A/N: Shorter one this time around! And uh… didn't I tell you guys to trust me?

Maggie went with Steve to the hospital. No one else had arrived yet, so he only had her. For over an hour she paced the ER waiting room, her wet uniform dripping all over the floor as the other patients and family members in the room stared at her. When the doctors finally came out to tell her that Steve was stable, they sounded impressed and a little awed. Maggie nodded, thanked the doctors, and then turned to leave.

If Steve was stable, then he did not need her anymore. And she had places to be.

Beyond the hospital, the world scrambled for answers. The Black Widow had uploaded SHIELD files to the Internet, revealing HYDRA - subsequently, SHIELD had been labelled a terrorist organisation. The battle at the Triskelion had shocked D.C. and the world, and images of the burning Helicarriers sticking out of the Potomac were splashed across newspapers and news channels and social media. Conspiracy theories raced out of control. Everyone knew that Captain America had brought down those Helicarriers, but now the man himself was nowhere to be found.

SHIELD Agents across the world scrambled for safety. Bases fell into chaotic fighting. HYDRA agents sought safety too, scurrying back into the shadows.

The Winter Soldier, wounded and confused, headed for the only place he could think of: the Ideal Federal Savings Bank. He allowed himself to be swallowed up by the streets of D.C.

Natasha found Maggie an hour later, back at the Triskelion. The whole promontory had been cordoned off by the National Guard, but it hadn't taken much for Maggie to sneak in.

She'd first gone to the riverbank where she'd found Steve, but the bootprints had all been trampled over. The river was clogged with police boats. She'd scoured the area, with no luck, and then broken into the half-crumbled remains of the Triskelion to hardwire a connection to their CCTV footage. Tony had called just as she'd entered the smoking, creaking ruin. He'd found out about HYDRA from the Internet leak, and then seen the footage of the Wyvern in the sky over D.C. Maggie had ended the call shortly after she'd reassured him she was okay. He had wanted to discuss HYDRA and the fall of SHIELD, but Maggie didn't have time for that.

The Triskelion ruin was strangely quiet now, despite the wailing sirens outside and the occasional groan of metal and concrete as some part of the building fell away. Rescue crews were sweeping through, one area at a time. Maggie evaded their notice, tucked away in a control room..

But Natasha found her almost easily. The spy paced into the control room Maggie had broken into and ran her cool gaze over the scene before her. The room was dark, lit only by the glowing computer screens. Maggie leaned over the main computer console, with a panel cracked open on the wall behind it to reveal a forest of wires. Maggie's red goggles were wired into the open panel, likely to gain extra processing power. On the console she fought with the complicated SHIELD programming, trying to access the building's recent CCTV feeds.

Maggie looked over her shoulder when she sensed Natasha's presence. Nat looked more casual than she had ever seen her, wearing a soft grey shirt and yoga pants. She moved tentatively, as if hiding an injury, and she had shadows under her eyes. The light from the computer screens cast an eerie glow over them both.

"I just checked in on Steve," Natasha said in a low voice. "He's going to be okay."

Maggie turned back to her computer console. "I know. I wouldn't have left otherwise."

"I know," Nat echoed. She took a step closer, eyeing Maggie, who still wore her uniform and wing pack, both coated in mud and soot. "Are you okay?"

"Just fine." Maggie said distractedly, then cursed under her breath as she tried and failed, yet again, to access the building CCTV feeds. Whatever had happened to the Triskelion had corrupted all the local files. She set about downloading the files to a secure server she controlled, to try to repair them later. She glanced over her shoulder to find Natasha watching her closely. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." Nat sighed and looked around, as if taking in the state of her former workplace. "Steve was right, SHIELD had to go. Thank you for helping us, when you could."

Maggie shrugged one shoulder. "Turns out I've got a knack for bringing down my father's institutions."

"What are you doing back here?" Nat asked. "The building isn't safe.

Maggie stilled. She couldn't explain it, but something in Nat's voice… she knows. "I'm downloading the security feeds from the battle," she said evenly. The computer chimed. DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. She unplugged her goggles and stuffed them in her pocket.

