You guys, I did… so much research on oil rigs for this chapter lmao.
Also! Yesterday I found out I had the time-honoured pleasure of someone knicking my work without permission and reposting it to Wattpad. Still waiting for them to take it down, but fingers crossed. I'm going to update the original Wyvern to ask people not to do that (thought it went without saying, but anyway), and just wanted to reiterate it here. Also if you spot my work posted anywhere else please do let me know! I usually only give permission to translations.
Miami, Florida
Killian was gone. But Tony had broken out of the zip ties with the help of his dinged up Mark 42 armor, and now he and Rhodey (who'd apparently had the Iron Patriot armor taken off him) had Trevor Slattery at gunpoint.
"Here's how it works, Meryl Streep," he told the cowering idiot. "You tell him where Pepper and Maggie are, and he'll stop doing it."
"Doing what?"
Rhodey held the hot end of his recently-fired gun to Trevor's ear, who cried out in pain.
"I get it, ow! That hurt. I get it! I get it!" Rhodey looked like he couldn't decide whether to be amused or furious. "Uh, I don't know about any Pepper or any Maggie, but I know about the plan."
"Spill," Tony said. His panic and fear were unfurling inside him, just on the edge of out of control. He could see them screaming.
"Do you know what they did to my suit?" Rhodey added.
"What? No. But I do know it's happening off the coast. Something to do with a… big boat. I can take you there." He broke off to cheer at a soccer goal on the TV, and Rhodey jumped.
"Tony, I swear to God, I'm going to blow his face off."
"Oh!" Trevor said, as if nothing had happened. "And this next bit may include the Vice President as well. Is that… is that important?"
Air Force Command
"Sir, Air Force One has been compromised," called a technician. "Internal shots, temperature spikes."
"Get me eyes on it, now," said the colonel on duty.
"Image coming through now, sir."
They switched to a satellite feed, and spotted a red, white, and blue suit of armor jetting away from the plane.
"Was that Rhodes?"
For a prototype suit, the Mark 42 did a bang up job when it came to saving thirteen presidential aides from falling to their death.
Tony beamed as he saw the aides bobbing in the water, waving, "Nice work, guys! Excellent, good team effort, go us. Alright, J.A.R.V.I.S.-"
Being hit by a truck? Not so much.
At least he wasn't in the suit.
"Give me some good news, man," Rhodey said when he opened the door of the speedboat to check in on Tony.
Tony deactivated his remote control HUD. "I think they all made it."
"Thank god."
"Yeah, but I missed the President," he sighed.
Rhodey shot him a look. "You couldn't save the president with the suit, how are we gonna save Pepper and Maggie with nothing?" he strode off, probably to go clean his only gun again.
Tony touched his earpiece. "Say J.A.R.V.I.S., is it that time?"
"The House Party Protocol, sir?"
"Correct."
The Roxxon Norco, off the coast of Florida
Maggie woke slowly. She could feel a hard floor under her, thrumming from distant engines. Her arm was twisted at an awkward angle behind her, her body ached, and she groaned when her head started throbbing as if she'd had a wild night the night before.
"Maggie!"
"Pepper?" Maggie mumbled at the familiar voice. She licked her lips, tasting smoke and the tang of blood, then attempted to lift her head. She managed it with another groan, and blinked blearily at her surroundings.
It was an industrial looking space. She suddenly remembered the factory, the glowing soldiers, but this… wasn't that. This place was cleaner, darker, with metal gantryways and fluorescent lights. Computers beeped, and distantly she could hear engines and metal clanking. The thrumming undercurrent of energy reminded her a little of the Helicarrier. This was… some kind of control room.
Maggie lay on the cold metal floor. A few yards away she spotted three figures: a man in a grey suit who bent over a computer array that showed surveillance feeds for what looked like a ship, a man with blonde hair who she recognised as Aldrich Killian, and strapped tightly to an upright metal slab…
"Pepper," she breathed. Pepper was hooked to an IV bag, her skin clammy and her face gaunt and tense with pain. And her skin… beneath her skin, there were flickers of a glowing orange light. "Oh god, Pepper."
She tried to sit up further, but slumped. Her arm was trapped behind her, and she - she looked down and her stomach hollowed. Her prosthetic leg was gone. She wore the close-fitting dark underarmor that she'd been wearing beneath her Wyvern uniform, but her uniform, shoes, and wingpack were gone. And so was her leg. She could see the pale scar at the end of her shortened limb, the skin pressed to the cold metal floor. They'd even taken the white compression sock she wore over the end of her limb.
Killian looked over at her. "She rises."
Maggie looked around. Her right hand was handcuffed to a yellow railing behind her. On a table by the far door she saw her wingpack, metal leg, and her guns. Her eyes flicked to the surveillance feeds she could see on the computers over by Killian. Definitely a ship, docked at… an oil rig. She glanced around, and realized they were on the oil rig's upper deck. Maggie sat up straight and pushed along the length of the railing, rattling the handcuffs. When she reached the crossbar she gripped it with her free hand.
Killian had his hands clasped behind his back as he eyed Maggie, fastened to the railing. She was sure she looked terrible, with her hair plastered to her face, burn marks on her skin, and a groggy look in her eyes. Killian was handsome, with slicked hair and a practiced smile. "See you - you're not here as a trophy, Ms Stark." He cast a glance at Pepper, as if they were sharing a joke. He stood too close to her. He cocked his head at Maggie. "The only value you have left to me is your mind. That's why we stripped away all the… unnecessary parts." He gestured to her leg and wings. "Once we're done with the show here, you're going to sign on as AIM's newest engineer. Your first task…" he stroked a hand down Pepper's arm. "Is to regulate Extremis."
Maggie found the bolt securing her part of the railing in place with her free hand. As she got purchase on it with her fingers, she kept her eyes fixed on Pepper. "Pepper, are you okay?"
