Chapter 75

April passed in relative quiet. Maggie and Peter met once every two weeks for a training session, where he impressed her with his growing tactical and strategic knowledge, and his quick thinking in combat. She suspected that in a few years Peter might be one of the most formidable Avengers. She told him so one weekend and he went scarlet, stammering something about he wasn't an Avenger. "Sure, Peter," she said, and left it at that.

Tony sometimes came to watch their training sessions, chiming in with comments that varied from supremely unhelpful to surprisingly useful. Tony knew more about what it meant to actually be an Avenger, after all, so he was the best one to tell Peter about working in a team and managing world-threatening events. Maggie focused on one-on-one combat, self-defense, and stealth.

Maggie had found herself the sudden owner of many responsibilities – HERACLES, her various philanthropic funds, her involvement with international agencies and organisations, and her engineering work. That kept her busy enough, but she still felt like there was something missing. She missed Bucky, of course, but there was something else. She felt like she wasn't doing enough.

So she went flying in her free time. She trained with her new wings, testing their limits and going for extended flights across the state (with F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s help to stay hidden). She'd never been able to fly free like this, just her and the sky. She saw the sights that the state of New York had to offer, and a few times flew out to the ocean to marvel at the glinting, undulating ocean and the tiny ships below. Aside from a few near-misses with birds, she was never spotted in the sky.

Sometimes Vision came with her, and they flew together above the clouds. Once, she and Tony tested out their new gear by having a race across the length of the facility. Tony won, thanks to his stupid armor protecting him from stupid extreme g-forces. As she snarked at him and proved herself to be just as much of a sore loser as her brother, Maggie idly thought about designing some kind of suit that would protect her when she needed to go beyond a certain g-force, or if she found herself in extreme heat or in an environment with no oxygen. Something to think about, whispered the part of her brain that was determined to rebel against the Accords.

May 1st, 2017

Avengers Facility, Upstate New York

"Maggie, let's talk about dresses for the Incident Memorial event."

"Let's talk about what for the what now?"

Pepper looked up from her Stark Pad and narrowed her eyes. "Tony didn't tell you."

Maggie, reclined on the couch with her fingers wrapped around a PlayStation controller, stared. "I guess not."

Rhodey paused their game (she was beating him) and sighed. "Of course he didn't. In three days it's the New York Incident anniversary – five years since aliens came out of a hole in the sky."

Maggie put down her controller. "Oh."

"Yes," Pepper said, with a bite of annoyance in her voice. "I told Tony to tell you, but I'm not sure why I didn't realize that wouldn't make it through the haze of" – she made a flapping gesture with her hands – "science."

"So… there's some kind of event?"

"There's a memorial service in the morning in Midtown, run by the mayor. There's usually thousands of people there, and there'll be speeches, memorials, that sort of thing." Pepper bit her lip. "Normally it's also been an opportunity for the public to see the Avengers, but…" she trailed off, and Maggie sat back in her seat.

Right. This would be the first Incident anniversary since the Avengers broke up. She thought about it, and realized that Tony would be the only Avenger in attendance who had actually been there at the Incident. The others were… who knows where.

Maggie closed her eyes. "This is going to suck, isn't it."

"Probably," Rhodey said heavily. "But I doubt anyone's going to bring it up. And Tony's not going to give a speech this year. It should mostly be focused on first responders and the victims."

Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay. So what do I need a dress for?"

"Right," Pepper said. "After the memorial service in the morning the city is going to hold a gala celebrating the first responders – again, that used to be pretty Avengers-focused – and we've all got invites."

Maggie frowned. "Even me?"

"Even you. So you need a dress."

"Pepper, are you sure that's a good idea?"

"You're in the public eye now Maggie, whether you like it or not. I think it would be good for you to be there."

"Why."

"Well for one, it's always a good idea to network, especially since you're fashioning yourself into some kind of… philanthropist slash activist slash entrepreneur." Pepper raised her eyebrows at Maggie's grimace. "And I know that we would all like to have you with us." Pepper turned to Rhodey, and he nodded.

"They're all gonna be pretending they don't see my exosuit, it'd be good to have someone there who doesn't treat me like a tragic cripple."

Maggie sighed. "Wow, you're really bringing out the big guns. Fine, I'll come."

"Great!" Pepper said brightly. "Well I assume you haven't put any thought into what to wear, then?"

"Jeans."

"No."

"Birthday suit."

Rhodey snorted and choked on air, but Pepper merely raised one fine, strawberry-blonde eyebrow, even as Maggie grinned and waggled her eyebrows at her.

