Edwards Air Force Base, California
Rhodey cast an eye over the array of weaponry on the table in front of him, and then up at Justin Hammer.
"I think I'll take it."
"Which one?" Hammer asked.
"All of it."
Stark Mansion, California
Down in the workshop, Tony set the PROPERTY OF H. STARK case down on a worktable while Maggie went into the kitchen to make them coffee - and grab one of Tony's chlorophyll smoothies from the fridge.
"So I know about the whole getting shot thing," Tony said in a carefully even voice. "But exactly how dangerous is this Wyvern stuff?"
Maggie sniffed the refrigerated green sludge and grimaced. "That's the first time I ever got shot, if that's what you're asking." She thought about all the times bullets had deflected off her wings, and yes, technically, she had gotten a minor slice from a bullet in Tajikistan, but those were just technicalities. "But…" she paced over. "What about Iron Man? You get hurt on missions sometimes. But it's worth it, isn't it?" She handed the smoothie to Tony.
He took it, eyeing her. "I don't like the idea of you in danger."
"And I don't like the idea of you in danger," she shot back. Her eyes flickered to the reactor. "Or dying. Let's crack open that case."
Obliging, Tony reached forward, unclipped the fastenings and then opened the lid.
The case was almost full. Stacks of papers, a few film reels, a roll of blueprints, and what looked like a copy of the periodic table immediately jumped out at Maggie. Tony reached for the blueprints first, unrolling them to reveal the original Arc Reactor design. Maggie picked up the periodic table. Silently, they unpacked the case onto the floor. As Maggie spread a stack of photos on the carpet - including a portrait of dad - she spotted a map of the Arctic.
She tapped it. "Looking for Captain America."
Tony glanced over, his eyes dark. Their dad had gone on only one trip to the Arctic that Maggie remembered - he'd been gone for five months, and she'd heard his voice only once on the phone. But she knew he'd gone on many more expeditions throughout Tony's childhood.
Tony eyed the labels on the film reels as Maggie flicked through the old Stark Expo brochures, then a few dozen blue cards with handwritten notes.
"This is from the development of the Arc Reactor," Maggie realized as she scanned over the formulas. "Energy readouts, neutron moderations, reaction containment…" her finger traced over faded words. Her father's handwriting. "He's trying to solve the anomalous Zeeman effect here."
Tony looked up. "J.A.R.V.I.S., have we got a way of viewing these reels?"
"Yes, sir."
Tony quizzed Maggie about her former Wyvern missions as they set up the projector, and she gave him the barebones details of targets, battles, and intelligence drops. But then the film reels started running - mostly old Stark Expo promotions, as well as a few TV interviews that Dad had done. Stunned into silence by the sight of their father before them, Tony and Maggie settled down to sift through the various notepads from the case.
Maggie sat cross legged on the floor with a pile of notecards and a notebook, all filled with dad's dark, cursive handwriting.
"Everything is achievable through technology," said dad on the projector screen, the same promotion that they'd played at the Expo earlier in the month.
Maggie was busy peering down at the old photographs - of early Arc Reactor designs, she realized. Not the big one at Stark Industries, but models. One of the designs was labelled Tesseract Emulator, and she frowned. Tony leaned back in a chair, making notes on his phone as he read through another notepad. The notes told a story of pure invention - a brilliant mind throwing itself at a complex problem. Maggie couldn't imagine doing all of this work without the aid of a computer or holoscreen. Writing all this thinking out must have taken forever.
Rubbing her temples, she looked back up at the film. She'd seen this before at the Expo, but it still struck her how young Dad looked. In that moment, a small boy appeared at the back of the frame, popping up from behind the model city display.
"Tony," Maggie murmured. He was small, dark haired, wearing a bright striped shirt and a gleeful smile.
The Tony sitting beside her did not look up. "Hm?"
The Howard on screen looked over his shoulder. "Tony, what are you doing back there? What is that? Put it back!"
Tony finally looked up at the film, but his expression didn't change as they watched Howard admonish his child.
"Where's your mother? Maria!"
Maggie's heart throbbed dully. She remembered this - not the exact moment, of course, but the tone. This relationship, this atmosphere… she remembered. She glanced at Tony, but he was still watching, his head tipped back and his eyes wary.
As the young Tony was carried offscreen by an assistant, Tony glanced over at Maggie. "Think Fury'd believe us if we showed him that?"
She sighed. "I don't know what Fury wants us to do here. All these notes… so far I'm not seeing anything particularly revolutionary. It shows Dad struggled with the design, and it looks like he wasn't certain what element to use, but-"
Tony nodded. "He's gone about the math in some strange ways. He's experimenting with hydrogen and zinc here." He tapped the notepad in his lap.
They both glanced back at the screen when their dad said:
"So from all of us at Stark Industries, I'd like to personally show you… my ass."
In silence, they watched Howard Stark lose his patience, waving off the producer who tried to walk on screen, and asking we have this already, don't we?
Tony gave up on his notebook and leaned over, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"There has to be something here," Maggie urged. She dragged the stack of notebooks toward herself. She'd already skimmed them, but… "something Dad was looking for, something we can find-"
"Tony."
They both looked up. Dad stood centre frame now, and his air was different - he'd lost the suit jacket, and now leaned back against the model of the City of the Future, his face… less forcefully pleasant. Still tired, but not so rigid.
"You're too young to understand this right now," he said, "so I thought I would put it on film for you." He gestured to the model. "I built this for you."
Maggie ran a hand over her mouth.