"I'm fine-"
Killian stepped between them, obscuring Maggie's view. "She's more than okay. She's reborn." He spread his hands, then glanced over his shoulder. "And Pepper, as - as much as I want for you to survive this…" he turned back to Maggie and dropped his voice. "If she doesn't - you'll be my next test subject. To give Tony the right motivation, you know?"
He cocked his head and looked at her amputated leg as she slid back along the length of her railing, bolt clenched in her fist, making it look like she wanted to get closer to Pepper.
She knew what Killian was going to say before he said it - she could see it in the look in his eyes. "Do you ever dream of what it might be like to be whole again?"
Maggie ignored him. She craned her neck so she could see Pepper, and her free hand landed on the other crossbar of her railing. "Pepper, you're going to be okay, I promise you."
But Pepper's eyes were pained, and her veins were glowing. "Maggie I'm so sorry, I should have realized-"
She shook her head as she twisted the metal bolt in her fingers as subtly as possible. "This isn't your fault. But we're going to get you out of here, okay? We'll get you out, and we'll take care of you. I promise."
Pepper nodded, her breath short.
Killian stepped between them again, frowning. "Ms Stark, you-"
"Are you not getting that I have no interest in talking to you?" Maggie spat. His brow lowered. She craned her neck again. "Pepper-"
But then a gleaming suit of armor dropped down just outside the open doorway. For a second Maggie's heart leaped at the sight of the gleaming Iron Patriot armor. But then the suit paced into the control room, flanked by two men with the look of soldiers, and Killian smiled.
"Good evening, sir."
The armor whirred open to reveal President Ellis in a rumpled suit. He staggered out and dropped to his hands and knees on the metal floor. His eyes darted over Killian, then Pepper behind him, and then over to where Maggie was handcuffed to the railing.
Maggie went cold. "Where did you get that suit?"
But no one even looked at her.
Killian saluted Ellis. "Welcome aboard, Mr President!"
Maggie waited as Killian guided Ellis up the stairs to the upper deck of the control room. One of the soldiers followed. Killian explained that they were on the Roxxon Norco, and explained his plan to kill Ellis and replace him with a new political patron.
Maggie only half-listened. While Killian and the guards were distracted upstairs, she took the last bolt out of her railing and the whole yellow bar came free. She caught it before it clattered to the ground. Her heartbeat thundered.
Instead of trying to slide her handcuff off Maggie grabbed the pole, used it to hoist herself to her feet, and then whirled to smash the pole over the head of the nearest soldier. He staggered back, Pepper cried out in surprise, and Maggie moved. Using the pole to keep herself from falling she rushed for the table by the door and swept up her wingpack and a gun. With her arms full she turned, seeing Killian looking over the upper railing and the other soldier thundering down the stairs.
Maggie fired. One shot for the soldier, and one for Killian. They both struck home, but the bullets just seemed to burn through them, leaving a molten hole in their wake. She stared
Killian grinned as the bulletwound in his neck sizzled shut. "Take her down."
The guard she'd knocked down earlier had gotten to his feet. He grabbed for Maggie and she lunged back, tripping backwards out the door. Her wingpack skittered along the gantry, out of reach. Maggie desperately scooted back, using her one leg and the yellow pole to get purchase, firing the gun at the two soldiers who stormed after her. Cool night wind whipped over her head as she half-crawled out onto the upper level of the oil rig. She could smell salt and diesel. The metal gantry bit into her skin and she could just make out lights and walkways above her. Pepper was screaming inside the control room, pulling against her restraints.
Maggie fired a shot straight into the heart of the first soldier through the door. It stopped him in his tracks for a moment, but then his chest glowed brighter and she watched the bulletwound close up before her eyes. He looked up and grinned at her.
He stepped forward, reaching for her, and Maggie did the only thing she could think to do: she kept scrabbling backward, trying to keep out of reach - only she hadn't looked behind her. Her last hasty shove tipped her over the edge of the metal walkway and she toppled into empty space.
The Extremis soldier ran forward, his eyes wide, then grabbed the railing with two glowing hands and looked down. There was a churning white spot in the ocean a hundred feet below. He watched the spot, waiting. A spotlight from a watchtower swept over the ocean. After a full minute had passed, he turned back and looked into the control room, where Killian and the others stared out.
"Dead," he called. The woman strapped to the Extremis device let out a cry.
"Go down and make sure," Killian snapped.
Rolling his eyes, he headed for the stairs.
Killian turned to the other soldier, then gestured to the white-faced President. "String him up."
Tony and Rhodey had coasted their stolen speedboat toward the far end of the Norco oil rig, a darkened dockyard packed with shipping containers. They'd hopped aboard the floating rig, then made their way around the edge, using the wooden pontoons moored below the level of the main deck. Floodlights shone on the main deck, which was busy with moving vehicles and patrolling guards. Announcements rang out periodically over a PA system.
They circled around to where they could see the Norco itself, their heads ducked so no one on the main deck could see them, then paused.
"Okay, we'll head up to the main deck here," Rhodey murmured. He wore only a polo shirt and trousers, hardly battle-ready. "You ready?"
Tony nodded. But just as Rhodey set his hands on the metal ladder, they heard a whisper.
"Hey."
They both flinched and looked down at the surface of the water. A bedraggled head emerged from below the pontoon, and a moment later there was a clunk as a yellow pole and then a gun was slapped onto the wood, followed by two pale hands, and then Maggie was heaving herself up out of the ocean. Rhodey and Tony darted forward to help her, dragging her dripping wet form up and onto the pontoon. When she was up, she rolled over onto her back and panted for breath.
"Oh my god, Maggie," Rhodey breathed, staring at her.
