May 3 2016
Lagos, Nigeria
Everything had gone wrong.
It had started with the team in total control of the situation: each one of them in a carefully chosen position, agents sweeping the streets further out, on a warm, clear day in the Nigerian capital.
Wanda and Natasha down at a coffee shop outside the police station they'd thought was the target, and Steve, Maggie, and Sam triangulated around the situation to keep optimal observation on the area. Sam and Maggie had found their own rooftops, Steve was in an empty apartment in a high rise. Steve and Nat had even been training Wanda, showing her how to be aware of her surroundings and read the vehicles in the area.
Maggie had been perched on a rung of scaffolding at the top of a half-finished high rise, clawed gloves wrapped around the metal as her goggles' HUD scanned the area. She could just make out Wanda and Nat down on the street a few blocks away. The sun beat down on her dark armor, the light seeming to slide off the matte metal plates.
It had started to go wrong with the garbage truck.
It got worse when the truck rammed through the gate of the Institute for Infectious Disease and Rumlow and his men poured out and attacked the building.
"This won't be the first time Rumlow's used biological weapons!" Maggie had commented as she soared over to the area, still sometimes able to feel the black corrosiveness of his last weapon crawling up her fingers, down her throat.
Wanda had floated in using her eerie red magic, and threw up a scarlet cloud which stopped a flurry of bullets in their tracks. Wanda's fingers twisted and the shooter, a man in a dark uniform with a gasmask on, cried out as her power seized him.
"Maggie!" Wanda said with effort, and Maggie swooped low, understanding her. Wanda lifted the man off his feet and Maggie slammed into him with the edge of a wing, knocking him flat and out cold. Sam dropped down a moment later, landing feet-first in the chest of another shooter on top of the garbage truck. They both fell to the ground on the other side of the truck and Sam appeared a moment later, his eyes on the building.
They'd adapted quickly. Wanda had lifted Steve up to the third floor to go after Rumlow, while the others took out the agents on the exterior of the building. Wanda had even managed to disperse the poisonous gas Rumlow's men had filled the building with.
But Rumlow had prepared for them.
"Rumlow's in an AFV, headed north!" Steve called while Maggie was on the second floor of the building fighting Rumlow's men, her facemask protecting her from any remnants of gas. Steve had alerted them just a minute earlier that Rumlow had stolen a biological weapon.
Maggie had leaped out of the second floor window to see Natasha picking herself off the ground on the lawn outside, coughing and singed.
"You good?" Maggie had called, wings beating in midair.
Natasha waved a hand at her. "Go, I'll catch up!" She was already yanking her motorbike upright.
So Maggie had gone. To the market, where they found the AFV abandoned with discarded gear strewn around it. The market was a chaotic gaggle of frightened people surrounded by a thicket of traffic, ringed by tall high rise apartments. Maggie soared over the market, trying to catch the men in her HUD so she could call out their locations. Redwing, the automated drone she and Tony had built Sam, covered the sky with her, scanning the crowds below. Sam and Nat dove right into the thick of the market, tracking Rumlow's men, who had split up.
Maggie had swooped low and landed on the tin rooves of the market stalls, sprinting towards where Sam was just a few yards behind one of the men, when an explosion behind her made her look back.
Something had detonated just over the line of the tin rooves - Maggie watched the blossom of fire roll in on itself in midair, then frowned at the flash of Vibranium falling back to the ground. She heard Steve grunt, then the sound of another voice over his end of the comms:
"There you are, you son of a bitch."
Maggie's head snapped in the direction of Steve's GPS tracker. She'd taken off along the rooftop again, boots clanking on the tin surface, leaving Nat to chase after the last two of Rumlow's men. She kept an ear on the chase even as she raced over to where she could see a dark figure in customized armor looming over Steve. She heard Natasha say payload secure and let out a breath.
Rumlow wore a black tactical combat suit and a thick helmet which was blasted white at the front - meant to look like a skull, Maggie realized as her boots pounded over the rooftop. He punched Steve hard in the chest with the mechanical force-multipliers built over his fists and sent him flying into the shelf of a nearby market stall.
A blade flashed out of one of the gauntlets on his arms and he slashed at Steve-
Maggie surged down from the final rooftop in a blur of dark wings and flashing red eyes, and slammed her knee straight into Rumlow's helmet. It made her knee ache as she rolled to the ground, but it had to hurt Rumlow more: he crashed backwards, crying out, and then the breath left his chest when Steve surged forward and kicked him in the ribs. Rumlow tumbled through one of the plastic tables set up outside the market, gauntlets crushed.
Maggie and Steve had shared a glance, then strode forward together. Rumlow was on his knees, panting, and he'd tugged off his helmet with a grunt.
