บท 19: Chapter 19
January 17th, 2014
Tehuacán, Mexico
Meg opened the stolen laptop, and then froze.
She'd been thinking about nothing else since they'd snuck off the ship at Tampico and travelled south, putting distance between themselves and their escape route. Bucky had remembered more of his missions and drawn into himself, refusing to speak about it, so she'd had little else to occupy her thoughts. She'd contemplated search criteria, date ranges, and sources of data. But now, sitting with the laptop at a beat-up wooden table in a tiny coffee shop, she couldn't bring herself to even touch the keys.
The table wobbled, and Meg looked up as Bucky sat down opposite her. He slid a steaming mug across the table to her, glancing from her face to the open laptop.
They were both still wearing civilian clothes, dusty from the desert, the cotton and canvas unfamiliar against their skin. Meg had her hood pulled up despite the relatively warm Mexican weather. Bucky had no choice but to keep his layers on, to keep his metal arm hidden. He'd bought their coffees with stolen pesos.
Meg slid her fingers around the mug and closed her eyes as warmth seeped into her palms. "What is it?"
"Coffee," Bucky answered, taking a sip from his own mug. "I used to drink it, before. Don't remember there being so many kinds, though," he grumbled.
She glanced at the menu, taking in the long list of coffee drinks. "What kind did we get?"
"Asked for the 'house coffee'. It's pretty good."
Meg thought the fact that they were both bewildered by a very common drink should be concerning, but it helped to talk about something so mundane. She sniffed her mug, and her eyes shot open at the powerful aroma. It was a familiar smell – it recalled flickers of walking through coffee shops on missions, and smelling it on a target or handler's breath.
She took a sip, and though she didn't cough or splutter, Bucky easily read the wince that pinched her face.
"Don't like it?"
The concept of being asked her preference on something was still new, so Meg just shrugged. "It's strong. But…" she closed her eyes again, feeling the caffeine zing through her tired body. "I could get used to it."
When she opened her eyes, Bucky was still looking at her. There was a bit more life in his eyes now – he must have pulled himself out of whatever reverie his new memories had brought on. He nodded at the laptop.
"You don't have to do this, if you don't want to. You know it ain't going to be pretty."
Meg took another sip of her coffee, using the strong punch of flavour to centre herself. Just a week ago she'd been a blank weapon, and now she was sitting, drinking coffee, faced with a decision.
She sighed. "I want to. I only remember HYDRA, that's all my life has ever been. If there's more… I want to know about it."
Bucky nodded and brought his mug to his mouth, surreptitiously surveilling the coffee shop.
Meg got to work.
Meg didn't doubt her own skills, but she'd thought this would be harder. She knew better than most how easy it was for a person to slip through the cracks, to have their death amount to nothing more than an accident, a footnote in the papers. In an encrypted internet search she looked for young girls named Margaret who had disappeared or "died" fifteen to twenty five years ago in an incident with a car.
She'd expected her search to take some time – she'd expected to be trawling through crimes, preparing probability vectors, analysing facial features. But she had her answer in an instant.
"Margaret Stark," she breathed, her hands falling away from the laptop. She barely even registered the way Bucky froze in his seat. She stared at the screen, at the image of the dark-haired little girl grinning a gap-toothed smile at the camera as she gestured to a circuit board. The search had instantly yielded that photo, and she could see it was from an uploaded scan of a newspaper article, reading HOWARD STARK DEAD IN ROAD FATALITY WITH WIFE, MARIA AND DAUGHTER, MARGARET.
As she'd hoped and feared, the answer to her search prompted new flash-memories: a man with white hair – her father – holding her on his hip; a high, sweet voice accompanying a piano melody; a man with a British accent putting a bandage on her scraped knee; the young man with the engine again, his laughter now ringing clear in her mind; nannies chasing her across a marble floor; a workshop that smelled like engine oil and metal.
Margaret. Stark.
Maggie.
