Maggie sat in the pilot's seat of the Quinjet, watching dawn creep up over the horizon.
Her body ached, but it hardly seemed to matter. She'd already bandaged her wrist, checked her ribs for signs of fractures, checked her vitals, and put plasters over each cut and slice. Her neck was swollen black and blue, and blood vessels had broken across her face, leaving her with red splotches on her skin and bloodshot eyes.
She had programmed the Quinjet's coordinates mechanically, so she didn't need to do much more than keep an eye on the flight readouts. Her gloves were stiff with blood.
Slowly, she looked over her shoulder.
The Soldier was on the floor, arms outstretched and his eyes closed. The sight of him sparked a crushing feeling inside Maggie's chest, as if her ribs were about to concave.
She still felt trapped in that moment on the rooftop.
You are my mission.
She had ended it quickly.
As she loomed over him, Maggie's broken left hand had darted over the Soldier's helpless face and flared with scarlet light. In the next moment his body loosened, his head lolling back and his eyes closed. The energy blast had knocked him out.
Maggie had tipped sideways, falling off his prone body with a shuddering gasp. She shook from her head to her toes, and when she reached out her arms to steady herself they trembled like skyscrapers in an earthquake. She rolled onto her back when she could not hold herself up.
For a few moments she just slumped there on the darkened rooftop, gasping and crying and choking on her breath. Lying beside the Winter Soldier. Her blood roared in her ears. The sky pulsed with flashes from distant fireworks.
When she could breathe without feeling like her windpipe was about to collapse, she looked back at the Soldier. His metal arm gleamed at her. His blood was smeared on the roof tiles.
She stared at him for a long few moments, trying to understand the choice she had just made - or rather, not made. The choice she had been working for her whole life. The choice she thought she had made when she was just five years old. Was it a lie, even then?
She felt like her chest might implode, or maybe her heart, so instead she pushed away the thoughts. She allowed herself only practicalities: the white-hot pain in her wrist. The city of dancing, singing people around her. The body on the rooftop.
Maggie Stark got to her feet.
Her wings had held her steady as Maggie dragged the Soldier off the rooftop and flew with him back to her stolen Quinjet. She raided the Quinjet's medical supplies and found the sedatives - enough, she calculated. She secured the Soldier to the Quinjet floor with clamps meant for securing aircraft, then loaded him up with enough sedatives to keep an elephant down.
She took off, guiding the Quinjet up and away from glowing, vibrant Cusco, then set the coordinates for the autopilot.
She didn't want to go near the Soldier again, but she had more work to do.
It took her less than five minutes to figure out how to open up the arm. The metal plates whirred and slid apart to reveal the inner mechanisms. She ran an engineer's eye over it, noting power flows and jointry and… that shouldn't be there.
Two minutes later, Maggie had taken out a small tracking chip, and some kind of kill switch that was hooked up to some serious voltage. Five minutes after that, she'd figured out how to disable the arm completely. She didn't even have to break anything: the arm's design came with a few disabling switches. It was difficult to do the work one-handed, due to her broken wrist, but she made do.
Then she had retreated to the cockpit, and began taking care of herself.
Now the Quinjet whisked over the vast, dark ocean as pale dawn light filtered across the sky. Maggie tore her eyes away from the Soldier's prone figure and stared out the cockpit window. She couldn't escape that endless moment on the Cusco rooftop, though.
You are my mission.
Then a flare of red light.
She blinked, wincing, and forced herself to breathe deep and steady as she watched the oncoming horizon.
16 February, 2014
Outskirts of New York City
J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice over the comms as the Quinjet entered New York airspace was a strange, jolting reminder of home.
"Unidentified Quinjet, identify yourself or prepare for hostile action."
"It's me, J.A.R.V.I.S.," Maggie said, surprised at the wrecked quality to her voice. Her uninjured hand was steady on the Quinjet controls.
"Ms Stark," he responded swiftly in a lighter voice. "Hostile action belayed. May I say what a pleasure it is to have you back. How may I be of assistance?"
"Is the Tower landing pad free, J?" she asked tiredly. It was a cloudy day over New York but the city still looked beautiful; the arcing towers of the city ringed by the grey river.
"Indeed it is, Ms Stark."
Maggie began programming her landing sequence. "Can you… can you please not tell Tony I'm back just yet?"
"Certainly."
She squeezed her eyes shut. "You already told him, didn't you?"
"I'm afraid so." He paused. "Welcome home, Ms Stark."
For some reason, the sight of Avengers Tower made Maggie's eyes prickle with the urge to cry. Grey sunlight gleamed off the Tower's sleek glass and metal surfaces and the large blue A glowed like a homing beacon. Maggie went through the landing procedures mechanically as the Quinjet descended toward the jutting flight deck. She hesitated only once, when she saw a single figure waiting on deck, just out of the way of the landing pad. She let out a long breath, and then brought the Quinjet down the final few feet.