"Why?"

Maggie straightened and turned to face her friend. "You know why." She took a step forward, peering at Nat's face illuminated by the artificial computer light. She cocked her head. Natasha didn't move, just gave her that calm, steady stare. "And you don't want me to do it."

Nat's expression didn't change. "You should be recovering, Maggie-"

She began to turn away, but Maggie took another step forward and grabbed her arm. Natasha's eyes flashed at her, but she didn't pull away.

First Steve. Now Nat.

Maggie looked into her green eyes. "Who is he."

Natasha stared back at her for a few moments, blank faced.

Maggie's grip tightened on her arm. Natasha's jaw tightened, but she still didn't pull away. "I know you know," she said in a low voice. "The causeway. The Helicarrier. Steve protected him. Who is he."

For a moment, she was certain Nat was going to lie, or to keep stubbornly silent, and her mind raced with ways she could get to the truth.

But then Natasha's gaze flickered. And she opened her mouth.

"James Buchanan Barnes."

Maggie let go of Natasha's arm as if it had burned her. She took a stumbling step back with the shock of it, and her stomach flipped. Natasha simply stood still and watched as Maggie's eyes darted.

Bucky Barnes. She'd seen the old war reels of the laughing man with the glinting eyes, seen Steve's drawings of him, heard so many stories-

"How…?" but she shook her head even as she began to vocalize the question. HYDRA. And Barnes's body had never been found. It didn't matter how, the certainty in Natasha's voice was impossible to argue with. And Steve tried to save him. Steve had hidden him from Maggie.

Maggie pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. Bucky Barnes killed my parents.

She forced herself to think back, revisiting that night which she normally kept locked deep in the back of her mind. And she realized: of course it was Barnes. His face had become so warped in her memory over the years: an empty monster with eyes of ice. She just hadn't connected the young memory with the laughing photos of Barnes she'd seen later in life. But she pictured Steve's drawing, imagined that face cold, empty…

Her breath came in harsh gasps that echoed loudly in the confined space of the control room. Her eyes couldn't fix on anything, her pupils blown wide. Natasha watched her from a few feet away, her expression cautious.

Maggie drew in a deep, shuddering breath and whirled, heading for the door. Now it was Natasha's turn to dart forward and grab her arm. Maggie's head snapped back to glare at her.

"You are not your ghosts, Maggie," Natasha said softly. "I know Steve's made mistakes, but don't-"

"Don't tell me how to grieve, Nat," Maggie whispered back. Because she didn't know how, but Natasha knew. "Just don't." She wrenched her arm out of her friend's grip.

This time, Natasha didn't try to stop Maggie as she stormed toward the door.

Steve Rogers opened his eyes.

A soft, crooning song hung in the air. The flourescent light hurt his eyes. He frowned, wincing as the movement pulled at painful spots over his face. His body ached like it hadn't since he had been a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter.

He cracked his eyes open a little further. Hospital. He was in a hospital bed, in a paisley blue gown and with all kinds of wires running off him. He glanced right, and saw Sam.

Sam's eyes were closed, as if he'd just nodded off. He looked beat up too, though he'd had a change of clothes and a shower from the looks of things.

"On your left," Steve croaked.

Sam's eyes opened and his head jerked up. He glanced over, eyebrows raised, and then broke into a smile.

13 January, 2014

Maggie raised her fist to knock on Steve's hospital room door, then paused.

It had been a busy 24 hours. There'd been arrests all over the country - hell, all over the world - as other law enforcement agencies cracked down on HYDRA. Senator Stern had been caught up in it. Emergency congressional hearings had been called, and a summons to testify had been sent to Stark Tower, since the Wyvern had pretty obviously been a part of SHIELD's downfall.

Maggie hadn't returned Pepper's call about the summons. She had been too busy.

After the visit from Natasha, Maggie had stolen a Quinjet from one of the abandoned Triskelion launchpads. She hadn't taken it far, but she needed space to think, and the Quinjet's cloaking technology kept her off the grid.

