Chapter 72

The analysts in the operations room watched on as Tony and Rhodey argued about A.I.M.'s ultimatum.

"You can't go alone Tony, this is the most obvious trap in the history of traps–"

"I know that, Rhodey, but this might be our best option! A.I.M. was smart enough to break into this facility, and we don't know what tech they've managed to develop while they've been in hiding. I'll go in the armor, obviously, and at least this way I'll get a chance to do some recon on the base before you hit it–"

"Or they'll just shoot you out of the sky the second they see you," Rhodey said, throwing his hands up. "They haven't been shy about trying to kill you in the past! Besides, you know you have to run this by the Accords Committee."

"Ross and the others will back this, they've basically given us permission to take down A.I.M. as soon as we find them anyway."

"At least wait for Vision," Rhodey urged, "he just messaged back and said he could get there in five hours."

"A.I.M. said three hours, and even though they stole the dialogue from a B-movie supervillain I'm not super excited to see what 'repercussions' means."

Rhodey turned to Maggie. "You gonna back me up here?"

She looked away from the message and turned to her brother. "Rhodey's right, Tony. You're being stupid. Is there any way we can convince you not to do this?"

Tony shrugged at them. "Probably not."

She nodded. "Fine." With that, she turned on her heel and headed for the door.

"Wha– Maggie, don't leave, c'mon–" Tony called after her, but she opened the door with a wave of her hand and walked out.

Maggie had the vague outline of a plan, and as she walked around the facility collecting supplies the plan grew ever more solid. She first visited the med bay, then her room, then went to the workshop. Then she had a very tense discussion with F.R.I.D.A.Y.

That done, she slipped into the high-security section of the facility hangar (technically only Avengers had access to this area, but she'd managed to convince F.R.I.D.A.Y. to let her in) and looked around at the room. It looked like most change rooms in the world, to be honest, though far more high tech. She climbed into a locker that she thought must have once belonged to the Black Widow, if the remnant smell of leather and gunpowder was anything to go by.

In the dark, her ears straining, Maggie slipped her Kimoyo bead out of the black skin-tight shirt she'd changed into and sent a message to Bucky: BRB, about to go do something stupid. The message faded away as it sent, and she was left in the dark with the glowing afterimage of the words.

Three minutes later, she heard the high-security changing room's door open.

When she'd been the Wyvern, none of her targets had ever heard her coming until it was too late. It appeared that was a skill she still had.

Tony didn't hear her when she unlatched the locker door from the inside, or when she slipped out and padded across the floor toward him. He was busy talking at F.R.I.D.A.Y., arranging flight lines and weapons arrays and satellite monitoring, his hands waving the air in front of him as he walked. He probably didn't realize she was there at all, because it only took half a second for her to close the distance between them, stick the syringe full of high-quality sedative into his neck and press the plunger. It took another half second for the sedative to take effect.

She caught Tony as he crumpled bonelessly, then dragged him into the adjoining shower room. Once he was laid out on the tile floor she fetched the soft blanket she'd brought with her and wrapped him up so he wouldn't get too cold. Then she put her hands on her hips and looked down at him. He looked relaxed – the frown lines in his brow had smoothed out, and his mouth was slightly ajar. She crouched down and rolled him onto his side so he wouldn't choke on his own drool.

"Sorry," she muttered to him, and tucked the blanket in more securely. "But you were being really stupid."

"Ms Stark," F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupted, her voice echoing in the shower room, "I'll monitor the Boss's vitals, but he should be out for the next few hours. You need to get moving."

"Right." Maggie got to her feet and hurried back into the changing room. "We're good to go?"

"Confirmed."

She took a breath and turned to Tony's changing station – it was marked by a full-length dressing-room mirror with light bulbs all around it that she was pretty sure he had put there as a joke, and a single metal pedestal with a palm scanner. Maggie approached, and eyed herself in the obnoxious mirror. She looked dark and serious in the black combat clothes she'd put on, her eyes pinched with guilt.

