December 10, 2015
Doreen Wallberg clutched her aching elbow as she looked up at the strange figure with a red balaclava pulled over his face, who had just dropped down on top of the two men mugging her and knocked their lights out. He moved faster than she had ever thought possible, and the men had positively flown away when he hit them. Now the figure's shoulders rose and fell as he looked at the men, then his hands.
"Who are you?" she asked, croaky and terrified.
The figure turned, and she could sense his eyes on her.
"I'm…" the voice was pitched strangely low. "I'm Spider-Man."
December 20, 2015
"We've had word of a Winter Soldier sighting." Maggie looked up at the sound of Steve's voice to see him striding through the front foyer of the Avengers Facility, Sam at his side and his shield in one hand. His brow was low. "Want to come?"
Maggie looked from Steve back to the ginormous Christmas tree she had been hanging baubles on - there were two other staff on ladders decorating the tree higher up. They goggled down at her, clearly not used to the presence of Captain America.
Maggie glanced back. "Yeah. I'll meet you at the Quinjet in ten."
They always headed out on the slightest intelligence about the Winter Soldier - Steve needed to appear to be searching hard from his friend still, of course. Usually these trips ended up in a long day of questions that ended up nowhere.
But when they were suited up and in the air, Maggie, Sam, and Steve realized the situation was much more serious than the intel had suggested. Maggie piloted the Quinjet as Sam and Steve gathered more information from F.R.I.D.A.Y. and the rolling news coverage on the ground in Guadalajara: apparently there was some kind of hostage situation in a bank in the city's west.
"The building has a digital locking system that was tripped from within the bank's control room," F.R.I.D.A.Y. explained. "The system has so far resisted any attempts to release it, so there's no entry or exit possible."
"But the update from five minutes ago says they managed to get most people out of the building through a smashed window," Sam said, gesturing with one of the tablets rolling news coverage.
"Is the building empty then?" Maggie asked, checking her coordinates.
"No, still some unaccounted for," Steve said grimly. She could hear a hubbub of voices from whatever video was playing on his tablet. "Figures from 5 to 23 people, and some of them are kids."
"And the link to the Winter Soldier was what?"
"There were reports from a security guard that a man with a metal arm killed the security team and locked down the building," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. "I alerted Captain Rogers immediately."
Maggie felt Sam and Steve trading a glance behind her back.
"How many more guys with metal arms could there be in the world?" Sam asked.
Steve's voice was grim: "I guess we're about to find out."
The Quinjet touched down in an empty lot beside a main road and Maggie, Steve, and Sam headed in toward the financial district. The bank stood on a small hill within the city, the roads flanked by palm trees. But the area around the bank had fallen into chaos: the streets were packed with people; civilians, police, army, firefighters, medics. A cacophony of sirens filled the air, blaring over a hundred different voices. Maggie could barely see the bank, a five-story building made of pale bricks and steel-framed doors, through the chaos of the crowd.
Steve took the lead, surging through the crowd like a knife through butter, headed for the emergency services tents set up just outside the doors of the bank. As they pressed closer, people turning to stare at them, Maggie heard a snatch of garbled Spanish from one of the radios of the nearby police officers:
"At least eight unaccounted for, and no contact from inside-"
She relayed the message to Sam and Steve, neither of whom spoke Spanish, just as Steve broke through to the police in charge.
"Hola," Maggie said, elbowing past Sam to speak to the ring of men in dark navy police uniforms currently staring at Steve. "Hemos venido a ayudar, nuestra IA llamó con anticipación." [We have come to help, our AI called ahead.]
"Si," said an older man with a stern face. He eyed them with suspicion, but said: "Todavía no podemos establecer contacto dentro del banco y todavía no he autorizado a mis hombres a entrar." [We still cannot establish contact inside the bank, and I have not yet authorized my men to enter.]
Maggie translated for Sam and Steve, who were both eyeing up the bank - the doors were locked shut, with steel bars behind them, and there were locked metal screens over all the windows.
Steve nodded and looked back at the police chief. "The attacker may be enhanced, it will be safer for your men if we go in first. Can we speak to the witness first?"
The police chief looked to Maggie, and once she had translated, he nodded and gestured back to one of the tents set up in the middle of the road. Steve strode over first.
"Whoever this guy is," Sam murmured as he and Maggie followed, "he must have one hell of an exit strategy. He's locked himself inside for two hours now, if it were me I'd have taken off the second I got my money."
"Maybe he hasn't got the money yet," Maggie guessed. She glanced over her shoulder at the bank, which seemed to loom large at the top of the hill. "Maybe he got injured. This doesn't look like a plan going perfectly to me."
