Two hours. It had already been two hours since Ross had locked them up on the Raft.
The three men were getting more worried by the minute. Bucky Barnes had obviously succeeded and left with Steve, but they had no idea where Wanda was. The cell between Scott's and Sam's was empty.
"Where do you think they put her ?" Scott's voice asked from behind the wall Clint was leaning on.
"A lab." He growled. He was sure of it, Ross had waited so long to get his hands on one of Hydra's weapon. But it was impossible for him to drive tests on her while she was under the Avengers' watch.
He heard Sam groan. "They better not lay their dirty hands on her." Clint knew the Falcon liked the Witch, like the little sister he never had. Clint himself felt protective over her. He knew she didn't need it but she had lost her brother because of him, he couldn't help but feel responsible.
"And what do you think they're gonna do with us ?"
"I don't know Scott. They may offer us a deal. Or they may keep us locked here." Nobody'll know where we are."
"You'll get a deal because you have families. They can't keep you here if people are waiting for you outside." Hawkeye understood what Sam really meant.
"You'll have one too. You're an important asset for the government, and you're too involved with the vets. They can't make you disappear either."
"Wanda then ?" He could hear Sam grimacing. "I'm not sure there would be a lot of people asking for her if they kept her… And I don't think Ross would be too pleased if his new toy was to be taken away from him so soon." They agreed. Ross would not let the Witch go so easily, they would have to negotiate. After that they did not really feel like talking, each of them thinking of what would become of them.
At some point a guard came to give them water and a bit of bread. They tried to get answers about their fates, and what they were doing to Wanda but the man clearly wasn't supposed to talk to them and left as quickly as he had arrived.
xox
Clint was lying on the mattress in his cell, Scott was sitting against the wall facing the door and Sam was pacing restlessly in his cell, sighing annoyingly every thirty seconds. It had been six hours since Ross had imprisoned them. He had come to try and ask them where Steve and Bucky were but they told him nothing. When they asked him about Wanda he only sneered and gave no answer.
"I have nothing to tell you." He had grinned. "I don't even understand why you care about her. Are you so afraid to lose your own Hydra weapon ? Well, no luck, she's ours now." And he had closed the door behind him, a smug smile on his face.
The three men had been enraged. Wanda was not a weapon, she was a young woman with feelings and a life and people who cared about her. They knew they were not treating her as such. But they also knew she would not let them do without putting up a fight, and they couldn't wait for Ross to realize it.
xox
It took them another three hours before they could finally see her. They definitely had not expected it.
The sight of their young friend tied up into a straight jacket and with an electric collar around her neck drove them mad. They screamed at Ross to take all of this off of her. Wanda was not a threat. She was sweet and innocent and did not deserve that.
Ross had laughed in their faces. "The monster needs to be under control. I'm not mad enough to let her run free all around the place."
When he had left they had tried to talk to her, to have her tell them what had happened but she refused to talk. She just sat on the ground, in a corner of her cell, facing the wall she shared with Sam's cell. Clint had tried to call her, he wanted her to face him so he could take a proper look at her. But she did not move.
Sam was furious, kicking the wall of his cell and pacing. Scott did not know the girl very well but she had seemed so full of life and nice when he had met her. Clint was watching her from his mattress. He couldn't help but feel responsible. He was the one who had come to take her to Berlin after all. She had been safe in the Tower until he arrived.
He was going to apologize when he noticed movements outside the door.
Tony Stark entered the circular room and looked at them all. He looked shocked. When he walked toward Wanda's cell Clint growled. He stood up from his bed and began to applaud Stark.
"The Futurist, gentlemen ! The Futurist is here." he said in a sarcastic tone."He sees all. He knows what's best for you. Whether you like it or not."
"Give me a break, Barton." Tony asked, walking towards him. 'I had no idea they'd put you here. Come on." Clint spat on the ground in front of him.
"Yeah, well you knew they'd put us somewhere, Tony."
"Yeah, but not some… super-max floating ocean pokey You know, this place is for maniacs. This is a place for…" Tony trailed, not sure what to call them.
"Criminals ?" Barton supplied. "Criminals, Tony. I think that's the word you're looking for. " He walked to him. "Right. That didn't used to mean Me. Or Sam. Or Wanda. And here we are." He said, watching Tony carefully through the bars of his cell.
