Age Of Ultron Fanfiction: BEFORE AND AFTER

The ten-year-old twins were never meant to have been found.

But somehow they survived the explosion, the deadly rain of falling masonry and plaster, the wave of orange fire that rolled through the building and the constant, on-edge, icy terror of the unexploded shell that was lying in the dust less than a metre from their faces, looking deceptively still and silent. The fear made their blood feel like ice, frozen in their veins.

There was red writing on the side of the shell, and although part of the writing was half-obscured by brick dust and it was written in a stupid font, the twins could still read it: STARK INDUSTRIES.

"We're going to be alright,"the elder twin (by twelve minutes) would whisper to his skinny, shivering, dark-haired sister every time the floor shook, every time the shell knocked against a brick, every time they froze like deer in headlights, waiting for the inevitable explosion that would blow them apart like their parents, that always seemed to not come just to prolong the twins' terror. "I'll keep you safe, Wanda, whatever happens."

She would nod, smile shakily, and try not to look scared. They were both terrified, and both trying not to show it. "I know, Pietro. I know you'll keep us safe. We're alive, aren't we?"

The slowly collapsing building creaked, the sound of the tortured, twisted metal supports and slowly crumbling brickwork filling the air.

With a sudden jerk, the floor shook and a network of spidering cracks spread across the wall opposite them. Then the hole in the centre of the room made a cracking sound like ice falling off a the side of a glacier, then got wider, sending chunks of floor, insulation and the few pieces of furniture that were left into the dark, charred abyss. The shell fell, turning over and over, but somehow, mercifully, remained still, silent, and unexploded. It disappeared into the blackness.

A few flickers of orange flame swirled in the darkness below, then the floor shook again, the cracks in the wall widening and deepening, sending flakes of plaster
hole as they could, trying to keep their balance on what was left of the still-shuddering floor. Wanda was screaming, her voice nearly inaudible over the noise of the building, her dark hair flying. She stumbled as the edge of the hole caught up with her, slipping and nearly falling, but Pietro grabbed her arm and pulled her back onto the little of the floor that was left intact.

"Pietro," she whispered, "We're going to die, aren't we?"

The shaking stopped with another creak of supports, as suddenly as it had started. The building was going to collapse entirely soon; they both knew that. They would be buried under the metal and concrete, and no one would care.

"No, we're not," Pietro tried to reassure her, knowing that he was lying. "We're not going to die here."

Suddenly there was the whop-whop sound of helicopter blades from outside, making more white-and-grey dust fall from the ceiling. Wanda took a step forwards. The wall shook again, then smashed inwards. A man wearing an odd-looking monocle stepped through the jagged hole, brushing grey-white dust from his dark jacket. Behind him, a large black helicopter with black-tinted windows was hovering close to the hole, its blades turning so fast they were just a black blur.

"Wanda and Pietro Maximoff?" The man said, but he seemed to know who they were already and didn't really need an answer. When they just looked at him, he sighed and looked at the watch on his wrist.

"I can get you out of here. I can keep you alive. The fact that you have survived so far is in itself a miracle, but I doubt you could survive what is going to happen now. The shell that was due to explode is delayed, but it is set to go off. Due to the ensuing explosion, this building will collapse in one minute and six seconds. That is how long you have to make your choice."

Wanda and Pietro looked at each other. The floor shook under their feet again, but they kept their balance. The man looked at his watch.

"Fifty-five seconds now. Decide."

"We should leave here." Wanda whispered, not looking at her twin. "We can't die... not now our parents are gone."

"That's right," the man said, not taking his eyes off his watch, which was ticking softly on his wrist, slicing away the seconds of their lives. "Your parents would want you to live. Thirty-seven seconds."

Tick. Tick. Tick. Was it the man's watch ticking, or was it the lethal explosive that was waiting below their feet, threatening and invisible like a crocodile hiding in murky water?

