Leipzig Airport, Germany

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., read vitals," Rhodey grunted, still prone on the ground.

"Multiple tibia and fibula fractures detected," F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s cool voice rang out into the air. "Emergency medical is on its way."

Tony turned his back on T'Challa and strode over the grass to Maggie, his helmet retracting. She sat up, cradling the arm that was sending shooting spikes of pain up to the back of her neck, and waved him off with her other hand.

"No, go help Rhodey-"

But he stood over her, his eyes burning, and said: "You're under arrest."

Oh.

Remembering which side she was on, Maggie nodded at him. Now that her ears weren't ringing so badly she could hear Ross over the other comms:

"- arrest them all, move in now!" He sounded angrier than she had ever heard him.

In moments they were surrounded - fifteen armored cars with blue and red flashing lights screeched to a halt in a rough circle around them on the grass airfield, as well as an ambulance. The medics rushed for Rhodey as armed soldiers flooded out of the other cars, shouting and gesturing with their guns. Sam sank to his knees and put his hands behind his head.

Maggie disconnected her wings and slid off her wrist-blasters and goggles for them in response to their shouted instructions, then rolled onto her front and put her hands behind her back. Her wings were seriously damaged, wiring and circuitry spilling onto the grass like innards. Tony stood over her, his gaze torn between the guns aimed at her, Rhodey lying on the ground, and T'Challa motionless a few yards away.

An agent of some kind in a tactical helmet stepped forward, holding handcuffs.

Maggie winced as she looked over her shoulder at the agent and said:

"My arm-"

The agent knelt down and cinched the cuffs around her wrists, and she couldn't help the cry she let out when he jostled her left arm. She could feel the arm swelling, and it felt like lightning had struck every nerve in the limb when she moved it.

"Hey, she needs a medic," called Sam as he was cuffed and pulled to his feet by four agents. He looked pretty roughed up, but walked fine on his own two feet. Maggie was jerked upright by two firm grips on her shoulders and she grit her teeth to bite back another cry, then stumbled when they pushed her toward one of the armored vehicles.

She craned her neck past the agents surrounding her to see Rhodey. He still lay flat on the ground, having armor peeled off him by medics. "I'm sorry," she called.

Rhodey shook his head at her. "I'll be good," he said with false confidence. His eyes went to the men holding her fast as they pushed her forward. "Hey, where are you taking them?"

Maggie grunted as she was pushed up into the windowless rear compartment of an armored car, where more hands reached out to pull her in and down onto a seat. She was strapped in and another metal cuff locked around her ankle. Her whole brain pounded with pain now, and the fading adrenaline left her lightheaded. She looked out the back of the car, into the light:

Tony stood in his armor beside his fallen friend, his chest heaving as he stared back at her. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Maggie let out a shaky breath.

Then the door slammed shut, leaving her in the dark.

The Quinjet's only window was the cockpit windshield, so Steve and Bucky had only the rear scanner to show them what they left behind as they soared away from the airport, the Quinjet's stealth mode locking in.

Steve's fingers clenched on the steering column when Rhodey got hit and began to fall, only for both him and Bucky to let out a breath when Maggie caught the War Machine armor and flared her wings. Bucky ran a hand through his hair, eyes fixed to the screen, and Steve turned his attention back to their flight pattern.

Steve got glances of the scnaner screen as he flew: a trail of smoke fell downward, chased by the tiny figures of Tony and Sam. He could hear Sam's heavy breathing over the comms. Steve glanced away.

Bucky jerked forward. "No, no, they're going too fast, they-"

Steve's gaze flicked back to the screen: the smoke trail had hit the ground, and he couldn't make out any detail of those who'd landed. And then the Quinjet plunged into the clouds and their scanners went blind.

"They'll be okay," Steve murmured, coaxing the Quinjet engines to full power now they'd hit altitude. "They'll be okay." He wasn't sure who he was reassuring.

Bucky leaned back slowly in his seat, his chest heaving and his eyes wide. He said nothing.

It took an hour for Bucky to break his silence. They were well out of Germany by that point, the Quinjet high and practically invisible to all scanners and satellites.