"Disculpe," Steve murmured ahead of them as he leaned into the tent. Maggie turned and followed his gaze to a man in a bloodied security uniform, wrapped in a shiny shock blanket. His eyes were wide, and he had frozen in the middle of accepting a water bottle from a paramedic to stare at the sight of Captain America, the Falcon, and the Wyvern standing in the tent entrance. The red and blue police lights flashed behind them.
"We're sorry to make you relive this again, but if you can, please describe the man who attacked your team," Steve said, with a glance back at Maggie. She translated his question, and the security guard sitting in the tent swallowed as she spoke. His eyes darted, as if looking for any way to escape this conversation. More than once, his eyes flickered to the bank.
"Entró y mató a todos. Solo escapé. Tienes que entrar y detenerlo-" [He went in and killed everyone. Only I escaped. You have to go inside and stop him-]
"Lo haremos," [We will] Maggie interrupted, her hand out. Behind her, Steve glanced around, checking their surroundings. "¿Cómo se veía el hombre?" [What did the man look like?]
The man frowned and looked upward, as if remembering. "Bueno. Era alto, de cabello oscuro y usaba un brazo de metal." [Okay. He was tall, dark haired, and had a metal arm]. He nodded. "Hablaba ruso." [Spoke Russian].
Maggie had opened her mouth to start translating, but her gut was churning, and the back of her neck prickled. Something is wrong. She frowned at the man, who glanced again at the bank.
"What did he say?" Sam asked. Steve was looking somewhere behind them, back into the crowd.
Maggie took a step toward the security guard. "¿Quién te dijo que dijeras eso?" [Who told you to say that?]
The guard's eyes widened and his expression dropped into a look of true fear. Maggie took another step forward, anger brewing, but in that same second Steve shouted: "Hey!" and she whipped around.
Steve had dashed out of the tent, headed for the crowd - just over the lip of his shield Maggie spotted a man in dark clothes holding a mobile phone, talking frantically as he backed away from Steve. Steve shouted again, cocked his arm to throw his shield -
And then the bank exploded.
On her back, Maggie coughed - and found her face enclosed by a mask. Her uniform safeties must have deployed in the detonation.
Groaning, she got her bearings and managed to stagger up to her feet; she could barely see the street around her through the haze of dirt and smoke. Her ears were ringing, but she could hear screaming, crying, and shifting concrete. She glanced at the bank - it wasn't a building anymore, just a pile of rubble and smoke. Glass and rock had sprayed out onto the street and crunched under Maggie's feet as she hurried over to where a prone police officer was clutching his side and grimacing. His face was black with dirt.
"Steve? Sam?" she called into her comms as she scanned the police officer's wound - shrapnel, but it looked like he could walk. As she helped him up she looked around. It was hard to see anything in the dark cloud of smoke and dirt, but her eyes caught on the crumpled emergency services tent where she'd originally been standing. She could see the guard from before, tangled in the shiny shock blanket. Dead. She looked away, determined to help the police officer to safety. "Guys?"
"Still here, and I've got eyes on Steve," Sam grit out. "The hell happened?"
"They had people waiting for us to arrive," Steve's voice came. He sounded like he was running. "That bomb was for us. I'm in pursuit!"
"They?" Maggie said as a team of firefighters appeared in the haze and collected the police officer from her. She turned back. "The bank…"
"We've got to get in there," Sam said.
Maggie eyed the pile of smoking rubble. "I'll try."
Maggie knew that anyone left in that bank had to be dead. But she flared her wings and flew over the ruin anyway, searching for an entry point. The whole structure sagged in the middle, jagged with protruding pylons and frayed wires, bricks and concrete and metal strewn haphazardly about.
Maybe I'll find some evidence about who the hell did this. She could see the firefighters and paramedics encroaching on the destruction now, pulling survivors off the surrounding streets. She had no idea where Steve and Sam had got to, but she occasionally heard Steve's panting breaths, and once the sound of an engine.
After a few moments of hovering low over the wreck, Maggie spotted a kind of crevice near the back of the heap, where two slabs of concrete had imploded inward. It was mostly inaccessible from the ground, as the debris that had fallen down the hillside formed a kind of unclimbable cliff. Maggie landed, wobbling as the pile of bricks she stood on shifted slightly, and then peered down. The red glow of her goggles lit up the shadows in the crevice.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"
"There's a space down - but it'll be tight. No life signs detected."
Maggie let out a long breath, and was about to open her mouth to tell Steve and Sam there was no point - but then she heard a clank. And she knew it was probably a rock falling, or the structure settling, but she couldn't leave now. She swung her legs down, then cursed when she realized the rigid exterior of her uniform wouldn't fit between the slabs of concrete.
