Guys I'm really sorry this is a week late - tried to fit too much into my life this last week, and all it took was a delayed plane for it all to fall apart! Thank you for your concern and also your patience, I couldn't ask for better readers. Hopefully this chapter makes up for it!
May 29, 2015
The New Avengers Facility, Upstate New York
"Well if it ain't Captain America."
"Bucky," Steve smiled warmly when Bucky opened the door of his private suite, tucked away far from the public side of the facility. Steve was in his uniform; must've been training either the new agents or the new recruits to the team. He looked like he belonged here. "Want to go for a walk?"
Five minutes later saw them striding down a dirt path through the forest in the vast Avengers facility grounds, the sunlight green around them as it filtered through the thick canopy above. It was warm, and Bucky could feel sweat working its way into his metal shoulder, making him grimace. Steve had rolled up the sleeves of his uniform.
"It's Tony's birthday," Steve explained over his shoulder as they wound their way up an incline, trees pressing close around them. "He's celebrating back in California, so I passed on gifts from the team to Maggie this morning. She'll be arriving soon."
"What do you get the man who has everything?" Bucky wondered aloud, even as he made a mental note of ah, that's why she's not here today.
"Gag gifts, usually. He's 45 today."
The path widened out as they crested the incline, and the trees spaced out, allowing Bucky and Steve to walk side by side. They weren't heading anywhere in particular, just exploring this strange new outdoor space they'd found themselves in. Steve and Bucky were city boys, through and through. The forest had been exciting and new back in the war, and it was just as exciting now.
"How are you finding it, at the facility?" Steve asked. "You haven't been out of your room much. The new common room is as much yours as it is ours."
Bucky nodded. "I know, just been waiting for the newness to wear off I guess. Also… it's different." Bucky didn't say it, but he missed all the people who used to be friendly with him. Bruce, Thor, even Clint. Sam had only been living in the facility three days and he was annoying Bucky, and Rhodes usually avoided him. He didn't see Wanda much, and he suspected she was avoiding him too. Vision was always nice to talk to, at least.
Bucky twisted, trying to see if he could see the shiny sprawl of the Facility through the trees. "You sure about keeping up the fight, Steve?" he'd been meaning to ask for weeks now, but this was the first time they'd been really alone.
Steve nodded. "I'm sure. There's still so much work to do. And I have to admit… I'm proud of this place." They both peered back through the forest at the distant glimmer of glass and steel.
Bucky turned around to peer at his friend. He used to laugh at Steve's uniform, but it looked almost too normal now. "You oughta find a girl, settle down."
Steve rolled his eyes. "You haven't changed your tune since 1938, you know?"
"It's as true now as it was then."
Steve huffed a laugh and followed as Bucky pushed on through the forest. "I dunno, Buck. I'm not even sure if that life is what I want anymore."
"So what do you want, then?" Bucky listened to the silence as Steve struggled with that question. "Punk. Go on a date."
"Jerk," Steve shot back. "And anyway, you're deflecting. What do you want these days? I notice you turned down Maggie's offer of a perfectly good safehouse."
"Gotta keep an eye on you and your stupid decisions, don't I? And anyway… I've got more work to do. On myself. There's nowhere better to do that than here." He'd been slowly making his way through Meg's Winter Soldier file, discovering uncomfortable new truths about his history. He'd been making lists: a list of all those he'd wronged, and all those at large who had wronged himself and others. Both lists were growing depressingly long.
All of a sudden they broke through the treeline and found themselves on the banks of the river, mossy soil descending down into a pebble beach. The water glittered in the spring light.
Steve and Bucky crunched out onto the pebble beach. Steve tucked his thumbs into his pockets. "I've been meaning to say, Buck… I'm sorry you got dragged into the Ultron mess. That wasn't fair on you, and I got you hurt."
Bucky rolled his eyes as he reached down to pick up a flat stone. "Ultron got me hurt, Steve, and I stepped into the fight with both eyes open. Quit the guilt trip." He cocked his head, recalling a distant memory of Morita skipping stones on the Seine.
Steve clenched his jaw. "Thought I was going to lose you all over again, on that city."
"Thank goodness for tall women with metal wings." Bucky cocked his arm back and hurled the flat pebble - it went skimming across the water like a flying fish, making it nearly halfway across before it plunged beneath the surface.
Steve smiled, a real one this time. "Absolutely. I owe Maggie a bottle of her favourite whiskey for that."
"Is that what my life's worth these days?" Bucky teased, glancing over his shoulder.
"I'm really glad you've come so far with Maggie and Tony," Steve said, his hands on his hips. "I don't know how it happened, but I'm glad they recognize the real you."
Bucky almost frowned at that, because the Winter Soldier was still him, but there was no point upsetting Steve by saying that. So all he said was: "Yeah."
Steve cocked his head. "Is everything okay with you and Maggie?"
Bucky blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… you two really went at each other during everything with Ultron. I think you're harder on each other than anyone else on the team, me and Tony included. Did you guys get everything squared away?"
