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Her daddies will be very sad when they discover her note, but on the bright side, Maggie is certain that her plan will work. Once she arrives in Wakanda, they will make her a princess, and her daddies can visit and bring Joey for playdates, and everybody can be happy. And in Wakanda, everybody is going to look like her, too, so people won't give her funny looks or yell at her for doing stuff other kids don't get in trouble for, and then everyone can live happily ever after.
Maggie packs her backpack with all the things she is going to need for her trip to Wakanda: her teddy bear Dr. Panda, her lunch box, two extra juice boxes, her piggy bank, and a sweater for if she gets cold. She also puts a whole box of oreos in it, because she likes oreos and because it's part of the Plan. The people of Wakanda will want to make her a princess if she gives them oreos! And she needs to have enough for everyone.
She also packs a princess dress, for when they give her a princess tiara and throw a party in her honor. It's not the foofiest dress, but it's bright yellow and sparkly, and when she spins around the skirt does the spinny thing, which makes it almost as good as the foofy dresses.
After some consideration, Maggie leaves the note under her pillow. She'd been careful to write it when she was at school, and put it in an envelope. When she doesn't come home, JARVIS will tell her daddies about the letter, and when they read it they will understand. She hopes Momma Steve doesn't cry, but being Princess of Wakanda is a very important job and somebody has to do it. It's her 'sponsibility, like making sure Joey doesn't leave his blankie at the park.
--
She goes to school on the bus, and goes to her classroom just like always. That is part of the Plan, too. Right before Recess, Maggie raises her hand and asks Mr. Garza if she can go to the washroom, and then she goes to the hall and takes her backpack and puts on her shoes and walks outside.
--
Ms. Kensington at the front desk is easy to sneak away from, if you pay attention. Maggie knows she's not supposed to use her lessons with Daddy to get into trouble, and its probably against the rules to play tricks on Ms. Kensington, but on the other hand, she isn't supposed to run away at all. So Maggie concentrates really super hard until Ms. Kensington is shivering and rubbing her arms, then she gets up to get her sweater and Maggie runs past the desk when her back is turned.
--
Now, all she has to do is go be a princess in Wakanda.
--
Maggie carefully studies the map. She has the dollar she needs to ride the bus, but she isn't sure where Wakanda is. Maybe she'll need to take TWO buses to get there. It's okay if she does, because she has lots of dollars to pay for it, but her tummy feels all weird and she doesnt' like being alone at the grown-up bus stop.
Well, if she can't find Wakanda on the city bus map, maybe she should go to the other bus station. That's on the bus map, and Maggie knows from watching tv that the doggy buses go places the city buses and school buses don't.
She waits a really, really, really super long time for the bus, and when she gives the driver her dollar, the lady smiles at her and says "It's a dollar fifty for a bus ticket, now," and she waits really patiently while Maggie gets two quarters from her bag. Then she gives Maggie a transfer and tells her not to lose it.
Maggie takes the transfer, says "Thank you very much, ma'am," to the bus driver, and goes to sit in the back near the doors.
--
The doggy bus station is HUGE.
It's not as tall as the tower, but it's super big and super LOUD and there are lots and lots of people there. Sometimes people give Maggie funny looks, but all she has to do is ask them where the bathroom is and they all take her and leave her alone. If they ask where her parents are, she just says "They're in line to get tickets, I'm supposed to be right back." and that seems to be good enough.
There are no maps, though, and Maggie isn't sure which doggy bus she'd need to take to go to Wakanda. Or how much it would cost. She has four hundred and eighty-six dollars from the swear jar, and another two hundred in her piggy bank, but she's not tall enough to reach the ticket counter and she doesn't know how to use the automatic machines, and her stomach feels REALLY twisty now.
Maybe Maggie should just go home. Being princess of Wakanda might be nice, but that means she wouldn't get to play with Uncle Tony anymore. And that means no more Iron Baby suit and no rocket football, and no Antie Tasha to show her how to punch people, and no Joey to play cars with. And no JARVIS to read her stories, either.
Maggie sniffles, loudly, but she's not crying. She's not. She wants to be somewhere where everyone is just like her, but she wants to go home and crawl into bed with her daddies when she has a bad dream and play rescue-the-dragon with Mary and Junior.