The memories were bright and loud and echoed with a chorus of emotions, but unlike other times she had remembered, she didn't feel like she'd been physically beaten. Instead, the memories slotted into place in her mind. They were edged with pain, but she was glad to have them – this was what she had been searching for, each time she closed her eyes and delved into her mind for answers.
Of course, she didn't have everything – just the flash memories, with some context details filling in the gaps. These were nothing like her grey, cold, bitter memories of HYDRA.
Meg – Maggie – opened her eyes.
Bucky was frozen, coffee forgotten, his eyes darting back and forth. She took a deep breath, pulling her remembered identity on like a shirt that didn't quite fit any more. She wasn't that little girl any more, not even close, but she could feel the girl's memories swirling inside her.
"What do you remember?" she asked Bucky, making him jerk and look up at her. She dimmed the laptop display, so the passing waitress wouldn't see Margaret Stark's grinning face.
Bucky hunched in on himself. "Stark."
"The last- my last name. From the mission?"
He shook his head. "I knew your father."
Maggie had experienced so many earth-shattering revelations in the past days, that she found she didn't have the energy to be overwhelmed by this knowledge. She wrapped her hands around her warm mug, still turning over her new, HYDRA-free memories. She'd been happy, before. Not always, but enough.
"I knew him," Bucky continued, his voice low and broken. "I knew him, and I… oh god, he recognised me, on the mission." He put his face in his hands, but not before Maggie saw the tears springing into his eyes. The name Stark was tearing at something inside of him. She didn't know what to do.
"He called me Sergeant Barnes. And then I killed him." Bucky's voice was too low for anyone else to overhear, but his visible distress had caught the waitress's eye. Maggie shot her a fake, reassuring smile, then picked up the laptop and got to her feet. Bucky stood too, on autopilot, and she took his arm and walked him out of the shop.
"I'm so sorry, Meg," he murmured, his face bowed to hide the pain flashing across it. "You're… you're Howard's kid. I knew him, and I killed him."
Maggie marched Bucky into a warm alley behind the coffee shop, senses alert for signs of any other people, then turned him to face her. "Bucky."
He met her eyes. He looked wretched, the sleepless nights and his grief and guilt etching lines in his face. His eyes were bottomless, filled with shadows. He opened his mouth again, and she just knew he was about to start apologising again.
"How did you know him?" she asked. She thought about the man who was her father, with his white hair and low voice and scratchy chin. The thought almost brought a smile to her face.
Bucky's face creased even further. "It's a bit… hazy-"
"I know," she murmured. "Just tell me what you remember."
"He was in the war. Not a soldier, a… contractor. Or something. Smart, like you, but he was loud. He worked with Steve, mainly. We didn't talk much, but I knew he was looking out for Steve, and that was good enough for me. He was a great man, Meg, and I… I'm so sorry, I should have-"
"Stop," she told him. He shut his mouth. "I am sorry." She could see him about to argue with her, so she shot him a don't you dare look. It was softer than the one she was used to giving to targets and opponents, but it worked just as well. "I'm sorry they made you kill someone you knew before. Someone who helped you and your friend."
Bucky's shoulders dropped, and the anguish in his eyes seemed to mellow. "I should have known. I'm sorry, Meg."
"But you didn't, and I know why. I don't blame you." She leaned back against the brick wall of the alley, still watching Bucky's face.
Bucky was hunched in on himself, a few feet away. "I wish I could go back," he sighed. "I'd change… so many things."
She cocked her head. "But you can't. So what will you do with the choices you have now?"
He looked up at her. "I… Meg, there's no way I can repair the damage I've done, to you or to the countless other people I hurt. I don't know how to pay you back, or make things right."
Maggie felt a flare of irritation. "I don't know either," she replied. "I don't know how to judge my own crimes, and I'm drowning in them. What do we do, to repay all the blood we spilled? Apologise? Hunt down HYDRA? Spill even more blood? Nothing I can think of sounds even remotely close to a viable option." She was breathing hard, now, and had to force herself not to crush the laptop in her hands. She hadn't meant to start yelling at him, she'd wanted to ease him back from his guilt and grief. How had she gone so off-course?