When the wheels touched down, the Tower landing pad deployed clamps to secure the Quinjet to the ground. Feeling the mechanical grind beneath her feet, Maggie uncurled her hand from the controls. She looked over her shoulder.
She'd given the Soldier another hit of the sedatives, so he still lay unconscious and clamped to the floor. He looked dead, except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. She avoided looking at his face.
Maggie heaved herself out of the pilot's seat, wincing at the aches and bruises across her body, then skirted the Soldier and headed for the back of the Quinjet. She hit the control for the loading ramp.
Tony's eyes shot wide when the loading ramp lowered to reveal Maggie. She limped down before he could rush up, and when the ramp touched down he met her at the foot of it, his arms wide and his face drawn. He looked so normal. "Maggie, where have you been?" his voice was high. "Steve said-"
"Don't," Maggie croaked, exhausted, and did not close the distance between them to fall into Tony's open arms. She didn't want to know what Steve had said. Wind whistled over the flight deck.
Tony stilled, and took in her appearance more closely. Maggie knew how she must look: a bruised and bloodied hunter in a burned and tattered uniform, with bloodshot eyes and contusions on every exposed part of her. He reached out, but then hesitated. He cocked his head at her. "You…"
"I got him," she breathed.
Tony's eyes flooded with feeling. "You… got him?"
Maggie realized what Tony thought she had done, so she shook her head and pointed back at the Quinjet. "I got him."
His eyes widened. "Here?" He leaned sideways to get a better look into the Quinjet, and when he saw the prone figure on the ground his jaw slackened.
She shrugged helplessly. "Where else was I supposed to take him?"
His mouth opened and closed. "Maggie, I…"
"I've got a plan." It wasn't much of a plan. More of a bandaid. But still. "And I need your help."
Two hours later, Maggie sat on one of the long, low burgundy couches in the Tower common room. She wore sweatpants and a t-shirt and had been bandaged and stitched and plastered by the Tower medical facility. Her left hand was immobilised in a wrist brace, but she cradled a cup of green tea (courtesy of Bruce) with her right. It had been a busy two hours, but she'd still barely spoken. Her voice was cracked and painful.
Tony stood at the end of the couch, the phone pressed to his ear as it rang. He had one eye on Maggie, as he had ever since she'd arrived. He'd offered to call Steve for her. Maggie stared out at the far window, which looked out over toward the Hudson.
Tony's call connected. "Steve, it's me. Yeah - yeah, that's great, glad you found a lead… listen. Maggie's just come back."
There was a long pause as Tony listened to whatever was happening on the other side of the line. Bruce padded back into the common room, saw Tony on the phone, and walked out again with a quick glance to check Maggie was still okay. Maggie was almost glad that Pepper was away on business. The less people around to witness her like this, the better.
Tony drew a long breath. "Yeah, she did. He's here."
Maggie pressed her eyes shut.
He's here.
During the Tower rebuild, Maggie and Tony had had the foresight to build a detention level. It was just a few floors down, with a series of purpose-built containment units designed to various different specifications. One of the rooms was even theoretically Hulk-proof, since Bruce had demanded it.
It had taken Maggie, Tony, and the whole medical team to get the Winter Soldier into one of the containment cells. Tony had wanted to call the police, but Maggie had reasoned that the police did not have the resources to hold a supersoldier - but they did. The medical team had looked the Soldier over, treated his injuries (Maggie saw Tony notice the claw-marks in the Soldier's neck, but he said nothing), and then they'd locked the door. Tony had posted J.A.R.V.I.S. to monitor the containment cell's observation feeds and report any changes.
He's here.
Tony rubbed his temple. "He's alive."
Maggie forced herself to breathe steadily.
"Yes, he's - of course you're coming back, Steve, I didn't exactly think you were going to keep hanging around in D.C. Yes - yes, he's in a containment cell right now. He's stable, but hasn't woken up yet. And listen, before you come in here guns blazing, I don't think you should visit him just yet."
There was another pause.
"The guy is dangerous, Steve, you said he nearly killed you, and you should see what he did to-" Tony cut himself off and drew a breath. Maggie pointedly kept staring out the window, but she could feel his eyes on her. "You're going to wait until we assess his threat level before you burst in there and do more damage. I'm serious. If you don't think you can do that, I'll lock you out of the Tower."
She looked up at Tony, and he shot her a grimace. He'd been attuned to her mood ever since she arrived. He hadn't made a single joke yet. He hadn't asked many questions, either.
"Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we'll talk when you get back. Bring Wilson, he seems to bring out some sanity in you." Tony paused again, and his jaw tightened. "You can ask her yourself."
After a quick goodbye, Tony hung up and put his phone in his jeans pocket.
He looked down at Maggie. "You have so much explaining to do."
She pressed her palm tighter against her mug of green tea. "I know," she croaked. "I - we need to talk, I have-"
He held up a hand and sat beside her, making the couch dip. "Listen to yourself, Maggot, you're in no state right now. I just meant eventually." He wrapped one arm over her shoulders, gingerly, and Maggie fought not to shudder. She curled in on herself, over her mug and into Tony's sturdy chest. "You look like you've been through the wars."
She nodded silently. She felt strangely detached from herself.
"We'll talk. But first, you need to get some rest. I'll handle everything with Barnes-"
"Don't go near him," Maggie cut in, her voice hard. It had made her skin crawl to have the Soldier so close to Tony when they were carrying him down to the containment unit, she didn't want it to happen again.
Tony stilled. She couldn't see his face. "Trust me, I won't. I saw the Triskelion footage, I know what we're dealing with. We've got the security protocol for the detention level, I'll get J.A.R.V.I.S. to update it."
Her jaw worked. Steve really didn't tell him.
Tony continued: "He's not about to die, and he can't get out. So we'll… we'll figure out the rest in time. Rest."
He walked her up to her room, which looked untouched after the three months she'd been away. Tony watched her crawl into bed, then turned to leave. He paused at the door and looked back.
"I love you, Mags," he said, with the slightest frown playing at his brows.
Maggie poked her chin over the covers of her bed. "Love you too," she whispered.
Tony shut the door.
For what could have been hours, Maggie stared at the ceiling of her room. Faint light washed across the white surface, glowing through her blinds. She was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep. Maybe never again.
But her body had hit its limits. And impossibly, despite the turmoil of ash and broken things in her mind, Maggie fell asleep.
"Is she okay?"
Tony looked up at the sound of Bruce's voice. He'd returned to the bar in the common room, and Bruce had apparently decided that the coast was clear enough to return. Tony didn't blame him - the Tower wasn't exactly a stress-free environment right now.
Tony pulled out ingredients for a smoothie and sighed. "Hard to say."
Seeing Maggie walk out of that Quinjet had shaved a few years off his life. She looked like she'd had the shit beaten out of her - bruises and scrapes all over her, a blackened and swollen throat, a visible limp, and the way she'd held her left wrist close to herself. Her voice was broken and scratchy. She'd radiated fragility, so even though he wanted to scoop her up in a hug, he'd held back.
But she'd won. This mad mission she'd set herself to hunt down the HYDRA assassin: she'd done it. Barnes certainly hadn't come out of the fight well. Tony had been mostly busy with trying to get the guy into a containment cell before he woke up, but his appearance was startling: his face was bloodied and swollen, though already healing, with slash marks through his clothes and skin. The medics had had to relocate his shoulder joint. The other arm, the metal one, Maggie said had been deactivated. And the incisions in his neck… he and Maggie had literally gone for each other's throats.
Tony had never known Maggie to fight like that before. But he supposed it had been a tough opponent.
And that wasn't even counting the strange way she'd been acting. It all reminded him a little bit of back before he knew about the Wyvern: the way Maggie wouldn't meet his eye, the injuries, the long absence with no contact. He didn't know why she'd gone off the grid for this, especially after all their agreements to be on each other's teams. He'd been growing steadily more furious with her as the weeks went on, right up until the moment she'd stepped out of that Quinjet.
He got the sense that Maggie and Steve had had a fight. And she'd always been more involved with SHIELD than he had. Maybe she'd taken the news about HYDRA hard.
Bruce came into the bar area and set the kettle to boil. "Steve and Wilson are on their way back?"
"Yep. Probably be another couple of hours."
"And is… uh, is Barnes going to be okay?"
Tony ran a hand over his face. He didn't know why Bruce thought he had any answers. "He'll live."
Steve had told him a bit about Barnes, how he'd somehow ended up in HYDRA's control and been involved in the events at the Triskelion. How he'd saved Steve's life and then run away.
So now he had a hundred year old brainwashed supersoldier in his containment unit, a beat up and close-mouthed sister, and a gaping chasm in the world's defense network where SHIELD used to be.
He tipped his head back. "J.A.R.V.I.S., will you set up a regular food delivery system for Barnes, and draft an updated security protocol for the detention level? Also see if anyone on the med team has a neuroscience speciality. I get the feeling we're going to need it."
"Certainly, sir. And a change of clothes?"
"May as well."
James Buchanan Barnes opened his eyes.
He woke with a violent start, jerking upward and leaping to his feet, trying to gain his bearings - but he stumbled at the dead weight of his arm and ended up on one knee, his chest heaving. His eyes darted to take in his surroundings.
The room was a pale grey. No windows. Though one wall had a shinier surface than the others, which he suspected meant it was two-way glass. There were two cameras in opposite corners of the room. He had just rolled off a single bed with no sheets on it, just a plasticky-looking mattress. He put his flesh hand on the mattress to steady himself.
There was another room adjoining this one, with no door: a bathroom. Nothing else. No furniture. The only door was just a rectangle in the wall, with no handle, and it looked heavy-duty. Armored, probably.
At the foot of the door sat a small pile of folded clothes and a rubber tray with a sandwich and a plastic glass of water on it.
The man named Bucky fought to catch control of his breathing. A prison.
His heartbeat pounded. He didn't understand. He had not expected to wake up. He didn't know what to do with this.
He remembered the woman. The fight.
He'd been aware of her hunting him for weeks. But each time he thought he'd shaken her off his trail, she somehow popped back up again. So when he'd noticed the figure flying through the sky toward him in Cusco, he'd decided to finally stand and face her. If she was HYDRA, he'd fight his way free. If she wasn't… then he'd deal with that.
And then she'd taken off those goggles and he had known her.
The memories came more frequently the longer he was out of the machine. He'd been remembering more and more ever since the Triskelion. More about himself, and more about… the Soldier. The sudden memories haunted him like ghosts as he ran.
Looking into the woman's eyes had brought him back to another night, another place. A burning car and a tear-streaked, wheezing little girl on her knees in the road, held up only by his unrelenting metal grip on her arm.
Why are you doing this?
You are my mission.
He'd dropped her. And then he'd watched the fear and tears burn away, watched that child push herself up and look him in the eyes with an expression that cut through years and programming and ice. Her dark eyes had burned as if he could see right through them to the heart of her rage.
She looked different on the rooftop in Cusco. Older, taller, wearing a set of metal wings and a dark uniform that reminded him of a flight suit. A stark white scar stretched across her cheek. But her eyes still burned as they had so many years before.
It had knocked him back a step. Because he had known her. He knew he'd hurt her and killed her parents. He remembered her name from the mission file. And he knew that she had come to kill him.
Kneeling in a prison cell, Bucky - as he tentatively called himself - touched his fingers to his throat, feeling the sharp cuts in his skin.
She'd attacked him, and… his memory was a little hazy after that. He remembered the rigid feel of his programming, thinking: Comply. Defend. Fighting came easy to the Soldier.
But then he'd had his hand to her throat and something about her furious, hateful resistance had broken through. Malfunction.
And the man - the man named Bucky - he had returned. Ready to die.
Bucky slowly pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the single bed, his gaze downcast. So why am I not dead?
The metal arm hung useless by his side, numb, but his wounds had been bandaged. He could smell the sharp sting of antiseptic. He closed his eyes, then winced at the flash of remembered lightning.
In some ways, this cell was a relief. Running had been confusing, and painful, and sometimes the Soldier slipped back over his mind and he would rouse hours later and miles away, on his way toward some HYDRA base. Remembering was almost worse than the running.
In this cell, at least, the burden of choice had been taken away. He didn't have to worry about where to go next. But that also made his skin prickle and his hackles rise. This new person he was becoming… he didn't want a cage. He hated the cage.
Bucky stared at his hand in his lap. He supposed it depended on who the cage belonged to.
Maggie opened her eyes.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"Good afternoon, Ms Stark. It is still the 16th of February, and the time is 2:13 PM. The prisoner remains in his cell, and security protocols have been updated and secured."
She reached up and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. "Is he…" she swallowed the question. She didn't want to think about it. She eased out of bed, wincing, then got slowly changed into a hoodie and sweatpants. Her whole body ached. It took her far longer than usual to pad out of her room and make her way downstairs to the common room.
As she descended the stairs, she heard raised voices and her hackles rose.
"... honestly, I'm this close to just calling the actual police and being done with it!" came Tony's voice.
"It's not his fault, Tony."
The stairs turned a corner, and Maggie found herself on one of the upper levels looking down at the common room. One of the big holoscreens was up, projecting live footage from the detention level. She froze.
He was awake. He sat on the edge of his single bed, his head bowed and his face concealed by his long hair. He looked like a statue, save for the slight rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed.
Looking at him, Maggie thought you are my mission with such vehemence that it took her aback. Was the mission not over?
"Maggie," someone said in a soft voice.
She looked down. Tony, looking frustrated, stood by the screen opposite Steve and Wilson, all of them looking up at her. A set of bags sat by their feet as if they'd just got in, one of them a large circular canvas one that must have held the shield.
Maggie met Steve's eyes. He had completely healed from the Triskelion battle. He held his shoulders straight and his chin high in that look of righteous indignation that she was normally used to seeing in the moments before a battle. Wilson seemed a little more hesitant, his eyes darting around the large, gleaming common room and its inhabitants.
Steve looked up at Maggie, and she saw the moment he spotted the dark purple ring of swollen bruises around her neck. His shoulders dropped and his determined expression shattered.
Maggie turned her gaze to Tony, who had his arms folded across his chest. "I'll meet you in the garage."
He frowned. "Why, we going somewhere?"
She nodded.
"O… kay," he said. He glanced from Maggie, to Steve, then back again. "You'll be okay?"
She nodded again. With a twist to his mouth and a significant look at Steve, Tony strode out. The doors swished shut behind him.
Maggie padded down the last staircase to the main level of the common room. Steve and Wilson watched her tentative progress, noting her tight grip on the railing and the limp in her right leg.
When she reached the foot of the stairs, Steve appeared to regain his tongue.
"You didn't kill him," he breathed. He looked wrung out, his chest rising and falling too fast and an almost desperate look in his eyes. He glanced at the detention level footage.
"No," Maggie said. She passed Steve and Wilson, angling toward the door Tony had just walked through.
"Why-"
She rounded on him and spat: "You don't get to ask me that."
Steve's eyes widened and Wilson took a step back.
"I invited you here as a courtesy. You can stay, but you play by our rules. J.A.R.V.I.S. will tell you the security protocols, but rule number one is don't go in that cell." She took a step toward him. "If I hear that you've tried to break him out of here, or to speak to him without checking first…" her eyes sparked and Steve's brows drew together. "Our friendship is over. And that might not stop you, but I want you to know that I'd find you." Another step toward him. Wilson stared from behind Steve, and Steve looked at her like he'd never seen her before. "You know I would," she hissed.
Maggie held Steve's gaze for another long moment, to make sure he understood, and then she stormed away, still limping. She let the door slide shut behind her and made her way to the garage.
Back in the common room, Steve and Sam were left in a ringing silence. On the holoscreen, Barnes remained as still and silent as a statue.
Sam blew out a breath and glanced around. He and Steve had been in and out of the Tower a few times in the last month, and it never failed to impress him. He'd even got on alright with Tony Stark, who always seemed to be ready with a nickname and a quip. But the return of the younger Stark seemed to have cast a heavy, dark pall over the place.
"Steve, man…" Sam glanced at the door both Starks had walked out of. "I know whatever's going on here is probably not my business, but… I'm here to help. And this" - he gestured to the footage of Barnes's downcast figure - "looks pretty dire to me. It looks like they tried to kill each other. And she is… I know people are usually different from how they seem on TV, but something ain't right with Maggie Stark."
"I know." Steve murmured. "It's not... it's not her fault." He moved to a nearby couch and sat down heavily. Sam could see that Ms Stark's words were sitting heavy on his shoulders. Our friendship is over.
Sam sat beside him. "You didn't tell her about Barnes, during the Helicarrier battle," he said in a gentler voice. "She could've backed you up in that targeting bay, but you lied to her."
There was a long silence. Steve stared down at his hands in his lap.
Sam let out a long breath, still watching the holoscreen footage. "What did he do?"
Steve closed his eyes. "I didn't know for sure. Not until she told me." He opened his eyes, taking in the image of his oldest friend on the screen. Sam could tell it was costing him a lot not to run down there right now. His fingers flexed and he turned to Sam. "You deserve to know."
"What are we doing here?" Tony asked, when Maggie instructed him to pull the car into the driveway of the old Stark mansion uptown. The tires rolled over the paved driveway, and the beautiful old sandstone walls draped with ivy loomed up before them. The winter sky above threatened snow.
The sight of the house made Maggie's heart pang. "I need to tell you something, and I just… I think it's better to do it here," she said tiredly.
"Is this about Steve?" Tony asked as he pulled up out front and turned off the engine. "I don't know what happened with you guys, but listen - whatever it is, I'm on your side of it."
Maggie offered him a thin smile, then let herself out of the car. Tony climbed out of his side, then followed her inside. The oak door swung open, and the two of them paused just inside the foyer. Tony slid his sunglasses off and looked around.
The empty space echoed with memories. A thin layer of dust clung to the marble floor and the ornately carved wooden banisters, and Maggie felt a small piece of herself slot into place. She knew that Tony's name was carved into the back of one of the banisters in the staircase, a secret they had kept between themselves for years. Light shone through the windows, illuminating the wealth they had grown up with. A family photograph hung on the far wall of the foyer: Mom holding a swaddled baby Maggie with Dad's arm around her shoulders, and a teenaged Tony standing off to the side.
Tony set his hand against the doorjamb and Maggie knew he was thinking of them: their parents, but also the Jarvises.
Maggie was pretty sure the last time the two of them had been in this house together, she'd been about six and Tony about twenty two. And now here they stood, adults, one in sweatpants and a hoodie, and the other in jeans and a band t-shirt.
"All the rooms'll be closed off," Tony murmured. "The cleaning company comes once a month, but they've put plastic over everything."
"Yeah," Maggie sighed. Their voices echoed in the foyer, like they were in a museum. "Let's just… here."
She waved Tony toward the staircase, and took a seat on the third step up. She eased her prosthetic leg against the stairs, her right knee still tender, and avoided jostling her left hand in the wrist brace. Tony sat beside her, bemused. But then he looked into her face and the bemusement turned to wariness.
"Mags," he said. "What's wrong?"
She couldn't look at him just yet. So instead she took his hand between both of hers and looked at it. He had an engineer's hand, with callouses and burn marks and scars. Like their dad's hands.
Her heart thudded in her chest. This isn't how I pictured it. After twenty three years of keeping her rage bottled up in her chest, now that it had been cracked open, she still wasn't sure how to open up. For some reason, when she pictured this moment, it had always come easily. Like a victory.
But there'd been no victory yesterday.
I promised myself, she thought forcefully.
"Tony," she said in that small, tired voice. She didn't know if she had the energy for this. She finally looked up into this face. His eyes were pinched with concern. "I need to be honest with you."
He shifted, but did not speak, his attention fixed on her. She could see his thoughts whirling.
"When you first found out about the Wyvern," she murmured, "I told you then that I'd still be keeping some secrets. I've tried not to lie, but I have kept things from you. And I have… just one more secret left." His eyebrows furrowed, and his fingers curled around her uninjured hand. "I've almost told you so many times, but I… I knew I needed to wait. For this moment. I didn't want to burden you."
She squeezed her eyes shut. How could she just say this?
"Maggot," he said softly.
She opened her eyes, meeting his, and drew a deep breath into her shaking chest. "Do you remember… do you remember what I said, when I woke up after the car crash?"
Tony frowned, clearly not expecting this turn in the conversation. She saw his mind turning back through the years, the furrow in his brow growing deeper. He'd clearly repressed that day just as much as she had. He cocked his head. "You… you were distraught, Mags, I…"
She fixed him with her gaze. "Do you remember what I said."
His gaze left hers as he thought back. Trauma made memory misty and hard to grasp, she knew that, but surely…
Tony stilled. Something like dawning horror began to wash over his face. "You said there was a man," he said softly. His eyes darted, burning bright, and his hand tightened on hers.
Maggie realized that Tony had done his very best not to think of that time, ever. He'd pressed it down until the memory became grey and intangible, like she had with the Soldier's face.
"A dark man… with a metal arm." Tony's eyes widened and flooded with a gleaming darkness, threatening tears. His mouth dropped, he pulled his hand out of hers and looked into her face. "Maggie, you-"
"I understand why you didn't believe me then," she said softly, calmly. "I forgave you for it ages ago. But I need to share this with you now. My last secret."
Tony's fists clenched on his knees and he swallowed, his eyes wild. He couldn't seem to fix on one thing.
"The Winter Soldier - Bucky Barnes," she said clearly, "killed our parents."
His face went terribly, terribly still, his eyes fixed and burning. His jaw clenched tight and his head tilted back. He wasn't breathing.
"But… no," he said in a low, deceptively even voice. "It was a car accident." He looked to her almost pleadingly.
She slowly shook her head.
Tony's head dropped into his hands and he clutched at his hair.
Maggie sat beside him, and let him process it. She wasn't sure she could have moved even if she wanted to. Inside the mansion, the sounds of the city were muted. Maggie heard only the echoey, slightly muted sounds of their breaths - hers soft, and Tony's heaving and loud. Maggie didn't close her eyes, because she was afraid of what she'd see.
When Tony finally looked up a minute later, his eyes were shot red and gleaming. His whole body shook like a machine bolted too tightly together coming apart at the seams. She'd never seen him look so torn apart; not even when he'd come back from Afghanistan, not even when he'd thought Pepper was dead.
"I can't prove it to you," she whispered to him. "It's just my word."
He jerked his head once, as if to dismiss the idea that he might disbelieve her, and his jaw clenched tight as he fought for control. "Maggie, I didn't… I told you you were seeing things."
She pressed her lips together. "I was five," she whispered. "My memory of the crash isn't perfect, so I understand the doubt. It was a wild story."
"But it wasn't a story," he croaked. "You said - you said… oh god, you said he choked mom-"
"He did," Maggie said calmly again. She felt unable to cry, as if the source of her tears had dried up. "I won't tell you the details unless you ask, Tony, but I needed to tell you the truth. My whole life…" she looked away finally. "My whole life I have had that image of the metal armed soldier killing them, and dragging me by the arm on that road." Tony flinched. "When I started to become the Wyvern… it was because of him. I wanted to find him. I wanted to kill him."
Tony's fists clenched and his head suddenly snapped aside, in the direction of the Tower, his teeth bared. Maggie reached out to lay her hand over his fist.
"I know this is new for you," she said hollowly, "but don't act on whatever you're thinking right now. What you feel and what you want to do are… completely understandable. I've been living like that for twenty three years. But when it came down to it, when I had my claws to his throat…" her fingers flexed. "I made a different call. I couldn't do it."
"Why," Tony gritted out. His whole body was tensed up like he'd been electrocuted. "Because it wasn't his fault?" He echoed Steve's words from earlier.
"Yes," she said bluntly. "Don't get me wrong, he… when I look at him I feel terrified, and furious, and murderous. I can't look at his hands without thinking of… of…" her voice cracked, and Tony met her eyes looking utterly wrecked. "But I've seen the difference. The Winter Soldier, and… whoever he really is. Bucky Barnes. And I didn't spare him for Steve's sake, and I didn't even really do it for me. I spared him because Barnes is… maybe not the same man he used to be. But he's not the man who killed mom and dad." She'd seen it in his eyes. And it had ruined everything.
Tony was still shaking.
"I don't have the answers," she continued tiredly. "But I didn't want to be a murderer. And I'd really like it if you didn't become one either." There was a reason she'd chosen not to have this talk in the Tower.
Tony held her gaze for another few seconds, then launched to his feet. Maggie tensed, but eased back when he just began pacing across the marble hallway, his hands fidgeting and his eyes darting. Maggie watched him from her seat. It was an effort to stay upright, she felt so drained. Tony's shoes squeaked on the floor.
Finally, he turned to face her again. "I get it now. Why you've always been running."
She tried to smile, but couldn't quite make it.
Tony looked down, his dark eyes still burning. "I… I need to do that. I need to get away, I need-"
"Space," she nodded. "It's fine."
He nodded too, a little numbly, and then pulled out his phone and typed a short command. Maggie guessed he'd called the suit. He put the phone away, and then raised his head to look back at her.
For a long few moments they just looked at each other - Tony standing untethered in the middle of the hallway, shaking, and Maggie sitting exhausted on the stairs. Then Tony fidgeted, and swooped across the space between them. Maggie blinked, then found herself wrapped up in a tight hug that made pain lance through her ribs. She ignored it, and wrapped her arms around her brother. She almost missed the sharp bite of the arc reactor.
"Maggie," he said shakily. His voice was muffled in her shoulder. "I don't know how I'm going to make this right to you. You were just five, and I didn't-" his voice cracked, and she rubbed his back. "I know you said you forgive me, but… I need to figure out if I forgive myself. Are you…" he untangled himself from her and took a step back, a questioning look on his face. There was a rush and a metallic clank just outside the front door.
"I'm okay," Maggie said, not at all sure if it was true. "You said you need space. Go." She gave him another thin smile.
She watched her brother turn and walk out the door. Moments later she heard the familiar roar of repulsors.
She slumped back against the stairs and pressed her hands to her face. That went better than I could have expected.
Then again, Tony might be flying straight to the Tower to send a repulsor blast right through Barnes's face.
She pulled her phone out of her hoodie pocket. "J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"He's headed out of the city," the AI responded softly.
"Thank you."
After several minutes to collect herself, Maggie trudged back out to the car. But when she slid into the driver's seat her skin crawled and her chest tightened and she had to spring back out so she could breathe again. She stared at the car.
Great.
She pulled her hoodie around herself, drew in a deep breath, and set off walking.
Maggie returned to the Tower and barricaded herself in her workshop.
A quick scan of the Tower CCTV feeds told her everything she needed to know. J.A.R.V.I.S. had allocated Steve and Sam Wilson their own rooms - Wilson was in his, and Steve hung around in the common room like an abandoned puppy.
The Soldier - Barnes - just sat in his cell like a broken man, his arm useless and heavy by his side. He looked as if he hadn't moved at all.
Restlessness and frustration itched under Maggie's skin, as if there were something she needed to outrun. So she gave J.A.R.V.I.S. a quick command, and then began digging into the SHIELD/HYDRA leak. She ignored a text from Pepper that said she was on her way back to the Tower.
She should have looked into HYDRA, to understand the scale of the damage they had done to the world in the last seventy years. But instead, she honed her search once more for the Soldier. Maggie had already accessed some of the leaked HYDRA files while she'd been hunting him, but that had been in an attempt to trace clues, to predict where he might run to. Now she just… looked. For hours she and J.A.R.V.I.S. worked to isolate all references to the Soldier. There wasn't a lot, and much of it was disguised by veiled references and tricky codes. But eventually they collated a bank of other codewords used in reference to the Soldier's activities: Asset. Operative. Elimination.
The first clear mission they found reference to was Fury's attempted assassination, in a heavily encrypted digital note: Level 7 target, evaded Team S. Asset retasked to seek and eliminate.
Maggie and J.A.R.V.I.S. expanded their search, trawling through the data for references to missions, assassinations, kidnappings. Maggie recognized about half of them from her list of potential Soldier missions she'd been adding to over the years. Seeing the evidence of it all in the HYDRA leak made her chest burn. This was what she had been searching for all this time. Cold, hard proof. The organisation behind the Soldier, scheming and arranging death and chaos.
She and J.A.R.V.I.S. catalogued each mention of a location in the data: mostly potential HYDRA bases the Soldier had been confirmed to be working out of. One of these locations wasn't too far away, over in Québec.
Maggie knew J.A.R.V.I.S. was monitoring her vitals as they worked. He advised her twice to get some rest, or to eat something, but she still felt as she had on her hunt: as if she were so close to grasping something, to reaching the end of a race. Though this time she suspected that she was hunting for understanding this time, rather than a physical goal. She couldn't just stop. So she worked on, pale and with heavy shadows under her eyes, her wrist brace tucked close to her body. She usually played music in her workshop, but now she worked in silence.
The more she read, the more Maggie was struck by the language used in reference to the Soldier and his activities. It was cold and clinical, which was standard for the HYDRA files, but there was something… that she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Asset dispatched to Kunar base to support local takeover, read one mission report. Performed to expected standards. Rebels expected to be fully eliminated by close of week. Asset requires minor limb service but base technician is confident on the process.
Even as the report chilled Maggie, realization struck her. The Soldier never wrote his own reports. It was always a handler. This might not have been unusual in itself, but… the way they talked about him reminded Maggie of the way she wrote about machines she designed: describing their purpose and functionality, and nothing else. Other words seemed to routinely pop up in reference to the Soldier and his activities: MSM. Prepped. Wiped and stored. And occasionally: malfunction. It was like trying to learn a strange language where meanings were obscured and referenced things she had no understanding of.
The Soldier was in her custom-built prison, and yet he was more of a riddle now than he had ever been. Steve had said he wasn't in control, as if HYDRA were a puppetmaster pulling the Soldier's strings. But how could that be true?
And yet Maggie had seen it. In that fight on the rooftop she'd seen the light leave his eyes as he became the Soldier, and she'd seen Bucky Barnes flood back into his face a few minutes later. She had seen the difference. But how could that be possible?
"Your heart rate is elevated, Ms Stark," J.A.R.V.I.S. said, making her jump. "Perhaps if I have a meal delivered-"
"No," Maggie snapped. She pushed her frazzled hair back from her face and turned to the security feed from the detention cell, which she'd kept open on one of her work computers.
Barnes just sat there, his head hung low. He hadn't even tried to look for an escape route, or try out his strength on the reinforced door. A pity. Maggie almost wished she could see him pound and plead against the unforgiving metal, like she had beat against his legs when he dragged her away from her burning parents.
Maggie couldn't bear it.
When she burst out of her workshop and headed for the stairs, J.A.R.V.I.S. asked:
"Ms Stark, where are you going? Can I prepare anything for you?"
"I'll bring you with me, J.A.R.V.I.S., but only on the condition that you tell no one that I'm leaving."
"Yes, Ms Stark."
You guys, what if I actually did kill Bucky. Like OC/Bucky but the / literally means SLASH.
Reviews
BrownEyes: You are by far the fastest reviewer, your review came up 5 minutes after I posted the last chapter! How on earth.
Shorttrooper: Thank you so much! Everything has indeed been leading up to the showdown last chapter and I am so pleased you liked it :) Thank you again!
DBZFAN45: Wyvern vs Winter Soldier indeed! I'm glad you liked their fight, and I'm sure you'll be happy to have learned that Bucky survived haha. And god I wish I was an MCU script writer, they should just give all the characters to me. I wouldn't be nice to them, but it would make for some good storytelling.
Guest: YOU HEARD ME
Guest: I'm glad you liked the fight and the setting! Okay so for why I chose Carnival, I knew I wanted the Winter Soldier to travel to South America. Then when planning the fight scene I knew I wanted some kind of celebration happening below. THEN I realised that Carnival happens in February, so perfect timing! I looked up famous cities for Carnival and Cusco has a really interesting looking Carnival with lots of lights in the nighttime, so that's why I picked it :)
The1975Love: You are very right that she didn't kill him haha, I'm glad you liked the last chapter! And maybe not so much a rescue mission as a 'ur going to jail now' mission.
MsMoe9: Here you go! Hope you enjoy!
Guest: So glad you're enjoying, can't wait to hear what you think of this chapter :)
Guest: You know I know what you mean with the Maggie/Steve ship! An AU of an AU perhaps haha
Aqua: Hahaha you are of course very correct that I did not kill of Bucky, but I had you guys a little bit worried there I think! Maggie's serious face is starting to slip this chapter, and we'll see it fall a bit further next time as she comes to grips with what just happened. I love that you're thinking about all of Maggie's motivations and how Nat and Steve react to her! Glad you liked the fight scene too :) Also don't apologise for long reviews! I love them! I'm so happy that you think so deeply about these characters I've worked so hard to bring to life :) Sorry you had a tough week, hopefully this week was better x