Chapter 37

Abandoned Warehouse, Outskirts of Berlin

Steve rallied his thoughts, contemplating the resources he had at his disposal: a single white panel van, nothing in the way of weapons, and no real way to get to Siberia. He had Sam, as always, who was currently standing to his left, arms crossed. He had Bucky, finally, though he looked exhausted and beaten. Every time Steve looked at him a thrill went down his spine, because he'd missed Bucky for so long and he was finally there. Of course, these weren't great circumstances.

And he had Maggie, who so far was a total mystery. It was clear that she and Bucky knew each other well, and that she was determined to help find the doctor, but he couldn't read her carefully blank face or the nonverbal communication that seemed to flow back and forth between she and Bucky. She'd looked profoundly disturbed through Bucky's explanation of Siberia and the Winter Soldier Program, but she'd gotten it under control, smoothing her expression and disguising her feelings. It reminded him of Natasha, and he remembered they had both been trained by the same woman, at different points in time.

"Alright," Steve said, straightening. "If we're going to go after this guy, we need soldiers. Sam, who did you say your guy was?"

Sam shifted his weight nervously. "His name's Scott Lang, he's got this suit… helps him to go really small. Like, so small that you can barely see him. He's good in a fight."

Steve cocked an eyebrow.

Sam sighed. "He's called Ant-Man."

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Maggie and Bucky share a cynical glance. He couldn't help but agree, but Sam seemed sure about this.

"Think he'll want to help us?"

"He seemed like a pretty good guy, I think if we explain the situation he'll want to help. We'll have to get him from San Francisco, though."

Steve nodded, deep in thought. "I was planning on calling Clint, I think he'd be interested in helping Wanda get out of the compound. And they'll both want to help stop the doctor. They could pick up Lang."

Bucky and Maggie listened silently, a few feet apart. If they were confused by the names being thrown around, they didn't show it.

"Not to mention we'll need our stuff back," Sam sighed. "Think Sharon would help?"

Steve's gut twisted at the thought of getting Sharon further into this mess, but he had to admit that they could use her help right now. "It's worth a try," he nodded. "So we need to get in contact with Clint and Sharon. We could try to find a payphone somewhere around here, but that'll pin us with a pretty identifiable location." He rubbed his jaw, thinking. Nat had always been better at this stuff than him. He was a soldier, not a spy. "We could pick up a burner phone somewhere, but…"

As he spoke, Maggie leaned down to a black backpack she'd brought into the room with her, and pulled something out of the front pocket. Steve noticed that she already had a backpack on her back, oddly bulgy, and he wondered why she needed two. Straightening, Maggie opened her palm to reveal… a phone.

Steve blinked, looking from the glossy flip phone to Maggie's face. She kept it carefully blank, like Natasha and Clint did with strangers, but there was an openness in her gaze that startled him. Every time he looked at her he was struck by her similarity to Tony and Howard – her dark hair and brows, and the intelligence glittering in those brown eyes.

Apparently fed up with his stunned blinking, Maggie stepped forward and offered him the phone.

He took it, and shot her an assessing look. "… Thanks."

"You're welcome," she replied, with a ghost of a smile, and stepped back to her bag. Steve could sense Bucky glancing between the two of them, an unreadable look on his face.

"What else you got in there?" Sam piped up, squinting at her bag as if it might contain the secrets to the universe.

Unbeknownst to Steve and Sam, Maggie ran a mental checklist: the bag contained tools and tech, including a laptop and an iPod packed with hits from the last eighty years, false IDs for her trip to Ukraine, a pair of red goggles and dark gauntlets with barbed fingers, and a meagre collection of her treasured possessions: postcards from Bucky, a pair of safety goggles, a fading Rubik's cube.

Maggie pushed the bag behind her with the heel of her boot, obscuring it from their view. "Nothing."

Steve saw Sam's eyes narrow, but he didn't push further. Sighing, Steve powered up the phone and began tapping away, forming coded messages to send to Clint and Sharon.

