Legendary

There was a brief delay as the baby monitor squawked and Damian galloped off. Steve and Emma had brought Christopher, who was sleeping quietly. Steve picked him up out of his carrier and cuddled as Damian returned, an infant in each arm. I held Iris, grateful for the privilege after so many days of deprivation, as Bruce allowed Damian a brief cuddle with Miles before taking him. I wasn't the only one grinning at Batman doting on a baby. Flash was smirking and I knew he was saving up jokes for later. I reluctantly passed Iris to Diana, who was itching to hold a baby but too polite to ask. I noticed Steve arranging his communicator, and I waved at Bucky and Tony. "It's a secured line," Steve said.

"Well, the day after I got to Prague, I went to the presentation for the library, then told the hotel that I'd be working and I didn't want housekeeping disturbing me. I'd gotten most of the work done before I left, it was a little pro forma, so I probably won't get the contract." I sighed, then focused. "I poofed myself to the site of the HYDRA facility around 3 am local. Thor had an airship waiting for me, so I stayed there and did recon for almost three days to see the routine. Then I relieved a HYDRA minion of his rain gear--a poncho over a water resistant jumpsuit and boots--and put it on over my armor."

"What armor?" Superman asked. "I thought the government had confiscated your armor."

"They did." My smile shifted from him to Emma. "Emma outfitted me, made me a new suit of extremely light-weight metal, the kind of work only she can do. It's in the case over there." I inclined my head toward it. My neck was still stiff. "She also made me an EMP, a portable electromagnetic pulse generator."

"That doesn't look anything like real valkyrie armor," Serena said, grinning. "Looks like something from a really high-budget fantasy movie." My eyes went involuntarily to Steve, who blushed sheepishly.

"Well, Emma made the armor, probably from someone else's design, and she also had a new wrinkle on the liquid she made me to help protect my wings." I nodded to her.

"I used different metals and a new polymer Tony had mentioned," she said. "It stiffened Alex's feathers more than before, but it made them a lot stronger."

"And it turned them a reddish color." I carefully extended my wings, and Serena came over to look.

"Wow. That's really different. Kind of ominous looking. Our feathers never shaded toward red." I nodded and she hissed as she cut her finger on the edge of one. "I bet you're actually looking forward to a molt."

"I am," I acknowledged. "They make me a little nervous."

"You've got a couple of damaged ones anyway," she observed. "I don't think we'll be able to imp them in." Emma offered to see if she could come up with a way to remove the coating safely, which I gladly accepted. The wings as they were now were kind of a smoking gun and they weren't really safe for everyday use. Everybody wanted to see them. In the light of the cave, they also had a kind of silvery glitter. I relished the quiet, the soft task lighting, the calm, the lack of blood and exploding things.

"The guy I grabbed was a scout, they came and went at irregular intervals, and their passkeys were embedded in their gloves, so there wasn't any worry about a discrepancy between a photo badge and me."

"What did you do with the scout?" Flash asked.

"I tied him to a tree, covered him with an emergency blanket weighted down by a branch of leaves. So I took a bag with my stuff in it and went into the main entrance near what is a hangar, although they had just started to manufacture small aircraft, by the looks of them." I placed a pad on the table and activated it; schematics for what seemed to be a very agile little plane with sophisticated guns were projected. "I grabbed this on the way out. Heimdall had located Bucky for me, but the intelligence was about a week old at that point. I bypassed the first two sublevels entirely; it was all administration and absolutely packed with people I didn't want to see. I took the stairs instead of the elevators or escalators." I shook my head. "Didn't see a single person on the stairs. An opportunity for cardio lost." Steve smiled in triumph and Emma looked nauseated. "The medical part of the complex took up the whole third level but only part of it was in use. I think they were planning on having a sickbay large enough to accommodate as many as a third of the garrison's soldiers for when they went public with their existence. But fortunately, it meant that most of it was empty. The base wasn't fully staffed anyway. I located Bucky, then went down, bypassing the next two levels which were the barracks, the gym, cafeteria, all that kind of thing. On the lowest level was the power facilities. I placed plastic explosives at two pillars which Serena and I felt would be most likely to damage the facility substantially but not cause a collapse that would pancake the layers. Then I went back upstairs." I failed to mention that I was sweating like a pig from terror. It was a good plan, as far as it went, but it was insane to do by myself, and I knew then that if I was captured, HYDRA could use me to force Bucky into compliance and also try to condition me to embrace the dark side. I might not have assassin's training as such, but I had enough skills that I could be made into one. Any way I looked at it, being captured would not end up good for me.

