Chapter 82

With F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s help, Maggie flew back down to the street where it had all started. She landed, stumbling slightly on the uneven ground, as the remaining wizard opened a sparking orange portal. He and Dr Banner – who'd been crouching when she landed – both turned to look at her with questioning eyes.

She shook her head.

The wizard's face pinched with worry, so she added: "Tony will get your friend back." And if he doesn't, I'll go get him back.

He inclined his head and turned back to the portal, which showed the inside of what looked like a grand house.

Banner looked over. "Where are you going?"

"Time stone's been taken," the wizard explained. "The Sanctum remains unguarded." He tipped his chin. "What will you do?"

Banner held up a dusty hunk of plastic, and Maggie's heart flipped as she recognized the flip phone. "I'm going to make the call."

With a small nod, the wizard closed the portal and vanished in a swirl of sparks.

Maggie retracted her goggles and strode toward Bruce as he looked down at the dusty phone. "How did you get that?"

"Tony left it." He flipped it open, and Maggie looked down at the screen to see a single contact. Her aching heart skipped a beat.

"Tony was going to…?"

Banner opened the contact, then turned to meet her eyes. "Is Steve going to be able to help us find Vision?"

Her jaw clenched. She wasn't sure what Vision had to do with all this, but Tony had said the aliens were after a stone, and she could put two and two together to equal one mysterious glowing stone. She nodded. "If anyone can find him… it's Steve."

Bruce Banner had a lot of pain in his eyes. After a moment of watching her face he nodded, hit the call button, and lifted the phone to his ear.

Maggie hovered over Banner's shoulder as he spoke on the phone to Steve, and once he noticed what she was doing he was kind enough to put the call on speakerphone. She listened as he explained the whole situation about the Infinity Stones and Thanos and how much danger Vision was in right now. Steve didn't say much other than to ask the occasional question. He sounded different than she remembered. Maggie started pacing back and forth across the destroyed street, trying to process everything Banner was saying. Concrete crunched under her boots, and her body ached from the fight.

When Banner got up to explaining the spaceship that had come to New York and the aliens who'd kidnapped Strange, his voice grew strained. "Tony's just vanished on a space ship trying to protect the Time Stone, Steve, we need your help here. I don't care about whatever fight you guys had–"

"Okay," Steve interjected. "We'll find Vision. In the meantime, Bruce, you should get back to the Avengers Facility. You can find it by–"

"I can take him," Maggie called.

The line fell silent for a moment. Then Steve said: "Maggie?"

"It's me. You find Vision and keep him safe, Steve." She'd only spent about two days with Steve Rogers in her life, but she trusted him almost as much as she trusted her brother. Thinking of Tony sent another sharp pang stabbing through her chest, so she cleared her throat. "I'll handle things on this end."

"Okay. Keep this phone, we'll be in touch soon." Another pause. "It's good to have you back, Bruce. And Maggie… I'm sorry." With that, he hung up.

After a moment, Banner flipped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket. He and Maggie looked at each other. Small fires still burned up and down the street, and in the silence a crumpled car listed onto its side with a groan.

"So you're Tony's sister," Banner eventually said, his deep brown eyes on her.

"Yeah."

"Weren't you…" he waved his hand, and Maggie had seen enough people try to politely bring up her time under HYDRA to know what it looked like.

"I was," she said. "Not anymore." She heard sirens approaching and her head jerked up. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. you'll have to handle law enforcement, we have to get back to the Facility. Dr Banner, how do you feel about flying?"

Dr Banner remained quiet as they flew upstate together, him strapped to her chest and legs with nanotech bindings, and Maggie's wings spread wide as she flew slower than she normally did. Banner didn't seem too concerned about being flown through the air by a stranger with metal wings.

They'd left New York City behind them, a smudge of skyscrapers and smoke on the horizon, and now soared over picturesque forests and winding roads. The view didn't serve to calm Maggie at all – she couldn't help but think about that strange, circular ship vanishing into the sky. She wondered if Tony had realized by now that Peter hadn't returned to earth.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Dr Banner finally spoke. "What happened to the Avengers?"

Maggie sighed. "I'm not the best person to ask. I wasn't… I didn't know most of them when it all went down."

He craned his neck to look at her. "Well you sure look like an Avenger now."