This is collossally stupid, she thought as she stripped off her uniform, leaving in her just goggles, a mask, and her underarmor. She made sure the air filtration system in her mask was fitted properly to her mouth. And then she wriggled down into the darkness.
The crevice turned out to be a kind of chute down underneath the layer of debris. The air was clogged with smoke, but when she kicked the stone around her it didn't shift ominously. As soon as it gets too dangerous, I'll go back.
She slithered down until she hit a surface, and turned up the glow of her goggles to find herself in a strangely intact room, the ceiling sunken in and the carpet covered in several inches of dirt. "¿Hola?" her voice echoed strangely. "¿Hay alguien aquí abajo?" [Is anyone down here?] The air felt hot and uncomfortable against her bare skin.
She heard a muffled, echoey kind of reverberation, and with a frown followed it further into the room, then squeezing out of a half-collapsed doorway. There were wires sparking on the ground in the corridor beyond, lighting the darkness every few seconds. The floor was littered with glass from the shattered windows of adjoining offices. She rounded a corner, and then she heard it: clang, clang.
"¿Hola?" she called again. The clanging stopped. And then she could definitely hear it - shouting.
Maggie ran along the corridor, then wobbled to a halt when she realized the shadow before her was not a lack of light, but a huge hole in the floor. She edged toward it. "¿Hay alguien ahí abajo?" [Is anyone down there?]
"Nosotros estamos aqui!" [We're here!] came a chorus, and her heart dropped when she realized the voices were young.
"¿Puedes venir a la azotea?" [Can you come to the roof?]
"No, estamos atrapados!" [No, we're trapped!]
Maggie cursed under her breath and touched her comms. "Guys, I've got survivors down here. The northern section of the building is relatively intact."
No answer. Maggie cursed again, looked around, grabbed a filth-strewn rug and managed to secure it to the edge of the hole in the floor. She used the makeshift rope to shimmy down to the level below, where the smoke was a bit thinner.
This room was pitch-black, and the red light from her goggles illuminated destroyed walls, fallen pylons, and piles of smashed furniture and loose paperwork. But several yards away, her light gleamed off metal. Maggie's heart skipped; it was a cracked-open circular metal door, with hands reaching out of it.
Maggie hurried over, tripping over a loose pylon, then peered through into the cavernous space beyond. "¡Estoy aquí! ¿Cuántos de ustedes están ahí?" [I'm here! How many of you are there?]
"Nueve!" [Nine!] an older voice said. Maggie's goggles illuminated a sliver of a man's round face, with blood on his forehead. His desperate eyes drank her in. "Por favor, hay niños aquí, tienes que sacarnos." [Please, there are children here, you need to get us out.]
"Eso es para lo que estoy aquí," [That's what I'm here for," Maggie said, her heart pounding. She turned up the light from her goggles to full brightness, and the faces inside winced at the light: an older man in a singed suit, a slightly younger man wearing a visitor's badge, and five girls and two boys in school uniforms. They were inside the bank's vault: she could see the lockboxes inside. Only three of them could press their faces to the gap in the metal door at a time.
"Es un demonio?" [Is it a demon?] she heard one of the kids whisper.
"Mi nombre es Maggie," she said reassuringly. "Necesito que salgas de este lado. ¿Puedes pasar?" [I need you to come to this side, can you get through?] But even as she asked it, she realized the gap in the door was too narrow.
"Nosotros no podemos empujarlo," [We can't push it,] said the younger man, who Maggie guessed was the teacher of the children.
"El mecanismo esta roto-" [The mechanism is broken-] said the other man.
"Por favor, ¿no hay más de ustedes?" [Please, aren't there more of you?] begged the teacher.
Maggie wrapped her fingers around the edge of the vault door and pulled. The two men and the kids wordlessly pushed forward to add their weight to it. The door creaked and pulled open a fraction, but it resisted every inch, and Maggie knew she couldn't hold it. She wasn't a supersoldier.
The children groaned as they pushed the door.
I don't need to be a supersoldier. Maggie let go of the door slowly, letting it ease back to its original position, and took a few steps away. The teacher cried out and stuck his hand through as if to catch her, but she murmured a few reassuring words in Spanish. She crouched down and lifted the metal pylon she had tripped over before in her sweaty hands. It was heavy, but long and sturdy. She dragged it back over to the vault door, then jammed one end through into the vault. The children shifted out of the way, staring.
"Es física," [It's physics,] Maggie explained to them as she ensured the pylon was wedged firmly in the door. Then she shuffled along to the very end of her makeshift lever, set her feet, and began to shove.
It wasn't easy. But the door creaked open, inch by inch, and Maggie held her force steady to her lever. When the door had opened wide enough, the kids began squeezing through - two boys first, who immediately picked themselves up and ran to pile on the other end of the lever with her. Finally, when Maggie was pushing at the lever with seven kids, the bankman and the teacher slid through.
