Sorry this is a day late my loves! Thanks for your patience.
June 22, 2016
London, United Kingdom
The cathedral was stunning. And packed. Of course, Maggie logically knew that Peggy had touched a lot of lives in her ninety-five years, but it was almost alarming to see them all crowded into the vaulting space, in dark suits and dresses and military uniforms. Maggie recognised members of the British royal family, heads of military and intelligence organisations, and former SHIELD agents.
To her surprise, when Maggie entered the cathedral in her long black dress, she had been led to a pew near the front, where she found Sam waiting for her.
"Hey," he murmured, clean-cut in a dark suit.
"Hey," she whispered back as she took a seat. A children's choir filled the air with a mourning song. "Where's Steve?"
"He's a pallbearer."
"Oh."
Maggie and Sam sat quietly beside each other, and Maggie eyed the front of the cathedral: there was a large portrait of Peggy, from the war, surrounded by bouquets of flowers and candles. Maggie let herself take in the young face that seemed so unfamiliar to her: dark hair and eyes, a tidy brown uniform. The face her father had known.
And then they brought her in. Everyone stood as Peggy's coffin was carried to the front, draped in a Union Jack and laden with flowers. Maggie's eyes instantly darted to Steve: up the front, tears in his eyes, carrying Peggy Carter. She saw his gaze go to her portrait.
When they'd set her down and the priest took his post at the front of the cathedral, Steve turned; and found Sam and Maggie standing at the pew waiting for him. His brow furrowed and he stepped toward them with a heavy breath.
People always said after funerals that it had been a lovely service. As if they were looking for an upside. They'd said it after Maggie's parents' funeral, not that she'd been there, and after the Jarvis's too.
All the same, Maggie had to admit that today's service had done right by Peggy.
So many people gave eulogies, and though Maggie learned a lot she didn't think anyone had managed to quite capture the whole of who Peggy had been: a determined and highly skilled woman, to be sure, but those who described her brilliance in battle and rigid mastery ashead of SHIELD failed to describe her warmth, her kindness, her humor and her idealism. Those who'd known her young did not know how strong she'd been in her frailty, how frustrated at her own weakness, how determined to remember she was even in the midst of her forgetting.
Maggie reflected on who Peggy had been to her as she sat in that pew bathed in refracted stained-glass sunlight, and let her heart ache in her chest.
Peggy was hard to eulogise, because Peggy had always been surprising, and secretive, and very much her own.
Maggie had seen Peggy meet two men she'd thought long dead, and had seen her cry for them. She'd seen her laugh and joke and rage.
Oh, Maggie. All that fire, and it just made you kind.
Maggie sometimes thought that Peggy had known her better than anyone on earth.
She regretted not getting to hear more of her stories. So she soaked them up now, through those who had known her. And she let herself cry.
She and Sam both stiffened in their seats after the priest invited Sharon Carter to speak.
The name meant nothing to her, but the blonde woman who climbed up to the pulpit was a familiar face.
The CIA agent - former SHIELD agent, she reminded herself - who'd come to the Tower to ask about Bucky, and who'd had a sort of something with Steve. She sensed Sam elbowing Steve, and he looked up in surprise.
Sharon spoke, explaining her relationship to Aunt Peggy, and Maggie found herself sneaking glances at Steve - he went from blank-faced shock, to confusion, to a small, accepting smile.
"I asked her once how she managed to master diplomacy and espionage in a time when no one wanted to see a woman succeed at either," Sharon spoke, gripping the edge of the pulpit. "She said: compromise where you can. But where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say: 'No, you move.'"
Maggie let out a breath.
Yeah, she thought to herself. That sounds like Peggy.
Steve had not been expecting Natasha. But she turned out to be a welcome surprise when she found him in the now-empty cathedral, despite the Accords talk.
"Who else signed?" he asked, head bowed.
"Tony, Rhodey, Vision."
He nodded despite the flash of hurt. "Clint?"
"Says he's retired."
"Wanda?"
"TBD," Natasha murmured. "As is Maggie." Her voice softened. "I'm off to Vienna for the signing of the Accords. There's plenty of room on the jet."
He looked down again.
"Just because it's the path of least resistance doesn't mean it's the wrong path," she murmured, stepping forward. "Staying together is more important than how we stay together."
He looked up and held her gaze. "What are we giving up to do it?"
She sighed.
"I'm sorry Nat," he said, shaking his head. "I can't sign it."
"I know," she smiled.
"Then what're you doing here?"
Her eyes were warm. "I didn't want you to be alone."