The light outside the warehouse was fading, signalling the end of what had been an impossibly long day. Even though his focus was on the phone, Steve could tell that the atmosphere in the warehouse was still tense. They were all a few feet apart, and Steve could sense Sam's confusion, suspicion and curiosity rolling off him in waves. Bucky looked exhausted, still slumped on the dirty crate.

Predictably, Sam eventually spoke up. "I'm Sam," he said, eyes flickering between Maggie and Bucky.

"I know," Maggie said, and Steve glanced up. Sam's eyes narrowed further, and Maggie swallowed, as if regretting the words. Eventually, after working her jaw a moment or so, she spoke again: "I'm… sorry for trying to kill you." Her eyes flickered toward Steve, including him in the apology. He nodded once and went back to texting Sharon.

"Me too," Bucky chipped in. But he didn't stop shooting suspicious glances at Sam, and Maggie suddenly remembered a conversation a few months ago in which Bucky had referred to the Falcon as that guy who shot you.

There were a few seconds of silence while Sam processed that. "Alright," he eventually said, starting to nod. "Alright, sure. I'm sorry about…" he gestured vaguely, seemingly encompassing both Maggie and Bucky, and the entire world. This was followed up by an uncomfortable grimace. Bucky levelled him with an unimpressed look.

Before things could get any more awkward, Steve finally finished with the burner phone and looked up. "Okay, that's done. I'll need to wait for their replies, so do you mind if I hang on to this, Maggie?" He held up the phone.

Bucky tensed at Steve's use of her name, and Steve cocked an eyebrow, but Maggie didn't react. "Sure."

"Okay," Sam said. "What now?"

Maggie cleared her throat. "If we're planning on moving, we'll need to change vehicles. That van's going to be missed sooner or later."

Steve acknowledged her with a nod. "We need to get out of the city, and wait to arrange a meeting location with Sharon and Clint. As for uniforms, hopefully Sharon will be able to get our gear to us, Sam." He turned his gaze to Bucky, pushing through the part of him that was still a twenty-year-old kid excited to see his best friend. "Buck, you've got the arm, and we're enhanced-"

Bucky's head swivelled to look at Maggie, and his eyes flicked – curiously – to her backpack straps and then back to her face, a questioning look in his eyes. Maggie nodded, her eyes flickering with meaning as she acknowledged him.

Sam cleared his throat. "Uh, what was that about?"

Steve had to agree.

Bucky's arm whirred, and Maggie sighed.

"It's not just the arm," she said, and then shrugged off her backpack. Only it wasn't a backpack – it was just a cover, and once it was removed, Steve could see the glint of metal over her shoulders.

Steve's eyebrows shot up his forehead. Before his eyes, metal unfurled from Maggie's back, extending into two sleek, sharp, black and gunmetal grey wings. The wings spanned the warehouse room, and Steve stared as the black webbing stretched and the metal skeleton extended telescopically, slotting into place.

The tension in Maggie's frame seemed to melt away, as if having the wings loose and stretched was easing her posture. To her left, Bucky's face softened.

Steve raised his eyebrows. He hadn't been able to see the wings properly all those years ago, since the woman attached to them had been trying to kill him at the time, but now that he had a moment to take them in, he could admit that they were a technological work of art. He'd been in the future long enough to see expertly made machines when he saw them, and this was the real deal. The wings seemed almost fluid, the metal sliding and shifting like living flesh and bone, and his eyes picked out the tiny, incredibly powerful engines alongside the sharp metal barbs.

Steve found himself wanting to draw the wings, in the same way he'd wanted to draw his shield the first time he saw it, or the Iron Man armor.

Steve glanced back at the metal limbs curving over Maggie's shoulders, and remembered the scans of her body with metal on her bones that he'd seen in Canada. He hadn't understood a lot of it, but he realised that it was that reinforcement that allowed her to wear these complex mechanical wings.

"You've got aerial support if you need it, Captain," Maggie murmured, and Steve met her eyes. He was startled by how normal she looked, despite the metal wings protruding from her back. Before, when she'd been the Wyvern, he'd had trouble thinking of her as more than a faceless, almost robotic assassin. It might have been because of her face mask and malicious-looking goggles, or it might have been the brainwashing.

