Hope you all had a great holidays!
Reviews
DBZFAN45: Glad you enjoyed the back and forth with Zemo! Hope you enjoy this chapter :)
shorttrooper: Thank you as always for your lovely reviews and your support! Enjoy this chapter, hope you had a wonderful holidays.
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
Maggie had not been on so many planes in a long time. She'd booked a window seat this time, and Bucky had sat, smiling, her hand in his as he watched her stare out the window as they rose up through the clouds and into the brilliantly blue sky.
It was night now, and she'd closed the window to keep out the radiating chill. They'd watched an in-flight movie together - Gone With the Wind, because Bucky had wanted the familiarity of something he'd watched growing up - and now they leaned together, swaddled in blankets, in the resonant hum of the quiet cabin.
"Doll," Bucky murmured. "I've been meaning to thank you."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Thanks… for your patience." She shuffled a little so she could see his face. She frowned at him. "With my list. I know you think it'd be healthier for me to move on, but-"
"I never said that," she protested.
"Okay, but you have moved on."
"I wouldn't call it moving on," she said, wrapping her fingers around the warm metal of his arm. "You can never leave a past like ours behind. But I had my chance to process, and make amends, during my trial. With HERACLES, I got to work through kind of a list of my own victims, my own tormentors. You didn't get to do that, and I know you need that process, painful as it may be. And I'll wait as long as you need. Heaven knows I've got my own stuff to work on."
He kissed the top of her head, and they lapsed into silence again. Maggie traced the patterns of his arm, thinking. She thought he'd gone to sleep, because his breathing had evened out, so she almost flinched when he spoke again ten minutes later.
"Why don't you fly anymore?"
Maggie stilled. "I… hadn't realized you'd noticed." She hadn't even really allowed herself to think about it yet. Her stomach twisted.
"We've always noticed everything about each other," he said simply. "We might have got a bit slow at it lately, but of course I'd notice that."
She frowned, and another long silence passed. Bucky breathed long and slow - she could tell he was giving her time to think. He always knew when she needed that patience.
"It's complicated," she finally said, and pulled her head off his shoulder, blankets rustling. "It hasn't been a conscious decision."
Bucky turned to face her. "Do you miss it?"
She blew out a breath. "Yes. I - that's complicated too."
He took a long look at her, sea-grey eyes piercing her defences. "Just because you've got wings, doesn't mean you have to fly away."
She looked at him sharply. "I-"
"I know the promise you made to Tony," he murmured, and her stomach flipped again. "I know you promised to stay. Do you really think he'd think you'd broken that promise by flying?"
She swallowed and looked down. She knew that no one else could have read her as perfectly as he just had, and though she loved him for it, her stomach wouldn't stop twisting. "I've… shrunk very small, Bucky," she whispered. "I used to be - I used to be the Wyvern. I know I still am, but most days I feel like I've burned down to nothing."
For a moment he just looked at her, his eyes shifting, baring hidden depths he revealed only to her. She loved that look: like he was seeing her for the first time. Then he put his metal arm around her and pulled her close again, kissing the side of her head. "You have always been, and always will be, larger than life," he told her. "You're just… I don't know. Reforming, somehow. Some things have to get burned down before they can grow back."
"I certainly feel burned," she whispered, pressing into his warmth.
"I can't wait to see what you become next," he murmured. "Flying, not flying, big, small."
Baltimore, Maryland
Isaiah was in his garden, potting plants in the pale yellow light of a lamp, when Sam found him. Insects buzzed in the night time quiet.
I need to understand, Sam had said. And Isaiah was bitter, but seemed less angry than the last time. Maybe because Bucky wasn't here. Maybe because he felt safer in the near-darkness. So Isaiah began to tell his story. After a while they went inside, and Isaiah opened a box full of photographs and letters.
Isaiah weeped when he spoke about his brothers in arms, who had been betrayed by their country. About his wife, who saved his life and then was torn from him and lied to. Who wrote him letters he never saw until after she died. About how his name had been buried.
"They were worried my story might get out. So… they erased me." Isaiah's mouth trembled, and Sam watched him claw back the strength to keep talking. Sam looked down. "My history. But they've been doing that for 500 years." Isaiah chuckled without humor. "Pledge allegiance to that, my brother."
Isaiah took a breath. "They will never let a black man be Captain America," he said with a slow emphasis that made Sam look up to meet his eyes. "And even if they did, no self respecting black man would ever want to be."
Sam left with a heavy heart, and a cold shield in his hands.
"Sarah," he murmured, when his phone call picked up. "I'm coming home."
May 10, 2024
Upstate New York
Pepper was relieved to see Maggie and Bucky back whole, though her face creased with concern when she looked over them where they stood on her doorstep. Some of their injuries had yet to fade. Maggie stepped forward and hugged her in a silent apology. Pepper had lost too much to violence, and she was sorry to make her afraid it would happen again.
"I'll see you inside," Bucky murmured, touching Maggie's back as he stepped into the house.
Pepper gripped Maggie tight, took three deep breaths, then pulled away with a smile. Her pale red hair glowed in the spring sunshine, and Maggie felt some of the weight ease off her shoulders. "I'm proud of you," Pepper murmured.
"We didn't win."