Steve grabbed the front of his uniform, then hesitated when he got a good look at Rumlow's face - his skin twisted with angry-looking scars, one ear almost completely melted into the side of his face. One dark eye glared out of his face, the other a milky white.
"I think I look pretty good, all things considered," Rumlow said. Maggie's mouth twisted and she turned aside to gesture for the civilians in the vicinity to back away.
"Who's your buyer?" Steve demanded.
"You know, he knew you," Rumlow snarled up at Steve, and for a moment Maggie was confused. "Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky."
Maggie forgot about the civilians and turned. Rumlow's face had twisted into a snarling smile, his eye glittering with hatred as he looked up at Steve. He'd barely even registered Maggie standing there.
"What did you just say?" Steve demanded, his whole body tense.
"He remembered you," Rumlow told him. "I was there. He got all weepy about it." He let out a breathless laugh. "'Till they put his brain back in a blender."
"Steve," Maggie said, low and cold. But Steve just looked lost.
"He wanted you to know something. He said to me… please tell Rogers: when you gotta go, you gotta go." Maggie's stomach turned, but then she hesitated at the sudden gleam in Rumlow's eye. He leaned upwards, hissing: "And you're coming with me."
Maggie didn't see Rumlow hit the button connected to his suicide vest. But she saw Steve jerk back, his eyes wide, and the sudden flare of light - she flung her arm up to shield her face and flared her wings in an effort to protect the civilians still crowded too close behind her-
And then opened her eyes when no blow slammed into her.
Rumlow screamed, consumed by flames like a dying star, but the explosion was contained by an orb of scarlet magic. Maggie glanced over, mouth open, to see Wanda grimacing with her hands rigid, lit up red from her own magic. Her jaw was clenched and her hands shook. Wanda pushed her hands upwards with a groan and Rumlow soared into the air, twenty, thirty feet along the side of the nearby building, and Maggie let out a breath-
But the magic slipped. The snared explosion detonated with a bone-shaking sound right by the side of the building and a whole five floors exploded, windows blasting out and fire surging through the contained space inside. Smoke billowed out of the windows and in seconds, the building was ablaze. Debris rained down.
Maggie stared upward, cold to her bones. She took a step, stumbled, then flared her wings and soared upward, Steve's shaky call for fire and rescue falling on her deaf ears.
Everything had gone wrong.
Maggie activated the environmental defense system in her suit as she soared right into the destruction zone, on the fifteenth floor where the blast had hit closest. She lost her vision as she stepped into the thick black smoke, relying instead on her HUD scanners to help her through.
The Wyvern waded through fire and ash, under the treacherously creaking roof and walls, and she found people. She pulled them out, alive and dead, and flew them down to the emergency services flooding around the building. She found them screaming, crying, and burning, and she carried them. When the firefighters got to the building she helped them find a path through. She passed Steve, his face ash-streaked and his eyes gleaming as he helped carry stretchers, and Wanda, her hands shaking, too afraid to use her magic to help. Sam and Nat too, their faces grim. Civilians and emergency services pointed at them as they passed. And there was fear in their eyes.
The Wyvern didn't stop until the fire had been put out, and the building had gone quiet.
She didn't know how it had gone so wrong.
No one spoke on the Quinjet flight back home.
Their return to the Facility was chaotic: a whole crowd of agents and analysts were waiting for them as they landed, and Hill with her tablet and a grim look, and scientists to take the biological weapon off Natasha, and medical checks to make sure they hadn't been impacted by the weapon, and questions, and debriefing. Everyone was talking, trying to evaluate and manage the damage, and Maggie couldn't do it.
She stripped mechanically out of her armor in the hangar changing bay and left it in pieces. In just her underarmor she strode across the lawns and into the private wing of the Facility, taing robotic steps in the direction of her suite. She'd taken off her boots, too, leaving her barefoot - there'd been blood in the soles, and they needed to go through a decontamination cycle. She stank of smoke, even despite her suit's environmental controls.
She turned down the last corridor toward her suite, and ground to a halt.
Bucky leaned against the wall beside the door to her suite. He'd been looking down, hair obscuring his face, but at the sound of her footsteps his head had lifted and he'd pushed off the wall. Now he looked at her, with no judgement or pity in his eyes.
Maggie took a step forward, stopped, and then found she couldn't move any more. She felt as if she'd been floating across the Facility ever since they got back, but the sight of Bucky had grounded her, rooting her feet to the floor and sending reality crashing over her head like gallons of ice-cold water. The sight of him overwhelmed her.
She didn't need to move. As soon as she stopped Bucky strode forwards, quick and silent, and Maggie thought he was going to stop but instead he stepped right up to her and folded her into him, his arms around her and his shoulders curved to fit her to him. Maggie blinked in the sudden darkness of his chest for a moment before the warmth of him registered. She seized the back of his shirt, her arms aching at the movement. She let out a breath into the fabric of his shirt.
