Québec
The HYDRA files didn't have the exact coordinates for the base in Québec, but it didn't take Maggie and J.A.R.V.I.S. long to figure out its location: a remote island in the Gulf of St Lawrence. It didn't look like much: a small, craggy outcrop of rock and thick forest jutting from the grey ocean.
A mile out, the Quinjet blared with alarms: a missile targeting system had locked on to the jet. In the next second there was a flare of light from the distant island, and six glowing dots appeared on the Quinjet sensors. Missiles.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.!" Maggie called, her hands gripping the Quinjet controls.
"It appears the island is equipped with an automatic defense system," he said. "And a self-destruct failsafe, which has now been activated."
Maggie did not deviate from her direct course toward the island. The missiles burned across the sky toward her. "You know what to do."
"Of course, Ms Stark."
When Maggie could see the metallic glint of the missiles rocketing toward her, she hit a series of buttons on the Quinjet console. This activated the Quinjet anti-missile defense system, a burst of targeted flares that shot forward like a cloud of fireflies. The missiles detonated harmlessly a hundred yards away, and the Quinjet soared through the fireball.
By the time Maggie landed the jet on the concealed launchpad atop the highest part of the windswept island, J.A.R.V.I.S. said:
"I have accessed the facility's electronic systems and subverted the self-destruct failsafe."
"Well done," Maggie said as she powered down the Quinjet. She clipped her wingpack over her uniform. "What are we looking at, here?"
"The base appears to be abandoned. Records show a skeleton crew was guarding the facility, but they vacated the area following the fall of SHIELD."
"Hm." The Quinjet loading ramp came down, letting in a burst of bitterly cold wind. Sea spray blew across the concrete launchpad. Maggie pulled her goggles over her eyes. "Let's check it out."
A hatch door led down into the base itself, which was a dark warren of twisting tunnels and rocky ceilings. There were no windows to the outside so the only light came from a network of harsh flourescent lights which cast sharp shadows.
As Maggie paced down the claustrophobic rock tunnels, her footsteps echoing strangely, anxiety bubbled in her chest. This remote, tunnelling base was the only place she and J.A.R.V.I.S. had accurately tied to the Soldier's past movements so far. There'd been a few references in the HYDRA files.
She didn't know why she'd come here. She still burned at the choice she had made back on that rooftop in Peru. Why didn't I kill him?
She didn't know where to find answers. She didn't understand her mission anymore. So she had come here, in some futile hope of gaining clarity.
Maggie strode past bunkrooms, weapons rooms with a few guns and boxes of ammunition left over, what looked like a gym, and even an underground dock, the dark water sloshing against speedboats. She considered it for a few long moments before she spotted a seam in the far wall - a false wall in the cliff face. Clever. She moved on.
This base reminded her of the one she'd found in Iceland, though she hadn't know that was a HYDRA base at the time. It felt the same: functional, militaristic, designed for covert operations by small teams. And yet the Iceland base had been completely emptied of everything from the furniture to the wiring. That must have been HYDRA wiping the slate clean and moving on. This place still felt slightly lived in. Closed up and dusty, yes, but ready, as if HYDRA might need to move back in and use the place. But not if I have anything to say about it.
Finally, her search brought her to a large lab space filled with machines covered in thick plastic sheeting. She paused in the doorway and let out a breath. It felt colder in this room, and her breath echoed strangely.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., I see computers in here. Can you access those?"
There was a pause, and then Maggie heard the soft whir as the computers by the wall turned on. Their screens glowed beneath the plastic sheeting.
As J.A.R.V.I.S. worked the computers, Maggie strode through the covered up machines, pulling off plastic sheeting with her uninjured hand as she went. Dust filled the air as she disturbed the long-covered devices.
She found a mix of laboratory and medical equipment: scanners, microscopes, containment hoods, thermostasis freezers, centrifuges. The place was well stocked for all manner of experiments, but Maggie couldn't see any evidence of recent work having been done. Several machines she didn't recognize at all. A large one near the middle of the room looked to be some kind of… chair. Two blocky metal arms rose up behind the chair, with arcing attachments ending in metal plates. A pair of floodlights were attached to the top of the structure, pointing down, and two computer stations were hooked up to either side of the device. Maggie cocked her head at it, then moved on.
"Ms Stark, most of the digital files have been wiped, but I have collected some fragments. It appears there have been various chemical experiments conducted here over the years, and the Winter Soldier was recorded as being here. That appears to be the extent of the information."
"Okay. Cross-reference what you've found with the HYDRA data leak, see if we find nay matches to make things a bit clearer."
"Certainly, Ms Stark."
In the back corner of the room, Maggie pulled down a plastic sheet from a tall structure. At first thought the device underneath must be a rudimentary laboratory freezer, from all the supercooling conductors and piping attached to it. The dark metal was thick. But then she saw the complex biometric scanning capabilities hooked up to a blackened computer screen, and then the single glass circular window.
For a moment her mind struggled against the combination of highly advanced freezing capabilities and a biometric readout. But then she looked at her own reflection in the small window and her heart dropped.
"This is how they kept him alive so long," she murmured. Her fingers found the seam of the front of the chamber, then found the securing mechanism. Shaking slightly, she swung the front open, like opening a tomb.
The inside of the cryostasis chamber was the same temperature as the rest of the room, since it wasn't on, but Maggie felt colder once it opened. There was a body mould inside, which she realized would support the form of an adult man, and various wires and patches to be attached to - to whoever it was, to monitor their vitals.
After staring at the inside of the chamber for a few moments, Maggie traced her fingers along the inside of the glass window. It had to be almost completely frosted over when the machine was in use. She craned up on her toes, trying to imagine what one would be able to see through that small window, once the door closed: probably just the hard granite of the far wall. And maybe the faces of whoever locked you in.
