, obviously, and he had no idea how to approach the topic when his own thoughts were such a jumbled mess.

"Does she know?"

"Yes. She's known since we began training her. When things just weren't adding up, and she was surpassing every test that we threw at her, we dug a little deeper. She's come to terms with it a long time ago, Tony. It doesn't mean that she has to like it though, and believe me, that's never going to happen."

"Does Steve know?"

Nick simply shrugged and gave a faint smile, though he felt no joy in the news he had just delivered. It really was your news to share, but he had known Tony for too long to keep it from him any longer. "I think that's a question for him, but between you and me, I have a pretty strong suspicion that he does."

~~~

Waking up to the sun shining and a cool breeze through your window would normally have been the perfect start to a day, but on this morning it was a burden and an annoyance as you pulled your blankets over your head and begged for clouds and rain to come and lull you back to sleep. You had slept for maybe two hours at best, with your dreams so rudely interrupting you, and now you had to prepare yourself to bury someone that you barely knew; someone that you wanted to care about, but were now finding yourself harboring nothing but anger and resentment towards. For the first time since you and Tony had gone to find her, you regretted bringing her back.

"You don't have to go," Steve said quietly, still resting next to you. "I can take care of it if you want to stay home and rest."

"Thanks, but I need to see it for myself. I need to see her six feet under so that my mind accepts that she won't come back for us."

A few tiny noises and finally a quiet cry from the room next to yours pulled you out of your half-asleep state. With a reluctant groan, you tossed the blanket aside and pushed yourself up, sitting on the edge of the bed with a long and aching stretch and a final yawn before forcing yourself into action. Steve followed behind you when you rose and made your way into the nursery, hurrying past you with an annoyingly energetic skip in his step to grab Brooklyn from her crib before you had the chance.

"I've got this," he whispered, as to not wake the other two, "go lay down."

It wasn't the fatigue that ravaged you or the sadness of the day that brought the haze of tears over your eyes; it was pure relief as you realized what he was doing, and it was overwhelming adoration for the man. Maybe it was just the heightened emotions in anticipation of the day ahead, but you couldn't hold them back, and it didn't escape his attention.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," you sniffled quietly, "I just don't know how I got so lucky."

"Well, I am quite the catch," he smiled coyly, reaching out his empty arm to pull you against him. "You must have done something pretty amazing to deserve all this."

"At least you're humble about it."

"That's me, amazingly humble."

"Wow," you sighed, pushing up on your toes to press a small kiss on his cheek, then another to your daughter's head, "I think that's my cue to leave. I just need an hour."

"Take all the time you need, doll. We've got this, don't we kiddo?" he smiled down to the girl, releasing you so that you didn't waste any more time taking him up on his offer. He watched you silently as you left his side and returned to bed, leaning against the door frame with a sadness in his eyes at the sight of you there alone. He knew that he couldn't protect you from everything, and that he really didn't need to; you were more than capable of taking care of yourself as he had seen over and over in your years together.

Somehow, this was different; this was deeper and more painful that anything else that he had seen you go through. But this wasn't only you going through it; Tony would be having his own pain today, and suddenly Steve felt at a complete loss in his responsibility to both of you. He looked down at the girl in his arms, who was enthralled in making her foot reach into her mouth as if the weight of the world wasn't a concern in the least.

"Wanna trade places with daddy, sweetheart? Or maybe tell me how to fix this?"

Brooklyn gurgled and spit all over her tiny toes, laughing when they finally hit their target in an innocent glee at her accomplishment. Steve laughed quietly with her, hurrying back into the nursery before they woke you, closing the door behind him when he heard the other two begin to stir. Grant woke first, talking in babbles to himself while Steve watched, as if he were listening and understanding the noises he was hearing.

"That's a great idea, G. That's exactly who I need to talk to." Steve glanced back towards the door that separated him from you, then turned back to the little boy with a cheerfully whispered voice, "not only am I a great catch, but I make really smart kids too."