It had been a week and a half and Maggie had been trying to adapt to her new environment. This had proven difficult, since she had learned they were mourning. Everybody had lost someone they loved in what seemed like a catastrophic cosmic event. Nobody gave her the full version, but she gathered some details here and there and began to piece together what had happened before her arrival. She wanted to mourn as well, the loss of her previous life and how everything she knew and held dear had crumbled, but she felt her sadness would be deemed an offense and decided not to show it. Maggie had been on autopilot for the past days, freezing her thoughts about what had happened. She didn't want to make sense of her situation, at least not yet. She was lost.

People had started warming up to her, especially Shuri and Bruce, who were helping her try to grasp what her new life would be like. She was still met with suspicion, but she figured this would never really go away and decided not to let it bother her, at least not too much. What was really troubling her was the lack of rest she was getting at night. She had been dreaming about the orange abyss consistently, every night; and she was sure she was talking with someone, but she didn't know who.

"Penny for your thoughts."

"Huh?"

Bruce sat in front of her with two dishes filled with food, pushing one of them towards her. Maggie eyed the dish and mentally agreed with herself that she could never grow tired of this food.

"I was just zoning out, you know?" She grabbed a bite and didn't wait to properly chew to speak again. "You?"

He squinted at her and reprimanded her lack of manners with a look. "Preparing the next trial, we're having some difficulties."

"What kind of difficulties?"

"Not everyone agrees with you being our guinea pig."

She knew who Bruce meant by "everyone". It was Steve, the Captain. He had made sure to keep his distance with her, and although he wasn't rude, she knew this wasn't out of kindness.

"So what? I agree, and Shuri and you agree. Who else do we need, you're the ones doing the trials." She paused and evaluated his response. "If I'm a guinea pig that's entirely my business."

With a soft smile, the same kind her mentor used to give her, he continued eating.

"How's it going with Shuri?" Maggie knew it was a challenging time for her as next in line to the throne of Wakanda, after her brother's death.

"Well, not everyone is agreeing on that matter either. What do you think?"

"Nice girl, lots of potential." She munched at the piece of bread. "Never agreed with monarchies though."

"I guess it's a bit more complicated than that." He almost chastised her.

Maggie furrowed her brows and picked at the remaining of the loaf of bread. She had never been interested in politics, and foreign politics seemed even more complicated for that matter. She figured that she wasn't in the position to give her opinion, as she didn't know enough to have a valid one. However, deep in her heart, she felt sorry for Shuri; the kid had just lost her brother, and now this enormous responsibility rested on her shoulders.

"Anyways, back to the trials." With a full stomach, she leaned against the backrest of the chair. "Anything interesting? Worth sharing?"

"Apart from the radiation levels, everything is normal. Your blood, tissues, brain scans… everything came back normal." Bruce smiled with amusement. "You're just a typical Plain Jane."

"Gee, thanks Doc." Eyes widened with superficial sarcasm, she picked up the plate and prepared to leave the room.

"I meant," he quickly backed up "morphologically speaking."

She directed a final smile at him and proceeded to head back to her quarters.

"Try to relax, your heart rate is about to go through the roof."

Maggie gripped at the controls and tried to stabilize the aircraft. They were testing a new simulation, a project in the works that would make space travel faster and easier, and she had the honor to try it out. The difficult part of the prototype would be to correctly connect her "brain" to the command board, so Shuri had thrown her into the dark room and connected her to the simulator while she perfected her calculations. Bruce was also helping, although the girl's territorialism over her workspace reduced him to more of a supervisor.

"I don't get it, why does this thing have a steering wheel if I'm driving it with my mind?" Maggie shuffled through the space dumpster, trying not to hit any rocks.

"Because your mind is still connected to your body." Her voice resonated through the headset. "It's complicated, but it grounds you. If you were to pilot it just with your mind it would feel like you're dreaming, and you'd lose your sense of reality. This way you won't crash."

"Got it."

She was carefully dodging the pieces in her trajectory when a loud noise jerked her and she lost control of the aircraft. Maggie felt a wave of electricity run through her body when she hit a piece of space debris in the simulation. Losing control, she was spinning in the darkness of space, lights flashing in a strobe-like manner. She had to close her eyes in order to avoid throwing up her previous lunch. When the room lit up again and the images disappeared, meaning the trial had abruptly stopped, she took off the seat harness and exited the room.