Maggie shuddered and shut the tomb again. But this only answered some of her questions.
"Ms Stark, I have reason to believe that the device located twenty feet behind you, with the chair, is an MSM."
"The acronym from the files?" Maggie said as she turned and spotted the unfamiliar machine she'd noticed earlier. "I thought we didn't know what that was."
"I have compared the specifications of this machine to the various schematics stored in the HYDRA files, and I believe this one closely resembles a design for a machine known as a Memory Suppression Machine, developed in the 1940s."
"MSM," Maggie breathed as she pushed back toward the hulking black thing. With a terrible feeling blooming in her gut, she reached out to touch one of the arcing black arms. "And its function?"
"It appears the machine uses a form of targeted electroconvulsive therapy on the subject's neurological system. The desired result appears to be significant damage to the limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, which means the subject becomes unable to access memories prior the experiments, becomes hyperaware of their environment, and highly susceptible to commands."
"No," she said numbly. "No, you… that can't be possible." She nearly tripped over one of the thick black power cables snaking away from the device.
"According to the HYDRA files, Arnim Zola and other Memory Suppression Machine technicians performed experiments on a wide range of subjects using the device, and were able to hone the technique. In most cases it resulted in permanent damage to the limbic system memory centres."
Maggie stepped back, staring at the machine. It was then she noticed the restraints fixed at arm and leg height. "The S- the subjects were conscious?"
"The designs do not give that information but…" there was a pause. "Shortly after the first experiments, the technicians added a mouth guard to the design."
Her eyes darted, but she couldn't spot a mouth guard. She couldn't decide if that was better or worse. She realized her breath was coming short. "Turn it on."
"Ms Stark?"
"The machine, J.A.R.V.I.S., turn it on. It's still wired up."
"Ms Stark, I don't-"
"I need to see it."
J.A.R.V.I.S. did not speak again. But a few moments later the computer screens attached to either side of the machine flickered to life, followed by a low hum as the internal machinery of the device powered up. Maggie circled around to the front of the machine, staring at it.
She realized that the screens were attempting to scan for a body that wasn't there: one showed an empty brain scan, and the other would have held a body scan: Pulse: 0, Blood Pressure: 0/0. Error messages flashed up when the device could not locate a body, but a moment later J.A.R.V.I.S. overrode them.
"Initializing," J.A.R.V.I.S. said with an air of disapproval.
The arm and leg restraints clamped shut on empty air. The electric hum heightened, and with a whir the arced metal arms spun down, bringing the two metal plates down to where the subject's head would be. The inside of the plates flickered with blue electricity and Maggie flinched. Her chest rose and fell, her heart pounding against her ribs.
Then the metal plates clamped together, as if cradling a head. One would cover most of the left side of the face, including the eye, and the other cradled around the back of the skull - Maggie realized these were vaguely closest to the structures in the brain J.A.R.V.I.S. had mentioned earlier. For half a second there was silence.
Then the energy readouts on the screen spiked, and the machine activated.
Maggie flinched back as the metal plates surged with electricity, flickering white-blue and scorching the very air. Ozone and metal stung her nose. The electric pulse receded and then surged back, making an awful crackling, buzzing noise. Her eyes darted toward the screen readout and widened when she saw the amount of voltage being transmitted through those plates. And it was so precisely targeted: pulses of energy zapping through very specific points on the plates, spiking then receding, spiking then receding. Her heart raced and her eyes hurt from the bright flashes of the plates. The room echoed with the violent crackle and thrum of electricity. No one was screaming, but still Maggie could hear the sound.
It wasn't until her knees wobbled and threatened to give out beneath her that she realized she was staring at the sparking, violent machine without breathing. She heaved a gasp, choking on it, and staggered backwards. The sight and sound and smell of the machine repulsed her to her core, turned her stomach and made her want to peel off her skin.
"Turn it off," she gasped, and in the same instant the machine died, as if J.A.R.V.I.S had been waiting for her word.
She hit the side of a desk and cried out, grabbing for the edge to keep herself upright. Tools clattered off it to the ground.
Propped up, Maggie stared at the machine with its two floodlights pointing down and the now dormant arms frozen in place. Her eyes darted to the cryostasis chamber in the far corner of the room. She imagined it cold and frosted over. Then she looked back to the Memory Suppression Machine.
Maggie knew machines. She could read the stories they told. And all these machines told her was pain.
She stood in the middle of an abandoned, shadowy base, surrounded by echoes of pain, and came to a realization.
He's just as much a victim in this as I am. Her breath came heavy. More, even.
The thought broke her heart.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.," she breathed. "Reactivate the self destruct failsafe."
"But Ms Stark-"
"Do it!" she snapped. "Download everything first, but… this place belongs at the bottom of the ocean."
He was wise enough not to argue with her. "Yes, Ms Stark."
The Quinjet was miles away when the island went up like an erupting volcano. Maggie watched as fireballs surged into the sky, and felt the shockwave roll over the Quinjet a moment later. She thought about the dark, rocky tunnels and that horrific metal machine, disintegrated to pieces and scattered at the bottom of the ocean.
She thought you are my mission, and thinking it felt like beating her fists against unyielding rock.
She felt so furious she was almost blind with it.
Stark Tower, Manhattan
Wilson tried to talk to Maggie when she arrived back on the Quinjet, his face all scrunched up with concern and empathy as he met her on the flight deck, but she brushed past him and stormed back to her workshop. It was the only place she could think to go any more. She had no idea what she'd do when she got there. She no longer felt that urge to chase after something - knowledge, understanding, perspective. It was as if she'd caught up to it. Or it had caught up to her.
Her eyes ached from the hours without sleep, and her fingers shook. Her grimy hair snagged at her goggles as she pulled them off, making her wince, and her face was gaunt. Her left wrist was a lightning rod of pain.