When he'd spotted her on the riverbank after saving Bucky, she'd seemed small and scared.

But now, it seemed Maggie was in her element. This was her, this woman with intelligent eyes and powerful metal wings, offering her help. Steve was struck by the sudden well of respect he felt for her.

Sam, meanwhile, was gaping. "Are those always attached to you?"

"No," Maggie said, and shuffled her wings a little closer to her body. Steve couldn't see her making any subtle hand or shoulder movements, like Sam had to do to control his wings, and he suddenly recalled reading something about cybernetic linkups in the data about her at the Québec base. Maggie continued: "But the way things are going, I don't plan on taking them off."

"Fair," Sam acknowledged.

Bucky cleared his throat. "Meg and I don't have combat gear, though, we'll need to pick something up."

Steve frowned, glancing from Bucky to Maggie. "Meg?"

She sighed. "It's a long story."

Another awkward silence fell after Maggie revealed her wings and Bucky called her Meg. Maggie was still feeling a little uncomfortable about exposing her wings, but something about the way Steve had looked at her eased the discomfort – he'd been surprised, at first, but that settled into awe, and then some kind of understanding. He hadn't been afraid of her, or disgusted. It was as if things suddenly made sense for him.

Maggie shared a glance with Bucky – they were both feeling the awkwardness of the silence that had fallen.

Steve rallied himself. "Alright, we'll track down a new vehicle, then pick up combat gear, and lie low until we meet with Sharon and Clint. Let's go."

"Wait."

Steve, Sam and Maggie all blinked and glanced at Bucky, who stood up from the crate by the vice. His face was grim, and he met Steve's eyes. Maggie cocked her head.

"Something else?" Steve asked.

"I need…" he glanced at Maggie. "A minute."

Some of the tension left Steve's shoulders at the realisation that there weren't any more terrible HYDRA secrets to reveal. Still, he seemed hesitant. "Buck, we're on the clock, here-"

"Steve." Bucky's eyes were serious. "Just one minute."

Steve sighed, and relented. He and Sam walked off into the larger room, to strip any evidence of their being in the van.

The moment they were out of eyesight, Maggie and Bucky moved towards each other. Bucky seemed a little cautious but Maggie wasn't having any of that – she stepped right into his space, slinging her arms around his neck and pulling him into her. Bucky's arms wrapped around her back, hesitant, just below where her wings were moored in her spine. Maggie closed her eyes when he sighed and sank into her, burying his face in her hair and tightening his grip on her.

He smelled like sweat, fuel and river water but she had him now, safe and warm, and her heart pounded against her rib cage with relief. She let her hand drift up to the nape of Bucky's neck, fingers tangling in his hair.

After a long moment Bucky leaned back a little, his stubble scratching her ear as he pulled away. His blue-grey eyes were sombre.

"Did I hurt you?"

Maggie sighed, loosening her grip around his shoulders and meeting his eyes. She didn't want to lie to him. "Yes. But I'm okay-" she hurried on to say, as horror and self-loathing burst into Bucky's expression. "Really. You were the Soldier, and I tried to stop you-"

His horror shifted to exasperation. "Meg-"

"Are you saying you wouldn't try to stop me?" She shot him a challenging look, and when he didn't argue she continued. "You threw me through a wall, but I'm fine now. You just…" she ran her eyes over his face, to reassure herself that he was okay. "You had me really worried, Bucky."

He sighed and leaned in again, pressing his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry, doll." Their words were low, so as not to carry into the next room, and Bucky's breath brushed against her lips.

"It's really not your fault," Maggie said with a small smile. Then her face darkened. "I'm going to make sure that doctor gets justice for what he's done."

Bucky's metal fingers brushed against her cheek, and she realised she was glaring into the middle distance. She shook herself.

"I'm so sorry, Bucky," she sighed. "I promised you I wouldn't let anyone use your words against you again, and then I wasn't even there, I couldn't help-"

"It ain't your fault," Bucky urged. "This is… a lot bigger than us." He looked so lost, so defeated, that her heart ached.

