A week later, Maggie arrived back in the Tower lobby after her weekly lunch with Pepper. Pepper had had to drive on to another appointment, so Maggie had taken the chance to walk through Manhattan, enjoying the familiar rumble and chaos of the city.

The Avengers Tower lobby was normally quite a sober, corporate space, so when she heard someone loudly call: "Hey, stranger!" her head jerked up.

Her face broke open in a smile when she spotted the man waving by the elevators, grinning at her.

"Sam!" Maggie hurried over and they gripped each other in a hug. Sam had been around the Tower on and off, but Maggie had tended to avoid him before she had her big epiphany. "When'd you get back?"

"Just now," Sam smiled as they pulled apart. "I'm on a part time contract at the moment, so I thought I'd come up to visit. It's good to see you." The elevator doors opened behind him. "You're looking better."

"Feeling better too, most days," Maggie said as they both stepped into the elevator. "Something to do with therapy actually working, I suspect."

"Welcome back, Sergeant Wilson," J.A.R.V.I.S. greeted.

"You gotta call me Sam, robot guy," Sam said with an askance glance upward before he turned back to Maggie. "I'm glad you reached out. I had to keep reminding Steve that you can't force someone into therapy."

"Unless they're your prisoner," she replied lightly.

"Speaking of which," Sam leaned against the wall of the elevator, his thumbs tucked into his pockets. "How's that going? I came back briefly after Barnes got free range - relatively speaking - and he seems to be doing pretty well."

"It's… going." She fought the urge to brush past the subject. "We don't talk much-"

"You talk?" His eyebrows shot up.

"We have talked," she said defensively. They'd only run into each other a couple of times in the past week, but the air had been less tense each time. They offered a polite greeting, then went on their way.

"About...?"

"Not about anything that happened in the past," she said quickly. "We barely talk at all, really. Just… figuring out the limits."

"Well, that's good. Let me know if you want me to facilitate anything. You guys share the same space now, that's gotta be hard."

She shrugged. "Most days I'm fine with it. Sometimes, on bad days, I might get angry at him, but that's not because of anything he's done. Just… habit, I guess."

"I know what you mean. It's hard to get past gut instinct sometimes. The guy wrecked my car and kicked me off a Helicarrier," Sam said wryly. "Doesn't help that he's a surly bastard with me whenever I'm around."

Maggie quirked an eyebrow. "Surly."

Sam shrugged.

The elevator doors opened, revealing the corridor on the first Avengers floor. They stepped out, and Maggie threw an arm over his shoulders. "It's good to have you back, Sam. You should come by more often. Hell, you should stay," she added with an expansive gesture. "We've got the space, and we could really use you. Especially with me benched for the moment, the team could use another set of wings."

"You looking for a replacement?" Sam shot back teasingly.

"Well I mean, a lesser substitute…"

He rolled his eyes as they approached the common room. "It's a generous offer, but hell no. Have you seen the crazy shit you guys get into? Last week, Steve fought a submarine."

She eyed him. "I think you might have a taste for crazy shit, Sam Wilson."

He laughed as they walked into the common room, finding it empty, and he paused to take in the space as if it was the first time he was seeing it. Maggie kicked her shoes off by one of the couches, leaving her prosthetic foot bare.

"You might know me too well," Sam said. "But no, my family would kill me if I took up the whole superhero gig. And let's be real, I don't have any crazy abilities or anything."

"Neither do I," Maggie pointed out, following him as he paced toward the large window. "And I've seen you fly. You've got a gift."

He smiled, his eyes on the city, then lowered his head. "I also don't know if I'm ready for the heat. You guys get a lot of scrutiny, and… well, I think that might partially be why Colonel Rhodes sticks to the Forces," he said gently. Maggie frowned as she came to stand beside him. "First black Avenger?" Sam mused, meeting her eyes. "You guys might be ready for that, but we both know the world isn't. And I'm not willing to put myself in that position right now."

The amusement dropped from Maggie's face. She wanted to kick herself. "You're right," she murmured. "I hadn't thought of that, and that's both unfair and stupid of me. I'm sorry." She felt exhausted and angry at the thought of it, and she knew this must only be a phantom of what Sam and Rhodey must feel.

He nodded. "I appreciate that. It is what it is, and maybe I could try to change things by putting myself out there, but I'm not ready to take that heat. At least not yet," he added consideringly.

"You know we'd all back you, if you ever decided to join the team," she said. "But in the meantime… let me know if there's anything I can do, or say, to help. Even if it's just listening."

He smiled. "You just keep spending your money on education grants like I know you've been doing," he said in a lighter tone. "I picked the Air Force by choice, but a lot of young kids like me don't have another option." He waved a hand. "Anyway. I meant to say that even if I'm not on the front bench, I am still kinda on the payroll. I've been scouting a few leads for Steve, as well as pretending to search for the Winter Soldier. The wings come out every now and then."