Bucky blinked again. Is that really how Steve sees it? He hadn't thought he was being hard on Meg. It was just… she'd become so trusted to him, so important, that the knowledge she'd built Ultron out of HYDRA tech had felt so much more like a betrayal than the idea of Tony doing it. And sure, she'd snapped back at him, but that wasn't…
His mind worked. He felt suddenly uneasy at how their relationship might look to others. He remembered her hand around his wrist as they dangled in midair. You're my mission. Could any other person in the universe understand why that memory made his heart skip?
"Buck?" Steve said with a concerned note in his voice. "Should I step in? I can talk to Maggie when she gets back, tell her-"
"No," Bucky said. "We're good, we both apologized."
"Oh," Steve's eyebrows flew up. "That's good. I guess… things are harder for her, what with your history-"
"She forgave me," Bucky said, still distracted, but the words stopped Steve in his tracks.
"What?"
Bucky looked back at him. "She forgave me. For everything." He could hardly believe it himself, so he didn't blame Steve for looking poleaxed. "Yeah. I know."
"That's, I mean… wow." Steve blew out a breath. "What a difference a year can make."
On the balcony of a Californian villa, Maggie loudly sang the last bars of Happy Birthday as Pepper presented Tony with his cake. Tony beamed and blew out all forty-five candles, then swept Pepper into a kiss.
Maggie returned four days later, on her birthday, to find every single Avenger and Bucky in the common room, which they had decorated with streamers and a giant HAPPY BIRTHDAY WYVERN banner. She broke out into a delighted laughter, and they spent an evening drinking and eating cake and giving Maggie her presents. Natasha took a photo, carefully angled so there was no sign of Bucky, for the Avengers website, and Wanda shyly gave Maggie a hand-wrapped present - a pair of scented candles. I don't know what you like, she said apologetically.
Maggie could find no more anger in herself towards the young Sokovian. It turned out she was getting better at forgiveness.
Bucky didn't give her anything during the party. But later that night, when everyone else had left the common room, he opened one of the cabinets and revealed a small potted cactus.
"For your workshop," he said, holding the pot in his metal hand. "Vision said it was easy to care for as well."
Maggie accepted the cactus, her fingers brushing Bucky's metal ones as she took it from him. She looked down at the sharp barbs. "Thank you," she said, then looked up. "You'll have to come by tomorrow to pick the best spot for it."
He bobbed his head. "Happy birthday, Meg."
The smile she gave him wobbled, and she didn't know why.
The new Avengers media team carefully monitored the progressing press coverage of the team, giving weekly updates to Steve and Nat, who passed on the information to the rest of them. Public opinion of the Avengers was, predictably, mixed, though it seemed the majority of people still believed in the necessity of the Avengers. Governments were less happy with the team, and the US Senate announced it would be opening hearings about government relief for Sokovia as well as a review of the Avengers' activities there. The debate about who ought to bear the costs of Avengers activities raged on.
The new members of the Avengers continued to train, and the team went out on a few low-stakes missions, including a recovery trip in Sokovia.
The public conversation shifted and grew: people wanted to know where Bruce Banner was, and what Vision was. They had released few details about Vision, but he was a visible member of the team and naturally drew public curiosity. Some in military circles began to question Rhodey after he announced he was joining the team; CNN hosted an hour-long discussion of whether or not this was a conflict of interest for him as an Air Force Colonel.
Rhodey largely ignored this. His superiors in the Air Force seemed more pleased than unhappy that one of their own was a part of the Avengers as well.
June 17, 2015
A knock on the glass door of her new workshop made Maggie look up from her pacing along the length of her workbench.
Behind the glass, Bucky waved his gloved metal hand sheepishly. He was dressed in a jacket despite the warm weather, and his hair hung loose around his face.
"Let him in, F.R.I.D.A.Y.," Maggie murmured, and the doors slid open a moment later.
Bucky stepped inside her workshop, glancing around even though he'd visited once or twice before. Her workshop at the new facility was a little larger than her last one had been, with thick glass walls looking out over the river, and a steel grey and glossy black colour scheme. She had all the best equipment from the Tower, plus a few new toys, such as a top-of-the-line 3D printer. This was her personal workshop, separate from the R&D facility in the main building. Bucky's gaze flicked to the squat cactus in its pot on one of the workbenches by the window, and the corners of his eyes crinkled.
His gaze panned back to Maggie, with her grim mouth and her frazzled hair, and then to the workbench piled with an assortment of burned machine parts, metal cases, and weapons.
"Is that…?"
She nodded, pacing up the length of the workbench again. "This is what we were able to recover from the mission. The rest is over with the analysts in R&D, but I wanted to take a look for myself." She'd only got back from the mission in Beirut an hour ago.
"Steve told me it was Rumlow," Bucky's mouth fell flat.
Maggie let her angry silence answer that for him. Up until today, she'd thought that Rumlow had completely fallen off the grid, and was likely going to hide the rest of his life in whatever rathole he'd found. But then they'd caught word of a high-powered attack on a weapons facility in Lebanon. The team (minus Wanda and Sam, who still wanted more training before heading into the field) had been too late. They found the facility burned to the ground, though there was evidence that the attackers had set up shop in the building for a good few hours, looting and killing. Even the security footage had been purged.