"Hi," she panted. "You're alive." She looked a bit like the girl from The Ring, with her dark hair hanging wet around her face and her pale limbs sprawled on the dock. A pair of handcuffs dangled from one of her wrists. Blood seeped onto her forehead, and she was missing her prosthetic leg.
Tony helped her sit up, his hands on her shoulders. "Maggot. I thought he had you."
"He did," Maggie panted. She pushed her hair back from her face with shivering fingers, then tapped the yellow pole. "You know this isn't made out of metal? Some kind of plastic composite. And it floats. Probably saved my life." She picked up the gun and shook water off it. "I hope this still works."
Rhodey crouched beside her. "What happened?"
Maggie maneuvered the yellow pole then used it like a cane to hoist herself up. Tony and Rhodey rose too, hands out and ready to steady her. "Killian's on the upper deck in the control room. He's got Pepper up there, he's been injecting her with Extremis. And he's got the President and the Iron Patriot armor too, he's planning to kill him. He must be working with the Mandarin."
Tony winced. "That's - he's… don't worry about the Mandarin. It's not what we thought it was. Killian's the mastermind."
Maggie frowned, but then rolled her shoulders. "Okay. Plan?"
Rhodey and Tony shared a glance. "Uh… we were planning to just bust in there and save lives."
She sighed. "Well, that was going to be my plan too. Let's do this."
Rhodey hesitated. "Maggie, maybe you'd better stay here."
She frowned at him. "Why?"
"You're… your leg…"
Maggie looked down at her amputated leg, which was a bit blue at the end after her freezing swim in the Atlantic. Then she looked up. "The way I see it, you've got eight limbs between you and you're facing maybe the worst odds anyone has ever faced. You're really going to turn down another three and a half limbs that might tip the difference?"
Rhodey sighed. "Okay. Let's go." He turned back to the metal ladder, ducking when a small vehicle with a guard rolled past. As he waited, Maggie felt Tony's hand settle on her arm. She glanced sideways at him.
He flashed a tight smile. "Glad you're okay."
She returned the smile. "You too. Let's go get Pepper."
Rhodey hoisted himself up to the deck. Maggie followed, careful to keep her yellow pole from banging against the metal. She loped across the deck after Rhodey, her makeshift cane in one hand and her gun in the other.
"Come on," Rhodey hissed back at her and Tony, and they followed him over to hide behind a large orange storage unit. Maggie got a glimpse of the main deck before she hid: she counted at least a dozen personnel, any of whom could be Extremis, and a couple of moving vehicles. Pulleys and winches moved on the rig towers, and searchlights cut through the night sky.
"You're not going to freak out on me, right?" Rhodey murmured, and when Maggie looked at him she realized he'd directed the question to Tony.
"I hope not," Tony murmured back.
Maggie shrugged, and eyed Rhodey. She could see him assessing the situation as any good soldier would: a rig infested with superpowered assailants, and Rhodey had a gun, and two allies: a one-legged woman with a gun and a pole, and a mentally questionable man who'd never been trained for armed combat. She couldn't blame him for the look of apprehension on his face.
But Rhodey led them on, into the maze of oil barrels and shipping containers littering the main deck. They avoided forklifts and moving trucks and patrolling guards, occasionally with Maggie whispering warnings or suggestions as they picked their path. Rhodey was a good leader.
At the base of the main towers, they spotted President Ellis - he was strung between the towers in the Iron Patriot armor, over the oil tanker. Killian's plan for the President became abundantly clear.
"Viking funeral," Tony murmured. "Public execution."
They kept moving, dashing across the empty space of the deck before making their way up one of the metal staircases, Maggie hauling herself up with her grip on the railings and hopping from step to step. She knew she was slowing the others down, but they didn't say anything.
"Broadcast will commence shortly," said a voice over the PA. "Take final positions."
On the mid-level deck, their luck ran out.
Rhodey took point, his gun held high. "Is your gun up?" he asked Tony.
Tony lifted his gun. "Yep. What do I do?"
"Stay on my six, cover high and don't shoot me in the back."
Tony stayed aimed at three o'clock, so Maggie turned and did her best to walk backwards with her pole-cane, gun aimed backwards. But then a searchlight flashed over Rhodey's face and gunfire rang out.
"Shit!" They dove for cover, Tony aiming for the searchlight but missing. Maggie fell hard as she dove behind the generator they were using for cover, banging her elbow. She cursed and struggled up to a kneel as Tony and Rhodey argued about aim and bullets.
"All personnel, we have hostiles on east unit 12," said the voice on the PA. "I repeat, hostiles on east unit 12."
Tony ducked his head over their cover to get a look at the situation - twice, since the first time he'd gone too fast.
"What'd you see?" Rhodey breathed.
"Three guys, one girl, all armed."
Maggie checked her magazine. "I've got four bullets. You two split, I'll cover you."
"No," Rhodey and Tony said in unison.
Together, they all peeked their heads over the edge of the generator. Soldiers were dropping down to their deck level, encircling them. Each and every one of them glowed from within with that orange light.
"God, I would kill for some armor right now," Rhodey muttered.
Maggie risked a glance across at the deck she'd taken a dive from. My wings are over there.
"You're right, we need backup," Tony murmured.
"Yeah, a bunch," Rhodey said, annoyed.
"You know what?" Tony mused, and Maggie glanced at him. He looked… she frowned at him. He looked confident. He tipped his head, and Maggie and Rhodey followed his gaze into the distant night sky. Stars shone in the blackness, one a little brighter than the rest - and growing brighter. Then the light split, becoming two golden beacons.
Rhodey straightened. "Is that…?"
"Yep," Tony nodded.
"Are those…"
"Yeah."
The lights broke apart again, multiplying, until there was a swarm of them, growing brighter and closer with every second. Maggie recognised the roar of repulsors, and then she made out the first Iron Man armor as it burned to a halt just outside the oil rig, its eyeslits glowing white.
