Reviews
DBZFAN45: So glad you enjoyed Bucky and Maggie's shenanigans!
Strawberrycheeze: It's good when her confidence starts to come back :)
May 6th, 2024
Sam yawned in the humid dawn air of Madripoor's shipyards, wearing the same clothes from the night before. He felt good, though - it had been nice to see what Madripoor had to offer; in another life, he could see himself living it up in illegal art galleries in fancy high-rises.
He followed Sharon, who had her phone out as she led them through a maze of shipping containers, and could feel Zemo's ever-watchful presence at his back.
He glanced to his left, where Bucky and Maggie walked together, so close their arms were almost pressed together. Bucky was back in his suit from last night, but Maggie appeared to have borrowed Sharon's clothes; jeans, a blouse, and a jacket, much more sensible attire for tracking down rogue HYDRA doctors. As he watched, Maggie met Bucky's eye and winked. Bucky forced down a smile.
Sam rolled his eyes and turned back to face Sharon. They weren't exactly subtle. Although each time he wanted to make fun of them for their emotional constipation, he had to remind himself of exactly how much traumatic bullshit they'd been through, and then he felt a little more generous.
Sharon finally pointed them to a brown shipping container at the bottom of a whole stack of them, and gave them earpieces. "I'll keep an eye out while you guys talk to Nagel, but hurry; we're on borrowed time."
Sam shared a glance with the others, his brow heavy, then went to open the shipping container door.
To Maggie, at first the container had appeared empty. But then Zemo found the hidden door at the back, and they went in single file up the stairs that had emerged. Sam took point, a gun and a flashlight in his hands, and Maggie followed behind him, nanotech filtering down her arms and forming into wrist blasters. Zemo followed her; he had only a flashlight, but she still didn't like putting her back to him. Bucky took the rear, producing a handgun from the back of his jeans.
They'd shared a glance before entering the dark space of the shipping container - not one of their secret flirty exchanges, but a heavy look. Back into the flames.
None of them made a sound as they ascended the stairs; they'd all been trained in the art of silent stalking. Maggie could only hear the soft exhalations of the others' breaths at the edge of her enhanced hearing, and the more distant sound of a song. As they climbed the stairs, the song grew louder. It sounded tinny, scratchy, like a record.
They emerged into what was plainly a homemade laboratory, filled with blackmarket machinery, pressurised gasses in metal cylinders stored against the walls, yellow hazmat suits and white labcoats on racks, and respirators. With barely a peripheral glance at each other they all split off in different directions. Bucky split left, through a series of glass cabinets filled with test tube vials of blue liquid, Sam went right toward the source of the song with Zemo shadowing him, and Maggie hugged the wall with the hazmat suits, her eyes darting over the entire lab's contents, trying to make sense of it.
They converged on the far corner of the lab, where a record player was spinning behind a single man hunched over a glass glove box, maneuvering test tubes inside. He had frizzy, wispy hair and lumpy clothes, and Maggie guessed he'd spent a lot of his time in here. He sang along softly to the song as Sam strode up on the man's six, gun raised. She concealed herself behind a fume hood as Sam took the needle off the record.
With a gasp, the man jerked around.
"Dr Nagel?" Sam asked.
"Who are you, what do you want?" His words came out flat and rushed, like a man who was not much accustomed to speaking in a social setting. He had a sallow face, washed blue by the lights around his glass glove box.
"We know you created the super-soldier serum," Sam replied calmly.
"Get out of my lab," Nagel snapped, striding past Sam without a care for the gun. Only to round the corner of a metal refrigeration unit and come face to face with Bucky. Bucky leaned lightly against another piece of machinery, gun held loose in his hand and his eyes trained on Nagel.
Nagel stopped in his tracks, and somehow, impossibly, went even paler. Sam gripped his elbow.
"You know who he is, right?" Sam jerked on his elbow. "Who they are?"
He'd brought Nagel to face toward Maggie now; she stepped out from behind her hiding spot, and she felt as if her face had been carved of stone. Nagel's blue eyes widened.
Maggie didn't know Nagel. But in him she saw every scientist, every doctor, that she'd known under HYDRA. So as she met his eyes, she showed him the Wyvern.
