"Whoever's standing, we better move!"
Bucky heard Clint's call as he tore his way through the metal hull into the ship, his boots and trousers drenched in mud from his run across the mud flats. He pulled away the last rusted plate with his metal hand and climbed through into the interior of the ship. He now found himself in what must have been the engine rooms, completely empty and so rusted that he could smell iron in the air. He blinked in the darkness, oriented himself, then hurried upwards and forwards, toward the heart of the ship. The whole structure was eerily silent now, with not even any gunfire for him to follow. His footsteps would have been the only sound, if Bucky didn't know how to move completely soundlessly. His fists clenched on thin air. He hadn't brought a weapon with him.
Just as he had the thought, he came up to the foot of a set of metal stairs and ran into three men clearly in the middle of running away - they stumbled to a halt on their way down the stairs, staring at him as he emerged from the darkness. He saw the fear in their eyes, the way they had just looked back from glancing over their shoulders. But then their faces filled with determination, and they reached for their guns.
Bucky surged forward.
It took him seconds. He'd been training with Steve on and off, but he still hadn't expected the instincts to return to him so naturally. At least he was able to avoid killing them - he slammed heads into metal railings, struck to incapacitate and debilitate. He paused to look down at their unconscious bodies when he'd finished. He took three steady breaths, noting his elevated heart rate, and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes.
"Natasha, I could really use a lullaby," came Tony's voice over the comms. "I got the Hulk in a civilian area."
Bucky's stomach twisted. Bruce. He'd left him undefended. He turned and began walking back the way he'd come.
"That's not gonna happen," said Clint. "Not for a while. The whole team is down."
Bucky stalled.
"You got no backup here," Clint said grimly.
"I'm calling in Veronica," Tony said tightly.
Bucky didn't know what that meant. But it sounded like Tony had a plan. And everyone else Bucky cared about was on this ship.
"What do you mean down?" Bucky asked as he turned again, hurrying back toward the heart of the ship.
"Barnes?" Clint said. His voice sounded strained, as if he were carrying something. "Where are you?"
"I'm on the ship," Bucky murmured. "What do you mean down?"
"The Maximoff girl, she… did something to them. Messed with their heads. I've got Nat, I'm bringing her back to the jet, could you cover the others? I don't know how many more of Klaue's men we need to worry about."
Bucky's jaw clenched. "On my way up."
Bucky found Steve first.
He was flat on his back on the very bottom of the ship, cowl missing, his shield lying abandoned a few feet away. His eyes were squeezed shut but his head was moving, jerking as if he were in pain.
"Steve!" Bucky ran over and dropped to his knees beside his friend, gripping his shoulder. Steve blinked, his eyes unfocused, but Bucky could see he was slowly coming out of whatever fugue he'd been in. He tried to lift his head but it dropped back a second later, his eyes closing again.
"Buck…" he groaned, slurring the word.
"I'm here," Bucky said, glancing around to make sure no one was about. He could see something moving a hundred feet down the belly of the ship, but it was too shadowy to see. "C'mon pal, sit up for me."
He helped Steve sit up, and gripped the shoulders of his uniform to drag him toward a weapons crate he could prop him up against. Steve was blinking more rapidly now, frowning and blearily trying to focus on his surroundings. Bucky patted his shoulder. "Stay here, I'll be back in a second."
Bucky rose to his feet and moved on, picking up Steve's fallen shield. His boots were silent on the metal keel and he kept to the shadows, near invisible in the low light. He followed the strange movement he could see ahead until it came into focus: two men in faded army uniforms, their guns up and their movements cautious. Their backs were to him. Bucky craned his neck to see what they were aiming at: a figure on its hands and knees underneath a metal staircase. A second later, Bucky realized that the figure was wearing a red cape.
"I don't think he sees us," whispered one of the uniformed men.
"I see you," Bucky said.
They both turned, guns lifting and mouths opening in shock, but Bucky hurled Steve's shield and they both flew back with a grunt, unconscious. The shield rebounded off the ship's hull and back into Bucky's metal hand. He looked up, and realized that Thor was getting back to his feet, grunting and gripping his head with one hand. His chest was heaving and sweat glistened on his forehead.
"Thor," Bucky called.
Thor looked over, his eyes wild, but Bucky could see that he'd recognized his name.
"Barnes," Thor slurred. His hand landed heavily on a nearby railing to steady himself. "The witch… I-"
"Head back that way, I left Steve," Bucky instructed. "I'll come back in a second, but we need to get you guys to the Quinjet."
Thor nodded absently, still gripping his head. Bucky headed up the stairs.
It took Bucky three heart-stopping minutes to find her.
She stood on one of the gantryways that stretched across the open space at the heart of the ship, utterly frozen and with her back to him. Her wings draped down her back and dragged on the ground, and her cowl had been removed.
"Meg?" he murmured.
She didn't react to his voice. Bucky paced closer, carefully edging around her to get a look at her face. He noticed instantly that she was drenched in sweat, and every muscle in her body was rigid. There was blood at the corner of her mouth - she must have bitten her tongue.
"Meg," he said, louder. She still did not react. Her eyes were fixed open and wide, and he could see that they were tinged with a strange red light. Her pupils had narrowed "Meg, you've gotta snap out of it."
She didn't move. She just stood there, as rigid as a statue, her only movements the slight dilation of her nostrils as she took short, rapid breaths, and the pounding pulse point in her neck.
