Chapter 41

As the Quinjet soared away from the airport and disappeared into the cloud cover, Steve looked over his shoulder.

Bucky was frozen at the other end of the cockpit, his hand pressed against the tiny window. There was nothing left to see, just white clouds and blue sky.

In the panic of the moment, with Maggie's screams in their ears, Bucky had told Steve to turn the Quinjet around. They both knew that wasn't an option, that there wasn't anything they could do but continue with the mission, but that had been hard for Steve to remember when his oldest friend was begging him to turn back with a broken, thready pitch to his voice. And yet he'd stayed the course.

Steve swallowed, the magnitude of all that had just occurred settling heavy on his shoulders. "Buck-"

"He-he tore off her wing, he just-" Bucky's voice cracked. He trailed off and turned to Steve, his face blank with shock and fear.

Steve turned around fully, meeting his friend's traumatized eyes. "What does that do to her? Is she going to be okay?"

"I… I don't know." He was still rooted in place at the back of the Quinjet. When he spoke again, it was a whisper. "Her wings… they're a part of her, Steve."

Steve couldn't imagine how Bucky felt. He couldn't get Maggie's excruciated, almost inhuman screams out of his head. Could tearing off her wing really do that much damage?

But then he remembered the scans from the Québec base, how the wings had been linked to the metal on her bones, almost so they were extensions of her body. If it was all so connected, then Maggie had just had a limb torn off. Steve's shoulders hunched, and he turned around in his seat.

Wanda. Sam. Clint. Scott.

Maggie.

Rhodey.

Was anything worth the price they'd just paid?

The Quinjet flew on in silence. Bucky didn't move away from the back window for a long time.

On the ground miles below, Tony knelt over his best friend's body. He couldn't bear to look at Rhodey's blank, bleeding face, so he glared up at Vision instead. The android looked horrified.

Silence stretched between them, save for the distant wail of sirens.

When Vision did speak, it wasn't what Tony expected. "Your sister…" He trailed off.

Tony had never seen Vision speechless before. His confusion must have showed in his eyes, because Vision glanced over his shoulder towards the main airport, as if in explanation.

Kneeling in the dirt with his gauntleted hands pressed against Rhodey's suit, the pieces clicked together in Tony's mind. He realised he'd heard screaming over the commlink, as he was chasing after the Quinjet and then Rhodey. And the growing horror in Vision's eyes couldn't be mistaken.

"My sister what?" Tony spat out, his chest heaving. But he didn't wait for Vision to get over his newfound speechlessness. He carefully let go of Rhodey and staggered to his feet, his heart wrenching in two directions.

But then he decided. "Look after him," Tony snapped at Vision, and then he was off in a blast of repulsors, not even stopping to put his helmet up.

He reached the main strip of the airport in seconds, and what he saw only brought the edges of a panic attack even closer. This was like his vision from the HYDRA base in Sokovia, made real.

Maggie was crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood, her limbs splayed lifelessly. T'Challa knelt by her side, bare-headed as he pressed his hands against a wound on Maggie's back – Tony realised that her left wing was missing, and there was a metal stump coated in blood a few feet away.

Tony staggered as he landed beside the gruesome scene, running frantic eyes over his sister.

He'd avoided her in the fight, even as he told himself that they all needed to be brought in to stop this madness. He'd heard her voice over the comms, had felt her surprise and hesitation when he caught her fist. He'd expected to have to face her one way or another at the end of the fight, but not like… not like this.

Maggie was a mess. She was completely limp, blood leaking from her damaged wing mooring, and the right side of her body was torn up from her collision with the ground. Tony stumbled toward her and dropped to his knees. With a trembling gauntlet he pulled her goggles off her face, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears when he was met with her closed eyes.

Tony glanced up at T'Challa, who was stemming the bloodflow with a wide-eyed, horrified look on his face. Tony had ordered that they use nonlethal force, how could this have happened?

Tony managed to croak out: "is she-"

"She is alive," T'Challa replied, glancing at Tony. "But she needs help."

He shuddered, wishing he could summon the ambulances instantly, and pressed two shaking fingers to Maggie's throat. His gauntlets picked up her heartbeat, fluttering and thready, but still there. She was breathing.