"This is Baron Zemo," Sam finished the introductions with. "I know you've heard of him too, right?" He gave Nagel a shove. "You seem like a pretty smart guy. So you better become conversational real quick."
"How about a counter proposal?" Nagel replied, and something in the nasal, calculating way he spoke made Maggie's hackles rise. "Make me a better offer, and I'll talk."
Sam's brow lowered, and he turned back to look at Bucky and Maggie.
Nagel's greedy attempts at negotiation subsided when Bucky and Maggie lifted him bodily off his feet, dropped him in a chair, and then Bucky fired a shot right by his ear. But even as he began to answer Sam's questions, Maggie had to fight the urge to shift restlessly - they could all hear Sharon on the comms outside, and she was engaged in a fight with what sounded like every bounty hunter in the city. Time had run out.
"I was brought into HYDRA's Winter Soldier and Wyvern programs to pick up their work after the failed test subjects in Siberia," Nagel explained, his shoulders hunched. Maggie stiffened, her chin rising. Pierce and his many schemes. And this one he managed to keep off the books. "When HYDRA fell, I was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples from an American test subject with semi-stable traces of serum in his system. After much labor, I was able to isolate the necessary compounds in his blood." Nagel's entire demeanour shifted, and his eyes flashed. "I was a god. I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do. But mine was going to be different; no clunky machines or jacked up bodies. Mine was going to be subtle, optimised, perfect."
Maggie felt her heart harden as he spoke. He continued, explaining how he'd been Blipped, and when he returned the Power Broker had sponsored his work.
"How many vials did you make?" Maggie asked.
"Twenty. Karli Morgenthau stole those, so… I can only imagine what the Power Broker has planned for that poor girl."
Sam frowned. "Where's Karli now?"
"I don't know where she is. But a couple of days ago, she called and asked if I could help someone named Donya Madani."
As Nagel had been speaking, Maggie had kept half an eye on Zemo - he'd been unable to stand still, drifting amongst the machinery and racks of test tubes, running his hands over shelves and desks.
But moments later, a blur of movement to her left drew her attention - Sharon had just burst into the lab, cuts on her face and her hair frazzled.
"Guys, we're seriously out of time here-"
The sound of a gunshot made Maggie flinch. She whipped her wrist blasters up, instinctively looking to Bucky, but he was unharmed and he was only now lifting his gun. Beside her, Nagel hit the floor. She looked down, and his lifeless eyes looked up at her. There was a bleeding hole in his chest. Maggie had seen more dead bodies in her life than she could count. But it had been a long time now, and she was a little startled at the dull horror that throbbed in her chest. She tore her eyes away from his blood.
Sam and Sharon dove for Zemo, slamming him against the wall and wrestling the gun he'd somehow found out of his hand.
Maggie drew in a breath, not sure what she was going to say -
And then the lab exploded.
The entire wall behind Nagel's dead body imploded inwards in a wall of fire - later Maggie would recognize it as a missile launcher detonation - sending a blast wave tearing through the lab. Maggie and Bucky were closest, and the impact picked them off their feet and blew them into a large piece of machinery a few feet away. The others had more cover where they were tackling Zemo, merely getting knocked to the ground.
Maggie felt metal dent under her spine as a blast of fire and scorching air washed over her, then she dropped to the floor, dazed and ears ringing.
Sense returned to her with the blare of a loud alarm, and color flashing before her eyes: a red alarm light, as well as the crackling flames and smoke now filling the tight space inside the ruptured shipping container. Groaning, she got her arms and knees under herself and pushed up to her feet, body aching. She could hear the others moving and groaning, shattered glass crunching on the ground.
"Meg," Bucky breathed, somewhere to her left.
"I'm here, I'm okay-"
"You're on fire," he cut her off, and then she glanced at him, eyes wide, to find him patting out her sleeve with his metal hand. Within seconds he'd extinguished the flames and the fabric of the jacket faded to a dark curled mark.
"Thanks," she said breathlessly, then coughed as the smoke flooding the lab clogged her lungs. She cast a wild glance around; the entire lab was on fire, apparatus clinking and smashing, flames encroaching on the open fluids Nagel had been experimenting with, and the presusrized gas canisters. Her eyes stung.