Maggie met his eyes, and huffed a small laugh. He deserved to know what had happened to his family. So she took a breath, and over the ten minutes it took for them to get to the Facility she did her best to explain: the reshuffle after the disaster that was Ultron, the Accords, the bombing in Vienna, the fight in Germany. She didn't get into too much detail about Bucky. Bruce wasn't happy about the involvement of Secretary Ross, who he'd known as a power-hungry Army General, but mostly he listened in silence. His head hung low while she described how the Avengers had fractured at the seams. When she told him in halting sentences about what had happened in Siberia, he sighed.

"That must have been hard."

That took her aback. She'd been half expecting him to get angry on Tony's behalf, to ask why Bucky wasn't in a prison cell right now. She swallowed. "It is what it is." She shook her head. "I get the sense you've not had an easy time of it either, since you left earth."

The scientist went still under her. "No. No, I guess I haven't."

"I'm sorry about Thor." Bruce had been matter-of-fact and grim when he described the God of Thunder's death over the phone to Steve, but Maggie had heard the raw grief behind his words.

Bruce didn't reply.

Three minutes later, Maggie angled up over a line of trees and felt a thrill of surprise go through Dr Banner at what appeared before them.

"Holy crap!" he exclaimed, almost headbutting her in the face when his head jerked up to get a better look. Maggie smiled despite herself. "I thought you said the Avengers broke up?"

Maggie circled over the Avengers Facility as she prepared to land, seeing it through Bruce's eyes: a gleaming white complex tucked away in the forest, a proud black A emblazoned on the side of the main building. Sunlight glinted off the windows and warmed the wide lawns, as if this was any other day and not the beginning of the end of the world.

"They did, mostly. Tony, Rhodey, Vision and I have been keeping it going. Though I guess we're down to two out of four now." She swooped in, mindful of Bruce's nervous yelp, and came in for a gentle landing just outside the main building.

As she unstrapped Banner and made sure he could stand on his own without toppling or Hulking out (he seemed mostly concerned with staring up at the huge main building) one of the outer doors slid open to reveal Rhodey. He rushed out as quick as his exosuit could take him, running right up to Maggie. She got one look at his haggard face before she threw her arms around him.

Rhodey's arms wrapped tight around her chest. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. said… Tony–"

She nodded into his shoulder. "Went off on that spaceship like a big dumb hero," she confirmed. "The kid, too."

"Crap." Rhodey released her and looked into her face, then suddenly seemed to see the man standing awkwardly behind her. "Bruce?"

"Hi, Rhodey."

The two men had a weird moment, just staring at each other as if they couldn't quite believe their eyes. Then Rhodey slid past Maggie with a squeeze to her shoulder, and drew Bruce into a hug as well.

"What the hell is going on?" Rhodey asked.

"Dr Banner can fill you in inside." Maggie glanced around pointedly, at the new recruits training over by the hangar and then at the maintenance crew mowing the lawn.

Rhodey took in the dark look on her face, then turned to Bruce's grim expression. "Right. Alright, yeah. Let's get inside."

In the common room, as Bruce filled Rhodey in, Maggie felt her Kimoyo bead vibrate under her suit. She deactivated the nanotech suit, leaving her in just the teal cocktail dress she'd been wearing that morning, and pulled out the Kimoyo bead. She didn't bother hiding it, and when she tapped the symbol and purple text glowed in the air before her, Rhodey glanced over.

"What the hell is that?"

She ignored him. This message was from probably two hours ago, before the alien attack in New York. Bucky had written in response to her last message about her expectations for the charity benefit. His words were sweet, and encouraging, and almost jarring after the turn her day had taken. She savored the words, then wiped them away and typed a new message:

Mercury.

It was one of their old code words, and she didn't doubt he'd remember what it meant: Battle stations.

There wasn't much he could do from Wakanda, but she needed to warn him about the threat facing the entire planet. After a moment, she added one more word: Lilacs.

This one meant I'm safe but busy, further contact will follow.

She tucked the bead into her dress and returned to the conversation.

Rhodey raised an eyebrow at her. "Do I wanna know what that was?"

Maggie shrugged. "I think you already know." His brow furrowed, but he said nothing.