She'd been unable to form a coherent thought for almost an hour as she sat with her arms wrapped around her knees in the pilot's seat of the Quinjet, parked in the middle of a wooded area. The battle had caught up with her, rendering her mute and wide-eyed. Her injuries ached, and the residual smells of river water and engine oil stung her nose.

When a coherent thought did come, it came clear and cold: He's going to run.

The Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes. He was going to run. Where would a weapon run to?

Because no matter whose face he wore, Maggie knew the Winter Soldier. And the Winter Soldier was a cold, efficient, ruthless killer. A weapon.

It doesn't matter who he is, she'd realized. Because he is my mission.

She'd uncurled her hands from around her knees and begun to think. The Soldier had always been skilled at disappearing, but he didn't have HYDRA behind him now. He was just one weapon - one man. And now that he was a man, and not a ghost, he would leave footprints.

Maggie had trained for this her whole life.

So she began to follow the footprints.

First there was the bank fire. Local police had reported a suspicious fire downtown at the Ideal Federal Savings Bank, started an hour after the Triskelion battle. Maggie had checked it out, disguised again as a crime scene tech, and examined the 'suspicious material' they'd taped off in the vault. There was a vast amount of burned-up weaponry, as well as a mangled, half-melted hunk of metal that might have been some type of machine. The police had also arrested two men caught fleeing the scene, who'd been taken into custody by the FBI on suspicion of being HYDRA agents.

A footprint. Thirty minutes of digging had turned up a single CCTV still: a man in a dark outfit walking down the sidewalk away from the bank, with a jacket several sizes too large hung over one shoulder. It was a grainy shot, and only captures the man's back, but Maggie could make out the glint of metal dangling just below the edge of the jacket. Almost as if the man were trying to hide a metal arm.

It wasn't much. It was hardly anything, really, but Maggie had been working with so much less than that for twenty years.

You are my mission. The words pounded under her skin, stronger than her own heartbeat.

But there was something she needed to do first.

So now, she rested her palm against Steve's hospital room door. She could hear soft murmuring inside. The blinds had been drawn, so she couldn't see anything.

She drew in a long, slow breath, aware that the armed guard beside the door was staring at her. She drew herself tall. She lifted her chin. She knocked on the door.

There was a muffled call to come in, so she swung the door open and let herself inside.

"Maggie," Steve said in surprise.

Maggie flicked her eyes over him. Steve looked awful, but much better than he had yesterday - his eye was no longer swollen shut, and the colour had returned to his skin. No wonder the doctors were so impressed. His lip was split, and pinkish bruises still littered his face. Someone had combed his hair.

There was a vase of flowers on the table by his hospital bed, as well as a set of speakers playing mellow R&B. Sam Wilson sat on the visitor's chair beside the bed, wearing a dark jacket and an uncertain expression. Both men stared at her. She'd changed out of her uniform back in the Quinjet, opting for jeans and a navy jacket, but she knew she still looked as if she'd just stepped away from a battle. The feeling of it thrummed under her skin.

Maggie shut the door behind her. "The doctor said you were going to be okay."

Steve met her eyes. "Looks that way."

There was a long, almost awkward pause.

She turned to Wilson. "I'd like to speak to Steve alone."

Wilson's eyes flicked to Steve. Steve nodded, and with raised eyebrows Wilson hoisted himself up out of his seat and walked out. He passed Maggie with a nod, and then strode out of the room and closed the door - but not before he glanced back inside with a worried glance.

Maggie kept her arms folded tightly as she looked across the room at Steve. She didn't move any closer. He didn't appear to know what to say.

He swallowed. "Nat told me you were the one who found me," he said in a low voice. "I wanted to say-"

"Bucky Barnes," she cut him off in a flat voice.

Steve stiffened. "Nat told me she told you-"

"You shouldn't have hidden him from me, Steve."

He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I thought… I thought I could bring him in."

Her eyes narrowed. "You were afraid of what I'd do."

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. "Was I wrong?"

Maggie's jaw clenched. She'd thought about putting a bullet in the Winter Soldier's blank face ever since the day she woke up in hospital as a scared, orphaned five year old. This had been her entire life.