It wasn't until they'd interviewed the only survivor, a hollow-eyed man with third degree burns, that they got a positive ID.
Maggie glared at the pile of burned machinery on her worktable. All they had been able to do was manage the cleanup, to get an idea of what Rumlow's team had been after.
"I could have put a stop to Rumlow back at the Triskelion," she said, picking up a blackened metal case and cracking the hinge open. "But I was too distracted trying to figure out what was going on, and trying to get to Steve. And now he's out there. Hurting people. Trying to get to us." He'd said as much to the survivor, passing on his own sick message.
"He's a dirtbag," Bucky said, watching as Maggie tossed aside the case and grabbed a melted gun off the pile. "And you'll get him eventually."
"He's calling himself Crossbones now," she said disgustedly. "Like he thinks he's some kind of pirate."
She kept sorting through the pile, occasionally calling out identifications for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to add to their digital catalogue. Bucky leaned against a far worktable, watching with an unreadable look on his face.
"I can't understand this," she said after a few moments. She waved the shell of a blown-open ammunition case at him. "Rumlow's left a lot of powerful munitions behind to be burned up in the fire."
"Maybe he couldn't move it all?" Bucky suggested, arms crossed.
"He and his team came in a truck, they had to have been able to move more of this. And he's left some really powerful items behind. Why leave all this stuff?" She tossed the ammunition case aside. "Why risk letting evidence fall into our-"
Her hand brushed a metal cylinder beneath another shard of melted metal, and she felt it click and hiss.
As per usual, her mind worked faster than her feelings. It took several seconds for the stomach-dropping, heart-stopping panic to kick in, and she used those seconds wisely: she snatched her hand back from the pile of evidence and struck a discreet black button underneath the workbench. She caught two of the five gasmasks that fell out of the compartment beneath the bench at the same time as she lurched backwards, putting as much distance between herself and the canister as she could.
Bucky's eyes were wide and bewildered as she darted across the room toward him and slammed a gasmask directly onto his face, simultaneously putting hers to her mouth - the force at which she'd hit him had to have hurt, but he hardly flinched. The masks suction-sealed to their faces with uncomfortable pressure.
"Move," she gasped through the first psst of canned air, grabbing a fistful of Bucky's jacket and shoving at him. That was when the panic hit, and her clarity dissolved as they both ran for the workshop doors.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. knew the procedure: the doors whooshed open lightning fast as they approached. Maggie stumbled, and without looking back Bucky seized her arm and hauled her bodily out of the room.
The doors slammed shut behind them the moment Maggie's feet skidded out of the way, and in the same instant two titanium steel emergency partitions crashed down on either side of them, blocking off the rest of the corridor. The lights flashed brighter and distantly, Maggie heard the high, urgent blare of a facility-wide alarm.
Maggie straightened to find Bucky half leaned over her, his metal arm curved around her. She heard the fast hiss of his breath through the gas mask and she looked up at him, shaking. Over the seal of the mask, his eyes were wide.
"What happened?" he asked.
Maggie shook her head, her heart pounding a mile a minute as adrenaline churned through her veins - and for the first time, she felt a flash of fear at her body's response. Is that a normal elevated heartrate, or something more?
"Bioattack protocols underway," came F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s urgent voice. "Prepare for decontamination and quarantine." Maggie knew word for word the other messages F.R.I.D.A.Y. would be delivering around different parts of the facility in this same second; messages of evacuation and lockdown.
She had just enough sense to gesture for Bucky to close his eyes before a cloud of orange foam sprayed down from the ceiling.
When she had blinked the foam out of her eyes, Maggie glanced back at the glass doors into her workshop - and her heart dropped when she saw that the potted cactus by the window was slowly wilting, turning black.
To attempt to calm her racing heart and churning stomach, Maggie tried to guess what would be happening around the Facility this moment. Hill would be running the bioattack protocols with F.R.I.D.A.Y., evacuating the entire building and sending all personnel to the other side of the facility. Nonessential staff would be sent home. The Avengers would all want to run to the source of the problem, of course, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. would not give them access. Tony would be called.
But Bucky and Maggie were left stuck in their hermetically sealed box, covered in sticky orange decontamination foam and breathing through gas masks.
She had tried to explain to Bucky as best as she could what had happened - but she hardly knew any more than he did. They both tried to avoid looking through the workshop doors at the cactus, which had now completely bowed over in its pot. Maggie couldn't stop thinking about that hiss, and how close it had sounded, like an angry snake. She was overly aware of her own breathing inside the mask.
Finally, F.R.I.D.A.Y. said: "The route has been cleared to the decontamination suite. Please follow the green lights." And with that one of the steel partitions boxing them in lifted, and the overhead lights flashed green.
After a glance at each other, they followed F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s direction to the decontamination suite, a set of rooms that were only just around the corner from Maggie's workshop. The door looked like no more than a panel in the wall, and it slid open as they approached. Maggie stepped through first, followed by Bucky. The lights inside flickered on, revealing what looked like a locker room: an empty section with black tiles, then through an open doorway another black-tiled room lined with partitioned-off shower cubicles. The lights were a harsh, bright white.