Tony was almost vibrating with the force of his emotions now. He looked back up at T'Challa. "You did this?" He didn't recognise his own voice: low and dark.

T'Challa met his eye. "I didn't think…" he glanced down at Maggie's limp body. "I didn't realize they were attached to her." The king wiped the back of his hand across his mouth almost angrily, glancing back up at where the Quinjet had disappeared into the sky. Tony's fingers twitched and curled, forming into fists, but there had been enough fighting on this bloody ground. T'Challa hadn't meant for this to happen, so there was no one left for him to fight. There were just broken bodies.

Emergency vehicles flooded in, ambulances streaming across the field toward Rhodey, Sam, and Vision, and to where Tony knelt by Maggie. A shuddering breath gusted out of Tony's lungs.

As the paramedics worked out how to detach Maggie from her other wing and load her onto the gurney, speaking rapidly about internal bleeding and possible spinal injuries, Tony focused for the first time on his sister's face.

It was relaxed. He could almost pretend that she was sleeping, if it weren't for the tiny cuts along her cheek and the smears of blood on her skin. Tony could see himself in her, and he could see their mom and dad. She had mom's nose and dad's jaw, and her face was framed by dark hair. Some of her hair had escaped its ties and was strewn across her sweaty forehead.

As the paramedics hoisted her into the ambulance, Maggie's head lolled to the side.

Then she was gone.

Tony got to his feet, shaking, and wondered if he'd just lost everyone he cared about.

Avengers' Quinjet, Undisclosed Location

The silence in the Quinjet was deafening. They flew for hours without a word, Steve piloting the jet and Bucky looking down at his lap.

Bucky couldn't really believe that he'd left Meg behind. She'd told him to, and he'd trusted that she'd be okay, but then he'd watched out the Quinjet window as she tumbled out of the sky, her one remaining wing trailing behind her.

He'd never heard her scream like that, not even when she was in the chair. Just the memory of it made nausea churn in his gut, and he had to take a shuddering breath to keep from being sick.

Her wings were the one thing she'd enjoyed about being the Wyvern. She loved flying, and relief crossed her face whenever she put her wings on. And in a heartbeat she'd just lost one of them. Bucky didn't doubt that she'd felt every second of it.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

Even when he'd had the whole world against him, when he was in the clutches of the JTTF and the Avengers and whoever else, Meg had come for him. And now she'd just had her wing ripped away, and he was flying in the other direction.

Bucky broke the silence first. "What's going to happen to them?"

Steve didn't reply for a long moment. "Whatever it is," he eventually said, his voice rough with guilt, "I'll deal with it."

Typical Steve, taking the world on his shoulders. And if his answer was any indication, he didn't know what was going to happen to his friends. To Maggie. Bucky stared absently through the windshield, his own wretchedness clawing at his insides.

"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

Another long pause. Steve looked over his shoulder. "What you did all those years… it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

Bucky's jaw twitched. He remembered the Wyvern's red, glowing glare as she held her claws to his throat in a dark garden. You didn't have a choice, she'd said, and relaxed her grip. The Soldier had wondered why she didn't kill him.

"I know," Bucky murmured, and then turned to look at Steve. "But I did it."

Steve didn't have a response to that. He turned back around, watching the grey scenery pass below them.

Helicopter over the Atlantic Ocean

Tony had had many conversations with different people over the past few hours, and not one of them made him feel any better about himself.

The first had been with Ross. The Secretary of State was understandably displeased about the clusterfuck at the airport, and about Barnes and Steve's escape. Ross had arrived on the scene as Steve's team was getting loaded into armored vehicles, save for Maggie, who was in an ambulance.

"What's going to happen to her?" Tony had asked, making Ross raise one silver eyebrow.

"She'll go to the Raft with the others." Tony didn't know anything about the Raft, but he assumed it was Ross's answer to detaining enhanced individuals. "There are medical facilities there, regular hospitals aren't secure enough for that level of criminal."

"Great, that's great." Tony had nodded absently, not meeting Ross's eyes. Tony was no fool – he knew they were going to run a blood test sooner or later, or T'Challa would work out exactly why Tony was so upset and blab, like he was sure to do about Nat's defection. So he just came out with it: "She's my sister."

