Bab 45: Chapter 45
Avengers Facility, Upstate New York
When the door opened, near-silent on its automated tracks, Maggie distantly thought the doctors are early. She was sitting in front of the window with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching a squirrel hop timidly from tree branch to tree branch.
But then she realized she could only hear one pair of footsteps. Maggie whirled to her feet, adrenaline flooding her system, and abruptly froze.
Tony looked terrible. His arm was still in a sling, and bags hung under his eyes. His face was bruised. He wore a pair of dark trousers, a t-shirt and a black jacket.
For a moment Maggie was overwhelmed by the sight of him – he'd been haunting her waking and sleeping dreams, but the sight of him in front of her in the flesh was a shock.
His face was hard, his eyes unreadable, but at least he wasn't looking at her with the hatred she'd seen when T'Challa found them, separate and silent in the snow. There was certainly a lot of wariness in his expression, though.
Tony held her gaze for a few more seconds, then glanced away to look around the room as if he didn't know every inch of it. "So the doctors tell me that you're healing up just fine," he said conversationally, strolling to the nearest wall and tapping it with his fingertips.
He was right, she was mostly healed – she still had some fading bruises and her ribs and wrist weren't quite right, but she was getting there. Her hands were still bandaged, though – she'd probably have scars for a long time.
Maggie didn't respond. She stood, silhouetted by the window, watching her brother.
As the seconds passed and Maggie didn't say anything, Tony looked away from the pale grey wall and shot a frustrated glance at her. "Are you angry at me?"
"No." Her eyes tracked him as he started to pace back and forth.
"Then why the stand-and-stare?"
Maggie took a breath. "I don't know what to say to you."
"Huh." Tony sat down abruptly on the end of her perfectly-made bed. "Guess we have that in common." He looked out the window, his face troubled, and the fingers of his free hand tapped a rhythm against his chest. Maggie watched the movements.
When Tony caught her looking, his fingers stilled. "Yeah, this…" he frowned down at his chest. "I used to have a thing-"
"A miniaturized arc reactor," Maggie finished, her voice hoarse from disuse. "It kept shrapnel out of your heart after your kidnapping in Afghanistan, until you had it removed in late 2012."
Tony sat back, eyeing her. "Keeping tabs on me?"
Maggie looked away. "Not… not at the time. Later."
"What were you doing at the time?" She could hear his teeth grinding together.
She looked up again, and caught his gaze. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes." Tony threw up his hands and glanced around, as if appealing to an invisible audience. "You have to ask that? I've always wanted to know everything, no matter if it's good for me, and I don't know anything about you. I want to." She could tell he'd been aiming for a light tone, but with those last three words his voice caught, and he glanced away.
Maggie watched him, measuring his words. "Alright," she eventually murmured. She shifted, taking a few steps away from Tony and turning to rest her back against the wall. The light streaming in from the window illuminated one side of her face, casting the other in shadow. "That year, while you were saving the world, I was working on the databanks that housed Arnim Zola's consciousness. I helped him prepare to murder millions of people." Tony flinched, and Maggie's chest burned with a kind of bitter satisfaction. "Then I was in Singapore, to spy on a financial conglomerate and murder a young man. I saw the news coverage of when they thought you died in your mansion, and I… reacted." Maggie swallowed and looked down. "Wasn't the first time. I also caught wind of your disappearance in Afghanistan in 2009, and there were a couple of other times. I wasn't sure why I reacted, I thought it must have been relevant to the mission, but I couldn't figure out a connection." She shrugged. "I guess I was the connection."
Tony ran a hand over his face. "Okay." He stood up, and Maggie eyed him warily. "Okay." He paced back and forth for about a minute, then looked back at Maggie. His mouth opened and closed a few times. "I have to…" he cut himself off, shook his head, and then walked out of the room without another word.
Startled, Maggie looked at the closed door for a few moments with wide eyes. What?
She let out a long breath and slid down the wall, until she was sitting once more on the hard floor, watching the forest.
"Well?"
Tony's head jumped up at Rhodey's question. He was back in the workshop, but he was cleaning up, and he looked better, despite the complicated expressions chasing across his face. "What?"
Rhodey rolled his eyes. "How did it go?"
Tony made a face as if he'd just sucked on a lemon, and tossed a bundle of wires into the trash. "It went… it's…" he shook his head, sighing. "Fine. It went fine."