She gritted her teeth. "I've known nothing else except the mission for… for over twenty years! I don't remember being taught what was right and what was wrong, and apologies and absolution were just words that targets used. So I don't know what you should be doing. I don't know what I should be doing. We're both weapons pretending to be people and we've got to… to just deal with all the terrible shit we've done, Bucky. We can't change it, so we've just got to deal with it." She fell silent, glaring at him. She didn't think she'd said so many words in a row to him before, and she'd never yelled at someone before.
Bucky had been still and silent during her tirade. The hunched-up guilt had faded, at least, and he didn't look away from her angry gaze. She could see her words sinking in, but she couldn't quite read him.
"I don't want your apologies, Bucky Barnes," she said. The use of his name made him flinch. "I want… I want a chance to learn to be a person outside of HYDRA. I want you with me, because I think you deserve that chance too, no matter what HYDRA made you do. Maybe because of what they made you do. I want it because the thought of doing this on my own is terrifying, and because I think you understand me, and because I know you'll watch my back. So don't apologise, or try to repay a debt. Just be here."
He watched her for a few more seconds of silence. The alleyway was ringing with her words. Her own guilt was a chasm surrounding her, threatening to swallow her in darkness and blood. The urge to throw herself in was tempting, but she reminded herself that it would serve no purpose: it wouldn't bring her victims back, and it wouldn't make her a better person. She'd have to shoulder the guilt, and take it with her.
"Okay," said Bucky. He'd straightened, and the lines in his face had softened. He nodded, almost to himself. "Okay."
Maggie let out a breath, expelling some of her shaky anger. "Okay?"
"I'll be here. And… I don't deserve to say this, I don't think, but I want you with me too. For the same reasons." Half his mouth lifted in a sad smile. His eyes were glimmering. "I'm trying to work this out, Meg, it's just… it's so much."
She sighed. "I know."
"You help, though," Bucky continued. "You're… a lot smarter than me." He smiled again, a bit less sad this time.
No one had ever taught the Wyvern humility. No one had ever taught it to Margaret Stark, either.
"Don't forget it," she replied, arching an eyebrow. "So… what now?"
Bucky moved, coming to stand beside Maggie against the wall of the alley. "What do you remember?" He nodded at the laptop clutched in her hands.
"Well I didn't get a chance to really read any of it-" she saw Bucky's mouth open and she threw up her hands. "Don't apologise again!" He shut his mouth. "But just the name… I remember. It's jumbled, and I don't really have a lot of details, but… I remember having a family."
"Was Howard a good dad?"
Maggie frowned, pressing the laptop to her chest. "I don't… remember, really. I don't know what makes a man a good father. I think he was… busy. I-" she winced at a new flash-memory: shouting and her own tears. "I remember that he and Tony fought."
"Tony?"
Her eyes widened. "Tony, he's… he was my brother. I had a brother." A tentative smile began to creep up the corners of her lips, but it abruptly fell away. "They killed him, too. They told me, and they laughed." She remembered the soldier laughing at her, remembered thinking you are the last.
Bucky let out a long breath. "I'm sorry, Meg."
She didn't think to tell him off for apologising, because she was snapping the laptop open again and resting it on a nearby dumpster. She could still access the coffee shop's Wi-Fi from here, so she opened a new browser window and typed in Tony Stark.
When the browser loaded, Maggie closed her eyes before she could see the results. She knew what she was going to see: news articles about his death, seemingly an accident but really orchestrated by HYDRA. She could see him in her mind's eye, youthful and laughing with oil on his hands. She needed just one more second before she saw his death.
Bucky was by her shoulder. "Meg," he breathed, and something about his voice made her open her eyes. He wasn't commiserating, or concerned about her closed eyes and her silence. He was surprised.