"What's gonna happen to them?" he finally asked, his head downturned.

Steve sighed, his eyes fixed out on the sky. "The Accords are…" he pressed his lips together. "Whatever happens… I'll deal with it."

With a thick voice, Bucky replied: "I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

Steve glanced back at him. Bucky studied his hands, one metal and one flesh. "What you did all those years, Buck, it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

"I know." Bucky finally looked up. "But I did it."

Steve shook his head. "We all went into that fight knowing the score. Tony, Maggie, Wanda, everyone. They did it for you, but they also did it so we could stop this doctor. And we've gotta…" he ground his jaw. "We've gotta make what they did worth it."

Bucky rubbed his arm and looked past him, out the window, at the empty grey sky.

Charite Hospital, Berlin

Tony and Natasha stood on a balcony outside the hospital Rhodey had been transferred to. Natasha looked as if she'd rolled out of bed and had the most relaxing day of her life. Tony had one arm in a sling, and the bruise under his eye had gone a nasty purple. They'd left Vision inside - he was keeping to Rhodey's side, unsettled and guilty.

"Doctors say he broke his tibia and fibula in both legs, in multiple places, with some internal bleeding. He's gonna need surgery, and they said it'll be a long while before he walks again."

Natasha looked down, her face dark. "We're lucky it wasn't worse." She swallowed and looked away. "Steve got away, at least. Not that we know where he's going."

Tony looked down. "I'm going to work on that. He can't face those Soldiers alone-"

"He has to," she interrupted. "You don't know where he's going, and you wouldn't be able to go anyway, with the Accords." She looked furious with herself. "We played this wrong."

"And what, you're angry with me for it?" he snapped. "None of us could have predicted this." He gestured his free hand as if to encompass Ross and the fugitive doctor and Rhodey and all of it. And yet the words reminded him of something. He frowned, waiting for the link to form - ah, yes. Ultron. He'd built a monster all over again.

He sighed and tipped his head back.

"What's the plan, Tony?" Nat asked. "You got this far, now what? Are you going to keep playing double agent?"

"You can talk," he said, and wanted to take it back instantly.

She turned on him, her eyebrows drawn together. "Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?"

He closed his eyes. "T'Challa's going to tell Ross what you did, Nat. They're going to come for you."

He could feel her hard stare even with his eyes closed.

"I'm not the one that needs to watch their back."

He felt her move and his eyes snapped open. "Nat-"

But she'd already turned her back on him and was walking away.

He stepped after her, hesitant, but then his watch bleeped with an alert from F.R.I.D.A.Y.

"Priority upload from Berlin police, boss."

Tony opened up the digital files and a series of photographs and scanned documents projected themselves in the air.

"Right," he murmured. "Fire up the chopper."

HYDRA Facility, Siberia

Helmut Zemo peered into the frozen face of one of the Winter Soldiers, his flashlight gleaming off the man's chilled, pale skin. The Facility around him was dark, muffled by dust and years. It had been built in an old missile silo.

And now, he thought, his breath coming out in a puff of condensation, the end is near.

He reached into his pocket for his gun.

The Raft Prison, Atlantic Ocean

Maggie had no idea where she was.

There'd been a long drive from the airport, and she'd been blindfolded when they finally stopped, then pushed and shoved and shouted at as she was taken out of the armored car. She'd been forced into another seat in another vehicle - an MV-22 Osprey helicopter. Maggie didn't see the helicopter, but she recognized the sound of the machine when it was up and running. She couldn't hear Sam or any of the others.

They'd flown for about two hours, if she had to estimate, until her ears popped and she felt them coming down to land.

Still blindfolded, Maggie was pulled out of the helicopter while the rotors were still going. She frowned at what she could sense of her surroundings - an enclosed space judging from the echoey sounds and the regulated temperature, though it smelled strongly of salt water and metal. Her boots clanged on a metal walkway as she was marched blindly away from the helicopter, her head tilted as she listened to shouts and loud footsteps and a tinny intercom announcement that she couldn't make out. She was guided down what must have been half a dozen different corridors for a few minutes, mechanical doors whirring open and keypads being pressed, until finally her handcuffs were undone and the blindfold was yanked off her face.