Tony had programmed all his armored suits to accept Maggie's genetic signature in case he needed to protect her in an emergency. She loved him for it, but that hadn't stopped her from using the backdoor to do some sneaky coding (with F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s help) to make herself the primary pilot.

"Ms Stark–" F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, but Maggie waved a hand.

"I know, the time pressure. Okay, let's do this." With another breath to steel herself, she slapped her hand onto the palm scanner.

Immediately the pedestal came to life with a mechanical whir, and the palm scanner glowed gold. Half a second later metal slid over Maggie's hand and up her arm, cool and smooth. She resisted the urge to pull away and forced herself to breathe as the metal consumed her body like ice, and when she felt it encase her neck and slide over her face she screwed her eyes shut.

There was a brief moment of panic as she thought I can't breathe, I'm dying. She was encased in metal like a tomb, strangled by it, but then – she opened her eyes. She was greeted by an explosion of light through the HUD, and after a few seconds of confusion she began to see, to understand, and she realized that the metal around her was alive and primed to her every command. A thrill went through her.

With a shaky laugh, Maggie stumbled back a step – clank-clank, came her footsteps – and turned to look at herself in the mirror.

"Hell yeah," she breathed. Iron Man stood before her, the familiar gold and scarlet plating slipping away to scarlet and chrome in the lower half of the body. Slitted, glowing eyes looked back at her. Mark 47, read a note on the HUD, above a list of specifications and blueprint arrays. Maggie's eyes flicked over some of the details: unibeam, mini-missiles, lasers, EMPs, grappling chains. She grinned, and flexed her fingers. In the mirror, Iron Man's gauntlets flexed into fists and then back again. She more or less fit into the armor – luckily this version of the armor had some stretch capacity, or she would have been too tall for it.

"This is awesome."

"Ms Stark, there are two hours and twenty minutes left until the deadline." F.R.I.D.A.Y. sounded both disapproving and despairing, and Maggie's grin vanished. She'd only managed to talk the A.I. into this plan by explaining the extreme danger Tony faced if he went alone, and how Maggie was the best one suited for the job. Luckily for her, F.R.I.D.A.Y. had agreed. And she was aware that the A.I. could boot her out of the armor at any time, so she straightened and said:

"Right, sorry F.R.I.D.A.Y. Let's work out how to fly this thing."

Above her head, the ceiling slid back to reveal a narrow flight chute opening up directly to the sky. Maggie sighed and cocked her head. "This seemed a lot easier while I was planning it."

"Fortune favors the bold," F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied, with an air of impatience.

Maggie rolled her shoulders back, feeling the armor roll with her, then fired up the repulsors. It was intuitive, based more in thought than in movements of the head gear and gauntlets. She felt power ripple through the armor, noted the ongoing power feedback on her HUD, then kicked the repulsors into flight mode.

She shot off the changing room floor in a blast of light and sound, zipped through the flight chute and then burst into open sky. She gasped as the facility fell away beneath her and wind rushed over her helmet. A second later the white clouds broke apart around her and she soared up, arcing away from the facility and the world below.

A whoop bubbled up her throat and out her mouth. This was fast. Her wings were fast but they couldn't move like this, cutting through wind and sky like a freaking missile. Maggie spread her arms and spun in the air, just because she could, laughing despite A.I.M. and despite her unconscious brother because this was what she'd been missing: just her, metal, and the sky. It felt slightly strange to be flying encased entirely in metal – she was used to feeling the wind rushing over her body and the minute sensory data from her wings, but the sensation of soaring through the air still felt wonderful.

The armor faltered and dipped in the sky, and Maggie refocused her efforts on piloting. Right. Flying unfamiliar tech on a dangerous mission. Focus, Stark. She aligned her body to what she hoped was the way the armor usually flew, then fixed A.I.M.'s location into the HUD flight trajectory system.

A.I.M. had said send Mr Stark to our facility, alone, in three hours.