"Alright," she said. "The earth is in imminent danger and we called a war criminal for help. Let's talk strategy."

They spent the rest of the day in an odd sort of limbo. The Accords Committee had gathered in D.C. and holo-called in to the Facility every hour, demanding updates. Rhodey took their calls, passing along the intel from the operations room about the situation in New York, the spaceship, Vision's absence, and where the aliens might hit next. They had opted not to inform the Committee about Bruce's presence on earth at all, and Rhodey told the Committee that Maggie had been injured in the New York fight and wasn't available to speak to them. She and Ross didn't get along in the best of times, and Rhodey wanted to keep the Committee as calm as possible so they didn't do something drastic like send in troops to the Facility to shut down the Avengers.

Pepper called Maggie pretty soon after Maggie arrived back at the facility – they'd mostly cried and reassured each other that they were alright, not saying much about Tony besides agreeing that he was a stupid heroic idiot and that they were sure he'd be okay. Pepper had been furious and terrified all at once. She'd planned to come back to the facility, but Maggie advised her to wait.

Maggie spent the day getting more details about Thanos and the Stones from Bruce, and working on trying to track Vision without much success. In between the hiding and frantic work, Maggie and Bruce both got cleaned up and she found him some spare clothes to wear.

Maggie tried not to think too much about where Tony might be right now. Or about the aliens likely hunting for Vision.

She managed to bury most of her worry in work. But she couldn't shake away the sense that doom was coming not only to earth, but to the entire universe. And all that stood in its way was a collection of scattered and broken individuals.

Then they got word of a battle in Edinburgh. Maggie watched shaky cellphone recordings and grainy CCTV footage of Wanda and a clearly injured Vision fighting grey, armored figures with glowing blades. Maggie worked with Bruce in the Avengers common room on a holoscreen, flicking through satellite readings and energy readings as the ball of anxiety in her stomach coiled tighter and tighter. She kept coming up empty and was pacing nervously across the room when they got a text on the flip phone:

On our way.

Maggie, Rhodey, and Bruce convened in the common room ten minutes before Rhodey's next scheduled call with the Accords Committee. Rhodey read the text on the flip phone, pinched the bridge of his nose, and after a long moment looked up at Maggie.

"Decision time, huh?" He sat on one of the dark leather couches, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked tired.

Maggie bit her lip. "Seems that way."

He sighed. "Good airman, good person. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to choose between the two."

"This doesn't have to be your fight, Rhodey." She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "I can take it. Ross hates me anyway, and he won't be surprised by me defecting."

Rhodey shook his head and lifted one arm to wrap her in a hug. "This is everyone's fight, Maggie." He sighed again. "Alright. We'll keep the Committee on the hook as long as we can so they don't suspect anything's up. We don't need them getting in the way."

Maggie nodded, and Rhodey stood up with a whir of his exosuit. He flashed Bruce a grim smile, then strode out to the workspace adjoining the common room where he'd been taking most of the Committee calls.

Bruce watched him go. "Things got really bad after I left, didn't they?"

Maggie got to her feet. "And now you're back, and look how great things are!" His face clouded, and she shook her head. "I'm joking, sorry. All this is just… political bullshit. It doesn't matter anymore." Her throat closed up. Everything she'd been worrying about for months, all the thought she'd put into this issue… in the end, it didn't matter. Not with the threat looming beyond their atmosphere.

She cocked her head at Bruce. "You look hungry. You want some earth food, doctor?"

He waved a hand. "We should work-"

"Soon enough Steve is going to show up here and we're going to stage a mutiny, I get the feeling you're not going to see a lot of rest time after that happens. Let me get you something to eat."

Bruce's tired eyes met hers, and she watched a small smile flicker at his mouth. He looked small, perched on the edge of the table wearing clothes just half a size too big for him. He didn't seem like he was used to receiving much kindness. "Alright," he said. "Thanks." She turned to go, but he hadn't finished speaking. "You know, you remind me of Tony." She froze, and looked slowly over her shoulder. He gave her a wry smile. "Always trying to look after me."

She couldn't bring herself to return the smile. "He's coming back."

"Oh, I know. I was there the last time he went to space trying to save the world. Didn't think he was coming back." Bruce shrugged, and Maggie recalled the footage of Iron Man disappearing into a shimmering wormhole. "I don't underestimate Tony anymore."