"It's the witch," Bucky urged. "I'm - I'm going to touch you." He reached out and touched her shoulder. Meg let out a low, pained sound through her clenched teeth, but didn't move. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to touch you." He took a hold of her arms as gently as he could, and guided her to sit down on the gantryway. Her fixed stare made him shiver. She started shaking as she moved, and when she was sitting her stomach contracted. He heard her gag, and he quickly gripped the back of her head and forced it down between her knees. He dug the fingers of his other hand into her jaw so it unclenched. Her hair was plastered against her skin.
She gagged again, and Bucky slid his flesh hand down her back, rubbing it as comfortingly as he could. "You're okay," he murmured. "You're okay."
She began to throw up, her head between her knees and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She didn't throw up much, but her whole body was shaking now and he could see that she was still lost in whatever the witch had done to her. She didn't recognize his touch or his voice.
She sat retching for a few minutes, until he felt a sudden loosening as she began to slip out of whatever illusion had snared her mind. But instead of blinking herself back into reality like Steve and Thor had, he felt her heartbeat ratchet up and her breathing shorten and sharpen, and before he knew it she was in the midst of a panic attack.
"Come on Meg, you're okay. You're okay, you're here in the ship with me." He heard panic bleeding into his own voice and fought for calm. He rubbed Meg's back and forced himself to take in long, slow breaths that she could hear. "You're stronger than that witch. You're safe."
He could hear fighting over the comms: Tony's voice, and the roaring Hulk. He reached for the commset in Meg's ear and pulled it out.
"Meg, talk to me," he murmured. "You're okay. Breathe."
She groaned, long and low. It was an awful sound, but Bucky was so glad to hear her that he let out a sigh.
"Come on," he said. "I'm going to touch you, but I'm going to get you somewhere safe. Keep breathing." He looped her shaking arm over his shoulder, scooped his metal arm under her legs, and lifted her as he stood. She shivered at the movement and cringed, but he kept up his low nonsense murmuring of: "You're okay. You're safe. Breathe." Her eyes were squeezed shut now. The violence of her shaking reminded him of some of Steve's worst illnesses, back when they were kids. Her skin was burning hot to the touch.
Bucky carried her down to where Thor and Steve were struggling to stay upright. Thor seemed to be in better shape now, still confused and slow, but able to stand on his feet. He was helping Steve up.
"C'mon," Bucky murmured to them, and continued on to the engine room, hoping they were able to follow. Thankfully, he heard their scuffing footsteps behind him. Meg's arm swung limply as he carried her.
Bucky led Steve and Thor out of the ship and across the mudflats, pausing often when they stumbled, or fell behind. He'd never seen either of them like this before; lost in their heads, weak, confused. The whole time he held Meg in his arms. She was in a far worse state than either of them; likely a symptom of being neither a god or a super soldier. She had stopped hyperventilating, but she didn't seem to have returned to herself just yet. Her face was clammy with sweat and her eyes never once opened. She alternated between violent bouts of shaking, and periods of near-unconsciousness, lying limp in his arms. The ridges of her armor bit into his skin.
She murmured his name as they moved off the mud flats and onto the firmer ground leading toward the forest, and the rush of relief Bucky felt threatened to bring him to his knees.
"I'm here," he murmured, turning to check on Thor and Steve. Steve's arm was over Thor's shoulders. He glanced back down at Meg, but her eyes were closed. Her face was shockingly pale.
He realized he was terrified. He had never seen Meg like this before. He'd seen her brought low, seen her injured and angry and tired and sad, but to him she'd always seemed impossibly, impenetrably strong. Seeing her like this felt like having the earth yanked out from underneath him.
He nearly broke into a run when he finally saw the Quinjet. He hurried up the ramp and saw Clint hovering over Romanoff, who he'd lowered into one of the jumpseats in the middle of the jet. Romanoff's gaze was just as lost as Meg's had been, and sweat glistened on her forehead as she sagged in the seat.
Clint looked over as Bucky strode up the ramp with Meg's limp body in his arms, and the colour drained from his face. "Is she-"
"The same," Bucky said tightly. He looked over his shoulder as Thor helped Steve up the ramp. Steve at least seemed lucid, though he had gone pale as well.
"Banner's in the city," Clint said grimly. "Tony's trying to subdue him, but…"
Bucky carried Meg to another jumpseat and eased her into it, relieved when she appeared to rouse and supported her own lolling head. She started to shiver again. Bucky made sure she was stable, then quickly turned to fetch a waterbottle. He unscrewed the cap and pressed it into her hand. "Drink. Breathe. I'll be right back."
Her eyes were closed and her brow furrowed, but she nodded at the sound of his voice.
Bucky checked quickly on Steve and Thor - they had taken themselves to opposite ends of the jet and slumped into seats, exhausted. Bucky moved to fetch shock blankets, but Clint stopped him.
"I've got them," he said. "You need to get back out there. The mission's scrapped, but we've got two members of our team in that city. We're not leaving them behind."
Bucky nodded once, let his panicked gaze dart over the slumped Avengers in the jet, and then strode back out again.
Bucky was jogging through the underbrush of the forest toward the city when he ran into Tony and Bruce.
Tony wore the armor, though there were bulkier plates strapped to the armor that seemed out of place - one large red piece slid off Tony's back as he walked and clattered to the ground. He was banged up and dusty, with his helmet retracted as he walked. Bucky let out a sigh of relief when he saw Bruce, his arm over Tony's metal shoulders; Bruce was completely naked, and his skin was still tinged a sickly green. His head hung low, but he was taking staggering steps, trying to keep up with Tony. They made a sorry sight, stumbling through the tangled forest back toward the coastline. Both of them were covered in dust.
The second Tony spotted Bucky jogging through the forest toward them, he stilled. "My sister," he bit out, dark eyes feverish.
"She'll be okay," Bucky said as he came even with them. They smelled like smoke. "The witch got her, but she'll be okay."
Tony let out a heavy breath. Bucky reached out for Bruce, scooping him up as he had done with Meg and taking the load off of Tony. Bruce's veins bulged in his neck, still tinged green, and he muttered under his breath as his feet left the ground.
"The Hulkbuster armor only got us halfway back," Tony explained, taking a staggering step forward in his damaged armor. "We need to hurry."
Bucky nodded. "Let's go."
They returned to the Quinjet five minutes later. Clint closed the ramp the second they were inside and powered up the engines.
Bucky helped Bruce down to the ground and found a thick blanket to wrap him in. Bruce accepted it gratefully, though he didn't seem able to speak. His eyes were dark and haunted.
The air in the Quinjet was somber and quiet as Clint took off. As soon as Bucky had situated Bruce, he looked over to Meg. She seemed more lucid now - she'd torn off her armor and was shivering in a blanket that Clint must have given her, wide eyed and drenched in sweat.
Tony had gone straight to her, shucking off his damaged armor. He cupped her head in his hands and examined her, checking for injury and sweeping her hair back from her face. She stared up at him, almost afraid.
"Mags," Tony murmured.
She flinched. He leaned down to plant a quick kiss to the top of her head, his eyes closed in relief. "You're okay. You're okay. I gotta get us out of here, Maggot, you get some rest." After another moment, he let Meg go and stormed past Bucky on his way to the cockpit. "That Maximoff better watch her back next time I see her."
Bucky had never seen the man so angry, except for when he'd been looking at him.
Clint and Tony focused on getting the Quinjet off the radar and out of African airspace. Bucky circulated the Quinjet, handing out waterbottles and blankets and taking vitals. Steve was reclusive, quiet; he seemed to have recovered from what Maximoff had done to him, but preferred to keep his silence. Bucky didn't push.
Thor looked to be more angry than disturbed, after about half an hour had passed, so Bucky asked:
"What did she do to you all?"
Thor's gaze darted away. Bucky thought he would ignore him, but after a few moments passed he murmured: "She showed us... nightmares. Visions."
Romanoff shifted in her seat. Bucky glanced over at Steve, who was staring at the wall, and then to Meg, who seemed to be sleeping now.
Bucky had a single second where he wondered I wonder what she would have made me see?
But he already knew: the Winter Soldier was his nightmare. He would have been the Winter Soldier again, and he would have killed all of them.
Meg would be last, and she wouldn't go easy.
Maggie spent the flight drifting in and out of sleep. Her sleep was tinged with nightmares that she couldn't remember, and her waking moments weren't much better. She shivered in her seat, wrapped in a blanket, haunted by memories of the hallucination she'd been shown; because it was just a hallucination, she had to remind herself. There were also the physical symptoms of whatever Maximoff had done to her: her whole body ached, and she had a splitting headache that no painkiller seemed to be able to fix. Tony fussed over her, offering blankets and water and food.
Mostly, there was the fear: fear of what she had become in the midst of that spell, and fear that at any moment, her reality could be stripped from her.
When she closed her eyes, she saw flashes of scarlet.
She overheard snippets of conversations as she drifted between sleep and waking. Bucky and Steve's low murmurs, that she couldn't make out. Bruce refusing help or comfort. Thor's angry mutterings. Tony speaking to Hill over the comms: so, run and hide?
Some hours later, a hand on her shoulder made her jerk fully awake. She inhaled sharply and stiffened, ready to fight, then paused when she saw Tony standing over her. He wore trousers and a long-sleeve shirt.
"We're here," he said, and the kindness in his voice made her feel suddenly guilty. I don't need to be. I didn't - didn't hurt him. She shivered at the memory. Tony glanced over his shoulder. "I don't know where here is, really, other than the middle of fricking Missouri, but…"
Maggie nodded, closing her eyes at the flare up of her headache, and gripped the armrests of her chair so she could stand. She winced at how weak she felt. Tony reached out to help her stand.
"I'm - I'm okay," she breathed. Tony didn't bother to argue with her, he just helped support her as she settled her weight on her feet.
Clint lowered the Quinjet loading ramp, and they all silently filed out of the jet. They were all still in uniform except for Tony, Bruce, and her. As Tony pulled her arm over his shoulders and helped her toward the ramp, her eyes alighted on Bucky. He'd taken off his tactical vest and stood by Steve's side, waiting for them to pass. He looked at her steadily for a second, then turned to pass Steve his shield.
Maggie remembered his voice, his hands on her arms and her back. She could barely piece the memory together, but she remembered knowing that he was there, that she was safe. She felt a sudden warm rush of gratitude, but she was already walking down the ramp and into the bright morning sun.
Maggie winced as the light lanced into her eyes, and shivered at the cooler air outside. She squinted, taking in… green. The Quinjet had landed atop a hill which overlooked a farm homestead, beautiful really, with an adjoining barn and surrounded by acres of grass and trees. There was a truck and a car parked outside. The cool morning air was clean and fresh.
Clint took the lead on the path down toward the homestead, supporting Nat, who seemed to be about in the same shape as Maggie. Tony and Maggie followed, her arm over his shoulder and his arm around her waist. Maggie was grateful for the support; her legs felt shaky and unreliable beneath her, and she struggled to focus on where to place her feet. The cool air on her clammy skin made her shiver. Thor and Steve followed, grim and silent. They seemed okay after their encounter with Maximoff, which made Maggie faintly jealous - but she supposed she was only a mere mortal.
Her mind felt like it had been scooped out, frozen solid, shattered, and then shoved back into her skull. Her shivers started up again in earnest as she walked down the hill; she felt so cold inside, and her teeth kept chattering.
Bruce, with tired lines on his face and wearing emergency clothes from the Quinjet, followed behind Steve. Bucky took the rear, silent and watchful. He still looked intimidating all in black, with his dark hair loose around his face.
"C'mon, Maggot," Tony said as he helped her up the stairs onto the porch outside the house, his soft voice reminding her of the way he'd spoken to her when she was a child. Her eyes snagged on a pair of potted plants on either side of the front door.
"What is this place?" Thor asked.
"Safe house?" Tony guessed.
"Let's hope," Clint said as he pushed open the door.
They all followed him in, and Maggie was immediately struck by how busy the place was. This was no empty, clinical safe house. People lived here; or at least it was a very convincing facade. There were shoes by the door, in all sizes, scuffs on the walls, ornaments and photographs on the shelves. As they moved into the living space Maggie saw a school photograph of a girl, grinning gap toothed at the camera. She frowned.
"Honey? I'm home!" Clint called.
Maggie let go of Tony, standing on her own, just as a heavily pregnant dark haired woman walked into view. She stalled at the sight of them, her eyebrows rising as she took in the battered and exhausted Avengers.
"Company," Clint said sheepishly as he approached. "Sorry, didn't call ahead." His hands landed lightly on the woman's sides and she leaned up to him for a kiss. Maggie stared, uncomprehending.
"This is an agent of some kind," Tony murmured beside her. Steve glanced at Nat, who merely smiled tiredly.
"Gentlemen, Maggie," Clint said as he turned back to them. He looked so strange in his uniform, beside the pregnant woman with the flowery top. "This is Laura."
Laura lifted her hand in a small wave. "I… know all your names." She chuckled awkwardly.
The Avengers stared back at her. Maggie wiped her hands on her underarmor trousers, feeling suddenly very out of place.
Clattering footsteps drew all of their attention to the door they'd just come through.
"Ooh, incoming," Clint smiled.
Two children ran down the stairs and into the room, hardly seeming to notice Bucky hovering in the doorway. He backed away from them to press himself against the doorframe, as if afraid they'd burst into flame if they touched him.
The children - a boy and a girl - jumped up to hug Clint, and Maggie stared.
"Dad!"
Maggie looked to Tony, her eyes wide.
"These are… smaller agents," he said.
Clint finished excitedly greeting the grinning children - his children - and the little girl looked up into his face.
"Did you bring Auntie Nat?"
"Why don't you hug her and find out?" came Natasha's warm voice.
Maggie watched the little girl leap into Natasha's arms and gave up on trying to understand. She leaned against the wall behind her and watched it play out: Natasha beaming as she embraced the child, Clint explaining how he had set up this whole secret life. Natasha greeting Laura, and asking after the unborn baby. Thor trod on a Lego house and kicked it under a chair.
Maggie closed her eyes for a moment, dizzy, and when she opened her eyes again Thor was striding back out of the room, his red cape sweeping behind him. She blinked, and realized Steve was following after him. I wonder what they saw, she wondered.
She drew in a steadying breath and pushed off the wall, taking a tentative step forward. Tony and Bruce were talking to her side, Bucky was still pressed against the doorway, and Clint, Laura, and Natasha were trading smiles and greetings. The girl stood by her mother's side, smiling up at Nat, and the boy had moved further into the room to collect a toy. The house was warm, filled with light, and the smells of breakfast food. There were pot plants and musical instruments and toys and… Maggie hadn't been in a space like it for a long time.
Clint and his wife didn't realize that Maggie had approached until she spoke. "This is where you went for Christmas," she said faintly.
Clint looked up, and she saw a flash of guilt on his face. She stared at him, trying to understand how this Clint fit in with her Clint; the one who had trained her at SHIELD and watched Survivor with her and fought with her in New York and gone bowling and dancing with her and challenged her to a climbing race when she'd felt down and who had - who had kept so many secrets from her.
Clint seemed to be able to read the thoughts flashing through her mind. He'd kept this secret from all of them, but Maggie… they had been friends, not just Avengers.
"I'm telling you now," he murmured, his voice low and apologetic.
Maggie took a moment to ponder that, her brow furrowed deeply. She considered what it must be like, to be an Avenger with a family. A family to protect. Finally, after several exhausting seconds, she nodded. She held out a still-shaking hand to the dark-haired woman with the pensive eyes.
"It's lovely to meet you," Maggie said.
"And it's nice to finally meet you," Laura said warmly, taking her hand and shaking it. Then she frowned. "You're as cold as ice." She raised her voice a little so the others could hear. "Come on in and sit down, Clint will make you all some coffee."
Tony and Bruce looked up and walked further in, moving tentatively around the children, but Bucky stayed right at the doorway, eyes wide.
Clint looked over to him. "Come on, Barnes, you too."
Bucky jerked his head. "I… this is your home. Your family. And I…" he touched his wrist. His eyes flickered once to the children, then he shook his head and turned to leave. In three short steps he had left the house.
Maggie frowned and moved to follow, but Clint stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Let him go. You need rest."
After a second of hesitation, she relented and allowed herself to be guided over to the Bartons' comfy couch. Tony played a scale on the piano, peered at a few family photographs on the walls, then bustled into the kitchen to help with the coffee. Steve came in a moment later to tell them that Thor had flown off on his own without saying where he was going. Steve's face was troubled.
