Chapter 88

Tony fell asleep again, still exhausted from his recovery, and after letting Pepper hug her tightly Maggie slipped out of the room again.

Standing alone in the quiet corridor, she thought: I don't know where to go.

And then: Get out.

So she did. She didn't see any of the others as she climbed empty flights of stairs to the facility roof – they all kept to themselves, trying to find some way to keep their heads above water. She opened the door to the roof and felt the sun shine weakly on her face. A faint breeze wafted against her skin.

Maggie strode to the edge of the roof and stepped off.

From a distance, New York City didn't look any different. The gleaming towers still stretched into the sky, birds still flew overhead. But as she approached, gliding on thermal winds, a chill ran down Maggie's spine.

The city was quiet. She had made this trip a few times now, and usually when she spiraled downwards into the city the sounds of horns beeping and sirens and people yelling washed over. Now, she was met with silence.

She landed in a Manhattan alleyway, retracted her nanotech armor so she was left in jeans and a t-shirt, and walked out.

New York, like the rest of the world, was trying to recover from the chaos after the Decimation. Emergency committees had taken over, setting up shelters and census counts and crisis support. Maggie saw signs of this as she stepped out of the alley onto an eerily empty street: a heavily-armed soldier standing on the street corner, a giant banner with a helpline for orphaned children. And in between these signs of order lay pain.

Others beside Maggie walked the streets, with similar looks of blank shock on their faces. One man wept silently as he carried groceries into an apartment building. Maggie walked past a woman sitting on the side of the road, sobbing into her hands. She turned the corner and a pack of skin-and-bone dogs tore past her, snapping. Crashed cars filled the streets, and the pavements were covered in smashed glass and debris. Everywhere lay signs that people had been there: a camera shattered on the sidewalk, a satchel on a bus stop seat, an empty stroller. Eerie silence hung over everything, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Some buildings were hollowed out by long-extinguished fires. Piles of trash bags lined the street. Maggie passed an empty boarded up coffee shop, and looked through the windows to see cold cups of coffee on the tables and handbags draped over chairs, as if their owners had just stood up for a moment and would be back to collect them.

And on every available surface hung posters with faces and the word MISSING. Maggie made herself look into the faces. One of them was a baby that couldn't have been more than three days old, squinting into the camera.

The city was so quiet around her that Maggie didn't realize she was approaching Times Square until she was in it. It was busier here – there were giant tents set up with signposted directions about where to seek help: Emergency supplies; reconnecting families; embassy support; Missing name register.

Maggie circled the hubbub of activity watching people frantically reading lists, watching them cry, and scream, and shout at the crisis volunteers.

Two exhausted-looking men in fluorescent vests walked past her.

"They want to make monuments with the names on them," one of them said. He clutched a wedding band on a chain around his neck.

His friend shook his head. "That many names? They'll have to fill up Central Park."

Maggie couldn't help here. So she kept walking.

No one looked at her as she picked her way through the cluttered sidewalks. Those who were out on the streets were too lost in their own shattered worlds to give a damn about her.

Once or twice she caught a whisper; once from a huddle of fluorescent-vest-wearing volunteers, another time from two sobbing men sitting on the hood of a crashed car.

Thanos.

She didn't know how his name had circulated so quickly, but she supposed people needed answers. She wondered what they'd say when they found out he was dead.

For another half hour, Maggie aimlessly wandered. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but all she found was more pain. Each time she turned a corner she saw signs of lives wiped away in an instant, of those left behind drowning in their grief and horror.

She finally came to a stop when she saw a perfectly ordinary glass bus stop with words graffitied in red across it:

WHY DIDN'T THEY SAVE US?

The 'A' had been stylized to look like the Avengers logo.

Maggie stared at the bus stop for what felt like an eternity before her stomach roiled and her face flashed hot, and she rushed to throw up in the gutter. When she was done heaving and gagging, alone on what had once been a busy road, she wiped her mouth and straightened.

I've seen enough.

