Chapter 78

Maggie was in the air for only seconds, her wings glinting in the afternoon sun and her ears pounding with her heartbeat, before she exploded through one of the domed temple's boarded up windows and landed on the dusty floor. She landed in a crouch and then sprang toward the bomb, pulling up her sleeves and reaching for the tool bag she'd strapped to her belt.

"Show me the scans and the timer, F.R.I.D.A.Y." Bright blue digits appeared in the corner of her HUD goggles: 2:05. A second later a detailed scan of the bomb appeared, overlaying the black case itself. This bomb looked the same as the others (a gunmetal grey cube about the size of a washing machine) but she knew better than to think its insides were a carbon copy.

Her ears ringing and her eyes focused, Maggie selected a thin blade and a pair of pliers from her tools and bent over the device.

She'd studied the last bomb extensively – she'd be able to defuse that one in less than thirty seconds, but she didn't know how they'd changed this one. So she forced herself to take her time, even though her heart felt like it was trying to punch its way through her ribs. Her palms sweated as she clipped through the external booby traps and started prying away the metal casing. 1:30. 1:29. Her ears rushed with a roaring sound that seemed to mimic the sound of the last bomb when it detonated.

Maggie murmured an order F.R.I.D.A.Y. to not deploy the bomb containment unit; this temple was too fragile, the bomb containment punching through the roof would bring down the whole building and detonate the bomb. In the back of her mind, she suspected that was why ARES had put this bomb here in the first place.

She was distantly aware of Vision dismantling his own bomb and Rhodey protecting civilians from ARES over the comms. Avengers agents had swarmed the area around the temple and were evacuating as many civilians as they could, but she knew that they'd started evacuation too late to get everyone. The temple was surrounded by packed apartment complexes: families, children, the elderly. A few snippets of Tony's crackly voice came through the comms with the sounds of shifting concrete, but he was still mostly out of contact.

Maggie didn't respond to any of it. Her eyes were trained on the interior of the bomb, running over wires and casing and joinery. She snipped her way through booby traps, pausing once or twice to wipe the back of her hand across her forehead before her sweat dripped onto the exposed wiring.

The bomb engineers had changed some things up this time around to trick her – failsafes where there used to be harmless plates, wires taking different routes through the complex heart of the device, red herrings in the form of useless wires and welded boxes. But Maggie had been building bombs since she was seven, so she knew how this worked.

"Bomb deactivated!" Vision called into the comms, and Maggie's HUD flickered to show the unraveled carcass of the apartment complex device, its detonator timer stopped at 0:45. "I'm on my way to you, Maggie," Vision said.

"Good, help them get the civilians out," she replied. "We need to clear the building on the north side, it's still full of people."

"Maggie–"

"Do it," she bit back. "I've got this."

At least she thought she did. She cut a series of wires and diverted a power relay on another booby trap, then pulled away a mass of wiring to find the detonator: a compact black box with a timer display. 0:25.

Something in her gut burned. Her eyes darted over the detonator, assisted by the holographic scan overlay, and she finally spotted the wire she had to disconnect. She reached for it, nearly bent double with her head, shoulders and arms inside the bomb, but then hesitated.

0:21. 0:20.

"Maggie?" came Rhodey's voice, so tense she wondered how he managed to get even that single word out. Her eyes darted along the blue rubber-encased wire, her mind full of circuitry and relays, and with a rush of alarm that felt like a kick in the guts realized that if she cut this wire now it would set off a failsafe further down the line that would trigger the bomb. 0:15.

Her eyes welled with frustrated, terrified tears, even as she searched desperately for a way to divert the failsafe.

"Maggie," Rhodey called, "if you can't defuse it, get out of there!"

0:10. 0:09.

She reached for the failsafe; an innocuous looking metal toggle attached to a base plate. Her sweaty fingers slipped over it. Holding her breath, she gripped the toggle with her pliers and twisted it off. There could be more failsafes, more booby traps linked to the wire she needed to cut to disable the bomb, but… out of the corner of her eye she saw: 0:05. 0:04.

Time seemed to warp and pull apart.

