Chapter 71

"Hey, Tony."

The words filtered into Tony's state of concentration. He was working in the smaller workshop attached to the common room – he'd designed the space so he could work on projects while close to the team, but it didn't have all the fun toys that he had in the bigger lab, which someone had booted him out of for the past few days. Maggie had gone straight from the trial and into some project that she wouldn't let him see, so in the meantime he'd been working on tracking AIM with Rhodey, who was currently checking out a lead in Canada.

The words registered, and he looked up from his holographic display to see Maggie standing in the doorway. He blinked. She seemed better rested, somehow softer and calmer than she'd been these past few crazy days. She wore dark jeans and a soft red sweater, over which two pendants dangled: the white pearl he'd seen her wearing before (the one she'd fished out of the box in the acquisitions room), between her collarbones, and a slightly larger black metal bead an inch below that.

He straightened. "What's up, Maggot?"

"I need your help with something." She shifted, and he realized she held a slip of paper between two fingers.

"Sure. Is this to do with whatever you've been doing in secret with Vision?"

"It is. I need you to read these out for me." She slipped into the workshop, her footsteps somehow silent on the smooth floor, and handed him the paper.

He took it and glanced down, and the minute he saw the list of French words followed by 'Wyvern?' he scowled and crumpled the paper into a ball. "What the hell, Maggie, I'm not going to read these–"

"Please," she interrupted, her eyes serious. "Just do it."

"What, you... you want me to control you? Have you talked to Mai about this?"

"Trust me."

He gave her a long look. Something had changed in her face: maybe it was that she seemed less tired, or less afraid, or maybe some ever-present cloud of worry had dissipated. Whatever it was, he saw no doubt in her eyes. He frowned, then looked back down at the paper. His skin crawled as he recalled the words hissing through his hijacked facility speakers while he couldn't protect his sister from them.

After a long moment, he uncrumpled the paper and uttered: "Verre." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Maggie shiver, and he glanced up. She gestured for him to continue. "Transmission. Affamé. Sept. Vieux." He paused to watch Maggie, because each word made his skin prickle and his gut churn. She just stared back at him.

With a shaky breath he continued: "Sécurité. Trois. Tunnel. Digne," he looked up at her, eyes pained, then finished: "Quatre-vingts."

There was a long pause as the two of them just watched each other. Maggie's face was so, so blank.

The sick feeling in his gut twisted and grew. He didn't want this. He gritted his teeth and ground out the last word: "Wyvern?"

At that word, Maggie broke out in a brilliant, blinding grin that seemed to stop Tony's heart. Still grinning, she whispered: "Fuck you."

He dropped the paper. "What?"

She just beamed wider. "Fuck you," she repeated. "Fuck verre, and fuck transmission, and fuck all those other French words because I'm a person and those words mean nothing to me now."

Tony could only stare at her, his eyes gleaming. He thought he'd seen all the complicated, wonderful parts of Maggie but he'd never seen this… this victorious archangel, shaking with adrenaline and her pupils shot wide as she faced him with her mind belonging to her and her alone.

He wasn't sure who moved first but one minute they were stuck frozen staring at each other, and the next they rushed together. Tony wrapped her in his arms with a desperate kind of relief. "How? How did you… what…?"

"Don't hurt yourself," she laughed, and wriggled out of his grasp just enough to look him in the eyes. "Science at its finest."

"Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack. I'm free, Tony. Finally."

His fingers tightened on her arms, just for a moment. "This changes… everything." Her eyes warmed and for a few more moments he just stared at her. It wasn't often he was caught speechless. "Well come on, let's get those Manacles off you!"

Her eyes widened. "You… you don't want to keep them on?"

"Why would I?" He turned to get his tools, missing the way her eyes welled with tears as she smiled at him. Instead, his mouth caught up with his brain and he started talking. "Okay, you've gotta let me throw a party this time. Actually screw that, let's go out partying! Let's hit the town Maggot; just you, me, Pepper, Vision, and Rhodey. We'll have a blast, and if any assholes come up and try to use your words on you we'll all beat the crap out of them."

He turned to see her grinning at him once more. "Sounds fun."