"Anybody see Zemo?" Sam choked, on one elbow on the ground. But Maggie could only see him and Sharon. Wherever Zemo had gone, he was clearly fending for himself.
Maggie gripped Bucky's arm and they staggered towards Sam and Sharon. Bucky grabbed the back of Sharon's coat and heaved her up, while Maggie hauled Sam up by his arm. "C'mon, out," she urged.
Stumbling and coughing, the four of them ran back the way they'd come, as the air at their backs grew hotter and more clogged with smoke-
They'd just made it out of the main shipping container when the flames hit the gas canisters and whole thing went up again. With an almighty blast the floor went out from under Maggie and the others and they tumbled down the stairs into the first shipping container. Behind them, the container that had been Nagel's lab erupted and fell out of the pile of containers, crashing to the ground. Smoke flooded the area.
Maggie, Bucky, Sam, and Sharon got to their feet again, still choking on smoke, and made their way to the crack of light at the other end of the shipping container. They emerged into a far different scene from the quiet shipping yard they'd walked through only twenty minutes earlier; they had to duck under the hanging, mangled shipping container that had been blown up, into a yard full of shredded metal and thick black smoke. As Maggie stepped out, squinting in the smoke as she kept one hand on Bucky's back, she instantly had to duck down as gunfire broke out.
They were surrounded. Sam darted left, using the fallen, lopsided shipping container as cover, and the others were forced to run after him, heads ducked as bullets pinged off the corrugated steel around them. They dove into defensive positions; Sharon and Sam faced west, popping up over piles of mangled and shredded metal to return fire at the bounty hunters in the maze of shipping containers, while Bucky and Maggie faced east: Bucky had the handgun he'd brought, while Maggie fired off bolts of red energy from her wrist blasters. The bounty hunters didn't seem organized, but there were lots of them, each looking to collect the multimillion bounty on Sam, Bucky, and Zemo's heads.
Bucky's gun ran out and he cursed, ducking back down to the ground. Maggie popped up, blinking blood out of the corner of her eye from a cut she'd gotten in the explosion, and blasted a bounty hunter off his feet in a crackle of energy. Bucky used the cover to crouch-hustle over to Sam and Sharon. Maggie was distantly aware of Bucky and Sam arguing, while she and Sharon covered their flanks. Gunfire was a constant in the air, and Maggie could barely make out anything through the smoke. When Sharon shouted that her gun was out, too, Maggie's heart dropped. It was her and her nanotech against who knew how many bounty hunters.
She was designing shields and barricades in her mind when she noticed the figure on the shipping container across the yard. Her hands lifted, until she recognized the coat.
Zemo wore a strange purple mask over his face, looming as he lifted a gun, standing over the bounty hunters circling in. He aimed, cocked his head, and Maggie gasped a second before he fired as she realized where he was aiming.
The gas line he'd been aiming for went up in an almighty eruption of gold-orange flame, wiping out the bounty hunters on the ground like they'd never been there. Maggie threw up a hastily-made nanotech shield, her arms shuddering as the blast wave hit it. The flames and debris rolled off the shield and she felt Bucky, Sam and Sharon's shock as they turned to see the explosion.
Through the translucent shimmer of the nanotech shield, Maggie saw the dark silhouette atop the shipping containers leap down, nimble and deadly. He leapt through the still-burning flames and descended on the remaining bounty hunters.
Maggie thought about helping, then decided not to. She, Bucky, Sam, and Sharon were Zemo's silent, staring audience as he swiftly and ruthlessly tore through the last three bounty hunters on the ground. When he was finished, he turned to stare at them through the flames.
"Go," Bucky murmured. Then he tapped Maggie's shoulder, making her bring down the shield. "Come on, let's go."
They dove forward.
They weren't fighting anymore, they were running. They sprinted together through the maze of shipping containers, outrunning more volleys of gunfire as bounty hunters who'd been late to the party closed in on them. Zemo had split off who knows where again, and Maggie's voice rasped in her throat as she checked every angle, nanotech shifting and changing on her arms.
