She's back! Couple of quick notes:
1) This story is a The Wyvern sequel, not an In the Shadow of Your Wings sequel (so key differences, MCU canon is canon, Maggie is a super-soldier, just lost her leg in the final battle against Thanos, and her wings are nanotechnology). If you want to reread anything, chapter 99 of The Wyvern will set you up well for this fic.
2) It will be shorter than my usual sagas, I'm estimating like 20-30 chapters at most.
3) This section is set before the epilogue of the Wyvern. Speaking of which, that epilogue is ~partially~ canon and I'll explain more later on.
4) We've got chapter titles!
Enjoy x
November 3rd, 2023 [Two weeks and three days after the Battle for Earth]
"Welcome home."
Maggie Stark, 37 years old and wrapped in a warm knitted cardigan, held open the dark wooden door of her house by the lake, her other hand wrapped around the hilt of her cane, which supported her weight.
Her face - still with a few bruises yet to fade - cracked into a smile as Bucky Barnes, 106 years old and wearing a leather jacket, set aside the motorbike he'd driven here and rushed over.
"Meg, you shouldn't have - I thought you weren't meant to be walking around unless necessary," his boots crunched over the pebble driveway until he reached her, taking the weight of the door and hovering his hand over her side, unsure. His eyes flicked to her knee, disguised by a pair of tracksuit pants, and she knew he was picturing the bandage-swaddled stump he'd seen after her surgery, inflamed and ugly. The stump had already come down from its swelling, and she'd been fitted for her prosthetic last week; a basic model with a metal rod and polymer foot attachment.
She smiled up at him. "It's necessary." She found herself overawed once more at the presence of him right there before her, tall and solid and radiating warmth and the faint smell she'd nearly forgotten these last five years; not just leather and metal, but something warmer than that, more human. She tipped her head and said again: "Welcome home."
Bucky's eyes flicked up over the lakehouse. He'd seen it before, but today was different. Today he was moving in. He had a very small bag slung over one shoulder, with hardly anything in it. Any worldly possessions he had owned before the Blip, Maggie had kept, and most of that had been blown up with the Facility. Bucky had been staying in hotels and various holding facilities since the battle - the US government seemed to want to repatriate him, under some conditions, so he'd been wrapped up in the legal negotiations. Maggie had been in hospital for a while, and then stayed at Tony, Pepper, and Morgan's house. For several nights she'd slept on Pepper and Tony's bed, Pepper and Maggie curved around Morgan like a set of parentheses.
Standing in the dappled sunlight, Maggie could still hear Tony's breath on the silent air. Stay, he said. She'd made him a promise.
"Here," Bucky said, shifting his bag across his other shoulder as well. "Can I… do you mind if I carry you?"
Maggie blinked, drawn back from memories of fading dark eyes. "I…" she looked into Bucky's sea-grey eyes, searching hers. "Of course."
Bucky scooped her up, impossibly gentle, and Maggie couldn't help a sigh as the pressure came off her right leg. She slung her arm around the back of Bucky's neck - his tied-back hair brushed her wrist. She could feel the cool hardness of his Vibranium arm under her left thigh.
Bucky stood on the doorstep, Maggie in his arms, taking in the house before him. "Well… here we go." He stepped forward, carrying her over the threshold and into the house, and Maggie couldn't help but smile. He seemed to sense it and looked down, his lips curving. Maggie reached up and her palm found his jaw, brushing the faint stubble there. "Hi," she whispered.
"Hi," he murmured back, and followed the pressure of her hand down until his lips met hers. She felt the blooming warmth of it and her heart seemed to thunder into gear, sending zinging sparks all the way down to her toes. She couldn't help but smile as he pulled back a few moments later, eyes glittering. They'd agreed to take things slow, and get to know each other again. So much had happened so quickly. But kissing, Maggie decided, was allowed.
"This is… a very nice place," Bucky said, still holding her as he tore his eyes away to look around at the inside of the house. They'd walked into the main large space on the bottom floor, with a large living room, empty of furniture and decoration save for a fireplace, leading to the floor-to ceiling windows at the far end of the house, looking over the lake. Sunlight glimmered on the slightly shifting surface of the water, and a few lakebirds were diving for fish in the shallows. Dark trees pressed in against the edges of the lake.
"It was a gift from Tony," Maggie murmured, fighting hard to keep her voice even. Her hand was still pressed against the side of Bucky's neck, feeling the warm pulse there. "I only moved in a few days ago, he… I… I never stayed before. Long enough."