Maggie winced and squinted to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting. She peered around, and when her eyes adjusted she found herself in a metal, windowless room, with four guards at each corner - all women.

"Undress and change into the scrubs," the woman to the left of the door said in a monotone. She had dark, slicked-back hair in an army bun.

Maggie glanced at her feet, where a small pile of dark blue fabric lay, then up again. "I've broken my arm." She slowly eased her left arm around her body - it throbbed at the movement, still shooting pain from the uncomfortably tight angle it had been restrained in for the past few hours.

The guards looked at her arm, exchanged a wordless glance, and then one of them hit the keypad for the door and exited.

"Change," one of the remaining guards repeated.

"Try my best," Maggie muttered, and with her uninjured arm began unbuckling and untying the sections of her armor. The metal plates clanged to the floor piece by piece, caked in dirt and ash.

By the time she had changed into the clothes (khaki thermals with a set of blue scrubs to go over them, fitted with biometric scanners, and a pair of dark slippers) a grim-looking medic had arrived. He eyed her arm, which was speckled with bruises and swollen, and asked her to move it in certain directions, which she was able to do to limited success, and with much muttered swearing.

"It needs an x-ray," he finally said. "Bring her to the medical suite."

In the medical suite, a narrow space with sterile metal walls and more fluorescent lights, the medic x-rayed her arm.

"Stable fracture of the radius and ulna," was his final diagnosis. "Shouldn't need surgery, but will need to be immobilised." The guards watched as he strapped her forearm into a dark brace. Maggie refused the pain medication, even though she could feel the colour draining from her face and her head going light.

Finally: "She's good to go."

The guards jerked their heads at Maggie, and she rose with trepidation.

"I'd like to call my lawyer," she said as the guards led her out into a dark metal corridor, again with no windows. Maggie frowned as she thought she felt the ground shift a little under her feet.

The guards ignored her.

Maggie sighed. "Yeah, that's what I figured."

Maggie couldn't see the others from her cell - the room outside was arranged in a circle, but their cells were all adjacent so they didn't face each other. She could hear them well enough though, not that anyone was much up for talking. There was a silent mutual agreement not to mention anything about the fight, or Steve and Bucky. Wanda hadn't said a word. They'd checked up on each other's wellbeing, scoped out their grim, empty cells, and that had been that.

"Where do you reckon we are?" Scott asked as soon as the guards left.

"Underwater," she replied.

There was a pause.

"Wait, really?" Sam's voice echoed.

"How'd you figure that?" Clint asked. "They didn't take un-blindfold me until a few minutes ago."

"You can feel it," she said, looking down at her feet on the floor. The floor seemed still and unyielding. But she sensed the faintest unsteadiness around them, an unsettling lack of foundation. She gestured with her free hand. "Besides, look at the way this place is built. No one engineers pressure-resistant walls and air filtration systems like this for fun. We're either underwater or in a spaceship." She squinted at the roof of the room beyond. Based on Helicarrier tech, I think.

Another long silence passed.

"I can't decide which one is scarier," Scott eventually murmured.

"This is Raft Prison Control. You are cleared for landing, Mr Stark."

Lights glowed below the storm-tossed waves in the grey Atlantic ocean, and for half a moment Tony imagined some enormous sea monster rising from the depths. Then metal edges broke through the surface.

Tony stared at the enormous cylindrical, gunmetal-grey structure that rose out of the ocean, uncomfortably reminding him of when Novi Grad had rumbled into the sky. But the Raft surfaced, sluicing off water, and then floated, two heavy metal doors in the top of it grinding open to admit the helicopter. The engineering on this thing has to be off the charts. F.R.I.D.A.Y. guided the craft in and Tony held his breath, as if he were really plunging underwater.

Ross was there to meet him almost as soon as the helicopter touched down and the blades slowed to a halt.