They turned a corner, and abruptly gunfire erupted on all sides. Sam shouted and yanked open the nearest shipping container door, using it as a shield against the gunman who'd appeared ahead of them. He and Sharon dove in, but hearing footsteps crunching up behind them, Maggie and Bucky did not follow. Bucky yanked a metal pipe off the shipping container and whirled, swinging it against the man who'd just followed Maggie around the corner. Maggie ducked past, skidding to one knee as she grabbed a handful of gravel. She slid past the out-swung shipping container door protecting Sharon and Sam and tossed the gravel at the gunman.
He reeled back, hands flying to his face, and Maggie sprang off the ground towards him. She landed knee-first in his chest and sent him to the ground with a crack of broken ribs and a horrible wheeze. She slammed her fist down, punching his lights out, then grabbed up his rifle and turned. Bucky hurled his metal pipe like a javelin down an adjoining row of shipping containers, but there was a woman with a gun running down the row behind him, her rifle point rising to aim at him. Maggie lifted her rifle and fired without hesitation. Bucky turned to see the woman drop.
He looked to her, chest heaving, then as one they both looked up at the sound of footsteps clanging on the shipping containers above them. Bucky sprinted toward Maggie, his eyes still cast upward, but Maggie knew what he intended. She dropped her rifle, crouched, and as Bucky leaped his foot landed in her linked palms and she heaved, sending him flying up to the top of the shipping container, hands outstretched for the gunman who'd just appeared over the edge. Maggie retrieved her stolen rifle, turned, and shot the other bounty hunter as they appeared at the other edge.
For a moment, the gunfire had stopped. Bucky dropped back down, righting his suit jacket, and at that Sam leaned out of the shipping container, eyes wide.
"Come on!"
Trading a brief glance, they hurried into the container after Sam.
When they punched their way out on the other side, Zemo screeched up in a convertible sportscar, smiling as if he were picking them up from brunch. They climbed in, Sam warning Zemo not to try anything like he had with Nagel again, but Sharon refused to join them.
"Told you, I can't. Just get me that pardon you promised me."
"Thanks for everything," Sam called, then lowered into the backseat of the car behind Bucky. "You're not going to move your seat up, are you?"
"No," Bucky replied.
Maggie sank into the seat beside Sam, running a hand over her face and wincing when it came away bloody. Zemo hit the gas and they roared out of the shipping yard.
Bucky looked back, his brow creased. "You okay?" he asked her, pointedly ignoring Sam.
She probed the cut over her eyebrow. "Fine. You?"
He nodded – he barely had a hair out of place.
Zemo looked in the rear view mirror at her. "You've still got it," he rasped in that knowing way of his.
"Of course I do," she replied curtly. "How long to your jet?"
"Fifteen minutes," he replied, and turned his gaze back to the road.
Maggie looked down at her hands. They were shaking, mirroring the shivering that had crept up her spine and now racked her whole body. The adrenaline had turned cold, and her teeth were chattering.
It had been a long time since she'd been in a real fight. And she knew the concerned glances Bucky kept shooting her were for that reason; concern that she'd been triggered by the violence, drawn back into a violent life that she'd promised to leave behind. But Maggie knew the shivers weren't from fear, or a trauma response.
She felt strong. It had crept up on her; leaving the house maybe, or weathering Zemo's barbs, or striding into Madripoor with a dress and a smile, or dancing with Bucky. Maybe it had been the fight. But like stepping gingerly on a leg that used to be broken, she looked inside herself and found no crumbled foundations, no crippling pain. She looked for the brokenness she'd been protecting these last six months, and came up empty.
Looking strong, kid, whispered the Tony-voice in her mind.
She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
Global Repatriation Council Supply Depot, Vilnius, Lithuania
"Do you remember how scared we were when we took the serum?" Karli Morgenthau asked her friend Dovich, as they cased out the GRC Supply Depot. "Felt like my veins were on fire. Prayed it would kill me. But it was worth it, because this world is ours. Should have been Mama Donya's." A pang of sadness hit as she remembered bowing her head over Mama Donya's cooling body. "We'll use all of our strength to give it to the kids in those camps."
"You know, the Power Broker is gonna catch up with us eventually, right?"
She sighed. "That's not a problem. Nagel was killed in Madripoor. We've got the last of the serum. The Power Broker is about to come begging."