Bucky shifted her a little closer to his chest and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. She closed her eyes.
The aching grief in her chest glowed a little hotter. She thought she'd be accustomed to grief by now, after the life she'd led, but this one was different. Losing Bucky (and half the world) had hollowed her out, turned her into nothing. But now she felt, more than ever, and felt she truly inhabited her skin as Maggie Stark. It just so happened that Maggie Stark lived each second in staggering pain. Everything reminded her of him: every joke she made, the glimpses of the other lake house a short walk away, cups of coffee, his eyes in his daughter's face. She hadn't been able to face going into any major cities because she knew she'd see the memorials to him.
And the absence of Tony was so loud. Like the world was holding its breath, waiting for him to speak again.
"Sorry," Maggie murmured, sensing she'd shifted the mood. The air in their new home had become darker, more sombre.
"Never apologize," Bucky said. He made no move to set her down but simply turned about, looking around the empty space. "Hey. What do you think Tony would like for us to do as a housewarming tradition?"
Maggie looked up at him, this impossible man who'd lived and died and lived again, strangely domestic in the warm light glowing off their wooden floors. And she smiled.
That evening, as the sun began to sink orange and purple behind the trees, Maggie and Bucky stood at the back of the house, the lake behind them and their hands both clasped over the neck of a champagne bottle. Morgan and Pepper, each in galoshes and Morgan with her hair in a red ribbon, stood a few yards away, holding lit sparklers that fizzed and sparked bright gold.
"Three, two, one!" Morgan cried, her dark eyes alive with glee.
Maggie and Bucky swung together, smashing the champagne bottle over the corner of the house. Pepper cheered, and Morgan pressed a button on Maggie's phone - from the roof of the house fireworks went screaming into the sky, exploding in starbursts of red, blue, green, and gold. Morgan's delighted laugh made Maggie look back - the colours glowed in her eyes.
"Now the next part!" Bucky yelled, and as one they tore their eyes away from the fireworks and took off running, shoes crunching over the pebbly beach down toward the lake edge; Bucky supported Maggie's right side with an arm around her, and Morgan practically dragged Pepper by the hand, laughing at the top of her lungs. They plunged into the water, fully clothed, and Maggie and Bucky were right behind, toppling ungainly into the water - Maggie laughed as she fell and spluttered as the lake water shot up her nose.
For a few minutes the four of them splashed and spluttered, their clothes weighing them down and the fireworks still exploding above them, reflecting over the darkening surface of the water. Morgan demanded that Maggie, then Bucky, held her up in the air with just one arm so she could jump from that height. She seemed fascinated by Bucky's metal arm, bending it this way and then that and watching the water slide over it. Pepper slicked her hair back and let out a sigh that seemed to release tonnes of weight, before spreading her arms and allowing herself to float on her back, looking up at the exploding sky.
Maggie ended up standing in the water with just her head above the surface - she couldn't float very well, with all the metal in her body - her fingers drifting just below the water and her eyes on the house her brother had given her. Her tired, aching body felt lighter in the water, and she thought it might be the same for her tired, aching heart.
Around her neck, below the waterline, she could feel the Kimoyo bead and pearl necklace she'd worn all these years, as well as two flattened pieces of metal on a chain; Bucky's dog tags from the war. He'd given them to her for safekeeping a few days ago, worried that in his negotiations with the government they'd take them back. Just for now, she'd said. She'd spent many nights since reading the words, tracing over them.
James B Barnes
32557038 T41 42 O
R Barnes / 3092 Stockton Rd / Shelbyville IN H
Bucky was horsing around with Morgan, Pepper watching - it was nice to see Pepper smile - but after a few moments he let Morgan off on her hunt for a perfect lake pebble, and waded over toward Maggie. He was dripping wet, his hair straggled around his face, and he was smiling.
"He'd like this," Maggie said, eyes still on the house.
"'Course he would. I didn't get the chance to know him properly, but even I know he'd just want you to be happy." Bucky cocked his head. "And he'd want you to install an AI in the house."
She laughed. "We've only just moved in, give it time."
"We've got plenty of it." Bucky hovered closer, but was still hesitant, so she stepped in close, her chest to his. She reached up with pruney fingers and tucked the hair out of his eyes. "You've had a haircut," he said, eyeing her hair which had been cut to just above her shoulders. "I think I might get one."
