★ ★ ★

The Washington air was frigid as Steve and Marlena stepped off of the plane and onto the tarmac of the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The airport was a bit more crowded than Marlena had originally believed it would be, but she couldn't bring herself to pay too much attention to the fact at the moment.

She was back home, and although she wasn't physically inside her house, Washington D.C. itself was home. She had grown up in the district, only ever leaving to visit family or go on vacation. Being away for such a long period of time had dumped an extensive amount of stress onto Marlena, but now that she was back and breathing in the familiar air of the city she loved, she felt all of her stress slowly beginning to dissipate. She only wished she didn't have to give it up again so soon.

"It feels so good to be back here," Marlena chirped as she skipped to her place beside Steve, dragging her suitcase behind her.

He laughed as she nearly tripped over it and was quick to remove it from her grasp to prevent her from further harming herself. "It's definitely not gonna feel good when you're in the hospital with a broken ankle, nor is it gonna feel good for me when Bucky murders me for letting you get hurt."

Marlena let out a scoff and pulled her jacket over her chest to protect her skin from the cool wind. "I can handle Bucky; you don't need to worry about him," she chuckled, "Now, give me back my suitcase."

She made a move to grab it, but Steve quickly moved away. "Ah-ah," he scolded her as he stepped into the building. "I told Buck I would take care of you, and taking care of you does not involve allowing you to conjure up whatever clumsiness is left inside that assassin-trained body of yours."

"Whatever you say, Steve," she replied as the two made their way through the large airport.

She was busy gazing at all the people scurrying throughout the building when an instant wave of fear struck her, stopping her immediately in her tracks. Her thoughts—as well as everyone else's—began to torture her as she registered just how many people there were. She was nowhere close to being in control of her abilities—she still had yet to even begin working on trying to control them—and knowing that she was confined to a space filled with hundreds of innocent and breakable people made her feel sick to her stomach; she could hurt anyone with a simple thought or a simple shift in her emotions. As she realized this, she attempted to calm herself down, but it only made her feel worse. This particular reaction was proof that Marlena had been cooped up for too long.

"Marlena?"

Steve stopped and turned around when he realized she hadn't been following him. The expression of pure horror on her face as she looked around at all the people gave Steve more than enough insight as to what was going on inside her mind. She was scared—scared of what she could do. This had been Tony's number one mistake while keeping her in the tower. He had only allowed her to be around those she was most comfortable with (the Avengers and Bucky) when he should have allowed her to go out and get used to the company of other people. Had he done so, the probability of her freaking out would have been substantially lower.

Steve sat their bags down on the floor and rushed over to Marlena, placing his hands on either of her arms in an attempt to jar her from her trance. She jumped slightly, prompting an overhead light to burst. Several people looked shocked and even a bit curious as to why the light had just randomly burst, but they didn't linger for too long.

"Just calm down, Mar," Steve tried to comfort her, rubbing her arms with his hands. "It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna get you out of here, and we're gonna go back to my apartment, and you're gonna be okay. Please don't make me use this syringe on you."

She took a deep breath as she tried to calm herself and managed to give Steve a shaky nod. She wanted to leave; she wanted to go somewhere where potential victims weren't running around, and she wanted to do it as quickly as possible.

She latched tightly onto Steve's arm, and he pulled her towards the airport exit, managing to grab their bags in the process. The two hurried out the doors and towards the opposite end of the parking lot where a sleek black Range Rover was parked. Marlena knew Tony had something to do with the vehicle, as she couldn't recall Steve owning a Range Rover, nor did she believe it to be his type of vehicle.

"You can go ahead and hop in," Steve told Marlena, who was still slightly shaken up from her mild panic attack. "I'll put our bags in the back."

Marlena nodded before slowly moving toward the passenger's seat. She hopped into the car, pulling her jacket over her as the cold air began to nip at her skin. Steve got into the car seconds later, wasting no time at all in starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot.

"Are you okay, Mar?" Steve asked as he switched on the heat.

Marlena nodded and rested her head against the window. "I just-I'm not used to being around so many people at one time. I couldn't help but be afraid that I would somehow hurt them."

"I know," Steve sighed, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. "Tony didn't exactly think some things through when he decided to keep you prisoner inside the tower."

"It's okay, Steve," she reassured him. "Although I wanted nothing more than to be at home with my family, spending time with you all was. . .it was amazing. You guys took me in without protest and you cared for and protected me; you made me feel like part of the family, even when I felt like the misfit—I still do, sometimes."

Steve snorted. "You're definitely not a misfit, Marlena. You're just as screwed up as the rest of us are. Why do you think we all love you so much?"

"And here I thought it was because of my sarcastic charm and my good looks," Marlena chuckled.

"Those are just a plus," Steve teased.

Marlena smiled and shook her head at him before yawning rather loudly. She could feel the exhaustion from her pre-departure training session with Bucky beginning to take effect, and she was less than pleased. She could've napped on the plane had she not been so engaged in conversation with Steve, yet here she was at almost seven o'clock in the evening ready to go to bed.

"Tired?" Steve chuckled.

