Sorry this is a little late!
The day after Halloween, Maggie walked into the common room in the afternoon and spotted Steve and Bucky standing by the window, clearly just back from a sparring match. They were both sweatier than she'd ever seen them, with matching grins as they shared a joke.
"Want water?" she called from the bar. Steve stared, and Bucky nodded. She poured them each a glass of water and brought them over. They each thanked her, and then she headed to her usual chair to finish off some work. SI had a big NGO contract coming up and Pepper had asked her to review the details as a Lead Engineer. As she read, she was vaguely aware of Steve's phone ringing and him walking out.
When she looked up a few moments later, it was just her and Bucky alone in the common room. This was quite normal by now, but not usually in the middle of the day. Bucky seemed surprised as well. He hovered by the edge of the main seating area.
"Did you win?" she asked, nodding at his dark sparring outfit.
"Not all sparring matches end up with a winner being called," he said wryly. "But no, I think Steve won that one. All that training he's been doing with you guys has been helping. I've been sitting on my ass reading books." He did not seem unhappy about the situation. And Maggie seriously doubted he'd magically become a poor fighter in a few months.
"You seem to enjoy watching us all struggle with Hill's maniacal drills," she commented.
"It's interesting. You're all very different, but you work well together." He sat on the couch opposite hers, tucking his hair behind his ears.
"You should have seen us at the beginning, before New York. First time we met Thor, we levelled a forest."
"Steve told me about that," Bucky said with a hint of a laugh.
Maggie turned back to her open tablet, tapping her fingers along her arm restlessly. After a few moments of reading the same line over and over again, she looked up. Bucky was leaning back on the couch, one arm stretched along the back of it with his eyes closed. The sun shone on the back of his head.
"What would you have asked, if you'd won that sparring match?" she asked.
He opened his eyes. "You mean the sparring match that you ensured you'd win?"
"Yeah. That one. What if you'd won, and you had to ask me a question?"
He tilted his head to one side, clearly thinking it over. Then a thin smile quirked his lips. "I guess I'd have asked the same question you asked me." He met her eyes. "Why didn't you kill me?"
They both knew which time he was thinking of - the rooftop in Peru. Maggie couldn't believe that had been less than a year ago.
She let out a long sigh. She'd given the answer to that question to Tony, and to Mai. But she supposed Bucky deserved the answer most of all. The smile dropped from his face as he watched her.
"I was going to," she finally whispered. The sunlight seemed to dim. "I landed on that rooftop with every intention of killing you, even though I knew who you were, and who you were to Steve. I didn't care."
He set his elbows on his knees. "So what changed?"
"We fought, and I… I saw the Soldier." His jaw clenched. "And then at the end, it was just… just you." She swallowed and shook her head. She could barely explain it. She felt so far away from the burning, rage-filled Wyvern she had been that night. "And I just knew that the revenge I wanted, the person I wanted to kill… it wasn't you. I knew that killing you then would only make the world just a little darker."
"But I… the Soldier is me, Meg." He frowned. "I might not be under HYDRA's control, but he's always there, a part of me."
"I know. But I realized I didn't want to kill the Soldier either. Because you, the Soldier… it's just you. Bucky Barnes. And both of you - all of you - had despicable things done to you. The Soldier was just as brainwashed and damaged. Killing you would've… just been a part of HYDRA's will. And I didn't want any part of that."
He stared at her.
She swallowed. "I know that there's not a single free-thinking part of you that would have wanted to hunt down my parents and kill them. So why would I punish you for it?"
He shook his head slowly. "I don't know if I could be so…"
"Nonchalant?" she suggested.
He shook his head again. "Understanding. I…" he looked down at his hands, metal and flesh, then up at her almost helplessly. "I still did it."
She looked back at him, trying to think of a way to make him understand. But at that moment she heard the swish of the sliding door at the other end of the room, and Steve walked back in.
"That was Sam," he called to Maggie. "The CIA's just interviewed him again. He thinks they're just ticking boxes, though." He sighed, then looked between the two of them. "Everything okay?"
"Fine," said Bucky.
Maggie sighed to herself and stood up. "I'll talk to Rhodey, see if he's got any pull with the CIA. I suspect they're just mad that we busted that HYDRA base in New Jersey and want to throw their weight around. We've got to find a way to get them to leave Sam alone, though." Chewing the inside of her cheek, she cast one final glance at Bucky. He was looking down at his hands. With another sigh, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and left the room.