"Yeah? I've not known you with short hair."
"You'll just have to get to know the new me." His eyes grew a little more serious. "And I can't wait to get to know the new you."
"I've changed a bit, in some ways." She instinctively rubbed the new scar through her eyebrow, though that wasn't what she meant. "But I don't think people ever change that much."
"You've always surprised me, even before… all of this."
"And you, me." She looked at the house. All the lights were off, and it seemed to blend in with the trees around it. "Do you like it here, Bucky? You want to stay?" He followed her gaze. "Because if you hate it, I can - I have so much money, I'll get us another place. We could live underground. Or on top of a mountain. Or on another planet, I know people now-"
He laughed and reached up to cover her mouth. "I was just taking it in. As interesting as the planet idea is, it's great here, doll. I've never had a house before. And it's right by Pepper and Morgan, and we need to be close to them. It's… it's like we always talked about. One day."
She smiled, even as she made a mental note to call Rocket one of these days. "We need some furniture though. It's a big house."
"For sure. We've never bought furniture before."
"That's not true, we bought that mattress at that flea market that one time when we were on the run."
He cocked an eyebrow. "Right, and the fleas came free."
"There was one flea-"
"We're going to get out now," Pepper called over from the pebble beach. Morgan had bulging pockets full of rocks, and a grin on her face.
Maggie and Bucky sloshed over and out of the water, their clothes streaming.
"Thanks for coming over," Bucky smiled, his hand on Maggie's elbow as she struggled over the pebbles.
Maggie frowned. "You two will be okay by yourselves over there tonight? You only have to call and we'll be right over-"
"We'll be okay," Pepper smiled; a thin, fragile one, but a true one. "I think we'll be sleeping well after today. Won't we, Morgan?"
"Can we smash a bottle on our house, mommy?"
"Your father already did that when he bought me the house," Pepper smiled.
"Where was I?"
"Well, you hadn't been born yet."
"How do babies get born?"
"We'll leave you to that conversation," Maggie laughed. Pepper wrapped Morgan in a towel until only her feet and eyes were visible, and they said goodnight and left - slightly delayed by Morgan demanding to wipe the water off of Bucky's metal arm.
Maggie and Bucky cleared up the glass shards from the champagne bottle, then showered and dried and made their way up to the top floor of the house, where a single mattress sat in the middle of the floor of their bedroom.
"Just like the old days," Bucky said as they sat on each side of the mattress.
"Want me to put newspaper over the windows?" she said, easing off her prosthetic leg with a wince.
Bucky helped her lie back on the mattress, his hands gentle. He rolled next to her and lowered his face into the side of her neck, sighing. "We don't have to hide anymore, doll."
"I don't. You're still technically a convict until your paperwork gets sorted, handsome."
"Shall I go find a different safehouse for the night, then?" he teased, sitting up and beginning to pull back the covers. But Maggie reached up to grab his arm.
"No," she said. "Stay."
The teasing light left his eyes. He eased back down, scrooped both arms around her until his warmth washed over like a furnace, and pulled her close. "I'm staying, doll." She closed her eyes. "You're my mission."
November 4th, 2023
Maggie awoke the next morning to a familiar ringing. Phone, she registered. She only had a select few people who knew that number, so she rolled over - surprised anew at the lighter weight of her right leg - and squinted at the screen. The sun lanced into the bedroom through the large windows. They really needed to buy curtains today.
"Mmrph," Bucky mumbled.
"It's Wanda," Maggie said. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, propped herself up on one elbow, and accepted the call. "Wanda?"
"Did you know about Vision."
Maggie blinked at Wanda's low, sharp tone. She sat up fully. "What? What about Vision?"
Bucky cracked an eye open.
"Did. You. Know." Her tone of voice was nothing Maggie had ever heard before; anger, yes, but she mostly sounded… tired.
Maggie frowned. "Wanda, I don't… did you visit his grave?"
Wanda laughed, and it was a broken sound. "Maggie, he trusted you, he - he told me that you were kind. So I will assume you didn't know. He's not there."
"Not where?"
"They dug him up," she said, and it sounded slightly manic. "They dug him up and ripped him apart and - and-" there was a brief pause, as Maggie found herself unable to focus on anything. "It doesn't matter. Never mind."
"Wanda-" but her phone let out two low beeps, signalling that the call had been ended. Maggie pulled it from her ear and stared at the black screen.
