Reviews
shorttrooper: I agree with you on Sharon, I was disappointed she'd taken a hard turn into being a bad guy, and the justifications behind her actions were weird. I do wonder what the show would have been like without the pandemic! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I agree with you on a lot of them. And yes I am very much enjoying playing with Zemo and his sneaky evilness, the way he gets in people's heads is delightful.
Hope all is well with you and as always thank you very much for your kind words!
GRC Resettlement Camp, Latvia
Maggie didn't know what she expected from a resettlement camp, but she certainly didn't expect the enormous complex of old Soviet state buildings they arrived at that morning. The buildings were not in good condition, however; long-smashed windows were boarded up, paint had peeled and cracked, and weeds grew through the cobblestones. The camp was full of people; they gathered on mismatched chairs in the courtyards, holding steaming tin cups, they lined up to collect water from the huge water drum by the main entrance, they strode in and out of enormous doors into the complex of buildings. They wore a strange assortment of clothes; mismatched scarves and gloves to ward off the heat. It looked like they'd had their pick from a huge pile of donated clothes of all sizes and colors.
"Shame what's become of this place," Zemo commented, hands in the pockets of his fur coat as they strode into the entrance courtyard. "When I was young, we used to come here for fabulous dinners and parties. I knew nothing of the politics of the time, of course, but I remember it being beautiful."
"I'm gonna take a look upstairs," Sam murmured to Bucky and Maggie.
"I'll take the downstairs," Maggie added, nodding at a entrance into a long building at the other end of the courtyard.
Sam nodded and turned to Bucky. "See what you can find out here. And keep an eye on him," he nodded to Zemo, who smiled.
"I'll stay out of your way," he replied, holding up his hands innocently.
Maggie touched Bucky's elbow, her eyebrows lifting in a silent question. You'll be alright?
He nodded stiffly, touched his fingers to the back of her hand, and then stepped away. With a nod, Maggie strode away, past the curious and suspicious eyes in the courtyard, and let herself into the building.
Maggie quickly realised that none of the displaced persons in the resettlement camp would stay in her presence long enough for her to ask them any questions. If they weren't avoiding her, they were glaring at her with outright disdain.
So she observed the story the camp itself was telling her. The building complex was all old state rooms filled with mismatched and scrounged furniture, out of date computers, boxes of donated clothes and toiletries and food. But far from enough boxes. A few of them had GLOBAL REPATRIATION COUNCIL branded on the side, but most of them looked like they'd been donated or stolen. Everywhere she saw deprivation, and struggle. This was a community, and they provided for each other. That much was clear from the communal supply areas, and the impromptu school rooms and nurseries, and their united avoidance and silence toward Maggie and the others.
She spotted a few Flagsmasher logos around the place - a red painted hand, with a globe on the palm - but they were amateur, hand-drawn, and there was no sign of the super-soldiers themselves. And she could hardly begrudge these people their support of the Flagsmashers, who fed and supplied them with the things they needed to survive. Maggie couldn't help but feel a bit like a bad guy in a Robin Hood story.
Maggie made a circuit of the full building, and then heard voices ahead. She took a few steps toward the next doorway and hovered there, out of sight.
She heard Sam's voice: "I'm not from here, but I've got a good track record of helping out."
Another voice replied, his tone hard: "I know what happens when people say they're going to help out. Nothing. The Global Repatriation Council promised to send more teachers, more supplies. That was six months ago."
Maggie rubbed her forehead.
Sam cut in again, saying he could make a call, but it was clear the man he was speaking to was having none of it. Maggie padded away quietly, retracing her steps through the complex.
Maggie hadn't been involved in setting up the Global Repatriation Council; after the final battle against Thanos she'd been too lost in her grief, in her wounds, in her brokenness.
But that's no excuse, she told herself as she paced down a corridor with peeling paint on the walls. If it weren't for her and the Avengers, there wouldn't be a GRC. There wouldn't be these hardened and hungry people pushed to the edges of civilisation.
She had been aware of the GRC of course, glad that there was someone picking up the pieces after the Blip. But now that she was properly looking into it, she could see Karli Morgenthau's point. The GRC members were largely people who had been Blipped; for them, those five years had passed in the blink of an eye.
She looked down into an outer courtyard and saw one of the massive GRC banners: Reset, Restore, Rebuild. A group of children played with a stacked-up tower of cans below the banner.