"Sure is." Maggie took a long breath through her nose. "I saw my brother."

"What?" Bucky pulled his forehead away from hers and looked into her eyes. "Where?"

She explained, and Bucky's face fell again at another reminder of his violence. "Doll, I'm-"

"Don't apologise!" she interrupted, and reached up to squeeze his metal hand, to soften the words. "You and I understand what it's like, to hear those words. So we both know that you weren't responsible."

Bucky closed his eyes. "I know, I'm just… I'm sorry he got hurt."

"Me too."

"You going to be alright?"

She sighed. "Better now you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Bucky's eyes darkened, and she watched him swallow. "Not… not great. I'm angry, Meg."

Maggie leaned in again, running a hand through his hair the way she knew he liked, and pressed her face into his neck. She breathed in the smell of his skin, so glad he was alive.

"Me too," she breathed, and squeezed his metal hand again. They didn't need to say more – they knew how the other felt, and there wasn't anything they could say to make it better.

Once they leaned apart, Bucky gave her a small, sad smile and her heart skipped a beat. "So how was Ukraine?"

Despite herself, she huffed a laugh. "It was shit, thanks for asking." He chuckled, and Maggie shook her head at him. "We've been bit more than a minute, handsome, we'd better get back out there."

Bucky nodded, but he wasn't done yet. His hand slipped up to cradle the back of her head, and Maggie leaned in to press her lips to his. The kiss was short, but Maggie poured her love and relief into it, and let herself melt into the sure slide of Bucky's lips. Too soon, Bucky pulled away.

"I missed you," Maggie murmured, wishing they could disappear into some bolthole where they could kiss and sleep and hide from the world.

Bucky squeezed her hand, as if he could hear her thoughts. "Me too." As they pulled apart, he took a deep breath. "So, you met Steve."

"I did." Maggie covered her wings with the faux-backpack again, picked up her bag and started walking. Bucky fell into step beside her, and she sensed him struggling to find the words to ask do you like my best friend? She couldn't help but smile to herself at his silent struggle, before she finally took pity on him.

"He's nice," she said, and smiled again at the way Bucky's shoulders loosened slightly. They walked into the main part of the warehouse and spotted Steve and Sam at the other end, by the van. "He's kinda serious, but that's understandable right now. He didn't seem to need to know anything about me other than that I was going to help him get you to safety. I like him."

Bucky glanced up at his friend, and his face softened and opened, a glimpse of the man he'd been seventy years ago. Maggie knocked her shoulder into his, repressing another smile when he rolled his eyes at her.

"You're jealous of Wilson, though, aren't you?" she stage-whispered.

Bucky sniffed in reply, as if her comment wasn't worthy of a response. They reached the two men by the van, who looked up at their approach.

Steve lifted the burner phone. "Clint's on his way to get Wanda and Scott, and Sharon says she's with us. We'll meet them all at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in thirteen hours."

"Sounds good," Maggie nodded. She was feeling much better after she and Bucky's private moment, and this caught Sam's notice. He straightened and glanced from Maggie to Bucky. They kept their faces neutral.

"So what's your deal?" he eventually asked. "You've been on the lam together this whole time, Bonnie and Clyde style?"

"Sam," Steve muttered, sounding resigned, but even he looked a little curious.

Maggie cocked her head and glanced at Bucky, who was eyeing Sam warily. "Yes," she eventually said. "But without the murdering."

Sam scratched his chin. "Huh. And that was you in Argentina, right, with the kid on the chairlift?"

Maggie blinked. They knew about that? Did Tony know? "… Yes."

Sam and Steve both contemplated her, and she shifted nervously. They seemed surprised, and she could practically see their estimation of her changing, before her very eyes.

Finally, Sam spoke: "That was a good thing you did. Wait, Barnes was with you then?"

Bucky nodded. "I was stealing a car at the time." Maggie caught the wry edge of a joke in his tone, and the corner of her mouth quirked. He continued: "so we could get away."