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Wanda looked at Pietro. Precious seconds poured by as indecision charged the air between them as though with static electricity. Finally he nodded, and the twins followed the man back onto the helicopter. As soon as its passengers were accounted for, the black machine turned, and, blades tearing at the air, began to move away from the stricken tower block.

Exactly nineteen seconds later, the explosion happened, the shell finally completing its deadly work. The force of the blast pushed the helicopter further away from the building, but the helicopter was bulky enough that it didn't capsize or break apart in mid-air.

The entire building finally collapsed, the supports, rafters and rooms groaning under the heat and force for a second, then giving way, driving the building deep into the ground, pushed under by its own weight. The twisted bodies of Wanda and Pietro's parents were buried underneath the wreckage, never to be found.

It was a short flight from the wreckage of the tower block to the Sokovian HYDRA complex, and Wolfgang Strucker was sure that, when they got back and ran some tests on the twins, HYDRA would have found the people they needed to continue their experiments on enhancing humans. No one had survived their tests so far, but that wasn't a problem. There were always more people.

Strucker checked his watch again, looked around the helicopter again, then began to study the twins as they sat uncomfortably; like him, they were strapped in. For safety, of course, both his and their own.

The twins were both a quite a bit skinnier than they should have been, but this was more apparent in the girl, Wanda, who had stringy, shoulder-length dark hair and pale skin, which was coated in a layer of dirt and plaster dust; there was a thin cut high up on her cheekbone that was slowly trickling blood down her face. She stared defiantly up at Strucker, and he smiled. She looked away. The other twin, Pietro, had pale blonde hair but dark eyes exactly like Wanda's. He had his arm around his twin's shoulder, and was whispering in her ear. Strucker heard him say, "We'll be alright."

Strucker almost laughed. Obviously spotting the change in his expression, Pietro's head snapped up.

"Who are you?" he asked, looking at Strucker, his voice full of suspicion.

Strucker smiled, making the easy mental switch from English to Sokovian. Strucker knew from reading the twins' file that both of them could speak English, though admittedly accented, but he humoured them, as well as putting his natural gift for languages to good use. "My name is Wolfgang Strucker. I am a friend."

Wanda fiddled with one of the straps on her harness, her eyes downcast as she picked at the loose thread, then looked at Strucker again. "How do we know you are a friend? We have never seen you before."

Interesting, Strucker thought, they are very close siblings. We must make sure both of them either survive the tests, or that both of them die. To lose one and keep the other could be damaging for whoever is left.

"I have just saved your lives," he said, in the calm, patient tone that adults use to explain that one plus one equals two to a small child. "That provokes at least a little trust, surely."

"It should," Wanda said, her soft voice as suspicious as her twin's and also slightly accusing. "But we don't know what you're going to do with us now."

"Exactly." Strucker whispered. Below them, the Sokovian landscape, the sea of trees on the lower slopes of the mountains turning red and gold in early autumn, was blotted by the stark concrete buildings that were the HYDRA base.

The helicopter descended towards a landing pad that was also the roof of the largest building.

"You see, when I said you could have your lives," Strucker said, as the twins undid their harness straps and followed him down from the roof and into the largest building, "I didn't say you could have anything else, either."

The steel doors swung shut behind them, hinges grinding, but hit the concrete with echoing and somehow ominous silence.

The blazing red-gold of the autumn trees passed into the thick white blizzards of winter, the falling snow coating everything with a layer of white; the pine trees shook and nearly buckled under the pure weight of snow.

I awake from a dream of falling. For a second, I think that it hasn't ended, because it's dark, the lack of light bunched all around me, thick and oppressive. I try to breathe slowly and calm down, but then a voice emanates from the darkness.

"Awake already? After three bullets to the chest? Amazing." The words are definitely English, but strangely accented.

My eyes adjust to the darkness slowly, until I can see an indistinct shadowy figure sitting in a corner.