But it wasn't alone. Other suits roared up to the oil rig, encircling the towers and filling the air with the sound of their repulsors. There were dozens of them, of all colors. Some slim and streamlined, others bulky with metal. There was an army of them, and as they circled the rig Maggie felt brave enough to straighten fully, her eyes alight as she looked around. The Extremis soldiers stared up at them.
"Merry Christmas, you two," Tony grinned. "J.A.R.V.I.S., target Extremis heat signatures, disable with extreme prejudice."
As one, the forty one suits surrounding the rig answered with J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice: "Yes, sir."
Maggie grinned, and Tony strode out from behind cover. "What are you waiting for? It's Christmas." He made a gesture with his hands, then spread his arms. "Take them to church."
The Iron Man suits launched into battle.
Maggie, Tony, and Rhodey stood on their deck and watched as a battle unfurled to life around them - the suits dove on the Extremis soldiers, blasting and punching and hurling them off the towers. The soldiers fought back, but they had to scatter, shouting in fear as forty one different versions of Iron Man attacked. Sparks flew, and a blast lit up the base of one of the towers - but another suit launched forward to steady it.
Maggie watched with an expression of sheer awe, as Tony directed his suits like a commanding general.
One of the platforms with oil barrels went up in a massive explosion, the flare of flame sending a wash of heat over their deck. Debris shot through the command room, and Maggie's heart sank.
"Pepper's up there!" she shouted.
A suit dropped down on their deck and opened up, allowing Tony to step back into it and be absorbed into the armor. "Nice timing," he murmured.
Maggie let out a breath of relief to see Tony safe in a suit. Rhodey asked for a suit of his own, but Tony said: "Oh I'm sorry, they're only coded to me," and took off.
Two more suits dropped down, one turning to Rhodey and one to Maggie. "A lift, Ms Stark?" asked J.A.R.V.I.S.
Maggie wrapped her arms around the angular blue suit, as if giving the AI a hug. "Get me up to the control deck, J.A.R.V.I.S., we need to find my wings. You look great, by the way."
"Thank you, Ms Stark," he responded, and then they blasted off the deck with a roar of repulsors.
It was a disorienting flight, Maggie gripping the blue armor as it wheeled around explosions and burning suits and the metal structure of the oil rig. The armor's metal fingers dug into her back. She craned her neck and spotted the control deck, part of it caved in from an explosion. "Okay, J.A.R.V.I.S., bring me down just-" she broke off in a cry as something slammed into her side and knocked both her and the suit down. They crashed onto a metal walkway and skidded along it, metal and flesh tumbling. Maggie fell free of the suit's grip and pitched over the edge of yet another high-up walkway.
Crying out, she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the gantry, breaking her fall with a painful yank.
For a moment she hung from the edge of the upper deck, explosions and battles erupting beneath her as she held onto the walkway with one hand. Her bare foot swung in empty space. She looked up and realized what had brought the suit down: a snarling Extremis soldier, a woman with blonde hair that seemed to spark and blaze, was busy tearing the blue armor apart.
Maggie reached up and grabbed another handhold, crying out as she pulled herself upward, silently thanking Clint for making her do all those pullups. She pulled herself back onto the deck, just as the blue armor stopped fighting back. The Extremis woman looked up.
Maggie staggered up to her feet (foot), one hand on the railing for balance and her chest heaving. She spread her free arm as she met the woman's eyes. "Come at me, dick."
The woman snarled and ran forward.
Maggie exchanged three sizzling, painful blows with the woman before another Iron Man suit swept past and tackled the woman off the walkway.
Maggie sighed, then turned and began hopping her way up to the control deck, wincing when her bare feet dug into the uncomfortably hot metal grating. The control deck was now moving: the whole length of it rolled outwards on some kind of pulley system. Maggie followed it, frowning, and saw Tony running along one edge. He'd lost his armor somewhere. Then an Iron Man suit swooped low over her head, firing on an Extremis soldier a level below, and she had to duck. She stumbled, and when she righted herself she looked left and saw it: the metal walkway she'd taken a dive off of earlier.
She ran for it, leaping over a broken section of the walkway and falling into an ungainly roll. Explosions and gunfire erupted beneath her. The dark ocean hissed whenever sparks or bits of molten metal fell into it. When she struggled to her feet again, using the railing for balance, she nearly tripped over the small metal contraption tucked away in the shadows against the wall.
Maggie was so ecstatic to find her wings that she actually kissed the wingpack before she slung it over her shoulders and powered it up. Her spine moorings whirred open and she pressed her eyes shut at the feel of metal surging, connecting with her internal wiring and then flowing outward in a blessedly familiar unfurling of metal. The wings weren't even fully out before she dived off the walkway again, no longer afraid of falling.
Her wings flared out, sharp and dark, and she swooped upward, weightless in the dark sky. The feeling was instantly shattered when a volley of gunfire tore through the air over her left wing. She dove, twisting around one of the suits before she spotted the Extremis soldier who'd fired on her. She plunged and tackled the soldier, slashing with her wings to keep her skin out of range of his orange crackling skin. He roared as she lifted him off the platform, and then yelped when she surged upwards before dropping him. She'd been planning to land his ass in the ocean but then another of Tony's suits rocketed forth and blasted him with a unibeam.
She felt a second of guilt: Killian had targeted people like her, those with disabilities and injuries, and preyed on that desire to be whole again. In another life she could have been one of these burning soldiers. But then one of them fired a rocket launcher at her and her guilt dropped away.
The oil rig had descended into chaos: suits buzzed around it like a flying army, sparking explosions and setting off the Extremis soldiers in white hot implosions. The Extremis soldiers ripped apart suits in their turn, firing indiscriminately into the sky. Oil barrels were erupting left and right and gantries and poles crumpled. She couldn't see Tony anymore. The lights of the coast seemed like a calm, distant impossibility.