– 0:03 –

She reached for the original wire, her vision swimming and her mind certain that her heart had already stopped. She watched herself snip through the wire as her whole body screamed like it was on fire.

For a second she just stared sightlessly at the cut wire, at the neatly shorn copper filaments. And then her eyes flicked back to the timer.

– 0:02 –

She stared.

The number didn't change.

Maggie gasped and wrenched her hands out of the bomb, stumbling backwards until she tripped and fell flat on her back on the dusty temple floor. Her pliers went skittering across the ground.

Lying on the mudbrick floor of the abandoned temple, drenched in sweat as she stared up at the arcing, cobwebbed dome that had been there for hundreds of years, Maggie breathed out a shaky laugh. That single hysterical breath was followed by another, and another, until her laughter echoed in the dusty hollow space, ringing across the dome and filling her ears.

She realized that people were shouting over the comms, calling her name.

Breathe, Maggie.

"I'm okay," she breathed as she sat up. Her voice sounded so distant. "I'm okay. I… I disabled it."

Whoops and cheers filled the comms, and Maggie pulled her goggles up so she could wipe away her tears.

Tony's crackly voice came a little more online, enough for him to say: "I'm going to buy you a castle, Maggie."

She took a breath and stood up on shaky legs. "I'll buy my own damn castle."

On the far side of the temple one of the boarded-up doorways burst inward, and Maggie tensed for a moment before remembering that Rhodey had instructed Avengers agents to move in the moment they got confirmation of the bomb being defused. Once they kicked their way through the door the team of five agents turned wide eyes on Maggie, nodded, and then went to secure the bomb. It looked strange: the sleek technology in the middle of the ancient space, with clipped wires and plating strewn around it from where Maggie had tossed them aside. Maggie numbly wondered what many things this temple had seen in its thousand-year existence.

For a long moment she just stared at the bomb. But then an agent walked in her field of vision and she blinked.

"Oh." She shook her head and tuned into the comms again: it was filled with status reports from the agents rounding up the ARES members, and the occasional grunt or curse from Tony as he tried to free himself from the mountain of rubble. Maggie pulled her goggles over her face again, and looked down at the metal bracelets she wore on both wrists. Before her eyes they shivered and shifted, forming into two wrist-mounted energy blasters.

She took a breath. "Okay. Iron Man, status?"

"Covered in rock and getting real sick of it," came his crackly voice. "I've managed to make some progress but I have no idea where I am."

"On my way." With one last nod to the agents inside the temple, Maggie fired up her engines and kicked off the ground, pulling her wings back into her body just in time to shoot through a narrow window and into the sky.

Miles Bianchi had gotten away. He and the rest of his ARES combat squad had been out of the complex when it came under attack, and after circling back to check on the situation they'd agreed that evacuation was in their best interest. They'd slipped through backstreets away from the fighting, and by some stroke of luck the Avengers agents in their way had run off toward an abandoned temple a few blocks away. They circled toward a local bus terminal, blending in thanks to their civilian clothing and hidden weapons.

They'd just stepped into a residential street to cross it when, in a blur of sound and light, something dropped out of the sky onto the road to block their way.

"Oh shit," murmured one of the agents.

Miles had to agree. Where there'd just been empty road there now stood a winged woman. Gunmetal grey wings arced up from her back, glinting in the afternoon sunlight, and she stood tall in a dark tactical suit with glowing red goggles fixed on he and his team. Miles was no idiot. He knew who this was.

He grit his teeth. "Engage."

At his command, the eight-strong combat team sprang forward. Miles went for the semiautomatic strapped to his back, and as he made the movement he watched the Wyvern lift both arms and fire three bolts of red light at the first three members of the team: Bartolf, Kravets and and Clavel. The bolts connected and sent them crumpling backwards. Miles swung his gun up but the Wyvern wasn't where she used to be: he hadn't seen her move but somehow she'd rolled between Nacif and Ivanov, and the wings were gone. She shot to her feet and flipped sideways, her wings suddenly reappearing and knocking the two to the ground with the bite of unforgiving metal.

Miles fired, but again she wasn't where she used to be. She'd darted sideways and kicked the next agent, Portela, in the knee, though from the way he screamed and crumpled to the ground clutching his bleeding leg Miles knew it was no normal kick.