They dropped the lever, and the vault door slowly creaked closed again. Maggie dusted her hands and looked at her new responsibility: seven children and two adults, all panting and coughing in the blackness under eight feet of rubble. They glanced at her with a mixture of terror and hope.
"Nosotros vamos a salir de aqui," [We're going to get out of here,] she said with a confidence she didn't feel. "Créeme, después de esto será fácil." [Trust me, after this it will be easy.]
"Eres un Avenger," [You're an Avenger], said one of the boys, who had rolled up the trouser legs of his uniform. "La Wyvern."
"Exactamente. Vamos a salir de aquí." [Exactly. Let's get out of here.]
The strange group followed Maggie through the darkness - she climbed up the dangling rug to the next level, praying the floor would hold, and then reached down for the children; the roof had sunken enough that she could grab their hands when the adults lifted them and pulled them up. The roof creaked, but thankfully held. Eventually they had all been hoisted up, and then they backtracked down the corridors, squeezing through the gaps Maggie had squeezed through on her way down here. Maggie warned the children to stay clear of the sparking livewires.
The older man - who was apparently the manager of the bank - explained that a group of men with guns had infiltrated the security centre, let in by one of the bank's security guards (probably the witness I spoke to earlier, Maggie supposed), then started firing. He had locked himself in the vault with the group of schoolkids, who were here to drop off a cheque from a fundraising campaign their school had been running.
He said nothing about a man with a metal arm.
When they reached the bottom of the chute Maggie had slid down, they all peered up at the distant glimpse of daylight. They were all coughing hard now, lungs clogged with the smoke and dust in the bank.
"Es como escalar una roca,' [It's like rockclimbing,] Maggie explained to ease the wary expressions she could see. She showed them all how she could plant her feet on either side of the concrete slabs to anchor herself, and use her arms to push herself up. "Bueno?" [Okay?]
She gestured to one of the boys, who stepped forward with a jut to his chin. She let him go first, his dusty sneakers squeaking up the concrete and his thin arms propelling him upward. She followed closely behind for safety, and sure enough halfway up the kid slipped and fell. He tangled over Maggie's outstretched legs, but she held her balance, and helped him get upright and out again. When he crawled out over the lip of the last slab of concrete onto the pile of cascading bricks, Maggie poked her head out into the fresh(er) air and called into her comms:
"Guys, I've got survivors coming out by the northwest of the site!" She got a crackle in response, and could only hope that they had heard.
She slid back down for the others.
Maggie went up and down the crevice nine times, caking herself in dust and scraping her fingers and elbows on the unforgiving surface. The last survivor to go up was a little girl called Julieta - she'd struggled too much on her own, as she'd hurt her ankle, so Maggie had sent the bank manager and the teacher up with her air filtration system (because they had been struggling the most to breathe). And now she climbed up using just her left arm, her right one cinched around Julieta, who clung to Maggie's ribs like a limpet. Maggie panted in the smoke, her throat stinging, and her left arm shook as she dragged herself upward.
Finally, one last push of her legs sent her sliding out over the lip of the concrete slab and onto an uncomfortable surface of bricks. Julieta's chin poked into her collarbone. Maggie stood up shakily, finding her feet on the pile of bricks, and turned to the others - but they weren't looking at her.
The kids had been gathered just at the edge of the crevice but now they and the adults were shouting and diving to the ground, and Maggie barely saw the armed man in the dark uniform behind them before she ducked too - just in time.
A crack rang out and the concrete behind Maggie seemed to explode as a bullet impacted it. Her heart stopped. Maggie dropped Julieta behind a pile of rooftiles, none too gently, and then rolled the other way. Another shot cracked into the ground where she'd been standing. Maggie let out a grunt as her chest hit the bricks and looked up: there was a pistol aimed at her, and the man's eyes behind it were dark and - he fired.
The gun clicked.
Maggie surged to her feet and charged.
She tackled straight into the dark-browed man before he had time to even try the trigger of his gun again, trying to knock him right down the precipice of debris down the hillside. The gun went spiralling, but despite a stagger the man stayed upright. He shoved back at her and they grappled a moment, Maggie's skin on fire with adrenaline and his hot angry breaths in her face. He reached for his hip, and she had to arch backwards when he whipped out a knife.
For a second, they only stared at each other; he with the knife glinting in his hand and his teeth bared, Maggie streaked in dirt and smoke, her chest heaving. She knew the children were behind her somewhere, hopefully behind the mound of debris. She could hear Julieta crying. The man was tall, in a nondescript dark uniform, his face etched with the grim determination of a trained killer. He didn't look like he'd expected to find her up here, but he looked certain he would not leave this place until her heart had stopped beating. Maggie thought desperately of her armor, tucked somewhere amidst the debris behind her.