She heard gunfire as she wheeled around one of the massive tower supports and spotted Rhodey: he stood on a hanging shipping container near where the President was strung up between the towers, facing two glowing Extremis soldiers.
Maggie swerved and dove. She intended to tackle them both away, but the woman ducked and so she was left with an armful of only one shouting, burning Extremis soldier. He tried to grab for her wing. An explosion went up from a fuel line below her so she dropped him into it.
When she turned, wind whistling in her ears, Rhodey was hanging from the end of the shipping container which had broken loose of its cables and was now swinging in toward the President. The other Extremis soldier fell, screaming. Rhodey launched from the container and swung onto the Iron Patriot armor, grabbing its wrist so he didn't fall to his death along with the shipping container.
Maggie's grin dropped when the shipping container hit the ground and erupted in a ball of fire. Her wings glowed orange with the light of the flames. The fireball roared upward, directly toward where Rhodey and the President hung suspended between two cables. Maggie's engines burned as she raced for him, but she knew she wouldn't make it. So instead she veered left and sliced the edge of her wing through the cable attached to Ellis's left arm. The cable snapped loose and the two of them fell, the other cable arcing them into a Tarzan swing toward the far deck.
Maggie lost sight of them in the fireball, but when it burned out she saw Rhodey and the President standing safely on the deck, bathed in the light of the flames. Rhodey seemed to be showing the President how to open up the suit. She swooped over and landed lightly on her one leg, grinning.
"War Machine to the rescue," she called. Ellis and Rhodey looked over, and Rhodey nodded, panting.
"Thanks for the assist," he breathed. The suit opened up, sending Ellis staggering out of it again.
"You need to get him clear," Maggie instructed.
Rhodey nodded as he stepped into the suit, but not before he pulled the commpiece out of his ear and tossed it to Maggie. When he was safely ensconced in the blue, red and silver armor, she heard his voice in her ear:
"The President is secure, Tony. I'm clearing the area."
"Nice work," came Tony's relieved voice.
There was a clang, and Maggie, Rhodey, and Ellis looked over to see four Extremis soldiers drop down to their deck from an overhead crane, fists crackling orange.
"Time for you two to leave," Maggie said, boosting her wings so she hovered a few feet over the ground.
Rhodey put his arm around Ellis. "Ready, sir?"
"What do you mean, ready-" Ellis broke off in a shout as Rhodey sent them both rocketing off the oil rig and into the sky, toward the distant coast.
Maggie dove into the fight. She quickly got the hang of targeting the Extremis soldiers: you couldn't beat them at hand to hand, they burned to the touch and they healed too quickly. You had to disable them fast and hard, so they either had to take a few minutes to recover or… were unable to recover. She slashed with her wings and worked with the Iron Man suits, wishing for her energy blasters. She asked one of the suits for its repulsor gauntlet and the gauntlet instantly shot toward her, but then an Extremis soldier shot it out of the sky. So Maggie turned back to creative tactics.
As she was working with an Iron Man suit to blast a whole metal walkway into the sea, she heard Tony scream a single word over the comms:
"No!"
It was an awful cry: the cry she had made when she'd seen that black portal in the sky closing up to leave him behind. Her stomach plummeted.
"Tony?" she called. But he didn't reply.
Maggie fought her way through the chaos of the oil rig, trying to find Tony. But it was a mess - flames licked hot around the oil rig and she had to be quick to avoid being caught in the explosions and the violent clashes between the Extremis soldiers and the Iron Man suits. She didn't both targeting the soldiers anymore. She needed to find Tony.
"Tony, tell me where you are!"
But either he could not, or would not respond. She saw an Iron Man suit tackling a glowing soldier through the sky, and realized a second later that the soldier was Killian. "Tony? Is that you?" But then she collided with another suit and slammed into the side of a tower. "J.A.R.V.I.S.!"
"Many apologies, Ms Stark. I'm afraid I was-" but then an Extremis soldier launched up from the deck below and plunged a glowing hand through the suit's chest.
After that it was impossible to track Tony - he must have been jumping from suit to suit, off somewhere fighting Killian. Maggie fought and dodged and killed, sometimes feeling as if she were the one on fire and burning. Slowly, as the Extremis soldiers fell, the battle began to calm.
She saw the Mark 42 armor flying toward the oil rig out of the corner of her eye, and seconds later there was a massive eruption at the very top of the rig. It shattered the topmost platform and sent support pillars and pylons crumpling and groaning. Maggie jerked around to look up at it, and spotted a figure sliding down one of the support beams. Tony.
The figure slid off the crumpling support beam and leaped, arms wide to catch a suit that never came.
But Maggie did. She dropped down from above as Tony fell, yelling, through the air, and seized him around the middle. He let out an oof, and then they were diving, swerving out of the way as the entire middle tower came crashing down in a cacophony of groaning metal and erupting flames. Maggie flew Tony safely back down to the deck, where they overbalanced and fell to the ground. They were just far enough away to not worry about being crushed by the tower, but pieces of burning metal rained down around them. Maggie curved one wing up to protect them both.
"Thanks," Tony panted. He wore a single repulsor gauntlet, and his eyebrow was bleeding. He sat up, frowning, and Maggie followed his gaze.
An Iron Man helmet had come raining down with all the debris and now sat in the flames a few yards away, burning. Fire flickered behind the eyeslits. As they watched, the metal cracked, and then fell apart to leave a burning, blackened husk.
Maggie panted, keeping the points of her wings planted into the concrete to hold her upright as she held one hand to Tony's shoulder. "Where's Pepper?" she asked.
Tony looked up at her, and in his dark eyes she saw the answer. Her own eyes welled with tears. I promised her we'd take care of her.
Before she could speak, or cry, or scream, metal creaked within the fireball ahead of them, and she looked up to see a figure rising in the flames.