Some days, Bucky could almost forget that he was a wanted man. The Tower had become a small universe that he inhabited, always with the Manacles on his wrists and J.A.R.V.I.S. watching over him. He had everything he needed provided for him, regular therapy sessions, and his best friend just down the hall. It was a little strange living with a whole team of superheroes, but he got on reasonably well with them.
He and Thor chatted from time to time, as the alien was curious about the 'Midgard of the past' as he put it, and also shared in Bucky's struggles with trying to understand the modern world. The Widow and Barton were civil with him, Barton more so than Romanoff, and Doctor Banner was always a calming presence. Sometimes he'd let Bucky sit in his lab and watch his experiments. Tony Stark was also civil with him, every now and then throwing out strange nicknames or making mildly offensive jokes.
Then, of course, there was Meg. They exchanged gifts and shared the dark hours of the Tower in companionable silence, and sometimes she would say something so startlingly, frighteningly earnest and it would take him aback.
Bucky got used to seeing them all around the Tower, going about their business. And then they'd all rush off on a mission, and he'd be left alone. Always worrying about them. Despite their casual attitudes when they had their off hours in the Tower, it was clear they were hunting for HYDRA with a vengeance. They found bases and obliterated them, sending the surviving HYDRA agents to face the heavy handed justice of whichever country had jurisdiction. But he could tell their search had them frustrated: they were mainly finding minor HYDRA splinter groups, not the bigger, cleverer heads. They were also hunting for a Scepter, which was Thor's main focus, but with no luck so far.
Bucky did his best to help, but he hadn't exactly been sitting in on HYDRA planning meetings.
Still, for the most part the Avengers were strangely… normal. Or at least, as close to normal as Bucky could imagine. He had no idea what normal looked like these days.
One afternoon, he and Steve were sitting in the common area kitchen. Steve had a perpetual frown on his brow, as he'd had a frustrating morning downstairs planning with Agent Hill. Bucky was trying to cheer him up, but he didn't think he'd been very successful so far. He remembered this being his role back when they were kids; Steve with his big ideas and his big disappointments, and Bucky with an easy joke and an arm thrown around his shoulders. Bucky had tried to make a few jokes so far, but they fell flat. He was very, very rusty.
"C'mon, Rogers, eat your food," he urged, pushing Steve's plate toward him. "There ain't much I can do these days, but I'm shaping up to be a decent cook. Of course, it doesn't hurt I've got access to every ingredient I could ask for. You remember the shit people used to make when we were kids, with the grocery coupons?"
He felt a rush of success when a smile flickered on Steve's face. "It was the Depression, Buck, you can hardly blame them." He looked up. "You remember that?"
"More or less."
The sliding door to the kitchen opened, and they both looked up to see a vaguely familiar man walk in. Bucky placed him a second later: Colonel Rhodes, the War Machine, Tony Stark's longtime friend. Bucky had only seen him once or twice around the tower, and only from a distance. The Colonel had shot him heavy, wary looks at first.
Colonel Rhodes backed into the kitchen, his hands out and his eyes fixed on something just out of sight. He wore casual clothes instead of the uniform Bucky had seen him in before, just jeans and a t-shirt. He glanced over and spotted them sitting at a table across the room, and his hands fell.
"Captain Rogers," he said with a nod to Steve. His eyes alighted on Bucky, and he gave another nod. "Excuse us, these two got a little merrier than intended at lunch and I'm going to put some food in them."
He stepped back, and two more people spilled through the doorway: Tony, whose tie was undone and draped around his neck, carried Meg in piggyback-style, surprisingly steady on his feet. Both of their faces were flushed, and Rhodey herded them into the kitchen area with a wince on his face.
"Steve, Barnes," Tony greeted as he spotted them, then backed towards a table so Meg could slide off his back and sit on it. Her eyes flicked toward them, meeting Bucky's briefly. Tony turned, hands on his hips. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said, laughing. She rubbed her knee. "It's just a bit swollen, I'll take the leg off upstairs." Bucky eyed the prosthetic leg. He'd seen her take it off during the drill he'd watched them do, and it had startled him at the time. He was so used to seeing her walk around effortlessly on the metal prosthetic, he almost forgot that it wasn't a natural part of her. "Nothing an icepack won't fix."
"You used to be just a little kid," Colonel Rhodes mock-sighed from where he was fetching crackers and cereal from the cupboards. "You shouldn't be allowed to drink."
Meg made a face at her brother, making him laugh.
