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September, 2014
"So, you're back in the field," said Mai, sitting with her ankles crossed and the glow of a bright autumn day in New York shining through the large window behind her.
"In an analytical capacity only," Maggie quickly corrected. She wore a hoodie with the Avengers logo on it; they were available to all Avengers employees.
"You're in the Quinjet," Mai countered. It was true; Maggie had gone out in the Quinjet with the rest of the team on their last three missions, as a part of their efforts to reintegrate her into the field. She manned the comms, checked readouts, and helped with the cleanup and recovery afterwards. It also helped to have a pilot who wasn't exhausted after a mission. Mai went on: "From what you've told me, anyone in the Quinjet has to be battle ready at any time. Like Doctor Banner."
"Well apparently I share a lot of similarities with the guy who's at risk of losing all control and putting others in danger due to an emotional problem."
Mai gave her a faintly amused look, and Maggie glanced down at her lap.
"That's that humor defense thing we talked about."
"Yes," Mai smiled. "And humor is fine, as long as it's not your only tool for looking after yourself. Do you really think you and Doctor Banner are in the same boat?"
"No," Maggie muttered, rubbing at her palm. "And it's not fair to him to say it." She tipped her head back. "Honestly? I am worried that if I end up back in the field - properly in the field - that I'll mess up again. But I… I think I feel ready."
Mai tilted her head, dark hair brushing her shoulder. "So where do you think the worry is coming from?"
"That maybe I'm overestimating myself. More eager to fight HYDRA than I am to confront my own weaknesses."
"Do you think that's true?"
She frowned, thinking about it. "... No."
"It's natural to second guess yourself, particularly after how your last mission went," Mai said gently. "But the only thing holding you back is your own caution. You said Captain Rogers and Maria Hill have signed you off. You've passed every test they could think to give you. I've also signed you off and passed my assessment on to Captain Rogers." She uncrossed her ankles. "Now, caution is good - being aware of yourself, and your limits. You might find that some days you're ready for the field, while other days you're not. And the skill of recognising that is invaluable."
"You don't think it's risky, though?" Maggie pressed, leaning forward. "Sending someone with a history of mental instability out into the field?"
Mai folded her fingers together and eyed Maggie frankly. "All soldiers feel. All spies, all police officers, all mall security officers. All Avengers. All humans feel. Even when you try to take that away from them," she added with a significant look, reminding Maggie of all their discussions about Bucky. "The key to being a successful human - a successful soldier, as well - is to have the skills to recognise, acknowledge, and deal with those feelings. And you have been a very fast learner, Maggie Stark."
Maggie sat back, considering her words. She hadn't really thought about it like that. She had always prioritised logic and clear thinking in battle. But Mai had a point. When she was last in the field she had been desperately trying to press her feelings and her panic down and out of the way, but they had exploded out of control. Her whole life she'd been trying to do that. But what if she just let her feelings be? Worked with them, instead of against them? They weren't malfunctions. They were a part of her. Part of the Wyvern.
"Yeah," she said, almost distractedly. She nodded. "I'm ready." She met Mai's eyes again, and the corner of her mouth curled up. "And I've got a hell of a uniform."
September, 2014
New Jersey
"Wyvern, how are we looking?"
At Steve's request over the comms, Maggie looked up to the satellite view of the surrounding area, in sharp focus on the screen in front of her. "The HYDRA facility has mobilized its aircraft, but they're on a closed loop so I can't override the controls. Unclear as yet if they're planning to attack or escape."
"The helicopter has just locked on to Thor's position," J.A.R.V.I.S. interrupted. "It seems they intend to attack."
"Same story with the seacraft," came Clint's annoyed voice as a squad of speedboats roared out of an undercover jetty on the north end of the island.
Maggie nodded and looked over her shoulder at Bruce. He sat in the copilot's chair of the Quinjet they both occupied, wearing tracksuit pants and a sweater. "Any readings we should be worried about?"
"No harmful levels of radiation." He squinted at his screen. "But I'm picking up some trace chemicals in the atmosphere. J.A.R.V.I.S., will you quantify those?"
"Certainly, Doctor Banner."
Maggie swivelled back to her work station in the main cockpit of the Quinjet and eyed the glowing dots signalling each Avengers' location. She and Bruce were in the Quinjet a mile away from the action, on the mainland. The others were arrayed around the HYDRA facility on one of the islands out to sea. Maggie could just make it out through the cockpit window: a flat grey shape in the ocean, mostly scrub, save for a few squat concrete buildings. The HYDRA facility had been well disguised, since most of it appeared to have been built underground and underwater. The Avengers analysts had only discovered the presence of HYDRA here thanks to a stray report from a curious local.
But the previously well-hidden and quiet HYDRA facility was now swarming: troops in dark uniforms marched out of the concrete buildings to face the Avengers in the field, speedboats bristling with gun turrets buzzed out onto the water, and now five helicopters and a stolen Quinjet rose into the air. The day was overcast and thunder rumbled far out in the ocean, an ominous background to the sudden furious roar of engines.
"Keep your eyes peeled for any signs of chemical weapons, and stay out of any room that requires an air supply until J.A.R.V.I.S. can confirm its safety," Maggie instructed over the comms as she deployed their three functioning Iron Legion drones out to the ocean to take on the speedboats. They'd first field-tested the drones last month, and they were a success so far.
"Roger that," Steve said distractedly.