Tony hopped out of the helicopter as best as he could with one encumbered arm. "So? You got the files?" He'd sent over everything the Berlin Police had sent him: the murdered doctor who was meant to assess Barnes, and the intel about Helmut Zemo, the former Sokovian soldier. "Let's reroute satellites, start facial scanning for this Zemo guy."

Ross eyed him flatly. "You seriously think I'm gonna listen to you after that fiasco in Leipzig?"

Tony stared at him.

"You're lucky you're not in one of these cells."

So that's how it's going to be. Tony swallowed, then Ross jerked his head and turned to stride deeper into the underwater prison. Tony followed.

Ross brought him to an operations room, manned by Raft officers in dark uniforms and tactical vests. The familiar routines of the officers and the sheer amount of tech and engineering he saw made Tony wonder how long this place had been under construction. The Accords were only announced a month ago.

He fought to keep his face even as he glanced around the room - security footage of the whole prison, radar readouts of the surrounding ocean as they floated on the surface, staff movements, and…

The prison cells.

He first spotted Wanda. She sat on the metal floor of an 8 by 8 foot cell, her arms strapped to her body in a straitjacket and her knees pulled to her chest, her head bowed. Tony's stomach twisted, and then he eyed the other screens: Sam pacing the length of his cell, Clint sitting on the thin, low bed and eyeing the camera, that Lang guy lying flat on his back and tossing a slipper into the air. His eyes found Maggie's cell, and he sensed the soldier at the desk watching his expression, so he gave none.

Maggie lay on her back on the bed, with a grey blanket pulled up to her chin, her eyes closed and her mouth open, dark hair straggled over the pillow. Beside the bed, what looked like everything that hadn't been bolted down in the cell lay arranged on the floor: a toothbrush, a roll of toilet paper, slippers, a bar of soap, and a plastic slat that it looked like she'd pried free from the floor under her bed. She'd gathered her tools, as any good mechanic would.

"She's been asleep for two hours," commented the soldier at the desk, still eyeing Tony.

"No rest for the wicked," Tony murmured, then turned to Ross. "Now, here's a crazy idea: you should let me take Maggie into custody."

Ross scoffed.

"I'm serious. You need me to find the others. And I can't do it without her. Maggie's a world class tracker, ask anyone. Better than SHIELD ever was."

"You must think I'm an idiot, Stark. I'm not letting your kid sister out-"

"What's she actually done wrong?" Tony asked, his head cocked. "Went after Barnes and Rogers, and found them-"

"And fought on their side to keep them from going to prison," Ross interjected, growing redder in the face.

"Let's just hear her side of the deal," Tony said, even-faced. "Because there's more to the story than you know. You and I should talk to Maggie, separate from the others. Secure as you like."

"We interrogated each of them when they were processed. None of them said anything. You're lucky I'm sending you in to talk to them at all, I'm not bringing her out of her cell, let alone-"

"Trust me," Tony said, facing Ross fully and holding his angry gaze. "You won't regret it. She and I can find Steve and Barnes."

Ross held his gaze for what felt like an hour.

And then: Ross turned to the soldier at the desk. "Have her taken to interrogation room A." He glanced back to Tony, who held back his relieved sigh. "You're on your last chance. If she doesn't give us anything…"

"You might be surprised."

Maggie woke up with a start. She realized, as she sat up on the prison mattress, that it had been Clint calling her name that woke her. There were soldiers at her door.

"Stand up and face the wall!" they shouted, as if she couldn't hear them. "Now!"

Maggie obeyed, kicking free of her blanket and moving to the back wall, her nose almost pressed against the metal. She heard the clank and grind of metal as the cell door behind her opened, and the thuds of the soldiers' footsteps. She felt hands pat her down, as if she might have acquired a weapon in her sleep.

"We've got orders not to cuff you, with your injury, but if you so much as breathe the wrong way, I'll break your other arm," came a gruff voice from behind her.

"Prisoner abuse, nice," Maggie muttered under her breath.

"You what?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, unable to quite wipe the sarcasm from her voice.

Hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her around and out.

"Where are you taking her?" Clint shouted as she was forced into the main chamber. She glanced over her shoulder at him and he pounded a fist on his window. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

Maggie swallowed as she was frogmarched to the exit.