Berlin Correctional Facility
"You seriously think Sam and Bucky would've broken Zemo out of prison?" Lemar chuckled as he and John strode out of the prison warden's offices.
"That's exactly what I think," John replied, a sarcastic smile on his face. "They were just as desperate for leads as us. And it wasn't just them, you saw the tape – Maggie was there as well. Maybe she's not as retired as we thought."
"Come on, man. You know we can't accuse 'em of something without evidence."
"Which is why you and I are just gonna run with this one for a minute."
Zemo Family Jet, somewhere over the Indian Ocean
Maggie stepped out of the jet's bathroom and peered out of the nearest window – night had fallen over the ocean, but she could just make out the glimmers of lights in the distance. They were headed vaguely toward Europe, though they didn't have a specific destination yet. Sam was having his Air Force colleague, Torres, chase up the Donya Madani lead for them.
As she strode up the length of the jet toward where Sam and Bucky sat, she heard their soft conversation.
"… just thinking about all the shit Sharon had to go through," Sam was saying. Zemo was further up the jet, in the kitchenette. "And Nagel referring to the 'American test subject' like Isaiah wasn't even a real person." He sat up, agitated. "Just makes me wonder how many people have to get steamrolled to make way for this hunk of metal."
Maggie paused a few rows down from them, one hand resting on the back of a seat.
"Well, it depends on who you ask," Bucky replied, looking down at his hand. "That hunk of metal saved a lot of lives."
"Yeah, I get that, alright," Sam muttered. He looked into Bucky's eyes. "Maybe I made a mistake."
"You did."
"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Maybe I shouldn't have put it in a museum, maybe I should have destroyed it."
Maggie frowned. Up to this point she'd been listening quietly, and neither Sam nor Bucky had noticed her standing a few rows behind them. Bucky looked over at Sam, his brow heavy.
"It was destroyed," she said quietly.
Sam looked over his shoulder, eyebrows lifting.
"I don't know if you saw it," she whispered, continuing her walk toward them. "After the Facility got destroyed when it was just us and Thanos." She sat down opposite Bucky, rubbing her thumb over her palm at the memory of the dark sky and the endless field of burning rubble. "Steve fought him, all by himself, when he thought all the rest of us had been killed. And Thanos smashed the shield." She made a slashing gesture with her hand. "Vibranium torn in two, like it was paper." She shook her head. "I was down. Steve, too, and he couldn't get up. Thanos's army had come down, thosuands of them, and I was just lying there, because I knew we'd lost."
A small, sad smile crossed her face. She could feel Sam and Bucky's whole attention on her, but her eyes wouldn't focus as she remembered that day. "And then Steve stood up. He… he got up, shattered shield and all, and I know I couldn't have got back up without that."
For a few long, silent moments, she looked down at her hands. A grave feeling pressed down on her; the weight of history.
Finally she looked up at Sam. "It's yours," she said simply. "Steve gave it to you, and it's yours, no matter what the government or me or anyone else says. All I can ask of you is… don't destroy it. Not again." She held his gaze.
Sam's normally warm, empathetic eyes shifted and closed off.
"Look," Bucky cut in. "That shield represents a lot of things to a lot of people, including me. The world is upside, and we need a new Cap, and it ain't gonna be Walker." Bucky shifted so he was leaning into the aisle. "So before you destroy it, I'm going to take it from him myself."
Maggie glanced at Bucky, surprised.
Before Sam could answer, his phone rang. Torres, with a lead. When he hung up Zemo had come back from the kitchenette with food, and on hearing the news, he gave the order to the pilot for them to change course.
Global Repatriation Council Supply Depot, Vilnius, Lithuania
"There were still people in there!" Dovich exclaimed, staring back at the supply depot which had just erupted into flames.
Karli stared back at him, eyes alight in the flames. "This is the only language these people understand."
Zemo Family Jet
Maggie woke up with her head on Bucky's metal shoulder, and the low hum of the jet engines all around her. For a moment, her eyes still closed, she pictured the endless sky all around the metal shell of the jet. Then she opened her eyes.
The lights inside the cockpit had been dimmed, making it a hazy, dreamlike scene. Maggie carefully extricated herself from Bucky, stood, and padded past the sleeping Sam toward the jet's kitchenette. It was only when she stepped into it that she realized Zemo was there too.