"And someday you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work." The camera panned over the model, showing pavilions and parks. "This is the key to the future." More shots of the model. Then a shot of one of the arc reactor models. "I'm limited by the technology of my time. But one day you'll figure this out. And when you do… you will change the world."
Howard drew a breath. "What is and always will be my greatest creation… is you."
Howard Stark smiled.
The reel reached the end of the film and the projector screen turned to flickering nothingness.
For what felt like hours, Tony and Maggie just stared at the screen. Though it had vanished, Maggie couldn't stop seeing that smile - a small thing, but it had completely changed their father's young face. She'd seen the smile before - on Tony's face. On her own.
Then Tony blurted: "I need to get out of here."
She glanced at him. "What? But-"
He shook his head, standing. "We're not getting anywhere with this, and I don't have much-" he didn't finish the sentence. "I need to go see Pepper. She's furious with me - rightfully - and I need to… I need to make things right."
Maggie sighed, then stood too. "Coulson said not to leave."
"You always do what Coulson tells you?"
"No. Never, actually." She bit her lip. She could still see dad's smile - grim and shadowed, but definitely a smile. "You should go, you're right. I'll make a distraction and cover for you so you can get out."
He nodded. "Thanks, Magnolia." He glanced around at the photos and notes at their feet. "What will you do while I'm out?"
She gestured. "I was supposed to call some more donors about the Expo today, especially since stupid Hammer has his stupid exhibit tomorrow, but since we've been put on a communications blackout… I'll keep going through these notebooks, maybe get them digitized so J.A.R.V.I.S. can run an eye over them, so to speak. I'm sure there's something there, it's like… like not all the thinking is there. Like Dad was trying to hide something."
"Well it wouldn't be the first time, would it?" Tony said heavily. He turned, but then said: "Hang on, before I go. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole Wyvern thing, but… wings?"
She grinned. "I made myself a pair of metal wings a few years ago. They're awesome. I'll show them to you when you get back."
He blinked. "They're here?"
She nodded. "I take them with me most places I go. They're under my bed at the moment."
"I need to get more observant." Tony blew out a breath. "And also, before I leave you here alone with SHIELD, do they have it out for you or something? Fury mentioned they laid a trap for you, and the Agent seemed… weird."
She sighed and set her hands on her hips. "Coulson had some people watching me when I was down in South America, and he met with me himself in Peru to offer me a job, which I turned down. I guess they wanted to do the same for the Wyvern."
"Without realizing you're one and the same," Tony said with a glint of amusement in his eye.
"Yep. I don't think they have it out for me though, they're just…"
"Control freaks," he finished for her.
"Sure," she laughed.
"Fair warning," he said, "Fury tried to sign me up for some weird superhero saving-the-world club last year, I said no because let's face it, I'm not really the joining type, but he might spring that on you, too."
"Huh," Maggie frowned. She shook her head. "Now go get dressed. I'm going to cause a distraction in seven minutes and you need to be ready to drive out of here like a bat out of hell."
Maggie snuck down to the beach and set off a small explosion. It was a nice way to let off some of her pent up emotions, and when the SHIELD agents stormed down to the beach with their guns raised, she just put up her hands and said: "Sorry, just running a small demolitions test."
Coulson was down a moment later, and he narrowed his eyes at her. "Where's Mr Stark?"
"He's making some more disgusting green smoothies," Maggie said, poking her bare toes into the blackened bit of sand she'd just made. "I'm recording this experiment for posterity."
Coulson escorted her back up to the house. "I hope I don't have to stress the gravity of this situation to you, Ms Stark. Or repeat my earlier threats."
"Trust me, Agent Coulson. I'm aware."
When Coulson figured out that Tony had disappeared, a full hour later, he came down to the workshop to yell at Maggie. But she just put a pair of headphones over her ears as she pored through her father's notes, and pretended she couldn't hear.
Thankfully, he didn't tase her.
Stark Industries, Los Angeles
Tony sat across from Pepper at her desk - or rather, his old desk - and put the box of strawberries he'd bought in front of her.
"Got a minute?" he asked.
"No." She could barely look at him, her lips pressed into a thin line.
"Come on, you just got off the phone. You're fine, 30 seconds."
Pepper glanced down at her watch. She looked pretty today, with her ginger hair up in a knot and a sleek grey dress that made her eyes look sharp. "Twenty nine, twenty eight…"
Tony straightened. "Okay I, um, I was just driving over here… and I thought I was coming to basically apologize, but I'm not-"
"Oh, you didn't come here to apologize?" she asked with a dangerous note in her voice.
"Look, that goes without saying, and I'm working on that-"
"Where's Maggie?" Pepper interrupted him. "She's not returning my calls."
"She's back at the mansion actually, you want to come see her?"
"Not if you'll be there," she replied evenly.
Ouch.
The flinty steel in Pepper's eyes softened ever so slightly. "She's safe?"
"Of course, why wouldn't she be safe?" Tony questioned.
"Happy said there was an… altercation." Her eyebrow arched. "I'm worried about her."
"She's…" he leaned back in his chair. He was still coming to terms with everything he'd learned. He'd been hurt at first when he realized the magnitude of her secret, even though he understood why she hadn't told him. And it was a lot to wrap his head around. But… it also made sense. It seemed to fill in the picture of Maggie he had in his head, explaining the secrets and the injuries and the way she seemed so much older, so much more self assured, than she should be. Frankly, his life was already weird enough. Why not have a vigilante sister with metal wings? He still couldn't quite picture her bounty hunting, let alone flying, but…
He'd let the silence go on too long. "She can handle herself."
