Chapter 61

December 5th, 2016

Stark Mansion, New York City

Maggie descended the gleaming stairs of the mansion, one hand running lightly along the wooden banister. She'd dressed with purpose this morning – a conservative suit, no flashy colors, with her pearl necklace tucked under her blouse. She'd brushed her teeth and stared into the bathroom mirror for a few long minutes, feeling self conscious. It reminded her of the first time she'd looked at her reflection after escaping HYDRA – she'd been so startled then to see a person in her eyes, and not a weapon. The realization had scared her then, but today it gave her the strength to turn and face her fate.

She glanced up when she reached the bottom of the stairs, eyeing the group of people gathered to accompany her to the courthouse. A coterie of guards of course, but also Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, and Andrea and Diego. Vision had wanted to come, but Maggie wasn't comfortable with the thought of the Avengers Facility going unmanned just because she had a court date.

Maggie ran her eyes over the grim faces waiting for her. "Hey."

They returned the greeting, either in murmurs or in forcefully-cheerful tones. Tony didn't speak at all, which worried her – he'd gone past anxious word vomit and into silence. Maggie could see his fear, plain in his eyes, and she felt as if there was a stone sitting in her stomach.

"We doing this, then?" she asked, and they got moving. She sensed this wasn't a time for inspiring words – everyone had too much to think about for that.

On the way out to the car Maggie spotted the pile of papers that had been delivered that morning, sitting on a bench just inside the front door. Her own face looked back at her from the paper on top, grim and unreadable, under the words UNITED STATES V STARK.

A jitter of nerves ran through her and she fixed her gaze straight ahead. This could be the beginning of the end.

Twenty minutes later Maggie walked up the stairs to the courthouse in a blaze of flashing lights and shouts. At the top of the stairs she looked up at the stone pillars and closed her eyes for a brief moment, her thoughts for some reason turning back to that crystallized moment on the Helicarriers almost three years ago. Her mind had been a snowstorm of half-memories and clashing missions, and in the midst of that chaos a single thought had come to the forefront of her mind:

Your name is Margaret.

Maggie replayed the memory of Bucky's voice like a ritual as she made her way to the courtroom. Your name is Margaret. Your name is Margaret.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good morning," said the prosecutor David Mallory, his eyes tracking across each member of the jury. They'd ended up with seven women and five men, with a wide mix of ethnicities and ages. "We're here today not to seek justice for a single crime, or a single person. No, we are here on behalf of thirty six victims of murder and their families, some of whom are in the courtroom today. That alone should be enough but we are here to discuss other crimes as well. Espionage: within America and overseas. Terrorism: again domestic and international. Treason. Grand larceny. Kidnapping. These crimes were committed over two decades so I don't blame you for feeling overwhelmed: that is a prodigious amount of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering inflicted by Margaret Stark."

He paused, letting his words hang in the air. "The question of this trial is not going to be if Margaret Stark committed these murders, these heinous acts. It will be why. I'll tell you now: it's not because Ms Stark is an angry or emotional person – she was not jealous of her victims, she didn't disagree with their ideologies, she didn't hate them.

"It's also not because she was under some kind of sustained 'mind control'. We will show that Ms Stark actively participated in these crimes – she thought them through carefully, down to the last detail. She built weapons, packed supplies, discussed attack plans with her handlers. We will show evidence that Ms Stark used her superior intelligence to plan a chemical attack on the home of Georgian politician Ana Dadiani – killing Mrs Dadiani, her husband, household staff, and her six-year-old twin sons. We will show that Ms Stark utilized her expertise in electronic hacking to ruthlessly track father of four Philip Rushman across the United States, before hunting him down to his hotel room and choking him to death."

Mallory ran his eyes across the jury. "These are not the actions of a mindless victim.

"No. Margaret Stark is a contract killer. She may have begun her time at HYDRA as a victim, but we cannot forget that she spent twenty-two years with them without a single escape attempt until HYDRA fell apart in 2014. She is a highly skilled, intelligent, and ruthless mercenary who worked with HYDRA until the very last moment. As we will show, she then turned her skills toward avoiding capture and manipulating those who would punish her for her crimes.

"This is not going to be an easy trial. You are going to see pain, and suffering, and death. Margaret Stark suffered, but she unleashed that suffering tenfold on dozens of innocent victims. There is no question of whether she did these things – she admits them herself.

"So before I begin to describe the details of each crime we have the task of judging, I ask you to remember one thing from this point forward. We are not here for one crime, or one person. But we are here with one objective: justice. The crimes you are about to hear have gone unaddressed and unpunished for years, and it is your task now to rectify that."