He'd taken off his ominous fur jacket, and he looked startlingly sleep rumpled. He looked up from where he'd been pouring hot water into a mug.
"Tea?" he murmured.
It had been such a strange day. Maggie nodded, and the warm mug was pressed into her hands. Zemo set about making himself another mug, yawning. Maggie wondered if he also had troubles sleeping.
She turned, intending to head back to her seat and wait for the warm drink to put her back to sleep, but then she hesitated. For a few moments she stood with her back to Zemo, in the low hum of the aircraft.
When she finally turned, Zemo was watching her with those intelligent dark eyes.
"Did you think about how seeing that video in Siberia would affect me?" she asked, still clutching her drink. "Or did it not matter to you?"
He cocked his head, considering her. "Hm." For a moment, the memory of that day sat between them, achingly cold.
Zemo finally spoke. "While I regret the distress it caused you, I must admit that concern was not high on my priorities."
"Your priorities being to destroy the Avengers." She still remembered the way his eyes had glinted when he spoke to Steve.
He sipped his tea. "Of course. Super serum, super heroes, super powers… it all leads to pain, and suffering. The Avengers had to be brought down. You may think me mad with vengeance, but I hope you know I also had the good of the common people in mind as well."
She eyed him steadily.
"You disagree, of course," he acknowledged.
"I don't see the point in debating with you," she said. "You can philosophize when you're back in jail."
He smiled. "Ah, and what is the difference between me in jail, and you? It was a near thing for you, if you recall. Mere politics."
She rolled her eyes.
After another long moment, he continued. And his voice had become softer. "I did not think you would be in Siberia, that day. And when you were… I simply thought you did not remember that night. I thought I would be returning a lost memory to you."
Her fingers tightened on her mug. "So you think it was kind, to bring back the trauma of my five year old self in color and sound?"
"You did remember though, didn't you?" Zemo leaned a little so he could look past her to Bucky, whose face had relaxed in sleep. "And you still chose him."
"Not all of us have to succumb to revenge."
His eyebrows rose. "Certainly, you've taken forgiveness to its extremes."
"I don't have to forgive Bucky. He didn't choose to do what he did."
"Ah, choice." Zemo took another sip. "You and he were super-powered bombs that HYDRA deployed against their enemies. Certainly, not your fault. You didn't have a choice." His head tilted. "Nuclear weapons do not have choices. And yet the world is far safer without them."
"We're people, not weapons," she snapped.
"Yes," he replied calmly. "And you should never have been forced to become anything more than people." The kindness in his eyes was startling. "This is what I am seeking, Ms Stark. An end to the science that turns people into weapons. I should think you'd be on my side."
Maggie wanted to take a step back. She stared at him, searching his face, gripping her mug as if for assurance.
"And for what it is worth," he finally added, his posture easing, "I am sorry, for your loss. I do not respect or admire your father, but to lose one's parents at such an early age, in such a way… it must be a great burden for you."
She frowned. "I know you're manipulating me," she murmured. "But for what it's worth, I'm sorry for your loss too." She straightened and met his eye. He was still and calm, like the surface of a frozen lake. "What were your wife and son's names?"
He let out a low, humorless laugh. "Funny. That is the first time I've been asked that question since they were killed."
And with that he turned and walked toward the pilot's cockpit.
May 7th, 2024
Riga, Latvia
Maggie had never been to Riga. It was a nice city; it had the flavour of many of the eastern European cities she had been to, with its cobblestoned streets, colorful buildings, and grand Soviet monuments. They'd landed outside the city and been driven in, but now they walked toward the supposed safe house Zemo owned in the city center. Zemo monologued about how Sokovia had been snapped up by surrounding states as they walked, and rather snippily asked I don't suppose any of you bothered visiting the memorial? Of course not. Why would you?
Maggie wanted to reply none of us were there, Zemo, but she knew it wouldn't make him any less haughty and wounded, so she kept her mouth shut.
As they approached a wrought iron door set in a grand building and Zemo announced they'd arrived, Bucky slowed his steps.
"I'm gonna go on a walk," he announced.
Maggie frowned, turning to face him.