"Seems she's been doing that her whole life," Pepper remarked.
And that… that hurt a lot more than anything Maggie had kept secret.
Five minutes later, after Pepper kept looking at him with that withering look, and after Romanoff had appeared in all her espionage glory and Happy had made it very clear who his boss was now, Tony was left alone in the light-filled office.
He grabbed the strawberries (he'd make sure to remember next time that she was allergic to them, if he survived the next couple of days) and made for the door - but then paused.
The City of the Future model leaned against the bookshelf, half covered by a white Stark Industries cloth. He'd barely glanced at it when he walked in - the thing had been in his office ever since they first had the idea to recreate the Expo, and now it was just more junk to clear out now that Pepper was CEO. But now…
He paced closer, spying a small plaque in the wooden frame: The Key To the Future Is Here.
Tony yanked off the rest of the white cloth, revealing the whole thing. The Flushing Meadows globe in the centre, ringed by pavilions -
Tony stilled. And an idea began to germinate in his brain, like something wholly and completely new being born.
Stark Mansion, Malibu
Tony drove straight into the garage, the workshop suddenly loud with the roar of his sportscar engines. Maggie didn't notice the boards sticking out of the passenger seat - she rushed over with her arms full of notebooks and a pencil stuck in her hair as Tony climbed out of the car, buzzing with energy.
"Tony!" she exclaimed, gesturing a notebook at him. He opened his mouth but she blurted: "I wanted to call you but I couldn't get a signal out - anyway, I've been looking through all the notes and it seems like Dad did it. He cracked the Reactor problem, but for whatever reason the solution isn't actually in the notes. He's referred to the missing element as T70 which at first I though might be a reference to atomic weights or something, but then I got to thinking about you, and I realized it could be a reference to T for Tony, and 70 for your year of birth, but I still don't know really what it means-"
Tony held out his hands. "Mags-"
She shook her head. "There's references to T70 throughout the notes but it's like… you remember learning about DaVinci as a kid, how he used to encipher his notes and leave parts out, so no one stole his ideas? I think this is kind of what's going on, and maybe we could extrapolate from the notes what the missing pieces-"
"Maggie shut up, I know!" Tony cut her off, grabbing her arms to keep her still. "What Dad said in the film reel wasn't some sentimental bullcrap, it was a message. And I think I've got T70!" He turned her, and gestured to the boards he'd shoved into the passenger seat of the car. There were four of them, sticking out precariously.
"Is that-"
"It's the City of the Future model from the last Expo. From the film reel. I'm going to go up quickly and get changed out of the monkey suit, would you lay it out for me?"
Maggie blinked. "Okay."
Not entirely sure what Tony had planned, Maggie dragged a few worktables together in the middle of the workshop and then carefully lifted each board and laid it flat on the tables. She grabbed the last board, noting the small plaque on the side - The Key To The Future - before sliding it into place.
Dum-E rolled over, his claw bent close to the top of the city model that now lay whole on the tables.
Tony emerged back in the workshop, this time in a polo shirt and jeans. His eyes lit up at the sight of the assembled model, and he hurried across the workshop to look it over, his eyes darting. He still had that energy buzzing around him, lighting up his eyes. He leaned over and blew the layer of dust off the metal frame globe at the center of the model.
Maggie looked down at it then. Really looked at it. "That's the Flushing Meadows unisphere," she said, "and the Expo pavilions, but… this isn't quite right." She cocked her head, eyeing the faded structures. "But this is… it's bizarre, it's…" Tony watched her, resting his hands on the edge of the worktable.
She stilled. "The pavilions." She took a step back, then cocked her head the other way, counting. She circled the model slowly, passing silently behind Tony.
He watched her pace. "You're thinking what I'm thinking, right?"
"I…" she traced a finger from one outer pavilion to the next. "Dad said he was limited by the technology of his time. If the notes say he figured out the element problem, but he was hiding something, and this…" her hands hovered over the model almost helplessly and she glanced around. "We need to-"
"Yeah," Tony agreed. "J.A.R.V.I.S., could you kindly Vac-U-Form a digital wire frame? We need a manipulable projection."
Maggie nodded, almost breathless. As a blue light began scanning over the model, she ran back to the box of Dad's stuff and grabbed one of the notebooks, finding the page where she'd first spotted the missing element. If Tony was right… her eyes darted. This could work.
"1974 Stark Expo Model complete, sir."
Maggie turned just as Tony lifted the glowing blue overlay of the model J.A.R.V.I.S. had created, and brought it over to a clear space on the floor.
"How many buildings are there?" he asked as he eyed the swathe of blue light.
"Am I to include the Belgian waffle stands?"
"Just show us," Maggie said as Tony lowered the model to about hip-height. She looked down at it, eyes darting, reminded of her primary school science classes. She stepped into the blue light, tapping a finger over the rows of pavilions leading to the center of the model. The blue light moved around her, seeming to swallow her whole.
"Nucleus," she murmured under her breath as her hand hovered over the unisphere. She stood in the second concentric ring of buildings, the - "Electron shell," she continued, and her fingers waded through the blue light.
"Someone's got the right idea." Tony clicked his fingers and set the scan to spin, and J.A.R.V.I.S. slowly lifted it vertically.
It lifted up over Maggie's body, bathing her in bright blue for a moment before it became fully vertical. She stepped through the scan once more to come stand beside Tony, who had pulled a rolling stool over towards himself and was now seated, looking at the design with crossed arms. "What does that look like to you, J.A.R.V.I.S.? Not unlike… an atom." He cast a glance at Maggie. "And as you said, the nucleus would be here-" he pointed to the unisphere at the centre of it all, slowly rotating.