When they broke the news to Pepper and Rhodey, Pepper beamed speechlessly with tears in her eyes and Rhodey got so excited he forgot about his exosuit and almost fell over on his way to give Maggie a hug. Vision watched on proudly, his eyes glinting with the secret of her salvation.

Maggie joined them in their excitement and relished the feeling of being free of the words, free of the Manacle, free of everything except her own will.

January 22nd, 2017

Wakanda

Flanked by two Dora Milaje, Shuri walked down a grassy hill towards a mud hut on the outskirts of a quiet village by the lake. It was peaceful here, with the morning sun glowing on the treetops and the lush grass. She walked past the hut and the goats in their pen, and strode towards the edge of the lake.

Sure enough, he was there. Sergeant Barnes ("Call me Bucky") sat on a rock on the bank of the lake, his left shoulder swathed in a blue cloth and his dark hair partially loose as he looked out at the glinting water. A flock of geese soared over the surface and wheeled up to the sky, and his head tilted back to track their flight.

When Shuri and the Dora Milaje grew close he got to his feet, dusted off his trousers and turned around. Good, Shuri thought. He seemed less jumpy today. His eyes remained just as sad as they'd been when he first woke up, though.

"Bucky," she greeted him with a smile, and nodded to the Dora Milaje. They took up guard positions higher on the hill. "How are you feeling?"

"Still good," he said, offering a small smile of his own. "You ask that question a lot."

"I think it's a fair question after I used an experimental device on your brain."

He shrugged his right shoulder. "Why are you here? Is something wrong? Is it about Meg?"

She smiled at him. She didn't think it was her place to tell him what his lady friend had been up to, but that hadn't stopped him from asking her every chance he got. "I can't visit my favorite white boy and his man bun?"

"You can," he said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, "but you came here today for a reason."

"You are very perceptive. Yes, I came to tell you that your friends arrived in the city a little earlier from a mission, and they'd like to visit you."

"My friends?"

"The fugitive Avengers." She waggled her eyebrows at him. "Do you want to see them? If not, I can always tell them that I think you need more time to rest. Doctor's orders."

Bucky's eyes softened. "I'd like to see them."

Twenty minutes later, Bucky looked up from his seat beside the campfire near his hut to see four figures walking down the hill. He recognized Steve instantly, tall and broad and walking half a step faster than the others. He was flanked by a lithe, blonde woman (it took him a few moments to recognize her as Romanoff), Wilson, and the young woman whose name he thought was Maximoff. They'd changed out of their uniforms and into civvies but the leather jackets, jeans, and boots looked just as out of place amidst the Wakandan countryside. Bucky knew that T'Challa had warned them that such visits could not be a regular occurrence – Bucky needed to rest, and if anyone noticed their visits to Wakanda then the country would be in trouble.

As the four of them approached their eyes tracked across his new abode, taking in the mud hut, the goats, and his little fire. It didn't look like much, but it was peaceful. The air smelt clean, with the faintest tinge of wood smoke and hay.

When Steve got to the campfire Bucky stood up (still slightly off-balance, as he was getting used to the missing arm) and accepted his grinning friend into a one-armed hug. "Hey, punk."

"Jerk," Steve chuckled, and pounded him on the back. Bucky huffed in protest and pushed him off, then nodded to the others.

"Hey."

"Hey," Romanoff replied with a quirk of her lips. Wilson and Maximoff just nodded, but their greetings were a lot warmer than the ones they'd given in Germany last year. He'd seen them all briefly after waking up, but he'd been too groggy from the cryo-freeze to do much more than blearily greet them. Now that he had his brain more or less in order, he still didn't know what to say.

"You look well, Buck," Steve smiled. "It's good to see."

"Nice place, good people. Works wonders."

"The highly advanced medical technology doesn't hurt either," Romanoff added, and he gave her a sheepish smile.

Bucky eyed them all, then straightened. "It's good to see you and all, but… Meg?" his voice twisted up at the end, betraying the way his gut churned. "The Princess is being cagey about her."

Steve sighed. "Right. Um."

Bucky's eyes narrowed. "Steve."

Wilson rolled his eyes and cut in: "Your girl's been busy, Barnes. You might want to sit down."

They all relocated to Bucky's small campfire, taking their seats on logs and rocks. Bucky used the pause to eye their faces – they didn't look as if they were about to give him bad news, but they were obviously nervous. Steve's face was pinched in the way that meant he felt guilty, Romanoff was stoically blank-faced, Maximoff's eyes were fixed on Bucky as if reading him, and Wilson looked suspiciously compassionate.

"Okay, c'mon," Bucky said, once they were all seated. "Tell me."

Steve took a breath and visibly steeled himself. "Alright. The important thing to keep in mind, Buck, is that she's fine now – she's safe, she's free, she's with her family."

He frowned. "Free?"

Steve went right back to looking uncomfortable again.

"Also," Maximoff said, "we kept an eye on her the whole time. We would have stepped in if things went sideways." She hesitated. "More sideways."

"What things."

Steve shifted on his log and scratched the back of his neck. "Well you know about Ross's press conference. Things quietened down after that, but then… Maggie, uh…"

"Chrissakes, Steve, what?"

Romanoff had been watching with an arched eyebrow, but she apparently decided to put Steve out of his misery and take over. "She had a press conference of her own. Turns out she called it herself, hacked into Tony's systems and went behind his and the government's back. This is it." She produced a tablet from an inside pocket of her jacket and handed it over.

The still of the video showed Meg, and Bucky's face immediately went soft at the sight of her. She wore a dark red blouse and her hair was pinned up away from her face. She looked healthy, if not exactly happy – in the still her face was firm in a familiar expression of determination. A second later, Romanoff's words registered. Press conference? Meg, what the hell did you do?

With a shaky finger, he hit play. "My name is Maggie Stark, and I'm here to put an end to twenty five years of silence."

Watching the press conference, his heart broke in a million different ways. There she stood, standing up for the right thing and the truth with such integrity, while he'd put himself on ice.

After her short speech she started taking questions, and Bucky was hit with a sudden rush of pride. His face darkened and lightened at each question and his heart pounded in his chest, fighting a battle between pride and panic. He could hear the hidden nerves in her voice, but she faced the shouting crowd with that same poised, passionate determination that he'd grown so used to when they were together.

At the end of the video Meg looked off-screen, then turned back to smile and say: "Sorry, I think that's all we have time for today." A second later men in dark blue uniforms seized her arms and marched her out of the briefing room.

He looked up, eyes suddenly cold. "What happened."

Romanoff cut Steve off before he could reply. "An hour after that press conference the US government charged her with thirty six murders in addition to terrorism, treason, and a whole other list of things. They threw the book at her."

Bucky physically felt the blood rush from his face, leaving him pale.

Steve leaned over to steady him. "It's okay, Buck, she got acquitted."

He took in a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes latched on Steve's face. "She did?" he asked, startled at how hoarse his voice had become.

"Yeah," Wilson piped up. "It was a hell of a thing. It got reported on pretty extensively so you can check it out if you want, but I've gotta warn you it got pretty ugly."

Bucky's mind whirled with possibilities. "How… why…" he shook his head. "She's okay?"

"Yeah, Buck," Steve murmured. "She had a great defense team, and Tony was by her side the whole time. He, Rhodey, Vision, and Pepper were all character witnesses, and Maggie gave testimony as well. The jury acquitted her just last week because Maggie's team proved that she'd been controlled from the beginning and that she never wanted it."

"No shit," Bucky breathed. Wilson and Maximoff laughed.

Steve smiled. "And that's not even it–"

"Oh god." Of course it would be Meg who ended up giving him his first heart attack at 99 years old.

"No, no, it's good! She's… helping people." Steve glanced at the others, who all nodded in agreement. "She put her knowledge out there, giving answers to people affected by HYDRA. She made spreading the truth her damn mission. There's this website called HERACLES, it's incredible–"

"Don't forget about the relief fund," Maximoff chimed in, warming her hands by the fire.

"Right, she started a fund for victims of HYDRA–"

"And the prosthetic technology line," Wilson added.

"That too," Steve said with a small smile. "Nat put the most relevant points you missed on that tablet, Buck, why don't you have a look through instead of us talking your ear off."

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve, but then started scrolling through the tablet. As he devoured the information the others around the campfire chatted idly, or got up to stretch their legs and check out his meager accommodation. Wilson started messing with his cooking pots, trying to make a cup of tea. Every now and then Bucky looked up to ask a question, and Romanoff usually answered.

Most of what he saw made his stomach sink and his heart ache: the dozens of prosecution witnesses, Vincent goddamn Silva and the Memory Suppression Machine (when he read the reports of Meg breaking down in court he had to stand up and do a few laps around the campfire, flexing his single hand). He saw parts that gave him hope, though: the character witnesses and doctors who stood up for her, Tony Stark saying 'she's not a weapon any more. She's a person. She's my sister.' He saw photos of Meg with her brother, and seeing them grinning side by side with an obvious bond between them made him fiercely proud.

His heart swelled as he read about Meg's testimony, even as guilt slammed him in the chest. He'd always known she was brave, but this… he couldn't imagine how hard it must have been for her. And he'd been asleep.

He read an article about the #IForgiveHer movement, and even though he still didn't really understand Twitter or the way news worked nowadays he understood enough to know that Meg had changed the goddamn world. Part of him was terrified – he'd been hoping that she was lying low and being safe, not… not making an international name for herself. But really, he wasn't all that surprised.

But then his eyes snagged on a line that did surprise him. "Steve," he said flatly, getting his friend's attention. "Am I reading this wrong or did Meg get shot."

Steve paled, and on the other side of the fire Wilson choked on his tea. "Oh right, we forgot to tell you."

"How could you forget?" he demanded, his voice high.

Romanoff swooped in again, calm in the face of his panic. "She's fine. Now let me tell you about the people who shot her, and why."

Bucky listened with his hand in a fist as the former Widow calmly explained the origins and motives of a group called A.I.M., their mission of vengeance against Tony Stark, and their attack on the Avengers Facility. He'd thought the news of the trial had given him an unhealthy amount of panic, but hearing that Meg's words had been used against her sent him into an actual panic attack. Wilson and Steve sat on either side of him and helped him breathe through it, soothing him by simultaneously giving him useful calming tactics (Wilson) and frantically reassuring him that Meg was fine (Steve).

When he could breathe again and focus on more than the sickening sense that the world was falling apart, he gasped: "We have to stop them. A.I.M."

Romanoff's cool green eyes watched him across the campfire. "They've already mostly been stopped. The Avengers took out a decent chunk of their leadership and firepower after the attack, and they're actively hunting the remnants. If we get intel we'll pass it on, but the Avengers can handle A.I.M. Besides, Maggie should have gotten rid of her own trigger words by now."

Bucky closed his eyes. He wished he could just talk to her, hold her and look into her eyes and reassure himself that she was fine. Hearing about her like this, like a celebrity and a distant friend, twisted his heart up with worry. Steve and the others seemed sure that she was okay, but what had the trial really done to her? He knew she was a private person, what amount of pain could she hide from the world? He wondered how she felt about being free of her words.

"I gotta say, Barnes," came Wilson's voice, "You look more… overwhelmed, than surprised."

"I've always known Meg was one of a kind," he murmured, and opened his eyes. "All of this: putting herself on the line to make sure the truth gets out, helping people… it sounds exactly like her." He shook his head and ran a hand over his sweaty forehead. "It's not good for my blood pressure, but…" his mouth opened but no words came. He couldn't express quite how proud and in love with her he was. The others seemed to know what he meant, though, because Steve clapped him on the shoulder and the others smiled. Maximoff's eyes warmed and she cocked her head at him, as if she understood how he felt.

Sam sighed. "Honestly, when Steve told me he'd promised to look out for Maggie for you I was like 'cool, we'll keep an eye on the facility and offer her an out if she needs it'. I wasn't expecting a freaking season of Law and Order and suddenly having to worry about international intrigues and disguises and her standing up in front of the whole freaking world."

Bucky smiled. "She doesn't do anything by halves. So where is she now?"

"Still at the Facility," Romanoff said. "She lives there and occasionally at the Stark Mansion in Manhattan. She's mostly been working on HERACLES and the Survivor Support Fund from what we can tell, but she's been busy with getting rid of the trigger words the last few days. After that, who knows?" Something glinted in her green eyes. "We also gave her a way to get in touch with us, so…" she flowed to her feet and paced toward him, hand outstretched. Bucky glanced down at her palm to see a single Kimoyo bead on a chain. He'd seen Shuri and the other Wakandans use these, but they wore a bunch of them in a bracelet, not on a pendant like this. He looked up with a knitted brow.

"This is a direct line to Maggie," Romanoff said. Bucky's stomach plummeted and he reached for the bead. "But before you use it, Sam and I promised to pass along a message." Halfway through swiping the bead out of her hand, Bucky looked up again.

Wilson cleared his throat. "She said her mission isn't over."

Bucky's heart pounded. Meg. He glanced back down at the Kimoyo bead.

"And," Wilson continued, eyes glinting when he saw the irritated frown on Bucky's face, "She said to pass these along." He stood up, circled the campfire, and then placed three pieces of paper on top of the bead in Bucky's hand. Bucky's eyes flicked down, and – Meg. Meg frowning, Meg smiling with his lips on her cheek, Meg grinning in that brilliant way he'd become addicted to, Meg focused on something out of sight. He'd nearly forgotten she still had these photos. His heart twisted inside his chest, and he closed his eyes at the ache.

"All good, Barnes?" Sam asked from a safer distance, and Bucky nodded once.

"'M fine," he said, though all evidence spoke to the contrary. Direct line to Maggie, Romanoff had said. He opened his eyes and carefully set the photos on his knee - he'd find a safe place for them soon. Then he turned his attention back to the Kimoyo bead, rolling it over in his fingers before taking a deep breath, touching the symbol, and twisting. The symbol glowed purple and then projected a short holographic message into thin air:

Thanks for the cure guys, I owe you a lot. Sam said to make contact here and someone would yell at me. Can't wait.

Bucky suddenly went misty eyed – everything he'd heard about her so far had seemed so distanced, as if he was hearing a story. Even the pictures were years old. But these were words that Meg had written recently and sent – seemingly unknowingly – to him. He noticed the others turning around respectfully, so he hunched his shoulders and figured out how to send a reply.

Upstate New York Airspace

Maggie was 30,000 feet in the air when she felt the Kimoyo bead activate under her flight suit, growing slightly warmer and vibrating against her ribcage. Her heart skipped, but a second later her thoughts turned back to the wide blue sky and curving earth outside the fighter jet cockpit.

"How're you feeling, Maggie?" called Rhodey through the comms, and she leaned slightly so she could see the back of his head in the pilot's seat.

"Freaking amazing!" she called back, grinning at the sun on her face and the g-forces pushing her back in her seat. She peered over Rhodey's shoulder. "Though you should re-calibrate the INS to get a better idea of your acceleration."

"Are you seriously back-seat driving me right now? In a fighter jet? You're worse than Tony."

"Well I do know how to fly this model of jet fighter."

At Rhodey's disgruntled huff she laughed into her helmet mic and closed her eyes. She let the rush of air over the jet wings and the roar of engines wash over her. The sun beat warm on her face, even through her helmet visor. "Thank you for this, Rhodey."

"Hey, I promised you I'd take you flying."

"Twenty six years ago," she reminded him.

"I keep my promises, no matter how old they are."

"Still," she murmured. "Thank you."

"Thank me later," he said. "For now I'm going to try my hardest to make you throw up in that helmet." With that he pulled the jet into a sharp twist and the world outside blurred into lines of brown and blue, earth and sky.

Maggie let out a whoop which turned into a breathless laugh when he pivoted into a dive. "Challenge accepted!"

On the ground again at the Air Force base, Maggie jumped down from the cockpit – ignoring the stairs – and pulled off her helmet, still laughing breathlessly. Rhodey scowled at her as he negotiated the stairs with his exosuit.

"Is motion sickness a thing for you? Like at all?"

"Doesn't look like it!" she said brightly. Her fingers strayed to her chest.

"Alright, weirdo." He got to the bottom of the steps and grunted when she threw her arms around him.

"Thank you, Rhodey."

"You're welcome," he smiled, then pulled away. "Now I've gotta go explain to the base commander why I just broke a bunch of airspace rules." He pulled his helmet off and strode back to the hangar.