Bucky held her, warm and wordless, and Maggie let herself lean a little of the weight she carried on him. Emotion burned up her throat and stung her eyes, but she found she could not cry. She was too tired.
Five Hours Earlier
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
The buzz from announcing the September Foundation Grant - and publicly revealing B.A.R.F. - didn't last long. There'd been a moment - a brief moment - where Tony had felt… if not proud, then satisfied. But then there'd been Pepper's name on the autocue, and… Maggie wasn't there.
Tony could hardly blame her, off saving the world, but today didn't feel right without her there. She'd have loved to see the quiet, slightly awed way the crowd of students had watched the memory of Howard and Maria, the way some of them had pointed at child-Maggie with surprise. She'd have loved to have heard them gasp and cheer when he told them he'd be funding all their research projects. He couldn't blame her. But today didn't feel right without her there.
And then there was the woman by the elevator.
Tony recognized the burning, gleaming kind of rage in her dark eyes. It was disorienting to have it aimed at him. He almost fell back when she shoved the photograph against his chest.
Who's going to avenge my son, Stark? she whispered. He's dead. And I blame you.
He went home, reeling, and had barely opened the door before F.R.I.D.A.Y. was chiming over his glasses to tell him the news out of Lagos.
May 4, 2016
Avengers Facility
Twenty five dead.
Maggie woke up sore, and slow, with crust in her eyes.
Tony had called her last night, when he heard the news. He had been good to have on the other end of the phone, talkative and understanding, but he'd still seemed slightly distracted.
Hill called the team in for a meeting. They each trudged in, heavy with their own brands of grief and regret, and the air in the meeting room seemed hung with shadows. Vision and Rhodey had come in too, wavering between concern and sorrow.
"There was another casualty overnight," Hill told them in a low voice. Wanda looked down at her lap.
Twenty six.
"Damage Control are still on the scene, though things were touch and go with the Nigerian government for a while. The United Nations had an emergency meeting last night and are discussing implementing legislation to regulate the Avengers. They're calling them the Sokovia Accords."
"That was fast," Sam murmured.
"Not really," Hill said tiredly. "Some people have been talking about this ever since Sokovia. Since before that, even. New York. All they've been waiting for is a trigger."
"And I gave them one," Wanda breathed. She had dark shadows under her eyes.
"It wasn't your fault," Maggie said, and blinked when she realized she'd said it in time with Steve and Sam.
"It was the people on the ground, or the people up there," Natasha said in her low, even way. Maggie's stomach turned.
"Regardless of fault," Hill continued, "this is out of our hands now. I don't know what the UN will end up deciding, but the conversations are happening - not just in the news now, but in legislation rooms. I suggest you all lie low, and avoid any missions beyond the absolutely necessary. We've already put out a press release, but we won't do any interviews."
Maggie nodded quietly, her mind back in Lagos. She bit the inside of her cheek to avoid spiralling down the path of what ifs again.
After another few minutes of discussion, Hill left, leaving a long silence in her wake.
"Don't turn on the news," Natasha eventually said, looking around at them all. "Patch your wounds, work out, go to work, whatever it may be, but do what you need to do to keep yourself sane." She looked at them with the heavy eyes of a killer. "Yesterday is over. We can't go back."
Sam nodded. "It's gonna suck." He reached a hand over to touch Wanda's arm. She flinched and retracted, but he didn't look offended. "But we're gonna get through it," he continued. "You're gonna get through it. You are still you, and you're not a monster. You're human."
"If you say and humans make mistakes, I am going to scream," Wanda said quietly, her voice tight.
They lapsed into silence again.
Maggie retreated to her workshop. She wasn't surprised to find Bucky there, in his chair, frowning at something on his tablet. He looked up at her when she walked in, but didn't rise to hug her, and Maggie didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
Maggie trudged over to the nearest workbench and sat down on a workstool. Her eyes roved across the projects around her workshop and she felt nothing but distaste. She had a therapy session with Mai in a couple of hours and no idea what to do with herself until then.
She could still feel Bucky's eyes on her. "I… I don't know if we actually told you yesterday, but." She swallowed and looked at him. "Rumlow's dead."
Bucky nodded, his eyes dark. "Steve told me."
"He used you to taunt us, like we knew he would." Maggie felt a muscle in her jaw jump. "We both reacted. We shouldn't have. It cost lives."
He let out a long sigh. "Rumlow was an asshole. And he's dead. Good riddance." She couldn't even summon a sarcastic smile in response to that. "So, he had more weapons than just biological ones. That ain't your fault."
Maggie looked down at her lap. Her fingers twisted together. "They… were operating out of a defunct HYDRA base on the Lekki Lagoon. I've sent the data we collected from it to your tablet, in case you want it for your… research." She nodded at the tablet on the arm of his chair.