Damn. This is going to be a terrible line, but here goes. "Where am I?"

"Sokovia, in Northern Europe." I immediately know from the voice that the person is a man. "We have travelled a long way from England. Are you absolutely sure that you haven't already been enhanced?"

I try to sit up, but pain shoots through my chest from where the bullets hit. I grit my teeth against the scream that's climbing up my throat. "I told you, I don't even know what enhanced means."

A glint of light refracts off something in the man's hand - a watch face, the plain black hands ticking towards six o'clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The ticking of the watch is faster now, the noise a continuous unbroken hum that vibrates and echoes in my ears. Tickticktick. It sounds like the death rattle of a machine gun, heard from far away.

No. Not again. Pain thumps through my chest again, making me gasp. The ticking of the watch is keeping pace with my heartbeat, fast, jumpy and panicked. I will it to calm down, but my pulse just gets faster.

"What is this?" I ask, trying to stop my voice going shrill with sudden fear. The man looks up.

"This is HYDRA, Emma."

Then the blackness closes in around my vision like a camera lens, until I can only see the light refracting off the man's watch, then nothing.

I can't breathe - it hurts - can't breathe - Pietro, help me - it hurts - Pietro, anyone, help me -

Pietro Maximoff heard his sister screaming and the telepathic images and words inside his head. The telepathy was a recent development that had started since the very first of the tests; every time it happened, it was as though he was his twin, and when he was being tested, he could feel Wanda's mind brushing his. Suddenly and without warning, Wanda's feelings washed over him again.

It felt as though molten steel bands were tightening across her chest, constricting her breathing to strangulated gasps and making her skin burn. She couldn't release her grip on the gem in the Chitauri staff, and from the point where her fingers touched it, electric shocks seemed to run through her veins, making her body jolt and shudder. She could see wisps of scarlet magic beginning to gather around her fingers, accompanied by a sudden burst of pure agony. She screamed.

Please - make it stop - I can't keep it together anymore - please, anyone, help me, please - PIETRO!

The girl's piercing, agonised scream reverberated around the corridors.

"Wanda! Wanda!" Pietro shouted. Oh God, if she's dead, if they've killed her - but Pietro just knew that his twin was alive; their minds were practically soldered together now.

I'm alright. His twin's faint thought sounded in his head, then Pietro sensed that she'd lost consciousness.

They rebuilt me.

HYDRA.

I owe them now. Owe them my life.

But they did other things as well.

I hate them.

I need them.

HYDRA.

Wanda Maximoff was deeply involved in fabricating vision after vision for the Avengers, readying them for when the band of heroes tried to invade the Sokovian base, as they surely would. They had attacked base after base after the complete fiasco of last summer.

She was sure that she had a satisfactory vision for the so-called genius Tony Stark and another, much more disturbing one for Steve Rogers. Bruce Banner - she'd got the perfect one for him. The rage that accompanied his Hulk form was simple to bend and twist to her will. Clint Barton had a wife and two young children. His wife was expecting another child. The perfect scenario to torture him with.

And as for Natasha Romanoff... she was easy, so easy. What HYDRA had done to her, making her into an assassin, mutilating her body to make her ready for war, had just made the woman's mind easier to understand, and ultimately easier to break. In her head, Wanda looked through what she'd accomplished, confident from reading HYDRA's thorough files that the visions were correct.

Yes. They were perfect.

Steve Rogers saw the girl before she saw him. Then she turned, and Steve caught a glimpse of dark red hair cut short and a glint of metal from beneath the hood of her... damn, what did modern people call it... hoodie. He really hated the twenty-first century at times.

Then the girl saw him - how could she miss the red-white-and-blue suit, even in the swirling snow. Steve saw that the fingers of her right hand, just visible where she'd stuck her hands in her pockets, were silvery metal.

"Hey - wait - "

She turned and ran. Steve swore vehemently under his breath. From the earpiece that was buzzing in his ear, he heard Tony say "Language, Cap," and a soft chuckle that might have been Natasha.