Bucky realized that he and Steve were staring, but he couldn't seem to make himself stop. He was used to the sight of Meg and Tony together by now, since they seemed to live out of each other's pockets, but never so… well, drunk. And Colonel Rhodes seemed to fit right in with their dynamic; the long-suffering friend.
Bucky realized that Tony was looking back at them. "What have you two architectural specimens been up to, then?" Rhodes glanced over in surprise.
"Fossilizing," Bucky said, and Meg's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a laugh.
Now it was Tony's turn to stare. "Did you just make a joke?"
Steve beamed at Bucky like he'd just done a whole stand up show. Bucky felt all their eyes on him and he shifted, eyes darting away.
Colonel Rhodes straightened. "Got the stuff," he said, a funny note in his voice. "Let's get you both upstairs before Pepper comes looking."
"I love that woman," Tony said fervently, and Meg rolled her eyes. But he came over and offered her his back, and she climbed on without a second thought. She wrapped her palms over his forehead, pushing back his hair.
"Be careful," Bucky said as they leave, and Meg's head snapped around to give him a glare. He knew that she was thinking of the time she'd tripped up those stairs, as he'd intended.
The next morning, Maggie rose at 4 and made her way downstairs, yawning and cracking joints. She was not surprised to find Bucky in the common room - he was always here more often than her. The sky outside was pitch black. She lifted her hand in a wave as she wandered toward the bar to fix up a smoothie.
"I'm sober now," she said by way of greeting, and she saw a glimpse of Bucky's smile before he turned his head back to his journal. "I always wake up when I sober up. It's terrible."
Once she'd finished making her smoothie, she brought it over to one of the couches and sat down. She rubbed her leg joint as she did, and the movement drew Bucky's gaze.
"I'm sorry for that," he said, and she looked up to see his eyes on her prosthetic. "I never said."
She didn't know what to say in response to that. She set her prosthetic foot on the coffee table between them. "Infection got it," she explained. "They had to amputate. It's… I don't know, it's just a part of me now." It wasn't something she thought about, most days. She looked up. "Do you feel the same way about your arm?"
He lifted his metal hand, considering it. He wore a long-sleeve shirt, as he did most days, but he usually went without gloves. "I suppose… at first, after I came here, I resented it. This arm is something that was done to me, I never had a choice in it. But… it's starting to feel more like me."
"You can't take it off." It wasn't a question, she'd seen the technology. That arm was fused to bone.
"No. But yours…?"
"Yep." She set down her smoothie, rolled down the rubber sleeve connecting her prosthetic leg, and pulled the whole leg off, leaving her in just the compression sock that covered the stump below her knee. She handed the leg across the table and he took it from her, clearly surprised that she was trusting him with it.
He examined the leg - dark grey metal with a silicone blend socket, the joints intricately designed with cybernetic connectivity. He handled it delicately, as if it might shatter in his hands. "It's beautiful," he said. He eyed the small plate where her heelspur emerged from. "You designed it?"
She nodded. "I've made all kinds of legs since I was a kid, but this one is my favourite. All terrains, waterproof, bulletproof, with all kinds of secret compartments."
"Handy," he commented as he gently flexed the ankle joint.
"Not as handy as your arm."
He groaned at the joke. "I thought you would have had to have a different leg for running? Like those curved ones I've seen," he said, handing the leg back to her. She set it on the coffee table.
"Normally, yes. The bladed legs are designed to handle a lot more pressure than regular prosthetics, and they also have a lot more energy return - essentially, they bounce on the ground. But it also means they don't work well for day to day use, since they're designed to leave your hips offset and can damage your joints. But," she continued," this leg is a little more complicated." She held it up, and began to explain how she had designed the leg to actually change shape depending on the different pressures and terrains it sensed. It could extend and shrink, loosen or tighten.
Bucky listened with interest, admiring the small adjustments the leg made as she fiddled with its programming.
Finally she set it down again, and leaned back on the couch. "Do you want to see?"
He frowned, then realized she was pointing at where her flesh leg ended. Maggie didn't even know why she had offered. She didn't make a habit of showing off the end of her leg, but she thought… that Bucky might understand it, a little. Though he had likely never seen the end of his shoulder. He just had the metal arm fused to his skin, with those harsh pink scars.
Bucky swallowed.
Maggie made the decision for him, and began to roll off her compression sock. It was already sweaty, from just the walk downstairs, and she wrinkled her nose, but Bucky didn't comment. She slid the sock the rest of the way off, revealing the end of her limb - there was some redness around the end, which told her she needed to get a new compression sock. But there it was: just… the end of her leg. A nub of bone covered by muscle and skin, with a clean, faded scar along the top edge.