The Flagsmashers fought for those who had survived the Blip; for those people, those five years had existed. Maggie couldn't pretend, even with Bucky, that those years had passed in the blink of an eye. And when they'd been planning the Time Heist, they knew they couldn't just reset. Too much had happened in those five years; too much life, too much learning, too much pain. It couldn't simply be erased. They'd had to find a way to bring everyone back, while keeping all that had happened in the interim.
Maggie had known that when they'd planned it. She just hadn't realized quite how painful it would all be.
The GRC wanted to redraw the lines and return the world to the way it had been five years ago.
But that was madness, Maggie reflected as she turned down a new corridor, scattering a few more people who shot her dirty looks. Like asking Morgan to return to being a small baby, asking New Asgard to un-build itself, the dead to un-die, couples to un-marry, seasons to roll backward. Some might want it that way - in some ways, Maggie knew she might be a lighter, happier person without those years. But she had never considered erasing them. The world was different, and the GRC wanted it to go backward.
She pushed past a makeshift curtain into what must have once been a private art gallery of some kind, but which now was made up to be a medical wing. The beds were empty, but a radio at the far end of the room was tuned to the news, which was explaining the 'Patch Act' the GRC had announced after the bombing yesterday.
"The Act will give the GRC special powers to relocate displaced persons back to their home countries as an urgent matter, restore traditional borders, and 'return to business as usual'. Some members within the GRC have said that this increased timeline is not feasible or safe, but the most powerful members from western countries such as the USA are pushing the legislation through. Filipino representative Lieutenant-Colonel Ayla Perez has said-"
Maggie frowned as she listened, inspecting the different beds in the medical wing. Finally, she found a bed with a closed folder at the head of it, which she opened to reveal:
Donya Madani.
Maggie's fingers tightened on the folder and she ran her eyes down the medical notes. They were sparse; clearly the resettlement camp didn't have the benefit of teams of medical professionals, but someone had been keeping track of Madani's symptoms. Tuberculosis, with complications. It looked like the disease had been treated sporadically with antibiotics, but nothing regular. Maggie's stomach turned. They didn't have enough for her.
At the bottom of the file was Madani's date and time of death: just three days ago.
"Hey!"
Maggie glanced over, setting down the folder. A woman had entered the room, wearing faded blue scrubs and a coat, as if she'd just returned from outside.
"Apologies," Maggie said, her hands rising. "I just wanted to ask some questions, if you have a-"
But the woman's face twisted with anger. "Get out! I know who you are, Avenger!"
"I'm only-"
The woman stormed across the room without fear. "You did this to us!" she shouted, gesturing at Madani's bed. "You think you go around saving the world, but you destroyed ours!"
Maggie backed up, her hands still raised, and the woman ushered her out of the room. As Maggie scurried back to the main courtyard, her head fell. Unlike Sam, she wouldn't make any promises to anyone. But she felt the weight of this place.
An hour later, back in the safehouse, Maggie strode over to the stained glass windows and took a seat, chin in her hand and her brow knotted. Sam and Bucky headed for the long, low couches while Zemo made a beeline for the teaset in the kitchen.
Bucky was frustrated about their lack of progress this morning, while Sam clearly empathised with the close-lipped displaced people.
"For five years, it wasn't just one community coming together, it was the entire world coming together," he explained to Bucky, then looked over his shoulder to Maggie. "Right?"
She started, lost in thought. "You're… not wrong. There was…" she blew out a breath and rubbed her forehead. "Especially in that first year, there was the sense that if we didn't work together, it…" she frowned. She hated thinking about it. She could feel Bucky's concerned gaze on her. "That Thanos may as well have killed all of us."
Bucky's brow lowered.
"Everyone had to be extraordinary," she continued. "We all went to extraordinary measures to measure our losses, to communicate, and to rebuild." She let out a humorless laugh. "Well, I say we. I found it easier to fix problems on other planets, rather than stay here. It was Rhodey, and Okoye, and Natasha that held things together here." She remembered Rhodey's good-humored five minute updates every time she returned to earth.
She looked up, and realised she'd turned the mood of the room dark.
"And then boom," Sam continued, "just like that, it goes right back to the way it used to be. To them, at least Karli's doing something."
Bucky argued back, and after a few minutes of debate about Karli's motives and actions, Zemo came over with a pot of brewed tea and set it down in front of Sam and Bucky.
"The funeral is this afternoon," he revealed.
"Keep talking," Bucky urged.
But Zemo dissembled, saying I prefer to keep my leverage.