Steve took a heavy breath. He didn't know how both Nat and Maggie had done it, using that phrase as if they knew it would be the one to bring him back to when Bucky had fallen from the train, and Peggy had found him at the destroyed bar. Her soft voice, warm and strong. You won't be alone.
As if she'd seen something inside him crumple, Natasha reached out, touching his shoulder, then pulled him in for a hug. "Come here."
They stood like that for almost a minute until they heard footsteps. "Hey, Steve, I'm-"
It was Maggie. Steve looked over to see her at the end of the aisle, eyes on him and Natasha.
"Hey," she murmured. She clutched her purse in both hands, hesitated, then paced up toward them.
Natasha patted Steve's arm and walked out, giving Maggie a nod on the way past.
Maggie looked into his face. "I… just wanted to say I'm leaving." She jerked her head at Nat's retreating form. "That's my ride."
He returned his hands to his pockets as he eyed her. "You're going to sign, then?"
She licked her lips nervously. "Does it sound crazy that I honestly don't know?"
He huffed a sad, tired laugh.
"I want to talk to them," she said, eyes suddenly burning. "I want to speak. I'm not new to contracts and restrictions. Dealt with them all the time at SI. And there's some stuff in here that doesn't make any sense to me." She tapped her purse and it thudded dully. Like a book.
Steve looked at her heavily. "Don't you think that's a sign that you shouldn't sign?"
"I think it's a sign that there are changes to be made," she replied. "And if they give me some guarantees that there'll be amendments, and rereads, and consultations… then yes, I'll sign."
"And if they don't?" he asked. "They're ratifying it today. They've already signed off on it. What if they tell you to kick rocks?"
She paused, clearly thinking it over. Steve held her gaze, and saw the uncertainty there.
"Then I don't know," she finally whispered.
He nodded and looked down. "You want to keep doing the job. You want to stay together and be on the same side as your brother. I get it, and…" he sighed. "I don't hold it against you."
When he eventually looked up again, Maggie's face had creased with guilt. He jerked his chin at her. "Go, or you'll be late. I'll see you later."
Her mouth twisted. "Stay in touch, okay?"
He nodded mutely, and after a long moment of staring at him, where he had the uncomfortable sense that he was being evaluated, she turned and followed after Natasha.
Vienna International Centre, Austria
Maggie and Natasha both succeeded in not flinching in the flash-bang of the press outside the Vienna International Centre when they climbed out of their car. Dozens of questions were shouted at them, but they walked inside in tandem, dressed for business and their shoulders straight.
Inside, Maggie felt the familiar scratchings of panic as she saw the representatives from all the countries involved, as well as all the members of the UN Security Council and various members of the General Assembly. All gathered to pass the document which sat dogeared and heavily edited in her purse. Several of them eyed her as she walked past, with mixtures of suspicion, judgement, and interest.
"You good?" Natasha murmured as they entered into the Assembly chamber, which was arranged in a semicircle of ascending desks facing one large podium. Film cameras dotted around the space, and officials filled the area.
"Yes," Maggie said firmly, readjusting her blazer. She had her notes, and she'd even managed to secure a few minutes in the program to speak. The idea of it made her sweat. She'd never been one for public speaking, that had always been Tony's job.
"Just… manage your expectations, okay?" Nat murmured.
An older woman in a pencil skirt and an expensive-looking brooch on her jacket stepped up to meet them. "Ms Romanoff, Ms Stark, welcome," she smiled. "We're very pleased to have you as representatives of the Avengers here today."
"Oh, I'm the representative today," Natasha smiled in return.
"Ah, that's right," the woman nodded, and her eyes flicked to Maggie. "Ms Stark, would you prefer to do your signing now, or after the ceremony?"
Maggie blinked. "Oh, I'm-" she hesitated, glancing at Nat. "After, I guess." Sweat prickled on the back of her neck.
Natasha smiled thinly. "I'll meet you at our seats, Maggie, I… have some things to sign."
Dismissed, Maggie made her way up to their seats, feeling dozens of eyes on her. Their gazes felt heavy, and her lack-of-signing felt like a spotlight.
She took her seat and looked down to see Natasha talking with the Wakandans - King T'Chaka and his son, whose name… escaped Maggie at the moment. Natasha responded to one of the King's questions, and the son's eyes flicked up unerringly to Maggie - and narrowed a little. Maggie stared back. So that's how it's going to be, then.
Sitting alone, with a purse full of scratchy, hand-written notes and a terrible plan, she wished once more that Bucky was here. Or that she could at least talk to him. She tried to imagine what he'd say. The world is safer for having you in it, she remembered him saying.