"What the hell, man, I almost-" She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the scene unfolding in front of her eyes.

Steve was fuming, a look of authority and determination across his face, while Natasha stood by his side almost emotionless. Maggie was sure this, somehow, had to do with her. It always seemed to be her, like her sole presence was the reason behind his eternal scowl. And that irritated her to no end.

"I told you, Banner. No, I warned you. This crosses the line."

"She is a cadet of the US Air Force, Captain, she is more than prepared to continue her training." It seemed like Colonel Rhodes was on her side for once. "And weren't you just a cadet when you took your first steps towards being the symbol of a nation?"

"That's not what this is about, we agreed she would be kept away from these trials."

"No, you commanded she would not participate, no one came to an agreement."

The men fulminated each other with their eyes. She knew that this confrontation was superficial, that all of them held each other in high esteem, but she also knew that there was an underlying issue she was not aware of yet. And whatever it was, that old wound was causing rifts in what could be a perfectly working engine.

"Well, let's come to an agreement now then." Steve avoided looking at her. "She should stay out of these trials, and you" he pointed at the Colonel "should take her place. After all, you're the real pilot here."

"What is your problem, Steve?" Bruce blurted out.

"Why are you defending her Banner?" he retorted.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps because I know what it's like to wake up in a different world and everything be hostile towards you?" Maggie's brows raised at his revelation, and she made a mental note to ask him later about it. "And you of all people should too."

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence before Steve broke it again.

"We're not letting a kid in."

"Why not? You let Wanda in, and she literally worked with Nazis." an audible gasp was heard, although she wasn't sure who made it. And Maggie could not help but try to shy away from the whole confrontation by opening her mouth.

"Loooots of pent-up anger." She muttered drifting as she moved towards the exit.

The Captain finally looked at her and although she could see anger in his eyes, she noticed a spark of something else hidden away. Remorse, tiredness… fear?

"And you've seen how that's ended. You've seen what has happened when you put too much weight on young shoulders." Steve looked back at Bruce as he lowered his voice and let the confrontational tone fall. "We" he emphasized, "won't be responsible for another young man's grave."

He left the room, followed by the Widow, as everyone looked away uncomfortably. And in that moment, Maggie realized that perhaps she had judged the Captain wrong.

"Look at the bright side," Shuri tried to cheer her up as she headed back to her room "if they don't want you to be part of their group you don't need a ridiculous superhero name anymore. Can you imagine?"

Although Maggie was sure that she would never be a part of their team, and even less in just two weeks, the lack of acceptance did hurt her. She had always longed to be part of something greater, and this had felt like her chance to prove herself. Besides, there must have been some sort of ulterior motive to her arrival if she literally fell from the sky to them. But in the bottom of her soul she felt unprepared, unfit, undeserving. She was simply not ready.

"At first we thought you were an alien, so what could it be then? Supernova? Meteorite?"

"Space Trash?" she interrupted the girl.

They stared at each other for a second before erupting in laughter, and Maggie's heart felt a little bit lighter from all the sadness she was being sucked in.

"Listen," she put her hand on her shoulder "I don't care about them, you're fun to be around and I'm happy you're here."

Maggie's smile reached her eyes and she raised her hand to lightly squeeze hers back. "Thanks, Princess."

"Get some rest."

She closed the door behind her and got ready to have a small refreshing nap. Getting into bed, it took no longer than a couple of minutes for her to fall asleep and drift into the orange abyss she had been constantly dreaming of. She would make sure to remember this time, she couldn't forget again what happened when she was in the vastless space. Maggie was just floating through the mist, a weightless sensation upon her body. She did enjoy the feeling of carelessness whenever she visited the place, but felt something creeping up, something that was hidden, that she couldn't see but she could feel.

"Oh, I didn't know if you'd come back."

Maggie turned around and smiled at him, waving her hand dismissively.

"I always come back, Peter."

Thanks everyone for the lovely reviews! It's been busy, but the next chapter will be uploaded later on towards the end of the week.

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