Maggie had been still lost in thought, Karli and the GRC and refugees vying for space in her mind, but the minute Bucky stood up, calm and collected, her mind cleared. She looked up, sensing something despite Bucky's outwardly calm demeanour. He paced toward Zemo, his steps measured - then seized the teacup out of Zemo's hands and hurled it against the wall in a starburst of china.
Maggie stood bolt upright, every nerve alight. She didn't know what she'd do; stop Bucky, or tear Zemo apart for him.
"Wanna see what someone can do with leverage?" Bucky murmured, sea-grey eyes fixed on Zemo.
Sam scrambled up to defuse the situation. It worked, somewhat, and when Sam then strode away to call Sharon to ask for her help, Bucky disengaged from Zemo. His eyes flicked to Maggie, still a few yards away from them all, and she tilted her chin down. He let out a breath and strode into the next room.
Zemo turned. "Would you care for some tea?"
She let her fingers uncurl. "No, thank you," she murmured. Her eyes flicked to the last unoccupied room, a spare bedroom where she'd stashed a laptop. "I've got some work to do."
Sitting cross-legged on an embroidered ottoman tucked against a desk, Maggie frowned down at her laptop. The spare room she'd hidden away in was filled with the same slanting stained-glass light as the rest of the safehouse, but at least in here she was safe from the tense murmurings in the main space.
She rubbed the scar tissue above her prosthetic leg absently as she looked through GRC policy documents and meeting minutes.
She'd started off trying to find out more about Madani and Karli, of course. And like Sam, she could see why the people in these displacement camps looked up to them so much.
These people want a leader who looks like them, who knows what they've been through. Maggie looked at the distorted reflection of herself in the computer screen. I am not that person. For many of them, I represent their suffering.
So what can I do?
She agonised over that question as she scrolled through the Amnesty International and WHO reports into the displaced-persons situation after the Blip.
I have resources. But more than that, I have what I've always had: my genius, and my tenacity. I can use those.
She kept looking into the Global Repatriation Council. They'd been formed in record time after the Blip, and after about an hour of research, Maggie thought she might have spotted where they went wrong: the moment they hired primarily Blipped people as their authority figures, and the moment about a month after their formation, when all their policies turned to restoration and reversal.
Now that she was alone with her thoughts, the doubts and ideas that had sparked inside the resettlement camp this morning crystallised. It would take a special kind of vision and imagination to see how the world could move forward. To see the problems the GRC faced and conceive of solutions, not reversals.
Maggie sat back, fingers lacing together. In the past, she'd always been able to trust in her brother's vision.
"The futurist," she murmured aloud, to the echo of Tony. "Who saw the world as it could be, not as it was."
Runs in the family, came his wry reply.
"I'm not like you, Tony, in a lot of ways," she whispered. She rubbed her arm as she looked at her laptop screen. "But for this, I can try."
The door behind her creaked open. "Did you say something, doll?"
She looked over to see Bucky stepping into the room. "No, just… thinking out loud."
He seemed less wound-up with frustration than he had earlier. He came over, and his eyes flicked to her laptop screen. A report on the numbers of displaced people following the Blip, with accompanying studies on the health, education, housing, and human rights issues they faced. He sighed.
"You did everything you could, doll," he murmured, walking over to put his hand on her back.
"No," she said, leaning into his touch. "If I had, there wouldn't be this…" she waved a hand. "This void of people suffering. We were supposed to fix the world, not break it."
"You did fix it," he reassured her, rubbing her back. "This is… adjustment. And don't get me wrong, clearly something's gone wrong, but it will get better."
"How?" she looked up at him. "I can't argue Karli's points about the GRC. What we saw today? That place is a failure. Somewhere in all our self congratulation and celebration and having half the world back, we failed those we never lost."
He nodded, considering her point, then shuffled around the ottoman so he could sit beside her. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, looking at the laptop screen. "So what are you thinking?" he finally asked.
She frowned. "I don't know. But I am thinking, for the first time in months."
He smiled, then took her hand where it rested on her thigh. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
They both sensed the presence in the doorway behind them a moment later.
"Cute," Zemo said, in that way where it was impossible to tell whether he was being sarcastic or genuine. Maggie glanced over; he stood in the door frame, balancing a small plate of olives in one hand. His dark eyes flicked between the two of them.
Bucky stiffened, and stood up. "Watch yourself, Zemo." Shoulders bunching, he stalked out of the room, jostling Zemo's shoulder on his way out. Zemo watched him with amusement, then plucked an olive from his plate and ate it.
"I know why you rile him up," Maggie said, turning back to her laptop.
"Oh? It's not that he's merely an angry, traumatised young man?" Zemo pondered. She heard him take a few steps into the room.
"You are too," she replied. "And no. You want him to… explode into violence, so you can prove to yourself that your theory is right."
"My theory?" He was still moving, as if doing a circuit of the room.
"Yes, your supremacist theory." She typed away at her laptop. "Because if Bucky and I turn into power hungry and out of control monsters, you can pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself that all super soldiers are on that escalation to supremacy."
Zemo peered out of one of the more translucent panes of stained glass in the window, down at the street. "Neither of you chose the serum for yourself. It's different."
"I did."
Zemo tore his gaze off the street and looked over at her. She glanced back at him.
"Didn't find that in all your snooping, did you?" She shrugged. "I was five years old, and I'd just seen my parents killed in front of my eyes. Project leader Peters" - she didn't flinch anymore at the mention of his name, but it did feel like a cloud passing over the sun - "looked down at me and said that all the suffering I'd been through was easy for them to do, because I was weak."
Zemo faced her fully, listening with fascination.
"And he gave me a choice. He asked if I wanted to be strong, stronger than everyone else in the room, stronger than the Soldier." She met Zemo's eyes. "And I said I did." Her gaze bored into his. "I chose power that day, Zemo. And yes, I didn't understand what he meant, or what was in store for me. But I was a smart child, and I made the decision that day to seize power for my own means." She retracted her gaze. "And now all I want is my family, and my home, and safety. I don't want to topple governments or rule millions."
He eyed her. "That is not all you want."
She looked at him sharply.
"I misjudged you, I think." His dark eyes searched her face. "Maybe I always have. But you are not the shrinking violet you make out to be."
She sighed. "Maybe not. But I'm trying to be a person. A good person. Would you damn me for that?"
"It depends."
She looked away and shook her head. "Anyway. Stop trying to rile Bucky. He's had enough of your shit."
Zemo ate another olive, leaning against the wall. "I make him uncomfortable."
"Of course you do-"
"I confront him with truths he is not sure he wants to face."
Maggie glared at him. But she knew he was right. Bucky was going through a lot right now, and Zemo was keenly aware of it - and how to exploit it.
"You don't seem to be trying to irritate me anymore," she noted. "No more barbs about my dead brother, or me and Bucky."
"It would be tasteless," he said, and she snorted. "Besides, I think you are good for each other."
Her eyebrows flew up and she turned to stare at him again.
"What?" he shrugged. "Two young people who have been through some of the worst things human minds can imagine, who then find they have compatible personalities once they have a taste of freedom. It makes sense." He gestured with an olive. "The key to a good, healthy relationship is a strong bond, communication, trust, and support. You two have that in spades."
Maggie stared at him for a few long moments. "I think you enjoy bewildering people," she finally observed. "It makes you feel like you've got the upper hand on them."
"And you enjoy deconstructing people," he noted. "It makes you feel you can understand what it is to be human."
She didn't speak again. But even when Zemo left the room, apparently having caused enough chaos for now, she pondered his words a long time.
She felt she hadn't quite understood Zemo, yet. Because she knew he went too far, and she knew he would betray them inevitably. She just wasn't sure yet of the trigger, or the cause. But he was human, with all the faults and flaws that entailed. And she hated the sneaking suspicion that if he'd grown in a slightly different way, or they'd met under different circumstances, that she might have liked him.
Sitting in a cemetery, clutching a bag full of super serum vials, Karli Morgenthau looked up at her friend. "That shield is a monument to a bygone era. A reminder of all the people history just left out. If anything, that shield should be destroyed." She stood up and began affixing the bag around her waist. "This serum is how we make change. But first, we pay our respects to Mama Donya."
Maggie and the others headed over to the resettlement camp in the afternoon, and had almost made it when they were accosted by John Walker and Lemar Hoskins, jogging down a set of stairs in full uniform, drawing stares.
"You think three Avengers can walk around Latvia without drawing attention?" Walker scoffed when Bucky asked how he'd found them. "No more keeping us in the dark. You could start by telling us why you broke him out of prison," he said with a nod to Zemo.
"He did that himself, technically," Bucky replied.
"And you," Walker said, facing Maggie. "You ought to know better."
She cocked her head. "Why?" Because I'm a Stark? Or a woman? Or retired?
He opened his mouth, getting more incensed with every word, before Sam cut in, explaining where they were going and who they hoped to find.
Walker instantly brightened, eager to swoop in and arrest Karli, then angering again when Sam said he just wanted to talk to Karli. He kept getting in front of them as they tried to walk on, using the imposing bulk of his shoulders - and the shield strapped to his back - to obstruct their path.
Maggie kept her mouth shut, observing how he spoke to them all, how he tried to shepherd them and take command. And after the conundrum that Zemo had posed, Maggie realized she understood Walker. Maybe it was unkind to him, but Maggie felt that she'd met a dozen Walkers in HYDRA - strong, bright young men willing to take orders and get the job done out of a sense of duty, and loyalty. It was sad because there were dozens of them in SHIELD, too. And why SHIELD had been the perfect recruiting pool for HYDRA.
Maggie decided then to be gentle with Walker, for that reason.
"I think we're way past reasoning with her," Walker urged, hands held up as he blocked their path. "Unless you forgot the fact that she blew up a building with people still in it!" His golden hair shone in the sun, his chin held high with righteousness.
"And to avoid that happening again," Maggie said, far more calmly than the others, "Sam is our best shot. You haven't seen him at work, not really. You need to trust him."
Walker's brow lowered, and his friend Hoskins stepped in, warning Sam that he could get killed.
"You gonna let him do this?" Walker said to Bucky, his head cocked. "Are you gonna let your partner walk into a room with a super soldier alone?"
"He's dealt with worse," Bucky shot back. "And he's not my partner."
They kept arguing back and forth, and finally Hoskins was the one to relent. At an uneasy peace, the now six of them strode up the street toward the resettlement camp, where Zemo met with a young girl and gave her cash to guide them the right way.
As they made their way to a rear entrance to the complex, Maggie let her footsteps lag so she ended up beside Hoskins. Walker had strode ahead, to take the lead.
"He always wear his heart on his sleeve like that?" she murmured to Hoskins, meeting the sideways glance he shot at her. He wore a muted blue and red uniform, his name emblazoned on the tactical vest and his Sergeant Major insignia on the sleeve.
"Always," he replied. "It's his best quality."
"If you say so," she replied, her eyes flicking to the silver star on Steve's shield.
"We were surprised to find you here," Hoskins continued their low conversation.
Maggie's brow furrowed. "Why?"
"Everyone says you're retired. You've been through a lot" - she didn't miss the way his eyes flicked down to her prosthetic leg - "and I can't imagine why you'd want to throw yourself back into all this mess, after what you've been through."
"Because it's the right thing to do," she sighed tiredly.
"And that's exactly why we're here," Hoskins replied, arching an eyebrow at her. "I know you don't trust us, or our way of working. But trust that we're here to do the right thing."
Maggie didn't reply, just kept her hands in her pockets as they entered the rear of the resettlement complex, through what looked like an old generator room.
"Karli's in there," Zemo murmured, nodding at a staircase ahead.
Sam moved forward, and Walker handcuffed Zemo to one of the old generators. "Hey," Walker called after Sam, who looked back. They both ignored Zemo's sarcastic protests. "You got ten minutes."
Karli looked around at the crowd who had gathered for Mama Donya. Her eyes roved, until she spotted a lone figure on the floor above, looking down through a window. Sam Wilson.
"She taught me that we have to do for each other because they won't," she continued her eulogy, jaw tight. "And we know who they are. They imposed struggle and hardship on us, then labelled us as criminals for pushing back. But the struggle is what brings us together; people who have nothing in common. For we are, after all, one world, one people." She looked up, meeting Wilsons' eyes. "So live accordingly."
The minutes passed in a tense, uncomfortable silence. Bucky leaned against the doorway Sam had vanished through, and Walker and Hoskins leaned against the wall, Walker looking down at the shield, his face troubled. Zemo stood ramrod-straight where he'd been handcuffed to the generator. None of them had spoken since Sam disappeared.
Maggie had suffered through plenty of uncomfortable silences in her lifetime, so she went for her usual strategy: feet shoulder width apart, arms crossed, her face blank and unreadable. Occasionally Bucky looked up to meet her eyes, and a glance passed between them; nothing any of the others would be able to read, but Maggie knew it to be a reminder that he was there, that they were in this together.
Alone with Sam before Mama Donya's resting body, Karli met the man's eyes. "But, Sam, what if I'm making the world a better place?"
"No. It's not a better place if you're killing people. It's just different."
She scoffed. "You're either brilliant or hopelessly optimistic."
Sam chuckled under his breath. "Can't I be a bit of both?"
Walker was getting restless. He paced, craned his neck to look up the staircase Sam had gone up. He muttered, increasingly loudly, about how this was a bad idea. Bucky replied boredly, trying to calm him down.
When Walker hoisted the shield and declared he was going in, marching forward, Bucky stopped him with a hand to the chest.
Maggie ghosted forward on silent feet, unheard by any of the men who had their backs to her.
"This is all really easy for you, isn't it?" Walker muttered, looking from Bucky's hand and up to his face. "All that serum running through your veins." He glanced over his shoulder, spotting Maggie who was sidling up behind him. His eyes glittered with something she had not yet seen in him - it unnerved her. He looked back to Bucky. "Barnes, your partner needs backup in there. Do you really want his blood on your hands?"
Maggie waited for Bucky to look to her, for him to give the sign for her to stop Walker, pull him back. But then he simply stepped aside.
Walker was past him in a rush.
"Bucky-" Maggie stepped forward, but Walker had already stormed forward, followed by Hoskins. She stared at Bucky. "Why?"
"I-" they shared a glance, looked back at Zemo who watched with raised eyebrows, then moved to follow Walker. "We can hang back, but he's right, Sam shouldn't be in there by himself."
"You need to trust him," she urged, as they began taking the stairs three at a time.
Sam was getting through to her, he could see it - Karli was radicalised and angry, but she was smart, and driven by empathy. That was a language he could speak.
"I'm not your enemy. I agree with your fight. I just can't get with the way you're fighting it." Karli's eyes widened incrementally, and he gestured to Madani's body. "And I'm sure she wouldn't either."
And then Walker burst in, with a flustered-looking Bucky and Maggie at his heels, and it all went wrong.
Minutes later Bucky, Sam, and Maggie all burst into the same dimly-lit storage room from different entrances.
"Shit," Maggie swore, her heart thrumming from the chase - Karli had taken off running and they'd all split up, Bucky at her heels and Sam and Maggie trying to cut her off.
"I lost her," Bucky growled, turning on the spot as if Karli might materialise in thin air.
"This place is a maze," Sam panted, his face shining with sweat.
"And Karli knows it too well," Maggie muttered. She ran her hands through her hair, frustrated.
"I almost had her," Sam bit out, whirling on the two of them. "What happened?"
Maggie sealed her lips, shaking her head and pulling her phone out of her pocket - to do what, she didn't know. The Flagsmashers had proved themselves nearly impossible to track digitally. She decided on pulling up a map of the surrounding area, looking for potential choke points.
"What, Walker bested the two of you, did he?" Sam urged. "That wasn't ten minutes. What happened."
Maggie turned for the window. "I'm going to scope out the rooftops, see if I can figure out her escape plan." She put her elbow through the locking mechanisms and the windows swung open, glass shattering. She leaped out, just as she heard Sam snap:
"You know, I've put up with the shit talking and the sour faces, Barnes, but I could do without the actively getting in my way."
Upstairs and another block away, Zemo slammed his metal-lined boots down on the last remaining vials of eerie blue super serum. Karli, who he'd shot, had run off with one of her compatriots. I'll get to them later.
He didn't see the red, blue, and silver shield until it connected with the side of his head.
He also hadn't seen the solitary remaining vial tucked against the corner.
But Walker did.
Pressing a bandage to her gunshot wound a few hours later, Karli Morgenthau looked around at her remaining friends. "I'll deal with the Power Broker when the time comes. And I know how to deal with Sam without a direct fight."
"Yeah? How do you propose we do that?"
"We separate them. And then we kill Captain America."
Maggie ghosted over the rooftops of Riga, tracking vehicle movements and digital patterns as she tried to chase up the Flagsmashers' trail. She'd found a few clues: an abandoned vehicle a mile out of town, a few text threads from within the resettlement camp of people discussing the incident. But she suspected that more than half of what she'd found were red herrings.
Sam and Zemo had returned to the safehouse - Zemo had been out cold last she'd seen him, knocked unconscious by Walker after he'd smashed up all the super serum vials. Maggie couldn't begrudge him that. She'd probably have done the same.
Bucky had stayed with Walker and Hoskins, ostensibly to discuss next steps, but more than likely to keep an eye on them. Walker had seemed even more keyed-up and righteous than usual.
So Maggie was left to do what she did best; hunt her quarry, alone above the city.
Though apparently her best wasn't good enough today.
She sank down on the peak of a red-tiled rooftop, rubbing her temples. Her coat flapped around her ankles in the cool breeze.
We were surprised to see you here, echoed Hoskins' voice in her mind. Maggie folded her arms over her knees and propped her chin on them. Super serum, super soldiers, radicalised Flagsmashers, funerals, and Captain John Walker. If it were as simple as fighting them all, she knew she wouldn't feel as conflicted as she did right now. All she'd ever been trained for was to fight.
"Are you surprised I'm here?" she whispered into the wind.
In the thick of the trouble? Echoed Tony's imagined-voice. Of course I'm not.
She sighed. Her phone buzzed, a text from Bucky: Headed back to safehouse. You okay? She also had a few texts from Pepper - updates on Morgan and Artemis, and a few questions about what was going on in Europe.
She replied to Bucky in the affirmative, composed a quick message to Pepper to tell her she'd reply properly when she was less busy, then sighed again and tipped her head back. "I feel like I've got some ideas for solutions here, to the bigger problem. So maybe I should head home, get started on them. Leave Sam and Bucky to deal with this… mess. I can't be a futurist like you if I'm stuck in the here and now."
You were never going to be a futurist like me, Maggot. You've gotta figure out your own way. And you don't think you should leave yet.
She rubbed her eyes. "Something's going to give. Or break. Or explode."
Good thing you'll be there to fix it. You're a Stark, remember? We're always better when we're fixing things.
Holding an icepack to his head and wincing, Zemo spoke to Sam in a low voice. "You can't hold out hope for Karli. Whatever you saw in her, she's gone. And we cannot allow that she and her acolytes become yet another faction of gods amongst real people." He removed the icepack, though remained reclined on the couch. His head ached. "Super soldiers cannot be allowed to exist."
"Isn't that how gods talk?" Sam called over. "And if that's how you feel, what about Bucky? And Maggie?" Zemo frowned. "Blood isn't always the solution."
Zemo looked up at the sound of the door to the safehouse opening, and saw Bucky stride into the room.
"Something's not right about Walker," he said, slinging off his jacket, revealing the black and gold arm.
"You don't say," Sam muttered.
"Well, I know a crazy when I see one. Because I am crazy." He set about pouring himself some water.
"Can't argue with that," Sam replied in the same monotone.
Bucky started in about the shield again, sparking the same annoyance in Sam all over again, but they both cut off when Walker strode in, shield on his arm. He was flanked by Hoskins, and he radiated an air of impatience.
"All right. That's it, let's go. I'm now ordering you to turn him over," he commanded, gesturing at Zemo.
Things got heated when Sam stood up to him, and they could all feel the stirrings of a fight prickling in the air - until they all flinched when the Dora Milaje announced themselves with a Vibranium spear slicing across the room.
Maggie yawned behind her hand as she strode across the street to the safehouse. It had been a long day already, and she didn't know if she had the energy or patience to deal with the tense, passive aggressive atmosphere no doubt waiting for her when she returned.
But she needn't have worried; when she opened the door to the safehouse, she found that the aggression was no longer passive. She recognized the deep red of the Dora Milaje's uniforms instantly. There were four of them, whirling spears and striking lightning-fast as they fought Walker, who wielded his shield desperately, and Hoskins, who was grimacing as one of the Dora held her spear against his neck. Zemo watched from the far wall, sipping whiskey, and Sam and Bucky stood as observers too, silhoetted against the stained-glass window.
The sounds of shouts and clashing metal filled the air, and as Maggie watched an ornamental vase exploded into fragments under the butt of a Dora spear.
"Looking strong, John!" Bucky called as Walker stumbled under a powerful strike from one of the Dora, his mouth open and his eyes wide.
"Bucky," Sam chided.
Bucky looked up, and spotted Maggie standing in the doorway. She made a gesture at him. What the hell?
He shrugged.
But then one of the Dora - Ayo, Maggie recognized her - reared her spear up, the viciously sharp end over Walker's stunned face, and Bucky dove in to snatch the spear before she could plunge it into the helpless Walker.
"Ayo, Ayo let's talk about this-" Ayo whirled into fighting him, struggling for control over the spear. Walker let out a breath.
Sam jumped into the fight a second later to back up Hoskins, his teeth gritted as if he knew what a bad choice he was making. The Dora descended on him.
Maggie took a halfhearted step forward, thinking to keep Sam from getting killed. The last thing she wanted to do was fight the Dora Milaje, but if they were truly intent on killing any resistance-
But as she stepped forward, she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye: Zemo, silent and subtle, sliding along the back wall toward the partially-open door to the bathroom. His eyes darted, using the chaos to his advantage. He hadn't noticed her noticing him.
Maggie changed course. She ducked around one of the central pillars, weaved around Hoskins as he flailed against a Dora, keeping her centre of balance low and her senses alert-
One of the Dora caught her sneaking through the fight and whirled, striking the end of her spear against the back of Maggie's head with a crack. Maggie cursed, her vision spotting for a moment, and dove out of the Dora's radius. Thankfully Sam stepped forward, and the woman's deadly attention turned to him.
The bathroom door was closed by the time Maggie managed to scramble across the carpet towards it. She rose, casting a glance over her shoulder at the fight; Bucky and Ayo were locked in a grapple of devastating strikes while Sam, Hoskins, Walker, and the other three Dora continued to fight, smashing through a low-lying table toward her. Jaw gritted, Maggie managed to crack open the bathroom door and slip in - just before Walker was slammed into the door by another Dora, groaning with the force of it.
Maggie turned, breathing hard, to find a manhole had opened up in the blue tiled floor, a few feet away from the bath. And halfway down the hole, his glass of whiskey abandoned, was Zemo. He looked up at the sound of her entering, his hands on the top rung of the ladder that snaked down below the floor.
"Always have an exit plan, am I right?" she said, her eyebrows high.
"And an exit plan B," he acknowledged, and the hand she couldn't see below the manhole abruptly rose, and her eyes widened at the sight of some kind of sleek metal weapon-
A sharp pain spiked on her breastbone, and she looked down to see a small metal dart piercing her shirt. A second later she felt the sting of it, and her hand lifted to her chest. "You-"
"Super strength," he said almost apologetically. "Goodbye, Maggie Stark." He slipped down into the manhole.
Maggie moved forward to stop him, to follow, but the instant she picked her foot off the ground the entire bathroom spun around her, and the floor swooped up to crash against her face.
With a few carefully-placed jabs by Ayo, Bucky's metal arm detached from his shoulder and clattered to the floor.
Bucky's face flashed cold with horror and his body threatened to unbalance for a moment. He swayed, then looked up at Ayo's face. What he thought might have been a hint of regret faded, and she snarled his name in Wakandan.
She straightened, then stepped around him, not even bothering to keep an eye on him. As if he'd been rendered completely harmless. He dimly noticed that the rest of the fighting had stopped; Walker's shield had been pinned to the table by a spear, and Sam and Hoskins were breathing heavily, their hands held up to the threatening Dora.
In the ensuing silence Ayo strode over to the closed doors to the bathroom. She swung them open, and-
"Meg," Bucky breathed. She lay collapsed on the tile ground, a few feet away from an open hole in the floor. Unbalanced and one-armed, he hurried after Ayo, dropped to his knees and turned Meg over. Her eyes were closed and her face lax, but a shock of relief crashed through him when he saw her chest rise and fall in a breath.
"A tranquilizer," Ayo commented, eyes on a metal dart embedded in Meg's chest.
Bucky removed the dart, tossing it away, as Ayo turned back and said to her compatriots in Wakandan: "He is gone. Leave it."
The Dora who'd seized the shield dropped it at Walker's feet, and as one the Dora Milaje marched out of the safehouse.
Bucky shook Meg's shoulder and opened one of her eyelids, but she did not wake. She didn't appear to be bleeding, though. He glared down at the hole in the bathroom floor.
"She okay?" came Sam's voice from behind him.
"Out cold," Bucky murmured, looking over - Sam had picked up his metal arm and was holding it out, awkwardly. He took it, eyeing it with a suspicion he never had before.
"Did you know they could do that?" Sam asked as Bucky fitted the arm back to his shoulder. It connected, whirring lightly, and Bucky winced as feeling flooded back in.
"No," he murmured, and swung the arm in a tight circle to align it. With both arms restored, he reached down to lift Meg off the ground.
As they left the bathroom, Bucky heard Walker mumble in a low, broken voice: "They weren't even super soldiers."
Hoskins helped Walker to his feet, and together they left without a word.
Sam ran a hand over his head, looking back at the hole in the bathroom floor. "I can't believe he pulled an El Chapo."
"I can," Bucky muttered. He looked down at Meg, limp in his arms. Awkwardly, he shifted so he could brush her dark hair out of her face. "Come on. We've got two people to find now, and she's our best chance at finding them."
"Do you think smelling salts work on super soldiers?" Sam wondered aloud.