Short one today!

March, 2016

So you may already know, but just in case you don't, I wanted to let you know that Tony and I have separated.

Maggie stared at the text message on her phone screen, frozen where she'd been piecing a wrist blaster together in her workshop. The message went unfocused and she blinked to bring it back into clear, impossible focus. She swallowed.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., where is Tony?"

Bucky looked up from where he'd been working on a laptop in the corner.

"The boss returned to the Facility two hours ago and is currently in the engineering bay."

"Right." Maggie swallowed again, staring at the text as if she could have possibly misinterpreted it.

"What's wrong?" Bucky murmured, closing his laptop lid.

She shook her head once. "I've… got to go. Sorry."

She walked out, dazed, and made her way over to the Avengers engineering bay, which at this time was full of engineers busily creating defense systems, aircraft parts and even satellite technology. She spotted Tony instantly thanks to the gaggle of engineers hovering around him; he stood under a holographic projection of a rocket fuselage, talking mile a minute and waving his hands. His eyes were concealed by sunglasses.

"He showed up a couple hours ago." She glanced over her shoulder to see Terry, one of her lead engineers. He shrugged. "He wasn't due in today so I thought it was strange, but he wanted work, so I said we were working on the satellite deployment system. He seems… distracted."

"Thank you," Maggie said sincerely. She cleared her throat and raised her voice. "Engineers!" Dozens of heads snapped toward her. "Take an early break, on me."

The engineers put down their tools and notes and filed out, casting her looks of curiosity and concern. Tony stayed under his projection, still working.

When the long, vaulted space full of worktables and half-constructed projects had emptied, Maggie made her way over toward her brother and hoisted herself up to sit on the worktable beside him. His hands twisted, rotating the holographic rocket fuselage, and he would not look at her.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

He glanced at her, eyes inscrutable behind his glasses - she realized they were his usual AI-accessible pair, but they'd been tinted black.

"You know," he said.

Her brows contracted. "I do."

He let out a sharp breath, almost involuntary, then pushed up his glasses so he could press the heels of his hands to his eyes. Maggie eyed him, taking in his rumpled clothes and frantic energy. She reached out and placed a hand on his back.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "No, not at all. I can't think of anything worse." He stopped grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes and replaced the glasses. "It was my fault, of course, and I don't really feel like continuing to beat myself up now there's no point. I just want to work, Mags."

She hopped off her table and wrapped her arms around him despite his noise of protest. "It's not your fault, Tony. And we can do whatever you like, as long as you have breakfast with me first."

Maggie made them both omelettes and they ate them quietly together in the common room. Tony couldn't seem to sit without propping his head up in at least one of his hands - there were dark circles under his eyes. It must have been a long night.

Bucky walked into the room at one point, and she met his eyes over Tony's downturned head and shook her head tightly. Bucky nodded, eyes flickering to Tony, and then left.

Maggie sent a discreet text back to Pepper: I'm really sorry. Call if you'd like to talk. Lots of love.

Tony slept at the facility until he figured out an apartment elsewhere, and even then he hung around more than usual, going through long bouts of obsessive working. He went through all five stages of grief and then some, haunting the facility, swinging between intense focus, sullen silence, angry outbursts, and avoidance.

He told Maggie a little more about the breakup a few days in; he and Pepper both had far too much on their plates, but that wasn't the main issue.

"Pepper thinks Iron Man is going to kill me," he murmured one evening in the eerie blue light of a holographic overlay. "And she doesn't see a future if I'm just going to kill myself. She wants me to leave him behind, and I thought I could do that, but… I became Iron Man, and I don't think it's something I can just stop doing, even if I never put the suit on again. You know what I mean?"

"Of course I know what you mean, Tony. You know I understand more than most will."

Maggie just wanted him to be okay. She couldn't even be mad when he crashed one of their very nice cars into the Avengers Facility gate. She felt an aching kind of loss herself - Tony had had Pepper in his life since Maggie was a kid, and she wasn't used to them like… this. She was worried about what it would do to both of them. She hoped, perhaps selfishly, that she wouldn't get dragged into the middle of it.

