Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Marvel Universe, or else I would have an awesome cameo like Stan Lee. That being said, I don't believe I shall say it again during this story.
A/N: I have absolutely no idea how long this will be chapter and word count wise. I know roughly what will happen during the story, but not the specifics. I would love to put out chapters one a week, however, it would probably be more realistic to say anywhere from a week to a month between updates. I work two jobs and I'm in the process of moving out of my parents and preparing for university.
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Wanda Maximoff was not a child. She hadn't been one since she was rescued from her collapsed home after two days huddled in her brother's arms with minimal movement, afraid to breathe too deeply, staring at the bomb that had destroyed her life. She hadn't been a child since she witnessed her parents being blown apart, knowing their remains were someone around her frozen body, just out of sight. She hadn't been a child from the day they were released from the hospital and she and her brother fought to be with each other, fought to survive.
She was not a child when she volunteered for Hydra experimentation to change her country, enduring pain human bodies weren't capable of withstanding, or when she uncovered the darkest corners of each Avenger's mind, meddling in things she did not yet understand but perfectly understood the consequences of her actions. She wasn't a child when she ripped apart Ulton's bodies like one idly ripped pieces of newspaper, and she lost any hint of childness when she felt the pain of bullets tearing through her body and her twin's mind abandoning her own.
Wanda Maximoff was not a child, and she hated being treated like one.
Secretary Ross spoke to her like she was not worth the value of the dust on his shoes. He didn't bother treating her like a child. He treated her even worse than the scientists who poked and prodded her in Strucker's castle, marvelling that she was a freak of nature, "a miracle." She was spoken down to, questioned, analysed, restrained, punished. She supposed not being American didn't help his opinion of her. To Ross, she wasn't even human, she was a weapon that he could not control.
The guards treated her as a child, calling wake up and lights out times at each individual cell, as if she actually had the freedom to move around the small space that was three steps across and two steps back. She was sure she smelled. They wouldn't remove the straight jacket securing her hands around her arms so she could use the tiny shower cubical at the back of cell like the others were permitted to. They wouldn't remove it at all, so she endured the humiliation of being fed her meals with a spoon like a toddler. They liked to spill it down the front of the jacket, but never where the sensors that tracked her vitals lay embedded in the scrub-like prison shirts underneath the restraints, that way she had to suffer cold (never hot) food soaking through her clothes along with the smell that worsened as the days went by.
She had tried to escape shortly after they threw her in the cell, scarlet weaving around the bars. They threatened Clint with a gun until she submitted to a collar around her neck that shocked her anytime she moved too quickly. She sat as frozen as she had been in the two days after her parents died with her back against the bars, not daring to move after the first shock had her curled up in the fetel position in agony, Clint and Sam banging fists against their own cells, yelling for Ross to stop over her screams.
She wouldn't face the guards, ignoring them was the only defence she had left. She didn't care if it was childish.
No, Wanda was not a child, and she didn't like being treated as one, but she deserved it. They were angry with her, for the lives of the people in the building, the lives of Sokovians, the lives of Wakandans taken accidentally by the Hulk during the rampage she ignited. She didn't deserve to be treated like a human. Ross was right; she was a weapon. Weapons didn't give life, they stole it. That was all she had done; she had stolen lives and stolen minds.