Several days passed at the compound, and each day the members of the team continued their endless practice and preparation for their inevitable encounter with Thanos.
"Why do you think we haven't heard from the Guardians yet" Bucky asked as he went through the motions of reloading his gun for another round of target practice. Bucky and Sam had been using mobile targets to practice their accuracy while on the move. The cut-outs were pretty much toast, so today, Tony had set up an obstacle course for the two men that required them to face off against both stationary targets that popped up at a moment's notice as well as mobile targets that required accuracy; the kicker, they were all digital, so it gave an element of surprise. Plus they were reusable and there were harder levels, so you could make it more challenging. It was almost like playing that laser tag game that Sam had taken Bucky to on Coney Island one time.
The boys had played that game multiple times and each time an annoying little red-haired boy had found a way to sneak up behind Buck to zap his vest and eliminate him. To say Bucky left the game frustrated was an understatement. Sam on the other hand found it hilarious.
"I wish I knew. It's making me a little nervous if I'm honest with you." Sam reset the course and upped the skill level half a degree. Already, the opponents could reach out and touch you which of course set your vest off as a hit as well. Much higher and the bad guys might as well take physical form.
Stepping into the arena, Bucky and Sam took a teammate stance that allowed them both to cover the other's six. This meant no matter what direction they traveled no one could sneak up behind them. Round after round was fired off as new aliens and wizards popped up, each requiring a split second decision for you to make them as friend or foe. The two men took the drill very seriously.
So imagine their surprise when digital versions of both Wanda and Madison suddenly landed in their field of vision. Both men registered their teammates and quickly stepped in front of them to defend them from the game's opponents. The digital women followed closely, their gaming instructions to not interfere but only to be another added requirement for the soldiers to consider as they defended their positions.
Bucky wasn't ready for what happened next as he heard Madison scream his name. Whipping around Bucky was faced with his worst nightmare, Madison was in the clutches of Thanos. His hulking arm wrapped snuggly around her shoulders and under her chin so that she couldn't raise her hands to defend herself. He stood terrified as he watched her eyes fill with terror and eventually tears as her breathing became more labored. Kicking and struggling against the hulking brute, she didn't stand a chance and Bucky couldn't seem to snap himself out of the moment to even attempt to defend her.
A shot rang out making Bucky jump, snapping him out of the trance he had been in watching Madison's small body struggle under Thanos' strength. Although the shot pierced Thanos' head and he lay now on the ground motionless…so did Madison. Her lifeless eyes seemed to be staring straight at Bucky as he fell to his knees.
"You gotta be ready for this, Buck." Bucky could hear Steve's voice call to him from the overhead speakers of the arena that held the digital course.
A moment later Steve knelt down next to his friend so he could look him in the eyes. The image of Madison now gone, but Bucky was still fighting with what he had just seen.
"Every time someone said your name to me, every time, I'd freeze up." Bucky finally looked at Steve who was on his level trying to speak to him. "One time I even missed a bomb that had Wanda not been able to contain, I'd be gone right now."
Bucky couldn't take it, he looked down at the ground as his eyes filled with tears. "You have to still be able to perform, to pull that trigger if necessary, even if you see something like that." Steve's hand rested on his friends shoulder. He knew what Bucky was currently dealing with and knew he had to reach him with the severity of the moment. "It could mean the difference between life and death, for you…" Steve gently shook his friend to gain his attention. Bucky looked to Steve, tears rolling down his cheek, "or her." He was barely able to get the words out of his own mouth, so he had an inkling of what Bucky must be going through at the moment. Madison was Bucky's girlfriend, but she was also Steve's child in every sense of the word, so he knew how he was struggling.
Steve struggled with Tony's choice in putting this setting in the training program. Tony hadn't warned anyone but Steve that this was in the programming, only that there were things like this each member that used it would have to prepare for, even himself. Tony was equally shocked and like Bucky failed his attempt to pass the level when the game provided a terrorized Pepper before him. Each member had to be faced with their worst nightmares so that if that time ever did come, they would hopefully be able to provide a response that would allow all parties to survive. As it stood, no one had passed this level of the simulation. Everyone had a weakness.
