Chapter 39

Maggie was perched on the roof of Leipzig/Halle's air traffic control tower like some kind of gargoyle, watching from afar as Steve paced out onto the tarmac in full uniform, and broke into a run toward Barton's helicopter. The part of Maggie that was still the Wyvern thought: clear skies, open terrain; optimal for airborne attack. She narrowed her eyes behind her goggles and focused. Her clawed gauntlets and heel spurs dug into the roof to keep herself anchored.

Everyone was in position: Scott standing by, so small that he was hidden from sight, Bucky and Sam in the terminal scanning for the Quinjet that was surely somewhere, and Wanda and Clint in the parking lot.

Sure enough, Steve barely made it halfway before Iron Man, red and gold and gleaming, swooped down and tossed an EMP onto the helicopter. It shorted out with a crackle of electricity.

Iron Man and War Machine dove out of the sky to land in front of Steve, and Maggie's heart leapt into her mouth. She'd seen her brother only yesterday, but it was one thing to see Tony unconscious and bleeding on the floor, and it was another to see him like this – a red and gold beacon, staring down his friend.

"Wow, it's so weird how you run into people at the airport," came Tony's voice, and his helmet retracted to reveal his face. He turned to Rhodey. "Don't you think that's weird?"

"Definitely weird."

Maggie didn't know if she'd ever felt like this before. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, her palms were sweating, and she felt strangely floaty, as if she wasn't really in her body. She was hundreds of feet away, but she could hear Tony and Rhodey's voices through Steve's commlink and it took her back to a kitchen in Manhattan, sipping orange juice with her brother and his best friend. Almost unconsciously, Maggie used her goggles to zoom in on Tony's exposed face. He was blooming with ugly bruises, and she winced, but now that he was awake he looked so alive: colorful and witty and determined.

"Hear me out, Tony," said Steve. Maggie jumped guiltily, and went back to surveying the situation. She couldn't allow herself to get absorbed in her brother, not right now. It was difficult to wrench her eyes away, though.

"That doctor," Steve continued, "the psychiatrist. He's behind all of this."

With barely a sound, the Black Panther leaped from behind a loading ramp, landing feet away from Steve. Maggie raised an eyebrow at the suit – she hadn't had a good look at it before, but she could see this was a well-made uniform, sinuous and lethal.

"Captain."

Steve inclined his head. "Your highness."

"Anyway," Tony said, pacing behind Rhodey. "Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in. That was 24 hours ago. Can you help a brother out?"

"You're after the wrong guy," Steve replied.

"Your judgment is askew," Tony shot back. "Your old war buddy killed innocent people yesterday-"

Maggie flinched, and noticed her hands were shaking.

"And there are five more super soldiers just like him," Steve cut in. There was a pause. "I can't let the doctor find them first, Tony, I just can't."

"Steve." That was a softer voice, and… oh. Maggie blinked at the sudden appearance of the Black Widow – she hadn't noticed her approaching, she clearly needed to focus. "You know what's about to happen. Do you really want to punch your way out of this one?"

Steve clenched his jaw and turned back to Tony. Maggie spotted a flash of red out of the corner of her eye.

"Steve," she murmured into the comm, "there's a-"

But she was too late. Tony sighed and said. "Alright, I've run out of patience. Underoos!"

The flash of scarlet turned out to be a guy in a red and blue spandex suit, who flipped over Steve's head, snagging the shield and simultaneously ensnaring Steve's hands with some kind of adhesive fluid. The guy landed in a dramatic kneel on an airport tug vehicle, holding the shield aloft. He lifted his head to reveal a full-head red mask with white slitted eyes.

"What the shit is that," Maggie murmured to herself, then realized that everyone over the comms just heard her. No one answered, though. Everyone within sight range was staring at the red and blue… man?

Steve's mouth opened, perplexed.

"Nice job, kid!" Tony called.

The man – kid, thing – straightened. "Thanks!" he said brightly. "Well I could have stuck the landing a little better, it's just the new suit – wait, it's nothing, Mr Stark, it's perfect, thank you-" he was gesturing nervously, and Maggie's eyebrows hiked up her forehead. What was he doing?

Tony was shaking his head. "Yeah, we don't really need to… start a conversation."

"Okay." The thing turned to Steve and awkwardly saluted. "Cap-cap'n." Maggie found herself suddenly smiling, despite the situation. "Big fan. I'm… Spider-Man."

"Yeah, we'll talk about it later," Tony cut in. Maggie blinked – she was very familiar with that tone in his voice, it was the one he often took with her, before, when she was getting under his feet and asking questions.