For forty five minutes Mallory described each crime in as much detail as he could, in chronological order. He told the jury each victim's name, and how they died. For some of them it was just a few lines in a file, usually ending with the Wyvern was successful.

Maggie focused on breathing, her hands clasped in her lap as she looked at the desk in front of her, and listened.

She'd known it was going to be bad, but… Mallory's words called to every small doubt she had ever felt about herself. How could I have unleashed so much destruction without a second thought? I'm meant to be a genius, why didn't I overcome the programming? I really never tried to escape?

At one point she heard a sharp intake of breath behind her, followed by someone whispering "Tony, no."

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Tony half-standing out of his seat, his face wrenched with rage, while Pepper and Rhodey gripped his arms as if holding him down. He tried to meet Maggie's eyes but she just… she just couldn't, so she turned back around and stared at the desk. She could feel the jury looking at her.

When Mallory finished, polite and grim-faced, Maggie half believed it. She was barely aware of her surroundings as Diego checked his notes and then stood to address the jury. Her focus was turned inward.

As Diego spoke, Maggie drifted. She heard phrases like utterly controlled from five years old to twenty eight; obliterated her memories; and hers are not the guilty hands. But she didn't take it in.

Before she knew it, the opening statements were over and Judge Moore called a short recess before the first prosecution witness appeared. Maggie followed her lawyers out of the courtroom, gaze fixed in the middle distance.

"Maggie?"

She looked up. They were outside the courtroom now, in a quiet hallway. "Yes?"

It was Diego. "Are you okay?"

She stared back at him. "… No."

"Do you need something?"

There was movement behind her – footsteps approaching on the carpet. She looked over her shoulder and noted that it was Tony, Rhodey, and Pepper, but she barely saw them. Her gaze dropped.

How could she have forgotten what she was? She'd been pretending to be a person, pretending she was free, pretending she could move on. She'd forgotten her twenty-two-year long legacy of violence and death but she couldn't escape that person because it was in her bones–

"Hey, no, I know that look." Suddenly Tony was in front of her – not touching, he knew her better than that – his gaze burning into hers. "You can't let that asshole get to you Maggie, you and I both know he's got it wrong. You weren't on HYDRA's side, you weren't working for them, you were their prisoner."

She looked down, avoiding the fire in his eyes. "But I didn't try to escape, what if I–" her voice cracked, and Tony reached out tentatively to lay one hand on her shoulder. She leaned into the touch, though she knew she didn't deserve it.

"Look," Tony said, his voice low. "Do you think… do you think–" he gritted his teeth, as if the words waiting on his tongue made him physically sick. Maggie glanced up. Tony glared at her shoulder, but after a long moment he met her eyes and continued. "If this situation were different, if it were… if it were him sitting where you're sitting, would you say he was on HYDRA's side? Would you say he wanted to do the things that he did?"

Maggie's eyes shot wide open at the realization of what, of who he was talking about. She stared at him in utter shock but Tony didn't look away, and he didn't back down from the words.

And something about his determination for her to stand up for herself reminded her of Bucky's words from years ago: you can't go on hating yourself. You gotta know, in your head, that you didn't have a choice. Might not change what you feel, but don't go around thinking that you chose to be a murderer.

The memory unstuck her lips. "No," she whispered.

Tony nodded. "Then neither did you. So buckle up, Magpie, this is only the start. It sucks, but I know you can get through it. No more believing the way that jackass spins facts, okay?"

She blinked. "Okay."

Andrea, who had been standing in a huddle with the others to give Tony and Maggie some privacy, spoke up: "We've got to be back in court in five minutes, are we okay here?"

Maggie met Tony's eyes and jerked her head in a nod. "We're okay."

Maggie didn't recognize the prosecution's first witness, and she wasn't sure if she was glad or not. The witness was a slight woman, middle-aged, blonde, and her eyes darted nervously toward Maggie as she approached the witness box.

Maggie might not have recognized the woman, but she recognized her story.

After stating her name (Catriona Berger), date of birth, address, occupation (shop clerk) and swearing to tell the truth, the woman sat and faced the prosecutor.

"Mrs Berger – may I call you that?" asked Mallory.

"Yes, I still go by that name."

"Could you please tell the court about your late husband, Frederic Berger?"

"Um… Frederic and I got married in 2002. He was… we had our problems, but we loved each other – so much. I knew from the moment I met him that I wanted to marry him, and he said he felt the same way."

