The Zaytinya restaurant in Washington DC was packed full of people, including Wanda and Marlena. After sitting through a two hour movie and walking through the mall for another hour and a half, the two decided to sit down and have a nice meal, though there had been more talking than eating really.

Wanda had been up Marlena's ass about her recurring nightmares and her mental state as of lately, and Marlena wasn't all too happy about it. Aside from Bucky, Wanda was the only other person who knew what was going on with her. Not only was Wanda a telepath as Marlena was and could read her mind, she was also going through a bit of PTSD herself, though hers did not stretch to the painful extent in which Marlena's did.

Wanda had lost her entire family, she'd lost her home, and she'd been experimented on by Hydra as well, though it was by her choice. Marlena had lost a majority of her family, she'd lost the person she used to call her best friend, she was kidnapped by Hydra, abused, experimented on, given deadly abilities, made into a deadly weapon, and was thrown into a fight that wasn't hers to win; now she was not only dealing with her own problems, but she was trying to help Bucky deal with his as well. Marlena had a lot more on her plate than Wanda did; she had every right to feel the way she did, at least in Wanda's opinion she did. She just couldn't help the fact of wanting to help her, though.

"Have you thought about a therapist?" Wanda chuckled as she pushed her empty plate away from her.

Marlena gave her a look and shoved a piece of lettuce into her mouth. "Why do I need a therapist when I have you?"

"I'm not licensed."

Marlena scoffed and shook her head. "I don't need a therapist. There's none out there that would understand everything going on inside of my mind anyway."

"Let's be honest here, Marlena," Wanda started. "You don't even understand everything going on in your mind; that's part of the reason why you struggle so much."

"There's just so much I can't grasp—so much that I can't keep up with," Marlena sighed, a frown falling onto her face. "All I know is that during this past year, things have changed rather drastically, and it hasn't necessarily been for the good."

"You're right; it hasn't been for the good," Wanda replied. "I have spent the past year watching as you slowly spiral downward—both you and Bucky."

Marlena looked down at her plate at the mention of Bucky. She'd spent so long trying to bring him back to the person he used to be, yet she had lost him to a single mental relapse. He was still more or less himself around her, but Marlena knew him better than she knew herself; she knew better than anyone that he had changed and was still changing. She'd been so focused on making sure he was okay that she had forgotten to make sure she was. She couldn't help it, though. She loved Bucky more than anything, and she wouldn't hesitate to put his well-being above her own. He was her main priority and he always would be.

"Bucky," Marlena repeated his name quietly. "He's going through so much right now."

"You see, the difference between you and Bucky is that Bucky has accepted that there is something wrong with him," Wanda breathed out. "He's trying to help himself while trying to help you, too; you're only worried about him and helping him when you should be worried about helping yourself as well."

Marlena pushed her plate away and folded her arms across the table. "I know that I should, but I just can't bring myself to do it."

"You need to, Marlena. How are we supposed to help you when you can't even help yourself? Do you know how much it hurts Bucky to see you the way you are?"

"Do you know how much it hurts me to see him the way he is?" Marlena followed, raising her eyebrows at her cousin.

Wanda nodded. "I feel what you feel, just as you feel what I feel. But I have a question: have you even told Bucky the reason why Pietro's death affects you so much? Have you told him exactly why that contributed to your mental condition—why it still does?"

"No, but I'd almost bet you did," Marlena said, taking a sip of her water.

"I won't deny that I tell Bucky a lot of things in regards to how you're feeling—he asks because you don't tell him, and I care too much about you both to keep something so crucial from him," Wanda explained. "But I haven't told him anything about Pietro. I know how deeply and how personally the incident affected you, and I won't tell him anything I believe to be best coming from your mouth. All he knows is that you were there and that you saw it happen."

"There's a reason I haven't told him, and it's a reason that has nothing to do with me."

Wanda tilted her head in curiosity. "Care to explain, dragă?"

"I couldn't save Pietro. No matter how hard I tried and no matter how much energy I used up in the process, my efforts were nothing but futile," Marlena began, running a trembling hand through her hair. "It sucks not being able to save someone, especially when that someone means so much to you. Right now Bucky is going through a stage where he's having these flashes of memories, not only from his life before he was taken by Hydra, but also from his life during Hydra—his life as the Winter Soldier."

Marlena took a deep breath in order to calm herself down before continuing. "Sometimes his memories would really get to him. I can remember spending the night holding him as he cried and talked to me about how desperately he wished for the opportunity to go back in time and save the lives the Winter Soldier had taken away; knowing that he couldn't tore him apart inside. Our situations may have been similar in context—they still are, I presume—but I just couldn't bring myself to tell him about Pietro—I still can't. I fear it would make things worse than they already are, and I don't want that for him."