Maggie was busy trying to figure out the layers of the diagram, deciding what was relevant and what wasn't. She'd never seen a puzzle like this before. Her skin prickled. Tony asked J.A.R.V.I.S. to highlight the unisphere and expanded the globe, eyeing it.
"Remove the footpaths, J.A.R.V.I.S.," Maggie said, her voice still low and awed.
Tony nodded. "Get rid of them." He swiped a hand and the footpaths disappeared, leaving a cleaner structure. Maggie's brow bunched as she tried to translate this map of a city to an atom structure she was more familiar with.
"What is it you're trying to achieve, Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S. queried.
"We're discovering - uh, correction, rediscovering a…" Tony ran a hand over his mouth. "A new element, I believe."
For a moment he and Maggie just stared at the expanded design, the light glowing on their faces.
Tony cleared his throat. "Lose the landscaping, the shrubbery, the trees," he said, flicking his hands. The details flew away.
Maggie touched an aberrant square. "As well as the parking lots, exits, and entrances." She grabbed the square and made a swiping motion, and dozens more irrelevant glowing details fled out of view.
Tony eyed it all. "I think that's it. Structure the protons and the neutrons... using the pavilions as a framework." His voice had gone soft. J.A.R.V.I.S. instantly obeyed, and the pavilions miniaturized and zipped towards the centre globe, which Tony enlarged with a single movement.
Tony and Maggie could only watch as the pavilions - protons and neutrons - zoomed in to the nucleus, turning the simple blue sphere into a globe of glittering light. J.A.R.V.I.S worked faster than Maggie could keep up and she took a step back to take it all in, staring.
"Dad," whispered Tony.
When the last pavilion found its place Tony grabbed the rotating nucleus and flung his hands wide, sending the model expanding outwards like an imploding star, the light surrounding Maggie and Tony.
They both stilled. Maggie turned slowly on the spot, bathed in the glow of electric blue light. Atomic particles filled the air like stars, an inter-connecting crisscross of perfect, beautiful design. It wasn't real, just a projected model, but she felt as if she stood in the centre of a brand-new universe. When she had completed her circle, she rested her hand on Tony's shoulder. He sat on his stool, staring up.
Tony reached up and laid his hand over hers on his shoulder. She could feel his heart pounding.
"Dead for almost twenty years," Tony breathed. "And still taking me to school." He laughed, and the sound brought a smile to Maggie's face. For another moment they breathed in the silence, smiling up at the new world they had discovered.
She reached out a hand into the ether and clenched it into a fist. The glowing design shrunk in a second at the command, and a moment later she turned over her palm to reveal it glowing over her skin, the size of a golfball. It was impossibly, beautifully bright, all that detail and design like a universe contained in her palm.
"The proposed element should serve as a viable replacement for Palladium," J.A.R.V.I.S. told them.
Maggie handed the element to Tony. "He made this for you."
He pinched the design between his fingers. "Thanks, Dad," he murmured. He glanced up at Maggie and smiled, the light glowing in his eyes. "He made it for both of us." She returned the smile - she hadn't been around in '74, but the certainty in Tony's eyes could not be denied.
"Unfortunately," J.A.R.V.I.S. continued, "it is impossible to synthesize."
Maggie blew out a breath. "Where's your faith, J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"Uh huh," Tony said as he got to his feet. He met Maggie's eyes.
"It used to be impossible to miniaturize an arc reactor," she said, with the first hints of a grin.
"It used to be impossible for a human to fly with wings," he returned, not bothering to hide his grin.
She nodded, and they both looked down at the element. "Particle accelerator," she said.
He scratched his neck. "There's not one anywhere near that we'd get access to in time, but we can-"
"Yes," she added, "but we'd need a prismatic accelerant, and… a whole lot of power."
He cocked his head. "I think we can manage that."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Won't be easy. Where are we going to do this?"
He shrugged, then looked over at where Dum-E was watching them, his claw clicking softly. "Why not here?"
Maggie stepped back and looked around at the workshop. She knew the blueprints of the house, knew where the power cables were and how much power they could realistically generate. She eyed the tiny glowing model of the element, then blew out a breath. "Okay. You trashed the place already."
He grinned again, then clapped his hands together. "Get ready for a major remodel, fellas!" he called to the robots. "We're back in hardware mode."
First, they drew up a list of materials they'd need and handed it to the nearest SHIELD agent, who stood watch outside the front door. The guy barely glanced at the list before he nodded and said:
"It'll be here by tomorrow morning."
Maggie stared at him. "You sure? There's some pretty specific-"
"We'll handle it, Ms Stark," he cut her off, then turned and walked away.
"Okay then." She shrugged and walked back inside, rolling up her sleeves.
Tony and Maggie worked through the afternoon and into the night. If Maggie had thought the house looked wrecked before, it was nothing to what they did to it now. They started by going over the house blueprints and making notes, then drawing in chalk over various walls and floors, arguing over dimensions and positioning. Maggie wanted to use the pre-existing holes in the walls from his fight with Rhodey, but Tony argued that we're going to have to replace the wall anyway, why not just put another hole in?
Then they broke out the sledgehammer and the jackhammers.
"You're really relishing this," Tony commented with a raised eyebrow as Maggie took the first swing at the concrete workshop wall. An ear-splitting crash resounded, and a small crater appeared in the wall. They both wore safety goggles, and as Maggie swung for a second time a spray of fine dust blew onto her clothes.