Maggie watched the glowing dots of Avengers converge around the island; Iron Man plunged into the ocean after J.A.R.V.I.S. identified an underwater entry point, Thor battled agents on the ground with Steve's backup, and Nat and Clint darted along the top of the complex of concrete buildings, avoiding gunfire from the aircraft. Maggie could hear the gunfire and explosions from inside the Quinjet, thrumming in her chest. This was her fifth mission out in the field, and she was very happy staying inside the Quinjet, thank you very much.
Just as she had the thought, her scanners picked up a spike of seismic activity.
"Oh my-" Bruce exclaimed, and Maggie followed his line of sight out the cockpit window to see a plume of white water erupting from the ocean a few yards out to sea from the HYDRA island. The plume jetted up a good thirty feet, misting into a rainbow at its peak, and the ocean gnashed angrily around the eruption.
"That can't be good," Maggie murmured.
"Stark!" Steve called, and Maggie realized the water had erupted right over Tony's locator dot. "Stark, respond!"
There was only silence from Tony's end of the comms.
Maggie felt a rush of fear prickle over the back of her neck and close up her throat. But then she frowned. She was afraid, but the fear hadn't overwhelmed her like she'd been expecting. She realized that the sudden rigidity in her body was from worry that she was about to have a panic attack. But she wasn't. She parsed all these feelings in the time it took her to take three deep breaths.
Her eyes darted over her screens. HYDRA had more troops out on the ground now, and the speedboats had encircled the island and were spraying out heavy fire. Thor had entered the facility, and Nat and Clint were pinned down amongst what meagre cover they had found on the roof of the facility. Steve was sprinting out onto the beach. Tony's locator dot moved incrementally.
"Steve, you need another body in the field," she said into the comms, even as adrenaline rushed through her. "I'm good, I really am. I can handle it." She'd fought the Winter Soldier and laughed.
Steve didn't hesitate. "I know you can. If you cover Nat and Clint over in the west sector, I can go help Tony on the ground. I can see lights in the water."
"I'm good!" came Tony's slightly garbled voice. There was a lot of background noise over his line. "They've got a-" he broke off with a clang. "They've got a freaking submarine!"
"I'm on my way up," Maggie said. She shot out of her seat and grabbed for the black gym bag she'd brought with her, taking out the contents and pulling them on hastily, with a glance up at Bruce.
"Good luck," he said, nodding once.
"Don't need it," she replied breathlessly. She finished pushing her arms through the sleeves of her uniform and lifted a sleek capsule of metal to her back, where it connected with a click.
Bruce let down the loading ramp, and the Wyvern ran out of the Quinjet with a grin.
One of the HYDRA helicopters, jet black and spitting heavy artillery rounds, had pinned Clint down on one corner of the facility roof. He'd found cover between a large bulky air vent and an array of solar panels - I'm goddamn lucky HYDRA decided to go renewable, he thought as he tried to twist around to nock an arrow in his bow without exposing any of his body to the helicopter's surprisingly accurate gunner.
He heard the roar of the helicopter's rotors, sounding as if they were just inches away from his head, but then frowned when he heard another noise, growing steadily louder. Another helicopter? He might have to come up with something very creative to get out of this. He wondered if he'd survive a leap into the ocean from this rooftop. Laura had made him promise to stop jumping off of structures, but he was running out of options here.
But then he heard a whoosh of something surging up past the rooftop right by him, and he twisted to see.
His heart skipped, and for a fraction of a second he thought that Maggie had finally done it, had manufactured a whole, living dragon. But no - it's her, he realized a second later. Maggie Stark, in a new uniform, her legs tucked together and her wings flared wide as she rose up, up, facing down the HYDRA helicopter. Bullets stopped slamming into Clint's air vent. Both he and the HYDRA pilots stared up at the dark form in the grey sky.
Her limbs and torso were encased in a uniform built of hundreds of interlocking metal plates that slid and moved against each other in an articulated fashion like a living entity. The armor reminded Clint of the shell of an armadillo or a beetle. He knew it had to be metal but the whole uniform looked flexible, moving fluidly like nothing he'd ever seen. The plates were a deep, matte black at the ends of her arms and legs, but faded to burgundy at her torso, like the shifting hide of a creature. She beat her wings and the metal curved with her, the plates sliding over each other smoothly.
The uniform stretched up over her shoulders and climbed her neck, ending just below her jaw. There a helmet covered her head around her glowing red goggles, which looked slightly larger than her last design but still angled in a permanent glare. The helmet was dark and angular, reminding him of a flight helmet or a small motorcycle helmet, faceless except for the red glowing eyes. The back of the helmet rose in two peaks, like a suggestion of horns. Her head tilted as she considered the HYDRA helicopter, and even Clint felt a moment of fear.
The wings looked similar, but sleeker; the engine ports were smaller, and he could no longer see the bulky harness that she used to clip around her chest to keep the wings attached. The webbing of the wings was etched with a fine scale design - they looked black, but when she rose in the air and the light shone through them he could see they glowed a dark red. The sharp metal barbs glinted darkly; one at the apex of each wing, and four at the end of each sturdy metal 'finger'. Her boots were dark and more pointed than they used to be, and he spotted her wrist blasters; two sleek black cuffs that began at her wrist and fit over the top of her hand, appearing almost ornamental.
The overall effect was of a dark, looming creature of fire and metal, beating its sharp wings as it faced down the HYDRA helicopter.