Killian. He staggered out of the fire like a nightmare, burning and black like a being made of molten lava. Tony groaned and slid backward, his legs unable to hold him. Maggie stepped forward, her arms outstretched and ready to defend her brother.
"No more false faces," Killian snarled. His face looked horrific, his eyes coal black and an angry glowing gash carved across his blackened forehead. Maggie could feel the heat radiating off him. "You said you wanted the Mandarin? You're looking right at him."
Maggie lowered her centre of gravity, making sure her her wings shielded Tony.
"Maggie," Tony grunted, and his hand curled around her ankle as if trying to pull her back with him.
Fire raged behind Killian. "It was always me, Tony," he said in a whisper. "Right from the start." He raised his arms and yelled, making Maggie flinch: "I am the Mandarin!"
Maggie braced for his burning hot touch, but then a metal pole swung in from Killian's right, smashing him away and into the far shipping container in a shower of sparks.
Eyes wide, Maggie and Tony both turned to see Pepper, gripping the metal pole with two steady hands, her eyes and skin burning as she looked at them. She dropped the pole, and slowly the glow in her eyes faded.
Maggie could only stare. Her heart raced and pounded against her ribcage.
"I got nothing," Tony murmured.
A roar of repulsors drew their attention, and Maggie looked up to see two Iron Man suits arcing down from the sky. She let loose a breath of relief, especially when Killian got to his feet, but then she noticed the second suit's glowing eyes fixed on Pepper.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., subject to my 12 o'clock is not a target, disengage!" Tony called. But then he touched his ear, and found his earpiece missing.
"Shit." Maggie leaped upward, her wings flaring just in time for her to deflect a repulsor blast aimed for Pepper off the scaled metal surface. She turned and grappled with the first suit, yanking it off course, but the second suit buzzed past her. She turned, panicked, just as Pepper ran toward Tony, leaped off his propped-up knee and launched upward, slamming her glowing fist through the suit's chest and bringing it down to the ground with a crash.
Maggie turned her attention back to the suit trying to blast her with its repulsors, looking into its glowing eye slits with a strange shock of familiarity. "Sorry, Iron Man," she said, and slammed the talons of her wings into its back before ripping, tearing the suit in two. Its pieces went tumbling down to the ground.
She glanced down just in time to see Pepper kick a missile at Killian before detonating it with a blast from a stolen repulsor gauntlet. The explosion burst upward, nearly catching Maggie, and Killian's burnt out husk of a body crumpled to the ground.
Silence fell. Maggie looked around, but saw no more Extremis soldiers or hostile suits. She beat her wings, eyeing the burning oil rig, then slowly hovered back down to the ground. Pepper and Tony were talking, Pepper low and horrified and Tony caught somewhere between awe and relief.
"Who's the hot mess now?" Pepper said with a hint of a laugh.
"It's still debatable," Tony shot back, retrieving his earpiece. "Probably tipping your way a little bit."
Maggie touched down, wobbling a little, and they both looked over at the sound of her wings planting themselves to keep her steady.
"Hey Pepper," she said with a shaky smile. "You look great. I'm just gonna… sit down for a minute." She hop-walked over to a nearby metal box that wasn't on fire, giving Tony and Pepper some privacy as they hesitantly drifted toward each other. She sat down and let out a long breath. Her skin ached with burn marks that itched in the hot, dry air of the burning oil rig, and her head was back to throbbing.
She touched her earpiece. "Rhodey, we're clear here. Pepper's safe."
"Thank god," came his instant reply. "The President is secure, and they're sending troops over now."
"Don't bother. Just need the cleanup crews now."
She looked over when she heard Tony call for J.A.R.V.I.S.
"All wrapped up here, sir. Will there be anything else?" came the AI's calm voice.
"You know what to do," Tony said, his eyes on Pepper.
"The Clean Slate Protocol, sir?"
"Screw it, it's Christmas. Yes."
Tony moved forward to hold Pepper, her arms wrapping tentatively around him, and his eyes met Maggie's for a moment. There was a gleam in them. Maggie cocked her head at him. What are you up to?
And then one of the suits soaring overhead exploded. Maggie jumped and looked upward, watching the fireburst erupt in a shower of sparks. That explosion was followed by another, and another, until all the suits that were left were detonating. Maggie stared upwards, watching her brother's suits explode like starbursts. Like fireworks. They lit up the sky they were so bright. They made the air shudder, pounding against Maggie's chest.
Maggie sat back and stared up at them, her heart bursting. Because she knew what this meant.
Maggie almost nodded off on her box after the lightshow, all the craziness of the past few days catching up with her. But after a while Tony and Pepper pulled apart and walked over to her, smiles on their faces.
Tony raised his eyebrows at her.
She leaned back on the heels of her palms, eyeing them both. "So it seems to me," she said slowly, "that you've just blown up all your flying suits while stuck on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean."
Pepper looked at Tony, still smiling but now with a touch more amusement.
Maggie scratched her chin. "Following on from that observation, it seems that the two of you might be in need of an airlift. Now who do you know who hasn't blown up their very handy flying device…?"
Tony rolled his eyes, then wrapped his arm around Pepper and met Maggie's gaze. "C'mon, Maggot. Let's get this one to a hospital. And then you and I" - he nodded at her - "have some biological engineering to do."
Maggie eyed Pepper. She wasn't glowing anymore, but the thought of that stuff in her veins sent a chill of fear through Maggie. She nodded, then hopped off her box and opened her arms. "Come on. Airlift first, biological engineering later."
Tony and Pepper both strode over and wrapped their arms around Maggie. Their touch warmed her bare skin, and she cinched her arms around their waists. And though Maggie only had one leg, she was able to lift them both into the sky and carry them to safety.