"I went back up to the medical bay. I called an elevator and kept the doors open, breaking the lights so nobody would come to investigate. Then I went into the suite where Bucky was being held. There wasn't anybody there; they were all at a nurses' station on a coffee break, and one doctor was setting a broken bone on the other side of the floor. Bucky's suite was isolated from any other patients." I swallowed. Bucky had been a mess when I found him. They'd been furious to find out that their prior conditioning had been reversed entirely; they'd been counting on reactivating buried protocols. They'd beaten him severely, both to decrease his resistance as much as possible and in retaliation. They'd gone too far, actually; the records showed that they'd had to revive him once. "It was obvious that he wasn't walking out of there on his own power, so I brought in an air gurney and used the sheet to slide him onto it as painlessly as possible. I wrapped him in as many blankets as I could find, because it was cold and raining and the heater in the ship isn't all that good, which I found surprising, frankly, and used the poncho to help keep the rain off. I needed to secure him to the gurney, so I strapped him down with the jumpsuit, which I cut up." I also omitted how it felt to be done with the subterfuge, and how I'd placed my helmet on my head with pride. If I went down, I'd go down fighting, and as myself, not a pretend HYDRA tool.

"I arranged the rest of my stuff on the gurney with Bucky, and started toward the elevator. I saw a couple of pads on the counter near the door, so I took those, tucking them in my backpack for safekeeping. I thought they might help understand what was done to him if they were medpads. We made it to the elevator undetected and got up to the main floor, where I took a moment to make sure everything was set and my weapons were where I needed them. The instant I took a gurney out, I was going to be a target, it didn't matter if I'd still been in the HYDRA gear, so I needed to be prepared for anything and still execute my plan. When the elevator opened, there was a crowd of soldiers who'd been waiting all this time for the elevator. They couldn't see well because the lights in the elevator were out, so I used the gurney as a ram and bowled through them. One of them activated an emergency alarm. The most annoying alarm known to humankind blared and the lights switched to red. There were integrated weapons in the hangar, which I hadn't seen. The distance from the elevator to the door was about a hundred meters, and there were a lot of people there. So I set off the explosives early and gained about a third of the way to the door before I met the first serious resistance. I set off the EMP next; that took out the weapons system, the lights, everything on an electrical circuit.

"At that point, the structure started to collapse, and I got about another thirty meters closer to the door out of that. Then it turned out that enough people had personal lights on their helmets, and the fight was on." I paused a moment, recalling feeling a savagery I couldn't quite regret as I broke rib cages, cracked skulls, dislocated joints, and fractured bones. I didn't escape unscathed myself; I tripped over someone and rolled my ankle; while I was down on the floor, I found a couple more pads and a few HYDRA hand weapons which I snapped up and dropped on the gurney. Somebody else swung something at me that broke three ribs despite the excellence of Emma's armor; if I hadn't been wearing it I probably would have been killed. Another soldier tried to snap my neck but couldn't get a good enough grip on my helmet to do so. "I needed to get out of there as fast as possible. The structure was collapsing, which it shouldn't have done." I looked at Serena and she shook her head.

"Probably substandard concrete," she said. "The floorplans looked good when we reviewed them." I nodded.

"So I brought out the wings, got the altitude I needed, and used Gungnir to blast a hole through the thinner big hangar door."

"Wait, Gungnir?" Steve asked, looking stunned. The Justice League heroes looked puzzled, joined by everybody else who hadn't been at Ragnarok.

"Odin's spear," I confirmed. "Well, the spearhead, anyway. Use of the whole thing would have killed me because the metal shaft stores energy, apparently. And use of the whole thing would have been a strong indicator that the Asgardians were involved, which we hoped to avoid."