"How about we all take a break. Clear our heads." Steve looked to Sam, who nodded his head in agreement. Sam watched his friend continue to process the digital image of his girlfriend being killed by this new threat. "We'll come back and try again in an hour."
Bucky was finally able to get to his feet as he stumbled slightly to the table to set his weapon down. "What's going on in your head right now," Sam asked from Bucky's side. The counselor side of him pushing forward wanting to help his friend deal.
Trying desperately to gain his composure, Bucky took several deep breaths before he found he could finally speak.
"What if all of this is for nothing, Sam? What if we face off against this Thanos, asshole and he still manages to find a way to win?" Bucky turned to Sam, looking his friend dead in the eyes as he added, "What if Madison has to face off against him and even with all of these powers she's been loaded up with, it's still not enough and she…". Bucky couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud. It was tearing him up just to think them.
"We took this on, we're the soldiers…not her." Bucky covered his face with his hands, too ashamed to show Sam how much this was affecting him as he knelt to the ground, the weight of it all too heavy to bear. The very thought of the happiness Bucky was finally getting a taste of being yanked out from underneath him was just too much.
"You're right," Sam begrudgingly admitted to his friend. This wasn't what Bucky was expecting. Sam always had uplifting words for him. Looking at his friend expectantly, Bucky waited for the hope that Sam always seemed to have.
"She's not a soldier. But she's got the heart of a champion and she's going into this with her eyes wide open. You gotta remember, she's already seen this happen to her own world and she's here, fighting by our side…by your side, so that she doesn't have to see it happen again to anyone else." Sam took a deep breath and stood to his feet. Looking across the wide yard, Sam could barely make out Madison and Clint sparing with one another. "So we've got to do everything in our power to fight the best fight possible."
"And if we lose," Bucky muttered, looking up at Sam who stood before him.
Sam reached down for Bucky, gripping his right hand and pulling him to stand before him, "Then we'll do that together too."
That night Bucky spent it alone locked away in his bedroom. He didn't eat, didn't come out when the group settled into the theater for a movie, nothing. Sam tried to explain to Madison what had happened on the course, how much it had affected Bucky. This of course worried her so much she sat outside of Bucky's room talking to the door with little to no response from inside. Occasionally she'd hear a sniffle or what she imagined was Bucky banging his head against the wall. She could practically feel him even through the closed door, so Madison knew he was close.
Steve watched his daughter try to coax Bucky into coming out or at least to letting her in, but to no avail. When Bucky wanted to be stubborn he definitely could be. The only glimmer of hope came around midnight when Natasha stormed passed Steve and down the hall towards Madison with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk in her hands. Kneeling down beside her daughter Steve could hear her whisper, "If this doesn't draw him out, nothing will."
Her tone sounded harsh, but the look on Madison's face as she looked up at Nat told Steve a different story. Natasha loved Madison and Bucky, in her own way, and wasn't about to watch as they suffered. Natasha lovingly tucked a few loose strands of Madison's hair behind her ear before she stood and walked away. Before she could walk too far way, Steve pulled Natasha into a hug. They both watched as Madison slipped one cookie after another under the door on a napkin, trying to entice her stubborn, hurting boyfriend to open up. It wasn't until she put two cookies out that he finally pulled the napkin under the door.
This of course made Madison smile because it was perhaps a minute later that you could see the door to Bucky's room open slightly, giving Madison the invitation she needed. Cookies and milk in hand, she slipped into Bucky's room and closed the door.
Turning away from the sight, Steve walked with Nat back to the kitchen. "So if Oreo's apparently make you feel better, what do Chip's Ahoy do for you," Steve smirked as he looked to Nat.
"There's a brand new bag in the pantry, I think we should find out." Nat laughed as she hurried away towards the kitchen causing Steve to laugh and give chase after.
Two more days passed before a message was finally picked up by FRIDAY on the wide space scan she had been running. News from the Guardians was not good. They had arrived at Knowhere seemingly just in time to be able to retrieve the reality stone. Unfortunately, they would learn the hard way that wasn't true and Thanos was actually waiting for them. He had altered reality with the stone in an attempt to gain more information about the location of the other stones. He figured someone would come eventually to retrieve it and then he would strike.