It was just Miles and his drinking buddy Materska left, and – no, Materska was down, the pop of his dislocated jaw ringing loud in the street. Miles swung his gun and –

The world spun on its axis and he hit the ground with a crunch, the afterimage of the Wyvern's glowing red eyes burning in his vision.

"Got eight ARES runaways ready for pickup in the street two blocks southeast of the temple," he heard a woman's voice say. Then a black boot appeared in his vision, soundless on the pavement. A second later there was red light, and then darkness.

Tony had been trapped under the rubble of the ARES complex for nearly ten minutes and he was, quite frankly, getting sick of it. The suit was still online but his comms were screwed up, and all he could see was the heavy press of black rubble crowding him in and pressing him down. It was a good thing he didn't mind enclosed spaces. Give him a pile of rubble over the empty expanse of space any day. Though right now he wanted out of the rubble, so he could go kick some ARES ass.

He was painstakingly cutting away rubble with his wrist-mounted laser, careful not to cut his own head off in the process, when suddenly a blockage above him slipped away and bright sunlight shone down on his helmet eye slits.

"Agh!" He winced and turned off his laser, waiting for his HUD to adjust to the sudden influx of light. When it had, he looked up at the open sky above him and –

"Hey. Thanks, Maggie."

She grinned down at him, bent with her hands on her knees as she peered into the hole she'd dug in the rubble. "Think you can manage the rest?"

"Uh…" he checked the pressure and weight readings in his HUD. "Sure. Stand back?"

She disappeared from view, and seconds later he burst out of the top of the rubble heap, his repulsors flaring as dust and debris slipped off the armor. He shook himself.

"Right, what'd I miss? I heard about the second bomb, which – well done, Mags, and I'm serious about that castle if you ever feel the inkling–" he turned, and when he spotted her standing on the nearest patch of un-blown-up land he cut himself off.

He'd already seen her in the tactical suit today, and during their other mission. But there was a difference in seeing his sister in a tactical suit and seeing his sister as… the Wyvern, his brain supplied. He'd seen the Wyvern, that terrifying morning when Maggie's words had been read, but now he saw what the Wyvern could be, what she'd become. I am Maggie Stark. And I'm also the Wyvern.

She stood tall, her wings folded up against her back as if they were a part of her, as if she'd been born with them. Maggie seemed at home in herself in a way he hadn't really seen before – surety and confidence were in every line of her body, in the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her chin, to the way she'd planted her boots in the ground as if to say I am here.

Maggie didn't seem to notice his abrupt stop. She just met his helmet's eye slits with her own red goggles and briefed him on the situation: "Rhodey, Vision, and the agents are working on rounding up the rest of ARES – they've got escape routes and tunnels all over the city, and they're pretty heavily armed so they're making it difficult."

Tony shook himself again. "Tessler?"

She cocked her head. "We know the sewer system that he's in, but they're still having trouble finding him." She watched his reaction, and he felt rather than saw her attention drop to his clenched fists. The corner of her mouth tugged up. "Go get him."

"Don't tell me what to do," he retorted, but he was already pulling up the sewer system on his HUD. "And you?"

Her head turned west, to the direction of the fighting. Even from here they could hear gunshots and shouts. "I'm going to do my job."

"Be careful. Catch you on the other side, Wyvern."

"Later, Iron Man." Her wings rose on either side of her, and with a tip of her chin to him Maggie sprang into the air. He watched her soar over the buildings toward the fighting, a metal and flesh Avenger, and swallowed down the sudden rush of pride that hit him in the chest.

Suddenly he remembered Tessler, with his stupid smug face and his 'unpredictability'. Let's get that bastard.

He fired up his repulsors and rocketed into the sky.

Maggie threw herself into the fray, and was surprised at how much it felt like lifting a weight off her chest. It wasn't the violence that gave her the feeling, but the knowledge that she was using her skills, skills that very few people had, for good. She helped Rhodey create a new perimeter and work inwards, ferreting out the ARES members and shutting down their resistance.