She had a flash memory of standing in front of Bucky, his rubber knife tucked behind his metal hand.
And then the man swung for her.
He didn't fight like Bucky. Maggie caught his wrist on his first vicious stab with her free hand, and twisted his momentum to the side. He staggered forward, but adjusted quickly - he pulled out of her reach and swung again, slashing for her face. Maggie weaved back, absorbed a punch to her shoulder from his free hand, and slammed her fist into his stomach. He wheezed, but didn't falter. Her throat was on fire, her skin slick with sweat, and she felt wired with adrenaline and fear. The man kicked at her prosthetic leg, almost knocking her over, and drove the knife point first at her chest.
Maggie went with the path of least resistance - she twisted her arm under the knife and managed to swipe his strike past her. She grabbed the guy's hand and wrist and turned the knife back on him like a move in a dance. With the momentum of his strike and her sharp curve, the knife drove right up under his jaw.
The blood gushed out of him, faster than Maggie had expected, and soaked the front of her shirt. She felt the heat of it on her and instinctively stepped back.
He dropped, taking the knife with him, and Maggie stood there staring at him for a moment. He was still alive, but she knew in only seconds he wouldn't be.
She turned around. The kids hadn't been watching, thankfully - she could see a few of their feet poking out from behind a rock near where they'd come out of the crevice. The sound of sirens filled the air, and as the smoke began to clear Maggie could see blue and red flashing lights from the other side of the building ruin.
She tried to swipe the blood off her, but it had soaked through her shirt. She gave up and clambered back to the hole - she first found Julieta, who was crying and clutching her arm where Maggie had dropped her.
"Lo lamento," Maggie murmured as she picked the girl up, hoisting her up to her hip. "Estarás bien ahora." [You'll be okay now].
She carried Julieta over to where the others were hiding; they looked surprised to see her alive. The bank manager had been praying. Maggie gave them a tired smile. "Vamos, ya casi llegamos." [Come on, we're almost there].
Avengers Facility, Upstate New York
Maggie was still covered in the dead man's blood when they returned. She hung back to put the Quinjet to rights (technically they had staff to do that now, but the routine soothed her mind). Steve and Sam went ahead to report to Hill and clean up. Maggie peeled off her uniform and put it in for its decontamination cycle in the changing room in the hangar, then trudged across to the private wing of the facility.
Maggie had to go past the common room to get to her suite. She didn't notice that Bucky had spotted her until she heard footsteps behind her in the corridor. She turned to find him hurrying after her, his brows pinched together and his eyes instantly finding the stiff dark stain on her black underarmor shirt.
"You okay?" he asked, eyes flicking back to her face.
"Yeah," she sighed. "We saved everyone we could. Should've brought more backup. And I…" she glanced down at her shirt. "I'm still not used to killing… quite so up close."
"Steve told me what happened," Bucky murmured. "You did-" he broke off. "You did what you had to. And you protected yourself." He gestured into the common room, where through a window Maggie could see F.R.I.D.A.Y. projecting a news channel on the wall. It was rolling footage of the incident in Guadalajara: the burning pile of rubble, the ambulances, Maggie trudging out of the smoke with a tear-stained Julieta in her arms and a gaggle of children behind her. "You saved their lives."
She let out a heavy breath. "At least the spy Steve captured confirmed that he was with Rumlow's lot, and that it wasn't… you know. You. We figure they were trying to bait Steve out by dangling your name like a carrot, then blowing him up. But we figured out something was up while we were still outside the building."
Bucky's frown deepened. "Rumlow knows how to pull Steve's strings."
"Steve's going to be more careful from now on though," Maggie said. "We didn't fully understand the situation, that's why we were so close. Next time we won't be."
"There won't be a next time," Bucky said with certainty. But then he jerked his chin. "Go get cleaned up. But don't hole yourself up - come back to the common room, I'll meet you there."
Grateful to have some kind of a plan, some sort of structure, Maggie went.
Meg was quiet when she got back to the common room. Bucky had expected it - killing either made people loud or quiet, in his experience, and it didn't surprise him that Meg went quiet. She sat on one of the couches with a mug of tea, pensive. She kept touching her chest. The room was empty save for the two of them. Bucky let her sit and think, his eyes on the muted TV. He hated watching out for his friends via the news, but it was all he had, since F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn't really live update to the Facility.
After about half an hour, Bucky glanced back at Meg and stilled.
She was too quiet, and her whole body had gone rigid. She stared at the wall just below the TV, her face mostly obscured by her still-damp hair, and something about her posture made him call:
"Meg."
He had to say it a second time before she looked over. And his stomach twisted, because in her eyes he saw what he remembered from the rooftop in Peru, from the way she used to look at him, over a year ago.
Rage.
He'd forgotten what anger did to her features: it lit her up from within, made her dark eyes churn like molten lava. She remained very, very still, but violence radiated off her in waves.
He let out a breath to let off the jolt he'd felt at seeing her like this. "Meg, are you okay?"
"Fine," she grit out. Her eyes couldn't seem to fix on her face.
"No you're not," he murmured. "You're angry."
Her jaw tightened and he could see that her knuckles were white. "I can't afford to be angry," she said. "Anger has never helped me."
"But you are. At Rumlow?"
She nodded tightly. He watched her, letting her think on it.
Finally, she spoke again. "I'm used to anger," she whispered. "I built who I am on anger. But I could never control it. I just… it's like a match gets lit in my chest, which is already full of gasoline. It just erupts, and there's… I can't do anything about it. It's why I came after you." Her violent eyes met his. He fought the urge to shiver. "Because my… because the only thing I was sure of was my fury at you, and I knew I had to act on it. And then I didn't anyway."
He remembered her wild eyes and bared teeth with her claws to his throat, then her hoarse, furious shout before she'd knocked him unconscious.
"It's hot, and uncontrollable, and…" she fidgeted with her clothes, as if worried they were about to catch on fire. "And I can't have it. I can't let my anger control how I deal with this Rumlow situation. No matter how much he thinks he can just - just hurt people." She looked at him, with more desperation than violence now. "Do you get angry like this?"
He considered the question. "I get angry. But it doesn't feel… hot, for me. My anger makes me very, very cold." He swallowed. "It makes me feel like I'm not alive." He couldn't avoid a shiver then. "It's useful, sometimes. In battle, for switching off… the fear, and the worry, and… anything else. But it can't stay."
She nodded. "I was angry when I killed that man."
"Maybe…" he shook his head.
"What?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. You'll already have talked about this with your therapist."
She cocked her head. "I have, but… what were you going to say?"
He shifted, uncomfortable now. "Raynor and I have talked about… doing something, when I feel like my feelings are going to swallow me up. Doing something about them in a… constructive way. Like instead of sitting and sweating after a nightmare, going and doing something. A walk. Helping someone." Going to your workshop and knitting.
Meg appeared to consider it. He watched her brow twist. "I don't want to do something nice," she said eventually. "This isn't… I'm not nice right now."
He nodded. "Let's do something not nice then."
First they went to the shooting range. Meg demolished six paper targets while Bucky kept an eye on her, assembling and disassembling weapons on the rack. He did not want to practice sharpshooting.
Then they went to the sparring mats in the gym, which was empty at this time of day. They kicked off their shoes, Meg wrapped her knuckles, and they began.
Meg was angry and violent and the sparring didn't make her laugh like it normally did, but it was good all the same. She bruised her knuckles on Bucky's metal arm and he let the fight go on, not using his advantage to end the fight quickly. Her blows did not land softly, and he gave them back and then some, knowing that going gently now was not what she needed. Fifteen minutes in, Bucky had gone a little breathless, which appeared to hearten Meg.
He threw her down and hit her, hard enough to hurt, and saw a flash of gratitude in her eyes a second before she slammed both heels into his chest. He imagined that rage she said she had burning up inside of her: it surged like wildfire from her fists, her panting breaths, her kicks. It became a steady burn.
And then it burnt up all at once. Bucky caught another of her driving punches, and rather than tug away, she stilled. Her fist loosened in his grip, and she suddenly looked as if she could not move another inch if she tried. He saw the fire leave her eyes and her knees shake.
He nodded. "You good?"
She swallowed, suddenly looking pale. He understood the strange light in her eyes; he'd felt this way before, exhausted and overwhelmed but also like you'd had metal spikes pulled out from under your nails: a painful kind of relief.
Meg sagged and her fist dropped out of his hand, shaking.
"You need something to eat," he murmured. She nodded tiredly, and he led her back toward the common room.
And if he spotted a few tears in her eyes as they ate, he said nothing.
December 25th, 2015
Maggie had been expecting Christmas to be another low-key event this year; about half of the Avengers had their own families, after all, and it had been a hard year. She'd poured her efforts into making sure the larger staff body were looked after; there was a gigantic Christmas tree in the main Avengers foyer, and all employees had been given a high-end advent calendar as a gift, full of all kinds of exclusive Stark tech and samples from the various companies that worked with them.
However, apparently Steve had been pushing hard for a proper Avengers celebration. Tony and Pepper had agreed to come over for Christmas lunch, and while Maggie's back had been turned it had become a party.