"Ta da," she said, and flexed the couple of inches of leg below her knee - up, down, up, down.
Almost unconsciously, Bucky's right hand rose to his left shoulder as he leaned forward to politely take a look. Maggie wondered how much of his flesh arm there was left, under there. She wondered if he could feel it. She wondered if he got phantom limb pain at all, like she did. Hers passed quickly, at least.
"It doesn't hurt," she said, running a hand over her scar. "Does yours?"
He blinked, then realized he was touching his shoulder. His brow furrowed and it was a long time before he answered. "I don't think so."
"You don't think so?"
"I… I don't know if it doesn't hurt, or if I've just… gotten used to whatever the feeling is. Pain is different, with the serum. Things that hurt you don't stop you."
She couldn't help but frown. It sounded horrific. She'd never asked Steve all that much about the serum. She mostly forgot about it, until he did something crazy like lift a car.
"I don't want to overstep," she began hesitantly, and Bucky gave her a wry smile.
"You want to ask about the arm."
She swallowed. "I was about to. I've… I've worked with medical technology and prosthetics since I was a kid. We've also got connections with some of the best doctors in the world. If you… if you ever want something about it changed, or if you want to… to remove it…" she trailed off, unable to read Bucky's face. She thought he looked conflicted.
"There is a part of me that just wants to tear it off," he said almost absently. "Ever since I first saw it, I've wanted it off. But… I mean, I should want it off, shouldn't I? It's HYDRA, every metal inch of it." He frowned.
"They might have made it," she said hesitantly. "But it's yours. You decide what happens to it."
He looked up, and she thought that she finally might have said exactly the right thing.
He let out a heavy breath. "Right," he nodded. "Right."
"No, it's left," she whispered.
He looked up with a frown.
Maggie slapped a hand over her mouth when she realized what she'd said. "I am… so sorry, that was a horrible time to make a joke-"
But his frown dissipated almost as quickly as it had come: he closed his eyes and shook his head, a smile playing about his mouth. After a few moments of her horrified silence, he huffed a laugh.
"I really am sorry," she said quickly. "My therapist says I use humor as a coping mechanism but that was-"
"No, don't apologize," he said, and opened his eyes so she could see the laughing glint in them. "That was… a terrible joke. But it was good."
She kept her hand over her mouth.
"You're… what you said," he went on, sobering. "This is my arm." He looked at it. "And as much as I hate where it's come from, it works. A lot better than I could have hoped, for a fella from the 1940s who lost his arm. And I don't hurt people with it. I… make cups of coffee, and read books, and shake hands with it. I can't say I love the thing, but I've made it mine."
"Good," she said, not trusting herself to say more without offending him.
"You were right," he said with an air of confirmation. Then his eyes glinted. "You are right." He gestured to her leg.
After a second of stunned silence, Maggie grabbed for her prosthetic leg and mimed beating him over the head with it.
The more they talked, the more Bucky made the occasional reference to his past in the city. Maggie didn't pry, but once, after she'd brought him a funnel cake from a bakery uptown, he mentioned his mother.
Maggie had known, logically, that Bucky must have had a family. Steve used to tell her about them, back before either of them had known that Bucky was still alive. They were recurring characters in the stories about his youth. For several days, the thought stuck at the back of Maggie's mind. Bucky had not burst into being in 2014, he had almost thirty years of life that he'd left in the past.
After a few days, curiosity got the best of her. She looked up the Barnes family, finding surviving members and tracing their lineage. He'd had three sisters: two had married and had children, then grandchildren. One of his sisters was still alive.
Maggie tried to imagine what it would be like, if her brother had gone off to war and never come back, only to reappear seventy years later. She tried to imagine what it would do to her heart, and even though Tony had given her reason to believe he was dead on several occasions, she just couldn't picture what that expanse of time would do.
She compiled a kind of file on Bucky's living family, not sure why she was doing it. Part of it was out of shock that he had so many living relatives.
Once she'd finished making the file, she debated for many days about giving it to Bucky. It was the decent thing to do, though it would mean admitting she'd been looking up his family, and she didn't know if she could explain why. She went as far as printing out the file and bringing it downstairs in one of her bouts of insomnia, but she couldn't bring herself to hand it to him, as if it was just another one of the gifts they exchanged.
Finally, sick of looking at it, she slid the paper file under Bucky's door.