It was the first time since the airport battle in Leipzig that she'd fought with her wings. It felt like returning home, slicing through the air and outmaneuvering her opponents, the wind in her ears and her eyes focused. Most of the fighting was in evacuated residential complexes and streets. Rhodey struggled to fight in the cramped spaces in his armor, but Maggie was used to streamlining herself – she went from crashing through walls to slipping through narrow cracks, her wings flaring and retracting within the space of a thought. Her practice with the energy blasters paid off, making her a whirlwind of glinting metal wings and flares of red light. She, Vision, and Rhodey worked well together, covering blind spots and calling out warnings and opportunities.

As the noose grew ever tighter around ARES, a few members got desperate and hijacked a civilian van. They drove right through the police roadblock and onto a main thoroughfare, swerving all over the place. They outstripped the Avengers agents, but Maggie wasn't bound to the earth. She rocketed over rooftops towards the road, forming her nanotech into boosters for additional speed, then dove down to the van and plunged her heel spurs through the hood to anchor herself. She heard the men inside shout in alarm, and the van swerved to the far left of the road.

She glared at them through the windshield. "Pull over!"

They didn't. They started swerving wildly, trying to shake her off, but with her heel spurs wedged in the body of the van she wasn't going anywhere. The passenger pulled a gun.

"Right then." She leaned forward and punched through the windshield, her gloves protecting her from the shattered glass. The men screamed again, then abruptly stopped when her energy blaster bolts hit them.

Driverless, the van careened to the right. Maggie flared her wings and fired up her engines, pushing the power of her wings against the van's momentum. For ten heart-stopping seconds she strained, wings beating and muscles protesting her awkward position, as she looked over her shoulder and watched a building on the side of the road grow closer and closer. The rubber tires squealed on the road and screams filtered into Maggie's hearing and then–

With a shriek and a judder, the van came to a stop. For a moment Maggie didn't move beyond dropping her head and closing her eyes. She let out a breath. Then, careful of the broken glass, she pulled her heel spurs out of the van's smoking hood and jumped down to the road. Civilians on the side of the street stared from the van to her, taking in her raised metal wings and her strange get up. The sun beat down on the top of her head.

"Rhodey?" she breathed. "Please tell me that was the last of them. Catching bad guys is a lot harder than being a bad guy."

When he replied, he sounded like he was smiling. "The agents got the last group holed up in the theatre, and Tony just showed up with Tessler, who looks like he might wish he'd dropped the building on himself. We got 'em."

Maggie closed her eyes again and turned her face to the sun.

Tony's voice came over the comms: "Good job, Avengers. Let's clean up and move out. Hey, Maggie?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy birthday."

She grinned.

From: Maggie

You know all those times we used bombs in HYDRA? They were tools, weapons, just the same as us. I thought about that today. I thought about the people in the buildings around the bomb, and I wondered if they would feel anything before they died.

I didn't think about that bomb today as a tool, it was… it was like a black hole, sucking in everything around it. I couldn't look away. I've been afraid plenty of times in my life, but today was one of the worst, and I hated feeling that way again.

But then I stopped it. And that made me feel like I could lift the world on my shoulders and dance. What does that make me, that being so close to death made me feel so incredible?

From: Bucky

Doesn't sound like you were excited about being close to death, Meg. It sounds like you were excited about being alive, and about the people around you being alive. That makes you a hero.

And doll: happy birthday. I kinda wish you hadn't spent it almost getting yourself killed, but I'm glad you got to take out those assholes and come home safe. I wish I could be there. I love you.

Back at the facility that night Maggie yawned her way through a debrief on a call with the Accords Committee. They didn't say much about her involvement beyond acknowledging that she'd joined the action. They didn't even acknowledge that it was her who'd discovered and defused the second bomb. But Maggie couldn't care less about their approval, so she just listened and gave her report when someone asked her for it. She did perk up at news of Tessler's court martial and upcoming prison sentence, however.

After the official debriefing the Avengers had a drink in the common room and ate Maggie's birthday cake, their faces lined with tiredness and their voices full of satisfaction. Pepper sat beside Tony and absently ran her fingers through his hair as he crafted colorful and ever-cruder insults about Tessler. After twenty minutes, Maggie fell asleep on Vision's shoulder.