She turned to leave.

"Maggie." Steve coughed, and she realized from the sound of rustling sheets that he was trying to climb out of his bed. She turned and strode over to push him back down. She wasn't gentle, and he winced as his back hit the mattress. "Maggie, please…"

She waited. Steve just stared at her entreatingly, one hand rising to cover hers where it rested on his shoulder.

She saw a hint of something in his eyes, and her face hardened. She pulled her hand back from under his.

"You know what he did, don't you?" she whispered.

Steve's expression broke. His brows came together and she realized that he was close to crying. He reached out to her, but she took a step back. "Maggie," he croaked. "He's not in control. They've been doing something to him all these years, controlling him, but there's hope for him - he recognized me and he stopped, Maggie-"

"He didn't stop," she murmured. Steve shut his mouth. "He didn't stop after he'd beaten my dad's face in. He didn't stop after he choked the life out of my mother right in front of me." Steve's eyes went bright and devastated. "He didn't stop until he'd set the car on fire and torn my world apart."

He struggled to sit up. "Maggie-"

"I'm not going to stop either." She fixed her burning gaze on him. "I'm an Avenger, Steve," she continued in that impossibly soft voice. "And this is my vengeance."

She turned and strode away, but then paused at the door. She didn't look back. "Don't tell Tony."

She yanked the door open. Wilson asked her a question as she burst out, but she just strode past him and let the door shut behind her, her gaze steady.

She breathed out, and left it all behind.

15 January, 2014
Arlington National Cemetery, Washington D.C.

Steve and Nick Fury shook hands over Fury's grave. It was a nice day, the sun glimmering down through the leaves of the oak beside the gravestones. The cemetery was practically empty.

"Anybody asks for me," Fury said with a hint of a smile, "tell them they can find me right here."

Steve nodded, and Fury turned to go.

"You should be honored," called a familiar voice. Steve and Sam both looked over to see Natasha approaching with a file tucked under her arm. "That's about as close as he gets to saying thank you."

Steve strode over to meet her. Sam hung back. "Not going with him?"

"No," she smiled.

"Not staying here."

"I blew all my covers, I gotta go figure out a new one." Her world-stopping congressional hearing had been yesterday. Steve had caught it on the TV, and he had to admit, Nat knew how to give a speech. You need us. Yes, the world is a vulnerable place, and yes, we helped make it that way. But we're also the ones best qualified to defend it.

"That might take a while," he said.

"I'm counting on it."

Steve returned her smile, then looked down. "Have you heard from Maggie?"

He'd called Maggie forty seven times since she'd left his hospital room two days ago. She hadn't answered a single one. He'd tried to get Sam to go after her when she first left, but she'd vanished. Eventually he'd called Natasha, and finally Tony - only to ask if he'd heard from Maggie, and to give him an update on what had happened to SHIELD. But when Tony called back an hour later, panicked that he couldn't get through to his sister, Steve had to offer some kind of explanation: She's upset, and going after my friend Bucky. He was one of the attackers at the Triskelion.

They'd all been trying to find Maggie for days now. But it was as if she'd vanished off the face of the earth. Tony had been concerned, but not entirely surprised.

"It's not the first time she's done something like this," he'd told Steve over the phone this morning. Steve burned up with guilt and secrets every time they spoke. "She's good at vanishing. But she'll show up. She promised me she wouldn't disappear again."

Now, Natasha's smile lowered at the mention of Maggie. "No," she said softly. "And I don't think I will. Not until she's finished."

Steve straightened, his brow furrowing. "Nat, you really think she's going to…?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I don't know. I wouldn't have said she had it in her, but… I think there's a lot to Maggie that none of us ever noticed."

He nodded silently, his eyes on the ground. He'd been afraid ever since Maggie had looked at him in his hospital bed with fire behind her eyes. He'd never been afraid like this before. Her soft words still lodged in his mind, like blades. The things she'd seen. The things she'd been carrying for over twenty years.

The things Bucky did.

He ran a hand over his jaw. "And you don't think you'd be able to help track her?"