If Tony hadn't felt so wretched, he might have enjoyed the look of incredulous befuddlement on Ross's face. As it was, he just waited it out, watching the pieces click together in Ross's mind.

Ross pulled up a hastily-put-together file on the Wyvern, which now had a polaroid of Maggie's unconscious face clipped to it. He glanced from the picture, to Tony's face, and then back down again. Then thunderclouds seemed to roll in over his face, and Tony distantly wondered if that was why people called him 'Thunderbolt' Ross.

Ross shouted at Tony for what felt like hours. But Tony didn't hear it – his emotions were flying in every direction, and he felt like he was coming apart at the seams.

Because Tony had a choice: go to the Raft and stand by as his sister was treated and then imprisoned, or go with Rhodey to support him through whatever diagnosis was coming.

As Ross shouted at him about irresponsible bias, colluding with the enemy, and withholding information, Tony considered his options. He didn't know Maggie – she had chosen this fight, chose to protect Barnes even after his crimes in Vienna, chose to fight so she could keep running. She might be his blood relative but he didn't know her, regardless of how much he cared about her. He knew Rhodey, though, and Rhodey didn't deserve to be alone after what had just happened.

Maggie chose this fight. Rhodey was just doing his job.

As he'd nodded blandly at Ross's shouts, Tony sighed. After years of hunting for Maggie, now that he knew exactly where she was, he had to choose someone else over her. He gritted his teeth. He'd face Maggie when he could bear it. It wasn't like she was going anywhere.

Ross yelled and yelled, but it wasn't like Maggie's identity changed anything, really. She'd made her choices.

The second conversation was with Rhodey. After the doctors gave their prognosis and left to consult their notes, the first thing Rhodey asked was:

"Maggie?" His face was creased with concern, though Tony wasn't sure if it was meant for Maggie or for him.

Tony had glanced away, leaning back in the creaky hospital visitor's chair. "She got hurt. By T'Challa, but he says he didn't mean to hurt her. Seems that's going around." He regretted the dig when Rhodey's face darkened, so he went on: "She's on the Raft now. Doctors there say she's going to be okay." He swallowed, wrestling with his own guilt and inadequacy.

Rhodey shut his eyes for a long moment, and Tony was startled at how haggard his friend looked. "I don't know what this says about me," Rhodey murmured, "But… I'm glad she's okay. I'm glad."

Then Tony had his whispered, incredulous conversation with the guilt-ridden Vision. Tony was usually so in awe of the android that he'd helped to create, but today… it seemed that not even someone as well-designed as Vision was infallible.

His fourth conversation – or rather, argument – was with Nat, snapping back and forth at each other as they looked out over the green forest below. Tony lashed out at her, taking out his anger at Steve, Maggie and the rest of them on her. She saw right through him, as always, hissing "are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?"

He honestly didn't know if he was. But Nat had been his ally – his friend – for years now, so he gave her the heads up that she was next on Ross's most wanted list.

"I'm not the one that needs to watch their back," she told him, looking more upset than he'd ever seen her.

Then she was gone, too.

Now, Tony was having a tense conversation with his A.I. as his helicopter thundered over the gloomy, tempestuous ocean. Theo Broussard's murder, Helmut Zemo's infiltration… the pieces were clicking together, making Tony's blood pressure hike with every new realisation.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. continued: "Police also found a wig and facial prosthesis approximating the appearance of one James Buchanan Barnes."

Tony's jaw clenched. You're looking for revenge on the wrong man, Maggie had told T'Challa. Tony had been so startled by the sound of her voice that he hadn't even listened to what she was saying. Even if he had, he didn't know if he'd have believed her.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, glancing away from Barnes' holographic face.

The hard ball of hurt in Tony's chest swelled. He'd taken Maggie's appearance at the airport as a personal attack, a sign that she couldn't throw off the violent things HYDRA had taught her. But Tony had played right into Zemo's hands.

As he instructed F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn the information over to Ross, he lifted one hand to rub his jaw. He didn't understand Maggie, didn't even know her. But whatever was in her head, there was no doubt that by fighting at the airport she'd been trying to help Steve stop a dangerous man.