Bucky blinked. "Thanks. I…" he looked at the tablet. "I don't know if I'm going to keep researching like that. It's not enough."
She frowned. "But it's so important to you."
He smiled, but there was no humor in it. "It is. But I'm not helping anyone by trawling through files and photographs, least of all myself. I'm not… it's not helping." He waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. How are you doing?"
She sighed. "About as well as can be expected, I suppose." She leaned back so her spine hit the edge of her workbench. "You know what today is?"
He frowned and shook his head.
"Four years since the Battle of New York," she sighed. Bucky's face cleared. Maggie reached up to touch her cheek, where she could still feel the thin white line of the scar from the Chitauri blade. She was supposed to have gone to a first responder's gala tonight, but she'd rescinded her RSVP, given how yesterday went. "It feels like a hundred."
Bucky leaned forward, his sea-grey eyes on her. "What was it like?"
She let out a sigh. They'd talked about Loki and the Chitauri before, but the air was heavier today.
"I was so scared. The whole time. Loki scared me, and I was petrified when he opened up that hole in the sky. I was scared of the Chitauri, and the Leviathan, and I've never been more terrified than when Tony went up there with a nuclear bomb on his back. I don't think I stopped being scared for weeks." She put her hands on her knees and looked down. "I wonder now if that's how people feel about us. Scared."
"You save people," he murmured.
"And we kill them too." Her voice had no inflection in it. "Loki chose New York because of us, Ultron happened because of us. We drop buildings and start wars and violence springs up wherever we go. People die wherever we go." Tears stung at her eyes and she blinked them away furiously. She looked up at the harsh white light above her. "And I don't know what to do."
A long silence passed, until she nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt Bucky's hand on hers. He'd silently moved across the workshop and now sat on the stool beside her, his eyes burning.
"The world is safer for having you in it," he said surely. "I am safer because of you. And I don't know if any of us deserve it, but we can damn sure thank you for it. And lay the blame where it belongs: on the people who set out to kill, and control, and harm. But that's not you."
Maggie stared at him for what felt like an eternity, her skin on fire and her heart pounding against her chest and her stomach burned - and she had to look away before she did something foolish. She pulled her hand out from under his.
Bucky looked down when she looked away, and a moment later he drew his hand back.
May 5, 2016
Avengers Facility
Bucky collected snacks from the common room pantry, the soft sound of the news playing in the room behind him - Meg was on the couch, with a tablet in her lap. He'd convinced her to leave the workshop for an hour or two since she'd skipped lunch.
Bucky had never known the Facility to be quiet like this ever since they'd all moved here - and it wasn't a peaceful quiet. The quiet was the kind that hid whispers.
The Avengers kept their distance from each other; Wanda isolated herself, Steve buried himself in work and self-sabotage, Natasha disappeared to the Barton farm for a few days, Meg kept to her workshop, with him. The team seemed to drift around the Facility, exchanging nods and a few low words whenever they ran into each other. It felt like the atmosphere of a funeral.
Bucky tried to be there for them, in whatever ways he could. He pulled Steve away from his office to go for a walk in the forest, or for a drink in the common room, and distracted Meg with songs and jokes. In many ways the Lagos disaster had helped to distract him from his own problems.
He'd been so conflicted for weeks. He wasn't sure why, but recently he'd been thinking hard on why he was here at the Facility, what exactly it was he was doing. His days revolved around Meg and that felt safe, and normal, and right, and every day he despised himself a little more for it. It had come to a head a week ago, before the Lagos disaster.
He'd been in a session with Raynor as she probed him with questions and delivered brutally honest reflections as she usually did. She'd been asking about all the research he'd been doing into the Winter Soldier.
Why do you keep hurting yourself with old memories if you're not going to do anything about them?
The question had dropped on him like a tonne of bricks. But then Lagos happened, and he'd been distracted. But… maybe Raynor was right. Maybe something needed to change. Maybe he needed something different, so he could stop thinking - his eyes flicked to Meg, who was frowning at the newsreader on the TV screen now.
So he could stop thinking crazy thoughts.
Bucky shook his head to shake off the plaguing thoughts, collected up the too-colorful snack packets he'd retrieved from the pantry, and headed over to the couches in the main common room.
"What?"
He blinked and looked up at Meg's exclamation, to find her staring at the TV screen with wide eyes. He followed her gaze to the screen and saw a still photograph of Tony shaking hands with an older man in a suit in front of the United Nations logo. A breaking news banner ran beneath the photo:
BREAKING: TONY STARK AKA "IRON MAN" HAS SIGNED ON TO SUPPORT THE UNITED NATIONS'S SOKOVIA ACCORDS: IS THIS THE ANSWER FOR MAKING THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE?