"You'll be okay!" Sam called. "Don't say anything, just stay calm-"

His voice cut off when the door slammed shut behind her.

While the guards moved Maggie, Ross allowed Tony into the cells to talk to the others. See if they let anything loose, he grunted.

The cells were grimmer in person.

Clint started shouting the moment Tony entered; he went above and beyond talking shit, a performance that would convince anybody that he and Tony were not on the same side. Hell, Tony didn't know where the lines were drawn these days. Still, he could practically feel Ross eyeballing him over the cameras, so he gave it back as good as Clint.

You're all grown up, you got a wife and kids. I don't understand, why didn't you think about them before you chose the wrong side?

Scott Lang sniped at him too as he strode past: "Hank Pym always said you never can trust a Stark."

"Who are you?" Tony shot back. He didn't know if it had been the right call bringing Lang in. Poor guy had no idea what he'd walked into.

Sam was calmer than Clint. He asked after Rhodes, then when he was in the middle of proclaiming his never-ending determination to stay quiet, Tony hit the communications disrupter on his watch.

"Huh, I just knocked the A out of their AV. We got about 30 seconds before they realize it's not their equipment."

Sam went quiet, his eyes dark and serious on Tony's face.

Tony explained quickly: the intel from Berlin police about the dead doctor, what he knew about Helmut Zemo.

"Listen, I'm going to do my best to get Maggie outta here, we've got half a plan," he explained in a low voice. Sam's eyes widened incrementally. "But I don't think I can swing it for you guys just yet." He glanced over his shoulder at Wanda's cell. She hadn't even looked up when he entered. His gut churned. "I'm sorry, I promise I'm going to work on it."

Sam looked down, sighed, then looked up again. "Yeah. I kind of figured."

"Before I do, does Maggie know everything we need to go help Steve and Barnes? Any extra intel you're hiding away up there?"

Sam glanced around.

"Tech's still down," Tony reassured him.

"Maggie knows it all. But promise me something: if you go, you go alone and as a friend."

"Easy." Tony stepped back, his finger rising to his watch, but Sam put a hand on the glass.

"Listen."

Tony paused.

Sam levelled a look at him. "Maggie seems to think she's going to be able to fix… all of this. Somehow." He gestured around. "Now this… being here, it sucks, I ain't gonna lie. But I trust Steve, and I know he's got my back." He considered Tony for a few moments. "I want to know that you've got hers."

Tony held his gaze. "Always."

Ross was already waiting outside the interrogation room when the guards led Tony to it.

"Did they give you anything on Rogers?" he called, his brow low and his voice gruff.

"Nope, told me to go to hell," Tony replied lightly. The guards nodded to Ross and then stationed themselves at either end of the corridor.

Tony eyed Ross. There was a reason Ross had let him talk to Wilson and the others, why he'd allowed this meeting with Maggie. By all rights he could have kept him from accessing the Raft at all. But Ross needed a lead as badly as Tony did - this was his first test as Secretary of State and he had two fugitives on the loose.

"Come on," Ross said, heading for the thick slab of a metal door that led into the interrogation room.

"Listen," Tony said, edging in closer so the guards at either end of the corridor couldn't hear. "Before we go in there, you need to know… I didn't want to say this in front of your lackeys. But Maggie's been trying to work Rogers and Barnes."

Ross's brow furrowed. "The hell are you talking about, Stark?"

"She'll explain it. But just… if I know one thing about Maggie, it's that she wants to get to the truth. She knows how to work Rogers. And she can find him."

"Can she now," Ross said flatly as he placed his palm on the scanner by the door.

The scanner bleeped and went green, and a moment later the interrogation room door slid open.

Maggie's head lifted when she heard the door open.

Ross entered first, filling the air inside the small metal room with an uncomfortable, oppressive energy. Frustration and dislike rolled off him like a static cloud. He eyed her flatly as he stepped in, and normally she wouldn't take her eyes off her captor, but in the next moment Tony stepped through the door.

