July 4, 2012
"Happy birthday!"
"Please, I don't want to make a fuss." Grimacing, Steve accepted the slim wrapped package Maggie had handed to him as they took their seats at a diner in Brooklyn.
Maggie leaned back on the squeaking vinyl with a grin. The wound on her face had faded to a scar, still pink at the edges, but no longer prone to breaking open and bleeding all over the place. She barely noticed it anymore, though sometimes people did double takes when they looked at her. "Oh, come on. It's not every day you turn… what, ninety four?"
"I think I'm actually twenty seven. Ish."
Maggie eyed Steve. He'd returned to the East coast a few days ago, and he looked better - not that he'd looked sick or particularly unhappy before, but he seemed… more settled in his own skin. He didn't look around as if waiting for something new to jump out at him. He wore jeans, a too-tight shirt and a leather jacket today, and a baseball cap and sunglasses in an attempt at a disguise. Maggie cocked her head at him. "You know, the offer to throw a birthday party still stands. Tony can't leave his conference in San Diego, but he can throw a party in like no time at all, from anywhere in the world."
Steve smiled and shook his head. "No, really. It's fine, but I appreciate the offer." He tapped the package she'd given him. "Should I… do I open this now, or…?"
"Go on!" Maggie watched him carefully peel back the bright red wrapping paper, without ripping it once. When he'd finished, she leaned forward. "It's a Stark Tablet! Top of the line, you can use it for whatever you like. It's got applications for reading books, creating art, watching movies, all sorts."
Steve's eyebrows rose. "Thank you. That's very generous, I… look forward to figuring it out."
Maggie shrugged. "Tony wanted to make you a new shield, but he doesn't really get the whole if it ain't broke, don't fix it, thing. I figured the tablet would be good for if you wanted to stay on the road."
He smiled. "Thanks." The waitress returned with their coffee, and they fell into silence to take their first sips. When Steve looked up again, he was tapping the tablet box. "I was actually thinking about getting a place. Maybe in D.C."
"D.C.?" she echoed. Her brow furrowed. "So… SHIELD?"
He seemed amused by how quickly she'd figured it out. "Yes. Maybe. Fury offered me a job, and… I think it might be good. To keep busy, do some good in the world." He shrugged. "I've had some other job offers too, projects for the Department of Education and some museums and historical associations."
"Good for you," Maggie smiled. She toasted him with her mug. "Getting back out in the world. How's it feel?"
Steve tipped his head back contemplatively. "Like nothing I've ever been familiar with. But that goes for most things these days, so…" he shrugged. "What have you been up to? I've seen you in the news a lot."
"Yes, well, Tony and I are the only Avengers who anyone knows how to find these days. Tony loves it, of course. I'm… still getting used to it, but the world hasn't fallen apart around me yet. I've had a couple old enemies come after me - after the Wyvern, really - but they didn't get very close before I stopped them." Steve looked briefly alarmed, but she waved a hand to move the topic on. "Been busy rebuilding the Tower. You should see it when it's finished, it's going to be a dream. And I've built my own workshop and office space. Same floor as Tony, but all my own. I've got a whole setup for working on my wings, an experimental aquaponics garden, and these heavy duty computer processors. It's everything a girl could ask for." Steve gave her a doubtful look, but didn't disagree.
"How about the Wyvern? Will I be seeing you around the Triskelion?"
Maggie chewed the inside of her cheek. "I've started up on missions again, but my own missions. I've got some… personal projects that I've needed to check on. And it turns out, it doesn't matter all that much that people know who I really am. If you can kick someone's ass, you can kick someone's ass." Steve smiled. "I might end up working with SHIELD again though. They asked me to look into a few things - some of the rogue agents Loki worked with, for example, and there's this Mandarin bomber guy."
"Well, I might see you around D.C. then."
"That would be nice," she nodded.
"And how are… have you heard from any of the others?"
Maggie met Steve's suddenly serious eyes. The Avengers.
"Well, obviously Tony. He and Pepper have moved back to L.A., to the mansion. They'll be back, but the Tower has always been business for them. First Stark Industries, and now the Avengers. It'll be there for us if we need it. And you've got a room there," she added meaningfully.
"Thanks," he said sincerely. "Though I'm honestly glad we haven't needed it. As much as I appreciate the offer."
She nodded. "I've caught up with Clint and Natasha from time to time. They're both back at SHIELD, so they go on missions from time to time. Clint and I went bowling last week. It was a mistake," she added in response to Steve's enquiring look. "No word from Thor, and Banner… he seems happy at the Tower, to not be on the move all the time. No incidents to speak of. He sleeps a lot." Maggie waved a hand. "So yes, all fine. Tell me about your trip, though! Did you get up to the Pacific Coast Highway?"
Steve's smile broke across his face. "I did. Here, I took down some sketches." He reached into his jacket for his notebook, which looked significantly more beat-up, and flipped through a few pages. Maggie's eyebrows rose. Steve was a good artist, taking down landscapes and buildings and even people's likenesses in startlingly fine detail. He talked through his adventures of the last couple of months, describing the things that surprised him about the future, and the new things he'd tried. He was apparently a big fan of Korean cuisine.