"I've got my own house," she said with a shrug, taking aim at the marked yellow cross on the wall. "And I've always wanted to do stuff like this. I've got a lot of latent rage to work through."
Tony grinned. "I'll go get started on the other wall."
When they'd smashed a few holes in their walls, Tony jackhammered through their living room floor until he got down to the electricity junction box, which handled all the power coming into and out of the mansion.
Surrounded by rubble, and observed by Dum-E, who'd rolled upstairs with the house blueprints clutched in his claw, Maggie and Tony peered down at the box. Six main power junctions were housed in the box, with thick black cables snaking away beneath the floor.
Maggie wiped sweat off her forehead with the edge of her sleeve. Her arms already ached from the sledgehammering. "If you start connecting the leads, I'll work on increasing the power output."
"Sounds fair," Tony agreed, shuffling back a little to give her room to jump into the hole in the floor he'd made. Together they bent over the junction box, tools laid out around them, Maggie rewiring and removing protections as Tony hooked six new power leads directly into the box.
"So how do you… not die?" Tony asked as he unscrewed a piece of housing.
"Huh?"
"In your…" he waved a hand. "Wyverning."
She cocked an eyebrow at him, but then bent back over the junction box. "I've learned how to fight, sort of. Enough that I can get out of a bad situation."
"Where'd you learn?"
"All over. Martial arts studios and… fight clubs," she added, with a guilty look at him.
"Fight clubs?" he exclaimed incredulously.
She couldn't help but grin. "I can't talk about it." He rolled his eyes at the joke, but let her keep talking. "And I've got tech to help me. The wings, the suit I designed, my prosthetic."
"What about your prosthetic?"
Maggie had changed into sneakers, so she toed off the right one and demonstrated the extendable metal spur she'd built into the heel.
"Jesus," Tony breathed, momentarily distracted from his work by the dark glint of the heelspur poking through her sock. "How long has that been there?"
She retracted the heelspur. "A while." She bent back over the junction box. "When did you first find out about the Palladium poisoning?"
As they worked through the rest of the day, they traded questions back and forth. While Tony was dropping the power cables through a new hole in the roof of the workshop, he asked where's the most dangerous place you've ever been? And Have you ever killed anyone? And What's the worst you've been hurt?
She answered his questions, and when they began designing their accelerator in holographic light, he told her about the course of his illness and how it had changed his approach toward being Iron Man.
He was angry at times, when she told him about the risks she had taken and the ways she had hidden things, and giddy at other times, but he'd meant what he said: he forgave her.
When the shadows stretching through the workshop grew long, Maggie drew in a breath and turned to Tony. "In the interests of complete disclosure… I'm still going to keep some secrets. There's… there's things I'm not sure about telling you. Things about active missions." She'd been internally debating all day about this.
Tony glanced over as he tugged a few powercables into place. "You sure I can't help with these missions? I don't know if you heard, but I am a superhero."
She smiled, and shook her head. "I've got this." The Winter Soldier was still her demon. She'd tell Tony about him one day, when she caught the Soldier and finally made him pay. Once there were answers to the questions she'd been asking all her life.
Near midnight, when it got to the point they could no longer continue without the materials SHIELD had promised them, Tony and Maggie retreated up to the kitchen for a very late meal. There was basically nothing in the fridge so they made cup-a-soups with microwave s'mores for dessert, and discussed how they would begin putting together their accelerator once the parts arrived around dawn.
"We should probably try to get some sleep," Tony said, eyeing the glow of the reactor in his chest. Maggie no longer found the glow comforting, now she knew what the Palladium was doing to him. Tony glanced back up at her. "But first: you made me a promise."
They snuck up to the roof, the SHIELD agents monitoring the perimeter none the wiser. Maggie had retrieved her wingpack from under her bed, and once they were safe up on the roof she handed over the oddly-shaped metal pack.
Tony hefted the wingpack in his hands, turning it over a few times, eyeing the shape and joinery. He tugged on the harness straps. Maggie watched him run an engineer's eyes over her design, and it brought a smile to her face.
"This is how you came up with those ideas for the Mark V," Tony eventually said, running a finger over the folded metal. "Because you'd already done it."
"Sort of did it," Maggie corrected. "It's a lot easier to slide a pair of wings into a pack than it is to get a whole Iron Man suit into a briefcase." She reached out to take the wingpack back from Tony. "So, uh, remember that surgery I had earlier this year?" She turned, revealing her open-backed shirt and the two metal moorings on either side of her spine.
Tony's breath hissed through his teeth. "Maggie-"
"They don't hurt or anything," she reassured him, giving him a few moments to eye the golfball-sized metal inserts in her flesh. The moorings were closed right now, leaving just smooth metal. "But I figured since I already had cybernetic connections keeping me all wired up inside…" she pulled the wingpack over her shoulders with practiced ease, turning slightly so she could see Tony's face. He looked wary, but fascinated despite himself. Moonlight gleamed down on both of them.
Maggie hesitated. "I've never done this in front of anyone before," she murmured.
Tony's gaze lifted from the wingpack to her face. "Is it… do you want me to…"
She shook her head, and then deployed the wings. She knew the sensation well by now - the moorings in her back whirred open, and the wingpack itself slid open, metal harnesses stretching around her chest. In the next instant the wings stretched out to either side, catching slightly in the breeze.
Only this time, she wondered how it looked to Tony - he couldn't feel what she did, couldn't know that her consciousness felt as if it were spreading out from her spine in living metal. The weight of them pressed her a little further into the roof, grounding her.