"No, but you will." Pepper glanced over her shoulder; inside the house, down the corridor, Morgan had dashed out and been picked up by Bucky in a squealing, spinning hug. Artemis clattered out a moment later and barked at Bucky's feet, desperate for attention. "You're not back for long, are you?"
"No," Maggie sighed. "We're headed to Louisiana tomorrow. Is it okay if Artemis stays here?"
"Of course it is," Pepper squeezed her arm. "If Morgan had her way, she'd live here instead of your house anyway."
Maggie laughed and kissed her sister-in-law's cheek.
"You seem…" Pepper eyed her. "Something's different."
"I think I've realized how afraid I've been these past few months," Maggie murmured, watching as a red-faced Morgan talked non-stop, gripping Bucky's shoulders. Bucky smiled and nodded along. "I didn't realize that's what was keeping me… trapped, but I think that's what it was. I mean - I'm not trapped here, that's not what I-"
"I know what you mean," Pepper soothed, rubbing her back. "Tony was the same. He loved it here, it was home, but he always needed…" she frowned. "Freedom, I suppose. And the only person who could grant it to him was himself."
"I thought my freedom was in being able to stay here forever. To stop running. But I don't think it is." Maggie sighed.
"Will you leave then, do you think?" Pepper asked. Understanding, but sad.
"No, god no. This is home." Maggie looked out at the lake, at the sunlight filtering through the trees, in the direction of her and Bucky's house. She drew in a deep breath of air, feeling more fear ebb away, shedding from her like a second skin. She looked back at Pepper, then Morgan. "And I promised to stay. But…" she blew out a breath. "I'm starting to realize that I don't think Tony meant stay and never leave. I think he meant… to keep coming back."
"That's what a home is, I suppose," Pepper smiled. "You're far too complicated and clever to stay stuck doing one thing forever, Maggie. If not for the world's sake, but for yours… go out there and keep making it better."
"You," Maggie said, "are very wise." Down the corridor, Bucky finally set Morgan down, and allowed Artemis to leap into his arms.
"Call it decades of practice with Stark brains," Pepper laughed.
"Here's to decades more," Maggie said, crouching down just as her niece raced down the length of the corridor to fling herself at her. "Hello, Morrigan," she smiled, kissing the head of thick dark hair and her heart warming when she felt small hands close around the back of her neck. "Have you been good for your mom?"
"No!"
"That's my girl," Maggie laughed. She stood, lifting Morgan easily, and turned to look at Pepper. "By the way, I might need your help with something. And I might need you to lean on your political connections."
Pepper's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
Delacroix, Louisiana
"Listen to me," Sam told his sister. "Don't worry, I'm gonna fix the boat."
She laughed. "Aren't you supposed to be off saving the world? Why are you back here bothering me?" She'd forgiven him for her terrified night of fleeing the town. Apparently her and Happy Hogan had gotten along well. Now they were just left with the same old problem of the boat, which was apparently too broken to try to sell.
"Cause my family's wellbeing is a part of the world," he shot back.
She smacked her lips. "So… you're waiting for a lead."
He rested against the kitchen countertop, slightly sweaty from the warming Louisiana weather. "And the government stepped in and took control and kind of benched us."
She rolled her eyes.
May 11, 2024
Delacroix, Louisiana
Maggie stood on the boardwalk of a bustling pier, hands in the pockets of her blue halter-neck jumpsuit as she craned her neck to read a sign hanging from the front of a wooden shack: Wilson Family Seafood.
She'd grown up by the ocean, technically, but the harsh grey Canadian sea surrounding the HYDRA base was a far cry from this place: the sun glittered off the calm waves of the Gulf of Mexico, and the breeze washing over the pier smelled of salt and fish and wood, and was filled with the muffled thumps of boats bumping against docks, companionable chatter and the tolling of bells. Maggie closed her eyes, feeling the sun on her back and the wind billowing in her jumpsuit.
A hand touched her shoulder. "Dora, have you seen those - oh."
Maggie opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder to find a young black woman, her hair tied up, clutching a clipboard to her chest. They had never met, but Maggie knew her face - just as the woman clearly knew hers.
"Hello," said Sarah Wilson, cautiously. Her eyes roved over Maggie. "I didn't know we were expecting you."
Maggie smiled. "We didn't call ahead. We didn't realize there was going to be… an event." She looked around at the bustle on the pier, her eyebrows raised. Dozens of people were crowded around, dropping off packages and greeting each other warmly. It all seemed to be centred around an old purple-hulled boat docked nearby; Maggie spotted Sam standing by the boat, shaking hands with an older man and beaming.
Sarah chuckled. "Sam called in a bunch of old favors and half the community's turned up to bring parts to help us fix the boat."
"I see." Maggie eyed the boat; it did look about two decades past retirement.
As she was assessing it, she spotted Bucky slipping his way through the crowd toward Sam. Sam was wrapped up in conversation, so instead Bucky grabbed a pallet stacked full of what looked like machine parts off the back of a truck and set it down on the dock beside the boat. He turned, dusting off his hands, and then grabbed the black and silver case he'd brought with him: Maggie knew it was the gift he'd requested from Wakanda, but Bucky hadn't let her look inside, no matter how much she wheedled and begged.