After about an hour, Maggie was leafing back through some of Steve's sketches when she paused on a page he hadn't shown her. She'd just flipped past a drawing of the Tesseract portal over New York, which made her shiver, but now she frowned. "Who's this?"
Steve put down his third cup of coffee, glanced at the sketch she was pointing to, and his face fell. "That's, uh…"
Maggie glanced back at the drawing. She'd known instantly that this couldn't have been one of Steve's passing sketches of strangers on his travels - there was too much detail, and it was too close up. Mostly he drew interactions: a woman coaxing her cat down from a tree, or two teenagers yelling as they ran into the ocean. But this was a character study of a young man mid-laugh, maybe in his twenties, with dark hair, crinkled eyes, and an easy smile. He wore a dark collar, maybe the hint of some kind of uniform.
"That's my friend," Steve finished. "Bucky."
Maggie glanced up at Steve's furrowed brow and crestfallen expression, then back down at the man with the laughing eyes. "Right, I… I remember reading about him. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
"It's alright. He's not the only one in there." Steve flipped through a few more pages and Maggie saw others: a beautiful woman with dark hair and sharp eyes, other men in military uniforms - the Howling Commandos - and then a young, smirking young man with a mustache that Maggie realized with a shock was her own father. Steve flipped back to the picture of his friend - Bucky. He watched Maggie examining the sketch.
"I drew this because I kept… I kept forgetting his face. Not really, you know, but I kept being scared I would."
"I get it," Maggie murmured, her eyes still on the young man mid-laugh and the lines of his face. After a moment, she smirked and looked up. "Though I don't know how you forget a face like that."
Steve laughed, a genuine loud laugh that drew eyes across the diner. "He certainly knew how to use it." He met Maggie's eyes with something a little lighter than sadness. "I think you two would've gotten along."
The next day, Steve called Maggie.
"Miss me already?" she said when she picked up.
"I…" his hesitation made her frown. "Fury mentioned… I mean I think… do you know Peggy?"
For a moment, Maggie did not speak. Peggy. Aunt Peggy. Peggy Carter, who founded SHIELD and has been friends with my father ever since… the war.
The war with Steve.
She abruptly remembered the beautiful woman with dark hair and sharp eyes in Steve's sketchbook.
She swallowed, suddenly as wary as if she was walking over a minefield. "I… I do, yes."
Steve let out a breath which sounded like static over the phone.
When he did not speak again, Maggie continued. "I'm assuming you knew her too."
"Yes, she…" in that silence, Maggie heard everything she needed to know. She had never been in love, but she knew enough to recognize it in others. Oh, Steve.
"Does she know you're alive?" Maggie asked.
"I think SHIELD told her. They gave me a phone number but I can't- I haven't…" another long pause. "But then I remembered Fury mentioned you knew her, and I thought…"
Maggie rubbed her forehead. "Where are you staying?"
"A motel outside New York."
"Send me the address, I'll pick you up at eight tomorrow morning."
Steve was quiet on the drive up to D.C.
Maggie let him have his silence, aware that he was dealing with something she couldn't imagine. They arrived at the nursing home and signed in (one of the SHIELD agents on duty was one of the ones who'd pulled a gun on Maggie her first time here, and they shot her a scowl). The facility floors gleamed, and warm summer sunshine slanted through the windows. A radio at the nurse's station played soft piano music.
Maggie had visited Peggy occasionally since they had re-met each other. She'd seen her on good days and bad. Peggy had never told her much about the war, likely sensing that discussing Howard made Maggie uncomfortable. Maggie wondered if Peggy often told people about Steve.
"Wait here," Maggie murmured to Steve in the hallway. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets and his eyes were fixed on the floor. He didn't fidget, but his stillness was worrying.
Maggie hesitated, then touched his shoulder. He looked up, his eyes full of feeling. "We can go. You don't have to do this now."
He shook his head tightly. He didn't seem to be able to speak. Fair enough.
"I'll just be a minute."
Maggie cast Steve one last concerned look, then slipped into the room.
"Ah, Maggie," came Peggy's warm voice from the settee by the window looking out over the garden. "It's been too long."
Maggie turned and smiled when she met Peggy's faded, gleaming eyes. Peggy was wrapped in a light shawl today, her silver hair as neat as ever and the lines around her eyes crinkled. "I'm sorry," she said honestly. "I've been busy ever since aliens became a thing." She strode over and took a seat beside Peggy, squeezing her hand in greeting.
"Yes, I saw," Peggy said in a more solemn voice. "You did well."
"That's actually… sort of why I'm here today," Maggie said, holding Peggy's gaze. She fought not to fidget. "You've been… I mean, I assume you've seen all the news then?"
Something shifted in Peggy's eyes. And Maggie realized that all of it - the warm greeting, the friendly smile, had all been a facade. Because the facade cracked for a moment and Maggie saw sheer, unrestrained… hope.
Peggy's lip trembled and she leaned in to whisper: "Is… is it really him?"
Maggie's heart squeezed. She opened her mouth, but Peggy spoke again, as if she couldn't bear the answer:
"Fury explained it all to me earlier this year, but I… I could hardly believe it, and I know - I know…" she trailed away, and a single tear escaped from the corner of her eye and trailed a gleaming streak down her papery skin. "I'm sorry," Peggy said, sounding cross with herself. She reached up and brushed the tear away.