When she felt the wings stretch out to their fullest capacity, two dark swathes of metal to either side ending in barbed points, she turned and faced Tony.
His face had gone blank. His eyes were wide and darting, taking in the sheer span of her wings, then the intricate details that he could make out in the moonlight, before looking back at Maggie: in her jeans and shirt, wearing wings.
Maggie shuffled her wings a little, folding them a little closer to her back, and spread her arms. "Ta da!"
The childish expression made Tony blink and meet her eyes. He let out a breath. "Is this how you felt when you watched me suit up for the first time?"
Maggie smiled. "Probably. I remember looking at you then, and wondering if you felt like I had the first time I put on the wings."
Tony shook his head in disbelief, taking a step back to run his eyes over the wings again. "I don't… these are incredible. But why…" he ran a hand over his jaw. "Why the things in your back? Why not just the harness?"
"Oh right," Maggie nodded, then turned around to show him her back. She heard him pacing closer, taking in the details. "I'm going to close my eyes now, and I want you to touch one of the wings - wherever you like, just don't tell me."
"Okay…"
For a few moments there was silence. Maggie could practically feel Tony thinking, his mind suddenly tugged away from their particle accelerator design and toward her wings. She closed her eyes, still a little wonderstruck that she was showing her brother her wings.
Then she felt it - the press of a single finger tip against the far edge of her left wing, near the barbed point at the end. Tony's touch was warm, and light. She twitched the wing in response and he jumped back.
"What the hell," he breathed.
Maggie turned, and curved the wing in toward herself so she could touch the exact spot he had. Tony's eyes grew even wider.
"You can feel them," Tony realized. She couldn't quite read the wide-eyed look on his face. She nodded. "But to do that you'd have to…" his brow wrinkled and she saw him figuring it out in his head. "The inputs in your back, which would connect to… but to integrate the biological and mechanical messaging so seamlessly as to imitate sensation... fucking hell, Maggie," he finished, pacing in a circle around her.
Maggie stood still to allow him his inspection. He poked at her right wing, then met her eyes as if to confirm yes, you can feel that? She nodded.
"So?" she asked. "Against the laws of human nature, or cool?" she'd only had herself to consult on this.
Tony let out a breath and reached out to her wing again - before hesitating, checking with her as if to say may I? When she nodded, he ran a hand over the top ridgebone of her left wing, skimming the clawed top, all the way down to the first barbed tip at the outer corner of her wing, then pinched the carbon fibre webbing lightly, feeling the material. Maggie tried not to shift uneasily - it felt ticklish, like he was pinching at skin.
"I mean," Tony eventually said, "I'm dying from a reactor I stuck in my own chest, I don't know if I'm the authority on unethical body modification here."
"On the contrary," Maggie replied. "I don't think anyone understands better than you do."
He stilled, then cocked his head. "Why'd you do it?"
A breeze kicked up over the rooftop and she pulled in her wings a little tighter. "I… at first I didn't have the cybernetic connectivity, and the wings were great, I loved flying, but… they felt like a part of me, even then. Only there was this disconnect between me and the wings, like they'd been numbed or something. Like before I got my surgeries as a kid, when I could barely feel my legs. So I did the math, and… it became this compulsion, this drive, to see not only if I could do it, but how it would feel when I did." She swallowed. "And when I put on the wings for the first time after that surgery…" she closed her eyes at the memory. "It felt right. Like I'd been missing a part of myself so long, and finally got it back."
When she opened her eyes, Tony was looking at her with a gleam in his eye. "Then I've got my verdict," he said. "Definitely cool."
Maggie beamed.
"But," he continued, "there is no way we are leaving this rooftop until I see them in action."
"Of course," she grinned and her engines whirred to life without her having to move a muscle, filling her wings with power. Tony's eyebrows lifted.
Maggie turned and sprinted toward the roof edge, her heart thrumming and feet pounding, feeling strangely nervous - as if this was her first flight all over again. She leaped off the edge and let herself plummet through thin air, clearing the cliff edge and falling down, down, to where she could see water smashing white against the rocks below. She flared her wings and smoothed her descent into a low curve, whisking over the wave tops as she rocketed out to sea. Wind whipped across her face and the salty ocean spray flicked up onto her clothes and wings. Moonlight shattered over the broken surface of the ocean and she dipped her wingtips into the gleam of it.
Maggie whooped, knowing she was out of hearing range of the nosy SHIELD agents. Each time she flew she wondered how she could have gone so long without this feeling.
Once she felt she'd gone far enough she boosted her engines and rocketed upward, curving back around to the rooftop of the mansion - which didn't glow in the night like it usually did, since they'd turned off most of the power. But as she grew closer she could see the dark silhouette of Tony on the roof. She looping once around the roof with her wings spread wide, before swooping down low. She dropped down and flared her wings to halt her momentum, raining ocean spray down on Tony's upturned face. Her sneakers touched down lightly a moment later and her wings retracted.
Tony stared at her for several long moments.
"Yeah," he finally said. "Those are cool."
They got started at first light the next morning. The parts from SHIELD arrived in three massive wooden crates, and Tony and Maggie began unloading the massive accelerator coils, which to be carried safely required two pairs of hands. They grunted and grimaced as they carried each coil into position, slowly building a massive loop around the base of the house. The coils fed through the holes in the walls and had to be carefully fitted together and kept perfectly level. At first they built the supports out of workstands and bricks, but by the time they put together the last part of the loop in the workshop they were using stacks of books and Maggie's motorbike.