She stared blankly at the open browser window for a good few seconds before she processed what she was seeing.
Not a youthful face with the first results on the internet describing his tragic death. No, the first result was what looked like a very long and detailed Wikipedia page titled Tony Stark.
The short blurb underneath the result read: Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark is an American billionaire, genius, philanthropist and inventor, and the former CEO of Stark Industries. He is also the armored superhero known as Iron Man, and a member of the Avengers.
Maggie couldn't breathe, and she couldn't draw her eyes away from the words that indicated Tony's present tense: is. He is.
Her eyes flickered to the side of the screen, to the top photo results for Tony Stark. It was the face she remembered, but it wasn't so young any more: the man looking back at her was in his forties, with swarthy features, broad shoulders and a complicated-looking beard.
Under the photos, the result bar for the Wikipedia article listed his date of birth: 29 May 1970 (age 43 years). She stared and stared, but there was no death date. Other information included his net worth, his parents' names, and his current partner, but Maggie couldn't process any of it.
"He's alive," she whispered.
She'd only recently remembered that he existed, but the knowledge that he was still alive shifted her world on its axis. Someone who had known her, had most likely loved her, was still out there.
Her hazy pre-HYDRA memories were tinted with an innate acceptance of her big brother's genius, and it seemed that genius had served him well in the passing years. She reviewed her operational knowledge on Iron Man and the Avengers, and tried to match that up with what she vaguely remembered about Tony. It was an odd juxtaposition, trying to fit level 6 combatant, advanced weaponry, genius IQ, with her memory of the young man, but it made a kind of sense.
She remembered he'd been passionate, always tinkering, and definitely a genius. A flash memory rose to the surface of her mind: standing behind a blast shield with Tony, itchy earmuffs protecting her ears, the both of them whooping as they set off a series of explosions. He'd had his hand on her shoulder.
Maggie smiled to herself. Bucky hovered beside her, closely monitoring her expression, and when she smiled some of the tension slipped out of his frame.
"Meg?"
"Yes?"
"Are you… is this…" he seemed to struggle with the words, and he kept glancing at the laptop screen.
Maggie took pity on him. "They lied to me," she breathed. "He's still alive."
"That's good." A complicated range of emotions crossed Bucky's face. "He looks like Howard."
Maggie looked back at the screen, at the photo of Tony in a sharp blue suit. He'd grown so much. "He looks like Tony."
"He's Iron Man," Bucky said, squinting at the screen.
"Yes," she agreed. "And an Avenger. He must know Steve." She remembered reading in the museum about how Steve Rogers had joined a group of super-powered people. It had also been in his file with HYDRA.
There were a few moments of silence as that sank in. Maggie tried to imagine the young man she'd known working with, maybe being friends with, the principled and sometimes-a-little-shit Steve Rogers that she'd fought against. She took a moment to be glad that Rogers hadn't called for Tony's help in D.C.
Bucky broke the silence. "It looks like he's a powerful man. And he's your family, Meg. He could protect you."
Maggie glanced at Bucky. Now she understood the complicated expression on his face: relief, wariness, grief and hope all tangled together.
She sighed. "I'm not sure that he would want to. He lost his baby sister. As far as he knows, she died when he was still a boy. I'd be giving him back a monster."
"You're not a monster, Meg," Bucky said softly.
She reached out and shut the laptop. "Maybe. But I'm not the little girl he knew either. He's a hero now, and I'm… still working out how to be a person. I'm still dangerous – everything HYDRA made me, made us, it's still in our heads. I don't want to hurt him." She closed her eyes, picturing a handler saying her words and sending her after the man from her memories. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the dread she felt reflected in Bucky's grey-blue eyes. "That's why you didn't want to go to Steve," she murmured.
"Yeah. Do you remember Tony?"
She cocked her head. "Sort of. I remember…" she smiled quizzically at another flash-memory. "He used to call me Maggot."