"After everything your brother's said to me you're going to have to try a lot harder than that," she remarked. "I'll take a look at the options we have and come back to you later today. Alright?"

"Alright."

Pepper left, and Maggie turned to Rhodey. "Let's get back to the game. I'm about to treat you like a tragic gamer."

"Bring it on, Stark."

May 4th, 2017

Novotel Hotel, Times Square, New York City

After a predictably sad, moving, and uncomfortable memorial service in the morning, in the evening Maggie strode into the hotel's gala ballroom with the last remaining Avengers and Pepper. Tony and Pepper went first, since he was the last original Avenger, followed by Rhodey, Vision, and Maggie.

When they entered the room, heads turned and conversation stopped. It was a huge space packed with people from socialites, to politicians, to emergency services personnel. Beyond the crowd, huge floor-to-ceiling windows showed a spectacular view of Times Square lit up like a neon wonderland against the night.

Maggie took a deep breath. This was her first big public function, if you didn't count being on trial for murder, and the feeling of so many eyes on her made her skin crawl.

The Avengers were dressed to the nines – Tony, Rhodey, and Vision wore tuxedos, which looked a little odd to Maggie, and she and Pepper wore evening gowns. Pepper had picked Maggie's out – a sleeveless floor-length burgundy dress with a neckline lower than anything she was used to wearing, but Pepper had reassured her that it looked great. It covered her back, which was more important. She wore heels, and realized that now she was probably taller than most people in the room (including Tony – he'd grumbled about it when they first got out of the car, but Pepper stood a good head taller than him in her own floor-length green dress and heels and he hadn't had anything bad to say about that). Maggie's hair was pulled into a braided updo that had taken Vision an hour to do (he'd taken an interest in hairstyling since he started creating his own hair), and she wore makeup that she'd applied herself based on her espionage knowledge from HYDRA.

As she stood with the Avengers in front of what felt like all of New York, Maggie noticed looks being cast her way. She shifted uncomfortably, then lifted her chin and silently dared anyone to say anything about her choosing to look beautiful for once. No one did.

Then Tony said "hey Charles, how're you doing?" and the spell broke. Conversation sparked back to life throughout the room, and the Avengers began to mingle.

The first stranger who spoke to Maggie (or rather, saved Maggie, who had been wandering around with a lost look on her face) was a female fire fighter who complimented her on her dress. That started a whole conversation about the weird unspoken fashion rules of galas. It was girl talk, and Maggie felt sad when she was pulled away to talk to a senator.

As she circled the room, pulled into conversations with strangers and making awkward small talk with people her brother and the other Avengers seemed to know, Maggie had flashbacks to Tony's twenty first birthday. Back then she'd felt like she stuck out like a sore thumb, just a kid in the public eye forced to play a part.

Maggie wasn't all that good at diplomacy or hiding her true feelings (Pepper had to physically drag her away from someone who said "but really, should we meddle in human trafficking when American citizens aren't involved?"), but she tried her best. The politicians were a mixed bag, but she liked the socialites the least. They never had anything worth saying, and always seemed to be prying into her privacy.

Then there were the men who ogled. She'd never really understood the term ogle before, given that she'd never really attended this sort of event, but after the third instance of wandering eyes she was having a hard time not resorting to violence. She figured out a way to handle it though. She would narrow her eyes at the offender, thinking violent thoughts, and then they would remember that she was very nearly a convicted mass murderer and they'd scurry away. Her dress was a little revealing, but mostly what it revealed was the corded strength in her arms and the strong line of her shoulders. And her clenched fists.

She kept her back straight, comforted by the knowledge that her wings lay flat and dormant against her skin, and didn't let the wandering eyes or snide allusions to her trial get to her. Her brother had been dealing with this for a lifetime. She could handle it for a night.

Just as she had the thought, she heard Tony's voice. Sipping from a glass of red wine she'd snagged from a waiter, Maggie spun until she spotted him. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, speaking to someone who must be a senator, based on his neatly combed grey hair and the American flag pin on his tuxedo lapel. Maggie worked her way through the crowd toward them.

"– all I'm saying is, you can hardly blame us for being concerned. The Avengers have always been a bit of a wildcard, and with the state of their current shaky leadership…"

Maggie's eyes narrowed as she slid past a circle of socialites. Tony just smiled tightly at the senator.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Harold. And I gotta say, it's a shame that the LLC that funds your re-election campaigns is financially impacted by the Avengers' presence in San Diego, such a bummer they've been caught up in shady dealings with weapons dealers. But of course, you wouldn't let that impact your political decisions."