Natasha's brow rose. "She knew how to successfully evade SHIELD when she was only twenty one. She's six years older now, and she's been trained by me." She shook her head. "No. I won't be able to find her."

Steve nodded again. He already knew it, really. Even J.A.R.V.I.S. had been unable to track her.

Natasha watched him for a few moments. "That thing you asked for," she continued, and slid the paper file out from under her arm. "I called in a few favours from Kiev."

Steve looked down at the block cyrillic letters on the file cover. His heart thudded.

When Natasha walked off again, with a half-smile on her lips and a warning not to pull on that thread, Sam came up to stand beside Steve. He'd been by his side ever since the hospital.

Sam glanced down at the file, which Steve had opened. A photograph was clipped inside the front cover: Bucky's face, encased behind frosted glass. The sight made Steve's chest squeeze.

"You're going after him," Sam noted, without a hint of surprise.

"You don't have to come with me," Steve murmured. He couldn't take his eyes off his friend's face.

"I know." There was a brief pause. "When do we start?"

The corner of Steve's mouth quirked, and he looked over his shoulder at Sam. "Right now," he said, hoping his voice conveyed his gratitude. But then his smile fell. "We've gotta get to Bucky before Maggie does."

"Why?" Sam frowned.

Steve drew in a long breath, then looked back down at the photo of his friend's frozen face. "I don't want to find out."

One month.

One month of living off the grid on a Quinjet, resisting all contact and attempts at tracing from her brother and the rest of the Avengers.

Maggie had let it all go: her family, her home, her job. She kept up with the news, because it was nearly impossible not to, but that was it. She'd even given up her Wyvern work. Well, most of it. Because she'd returned to what was at her very heart, returned to her whole purpose for becoming the Wyvern in the first place.

She had nothing left but the mission.

At first she only found traces of the Soldier. The burned bank had been large and dramatic, but he nearly vanished after that. She had the CCTV still of what she thought was him leaving the bank. Then it got less obvious. She laid algorithms like nets all over the city. She scanned through every police report, every security feed remotely near the Triskelion. Two days later she got word of a reported squatter in a building on the other side of the city: the owner reported that not much had been changed, but one of the windows had been broken and things inside just felt different, as if objects had been moved slightly. The police considered it a nuisance call, but had swept for prints just in case, since it was right after the Triskelion battle and they were on alert. The entire place had been wiped clean.

A footprint.

From there she was able to chase faint traces, like mere suggestions of a footprint in a riverbank. A report of a homeless man who'd fled from police. A theft of medical supplies from a veterinarian's office. A man in a baseball cap on the security feeds from the Smithsonian museum who never showed his face, and never took his hands out of his pockets.

And Maggie followed. She was sometimes days behind the Soldier, but she never lost his track for long. She'd been years behind him for so long, that being days away felt like lightning on her tongue. She worked non stop from her stolen Quinjet, sleeping for a couple of hours at a time in the pilot's seat as she ran algorithms and tracking programs, then waking and poring through every ounce of data she had.

The Soldier stowed away on a cargo ship to South America. Maggie followed. Harder to track him after that, but he still left the barest traces. He weaved through countries for weeks, seemingly at random, but Maggie followed.

She knew Steve and Wilson were tracking as well - she saw evidence of their search as she conducted her own. But they were still back in D.C., and they didn't have her skills. They hadn't been learning to chase the Winter Soldier since they were teenagers.

Maggie ripped through the HYDRA data that Natasha had released onto the Internet. There were thousands of petabytes of data, more than anyone could hope to consume in a lifetime, but Maggie knew the feel of the right kind of information by now. As soon as the Soldier made the move to South America, she scrambled through the HYDRA data for any resources or safe houses on the continent that the Soldier might know about. Sure enough, she traced a cache of money and supplies in Colombia that had been recently raided.

And soon she wasn't days behind him, but hours.

15 February, 2014
Cusco, Peru

The Winter Soldier stood at the edge of a red-tiled rooftop, looking out at the city that had come to life.