Sam looked from the case to Bucky. Maggie couldn't hear what Bucky was saying, but none of it eased the cautious frown on Sam's face.
She looked back to Sarah. "It's lovely to meet you. Sarah, isn't it?"
"Yeah, and I… I know your name." Sarah smiled, and offered Maggie her hand.
"Sam never told me how beautiful his sister was," Maggie smiled, gripping her hand and shaking it.
Sarah's smile widened. But then there was a pop and a hiss, and all eyes jerked over to a burst pipe on the boat, jetting steam.
"Sam!" Sarah cried, dropping Maggie's hand so she could run over. Sam leaped onto the boat and reached for a wrench, soon followed by Bucky, who said a quick greeting to Sarah as he passed her. Maggie slowly followed them down, stepping onto the boat. It rocked with the steady movement of the waves, putting her off balance a moment.
Meanwhile, Bucky had taken charge of the wrench. He tightened the pipe joint upward, and slowly the spewing steam was contained. The soft sounds of water rocking and seagulls cawing filtered back into the air. Maggie put her hands on her hips and tipped her head back, squinting around at the rigging and masts of the boat.
"Why didn't you use the metal arm?" Sam asked.
"Well… I don't always think of it immediately. I'm right handed."
As Sam chuckled, Maggie finished her quick inspection of the boat, then reached forward to touch Sam's shoulder. He flinched and turned to face her.
"Goddamn, we got to put a bell on you."
"Hey," she smiled.
"Hey," he greeted her with a hug.
Bucky had been doing his own inspection of the boat as they greeted each other. "So this is the boat, huh?"
"This is it," Sam acknowledged, patting the previously-burst pipe.
"It's nice." Bucky leaned against the side, still looking around, and then met Maggie's eyes briefly.
We'll go in, say hi, drop the wings, and then get out, Bucky had told her this morning.
She winked.
Bucky turned back to Sam. "You want any help?"
With a faintly amused glance, Sam nodded.
Bucky greeted Sarah properly, with his wide aw-shucks-I'm-just-a-gentleman-from-the-40s smile that Maggie liked so much, and Maggie could sense Sam already regretting his decision to let them stay.
"I love those jeans, Sarah," Maggie said, just to make Sam's frown deepen. Though Sarah's cheeky smile in return was worth it, too.
"Alright," Maggie said, dusting off her hands and turning to face Sam, who was striding toward the bridge. "Where should we start?"
Bucky and Maggie were first put on lifting duty. The members of the community who'd stuck around stared unashamedly as the two super soldiers lifted heavy pallets of paint tins, timber, machinery, and engine parts around the dock and onto the boat as Sam and Sarah commanded.
Sam showed them around the boat: it was big, full of ancient pieces of technology and marred by rusted metal, peeling paint, and warped wood. No wonder they couldn't sell it. But Maggie could see the memories embedded in the place, like a childhood home. The overlapping repairs, the painted name on the side: Paul and Darlene, the family photos pinned lovingly on either side of the ancient steering wheel. Maggie spent more time than was strictly appropriate poring over the pictures: Sam's parents beaming out of faded color pictures, Sam and Sarah as kids, barefoot on the boat wielding fishing rods, and two other children in more modern-looking photographs, who must be Sarah's sons. As Sam and Sarah navigated around the boat, ducking under rigging lines and kicking aside toolboxes, Maggie realised that they knew this boat like the back of their hands.
Once the tour was over, they got to the real work: sanding, chipping away paint, removing rusted and broken parts. They had to shed the decay before they could think of making it beautiful once more.
Maggie wasn't dressed for boat-repair - she'd been expecting a leisurely morning at the seaside - but she resigned herself to staining and tearing her new jumpsuit as she threw herself into the work. Within an hour Bucky had removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves in the steamy Louisiana heat. Some of the community had stuck around to help, but mostly it was the four of them - and Sarah had to step away often. But while she was there, Maggie was fascinated by her and Sam together. They bickered, and teased, and genuinely annoyed each other at times, and the dynamic was so familiar to her that it was startling.
Maggie was tasked with climbing up the masts to replace the rigging lines and to strip and then re-paint the poles. She loved it, her nose full of sea air and the ropes roughening her palms as she worked, intent on the process of it. It reminded her of working on projects with Tony, this quiet companionship as they all fixed the boat. When she'd finished with the masts she ended up hanging over the side, scraping away paint and barnacles from the hull. She really wanted to suit up and do the work from beneath the surface, where she could look at the seaweed and creatures living underneath the docks, but Sam convinced her it wasn't necessary.
She tried to give Bucky and Sam space, finding projects as far away from them on the boat as she could. This is what she'd been aiming for when they came, after all: quality time. She kept her eye on them, using the spy training she'd been given for much more nefarious purposes. They still annoyed each other, that much was certain; Bucky wrenched free a piece of metal lining that Sam had been working on removing for twenty minutes, making Sam's brow furrow, and Sam once purposefully tossed Bucky a rag covered in wood lacquer that splatted against the middle of his chest, but the annoyance felt less charged than it had in previous days.
They needed this, she decided, replacing a piece of chain link. They needed the stakes not to be so high.