Maggie nodded, trying to squash down the hope that bloomed in her gut at those words. "I'll go get you some food. Be right back." She slipped out a back exit of the common room, contemplating Bruce's absolute faith in Tony's ability to pull off another miracle.

When Maggie crept back from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal (sue her, she didn't have time to cook), she heard the sound of Ross's frustrated voice echoing down a hallway. Keeping her footsteps silent on the cool cement floor, she slid down the hallway and tucked herself in a corner just outside the glass and metal workspace where Rhodey stood talking to the Committee. Her left metal bracelet vibrated, signalling that F.R.I.D.A.Y. wanted to speak to her, but she tapped the bracelet to silence the alert. She folded herself in shadows and silence the way she had since she was a child, and tipped her head back to listen.

"You know they're only criminals because you've chosen to call them that, right sir?" Rhodey snapped. Maggie set Bruce's cereal down on a nearby counter.

"My god, Rhodes, your talent for horse shit rivals my own," Ross drawled back.

"If it weren't for those Accords, Vision would've been right here."

There was a pause, and Maggie shifted slightly so she could peer through the glass wall of the room. Ross stood up from the table of suited, busily working holographic men, and circled toward Rhodey.

"I remember your signature on those papers, Colonel," Ross warned. His eyebrows were heavy over his dark eyes.

"That's right," Rhodey murmured. He took a step forward to meet Ross's holographic form in the center of the room, and his exosuit whirred. "And I'm pretty sure I paid for that." He crossed his arms.

"You have second thoughts?" God, Maggie hated Ross's stupid face.

"Not anymore." Maggie could only see half of Rhodey's face, but the conviction in his expression made her own metal-reinforced spine straighten.

Footsteps echoed to Rhodey's left, and Maggie tilted her head further to see who had just strode into the main doorway of the workroom. She had to slap her hand over her mouth to contain the soft gasp she let out when not only Steve but Natasha, Wanda, Sam and Vision strode with purpose through the glass doors, fully armed and without an ounce of fear on their faces. They looked darker than the last time she'd seen them – the colors in Steve's suit were blacked out, and a grim expression lined his bearded face. Nat wore a new darker suit and had gone blonde, Wanda and Sam looked older and more serious than the last time she'd seen them, and Vision… Vision clutched his side, pain flickering on his face. Maggie wanted to burst into the room, but couldn't seem to move at all.

She felt a flicker of… not disappointment, exactly, but… she'd wondered if Bucky might have been with Steve.

"Mr Secretary," Steve acknowledged in a deadpan voice.

Ross stared at the fugitive Avengers, his formidable anger already sparking in the air around him as he strode toward them. Rhodey, who'd not moved a muscle, looked over his shoulder and met Maggie's eye through the glass as if he'd known she was there the whole time. He raised his eyebrows at her, and then turned back to watch Ross approach the new arrivals.

"You've got some nerve," Ross said, his voice low. "I'll give you that."

"You could use some of that right now," Natasha replied evenly.

Ross turned to Steve. "The world's on fire. And you think… all's forgiven?"

"I'm not looking for forgiveness." Steve looked down at the Secretary of State with all the gravity of a hundred year old man who'd seen too much war. He looked like a dark wraith of Captain America. "And I'm way past asking for permission." His voice was soft, but the steel there was unmistakable. "Earth just lost her best defender. So we're here to fight." He took two deliberate steps forward. "If you want to stand in our way… we'll fight you too."

Ross met Steve's unflinching eyes for a few moments before turning back to Rhodey. "Arrest them."

"All over it," Rhodey nodded. He reached up, activated the holo-call settings, and promptly hung up on Ross. Ross and the rest of the holographic Committee faded away, leaving nothing in the room but work-strewn benches, the concrete floor, and Rhodey. Maggie's gut churned.

When the soft beep signalling the end of the call sounded, Rhodey spread his hands. "That's a court martial." Maggie watched the realization settle on his face as he met Steve's gaze, heavy for a moment. He'd made his choice. Good person. But then he smiled, and the gravity fell away. "It's great to see you, Cap."

Rhodey and Steve moved toward each other to shake hands, eyes glinting, and Romanoff strode forward with a smile – all with the look of old friends reuniting. Maggie found it within herself to move again. She didn't step into the workroom – not yet, something about the enormity of the situation and Rhodey's mutiny had brought back old instincts of hide, avoid. She was drawn to the pain on Vision's face, though, so she slipped through the corridors outside the workroom to circle behind the newcomers. She couldn't see them anymore, but she heard Rhodey inform the fugitive Avengers that they looked like crap, and Sam's retort about hotel rooms.

"I think you look great," came Bruce's voice, and Maggie slipped into the room behind Wanda, Vision and Sam just as everyone turned to watch Bruce step into the light.

Bruce cleared his throat and fiddled with his sleeves. "Uh…" he let out a half laugh. "Yeah, I'm back."

Maggie smiled to herself, waiting a few feet away from where Vision stood supported by Wanda and Sam. She hadn't seen most of these people in well over a year, and it felt so strange to see them together again. It reminded her how new she was to this team – she'd barely exchanged ten words with some of them.

"Hi Bruce," said Nat, a strange note to her voice that Maggie had never heard before.

Bruce's face twisted, and he held his arms across his stomach. He nodded. "Nat."

A long moment passed. Sam tilted his head toward Vision and Wanda and murmured: "This is awkward."

Maggie hovered uncertainly. She'd wanted to slip into the conversation naturally, instead of this creeping around in the shadows, but now it had been too long and there was something going on here that she clearly didn't understand.

Thankfully Steve broke the moment when he looked around, frowned, and then asked: "Where's Maggie?"

Rhodey huffed a laugh. "Oh, she's hiding."

"I'm not hiding," Maggie automatically retorted, striding out of the shadows. Sam and the others flinched and jerked around at the sound of her voice so close behind them, and Rhodey rolled his eyes at her. Maggie slipped around Wanda and reached out to Vision, looking from the odd glowing wound in his gut to the way he couldn't stand without help, and up to his pain-pinched eyes. Ignoring Sam's mutterings about spies and heart attacks she cocked her head at Vision, eyes full of worry.

Vision gave her a small smile, and though she could see he was in pain Maggie suddenly realized that this was forgiveness – whatever had soured between them was all water under the bridge.

Once she'd satisfied herself that her best friend was not about to die immediately, Maggie took a step back. Wanda eyed her curiously, and Sam seemed to have gotten over his shock and was now beaming at her.

"Hey stranger," she smiled back and leaned in to give him a quick hug.

"Long time no see," he replied, his eyes warm when she pulled away. He looked well, all things considered, wearing a new uniform and with that familiar steady friendliness in his face.

"Not as long as some," Maggie remarked. With that she turned around to the others: Steve and Natasha watching her closely from beside Rhodey, and Bruce watching the exchange with a quirked brow across the room.

Maggie nodded. "Hey guys."

Steve smiled, his thumbs tucked into his belt. "Maggie. You look good."

Bruce piped up: "Wait, you know these guys?"

Maggie shrugged, realizing she'd mostly skimmed over her own interactions with the Avengers when she'd given him the bare bones of what had happened to the team two years ago. "Kind of," she explained. She shifted her feet. "Beat most of them up at one point or another."

Natasha snorted. "You wish."

Maggie grinned at her. "Hey, Widow. I like your hair."

"Wyvern. I caught your trial."

"You were on trial?" Bruce queried, his voice high.

She shrugged again. "I guess so."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"Thanos? Imminent end of the world?" She looked around at everyone once more and waved a hand. "Come on, we can't stand around in here all day."

Maggie fussed over Vision as they all made their way into the common room (pausing just long enough to pass Bruce his now-mushy bowl of cereal, which he wolfed down gratefully).

Vision was weak and in clearly in pain from his injury, but his mind seemed to be somewhere else. "I'll be alright," he murmured with a thin smile, and limped toward the window looking out over the courtyard. Maggie and Wanda exchanged a look, but then someone softly called Maggie's name.

She turned and saw Steve standing over by the main table, one hand on his hip and the other resting against the back of a chair. His brows were pinched together as he looked at her.

"Hey Steve," she said, pacing towards him.

"Hi." He managed a smile. "How are you doing?"

She wondered how he managed to get his eyes to convey so much empathy. Perhaps he'd always been that way. She straightened her spine. "I'll be fine. I just want to get to work and stop this Thanos guy."

"Right, right. Of course." Steve nodded quickly and looked away.

Maggie sighed. "Steve." He looked back at her. "I'm sorry, sometimes I still struggle with not sounding like a robot. I'm not telling you to back off. I just… can't talk about Tony right now. Is that alright?"

Some of the tension that had been coiling in his shoulders dropped away, and he nodded. "Of course it is." His eyes warmed. "It's good to see you, by the way. In person, at least. I've been seeing plenty of you in the news."

Maggie cocked her head and smiled. She'd never actually had much of a conversation with Steve, now she thought about it. Last time they'd seen each other she'd been slumped and bloody in the snow of Siberia as he and Bucky staggered away from her. And here they were, standing together at the edge of the Avengers common room, chatting. "It's good to see you too. I want to thank you, by the way."

He frowned. "What for?"

"For everything you've done for me in the past months. It hasn't gone unnoticed."

Steve's serious expression broke into a small smile. "Well, I promised Buck I'd look out for you." Maggie felt her heart squeeze almost painfully in her chest – she didn't miss the way Steve's eyes flicked over her face, as if searching for something. He smiled at whatever he found and continued: "I'd have done it anyway, though. I'm just sorry I couldn't do more."

Without a thought, Maggie reached out and put her hand on Steve's shoulder. His eyes widened incrementally. "You're a good friend, Steve."

His eyes went even wider.

Sam strolled behind them, juggling a football between his hands. "Cap, we're ready."

"Right." Steve gave Maggie one more small smile, and then she watched that other expression roll over his face: granite and Vibranium, the Captain's face. "Alright everyone, approximately six hours ago two inter-dimensional combatants infiltrated Edinburgh city to attack Vision and Wanda…"

Maggie slipped past Steve as he began his briefing, circling around to stand beside Rhodey. A hologram materialized in the middle of the table: two hulking, armored figures with cruel faces and sharp blades. Maggie's glut clenched at the sight of them looming over Vision, whose face was wrenched in pain, and even though it was only a hologram of a past event the sight made her blood boil. She stood absolutely still, her arms crossed and her face a hard mask.

The others stood in a rough half circle around the table, faces grim and body language tense. Sam rolled a football around his hands. Bruce couldn't seem to stop moving – he circled the table restlessly, his brow furrowed as he listened.

According to Steve and Wanda the aliens hadn't said much, but their intent was clear.

"They'll do anything to get to the stone," Maggie murmured, once Steve described the way the aliens had vanished back up to their spacecraft.

Beside her, Rhodey looked up from the hologram. "So we've gotta assume they're coming back, right?"

"And they can clearly find us," Wanda added, her gaze fixed on the hologram. There was something dark in her eyes.

Maggie cleared her throat. "From what I can tell, the Stones emit their own distinct energy signature – back in 2012, Dr Banner located the Tesseract on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. by tracing its unique gamma radiation emission." Dr Banner nodded as he circled behind Maggie, tapping his fingers against his mouth. "Based on the evidence I'd say that Thanos and his generals have ways of tracking Stones if they know approximately where to look."

Steve frowned. "Approximately?"

Maggie spread her hands. "Earth."

"We need all hands on deck," Bruce said, finally stopping his anxious pacing around the room. "Where's Clint?" He looked to Natasha.

"After the whole Accords situation he and Scott took a deal, it was too tough on their families. They're on house arrest." Natasha stood the furthest away from the table, in the shadows of the room. She seemed stiff, uncomfortable, and Maggie felt a flicker of sadness when she remembered that this used to be her home.

Bruce's brow furrowed further. "Who's Scott?"

"Ant Man," Steve explained.

"There's an Ant Man and a Spider-Man?"

Rhodey closed his eyes in a long-suffering manner, and Maggie leaned over to knock her shoulder against his.

"Okay, look," Bruce said, planting his feet and spreading his hands. "Thanos has the biggest army in the universe." He looked around the room, determination in his eyes as he glanced from Avenger to Avenger. He met Maggie's gaze for a moment and her heart skipped a beat – those were the eyes of a man who knew what the end of the world looked like. The eyes of a man who'd faced Thanos. "And he is not going to stop until he gets…" Bruce's gaze flickered downwards. "Vision's Stone."

Maggie turned her head to look at Vision but found herself instead looking at Wanda. Maximoff was staring right at her, as if she could sense the way Maggie's swirling anxiety had spiked at Bruce's statement – which, Maggie realized a second later, she could. Maggie met Wanda's dark eyes and nodded. I'll do anything it takes to protect him. Wanda returned the nod, and something like thanks flickered in her eyes.

Natasha stepped out of the shadows. "Well then we have to protect it."

"No, we have to destroy it."

Maggie whipped around to see Vision gazing out the window with that look on his face, the look she was pretty sure he got from Tony, and her gut lurched.

"Vision, shut up," she blurted before he could say another word. Everyone glanced at her, and she could see that Vision's meaning hadn't really sunk in for them yet – they just looked confused.

But Vision did not shut up. "I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head, about its… nature. But also its composition." Vision looked up finally, to Wanda's dark and serious eyes. He began to explain his plan as he walked across the room toward her, and Maggie watched him go, her heart shriveling. Her eyes tracked up to the glowing Stone set in his forehead – she'd wondered about it, of course, but it just seemed so small compared to the rest of him. He was Vision. Not a Stone.

"If it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something very similar to its own signature, perhaps… its molecular integrity could fail," Vision finished on a whisper.

"Yeah, and you with it," Wanda murmured back, fear glinting in her eyes. "We're not having this conversation."

Maggie could see the love between them as they whispered, how it gleamed in their eyes and softened their words even as they fought over Vision's life. Vision's low, urgent voice was hushed, as if they were the only two in the room. It broke her heart.

"That's too high a price," Wanda urged.

Maggie tore her eyes away from them to stare fixedly at Steve. When he sensed her gaze and looked up, she shook her head just once. Please don't let this happen.

Vision cradled Wanda's head in his hands. "Only you have the power to pay it."

Steve looked down.

Rhodey's hand landed on Maggie's shoulder and she realized that she was gripping the back of the chair in front of her so hard it was beginning to crumple. One by one, she peeled her fingers away. She couldn't meet Rhodey's eyes.

"Thanos threatens half the universe," Vision said in a louder voice, as Wanda had pulled away from him. "One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him."

"But it should." Maggie's head snapped sideways again. Steve looked up, and this time a determined certainty had resolved his features. "We don't trade lives, Vision."

Something loosened in Maggie's chest, even as Vision turned on Steve and urged him to change his mind. She wanted to fight with Vision, shake him and yell at him until he saw sense, but he was difficult to reason with when it came to the 'logical choices'. Instead, she looked over to Bruce. He was watching Vision try to persuade Steve, just like the rest of them, but there was the light of an idea gleaming in his eyes.

Vision seemed almost frustrated as he reasoned with Steve: "You laid down your life to save how many millions of people, tell me – why is this any different?"

"Because," Bruce answered for Steve, "You might have a choice." Everyone's heads turned to the scientist. "Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays: J.A.R.V.I.S., Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone. All of them mixed together, all of them learning from one another."

Maggie stepped forward unconsciously. She'd almost forgotten that Vision was made, not born. It was easy to forget because he was a person to her, her friend. Her fingertips tingled as she realized what Bruce was suggesting.

Wanda spoke up: "You're saying Vision isn't just the Stone?"

"I'm saying that… if we take out the Stone, there still a whole lot of Vision left – perhaps the best parts."

Maggie paced towards Bruce as he spoke, her mind whirling with possibility. Across the room, Sam quirked his brow at her.

"Can we do that?" Natasha asked.

"We don't have the technology here," Maggie cut in. Bruce jumped a little and looked over his shoulder at her. "Work of that level… I'm not even sure if it's possible." It reminded her of how she'd struggled over the problem of removing her trigger words – how to remove a part of herself without damaging the rest. She looked to Bruce to confirm.

He shook his head. "Not me, not here."

"Well you better find someone and somewhere fast," Rhodey said. "Ross isn't just gonna let you guys have your old rooms back."

"We can deal with Ross," Maggie said. "It's the aliens tracking the Stone we need to worry about."