"Please remove your masks and all clothing," F.R.I.D.A.Y. instructed as the door slid shut behind them.
Bucky blinked. "What?"
"This is a biochemical attack," Maggie said, her teeth chattering. She peeled off her mask, tasting the canned air in the room. She kicked off her shoes, and Bucky stared at her. "Hurry up, whatever it was could be on your clothes. Get everything off, then go through the shower. Try not to touch your clothes too much."
She reached for the hem of her shirt, and he turned around faster than she'd thought possible.
They undressed in silence, the empty room filled with only rustles and the wet smack of their foam-drenched clothes hitting the floor. Maggie debated taking off her prosthetic, then grit her teeth and left it on. She did not want her leg incinerated along with her clothes. She was first into the shower wing, carefully avoiding looking at the corner where Bucky was undressing. The floor felt cold under her bare foot.
She chose a cubicle near the back of the wing, partitioned off by only a green plastic sheet. The shower itself had multiple nozzles built all along the wall, and Maggie flinched as F.R.I.D.A.Y. immediately turned on the spray. It came at a punishing pressure, from all angles. The water was a cloudy white due to all the decontaminating agent mixed in with it.
"Scrub your skin vigorously, being sure to thoroughly scrub hair and clear out orifices," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. "Be sure not to ingest the decontamination spray."
A moment later she heard Bucky's bare footsteps on the tile, followed by a burst of spraying water and F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s repeated instructions.
"Well that's romantic," he said, and despite herself Maggie let out a laugh. It was high and a little hysterical, but it eased the expanding bubble of anxiety in her chest. She rubbed her hands over her face, cleaning her nostrils, lips, ears, and rubbing around her eyes.
"Have you done this before?" Bucky asked a few moments later. His voice echoed strangely in the room.
"No," she replied, drenching and wringing her hair. "But I designed the procedure. We'll be getting into the hazmat suits next."
"What color?"
"Um. Yellow, I think."
"Not my color," he said disapprovingly.
Maggie knew he was trying to keep her calm, but it worked all the same. She laughed under her breath. Minutes later, her spray turned off.
She blinked at the sudden lack of pressure, staring at the glistening black tile under her toes.
"Are you… how are you?" Bucky asked. His spray turned off a few moments later.
Maggie took three deep breaths. Her heart was still racing, and she felt sick, but she didn't know what was psychological and what wasn't. "I think I'm okay," she whispered. She took one more deep breath, then turned and walked naked and dripping into the next room.
There was an air-dry cubicle, which felt like plunging through the upper atmosphere with no wings, though the air here was also laced with a decontaminant that smelled like cleaning fluid. And then Maggie was through to the next room, which actually was lined with lockers. She opened one and pulled out a sheaf of yellow plastic.
She was doing up the front fastenings of her hazmat suit, fumbling through the rubbery gloves covering her fingers, when she heard Bucky walk into the room. She kept her eyes averted. "There's a suit in each locker," she told him.
He found one, and she waited until she could hear him doing up the fastenings until she looked over. He was covered head-to-toe in the yellow suit, only his face visible through a plastic shield. His hair was still damp, curling at the ends, and his forehead was wrinkled up in the way it only did when he was worried.
"You're right," she said. "Yellow isn't your color."
The next door slid open.
"Please move into the quarantine bay," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. "Mr Stark has just arrived at the facility."
Maggie coughed.
Bucky's head snapped toward her, and her heartrate skyrocketed. She swallowed, and wet her lips. I'm fine. I feel fine. She ignored Bucky's gaze, and stepped through into the next room.
The quarantine bay looked like a basic army barracks: two rows of low, metal beds with thin mattresses, twenty in total, lit by fluorescent lights. The walls were the same glossy black as the decontamination suite tiles. The wall to the right was missile-proof glass, and looked out onto another room, filled with medical equipment and monitors. We're like an exhibit in a zoo, Maggie thought grimly. The other room was currently empty, and in pristine condition; it was newly built after all, and they'd had no cause to use it yet.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y.," Maggie said as she sat on the end of one of the simple beds. Her hazmat suit squeaked. "The facility – the bioagent-"
"I have vacuum sealed the corridor outside your workshop, and completed a molecular analysis; I believe the agent remains contained to your workshop, which will undergo a decontamination cycle after testing. No other Avengers Facility occupants have been compromised."
Maggie closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
"And what about those of us who were compromised?" Bucky asked. Maggie opened her eyes to see him standing by the bed across from hers, looking at her with concern. "What was that stuff?"
"Sir will be quantifying the agent soon. However, it appears to be corrosive to organic material. I am currently cross referencing potential biochemical agents."
The furrow in Bucky's brow deepened. "And is… did any get on us?"
"In a moment I will ask you to scan your vitals using the device at the far end of the room. But we may not know for certain until some time has passed."
"Bullshit, can't you – can't you review the footage, can't you-"
"Bucky," Maggie interrupted him, rubbing at her hand. "I designed this process, and it's working as best as it can. First step was containment, the next step is diagnostics." She nodded to the biomonitoring machine at the other end of the room. "Come on, let's get checked."