Later in the day she spotted them working on electrical wiring together in the cockpit, cursing when they singed their fingers. Their shoulders pressed against each other in the small space, and neither of them was shooting the other frustrated looks.
"Hey Maggie," Sam said, finding her an hour later working on greasing one of the winches for the fishing nets. "Would you… could you take a look at the engine for me? I've been trying to get it working all day, but no luck." Maggie had heard him trying to start up the boat, only for the engine to stall.
She wiped off her fingers on a rag. "Sure thing. Take me down."
He led her down to the engine room at the bottom of the ship, a dim space with a single metal ladder leading down to it. There were stains on the walls and the stale-oil smell of it made her smile.
The engine was an old-looking thing, a squat square shape with enormous combustion cylinders and an oil leak, if the dark stain below it was any indicator. A faded manual sat on top of it, grease on the corners where Sam had been turning the pages.
Maggie rubbed her hands together gleefully. "Hello, you."
Sam shot her an odd look. "I'll… give you two some privacy."
"Sure, sounds good," Maggie said absently, dragging the toolbox she saw on the ground toward her as she shuffled up toward the engine.
She spent an hour and a half getting acquainted with the ancient thing, examining its wires and feeds, opening up cylinders and inspecting fan belts. She replaced a few easy-to-replace parts as she went, from the pile of parts donated by the supportive community. She patched the leaks, and rewired a few things to improve efficiency. Finally, she thought she had figured out how to fix the thing for good. But then she stopped short, hands covered in grease, and a precision tool tucked behind her ear.
Part of growing up is figuring out what's yours to fix, came Tony's voice in the back of her mind. I never figured it out, Maggot, but you've always been more of a grown up than me.
She wiped off her hands as best as she could, tidied up her mess, then clambered back up the stairs into the late afternoon sunlight. She searched around for a few minutes until she spotted Sam and Bucky: they were passing buckets back and forth, bailing water out of an old, unused hatch at the aft of the boat. Her steps slowed as she heard the sounds of their voices on the wind.
"Think Karli's gonna throw in the towel?" Sam asked, passing a white bucket to Sam.
Sam heaved its contents overboard. "I think she's gonna double down."
"Any idea how to stop her?"
"I got Joaquin working on something."
"Well, Zemo says there's only one way," Bucky noted. Sam gave him a look.
Repressing her smile that they were finally talking, Maggie let her footsteps make some sound as she came up to them, catching their attention.
"Any luck?" Sam asked, setting down one of his buckets.
Maggie was momentarily distracted by Bucky's affectionate smile as he looked up at her - she was sure she looked a mess after futzing with the engine so long, but she felt her cheeks go pink all the same.
She cleared her throat and turned back to Sam. "It's getting there, but I mean… I'm clever, but I've never worked on a boat before. The engine might need more familiar eyes."
Bucky's affectionate smile turned into narrowed eyes.
Sam looked disappointed, but nodded. "Alright. I'll get back down there. Could you help with the wiring in the cabin, then?"
"Of course." Maggie winked at Bucky, then turned to head to her next task.
Maggie grew to love the Paul and Darlene too; the sturdiness of it beneath her feet even as it rose and fell gently, the sharp smell of wood lacquer, the haze of salt and fish that clung to the netting. The pictures of Sam's family in the cockpit.
As the sun sank lower in the sky, setting the sea gold, she found herself looking outward. She finished affixing a metal lining to the exterior of the prow, crouching on the gunwales where a loss of balance could send her pitching into the sea. Clutching a length of rigging to keep steady, she pulled away from her work and wiped her brow.
Bucky and Sam were halfway down the deck, re-hinging the cockpit door.
Hand on the rope rigging, Maggie slowly rose to her feet, balancing one foot in front of the other on the gunwale at the prow of the boat. She let her muscles stretch as she straightened, the sun on her skin, the wind in her hair. She spread her free hand and felt the wind slip through her fingers. She drew a deep breath in. The sun was slowly setting, and seagulls were cawing, and the waves were softly shushing. The dock was mostly empty.
The steady labor of the day had comforted her, put her back in her skin. She still felt the lingering aches of their venture in Europe, and the new things she'd learned and considered settled in her mind. Pepper's smile. Bucky's voice: Just because you've got wings, doesn't mean you need to fly away.
Her skin prickled, as if electrified. She closed her eyes against the setting sun. Wind whispered in her ears.
Bucky had been clutching the new cockpit door steady and urging Sam to hurry up and screw the bolts in, I haven't got all day, when something drew his gaze forward. He stilled, leaving the door at an awkward angle where Sam couldn't screw it to the wall.
"Man, what-"
Bucky put a finger to his lips, his eyes on the prow of the boat. Sam followed his gaze, frowning.
Meg stood silhoetted in the golden sunlight, on the prow of the boat like some ancient figurehead on ships of old. Pieces of hair that had fallen loose from the ponytail she usually worked in drifted around her face, ghosting in the wind. Her shadow stretched tall across the deck, almost to where Sam and Bucky were. Her chest rose and fell.
A kind of unspoken magic hovered about her form, making Bucky's breath still in his chest and his skin prickle with anticipation.
Sam opened his mouth again, annoyance rising, but Bucky shook his head just once. He didn't tear his eyes off Meg.
And, like magic, the nanotechnology on her back began to shimmer. It normally appeared as a black tattoo-like X between her shoulderblades, but for the first time in months Bucky watched the edges of it that poked out from her halter-neck jumpsuit retract inward, flowing like molten metal toward the wingports on either side of her spine. The nanotechnology shaped first into two small stumps, growing out from her shoulderblades, unrestricted by her light clothes. The light hit them as the stumps expanded outward: forming metal bones, tendons, skin, spines. The flowing metal arced up into two graceful curves, catching the golden sunset, then curved downward into razor sharp talons.
Bucky's eyes burned and he was forced to blink - when his eyes opened, Meg was standing on the prow of the boat, two metal wings spread wide to either side of her. They were beautiful, sleek and sharp and so perfectly designed they looked natural, not made, and where the sun shone through the slightly-translucent webbing they glowed a dark red.
Bucky and Sam did not move a muscle.
Meg took a deep breath and the wings rose, and fell. She glanced over her shoulder, but not at Bucky and Sam's staring faces. She looked up, craning her neck, along the line of her wings, and Bucky couldn't quite see her expression but he could see her eyes were shining. She reached out, running a finger along the metal ridge at the top of her right wing. The wing shivered ever so slightly. After a full minute of staring, taking in the sight of them, Maggie's arms came down to wrap around her torso. She looked up to the sky.
Then the wings came in again - she furled them in, rather than retracted them, so they hugged close and tight to her back like a ship's furled sails. She turned, hopped down from the gunwales, and began walking down the length of the ship again. The magic faded.
Bucky blinked and abruptly shoved the door toward the wall of the cockpit, trying to look busy. Sam cursed under his breath and fumbled the screwdriver. Bucky rolled his eyes, steadying the door against his leg, but then sensed Meg stop in her tracks.
He looked up. She was staring at the deck of the ship, her chest still rising and falling.
Go on, he silently urged, ignoring Sam's fuss with the screwdriver.
Like a flash, Meg turned and broke into a run. Her shoes clattered over the newly-sanded boards of the deck as she dashed down the length of the boat, planted her left foot and hurdled the gunwales, leaping into empty space -
Bucky dashed to the edge of the ship, his heart soaring.
Feet away from the surface of the water the Wyvern unfurled her wings and swooped for a breath-stopping moment, the sloshing sea below whisking into spray at the pressure from her wings. Then her wings turned up and her engines burned, and she soared upward into the sky.
Bucky's head snapped up as he followed her path - her wings were a golden flash in the sky, rocketing up, up, and she got smaller every second. She twisted and turned, banking in air currents, and he distantly watched her arms spread, as if embracing the sky.
It was only when his cheeks started hurting that he realized he was grinning.
Sam joined him at the edge of the boat, shading his eyes. "What, you never seen her fly before?" he asked.
"No," Bucky breathed, watching her punch a hole in the bottom of the clouds, then swoop back down again in a stream of vapor. "Not like this."
Bucky knew Meg would be a while. Once they got the door affixed to the cabin in the fading light, he and Sam called it a day and opened the icebox full of beers at the back of the boat. They settled down amidst the piles of empty paint tins and timber, sipping their drinks and occasionally talking. They occasionally saw Meg, way out to sea, pinwheeling between clouds and ocean, wings flaring and then pulling tight.
Bucky saw Sam glance more than once at the gift he'd brought from the Wakandans, but he never made to open it.
As the chill of night began to creep into the sunset glow, Bucky finished his beer, stood up, and dusted off his jeans.
"Well, gotta catch our flight tomorrow. Better get Meg and I a hotel room for the night. Crash, you know." He pointedly looked toward the quiet seaside town.
"So you just gonna set me up like that, huh?" Sam laughed.
"Well I don't want to make it weird, for your family…"
"Just stay here," Sam rolled his eyes. "The people in this town are the most welcoming people in the world. They don't care if you wear small t-shirts or if you have six toes, or if your mom's your aunt."
Bucky laughed. "Okay, I get it. The people are nice."
Sam's face suddenly hardened. "But don't flirt with my sister," he said, pointing at Bucky. I know you're taken, but I know how you and Maggie are. And if you do, I'll have Carols cut you up, feed you to the fish."
"Okay," Bucky said, then reached out a hand to help Sam up.
Moments later, as they stepped off the boat onto the dock, they heard the whine of engines above. Bucky glanced up just as Meg coasted back to the ground, her wings curved to catch the air. Her feet touched the ground with barely a sound. Her hair was an absolute mess of tangles and her cheeks looked almost bruised from the windshear, and there were tear tracks traced from the corners of her eyes to her temples, but she looked… Bucky wanted to drop to his knees before her.
Meg beamed at him, brilliant and wide, and his heart cracked a little. He forgot how she looked when she flew.
Rather than speak, she strode forward, seized him by the front of his shirt and reeled him in for a scorching kiss. He scooped a hand around her back, the other into her hair, and she flung her arms around his neck. She smelled like ozone and was cold to the touch at first; she gasped as he kissed her, like she'd forgotten how to breathe.
When they finally pulled apart, Sam had retreated further on to the dock - can't blame him, really - and Meg's eyes were burning.
"Maybe I should've got us a hotel room," he breathed, tucking a tangle of hair behind her ear.
"I thought that was the plan?" she asked breathlessly.
He shook his head. "We're staying with the Wilsons."
Her smile broke open again. "Oh, wonderful!" she turned in his arms and shouted to Sam: "Thank you! Can't wait to stay with you!"
Sam looked over, grimacing. "You're welcome, but I want none of that" - he pointed significantly at them - "under my roof. My nephews are innocent."
Meg snorted, her hands tightening reflexively where they held Bucky. But she did finally let him go. She turned back to him, still breathless.
She shook her head. "I…"
"I know, doll," he said, and couldn't help but keep smiling at her like an idiot. He looked at her wings, which were again furled in close to her back. "I missed 'em too."
"I'll take you up soon," she said. "We haven't gone flying together since…" she frowned. "I don't know, does the battle count?"
Bucky frowns, thinking of their brief, scorching flight across the hellscape that had been the Avengers facility. "No."
"Then I haven't taken you flying in years." Her brilliant smile softened, a little sad.
He kissed her again. "I can't wait."
Maggie and Bucky cooked dinner for the Wilsons that night. Bucky had insisted - he was old fashioned like that - though Maggie had warned that they had mostly learned how to cook while on the run from the law, so not to get their hopes up.
Sam's nephews AJ and Cass were delightful, cheeky young boys who whispered to each other while the adults weren't looking, and sneaked extra snacks before dinner. Maggie didn't snitch on them.
When Maggie and Bucky served up a big dish of Feijoada, a bean and pork stew they'd learned to make in Brazil, Sarah lifted her eyebrows, impressed. As they ate they talked about the boat, and Sam and Sarah's memories of growing up on it, and how their parents had managed the business. Maggie knew the bittersweet nostalgia in their voices well. That was the same voice she used to speak about Tony to Morgan.
Later, when Bucky and Sam were doing the dishes, Maggie and Sarah were left alone in the dining room. The boys had gone upstairs to play videogames. Sarah had her feet up and a contented smile on her face.
"I hope it's okay that we came today," Maggie said.
Sarah looked up. "Okay? Of course it is, you've helped so much."
"Well, yes, but also… Sam's never invited us around, and I wondered if-"
Sarah sighed. "Sam hardly invited himself around until recently. Always too busy off saving the world." Maggie smiled. "And… I was never all that interested in him bringing that Avenger life back here. I didn't want the Falcon to come home, I wanted Sam. So… maybe that's why he never brought any of you guys over here."
"And how do you find it, now he has?"
Sarah sized her up. "Neither of you are what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. For so long I've just been trying to keep my head above water here. Raise my boys, make sure they turn into good men, keep them fed and the family on its feet. Find time to be happy, if I can." She sighed and looked up at Maggie. "I didn't have room in my head for Avengers, or symbols, or" - her gaze flicked to the shield propped beside the front door - "for Captain America. And don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my brother, but…" she rubbed her eyes. "For so long I've had my fight here, that I never had time for the fight out there." She opened her eyes and met Maggie's gaze. "You all live such different lives than what I'm used to."
Maggie was struck stunned by Sarah's pure, tired honesty for a moment.
Sarah smiled. "I'm sorry. That was too much."
"No, no," she murmured. "I think I needed to hear it." For a moment, Maggie thought about her germinating plans for how to protect the people that Karli was fighting for. People like Sarah.
Find time to be happy, if I can. That was what Sarah wanted. Not sweeping, planetary changes, at least not in the sense that people like Karli meant it. Just time, and resources.
She swallowed. "I'm aware that I've led a… strange life, Sarah. But maybe we're not so different after all."
Sarah laughed. "Okay, white billionaire, tell me more," she teased.
Maggie laughed and held up her hands in surrender. "I know, I know. But… I think I'm trying to find time to be happy, too."
Sarah nodded, fingers laced together. She cocked her head after a while. "How come you never offered Sam money?" She looked around, as if indicating the modest home. "You had to know he's been struggling."
Maggie smiled sadly. "Because he'd hate me for offering."
"Don't I know it." Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes. "Such a martyr. Gotta feel like he's earned every penny. Hate to say it, but it's a family trait." She leaned over and rubbed her eyes again. But then, a moment later, she was looking up with glinting eyes. "But… you're staying on my couch. I charge room and board, you know."
Maggie grinned, a matching glint entering her eyes. "At a competitive rate, I hope."
The next morning, Bucky woke up to the sound of Sam's nephews playing with the shield. For a second he watched them, the pretend back-and-forth combat and the soft sound-effects they made as they played.
"Hey," he called, waving lazily, and the boys jumped.
"Put it back!" Cass urged, and AJ spun to put the shield back in its canvas case. "Hurry!"
Seconds later they'd dashed out of the room.
Bucky's smile lingered on his face long after they'd run out. But then he looked down at the shield, poking out of the canvas case, and the smile faded. His chest rose and fell.
He felt movement to his right and turned his head to see Meg, squashed up beside him on the meagre space the couch provided. She slept open-mouthed, no doubt exhausted from yesterday. Bucky leaned over, kissed the side of her head, and then extracted himself from the couch as quietly as possible. He needed to get out, but he wanted to let her rest.
He didn't know what it had meant, that swoop in his stomach he'd felt when he'd seen the boys playing with the shield. But he needed to think about it, and the boat seemed like as good a place as any.
Maggie woke later, and was not alarmed to find Bucky missing. Sure enough, when she checked her phone, there was a text from him: Gone down to the boat. Back later x
Maggie yawned, stretched, and then set about attaching her prosthetic. She'd already decided not to go down to the boat today. She had her own plans to work on.
As she walked into the kitchen where her laptop was charging, she passed the shield which lay half-concealed in its canvas case. She looked around, but the house was empty - the boys at school, the adults all down at the docks. She crouched, and slid the shield fully out of the case. It was cold to the touch, and the colours seemed especially vivid against the slightly dusty wooden floors of the Wilson house. Maggie turned it over in her hands contemplatively.
"You're just a hunk of Vibranium," she told it. "What right did we have to turn you into a symbol?"
She ran her fingertips over the seamless metal, sensing that strange otherworldly thrum that Vibranium seemed to hold. For a moment she felt the weight of all the places this shield had been, and all that it had seen. She closed her eyes and imagined Steve's hands holding the edges, steady and sure.
"That's the thing about symbols," she said, opening her eyes and setting the shield back down carefully. "It's not really about you, is it? It's about who uses you." She looked around at the house, with all its signs of the Wilson family's life there. She saw a picture of Sam, Sarah, and the boys on the wall above where the shield rested. "This is a good home for you, I think."
Maggie spent the whole morning working. Pepper had passed on several names of people she ought to get in contact with, so she made many calls over the next few hours, taking notes and sometimes asking questions, sometimes arguing. She perused research journals, and tracked down contact details for people Pepper didn't know how to reach. She knew this would be a slow process, her new project, but Maggie had learned there wasn't a lot a Stark couldn't do, once they put their mind to it.
Hours later, Sam and Bucky returned to the house, stamping their boots free of mud at the door and arguing good-naturedly about something.
Maggie looked up from her laptop and her notes, rising out of the fugue of research. "You two were at the docks?"
"Yeah, Sarah told us to quit bothering with the engine," Sam said. His eyes flicked over the kitchen table Maggie worked at. "What are you doing, writing a PhD?"
She ignored the question and instead asked one of her own. "Is Sarah an engineer?" She'd seen her fixing components yesterday with a practiced ease.
"Never went to school for it, but she's been keeping that hunk of junk running since she was in middle school," Sam said proudly.
Maggie matched his smile. "She'll figure out the engine, then."
Bucky came over to stand behind Maggie, and set his hand on her shoulder. He looked down at her notes. "How's it going?"
She blew out a breath. "It's… a start. I can't find a way to move faster than the Patch Act is being put through, not if I want to do this justice-"
Sam looked over. "You're looking at the Patch Act? At the GRC?"
"Not exactly," she said cautiously. "I'm looking at what Karli has been looking at. Trying to really understand it all, I mean. I've been… speaking to the people who really understand what's going on. Resettlement camp leaders, NGO researchers, GRC representatives." She'd had a lot of people yell at her on the phone. "I'm trying to learn."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "That's not all, though."
She closed her laptop. "No, but that's all I can do for now. If I don't start with learning, anything I try will fail."
"You'll keep me updated, though? On… whatever you end up doing?"
"Of course." That was all she felt comfortable promising for now, when she wasn't even certain of her ultimate goal. She felt something growing from this, like the very beginnings of an invention, but the pieces felt too fragile to pull out and put together properly just yet.
It soon came time for them to leave; the house was too small for all of them, and Maggie and Bucky had to be home soon. But Maggie dragged her heels, saying she still had a few more phone calls to make.
She could have made them later, but she sensed that they hadn't yet quite finished everything they'd come here for. Sam and Bucky were comfortable around each other once more, but Maggie knew them. They had to have it out, before they parted again. They had to talk to each other. So she asked if they could wait outside and give her some quiet in the house.
Soon, she could just about hear the sounds of low conversation between the two of them as they tossed the shield around in the front yard.
"Feels weird, picking it up again," Sam murmured. He tossed the shield, sending it rebounding off of three trees before it sailed into Bucky's hands. "The legacy of that shield is… complicated, to say the least."
They'd had a version of this conversation half a dozen times, since that day with Steve and the time machine. It was only today, in the Louisiana sun and after seeing the boat and Sam's family, that Bucky was able to see past his own history with the shield enough to see what Sam was really saying.
"When Steve told me what he was planning, I don't think either of us really understood what it felt like for a Black man to be handed the shield." Sam drew in a breath, his frown clearing, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. And a hint of something that looked like relief. "How could we?" Bucky met Sam's eyes. "I owe you an apology." He handed the shield over. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Sam replied.
"Whatever happened with Walker, it wasn't your fault. I get it. It's just… that shield's the closest thing I've got left to a family, other than Meg. So when you retired it… it made me feel like I had nothing left. Made me question everything. You, Steve, me…" he kept explaining, pulling out the book. It was… hard to talk about. This was new, he'd never… this wasn't like explaining to Meg, who knew him so well he barely had to speak, or Raynor, who he tried to hide the truth from most days.
Hard as it was, explaining this to Sam felt like a deep breath of fresh air after a decade in cryofreeze. Like he was finally getting somewhere.
"I understand, man," Sam nodded. "But Steve is gone." Bucky looked down. "And this might be a surprise, but… it doesn't matter what Steve thought." He hurled the shield once more, and Bucky watched its silver path. "You gotta stop looking to other people to tell you who you are." Another toss of the shield. It rebounded back to Bucky, and it landed in his metal hand with a clang.
"Let me ask you," Sam continued. "You still having those nightmares?"
Bucky looked up from the shield. "All the time," he confessed. "It means I remember. It means a part of me is still there. Which means a part of the Winter Soldier's still in me." He hurled the shield. It bounced off a tree and Sam caught it, arm sliding into the leather straps.
"You up for a little tough love?" Sam asked. Bucky drew a deep breath, nodding slightly. "You want to climb out of that hell you're in, do the work." His gaze hardened. "Do it."
"I've… been making amends."
Sam let out a half-laugh, not unkindly. "Nah, you weren't amending. You were avenging. You were stopping all the wrongdoers you enabled as the Winter Soldier, because you thought it would bring you closure." Bucky realized he'd been staring, and looked down, his mind churning.
"You go to these people and say 'sorry'," Sam continued, "because you think it'll make youf eel better, right?" Bucky couldn't meet his eyes. "But you gotta make them feel better. You gotta go to them, and be of service. I'm sure there's at least one person in that book who needs closure about something, and you're the only person who can give it to them."
"Probably a dozen," Bucky intoned, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
"That's cool," Sam said calmly. "Start with one."
Maggie looked out the kitchen window to see that Sam and Bucky had given up on throwing the shield. As she watched they both reached out and clasped hands, gripping tight. Bucky was smiling.
She let out a breath and smiled, leaning back in the chair. My work here is done. She shut down her laptop, tidied up her notes, and shoved it all into her bag.
When she marched out of the house a minute later, Bucky and Sam were just talking again, and she could sense a new understanding between them.
"Ready to go, handsome?" she called. Bucky looked over, and she saw a new light in his eyes that made her want to cry.
"Yep, get me out of here, doll." He turned to Sam.
"Thanks for the help, man," Sam grinned. "Meant a lot."
"'Course," Bucky said, and clapped him on the shoulder.
"You know, men these days are allowed to hug," she commented.
Bucky rolled his eyes and began striding down the dirt driveway, toward where they'd parked their car.
Maggie didn't follow just yet. She threw her arms around Sam and squeezed tight, despite him awkwardly holding the shield.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He chuckled. "You're both helping me, I don't know-"
"You shut your mouth, Sam Wilson." She squeezed once more, then pulled away and hurried after Bucky.
In the car, after Bucky had finished recounting what he and Sam had talked about, Bucky let out a breath, then eyed her.
"You could've fixed the boat's engine, couldn't you?"
She snorted. "I built a time machine, Bucky. Of course I could have."
"Why didn't you, then?"
She sighed, then looked at him. "Sam doesn't want me to fix his problems, Bucky. He wants me to be his friend."
"What if he doesn't end up fixing it?" Bucky asked, considering her.
She smiled. "He will."
Later that afternoon, Sarah confessed to her brother that she didn't want to sell the boat anymore. He laughed at her, but then his humor fell, and she saw, in the twisted frown on his face and the gravity in his voice, that he'd really been struggling with this.
"This… this is our history. We can't lose this fight. All our struggles as a people, I think about it and I used to say `Imma show them, Imma go out and change the world'." He smiled. "Silly, I know, but when I'd look in your eyes, I could tell you were always thinking that I was running away."
Sarah looked down, a frown falling over her own face. How could I have let him think that?
She reassured him, said she'd never thought he was running away, but there was more she wanted to say. It took a moment to gather her thoughts. She'd said to Maggie I didn't want the Falcon to come home, I wanted Sam, but having her and Bucky over this weekend had shown her that she couldn't separate the two. She met her brother's eyes.
"There's a fight out there, and then there's our fight here, and bro, you have taken them both on." She smiled at him. "So you really gonna let Isaiah Bradley get in your head? You gonna let him decide what you do next?"
Sam shook his head. "Isaiah has been to hell and back. If I was in his shoes, I'd probably feel the exact same way." A day ago, Sarah knew he'd have finished that sentence there. But she'd seen how he'd been growing, with Maggie and Bucky here - especially Bucky. She'd seen how their tentative compromise had warmed back into friendship. She'd seen Sam looking at that man out of time, measuring and learning.
Sure enough, Sam looked up with a smile. "But… what would be the point of all the pain and sacrifice, if I wasn't willing to stand up and keep fighting?"
Sarah grinned. There's my big brother.
She silently thanked Bucky and Maggie, again, for coming. She'd seen how much they needed her brother, but also how much he'd needed them. These superhero types and their psychological crises.
She decided then not to mention the wire transfer Maggie Stark had made this morning - the most expensive night anyone had ever spent on a couch in history, probably. She tried to feel guilty, but she knew how meaningless the money had to be to a Stark, and Maggie had seemed so gleeful about it.
She wouldn't tell Sam. It'd just be something else for him to get all righteous and sensitive about.
And, she could see from the look in his eyes, he had some work to do.