The blow that came next was hard for everyone to hear. Gamora had been taken by Thanos. Quill did the best he could to recount the whole story of what happened, but he was completely destroyed by the loss and had to stop mid story. Rocket filled in the rest of the details as best he could, but he too seemed noticeably broken by the loss of his teammate and friend. In the end, everyone was rocked with the knowledge that the soul stone actually could be retrieved and Gamora was the only one who knew how to reach it.
In his story, Rocket also explained how Thanos had a glove, a gauntlet of sorts that he was using to be able to wield the power of the stones all at one time. He described the terrible surge of energy that seemed to pulse through Thanos as he added the new stone to the glove. Tony and Bruce took this new information as something to work with to begin building a similar item of their own to house the stones the team had already collected. The rest of the team seemed to hear something else…whoever ended up having to use the gauntlet was going to require a great deal of strength to be able to survive its use.
One by one each member's gaze slowly turned to Madison as they all realized the truth. She and possibly Bruce were the only ones close to being strong enough to wield the power of the stones when they were at full strength…and neither of them was ready for it.
Before anyone realized it an entire month had come and gone since Madison first arrived throwing everyone's world into a whirlwind. The team spent almost every waking hour training and strategizing different plans and methods to take on Thanos. The new department that Fury was running, Guardian, was able to gather more information regarding worlds Thanos had attacked and essentially destroyed by mass genocide disguised as his form of mercy. Each new batch of Intel seemed all to say the same, he was virtually impossible to kill and just as hard to defend against.
Every couple of days Tony seemed to have some new training program for Madison to attempt. For the most part, Madison had been an apt pupil and was practically absorbing the different techniques. She had also picked up some new, unintentional powers along the way.
One day while practicing levitation with Wanda, Madison had lost the control she had when a large bang from outside had broken her concentration. She had unknowingly floated too far to the edge of the stairs and was about to take a very long tumble down several flights, but not before Loki had appeared seemingly out of thin air. Grabbing Madison just in the nick of time, Loki set her gently back on her feet, steadying her before giving Madison one of his more kind smiles. It wasn't until Madison jolted slightly that they both realized what had happened. And it was seconds later as Madison duplicated herself five times over around the room that Loki spoke, "Oops, I swear that was an accident."
It was odd to hear Madison exclaim, "Aww, damn it," in stereo as all six Madison's spoke at the same time. So for the rest of the afternoon, Loki worked with Madison to learn to control her new powers of the trickster/witch (although he constantly said he wasn't a witch). After thirty minutes of learning to 'pull herself back together' as Tony referred to it, Madison learned to manipulate what others saw through illusion casting, could produce daggers out of thin air, teleportation, which unfortunately caused her to throw up the first time she did it, and even learned to use astral projection. Hypnotizing and reading others thoughts were fairly easy to master since they were so close to Wanda's powers which Madison had already copied, so she didn't need much practice with them.
"For a human, you pick things up rather quickly," Loki said as he smiled at Madison as her body slowly continued to shift back to this reality. "I will say though, if you didn't have the super soldier genes from your dear old dad," Loki grinned mischievously at Steve, "I don't believe your body would be able to tolerate all that you are absorbing."
Madison was too in awe of watching her hands slowly re-materialize from her latest astral projection to the ice cream parlor in town she and Bucky had visited previously to really hear what Loki was going on about. But Bruce heard him, which only got him thinking about the latest blood work he had run on Madison.
"So you believe her ability to recover so fast is connected to her serum enhanced genes from Steve being her father?" Bruce's question drew the attention of Tony who himself had been focused on other things than the right here and now.
"Well obviously," Loki said, scoffing slightly at the obviousness of the situation. "If she weren't part super soldier already, she would have died from exhaustion after receiving my powers. I am a god after all." The smile and the puffing of his chest caused Thor to laugh aloud, "brother you are no more a true god than I am a winged bilgesnipe."
The expressions on everyone's faces was comical to say the least. "A bilgesnipe, don't you have those here? About the size of car, with long shaggy hair. Stinks to high heaven, shrieks as it gets closer to its prey. No?" Both Tony and Bruce shook their heads at Thor's description of this strange beast.