The senator sneered coldly, shifting his stance and broadening his shoulders so he physically stooped over Tony. Tony just raised his eyebrows, seemingly amused. "Stark, you can't pretend you have much of a hope of keeping your trio of oddities running for much longer than say, a year–"

The senator didn't get a chance to keep insulting Tony, because at that moment Maggie finally made it through the last knot of people and tipped her glass of wine over his shoulder, staining his fresh white shirtfront a deep red.

The senator swore and whirled around, his mouth opening to no doubt snarl out an insult. but when he saw who had done it he hesitated.

Maggie raised her eyebrows at her empty wineglass, then slowly let her eyes track back to the senator's face. "Oh, I'm so clumsy," she deadpanned.

The senator gaped at her, his cheeks flushed red and his eyes wide. Maggie just stared right back. After a long, tense moment, the senator muttered something unflattering under his breath and turned to walk toward the bathroom.

Maggie cleared her throat and carefully set her glass on a nearby table.

"Maggie," Tony said exasperatedly.

"What?"

He shook his head at her. "You don't need to throw your drink at anyone who insults me, Maggot. I can handle myself."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I tripped." Tony rolled his eyes, but couldn't quite conceal the small smile on his face.

She winked at him. "I need another drink. Do you think they'd look at me weird if I did shots? I want to show all these gross old men that I can outdrink them."

Tony took her by the elbow. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but please don't do shots. Ugh, you're just as bad as me. C'mon, I'll get you a Long Island Iced Tea. That'll show 'em." He escorted her toward the bar. "By the way, Maggie, since I didn't say earlier – you look…" he waved his free hand at her, while not actually looking at her. "Nice."

She grinned at him. "Nice?"

"I'm trying something, don't shoot me down."

"Okay, okay. Thanks, Tony. You're not so bad yourself."

A camera flash nearly blinded Maggie as they made their way to the bar, and she resignedly realized that that photo would probably be splashed all over the papers tomorrow – she and Tony, arm in arm, grinning like they were thick as thieves.

There were worse cover photos, she supposed.

She and Tony mostly stuck together for the rest of the night. People seemed to be a little nicer to Maggie when she was by Tony's side (perhaps worried that Iron Man might obliterate them if they insulted his little sister), and Maggie was surprised at the amount of people who came up to say how pleased they were to see the Stark family reunited again, or to congratulate Maggie on the outcome of her trial. "We always believed in you," said one police officer, with a determined nod.

Of course, then some bright spark of a DJ decided to play an instrumental version of Can't Help Falling In Love With You. The instant Maggie recognized the melody she froze up and lost track of the conversation she was in. Her mind traveled back to a dance hall in Darwin, to Bucky's steady hands and glittering grey-blue eyes. To her hand sliding across his shoulder and up his neck to cradle his jaw, to the nerves and joy pounding a rhythm in her chest.

"Maggie? What's wrong?"

She blinked at Tony's question. "Nothing," she gasped. "I'm going to go… be… over there." And with that she stepped out of the conversation and fled.

Tony called after her, concern in his voice even as he attempted a joke: "What, you don't like Elvis?"

Maggie knew she couldn't leave without making people talk, so she fled to the furthest corner of the room, where the wall met the window looking out over Times Square.

Without the words the song was sad, and sweet, and tugged at the deep ache in her chest. She touched the Kimoyo bead, tucked just below the neckline of her dress.

Meg, are you sure? He'd asked, sounding completely overwhelmed as his heartbeat pounded under her fingers.

Pretty damn sure. She'd never been so sure about anything in her life than she had about that moment. Maggie touched her lips, and pressed her other hand to the cool glass as she looked out at the flashing lights of Times Square. Wish you were here.

She sighed. She'd tell him about this moment, when she got a chance to use the Kimoyo bead. It wasn't the same as having him here, not by a long shot, but she still had him. She'd tell him about how she'd heard the song and thought of their first kiss, fumbling and full of laughter, and then she'd send the message while picturing him in his little mud hut with its view of the lake. One day.

After a few minutes Maggie composed herself enough to mingle again, but she didn't bother trying to get along with people she didn't like any longer. Tony found her fifteen minutes later in the middle of a tipsy, raucously laughing group of police, fire, and ambulance workers, listening to their stories about weirdos they'd met on the job.