"Goddamn," Sam said, putting his hands on his hips. He glanced at Steve, who shrugged. He turned back to Maggie and asked "You know we caught you on CCTV?"

Her amusement fell from her face. "No."

"Wasn't much, just a few seconds of you with a backpack. We didn't even know if it was you, really, no one knows what your face looks like. We talked to the kid, too-"

Maggie brightened. "Miguel. Was he okay?"

Her enthusiasm seemed to take Sam aback, and he shared another glance with Steve. "Yeah, he was… he was fine. He was with his mom, said you were a nice lady."

Maggie smiled, then wiped away the expression and changed the subject. "We should get moving."

"Good idea," Steve said, meeting her eyes. "Any ideas on getting a vehicle?"

Maggie was surprised he was turning to her for advice – if she'd heard his history right, Captain America had liberated a getaway car on more than one occasion. Then it occurred to her that he could be testing her. All he knew about her, after all, was that she'd tried to kill him a bunch of times and now had Bucky's seal of approval.

Maggie shrugged. "There're plenty of auto repair shops around here, and I hear you're a fair hand at stealing cars."

Steve's eyes widened, and his head snapped toward Bucky. "Buck…?" Hope and surprise mingled in his eyes, and Maggie smirked. But then Sam glanced at her, so she hurriedly composed her face in an innocent expression. He narrowed his eyes.

Bucky's eyes glinted. "I don't know where she coulda' heard that."

Steve smiled, the first time Maggie had seen him do that, and her glee softened at the way the smile transformed his face, made him seem years younger. Bucky smiled too, and Maggie's heart nearly burst at how happy she was for them both.

Sam cleared his throat. "I don't care who steals the car, but we gotta go."

"Right." Steve shook himself, and they followed him out of the warehouse.

As they were squeezing into a dusty, midnight blue 1965 Volkswagen Beetle, Sam slammed the passenger door shut then turned to look at Bucky and Maggie.

"Wait, that HYDRA scientist in Chile-"

"Yep," Maggie deadpanned, trying to find a way to fit in the backseat without squashing Bucky. Her wings were making it extra difficult.

"Goddamn," Sam muttered, as Steve gunned the engine. "How'd you manage to get him to turn himself in?"

Bucky shifted to give Maggie more room. "We persuaded him," he replied, then cocked his head. "So I'm guessing you don't know about the HYDRA base in Belarus."

Sam thought about it, as Steve steered the puttering car through the dark Berlin streets. "Wait, Belarus? But that was ages ago, and there wasn't…" he trailed off, glancing at the two stoic ex-assassins in the back seat. "No, you guys did that?"

Maggie nudged Bucky and shot him a stop bragging look, but she couldn't resist adding: "We don't know anything about it. Communication devices are so complicated."

"I bet," Steve added, and when she met his eyes in the rear view mirror she could see he was smiling.

Twenty minutes outside of Berlin, Bucky glanced away from the window. "Oh, and there were the bank robbers in New Delhi."

"Bucky," Maggie murmured, though she was smiling.

Sam blinked. "What."

Steve shook his head.

When Maggie pulled her beat-up laptop out of her backpack and opened it on her lap, Steve and Sam shared a nervous glance. It was full night out, and they were driving country back roads to avoid detection. Maggie was already sick of sitting in the tiny car, squished in with three men who were far too big for this make and model.

"Isn't that traceable?" Sam eventually asked.

Maggie's fingers danced over the keyboard. "Don't worry about it."

Unbeknownst to her, Steve glanced into the rear-view mirror at Bucky, with a questioning look on his face. Bucky nodded, just once, and Steve returned his focus to the road. If Bucky said it was okay, then Steve was fine with it. And if Steve was fine with it, then Sam would deal with it. With some complaining.

"We need to keep a low profile," Steve murmured, shifting in his seat as he drove. His legs had to be killing him, squashed into the driver's seat as he was. "The CIA and the JTTF and everyone else will be looking for us."

Without looking up from her laptop screen, Maggie said: "I don't know what the Avengers are doing, but the CIA and the JTTF are thinking we've gone west. They're looking for transport lines to the UK and US, and following a few dummy leads I set up."

Sam physically turned around in his seat. "You hacked the CIA?"

Steve stared incredulously at her in the rear view mirror.

Maggie looked up from her screen for a moment, meeting Sam's gaze. "No, I can read minds from very far away."

Bucky snorted as she returned to her typing. "You're a showoff," he murmured.

Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw Steve smile a dopey smile at Bucky through the rear view mirror.

Maggie merely shrugged, and smirked to herself when Sam turned back around in his seat with a huff.

"We're making jokes now, I guess," he grumbled.

After spending a few hours on the back roads, they headed for a 24-7 sports store in a town close to Leipzig that would have what Maggie and Bucky needed for combat gear. It was decided that Maggie and Sam would be the ones to go into the store, as they had the least recognizable faces, and Maggie could speak German.

On the way there, Maggie was working on the laptop when a song she had on her iPod came on the radio.

"Love this song," she muttered absentmindedly, forgetting, for a moment, the tense situation.

Sam's head swivelled, and when she looked up she noticed he was giving her a weird look.

"What, I'm not allowed to like music now?"

He shrugged. "Guess I just don't know how to read you. You're really different to the last time I met you."

Maggie's face shuttered. Bucky stiffened in his seat and glared at Sam.

For the first time, Maggie properly considered what Sam's opinion of her might be. The last time he'd seen her she'd been the Wyvern, no question about it – black cowl and slitted red goggles covering her face, sharp metal wings flared as she pinned him against the hull of the Helicarrier, seconds from ending his life. She'd been confused, then, but he'd had no way of reading that – to him, she was a barely-human assassin sent to shoot him out of the sky.

Now, Maggie could hardly imagine being that… monster. She was a person now. Her life wasn't normal, but it was filled with music and hobbies and laughter and love. Sam hadn't seen that, she reminded herself. He was seeing an old version of her, surely. Surely she couldn't still remind him of the Wyvern.

She'd taken too long to answer. Sam said "Uh…?" and glanced at Bucky. Steve looked into the rear view mirror, frowning.

Bucky was still glaring. "Give her a minute," he muttered, and his metal hand dropped to his knee, only an inch away from Maggie's thigh – offering support, but giving her space.

Maggie swallowed, and shook her thoughts away. "That's the goal," she murmured to Sam, gave Bucky a quick smile, then got back to work.

Four thousand miles away, Tony went from exasperated to surprised as the fifteen year old he was talking to looked into his eyes with a solemnity that didn't belong on such a young face.

"When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen… they happen because of you."

Tony looked down, and away. The damn kid sounded much too much like another too-young hero he knew. He rallied himself. "So you wanna look out for the little guy, you wanna do your part, make the world a better place. All that, right?"

Peter seemed relieved. "Yeah, yeah, just looking out for the little guy. That's what it is."

Tony sighed, and got to his feet. Okay, so we're doing this.

At a back road near the sports store, Maggie climbed out of the car after Sam with an audible sigh of relief.

"I feel that," Sam muttered, as she closed the car door, nodded goodbye to Steve and Bucky and turned to follow him. "I couldn't think of a worse car to try to squeeze three super-soldiers into."

Maggie didn't know what to say to that, so they walked the rest of the way to the store in silence. Maggie was still wearing the black slacks and pale blue collared shirt from the van company uniform, though she'd discarded the jacket and hat, and her wings were hidden under the faux-backpack. Sam seemed less suspicious of her after the car ride, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

The store was brightly lit, staffed by a tired-looking teenager. Maggie double-checked her camera signal jammer to make sure it was working. She and Sam moved around the store, searching for clothes tough enough to pass as body armor.

At a rack of reinforced leather vests, Sam scratched his head. "Ah, shit, I didn't ask what size Barnes is, which do you think-"

She reached out silently and slid the right-sized vest off the rack. She'd been buying clothes for Bucky for over two years, and he'd been returning the favor, of course she knew what size he was. Sam shot her a look that she ignored. They moved toward the women's line of outdoor gear, drawing the teenage cashier's eye for a moment.