His stomach dropped. Meg stood up, her forgotten tablet sliding to the couch. He watched her fingers curl into fists. The newsreader on screen described how the news had been broken by the United Nations press secretary, and that Mr Stark wasn't expected to make a statement.
"Did you know?" Bucky asked, still staring at the photo.
Meg abruptly turned and made for the door.
"Meg, wait-"
"For what?" she turned, eyes flashing. "That is my brother," she snapped. "And he - and he-" the quick-flash of her anger faded, and he saw confusion and hurt in its wake. She frowned and looked again at the TV. "He didn't tell me. I didn't know."
She turned to leave again, and this time Bucky didn't stop her.
Maggie couldn't exactly burst into Tony's suite in Avengers Tower because he was still an Avenger, and had about eight layers of security, but she made sure to slam the front door behind her when she was eventually allowed in.
Tony, sitting on the couch with a green smoothie in his hand, looked up in annoyance at the noise. The apartment had been renovated since Pepper moved out, and the design was all black, sleek edges with silver accents. The familiar sweeping views of Manhattan behind him would normally be a comfort.
"What the hell did you do?" Maggie asked, storming over the polished floor to face him. She'd driven straight here from the Avengers Facility, and had listened on the radio to the details of how Tony had approached the UN to sign the Accords, and how the world was reacting - shock, mostly, and doubts about Tony's motives. Maggie supposed she was the first person actually able to question Tony about it.
He met her eyes. "I signed the Accords." He waved a hand. "Well, I made an agreement to sign them when they're fully drafted."
Maggie couldn't help a surprised scoff. "Why?"
Tony sighed as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and the weight of the world lay in that sound. "Maggie," he began. "I've made so many - we've made so many mistakes. What if there'd been someone keeping an eye, reviewing our decisions? How many more people might be alive? Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. were pretty good at it, when we had them, but I… we need to take responsibility."
She paused a moment to look at him. His collar was rumpled, his beard not as neatly maintained as it usually was, with tired lines on his face. She could see the wounds in him: HYDRA, Ultron, Pepper. His failures. She took a steadying breath and pressed her hands together. "I don't deny that, Tony. But couldn't this have been a conversation first?"
He was silent, looking down into his smoothie.
"Tony, this is so fast. They only announced the Accords officially yesterday. I… I don't know what the right answer is, truly. I'm willing to talk about the Accords, I am, but I wanted to do it together." She ran her hands through her hair and shook her head at him. "Why did you do this without talking to me first?"
He leaned back with a sigh and met her gaze. "Maggie, I didn't do this to - to go behind your back, I did this because I agree with them - with all of them, saying that the cost of our mistakes is too high. This isn't about you."
She frowned. "You're hurting-"
"And I'm not the only one," he said frustratedly. "Look at yourself." He gestured at her, and Maggie knew he was pointing at the wounds from Lagos, the shadows under her eyes, the heaviness on her soul. "Look at the world. People want to be kept safe. From us. And after decades of thinking I was always right, I'm willing to accept that I'm wrong."
Maggie sank down onto the edge of his glass coffee table across from him and pressed her hands between her knees. "What if you are wrong?" she said quietly. "About this?"
He sighed again. "You can disagree with me all you like, Mags. I've signed on. I want to see what the UN comes up with, and I'm going to accept it. The world needs this. We need this."
She hugged herself. "What happened to 'you and me', Tony?" It had only been four days since they'd stood hand in hand, watching the memory of their parents. It felt like months.
Tony eyed her, and she saw every one of his years hanging on his face. "That's the thing, Maggot. It's not just you and me in the world."
"Okay," she whispered. She frowned and looked down to fight off the stupid tears stinging at her eyes. "I'll… I guess we'll see what the UN comes up with, then."
The righteous anger she'd stormed in here with had drained out of her, leaving… nothing but confusion. Have I ever known what the right choice is?
Maggie had spent her whole life on a mission that she changed her mind about in the final moment. She'd spent the rest of her life following Tony into schemes and projects, and then with Steve as her Captain. They had been her guides: Tony with his genius and passion, Steve with his determination and precise moral compass. She'd followed Tony into Stark Industries, then the Avengers, and then into Ultron, and she'd followed Steve into battle time and time again.
And now there was this… shift under her feet. And Maggie didn't know who or what to follow any more. Instead of a clear mission she felt lost, and uncertain of her own decisions. Maybe waiting is the best course of action.
Who was Maggie Stark against governments and nations?
So after some time she and Tony hugged, awkwardly, and said their goodbyes.
Maggie went back to the Facility to wait for the world to decide her fate.
May 6, 2016
The next day was the one year anniversary of the day Novi Grad had left Earth, and it hit Maggie like a baseball bat to the kneecaps. She couldn't get out of bed for hours.