Bucky did not look happy about it, but he acquiesced.
Hill appeared in the observation room on the other side of the glass just as Bucky and Maggie were having their heartrates and breathing monitored by the automated device.
She looked as put-together as ever, but her brow was heavy and she wore a gas mask over her mouth and nose. Her eyes flicked over the pair of them in their hazmat suits.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y. said the quarantine process had gone smoothly," she said, her voice coming tinnily through the quarantine bay speakers. "Are you both okay? What happened?"
"It was one of the pieces of wreckage from the mission in Beirut," Maggie said, as the device next to her beeped lowly. "I know the analysts will have been evacuated, but you need to make sure that no one goes near the rest of the items, they need to be quarantined as well."
Hill nodded curtly. "That whole area has been sealed off, as well as the quadrant of this building around your workshop. Do you think it was intentional?"
Bucky glanced at Maggie.
"I think so," she murmured. "It seemed to be activated by touch."
"You touched it?" Hill asked, her voice the same pitch but her eyes growing more intense.
Maggie swallowed. "Briefly." She rubbed her hand.
Hill glanced at one of the monitors by her side and her brow creased. "This says your breathing is irregular, Stark."
"I might be a bit nervous, Hill."
Hill glanced up. "Continue the checkup, then hold tight. I've got to get back out there, but I wanted to check on you. Any changes, F.R.I.D.A.Y. will alert us."
"Is Dr Cho on site?" Bucky asked quietly.
Hill nodded, her expression unreadable. "I'll be back."
"Wait," Maggie said, as the heartrate monitor beeped, and she reached for the blood pressure cuff. Hill raised an eyebrow. "Tony's not… he's not doing anything stupid, is he?"
"He wanted to come straight here," Hill replied. "I managed to convince him that starting work on identifying this biochemical agent would be a better use of his time. He's in the auxiliary building along with the rest of the essential staff, I'm sure he'll contact you soon enough."
"Okay."
And with that, Hill was gone.
Maggie felt the blood pressure cuff squeeze down on the yellow suit around her upper arm. She let out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry."
Bucky's hazmat suit squeaked as he turned to face her. "What?"
"I'm sorry for putting you in danger." She scratched her hand. "I should have-"
"You keep doing that," Bucky said sharply, and the tone of his voice made her turn toward him. His eyes were fixed on her right hand. "You keep scratching your hand."
Maggie looked down, but her hand was concealed by the yellow glove of the hazmat suit. She swallowed. Now that he mentioned it, her skin did feel itchy. "F.R.I.D.A.Y.," she said tightly, "these suits are the latest model, right? With the translucence function?"
"They are. Isolating your right hand now."
The glove on her right hand shimmered, and then the yellow plastic became clear. Maggie sucked in a sharp breath as her hand became visible through the plastic.
"Shit," Bucky said.
The tips of her fingers were tinged black, and there were patches of greying, angry looking skin up her fingers and onto the back of her hand. It looked almost like frostbite. As if seeing it made the injury more real, she felt a sting of pain from the damaged skin.
"And your nose," Bucky said in a low voice, and Maggie glanced up to see him peering through the visor of her suit. She turned to a mirrored panel beside the bioreadout machines, and saw that the skin of her nostrils had turned black as well. She sucked in a sharp breath and winced when her sinuses stung.
"What is that?" Bucky murmured, pulling off his blood pressure cuff and coming to rest his hand on her shoulder. He stared at her nose, then down at her still-clear glove. She balled her fingers into a fist, then winced as that irritated the skin.
Maggie shook her head wordlessly. The bioreadout machine beeped, informing her that her blood pressure was above normal levels.
"Ms Stark, Sir is requesting an audio link."
"Put him through," she said distractedly, barely aware of Bucky peeling off her blood pressure cuff.
A moment later, Tony's voice rang clear through the speakers: "Alright Maggot, talk to me. F.R.I.D.A.Y. said your condition's changed, tell me about your symptoms." His tone was clipped, business-like. It calmed her.
Maggie sat down on the end of a nearby bed. Bucky hovered nearby like a bright yellow ghost. "Um. Some kind of necrosis or stain around my nostrils, which is irritating the skin. Same on my hand, the one I touched the device with. And… some pain when I breathe." She swallowed and looked to Bucky. "Any symptoms?"
He shook his head, brow furrowed.
"Good," she said. "Distance or super serum seems to have spared Bucky, Tony. It could be that this agent is contact based." She glanced back to Bucky. "Keep your distance, we don't want this spreading to you."
He didn't move, and his frown deepened.
There was a very long silence. When Tony next spoke, Maggie could tell that he was forcing himself to keep calm. "Okay. So… I'm not a doctor, and Cho is annoyingly not here right now, but that doesn't really sound like an infection. As soon as Cho is back I'll get her to consult. But based on your description, and the condition of your workshop, it looks like some kind of… corrosive, that only targets bio-organics."