Well they weren't going to get Mr Stark. But they'd get Iron Man.

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

The final A.I.M. base was set into the side of a rocky, snow-laden mountain. It was barely visible from the air, aside from a few metal hatches and pipes. The most obvious sign was the large metal door to the flight hangar. The base overlooked a choppy river that rushed through a dense forest toward a steep waterfall a few miles south. Initial scans showed that it was well armored and reinforced, capable of withstanding immense firepower.

When the base's scanners sensed Iron Man approaching, a single metal hatch opened.

Iron Man plunged through the opening and landed with a metallic clang, one knee to the floor with repulsors whining and slitted eyes glowing. Slowly, precisely, the armor straightened and its eyes lifted to survey the room.

It was a wide, functional space with high ceilings and heavy-duty wiring snaking across the floor, brightly lit and gleaming like any science lab should be. The far end of the room was occupied by a tall chrome dish, similar to a satellite dish but not pointed at the sky. More importantly, the room was packed with A.I.M. agents. They'd all lifted their weapons to point at Iron Man when he entered, their faces hidden by dark masks with rectangular visors. They wore heavy duty tactical gear, but unlike the agents who'd attacked the facility these ones wore their allegiance proudly – the A.I.M. logo (a yellow globe/target design) was emblazoned on their chests. They stared at Iron Man, and he stared back.

"So predictable," came a voice over the intercom. It was low, menacing. Maggie recognized that voice – it had called out her trigger words over the facility speakers just a few weeks ago. "The great ego of Tony Stark. Even when you know it's a trap you walk right in, confident that you're smarter than everyone else on the planet. But not today, Mr Stark. You may be smarter than any other individual on the planet, but A.I.M… A.I.M. is a collective."

The large dish on the other side of the room whirred into life, glowing electric blue as it powered up. It swiveled to lock on to the armor's signature. The low whine of throbbing electricity pulsed and swelled until it filled the air like a heartbeat, and–

With a clunky krrrr sound, the dish's lights flickered and went out, and it drooped to point at the floor. The agents in the room shifted their feet and traded glances.

For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence. Then a new voice came over the base speakers.

"Aw, is the machine you specially designed to shut down the Iron Man armor not working?" Maggie tutted. "That's a shame, you should call tech support."

And then the lights went out.

On the other side of the facility from the Iron Man armor Maggie shut the door of the control room for the advanced EMP, leaving the trussed-up technicians behind her. In the darkness she was near-invisible thanks to her dark combat gear, soundless footsteps, and the black mask fitted to the lower half of her face underneath a pair of HUD-equipped goggles. She blended into the darkness, feeling skills she learned long ago slip to the forefront of her mind. That might have scared her once, but now she knew she was free of her words and free of HYDRA. This was all her.

In the corridor outside the control room, she paused and glanced around. Her HUD showed a team of seven agents already rushing toward her position, so she slipped toward several thick pipes running down the side of the corridor and hid behind them.

The leader ran past her a few seconds later, murmuring "approaching the control room now" into his comms. So they haven't figured out that F.R.I.D.A.Y. cut out base-wide communications yet.

When the last agent ran past her position, Maggie struck. She stepped into the corridor, raised her wrist-mounted energy blaster and took down the two agents at the back before they knew what hit them. The others, disoriented by the bright white bolts of energy, spun and started firing. Maggie dodged their instinctive spray of bullets and slid between the next two agents on her knees. She blasted the larger one in the face, knocking him into the wall, and the other one rammed his rifle butt at her head. She whipped around just in time to catch it and shove it back up at him. The rifle crunched into the agent's chin and he crumpled like a sack of potatoes.

The last three agents recovered and fanned out as they fired, the bullets sparking off the metal floor and ricocheting around the corridor. But Maggie was already moving again. She rolled under their bullets and into their space – she swept an agent's legs out from under him, flipped to her feet and sprang across the corridor to slam her elbow into the next one's temple. The leader's gun swung up to fire at her but in three quick steps she knocked his aim sideways, slammed her foot into his knee and fired an energy bolt into his face on his way down.