But after she rushed through her workshop doors, stripping off her uniform as she went, she stumbled to a halt.
Pepper Potts was waiting for her.
Pepper stood in the middle of Maggie's clean, gleaming workshop, wearing a white business dress and her hair unusually frazzled, as if she'd rushed here. But Pepper didn't look frazzled. Her expression was steady and she exuded a warmth and a softness that felt like a punch in the chest to Maggie. She took a breath, watching Maggie, then paced across the workshop.
Maggie held her breath as Pepper reached out and drew the gloves, goggles, and wingpack from her hand. She set them aside on an empty workbench, gentle with the items, as if they might break. Pepper turned back, then set her warm palm on Maggie's cheek. Maggie began to shake.
She could see in Pepper's warm, sad eyes that Pepper knew. Tony had told her. She could also see that Pepper didn't quite understand this, didn't quite understand why Maggie had shattered in this way. But Pepper didn't need to understand. She saw, as she always had, and her touch was warm and soothing.
Maggie let out a breath, and allowed herself to lean into Pepper's touch. The moment she did, the small modicum of strength she had managed to pull around her shattered pieces completely gave way.
She fell to her knees with a clang, and Pepper went with her. Pepper pulled Maggie into herself, her arms surprisingly strong, and Maggie leaned into the other woman and cried. Her eyes burned with it and the sudden rush of physical grief felt like being drowned. It wasn't more than a second before her chest was shuddering and her mouth opened in a silent scream as tears streamed from her screwed-up eyes. She hadn't cried until now. She hadn't been able to.
Pepper held her and rocked slightly back and forth, making hushing, soothing noises as Maggie sobbed into her chest. Her dress was no doubt wrinkling and staining from the contact with Maggie's grimy uniform, but she didn't seem to care.
Maggie's endless, boundless grief surged from her in sobs and unnamable sounds. There was nothing left to chase, nothing left to do, except this. Her fingers twisted in Pepper's tear-stained dress until she no longer had the strength to hold on. But Pepper had the strength - she held Maggie as they sat on the floor while Maggie's chest broke open, as Maggie slumped further and further to the floor.
Pepper didn't say it's okay, and she didn't wipe away Maggie's tears. And through her surging grief Maggie felt gratitude: gratitude for Pepper for knowing that Maggie needed someone to be here to be strong, while she couldn't. The gratitude and love swelled up and soothed the hollow pit of her grief, softening it. Dulling its sharp edges.
She didn't remember at what point she fell asleep. It could have been hours. And maybe it wasn't really sleep, but just the absence of tears. Either way, it left her so empty that all she could do was lie on the floor of the workshop, spent.
When she roused a little, later, she found that she was still lying on the floor, but she had a blanket tucked around her and a pillow from one of the upstairs lounges under her head. She couldn't open her eyes, but she could hear breathing and soft tapping: Pepper on her Blackberry, most likely getting some work done. And Maggie couldn't tell with her eyes closed, but she was pretty sure that Pepper had locked the workshop. She was sure that Pepper would stay as long as Maggie needed.
It was enough.
Maggie let go of her last ounce of strength and drifted away.
When she woke, her face ached and her eyes were blurry and red-lined. Her lips were cracked and the air tasted like salt. Her clothes were stiff with tears.
She mumbled, rolling to get her bearings, blinking in her darkened lab. She turned toward a rustle of movement and spotted Pepper, who'd risen from one of the comfy seats by the door and now lowered to a kneel beside her. She brushed Maggie's tangled hair back from her face, and cocked her head at her.
"A shower and some food, I think," she said.
Maggie nodded, licking her lips to try to get some moisture back in her mouth. Despite the blurriness her mind felt clearer - no longer tangled up and drowning in all that darkness that had flooded out of her as she shook in Pepper's arms.
She yawned and stretched, grimacing at the sweaty feel of her compression sock beneath her prosthetic. "Yes."
Pepper helped her to her feet, both of them chuckling as Maggie swayed, then they headed for the door. But before it slid open, Maggie turned to Pepper. She opened her mouth.
Pepper touched her arm. "I know."
Maggie's thanks died on her tongue, and she smiled tiredly. "I'd do it for you."
Pepper nodded. "I know."
That was all they needed to say. Maggie nodded and quickly embraced Pepper, drawing strength from her warm steadiness, and then the door slid open and they strode through together.
When Maggie had showered, eaten, and felt a bit more human, she took herself down to the detention level. She hesitated outside the door to the observation room for Cell A for a long few moments, then strode inside.
She couldn't help her visceral reaction to the sight of the Winter Soldier on the other side of the glass. She flinched at the sight of his gleaming metal arm and imposing bulk, her skin washing cold with a burst of adrenaline. But then she took a breath, and he was Barnes again: sitting on the floor of the cell this time, his back to the far wall and his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell steadily, but Maggie didn't think he was asleep.
Slowly, Maggie closed the observation room door behind her and approached the glass. This room had a long desk along the glass window, busy with computer arrays monitoring the security feeds, the door operations, and the atmospheric control for the cell. J.A.R.V.I.S. ran it all, of course, but they'd installed all this in case they needed to take manual control. The room was lit by low blue lights, casting shadows across her face. Maggie eyed the biometric readouts for the room. One heat signature with a slow, steady pulse.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" she asked as she eyed Barnes through the glass. His face was haggard, even at rest, with stubble on his jaw and healing contusions across his skin - they already looked days old. The metal arm hung by his side, but his other hand was clenched in a fist by his thigh. Barnes had eaten the food they'd sent in, and changed into the pale grey scrubs and sweater that had been provided to him.
"The prisoner's vitals have remained steady," J.A.R.V.I.S. reported, "with no concerning changes. He explored the room ten hours ago, though did not appear to be making an escape attempt. He slept for three hours and twenty minutes, after which he awoke and exhibited unusual behaviour."