The others in the Facility treated Tony gingerly, most of them awkward and not knowing what to say. Wanda avoided him entirely, apparently too affected by the cloud of emotions around him. Sam seemed empathetic, but wasn't close enough to Tony to be there for him.

"Hasn't been a good time for the Avengers' love lives, has it?" Sam said to her sympathetically after one training session.

"Hardly any wedding bells on the horizon for any of us," she replied, sighing. "Maybe that's just part of the job."

Sam had frowned at her, but thankfully didn't push further.

Pepper avoided lunch with Maggie for a few weeks, but thankfully they went back to their old routine after a month. Pepper seemed sad, and tired, but driven to work even harder than before. She never wanted to discuss Tony. Sometimes she looked at Maggie with a strange mix of sadness and wistfulness, and Maggie would find herself wondering Do you think the Wyvern will kill me, too?

Even though it felt like the world had shifted under their feet, the work went on.

Maggie kept Tony a little closer than she had before, sometimes keeping him on the phone while she worked, even if neither of them said a word for an hour (though in Tony's case, that was pretty unlikely). So he was on speakerphone when Natasha found Maggie in the Avengers analysis room and said:

"I have a mission."

Natasha had always been a bit of an independent agent - she chased her own leads, planned her own missions, and asked for help when she needed it. In this case, she had figured out that a cache of old HYDRA data was being held by a Russian mobster. The man, Lev Turgenev, wasn't affiliated with HYDRA, but had stolen a swathe of their territory in southwest Russia when they fell, and absorbed their files as well.

"I was tracing down leads linking to Rumlow," Natasha explained. "The data cache might give us an indication of various locations he might be using, but I suspect there'll actually be more in there about old Winter Soldier storage locations and mission sites, based on the other clues I found."

"Right," Maggie said, scratching her chin with her phone - Tony was still on speaker, but Maggie and Natasha had left the analysis wing and were walking back through the facility. "And I assume the files aren't digital?"

"They are, but they're off the grid, so they can't be hacked." Natasha's face was set in stone. "Turgenev is famously paranoid, he keeps his files close to his person - easy to access, easy to destroy. We could hit his facility in Volgograd, but it's secure enough that Turgenev would be able to destroy the files before we get to him. I've identified the most likely contact point to be his regular Saturday nights at a Volgograd club, by the river. The way I hear it, he likes to flash around his cash and pick up women. So we need an inside woman."

"Poor guy's going to get picked up by the Black Widow," Tony said sympathetically, his voice crackly over the speakers.

"The man's a mob boss, Tony," Maggie sighed. She and Natasha walked down a long corridor overlooking the river. "So what, you want backup while you go in? We can arrange that, we'll come on the Quinjet, bring a few agents-"

"Well I would," Natasha cut her off, "but Turgenev knows me. And so does the owner of the club. This isn't my first rodeo in Volgograd."

"... Right."

"Wanda isn't ready for counterintelligence, which leaves… you," Natasha said evenly, her eyes on Maggie.

"Wait, what?" Tony said.

Maggie and Nat turned down the corridor toward the common room. "I don't know, Nat…"

"I don't like it!" Tony protested.

Natasha looked faintly irritated as she eyed the phone. "She speaks good enough Russian, and out of the lot of us she's the only one they'll let in the door. Trust me."

Maggie grimaced. "I've never been good at espionage, Nat, you know this."

"You're a bad actor," Natasha acknowledged with a wave of her hand as they strode into the common room. "But all you have to do is look hot and stupid."

Apparently they weren't alone in the common room - sitting on the couch, Bucky's eyebrows flew up.

"I can do one of those things," Maggie shot back.

"I don't like it," Tony said again.

"We know," Maggie and Nat said simultaneously.

Maggie put her hands on her hips and looked down, thinking about it. "Fine," she eventually said. She'd certainly done her share of sneaking into clubs pretending to be someone else, in her time. "But if anyone puts hands where they're not supposed to go, I will start shooting."

Natasha sighed. "No wonder SHIELD never wanted to properly hire you."

Bucky was still staring. "What's happening?"

"Right," Natasha sighed. "We should probably tell you and Steve about this, if it's going ahead."