Wanda let out a shaky breath and wiped a tear from her eye. "Your love for one another runs deeper than your logic, I will tell you that," she chuckled slightly.

Before Marlena could respond, the waiter showed up to drop their check off and remove the empty dishes from their table.

Marlena's phone beeped inside her purse, and she pulled it out. A text message from Sam popped up on the screen, and Marlena furrowed her eyebrows as she read over the words.

Sammy 😎
You and Wanda need to come home, Mar.

"Who is it?" Wanda asked as she looked over the check.

"Sam," she answered, locking her phone and throwing it back into her purse. "He said we needed to come home."

Wanda raised a brow and stood up, grabbing her purse and the check. "What for? Is something wrong?"

"I dunno," Marlena shrugged, "I didn't ask. I'm sure he and Steve just want a chance to say goodbye before they head out."

Wanda only nodded in agreement and followed Marlena to the front of the restaurant. After paying for their food, the two took off, wasting no time in hopping into Marlena's Jeep.

"I cannot wait until I can afford my own vehicle," Wanda chuckled as she tinkered with the controls on the dashboard. "Driving seems to be quite. . .fun."

Marlena snorted in response to her words. "It's annoying and tiring, and people are stupid as hell. If I didn't have to drive I definitely wouldn't."

"That's not the attitude to have," Wanda snickered.

Marlena only smiled and continued down the road. About ten minutes later she pulled into her neighborhood.

Flashing lights reflected through several houses, and Marlena's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she attempted to register where they were coming from. The moment she pulled onto her street, however, she was given an answer. An ambulance sat on the street in front of her house, along with two police cars and Sam's car. Marlena could feel a pit in her stomach at the sight of the vehicles, and she sped towards her house, wasting no time at all in pulling into the driveway beside her mom's car.

"Oh my gosh," Wanda uttered quietly as she opened her car door.

Marlena said nothing in response, and, instead, jumped out of the car without even bothering to turn the vehicle off.

Bucky watched from his spot against the side of the house as Marlena and Wanda made their way into the yard. Marlena moved towards the police officers talking to Sam and Steve but before she could get too close, Bucky ran over to stop her. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back, startling her slightly. She hadn't recognized him at first, as he had a baseball cap low on his head and his shoulder length hair was pulled back into a bun, though she couldn't exactly tell due to the fact he had a hood pulled over his head as well.

"Bucky, what the hell is going on?" Marlena asked as she looked up at him. She immediately noticed the red tint of his eyes and the tear stains on his face, and she knew then that something was wrong; she just didn't know exactly what it was.

"Something happened," he answered, his voice strained.

Marlena raised both of her hands to his face, using the pad of her thumbs to wipe away the moisture that still remained. "What's wrong, baby? Why are you crying? Are you okay? "

"I'm okay, Mar," he said quietly, taking her hands tightly in his own. "But. . .Miranda."

Marlena's heart seemed to speed up at the sound of her mother's name. She wondered what he could've possibly meant by that, and was more than ready to ask him when several people came barreling out of her home. She craned her head around Bucky's body to see what was happening and was met with the sight of several paramedics rolling a gurney down the cement walkway and towards the ambulance. It wasn't so much the sight of the gurney that bothered her, rather than the black, human-sized bag that was strapped to the gurney.

Marlena's eyes widened as the realization of the situation struck her, and she made a move to get past Bucky, but he merely grabbed her and pulled her close to him.

"No," Marlena exclaimed as she once again attempted to get away from him. "No, not her. Mom. . .please, no."

Bucky let out a shaky breath and tightened his grip around her body as she began to sob. She practically collapsed in his arms as she watched the paramedics roll her mother's body down the pathway.

"What happened?" she cried as her grip around Bucky's arm tightened. "What happened?" Marlena wasn't even sure whether or not she wanted to know what happened; she feared it would break her worse than she already was.

This was not at all what she had been expecting to come home to after receiving Sam's message. She hoped to come home to a smiling Sam and Steve ready to say their goodbyes before heading back to New York, but of course that was nowhere near close to what was happening.

The pain Marlena felt as she attempted to reestablish a connection with her mother was almost unbearable. Her futile efforts only served as a confirmation to the one thing she was beginning to dread the most: the death of her mother. She could not bring herself to accept the fact that her mother was gone—she refused to. She had lost nearly everyone she'd ever loved, and it made her nauseous knowing that she had now lost her mom, too.

There were no words to describe the amount of pain Marlena felt in that very moment; not even Bucky's arms wrapped tightly around her could help lessen it. She hadn't been subject to such an extreme amount of pain since she had lost her dad. Although years had passed since she had lost her father, the dull ache inside her never seemed to want to disappear, and now that her mom was gone, too, she knew there was no chance at all in it ever disappearing.