Tony pressed his eyes shut. Maggie was his sister, despite everything, and she'd been trying to do something good. He was going to give her a chance.

The Raft Prison, Atlantic Ocean

Maggie woke up in a narrow white tube. She blinked once, then realized what had woken her up: the tube she was lying in was beeping, bright white lights were flashing, and she registered a high wine of electricity.

When the tube started to warp and crumple before her very eyes, and sparks started flying, Maggie got the hell out of there. She used her legs to scoot backwards, gasping as a horrific shrieking sound filled the air, and then tumbled backwards out of the tube, collapsing onto a hard white floor.

As soon as she was free of the malfunctioning tube, Maggie registered the pain lighting up her body. With a startled cry she doubled over and pressed her forehead against the blessedly cool floor. She felt as if a giant had gripped her whole body and squeezed. Her ribs were aching, her chest throbbed with pain, and every time she breathed in a sharp spike of agony radiated from her left wing mooring.

It took her a few moments to get a handle on the pain, categorising each ache and sting and convincing herself that she could manage them. With her head still pressed against the cool tile, she sorted through her memories from before she passed out. Tony; the battle at the airport; Bucky and Steve getting away; T'Challa tearing her wing off.

Bile rose in Maggie's throat at the fresh memory, and pain lanced through her spine. Vibranium, not Adamantium, is the strongest metal on earth. She was lucky the violent removal of her wing hadn't broken her spine. Her wings were designed to link seamlessly with the metal throughout her body, and the act of damaging one would impact her whole system. She could definitely feel that it had cracked some ribs, the metal pulling her bones in ways they were never meant to bend.

Maggie fought back the tears prickling her eyes at the thought of her destroyed wing. If she went down that line of thinking she'd fall apart even more, and she needed to work out where she was.

Wincing, Maggie lifted her forehead off the ground and staggered to her feet. Her whole body protested the movement, bones creaking and her grazed skin stinging as it stretched. But she kept her balance, and lifted her eyes.

Maggie took one look at sterile metal walls and fluorescent lights and immediately wanted to drop to the ground again. Her heartrate doubled, and she had to take long breaths through her nose to keep from hyperventilating. This wasn't HYDRA, she reminded herself. It couldn't be. Just because she'd found herself in a lab once more didn't mean HYDRA had her.

The tube she'd woken up in was an MRI machine, now smoking and crumpled as it powered down. Maggie frowned at it – why would anyone think putting her, a woman with metal on her bones, in an MRI machine was a good idea? The rest of the small lab was lined with medical equipment and beds. There was a large mirror taking up most of the far wall, but Maggie would bet anything that it was a two-way mirror. She ran a wary eye over her reflection.

She looked terrible. Bruises and lacerations dotted her entire right side, and her hair was a dark rats nest around her pinched, exhausted-looking face. She was wearing blue scrubs over some kind of khaki long-sleeved shirt, and her feet were bare. The pearl pendant that Bucky had given her, which she'd worn under her battle uniform, was missing from her neck.

Maggie grimaced, and noted that she also felt unnaturally groggy – she'd been sedated, then. She supposed the reason she was awake at all was that whoever had sedated her had run into the problem that HYDRA often had – her body burned through any kind of drug much faster than they anticipated.

Maggie had just put together the strange outfit and the heavy security on the lab door and realised: prison, when the equipment in the room finally powered down, and the intermittent sparks stopped.

At that moment the lab door burst open, and Maggie found herself looking down the barrels of at least a dozen rifles.

"Stand down, Wyvern!" Came a harsh shout. "Back up and show us your hands!"

Her eyes widened and she jerked away, backpedalling until her back hit the lab wall and she cried out. Armed guards flooded into the room after her, fanning out so she was covered from all angles. Maggie tried to raise her hands, but then her chest shrieked with pain and she had to press a hand against her ribs, wincing.

The guards wore camouflage uniforms, green helmets and black vests that read U.S. Army. Maggie eyed them nervously, lowering her centre of gravity. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

After the guards came a gaggle of scientists in lab coats, who shot her wary glances and then gathered around the smoking MRI machine, looking dismayed.

Anxiety spiked in Maggie's gut. The lab, the armed soldiers, the white coats, the pain echoing throughout her body – the list of triggers that reminded her of HYDRA kept growing, and Maggie suddenly felt like a five year old girl again, wide eyed and helpless. Her skin was flushed, feverish. She'd never been claustrophobic, but she suddenly felt as if the walls were closing in.

But the soldiers didn't come any closer, and the scientists were busy fussing over their broken machinery.

Seconds later a tall, silver-haired man in a black jacket walked into the room, with yet more armed guards. Maggie instantly recognized him as Secretary Thaddeus Ross, one of the driving forces behind the Accords, but she suddenly didn't care. Because a second after Ross walked in, he was followed by Tony Stark.

"She's got metal implants, you idiots," Tony was saying, glaring at Ross and then at the scientists in the room. "Why would you put her in an MRI machine?"

The breath whooshed from Maggie's lungs. Unbeknownst to her, Tony had just come from his conversation with Sam, anxious to see what condition they were keeping his sister in, when he heard the commotion from the labs and ran to see what was happening. All Maggie knew was that one moment she was trapped in a nightmare made real, and the next moment Tony was there. And now he was looking at her.

Maggie straightened, pulled her hand away from her ribs, and met her brother's gaze.

There was a long silence, filled only by the groaning of the destroyed equipment. Maggie could feel everyone staring at her, and she abruptly wished she had her wings – they'd always made her feel safer, like she could shield herself from anything, fly away at any moment.

In the silence, Maggie and Tony looked at each other. They took in each other's appearances, finding similarities and differences. Maggie noted that Tony had their dad's jaw. She ran her eyes over the ugly bruises on his face, glinting darkly under the fluorescent lights, and the sling on his arm. The injuries made her feel sick, especially as she knew who had put most of them there. His face was unreadable as he stared back at her, tense and heavy-browed. His mouth was pressed into a thin line.

Maggie kept her own face blank. It was her instinct whenever it came to people observing her.

Finally, after working his jaw for a few moments, Tony turned to Ross, who had been angrily gesturing at the scientists. Maggie relaxed a little, relieved she was no longer being stared at.

"Let me take her with me."

Ross's face hardened as he turned to Tony. Maggie blinked. "Stark, this isn't-"

"Clearly you don't have the resources to scan her," Tony argued back, sounding surprisingly calm. "I'm going back to the compound where that will be possible. It's just as secure as here, and I can personally guarantee she won't escape."

Maggie watched silently as Ross and Tony argued, ignoring her pounding heartbeat.

"Oh you guarantee, do you?" taunted Ross, sneering. "And this doesn't have anything to do with wanting to make sure that your baby sister gets off scot-free-"

"She's hardly getting off scot-free if she's surrounded by Avengers on the most secure compound on earth. You know we've got the resources. Besides, I've got this." Tony pulled what looked like a metal bracelet out of his pocket, stepped across the lab toward Maggie and snapped it around her wrist. She saw it coming, but she was so surprised that he was willing to come near her that she didn't think to try to stop him.

As Tony backed away she lifted her arm and peered at the bracelet. The metal whirred and tightened around her arm – not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough that Maggie knew she wouldn't be able to get it off. A glowing green LED light flickered into life on the top of the bracelet. She glared at it, and then up at Tony. He wasn't looking at her.

"What's that do?" Ross asked in a milder voice, running a hand across his moustache. He gestured to the fussing scientists and they cleared out of the lab, leaving their broken equipment behind.

"Think of it as a high-tech LoJack," Tony explained, cocking his head. "It's connected to – well, something on me. If she goes more than three hundred feet away from me, the band will emit a painless, low-voltage electric current that freezes up muscles, even those of the super-soldier variety." Tony still wouldn't look at Maggie as he spoke, so he couldn't see her glare deepen.

Ross, however, seemed mollified. "And what happens if she attacks you?"

"It activates if my vitals flatline. Or if anyone attempts to remove it. But I'm sure it won't come to that." Tony grinned, and clapped his hands together. "Right! We'll be off then, so long, give me a call if you need me." Tony tipped his head at Maggie in a gesture that suggested she follow, and then walked out of the room.

Maggie hesitated for a long moment, eyeing the armed soldiers throughout the room, and Ross's unamused glare. Would it be easier to stay here, in this strange prison, instead of being imprisoned by her own brother? One option seemed a lot less painful than the other.

She glanced down at the metal bracelet circling her wrist, then at the molten mess of the MRI machine. She gritted her teeth.

Best go with the harder choice.

Taking a deep breath – and wincing as the movement pulled at her cracked ribs – Maggie walked out after her brother.

On her way past Ross, the Secretary of State reached out and gripped her upper arm. He didn't have the strength to stop her, but she stopped anyway, staring resolutely ahead.

"This isn't freedom, Wyvern," he hissed. "You're a mass murderer, and you'll face justice for that. As will Barnes, when we get him."

Maggie refused to look at him. His fingers dug harshly into her arm, but she ignored the pain.

"You're a moron," she told Ross, shrugged out of his grip, and stepped out of the lab.

Maggie followed Tony through the black corridors of the prison, through reinforced metal doors that slid open as he approached, and past more armed soldiers. Tony didn't look back at her once, but she was sure he could hear her bare feet padding along behind him. Her heels made a soft clink sound every time they hit the floor. Maggie eyed each soldier they passed warily, but no one attempted to stop her. Tony was heading steadily upwards.

With no acknowledgment from Tony, Maggie found herself inspecting the infrastructure of the prison: air ducts, wiring, the layout of the corridors. It was like no facility she'd ever been in, a maze of sturdy walls and fluorescent lights. Flash memories flickered through the back of her mind, of a warren of rock corridors tunnelling through an island in Québec. Maggie shook her head to clear away the images – those dark corridors were blown to pieces, and she'd never have to face them again. She had Tony to thank for that.

She glanced up at the back of her brother's head. As she did, she noticed that the ground was ever so slightly unsteady beneath her feet. At first Maggie thought it was in her head, a result of her injury and sedation, but the longer they walked, the more certain she was that it was the prison that was moving. She frowned.

Finally, they walked into a wide room with a Stark Industries helicopter parked on a landing pad in the middle. It started powering up as soon as Tony appeared.

Maggie's eyes widened incrementally, but she kept following five paces behind.

"Stark!" came Ross's voice, and Maggie scowled when she realised the Secretary of State had followed them up. She didn't look back. "Did Wilson give you anything on Rogers?"

"Nope, told me to go to hell," Tony shot over his shoulder. "I'm going back to the compound instead, but you can call me anytime." He climbed into the helicopter, the downdraft of the rotors ruffling his hair, and looked back at Ross. "I'll put you on hold, I like to watch the line blink."

Maggie could only imagine the pleasant look Ross shot at Tony for that jab. She didn't look, because it was clear it was her turn to board the helicopter. Wincing as her ribs protested, she grabbed the handhold and climbed in, scooting to sit in the seat furthest from Tony, opposite him in the cockpit. There was no one in the front of the helicopter – it was fully automated, then.

Tony grinned at Ross and nodded as the helicopter door slid shut. Maggie's heartrate was speeding up again, and she gripped her seat's armrests with white knuckles. There was a clanking sound from above the helicopter, and she glanced out of the window to see the roof opening up - two enormous metal doors swung outwards on hydraulic lifts, releasing a gust of rain into the room below. The helicopter started rising, and something in Maggie's gut tightened.

Maggie kept staring out the window as they took off, at first to avoid the inevitable confrontation with Tony, but then because she got a good look at the prison as they flew away, and… was it floating?

Maggie craned her neck, staring at the enormous black structure as it started to sink into the ocean. Her heart skipped a beat – this was no new creation. The U.S. Government had clearly been anticipating locking up enhanced people for years.

A pang of guilt hit Maggie as she realized that the others captured at the airport must still be in that sinking black box: Scott, Wanda, Clint, and Sam. She hadn't thought about them since she woke up, too caught up in her panic and then thoughts about her brother. They were still stuck there, and she was being transferred to what was probably another prison, albeit a much nicer one. She frowned as the prison sank out of sight, leaving churning white water in its wake.

"Grim prospect, huh."

Maggie flinched at Tony's voice, and her eyes flicked toward him. Tony's elbows rested on his knees, and he watched her from under a furrowed brow, his gaze unreadable. Maggie stilled, looking back at him silently.

It was just the two of them now.

After a long silence, Tony spoke: "Do you know who you are?"

Maggie didn't break their eye contact. "Yes."

"Do you know who I am?"

There was a longer pause.

"Yes."

There was another long silence, this one almost awkward. So many unsaid things crackled between them. Maggie felt small.

Eventually, Tony sighed and leaned back in his seat. "I gotta say, when we were kids it would have never occurred to me that I would be the one bailing you out of jail."

Maggie laughed, and then her hand darted to her mouth, surprised. But the simple sound had eased the tension in the helicopter. She glanced up at Tony and saw that his face was softer, more open. She swallowed.

"Are you alright?" she blurted out. She couldn't keep her mind off the bruises on his face and the sling on his arm, and she didn't miss the way he winced whenever he moved.

It was Tony's turn to blink at her in surprise. He glanced down at his sling, as if he'd forgotten it was there. "I – yeah, I'm…" he glanced back up at her, his brow pinched. "I'm fine." He cocked his head, as if reassessing her, and Maggie shrank a little under his gaze. "You?"

Maggie ran another mental catalogue: cracked ribs, bruises and lacerations, ligament damage, blood loss. She shrugged carefully, ignoring the way her chest twinged. "I'll live."

"Good, good," Tony muttered, still watching her. "Living is good." After another beat, he sighed and reached up to the clip on his sling, unfastening it and scrunching the sling into a ball. He winced, clutching his wrist, and then started messing around with his watch. Maggie's brow furrowed as she watched him.

"Okay," Tony muttered, pressing buttons on his watch. "Siberia, right?"

Maggie didn't freeze, but he could clearly sense her sudden panic from across the cockpit. "Relax, Wilson told me." His eyes flicked back up to hers. "I know Barnes was set up, and I know Steve was telling the truth at the airport. The doctor was an impostor, a guy called Helmut Zemo. If he's stirring up trouble in Siberia, they'll need backup."

Maggie's eyes grew steadily rounder as he spoke. "It's a little worse than trouble," she murmured.

"Yeah, Wilson told me. Winter Soldier Program, huh?"

Maggie's shoulders hunched – that was far too close to things she wasn't ready to talk about yet. Tony saw her reaction and changed the subject.

"Okay, you're going to need this-" he tossed something at her, and Maggie caught it instinctively in one hand. She flipped it around to reveal… a mask? It looked like an Iron Man mask, with glass slits for eyes and a stern mouth line, but it was a pale grey and felt like some kind of synthetic polymer. Maggie looked from the mask to Tony, cocking an eyebrow.

He gestured for her to put it on, but she didn't move. No way was she putting on a strange mask just because he'd told her to, he'd already given her one piece of jewellery she didn't want.

Tony sighed, and exasperatedly explained: "It's a protective suit. I built it in case I ever needed to airlift someone long distance. It can't take a beating like my suit can, and it's got no firepower, but it'll get you to Siberia. Okay?"

Maggie raised both eyebrows now, glancing at the mask in her hands. "Okay."

She pressed the mask to her face. With a pneumatic hiss, the mask shivered and expanded, slipping over the back of her head, down her neck, and flowing to cover her body. She shuddered at the feeling – it was like being encased in plastic.

Once the suit wrapped over her bare feet and hissed once more, Maggie lifted her hands and blinked at them through the mask eyeholes. Her whole body was covered in the grey polymer. It was lightweight, but felt sturdy enough. The material supported her aching ribs, and Maggie found she could move a little easier.

"Welcome aboard, Ms Stark," said a female voice with an Irish accent in her ear. Maggie flinched, both at the voice and at the name, then glanced back up at Tony.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y. runs the suit, so you don't need to do any driving," Tony said, and Maggie swore she saw the ghost of a smirk on his lips. "The suit's synced to mine, so it'll be a follow-the-leader kind of deal."