"Welcome back, Wyvern!" Clint called as he rose to his knees. About time she got a redesign along with the rest of us. He used the second of distraction Maggie had offered to fire an arrow right into the helicopter's rotor. It exploded on impact and the helicopter jerked and then fell in a spin, gnashing its rotors against the facility roof before erupting into a ball of fire.
Clint rolled out from behind his cover, already reaching for another arrow, and when he looked up again the Wyvern was surging across the sky.
Maggie set her sights on the HYDRA Quinjet. It was firing down at Steve and Tony, who were clinging to the surfaced submarine half a mile out to sea. Bullets plunged into the water, spraying up geysers, or ricocheted against Steve's upturned shield or the impenetrable surface of the submarine.
Her new uniform felt like a second skin. The weeks she'd spent working on it in secret had paid off: the interweaving metal plates were flexible but able to become utterly rigid when she was under fire. She'd taken some ideas from the Iron Man armor plating, but she'd also gotten most of her inspiration from Bucky's metal arm, of all places. And after doing some research on the lamellar and anima styles of armor, she'd fashioned herself into a new Wyvern. It had taken her hours to engineer the metal to sit perfectly, so it moved without sound and didn't limit the natural movement of her body, with metal light enough not to restrict her speed, but firm enough to protect her.
Now she flew with her wings streamlined behind her, stretching a few feet beyond the ends of her boots. The HYDRA Quinjet spotted her and veered out of the way, weaving around to get its sights on her instead of Steve and Tony. Perfect. As Tony ripped a hatch off the top of the submarine, Maggie and the Quinjet flew a deadly dance across the sky. She banked and spiralled, edging closer to the jet as it fired bullets and missiles at her, bobbing out of range whenever she tried to dive on it.
Back on the island, Mjolnir exploded out of the top of the facility before spinning and veering back down, crunching through concrete. Natasha swore under her breath. Clint was sniping speedboats from the roof.
"We found that chemical weapon you said to look out for," Natasha said breathlessly. "Thor… dealt with it."
Thor yelled something unintelligible and gleeful. His comms had usually shorted out by now, they hadn't yet designed a communications system capable of withstanding his natural electric current.
Maggie swooped down to the surface of the ocean, sea spray flicking over her wings as the missile chasing after her plunged into the water. She rocketed back up and twisted, wings sluicing through the air and pointing her right back at the Quinjet. This time she dove for it head on, her wings pulled in tight. Bullets rattled through the air around her.
At the last moment the Quinjet pulled up, sending her flying right underneath its belly.
Inside the Quinjet the HYDRA pilot yanked on the controls, sending the jet into a tight wheel that would catch the Wyvern in his sights when she shot out the other side. But he was met with nothing but empty air. Frowning, the pilot turned the Quinjet again, buzzing through the air as he glanced around, trying to spot the Avenger. But there was nothing, not even on the scanners. Only the bloated clouds out to sea. It was like she'd vanished.
His copilot peered down at the water. "She can't be holding on, we're moving too fast," he murmured.
The pilot pulled the Quinjet into a barrel roll, just to be sure, and still there was no sign of the Wyvern. Must have hit her, he decided, and he turned back toward the bright beacon of Captain America's shield.
On the belly of the Quinjet, Maggie dug her clawed gloves into a metal seam and pulled, tearing her way into the interior of the jet. The wind screeched around her ears, trying to tug her away, but she was latched firmly to the Quinjet's underbelly by her boots: they were dark and pointed, with two retracting hooks at the toe and the heel which could dig into any surface. It had taken some aerial acrobatics to get her boots to the underneath of the Quinjet, but she'd managed it and been whisked off like a limpet.
So now she hung upside down, suspended by her boots to a wheeling, speeding Quinjet as it arced back down toward the ocean. She felt the metal under her gloves give.
"Ms Stark, the Quinjet has achieved a missile lock on Sir's coordinates." J.A.R.V.I.S. said hurriedly.
Maggie ripped away the last piece of metal and climbed up through the hole she'd torn in the floor of the Quinjet, rising with both wrist blasters active. In the cockpit, the HYDRA pilot and copilot turned to stare at the figure that had just appeared behind them.
Maggie let the firing pins of her wrist blasters glow red. "I think it's time to land."
Avengers Tower
Bucky sat on his favourite chair by the window of the Avengers common room, a book open on his lap and his eyes on the city. He hadn't read a word of the book in half an hour. He was all too aware of the mission taking place only a state away.
This mission hadn't been a surprise, as the Avengers had been planning their attack on the newly identified HYDRA base for three days now, but it had been called in suddenly - apparently there'd been signs of activity and they'd all had to clear out quickly to mount their attack.
They were all out there, fighting HYDRA. And Bucky was sitting here with a book. He shifted restlessly and went back to counting skyscrapers to soothe his swirling thoughts.
He knew they could handle it. They had an alien god and a massive green indestructible monster and a Widow and two geniuses. But Bucky didn't trust Steve to look out for himself, and he knew that Meg hadn't been out on any combat missions in months. Probably because of him. He hadn't asked.
"Sergeant Barnes," came J.A.R.V.I.S.'s calm voice. "I can confirm that the mission was a success and the team are on their way back to the Tower now. No injuries. You may be able to see them from the window soon."
Bucky tipped his head back and let out a breath. "Thank you, J.A.R.V.I.S."
Ten minutes later, he spied movement in the skies and he looked up. Another layer of tension released in his chest. It was the Quinjet, rapidly approaching from the south, glinting slightly in the overcast light. A moment later he distinguished two figures on either side of the jet: he recognized the burning red and gold Iron Man first, but it took him a second to identify the figure on the right. When he did, his eyes went wide.