The Avengers agreed to lay a blanket over her and let her sleep on the couch. Tony unearthed a sharpie and tried to draw on her face, but the second Maggie sensed something come near her face she snapped awake and seized it, almost breaking Tony's hand. He apologized and backed off, and Maggie went back to sleep.

June 3rd, 2017

She woke up the next morning under a soft blanket, with a glass of water on the table beside her. She rolled onto her side and checked her Kimoyo bead, and smiled when she read the latest message from Bucky, following up about her mission and telling her about how he'd had to rescue one of his goats when it got its head stuck in a fence.

Ten minutes later, once she had just about summoned the energy to roll off the couch and head to her room, Pepper walked in. She wore a crisp charcoal grey pantsuit, and there was a crease in her brow.

"So, you're in the news again," she called by way of hello.

Maggie gave a jaw-cracking yawn. "Why?"

"Since the Avengers have to be publicly accountable, part of the deal is that they publish the names or aliases of all their on-duty combatants."

Maggie sat up. "Wait, what?"

"They did explain this at the debriefing yesterday–"

"I didn't hear–"

"The way Vision tells it, they mentioned it in amongst a whole list of other bureaucratic jargon; they were probably counting on you not paying attention. I doubt they wanted your input, what with your… um, track record with the press." Pepper raised an eyebrow at Maggie's huff, then waved her hand and brought up a wide holographic screen. "Anyway, I think the Accords Committee thought they could sneak your name through without anyone noticing. Or maybe they just don't care. Anyway–" With another twist of her fingers, Pepper brought up a national news program.

A pair of news anchors appeared on screen, with a headline scrolling beneath them: Shock Accords Briefing: The Wyvern joins the Avengers.

Maggie rubbed her hands over her face.

The first news anchor shuffled their notes. "In the early hours of the morning today the Avengers press department put out an Accords-sanctioned briefing about yesterday's events in Iran. This is standard procedure for Avengers missions, though honestly with a mission on the scale of that we saw yesterday I know most of us were expecting at least a press conference, and not the two-page written briefing circulated earlier."

"That's right, Katherine," added the other anchor, "and we were especially surprised when we came across the following detail:" – a copy of the briefing appeared on screen, with a short sentence on the second page highlighted – "this is a list of the on-duty combatants, which includes the Avengers we know as well as many agents. However, one sharp-eyed soul noticed a new name on the list. Here you can see it says: the Wyvern (called in from a support position)."

"And so it seems we're in the midst of another media frenzy about Ms Margaret Stark, AKA the Wyvern. Not four months after being vindicated of no less than thirty first degree murders, she's built up a name for herself in philanthropy, advocacy, and scientific circles, and now she's a bona-fide Avenger. Jim is this the story of an underdog rising, or a sinister takeover from within?"

Pepper cut off the clip there and turned around.

Maggie swallowed. "So, people noticed."

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "They sure did. I'll give you the run down: it's international news already, of course, and reactions are mixed. Some people are excited that you're helping out, but there's a decent portion of people who are angry that the Avengers have hired a…"

She was clearly floundering for a word, so Maggie filled in the blank: "Criminal and murderer."

"That's their perception," Pepper said with a frown, and brought up a holographic layout of clippings, headlines, and opinion polls. Maggie blinked up at the data, overwhelmed as always by just how big the world was and how much of it knew about her.

"But," Pepper continued, wading through the kaleidoscope of media reactions, "I'd say that the negative reaction is outweighed by the positive. Here:" she brought up a series of clips from talk show hosts, news anchors, and politicians.

"–I've always said that Maggie Stark deserves a second chance, and–"

"She was found not guilty, and I think we're all well aware of just how effective she would be as an Avenger–"

"–she knows crime in a way that not many others do, and that's a valuable outlook–"

"Honestly, she's the perfect face for the Accords." Maggie blinked at that. The speaker was a news anchor. "She's an enhanced person with a troubled past whose efforts are being aimed in the right direction thanks to the UN and the Accords. Isn't that what we wanted?"

Maggie put her elbows on her knees and rubbed her eyes.

Pepper shut down the auto-playing clips. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just… I should've expected this. But I didn't."