Which is how on Christmas afternoon Maggie found herself in the festively-decorated Avengers common room, sipping eggnog while Feliz Navidad played over F.R.I.D.A.Y's speakers. The sleeves of her red and gold Iron Man Christmas jumper were pushed up to her elbows. The room was as full as she'd yet seen it: Clint had arrived for a few hours and was standing by the snack table with Sam, who was wearing a strand of tinsel like a scarf. Tony and Pepper were either talking or arguing with Rhodey, while Wanda watched with quiet amusement, and in the kitchen Steve, Bucky, Vision, and Nat were still fixing drinks. Hill and Cho were over by the window, probably talking about something sensible like stocks or climate change. Actually, scratch that – Cho bent over laughing, and from the pink tinge to her cheeks Maggie guessed they'd probably supplied their resident doctor with a few too many eggnogs.
Vision appeared by Maggie's elbow, and she managed not to flinch. "I have been instructed to deliver you a refreshment," he said, gesturing with a very full tumbler of what looked like whiskey. Maggie glanced over his shoulder at the bar, where Nat lifted her own tumbler with a wink.
"Thanks, Vision," she laughed, and downed the rest of her eggnog with a shudder before taking the whiskey. "Have you ever tried alcohol?"
"I'm not old enough," he said, and Maggie waited a second to confirm if he was joking before she laughed.
"That was a good one," she nodded encouragingly. "You're getting better with humor."
"I have an excellent teacher," he smiled. His eyes drifted. "I should ask Wanda if she would like a refreshment."
"She likes vodka sours," Maggie whispered conspiratorially.
"With a slice of lemon, yes," Vision said distractedly, and then he was gone.
Maggie watched him phase through the couch, bemused, and then grinned as Tony looked across the room and winked at her. Both of their smiles widened as the song changed to Blink-182's I Won't Be Home for Christmas. Maggie set down her drink and danced her way across the room toward him; Tony met her halfway, took her hand, and pulled her in to a spin. Pepper watched them fondly.
"We do this every year!" Tony explained to Pepper as Maggie mouthed you people scare me, stay away from my home along with the song.
"I know," she said. "You told me that Maggie loved this song as a kid, and that you could never say no to dancing with her."
"And nothing's changed," Maggie beamed, doing her best at the running man.
The others finished making the drinks at the bar and stared at Tony and Maggie's strange dancing. Hill and Cho turned around.
"Shouldn't we get this Secret Santa business over with?" Hill said, in the same tone as she'd once said we need to deliver these computer chips into the Helicarrier central processing units.
With so many Avengers these days, a Secret Santa had made the most practical sense, and to everyone's surprise Wanda had agreed to organize it. Maggie suspected the Sokovian was a secret fan of Christmas.
So they gathered on the assortment of couches around the smaller Christmas tree, which Vision had cut down himself from their local forest. Maggie could see the burn marks where he'd used the energy beam from the stone on his forehead.
Maggie had got Sam for the Secret Santa. She watched his face as he opened the gift to reveal a plush falcon toy, and a mini figurine of himself: they'd only started releasing Falcon merch a month ago, and she'd got her hands on one of the prototypes.
Sam flushed as he opened the figurine, but said: "I have to admit, this is pretty cool. My nephew is going to love this." He leaned over and hugged Maggie, the plush falcon tucked under his arm.
Tony got Wanda, which was awkward, but he'd given her a delightful collection of pashmina scarves (which Maggie suspected Pepper had picked out). Bucky had also agreed to be a part of the gift exchange, and everyone stared when Nat opened her present from him to reveal a black, red, and white knitted scarf. Maggie instantly recognised it as one he'd made in her workshop, and also realized that the green scarf Steve was currently wearing must be from Bucky as well.
"Thank you," Natasha said with bemusement, and it was left at that.
Bucky got a copy of The Life of Pi from Rhodey, who shrugged and said: "I don't know, man, I only ever see you reading."
Clint and Sam had to leave in a few hours, so after some drinking and catching up, someone fished out a few packs of cards. They played poker, though Hill forbade them from betting real money, because apparently it wasn't fair to play against billionaires that way. What Hill had failed to account for, Maggie thought privately, was that both she and Tony were able to count cards.
Bucky asked to have the rules explained to him because he couldn't remember how to play, and then on his first round put down a royal flush and said "Is this any good?"
"You're not slick," Steve said with an eyeroll, and turned to the others. "Bucky was the reigning poker champ of the 107th."
Bucky raised his eyebrows innocently as if this was the first time he was hearing of this. Wanda laughed behind her hand as she pushed the 'pot' (several handfuls of chocolate-covered nuts and six candy canes) towards him.