Rhodey cocked an eyebrow. "It went fine? What did you talk about?"
"I don't even… the arc reactor? And then… some people she killed-" seeing Rhodey's rising eyebrows, Tony shrugged. "I was only in there for like five minutes, it was weird. I don't know what to say to her."
Rhodey pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did you ask her about Barnes?"
"No, I've decided to live solidly in denial about that, thanks." Tony looked over his shoulder. "Dum-E, sweeping was one of the very first things you were programmed to do, how can you still be this bad at it?"
The robot trilled, and Rhodey rolled his eyes. "Look, Tony. You don't have to talk about Barnes yet if you don't want, and I doubt she really wants to talk about it either. You can work up to it. But if you want to talk to her, just do it. She's the definition of a captive audience right now." He sighed. "Christ, I can't believe I'm giving you advice on how to talk to people. This is so weird."
Tony started clearing his workbench. "Talking isn't the problem," he grumbled. "It's saying something."
Tony came back the next day. He arrived after the doctors this time, and went straight to sit on the end of the bed. Maggie, still seated on the floor by the window, swiveled to look at him.
"Hello," she tried. She felt bad about her silence yesterday.
"Oh," Tony said. "Hey." He lifted his hand, revealing that he'd brought a… mug? "I got coffee, I realize the menu here's not exactly…" he shook his head, placed the mug on the floor and slid it towards her with two fingers. He had another mug in his other hand. "It's not poisoned or anything, but I don't know if you drink – oh, I guess you do," he trailed off as Maggie picked up the mug and started draining it.
Halfway through the coffee, Maggie realized that it might be considered impolite to finish it in one go, and she pulled the mug away from her lips. The simple familiarity of coffee after being locked into this strange reality was a blessing.
Tony toasted her with his own mug, and took a sip.
An awkward silence fell.
Maggie shifted uncomfortably. She'd been so startled by Tony's appearance yesterday that it had taken her a while to calm her mind again. Of all the things they could have spoken about, yesterday had felt… odd. She hadn't meant to tell him so much about those few particular missions, but she'd been so taken aback at his entreaty to learn more about her that she wanted to remind him of who – of what – she was. But he'd come back again anyway.
"Do you need anything?" Tony blurted out, then looked annoyed at himself. At Maggie's questioning look, he added: "coffee, more food… something? I know you've got that super soldier metabolism."
The additional reminder of her differences made them both uncomfortable. Maggie took another sip of her coffee, closing her eyes at the familiar taste. "Um… no," she murmured. "Thank you." She'd done enough to Tony, she didn't need to start using him as room service.
"Okay, that's… good." Tony cleared his throat, then put his coffee down and turned to face her fully. "This is weird, right?"
Maggie's eyebrows rose. "Weird?"
He gestured between them. "This is weird. Is it weird? I can leave, if you want, I realize you might not want me here-"
"I don't want you to leave," Maggie interrupted, then took another sip of her coffee to distract from the earnestness that had slipped into her voice.
She'd been doing her best to keep calm over the past week, focusing on the life outside her room instead of the threatening darkness in her mind. Tony was distracting, but his presence – real, alive, here – was enthralling.
Maggie tentatively looked back up at Tony's face. His eyes were on her, considering.
She swallowed. "But it is weird."
He huffed a laugh. "Yeah, I noticed." He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, then thought better of it when his arm in the sling gave him trouble. "Seriously, though-" he leveled his gaze at her. "Do you need anything? Or… or do you have any questions?"
Maggie met his eyes. He was so obviously torn between a dizzying array of emotions – the anger was still there, flickering occasionally in his eyes, mixed with distrust and betrayal. He was also apparently uncomfortable with keeping prisoners around the place, particularly prisoners he was related to.
He was trying hard to conceal everything he felt, but Maggie was good at watching people. And what she saw, hidden in his dark eyes and his awkward questioning, was that he cared about her.
It hurt. Particularly because whatever this was – the kindness, the sentiment – it wasn't for her. It was for the Maggie that Tony remembered, and she couldn't bring that little girl back.
Maggie cleared her throat, and her eyes flickered to forest outside. Eventually, she asked: "Is that window real?"
He gave her a weird look. "Why wouldn't it be real?"
She didn't respond to the question, but a tentative smile lifted her lips. "Thanks," she murmured.
Tony watched his sister for a few more moments, taking in the way her smile eased the exhausted lines on her face. She looked young, barefoot in a pair of grey scrubs, until you looked into her eyes.