It was Meg. He hadn't known she was back in the field, and… she looked so different from the Wyvern he'd met in Peru. The dark winged figure soared closer, becoming clearer, and Bucky stood up to get a better look. She pinwheeled through the air and condensation trailed off the tips of her wings.
This Wyvern wore armor of shifting dark metal, as if this was what had been lurking under the surface all those times Meg looked at him with burning eyes. This uniform was more angular, with a gleam to it. The sharp parts of her made sense like this. She soared down, wings shifting black and red in the light, and landed lightly on the flightdeck. Her wings flicked in as she broke into a jog to clear the way for the Quinjet. Iron Man landed with an audible clang a second later.
A minute later, Bucky heard a clatter and then Meg burst through the sliding doors into the common room, still in her uniform but with her helmet vanished and her goggles pushed up onto her sweaty forehead. A second later Tony followed her, out of his armor and gesticulating.
"You absolutely did not beat me back," he was saying, "you distracted me!"
"You were the one who asked how I made the armor!" she shot back with a laugh in her voice.
Meg's eyes flicked unerringly to Bucky's, as if she'd known he'd be there. She nodded in greeting, her skin flushed and a smile flickering about her mouth. He could see her new uniform in much more detail close up, with all its interwoven metal plates and the sleek metal curve on her back that must have housed her wings. It almost reminded him of medieval suits of armor.
She strode across the room toward the bar, where she pulled a six-pack of chilled beers out of the fridge with her clawed gloves. She strode down and flopped onto a couch with a long sigh, stretching out as if her metal armor was the most comfortable thing in the world.
The sliding doors opened again to reveal the rest of the team.
"You're getting blood on the couch, Magnolia," Tony protested.
"Bill me," she said as she levered the cap off a bottle with one claw.
The others filed into the room, all still in uniform save for Steve, who'd removed the shield and the top layer of his uniform. He was dripping wet. He looked as if he couldn't decide between being disgruntled or amused when he spotted Meg reclining on the couch.
Barton dropped his bow and quiver and threw himself onto the couch opposite Meg's. "This is the life," he sighed. He held up a hand, and Meg tossed him a beer. "None of that debriefing and changing, just straight to the good stuff."
"So I take it the mission went well, then," Bucky said wryly.
Steve, Tony, and Barton glanced at him in surprise, because he normally didn't talk around this many people. Hell, a few months ago he would have fled at the first sign of someone else entering the room.
"The Wyvern got to use her flamethrowers," Romanoff said with a half smile as she pulled off her Widow's Bites. "Which she enjoys a little too much."
On the couch, Meg grinned.
"A most mighty victory to mark Lady Wyvern's return," Thor grinned as he unclipped his cape, and Meg tossed him a beer which he caught and toasted with an even wider grin.
"That'll have HYDRA thinking twice about attacking us with helicopters," Barton said in agreement.
"Hear hear," added Tony, who was now leaning on the back of Meg's couch.
"And now," Steve said, his hands on his hips, "let's head downstairs for debrief."
With Maggie now back on the team in her full capacity, Steve and Hill turned their collective energies toward training the team as a unit. They'd all been undergoing training, but under their own steam: Clint and Nat kept to their SHIELD regime, Tony had his boxing, Steve sparred when he had the time, and Bruce and Thor did a little here and there. But the fight against HYDRA was stretching longer than expected; the Scepter remained at large, as did Rumlow and many other major HYDRA commanders.
As Steve put it to them all one quiet weekday, "We can't keep testing out our skills in the field."
And so twice a week, they began full-team training sessions to hone their skills, communication, cooperation, tactics and strategies. Depending on the day and what drills had been devised for them, they practiced either in workout clothes or in full uniform. Hill and/or Steve came up with the drills, to put them through their paces and challenge their weaknesses. Maggie enjoyed the sessions, more or less. The physical combat sessions reminded her of the old days training with Clint and Nat, and they also had sessions on problem solving, communication strategies, surveillance, espionage, stealth (not Thor or Bruce's strong point), as well as training on weapons, technology, and how to fly the Quinjet.
At first, Steve focused on pairing the Avengers in unusual combinations in the combat sessions; Maggie with Thor, Clint with Bruce, Tony with Nat. These turned out to be quite successful, because they each learned more about each other's skillsets, as well as their own. For example, Maggie learned that Thor knew all kinds of alien martial arts moves; he apparently chose not to use them in battle for himself, but had been trained in them as a warrior of Asgard. Maggie picked up some new moves for her repertoire.
Steve and Thor worked out that if Thor brought his hammer down on Steve's shield, it created a pulse of rebounding energy that knocked anything in the vicinity flat, like they'd seen in the forest after Stuttgart. Then they all watched Steve bounce the shield off the walls of the gym, getting used to the crazy way it moved and having a go in their turn. A lot of their training sessions turned into messing-about sessions when Hill wasn't around.
This then branched into different Avengers running different sessions. Clint gave them all marksmanship workshops, Maggie and Tony gave a joint weapons demonstration so all the Avengers knew how to use all the tech they might encounter on the battlefield. By the end of it, even Bruce could fire any of Clint's arrows, and everyone had a basic understanding of how to fly an Iron Man suit. Nat gave espionage and stealth lessons. Thor taught them on Asgardian battle tactics. They made a pretty decent shield wall with Thor's armor, Maggie's wings, Tony's armor, and Steve's shield.
Hill gave them glorified obstacle courses in the gym, using Stark tech and the Iron Legion to make things difficult. Sometimes the task would be to slip through the course without being spotted, or to fight their way through the Iron Legion. It was good practice, because whenever they damaged a Legionnaire, Tony and Maggie got to refine J.A.R.V.I.S.'s automatic repair process for the Legion.
More often than not, the gym was cleared of all other Avengers employees for their training sessions. But sometimes they had a spectator, who stood on the observation balcony above the gym and watched them train with sea-grey eyes.
Maggie first noticed him when she was running a training session on the trampolines. Steve had found out that Maggie was a trained gymnast, and had asked her to run aerial acrobatics lessons. She had been working on teaching the Avengers how to fall, and how to fly.
She'd clocked him the second he walked onto the observation deck, though at first she thought he was Pepper, who sometimes came up on her lunch break to watch them train. Bucky kept to the back of the observation balcony, his hands in his pockets and his face blank. She eyed him for a moment, before returning to her lesson.
Half an hour later she was bouncing lazily on her trampoline as she watched Clint on one trampoline and Thor on the other. The others were on the mats, with Natasha teaching them how to backflip, with mixed results. Maggie nodded to Thor and he jumped, hair flying as he performed a front flip, before staggering slightly on the landing.
"Good stuff!" Maggie called between bounces. "You're still very upright, though, you need to be more flexible."
"I mislike this aerial trickery," Thor replied, stepping of the trampoline and peering up at her as she reached the apex of her bounce. "With Mjolnir I fly like an arrow, and no one is ever able to intercept me."
She shrugged. "Steve says you gotta learn it, you gotta learn it."
"Dexterity in the air can't hurt, Thor," Steve called from the mats. Behind him, Bruce fell flat on his back, and Natasha smirked.
Maggie then nodded to Clint, but he shook his head.
"Show me how you do that flippy thing," he said.
"You might have to be more specific."
"Well," he said, "you always seem to find your feet by the time you come back down - like that one you did where you…" he pulled his hands into his chest, "you pulled in and then flipped out all while twisting, but you still landed on your feet."
She frowned. "Like this one?" She bounced a couple more times to gain height, her stomach swooping, and then as she bounced a third time she pulled in tight, bringing her knees and elbows to her chest as she rose, and at the apex of her bounce she snapped her limbs out, fingers and toes pointed, and turned into a twist, her body corkscrewing until she came back down and landed with surety on her feet, bouncing a couple of times until she was level again.
"Exactly!" Clint said. "How do you do all that and still know where the ground is?"
She cocked her head. "I mean, it's physics, isn't it? You have to begin as you mean to go on - think about the torque as you leave the ground. How you push with your feet and swing your arms. But in the air, then it's all about angular momentum twist, which is… kind of the rotational equivalent of linear momentum. Your angular momentum is the product of the inertia tensor, and-" she saw from the glazed look in his eyes that she had lost Clint, so she sighed. Almost unconsciously her eye met Bucky's, who was leaning on the edge of the observation balcony now. There was something like amusement in his face.
"Okay," she began again. "So first, you have to be sure of where you're going," she told Clint. "When I jump, I can see in my mind's eye the path I'm going to take. But it's when you're in the air that you're in control, and gravity isn't; the way you move your arms, legs and hips will change how your body twists in the air." She twisted her hand as she spoke, pointing to her fingers and her wrist. "The important thing to remember though, is that gravity always wins in the end. So once I reach the apex of my jump, I'm already on a path to set my feet back on the ground again."
She could tell Bucky was still listening to her, but she kept her eyes on Clint. He frowned for a long time, still jumping, then shrugged.
"Maybe I'll just plan on falling off less stuff."
"That would be great," Natasha called.
One chilly evening in October, they gathered in uniform in the gym to find that a massive obstacle course had been set up for them: the gym was a large area anyway, taking up two whole floors of the Tower with one open space, and Hill and her team of Avengers staff had completely transformed the inside. It looked like a small town: there had to be a maze of corridors made of foam mats and gym equipment, large structures made of scaffolding, and other obstacles that Maggie could just barely see from her position by the door.
"Jesus," Tony said when he walked in, his helmet retracted and his armor joints whirring. "We're lucky Hill doesn't work for HYDRA."
Steve cleared his throat. "It's like capture the flag," he explained when they gathered around in a loose semi-circle by the door. "We need a defense team on our key weapon here," he nodded to a beachball on a carbon fibre plinth by the door. "And we need to retrieve a dangerous bioweapon from that tower over there." He pointed to a makeshift scaffolding tower on the other side of the room. There was a maze of walls and faux-bunkers and obstacles between them.
"Flying is out, as there's a motion-activated ground-to-air laser system." Tony opened his mouth, and Steve held up a hand. "I know you'd like to try to deactivate it. But that's not what this session is about." Tony rolled his eyes, but said nothing more. "Intel is limited. We don't know how many hostiles we might face, or if there are any civilians in the vicinity. Caution is key." He hoisted his shield. "Iron Man, you're with Hawkeye and Thor, you guys are the defense team. I want at least one of you with eyes on that weapon at all times." Tony saluted and clanked over to the beachball. Thor clapped Clint on the shoulder and beamed.
"Wyvern, you're with Widow and I, we're the retrieval team. Banner's on comms back in the Quinjet," Steve said, with a nod up to the observation level. They all looked up, and Bruce waved. Hill also stood on the balcony, with a megaphone and her Stark Tablet, but on the other side of Bruce stood Bucky, with one arm leaning on the railing.
"Any questions?" Steve asked.
"Yes," Tony said, and they all sighed. "Do we think Hill might be better suited to be a gym teacher?"
Steve ignored that. On the balcony, Hill hoisted her megaphone. "The drill starts now," she said, and a second later the lights went out.
It was Hill's trickiest drill yet. Maggie, Steve, and Natasha stealthed their way through the maze, which moved around them in the dark, the makeshift walls running on mechanical tracks. The Iron Legion (five of them now) patrolled the maze with paint guns instead of repulsors. There were also a few nasty tricks from Hill: there were a few Avengers agents throughout the maze, also wielding paintguns. One of them pretended to be a hostage, but then tried to electrocute Maggie. They had to sniff out traps and carefully test each turn they took. Even in the dark, Maggie could feel Bucky and the others watching them. Halfway through, their comms went down.
A few yards away from the tower, Steve passed a motion sensor and the wall beside him toppled. Natasha charged forward and pushed him out of the way with surprising strength, but the foam and wire wall fell on top of her.
Hill's megaphone rang out: "That's a concrete wall, Romanoff, you're stuck now."
Natasha spread out her arms and legs under the glorified foam mat and sighed.
"Thanks, Nat," Steve whispered.
"We'll avenge you," Maggie added.
"We're taking this seriously," Steve whispered again.
"We'll seriously avenge you." Steve's stern look worked even in the dark, so she shut her mouth and followed him as he pressed on. Every now and then they heard clanking, or the grinding of mechanical walls, or shouts and the sound of combat from back where their beachball was.
Finally, Steve and Maggie cleared the end of the maze and found themselves at the foot of the thirty foot tall tower. They peered at it, illuminated by the lights built into Maggie's uniform. The tower appeared to be made of scaffolding with some kind of mesh overlay running up it. At the top there was a series of horizontal bars that made a kind of railing, defending the platform on top.
Steve pulled off his glove and tossed it at the tower. The second it hit the mesh overlay the glove crackled and sparked, then fell to the ground. Maggie wrinkled her nose at the burnt smell which followed.
"Can't touch the exterior," Steve murmured.
"The R&D department must have had fun designing this," Maggie said as she paced around the tower. There weren't any barriers within twenty feet of the tower, so they couldn't scale those instead. She looked back at Steve. "How high can you jump?"
He squinted up. "I can't make that. And there's nothing around close enough to jump off. Besides, I'd be electrocuted the second I touch the exterior."
Maggie put her hands on her hips and looked up. "The platform can't be electrocuted, it'd fry the beachball - sorry, fry the bioweapon. So we need to get over those bars…" she cocked her head. "I've got an idea."
Steve strode towards her, but paused when he got close enough to see that she was bent over, pulling off her prosthetic leg. "What are you doing?"
"Creating a grappling hook." With her prosthetic leg in her hand she straightened, perfectly balanced on one leg, and turned to him. "You're going to throw me."
Steve looked doubtfully at her for a second, then slid his shield onto the harness on his back, crouched down, and meshed his fingers together to create a foothold for her.
"Are you sure about this?"
"You're good at throwing stuff, I'm good at not falling to my death. We're a good team. It's just cheerleading, really."
What followed was not graceful. Maggie balanced her hands on Steve's shoulders and hopped up so he could grab her foot. They dithered for a moment, trying to stay balanced, until Steve was holding her up by her one good leg and Maggie held her prosthetic leg aloft.
"Alright," Steve muttered, not complaining about her hip knocking into his ear. "Three, two, one!" He tossed Maggie upward, making her whoop as she soared through the air, and just as she felt gravity begin to drag her back down she managed to hook her prosthetic foot over the top bar of the tower barrier. Her whole weight fell on the leg and she dangled in empty space. She could hear the barrier buzzing where it contacted the leg, but her prosthetic was insulated against electrical currents.
She heard a bang, and looked down to see Steve swinging his shield against what looked like a collection of glowing lights. She frowned, and then the lights resolved themselves into the shape of an Iron Legionnaire. As she watched, two more Legionnaires stepped out from the maze.
"Go!" Steve shouted up at her.
Maggie obeyed. She heaved herself up her prosthetic leg and carefully made her way over the top bar of the barrier. When she dropped down safely to the platform, she let out a breath and reattached her leg. She turned and spotted the second beachball on top of a short plinth. She ran her eyes over the plinth and the platform, then pulled what looked like a piece of metal netting out of a pocket in her uniform. It was a complex electronic dampener that she and Tony had designed, and she felt faintly silly as she draped it over the beachball.
"Bioweapon firing system neutralized," she called, then remembered she had no comms. She picked up the beachball carefully, then hurried back to the edge of the platform. When she reached it, a pair of glowing eyes rose up to meet her and she jerked back.
"Gah!" The Iron Legionnaires were rising, repulsors burning in the darkness. Maggie grit her teeth and then glanced down.
Steve stood on the ground by a shattered Iron Legionnaire armor, looking up at her. "They're after the bioweapon!"
"Catch!" she called, and dropped the beachball in its netting. He snatched it out of the air and the Legionnaires halted and turned to look back down at him. "Go!"
Steve took off into the maze. Maggie took three big steps back, then dashed for the edge of the platform and vaulted over the buzzing edge and into empty space. She slung her arms around the nearest drone's neck. It jerked in the air and a second later one of the 'ground-to-air lasers', which looked to be an improvised nerf gun, sensed her movement and shot up at her. The foam bullet hit the Legionnaire and, as it was programmed to do, it powered down and began to fall. Maggie kicked off its back and leaped to another Legionnaire as the third one dove down into the maze after Steve.
When the next nerf bullet hit Maggie's Legionnaire she had nowhere to fall but with it, and they crashed into one of the large foam barriers that made up the maze walls.
"Dead or severely injured, Wyvern," came Hill's megaphone-amplified voice.
By the time Maggie scrambled to the top of another foam barrier, Steve had made it back to their corner of the gym and brought the beachball back over the finish line. The gym lights blazed to life again.
Maggie threw her arms up. "Hurray!"
"Dead or severely injured," Hill reminded her.
They all made their way up to the observation balcony for debrief, as Avengers staff began to clear the mess out of the gym. The Iron Legionnaires took themselves upstairs to their repair bay under J.A.R.V.I.S.'s command.
In the fluorescent lights, the maze looked a lot less intimidating. They admired the construction of it from the balcony, their two beachballs held by Tony and Steve. Thor was purple, for some reason, and Clint's hair was singed. Maggie and Nat high-fived each other silently. Bruce had apparently left halfway through the mission to get himself a cup of tea, and Bucky watched quietly from the corner of the balcony, as if they'd trapped him there.
Hill was not kind in her debrief. "You ended that mission with two team members injured, and one compromised by a chemical weapon," she said with a nod at the purple Thor. He was licking his fingers, and Maggie wondered if he'd been sprayed with some kind of grape juice. "While self sacrifice is very noble, it may not always be the best tactical decision. Your contributions in the field of battle are valuable," she urged.
She continued her debrief, explaining all the ways they went wrong and what to consider in the future.
"You guys are doing much better with covering your surroundings," she continued, "that was good to see-"
"You don't look up."
They all turned to stare at Bucky. His words had been quiet, but it was so rare to hear him speak that it had silenced Hill instantly. He shifted uncomfortably under their attention.
"Go on, Buck," Steve encouraged.
Bucky hesitated, then fixed his eyes on Steve's shield and elaborated. "All of you except Widow and Hawkeye - when you enter a new space you look left, right, ahead, behind, and cover all the angles. But you don't look for sniper angles."
It was good advice. But it landed coldly with the group, most of whom shared uneasy glances. Bucky looked down, a furrow in his brow.
But Hill nodded consideringly. "You're right. I didn't factor that into this drill." She eyed Bucky. "You want in on this, Barnes? I could use your help designing-"
"No," he said. His shoulders hunched and he strode for the door, squeezing between Steve and Thor on his way.
Once he'd left, they were all silent for a few seconds before Hill cleared her throat. "Right. For our next drill, I want you to…"
Two missions later, Maggie spotted a HYDRA agent on the roof of a tower facility because she'd caught the glint off his sunglasses when she made a point to look up.
As the weeks wore on, Maggie and Bucky's silent hours in the Tower at night began to change.
It started when Maggie was on her way back home from one of her nights out on the town. She'd been out with Clint and Nat, but they'd headed to the train station instead of the taxi rank, saying they were going out on a mission for the weekend. On her way back, on a hunch, Maggie had her taxi driver take her through a drive through Starbucks. Sure enough, when she got back to the Tower and made her way up to the common room, she found Bucky on his usual couch by the window, scratching away at one of his journals. He glanced up when she entered, and his eyebrows steadily rose as she walked over to him and placed a coffee and a donut down in front of him.
"Thank you," he murmured, surprised.
"Steve. Coffee. Terrible taste," she said, and he nodded sagely.
Two nights later, when Bucky padded downstairs to find Maggie playing the piano with the damper pedal on, he disappeared again for a while. Maggie fought with the keys in near silence - she hadn't played in a long time, and she was very rusty. She paused when Bucky entered again, and to her bemusement he was carrying a toasted sandwich on a plate.
He set the plate down on the piano stool beside her, then made his way over to a seat. Maggie toasted him with the sandwich before she ate, and found herself surprised at how good it tasted. For some reason, she just thought that a man with a metal arm wouldn't be any good at cooking. When she finished, she wiped her fingers on her shirt and kept playing. The soft, bare suggestions of notes hung in the air of the common room, so quiet that no one in the corridor outside would have been able to hear them.
Weeks later, when she entered the library in search of an engineering reference book, Maggie saw Bucky reading an Isaac Asimov novel. She only glanced at him as she passed, but she hesitated in the stacks before leaving the library with her chosen book. Finally she headed to another stack, which led some of her childhood collections, and picked another book.
When she appeared in front of Bucky again he looked up.
"Sci fi, huh?" she said with a nod at his book.
He glanced down. "Yeah, I… this sort of stuff used to be more in magazines when I…" he frowned. "J.A.R.V.I.S. says it really took off after the war."
"If you like that," she said as she handed him the second book she had taken from the stacks, "You'll like this."
He took the book automatically and read the cover. "Jurassic Park. Thank you," he said, still with that note of surprise.
"It's a good book. Got turned into a good movie, too." She nodded, then turned and walked away.
A week later, Bucky handed the book back to her when they bumped into each other in the common room at night again. "It was good," he agreed. "Reminded me of Frankenstein."
Maggie smiled at the comparison. "Makes sense. We had to study both in my scientific ethics classes."
"J.A.R.V.I.S. told me there was a sequel and ordered it in for me, I just finished it. Have you read it?" He handed her a second book, titled The Lost World.
Maggie took it and turned it over. "No, actually."
He put his hands in his pockets. "It's… well, it's not as good. But it is good."
And it went on. They traded gifts and recommendations and favors, either in the dead of night or whenever they happened to bump into each other around the Tower. With any of the other Avengers Maggie would think nothing of it, but with Bucky it felt different. Like political negotiations, or like two alien cultures meeting.
To his credit, Bucky was a good gift giver. He made small snacks that didn't turn her stomach when she came downstairs from a nightmare, and got drinks with ice cubes in, and suggested books he'd found interesting. He hadn't watched many films, still. His taste in media was wide and a little bizarre; he liked sci fi, but also read a wide array of nonfiction as if he were an alien learning about the Earth. He read children's books and self help books and biographies. Apparently J.A.R.V.I.S. was his main source of education about the modern world, but Maggie was able to supplement that with real-life-human suggestions.
In return, Maggie mostly brought him things from the outside world. This allowed him to sample all the takeout foods of the future, and experience small gadgets and gifts that he might not find in the Tower, like glow sticks or a book light for reading in the dark. She realized it had become a habit when she was at a department store downtown with Pepper, thinking what should I get Bucky from here? She spent a lot of time googling what year certain things had been invented.
Very rarely, the strange exchange between them felt like a competition. But even then Maggie rose to the challenge, revelling in silently handing him a bag full of Krispy Kremes after he'd made her a bagel the night before.
They spoke more, as a result of the gifts. Bucky started asking what she was working on in her workshop as a matter of habit. She did her best to explain, and he was surprisingly quick with picking up on the strange language of invention. Even where he didn't totally understand, he still listened to her explanations with fascination.
Maggie wondered sometimes if she was still as insomniac as she used to be a few months ago, or if her sleep patterns had simply adapted so she woke up by routine for several hours in the dead of night, a few times a week.
One early morning, about 3AM, Bucky accepted the now-weekly Starbucks order silently without looking up at her, and Maggie retreated, sensing that he needed space. It happened often enough, with both of them, and they both seemed to navigate their shifting moods without really needing to talk about it. Because neither of them were up in the middle of the night because they were mentally healthy.
Fifteen minutes later, Bucky took his first sip of his coffee and then looked at her. "Remembered some stuff in a nightmare."
She looked up from her Stark Tablet, where she'd been reading through the brief for the latest SI product line. "Want to share?"
"You don't want to hear it."
"I do," she said honestly.
He took another sip. The coffee had to be cold by now. "Zola. In the beginning. I remembered… the first time, with the Memory Suppression Machine. And the programming. They made me…" he shivered and ran a hand over his chest. "They made me hurt myself, to test how far my compliance went."
Maggie watched him touch long-vanished scars, and then closed her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She hadn't said that a lot, when he'd been telling her his memories of HYDRA. She wished she had.
"But I still…" he swallowed. "Shitty as it was, I still want my memories back. All of them. I want to remember everything they did to me, and everything they made me do."
She opened her eyes and watched him stare out the window. "Some people would want to forget," she murmured.
He looked at her. "Would you?"
She shook her head.
"It's like you said. You always remember."
She realized he was referencing what she'd said when she'd come back steaming drunk weeks ago, and felt surprised that her words had stuck with him.
Another long silence passed. Maggie didn't feel like going back to her SI work, so she just looked out the window at the city. But then Bucky went to take another sip of his drink.
"Let me… let me heat that up for you," she said, making him pause. "Cold coffee is only going to make you feel worse."
He blinked and looked down, as if he hadn't even realized the drink was cold. She'd been ordering him things off the Starbucks menu in order, and they were halfway through at the moment. It was Vanilla Latte with honey tonight. Maggie's name was scrawled on the cup.
Bucky silently handed the cup over, and Maggie took it into the kitchen. She put it in the microwave, and watched it turn for a few seconds. But this felt inadequate. So she fetched milk from the fridge and chocolate from Thor's cupboard, and silently made a hot chocolate on the stove. She didn't ever remember learning how to make hot chocolate, she just knew how to do it. She wondered if she'd learned from her parents or from Tony.
A few minutes later she brought the mug of hot chocolate and the warmed latte back to Bucky and put them down on the bench beside him. She moved slowly, still sore from a mission yesterday.
He smelled the hot chocolate and his eyebrows rose. "Thank you."
"You always look so surprised, when you say that."
He didn't reply, too busy sipping from the mug. But Maggie didn't need a reply. After all those years with HYDRA, it was no wonder he felt surprised when someone reached out to offer him a gift.
Y'all, go follow footlessjo on tiktok, I've learned a lot about prosthetics and life with an amputated leg from her - plus she's hilarious!
Also, the lovely StormRunner74 suggested that I create a Discord server for fans of my writing to connect on. I have no idea how Discord works but is that something you gusy would be interested in? Let me know.
Reviews
The1975Love: My fave ship name for them is Buggie! I'm so glad you're enjoying them getting closer, it's so great to have them in scenes together :)
DBZFAN45: I'm glad you enjoyed seeing Sharon! And all of Maggie and Bucky's interactions, it's so good to finally write them in scenes together, their dialogue comes very easily to me. Hope you had a good week!
BrownEyes: They're getting closer!
Guest: Thank you very much! HERACLES is an old idea from the original Wyvern, but I think it was important to include it in this version as well.
Morgzw: I'm so glad you're excited for more! Thank you very much :)