"Don't be sorry," Maggie murmured. She reached out to take Peggy's hand, feeling the dampness from the tear. She squeezed once and met the woman's eyes. "It's him."
The tears that filled Peggy's eyes broke her heart.
"Are you okay?" she whispered a moment later.
"No," Peggy said honestly. "But I… can I…"
Maggie had never seen the woman fumble so much, not even when she was confused in the middle of an episode. She nodded once with a smile. "Wait here."
She squeezed Peggy's hand once more, then got up and went back to the door. When she slid back into the corridor outside, she spotted Steve leaning against the wall, twisting a receipt to shreds in his hands. He looked up at her with something like terror.
"You can go in now," Maggie murmured.
He stared. "I… I don't know what to say." He looked haunted.
She touched his shoulder. "I'd start with hello."
Steve swallowed. For a moment she thought he was going to run, but then he drew himself tall, shoulders straight and his chin high, as if he was going into battle. He took two steps to cross the corridor, then set his hand on the doorknob. He twisted it and the door opened.
Maggie couldn't see into the room past Steve's bulk, so she didn't know what was on Peggy's face when she saw him.
"Hi, Peg," Steve murmured. And then he stepped inside and the door shut behind him.
Maggie let out a long, slow breath, then ran her hands over her face, her fingers catching on the pink line of her scar. She felt heavy, as if she were the one burdened by decades and grief. After a moment to collect herself she strode back down to the waiting room and took a seat. She ignored the scowl of the nurse on duty and let the warm sun wash over her face.
Maggie was half asleep when Steve returned.
His shadow fell over her face and she instantly sat up, focusing in on his face. "How did it go?" She checked the clock. "You've been in there a while."
He nodded, looking down at his hands. "She said to say goodbye to you for her, she's going to try get some rest now. I… I'm going to come back tomorrow."
"Good," she said with a smile. "Good, I'm glad." She could sense that Steve didn't want to talk about it, so she stood up and touched his shoulder. "Let's go get something to eat."
They went to a cafe down the road, and Steve stared into a mug full of black coffee.
Maggie had been perfectly prepared to enjoy her coffee in silence, but after fifteen minutes, Steve began to talk. He told her about how he'd met Agent Peggy Carter at an SSR training camp in New Jersey. Maggie grinned at the story, then as he went on to talk about their later work in the war. She'd known that Peggy was a one-of-a-kind woman, but it was nice to hear about it from someone who'd known her when she was young. Then Steve told her about the Howling Commandos, and his friend Bucky, and even a bit about the young, genius inventor who had made him a shield.
Steve kept it to light, funny anecdotes, clearly unable to express the loss and grief that underpinned his words. But it was nice, and the coffee was good, and Maggie was content to listen.
When they headed back to the car Maggie realized that as well as her brother, Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey in LA, the quiet scientist living a floor below her, and the two secret agents who she caught up with for takeout and fight training, she now had a new friend in D.C.
The thought made her smile. She'd been moving around for the better part of her adult life, flitting from place to place without aim or purpose. The idea that the reason she did it now was to visit her friends was a nice one.
Maggie and Tony fell back into a routine similar to the one they'd had before the Battle of New York - a relatively stable one for them. Tony spent most of his time in LA with Pepper, and Maggie spent most of her time in New York at the Tower, but they caught up at least twice a month wherever they happened to meet. Tony had become Iron Man in earnest. Something about the near-invasion had put him in defensive mode, and he'd been building new suits, shoring up defenses at the Tower and the LA mansion, and drafting up plans for something he called the Iron Legion. Maggie looked over his plans, but was content to leave him to it.
She had her hunt, after all. There had been more reports of potential Winter Soldier missions after the Incident, though Maggie couldn't explain why the ghost might be more active now. She was still months behind the Soldier, however. Sometimes weeks. It took a while for enough details about his work to filter into databases for her algorithms to ping a match. In the meantime, she had started looking into the metal arm angle - it was clearly an incredibly developed prosthetic, and she'd started narrowing down a shortlist of organisations who would have the tech for it. She was pretty sure the Soldier (or Soldiers) were not working alone. Maggie had been able to work alone purely because of her resources, but unless the Soldier was as wealthy as her… it was worth looking into. She'd also made her own notes about how the arm might work, given her own limited experience with it.
Maggie took the occasional mission with SHIELD, since they had saved her ass from going to jail during the Senate hearings, but for a time she focused on her own missions, as she reinvented what it meant to be the Wyvern. Mostly her work stayed out of the papers - because if she was doing it right, no one knew she had been there at all. Only now sometimes, the law enforcement agencies who she dropped information and criminals to sent her a public thank you message.
The closest anyone came to exacting revenge on her for her work as the Wyvern was when one of her old captures, Andrew Choque, put a hit out on her from jail. Maggie learned of this when a man with an ugly face tattoo tried to shoot her in broad daylight at a Stark Industries 'Rebuild New York' benefit in Central Park.
