Chapter 76

Tony and the others fired a dozen questions at Maggie once when the Accords Committee disconnected, all concerned about her giving up more of her freedom without hesitation. But once she'd explained her reasons, they grudgingly agreed to go along with her. Maggie was certain that if she hadn't agreed, she'd end up in the Raft sooner or later for illegally meddling with Avengers affairs.

"Besides," Maggie said as they walked back to the Avengers common room, "my last job was fixing up cars in… Bucharest, I think. Yeah. This'll be a big step up for my resume!"

Tony rolled his eyes at her.

When Pepper heard the news her brow furrowed and her eyes darted over Maggie, as if checking for signs of brainwashing, but she didn't try to talk her out of it. Instead, she offered to look over the contract when it came in the morning.

Before Maggie could start her new job she had to pass certain training requirements. Avengers analysts were technically agents, not civilian administrators, so they had to fulfill quotas for physical health and fitness, drug tests, and low level self-defense and weapons training. Pepper had looked over the contract and tried to argue that it was clear Maggie would pass all the requirements and should be given special consideration, but the Committee was firm in going by the book (they did have that audit coming up after all).

So Maggie went through fitness checks from Dr Cho, jogging on a treadmill to measure her heartrate, and proving that she could do the required amount of situps and pushups. When she hit one hundred, Dr Cho recorded the pass and looked up.

"Out of curiosity, how many more do you think you could do?"

"I dunno," Maggie said, climbing to her feet. "I think we'd be here a while if we wanted to find out though, and I've got to go pee in a cup."

Cho nodded. "I don't see why they're bothering. If you are doing drugs they'd go through your system too quickly for me to pick up on a urinalysis."

Maggie shrugged. "They're just doing it to remind me they're in charge. If checking my urine is how they want to assert their dominance, I'll let them have at it." That earned one of Dr Cho's rare smiles, and Maggie left with a laugh.

Agent Asfour oversaw the weapons training, in which the instructors explained everything to Maggie that they were required to, then Maggie disassembled and reassembled each weapon in seconds and fired three perfect shots into each target.

Analysts also had to go through a week-long self defense module, but the Accords Committee had been willing to replace that with a 'combat test module' so the process wasn't dragged out. When Asfour saw that module in Maggie's file, her brow creased and she looked up.

"Did you ask for this?"

"They said that was the only way they'd speed up the process," Maggie explained. "And you guys need me in for that deep sea transmission case tomorrow, right?"

Asfour frowned down at her StarkPad. "We do. But did they explain what this module requires?"

"No, it just says 'combat test', right? What does that mean?"

Asfour raised an eyebrow. "Means they want to beat the shit out of you."

A few hours later, Maggie found herself in one of the training rooms connected to the Avengers gym – a wide space with a padded floor and many slots and hooks for creating obstructions to fit different training scenarios. But today the room was bare, and Maggie stood in the middle dressed in sweatpants, sneakers and a workout shirt, armed with nothing but her bare fists. Her wings were with her, as always, but she'd been instructed not to use any enhancements.

She wasn't alone. The entire Avengers Strike Team Alpha stood around the edges of the room; ten elite agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. or other agency backgrounds. The collection of men and women in dark blue tactical suits stood straight-backed against the walls, their eyes on Maggie and their faces blank. She had gotten to know them while living at the facility, but she knew they wouldn't go easy on her. They knew just how dangerous she could be.

It turned out 'combat test module' meant 'try to hold your own against the best agents in the facility aside from the Avengers'. Scoring was based not on whether you were able to beat them, but how long you lasted before you were beaten. Maggie wasn't entirely sure what the Accords Committee wanted from this, but she didn't plan to play mind games with them. She'd complete this module like she'd completed the others.

Maggie looked up to the observation deck where Agent Asfour, Tony, Rhodey, and Vision stood. Tony stood right against the door of the deck, his arms folded across his chest and his expression dark. He'd been furious when he found out about the combat module, saying that the Accords Committee were putting her through her paces like a prize racehorse instead of an analyst. Rhodey and Vision had been frustrated too, and offered to talk to the Committee for her. But Maggie told them all that she wasn't letting the Accords Committee's pettiness get to her – if this was the worst they could do to unleash their frustration, she figured she'd be alright.

The Avengers didn't need to be here to witness the module, and they'd offered to stay away in case she was nervous, but she didn't mind. She'd just had a session with Mai to talk about using violence in a restrained way, and she was in a good headspace – all that stood between her and the first legitimate job in her life were ten highly-trained agents.

Asfour hit a few buttons on her StarkPad, then cleared her throat. "The module has begun."

At her words, the strike team moved. They didn't instantly attack, just closed the distance around her and circled, keeping her attention split and moving. Maggie lowered her center of gravity. Waves of anxiety emanated from the observation deck but she blocked it out – she knew her brother and the others felt worried, but she didn't. She took long, slow breaths, focused on every soft footstep and movement around her.

One of the agents (a woman named Heidi who Maggie had spoken to a few times) slipped into Maggie's blind spot, thinking that the more formidable-looking Agent Moreland had captured Maggie's focus. Heidi stalked up behind Maggie on silent feet and waited until Agent Moreland broadened his stance threateningly - and then she struck.