"Really, that's it? That's all you want to ask?" His tone was light, but the anger and violence from a week ago hung over the words.
Maggie's smile slipped away, and she met Tony's eyes again. "Are the others still in that prison?"
He considered that for a moment, peering at her as if trying to figure out why she might be asking. Eventually, he shook his head. "No, they uh… escaped."
Maggie's face flickered with emotion before she managed to shut it down, but Tony saw her relief. Of all the things her mind had been torturing her about in the empty hours, the fate of Steve's friends had been an uncomfortable weight on her shoulders. Her soft bed and view of the forest was a far cry from the oppressive floating prison from before. Sure, it was still a prison, but she worried about the others.
Maggie would bet anything that Steve had been the one to get them out. Strangely, Tony didn't seem too angry or upset about the breakout.
"Okay," she finally said.
Thankfully, Tony didn't dig further into that topic. He shrugged, stretched his neck, and then picked up his cup. "I'll bring you more coffee tomorrow."
Part of her wanted to question him. But she stayed silent as he left the room, because the promise of tomorrow was too tempting to risk him changing his mind.
The next day, as promised, Tony brought her more coffee. He started the conversation by walking right up to the window and asking "so what's so freaking interesting that you sit and stare out there all day?"
Maggie told him about the forest animals she'd seen, and named some of the plants that she recognized from her brief interest in botany.
"Does that mean you know where we are?" he asked. "Through like, some kind of Sherlock Holmes type of 'that-mushroom-only-grows-in-this-area' wizardry?"
She hid a smile. "Sure. That kind of beech tree-" she pointed- "is only local to upstate New York."
Tony twitched, and turned to blink at her. "Seriously?"
Maggie smirked. "No. But I know where the Avengers Facility is."
He rolled his eyes. "Of course you do." The words were only tinged with a little bitterness. "Seriously, I'm going to bring you something to do. You stare at trees any longer and you'll turn into an Ent."
"You've read The Lord of the Rings?" she asked, her coffee paused halfway to her lips.
Tony blinked at her. "You've read The Lord of the Rings?"
They stared at each other for a few seconds until Maggie smiled at the absurdity of it, making him snicker in return.
"Sure," she said. "I like Gimli."
Tony stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "I don't understand you at all," he said, as if the thought had popped into his mind and been spoken in the same instant.
That hit them both a little too close to home, and after another awkward silence Tony cleared up their cups and left the room again. He didn't promise tomorrow, but Maggie found herself hoping anyway.
On it went. Tony visited her for a few minutes each day, whirling in at irregular hours, asking questions and talking about nothing in particular. He brought her coffee, and sometimes fresh fruit, and they stood together in front of the window. After her small botany lesson Tony had decided she was liable to lose her mind of boredom, and started to bring her things to do. First there was a wooden puzzle, which she solved within ten minutes of his having left the room. Next he brought her a copy of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. She saved her tears for after he'd left, even though she knew the A.I. was still looking.
Next time, Tony brought her a tablet and told her that F.R.I.D.A.Y. would load any e-book onto it that she wanted. She contemplated that gift for a long time before she used it, unsure what it meant.
A few days later, when Tony got an alert that Maggie had tried to hack into F.R.I.D.A.Y., he rushed straight to the holding cell. As soon as the door swished open she jumped to her feet and exclaimed "I didn't mean to, I was just curious about how she worked!" Tony looked from the tablet, left near the door like some kind of offering, to the anxiety clear on Maggie's face, and sighed.
He tapped on his watch, bringing up a holograph of F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s mainframe.
"This is F.R.I.D.A.Y.," he explained, as Maggie's eyes widened at the glowing blue structure. "She's based on the U.I. I designed after… after I took over the company. J.A.R.V.I.S."
She blinked. "J-Jarvis?"
His hand hesitated as it manipulated the hologram. "Yeah. Jarvis. Anyway, I started with these basic protocols…"
After that day, Maggie and Tony started to discuss some of his other inventions – he was amused when she gushed about the miniaturized arc reactor, and she listened attentively when he explained how he'd designed an exosuit for Rhodey. She suggested a tweak to the gyroscopic stability module in the exosuit that – no, Tony had to remind himself. Rhodey had said no more tinkering with the exosuit until he got used to walking around in it.