They solved Extremis in eighteen hours - a new record, as far as groundbreaking biological chemistry was concerned. The actual application took a little longer: Pepper had to undergo several different infusions over the course of a month, a touch of electroconvulsive therapy, and several blood transfusions. But by the time they were done, the effects of Extremis had been diminished enough to be basically negligible. Pepper was no longer in any danger of overheating and exploding, but most of the healing properties were gone too. Tony and Maggie had realized that there was just no safe way of keeping Extremis in the body at its full capacity.
Pepper might be a little more robust going forward, but she wouldn't be regrowing any fingers or surviving any 200 foot drops anytime soon.
When they purged the Extremis formula from their servers at Avengers Tower, Tony caught Maggie giving the screen a contemplative look. He frowned, then strode over.
"I wouldn't judge you, you know."
She looked up, eyebrows raised. She'd healed well after the battle, so she looked right in her element in the Tower lab, surrounded by gleaming machines and white surfaces. But he caught that hint of a shadow in her face. The same shadow he'd seen when they watched the video of Ellen Brandt growing her arm back, the same shadow she'd had when Rhodey told them that the Vice President had collaborated with Killian because he'd wanted Extremis for his daughter, a little girl who'd been born without a part of her leg.
He cleared his throat. "I… I can't pretend to know what it's been like for you, growing up without your leg. You've always turned your losses into strengths, and I… that's something I tried to do with this," he said, tapping his arc reactor. Maggie's head tilted. "But at the end of the day, you've still lost a part of yourself." He nodded at her leg. She wore one of her old polymer ones, since she hadn't had the time to make a new metal one. It slowed her down, he knew. She followed his gaze. "And I wouldn't judge you if you wanted to… to-"
He continued to struggle for the words, but then Maggie had mercy on him and shook her head. He let out a sigh.
She drew in a deep breath. "It's not even that there's no safe way of using Extremis," she murmured. Because they'd figured that out - they didn't have a way to completely nullify the negative effects. Humans just weren't meant to regrow limbs. "It's… something Killian said to me."
Tony frowned.
"He said that once he'd taken away my leg, and my wings, I was just… a mind. But he was wrong. Because even without those things I'm still me. Maggie Stark, and the Wyvern." Her chin lifted and she met his eyes. "And that's someone he had every reason to fear. So I don't need to fix myself. Because I'm already whole."
Tony grinned. "There she is."
Maggie shot him a quizzical look, and he just kept grinning.
"That look you get sometimes," he said, nodding at her. "The Wyvern look. It's… you wear it into battle, but you've had it your whole life. You've been the Wyvern ever since you were a kid, Maggie. And it's good to see you."
After another second, Maggie matched his smile and lunged forward to seize him in a hug.
Behind them, J.A.R.V.I.S. obliterated the last of Extremis from their servers.
Tony, Rhodey, and Maggie got medals this time around. It turned out saving the President from being blown to kingdom come earned you a fair amount of political goodwill.
Trevor Slattery, AKA the Mandarin, was arrested by the FBI. Tony showed Maggie the video clip of his arraignment so he could savour the look of bewilderment on her face when she properly saw the man behind the Mandarin.
Happy was well taken care of at Mercy Hospital, and once he woke up he didn't complain at all when Maggie burst into his room and bundled him into a hug that was ever so slightly on the side of too-tight.
Tony didn't stop with solving Pepper's Extremis problem. When he came to Maggie with the idea for a radical new form of heart surgery, at first she was against it. But then he talked her through the risks, and the idea he had for introducing an electromagnet in the operating theatre. And Maggie began to realize that this was an idea that could work.
It reminded her of when she was a girl, when they had developed a form of surgery that combined the biological and the mechanical, to help her walk again. It was strange to be on the other side of it - to be the one double and triple and quadruple checking, because it was her brother this would be tested out on.
But she kept thinking back to what she'd said when she was a girl: The reason I know this will work is because Tony designed it.
It didn't keep her stomach from flip-flopping all the way to the hospital on the day of the procedure, or her nerves from jangling as Tony was prepped for surgery. She stood on the other side of a glass observation window with Pepper and Rhodey, watching as Tony lay on a surgical table surrounded by a team of surgeons in blue uniforms, an electromagnet poised over his chest and a bright light shining down on the arc reactor.
The anesthesiologist placed a tubed mask over Tony's mouth and nose, and Tony's eyes darted to the observation window. He gave them a thumbs up.
"Here we go," Maggie whispered, and Tony's eyes glittered.
They watched his eyes slowly drift shut. After a few minutes, the surgeons began the procedure. Pepper and Rhodey turned away, heading back to the waiting area, but Maggie did not move. She stood vigil at the window into the operating room, watching the surgeons cut into her brother's chest.
She counted each and every single piece of shrapnel they took out. When the last piece whirred up to stick to the electromagnet, she let loose a breath that she felt like she'd been holding ever since she first saw him with that arc reactor in his chest.
And then she watched, her hand over her heart, as they put her brother back together.
A day later, Maggie was asleep on the visitor's chair in Tony's hospital room, her head propped on her fist and her mouth slightly open. When she felt a light touch on her shoulder, she frowned and looked up.
Tony stood in his hospital gown, drenched in sweat but grinning from ear to ear, his hand on Maggie's shoulder.
Maggie stared up at him. And she knew she was about to yell at him for getting out of bed after open heart surgery, she knew she would guide him back to his bed and then call for the nurses.
But before she did any of that, she reached up and held her hand over his on her shoulder. And she smiled.
Malibu Point, California
Maggie tracked Tony down to the ruin of their home.
It was a warm day, the sunshine beating down on the concrete ruin, which was already becoming grown over with weeds and covered in dust. It looked like a historical site now, which Maggie supposed one day it might be.