She flew back to the facility. It looked abandoned too: cars stopped in the middle of the road leading up to the sparkling buildings, dark windows, weeds already sprouting from the lawns.

Inside, Maggie ghosted through the corridors and rooms as if she'd died and come back to haunt the place. Slipping through the shadows, she heard broken shards of conversations:

Thor had received a message from the remaining Asgardians, who had found each other and were heading to earth. Thor wore a fake smile.

Wakanda had gotten back in contact to describe massive upheavals in their region, and to let the Avengers know that they had reopened their borders and were trying to do what they could to maintain stability.

In the lab, when he thought no one was watching, Bruce buried his face in his hands and cried.

Rocket and Rhodey sat on the roof of the facility, drinking.

Steve was nowhere to be found.

Maggie observed their grief and felt it press against her own. She felt like she was breathing pain, drowning in it; no matter where she looked, it was there.

She walked past the common room, heard voices, and pressed herself against the wall to listen.

"What do we do now?" A low voice: Natasha. She sounded disconnected, horrified. Perhaps she was in shock.

"We find a way to live with this," came Nebula's firm, almost whispering voice. A long pause followed. "Grieve."

Maggie tilted her head and looked around the corner. There were three people in the common room. Natasha sat at the main table with her clasped hands pressed to her forehead, almost as if she were praying. Nebula stood a little further back, her dark eyes inscrutable. And standing on the other side of the table with her arms folded across her chest was Carol Danvers.

"The universe is crying out," Carol said. "We need to grieve, but… someone has to be there to pick up the pieces. The universe needs help."

Natasha's hands dropped away from her face. "We can do that. It'll be on a bigger scale than anything we've done before-"

"We do it together then," Carol said firmly. She looked to Nebula, who after a moment of hesitation nodded.

"I'll work from here," Natasha said, her voice growing stronger even though she still looked devastated. "I'll see who's still… who's still ready to fight. Probably not all of them, but most." She swallowed. "But we don't have the resources for space travel on that scale-"

"We do," Nebula cut in. "Our ship is travel-ready, and Rocket will want to help." She turned to Carol. "We can go with you, and bring help to the systems that need it."

"It's not going to be easy," Carol warned. "After… after what's happened, there won't be a planet in the universe that's not desperate for help."

Nebula inclined her head. "We'll do all we can then, we-"

"Take me with you."

The three women in the common room flinched and looked over to the doorway, where Maggie had abruptly appeared. She stood tall, with her hands fisted by her sides and her dark eyes fixed on Carol's. Natasha's eyes widened.

Danvers looked back at her with impossibly compassionate eyes. How can she find that within herself? She didn't bother asking Maggie what she meant. She just asked: "Are you sure you want that?"

"I've got nothing left but my skills," Maggie told her. She ignored Natasha's firm gaze. "I'm a weapon. Let me be one."

It didn't take long to work out the details – Natasha and whomever she could convince to work with her would handle the chaos on Earth, and Carol, Nebula, Rocket, and Maggie would head out to other galaxy systems to do whatever they could. At one point Natasha pulled Maggie aside to try to convince her to stay, but after a few pointed questions the blonde simply let out a sad, tired breath and nodded.

The four women arranged it amongst themselves in the common room, and then spread out to speak to the other broken and lost people in the facility.

Maggie felt… not better, but more whole. She had a mission now. It gave her the strength to walk through the facility without feeling as if she was going to fall apart.

She went to the workshop first, to tell Bruce the plan. He sat hunched over a workbench, looking up at a hologram of his own shifting, volatile cells, and when he spotted Maggie he looked into her face with sad eyes.

When she finished talking, he shook his head. "I… I can't get back into the fight. Not like this."

"You don't have to fight," she said softly. "People need help."

He sighed. "Yeah, but that's not all it'll be. The 24 hour news cycle might have fallen apart, but I've still heard about the… the looting, and the violence, and the gangs. Half the universe died, and the other half is in uproar." He shook his head again. "I failed. Me and the Hulk failed. I gotta figure that out."