"And you don't like that people are already putting words in your mouth before you've even had a chance to say your piece," Pepper intuited.

Maggie looked up and smiled wryly. "You know me too well."

"It's true," she replied. "And now… I'd go and get ready for the day, Maggie. I have a feeling that we haven't heard the last of this yet."

As always, Pepper was right. No less than ten minutes after Maggie had finished showering and changing, F.R.I.D.A.Y. alerted her that Secretary Ross had arrived at the facility and wanted to talk to the Avengers.

It was the first time Maggie and Ross had physically been in the same room since the trial, and the tension in the air was so thick it felt slightly suffocating. Still, they managed to suffer through the meeting, in which Ross explained that due to the 'unanticipated media frenzy' they needed to hold a press conference. With Ross and all the Avengers. Including Maggie. That afternoon.

Rhodey and Vision didn't particularly like press conferences to begin with and they were worried that Ross would somehow throw Maggie to the wolves, but Maggie understood that this needed to happen so she talked them into it. Tony was similarly worried about Maggie, but he took to handling the media like a duck to water so he wasn't so worried. Maggie… she felt an anxious thrum just under her skin that reminded her of the early hours of the morning before her first surprise press conference – her gut churned and her palms sweated, thinking of standing up before the world and opening herself up to their judgement. But the last time she'd done it to confess to a whole bunch of murders. At least this time she was there to talk about how she planned to save people.

So that was how, in the middle of the afternoon, Maggie found herself standing in the open, airy space of the Avengers Facility foyer, getting briefed with the rest of the Avengers before they stepped into the press briefing room. Tony was in one of his stupidly expensive suits and his orange F.R.I.D.A.Y. sunglasses. Vision looked particularly professorial in a nice grey suit and tie, and Rhodey had opted for his Air Force uniform. Maggie felt a bit like a kid playing dressup standing beside them, though she'd tried her best with her nicest suit (Pepper had helped her buy it) and sharp red blouse. Tony had the gall to lean over and whisper "you look like a corporate nerd", so she elbowed him in the side.

Ross finished briefing them, still looking supremely unhappy to be breathing the same air as Maggie, and minutes later they got the go ahead to enter the briefing room. The door swung open, releasing the sound of dozens of chattering journalists and snapping cameras. Ross strode straight in, looking dignified as ever in his deep blue suit covered in medals.

Maggie, Tony, Vision, and Rhodey, who had formed a kind of circle, shared a glance.

"Ready?" Tony asked. He got a series of grim nods, and then clapped his hands together. "Alright Avengers, let's do this."

Once Ross had taken his place at the podium, Tony swaggered into the room followed by the rest of the Avengers. Maggie walked in last, after Vision, and she felt the attention in the room shift to her like a laser focus.

There was a podium set up at the front for all of them to sit behind, like a panel. Someone had even set out a jug of water and some glasses. Maggie took her seat beside Vision, then looked up at the waiting crowd. The sea of faces and camera lenses felt eerily familiar to her first press conference, and she took three deep breaths.

Her skin prickled, but at the same time this was nothing like that first time. She cocked her head, considering the feeling, and then found herself looking to her right. Vision, looking pensive as he considered the waiting crowd, Rhodey carefully displaying his stone-wall expression that Justin Hammer had apparently once said made him look like a 'sphinx', and Tony, waving to the reporters he recognized and grinning for the cameras. She purposefully did not look at Ross's stupid face.

Maggie realized that this time felt different because it was. She sat here with her team, as equals. She felt safe.

Her fingers itched for the Kimoyo bead tucked under her shirt, but she kept her hands in her lap. She could talk to Bucky about this later. For now, she had a press conference to do.

Ross settled the crowd down and cleared his throat to deliver his new pre-prepared briefing. Maggie didn't really listen. It didn't say much of anything that the other briefing hadn't, besides mentioning that Maggie had signed the Accords, that she'd been there in a back-up position, and that 'the severity of the situation required her participation'. He did also mention that she had used metal wings during the mission, which caused an increase in the volume of clicking cameras. Maggie sensed Tony fidgeting throughout the briefing, and sighed a breath of relief when Ross managed to get through the whole statement without Tony interrupting.