She supposed he could have looked them up himself, since he had full access to J.A.R.V.I.S., plus she had no doubt that Steve had kept tabs on them, but… for whatever reason, the concept of his family had been stuck in her mind, and she figured he may as well have the information at hand.
The next few nights that they shared the common room she kept waiting for him to mention the file, to accuse her of overstepping or demand answers, but he never did.
She got the message, and left it alone.
The Avengers didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving, because they'd got wind of HYDRA activity in Belarus, and ended up in the area for four whole days. They came back tired and frustrated, since a small team of HYDRA agents had got away. Clint, Natasha, and Thor all disappeared pretty quickly after that. Tony and Pepper booked themselves a weekend getaway to make up for it - they invited Maggie, but she had no interest in third wheeling in Hawaii.
So, left at odds in a nearly empty Tower, Maggie took herself out to the city. She had dinner with some old friends from MIT, then went dancing until the sun came up.
She came back to the Tower footsore and sated, soaking up the holiday mood. She emerged from the elevator and paced out into the common room, which was already awash with the pale dawn light.
"You alright?" came Bucky's voice, and she looked up to find him on the third level, leaning against the railings. His metal hand gleamed almost white from the pale sunlight.
"I'm more than alright!" she exclaimed, jostling her shoes in her hand. She was better dressed this time around, since not even she was crazy enough to go out dancing in Manhattan in November without a coat. "The crime rate is way down in NYC, the Rockefeller Christmas Tree is up, and one of the bars I went to set my drinks on fire. Excellent use of chemistry. Bruce would have liked it."
"I don't know if Doctor Banner drinks," Bucky said doubtfully.
Maggie nodded as she weaved her way around couches on her way to the bar. "That's true. What about you?"
He blinked. "I… I mean Steve and I have a few beers every now and then, but it doesn't do anything for us. The serum… it speeds up our metabolism, so we can't get drunk."
"Yes you can," she said as she poured herself a glass of water. When it was full she looked up and saw Bucky giving her a funny look, as if she might be drunker than he'd realized. She cocked her head. "Didn't Steve tell you?"
He just frowned.
She rolled her eyes and set down her glass. "I figured out the science a year ago. I did the math on Steve's metabolism and how the serum affected it. And granted, I've never done this in practice, but I told Steve I was like 85% sure I could get him drunk. But he looked scared and said no. I guess that's why he didn't tell you."
Bucky actually looked speculative as he leaned against the railing. "What would it involve?"
"Okay so there's two parts to it - first a chemical process to slow down liver and kidney function, then essentially an alcohol that's four times stronger than a regular drink. It wouldn't taste good."
He cocked his head. "You know what, I might take you up on that one day. I miss… not being drunk, but buzzed." He shrugged. "Maybe it's not an alcohol thing. Maybe it's a me thing. I don't think I'll ever be relaxed again."
"That's the spirit," she said, toasting her water glass to him and then downing it. Bucky ducked his head, his hair falling across his face. "Still, the offer's on the table. I'd get Bruce to check my math." She finished her water, then turned to clean the glass. A yawn made her recognize the tiredness itching at her eyes. She glanced back. "I'm heading up."
"Sleep well," he called.
At the door, she frowned and looked back. "Why are you up there?"
He shrugged. "Waiting for Steve. Got bored. There's books up here." He jerked his head at the few bookshelves on the upper level of the common room.
She made a face. "Right. The running."
"You're definitely on different schedules."
Maggie pointed up at him. "Hey now. One of us has definitely had more fun than the other." And with that she turned and whisked out, marvelling in the fact that for the first time in a while, she felt like she was living something like a normal life.
Early December, 2014
Over mimosas at a brunch bar in Midtown, Pepper tucked her ginger hair behind her ear and said: "So… what should we do for Christmas?"
Her mouth full of poached egg, Maggie blinked. "Right. Christmas."
"Yes, that little holiday."
I can't believe I forgot Christmas. She swallowed. "Well… I guess we… celebrate it?"
Pepper laughed. "Yes, but how? And more importantly, who with? You may have noticed that the Tower is a little more crowded than last year. And you weren't with us last Christmas, so we'll have to make up for that."
"I'm so sorry I was busy dealing with an alien invasion-"
"Alright, alright," Pepper waved her hand, as if aliens were inconveniences. "Do you know who's going to be in the Tower?"
Maggie sat back and thought about it. "Oh god. What are we going to do?"
Pepper smiled. "Well, I might leave it with you for a while."
At that point a couple from another table approached and asked for a selfie, and the conversation ended.