They made their plans over about a week, preparing for contingencies, gathering together equipment, and collecting all available intelligence about Turgenev and his movements.

Six days after learning about Turgenev, Maggie stood at the back of the parked Quinjet on the outskirts of Volgograd, looking down at her strange new uniform.

Their analysts had collected information on the usual dress code of women who frequented this particular club, and Maggie's clothes had been purchased based on that information. She stood in ankle-breakingly high glittery silver heels, which matched the short clingy skirt with a matching crop top. There was more volume in her hair than a beehive, thick glitter had been pressed to her eyelids and her features were defined by sharp, dark makeup. She'd rolled a silicone skin over her prosthetic leg that matched her skin tone; it looked pretty real, as long as you didn't touch it.

Maggie looked down at herself, eyeing the exposed skin and glitter. "Reminds me of being eighteen again."

Tony had not come on the mission, but given the danger Maggie was putting herself in, he had demanded to be patched in over comms; she could see his face on a screen in the cockpit. He had his hands over his eyes. "I hate this so much."

"Get over yourself," Maggie called into the cockpit. Natasha put away the hairspray and makeup and retrieved a set of guns. "You got photographed naked in a fountain when I was twelve. Everyone at my school saw it. If I can survive that, you can survive this."

Tony didn't take his hands off his eyes.

Maggie rolled her eyes and glanced around the Quinjet. Wanda and Sam had stayed back at the Facility as there were a couple other missions that needed to have an eye kept on them, but everyone else had come as backup for this intelligence gathering mission. Rhodey stood by the loading ramp, pinching the bridge of his nose and also refusing to look at her.

Steve looked supremely uncomfortable, but he kept his professional cool as he handed her a long, furlined winter coat. Not even the boldest Volgograd socialite would go out in March without a coat. "The intelligence should be somewhere on Turgenev's person," he reminded her, eyes on her face. "His wallet, or in his pocket. Something capable of holding a computer chip, like a card, so the wallet is probably your best bet. We've got agents on standby in the club and the surrounding area."

"Got it, Captain."

"Remember," Natasha said, offering Maggie her invisible commset, "you're there for free drinks and a good time, you're the kind of woman looking for a powerful man. And Turgenev is easily the most powerful man in there."

"Hot and stupid," Maggie agreed.

"And the second something goes even slightly amiss-" Rhodey chimed in.

"Yes, yes, I'm not going to let some creepy Russian mobster send me to sleep with the fishes, Rhodey," she cut him off impatiently as she adjusted her coat. "And I'm not exactly unarmed."

On the screen in the cockpit, Tony finally peeled his hands away from his eyes. "Mags, this doesn't have to be you, this guy's paranoid and violent, we can figure something else-"

"Come on," she said, spreading her arms. "Look at me. I'm going to get what I want."

Natasha's eyebrows rose. "She's not wrong."

There were three bouncers at the door to the Volgograd club, their collars turned up against the icy wind. They eyed Maggie as she stepped out of the dark sedan that had dropped her off at the curb outside the club, and tracked her steps all the way to the door.

"Privet krasavchik. Ty rabotayesh' vsyu noch'?" she smiled at the tallest, already shrugging off her coat despite the cold air. Act like you belong, act like no one has any reason to question you.

"What did she just say?" she heard Tony ask over the comms.

"You don't want to know," Natasha murmured.

Thankfully the leering bouncers let her in before her nose froze off, and Maggie handed her coat to an attendant inside without a second glance at him. Music thudded inside the club, reverberating up into her feet through the floor, and overwhelming the low conversation she could hear over the comms. She paced down a short, dark corridor, tall in her heels, and paused at the entrance to the main room of the club.

It was an upscale place, but only just - like most clubs the air was warm and filled with clashing scents of spirits, sweat, and sickly perfume, and the only light to see by was neon. The floor was carpeted save for a dance floor made up of LED panels on the ground, and four gaudy chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The booths and walls were draped with velvet, save for one which housed the DJ booth and the bar. The club was packed with bodies: men in suits with the ties undone, other men in more sombre clothes who had the look of security or bodyguards, and dozens of women in similar attire to Maggie: short, sparkly, and bright.