Maggie chewed the inside of her lip, watching him. In the air over his head, his magnified holographic cells shivered and multiplied. She jerked her head at the hologram. "You need any help with that?"

He cast a glance at her. "You seem like you gotta figure some stuff out on your own."

"I'm going to space."

His eyebrows rose. "It's not as fun as it sounds."

"I'm not going for fun."

Bruce really looked at her then, his tired brown eyes roving across her face. After a long moment, he just nodded. "Okay." He stood up and held out his hand. "Good luck out there."

Maggie took his hand. His grip was surprisingly strong. She shook his hand once, then pointed at his head. "Good luck in there."

She didn't spend long with Thor. He wasn't interested in talking. Wasn't interested in engaging with the world around him at all, by the looks of it.

She got only a moment of sincerity from him, when she asked if he wanted to go with Carol to help people across the universe. He looked up, not quite meeting her eyes, and said: "I'm no good to anyone."

Maggie had barely enough strength to convince herself that she was worth anything, even as a weapon, so it was a monumental effort to get out: "I'm sure that's not-"

"Don't," Thor rumbled, then looked back down to the bag he was packing to meet the other Asgardians in Norway. "Goodbye, Wyvern."

She stood in his doorway for a few more moments. She remembered how elated she'd felt when she first saw him only three weeks ago, when he plunged out of the sky with lightning and fury to save the day. He'd been a hero, then.

Thor might have killed Thanos. But Thanos had killed the heroes.

"Bye, Thor."

She was on her way to pick up some things from her room when Rhodey and Happy intercepted her. She'd seen Happy a few times since the Decimation, just as horrified and overwhelmed as the rest of them.

Now, he was frowning at her. "Maggie, Natasha said you were going to space, what does that-"

"- the hell are you thinking," Rhodey cut in, eyes burning, "you're just – just going to go off into space?"

"Yes."

"Maggie, you should know better than anyone that going off alone at a time like this-"

"I won't be alone," she cut in. "And this isn't just a difficult time, Rhodey, this is…" she swept a hand. "This is our future. This world, right now." She let that sink in for a moment. Both Happy and Rhodey's faces crumpled.

Rhodey took a breath. "Maggie, don't do this. I'm going to be helping out here, and we could use you. You should be here, with your family-"

"Doing what?" she cut in, cocking her head. "Trying to heal, waiting for – for acceptance? No one is ever going to feel better about this, Rhodey. I… I thought the worst parts of my life were behind me, and then…" her voice hitched, and she balled her hand into a fist. She didn't want to cry any more. Didn't want to feel like this. "If I'd known that being tortured by HYDRA was going to be the 'good old days' I'd have savored it while it lasted."

For a few long moments her words hung in the air, sharp and nasty. Maggie blinked. She hadn't planned to say that.

Happy seemed to wither before her. Rhodey didn't take his eyes off Maggie's face.

I wish I could stop hurting people.

She sighed. "Just… just let me go."

Rhodey's jaw clenched and he turned to Happy for a second, as if seeking assurance. Happy nodded once, and Rhodey turned back to Maggie. "You have to stay in regular contact," he said. Her eyebrows rose. "Twice a week, at least. And you've gotta promise me that you'll eat, and sleep, and take care of yourself. Or I swear, Happy and I will take you down right here in this corridor and keep you down until that spaceship takes off."

Maggie looked between them, eyes wide. They'd planned about this. Still feeling slightly disconnected from herself, she murmured: "You wouldn't be able to stop me."

Rhodey reached into his jacket and held up the red arc reactor which she knew contained the War Machine armor, and cocked his head as if to say just try it. Beside him, Happy lifted his chin and pulled his shoulders back.

Rhodey looked into Maggie's eyes. "Promise me."

"I promise."

The arc reactor went back into Rhodey's jacket pocket. After a few seconds of just staring each other down, Rhodey stepped forward and set a hand on Maggie's shoulder. She was glad he didn't hug her – she wasn't ready for that. "Maggie…" he trailed off, clearly searching for the words.