"Use the Avenger card!" she called after him. He waved her off.

Once he was out of sight Maggie turned around, fumbled her Kimoyo bead pendant out of her flight suit and activated it.

A single holographic message blinked into existence: Sam's an idiot. Hey, doll.

Maggie's stomach dropped and so did her legs, sending her crashing to the tarmac on her knees.

Her hand flew to her mouth even as she let out a half-laugh, half-sob, and her fingers shook so badly that the message blinked out. Gasping, laughing, she gripped the bead and activated it once more. She took in the words hungrily through her blurred vision, her mind resounding with the last word: doll. She gasped when more words joined the first line:

So I woke up a couple days ago, and I just heard about what you've been up to while I was out. Meg, I don't know what to say besides that I'm so proud of you, and I'm so sorry I couldn't be there. How are you?

PS: My mission isn't over either.

She burst out laughing again, helpless to the emotions charging through her body, and turned her face to the sky.

"Bucky," she breathed, and a part of her that had been hollow and alone burst back to life, glowing and overflowing with love. Thank you, thank you, thank you. She pressed the Kimoyo bead to her tear-stained lips.

For a long moment she stayed like that, on her knees on the tarmac beside a parked fighter jet, her eyes closed and crying with her face turned to the sky. The wind blew on her face and for the first time she felt finally, finally, as if things might be alright.

You're KIDDING ME.

Hello, handsome!

I don't really know what to say either Bucky, but here goes: 1) I am so excited that you're out and free 2) you're an ASSHOLE for going under cryo again 3) I love you so, so much 4) We have so much to catch up on! 5) I love you 6) trial sucked, I'm kinda famous now, still figuring that out 7) I hope you're managing to reconnect with Steve, wherever you are 8) I love you. Again. 9) it's really good to hear "Meg" again.

I can't think of what else to say because my mind is a bit of a mess right now but write back soon! How are you? You got rid of your trigger words, right? How is your arm?

Love,

Maggie

For the next few days Maggie joined the Avengers in their hunt for A.I.M. – she didn't go on any of the scouting missions, because the Accords Committee would never allow it (they actually didn't know she was involved at all, let alone that she knew about A.I.M.). But she did help them trawl through terabytes of data including CCTV footage, police reports, geographical projections, and captured communications.

And every few hours she dashed out of the Avengers operation room when she got a Kimoyo message. It turned out the message transmission got delayed by a few hours due to the security programming, so over the course of days she and Bucky got reacquainted. It was strange only being able to exchange messages (letters, really) when before they'd been around each other all the time, but each new message made Maggie's heart leap and swell after the months of silence. She got a few weird looks for dashing out of brainstorming sessions at the drop of a hat, but no one ever questioned her.

At first Bucky was cagey about his location until she told him that she'd figured that out weeks ago, and then they freely exchanged details about their new lives – Bucky described his small home by the lake in startlingly poetic detail, and Maggie told him about her much larger home by a lake, and the people in it. He was pleased she'd formed such a close bond with her brother, and said he wished he could meet her other friends. In return he told her about the young, brilliant, empathetic Shuri, and the strange and beautiful country he'd found himself in.

They wrote to each other about how it felt to be free of the trigger words. Neither of them could really believe it was real, and when Bucky admitted to murmuring his words at night, just to make sure, Maggie wrote him back in a rush of relief to say that she'd been doing the same.

For a brief, crazy moment, they considered running away together once more. But even as Maggie suggested the idea she knew she couldn't leave Tony. Bucky responded:

You've got no idea how much I want that, doll, but I don't know if we'll be able to meet. Like you said, that asshole Ross and the Accords Committee are watching you closely, and getting into Wakanda is difficult anyhow.

Curled up in a non-surveilled corner of the facility, Maggie touched the holographic words. He needed to stay in Wakanda for now – the world wasn't safe for him, even with her acquittal to protect him from the things he'd done with HYDRA. She'd be putting Bucky in danger just by being with him - she was too public a figure, now. Besides, he needed to rest.

I know, and I'm sorry, she replied. This isn't forever though. We'll see each other again.