Then: "We will now take questions," said Ross, with the disgruntled air of a parent allowing a child to do something they didn't approve of.

Every hand in the room shot up. They didn't yell, though – apparently word of Ross's strict press conference technique had got around. Barely concealing a resigned sigh, Ross gestured to a man in the front row.

The man stood and asked: "Secretary Ross, how can you justify putting a former assassin for HYDRA on the Avengers roster?"

Maggie looked out of the corner of her eye at Ross. He looked deeply unhappy with the question, but they'd all been prepared with talking points before the conference so he launched into those. "Margaret Stark's trial found her not culpable for those crimes. The Accords Committee doesn't approve combatants with no vetting process, and we have evaluated Ms Stark's mental and physical fitness. This is all above board, and the Wyvern can be a great asset for the Avengers."

Maggie was kind of surprised by that last comment, but she supposed Ross had to show more support than just saying 'this is probably legal'.

Ross cleared his throat and leaned forward. "And if you'll cast your minds back, the original Avengers had a couple of ex-assassins on the team as well."

Maggie's thoughts flickered to Romanoff, whom she'd never actually had a proper conversation with but who had always seemed to understand something in Maggie that not many people did. Then she thought of Barton, who she'd met briefly at an airport and had fought alongside. The crowd of journalists murmured.

Ross gestured for a new questioner, and a woman in the third row got picked. "My question is for Ms Stark," she said, and Maggie sat up straighter. "You've signed the Accords, does this mean that you support them despite fighting against them only last year?"

Maggie took a deep breath, even as she sensed Ross bristle at the other end of the table. She'd been given a long list of talking points to prepare for this press conference, and she had a strict script to keep to for that particular question: some bullshit about how she'd seen the error of her ways, and that the Accords were the best option for the Avengers and the world.

And yet, when Maggie looked up and met the female journalist's eye, she remembered just how much she disliked being told what to do. She squared her shoulders, and leaned forward so the microphone would pick her up clearly. "I want to help people," she said simply. "This allows me to do that."

A ripple of conversation made its way across the room, accompanied by side-eyes and pointed looks. Ross just smiled thinly, but she felt his animosity spread and crackle in her direction. She knew she'd be yelled at later about this, but they should have figured out by now that she wasn't going to tell any lies.

Ross faced a few more questions – about the decision to hire Maggie, about her trustworthiness, about the new team dynamic. Then a reporter from WHiH addressed a question to Tony:

"How do you feel about working with your sister?"

Tony leaned forward. "Honestly?" He paused, looking thoughtful, and everyone in the room strained for his next words. "I think it's going to be a nightmare," he finished. "She's annoyed the hell out of me since I was sixteen."

That got a chuckle, and Maggie rolled her eyes. The next few questions were directed at Vision and Rhodey, essentially asking the same thing. They were much more complimentary in their replies and Rhodey, being the secret shit stirrer that he was, casually let it slip that Maggie had identified and defused a massive bomb that would have taken out a large civilian center in Mashhad. That caused a bit more of an uproar – that Ross handled – and then the next reporter stood up.

"Maggie, did you set out to become an Avenger?"

"Nope," she replied. "If you'd have asked me a few months ago I'd have told you that I needed a break. But…" she looked at her team. "This is the right thing to do."

"Are you concerned about working with your brother?"

Maggie smiled. "I'll always worry about him as long as he's in the line of fire, but this way I can keep an eye on him." Tony rolled his eyes at her. "And," she added, "I think we make a pretty good team." She and Tony shared a glance, and simultaneously grinned. When she turned back, she was surprised to see a few journalists smiling at the exchange. "I'm excited to work with all of them, to be honest," she continued, casting a glance at Vision and Rhodey. "They've shown time and time again that they'll step up to do the right thing when the right thing must be done." Vision's eyes softened. "That's a team I want to be a part of."

"What's it like to be back in the air?"

Her eyes widened and she turned, finding the journalist who'd asked the question: a younger man from a local New York paper, clutching his notepad. He looked genuinely interested in her answer.

Maggie grinned at him and the cameras started clicking again. "It's awesome."