Maggie set her hand on his and looked from him to Happy. It's okay, she wanted to say, but she couldn't, because it wasn't. There were no words.

Maggie ran into Natasha after farewelling Rhodey and Happy, the two of them meeting in an empty corridor. Natasha looked brittle and yet utterly, impossibly strong, like tungsten steel.

Natasha raised her eyebrows and nodded in the direction Maggie had come from. "How did that go?"

Maggie let out a breath. "… Surprising. Steve?"

Natasha's shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. "I called him." She avoided Maggie's gaze, which could mean anything. When her eyes lifted again, they were flinty. "Do you have everything you need? Rocket says the ship is ready."

"Just about. I only need to grab my go bag."

"Good." The blonde-haired assassin's eyes flicked over her face. "Imagine my surprise when I went to talk to Tony, and he didn't seem to be aware that his sister was about to get on a spaceship and leave the galaxy." Maggie's face must have revealed something – fear or nerves, she wasn't sure which, because Natasha's green eyes deepened. "I didn't tell him."

Maggie's shoulders loosened.

"But you should," Natasha continued. "He's not going to stay at the facility either, he and Pepper say they're going to get away. I don't blame them, really. They deserve a life." Her eyes darkened, and Maggie knew she was thinking of her missing friend, Clint. Missing, but alive. Those green eyes focused again. "Don't go without telling him. He'll never forgive you."

Maggie still felt like a ghost, like she was just drifting through this shadow world instead of inhabiting it, but those words tugged her down again. "I don't know if I'm looking for forgiveness."

Natasha's eyes glistened. "You haven't done anything wrong, Maggie." Her voice was husky.

Maggie swallowed. "Haven't I?"

"No, we…" Natasha folded her arms across her chest. "This is on Thanos, we-"

"We have to live with it anyway," Maggie finished. She reached up and rubbed her forehead. "I'll talk to him."

"Good." Natasha's fingers were shaking, as if she was seconds away from falling apart, but both of them ignored it. Maggie felt a little overwhelmed by the other woman's strength. "Good."

For a few seconds they just looked at each other, standing straight-backed and firm-jawed in the middle of the corridor. Then Natasha held out her hand. Maggie took it.

It was less of a handshake and more just holding hands, and Maggie… Maggie was all mixed up inside, but she recognized a surge of affection when she felt it.

"Stay sharp," Natasha said.

"Always," Maggie replied, and it wasn't true but it made both their lips twitch in sad, watery smiles.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., where's Tony?"

"In his rooms with Ms Potts, Ms Stark. He's been asking after you."

Maggie started walking, trailing her fingers along the corridor walls as she went. The cool surface was familiar against her skin. "Sorry you can't come to space with me, F.R.I.D.A.Y."

"You'll have to tell me all about it," the A.I. responded. Her voice was gentle.

When Maggie came to the closed door of Tony and Pepper's room, she let out a long breath. She'd changed back into her Wyvern armor, because that was easier to wear than anything normal; it made her feel… more like herself, maybe. Whoever that was. Her duffle bag hung over her shoulder. Her hair was bound up in a tight braid, and her face felt tight, hard.

She knocked on the door and it slid open automatically.

"There you are," Tony said, and Maggie looked up to see him sitting on the end of the bed, folding a jacket. He still looked painfully skinny, his face drained, but he didn't look on the verge of passing out anymore. Pepper emerged from their futuristic walk-in closet and her eyes warmed when she spotted Maggie.

Maggie stepped into the room, feeling large and out of place. It felt strangely like walking into another world. One she didn't belong in.

"I'm leaving."

"Natasha said they were going to try to start putting out fires," Tony sighed. He patted the bed next to him. "Are you sure, Maggie? You need rest-"

"I'm sure," she said, not moving from where she stood by the door. "I-"

"Will you go with Rhodey?" Pepper questioned. "He said he was going to DC today, try to start organizing things there-"

"I'm not going with Rhodey. I… I'm going with Carol, Nebula, and Rocket."