Maggie looked out the window and saw Bucky walking back to the Quinjet, a solitary figure trudging up the hill.
The Avengers were grateful for the calm of the Barton household. They settled in over the course of the day, eating and drinking and changing into clothes that did not smell of smoke and blood. Steve, Tony, and Bruce borrowed Clint's clothes, and Laura lended Nat and Maggie some of hers.
After a couple of hours of rest, most of the team ended up restless, trying to keep busy by checking on things around the house, doing chores, or exploring Clint's property. The children played in the living room. After eating and resting her eyes for a little while, Maggie went for a shower and then changed into the sweatpants and t-shirt that Laura had given her. She began to feel a little bit more like a human being.
Laura was wonderful, a warm but firm presence in the house, who seemed genuinely interested in learning more about her husband's… teammates. She didn't seem awed by the fame or the power of her strange guests. At most, bemused. She saw Maggie eyeing her bookshelf and recommended her a book series.
The children were excited by their visitors, and delighted to have their father back home. When Maggie came downstairs after her shower she found them in the living room, sitting on the floor with a toybox. Clint was in the kitchen, washing up from lunch. Last she'd seen, they had been playing with Nat, but Nat had gone upstairs for her own shower.
Maggie wasn't quite ready to deal with any adult problems, so she sat cross legged on the floor a few yards away from the children. The boy looked over, curious eyes alighting first on her prosthetic leg and then on her face. The girl lifted a toy bird over her head, making a whoosh-ing sound.
"What are you playing?" Maggie asked.
"Pirates," the boy said. "This one's my pirate." He showed her the toy soldier in his hands.
Maggie nodded. "That's a good one. Can I play?"
The girl looked over now, each of them considering her. They glanced at each other.
Finally, the girl nodded. "You can be this one." She handed a plush octopus and a small Hot Wheels car to Maggie, which she took in her callused hands.
"Thanks," Maggie said. "Now, most pirates are after treasure. Where's the treasure?"
Maggie got to know Clint's children as she played their game with them. They laughed at the strange twists to the game she introduced, and the girl - Lila - squealed when Maggie's octopus turned out to have tickling capabilities. Maggie didn't have much experience with children, but she decided that Clint and Laura had raised two very nice ones. She found herself smiling as they played.
But after a few minutes, her eyes caught on the boy - Cooper - as he gripped his toy soldier figure, twisting its limbs and speaking for it. Her stomach flipped.
Maggie set down her octopus and her car. "You'll have to excuse me. Lila, you can manage the Kraken, can't you?"
Lila nodded, already scooping up the octopus as Maggie got to her feet and headed for the front door.
On the front porch, she shaded her eyes and looked out over the farm surrounds. Her wet hair dripped on her shoulders. Tony and Steve were in the yard, chopping firewood. She could see the glint of the Quinjet up by the trees, and a dark figure that paced along the treeline, just within eyesight.
Maggie paced down the stairs and strode through the yard - Tony and Steve were sniping at each other, but she ignored them. Tony glanced at her as she passed. She left them behind and strode up the hill; she felt a little breathless as she walked, but much better than before.
Bucky had been pacing back and forth along the treeline at the top of the hill, his hands flexing at his sides and his face pensive, but when he spotted Maggie trudging up the hill he came to a stop and watched her close the distance between them.
He eyed her change of clothes, her wet hair, her more relaxed face.
"You look… better," he murmured.
"I feel it," Maggie said as she stepped under the shadow of the trees. "I don't think Maximoff intended to do lasting damage."
He watched her for another long moment, then turned and took a seat on a tree stump. He laced his metal and flesh fingers together and stared down at them.
"Have you eaten?" Maggie asked.
He nodded. "Rations on the Quinjet."
Her mouth twisted, but he didn't look up to see it. More silence stretched between them. Maggie drew in a long breath and tipped her head back. The sky was clear, and the air was warm. She could almost forget what they had unleashed upon the world.
"Thank you," she finally murmured.
Bucky looked up at her, frowning.
"For… being there," she explained. "For helping me."
His brow furrowed further and he looked down again.
"You won't come in?" she asked, nodding back at the house.
He shook his head once.
"Why?"
He rubbed his metal wrist. "I don't know how you can all… trust me. Knowing what I am. What I can do… what I have done. To children-" his voice broke and he bowed his head further.
Maggie let out a long, slow breath. "The witch - Wanda. She showed me my future."
He looked up with a frown.
"My future… if you hadn't let me go." She watched his face freeze. "I became… like you," she breathed. "I killed, and killed, and killed, and I was drowning in blood." Her voice was so tight that she could hardly speak, and she felt as if the sun had gone down. "I - I - I know it's no comparison to what you've been through, but I - I felt it," she whispered.
His eyes went dark. "You shouldn't have had to-"
"I felt it," she cut him off. "Every bloody moment, every year of it, every death and face. Everything I could have been made to do." She shivered, and it was a few more moments before she could speak again. "I've got no right to tell you how to be at ease in your own mind," she murmured. "But I hope you know… we all know that what you've done was not your fault."
She felt him pulling away from the conversation, retreating into his own mind, and she pressed on:
"But, I can't imagine it's easy to absolve yourself of the things you did. You might not have wanted to… to kill, and cause pain. But you still did it." He stared back into her steady gaze, looking trapped and terrified. Maggie swallowed. "You hurt me. You killed my mother and father." He flinched. "Your hands, your body. There's no getting around that."