Shoulders tense, Maggie waited half a second to make sure the seven men were unconscious. When she was satisfied she spun on her heel and strode back the way the agents had come from.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., how're you going?"

"The welcome party has been dismissed," the A.I. replied. Maggie tapped the side of her goggles, momentarily checking the comms relay from the Iron Man armor – sure enough, the agents who had previously been pointing their weapons at Iron Man were now unconscious or immobilized on the lab floor.

"Nice work."

Iron Man started moving again as F.R.I.D.A.Y. sought out new targets. "Naturally. However, I don't understand why you requested that I make such a dramatic entrance minutes after you had already infiltrated the base."

Maggie slipped around a bend in a corridor and set about clearing each room. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had already knocked out their comms and taken over the base security, and Maggie had disabled all escape routes and vehicles, so everyone was trapped inside. All that was left was to flush them out. She had identified a highly reinforced room near the apex of the base on the scans – no doubt where the last leaders of A.I.M. were hiding.

"Well," she explained to the A.I., "They were expecting Tony, right? They were expecting the big, dramatic entrance, so we had to give it to them to maintain the element of surprise."

"All the same," F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied, "they would have been surprised by your infiltration with or without the armor's entrance."

Maggie shrugged to herself as she tossed a sleeping gas grenade into a lab full of scientists and then locked the door. "That's true. But it was kinda fun, wasn't it? And don't say you're not programmed to have fun, because you'll just make me depressed."

"Well we wouldn't want that."

A.I.M. didn't have a chance. They'd been expecting Tony Stark, had been studying his thought and combat patterns. They weren't ready for the efficiency and calculation of F.R.I.D.A.Y. controlling the Iron Man armor, or the Wyvern slipping through the shadows and blasting them with a blinding bolt of light before they knew what was happening. A.I.M. had started as a scientific group, and this new iteration had learned most of their military tactics from HYDRA. Unfortunately for them, Maggie knew those tactics inside and out.

Maggie hadn't fought like this in years. Maybe not ever. She and F.R.I.D.A.Y. worked on opposite sides of the base, working clockwise and non-lethally neutralizing each scientist, technician, and agent they found. Maggie got used to the energy cannon, working with it as an extension of her arm like the heel spurs were just extensions of her legs, and used moves and tactics that she'd half forgotten in the past few years of relative peace. She didn't have her wings to back her up so she relied on the strength of her limbs and the speed of her attacks, switching from stealth to aggression in a heartbeat. The most any agent saw of her was a flash of black-clad limbs and a blinding bolt of light before they lost all sense.

Once Maggie finished working her way through a team of agents hiding out in an armory, she straightened and tapped her goggles. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., status update?"

"My scans indicate that a significant portion of A.I.M.'s troops have concentrated in the flight hangar. They have managed to barricade themselves in."

"Huh. I'm about to hit that reinforced room, so once I'm done there I'll come down and help you out."

"Be careful."

"Back at you."

"I am programmed to be careful. You, however–"

"Oh, please."

It took her a few minutes to break into the reinforced room. In the end it was suspiciously easy – she hesitated when the door swung open, calculating the possibility that whoever was inside had let her in.

Eventually, she gritted her teeth and slipped inside. She found herself in a wide two-levelled space, the upper level looking down onto the foyer below. Maggie's eyes darted around as she tried to identify the room's function – if she had to guess, it served as a lab, control room, surveillance hub, and war room all at once. And it was too quiet. Desks, machinery and computers filled the space and harsh fluorescent lights shone down on Maggie's cautious face. She spotted a blueprint of Avengers Facility on the far side of the first floor.

She heard rustling and glanced up at the second floor landing. Instantly she tensed and flinched back at the sight of fifteen agents pointing their weapons down at her, but then a voice broke through the stifling tension:

"Just a moment!"