Carnival at night had Cusco lit up like a beacon high in the Andes. Torches and candles were lit along the streets and fireworks exploded in golden shimmers in the sky. The dancers in the Plaza de Armas carried flares, which made the sky glow red. The air pounded with drumbeats and music and people shouting and blowing whistles. Parades of people in monstrous masks danced down the streets and into the Plaza - some wore shimmering costumes of gold, and others wore wings made of white feathers. Confetti of all colours showered from windows and down onto the singers and dancers.

You couldn't see the Soldier from the ground. He stood on a dark rooftop, only occasionally illuminated by an exploding firework or a passing parade of dancers with flares. From the sky, he was a dark silhouette against the glowing city.

Maggie landed on the rooftop behind him. She didn't bother to keep her footsteps light, because she knew that he had sensed her coming from hundreds of feet off. Her right wing whirred when she flew, still missing a piece from the Triskelion battle, but it held her steady.

The Winter Soldier turned to face her when she touched down. He took in her burning red eyes and flared metal wings; they seemed alive with fire reflected from the lights below. A succession of fireworks whistled into the air in the distance.

Maggie stared back at the Winter Soldier. He'd long since lost his black tactical uniform; he wore dark trousers, dusty boots, and a beat-up looking brown jacket, with his long, shaggy hair tucked behind his ears. He had a large, imposing build, but… Maggie realized she was almost his height now. In her memory he towered over her. A thin beard clung to his jaw, and his face was lined. His eyes were… they weren't blank.

Maggie stopped breathing when she met those grey-blue eyes for the first time in twenty three years. She could see it now: the resemblance to the man in the drawing. Steve's words drifted to the front of her mind: There's hope for him - he recognized me. She flicked her head as if to swat the words away.

The Winter Soldier stared back at her, taking in her appearance. His hands were shoved into his pockets. A parade of jingling dancers passed down the street below, and red light flowed over their rooftop.

"You're one of them," the Winter Soldier croaked out. It sounded like he hadn't spoken in a while. "The Avengers."

Maggie stared back at him.

Her silence made his jaw clench. "Tell Steve… tell him I'm not safe. He should forget me."

For another beat she was silent. And then she drew a breath. "I'm not here for Steve."

He frowned.

Maggie reached up with one clawed glove to pull off her goggles. She tossed them aside, then met his roiling grey-blue eyes with her own burning, dark ones. And in some delayed reaction to finally seeing him, her fury and grief welled up inside of her. It plunged into her gut like a red-hot poker and then burned upward. The drumbeats pounding across the city thudded against her chest, pushing against that burning heat. Nothing had ever overwhelmed her like this before, and it took her breath away.

The Soldier saw the wildfire in her eyes, and he took a step back. His own eyes widened. Maggie didn't say anything. She didn't have to, because she had seen the recognition flare in his face. Impossible, for him to recognize her after all these years. But he had, and she saw it. She understood it, too: this fury was a moment captured in time, a burning flame that had not ebbed since 1991. Of course he recognized it.

"You…" he gaped, his face so much more alive than it had been in the Triskelion footage that she had pieced together. His hands fell out of his pockets, and the metal burned scarlet in the light. "I…" he couldn't articulate his thoughts but she saw, she saw that he remembered her.

Maggie's chest heaved. "Do you remember my promise," she growled out.

The turmoil in his eyes crystallized. She swore she could almost see her own reflection in them: five years old and furious.

You're my mission now.

He swallowed. "Yes." For a long moment emotion flickered across his face, almost too fast for her to pick out: grief, definitely. Fear, but not of her. Sorrow? Guilt? She told herself that she didn't see those.

The Winter Soldier took a heavy breath. "Your name is Margaret," he whispered. "I killed your parents."

She lunged.

The minute Maggie sprang forward to attack, she saw something shift in the Winter Soldier. The light in his eyes extinguished, leaving them ice-cold and blank, and his body went rigid.

He moved faster than a heartbeat, his right hand swiping up to block her slashing claws and then swinging down with the metal arm, a flash of silver in the night air. Maggie ducked, and then they were fighting. Hands and elbows and knees flew, a flurry of metal and bones cracking and slicing through the air.