Bucky had sat up, and was watching her intently. "What happened?"
"I… Wanda says someone dug up… Vision's body, I think." Her brow furrowed. "We buried him in Wakanda, I don't…" she shook her head. "She thinks I have something to do with it."
"Shit," Bucky muttered. "Where is she?"
"She didn't say. I asked her at Natasha's funeral if she wanted to have another funeral for Vision, but she said she wasn't ready. I guess she changed her mind, or, I don't know." She frowned. She barely remembered Vision's quick, misery drenched funeral, she'd been so empty at the time. He'd been the only one for whom they had a body to bury. "I have to find her. She sounded upset." She looked to Bucky apologetically. They'd only just moved in, they were supposed to have time. They were supposed to buy curtains.
But Bucky just nodded. "Where do we start?"
November 5th, 2023
It took Maggie a day to figure out what had happened.
S.W.O.R.D.
She'd known of the organisation in a vague way, but she'd had no idea that they had dug up Vision's body years ago and were deconstructing it in their main facility in Florida. Maggie's stomach turned when she found out. She'd been off the planet so much, perhaps she'd missed it somehow. Or she hadn't been paying close enough attention. She'd thought in Wakanda, he'd be safe, but… that country had suffered in the Blip, too. A highly resourced intelligence agency with access to extraplanetary technology would have been able to achieve it. She wanted to go straight there, to rage at them, but that wasn't her mission right now.
She kept calling Wanda, with no success, but after a day was able to trace her; a CCTV camera had caught Wanda hiring a car.
"Got her," Maggie said with relief, sitting downstairs in their house on the wooden bay window seat, since they still had no actual furniture. Bucky, who'd just got back from buying deli sandwiches (since they still had no fridge), looked up. "She hired a car not far from here, actually, and I've managed to access the car's GPS. She's headed south."
"Into Manhattan?"
"No, past it I think, she's on the highway into New Jersey." Bucky made a face. "I'll take my car and follow her." Maggie pocketed her phone and reached for her walking stick, easing herself upright with a wince.
Bucky nodded, repackaging the sandwiches. "I'll come with you."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
He frowned. "Why? I don't know her very well, but-"
"I got you back," Maggie murmured. "Wanda didn't get Vision back."
His hackles lowered. "Right." He frowned, and paced over. "I don't like the idea of you driving off to Jersey on your own."
"It's Jersey, Bucky, I've been to other planets," she smiled, and again noted the instant wonder on his face at the mention of her space travel. Mental note: definitely call Rocket. "I'll stay on the phone the whole time, how about that?"
"Okay," he sighed. "But I am coming, I'll just keep some distance. I'll drive my bike." She thought about it, then nodded. "I'll - I had a hankering to visit Camp Lehigh, anyway."
"We can go there after, then," Maggie nodded, understanding.
"Alright," Bucky blew out a breath. He looked around the house. "Then we'll be back and we can properly make this place a home." He pressed the second sandwich into Maggie's hands. "Make sure you eat on the way."
After a quick call to Pepper to let her know they would be gone for a bit, Maggie and Bucky pulled out of their driveway in convoy, her self-driving sedan followed by his motorcycle, already connected on a phonecall. They talked about the furniture they wanted to buy on the way, as well as everything Maggie was going to do to S.W.O.R.D. when she got the chance. Bucky grumbled as they passed the Welcome to New Jersey sign, and Maggie glanced in her rear view mirror to smile at the image of him, dark and foreboding on his motorcycle.
"Alright, she's slowing down," Maggie said, eyes on the GPS tracker on her phone. "In a town called… Westview."
"Never heard of it," Bucky's voice came over the phone speaker, a little muffled from the wind.
"It's small. I'll drive into town and try to find her, you hang back - looks like there's another town called Eastview not too far off."
"Alright. Stay on the phone." Then: "Goddamn Range Rover drivers!"
A few minutes later, on a smaller two-lane road surrounded by more rural fields of green-brown grass, Bucky peeled off toward the sign for Eastview. Maggie watched him in her rear view mirror, then turned her attention forward - moments later she saw the small town before her. A grimy retro-style sign proclaimed:
Welcome to WESTVIEW
"Home: It's Where You Make It"
Population: 3,892
Elevation: 203
"Why are we here, Wanda," Maggie murmured, her eyes darting to her phone screen. Wanda's car was coming to a stop.