"Unusual?"
In reply, J.A.R.V.I.S. brought up a clip of the security feed on one of the computers. Maggie's eyes flicked to Barnes, noting that he still sat against the wall, then she moved to watch the clip.
Barnes lay ramrod-straight on the bed, his eyes closed - though she could see his eyes moving quickly behind the lids. His breathing was still steady, but faster.
Then his eyes snapped open. He sat up, rigid and automatic, and then climbed out of bed with his limbs tense and his eyes carefully roving around the room like a predator. As if he'd never seen the place before. He strode to the door and pressed his flesh hand against it, as if testing the metal. He then looked to the glass window unerringly, evaluating it, then turned and headed to the bathroom. But he slowed halfway there, his footsteps faltering, until suddenly he was standing in the middle of the room like a marooned man, looking around with a furrowed brow.
The clip ended.
"Have there been any other moments like that, J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"No, Ms Stark."
"Okay. Keep an eye out for those lapses in control, time them, and give me the data on them regularly." She drew in a long breath through her clenched teeth, and eyed Barnes again. His fist had loosened, leaving his palm open on the ground beside him.
She let out the breath and turned to go. What am I doing?
Maggie returned to the common room, which she'd been avoiding since she got back. Sure enough she found Steve there, sitting on the couch reading news articles about the ongoing congressional hearing into the fall of SHIELD. But he turned the tablet off when he heard her footsteps, then shot to his feet when he spotted her.
Maggie paused in the doorway to the wide, multi-level common room and looked at Steve. He wore jeans and a too-tight white t-shirt, and his expression as he looked back at her was cautious, but open. He looked startlingly young.
She sighed. "You want a drink?"
"No, thanks," he said automatically.
Maggie strode across the room to the bar area, looked at all the shelves of alcohol, then opened the minifridge to pour herself a glass of orange juice. She brought it over to where Steve still stood, then eased herself down onto the couch opposite him.
Steve stayed standing. His eyes flicked from her face, to the juice, to her prosthetic foot underneath the glass coffee table, then back up at her face.
Maggie contemplated Steve. Looking at him didn't make her feel angry any more. But she also had no idea what to say.
"You said I wouldn't care about ending our friendship over Bucky," Steve said suddenly, his brows drawn together as he looked at her. "You're wrong. I would."
"I didn't say you wouldn't care," she replied. "I said it wouldn't stop you. If it came to protecting him."
His gaze dropped.
She sighed. "That's… not a bad thing, Steve. He's your oldest friend, practically your brother. You'd do anything for him. I'd do the same for Tony. Some people are just hardwired into your DNA." She eyed Steve's crestfallen face. "I'd do the same for you too, you know."
He looked up with warm eyes.
Maggie took a breath. She still felt lighter after her meltdown with Pepper, so forgiveness came easier. "I… you're one of my best friends, Steve. I don't want that to end."
"It won't," he said quickly, relieved, and finally moved. He came over to sit on the couch beside her. Then his lips quirked. "It helps that you're not trying to kill Bucky any more."
"For now," she said, only half joking.
A long silence followed that.
Steve looked down at his clasped hands. "I know I don't have much of a right to say this, but… I am so sorry about your parents. I've tried to imagine growing up with that, and I… I can't."
Maggie drew in a deep breath. She wanted to reach out to squeeze Steve's hand, but her skin felt prickly and tight. "I am who I am because of it. And I can't be angry about that." She looked at him. "I'm sorry too, you know." Steve frowned. "Howard was your friend."
He swallowed hard. "I've been wondering… if that's why they sent Bucky. To punish him."
"To punish who? Howard, or… or Barnes?"
Steve did not answer.
Maggie wanted to reassure Steve somehow. To say he didn't suffer, or he died knowing I was safe, but neither of those were true. There was no silver lining to her parents' deaths. Instead, she sighed.
"He won't hurt anyone else, Steve," she said lowly. "We can be sure of that."
He nodded. "Thanks to you," he said, his voice equally soft. "Thank you for bringing him back." He glanced across at her. "You told Tony."
She nodded.
"Is he… will he…"
"He took off," Maggie sighed. "I don't know what's going to happen." She looked to Steve, who looked suddenly worried. "He's not going to hurt anyone. I won't let him."
Steve shook his head. "I wish I could…" but he didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he shook his head again and stood up. "A month ago Natasha dug into some old contacts and got this for me." He picked up a manila file from the other couch, then brought it back and handed it to Maggie.
She took it, frowning at the Cyrillic on the cover. She could read most of it, but this file was old. She flipped it open to reveal a full-page photograph of Barnes's face, frozen behind glass. She inhaled a sharp breath and snapped the file closed again. She looked up at Steve.
"I've already read everything in there," he said hesitantly. "You can see the translated transcript that Sam and I worked on. But I thought… I thought you might like to read it."
"Why?" she said in a hard voice.
He sighed. "I can't say I understand what you're going through. But this file… it describes what happened to Bucky after I - after he fell. In 1945. It only covers a couple years, but… it explains a lot. About what happened to him."
She eyed the file warily. "Okay."
Steve nodded, apparently satisfied with the noncommittal response. He hunched his shoulders and drew in a breath. "Listen-"
"You want to see him."
He stopped, surprised. Then he nodded. "Bucky recognized me in D.C., I know it. Maybe if I can talk to him-"
"He might try to kill you," she warned.
Steve looked mulish. "J.A.R.V.I.S. told me all about the security protocols for the cell, and there's a failsafe in case he turns violent."
Now it was Maggie's turn to grind her jaw. Steve was right - the second Barnes showed a hint of aggression, J.A.R.V.I.S. would dose the whole room with an instant-acting aerosol sedative so strong it'd knock out everyone and everything inside. That had been one of Banner's inventions, though he had no idea if it would work on the Hulk.