He looked like shit. He'd dressed in a sleek leather jacket and nice trousers, and trimmed his beard, but that couldn't hide the dark bruise under his right eye, the lines on his face, or his left arm immobilised in a sling.

His eyes flicked over her and he couldn't hide his wince: Maggie certainly looked rougher than he did, and she didn't have the nice clothes or makeover to hide it. She sat straight-backed in her prison scrubs, unwashed hair loose around her shoulders and her free arm bolted to the desk she sat at.

"Hey. Twins," she said, gesturing slightly with her left arm in its brace.

His wince deepened.

She felt the crackling energy pouring off of Ross intensify, and she switched her gaze to him.

Gone was the patient, charismatic politician from the Avengers Facility. Ross was all soldier now, standing stiff and grim and eyeing her like a target. But he wasn't stupid. She could see the calculations churning in his eyes, the tight clench to his jaw. She remembered what Wanda had said:

He is a tyrant. He loves power, so he is afraid of those who have more power than him. And he will do anything to get more. You cannot reason with him.

Finally, Ross spoke. "Stark tells me I should let you out here to help him find Rogers and Barnes. Tell me why the hell I should even consider the idea."

Maggie let out a breath and looked down for a moment. I can't reason with him. So maybe I can manipulate him.

She looked up and let her guardedness down. She nodded. "This has all gotten… way out of hand," she sighed. Here goes nothing. "I was there at the United Nations that day to sign the Accords." She watched Ross's every minute expression as she spoke. Tony stood still and silent to Ross's side. "And then there was the bombing, and I got a call from Steve asking me to help him find Barnes; he knows out of all the Avengers, I've got the best shot of finding the unfindable." Ross glowered. "I realized he was going to go against the Accords no matter what. And Steve…" she sighed. "Look, Steve is my friend. I wanted him to sign the Accords, do the right thing, but I knew he wouldn't. So I did the only thing I could think to do to protect both him and the public. I went with him." She shrugged, almost guiltily. "I helped him to bring in Barnes, and when he escaped the JCTC I followed-"

"Do you really expect me to believe this?" Ross snapped.

Maggie nodded, as if that were a reasonable question. "I was in contact with Tony the whole time." She looked to her brother. "Go on, show him."

Tony held her gaze for a moment, then pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and after a moment passed it over to Ross: the screen showed a text thread between him and Maggie. Which, of course, now only showed the parts of the messages that matched their story. Maggie imagined F.R.I.D.A.Y. hadn't had to edit it much at all.

Ross took the phone with an expression that wouldn't have been out of place if he was accepting a dead mouse. He scrolled through the thread of messages, appearing to grow ever more incensed. Maggie saw his fingers go white on the phone.

"You approved this, Stark?" he said in a searing voice, his chin jutting up as he glared at Tony. "This goes against what you agreed to when you signed the Accords-"

"I had to take a little creative license," Tony admitted. "Maggie and I realized that the anti-Accords faction had grown too large, and we needed an inside man - or inside woman, rather - to help bring them in. I had to hope that you'd approve of it once I told you."

Ross slammed the phone down on the table. Maggie flinched. "And you couldn't tell me earlier?" he roared. "Before I had fifty soldiers made useless at Leipzig? Before we lost millions of dollars of tech? You-"

"Can you imagine us having this conversation in the JCTC?" Tony asked. "Either me convincing you would've taken too long and Steve would have slipped away, or word would have leaked back to him. We haven't exactly run the tightest ship, Secretary," he added with arched eyebrows. "Zemo is just the latest example of that."

Maggie frowned at the unfamiliar name, but it had the effect of making Ross's mustache twitch.

"How do you think you guys tracked us to that airport?" she added, in a lower voice. Ross glanced back at her. "I realized things had gone too far, and I tried to isolate a location we could bring them in without hurting civilians."

"And then fought on their side-" Ross began to snarl, but she cut in:

"I did the bare minimum, tried to limit casualties, and then took a dive," she said, showing a frustration she didn't have to fake. "It's not my fault T'Challa brought his emotions into it. I was trying to save his life. Tony might've caught Steve and Barnes if it weren't for him." She felt faintly guilty for throwing T'Challa under the bus with the lies. But there wasn't any reliable footage of that moment in the fight to refute her story. And he wrecked my wing.