"You're in Westview?" Bucky said.
"Driving in now. There's not much to the place."
Under the overcast sunlight Maggie drove past the watertower, and down a main street lined by nice stone buildings, through the town square with a large town hall and a small gazebo in a green space. There were a few people about, though it looked like a quiet fall day. She continued past a community pool, with leaves clogging the surface.
"Okay, I'm on the street she stopped in now."
Maggie slowed the car to a crawl, creeping down past nice houses with hedges and picket fences. Her eyes roved, until:
"I've spotted her car." A dark red Buick had been parked in the driveway beside an empty lot; dry brown grass grew up around a cement foundation for a house, with a small pile of cinder blocks and wooden planks in one corner, weeded over.
"Do you see her?" The wind had lessened around Bucky, he must have stopped.
Maggie quietly pulled her car in on the other side of the street, in front of a nice house with pale green weatherboards. "Yes," she murmured.
Wanda stood at what would be the entrance to the house which had barely begun construction. Maggie could only see her back, but her red-auburn hair was unmistakable, as was the way she held herself.
"What's she doing?" Bucky asked.
"She's just standing there," Maggie murmured, now keeping one eye on Wanda as she typed away on her phone. "Outside an empty lot. I'm pulling up the location now, and… oh."
"Oh what?"
"The land was bought five years ago, in 2018. The deed is under Vision's name, and hers."
"Vision bought her a house," Bucky murmured, his voice lower.
Maggie allowed herself a second for her heart to ache for her friend, who had made a future for himself, then turned back to look at Wanda. She was now pacing past the cement foundation, into the dry brown grass that made the centre of the house, her steps slow. She looked around, shuddered, and then sank to her knees.
For half a second Maggie slipped back five years and to the other side of the world. To herself, the ringing echoes of Where's Bucky? in her ears, and Steve's blank face, and her knees thudding to the earth.
"I'm going to go speak to her, Bucky, she's… she's all alone."
"Okay."
Maggie unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. Just as she swung her prosthetic leg out, eyes lifting, an explosion of red energy burst out of Wanda's chest.
It rolled out in a shockwave, knocking Maggie back into her seat. Then the energy coalesced, swirling around Wanda like a storm. Maggie shielded her eyes and fought to stand back up again, barely able to spot Wanda in the whirlwind of magic - it had spread over the entire plot of land, and inside it Wanda lifted off the ground, her chest and hands glowing a piercing bright red. And then - structures began to form. Maggie clutched the edge of her car door for support and stared as what looked to be walls formed around the cement foundations of the house, soon taking the shape of a fully constructed, newly painted home.
Maggie took a staggering step forward, unable to hear Bucky calling for her over the crackling and swirling of the scarlet magic storm. Her heart pounded and the hairs on her arms stood on end in the presence of the magic. She could just see through the front door of the house as Wanda touched back down to the ground, her hands spread.
"Wanda!" she called.
And then Wanda rocked backwards, flared her arms and-
A tidal wave of scarlet magic blasted outward - it roared over Maggie and her vision flash scarlet, then black and white.
And then nothing.
Sitting on a motorbike in Eastview, New Jersey, Bucky Barnes blinked a few times down at his phone screen which read: call dropped. He stared at it until the screen faded to black. His knees felt strangely weak, and his chest… hollow, save for his racing heart. He pocketed his phone, then looked around. Above him, he saw a town sign.
"Why the fuck am I in New Jersey," he muttered. A passing woman scowled at him.
He looked around, taking in his surroundings. A foggy memory came to him: Camp Lehigh. Right.
But he was in the complete wrong direction for Lehigh. He shook his head, and reached up to rub his eyes. Things had been so hazy for him lately. He'd not been long out of cryo in Wakanda before he was washed away in a haze of dust, and then back again fighting a bunch of aliens, and now… he reeled at the world around him. He needed to find a place to stay, find a way to survive, and settle his legal affairs with the government. For now, though, he'd visit Steve's old training ground, for just a glimpse at the past. Even though it was a ruin now.
An aching loneliness permeated him as he swung his leg over the bike. Something bounced against his chest and he glanced down. A kimoyo bead on a chain. He remembered them giving it to him in Wakanda. He glanced away again, kicked the bike into gear, and then took off, quickly leaving the town behind him. As he passed onto the freeway his eyes saw the sign for 'Westview, 5 miles,' but his eyes simply skipped over the words.
There was no Westview.
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