The pictures of Maggie pulling a gun out of a secret compartment in her prosthetic leg and shooting the guy in the kneecap kept the 24 hour news cycle busy for a while. When Maggie found out the guy was trying to collect a bounty, she got to work on Choque. She spent a couple of days tracing down every last one of Choque's offshore bank accounts and obliterating them, until he was left with no money save for that which he'd earned legitimately - which was worth just about nothing. When the criminal underworld learned that Choque was flat broke, no one seemed all that interested in hunting down the Wyvern anymore.
Sometimes, Maggie wondered if there was something Tony wasn't telling her. Or if it was just that they were busy with their own lives, he with Pepper and her with her missions. There had been a darker edge to both of them since he became Iron Man, but sometimes she saw… she wasn't sure what. They didn't discuss it.
The closest they came to talking about it was when he came back to the Tower for a weekend. They'd had dinner with Bruce and Pepper, Bruce regaling them with stories of his life on the run.
But in the early hours of the morning, Tony padded back into the Tower penthouse to find Maggie silhouetted against the wide windows, her wings out and folded against her back. She sat cross legged, watching the city.
"Keeping watch?" he murmured.
Maggie didn't flinch. She'd sensed him approaching. "It helps with the dreams."
"Dreams?"
"Memories, really."
He suppressed a shiver. After a long moment, he padded over and lowered down to sit beside her. She shuffled her wings to make room for him. The glow of his arc reactor reflected in the window.
Together they sat in silence, and watched dawn break out across the city.
December 21, 2012
Budva, Montenegro
Maggie pulled her thick coat tighter around her as she squinted at an array of computers set up on a rickety desk in front of her. She shifted restlessly.
She'd been cramped up in this tiny unheated room for fourteen hours now, staring at computer screens. Clint perched on a stool by the window, where a surveillance kit with a telescope and thermographic radar was set up. He didn't look cold at all. Asshole.
As if sensing her eyes on him, Clint pulled his eye away from the telescope. "This contact isn't going to show."
She toggled one of her security camera feeds. "You think?"
SHIELD had brought her in on this mission a few days ago: they'd been tracking a terror group who'd been on their radar for a while, and they needed Maggie's tech and tracking abilities. And since Nat was off on a mission with Steve somewhere in Vietnam, that left Maggie and Clint on a surveillance team. It was the first time they'd teamed up since New York, and Maggie almost found herself wishing for a fast-paced battle with aliens to cut through the monotony of their stakeout.
"So far this group has been cautious leading up to their attacks. And they're on to SHIELD, we've gotten in their way one too many times."
"Great, so I've been sat here on my ass for the past half a day for nothing."
"Spying isn't as glamorous as it's cracked up to be," Clint said, with a faint hint of a smile. Behind him, Maggie could make out the snow-capped mountains beyond the city, and the slate grey sky.
She leaned back on her chair. "Speaking of SHIELD-" she tapped the Montenegrin newspaper on the corner of her desk. She couldn't read the language, but she could make out the two pictures splashed across the front page: one of a destroyed airbase in Kuwait, the other a still of the eerie figure known as the Mandarin: he had a high knot in his hair and a long, grim-looking beard, his eyes concealed by dark glasses. Maggie had seen the video where he'd taken credit for the attack on the airbase. You know who I am. You don't know where I am. And you'll never see me coming.
In this latest video, a logo had flashed up at the end: the Ten Rings. It had made Maggie go cold. She was sure she and Tony had scoured them off the map.
Clint's eyes fell on the paper.
"Does SHIELD have anything on this guy?" she asked. "Do they want me back on the case?" They'd taken her off when she wasn't able to get anywhere with the spotty information earlier in the year. She'd found nothing on a base, or even on activity by the Mandarin's men. It was as if he didn't exist.
Clint checked the telescope again, then leaned back and sighed. His fingers were laced over his SHIELD jacket. "As far as I know, the Department of Defense have linked six more bombings to the Mandarin that the public doesn't know about. But they don't want SHIELD involvement, they say it's standard issue terrorism and they don't need superheroes to deal with it."
Maggie bristled. "We're not-"
"I know, believe me. But can you see why the DoD would rather show the public that their guys can deal with it, rather than a shady arm of the government or a billionaire with wings?" He raised his eyebrows at her. "Anyway, last I heard they'd put your man Rhodes on the case - or Iron Patriot as they're calling him now."
Her lips quirked and she opened her mouth to keep arguing, but then her phone dinged on the table.
He cast his eyes heavenward. "Please tell me you're not texting on a highly covert mission."
"Please, as if anyone could trace my phone. Besides, you said that guy wasn't showing up." She opened the message and saw it was a video clip from Tony, along with the message: If this ends up on YouTube I'll upload that video of you faceplanting on the trampoline when you were twelve.
She hit play on the video, which began with Tony in his workshop throwing shadow punches at the camera as J.A.R.V.I.S. said dryly: "Sir, may I remind you that you have been awake for seventy two hours."
Maggie's eyebrows rose. Then it became clear that Tony was recording some kind of… suit demonstration? He wore his usual dark underarmor, the arc reactor glowing in his chest.
"Mark 42, autonomous prehensile propulsion suit test," he told Dum-E and the camera. When he started playing Christmas music and dancing on the spot, Maggie sighed and leaned back in his seat.