The Soldier didn't fight like a man, he fought like a machine: no emotion, no thought, just attack. As a crowd of singers paraded down the street below the Soldier threw a devastating punch with the metal arm that Maggie dodged by a hair's width, feeling the displaced air brush her skin, and then he was striking: short sharp blows with both fists that she could barely keep up with, an elbow strike that clipped her shoulder and then a spinning kick that she had to fall flat on her back to avoid. But she rolled up right away, snapping out with her wing and knocking his knee inward - he didn't even grunt in pain, just adjusted his balance and then slammed the metal fist down. She sidestepped, and the fist put a hole through the roof. His slate eyes met hers and firecrackers exploded in the distance.

He didn't slow. He ripped his fist free of the roof and then launched forward with a knee to her chest, making her gasp, and then they were grappling, he trying to pin her in his much-stronger grip and she trying to twist his arm behind him. She knew she was no match for the metal arm and couldn't pit her strength against his so she went for the angles, twisting and weaving and using his still-human body against him. But he seemed to anticipate her every move. He moved like lightning, snapping from one form to another like he didn't need to think. When he snagged her wing and threw her into a spin, following up with a kick to the stomach that sent her flying across the rooftop, Maggie realized that he was the hardest opponent she had ever fought.

She turned her momentum into a roll until she could gather herself into a skidding crouch at the other end of the rooftop, like a runner at the start of a race. Drums pounded like thunder. Maggie looked up. The Soldier stood with his arms loose by his sides, watching her. He was a statue, a being of ice and violence.

I've trained my whole life for this.

When another firework exploded in the sky Maggie flicked up her wrist blasters and fired, making the Soldier wince and step back, his arms rising. She lunged forward and clawed at him; one hand a shrieking peal against his metal arm, the other catching his chest and opening up three long gouges. She beat him with her wings - once, twice - and he staggered back. But when Maggie pressed her advantage he feinted for her ribs, then grabbed at her right wing with the metal hand. His fingers shredded right through the webbed membrane, making her cry out at the sensation. She kicked him over the head to get away and he tore off a chunk of her wing as she went.

He spun, punching high and kicking low, and Maggie took the painful kick to her thigh so she could dig both claws into his right arm. She sliced through the sleeve and gouged into the flesh below, finding blood, but he didn't make a sound. She used the grip to leap up in a move Nat taught her: as he tried to grab for her she cinched one leg over his left shoulder and the other knee up under the arm she'd got a hold of. She twisted, roaring, and felt his joint pop at the same time as he let out a bitten-off scream. The sound made her feel like one of the fireworks exploding across the sky. Someone on one of the streets below let out a raucous laugh.

The Soldier seized the front of her uniform and threw her off him, but she skidded back up to her feet, sending sparks dashing across the rooftop as her winged barbs scraped along the tiles. She pushed off her back foot and launched back at the Soldier as he spun toward her, his dark hair whirling. He swung and she ducked the punch, but he turned the move into a backwards spin, throwing his elbow at her. She tried to duck but the blow cracked against her head, making her vision flash black for a second.

She didn't waste the opportunity: with his back to her she cinched her arms around his waist, dropped her knees and used the momentum of his second elbow swing to launch up and slam him backwards in a suplex. They came crashing down to the rooftiles, and Maggie heard his back hit the tiles with a crack, but when she moved to pin him he simply rolled away.

She let out a breath that sounded like a hiss and lurched after him. She threw herself forward as he was still rising to his knees - he blocked her heelspur with a sideswipe, then grabbed her wrist in his metal hand.

Maggie heard the bones in her wrist snap in his grip a second before the pain hit. She didn't scream, but her mouth filled with the metal taste of blood and just for a second, she faltered. The Soldier hooked her leg with his and she crashed to the ground.

Then in another lightning-fast move she didn't see, the Soldier was on top of her, his knee in her stomach and his metal hand around her throat. And she was choking.