"What sort of problems did you have with your husband, Mrs Berger?"

She shifted. "I… we lived in D.C. at the time, and he was working as a lobbyist. I knew he was well-connected. High up people, political people, I mean. But… I didn't know what it was, but I could feel something was wrong. He would come home late with a flimsy excuse, he'd have meetings with people and get angry if I asked about them. He also earned a lot more money than someone in his position should, but I didn't realize that until later."

"Could you please describe what occurred on the morning of July 2nd, 2004?"

Mrs Berger swallowed. "I'd actually been staying with my sister all week, because… well, I thought Fred was cheating on me. He denied it, but he couldn't explain away all the strange things that were happening. But I decided to come back that morning because I knew he had the day off, and I wanted to talk things out."

"This is a picture of the home you shared with Mr Berger, correct?"

Mrs Berger looked up at the screen, which depicted a brick, three-story house with blue curtains. It looked nice. Maggie closed her eyes.

"Yes, that's it."

"What did you see when you arrived at the house?"

"The door was open. Just a crack, but the lock was broken like someone had used a tool or something to get in. I… I don't know why I didn't call the police. Looking back, I think I just wanted to know what was behind the door. Anyway, I went inside and… and…"

"What did you see?" Mallory asked, his voice soft.

"Fred was… he was on the stairs. Face down. But I knew he was dead because the back of his head, it-it was just caved in. I could see…" Mrs Berger's face went white, and she hiccuped a small breath. "I could see his skull, it was broken. And… other things. I remember the only sound was just this dripping, because his blood was running down the stairs."

"What did you do at that point?"

"I didn't do anything. I just… stood inside the doorway, staring at him. I didn't make a sound. I honestly think that's why I'm alive today."

"Why is that?"

"Well I didn't notice her at first because she was so quiet, but the Wyvern was there–"

Kemp called: "Objection, your honor–"

Mallory held up a hand and redirected. "Did you know that was what she was called at the time?"

"No, sorry – I didn't know who she was. She… she was at the top of the stairs with her back to me. She was dressed all in black from head to toe, but she had… she had wings. They were folded up against her back like how a bird rests its wings against its body, but I could see what they were. She turned to the side and I saw that she had a cowl that covered her face and head, except for these two red eyes – goggles."

"Would you say that this is the person you saw?" Mallory put up one of the photos of the Wyvern in D.C.

"Yes. She never saw me, but I couldn't take my eyes off her." Mrs Berger's eyes flickered to Maggie, just for an instant. "I remember… she didn't even look back at Fred. It was like he wasn't there. She climbed out the window at the top of the stairs, and I saw her fly away." She let out a shuddering breath.

"Thank you, Mrs Berger. Now…" Mallory picked up a plastic bag from the prosecution desk, revealing a tire iron, stained brown. "This is the weapon that ended your husband's life, isn't it?"

"Yes. The police said that it must have been a robbery, that someone used the tire iron to break into the house and then attacked Fred because they weren't expecting him to be home. His wallet and some of the silverware was gone. I knew better, but I… I grew up in Belarus, before my parents moved to America. We moved because my uncle was killed for speaking up about government corruption, so I learned at a young age that if you talk, you die. I knew that whatever Fred was involved in had killed him and I just… I just knew that if I told anyone what I'd seen, it would kill me too."

"You kept your silence for all these years?"

"Yes, I…" Mrs Berger looked down, tears glistening on her cheeks. "I loved my husband," she whispered. "But I didn't want to die."

"Perfectly understandable, Mrs Berger. Why have you come forward today?"

"Because when HYDRA fell apart and I saw the footage of the Wyvern, I knew– I knew I was free." She took in a long breath. "The Wyvern killed my husband. And I'm not afraid to say it anymore."

"We appreciate your courage, Mrs Berger. Now, would you mind reading an excerpt from Exhibit 12 for me? For the record, it's a page from a mission log sourced from the 2014 data leak. Please read the first highlighted section, dated June 28th, 2004."

Mrs Berger took the document with shaking fingers. "It says… it says Berger has lost favor with the Senator. No longer deemed useful to HYDRA's goals." She pressed her lips together as more tears slipped down her cheeks.

"And the second section, dated July 2nd, 2004?"

She swallowed. "Wyvern assigned to Berger. Mission successful, no witnesses. Cover story intact." Her lips went white.

"Thank you for your courage Mrs Berger," Mallory said. "No further questions, your honor."

When Mrs Berger left the witness box and made her way out of the courtroom she met Maggie's eye for just a moment.

Maggie had no idea what her eyes conveyed to the other woman, but Mrs Berger's face hardened and she turned away, gaze fixed on the far end of the courtroom as she left. Maggie watched her go. You are alive because I made a mistake, and you did not.

The jury's eyes burned into the back of her head.

"Your name, for the record?"

"Cory Davidson, your honor."

"And your occupation?"

"I'm a senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon."

"Thank you. You may question the witness, Mr Mallory."

"Thank you, your honor. Mr Davidson, we're going to go over quite a significant amount of evidence with you today. The jury has been handed copies of mission logs and reports referring to the Wyvern sourced from the 2014 HYDRA information leak, various law enforcement reports regarding the Wyvern, electronic data recovered at a HYDRA base in Québec, and numerous other files. Could you please verify your ability to explain and contextualize this body of evidence?"

"Sure. My colleagues and I were tasked with analyzing the original 2014 leak, and I was then assigned to a group specifically tasked with compiling data regarding HYDRA's assets. I have read every shred of data available about the Wyvern and the crimes attributed to her."

"And you'll be able to give us your expert opinion not only on the likelihood that the Wyvern was responsible for the murders, but on the outcomes of her other offences? Such as espionage, theft of information, embezzlement?"

"Yes, that was my role at the Pentagon. Though I may have to decline to answer certain questions for the purpose of protecting classified information–"

"We're aware, Mr Davidson," Judge Moore interjected. "Tell us what you can."

"Thank you your honor," Mr Mallory said. "Mr Davidson, let's start with the murder of Ursula Winslow."

WHiH World News Broadcast

"Good afternoon Christine and Will," shouted WHiH reporter Chess Roberts over the din of shouts around her. "As you can see I'm here on the steps of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, where court proceedings for the Margaret Stark trial have just ended for the day. The atmosphere here is tense, to say the least, with opinions clashing early on about what the result of the trial ought to be. People have traveled from far and wide to witness this trial unfolding, and if the first day is anything to go by I think they've got an intense few weeks ahead of them."

"It looks pretty busy there Chess," said Christine, back in the studio. "What did the first day of trial have in store?"

"Well Christine, both the prosecution and the defense came out strong with powerful opening statements this morning. At this point it's clear that Margaret Stark's defense team, Diego Martinez and Andrea Kemp, are going to be pushing for a brainwashing defense. Now that's a rare thing to see in criminal cases – or indeed, any case. The most notable example was the 1976 Patty Hearst case, another story of a young heiress kidnapped and later found to be committing felonies. Now that case infamously didn't go well for Patty Hearst, so we can only assume that Martinez and Kemp have something better on the cards."

"What witnesses did we hear from today?" asked Will Adams.

"Well as you know Will, there's been a lot of speculation about just how the prosecution would go about laying their case – there's a lot of ground to cover, not just in years but in the sheer amount of crimes on the ticket, and they run the risk of overwhelming and confusing the jury.

"Today they started on a personal note. The prosecution's first witness was the wife of one of Ms Stark's victims, whose tearful testimony of witnessing the aftermath of her husband's murder set the tone for the day. She was followed by an expert witness from the Pentagon, whose testimony has barely begun. The prosecution's struck gold with him though, Will – he's articulate, not over-complicated, and is making the damage the Wyvern did to people and nations clear. The jury has been very engaged so far, taking notes and hanging on to every word."

"And how about the other players in the courtroom, Chess?"

"Right, well the courtroom's been full ever since the arraignment hearing – today it was packed with family members of victims, press, and anyone else who could find a spot. And that's nothing compared to the crowd outside the courtroom, which as you can see is huge and very, very vocal."

"And the defense side?"

"The defense lawyers haven't had much to say since their opening statement. They're clearly not going to dispute the fact that the Wyvern – excuse me, Ms Stark – committed these crimes. We'll have to see how that plan of attack pans out as the trial progresses. Ms Stark herself hasn't said a word, mostly facing the front of the courtroom. She came today with Tony Stark, who's been by her side since her indictment in October, as well as the CEO of Stark Industries Pepper Potts, and the War Machine Colonel James Rhodes. Aside from a small commotion during the opening statements they've been quiet."

"Thank you, Chess, that's all we have time for."

"Thank you Will and Christine, I'll continue to report on the trial as it unfolds."

Blog post: "If You Talk, You Die": How One Brave Woman Outlived HYDRA in Silence.

Corey Davidson's testimony lasted eight days. He went into every shred of evidence and every detail of every crime Maggie had committed that had ever been written down.

Maggie's lawyers interjected every now and then when things strayed off track, such as when Davidson started talking about the Winter Soldier's long, bloody history – particularly the possibility that he had murdered JFK (Diego had got to his feet and said "Your honor is the Winter Solder on trial, or is my client?" Judge Moore had eyed the prosecutor and murmured "Keep it on track, Mr Mallory.").

Maggie knew about everything Davidson described, of course, but hearing the facts laid out so plainly, so calmly, brought a new level of perspective. The sheer scale of the things she'd done was overwhelming. She couldn't help but wonder if the world would be a better place without her in it.

Then she would go home to the mansion with Tony (and sometimes Pepper and Rhodey) and they'd drink hot chocolate and talk about anything else. Going from hearing about bloody violence to being with her family made Maggie feel dizzy. Part of her wished Tony wouldn't come to court, so he didn't see the extent of her sins, but she knew there was no keeping him away.

Shirley visited again on the weekend bearing an enormous Tupperware container full of baked goods. They didn't talk about the trial either, but Maggie could tell from the pinch between Shirley's brows that she'd been following it. Shirley told Maggie about growing up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, and how Bucky once snuck into the monkey enclosure at the Central Park Zoo to steal fruit for her, Nancy, and Rebecca – "he didn't have anything against the monkeys, but he saw that they were being fed better than his sisters and that just didn't sit right with him. And ooh, those bananas tasted like heaven."

Tony found out about Shirley's visits and figured out who she was, but he didn't say anything. He just made a face, stole one of Shirley's brownies, and let them get back to catching up.

When Davidson was done testifying, the sheer scope of the things Maggie had done for HYDRA had been laid bare. It was damning, and nothing had yet been said (save for the opening statement) that wasn't true.

But the prosecution wasn't close to being done.

"I found her on the floor with a hole in her throat. Her… her body was still warm, and I thought I could save her…"

"Just like that all our records were gone. The man they'd sent told us that the Wyvern was watching, in case we ever thought about going to the police, and when they left I swore she looked right at me from behind those red goggles–"

"– bones just snapped like they were made of glass–"

"Now we know that it wasn't an accident – the file states that the Wyvern injected Mr Wilkins with enough of the solution to make him near blackout drunk, then led him onto the street and into traffic. For nearly ten years it was ruled an accident."

"– tried to send messages through the blockade, but each transmission was intercepted and decoded no matter how hard we worked. They came for us on the third day. The Wyvern snapped my friends' necks in front of me, like it was easy. I'm only alive because they wanted me to tell the rest of the rebels trying to get through that it was hopeless."

"– just stood there, like a demon with red eyes."

They brought in witness after witness, each with a new and bloody tale to tell about the Wyvern. Each witness's testimony was accompanied by evidence – videos, photographs, murder weapons, bloody clothing. Sometimes just a line in a HYDRA mission report.

The Avengers were busy with some underground scientific research group causing trouble in the States, but they made a point to always have one of them or Pepper at Maggie's side in the trial. Sometimes she couldn't face them afterwards. They insisted that nothing they heard would change their minds about her, but she knew that once those images were in your head they didn't go away.

Maggie mostly stared at the desk, or watched the witnesses who took the stand. Occasionally she looked at the jury. She couldn't help but notice them; she was trained to watch people and they certainly did their share of watching her. One grey haired woman who sat near the back corner of the witness box cried at the drop of a hat. A man with glasses in the front row often turned away when the testimony or evidence got bloody. They tried to appear impartial but Maggie could read their surprise, curiosity, and horror in the way their eyes darted, or the way their faces crumpled before they brought up an impassive mask. And sometimes there was anger.

A few incarcerated HYDRA criminals testified. They glared at Maggie and she glared back. They said that they saw the Wyvern commit atrocities and that she was a stone cold killer. Andrea always cross-examined the HYDRA witnesses, and she was pretty good at taking them apart – she called out their lies and hypocrisy, and showed that they'd actually had very limited experience with the Wyvern during their time at HYDRA.

Maggie knew that the things she had done were sickening and unforgivable. But it was one thing to know it, and another to see the consequences sitting mere feet away from her.

"They burst into the executive meeting, seven armed men and the woman with the wings. They wanted Jeff – sorry, Jeff Geraldson, the company president. He'd stopped investing in this shell company, said he'd found some things that weren't quite above board. But they wanted him to reinvest. Jeff told them he didn't want anything to do with it anymore. He went to call security, but when he did he said there was no dial tone. Then…" His face went white. "Then the man who'd been speaking nodded. And the woman with the wings walked right up to Jeff and knocked him out of his chair. He fell to the ground and cried out, but he couldn't get up because the woman put her foot on his head. He looked up at her and then… and then he was dead."

The prosecutor turned to the jury. "I'll remind you that Ms Stark has extendable metal spurs in her heels. I'll also introduce Exhibit 72, though before I do I should warn the members of the gallery that it depicts a deceased person with a traumatic head wound."

A moment later the courtroom echoed with gasps and creaking wood as people turned away.

Mr Mallory turned back to the witness. "What happened after the woman killed Mr Geraldson?"

He glanced down. "She turned to me, then, and just stared at me with those red eyes." He sighed. "I agreed to help them. There wasn't anything else I could do."

Mr Mallory folded his hands. "Thank you, Mr Harwin. No further questions."

Andrea stood up and approached the witness. After greeting him she said: "tell me about the people in the room that day, Mr Harwin. Who was doing the talking?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You described a discussion between Mr Geraldson and the intruders. Who asked Mr Geraldson to reinvest in the company?"

"Uh…"

"Was it the Wyvern?"

"… No. It was the guy in charge."

"Caleb Balding," Andrea supplied, referring to one of the recently introduced exhibits, a S.H.I.E.L.D. employee identification photo of Caleb Balding. The exhibit after that showed that he'd been on HYDRA's payroll too.

"I didn't know that was his name at the time, but yes."

"So Mr Balding was the one discussing the company's affairs? He was the one attempting to intimidate Mr Geraldson into reinvesting?"

"Yes, he was the one talking."

"At any point that night did you hear the woman with the wings speak?"

"Uh… no. Not a word."

"You mention that Mr Balding nodded just before Mr Geraldson's death. Why does that detail stand out to you?"

"I suppose… I was watching him pretty closely, to see what his reaction was to Jeff turning him down."

"Would you say that Mr Balding nodded at anyone in particular?"

"Objection, your honor!" Mallory called from his desk, "The defense is leading the witness, Mr Harwin never stated that anyone nodded at anyone."

"Sustained," said Moore, his face a stone wall.

"Apologies, your honor. Mr Harwin, what had the woman with the wings been doing up until she moved towards Mr Geraldson?"

"She was just standing near the doorway. I thought it was spooky how still she was."

"And did she move to attack Mr Geraldson before or after Mr Balding nodded?"

"After."

"How would you describe the winged woman's role in the group that attacked your company's meeting, Mr Harwin?"

"Her role?"

"Yes."

"Well…" he looked down, thinking about it. "I suppose… I guess it didn't feel like she was the leader, you know? The man, Balding, he was the one doing the talking. She didn't really feel like a part of the group. Like she'd been brought there just to kill Jeff."

"Thank you. Mr Harwin. I have one last question – how old would you say the woman with the wings was?"

He blinked.

Mallory stood up. "Objection, relevance?"

Moore eyed Mallory. "Overruled."

All eyes turned back to the witness. He shifted. "I had no idea. Her face was covered. But… this was August of 2001, so when I read all the news about the Wyvern, I realized that she'd have been fifteen at the time. I never would've guessed that."

A murmur went through the courtroom.

"Thank you, Mr Harwin. No further questions."

"Your name and date of birth?"

The witness was a man in dark blue military garb with medals on his chest. The lower half of his face was a mess of scar tissue, his mouth unrecognizable. He signed to his interpreter.

"Lance Brian Bartley, January 14th 1986, your honor," said the interpreter.

"And your occupation?"

"I'm an administrator at the Detroit Veterans Affairs Office. I was a Sergeant in the US Army before I was discharged on disability five years ago." After signing his answer, Bartley gestured at his face with a grimace.

Prosecutor Mallory stood and approached the witness box. "Mr Bartley, thank you for coming here today. Could you please describe the events that occurred on November 2nd, 2011?"

Bartley closed his eyes for a second, and then began. "I was in Afghanistan at the time, based out of Bagram Airfield. My platoon and I went out on a standard recon mission to check out some reports of unusual activity a few miles away. Our lieutenant went ahead with three soldiers, and when they came back they appeared disturbed. They said they'd seen soldiers with no recognizable uniform walking out of a building a few clicks ahead.

"We didn't have orders to engage so we turned back. But we only made it half a mile before we were attacked." Bartley's hands fell still for a moment, and he took a long breath through his nose. He began again. "I was in the jeep at the head of the convoy. I remember a shadow dropped over the vehicle. The driver, Sergeant Hanoway, shouted a warning and then something detonated underneath us. We flipped, and I blacked out for a few seconds. When I woke up I was in the middle of a battlefield."

Everyone in the courtroom listened in a hushed silence as Bartley's interpreter continued to speak.

"I was the only one left alive in my vehicle. I managed to climb out, and there was… there was this winged monster that was just tearing through my platoon. The air was full of screams and the sound of metal against bone. I barely saw what was attacking us at first – I managed to get a weapon and stand next to a fellow soldier, Corporal Williams, but the next thing I knew there was a rush of air and a flash of metal, and when I turned around he was bleeding out.

"Those of us that were left tried to find cover, but there was a sniper somewhere picking off those the flier couldn't get to." Bartley took another deep breath, his fingers shaking now.

"I got shot in the head." A gasp went through the courtroom. One of the jurors covered her mouth with her hand. "The bullet went through my right cheek, down through the roof of my mouth, tore through my tongue and then smashed through the teeth and mandible on the left side of my jaw. I can't talk, I can't eat except through a tube."

Silence fell. Prosecutor Mallory put up a copy of Bartley's initial X-rays. The bones in his jaw were just… shattered.

"What happened after you were shot?" Mallory asked softly.

Bartley's eyes, already gleaming with tears, screwed shut. He started to sign. "I fell to the ground. I felt like my head was on fire. But I… I could hear the screams dying out one by one. And I knew that there was a reason we were being killed, that we'd gone into an area and seen things we weren't meant to see. I'd done a few tours by then, I knew how it went. And I knew that they were going to check for survivors. I… I hid…" tears streamed down Bartley's cheeks. His interpreter's voice shook. "I hid under my fellow soldiers. My friends. They'd been shot or stabbed, and one of them had been blown in two, but I managed to wriggle under them and lie there, feeling their blood seep into my clothes. I heard a single set of footsteps and I… I was pretty delirious from the bloodloss at that point, but I remember two red eyes looking down at me. Then she was gone."

At that, Bartley looked up at Maggie. She didn't remember him. She remembered the pile of bodies, blood-soaked and still, she had nightmares about it. But she didn't remember him. She met Bartley's heart-wrenching gaze and she knew what he saw – red eyes, instead of brown. The face of death.

"I didn't move until dawn the next day when another platoon came through to pick up the bodies. I lay all night under my friends, feeling them lose heat until they were as cold as ice." Bartley shuddered, his mangled face twisted with pain. The courtroom was utterly silent.

Mallory took a deep breath. "Why do you think you're alive today, Mr Bartley?"

"I couldn't explain what happened. By the time they questioned me, after all the scans and surgeries, I'd convinced myself that what I'd seen was a hallucination – people couldn't fly. I told them it must have been a drone or some kind of small aircraft backed up by snipers. But when the HYDRA dump happened, my ex girlfriend – she was the only one I told about what I thought I saw – sent me a picture of the Wyvern flying in D.C. And as soon as I saw it I was… I was right back in that desert, seeing those wings and those red eyes coming out of the sky."

CNN panel discussion: "At the start I thought the sheer number of murders attributed to Ms Stark was crazy. But we're hearing from so many people whose lives have been torn apart, and these are just the survivors. Survivors like Sergeant Bartley, without whom we would have no idea of the crimes Ms Stark committed. I can't imagine how many more victims are out there."

The Daily Bugle Article: Death and Destruction: The Stark Legacy.

December 23rd, 2016

Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, New York City

"Kayla Roper. Analyst at the National Security Agency."

"Good morning Ms Roper. Now despite your credentials, you're not here as an expert witness but an eyewitness, correct?"

"That's correct." Ms Roper was a straight-backed woman in a crisp suit, her forehead marked with a small white scar.

"What was your previous job?"

"I used to work as a junior analyst for S.H.I.E.L.D.," she explained. "I was at the Triskelion on the day it fell."

A few eyebrows went up around the courtroom.

"Please describe your encounters with the Wyvern that day."

"Well, things had been busy at S.H.I.E.L.D. for a few days what with Insight going live soon, and Captain Rogers… well, at the time we thought he'd had something to do with Nick Fury's death, and went rogue." Maggie's eyes dropped to her desk as she recalled crouching on a dark rooftop, whispering into her comms: target identified. Southwest corner.

Nick Fury's name was on her list of victims.