Hot and stupid, Maggie reminded herself. She stole a half-empty drink off a table and danced her way through the crowd pretending to drink it, glad that the Avengers weren't making much commentary in her ear. She couldn't make herself relax. She wanted her wings.

She focused on the mission: if she pulled this off, they'd have a vital source of intelligence on not only HYDRA, but also Bucky. Bucky hadn't been very eager about the mission, since he knew the danger it put Maggie in, but she'd seen the light in his eyes when Natasha mentioned what they might find. He wanted to learn more. And Turgenev had that information.

Speaking of which.

"Kakaya otlichnaya muzyka," she breathed as she danced past another pair of watchful bodyguards - Turgenev was not the only high roller here tonight.

"She's identified the target," Natasha said over comms, recognising the coded phrase. "This is your op, Wyvern, engage as much as you see fit. We've got eyes on you." Maggie had noticed a few of those eyes already, pre-planted Avengers agents dotted around the room. She kept her eyes fixed on the bar.

Turgenev was tall, with short dark hair swept in a handsome style, and glinting dark eyes. His suit was expensive and he stood by the bar with at least two bodyguards - it was tricky to tell which men were guarding who. His eyes roved the crowd as he sipped what looked like vodka. Maggie let out a breath and pushed closer.

The moment his eyes fell on her, Maggie watched him closely. She doubted many people would recognize her as Margaret Stark, the Wyvern in this getup, in this place, but she had to be sure.

Turgenev's eyes dropped straight to her chest, then her exposed stomach, then her legs, and finally dragged back up to her face.

Maggie beamed. "Kupi mne vypit'." [Buy me a drink.]

Maggie couldn't be more thankful that her brother didn't speak Russian as she and Turgenev stood together at the bar, with his hand on her arm as they drank. Maggie flirted horribly, and Turgenev was grandiose and creepy in return, asking if she was alone, flashing his wealth, encouraging her to drink faster. He'd very blatantly showed off his wallet full of rubles as he'd paid for the drinks, and Maggie had scanned it for signs of a computer chip.

In the flashing neon lights, Maggie scrutinized him. He had a gun strapped to the side of his chest under his jacket, a silver chain around his neck, an expensive watch, and the wallet in his jacket pocket.

"Davayte potantsuyem, koshechka," [Let's dance, kitten] Turgenev said, his hand on Maggie's wrist, and she struggled not to turn up her nose at the awful endearment.

"Pozhaluysta," [Please,] she smiled, desperate for this to be over.

He pulled her toward the dance floor, crowding close, and his bodyguards hovered not too far off. The song was all bass and no words, and Maggie turned toward him as she danced, fighting not to cringe from his hot breath that smelled like vodka. She ran a hand down his arm to his wrist, smiling, and her smile became rigid when his other hand went to the small of her back - not too far from her wing moorings. She turned, swaying her hips to shake the hand, and when she faced him again she reached out - and slipped her hand into his jacket pocket.

His eyes had been on her chest again, but as she pulled the wallet out of his pocket, she felt his grip close around her wrist. She looked up into his eyes and saw black glittering murder. He swore and she dropped the wallet, sending rubles fluttering across the floor.

He shoved her and Maggie clattered backwards onto the dance floor, landing hard on one arm and her other fist raised to defend herself. A strobe light turned Turgenev into a flickering monster, looming above her. The other dancers turned and stared.

Turgenev's bodyguards surged forward.

"Zaberi yeye obratno i pokazhi, kak my otnosimsya k vorovatym suchkam," [Take her out back and show her how we treat thieving bitches,] he spat, his lip curled at Maggie on the floor.

"Zhdat'," [Wait], Maggie exclaimed as the two bodyguards seized her arms and dragged her upward, speaking more to the clamoring voices over her comms than the two tall, rough-faced men. Her heels skittered on the floor. She struggled against their grip as they dragged her behind the bar, then out a door and down a short corridor until they kicked another door open to reveal the gasping dark cold outside.

Maggie yelped as they hurled her out into the snow in the alleyway behind the club. The cold bit into her skin and took her breath away, but she hurriedly scrambled to face them, kicking off her heels so she could rise steadily to her feet. The men started forward, faces thunderous.