This particular incident only made things worse for Marlena in regards to her collapsing mental state as of recently. She was more than desperate for an escape from the emotional turmoil of her life, but now, as she watched the paramedics lifting the gurney holding her mother's body into the back of the ambulance, she feared she would never find one.

"Marlena, I'm so sorry, baby," Bucky said, tightening his grip around her.

Marlena couldn't find the words to respond, so she just allowed Bucky to hold her; she needed all the comfort she could possibly get.

"Bucky," Steve called as he rushed over to him and Marlena, Wanda by his side.

Bucky looked over at him and released the tight hold he had on Marlena, though hers never once faltered. "Hm?"

"They're taking her down to Sibley and suggested somebody bring Marlena. Sam and I are going to head downtown, but we should be up there a little bit later," Steve explained to him. "We've also called Greyson; he and Mason should be back in a few hours."

"You're not going back to New York?" Bucky asked with furrowed eyebrows.

"Apparently there are some things that need to be taken care of before we do," Wanda answered quickly, eyeing Bucky suspiciously.

Steve let out a sigh and moved towards Marlena, who had only slightly calmed down. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Mar," he said before planting a comforting kiss onto her forehead. This had broken her, and Steve knew that much just by looking at the pained and distant glimmer in her hazel eyes. He wished he could do something to help her, something to take her pain away, but he knew he couldn't.

Marlena gave a slight nod in response to his words before averting her attention to the ground. Steve bade a quick goodbye to the three of them before speeding off towards Sam's car. After Sam had taken off down the road with Steve, Wanda spoke up.

"What is this, Bucky?" she asked as she held up the blood-stained note from earlier.

Marlena looked over, her brows falling as she noticed the note and the blood on it. Bucky, on the other hand, was slightly annoyed. He had told Steve to keep the note so Marlena wouldn't see it; it would only make things worse than they already were.

"Where did you get it?" he asked as he removed it from her hold.

"It fell out of Steve's pocket," she answered. "I noticed the blood on it, so I picked it up and also may have read it. Who do the initials belong to? I don't recall knowing anyone with the initials B.R."

Marlena's breath hitched in her throat as her brain registered the initials and the person in which they belonged to. She snatched the note from Bucky's hand and moved away before he even had the time to react.

She read over the words on the paper, her eyes glazing over with fresh tears. A wave of anger overcame her and she found herself ripping the note up. Not only was she upset that she had lost her mother, but she was also more than furious because of the reason why she had lost her in the first place. She thought she had seen the last of Rumlow two years ago after she slammed his thick head into a wall, yet he was back and he was wreaking havoc on the life she was already struggling to live. She had always wanted Rumlow dead, but now she wanted him gone more than ever. She would, however, worry about that situation at a later time.

"Marlena," Bucky said cautiously.

She ran a hand over her tear-stained face and threw the small pieces of paper to the ground before moving towards her car.

"Marlena Claire," Bucky called again, taking several steps toward her.

Marlena finally stopped and turned around to look at him, her slightly swollen eyes filling with more and more tears. "What?"

"Where are you going, sweetheart?"

She shrugged her shoulders and wiped her eyes, though it did nothing to halt the flow of tears. "I don't know, I just don't want to be here—I can't be here. All I feel when I stand on this lawn is pain, and I can't take it anymore. If I don't leave I'm going to lose my damn mind."

Bucky and Wanda watched with sad eyes as Marlena broke down in front of them. Both of them hated seeing her in such a state, and they wanted nothing more than to be able to help her. There was no fixing this break, though, and they both knew that. The only thing that could be done to help her was to be there for her.

"I have lost just about everyone I've ever loved," she forced out through her cries, reaching up to grasp onto the locket around her neck. "I'm so sick of losing people; I'm so sick of standing by and watching as the people I care about are taken away from me. I just don't want to lose anybody else. I've had enough pain to last me a lifetime and I don't need anymore."

"You're not going to lose anyone else, Mar," Bucky assured her as he stepped forward, placing his hands on either side of her face. He wiped away her tears with the pad of his thumb before pulling her to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her. "And I will do whatever it takes to make sure that remains true."

"As will I," Wanda spoke up, placing her hand over top of Marlena's, which tightly grasped Bucky's jacket.

Marlena buried her head into Bucky's chest and tightened her grip around him, grabbing Wanda's hand in the process. "I love you both more than you'll ever know. Never ever forget that, okay? You're everything to me and more."

"We love you just as much, Marlena," Bucky assured her, pressing a long kiss to the top of her head.

Marlena reveled in the sound and meaning of his words. Though she felt as if her entire world was falling apart at the moment, knowing that she was in fact loved by the ones who meant the most to her gave her a sense of comfort she believed she needed to get through her days. She would hold on to that feeling for as long as she possibly could and only hope that nothing else would come along and take it away.