"That Tony?" Clint asked, his eye pressed against the telescope again.
"How could you tell," she replied wryly. She watched as Tony quit dancing for a moment to make a weird gesture. He did it a couple of times until suddenly… pieces of armor started flying across the room toward him. Her eyebrows shot up and for a brief moment she was impressed. The armor collided with his arms and flowed over his skin, becoming his Iron Man gauntlets. But then another piece of armor smashed through the glass display case behind him.
Maggie watched in amusement and horror as metal parts hurtled across the workshop, breaking pipes and walls and almost Tony.
The disaster ended with Tony flipping upside down to catch the faceplate whizzing toward him, and he landed on one knee with his fist to the ground, encased in the Iron Man suit. Then a last metal piece smashed into his back and it all went falling apart.
J.A.R.V.I.S. said: "As always, sir, a great pleasure watching you work," and then the video ended.
Another message popped up from Tony: You still coming home for Christmas?
Laughing under her breath, Maggie typed back: If only to save you from yourself. You're not going to be super gross with Pepper like you were at Thanksgiving, are you?
Pepper had been injured at Thanksgiving, because she'd rolled her ankle while she and Maggie ran the WHiH 'New York Reconstruction' 10k earlier in the month. Pepper had been unlucky enough to tear a ligament. Though she had rather impressively kept the pictures of her falling out of the papers. At Thanksgiving Tony had insisted on carrying her around everywhere and doting on her hand and foot. It was nice to see, if a little nauseating.
Tony replied a moment later: Only if she's somehow not a brilliant and beautiful bombshell the whole day.
Maggie rolled her eyes and smiled. She looked over her shoulder at Clint. "Where are you spending Christmas?"
He didn't look away from the telescope. "That's classified."
She rolled her eyes again. Bruce was spending Christmas with some old friends of his from Culver, and she was pretty sure Steve was spending Christmas alone, but he'd politely declined her invitation all the same.
So Maggie was looking forward to a Christmas like the ones she'd had growing up, back at the mansion with Tony and J.A.R.V.I.S., and now with Pepper and maybe a showing from Rhodey. She'd already bought everyone's presents and had them stashed in a secure location.
It would be good to be back at the mansion. Spending time there reminded her of when things were simpler (slightly) when she was a kid. She might practice some old gymnastics moves on the trampoline, go swimming in the pool if the weather was okay, and watch the sun setting from the roof.
It'd be a far sight warmer in Miami than in Montenegro, that was for sure.
"What do you know, he did show up," Clint murmured.
Maggie glanced over. "The contact?"
"Yeah. Your audio trackers working?"
"Of course." She switched to the feed and kept one eye on Clint's thermal trackers as the bundled-up contact strode into the house of the weapons trafficker they'd been surveilling. She and Clint listened to the scratchy audio footage as the two men discussed a planned hit on a SHIELD base in Serbia. As the conversation wrapped up, Maggie reached for her wingpack.
Clint put out a hand to stop her.
"Shouldn't we bring that guy in?" she asked.
"No, no… I've got an idea."
December 22, 2012
When Maggie's phone rang in the middle of a cargo plane flight to their next leg of the mission, Clint cast her a despairing look but didn't object to her answering the call.
"Season's greetings Rhodey," she said brightly, stretching her boots out on the floor of the cargo plane. She and Clint were travelling incognito, so her wingpack and uniform were stuffed in a backpack under her seat. She could hear the cold wind howling outside the fuselage. "Love the new look."
"... Really?"
Maggie scratched the back of her neck. Clint laughed and unclipped himself to stride up to the cockpit. "I was more trying to be nice. It's Christmas," she said. "The new suit is a little on the nose."
Rhodey sighed over the line. "Anyway, that's not what I called about. Where are you?"
"Uh, I think somewhere in Serbian airspace."
"... Great. When's the last time you saw Tony?"
She straightened. "Why, has he gone missing?"
"No, relax, just… when did you guys last catch up?"
"Um… a couple of weeks ago, I was back at the mansion for a couple days." The robots had beeped and whirled at her, and it had made her feel strangely guilty for being away for so long. Tony had showed her some of his new suits, and they'd worked together on some mag lev tech.
"Was he… how did he seem?"
Maggie thought about it. Manic. Sleepless. Changeable. She almost said he seemed normal, but then she remembered the shade of darkness that hovered about him. The sense that he had been hiding it from her. She bit her lip. "I… what are you getting at, Rhodey?"
"I'm worried about him. I was just out for lunch with him and he had some kind of… episode."
"With his heart?"
"I don't know. He freaked out and left in a hurry in the suit. It reminded me a bit of how he was when his arc reactor was… y'know. But not quite. I don't know, Maggie, ever since New York he's been so…" he trailed off.
Maggie frowned, setting her elbows on her knees. "New York changed a lot," she murmured.
"I know. I'm just wondering if maybe Tony isn't… great with change. He barely leaves the mansion except to go be Iron Man. Even Pepper says she hasn't seen him much. I don't know what he's spending his time doing."
She rubbed her forehead. "Building. He's come up with some great stuff, Rhodey-"
"He always does. It's what he isn't doing that concerns me. Did you guys ever talk about New York?"