Tony had been so scared that he'd find a stranger in the holding cell, and in some ways he did, but once they got started it was almost easy for them to talk to each other. Since Bruce had left he was used to half his jargon going over people's heads, and it was almost jarring when Maggie was able to not only keep up with him, but suggest solutions to problems that he hadn't even thought of. If he wasn't keeping her locked up he'd have whisked her off to his workshop in minutes.
But all too often, they fell into heavy and charged silences. The tension of the unsaid things between them hung over every interaction, making them both edgy. After the first day they didn't discuss Maggie's past with HYDRA, or the events that had brought them together so recently.
The closest they got was when, a few days in, Tony segued abruptly from talking about his advancements in clean energy to asking: "do you want a psychiatrist?"
Maggie had blinked at his sudden change of topic, but then her face started to close off. If he'd suggested it in any other way (you need a psychiatrist) she'd have said no right away. That was the first thing they'd done to Bucky, locked him in a glass prison for psychological evaluation. Maggie winced at the sharp-edged memories of Bucky, and pushed them away.
She remembered wishing she could turn to a professional for help, back when her mind was a snowstorm and she barely knew who she was. She still wished that, but…
Maggie glanced around at her four walls, at the microscopic cameras she'd noticed on the first day, and finally at Tony's tense face.
"Can I think about it?" she murmured.
"Sure," Tony said. "Sure, that's fine, just… let F.R.I.D.A.Y. know. Anyway, after the launch of the Tower the coal companies started to get really nervous…"
Sometimes it felt like they were shouting at each other across a plunging void, trying to make some kind of connection before they grew too far apart. Every word they said was haunted by their twenty five years apart, by the disaster in Siberia. They could discuss arc reactors and mechatronics all they liked, but Maggie felt like she could only reveal ten percent of herself to her brother, the safe ten percent. She kept any personal connection to a topic vague at best, mostly relying on the vast amount of reading she'd done. She hated censoring herself – she'd spent too much of her life repressing her feelings and thoughts, molding herself into what HYDRA wanted.
But the other ninety percent of Maggie would drive Tony away.
Maggie could tell that her brother had changed in their time apart, as well. The Tony she remembered had been flighty, driven by youth and passion and intense emotions, though he hid it behind a wall of sarcasm. He was still passionate and sarcastic, but there was a gravity in his eyes now – Maggie knew that her brother had seen awful things in his lifetime, and had to become a survivor and a hero. He was more solemn than she remembered, and more often than not he just looked tired, with the weight of the things he'd learned and the friends he'd lost on his shoulders. Of course, she only caught glimpses of this. It seemed Tony was hiding himself from her, too.
Once, Maggie slipped while talking about a chemical fusion experiment she'd tried, and almost mentioned Bucky's name. She only got as far as saying "I showed it to B-" before she cut herself off, eyes round with panic, and scrambled for a new topic. Anger clouded Tony's face and Maggie was sure that the dam had broken, that this was the end of whatever small link still existed between them. But then he swallowed back his rage and changed the subject, leaving Bucky's unsaid name hanging between them like an omen.
Tony didn't know how he had it in him to ignore it. Normally he was great at living in denial, but this strange back-and-forth felt like it had a time limit. Sometimes, when Maggie chattered about some harmless topic or another, while carefully avoiding mentioning how she had learned about it, Tony found himself staring at the blank grey walls of her room, wondering when it would become too hard to dance around the things that threatened to tear this tentative truce apart.
Despite the tension hanging over them, Maggie hung on to every word. She was sure that Tony was just grasping for his past version of Maggie, but she was too greedy to let him down gently. When he left her cell she turned over every word of their conversation, fascinated by her brother.
Neither of them knew what the hell they were doing.
It took Pepper Potts two weeks and one day to figure out what was going on.
She'd been keeping her distance from the Avengers Facility since she and Tony split up, sending teams of assistants in her place whenever she had business there. But after all the business with the Accords, Pepper realized she needed to be there – for Rhodey, and for Tony. Of course, Tony had been more difficult than usual to track down, so she spent her time with Rhodey and Happy, doing what she could to help with Rhodey's rehabilitation, and going over Avengers business.
Until one day, she looked away from Happy and Rhodey's conversation to see a Tony-shaped blur rush past the corridor outside.
She was out of the room in seconds. "Tony!"
He stumbled to a halt, shoes squeaking on the immaculate corridor floor.