Maggie smiled, but then looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the flight deck out the window, a level below. Two figures stood out on the far edge, one blonde and the other dark haired. "There they are," she said, nodding so Sam followed her gaze. "I'll take you down."

Sam shot her a surprised look, but said nothing. They walked down together, through the Avengers armory, locker, and storage areas, past the Quinjet docking area and out into the open air on the flight deck. The wind whisked over them as they stepped out and the sun shone down on their faces, making Sam squint as he looked admiringly out at the view.

Steve and Bucky had been facing the Empire State, but their enhanced hearing clearly picked up the sound of approaching footsteps because they turned when Sam and Maggie were only halfway across the deck. Bucky's dark hair whipped around his face as he watched them approach.

"Look what I found," Maggie called to Steve, who was already grinning. He waved, and moments later he and Sam gripped each other in a hug.

Bucky and Maggie were left awkwardly standing opposite each other.

"Bucky," she said in greeting.

"Meg," he murmured in return. She'd almost forgotten about that. His metal arm shone like a beacon in the sun.

Steve and Sam had pulled apart, so Maggie turned to touch Sam's arm. "Listen, I've got work to be getting on with, but come by my workshop if you've got time later. We'll have a drink."

"Just one?" he asked, clearly thinking of the time they'd gotten so drunk that he'd thrown up in one of her plant pots.

"If you insist." She smiled and turned to leave, catching Bucky's watchful, quiet eyes for a brief second before she put her back to all of them.

The Starks growing warmer towards Bucky had made a world of difference in the Tower. Bucky had fewer moments of blind, defensive panic, and was able to focus on relinquishing some of his deep-rooted Winter Soldier instincts, such as scoping out each exit of a room, and keeping his back to the wall. He was more at ease in the time he spent with Steve, whether they were just hanging out, talking more seriously about Bucky's memories of HYDRA, or whether Steve was introducing Bucky to 'the future'. He often returned to the Tower with food or items that he thought Bucky would enjoy. Bucky's favourites so far had been Pho from the Vietnamese restaurant, and egg McMuffins.

J.A.R.V.I.S. remained a steady, reassuring presence. J.A.R.V.I.S. was as kind, or at least as kind as a machine could be, and helpful. Sam was both of these things too, though Bucky would never admit it.

Towards the middle of June, Steve came back from one of the lower levels (which Bucky was restricted from) with a stormy look on his face.

"What happened?" Bucky asked, setting down his copy of The Great Gatsby. He'd read it before the war, but it was nice to have the familiarity of it. Steve had bought this copy for him at a bookshop a few blocks away: Bucky could actually see the store from the common room window.

Steve shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

A door on the other side of the room slid open to reveal Clint Barton, the archer. He had introduced himself to Bucky shortly after the Widow had made her peace, with a sturdy handshake and a strangely empathetic look in his eye.

"Cap," Barton called as he strode in. His face was grim. "I just heard - Rumlow escaped?"

Steve tipped his head back in a sigh as Bucky stiffened.

Rumlow. He knew the name, though it took him a moment to place it: a strong jaw and dark, glinting eyes. A flash of teeth. A black tactical uniform.

"He was HYDRA," Bucky murmured. He rubbed his temple at the memory of the chair.

"Yes," Steve said to Bucky, then tilted his head up so Barton could hear as well. "He's been comatose for months, we didn't think he was coming out of it. But apparently he woke up, attacked a nurse, and managed to escape."

"He always was a tough son of a bitch," Barton said unhappily as he strode over to them. "Any idea where he got to?"

"Last trace we got, he used a payphone to contact a known HYDRA-affiliated number. We have to assume he's linked up with a surviving cell." Steve put his hands on his hips. "We'll find him. It just might take a little longer." He glanced down at Bucky. "Unless you've got any ideas?"

Bucky jerked his head once. "I only knew him in D.C."

A shadow crossed Steve's face. "He was… one of your handlers?"

"No, but he was there. He and his team were supposed to step in if I - when I failed."

"We'll get him," Barton said firmly. "And whoever else is helping him."

When Maggie walked into the private Avengers gym to hear the distinctive sounds of fighting, she was not at all surprised. Clint and Nat used this gym to spar when they didn't want to be gawked at by Avengers personnel, and Tony had his boxing practice in here.

But when she looked over to the sparring mats, she stopped in her tracks.

Steve and Bucky faced off against each other on the dark foam sparring mat, Steve in a tight white shirt and jogging trousers, and Bucky in all black. As she watched they circled each other once, and then dove forward, swinging for each other in a thud of flesh and metal. Bucky ducked low, Steve's fist sailing over his head as his hair swept across his face.

Despite the speed and weight to their blows as they moved, it was clear they were sparring casually, restraining themselves. And yet Maggie was instantly captivated. Steve rolled under a kick from Bucky and sprang up, clearly aiming to grapple his friend from the side, but Bucky spun out of the kick and snapped his other foot at Steve's head - Steve fell back just in time, mouth open in surprise, and caught himself on one hand before kicking both legs out at Bucky, who leapt over them lightly then punched down with the metal arm. Maggie lost her breath when Steve caught the metal fist with an audible thud, his fingers digging in, and then they were snapping blows at each other almost too fast for her to keep track.

She was supposed to be running a few drills that Hill had set her, but all thoughts of training left her mind as she stood by the wall, watching them fight.

She realized now that Bucky had been changing his posture whenever he walked through the Tower, hunching his shoulders and concealing the strength in his figure. But all that fell away now as he fought, his shoulders straight and fists bunched, dark hair whipping about his head as he moved.

Maggie's skin prickled. She'd almost forgotten how dangerous he was. She'd forgotten the flicker of light over his metal arm as he struck, and the heavy silence that hung around him as he focused completely on his opponent. His grey eyes were sharp, betraying nothing of his next movements and analysing Steve's expressive face like an x-ray.

Maggie remembered fighting him on that rooftop in Peru. A flurry of slashing metal and thudding fists, his blood on the roof tiles, his metal fist around her wrist, then her throat. Sparks and fireworks. The way he fought like a machine, calculated and without feeling.

She remembered his steady steps in the gravel the night they met. His blank face.

You are my mission.

Maggie shivered and her eyes refocused, and she noticed something that she hadn't before. On the sparring mat with Steve, Bucky fought differently than he had as the Soldier. He was still impossibly fast, with devastating power behind his blows, but he fought with less ruthlessness, less mindless efficiency. Maggie watched him flick his hair out of his face after he and Steve grappled for a few seconds, then a few seconds later he hopped lightly back on his feet in a movement far more delicate than the Soldier's heavy strides. Bucky was trying things out as he fought, almost playing with Steve from time to time.

There was a different mind at work in this battle.

The two of them were circling again, hands raised defensively and their eyes locked on each other. Steve feinted left, then drove forward and slammed his knee into Bucky's chest, making him stumble back as his breath gusted out in an oof.

Maggie wondered when Bucky and Steve had started sparring together like this. She wondered how Bucky reconciled it as part of his recovery. How he had gotten to the point where he could fight without being overwhelmed by flashbacks. Or maybe combat came naturally to him.

Steve pulled Bucky into a grapple, twisting the metal arm up into a painful angle behind his back. Their feet slid across the mat as they struggled against each other. But then Bucky contorted - the metal arm bent backward in a way that would have been impossible for a flesh and blood arm, and he stepped out of the hold easily with a twist. They broke apart, facing each other, and Bucky laughed. His head tilted down as the laugh escaped him, as if he wanted to hide it, and a moment later Steve laughed too, reaching up to wipe away the sweat shining on his forehead.

Without thinking, Maggie pushed off the wall and strode toward the sparring mat. Steve and Bucky sensed her the second she moved and they spun, their hands dropping and smiles fading from their faces.

"Sparring match," she said with forced casualness as she approached, one hand gripping the strap of her gym bag so tight that her knuckles had gone white. Her eyes flicked from Steve, whose brows had come together as he watched her approach, to Bucky. He had gone still and silent and watchful again. "Nice forms."

Steve ran a hand through his mussed hair, breathing hard. "Ma-"

But her eyes were still fixed on Bucky. "I'll spar you."

Bucky's eyebrows flew up as he heard Meg's challenge, disguised as a casual offer. It had not been phrased as a question.

He cleared his throat. "I don't know…"

But Meg was already kicking off her shoes and reaching into her gym bag, pulling out a roll of hand wrapping tape. Bucky watched her, still recovering from the minor heart attack he'd had when he realized she was in the room. He'd been too focused on sparring Steve - they'd done it a few times now, but today he'd felt more relaxed, less frightened of slipping and hurting his friend.

And now he was faced with her, her intense stare and this strange challenge she'd thrown down.

Meg's dark eyes flicked up to him once more as she stepped onto the sparring mat. She wore dark gym clothes, leggings and a tank top, with her hair tied up out of her face. A thin white scar stretched across her cheek and up to her ear. Bucky's eyes flicked to her prosthetic: the metal ankle joint and foot were visible beneath the leggings. He'd known the prosthetic was there for a while, had clocked it in her gait the first time he spotted her on the rooftop in Peru, but this was the first time he'd properly seen it. The foot and ankle were dark grey and intricately detailed, moving smoothly.

As Meg strode out onto the mat, Steve backed away with only a fleeting glance at Bucky. He'd never been able to stand up to determined women, and apparently today would be no different.

Bucky shot Steve an annoyed glance, then looked to Meg. "Are… are you sure?"

"I'm game if you are." She finished wrapping her left hand and moved on to her right. Her movements were rigid and precise, as if she were exerting a great deal of control over herself. "What are the rules?"

Bucky hesitated. "Uh, we've just been… well, I guess the main rule is don't cause any serious harm," he said, with another glance over at Steve. Steve rubbed the back of his neck, glancing between them. "Look, I don't know if-"

"How do you win?" she asked as she finished with the second wrapping and flexed her fingers. She looked up and met his eyes.

Bucky blinked and glanced to Steve. "We haven't been calling winners." He shot Steve a what's going on? expression, and Steve just shook his head. Useless.

When he looked back to Meg, she was tipping her head thoughtfully. "How about first blood?"

He closed his eyes. He really didn't want to do this. Raynor had been fine with him sparring Steve under J.A.R.V.I.S.'s watchful gaze, but this was something else. But then he opened his eyes, and he could see from Meg's face that there was no way she was backing down. "Alright," he sighed. "What does the winner get?"

Something flashed in her eyes. "They get to ask the loser a question, and the loser has to answer truthfully."

He shot her a curious look. "Okay."

Meg sank into a fighting stance, feet shoulder width apart and her center of gravity lowered, with her hands raised to defend herself. She had a near-perfect stance, and Bucky abruptly realized that she must have been trained by SHIELD - probably by the Widow. Her chin tilted up. "Okay."

Bucky mirrored her fighting stance on instinct. He felt a spike of worry before it passed; he was having a good day today, sure of himself and where he was. He could handle… whatever this was. He rolled his shoulders back.

Off the mat, Steve glanced between them and shifted his feet.

Stark moved first. She lunged like a predator, taking one long stride and then snapping out with her right leg, aiming for his hip - Bucky sidestepped to avoid it and then he was blocking a volley of blows that she hurled at his shoulders, his chest, his gut, his face. Those that he couldn't dodge in time he caught on his forearms, noting the force she was putting into the strikes. The ones that connected with his flesh arm hurt.

Despite her onslaught Bucky didn't move to attack, and he could tell from the twist to Meg's face that she had noticed.

She kicked at his legs with an outward sweep from her right leg. He dodged back a step and her foot sailed past, the momentum turning her back to him. But she caught herself midspin, cocked her leg and thrust it back, slamming her right foot into his thigh. It was a heavy blow that weakened his stance, and as Meg finished twisting back to face him she followed it up with a punch square to his face that snapped his head back.

Bucky took a step back, his thigh stinging, and took a breath. She was trying to aggravate him into a reaction. He lifted his gaze and met her dark eyes.

She lunged again. This time she was fighting more to anger than to wound, trying to get a rise out of him by striking for his face or between his legs, and after a couple more seconds of dodging and deflecting, Bucky made up his mind.

He wasn't irritated - he'd learned back in the war not to bring ego into a fight - but he did realize that Meg wasn't going to back down until he showed that he was taking this seriously.

So he started fighting back. Meg's eyes glinted the first time he threw a punch at her, a millisecond before she ducked out of the way. Bucky heard Steve draw in a breath. They stepped apart for a heartbeat, eyes meeting, and then surged back together. It became a blur of blows; fists and elbows and kicks and blocks from them both, and Bucky wasn't thinking, only reacting.

Meg got in a punch to his kidneys, making him wince, and he used the position to throw his flesh-and-blood fist into her leg, then followed up with another blow to her side. The punch knocked her sideways and down to the mat, but she was up again in an instant. He remembered that from their last fight.

She sprang forward again, this time striking with an open hand with her fingers bared, and he remembered that she usually fought with claws. He dodged but her fingers snagged in his hair and pulled out a few strands, making him wince again. He snapped up his metal arm and struck her arm away. She hissed through her teeth.

He had twisted around in his blow so she took the opportunity to seize his right arm in a joint lock; she twisted his hand back painfully and yanked on it to try to jerk him off balance. But Bucky had the upper hand with strength so he kept his feet planted, and pulled his arm back - but Meg came with it, leaping up and swinging her leg up over his shoulder so she clung to his arm like an upside-down spider monkey, and before Bucky could move to throw her off she twisted. Bucky was forced to roll with her if he wanted to keep his shoulder joint intact and they both slammed to the ground, Bucky flat on his back and Meg on her side, already moving to pin his arm with her legs. Bucky twisted against the hold and reached for her - but she was fast to recognize the lost cause and roll away, back on her feet in no time.

He tried to rise too, but only got up to one knee before she was on him again - he twisted under her swinging kick and caught her leg this time, using her momentum to lift her off her other foot and throw her to the ground. She hit with a smack and tumbled across the mat. Bucky got up and turned to see her spitting hair out of her mouth, glaring at him.

Meg rolled back, planted her hands behind her shoulders and then kicked forward in a kip-up, landing lightly on her feet in a fighting stance.

Show off, Bucky thought. Then they were swinging for each other again.

Bucky was only vaguely aware of Steve watching them as he and Meg fought. The few glimpses he did get told him Steve was standing stressed and helpless to the side.

Fighting Meg wasn't like fighting Steve. Bucky was stronger than her, thanks to the serum, but she was faster than he remembered, able to weave and avoid him. Her mind moved lightning fast, quicker than his instincts sometimes. Bucky knocked her down twice more but she was always up again in the next second with her eyes darting to his fists, to his face, to his feet. She was as quiet as him when she fought, not wasting breath on grunts or cries like Steve sometimes did. Their breaths came fast and their feet moved over the foam mat, sometimes heavy stomps and other times light slides.

As they exchanged a whirl of blows, something loosened in Meg. He sensed less rage radiating from her and more… is she enjoying this? She wasn't smiling, but he could feel it. When he rose from a crouch to grab her under one leg and one arm, intending to throw her, she launched herself off his shoulders and landed unerringly on her feet like a cat, and let out a small breath of satisfaction before looking up, her dark eyes burning with something that definitely wasn't rage. What else have you got? her expression seemed to say.

With a start, Bucky realized that he was enjoying this too.

Meg was quick and tricky. She didn't fight like Steve or like the Widow; she had a combat blend of her own. She fought like an acrobat in one second and a six-foot-tall boxer in the next, with a surprising amount of power behind her punches. As he absorbed yet another punch he wondered briefly if conviction like hers might be as powerful as supersoldier serum.

Bucky ducked a haymaker, spinning into a crouch, and as he rose he whirled around to elbow her in the side - but she'd moved while his back was turned, and he felt a sickening crack as his elbow connected with her nose.

Bucky spun around to see her reeling back, blood gushing from her nose and her eyes squeezed shut.

His stomach dropped. "Shit," he exclaimed as he moved forward, reaching out, "I'm sorry, oh god-"

But to his surprise, Meg was laughing. She waved off his helpless hands as she pinched her nose, her hand already smeared with scarlet blood. "Don't be sorry," she said breathlessly. They were both flatfooted now, the fight clearly over. "That's what I was asking you to do, wasn't it?" She met his eyes. "Didn't think you actually would."

"Well I'm an asshole, haven't you heard?" Bucky said, echoing what she'd called him when she snapped at him in the kitchen.

Meg smiled, and he realized it was the first time she had smiled because of him. There was blood in her teeth.

They both turned to look at Steve when he shifted forward, his hands held out helplessly and a horrified look on his face.

"Steve," Meg said, her voice muffled by the blood, "would you mind going to get me an icepack?"

Clearly relieved at being able to help, Steve he rushed for the door.

There was a moment of awkward silence as Maggie and Bucky were left alone on the sparring mat together. Maggie was still breathing hard, her adrenaline buzzing despite the aches across her body. She still wasn't sure why she'd challenged Bucky to a fight, but whatever her reasons had been, it had all changed about halfway through. Because that had been… fun.

She pinched her nose and focused on breathing through her mouth, then winced when she felt blood drip off her lip and hit the mat. She looked at the splotch of red, then glanced up just as Bucky looked back from the door and into her face.

He grimaced. "Let me get you a towel." He hurried over to the stack of towels by the doors. Maggie watched his loping gait, so different from his rigid stance in battle.

"So I guess I have to ask you a question then," Bucky called as he snatched up a towel and hurried back to where she was stepping off the mat.

She shook her head as she accepted the towel from him and pressed it under her nose, mopping up the blood.

He frowned. "But I thought you said… it's okay, I mean, I don't have to-"

She laughed again at his confused expression and waved a hand. "No, I'm not revoking the prize. I'm just saying that you didn't win it."

He looked dubiously at her bloodstained face. "What?"

Maggie lifted her prosthetic leg, and a second later the tip of her needle-thin heelspur slotted out, glinting in the fluorescent light. Bucky's eyes went wide. "You started bleeding about five seconds into that fight," she explained, with a nod at his left leg.

Bucky was wearing dark sweatpants. He peered at where she'd kicked him, and she saw the expression on his face shift as he realized that what he'd probably thought was a residual sting from a strong kick might be something else. He reached down to touch the area, and his fingers came away smudged red.

"Son of a bitch," he said wonderingly.

Maggie cocked an eyebrow at him. "And before you accuse me of cheating, you said the only rule was to not cause serious harm. You didn't say anything about weapons."

He huffed a laugh. "I sure didn't." He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't stop the fight when you'd won."

"What, is that in the rules?"

He snorted. "Okay, so, you must have a question then. Shoot."

Maggie pulled the towel away from her face and gingerly probed the area around her nose. It hurt a lot, but she didn't allow any pain to show on her face. It seemed her nose had stopped bleeding, though. As she assessed herself, she thought about Bucky's question.

She did have a very specific question to ask him. She hadn't planned the fight in order to ask it, but it had occurred to her in the moment. Something she'd been wondering ever since she started looking back to that terrible night from her childhood more closely.

She met Bucky's eye. "Why didn't you kill me?"

He didn't pretend not to know what she was talking about. He sighed and folded his arms, looking down for a moment. His hair fell over his face. "For a long time, I didn't know why. But looking back… I was a weapon, then. I didn't have anything in my head except the mission. Their mission. But I looked at you, and you were hurt, and crying, and… I just couldn't do it."

Maggie felt her face harden. "Surely that never stopped you before."

His expression twisted, but he didn't avoid her gaze. "No, it didn't. But every other time, I was killing. Someone would be alive, and I would make them dead. But the orders were different with you. I was supposed to bring you with me."

She started. I didn't know that. "Why?" she breathed.

He grimaced. "I don't know the details, but I know that the people who wanted you… they're dead now. There was some project, some section of HYDRA, some… they were taking kids, experimenting on them, using them. None of them lived. I think I realized that that's what they were going to do to you. I remember looking at you and thinking about the chair - the Memory Suppression Machine, it-"

"I know it," Maggie murmured.

Bucky nodded. "Well, that's what I was thinking about. The chair, and the place I was supposed to take you to. And I couldn't do it." He shrugged. "Call it empathy, or a fault in my programming, or me being out of the chair just long enough to remember, but… I couldn't do it. I told my handlers that the mission had failed. They thought that meant you'd died, and by the time they worked out you'd survived I'd already been wiped, and they couldn't get anything out of me other than the mission brief: I crashed the car, killed the adults, left the child. They weren't happy, but they couldn't change it."

Blood dripped down the back of Maggie's throat as she listened to Bucky. Her chest felt tight.

"The people who wanted you ended up getting killed," he said in a low voice. "That's what happened to failures in HYDRA."

Maggie stared at him. He looked so alive, so whole now, but she remembered the blank eyes of the man who killed her parents. She remembered the way they had flickered. She remembered what his footsteps had sounded like as he walked away, and how she had hated him with more passion than she had ever felt in her young life.

She remembered his metal hand around her arm.

"Do you remember what you said to me?" she whispered.

He looked right back at her. "You are my mission."

She thought that the words in his voice might make her spiral into a panic, bring her back to those nightmares she'd had all through her childhood and into adulthood, but this was Bucky and she knew that he would not willingly hurt her - well, not unless she practically dared him to. The thought surprised her.

He was still holding her gaze. "And then you said-"

"You're my mission now," she breathed, and something solidified in his sea-grey eyes.

"And now?" he asked.

She opened her mouth to say something, she wasn't sure what, when the gym door slid open.

Steve strode back in with his hands empty and a fuming Tony two steps behind him.

"I'm sorry," Steve called as soon as he saw them standing five feet apart next to the sparring mat, Maggie with blood drying on her face and Bucky still staring at her. "I was looking for icepacks but there weren't any in the usual place and I couldn't find any, so then I asked Tony, and he asked why I needed an icepack and-"

Tony stormed past the floundering Steve toward Maggie and Bucky. "What the hell?" His eyes zeroed in on Maggie's bloodstained face and shirt, and he glared at Bucky, his fists clenched. Bucky backed up with his hands raised and Maggie darted between them with a hand out.

"It's fine, Tony. All in the rules."

He tore his glare away from Bucky and inspected her face. He winced. "Are you okay?"

She snorted. "Yeah, you should see the other guy."

Tony looked to Bucky with a dubious expression.

Bucky shrugged. "She won."

Steve had caught up with Tony. "Wait, she did?"

Bucky gestured to the slightly darker patch on his trousers just above his knee. "Stabbed me about five seconds into the fight."

Tony's anger evaporated. "Nice." He offered his hand to Maggie and after a moment she high fived it. "Now c'mon, I don't know a lot about medicine but that looks exactly like the time I broke my nose in 2005, and that needed to be set by a doctor." He set his hand on her back and began guiding her toward the exit, taking the bloody towel from her.

Maggie looked over her shoulder. She and Bucky made eye contact for a second, but then she turned around again.

She swallowed. "You didn't break your nose in 2005," she retorted. "I broke it for you."

"Yes, and I'll have you know that my nose was listed as one of the reasons why I got voted Sexiest Man Alive 2010, so thank you."

"Ooh, could this be the start of my modelling career?"

The gym door swished shut behind them.

When the gym door closed, Steve turned toward Bucky. "You alright, Buck?"

Bucky was still looking over to where Meg had just left the room.

It took several days for Maggie's nose to stop aching, but she felt as if the fight had settled something inside her. It had answered more than the one question she had asked him. All the same, much to her frustration, in the following days and weeks she was plagued with insomnia and nightmares that she forgot in the morning.

"It's not fair," she complained to Mai one afternoon, rubbing the tired lines on her face. "I'm supposed to be getting better."

"Unlike in engineering, progress in mental health is not a straight line upward," Mai said sympathetically. "Let's talk about what you remember from your nightmares, and in the meantime I can prescribe you a sleeping medication."

The sleeping pills left her groggy and foggy-minded in the morning, however, so Maggie soon stopped taking them. Her nights began to drag: she couldn't sleep, and she hated sitting in her room awake, and she couldn't explore the Tower because the Tower was Bucky's territory at night. They might be somewhat on speaking terms now, but she didn't like the idea of disturbing one of the few chances he had to be alone in the Tower.

So instead she escaped into the city. When sleep evaded her she got dressed, went out and danced and drank and laughed with strangers until last call, when she trudged back to the Tower on tired feet and fell asleep, only to wake a few hours later to get to work. Pepper cottoned on fast and gave her a disapproving look, but said nothing. Maggie knew how to handle her drink and she was never too rough the day after. Besides, it reminded her of her days before the Wyvern, when she'd used her fake ID at the bars around the MIT campus and got in fights with men who were rude to her friends and made a reputation for herself in the gossip magazines.

But then one night she woke up sweaty and terrified from a half-remembered nightmare. She checked the time: nearly midnight. Her chest felt tight, and her heart skipped uneasily. She would not be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

She already knew that Mai would disapprove of what she was about to do, but she did it anyway. She crawled out of bed, got dressed, then slipped out of her room and out of the Tower.

It wasn't a fun night. Maggie drank too much and danced too little, and was too unsettled from her nightmare to talk and laugh with strangers. She overheard a man refer to her as that sourfaced scarred one, and it irritated her so much that she left the bar. A man with a camera took a photo of her walking down a midtown street but scurried away when she glared at him. She could already see the headline: Party Avenger shows off prosthetic leg on a boozy night out on the town.

She ended up at a sleek, hard club where the music had no lyrics and people were doing lines in the bathroom. Maggie accepted a whole tray of topshelf tequila to herself. As she downed the shots, watching too-bright strobe lights flash on the empty dance floor, she thought I am all alone.

She had enough sense to leave after the shots were done. She hailed a cab back to the Tower, and lost her shoes somewhere in the lobby. She stumbled into the public elevator.

"Common room, J.A.R.V.I.S.," she said as clearly as she could. She cursed herself for not designing the Tower so she could catch just one elevator up to her floor, security risk be damned.

"Of course, Ms Stark," J.A.R.V.I.S. said gently.

The doors shut and Maggie slid down to the floor, eyes closed. Her mouth felt hot and scratchy, and all she could taste was sour tequila. She shivered at the press of the cool metal and glass behind her back: she only wore her silver party dress. Her right knee ached from wearing the prosthetic with heels. She stretched both legs out on the floor of the elevator.

When the doors slid open again eighty floors later, she didn't notice.

"Ms Stark," J.A.R.V.I.S. said in that same gentle tone. "You have arrived."

She cracked an eye open. She'd reached the corridor outside the common room, dark except for a very soft safety light at the base of the walls, and the ambient glow from the city through the far window.

She would have to climb up another five flights of stairs to her bedroom, because Tony had broken the private elevator by doing stupid Iron Man things in it after a mission last week.

When she still didn't move, J.A.R.V.I.S. said: "Ms Stark? I am scanning your vitals now."

"Still alive, J," she sighed. She braced her shoulders against the back wall, planted her feet and then pushed herself upright with a groan. She steadied herself, and then padded out barefoot and unsteady into the corridor. She had to squint to see where she was going, and as she turned the corner into the vast common room she almost tripped on the smooth surface.

Her eyes caught on the glowing city lights out the wide window and she veered towards it. Her hair was falling out of the hasty updo she'd put it in and tickling her shoulders. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep out the chill.

"I have locked the door to the flight deck," J.A.R.V.I.S. said politely as she approached the window and Maggie rolled her eyes, knowing he was worried she would fall to her death.

She pressed her forehead to the glass and looked out at the city below. Hundreds of pinpricks of light all blurred together in her vision for a moment, before she refocused and picked out individual buildings and streets. She thought she could spot that shitty corporate club from here. Her breath fogged the glass.

After a long while she sighed and turned - and caught a flash of silver in the darkness leading down one of the corridors.

"I know you're there," she called.

The darkness stilled. Then, slowly, Bucky emerged. His arms were loose by his sides, and his hair untied. He wore his usual grey trousers and black long-sleeved shirt. She must have seen the flash of his exposed left hand. His face wasn't blank; his eyebrows were slightly furrowed and he looked a little guilty.

"Sorry," he murmured. In the silent common room, it seemed loud. If he was surprised by her shiny dress and bare feet, he didn't show it.

"How long were you there?"

He winced. "Since before you. I thought I'd leave you alone, but I" - he abruptly looked like he wanted to disappear - "wanted to make sure…"

"That I didn't choke on my own vomit?" she suggested.

He winced again.

"I'll have you know that I come from a long line of very proficient alcoholics," she said, and her drunken mind didn't catch on to the fact that she'd just indirectly referenced Howard. Bucky, however, went still. "It'd take at least two more trays of that shitty tequila to do me in."

He ducked his head. "I'll… okay." He turned to go.

Maggie kept her chin high as she made for the shallow stairs of the common room, her dignity intact until her prosthetic foot caught on the second step and sent her tripping headlong onto the floor.

Bucky darted back, but when Maggie looked up with a grimace and saw him reaching down for her, she jerked away and hit her elbow on the stairs. "You stay back!"

He pulled his hand back, stung, and retreated to a safe distance. "Sorry."

She kept a defensive hand up as she rose unsteadily, breathing hard. She checked her elbow - it hurt, but it didn't seem to be bleeding. "Just… I don't need you to help me," she said in some attempt to explain herself to Bucky. "It's bad enough I can't sleep, avoiding other insomniacs is just… causing so much more work." She brushed her dress down and let out a frustrated breath.

"You can't sleep," he murmured.

She looked up sharply. He kept his distance, but was considering her more closely.

"That's why you leave," he continued. "Because I'm here."

Maggie decided she'd had enough for tonight. She straightened her dress fully, turned, and headed up the stairs. But she paused halfway up when she sensed Bucky following several steps behind.

He held up his hands under her glare. "Let me make sure you get to your room."

Her eyes narrowed further. "Why."

He gestured at the spot where she'd fallen.

"I said I don't need your help."

"Don't fall over, then I won't have to help."

Her eyes went wide. He'd never stood up to her like that before, save for when he'd actually started fighting her in the gym. The hint of challenge in his voice was… strange. Unsettling.

"Fine." Maggie turned and continued up the stairs, keeping a close eye on the edge of each step. Bucky trailed a good ten steps behind, his footsteps silent. She wouldn't have known he was there if she couldn't sense his presence behind her, something like silent amusement radiating from him.

Maggie was not silent. Her footsteps went slap clank slap clank slap clank as she strode purposefully upward. At the top of the common room stairs she went right, leading Bucky to the stairwell that led up to her residential floor. They ascended those in relative silence as well.

Finally Maggie got to her floor. She turned, spreading her hands, and raised her eyebrows at him. "No help required." Then, still thinking about that note of challenge in his voice, she added: "You're just jealous you can't get drunk."

"I am a bit, yeah." He didn't smile. He nodded once and turned to go, but then hesitated at the top of the stairs. "Look…" She peered at him as he gestured downward. "All I do at night is sit down there and read, sometimes talk to J.A.R.V.I.S. I can go somewhere else if you can't sleep and want to be alone. J.A.R.V.I.S. can figure it out so you never have to see me. It's your home."

"And it's your prison," she replied in a low tone.

He sighed. "It doesn't feel that way. I've got more freedom here than I've had in the last…" he cocked his head. "Seventy years. It ain't a picnic, but it's… nice. Safe."

She rubbed her sore elbow. "Except for the angry drunk millennial yelling at you."

He shrugged. "Yelling I can handle. Yelling… I deserve. At the very least."

She shot him an odd look. "Well if you ever feel like being yelled at, you know where I live."

"Thanks."

Neither of them were smiling, but the mood had lightened considerably.

A long moment passed, until Maggie blurted, without planning it: "Thank you for your note. Before."

He looked surprised that she had mentioned it. "Thank you for yours. The coffee was good."

"Steve doesn't appreciate Starbucks."

Another silence fell. Maggie swayed, her eyelids drooping, and when she focused enough, Bucky was peering at her.

"You're not going to remember this, are you?"

She reached for the palm scanner by her bedroom door. "I always remember." The door slid open and she walked inside, letting it shut behind her.

Reviews

Nina: Thanks so much! We are indeed hinting at Ultron now ;)

Morgzw: I'm glad Maggie seeking out help resonated with you! And that you liked Maggie and Bucky interacting more :) Thank you for your lovely review!

Eennio: Thank you so much!

DBZFAN45: Acceptance and progress for sure, Maggie and Bucky are both learning a lot and growing a lot at the moment. It's so great to have them interacting more and more, I'm enjoying it! We're not quite at Ultron yet, but the seeds are there ;)

Guest: I'm with you on shipping Maggie and Bucky! I think she's very compatible with Steve for example, but not necessarily on a romantic level. Maggie and Bucky just get each other, even when they're not talking.

MsMoe9: Thank you so much, I'm glad you liked the little interactions between them! And yeah Maggie tends to have quite big emotional swings, so her snapping at Bucky is not out of the usual for her haha. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

The1975Love: What a chapter to catch up to! I'm so glad you enjoyed them finally interacting :)

Dutchy177: I do have plans to write a version of TFATWS with Maggie (original Wyvern-verse Maggie) in it!

Shorttrooper: I'm glad you like the return to some semblance of positivity! As always there's danger lurking though ;) As for the arm repair scene, sorry I should have been clearer! The arm is attached (I don't think the HYDRA arm could be detached), he's basically sitting on a stool with his back to the bench, and his arm resting on the bench. Kind of like when you lean back on a counter or something. I'm glad you liked the chapter, hope you enjoyed this one, and I hope you have a lovely week!