Slowly, their idle conversation about other matters faded away - they could both see the accelerator coming together, and they knew what that meant. They were close.
Mid-morning, as Maggie hooked up the workshop servers to the accelerator control panel, so J.A.R.V.I.S. could begin to upload the element specifications, the workshop door opened. She glanced over to see Phil Coulson striding through.
His eyes were on Tony, who was readjusting the latest accelerator coil. "I heard you broke the perimeter," he called.
Tony barely glanced up. "Uh, yeah, that was like… three years ago. Where've you been?"
"I was doing some stuff," Coulson shot back, striding into the workshop. If he was alarmed by the drastic redecoration, he didn't say anything. His gaze slid across the mess of accelerator controls and displaced machinery until he spotted Maggie at the work tables.
"Well, us too," Tony replied. "And it worked. I'm playing for the home team, Coulson, you and all your fabulous Furry Freak brothers." Maggie frowned in Tony's direction. Maybe we should have gotten more sleep. "Now, are you gonna let me work or break my balls?"
Coulson peered into one of the open SHIELD crates, before reaching in and pulling something out. "What's this doing here?" he called over to Tony. Maggie glanced over - Coulson was carrying a metal disc, with a third of a white star and some blue and red lines around it. Looks like a prototype for-
"That's it," Tony murmured, eyeing the disc. "Bring it to me."
Coulson looked panicked as he brought it over to Tony. "You know what this is?'
"It's exactly what I need to make this work."
Maggie turned back to her programming as Tony (with Coulson's help) shoved the disc under the latest coil to make it level.
When they were done, Tony sniffed. "I'm busy, what do you want?"
"Nothing," Coulson replied. "Goodbye. I've been reassigned."
Maggie looked up again at that, her eyebrows raised.
"Director Fury wants me in New Mexico."
"Fantastic," Tony drawled. "Land of Enchantment."
"So I'm told," Coulson deadpanned.
"Secret stuff?" Tony questioned.
"Something like that."
"Wouldn't have anything to do with Doctor Foster's work, would it?" Maggie called.
Coulson glanced over at her, completely straight-faced. "Who?" When she didn't reply, he glanced between the two of them. "Good luck."
Maggie waved, and Tony reached out to shake Coulson's hand. "Bye."
"Thanks," Coulson replied. "We need you. Both of you."
"More than you know," Tony agreed.
"Not that much." And with that, Coulson strode back out of their workshop and up the stairs.
Maggie and Tony shared a glance, then got back to work.
Later, as Coulson walked to his car while on the phone with Maria Hill, he frowned. "Margaret Stark mentioned a Doctor Foster with links to New Mexico. Let's look into her, it's possible her work has something to do with this." A few moments passed. "And if Barton's healed up some, I'd recommend assigning him to New Mexico as well. I get the feeling I might need someone to keep an eye on things."
One moment Maggie was up to her elbows in wiring, her forehead sweat-slicked from the uncomfortable warmth in the workshop, and the next moment the accelerator was done.
"It looks like shit," she said, hands on her hips as she eyed the ring of the reactor coils stacked on books, car hoods, and leftover machine parts. On a worktable just a few yards inside the coils rested their new reactor core design in a metal containment unit: an elegant filigree triangle, ready to be infused with the new element.
"It's no Hadron Collider, I'll give you that," Tony agreed. He flipped the crystal prism in his hand and waggled his eyebrows at her. "But with this, it'll get the job done."
"We'll be lucky if we don't both die of radiation poisoning," Maggie replied, but she was smiling. They'd never done anything like this before. The idea of it within their reach… it made her fingertips tingle.
Tony slid the prism into the fission hub of the accelerator, adjusted the alignment and then glanced around. "Alright, I think we're ready for the powerup sequence. Maggie?"
Maggie did her own quick safety check (since Tony always forgot): they both wore red-tinted welding goggles to prevent themselves from going blind, and… that was about it. If things went wrong with the accelerator, they would go very wrong, and no amount of safety gear would protect them.
"You should head outside," Tony said, as if he could read her thoughts. His brow furrowed as he looked at her. "We already know I'm toast if this doesn't work, it's safer if-"
"As if," Maggie waved him off. "I'm not letting you get all the credit."
He rolled his eyes at her. "Then what did I say? Powerup sequence!"
"Right." Maggie hastened to the accelerator control panel, having to sit cross legged to work on it since they'd left it on the floor. She glanced over the readouts then looked over her shoulder. "We're ready," she confirmed. Tony nodded once, then glanced over at the prototype reactor. Maggie recognised the gleam in his eye and the clench in his jaw. He didn't want to hope. "Hey, Tony."
He glanced back.
She smiled at him. "This is going to work. You and I? We can make anything work."
He held her gaze for a moment, and the tightness in his jaw loosened. "I know."
Eyes on her brother, Maggie grabbed the ignition key and twisted it.
The accelerator began to hum, a very low buzzing at first which grew into a steady whir. In parallel, the lights in the workshop faded until they were left in almost complete darkness. J.A.R.V.I.S. had instructions to divert all power to the accelerator at expense of everything else in the house.
Tony tugged off his shirt, leaving him in a black tank top, looking very much the mechanic indeed.
"Initialising prismatic accelerator," J.A.R.V.I.S. informed them smoothly.
Maggie eyed her readouts. "All looks good. We've got a strong particle beam, minimal runoff, approaching optimum kinetic range." She glanced over at the accelerator and could see it - a thin blue stream had lit up within the accelerator like a halo, growing in strength. The whole accelerator vibrated before her eyes and the workshop filled with the sound of metal rattling.