"Heeeyyyyy, Pep!" he called, spinning around with a disarming smile on his face. She didn't buy it for a second – his eyes were haunted, he looked exhausted, and he was fidgeting with two empty mugs.
Pepper narrowed her eyes.
"So you're back," Tony said, clearing his throat. "That's great, it's really great. Catching up with Rhodey? Awesome. Thanks for being here, it's… I'm really – anyway, I'd better go clean these up-"
He started to turn around again, but Pepper closed the distance between them and grabbed his sleeve. She must have jostled one of his injuries – she'd heard he got hurt, but she didn't know how bad – because he winced and stilled.
"Sorry!" she gasped, backing away again. "I'm sorry, are you-"
"I'm fine, Pepper, what do you-"
"What's going on?" she shot back, rallying herself. "First I hear about that big fight in Germany, and then I hear you got the guy who did the U.N. bombing, and then I hear that half the Avengers are fugitives-"
"Yep, yep, that all happened-"
"And now Rhodey's hurt and I hear you got hurt but I don't hear from you, even now the Accords are set up?"
Tony swallowed. "I probably could have called."
Pepper put her hands on her hips and ran an eye over him. He seemed nervous, fidgety, more so than usual. He was still clearly healing, and she knew he'd been avoiding her. She didn't know why, since she'd seen the Accords as his way of making a compromise. Once it was settled, why hadn't he come to talk to her?
Tony shifted under her gaze, rubbing his jaw, tapping his foot, drumming his fingers against the space on his chest where the arc reactor used to be.
Pepper squinted. "What don't I know?"
He stilled. "Rhodey didn't tell you?"
"No, but don't think I can't tell when he's covering for you, he gets all guilty and quiet."
"That checks out, Rhodey's terrible at poker."
"This isn't poker, Tony."
Tony sighed, and finally let go of the falsely-cheerful facade. His shoulders sagged, and Pepper took a few unconscious steps toward him.
"Okay," he muttered, and then met her eyes. "Pep, I don't know what the hell I'm doing."
They found a quiet room, and Tony explained everything.
When he fell silent, with his hair askew from running his hands through it, Pepper pulled her hand away from her mouth.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't here," she whispered.
"It's okay," he said, not meeting her eyes. "You needed… we needed a break. I know that."
She took a step into his space, forcing him to meet her gaze. "And do we still need that break?"
Tony took a breath. The question was part inquiry, part test. He normally hated it when people tested him, but Pepper had been burned too many times to take another trust fall. She needed him to be sure.
Tony thought about how he was still a mess, about how he basically had his sister locked up in his basement, with no real plan about what to do with her. He thought about the strange, vague conversations he and Maggie had been having. He thought about Maggie hiding her life from him, and Tony pretending he was okay with it.
But then he thought about the plans he, Rhodey, and Vision had been making with Ross. He was still planning to save the world, but now there were rules and schedules and… maybe it would be enough. He'd given up nearly everything to make it happen.
Tony looked into Pepper's eyes; sad and blue and picking up every small detail he tried to hide.
"No," he murmured, his heart pounding.
Pepper pulled him into a kiss, and Tony felt his tired, bruised heart beat a little easier.
When they pulled apart, Tony pushed her hair back from her face and met her eyes. "This is it," he said, making sure she saw that all of his focus was on her. "You and me. I promise."
She nodded, and his heart thudded at the tears glittering in her eyes. "I know. Me too. We'll have to work on it, though," she added, fixing him with a mock-serious stare.
"I'll break out the toolbox," he agreed, and wrapped his arms around her. His arm was still giving him trouble, but nothing was going to stop him holding Pepper with everything he had.
She laughed, and wrapped her arms around his chest. "I'm glad you found her," she murmured. "But I'm so sorry about everything that happened. Your family…"
Tony swallowed. "Me too," he sighed. "Y'know, now that you mention it…"
The next morning, Maggie woke up to a choked-off sob.
It hadn't been a nightmare this time – those she could handle, pushing through the images of blood and pain, focusing on her breathing. But this time it had been a dream. A memory.
She'd been lying in bed, curled on her side, watching soft dawn light filter through a papered-over window. Bucky was there – his arms were around her, flesh and metal, his knees flush against the backs of her knees. It had been warm, and safe, and Bucky was murmuring her name.
She'd been happy.
When Maggie woke up she sat bolt upright in bed and wrapped her arms around herself, gasping at the ripping, aching feeling in her heart.