Maggie barely had time to pull the modified taser from its holster on the back of her thigh before both men collapsed - one jerking from an electric current emanating from the metal disc that had flown onto his neck, the other crumpling as a Vibranium shield ricocheted off his head.

Steve and Natasha dropped down from the roof in full uniform, landing in the foot-deep snow.

"You okay?" Steve asked, magnetically recalling his shield even as he stepped toward her, hand outstretched and his expression etched with concern.

Natasha had her fingers to her commpiece. "Agents in the club, prepare for Plan B - triangulate around Turgenev and prepare for incapacitation-"

"Belay that order!" Maggie called over her comms, a hand out toward Nat. "No contact necessary, disperse and disengage."

"It's alright," Natasha said. "We can still get that intel, we can use an aerosol sedative either while he's in the club or en route to his facility, that should knock him out before he can get his hands on the device-"

"There's no need," Maggie said, breathless with cold. She reached a frozen hand into her bra and pulled out Turgenev's watch. "I got it."

Steve frowned at the watch. "That's it?"

"The hands don't move," she explained, showing Steve the clock face which was fixed on midnight, and had been since Maggie had first spotted Turgenev. "And look-" she turned the watch over, revealing a strange locking mechanism on the underside. "The data chip has to be in there."

Natasha leaned past Steve to get a look, and her eyebrow rose.

"So what was all this about, then?" Steve asked, gesturing to the unconscious bodyguards.

"An exit strategy," Maggie shrugged. "Though once Turgenev's finished picking up his rubles he's probably going to check on his most valuable asset and find it missing. We should go. Unless you're looking to bring in Turgenev."

Steve shook his head. "The Russians said they want him. We'll have to leave it."

"Nice work, Wyvern," Natasha said appraisingly.

"I am never doing that again," Maggie said, shivering. The synthetic sleeve over her prosthetic leg had torn, revealing the dark metal beneath. "Now carry my shoes."

Both Bucky and Tony were waiting in the air hangar when the Quinjet returned several hours later. They both knew the mission had been a success, so there was no need to hover anxiously for the Quinjet's return, but it warmed Maggie's heart to see them both waiting as the loading ramp opened. She walked down in her strange haphazard outfit: her shoes were a write off but there'd been a spare pair of waterproof boots in the jet so she wore those, and a big waterproof jacket over the clubbing outfit. Her hair had deflated somewhat.

Bucky's eyebrows flew up as he saw her outfit, and Maggie did a twirl for Tony's benefit.

Tony scowled. "You look like a convict."

"No, I look amazing," she corrected him, and turned to arch an eyebrow at Bucky.

He opened his mouth. "I… you got it?" His eyes darted over her, strangely unfocused, and then past her, to where Natasha carried Turgenev's watch in a secure case.

"Of course I did, I'm the best undercover agent in the business," Maggie said, with a grin at Natasha.

"You are a bad flirt, but a good pickpocket," Natasha acknowledged.

"I am an excellent flirt, thank you very much. Just not when it comes to creepy Russian mob bosses."

The intelligence from Turgenev's watch did provide Bucky with much more material for his research. With F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s help he created a map of places the Winter Soldier was confirmed to have been. Maggie sometimes looked over in the workshop to find him scrutinising the map - Paris, Sarajevo, Bucharest. He would frown, and compare the map to his notes.

Maggie left him to it, turning back and sipping her coffee to continue watching the conspiracy theory youtube video explaining how her early actions as the Wyvern may have perpetuated the mothman folklore in the 21st century.

Maggie wasn't exactly sure how, but the Avengers had acquired a boat. She was pretty sure the small motorboat belonged to one of their agents who'd brought it up the Hudson from wherever they lived, but regardless, the Avengers had ended up with the keys. She'd walked right into a debate in the common room about where they should take the boat on the river, and who should drive it. Bucky sat on one of the couches, watching interestedly as Sam, Vision, Rhodey, Wanda, and Steve talked over each other.

Maggie shot Bucky a quizzical look, and he just shrugged.

"No, no, shut your mouths!" Sam called, and shockingly the others did. He took the boat keys from Rhodey. "I'm steering. I know boats."