"Here," someone says. It's a man, a big scary-looking man with a heavy jacket on, even though it's not cold outside. He's holding out a handkercheif, the sort that Momma Steve uses sometimes. It's light blue.
Maggie takes the handkercheif. "I'm not crying," she says.
"Yeah, sure," the man says. He's frowning at her, though, like Uncle Logan does sometimes. It's not a scary frown, just a grumpy one.
"I'm not," Maggie insists. "My eyes are leaking. But I'm not sad."
"Why are your eyes leaking?" the man asks, then he gets a funny look on his face like he didn't mean to say that outloud. It's funny, and it reminds Maggie of Uncle Tony, and...
Okay, maybe, she MIGHT be kinda almost sortof crying. Maybe Maggie's just a little bit sad. A teensy bit. She wipes at her face with the hanky, but she can't stop sniffling. "I don't know," she wails, miserably. "I don't want to be sad!"
"Uh," the man says. His eyes dart from side to side, like he wants to escape. Maggie is crying, now, all the way, and loudly. "Hey, it's okay. You don't have to be sad," he says.
"I don't wanna be here anymore," Maggie sobs. "I wanna go to Wakanda and be a princess, I don't like New York!"
"What?" The man says. "Look, that's-- that's insane, you can't go to Wakanda."
Maggie wipes her face and glares at him belligerently. "You don't get to tell me what to do!" she says. "And besides, if I go to Wakanda, I'll be a princess. That's better than here."
"Aren't you already a princess?" The man asks. "Your father's from Asgard, isn't he?"
Maggie thinks about this. She does already have a lot of princess clothes, and a tiara, and sometimes her grandma comes to tell her stories about Asgard. Uncle Thor calls her Princess all the time, just like Grandma does. "I dunno," Maggie says doubtfully. "Asgard's on a different planet, I don't think it counts."
"Right, because of the aliens." The man nods, sits down on the chair next to her. "Okay, so why do you want to go to Wakanda?"
"To be a princess," Maggie says. Wasn't he listening? She already told him that.
"But you said it would be better in Wakanda than here," the man reminds her. "Why is Wakanda better than New York?"
"I can't be a princess in New York," Maggie tells him. "In New York, none of the princesses look like me."
The man stares at her, wide-eyed, as if she's said something shocking. "But--" he says, and then he stops. "But that's. That's not fair," he says after a long time.
"Yeah," Maggie wipes her face one more time, but she's stopped crying. "Thank you for lending me your hanky, Mister," she says, holding it out to him. He takes it back, folding it into quarters before he shoves it in his coat pocket.
"My name is... um." He pauses, looking confused. "I mean, you're welcome."
"My name is Maggie," she says, smilling at him. "What's yours?"
He looks scared, like he is going to get into trouble if he answers. "I-- I don't know. I don't have a name," he says. "I shouldn't be talking to you," and now he looks like he might cry, too.
"Oh," Maggie pats his hand comfortingly. "If you need to go, it's okay. I'm alright now." Now that she's looking up close, she can see that his hand isn't like a regular hand, it's all shiny metal, like Iron Man.
"I-- the man, he called me Bucky," he says, looking down at her hand.
"Oh, like Bucky Bear?" Maggie asks, excited. "That's a good name, you should keep it until you have one you like better."
He sucks in a deep breath, eyes wide and startled. "What do you mean?"
"Like-- um, like me," Maggie says. "When I was just borned, I didn't have a name, but then Daddy and Momma named me Margaret, and that was a good name, but Maggie is even better. When I get big, I think I'm gonna be a Peggy, because Agent Carter's name is Margaret and she calls herself Peggy. But not till I'm big, because I like being Maggie now." The man doesn't say anything, but his forehead gets all wrinkly like he's concentrating.
"So if you don't have a name now," Maggie continues, when it seems like he's not gonna say anything. "Then you can have the name Bucky. But if you find a name you like better, you can change it. Pepper says that people gotsta respect your choices and if you ask them to use a name you like, it's important that everybody does even if it's not official like on your birth cert-if-i-cate or stuff. And she says people can change their nicknames or their names and they can even change their pronouns if they wanna! And Daddy says that sometimes he wants to be a girl, and when he's a girl, then she's my Maman, and we can wear matching dresses to the mall, and when she wants to be a boy again she'll turn back into my Daddy. And Uncle Clint says he's always a boy even though the doctor says he has girl parts, but we gotta respect him and treat him like a boy all the time."
The man looks a little bit like he's been hit in the face, but he nods and says, "Then I'm going to be Bucky. And I'm a boy."
"I'm a girl," Maggie tells him seriously. "And I like your name, Bucky."
He nods again.
Maggie looks down at her hands, which are twisting around in her lap. "Bucky? Can I tell you something?"
"Yes."
"I don't really want to go to Wakanda," Maggie confesses. "But-- but everyone says I'm not allowed to be a princess. And that I can't be Elsa when we're playing. The only time they want me to be a princess is when we're playing Tiana, but I don't wanna be a cook, I want to have ice powers!" Maggie bites her lip, fighting back tears because she's already finished crying, she's not gonna start all over again.
"Oh," Bucky frowns, and then shakes his head.
"It's not fair," Maggie continues. "I like doing the same stuff as other kids, but I'm the only one who's not allowed. And if I go to Wakanda, everybody will look like me. Even the princesses."
"But-- what about your family?"
Maggie shrugs. "I'm always getting intro trouble at school, and Momma says if I keep fighting they're gonna 'spell me," she says. "I bet there are less bullies in Wakanda, too."
Bucky rolls his eyes. "Wow, you are just like your father," he says. His tone sounds just like Uncle Clint does when he's making fun. It makes Maggie smile.
"Silly!" she says. "My daddy doesn't fight!"
Bucky starts to laugh. "He doesn't? What a liar. Pretty sure he's been getting into fights every weekend since before you were born," he says.
"What? Daddy doesn't get into fights, he's not allowed!" Maggie lowers her tone and whispers, "The president said so."
"Oh-- wait, what do you call Steve?" Bucky asks.
"Momma," Maggie replies promptly. "Or Papa, if he's mad at me."
Bucky nods. "Okay, you-- if you leave and go to Wakanda, your parents are going to start a war to get you back. It'll be like the seige of troy, except probably worse."
"Hmm," Maggie says. It's probably a bad thing to start a war. That's what Uncle Thor says, anyway, and it's probably the Princess of Wakanda's 'sponsibility to not start wars. Plus, Momma Steve is SUPER good at winning wars, and it would be bad to make the Wakandans fight him. "But what about being a princess?" She asks.
"I don't-- uh," Bucky stammers, then he frowns and carefully says, "Look, I know there aren't a lot of princesses that look like you."
"There aren't any." Maggie corrects him. "There's just Tiana, and she only looks half like me."
"Right, there's only one. But if you go to Wakanda, that means that all the dark-skinned, curly-haired princesses are going to live there." Bucky says. "It's not fair to you that there are no princesses other than Tiana that look like you, but in New York, all the other little girls have two princesses. They have Tiana, and they have you."
"But--" Maggie says, but she stops. "You mean---"
"You're a real live princess, and you live in New York, and it sucks that people are being mean to you." Bucky says. "But if you leave, everyone in the whole world is going to miss out on the best princess in the world."
Maggie frowns.
--
Bucky offers to walk her home, but Maggie tells him that she's not allowed to go places with strangers. "Okay," he says, and he goes in his pocket and he takes out a knife that has shiny black sheath, just like the ones Antie Tasha uses. "If anyone tries to hurt you," he says, seriously.
"I know, I know," Maggie rolls her eyes. "Aim for the fleshy parts, eyes, and joints."
He smiles at her. "Good girl."
--
It takes her both juiceboxes and half the bag of oreos to get home, and then both Momma Steve AND daddy spend a super long time yelling at her for running away from school and for going to the bus station without a grown up and for worrying her teachers. Once they were done, they tried to yell at her for some other stuff, but she wasn't really listening to because her tummy hurt and then she barfed all over Momma Steve's shoes and it got on the carpet and on the wall and Uncle Tony started laughing and then they let her go sleep in their bed until she felt better.
Now that she's home again, Maggie is really super glad she didn't leave to go to Wakanda, because home is way better than everywhere else.
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