"So what else have you two been up to in the past two years?" Sam asked in a low voice, cocking his head. "Apart from stopping bank heists and rescuing kids on chairlifts."

Maggie bristled at the light suspicion in his tone, but she kept her face carefully neutral as she selected a pair of tough black trousers designed for rock climbing. "I learned to juggle."

Sam blinked. "Juggling."

"Mhm." She pulled at the pants, testing the durability. They wouldn't stop a bullet, but they were flexible enough for maneuvering while flying, and they might hold up against a blade. "Went to Machu Picchu. I made friends with an old lady named Beatrice. We've both had a few jobs."

Sam pinched his nose. "You're messing with me."

Maggie shrugged. "I'm not, but I understand why you wouldn't believe me."

He shook his head. "I've been looking for you for two and a half years, and I never would've guessed any of that crap." He sounded resigned.

She stilled. "You… you've been looking for me?"

Sam watched her carefully. "Yeah. You and Barnes. That surprising?"

Maggie was flustered now, and she didn't know what to say. Tony had looked for her? He'd known all this time? "I didn't think… never mind." She hustled to the wall of snacks, trying to escape the conversation. They'd already picked up everything they needed in the way of gear.

But Sam was on the case now. "You left blood on my shirt at the Triskelion-"

"You shot me," she remembered, her face pale.

Sam gave her a look, as if to say can you blame me? She shrugged. "Yeah, and we thought you might be with Barnes so we had the blood tested. By Tony."

She swallowed thickly and stared at the displayed snacks, not really taking them in.

Sam watched Maggie's face. He could see that she remembered Tony, or at least cared about him. He didn't know if he'd ever hoped for that much.

Sam grabbed a handful of protein packets and tossed them in their basket. "I have had a meeting at least once a month since then, updating Steve and Tony on where I was at with finding you guys. Neither of them have stopped looking."

Maggie swallowed again. "That's over thirty one meetings."

He blinked. "Yes, at least. And it really annoys me that you know that." Maggie reached out and grabbed a packet of peanuts. Sam continued: "He's going to be after us, you know," he said gently. "He might try to stop us."

She was trying to get a hold of herself, and Sam really wasn't helping. "I know."

"What will you do?"

Maggie could feel her skin prickling. She wanted to be out from under these bright lights. She wanted Bucky. "I'll finish the mission," she hissed, and turned away from Sam to march toward the counter. She greeted the tired-looking cashier in German.

Toward the end of their purchase, the cashier lifted the pair of trousers for Bucky and glanced from them to Sam.

"Ich glaube nicht, dass das die richtige Größe für Sie ist, Sir." ["I don't think these are the right size for you, sir."]

Sam blinked at the rapid fire German, and glanced to Maggie for help.

Maggie smiled disarmingly at the cashier. "Mein Mann hat Probleme mit seinem Gewicht, der arme Liebling." ["My husband has problems with his weight, the poor darling."]

The cashier glanced back at Sam with a vaguely discomforted look on his face. "Ah." He rushed through the rest of the sale, and after wishing them auf wiedersehen slumped back onto his counter, eyes glassy with tiredness.

On the way back to the car, Sam frowned. "What was that about?"

Maggie straightened her shoulders, feeling a little better. "Nothing."

While Sam and Maggie shopped, Steve and Bucky hunkered down in the tiny car. At first it was awkward – this was the first time they'd been alone together when Bucky wasn't the Soldier.

Bucky's eyes flickered around the car, not sure what to look at. He eventually settled on peering out the window, under the guise of monitoring their surroundings. They were parked on a quiet, poorly lit street in a commercial district. There was no one else around. The night chill seeped in through the windows.

Bucky was surprised when Steve broke the silence. "I'm sorry I didn't look for you, after the train in Switzerland." Bucky was alarmed to hear that Steve's voice was thick and choked. "I should've known-"

"Steve," Bucky interjected, and now his voice was choked. "It's not your fault."