"I'm kind of shocked that the old man let you use it," Tony said from the communicator.

"It was Dad's decision," Torunn said. "He said that Grandpa wasn't too thrilled, but the rules have always been that if you can wield one of the special weapons, you can use it, at least for the short term."

"Wait," said Superman in confusion. "I thought Odin died in Ragnarok."

"He did," Torunn agreed. "But the ruling family has the limited ability to go to Valhalla. It's mostly reserved for the king and others of the bloodline in that generation. That means that Dad and Uncle Loki can go, and they can occasionally bring Magni, Modi, or me, but not often, and we can't visit by ourselves. Dad said that Odin doesn't really like anybody using his signature weapon but he had to agree that the retrieval of one of Frigga's generals was a priority and that Alex was the best choice, given the restrictions that the Earth governments placed on Dad." She paused, then turned to me. "Dad said that Grandpa is impatient for your return. Says the valkyries need a strong leader, but not to hurry back." I smiled, genuinely touched, and Serena threw me a "V for victory" sign.

"Right. Where was I? Right. I blasted the door open and dove, knocking aside HYDRA troops and using momentum to speed the air gurney toward the hole. If it had been a traditional gurney, with the wheels, we'd never have made it. As it was, I still had to stop a couple of times to take out pursuit. One person had this." I tossed a little box-type thingie on a strap onto the table. "I'm not sure what it is, but I thought you guys could examine it."

"Rogers," Tony said instantly. "Bring it to me, Banner and I can study it." Steve picked it up and agreed, but there was some dissent from the Justice League. A quick compromise was reached where the Avengers would share the information on the device, either about the device itself or any information it might contain.

"So we got to the plane, and I got Bucky off the gurney and inside as quickly as I could and took off immediately. It doesn't have an autopilot, but you can set it to cruise at a certain altitude and direction, so I aimed right for the city and used the time on the way back to use the tissue accelerator on Bucky's worst injuries." I'd also used the time to inventory my own damage. Every weak point in the armor had been exposed in the fighting. I stretched to help keep the bruised muscles from seizing up, which was the best I could do for myself. I'd have liked to have taped the ribs and my ankle, used the accelerator on myself, but I didn't want to leave any traces of my presence behind. I rested as much as I could.

"So I was worried about Bucky's condition, and flew straight to the tower, setting it down on the quinjet landing pad. I left most of the stuff I'd collected and unlocked the door before poofing back to Prague." I was completely wiped out when I got there, and Torunn had taken charge of Gungnir, removing the spearhead and burning the shaft in the fireplace. She put the spearhead, totally out of juice, into our luggage along with the items I hadn't turned over. "I went straight to bed after a shower, slept a solid eight hours, and had just had a good breakfast when the authorities showed up. The rest you know."

Everybody was silent as they digested my story. Except Bucky. "Alixzandrya," he said, his voice not quite a growl, and I knew I was in trouble because he used my full first name. He continued in Russian; Natasha understood the language and Emma and Serena also had AllSpeech, but nobody else knew precisely what he said as he chewed me out. And that was just the preview. "We will speak more later," he threatened, and Diana gave Iris back to me as a consolation. Possibly also to remind my uncle that I had kids and not to dismember me because they could still use me. Alfred quietly refilled my coffee cup, doctored with cream and sugar the way I liked it, and set a glass of water beside it. I was still dehydrated, despite the bag of fluids they'd put in me at the clinic. I ate the last of my spice cakes as I was chewed out.

"Where's Gungnir now?" Steve asked, changing the subject after Bucky ran down.

"I took it to the embassy," Torunn said. "Uncle Loki should have gotten it back to Dad by now."

"The Senator had the craft swept for DNA as soon as he was informed about Bucky's return," Daniel said. "How did you prevent transfer, Grandma? He was pretty frustrated that you couldn't be tied to the aircraft. There's Bucky's DNA and alien DNA only."

"I had a costume that concealed every inch of me. Once I put it on, Torunn ran a sanitizing beam over me to destroy any DNA or incriminating trace evidence, and I didn't take it off until I returned. It was an extruded synthetic fabric, impervious to water and wind, dappled in an exciting range of color from near black to dark gray, pants that tucked into knee-high boots with grippy, almost silent soles, a long tunic that had attached tight gloves and a weighted sash, and a balaclava that covered everything but my eyes, which were concealed with integrated goggles with a dark finish. When I got back to Prague, Torunn treated all of it with a reagent that dried out the fabric and made it brittle, then she tossed it into the fireplace and it burned clean away with no odor or residue. The backpack was also destroyed, but it was impossible to do that to the armor, which we put in the luggage and hustled home before anybody could come up with a warrant to search it." The fabric had also been cut-proof, which kept my blood contained inside.

There was silence as everybody thought about what I'd told them. Finally, Flash spoke up, for once totally serious. "You know that the survival odds were extremely low, right? I get that you wanted to rescue your uncle, but Jesus. It's kind of a miracle you made it out alive."

"I'd personally put the odds at less than ten percent," I said calmly. Superman's cup crashed into its saucer. "And it wasn't just about retrieving my uncle. HYDRA has had decades, if not centuries, to continue its infiltration and research. Whatever they did to Bucky would have been turned up to eleven. He was already one of the greatest, if I can refer to his abilities that way, assassins in history. Certainly the most notorious. And they could have kept him on ice indefinitely, unleashing him when most of the world had forgotten he existed. Look at this." I picked up the pad I'd put on the table and brought up a projection of two files side by side. "I poked around in the limited time I had on the flight back to the city. The first file is composed of case studies, advances they made in creating assassins. Their brainwashing destroyed the memories of the subjects, actually damaging the parts of the brain beyond repair with a high degree of accuracy. All they were left with were their skills and whatever information HYDRA deemed necessary for their training and missions. The second file is on a storage technique they had, which is where they would have kept him. They have developed true suspended animation. Indefinite storage, metabolism begins immediately upon revival, stops instantly when the process is done. No damage to the subject at all. They only had one cradle at the facility, it turns out, and I hope that it was destroyed but I can't be sure. I know that I was taking a terrible risk, but I had decided that if I couldn't rescue Bucky, that I personally would have killed him and myself before allowing us to be captured. I knew from Nico Constantin that I was on HYDRA's radar." There was dead silence around the table. Damian squeezed my hand; I'd talked about it with him before I left. I brought up the last file I wanted to discuss. "This is the file that they had on me. If you read it, it says that with or without wings, I was a high-priority target for acquisition, right behind my uncle and Black Widow. Nico might have thought that they dismissed my abilities based on the documentary, but they hadn't. They wanted my skills, because my uncle has trained me extensively, planned to use us in a tandem. They were not convinced that my wings were gone, and they planned so see if I couldn't be made to grow new ones or induce them somehow if they were really gone. They thought I might be using magic to conceal them. They planned biopsies, drug therapies, vivisection, torture to see if I couldn't be forced to reveal them, get samples to see if they could be grown and grafted onto someone else. And I've passed some of my mutations on to my kids. They have plans for how to use that as well." I could hear from the communicator that Tony was gagging, probably trying not to throw up. "So even though I didn't know the whole story at the time, I knew that something had to be done. And now that I know what HYDRA was thinking, I really must decline their plans."

"I think that HYDRA has also just become a League matter as well," Diana said. Superman nodded, white to the lips. "This level of malevolence and technology is unacceptable and is a threat to the peace of the world."

Steve sighed. "The help will be welcome," he said. 'We don't know for sure yet how strong HYDRA has grown or to what extent it's infiltrated governments, but this looks worse than when I thought we'd brought down HYDRA the last time." He studied the new HYDRA seal imprinted on the pad. It had been changed; instead of a pissed-off-looking octopus, it was now a stylized hydra with many heads. "We need to forget about cutting off its heads and go after the heart."

"Hercules killed the hydra by cutting off its heads and having his friend cauterize the stumps," Diana said, puzzled. Steve exhaled forcefully.

"There's got to be more than one way to kill a hydra, we just have to be creative," he said patiently.