Maggie froze. She knew that voice. It was the same one that had read her words one cold and terrifying morning at Avengers Facility, the same that had said Wyvern. Kill Tony Stark.

Her eyes narrowed and her head swiveled until she found him.

The man stood at the edge of the second floor landing, his fingers curled around the metal railing as he peered down at her with pale blue eyes. She remembered him from his file: Alan Crowe. Disgraced scientist turned rebel leader of A.I.M. Charged with domestic violence and divorced after losing his job, then dropped off the grid. He had an intense look about him: dark hair clashed with his pale eyes and fair skin, with a laser focus to his gaze as he stared down at her.

"I never thought it'd be you," he said, almost wonderingly. His voice was low and the sound of it sent chills of ghost-panic running down Maggie's spine. Her face was still disguised by the mask and goggles, but she supposed it wasn't that hard to figure out who she was.

Crowe's face twisted, the side of his mouth curling up as he said: "Verre."

Maggie had already been frozen on the stark metal grating of the base headquarters, but at that word her every muscle went rigid.

Crowe smiled at her, and his fingers flexed around the railing. "Transmission."

She shivered. She couldn't help it, her gut churned at the words and at the gleam in his eyes that she recognized, because she'd seen that gleam in the eyes of so many HYDRA generals, who knew that she was theirs–

"Affamé."

The agents in the room just watched, their weapons loosely trained on her. Maggie's skin crawled – she needed to move, to flee or to fight, but she forced herself to remain still and silent as Crowe read her words. It was a good thing he couldn't see her face, because it was twisted into a grimace that was half snarl, half sneer, and her eyes watered. She waited him out, even though each word tugged at decades of fear in her gut. But they had no more grip over her mind.

When he reached the last word, his face etched with the knowledge that he'd won, he called: "Wyvern?"

Maggie straightened, and her hands fell to her sides. She tilted her head, and her eyes bored into Crowe's even though he couldn't see hers through her goggles.

After a tense, eternal moment, she replied.

"Fuck you."

She savored the way his eyes shot wide and his mouth fell open, then tossed the concussive blast grenade she'd slipped off her belt into the air. It detonated perfectly in line with the second floor, a halo of light and energy that exploded outwards and knocked Crowe and all the agents to the ground.

Maggie didn't bother with the stairs. She leaped up, seized the edge of the second floor landing and hauled herself over the railing. In a single turn of her head she identified the agents still conscious, and used the next few seconds to dart around and take them out with her energy blaster. Then she descended on Alan Crowe.

He was still awake, pinching his bleeding nose as he groaned on the floor, and when he saw her stalking toward him through the dusty air he gasped and tried to slide away from her. She reached him half a second later and planted a foot on his chest, towering over him. From the way his eyes darted toward her foot and dilated in fear, she guessed he knew about the heel spurs.

She pushed her goggles up her forehead so he could see her eyes. "I've never met you before," she said in a low, even voice. "Why did you use me like that?"

His pale face twisted into something like a sneer. "It's not about you," he grunted. "Your brother–"

"My brother what?" she interrupted, cocking her head and slightly increasing pressure on his chest. "Put a stop to a terrorist plot to murder the president and take control of the United States? My brother killed a deranged, manipulative lunatic? My brother shut down a group dedicated to unethical human experimentation?"

Crowe spat blood directly onto her boot. "You're just as egotistical and blind as him."

"I'm not the one who built a secret science lair on the side of a mountain, asshole." She crouched down, leaning more of her weight on his ribcage, and seized his ear. He yelped and tried to pull away, but each movement only twisted his ear further. "But you still haven't answered my question. You could have tried to kill Tony in plenty of other ways. Why. Me."

His eyes narrowed. "Because we could. You were a weapon prime for the taking." He stared right into her eyes, as if waiting for his words to elicit the violence he expected. But Maggie could see that he hadn't told the whole truth. She twisted his ear. "Agh! And… and we knew that if he died, you would take his place – just another Stark, inflicting your self-righteousness on the world. If you killed him it would have… it would have put an end to the Stark legacy once and for all." His eyes darkened.

For a few tense moments they just stared at each other, Maggie bearing down on Crowe like an avenging angel.

His eyes glinted. "Are you going to kill me now? If you don't, I'll tell the Accords Committee what you did here. I doubt they'd be very happy with you breaking their rules."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't care what you do. And I doubt anyone will be much inclined to believe anything you say after you tried to kill my brother and discredit me."

Crowe sneered. "Sure. Go on then, kill me. I know you want to."

Maggie just gripped his ear, staring hard at him. She hardly knew this man, he was just another in a long line of people who had used her. Her anger and hatred thundered through her veins.

He started to shake under her.

After a long moment, Maggie's grip tightened. "I am not what you think I am," she murmured, then let go of his ear to shift her wrist and fire her energy blaster into his face at point blank range. His head thudded to the floor and he went boneless under her.

Maggie stood up, dusted her hands off and pulled her goggles back over her eyes. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., you still clearing up the dregs?"

"The 'dregs' have mobilized two tanks and are successfully keeping me out of the flight hanger."

"Aw, are you asking for my help?"

"If you're not too busy," F.R.I.D.A.Y. snarked back.

"On my way, dear."

Twenty minutes later Maggie was back in the armor, clearing up the remainder of the armed resistance in the locked flight hangar. She'd more or less got the hang of fighting in the armor, though it was more restrictive than she was used to. At least the gadgets were fun.

She'd just pried open the hatch of one of the tanks and fired Tony's experimental knockout gas into the cockpit when an explosion erupted above her.

Debris rained down and she instinctively ducked her head, then swiveled and aimed her repulsors upwards. Part of the ceiling had fallen in and cold sunlight streamed through the hole, until–

"Dammit," Maggie muttered, and dropped her hands. War Machine dropped through the hole in the ceiling, landed with a clang on the hanger floor and then fired a missile at the last tank. It flipped backwards and exploded in a plume of orange fire.

Finally the hangar fell still. Well, apart from the crackling ruins of the tanks, the general chaos, and the two heavily armored suits whirring as their occupants got to their feet. War Machine eyed the burning tank, then turned and laid red glowing eyes on Iron Man.

"What the hell, Tony!" Rhodey called, throwing his arms wide. His black and chrome armor glinted in the firelight. "I told you not to go into the obvious trap without me!"

Maggie hesitated, then stammered: "Um…"

Of course, the voice came out different. Rhodey froze, then cocked his head.

"Tony?"

She winced. "No?" She shifted her feet awkwardly in the armor – trust Rhodey to turn her from efficient A.I.M.-taking-down-machine to embarrassed teenager.

Rhodey clapped a hand against his face with a clang. "Maggie?"

"Shh! Some of these guys might be awake!"

"Everyone in the building besides yourself and Colonel Rhodes is unconscious, Ms Stark," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said helpfully.

Rhodey dropped his hand. "What's happening? Where's Tony? Did he… did he help you do this?"

She slid the faceplate down and smiled sheepishly at him. "Um, no. He's probably going to be unconscious for another few hours."

Rhodey slid down his own faceplate, stared at her for a few seconds, then put his hands on his hips and swore a blue streak. Maggie's eyebrows shot up. She'd never heard him use that kind of language. She kinda loved it.

When he was done, Rhodey turned to frown at her. "Look, I'll do the clean up here, Vision's only a few minutes away anyway. You need to get back to the facility right away. You're breaking the Accords, Maggie–"

"I know that! But Tony was going to walk into this trap all hot-headed and stupid, I had to do something!"

"Okay," Rhodey said, holding up a hand. He glanced around at the charred and smoking hangar. "But now you've got to go back. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Good. Is there anything I should know before you leave? Are you hurt? Any hostiles left?"

Maggie shook her head. "Nope. I'm fine, and this should be the last of them. F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"Assessment confirmed," F.R.I.D.A.Y. told both of them.

Rhodey cocked an eyebrow. "Alright then. Get going, Maggie. Make sure no one sees you."

She grinned at him. "Yes, sir." With a sloppy salute she flipped down her faceplate, fired up the suit repulsors and rocketed out of the building.

From: Bucky

Wait, what are you going to do? What does BRB mean?

Maggie?

I asked Shuri and she said BRB means 'be right back' – Maggie, after everything you've been up to recently I am seriously concerned about your classification of 'stupid'.

So apparently Iron Man just took down the last A.I.M. base. I don't know how, but you had something to do with it, didn't you?

From: Maggie

Sorry to make you worry, handsome. And that's classified.

From: Bucky

I'm too old for this shit.

Well done, doll.

Tony woke up on one of the mustard yellow couches in the Avengers common room. His eyes snapped open and he winced at the bright sunlight, then glanced around at his surroundings. He lay horizontal on the couch, his limbs ensconced in a soft tartan blanket and his head propped up on a pillow. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and looked over to see Maggie flicking through holographic blueprints – looked like B.A.R.F., if he wasn't mistaken.

And he might be. He had a splitting headache.

"What the hell," he mumbled.

Maggie looked over and her face brightened. "Oh good, you're awake! Here, have some water."

"What the…" he looked around, bleary and confused, and took the offered glass of water with fumbling fingers. "Uh, what?"

Maggie patted his forehead as he sipped the water. He squinted at her, and she kept her face blank as pieces clicked together in Tony's mind.

He frowned. "Did you sedate me?"

"I did, yes." Her face remained blank.

He glared at her. "You… wait, A.I.M.–" he lurched upright, spilling his water, but Maggie put a firm hand on his chest and pushed him down again.

"Don't worry about A.I.M."

His eyes went wide and he scrutinized her face: she looked calm, but that could mean anything. "What did you do?"

She shrugged innocently. "I didn't do anything. Iron Man found A.I.M., kicked their asses, and now they're in prison. Good job."

Tony pinched his nose as his headache throbbed. "How… what…" his eyes widened again, and he turned to her. "Maggie, you didn't–"

She shrugged.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because you were going to get yourself killed."

"So you… you what, you drugged me, stole my suit and impersonated me?"

For the first time, her eyes gleamed. "I did, yes."

He dropped his head back against the pillow and flicked his eyes over her. "Are you hurt?"

"Not a scratch. Well my chest is kinda sore, since there's no boob room in that armor–"

"I didn't need to know that." He sighed, and pinched his nose. "Alright, tell me about it."

The Accords Committee required the Avengers to give a debriefing report after each mission, so Tony and the others went to do that while Maggie waited in the common room with Pepper. She'd told them everything they needed to know to give an accurate report of the base takedown, but she was feeling a little guilty about making them lie.

Pepper sensed her anxiety and invited her to do a face mask, so when the Avengers returned to the common room they were met with two women in bright green tea-tree-scented masks.

"How did it go?" Maggie asked, swiping up a face washer to get the stuff off her face. Tony snorted at the sight of her covered in green paste, and they sat on the available couches.

Rhodey spoke first. "Well luckily for you, the approval to run a mission against A.I.M. came twenty minutes before you hit the base," he said, with arched eyebrows. This was the first time Maggie and Rhodey had seen each other since their encounter in Alaska. "Of course the approval was for us, but it sounds like the Committee isn't aware that it wasn't Tony in the armor."

Maggie smiled sheepishly. "So Crowe didn't say anything?"

Vision leaned forward. "He's been taken to the Raft and questioned by their investigators, so we don't know what – if anything – he has said. But the Committee gave no sign that they knew anything about you being involved, so either Crowe didn't say anything or they didn't believe him."

Maggie glanced at Tony. He didn't look particularly reassured, but he didn't say anything so she didn't either. "Huh," she said. "Alright then, so that's… that's it then, I guess?"