A silence fell. Maggie thought of the one person she wished she could ask about this, somewhere in space with no one but a kidnapped wizard and a teenage superhero for help. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Wanda reach out to Vision.

"I know somewhere." Everyone's heads swung once more to Steve. He glanced around at them, and Maggie could have sworn that his eyes lingered on her a little longer than on the others.

His shoulders straightened. "Wakanda."

The breath left Maggie's chest without a sound.

She wasn't afraid. She wasn't, but for some reason her body seemed to think she was: the blood rushed from her face, her heartrate doubled, and her palms started sweating.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat.

Bruce was the first to break the ringing silence that followed. "What the hell is Wakanda?"

Ten minutes later, Maggie was in the workshop stuffing weapon prototypes into a duffel bag when the doors slid open with a whir. She knew it was probably just Rhodey or Steve coming to tell her to hurry up and get on the Quinjet already, but the familiar sound made her eyes squeeze shut – for half a second she'd assumed it was Tony.

But when three seconds passed and the newcomer said nothing, Maggie glanced over her shoulder – and froze.

Pepper stood just inside the workshop doors, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared across the room at Maggie. Exhausted lines creased her face, and her lip was bitten raw. From the look in her eyes, Maggie knew she'd already seen the others.

Pepper let out a breath. "You're leaving."

Maggie slowly rose to her feet, lifting the duffel bag of weapons on her shoulder. She'd already donned her nanotech uniform. She nodded.

Pepper didn't cry that often, and she didn't cry now either. At Maggie's admission her chin lifted and her shoulders straightened, somehow fierce and scared at the same time. Maggie walked across the workshop and pulled the other woman into a tight hug. Pepper's wiry arms squeezed her back.

"He'll come back," Maggie murmured. "You just watch. He'll come in flying his own custom-made spaceship, asking for cheeseburgers."

Pepper laughed into Maggie's shoulder. "One last surprise?"

"What makes you think he'd stop with one?"

Pepper leaned back and fixed Maggie with a fierce look. "You better be here when he gets back. Stay safe."

"I will."

Pepper scrutinized Maggie's face, and after a moment her keen blue eyes widened. "You're going to see him, aren't you?"

Maggie swallowed. They both knew exactly who Pepper meant. Her fingers drifted up to the shape of the Kimoyo bead under her armor, and she carefully nodded. "I think so."

Pepper reached out and squeezed her hand. "Watch each other's backs."

Maggie could only nod.

The workshop doors slid open once more to reveal Natasha, her hands loose by her sides. Her expression didn't falter when she saw Pepper and Maggie clutching each other's hands, a few seconds away from tears.

"We're leaving in two minutes," Natasha said evenly, before flashing a smile at Pepper and whirling away again. From the answering smile on Pepper's face, Maggie assumed they'd already spoken.

Maggie cleared her throat and shifted the duffel strap further up her shoulder. "See you on the other side, Pepper."

Pepper stepped out of the way of the doors. "Go be an Avenger."

Maggie tossed a jaunty salute Pepper's way, strode through the workshop doors, and a moment later she was gone.

Wakanda

When King T'Challa and his retinue appeared over the grassy hill overlooking his hut, Bucky dusted off his hand and straightened to meet them. He'd been expecting them ever since those two words had come chiming through his Kimoyo bead.

Mercury.

Lilacs.

Wakanda had been on some kind of lock-down for the last few hours, meaning Bucky couldn't access the world news headlines. He could only assume that the lock-down, and the grim look on King T'Challa's face, had something to do with the warning Meg had sent. When T'Challa approached, Bucky nodded in greeting.

T'Challa nodded back. One of his attendants set down a patterned metal box on one of the nearby hay pallets, opened it with a whir, and then stepped back to stand at attention. One of Bucky's goats bleated in the distance.

As Bucky strode towards the box, he felt T'Challa and the female general's eyes on his face, and distantly reflected that they were concerned he'd react badly to whatever this was. He stepped up to the box, looked down, and… shit. He reached up to touch the Kimoyo bead hanging around his neck.

Mercury.

Lilacs.

Whatever Meg had warned him about, it wasn't just in the States. This was everywhere.

He clenched his jaw, staring down at the finely-made black and gold arm. "Where's the fight?"

T'Challa met his eyes. "On its way."