"I think we should keep the fact that we have independent access to HYDRA files to ourselves," Tony said. "In case the government doesn't feel like sharing everything. This is a high-level access. I don't know if the other pads have this depth of information." His image looked around to lock eyes with Steve. "The safest hands are our own." Steve snorted.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," he said affectionately. "Get together with a representative from the League and examine every byte of information on this thing. We need to know as much as we can." I listened as they started planning their next steps. There were recordings on the pad that discussed how they would try to force compliance from Bucky, Natasha, me, and other targets from all over the world. They were brutal and almost unbelievable and made me want to curl up in a ball in a corner of a secured room, and I wasn't looking forward to having anyone else hearing it, but the extent of the threat had to be known. The others had to be warned. They decided to copy all the information from the pad and the little box that they could, then arrange for it to mysteriously find its way to the government. The government had the alien ship and the other pads, this could be our little secret for now.

After that, the meeting broke up and I headed to the full-body accelerator. Damian came with me, and we talked about anything but the meeting or my mission. Afterward, all the visible damage was repaired, and the injuries to my ankle, ribs, and my stiff neck would just have to heal naturally. We reclaimed the babies from Bruce and Daniel, and Alfred accompanied us back home, where I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I was cuddled in close to Damian, who was already awake. We talked about the previous night's meeting, getting everything out in the open between us. We had time for a shower together, then Miles alerted us that he, and therefore Iris as well, were up. It was time for breakfast for us all.

I went to work, getting the babies since I had been gone so long, and we had bagels and coffee up in the conference room. My partners and me, not the babies. Miles isn't going to be introduced to caffeine or sugar until he calms down some. And neither of the kids could have a bagel yet, with or without schmear. I told them about the proposal, that it hadn't been my best work. Torunn swept the room for listening devices and set up the little jammer discreetly before she snagged a bagel and left.

"News said your uncle has been returned under mysterious circumstances," Aslyn said shrewdly as Theodor placed a fresh carafe of coffee on the table and withdrew.

"Yeah, I got the news in Prague and hurried back." The door closed.

"So how'd you do it?" Dagny and Karen asked at the same time. I raised my eyebrows at them as I sipped coffee.

"As far as anyone can prove, I was in Prague the whole time," I said primly. "Why does everybody assume I had something to do with it?"

"I dunno, maybe the fact that you were beyond pissed that the government wouldn't authorize a covert mission to rescue your uncle?" Margaret asked pointedly. "You've got the skills."

"I don't want to tell anybody everything," I said after a moment. "But I did get him out, it was pretty close, and I found out that HYDRA is serious about acquiring me as an asset. I don't know if they know I know, but they have to figure that I learned something. It could be really dangerous to be around me for awhile." I looked around at them. "If you want, I can sell you my share of the partnership."

"That's ridiculous," Aslyn said into the shocked silence. "Valkyrie is literally your baby. If you need to, you can take a sabbatical or something, but there's no question of you leaving."

"Of course not," Margaret said, bristling. "For fuck's sake, Alex." The others agreed with no hesitation, and I promised myself that they wouldn't need to regret that decision.

Martha bustled in and dropped the clear glass TV screen down at the end of the table. "You guys should watch this, it broke about twenty minutes ago," she said, and placed my favorite chocolate-almond croissant at my seat, putting her hand on my shoulder. I patted it and picked up the croissant as a harassed-looking State department official confirmed international reports that a HYDRA facility was destroyed by persons unknown.

"Persons?" Serena said archly, looking at me. I shrugged modestly.

"I did do the work of at least another person." They snickered, and the feed switched to an empty podium in the lobby of the tower. We waited, listening to the crowd of reporters rustle and murmur until a spokeswoman came out with a prepared statement.

"I am pleased to be able to report that Mr James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes has been rescued from a HYDRA facility and returned to the Avengers," she said. "He has suffered extensive injuries. We do not know who was responsible for his liberation. He literally showed up here in a strange aircar. The pilot was not present when our personnel entered the vessel and no identification has been made from the DNA recovered. That is all the information I have."

"Where was Alex Barnes?" one reporter shouted.

"She was in Prague," the woman answered. "The authorities verified her presence in a hotel where she was preparing a bid for a historic restoration project and there are no records of any vehicle rentals or purchase in Prague for her or her bodyguard, no tickets purchased, no security feed that shows that she was anywhere but where she said she was. Furthermore, satellites show no orbital, sub-orbital, or direct air transport to the region the day the facility was destroyed or for three days prior. And believe me, this information has been checked by the government and verified." There were more questions about the involvement of the Avengers which she was able to deny completely, but she didn't have any additional information and the feed switched back to the studio where the anchors showed footage from a Balkan TV station showing crews responding.

Translations from the audio described a large collapse of an extensive underground structure, evidence of an EMP that fried the electronics, so far nobody found alive, four bodies apparently killed from falling debris, and signs of life farther down. Rescuers were working to find survivors. I should feel bad about the dead people, but I just couldn't. The rest of the people in the hangar and the top few levels must have bugged out. A military expert was brought in to speculate on the operation that produced such decisive results, and he thought that a team of three would be needed to plant the explosives and rescue Bucky. "Cheers," Serena said to me, raising her coffee mug.

We watched until the information started to repeat, started to clean up after ourselves. There was an urgent tone and one of the anchors pressed a finger to her earbug and brightened. "Ladies and gentlemen, I've just gotten word that some footage from that rescue mission has been leaked on the internet and that this provides our first look at the people who brought down this HYDRA facility." We were all engaged now. I leaned forward as they showed footage of me pushing Bucky's gurney through the fighting and weapons discharge, the rattle and 'crump' sounds made by the detonation of the explosives, then my party trick when I launched into the sky. The operator of the device recording the events said "what the fuck?" in some language I didn't recognize when my wings shot out. You couldn't see from that angle where the wings came from, and the coating on the feathers glittered savagely in the red light. There was a momentary loss of feed, that would be when I used the EMP. Then, amazingly, the recorder came back on. The increased fighting, which looked like much more of a brawl than I remembered. I saw my wings cutting people, which I hadn't realized had happened. The use of Gungnir, which didn't resolve clearly through the smoke and the motion from the hand held recorder. Then my dive and how I pushed the gurney out into the night. The person with the device ran after me, almost catching up to me until I stopped suddenly and swung at the bearer of the device. The device dropped and the recording stopped.

Then the anchor and the experts that were being interviewed started to review their impressions of the footage. The military expert felt certain that my wings were a construct, a much more advanced pair than the ones Sam Wilson had used as Falcon, and his certain knowledge that the military was not developing wing sets like that made the discussion perk right up. "And we now have Tony Stark, the famous inventor and Avenger, with us by phone. Thank you for speaking with us, Mr Stark." I could imagine Tony's smirk.

"Happy to be here, Nancy," he said genially.

"Have you seen the footage that is said to be the destruction of the HYDRA facility and shows the mysterious figure who rescued Bucky Barnes?"

"I have. It's pretty incredible to believe that one person could cause all that... ruckus."

"Do the Avengers have wings like that in any stage of development?"

"I can confirm that we do not, and we have had no plans to work on a project like that. However, I have to acknowledge that those wings show a lot of promise. I've never seen wings like that. I wonder what metal they're made from."

"How is Mr Barnes doing?"

"He was hurt pretty badly," Tony said after a moment. "But he's being treated and he's expected to make a full recovery."

"Does the public have anything to worry about in terms of him being brainwashed again?" The anchor sounded nervous.

"No," he said immediately. "The damage is physical. They hadn't gotten to modifying his brain. And you would know if they had, because they developed a method to destroy the parts of the brain with memory permanently. No repair possible. Then they would have gotten around to implanting the protocols they would have required to ensure his continued loyalty to HYDRA and its goals. He recognized his family, he's got no missing time that he can't account for. He's ok."

"Thank you for your time, Mr Stark. I'm sure I speak for everybody when I wish a speedy recovery to Mr Barnes." Tony thanked her and there was speculation about what other groups, maybe the Justice League, might be doing in their research.

"The League already has flyers like Hawkman and Hawkwoman," one of the experts disagreed. "They don't need new tech. Maybe we're looking at lone vigilantes." Before a squabble could develop, they cut to commercial, and we all went back to work.