"That's what I thought," Maggie nodded, though Tony couldn't see her. "Unclear if there are any poisonous qualities, or if this is a corrosive that is likely to be longer-acting. I'm thinking some kind of mineral acid in mist form, or something based on…" she rubbed her forehead with her uninjured hand. "Ester hydrolysis, maybe? I need more data, and this really isn't my area of expertise." She sighed. "Bruce would know."
"I'm going to start exposing some more organics to your workshop to get more data," Tony said in a tight voice. "The good news is, for about two thirds of all the things I think it could be, there are neutralizing agents. So we can stop whatever the corrosive process is before it does any more damage to your cells." He left the other third unspoken.
Maggie looked down at her black, aching fingertips. "I was stupid. The stuff we recovered went through the basic safety scan, but the canister must have had some kind of cloaking technology. I shouldn't have brought any of it into my workshop, and I shouldn't have been working unprotected." She glanced at Bucky, who was listening with his arms crossed.
Tony sounded distracted: "There's no way you could've-"
"It's Rumlow, Tony, and he pretty much told us he was out to get us. I should have listened."
"Mags-"
"Listen," Bucky cut in, and Maggie shut her mouth. "Could'ves and should'ves mean jack shit right now. Fix this."
Maggie stared at him. A few moments later, Tony spoke again.
"Right. Tin man's got a point. I'm going to focus on this little chemistry problem, Mags, and you'll be out of there in no time. I've – great, Cho's just got back. Gotta go. Stay safe."
There was no click or dial tone, but Maggie knew that he'd disconnected the audio link.
"What are you doing?" Bucky asked a few minutes later.
Maggie felt the thin plastic mattress compress as Bucky sat down behind her.
She had her head in her hands and her eyes screwed up. "I'm trying to remember every chemistry and bio-organics class I've ever taken. But I… I don't have any data in here. I want to do something to figure this out, but I'm less than useless right now."
She almost jumped when she felt a metal hand land on her shoulder.
"You're going to be okay," Bucky murmured. "Your brother created an entirely new form of life in order to save the world. Imagine what he'd do for you."
She shivered, and her stomach sank when she realized her forehead was burning up. A fever. "Don't give me something else to worry about," she chuckled weakly.
"You're stronger than anything that dumbass Rumlow can throw at you."
"You're right. I am." She drew in a long breath through her mouth and released it, then let go of her head. She set her hands down on her knees and looked over her shoulder. Bucky sat a few feet away in his yellow hazmat suit, his hair loose around his face behind the visor. "This really isn't how I planned for my day to go."
His mouth quirked. "No? Mine's right according to schedule. Quarantine facility at noon, yellow hazmat suit, check."
She huffed a laugh. "You're good in a crisis, you know."
He shrugged a shoulder. "Practice makes perfect, I s'pose. Anyway. Any ideas for ways to pass the time while we wait for your brother to Jurassic Park his way through this?"
She sighed, her mind hunting for distraction. "Well…" she frowned. "You know, I don't think I actually know you very well."
He frowned.
"I just mean that the idea of you I had before I knew you came from Steve, and I think… I think Steve mythologizes you a bit. I don't even really know what you like and what you don't like."
"What I like?"
"You know, normal stuff. Favourite foods, favorite music, favorite… I don't know, color."
"You want to know my favorite color."
"Not if you're going to be snarky about it, I don't."
He held up both yellow-gloved hands. "Alright then."
"So. Twenty questions?"
Vision came into the observation room just as Bucky was telling Maggie about a bottle of fifty-year-old wine he had carried for a hundred miles through Europe before sharing it with the Howling Commandos after they defeated the Belgian HYDRA base. They both glanced over to see the android approaching the glass, his face carefully calm.
"Mr Stark is making good progress in understanding the chemical agent," Vision said by way of greeting. "And Helen Cho is reviewing all the bioreadout information F.R.I.D.A.Y. has collected to better assess your condition. I have come to collect more diagnostic information from you, Ms Stark."
Maggie frowned. "I've been taking vital signs every fifteen minutes, and I did that saliva and blood swab a moment ago. Did they not go through?"
"They did," Vision acknowledged. "Dr Cho has said that it would be helpful to examine the patient, though she is unable to physically examine you due to the quarantine requirements. I have volunteered to enter the quarantine bay to examine you, as I am not an expert but have accessed many helpful research papers and online demonstrations."
"No," Maggie said.
Bucky blinked and turned to face her. "But if it helps-"
"No," she repeated, turning back to Vision, and coughed to clear her irritated throat. "You've volunteered because you think you're indestructible, but-"
"I am made of Vibranium," he reminded her.
"A Vibranium blend. And who's to say that whatever this chemical agent is won't harm you too? It's a corrosive that impacts bio-organics, and you can't say that you aren't in some way organic, Vision. So the answer is no."
Vision stalled, his maroon face creased with concern and hesitation.
"Check your research, Vision. I'm sure you've looked through the sections on medical consent," Maggie added, her eyebrows raised.
His brow furrowed. "You are… afraid that I will be harmed."
"Of course I am," she said patiently. "You're worried about me too, I'm sure that's why you came down here. Unfortunately for you, I've had a few more years than you to practice being stubborn."
Vision's frown cleared and he looked, simply, exasperated. "Very well. Dr Cho shall have to rely on the diagnostic machines' readings. I shall bring you both down some food soon." His eyes flicked to Bucky. "Bucky, Doctor Raynor called when she heard there had been an incident. She has offered to voice call through for you if you require support at this time."
Behind his visor, Bucky blinked. "I… I guess I don't much like being locked up, but I think I'm doing alright."
Vision nodded. "Do let F.R.I.D.A.Y. know if you change your mind." He inclined his head toward Maggie, and then left the room.
Maggie frowned. She hadn't thought about how Bucky might feel, being trapped behind glass. She turned to him, her mouth opening, only to find him looking worriedly down at her hand, which was concealed by yellow plastic again.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "If Dr Cho thinks it could help…"
"I'm sure," she said.
He met her eyes and his mouth quirked. "You out-roboted the robot. Never seen anyone win in an argument against him."
"He's surprisingly receptive to emotional plays," she said with a smile. "And anyway, he's not really a robot. He's his own new person." She cleared her throat, wincing as her breath came sharp and painful. She considered what might make the quarantine bay feel less like a glass prison for Bucky. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., will you put on some music? Just the regular workshop playlist is fine."
Bucky didn't know what to make of Meg's music. It swung from loud, resonant tunes with instruments that Bucky couldn't even name, to throaty ballads, to percussion-heavy songs where the singer spoke so fast he couldn't keep up. All the same it seemed to ease some of the tension hidden inside Maggie's yellow hazmat suit, and after some time Bucky had to admit it was better than the refrigerated silence of the sterile quarantine bay.
Vision had dropped off some food a while ago, transferred to the quarantine bay through an isolation tank.
Bucky had made himself comfortable on one of the squeaky plastic mattresses on the bed across the bay from Meg's. She was propped on her elbows, pretending to be lying casually but he could see that she was getting more tired as the hours went on. Her cough was getting worse, and she kept reaching to scratch at her hand only to pull back. She'd recorded a fever temperature half an hour ago.
And all Bucky could do was watch.
"So," he said as he continued their game of twenty questions, swallowing hard. "Uh… favorite childhood memory?"
She cocked her head, considering, the dark stain around her nostrils almost forgotten. And then a smile broke across her face. "Okay, so I would have been… thirteen? And I was hanging around in Tony's workshop all the time, and he started talking about building a UI…"
Bucky listened as Meg described how she and Tony had created J.A.R.V.I.S. over several long, sleepless nights and how it had felt to create… not life, but something close. The more she told him about her childhood the more he realized that she had definitely not had a normal upbringing, but that it had been happy all the same. He had only one memory of her as a child. He tried to imagine that terrified, rage-filled girl growing, raised in a mad household of invention and technology and Tony's strangeness, to somehow become the Meg he knew now. She was like Vision in a way, he supposed; not what her parents had intended, a strange combination of her experiences and influences.
He watched her hands move in the air as she talked, watched her laugh at her own jokes and imitate Tony's clipped, quipping way of talking. Her hair kept falling over her face inside her visor and she had to keep flicking her head to get it out of her eyes. She coughed, and Bucky's heart clenched.
I can't sit here and watch her die.
At that moment, the door to the observation room slid open and both Bucky and Meg looked over.
"Oh god," Meg said in a low, wavering voice.
Doctor Cho, Tony, Steve, Vision, and Maria Hill all entered the observation room at once. Tony looked ten years older, lines in his face and his clothes askew. Bucky's stomach dropped as he understood Meg's tone: these were the people she'd want with her if someone had to tell her she was going to die.
Bucky sat up, hands clenched on the end of his bedframe.
But then Tony lifted up a small test tube filled with clear liquid and waved it at Meg. "Fixed it."
"Fixed… what?" he could hear the frown in her voice, though her back was turned to him.
Tony rolled his eyes. "The corrosive acid, Magellan, I synthesized a neutralizing agent."
Her hands loosened. "How?"
Tony shook the tube. "It's a very interesting story of chemical analysis and personal genius, but to be honest, my priority right now is getting you back into the decontamination bay," he said with raised eyebrows. Bucky's gaze skimmed across the others, and he realized that what he'd initially taken for grim trepidation was a concerned sort of hope. Steve wore the look he'd had when he'd first rescued Bucky from the HYDRA base in Austria.
Bucky closed his eyes as Tony's words sank in. He heard Meg's mattress squeak. "Right. Right! Now?"
"Unless you've got something better to be doing. The decontamination bay is prepped with the agent."
Bucky opened his eyes just as Meg shot up and hurried toward the decontamination bay in a blur. The door slid shut behind her and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"That was fast," he commented, eyes lifting to the group on the other side of the glass.
"Definitely a personal best," Tony quipped, leaning on a nearby table. His tone was light, but now Meg was gone Bucky could see that some of the facade had slipped. He looked exhausted, grey at the edges.