Am I making it safer, today? She wondered.
"If everyone could please be seated, this assembly is now in session," came a voice over the speakers. Maggie blew out a long, shaky breath, and watched as Natasha made her way up to her.
King T'Chaka was an even better speaker in person. He stood tall and strong behind the dark stone podium, giving the opening address.
"We will fight to improve the world we wish to join," he said clearly, then looked over to Natasha and Maggie. "I am grateful to the Avengers for supporting this initiative." Maggie swallowed hard. How am I going to follow this? "Wakanda is proud to extend its hand in peace-"
Maggie saw the king's son move a moment before he shouted.
He'd been by the windows, waiting to walk across to his father on stage, and her eyes snagged on the sudden burst of movement as he darted across the front of the room a millisecond before he roared:
"Everybody get down!"
Maggie and Natasha moved in synchronisation: they each whirled, grabbed the person beside them and pushed them below the edge of the desk.
And then the window exploded inward.
Tony wouldn't stop calling.
Maggie had sent him a text to let him know that she was fine, but apparently that wasn't enough for him. It had been two hours since the bombing, and she hadn't had a spare moment to call between clearing the building, going through medical, and now giving her statement to the Austrian police. And yet her phone kept buzzing away in her pocket - he must have had F.R.I.D.A.Y. redailing every time the call dropped.
So she finally gave in, picking up the phone with a hissed: "Tony, I really am fine. But I'm trying to finish giving my statement, so can you quit it?" She shot the Bundespolizei officer an apologetic glance, and the officer waved a hand.
"Okay, okay," came Tony's harried voice. "Are you sure? Nat said you were in a med tent last she saw you."
"I got a cut on my arm, they gave me like three stitches. It's fine." She'd been in the med tent when she heard a suspect for the bombing had been found, but there'd been no further details at that point. "But that's honestly it, I'm okay."
She heard the staticky sound of a sigh. "God, Maggie. And have you heard-"
"Tony, I want to talk about it, just give me a bit to finish this. I'll call you back." She hung up and turned back to the officer. "Sorry."
"It's alright, I understand," the officer nodded. They sat in one of the orange emergency tents set up on the road outside the International Centre, and it wasn't quiet: even despite the closed tent flaps Maggie could hear the din of helicopters flying past, sirens and engines, and hundreds of voices. "So, what do you remember after the smoke cleared?"
Maggie closed her eyes.
The flames, flickering light against her closed eyelids and the radiant heat of them. The smoke thick in her lungs, and the pain of her legs trapped beneath her. Panic, then, when she remembered that night - until her thoughts skittered away and she blinked and she found herself trapped under a fallen desk in the Vienna International Centre.
She'd sensed Natasha moving, already out from under the desk - thankfully it had been made of sturdy stuff, protecting them from most of the debris - and coughing loudly in the thick smoke. Maggie had pushed herself out from under the desk and opened her eyes in a hellscape: the room full of screams, debris falling, shattered glass everywhere. Cellphones ringing in the din.
"I saw the king," Maggie whispered to the Bundespolizei officer, her eyes still stinging. "His son was holding him." She furrowed her brow, remembering the look on his sons face.
"I see," the officer said, not unkindly. "And then what did you do?"
"I started helping people out," Maggie murmured. It seemed to be all she did these days: pulled dead people out of the flames.
When she'd signed her statement, Maggie leaned forward and rubbed her temples. She could feel the ash on her skin, the dried blood crusting her hairline and the sleeve of her blazer. Her body ached - she was pretty sure she had whiplash from the blast, and a number of bruises were making themselves painfully known across her thighs and chest.
"I heard there was a suspect, are they enhanced?" she asked. She'd been turning it over; obviously the perpetrator must be someone with a grudge against the Accords, or at least against someone who was in the room. An enhanced person who didn't want to sign, perhaps?
"I think they have released a suspect's face - they got CCTV from where the van was parked," the officer said as the slid Maggie's statement into a manila folder. "He's HYDRA."
"Really?" she blinked. "Do we know who?"
The officer shrugged. "Some, uh… Winter Soldier."
Maggie's throat closed up and her fingers went white on the arms of the plastic chair. "What?"
"Winter Soldier," the officer said, and glanced at her. "Hey, you look pretty pale-"
"Med tent," Maggie said, darting upright and fumbling her way out of the tent.
Can't be right, can't be right -
She found the nearest TV screen mounted outside an open-air operations tent full of agents in tactical vests. The screen rolled news footage: the explosion as seen from the outside, which looked far bigger than Maggie had expected. A banner underneath the footage read: TWELVE DEAD, SEVENTY INJURED.