She'd been trying so hard not to think about it. It was easy to look out the window and think of the forest, or get so absorbed in Tony that she forgot about herself for a while. But her brain was determined to put her through this torture, even though there was nothing she could do about it.
Maggie missed Bucky with every fiber of her being. The absence of him by her side echoed the hollow pit inside her that ate up smiles and memories and hope, leaving her cold.
She used to struggle to remember things, but now she was haunted by memories: the last time they touched, a fleeting graze of their fingers as Steve pulled Bucky to his feet. The last time they kissed, bloody and tearful in the snow. The last time they shared a bed. Their last moment together before the world kicked the door down: sitting together on their kitchen counter, metal fingers interlaced with flesh.
She pressed one shaking hand against her lips and mouthed: you are my mission.
End of the mission, he'd said. They hadn't said goodbye, but Maggie knew what this was. It was life without Bucky, the end of shoulder-bumps and grey-blue eyes and laughter in the safehouse. The knowledge of it hit her all over again, making her double over and gasp for breath through her tears.
This was why she hadn't let herself think about it – there was nothing to be done about this, nothing she could do or say to make it better. There were only tears.
She hoped he was okay. She hoped Steve was looking after him. She hoped he wasn't somewhere feeling wretched because of her.
Each hope was like a sharp blade in her chest.
After Maggie got a handle on her tears – because they weren't going to dry up on their own any time soon – she took long, slow breaths and reminded herself of the facts.
My name is Maggie. I am a person. I am Tony Stark's sister. I love Bucky Barnes. My mission isn't over.
She rolled out of bed and padded toward the window, rolling her shoulders to judge how close her ribs were to being fully healed. There was no pain, only a little stiffness, and it was much better than yesterday.
As she settled in her spot in front of the window, Maggie's eyes itched with exhaustion. She knew the facts, knew her mission, but that didn't change the fact that there was nothing she could do about them. She didn't want to leave her brother, even though she knew that he was grieving for the five-year-old version of her, and sooner or later he would realize that she was gone. She couldn't do anything but cry, and hope that Bucky was okay, and miss him.
A sparrow settled on a nearby tree branch. Maggie rested her chin on her hand and watched it.
Maybe I've only been pretending to be a person, all this time.
When the door opened that afternoon, there were two pairs of footsteps. Tony's she recognized, softened by comfortable loafers, but the second pair was new: clicking heels, a woman's gait.
Maggie got to her feet and turned around.
Pepper Potts. She recognized her from the news clippings and videos she'd found online – this was the CEO of Stark Industries, and Tony's long-term girlfriend. She was wearing a dark grey pantsuit, and she seemed nervous. Her blue eyes were round and her lips parted as she looked at Maggie, something like awe on her face.
Maggie blinked, and then turned to look at Tony. He was glancing between her and Pepper, a furrow in his brow and his jaw set.
"Hello," whispered Pepper Potts, and Maggie's eyes darted back to her.
She was beautiful, with red hair, blue eyes and freckles. And she was looking at Maggie with far too much emotion – surprise, hope, sorrow. Her eyes darted between Maggie and Tony, and Maggie somehow knew that Potts was picking out the similarities and differences between them. It made Maggie uncomfortable, and she closed off her face.
"Hi," she replied, and she would have backed up further against the window but she didn't want to seem afraid.
Pepper Potts gave her a small smile, then glanced at Tony with a meaningful look.
"Right," Tony said. "Uh… Pepper, this is Maggie. Maggie, Pepper."
Something about the introduction set Maggie on edge. What was this? He was introducing her to his girlfriend, now? What did he want from her? Her shoulders stiffened.
"It's nice to meet you," Pepper prompted. Her words were low, soothing. As if Maggie was a frightened animal. Or a five-year-old child.
The words were on the tip of Maggie's tongue – it's nice to meet you too. Because it was nice: she could already see how Pepper was good for Tony, calming the tension in his shoulders and bringing a little bit of hope back to his eyes. Maggie knew they'd been together through a lot, knew that Pepper hadn't given up on searching for Tony in Afghanistan and had managed his company with an expert hand. It was obvious that they trusted each other, loved each other.
It was nice to meet Pepper Potts in person.
But Maggie couldn't do this.
"What do you want from me?" she croaked, looking back at Tony. He stilled, realizing that she wasn't going to play along with their pretend-relationship any more. Pepper's eyes widened.