Maggie allowed her lips to twitch before she whirled around, caught Heidi's fist, twisted her off balance and swept her legs out from under her. Heidi hit the floor with an oof, and the others all attacked at once.

The Wyvern's icy focus slipped over Maggie, and she got to work.

The Avengers watched from the observation deck as Maggie sprang into action. Within seconds, Tony's arms uncrossed themselves and he found himself moving towards the edge of the balcony to stare. The strike team had Maggie circled and outnumbered, but when they rushed her she leaped well above their heads, negating their advantage and putting them on the inside. She was lightning fast, jumping and sliding and weaving around them. Each strike and dodge was calculated, efficient.

The strike team were the best of the best, and they'd fought enhanced people before. They got a few hits in; precisely aimed strikes to Maggie's ribs, head, and knees, but the blows seemed to roll off her. One of the agents actually managed to get Maggie into a hold with his arm around her neck and her arm twisted up behind her. But Maggie gripped the arm around her neck with her free hand, kicked her legs up high in the air and then slammed them down, using the momentum to pitch herself forward and throw the agent over her shoulders and to the ground. She followed up by flipping on top of the agent and punching down at his throat, stopping just before making contact.

"Dead," she murmured, voice perfectly calm, then spun sideways to dodge the next agent's attack.

Tony clung to the observation deck's railing, stunned. And if the quick glance he took at Rhodey and Vision was anything to go by, they hadn't quite been expecting this either. Rhodey's eyebrows climbed his forehead at a rapid rate, and Vision seemed fascinated by the fight where before he'd been a reluctant viewer.

Tony had known that Maggie was capable of this, he'd heard all the court testimony and had seen images of the aftermath of the A.I.M. base, but this was different. He'd never seen Maggie fight like this, efficient and powerful and absolutely relentless. For a moment the two different versions of her in his head jarred against one another until he realized that they were both Maggie – dorky, intelligent, witty Maggie was the same Maggie who could throw an agent bodily into the wall and then take out another two with a dizzying somersault kick. The room echoed with the sounds of sharp breath, staccato shouts of pain or aggression, and fists on flesh.

The way Maggie fought reminded Tony a little of the way Natasha did – lightning fast and twisting – but those lithe strikes were mixed with the way Steve fought – acrobatic, ruthless, with a devastating amount of power.

The fight felt like it lasted hours, and yet Tony also felt like just a few seconds had passed before Maggie threw the last agent to the ground. The man actually bounced a little before coming to rest with a groan.

Maggie stood there with her fists clenched and her head cocked as if waiting for new attackers, her chest rising and falling. The sudden stillness after the explosive fight was disorienting.

After a few more seconds, something in her seemed to shift – her muscles loosened, her hands unfurled from fists, and her stance shifted from one of combat into one that reminded Tony a little more of the Maggie he was used to. With an exhale, Maggie relaxed and paced across the room to one of the agents slumped against the wall.

"Sorry man," she said, "I felt like I kicked you a little too hard there, you okay?" The agent looked up breathlessly, a bewildered look in his eyes, but at seeing her open, guileless face he shook his head and let her haul him to his feet.

"I'm all good," he replied. "But I'm glad you're on our side."

Maggie grinned a shark's grin at him. "Me too."

A female agent on the other side of the room rolled onto her back, one hand pressed against her ribs. "Why the hell are you going into a desk job, again?"

Maggie's gaze flickered, but then she shrugged and replied: "To see more of Agent Asfour's sunny smiles, of course." She looked up at the observation balcony, and at the sight of Asfour's unimpressed eyebrow raise she grinned.

Maggie's eyes darted to Tony, a little more warily, and he tried to wipe away his look of stunned disbelief and replace it with something encouraging. He wasn't quite up to speaking yet. Maggie's eyes dropped away.

"That was awesome!" Rhodey exclaimed, clearly not suffering from Tony's speechlessness. Maggie's gaze darted back up and she grinned at his enthusiasm. "Seriously, that was… damn, Maggie."

"I concur," Vision said, "Very well done."

She shrugged.

"Alright," Asfour interrupted, "Anyone need to go to the med bay? And don't be martyrs about this, you just got your asses kicked."

A few agents laughed and raised their hands, before helping each other to their feet and heading for the med bay. Asfour tapped away at her StarkPad for a second, then turned to leave.

"Wait, is that it?" asked Maggie, hands on her hips.

Asfour turned back and raised another eyebrow. "You really think you might've failed just now?"

Maggie shrugged again.

"You passed," Asfour said with an eyeroll. "You're hired, Agent Stark."

Maggie's nose wrinkled.

"Yeah, I didn't like it either," Asfour said. "Still good with Wyvern?"

"Yep. Or Maggie, but I feel like you're not gonna call me that."

"Good instinct. Go get your kit from requisitions, Wyvern."

Asfour walked out, and Maggie fell into conversation with the remaining members of Strike Team Alpha. Tony turned to Rhodey and Vision, and reached up to rub his jaw.

"Well," he said.

"Well indeed," Vision replied.

"C'mon," said Rhodey, nudging Tony toward the door. "We've all got work to do."

Rhodey and Vision went to their meeting with a senior Air Force general to negotiate the Avengers' use of airspace, and Tony went to go to his workshop, but Maggie caught up with him in the corridor.

"Hey," she called, jogging toward him. She was still sweaty from taking down the strike team, and he noticed a bruise forming on the corner of her jaw where Agent Moreland had got a hit in.

"Hey," he replied.

"Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

She planted her hands on her hips and cocked her head at him. "That's not an answer. Back in the training room, you looked…" her face flickered, revealing something hurt and ashamed for just a millisecond. "I know it's… unsettling, but I swear I was in control the whole time–"

"I know, I know," he hurried to say, and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not scared of you Mags, it's just…" his brow knitted. "Sometimes I forget, that's all."

Her face was carefully blank. "Forget that I used to be a weapon?"

"No, I forget that you're a secret ninja. You're such a dork most of the time, that's why I forgot."

The tension left Maggie's face and she rolled her eyes. "Let's not pretend you're a helpless damsel in distress either," she said. "I've seen you fight."

"In my wearable tank," he pointed out.

"Nah, you're not fooling me. You know how to fight." Tony didn't reply, and she shoulder nudged him. "Are we good?"

"We were never bad." He flashed her a quick smile – he'd let her think he thought less of her for being dangerous, and he wouldn't let it happen again. "By the way, since you now work for the Avengers I expect you to call me Boss at all times–"

"Not a chance," she replied easily, and they turned to walk down the corridor together. "Though you're right, we're technically co-workers now – is that weird?"

"Super weird. You're fired."

Maggie kept talking as if he hadn't said anything. "We need to keep it professional – codenames only, and obviously we'll want to look out for each other but I'm not going to give you any special treatment, and I don't want any special treatment from you. Or I'll beat you up."

"Are threats of violence really professional?" he mused, hands in his suit pockets.

"You're saying you've never received any threats of violence in a professional setting?"

Tony thought about it. "Right." He scratched his beard. "Alright, so this is a thing now. What the hell."

Maggie lifted her hand and curled it into a fist, knuckles facing him. He looked up at her, affronted.

"Are you trying to fist bump me?"

"Well since my fist's already out, you'll be the one doing the bumping. The bumper, as it were."

"I hate everything about this."

"C'mon, Tony, be a team player!"

With a look of disgust on his face, Tony pulled his hand out of his pocket and knocked his knuckles in to hers. He shuddered. "I think I just felt my dignity spiraling away."

"Ah yes, all that dignity you had. You'll be so different now it's gone."

"You're fired."

That day, Maggie officially became an Avengers analyst. She became one of the dozens of people striding through the facility halls in the dark blue Avengers uniform, one of the many hard workers in the operations room, with a desk and case load of her own. She sat in on meetings with the Avengers to give them intel, sent reports to the Accords Committee, and investigated criminal activity the world over, assessing threats and preventing attacks.

It took her a while to get used to to the flow of the work, which went from tedious trawling through data to the lightning-fast chaos of a mission. Part of Maggie's job involved assisting on the Avengers' comms while they ran missions. She ended up getting that job more and more often because she was a skilled tactician with field experience, and because she could sometimes get Tony to do what she said. She was able to multitask and change plans on a dime, easily keeping tabs on each Avenger's location and role in the mission.

She was surprised and only mildly disturbed by how useful her past with HYDRA was to her job. In her second week on the job the Avengers went after a group called Zodiac; terrorists interested in chemical weapons. The group was still small but had the potential to get very nasty, and a senior analyst had flagged them for immediate attention. Zodiac was excellent at staying under the radar and infiltrating organisations – it was almost as if they'd modeled themselves after HYDRA. But Maggie knew that game, so she was able to put herself in Zodiac's heads and figure out how to take them down (send an Avengers agent in as a double agent, then use that intel to lure the group into a trap by using a rare and dangerous chemical as bait – Zodiac overextended themselves, and the Avengers swooped in to dismantle them).

Maggie also made friends amongst the other analysts, who didn't seem too intimidated by her background or genetics once she started wearing fluffy socks with bunny ears on them in the operations room.

She didn't tell Bucky about the details of her missions because she'd signed a confidentiality contract, but he knew about her new job and had written a long letter saying that as long as she was sure the Accords Committee wasn't trying to manipulate her, he thought the job was perfect for her and he knew she'd be great at it. He told her stories about the intelligence agents he'd known in the war, and how the Howling Commandos would've been screwed without them. Maggie loved his war stories (the ones that weren't sad, at least), and she asked him a million questions about code breakers and spies and Bletchley Park until he admitted that he'd been too busy worrying about Steve and his stomach and the dampness of his socks than about catching up with famous people.

May 22nd, 2017

Avengers Facility, Upstate New York

"Ms Stark, you are required in the operations room."

"Mmfff." Maggie rolled over in her bed and blinked blearily up at the ceiling. "S'time?" Yesterday was her day off so she'd flown to Maine with Vision, and come back thoroughly exhausted.

"0500," F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied smoothly. "Agent Abbasi's investigation into recent Middle Eastern political upheavals have returned intelligence of a terrorist occupation in a desert area of Turkmenistan. Given the presence of advanced firepower, explosives, and a civilian presence in the area, NATO and the Accords Committee have chosen to send in the Avengers instead of troops – the Quinjet is already on its way. Agent Asfour has requested all mission analysts to report to the operations room."

Maggie had climbed out of bed and pulled on her uniform as F.R.I.D.A.Y spoke. "Alright, tell her I'm on my way down."

When the Avengers flew in to Turkmenistan, Maggie was right there on comms. It seemed that a terrorist organisation had quietly taken control of a whole region, taking out political leaders, extorting corporations, and sabotaging major infrastructure.

As the Avengers entered the airspace above the captured zone a volley of ground-to-air missiles shrieked through the sky, only avoiding the Quinjet thanks to the pilot's quick thinking.

"So their scanners are better than we thought," Tony remarked wryly, and dove out the back of the Quinjet to go after the missile launchers.

"War Machine, Vision," called Asfour, "we've just received intel that terrorists are raiding a school in the area – see if you can draw them out and away from civilian areas."

"Affirmative," Rhodey replied, and Maggie glanced up at their video outputs as they flew out the back of the Quinjet. She got a view of a flat, sprawling city surrounded by desert, and then the footage focused in on a large building that must be the school, crawling with men in sand-colored tactical suits. Maggie's lips pursed and she turned back to her holoscreen, where she was monitoring communications in the area.

"Iron Man," she called into the comms after five minutes in which Vision and Rhodey had managed to draw most of the terrorist forces out into the desert on the edge of the city. "I'm seeing a lot of these communications being funnelled back to what looks like the ruins of the old city. I'm guessing that's where this group is based."

"On it," came Tony's voice, and after an explosion lit up his visual feed he rocketed back into the air, blending sky and sand together. Maggie eyed his feed, aware that her intel had just isolated him from his teammates and sent him into an unknown area. Iron Man soared over the modern city and toward the sandy, crumbled ruins of the ancient one, flying over the eerie-looking structures stranded amidst the sand and scrub.

"Boss, scans indicate heat signatures in the mausoleum," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, and Tony came to land in front of a remarkably intact stone building with a dome, just beside an empty road. Maggie kept half an eye on his feed as she worked - she was sure that Tony and F.R.I.D.A.Y. had it handled, but something uncertain prickled across the back of her neck. On the other screens, she could see Vision and Rhodey doing what they did best: luring terrorists out of their hiding spots and taking them out.

Iron Man's footsteps crunched on the sand as he approached the mausoleum. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., what am I – huh." He stopped walking as a steel door affixed to the mausoleum entrance swung open. Maggie straightened in her chair. The door swung open slowly, and out stepped… a single man.

Her eyes narrowed. The man seemed totally out of place in front of the ancient mausoleum – he was a refined-looking older guy with neatly combed white hair and a long face, wearing a Kevlar vest over a neat grey suit.

"Mr Stark," called the man over the three hundred feet between them. "I wondered how long it would take them to send you."

Maggie's heartrate picked up. The man didn't sound nervous, or brash. He sounded curious. Something's wrong. She kept Tony's feed up over her desk but immediately pulled back to look at the wider situation – Vision and Rhodey simultaneously working to take on the heavily armed terrorists and evacuate civilians, the Avengers strike team backing them up. Heat signatures showed that the well-dressed man wasn't alone in the mausoleum, but the fifty-some people inside didn't appear to be inclined to attack Iron Man or help their (presumable) leader.

"Well when you try to build yourself a dictatorship you tend to draw attention at one point or another," Tony pointed out mildly. A wind blew in from the desert, kicking up sand between them. From the feed from his suit, Maggie could tell that Tony was also frantically trying to work out why the man was so calm.

"I'm aware," the man replied, sounding almost bored. "This isn't my first time. And I've learned that people and regimes fall when they become predictable. The Avengers, Mr Stark, are predictable."

"Right, you do something bad and we come to stop you?"

"Exactly."

Maggie's heart beat faster with every word the man said. He believed, totally and completely, that he was in control of this situation even with Iron Man knocking on his door. Think, Maggie.

She looked up from her screen. "Asfour!" the woman looked over. "Something's wrong, these guys aren't rattled. They've got something else up their sleeve."

"Hear that everyone? Keep an eye out for anything strange!"

"I might have something strange," called Agent Kudaka, two desks behind and to the right of Maggie. She got to her feet and pulled her holoscreen over to Kudaka's desk. Kudaka continued: "I'm monitoring first responders, and they put me on the phone with this cop – he's handling a report on the other side of town from the fighting, in a commercial district. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s translating for me but it's slow going, he says he found something strange so I asked him to take a photo and – ah, it's coming through now."

(Over the comms, Maggie heard the well-dressed man say: "We are not aliens, nor do we have visions of dominating the world. Leave us to our small corner of the Earth and we will not use your predictability against you." Tony scoffed and replied: "You see that, that's a really predictable bad guy thing to say.")

An image appeared on Kudaka's holoscreen: it appeared to be a shopfront with brightly colored rugs and stacks of round woven hats. A man's hand pulled back a dusky purple rug to reveal a large, gunmetal grey case about the size of a washing machine. It would have looked unassuming if it weren't for the unusual placement, the hints of wires that Maggie spotted poking out the back, and the fact that she knew this design. She'd been trained how to make a case exactly like that from one of her HYDRA instructors in the early 2000s. She felt as if she'd been plunged into icy water.

"Shit," Kudaka breathed.

Maggie touched Kudaka's shoulder, hissed "brief Asfour," and turned back to her holoscreen. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., get the local law enforcement to evacuate the building and surrounding area, as far as they can." She brought up specifications for the building, a grand old structure with a blue dome, filled with stalls and surrounded by residential buildings.

"Will do, but there's only a few officers in the area."

Maggie reached up to activate her comms just as the well-dressed man said:

"Surely you don't still believe in bad guys and good guys," he sneered at Tony. "How reductive of you."

"Avengers," Maggie called, her voice thrumming with urgency, "there's a bomb in the bazaar two clicks east of the main fighting. Tony, keep that guy talking – I'm sure he's in control of detonation and the second you attack or he gets bored, people are gonna die. Vision, War Machine, you've got to get over to the bazaar and evacuate people, it's…" she checked the cameras in the bazaar. "Jesus, it's packed." It was a busy Saturday in Turkmenistan, and despite the local troubles it seemed the bazaar was a refuge, filled with hundreds of shoppers. Maggie changed screens and watched a pack of children weave through the crowd with grins on their faces.

"But we–"

"This bomb will take out that whole building and at least the three surrounding blocks, they've been distracting you. Whoever these people are, this is their warning for trying to come after them. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s communicating with local law enforcement to get the evacuation moving but it's not going to be enough. Get over there now."

The Avengers did as she said: Tony kept up the conversation with the well-dressed man and Vision and Rhodey rocketed across the city.

Tony's voice came over the comms, his helmet soundproofed so the well-dressed man couldn't hear him: "I've called in a satellite bomb containment unit, it'll be here in five minutes." Then he went back to trying to keep the man engaged.

Maggie dimly noted that the already-busy operations room had burst into action around her, Asfour turning everyone's attention to clearing civilians and cutting communications so the well-dressed man didn't find out about the Avengers discovering the bomb. A new level of tension crackled through the air, and Maggie wondered if everyone else in the room was hiding their panicked breathing and gut-clenching terror behind a grim face, like she was.

Kudaka's police officer had already managed to clear the floor that the bomb was on, so Maggie hijacked one of the CCTV cameras and zoomed in on the bomb itself, now unobscured by oriental rugs. She couldn't see much, but she channeled the feed to Vision and told him everything she knew about that design of bomb while she flew. This wasn't an amateur construction, this design took expensive and hard-to-get materials and expert construction. It was near impossible to even crack it open without detonating it, let alone disarm it.

Vision and Rhodey arrived at the bazaar two minutes later and got to work. Vision phased through the walls of the building to get to the bomb, and she watched through his visual feed as his fingers danced around the edges, trying to find a way to open it or phase through it without setting off any tamper sensors. She checked on the bomb containment unit, streaking through the atmosphere like a missile: still three minutes out.

Rhodey frantically cleared civilians out of the building with F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s help, once or twice grabbing civilians from the upper floors and flying them out the window to the ground below.

On the outskirts of the city by the ancient mausoleum, Tony kept trading conversation with the well-dressed man. He lightly entertained the possibility of leaving the group to their headquarters in the ruins of the old city, but he trod a fine line of plausibility. The well-dressed man was right: the Avengers were predictable, and if Tony agreed to leave the terrorists alone then the well-dressed man would get suspicious.

"I gotta say, I agree with you that our talents might be a bit wasted out here," Tony told the well-dressed man, waving expansively at the desert. "No offense, but you guys seem like small fish. What are you guys doing here anyway?"

The well-dressed man's eyes were flat and cold. "This region allows certain opportunities that other areas of the world do not. Chaos, upheaval. Plenty of opportunities for success for people like us."

Maggie's heart pounded against her rib cage. She turned back to Vision and Rhodey's feeds. There were still people in the bazaar, and the situation had devolved into a mess: people screamed and ran in all directions, and though the strike team had moved in to help there were still far too many people too close to the bomb. The team was stretched too thin, what with Tony semi-negotiating, Vision working on the bomb, and Rhodey and the strike team agents attempting to keep control over a panicked evacuation.

Sitting in her swivel chair thousands of miles away, Maggie felt an overwhelming rush of helplessness flood over her. There wasn't anything she could do to help. She watched civilians flood toward the nearest exits and get stuck in bottlenecks, and though she was able to point out to the agents on the ground that there were additional exits at the back of the building, they couldn't get through the crowd to guide people in that direction.

Maggie sat at her desk, and watched.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of movement on Tony's feed. It was the well-dressed man. After another exchange of barbs with Tony, he reached up to tap something small in his ear: a comms device.

Maggie held her breath. They'd managed to cut all comms, so the man couldn't have heard anything. But perhaps that was what brought on the sudden suspicious gleam in his eyes.

"What's it to be, Iron Man?" he said in a new, sharper voice. "Will you clear out your forces, or will you attack?" He spread his arms. "I'm right here."

"Wyvern," Tony hissed into the comms, soundproofing his helmet so the well-dressed man couldn't hear him. "There's gotta be a way to disable his detonation device, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. can't detect any broadcasts. Can you do anything?"

"Not from here," she said, her heart twisting. "It's not radio or celltowers, I can tell that much, but these guys have some serious tech so it could be anything. You could try taking him out but there are fifty other people in that mausoleum who…" she cut herself off. She knew she was just telling Tony what he already knew. "I'm sorry," she murmured, and her own helplessness carved out a hollow empty space within her chest.

On Vision's feed, she watched him cut out a section of the top of the metal casing to reveal a forest of wires.

"Vision, progress?"

"It's a complex structure, I am sending you scans and attempting to find a defusal method, but–"

"The bomb containment unit's thirty seconds away, but we don't know what tech they've got in that bomb so it might not be enough–"

"Listen," Tony said to the well-dressed man, taking a few steps forward. "You seem like you've got a better knowledge of this area and situation than I do, so how about we cut a deal? We negotiate your organisation's ownership of this area, and in the meantime you sign a few non-violence treaties. Compromise, right?" He kept walking forward.

"Stop right there," the man replied coldly. Tony stopped. "You are predictable, Mr Stark. You don't cut a deal with people like me. You seek them out, and you kill them. You protect the hordes of 'innocent civilians' from people like me."

Maggie's stomach flipped over. "Vision–"

"I believe I nearly have it," Vision replied.

"No, Vision–"

"But I am not predictable," the man continued. "ARES is not predictable. So the only way you can protect people from us is to stay away."

With a piercing sound as it plunged through the sky, the satellite bomb containment unit finally descended on the bazaar and punched through the roof. Vision's feed showed the missile-shaped projectile blossom into a metal dome, growing over the top of the bomb case and burying beneath it, surrounding it with blast-proof red and gold metal.

Maggie looked back to Tony's feed. The well-dressed man looked from the streak the there-and-gone bomb containment unit had left in the sky to Tony with a snarl on his face, then lifted his arms and clapped.

"No!" Tony cried.

For a millisecond silence reigned. But then, her eyes fixed on Vision's screen, Maggie watched as the bomb containment unit buckled at the seams and, all too fast to register, the feed whited out. Rhodey's screen erupted with bright orange flame and as one the CCTV feeds from the bazaar dissolved into static. Half a second later came the noise: an all-consuming roar that nearly overwhelmed the operations room speakers, booming across the space and thudding in Maggie's chest. She flinched and shielded her gaze from the bright flames on the remaining video feeds, her mouth falling open and her stomach plummeting.

In the central hub of the operations room the grim-faced Agent Asfour switched to the feed from the Quinjet in the sky over the city. At the sight of the feed, analysts across the room gasped. Hundreds of feet below the Quinjet a fireball rolled up from the bazaar building and a cloud of dust pushed outward, obscuring the ground. Maggie stared at the blossoming, angry flames as a feeling of cold numbness crept up her limbs and into her chest. When the initial roar of the explosion passed, the comms filled with screams and the sound of collapsing concrete.

"Vision, report," Agent Asfour called into the comms. There was no response, and all his tracking information had been knocked out by the blast. Maggie's heart damn near stopped in her chest.

"War Machine, report."

"I'm here," came Rhodey's voice. "Damn it." His feed hadn't gone down, but it was a mess of flickering flames and smoke. He groaned, and Maggie realized that he was pushing a slab of concrete off his armored legs. "I think I got everyone out, but… I'm gonna go through, see if I can find anyone. Vision, where the hell are you?"

"I'm here."

Maggie let out a breath and blinked at the sudden well of tears in her eyes. Vision sounded disoriented – well, as disoriented as an android could be, but he was alive.

"I absorbed a great deal of the blast," Vision continued. "I believe I am about a mile away from the bazaar."

"Injuries?" Maggie asked.

"Nothing I won't be able to repair," he replied. "Iron Man?"

"I'm at the bazaar," came Tony's grim voice, and Maggie's eyes flicked to his visual feed to see him pulling scorched and wailing people away from the outskirts of the exploded building. It was chaos, with thick black smoke filling the air and the building still on fire.

"What about the guy?" Rhodey asked, pushing through the collapsing building in his armor.

"Got away," Tony bit back.

Back in the operations room, Maggie got started on sending in the Avengers rescue and relief teams, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that her bones ached. She swallowed down a sick feeling that she thought might be failure.

By some miracle, there were no fatalities in the bombing. That was the only good news. There were hundreds of injuries, many of them serious, and dozens of people in the area lost businesses and homes. The bazaar ended up a crater, filled with broken concrete and burned and twisted metal. A few of the terrorists were apprehended, but most had escaped while the Avengers focused on the bazaar – it seemed the explosion had been part warning, part escape tactic. And it had worked.

As Maggie helped to coordinate the medical aid, she couldn't help but think this could have been so much worse. Tony's bomb containment unit hadn't been strong enough to contain the tech-heavy bomb, but initial projections showed that without it the blast radius would have been blocks further, and would definitely have sustained fatalities.

And yet: this could have been so much better. If they'd just had more time, more resources, more people, more intel… each time Maggie went down that line of thought she had to shake herself, because the 'what if's would eat her alive.

The Avengers returned from Turkmenistan disheartened and angry. Vision was physically charred, parts of his chest and legs scorched away to expose wires. Silent fury hung like a storm cloud over Tony, and Rhodey just seemed sad. And tired.

Maggie tried to help, but none of them were ready to talk about it. She buried herself in work.