Bucky's mouth quirked in a smile, but then he grew serious again. "You cared about him?"
"Yes," she murmured. The concept of caring for another person seemed like it should be strange to her, but with the influx of new memories it wasn't quite so alien. "He was everything I wanted to be. And he had my back, even when he was teasing me." She hadn't meant to say that much, it had just… spilled out. She felt a warmth in her chest, edged with pain. Now that she remembered him and knew that he was alive, she ached to see Tony. She wanted to see how he'd changed, wanted to hold him like he'd sometimes let her when she was small, wanted to see him laughing. But…
"That's why I didn't want to go to Steve," Bucky said. "Because I remembered caring about him – you saw the stuff in the museum – and I knew that if I went to him I'd be putting him in danger."
Maggie nodded slowly. She'd thought it through – HYDRA was after her, and Tony seemed to be one of the most visible people in the world. The less she was connected to him, the better. She let out a long, slow breath, and closed her eyes. The memories of her brother were bright, edged with joy, and she held them in her mind like tokens. She'd cared for him, loved him even, and if the ache in her chest was anything to go by, those feelings had returned along with the memories. She couldn't put him in danger.
A thought struck her. "You're not going to disappear in the night to protect me, are you?" She squinted at Bucky.
His lips quirked. "Ain't no danger I could put you in that you aren't in already. Why, you planning on taking off?"
"Well I just yelled at you about how I don't plan on doing that, so no," she replied, still squinting. Her chest was still hurting, so she changed the subject to distract herself. "You know, you've got a Brooklyn accent."
His eyebrows rose. "Really?"
"Yes, it's faint but I've been hearing it every now and then."
His smile returned, slow and hesitant. "That's... well, it's something. Your accent is kind of... it's hard to put my finger on it, but when you're more relaxed, it's definitely American."
Maggie smiled as well, and shook her head. Here they were, standing in an alleyway behind a coffee shop, discussing each others' accents. "Come on," she said, picking up the laptop. "Let's find a safehouse. I want to do more research on my brother – it looks like he's been busy."
As they re-adjusted their civilian disguises, Bucky asked: "Do you think they're friends? Steve and your brother?"
Maggie shrugged. "I don't know. The Tony I remember is from twenty three years ago, and since then it looks like he's been the CEO of Stark Industries and joined a superhero group. A lot can happen to a person in that amount of time. I hope they're friends, though. I… don't like the idea of Tony all by himself." She wondered what it had been like for him, after the car crash. A sharp ache bloomed in the centre of her chest. He hadn't had the knowledge taken away from him, like Maggie had. He'd been living with the death of his whole family for all this time.
Bucky stayed close by her side. "I hope so, too. Must have been rough for Steve, waking up in a new time."
As they left the alley, Maggie realised that she had no reference for what a friendship entailed. She'd been hoping that Tony had company, she supposed, someone to support him and stop him from making poor decisions (she had a lot of hazy memories about a lot of poor decisions). She looked out of the corner of her eye at Bucky, and wondered what he was to her – first a fellow asset, then an ally, and now…?
"Are we friends?" she blurted out, because her fragmented mind couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Bucky looked surprised, but not averse to the idea. She supposed he was having a similar issue to her, taking himself out of the mindset of you are a weapon, weapons do not feel, and opening himself to the possibility of having a friend. "Sure," he eventually said, nodding at her. "We're friends. That alright with you?"
She frowned. "I might not be very good at it."
That made him laugh. "Me neither. But of all the things we've got to worry about, I'm not sure that's our biggest issue. We'll figure it out." He bumped his shoulder against hers, and Maggie was so startled by the movement that she stopped in her tracks. She was sure he didn't mean to attack her, so why…
"Sorry," Bucky said, with a wince. "I guess I used to do that."
She blinked. "Why?"
"I don't know, I think I did it with my friends. It's stupid," he shook his head.
Maggie considered the data. Instinctive movement in reaction to newly established friendship: Bucky clearly remembered having friends before, and how to behave in such a relationship. The movement itself throwing her slightly off balance: a teasing undercurrent, indicative of comfortable physical affection. She cocked her head.
"No, it's alright," she eventually said. "It just… surprised me. I'm not used to people touching me unless they're attacking me or giving me maintenance." That just seemed to make Bucky look sorrier, so she continued. "You remember what it's like to have friends, and that's a good thing. Shoulder bumping is… okay."
To illustrate her point, she marched toward him, angled herself and knocked her shoulder into his bicep. He swayed backward – perhaps she'd hit a little harder than necessary – but smiled.
"Okay," he said. "But maybe let's just agree to… to give each other a little warning before we make any sudden movements or touch each other."
They'd barely touched each other at all except to smother each other's screams before, but if they were going to be friends then perhaps such a negotiation was necessary. "Alright."
"And as for remembering how to be a friend, what I was going to say before I bowled you over-" his smile widened at her narrowed eyes "- was that there's not much to it. It's like you said: you've just gotta be here."
She nodded. "Friends, then."
"Friends."
On their way out of the alley, Maggie shoulder-checked him again. Bucky would later have to explain that it wasn't necessary to bump him at the end of every interaction, but for now, it only made him smile.
January, 2014
Avengers Tower, New York City
Steve and Sam didn't see Tony for almost a week after he left a crater in Sam's lawn. They'd continued their search from Steve's rooms in the tower, which Sam had been understandably in awe of. He still sometimes flinched when J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke.
They'd seen Pepper a few times, and she'd reassured them that Tony was more or less okay, and that he was still working in his lab. Rhodes came in and out, nodding hello to Steve and Sam when he saw them. From the expressions on Pepper and Rhodes's faces, Steve guessed that Tony had told them about his sister.
That morning in the communal floor, while they flipped through the Kiev file for clues, Bruce emerged from the elevator looking pale and disturbed. He seemed surprised to see them, and politely welcomed Sam to the tower. He didn't talk about where he'd been, until Steve asked:
"I heard what Tony asked you to do, Bruce. Are you okay?"
At that, Bruce's face fell and he began fidgeting with his glasses. "I'll be alright. I told Tony that I wasn't that kind of doctor, but I think he wanted me there because… well, it wasn't pretty. It wouldn't have been a good idea for him to be there." He grimaced.
"Because he trusts you," Steve finished. He was pretty sure the doctor knew that, but he wanted to make sure.
Bruce gave him a sad smile. "I guess. I'd better go find Tony, I don't want to give anyone else the results before…"
Steve nodded. "Of course, we'll see you later."
A few hours later, J.A.R.V.I.S. summoned Steve back to the communal floor. Sam had waved him off, promising to finish translating the last few pages of the file.
When the elevator doors opened, Steve immediately saw Tony: he was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, sipping what looked like a glass of bright green juice.
Steve approached, taking in the spectacular view of the city, and then turned to face his teammate. Tony looked a little better than he had in D.C., with fewer lines of exhaustion on his face. He still looked like he'd been working flat out, though, in well-worn jeans and a shirt.
"Tony," Steve began. "How are you doing?"
Tony looked away from the windows. "How am I – Jesus, Steve, you could at least pretend to have an ounce of selfishness, you make the rest of us feel bad."
Steve shrugged. "As Natasha likes to tell me, I'm not very good at pretending."
"Hmph," Tony rolled his eyes, and took another sip of the frighteningly green drink. "It's recently been brought to my attention that you're looking for someone."
Steve glanced at the ceiling, his reflex reaction whenever J.A.R.V.I.S. was brought up. "Yeah, Sam's been helping me."