"You broke the law"
"Yeah."
"I didn't make you." Tony justified.
"The law, the law, the law."
"You read it, you broke it." Clint did not answer him, he just kept repeating "the law" in a sing-song manner. "Alright, you're all grown up, you got a wife and kids. I don't understand why you didn't think about them before you chose the wrong side." Tony said before walking away from the cell.
"You gottcha watch your back with this guy. There's a chance he's gonna break it." Clint said loudly, his eyes fixed on the billionaire.
"Hank Pym always said 'You never can trust a Stark' " Scott said when Tony walked past his cell.
"Who are you ?" He asked him before walking away. He just heard Scott muttering a dejected "Come on, man".
"How's Rhodes ?" Sam asked him, his back to Tony.
"They're flying him to Columbia Medical tomorrow so... Fingers crossed." He sighed. "What do you need ?" He asked suddenly. " They feed you yet ?" Sam turned to look at him, a doubtful look on his face.
"You're the good cop now ?"
"I'm just the guy who needs to know where Steve went."
"Well you better get a bad cop, because you're gonna have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass to get information out of me." Tony glanced at him, tapped his watch and said :
"Oh, I just knocked the 'A' out of their 'AV'. We got about 30 seconds before they realise it's not their equipment. Because that is the fellow who was supposed to interrogate Barnes." He showed him an holographic picture. "Clearly I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong." He looked him in the eyes.
"That's a first" Sam snorted.
"Cap is definitely off the reservation but he's about to need all the help he can get." Tony insisted. "We don't know each other very well. You don't have to…"
"Hey it's alright." Sam muttered. "Look, I'll tell you… but you have to go alone and as a friend." Sam insisted.
"Easy." Tony answered, checking the time they had left.
"A secret Hydra base in the far east of Siberia." He whispered, and Stark took note.
Clint and Scott groaned, they weren't sure it was a good idea but they had nothing to lose.
With a glance towards one of the cameras, knowing the sound would be back any second now, Tony walked to leave the corridor. He stopped in front of Wanda.
"I'll get you out of here kid." And he left.
When he left Wanda finally turned her face toward Clint. She rose, sat on the bed and closed her eyes in concentration.
Clint saw the tip of her finger glowing red and immediately saw her wince.
"Did that thing just shock you ?" He asked warily. She nodded, her eyes still closed.
"I'm sure I can get us out. I'm sure I can open your cells."
He ignored her use of your and told her to stop. He couldn't accept that she would be hurting herself just to get them out.
She was still trying to understand how the collar worked and how powerful it was when two guards came to check on her. They were notified each time she got shocked. To the three men's dismay the guards had not come to check on her but to remind her that she would only hurt herself more. She hadn't even looked at them, her eyes always close with concentration.
When they had left Sam, Clint and Scott had insisted she could not use her powers and that they should just wait. At least for the moment.
They spent another eight hours locked in their cell. Every two hours or so a couple of armed men came to give them water and to tease them from the other side of the bars.
They had barely slept, deciding that they should not all sleep at the same time. First Wanda and Sam slept about an hour and then Clint and Scott.
It had almost been 24 hours and they did not have that much patience left. Wanda had tried to use her power again but the three men had heavily insisted that she stopped putting herself at risk.
They were bored so they talked. Scott and Clint thought their respective children would be good friends, with superheroes fathers. Wanda and Sam were comparing their scores at training. Sam was sure that he was faster than Wanda but the Witch did not believe it.
Suddenly they heard noises coming from above them. Cries, shouts and gunshots but it was not clear enough for them to understand what was said. They decided it was their cue and got to work. Sam and Clint were keeping an eye open while Scott was trying to pick up the lock of his cell, cutting a few wires from the panel on the wall, sticking others together. In the next cell Wanda's eyes were glowing red, as were her hands. She was groaning and panting under the electrical shocks the collar sent her but she kept trying to pick Clint's lock in the cell in front of her. Clint was worried, she was sweating under the effort, shaking because of the electricity running through her body.
Finally, almost simultaneously, Scott's door swung open and he rushed to Sam's to get him out. Next to him Clint's cell opened too. The archer ran to Wanda's.