She sighed.
"Look, you're not your brother's keeper, Maggie," Rhodey said in a softer voice. "I just want you to think about it. Tony's great at pretending everything's okay when it's really not. You both are."
"I'll be back home for Christmas, I'll talk to him then," she said.
"Okay. I'll see you then, kid."
"Maybe we could go flying together."
She could hear him smiling when he said: "I'd like that. Be safe, Maggie."
SHIELD Base, Serbia
Rhodey's phone call played on Maggie's mind the rest of the day, as she and Clint secretly reinforced the Serbian SHIELD base. Maggie set up booby traps and shored up the base's defenses, while Clint brought in reinforcement agents hidden in the back of post vans and through underground tunnels.
When they'd done what they could, Maggie found herself holed up in an empty bunk room, in her Wyvern uniform, with a head full of restless thoughts. She checked the time in Los Angeles, and then called Tony.
He picked up after a few rings: he was clearly sitting in bed, his hair wet, the arc reactor glowing through a thin tank top. "Hey, if it isn't the Wyvern," he greeted, noticing her uniform.
"Is that Maggie?" came Pepper's voice, and a moment later her ginger head appeared beside Tony's. She wore a soft pajama shirt and her hair hung in wet ringlets. She beamed. "I haven't seen you in ages, Maggie, how are you - is that blood?"
Maggie checked her face and found a dark smudge at the corner of her jaw. She frowned at it for a moment. "Uh, no, it's engine oil. I had a mishap when I was siphoning a helicopter's fuel tank." She rubbed the smudge away.
Pepper sighed. "I don't know if it's better or worse knowing what you're up to."
"Better," Tony said, at the same time as Maggie said "Worse."
"At least when this one goes on a mission," Pepper said, nudging Tony, "I hear everything in the papers eventually. You're trickier to keep track of."
"That's the idea," she grinned. "Hey, Clint's around here somewhere if you want to say hi?"
"Barton's around?" Tony asked. "In the same room?"
Maggie rolled her eyes. "Just because he hugged me once doesn't mean we're having a secret love affair, Tony. We're in an airbase, and I'm alone in a tiny room sitting on the thinnest mattress I've ever seen."
"We're on silk sheets," Tony said with a glint in his eye. "One of us is clearly making better choices."
"Clearly. Anyway, I just wanted to call to see how you're both doing."
A strange look crossed Pepper's face, and Tony's eyes narrowed. "Uh huh. And this has nothing to do with… let me guess, Rhodey called you?"
Maggie kept her expression even.
Pepper nudged Tony. "Go on. Tell her," she said softly.
Tony sighed, tipped his head back, and then looked back at the screen. "I may have been… ever so slightly… insomniac recently."
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
"And I… I've got it under control, it's just…" Pepper's hand brushed over the back of Tony's head. "I guess I've kept busy tinkering as a… a way to deal. I just want to keep you safe. Both of you," he said, glancing at Pepper. "Everyone." Maggie's heart squeezed as Tony shrugged. "Just… keeping you in the loop."
"Thank you for telling me," she said softly. "I think…" she shook her head. Ever since New York they'd both been so busy, but she wondered how much of that was them trying to keep busy so they didn't have to slow down. "Like we said, we work better when we're on the same team. Maybe this is something we should work on together." She shot him a wan smile.
In the next moment she heard a distant explosion, and the floor shook beneath her. Maggie couldn't help her grin as she looked up. Clint's plan is working. That must have been one of her booby traps at the perimeter. The attack has gone ahead, and the terror group has no idea what is waiting for them.
"What was that?" Pepper asked.
"Uh, fireworks," Maggie said distractedly. "Listen, I have to go, but Tony - take care, okay? It's okay to not be okay. And um -" another explosion rattled the windows as she got up, and she could hear Clint shouting down the corridor for her. "I'll see you at Christmas!" she shouted, and then hung up.
Hours later, any semblance of peace between Pepper and Tony was shattered when Pepper found herself staring into the white glowing eyes of the Iron Man suit that Tony had called in the throes of his nightmare.
December 23, 2012
Maggie was sitting in the conference room of the base with Clint, debriefing after they'd captured the attackers, when Pepper called. Maggie ignored the first call, then the second, and finally picked up the third as she apologized and stepped away.
She hadn't made it to the door before she realized Pepper was crying.
"What, what is it?" Maggie asked, her stomach dropping. Clint straightened and looked over, his brow low. Her thoughts raced: Tony missing, Tony injured, or worse-
"It's Happy," Pepper choked out. Maggie went still. "He was… there was an explosion at the Chinese Theater and he was there - we didn't find out until just now, he's at Mercy Hospital-"
"He's alive?"
"Yes, but he's in a medically induced coma. They say he's stable, Tony's with him now, but..."
Clint had stood up and moved to grip Maggie's shoulder. She stood frozen halfway to the door, phone pressed to her ear and her knuckles white.
"I'm - I'm going to come back right away, Pepper, I - I'll call you back in a minute." She hung up and looked into Clint's eyes. "It's Happy, he was hurt-"
Clint nodded. "Go."