"You good?" Sam asked.
"Yeah." His face had hardened, and he'd shoved his hands into his pockets. "See you guys in a bit."
"I'll come with you," Maggie said, stepping forward.
"No, I got it. You keep an eye on him," he said with a nod to Zemo.
Her frown deepened. But Bucky shot her a look, and his hand drifted up to his chest, where she could see the outline of his dogtags and the Kimoyo bead under his shirt. After a moment, she nodded.
Bucky turned and walked back down the way they'd come, hands in his pockets.
The others watched him go, then Zemo made for the stairs up to the wrought iron door. Maggie clenched her jaw, glancing from the door then back to the way Bucky had gone. Her foot tapped restlessly on the cobblestones.
With a frustrated sigh, she stepped toward the building Zemo had led them to – and jumped up to catch the railing below one of the ground floor windows.
Sam glanced over to see her scaling the side of the building, finding footholds in the seams of the sandstone. "You could just talk to each other, you know!" he called after her.
"We did talk," she said, leaping up to grab onto the next floor's windowsill. "I disagreed."
"Let them go," Zemo said to Sam, faintly amused. "I myself am looking forward to room service."
Once she'd reached the top of the building, Maggie set off running along the rooftops of Riga. She found Bucky quickly; he was winding his way down the narrow streets of the city, and as she watched he crouched down to pick something up. She narrowed her eyes, inching along the roof and carefully avoiding casting a shadow on the ground, and spotted a small flash of silver in his glove.
A Kimoyo bead.
Bucky followed the trail of Kimoyo beads a few blocks away, and Maggie followed Bucky from the rooftops. She shimmied down slanted shingles, circled chimneys, and leaped across alleyways, leaving those on the ground below none the wiser.
Finally, Bucky headed down the narrowest alleyway yet, his head turning to take in his surroundings.
"You dropped something!" he called, holding up one of the beads. He strode forward a few paces, then turned a few times, searching. Maggie crept along the rooftop to his left, keeping far back enough that he wouldn't spot her if he looked up.
So she didn't see who Bucky was talking to until she looked down again.
"I was wondering when you were going to show up," Bucky murmured, in a different tone. Maggie glanced down, and almost jumped; the woman had appeared from seemingly nowhere. She was dark-skinned and completely bald, wearing a black dress and a ring of Kimoyo beads around her wrist.
The woman eyed Bucky with a hard stare and said something in Wakandan; Maggie didn't speak the language, but she recognized the word Zemo.
Shit.
Maggie settled down onto her haunches, hands resting on the shingles of the roof to keep her balance. She recognized the woman: Ayo. She didn't know Ayo well, but she knew it had been her who had sat with Bucky after his trigger word treatment. It had been her who spoke his words for the last time. Ayo had sat with him as he'd cried.
Maggie could hear Bucky telling the story: She said to me… She told me I was free, doll.
Ayo had been Bucky's support in that impossible moment, as Vision had been for Maggie.
So Maggie didn't tense or intervene when Ayo took five menacing steps toward Bucky. "How could you free him?"
"We need his help," Bucky replied, unmoving.
Ayo's lip curled and she began to circle him. "With time, will, and the resources, the Winter Soldier programming was removed from you like a rotten fur." Bucky still did not move, even when she was at his back.
"I'm grateful for that," he said. "I'm grateful for everything you and Shuri have done-"
"Zemo murdered our King T'Chaka at the UN. The man who chose us, who chose me to protect him."
Maggie saw Bucky's eyes close for a moment. "I understand-"
"Very little," she cut off, "if anything, of our loss and our shame."
Bucky hung his head. After a few moments, he lifted his head again and said something in Wakandan. Whatever he'd said, it appeared to change something in Ayo's demeanour. She didn't look less angry, but she did nod ever so slightly.
"Eight hours, White Wolf. Then we come for him." She held out a palm. Bucky reached into his pocket and retrieved the Kimoyo beads, silently handing them over.
Ayo closed her hand into a fist, still eyeing him. "And you need not have a bodyguard hiding in the shadows," she finished with, before turning on her heel and striding away.
On the roof, Maggie froze.
Bucky sighed and looked down again. He waited there, in the middle of the alleyway, until Ayo had vanished.