From: Bucky

Heard about the Turkmenistan explosion. I know you can't tell me anything about it, but how are you doing?

From: Maggie

Thank you for asking, Bucky. I'm… stressed at the moment, and everyone's all reclusive and frustrated. We were so close to losing so many lives, and that terrifies me.

I wanna kick these people's asses.

From: Bucky

I don't doubt that you will, and I'll be cheering for you when you do x

May 23rd, 2017

Avengers Facility, Upstate New York

The next day, on the way to the meeting room adjoining the Avengers common room, Maggie reviewed the news coverage of the Turkmenistan explosion. The coverage was mixed, most outlets reporting that the Avengers had successfully evacuated civilians and contained the brunt of the blast, though some media groups argued that wherever the Avengers went, explosions followed, and that standard troops should have been sent in. The Avengers were more trusted now that they were regulated, and the fact that it had been the UN's decision to send them in mitigated the blame, but Maggie was very aware of the rocky ground they trod. The last time public perception had shifted toward the Avengers, it had led to most of the team going on the run. She didn't know if the team could survive another big mistake.

She put away her StarkPad as she entered the meeting room, her brow creased. She took her seat at the mahogany table and glanced up. Everyone in the room looked grim: the holographic Accords Committee calling in from D.C., all three Avengers, Strike Team Alpha, Agent Asfour and a few analysts.

"Alright," Ross said, seeing that everyone was assembled. "Let's get started. What the hell happened yesterday?"

Agent Asfour stood. "The man Iron Man engaged with at the mausoleum gave a name: ARES. We've been working all night gathering intel, and we got a hit early this morning." She pulled up a holoscreen with the name ARES bolded across it, accompanied by pictures of a team of people in tactical suits, and a collection of reports and files. "ARES is made up of members of a defunct NATO strike force. Got a little too invested in the areas they were deployed in and decided to defect. They've been working behind the scenes for political powers in the Middle East; they're mercenaries."

"And now they're upgrading themselves to despots," Tony cut in, his tone as cold as ice.

Maggie looked over at him and frowned.

"And their leader?" asked Vision, who had managed to repair himself overnight.

"A guy named Emil Tessler," said an analyst beside Maggie. "NATO physicians were considering diagnosing him with Borderline Personality Disorder, but he defected before they could make the call." Maggie's eyes drifted to Tony again. He appeared outwardly unconcerned, fiddling with a pen, but she could see the anger glittering in his eyes.

An Accords Committee member looked up from the files. "This says the original strike force only had fifteen members. How come there's so many of them now?"

"They've been recruiting and training in the area for a while," sighed Rhodey.

"It's true," Asfour affirmed. "We've had reports of heavy recruitment in the area but we didn't link it to ARES until last night." The holoscreen changed to include images of the agents the Avengers had engaged with yesterday: they wore sand-colored tactical suits with green and white vests covered in weapons, spare ammo, and grenades. They each carried a large rifle, and wore white helmets with red visors.

"And the bomb?" asked another Committee member.

Maggie stood up. She'd been tasked with looking into the bomb, with Vision's help. "The bomb itself was far more powerful than we'd anticipated – I did some digging, and apparently ARES has been messing with old S.H.I.E.L.D. tech." The people in the meeting exchanged glances. "The bomb containment unit managed to mitigate a good amount of the damage, but we're working with seriously heavy duty explosives here. The bomb itself is based on a classic bomb design originally used for higher-end stuff like corporate sabotage and warfare, and I don't doubt that ARES learned how to make it during their time in NATO. Because of the sheer amount of separately-rigged explosives inside the bombs, the best way to disarm it is to deactivate the detonation relay."

She paused to make sure everyone was following, as she flipped through Vision's scans of the bomb to illustrate her words. "The detonation device was electronic. Tessler must have had a pressure sensor on his palm that once it was activated pinged a digital program that instructed the bomb to detonate. Disrupting a signal like that is difficult but not impossible, but it looks like they designed this bomb to start a detonation timer if it lost the signal from the remote detonator."

"What does that mean?" asked an Air Force General.

"It means you could remotely prevent ARES from activating the bomb, but that would trigger a countdown to detonation." She cleared her throat. "Disabling that timed detonation sequence would require physical access to the detonator inside the bomb, which from the scans looks like it was pretty heavily shrouded in booby traps. So disarming it would require deactivating the all traps around the detonator, then attempting to stop the countdown without causing a fatal shutdown. It'd be painstaking."

"I was close to disarming it," Vision said, touching his chest. "It's a supremely difficult design though, with hundreds of failsafes and tamper sensors. I couldn't have phased through it to disarm it. The bomb design is intended to make one think that they are close to disarming it, only to trick them into triggering a detonation relay."

"And you think they'll have more of these?" Ross asked.

"Tessler is obsessed with control," Maggie replied. "This bomb and all their other tech allowed him to exert his control over the Avengers. Yes, I think he'll use them again." She allowed her words to sink in, then continued. "But he also wouldn't shut up about how unpredictable he is, so I'd prepare for them changing up their style – they'll use different kinds of tech, add new traps to their bombs, try to outthink us."

Another Committee member, a prominent Senator, spoke up. "And you think that ARES will appear again?"

"We do," Rhodey replied, leaning forward. "They might not be in control of that area any more, but there's signs of ARES activity in other areas in the region. They'll be back."