At the end of the night, Tony and Maggie found themselves alone on the roof of the hotel. with a brilliant view overlooking Times Square. Rhodey and Vision had left the event hours ago, but Tony for some reason had felt a compunction to stay.

"Are you okay?" Maggie asked, kicking off her shoes as she strode toward the balcony at the edge of the roof. Tony was already there, elbows leaning against the balcony and his face illuminated red by a nearby Coca Cola ad.

"Sure, why shouldn't I be?" he said distractedly, his eyes turned up to what used to be Avengers Tower. He'd undone his tuxedo a little, and Maggie could see the triangular blue light of his arc reactor shining through his undershirt.

She sighed and leaned against the balcony beside him. "Because five years ago today you saved the world, just a few hundred feet up there." She nodded at the dark sky. "And you didn't do it alone." She let the words hang. She didn't have to be too on-the-nose, there was a mural of the six original Avengers illuminated in neon on the other side of the square.

Tony's eyes dropped from the Tower and he turned to her. "I dunno, Maggie. A lot's changed in five years."

"I know. I'm alive, for one."

"A decided improvement." He smirked, then turned to look back out at Times Square. "Sometimes I wish…" his jaw clenched, and then he shook his head and sighed.

"What?"

He shrugged. "People used to hail us as this well-oiled engine of a team back then, because we came together and saved the world. But even then we were fighting amongst ourselves. We almost didn't work things out in time."

Maggie chewed her lip. "But you did."

"Yeah, and then we worked really well together for a time, but it just… When you've got a whole bunch of people who take the world on their shoulders, that's a heavy weight to bear. It all fell apart again." Maggie thought to herself it wasn't too much to bear when you carried it together, but she didn't say it, because that was a pain he didn't need. Tony spread his hands. "And now here I am."

"Here you are," she echoed. "What were you about to wish for just now?"

The corner of his mouth tipped up. "Maybe a second chance? For all of us."

She took in a deep breath. "That'd be nice." She cocked her head. "Do you think we'll get one?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I'm worried about what that second chance might mean for the world, though." He dropped his head, and Maggie could see that he was done talking about things still too painful for him to dwell on. "Anyway," he continued. "How was tonight? You're not too scarred?"

Her nose wrinkled. "People are confusing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She made an aborted gesture with her hand. "They shake their heads when they mean no, but sometimes they mean yes, and sometimes they don't know! And sometimes you're meant to know what people are thinking just from a look, and I don't, because no one ever taught me how. People never say what they mean, Tony, and it drives me freaking crazy." He was smiling at her, though he looked a little sad, and Maggie let the words she'd been thinking all night spill out. "I got taught how to be a person by a ninety seven year old recovering assassin who barely remembered how to be a person himself." Tony's face abruptly shuttered, but he didn't look angry. Maybe just startled that she'd brought it up. "I've picked up a lot from watching movies, and watching people, and just from goddamn context clues, but… the world is confusing, and that makes it terrifying. Sometimes I Just want to hide in my room and scream. I feel like an alien trying to assimilate."

Tony watched her with dark, empathetic eyes. "Well I think it's about time you found out…" he leaned in and whispered: "You are actually an alien. Mom and dad found you in a grounded UFO in 1986–" Maggie scoffed and shoved him, sending him stumbling half a step back with a laugh.

"You're such an asshole."

"Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry it's hard for you Mags, but honestly that's a problem you face as a Stark, not just as a recovering robot assassin. I didn't exactly have a normal upbringing, and I don't want to alarm you, but some people have told me that I can be offputting."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Fine. We'll both be aliens then."

Tony raised his hand, holding his fingers together in an odd configuration – thumb out, second and third fingers together, fourth and fifth finger together. "Agreed."

"What are you doing with your hand?"

"C'mon, it's the Vulcan salute! Spock?"

"You're saying words, but I don't know what they mean."

"Are you telling me Rhodey hasn't shown you Star Trek yet? That's criminal. We're watching it as soon as we get back."

"Alright," she said with a shrug. "Hey, if the press doesn't clear out soon I could fly us a few buildings over and we could get out that way."

Tony shot finger guns at her. "I like the way you think, Spock. Live long and prosper."

"What?"

New York Times Headline: Stark Solidarity: the Iron Avenger and the Wyvern pay their respects at Battle of New York 5th Anniversary Memorial Event. (picture: side-by-side images of Tony and Maggie laying lilies at the shrine to victims of the Incident. The image is accompanied by a photograph of them at the gala event, Tony in his sharp tux with his jaw set, and Maggie in her deep red gown with a look of determination in her eye).