There was a long pause. Pepper's eyes went wide and she dropped the half-packed bag she'd been holding. Tony went very still.

Finally, Tony broke the awful silence. His eyes were fixed on the wall about five feet to Maggie's right, dark and glittering. "You're leaving Earth."

She swallowed. "Yes."

His eye snapped to hers. "How long?" A muscle jumped in his jaw.

"As long as I need to," she said bluntly. "Not forever, Nebula and Rocket can drop me back if I'm needed here."

"What if I said you're needed now?"

She met his eyes. "Please don't."

He threw his arms out and Pepper took a step in his direction. "Don't what? Convince you stay with your family? We already lost-" he cut himself off and took in three deep breaths. There were still dark circles under his eyes.

"You still need to heal," Maggie murmured. "I… I'm not going to be able to help you heal, Tony. I can't…" her voice shook. "I can't do this."

Pepper took another step toward Tony, hesitated, and then strode towards Maggie. She stopped a couple of feet away, her kind eyes warm. "Maggie. I can't imagine the pain you're in-"

"But you can," Maggie said. "We all can, we're all-"

Pepper rested a hand on her cheek. Maggie stilled. "I know. And I know you'll do what you think you have to do. Tony can't stop you. I can't stop you." Her hand was warm. "So take whatever time you need and do whatever you need to do to cope." She looked over her shoulder briefly. "But what I think Tony is trying to say is, just remember that there are people who love you here. You have a place here."

Maggie swallowed past a lump in her throat. She wasn't entirely sure she believed Pepper, but she appreciated the effort. Still sitting on the bed, Tony looked like he was trying to decide whether he was angry with Pepper or not. He settled for standing, slowly and shakily, and turning to Maggie. "You don't have to go."

"I do."

She didn't know why, she just knew. She couldn't be this person, on this planet with pain just like hers in every face she saw. She needed to get out. Needed to go to new worlds and deal with pain that was still similar but maybe a little more removed. She needed to be a different person, not Maggie Stark.

She couldn't bear to feel Maggie Stark's pain right now.

And staying with Tony would hurt too much. Maybe it was selfish. She didn't know if she could even recognize the 'right' choice anymore, so this was what she was left with.

I don't know what I am anymore.

Tony's shoulders rose and fell. His eyes glinted, with desperation or fear Maggie wasn't sure. His gaze flicked to the bag hanging from her shoulder. "You're leaving now?"

She nodded mutely. But then she forced herself to make her voice work: "I… Rhodey made me promise to keep in contact. Twice a week."

He took in a long breath through his nose. "Okay." The word was soft. "Okay." He took another step forward, then hesitated. "I'm no good at saying goodbyes, Maggie. Don't make me do this." His fingers shook.

Numb, Maggie stepped forward and met him halfway. She opened her arms and pulled his skinny form into herself, even though her grief-wracked body threatened to shudder apart. I can't do this, I can't do this-

Tony held her weakly. He smelled like hospital beds and metal, and she could feel how fragile he'd become. Maggie thought back, bizarrely, to the first time they'd hugged, back when she was imprisoned in her room in the facility and thought her world was over. That had been a desperate embrace too, but it had been the start of something new. This felt like an end.

Maggie pulled away first. She shot him a fake smile, because it was kinder that way. His face creased.

She turned to Pepper and squeezed her hand briefly. "I'll… I'll see you both later." Not a goodbye.

"See ya, Maggot," Tony said softly. She looked back at him once last time, and she could see in his eyes that he was contemplating making her stay.

He's better off without me here.

She turned and walked out the door.

She didn't look back.

On her way out to the landing pad she caught a glimpse of a broad-shouldered figure in a dark shirt and jeans walking into the facility. "Steve!"

He paused, looked over his shoulder, and then turned back to meet her. "Maggie, hi." His eyes darted over her uniform. "Nat said you were heading up with Carol and the others."