"And whoever it is," Tony continued, "You've been looking for them since the Helicarrier thing." He took Steve's silence as confirmation. "See here's where I get stuck, Steve, because if this was some big bad HYDRA asshole, you'd have brought in me and the rest of the team. Romanoff would have stuck with you. And for whatever reason, you needed to find out who the Wyvern was to find your guy." The flash of pain that crossed Tony's face at the mention of the Wyvern was fleeting, but Steve spotted it. "So then I thought back to that phone call where you asked for my help, and I remembered you saying that you knew who the emo with the metal arm was.
"But here's the thing, Steve, I've been combing through the footage of the Helicarrier battle, and through the S.H.I.E.L.D. data dump, and I've got nothing on that guy's identity. Not a single photo of his face, or even a pseudonym." Tony stared at Steve a moment longer, taking in his hard expression. "Who is he, Steve? What does he have to do with the Wyvern?"
Steve hadn't wanted to bring his teammates into this. But Tony was right – Steve's search for Bucky had uncovered the Wyvern's identity. They were connected.
"Bucky Barnes," Steve said, and watched the instant recognition flare in Tony's eyes. "I recognised him when his mask came off on the street. HYDRA got him after he fell from the train in '45, turned him into this…" Steve felt his face twisting against his will, so he clenched his fist and cleared his throat. "They called him the Winter Soldier, used him as an assassin. He didn't recognise me, but then after the Helicarriers… he must've pulled me out of the water." He met Tony's eyes.
Tony let out a breath. "And the Wyvern? My sister?" His eyes were bright.
"Fought with him for HYDRA."
Tony finished his green drink and began pacing, eyes darting back and forth. Steve could almost see his mind working. "Okay, so whatever they did to Barnes they must have done to her. Because Maggie would have come back," he said, voice roughening. "She wouldn't…" He took a few long, slow breaths and Steve was reminded of the panic attack in Sam's living room.
"So it is her, then?" Steve asked, voice low.
Tony stopped pacing, his back to Steve. "Yeah. No doubt about the blood results, and Bruce said… Bruce said that the bones from her grave aren't hers. They're from a Jane Doe, and they show signs of Adamantium experimentation."
Steve didn't know what to say.
"So either HYDRA staged that accident, and… and killed my parents-" Steve couldn't see Tony's face, but he could hear the grief in his voice. "Or Maggie survived the accident and HYDRA just… took the opportunity. I've been reading up on them, they had plants everywhere. It could've been… a doctor in the hospital, a morgue attendant…" Tony trailed off. "There's nothing in the dump about that night. Whatever happened, it never made it onto any digital files that I can find. I guess it doesn't matter either way – Maggie's been with them this whole time."
"I'm sorry, Tony." It was all Steve could offer – he would keep his secrets.
Tony took a shuddering breath and turned around. His eyes were bright, but neither of them mentioned it. "You fought her, right?" His gaze was searching. "What did you… what was she like?"
Steve blinked – he hadn't expected that question. At the time, the Wyvern had just been… HYDRA. An enemy. His only thought had been to survive, and then he'd been so wrapped up in Bucky…
"She's strong," he eventually said. "I only actually fought her for a few seconds, but she hit almost as hard as me."
"Serum, then," Tony said. "I guessed as much, there's some weird indicators in the blood."
"Sam went up against her twice, he could probably tell you more, but…" Steve didn't know how to tell Tony that his sister had looked like a demon and fought like a machine. "If they did to her what they did to Bucky, Tony… He was cold, relentless. They took away everything I recognised about my friend and turned him into a… a-"
"A weapon," Tony finished. He looked haggard. "Yeah, I get the picture. Jesus." He ran a hand over his face. "But you're going after him?"
Steve nodded. "I think I got through to him. Either way, he's still my friend, and if I can help him then I will."
Tony straightened. "And you think the Wyvern is with him. That's why you came to me for help." He kept talking before Steve could answer. "That's smart; no bodies, similar situations, yeah. J.A.R.V.I.S., let's expand our search criteria – any sign of a metal-armed man in the D.C. area?"
Steve's eyes widened – he knew Tony had resources, but to access an entire city's CCTV…
"I have found one still from a CCTV camera from the day of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall," came J.A.R.V.I.S.'s smooth voice. Tony waved his hand, and the windows immediately blacked out.
A holographic display popped up in the middle of the room, showing a pixelated CCTV still: a dark metropolitan street, with cars captured mid-motion. For a moment Steve didn't know what he was looking at, until J.A.R.V.I.S. zoomed in on the very corner of the image. On the sidewalk stood a man in a dark outfit with a gleaming metal arm, his back to the camera. He stood beside a woman in a similar dark outfit, holding something metallic under her arm. The image was horribly pixelated, showing only the shapes of their bodies and the glint of metal, but Steve knew what he was looking at.
"This still was captured a block away from a suspicious fire at an abandoned bank building," J.A.R.V.I.S. continued. "Emergency services found warped machinery and weapons in the vault, and a hidden entrance from the bank to the building next door. Police are currently investigating."
"HYDRA?" asked Steve, still staring at the blurry image of Bucky and his metal arm.
"Given the timing of the fire and the amount of weapons discovered, it is probable that the bank served as a HYDRA facility. The police are yet to trace the building ownership, but I have followed a trail of dummy holdings and shell companies back to a known S.H.I.E.L.D. – or rather, HYDRA – bank account."
Tony was staring at the woman beside Bucky. "It's her."
"Body type and uniform do match stills of the Wyvern, sir," agreed J.A.R.V.I.S..
Tony whirled to face Steve. "How do you feel about pooling resources, Rogers? My significant financial and technological resources and my omnipotent A.I., in exchange for your plucky sidekick?"
Steve knew he should probably defend Sam, but that wasn't really the main focus right now. "If you're sure, Tony."
He waved his hand. "We both know that I'm going to look for Maggie and you're going to look for Bucky no matter what, so we may as well be on the same team. Historically, teamwork has been okay for us. Remember when we saved the world?"
Steve smiled, shaking his head. "I remember, Tony. Alright, where do we start?"
Tony clapped his hands. "Well I'm already combing through the data dump. Haven't found anything about the Winter Soldier, at least not yet, but I'm sure J.A.R.V.I.S. got on that as soon as you mentioned it…?"
"Of course, sir," added J.A.R.V.I.S., and Steve could have sworn that the A.I. sounded affronted.
"Great. I've found a few references to the Wyvern. No file or anything, but every now and then in the HYDRA shadow data there's a mention of her: if there's mission details about an assassination or extraction or something, it usually just says The Wyvern succeeded or The Wyvern was consulted. I did find this-" he did something complicated with his hands, and the hologram of the CCTV still changed into a block of text, with a section highlighted: it looked like correspondence between a technician and Secretary Pierce, and Steve narrowed his eyes.
The highlighted section read: Wyvern consulted on Insight programming. Rewrote section 13a for more efficient targeting.
Tony grimaced at Steve's widened eyes. "Yeah. So it looks like the Wyvern wasn't just their attack dog." He waved the hologram away. "Anyway, Rhodey knows about Maggie, and he's not going to say anything to anyone. Pep's keeping quiet, too."
"Are they okay?" Steve asked. "I know Rhodes must have known her… before."
"He's… dealing. I don't think he really gets the whole terrible HYDRA assassin thing yet. He said he'd always regretted not taking Maggie flying when he had the chance." Tony's eyes grew alarmingly bright, before he rolled them and got back to the point. "Anyway, we'll find them and then we'll deal with the evil assassin thing. You got anything?"
Steve sighed. "Not really. A Soviet file from the forties to the seventies and a few leads on HYDRA bases. Sam's with the files now."
"Great," Tony said, and began striding to the elevator. "HYDRA bases, decent place to start. J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"Compiling leads, sir."
After a moment of hesitation, Steve shook his head and followed his friend into the elevator. This was how it should be, the two of them working together to find their lost family. Whatever had happened in the past… well. He'd be sparing Tony from more pain if he kept Zola's taunts to himself.
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