"He saved my life. I just want to talk to him," Steve pressed, encouraged by her silence. "See how he's doing and ask if he needs anything. I - he's my friend."
She pressed her lips together. "I'll think about it."
She thought Steve might keep pressing her, but he nodded and then took a step back. "Thank you."
She sighed. "It's… I never intended to become a prison guard, Steve."
"I know. It can't be easy."
She peered at him. "How long are you going to keep being so nice to me? I already told you we're good."
He smiled. "I'm always nice to you."
"Well stop it, it's freaking me out."
Steve stepped forward, arms rising as if to hug her, but Maggie scooted back against the back of the couch with a hand out. He paused halfway to her, frowning.
"It's-" Maggie panted, hand still out. She'd hugged Tony, and Pepper, so she couldn't explain the sudden spike in her pulse. "I just… am not really great with the whole touching thing. Right now."
He dropped his arms and nodded. "That's fine." His eyebrows were drawn together, and she saw his eyes flick down to her throat. "Are you-"
"I'll live."
"I'm sorry-"
"Not your apology to make," she said swiftly. She stood up and leaned forward, despite what she'd just said, to squeeze his shoulder. She stepped back into her own space a second later. "Get some rest, Steve. If you want to keep yourself busy, though, I've got J.A.R.V.I.S. going through the HYDRA data leak. Looks like there's going to be plenty of work for us in there."
He dipped his head. "Thank you, Maggie." She knew he was thanking her for so much more than her words.
Footsteps echoed from the other side of the common room.
"Hey Steve," came Wilson's voice from the adjoining corridor. "You have any idea how to work these spaceship-looking showers - oh."
Wilson came to an abrupt halt as he entered the common room and saw Steve and Maggie standing in the middle of the room, silhouetted by the sunset out the far window.
"Sorry, I'll just-"
Wilson turned to go, but Maggie held up a hand. "No, wait-"
He turned, eyes flicking to Steve, who nodded. He stepped cautiously back into the room. Maggie would have picked Wilson as a soldier even if she hadn't looked into his service record - he held himself with a wary readiness, alert to everything around him. And yet his demeanour exuded calm. She'd liked him instinctively back in D.C., before everything went wrong.
Maggie spread her hands. "Hello," she began. "I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier. I've only got one foot, so it happens more often than you'd think."
Wilson stared at her for several seconds. Steve looked between them.
Maggie closed her eyes for a second. "Let me start again, without a bad joke."
But then Wilson shook his head. "No, no, I just…" he examined her, pacing to meet them in the middle of the room. "You're very… different."
She grimaced. "Yeah, you met me at an… interesting time. And I do apologize for that."
He shook his head. "Not at all. I kinda ended up involved in shit way above my paygrade."
She smiled. "You looked like you could handle yourself, back in D.C. Nice flying, by the way." She held out her hand. "Call me Maggie."
"Sam," he said, taking her hand, and then shrugged. "I've been out of practice."
"How do you feel about me taking a look at your wings, by the way?"
He laughed, and Maggie caught Steve hiding a smile.
"Steve said you'd say that," Sam explained.
"Hm. How did you and Steve meet, anyway?"
"Well," Sam said, with the weight of a storyteller, and Maggie felt something like her old self return as she smiled at his tone of voice. "I was out for a run this one morning…"
February 18, 2014
"Ms Stark?"
Maggie jerked upright in her bed, grasping for the gun under her bedframe before she registered J.A.R.V.I.S.'s calm, soft voice. But her heart rate only ratcheted up. "What is it? Did Barnes-"
"The prisoner is asleep, Ms Stark. You asked me to inform you when Sir returned to the Tower, and he is currently on approach."
She let out a heavy breath, pushed her hair back from her face, then nodded. "Thanks, J.A.R.V.I.S." She rolled out of bed, considered going to wake Pepper, but then decided against it. She pulled on a sweater and made her way down to the flight deck.
The sky was a faint, hazy grey, hinting at dawn. The ice-cold wind took Maggie's breath away when she stepped from the common room onto the flight deck, and she wrapped her arms around herself, teeth chattering. The sounds of distant engines, beeping horns, and rattling trains rose up from the city.
They'd redesigned the flight deck after the Incident. It used to be a luxury outdoor balcony, designed for parties and corporate functions. Now it served as a Quinjet landing pad, with a narrow area to the side for the Tower inhabitants to go out to look out over the city. Maggie cast a glance in at the stolen Quinjet moored further down the flight deck, underneath the overhang of the building, then strode to the observation deck and took a seat on the cold metal. She edged forward until her legs slid under the sturdy glass barrier and dangled over the edge, in empty air.
Iron Man appeared as a distant speck of light in the still-dark sky. Maggie leaned back on the heels of her palms and watched him streak toward the Tower. He landed on the end of the flight deck with his distinctive metallic clang less than a minute later, and the suit unfolded to reveal Tony, in the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday, his face faintly illuminated by the landing lights on the deck. He strode over to Maggie as the suit reformed itself and walked inside, piloted by J.A.R.V.I.S.
Tony wordlessly paced over to Maggie, then took a seat beside her. He pushed forward until his legs stuck out over the edge of the flight deck like hers, making his shoelaces whip in the wind.
Maggie eyed her brother. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. His gaze was fixed on the horizon. He didn't shiver in the cold air, as if he didn't feel it.
"Where'd you go?" she asked him.
"Long Island," he said, and she knew he meant the road where mom and dad died. "Then a rock quarry up in the mountains. Blew some shit up."
"Did it help?" Maggie asked, thinking of the island she'd obliterated.
"Not really."
They both leaned back on their hands, looking out at the artificial lights of the city.
"Does Steve know?" Tony asked.
Maggie rubbed her forehead. "Yeah. I think he figured it out, just before SHIELD fell. Natasha, too."