Tony hopped up to the fission hub and set his hands confidently on the prism alignment wheel. "Here goes nothing." He began to turn, and… nothing happened.
He tried again, gripping the wheel and pushing his whole body weight into it, but the wheel did not turn.
"Approaching maximum power," J.A.R.V.I.S. warned.
"Shit." Maggie scrambled to her feet and rushed over to Tony, just as he let go of the wheel and reached for a heavy metal wrench. "Yep, get it on!" she urged, and then grabbed the end of the wrench as Tony grabbed the middle of it.
The vibrations from the accelerator juddered down the wrench and into their arms, numbing Maggie's hands, and the whine of the particle beam just grew higher and higher. Tony and Maggie threw their weight into their makeshift lever, and Maggie almost cried when the wheel began to move.
As they rotated the prism the thin blue stream of light began to arc across the room, piercing the far wall and setting it aflame.
"Whoops!" Tony cried, but neither of them let up. Maggie pushed and Tony pulled, shifting the beam across the workshop and it sliced through everything in its path. A groan gritted out between her teeth. They cut neatly through the wall, a load-bearing steel beam, the cabinets, a book shelf, until finally-
"There," Maggie breathed as the beam connected with the thin filigree triangle housed in the prototype reactor core. It let out a resonant metallic noise that made her ears feel funny. She and Tony held the wrench steady and stared as the triangle lit up at the touch of the particle stream, absorbing the energy and beginning to glow a brilliant blue-white. Everything in the workshop was shaking from the power of the accelerator.
When the light grew so bright that Maggie could see nothing but brilliant, blinding white, Tony launched forward and hit the emergency stop button.
Like a beast laying down to rest, the accelerator powered down. The high whirring and shaking faded until everything in the workshop was still and silent again.
Except for the reactor core. It drew the eye like a magnet, glowing brilliantly even now the reactor had stopped. It worked, Maggie realized as the glowing afterimage of the triangle burned behind her eyes. The element really did synthesize, and the reactor core accepted it.
For a moment, she and Tony only stared.
Then Tony let go of the wrench. "That was easy."
Panting, Maggie stared at him.
He ducked under the accelerator coil and she followed a moment later, her legs feeling strangely weak. Cautiously, the two of them approached the tiny glowing triangle that they had torn their home apart to create. Behind the worktable, the wall was still slightly on fire. Both of them ignored it.
Tony leaned on the upturned crate in front of the table and bent over, peering at the core. He reached for a small rubber-grip clamp and oh-so-carefully pulled the glowing triangle from its housing. It seemed to glow even brighter. Maggie held her breath.
"Congratulations, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. said, the first to break the silence. "You have created a new element."
Maggie and Tony let out a simultaneous breath. Wordlessly, Maggie jogged across the workshop to grab their new reactor design, then brought it back to where Tony was still staring at the glowing core. She set it up on the worktable, then watched as Tony carefully inserted the glowing core into its heart.
The whole reactor glowed a dull blue, then began to flicker, faster and faster like a strobing lightbulb until it seemed to come together in a bright, glowing blue-white.
"Sir, the reactor has accepted the modified core," J.A.R.V.I.S. said. Tony, whose nose was almost touching the glass of the reactor, let out a breath. Maggie set her hand on his sweaty shoulder. "I will begin running diagnostics."
Slowly, Tony straightened. Maggie could feel his heartbeat pounding under his skin, but she sensed the weariness in him too. He was still hours away from death, no matter what discoveries they had made. He turned to face her, eyes gleaming and overwhelmed.
Maggie slid her arm around his middle, subtly supporting him in the guise of a hug. "Let's go drink some more of that green shit," she suggested. "For the last time ever."
He smiled at that, and for what felt like the first time in months the smile reached his eyes.
Hammer Industries, New York
When he was done yelling at Ivan for once again bullshitting him, Justin Hammer drew in a breath and straightened his suit. Screw Ivan. He had the drones, even though they'd only salute, goddamn them, and he had Colonel Rhodes and his beautiful, pimped-out suit.
"I'm gonna leave now," he told Ivan, who'd been silently glaring since they took the bird from him. "I'm gonna go to the Expo. Maybe I'll even get laid," he added with a smirk. He gestured to the hired guards. "See these guys? They're your babysitters. They are not to be trifled with."
Ivan's eyes flicked to the two men, unreadable.
"And when I get back," Hammer added, "we're going to renegotiate the terms of our agreement. And you're going to make good on our arrangement." He let his voice go soft and steady, trying to sound dangerous. "Because if you don't, you're going to be exactly what you were when I found you, a dead man. You got that?" He gestured to the TV screen on the wall. "Maybe you can watch me on TV."
He strode out, already thinking ahead to the lights and applause of the Stark Expo. He didn't see the smile Ivan gave the two guards he left behind.
Reviews
The1975Love: Maggie's not in the public eye just yet! We'll have to see what happens ;) Thank you so much though!
DBZFAN45: I'm so glad you liked the last chapter with all its confrontations and chaotic star wars references! I hope you enjoyed Tony seeing Maggie's wings in this chapter!
Wyrleen: I'm so glad you liked the last chapter! Maggie couldn't keep everything a secret forever unfortunately, and yes Tony took it pretty well. As for the Maggie/Nat ship, we'll see ;) I'm so excited to show you guys what happens next!
Guest: I'm glad you're enjoying the story, thank you for reading :)