"Alright," Ross said. "Keep tracking them, and keep us apprised. We're handling the press situation and it's steady for now, but don't make a single move until we approve it with all the relevant governments first." He seemed to take the silence following that order as acceptance. "Meeting dismissed."

Everyone got to their feet, and Maggie managed to catch Tony's eye. She cocked her head at him, a silent question: how are you doing? He shrugged and looked away, but a little of the tension left his face. Maggie sighed.

Ross's voice cut through the murmuring as people headed for the door. "Ms Stark, would you please stay behind?"

As one, everyone stopped moving. Maggie, suddenly round eyed, looked up at Ross's holographic projection. His eyes were on her, as were the rest of the Committee's. She swallowed. "You want me to stay?"

"Yes," he replied, eyes cold.

"Sure you don't need us to stay?" Tony asked lightly. Maggie looked over at him and took in the tension in his frame. The others in the room seemed poised, wary.

"That won't be necessary," Ross said.

Tony turned to Maggie, a silent question in his eyes.

Maggie bit her lip. Whatever Ross and the rest of the Committee had to say to her, she was sure it couldn't be good. But they weren't really here, and she was still determined not to start a turf war within the Avengers. She sighed and tipped her head at Tony. Clear out.

His jaw clenched but he did as she asked, filing out after the rest of the team. Vision touched Maggie's elbow on his way out, a silent reassurance.

Suddenly alone in a room with holographic men, Maggie straightened her spine and set her shoulders. "Secretary Ross," she acknowledged with a nod. The Accords Committee all sat around their holographic table, considering her. It felt strange to stand before them in her Avengers analyst uniform, though she had to admit the uniform made her feel safer.

Ross leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Yesterday was almost a disaster."

"It was a disaster," she said, a furrow in her brow.

He waved a hand. "Yes, but not the kind I meant: I mean the kind of disaster in which civilians die, and the world turns against the Avengers. The kind of disaster we've seen before."

Maggie thought about the news headlines she'd seen about Wanda's mistake in Lagos, and about her own concerns before the meeting had started. "Well that didn't happen."

"No, but it was close. And do you know why it almost happened?"

Maggie met Ross's intelligent, holographic eyes. There was a mutual understanding there, and the thought chilled her. "There aren't enough of them," she murmured.

"Exactly. We've discussed this," Ross said, gesturing to the other Committee members. They nodded. "Three Avengers is a lot of power, but this world is filled with big threats. And I wouldn't necessarily call ARES a big threat – a bunch of two-bit ex-government thugs, greedy for land and power." He paused, watching Maggie closely. "If a group like that can almost bring the Avengers to their knees, what would a big threat be able to do?"

Maggie's thoughts darted as she contemplated his words while simultaneously trying to understand why they'd asked to speak to her alone. The realization hit her like a blast of icy air, and her breath caught in her chest.

Her eyes snapped back up to Ross. He hadn't taken his eyes off her; always measuring, assessing. Her gaze traveled across the rest of the men in the Accords Committee. They looked back with their decision clear in their faces. "You want me in the field," she breathed.

"Not full-time," Ross replied, his voice level. "You'd be on-scene as backup if things go sideways, only for missions where a great amount of risk is accepted."

She took a step back. "You'd trust me with that?"

"It's not about trust," Ross replied with a wave of his hand. "It's about resources. We're aware of your skills, and it's a waste to keep those behind a desk."

Maggie managed not to flinch at the word waste, like she was just an asset or a weapon again, but her shoulders tensed up and her eyes narrowed.

An Air Force general continued: "You've informed us that the trigger words are no longer an issue. We're also aware that you've built new wings for yourself. Those would be valuable in a mission."

Her heart pounded. She'd thought she was being so clever.

"And we're aware of your involvement in the A.I.M. takedown," Ross continued, his eyes cold. Maggie's stomach flipped over. So Crowe did tell them about her. "We're not trusting you, Ms Stark. We're making a deal."

She straightened her shoulders and took a breath, determined not to negotiate from a place of fear. Even though they already had enough evidence to throw her into the Raft. "A deal?"

"You, in the field in a back-up position as the Wvyern," Ross said. "You'll need to sign the combatant contract of the Accords, which will require you to obey each directive from this Committee. And if you break those Accords–"

Maggie waved a dismissive hand. "The Raft, I get it. I'm bored of you threatening me, Ross."

The Accords Committee members exchanged glances. Ross laughed lowly. "Good to know you're aware of the consequences you face. But if you mess this up, Stark, it's not just you that goes down. The rest of the Avengers will be delegitimized, stripped of their power. Who knows, maybe they'll end up in the Raft as well." His eyes narrowed, trained on her with laser precision. When he was sure that she understood he got to his feet and walked around the table, talking as he paced: "this is an opportunity, Ms Stark, to use your skills for the people of this country and the world. I don't care what you think of me, but for now our interests are aligned. And I think this is something you've wanted for a very long time." He came to a stop just a few feet away from her, his hands clasped behind his back and his shoulders straight. "So what do you say?"

Maggie closed her eyes. They hadn't even bothered to threaten her in case she decided to turn them down this time. Because they knew they didn't have to.

She opened her eyes and looked up. "I say yes."