Tony leaned forward until his forehead pressed against the glass barrier, his eyes fixed on the city below. His breath fogged the surface. "And they didn't tell me."
"I told Steve not to."
"You really think he would have told me anyway?" Tony challenged. "Put his best buddy in danger like that?"
Maggie held her silence, and after a few moments Tony waved his hand, as if discarding the topic of Steve. He drew a long breath, then shuffled around to face her more directly. He took her in, examining her so thoroughly that it made her want to shift in discomfort. But she let him look at her.
"This has been… your whole life," he said. "And I never knew. A whole part of you I've never met."
She closed her eyes. "It's a part of me that I barely faced until I was an adult. I just… I couldn't carry it until then. And now… it's not just a part of me, Tony. It's all of me." She shook her head, barely knowing what she was saying. She met his eyes again. "And now it's all of you, too. I'm sorry."
His eyes pinched. "You were protecting me."
She looked down. "I was going to tell you. I wanted… the plan was to get the Soldier, bring him to justice, and then tell you. So you didn't have to live without answers like I had to." She put her face in her hands. "I'm just sorry that every time I try to protect you, it means I lie to you. I-"
She jumped when she felt Tony's hands on her wrists, and let him pull her hands away from her face. He was gentle with her broken wrist, turning her hands to they rested in his. He looked at her with that same intense scrutiny. "Is there anything more?"
She met his eyes, open and raw and honest. "No. Honestly, no. Like I told you, Tony… this is my last secret."
He smiled, and she almost jumped at the sight of it. "Well. Hello, Maggie Stark." He looked at her, as if really, finally seeing her. The frightened child, the ruthless hunter who had planned cold-blooded murder, the woman who had held the Winter Soldier's life in her grip and let go. "It's nice to meet you."
Maggie hiccuped a tearful laugh. She gripped his hands back. "Hello, Tony Stark. Nice to meet you, too."
He let her hands go, then, to bundle her into a hug. Maggie instinctively seized up at the contact, but she forced herself to breathe, to wrap her arms around her brother. Tony's grip turned tight, and so did hers, and then Maggie could feel him crying. His chest shook under her hands, but he didn't make a sound. He wasn't like she had been with Pepper, but she could feel his grief, strung like a live wire.
She held him, and felt free.
When she opened her eyes, the sun had come up over New York City.
Pepper came out to the flight deck half an hour later to find Maggie and Tony stiff with cold, sitting on the edge of the deck with their feet in empty air and their shoulders pressed together. Maggie's lips were blue. She hastened them inside, after gripping Tony in a tight hug, and made them coffee.
"So, any developments?" Tony asked as they sat at the table in his and Pepper's private quarters. He seemed a little steadier, though Maggie could see it was going to take more than a day for him to come to terms with what he'd learned.
She shrugged. "Not really. He sleeps, he wakes, he walks around a bit, he eats. We've timed the food deliveries for when he's asleep, but they usually wake him up."
"Said anything?" Tony asked as he sipped his coffee. Pepper hovered close by him, her expression concerned and watchful.
"No."
"I suppose he hasn't had anyone to say anything to." He cast a glance at her. "Did he talk to you, before…?"
Your name is Margaret Stark. I killed your parents.
"A bit," she said, shifting. Pepper laid a hand on her shoulder. "At first he thought I was there on Steve's behalf."
Tony's eyes darkened. "Steve's still here, I assume."
"Yep. He asked to talk to Barnes."
"And?" Tony prompted.
"And?" she echoed.
"Are we going to let him?"
"You don't think that's… I don't know, it feels a bit like letting him off easy, y'know?"
"Steve, or Barnes?" he asked knowingly.
She shrugged, uncomfortable.
Tony leaned back. "Because I mean really, Mags - what do we do with him?" He glanced at Pepper, who rubbed his shoulder. "I've been thinking about this since yesterday, and to be honest… regardless of all the HYDRA shit, we could turn him over to the NYPD, tell them he's our parent's murderer. Mom and dad would see justice in a court of law."
He let those words hang in the air. Pepper frowned, but said nothing.
"Except," Tony went on, "that doesn't really feel like the right move to me. Like you said, no one's got the resources to hold a supersoldier except for us. And I…" he scratched his jaw. "I guess if I was looking to get justice for mom and dad, it wouldn't look like Bucky Barnes going to trial. It'd look like taking every scheming, secretive head of HYDRA and blowing them to high hell."
Maggie's jaw clenched.
"So," Tony said matter-of-factly. "Barnes. To be quite honest I have no idea what to do about him, so let's let let Steve at him. Worst case scenario we get to knock them both out, which would be kind of fun."
She eyed him. Tony was back to his glib, witty self, which might have been a good sign, except Maggie knew it only concealed whatever was going on beneath the surface. She could see from Pepper's pinched expression that she was thinking the same thing.
Still, Tony had a point. She sighed. "Okay. Sure."
Maggie stood in the observation room, her arms crossed and her brow heavy, as Barnes's cell door opened.
Everyone in the Tower had been avoiding each other. Tony didn't seem to want to be anywhere near Steve right now, so he and Pepper had holed themselves up to their room and it was up to Maggie to let Steve know the good news. The relief on his face when she'd told him the plan was palpable. They'd agreed on some ground rules, and now… well. We'll see what happens.
Barnes had been sitting against the far wall again, but the instant the cell door slid open he launched to his feet, seized the plastic meal tray, and darted into the furthest corner of the room, his centre of gravity low and his eyes sharp.
Then Steve walked through, and the door slid shut behind him.
Barnes instantly straightened, his eyes wide and his chest rising and falling. Steve's lips moved, but Maggie heard nothing.
Muting the microphones in the room had been part of their agreement - Steve had wanted privacy, and Maggie had been quietly relieved that she wouldn't have to hear Barnes speak again. So she watched, as did J.A.R.V.I.S., waiting for something to happen.