May, 2017

Avengers Facility, Upstate New York

A few weeks later Maggie found herself in the Avengers operations room, helping a pair of analysts with their investigation into a weapons-dealing anarchist group that had some pretty high tech gear. She showed the agents new ways of tracking custom parts for weapons that wouldn't appear on any legit sales records, dimly aware that she and the analysts were not alone in hunting for this group – at some point the group (the Weaponeers, they called themselves) had gotten serious enough to warrant becoming the Avengers #1 Most Wanted (well, aside from the fugitive Avengers. But Maggie wasn't going to help find them).

In the end it was a series of small mistakes that led to the accident.

The first mistake was Maggie being in the operations room to begin with, but it had become so normal for her to be in there helping out with one case or another that no one thought twice about it. Second was her not paying attention to the situation as word came in of the Weaponeers about to attack a government complex in Zanzibar, and the investigation suddenly became the start of a mission. Third was Tony and the other Avengers forgetting that she wasn't supposed to be in the room. Fourth was the agent who (though they were technically doing their job), approved a holographic call from the Accords Committee to get permission to run the mission.

Maggie didn't take note of these compounding mistakes until she looked up from leaning over someone's computer to hear Secretary Ross's booming voice.

"What the hell is your sister doing there, Stark?"

The room fell silent. Agents in the middle of obtaining vital intel for the mission looked up from their screens to glance from the holographic projection of the Accords Committee, including a visibly incensed Secretary Ross, to a deer-in-the-headlights Maggie. The other members of the Accords Committee frowned at her, and the Avengers glanced at one another in panic.

"She's been helping track the Weaponeers," Tony eventually said, breaking the silence. The agents and analysts in the room turned back to their work, very studiously not looking at the hologram. "She's the best digital tracker we've got, Ross, we wouldn't have half the intel we have now if not for her."

"That's not a goddamn answer," Ross snarled. "You know very well that she's not approved to be a part of Avengers operations. Everyone in that room knows that." All around the room, analysts exchanged glances. "So please explain to me why apparently everyone on the Avengers staff is comfortable with breaking the Accords?"

"We're sorry sir," Rhodey said, stepping up because Tony looked like he was about to say something he'd regret. "We should have done this the right way. But this mission is going down now and we need to get clearance–"

Ross waved a hand. "You've got it, Zanzibar's begging for the help. You can suit up."

Another man on the Accords Committee spoke up. "What about these" – he looked down at his notes – "'electronic scramblers' that the Weaponeers have?"

Vision stepped forward. "The Weaponeers are equipped with advanced and highly powered weapons, and it appears that each agent is also equipped with these scramblers – each one gives the user immense capacity to hack into and corrupt nearby digital systems including surveillance cameras, electronic finances, security measures, and potentially even the Iron Man and War Machine armors."

Another committee member frowned. "That seems like a problem."

"I will attempt to disrupt the scramblers," Vision said, "though we are uncertain of their effect on me. F.R.I.D.A.Y. will also do her part, assisted by the analysts back here at the facility – they've had some practice locating and shutting down the scramblers, but not much. If we are unable to combat the scramblers digitally then we will have to track down each agent and destroy their devices manually."

"And you think you'll be able to do this?" Ross said.

"We're about to find out," Tony said, clearly itching to get moving. "This heist is going down really soon, Ross, and we don't know how long it'll be until they surface again. Those scramblers make tracking them nearly impossible."

Ross narrowed his eyes, but after exchanging a glance with the rest of the committee he nodded once. "Alright, go. And get your sister out of the operations room, we'll talk about that later."

Maggie, who had been standing frozen by the analyst's computer for the duration of the conversation, blinked. "I should stay," she blurted out.

Activity in the room slowed to a crawl once more as everyone turned to look at her. In the holographic projection, Ross put his hands on his hips and scowled.

"Oh I can't wait to hear this," he said. His cold eyes were fixed on her, narrowed as if he could see into her very soul. Maggie suddenly remembered that the last time they'd been in a room together had been during her trial.

She straightened, rolled her shoulders back, and eyed the committee. "This is a rush job, and the Avengers don't know how to deal with the scramblers yet. Vision will do what he can, but he'll be in the thick of the fight. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s great for dealing with electronic interference, and she's great for mass amounts of data and hard facts, but – no offense, F.R.I.D.A.Y. – she's geared towards the artificial. These are people you're dealing with – the Weaponeers agents are lethal with those scramblers, they decide what they're going to mess with and they know how to do it with the worst consequences. That's a level of unpredictability that not even the smartest A.I. can handle. Once they attack they could take down the whole economic structure of Zanzibar, they could take down the whole continent's online world, they even could work their way to United States financial structures. F.R.I.D.A.Y. can try to take them on, but at the end of the day you need a human mind to combat a human mind. I've done more study on these scramblers than anyone, I can help here." She took a breath, staring at the committee. "Let me help."