Roper kept talking. "We started getting word of a massive battle on an overpass in metropolitan D.C. – we really had no idea what was going on. We were all searching for Captain Rogers, but after that overpass fight things got very quiet and we weren't getting a lot of direction from above. Our efforts were redirected back to Insight. Looking back, that happened because my bosses were HYDRA and they didn't want us looking into the assets who'd fought Captain Rogers and the others.

"But I… I could feel that something wasn't right, so I went over the footage from the fight. I saw some shaky images of a man with a metal arm, and a woman with metal wings."

"These are the images you're referring to?" Mallory asked as a few stills from the overpass fight appeared on the screen. There was a pretty clear shot of the Wyvern in flight over the highway, a gun in each hand. He hit play on a short video which showed her swooping overhead in a scream of engines, spraying down gunfire. The civilian filming screamed, and the video cut out.

"Yes," Roper said. "I'd been ordered to focus on other things but the footage reminded me of a few whispers I'd heard a few years back about the Winter Soldier and the Wyvern."

"What kind of whispers?"

"Nothing concrete, nothing that ever got written down. But enough to make you fear what was out there."

"How was the Wyvern described?"

"As a monster," Roper said frankly, her face composed. "She was… it wasn't a person that I heard about. It was a horror story."

"Thank you. That wasn't your only brush with the Wyvern that day though, was it?"

"No. Once Captain Rogers outed HYDRA things went downhill fast. I was just an analyst, and a junior one at that, but some fellow recruits and I heard that the S.H.I.E.L.D. air support crew had all been taken out. We knew of a couple of Quinjets stored on the other side of the building and a few of us had done some flight simulator training, so we took up two Quinjets to help… to help Captain Rogers." Her face hardened, as if daring anyone to challenge her.

But they didn't. "What did you see once you were in the air?" Mallory asked.

"I was co-piloting for a fellow recruit, Gregory Silt. It was chaos up there, missiles and artillery, and that was before the Helicarriers started shooting at each other. We flew up to one of the Helicarriers just as the Wyvern dove out of its broken hull. We'd seen her engaging with the Falcon earlier, protecting HYDRA's version of Insight, so we engaged.

"The second we fired on her she resorted to evasive manoeuvres. After half a minute she started making passes against our Quinjet – at first we didn't know what she was doing. I just remember seeing her red eyes staring down into the cockpit each time she flew over us, and being sure we were going to die. We eventually realized that she was trying to disable our engines with blades attached to her feet – she was successful with the other Quinjet, which then didn't have enough power to stay in the air and had to land.

"We tried to avoid her, but after a few more passes she threw a grenade into our engine turbine and we went down. Greg and I got out in one piece, save for this scar." She tapped her forehead.

"What did the Wyvern do after that?"

"I didn't see, we were too busy bracing for landing."

"You were the last S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to see the Wyvern in action that day, would you say that's a fair statement?"

"I would."

"And she fought against S.H.I.E.L.D.'s forces until the last?"

"That's correct."

"Thank you Ms Roper." Mallory turned around and cast a glance at the defense desk. "Your witness."

Andrea got up for this witness, wearing a pair of reading glasses. She nodded to Ms Roper and then folded her hands in front of her. "Ms Roper, are you dead?"

A titter went through the courtroom. Maggie bristled.

Roper cocked an eyebrow. "No."

Andrea nodded once more. "This court has seen countless evidence that the Wyvern was fully capable of taking down an airborne aircraft – lethally – in a matter of seconds. But you're saying that she made multiple passes along your aircraft in an attempt to ground it without killing anyone on board?"

Ms Roper blinked, and then turned to look at Maggie. "I… I suppose so. Yes."

"You state she used a grenade to take out your main engine. If the Wyvern was armed – with grenades no less – wouldn't her time have been better served using said weapons against the crew members?"

"Yes, it would."

"Did the Wyvern make any attempt to attack the Quinjet once it stopped attacking her?"

Ms Roper sat back in her seat, eyes wide. "No."

"Thank you," said Andrea. "That will be all."

Maggie ducked her head, suddenly conscious of many people's eyes on her. She could sense the confusion in the courtroom – her lawyers had never questioned a witness to Maggie's crimes like that before, doubting the Wyvern's lethal intent. She could feel them all wondering: what made that day different?

WHiH World News Report: "Ms Roper's testimony ends just in time to break for Christmas. The prosecution is expected to call some expert witnesses after the holidays but until then… this is going to be a dark Christmas for a lot of people."

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