"Shut up, Stark. We have another enhanced to deal with, young, female. Ability unknown."

Then the wall behind him crumbled. Steve turned, and gasped. The red-haired girl behind him didn't just have a metal arm. One side of her face was metallic, and her electronic eye was clicking softly. She smiled.

"What are you?" Steve said. This was so much worse than Bucky. The girl couldn't have been more than sixteen, but Steve knew from experience how terrifyingly strong that metal arm could be.

"I'm not sure anymore, Steve Rogers."

Then she collapsed. Blood stained the snow, but not much. Tentatively, Steve took a step forwards. The girl was unconscious, and blood trickled from a thin cut across her palm, maybe from one of Clint's arrows. She was switched off, he realised.

"One enhanced to be taken in for study," he said into the comms.

"The female?" Natasha.

"Yes. Some of the Winter Soldier technology is also here as well."

"Excellent - I mean, then take it. I've always wanted to fiddle around with all their little magic tricks." Tony.

"Fine."

Steve picked up the girl.

Twenty minutes later, they were flying home in the Quinjet. The girl hadn't woken up yet, but Jarvis hadn't known what to make of her other than search up her appearance.

"Her name is Emma Woods. She is currently aged sixteen years and three months... possibly. She disappeared, presumed dead, from her hometown in England in 1941 after a bomb hit her house..." the interface trailed off.

"Nineteen forty-one..." Steve muttered. He remembered that HYDRA had been using cryogenics for decades.

Natasha was sitting next to the girl, her hand on the cold metal of Emma's right arm, which was jerking and twitching as the girl moaned in her sleep. Emma's electronic eye was whirring and clicking in its metal socket, but they'd blindfolded her as a precaution, so hopefully HYDRA wasn't seeing anything past the thick black cloth that covered her hazel/electric eyes.

"She's something we've never seen before," Natasha said, addressing Bruce, who was sitting in a corner and attempting to meditate. He looked up, then said to the room at large: "Is there a precedent? Jarvis?"

"No, sir; nothing precise at any rate. A possible example is James Buchanan Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier. He was given a similar kind of technology, although he was not enhanced."

"Thanks, Jarvis," Steve said, his voice sarcastic. He'd flinched a little at the mention of his still-missing friend.

"She is an innocent mortal," Thor said, absently switching Mjolnir from one hand to the other. "It is our duty to help her."

Tony walked across to Natasha, pulled up a chair and sat down, glaring at Steve. "You know, Cap, when you said technology, I thought you meant an actual machine, not some random girl."

"She is technology, Stark. She told me - she told me that she didn't know what she was anymore."

Suddenly Emma gasped. Her metal hand came up and closed around Tony's wrist with a vice-like grip; the genius billionaire philanthropist jumped back, cursing under his breath (at least partly), but the girl didn't loosen her fingers and Tony's wrist nearly broke.

"Ow! C-!"

Natasha could tell that Emma's eyes were open beneath the blindfold; she knew exactly how Emma felt, terrified and in the dark, not knowing where she was or how she'd got there. The girl's breathing became fast and panicked. She tried to pull the cloth away with her undamaged left hand, but Natasha held her arm while carefully prising Emma's metal fingers away from Tony's wrist.

"Hey." Natasha whispered, hoping the girl could hear her. "It's okay. Just let go of Stark's wrist, and we'll take off the blindfold."

The girl immediately released her grip on Tony. Natasha undid the blindfold. Emma blinked with one eye. The other was covered by her hand, which muffled the clicking of the electronics.

"Don't want them seeing this," Emma said. "They'll assume I'm still switched off if I stay like this."

"Do you know what your ability is, Emma?" Natasha asked.

"The ability to repair and replicate damaged cells, and possibly alter the molecular structure of solid objects." She sounded like she was parroting something else.

"A healer."

"I suppose so."