"You're back," she noted, too emotionally exhausted to keep answering the same questions. "Did Natasha-"

He held up a hand, and Maggie suddenly recognized the tightness around his eyes and the sag in his shoulders. Steve was tired. And not in a way that had anything to do with sleep. "I'm… I'm not back for good. I just came to pick up some things, and then…" he trailed off.

Her face hardened. "You're hiding too." She didn't know where the word hiding came from, but it was too late to take it back now.

Steve seemed to deflate before her, and she sighed. "I'm not…" he reached up to rub his jaw. "I can't do what I did before. I can't be here."

That, at least, Maggie understood. "Where will you go?"

"Brooklyn, I think. They're doing a mass memorial this weekend, and then after that I'm going to try to help out, but…" he let out a breath. "I don't know how to help everyone."

"I don't think we can."

Steve met her eyes and for a few moments they just looked at each other, standing in the sunlight outside the Avengers facility. It might have looked normal once upon a time.

Steve gestured at her uniform and the bag on her shoulder. Over at the landing pad, the spaceship's engines rumbled to life. "Are you going to be alright out there?" Then he winced.

Maggie almost smiled. "No, I expect not." She nodded at him. "How about you?"

The corners of his eyes turned up. "No, me neither."

"What a life we have to look forward to."

That made him smile, just a sad shadow of what it might once have been. He nodded at her. "Good luck."

She nodded back, and strode past him. When she was five steps away, she stopped.

She looked over her shoulder and found Steve standing where she'd left him, watching her.

"Did you see Bucky?" she blurted out. Steve's eyes widened, and she had to swallow painfully before she could elaborate. "Did you see him when he… when he…" she recalled the Wakandans she'd seen crumble away, recalled footage of the Decimation she'd viewed from all over the world. Putting Bucky's face to those images was almost too much to bear.

Steve's brows drew together. "I did."

Maggie's eyes burned. He wasn't alone. Steve was with him. That helped, a little bit. "Did it hurt him?" Her voice hitched.

Steve looked as if this whole conversation was tearing him apart. "I don't think so," he murmured, and it sounded more like I hope not. "He said my name. He looked confused. He – he looked up at me and then–" Steve's voice broke and then he was crying, silent tears slipping down his face as his head bowed. Maggie strode back to him and wrapped her arms around him.

"It's not your fault, Steve."

"I just wanted him to be safe," Steve said in a low rumble, "after all he'd been through – and then I pulled him back into a war which we lost and he died, he didn't deserve that. None of them did, and Sam–"

Maggie held him tighter just to make him stop talking, because it hurt too much.

She walked up the ramp onto the spaceship (they called it the Benatar, apparently) alone, dropped her dufflebag on one of the free bunks (she didn't think about who it once might have belonged to), and strode into the cockpit. Nebula and Rocket were there waiting for her, and Carol hovered outside the cockpit, glowing like a star. She nodded to each of them, and they nodded back.

She climbed into the seat beside Rocket's, strapped herself in, and looked at the readouts on the screen around her. She still didn't know what it all meant. You've got time to learn.

The ramp whirred as it retracted into the ship. Nebula hit the controls in front of her and the rumbling engines turned into a roar. Maggie's heart skipped.

She reached up to touch the pair of pendants tucked under her uniform.

"Alright," Rocket said. "First stop: Xandar."

Standing by the wide window of his and Pepper's nearly empty rooms, Tony watched the orange starship disappear into the pale blue sky.

By his side, Pepper held his hand. "She'll come back," she murmured.

He took a breath, feeling his starved chest expand. "What's she going to come back to?" He looked away from the window and let Pepper wrap her arms around him, soft and warm. He dropped his head onto her shoulder.

"She'll come back to a home. To her family."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "She lost her family when Thanos snapped his fingers." He still didn't understand that bond she'd had with Barnes, but it was plain to see what his loss had done to her. And not just his loss – Vision's, Peter's… hell, everyone.

Pepper's arms tightened around him. "She did." Pepper pulled away and cupped his face in her hands. "But she didn't lose all of them."