As Iron Man cleared out the defeated HYDRA agents, Max regathered her wits and drove back upstate to the compound. It was a much slower process in her Audi than it would have been in a flying suit of armor, but not everyone could do things the genius-billionaire-avenger way. She arrived back at her "home away from home" in time to catch the end of an argument in the R-and-D lab.

While Stark, Rhodes, and Dr. Strange were arguing, Max stayed back by the door, unwilling to interject in what she didn't feel was any of her business. Or...it wasn't her business until Tony found a way to bring her into the mess.

"That's your solution? Lock it up in Disney's Haunted Mansion down on Bleecker?" Tony scoffed.

"And your solution would be to play with it until you create a bigger problem," Strange retorted, "My answer is no - a word I get the feeling you aren't used to hearing."

Rhodey's calmer tone interjected. "If we find out what it does, then we find out what HYDRA wants it for."

"Thank you," Tony sighed prematurely.

"On the other hand, Tony," Rhodes continued, "If HYDRA wants it, it doesn't do something good. I'd rather not turn on the death box if it lets those creatures out again."

"I wanna know how."

"Short answer: Magic." Strange replied sharply. "My division. I'll be keeping it. Safe from HYDRA and anyone else with a dangerous curiosity."

"Safe from me, you mean?"

"Exactly."

Strange turned to leave, cloak whipping around behind him. Stark fell silent.

Max watched Strange leave, the determination to leave etched clearly on his face. She knew the best thing to do was probably to walk away and leave everyone involved to cool off. Then again, this was likely the last time she would see this odd sorcerer again for some time...or ever. In the end, Max's better judgement rarely won over her gut feelings. She quickly walked after the man.

A portal opened before the sorcerer on the ground floor of the compound. Just before he walked through, someone called from behind him.

"Doctor Strange?"

The voice was calm, polite, and a bit shy - a definite contrast from his previous conversation. He turned to look, seeing Max walking over to him. Almost instinctively, his stern expression faded into a gentler one.

"Miss Stark."

"I know you're probably very busy, but...I didn't get the chance to thank you for saving me today. So, thanks." She smiled sweetly as she spoke. "I mean, how you trapped those HYDRA thugs and...it was awesome."

"Well, I don't know about awesome, but you're very welcome." His expression lightened even more into a slight grin. "I only wish more people were as grateful for my work."

He glanced in the direction he came from the lab.

"Tony would never admit it, but he's thankful for the help. Too much pride to remember 'thank yous' sometimes." Max reached into her pocket, pulling out a business card and offering it to Strange. "If you ever need anything and don't feel like arguing with Iron Man, I'll do what I can. It's my job to be good with other heroes for him sometimes."

Strange reached out and accepted the card from her. Another appeared in her hand in its place, this card on a faded parchment that simply held the writing "177a Bleecker St."

"If anything like this happens again, you'll know where to find me."

Strange started to step through the portal, pausing to look back at the paper in Max's hand briefly. His smirk grew a bit as he shook his head a bit and vanished with the sparks and embers of the portal.

Max examined the paper in her hand, flipping it over in her palm. There was nothing on the other side at first glance. However, as she examined it, a string of numbers seemed to write themselves neatly on the back. Max's smile brightened a bit as she bit her lip excitedly. She had to remind herself not to read into it. After all, it was a professional exchange of information. This was her job. The hot wizard who saved her life gave her his phone number for strictly professional reasons.

Making her way back up toward Tony, she took a deep breath and hoped that he wasn't in too bad a mood after the disagreement he seemed to have with Strange.

"So, today got kinda crazy."

Tony turned around from the array of screens he was staring into, all of them depicting a different street or satellite image of the morning HYDRA incident.

"I don't get it," he sighed, "For starters, HYDRA's supposed to be dead. Cap blew the whole thing wide open. Why are they back? Why now? Next, they know about this strange tech or…"magic" or whatever it is. HYDRA doesn't take toys they don't plan to use."

"This means they're not only back, but they're active and scheming again?"

"Bingo, Kiddo."

"I'll look into any other mysterious artifacts gone missing then. If they go after another one or have any more, there'll be a trail."

"It'd be easier to know what we were looking for if we knew more about this one," Tony added, turning back to a screen and enlarging the image of the artifact from before, "But Strange doesn't like sharing toys with the rest of us."

"You don't like him much, do you?"

"Strange? He's an ass, but he's not so bad. Comes in handy when it counts. The whole "magic" schtick, however - not a fan."

"I kinda like him," Max shrugged.

"Be careful around that one," Tony instructed, turning back to Max again, "He's got a solid moral compass and he's handy, but that doesn't make him safe. Everything about him is just a bit off."

"Tony, you don't meet a guy called "Strange" and expect him to operate the same way you do," Max laughed, "But I'll be careful. You know what they say about deadly magicians."

"I'm being serious. Look at me. This is my serious face."

Max put her hands up in a surrender of her sarcasm. "I'll make sure to look out for myself and keep a nice, professional distance. As always."

"I know," Tony sighed, "I trust you. I just can't shake a bad feeling about all of this. I feel like he knows more about this mess that he's not sharing - as always - and it's hard to trust someone to keeps something this big to himself."

"Secrets might make things trickier, but there's usually a reason for them. Either way, I get the feeling that the only way we're gonna figure this out is playing nice with someone who knows about these kinds of weapons."

"You're saying we need him?"

"I'm saying we should play nice at the very least. Maybe we can coax him into doing the same and get out ahead of HYDRA for once."

Dropping her bag on the foot of the bed, Max finally settled into her room. It wasn't her normal residence, since she spent a lot of time in her apartment in the city. Having a room in the compound, however, also made good sense. It was a task to always go back and forth. Besides, there had been an excess of space recently. That left she, Tony, and Rhodey staying here a part of the time. No one was a permanent resident anymore, since no one seemed to be able to stand the near empty building these days. It was still a base of operations for Iron Man and War Machine. It was functional, as long as the other rooms were ignored. The other rooms that were still as the previous avengers had left them. After they were empty for a while, Max thought she might go in and maintain the rooms a bit. Make sure they were nice on the off chance that they would be used again. After one attempt to be inside one of them, she'd returned to keeping them locked up. It was still too hard. Now, she just kept to her own small room there.

She sat on the edge of her bed and looked around the space numbly. The adrenaline of the day had worn off, any excitement fading with it. She'd fought every desire she had to talk to someone about her crazy day and the handsome new hero that she'd met. She had to ignore that instinct and remind herself that she had no one to talk to. Not anymore. Trying to ward off the isolation pulling at her thoughts, she walked over to the desk in the corner of the room opposite the bed. On the surface, a frame was laid face down. She must have done that the last time she was here. Picking it up, she gazed fondly at the photo inside. Max hardly recognized the happy girl bearing her resemblance. The girl had a brilliant smile as she wrapped her arms around the man in front of her, resting her chin on his shoulder. The white-haired boy flashed a dazzling smile, mirrored in the smile of his twin sister who stood beside the other two, arm outstretched to take the photo. Max sniffled a bit as she felt a warm tear roll down her cheek.

"I miss you guys so much."

At the time, losing Pietro had been the hardest thing she'd ever gone through. After that, just when she thought she could accept it and move forward, fate decided to come back and take her closest friend Wanda along with most of her strange hero family. Fate in the form of an ungrateful government backed by none other than Iron Man himself.

Looking down at the card still in her hand, she allowed a small, hopeful smile. After a lonely few years, it was nice to meet new people.