Chapter 97

Maggie made it to the workshop before Tony, because he went to make a quick call to Pepper to let her know about Natasha and to say that they'd made it back. Maggie didn't envy him. She spotted Nebula on her way, standing motionless in the middle of a corridor.

"You okay?" she asked.

Nebula nodded curtly. "Fine." Brusque and cold, but that had always been her way. Maggie shrugged and continued to the workshop.

When Tony arrived, looking wrung out and dark-eyed, they got to work. Tony, Maggie, Rocket, and Bruce came together and began making their gauntlet. They'd already made initial designs before the Time Heist, so all that was left was to create it. They watched as the nanotech machine formed the gauntlet in red and silver, with indents on the knuckles and the back of the hand for the Stones. It was a feat of energy balances and mathematics, and involved a lot of hope that the Stones wouldn't instantly destroy the earth-made gauntlet. The Stones themselves waited patiently to the sides of the manufacturing chamber, filling the air with glowing light and the thrumming undercurrent of their power. Maggie couldn't get near the containment unit without the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

She couldn't stop staring at the gauntlet as it came together. The possibility they were grasping at made her sick, clogging her throat and sending her heart pounding a mile a minute.

"This is happening," she whispered as she stared at the red and silver gauntlet materializing inside the containment unit. The painful edges of hope poked through the fog of grief that Natasha's death had caused.

"Sure is," Tony said, making her jump with his closeness. They both stared into the containment unit at the empty gauntlet, waiting for Bruce and Rocket at the other end of the workshop to finish their calculations.

Maggie swallowed. "A lot's going to change."

"Yep."

"If we can make this work," she said, so softly that she barely heard herself, "if it's actually possible… they're going to come back."

"All of them," Tony said. It sounded like a promise.

"Everyone, Tony. And if… if everyone comes back… I'm not going to let them go again."

Tony tore his eyes away from the gauntlet and turned to face her with a half-smile on his face. "Is this you trying to hint something? You're terrible at hints."

"I just mean-"

"I know. I meant what I said, Maggie. Bucky's a part of the family."

She let out a breath and tears sprang to her eyes. She still couldn't quite let herself believe that they might actually succeed, but… it was a relief to hear Tony say it all the same. She gripped his hand, and his fingers wrapped around hers as tight as a vice.

Across the workshop, Bruce waved a tablet at them. "We're ready to activate."

Maggie stood watch between Rocket and Tony as, simultaneously, telescopic robot arms extended across the containment unit toward the gauntlet, clutching their glowing burdens. The air shimmered when the Stones got close to the gauntlet, filling the containment unit with a humming, tingling sound like tuning forks. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The Stones shivered and slid into place on the back of the gauntlet before they glowed as one: green, purple, blue, red, orange and vibrant yellow, burning like beacons.

Maggie didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until it rushed out of her all at once.

Then Rocket shouted "Boo!" and she almost put her heel spur straight through him. He looked around at their murder-filled eyes and only chuckled.

Maggie clenched her fists and then turned back to the glowing gauntlet. She could feel the power it radiated, even from here. "Alright," she breathed. "Let's get this to the other workshop."

The others were waiting for them in the smaller, light-filled workshop attached to the Avengers common room, in a terse and grief-filled silence. Most of them wore their combat uniforms. Thor wore a tracksuit.

They carted the gauntlet in on a containment trolley, which used magnetic fields to keep the gauntlet floating steadily in midair. Maggie watched everyone's faces as they saw the completed gauntlet: darkness, fear, hope. It all crackled through the air in the space of milliseconds as Tony and Bruce pushed the trolley to the center of the room.

Tony and Rocket conducted final checks, checking the security of each Stone in its housing, and the steadiness of the power surging through the gauntlet. Maggie watched them touch it with her heart in her mouth. She'd seen the readings coming off that thing. She knew that if anything went wrong they wouldn't just die – they'd be utterly torn apart, atom by atom, until nothing at all remained. Or the gauntlet would just tear a hole in the fabric of the universe and death would be the last of their worries. On the other hand, if things went right…

The hair on the back of her neck rose again, and she took a step back. She almost ran into Scott in his Ant-Man suit, and they exchanged a worried glance. She looked around, seeking out Nebula's calm, steady presence, but she wasn't in the room. Maggie turned back to the gauntlet with a frown.

"Alright, the glove's ready," Rocket murmured. He pulled away from the gauntlet, his eyes serious. "Question is, who's going to snap their frickin' fingers?"

"I'll do it." On the other side of the room Thor held up his hand and strode forward with unsettling enthusiasm on his face.

"Excuse me?" Tony questioned.

"It's okay." Thor kept striding forward, his eyes fixed on the glowing Infinity Stones, and Maggie instinctively moved to stand in his way. The others had the same instinct, as simultaneously four pairs of hands hands rose to ward Thor off from the gauntlet and they all called for him to stop.

"Wait, wait, Thor, just… wait," urged Steve. "We haven't decided who's going to put that on yet."

The Asgardian's eyes went flat and he let out a breath. "Oh I'm sorry, what, we were all just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?"

"Thor," Maggie said in a low tone. Thor's eyes flicked to her for a moment. She leveled a look at him, reflecting back to him all the painful conversations they'd had since the Decimation, all the lows she'd seen. He took in her meaningful gaze and then glanced away, his eyes dark and conflicted.

"We should at least discuss it," Scott said. Maggie took a step back, her eyes fixed on the four men standing in front of the gauntlet. Tony glanced over at her for a moment, as if reassuring himself that she was there.

"Look," Thor said, holding up his hands, "sitting here staring at the thing is not going to bring everybody back." Maggie's gut churned. "I'm the strongest Avenger, okay, so this responsibility falls upon me, it's – it's my duty, it's–"

Tony stepped in, trying to talk over Thor's rising volume, and the conversation devolved into 'stop it's and 'buddy's. Maggie looked around the room and her eyes alighted on Bruce, standing in the back corner with his arms folded and a dark look on his green face. Of course.

She paced over to him, her footsteps silent on the workshop floor. When she came up beside him she rested her hand on his massive bicep. He looked down at her, meeting her eyes, and her heart flipped at the sadness in his face. She gave him a small smile.

Thor had gone quiet. Maggie looked over to see that he had clasped his hands together in a pleading gesture, his eyes on Tony. "Just let me do it," he whispered. He sucked in a breath. "Just let me do something good, something right."

"Look," Tony said, "It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent, I'm telling you" – he looked into Thor's eyes – "You're in no condition."

Thor's eyes gleamed. "What do you – what do you think, is coursing through my veins right now?"

"Cheez Whiz?" Rhodey suggested.

"Rhodey," Maggie intoned, almost chiding. He glanced over at her and shrugged.

Thor just pointed at Rhodey, glowering, then turned desperate eyes back to Tony. "Lightning."

"Yeah," Tony muttered, glancing away.

By Maggie's side, Bruce uncrossed his arms. "Lightning won't help you, pal." They all looked over, taking in the resolute look in Bruce's eyes and Maggie's hand on his arm. Maggie felt her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. "It's gotta be me." Thor shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He let go of Tony. Bruce kept talking: "You saw what those Stones did to Thanos – almost killed him. None of you could survive." He strode across the workshop to the gauntlet, Maggie shadowing his steps, and when he got close enough the lights of the Stones glowed in his eyes.

"How do we know you will?" Steve asked.

"We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma," Bruce said softly. Maggie circled slowly, looking from his focused stare to the gauntlet. Her gaze flicked up to Tony, and she saw her own desperately pounding fear and hope reflected in his eyes. Bruce looked down. "It's like… I was made for this."

Slowly, he reached out and plucked the gauntlet from the electromagnetic field. It looked so small in his hands. He turned away from the trolley, looking down at the scarlet and silver gauntlet, and Maggie felt the atmosphere in the room change; both from the energy pulsing from the Infinity Stones and from the unspoken thoughts of her fellow Avengers. No one could look away from the gauntlet.

Tony came to stand beside his friend. "Good to go, yeah?"

Bruce looked up. "Let's do it."

Tony took a deep breath. "Okay, remember: everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago, you're just bringing them back to now, today." His gaze bored into Bruce's. "Don't change anything from the last five years."

Maggie had done a final circuit of the room, scoping out sightlines and entrances for no reason other than to calm herself, and on her way past Tony she squeezed his shoulder briefly. He nodded to her, a ghost of a smile on his face.

"Got it," Bruce murmured.

Around the room, the Avengers braced. Steve lifted his shield, Scott and Rhodey brought down their helmets, Thor stood in front of Rocket. Tony's armor flowed over his body and he brought up a nanotech shield to protect Clint. Maggie tapped her metal bracelets and felt her nanotech armor slide over her body – not the old-Wyvern suit, but her new one; black and sleek with burning red eyes. She slid her wings out only to fold at her back, more for comfort than for anything else, and then shuffled closer to Thor so she could assist in shielding Rocket.

Bruce looked up from the gauntlet and nodded to Tony.

From behind the grim gold mask Tony said: "F.R.I.D.A.Y., do me a favor and activate the Barn Door Protocol, will ya?"

Maggie's jaw clenched as missile-proof metal shields slid across every exposed entrance and exit, blocking out the light. She heard distant metallic sliding and clunking and knew that every window across the facility was being closed off to the world beyond. Heart in her mouth, she glanced around at her team. A few of them glanced back at her – Steve, Rhodey, Tony – but soon everyone's eyes were on Bruce. The sound of her own sharp breaths against her mask filled her ears.

"Everybody comes home," Bruce murmured. He took a deep breath, and moved his hand toward the gauntlet. The nanotech reacted instantly; the gauntlet's plating and circuitry expanded to fit Bruce's giant green hand with a whir. When the gauntlet closed around Bruce's wrist it lit up with a blinding light, streaks of lightning converging around the Stones and shooting up his arm.

Bruce dropped to one knee with a groan. Maggie stepped forward at the pain on his face, gasping, but every hair on her body stood on end and she felt sparks pop in her ears, so she had to stumble back again. She winced through her goggles as she watched bolts of pure energy course up and down Bruce's arm, seeping into his skin and glowing red. He gripped the gauntlet with his other hand. His eyes were screwed up and a low groan emanated from his clenched teeth.

"Take it off!" called Thor, "take it off!"

"No, wait." Steve held up a hand, "Bruce, are you okay?"

Bruce's head fell back and he groaned again, his whole face wrenched with pain.

Maggie's hands raised impotently towards him. "Bruce!"

"Talk to me, Banner," Tony said grimly.

Bruce curled over his hand, eyes squeezed shut and the hand in the gauntlet almost clenched into a fist. Jerkily, he nodded. "I'm okay," he slurred through labored breaths. "I'm okay."

Maggie put a hand on her heaving chest in some effort to slow her racing heartrate. Arcs of energy shot across the Stones and into the meat of Bruce's arm. His flesh started to smoke, and the lights in the workshop started flickering.

Bruce set his other hand underneath the gauntlet and lifted, every corded muscle in his arms and neck bulging as he raised his hand. His roaring, agonized face seared itself into Maggie's retinas along with the burning core of energy dancing around the gauntlet. Her ears rang with the sounds of his screams and something else, some crescendoing roar of energy like an engine powering up or an imploding star.

Maggie's heart jarred to a halt in her chest when Bruce connected his third finger and thumb, and she felt as if every atom inside her body was pushing towards him as his excruciated roar reached a new height and –

Bruce snapped his fingers.

Maggie's hand flew up, too late to block the blast of blinding light that whited out her vision in the wake of Bruce's snap.

She blinked wildly for a few moments, not conscious of much aside from her thundering heartbeat, jagged breaths, and a sudden silence around her. Her vision cleared just in time to see Bruce collapse to the workshop floor as the smoking gauntlet slid off his hand.

"Bruce!" Steve shouted, first to dive forward to Bruce's side. As one the others followed, converging on the fallen Hulk; Clint kicked the gauntlet away and Tony flung out his hand to cover Bruce's burning, smoking arm in suture spray. Bruce stirred at that; he groaned and reached up to grab Steve's supporting hand. Maggie watched, her eyes round and every nerve in her body singing with adrenaline. She only ever felt like this in the middle of the fight or while pinwheeling through the sky. Standing stock still was making her shake.

"Did it work?" Bruce groaned, voicing the very question that burned on Maggie's tongue. Thor started placating him, his voice wrecked, and Maggie looked up into Rhodey's eyes. His were wild like hers. Sunlight fell on his face as the metal barricades around the room rose.

Maggie hovered one hand toward Bruce, wanting to help but not knowing how. Her heartrate had not slowed, and as the sunlight shone on her face it only increased.

She reached up and touched the Wakandan symbol on the Kimoyo bead around her neck. It vibrated, letting her know it had sent off her pre-written message: Aphelion.

A code she remembered from five years ago. It meant requesting contact.

It meant tell me you're there.

She looked up from Bruce and saw Scott pace into the common room and stare out at the light-filled courtyard, then turned to see Clint, walking as if in a dream to the workshop table. His phone was ringing. Maggie looked into his face, and her pounding heart felt as if it had grown so large it pressed against the inside of her chest. Clint picked up the phone.

"Guys," Scott whispered from the other room, his voice shaky. She looked back over and saw birds flitting in the courtyard beyond. "I think it worked."

A wave of cool tingles washed over Maggie's body and she felt suddenly, completely calm. She closed her eyes.

And then the world erupted around her.

Light. Brighter than the glowing Infinity Stones and burning with the force of a thousand infernos.

Sound. A tidal wave of it that exploded in Maggie's ears and then faded to a high-pitched whine.

Movement. The floor shuddering and then falling away beneath her, giving way to flailing feet and a sickening swoop in her stomach.

Pain.

Darkness.

Maggie smelled… smoke. And blood. She tasted dust on her lips. The sharp, tangy mixture of the two made her cough, followed by a strangled scream as her body erupted with pain.

For a moment she was back on an airport tarmac in Germany, numb to everything except the pure and blinding agony that exploded through her nervous system and whited out her vision. But then her head tilted back and she sucked in a breath, flooding her lungs with enough oxygen to allow her brain to process.

I'm not in Germany.

Spine arched, every muscle taut with pain, Maggie forced herself to remember: the Facility, the gauntlet, the explosions. She tried to open her eyes but her body didn't obey her – it was all she could do to keep breathing, to reign in the screams that threatened to tear up her dry, painful throat.

This… wasn't the same as Germany. The source of this white-hot pain wasn't in the middle of her back like last time, but further down, closer to her… she opened her eyes and lifted her head, getting a general impression of smashed rock, twisted rebar and smoke before she focused blearily on her lower body.

My leg.

Maggie lay sprawled at the bottom of a pit of rubble; concrete, rock, wiring, and mangled metal. The earth shuddered with distant explosions, and the air was loud with the crackling sound of fire, running water, and metal and rock grinding together. Light filtered from somewhere, a mix of grey daylight and flickering red electrical light, illuminating the massive roughhewn rock that had fallen directly onto Maggie's right lower leg just below the knee. She could see her foot poking out the other side.

As if looking at it made it more real, another arcing lance of pain shot up Maggie's leg and she threw her head back with a groan.

Her head knocked roughly against the rock behind her and she squeezed her eyes shut. At the back of her mind, the Wyvern stirred. Categorize. Compartmentalize. Survive.

She took in a slow, deep breath through her nose. After three more breaths Maggie focused on the burning, screeching pain emanating from her leg. Then she pushed the pain aside. Next. She flexed her fists and moved her other leg, making the rubble beneath her shift, then rolled her shoulders. All in working order. Her cowl had retracted, leaving her face bare aside from her red goggles, and her comms were dead.

Gritting her teeth, Maggie lifted her head again and carefully pushed herself to a sitting position. Another deep breath. Before she could think about it or second-guess herself, she set her shaking hands on the rock crushing her leg and shoved it away.

After a few seconds in which her mind whited out again, Maggie focused on slowing her breaths, controlling the pain. She swallowed her screams and clenched her teeth so hard her jaw creaked.

"Cap?"

The shout echoed in Maggie's ears and her eyes snapped open. She twisted her head until she saw a dark figure a few yards away, silhouetted by a beam of daylight and clutching what looked like a torch. She tensed and clenched her fists, but then spotted the outline of a bow.

"Clint!" she gasped.

The figure turned toward her. "Maggie?"

He rushed down the rocky slope that separated them, sending pebbles and stones skittering down around her, before sliding to a crouch by her side. "Maggie, are you okay?" His face was illuminated red in the half-light, and she watched his eyes flick from her pain-wrenched expression, to her clenched fists, to her leg.

"Oh Jesus."

She followed his gaze, heart hammering against the inside of her chest, and her throat constricted at what she saw.

She looked away. Her leg was… below the knee it had been broken. Crushed. Bile rose in her throat at the bloody afterimage of it in her mind, and she clapped a hand to her mouth as she stared at the roof with tear-filled eyes.

Clint grabbed her hand. "You're okay, you're going to be okay Maggie. Talk to me." His grip on her hand pulled some of her focus away from her leg, and his insistent voice pulled her out of her own head.

She took three seconds to fill her mind with fire: not the blinding, searing scorch of pain, but the Wyvern's fire: the bright, simmering kind that filled her limbs with strength and burned away her fear.

"Shut up," she bit out, cutting off Clint's chorus of you're okay, you're okay. She sat up, tapped her metal bracelet and then held her palm over her crushed leg, closing her eyes in relief when Tony's patented suture spray flowed out over the broken and bloody limb. It combines wound packing tech with a sedative and antiseptic, Maggot, she remembered him telling her. This is going to save lives.

When every exposed part of her leg had been covered in suture spray, she leaned back with her eyes still closed and focused on her nanotech.

Clint watched, round eyed and still holding Maggie's hand, as her nanotech suit began to move. It reformed around her crushed leg, packing the wounds in tightly, splinting and compressing all at once. He flinched at the unmistakable crunch of bone.

Maggie screamed through her teeth through the whole process, gripping his hand. When it was over she gasped and her eyes snapped open.

Compartmentalize. Survive.

She looked down at her leg, protected inside the nanotech suit, and tentatively bent her knee. It hurt like the fiery pits of hell, but she could move.

She let out a shaky breath and met Clint's wide eyes. "Help me up," she breathed. "We need to move."

He didn't argue, just slung her arm over his shoulder and heaved her to her feet. "Can you walk?"

She hesitantly settled some weight on her right leg and gasped. "Just a second." She reformed her suit so any weight she put on that leg was distributed entirely through the nanotech instead, then tried again. Her eyebrows shot up when she barely felt an increase in her pain at all. Her lower leg mostly felt numb, thanks to the suture spray. "I can walk."

She and Clint staggered through the rubble, sliding and coughing in the smoke and dust. His torch beam swept ahead of them, illuminating mangled metal and a subterranean piping tunnel.

"What happened?" Maggie breathed as her immediate thoughts expanded beyond the pain in her leg.

"Missiles," Clint replied grimly. "I got a look at a ship before I went down. Looked alien. I've been trying to raise the others on comms but no dice."

Her gut twisted.

"Hang on, what's that?" Clint slid out from under Maggie's arm, making sure she was steady first, then stepped closer to the tunnel full of pipes and leaned over a smashed boulder. He moved a few rocks, but Maggie couldn't see what he was looking at from her position. His shoulders tensed.

Maggie opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing, but then something made her freeze: a deep-dwelling instinct, one that subconsciously sensed things before her conscious mind ever became aware of them. She slowed her breathing and focused on her senses.

Ahead of her, Clint slowly rose and turned around, pulling an arrow out of his quiver and nocking it to his bow. He aimed it down the hazy red corridor behind them. Maggie pushed off the wall, lowered her center of gravity and extended her clawed gauntlets. The air fell still like a calm before a storm.

Clint loosed the arrow. It soared true down the corridor, its glowing tip illuminating the black, leathery bodies of what looked like dozens of Outriders crawling along the walls. They let out a guttural growl.

Maggie's mouth went dry. "Go!" She broke into a run toward Clint, who retracted his bow and jumped over the boulder behind him. She leaped over a second later, and when she glanced sideways to make sure he could keep pace with her she spotted a dusty, faintly glowing gauntlet in his hand.

"Is that-"

"Run!" Clint shouted at her. The corridor echoed with snarls as the Outriders leaped after them, their limbs falling heavy on the metal grating.

On the surface of the ruins of the Avengers Facility, Tony, Steve, and Thor strode out into the light with their eyes fixed on the armored Titan waiting for them. He sat, a conqueror, on a stone with his sword propped beside him and the burning wasteland around him.

His eyes fell on the three Avengers. "You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you?" His eyes glinted. "Back to me."

By his sides, Tony's fists curled.

Maggie and Clint sprinted down the hazy red subterranean tunnel, over metal grating and through puddles and flickering fires. The Outriders were a snapping, snarling presence gaining on their heels and they had no idea where the tunnel led. Maggie's right leg flared with pain each time it landed, but she did not falter. Her breath came sharp in her chest. Clint threw grenades and trick arrows over his shoulders to slow down the creatures, and Maggie fired blaster shots behind her whenever she could. But it wasn't enough.

Maggie looked over her shoulder at the oncoming Outriders. Their six limbs propelled them along the ground at terrifying rates and they didn't seem to care when their flesh sliced open against protruding metal or when they slammed into walls. Maggie and Clint veered around a corner and the Outriders skidded around it seconds later. She'd fought these creatures in daylight but they were so much more frightening here, where the scarlet light shrouded their dark alien bodies and flashed off their snapping teeth.

Maggie tore her eyes off their pursuers and then looked at Clint, with the Gauntlet tucked under his arm.

Dammit.

"Get that thing as far away from here as you can!" she shouted to him, then planted her left foot and whirled to face the Outriders.

"Maggie!"

"Go!" she shouted, not looking back. She flared her sharp-barbed wings and extended her claws. The Outriders reached her seconds later with an inhuman snarl and they hit each other in a shriek of metal and flesh. Maggie plowed through the oncoming Outriders; she flailed her wings and slashed with her claws. She whirled, firing energy blasts in a spiral of scarlet light. Outrider claws sparked against her nanotech but didn't pierce her skin.

But then four of the creatures leaped at her head, knocking her back, and to her dismay the horde started running over and around her after Clint – they must have known to get to the Gauntlet. Her breathing short and scared, Maggie's eyes alighted on one of the pipes running the length of the tunnel. She flung her fist up and fired an energy blast right into the metal.

The whole corridor erupted with flame as her blast ignited the gas inside the pipe, and Maggie got blinded once again by blossoming light before she rolled to a crouch, protecting her head, and raised her wings in a nanotech canopy to shield herself.

Outriders howled and the tunnel shuddered and echoed with explosions. Maggie felt rocks fall on her wings, jolting her, but she held firm and they rolled away. The air filled with dust and smoke. She hoped Clint had gotten far enough to avoid the explosion.

When no more rocks fell on her wings and the flames had died out, Maggie lowered her wings and stood up, finding herself in a new landscape of rubble and dust. The tunnel ceiling between she and Clint had collapsed, now just a slope of rocks and mangled Outrider limbs. The dull red tunnel lights had been extinguished. After a moment of confusion Maggie realized that the reason she could see was that she stood in a beam of dim sunlight.

Her head snapped back, and her breath hitched in her throat as she saw the sky at the end of a long, narrow hole in the rubble, dark with smoke-black clouds where before it had been a bright day. In that dark sky hung a massive warship, larger than any Maggie had seen before, black and angular with a glowing orange energy core that pulsed with power. Maggie didn't recognize the ship, but she remembered it being described to her. The Sanctuary II. Nebula had told her about her father's warship: pride of his fleet, destroyer of entire worlds.

Maggie's knees shook, and she almost dropped to the crumbled ground.

On the other side of the Facility, Clint looked up at Nebula's impassive face.

"Oh hey. I know you."

Nebula took the Gauntlet from his hands, looked it over, and then raised a hand to her ear. "Father. I have the Stones."

Clint stared at her. "You what?"

Maggie flew up the narrow chute, her wings scraping the sides, and came to land on top of a massive pile of burning rubble under the smoke-filled sky. She rested one hand against a twisted pile of rebar and gingerly held her injured leg off the ground.

Her heart sank at the scene laid bare around her. The Facility was gone. Nothing remained of her home except for miles of debris, glowing with flames. Plumes of black smoke rose out of the ashes. Thanos's warship hung over it all, a looming specter.

Maggie stared up at the ship, her eyes gleaming out from her ash-coated face. She couldn't figure out quite how the ship had made it here, but there was no denying that somehow, it had traveled through time. And if the ship made it…

A resonant clang reverberated through the air, loud even over the sounds of rubble shifting and fire crackling, and Maggie's head snapped around. She knew Vibranium when she heard it. She pushed off the rebar and scrambled over the top of her pile of debris, digging her wings into the crumbled rock when she slipped. She made it over to the other side and stopped dead.

A plain of smoking wreckage stretched almost as far as she could see, but she didn't focus on that. A few hundred yards away in the center of all the wreckage, two figures battled fiercely. Maggie spotted, with a lurch of her gut, Thanos: the gold-armored titan got to his feet, roaring, only to be kneed in the gut by –

Steve. He ducked under Thanos's retaliatory blow and struck back with a glinting hammer – holy shit, that's Mjolnir – followed up by a strike from his Vibranium shield. Thanos grunted and fell back under Steve's barrage.

Maggie's heart soared and she tore her eyes away to scan the field. Her heart plummeted once more when she spotted Iron Man lying further away, draped on the ground like a broken ragdoll. He wasn't moving. Maggie couldn't see anyone else, though her eyes did catch on a weapon near Thanos's feet – Thor's axe Stormbreaker. Blood glinted on the blade.

Maggie's eyes flicked back to the battle just in time to see Thanos go flying under a blast of electricity from Mjolnir. Steve raised his arm, teeth bared, and a bolt of lightning crackled down from the roiling clouds at his command to slam down onto Thanos's prone body. Maggie's mouth fell open.

Whosoever be worthy, indeed.

But then Steve leaped in for another strike, only to be caught around the neck by a giant armored hand. Maggie's stunned shock fell away as quickly as if she'd been struck by lightning. Thanos rose with his hand gripping Steve like a toy, and then slammed him to the ground. Steve groaned and tried to rise, and behind him Thanos gripped his double-bladed weapon, towering over the First Avenger.

Nope.

Thanos's furious eyes were fixed on Steve as he struggled to get to his feet, so he didn't see Maggie until it was too late. She rocketed in from his left flank and slammed into him full-force, sending him tumbling away from Steve. He recovered quicker than she expected, rolling to his feet and swiping at her with his heavy blade, but she was ready for him. She deflected the blade with her wing, wincing when it cut a slice through her webbing, then dove in and dragged her claws across his exposed face. It only opened up a narrow graze on his jaw but the sight of blood made the Wyvern inside her roar with satisfaction. Maggie had dreamt of killing Thanos for five long years.

Thanos growled at her. His hate-filled eyes seemed to take her in for the first time, and he absorbed her next flurry of blows and energy blasts with a snarl. He towered over her, his eyes on her and his fury scorching the air around him. When her artillery couldn't make a dent against his armor, Maggie changed up her tactics. She jumped back into the air to avoid a blow from his heavily armored fist, dodged around him and then shot her most powerful weapon, a concentrated laser beam, right at his exposed head. He dodged aside at the last moment, snarling, and swung his weapon at her.

The laser had depleted her suit's power for a few seconds so she had to drop to avoid the whistling blade. She landed hard on the ground, head ducked, and wobbled when her right leg shrieked in pain. When she looked up, Thanos's sharp eyes were fixed on her leg. Her stomach dropped.

The blade came up again and she only noticed its sharp flash with half a second to spare. She ducked, heart pounding, but Thanos had never intended for the blow to land. The blade whistled through the empty air and she looked up into Thanos's snarling face just as he slammed his armored boot into her lower right leg.

A scream ripped straight from Maggie's gut and out her mouth, almost animal, only to be cut off when Thanos threw his foot into her chest and sent her flying.

She screamed as the wind whistled in her ears.

Maggie slammed into the pile of wreckage she'd initially flown down from and slid down until her body snagged on an outcrop of smashed concrete blocks near the top of the pile. Delirious, with blood trickling down the back of her throat and her ears ringing, her head slumped to the concrete beneath her.

For a few moments, it was all she could do to lay draped amidst the rest of the broken things and stay conscious. She heard grunts and smashing metal below her, picking out the individual sounds of Steve's cries and Vibranium clanging.

Steve cried out in pain, and Maggie's eyes fluttered open. She could see the flaming battlefield from her elevated position, and her eyes found Steve almost instantly as he tumbled across the bare earth, smashed through a pile of concrete and then came to a stop near the bottom of her pile. He'd lost Mjolnir. He tried to get to his feet, only to fall onto his back. Maggie's eyes moved from his bloody face to his shield – the Vibranium had been torn in half, its jagged edges glimmering in the firelight.

Tears spilled down Maggie's sooty cheeks.

Silence fell. Through her blurry vision Maggie noticed a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She lifted her head, a low, wordless note of pain keening from her mouth, and turned toward the movement.

Her vision swam into focus, revealing Clint and Nebula crawling out from under a piece of overhanging cement, on the other side of an outcropping of wreckage from Thanos and Steve. Thanos couldn't see them through the rubble, but at the sight of the Infinity Stones glowing on the gauntlet Maggie's stomach dropped. They looked up at the looming warship and then around, finally spotting Maggie above them. Their eyes widened.

Maggie's right arm was trapped under her body but she waved her free hand at them urgently, signalling them to get away. Her lips formed a silent word: 'Run.'

"In all my years of conquest, violence… slaughter," Thanos said, his voice carrying across the burning facility wreckage, "It was never personal."

Nebula and Clint's eyes widened further and they glanced in the direction of his voice. Maggie waved her hand at them again.

Thanos continued, talking down to Steve who seemed unable to move. "But I'll tell you now – what I'm about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet…" Maggie found her eyes drawn away from Clint and Nebula, enticed by Thanos's low, certain voice. She looked down at his face and felt her body go cold. "I'm going to enjoy it. Very, very much."

Maggie's eyes flicked back to Clint and Nebula as they picked their way across the debris. If they could just get the Stones away, maybe they could figure out a way to destroy them so Thanos could never use them. Wanda had destroyed an Infinity Stone, maybe they could find a way to recreate that power. Thanos used the Stones to destroy the Stones, maybe they could–

A piercing blue light blossomed at the far end of the plain below the warship, and Maggie's head whipped around. She winced at the bright light, only for her vision to adjust and show her what the light had brought down upon the Earth.

Maggie's heart sank like a stone.

On the scorched earth at the far end of where the facility had been stood an army. Not just one army but many: marching humanoids, glowing tank-like vehicles, Outrider dropships, Chitauri air chariots, the Black Order, Sakaaran infantry, and hundreds of other ships, weapons, and life forms she didn't recognize. Chitauri Leviathans snaked out of the warship and into the sky. Thanos's army blotted out the horizon, a thick black shadow that rolled down the hill toward them. Their sound was a physical presence – the low rumble of roaring engines and thousands of heavy footfalls, interspersed with screeching roars.

Maggie felt as if iron bands had wrapped around her chest and squeezed. She couldn't get any air, couldn't feel her heart beating. Couldn't think. She looked over to where she'd last seen Tony; he still lay dusty and beaten on the ground, though he seemed to be stirring. She looked back to Clint and Nebula. They had paused, looking over their shoulders at the army which had come to claim earth. Any hope Maggie had of them keeping the gauntlet out of Thanos's reach died.

She heard a pained groan, closer than the army, and looked down.

Steve was getting back up. Despite the countless hordes, despite the blood on his face and his smashed shield and the impossible odds, Steve Rogers was getting back up. His arms shook and his teeth bared in a grimace. Thanos looked away, unimpressed, but Maggie couldn't take her eyes off him – off Captain America, groaning as he pushed himself first to one knee, and then to his feet.

Maggie's breath found her again. Get up, Wyvern.

Slowly, cautious of the treacherous rubble beneath her, Maggie stood as well. Her arms shook as she pushed herself up, but she stood. Her leg nearly twisted under her and her heart felt like ash, but she stood. Standing, she found purchase on the unsteady slope of the wreckage of what used to be her home and straightened her shoulders. Her wings were a comforting weight on her spine.

She sent some rocks skittering down with her movement, and Steve glanced back at her. Their eyes met for a moment – tear-filled, resigned, and yet utterly determined. There hasn't yet come a fight that I won't follow you into.

Steve nodded up at her, then turned back to face down the armies. He tightened his shattered shield against his forearm with shaking fingers and strode forward to meet them.

Maggie spread her wings. Sunlight shone through the black clouds, gleaming through her wings' translucent webbing and illuminating her lifted chin. Ahead of her, Steve limped forward to meet the oncoming invaders.

Maggie had never imagined an end so noble for herself. She'd die like Bucky would have wanted to – on her own two feet, facing down evil. She took a deep breath, feeling her heart hammering against her chest, and clenched her fists. She spared a thought for Morgan: I hope that you'll remember us when we're gone.

She stretched her wings out and stepped forward, ready to soar into the jaws of death, but faltered at a crackle over her comms:

"Hey Cap, do you read me?"