Over the course of the next few days, Maggie asked each Avenger their holiday plans. Clint said he had a mission over the holiday period, but that he could celebrate with them a few days before Christmas, and he'd be back after New Years. This made her frown because it definitely wasn't an Avengers mission, but she didn't press him. When Natasha told Maggie she was going on the mission with Clint, Maggie decided it might be legit.
Thor told her that he was planning to have Christmas with Jane's family. I guess the Tower won't be so full after all, Maggie decided. Bruce told her he'd definitely be in the Tower, since he didn't really have anywhere else to go, and then she tracked down Steve after his early morning run.
"So, what are your plans for Christmas?"
He stalled. He barely looked like he'd taken a light jog, but Maggie knew he'd probably circumnavigated the island of Manhattan. "Christmas."
This felt a little too familiar to her conversation with Pepper, so she pressed on. "We might be having an Avengers thing a few days beforehand, but on Christmas proper it looks like it's just going to be me, Tony, Pepper, and Bruce. And… well, Bucky. And you, if you're staying."
"I'm staying," he said automatically, then hesitated. "Well, I might go out to visit Peggy for a bit. Maybe on Boxing Day."
"Of course," she nodded. "So… Christmas."
"Right. Christmas." He rubbed his jaw. "I don't know if Bucky will be up for… people."
"Sure. Look, Tony and I… we're not much for Christmas traditions, but we usually have a meal together, exchange presents, that sort of thing. With Pepper, of course. Bruce will go along with anything, but… you're welcome to join us, if you want. Both of you."
He softened. "Thank you, Maggie. I'll let you know."
Several days before Christmas, the Avengers had their holiday celebration. Maggie and Tony had rented out a small restaurant for the evening, so they could enjoy themselves out in the city without being ogled. They took turns declaring toasts with each round of drinks, dug into far more food than seven people should have been capable of, and exchanged their presents.
Maggie got a set of ceramic knives from Nat and Clint, and a small wooden coin-shaped Asgardian rune from Thor. He handed them out casually to everyone as if they weren't gifts from an alien world, and explained that they were door wards, meant to protect the inhabitant. Tony bit his round wooden piece like he was testing a gold coin, and jumped when it gave him an electric shock.
Bruce had bought them all scented candles, which was delightfully bizarre. I'm terrible at giving gifts, he said apologetically. Maggie sniffed hers – it was called Embers and it smelled like cinnamon, leather and whiskey – and smiled.
Steve bought them books that he had read in the 21st century and thought that they would enjoy; he'd bought Maggie a Chimamanda Ngozi anthology, which was a surprising choice, but she thoroughly enjoyed it. Maggie gave out personalised gifts to the Avengers she wasn't spending Christmas day with: a kid's chemistry set for Thor, because he always seemed charmed by 'primitive Midgardian science', comfy slippers for Natasha, and a selection of fine liquors for Clint.
After dinner, a few of them wanted to head straight back to the Tower, but the rest went out dancing: Maggie, Tony, Thor and Clint strode out into the wild streets of New York in search of fun. They got stared at in every place they walked into, but Maggie and Tony knew the best drinking and dancing venues in the city, and Clint and Thor entrusted themselves to the Stark siblings' judgement.
They stayed out until dawn, bar hopping and laughing at Thor's raucous Asgardian drinking songs as they walked down the dark streets. Clint taught Thor how to play darts at the last bar, while Maggie and Tony got invited up into the DJ booth. Later, Tony and Clint had a push up contest while Thor and Maggie tried to teach each other dances. Thor was a lot better at the Macarena than Maggie was at the Asgardian hallingdansen.
They returned just after dawn, and sure enough Bucky was sitting in the common room when they streamed out of the elevator. He raised an eyebrow at the four of them: Thor was carrying Clint over his shoulder, and Maggie and Tony walked with their arms linked, leaning on each other.
"Good morning, Sergeant Barnes!" Thor called jovially, as if eight hours of drinking and wandering the city had taken no toll on him at all.
"Morning, Thor," Bucky said with a note of bemusement.
"Merry Christmas!" came Clint's voice.
"Don't throw up," Tony reminded him.
Clint nodded, then winced. "This was a mistake. I hate travelling while hungover."
"If you'd tell us where you're going, I could send you on the private jet," Maggie said, but Clint held his silence. She didn't mind.
They all headed across the common room toward the private elevator, and as they left Maggie turned and waved to Bucky. He waved back.