Ringing silence followed her words. Tony watched her with a knitted brow and a thoughtful look on his face, but he couldn't conceal his worry.

Ross leaned forward to place his hands on his holographic desk. "Leave the room, Ms Stark."

After a few more moments of silence, Maggie's eyes flicked to her brother – his expression now pinched with annoyance – then turned on her heel and walked out. She felt every eye on her back as she did.

She didn't go far once the operations room door slid closed behind her. She threw herself into the nearest seat and stewed, feeling like a scolded student sitting outside the principal's office. She resisted the urge to tear something apart.

Half a minute later the Avengers burst out of the room, no doubt on their way to suit up. Tony nodded to her.

"Gotta go, Mags. You okay?"

"I'll get over it. Be safe, okay? Remember, the neural uplink for those scramblers connects to each agent at the back of the skull – if you want to stop them using the scramblers to mess with stuff you've gotta disconnect that cord. Or blow their head off."

He grinned and swooped in to kiss her cheek. "Noted. And thank you for trying to stay, I know you don't like those guys."

"They should've let you stay," Rhodey said, his face stormy.

"Never mind, just go," Maggie said. She didn't want to start a war between the Avengers and the Accords Committee. They nodded and said a quick goodbye, then ran down the corridor toward the hangar. Maggie sank back into her seat and sighed. Her brother and her friends were off to save the world (or at least part of it) again, and she was left to… sit here. On the annoyingly comfortable grey waiting room chair outside the operations room. She let her head thud against the wall behind her.

To her surprise, ten minutes later an agent she knew – Brett Williams – ducked his head out of the operations room door and spotted her sitting there.

"Oh good, you didn't leave. You can come back in Ms Stark, the Accords Committee just called back to approve hiring you as an analyst for this mission."

She sat up straight. "Are you serious?"

"Yes! Now come in, we need your help. Martins has no idea what to do with that isolation algorithm you were programming."

Maggie didn't need any more convincing. She sprang to her feet and darted into the room after Brett, waving to the analysts who looked up and grinned to see her coming back in. She jogged to Martins' desk and took his holographic screen out of his hands, flicking her algorithm back into order. "You have to anchor this section to the root of the digital scrambler's entry point," she said by way of hello. "Give me updates?"

"Right. Avengers are en-route, they'll be there in…" Martins leaned back in his chair to look at the mission coordination screen in the central hub of the operations room. "Just over an hour. That'll be just as the Weaponeers start their attack, if our intel is right."

"It is," Maggie said distractedly. "Right, Kathleen?"

The agent who'd uncovered the initial tip gave Maggie the thumbs up. "My guy's got good intel."

"Okay," Maggie said. "An hour. That gives us plenty of time to plan our attack on the scramblers. Who's on the team to deal with that?" Maggie, Martins and the other analysts in the immediate vicinity looked to Agent Asfour, the head of the Avengers Intelligence and Analytics Division, where she stood in the central hub.

Agent Asfour heard Maggie's question and looked over. "With the rush this has put us in I haven't assigned anyone yet. Who do you want?"

Maggie blinked. "Who do I want?"

Asfour rolled her eyes. "You said it yourself, you know more about these scramblers than anyone. If we're going to need a team of analysts working to combat them electronically as well as F.R.I.D.A.Y., you should be the one picking your team."

"Right." Maggie rattled off a list of names – she'd worked with all the Avengers agents and analysts, directly or indirectly, so she knew who she could rely on to have the technical knowledge to handle the threat the scramblers faced, in addition to having enough interpersonal intuition to be able to out-think the human minds behind the scramblers. Asfour nodded, and all of a sudden Maggie found herself heading a team. She didn't have time to think too much about it though, because she had less than an hour to work out how they were going to take down the Weaponeers' equipment from over 7000 miles away.

In the back of her mind she turned over the Accords Committee's sudden change of heart, but she didn't really have time to think about that either.

The Avengers landed in Zanzibar just as the Weaponeers' attack began, and in seconds the fight became a loud, chaotic blur of data, explosions, and shouts. The Avengers transmitted video and audio feeds back to the facility, and analysts eyed the feeds in the central hub with trepidation. The Weaponeers packed a lot of firepower.