Maggie cocked her head from side to side, feeling the remarkably flexible polymer stretch and retract. "This is so cool," she muttered, and wiggled her fingers.

Tony did smirk that time. "Alright, let's get this show on the road." He pressed his index finger into a nondescript silver button on the console next to him, and Maggie watched wide-eyed as red and gold metal suddenly sprang up around him, slotting over his arms and shoulders. A door slid open behind him and the suit fully cocooned his body, finishing with the distinctive gold mask and glowing eye slits. A second later he fell backward, slipping out of the helicopter and dropping into the sky below.

For a second or two Maggie stared after him, blinking, but then her suit whirred into action and before she understood what was happening she was zooming out the helicopter door as well.

Maggie was no stranger to flying, but the feeling of dropping into open air in nothing but a plastic suit made her heart leap into her mouth. She tried to flail her limbs to balance herself, but the polymer suit went rigid against her movements. Rain pelted against her facemask. She spotted the red and gold figure of Iron Man a hundred feet below, and with a blast of repulsors he was off, jetting across the sky. Maggie yelped as her suit echoed his movements, manoeuvring her limbs against her will and sending her rocketing after her brother. She took a second to be grateful that the suit stayed within three hundred feet of Tony at all times, so the metal bracelet on her wrist didn't go off.

It took her a few minutes to get used to the unsettling feeling of being a sack of meat carted around by an A.I.-operated suit, but once she did she was able to process what exactly had just happened. She eyed the gleaming figure of her brother, cutting through the howling wind and rain.

She could hear Tony breathing, so she assumed there was a comm linkup between the suits. "You're breaking the law," she said. It was kind of a question, but not really.

The Iron Man suit didn't falter, brushing over the top of a dense storm cloud. "This might not surprise you, but that's not exactly a new concept for me."

Nor me, Maggie thought wryly. She wasn't fooled by Tony's casual tone – she'd seen how hard he fought for the Accords at the airport – but if he didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't push. There were so many unsaid things between them, it seemed silly to argue over semantics.

They fell into silence again, and Maggie's thoughts turned to the last time she'd been in the sky. Her back ached once more at the memory of T'Challa tearing her left wing away, and she remembered the sickening feeling of falling. She wondered if this was how Bucky felt when he remembered his fall from the train in 1945 – cold and sweaty, with a sinking sensation in his gut as if he was still falling.

Maggie didn't think T'Challa had meant to hurt her – he'd been pissed, sure, but she could usually tell when an opponent was trying to kill her or maim her, and T'Challa hadn't been that angry. She remembered the way he had stared at her, frozen in horror, as she screamed.

As she turned over her memories of feeling like her body was being torn apart, Maggie abruptly recalled a small detail that her agonized, shocked mind had only just noticed.

Suddenly panicking, Maggie glanced back at her brother and blurted out: "Is Rhodey okay?"

Tony actually looked over his shoulder at that, even though there was nothing to see but the grey polymer suit. "Caught that, did you?" His voice was terse, and Maggie's stomach lurched. "He's alive. Probably going to have some form of paralysis."

Maggie's heart plummeted to the harsh ocean miles below. Rhodey, who had stuck by her brother for his entire adult life. Rhodey who had promised to take her flying. Maggie felt tears welling behind her eyes, and she remembered the way Rhodey's armour had glinted as he fell out of the sky.

She knew she hadn't been solely responsible for the fight at the airport, but… she'd been fighting against Rhodey, and he'd gotten hurt. She'd thought her days of hurting people were over. A bitter taste filled her mouth when she realised that though they'd both gotten hurt, she had the super soldier serum to help her bounce back. Rhodey was all human, through and through, and he'd paid the price.

After another few minutes, Tony said: "You called him Rhodey." There was a funny note in his voice.

"What?"

"Rhodey. Not Rhodes."

Maggie blinked through her tears. Oh. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before she managed to speak. "Well," she choked out, "roads are supposed to be named after people, not the other way around." It was a silly thing to say, childish, but it was the only thing she could think of.

Tony laughed, and it sounded like there might be tears in his eyes too.

Maggie followed her brother through the sky, her heart pounding as the landscape below grew colder.