And then - there was no sound, but they were playing CCTV footage, and… a dark figure walked across the screen. The footage paused, and zoomed in on the face, and Maggie's heart skipped.
Bucky.
The shot was blurry, but it was him: his cheekbones, the dark set to his eyes. There was even a glint of metal at his wrist before his hand disappeared in his pocket.
The breaking news banner continued to roll: SUSPECT IDENTIFIED: JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES AKA 'THE WINTER SOLDIER'. HYDRA AGENT LINKED TO NUMEROUS ACTS OF TERRORISM AND POLITICAL ASSASSINATION.
"No." Maggie stood rigidly still, staring at the screen until her eyes dried out. Her stomach churned and the blood had drained from her face. It took the news channel panning back to the studio for her to tear her eyes away. She looked around, as if she might see him somewhere.
Her mind was thick with smoke, black and poisonous and suffocating. She vaguely noticed her hands shaking.
And then a strike of clarity:
There are… words, she remembered him murmuring. It's like they get in my head and they fill it up, pushing me to the sides until I'm hardly there. Until it's… until it's just them.
Her fingers curled into fists and she pressed them against her temples, grounding herself as she stared hard, unseeing, at the TV screen.
Bucky is in danger.
The CCTV footage appeared again, this time that frozen still of his face. She drank in the sight of him: it was hard to read any kind of expression there. She remembered how he used to be, in the beginning: the pacing, emotionless toy soldier in Bucky's body.
I don't want to be dangerous, he'd said that day. All I can tell you is that you should never, ever trust me.
Too late for that.
Maggie turned and strode out of the maze of tents, pushing past people in all manner of uniforms and hardly wincing at the aches in her body now.
She'd just hopped over a strip of orange and white tape cordoning off the secure area when she felt a hand on her elbow.
She whirled, eyes widening when she recognized Natasha. Natasha was streaked with dirt and ash, but seemed relatively unscathed.
"Bucky," Maggie breathed.
"Sh," Natasha hissed, tightening her grip on Maggie's arm and pulling her away from the operations centre. They strode past a fire engine, crossed the street, and stepped into the shadow of an adjoining building. Natasha lowered her voice and glanced around. "I don't know what's going through his head, but clearly a lot has changed-"
"It must have been his words-"
"What words?"
She blinked, then realized no one had ever told Natasha. In fact only she, Steve, Vision, and Raynor probably knew. "There are these words," she hurriedly explained. "That if someone says them, he… he's not himself."
Nat frowned. "Alright. But… either way, the man who did this" - she pointed across the street at the still-burning International Centre - "is not the man we know. And you need to pull yourself together." She clenched her jaw and swallowed. "Steve called. He's going after Barnes."
"Okay, good," she nodded.
"No, it's not," Nat urged. "The UN might not have had the chance to actually ratify the Accords in the ceremony, but as of" - she checked her watch - "twenty minutes ago, they are legally in effect. Steve's enhanced. If he does anything that could be construed as law enforcement, they'll lock him up." She arched her brows. "Him and anyone else who helps him."
Maggie stalled. "But - we didn't get a chance to talk about it-"
"They weren't going to change anything," Natasha said, with some pity. Maggie thought of her copy of the Accords, now most likely burned. "As of right now, you're subject to the Accords as well. If you sign, then any ratified action to bring in Barnes, you can be a part of. If you don't sign… you have to wait."
Maggie met Nat's eyes for a long moment. Her heart pounded in her chest, as if just catching up now with the adrenaline and horror of the last few hours. And it all seemed to crash down on her.
Right now, Bucky was an enhanced individual - an enhanced terrorist, the first since the Accords came into effect. All those terms from the Accords rang in her mind:
Threat to the safety of the general public.
Detained indefinitely without trial.
She swallowed. "Okay."
Nat's eyebrow lifted. "Okay?"
"I'll… I gotta go get fixed up," she said, pointing at the open gash in her sleeve, and the bandage beneath it. "I'll call you when I've made my decision."
Natasha looked at her heavily. "You sure you haven't already made it?"
Maggie ignored her question, pulled her arm out of her grip, and strode away.
She paced down the street, in the direction of where she knew she could get a car. And then… a plan slowly formulated in her mind.
"Don't do anything stupid!" she heard Nat call after her.
Steve was good, but not evading-the-Wyvern good.
Maggie tracked him to a cafe a block away from the Vienna International Centre - she'd expected him to be close, but not that close. She spied from a distance for a few minutes: he and Sam stood at the counter, in baseball caps and sunglasses.
To her surprise, a blonde approached them a moment later. Maggie's eyes narrowed as she watched Sharon Carter talk to them, then slide a manila folder across the counter toward Steve.
Sharon left another moment later, in the direction of the operations center.
Maggie made her move as Sam turned his head to murmur something to Steve.
She appeared on Sam's other side. "Where is he."
Sam flinched and spun to face her, and Steve's head snapped toward her.
"Jesus," Sam breathed. His eyes flicked over her. "You okay?"
She stared hard at Steve. "Don't bullshit me. Agent 13 just gave you a lead. Where is he."
Steve's jaw clenched. "Maggie, if you've signed-"
"I got blown up before I could decide either way. And right now, the Accords don't matter. He does," she nodded at the file under Steve's palm. "Where is he."
"We don't know," Steve said after a moment to consider her. "This might be a lead."
Maggie took a deep breath. "Anything from the phone?"
"No," he murmured. "I sent the dragonfire text, but I haven't had any response."
Maggie's hand clenched into a fist again. "Then let's go."
The intelligence Sharon had given Steve merely gave the suggestion that Bucky was in Bucharest, though there was no closer pin on the exact location. Maggie, Steve, and Sam drove through the night to get to Romania, planning and tracing potential locations.
"So what exactly is the plan here, other than breaking the Accords?" Sam had asked, at the wheel.
"Bring him in quietly," Steve responded. "Talk to him, figure out who did this, then bring them in to get the heat off of Bucky. The only people who don't believe he's responsible for this are sitting in this car."
"But we have to get there first," Maggie said urgently, working on a tablet in the back seat. "If he's taken in by someone else, or if someone sees us helping him escape… it's all over."
A silence fell in the car. They hadn't broken the Accords yet, but once they did… they'd be the first ever example of Accords justice.
"We'll get him back," Steve said firmly.
"And if this was him?" Sam asked. "If he had some serious mental regression, and old habits kicked in?" He sensed their expressions change and added: "I know, I know, but we have to consider the possibility. What then?"
"The Winter Soldier isn't a habit," Maggie murmured. "He's programmed. And someone has to hit the switch. Bucky… Bucky's a victim here as well."
Sam's jaw clenched. "Then it's a good thing we brought our uniforms. Because he's not the victim to anyone else on the planet right now. And we have to be prepared for things to get ugly."
"Sharon said the JTTF had orders to shoot on sight," Steve said.
Maggie stilled. That wasn't in the Accords. "Step on the gas, Sam."
June 23, 2016
Bucharest, Romania
The man in the newspaper stall was Bucky's first clue.
He really should have found out sooner. He'd gotten sloppy.
But he'd been keeping alert for watching eye and for tails as he walked around the city, scanning the roads for suspicious vehicles. Never could he have expected the first warning sign to come in a newspaper headline:
WINTER SOLDIER CAUTAT PENTRU BOMBARDMENTULDIN VIENA
[WINTER SOLDIER MANHUNT AFTER VIENNA BOMBARDMENT]
And his own face in black and white on the front page.
Bucky's hands tightened on the paper and he scanned the Romanian words, wide-eyed.
But I didn't do it.
Despite his certainty he cast his mind back anyway - yesterday had been uneventful. He'd visited the gravesite of some of his past victims, then the national art museum, and picked up mici from the old town market for dinner. He could remember every minute, no strange blank spots or lost hours.
He looked again at his face in the newspaper, and then set the paper down grimly. I didn't do it. But someone did.
He turned and hurried back to his safehouse, already planning escape routes and far-away destinations. He needed to get some distance before he figured out what to do about this. He cursed under his breath as he remembered the phone Meg had given him - it had been off for four days since his last check-in message, so he would have missed any warnings from them. He'd turn it on again when he was safe.
Meg. And Steve. What must they think-
He cut off the thought as it began, and picked up his pace. Now was the time for action, not thinking. Bug out, hop a train out of the city, and then go to ground.
He couldn't quite shake the afterimage of his own face blown up large on the front page of the newspaper, though.
Everything is about to change.
"I'm in," Steve whispered over their comms.
On the rooftop of a concrete apartment building three blocks away, Maggie adjusted her perch on top of an exhaust vent and kept a close eye on the surroundings. It was a bright day in Bucharest, and she had to be careful she wasn't visible.
"What do you see?" she murmured, clawed gloves tightening on the edge of the vent. She itched to be down there, but she'd been overruled.
When Maggie had identified the apartment building as being the most likely for Bucky's safehouse in the city, there'd been a short argument about who would go in.
We don't know what state he's in, Steve had argued. I'm going in, he wouldn't want to hurt either of you.
He wouldn't want to hurt you either, Sam had pointed out.
I can take it. You two can't.
So Steve had gone in, in full uniform, with Maggie and Sam casing the area from above.
"The house is empty," Steve murmured.
Maggie let out a breath. "He must have bugged out already." She rubbed her forehead. Where would he go?
"There's still stuff in here," Steve replied, and the note of worry in his voice made her drop her hand and gaze over to the apartment building.
"Heads up," Sam called. "German Special Forces, approaching from the south."
"Shit," Maggie hissed.
"Understood," Steve replied.
Maggie risked inching out of her disguised position a little so she could see what Sam had seen: sure enough, five armored cars were speeding up the road towards the apartment building, weaving through traffic. She set her HUD to scan for radio frequencies in the area and found the GSG-9 channel a moment later.
"Zwei minuten zum Abfangen. B-Team?"
"Zwei minuten."
"You've got two minutes, Steve," Maggie translated. "They've got two teams that I can tell, unsure of their angles yet."
"Do you know me?"
Maggie frowned at Steve's response, pausing in her rapid scan of the area.
But then she heard another voice, faintly, over the comms:
"You're Steve."
Her hand slipped on the vent and she almost toppled headlong off the rooftop, just righting herself in time. Her heart flew into her mouth.
"You shouldn't have come." The flat gravel in Bucky's voice set the hair on the back of her neck rising.
"They've set the perimeter," Sam said, and Maggie shuffled along her rooftop to see the ring of dark-uniformed agents and officers surrounding the apartment building. As she watched, one of the teams kicked in a fire exit and began flooding inside at the ground level.
"I know you're nervous," Steve said, "and you have plenty of reason to be. But you need to come with me, now."
"Steve, they're entering the building," Maggie murmured, her gloves biting into the concrete beneath her. "It has to be now, or-"
"I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore," Bucky said.
"Well the people who think you did are coming here now," Steve urged. "And they're not planning on taking you alive. So-"
"That's smart. Good strategy."
Maggie clenched her fists as she saw figures spilling out onto the roof of the apartment building, holding rappelling cables. "Sam-"
"They're on the roof, I'm compromised." She saw Sam dive off the edge of the building and glide away unseen.
"Steve," she urged. She panned to the German Special Forces radio frequency and bit the inside of her cheek when she heard them setting their final blockades. They didn't know Bucky was in there yet, but they were absolutely prepared for him to be.
"This doesn't have to end in a fight, Buck."
"It always ends in a fight. Get out of here before they see you."
"Five seconds!" Sam called, on another rooftop now.
"We came here for you, there's still time-"
"My time's up, Steve."
Maggie's stomach dropped.
"Three seconds!" Sam called.
"No it's not," Steve urged.
Maggie winced as Sam shouted: "Breach, breach, breach!"
She heard a smash of glass, followed by a series of thuds and a muted explosion. Cursing, she flared her wings and leaped to the next rooftop, where she had a better view of the exterior of the apartment: two of the papered-over windows had been smashed inward, and four officers in tactical vests had rappelled down the side building and waited outside, wielding what she at first thought were grenade launchers, until they fired again and she recognized the projectiles as flash-bangs.
All she could hear over the comms now was thuds, smashing, and the sounds of fighting. Two of the officers on the side of the building kicked out and then smashed through the windows into the apartment, which Maggie had no visibility into. She cursed again and aimed up with her energy blaster, hitting their winch points on the roof. The other two men went sliding down the side of the building as their line unspooled, crying out.
They'd survive.
"Steve, situation report!" she called, peering from the edge of her higher rooftop at the apartment.
"Buck, stop!" she heard him shout. "You're gonna kill someone!"
There was a pause, and then: "I'm not going to kill anyone."
Something flew out of the window - a backpack, she realized - and landed on a lower rooftop across the road.
Then gunfire exploded across the comms, making her wince. A figure crashed through one of the windows onto the concrete balcony outside the apartment, and Maggie's heart skipped when she recognized Steve's uniform. She fidgeted on her rooftop, wings twitching. Steve had told her to hang back…
Steve recovered and dove back inside. What followed was a minute of incomprehensible smashing, thuds, clanging metal, and grunts as what sounded like two dozen men fought inside the building. Maggie could just make out Steve's panting breaths, and what she knew to be Bucky's low vocalisations as he fought. She paced back and forth along her rooftop, trying to make out anything, but the concrete building was hard to see into.
And then someone fell out a window.
No - they hadn't fallen. The figure leaped over the edge of an upper balcony, arms windmilling as they fell towards the lower rooftop; they landed in a tumble, metal flashing, and - Maggie's heart skipped. Bucky.
His dark hair spilled out around him as he rolled up to his feet, hardly breaking his momentum as he scooped up the fallen backpack with his metal hand and raced along the concrete. Maggie leaped off her rooftop and spread her wings to catch herself.
She saw the new figure a moment before Bucky did; a shadow who seemed to just appear on the rooftop, glinting razor tipped fingers bared as he leaped down on Bucky from behind. Bucky whirled just in time to fend off the sharp claws and they tumbled to the concrete together. Maggie gunned her engines - still too far.
Bucky rose to a kneel, and the dark figure found their feet with unerring grace: they wore a full-body suit, head concealed by a dark helmet with pointed tips that suggested ears. The suit gleamed strangely in the sunlight, accented with silvery metal. Maggie could only see Bucky's back, but she recognized the moment he knew he had to fight this strange cat-person: his shoulders bunched, and he surged forward.
They came together in a clash of metal and swinging limbs. The figure slashed at Bucky with a vicious accuracy, making Bucky whirl to avoid him, and then launched forward; Maggie let out a breath as Bucky flew back under the blow. He's strong. The figure launched forward with inhuman speed and slashed its claws for Bucky's face, barely missing - the claws sank into the metal surface behind him like butter.
Bucky slid away and sprang to his feet, arms raised; only to fall back with a cry when the figure slashed its claws across his metal arm.
Bucky fell and the figure dove forward, claws glinting-
Only to let out an audible oof when Maggie crashed full-speed into him, using the edges of her wings to ram him away. The figure went flying and Maggie retracted her wings to tumble safely to the ground, getting her hands and feet under her with a gymnast's instincts. Her boots skidded on the concrete, and when she looked up she saw Bucky rising to his feet, hair straggled over his face and his eyes wide.
"Sam, southwest rooftop," she heard Steve call.
"Who the hell's the other guy?"
She glanced over her shoulder to see the dark figure leaping for her again - she snapped her left wing out and swept him away again with a forceful wingbeat, feeling the screech of his suit against her wings. He tumbled away again and Maggie darted over to Bucky, who'd retrieved his backpack again.
She reached out and panted: "take my hand, let's go-"
Bucky stared at her for half a moment, then turned on his heel and ran.
Maggie faltered, and that was all it took for the dark figure to sprint past her again, catching up to Bucky with impossible speed - he tackled him to the ground and they tumbled across the concrete, struggling. Steve landed on the rooftop a moment later, rolling to absorb the impact, and then the air reverberated with the sound of the helicopter that had just soared around the main apartment building.
Maggie launched after Bucky and the dark figure, but then had to throw up her wings to protect herself as the helicopter rained down gunfire on the rooftop. Bullets pinged off the membrane of her wings, knocking her back, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the dark figure merely look up into the gunfire like it was falling rain.
"Sam!" Steve called.
"Got him."
A moment later the gunfire cut off as the helicopter spiralled away, desperately fighting to regain control after Sam knocked them off course. Maggie flung her wing out of her way and aimed for the dark figure looming over Bucky. Her burning red energy bolt caught him in the shoulder, off-balancing him, and a solid kick from Bucky sent him spinning away again. Bucky rolled to his feet, grabbed his backpack, and raced to the edge of the rooftop and leaped out of sight.
The dark figure raced after him.
"Shit," Maggie said, flaring her wings and soaring off the rooftop - and almost colliding with the helicopter as it churned back overhead. She banked hard to dodge it, then careened down the side of the building and low to the street: Bucky, the figure, and Steve were already far ahead, racing across a parking lot as the helicopter thundered overhead, spraying down bullets. Maggie arced up to the helicopter and spun underneath it, flicking the sharp tip of her wing across its gun turret - she felt the metal talon connect, shredding through the weapon with a shower of sparks. The gunfire cut out.
When she glanced back, Bucky and the others had vanished. She could hear beeping horns and sirens over the comms though, and a moment later the GSG-9 commander called in German: "They're in the underpass!"
"Shit," she hissed, and glanced over at a roar of engines to see Sam banking low to the ground.
"I'll go down, you go ahead," he called, and then dove down the hole Bucky and the others must have gone through, his wings pulled in tight. Maggie cast one last glance at the helicopter and then soared away, her HUD showing her the path of the underpass below the ground, and highlighting where it let out two miles ahead. She rocketed ahead, ears attuned to the comms - she could hear what sounded like a car engine over Steve's line, now.
"Sam, I can't shake this guy!" he called.
"Right behind you!"
Looking ahead to where the underpass was briefly uncovered, Maggie could see a convoy of unmarked police vehicles surging toward the tunnel. Just as they drove in and out of sight, Maggie heard a crunch over Steve's comms, and then - there.
Bucky sprinted out from under the cover of the underpass and Maggie angled downward, engines burning. He seized an oncoming motorbike, nudged the driver off it, and in a move that made Maggie's stomach swoop he spun it around in midair as the wheels spun, leaped on top of it, and hit the ground speeding. Maggie dove, hands outstretched, then cursed as he disappeared under the next leg of the underpass. She surged up and kept flying above ground, eyes on the next space of open road. Behind her, she heard Sam soar into the underpass after Bucky.
"Talk to me, Sam."
"I've got eyes on - shit."
Maggie glanced down, as if she could see through ten feet of concrete. "What?"
"That guy grabbed him - oh, Jesus, Barnes is free again-" Sam broke off in a grunt and Maggie pushed all power to her thrusters, wind shearing against her as she rocketed forward.
She soared over the lip of the underpass just as a figure on a motorbike emerged from under it, and an explosion lit up the inside of the tunnel. Maggie didn't waste time on thought this time.
She dove, wings flared, and seized Bucky off the bike. She felt the breath leave his chest as his momentum jerked back and upward, and the bike skidded to the ground as its rider left it. Maggie angled up, her fists clenched in Bucky's bag and jacket and her eyes already on the open sky.
Then a solid weight crashed into the small of her back, knocking her down. She dropped like a stone and she and Bucky tumbled to the road below, knees clashing with the concrete and limbs tangled. She vaguely sensed a dark figure leaping for Bucky, before Steve darted in from the left and tackled the figure away.
Maggie propped herself up on her elbow, wincing as Steve and the figure faced off and cars blaring with sirens raced in from every angle. Her wings were tangled beneath her. She heard the thundering helicopter blades again, and when she rolled to see what had knocked her to the ground she found herself looking up into the glowing red eyes of the War Machine armor.
"Rhodey," she grunted, pushing herself to her feet. Bucky had already stood up, his shoulders bunched and his eyes warily flicking to all angles: the helicopter in the sky, the cars full of police officers now completely surrounding them. Sirens rang loud in the air and blue and red lights flashed over them.
Rhodey held his whining repulsors up, one aimed at the dark figure and one at Steve and Bucky. Maggie stood between them, her wings rising and falling as she heaved for breath.
"Stand down, now." Rhodey ordered.
Maggie looked to Steve, who had a protective hand held in front of Bucky, then Bucky's resigned face, then the forest of guns pointing at them from either side of the underpass. The figure in black relaxed his combative stance, and a moment later Steve returned his shield to his back. Maggie retracted her wings and raised her hands, palms open.
"Congratulations," Rhodey said in a hard, bitter voice that Maggie wasn't used to hearing from him. "You're criminals."
With a chorus of shouts the police officers flooded forth from their vehicles, guns raised and suspicion glittering in their eyes. Maggie clenched her jaw.
They grabbed Bucky first - an agent seized him by the back of his jacket and pushed him down to his knees, where he went willingly. Maggie grit her teeth as she watched them shackle him, and it took every muscle in her body not to move.
She didn't see the officers who grabbed her hands and handcuffed them behind her back, because the figure in the dark cat outfit had just taken off his helmet.
The Wakandan prince stared back at Steve with a calm sort of rage in his eyes, standing tall despite the special forces surrounding him. Maggie still vividly remembered him crying over his father's body, so this lithe, vicious warrior standing before her took her aback.
"Your highness," Rhodey muttered.
A shove in the middle of her back sent Maggie stumbling forward, hands on her shoulders and her bound wrists pushing her toward the amassed vehicles, and she glanced back to see Bucky on the ground, practically swamped by special forces officers. His hair hung over his eyes and for a moment, he looked up to meet her gaze. He shook his head at her, just once.
Leave me.
As if she had a choice.
Reviews
Eennio: I'm excited too!
BrownEyes: Steve deserves hugs despite his freakish size
shorttrooper: Shit is indeed getting real. I'm glad you liked the last chapter, it was nice to explore Maggie and Bucky's individual feelings about the almost-kiss! Poor old Tony as well, he's in a rough spot. As for Rikki... we shall see ;) hope you have a lovely week!