She saw the red sportscar first: he'd somehow hooked it up to a trailer, and she could see what at first looked like a pile of junk in the back: but then she saw a mangled claw, covered in mud, and her heart leaped. She strode over to the trailer, and touched her hand to the robot's casing. She wiped at the mud until she'd bared his name: DUM-E. She patted his metal casing.
"We'll fix you up."
Then she heard a scrape of boots on concrete, and she looked up to see Tony. He stood in jeans and a jacket in the space where their front door used to be. The cliff dropped away a few yards behind him, and beyond that lay the flat expanse of the ocean. He squinted in the sunlight, looking at her.
Maggie patted Dum-E one last time and then strode over to meet him. "You got our boys," she smiled.
He nodded at the trailer. "Dum-E hasn't quite earned being left at the bottom of the sea yet."
Maggie slowed as her boots scuffed over what used to the the floor of her foyer, her eyes on the broken-down walls around them. Everything of value had been retrieved, and all the loose pieces of concrete and glass had been removed. All that was left now were the bones.
Tony turned, and followed her gaze as it swept over the rocks and grass of Malibu Point.
"I'm sorry, Maggie," he said. "I built this place to be our home, and I… I wrecked it."
Maggie shook her head. "No, you didn't. And anyway, as cliche as this is… it's not the house."
He frowned at her.
"It's… you were my home growing up, Tony. Losing this place, it… it sucks, and I'll miss it, but you are safe. And that's what matters."
Tony leaned his shoulder against hers. For a few long moments they stood together, shoulders pressed into each other, in what used to be their home.
"Besides," Maggie eventually added. "I don't know if you've heard, but there's this seventy story building back in New York with more than enough space for both of us…"
Tony's lips quirked. "I do like the food in New York." He nudged her. "And the company, from time to time."
"Come on," she laughed. "Let's get our boys home."
2013
Avengers Tower, New York City
After the surgery, and after Tony had gone on vacation with Pepper to 'reconnect', he returned to the Tower and life seemed to slow down a little. And one afternoon, while he and Maggie were messing around in Bruce's lab, they began to talk.
Not about Extremis and the Mandarin, but about what had been going on with Tony before all that. The shakes, the dreams, the anxiety attacks. He told her he was seeking help for it now - he'd been speaking with a few doctors, and had given J.A.R.V.I.S. a talk therapy upgrade. Tony was jittery and wouldn't meet her eyes at first, but as he kept talking he began to relax.
Maggie listened, and offered comments and suggestions when he was quiet.
"I'm sorry I wasn't… there to support you more," she murmured.
"Oh, no, you and Pepper were the last people I wanted to see me like…" Tony rearranged a row of beakers for the seventh time. "Like that."
Maggie leaned her elbows on one of the stainless steel workbenches. "Why? Why didn't you tell me?"
Tony shrugged. "I don't know. I guess after everything in New York you seemed to just… take it all in your stride. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do the same." He shrugged.
She pressed her lips together, staring down at the table. "I don't… I don't think I get scared anymore, Tony. Not in the same way. It's… it all just becomes anger." She opened and closed her mouth. She'd never talked about this before. Her hand rested over her chest, where she could feel that deep-down, slow moving molten burn. "In here."
Even all her fear after the Battle of New York, she had turned that into purpose: rebuilding, fighting. Anger. She didn't know any other way to cope with fear. She'd known only this way ever since - ever since…
Tony eyed her seriously. Any other time, she was sure he would have made a joke. "Where does the anger go?"
She looked up at him. "I don't know. I'm… I'm worried that I'll find out one day." That deep seated burning swirled at the words, and her throat constricted. "I - I've been angry so long, Tony-"
But then the lab door swished open, revealing Bruce in his glasses, and Maggie snapped her mouth closed. Tony looked up, suddenly bright at the sight of his friend, but Maggie took a few moments to stare down at her distorted reflection in the metal worktable, trying to calm her breaths. Too close.
When she felt calm enough to tune into the conversation, Tony was guiding Bruce over to the couches on the other side of the lab. "Hey, Professor Green, take a seat! Now I'm back I've got one hell of a story to share with you. I'm in a get-things-off-my-chest kinda mood."
Bruce warily took a seat, and Tony stretched out on a leather reclining chair and laced his fingers over his stomach.
"Okay, so, hm…" Tony closed his eyes. "A famous man once said 'we create our own demons'."
"Who said that?" Bruce asked, taking off his glasses.
"Who said that? What does it even mean? Doesn't matter." Tony waved a hand. "I said it because he said it. So now, he was famous and it's basically getting said by two pretty well-known guys. I don't, uh… I'm going to start again." He frowned, and Bruce shot Maggie a please-help-me look. She just smiled, then turned and headed for the door.
"Okay," Tony cleared his throat. "So I was at this party in Bern, on New Years Eve 1999…"
Reviews
Guest: Thank you so much, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
DBZFAN45: She definitely headed straight into trouble in this chapter! I'm glad you liked Maggie's interactions with Harley and Tony. Hope you enjoyed the conclusion of IM3!
The1975Love: Hm, well she's tall, dark hair (at this point in the story it's long), dark eyes, with a faint scar through her right eyebrow and a prominent scar along her left cheekbone. I tend to look to Gal Gadot and Conor Leslie for inspiration re Maggie's appearance if that helps! If you end up drawing her I'd love to see that! You could send it to me on Tumblr at princesszorldo :)
Morgzw: Yes another cliffhanger haha! Thank you very much, I'm glad you're enjoying!
Guest: Thanks so much and I'm glad you're enjoying! Hope you enjoyed this latest update ;)
Aqua: I'm all about the heartbreak and the angst! Just not as much in this version. I'm glad you've had a good week, and how exciting about the vaccine! I'm still waiting on mine unfortunately. And thank you for your kind words about last chapter, I'm glad you're enjoying it :) Hopefully you liked the resolution with Extremis and Maggie's leg in this chapter! She can still break Clint's jaw anytime she likes.