Hey, y'all! Welcome to my first Marvel fic! This is Book One of The Spaces Between series, which will span Phase Three and some of Phase Four (depending on how it shapes up and which movies Spider-Man is in). Book One will cover post-Captain America: Civil War through Spider-Man: Homecoming and a little past that. Book Two and beyond will be revealed as the story goes on. This fic and series is the culmination of almost two years of planning and writing and rewriting, so I'm very excited to share it! I hope you love the story and Maggie and Daisy as much as I do! Don't forget to leave a review to tell me what you think! Enjoy!

The Spaces Between

Chapter One: Happy Birthday to You

She woke up screaming. Heart pounding, she shot up on the bed, her legs tangling in something soft and warm. Her eyes danced wildly around the room. A small television set playing a news broadcast hung in the corner. To her left stood a wooden bedside table that was home to a vase full of daffodils bathed in the silvery moonlight shining through the curtains of the window. There was an empty IV stand to her right and a heart monitor next to it, eerily silent and blank.

A hospital. She was in a hospital.

As her panic subsided and the tension in her limbs eased, she leaned back against the mountain of pillows at the top of the bed, pulled the blanket up from around her legs, and let out a shaky breath. It was a dream. All a dream. A nightmare, if she was being truthful. She'd had it every night since they'd arrived in Moscow—the one where she got a front-row seat to a rerun of the worst day of her life.

She pressed her thumb into the gauze over her right palm, wincing at the pain. It was a good pain, though. It reminded her that she wasn't back there still, that no matter how real it seemed, it was only a nightmare.

Still, she shivered in the warmth of the room, though that might have been the last remnants of the hypothermia. A mild case, they'd told her. Nothing some blankets and heating pads couldn't fix. Any longer and she would have been much worse off. As if that made her feel so much better.

Sighing, she let her hands rest on top of her face. The gauze itched against the sensitive skin of her cheek, but she welcomed the feeling. It was a rather dull existence being cooped up in that room for so long. Hospitals didn't tend to have grand pianos lying around and she was in no condition for sparring, which left her with two choices for entertainment—listen to the news reporters drone on in Russian or stare out the window at the bare landscape just past the fence around the perimeter.

"Up already, malyshka?" said a voice with a slight accent.

She lifted her hands, squinting against the bright lights above her, and looked over to find Dr. Morozov carefully shutting the door behind him. When he met her gaze, he smiled.

Dr. Morozov was an older man with greying hair and a permanent shadow on his jaw. He was tall and lean, built like a basketball player, and his white lab coat hung loosely off his frame. Above all, even knowing who she was, he never treated her differently than any other patient.

Dr. Morozov pulled one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs closer to her bedside and sat next to her, his hands folded in his lap. "Those time differences, they are tricky. How are you feeling today?"

She sat up and shrugged.

"Warmer?"

Another shrug.

Dr. Morozov didn't seem too bothered by this. In fact, he smiled even wider. It was the closest she'd come to a formal response since she'd arrived, and she guessed he was willing to take what he could get.

He reached for her right hand. She laid it in his and watched as he carefully unwrapped the gauze, humming a tune she didn't recognize. When the gauze had been thrown away, he moved down to her legs, shifted her blanket to the side, and took off the bandages that littered her shins. She stared at her hand, at the red line that ran across the middle. She tried to flex it and sucked in a sharp breath as the raw skin pulled and contracted.

When Dr. Morozov had finished, he looked at her from the end of the bed.

"Well, I don't think we need to chop off the legs," he told her, chuckling at his own joke. "No more bandages down here, but I would keep that hand covered for a few more days, just to be safe, yeah?"

She nodded as he grabbed a fresh roll of gauze and returned to the side of her bed. As he wrapped her hand up again, he told her about the drawing his daughter Savina made for him the day before and how his son Yuri had decided he was going to be a professional ice hockey player one day. She listened intently, drinking in every word. It was the most contact she had with the world outside the hospital. The normal world.

Her hand bandaged, Dr. Morozov left the room with another smile, and she was alone again. Well, not completely alone. She knew Happy was right outside the door, standing guard. He'd gotten to the hospital two days after she'd been admitted and she saw him peek in through the glass wall from time to time, and every once in a while, he would poke his head in. He'd do a visual sweep of the room and pull his head back out the door. She wished he would talk to her, though. She wanted to hear what was going on back home, with the company and the compound and whatever, anything to take her mind off of her thoughts, but he wasn't volunteering those details and she could never bring herself to ask.

"Mags?"

Speak of the devil.

Maggie turned her head and saw Happy standing in the doorway. His hair stuck up in odd places. The black suit he'd worn every day of her life was rumpled and wrinkled in places, his tie slightly askew. He had a pile of clothes draped over his arm with a pair of Maggie's shoes in his hand.

"Doc gave you the thumbs up," he said, quietly shutting the door behind himself. "I've got the jet waiting at an airfield about twenty minutes away. If we hurry, we could be stateside by sunrise."

His hopeful smile fell flat. She knew he was just trying to lift her spirits a little, and she appreciated it, she really did, but it was pointless. Her birthday had been ruined long before she got to the hospital, and it wasn't going to get any better going back to an empty compound.

"Dad?" she asked, her voice raspy from neglect.

Happy only shook his head.

Maggie's chest tightened. A cruel part of her was glad for that. It meant more time before her punishment for Germany. The rest of her felt sick to her stomach for enjoying the idea. What kind of daughter was she, to be so self-absorbed when he'd nearly been killed not a week earlier?

So were you, a traitorous voice in her head whispered.

Brushing the voice aside, Maggie swung her legs over the side of the bed. Happy moved forward and offered her the clothes he'd brought her from home—a t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of Converse. Not her favorite pair, unfortunately, since they'd been taken from her, but these would do. The jeans were an interesting choice for the middle of June, but they would cover the bruises and scrapes on her legs, and she couldn't complain about that. And of course, her denim jacket, a gift from Steve for last year's birthday.

Maggie took the clothes from Happy and waited until he'd turned around to change out of her plain blue hospital gown. Her jacket seemed heavier than it had been, but Maggie shrugged it on anyway. She tried to ignore the way her heart clenched as her fingers skimmed over the material for the first time in… god, only a week. It felt like so much longer.

"You ready?" Happy asked, still facing away from her.

Pausing, Maggie glanced around the tiny hospital room. She wouldn't miss the lumpy pillows or the paper-thin blankets, and she wouldn't miss the bleak view from the window, and she definitely wouldn't miss the stupid TV that only played Russian news broadcasts no matter how hard she tried to change the channel.

"Ready," Maggie answered.

They crossed the room together, and Happy held the door open for her. The hallway outside was a dreary white, so dull it looked almost gray. A few nurses traveled back and forth between rooms further down the corridor. Maggie noticed the heads turning as she walked past. She kept her gaze straight ahead.

Dr. Morozov was waiting by the front desk when they arrived. Setting down his clipboard, he stopped them before they could leave. He offered Maggie his hand. She shook it.

"Good luck, Miss Stark," he said with a soft smile.

She couldn't return it.

Dr. Morozov stepped aside. Maggie didn't wait for Happy before striding out the door, pulling her jacket tighter against the chill of the night.

Maggie spent most of the flight to New York watching the clouds. It had always calmed her on long plane rides. When she was little, she used to see all sorts of shapes in them—dinosaurs and dragons and unicorns and sea creatures—and she'd pretend they were long lost friends coming back to her after a trip around the world. They were fluffy hugs, cotton candy, and the bounciest trampoline ever, and anything else her brain could think of. She would watch as the wispy clouds stretched apart and drifted away, like a message in a bottle floating across the sea.

Now they were just condensed water vapor.

Across the aisle, Happy let out a soft snore. Maggie pulled her gaze from the clouds to look at him. She envied his ability to sleep so soundly.

Anxiety began creeping into her thoughts, dragging up things she didn't have the energy to deal with just then, and she stood from her chair. Everything in the jet was the same as it had been when she was small. Same minibar, same upholstery, same carpet. She used to take comfort in that, in the familiarity. Ironically enough, it kept her grounded in the craziness of impulsively flying from one time zone to another whenever her father felt they needed a change of scenery. But as Maggie paced the length of the cabin, rolling her necklace in her fingers, it all felt so… different. Too small and cramped. Too similar to the cell.

When they touched down on the runway, Maggie felt like she could finally let out the sigh of relief that seemed caught in her chest during the flight. As she followed Happy down the steps of the jet, Maggie pulled in a long breath through her nose and closed her eyes. The sweet summer air of upstate New York had never smelled so good.

She slid into the passenger seat of the sleek black car that was waiting across the tarmac. Happy drove them back to the compound. The ride was exceedingly long and terribly quick at the same time. She was more than happy to be out of Russia and back home, but the thought of the compound had her heart running a marathon in her chest.

As the compound came into view, looming taller with every meter they drove, her heart set its sights on the finish line. Maggie let out a shaky breath.

"You okay?" Happy asked.

"Peachy," Maggie said quietly.

Parking around the back, where only the team could enter the building, Happy killed the engine. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and cleared his throat.

"Listen, Mags," he said, and he turned in his seat to look at her, "if there's anything you need, just—just let me know, okay? Call me or send me a text message or whatever. And I mean anything."

Maggie nodded.

Happy opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, but decided against it. He gave her a tight-lipped smile instead.

Maggie waited just a moment longer in the car before pushing open the door and stepping outside. The sun was just beginning to rise over the tops of the trees, filling the sky with bright yellows and oranges that faded into soft blues. An early morning breeze tugged at her dark hair. She was grateful for the jeans now.

Before she could shut the car door, she heard Happy call, "Hey, wait!"

Maggie ducked her head to look at him.

"I know today… kinda sucks," he said bluntly, "but for what it's worth—happy birthday, kid."

Kinda sucks was the biggest understatement, but Maggie gave him a small smile, her voice soft as she replied, "Thanks, Uncle Happy."

She straightened up, closed the door, and forced herself to walk toward the back door. Everything inside was perfectly neat. She could see the cars lined up in a row through the wrap-around windows. A single Quinjet sat tucked away in its hangar, looking lonely without its companion. Even Steve's motorcycle was still there, waiting at the edge of the room for its rider.

Maggie punched in her security code on the keypad next to the door. A digitized bell rang, the locks clicked, and the red light above the door turned green. She pushed on the handle and stepped inside.

"Welcome back, Miss Stark."

Maggie jumped as FRIDAY's voice echoed around the garage.

"Hey, FRIDAY," she mumbled, trying to calm her racing heart.

Maggie thought FRIDAY was going to say more, maybe chew her out for being at the compound without her father, but the AI was unnaturally silent. FRIDAY always had a comment or two for her when she got to the compound, usually about dinner duty or who was around to keep her company, so to hear nothing put Maggie on edge. And then she realized there probably wasn't anyone whose presence FRIDAY felt needed announcing. Everyone was either in prison, running away, or in recovery.

And with that pleasant thought in mind, Maggie made her way across the garage and into the main residential building. Her footsteps bounced off the walls and trailed after her like a shadow as she passed through the corridor. Her hair stood on edge. The compound had never been this quiet.

The common room was a disaster, Maggie could see that before she walked in. It was even worse up close. The crater Wanda had created in the middle of the room, almost completely blocking the path to the bedrooms, was massive. Maggie was careful not to step on any loose pieces of marble as she skirted around the side. The last thing she needed was to fall three stories and end up however deep into the earth Wanda had pushed Vision.

The kitchen was relatively untouched, save for a missing knife and the arrow sticking out from the side of the island. It looked more like someone had just gotten their morning cup of coffee and forgot to straighten up—one of the tall green chairs at the island turned to the side, a cabinet left open just a fraction. Not like it had been abandoned for a week.