The others were wise to Bucky after that, but it quickly became clear that this was a formidable group to play poker with: Vision could count cards as well and did not understand the concept of a game where you were supposed to lie, Wanda claimed she wasn't reading minds but always appeared to anticipate the others's hands, Bucky had a hell of a poker face, and Steve and Tony kept taking crazy gambles that threw spanners in the works of the game. Cho dropped out after losing a gingerbread man to the pot, and Clint and Nat dropped out to bet real money on the outcomes of the game, like it was some kind of spectator sport.
In the game, Bucky and Maggie never exchanged a word. However as the numbers dwindled and the competition became more intense - despite the fact they were still betting over the candy from the snack table - they kept eyeing each other in each round, exchanging a raised eyebrow, or a frown. Slowly but surely, they began to destroy everyone else still playing.
After a few rounds of this, Tony throw his cards at Maggie after she called his bluff. "Did you invent telepathy and not tell me?"
"What do you mean?" she asked as she and Bucky shared a glance, before Bucky placed down another hand.
"I mean that," Tony said, pointing between them. "Do you know what his cards are? How are you working together?"
"I," she said as she played her hand, "am just better at this game than you." Behind Tony, Natasha whispered something into Clint's ear with a smile.
Five minutes later, Rhodey dropped out swearing, and Tony appeared to be in a better mood. When it was just Maggie vs Bucky, she went all in with her package of christmas cookies and nothing but a two of a kind in her hand. She leaned across the table and smiled dangerously at Bucky, still refusing to speak a word.
He folded, and Maggie threw her hands up in victory.
After they waved off Clint and Sam, Tony and Maggie walked together back in the direction of the common room. The wind was howling loud and bitter outside, but the facility interior had a warm, quiet glow to it.
"What's going on with you and Barnes?" Tony asked, his hands in his pockets.
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Things are different." He looked at her, and Maggie couldn't read the expression on his face.
"Different?"
"Used to be you hated the guy."
Maggie frowned at him as they followed the sound of Christmas music toward the common room. "Tony, you're the one who told me to think about forgiving him. And I have."
"I know, I know. I just…" he waved a hand. "According to F.R.I.D.A.Y., the guy spends half his time in your workshop. And just now, today - it's creepy."
"Creepy?"
Tony fidgeted, working himself up into further discomfort. He opened and closed his mouth as if searching for words.
"Tony, what on earth is the matter with you? Bucky and I are good now, is that the issue? I thought you were good with him too?"
"I am, I am," he said quickly. "But I don't…" he waved a hand. "Ah, forget it."
"Tony-"
But he just walked off, heading into the common room and calling out something to Rhodey. Maggie sighed frustratedly and followed him.
That evening, Maggie returned to her suite buzzed and happy, and nearly tripped over the small package wrapped in brown paper at the base of her door. She squinted down at it, then laughed when she realised there was a post-it note on the top.
Merry Christmas, was all it said, but there was only one person it could be from.
Inside her suite, Maggie tore open the package to find something made out of yarn in red, grey, and black stripes. At first she thought it was a scarf, but when she shook it out it looked strangely conical, open at one end and closed at the other, like a large… oh.
Grinning, Maggie leaned down to remove her prosthetic leg, then pulled off her compression sock. She pulled the sock Bucky had given her over her stump, and beamed when it slid on perfectly, going up to her mid-thigh. It was warm, and the yarn he'd used didn't itch at all. The red, black, and grey stripes reminded her of her uniform colours. She stood one legged, admiring it.
She wondered how many Christmas gifts Bucky had knitted this year; it certainly explained the industrial crate full of yarn that had taken up residence in her workshop.
She smiled again at the thought of him finding her present for him: a copy of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, a shirt with the NASA logo on it because she'd never seen him wear anything with a color or a logo on it, and a small package of modern snacks and drinks from around the world. She'd wrapped it all up and placed it outside of his suite earlier today, topped with a post-it note labelled Merry Christmas.
Look at that, a Christmas chapter posted during Christmastime! I hope you're all having a very happy festive season my loves, I am writing from sunny Australia now and it is so good to be home :)
Reviews
DBZFAN45: So many new introductions! I'm glad you like Maggie as a mentor, and that you're interested in Rikki ;) And I like the idea of calling it a slow burn date! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
shorttrooper: You can indeed declare it your favourite chapter! I'm glad you liked the skydiving, I loved writing it :) And thanks, I always think it's important to have fiction reflect reality, and the MCU is doing okay at introducing more queer characters but I figured why not do a bit better in this fic. And I totally thought the same about Maya! I was like "a badass with a prosthetic leg? goddamn". Merry Christmas I hope you have a lovely holidays!