Maggie didn't have much time to watch the feeds – she and her team fought a battle of their own, remotely looped in to Zanzibar's internet so they could combat the destructive force of the scramblers. The scramblers were a tsunami of data, corrupting and downloading and uploading all at once, wreaking havoc on any systems around them - from cameras to bank accounts to WiFi to traffic lights.

Maggie found herself shrouded in a cascading canopy of holographic data, turning and flicking and twisting her hands in an attempt to simultaneously reverse the damage and block the Weaponeers from the most sensitive areas. The blue light illuminated her whole body, her eyes focused and her brain moving mile a minute. Her feet stood in New York, but her mind was thousands of miles away.

Her team quickly got the hang of it. She and a couple of other analysts identified the slowest-moving Weaponeer and remotely hacked into his scrambler, letting out a whoop when they initiated a fatal shutdown.

"Alright, that's one!" called an analyst named Bartlett, and they all switched from celebrating to turning their focus on the dozens of other Weaponeers.

"Hey Asfour," Maggie called, once she'd managed to isolate each scrambler's frequency and put them on a geographical map. She flicked the map up to the central hub. "This should help speed up the process. But see those three yellow dots? Those scramblers have some kind of enhanced defense mechanism, I don't think we can crack them from here. They're likely to be the leaders."

"Got it," Asfour replied. "Stark?"

"Yeah?" Maggie replied, and at the same time Tony's voice came over the comms: "What's up, buttercup?"

"Dammit, this is why we have callsigns." Asfour looked over her shoulder at Maggie, who frantically waded her way through the digital explosion of data as a Weaponeer tried to go after Zanzibar's citizen record system. "You good with 'Wyvern'?"

Maggie took half a second to throw a thumbs up at Asfour and went back to handling the scramblers.

"Great. Iron Man, it seems three of the Weaponeers have higher-powered scramblers than the others – we can't shut them down from here, think you might have a shot? I'm sending their locations to you now."

"Sure, these things are making the suits kinda haywire but they can't shut us down completely. Wait, Wyvern? Is Maggie there?"

Maggie snatched a comms unit up from a nearby desk and snapped: "Focus!"

Tony didn't bring it up again, so it seemed he'd got the message.

Maggie watched the central hub screens out of the corner of her eye as she worked, watching Tony, Rhodey, and Vision converge on the three yellow dots and unleash everything they had. The Weaponeers didn't last long. The last one managed to freeze Vision up like a marionette doll for few seconds, but then Tony blasted a unibeam through the connecting wire between the Weaponeer's head and his scrambler, and the yellow light on the map blinked out.

With their leaders gone, it was a losing battle for the Weaponeers. They managed to cause a little more mayhem on their way out, but soon enough Maggie and her team fried the last Weaponeer's scrambler just as War Machine punched him square in the face.

Maggie gasped in relief, sweat pouring down her face, and collapsed into a nearby swivel chair. The sound of the Avengers celebrating poured through the audio uplink, and taking that as their cue the operations room full of analysts let out a cheer, clapping each other on the back and grinning. Maggie smiled and looked around at her team's flushed faces and white smiles.

A hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up. It was Agent Asfour, her normally stoic face bearing a slight smile. "Well done, Wyvern," she murmured.

"Thanks. Not so bad yourself, Asfour."

"Stop flirting."

Maggie rolled her eyes at the woman, and the senior agent walked back to the central hub to get started on cleanup.

Maggie helped out with cleanup, trading jokes with the other analysts (often at the Weaponeers' expense). A few of the analysts asked her questions about certain techniques she'd used in infiltrating the scramblers, and how she'd figured out certain things, so she readily taught them. Ten minutes later Asfour came across Maggie surrounded by a group of analysts as she drew a diagram of the scramblers' power relays (despite never having seen the relays before), and raised two pointed eyebrows.

Maggie blinked. "Right, cleanup." She and the other analysts scattered and got back to work.

The Avengers returned just as they began to finish up the cleanup from the mission. A team of analysts would be sent to Zanzibar tomorrow to help on the ground, but Maggie wasn't going. She was just clearing a few things up with a member of the Zanzibar team when the operations room door slid open, admitting a tired-looking Tony and Rhodey in their underarmor suits, followed by Vision.

Tony's eyes zeroed in on Maggie on the far side of the room, and he hurried over. "Please tell me you didn't sneak in," he said by way of greeting.