Luckily, the other areas of the common room didn't seem to have taken any damage. Maggie guessed she should be grateful for that, at least. Though if she was honest with herself, she would much rather have had a ripped up common room than a torn-apart family.

There was nothing she could do about it now.

Maggie cleaned things up as best she could. She threw away the pieces of lemon someone left on the counter, along with the basket of fruit that, with no one around to eat it, was starting to go bad. As she dropped the cutting board into the sink, she noticed there were coffee grounds in the disposal. Coffee grounds. Dad hated coffee grounds in the garbage disposal. He said they caused backups.

Dad's not here right now, though, the voice from before reminded her.

Maggie shook her head. No, he wasn't. That much was obvious. And she didn't know when he would be coming back.

If he's coming back, another voice whispered.

All at once, Maggie was gasping, leaning against the counter in front of the sink. The air was too thin, and there wasn't enough of it, and Maggie couldn't breathe. What if the voice was right? What if he didn't come back? What if he decided that was her punishment, to be left alone again in the ruins of their home, with only her memories of when her family had been together and happy? Her father wasn't cruel, was he?

Maggie's sharp breaths kept getting faster, and she realized she was dangerously close to having an asthma attack.

As quickly as she could manage, Maggie stumbled out of the kitchen and down to her bedroom at the end of the long hallway. She fumbled with the brass knob for a second before finally shoving open her door. Maggie went straight for her suitcase sitting in the corner, digging through her piles of clothes until she found her inhaler in a side pocket. She followed the instructions she'd been given when she was little and immediately, the pressure on her chest lessened.

For a few minutes, she sat there just appreciating being able to breathe again. Then, as the residual panic slowly faded, she fixed the mess she'd made of her clothes and stood up. She looked around her bedroom for the first time since she'd left with Clint and Wanda a week earlier. It was modest, smaller than any of her other bedrooms, but she'd never minded.

It hadn't changed much. The curtains were drawn, letting in the morning sunlight. Her bed looked slept-in but not a total mess. The nightlight in the bathroom had been left plugged into the wall.

The lush carpet cradled her shoes as Maggie walked over to the bed and hopped up onto it. She crawled across the sheets, coming to sit on the side with her feet dangling above the floor. Usually, there would be someone sitting next to her, Dad or Nat or—

Maggie suddenly reached out and grabbed one of the picture frames that was on her bedside table, cradling it delicately in her hands. The frame itself was a pale yellow and decorated with white stickers shaped like stars. But it wasn't the frame that had caught her eye. It was the picture—Maggie and her best friend standing side by side in front of the base of the Washington Monument in D.C. They'd stopped by on their way to visit her Aunt Peggy.

Ex-best friend.

Thirteen years old and all of five feet, the top of her head hardly brushed his broad shoulders. His arm lay around her protectively, holding her close. The photograph caught her in the middle of a laugh. A smile dancing on his lips, his eyes glowed with his own laughter as he looked down at her.

Had he known then?

The possibility had her stomach in knots. She didn't want to even entertain the idea that he could look at her like that knowing what his friend did to her family. It was easier to believe that he had no idea yet.

What else had he hidden from her, though? What else did she not know about him?

He'd said he loved her. He'd said that he'd protect her, that he'd make sure their family stayed together. He had promised her, before every mission and every fight, that he would keep her father safe.

What other lies had Steve Rogers told her?

Maggie stared at the picture. He was supposed to be her best friend.

She hated him. She hated him more than she'd ever hated someone in her life. But she loved him, too. And she hated that she couldn't stop loving him.

Tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She had to be strong, right? That's what she'd always been told. Starks were strong. They weren't allowed to show weakness. They weren't allowed to be vulnerable.