She leaned forward. "Seriously, Secretary. You and I don't have much in common, that's clear, but we both agree that this needs to end. We can't have Captain America and the Winter Soldier running around solving their own crimes. It reflects poorly on all of us. It reflects poorly on the Accords." She kept talking, steamrolling whatever argument she could sense brewing on his tongue. "Now they didn't trust me enough to say everything in front of me - Steve's a crafty guy, he's fought in wars before - but I think I can trace them based on some of what they said in front of me. But I can't do it from here." She paused a moment, and tried not to sweat under Ross's glare. "But if you'd prefer they stayed on the run making you look bad, fine by me. The beds here are very comfortable, I'll go back to my nap."

Something funny happened in Ross's face: he was still glaring, but the glare now looked… less angry. More doubtful.

"What's letting me out going to do?" she asked, gesturing with her free arm even though it ached. "I can't make Steve and Barnes any more on the run, and you and I both know I've got some top notch lawyers willing to kick up a stink about me being locked away in the middle of nowhere, no matter what the Accords say. I'm happy to cut a deal right now and help you fix this problem."

A long, long pause passed. Maggie held Ross's gaze, feeling suddenly very small, and injured, and powerless. He had that effect on the people around him. But she did not look away, and she forced herself to keep her casual, reasonable attitude even though her muscles ached and her arm throbbed.

A step behind Ross, Tony stared at the Secretary of State with dark eyes and kept his mouth firmly shut.

The whole room seemed to be holding its breath.

"You'll sign the Accords," Ross finally said.

Maggie fought not to let out a relieved breath. "Of course I'll sign the Accords," she said impatiently. "I thought we were waiting for them to be ratified by the UN."

"They're still in effect-"

"Then yes, once we've brought the fugitives in, I'll do the paperwork."

A muscle in Ross's jaw jumped. "You'll wear a tracker. And you" - he whirled on Tony, whose eyebrows rose - "both of you head straight back to the Avengers Facility, and never leave her side. She goes missing, you take her place in that cell. We'll handle the legalities soon, but for now…" he turned back to Maggie and loomed over her. "You find them. You give their location to us and we bring them in."

"Absolutely," Maggie said, confident and clear. She looked over Ross's shoulder at Tony. He'd gone pale, but was nodding ever so slightly, his eyes wide as he looked back at her.

The moment the helicopter rose out of the top of the Raft, Maggie folded over double and let out a muffled groan into her knees. She barely took a moment to marvel at the hulking structure floating in the ocean.

"Same," Tony breathed. Rain lashed the outside of the helicopter, almost louder than the churning rotors. "I can't believe that worked." This had been their worst-case scenario plan, when they'd schemed rapidly in the ruined JCTC cafeteria. And though it got Maggie out of prison, it created more problems than it fixed.

"I hate him," Maggie said as she rose back to a sitting position. She sat opposite Tony, still in her prison scrubs and with a chunky black ankle monitor strapped to her left leg. Her eyes fell on her brother. "Are you okay? How's Rhodey? Did Natasha-"

"I'm fine, Rhodey's in surgery now but outcomes are okay, Natasha's gone AWOL, probably for the best. Vision's facing an Accords enquiry. How are you?" His eyes fixed on her arm in the brace.

"Fractured arm, hurts but I'll be fine." She let out a breath. "Tony, we've got five functional limbs between us, I've got no wings, and our terrible plan landed most of our friends in prison-"

"I know, I know," he leaned forward. "We'll fix it. But we gotta go back up Steve. Where's he headed?"

"Siberia," she said instantly. "An old HYDRA base. I can log the coordinates now, but… Bucky said there are five more Winter Soldiers that can be controlled like he was. Worse, he said. They've been cryogenically frozen since the nineties, ready to be activated. That doctor must-"

"Zemo. He's not a doctor." She frowned, and Tony quickly relayed everything he knew - the assassination of the real doctor, the evidence for Bucky's framing, Helmut Zemo's background.