"But the mission, the terrorists-"
"Screw the mission. Your family needs you. I got this." Maggie stared at Clint for a moment, his calm determination, then threw her arms around him in a tight, fast hug.
"Thank you," she murmured, then broke away and ran to pack her bag. She looked up the Chinese Theater explosion as she went - the photos were horrific, a massive blast zone smoldering outside the theater, littered with debris and with dark silhouettes of people burned into the walls. The Mandarin had taken credit for this one as well. Her stomach churned.
Just as Maggie was stepping onto a SHIELD Quinjet, her bag slung over her shoulder, she checked her phone and found a slew of new notifications: news alerts of an interview Tony had given outside Mercy Hospital.
"Ready to go, Ms Stark?" called the Quinjet pilot from the cockpit. Clint had insisted she be flown, instead of going alone. She nodded distractedly as she pulled up footage of the interview.
Her stomach twisted as she saw Tony surrounded by a pack of reporters outside the hospital, his eyes concealed by sunglasses but a look of barely concealed rage on his face. She'd only seen him look like that a handful of times.
"Hey, Mr Stark! When is someone going to kill this guy?" called a man in the pack.
Tony stilled, his jaw clenched, and slowly turned to face the man. "Is that what you want?" His face could have been carved out of stone. "Here's a little holiday greeting I've been wanting to send to the Mandarin. I just didn't know how to phrase it until now." Flashing lights flickered across his face. "My name is Tony Stark and I'm not afraid of you. I know you're a coward."
Maggie's stomach dropped and she sat down hard on one of the Quinjet seats.
"So I've decided-" The Tony on screen took off his glasses, baring burning dark eyes. "That you just died, pal. I'm going to come get the body." The reporters had gone silent. "There's no politics here, just good old fashioned revenge. There's no Pentagon, it's just you and me." His head tilted. "On the off chance that you're a man, here's my home address: 10-8-80 Malibu Point, 90265. I'll leave the door unlocked."
He grabbed the cellphone of the guy who'd asked him the original question. "That's what you wanted, right?" Then he turned and punted the cellphone into a far wall, making the nearby journalists duck. "Bill me."
Then he slid into his Audi and sped away.
Maggie dropped her forehead into her hand and let out a long, slow breath. She felt nauseous.
"I'm going to start takeoff procedures, Ms Stark," called the Quinjet pilot, apparently choosing to ignore her defeated body language. Maggie didn't bother nodding.
After a moment to reign in her panic, Maggie called Tony. Only she got J.A.R.V.I.S. instead.
"Apologies, Ms Stark, sir is currently unavailable," came his calm voice.
"Bullshit, he's hunting the Mandarin," she shot back as the Quinjet engines thrummed to life.
"Yes, Ms Stark."
"Put me through."
"Yes, Ms Stark."
There was a click, and then Maggie heard the ambient sounds of tapping and machinery whirring.
"Tony, I'm coming home," she said clearly.
"What?" Tony sounded distracted, but not as furious as he'd been in the news clip. "How did you - J.A.R.V.I.S., did you put Maggie through? When I explicitly told you-"
"What have you got?" Maggie asked. The Quinjet lifted off the ground.
Tony sighed. "I'm looking through the bomb site analysis now. The Mandarin, he's… he's using bombs, but there's no evidence of a bomb. Aside from the actual explosion. Just heat, and light, and shockwaves, but no evidence of machinery or shrapnel."
"Is Happy…?"
"Alive."
There was a long silence. Maggie rubbed her forehead, feeling panicked and exhausted all at once.
"Hang on," Tony said. "Did you say you're coming back?"
"Yes."
"No, you stay out of this Mags, I need to-"
"I'm coming back."
He sighed again. "Fine. I'll talk you through the analysis when you get here."
"You should leave the mansion."
"Why?"
Maggie cast her eyes heavenward. "Because you kind of told a terrorist where we live."
"Yeah, so he would show up and face me. I'm not running, Maggie."
She ran a hand over her face. "Tony-"
"I've got this, Maggot. J.A.R.V.I.S., end call."
The call dropped, and Maggie cursed under her breath. The Quinjet was in the air now, jetting away from the Serbian airbase and climbing rapidly. Maggie eyed the pale sky visible through the cockpit window, tapping her phone against her thigh. A few moments later it buzzed.
A message from Pepper: I'm planning to get us both out of town for a few days. Latest news on Happy is that he's still stable.
Maggie tapped out a quick reply: Good. I'll call when I get back.
They must have reached cruising altitude, because the Quinjet pilot looked back over his shoulder at her and called: "You should get some sleep, Ms Stark. I'll wake you when we're close."
"Thanks."
Maggie delved into the intel on the Mandarin instead, reading over his suspected hits and the details of the Chinese Theater explosion. But she only had her phone, and there was only so much electronic hunting she could do while thousands of feet in the air. The Mandarin's operations were so… decentralised, drawing inspiration and influence from groups all over the world. And with no bomb parts to analyze, she couldn't trace make and manufacture. She needed to get her boots on the ground, asking questions and meeting people. She tried to call Rhodey, but he didn't pick up. She thought he might be somewhere in the Middle East, so he could be asleep.