Rhodey arched his eyebrows again. "You guess? You don't think we should have a talk about how you sedated Tony and stole his armor to go face a whole bunch of bad guys by yourself?"

Maggie pressed her lips together. "Well just in the interests of total fairness, I do want to point out that I'm not the only one in this room who's stolen Tony's armor when he was being stupid."

Tony and Rhodey both narrowed their eyes at her, but she kept her face open and innocent.

Pepper cleared her throat. "Maggie, I think the issue is that they're worried you'll do it again."

"Oh." Maggie eyed the Avengers' faces – Tony and Rhodey were tense as they watched her, and Vision's brow was heavy. They did look worried. "Well, I… I can't promise that I won't step in if I see something I don't like going down" – Tony's brown knitted and she hurriedly moved on – "But this is your job, I'm going to leave you to it. I kinda want to take a break from situations with potentially world-changing repercussions for a while, believe it or not."

"You seem to have a habit for attracting them," Vision pointed out.

"Well I can't exactly help that," she said with a shrug. "And for what it's worth guys, I am sorry about going behind your back on this." She bit her lip. "I just… I guess I'm not used to working on a team. My reaction to A.I.M. threatening Tony was to handle it quickly and quietly, by myself. Sorry."

That finally got Tony and Rhodey to stop looking at her like she was some vigilante teenager who would run off at a moment's notice. They sighed, shared a glance, and then turned back to her.

"It's alright," Tony said. "Though if you sedate me again I will…" he trailed off, eyes darting.

Maggie cocked her head. "Are you trying to think of a way to threaten me?"

"Yes, but for the life of me I can't think of anything."

"Hard to threaten someone who just took down a base of over a hundred A.I.M. and HYDRA agents by herself," Rhodey added.

"I didn't do it by myself," Maggie protested. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. did half the work."

The others rolled their eyes, and Maggie smiled at them. She could tell that something had changed in the way they regarded her: they'd all seen her fight and had all fought her at some point or another, but today they'd been reminded that Maggie didn't need to be in full Wyvern mode to be very, very dangerous. They looked at her out of the corner of their eyes when they thought she didn't notice, but not out of fear. It looked a lot like respect.

Something had changed in Maggie, too. She'd always been constantly aware of the threat she posed, but now that her words were gone it felt different. Like there was a power in her that was hers. It still scared her a little – such power could be easily misused, and she wasn't sure if she was the best judge for when to use it, but it reminded her of when she saved Miguel or when she and Bucky stopped those bank robbers. It felt like she had the capacity to do good.

Pepper, still at ease in her green face mask, seemed to sense some of Maggie's thoughts. She leaned across the couch, laid a hand on Maggie's forearm and smiled at her.

Rhodey sighed. "Alright. So… trial's over, A.I.M.'s gone, what now?"

Tony shrugged. "Back to the grind, I guess. Mags, you haven't really talked about your plans – what do you think you're going to do next? The world's your oyster."

With everyone looking at her again, Maggie swallowed. "I… am going to see what it's like to be a person. I'm going to explore, try new things… figure out what to do with myself." She chewed her lip. "I was thinking about developing some projects in the workshop – I really want to work on B.A.R.F., for example. I recently got some ideas to bring it into the future." Vision sat up a little straighter, and Maggie avoided his gaze.

Tony spread his hands. "Workshop's all yours, and I'm always down to tinker."

Pepper cocked her head. "Trying new things is an excellent goal – would you like to go to the Met with me? Maybe MoMA?"

"And I'm still working on expanding your movie repertoire," Rhodey chimed in with a grin. "Now we can go to theaters!"

Everyone naturally turned to Vision, who seemed thoughtful. "I would like to explore New York City. Perhaps we can do that together, in disguises."

Maggie clasped her hands together and grinned at the group around her. "Yes. To all of that. I know the Accords Committee's still keeping an eye on me but this is the first time in my life I've been really, honestly free. I'm going to make the most of it."