The idea that Steve'd been carrying around all that guilt for so long… He reached up and rubbed his forehead. Steve was still in the front seat, looking out the windshield.

After a minute, Steve spoke again. "Why did you lie?"

Bucky sighed, trying to meet Steve's eyes in the rear-view mirror, but he was staring resolutely ahead. "Because I knew that whoever was coming was probably going to kill me. I didn't want you coming after me trying to protect me, in case you got caught in the firing line." He laughed humorlessly and glanced down at his lap. "Look how that worked out."

Steve bowed his head. "That's why you've been away all this time?"

"I'm dangerous, Steve. I knew someone would try to use me against you, and that's exactly what ended up happening."

Steve let out a long breath, and it fogged the windshield. "I could have helped you."

"I know." He knew it wasn't worth trying to convince Steve that he'd been better off without Bucky. Steve had always been more stubborn than him.

Bucky thought they were going to leave it at that, but apparently he'd forgotten just how persistent his friend could be. Steve turned in his seat, the far-off streetlight casting shadows across his face. "I missed you, Buck."

That surprised Bucky, and he felt his throat tighten with emotion. He wanted to keep Steve safe, knew that he had to distance himself for that to happen, but he couldn't help it: "I missed you too, punk."

Steve's smile was sudden and brilliant, and his blue eyes glinted in the darkness. "Jerk."

They settled into a comfortable silence after that. Bucky watched the weak light glimmer on his metal arm, contemplating all the gleaming memories of Steve he'd recalled over the years, and how they didn't hold up against the real thing. Steve watched his friend, a small smile on his face.

After a minute or so, Steve crossed his arms and leaned against the door. "And what about her?"

Bucky stiffened slightly. "What about her?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "You know who she is, don't you? She knows who she is."

Bucky examined his metal fingers. Softly, he replied: "Yeah."

"Her brother's been looking for her-"

He glanced up. "He has?"

Steve frowned. "Yeah, he has. He's known she's alive for a while now."

Bucky found himself nodding. He was glad for Meg, he really was, but he knew how complicated this must make things for her. He remembered asking her if she wanted to see her brother. You know why I can't do that, she'd said.

Doesn't stop you wanting things.

After a long moment, she'd sighed. Yeah. I do want that.

Bucky could almost hear Steve's thoughts churning, so he offered: "She's just as dangerous as I am, Steve. And she wanted to protect him."

Steve sighed, and dropped his head back against the window. "Tony's not gonna stop."

Bucky went cold at the implications of that. For the first time, he wasn't thinking of Tony as one of his victims, a man who missed his sister from afar. He knew the man's history – Tony Stark was a determined, resourceful genius, and if he was anything like his sister, then sooner or later Stark would get what he was looking for.

Bucky didn't know what would happen if he caught up to Meg, especially while they were looking for the Winter Soldiers.

Eventually, Steve cleared his throat. Bucky glanced up and saw that he seemed to be struggling to find the words to say something. He waited.

Eventually: "Is she… alright?"

Bucky blinked. "What?"

"We… we went to a base in Canada," Steve murmured. "Saw some… pretty terrible things."

Bucky swallowed, thinking of all the times he'd heard Meg screaming in her sleep. His jaw tightened.

"Once you remember that stuff… you don't forget it again."

Steve's eyes darkened, but then he spotted something just down the street and straightened. Bucky looked over his shoulder – it was Meg and Sam, walking back to the car with bags in their arms. Meg's face was carefully neutral, but Bucky could see from the line of her shoulders and the look in her eyes that something was troubling her.

Steve eyed Bucky in the rear view mirror as Maggie climbed into the back seat and offered him a bag of peanuts. Bucky smiled, and Steve was taken aback at how much it made him look like the man he'd been seventy years ago, fun-loving and sociable, trading jokes and smiles with his friends.

Steve thought that over as he and Sam swapped seats, and Sam drove the car away. If Maggie Stark could make Bucky smile with just a bag of peanuts, then she was alright in his book.