He didn't look up. He just put his hands in his pockets and called: "I could've handled it by myself, Meg."
Maggie shuffled forward, then hopped off the edge of the roof. She landed with a soft thud on the cobblestones behind him, and he slowly turned to face her.
"I know," she replied, straightening. She shifted her feet. "I regret it now. I'm sorry."
He sighed again, and when she cautiously approached him, he let her. She wrapped her arms around him, and he dropped his face into her shoulder.
"You're not letting them down," she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. She could feel the guilt radiating off him.
He shook his head. "Whether I have or I haven't, in eight hours it won't matter either way." He lifted his head and met her eyes. "We need to make them count."
Maggie and Bucky returned to the safehouse together; it was a gorgeous space, almost Turkish or Middle Eastern in design, with geometric stained glass windows, blue tile accents everywhere, carved wooden doors and inlays in the walls, and low couches. They strode in to find Sam sitting at a bar-style table with a laptop open in front of him, and Zemo walking around in a bathrobe, his hair wet.
Bucky explained what Ayo had told him; Sam's face dropped, while Zemo looked untroubled.
"Were you followed?" Sam asked, frowning.
"No."
"How can you be so sure?" Zemo asked.
"Because I know when I'm being followed," he shot back, irritated. His eyes flicked to Maggie. "Most of the time."
Maggie shot him another apologetic smile, then pulled out her phone to check on her various search algorithms, while Sam and Zemo argued again about him killing Nagel.
It wasn't hard for Maggie to find evidence of Flagsmasher activity. Her eyebrows rose as she read the latest news, then she elbowed Bucky to show him the headline on her phone.
"Sam," Bucky said, cutting into the argument. He took Maggie's phone, his brow lowering. "Karli bombed a GRC supply depot."
"What? What's the damage?"
"Eleven injured, three dead," Maggie replied grimly. Bucky was still reading off her phone, so her fingers twitched restlessly. They needed to find these kids. She fidgeted with the tea sets and bartending appliances on the bar instead.
"They have a list of demands and are promising more attacks if those demands aren't met," Bucky read. He passed the phone back to Maggie.
"She's getting worse," Zemo said, as if he'd expected this all along. He came over and set his hands on the bar.
He set off talking about his mission, and calling Karli Morgenthau a supremacist. Maggie half-listened - Sam and Bucky argued with him - as she tried a few new ideas for tracing the Flagsmashers. But they were good, constantly mobile, with the cybersecurity skills needed to cover their tracks. Even from her. They knew that attention was closing in, and they were being careful about it.
"The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals," Zemo replied to Sam's point that there had to be a peaceful way to stop Karli. "Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path."
Maggie frowned, still typing. "I resent that."
"She will not stop," Zemo continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "She will escalate until you kill her." His head tilted. "Or she kills you."
"Maybe you're wrong, Zemo," Bucky said. Maggie glanced at him - he was silhoetted by the light pouring through the stained glass windows, spilling colour over his black outfit. "The serum never corrupted Steve."
"Touche," Zemo nodded. "But there has never been another Steve Rogers, has there?" He smiled and went to the cupboards.
"Well," Bucky strode away from the window, towards the low couches in the middle of the room. "Maybe we should give him to the Wakandans right now."
"And you'll give up your tour guide?" Zemo asked, rifling through shelves.
"Yes." Bucky dropped down on the couches.
Maggie let out a frustrated sigh and leaned against the bar. "I've put out all the nets and feelers I can, but the Flagsmashers have gone to ground. All I can tell you is they're not currently active on any missions in Europe."
"Well, let's look at this from a psychological angle then," Sam said, spreading his hands. And he began to tell them about his 'TT', much to the others' bewilderment, finally explaining that he was sure there'd be a community funeral for this Donya Madani woman who'd died, and that Karli would no doubt be there.
"So we look for her the old school way," Sam said. "Boots on the ground, asking questions."
"Works for me," Maggie nodded.
Zemo pulled a handful of candy out of a brass container. "Your TT would be proud of you, Sam." He gestured at him with a plastic-wrapped candy. "Turkish delight." He tossed it, and Sam caught it with a bewildered look. "Irresistible."