She leaned back in her seat and rested her head against the headrest, intending to mull over potential locations for the Mandarin's base of operations. But she'd been awake and busy with the SHIELD mission for 48 hours now, and it wasn't long before her eyes drifted shut and she fell asleep.
Maggie woke when the pilot shook her shoulder. She jerked awake, bleary eyed and stiff-necked. "Are we there?" she asked, spinning to look out the cockpit window: the sun was just setting.
"I…" she glanced back at the pilot to see him hesitating, his eyes wide. "We're about an hour out, but…"
She frowned at him. "What is it?"
"Ms Stark, there's been an attack." He handed her a datapad, which was open to the WHiH news website. The largest headline read:
STARK MANSION DESTROYED: TONY STARK MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD
"No," Maggie said, looking back up at the pilot. "No, that's… that's not right." She could still feel sleep scratching at the corners of her eyes.
The pilot looked anguished. "I… my god, I am so sorry. I'll get us down as soon as I can, Ms Stark, I…"
Maggie tore her eyes away from his face to look back down at the datapad. The image on the news article showed a smoking ruin on Malibu Point - not a house, just a mess of shredded walls and metal clinging to the rocky cliff face, where a house should be. The image showed a veritable army of emergency services vehicles parked along the road leading up to the ruin, lights flashing.
"No," Maggie said. She saw her own hand reach for the datapad and scroll down numbly. A video clip played automatically. The pilot retreated to the cockpit.
It looked like live footage, though it must have been recorded from earlier. The footage must have been shot from a helicopter, because it captured the mansion from above, whole and gleaming, with a burning streak of a missile headed right for it. Maggie jumped in her seat when the missile hit, plunging through the living room windows and exploding in a blast of flame and shattered concrete. Smoke rose from the side of the house. She blinked, her eyes burning so hard they hurt, and saw helicopters buzzing about the mansion. More missiles streaked forth, tearing into the building like it was made of paper. Fissures opened up in metal and glass, and flame erupted wherever the missiles hit. The whole front part of the house sagged, spilling glass and concrete into the ocean far below. Maggie saw the couch - the couch that had been there ever since they moved in - tumble down the cliff face.
A couple of the helicopters went down - one hit by a piece of debris that might have been the piano, and the other in a bright blossom of flame. For a second Maggie thought she saw Iron Man, but he wasn't flying. There was a horrified newsreader making inane comments as the footage unfolded, mostly exclaiming oh my god whenever a new explosion went off.
The house tilted and sagged, going from horizontal to vertical. And Maggie knew what was coming, she'd seen that awful final image already. But when two more missiles blasted into the house and the whole thing shuddered and fell… her hand rose to cover her mouth. And she watched her home collapse into the ocean like an avalanche.
Debris spilled down the rockface, and what was left behind blazed with flame. A few moments later, the last helicopter turned and flew off. The footage zoomed in on the crater left behind until the smoke grew too thick to see anything.
Maggie fumbled for her phone. She had dozens of calls from all sorts of people. There were several from Pepper and Rhodey. But none from Tony.
Maggie called Pepper first, but got her voicemail. Her heart dropped. When she called Rhodey, he picked up after one ring.
"Maggie," he breathed. And then didn't say anything else.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried again. "He's okay, isn't he?" Her voice was so small.
There was a long, long silence. Then Rhodey murmured: "I… Pepper called me after it happened. She says they were in the house. She got out, but… he was inside. He was in a prototype suit when he went down. But… I mean, they've started sending down divers, but they haven't… no one's found anything yet."
"But… he's okay then, isn't he? He was in a suit." Maggie knew she was making no sense, but… she couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Maggie," Rhodey said gently, and she suddenly heard the grief in his voice. "Look, last I heard Pepper was getting checked up on by the medics, and… you should go be with her. Maggie, it… it's going to be okay, you'll be-"
She hung up on him.
Her phone landed with a clatter on the Quinjet floor. She doubled over, gripping her head in her hands, and closed her eyes. She didn't cry - she wanted to, because it might have let loose the horrendous feeling building up inside her, but she just couldn't. So she gripped her head in her hands and stared at the opposite wall of the Quinjet.
It was dark when they landed. The pilot took Maggie's arm and helped her to her feet, then guided her outside.
She stepped out onto a flat landing area somewhere in Malibu, and tasted smoke in the air.
I got a job yesterday! That is all!
Reviews
Aqua: Thank you for the review and your kind words! I'm so glad you've been enjoying my writing for so long :) Like I said, the majority of reviews I get are absolutely lovely, there's just a few people who get a bit nasty or are overly opinionated about the way they want me to write. I do like hearing what you guys think though! And I do really appreciate you taking the time to leave such a nice review, thank you x Hope you had a lovely week!
DBZFAN45: The Wyvern is public! Maggie does indeed have to deal with a lot of fallout. I enjoyed having Maggie be the secret Wyvern, but Tony is right, she's better when she's not in the shadows. And now she's a symbol! I like the idea of her as a female Batman haha. Hope you enjoyed the Steve and Maggie moments this chapter, and that you have a lovely week!
The1975Love: I'm glad you liked that Margo got her thank you! Hopefully you enjoyed the adventures of the Bi Avenger in this chapter ;)