Message sent, she went back to tracing A.I.M. They were getting closer, they'd tracked the remaining stronghold of the group to somewhere around Canada or Alaska. Maggie had sort of inherited her own desk in the operations room because the analysts were annoyed that she kept borrowing their equipment, so she worked back and forth between the desk and the central hub of the operations room, discussing new leads with Tony and the others.

Two hours later, the Kimoyo bead pulsed against her breastbone. She ducked out and headed for the bathroom.

Doll, I wouldn't blame you if you… y'know, wanted to move on. You have a life, a family. I wouldn't blame you.

Maggie had made the mistake of opening the message while shutting the stall door behind her, and on reading the message she accidentally closed the door so hard that the top hinge snapped. She ignored it. She yanked the lock closed and sat down hard on the closed toilet seat, staring at the message. Her heart pounded. Was this because she'd told him how much she liked her life at the Avengers Facility? She thought she'd made it clear to him that her mission wasn't over, that she missed him every day and wished they could be together. Could it be because she'd talked about Vision so much? But surely he understood that they were friends, and Vision was with Wanda anyway? Or could it be that…

She chewed her lip for ten minutes, staring at the glowing purple letters in the air before her, then growled and typed out a message.

Is that your way of telling me that you'd like to move on? Because if that's what you want Bucky, truly, then I'll… I guess I'll live with it. I'll be mad as hell, but if that's your choice then I'll accept it. So is that what you want?

She sent it off and then stormed out of the bathroom to hunt down A.I.M.

At the stormy look on her face the analysts left her alone, but Tony noticed and came over.

"What's up, Magma? You look like someone spat in your coffee."

"'M fine," she replied, not taking her eyes off the highway camera feeds she was monitoring. "Just really hate A.I.M."

He cocked his head, but let it go. "Me too, Mags, me too."

By the time the next Kimoyo message arrived Maggie was fuming, abusing her keyboard with violent strokes and ending any attempt at conversation with a curt "I'm busy". When the bead pulsed under her blouse she shot to her feet, stormed out of the room and returned to the bathroom stall with the broken door. This time she waited until she'd sat down to look at the message.

That's not what I meant, Meg. I don't think I could ever get over you that quickly – I don't want to. But I'm just saying that you're in a different place from me right now. I'd understand.

With an explosive sigh, Maggie tapped out a reply.

Six thousand miles away and two hours later, Bucky felt his Kimoyo bead hum against his chest. He dropped the bale of dried grass he was hauling to the small village and reached with fumbling hands for his bead.

Purple words glowed before his eyes: Shut the hell up, Bucky Barnes. You're so stupid.

He let out an involuntary laugh and closed his eyes for a moment. He could tell she was angry but he'd had to check, to make sure: he didn't want Meg to feel like she was bound to him. She deserved freedom in all things, especially in who she chose to love.

Thankfully, impossibly, she still chose him.

Grinning at the bead, he wrote his reply: Yes, ma'am.

A day later they were back to writing as usual. It turned out Bucky was a wonderful writer, thanks to his practice writing letters back home and in the war. They couldn't save the messages, so Maggie memorized the long, beautiful letters he wrote her telling her how much he loved and missed her, and what they'd do when they were together again. She read them curled up in her bed, the glowing purple words so close but still intangible.

Bucky read her replies on his cot in Wakanda, smiling at her self-conscious attempts to become a good letter writer, and laughed at the stories she told about her day and the funny things she'd heard or done. He asked about HERACLES, and started supplying his own memories to supplement the archive. They had to be careful so it wasn't obvious that the information came from him, so he usually ended up giving Maggie a lead that she researched then uploaded to HERACLES with fully sourced evidence. He also asked about the prosthetics line and other technology she was contemplating.

You've always been capable of doing great things. I'm glad that now you get the chance to do it.

They teased each other, shared jokes, and exchanged recommendations for books they'd read and movies they'd seen since they last saw each other. They wrote about the future, which was something that neither of them had ever dared to hope for before.

Early on, Maggie wrote: So, getting drunk as a skunk at the tender age of fourteen and making a mess of your mother's couch. That's a classy move, Barnes.

He wrote back: How in the hell did you find out about that.

Biting her lip, she wrote out a reply. In retrospect this wasn't the greatest way to tell you, but through all the business with the trial I ended up getting in touch with Shirley. She's doing really well, Bucky. She's still living at home, she plays bingo twice a week with her friends, and I think she might have the strongest set of lungs I've ever heard (last week she yelled at some boys trying to steal a bike on the other side of the street). One of her granddaughters was my lawyer! That's how we met.

She misses you, obviously, but I told her you were doing well and that you remember your family, and she's glad. She's really funny. And smart, and she makes great brownies. This week we've been exchanging embarrassing stories about you.

Bucky wrote back overflowing with questions and emotion, and eventually Maggie told him to write a letter to Shirley. She memorised his response word for word, and passed it on. Shirley sobbed when Maggie read Bucky's letter to her, but when it was over she pulled Maggie in for a hug.

"I know you risked a lot to get this to me, sweetheart," Shirley said. "I won't tell a soul. Thank you."

So as Maggie and Bucky got slowly reacquainted, through Maggie the two siblings began to talk for the first time in seventy four years.

January 29th, 2017

Avengers Facility, Upstate New York

"So if we infer that this financial transaction is A.I.M. funding the gas heating for their base–"

"–and that cipher you broke points to their base being by a river–"

"–yes, then we can pinpoint their base to somewhere in this seventy square mile area on the Kenai peninsula."

Tony and Maggie stopped talking over each other and grinned, as a glowing map of Alaska hovered between them. They'd been working for nearly ten straight hours, so close to finding A.I.M. that they could practically smell scared scientists.

Maggie rested her palm over the hologram. "That's a small enough area to search by hand. Even if the base is underground we should have them by the end of the night."

Tony nodded and stroked his beard. "Yeah, but we know that this is one of their most defensible bases – we might have found them, but we'll still have to formulate a

foolproof attack plan."

Maggie waved a hand. "I can help you with that. I lived in bases like this my whole life, I know how to take them down."

Rhodey, who had been watching the siblings finish each other's sentences with his arms folded across his chest and a smile playing at his mouth, let out a hmm sound. Maggie looked over at him.

"What's up?"

He shrugged, then gestured between he two of them. "Do you guys remember that morning after Tony's 21st birthday party, in the kitchenette?"

She smiled. "With the orange juice?"

Tony made a sour face at the memory of his hangover.

"Yeah," Rhodey replied. "I remember thinking then that you two were going to be a force to be reckoned with." He glanced between the two of them standing tall in the center of the Avengers Operations Room, their eyes gleaming with success. "I was right."

The words softened the edges of Maggie's determination, and she smiled at Rhodey. For a long moment they all just looked at each other. Tony softened for a moment as well, but he blustered through it by waving a hand and saying:

"God, Rhodey, you're such a drama queen."

Rhodey chuckled. "Sue me."

"Don't tempt me," Tony shot back. "Okay, so we should send a message to Vision to get him back from wherever he is–"

"Seriously, where does he go on those soul-searching trips?" Rhodey wondered aloud.

Maggie, who was fully aware that Vision was currently in a French safehouse with Wanda, kept very quiet.

Suddenly an analyst who sat a few stations in front of Maggie approached the central hub. "Excuse me, Mr Stark?"

"What's up, old sport?"

Maggie shot a questioning look at Rhodey and he murmured: "it's a reference to a book that Tony really shouldn't be aligning himself with. You probably haven't read it. I'll explain later."

The analyst either didn't hear or pretended to ignore the nickname. "We've just received a transmission." He waved a hand at the hub holographic display and it shifted into a short segment of text. "It's from A.I.M."

Maggie tensed and her hands balled into fists as she read the message:

A.I.M. is willing to negotiate a surrender.

Mr Stark, come to our facility alone in three hours. If we detect anyone other than Mr Stark approaching, we will unleash lethal countermeasures. If you do not arrive in three hours, there will be repercussions.

Send Mr Stark to our facility, alone, in three hours. This is your only hope for a peaceful arrangement.

The message was followed by coordinates in the Kenai peninsula.

Rhodey and Tony immediately started discussing the message, but Maggie kept silent as she stared at the words.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.