"Okay kid, your turn now." A big BOOM interrupted him. The main door gave in and broke into two parts. They all turned towards the intruders, ready to fight them but there, in the frame, stood Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. They rushed inside. Sam was out, but Wanda was still inside her cell. To her friend's surprise she wasn't trying to escape.
"They're right. I can't go with you. I'm too dangerous. But don't worry, I'll help you from here." They all looked at her, shocked. Steve and Bucky were still trying to process the sight of the young woman in a straight jacket. She looked small and tired.
"Don't be silly kid, we're not leaving without you ! We're a team remember ? No one gets left behind." Clint growled.
To their surprise the Winter Soldier took a step toward her cell.
"Get back." He ordered and she did what he wanted. He rose his metal arm and tore the door from its frame. He quickly walked in and grabbed her by the shoulder. He ripped the jacket apart, freeing her arms. She couldn't even stretch as he snatched her hand and pull her out of the cell.
The moment she took a step out of it she let out a pained whimper and Bucky suddenly let go of her hand.
"What is it ?" Steve asked. He was looking at her in concern.
"Shit, the collar !" Clint groaned in answer.
"What the … ?" Wanda had retreated in her cell to make the pain stop.
"It goes on if I set a foot out of the damn cell." she breathed. Barnes rolled his eyes. He reached for her neck and she was tempted to take a step back as a reflex but refrained it. He grabbed the collar with both hands and ripped it apart. He threw it on the mattress and reached for Wanda's wrist. Steve frowned when the ripped collar revealed the burns on the Witch's neck but decided they did not had time to talk about it now, it would wait until they reached the quinjet.
They took off quickly. Steve was leading them through the maze of corridors. Surprisingly they did not face too much resistance and it worried them. They knew they were running into a trap but it was their only way out. On their way they grabbed their weapons and armours from an old storage room hidden behind the control room the two Super-Soldiers had noticed. They quickly reached the top floor, they could feel they were just below the water.
They felt the Raft rumbling under their feet and felt it moving upward. The four prisoners looked around them, worried, but Steve and Bucky looked confident.
The second the ceiling cracked open above them they heard a bang and fell. The SAS filled with water and smoke, a bitter, acrid, smoke. Wanda concentrated. Next to her she heard Steve whisper :
"Just like during training." She nodded, pushed her wet hair from her face and rose her hands above her. With her red power she pushed the smoke around them, clearing the air to let them breathe freely.
Scott and Clint coughed the smoke out of their lungs. Slowly they stood up, looking carefully at their surroundings, trying to locate the enemy. Wanda concentrated on redirecting the smoke upwards to let it out of the Raft by the growing opening and around them, knowing the enemies were close. Up there they could see some kind of Jet waiting for them.
Clint was the first to notice the red ray of light and shot his first arrow. A muffled sound echoed on their far right and one of the red lights disappeared.
The Jet's plateform descended slowly above them and a rope fell in front of them. Scott was the first to grab the rope and climb up. The rest of the team shot blindly trying to hit the sources of the red lights, and succeeding most of the time.
Wanda decided they were to slow. With one hand she tried to contain the smoke out of their way and with her other hand she engulfed Sam in her red glow and propulsed him up and into the jet.
He screamed in surprise and Wanda noticed the red lights of the enemies shooting upward. They had been surprised and had raised their guns involuntarily.
"Good job Wanda" Steve smiled appreciatively as he caught his rebounding shield he had thrown to their enemies.
Next to him she instinctively took hold of Clint and and launched him up too. Scott was already half-way on the rope, climbing as fast as he could.
Bucky eyed the Witch with distrust and took a step back.
"Don't you dare !" But she smiled wickedly at him and threw him in the Jet.
Next to her Steve chuckled until he realised they were the only ones left.
"Wanda, no need to do that." He said, going for the rope quickly. "I'm just going t… aah !"
The second she felt the Super Soldier landing she stopped a moment to think about her place in the world, hesitating. She knew Steve, Clint and Sam would hate her if she let them down now, and she took off flying after him, as fast as she could.
"What took you so long ?" Clint asked. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. She could almost feel him looking into her soul. She squirmed uneasily under his gaze. "I knew you would think about it…" He sighed sadly. He rose his head and smiled at her. "I'm proud you're here." he hugged her and she hugged him back. She was not alone. They did not fear her and no matter what was going to happen now, she had a family by her side.