"And Ross knows this? Why isn't he-"

"Ross didn't listen. If he admits I'm right then he admits he failed. Same with the Leipzig fight, he's putting all of that on me, even though he sent those troops in. He was ordering assassinations, Mags, we can't talk him down." Tony shook his head. "The Berlin police and the JTTF are investigating now, but Ross won't listen in time to make any difference."

Maggie leaned back in her seat and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting off a stress headache.

"So… Siberia then," Tony sighed. "Four of us against five Winter Soldiers and one Sokovian Armed Forces commander - we could probably swing that, injuries or no. Those Winter Soldiers got iced in the nineties? They've never heard of Iron Man then; one missile and problem sorted. We are Avengers," he added, with a hint of humor.

"You're an Avenger. We're outlaws."

"No, Ross can't take that away. The Accords can't take that away."

Maggie opened her eyes to find her brother staring soberly back at her. She hadn't heard him talk like that about the Accords before. She opened her mouth, then shut it. No time to talk about that.

"Siberia, then."

He nodded once. "Give me your ankle."

She propped her foot up on the seat beside him, and he tapped his phone against the metal of her tracker.

"Okay, that's going to look like it's on its way to New York. So's the helicopter. Now…" he tapped at his watch. "You ready?"

"Ready for what?"

He hit a button on the armrest beside him, and Maggie yelped as the seat behind her moved. Metal slid out and banded around her chest and over her shoulders and she instinctively pulled away - until she saw opposite her metal sliding over Tony as well in the familiar shape of the Iron Man suit. She let out a breath as a metal helmet and mask slid up over her head, tense despite herself. Within seconds she was encased, metal even cinching carefully over the brace on her left arm. A HUD blinked to life before her eyes. WELCOME, MS STARK it read.

Then her stomach dropped as the entire seat behind her simply fell backwards.

She toppled out of the helicopter into the storm-tossed sky with limbs flailing and a scream lodged in her throat.

"Would you like me to fly on autopilot, Ms Stark?" F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice chimed in her ears.

Maggie instinctively got into her skydiving pose - arms and legs spread, catching the air beneath her. She hadn't expected to be falling through the air again so soon. It took her a moment, but then she recalled how to fly an Iron Man suit from her very infrequent experience: she fired up all four repulsors and jetted upward, the HUD instantly locating Tony.

He hovered in midair, eyeslits glowing white-blue in his golden faceplate as he watched her.

"See, you were ready," he called over the commlink.

"I don't like flying in your clunky metal suits," she replied, spreading her hands and wobbling slightly as she attempted to hover. She could see the arms of the suit she wore; not Tony's standard red and gold. The suit was almost jet black, with dark red panelling where the gold would have been on Tony's suit. My colours. She craned her neck downward and was just able to make out the glowing arc reactor in the armor's chest. The Wyvern logo had been painted over the reactor: the suggestion of two wings in the shape of a W. "Did you… make this for me?"

"Thought it might come in handy one day," Tony said, and his suit shrugged in midair. "I know you won't keep it."

"It has boob room," she noted.

"Do you want to keep hanging out here, or…?"

"Right." Maggie relayed the coordinates Bucky had given her to F.R.I.D.A.Y. "Fastest wins."

With two sonic booms, she and Tony rocketed across the sky.

Unbeknownst to the two Iron Man suits arcing east, a Wakandan aircraft soared behind them, shrouded by clouds and cloaking technology that surpassed the tracking technology of the Stark suits.

T'Challa watched the bright burn of their repulsors as he guided his ship onward. Be my beacon, he urged them. Time for this to end.

Iron Wyvern!

Reviews

Strawberrycheese: thank you so much, I do enjoy writing fight scenes!

Eennio: Glad you enjoyed it!

Shortrooper: Thanks so much! I do love writing the fight scenes and this time around was no different - so I'm glad you enjoyed that :) And it's been fun working in all the new changes - like Ross's soldiers on the ground, that was definitely a challenge. Thanks very much and can't wait to see what you think of this chapter!