Steve didn't confirm to Maggie whether or not Bucky would be attending the small Christmas Eve dinner they were planning. The few times she saw him over the month, she didn't think to ask him about it. In the end, on the day Steve showed up to the common dining area with an apologetic look, and told them all that Bucky wasn't up for it.
Maggie didn't know why, but she felt a little disappointed. Like maybe she and Tony were still giving off hostile energy.
Still, in the glow of the Christmas lights they'd set up around the common area, and with a table full of good food (none of them had cooked, they'd ordered in), the five of them had a nice time. Bruce told them a bit about what his Christmasses had been like as a kid, and Steve told them about the first Rockefeller Christmas tree he'd seen. They broke open Christmas crackers and groaned at the jokes inside.
Maggie handed out her presents: a bag of sweets from Chile than she knew Bruce loved, and Wyvern themed socks and reflective running gear for Steve, 'so you don't get hit by cars while you're out whizzing around the city in the dark'. In keeping with her and Tony's promises not to spend more than $100 on gifts for each other, she'd bought him $100 worth of Iron Man merchandise. Her favourite was the little bobble head. When she opened her gift from him to find $100 worth of Wyvern merch, they both doubled over laughing.
After the food and the presents, Steve excused himself to head upstairs to spend time with Bucky. Pepper and Tony became slowly more and more absorbed in each other, so Bruce and Maggie chatted while they cleared the table. To her surprise, he stopped her in the kitchen.
"Maggie, I… I think I told you before that I'd be here for Christmas because I've got nowhere else to be." He frowned. "While that's technically true, I wanted to say…" he went faintly pink. "Here is a very good place to be. I can't thank you, Tony, and Pepper enough for what you've given me."
Warm with food and wine and Christmas, Maggie pulled him in for a hug. "Merry Christmas, Bruce."
When the others said their goodnights and headed upstairs after midnight, Maggie waved them off with a smile. She curled up on a couch in the common room, eyeing the tinsel wrapped around the staircases and the lights blinking on the ceiling, and contemplated all the Christmasses she'd had. From faded memories of her parents in the New York mansion, to the Christmas she'd spent in the hospital waiting for her leg to be amputated, to the many years with Tony in Malibu, to the chaos of the last few years.
She sensed Bucky enter without even having to see him. She let him walk in a few paces before she turned to look at him.
He was dressed in his usual tracksuit trousers, long shirt, and socks, his hair loose around his face as he looked around at the decorated common room, then at her.
"Merry Christmas," he murmured.
"Merry Christmas," she replied. She abruptly realized how different this holiday must be for him compared to last year. He padded silently across the room to the window, where he looked down at the blazing lights across the city.
Maggie looked at the lonely silhouette he made, then realized that he mustn't have had any presents. She dug in the pocket of the leather pants she'd worn to dinner, and found only the thin paper hat from the Christmas crackers earlier. She pulled it out, got to her feet, and brought the hat over to him.
"Here," she said as she offered it to him. "Merry Christmas."
Bucky eyed the hat and his eyebrows rose, but then he took it delicately with his left hand. It looked fragile against the metal. He looked up at her. "Do you want me to… put it on?"
"Only if you want," she said, already regretting it.
He did, tugging it gently over his hair, and the green paper crown looked ridiculous on him. Bucky turned to look at his reflection in the window and smirked. "I haven't got you anything, though."
She waved a hand. "I hear I'm hard to give gifts to. Something about being very rich."
"Steve got me a book," Bucky murmured.
She laughed. "Same. Which one did he get you?"
"A Brief History of Everything." Bucky smiled when that made her laugh again. "Like he thinks I've somehow missed more than the last seventy years."
"Well at least you'll be well and truly caught up."
They subsided into silence.
"Must be strange for you," she said eventually. Bucky glanced at her, and she waved a hand. "Christmas. The Tower. All of it."
He drew in a breath and nodded. "It's… nice. I'm sorry I didn't, uh… the dinner. Thank you for inviting me, but… I don't – that seemed like a family, uh…"
"You don't have to explain," she said. "But for what it's worth, it was a genuine invitation."
He nodded. "Thank you." He looked around at the decorations again, the ornate Christmas tree in the corner. "Do you usually have Christmas here?"
"This is my first time, actually," she said. "And one of the most peaceful Christmasses I've had in a while. Last year I was in London, dealing with some alien nonsense Thor started, and the year before that…" her brow furrowed. "I don't know what Steve told you about AIM?"
He frowned. "Nothing, I don't think."
"Well, I suppose he didn't know much about it." She sighed. "Basically, this guy Aldrich Killian was trying to kill Tony, and also the President, and he had these soldiers working for him who were chemically altered to be more or less indestructible. And on Christmas Eve Pepper got kidnapped and experimented on, and then I got… well, I got a bit kidnapped too-"
Bucky, whose eyebrows had been steadily rising, stared. "What do you mean, a bit kidnapped?"
She rubbed her forehead. "Okay, definitely for sure kidnapped. I woke up on an oil rig, no leg, handcuffed, the whole deal. But it was fine in the end. I got out, helped Tony and Rhodey stop Killian, and we fixed Pepper up in no time. Oh, and saved the President. Tony had a bit of an epiphany too."
"Jesus," Bucky said. "Hell of a Christmas."
"Hell of a Christmas," she echoed. "This has been much nicer."
There were a few more moments of silence. Maggie knew the city had to be loud tonight, with carols and people out in the streets and sirens, but from here it just looked silent and peaceful.
"This guy, Killian," Bucky said. "He took your leg?"
She supposed it wasn't a surprise he would naturally focus on that, given his arm situation. She nodded. "He thought that if he took it off me, I'd be useless. Apart from the value my mind offered him," she tapped the side of her head. "But guess what, only one of us ended up exploding into a million pieces that night, and it sure wasn't the amputee."
Despite himself, Bucky huffed. "So where did you use to live? Before this?"
"Tony and I had a mansion out in Malibu." She scratched the back of her neck. "I grew up there. But it, uh. It blew up."
He glanced sideways at her. "I'm sorry." He paused. "Your life is not normal."
That made her laugh. "Look who's talking! Your last Christmas would've been what, 1944?"
There was a moment of hesitation, and she suddenly wondered who HYDRA had made him kill on Christmas. But then Bucky shrugged and nodded. "France, with Steve and the Howlies. Freezing cold, and we only had rations for Christmas dinner. Dugan gave me a pine cone he'd carved a face onto. Middle of the war, and still sounds a lot less eventful that your Christmasses."
She smiled. "Not even one kidnapping?"
"Not even one."
Maggie yawned, her jaw cracking. "Well. I'd better head to bed. Wake me if there are any alien invasions."
"I'll keep a lookout," he said stoically, but the paper hat rather diminished the gravity in his voice.
There seems to have been a fair amount of interest in a Discord server, and so it is born! Don't worry if you, like me, are a Discord newbie, we can figure it out together haha. I can't post links on ff but the actual code part of the link is: YfRmrFXp8A
Feel free to go explore the channels (there's one for memes!), chat, discuss.
At 8PM GMT / 3PM Eastern / 12PM Pacific (Sorry my Australian compatriots) I'll be doing an AMA/Chapter discussion on the Wyvern-verse channel so please jump in and chat! Ask any burning questions and let me know what you think!
Reviews
DBZFAN45: Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked the new Wyvern armor, I had a lot of fun designing it :) And I also had a lot of fun writing that obstacle course scene, just lots of dorky fun all around. And hm yeah I wonder how much Maggie gets asked for an autograph/selfie?
Eennio: Me too! Maggie needed some time to work on herself, but I felt like she'd just get to the point where not fighting HYDRA would be worse for her mental health than getting out there and kicking their asses.
Zariah: Thank you for reviewing, you're so kind! I'm glad last chapter made you laugh, it's necessary after the bit of angst we've had. Maria Hill would be so dangerous under HYDRA haha, the Avengers are lucky she puts up with them. But yeah, maybe not the nicest gym teacher haha. Thank you so much for your kind words, hope you enjoyed this chapter!
The1975Love: Buggie for life! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter, and tbh I think Bucky would enjoy trampolining!
Harryparry: Thank you so much, I'm so glad you're enjoying the AU!
Shorttrooper: No worries at all, hope life is treating you well! I'm glad you enjoyed the last two chapters, things are starting to look up for poor old Mags. Being an adult and making friends is hard! I don't know how people did it! I kinda see Avengers Tower as like a really weird workplace, where most of the people there do have lives going on outside the tower, but it's all very insular and one of those situations where you bond with people very quickly because of the amount of time you spend alongside them. Like grownup college roommates haha. Glad you liked the team training! We needed some fun wholesome team time. I like to think that the Avengers staff got to see a recording of the obstacle course run so they can improve upon their build for next time (but really they just take bets on how it will go).
Zariah: Good question! She turned 28 in 2014 :)
Guest: No worries! I might sometimes be a day or so late but I always get there in the end haha.