Steve stayed on his side of the room by the door, his palms held open by his sides and his whole demeanour watchful, but calm. He couldn't keep the desperation off his face, though. Maggie watched as Barnes stood frozen in his corner, still clutching the meal tray as if it might protect him.
His lips moved: You're Steve, she thought he'd said. She shifted her weight, drawing in a long breath. His eyes were gleaming as he looked at Steve, but he still held himself with that barely contained aggression, as if ready to leap into a fight at any second. Even with the limp metal arm, he looked formidable.
Maggie watched as Steve and Barnes traded words, in their opposite ends of the room. Barnes only seemed to grow tenser, and then he suddenly flinched, as if Steve had hit him.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"Heart rate is high, breathing erratic."
Before her eyes, Barnes curled in on himself, reaching up to grip his hair in his only functioning hand and gritting his teeth. His mouth moved, but Maggie couldn't make out what he was saying. Steve took a step forward, but Barnes just cringed away, and Steve stopped. His eyes were wide and his face haggard. Barnes's mouth kept moving.
Finally, Steve made the signal for J.A.R.V.I.S. to open the door again. He backed out of the cell and then strode away, looking every bit of his ninety seven years as he left.
Maggie watched as Barnes sank downward, his hand over his head and his knees tucked to his chest as he crammed as far as he could into the corner of the room. It took several long moments for her to tear her eyes away.
Bucky Barnes gripped his hair in his hand and gritted his teeth against the pulsing storm of lightning in his mind. He'd felt the telltale stabs of pain the moment he saw Steve in the doorway - the shock, combined with the rush of too many memories, had overwhelmed him. He'd been focusing so hard on control these past weeks, but Steve's presence had obliterated it.
He'd barely been able to focus on Steve's words. You're safe, Bucky. You're in here for your own protection, but you're safe. I'm here to check on you, to see if you need anything.
Do you know me?
Bucky had been able to answer that, though his mind still whirled: Steve bleeding and broken on the Helicarrier, Steve staring at him on a freeway, Steve standing in this room with him, Steve small and coughing in an alleyway, Steve looking down at him, blurry, in a laboratory. Memories didn't come back in coherent scenes, like a film. Memories were messy and colourful and overwhelmed his senses: smells, sights, and sounds that he couldn't piece together.
Steve kept talking. You pulled me from the river. Why?
Bucky didn't know, so he'd told him as much.
Yes, you do, Steve had said firmly. I want to help you, Buck. Like we always said - end of the line. That made lightning flare behind Bucky's eyes, and he'd been unable to keep still any longer. But I need you to talk to me.
Bucky had begged Steve to leave.
Bucky pushed the conversation from his mind, desperately struggling for control. He needed to process this onslaught of remembered images and senses, needed to find space for them in his mind. And he needed the pain to stop. He wondered if he'd ever be free of that chair. Of the words whispered just below the surface of his consciousness.
It was a long, long time before his heart stopped pounding against his ribcage. When he looked up, Steve was gone.
Everyone kept avoiding each other. Maggie checked in briefly on Steve, to make sure he wasn't about to hurl himself off the flight deck, and found him pale-faced and still. He'd asked to be left alone.
Maggie decided she needed a drink. Tony had warned her several times about the dangers of alcoholism over the years, but she decided that she had definitely earned a chance to get rip-roaring drunk. The fact that it was 11 in the morning was secondary. So she went up to her workshop with a few selected bottles of liquor, because it was the only place she was sure she could be alone (though she did wave to Banner on her way up), and got to work.
A few shots into the half-full tequila bottle, she remembered that she had stored that file from Steve in her workshop locker. A few shots later, she opened the locker.
She flipped the file open before she could think better of it, and folded the cover over so she didn't have to look at the photo of Barnes in the cryogenic chamber, or the second photo which had been clipped to it, of him as a young Sergeant. With that at the back of the file, she was able to focus on the Russian documents, with Sam and Steve's printed translations beside it.
But the documents were worse than the photos.
Maggie held her head in her hands, bent over her workshop table, as she read through the file. She kept the tequila close at hand.
Barnes had been recovered by the Soviets after he fell from a train on a mission in Switzerland: they'd found him with his arm torn off at the joint, bleeding out into the snow. By all rights he should have died of his wounds, but - as the file conjectured - the super soldier serum that had been building strength in his blood over the past months had kept him alive. He had ended up a prisoner of the Soviet sect of HYDRA for months. There was little detail in the file about this time, but it seemed as if he'd been held on the edge of death, alone in a cell without any painkillers or restorative surgery.
Then it appeared Arnim Zola had been released by the SSR, and had begun the Winter Soldier Program as he germinated the new roots of HYDRA within SHIELD. Barnes had been his subject. Zola removed what was left of his arm and replaced it with a prosthetic of Zola's design. Maggie's fingers shook as she read about the operation. It would have been excruciating.
Then they'd begun with the Memory Suppression Machine. Maggie's gorge rose as she read, in clinical detail, about how the machine had been used on Barnes. There were some notes about behavioural conditioning, without much detail. And when HYDRA felt he was at the peak of physical perfection and completely compliant to their will, they had frozen him, holding him in suspended animation until they had need of him for a mission.
Maggie had already figured most of this out. But the description of it all, impossible to comprehend in its emotional detachment and pragmaticism, made her nauseous. She didn't know how Steve had gotten through it.
When she read the last awful, typewritten page, Maggie snapped the file closed again and reached for her tequila bottle - only to find it empty. That explained why her vision was swimming. But she felt no pleasant buzz, no warm fuzziness to her mind. She felt furious, without a direction for her fury.
She almost wished she could go back to before, when the mission had been simple: find the Soldier, and kill him.
But the Soldier wasn't real. He had always been a ghost: a creation of electroconvulsive shocks and coercive persuasion and mythos. She could never kill the Soldier.
Her workshop door slid open and she jerked, her head snapping up. But it was only Sam, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and his face grim.
His eyes flicked around her workshop briefly, taking in the computer bays, the burbling aquaponics garden in the far corner, her wings laid out on one of the workbenches, and U, who had wisely deactivated himself and sat in the corner. Then Sam's eyes moved to the manila folder in front of Maggie. "Steve said he gave it to you," he said in a voice that matched the expression on his face. "You doing okay?"
"No," she said honestly. "I can't decide if I regret reading it or not."
Sam crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway. "If you want to talk about how you feel, I am a qualified therapist."
"That's not why you came here, though."
"Doesn't mean the option's not on the table," he said. He paused, then seemed to steel himself. "But I did come in here with a question. I want to know what your plan is."
She eyed him, keeping her elbows planted on her workbench so she didn't wobble.
Sam shrugged. "Everyone's thinking it. No one's said it yet, though."
She broke eye contact. "I know." She could feel the question every time Steve looked at her, could feel it in Pepper's furrowed brow, in Banner's avoidance of them all, even in the glib way Tony talked about it. "I… to be honest, Sam, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here."
"I did sense that." He nodded. "You know this isn't sustainable, though. Barnes is… seriously traumatised. And all this" - he gestured down in the direction of the cell - "is only building trauma on top of that."
Her mouth turned down.
"Barnes needs help, Maggie. Help that none of us are qualified to give."
She tipped her head back. She knew Sam was right. The very idea of helping Barnes made her stomach turn, but she knew that wasn't a fair reaction. She let out a frustrated breath. "What does he need?" she asked. She straightened, but her elbow knocked the tequila bottle, and she had to whirl to keep it from falling off the bench.
Sam finally seemed to notice the empty bottle, and Maggie's flushed skin. "You're - sorry, I shouldn't do this while you're drinking, I'm sorry-"
"No," Maggie said, holding up a hand. "The drunkenness is… secondary." She rubbed her temples. "You're right. I wish I could just stop thinking about it, but you're right. I've already learned a fair bit about what was done to Barnes, and I can guess that on the scientific side, he'll need a pretty top-notch neuroscientist armed with some neurological scans to determine the extent of his brain damage."
Sam still looked cautious, but he frowned at that. "Brain damage?"
She waved a hand, and a holographic rendering of the Memory Suppression Machine emerged in midair. "This thing produced targeted electroconvulsive waves to his limbic system."
Sam's brows came together in a horrified expression.
"But this is about more than that," she said, leaning forward against a wave of dizziness. "And I'm no expert on the mind. What help do you think he needs?"
"This is way above my paygrade, but… it's pretty clear Barnes needs to talk to someone with some insanely good qualifications. I don't know where his head's at, or if he's even capable of expressing himself. Sounds like he just wanted to get Steve out of the room, earlier."
"So you're saying… a therapist of some kind."
"At the very least," Sam said, with a note of relief in his voice that Maggie was agreeing with him.
"Okay," she said, closing her eyes. She nodded to herself. "Okay. I can… we can work on this. We'll have to draw up the tightest NDAs known to man, and I don't even know how we're going to manage security, and I've got no idea how to find a therapist who might be able to deal with this, but… we'll do it." She cracked an eye open and peered at Sam. "I think I'm going to get more drunk first, though."
His brows rose. "That's your prerogative. And not to harp on the whole me-being-a-therapist thing, but… are you sure-"
"I don't usually use alcohol to deal with my problems," Maggie said woodenly. "Before this, I used to use my mission to deal with my problems." She saw Sam mouth the word mission, and she moved hurriedly on. "I'm just - I'm not going to make a habit of this. But I really, really need to just absolutely lose my shit for a few hours. Does that make sense?"
He eyed her for a few more moments. Then he nodded. "What are we drinking, then?"
I know, I know, not a whole lot of Bucky this chapter! Bear with me, lovelies.
Reviews
Guest: Ooh it's interesting you like this iteration more than the original Wyvern! We are stepping into unchartered territory here and I am so excited to show you what this will mean for everyone :)
MaceGolfer: Hello and thank you so much for reviewing! It means a lot :) I'm glad the Wyvern was a comfort to you, and I'm also glad ITSOYW managed to hook you ;) Thank you for being such a lovely reader and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
DBZFAN45: We have indeed changed the whole MCU! And many more questions remain, but we'll be working through those over the coming chapters. Hopefully you liked the resolution between Steve and Maggie this chapter :) We are indeed one big ansty Avenger family! With more angst to come ;) Can't wait to show you what I've got planned!
Themugglepadme24: Goodness me that's a lot of writing to get through! Take a break and rest haha. I'm so glad you've liked all these stories, and I hope you liked this chapter!
Nina: Oh wow thank you so much! That is high praise indeed. You're right that this story is a lot less about grief and heartbreak than the Wyvern, it's been fun to write :) Thank you again!
Morgzw: Bit of a curveball for ya! I'm so excited to show you where we go from here :)
Shorttrooper: Yeah I wasn't sure whether to go with the giant blowout route, but at this point Maggie is just trying to control the situation, without really knowing what she's doing. I'm glad you liked that! Thank you so much for your kind review :)
The1975Love: Your wish is my command, Maggie and Tony hugged! And yes, Tony knows! Everything is going to be different from here ;)
Aqua: It's happening! So much has changed and I'm so excited to get into it with you all :) And you're right about the subtle nods to the original story, I've been drawing links between HYDRA-Wyvern Maggie and the current Maggie on her mission, and also between post-Civil-War Maggie and this current Bucky, like you noticed! Thank you for your kind, kind words about my writing, that really helps with a lot of my writer's block haha. Hope you had a great week, and another one to come!