"Haven't I hurt you enough?" Maggie continued, looking right into Tony's eyes. "Now you want to bring her into it, too, and keep pretending everything's fine? I'm not that little girl anymore," she urged, and watched the grief she'd known was coming flood Tony's eyes. "I'm not…" she grit her teeth. They were both staring at her and she felt, for the first time, as if she was in a cage. "I'm not a Stark!" she said, far louder than she'd intended.
Tony flinched, and stepped toward Pepper protectively.
Yes, Maggie thought. This was what she'd expected when they put her in this cell, not cups of coffee and misplaced affection. Her chest was heaving, and she distantly noticed that her hands were clenched into fists. Pepper and Tony were staring at her.
"The Winter Soldier took me away," she said, her voice low. Tony's face darkened. "He killed mom and dad in front of me, and he took me away. When we got to the base, Project Leader Peters asked me to make a choice. I chose this." She gestured to herself, metal bones and super soldier serum and all. Pepper put a hand over her mouth.
"They'd killed mom and dad, and told me they killed you, and I wanted to be strong so I could kill them back." She was shaking. "They gave me what I wanted but they wiped me away, and I was too stupid to realize that they would never let me hurt them. And when I finally got free I'd been a monster for twenty two years, and I forgave the man who killed our parents." Tony took a shuddering breath, still protecting Pepper, and Maggie's gaze bored into his. "No wonder you hate me, Tony. I won't apologize for forgiving Bucky. I've killed plenty of people's parents. I've killed children and old men and women and mothers and husbands and brothers-"
"Stop," Tony hissed.
"I killed anyone they wanted me to kill, because I was weak. I'd have killed you if they wanted me to. Or Rhodey. Or Pepper-"
"Stop!" roared Tony. The unhinged look in his eye, the same one he'd had when he went after Bucky, was what made her stop. She gasped for breath, not sure what she wanted to happen. If he tried to attack her it'd make her feel better. But she didn't think Pepper would go for that – Pepper had one hand wrapped around Tony's bicep as he stood in front of her. Tears were streaming down her face.
Tony was shaking his head, teeth gritted together. The silence was deafening.
Finally, Tony looked back into her burning eyes and spoke. "You just… forgave him? Just like that?"
Maggie laughed humorlessly. "I tried to kill him every time I saw him for eighteen years after the car crash."
Tony took a step back, bumping into Pepper.
Maggie couldn't look into his grief-stricken, horrified eyes any longer, so she glared at the ground. "I got close in 2006. Left him impaled on rebar in the middle of the Congo. He made it back, though. I kept trying, but when it came down to it… I couldn't kill him. Not because HYDRA told me not to, but because… when I got my head clear enough to be able to go after him, I realized I didn't want to any more. Every time, the memories of him murdering mom right in front of me would come back, but at the same time I knew that I'd done the same thing plenty of times, because of all the shit HYDRA put in my head."
She sat down, suddenly exhausted. Tony stood, frozen in front of Pepper, his eyes locked on Maggie. He had asked for the knowledge, so she was damn well going to give it to him. It was time for him to stop pretending that he could accept her. "I hated looking at his stupid blank face every time I saw it, but I stopped trying to kill him. And then… we were in it together. Hurting people, killing people, being hurt in our turn. He was the only other person who understood me. A couple of times, he got clear enough to remember some things and he told me my name. It only lasted until I was wiped again, but it… it made me realize that I was more than a weapon, just for a little while."
Maggie closed her eyes. "If it weren't for him, I… I'd have gone down fighting for HYDRA on those Helicarriers in D.C. I might have even helped them win. I'm the Wyvern because of Bucky, but I'm also… I'm Maggie again, because of him." She sighed, and rested her arms on her knees. She could sense that Tony and Pepper hadn't moved.
"I know what I've done," she continued. Her voice was hoarse now. "I don't deserve or expect forgiveness from my victims, or from you. I probably don't rightfully deserve to be alive. But when Bucky and I were out, and free, and together… I don't know. Our lives had been too bloody for either of us to judge the other, and together we were… we were able to pretend to be people. For a while. It was nice." At that, Maggie bowed her head. And waited.
Tony turned on his heel and walked out.
"Tony-" Pepper called. She hesitated, looking at the bowed woman before her, then followed Tony out of the room.
The cell door swished shut behind her.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone