The End
The world was moving in slow motion. Sam flung himself through flaming wreckage, his wings held up around him like a shield, his feet hardly touching the floor. It was like a dance. His hair stood on end. Every part of him was on high alert. He turned and twisted around burning desks. He was walking between the bullets. They couldn’t seem to touch him, no one could seem to touch him. He felt entirely numb for the first time since Riley’s death. He was invincible.
Sam half-flew and half-ran around the room, pushing his way through the hordes of enemy agents who could barely see through the hailstorm of bullets. Some wayward fists flew at him, but he ducked between them. A light mist began to cloud his head. He let instinct take over. Turning and twisting and dancing through the flames and gunfire he went, growing ever closer to the center of action, the center of the crowd… two steps more and he was there. One step more. Go. Go.
Someone started shouting at him. Suddenly they were on him, tackling him, but he was ready now and he grabbed their guns and threw them aside and ducked beneath their fists, side-stepped their knives, and bit by bit they grew sloppier. Their knives started hitting their friends, nowhere vital of course, but it slowed their speed. Sam kept on with it, not actually hurting anyone once, but allowing them to go at each other with their spears and pitchforks and torches ablaze. They fought until they were fighting only each other, and no longer Sam. He stood somewhere to the side of it all and watched impassively as each was newly hurt or maimed by a friend. The room was still on fire. Smoke clogged Sam’s lungs. Everyone kept falling. Blood flew through the air like sprites in a magical dance, taking part in a carnivorous bacchanal of death and crazed souls, driven mad by war. He stood back, ever still and inscrutable until the last of them fell, choking on their own blood. Somehow a hole had been blasted through the roof, and the overcast sky was visible above Sam. The only sound was the steady crackling of fire.
Slowly Bucky stood up. He was still standing behind the overturned desk. He was clutching his arm.
Sam met his eyes and they stayed there for a moment, with Sam silhouetted in the half light of the hole in the roof and Bucky staring back at him, illuminated by fire. They stood in silence. Something wet landed on Sam’s nose. He looked up.
The rain began to fall in great, silently cleansing sheets. It doused the fires through the hole in the roof. The blood began to wash away. Bucky started forward, slowly at first and then running to Sam. Once he got there they embraced. Neither one wanted to let go. Rain slid down Sam’s face, mingling with the tears on his cheeks as he pressed into Bucky’s shoulder, even as he could feel the warm blood on Bucky’s arm and shoulder and everywhere, even as the flames went still and cold behind them. Emotion came flooding back all at once. It was just him and Bucky, the two of them alone in the wreckage of everything. All at once he felt still, and horribly melancholic. The bodies around them moved no longer. Everything was cold.
-
Maggie paced back and forth anxiously. The room that they had snuck into seemed to have been abandoned by fleeing SHIELD techs. The coffee in the cups on the desks was still lukewarm. The computers had been left on, desk drawers left open, files and papers scattered on the floor had been trampled on in the hurry to evacuate while the fighting continued in the other parts of the building. Peter sat at one of the desks, typing and clicking through browsers. He sat back with a slight huff.
“I don’t know why it’s not working. At the risk of sounding immodest, I am pretty good at coding - and hacking,” he said.
Maggie nodded. “I believe you.” She went around behind him to look over the program he’d written. “I’m no expert in comp-sci, but this looks alright to me…”
“I’ve almost broken down the firewall on their WiFi. It’s pretty simple stuff, not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but still… not sure why I can’t solve it.” Peter looked up at Maggie. She sighed uncomfortably.
“We need to do this as quickly as possible. Sam and the Sergeant need us to get this done. They can’t hold off those troops forever.”
They both turned back to the computer.
-
“I think I’ve got it,” said Peter at last. He stood bitterly. “They’ll all be seeing it any minute now.”
“Good,” replied Maggie. This was her revenge. She could feel it coming, and she simply couldn’t wait.
-
There were several dozen tactical response trucks outside SHIELD headquarters. Each was filled with computer screens. Inside the biggest truck sat the director of the FBI, several high-ranking law enforcement officers, and Sharon Carter. All were heavily preoccupied with the task at hand: capturing Wilson and Barnes, and figuring out where that asshole spider-kid went. Coffee sat in cups around them. Meaningful documents were strewn around the table. High-tech computers with important-looking maps on their screens were displayed at tasteful intervals on the table. The screens glitched briefly and returned to normal. The head of the NSA glanced up briefly and then went back to the conversation he was having with Agent Carter. The screens glitched again.
Suddenly every display in the room went blank. This elicited a gasp from everyone, who all stopped to look up. There was silence for a moment, and then suddenly a voice came booming from every speaker in the room. Sharon in particular was the most startled by this because, she quickly realized, the voice she was hearing was her own. The face which was appearing on screen was, coincidentally, also her own. Crap.
-
“We should be hearing from them any second now.” Peter leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t smiling. He seemed angry, withdrawn, and the complete opposite of his usual self. Maggie couldn’t help but notice the way he kept tugging his sleeves over his palms so that everything past his fingertips was concealed. She also couldn’t help but notice how his breath was only coming in short gasps, like he had just ran a marathon. He never used to get out of breath like this in the months before, even when they were chasing each other around parks or racing each other through side streets. He didn’t ever seem to get out of breath, and neither did Maggie. This was a wholly new concept to her. She felt agitated and angry and, in a sickening sort of way, glad that her plan was falling into place so beautifully. Sharon Carter’s life would soon be ruined in a way that could only mirror the way that she had ruined Sam and Peter and Bucky’s during the past ten months.
Maggie maintained eye contact with Peter. “She’ll pay for what she did to you. Mark my words. Everything is going according to plan.”
-
“You’re saying you haven’t found them yet?” Sharon’s voice echoed over every speaker. Her face loomed on the screen, unaware of its projection across every interface. “They cost me so much money and all my good muscle ten months ago. Framing them for murder cost a lot of money.” She paused, and her head turned. The audience gasped to see the face of the Tall Man - or as he was more well known, Gregory Talshvik, the political assassin who had made the FBI’s most-wanted list on five separate occasions. Generally a well-known face in law enforcement. There he was, standing in Sharon Carter’s apartment, two days ago from the timestamp at the bottom of the screen.
“I know. We had them, we almost had them a few weeks ago but you made us let them go.”
Sharon turned sharply to face him. “That was a tactical decision. And see where it got us? The spider-kid turned himself in and the press loves me. I’m a hero. And you get a good profit from the money, don’t you?”
Talshvik lowered his eyes stubbornly. He was grinning ruefully, angrily. “Yes. I do, thank you. And trust me, I’m very grateful.”
“But what?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to. What’s the ‘but’?”
He looked her in the eye, staring down his nose as if he’d rather eat a cockroach than continue to stand there and talk to her. “You’re getting sloppy.”
“The Power Broker is not sloppy.”
“Sharon Carter is, and Sharon Carter is the Power Broker. Potato-potahto, as you Americans say.”
This drew another gasp from the fitful audience. In the trailer, in real life, Sharon’s hand went to her gun. She tensed. A moment of terse silence, and the Sharon on screen chuckled.
“You’re right. I am.” She strode over to where Talshvik was standing and looked him directly in the eye. “I am the Power Broker, and you will await further instructions. We almost have the whole world in the palms of our hands.”
In real life, an astonishing series of events had played out, and they happened with astounding precision and planning. Several weeks earlier, Maggie Hayes planted a bug in Sharon Carter’s apartment. Sharon didn’t know of Maggie’s existence, and dismissed the idea that anyone could possibly be helping Sam and Bucky. Slowly, Maggie collected evidence through her bug - until everyone saw that Sharon was leading the case, and the trio decided it was high time to intervene. Bucky and Sam held off the cavalry alone while Maggie rescued Peter by crawling through the vents, and then utilizing Peter’s computer skills, they hacked into the WiFi of the building so that any computers with a screen or speakers would be forced to receive whatever Maggie and Peter put out there. Maggie didn’t even have to do much editing to the sound bytes and video - Sharon exposed herself entirely of her own accord, and there was no doubt about it. Now the head honchos who ran most of the nation’s security would be seeing firsthand that Sharon Carter was the Power Broker.
And they did.
Sharon was placed under arrest on the spot, and indicted a day later. Experts found no evidence that the recording had been faked, and it lead them to fully exonerate Peter Parker, Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson from the murder charges. Everything turned out alright in the end. Peter got to see Aunt May again for the first time in months; it was a bittersweet reunion (“You are NEVER allowed to sleep over at their house again- no, I don’t care if you get locked in the bathroom, break down the door before you get charged for murder!” “I’m sorry Aunt May, I didn’t think that would happen!”). Sam and Bucky went on their first “date” at a paintball place. They both got kicked out and decided to take up laser tag instead. Maggie split her time between Sam’s place and Peter’s house. She started attending high school, only to find that she was a few years ahead of her classmates and was bumped up to her junior year. She also discovered New York deli and obliged everyone to a monthly brunch of Katz’s, ordered in, at May’s apartment. The Parkers were more than happy to host.
-
TWO MONTHS LATER
-
“You’re eating the bagel wrong. That’s way too much cream cheese.”
“It’s literally impossible to eat a bagel wrong. I’m not eating it wrong. Stop glaring at me, it’s freaking me out.” Peter and Maggie sat at the kitchen table. A full deli spread was laid out on the small table and crammed onto the tiny countertop. Peter did have too much cream cheese on his bagel, and it was starting to annoy Maggie.
She reached across and grabbed his bagel. “You’re making me physically nauseated- that’s way too much cream cheese and you don’t even have any toppings on it. This is terrible.”
He reached for his bagel, but Maggie pushed his hand away. She smiled stiffly at him, as if she were terribly aggravated by everything he was doing, and began peeling some thinly sliced lox away from the sheaf from Katz’s. She chopped it up finely, and mixed it in a small bowl with diced tomatoes and red onion. She added a scoop of salty capers, a sprinkle of fresh dill and a pinch of salt and pepper each, and began to mix it all together. It looked delicious to Peter, who by this time was entranced with her process as she went about mixing. Finally, she spread the chopped toppings out on top of the bagel, arranging it to look all pretty, and added a sprinkle of pepper on top.
“Perfect.”
Peter looked at her dubiously.
“Just try it,” she said. “You haven’t lived ‘till you’ve tried my lox mix.”
He took a bite. “My god, that is amazing. Oh my goodness. That is really good.” It was very good.
Just then the door opened; it was Sam and Bucky. One of them knocked twice on the door before coming in, and car keys in hand, Sam held the door for Bucky. Bucky raised a quick eyebrow at Sam and turned quickly to look at Peter. “What’s really good?”
“Mm,” Peter gestured with his mouth full. “This bagel stuff Maggie made. It’s so good, you gotta try it.”
Bucky sat down at the table while Sam busied himself with finding the orange juice. He looked at the bagel. “Smells good. Unfortunately, I’m lactose intolerant, so plain bagels for me…”
Sam turned around. “Buck, I brought your milk pill things with us, remember? So that you don't get sick again.” He reached in his pocket and brought out a small package with a picture of ice cream on it and tossed it to Bucky.
“Oh. Thanks, Sam.” He swallowed the pill with a grimace and then took a bite of the bagel Maggie had just finished making. “Man, that is really good. Birdman, you gotta try this, it's genius-!”
Sam chuckled and poured himself a glass of orange juice. His phone rang, out of the blue, still in his pocket. He excused himself to the bathroom once he saw the caller ID.
“This Sam Wilson?” said the voice on the phone.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Nick Fury. I need a favor from you and your little team.”
Sam was caught slightly off-guard, but he didn’t let it show. After a pause he replied, “What can I do for you?”
“We’ve discovered a leftover HYDRA base in Maine. We need you and your team to go in and squash it. We’ll contact you with further details, if you choose to accept…”
Sam didn’t even think to ask everyone else, because he already knew the answer.
“We’re in.”