Spider-Man waved. "Hey everyone."

"Just… good job," Tony said, holding out a quelling hand.

"You've been busy," Steve noted.

Tony's head whipped around, and it was as if stormclouds rolled over his face. "And you've been a complete idiot. Dragging in Clint, 'rescuing' Wanda from a place she doesn't even want to leave, a safe place!" Steve shifted. Tony was working himself up, and everyone watched silently. "I'm trying to keep-" he was shouting now, so he cut himself off and glanced around, breathing hard. When he looked back, he fixed bright, desperate eyes on Steve. "I'm trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart."

Steve didn't skip a beat. "You did that when you signed."

Tony's mouth went slack with shock and betrayal, and he glanced at the ground for a moment. Maggie could tell he was building up to something, the words rising out of his chest and into his mouth, but when he finally got there, he didn't shout. He met Steve's eyes again, and his words were a low murmur:

"Is my sister with you?"

Maggie's stomach plummeted, and she had to physically press a hand to her abdomen, certain that she was wounded, or bleeding, or something-

She distantly heard Scott ask "wait, what?" over the comms, but she didn't have space in her head for that.

She didn't know what Steve's face looked like, but there was sorrow in his voice when he replied: "she's where she wants to be."

Maggie glanced up, still clutching her stomach, and her heart shattered at the look on Tony's face. His whole face crumpled, and his suit made a whirring sound as his shoulders slumped. Tears sprang to Maggie's eyes. She didn't want to hurt him, she didn't want this, she wished he understood-

But Tony's defeated expression only lasted a moment before the anger came rushing back, hot and burning in his eyes.

"Alright, we're done," he said softly, glancing to Rhodey. When he turned back, his whole bearing was aggressive. "You're going to turn Barnes over and you're going to come with us, now," he shouted, "because it's us, or a squad of JSOC guys with no compunctions about being impolite."

As he spoke, Maggie had to fight back more tears. He sounded so desperate: this was his family, she realized. Not just her, but the people he saved the world with, the people he trusted. Everyone else on the tarmac seemed to realize that this situation couldn't be salvaged, but Tony was still stubbornly trying to make everything okay. Maggie wanted to curl into a ball. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

Steve looked away, not even making eye contact. Maggie just heard Tony's murmured "come on."

Sam piped up: "We found it. Their Quinjet's in Hangar 5, north runway."

Maggie's head shot up, locating the hangar. No one needed to say it, but she could hear the almost collective intake of breath over the comms: mission is a go. Maggie rolled her shoulders and narrowed her eyes, ready for action.

Steve raised his trapped arms, Tony's eyes went wide, and suddenly Steve's hands sprang apart, freed by Barton's spot-on shot. Tony spun around as his helmet slipped back over his face.

"Alright Lang," Steve muttered.

In a burst of movement Scott appeared seemingly out of nowhere, kicking Spider-Man in the face, seizing the shield and flipping off the vehicle.

"Whoah, what-what the hell was that?" Rhodey exclaimed.

Scott offered Steve his shield. "I believe this is yours, Captain America!" Steve took the shield, sighing.

Maggie hunkered down close to the roof. Her orders were to stay wide until someone needed backup, she didn't need to be spotted right now.

"Aw, great," she heard Tony sigh. "Alright, there's two on the parking deck and one of them's Maximoff, I'm going to grab her." He fired up his repulsors and jetted away. "Rhodey, you wanna take Cap?"

Rhodey rose as well, and she could see him scanning for more threats. "Got two in the terminal, Wilson and Barnes-"

"Barnes is mine!" snapped the Black Panther, breaking into a sprint toward the terminal. Maggie gritted her teeth. Screw orders. She sprang off the air control tower and fired up her engines, wings glinting in the sunlight as she soared into the sky.

Rhodey must have spotted her, because she heard him call: "And there's one more on the – oh, hell."

Maggie flipped over, red goggles glowing as she closed in on the tarmac. Her tied hair streamed behind her and the air was fresh on her cheeks as she rocketed through the sky, a black silhouette against the blue.

Rhodey hadn't needed to finish his sentence. Tony knew who was coming.

As Maggie swooped toward the tarmac, her eyes darted around to find the best target. The Black Panther was sprinting for the terminal, but Steve was hot on his heels. Rhodey was flying toward Steve, about to intercept him. The Black Widow and Ant-Man were circling each other. Spider-Man shot off more webbing and sprang away, but Maggie let him slide for now – Steve was one against two, and it was obvious what the Black Panther wanted. She veered toward the sprinting super soldier, pushing her engines to their limits.

Rhodey must have underestimated her flight speed, because his attention was still focused on Steve when she grew close. She didn't slow down. She curled into a ball and collided with the War Machine armor feet-first, sending him spiralling off-course. Maggie dipped into a tight turn, and saw that Steve had halted the Panther in his tracks.

"Move, Captain," the Wakandan king threatened, getting to his feet. "I won't ask a second time." The dark intent in his words disturbed Maggie.

She gritted her teeth and dove, catching the Panther unawares as he sprang toward Steve. She dropped in from above, caught his outstretched leg and swung him backwards, sending him skittering along the concrete in a shower of metallic sparks.

When the Black Panther got to his feet again, claws extended, he looked up to see the Wyvern standing beside Captain America on the tarmac, her wings spread threateningly as she stared him down.

Steve glanced out of the corner of his eye at Maggie, taking in her slitted red goggles and the way she spread her arms, as if to throw up a physical barrier between T'Challa and the terminal, where Bucky was.

"You're looking for revenge on the wrong man," Maggie told the king through gritted teeth. He didn't even acknowledge her.

Unbeknownst to Maggie, T'Challa's earpiece heard her just fine, and her voice carried into Team Stark's comms. Tony faltered in the sky on his way to get Clint and Wanda, his whole body jerking at the sound of his sister's voice.

Back on the tarmac, Steve and Maggie tensed when Rhodey appeared again, repulsors whining as he honed in on the stand-off below. His weapons locked on to them.

"I've got T'Challa," Steve muttered.

Maggie didn't doubt him for a second – Steve respected her, trusted her even, and she had the same faith in him. He wouldn't let anyone hurt Bucky.

Maggie nodded once, and as the Black Panther leaped forward again she sprang into the sky, wings outstretched. She rolled, getting her bearings, and her gaze locked on the War Machine armor, which was still closing in on Steve and T'Challa.

Maggie flew straight at him, her flight path fixed in a deadly game of chicken. Rhodey was an obvious target, in his bulky armor with its red glowing arc reactor, and Maggie stared at him as they screamed toward each other in the sky. She swallowed her memories of him from twenty five years ago, keeping her eyes locked on the glowing eye slits in his helmet. He wanted to stop Steve, he'd have to go through her. The wind screamed in her ears.

In the seconds before imminent collision, Maggie heard Rhodey shouting at her: "c'mon, Maggie, move!"

Her eyes widened at the disturbed note to his voice, and at her name, but she only pushed her engines harder.

At the last second Rhodey faltered and swerved, narrowly avoiding collision with her outstretched wings. Maggie took advantage of his hasty diversion and ripped one of the gun turrets off his suit as she zipped past. It made an awful metallic shrieking sound, and she heard Rhodey cursing as he tried to get his balance back mid-flight. She dropped the gun turret, sending it tumbling to the tarmac below.

She and Rhodey wheeled in the air, arcing over planes and airport vehicles, and when they came together again Rhodey fired a repulsor blast at her. She rolled to avoid it, and tried to knock him into a small plane, but he moved with the blow and almost managed to grab her foot. They veered apart again, trying to get a better angle on each other. Maggie powered up the energy blaster fitted to her wrist – thanks, Barton – and fired a shot at Rhodey as they made another pass at each other. The ball of bright white energy sailed over his shoulder, and Maggie cursed.

Maggie could tell that Rhodey was disturbed by fighting her, and she couldn't say she was feeling great about the situation. His suit was also unpredictable, turning and maneuvering in unfamiliar ways that almost caught her out. As she veered to avoid a series of repulsor blasts, she heard the unmistakable sounds of other fights over the comms: Barton and Wanda sparring with Tony, Steve going toe to toe with the Panther, Scott having some kind of scuffle with Romanoff. She heard Bucky shout in alarm, and realized that he and Sam were fighting with someone, too – she did a quick head count and cursed when she realized Spider-Man must have gone after them. The sound of loud impacts, shouts and shattering glass came over their side of the comms, and Maggie gritted her teeth.

Spurred on by this new sense of urgency, Maggie forgot about going easy on Rhodey. In an agile, blindingly fast move she'd learned when she was sixteen, she feinted away from one of his dives and flipped above him in the air. She pulled a concussive blast grenade from her belt – another gift from Barton – and tossed it.

With a flash of light and a surprisingly loud explosion, the grenade knocked the armor out of the sky and into a catering truck. Maggie eyed the War-Machine sized hole in the truck for a second.

"Sorry, Rhodey," she muttered, and then spiraled away, heading for the terminal. Rhodey would be up again soon, but not soon enough for him to catch her.

With the glass and steel terminal in her sights, Maggie focused back on what she could hear over the commlink. In amongst all the chaos of everyone else's fights, she heard Spider-Man's high, animated voice jabbering at Sam about… the rigidity-flexibility ratio of his wings?

"I don't know if you've ever been in a fight before, but there's usually not this much talking." Sam sounded pissed, and if he was talking then he wasn't fighting back, which made Maggie nervous. She pushed her wings harder, arcing across the airport.

With a quick gesture, she adjusted her goggles so she could zoom in on the windows of the terminal, trying to see what was going on. The lens focused just in time for her to see Bucky throw himself in front of Sam, shielding him from Spider-Man's swinging assault. Spider-Man kicked them both through a glass pane and sent them plummeting to the floor below in a burst of shattered glass.

Maggie's eyes narrowed, fixing her glare on the still-jabbering Spider-Man. She streamlined her body so she sliced through the air like a knife, soaring towards the little asshole who'd just kicked Bucky to the ground.

Redwing got to Spider-Man half a second before she did. She saw the flying robot latch onto the suited guy's hand, knocking his aim off-course as he went to fire more adhesive webbing at Sam and Bucky.

Redwing didn't have him long, though. Maggie exploded through the windows on one side of the terminal, seized a handful of Spider-Man's suit, and used her momentum to smash him through the windows on the other side. She got the barest glimpse of Bucky and Sam pinned to the ground a floor below before she was soaring away again, Spider-Man squawking in alarm in her grasp.

Bucky and Sam had only seen Maggie as a metallic, red-eyed blur, there one second and gone the next, leaving the echo of screaming engines in her wake.

"Thanks, Meg," came Bucky's tired voice over the comms, making the corner of her mouth quirk up. Then she heard him say to Sam: "You couldn't have done that earlier?"

"I hate you."

Maggie turned her focus back to the squirming weirdo she was hauling through the air, just as he managed to wriggle his suit out from between her gauntleted fingers. He threw out another line of webbing, flipping away from her attempt to get him back. He was fast.

Just as she thought that, he did a complicated spin and shot a blob of webbing at her wings. The stuff caught her mid-turn, trapping her left wing while it was folded up and sending her tumbling out of the sky. The world became a kaleidoscope of colour, whirling wildly around her.

But with a simple shrug, her Adamantium skeleton sliced through the webbing and she snapped her wings out, flying free. She turned her red-goggled glare on Spider-Man, who was still chattering as he swung around a pylon, avoiding her.

"Oh wow," he gushed, "now those are some cool wings. Mr Stark said you might be here, but to be honest I don't know if I really believed him."

Maggie didn't know if he meant to do it, but just that short sentence managed to get into her head, distracting her from the fight for an instant. Tony had thought she'd be here? What did he say about her? She almost collided with the pylon as she swooped after the red-and-blue clad kid.

Unfortunately for Spider-Man, he'd also just pissed her off. She almost caught his foot, but he squirmed out of her grasp again.

"Jeez," he gasped, flipping over a truck and flinging a stray tyre at her. She just flew right through it, her Adamantium wing slicing the tyre clean in half. "You're a lot scarier than he said you'd be." He flung out another line of webbing to launch himself away again, but before he was even a few feet in the air Maggie flicked one of her heel spurs through the webbing, sending him tumbling back to the ground with a grunt of surprise.

"Oh man, you have knives in your feet?" he said, springing back up. "How do you even get knives in your feet? That's so cool!"

Maggie scowled. "Yeah, you wanna see 'em?" She swooped on him, both heel spurs extended, and Spider-Man yelped and dove away.

Maggie wasn't really going to stab him – she could hear the youth and inexperience in his voice, but she was getting seriously annoyed at him. She chased him around the tarmac, dodging his webbing and giving him a healthy fear of her heel spurs. There was a huge explosion over the comms, and Maggie glanced sideways to see a plume of fire and black smoke go up from the main part of the tarmac, where Steve had been.

"Oh man, I thought it was a water truck," she heard Scott say. "Uh… sorry."

A few seconds later, Maggie was trading a few punches with Spider-Man when Steve's voice came over the comms: "Alright focus up everyone, we're going to push through to the Quinjet. Converge on the luggage depot."

Maggie blinked. Right. She'd gotten so caught up in her fear for Bucky and then her irritation at Spider-Man that she'd lost sight of the end goal.

Spider-Man must have gotten a similar order over his comms, because he ducked one of her punches and said "Hey, I've gotta go back to my team now, should we just, like, call a time out?"

Maggie rolled her eyes, but she supposed it wasn't a bad idea. "Ugh, whatever." She flipped a grenade out from a holster on her back and tossed it at Spider-Man, knowing that he'd dodge in time. But he was sufficiently distracted by the fiery explosion, giving her enough cover to jump back into the sky and fly toward the luggage depot.

Maggie flew low and fast toward the luggage depot, careening past airplane supply vehicles and small aircraft.

She spotted the red and black figures of Wanda and Barton first, sprinting out from behind a stack of crates, and she matched pace with them, wings spread. They glanced over their shoulders at the sound of engines but relaxed when they spotted her. Barton even gave her a small salute.

"There's our ride!" He said, pointing at the Quinjet in the hangar up ahead.

Scott and Steve emerged from a line of vehicles, falling into step just in front of Barton.

"C'mon!" Steve called, with a wave of his hand, and Sam and Bucky veered in from the right. Maggie ran a concerned eye over Bucky, but he seemed okay. His hair whipped around his face as he ran, and his arm gleamed in the sun. He glanced up at her, and she could see him checking her for injuries as well. She smiled and sped up a little so she was flying over their motley team, casting the shadow of her wings over them as they ran. She lifted her gaze, focusing on the Quinjet.

But as they ran out into open space, they were suddenly cut off by a beam of some kind of energy, which scorched through the air and burned a crater in the concrete. Maggie flared her wings and flapped them frantically, trying to back away from the glowing beam. She came to a faltering landing between Wanda and Bucky, heart pounding at her near miss. She glanced down at the smoking line in the ground, and then up at the thing in their way.

She immediately recognised him as Vision: one of the newest recruits to the Avengers, and certainly the most mysterious. She knew he was an android, and as she peered up at him she could see his artificial, robotic face, and his strange colouring. He floated eerily in the air, as if he wasn't quite a part of the world they lived in. The part of Maggie that wasn't frustrated at being blocked was fascinated by him: he was one of a kind, a completely cybernetic being.

"Captain Rogers!" called Vision, and Maggie raised an eyebrow at his British accent. "I know you believe what you're doing is right."

Maggie didn't listen to the rest of what he said, because Iron Man had just landed on the ground beside Vision, carrying the Black Widow.

Maggie's mouth went dry. She was suddenly glad that her eyes were hidden by her goggles, because they'd shot wide open, and were suddenly brimming with tears. She didn't even look at the others as they landed in one way or another between her team and the Quinjet. Her eyes were locked on Iron Man, and though his helmet's glowing eye slits were inscrutable, she just knew that he was staring back at her. Maggie realized that this was the first time he'd seen her in twenty-five years.

She felt as if there was an invisible cord running between the two of them, stretching across the vast gulf of no-man's-land on the tarmac. Maggie was rooted to the spot, her breaths coming fast. She could feel Bucky looking at her, concern etched across his face, but she couldn't spare him a glance. She couldn't even blink – her eyes were itching uncomfortably because of how long they'd been snapped open, staring at her brother.

There was a long silence between the two groups of superheroes, filled with hundreds of unsaid things. Everyone was still and silent. Maggie felt like she was falling apart.

This was it, then. Somehow, hundreds of actions, choices and allegiances had led to this; she and Tony finally reuniting here, on opposite sides of a battle that threatened to tear a family apart.

Maggie swallowed. Ever since her memories of Tony returned, she had known that she would never hurt her brother. But she also knew that she couldn't step away from this fight. The two terrible truths clashed against each other in her heart, threatening to bring her to her knees.

She stood behind Steve and Bucky, a few feet to Wanda's left. Her skin prickled at the awareness that she was being stared at, and her wings shifted nervously, almost unconsciously. She could sense similar reticence and determination in her teammates: they didn't want to do this. But they had to.

Simultaneously, Maggie and Bucky's heads turned and they shared a look heavy with meaning. There was no specific message there, nothing to be conveyed except… love. Maggie found that that comforted her, that despite her wretchedness and the breaking hearts at this airport, there was someone who loved her unconditionally. Her heart ached, and she wished she could whisk Bucky away from here, away from the people who wanted to hurt him and punish him for a crime he wasn't guilty of.

It was then that Sam asked: "What do we do, Cap?"

Maggie saw Steve's shoulders rise and fall, determined, and a shiver went down her spine.

"We fight."