"It doesn't matter. Asgardians have a very high tolerance for mystical powers. It is true though that Madison's inherited strength does give her the added edge. In fact, I'm actually surprised she isn't waning more from the exertion of skill she's been exemplifying as of late." Thor walked to Madison's side and pulled her into a side hug, squishing her close. "But this little one may end up surprising us after all."
That night it was apparently Madison's turn to be burdened with the weight of the world on her shoulders as she sat on the dock watching the sun go down over the horizon. Bucky, her ever present guardian, stood back watching her from a distance. He was torn between going to her and offering comfort as best he could, and allowing her to sit on her own in peace to think. The decision was made for him as Bucky watched Natasha slowly make her way down the pier towards her daughter. Although Maddie didn't turn when Nat approached, she didn't seem surprised when Nat sat next to her. Knowing Madison was in good hands, Bucky headed back inside.
"Penny for your thoughts," Nat said, gently bumping Maddie's shoulder with her own.
"I'm not sure they are worth that much to be honest," Maddie said, giving Nat a sad smile back.
Both women sat in silence together, neither really wanting to talk about the giant elephant in the room. So instead, Nat decided to talk about something she hoped Madison would find more pleasant. "Tell me about me as a mom." It sounded strange even saying it that way but Maddie knew what she was getting at. After a moment of thought she began.
"You were amazing. You always found ways to make me laugh. Having a super soldier and a world renowned spy as your parents definitely caused others to treat me differently that's for sure." Madison chuckled as she continued, "there was this one time, I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7, I had a boy at school who just would not leave me alone on the playground. I came home and told you about it and you told me next time he bothered me to kick his ass if I wanted to, but that no matter what I chose to do, you'd always have my back."
Both women smiled warmly to one another, "you told me later on that you had been standing behind a tree not far out of sight and had watched the whole thing. That you were really proud of me for walking away from the fight instead of always allowing my temper to get the better of me."
"You and dad would trade off on putting me to bed at night. I realized later that the trading off often coincided with one of you being away on a mission that day and you hadn't gotten home yet."
"Sounds like you had a pretty decent childhood," Nat said, looking at Madison's profile. It was so easy to see that she got the perfect mixture of features from both Steve and herself. Thankfully, Madison had gotten her nose and not Steve's, strong Roman one. The red hair and fair complexion were all her, the high cheekbones and full lips were easily Steve's, but the light dusting of freckles, that was completely her own.
"I did. It was a great life…until," Madison's expression had turned sad suddenly as Nat realized what she must be remembering.
"Tell me," Natasha whispered low, just loud enough for Madison to hear.
"It was late in the afternoon. No one saw it coming. We had no warning really. It was just like suddenly you were there and then the next thing I knew, Dad was looking franticly for me. That's the way it was around here when I was little. Everyone shielded everything they could from me. I wouldn't know that a major mission or battle had occurred often until it was long over. It rarely ever affected my everyday life."
"How is that possible that it was kept from you, from involving you?" Natasha was baffled that the constantly hectic and often violent and destructive life the Avengers had led was ever able to be hidden from anyone. It seemed like they were always on the front page of a newspaper or tv.
"You and dad wanted me to be a normal kid, to do normal things. You didn't want me to feel the pressures of being a superhero's kid," Madison turned to Nat and smiled.
"There was always someone to pick me up from school. Someone was always there to see me off in the mornings. You or dad always took me shopping or to the library or ballgames, whatever I wanted. So it really through me for a loop when that afternoon no one came home. I called your cellphone but it just rang and rang, I called dad's and it did the same. It wasn't long before the switchboard became jammed and no calls were going through. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat there and waited. It kept getting later and later, darker and darker. I was alone at the house."
Natasha frowned as she realized she was crying as she listened to Madison's recounting of the day her world changed so dramatically.
"I lost so many people that day, but none of them hurt as much as when dad told me you weren't coming home."
Madison wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve as she sniffled. Her mom was here with her right now, she didn't have to be sad. But retelling the story of that day still tore at her heart as she remembered the great sense of personal loss she felt, much less the loss she watched her father suffer through.
Nat wrapped her arms around Madison, hugging her close. As she pulled away slightly, she rested her forehead against Madison's and made her a promise, "we won't let that happen this time…I promise."