She knew it was all bullshit anyway. That they were not indestructible. That they could and had been broken down, cracked open like a geode, only without the gem tucked away inside. But that didn't stop the guilt from crashing down over her because she was still a Stark and Starks were always supposed to be strong and why couldn't she be strong?

Maggie looked at Steve's smiling face, at the warmth in his eyes and the way he held her close, and she decided that was bullshit too. Everything in her life was turning out to be a bunch of grade-A bullshit.

Her grip on the frame tightened until the sharp edges dug into her skin, until the healing bruises and scrapes that dotted her knuckles turned an ugly pale white. Blood seeped through the bandages over her right palm. Maggie gasped at the thrill of pain that shot up her arm.

She didn't mean to throw it. It just kind of… happened. She didn't realize she was doing it until the frame had left her hand. She watched it sail through the air, shattering as it slammed into the wall. Glass and wood rained down onto the carpet. Maggie let out a shaky breath as she watched the picture flutter to the ground, coming to rest on a chunk of wood sticking out of the pile.

Her hand was bleeding. Maggie rose to her feet and left her room without looking back. She walked to the supply closet where they kept the first aid kit. Dr. Morozov would have been disappointed to hear that she needed to change her bandages so quickly. His face appeared in her mind—his brows furrowed, head tilted, the corner of his mouth tugged into a frown.

She shook the image out of her head before it could add to the guilt piling up in her chest.

As she wrapped her hand with a fresh roll of gauze, she was grateful that she hadn't ripped any of her stitches. Having to go back to a hospital was not very high on her list of things she wanted to do.

Maggie spent the rest of the day doing chores. It was as much a surprise as it was oddly comforting. Taking out the garbage, wiping down the equipment in the training room, cleaning up the mess Wanda, Clint, and Vision had made in the common room—they were mindless tasks, but they kept her busy. Kept her thoughts off of everything that had happened. Besides, no one had been around for a week, and there was so much that needed to be done, so she never found the time to sit around with her thumbs up her ass.

She chuckled under her breath. That was a Dad line. It always made her laugh when she was little because "Daddy said a bad word!" He'd never been good at watching what he said when she was in the room, and the rest of the team wasn't much better. Sam and Uncle Rhodey swore like their lives depended on it, and even Nat had been known to drop a curse now and then. Steve had by far the worst mouth she'd ever heard. His foul language put the perfect image of America's Golden Boy to shame. Maggie had definitely picked up her cursing habit from all of them because Mama never swore around her.

Maggie's hands stilled over the basket of leftover laundry she'd been folding at the thought of Pepper. She hadn't seen her in so long. Not since before her birthday the previous year. She wondered if Pepper even remembered what day it was, if she would call to wish her a happy birthday. Maggie's hopes weren't high. She hadn't called last year.

Maggie swallowed around the lump in her throat and kept folding the laundry. What did it matter anyway? Maggie didn't know if she would even want to talk to Pepper if she called. If anything, she thought it might make her feel even worse.

Fifteen was turning out to be the worst birthday of her life.

Lunch passed. No one sat at the island with her. No one tried to steal her food or make a joke at her expense.

Maggie baked herself the chocolate and vanilla cake that she was supposed to make with Wanda and Nat. She cleaned up the glass and wood on the carpet in her room as she waited for the cake to cool, then decorated it with swirls of yellow icing and rainbow sprinkles, just like how she'd been planning to for the last month. Digging through one of the drawers in the kitchen, she pulled out two of the number-shaped candles and placed the blue one and the red five right in the center.

After dinner, she lit both wicks. For a second she just watched the candles burn, laying her chin in her hands. She drew in a deep breath, held it for just a second as she made her wish, then blew hard. The flames sputtered before going out. Maggie cut herself a corner piece and ate her sad little birthday cake all by herself.

And as she lay in bed that night, covers tucked under her chin, and watched the digital clock on her nightstand blink with 11:59 pm, she screwed her eyes shut.

"Happy birthday, Mags," she whispered into her pillow, holding back her tears.

The clock beeped. Midnight.

Her wish didn't come true.

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