Mojave Desert, California

Maggie pounded a clenched fist into the sand. "Shit," she groaned.

Her mind had gone a bit fuzzy somewhere between being hit and then hitting the ground, but all too soon sensation came rushing back, bringing with it a crackling burn of pain up and down her body. She had sand everywhere, in her mouth and her nose despite the cowl, and she felt as if someone had stuck her in a tumble dryer full of rocks. She touched her right arm which stung from her crashing slide to the ground, but thankfully her armored jacket had stayed in one piece.

She tried to push herself to her feet, only for her legs to jerk and throb numbly, barely moving.

Maggie's breath caught in her chest. She rolled over and looked down at her legs, then tried to move them again. The prosthetic didn't move at all, and her left leg flopped uselessly. She smacked her knee, only to feel about half the sensation.

No. No, no, no.

She must have been hit by some kind of electronic pulse deactivator. It had taken out her wings, gloves, phone, goggles, and the internal wiring from her childhood surgeries. Her breath became sharp and fast in her throat, and she tried to shake life into her legs. The numb sensation, like pins and needles, reminded her of those long months after the car crash.

The low rumble of an engine cut through the quiet desert air, and Maggie looked up to see a 4WD car approaching over the gloomy sand rise. Beyond the car she could see the lights that had distracted her earlier - a floodlit tarmac runway, on which sat a small dual engine plane surrounded by crates. Dark shapes scurried around the plane, loading crates onto it. Found the weapons smugglers.

Her eyes focused on the approaching car again. The plane is the least of my problems. She reached for her hip, reassuring herself that the guns she'd brought were still there. Just as the car crested the last rise, almost blinding her with its headlights, feeling tingled back through Maggie's legs, prickling from the base of her spine and down to her toes. She let out a relieved sob. She knew the internal wiring had been designed to be resilient, but she'd been worried that whatever had hit her had done permanent damage. She wriggled her toes and sighed at the twinge of pain that she felt - if she could feel pain, she was feeling.

She tried to rise, but her legs were still too shaky.

The car rolled to a halt a few yards away and all the doors burst open as six armed men flooded out, their guns instantly trained on Maggie. They kept their distance, circling around until she was completely surrounded. A moment later an older man stepped out from the passenger side door: it was hard to make out his features in the darkness, but then Maggie placed the close-cropped salt and pepper hair, and the sharp glinting eyes in the lined face. General Rowes.

Maggie touched the side of her goggles, and to her relief the HUD flickered to life.

FATAL CRASH, read the error message. REBOOT CONNECTED SYSTEMS?

Maggie twitched a finger and the writing shifted: REBOOTING ALL SYSTEMS.

General Rowes came to a stop a few feet away from Maggie, his hands on his hips as he looked down at her. He didn't wear his Army uniform, but he still had the attitude: shoulders straight, chin high. He'd stood like that when he'd been buying weapons from her. Maggie struggled up to her knees, glaring behind her darkened goggles. Her wings hung from her back, just two pieces of heavy, drooping metal.

"We were expecting the metal man," Rowes said. "But you will do. You're the winged woman from the Tajikistan incident." He tsked, and Maggie cursed under her breath.

A trap. She'd gotten cocky. Of course the Ten Rings survivors would have reported to their bosses about her.

"You're here for the weapons, right?" Rowes gestured back at the illuminated runway with the stacks of weapons crates, still being loaded onto the transport plane. He turned back and smiled, his teeth white like a movie star's. "Normally I don't get involved in this sort of thing. But you've decided to take it upon yourself to disrupt business. And that's an unacceptable expense."

Maggie kept a fraction of her attention on him and on the armed men standing around her as she checked her wing diagnostics through her HUD. They were rebooting too, but far slower than she would like. She clenched her fist, wishing she'd thought to include a mechanical failsafe if the central computer got knocked out, so she could have stayed in the air.

Rowes clasped his hands behind his back, in parade rest. "I've got authorization from my CO to shoot you where you stand," he said evenly, then smirked. "Or rather, where you kneel."

Maggie pushed to her feet. She almost keeled backwards from the drag of her wings, their ends trailing in the sand, but she locked her leg muscles to stay upright. "Do you mean Obadiah Stane?" she asked with a quietness and confidence she didn't feel.

Rowes's confident expression dropped.

So it's true. Maggie's blood boiled.

Rowes rallied himself and scoffed. "Let's see who you are, before we shoot you," he said to Maggie, then gestured to one of his armed men. "Probably some nobody from that warzone in the middle east."

Maggie heard two pairs of footsteps behind her, and let out a breath. They might have deactivated her wings, but she was not helpless.

When the soldiers reached out to grab her, she struck. She turned and slashed her clawed gloves over the first one's face, making him scream, then launched forward and grabbed the other one by the collar, yanking him around as a human shield just as the others yelled and fired on her.

The man she'd grabbed screamed when the bullets hit him, but Maggie hardened her heart to it. She surged backwards to escape the encircling soldiers, pulling her own gun and firing back. Bullets kicked up sand and everyone was yelling, the other soldiers scrambling to get cover and shoot back, Rowes shouting orders as he ran back to the car with another soldier covering him. Maggie hit one of the men and he dropped, spilling blood on the sand.

Maggie dropped the man she'd been using as a shield and dove behind a dust-coloured rock. She cursed when she heard the car drive off, heading back to the runway, but she still had at least three other soldiers in her way. They'd split up in the chaos. Bullets sprayed through the air, cracking against the rocks.

With perfect timing her HUD flared fully to life, its environmental readings back online and the red light glowing. She switched over to thermographic imaging again, then dove into the sand and slithered forward like some desert reptile. Her wings dragged along with her. The soldier crouching in the dry bushes didn't see her coming when she popped up and shot him in the chest.

She turned, aiming for the soldier laying down thick sprays of cover fire, but then the 360 degree sensor built into her cowl blared an alert and she spun just in time to dodge the machine gun pointed at her by the soldier who'd snuck up on her. He was the one she'd clawed earlier, and the whole left side of his face was slick with blood from the three jagged slices across his cheek. He snarled when she dodged out of the way and kicked at her, hitting her hand and making drop her gun.

He swung his gun at her like a club, catching her in the stomach and winding her. Gasping, Maggie freed the tactical knife from its holster on her hip, ducked under another swing from the snarling soldier, then drove the knife up into his exposed side, feeling it slide between his ribs.

The man collapsed on top of Maggie, driving the breath out of her again, and she fought him off with a shove. Gunfire pelted closer, so she grabbed the edge of her limp wing and drew it up over herself like a protective cloak. Bullets sparked off the metal surface a moment later. Still wheezing and trying to catch her breath, Maggie did a quick head count: six soldiers, three of them now dead, with another one escorting General Rowes back to the plane.

Two to go.

At the same moment, another alert flashed on her HUD: WEAPONS SYSTEM ONLINE. She heard the machinery built into her gloves come to life with a whir.

Stark Industries, California

Obadiah pressed the stolen arc reactor into his prototype suit, and smiled grimly up at the blank metal face.

Stark Mansion, Malibu

Tony woke with a start when Rhodey's hands fell on his back, turning him over.

"Tony! You okay?"

Pale-faced and drenched in sweat, Tony rolled over and glanced around wildly. He must have passed out after slamming the old arc reactor into his chest, which… his heart thudded as he realized how close to death he'd come. And it had been Dum-E that saved him.

Then his heart fell still. Obie. His new prototype.

Tony grabbed Rhodey's sleeve with shaking hands. "Where's Pepper? Where's Maggie?"

Rhodey's eyes were wide. "Pepper's fine, she's with five agents. They're about to arrest Obadiah."

Tony caught his breath. "That's not going to be enough." Groaning, he tried to push to his feet. Rhodey helped him up. "And Maggie?"

Rhodey hesitated. "We don't know yet-"

Fear nearly stopped Tony's heart all over again. "J.A.R.V.I.S., call Maggie!"

"Of course, sir."

Once Tony stood on his own two feet, he met Rhodey's eyes again. "Come on, I'll show you what I've been working on."

Mojave Desert, California

The two soldiers left were cautious, darting from boulder to boulder and trying to get an angle on Maggie. Maggie crept through the darkness out of their reach, gun in one hand as her wings trailed behind her.

One of the soldiers popped up from behind cover and fired at her, so she dodged behind a rock in a crouch. Her heart had been beating an erratic rhythm against her ribs since she hit the ground, and it felt close to giving out from the game of deadly hide and seek in the desert. She kept the glow of her red eyes dimmed, and tried not to flinch at every deafening gunshot.

Maggie's phone buzzed in her pocket. So it recovers before my wings do? Frustrated, she leaned over to fire two shots in the general direction of the machine gun fire. It stopped, and she ducked back behind cover.

Her phone kept buzzing, but the caller ID didn't appear in her HUD. All power was diverted to the rebooting of her wings. Chancing the risk, Maggie pulled her phone out of her pocket. When she saw who was calling, she answered instantly and brought the phone to her ear.

"Maggie!" came Tony's voice.

Maggie caught her breath. "Tony, oh my god-"

"Where are you? Are you safe?"

She heard rustling a few yards away and rolled into a kneel, gun raised. "I'm fine, are you - Pepper said that Obie-"

"I'm fine." Tony sounded rushed. "Obie's the leak, Maggie, Obie's the one who's been selling our weapons, and he's made his own armor" - Maggie clenched her jaw - "I've got to go stop him, but-"

The soldier behind the boulder a few yards away fired, sending bullets skittering off Maggie's rock. She ducked down, phone to her ear and gun in her other hand.

"Maggie," Tony's voice broke with panic. "Where are you."

"I went to a movie theatre," Maggie lied smoothly as she switched over to thermographic vision and hunted around for the orange shapes of the soldiers. "No one knows I'm here. Tony, don't go after Obie, he's-"

"Stay where you are, stay safe. I'll send Happy to you-"

Maggie spotted one of the soldiers and lifted her gun. "I'm fine, but don't go after Obie alone, Tony-"

There was a crack and Maggie flinched as her phone exploded in her hand. Shards of plastic and metal scraped against the side of her cowl and she fell backwards, yelping.

They shot my phone.

Maggie cursed, got her feet under her, and sprang back into the fight. She needed to trust that Tony could handle this. But Obie had all of the Ten Rings and Stark Industries's resources, and she was terrified to know what he would do with them.

Stark Mansion, Malibu

"I'm afraid the call has disconnected, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. said apologetically.

Tony frowned, but he had to trust that Maggie would be alright. "Start up the armor assembly, J." He glanced over his shoulder at Rhodey, who was still looking at Tony like he was about to keel over. "Just wait until you see this."

Mojave Desert, California

Maggie vaulted over the top of a jagged rock that one of the soldiers had been using for cover, and landed heel-spur first in the meat of his shoulder. The man screamed and dropped, and Maggie went with him. She landed with her elbow on his head, knocking him out cold.

Maggie rolled, spitting out sand, and then lifted her hand and fired a bolt of red-tinted energy at the other soldier who had sprung out from behind his cover. He collapsed back with a thud.

Maggie eyed the wrist-mounted energy blaster with an appreciative eye. She'd built those new, frustrated by the short-range limitation of her electroshock device and inspired by Tony's repulsors. Her blasters weren't nearly as powerful as his repulsors, but they clearly did the job.

She let out a shaky breath, crouching in the dark sand.

Then the building whine of heavy engines starting up caught her attention and she looked over to the runway. There were almost no crates left on the ground, and the plane looked ready to leave. The engine noise grew to a dull roar.

Maggie broke into a run. Her boots slipped and slid in the sand and her wings carved deep gouges behind her. The runway was still several hundred yards away. As she ran, she watched as the figures on the runway loaded the last crate, and then the loading hatch began to close.

There weren't any men left on the runway. Rowes is going with them.

Maggie pushed herself harder, her breath burning down her throat and into her lungs. She made it to the packed earth around the runway just as the plane began taxiing down the tarmac.

Maggie tore onto the runway, chasing the plane. The engines deafened her with their roar, rapidly gaining speed, soon outstripping her pace. When she heard the engines kick up into the takeoff sequence she drew both handguns from her belt and fired, squeezing the triggers over and over as she ran until she emptied both clips. Bullets tore through the wing and one even sparked against the engine, but they didn't do enough damage - the plane outstripped her, the nose lifting, and a moment later the wheels lifted off the ground.

Maggie stumbled and fell, skidding to her knees, and her empty guns clattered out of her hands. No.

The roar of the engines and the flashing lights of the plane began to fade into the dark sky.

Maggie hit a button on the side of her glove and her HUD flashed: INTELLIGENCE DELIVERED. She'd just released all the data she had on the Ten Rings and Rowes and the weapons drop to seven different intelligence agencies. She hadn't been planning to do that until much later, but if she couldn't stop this then hopefully someone would be able to intercept the weapons before they got to Afghanistan and caused more damage.

Maggie doubled over on the rough tarmac, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. Failure pressed down on her, a heavy weight on her back, and tears of frustration and exhaustion prickled at her eyes. She knew that in all likelihood, those weapons would never be uncovered. They'd be used by the Ten Rings, or worse, to retake Gulmira and the other areas they once ruled over, tearing apart innocent families.

But then:

REBOOT COMPLETE flashed across her red-tinted vision.

Her previously lifeless, useless wings whirred and rose up behind Maggie, clicking and sliding into place.

Maggie grinned, still on her hands and knees on the tarmac. Then her engines burst to life.

Maggie rocketed into the sky, easily catching up to the plane with its heavier load and bulkier engines. It had only made it a few hundred feet into the air.

Maggie roared up behind the plane, a harpy with black wings and red eyes, lifted one arm, and fired an energy bolt into the left engine. The resulting bang hurt her ears, but she just grinned again when she saw smoke billow from the engine. The plane shivered and tilted left drunkenly, before the pilot fought for control and steadied it.

Maggie tailed behind the plane, knowing exactly what the pilot was thinking: with this model, a damaged engine meant an immediate emergency landing. There was no two ways about it. Maggie knew planes.

Sure enough, a moment later the plane circled back to the runway, nose tilting down. Maggie grinned.

By the time the plane began its landing sequence Maggie was waiting in midair by the runway, wings beating. She watched as the plane came down for a bumpy, skidding landing on the tarmac and rolled to a stop.

She was ready for it when a flood of armed men poured out of the back of the plane. They knew who'd brought the plane down of course, though they might not have seen her. And they would not see her now. Because Maggie had shot out the lights.

Five minutes later, everyone who'd been on the plane was tied up in the sand a few yards away in varying states of consciousness. Maggie had used power cable for restraints, electrocuting anyone who continued to resist. Rowes lay face-down in the sand, cursing up a storm. Turns out you couldn't hold a perfect military posture when you were hog-tied.

Maggie stood over the fifteen captives, her red goggles burning. She was in okay shape, though one of the men had come at her with a serrated knife and slashed through her armored vest. He hadn't cut her skin, but the vest flapped uselessly around her shoulder.

She caught her breath and checked over her handiwork. The desert had gone quiet again, save for the frustrated curses of the captured men, and the crackle of a small brush fire off the runway.

Maggie cleared her throat. "Keep your heads down," she instructed the men.

"Why?" Rowes asked.

Maggie didn't respond. She strode back to the plane, up the empty loading ramp, and opened weapons crates until she found what she was looking for. Once she'd returned to a safe distance she knelt, hoisted the Stark Industries Victor-5 rocket launcher she'd taken to her shoulder, and aimed.

"No!" she heard Rowes shout.

Maggie squinted down the sightlines and armed the weapon with a thunk. She breathed out long and slow, ignoring Rowes's shouting, and then pulled the trigger.

The rocket fired with an ear-splitting crack, jerking her shoulder back, and she watched the missile jet across the dark sand and right through the open loading hatch of the plane.

The whole plane went up in an air-sucking whoosh, scorching white in the darkness. Maggie was knocked back a step by the shock wave, wincing at the sudden bright light.

For a moment night turned to day in the desert, everything illuminated by a bright new sun. Maggie's winged shadow stretched long behind her.

Then the fireball on the runway rolled in on itself in a crescendo of orange, red, and gold, burning into thick black smoke. Maggie caught her breath, shivering at the feeling of blazing heat on her front and the cool night on her back. She'd slightly underestimated just how many explosives were packed into the back of that plane.

"What did you do that for?" Rowes shouted as he struggled against his tight bonds.

Maggie cocked her head at the fireball. "Because no one should have them," she replied. She dropped the rocket launcher and stomped down her sand dune, finding each of the vehicles Rowes and his men had arrived in and destroying their engines for good measure. When she was done, she dusted off her hands.

"Someone should be by shortly to pick you all up," she said evenly. Then she fired up her engines and rocketed into the sky.

I hope Tony's okay.

It had taken Maggie a few hours to drive out to the desert, but she flew back in minutes. She had no phone, no way of finding out where Tony was and if he was safe, and her mind whirled as she flew. Her damaged jacket tore itself off her halfway there, the flapping fabric unable to cope with her break-neck speed through the sky, leaving her freezing in the night air in just a tank top.

When the sprawling lights of the city came in view she pushed her engines harder, bordering on dangerous g-force. She planned to head for Stark Industries first, to figure out what was going on and maybe pick up a phone, but just as the complex came into view a massive column of blinding blue light shot into the sky.

Maggie's wings faltered and her heart dropped. The pillar of light shot straight up from the SI complex - the Arc Reactor building - plunging up into the clouds, where lightning crackled.

As abruptly as it had appeared, the light died. Followed by all the city lights for miles around.

Maggie surged forward, heart pounding, but then her heart dropped when another burst of light erupted from the SI complex - this time a burning gold fireball. She'd flown close enough that the resulting shock wave rippled over her, juddering against her wings. That was definitely the arc reactor building.

Maggie arced down through the sky, heading straight for the rooftop of the Arc Reactor building in the cover of darkness. The fireball faded until just one side of the rooftop was burning, giving just enough light for Maggie to see that the whole roof had been destroyed, a huge hole gaping in the middle and the rest of it all cracked concrete and shattered gantryways.

Then the firelight glinted off something red and gold.

Maggie landed so hard on the rooftop that her knees buckled. She retracted her wings and sprinted for the prone figure lying on the grating a few feet from the open hole in the roof.

"Tony!"

She skidded to his side in the broken glass. Tony lay in his burnt, broken armor, missing the helmet, his eyes closed and his face bloody. The arc reactor flickered weakly, making a faint crackling noise.

"No, no, Tony, you're okay-" Maggie tore off her gloves and cowl and pressed her shaking fingers to Tony's neck, her other hand hovering over the flickering arc reactor. "Tony, come on…" She couldn't feel anything, why couldn't she feel anything?

Tears blurred Maggie's vision as she gripped the edge of his chest plate and tugged, trying to get to him so she could start chest compressions, start his heart-

"Maggot?"

Maggie gasped and looked up to Tony's face. They met each other's eyes, sharing a moment of shock.

Then a sob of relief bubbled up Maggie's throat. "Tony, oh my god. You're okay, oh my-"

Tony took in the tears streaming down Maggie's face, and then looked around. "I think I blew up the factory."

She let out a shuddering laugh. "Yeah, I think you did." She eyed him. The arc reactor was still flickering, but the light seemed a little stronger. His face was bruised and bloody, but his eyes were open, and he was breathing. "And almost yourself, too."

She sat back on her heels and tried to calm her thundering heart as Tony sat up with a groan, making the grating beneath him creak ominously.

"Obie?" Maggie asked.

Tony rubbed his chest. "Dead." His eyes flickered to the gaping hole in the roof.

"Good," she said. His eyes darted to her, surprised, but she just looked steadily back at him. I'm sorry I didn't do it, she didn't say.

After a moment, Maggie sighed. "Let's get you out of here. You need a hospital. And a new arc reactor, from the looks of things." She reached out to him, frowning at the busted armor. It'd be hard to move him in that.

"I installed an emergency release," Tony muttered, and made a complicated gesture with the only hand still in a gauntlet. A moment later all the metal plating fell off of him at once, clattering on the concrete below. As he stepped out of the pieces of armor Maggie stuffed her gloves, cowl, and goggles in her pocket, then took Tony's arm and pulled it over her shoulder. She hoped he wouldn't notice the strange metal shape on her back, held there by a harness.

"Hey, how'd you get up here?" Tony asked as she helped him to his feet. "I thought you were at a cinema-"

"This is Stark Industries," she said. "I can go wherever I want."

He chuckled.

Staggering and coughing in the smoke, Tony and Maggie made it down the emergency fire exit and outside. Police cars, ambulances, and fire engines were already flooding onto the road, making the place flash with a dizzying array of lights and sirens.

A tear-stained Pepper half screamed as she spotted Tony and Maggie emerging from the smoking building. She broke away from a knot of police officers and ran over. "Tony, I thought you were dead!"

"It's not that easy to kill me," he told Pepper, even as he leaned most of his weight on Maggie. Her bare arms were streaked with soot and blood.

Pepper looked at Maggie, then back up at the roof. "How did you-"

But then paramedics ran over, shouting questions and taking Tony from Maggie, and Maggie used the confusion to trudge over to the quieter side of the road. She sat down on a low wall, shrugging off her wingpack, and closed her eyes in the glow of flashing lights and flickering flames.

They didn't get much of a chance to sleep. Maggie managed an hour or two in between waiting for Tony to be cleared by the medics, helping with the cleanup at SI, and covering up her own activities.

Thankfully, Tony's arc reactor seemed to recover on its own once it was no longer being used to power the armor. J.A.R.V.I.S. and the robots back at the mansion manufactured a new one through the night, just to be safe.

Maggie didn't leave the SI complex. It swarmed with government agents in dark suits, led by none other than Phil Coulson. Maggie had stopped in her tracks when she first spotted him deep in conversation with Pepper, but Pepper seemed to trust the man so she let it slide. She kept her distance, though, while she hid her wingpack and tried to get the desert sand out of her hair and clothes.

Luckily, no one had been badly hurt by the events of the night, but the whole Arc Reactor building had been destroyed, and there was damage to the highway outside SI where apparently Obadiah and Tony had battled. Tony told her all about it as they both sculled coffee at five in the morning.

"And," he said, jittery from the coffee and the rush of activity through the night, "I don't know the details, but apparently there was another weapons shipment supposed to go out last night, but it got stopped. Rhodey said that the Air Force went out to the desert and picked up a bunch of men. Guess who was with them?"

"Who?" she asked innocently.

"General Rowes," Tony said with a tone of incredulity. "That upright bastard has apparently been working with Obie for years, siphoning off weapons shipments due for the Army and reselling them to assholes."

"Bastard," Maggie echoed. Tony hadn't mentioned anything more about how Rowes and his men had been captured, so she supposed no one had told him. Which hopefully meant that no one knew the truth.

Maggie also learned that Obadiah had sent a team of men to her apartment, either to kidnap her or kill her she wasn't sure, but Coulson's men had picked them up and taken them into custody. Her regret that she hadn't been able to tear Obadiah apart only grew.

Maggie knew it would take some time to come to terms with the truth about Obie. They'd never been especially close but she had trusted him, in that way one instinctively trusted an uncle (she supposed - Maggie didn't have any aunts or uncles). She almost wished she could look him in the eyes to see the truth, as Tony had.

Thankfully, no one really questioned her story that she'd been at a cinema on the other side of town and then rushed back to SI when she learned about Obadiah. Tony and his battle had taken up all the attention. Nosy reporters were already swarming around SI, and the lobby phones were ringing off the hook. Rumours ran wild.

It was clear that Stark Industries would have to put out some kind of story. Normally that would be Pepper's job, but again Coulson and his team took point, protecting Tony's identity and fabricating a cover story. All Maggie knew was that she was supposed to stick to her story, and that there'd be a press conference first thing in the morning.

Pepper drove back to the mansion and brought both Tony and Maggie new clothes, and the new arc reactor for Tony.

When the first papers of the morning were delivered, all the front pages were focused on the incident at Stark Industries - and beyond that, on the reports of a man in metal armor flying over the streets of Los Angeles.

The papers had given the man a name: Iron Man.

After her few short hours of sleep, a quick shower and a change of clothes, Maggie headed downstairs to the office adjoining the press room, yawning. The press room was already packed to the brim, and as she passed it Maggie caught a glimpse of Rhodey at the podium.

"There have been unconfirmed reports that a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the Arc Reactor…"

Eyebrows raised, Maggie strode toward the private office and paused in the doorway. Agent Coulson stood inside, instructing Tony on his alibi: a night on his yacht in Avalon, with fifty guests.

Tony looked alright, considering. He wore a freshly pressed shirt, had groomed his hair and beard, and Pepper was busy touching concealer to the various bruises and scrapes on his face. The shirt concealed his arc reactor, but Maggie felt reassured in the knowledge that it glowed steadily and strongly. He frowned down at the blue cards with his pre-prepared speech.

"Just read it, word for word," Coulson said in his calm, even voice.

"There's nothing about Stane here," Tony noted. He glanced back up at Coulson, then spotted Maggie leaning in the doorway, in a suit of her own.

"That's being handled," Coulson said. "He's on vacation. Small aircraft have such a poor safety record."

Maggie's mouth twisted.

Tony frowned. "What about the whole cover story that it's a… bodyguard? He's my… I mean, is that… that's kind of flimsy, don't you think?"

"This isn't my first rodeo, Mr Stark," the agent said with a hint of a smile. Maggie's eyes narrowed. No, it isn't. "Just stick to the official statement and soon, this will all be behind you. You've got…" he looked up at the TV screen behind Tony. "Ninety seconds."

Coulson turned to leave, but Pepper called his name and he paused for a moment, smiling as she offered an earnest thanks.

"You'll be hearing from us," Coulson nodded.

Pepper cocked her head. "From the Strategic Homeland…"

"Just call us SHIELD."

Pepper smiled. "Right." She headed back to Tony, and Coulson headed for the doorway - only to spot Maggie leaning there, her arms crossed over her chest. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"I see you're back in the United States, Ms Stark," Coulson said pleasantly.

"Observant as ever, Agent Coulson."

"Does this mean you've found a purpose?"

She smiled politely. "You have no idea." Does he know?

He smiled. "You'll be hearing from us, too."

Coulson was hard to read, but… no, Maggie didn't think he did know. "Can't wait."

With a nod Coulson strode past her, heading for the exit, and Maggie stepped fully into the office.

Her eyebrows rose up her forehead when she noticed Pepper helping Tony into his suit jacket and straightening his tie. They were bickering, as usual, but there was something to it that hadn't been there before. Maggie kept her distance, suddenly not wanting to eavesdrop, but… Tony was smiling at Pepper, and Pepper's voice had gone gentle, and… Maggie hesitated. Should I leave?

But then Pepper stuffed a pocket square into Tony's jacket pocket and took a step back. "Will that be all, Mr Stark?" she asked in a stronger voice.

"Yes, that will be all, Miss Potts." Tony looked up and spotted Maggie standing by the doorway with a raised eyebrow. "You coming?"

"You want me in there?"

"Why not?" he said. "It looks good if you stand next to me and nod at everything I say."

Maggie laughed, then straightened the sleeves of her close-fitted jacket and strode over, holding the door to the press room open for him. "After you, Iron Man."

"Shh," Pepper chided, but she was smiling.

In the press room, at the podium, Rhodey glanced over. "And now, Mr Stark has prepared a statement." Tony strode into the room, followed by Maggie, and the journalists in the room muttered and shifted. There had to be at least thirty of them, with another fifteen camera operators arranged around the sides of the room. Sunlight streamed through the glass windows.

"He will not be taking any questions," Rhodey added. "Thank you."

Tony strode up to the podium and Maggie stood off to the side, like she had the last time. Rhodey cast her a glance from where he stood by Tony's right hand side. They hadn't had much of a chance to speak overnight, but she shot him a smile and he returned it.

When Tony stood in front of the mics, for a few moments he was illuminated in a strobe light of flashing camera bulbs. He steadied himself.

"Uh, it's been a while since I was in front of you. I figure I'll stick to the cards this time." He drew the blue cards from his back pocket, and a chuckle went through the room. "There's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop-"

"I'm sorry, Mr Stark," interrupted a blonde reporter in the front row, and Maggie's brow furrowed into a frown. "But do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared despite the fact that you-"

"I know that it's confusing," Tony interrupted right back, a very fake smile on his face. "It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations or insinuate that I'm a… a superhero."

The instant he said it, Maggie closed her eyes. Oh no.

"I never said you were a superhero," the blonde reporter retorted.

"Didn't…?" Tony questioned, and Maggie opened her eyes to see the reporter shake her head, still smiling. Oh, they know each other. Maggie almost rolled her eyes. "Well, good," Tony continued. "Because that would be outlandish and uh…" he glanced down at the podium, "fantastic."

He sighed, and his eyes flickered to Maggie, just for a millisecond. It reminded her of how he'd kept glancing at her during the first press conference, as if worried how she would react. She raised her eyebrows at him. This is your choice to make.

Tony sighed and looked back to his audience. "I'm just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I've made," he glanced at Maggie again. "Largely, public."

Rhodey leaned over, his jaw tight, and murmured something in Tony's ear. Tony cut off his self-effacing rambling, then lifted his cards. He drew in a long breath, and Maggie felt a thrill go down her spine.

"The truth is…" Tony stared at the cards. Then his eyes lifted, glinting. He set the cards down on the podium.

Oh, here we go.

"I am Iron Man."

The room exploded into uproar, everyone on their feet and shouting, the cameras flashing. Rhodey turned to stare at Tony, and Tony just stood there with the smallest of smiles on his face.

Maggie smiled, enjoying the moment, and then turned on her heel and headed for the door.

If Tony was going to step out into the sun as Iron Man, then Maggie had work to do in the shadows.

Stark Mansion, Malibu

That evening, as the sun set red and gold over the Atlantic Ocean, Tony and Maggie sat side-by-side on the couch in the mansion, still in their suits. They'd been just staring at the opposite wall for a few minutes now, their drinks forgotten.