In the moment her windpipe squeezed shut, Maggie wasn't scared, but angry. She exploded underneath the Soldier, slashing and beating at him with her wings and ripping with her claws, opening up tears in his clothes and his skin. Her wrist was a lightning rod of pain. The metal arm whirred as it pushed down on her throat, the metal fingers cinching in against her muscles and bones. She could feel her face going red. Maggie's vision crackled like an old TV screen dying out, but she could see clearly into those cold, blank eyes that just stared as he strangled her. She glared back up at him with all the rage and hatred she felt.

She reared her leg up, ready to heel spur him in the gut and get free, when suddenly -

His pupils dilated. His grip faltered.

Another savage blow from her left wing beat him off her and Maggie heaved upward, choking and coughing but breathing. The oxygen flooding to her brain felt like another exploding firework.

The Soldier tumbled away and rose to his knees, his eyes darting. His hands fell open in his lap.

Gone was the weapon who shot at her in Singapore. Gone was the ruthless machine from the D.C. footage. This man didn't lift a finger, flesh or metal. He was on his knees, staring at Maggie as she sprawled on the ground. His shoulders dropped.

Maggie surged up and launched herself at him. Her fist slammed into his face and his head cracked back, but his arms did not rise to defend himself. She beat him, armored gloves raining down on his head, his shoulders. She threw him to the ground like he had to her and his head cracked a rooftile. She fell with him, knees on his chest and one boot stomping down on top of the metal arm, and then she set her claws to his throat. Her teeth were bared and her eyes wild. Her wings flared wide to either side of her, barbs ready to plunge downward.

Her rage consumed her from within, burning bright and addictive and glorious, so bright she imagined herself as a burning pyre in the dark sky. The Soldier just looked up at her, and she saw in his eyes that he was ready for death.

I deserve it.

He didn't say the words, but she heard them as clear as if he'd shouted them as she glared into his grey-blue eyes. He lay with his arms loose to either side and his dark hair sprawled out on the tiles around his face like a halo, so black in the darkness that it reminded her of blood.

The city blazed red.

The Wyvern was frozen above him, and he did not move. Did not even try to defend himself, though she was not sure that even after years of training that she'd be able to win this fight. Her sharp metal claws were already in his throat, she realized, and hot blood trickled from each shallow puncture. She could feel his breath in her grasp, rising and falling. All she needed to do was clench her fist and rip, tearing at his breath and his voice and his life. It was in her hands. He had given it to her.

She felt the warmth of his blood on her fingertips as it seeped through her gloves. But she had not taken her eyes off his ever since she'd put her claws to his throat. Her breath came faster than his, scorching her lungs. Her mind was on fire.

"You," she breathed, flexing her fingers, "are my mission."

The Soldier did not close his eyes.

She ended it quickly.

Reviews

The1975Love: Your wish is my command! I'm glad you felt all of Maggie's rage and frustration last chapter, I can't wait to hear what you think of this chapter!

DBZFAN45: Haha I'm glad you liked the rollercoaster of last chapter! And I'm glad you liked Maggie finally meeting and flying with Sam, they're sky buddies. As for Winter Soldier & Wyvern interactions… hopefully this chapter made up for it? And you were right about Maggie and Steve having a big talk. Have a lovely week!

Guest: See, these are the reviews I live for! Thanks for the laugh and the Office meme, I hope this chapter inspired similar feelings ;)

Guest: You're not alone in the 'Maggie should've let Steve die' team lmao, y'all really had it out for him last chapter.

Morgzw: So close yet so far… until this chapter ;) Can't wait to see what you think this time around!

Aqua: I need to tell you that your reviews always give me the warm and fuzzies, so thank you so much for that! I'm so glad you liked the last chapter and that it had you on the edge of your seat :) I love you picked out that detail about Maggie asking questions without a question mark haha, it's a sign of full Wyvern mode. And you're absolutely right - Maggie hesitated! She had to make a tough choice between her mission and her friend, between being the Wyvern and being Maggie. And I explored that more in this chapter, as you'll have seen ;) Hope you had a lovely week and I cannot wait to hear what you think of this chapter!