"They tested the agent on samples taken from Maggie's workshop," Steve said, approaching the glass. "And it… seemed to work. I asked about giving it to you as well, but they said that since you weren't displaying any symptoms it was best not to dose you with something… experimental." His eyes flicked to Tony, who was now fidgeting with his vial. Dr Cho shared a glance with Vision.
"And if this doesn't work?" Bucky asked.
"It'll work," Tony said firmly. Steve shot Bucky a don't push him look. So Bucky laced his fingers together, bowed his head, and waited. He could faintly hear the sound of water running.
A minute passed. Tony gave up on fidgeting and started pacing, touching medical equipment and pressing monitors, his attention scattered all over the room. Maria Hill followed his movements with unreadable eyes.
"What's taking so long?" he finally said.
"Ms Stark has completed the decontamination cycle and is getting changed into a new hazmat suit," F.R.I.D.A.Y. calmly explained.
Tony fidgeted with a monitor, scanning all of Meg's recorded vitals, then spun around. Bucky felt his attention fix on him. "What were you doing in that workshop anyway, Barnes?"
Bucky blinked at the feeling of all their eyes suddenly falling on him. "I…" It had been normal, really. As simple as going to visit Steve. But saying I just wanted to visit sounded suspicious even in his own head. "It was just… chance," he eventually settled on.
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Chance."
But then the door slid open and there Meg stood, in a new hazmat suit with her hair dark and wet brushed behind her ears. Her expression was worried. "It doesn't look any different," she said, gesturing with her hand, visible through the currently-clear plastic.
"Please come to the window," Cho said, gesturing, and leaned in to get a good look once Meg approached the window. Bucky craned his neck to watch. Meg was right - the black patches of skin now stretched up all her fingers and across the back of her hand. "We don't believe there will be any instantaneous change. Modelling suggests that if the serum works, you should see a reduction in the necrosis within an hour." She nodded, then looked up to inspect Meg's nostrils. "How is your breathing feeling?"
"Still painful. And I can still feel the fever."
Cho's mouth turned down. "I'll stay close. But give F.R.I.D.A.Y. updates every quarter of an hour."
True to their word, the group stayed close, some of them ducking out to answer calls or direct staff or get coffee, but the observation bay remained full. Tony sat right by the window, discussing the chemical weapon and how he'd solved it in low tones with Meg. She seemed heartened by the science talk, but annoyed that everyone was staring at her so much.
Bucky couldn't help it. Every time she coughed, every time the machine took her vitals, he couldn't have looked away if he tried.
Slowly, over the next hour and a half, promising signs emerged. After 45 minutes her fever broke. After an hour, the blackness began to recede from her hand and her nose; the skin was still missing, but it looked pink and healthy now.
Finally, her eyes on the latest screen of bioreadouts, Cho confirmed: "the chemical's corrosive properties have been neutralized."
No one cheered, even though it felt like a cheering moment. Bucky satisfied himself by dropping his head between his shoulders and heaving a sigh. He heard the smack as Tony and Meg high-fived each other against the glass.
"I'm going to put you on some medications to help with the lung and oesophegus damage inflicted by the acid - you must have barely inhaled a few molecules, but it will have done its work," Cho continued. "I'll also send through some antiseptic for the damaged skin on your hands and nose."
"Well done doctor Cho, Tony," Hill smiled. Bucky so rarely saw her smile. "Let's use your serum to dose the affected areas of the facility, to be safe."
"How do we get out of here?" Bucky asked as he stood and pulled at his hazmat suit.
The smiling faces on the other side of the glass wavered.
"Ah," Steve said. "Right."
Bucky's brow lowered. "What."
Hill cleared her throat. "I've ordered that no matter what happened with the serum, compromised facility occupants are to remain in quarantine for another 24 hours."
Meg's visor clunked against the glass. "Seriously?"
Hill shot Meg a stern look. "You know as well as I do the necessity for a firm isolation protocol. We need further research into the chemical weapon, and to observe you both in a contained environment. You may take off the hazmat suits, but that's it."
"I've agreed to it," Steve said, stepping forward with an apologetic look to them both. "It's best to be safe."
"Sorry, Mags," Tony said. "And there's only the one quarantine chamber." His eyes flicked to Bucky, and then back. "There are curtains you can draw around your bed, if you want some privacy."
Meg tipped her head back and let out a long sigh, which came crackly through her suit speakers. "Fine. But you better bring me something to do."
"F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s holo-displays won't work in here. I can… bring you a book? An adult coloring book?"
Meg started complaining through the glass, but Bucky couldn't bring himself to be too irritated. Meg would live, the facility was safe, and really, a day in here was far better than seventy years in a cryochamber.
Reviews
DBZFAN45: So glad you liked the aftermath chapter, especially Vision and Bucky becoming friends! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, sorry it was late.
Eennio: Thank you!
shorttrooper: Yesss a fellow Vision Stan! Also I note you've used they/them pronouns for Vision, I always found that super interesting that the Avengers went straight away to calling Vision he. That's why I kind of hinted in this story that Vision gave them his preferred pronouns. And I love that Maggie is infiltrating your watching experience of the MCU haha, she has always been there! Hope you've had a good two weeks.
125b: Can't wait to show you ;)