Maggie gave him a hug. "I didn't," she replied. "Apparently the Accords Committee approved me helping. Which I'm wary of, but I wasn't exactly going to say no. I'm glad you're okay."

Rhodey came over, his brow knitted as if he wanted to say something, but he was beaten to the punch by the agent manning the central hub of the operations room:

"Incoming call from the Accords Committee!"

Maggie's heart skipped a beat and she glanced at her brother. His eyes narrowed and he turned to Rhodey.

"What do you think they want?"

"It's gotta be about Maggie," Rhodey replied. "Can't be good."

Vision had approached during this quick, whispered conversation, and met Maggie's eyes. "Would you like to leave?"

She swallowed, glancing from Tony and Rhodey's hissed whispers to Vision's concerned gaze. She sighed. "No. Let's do this." She turned to the waiting agent and nodded.

A second later the Accords Committee materialized in the central hub; seven men in suits and military uniforms etched out in blue light. They sat around a flickering blue table, but as they saw that their call had been accepted, an Air Force general at the head of the table stood up and nodded.

"Avengers." Ross remained silent and seated, his dark eyes narrowed in Maggie's direction.

The Avengers returned the greeting, and the general shifted his stance.

"We've received an initial report on the mission from Agent Asfour, we're pleased that the Weaponeers went down without too much local damage." Something in his face shifted. "The report also indicates that Ms Stark's skills were integral to the success of the mission."

Maggie didn't visibly react to his words besides looking over her shoulder at Asfour. The woman shrugged at her, then turned away to get back to her work.

"We won't publicize your role, Ms Stark, since the Accords don't require Avenger non-combatant's identities to be released."

Maggie blinked. "Okay."

Ross leaned forward, eyes still narrowed. "We've also been made aware that you've acted as an analyst for the Avengers on multiple other occasions."

Maggie didn't let his threatening tone get to her, and when Tony opened his mouth she shot him a quick glance to get him to shut up. This was about her, she didn't want anyone taking the fall for her – especially not the three Avengers anxiously hovering behind her. "That's true," she replied.

There were a few long moments of silence as Ross and Maggie held each other's gaze. The rest of the Accords Committee watched her closely with something assessing in their eyes.

Finally, Ross spoke. "We've received numerous recommendations from Avengers staff," he continued. "There's a public audit of the Avengers coming up, so we need to make sure this is all above board and we need to do it now–"

She frowned. "Make sure what's above board?"

Ross turned to his fellow Committee members and they shared a look, as if she was being particularly dense. Something like mutual understanding flickered between them.

Ross turned back to Maggie and met her eyes. "This is a job offer, Ms Stark." Her eyes widened. "If you accept you'll be an Avengers analyst, under Agent Asfour's supervision. If you don't accept, then if we catch you in this operations room again – which we will – we won't hesitate to prosecute you to the fullest extent that the Accords allow." As her heart pounded, Maggie recalled the dark, shifting corridors of the Raft. Ross leaned forward. "Do you accept?"

She blinked when he finished talking, so taken aback at their entire conversation that she could only open and close her mouth.

"Maggie…" came Tony's voice, and she glanced over at him. He didn't say another word, but his eyes told her everything he wanted to say: he wasn't comfortable with her falling further under the Accords Committee's thumb than she already had. Her gaze drifted, taking in the worry in Rhodey and Vision's eyes. They worked for the Committee themselves, but it was clear they didn't want her to accept this 'job'.

And yet.

Maggie bit her lip and looked down at the floor, considering Ross's offer. With official recognition as an Avengers analyst not only could she help people, but she could help her brother and his friends survive the dangerous job they'd taken on. And she had to admit that what she'd done today, though exhausting, was thrilling. Not quite fun, because of the imminent-destruction-of-large-parts-of-the-internet thing, but today she'd been able to use her brain in a way she hadn't in a long time. A way she was good at.

Her gaze flicked up. She liked the operations room with its odd mix of people, she liked working with them to solve problems and stop the bad guys. And Ross was right – she'd end up in here sooner or later, whether she agreed to the job or not.

So she took a deep breath, looked up, and faced the hologram. "I accept."

Breath hissed between Tony's teeth, but Maggie didn't take her eyes off the Accords Committee as they exchanged glances.

"We'll send the documents through to you in the morning," Ross said, though his tone said I hope you choke on air and die. He leaned back in his seat. "Look at that, Ms Stark. You're an Avenger."

Then the call disconnected, and the Accords Committee blinked out of existence.