When she finally dragged herself up she went to find Wanda, only to find a locked door and a firm notice from F.R.I.D.A.Y. that Miss Maximoff doesn't want to be disturbed.
One year since Pietro, too.
Vision was eventually able to enter Wanda's room by phasing through the wall. Maggie left him to it, and took to the skies for hours in some attempt to feel more like herself.
Days turned into weeks, and things got back to a new kind of normal. The Accords talks were underway, and the entire world had its eyes on Avengers Facility and the United Nations. The Avengers all followed Hill's advice and lay low: Maggie worked with her engineers, who thankfully didn't make a big deal of the situation, worked on her projects, and helped with the Internship program. Bucky was a relief when he was around, in that sure, steady way he had, and the way he could read her moods, but he was also a source of pain; another thing she was confused about, bringing with him a strange cocktail of attraction and guilt and affection and confusion. He was always there, intoxicating and infuriating in his closeness.
It was a few weeks before Maggie felt up for a one-on-one mentoring session with Rikki - she could handle the interns as a group, but being alone with people was difficult these days. But eventually it happened naturally - Rikki stayed late one Friday after all the other interns had been driven home, finishing off a scatter graph of political trends in the last year. They seemed not to realize it until they looked up and found themself alone in the engineering bay, with just Maggie at another worktable, reviewing the other interns' work.
Maggie had been watching Rikki work, admiring their focus as they looked keenly and quietly through their dark hair. They got on well with the other interns, but were by far one of the quietest. Silence seemed to sit over the kid, not a shield or a shroud, but an atmosphere.
Rikki cleared their throat. "Um. I meant to say, earlier… I'm really sorry, Ms Stark. For what happened." Genuine sorrow crossed their face.
Maggie couldn't accept apologies to her for what happened in Lagos, so she just jerked her head to acknowledge the words. "You, uh… your work really helped us quickly pin that chatter to Rumlow, Rikki. We might have been in the dark even longer without you. You should… you should be proud. Helped us stop…" her brow furrowed. "More people getting hurt."
Rikki kept their silence for a long few moments, eyes on the scatter graph in front of them. "I can't imagine doing what you do," they said quietly. "But I hope you know that most of us still thank you for it. We know we need you."
Maggie's heart twisted. She looked down, gathered herself, then looked up again. "Anyway." She searched for a change in topic, looking over the work Rikki had achieved today - they'd hunted for data in the trickiest-to-navigate realms of the web, cross-checked against publicly available data, and arranged it all in an easy-to-understand format. "You're good at what you do, you know. What, uh… what got you into all this anyway? Investigating," she clarified.
"Guess I've been looking for my dad so long, I got good at looking," Rikki said with a shrug.
Maggie blinked. Rikki rarely shared so much about themself. But she supposed it had been a long day. "What's the story there?"
Rikki sighed and closed down their program. "I hardly know. My abuela says my mom was with a white man, but never introduced him to the family. Then when my mom found out about me, she said that I was going to be her responsibility alone. Then she died before she could tell me the truth. I've tried those 23andMe things, but it never works."
Maggie considered the fifteen-year-old. "We can get a bit fancier than 23andMe here, you know."
Rikki rubbed their arm. "I don't know."
"Well, whenever you feel ready to try again, you let me know."
Mid-May, 2016
Bucky had been talking more and more about it. Maybe it was because she'd been distancing herself, or busy with the Accords, but it took her by complete surprise.
He'd come into her workshop later than usual, mid-morning. Maggie's gaze had been drawn up when he entered, because she couldn't help it, but rather than smile and go to his chair like he usually did, he strode over to her workbench and sat on a workstool opposite her. He rested his hands on the bench. Maggie set aside her hologram-project, confused.
"Meg," he began, looking down at his hands, then up at her. "I've been doing some serious thinking here, and I… I can't stay in this Facility my whole life. I need to get out there, to figure out… who I am, who I have been. I've spoken about it with Steve, and with Raynor, and they've both given me the go ahead."
"Go ahead to do what?" she asked, frowning.
"To leave."
Maggie heard the words, but did not yet fully comprehend them. She stared as Bucky kept talking:
"I'll be off the grid, you know I can do it. I know how to not get seen, not get caught. But I need to visit the places I went as the Soldier to find some way of remembering, and some way of… making up for what I've done. I want to find the people who I've hurt, and see if I can help them. Even if that's making sure they're covered by HERACLES. I'll-"
She cut him off, feeling numb as she said: "But - but you'll be exposed."
"HYDRA - if there are any of them left - don't know where to find me. They never have." His mouth quirked. "Only you could do that."
Maggie put her hand on her stomach, which had begun to churn and roil as if she were at sea. "So you're… you're just going to vanish?"
His brows contracted. "Not forever. I'm not… I'm going to come back, Meg. But I need to do this on my own terms. I've… I'm so grateful for everything you've done for me, honestly. Especially with…" he shook his head. "But Raynor agrees, even though she was surprised when I first suggested it; I need to start taking ownership over my own actions, and making decisions about my own path. And I think this is what I need."
Maggie stood up abruptly, and her stool rolled away. "Well I'll - I'll come with you. I can help you with your research, and-" she shut her mouth at the look on his face. His expression had twisted, and he looked away. Maggie pressed her hand harder against her stomach.
"Thank you," he said, and it came with some effort. "But the world needs the Wyvern. And I need…" he shook his head once. "You can't disappear again."
"That's my choice-"
He looked back at her, silencing her with his steady, sea-grey eyes. "And this is mine," he murmured.
She stared at him in stunned silence.
Maggie didn't speak to Bucky for three days after she asked him to get out of her workshop.
She knew she had no real right to the anger sitting in her chest, but at its heart she knew this wasn't anger: it felt cold, and dark. It was panic. She didn't want to investigate too closely why she was panicking.
She even spent a day at Tony's place, even though she was still annoyed with him. Even that didn't help to erase the image of Bucky's face as he'd walked out - hurt, and sorrow, but not an ounce of hesitation. Didn't help to erase the words: I need to start taking ownership over my own actions, and making decisions about my own path.
But then on the fourth day Steve knocked on her door, and told her that Bucky had a departure date in three days time, and she put her panic - and hurt - aside.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. told her that Bucky was in his suite. So she made the walk over there, her hands balled in her pockets, and knocked on his door when she reached it. It slid open to reveal Bucky sitting in one of his sofa chairs - opposite Doctor Raynor.
Maggie paused. "Oh, sorry I-"
But the older woman just glanced at Bucky and then back to her, then said: "Come in, Ms Stark."
She stepped into the room, her brow low and her feet hesitant. Bucky's expression was nearly unreadable as he watched her pace into his living space, but she thought she saw a hint of relief. She took a seat on the only remaining seat - the longer sofa, between Bucky and Raynor.
"So," Raynor began with a raised eyebrow. "I assume you're here to break the silent treatment?"
Bucky and Maggie both looked at her in annoyance.
"Yes," Maggie finally said, eyes flicking to Bucky. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ignored you. Steve told me when you're leaving. I don't… I still don't think it's a good idea." She tipped her head back. "But if your'e going to do it, I won't stop you. And I'm going to keep you safe."
She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Raynor shoot Bucky a look that said: See?
Bucky just looked relieved. He nodded at Maggie, his hands clasped and his brows drawn together.
"Why don't you stay a while," Raynor said. "We're just finishing up, and maybe you'd like to hear more of James's reasoning for leaving at this time. I'm aware you're a strong proponent of effective communication." Raynor raised another eyebrow. "I'm sure you'd both want to get everything on the table before James leaves."
Bucky glared daggers at Raynor, though Maggie didn't know why. She shifted uncomfortably.
"Okay," she breathed, and turned to face Bucky fully for the first time. It always hurt a bit to look at him head-on, and she allowed herself a breath to get used to it. He looked a shade unhappy, a shade relieved, and his eyes were fixed on her face. "So you're leaving," she accepted. "Let's figure out what that looks like."
Over the next two days Bucky, Maggie, Steve, and Hill figured out the best way to make sure Bucky was able to depart unseen, and travel off the grid, while also being as safe as possible.
Maggie gave him a phone as her first strategy.
"This won't track me, will it?" Bucky asked, a knot in his brow.
"I… no, you can disable the location feature." She cocked her head at him. "But it might be safer for us to have an idea of your location."
"I know, I know," he said as he turned the phone over in his hands. It looked like an old, beat-up Nokia - another level of deception. "It's just… I'd prefer that be my choice, you know? I like Steve's idea of weekly check ins, I can drop a location then."
And of course, Maggie understood why he wanted choice. So she just nodded and showed him how to turn on the locator function. She could place a hidden tracker in the phone that he would likely never know about. But she knew that that would be as good as using the Winter Soldier words on him, so the thought barely occurred to her before it was soundly dismissed.
They agreed on various alternate means of communication and codewords in case of listening ears: periapsis for 'I'm on my way back', soteria for 'I'm safe', and dragonfire for 'danger, go dark', among others.
The whole time Maggie treated the preparations as just another mission - one of her friends and teammates going into the field, as safe as possible, before their eventual return.
Until the third day.
Maggie hated goodbyes. She could think of numerous deep psychological traumas at the heart of that, but right now she wasn't interested in confronting the why. She just did not want to say goodbye.
So the morning of the third day, she locked herself in her workshop and turned up the music until she couldn't hear herself think, and set about noisily welding metal plates together.
She looked up with a frown when F.R.I.D.A.Y. abruptly cut the music.
"Meg."
Bucky's voice, over the speakers. She kept her welding goggles on as she looked to the doors to her workshop - he stood on the other side, one hand on the glass. He wore several layers, the outermost being a sturdy canvas jacket. He wore boots, a dark baseball cap, and gloves over both hands. He looked taller than usual. She could see a backpack propped against the far wall. She swallowed past the lump in her throat.
Bucky took off his cap and held it in both his hands. "I know you're angry. But… come on, let me say goodbye."
A long, long pause passed, and Maggie knew the complicated twist of emotions on her face was largely concealed by the welding goggles she wore. Bucky's brows drew together the longer she ignored him.
Get up, Wyvern.
She pulled off her welding goggles, slipped off her workstool, and trudged over to the doors. Bucky let out a breath and wrung the cap in his hands. The doors slid open and then she stood just a few feet away from Bucky, he in his travelling clothes and she in jeans and a tank top, barefoot.
"I hate goodbyes," she said with a jutted jaw. She stepped a foot closer and the workshop doors closed behind her, leaving the two of them in the corridor. She didn't want all of these messy emotions to taint the place full of good memories.
Bucky looked down. "I know. I'm sorry."
She wiped her palms on her jeans. "Where are you going first?"
He let out a breath. "North Africa, I think. I was there in 1984, as part of a destabilizing mission. I want to remember what I did, and see what's left behind."
"And you want to… help people?"
"If I can," he said, with a weight in his eyes. "I know there's not much I can do. But I need to… I need to be there."
"It feels like you're punishing yourself," she said stiffly.
He sighed. "Maybe that's part of it too."
She frowned at him. "I don't like it."
"I know," he murmured. "But I have to go. I'm sorry. I've - I've got your phone, and I'll be back before you know it."
She looked into his face. "You promise?"
"I do."
He finally met her gaze. She searched his eyes for a long moment, reading him. She wondered when she'd figured out how to see each thought in his eyes. The corners of his mouth curved up as she watched him, and some of the furrows between his brows smoothed out.
"You better come back," she said, holding his eyes. "Because… you're my mission."
His head tipped a little in a half-nod. "I know. You're… you're my mission too. And that means I'm coming back."
It was the feeling of his breath on her skin that made Maggie realize how close they'd gotten. She stood in the doorway and he was right there, his head tilted slightly down to look into her face, his eyes on hers, just a few inches of empty space between them. If she so much as swayed forward they'd be touching.
Maggie felt her heart rate rocket and her breath left her chest and her skin blazed with heat, but she didn't take her eyes off his. She wanted to say don't go and so many other things, but she could only swallow. Bucky, with his keen eyes and keener observation, saw her reaction, the sudden stutter in her bearing; his eyes widened incrementally, and then she saw his pupils dilate. Bucky's eyes flicked down to her lips, then back up. He drew in a sharp, long breath. But he didn't move. Maggie knew why he didn't move.
Maggie reached up, watching her right hand as it rose in the empty sliver of space between them, brushing just barely against the edge of Bucky's jacket before it came to rest on the side of his neck. His skin was a shock of warmth against her palm, and a moment later his pulse thundered under her fingers. She slid her hand up, running over the contours of his neck, up to the slightly stubbled edge of his chin. Bucky swallowed and all of a sudden they were closer, her arm almost trapped between them as she held his face in her palm. Her eyes found his - dark, wide - and her mouth opened -
They both heard the sound of a door sliding open down the other end of the corridor and they sprang apart.
They were both composed about it - Bucky took a large step back and Maggie pressed against the wall, each snatching their hands back into their own personal spaces and averting their eyes, but Maggie's heart raced and her skin flushed.
It took her a full three seconds to be able to look down the corridor to see who it was; Steve, a smile on his face and his eyes on his friend.
"Buck, just came to check on you. The car's ready."
He paced down the length of the corridor and dropped a hand on Bucky's shoulder; the two of them shared a quick chat, and Bucky seemed remarkably composed.
Steve glanced at Maggie. "You okay?"
"Fine," she said in a flat voice. Steve nodded and turned to go, and Maggie caught the moment Bucky's shoulders dropped as he went to follow his friend.
He looked back at her after only a few steps.
"I'll be back soon," he promised, his pupils still large and a strangely off-kilter look on his face.
"I know," Maggie said firmly.
Bucky's eyes warmed. And then he was gone.
Reviews
Browneyes: Well I wouldn't call this 'jumping'...
Shorttrooper: Not too late! So glad you liked the last chapter, Maggie is hopeless. Not long until Spider-Man makes a real appearance! And I'm so excited to show you guys how civil war is going to pan out.