She took a shaky breath and crouched down, so she was more or less level with Bucky where he sat on the stump. She reached out, hesitated, and then laid her hand over his. The metal one, which had killed her parents. Which had gripped her arm so tight it left bruises.
Bucky stopped breathing.
"But one of the most important things I learned growing up?" she said softly. "Something that came to me at the end of that nightmare Maximoff made me live? You have to forgive to yourself. Be kind to yourself. I hope you can find that within yourself, Bucky." A moment passed. The metal was cool under her fingers. "And if you're still looking outside of yourself, I hope… I hope you know that I…" she drew in a deep breath. She wanted to make sure that this was completely, totally honest. When she was sure, she opened her eyes and met his. "I forgive you."
His terrified expression broke and became devastated. She saw tears gleaming in his eyes.
Maggie nodded. "I did a long time ago."
A few long moments passed, her hand on his, and a tear spilled down his cheek. Maggie stood, turned, and began the slow walk down to the house. She felt exhausted, but so much lighter.
Her whole life she had been running on revenge and hatred against the monster who'd taken her parents from her. And finally, finally letting that go felt like taking off heavy armor after years. Who am I now that I have let it go? Her whole life had been founded on a single mission.
But it didn't feel like the mission was over. Hell, she thought as she strode through Clint's front door. He's right outside.
Culver University
"I need your help," Thor said to Erik Selvig.
Erik's mouth quirked up in a half-smile. "It's nice to be needed."
Half an hour later, Bucky finally walked into the Barton household. Steve came in at his side, clutching a pile of firewood which Laura Barton directed him to store in the cellar. Bucky came up to stand beside Maggie, who was making coffee in the kitchen.
He seemed less haunted now. They met each other's eyes for a moment, and a silent resolution passed between them. Clint strode past, oblivious.
Bucky cleared his throat and his eyes flicked around. "Please… please keep an eye on me," he murmured to her. "In case I… go distant, or seem like I might not know where I am. I don't want to hurt anyone-"
"I understand," she said seriously. "I'll keep an eye on you."
"Thank you," he said with a sigh, as if he'd been anticipating an argument.
At that moment, Lila Barton wandered into the kitchen with a juice box. "Daddy, I can't open - who are you?" She stared up at Bucky, who towered over her. Clint was in the main living room, putting toys away with Cooper. "My dad didn't tell me about you."
For a second, Bucky stared down at the little girl with serious dark eyes. "My name is Bucky," he said. He crouched down and held out his hand. "I can open that for you, if you like."
Lila shyly handed over the juice box. "I'm Lila," she told him. She watched as Bucky slid the tiny straw out of its plastic sleeve, and poked it into the box. "Is your hand made of metal?"
Bucky looked at his metal hand, and his eyes went wide. "Oh my god, you're right! When did that happen?" He made a show of tapping on the arm, and Lila giggled. He looked up at Maggie. "Why didn't you tell me?"
She couldn't help but grin.
Bucky turned back to Lila. "This is going to make using magnets very difficult," he sighed. He handed her the juice box, though she seemed to have forgotten about it.
"I have magnets upstairs!" she exclaimed.
Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like it might be experimenting time."
Lila raced off, juicebox clenched in her tiny hand.
Bucky stood up, looked at Maggie, then looked away, embarrassed.
"You're good with kids," she accused.
He scratched the back of his neck. "I guess kids haven't changed all that much since the 40s."
Maggie looked up and smirked. "Here's one that has." Bucky followed her gaze to see Steve walk into the room, and he chuckled under his breath.
Steve glanced over and looked between them suspiciously. "What?"
"Nothing," Bucky laughed. He glanced around. "Where's Tony?"
"Fixing up the Bartons's tractor in the barn. Nat and Bruce?"
"Upstairs," Maggie said.
Steve sighed as he walked into the kitchen, out of earshot of Clint and his son. He looked suddenly very tired as he set both hands on the kitchen counter. "I… don't have any orders. We lost today. Badly. And I don't know what our next move is."
Bucky's brow furrowed. "Steve, you don't gotta have all the answers right away. It's been less than a day-"
"People are getting hurt because of us," Steve said firmly.
"I mean, not because of you." Maggie looked down. "Because of me. Me, Tony, and Bruce."
"But I know why you did it," Steve sighed. "Ultron was supposed to be the replacement for the Avengers. But now we've got Ultron as he is, and he is… all of our responsibility."
"We'll get him," Bucky said firmly. "He'll have to show his hand at some point. We'll recover, and then we'll get right back out there and fight him. Him and the Maximoffs."
Steve looked up, brows pinched together. "You don't have to come, Buck. It's not your fight. You can stay here, where it's safe-"
Bucky shook his head. "No." His eyes flicked to Maggie. "This is the mission."
At that moment, the front door banged open. The three of them, still jumpy, flinched and turned to face the threat.
But it was just Tony, striding through the doors as he dusted his hands off on the flannel shirt hed borrowed from Clint. He looked across at them. "Oh, good. Guess what I just found loitering in the barn."
He took a few more steps inside, then turned to gesture at the figure that had followed him through the door.
"Hello," said Nick Fury.
Bruce and Nat rushed downstairs to find Nick Fury standing in Clint Barton's living room, surrounded by staring Avengers. Fury wore more casual clothes than most of them had ever seen him in; a button up shirt and a black cap, and of course his ever-present eye patch. His face was placid, as if he ran into Avengers in farms in Missouri every day.
Maggie had known that Fury was still alive, of course, but his sudden appearance left her speechless. She hadn't seen him in over a year, and she honestly hadn't expected to.
"Hill called him," Tony said, flapping his hand back at Fury as he strode over to grab one of the coffees Maggie had made. "Of course."
Steve recovered first. "Fury," he strode over and extended his hand, which Fury took. "It's good to see you."
"I don't get that a lot, so thanks," Fury said as he shook Steve's hand. He looked around at them all. "So. You screwed up." Clint, who was crouched with his son, rolled his eyes.
Tony rolled his eyes at Maggie as he slipped past her with his coffee cup.
"Yes," Maggie said, crossing her arms over her chest. Fury's eye flicked to her. "Are you here to help us, or tell us off?"
"I believe in multitasking," he said evenly, then tilted slightly to look at Bucky, who had frozen behind Maggie. "Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes."
The whole room looked from Fury to Bucky. Maggie abruptly remembered who was responsible for Fury's supposed assassination, and she raised her eyebrows.
Bucky, to his credit, held Fury's gaze. "Same to you," he murmured.
At that moment, Lila Barton burst back into the room, her arms full of fridge magnets. She stalled when she noticed the new stranger looming over her. She looked up into Fury's one eye. "Are you a pirate?"
Fury's mouth turned down.
Clint got to his feet and dusted off his hands. "Kids, this is your dad's old boss. Fury…" he gestured to the living room. "Make yourself at home."
The arrival of Nick Fury surprisingly did not alter the mood of the Barton household all that much. There was the rest of the firewood to bring in, children to wrangle, and then dinner to start making. Fury greeted those he hadn't seen in a while, and helped Clint and Bruce prepare the dinner. Maggie had never thought she'd see the day where Nicholas J Fury sliced potatoes.
Their talk did not immediately turn to Ultron - there were children present, after all. So they all sat through a very strange dinner, where the team ate an obscene amount of potato bake and talked about local schools and whether or not Clint was technically a farmer, and drank the last of Clint's beer. Fury wasn't necessarily good with the children, but he was strangely blase about having them around. Bucky sat as far away from Fury as possible, his arm covered in fridge magnets. Maggie couldn't look at him without laughing.
Laura took the kids upstairs to bed, and the rest of them began clearing away the table except for Tony, who started playing with Clint's dartboard. The mood quickly shifted toward business. Maggie wedged herself into a corner between the countertops and listened as Fury divulged what he'd come for. Bucky stood on the other side of the room, watching silently.
Fury's intelligence wasn't much different than theirs: Ultron was multiplying, busy building something with the Vibranium he'd stolen. But Fury didn't have any good idea of what Ultron was exactly planning. Maggie frowned as Fury explained the difficulty Ultron had been having in accessing nuclear launch codes, and his communiques with the team at the NEXUS internet hub in Oslo.
"The NEXUS team tells me he's fixated on the missiles," Fury explained. "But the codes are constantly being changed."
Maggie and Tony shared a glance.
"By whom?" Tony asked, then flinched when Clint tossed a dart past his face and got a perfect bullseye.
Fury looked up from where he was fixing himself a drink. "Parties unknown."
Maggie and Tony eyed each other through the curtain of glass beads between the kitchen and the adjoining room. Maggie's fingers drummed against her elbow.
"Might need to visit Oslo," Tony eventually piped up, interrupting Fury's conversation with Natasha. "Find our unknown. You're in, Mags, right?"
She nodded, her brow still furrowed. She remained deep in thought as Fury kept talking over the next few minutes, clearly trying to inspire them all into action, until:
"So," Fury said. "What does Ultron want?"
Maggie looked up. She'd been so caught up in where Ultron had been, that she hadn't stopped to think about where he might go. In the shadows on the other side of the room, Bucky shifted. His face was tight.
"To become better," Steve suggested. "Better than us. He keeps building bodies."
"Person bodies," Tony added. "The human form is inefficient. Biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."
"Ultron is… the worst parts of us," Maggie murmured, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. "He wants…" she gestured to Tony. "He wants to exert his control over the whole world, whether that means protecting it or ending it, and he wants to show off his own genius." Tony's brow furrowed, but then she turned to Bruce, who hovered behind Natasha. "He wants to modify himself, to push his own body to the limits to become something better." Bruce covered his mouth, his eyes dark. Maggie touched her own chest. "He wants revenge against those he believes wronged him, at any cost. He wants… to create something new."
Bruce's expression cleared, as if he'd realized something.
"When you three programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed," Nat sighed from the table.
"They don't need to be protected," Bruce said. "They need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve."
"How?" Bucky asked.
Bruce looked around. "Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"
The Avengers began planning. Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Bucky planned a journey to South Korea to check on Helen Cho's lab, Tony and Maggie figured out how they could get to Oslo, and Fury offered to drop Bruce and Hill back at the tower. They planned through the night, drawing up contingency plans and communication strategies.
Maggie felt more sure of herself now they had a plan. She retrieved her uniform from the Quinjet while the others were planning their recon in South Korea, and got changed in the upstairs bathroom of the Barton house. Pulling on her clawed gloves in the same room where a line of rubber ducks sat on the side of the bath felt strange. On her way back down the stairs, she saw Clint and Laura embracing in the corridor outside their kids' bedrooms.
She let her gaze slide away to give them some privacy, and her eyes fell instead on Bucky. He waited at the foot of the stairs, looking awkward and out of place in the warmly lit home. He took in the sight of her in her full uniform (minus the headgear) as she strode down the last few steps. Her armor slid and moved like scales as she walked. Bucky's dark hair hung about his face, and his sea-grey eyes were calm as he watched her approach. From the murmurs in the next room, Maggie guessed the others were still finalizing things in there.
"I've never been to Oslo," he said when she came level with him.
Maggie adjusted her clawed gloves. "I've never been to South Korea."
"Maybe next time, huh?" The corner of his mouth twitched.
She nodded. "You be safe. And stay out of sight. Recon only." She shifted. "The Maximoffs might be there."
He nodded, serious. "I'll keep an eye out."
She knew that wasn't enough, but… there wasn't much else she could do to protect him. Her mouth twisted. "You've survived so much worse than them. You'll be okay." She said it more to convince herself.
Bucky's eyes shifted, and a second later the doors to the living room burst open to reveal Tony, closely followed by Steve, Bruce, Fury, and Nat.
"Oh good, you're dressed," Tony said as he spotted Maggie. "We're heading off."
The Water of Sights
Thor and Selvig stared, awed, at the milky, dimmed pool of water that lay in the midst of the rocky cave. A single shaft of murky moonlight filtered down onto the water's surface.
"In every realm there is a reflection," Thor murmured. "If the water spirits accept me, I can return to my dream and find what I missed."
"Men who enter that water… the legends don't end well."
NEXUS Internet Hub, Oslo, Norway
The NEXUS researchers seemed to be a mixture of awed and overwhelmed at Maggie and Tony's sudden arrival. They didn't even try to keep the Starks out of the central control hub; they'd heard of the metal men wreaking havoc around the world, and had been doing their best not to draw Ultron's notice while also monitoring his hunt for nuclear launch codes. The arrival of two Avengers came as a reassurance. Several of them asked for selfies.
Maggie and Tony got straight to work; he in a business shirt and trousers and she in her Wyvern uniform, their fingers dancing over keyboards at the control hub in the middle of the NEXUS. It was a beautiful place: rings and rings of state-of-the-art servers like a digital spiderweb, a cool, crisp 60 degrees and lit by the ambient glow of LEDs. The air smelled like absolutely nothing. Heaven.
Tony conversed lowly with the few curious researchers who had followed them into the hub, occasionally glancing across at Maggie.
"Oh, I'm decrypting nuclear codes and you don't want me to…" Tony sing-songed. He was going after the nuclear codes in the States, while Maggie was targeting the nuclear warheads in Russia. Firewalls and systems dissolved beneath her fingertips.
You couldn't actually remotely activate a nuclear warhead. A person could get the codes, but they'd have to then capture an aircraft or submarine to physically launch the warhead. An easy enough task for Ultron, with his metal men - but whoever the mysterious hacker was, they'd been preventing him from getting the codes in the first place.
Seconds after Tony and Maggie began decrypting the launch codes, they were met with a surge of resistance.
"Whoah," Tony muttered under his breath.
"He's fast," Maggie acknowledged, dumping her proxy address and trying another attack on the Russian launch codes. The mysterious digital defender instantly saw her coming and headed her off.
For several minutes, Tony and Maggie grappled with the lightning-fast hacker. They tried attacks as a team, then from different angles, but the hacker seemed to be able to be everywhere at once. As they worked, Maggie and Tony tried every trick they had to identify and locate the hacker.
"A team?" Tony suggested, all attempts at levity forgotten as his whole concentration was fixed on trying to back-hack the hacker. "I can't get any trace on them."
As another encrypted spike tore apart Maggie's newest attack, she scanned through a snatch of the executable code and her fingers stalled.
"C'mon, Mags, keep going," Tony muttered, beads of sweat now on his forehead.
But Maggie was lost in a vivid recollection:
She remembered sitting on the floor of the workshop in the Malibu mansion, only thirteen years old and up way past her bedtime. She was peering at one of many computer screens running terabytes of code, dark shadows under her eyes and her hair in sore need of a wash. Tony, young and vibrant, was leaning over her shoulder.
You see that computational string there?
Yes, she'd murmured, breaking off in a yawn. What programming language is that?
That's mine, he'd said smugly. There's none other like it in the world. And that's what's going to make this whole thing work.
"Tony," Maggie said, peeling her fingers back from the keyboards.
He glanced at her for a moment before turning back to his cyberattack. "What is it?"
"The hacker," she murmured. "It's J.A.R.V.I.S."
The Water of Sights
The universe opened up behind Thor's closed eyes. He saw… stones, six of them, exploding out of their shells to reveal themselves in all their destructive glory. The universe shivered.
He saw a pair of eyes open, electric green and inhuman.
Reviews
Eennio: So glad you liked the last chapter! We shall see what happens when Maggie encounters the twins again ;)
DBZFAN45: Bucky and Maggie are having an interesting time of it at the moment, I was excited to get up to AoU because I knew it would test Bucky and Maggie's friendship quite a bit. So glad you liked the Wyvern nightmare too ;) She's definitely going to need therapy! Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
MsMoe9: Wanda definitely got Maggie good, hope you enjoyed (if that's the right word) the fallout this chapter. Bucky just escaped brainwashing thankfully, the twins wouldn't have known he was there! Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
Echomoment: She certainly did get her head messed with! And Bucky did indeed find her, good prediction there ;)
Shorttrooper: You're welcome for the stress and anxiety ;) Hope you enjoyed Bucky's role in it all in this chapter! And you mentioned Thor in your review, I think he's a very important character in Bucky's dynamics with the team because Thor has no reason to hold any resentment toward him, so he's a bit of an equalizer. And thanks for your kind words as always! Glad you liked that line about being hungry for revenge ;) Hope you enjoyed the quiet Maggie/Bucky moments in this chapter!
Guest: Sorry you're not a fan of the canon!