"Yes," Marlena yawned again, "Bucky kicked my ass today."

"Trust me, I saw."

Marlena looked over at Steve. "Please tell me we're not meeting your friend until tomorrow, because right now all I wanna do is go to your apartment and go to bed."

"Yeah, we're not going until tomorrow," Steve told her. "You can go ahead and go to sleep now if you want to. With this traffic we won't be back at the apartment for about an hour."

Marlena looked out the window, and sure enough they were stopped behind a parade of cars and trucks. "Well, I definitely didn't miss the traffic here, that's for sure."

"Goodnight, Marlena," Steve chuckled.

Marlena smiled and pulled her knees to her chest, resting her head against the back of her seat. Before long she was drifting off to sleep.

____________________

"I knew you would call sooner or later," Steve said quietly in an attempt not to wake Marlena.

His efforts were futile though. The sound of his voice had jarred Marlena awake, but she was much too exhausted to even think about sitting up and making her presence known. All she could do was open her eyes and watch as Steve scurried around the dimly lit room picking up scattered items, his phone still pressed to his ear. She noticed that rather than being in the guest room of his apartment, or even the living room, she was in Steve's room (the guest room bedspreads and sheets were in the wash). It confused her, but she couldn't bring herself to focus on that particular situation. All she could focus on was whether or not she wanted to go back to sleep or figure out who Steve was on the phone with.

"Everything is fine, Bucky," Steve sighed, the sound of Bucky's name catching Marlena's attention. "Marlena is fine."

"For some reason I don't believe you," Bucky murmured through the speaker. "Did something happen today?"

Steve rolled his eyes at his friend's paranoia. "Telling you would only result in you freaking out."

"So something did happen!" Bucky exclaimed. "Just tell me, punk. I promise I won't freak out."

"Okay," Steve breathed out, turning to look at Marlena. "She had a mild panic attack at the airport and sort of destroyed an overhead light."

Bucky sighed. "Did you use the sedative on her?"

"Hell no," Steve scoffed. "That was never an option for me—it never will be. She needs to learn how to adjust to being around people, Bucky. Keeping her with the same people all the time isn't gonna do anything to help her, and you know that. If we were to sedate her every time she had a minor freak out in public, she would never learn. It'd probably only make her fear for her abilities worse."

Marlena could only listen as Steve talked to Bucky behind her. She had no clue what the two were talking about exactly. All she knew was that they were talking about her.

"I'm sorry. I just don't want her dealing with the pain of hurting someone because of her powers."

"She didn't hurt anyone," Steve assured him. "I managed to calm her down and get her out before it got worse."

There was a brief pause before Bucky spoke again. "I wanna talk to her."

"She's been asleep for the past two hours, buddy," Steve told him. "I'll tell her you called, though."

Marlena perked up slightly, turning over to look at Steve, who was now working on throwing clothes into his dresser.

"Steve?"

He turned around immediately, slightly startled by the sound of her voice. Marlena only held her hand out to him, and Steve instantly knew what it was that she wanted. He removed the phone from his ear and handed it to her before resuming his activities.

"Steve? If you hung up on me, I swear I will—"

"Buck," Marlena cut him off.

"Mar?" Bucky exclaimed rather happily. "Steve said you were asleep."

Marlena yawned and rubbed her eyes, though it did nothing to help rid the exhaustion from her body. "I was. I just want you to know that I'm never training with you again; I'm sleepy and I'm sore and I'm hungrier than normal."

Steve chuckled in response to her words and rushed out of the room to fix her something to eat. Bucky, on the other hand, merely scoffed in response to her words.

"It's not my fault you can't hold your own against me," Bucky remarked.

Marlena smiled and shook her head. "I miss you, Bucky."

"Yeah, well I'm having a grand time without you here. I have my own room, my own bed, and my own bathroom. I'm living the ideal life of a bachelor," Bucky chuckled.

"I just love your commentary," Marlena replied sarcastically.

"You know I'm kidding," he laughed, "I miss you, too, Mar. It's weird and a bit frightening not having you with me. You know what happened last time you were gone."

Marlena sighed. "I know, but I'm gonna be okay. I have the most skilled soldier in history taking care of me; what could possibly go wrong?"

"Excuse you," Bucky scoffed. "I'd say the Winter Soldier is just a bit more skilled than Captain America."

"Who's the Winter Soldier? I'm not quite familiar with that alias," Marlena mused. "Now, Bucky Barnes, on the other hand, may be."

Bucky hummed in response. "God, I love you so much."

"I love you, Buck." She turned to the door as Steve walked in, a big bowl and spoon in his hand. "Steve has brought me a big bowl of food, though, so I gotta go for now."

"I'll never in a million years understand how you eat so much yet remain as small as you are," Bucky said. "Even before you started working out you were the same way."

Marlena laughed and took the bowl from Steve's hand and was happy to find it full of chicken alfredo. "I just have a fast metabolism. Now, go away. I'm eating."

She handed the phone back to Steve before Bucky could even respond and began eating. "Thank you, Steve," she said to the super-soldier as he conversed with Bucky.

"You're very welcome, Mar."