"Well," Maggie eventually said. "That happened."

"Yeah," Tony murmured. The day had flown by after his shock announcement, and the world had… well, it had pretty much lost its mind. Tony Stark is Iron Man. Maggie didn't think she fully comprehended just how much the world had changed, just yet.

Tony glanced at her. "Want to be my sidekick?"

She eyed him flatly. "Want to be mine?"

He laughed, and that broke their shocked numbness. Maggie chuckled as well, running her hands over her tired face.

Tony broke off in a jaw-cracking yawn. "Want to get pizza?"

"Yeah," Maggie sighed. "And then sleep."

Maggie woke up that night to a steady beeping. For a moment she just stared up at the dark ceiling, confused. But then she placed the beeping: the security alert.

She sat bolt upright, suddenly awake. She jumped out of bed and headed for her bedroom door, only to find it locked. She jiggled the handle.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?"

The AI didn't respond.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., talk to me, what's the alert about?" She darted to her bedroom window and peered out, but saw only the dark ocean and the glimmer of city lights in the distance. She closed her eyes, listening, but heard only the steady alarm.

A moment later the beeping cut out, but Maggie's heart only beat faster.

I could be imagining it. But the uneasy twist in her stomach would not let her let it go. Maggie went back to the bedroom door and tried the handle again, putting her shoulder into it. She practically bounced off, cursing. Tony had built this house with security in mind, and the doors were sturdy.

Right. I am not staying in here.

Tony paced out into the darkened living area, frowning. He'd been woken from sleep by the house security alarm, and J.A.R.V.I.S. had failed on him. He stopped in his tracks when he spotted the dark silhouette standing by the window.

"I am Iron Man," came a deep voice. "You think you're the only superhero in the world?" The figure turned. "Mr Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."

Tony paced closer, trying to make out the man's features. "How'd you get in here? Who the hell are you?" He glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of Maggie's bedroom.

"Don't worry, your sister's safe in her room," the man said, as if he could read Tony's mind. "I'm here for you." He paced out into the illumination of a lamp, and Tony finally made him out: he was a tall black man, bald, wearing a long leather coat. His one visible eye gleamed darkly, and the other was covered by an eyepatch.

"I'm Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD."

"Ah." Coulson's lot.

Nick Fury smiled, and it did not help him look any less scary. "I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative."

It took Maggie a few minutes to break down her door. She eventually got free when she remembered she had a gun under her mattress, and used it to shoot out the hinges. When the door swung open she ran straight for the living area and burst in, just as she heard the front door click and all the lights came on.

Tony stood in the middle of the living area, grim faced. He turned, spotted Maggie standing in her pajamas with a gun, and sighed.

"What is it with you and guns?"

"What happened?" She demanded, eyes darting. She went to the front door and peered out, but the driveway was empty.

Tony's eyes glimmered for a moment. "Nothing. J.A.R.V.I.S. went down, and the house shut down for a minute. Must've been because of all the power fluctuations the last couple of days."

Maggie eyed him sharply. I don't believe him. She checked all the exits and entrances, like she'd seen Happy do a million times. "J.A.R.V.I.S., report?"

"I appear to have lost functionality for a few minutes, Ms Stark. My apologies."

Gritting her teeth, Maggie turned on her brother. "Tony."

"Maggie, seriously. Forget about it." He seemed relaxed, at least. Unhurt.

Maggie let out a breath. I'll let it go. For now. She stuffed her gun into her waistband and set her hands on her hips. "I'm going to need a new door."

Driving back to the Quinjet parked at a confidential location, Nick Fury lifted his phone to his ear and called his number two.

"Hill," she answered briskly.

"He said no," Fury told her, then continued before she could respond. "We're going to need to call in Romanoff."

And that's Iron Man! Can't wait to jump into the next chapter and all its goodness with you guys next time :)

Reviews

DBZFAN45: Sorry about the cliffhanger! Hopefully this chapter made up for it haha. I'm so glad you liked the last chapter :)

The1975Love: So now you know who shot her out of the sky! And you know she got them back ;)

Wyrleen: Hi! Love the new username! No angst this chapter for you but it'll be coming soon, I promise ;) And of course I had to go with the cliffhanger! I love my cliffhangers! And sorry Maggie didn't get a chance to kick Obie's ass, but you know Tony did the job right.

TheSilverQueen: Your wish is my command!