"... Where are we going?" Maggie asked.

And they started arguing all over again.

That afternoon they put on warm clothes and lifejackets (Sam insisted, despite them being literal Avengers) and made their way down to the riverbank, where a small white motorboat had been docked. It didn't look like much, just the main body of a boat with a small glass windshield above the wheel, and a medium-sized motor attached to the back. The river slapped and sloshed against its fibreglass hull, making the boat sway to and fro.

"Is that thing going to fit us all?" asked Bucky doubtfully.

"She'll fit us," Sam shot back, trudging across the pebbled river bank, into the water, and then hoisting himself over the side. He inspected the motor, then the wheel, then inserted the keys and gunned the engine.

The Avengers on the riverbank exchanged glances. Steve was first to stride after Sam, and Vision and Wanda both floated over the water to land in the boat - Wanda had been practicing using her magic to take off for short distances. She only slightly wobbled as she landed, and Vision's hand appeared at her elbow to steady her.

"Why did I agree to this," Rhodey sighed as he followed, closely followed by Natasha.

Maggie squinted at the boat as the others arranged themselves along the sides of it, perched on the lip of the hull with their feet in the boat. Sam had taken the single low chair behind the wheel and was running checks on the various switches around the wheel. It was a bright day in March, despite the cold, and the river reflected the white-grey of the sky. She glanced to her left to see Bucky shooting the boat a doubtful look.

"Shall we?" she said.

"That idiot's going to sink us," he replied.

Maggie glanced at Sam's focused gaze. "He seems to know what he's doing."

"If I fall in this goddamn river-"

"Then I will personally help you drown Sam."

"I can hear you!" Sam called, scowling over at them. "Either get in or get lost."

Maggie sighed. "Here goes nothing." She trudged down the riverbank and winced as her foot landed in the icy cold river - but it only took one step for her to be able to reach the boat. Steve reached out to help pull her in, making the boat rock unsettlingly, and she turned back to help Bucky up. His hand grasped her wrist and he swore as he nearly pitched headlong into the boat.

"Sorry," she laughed, even though Bucky was glaring daggers at Sam, not her.

"Sit your asses down, we're out of here," Sam grunted.

The only spot left was right at the back of the boat beside Rhodey, so Maggie and Bucky sat down side by side, perching uncomfortably on the metal rim of the hull. Maggie opened her mouth to poke fun at Bucky in his life jacket, but then the motor roared and they both clutched the edge of the boat as they took off onto the river.

True to his word, Sam did know boats. He expertly steered them onto the river and away from the Avengers Facility, navigating the curves in the large, slow moving Hudson. They sped past sparse, wintery forests, past mounds of crumbled slate and hills covered in bracken, beyond which they could see towns and settlements.

The Avengers pointed out sights they passed, and shared snippets of conversation with their heads bowed together so the wind wouldn't snatch it away. Sam pointed out the parts of the boat to Steve, who listened with interest. Vision and Wanda kept their heads bowed together, murmuring out of earshot of everyone else. Maggie noted how relaxed things seemed today. The team was between missions, everyone was healthy, and they had the day to themselves. Even Rhodey relaxed, letting the riverspray speckle his face as he watched the oncoming bends ahead of them. Across from him, Natasha adjusted her sunglasses and took a selfie.

Maggie found that she quite enjoyed herself, sitting beside Bucky as the world whisked away around them and the icy wind and flecks of river water flew over their faces. It reminded her a little of flying. The hum of the motor became as comforting as the familiar burn of her engines.

The sun reflected off the river and cast ripples of light over Bucky's face as he looked back at the white path they'd carved in the water. He glanced at her, light glinting in his eyes and his hair flickering like a dark halo around him. He reached out and down from the boat, making her stomach swoop, and dipped his metal hand into the water - the river sluiced around his fingers, the metal glittering silver like the scales of a fish.

And Maggie said something over the noise of the motor, she didn't even know what, but it must have been funny because he looked up and laughed, his grey-blue eyes sparking and crinkling at the corners. Maggie's smile dropped as her breath left her, like he'd punched her right in the stomach.

Oh.

Reviews

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